Craig Kreident #2 Fallout (33 page)

His heart sinking as his thoughts whirled, Craig tried to brush past Ursov.
 
“General, you must believe me.
 
There is a national security emergency.
 
I don’t have time for this —”

“
Nyet
,” said Ursov, pounding on the hood of the car.
 
Two of the valet parking attendants turned to stare.
 
“
I
do not have time!
 
I will not let you out of my sight until I have answers.
 
Enough of this!
 
Nevsky is dead, information is being buried — you will tell me now.”

Craig clenched his fingers around the car door handle, ready to rip it off.
 
It would take him half an hour to get to the Test Site at breakneck speed on rain-slick roads.
 
Goldfarb was already setting things in motion, and he couldn’t waste the time appeasing Ursov right now.
 

On the other hand, he realized, the Russian ambassador had been the first to discover the missing warhead, and he had been murdered for it.
 
In fact, the FBI would never have suspected the nuclear threat or the connection with the Eagle’s Claw otherwise.

Besides, he could always leave the general at the DAF once the FBI helicopter showed up.

“All right, General — I guess you’re part of this, too.”
 
Craig looked forcefully at Ursov.
 
“Get in the car.
 
I’ve got something to tell you.
 
I’ll explain on the way.”

CHAPTER 40

Friday, October 24

6:03 A.M.

South Gate

Nevada Test Site

Sitting in the front seat of the rental car, General Ursov fumed as Craig raced toward the Nevada Test Site.
 
Daylight tried to seep through the stormclouds, but the rain pattered more heavily on the windshield as he drove.
 
The wipers waved back and forth, keeping his view clear.
 

“How long have you known Ambassador Nevsky was murdered?” Ursov said, blustering.
 
“You deliberately withheld this information from me and my government!”

“Yes, and I apologize.
 
It was unfair to keep that from you.”
 
Craig adjusted his sunglasses, then fumbled in his coat for the cellular phone and laid it on the dash.
 
Goldfarb might be calling him at any minute.
 
“With tomorrow’s summit meeting, we were trying to avoid an international incident — but it was just as important to hide that knowledge from the militia members, so as not to tip our hand in the investigation.
 
If you had known the ambassador was murdered, you would have canceled the remaining disarmament activities, thrown the summit into an uproar, embarrassed both of our presidents. . . .”

“True,” Ursov said with a dry smile.
 
He spoke in measured tones, as if carefully considering the implications of his question.
 
“So if Nevsky’s killers have stolen a nuclear weapon, why are you taking me back to the Test Site now?”

“Because that’s where I think things are going to happen.”

“You are aware that you are transporting an official of the Russian government to a destination against his will?”

“Personally, I would rather have left you in the Rio parking lot, General — but you insisted,” Craig said without changing his expression and without taking his eyes from the road.
 
He knew Ursov was mostly blowing smoke.
 
The speedometer had passed 95, but he sped onward.

Ursov surprised him by letting his gruff demeanor slip into a smile, then even a little laugh.
 
“It’s been worth the trouble, Agent Kreident.
 
You have already told me more in twenty minutes than I’ve been able to learn in the past three days.”
 
He looked at his thick fingers.
 
“I warn you, though — do not try to leave me behind or ‘ditch me,’ as you say in colloquial English.
 
Even though Nevsky was a drunken ass, I want to help apprehend the criminals responsible.”

Craig drew in his breath.
 
He would deal with that when the time came.
 
“Just make yourself useful, General.”

The cellular phone rang.
 
Ursov looked startled, as if he didn’t know what to do.
 
He handed it to Craig, who used one hand to steer while he spoke.
 
“This is Kreident.”

“Ben Goldfarb here.
 
I finally got someone at DOE to authorize our FBI chopper to come in for you.
 
The pilot’s on his way and should be at the DAF helicopter pad within the next ten minutes.
 
The weather’s getting rough to fly in, but he can make it.
 
Do you need any help up there?”

Craig took the Mercury exit from the highway, racing toward the line of guard kiosks.
 
“We could use some backup at Groom Lake once we cross the boundary.
 
We’re on our way.”

“We?
 
Who’s ‘we?’“

Craig looked over at the alarmed Russian general.
 
“Let’s just say I’ve got all the help I need.”

At the DAF parking lot, Craig managed to identify one of the trucks parked there as Paige’s.
 
He had never been so glad, and then so concerned, to see a pine-scented air freshener before.
 
After checking quickly, he discovered she wasn’t inside the secure facility — but now at least he knew she had come to the DAF sometime the night before.
 
She had to be with her “Uncle Mike.”

Militia member, Mike Waterloo.

Craig dreaded Waterloo had taken her as a hostage — if he hadn’t already killed her, adding another casualty of the Eagle’s Claw bloodbath.

Up in the sky, they heard an approaching helicopter, its chattering engine cutting through the muffled thunder.
 
Craig and Ursov sprinted for the rental car to take them off to the helicopter pad.

CHAPTER 41

Friday, October 24

6:34 A.M.

Dreamland

Groom Lake Air Force Auxiliary Station

Paige remained seated like a statue in the land rover, feeling each droplet of sweat like a tiny bullet popping out of her skin.
 
So far, the desert had soaked up the sporadic raindrops without a trace.

As Sally Montry came over to speak sharply with Mike, the “secretary’s” entire demeanor altered from what she usually showed in the office — now Sally was in control, commanding.
 
The wind caught at her hair, blowing it around in tufts.

The hard-looking woman came to the driver’s side door and scowled in at Paige.
 
“I suppose you’re here to make coffee for all of us, Sally?” Paige said sarcastically.

Annoyed, Sally whirled to growl at Mike.
 
“Why couldn’t you just kill her?
 
You didn’t have any compunctions about smashing Nevsky on the skull — and she’s just as big a threat to us.
 
Too damned sentimental?”

“Yes, I did have qualms about killing Nevsky,” Mike said, clearly trying to stand up to Sally, but weakening.
 
“And I had grave doubts about your wanting to blow up Hoover Dam, and also to kill all those innocent people on the Amtrak train.”

“What about all the innocent people who are going to die from the fallout?” Paige asked.
 
Mike glanced at her, then turned back to Sally.

“But I never questioned
today’s
action.
 
This
is what the Eagle’s Claw is about.
 
Fighting the enemy.”
 
He stabbed a hand toward the Dreamland complex.
 
“Punishing the conspirators — but when Nevsky found out about us, I did what I had to do . . . much as I hated it.”

Sally continued to scowl.
 
“Don’t talk to
me
about unpleasant tasks!
 
As far as I’m concerned, I had the worse duty — fucking that slob PK Dirks, just to get him out of the way so we could do our job.
 
You didn’t have to feel that man inside you, enduring his sweaty hands, fighting off the urge to wipe away his slobbering kisses.
 
All
you
had to do was crack a thick Russian skull.”

Paige’s thoughts reeled, but then anger swelled inside her.
 
This woman, a seemingly innocuous ‘administrative assistant,’ had been behind the deaths, the terror, the conspiracies.
 
This woman had led Uncle Mike down the dark path to madness, brainwashing him, influencing him.
 
After his wife had died, after his good friend and anchor Gordon Mitchell had succumbed to cancer — Sally had twisted Mike Waterloo during the emptiest time in his life, when he had most needed help.

“In killing Nevsky, you only succeeded in bringing attention to yourselves,” Paige said.
 
“Was it so important that you strike a blow against the disarmament team?
 
Sounds like poor planning to me.”

Uncle Mike looked at her in surprise.
 
“The fact that Nevsky was on the disarmament team meant nothing at all to us.
 
The inspection was just a show and tell, a political exercise — but the ambassador went through our paperwork more thoroughly than we expected.
 
He was drunk half the time, but somehow he caught our trail of diverted components.
 
We couldn’t let him blow the whistle, not so close to what we’ve planned for years.”

Paige clamped her lips together and didn’t speak as the puzzle began to fall into place.

Destruction and transportation of nuclear devices out of the stockpile required certain signatures, certain approvals — but the work schedules changed at random, for security reasons.
 
All the militia had to do was wait until the schedules happened to rotate the infiltrators into place, so that Jorgenson could fill out the transportation forms, Mike Waterloo could fill out the DAF receipts, and PK Dirks — the inept but good-natured technician, yet duped in the end — had unknowingly done his part.
 
Sally, being the expert at filing and, if necessary, forging or altering the paperwork, must have succeeded in covering their trail, working until all the right documents were in place.
 
It must have taken nearly two years of maneuvering.
 

Administratively, the records showed that a specific weapon had been disassembled and sent elsewhere . . . when in reality it had been secreted away until the Eagle’s Claw chose to use it.
 
On October 24, the anniversary of the formation of the United Nations.

Out here, at Dreamland.

Sally must have poisoned Jorgenson because too much suspicion would have been directed at him for Nevsky’s death; his part in the plot accomplished, the forklift driver had become an expendable fall-guy.
 
And since Paige knew the same coronary-inducing drug had been used on the undercover FBI agent, Sally was no doubt responsible for William Maguire’s murder as well.

The secretary turned away and snapped her fingers.
 
Uncle Mike jumped to attention like a trained dog.
 
“Stop twiddling your thumbs and go do your work,” she said.
 
“Set the timer, take care of the safety interlocks so we can get this show on the road.
 
Our deadline’s today.”

Crunching around behind the vehicle, Mike popped open the back of the land rover and bent to the stolen nuclear warhead.
 

Sally laughed, looking at Paige.
 
“When this goes off, the only thing left will be a big crater instead of a clandestine UN base . . . and then the United States can rest easy again.
 
They’ll thank us, in the end.”

Paige drew a deep breath, sickened at what they were doing.
 
“Don’t tell me
you
believe that nonsense too?”

In the back Uncle Mike intently went through the procedures of arming the bomb, preparing it for detonation.
 
He removed a small plastic card and inserted it into an arming mechanism, keyed in a long string of numbers, then withdrew the card, sliding it back into his shirt pocket.
 
Paige watched as he opened the access panel and began to set the rest of the arming mechanisms one by one, confounding the Protective Action Links.
 
As DAF Manager, Mike Waterloo possessed the security codes, and he had the expertise required.
 
He verified the numbers, then closed the panel and punched the final button.

Mike stood up, then turned away from Paige, as if he couldn’t bear to look at her with his sad eyes.
 
His face wore a dead expression as he met Sally’s gaze.
 

“It’s armed,” he said.

CHAPTER 42

Friday, October 24

6:40 A.M.

Northeastern Boundary

Nevada Test Site

Craig sat in the right-hand seat of the helicopter, next to the pilot.
 
“My life sure got exciting since you came to town, Agent Kreident,” the pilot said.
 
“Just don’t make me chase any trains today, okay?”

“No, this morning we’re going after UFOs and nuclear bombs.”

The pilot shook his head.
 
“And through a thunderstorm yet — sorry I asked.”

General Ursov crouched behind him like a powderkeg, his face pushed up against the curved window, peering down at the brown wasteland racing below them.
 
The Russian seemed to be filing away details of everything he saw.
 
Craggy mesas rose in the distance, contrasting with the broad flats used for test aircraft, bombing ranges, and survival exercises.