Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

“Go ahead.”

“If the detonator is electronic, is there any chance of jamming it?” asked Thorpe.

“We have it covered,” said the man. “The answer is affirmative if the electronic detonator is wireless remote. We scrambled two EA-Six Prowlers for the container earlier. They jammed frequencies up and down the line, any radio or microwave signal, including cell phones. They’ll do it again over Coronado. But chances are the detonator is probably hardwired, with an analog backup or antitamper device. Which means if we try to fry their electronics, we run the risk of setting it off.”

“Understood,” said Thorpe. So much for second-guessing the experts. “Good luck!”

A few minutes ago, coming out of the truck with my back to Nitikin, I had no idea where I was. But for now my universe was the concrete curb a few feet from my face. It was the strangest sensation. Lying on the pavement under the truck, I thought about life and how short it might be as I heard muffled voices in the truck above me. I lifted my head and looked out between the two front tires. And there in front of me, like déjŕ vu, was the familiar image of a gate I had driven by a thousand times. Suddenly I realized I was home.

The open chain-link gate and the small guardhouse a hundred yards beyond is one of the entrances to North Island, the naval base. It is less than a mile from my house. I can easily walk there. A little over a mile to the office. I look at my watch and realize that Harry is probably there now. Oh, God. The only saving grace is that Sarah, my daughter, is away at school.

No doubt we all wonder from time to time what random thoughts will stream through our brains at the moment of death, but for me I have always known deep down that they would be memories of Sarah.

“There!” said Alim. He nearly dropped the timing device as he pointed from the back of the open truck.

Down the street, two blocks away, he saw the blue sedan coming this way.

Alim looked down at the timing device and checked the clock. Still enough time, if they moved. They could get across the bridge and head south toward the border. He had already mapped out a surface street that would take them on a direct line to the building on this side of the border and the tunnel beneath. Even if they got only halfway, they would be well beyond the blast zone. Once inside the building and into the tunnel, nothing could touch them. Within days, Alim would be back in the Zagros Mountains of his homeland, a hero to his people.

Alim turned once more expecting to see the blue sedan pulling up to the truck, but it wasn’t there. Now he could see it again, up the street. The idiots were backing the sedan into a parking space at the curb two blocks away. Were they blind? Couldn’t they see the truck? Afundi cursed out loud.

“Jamal!” he hollered at the translator, who was standing guard outside the truck. The interpreter stuck his head in the open door.

“Go get them. Tell them to drive the car down here, and hurry.”

The translator took off running, all the speed he could muster with his stodgy middle-aged body.

Alim checked the clock and his watch, then disconnected the lead wires. He didn’t bother to close up the wooden panel. Instead he quickly made his way to the door, jumped from the truck, and pulled the lift door down behind him. He sealed the latch and looked for the padlock, checked his pockets, and suddenly realized Jamal had been twirling it on his finger.

By the time Alim turned to look, the translator was already a block away. He shook his head and raced up toward the cab. He opened the passenger door and grabbed his day pack. He pulled from behind the seat another larger sports bag that held an assault rifle, three clips of ammunition, and two bottles of water.

He took a drink as he walked toward the rear of the truck with the two bags. The blue sedan hadn’t moved. And he could no longer see Jamal, either on the street or the sidewalk.

Afundi shook his head, glanced at the unlocked latch on the back of the truck, and started moving as fast as he could down the sidewalk and toward the car.

Iam sliding sideways under the truck so I can see down the sidewalk behind us when I realize we are alone. I can see him in the distance walking the other way, toting two bags over his shoulders.

“Herman.”

“Yeah.”

“Slide out on your side. There’s nobody here. I think they’ve gone.”

The three of us make our way out from under the truck on the left side. We stay low, moving toward the front of the truck so that if someone on the sidewalk looked back they wouldn’t see us.

We wait until he is a block away and then race for the lift gate in the back. Herman throws the gate up as Maricela and I clamber aboard. Herman comes in behind us and lowers the gate, but not all the way.

He holds it up a few inches, just enough for light to come in so Maricela and I can try and get her father free. He is shackled to a metal rail along the inside of the fiberglass box.

Maricela removes the tape from his mouth and eyes as I try to figure out some way to release his hand from the metal rail.

As soon as the gag is out of his mouth, he starts spitting instructions at his daughter in Spanish.

“What’s he saying?” I ask Herman.

She is arguing with him.

“He wants her to go. He wants us all to leave now. He says to run as fast as we can.”

I look down and see the open panel on the side of the wooden crate, get on my knees, and look inside. There is a green metal container, just a little smaller than the crate itself.

“Ask him”-I look up at Maricela-“ask him if there’s any way to stop it.”

Herman is looking around desperately for something to prop up the door with so he can help me.

She says something to him and Nitikin responds with an answer that seems to take forever.

“He says there’s a safety. A wire on the side of the metal box inside the crate. But he says it won’t do us any good. It will stop the big bomb, but the little explosion will kill us all anyway. He says we must leave now.”

“There must be a way to stop it,” I tell her. “Ask him again. Tell him we’re not leaving until we stop it.”

She speaks to him and they argue. He yells at her. She reaches up and pulls on his arms, trying to free his hands as tears run down her face. Suddenly he says something, a quieter and calmer voice this time as he looks over his shoulder at the crate behind him.

“He says there’s a pipe sticking out of the metal box inside, near the top, in the front. It should have two wires coming out of it. Do you see it?”

I look, but I can’t see a thing. It’s too dark inside the crate, especially with the lift gate down.

“I need more light.”

“Screw it,” says Herman. He throws the lift gate all the way up. Light streams in through the back of the truck. I see the two wires and then the black metal pipe. Dangling from the end of the wires is a small green circuit board not much bigger than a playing card.

Alim wondered what was going on. He was halfway between the truck and the car and he still couldn’t see the two brothers anywhere. But Jamal was in the passenger seat looking down at something in his lap. Alim could see him even with the late-afternoon sun glinting off the car’s windshield.

With the straps from the two heavy bags over his shoulders Afundi waved his arms in the air and signaled for the car to pick him up. But Jamal wasn’t looking. His attention was drawn to something else.

At this rate, by the time Alim made it to the car, they would have to drive back to the truck to reset the timer in order to gain enough of a cushion to get away. As he thought about it, Afundi turned and glanced back over his shoulder at the truck, then turned back toward the waiting car. He was walking toward the sedan before the image in his brain registered. When it did, he stopped dead, turned around, and studied the back of the truck. The lift gate was up!