Cloudburst

Epilogue BETWEEN THE DARK AND THE LIGHT

From the slight rise of the mesa three miles away, Joe Anderson was watching the burial of the would-be destroyer. His eyes strained without their glasses to see the scene through the binoculars, a task made more difficult by the late-morning heat shimmer rising from the desert sand.

He had been to this part of the Nevada desert many times during his career. Most of those times he had observed underground nuclear tests, and the other times things not far removed from those detonations. The DOE did all of its testing here, as it had for twenty years, for reasons of safety and security. Treaty restrictions on aboveground testing were the primary reasons, though.

Joe pulled the binoculars away and rubbed the sweat away from his eyes, then put his glasses back on. With the naked eye the huge white jet, whiter than the desert around her, was visible almost fifteen thousand feet away, her nose pointed toward the dark area before her. Two solid months it had taken to dig the mammoth grave, and another three weeks to line it properly. Nothing could be allowed to leak or escape from the tomb once sealed. Joe had seen to the details and planning himself, a thought that he had chuckled at numerous times in the previous month. He was going to bury his killer, and he would soon join her, though his grave would be in a shady spot somewhere in the Minnesota backwaters. Only three months after his exposure he was already in stage-one leukemia. The president had offered a full military ceremony and burial at Arlington, but Joe had decided to leave that place for the real heroes.

The radio on his escort’s hip announced that the crew was ready. Joe acknowledged the Air Force major’s repeat of the transmission and gave the final go-ahead.

He let the binoculars hang from his neck as he watched the process begin. It had actually begun long before, when the Clipper Atlantic Maiden made her circuitous final flight from the Cape to the isolated Air Force runway at Nellis. From there she had been slowly wheeled across fifteen miles of desert, over a movable steel mesh whose designed use was as a temporary airstrip liner. By the time the 747 had reached the spot of her burial two weeks before, the tomb had almost been finished, and there she sat. At night she was bathed in the glow of bright floodlights, and at all times there were no fewer than two hundred security troops guarding her. The material aboard the jet was unstable, and priceless to some nutcakes.

Word came that the Maiden was rolling. It was obvious when she reached the long, sloping ramp that had been graded to afford access to the hundred-foot-deep pit. The nose of the blue-and-white bird slowly dipped as she began her last descent. When the tail pitched forward Joe pushed the glasses back atop his head and raised the binoculars. All looked good. The Maiden was now almost completely within the tomb, and for the first time the huge mounds of the reddish clay-boron mixture that would fill the pit were visible close beyond the hole. If the unthinkable happened, and the U235 aboard the aircraft combined and melted down, the compound would help slow the reaction, but not stop it.

Something else was said on the radio. “The aircraft is in position, Captain Anderson,” the major announced.

Captain. They must’ve briefed everybody, Joe thought. It shouldn’t bother him. After all, they were just showing respect. His rank was long gone, though. He was just Joe Anderson. Mr. Anderson to some. And not even that for long.

“Good.” Joe let the binoculars drop. The strap tugged at the back of his neck, reminding him that he was already sunburned. Some half-funny thought about skin cancer ran through his mind. “Tell the foam trucks to get in there, but have them wait for the dozers to move into position.”

The officer relayed the instructions. As soon as the bulldozers were ready to start burial they would begin pumping liquid foam into the interior of the Maiden, both cargo hold and cabin. This would harden within the hour, giving added crush resistance to the big jet so that the weight of the earth soon to cover her would not deform the outer skin or structure. When that was complete the clay-boron mixture would be pushed in, filling from the bottom up. The entire process would take two days, but Joe would be done there in a few minutes.

He watched for a long minute before realizing that he couldn’t see anything of interest or importance. Even the desert around the site, which would be eternally off-limits, was naked and unappealing. It was too dry here, Joe thought.

The sun was too damn much, he decided. “Shall we, Major?”

“Certainly, sir.”

Joe wanted to laugh at that, a major calling a captain ‘sir.’ Would wonders never cease?

They walked toward the blue Air Force Humvee parked a few yards away. Blue, Joe thought, letting his mind picture a place where he would spend the time he had left.

“So tell me, sir,” Joe began, “do you do much fishing around here?”

“Two bags only, huh?” Art commented awkwardly. He didn’t know what to say. Things were changing too fast in his world.

But hell, Eddie looked good, and things were going to go good for him.

“Hey, boss, you know the routine.” The smiling agent pulled both of the small bags from the trunk and set them curbside in front of the terminal. “Check it, and you lose it. Carry-on’s the only way to fly.”

Art forced a smile. He closed the trunk lid, leaving his hand on its warm surface. The two men stood still among the diesel exhaust and noise that pervaded the upper level at Los Angeles International Airport. Buses and vans, along with private autos, darted along the white cement roadway searching for the choicest spots for unloading.

“So, it’s the academy for you?”

Eddie nodded, tight-lipped. “Can you imagine that?”

Art could. Eduardo Giuliano Toronassi was a damn good agent, a true Bureau man. Maybe not the exact type old J. Edgar would have imagined, but so what. The FBI Academy was getting a fine addition. It was just a shame that his street career had to be at an end, thanks to that one bullet. The only visible remnant was a simple Band-Aid just below and to the left of his Adam’s apple, but less obvious results were very real. The effects were slight, but enough to disqualify him from street duty. Now he would teach other young agents, using his unique insight and talents.

“You’ll do good, Ed,” Art said sincerely.

Eddie’s mouth dropped slightly. “C’mon, boss. You want me to cry or something?”

Art didn’t, and let a laugh out. At least it wasn’t forced.

Eddie saw his old boss look slightly away. “And what about you? What’s next?”

Good question. “Hmm. If only I knew.” His eyes went back to his friend. “There’s no place in the academy for an old dog like me, you can bet on that.”

Eddie smiled, knowing that Art was right, but for the wrong reasons. He wasn’t too old, but in many people’s eyes, many of the people in power, that was, Art Jefferson was too close to the edge. His personal life was a mess, and the Bureau doctors said his health wasn’t far behind. A ticker could only take so much in the form of physical and emotional abuse, as the heart attack had proven.

“I don’t know,” Art said, his words coming from distant thoughts. “It’s all so damn much right now. Lois and all the other crap. Man, I’ve been doing every damn thing that shrink says, even the weird stuff. Lying down and visualizing all sorts of things. It’s supposed to relax you, you know, but all it seems to do is clear my mind so all the bullshit can fit. All sorts of negative shit, Ed.”

“Art, listen. You gotta go easy. Take a load off. Get rid of some of the stuff that’s bothering you.”

Easier done than accepted, Art knew. “That was done for me.”

“What do you mean?” Eddie asked, perplexed.

“Jerry talked to me a couple days ago.” Art paused. “They want me to resign from command. Go back to field stuff. Be a street agent again.”

Eddie didn’t have to think long about it. “It sounds good. Do it.”

The smile was almost automatic. “I thought the same thing after the initial shock of it.”

“Why not? You’ll be out of the bureaucratic end of it and back where the action is…where you know the score.”

“Where the action is?” Art commented. “Like where you were when that slug found you? Unh-unh.”

“So I duck worth shit, what about it?”

Art slapped the shorter agent’s face gently. “It’s good they’re sticking you behind a desk. Even I can nail you.”

Eddie mocked pain and rubbed it off his cheek. “So where are you gonna be, boss?”

“Working for Cam.”

“Kidnappings and homicide? Dead bodies and all?”

Art nodded. “The whole deal.”

The Italian’s puffy cheeks jiggled as he shook his head.

The time had gone quickly, and too much so. They would see each other again. Art was certain of that.

“You want me to walk you in?”

Again Eddie’s cheeks shook. “I can get it.” He stuck out a hand, and Art took it firmly. “We’ll be seein’ you, boss.”

“You, too, Ed.” Art watched him take the bags and head for the terminal door. He stopped just short of entering and turned.

“And get yourself a lady, you big black love god!”

Art almost choked on his laughter as all heads within earshot turned. And then his friend was gone.

He adjusted his jacket with a roll of the shoulders and slipped back into his car, a brand-spanking-new Acura. The heater came on with the engine, which was nice. L.A. was in the midst of a cold snap, and rain was almost certain by nightfall. The local ski resorts were in heaven, with the best snow in almost ten years thick on their slopes. People were finally staying local to ski, instead of heading north to Tahoe or Mammoth.

That sounded fun, Art thought. He did have a week left on his medical leave. Why not? In an hour he could be home and packed, and a few hours later on the slopes.

He had to remind himself that he hadn’t skied an inch in his life. But then he’d never tried, which, so far, hadn’t stopped him from doing much harder or more stupid things.

The city lights were a glowing half oval on the horizon, growing from only luminescence to defined structures lit from inside as the Mercedes truck drew nearer.

Both men in the cab were intent on their duty. The driver had a Walther pistol sandwiched between his legs, barrel forward, and the passenger kept his weapon, a stockless AK-74, in hand but below the window line. Their job was twofold: get the precious cargo in back to its newest hiding place, and do it without drawing attention.

The driver tapped the brake hard, then released, throwing himself and his partner forward with a jerk.

“Watch it!” the passenger screamed. Both men were equal in rank, lieutenants, but the one riding shotgun was easily the leader.

“There was an animal of some kind. It darted across the road.” The driver geared down, the engine whining as it pushed the truck back to speed.

A quick look behind eased the passenger’s worry: Both barrels were there, and still upright under the tarp. Inside each one was one hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium, enough weapons-grade material for several crude atomic bombs. This was the third move in a week for the barrels, as the Libyan Army tried to stay one step ahead of the American spies and satellites that were certainly watching.

“Damn!” the driver swore.

“What?” the question came, along with a reflexive tightening of his grip on the Kalashnikov.

“Another truck, with goats in it.” The gear was dropped again as they reached the grade that would leave them on the plateau of the city, though still ten miles from it.

Both vehicles were heading up, each beginning to struggle with the angle of the road. The lead truck, heavily laden with its cargo of livestock, was old, at least ten years older than the one that followed it.

“This road should have been closed, or cleared,” the driver said, the nerves obvious in his voice and the sweat already heavy on his forehead.

His passenger looked over. “And that would please the Americans greatly, wouldn’t it? Think, idiot! They are probably already here, in our country, and they would easily notice such blatant security measures.” He shook his head.

The driver’s stomach tightened. He had been with his precious cargo constantly for three weeks, eating and sleeping with it, and he had grown to hate it.

Both trucks rounded a right turn at the base of a flat spot on the grade, just below the final climb to the plateau. Neither the driver nor the passenger had noticed anything out of the ordinary, an oversight that was about to prove very costly. The five-ton truck ahead fishtailed intentionally as it braked just short of the incline, forcing the Mercedes to slow quickly and hard, but not skid. It stopped fully three feet from the left rear of the truck. Immediately the driver reached for the gearshift lever, ready to back up hard.

There simply wasn’t enough time. The Mercedes was a regular model, with no armor or bulletproof glass to protect the occupants. The first volley of fire from the truck impacted the window at an angle from the right. No fewer than thirty 5.56mm rounds hit, shattering the glass into tiny shards of shrapnel, and tearing a zipper-like row of holes across the front of the vehicle from the right door to the hood just forward of the steering wheel. The truck, thrown hastily into reverse, rolled backward off the roadside, sticking in the soft sand only twenty feet away.

Buxton knew that his first burst had been enough. Through the night-vision goggles he could see that the cramped cab of the truck was demolished, his stream of fire missing the bed entirely. Nothing in the front could have lived. He kept the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon trained on the now quiet vehicle, his finger off the trigger, as three forms approached the truck from each side. Antonelli, lying prone next to him, brought the Galil assault rifle close to his cheek.

The team approached quickly and cautiously. Graber led the three from the right side. On the left, Makowski, Jones, and Lewis stopped twenty feet short of the side. Sean and Quimpo moved in, leaving Goldfarb back. It took only a rapid check of the truck’s cab to see that no resistance would be met. Quimpo hopped down from the running board. “Clear.”

Sean did a circular scan of the area. “Let’s do it.”

Antonelli saw the hand motion and stood up in the middle of the baaing goats. He moved to the front of the bed and pounded on the back of the cab. The native CIA agent put the truck back in gear and swung it around, driving back fifty feet before stopping and reversing to the rear of the other vehicle.

The men of Charlie Squad were up on the truck, removing the tarps. Sean walked close to the two black barrels. He removed an instrument from his equipment bag and checked the readings of the containers. “They’re hot, but safe.”

“Just like the spooks promised,” Antonelli said, his toothy smile appearing cartoonlike in the night-vision world.

“Okay, let’s move them,” Sean directed. The barrels were edgerolled onto the friendly truck in just a few minutes.

The captain hopped down while the transfer was being done and walked to the bullet-riddled cab. Everything had gone perfectly. The disinformation campaign done by the Agency was masterful, keeping the Libyans concerned about ‘snatch teams’ that never existed. Their reaction, a continuous series of moves that U.S. satellites were able to follow precisely, was predicted and planned for. The result was a perfect example of ‘spook and follow’, and it had given Delta its radioactive quarry. Sean was glad the mission was successful, but there was something else to do.

He stepped onto the running board on the passenger side and looked in. The bodies were both slumped to the left, away from the force of the fire that had shredded them into a tangle of skin, bone, and muscle. Sean couldn’t discern any colors in the permanent green environment created by the goggles, but the sight was unmistakably grotesque. He reached into his breast pocket and removed a card, then tossed it onto the seat to the right of both bodies. It landed face up. The face of the Jack of Spades was stoic, Sean thought, as it stared skyward.

He jumped down and returned to the other truck. The loading was done.

“Ready,” Buxton reported.

“Let’s get out of here,” recently promoted Major Sean Graber directed his squad. The last ones climbed into the truck bed. The driver started back the way they had come. Two miles down the road he turned right, to the south, onto a roughly graded dirt road. In a few minutes they would stop, dismount, and take their ‘prize’ a few hundred meters to the waiting Blackhawk.

Then the eight Delta troopers and the native CIA agent would be gone, absent from a place they had never officially been.

The message left, however, was very real.