THE WAVE: A John Decker Thriller (36 page)

A figure covered with a sheet was being lifted up into the ambulance. A siren wailed like a lovesick trumpet and he remembered the Qur’anic quote which Jusef had just told him:
When that day comes We shall let some of them surge against the others like waves of the ocean, and the trumpet will be blown.
He shuddered and kept driving.

Wednesday, February 2 – 12:15 PM

New York City

The Gambian, Momodou Marong, stood on the dock, pointing at the freighter at his side, trying to look authoritative and calm. He was wearing a pair of jeans and his orange goose-down jacket. New York Harbor stretched behind him.

“That’s it,” said WKXY-TV reporter Seamus Gallagher. “Now, turn this way. No, don’t smile, God dammit, Momodou. I want you to look serious. Worried. Fearful, even. Yeah, that’s better.”

Gallagher turned and looked back at his cameraman. “OK?” he said.

The cameraman, a slouching bear of a man with a great brown beard, gave him a thumbs-up and kept filming.

Gallagher was dressed in a black-and-white Armani herringbone, an off-white Hugo Boss dress shirt, and a golden Hermes tie. He had agonized over the outfit for twenty minutes. He took a deep breath and looked into the camera. “I’m standing beside Momodou Marong, a Gambian able-bodied seaman from the freighter,
Rêve de Chantal
, currently docked at the Brooklyn shipyards. Approximately an hour ago, Mr. Marong assisted federal agents in their search of a container unloaded from the Liberian-registered freighter earlier this morning. Tell us, in your own words, Mr. Marong, exactly what you saw.”

The Gambian cleared his throat. His eyes bulged in his head and he said, “The police and FBI came to the warehouse.” He pointed vaguely over his shoulder. “They looked inside the container that I showed them, the one we’d unloaded this morning. But the crate was gone. Then these astronauts came in.”

“You mean federal agents dressed in protective clothing.”

“Yes. They told me they were looking for drugs.” Momodou laughed. “I may be a Gambian. I am proud of that. I may not be well-educated, but I am not a fool. The men in the white suits,” he said. “They were carrying Geiger counters. I have seen them before, in the mines of Gambia. They were looking for something radioactive. I heard the boxes in their hands. They were clicking. And then one said, ‘It’s hot.’” He paused and looked into the camera. He smiled.

Gallagher turned and looked back at the camera. “And what,” he continued, “do you think that they were searching for? If it wasn’t drugs.”

The Gambian’s head bobbed side to side. And then he said, “A bomb.”

The camera focused in on Gallagher. He waited a few more seconds. Then he added, “A radioactive bomb.” He shook his head. “This reporter has tried to obtain confirmation from the FBI but they refuse to comment. One policeman involved in the raid insisted that this was just a routine drug bust. But, if that’s the case, where was the DEA? Why was the New York City Police Department’s Bomb Squad here? And why technicians from the Office of Nuclear Security and Incident Response? What kinds of drugs are radioactive?

“It is well-documented that Homeland Security inspects less than five percent of all the cargo containers shipped into this country. And those are simply X-rayed, scanned to identify ‘suspicious-looking’ cargo. Only a fraction of that five percent is manually inspected.” He shook his head once more.

“A few days ago, I reported that a Weapon of Mass Destruction might be on its way to New York City, presumably transported here at the behest of Islamist terrorist El Aqrab. Now, an anonymous source in Washington has just confirmed my gravest fears: The FBI believes a thermonuclear device has indeed been shipped to New York City, unloaded here, right here,” he pointed at the dock, “in Brooklyn.”

The camera pulled back, taking in the cityscape across the Hudson River.

“In the shadow of the shadows of the former World Trade Towers.”

Momodou Marong climbed up the gangway. He felt deflated. The adrenaline of being on TV had come and gone. Now he was spent. Exhausted. When he reached the main deck of the freighter, he stopped and watched the TV crew climb back into the WKXY-TV van crowned with a white extendable transmitter. In truth, the Gambian had thought the Algerian was really smuggling opium or heroin, and he had hungered for a piece. Indeed, he had resolved to blackmail the Algerian. But there was something about Hammel that had frightened Momodou, and he had let it go. At least until the FBI came calling. Then he had been only too eager to show them where the container with the jukebox was – empty, of course. But to the press, to that pygmy-like reporter Seamus Gallagher, whom he had called at the request of Captain Bréton, Momodou had known that there was something wrong with the Algerian from the very start.

The Gambian walked along the port side of the freighter. He gazed astern, across the river at the cloud-capped towers of the city. In two or three hours, the
Rêve de Chantal
would put to sea again. In a day or so, he’d be scraping and painting in the glaring Caribbean sun, on his way to Caracas in Venezuela. He scratched at the cut on his neck. He smiled and closed his eyes. He couldn’t wait. He had a lot of friends in Venezuela. They didn’t call it the “love run” for nothing.

* * *

Gallagher finished editing the story back at WKXY-TV. “
Big Apple Atom Bomb!”
he called it. Following a quick review by Legal under producer Ira Minsky’s care, the story was aired immediately, interrupting the regularly scheduled soap. It had the wrapper of a public service announcement. As soon as it had aired, Gallagher buttonholed Minsky in the hallway.

“But you just broke the story. This is the opportunity of a lifetime, Seamus. It’s got Emmy written all over it. You can’t leave now.”

“I’m leaving, Ira.”

“Now wait a minute,” Minsky said, puffing on his inhaler. “There may or may not be a nuclear bomb hidden somewhere in Manhattan. I need you to stay on top of things until it’s found. If it exists. It’s
your
story. You can’t leave now. It would be totally irresponsible.” He began to pant.

“I’m sorry, Ira. But I’ve made up my mind. What if I’m arrested?”

“We’re protected by the First Amendment, Seamus. You heard Liebowitz in Legal. You’re protected. This isn’t someone yelling ‘fire’ in a cinema when there isn’t one. We have real evidence that a device loaded with nuclear material was brought in here by ship.”

The reporter refused to listen. He shook his head and looked away and Minsky realized that Gallagher was genuinely terrified – in all probability, of being right. Already, dozens of employees had fled the station. Soon the entire city would know. He begged Gallagher to stay, offering money, a promotion, anything, but the reporter wouldn’t budge.

“Look, Ira. I need a break,” Gallagher said. “I’ve been working like a fucking coolie on this thing. I’m going to Bermuda for a little golf and R and R. Two or three days.” He shook his head. “I’ve had enough.” Then he turned and simply walked away.

Wednesday, February 2 – 11:06 PM

A pall hung over the city, muffled by snow. The wind carried no noise. Only the odd piece of garbage or newspaper billowed down the street. It was not even midnight and yet the city was practically deserted. Whoever could leave – by car, or bus, by train or plane, or on foot – had already done so. Only the occasional siren split the night, the frantic movement of emergency vehicles. Only the homeless lingered. And then an ambulance from the Cabrini Medical Center tore up the Avenue of the Americas.

Within the darkened interior, Ali Hammel leaned on the steering wheel and counted off the streets. They were almost at Twenty-ninth. Time to get ready. He barked a command in Arabic. Salim Moussa, Mohammed Qashir, bin Basra and Ali Singh began to assemble their gear.

The loading dock was on the south side of Thirty-fourth Street, near Fifth Avenue. As soon as the ambulance pulled over, Singh jumped out and spray-painted the security camera on the right side of the loading dock. He was dressed in a jet-black jogging suit and ski mask. He moved more like a shadow than a man, even through streetlights, almost unseen. He knelt down and pulled a bolt cutter from his bag. There was a loud
snap
as the heavy lock on the loading dock door fell apart. He inserted a key in the wall, turned it, and the large gray metal shutter started to rise.

Singh slithered through the darkness to another camera winking on the wall. He spray-painted the lens and ran back to the ambulance. He knocked on the rear door. It burst open, revealing Salim Moussa, bin Basra and Mohammed Qashir. They were all wearing ski masks on their heads like watch caps. They looked around the street, the loading dock, pulled the ski masks down across their faces, and followed Singh into the ill-lit loading bay. Ali Hammel remained sitting in the driver’s seat, nursing his knee.

The men began to unload the jukebox from the ambulance. It was visible but fixed inside a reinforced wooden frame, lying on a gurney. With care they rolled it out across the rear lip of the ambulance and down onto the loading dock. They pushed it as gently as a pram across the bay.

Bin Basra was waiting at the elevator. He slipped a master key into the control box and unlocked the elevator door. He had already disabled the camera inside and reattached it to a digital video player the size of a large matchbox. Now, all that the security guards upstairs would see would be an endless loop of inactivity. They nudged the jukebox through the elevator door. They checked and re-checked their 9 mm Uzi fully automatic machine pistols. Each weapon shot thirty rounds in seconds. They checked their MIL-C-45010A high velocity plastic explosive, wrapped up in blocks, covered with honey-colored wax paper. It still looked somewhat powdery, but with a little kneading would plasticise and mould itself to any shape. And at only $20 a kilo, it had been the cheapest of their assets to procure. They checked their extra clips, their knives, their masks again, and closed the elevator door.

The elevator rose, ascending slowly through the narrow shaft. It seemed to take forever. The men stood absolutely still. There was no room for words inside the cab. The air would not accommodate them. The jukebox – with its dozens of CDs, hundreds of songs and thousands of notes and lyrics – sat strangely silent on the gurney. The elevator rose and rose, marking the numbers off. They winked. It was unbearably cold. They flashed. The reverse countdown decomposed. The elevator slowed. It hesitated, then stopped at the eightieth floor. The door retracted with a groan. The corridor was black.

Mohammed Qashir and Ali Singh began to push the gurney from the elevator. The first two wheels slipped with a crisp
click
over the crack, and then they heard a hissing sound and something fell onto the floor, right at their feet.

It started to shake and give off smoke. A canister. It hissed and slithered like a startled snake. Ali Singh lifted his weapon and sprayed the corridor with gunfire.

He was hit directly in the forehead. He fell but his Uzi kept on firing. Bullets lanced the walls and ceiling. Plastic shattered. Metal shrieked. Bin Basra stumbled to the floor. Mohammed Qashir coughed and sputtered as smoke began to fill the elevator. A bullet pierced his throat, and he went down. Salim Moussa tried to hide behind the jukebox. He screamed and raised his weapon and another soundless shot abandoned a small hole in his left hand, a drop of blood, and then the eyeholes of his mask seemed to explode, to pop as a bullet pierced his face, right through one temple and out the other, and he unrolled across the floor. His body shook. The elevator door began to close, then bounced against his leg. It opened and closed. It opened and closed.

Light beams transfixed the darkness. Men with night vision goggles, gas masks, body armor and small-caliber handguns appeared like cyborgs out of the dark. They approached the elevator cautiously, their weapons trained upon the lifeless occupants within. Blood started pooling, massing up, until it drained into the crack between the elevator and the floor, within the doorframe, and dribbled down the elevator shaft.

SAC Johnson appeared in a nimbus of white light. He was holding a gas mask over his face. He looked down at the bodies. Then he turned and motioned, seemingly toward nothing, at the shadows. The counter-terrorist squad checked the bodies for signs of life and pushed them roughly to the side. Then, with agonizing care, they rolled the gurney out into the hall. A figure appeared out of the shadows, wearing a reinforced body suit, breastplate and mask. The soldiers carefully removed the frame from around the jukebox. The man in the body suit knelt down, and pushed a clip, and opened the front side panel of the jukebox containing a clear plastic cylinder. The cylinder slipped out. He turned on a tiny flashlight and looked inside. Something silver twinkled back. He reached into the opening and removed an aluminum attaché case. He set it gently on the ground, studying the latches carefully. In one smooth movement, he released them and lifted the lid.

The device lay still within. It was lifeless, dead. Turned off. Or, not yet on. The man in the mask moved his gloved hand across the bulging ball of steel, and pressed a button in the console. The fuel case popped up with a click. Everyone in the corridor seemed to take a breath at once. He eased the chamber open carefully. Slowly. A small wrist Geiger counter chattered like frigid teeth. The soldiers and agents unconsciously stepped back. Some moved intentionally away.