“They’re paying well. More than we make in a year. It’s one log—what could go wrong with a single log?” Andrew referred to the $100,000 they were being paid for the run. In Senegal where his family waited, his share would make him a wealthy man.
“Maybe, Andrew. Did you know that the Coast Guard is larger than South Africa’s entire navy? They’re not friendly to drug runners.”
Andrew chuckled. “We’re not drug runners. We have no idea how that log got on board. We’re stupid sailors.” He turned to face the darkness ahead with the captain. “Besides, this will be our last run. It’s fitting that we make so much on our last run.”
Moses nodded at the thought.
Below him the Yevaro log they had plucked from the water slowly dried. In its belly a silver sphere sat dormant, housing a black ball cradling enough force to vaporize the seven-thousand-ton ship with a single cough.
JAMAL TURNED his back on the busy street and spoke into the phone. “Hello, Abdullah.”
Silence.
“Do you have anything to report, my dear jungle bunny?”
“I have followed your directions.”
“Good. They are on their way, then?”
He could almost hear Abdullah’s mind spinning on the other end. “I was told to prepare them,” Abdullah said. “Not to send them.”
“Unless there was a problem. Isn’t that what I told you? Hmm?”
“What problem—”
“Don’t be an imbecile!” Jamal spit into the phone. “You don’t think I know when you eat and when you sleep and when you pass gas?”
His hand was shaking and he took a breath to still himself. He had two men in the compound who reported to him regularly. Not that he needed them often—he knew Abdullah’s moves before the fool did.
“I am on my way, my friend. If you have not done precisely as I have said—”
“The bombs are on the way,” Abdullah said tightly.
Jamal blinked. “They are.” The words stopped him cold.
“Good.”
He slammed the phone down and walked from the phone booth.
SWEAT GLISTENED on Abdullah’s face under the fluorescent lights. He set the phone down, poured another splash of tequila into his shot glass, dipped a quivering tongue into the burning liquid, and then tilted his head slowly back until it drained empty into his mouth. Although he’d never been a drinking man, the last twenty-four hours had changed that. He and Ramón had done little except sit at his desk and wait. And drink.
The alcohol made him perspire, he thought. Like a pig. “Where are the ships now?” he asked again.
“Coming to Cuba maybe,” Ramón answered.
So, Jamal was coming. And when he did arrive, he would die. Abdullah felt a chill tickle his shoulders. He honestly wasn’t sure which thought gave him more pleasure, killing Jamal, or detonating a thermonuclear weapon on American soil.
He ran a finger along the edge of the transmitter lying on the bar beside him. It was a simple 2.4 gigahertz transmitting device, impossible to isolate quickly. But it tied into a far more sophisticated transmitter hidden one mile away, secured in the jungle canopy in a protective housing. From there a tiny burst masquerading as a television signal would be simultaneously relayed through commercial communication satellites. Not all would fail. Not all could be stopped.
And by the time the authorities detected the burst, which they would, it would be too late. The detonation of the first bomb would automatically send a signal to set the second bomb on a twenty-four-hour countdown to detonation. Two green buttons rose from the black plastic like two peas. He circled first one button and then the other. Below the buttons, nine numbers made up a small keypad. Only he and Jamal had the codes to stop the inevitable.
Abdullah spoke without lifting his head. “You are sure the logs arrived at the boats intact?” He waved the question off with a nod of his head. “Yes, of course, you have said so.”
“Do you think they will give us the agent?” Ramón asked.
Abdullah thought about Casius and blinked. A widening thought in his mind suggested it might be best if they did not deliver the agent. Then his hand would be forced—it would be Allah’s doing.
Abdullah glanced at the clock ticking on the wall opposite them. It had been twenty-four hours and not even a breath from the fools. A chill suddenly spiked at the base of his skull. What if they had ignored the message entirely, thinking him a madman? What if they hadn’t even received the message? It had been relayed through the same relays he would use for the bombs. Five million dollars of technology—all from Jamal, of course.
Abdullah grunted and shoved himself back from the bar. “Something isn’t right. We’ll send another message.”
He walked for the door with Ramón on his heels. His fingers were shaking badly. Power was its own drug, he thought, and it was coursing through his veins. At the moment he might very well be the most powerful man in the world.
FRIBERG JERKED in his seat when the knock came on his door. He lifted his head, but the door opened before he could say anything. Mark stepped in.
Ingersol’s greased hair flopped to the right side. He threw it back with a hurried hand and rushed forward. “We received another message!”
Friberg stood and snatched the message from the man. “Settle down, Ingersol.” But he was already reading the typed communiqué in his fingers.
Ingersol sat in one of the chairs facing his desk. “This guy’s dead serious. He’s adamant that he has a bomb. I thought you said—”
“Shut up!”
Friberg slowly sat. “Forty-eight hours,” he read. “He’s cutting the time from seventy-two hours to forty-eight hours because we have been
insufficiently responsive?”
He lowered the paper. “That’s absurd! This guy can’t be serious.”
Ingersol’s greasy black hair had fallen to his cheek again. “This isn’t the kind of communiqué a man who’s bluffing sends, sir. He’s either a total imbecile or he
does
have a bomb. And the fact that he’s survived Casius this long does not bode well for the imbecile theory.” Ingersol stopped and took a long pull through his nostrils.
The director felt a ball of heat spread over his skull. And what if Ingersol were correct? What if . . . ?
The note was signed Abdullah Amir. Disconnected fragments of information fell together in his mind and he blinked. Jamal. Casius was after Jamal.
What if Casius had actually stumbled onto more than the cocaine plant?
“What’s going on?” Ingersol repeated. “It seems to me that I’ve stuck my neck out with you. I deserve to know what I’ve gotten into, don’t you think?”
Friberg eyed the man. Ingersol was a wreck. If he didn’t pull him in, he would destroy them both.
“You and me, Mark. It goes no further than this room, you understand?”
Ingersol didn’t respond.
“All right. You want to know? Ten years ago Abdullah Amir approached us with a plan to infiltrate the Colombian cartels in exchange for his own piece of the operation. We agreed. He disappeared into their networks. Two years later he reappeared, this time with enough information to wipe out two drug cartels. In exchange, he wanted our cooperation, allowing him to establish and operate a small cocaine plant next-door in Venezuela. We agreed. We pointed him to a coffee plantation and gave him some assistance in taking it over. Nothing major—minor casualties. He’s been operating there ever since. Small stuff. We got the DEA to sign off on the deal, but I was the agent who put it together. It was highly successful, all told. We shut down nearly a hundred thousand acres of production in exchange for a hundred.”
Ingersol blinked. “That’s it?”
Friberg nodded.
“And what does that have to do with this bomb?”
“Nothing. Unless Casius was right and Jamal is connected with Abdullah Amir. Or unless Abdullah isn’t who we think he is. South America would make a good base for a strike against America.” The sense of it occurred to Friberg even as he spoke it.
“And none of Abdullah’s money has found its way into your retirement account, right?”
Friberg didn’t respond.
Ingersol shook his head and stared off to the window. He had no choice, Friberg realized. He had already committed himself in front of the president. The money was only dressing.
“I’ve been suckered into this,” Ingersol said and Friberg did not object. “I wasn’t looking for this. It’s not what I do.”
“Maybe, Mark. But we all face the choice at some time. You’ve already made yours.”
Ingersol’s eyes fell to the note and Friberg lifted it up. Yes, there was the matter of the bomb, wasn’t there? That could be a real spoiler. “So you think we’re dealing with a madman who actually has a bomb?” Friberg asked.
“I don’t know anymore,” Ingersol returned.
“I don’t either. But if we are, we now have twenty-four hours to deliver Casius and defuse the situation. Or find this bomb.” The idea of it sounded absurd. A suicide mission or even a biological attack was one thing—they had all seen it. But a nuclear bomb? In Hollywood movies, maybe.
“Who else knows about this?” Friberg asked, lifting the transcript.
“No one. It just came over the wire less than ten minutes ago.”
“And what’s the current status of the search?”
“The Office of Homeland Security is working through its protocol. Law enforcement’s on full alert. They’re looking—the import documents in question have been identified, and traces are being done now. But it’s only been twenty-four hours. We’re nowhere near the discovery phase in this thing. In twelve hours we may have traces complete, but very few searches, if any.” Ingersol bit his lower lip.
“No one hears about this last message, you understand?”
Ingersol nodded and flipped his hair back again.
“Good. Give the Rangers the clearance to sweep the valley. We go for anything that lives in that compound. If Abdullah does have a bomb, we’re risking him detonating it the minute we attack, but I don’t see our choice at this point. Anything from the satellites yet?”
“Nothing except cocaine fields. If they have anything else down there, it’s hidden.”
“And no word of Casius?”
“None.”
“Then we go for Abdullah Amir or whoever is sending these crazy messages. I’m going to recommend that all southern ports be closed until we get a better feel for the situation. We’ll call it a drill or something. We’ve got to shake something loose.” He lost himself in thought for a moment. They all knew it was simply a matter of time before a terrorist finally found a way to get a nuclear bomb into the United States. The World Trade Center collapse would look like a warm-up exercise.
Ingersol stood. “I’ll get on this. I hope you know what you’re doing.”
SHANNON RICHTERSON ran through the jungle barefoot, under a black fog of confusion. Above the canopy, the sun shone in a blue sky, but in his mind light barely reached his thoughts.
Sherry was Tanya. Tanya was alive. He could hardly manage the notion. Tanya Vandervan alive. And filled with anger at him. Couldn’t she see that he was doing what so few in the world had the stomach to do?
What would she have him do? Kneel beside Abdullah and pray that he lie down and kill himself. Shannon grunted at the thought.
She only knew the half of it. If she really knew what was happening here, she might kill Abdullah herself. Or kill Jamal.
Jamal had to die. If he did nothing else here in the jungle, he would put Jamal to death.
Shannon pulled up near the edge of Soledad, breathing heavy, hands on hips.
In reality it was
he
who made the difference in the real world. The world was filled with treachery and the only way to face such an evil was with treachery itself. It had been one of the first lessons he’d learned from the natives as a boy. Fight violence with violence.
But Tanya . . .
Tanya had come up with this nonsense about dying.
Shannon spit into the dirt and jogged on. Eight years had come down to this moment, and no person—no woman—would have a say now. Not even Tanya. He had held her and kissed her and at one time would gladly have given his life for her—but she’d changed. And she hated him.
Shannon’s mind grew dark and he groaned above the pounding of his feet. He closed his eyes.
He would show her.
He pulled up at the thought. She wasn’t Tanya any longer. Not really. She’d become Sherry.
He doubled back and ran for the town.
And now he would show Sherry how things worked in the real world. Why he was doing this. How to deal with a world gone sick. Maybe then she would understand.
He would return to the jungle and finish what he had started, and he would let Sherry see for herself.
GRAHAM KEYED the radio. “Roger, go ahead.”
“The mission has changed. Sweep the valley compound and eliminate any unfriendlies you encounter. Copy?”
Graham looked up at Parlier. Parlier nodded. “Ask him what he means by unfriendlies,” he said.
Graham depressed the transmit toggle. “Roger, sir. Request you clarify un-friendlies.”
Static sounded for a moment.
“If you don’t know their name, then they’re unfriendly. Understood? You take out anything that walks.”
Parlier nodded at Graham. “What about the agent?”
“Copy that. What about the agent?” Graham asked into the mike.
“Take him out.”
“Copy. Alpha out.”
Parlier was already walking toward the other men stationed on the cliff. He turned back to Graham. “Get Beta and Gamma on the horn and tell them to follow our lead. I want to be at the base of the cliffs by morning. There Beta spreads east and Gamma spreads west.”
He swung back to the cliff. “Pack up, boys. We’re going down.”
TANYA HAD drifted for over three hours, lying on the hotel bed. Her thoughts spun lazy circles around the notion that she had really lost her mind this time. That this whole thing might well be an extended dream episode in which she had flown the coup and revisited South America only to find Shannon a mad killer instead of her innocent love. After eight years of nightmares a mind could imagine that, couldn’t it? She’d read somewhere that if all the power of the brain were harnessed, it could rearrange molecules to allow a person’s passage through walls. Well if it could walk through solid objects, surely it could conjure up this madness.