Aim And Fire

“True. It is perfect, and is certainly acceptable.” Shirazi closed the case and snapped shut the latches, then held out the briefcase full of diamonds. “I will have my men take this out immediately. Thank you very much.”

“It has been my pleasure.” Kryukov hefted the case, which, along with the four million dollars in diamonds, also contained a transmitter that would enable Room 59 to track his location at all times. Kate expected him to get rid of the case as soon as was practical, but she hoped he would take it to one of his hideouts in the area, enabling them to set up surveillance there.

Although they had considered using their operative to make the buy, the ex-Spetsnaz’s legendary ability to smell a setup, coupled with his earlier escape in Russia, had convinced Kate to use a committed floater who had no idea of the true nature of his mission. The buyer had to believe his own story down to the last detail, and Shirazi’s fanaticism had shone through every second.

“All right, now get out of there before the Russians—or you—decide to pull something stupid,” she muttered. Kate leaned forward as if she could force the professor out of the building by sheer willpower alone.

Pai Kun sipped from a china cup before replying. “That is hardly likely. It wouldn’t help Kryukov’s reputation if his clients ended up dead.”

“No, but if he was already gone when his backup team terminated Shirazi and his boys, he’d get his nuke back to resell and could blame the deaths on the Indians. That’s the problem with this business, Pai—you just can’t trust anyone.” Kate knew what she spoke of all too well. She’d seen many good operatives lost in the line of duty. Although they all accepted the risks of the job, it was always a blow to Kate. No matter what, they couldn’t afford to lose Shirazi until after he had delivered the nuke to her operative.

She watched as Shirazi brought his two men in to carry the case to a waiting car and told them to stow the weapon in the trunk. “Notify Alpha they’re on their way. ETA ten minutes,” she said. Once he had the weapon and was away, they could either burn the professor, leaving him to be killed by the Lashkar-e-Omar members once he failed to deliver the device, or attempt to openly recruit him by providing protection or even exfiltrating him out of the country if necessary in exchange for information on other terrorist members and future plans.

The Room 59 comm operative signaled for Kate’s attention. “Alpha has received and confirmed delivery time of package. Primary, you may want to hear this—the men in the car are talking.”

Kate enhanced the audio as she watched one of the men in the backseat draw a pistol and pull back the slide. “You’re sure he is a traitor?” Shirazi asked.

“I spoke to our contact in al-Rashid, who assured me that this Muhammad Alavi is not a member of the Islamabad cell as he had claimed. We are to capture him and find out whom he is really working for, then dispose of him.”

Kate and Pai Kun exchanged glances. “Our cover package was supposed to be airtight,” Kate said.

“Unfortunately, it seems that wasn’t the case,” Kun replied, sounding alarmed.

Kate raised her communications suite. “Notify Alpha that his package handlers are hostile—repeat, the handlers are hostile. He is to terminate all of them upon delivery and proceed with secondary departure plan. Pai, your men are in place?”

“Of course. All Alpha will have to do is head north to the Chinese border. My men will handle the rest. We’ll be able to get him and the package safely off the continent.”

“Good. Has the message been transmitted?” Kate asked.

The young woman in Australia who was serving as Room 59’s communications suite operator replied, “I have transmitted the message, but have not received the acknowledgment yet.”

“Why not? Is he off air?” Kate asked.

“It appears that the satellite we were routing through has malfunctioned somehow. Am moving to backup communications system.”

“I do not want to see our operative killed or this loose nuke slip through our fingers. Keep trying until you raise him. Pai, can you establish contact on your end?” Kate could only watch as Shirazi led the two other men in prayer, asking for strength as they prepared to capture the infidel plotting against them. Her stomach twisted as she watched the three men pervert the essentially peaceful message of Islam to suit their own twisted ends.

“My people are working on it now. Although the area is remote, we shouldn’t be having this much trouble.”

The seconds stretched out into longer silence as Kate and her counterpart in China waited for word that their operative had been warned, all the while keeping their eyes glued to the rough mountain road the professor’s car traveled along on its way to capture their man.

“Primary, this is comm. I’ve established contact with Alpha and have received confirmation that he has received the message. Repeat, he has received the message.”

“Comm, acknowledged. Let him know that the two men in the rear seats are armed, and the one on the left should be considered the primary threat.” Kate sat back in her chair and opened a split screen on her touch-interactive monitor. It allowed her to keep tabs on the professor, her operative, Kryukov’s location and the route her man would follow out of Kashmir, via satellite feeds all on one screen in real time.

The car turned onto a small dirt road that led into the surrounding mountains. White-capped peaks were visible in the distance. They continued up the road for another few minutes, then pulled into what barely qualified as a clearing in the road, more of a wide spot where the steep walls receded slightly.

Standing near the wall was Room 59’s operative, a man whose real name was Robert Lashti. He huddled in a hooded parka, hands in his pockets, shifting from one foot to the other to keep warm. His car, a four-wheel-drive Range Rover, was parked on the other side of the space. The sun was setting as the three men got out of their car, and Professor Shirazi hailed him with the traditional greeting.

He reached out to shake Lashti’s hand, most likely to distract him from the other two men, who would then subdue him, Kate thought. She watched as Lashti extended his right hand to clasp Shirazi’s, and as he gripped it, Kate saw a puff of down feathers erupt from the left-hand pocket of his coat as he shot the Pakistani professor in the abdomen. Shirazi stumbled away and collapsed as his two henchmen, their eyes wide with shock, struggled to draw their own weapons. Firing from the hip, the Room 59 operative dispatched the man on the left with two shots to his chest, leaving the third man to sprint to the still-running car. Diving into the driver’s seat, he gunned it and aimed straight for Robert, who had taken his pistol from his pocket and sighted down the barrel at the driver.

“Somebody tell me that man isn’t playing chicken with a live suitcase nuke in the trunk of his car.” Kate gritted her teeth in anticipation of her operative getting mowed down by the wildly plunging vehicle, but the real-time satellite feed showed a different story.

Lashti fired one shot as the car hurtled toward him. The bullet punched through the windshield and into the driver’s skull, causing him to slump over the steering wheel. Immediately the car began slowing, and Lashti stepped aside to let it pass. Gravity and lack of acceleration completed his job as the car crunched into the wall of the pass at about fifteen meters per hour, then stalled.

Exhaling a white plume of breath into the night air, Lashti checked the two men on the ground, ensuring that both were dead and snatching the glasses off Shirazi’s nose as he did. He walked to the car, opened the trunk and lifted out the metal case, carrying it to his Range Rover. Opening the back, he set the case down inside, then slid open a hidden compartment in the side wall of the SUV’s cargo area. He withdrew a device resembling a large, smooth steel can set on its side. It had a handle on top, with two smaller cylinders sticking out of its back, and rested on four short legs. Flipping a power switch, he waited for it to warm up and flipped open the catches on the case. After checking a small display screen, he picked up the device and played the large end over the entire case. Frowning, he did so again, then a third time.

“This does not look good.” Pai Kun’s normally calm features shared a furrow of unease with their operative, who had flipped open his encrypted sat phone.

“This is Primary. Go, Alpha,” Kate said.

“Primary, this is Alpha at Mountainview. The handlers are dead. However, the package is a fake. I repeat, the package is a fake. This is U-235—my guess is from spent fuel rods. I’ll bet the detonation material is also fake, as well. We’ve been scammed.”

“Alpha, say again—are you sure?”

“I’ve scanned this three times, and I get the same exact reading. That suitcase nuke is still out there somewhere. Either Kryukov was running a double cross or he thought he had the real thing and didn’t, but if that was the case, it was good enough to fool him, as well.”

Pai Kun stroked his chin. “If the case and workings are the real thing, and it gave off radiation, why would he have any reason to believe that this was not an operational weapon?”

“True—assuming he wasn’t pulling the double cross in the first place. Alpha?” Kate said.

“I’m here. What are your instructions?” the operative replied.

“Sanitize the area, then head back to Panamik. We’ll put you on Kryukov’s trail as soon as possible. Good work.”

“Thanks, but not good enough. Will await further instructions in Panamik. Alpha out.”

Kate killed the connection, her mind racing with possibilities. Did Kryukov double-cross the terrorists? Why, other than the obvious reasons? If he did or didn’t was almost irrelevant. Who has it now?

She sent a quick message to all of the Room 59 analysts scattered around the globe. “Keep alert for any mention of loose nukes originating either from Russia or Pakistan, no matter how tenuous or far-fetched. Alert me priority with any information you come across.”

3

The three bearded men drove through the desert landscape, dotted with the hardy scrub vegetation and stunted trees that looked relatively familiar to all of them. No one commented on the similarities to home, however; they were all completely focused on the job at hand.

After the slaughter on the deserted road where they had been pulled over, one of the men had loaded the bodies of the two Border Patrol agents into the SUV, driven it into the middle of the desert, wiped it down and set fire to the vehicle. Meanwhile, the other two men had hauled the bodies of the luckless illegals and their coyotes several dozen yards off the side of the road and had cleaned up the truck as best as they could before leaving the scene. The third man had met up with the other two a few miles down the road, and they proceeded together to their destination.

The farmstead they pulled up to had once been a thriving ranch in the middle of the south Texas plain. It had been abandoned decades earlier, and was now a waypoint on the illegal-immigration highway. Every so often the Border Patrol would stake out the place, and the three men had stopped a few miles away and watched the buildings for two hours until the sun came up. During their surveillance, they took turns performing the predawn prayer.

When they were satisfied no one was there, they drove the truck up the long driveway, past the leaning, windowless, two-story house, its drab wooden siding stripped clean of every speck of paint by decades of dust storms. At the sagging wooden barn, two of the men got out and walked to the door, machine pistols in hand, and checked the interior. Finding it empty, they waved the truck forward, closing the doors behind them.

The temperature inside was already stifling, but the men didn’t notice as they pulled on latex gloves and got to work. In one corner was a green tarp, underneath which were cans of spray paint and other supplies. After moving the long box out of the back of the truck, one of the men washed out the back with a strong bleach solution, then soaped it down, as well, finally rinsing it clean. Meanwhile, two of the men wiped off the thick layer of dust, then covered the truck’s lights, windows, bumpers and trim with paper and tape. After the cargo bay was clean, the third man prepped the cans and laid out large decals to complete the truck’s transformation.

When everything was ready, they spray painted the truck, starting at the front and moving back, taking breaks every few minutes to let the fumes dissipate. Gradually the panel truck turned from white to a flat gray, which dried quickly in the heat. Two of the men methodically covered every inch of metal with the paint, while the third scrubbed blood spatter from the cab’s interior and covered the bullet-torn bench seat with a blanket.

At noon, they stopped to pray again and eat a lunch of flatbread, hummus and cold falafels. Afterward, they checked the paint job, and stripped off the paper. The third man measured carefully and applied the decals, making the truck appear to be just another vehicle that belonged to one of the hundreds of private companies in El Paso. Lastly, he switched the license plates with ones that had been supplied along with the paint and other materials. He sent the other two to dispose of everything left over, warning them to travel at least a mile away from the building before digging, and to bury everything at least four feet deep.

Once they were finished, the three men walked around the truck, examining their handiwork. The driver nodded with satisfaction, and motioned for the other two to open the double doors. He drove to the end of the driveway, then went back and helped the other two sweep away the tracks leading from the barn to the road. Taking one last look around, the driver was satisfied that everything looked exactly as it had when they had arrived. He got into the cab, joining the other two men, and drove away, heading down the highway toward El Paso.