Andrew Britton - The Operative

He took the dolly from the trunk and placed the crate on it. Then he yanked a canvas blanket from underneath and threw it over. The box said TRASK INDUSTRIES. That was not something they wanted a cop to notice. Not that any would be here, on the esplanade that led to the marina. The people who lived in adjoining Battery Park City-a complex that had been built on landfill pulled from the original construction of the World Trade Center-were already home, very few taking advantage of the beautiful day to jog or fish along the river.

Hunt had arrived there shortly before the two doctors. He had arrived in an FBI first responder counterterrorism launch, which was tied to an iron fence pole at the mouth of the marina. The New York field office kept one at the NYPD Harbor Unit marina at Governors Island, off the tip of Manhattan. Hunt had hitched a ride with the East River Patrol Division earlier that morning and had moved the launch to a berth at the South Street Seaport. It was just a short jog from the Brooklyn Bridge.

He was standing on the deck of a larger vessel, a sky-blue, twenty-eight-foot runabout with an extended triple cockpit. A canvas top with detachable aluminum poles covered the open area behind the seats. He was wearing a black FBI Windbreaker. He handed two more to the others.

“You’re late,” he said with annoyance.

“She was late,” Gillani replied. “You can’t program every minute with the time we had available.”

“Did she take care of the boy?”

“Her cousin? Yes,” the scientist replied.

There was no joy in her eyes, no satisfaction in her voice. It was a task that had to be done; that was all. Like this one.

Hunt hurried onto the concrete walkway and helped Samson with the crate.

“Just leave this,” Hunt said, knocking the dolly out from under it as he picked up one end of the crate. The men carried it onto the runabout, laying it in the open area behind the three forward seats. Hunt picked up a crowbar.

“The key’s in the ignition,” the AD told Samson. “Get us out of here.”

Samson slid behind the wheel, while Hunt pried open the crate. The pine lid came away easily, revealing a steel container inside. There was a keypad on top of it. Hunt had memorized the code Trask had given him, inputted it, and the lid popped open.

The codes for this container and the other had cost five million dollars each. That was what Trask had to pay the inside man at his company. For the same price he threw in turning off the GPS signal built into the container. It was a big price, but then only a handful of Trask’s eleven thousand employees had access to that kind of information. And he found one who had kids in college and a house near foreclosure.

The mercs who took out the Pakistanis in Quebec were a bargain compared to that, he thought. They were just a million each.

Hunt removed the launcher. The 15-pound tube was assembled, save for the placement of the nuclear RPG. That was in a separate box with a thumbprint code. Hunt put on a latex glove with the print from Brigadier General Gilbert. The AD had lifted it from a beer bottle Trask had collected during a post-think-tank cookout in Atlanta.

The smaller steel box snapped open. Hunt removed the silver projectile from its formfitting polyurethane bed. The device was 13 inches long, 7 inches of which contained the warhead and fit snuggly against the barrel of the launcher. The maximum range of the projectile was 3,000 feet, almost twice the reach of a normal rocket-propelled grenade. The added distance had been necessary, if the shooter was going to be evacuated before the radioactive cloud from the explosion reached him. In their case, they would be racing up the Hudson when he fired, already well past the target. The winds there blew primarily to the south. That was a key part of their planning.

The major cities within 50 miles-New York; Newark, New Jersey; Stamford, Connecticut; and Bridgeport, Connecticut-would not be so lucky. They were all in the radius of the prevailing winds and the radiation. Not just from the RPG blast, but from the target.

Hunt laid the assembled weapon beside the crate. He sat in the middle seat of the three, watched the thinning water traffic as the boat sped north, past Chelsea, past Midtown on the right, past the New Jersey Palisades on the left. The air felt good. He didn’t realize how much he had been perspiring until the cool wind chilled his chest, his arms, his face.

He looked at his watch. It was time to call the cell phone, put the first part of the operation into action. He drew his phone from his inside blazer pocket and handed it to Samson. All the months of planning were about to come together, seamlessly. And then the second part of the greater mission could begin.

The phone on the table beeped. Yasmin, sitting calmly beside it, answered.

“Yes?”

“It’s time,” Emile Samson told her.

“I know.” She hung up. Yasmin took a Glock from the top shelf of the closet, then picked up the rocket launcher. There were two grips on the underside; she grabbed the forward one and went to the door. There was something familiar in the air. A hint of fragrance she recognized. Where was she? Where had she been? Beside the door, arranged neatly in a vase, were chrysanthemum flowers. Why do I care? Why do I want them? Suddenly she was back in Damascus. There was a man; he was reaching out to her. She knew him and wanted to reach back. She extended her arm toward the flowers and caught a glimpse of her marble bracelet, of her world. It was in trouble. Turning to open the door, she glanced at her cousin’s body before leaving.

“You never win by betraying your own people,” she said and walked into the hallway.

She held the firearm in her right hand as she slung the rocket launcher to her left shoulder. If anyone tried to stop her, they would be shot. The safety of the palace was too important. There was no time to deal with anyone who might be loyal to Nabi Bakhsh.

There was a stairwell at the end of the hallway. She tucked the gun in her pants, threw the door open wide, and stepped through. She walked the single flight to the roof. The surface was covered with concrete tiles and afforded a 360-degree view of the city. To the south she could see the harbor, all the way out to the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Westward, planes were coming and going from Newark Liberty International Airport. She saw the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island, and the line of red lights on cars heading toward the entrance to the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel. To the east were the skyscrapers of finance, the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street and the AIG Building at 70 Pine Street. Classic structures from the previous century, bought and rebranded, but not repurposed. They were still, all these things, the emblems of a kingdom. The kingdom her cousin had wanted to usurp.

The kingdom she was to protect.

Helicopters moved up and down the river, behind her in the harbor, and well to the east, above the Brooklyn Bridge. This building was alone at the end of the island, bordered by a park, not a high-security concern. Yasmin made her way to the north side of the building. The former Downtown Athletic Club was the only structure there, looming high but slightly to the east of her position. She had a clear line of sight to her target.

She crouched on the tiles. She looked behind her, saw large slabs of concrete that had been removed by work crews repairing the ornate facade of the old building. She wondered if that might cause blowback, which would singe her back when the weapon discharged.

Possibly. Instead, she went over to one of the boulder-size fragments of concrete and laid the back of the rocket launcher on it. That would spare her and give her added support. She took out the Glock, laid it beside her within easy reach. She held the forward grip of the rocket launcher with her left hand, the center grip with her right. She rested the rear section of the tube on her right shoulder-there was a plastic cushion under the weapon for that purpose, two-thirds of the way back-and looked through the sight. Her aim was a little high: all she could see was the midsection of the 1,776-foot-tall One World Trade Center Tower, one of the five skyscrapers that were rising at the site of the complex where the slightly shorter Twin Towers once stood. She lowered the weapon. She still couldn’t quite see the target. She looked around.