Tom Lowe - The Black Bullet

“Not since the ‘90s when we hired him as a consultant for the Remote Viewing.”

“Do you have his number?”

“Probably in my files. Toffler is the kind of guy that’s lived in the same house for thirty-five years. Drives the same car until the engine dies. Frugal and very smart.”

“Call him.”

Dave sipped his coffee. “Okay. But what am I going to ask him? ‘Hey, Lee, are you sure you buried your daughter. Hell of a conversation opener.”

“No, you won’t have to ask him that because by now he probably knows his daughter is alive and being held hostage.”

“What?” Dave asked.

“When you had mentioned Toffler to Nick and I and then said his daughter had just died, it was about the same time Sharif thought he’d have his hands on the HEU. Kidnap the renowned physicist’s daughter and you raise red flags. Fake her death, nobody remembers in a few weeks. Sharif probably called her father a day after the funeral, put the terrified daughter on the phone a second and then started making demands. Toffler keeps his mouth shut and does what the terrorists want.”

“In this case,” Hunter said, “you get him to take the HEU and make it go boom.”

“Jesus,” Nick said, taking a sip of black coffee.

“Nick,” said Dave, “hand me the Rolodex on the desk, next to the laptop.”

O’Brien said, “After you touch base, ask him who’s holding his daughter.”

Dave nodded. “I’ll put him on speaker. Jump in, Sean, wherever you want.”

In two rings, a fatigued voice answered, “Yes?”

“Lee, this is Dave Collins, CIA.”

“Oh … Dave. I can’t talk right now … ”

“Have your daughter’s kidnappers approached you?”

Silence. Then, “How’d you know she was kidnapped?”

“We didn’t for certain, Mr. Toffler,” O’Brien said.

“Who are you?”

“My name’s Sean O’Brien. Old friends with Dave. I’m helping the FBI and CIA find the people who took your daughter. Do you know where they are holding her?”

“I can’t risk my daughter’s life. They said they’d cut her head off if police-”

“We’re not police. We’re the people who can get your daughter back alive. But we can only do it with your cooperation.”

“I’m sorry.” The phone disconnected.

Lee Toffler drove slowly through the northwest Savannah neighborhood of 1960’s ranch-style homes. Toffler, with his wide forehead, graying hair and thick wrists, looked more like a retired football coach than a nuclear physicist. He stopped in front of 2973 Sycamore Drive, backed up, and pulled his twenty-year-old Land Rover into the drive next to a dark blue van. He knocked on the door and waited. A man with dark features answered. In perfect English he said, “Professor Toffler, we’ve been waiting for you.”

“Where’s my daughter?”

“She is downstairs. I believe you call it a basement. She is there with the rest of the things you said you needed. The spark gaps, oscillator scopes, casing, all the wiring, everything on your shopping list.”

The man opened the door, and Lee Toffler entered the home.

Across the street, Myrtle Birdsong peeked out of an opening in her drapes. She sipped a diet coke and watched the man enter the rented house. He’d parked his green car next to the blue van. Who were they? Burglars? Maybe terrorists like what they’ve been saying all morning on the TV news. Call the police . The phone rang. It was Alice, the sister with all the issues. She was going through a divorce, and Myrtle was the only one who really understood.

“Daddy!” Lisa Toffler sobbed when she saw her father come down the stairs. She was in a chair, hands bound behind her back. Jason Canfield, tied to a second chair, sat a few feet away from her.

Toffler ran to his daughter and wrapped his arms around her. Tears streamed down her face.

Sharif walked into the large room. “Enough!” he shouted. “There is important work to be done.” He gestured to a long wooden table, the U-235 canisters laid side-by-side, the wires, detonators and other materials stacked on one side.

Toffler stood, his eyes moving across the table. Sharif said, “It is all here, the items you said we must procure. It is very convenient being close to the largest nuclear plant in America. I was surprised at what money can buy.”

“Let me see the HEU,” Toffler said.

“Absolutely.”

Toffler carefully examined one canister. He said, “I’ll need to wear the protective gear. Everyone must leave this room.”

“How long will this task take you?” Sharif asked.

“If all is here, not too long.”

“Good, very good.”

“Then you said you will release my daughter.”

“I am a man of my word.”

“Who’s he?” asked Toffler, looking at Jason.

“This is Mr. Jason Canfield. He is going to make a video with us, a most exciting video for the world to watch on the Internet.”

O’Brien looked out the side window of the Blackhawk helicopter and saw at least two-dozen SWAT members and police officers waiting on the ground. He rode in the backseat with Hunter, the co-pilot and pilot were hovering the chopper about five-hundred feet over the Statesboro, Georgia, airport before setting down.

Hunter said, “We’ve got Toffler’s address, not that he’ll be there. He drives a 1990 olive green Land Rover. Wife passed away six years ago. Never remarried. He raised his only daughter through her teenage years. So somewhere out there Lee Toffler and his daughter are in a room with the most ruthless men on the planet.”

“The airport where we’re landing … is it the only one between here and Savannah?” O’Brien asked.

The pilot said, “Couple of small airstrips, mostly for crop dusters and a few people who hanger small planes in what is essentially farmland.”

O’Brien scanned the countryside. “Eric, see if your people can find out if anyone has rented a plane, probably a twin engine, in the last twenty-four hours. Also, check to see if someone has reserved one.”

“What if Sharif isn’t going to drop the bomb from a plane? What if the fucker, and his camel-breath followers, just strap the bomb in the front seat and drive a truck into the Jefferson Memorial?”

“It’s a hell of a lot easier to hit almost any target in America by air. From here D.C. is only two hours in a twin engine. They may not have Washington as a target. What’s the most densely populated, probably one of the least protected big cities in the nation, a city that’s a half hour away by air?”

“Atlanta.”

“Bingo. Whoever you call to put the F-16s on alert from Atlanta’s Hartsfield Airport, better start calling them right now.”

Mohammed Sharif stood Jason up against a wall in the living room of the house. One of his men pointed a light in Jason’s face and clipped a microphone to his blood-stained shirt. They placed the video camera on a flimsy tripod and nodded.

Sharif said, “Jason Canfield, before we turn the camera on, let me make one thing very clear to you. We do not have time to edit this. You get it right the first time.”

“People will know you forced me to say it.”

“Abdul, produce the knife for Mr. Canfield-the knife he has was used to remove six heads.” Abdul reached behind his back and retrieved a hunting knife with a serrated blade. “That,” said Sharif, “will be the knife we use to remove your head, and we will do it on video if you do not cooperate. The blade is sharp, but small. The victim can feel the steel and the four to five cuts it takes to sever the spinal cord. It is a slow death.” Sharif grinned, his eyes dancing. “Abdul told me after he removed the head of an infidel, he held it in his out-stretched arm, and the eyes of the severed head blinked for a few seconds. What do you imagine, Canfield, the dying brain was thinking?”