Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

But now that he was old, he was confused. He longed only to spend time with his daughter, to see her again, to talk to her, to hold her. He wanted to see his granddaughter, Katia, whom he had seen only once as an infant, but whom he talked about endlessly with Maricela, asking questions and looking at photographs. All of these were now lost, left behind in his hut at the encampment. He had cried himself to sleep, bellowing like a baby the night Maricela left the camp. Something had snapped in him. He feared for her and could not wait to call her on the phone.

He now hovered anxiously on the edge, caught between duty and the desire to escape.

Nitikin knew that there was no way to bargain with Alim. To attempt it was to invite a quick death. How does one bargain with the devil? The moment Afundi knew that the bomb was armed, he would pull out his pistol and Yakov would be dead. There were times he thought he hated the man enough that he could kill him, but the thought of sabotaging the bomb never entered his mind.

To fail now was to betray everything he believed in, all that he had worked for all those years. He had traded a life with his family for the mission of the bomb. It was not his child, though there were times when he felt as if it throbbed with life, the embryo of revolution.

He searched for some way out, some method by which he could satisfy duty and still see his daughter. What he needed was time.

Yakov was working through an open side panel of the wooden crate, inside the container, presumably checking the device for any damage, as instructed by Alim.

Nitikin had lied to him. The bomb was entirely safe to transport. The safety device was redundant. After all, the warhead had been designed for delivery in the belly of an unmanned MiG jet, a cruise missile launched from a ramp, not unlike the V-1 rocket. The gravitational and kinetic forces applied to the warhead at launch were probably three or four times greater than those experienced in the most violent vehicle collision or other accident.

True, the safety device would prevent the bomb from achieving a chain reaction if the gun was fired accidentally, but there was no chance of that unless the cordite charge was loaded under the breech plug, which only a fool would do except immediately prior to deployment.

For Nitikin the safety device had but a single purpose: it made him indispensable and kept him alive. It had one other advantage-only he knew whether the safety device was engaged or not.

“He wants to know if there is any damage.”

Nitikin was startled by the voice coming from behind him. He looked out and saw the brooding face of the interpreter standing in the bright sunlight just outside the open door of the container.

“No, it looks fine. I’m just checking the last few items.”

“Then I can tell him the device is in working order? You’re sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.” Yakov spoke from inside the box, without looking. When he didn’t hear any further comment, he stuck his head out and saw the larded backside of the interpreter twenty feet away, walking in the other direction along the deck, toward the bridge.

Nitikin turned back to the bomb. He used the flashlight he’d borrowed from the interpreter to check and make sure that the minute groove cut into the safety wire was properly aligned, a quarter turn, ninety degrees, in a clockwise direction. Once satisfied, he took hold of the wire and turned it counterclockwise until the groove in the wire was facing straight up.

Very gently, so as not to break the delicate bond holding the wire to the safety disk, Yakov eased the wire toward himself until he saw the fine red line painted on it at the outer edge of the bomb case. The safety disk was now clear of the gun barrel. It was housed in a separate supporting container welded to the inside of the bomb case. Reinserting the safety in the barrel would take knowledge of the settings as well as fine hand skills that even Nitikin doubted he possessed any longer.

Yakov crawled from the crate, closed the wooden side panel, and screwed it down tight.

Arming the bomb had fulfilled his duty as a soldier even though he had no intention of informing Alim until the last moment, and then hopefully through a note or a message delivered by another. Now Yakov was free to escape and join his family, if he could only find the means.

Unfortunately the Gulfstream had everything on board but an in-flight phone system. The copilot who saw me trying to talk to Harry on takeoff told me to shut it down. The cell phone might interfere with their avionics.

An hour into the flight and the passengers seemed to settle down. The other two couples paired off to seats and settled in for the ride. Herman and I spent the time in the rear of the plane trying to explain to Maricela what we’d found when we returned to Lorenzo’s apartment.

At first she couldn’t believe that he was dead, and when she finally came to accept it, she blamed herself for leading the killer to his front door.

“You don’t understand,” I say. “Lorenzo was selling them information.” I showed her the fax from his machine.

As she read it her eyes gravitated to the name at the bottom of the page. “That’s it. I remember. I heard only once, but his last name was Afundi. I knew that I’d heard it. I just couldn’t remember. But why? Why would Lorenzo be working with them?”

“The oldest reason in the world,” says Herman, “money.”

“You mean he sold Katia’s life for a few dollars?”

“He may not have known that they would try to kill her, but I doubt if there’s any question that he fingered Pike.”

“How did he meet such people?” she says.

“He was dealing with the same people your father is,” I tell her.

“Yes, but my father has no choice.”

“Regardless, the result may be the same. We need your help.”

“How?”

“We can’t identify either Alim or your father. We need to find them and track the container until we can get the authorities to stop it. If we don’t, a great many people are going to die. Do you understand?”

She doesn’t say anything. She just looks at me. “I cannot believe my father would do something like that.”

“Perhaps, as you say, he has no choice. If that’s the case, we’re going to have to do what we can to help him get free.”

She looks at me, then nods. “Then I will help you,” she says.

“Good.”

Three hours later we land in Mexico City to off-load the first passengers. I tell the pilot that my cell phone is on the fritz and ask him if there is any way he can send a message over the plane’s VHF radio to a friend in San Diego. I can’t very well tell him about the bomb without raising eyebrows and being arrested.

Instead the man lets me use his cell phone. I take it to the back of the plane for privacy.

It is after hours. The office will be closed, so I call in the open to Harry’s unguarded cell line. I don’t have Rhytag’s phone number or I would make the call myself.

Harry doesn’t answer. I can’t be sure if he is even carrying his regular cell phone any longer. Harry hates cops. With the federal government now listening in, he has probably flushed the phone down the toilet.

Nonetheless I leave the message to have Harry call Rhytag and tell him about the bomb. I give him the name of the ship, Amora , and its estimated time of arrival in Ensenada. I am hoping that the feds are listening in.

Then I call Harry’s house. Again he doesn’t answer, so I leave the same message on his home phone. For the moment, at least, it’s all I can do.

Liquida got bounced like a Ping-Pong ball all over the hemisphere trying to get back to northern Mexico. From San José he shuttled to Houston and from there caught a connecting flight to San Diego. He didn’t even try to fly south from there. Instead he rented a car and stopped for coffee at one of his haunts, a twenty-four-hour Internet java shop just outside National City.