John Ringo: Ghost

“Besides the fact that a nuke slipped into my AO and back out?” Northcote asked exasperatedly. “Maybe it’s the fact that the last call I got was from the Office of the White House asking about you. What or who the hell are you? I’d pegged you as a CIA Office of Special Actions guy, but the White House doesn’t call about them as a rule. And they asked for you by name; I had to tell them you were sleeping.”

“I am not now, nor have I ever been, CIA,” Mike said bluntly. “I do favors for the United States government and they, in turn, do favors for me,” he added, tapping the pocket where he had his “official” passport.

“Contractor?” Northcote asked.

“Not even that,” Mike said. “A contractor signs up for a specific payment. I consider myself more in the field of… salvage operations.” He grinned and then shrugged. “What do we have?”

“This is Todd Jameson,” Northcote said, leading him over to one of the groups. The guy he addressed was a big blond in a blue jumpsuit with NEST printed across the back. The other people were military, ranking up to a bird colonel. “He’s the head of the nuke team.”

“You must be Duncan,” the NEST leader said, shaking Mike’s hand.

“Mike,” Mike replied, shaking his head. “Duncan’s a name that gets you into fights and I hate getting in fights.”

“Mike, then,” the guy replied, smiling humorously. “Well, the nuke was definitely here. We got the isotope signature from the Russkis and the remnants we picked up are a match. Whoever was working on it knew what they were doing, too. There’s remnants of wiring and the detonator circuit had been pulled. It would have degraded from radiation by now, so it was one thing they had to replace.”

“Wouldn’t they have had to reshape the explosives and the plutonium?” Mike asked.

“No, these older nukes are remarkably stable that way,” Jameson said, shrugging. “They had to replace the tritium; it would have degraded. And the plutonium might be a little degraded. But I’m ninety percent sure, based on the evidence, that we’re going to get some sort of nuclear reaction. What gets me is the rest of the evidence.”

“What’s that?” Mike asked. “The lead smell?”

“Yeah,” Jameson said, leading him over to the side of one of the bubble tents. “See those?” he asked, pointing to some metal pieces on one of the tables. “Those are metal bars that have been cut with an arc welder. And there were large bolts sitting on the floor.” Jameson waved to one of the space-suited guys and made a motion like turning a wrench. The person in the bubble went over to another table and picked up a bolt, turning it back and forth.

“Can I see it up close?” Mike asked. “How hot is it?”

“It’s not hot enough to bother about,” Jameson said, walking over to the entrance and waving for the bolt to be brought over. “About like a tritium watchface. The shavings that were on the floor were hot as hell, though.”

“Yeah, I ran into those,” Mike said. “Slid through them, to be precise.”

“Jesus,” the NEST team leader said, his eyes wide. “You need to be decontaminated!”

“I took a shower,” Mike said, shrugging and turning the bolt around and around. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “I’ll survive. I’ve survived worse, trust me. A little radiation’s good for you. So we’ve got metal bars and big bolts. Anything else?”

“Well, they were melting and pouring lead,” Jameson said, looking at him askance. “And there’s a big crane,” he continued, pointing to the device. “That’s cold as snow. It wasn’t in contact with the live weapon. For the rest, I’d suggest you talk to the forensic guys.”

Mike walked back over to Northcote, who was talking with a civilian in a rumpled suit and a major with an IFOR MP brassard.

“You the forensics guys?” Mike asked.

“Major Forester,” the major said, shaking his hand. “And Agent Wilson with the FBI.”

“Pleased ta meetcha,” Wilson said in a thick New York accent. “What do you think?”

“They encased the nuke in lead,” Mike said. “That way it can’t be detected as readily. Probably rigged it to blow. Maybe a timer, but more likely a cell phone. Maybe more than one. I’d want the ability to turn it off.”

“My guess, too,” Wilson said, looking at him sharply. “But what did they move it in?”

“Big engine,” Mike said, holding up the bolt. “But what kind? Any read on the bolt?”

“Used in various systems,” Wilson said, shrugging. “Engine blocks, mostly.”

“That’s where I’ve seen it,” Mike said. “When we had to strip down the engine on my boat. A Volvo diesel.”

“That’s one of them,” Wilson said, nodding. “Also Mercedes. But if the nuke is stuck in an engine cavity, the engine isn’t running. So we’re looking for a big truck with an engine that’s not running?”

“Doesn’t make sense,” Mike said. “Major, what do you have?”

“There was the proverbial little old lady,” the major said, pulling out a pad. “One Branca Obilic, eighty-three. She’s lived in this area since, as she put it, the good old days when Tito was in charge. Never been run out, not even by the war. Was a refugee for a few days and came back. One hard-nosed bitch of a Serb, too; she only talked to us because nobody else would listen to her. But she knew something different was going on here and kept an eye on it. She said that about two days after the van turned up, and it was never moved, a large white truck pulled into the warehouse. It was here for about three hours, maybe more, but she’s sure of at least three hours. That was three days ago. It was an odd vehicle. It had a tractor front end but a short rear with doors on the side and back. Personnel doors on the side and double doors on the back. We’ve got the description out to IFOR, the Bosnian police and Interpol. It shouldn’t be hard to find.”

“Yes it will,” Mike said, frowning.

“It’s a pretty unusual vehicle,” Forester protested. “There can’t be many vehicles like that in Bosnia. Europe for that matter.”

“What you just described is a press van,” Mike said, sighing. “There are thousands of them in Europe. And if we start stopping all of them, somebody is going to figure out what is going on.”

“Shit,” Forester said, angrily. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

“You’ve been too close to the problem,” Mike said, thinking. “Okay, but what is the engine? Generator.”

“There’s one of those in those press vans,” Wilson said, nodding. “Good call.”

“Okay,” Mike said thoughtfully. “They put the nuke in the engine, holding it in place with the bars, then poured hot lead around it? That doesn’t make sense.”

“There are some bits of stainless steel around, too,” Wilson said. “I’d wondered what those were. They must have enclosed it in a sleeve, then poured the lead around it.”

“That is going to make it a bitch to disarm,” Forester said.

“ Nicht scheiss ,” Mike replied. “No shit. What’s going on in Europe right now?” he asked rhetorically.

“There’s always something being covered by the press,” Northcote said, shrugging.

“Any American officials going to a summit?” Mike asked. “Anything like that?”

“The G-8 meeting in Zurich!” Forester said, slapping his forehead. “Shit, that’s in a week!”

“Could be that,” Mike said. “Let’s not get too tightly focused. But it’s a good beginning. We need to start looking at potential targets and make it clear what we’re dealing with. The nuke is in play and prepped.” He pulled out his cell phone and looked at the time. “Okay, I’m going to go find someplace that has a TV. Is there… well… a ‘real’ hotel in town?”