Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

Yakov had gently lowered the lift gate and was just about to latch it when he heard Alim’s raspy voice hollering by the side of the truck.

Afundi suddenly realized that Yakov had disappeared. An instant later the driver’s door opened and both men converged on the Russian from opposite sides of the vehicle.

The translator was twirling a closed padlock around his finger, shaking his head and smiling as he looked at the Russian.

Afundi had his pistol in his hand, looking at Nitikin through slit eyes until his gaze fell on the open latch at the back of the truck. Seeing it, he pushed Yakov out of the way and threw open the lift gate. He pointed the pistol inside as he scanned the interior and the large box. His focus finally centered on the area around the wooden crate up near the front wall, directly behind the cab.

Alim was about to climb onto the bed of the truck when his fingers touched something tucked just inside the corner behind the metal track that guided the lift gate up and down. He stopped and reached into the recess behind the railing. There his fingers found a small clamshell cell phone. He looked at it for a second and then turned to Yakov. He held the phone up and said something.

“He wants to know where it came from,” said the interpreter.

Nitikin locked eyes with Alim for a moment, then glanced back at the phone in his hand. “Tell him it’s mine. I have two of them,” he said. Then Yakov touched the front pocket of his pants with one hand as if to show them where the other phone was.

An instant later the interpreter was searching his pockets. Alim exploded and struck the Russian across the side of his face, full force with the back of his hand, the one holding the pistol. The front sight on the Walther’s short barrel caught Yakov’s cheek and ripped a jagged inch-long wound just under his left eye. The force of the blow sent the Russian to the ground.

Before the interpreter could pick him back up, Nitikin had sprung to his feet. His quickness surprised the two men as he spit a string of Russian invective at Afundi, blood dripping down his face.

Alim dropped both phones onto the pavement and stomped them into tiny bits of plastic and metal. He said something in Farsi.

“He wants to know who you called,” said the interpreter.

“Tell him I wanted to talk to my daughter, to make sure that she was all right, but he never went to Panama, so I couldn’t get a signal.”

As he listened to the translation, Alim eyed Yakov for a moment and then he smiled. “Tell him that his daughter is dead. Tell him I had her killed in San José and that she died slowly and screaming in pain.”

“There is no need,” said the interpreter. “We don’t have time for this.”

“Tell him!” Afundi yelled. He pointed the little pistol at the translator and then directed the barrel back into the Russian’s face before the translator could finish delivering the message.

Nitikin’s eyes showed his fury but it rolled off Alim like water. He motioned Yakov up into the back of the truck and the interpreter followed him while Afundi covered the Russian with the pistol.

Alim checked his watch as the interpreter slipped the closed padlock into his back pocket, pulled a set of handcuffs from his left front pocket, and pushed Nitikin toward the front of the truck and into the shadows where anyone driving by or walking down the sidewalk was less likely to see him. Then the interpreter clasped one of the handcuffs around the Russian’s wrists.

Alim kept checking his watch, then looking over his shoulder for the blue sedan. The two brothers who were supposed to take care of the Mexican should have been here by now.

From his pocket the interpreter pulled several pieces of cotton cloth, balled them up, and stuffed them into the Russian’s mouth. Then he retrieved a roll of duct tape and placed pieces over the Russian’s mouth and eyes.

With his mouth closed tight, Nitikin had to struggle to avoid choking on the cloth while he breathed through his nose. Blinded by the tape over his eyes, he was forced to hang on to the tie-down rail for fear of becoming disoriented, losing his balance, and falling.

Only then did Alim climb into the back of the truck. He pulled a screwdriver from his inside pants pocket, removed the side panel from the wooden crate, and checked the electronic timing circuit.

The timing device had been procured from a manufacturer in Switzerland and modified by technicians in Alim’s homeland before being trekked across the ocean in a Cuban diplomatic pouch. It was designed for industrial use and employed a handheld time setter about the size of a cell phone. This plugged into the small electronic circuit board that contained the digital timing chip. The circuit board was connected by two wires to the electronic detonator, which in turn was embedded in the cordite charge in the breech of the nuclear gun barrel.

The timing circuit had been modified to include an antitamper loop. Anyone trying to sever the connection to the detonator, or damage or alter the circuit board, would trigger an immediate detonation.

Alim checked the time setting, then looked at his watch. In seventeen minutes, unless someone reset the electronic clock with the handheld setter, the circuit would fire, setting off the cordite charge in the bomb’s gun barrel. In the blink of an eye, a fireball hotter than the surface of the sun would incinerate everything within the radius of a mile, including the aircraft carrier and thousands of sailors and military families on the dock. It would leave at the epicenter a crater into which the ocean would flow.

He held the small timing tool in his hand and looked out the open end of the truck searching for the two idiot brothers in the blue sedan. They were late.

Alim and the interpreter had plenty of time to put enough distance between themselves and the blast if only the car would get here. Otherwise Afundi would have to reset the clock. He looked at his watch one more time, checked it against the digital countdown clock on the time setter, and watched the seconds tick down.

“Where are you?” Thorpe was now at a computer console with a headset and mike talking to one of the pilots on the incoming choppers.

“We’re about six minutes out,” said the pilot. “I can see Mission Bay up ahead.”

There were four helicopters, one each for the two sniper teams, with the NEST team and hostage rescue loaded onto the other two. It took longer than Thorpe had hoped to gather their equipment, muster the choppers, and get everyone on board.

The game plan was the same as for the cargo truck: bring in the snipers, take out anyone in or around the vehicle, hope that they got them all and that none of them had access to a triggering mechanism. Hostage rescue would move in to breech the truck and provide security, and NEST would deal with the bomb. They would now have to do it without their leader. The head of the NEST team had been pronounced dead moments before while on the medivac flight to the hospital.

Rhytag moved up behind Thorpe, at the console, looking over Thorpe’s shoulder at the monitor. The camera showed the ground streaming beneath one of the low-flying helicopters as it screamed south toward Coronado.

“Tell them to keep an eye out for Madriani,” said Rhytag.

“Sorry,” said Thorpe, “but we don’t have time to pick and choose or identify targets. If Madriani is around that truck, he’s dead. At most, we’ll have ten or fifteen seconds of tactical surprise. After that, all hell’s gonna break loose. We have got to isolate that truck. Gimme a second.”

“Can you patch me in to the NEST team leader?” he asked.

A few seconds later a voice came over the tactical frequency.

“Stop me if you don’t have time. But I have a question,” said Thorpe.