Tom Avitabile - The Hammer of God

“Ross will stay here and bird-dog Rodney.”

“Rodney?”

“Ali Rashid, also known as Rodney Albert, the guy who ran from the subway checkpoint. He’s a loose cannon but he made his money as a freelancer in the L.A. indie movie biz, as an assistant cameraman.”

“Movies again.”

“Yeah. They’ll be the death of Western culture.”

“Let’s go!” Hiccock said.

“Here. Know how?” Ross handed Bill a Sig Sauer.357. Bill popped the clip, checked the load, pulled back the slide, checked the chamber, released the slide gently, reseated the clip, and stuck the gun in his waistband.

“We’ll take our car,” Bridgestone said.

Bill tossed the keys of the car he drove to Ross. “It’s my dad’s.”

“I’ll be careful.”

On the way, Bridgestone filled Bill in on the details. Hiccock started processing what he was learning from the pointy end of the stick that he pointed at the problem. His training as a scientist kicked in as he listened to data that seemed to contradict the commonly held belief that the suitcase nuke threat was over. Bill instinctively knew that the trail that brought B amp;R to this point could have been correctly on the scent of another nuke device. A wholly different one not connected to the one that blew up in the Persian Gulf.

The scientist caught himself in mid-thought. It didn’t blow up. There was no detonation, just radioactive debris. Enough rads to be read as a spike by the satellites. But not a detonation.

He pulled out his cell phone and said, “It didn’t blow up!”

“What didn’t?” Bridge asked.

“Li, it’s Bill. Have you done a high-resolution analysis of the Mahgra spike against the Persian Gulf spike? Could ja? Like now! Call me back A.S.A.P.”

He killed the call, then redialed. “Peter, get over to Kronos right now. This thing may not be over. Call me when you get to Kronos’” He hung up.

“Tell me more, Sergeant.”

As Bridgestone further explained the trail of events that brought them to New York, Hiccock realized they had bits and pieces of the puzzle but nothing hard, no evidence. Then Bill remembered that evidence was the purview of law enforcement and the kind of stuff you needed if you planned on going to trial. In this case, if there were a second loose nuke, there would be no trial. In fact, if they didn’t follow these threads there might be no courthouse or enough people left to form a jury. The endgame here was not jurisprudence. The endgame was ending the game before, as the President put it, sudden death overtime.

In a moment of silence, Bill realized his deja vu was happening all over again. He had been here already. He had gone from being a paper-pushing bureaucrat into field operative before. He kept trying to tell himself it was just until Joey got back.

Number 1 looked at his watch and mentally went through the next steps: in two minutes, Number 3 would be on his way and executing his second diversion phase to take place in 33 minutes. In ten minutes, Number 4 would initiate the primary distraction and revenge for Number 1’s brother. One hour from then, the package would be picked up, then five minutes later…

His mental checklist was interrupted when he saw one of the two cops that were chatting with the caterer approaching him.

“Mr. Rashani, Officer Ralph Chesney.”

“Nice to meet you, Officer. Anything wrong?”

“Probably not, sir. But I need to see your original permit.”

“May I ask why?”

“You could ask, but I don’t need a reason.”

“Very well.” Number 1 picked up his walkie-talkie and called to his assistant director. “Please bring me the production book. I need the original permit.”

Number 1 looked back to see the other officer still at the catering truck. “Officer Chesney, let’s go to my camper. The A.D. will meet us there with the paperwork.”

?§?

“Where did you get this?” Hiccock asked, looking over the filming permit.

“They are a matter of public record. You just go to the mayor’s office and ask,” Bridgestone said.

“Description of action to be filmed: ‘Bita Asayesh, ace reporter, exits news helicopter, into boyfriend’s arms, Crane up — End credits’.” Bill looked at Bridgestone. “News helicopter.”

“Yeah. Ya see where this could be going?” Bridgestone said.

Ross watched as the front door of the mosque opened and Rashid, a.k.a. Rodney, walked out carrying a suitcase. Although it was smaller than the nuke case they were looking for, it was suspicious enough for him to interdict. He approached Rodney as he walked towards the PATH train station, placing a call as he did so. At that moment, Bill and the sergeant were in the Holland Tunnel, so he got Bridge’s voicemail instead.

“Bling. Rodney on the move with a case. Too small to be the bomb. I am going to stop him.” He closed the phone and went right up to Rodney. “Hey, Mister, you got a light?”

“No, I don’t smoke,” Rodney said, never breaking his stride.

Ross pulled his gun, stuck it in Rodney’s neck, and strong-armed him into an alleyway. “Where you headed, Rashid?”

Rodney was stunned that this man knew his real name. “I … I was… Er…”

Rodney heard a pop as Ross’ head exploded right in front of him. He heard footsteps running up to where he was. A split-second later, a man he’d seen at the mosque appeared with a sniper’s rifle and scope attached to it.

“Go… Go! I will handle this.”

“Who are you?”

“Number 1 had me stay here to make sure you weren’t followed. Now go, Allah be with you! Here…” He tossed the still-shocked Rashid a handkerchief, then motioned his hand across his face.

Rashid wiped his face and pulled back the handkerchief to see red blood and gray matter. Then he puked.

As they were coming out of the Midtown Tunnel, Bridgestone proposed they go to the location and check out the copter. He motioned to the back seat. “Our rad detector is in the small case. If there’s a nuke anywhere close, we got a good shot of picking it up.”

Bill’s phone rang.

“Li, wha’cha got?”

“Not even close, Bill”

“Best guess?”

“Radiological device, but no big plutonium signature…. Sorry I missed this before.”

“We were all fooled by the false responsibility claim and…holy Shit!”

Bill grabbed his other cell and said as he dialed, “Janice, Mom, Pop.”

“…pagers or beepers. Also the use of flash photography during this afternoon’s performance is strictly prohibited…” was coming over the theater’s public address as Janice obediently silenced her cell phone and slid it into her purse. She looked around one more time, but still saw no sign of Bill.

“What is it?” Bridge asked as he weaved in and out of traffic at 75 m.p.h.

“These guys duped us and the entire world, except for you and Ross. The message the NSA intercepted with Roosevelt and Mahgra was obviously a plant. The failed attack on the TR was just a dirty bomb suicide decoy. That and the premature Al Jazeera video were all part of a massive deception to get us to stop looking for the bomb and drop our guard.”

“Sun Tzu — all warfare is based on deception.”

Bill snapped his fingers as he remembered the reference. “Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable.”

“I’m impressed, sir.”

“I studied Tzu when I played ball in college. Used many of his strategies.”

“Well, it seems the terrorists studied The Art of War before this game, sir.”

“Why couldn’t these guys have stuck to just reading the Koran.”

“Oh, I see now, it was only the photocopy that didn’t have the street address…” As Ralph turned to Rashani to explain the discrepancy, he felt a sharp pain in his chest. Number 1 then jerked the scarab up in strong pulls, ripping open Ralph’s ribcage. He finished off his work by slashing the policeman’s throat, leaving him to fall back onto the floor of the trailer.