Authors: Christopher Reich
Danni continued. In Peshawar, on the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan, three car bombs had exploded simultaneously near a military base. It was a story to which Jonathan had paid special attention. “How many dead?” she asked.
“Sixty confirmed. Three hundred injured. Both figures are expected to rise.”
“Who took responsibility?”
“A Taliban warlord.”
“Name?”
“Sultan Haq. He claimed the bombing was in retaliation for the murder of his father. I was there in the cave when he was killed. I saw him die.”
Danni looked up sharply. “You know Haq?”
“That’s where I was before I came here.”
“Haq was a prisoner in Guantánamo,” said Danni with hatred. “You released the wrong man.”
“Looks like it.”
Danni went back to her paper. “And who supplied the explosives?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” said Jonathan. “Do you?”
“No, but it doesn’t matter. If it wasn’t Balfour, it was someone like him. Another cockroach that needs to be crushed. Balfour’s your focus. Let’s not forget why you’re here.”
Jonathan noted that his heart was beating faster, and he felt as if he’d taken a step closer to his target.
“Ready?” said Danni. “Begin.”
Still looking into her eyes, Jonathan recited the list of objects on the table. It ran to twenty-one items. He forgot only the fountain pen, the business card with Arabic script, and a tangerine. He also transposed the last two digits of the telephone number written on the slip of paper.
“Not bad,” said Danni. “Take five minutes, then we’re going back to the street. Maybe you can finally pick out someone who’s following you. I’m not optimistic.”
Jonathan spotted the first tail almost immediately. He was young and rangy with a mop of curly black hair and tattered jeans, and he was trying too hard to appear captivated by each store’s varied offerings. A sportsman might look closely at a display of fishing rods and boating equipment, but the same man could hardly be expected to find anything of interest in the fashion boutique next door. As proud as Jonathan was of having spotted the tail, he was prouder still of how he’d managed it. Looking around for ways to see behind him, Jonathan had caught the tail’s reflection in the window of a taxi stalled in the midday traffic. No look over his shoulder, no stopping to tie his shoe and glance surreptitiously behind him. Just a casual flick of the eyes to the taxi’s window—as clear as a mirror—and Jonathan had him. When Jonathan walked briskly, so did Curly Black Hair. When Jonathan slowed, his shadow slowed, too.
Number one down.
The time was half past twelve, and on this sunny afternoon, the Haifa waterfront was a hive of activity. Sidewalk cafés, curio boutiques, and thriving markets attracted a cross-section of the Israeli populace. Young, old, natives, Palestinians. It was a mix of ancient and modern, a slice of contemporary Israel. Danni knew how to pick her spots.
Jonathan passed the old clock tower as it rang the half-hour. On the corner, a bent vendor sold soft drinks and shawarmas from his cart. Jonathan bought a Coke, making conversation with the old man. As he did, he turned slowly and gazed up and down the street. Danni
had instructed him to let his eyes do the walking, and Jonathan fought to keep his head still.
He picked out his second tail a block later. She was a thin middle-aged woman mirroring him on the opposite side of the street. She wore an orange smock and a straw sun hat, but they were camouflage. Five minutes earlier she’d been wearing a blue sweater and had her hair in a braid. It was her shoes that gave her away: clunky brown Mephisto hiking shoes that he’d picked up two blocks back.
He was learning.
Number two down.
He heard rather than saw the car approaching at speed to his rear. The engine revved high enough to hurt his ears, the noise growing louder each second. Still, he refused to yield to his curiosity. It was only when the black BMW nearly brushed against him that he jumped to one side and gave it his full attention.
The sedan pulled to the curb and the front door flew open. Danni jumped out and motioned for him to approach. Jonathan broke into a jog. “What is it?” he asked. “Did I do something wrong? It was the guy with curly hair and ripped-up jeans and the straggly lady in the straw hat.”
“That doesn’t matter,” said Danni. “Get in.”
Jonathan was slow on the uptake. “But I got ’em,” he said proudly. “I actually figured out who was following me.”
“Congratulations,” said Danni, without joy. “Get in the back. We’re late.”
Jonathan climbed into the rear seat and Danni slid in next to him. “Late for what?” he asked. “What’s going on? Did something happen?”
The car accelerated into traffic and Danni slapped a passport into his hand. “Change of plan. Things are moving faster than expected. We’re leaving the country.”
“When? I mean, where to?”
“The plane leaves in two hours,” said Danni, throwing up a tanned forearm and checking her watch. “Don’t worry. You’ll like where we’re going. It’s cold and there are mountains.”
Emma pulled the hood of
her anorak further over her head and cursed the weather. The front she’d observed approaching from the east when taking off from Chitral had moved in more quickly than she’d expected. The temperature had plummeted twenty degrees, and for the last hour snow had been falling.
Burying her ice ax into the slope, she watched the members of her team lumber past. “Oxygen working okay?” she asked, patting one of the nuclear physicists on the back.
The engineer grunted but did not slow.
“Not much farther,” she said. “Just up this slope.”
It was a pardonable lie. Ninety percent of climbing was mental. It was easier to break down the route into short, accomplishable segments. She stood in place, allowing the others to pass: the guide; the porters with their forty-kilo loads carrying tents and rations, and of course the toolboxes of sophisticated equipment that would be required to open up the missile and dismantle the payload; and finally the second physicist. She looked at him more closely. His face was knotted in pain, his stride wobbly. He was a thin man, and earlier she’d judged him fit by the sparkle in his eye and his serious manner. Now she saw that she was wrong. He was in bad shape.
They had been marching for six hours, with a respite every sixty minutes. From base camp at 4,500 meters, the trail had assumed a gentle grade across a firm snowfield. The first test came at the three-kilometer marker, where the snowfield abutted a massive icefall. Emma stopped the team to rope up and attach crampons and to say that if she saw anyone treading on the rope, she’d personally throw
him off the nearest ledge. After that, all conversation died and the climb began in earnest.
The icefall resembled a gargantuan, fractured marble staircase and rose 250 meters over a couple of kilometers. The abject fear that comes when jumping over a crevasse or hearing the loud, godlike groaning of ice shifting below your feet sharpened everyone’s concentration. Thankfully, all managed to make it up without incident. From there the route led across the flank of the mountain, as if following the hem of a skirt, the snow once again firm beneath their crampons.
At noon they stopped for a lunch of lamb jerky, rice, and beans. Emma had forgotten the tedium of cooking at altitude. It took water thirty minutes to boil. Minute rice also needed half an hour. It was then that the complaints had started. The stocky engineer had blisters. She lanced them and put on antifriction salve and moleskin. The other engineer complained of a persistent leg cramp, which Emma massaged away by pressing her thumbs so deep into his calf muscles that she brought tears to the man’s eyes.
The engineers weren’t the only ones with issues. The guide began to make noises about stopping unless he was paid the remainder of his fee. Emma had a solution for that kind of problem, too. Leading him out of earshot, she grabbed him by the unmentionables and squeezed very hard.
“You’ll take us to the missile directly,” she said, ignoring his gasps and bulging eyes. “You will not tarry. You will not pretend to be lost. Because if you don’t, not only will I see to it that Balfour doesn’t pay you”—and here she released her grip, drew her pistol, and pressed it against his forehead in a single quicksilver motion—“I will personally put a bullet into your greedy little skull.”
She replaced the pistol in her holster and patted his cheek with a little mustard. “Balfour didn’t put me in charge of this expedition because he likes my tits and ass. Are we clear?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Emma freed her ice ax and motioned toward the line of climbers.
“Even the porters are getting tired,” she said. “I can keep everyone going for another two hours, three maximum.”
“We are close,” said the guide, one hand placed protectively in front of his family jewels. “Over this crest there is a small valley. The object is at the far side.”
“Can we reach it before dark?”
“If we hurry.”
“What about shelter?”
“There are caves nearby.”
Emma grabbed a fistful of his parka. “And you do know precisely where we are going, yes?”
The guide nodded vigorously.
“Off with you, then,” said Emma, releasing him.
She stared at the darkening sky and the snow, heavier now, and wetter. Three hours was an eternity when you were fatigued. The whole expedition was much too ambitious. Two days was hardly enough time to plan a day hike, let alone an eight-man trek at altitude. Then again, she hadn’t had a choice. Balfour had insisted on moving the weapon immediately and she was eager to share in his urgency. Connor’s betrayal was still foremost in her mind. Recovering the warhead was the only means to ensure her survival beyond the next few days.
She stood a moment longer, observing the team’s slow ascent. At lunch she had laced their tea with a mild amphetamine, but soon the extra zip would wear off. She checked her watch, then set off.
Three hours.
Nearly impossible.
The skinny engineer petered out first. Emma allowed him an extra ten minutes’ rest. She removed his boots and massaged his feet. She brewed more of her special tea and forced him to drink a cup. None of it made a whit of difference. He was done. His eyes had the forlorn, faraway look she knew too well. She gazed at the high mountain valley, a
vast bowl of white, unadorned by rock or tree. The flanks of Tirich Mir rose defiantly from the distant side, disappearing into the cloud.
Emma looked back at the engineer and the others, waiting patiently, the porters not bothering to remove their packs. They had just reached the crest, and anything resembling a route had disappeared beneath the new-fallen snow, leaving them all to make their own paths. Wind slapped at their faces. Emma tightened her jaw. The storm was worsening.
The guide lifted an arm and pointed at an outcropping of rock shaped like a horn in the distance. “Five kilometers,” he said.
Emma handed her pack to the strongest porter, then told the ailing engineer to stand up. Kneeling, she ordered him to climb onto her back. She stood, adjusting her arms beneath his spindly legs. She guessed he weighed about sixty-four kilos. The team looked at her oddly.
“Last one there’s a rotten egg,” she said. Then, to the guide, “Go!”
It was 4:50 and night was descending when they reached the horn-shaped rock. She put down the engineer and collapsed onto her back. She allowed herself two minutes to rest, then stood. Her vision faltered, and she realized that she was perilously close to exhaustion. In response, she ordered herself to move faster and checked on each of the team members, telling them to hydrate, helping find energy bars in poorly packed rucksacks, offering words of encouragement. When she saw that everyone had a snack, she dug out some trail mix for herself and drank a liter of water.
After ordering the porters to make a fire in a cave, she gathered the engineers and the guide together. “It will be dark soon,” she said. “But I want our friends here from Dr. Khan’s workshop to have a look at the prize before the light goes.”
“One hundred meters,” said the guide. “I will show you.”
———
It was larger than she’d imagined. She’d downloaded the specs from the Net, but she hadn’t expected it to be so imposing, so martial. Its full name was a Boeing AGM-86 Conventional Air-Launched Cruise Missile. It measured twenty-one feet in length and four feet in diameter and weighed 3,250 pounds.
The guide brushed away a layer of snow and removed the tarpaulin he and his brother had brought to protect it. The missile was a shark’s gray and had an angular snout that resembled that of a commercial jetliner. The long, thin wings that aided it in flight had not deployed and were tucked beneath its body. A circular air intake valve sat at the base of its tail fin. The words “U.S. Air Force” were painted on its skin, as were the serial number and other operating information. But all eyes were glued to the yellow-and-black radiation symbol stenciled at three places along its long body, and the words “Danger: Radioactive material contained inside. Failure to follow instructions may result in physical injury or death.”
There was an understatement, thought Emma.
The heavier engineer produced a Geiger counter from his pack and held it to the center of the missile, where the payload section was located. The needle danced wildly before coming to rest in the red.
“Uranium-235,” he said, studying the isotope chromatograph. “Hasn’t degraded a bit.”
“What about the tritium?” asked his colleague, referring to the concentrated gas necessary to produce the chain reaction.
“Ninety percent.”
“My God.”
“What is it?” asked Emma.
“The bomb is still live. It can be detonated at any moment.”
Swiss International Airways Flight 275
, originating in Jerusalem, landed at Geneva’s Cointrin Airport on schedule at 1645 local time. The weather was gray and leaden, with ground temperature measuring thirty-three degrees Fahrenheit, or one degree Celsius, and humidity at 80 percent. Jonathan walked the long corridor to baggage claim alone, feeling more anxious than he would have liked or would ever admit. Danni was somewhere ahead. She’d traveled business class while he sat in the last row of economy. The separation was intentional. Training was over. The operation had begun. Nothing made it clearer than the American passport he carried in his left hand, issued in the name of John Robertson of Austin, Texas. Jonathan had been granted his first alias. It was official. He was a spy.