Aim And Fire

The two agents continued CPR until the medics arrived a few minutes later, but Nate knew it was a lost cause. Juan had shown no response to their ministrations, and even electric shocks directly to the heart had done nothing. In the end, the agent was taken out in an ambulance with the lights flashing on its way to the hospital, but Nate was pretty sure they would call it on the way. He put his hand on Carter’s shoulder. “Sorry, man.”

“There’s still a chance—they might save him at the hospital….”

“Yeah, he might pull through—Juan’s a tough old bastard.” What else could he say? he wondered. “Come on, we better get back and clean up the rest of this mess.”

He helped the shaken Carter through the ruined shop and into the back room, where apparent chaos was unfolding. Uniformed El Paso police officers were everywhere, cordoning off the area, taking pictures and trying to keep some semblance of order. “Aw, Jesus Christ.” Nate shook his head as he surveyed the scene.

“Nate, over here!” George, who was being pulled out on a guerney, was holding on to the side of the garage door while the medic tried to dislodge his hands. “I didn’t want to leave until you’d secured the scene,” the big man said.

“Okay, I’m here now, so settle down, George, and let them take you to get checked out.” He made sure his partner was on the way to the hospital, then turned to the rest of the men and women on the scene, holding up his badge. “Everyone listen up! I’m Customs and Border Protection Agent Nathaniel Spencer, and this is my crime scene, so would all of you please clear out so our guys can process it, thank you very much!”

The police officers filed out, grumbling at missing out on the bust. Nate and Hernando made sure all of them were gone, then turned to the half-loaded truck.

“Well, let’s see what we got,” Nate said. Pulling on a pair of latex gloves, he grabbed a crowbar and pried open a large crate. The stenciled lettering on the side claimed it contained a pair of automatic transmissions. Clearing out the packing material, he saw two shiny metal casings, as promised. He pushed one to see how heavy it was. The round metal housing shifted easily under his hand. “Looks like they’re importing something more than metal here.” He scrounged up a wrench from the warehouse and unscrewed bolts until the housing came apart. Instead of the gears, clutches and bands that would have been inside a normal transmission, this one was filled with dozens of bags of white powder. “Hey, Carter, Hernando, take a look at this.” The other two agents walked over. “Must be five kilos in here easy, and more in the rest, I’ll bet. We got ’em dead to rights.”

Hernando smiled and nodded, while Carter just looked numb. They all glanced up as more footsteps approached, and several other agents came in, including the crime-lab group.

One of the agents, a tall, bony redhead, took off his mirrored sunglasses and surveyed the scene. “Heard something about a war breaking out over here, and look who we find—Shootin’ Spencer.”

“Aw, Billy, don’t be so sad—after all, you did arrive just in time to help clean up,” Nate said. He held up a plastic bag full of white powder. “And you certainly can’t argue with these results.”

Billy Travis—the department’s hotshot until Nate had arrived eighteen months earlier—snorted. “Maybe, but I could have done the same job without sending two agents to the hospital.”

Carter started at his words, but it was Nate who carefully set the bag down and strode toward Travis. He was intercepted by Hernando, who put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, big guy, it’s not worth it.”

Nate shrugged him off and walked up to the other agent, pinning him with his gaze. “You best take that cork out of your ass and shove it in your mouth, ’cause if you ever accuse me of being sloppy on a bust again, we’re gonna have more than just words about it.”

Travis looked around for support, but Hernando and Carter studiously ignored him, and the rest of the team busied themselves with processing the scene. “You’re a goddamn hot dog, and everyone knows it, Spencer. It’s only a matter of time before you really fuck up, and I hope to hell I’m there to see it,” he snarled.

“Well, son, you do what you gotta do, and in the meantime, I’ll be busy doing my job. By the way, if you want to see what twenty kilos of coke looks like—you know, to refresh your memory—they’re in the truck there.” Turning away from the other agent, Nate headed outside to cool off. He pulled a battered cheroot from his pocket and lit up, jetting the pungent smoke out of his nostrils.

Standing by the front of the truck, he climbed on the external gas tank and peered into the cab. He shoved aside a layer of fast-food bags and empty soda bottles, looking for anything interesting. He found a clipboard with the bills of lading on them, no doubt forged, and which should match the numbers on the boxes in the back. He bagged it and was about to jump down and give the board to a tech when a soft beeping sound caught his attention.

Leaning back in, he cocked his ear, trying to pinpoint where the noise was coming from. Running a hand between the seat cushions, he was rewarded with the feel of smooth plastic and withdrew a small handheld device.

“Looks like our smuggler got himself an e-mail,” he muttered. Nate bagged that, as well, and walked back inside the warehouse, finding one of the techs he trusted, a short, stocky brunette named Claire.

“Do me a favor. Give me all the e-mails on this when you have a chance—and don’t let the walking asshole over there get wind of it, okay?” he said with a wink.

Claire nodded, and Nate turned to help with the rest of the crime scene, throwing Travis a cheery false smile as he did so. He had a feeling that the e-mails would take him further up the smuggling chain—and while he loved to bust the bad guys, it would be even sweeter to throw that in Travis’s face, as well.

2

Kate Cochran, the director of Room 59, stared straight into the muzzle of a sleek SIG Sauer P-229 9 mm pistol.

“Just stay cool and do as they say. He’s bluffing, trying to rattle you.” She sucked in a breath and waited, unable to do anything else. “Keep it together and stick to the plan.”

The man she was speaking to—who couldn’t hear her at all—was in a small building in the town of Panamik, on the Nubra River in Kashmir. He kept his hands raised as he said in perfect Pakistani, “I am unarmed—I am just a college professor. I was hoping this kind of treatment wouldn’t be necessary.”

The man holding the pistol nodded to two other men, who grabbed the speaker’s arms and spun him around, smacking his hands against the wall of the abandoned building where they all stood. One of the men patted him down for weapons. The other reached for the briefcase at his feet. He then shoved the professor away, whirling him to face the pistol-wielding man, who shoved his weapon right into the Pakistani’s face.

“That is not for you! Not until you show me what I have come for!” the professor said.

Half a world away in New York City, Kate held her breath, hoping that her floater hadn’t just bluffed himself into a bullet in his brain. Although she could see and hear everything, she couldn’t lift a finger to help him. There were two other men who were supposed to be working with him, but they also had pistols pointed at their heads and couldn’t come to his aid without getting shot. The entire deal now hinged on a stare-down with a ruthless Russian arms merchant who had already proved he would kill if he suspected even the slightest hint of a double cross.

For a long moment, no one moved. The Russian shifted his grip on the pistol, his eyes emotionless. “I should kill you where you stand for such an insult. But you also show courage to stand up to an armed man with nothing but your conviction to protect you. I can respect that.” He lowered his pistol, and both the Pakistani and Kate breathed a sigh of relief.

Room 59 had spent six months subverting elements of the Pakistani terrorist group Lashkar-e-Omar, which had coalesced out of at least three smaller terrorist groups in 2002. Since then, the organization had been linked to several bombings, including a hotel and the U.S. Embassy in Kashmir. The terrorists also had ties to the men involved in the abduction and murder of the journalist Daniel Pearl. Now they were planning to up the stakes of their game considerably.

The group, which was battling for control of the disputed region of Kashmir with several other factions, had been negotiating to acquire a nuclear weapon on the black market for several months. Room 59 had placed an operative close to a nuclear scientist, Professor Osman Shirazi, a zealous patriot who wanted Kashmir brought into Pakistan’s fold by any means necessary. Through a carefully arranged series of meetings, the Room 59 operative had finally learned the master plan to acquire a nuclear weapon and set it off while planting evidence that the Indian government was responsible for the attack. The goal was to begin serious talks with pro-Pakistani elements in the Kashmiri government to unite against India.

Professor Shirazi thought he was purchasing the weapon on behalf of Lashkar-e-Omar, but in reality he was being played by the operative in hopes he would lead him to senior members of the group. The terrorist group’s ultimate plan was to absorb Kashmir into Pakistan, but if Kate and her people had their way, the weapon they planned on using to set that in motion was about to disappear.

The ultrasecret nongovernmental agency Room 59, charged with keeping peace throughout the world through just about whatever means possible, always had an interest in removing nuclear bombs from the world stage. The easiest way to do this was to simply purchase them from whoever was selling, and dispose of the weapons at a top-secret facility designed for just such a purpose. If they could strike blows against both the terrorist groups looking to buy or sell these weapons, as well as the arms dealers who trafficked in them, then it was three birds down with one well-placed stone. However, that assumed that the floater didn’t get himself killed, as Shirazi almost had a few seconds ago. But as on several previous occasions in the past months, the uptight professor’s strange knack for wriggling out of mortal danger had saved him again.

“It is good that you see reason. Tell your associates that there is no need to hold my friends hostage. I am here for a simple business transaction, that is all,” the professor said.

“This man still might talk himself into a shallow grave before this is over,” Kate said. Her gold-green eyes glanced at another window, where a lean, fox-faced Chinese man was also observing. Pai Kun, Room 59’s director of Asian operations, had been instrumental in helping insert their operative, who was waiting to take delivery of the nuclear device as soon as the transaction was completed. It was the epitome of a Room 59 operation—using local resources who didn’t even know they were being used to complete the mission, which had been going smoothly, except for the momentary unpleasantness just then.

“Shirazi’s psych profile indicated he would react to a threat by not backing down, but he also wouldn’t turn completely belligerent, either. If he had caved, they would walk all over him. Hard as it is to believe, he’s doing exactly what we need right now,” she said to Kun. Although when this is over, someone should talk to him about his negotiating tactics, Kate thought, sweeping a lock of platinum-blond hair out of her eyes. She watched the situation through Shirazi’s glasses, which had been replaced by their operative and contained a miniature camera that recorded everyone the professor looked at. The signal was transmitted back to Room 59 analysts so they could match the faces with known terrorists and arms dealers.

Kate was particularly interested in this seller. Alexei Kryukov, a former Spetsnaz commander, had found the black market much more lucrative than working for his government. He’d made tens of millions buying and selling weapons. He had already fought his way out of one bust set up by Room 59, leaving an operative in the hospital, and had relocated to Southeast Asia, playing the local sides against each other and profiting every time.

The heavy-set Russian’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded at his men, who lowered their pistols and stepped away from Shirazi’s companions. Everyone in the room visibly relaxed, and the professor picked up the briefcase and walked over to the Russian.

“So, where is it?”

Kryukov shook his head. “You will need to open that case and show me the diamonds first. Your purchase is nearby—that I guarantee.”

“All right, Shirazi, give them a taste,” Kate said. Her breath caught as she steeled herself for another outburst from the Pakistani, but he nodded and gave the case to one of his associates to hold while he spun the combinations and opened the catches, revealing a half-dozen velvet bags, all nestled in cutouts in a block of foam padding. Selecting the one on the lower right, he opened it and poured out a dozen glittering, clear gems in his palm, holding it out to the arms dealer.

“Examine any one you wish,” he said.

Kryukov had already taken a jeweler’s loupe from his pocket and placed it over his right eye. He plucked a small stone out of the other man’s hand and held it up to the broken window, letting the sun’s weak rays shine through the diamond. He turned it one way, then another, examining every facet. He did this with two more, then lowered his hand and nodded. “They are acceptable. Come with me into the next room so you can verify your merchandise.”

Kate and Pai Kun watched as Shirazi trailed the Russian into a smaller, windowless room containing a wooden table and a metal-framed, aluminum-sided case about fifteen inches long, a foot wide and six inches high. There was no indication that it held something that could destroy a medium-size city or lay waste to twenty blocks of a major metropolitan area.

“The case is lead lined, so we are perfectly safe. I have left it unlocked so that you may examine it to be sure it is what we had agreed upon,” Kryukov said.

The nuclear scientist flipped open the catches, his eyes never leaving Kryukov’s face as he opened the top. “Part of the arsenal created in the 1980s, yes?” he asked. After the other man’s nod, he continued, “The power source is still viable?” He took a small Geiger counter from his inside jacket pocket and ran it over the top of the case, apparently satisfied with the reading.

Kate stared at the open case in detached fascination. The interior was framed in about two inches of metal all around, and contained a tube about two inches in diameter that rested diagonally in the case. She knew exactly how it operated—the discus-shaped plutonium core was surrounded by a cylinder of high explosive, that, when detonated, would create an implosion that compressed the plutonium on all sides, making it a perfect sphere, and causing it to reach supercritical mass, with a mushroom cloud to follow.

“The battery system has been maintained on an annual basis, the explosives have been verified, as well, and the transmitter that would normally alert my former employers of low or failing power has been disabled—no sense in having them track this down before you are ready to use it, da?”

“And the yield?” Shirazi asked.

“Ten kilotons, suitable for any purpose from urban terrorism to the destruction of infrastructure or other targets of opportunity. But of course, that is none of my business,” the Russian replied.