The Ragnarok Conspiracy (33 page)

Jordan shook his head. He was glad he had learned firsthand from his former gang how to take apart cars—a skill used more than a few times for stealing them. To his astonishment, he had, within the span of less than twenty minutes, managed to open up the missile housing and expose the warhead. The missile was long and sleek, aerodynamic like an arrow. The warhead was fat and dull, like a huge bullet the size of a laundry basket, housing the radioactive materials in a manner that would lead to the optimal explosion. The “physics package” was connected to the rest of the missile by numerous wires and circuits, and now Jordan knew he was completely out of his element. He was also nearly out of time.

“Where the hell
is
the engineer?” the gravelly voice of their mission leader called out near the cockpit, his eyes darting around in annoyance. He prided himself on an optimum of organization: each piece in its place at the right time for every mission. The engineer had gone back to make sure all systems were nominal on the missile. A nontrivial issue with what they had onboard.

They had all sat through the long briefings prior to the mission. Mjolnir engineers had employed a number of work-arounds to defeat the multilayered safety systems on the missile and warhead. The military had become very good at making nuclear weapons impossible to detonate accidentally. Safety systems prevented fire, external explosion, or impact from triggering detonation. Safety codes and environmental detection systems ensured no warhead would go off unless it had been properly programmed with secret codes
and
had been delivered in the way intended—in this case, fired from a cruise missile. Unless the proper acceleration, altitude, and pressure readings were in place, the bomb would not detonate.

Of course, they planned to use the cruise missile as the delivery system—it was perfect, and engineers had easily programmed it for the desired coordinates. Defeating the arming safety measures had proven far more difficult, however. Stealing the missile was one thing, nearly impossible. But stealing the codes
was
impossible. The “permissive action link,” or PAL lock, was a real bastard: multiple-code, six-digit switch, limited-try followed by lockout. Their cryptologists didn't have the luxury to get it wrong. But Gunn had recruited some extremely talented people. The engineers had rigged something that had bypassed the PAL lock. He didn't care to understand how. They said it worked; the missile was armed, although now in a fairly unprotected state, he had been told. Many of the key safety systems were no longer operational.
Best not to drop the thing
, he thought with a smile.

The engineer was to keep babysitting it.
So where the hell was he?

“I'll go have a look, sir,” said a soldier next to him.

“He should have reported by now.” The leader released his belts and headed off down the plane to the dividing door.

Rideout yelled over to Bryant. “We've got him conferenced in from Minot. The line's not secure.”

Bryant waved his hand dismissively. “That's been cleared already. Put him on.”

Rideout nodded toward them. “Captain Edwards, can you hear me?”

A voice spoke with a moderate static component. “Yes, sir. Loud and clear.”

“This is Andrew Bryant with the FBI. We have senior officers at the Pentagon, the CIA, and the air force listening in from several locations. You have been briefed?”

“Uh, yes, sir. I'm to talk a man through the disarming of a W80 warhead mounted on a cruise missile.”

“That's it.”

“Sir, is this a drill?”

Bryant looked over toward the air force men. They exchanged looks but remained silent. A familiar voice was heard over the line.

“Captain Edwards. This is General Richards, Pentagon. Listen to me well, son—this is
not
a drill. We have an AWOL nuke in the hands of some very bad men, and we have a few minutes to walk a CIA agent through disarming it. We don't have time for more background. I need your very best, young man.”

There was a short silence on the other end of the line. “Understood, sir. You've got it.”

Bryant continued. “We're connecting with the agent now. Everyone, hold on.”

Jordan heard the noises of the door being pulled and the voice outside the door.
How long do I have?
He figured five minutes at best before they forced the door open. Right at that moment, his phone buzzed, and he pulled it from his pocket.
Thank goodness for satellite phones!

“Husaam Jordan, this is Andrew Bryant with the FBI—”

“Just tell me—do you have someone to walk me through this?”

“Yes, Agent Jordan. You need to know something first. We have determined the target for the missile. It is the Saudi Arabian city of Mecca.”

Jordan was stunned.
Mecca?
The holiest site in all of Islam. His stomach turned as a realization dawned on him. “The Hajj,” he whispered. There could be more than two million visiting Muslims in Mecca performing the pilgrimage at this moment, plus another two million from the city itself. A massacre in fire of four million souls, a destruction of the center of Islam. A horror without precedent that would spawn horrors of retaliation across the world. “Tell me how to disarm this thing, then. Now!” he shouted.

Bryant continued. “Air Force Engineer Al Edwards on the line. Go, Edwards.”

“Agent Jordan?”

“Listen, I don't have time to tell you everything. I've taken several photos with my cell and sent them to Rideout at the FBI. Have him put them up and you can see what I've done.”

Rideout cut in on the line. “Husaam—that's not going to work. He's in Minot, North Dakota. He can't see the monitors. Edwards, you by a computer?”

“Yes!”

“Your e-mail, I need it now!” shouted Rideout. The captain told him. “Log onto your account, I'm forwarding the images.”

Jordan spoke through the pain in his leg. “I don't have a lot of time.”

“Got them, sir. Let me have a look.”

Jordan was startled by a loud crashing sound. He turned to the door. Someone on the other side was repeatedly yanking on the handle, and the crowbars were being smashed into the door and the wall. Already one seemed about to fall loose from the handle. He knew it was only a matter of time before the vibrations knocked them all out.

“Edwards—I'm here with the missile near a bunch of hostiles, and in about two minutes they are going to be through the door and on me.”

“Yes, sir. You opened it up well. Wow. They've run around or rewired nearly all the PAL circuitry, but the way they've done it, all the strong and weak safety systems around the exclusion zone have been bypassed, too. What a mess!”

“Speak English!” shouted Jordan. One of the crowbars made a clanking noise as it fell to the floor. He could hear shouts on the other side.

“Sir, it means that the warhead is sensitive now to detonation by impact or even electrical surge. That's one unstable nuke you have there.”

“Just tell me how to disarm the thing!”

“It's not going to be easy with what they've rigged, and you need to ground yourself. Even a static charge and that thing will blow. OK, first, you need—”

Suddenly there was a loud noise on the speakers—first a crashing sound with metallic elements, then several staccato bursts.

“That's gunfire,” whispered Rideout.

The air force major stood up from his chair. “Oh, God.”

Jordan fell backward, his shoulder and chest covered in blood, his hand barely holding him upright next to the missile.
Not enough time.
The pain was nearly overwhelming. The door had been yanked open finally, and two men had jumped into the chamber. Jordan had the advantage, however. They had to negotiate through the door, climb over the body of the soldier he had downed earlier, and take the time to scan the area for him. He shot down both but not before taking fire from a third soldier on the other side who had ducked back. Jordan thought he had hit him, but how seriously, he didn't know.

“Husaam!” shouted Rideout. “Are you there?”

Jordan righted himself and grabbed the tool cart with both hands. The front of his white robes was soaked red, and he felt dizzy from the loss of blood. He leaned on his elbows, aimed his weapon at the door, and spoke into the phone.

“Not much time now. I'm shot, badly. More coming. There isn't time.”

“Agent Jordan!” shouted Bryant. “You must disarm that weapon!”

Jordan's voice was barely a whisper. “No time. The Hajj…the Fifth Pillar…I wished to go…God be merciful for my failure…tell Vonessa, good-bye.”

“He's not going to make it,” whispered Rideout.

On the plane, Jordan reached into the tool crate drawers and pulled out a voltmeter. He ripped the wires out of the device and stumbled to the missile, crashing against the side of the crate, his blood smearing the porous wood.

Suddenly a new round of gunfire broke out. The Mjolnir mission leader had leapt through the door and over the bodies of the other soldiers. His left arm was bloodied, as was his stomach, but he willed himself back into combat. He took aim and fired a burst into the Muslim's back. Jordan arched in pain and cried out. Miraculously, he held himself upright for another moment and inserted the wiring onto the circuit board as the soldier labored over to stop him.

“Get off the weapon!” he roared.

“I bear witness that there is no god but Allah,” Jordan whispered to the circuitry, his legs buckling, sweat pouring over his face, “and Mohammed…is his Prophet.”

He then connected two regions of the circuit board with the leads. There was a small spark, then a terrible light.

“We've lost the signal,” said Rideout.

“Damn it, get him back on the phone!” shouted Bryant.

Lightfoote was crying, staring up at the ceiling. Rideout walked over and held her. People were speaking over each other, and Bryant simply roared again.

“Get him on the phone!” shouted Bryant. Lightfoote looked at him and shook her head. Bryant was about to shout again when he was interrupted by a voice over the speakers.

“This is General Richards. US military satellites report the detection of a nuclear detonation signal in the air above the Gulf of Mexico. I am told that the location is within the cone of probability for the aircraft that took off from Tampico airport. The explosion is almost certainly the stolen weapon. We will end this crisis call now and work within our individual organizations. The president has been informed at every stage of this and is now aware of its resolution. We have a brave man to thank for saving millions of lives.”

The line went dead. Lightfoote wept uncontrollably in Rideout's arms. Everyone in the room sat in stunned silence. Finally, recovering his composure, Bryant tried to mobilize his team.

“OK, people, it's over now. Let's get back to work.”

Rideout stared at the screen in front of him, the image of Tampico airport back online from the satellite feed.

“No, it's not over yet.”

Savas stepped out from behind the stacks of boxes. His face was begrimed with the smoke and sweat of the chaos of the last hour. He was panting, nearly out of breath, having sprinted from his position beside Cohen and Miller. The acrid smell of petroleum and fire left his throat raw, but every muscle was primed and alert for what lay before him. He drew his weapon as he approached.

Gunn was walking confidently toward the helicopter, which had landed not more than one hundred yards in front of them both. A distance of fifty feet separated the two men. Savas aimed his firearm and shouted out over the whirring sound of the blades.

“Stop right there, Gunn!” The CEO paused and turned around to face Savas. “Don't get any closer to the helicopter. I'll kill you if you do.”

Gunn hardly even blinked. “I highly doubt that, Agent Savas.”

Savas laughed and held the gun steady. “And why is that?”

“Because you are an honorable man, and here I am, unarmed, soon to turn my back on you. Will you discharge your weapon into my back?”

Savas stared into the cold, expressionless eyes before him and took several steps forward. “You have millions of lives in front of your own weapon. You aren't unarmed, and I promise you, I'll shoot you in the back, in the front, or in the ass, if I have to.”

“Effective and crude point, Agent Savas. But you really should put the gun down. Your son, Thanos, would want you to.”

Savas felt his stomach tighten. “You leave him out of this conversation, Gunn, or I'll kill you for sport.”

William Gunn did not flinch. “But that is the truth, isn't it? Your
son's death drove you to fight the madmen and their beliefs. My wife died that day, Agent Savas. She died someplace near your son, having fallen one hundred floors, doubtless in terror, pain, and panic, to be smashed and crushed, her body so broken that only fragments remained to be identified by DNA analysis. I, too, resolved to fight the monsters that caused this, and fight them we both have.”

“You murder the innocent, you bastard! You are no better than they are.”

Gunn displayed the first mild hint of anger. His nostrils flared, and his jaw set tightly. “In war, we do not blame the defenders for killing the aggressors, Agent Savas. In war, it becomes necessary to take innocent lives at times to protect many more lives. Do you recall the bombs that leveled Germany and brought down a madman? Yet our actions were too late for six million Jews. Would not it have been better to take one hundred thousand more lives of German innocents to have prevented that? The madmen of 9/11 and their organization are not rightly our focus. They are only a single branch of a tree with deep and strong roots. Those roots and the trunk are the barbaric religion of Islam, a religion that marched by the sword across the deserts of Arabia and the sands of Africa, to the very doorstep of Europe.”

Gunn shouted over the helicopter, his words growing in volume as he spoke. “Now this beast reawakens after centuries of sleep and threatens to devour the world. Europe and America will wait until thousands, millions, entire civilizations fall as once before to Mohammed's armies.
I will not.
I will strike back—not at a leaf, or a branch, but at the heart of this vile plant and wound it to its core. I
owe
her that. As you owe it to your son.”

Savas listened uneasily. He felt dizzy, standing on the precipice of his own thoughts and soul, looking down into the abyss that called and tempted him even now.

“That is why I am here, and that is why you could be here with me, instead of holding a gun to my face. You have tortured yourself with delusions that protecting Muslims from me is the same as protecting us from them. That cannot be more wrong. We are the defenders, John
Savas. We wage a war of survival against a many-headed beast. But we do not chase the heads stupidly. We bring fire to purge the creature from the world.”

Savas shook his head, keeping his gun raised and aimed. “You cannot set fire to the world to rid it of weeds.”

Gunn took another step toward Savas, his eyes earnest, his tone nearly pleading. “Join us in this fight! There will not be any real change in your design, only in your means. A change in means is required for any hope to exist that order can finally defeat chaos.”

“This isn't a Norse myth, Gunn! This is real! With real nations, real people, real chaos, and death you are bringing. If you do this thing, it will burn out of control.”

Gunn stepped forward. “This thing we do is but the first step, Agent Savas. Do you think we have built this organization only to blow up a few mosques and deliver one bomb, however potent? Our attacks, together with the world war to come, will ensure the total destruction of the Islamic threat.”

Savas could hardly believe what he was hearing. “You are a madman.”

Gunn clenched his jaw. “Perhaps. I cannot waste more time with you. I know still that you will not stop me here. What I plan is too important, too close to your own desires. If you kill me, and you take from the world the hope for the deliverance that I will bring, you will betray your nation, yourself, and everyone who died at the hands of these murderers. I know you cannot do that. Put the gun down, Agent Savas. You will not shoot me.” William Gunn turned around and walked briskly toward the helicopter.

Savas shouted. “Don't make me do this!”

Gunn did not pause or turn around. Savas struggled to pull the trigger. He saw himself in the shape that walked away from him, understood the man's pain, the knife's edge that separated them and their choices. Few could understand that pain, and the anger born of helplessness, the mad desire to strike back in fury. All of that burned like acid within the soul.

But he had already found himself in that darkness. He would not return. Savas aimed the weapon carefully.

Suddenly, a vehicle came speeding onto the tarmac, and a black town car flew recklessly across his field of vision, coming to a screeching halt between him and Gunn. A blond man leaped out, and Savas reacted instinctively to what he saw by diving toward the ground. The older soldier landed sure-footed on the asphalt with a machine gun in his right hand.

Gunfire erupted around Savas as he rolled desperately to escape it. To his amazement, gunshots also arose from behind him. The bullets suddenly ceased exploding around him. The assailant had fallen against the hood of the car, clutching his chest. He lay back, sliding slowly down the curve of the hood, and dropped to the concrete surface with a slap.

At that moment, Frank Miller came limping slowly onto the scene, his leg bloodied, his face black and covered in soot, an automatic weapon in his hand. He was followed by Cohen and Michael Inherp. They stood, discombobulated, staring back and forth between Savas and the retreating figure of Gunn, not understanding the dynamic. Then, the three watched John Savas stand up, aim his weapon, and pull the trigger.

The single gunshot was nearly swallowed in the noise of the helicopter. William Gunn arched his back, paused a split second, then crumpled to his knees on the tarmac, rolling slowly to his side. The helicopter pilot panicked, and throttled up and away from the site, leaving a blast of air and the strange and heavy silence that follows exposure to loud noises. From the distance, they watched Savas walk forward toward Gunn and kneel beside him.

Blood pooled underneath the CEO. The bullet had been well aimed, entering near the heart. Gunn gazed upward at Savas, his eyes partially glazed over in pain, life draining quickly from his body. His mouth moved slowly, his voice soft on the air.

“
Why?
” he gasped.

Savas stared sadly at the dying man. “I will
fight
the monsters, Mr.
Gunn. I will not
become
one. You became the worst of them all, and I had to stop you.”

William Gunn slowly released a final breath, his eyes rolled back into his head, and he spoke no more. Savas looked up to see the others approach. He stood and embraced Cohen tightly.

“Oh, God, John.” She looked down at the body. “He's dead?”

Savas nodded, pulling her away from the lifeless form, and turning her to face the sea. “But he died a long time ago.”

They held each other, gazing up into the blue as the sun reached higher into the sky and morning moved toward afternoon. Suddenly, there was a strange sight. Another light grew in intensity in the blue, until it became a bright star vainly trying to rival the sun. The four stood there in the blowing wind, the sounds of flames and sirens ringing, smoke pouring across the airfield, watching the display of two stars seeming to rise in the eastern sky.

“Well, looks like something went wrong with their plan,” said Savas. “Detonated a little too soon.” He smiled at the others. His grin faded at their somber faces.

Miller spoke first. “Husaam was on the plane, John. He jumped on as it left for takeoff.”

At that moment, several fighter planes blasted low over the airfield, shaking the ground with their sonic vibrations. They flew from the west heading out over the sea, pulling up into the sky between the two suns, as the smaller star quickly dimmed and surrendered its pretenses to the brighter light.

Savas closed his eyes.
So many deaths.
Yet, so many deaths prevented.
He looked down at the body of William Gunn—mastermind, wounded titan, madman. He thought of Husaam Jordan—Muslim, once an object of his hatred, who sacrificed his life for so many. He glanced over toward the car where another deluded soul, misled by William Gunn, like so many others, had just lost his life.

The ground was empty. Savas turned around and drew his weapon, while Miller and Inherp looked over cautiously. But there was nothing to be seen. The body of Patrick Rout was not there.