Craig Kreident #2 Fallout (21 page)

“Somebody spotted suspicious activity in one of the casinos, frequent surreptitious meetings on the crowded slot-machine floors.
 
Often the people wear service uniforms from a slot-machine repair shop called Dennisons — but the odd thing is that Dennisons apparently doesn’t service the equipment in the Excalibur, so why they’d be there at all is a mystery to her.”

Jackson nodded, running a finger along his smooth chin.
 
“We had assumed the militia group meets in local bars, but if they hang out in busy tourist places, like the Excalibur, they’d never be noticed.”

Goldfarb rubbed down his hair, still frizzy from his close-call with the fire yesterday.
 
“Hey, Jackson — wasn’t there a work order or a receipt from some slot-machine repair in the papers I rescued yesterday?”

“Dennisons.
 
We’ll check it out later this morning,” Jackson said matter-of-factly, scribbling a note down on his yellow legal pad.

CHAPTER 25

Thursday, October 23

8:31 A.M.

Sedan Crater

Nevada Test Site

Another day of touring, but without Craig this time.
 
Paige had to complete her protocol obligations with the Russian team, salvage the success of their mission, and hope the spirit of disarmament and international cooperation survived the debacle of Nevsky’s death.

Even after all the other places Paige had shown the Russians, nothing could have prepared them for the sheer size of the Sedan Crater.
 
She watched the look of amazement on their faces as they stepped to the edge and looked down,
down
into the enormous parabolic bowl scooped out of the sand.

“This was
intentiona
l, yes?” Anatoli Voronin said, puffing his large lips.

“It’s our largest nuclear excavation, three hundred kilotons,” Paige said.
 
“Some of the original test engineers thought the crater would be a good site to hold the Super Bowl.”

The wind picked up, whispering around them.
 
The inspectors crept close — but not too close — to the edge.
 
Down at the crater bottom, discarded tires bespoke of carefree amusements, NTS workers rolling tires down the long slope.
 
Now, though, warning signs had been posted:
 
Danger — Radioactive Area.
 
No Digging.
 
A yellow-painted wooden fence blocked off the observation stand; its peeling and weathered appearance implied that Sedan Crater was no longer much of a tourist attraction.

General Ursov locked his hands behind his back and stood simmering with undirected anger, the frustration and unease he had exhibited since the morning of Nevsky’s death.
 
Paige couldn’t blame him — this was now his inspection team, his responsibility.
 
No doubt his own superiors had roundly chewed him out for the disaster, and Ursov had no way to defend himself against the charges.
 

Paige had been stonewalling the general about the autopsy results, and she knew it could not go on much longer.
 
The coroner’s report declaring that Nevsky’s death had been murder, not a simple accident, would be issued tomorrow — just in time to throw the entire disarmament process into chaos.

Unless Craig could wrap up the investigation before then.
 

Though Paige tried to maintain her helpful, professional appearance around the inspection team, the State Department had been pestering her, anxious to keep the situation under control; DOE Undersecretary Madeleine Jenkins had been personally calling Paige for updates.

Now, Paige reeled with the news of Jorgenson’s death.
 
Although the forklift driver had admitted to dropping the crate on Nevsky, she wondered if he had killed the Russian in the first place, for whatever reason, then tried to cover up the murder as an industrial accident.
 
Though that would have wrapped up the case, she knew Craig didn’t believe it was so simple.
 
Jorgenson’s heart attack seemed too convenient — and Paige was chilled just thinking about it.
 
Somebody else might have murdered Jorgenson. . . .

After his late night, Craig planned to drive out to the Test Site himself to spend the morning ransacking Nevsky’s records at the DAF.
 
While Uncle Mike was at his DOE meeting at the Las Vegas Operations office, Craig would work with Sally Montry to check part numbers, track down transportation forms and receipts.
 
If anyone could make sense of the morass of forms, Sally could.
 
Meanwhile, Paige was on her own with the Russians.

The group peered down into the Sedan Crater.
 
“You planned to use nuclear weapons for civil engineering purposes, did you not?” said Victor Golitsyn, the geologist.
 
“This was a test for that program?”

“Project Plowshare,” Paige said, concentrating on her job.
 
As if drawn, she stared into the huge crater herself.
 
“From 1957 until 1974, we considered using nuclear explosives for excavating canals and roadbeds, creating freshwater reservoirs, even making parabolic craters for radio telescopes.”

“We too had such plans years ago.
 
Beating swords into plowshares,” Ursov muttered.
 
Paige was surprised the Russian general would catch the Biblical reference.

“Radiation releases?” asked the redhead, Vitali Yakolev.
 
“How much did it contaminate surrounding area?”
 
He looked meaningfully at the warning signs still posted decades after the blast.

“More than would be acceptable today,” she admitted.
 
Paige placed her hands on the new jeans snug against her hips.
 
“At the time, we weren’t so careful about containment — nobody was.
 
But public opinion changes.
 
Our Plowshare work faded away in the 1970s.
 
Our citizens are now too sensitive to environmental contamination to allow nuclear blasting.”

“Yes, we know Chernobyl too well,” Ursov said.
 
“And that was merely a fire.
 
Even out here in desert, a surface blast would spread deadly fallout far and wide.”

“That’s why we do them underground, General, where they are contained,” Paige said, not glancing at the gaping crater’s evidence to the contrary.

Bisovka puffed on another one of his Marlboros, then tossed the butt over the crater rim.
 
Everyone watched it tumble, carried on the wind, bouncing along the steep sand.
 
“And how do you ensure there are no leakages from your underground tests?” he said icily.
 
“Accidents happen.”

Paige knew about this, not just from her briefings for this protocol assignment, but also because her father had worked on Baneberry — the 1970 test that had been the last significant radioactive release.

“We can’t afford accidents,” she said.
 
“We make worst-case calculations to guarantee that nobody anywhere would receive anything above negligible radiation levels.
 
The calculations assume a hypothetical person stands naked in a field twenty-four hours a day for a full year — extremely conservative assumptions, I might point out.”

“Yes, very conservative,” Ursov growled.
 
“Just as it’s conservative that you take four days for a simple autopsy.
 
What have you learned about Ambassador Nevsky’s death?”

Paige swallowed, taken aback at the abrupt change of subject.
 
“I’m sorry, General.
 
We have been promised the full report by tomorrow.”

The general’s face turned blotchy.
 
“My team leader is dead, and I need to know what you have learned — or perhaps I should ask your President myself.
 
You are hiding something, I can tell.”

Bisovka turned away from the group and lit another Marlboro, seemingly uninterested in the exchange.

“General,” she said, drawing upon all her experience and skill to keep her emotions in check, as she tried to turn the tables on him, “if I might ask, is there something you expect us to find in this autopsy?
 
Your request was rather unusual, since the apparent cause of death was so . . . obvious.
 
Do you know something the rest of us don’t?”

The other Russians looked at her uneasily, but she kept her gaze locked on Ursov.
 
He was the one who mattered at the moment.
 
Her heart pounded.
 
Was he involved somehow?

“I know why you are stalling us, what you don’t want anyone to know.”
 
Paige felt her blood freeze, dreading what he might say.
 
Ursov’s face seemed ready to slump.
 
“Just tell me if Nevsky was drunk at the time!”
 
His fists clenched and unclenched.
 
“I must know — because if I allowed him to smuggle vodka into the DAF and drink himself into a stupor, then get himself killed — my career is finished.”

“It was probably bourbon, not vodka,” Bisovka said scornfully, standing away from the others as he smoked.

Paige looked at him, startled, giddy with relief.
 
She had to work hard to keep herself from laughing.

Ursov continued, “I filed repeated formal complaints, but he always loved his drink.
 
I never took it seriously enough.
 
Now Nevsky is dead.”
 
Ursov gripped her arm, leaning closer.
 
“Tell me —
was he drunk?
 
Is that why you are so embarrassed to give me your coroner’s report?”

She shook her head emphatically.
 
“No, General.
 
He wasn’t drunk.
 
I can tell you that much for certain.”

Ursov seemed relieved for a moment, then glanced up, wearing a suspicious look.
 
“Then what else are you hiding from us?”

CHAPTER 26

Thursday, October 23

8:15 A.M.

Las Vegas

Craig rushed back to his hotel room, intending to stop for only a few minutes before heading out to the Test Site.
 
After picking up some papers in preparation for a long day, he would get to NTS in an hour or so, and stay there all night if he had to.
 
He could get all the sleep he wanted after he had solved the murder.

Already his temples pounded and his skull ached because he had crammed it so full of numbers and forms, reports, and minor memos from the previous day.
 
And with the discovery of Jorgenson’s body last night, he felt the tension tightening around him like a vice.

Tomorrow was October 24.

Craig popped in the plastic key and pushed his door open.
 
His room smelled strongly of months-deep layers of cigarette smoke that no amount of air freshener would obliterate.
 

On the red carpeting he saw a scrap of paper, a white note shoved through the crack under the door.
 
He snatched it up, wondering who wanted him now.
 
Maybe June Atwood had left a message pulling him from the Russian murder investigation after all and sending him off chasing casino fraud or some other equally exciting case.

The note was torn from one of the message pads found throughout the casino, written in thin lines either from a mechanical pencil or an extremely sharp point, in careful block letters.

AMTRAK MESA ZEPHYR

∑
           
CROSSES COLORADO RIVER BRIDGE NEAR LAUGHLIN NV

  
AT 9:56 A.M.
 

∑
           
EAGLE’S CLAW WILL BLOW UP BRIDGE.
 

∑
           
SAVE THOSE PEOPLE!

Craig stared at the paper to convince himself the words said exactly what he thought they did.
 
He wasn’t even on the militia case any more — yet someone had known to give him the note, known how to find his hotel room.
 

Heart pounding, Craig carefully set the scrap of paper on the courtesy table, hoping against hope that it might retain residual fingerprints.
 
Then he looked at his watch, seeing how little time remained before 9:56.
 
He raced for the phone in his room.

Ducking down, holding his sunglasses in place, Craig leaped out of the government car and ran across the airport tarmac.
 
His tie flopped back over his shoulder, his chestnut hair ruffled in the wind.
 
Overhead, a 747 took off from McCarran Field, thundering as it lumbered up from the runway.
 

Not far away, the FBI helicopter’s rotors spun faster as the pilot completed his pre-flight checklist.
 
Jackson sat in the cockpit, already in position.
 
Over the chattering drone of the helicopter blades, he gestured for Craig to hurry.

“Come on, Ben,” Craig shouted to Goldfarb, and the smaller dark-haired man sprinted beside him, his dress shoes slapping the pavement.
 
Craig scrambled in the back of the helicopter and extended a hand to help Goldfarb up.
 
“Let’s move it!” Craig said.
 

The pilot adjusted his headphones, then requested clearance over the radio.
 
Within seconds, he pulled back on the stick and raised the chopper, fighting thermal updrafts as he headed low and to the south.

“Thanks for getting out here so fast,” Craig said, raising his voice so the pilot could hear him.
 
“We couldn’t possibly make it in time by car.”