Act of War

CHAPTER SIX

San Jose, California

Two days later

He had never seen security such as this. Upon checking in for his American Airlines flight from Mexico City to San Jose, airplane salesman and businessman Tom Estrada had to run his finger across a biometric scanner not once, not twice, but six times before he was allowed to board his flight, and his carry-on luggage was checked twice by hand. Security was everywhere—heavily armed, visible, and purposely intrusive. During the flight, no one was allowed to leave their seats without notifying a flight attendant first; no one could stand near the lavatories or galleys; and no one could get out of their seats within an hour prior to landing. Fortunately Estrada was a resident alien of the United States, because all non-resident aliens without visas had to surrender their passports toU.S. Customs upon arrival. Around the airport, security was tighter than he’d ever seen—they even had Avenger mobile antiaircraft vehicles and National Guard canine units patrolling the airport perimeter.

After retrieving his car from the parking garage, Estrada took the U.S. 101 North expressway to San Mateo and parked near the Third Avenue Sports Bar and Grill, a small but friendly neighborhood pub that had a surprisingly well-stocked wine list and free wireless Internet access. After ordering a glass of Silver Oak Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon and a small order of beef enchiladas and chatting with Grace, his waitress, who was also the daughter of his landlord, for several minutes, he opened up his Motion Computing Tablet PC and got online.

He checked e-mail first as always, and was worried to find a series of e-mails from a specific sender, one with only a scrambled alphanumeric name and domain. The messages from this sender were small digital photos. Estrada had wired his apartment in San Mateo with a security appliance that would take a digital photo of a room in which the appliance detected motion and automatically upload the photos to Estrada’s e-mail box. Several of the photos were of Grace herself—he had hired her to clean the place when he was gone and to turn lights on and off randomly to make the place look lived-in—and she and her family were absolutely trustworthy. But some of the photos were of unidentified men wearing suits and ties, searching the place—just hours ago!

“Hey, Grace, thanks for keeping an eye on my place for me,” Estrada said the next time Grace came over to check on him. He handed her an envelope with two hundred dollars in cash in it.

“Thanks, Tom,” the attractive young woman said. She hefted the envelope. “How much is in here? Feels like a little more than usual. Not that I’m complaining, of course.”

“There’s a little extra in there for you. You’re on your way to college next week, right? Barnard?”

“Yep. But you didn’t have to do that, Tom. I was happy to help out. You’re kind of a neat-freak anyway—taking care of your place is a piece of cake.”

“Any problems while I was gone?”

“Nope.” She started to walk away. “Did you get the message your friend left on the door?”

Estrada’s ears buzzed with concern. “I haven’t been by the apartment yet.”

“A guy who said he used to work with you came by looking for you,” Grace said. “Left a note and his business card on the door.”

Estrada thought of the digital photos he’d just downloaded. “Small guy, bald, dresses nice but wears dark running shoes?”

“That’s him. Glad you know him. I was worried.”

“Worried? Why?”

“Well, he said he knew you, described you pretty well, and thought you lived in the area, but he didn’t know exactly where. I thought at first he was canvassing the area, you know, like the cops do on TV.”

Estrada fought to look completely unconcerned. The reason for that was simple, Estrada thought: his postal mail was delivered to the same Arroyo Court address as the other three families that lived there. That meant that whoever it was who had his address was looking for him. “Well, actually, I didn’t tell the guy my address when I met up with him a while back—I’m not sure I want to work with this guy again,” Estrada lied, “but I did describe our neighborhood, so I’m sure he tracked me down.”

“I pointed out your place to him. Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“Don’t worry about it, Grace,” Estrada said.

“If he comes around again, what should I do? Should I give him your cell phone number?”

Estrada shrugged nonchalantly, but inside his mind was racing a million kilometers per hour. “He should have it,” he said casually, “but sure, if he wants it, go ahead and give it to him.” It didn’t matter—it would be shut down soon anyway. “Another glass of the Silver Oak Cab and I’ll be ready for the check, Grace.”

“Sure thing, Tom.”

When she left, Estrada pulled out his secure cell phone and sent an SMS message that said simply, “Problem with escrow.” He then packed up his gear, being careful to shut down his wireless network adapter so no eavesdroppers could interrogate or “ping” the idle system, and shut the computer down. He tried to look unhurried and relaxed when Grace came over with the wine and the check, but inwardly he was screaming at her to move faster. He downed the wine much faster than Silver Oak deserved, paid the check, left his usual tip, then departed, being sure to wave at the staff and the other regulars and, more important, not to rush.

Just like that, Colonel Yegor Viktorvich Zakharov knew that his days as Tomas “Tom” Estrada, helicopter salesman, were over.

He got into his Ford minivan, carefully pulled out into traffic, and drove ten minutes to the Bay Area Rapid Transit station nearest San Francisco International Airport. Before he left the van in a secluded area of the parking lot, he took his SIG Sauer P230 pistol from its hiding place in his seat and stuffed it into his belt. Executing a well-rehearsed escape plan, Zakharov took the BART train across San Francisco Bay to Oakland. Security patrols were everywhere on the BART stations and on the train, but the guards looked young, tired, and bored. He panicked a bit and started looking for a place to ditch his pistol when he saw the signs warning passengers of security inspection stations ahead, but the airport-like X-ray machines and metal detectors had not yet been installed.

He got off at the Harrison Street BART station in Oakland and walked five blocks to a small café on Madison Street across from Madison Park. The word “escrow” in the status message he sent was the clue to the rendezvous location. When Zakharov first mapped out this attack plan, there was a real estate company on Madison Street near this park, in the heart of the city. The park offered good concealment; it was a mostly Hispanic neighborhood, so he wouldn’t stand out too much; and there were lots of small, nondescript hotels nearby in case he had to linger. The real estate company was no longer there, replaced by an organic bean café, but it was still a good location. Zakharov found a park bench, kept the café in view, and waited. Two hours and four drunks who wanted to use the park bench to sleep on later, he saw a faded blue Jeep Grand Cherokee drive up to the spot with a magnetic sign on the driver’s door of that same real estate company, and he crossed the street and got in the front seat. A soldier that Zakharov recognized was in the backseat, a TEC-9 machine pistol in his hands but out of sight.

“Kag deela, Colonel,” Pavel Khalimov said as he carefully pulled out into the late-night traffic. He headed south toward Interstate 880, staying a few kilometers under the speed limit; other traffic zoomed by as if he was standing still.

“Oozhasna,” Zakharov said. “How do you feel, Captain?”

Khalimov rubbed his chest where the bullet from Zakharov’s sniper rifle had hit him. “It was not broken. I will be fine. How was the flight from Mexico City, sir?”

“Terrible. Security coming back into the United States is oppressive.”

“Then it is mostly for show, sir—I had little trouble getting in,” Khalimov said. Unlike Zakharov, Pavel Khalimov had no secret identities in other countries—he was a Russian commando, plain and simple. He carried no identification, passports, driver’s licenses, or credit cards, just a bit of cash. He traveled fast and light at all times. Whatever he needed, he stole—money, weapons, clothes, vehicles, anything and everything. “Security patrols are concentrating around the larger ports of entry and larger vessels—it is laughably easy to get a small vessel into a small port.”

“Do not get cocky, Captain—it will only get worse,” Zakharov said. He told Khalimov about his Web cam pictures and his house-keeper’s encounter. “We will have to wrap up all operations in the Bay area. My Estrada identity is surely compromised—perhaps the Americans are actually able to utilize those biometric scanners now. If they have perfected the national database to check international fingerprint records, they will eventually hunt down Estrada.”

“The fact that you were not apprehended on the spot here in the United States, even with all the security in place, despite the worldwide dragnet that is certainly out for us, is promising,” Khalimov pointed out. “I tell you, sir, the American security apparatus is all bark and no bite. The level of scrutiny is extremely low, their level of training and experience is very low except for the most high-profile duties, and already the American people are squawking about the invasion of privacy and loss of their rights. Whatever they set up will not last long. The Americans are simply not accustomed to tight internal security.”

“I feel that is changing rapidly, Captain,” Zakharov said, “and now is the perfect time to strike. Is everything ready?”

“Yes, sir,” Khalimov replied. “We added two four-man strike squads as a backup, for a total of six going at the target itself. We have the original twelve squads handling security.”

“Very good. And the devices you will use?”

“The outer security teams will use C-4 with the gasoline in the fuel tanks as accelerants,” Khalimov replied. “The inner security units will use divided amounts of HMX and ONC. We will have CS gas and high-explosive grenades to use to disperse first responders as well.”

“You will not use units that carry only ONC?” Zakharov asked. ONC, or octanitrocubane, was the world’s most powerful explosive—over three times the explosive power of TNT—but was available in relatively small quantities and at vastly greater cost. HMX (High-melting-point explosive), or cyclotetramethylenetetranitramine, was almost as powerful as ONC but was more readily available. C-4, or Composition-4, was the world’s most widely used and widely available explosive material, although not as powerful as the other two.

“I felt the risk was too great, sir,” Khalimov explained. “The mission might not be accomplished if the attack units carrying only ONC were captured. I felt it necessary to have each of the four main attack units have the same destructive power. Unfortunately we were unable to bring in enough ONC for just one vehicle to do the job per squad.”

“And the device itself?”

“Safely delivered and ready for arming, sir,” Khalimov said.

“Atleechna. Pashlee. Let’s go.”

They drove northbound on Interstate 880 to the Oakland–Bay Bridge. Traffic was very light. It was a good opportunity to look at the new security measures instituted on California’s large bridges and tunnels. The ten lanes of freeway on-ramps leading to the bridge were narrowed into three, with Humvees and Bradley armored vehicles stationed here and there.

“The National Guard forces do not appear to do much here, sir,” Khalimov explained. “Every now and then they will stop a large delivery truck to search it, but generally the soldiers stay out of sight. They appear to be very sensitive to rush-hour traffic lines and will open up three more lanes approaching the tollbooths twice a day for three hours each time.” He shook his head. “Ten dollars cash now just to cross this bridge into San Francisco, unless you use one of the electronic wireless express-pay devices. Outlandish. It is twelve dollars now to cross the Golden Gate Bridge into the city. All of our vehicles have the payment devices.

“The troops stationed on both sides of the bridge are lightly armed except for their vehicles. The Humvees carry fifty-caliber machine guns. There are usually four on each side, two in the westbound and two in the eastbound sides. The Bradleys are fairly new and represent the most serious threat. They have a twenty-five-millimeter Bushmaster cannon with sabot, high-explosive, and armor-piercing rounds, and a 7.62-millimeter coaxial machine gun. They all appear to be the M2A1 variant instead of the more capable M2A3 or M3A3 models. They have TOW antitank missile launchers fitted but I do not believe they carry any missiles in them—they may still be in storage magazines in the vehicles, but none appear to be in the launchers themselves. There are usually Bradleys on either side of the bridge, one on the eastbound and one on the westbound side. They move them several times daily but that appears to be just for maintenance or crew rotation purposes, not for tactical reasons.”

“A little more than just show, but not a real defense force,” Zakharov summarized.

“My opinion as well, sir.”

They crossed the Oakland–Bay Bridge into San Francisco, then exited the freeway and made their way to the Financial District. The streets at this hour were almost deserted, but the police presence was noticeable. “Approximately one police cruiser every other city block in the Financial District,” Khalimov said. “No parking allowed on the streets—everyone must use parking garages, and they are heavily patrolled.” They stopped at a traffic light at Market Street between Main Street and Spear Street. “The heaviest security is here, at the U.S. Federal Reserve Building. One special police cruiser on each corner; absolutely no cars allowed to park or wait here.”

“But no military forces?”

“I have seen several Humvees down here, sir—I am surprised they are not here now,” Khalimov said. “There have been news pieces on complaints by citizens about the military presence in downtown San Francisco—they say it affects tourism and scares everyone. Perhaps they took them away.”

“We will not count on that,” Zakharov said. “We assume the vehicles that are here will be heavily armed military patrols.”

From Main Street, they made their way to California Street and drove up the steep boulevard to Van Ness Avenue, then to Lombard Street and onto the approach to the Golden Gate Bridge heading toward Marin County. Huge outdoor lights had been set up, illuminating the tollbooths and bridge approaches like daytime. They passed two Bradley Fighting Vehicles here. “Security appears even heavier on this bridge,” Zakharov observed.

“It is all for the TV cameras, sir,” Khalimov said disgustedly. “The Golden Gate Bridge is a symbol of the Western United States and the state of California, and they put more National Guard forces out here to show the public they are defending them. But they are no more capable than the ones in Oakland.”

Zakharov looked at his aide carefully. “You appear more confident than I have ever seen you, tovarisch,” he said. “Perhaps…too confident?”

“I am confident of success, sir,” Khalimov admitted, “but it is not overconfidence. It is disgust.”

“Disgust?”

“This is their country, one of their greatest cities,” Khalimov spat, “and they try to act as if nothing whatsoever is wrong. They were attacked with a nuclear weapon, for God’s sake, and yet they pretend that everything is ahuyivayush’iy.”

“As you were, Captain,” Zakharov said. “Don’t let these people’s attitudes about their life and society cloud your judgment. Keep fully alert and ready at all times.”

“Yes, sir,” Khalimov said. “I will. But they are making this seem too easy.”

“Beliefs like that will get us killed, Pavel. I order you to stop it and concentrate,” Zakharov said seriously. “You thought it would be easy to trap Jorge Ruiz in Abaete, too.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry. Don’t worry about me.”

They drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin County, struck by the incredible contrast of going from a large cosmopolitan high-rise city to a wooded countryside in just a few kilometers. Just past the Marin County Airport north of Novato on Highway 101, they exited the freeway onto Redwood Highway and proceeded to the Redwood Landfill, then to a side road, stopping near a set of railroad tracks. Khalimov made a radio call using a short-range FM transceiver, and a man with an Uzi submachine gun appeared out of the darkness and unlocked an old, rarely used railroad access gate on the far side of the landfill. Khalimov drove inside to the incinerator facility. Inside an area marked with signs carrying skulls and crossbones that read DANGER HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL AREA and POS REQUIRED, they were met by a man wearing a respirator and carrying an Uzi submachine gun.

“It is here, sir,” Khalimov said. He handed Zakharov a respirator with a full-face mask and small green bottle of oxygen on a shoulder strap. “Hazardous waste materials from the piers in Richmond are brought here for incineration. We will move the device immediately after prearming.” Zakharov donned the mask, checked it, and they left the car. Khalimov retrieved a small yellow case from the back of the Cherokee and followed the Russian colonel inside the facility.

Even with the masks on and with positive pressure against his face, the acidy taste and feel of the air was oppressive. The temperature was at least ten degrees Celsius higher inside. Khalimov went over to the back of the facility, where a row of waste collection hoppers were waiting in a row with a chain around them so they could not be used. Khalimov removed a padlock from the chain, and he and his men pulled one of the hoppers out of the row. He unlocked a large lever and pulled it carefully, tipping the hopper. Several liters of thick sludge dumped out. Bolted to the side of the hopper was a device about the size of a small car transmission, wrapped in aluminum foil and plastic. “It is not petroleum-based oil—the heat from the device might have caused regular oil to burn,” Zakharov explained as he began to carefully cut the foil and plastic away. “It is a mixture of antifreeze and dry cell battery carbon,” Zakharov said as he dumped the slurry out. “It makes an excellent homemade coolant and neutron absorption fluid. The foil should have reflected any other stray gamma rays and alpha particles back into the core, and also prevent detection from passive radioactive detection systems.”

They wheeled the hopper out of the incinerator building so they did not have to wear the respirators any longer. Even though it was almost forty years old, the warhead itself was in almost perfect condition, Zakharov noted as soon as he had the protective wrapping peeled away. It was an AA60 tactical nuclear warhead, very common in a variety of Soviet weapons from short-range ballistic missiles and rockets to large artillery shells. Its design was simplicity itself. It was a gun-assembly-type device, with two eight-kilogram slugs of highly enriched uranium-235 on either end of a tube. One slug was surrounded by a shield or tamper that reflected neutrons back into the supercritical mass; the other end of the tube had an explosive charge that would drive the second slug into the other. When the explosive charge was set off and the two sub-critical slugs were driven into one another, it formed a supercritical mass that instantly created a nuclear fission reaction.

This particular warhead had been used on a 9K79 Tochka short-range tactical ballistic missile, what the West called an SS-21 Scarab. The main part of the warhead, the “physics package,” was simple and required no fancy electronics; the arming, fusing, and firing components were the tricky parts. The keys to deploying nuclear warheads were reliability, security, and safety—three ingredients that were mostly mutually exclusive. These systems had to be bypassed in order to get a nuclear yield, but done in the proper sequence to successfully arm the weapon and create a full yield, yet still allow his men to escape the blast.

Zakharov attached several cables from the test kit to ports on the warhead. “Watch carefully, Captain,” Zakharov said as he punched instructions into the test kit. “I am first removing the barometric arming parameters to the warhead—from now on it does not need to sense acceleration or airflow to arm. Second, I have set the radar fusing system to ‘contact’—as long as the warhead remains inside this container, it will not detonate. Do not touch the warhead or strike it with any hard objects—although the mechanical lock is still in place, any sharp blows may activate the chemical battery and trigger it, and the mechanical lock may not hold. There is a half-kilo of high-explosive material in the warhead that will detonate if the warhead is activated, which will at the very least kill anyone with ten meters and scatter a lot of nuclear debris around. I trust you will drive safely.”

“Of course, sir,” Khalimov replied stonily.

He placed a device in Khalimov’s hand. “Your procedures are simple, Captain. First, remove the mechanical safety lock by pulling this pin. Next, turn on the test kit by turning this key, flip these two switches, and remove the key. Finally, once you are safely away from the weapon but no more than thirty meters away, press and release the red button on that remote. From that moment you will have sixty minutes to get at least five kilometers away from the area. At the end of sixty minutes, the test kit will electronically change the fusing from contact to radar altimeter altitude of three meters. Of course, it will sense the distance from the warhead to the side of the container is only a few centimeters, so it will fuse and detonate immediately.

“Three notes of caution, Captain. One: once you remove the mechanical safety lock, it activates a chemical battery inside the warhead, which powers the warhead,” Zakharov said. “Since the fuse will be set for contact, any sudden movement or impact on the warhead that creates more than twenty Gs could set it off. It does not have to be a violent action—dropping it or even hitting it with a hand or object hard enough could be enough to trigger it. Have your men out of the building when you pull the pin, be careful to walk away from it, and for God’s sake don’t slam any doors on your way out.

“Two: you have just five minutes from the time you pull the mechanical safety pin to when you must turn on the test kit,” Zakharov went on. “After that, the chemical battery will be spent and there will be no way to set off the detonation charge except if you somehow managed to cook off the explosive charge using a blasting cap. The warhead will be all but useless then.

“Third: that remote control device is also a dead man’s switch,” Zakharov concluded. “If you press and hold the red button for more than six seconds, the weapon will detonate when you release the button. There is no way to stop the device from triggering after that unless someone disarms the device while the button is pressed. The device will also detonate when you move out of radio range of the test kit, farther than about two kilometers or so, even if you are still pressing the button. This may help you and your men bargain for escape if you are caught or discovered. Vi paneemayetye?”

“Da, Colonel,” Khalimov responded.

The ex-Russian commando was one of the most emotionless men Zakharov had ever known, he thought. He nodded approvingly. “You don’t seem too nervous, Captain.”

“I have worked around dangerous ordnance many times, sir,” Khalimov aid. “Dying in a high-explosive, biological, or nuclear blast makes no difference to me—I am still dead.” He looked at the Russian colonel with stone-cold eyes and added, “Besides, I watched you shoot me in the chest point-blank with a Dragunov sniper rifle, sir. I have already lived and re-lived death many times since then.”

“Of course,” Zakharov said. “That’s an experience most humans will never have.” They unbolted the warhead from the hopper, set it in a case inside one of their soldier’s vehicles, wrapped it securely in the aluminum foil material again, and concealed it all under a carpet and spare tire. “It must never leave your sight from now on, Captain.”

“It won’t, sir.”

“Good luck to you, Captain,” Zakharov said. “We will see each other shortly. As soon as your operation is complete, I will arrange to wire the funds to your numbered accounts in Latvia.”

“Do you anticipate any problems, sir?” Khalimov asked.

“The Director has not been as well informed as I thought lately,” Zakharov admitted, “but he has always paid promptly and I have no reason to believe he won’t do so again. But I want to be close to him when your mission is complete just to make sure he stays cooperative.”

“Very good, sir,” Khalimov said.

“Razvjazhite Ad,” Zakharov said, saluting the assassin and then grasping his right forearm in a brotherly Roman Legion–style handshake. “Unleash hell.”

“Yes, sir,” Khalimov said confidently, returning the salute and the handshake. “Ih sud’ba nahoditsja v moih rukah. Their fate is in my hands.”