Overkill (74 page)

Camp David, Maryland

‘There’s been a what?’ the President asked into the telephone, his face going pale. ‘Where?’

‘Satellite surveillance reports ground zero as Abilene, Texas, Mr President,’ General Harmon replied, ‘but the situation is still confused.’

‘What do you mean “confused”?’ the President snapped. ‘Are you telling me you don’t know if a nuclear weapon has been detonated or not?’

‘No, Mr President. Detonation of a device definitely took place – the seismic data has already confirmed that – but the rest of the data doesn’t make sense. First, we had
no launch detection of any sort, so the weapon didn’t arrive here on an ICBM or in a missile from a Russian boomer. We’ve checked the recorded data and all our systems, and there was
definitely no launch. Second, the weapon is way too small. The seismic data puts it at around thirty kilotons, maybe even less, and all the Russian first-strike weapons are way up in the
multi-megaton range. This thing was more like a tactical weapon.’

There was a pause as the President digested this information. ‘Thank you, General,’ he said. ‘I’ll be in touch.’

‘Sir? What are your orders?’

‘I said I’ll be in touch. There are factors here that you will not be aware of, General, and I have to consider very carefully exactly what to do next.’

St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

In the bedroom of
Le Moulin au Pouchon
the sniper suddenly stopped his rhythmic assault on the outhouse, but kept the rifle muzzle pointed straight up the hill as
he stared through the Starlight scope.

‘Are they there?’ Ross asked.

‘Yes. I can see four figures behind the outhouse, now all standing up.’

‘Excellent,’ Ross murmured, then spoke into his microphone. ‘Dekker, Ross. SITREP?’

‘It’s over. One dead, we assume he was the bodyguard, and the other’s wounded and out of action.’

‘Right,’ Ross said. ‘I’ll let London know.’

The bullet had taken Abbas just below the right shoulder and the force of its impact had tumbled him away from the laptop computer and against the wall. Richter gestured to
Dekker to watch the Arab, and turned his attention to the laptop.

He was no computer expert, but it was obvious even to Richter what Abbas had been trying to do. He studied the screen for several seconds. At the top of the screen the heading ‘Weapon:
Albany, New York’ was displayed. Below that appeared the message ‘Authorization Code Six Accepted. For final Verification, Enter Authorization Code Two’, and below that was an
oblong horizontal box with space for twelve digits. Nine of the twelve spaces were already occupied by an asterisk symbol.

Richter touched the ‘Esc’ or ‘Escape’ key. As he had hoped, the screen display cleared and both the message and the oblong box vanished. The screen simply displayed the
Albany weapon control page, but the system just sat there, waiting for his input.

‘Thank God for that,’ Richter muttered, and pulled out his mobile phone. He switched off silent ringing and punched in the direct line number for the computer suite. Baker answered
almost immediately.

‘Baker.’

‘Richter. It’s over. I’m looking at this Arab bastard’s laptop, and we stopped him just before he detonated the weapon at Albany.’

Even over the mobile phone network, the sadness and horror in Baker’s voice were unmistakable. ‘Pity you didn’t get to him a few minutes sooner,’ he said.
‘It’s all a bit confused, but according to CNN a nuclear weapon has just exploded in Abilene, Texas.’

Richter said nothing, just sat back on his haunches, snapped the phone shut and put it back in his pocket. He looked across at Dekker, who was covering the Arab with his Hockler. Dekker had
kicked Abbas’ Glock well out of reach, and had hauled the wounded Arab up against the wall of the outhouse where he sat hunched and groaning, but conscious.

‘We were too late,’ Richter said. ‘This bastard managed to detonate at least one weapon in the States. God knows how many people he’s killed, or what the Americans will
do now.’

Richter stood up, walked across the outhouse to where the Glock lay on the floor, bent down and picked it up. Showing no emotion, he walked back to where Abbas sat, placed the muzzle of the
pistol against the Arab’s left kneecap and pulled the trigger. The report of the shot echoed from the stone walls, and was followed immediately by a howl of pain from Abbas.
‘That,’ Richter said, ‘is for Abilene.’ He transferred the weapon to Abbas’ right knee and fired again.

‘Albany?’ Dekker asked, looking at the information displayed on the laptop’s screen.

‘Albany,’ Richter agreed. ‘I know he didn’t detonate it, but it certainly wasn’t for want of trying.’ As Richter squatted down in front of the groaning Arab,
his mobile phone rang again. ‘Richter.’

‘It’s Baker. It’s only just dawned on me – you said that you had Dernowi’s laptop?’

‘Yes. It’s right here beside me, connected to a mobile phone. When we took out the landlines I suppose he had no option but to use the mobile.’

‘Yes, yes,’ Baker said impatiently, ‘but the point is that you have a link to the Krutaya mainframe using the laptop, and with Dernowi’s access level you can disable all
the weapons.’

‘I can try,’ Richter said doubtfully.

‘It’s not a problem. I can talk you through it right now.’

‘OK,’ Richter said, and sat down on the stone floor in front of the laptop.

‘Right,’ Baker said. ‘first you access the—’

‘Oh, shit,’ Richter muttered, and looked in irritation at his phone. The battery strength was fine, but the signal strength read zero. He snatched up Abbas’ mobile and looked
at that. The battery was about two-thirds exhausted and, like Richter’s Nokia, it was reading zero signal strength. Lacomte had taken his time getting the mobile phone cells switched off, but
he had finally managed it.

There was nothing more Richter could do with the laptop, so he removed the data cable, switched off Abbas’ mobile phone, and put the computer, phone and cable into the Samsonite case. Then
he walked back to where Abbas was sitting groaning against the wall. He pushed the muzzle of the Glock under Abbas’ chin and forced the Arab’s head up.

‘You’re Dernowi, I presume. I’ve got a couple of questions for you. First, what’s your backdoor code for the Russian computer?’

Abbas opened his eyes slowly and looked at Richter, then very deliberately he spat in his face. At first Richter didn’t react at all, then he brought his left hand up, wiped the spittle
from his cheek, then moved the Glock down and fired a bullet through Abbas’ right thigh.

‘Let’s try that again, shall we?’ he said, raising his voice over the Arab’s screams. ‘What’s the backdoor code?’ Abbas shook his head, still
howling.

‘You’re going to die here,’ Richter said, ‘but it’s up to you how. Tell us what we want and it will be a single bullet, then oblivion. Carry on like this and
I’ll just keep shooting bits off you until you pass out. Fun for me, but definitely not for you. So, what’s your backdoor code?’

The Arab shook his head again. ‘I will never tell you,’ he murmured, his voice low and cultured, with a pronounced Home Counties English accent. Looking at him, Richter suddenly
realized that he wouldn’t, that he was looking at a committed martyr. ‘OK, then why choose “Dernowi”? Why a Yiddish name for an Arab, and why “The
Prophet”?’

Abbas almost smiled. ‘It was an old joke,’ he said. ‘That was all.’

‘And why all this? Why were you trying to detonate weapons the Russians had planted in America?’

Abbas was losing blood quickly from his multiple wounds, and Richter knew he had only minutes before the Arab lost consciousness for the last time. ‘To start a war, of course,’ Abbas
said, his voice barely audible. ‘The Russians were stupid. They knew nothing of our plan. They thought we just wanted to humiliate America, to threaten them with the bombs. We wanted America
destroyed, but for Russia to be blamed and destroyed in her turn. At a stroke, we would eliminate the world’s two superpowers, and allow the full blossoming of the Arab world. The Arab
nations would arise as the new world leaders and we would finally fulfil our destiny. That is why we conceived this plan, and that is why we paid for everything, why we bought the
Russians.’

Richter sat back, hardly believing what he had heard. ‘So you and your camel-shit-eating masters were going to sacrifice the populations of America and Russia, and probably most of Western
Europe, just so that a bunch of flea-ridden sand Arabs could rule the world?’

Abbas nodded. ‘And we will make a much better job of it than you have,’ he spat. ‘It is our destiny. We will bring the word of Mohammed to the godless masses, if not now then
later.’ And then he added something which chilled Richter even more than Baker’s news. ‘I am not the only one who knows the backdoor code,’ he said.

‘Who else?’ Richter demanded, but Abbas just smiled slightly and shook his head.

‘I will not tell you,’ he said. ‘You will find out, and he will finish what I began. Your time is at an end.’

Richter nodded, decision made. ‘And so is your time,’ he said, and raised the Glock.

‘You would not dare,’ Abbas said. ‘This is France, a civilized country. You cannot just execute me. I expect medical treatment. I want to talk to my Embassy in
France.’

‘Expect away,’ Richter said, and shot Abbas twice in the stomach. The Arab’s eyes widened with the sudden searing pain, and he began a keening, wailing sound as he toppled
sideways, clutching his belly.

‘One for Abilene, one for Albany,’ Richter said, stood up and turned away.

‘You want me to finish him?’ Dekker asked.

‘No,’ Richter shook his head firmly, picked up the Samsonite computer case and walked out of the ruined building. ‘Leave him there. Let him die slowly. It’ll give him
time to make his peace with Mohammed.’

Buraydah, Saudi Arabia

Sadoun Khamil looked at the television set with a broad smile on his face. The satellite receiver was tuned to CNN, and already the first still picture – shot from a
safe distance, probably several miles away – of the characteristic mushroom-shaped cloud over what was left of Abilene was more or less a fixture on the screen. The correspondents were
visibly appalled, and trying desperately to make any kind of sense of what they and the world were seeing.

American government buildings were already under siege from the news media, but there had been no announcements of any sort from any officials. Experts from various disciplines were being
dragged into studios, or just stood in front of camera crews, and asked for their comments and conclusions, but the quite unmistakable fact was that nobody in America had any idea of what had
happened or why. The best guess on the part of the CNN anchor was that it was just a terrible mistake – an American nuclear weapon had been accidentally detonated, with appalling loss of life
and wholesale destruction.

Khamil smiled again as he heard this. ‘There will be a few more such accidents,’ he prophesied, and laughed out loud.

10 Downing Street, London

Sir Michael Geraghty sat down heavily in the leather chair opposite the mahogany desk in the Prime Minister’s private office, and looked across at the grey-haired
man who’d been roused from sleep by his staff minutes earlier when the news from Texas broke. His hair was tousled, and he was still in pyjamas, a mauve dressing gown wrapped tightly around
him. Geraghty was uncomfortably aware that he didn’t look much better himself, though he was fully dressed.

‘This is appalling, simply appalling.’

‘I can only agree with you, Prime Minister. You know that we in SIS did everything we could, and I have already congratulated Simpson on the performance of his people. The presence of this
Arab –’ he almost spat the word ‘– with a backdoor code into the Russian computer was completely unexpected, and something nobody could possibly have foreseen.’

‘And what now?’ the Prime Minister asked. ‘After Abilene, what will the Americans do? The weapon was Russian in design, construction and placement. The fact that it was
triggered by an Arab is probably, in this context, irrelevant. At the very least we can expect them to demand substantial reparation from Russia, and at worst they might decide on a surgical
strike, to visit upon the Russian people the same sort of losses they have experienced.’

‘That, Prime Minister, is why I’m here,’ Geraghty said. ‘Simpson has informed me that the SAS and his man successfully stopped the Arab terrorist from detonating any
further weapons, although he was trying to do just that when they caught up with him. As far as we are aware, there is no further danger from any of the weapons that the Russians positioned on
American soil. It would be a tragedy if America struck at Russia now, and precipitated any kind of a nuclear exchange. May I recommend, in the strongest possible terms, that you discuss the matter
immediately with the American President and suggest that, for the moment, he does nothing precipitate.

‘It may help if you advise him that we have evidence which definitely links al-Qaeda with the Abilene bombing. It was not, in the final analysis, the Russians who pulled the trigger, and
any retaliation should probably not be directed towards them.’

Camp David, Maryland

‘I hear what you say,’ the President said, the secure telephone pressed close to his ear, ‘and your views are not too dissimilar from my own. Of course,
the hawks will want to strike back immediately, and I’ll no doubt face a lot of criticism if I take no military action, but we have to think of the long-term consequences. And, as you rightly
put it, the Russians didn’t actually pull the trigger.’

St Médard, near Manciet, Midi-Pyrénées, France

Three of the troopers had been sent down the lane back to the village, and had returned with the three Renault Espaces.

They swiftly moved the bodies of the two dead SAS troopers into one of the vehicles, then Richter and Ross supervised the removal of almost everything portable in the house, from the computer in
the back bedroom to the prayer mats in the lounge, taking anything and everything that could provide clues to the identity of the four dead Arabs. They stripped the bodies, collected their clothes,
personal possessions, weapons and ammunition, and all the spent cartridge cases they could find. Everything went into the cavernous boots of the Espaces.