Andrew Britton - The Operative

The turret…

The image returned to her. She was supposed to climb the highest wall of the palace. There was a water tower on the southern side of the building. It rose about 30 or 40 feet above the point where she was now. There was a ladder on the side.

Rising, she kept the rocket launcher on her shoulder as she strode to the steps that led to the base of the water tower. She lowered the weapon to her side when she began to climb the ladder. Reaching the top, she climbed onto the narrow area between the peaked top and the low rail that surrounded it. The view was commanding-and perfect. She raised the weapon and found her target on the western side of the site.

There was nothing there, which was exactly what she expected. Her job was to expand the moat so it would encircle the palace. To do that, she needed to put a hole in the foundation of the pit, the concrete bathtub in which the Twin Towers once stood. The slurry walls kept the Hudson River-and that harbor that nourished it, and the Atlantic Ocean beyond that-from filling the dry underground passages through which the trains moved. Trains that could carry enemy troops, who would soon learn of the death of their prince.

Yasmin’s slender finger slipped between the trigger and the trigger guard. There was no timetable for her action; she had been told to fire when she was ready.

She exhaled slowly, just as she had done on the scaffolding by the train station, just as she had done on top of the UPS truck.

She was ready.

Beside the trigger was a button. When she pressed it and held it down, the projectile and the launcher would be one. Ready to be fired, ready to defend the realm.

She pressed it.

Breathless and struggling on feet that had turned to deadweight, Reed Bishop arrived at One West Street.

Cars were backed up to Broadway, trying to get onto West Street, but the sidewalks were eerily empty, there was no one there except a man walking his dog. Four police officers were literally feeding cars into the tunnel entrance one at a time.

Bishop needed the brass handrail to help him get up the stairs. He went through the revolving door and showed his ID to the concierge.

“ I work with an FBI guy. Hunt. You know him?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Where does he work when he’s here?”

“Penthouse.”

“I need to get there, fast.”

“None of the tenants are there,” the young man told him. “I saw Drs. Gillani and Samson leave-”

“I need to get up there now, ” Bishop said.

The concierge hesitated, but only for a moment. He picked up a walkie-talkie. Bishop slipped his gun from his pocket and placed it on the countertop.

“You call for help, I shoot you.”

The concierge said into the walkie-talkie, “Michel? I need you to take someone up to the penthouse.” He regarded Bishop. “Michel Bunuel. The handyman. May be packing a putty knife.”

Bishop huffed. “Sorry. It’s been that kind of day.”

“Go to the freight elevator, straight ahead. Middle door. Michel will take you up. You, uh… you got a search warrant?”

Bishop picked up the gun.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought,” the concierge said. “Michel will let you in if you need it. Just be… I dunno. Careful with stuff?”

“Thanks,” Bishop replied. “Anybody else been up there?”

“Just a lady,” the concierge said. “Got here about a half hour, forty-five minutes ago. Up there now.”

Bishop felt acid in the back of his throat. “Dark skinned? About five foot, slender?”

“That’s the gal.”

Bishop started running through the lobby. “Get me that goddamn elevator ASAP,” he shouted back. “Now!”

NEW YORK, NEW YORK

The ten-million-dollar NYPD 23 was a sleek silver chopper with parallel red and blue stripes running along its tail section and turning down halfway across the cabin. Inside was a crew of three: a pilot, a copilot, and an intelligence officer, who watched one of the three flat-screen monitors mounted on a slender tabletop. With sophisticated cameras mounted around the helicopter, the chopper could read faces and license plates on the ground below; it could also watch every exterior section of John F. Kennedy and LaGuardia airports. If the TSA flagged an exiting passenger, or ground crews reported suspicious activity around any of the fuel lines or tanker trunks, the helicopter could watch them without leaving Manhattan airspace. And still had two cameras turned elsewhere.

The helicopter carried only one weapon: an XM29 Objective Individual Combat Weapon with a laser range finder. The operator of the thick, relatively compact weapon had the ability to place a 20mm shell at a target up to. 6 miles away. It was an extremely powerful weapon that could take down an aircraft, directed only by the police commissioner or the assistant police chief in charge of the aviation division.

There was not enough room in the equipment-packed helicopter for four passengers; as the helicopter set down, the copilot exited and Kealey took his place. The intelligence officer had rudimentary flying skills and would be able to land the bird if necessary.

“Mike Perlman,” the crew chief said, offering his hand as Kealey came aboard.

“Ron Sagal,” the pilot said.

Kealey introduced himself as the exiting copilot shut the door. The chopper rose instantly. In any helicopter, there was a sensation of the bottom dropping out when you rose; the amount of hardware in this one, the weight of the reinforced airframe, made the sense of the bottom about to drop out even stronger. And it was more cramped than any aircraft Kealey had ever flown in. Surrounded by hardware and tubes filled with cables, it was literally impossible to turn to either side in some sections of the helicopter.

Kealey slipped on the headphones offered by Sagal. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Where are we going?” Sagal asked.

Kealey adjusted the microphone. “We’re checking the Hudson for a launch that will be headed somewhere in a hurry,” he said.

“Is that all you got for us?” Perlman asked.

“No,” Kealey added. “We think it’s carrying a nuke that can be fired from a rocket launcher. I’ve got that.”

The men were instantly focused as the chopper rose.

“Any way we can patch my cell into these?” Kealey tapped the headphones.

The crew chief nodded. He plugged a jack into the phone, pasted a Velcro strip to the back, pressed it on a patch on the console beside him. “When it rings, I’ll hit TALK. You want me to cut Ron and me out?”

“No,” Kealey told him. “I’m hoping it’s the FBI. One of their guys is chasing a second nuke.”

“Mother of God,” the pilot said.

“The good news is, both weapons have GPS locators,” Kealey went on. “The bad news is, they’ll only be active thirty seconds before the weapon can be fired. How do you scan for signals like that?”

“The signals come from the satellites to the cars, cell phones, etcetera, on the ground,” Sagal told him. “Those are just passive receivers.”

“Okay, so we’re looking for an incoming signal. The weapon won’t activate without it-”

“The weapon will have to be in the open,” Perlman said. “Signals can be intermittent in those canyons.” He pointed to the city, which was falling beneath them.

“River or top of a building, then,” Kealey said. “How do we find two goddamn signals?”

“Are the weapons identical?” Perlman asked.

“Twins.”

“So we’re looking for one signal in two places,” Perlman said. “Anything data the manufacturer can provide?”

“Negative,” Kealey said. He didn’t bother explaining that people at Trask were probably involved.