Patient One (27 page)

Thirty

“Of course, you could
always turn the plane around,” Aliev was saying to the National Security Council over the speakerphone. “We have to ensure that you do not do this.”

“We don’t intend to,” Halloway lied, keeping her eye on the digital clock. In eight minutes the new deadline would be reached, and another hostage’s life put on the line. “The plane from Guantanamo is on a direct course to the Azores, where it will refuel, as you instructed.”

“What about the other Chechen prisoners under your control?” Aliev demanded.

“Those at Bagram are preparing to take off,” Halloway told him.

“If they are not in the air when the deadline arrives, a hostage will die,” Aliev threatened.

“There’s no need for that,” Halloway exhorted. “We are living up to our end of the agreement. We expect you to do the same.”

“You have a deadline, and so do we,” Aliev said, not budging. “All prisoners are to be in the air, or a hostage will be executed.”

“We are working as fast as we can,” Halloway said. “You must believe that.”

“I will believe it when I hear the voices of my countrymen on those planes,” Aliev snapped.

“And then the President and the other hostages will be released. Right?”

“Oh, we should not go so fast,” Aliev said, his voice softening a bit. “You might suddenly decide to return those planes to their bases. Maybe that is why you are keeping Shamil and his men in shackles. So to be absolutely sure this does not happen, we will take the political hostages with us. We—”

“With you?” Halloway interrupted. “That was not part of our agreement.”

“It is now,” Aliev went on. “We have a plane that will shortly be taking off from a Mexican airport. When all the Chechens are freed, I will give you the identification number of the plane so you can clear a flight path into LAX. Once it has landed, you will arrange for a large helicopter to come to the roof of the medical center. One of my men will pilot it and the hostages back to LAX, where we will board the cargo—” He stopped abruptly to correct himself. “—where we will board the transport plane, which will take us to Elmendorf Air Base in Alaska. The trip will take nearly six hours. By then all the Chechens should be safely home. We will release your President and his family, and fly on to Moscow, where Dimitri Suslev can beg for his life on television. Perhaps the Russians will reconsider their refusal to negotiate, no?”

The phone line crackled, then became silent.

Halloway and Alderman exchanged worried glances, both thinking,
Oh, God. What if the rescue attempt fails?

Halloway quickly leaned toward the speakerphone. “We can’t allow the President to leave the hospital. He’s too—”

“You will have no choice in this matter,” Aliev cut her off. “So stop wasting time, and get my Chechens in the air.”

The phone line went dead.

The Situation Room stayed silent for a moment as the council tried to quickly gather their thoughts. Everyone was concerned about Aliev’s plan to take the President out of the hospital. John Merrill’s condition was too precarious. The move could cost him his life.

“We can’t let them remove the President from the hospital,” Halloway said resolutely.

“He’d no doubt die on that plane,” Alderman agreed. Then he added darkly, “And once they were safely in the air, the signal could be given to drop the bomb.”

Again the room became quiet. The image of a nuclear mushroom cloud abruptly came to everybody’s mind. The last message from their man in the Beaumont Pavilion had repeated the word
NUKE
twice. There was no question about its meaning. And its consequences. A catastrophe was about to happen.

“How the hell did they get a nuclear bomb?” Toliver asked, breaking the silence.

“From any number of sources,” Alderman answered. “At the top of the list would be North Korea, Pakistan, or some poorly guarded Russian facility.”

“And it could be a hydrogen bomb.”

“Could be.”

“And it’s heading our way.”

“So it would seem.”

“And beyond any doubt,” Pierce interjected, “the plane coming up for the hostages is the one carrying the nuke.”

“How can you be so sure?” Halloway asked at once. “Maybe there’s a second plane Aliev will tell us about later.”

Pierce shook his head decisively. “I don’t think so, Madam Vice President. The key word here is
cargo
. Aliev was about to say cargo plane, but changed it to transport plane. He didn’t want us to know it was a cargo plane.”

Halloway looked at him quizzically. “I’m not following you.”

“If he was only interested in transporting hostages, a passenger plane like a Boeing 757 would do fine. But you can’t deliver a nuclear weapon from that aircraft. I guess you could get it aboard, but getting it off and detonating it would present huge problems. With a big cargo plane, you just open the back bay and slide it out.”

“And onto the people of Los Angeles,” Halloway added gloomily.

“I’m not at all sure that Los Angeles is the target,” Alderman said.

“Why not?” Halloway asked, her eyes going to the digital clock. Five minutes to the deadline. And five minutes to the rescue attempt. “Give me quick answers. Time is running out.”

“Because it doesn’t make sense,” Alderman said in a rush. “If Aliev drops a nuclear weapon on Los Angeles, he accomplishes none of his goals. All of the Chechen prisoners would be returned to prison, and he and his men would be as good as dead. Once they land in Alaska, they’ll never be allowed to leave. Aliev would know these outcomes.”

“Maybe he plans to die with the hostages,” Halloway countered. “You know, dying with very important infidels in a jihad.”

“Why die when you can accomplish your goals and live?” Alderman argued back.

“So what do you think he intends to do?”

“Drop the bomb somewhere else.”

“In America?”

“No. I believe he wants to reach Alaska where he can be assured all of his fellow Chechens have landed and are free. Then he’ll fly off and detonate the nuclear device.”

“Why bomb Alaska?” Toliver asked promptly. “Hell! It’s mostly snow and ice up there.”

“It won’t be Alaska,” Alderman predicted. “It will be somewhere in Russia.”

“Moscow!” Halloway exclaimed. “They know the Russians won’t negotiate, so the Chechens mean to inflict as much damage as possible on their civilian population. God knows, the Chechens hate the Russians enough to do it.”

Toliver nodded in agreement. “Kind of like a payback for what Russia did to Chechnya.”

“Perhaps,” Alderman said, unconvinced. “But the Russians aren’t stupid. They may not be thinking about a nuclear explosion, but they’ll be wondering if the Chechens plan to crash the plane into Moscow, like the 9/11 terrorists did to Manhattan and D.C. Believe me when I tell you the Russian Air Force won’t let that plane within a hundred miles of Moscow. And Aliev knows this.”

“So what the hell is going on?” Halloway demanded.

“I think he’s going to try to create another Chernobyl,” Alderman replied.

“Do you mean blow up a big nuclear reactor?”

“Oh, it’s something far more important than a reactor,” Alderman said and walked over to a map on the large video screen. With his index finger he pointed to Alaska and moved it across the vastness of Russia. “If one draws a line from Anchorage to Moscow, it goes through the heart of the Siberian plains and its natural resources.”

“The Russian oil fields!” Halloway gasped.

Alderman nodded. “That’s why the message from our man in the Beaumont Pavilion used the term ‘Big Chernobyl.’ The bomb’s main purpose is to contaminate, not kill. A really dirty bomb would spew out a massive cloud of radioactive cesium and strontium and iodine. That entire area would become uninhabitable for decades. At ground zero, it would remain highly contaminated for a hundred years or more. For Russia, it would be an economic catastrophe. For OPEC, it would be a godsend. They and the Muslims would again control the world’s oil market.”

Halloway gazed at the map on the large screen and asked, “Are you saying the prisoner release may have just been camouflage for what they really intended to do?”

“Quite possibly,” Alderman answered. “After all, they must have realized the Russians would never negotiate.”

“And that we would,” Halloway grumbled, her eyes still on the map of the Siberian plains. “How large an area of contamination are we talking about?”

“The Chernobyl disaster ruined three thousand square miles,” Alderman replied. “A powerful nuclear explosion could easily double that number.”

“Six thousand square miles,” Halloway breathed.

“At least.”

Halloway looked over to the digital clock again. Three minutes until the deadline. “What should we do about the plane?”

“I say shoot it down if it comes close to the United States,” Pierce said forcefully. “We can’t be sure it’s going to Russia.”

“We could be signing the President’s death warrant if we do that,” Alderman cautioned.

“We could blame the Mexicans,” Pierce thought aloud.

“The Chechens would never buy that,” Alderman said.

“I think we should allow the plane to come to Los Angeles and pick up the President,” Toliver voted.

“We’d be taking one hell of a chance, Mr. Secretary,” Pierce disagreed.

“Let me ask you this,” Toliver said coolly. “Do you think Aliev plans to drop that bomb on Los Angeles or Russia?”

“Russia,” Pierce said without hesitation. “But there’s still—”

Toliver raised his hand, interrupting. “I think Russia, too. As a matter of fact, I’m convinced of it. With that in mind, I say let the plane fly on because I care a million times more about my President than I do about some damn Russian oil field.”

After a moment’s pause, everyone at the table began to slowly nod. Except Halloway. She stared straight ahead. She knew Toliver’s plan was very risky. If he was wrong, it would cost countless numbers of Americans their lives. It would be 9/11 a thousand times over.

Alderman studied Halloway’s face and asked, “What do you think, Madam Vice President?”

“I think we’d better pray the rescue attempt succeeds,” Halloway said softly.

“We’ll need a backup plan in case it doesn’t,” Alderman pressed.

“I’m aware of that,” Halloway replied, still thinking about 9/11 magnified a thousand times. It was horror beyond imagination. But if she had the plane shot down, the terrorists would realize they had no way out. And at that point they would happily kill themselves, taking the President and all the other hostages with them.

“Well?”

Halloway’s eyes went to the digital clock. Two minutes to the deadline. “We’ll allow the plane into Los Angeles.”

_____

Aliev heard the helicopter coming closer. For a moment it seemed to be directly above him. Then the distinctive put-put noise began to fade. He pricked up his ears and waited for the sound to return, now wondering if the helicopter was circling. It wasn’t, he decided, as the sound vanished altogether.

Aliev walked rapidly to the nurses’ station and stared down at Jarrin Smith. “Go use the bathroom.”

“I … I don’t have to,” Jarrin said hesitantly.

“This will be your last chance for a long time,” Aliev threatened. “If you have to relieve yourself later, you will do it in your pants in front of the others.”

“I’d better go while I can,” Jarrin said, and waited to be untied before getting to his feet.

Aliev motioned to the wounded terrorist to accompany Jarrin into the nurses’ lounge. He kept his eyes on them until they disappeared from sight, then checked the corridor to make certain no hostages were within earshot. Hurriedly he leaned down to the Russian security agent and whispered in Chechen, “What do you think about the helicopter, Yudenko?”

“It was a large one,” Yudenko answered in a low voice. “You could tell from the noise and the vibration it caused.”

“Do you believe they are doing aerial reconnaissance?” Aliev asked.

“Maybe,” Yudenko replied carefully. “But why use such a big helicopter to just take a look?”

“That I do not know,” Aliev replied and gave the matter more thought. “The only other reason for them to come and go like that would be to drop off men.”

“Yes, yes,” Yudenko agreed at once. “It must be a rescue team.”

“But how would they attempt to enter?” Aliev asked, more to himself than to the agent.

Yudenko shrugged. “Perhaps through the roof again.”

Aliev shook his head. “They are not that stupid. They know we would hear them.”

“Not if they used an acetylene torch, like they did before,” Yudenko contended.

“Maybe you are right,” Aliev said. But he remained unconvinced. “To be on the safe side, I will have one of our men with his head in the crawlspace at all times.”

“Tell him to be alert for a burning smell,” Yudenko urged. “That will be the initial indication they are coming through.”

“But our enemies would realize this, too,” Aliev said uneasily. “And they would know we will be watching the crawlspace very closely after their failed attempt.”

Yudenko knitted his brow, concentrating. “Perhaps it was only reconnaissance, after all.”

Aliev shook his head. “I believe our first conclusion is correct. They have dropped men onto the roof. It is a rescue attempt.”

“But why such a large helicopter?” Yudenko persisted. “They don’t require that many men for a rescue mission.”

“Perhaps to cover the sound of a smaller one that landed,” Aliev conjectured. “But how will they try to enter? How?”

“Not via the roof, eh?”

“No,” Aliev said and began pacing the floor, concentrating on possible points of entry. Not through the dumbwaiter, which they would assume was booby-trapped. Or down the crawlspace, which was too dangerous. Or up the elevators that were stuck in place, with their doors jammed shut. That left only one way in. He stopped in his tracks and turned to Yudenko. “They will come down the fire stairs.”

“But they will think we have planted explosives in its staircase and on its door,” Yudenko argued.

Aliev shook his head. “Only a fool would booby-trap his escape exit.”