Soar (12 page)

Revenge would come. But later. The shock of seeing his teammate murdered would hit him hard. But not now. Sam couldn’t let anything touch him now. His only job was to keep himself, Kaz, and X-Man alive.

As quickly as they could, the three of them set to work. They pulled the camera out of its padded case and checked the battery. It was weak—drained from the earlier drilling.

Sam’s hip throbbed painfully. “How much time do we have on the battery?”

“Don’t know,” Kaz said. “Maybe eight, ten minutes.” He gave Sam a grim look. “The spare’s dead.”

Sam gritted his teeth. “Maybe they have a generator.”

“If not, I can recharge using the cigarette lighter in the Toyota.”

“Good.” Sam watched as Chris set up the tripod. Kaz placed the camera on the tripod head and secured it. Sam unpacked the zoom lens and twisted the bayonet mount until it clicked. Chris screwed the audio cable into the back of the camera.

Kaz found the hand mike and attached it to the cable. “Good to go.”

Chris positioned himself behind the camera and took a quick squint through the eyepiece. He nodded at Sam. “Ready when you are.”

Sam beckoned to Mustache Man. “We are ready.” He took the mike out of Kaz’s hands and waved it in the guerrilla’s direction. “What would you like to say?”

“Not here.” Mustache Man shouted something in a dialect Sam did not understand. Someone climbed into one of the PLA trucks, turned it around, and backed it in a half circle until the headlights of the truck in which Sam and X-Man had been held lit up the canvas covering the tailgate.

Mustache Man’s boots scrunched across the sand and stone. He stood twenty feet from the truck. “Put the camera here.”

Sam limped over to where Mustache Man stood. “C’mon, chaps, let’s do it.”

Mustache Man gave more orders. The canvas was pushed aside and the tailgate dropped. Half a dozen men slung their weapons and clambered aboard. Another four stood below.

Sam waited as the camera was brought up and set where Mustache Man wanted it. He got behind the tripod, sidled up to the eyepiece, and squinted through the viewfinder He adjusted the focus, then zoomed in on the knot of bodies struggling to wrestle a large, rectangular object that looked
somewhat like one of those 1930s refrigerators—the ones with the compressors on the top—out of a cumbersome storage container.

They pushed and pulled for perhaps half a minute. Sam was about to shut the power off when the cluster of men separated long enough for him to catch a fleeting glimpse of the yellow-and-black nuclear radiation symbol stenciled on the storage container. He said, “Oh, my God,” and involuntarily took a big step backward.

X-Man said, “What’s up?”

Sam rubbed his face. “I don’t bloody believe this.” He watched as they wrestled the fridge out of the truck and lowered it onto the ground.

“Now,” Mustache Man said.
“Now
you give me the microphone.”

It was at that instant that Sam Phillips understood that he was a dead man, too. That they were all dead men. Dick Campbell wasn’t going to be SIE-l’s only casualty.

The West Wing of the White House.
1355 Hours Local Time.

R
ITZIK WAS SURPRISED
to find the young woman who’d briefed in the Situation Room waiting for them in the national security adviser’s inner office. Monica Wirth said, “Mr. Secretary, Major Ritzik, this is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy Tracy Wei-Liu.”

Ritzik said, “Michael Ritzik. Nice to meet you.” He extended his arm and got a cool, firm handshake in return. She certainly was attractive, Ritzik thought. She had almond eyes and the well-conditioned body of an athlete under her well-tailored black pantsuit. Wei-Liu was probably, he decided, in her early thirties. Ritzik caught himself staring
and self-consciously shifted his gaze toward SECDEF, who was looking at him quizzically.

Rockman said, “Major Ritzik will be leading the unit that’s going to bring the CIA sensor team back from China.”

Wei-Liu’s expression didn’t change a whit. “Not an easy job, Major, given the latest developments.”

“No, it’s not. But it can be done.”

“I certainly hope so. They’re brave men. We should do everything we can to bring them home.”

“I feel the same way.”

Monica Wirth’s heels tapped the wood floor as she crossed her office and dropped into a high-backed upholstered leather wing chair that faced away from the tall, narrow windows. “Why don’t we all sit down where it’s comfortable.” Wirth indicated the upholstered couch in front of which was a coffee table piled with foreign-policy journals.

‘Thank you, Monica. My old bones could use a comfortable chair.” The secretary eased into the wing chair facing Wirth. Ritzik and Wei-Liu stepped over his knees and settled somewhat self-consciously into the soft sofa cushions.

“So, Major,” the NSC chairman asked, “what did you think of our RIG?”

“Rig, ma’am?”

“Restricted interagency group.”

“I was wondering,” Ritzik said, “whether Admiral Buckley is always that quiet at meetings.”

A single, acidic cackle broke from the back of the national security adviser’s throat. “We call him the stealth chairman,” she finally said. Then her expression changed. “Major,” Wirth asked, “is there anyone in your unit who has experience in dealing with medium atomic demolition devices and the disarming of nuclear weapons under tactical situations?”

Ritzik didn’t have to think very long about that one. “We have trained with the Department of Energy’s counterterror NEST teams, ma’am. We have also worked counterterrorist scenarios in which nuclear warheads were tactical factors, and so we are familiar in a general way with the arming and disarming of such devices. But the weapons we’ve been exposed to are current generation—not thirty-plus-year-old MADMs.”

The national security adviser shot a quick glance in Rockman’s direction. “I see,” Monica Wirth said.

“So defusing the stolen weapon could present a problem.”

“It might,” Ritzik said. “But I’m confident that if Miss Wei-Liu draws a detailed diagram and explains the problem to me thoroughly, we’ll be able to deal with the situation efficiently.”

Wei-Liu swiveled toward Ritzik. “It’s somewhat more complex than just drawing a diagram, Major.”

“An IED is an IED,” Ritzik said. “A detonator is a detonator. An ignition wire is an ignition wire.”

Wei-Liu said, “Major, I may defer to you in all things military. But I have been dealing with these sorts of devices for more than fifteen years now. I have demilitarized Soviet ICBM warheads, dissected their cruise missiles, and examined the innards of the second-generation MADMs they left in bunkers in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. I have even worked on the ignition sequencing for our own current generation of weapons. And believe me, this is not a matter of ‘Do I cut the red wire first or the blue wire first?’ Because there are no colored wires, Major. Not on the J-12. Moreover, as I started to explain in the Situation Room, capacitors can be very unstable. And the battery packs emit both acid and static, which can result in sparks and explosions. The J-12 is tricky and problematic. It is complex in its simplicity, if you know what I’m saying. You have to understand
the gestalt of the J-12—be totally comfortable in its instability—or it is altogether likely that in the course of rendering it safe, you will cause an unintended detonation.”

Ritzik’s expression told Wei-Liu he wasn’t convinced.

“I’m telling you the truth, Major. I’ll draw you anything you want—and more. But believe me: you’ve got your work cut out for you.”

“Yes, you do, Major,” Monica Wirth said. “Because the implications of an unintended detonation are extremely far-reaching.” The national security adviser shot a glance at Rockman. “Mr. Secretary, don’t you agree?”

“I do,” Rockman said. “And I think I know where we’re headed now—and I concur.”

“Thank you, Mr. Secretary.” Monica Wirth smiled in Ritzik’s general direction and noted that the major had no idea at all where she was headed.

So she told him. “Major, Miss Wei-Liu has just joined your insertion element.”

Mike Ritzik didn’t have to think too long about
that
one either. “No, ma’am, she has not.”

Monica Wirth gave Ritzik a hard look. “You don’t get a vote here, Major.”

Wei-Liu pushed herself to the edge of the cushion. “What about me, Dr. Wirth? Do I get a vote?”

“You’re the only one who does,” the national security adviser said. “You get the option of volunteering.”

“Ma’am,” Ritzik began.

“Shush, Major. You don’t know the full story.”

“Frankly, ma’am, I don’t give a damn what the full story is. I’m wasting my time here. I should be back at the compound, with my men, trying to anticipate everything that might go wrong so that we can deal with it. This device is just another problem. It can be overcome.”

“No, Major, this is different.”

Ritzik set his jaw. “I don’t think so. Let me be brutally honest, Dr. Wirth. Let’s say we get as far as the convoy, and we rescue our people, but we screw up with the MADM and it goes off. So what if it does?”

“So what?
Ka-boom.
Mushroom cloud, Major. And then—”

Ritzik cut her off. “Exactly, ma’am.
Ka-boom.
And when we vaporize, all the evidence that Americans were ever on Chinese territory goes with us. So far as the Chinese are concerned, it’s another nuclear accident caused by a bad detonator—just like the one in 1988.” He paused when he saw Wirth’s shocked expression. “Nobody here wants to die, ma’am. That’s not the point. The point is—”

Monica Wirth’s tone turned frosty. “You have no idea what
the point
is, Major. The
point
is way above your pay grade.”

Condescension was a quality Ritzik didn’t like. “Since I’m the one putting his men’s lives on the line, perhaps you’d be kind enough to fill me in, then … ma’am.”

Wirth didn’t give an inch. “I’ll let Miss Wei-Liu ‘fill you in,’ Major. She’s the nuclear expert in the room.” Wirth said, “Please, Miss Wei-Liu—give him a thumbnail.”

The young woman shook her head self-consciously, cascading longish, black hair around her shoulders. “I’ll certainly try, Dr. Wirth.” She turned to Ritzik, her hands folded on her lap. “Major, five years ago I had a small part in a program that designed the prototypes for the low-yield sensors the CIA team just inserted.”

“Congratulations.” Ritzik’s tone indicated he wasn’t in the mood for a history lesson.

Wei-Liu continued, undeterred. “In 1996 the Chinese stopped testing weapons with a yield greater than one kiloton.”

“In 1996,” he repeated, frustration evident in his voice.

“Yes, Major. But they didn’t stop testing.” “How did you know?”

“We didn’t—for sure. And the previous administration wasn’t interested in finding out. So the sensor program languished, until 2001, when it was revived.”

Ritzik nodded blankly, wishing she’d get to the point.

“Major, these sensors were designed specifically to identify ultra-low-level nuclear blasts—one kiloton or less.”

“So?”

“The MADM I saw in this morning’s photograph is a fifteen-kiloton device, Major Ritzik. The sensors were planted two hundred and sixty miles from the tunnel complex where we expect the Chinese to test their low-level nuclear capabilities. I checked the map over there.” Wei-Liu pointed at an easel where a thick green atlas sat open. “The distance from where the sensors were placed to the mountain range along the Chinese border is slightly less than four hundred miles. If the MADM explodes anywhere within that radius—whether you do it by accident, or the terrorists do it by design—the seismic shock wave, which will be somewhere in the four-point-six to four-point-eight Richter area, will jolt the sensors’ internal readers severely enough so as to render them essentially useless.”

The national security adviser broke in. “So your samurailike offer of
seppuku,
Major, is noted and appreciated, but respectfully declined.” She gave Ritzik a quick triumphal glance. “Not because it wasn’t heartfelt, either, I’m sure. But now you see that if you screwed up, you’d not only throw away your lives and the lives of the men you were sent to rescue, but you would, in fact, be doing the national security interests of the United States a great deal of damage.” Wirth paused. “A great deal of damage. And
that,
Major, is the point.”

It took Ritzik some seconds to digest what Wirth had said.

Finally, he replied. “I accept your premise, ma’am. And I apologize for jumping the gun.”

Wirth gave him an unexpectedly gracious smile. “Accepted, Major.”

“But I have to insist that taking a civilian along on such a hazardous mission is never done.”

“You’re wrong about that, too, son,” Rockman broke in. “It has been done—and successfully.”

Ritzik was shocked. “When?”

“During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis,” Rockman said. “A CIA missile analyst was assigned to accompany a Navy SEAL infiltration to Cuba.”

Rockman’s eyes crinkled. “The SEAL component commander, by the way, didn’t argue about it. He gritted his teeth and said, ‘Aye-aye, sir.’”

Ritzik winced internally. “Point taken, sir.”

“It was no cakewalk, either,” Rockman went on. ‘Two SEALs and the CIA officer were transported by the submarine
Sea Lion
to within two miles of the Cuban coastline. Then they locked out of one of the hatches and surfaced. Then the SEALs swam in—towing the analyst, by the way, because the fella couldn’t swim himself. Finally, they made their way ashore past the Cuban patrol vessels, right into Havana Harbor. The SEAL mission was to identify the warehouses used by the Soviets to store the missiles out of sight of our U-2 overflights so they could be attacked by aircraft without causing collateral damage to the civilians nearby. The SEALs did their job. Then they broke into the warehouses, which allowed the spook to get detailed photos of the missile components and warheads. Those pictures gave President Kennedy an accurate assessment of how far the Soviets had been able to develop their guidance systems and other design elements relating to ICBMs.”