Case in point, a nuclear detonation requires absolutely perfect timing between the shaped charges surrounding the plutonium. Forty perfectly timed explosions, to be exact. If even one of the forty was off by the tiniest fraction of a second, the bomb would fizzle. Only one very rare triggering device could offer such precision: a Krytron device. And only two companies in the world manufactured Krytron triggering devices. Yuri needed eighty of them. Unfortunately, each was reported to a governing body and carefully tracked.
He could have gone for a new triggering mechanism, but the chances for failure would have increased considerably. No, he needed the Krytron devices and they alone took two years to secure, and then only because of the former Soviet Union's black market, which had its share of disgruntled officers willing to turn a blind eye for $100,000. The world's supplies of beryllium and polonium were as tightly monitored. The focus was always on the radioactive elements, like plutonium, but in reality the plutonium had been the easiest. There was a lot of it around and with his contacts in the Russian Mafia, he had secured it in less than six months.
Bottom line, all of the necessary elements could be obtained, assuming money was no object. Yuri wasn't sure where these men got their moneyâdrug trade, oil, who knewâbut they obviously had what it took. All the items he'd requested eventually made it into the jungle.
And now it was time to take them out of the jungle.
Of course, there was the small matter of Abdullah, and Abdullah was no one to play with. His heart was the color of his eyes, Yuri thought. Black.
Yuri walked over to the larger of the two weapons, a fission device roughly three times the yield of the Nagasaki device. To modern standards the design itself was basic, very similar to that of the first bomb. But there was nothing simple about the sixty-kiloton explosion it would create.
A black sphere rested in the opened panel, measuring thirty-five centimeters in diameter. It was dotted with forty precisely spaced red circuits with a wire protruding from each, giving it the appearance of a hairy fruit. To the front of the sphere sat a white receiver and a small collector. The outer housing shone silverâpolished aluminumâno more than an expensive case for the black bomb inside. The large fly crawled over that shiny surface and Yuri reached a hand out to chase the insect off.
Four years and untold millions and now the prize: two shiny spheres with enough power to level a very large city. Yuri walked over to the supply cabinet and stepped into it. A wide range of small tools lined three of its walls. He knelt down, pulled out a brown wooden chest, and opened its lid. There lay his ticket to $100 millionâtwo black spherical objects, identical in appearance to those in the nuclear devices. If he proceeded now, his fate would be sealed. He would either become a very wealthy man or a very dead man.
Yuri swallowed and willed his hammering heart to be still. One of those cursed flies lighted on his hair and he impulsively smacked at it, stinging his ear badly. He wiped his sweaty palms on his thighs, lowered trembling hands into the box and withdrew the smaller sphere. “Please, God,” he whispered faintly. “Let this one last thing go in my favor.” Of course that was ridiculous, because he no more believed in God than he believed he would live if Abdullah discovered him.
Yuri stood, shoved the door shut with his foot, and carefully carried the black ball to the metal table on which the smaller device sat. With a final glance toward the entrance, he began the swap.
The idea was simple, really. He would take the nuclear explosives out of their casings and replace them with identical-looking explosives that contained only air. When Abdullah did get around to exploding his little toys, they would not even spark. The nuclear explosive would be safe with Yuri. It was his creationâ he should reap the rewards. Let the man deploy his imitation bomb. By the time Abdullah discovered the malfunction, Yuri would be halfway around the world with two very valuable devices for sale.
He completed the swap in under five minutes. Holding the volleyball-sized nuclear sphere in sweaty fingers, he returned to the closet and eased the orb into the brown crate. Then he repeated the entire procedure with the second sphere. He sealed the lid and stood as a shiver snaked up his spine. So far so good.
He took a mop and rested it on the lid, thinking the crate might not draw as much attention in such an attitude. On the other hand, the mop normally rested on the floor like any mop. Seeing it propped up so high might actually draw Abdullah's attention. Yuri returned the mop to the floor and chided himself for being overcautious. Wiping the sweat from his brow, he closed the closet door and stepped back into the lab. He would transfer the spheres to his suitcase later that night and take it with him to Caracas on his leave in the morning.
Yuri stood with his hands hanging loosely at his sides, breathing deeply, calming himself, and looking at the tables before him. The two aluminum cases looked as much like nuclear weapons as they had thirty minutes earlier. Only a trained eye would notice the small variations. So then. He had committed himself.
The bookcase to his left suddenly scraped along the floor and Yuri started. Abdullah? He leapt over to the tables and quickly scanned for any forgotten screw, a loose boltâanything that might alert the Arab. He brought his sleeve across his face and picked up an idle voltage meter.
Abdullah entered the laboratory frowning, his jaw jutting below gleaming black eyes. He wore a pointed frown that seemed to ask, “So what have you been up to, my friend?” A chill washed through Yuri's skull.
“They are finished?” Abdullah asked.
“Yes, sir,” Yuri answered. He cleared his throat.
The Arab stared at him without changing his expression for a few long seconds and Yuri felt his palms grow sweaty. Abdullah stepped forward. “Show me the remote detonation procedure again.” He walked over to the table and glared over Yuri's shoulder. “Show me everything again,” he said.
“Yes,” Yuri answered and hoped the man could not feel the slight tremble in his bones. “Of course, sir.”
SCATTERED LIGHT bulbs lit the darkening coast when the pilot finally cut the outboard to a gurgle and coasted the small boat to a rickety dock bordering the river town of Soledad. Casius paid the man his two-hundred-peso fare and made his way into the town toward the Hotel Melia Caribe. From a dozen trips downriver with his father, he knew it was one of three hotels in which one could expect to see tourists venturing this deep into the land.
The moment Casius stepped into the lobby his eyes rested on a pale, lanky man studying a newspaper in the corner. The man's eyes lifted and met his own. They held for a moment and then returned to the paper. Casius glanced about the room and quickly decided the man was the most likely prospect for a CIA agent. He returned his gaze to the man, willing him to look up again. If the man was an observer, fingering Casius with short brown hair and dark eyes might prove a challenge. But any man with his profile would be reported, and Casius wanted Friberg to know that he had spotted them as well. The man's eyes had grown still; he was no longer reading.
The man glanced up again and met his gaze. Casius nodded and winked. Recognition passed between them. His jaw firm, Casius turned and walked to the front desk, keeping the man in his peripheral vision. So Friberg had reacted quickly as expected. Forty-eight hours and they already had men in place.
He took a room on the second floor. He ruffled the bed, cracked a few drawers, tested the showerâleaving the shower curtain pulledâand wet a towel. Satisfied that the room looked used, he slipped into the hall. The back stairs led into the lobby below, but an old wooden fire escape led into an alley behind the hotel. Casius climbed through the fire escape, dropped into the alley, and made his way down the dark passage. No sign of the agent.
He walked through alleys to a small shop on the south side of the city. The gray cinder blocks splashed with dirty white paint looked unchanged from his last visit to this alley. Casius stepped up to the shop's back entry door, found it unlocked, and stepped into Samuel Bonila's gun shop.
He paused in the entryway, letting his eyesight adjust to the dim light.
“MarÃa?” a gruff voice called.
Casius stepped into the lighted shop and eyed Samuel evenly. The man blinked and returned the gaze.
“What are you doing?” Samuel demanded. “We do have a front door for customers. And we are closed.”
“You are Samuel Bonila?” Casius asked, knowing the answer.
The man hesitated.
“I'm not going to hurt you,” Casius assured him.
“Yes, that is my name. And who are you?”
“My father was known to you, Mr. Bonila. A foreigner who knew how to shoot. Perhaps you remember him?”
“A foreigner whoâ”
Samuel suddenly stopped and stared at Casius, searching. “You are . . . ?”
“Yes.”
The storekeeper blinked and took a step forward. “But I can't see the resemblance. You've changed. You're nothing like the boy I remember.”
“Time changes some people. I need you to keep my coming here to yourself, Mr. Bonila. And I need to purchase a few knives.”
“Yes, of course.” He glanced to the door. “You have my full confidence.” He smiled, suddenly pleased. “And you will be needing a gun? I have some very fine imports.”
“I'm sure you do. But not this time. I need two knives.”
“Yes, yes.” He took one more long look at Casius and then hurried to a case behind him.
Casius left the shop five minutes later with Samuel mumbling behind him. Ten minutes later he checked into a cockroach-infested joint that had the gall to call itself a hotel and took a room on the third floor. He shed the money belts, withdrew five thousand dollars, and hid the rest in the ceiling above the bathroom mirror. It had been over twenty-four hours since his last sleep. Exhausted, he fell onto the bed and slept.
He awoke six hours later to the sound of insects shrieking in the nearby forest as the city slept in silence. Without lighting the room, Casius splashed water on his face and stripped to his black shorts. The jaguar tattoo blackening his thigh would give him away in the jungle so he covered it with a wide band of medical tape. He withdrew a tube of camouflage paint from his pouch and applied the green oil to his face in broad strokes. It was a habit of stealth that successfully masked his face beyond possible recognition.
He shoved the bowie knife he'd purchased from the gun shop into the back of his waistband and strapped the Arkansas Slider around his neck. The waist pouch and the rest of his clothes he shoved under the bed.
Dawn broke over Casius's shoulder as he left the city on foot and entered the towering jungle. The plantation lay thirty miles due west. It would take him a day and a half to circle the valley and make an approach from the south. The route would add another thirty miles to the journey, but he'd decided the strategic advantage of the longer course outweighed the inconvenience. For starters, the CIA would expect him to take the quickest route now that he had been spotted. But more importantly, the cliffs would be relatively easy to guard. A southern approach, on the other hand, consisted of a hundred thousand acres of heavy jungle inhabited mostly by Indians. It would be more difficult to protect.
As he passed their nests, macaws and herons took flightâsquawking at his intrusion into their world. Twice he stopped in his tracks as thousands of brightly colored parrots scattered to the skies, for a moment blacking out the rising sun. Spider monkeys gazed down, screeching at him. The air felt clean; the vegetation glistened with dew. Everything was untouched by human hands here. His bare feet were quickly covered with surface cuts but his pace remained unbroken. During the next thirty-six hours he would sleep only once, for a few hours. Otherwise he would stop for foodâmostly fruits and nuts. Maybe some raw meat.
He grunted and cracked his neck as he ran. It felt good to be in the jungle.
Tuesday
SHERRY BLAKE awoke from her first night of sleep in the jungle with a start. The vision had reoccurred. In terrifying colors and screaming sound.
It took her a few seconds to understand that she was in the mission house, alive and wellânot on a beach trying to dig a hole in the sand to escape the acid. She ripped the damp sheet from her legs and reached the door before realizing she wore only a loose, oversize T-shirt. She wasn't in her apartment with Marisa, for heaven's sake. She was in the jungle with the priest. She returned for a pair of shorts and her shoes.
Outside, the jungle was shrieking its way into another day, but the noise in Sherry's mind came mostly from the people on the beach, as the acid rain fell from the mushroom, like brown globs of searing molasses. She shook her head and pulled on the boots.
When Sherry entered the common room adjacent to her sleeping quarters, Father Teuwen had already perked coffee and fried eggs for breakfast. “Good morning,” he said, beaming a smile. “I thought you might enjoyâ” He saw her face and stopped. “Are you all right?”
She lifted a hand to her hair, wondering what he saw. “Yes. I think so. Why?”
“You look like you saw a ghost. You didn't sleep well?”
“Like a baby. At least my body slept like a baby. My mind decided to revisit this crazy vision I keep having.” She plopped onto the couch and sighed.
The father brought a steaming cup to her and she thanked him. “Yes, Helen mentioned them,” he said.
She sipped at the hot coffee and nodded. “I think I might prefer a whale to this.”
Father Teuwen smiled and sat opposite her in an armchair. “Even Jonah eventually decided that speaking the truth was better than the whale.”
“And if I
knew
that word, I'd be all mouth. Here we are talking about messages from God and yet I don't have a message, do I? Not even close. All I have is some dreadful vision that plagues me every night. Like a game show in the heavens, daring the guest to crack some absurd riddle.”