Ghost

Chapter One

“Come ’ere, lovely,” Mike said, pulling a blonde into his lap as she walked past. The girl — she was probably no more than sixteen but nobody cared in a place like this — was wearing a thong and a garter stuffed with bills. She had very nice tits, large with small pink nipples and fricking gorgeous blue eyes, true cornflower blue, with that sexy Tartar lift that so many of the Russian girls sported. Great cheekbones. Gorgeous tits.

“You gonna show me a good time?” he asked, sliding a five euro note into the garter and playing with her nipple.

Mike had decided that he purely loved Eastern Europe. The living was cheap, not that that mattered much, and the women were gorgeous. It was more than the fact that they dressed to the nines to go to the grocery store and didn’t tend to run to obesity. It must be pure breeding or something. Just gorgeous, one and all.

He’d started in Amsterdam, where he found out that most of the really good-looking hookers were Polish. Which had taken him to Poland, one damned beautiful country, where quite a few of the hookers were Lithuanian. This had led him to Lithuania, which he still felt had the best overall quality in Europe. But a bunch of the best-looking whores were from Russia, so he wandered that way. It was like that Beach Boys’ song, but with lots more screwing and some damned fine head. No training these girls; they were teaching him a thing or two.

“I show you very good time,” the girl said, wriggling in his lap and leaning forward to breathe in his ear, her nipples rubbing on his chest. “I be very good to you and you give me much money.”

Even in Russia he hadn’t stayed in one place, generally moving further eastward. He’d been fascinated by Siberia since he was a kid and wanted to get a look at it. He’d made it as far as Perm, moving slow and taking his time with the girls. This place, though, was the back of beyond. But the girls were fantastic and the price was sure right. He figured this one would be less than fifty euros for the whole night. And he intended to have one hell of a time.

“Just another rich American,” Mike snorted, starting to lift the girl up as another hooker sat down at the table.

“She has the pox,” the woman said. She wasn’t nearly as young, or pretty, as the girl on his lap. The term “rode hard and put up wet” came to mind. But she fixed him with her eye and shook her head. “Besides, you need to talk to me, not her. My name is Tanya.”

“About what?” Mike asked, tickling the girl’s nipple again.

The girl on his lap spat something in Russian at the newcomer and stuck out her tongue. Mike was picking up some of the local languages, but this was too fast for him to catch. He did catch the word for “old,” though.

“Go away,” the newcomer said. “He’ll be around for you later. We need to talk.”

“I’m not particularly interested in talking to you,” Mike said, standing up and taking the girl’s hand.

“You will be,” the woman said, standing up and coming over to whisper in his ear. “You want a nuclear weapon?” she asked quietly.

Mike froze and leaned back, looking her in the eye. She regarded him calmly, then raised an eyebrow.

“Take off, honey,” Mike said, pulling out another note without looking at it and handing it to the girl. “Me and Tanya gotta talk.”

The girl looked at the money, then rolled her hand over it and walked away quickly.

“You’re joking, right?” Mike said, sitting down and leaning back in his chair. The nearest patron in the dive was ten feet away, so they could talk without being overheard. He hoped. This was not something that you talked about in public. Or private. Hell, outside of a secure facility. “And why me?”

“I have been watching you,” “Tanya” said. “Not only here. I have seen you in other places. You don’t move like most of the Americans who come to places like this. They are fearful, afraid of being attacked. You move like… a panther. Everyone sees it. You are a player, as they say. And you are rich.”

“And how would you know that?” Mike asked.

“You realized you just handed Lydia a hundred-euro note, right?” Tanya said, laughing.

“Shit,” Mike snorted. “Is that what I did?”

“Yes,” “Tanya” said dryly. “And a man who can hand a cheap whore a hundred euros without noticing it, might have the money to buy… what we have to sell. And… Americans, even ‘player’ Americans, are more trustworthy than Russians.”

“And a man who had that much money might smell a rat,” Mike said. “For that matter, the American government would buy it. Why don’t you go to the embassy? Even a consulate?”

“Then there would be questions and problems…” the woman said, drawing the words out and shrugging. “That was talked about. As was simply pointing out their… misstep to the Russian government or selling it to an oligarch. I convinced them that I could find… a better buyer. One who would ask fewer questions.”

“I’m going to ask a damned sight of questions,” Mike said. “Because I smell what we call in America a con job.”

“No con job,” the woman said. “I can take you to a man who can explain where it came from. I can show you the… thing. You can test it as you wish.”

“And if I agree to buy this item?” Mike said. “What in the hell do I do with it, then?”

“You are a player,” the woman said, shrugging. “I can see that in your face, in your moves, in your eyes. You will already have an idea of what to do with it.”

If it wasn’t a con job, it might be a roll. That was looking more and more likely as “Tanya” got out of the cab and waved him towards an alleyway.

Mike stepped out, though, walking carefully and following the old whore. He had his senses dialed up to code orange, expecting at any moment to hear a stealthy movement as someone tried to mug him, or a group of thugs to appear and tell him to give them all his money. He could give them everything he had on him — even the money in his jump bag — and it wouldn’t make a dent in his bank account. But he was planning on shooting first and asking questions much later. Because Russian thugs tended to believe in the axiom that “dead men tell no tales.”

But there were no thugs, no stealthy movements. The woman led him to a set of steps to a basement club, a dive to make his previous haunts look serene. The door was guarded by a bouncer, a big guy who looked as if he used to be on the Russian wrestling team. And he had a telltale bulge on his hip that said he was packed. Hell, from the looks of the room, most of the patrons were as packed as they were drunk.

The room stank of spilled vodka, body odor and cheap tobacco smoke with a faint underlay of puke and piss. The whores were nowhere near as pretty as at the club he had come from and the patrons were not much better: low-class factory workers, bums and pensioners. He saw a few uniforms in the place and the Red Army pay was notoriously low. If the hookers in this place cost more than ten euros a night, it was because they were farming out their daughters as well. Five-ruble stand-ups were probably the order of the day.

The woman led him to a table at the back where a Russian lieutenant was slumped, staring at a shot of vodka like it was the Holy Grail. He picked it up and downed it as they reached the table and shook his head.

“I have found someone who is interested in the item,” Tanya said, sitting down with her back to the room, thus giving Mike the choice of a chair against the wall.

“It is too late,” the Russian said, shrugging. “Those idiots…”

“What do you mean ‘too late,’ ” the woman said, then broke into Russian.

The babble went back and forth and started to rise in volume as Mike surveyed the room.

“Uh, folks,” Mike said, waving a hand between them. “I don’t know what you are saying, but keep it the fuck down, okay?”

“He said that his men that were guarding the item have already sold it,” Tanya snapped. “He thinks it was to Chechens.”

“Okay, now this is bad,” Mike said angrily. “And this is no place to be discussing it. First things first,” he continued, digging in his pocket. “Tanya, go get a bottle of the most decent vodka they have in this place. When you do, we are getting the fuck out and taking this conversation to a hotel room, pronto.”

“Okay,” Mike said when they were in his hotel room. It was the best hotel in town, but it still would be a low-end Best Western in the U.S. It dated from the Soviet era and the construction showed: cheap carpets, horrible beds, lousy plumbing and walls of cast concrete that were flaking onto the cheap carpet. “Start at the beginning, go through the middle and get to now.” He placed the vodka on the table and waved at it. “You can have as much of that as you need, as long as you can keep talking.”

The lieutenant looked at the bottle for a moment and then shrugged.

“We are guards on an old nuclear facility,” he said, picking up the bottle, tearing off the thin metal cap and putting a splash of vodka in a glass. “Was accident in it, long ago. Is contaminated. But still stores some nuclear material, what they call isotopes.”

“I know what an isotope is,” Mike said, pouring himself some vodka and downing it. It was very, very bad. “Go on,” he gasped.

“Americans cannot handle their liquor,” “Tanya” said, pouring her own shot.

“There’s liquor and then there’s ant piss,” Mike said, waving at the bottle. “You can have all that ant piss you want. Keep going.”

“Is very boring,” the lieutenant said. “We are not to go in facility, but we get bored. We have radiation detectors. Is not so bad in most places. One of my men, Yuri, is very bored. He goes in facility. Is much of it underground. Is flooded, yes?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, thinking about groundwater contamination. But the whole of Eastern Europe was still such a cesspool from “enlightened Communism” and its approach to environmentalism that a nuclear facility leaking radioactive isotopes into the groundwater was barely a blip on the screen.

“So he finds part where flooding is not so bad,” the lieutenant continued. “And goes back up. There he finds… item.”

“Let’s get specific,” Mike said. “Are we talking a gravity bomb or a warhead or what?”

“Is very old warhead,” the lieutenant said, shrugging. “We cannot get manuals but Yuri is interested in these things. Thinks it was warhead from old missile. Is shaped like warhead,” he said, making a cone shape in the air, “and is very radioactive.”

“So Yuri ran and told you?” Mike asked.

“No,” the lieutenant admitted. “Tells others. Is… big fight. Yuri is wanting to tell government. Others, Oleg especially, want to sell to anyone. I am told by platoon sergeant. We all agree that I will find a good buyer. I sign myself on pass, yes? Know Tanya from… before. She knows people, so I tell her. We think, is much money, enough we can share. But… while I wait, Oleg is found buyer. They come and bring money. Platoon sells while I am gone. I find out tonight.” He stopped and poured another, large, shot and downed it. “Is gone. So is Oleg, went with buyer. Others have deserted, are afraid of what will happen when government finds out.”

“How much money did they get?” Tanya asked, angrily.

“Ten thousand euros,” the lieutenant said, shrugging. “Is not much, split up among platoon. Oleg takes nothing, goes with buyers.”

“Ten grand?” Mike snapped. “That’s it?”

“The buyers, they say that it is training weapon,” the lieutenant said, shrugging. “Is not real weapon. And they offer money now. Have it in hand. Is gone,” he repeated, shrugging again.

“Like hell,” Mike said, shaking his head. “Look, we have to find this nuke. I don’t think for a second it was a ‘training round.’ Why in the hell would they buy a training round? And why was it radioactive?”

“They say is for training,” the lieutenant said. “I don’t believe either. But they have money.”

“Well, we’re in a right pickle,” Mike said, thinking hard. “We’re going to have to come clean, tell the American government and then tell the Russian government. The American government will cover you as best they can if you get us all the information you have on the buyers. Because we’re going to have to track this mother down before it gets refurbished and used.”

“What is it with you, Mike?” Colonel Pierson yelled over the wash from the helicopter. “Can’t stay away?” The colonel was wearing an Extreme Cold Weather Gortex suit over BDUs, a necessity for the day.

It was early fall but the weather was more like winter, a cold wind blowing from the north and a light dusting of snow already on the ground. The hard-looking clouds overhead presaged more bad weather to come.

The helicopter had landed in a brush-grown field right outside the gates to the facility. The facility was mostly crumbling Soviet-era buildings with one fixed up to house the “guard” platoon. All of it was overrun with weeds with the exception of a small area around the barracks and the gravel road leading in and out. Beyond the fence, with the exception of the clearing where the helicopter had landed, fir and pine trees stretched for miles into the almost limitless Siberian taiga.

“Bad luck,” Mike answered, shaking his hand and looking at the Russian colonel who was following him.

“This is Colonel Erkin Chechnik,” Pierson said, waving at the Red Army colonel. “Russian Intelligence. Sort of my opposite number; he works in an office that briefs Putin.”

“Pleased to meet you, Colonel,” Mike said, taking the Russian’s hand.

“Am wishing I could say the same,” the colonel said. “Is very embarrassing for my country.”

“Shit happens,” Mike replied. “Look, we’re not going to get diddly, short of harsh interrogation methods, from these guys if…”

“Is covered as you Americans say,” the colonel said, shaking his head. “As long as are giving answers, is not a problem. And the American government is going to be… how you say? Supplementing their salary,” he added, glancing at Pierson.

“As soon as we have all the answers we can get,” Pierson said, “the platoon, and the hooker, have a one-way trip to the Land of the Free and an entrée into the Witness Protection Program. If they come clean.”

“Okay,” Mike said, blowing out. “Most of the platoon had already deserted when we got here. Sergeant Oleg Zazulya was the ringleader of the sale. He left with the buyers. The rest ran off on their own, taking the platoon truck. The only remaining witnesses are Sergeant Ivar Fadzaev, the platoon sergeant, and Private Yuri Khabelov. They’re in the barracks, hoping like hell that I can work a miracle on their behalf.”

“What about the hooker?” Pierson asked. “We want to cover this up entirely.”

“She’s here, too,” Mike said. “And by cover up, I assume we’re not talking graves. These guys seem to be… sort of patriots. As close as you get among the narod in Russia.”

“No graves,” Colonel Chechnik said, shaking his head. “Just questions, yes?”

“Yes,” Mike said. “Well, let’s get to it.”

“Hello, Private Khabelov,” Colonel Chechnik said. The interrogation was taking place in the lieutenant’s old office with the Russian colonel behind the desk and Mike and Pierson on a ratty couch. The room was sparsely decorated with a single picture of Putin on the wall and a small representation of the Russian flag behind the desk. The private was standing at attention, sweating in the cold room, clearly wishing he’d cut and run.

“The American colonel is Robert Pierson, a man who speaks directly to their president and I speak to President Putin. The colonel speaks Russian but his fellow does not. I understand you have good English so please use it. As you were told, you have been promised emigration to America, if you wish, if you give us all the information you have about the weapon and those who took it. Alternatively, you will be given money and, if you wish, an honorable discharge from the Russian military and can remain in Russia. But you must give us all the information you have. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Colonel,” the private replied. “I will give you all the information I have, freely. And if I may remain in the Motherland I would prefer it.”

“This is good,” the colonel said, sighing. “Your lieutenant has opted to go to America, but your sergeant also wishes to remain. I am glad for this. So, tell me what you know about the weapon. And take a position of at-ease, if you will.”

“It was on the second level below ground,” the private said, dropping to something that was more like parade rest. “In a room marked C-142. It was conical shaped, about a meter and a half long and perhaps two thirds of a meter wide at the base. There were no markings on the exterior, but on the base there was a plate, perhaps steel, with a number inscribed. It was corroded,” he reached in his breast pocket and pulled out a sheet of paper, “but I could make out the numbers 7493. We moved it up to the upper levels and secured it in a top-side weapons locker. After it was determined to…” He paused and swallowed. “Colonel, I argued to turn the weapon over to the government…”

“So I have been told,” the colonel said, nodding in understanding. “This reflects well upon you. But…” he added, shrugging, “there is great corruption in Russia. And the Red Army is not well paid. This I know and have argued against, for this sort of reason if no other. Do not worry about the decision, just give us the facts.”

“Very well, Colonel,” the boy replied, swallowing again. “The lieutenant went to town to try to find a buyer for the weapon. While he was gone, two men arrived in a white van, a nine-passenger Mercedes van with tinted windows. The license plate had been removed. Oleg met them at the gate, as if the meeting had been prearranged, and let them in the compound. Sergeant Fadzaev ordered us to prepare our weapons, but Oleg said that they were potential buyers. They appeared to be unarmed. They were not Russian; they spoke with an accent that… well, if I was to guess I’d say Chechen, and Sergeant Fadzaev agreed. They were dark-skinned and had black hair: real black-asses. They looked at the weapon and told us it was a practice system, that the radiation was from isotopes that were in it to make it seem like a real bomb. They said that they wanted it for the isotopes, since they could be resold, but that it was not worth much.

“We discussed it a long time, everyone was involved. They had brought vodka and we drank, although they did not. They had ten thousand euros with them and most of the platoon thought that since the lieutenant had been gone for almost a week, we should take the money and be done with it. There was… great fear that the government would find out and take it from us, and that we would get in trouble for not having reported it and trying to sell it. Finally, most of the platoon decided that they should sell it for the ten thousand. I and Sergeant Fadzaev disagreed but… everyone was armed and we could tell that if we didn’t agree to selling it… we might be killed. When it was agreed, the weapon was loaded in the back of the van, the men gave us the money and then they left. Oleg went with them. The rest of the platoon became frightened about what might happen if the government found out. I stayed with Sergeant Fadzaev in his quarters, with both of us keeping watch. In the middle of the night, we heard the platoon truck start up and then drive out of the compound. We went to investigate and found the rest of the platoon gone. It was then that Sergeant Fadzaev called the lieutenant and told him what had happened.”

“Two dark-skinned, black-haired, possibly Chechen males in a white, nine-passenger Mercedes van with tinted windows,” Colonel Pierson said, sighing. “Same from both witnesses. And not much to go on.”

“Why a passenger van?” Mike asked, puzzled. “Why not a panel van if they knew what they were buying?”

“I dunno,” Pierson said. “But we’ve got the information; it’s up to others to analyze it. Colonel,” he said, turning to Chechnik, “we need to get the FSB involved as soon as possible. And I’d like to turn all this over to our intel people, start seeing if the weapon is going out of Russia.”

“I am thinking it is headed for Chechnya,” the colonel said. “Or for a Russian city.”

“That’s an internal Russian matter,” Pierson said. “Although, if we develop any leads, we’ll turn them over to you of course. But we need to get moving on the basis that it’s going to go in play outside of Russia.”

“Da,” the Russian said, nodding. “The helicopter will take you to Perm and there is a jet waiting to take you to Moscow.”

“Colonel,” Mike said, standing up, “no unmarked graves.”

“Not for these,” the colonel said, waving at the still nervous private. “But if I find this Oleg fellow…”

“I’ll hand you the shovel,” Mike replied.

Chapter Two

“Chatham Aviation, Gloria speaking, how may I help you?”

“Hi, the name’s Mike Jenkins,” Mike shouted over the racket from the Russian Hip helicopter. He knew diddly about Chatham Aviation, but they came up high on Google for “charter aircraft business jet” and their website promised on-call service. “I need a jet in Moscow. I don’t know where I’m going to be going from there, but I need it there as soon as it can get there. I’ll pay lay-about fees or whatever. Something small and fast.”

“Layover,” the receptionist corrected. “I don’t seem to find an account for you, Mr… Jenkins.”

“I’ve never used you,” Mike said. “I got your name from the Internet. I figured an English company would have English-speaking pilots and I don’t have time to wait on one from the States. I really need a jet, quick.”

“Mike,” Pierson said, “we can get you transport.”

“Hold one,” Mike said into the phone, hitting the mute. “I don’t want to be begging for transport, Bob,” he said, shrugging at the colonel. “And I figure I can afford a charter.” He unmuted to the sound of the receptionist talking to someone in the background. “Is there a problem?”

“No problem, Mr. Jenkins,” Gloria said. “Chartering a jet is…”

“Expensive, I know,” Mike said sharply. “I take it you take American Express?”

“We do,” the receptionist said cautiously. “However…”

“It’s got a hundred-thousand-dollar line,” Mike said. “And it’s paid up. Or I can hand your pilots a sack of cash. I need a jet and I need one now. Or do I call the next charter company on the list?”

“Not a problem, Mr. Jenkins,” Gloria said. “Hold on while I take your information…”

“Everybody’s running around like a chicken with its head cut off, Colonel.”

Tech Sergeant Walter Johnson was career Air Force. He’d started off in satellite imagery and had slowly migrated to general intel and analysis. He was the only analyst currently assigned to the American embassy in Moscow and, as such, he was very busy. But he’d seen the directive for Colonel Pierson and the civilian he’d mentally pegged as CIA spec ops, Mike Jenkins. So when Pierson had come in with his latest intel dump, he’d dropped everything else on his desk. They were meeting in a secure room and Johnson had brought in a disc with his current analysis to use on the room’s computer.

“Normal in the early stages of the game,” Pierson said, sighing, “all the intel groups will be going ape-shit and the spec-ops boys will be running scenarios. What’s the current playboard look like?”

“Well, you didn’t give us much to go on,” Johnson admitted. “Right now, the current thinking is that it’s a Chechen operation. The Chechens, though, don’t have anyone we know of who can do work with a nuke. So they’ll probably sell it to someone or do a combined op. Whatever they do, whoever uses it, they’ll have to call in an expert.”

Johnson brought up an image on the screen of a “Middle Eastern Male.”

“Assadolah Shaath,” Johnson said. “The most likely ‘expert.’ Thirty-seven. Born in Islamabad, Pakistan. Dad is a minor official in the government. Educated at boarding schools in Pakistan and England, took a BS in Physics at Reading University and was working on his masters at Princeton when he was recruited by the Popular Front for the Islamic Jihad. Also picked up a BA in English literature, of all things, while at Princeton, centering on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American poets. Wrote a very nice paper on Longfellow, according to his analyst, and was a big fan of Poe. Went to Poe’s grave and such like. Sexual tastes run to long, slim blondes. Reported to be rather heavy handed with them. Also likes rock and roll, heavy metal and Goth music.”

“Great,” Mike grumped. “A mujahideen poet-engineer with my same sexual and musical interests. Just what we need.”

“Trained in Afghanistan in mujahideen techniques,” Johnson continued, frowning slightly at the input. “Appears on several captured Al Qaeda lists as an ‘engineer,’ what we would call a demolitions expert. Appeared to be working on nuclear assembly with the Al Qaeda, unsuccessfully. Possibly worked with the Pakistani nuclear program for up to a year. Possibly connected to the Shoe Bomber, Richard Reid. Tagged as one of the mujahideen involved in the Andros Incident, but that might be false info since there’s a high probability he was spotted by a Mossad informant in Lebanon three months ago.”

“One of them got away,” Mike pointed out. “The one that armed the nuke.”

“Really?” Johnson said, looking at his notes. “I don’t have that.”

“Trust me,” Mike said. “Your intel is wrong. The one that got away probably set the timer.”

“You’re sure?” Johnson asked, quizzically.

“He’s sure,” Pierson said dryly. “Go on.”

“Ooo-kay,” Johnson said, reevaluating the civilian. “He’s the top guy for potential weapons refiguring that we know of. There are two others that have almost his training and background. We’ve got a call in to Mossad to see if they can track him down.”

“Preferably followed by a nine millimeter to the medulla,” Mike said. “What about the van?”

“Lots of Mercedes vans running around,” Johnson said. “The FSB has an all points out for it, but don’t get your hopes up. It’s probably in Chechnya or Georgia already.”

“I’m bugged by one thing,” Mike said. “It was a passenger van. Why a passenger van?”

“I’d thought about the same thing,” Johnson admitted. “And I’ve got an idea, but it’s a long-shot.” He brought up a picture of a similar van. This one was apparently filled with people, and unless Mike was mistaken, they were all female except the driver. “The Chechens are into everything you can think of in the way of illegal moneymaking. Money laundering, drugs, gun running, what have you. All of them aren’t funding the resistance in Chechnya, but a good bit of the money flows that way. But one of the things they’re into is the sex trade.”

“Slaving,” Mike said.

“Bingo,” Johnson replied. “It’s not exactly the way that it’s portrayed in the news media, though. Yeah, some of the girls are snatched off the street. But most of them are sold by people that have authority over them. Parents, orphanages, what have you. The Chechens go on regular rounds and gather up girls, then sell them to various buyers.”

“There’s a main market,” Pierson said. “Eagle Market in Bosnia.”

“Agreed,” Johnson said. “I ran that idea past the analysts and Langley and they put it as a low-order probability. The max prob is the device is going through Georgia or St. Petersburg to be shipped elsewhere, or down to Chechnya, possibly into Georgia, to be refurbished and used against the Russians.”

“Yeah,” Mike said. “But if it’s internal to Russia, it’s not our ballgame. And all of that more or less ignores the passenger van anomaly.”

“You want to try to track it?” Pierson asked.

“That’s why I’m here,” Mike replied. “And why I put that jet on standby. Do we have anyone in Bosnia that’s a kind of expert in the slave trade?”

“I don’t have that info right here,” Johnson said. “But I can round it up.”

“Call me,” Mike replied, standing up. “Pierson will give you my scrambler code.”

“You’re going to Bosnia?” Pierson asked. “Now?”

“Better now than later,” Mike said, shrugging. “We’re five days behind them. I don’t know how long it takes to refurbish a nuke…”

“Depending upon their equipment,” Johnson interjected, “as little as ten hours. I checked. If they’re planning on planting it somewhere, they’ll probably trap it. Longer for that.”

“But we don’t have all the time in the world,” Mike finished, looking at the face of the terrorist “engineer” and burning it into his brain. “When I get there, I’m going to need a radiation detector. Preferably something I can secret on my person and use covertly.”

“We can do that,” Pierson said, standing up as well. “I’ll get you a contact in IFOR to get the stuff and the name of a person to guide you around.”

“Johnson, thanks for the brief,” Mike said, walking to the door. “And you need to update your intel. At the island — one got away.”

“Yes, sir,” Johnson said as Mike left the room. “Although, I’d love to know where he gets his intel. As far as I knew, just about everybody on that island got vaporized. And I didn’t know that the guy who armed the nuke escaped.”

“Let’s just say that some people are tough to get an after-actions report out of,” Pierson replied with a sigh.

The Gulfstream V was sitting at an out-of-the-way hangar at Moscow International when Mike arrived. He paid off the taxi driver and strode over, his jump bag on his shoulder. It was all the luggage he was carrying. It held the usual toiletries, a couple of pairs of socks and underpants and two shirts. Between that and the jacket and jeans he was wearing, he figured it would do. It also held his “walking-around money,” about sixty thousand dollars in mixed euros and dollars, mostly hundreds. The door of the plane was open and the steps down, but nobody seemed to be around.

“Hello, the plane,” he called, stepping up to the door.

“Mr. Jenkins?” the pilot asked, stepping out of the cockpit. He had a strong southern British accent and a military bearing. Mike pegged him immediately for former Royal Air Force.

“The same,” Mike replied, handing over his entirely fictitious passport.

“John Hardesty, sir,” the pilot said handing back the passport after a searching study. “I’m pleased to be piloting you to wherever your destination might be.”

“Former military?” Mike asked, stepping past him and tossing his jump bag on one of the front seats.

“Astute of you to guess, sir,” the pilot replied neutrally.

“Okay,” Mike said, shrugging. “RAF… Tornadoes. Close?”

“Bang on, sir,” the pilot replied, frowning.

“And you got out as… oh, a major I’d say,” Mike continued, grinning. “Because you could see from there on out it was going to be, at best, squadron command and much more likely a coalition staff position. Flying was going to go away.”

“Did you read my bio or something?” Hardesty asked, going from somewhat annoyed to amused.

“No,” Mike replied, shrugging. “Just a very ‘astute’ judge of character. Bit of a hobby figuring out plane drivers’ backgrounds.”

“And may I ask what your profession is, sir?” Hardesty queried carefully.

“I do odd jobs,” Mike replied, sitting in one of the forward seats.

“If you’ll pardon me, sir,” the pilot said, still curious. “You don’t get the money to charter a jet, much less have it sit around on call, by digging ditches with a shovel.”

“I’ve used a shovel in my time,” Mike said, smiling broadly. “But I usually prefer to find the local guy with a backhoe. Quicker and easier to hide the bodies. You ready to go?”

“Of course, sir,” the pilot said, reevaluating his passenger. “We’re refueled. I need to do a preflight.”

“Make it snappy, please,” Mike said, pulling out his satellite phone. “I’m in a bit of hurry.”

“Well, Mr. Jenkins,” Hardesty replied, smiling faintly, “it would help if we knew where we were going.”

“Someplace in Bosnia,” Mike said. “Just head for Sarajevo and I’ll try to get a better read when we’re in-flight. I’m expecting some calls.”

Mike looked out at the tiny airport that served the town of Herzjac and thought about its recent history.

Herzjac was on the border of Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, just over the Bosnian side. The Bosnian civil war had raged for years, with the various factions gaining and losing ground. As soon as it broke out, the UN, with the connivance of the Russians and certain European countries, notably France and Germany, had slapped a weapons embargo on the entire region. The problem with that was that the Serbians had, traditionally, held most of the military bases and production in their areas. Tito had been a Serb, and while forcing everyone into a “pan-Slavic” society, he had ensured that some Slavs were more equal than others. Since Russia and France had long running ties to the Serbian factions, it quickly became clear that rather than being a “humanitarian” move, the weapons embargo was designed to disarm, and keep disarmed, the “other” sides of the multisided war.

This meant that the Serbians had an immediate jump-start in the war and they had pressed their advantage home mercilessly. Thousands had been killed in the fighting and in “ethnic cleansing” in areas the Serbs overran. Of course, they were not the only perpetrators; when Croats or Bosnian Muslims retook regions that had been “ethnically cleansed” of their families, they were less than gentle with the Serbian inhabitants.

There had been various attempts to bring peace, but it wasn’t until the U.S. stepped in, covertly, that peace had actually been possible. The U.S. had secretly supplied the Croatians with training personnel, equipment and even real-time intelligence. Using those assets, the Croatians had retrained their army along American lines and used American real-time intel and “shock” tactics, multipronged heavy armor converging columns, to entrap the main Serb field army and virtually destroy it.

The surprise of having the Croats, whom they had been forcing back left and right, suddenly show such massive competence, not to mention military intelligence and supplies, had driven the Serbs to the bargaining table. At Wright-Patrick Air Force Base, outside of Dayton, Ohio, the Serbs had been forced to sign the Dayton Accords, fixing the borders of their country and those of the Bosnians and Croats and permitting an “Implementation Force,” IFOR, to enter the various countries and enforce peace on all sides.

So when IFOR arrived, the obvious place for it to set up was Herzjac, one of the most embattled towns in the war.

IFOR consisted of an American mechanized infantry or armor division, depending upon what was available to deploy, along with a large number of “allied” support personnel. When the Americans arrived, as Americans do, they had first set up a large and virtually impregnable camp in a manner very much like the Roman Legions. But they were in the country to do far more than just enforce peace. The “nation builders” among the State Department, and the military, quickly went to work trying to “rebuild the local economy.” Besides letting contracts to local firms for everything from laundry service to construction, they set up a market outside the base. Since the base was named Eagle Base, they naturally named it Eagle Market. It was something of a flea market, initially selling everything from cheap Southeast Asian electronics to shoes. Security was provided by the U.S. military and it quickly was recognized as the most secure such market in Eastern Europe.

It was that security that drew the slavers. Just like drug dealers, slavers had their conflicts. Fights over bad deals, fights over the girls, fights over “turf,” fights over bad blood between different ethnic groups or clans. But in Eagle Market, they were on neutral territory. The U.S. military prevented the conflicts from getting out of hand.

The military quickly became aware of what was going on and a very covert discussion broke out. On one hand, the chain of command was horrified. Slavery, especially slavery of rather young and almost invariably pretty to beautiful girls, was against everything the U.S. military believed in. The motto of the Special Forces is De Opresso Liber: To Liberate the Oppressed. But it was a motto that any American fighting man, or woman, would agree with. However, short of eliminating the slave trade, there was no way to stop the dealing from going on. And at least in Eagle Market the military could prevent the worst of sins being committed against them.

So a tacit “ignorance” existed, with American MPs strolling past men with strings of girls, bluntly, for sale. It was uncomfortable on many levels, especially since many if not most of the hookers in Herzjac, whose primary customer base were the enlisted men and officers of IFOR, had passed through Eagle Market. But the situation was still maintained.

As the plane rolled to a stop outside of an outlying hangar, a Mercedes sedan pulled up alongside. Before the customs vehicle could reach the plane, a man in a suit stepped out carrying a briefcase.

Mike saw the sedan inbound and by the time the plane stopped he had the hatch undogged. As the man reached the plane, he flipped down the stairs and stepped back.

“Mr. Duncan,” the man said, stepping up into the plane and setting his briefcase on the front seat. “I’m Charles Northcote, the IFOR liaison at the American embassy in Sarajevo.”

“Pleased to meet you,” Mike said, frowning curiously.

“I have your documents here,” the man continued, pulling out a manila envelope and handing it to Mike. “I think you’ll find they’re all in order.”

Mike frowned again and opened up the envelope, spilling it out on one of the seats. There was a diplomatic passport in the name of Michael Duncan along with various secondary IDs. A Florida driver’s license, American Express, Visa and hotel “frequent user” cards. All the usual things that a frequent traveler would carry.

He dumped out his pockets and started changing out materials as Mr. Northcote continued to speak.

“You’re checked in to the Hotel Krcelic. It’s a pensione in Herzjac on a side street. I’ll take you there and drop you off after I deal with customs. Mr. Dukhovic is going to meet you there this evening. He’s a former slaver who now does various odd jobs for the embassy.”

“An intel source?” Mike asked. “I don’t want to burn one of your sources.”

“Your cover is that you’re a State Department official investigating the slave trade,” Mr. Northcote said. “It’s well known that Mr. Dukhovic is a source for us. He also is a source for the French, the British, the Russians, what have you.”

“Well, we’re not investigating the slave trade,” Mike said, finishing switching his documents and putting his “real” stuff in the open envelope. “Are you briefed on what I’m here for?”

“Fully,” Northcote said, smiling faintly. “I’m the Bosnian Station Chief. And I’ve got my other sources looking as well. I think it’s a long ball play, but sometimes they go right. Oh, and on that subject,” he continued, dipping back into his attaché case and pulling out a device covered in wires. “This is a Geiger counter. There’s an earbud that can be run up through your clothing. Not entirely invisible, unfortunately, but unobtrusive. The detector goes down your arm and the counter clips to the waist.”

“Perfect,” Mike said, taking the device.

“I’ll go talk to customs while you get the rest of your gear in order,” Northcote said, handing him a card. “By the way, technically diplomats are not to be armed. But since you also cannot be arrested, or even detained, carrying is not an issue. Just don’t carry anything that can’t be concealed. If you run into shooting trouble, call me and I’ll call in IFOR. They have an alert team standing by in support, and we have nuclear specialists who are currently in Germany but can be here in a couple of hours. I’ll go take care of customs.”

Mike dumped the detector in his jump bag and took the envelope to the cockpit.

“The gentleman is going to be clearing me through customs,” Mike said to the pilot. “Hang onto this for me and put it in a secure location on the plane. As long as it doesn’t leave the plane, it doesn’t come to the attention of customs, right?”

“Yes,” Hardesty said uncertainly.

“You’ve got a manifest, right?” Mike said. “The name of the passenger is now ‘Duncan, Michael.’ ” Mike handed him his new passport and smiled thinly. “Bosnian customs will know damned well that’s not my name and not make an issue of it. But from now through the end of the charter, that’s the name.”

The pilot regarded the passport warily, but opened it up and noted the data on a pad.

“This is… rather irregular,” he said, then shrugged. “But you don’t jolly well get diplo passports if you’re a drug dealer.”

“Nor do you if you’re CIA or any of the rest of the alphabet,” Mike said, taking his passport back. “I don’t know when I’m going to be leaving. Give me a number I can call you at and you’ll have to be on call. So… stay off the sauce, if you will.”

“We’d planned on that, lad,” Hardesty said, handing him a card with his cell phone number on it. “No idea at all where we’re going next?”

“Hopefully I’ll find out here,” Mike replied.

Chapter Three

The Hotel Krcelic was similar to other pensiones Mike had stayed in. Pensiones were somewhere between a “regular” hotel and a bed and breakfast. Most resembled ancient inns and many of them dated from the Middle Ages. This one was in an old limestone-block building with vaguely baroque architecture that probably dated to the seventeenth or eighteenth century. The interior was heavy wood and dark, but the second-story room, one of only six in the whole “hotel,” was well lit by a southern window. The bed was heavy wood with two eiderdown mattresses; in cold weather the upper mattress acted as a quilt and sleeping in one was like being wrapped in silken warmth. Mike looked at the bed longingly — he was on about forty hours of straight ops at this point — then hooked up the Geiger counter with the receiver run down his left arm and went down to the bar.

He’d just ordered a Johnny Walker Black, bourbon being unavailable, when a man sat down next to him.

“Mr. Duncan,” the man said, holding out his hand, “I am pleased to finally meet you. Janus Dukhovic.” The man was just above six feet tall, heavy-set, with close-spaced eyes and a thin face that stood out oddly from his heavy girth. He had black hair and black eyes that were cold and hard.

“Mr. Dukhovic,” Mike said, shaking his hand and waving at the bartender. “Would you care for a taste to cut the dust?”

“Of course,” Dukhovic said. “I’m always willing to drink for free.”

When the drinks arrived, they moved to one of the booths and toasted.

“To IFOR,” Dukhovic said dryly.

“To peace between nations,” Mike replied just as dryly, taking a sip of the scotch. “What were you told?”

“That you want to look at the slave trade,” Dukhovic said, shrugging and pulling out a Marlboro. As he lit it he continued. “I have toured many people around the slave trade. Most of them, I think, enjoy the sight,” he added, smiling brutally and blowing out smoke. “I had two congressmen once that were so excited I think they nearly came in their pants.”

“I’m sure,” Mike said coldly. “I’m less interested in the girls than in how they are transported. I understand that the vehicle of choice is a nine-passenger Mercedes van, usually white, usually with tinted windows.”

“This is true,” Dukhovic said, puffing on the cigarette nervously and reevaluating the man across from him.

“I need to find as many of those vans as possible,” Mike continued. “And walk near them. Ones that are carrying girls are lowest on the list. The girls are usually traded at Eagle Market, right? But they don’t stay there overnight, true?”

“True,” Dukhovic said, blowing out a smoke ring. “There are various houses in the town that their protectors keep.”

“Where are the majority of the vans going to be?”

“During the day at the parking lot at Eagle Market,” Dukhovic said, shrugging. “They tend to be clustered in the southwest quadrant.”

Mike looked at his watch and frowned.

“We’re going to be at this for a while,” Mike said. “Maybe the rest of the day and well into the night. Are you up to that?”

“Of course,” Dukhovic said, putting out his cigarette. “When do you want to start?”

“Now,” Mike replied, downing his drink.

“There are dozens of protectors in the town,” Dukhovic said as they drove through Herzjac in his ancient Peugeot, the springs complaining at the rough ride. Much of the town was paved with asphalt, but it was sketchily patched and sometimes seemed to have more potholes than pavement. “And dozens of houses. And all of the dealing does not occur in Eagle Market. Some of the finest girls never go there, but are traded at the houses.”

“Van,” Mike said, gesturing with his chin down an alleyway.

“You wish to stop?” Dukhovic said, looking for a parking place. The street was lined with cars, however.

“Just drop me off and circle around to the other block,” Mike replied. “I’ll walk down the alley and meet you there. Be aware that I’m, we’re, probably going to be walking as much as driving.”

Mike slid out of the Peugeot and through a couple of cars to the street. There were shops lining the street, some of them starting to close, and a few pedestrians. He strolled to the alleyway, then turned down it, looking around in interest. Most of the buildings in Herzjac were built of limestone block like the pensione, with a scattering of Soviet-era concrete. As they had driven, he had seen still visible signs of the fighting in the area, mostly bullet pockmarks, but also some homes that had clearly suffered from artillery shelling. There were a large number of tree stumps, a clear sign of a town that had been under siege.

The alleyway was cobbled, with many of the cobbles missing, and stunk of garbage and shit. There was debris scattered through it, mostly newspapers and garbage.

The van was parked by a side door to a three-story building on the far street. The door was metal and well set into the frame, not that he particularly cared. He was more interested in whether he could be observed as he walked past the van and casually raised his hand towards it, lifting it further to scratch his head. Nothing. He needed to get a radiation source to test it.

He kept walking to the far block and looked around for the Peugeot. Dukhovic had passed his position and was pulled in to a free parking place, so he strolled over to the car and got in.

“What I just did is what I’m here for,” Mike said. “You’re the expert, tell me the best way to do it.”

“Over in Serb town is where most of the houses are,” Dukhovic replied, thinking. “I’d suggest we get dinner, wait for the girls to start coming back to the houses and then walk around. It might take most of the night, maybe part of tomorrow, but we can cover all the vans that way.”

“Security issues?” Mike asked as Dukhovic pulled out into traffic.

“There are some robbers in the area,” the Croat said, lighting a cigarette as he drove. “And if it becomes obvious the protectors may get upset.”

“Can you cover us on it?” Mike asked, looking around as they drove. The girls in this town were just as awesome as in the rest of Eastern Europe. Maybe it was something in the water?

“No,” Dukhovic said shortly, blowing smoke out the window. “When the market was first set up, the routes had every nation plying their trade. Bulgarians were prominent, but they didn’t dominate or anything. But about five years back, the Chechens started getting into it in a big way and there was… call it a slave war. Lots of killing. Not as bad as the real wars, but very bad and very bad for the trade. Anyway, now most of the protectors are fucking Chechens. I got out when I saw it coming, but a bunch of my friends who stayed in the business are dead from the damned Chechens.”

“Same thing happened in the U.S., twice,” Mike said. “The cocaine trade in the southeastern U.S. used to be mainly internal. They received their shipments and distributed, but the guys who ran the internal distribution were mostly American background. Heavy Mafia influence, but even that wasn’t dominant. Then, well, there was this thing called the Mariel Boatlift in the 1970s, under that bastard idjit Carter. Castro agreed to let people who were ‘longing for freedom’ come to the United States. What he really did was empty out his prisons. Not even the political prisons, just the prisons with all his real criminals in them. Burglars, murderers, rapists, armed robbers. So south Florida got about ten thousand criminals dropped on it, really brutal ones. They quickly took over the drug trade. Anyone who got in their way they just eliminated without making any fuss about it at all.

“Then in the 1980s, when the crack wave hit, the Columbians came in, heavy. They had soldiers who were trained in their civil war and it was even more brutal than when the Marielitos took over. Lots of use of automatic weapons, which had been fairly unusual up to that time. They’re still in control. So I know what you mean.”

They had dinner in a small restaurant, eating a sort of stew that wasn’t too bad. There was dark bread with it that was particularly good, as was the red wine. Mike wasn’t sure what the meat in the stew was but he’d learned not to ask too many questions about foreign food. Fortunately, Europe wasn’t into dog and cat the way the Orient was.

After finishing off the bottle of wine and a pastry something like baklava, they got back in the car and headed for “Serb town,” Dukhovic chain-smoking the whole way.

Mike could tell right away that this was one of the older parts of the town. The streets were narrow as hell and the alleys were overhung by the buildings. Some of them were simple enough to date back to the late medieval period. There were some Soviet architecture buildings as well; the cheap concrete the Soviets used was famous for being cracked and worn by time.

They found an open parking place, got out and started walking.

There were a few people walking the streets; from their hurried walk Mike guessed that they were on the way home and just hoping to get there before being mugged. The muggers and drug dealers were in evidence, standing on street corners or in the shadows of the alleys. But Mike and Dukhovic were clearly not their sort of target. Mike was on full orange alert as he walked, and his attitude was easy enough to read. It was a sort of crackling tension that said: “This may be your turf. But I’m a big dog and just passing through so don’t get busy.” Even the junkies they saw gave them a wide berth.

Besides the drug dealers, junkies, losers and thugs, there were lots and lots of white vans. They seemed to be everywhere, parked on the streets, parked in the alleys, sitting in lots by apartment buildings. Many of them had license plates from other countries: Russia, Georgia, Bulgaria, Ukraine. Mike got tired of trying to keep up, but he also didn’t want to double up, so he wrote down a bit of the tag number of each as they passed.

They stayed at it all night, covering just about every street in Serb town, watching the street people gradually fade away into the night.

“I am getting quite tired,” Dukhovic said towards dawn.

“I’ve been up for about fifty-six hours,” Mike replied. “If I can keep going, so can you. Have we covered the whole area?”

“There is a section of small warehouses,” Dukhovic said, yawning and pointing. “That way, about two kilometers. Usually not many protectors over there, but they sometimes use the houses along the river.”

“Well, I’m willing to ride,” Mike said, looking around. “The car’s about three blocks that way, right?”

“Yes,” Dukhovic replied, heading towards the car. “What is it you are looking for? I see that you are waving a device at the vans.”

“The Chechens stole some radioactive isotopes from the Russians,” Mike lied. “Not enough to make much of a radiological bomb, but we think they’re planning something like it. The device is a radiation detector.”

“Don’t they have those sorts of things on helicopters?” Dukhovic asked, confused and tired.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “But nobody thinks they’re coming here except me. I guess the detectors are all being used in Russia.”

They got in the car and drove around the section of warehouses, looking for white vans. These buildings were almost all Soviet-style architecture, running close to the river, which had a small port. Finally, Mike spotted a van on a side street and waved Dukhovic to stop.

He got out and walked down the street, casually, as he had at least a hundred times that night. As he waved his arm at the van, though, his ear was practically blasted by a screech from the Geiger counter. He could vaguely see into the van as he passed, and it had had the seats removed. It also had a Russian license plate. Pay dirt.

He continued walking to the far end, though, just another night person on the way home. Or, as it may be, going down to the river. The warehouses petered out short of the road that paralleled the river and there were more of the “older” buildings along there, these showing particular abuse from the war. He waved Dukhovic into a parking place and got in.

“What time do they start to move the girls?” Mike said, looking around. There were a few cars starting to move on the streets as the day people went to their jobs.

“A little after eight,” Dukhovic said. “That van doesn’t make sense where it is, though. These houses might hold girls; there’s a brothel down the street,” he added, pointing. “But all there are up that street are warehouses.”

“Well, it’s radioactive as hell,” Mike replied, thinking. “If I don’t come back, call Northcote and tell him to send in IFOR.”

He got out and walked back up the street, examining the warehouse without really looking at it. There was a small personnel door and a much larger roll-up door. The personnel door was metal and probably locked.

However, SEALs had access to some pretty obscure schools and one of them had covered “discreet entry.” He didn’t see any signs of life in the warehouse, no lights, no sound, so he slipped up to the door and slid out a set of picklocks.

It had been years since he’d really practiced with picklocks and it took him forever to get the door open. But finally the lock clicked over. He put the picklocks away and drew his sidearm, carefully screwing on the suppressor. That done, he slid it into the back of his pants and stepped through the door.

The room had a large crane system rolled over by the back wall, a large forge on the far left-hand side, several large metal tables, a drill press and an office on the right, near the door he had entered. There were five men in the room, cleaning up. Two of them were wearing heavy rubber gloves and appeared to be picking up bits of metal off the floor while two others were sweeping up the floor. The fifth turned and regarded him balefully for a moment, shifting so as to be behind one of the metal tables. There was a strong smell in the air that he couldn’t quite place, but it reminded him of shooting rooms. Melted lead, that was it. It made him feel quite at home.

Nadhim Medein looked up in surprise and annoyance as a Westerner walked in the door. Nadhim was from Yemen and had been a member of one terrorist group or another since he was a teenager. He had first joined the Popular Front for the Revolutionary Jihad in Yemen then traveled to the Tribal Areas in Pakistan where he attended jihadi madrassas. Eventually he was picked to aid the Taliban in their jihad for control of Afghanistan. He had been in the Taliban in Afghanistan on September 11, 2001, when the Great Martyrs had brought down the Towers of the Great Satan and had danced in joy with all the other Taliban at the news. He loved, still, to watch the video of the towers falling.

But he had also experienced, firsthand, the vengeance of the Great Satan and eventually fled Afghanistan to continue the jihad where it might bear less bitter fruit. He had fought in Fallujah with Al Islam and had been in Syria when this mission was formed. All he knew about the mission was that a bomb had been constructed in this building and he was to clean up so that IFOR would have no evidence of what had been done there. It was not the fiercest job in the world, but one that had to be done quickly and surely. Nadhim Medein was a soldier of the jihad who was known to be quick and sure. So he had been asked to participate and, after ensuring that it was a mission that would be useful to the work of Allah, he had agreed.

And he was sure he had locked the front door, but the man just opened it up and walked in. He was unarmed, apparently an American from the dress and walk. Nadhim was sure they had been discovered, but he tried to dissemble.

“How did you get in here?” the fifth man said as the others stopped what they were doing.

“Is Mr. Budak here?” Mike asked, ignoring the question.

“There is no one called Budak here,” the man said, reaching down. “How did you get in here?”

“The door was open,” Mike said, stepping forward to place himself by one of the tables. “I’m looking for Dzore Budak. He said he would be here.”

“Well, he’s not,” the man said, his hands out of sight behind the table. “You need to go.”

“What are you doing?” Mike answered, looking puzzled. “This is the warehouse of Dzore Budak, isn’t it?”

“Get out,” the man said, lifting up an AK as the others began diving behind tables and the large forge.

Rifles are hard to lift quickly but pistols are very quick indeed, and before the AK could come up all the way the silenced pistol had targeted the man’s chest. Mike put a round into either side of the chest and dropped behind the table, turning it over with a massive heave as the others pulled out rifles from their hiding places.

Asfaw Rabah watched in shock as Nadhim was cut down by the American, then reached under the worktable and pulled out his AK. He could not believe that Nadhim had been killed so easily. Nadhim was a legend in the Jihad and his stories of fighting the Dar Al Harb throughout the world had passed the slow times on this mission. It made Asfaw incredibly angry that so great a man had died in such an ignominous way.

Asfaw was from Saudi Arabia, the only son in a family of five. His parents were not particularly devout, to his way of thinking, and did not support his choice to join the jihad. But when he was fifteen he had gone with some friends to hear the words of the Mullah Yahya Mahad, one of the many Wahabbist preachers who made their living bringing the Word of God to the Dar Al Islam along the road to Mecca. At the time the forces of the Great Shaitan were still infesting the Holy Lands, their main base within a few hundred miles of the Holy City. Until that time, Asfaw had never thought what a sin against Allah it was to have the Crusader forces so close to the Holy City. The mullah, though, had thought long and hard upon it and he pointed out how very angry Allah must be.

From that day forward, Asfaw had pledged himself to rid the Holy Lands of the Crusader forces, wherever that might be. He had been picked up by the Saudi police in a demonstration against the Crusaders and, while his family had managed to get him out of prison, he had been forced to leave his home country. He had added to his pledge the vow to eventually throw down the corrupt House of Saud who had allowed the Crusaders into the Holy Lands and had joined the Jihadi Al Islam with that purpose in mind. With the fall of the kaliphate in Afghanistan he had been forced to go to Syria, and it was there he met Nadhim and been recruited for this mission.

Asfaw held the AK by his hip, as Nadhim himself had taught him, pointing it at the table the cowardly infidel had ducked behind and blasting the top as the weapon bucked in his hands. The weapon, stupidly, ran out of rounds and he reached under the table again for his spare magazine. He had his head down and never saw the American peek around the table…

Mike heard the rounds hit the top of the heavy working table and one punch through as he rolled to the left side of the table and peeked out. One of the terrorists was standing in the middle of the room, reloading after a “spray and pray” so Mike targeted two rounds right through his breast bone, spaced no more than a quarter’s width apart.

Asfaw felt the rounds in his chest like two punches and a sharp pain in his back. His legs gave out from under him as the spinal cord was severed, and he dropped the AK and the spare magazine as he fell, his face striking the ground, hard. His nose was broken, he was sure, and, as his vision faded, he thought that his mother would be very angry at him for breaking his nose…

One of the terrorists was running to the right, heading for the crane for a better vantage point. Mike shot at him but missed as the target dove behind the crane. He reloaded, considering the situation, then popped straight up.

This received fire from behind one of the tables, also turned over, from the forge and then from the crane. He burst out of cover to the left, rounds cracking around him as the terrorists fired off most of their clips, and slid to a stop on his stomach behind the last table in the room. As he did the Geiger counter started screaming: the metal shavings on the floor were hot as blazes. At that realization, he popped up to his feet, quick. He duck-walked forward, trying to keep his balls away from the shavings. The Geiger was still screaming from the dust and shit on his clothes, so he yanked the earbud out and ignored it, then leaned out, looking for targets.

Zuhair Adil put his last magazine in the weapon and considered what to do. Adhim and Asfaw were probably dead. He had seen Adhim shot and had heard the chuffs from the American’s silenced weapon and the sound of Asfaw’s weapon clattering to the ground. It was a great thing to die in the Service of Allah, but it was a greater thing to kill the infidel at the same time. Killing, in this case, meant staying alive long enough to do so.

Zuhair was seventeen, a Bosnian Muslim who had been too young to join the jihad against the Serbs. But after the war was over the Wahabbists had come in to rebuild the mosques of Bosnia that the Serbs had defiled, bringing with them their extremist brand of Islam. Zuhair was an orphan of the war; his father had been a shopkeeper killed by the Serbs and his mother had disappeared when they were refugees. He had been taken into a madrassa funded by the International Council for Muslim Charities, a Wahabbist charity funded primarily by Saudi oil money, and it was there that he had been taught the truth of Islam, that Mohammed had declared that the whole world must be in submission to the will of Allah and that the way of jihad against the Dar Al Harb was the highest calling of the Muslim.

He had been recruited by one of the mullahs of the madrassa to assist in this mission, which was simple enough: clean up the warehouse and make sure no one got into it until the clean-up was complete. He was told that there might be trouble, but he had thought they would have some warning. And he very much would prefer not to die. He realized that as he considered what to do. Dying for Allah was all well and good to shout at the madrassa. But facing it, in real life, was a different thing. He would gladly kill a Serb if he had a chance. They had killed his mother and father, after all. But this was no place to die and no way to do it. All he wanted was out. But to do that meant either surrendering, which would look very bad, or making it to the door. To do that, he had to know where the American was. So he leaned around the forge, searching for him. As he did, he saw the American, around the side of a table, doing the same thing, and he lifted his rifle in terror, pointing it at him and yanking the trigger…

The tango by the forge was leaning out, also, and fired at him as he came around the side. But all the rounds went high, so Mike put a round through his exposed forehead, spreading the terrorist’s limited brains all over the back wall. He slid back, then lifted himself straight up over the barrier. None of the terrorists were in sight, so he reloaded, thinking…

Imad Al-Kurbi was annoyed. He had fired off two full magazines at the American, carefully holding the weapon with one hand on the pistol grip and the other on top of the barrel to keep it on target as he had been taught. But he still could not hit the slippery infidel.

Imad was from the Tribal Territories of Pakistan, one of seven children, three sons, of a small mountain farm. He had been raised with an AK in his hand and considered himself a good shot, so it was doubly annoying that he had been unable to hit the American. He had left the farm when he was fifteen, entering a Wahabbist madrassa in Islamabad. There was no work in Pakistan and the madrassa fed him both food and the Word of Allah. He had left the madrassa at seventeen and, paid by the jihad, had traveled first to Afghanistan to fight the Crusader invaders, then to Iraq where he had met Nadhim who was another veteran of Afghanistan. They had planted bombs to fight the Crusaders for a year before the Crusaders flooded the country with heavy forces and began destroying the jihad in that country. When it was clear they were going to be caught soon, Nadhim suggested that they travel to Syria where jihadis were being recruited for international missions.

This mission was supposed to be simple. But it was clear that the Americans had discovered them and he had to kill this one before the word got out. However, he was out of rounds. Nadhim, though, had never gotten off a shot, so he should have a full weapon.

With that thought, Imad quietly set his empty weapon on the ground and lifted himself on fingers and toes and leopard-crawled around the table he had been using for cover. He could hear faint sounds from the American, a magazine being slid out and then another into the weapon, and he thought about sight angles. If he crossed the open area and around to the far side of the table Nadhim had been using for cover, he would stay out of sight. He got to his feet and, crouching over, darted across the gap, ducking behind the far side of the table.

Mike duck-walked sideways, keeping the room covered as he sidled over to the forge. He bent down and picked up the terrorist’s AK and switched it for his pistol. There were ten rounds left in the magazine and no more mags. That meant the other terrs might be out of rounds.

Imad listened to the faint sound of the AK magazine being removed and then either it or another being reinserted and considered what to do. Nadhim’s weapon was on the far side of the table, maybe in reach. He lay on his stomach and stretched his arm out, hooking at the trigger guard of the weapon…

There had been one of the terrorists behind the overturned table, but he was gone. His weapon was on the ground but he wasn’t there. Mike had moved left, so the terr had probably moved right. That meant he was behind the drill press, one of the overturned tables or in the office. It was unlikely he had made it to the crane. And there was the one left behind the crane, of course.

The back side of the drill press was just out of sight, so Mike sidled that way, AK at tactical present, and peeked around the corner. No “Middle Eastern Male” there. He quietly peeked over the table to see if the terrorist was on the far side, keeping half an eye on the crane. He should have taken fire from there by now, but he hadn’t so the terr was probably out of rounds.

There were two more sides to the drill press and Mike checked those, wondering where the target had hidden himself.

“Olly olly oxenfree!” Mike called tauntingly. “Come out, come out wherever you are!”

Imad didn’t speak English very well, but he recognized the taunting tone. Let the American taunt; by sliding his body almost fully under the table, he had managed to get one finger on Nadhim’s rifle and he could see the American’s legs from his current position. He began to slide the AK slowly to him and winced at the metallic scraping sound…

Mike heard a magazine being surreptitiously removed then reinserted by the crane; he ducked down behind the table, waiting. As he did that he heard a metallic sound where the first terrorist had been standing: the tango he lost track of had been out of rounds and had snuck over to the leader type to get his full weapon. Most of the head terrorist’s body was in sight, so the target must be on the far side of the table on his stomach, reaching under it for the weapon.

Mike dropped to his own stomach, looking under the table and, sure enough, there was the tango. He was half covered by the body of the leader and snatched the weapon to him when he saw Mike’s sudden movement. They locked eyes for a moment, the terrorist raising the AK to fire under the table and then Mike shot him between the eyes.

All Majali Fu’ad wanted was out. Majali was from Egypt and had been a student in Germany until the money for college ran out. He hated Cairo, where there was no decent work for a college-trained young man and very few distractions unless you were married. So he stayed in Europe, doing odd jobs, until he ended up in a madrassa in Bosnia of all places. The madrassa fed him, and if the food came with a healthy dosing of the Word of Allah he was willing to accept that as long as his bowl was filled. He’d taken this “mission” because it was just another odd job, like dozens of others he’d done over the years since college. He’d only fired at the American because everyone else did so, and it gave him a sense of security to shoot the weapon. But now he was out of bullets and a long way from Cairo. If he managed to get to the door he was going back to Cairo, finding a job, any job, and never, ever leaving again. And if anyone said the word “jihad” in his presence, he was going to punch them out. He crouched down, his eyes fixed on the door, and as more firing broke out, he sprinted for the door…

Mike lifted up to the top of the table as he heard pounding feet, putting the last three rounds from the AK into the running terrorist who slid to a halt, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His arm twitched a bit and then he was still.

Majali lay on his face, feeling the blood flowing out of his chest, and tried to crawl to the door. It was a long way to Cairo, but he would crawl if he had to. He was cold and it would be warm in Cairo…

Mike lifted up and looked around, then switched the AK for the one the leader had had, checking the leader. The leader had probably lived for a few seconds based on the blood trail, but he was dead.

Mike checked the office, cautiously, then moved from one body to the next until he was sure they were all Dead Right There. And they were.

“I really could have used a prisoner, you know,” Mike said, shaking his head in frustration. “One of you could have bothered to survive!”

Chapter Four

“Well, I threw sevens,” Mike said, sitting down and pulling out his phone. “Where are we?”

“Corner of Levakonic and Miskina,” Dukhovic replied. “I heard shooting. Automatic rifles?”

“Northcote?” Mike said, ignoring him. “Corner of Levakonic and Miskina. Up Miskina street. Warehouse with a white van outside. Van’s hot, so’s the warehouse and I took fire when I entered. I think we have the site; site is secure. Yeah, full response and get the Nuclear Emergency Search Team moving.” NEST was the premier group in the world at detecting, analyzing and, if necessary, taking apart, nuclear wepaons. “No prisoners, unfortunately, they all croaked on me. Make contact with Dukhovic; he’s going to be at the corner. I’m going to go get some sleep.”

“There was shooting,” Dukhovic repeated nervously.

“Yeah,” Mike said. “There won’t be any more. That brothel. Think they’re open this time of day?”

“Yes?” the pajama-wearing man at the door said in an irritated tone. It had taken Mike three minutes of hammering with his pistol grip to get the door open at all.

“I’m looking for a girl,” Mike replied. He’d gone back to the pensione, changed out of his mildly radioactive clothes and taken a shower first. Then had Dukhovic drive him back to the warehouse and kicked him loose.

“It is too early,” the pimp said, starting to close the door. He was about fifty, even heavier than Dukhovic, with a receding hairline and heavy jowls that were tracked with sleep lines. “Come back this evening.”

Mike jammed his foot in the closing door and pulled out a wad of hundred-euro notes, waving them in front of the man’s nose.

“Money talks, bullshit walks, as we say in America,” Mike replied.

“The girls are all asleep,” the man said, watching the money wave back and forth. “It will take some time to wake them up.”

“Fine, you can serve me breakfast,” Mike said, pushing the door open. “What I’m looking for is a young blonde, nice breasts. I’m going to treat her extremely roughly, but not leave too many marks. Then I’m going to sleep with her most of the day. Three hundred euros to you. You throw in breakfast.”

“Deal,” the man said, following Mike into the room. “I am Ivo Kovacic.”

“And I’m nobody you want to remember,” Mike replied.

Mike was dipping bread in rather decent coffee when Kovacic came into the kitchen leading a very pretty young blonde. She was wearing panties and a camisole that revealed a tight stomach, long legs for her height — she was quite short — and very large breasts that were still high and full. She had a gorgeous face, long, curly hair and beautiful Tartar eyes. He couldn’t quite get a look at the color since she had her head down in a very submissive posture that he found immediately alluring. Of all the whores Mike had seen in all the countries he had visited, she was close to the best looking, if not the top. If she wasn’t so short, no more than five four, she could be a supermodel.

“This is Magdelena,” Kovacic said. “She is a new girl here, but I think you will find her to your tastes. Do not strike her in the face hard, if you will. Other customers will get the idea that she can be used as a punching bag.”

“I won’t,” Mike said. “As long as she does what I tell her to do. Come here, girl,” he said, grabbing her wrist and pulling her onto his lap. “Let me see your eyes, look at me.” He grabbed her chin and lifted her face so he could look her in the eye. When she looked at him he could see that her eyes were wide and frightened, and she kept trying to drop her head, her chin pulling against his fingers like a trapped bird.

Mike was, briefly, troubled, his conscience nagging at him. But the whole stinking mission had raised his frustration level to a fever pitch and his demons had hold of him firmly. He slid his hand up under the camisole and felt her breasts, roughly. They were tight as if she had just finished growing them and he reevaluated her age; she couldn’t be more than seventeen and fifteen was probably closer. Again, his conscience twinged, but he ignored it. Her youth and relative inexperience was too exciting.

“I’ll take this one,” Mike said, standing up and taking the girl by the hand. She tried to pull away and he shifted his grip to her wrist. “Where’s her room?”

“Upstairs,” Kovacic said. “I think that payment up front would be good, however.”

Mike pulled out the wad of notes and peeled off three, handing them to Kovacic.

“Show me your room,” Mike said to the girl, pulling her forward and slapping her on the ass, hard. “Now.”

The girl walked into the main living room of the house, then up the stairs. Her room was down the hall on the left. It had a double bed, pushed up against one wall, a small wardrobe, a nightstand and a chest of drawers. When she entered the small bedroom, Mike closed the door, then grabbed her by the hair, pulling on it brutally.

“You speak English?” he snapped, pulling her around to look her in her frightened eyes.

“A little,” the girl whimpered. “Please, no hurt.”

“I like hurt,” Mike said, twisting her hair and watching as tears formed in her beautiful eyes. “You do what I say, I won’t hurt as much. Understand?”

“Yes,” the girl said in a terrified tone. “Please…”

“Down on your knees, bitch,” was his reply, pushing her down. “Pull out my dick and suck it. Suck it good, or I’ll hurt you.”

The girl quickly unzipped him and pulled out his cock, sticking it in her mouth and fellating him. She sucked hard and used her hands, expertly beating at him at the same time until he came. She started to pull back, but Mike held her in place by her hair, coming into her mouth.

“Don’t even think about letting my cum spill,” Mike said, hitting her on the head as he came into her mouth. “I’m going to put my cum in you and if you spill one drop, I’ll beat you senseless.” He grabbed her by the hair again and shoved her onto the bed, ripping at the camisole as the girl cried out in fear. He slapped her on the face to get her to lie still as he ripped her clothes off. Even after coming in her mouth, he was so enraged that he was still as hard as a rock. He pulled the pillowcase off of her pillow and jammed it in her mouth, then pinned her hands over her head and took her, dry and hard, as she whimpered at the pain. He kneaded her breasts as he fucked her, twisting at the nipples and biting her in a frenzy of brutal rape. He knew he was over the edge and didn’t care. All he wanted to do was rape this bitch, hard, to use her and abuse her.

He could feel his cum rising again, but he wasn’t about to simply put it in her pussy. He pulled out, brutally, to a gasp of pain from the girl and turned her over on her stomach, reaching in his jump bag with one hand to pull out an unlubricated condom. The girl struggled as she realized what was about to happen, but he pinned her down, slid on the condom and found her lovely asshole with the tip of his dick, forcing it in with his hand. She tensed up against him and he punched her, hard, in the kidneys. The pain must have been overwhelming because she loosened up immediately with a moan of pain and despair. She was still incredibly tight, probably an ass virgin, and her moan turned to a shriek of pain and humiliation when he entered her. He pumped her, hard, for what seemed an eternity, enjoying every one of her whimpers, reaching around to grab each breast and pulling at the nipples so hard she screamed. As she screamed in pain and fear he finally came again.

When he had, he slumped on her, limp, his flaccid member slowly drawing out of her ass. He hit the still whimpering girl on the head and stood up, throwing away the condom, taking off his clothes and laying his sidearm on the bedside table.

“I’ve raped you,” Mike said brutally, pulling out her gag. “Now I’m going to sleep with you. And if you try to run, or steal anything, I will wake up. You will sleep right here, with me, until I’m ready to get up. If you try to get away, you’ll be beaten. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” the girl said, pulling herself up against the wall and as far away from him as she could.

“Get over here,” Mike said, pulling the covers back, then lying down on the bed and pulling the girl to him. He forced her to spoon with him, facing the wall. “Don’t try to run,” he said in her ear, wrapping an arm around her possessively.

The girl was gently crying, but she nodded. She smelled of fear and he still found that incredibly exciting, his member briefly engorging to touch her on the ass. Other than in agreed-upon “scenes” he had never been so brutal to a woman in his life. And she had, no question, not been a willing participant. It had been paid rape, pure and simple. His conscience was still nagging at him, but he was ignoring it. He slid his hand up to cradle one lovely breast and fell asleep like he’d been drugged.

Mike woke up, once, when the girl tried to slip out of bed. He simply grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her back to spoon, then went back to sleep. The second time he woke to the sound of his phone ringing. He pushed her into the corner of the bed and picked it up, checking the time as he did. It had only been four hours, not nearly enough time for NEST to have arrived and done a full survey.

“Duncan,” he said after a moment; he still wasn’t used to his cover name.

“Northcote,” the man said. “Go scramble.”

Mike punched in the code on the phone and hit scramble.

“Be aware,” Mike said. “I’m in an unsecure location.”

“That’s fine,” Northcote said. “The IFOR team has finished a preliminary evaluation. They’ve found traces of plutonium, uranium and tritium. There’s also a container that probably held new tritium, which is one of the things…”

“Look,” Mike said, “this is all fine and dandy. But call me back when a full sweep has been completed including information from the area. I need to sleep; I’ve been on continuous ops for a while. I’ll probably be over there this evening; I’m not far away.”

“Okay,” Northcote replied, nonplussed. “Will do.”

“Bye,” Mike replied, hitting the disconnect. He tossed the phone on his clothes on the floor and pulled the girl to him, entering her dry and pumping her hard. It clearly hurt and her face was screwed up in pain. After raping her for a while, he pulled out, then grabbed her camisole from the floor, forcing it into her mouth as a gag and entered her again. She tried to fight him this time, but he was much stronger than she was and there was no way for her to stop him raping her. He slammed her, brutally, holding her hands above her head with one hand gripping her wrists and twisting at her nipples with the other as she cried out in pain against the gag.

That wasn’t enough, so he turned her over again, using her panties to tie her to the bedstand and tying the camisole around the back of her head. He put on another condom, then pulled out his belt and whipped her ass red as she cried in pain. Finally, when he was so full of cum he felt he would burst, he mounted her, hard, pounding her lovely ass brutally, while kneading her breasts and pinching her nipples. He still held back, though, giving her a full, hard fucking, before letting himself release into her ass.

When he was done he threw the condom away and untied her.

“Lick me clean,” he said, pushing her head down to his crotch. “Clean me all up.”

The girl did as he said, then he pushed his cock into her mouth.

“Suck it,” he ordered, lying back. “Suck me back to life.”

She blew him and played with him until he was engorged again, and then Mike threw her on her back and started pounding her again.

“I love raping you,” he said, looking at her face that was screwed up in fear and pain. “Look at me,” he ordered. When she opened her eyes a crack he laughed at the fear in them and they shot closed again at his expression. “I love raping you. I’m going to do it over and over again until I have to leave.”

He’d already come several times, so he could fuck her for as long as he wanted. He kept pounding her and pounding her as she cried and whimpered in pain at the tearing in her pussy. She never got wet and it had to be painful as hell. He lifted her legs up in the air and slapped her ass, hard, spanking her until she was crying openly, sobbing and pleading at him to stop hurting her. This gave him enough juice that he could come again.

He collapsed on her again and then pulled out, pulling her to him in a spoon.

“You are the greatest girl to rape I have ever met,” Mike whispered, licking at her ear as she tried to turn away. “I am having so much fun raping you, I might never stop. I can keep this up all day and all night.”

“Please,” the girl whimpered. “Please stop hurt me.”

“No,” Mike said, pulling her hard into him so his dick was right in the crack of her ass. “I like hurting you. I like scaring you. I like raping you. And when I wake up, I’m going to do it again. But don’t try to get away or I’ll beat the ever-living crap out of you.”

He played with her body for a bit and then went back to sleep.

He woke up at a second call, looking out the window for a handle on the time. The sky was red with sunset so he figured it was about right. The phone said four PM, local time.

“I’m already scrambled,” he said, sitting on the bed and reaching over to touch the ass of the girl in the bed. She trembled but held still.

“NEST has completed its evaluation and there’s some intel on the activities here you should hear,” Northcote said.

“I’ll be over in about fifteen to thirty,” Mike answered, hitting the disconnect and tossing it on the bedside table. He fondled the girl’s ass, which was still red with strap marks from his belt, then squeezed it, hard, eliciting a mew of fear from the girl. He reached into his jump bag, pulled out another condom and rolled the girl over on her stomach.

She had learned to accept him raping her in the ass, but she was still tight. And she cried as he did it to her. He pounded her, playing with her tits and only pulling her nipples a little bit, until he came.

“You’ve been a lot of fun,” Mike said, throwing the condom away and dipping into his pants. He pulled out a wad of euros and tossed them on the crying girl’s back. “I’m going to tell your pimp that that is for you. And I’ll check up, make sure he hasn’t taken it from you. I’ll also tell him that unless you want, you’re off-duty tonight.”

The girl rolled over and pulled the money from behind her back, her tears drying and eyes widening at the sight of the bills. He wasn’t sure how much was in the fold, but it was probably half a year’s pay for the girl. Most of the money she made, usually two or four to one, went to her pimp, even “tips” like Mike’s. She flipped through the roll then looked at Mike, quizzically, for the first time without fear in her eyes.

“I’m not particularly proud of that side of me,” Mike said as he pulled on his clothes. “It comes out from time to time, but I don’t like it. That,” he added, gesturing with his chin at the money, “doesn’t make up for what I did to you. But… it helps. Both you and me. And I’m sorry for how I treated you, but I was at a point where it was do what I did or kill somebody. And, unfortunately, right now there’s nobody left for me to kill.”

“Is okay,” Magdelena said, pulling the clip off the roll and counting the money. “Not like, much hurt, much… bad memory.” She got to the end of the quick count and looked at him again, curiously. “But for this, is okay. Would do again.”

“Yeah,” Mike said as he holstered his piece and picked up his jump bag. “But then you’d be acting. It wouldn’t be the same.”

The brothel had a few customers checking out the girls when he walked downstairs, but he spotted Kovacic talking to somebody on the door who must have been a bouncer. He waved him over with a lift of the head as he headed for the door.

“I gave Magdelena a tip,” Mike said, cocking his head to the side. “A very large tip.” He dipped into his pants and came up with another hundred-euro note. “This is your tip. Her tip is hers. I’ll be checking up. And just to be clear, I’m tight connected with IFOR. Do not think you can have part of her tip, or you’ll end up sorry and sore as she is. Am I being blunt enough?”

“Yes,” Kovacic said, pocketing the money.

“She’s off for tonight unless she wants to work,” Mike said. “That’s for her share of tonight. We okay on that?”

“Yes,” Kovacic replied. “I could hear some of what was going on. She won’t be good for much tonight, maybe tomorrow.”

“She’s got some strap marks on her ass from my belt,” Mike said, shrugging. “No bruises. A hand print on the face that is mostly faded. I may be back later for… fifths I guess.”

“It will not be on the house,” Kovacic said. “I normally don’t let my girls be treated like that.”

“You’re such a sweetheart,” Mike said, walking out.

Chapter Five

There was a large cordon set up down the street. Mike walked up to the line of soldiers securing the area and pulled out his diplomatic passport.

“Michael Duncan,” he said. “I’m here to meet Mr. Northcote.”

“I have to clear it with the sergeant of the guard, sir,” the private said, swallowing nervously. “Normally that would get you past, but we have a serious security issue here and…”

“Fine,” Mike said, grinning. “I know where you’re at, son. Follow procedures, I’ve got time.”

It took a visit from both the sergeant and the officer of the guard before he was past, the officer of the guard escorting him to the warehouse. Even then he wasn’t allowed to enter until Northcote was called outside. The van was gone, he noticed. He wondered, idly, if they’d loaded it on a tow truck or if some poor bastard had had to drive it. It had been, radioactively, hot as hell. He wouldn’t have wanted to drive it.

“There you are,” Northcote said, exasperated. “I was wondering when you’d bother to show up.”

“I figured it would take most of the day to get a full read on the situation,” Mike said, yawning. “And I’d been up for about sixty hours. What do we have?”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Northcote said, dragging him into the warehouse through the personnel door. Mike noticed that the lock had been knocked out by a door-knocker. “We’ve got a briefing set up…”

“Spare me the Powerpoint,” Mike said, looking around. About half the warehouse was now covered in a set of plastic bubbles with guys in clean-room suits waving detectors around and using small vacuums to pick up dust. The office had apparently been converted back to being an office. There were at least thirty people in the room outside of the investigation area, standing around and looking worried. “Just the facts, as they say. And you’re on pins and needles. Why?”

“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?”

“Not really,” Northcote said. “Not something like a Hilton or whatever. There are some in Sarajevo.”

“Okay,” Mike said, sighing. “Northcote, get somebody coming up with a target list. But I’m going to go watch TV in Sarajevo and try to go on hunch. It’s been working so far.”

He keyed his cell phone and punched in the number the pilot had given him.

“We’re going to Sarajevo next,” Mike said. “Just a hop. We’ll probably be going somewhere after that.”

Mike walked out of the warehouse thoughtfully, then down to the brothel.

“You again,” Kovacic said. The brothel was in full swing and Mike could see several military uniforms in the room.

“We need to talk,” Mike replied, putting his hand on the man’s arm and leading him to the back rooms.

“I want to buy Magdelena,” Mike said when they’d entered his cluttered office. Apparently running a brothel was like any business, because most of the clutter was paper and there was a computer on the desk.

“You won’t be able to take her out of the country,” Kovacic said, frowning.

“Yeah, I will,” Mike replied. “Trust me.”

“And she is very expensive,” the pimp added. “I had to pay very much for her.”

“How expensive?”

“Fifty thousand euros,” Kovacic replied.

“Pull the other one, it’s got bells on it,” Mike said, laughing. “I can buy a girl just as good in Eagle Market for five thousand. And younger. I’ll give you ten.”

After a good bit of dickering, with Kovacic referring to Magdelena as his daughter and Mike threatening to leave twice, they got the price down to twenty-five thousand euros.

“Fine, fine.” Mike sighed, lifting his bag onto the desk and dipping into it. “Go tell her to get ready to leave.”

When Magdelena came in the room, her eyes widened in fear at the sight of him. Which wasn’t anywhere near where he was going, but it would work for the time being. She was carrying a small duffel bag and the hand holding the strap on her shoulder twitched nervously.

“Here you go,” Mike said, pointing to a pile of mixed dollars and euros. “The dollar is over the euro at the moment, but I went with even so you’re a bit ahead.”

Kovacic pulled some of the notes out at random and checked them for counterfeit, then pulled apart a couple of the bundles and started counting.

“Can we go?” Mike asked. “I have a plane to catch.”

“I suppose,” Kovacic said, frowning at the pile. “You were planning on buying girl?”

“No,” Mike replied. “I tend to carry a good bit of cash on me. It’s not as if anyone was going to take it. They can feel free to try.” He took Magdelena’s hand and led her out of the office and out of the brothel to the street, then looked around for a taxi.

“Magdelena, I treated you horribly,” Mike said, not sure if the girl was understanding what he said or not. “I can’t take that back, but I can try to improve things for you. I won’t do what I did to you again. But you have to promise me not to try to run away. Not right now. If you want to leave once we’re out of Bosnia, you can. But if you stick with me, I’ll try to do the right thing by you.”

“Where we go?” Magdelena asked, confused.

“Right now, Sarajevo,” Mike said. “I need a hotel with a decent TV connection.”

He finally managed to get a taxi and directed it to the airport. Once there he went to the plane and was pleased and surprised to find that the pilot had gotten there before him.

“We’ve completed preflight,” Hardesty told him, nodding as Mike stepped to the plane with Magdelena’s hand still in his. “Pick up a girlfriend?”

“Something like that,” Mike replied. “I saw a TV in the plane. Can it get satellite?”

“Of course,” Hardesty said, as he boarded. “Use the remote for channel changing. Anything from the Playboy channel to CNN.”

“CNN is what I’m interested in,” Mike said. He settled Magdelena, her eyes wide at the sight of the plane, in one of the rear seats, then sat down opposite the large TV mounted in the rear bulkhead. He keyed it on as the plane’s engines began to whine and had found Headline News, Fox and Skynews by the time the plane was finished taxiing. His interest was Europe, and Skynews had more about Europe than Fox or Headline News. He switched around, looking for current updates.

“I need an Internet connection,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose you have a laptop with an Internet connection on it, do you, honey?” he asked rhetorically.

“No,” Magdelena said. “What are you do?”

“You understand more English than you let on,” Mike replied. “I’m trying to figure out what event a terrorist attack is most likely to be against,” he continued, flipping back to Headline News. It was at the top of the hour and he listened to the news, ignoring most of the underlying commentary. President Cliff did this, what a horrible person, deaths in Iraq, Syria swearing it’s not a source of terrorism, the pope visiting Paris…

“Wait,” Mike said, swearing, as the seven seconds devoted to the pope’s visit cycled off. Apparently the pope had suddenly become aghast at the state of Catholicism in European countries and after traveling the world had decided to work nearer home. But that was all that Mike could get in the brief bit that Headline News mentioned. And there wasn’t anything on the other channels about it, just commentators nattering about how horrible President Cliff and America were, except on Fox, where they were nattering about how horrible the other channels were.

“Crap, crap, crap,” Mike muttered. “I need info.” He picked up his cell phone and called Northcote, but all he got was voicemail. The pope would be a perfect target; Catholics from all over France would be gathered to see him. Sure, France was increasingly an Islamic country; Muslims made up about ten percent of the population with an enormous immigration and birthrate while ethnic “French” were barely reproducing themselves. But he was sure that the incidental few hundred thousand Muslims that would be killed in a nuke strike would be of no real issue to Al Qaeda, if that was who was running the show. He thought about the terrorist “engineer” who was at the top of the list to have refurbed, and likely armed, the nuke. He wouldn’t bat an eye at killing a few hundred thousand Muslims if he could take more Christians with them. They would simply be martyrs to Allah.

He thought about it some more and decided that his gut was telling him this was the target. So he picked up the sat phone again and dialed OSOL.

“Office of Special Operations Liaison, Colonel Johannsen, Duty Officer, how may I help you, sir?”

“Go scramble,” Mike said, punching in his code.

“Scrambled.”

“This is Mike Jenkins,” Mike said. “Pull up my file if you don’t know who I am. I need somebody to brief me on where the pope is going to be in Paris and when. I also need access to France in a private jet for myself and one undocumented female.” He felt the jet begin to reduce power, as if preparing to land, and stopped. “Wait one.” He keyed the intercom for the cockpit and whistled.

“Sorry about this,” Mike said. “I don’t suppose we have fuel to get to Paris?”

“We do, sir,” Hardesty replied. “I take it I should divert?”

“If you please,” Mike said. “I have to get back to the other line.

“Sorry about that,” he continued. “We were landing in Sarajevo. Can you get somebody to run point for me by the time we get to Paris? We’ll probably be going into DeGaulle, at a guess.”

“I can do that,” Johannsen said. “Is this about the item?”

“Yes. I’m running on gut. Everybody else can run around to whatever event they want, but I’m guessing it’s the pope. The timing is right, the target is right. So I’ll need high-level access.”

“What’s the name of the undocumented female?” Johannsen asked.

“Magdelena Averina,” Mike said, pulling the first Russian name that came to mind. “And I’m under the cover name, Michael Duncan.”

“Got that, too,” Johannsen said. “I’ll put out the word that you’re headed there and give a heads-up to the locals.”

“Thanks,” Mike replied. “Out here.”

“We are not go Sarajevo?” Magdelena asked.

“Nope,” Mike said, leaning back. “We’re on our way to the City of Light.”

Chapter Six

“The pope is going to do a large audience at the Stade de France and a high mass on Sunday at Notre Dame. The high mass is the culmination of a seventeen-country European tour.”

Colonel Mark De’Courcy was one of three military attachés in the U.S. embassy in Paris. He had graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, served as a junior officer in the Twenty-Fourth (later Third) Infantry Division, then up the chain, mostly in staff positions, until he had managed to wangle this assignment. And as with everyone associated with military or security work in Europe, he hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep in the past two days. So he was less than thrilled about meeting some high-level, no-real-names-I’m-special agent at two in the morning at Charles DeGaulle.

“French police are all over both events like flies,” he continued as he, the agent and the agent’s Russian hooker-girlfriend walked to the waiting embassy car. It was a Peugeot with diplomatic plates. “We’ve got the call on the van and they’re looking for it. So why are you here?”

“Because I’ve been lucky every step of the way,” Mike replied. The colonel was a starchy regular Army SOB who clearly thought he was hot shit for getting such a choice assignment as military attaché to the French. Of course, the French military had sunk to such a low ebb, they’d be hard pressed to defend their country from a troop of well-trained Cub Scouts. So being a military attaché was less than impressive to Mike. “I got lucky in Russia, I got lucky in Bosnia and if this is where it’s coming, you’d better hope I get lucky here.”

“Well, we put the word out to the French security guys that you were inbound,” De’Courcy said, sighing as they got in the car. “They’re less than thrilled but willing to work with us. What are you planning on doing?”

“The events are tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” De’Courcy said. “The audience is at noon and the high mass is at four PM. Then he goes on to Berlin. That’s closer to Bosnia, I might add.”

“I know that much geography,” Mark replied dryly. “But the longer this item is in play, the more likely we are to pick it up. And if they didn’t know we were tracking, they do now with the way that IFOR took down the warehouse; that stood out like a sore thumb. I’m surprised it’s not all over the news.”

“There was a squib about it,” De’Courcy said. “We covered it with a suspected bomb-making facility.”

“Like that’s going to hold with NEST running around in coveralls that say NEST,” Mike said irritably. He thought for a moment and then shrugged. “Where’s this stadium?”

“Southwest of Paris, out in the suburbs,” De’Courcy replied, pulling a map out of his briefcase. “Where are we going?”

“Somewhere away from the stadium,” Mike said. “And away from Notre Dame. Northeast of Paris is there a good hotel?”

“There’s a Hilton up there,” De’Courcy said. “Will that do?”

“I dunno,” Mike said. “Is it outside the radius of a ten-megaton blast?”

De’Courcy shot a look at the girl and his jaw worked, but he nodded. “Yeah.”

“Suits,” Mike answered. “Leave the map, give me some contact info and I’ll cut you loose. Where do you want to be dropped? I take it I can keep the car and driver?”

“At the embassy,” De’Courcy said grumpily. “It’s going to be an all-nighter. And, yeah, the car’s yours.”

Mike checked into the Hilton, taking a suite that he insisted be on the north side, and led Magdelena upstairs. They attracted looks from the late-night staff, especially since he was pretty travel-worn and both of them were carrying single bags, but he could care less about the looks.

When they got to the suite, and got rid of the entirely unnecessary bellhop, Mike showed her the two rooms.

“You can have either one you like,” he said.

“Which one will you use?” she asked, confused.

“The one you don’t,” Mike replied. “Look, I know I messed up in Bosnia. I’m sorry. I’m not carting you along to use you again. Maybe we’ll have time to get together. If we do, I’ll try to show you the more pleasant side of me. But for right now, I have to get moving. Stay in the room. Order room service if you want food. Don’t go out. You can run away if you’d like, but I don’t suggest it. And don’t call anyone. Just… watch TV or something. Okay? If we get a chance I’ll take you shopping. But I don’t think we’ll get a chance.”

Mike put his dirty clothes in the bag provided, called down and asked the management to try to get them cleaned by tomorrow, and walked out.

“Where to?” the driver said, leaning his seat upright as Mike walked to the car.

“You know this stadium the colonel was talking about?” Mike asked.

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, putting the car in gear. “There?”

“There first,” Mike replied, looking at the map. The stadium was circled in red. He first checked the legend, then made some circles with his fingers. Unless he was much mistaken, a blast there would take out the stadium and some of the burgeoning suburbs around it. But that was about it. However, a blast near Notre Dame would completely gut Paris. And the bomb was a big one, one of the nasty “city busters” from the 1960s before the era of Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles.

“You’re American,” Mike said, putting the map away and leaning back.

“Yes, sir,” the driver said. “I’m one of the diplomatic protection drivers. They figured you might have to have secure conversations.”

“You know what we’re looking for?” Mike asked. “And what is your name, O genie? I’d hate to have to call you James.”

“Bruce Gelinas,” the driver said with a chuckle. “And, yeah, I know what you’re looking for. The colonel briefed me on the way to pick you up. You really think it’s coming here?”

“This is the target I’d pick if I was a terrorist,” Mike replied, frowning. “The French are big into appeasement of the rifs. But you’d think they’d have learned from 1939 how well that works. Yeah, it might be headed anywhere in Europe; the American option is pretty much out the way they rigged it. But the pope is the right target in the right place at the right time. They don’t have nearly as much of a hard-on for the Germans as they do the French. And waiting for Berlin just gives us more time to find it. So, yeah, I think it’s going here.”

“Great,” the driver said. “And I suppose I have to be there while you look for it.”

“Well,” Mike pointed out, “if it goes off at Notre Dame, it’s going to get the embassy, too. So sitting on your butt there won’t get you anything. You don’t have any family in town, do you?”

“Nope,” Bruce said. “I’m single and fancy free, now that my last wife filed the papers. And she’s in Texas.”

“I think I’d rather be in Texas,” Mike admitted, picking up his phone. He dialed the number for the pilot and was answered in a rather surly fashion.

“What do you bloody want now?” Hardesty snapped. “Sorry, sir, I’d just laid my head down. Are we up again?”

“No,” Mike said. “But in the morning, get the plane up and to a dispersal field away from Paris.”

“Might I ask why?” the pilot said curiously.

“No,” Mike replied. “But you can come to your own conclusions. At least sixty kilometers from Paris. To the south or east.”

“Very well,” Hardesty said cautiously. “Given that information, perhaps I should move it now.”

“Up to you,” Mike replied, hitting the disconnect. “I’d hate to have my wings shot off by this.”

“That wasn’t exactly the most secure conversation I’ve ever heard,” Bruce said. “You could get your ass in a sling over that.”

“You’d have to find someone with a big enough sling,” Mike said, leaning back in the seat and folding his arms.

The more Mike looked at the stadium, and the area surrounding it, the less enthusiastic he became about it being the likely target. Yes, if they hit it they would get international coverage; that was guaranteed with any nuke. But the only people they would kill would be sixty thousand or so attendees, the pope, and a few hundred thousand people in the surrounding area. And the closest dense population was high-rise “low-income housing” that was mostly populated by Muslims. They’d definitely kill more Muslims than Christians. And it wouldn’t gut the City of Light.

TV vans were already setting up, with Klieg lights running and the works. He regarded them balefully as the sedan drove past. There were dozens of the damned things, any one of which could hold the nuke. With the lead wrapped around it, there was no way that there’d be a radiation trace. There was a small particle given off by nukes, a nucleotide or somesuch. That would get through the radiation shielding. But the detectors for it were huge, giant tanks of cleaning solvent of all things. He wasn’t sure there were any that were mobile. He’d have to ask NEST. On the other hand, if there were any, he was sure they were in use.

“This isn’t it,” Mike said, shaking his head as they passed through the security cordon. “Or if it is, I’ll take the hit. Head to Notre Dame.”

By the time they got there the sun was rising and they had to fight traffic. French drivers weren’t the worst in the world — Italians had them in Europe, and the entire third world had Europeans for bad driving — but they were pretty damned bad. Bruce negotiated the traffic expertly, however, with only an occasional curse, and got him to the security cordon alive.

Security was tighter here than at the stadium, but their plates, and especially Mike’s passport, got them into the area and he had Bruce park. He looked around at the buildings and nodded. This was a much superior target.

Notre Dame was a magnificent Gothic cathedral completed in 1345 after nearly two hundred years of construction. It was built on the Ile de la Cite, an island in the Seine River near the center of Paris which joined the Right and Left Banks through a series of four bridges. But it was only the last of several religious structures on the island. In turn there had been a Druidical grove, a Roman temple to Jupiter and a Romanesque church occupying the same island over the millennia.

Notre Dame, including its nave and secondary buildings, occupied only about half of the large island, with the rest taken up by two hotels of nearly the same antiquity. The island, thus, had little in the way of parking; the multitudes of attendees were anticipated to be brought in by bus while the press were relegated to an adjoining island, Ile Saint Louis, which had a far too small parking lot for the purpose.

Security was tight, with French police wandering all over the area, most of them carrying submachine guns on friction straps. Mike regarded the press area balefully. There were, if anything, more press vans here than at the stadium.

“This is the command post over here,” Bruce said, pointing to a set of police vans as they got out of the Peugeot. “You’d probably better get a security badge if you’re going to be wandering around the area.”

He led him over to command post, Mike’s diplomatic passport getting them through another layer of security and up to the rear of one of the vans.

“I take it you are the American who thought we would let a nuclear device slip into Paris,” a woman said as they reached the rear of the van. She was a narrow-faced brunette holding a cup of coffee and wearing a very pissed-off expression.

“That would be me,” Mike said, smiling. “And you are… ?”

“This is Madame Gabrielle LaSalle-Guerinot,” Bruce said hastily. “She is the French minister of security.”

“Madame,” Mike said, bowing slightly. “A pleasure. I’m not sure I can get the whole last name. Can I call you Gabby?”

“No you may not,” Madame LaSalle-Guerinot responded angrily. “And if it wasn’t for the Cliff government making a stink of things, I would have you thrown out right now.”

“Pity,” Mike replied. “I thought we were getting on splendidly. But unless you are the clerk that hands out badges, I think we’re looking for someone else.”

Madame LaSalle-Guerinot started to reply, thought better of it and stomped off.

“You did not make a friend there, I think,” a French colonel sitting at the rear of the van said dryly.

“Well, I don’t think getting laid was in the cards, anyway,” Mike replied. “And I don’t think you are the clerk I need to see, either, Colonel… ?”

“Henri Chateauneuf,” the colonel said, languidly sliding out of the van and handing Mike a badge. “Call me Henri. And I am — I am the clerk. So Madame LaSalle-Guerinot informed me but minutes ago.”

“I suspect you don’t have a friend in the good madame either,” Mike said, taking the badge and hanging it around his neck on a lanyard.

“C’est la vie,” the colonel said, shrugging, then taking Mike’s arm and leading him towards the cathedral. “I doubt that I shall, as you say, get laid, either. It is a terrible world. The madame was appointed after the last election. She was an academic with copious papers to her name, explaining how the French security apparatus, including its military, oppressed the poor Muslims of our fine country. Since the Muslims are an increasing voting block, we inherited Madame LaSalle-Guerinot, a woman who has not once seen the inside of a refractary building except on carefully guided tours.”

“Refractary,” Mike said, frowning. “The low-income Muslims?”

“Indeed,” the colonel said, sighing. “She is very much against being ‘high-handed,’ as she puts it, with the refractary. Even when they riot, as they often do. May all the saints forbid that we, for example, make random sweeps for any who are holding guns or drugs. That we enforce French laws against battering women. She is a feminist, yes? But this is simply their ‘culture.’ Something that we have to learn to live with, as a multicultural society.”

“Has that interfered with this investigation?” Mike asked.

“Many of the drivers of press vans in Europe are of Middle Eastern or North African origin,” the colonel replied tightly. “Make your own conclusion.”

“Is she mad?” Mike snarled. “We’re talking about a nuke, here.”

“Calmly, calmly,” the colonel said, stopping and turning to regard him with lidded eyes. “The item has not come here, of course. The Muslims of the world are angry at the Cliff Administration, not France. It was not we who invaded Iraq. It was not we who staged a raid on Syria, who detonated a nuke over their territory. We did not set forces in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. This was all America, so naturally the Muslims are angry at America, only. France has done so much for them they would not think to attack us. We are good friends to the Muslims here in France. And the way that we will continue to be friends is to treat them gently, as we would fellow Frenchman. Better, in fact. So we have not, for example, conducted a van-to-van search for a generator that does not run. Such would be intrusive, both to our Muslim brethren and to the news media. In the latter, I agree, she has a point. If we start searching vans, one by one, if the nuke is here, they would simply detonate it.”

“So that’s the way it is,” Mike said, breathing out. “In that case, I’m glad I came here.”

“As am I,” the colonel replied, turning to walk again. “With your diplomatic passport, Mr. ‘Duncan,’ the most that can be done to you is expulsion and making you persona non grata. And with the pressure the Cliff Administration exerted on your behalf, you have access to the full area. But I repeat; letting them know the van has been spotted, if it is here, will likely cause them to detonate the item.”

“It would have been nice if it had been stopped before it arrived in the middle of Paris,” Mike pointed out.

“Perhaps it will be,” the colonel said, shrugging. “Perhaps it is not here. Perhaps it will be found on some road somewhere else, and it will be their headache. And, then again, perhaps it is.”

“You have a suspicion?” Mike asked.

“No, simply the same deductive reasoning I assume you used,” the colonel said, stopping at the edge of the press area. “And here we must part, alas. I have many things to attend to, as do you. Feel free to stop by the van again; we have a superior coffee I would have you try.”

“Now you tell me,” Mike said, chuckling. “But onward and upward.” With that he passed through the security cordon around the press area.

The area set aside for parking the press vans was packed. Everyone in the news industry appeared to be there. There were vans for CNN and Skynews, all the major American networks, BBC and all the rest of the European networks. Most of them seemed to have more than one van. Mike quickly zoomed in on the larger ones, which were, he determined, mostly satellite uplink vans. All of them had dishes on top and he recognized that, if their van was there, they’d had to have been retrofitted somewhere. Most of the dishes were up and pointed at satellites, but not all.

He wandered around the area for about an hour, looking for anomalies and finding none. Part of that was the controlled chaos of the environment. People were moving around doing things about which he knew nothing. There were people arguing by the vans, people sitting around tapping at laptops, people eating breakfast.

He checked a couple of vans that were from networks he’d never heard of, and looked closely at the Al Jazeera van. That one had the usual collection of Middle Eastern types, including a woman, probably a reporter, who was a real looker. But he could hear the generator as he passed. He’d already determined that the generators were for providing power to the satellite links and all the rest of the equipment in the vans. But if they were running, they couldn’t contain a bomb.

After a while he got frustrated and headed back to the command center, cadging a cup of very good coffee and a couple of stale croissants. He hung around the command center for a bit, thinking, until he’d finished off the croissants, then headed back to the press area, sipping his coffee.

He was walking down the line of vans when he saw a lone person sitting outside of one from ABC. The guy looked like an American, blond hair cut short on the sides, American clothes, so Mike wandered over.

“How’s it going?” Mike asked, sitting down on a spool of cable.

“Purty good,” the guy replied in a thick Southern accent. “Gonna be a nice day.”

It was, too. There had apparently been a cold front through so the air was crisp and felt washed clean. The sky was clear and deep blue and the sun shone on Notre Dame perfectly.

“What’s your name?” Mike asked, continuing to look around. He saw a cluster of Middle Eastern types, probably drivers, and honed in on them for a second.

“Steve Edmonson,” the ABC guy said. “I’m from Tuscaloosa, Alabama. You?”

“Michael Duncan,” Mike replied. “Florida.”

“You don’t have a press badge,” the guy said.

“Nope,” Mike replied, turning back to look at him. He was eating a piece of pressed meat with a side of rice. In the Dari areas of Afghanistan, Mike had eaten the same thing. They called it chelo kebab, but it was what people in the U.S. put in gyros. Mike blinked for a second as something bothered him, but he mentally shoved it away. “I’m with the U.S. embassy. Just keeping an eye on things, you know. Making sure everyone has all the credentials they need and whatnot. You been over here long?”

“Nope,” Steve said, finishing off the last of the meat and rice. “Born and raised in Alabama. Went to UA. Roll Tide and all that. Got a degree in video tech and a job with ABC. Been all over the U.S., but this is my first overseas assignment. Sitting in Paris, nursemaiding a broken van.”

Mike watched as Steve set down his fork, and it hit him. Americans, almost invariably, will cut a piece of meat with the fork in their left hand and then change back to holding it in their right. Steve had been eating with the fork held, almost the whole time, in his left. It was the “Continental” style of eating. And he’d done it smoothly and flawlessly. It wasn’t just that he was trying to pick up local manners, it was his normal mode of doing things.

“What’s wrong with the van?” Mike asked disinterestedly.

“Generator’s broke,” “Steve” said. “We’ve got a call in to a tech, but I can’t get it running.”

“You got any other problems?” Mike asked, taking a sip of coffee.

“Other than the generator, nope,” Steve said.

“Well, if you do have any, call the embassy,” Mike said, standing up. “They’ll know how to get in touch with me.”

“Will do,” Steve said, smiling. “Good to hear American again.”

“Same here,” Mike replied, grinning back. “It’s gonna be a good day.”

He wandered back out of the press area, stopping from time to time to chat with the American crews, then over to the command post.

“Colonel Chateauneuf?” he asked one of the sergeants at the main van.

“He is around,” the sergeant said, shrugging.

“Call him,” Mike said in a command tone. “Now.”

Chapter Seven

“You, as they say, rang?” Colonel Chateauneuf said, strolling up.

“I hope like hell I didn’t hit pay dirt,” Mike said, pulling him over to where they could talk quietly. “But I think I did. There are three ABC vans. One of them has a ‘broken’ generator. The guy nursemaiding it says he’s American, and he’s got a good accent, but he’s not.”

“And you know this, how?” the colonel asked, carefully.

“The way he eats?” Mike said. “Word choice? He’s not.”

“Does he know that you suspect?” the colonel asked.

“I’m pretty sure not,” Mike replied.

“So… and so…” the colonel said, blowing out and grimacing. “How to do this?”

“I have an idea,” Mike said.

“Hey, Steve,” Mike said, walking over to the ABC van. “Your country needs you.”

“What?” the man said, standing up from where he’d been tapping on his laptop.

“I’ve got a situation I need help with,” Mike replied, closing the laptop and pulling on his arm. “Quick. CBS has managed to really piss off the French. Something about camera angles. I don’t know for camera angles so I need a third party to interpret.”

“I’ve got to watch the van,” Steve said desperately, his accent slipping.

“Look, this won’t take more than five minutes,” Mike replied, stuffing the laptop into the man’s case and hanging it over his shoulder. “It’s locked, right?”

“Yeah,” “Steve” said, allowing himself to be led away.

Mike led him out of the press area and over to an area that was near the command post and out of sight.

“So,” Mike said as they rounded a corner and “Steve” found himself confronted by three sub-gun wielding police and Colonel Chateauneuf, “care to tell me who you really are?”

“Steve” let out a grunt of surprise and plucked his cell phone off his hip.

“Not happenin’,” Mike said, grabbing his hand and twisting it so hard he heard a crack.

The man let out a cry and dropped the cell phone, cradling the wrist as one of the police officers stepped forward. The officer slid plastic cuffs on him, broken wrist and all, then a hood over his head. The man was hustled into a police car, which drove sedately away.

“I think you may be right,” Chateauneuf said, blowing out and picking up the cell phone gingerly.

“May I?” Mike asked. When the colonel handed it to him, he scrolled through the speed dial list. Most of them were names, all European sounding and almost certainly false. But one was listed as “Fire” and one as “Ice.”

Mike noted down those two numbers and handed the phone back.

“And now,” Mike said, “I think you’d better call your very best EOD people.”

“We cannot afford to move it,” the senior EOD tech said.

The hurried meeting was taking place in one of the police vans. It included Madame LaSalle-Guerinot, who was looking pissed as all get out, the colonel, a couple of senior police officers and Mike, who had forced his way in through sheer chutzpah.

“There could be tremblor switches,” the tech continued. “There could be a locator system. They could be watching, for all we know. It could be detonated at any time.”

As he said that, the terrorist’s cell phone, which was in the middle of the table, began to buzz.

Most of the people around the table looked at it like it was a snake. Mike just leaned forward and picked it up.

“Yep?” he said in his very best Southern drawl.

“How is it going, Steve?” a man said. He had a faint British accent underlaid with something else. Mike recalled that the “engineer” had been trained in British boarding schools. He was talking loudly since there was music in the background. Mike recognized the tune as being a current dance hit. He mainly recognized it because it was the sort of thing you heard in strip joints a lot.

“Turr’ble,” Mike answered, half shouting. “Jist turr’ble. Generator’s still broke. D’ju call that technician?”

“Yes, I did,” the man said in a puzzled tone.

“Talkin’ to a guy from the embassy ‘bout it now,” Mike drawled, rolling his eyes. “Hope he gits har befur the pope.”

“Ah,” the man shouted understandingly. “He will, I’m sure. Or about the time the pope arrives. When he gets there, you can go, of course.”

“Weel thankee,” Mike yelled, his eyes cold. “Thankee kindly. Gotta go now. Later.”

“Later,” the man said.

Mike hit the disconnect and counted.

“One, two, three…” He closed his eyes and waited and then sighed. “I think he bought it. One Southern accent sounds about the same as another to a foreigner. They can’t tell the difference between Alabama and North Florida.”

“Are you INSANE?” Madame LaSalle-Guerinot shouted. “He could have decided that the operation was blown and blown us all sky!”

“Oh, higher,” Mike said. “Which was exactly what he would have done if the phone wasn’t answered. With, more or less, the correct voice. I know this bastard. He loves to see things go boom. He set the timer on the nuke in Andros, for example, rather than have it fall into our hands. If he gets a sniff that there’s anything wrong, he’ll set it off just to see the pretty lights on TV.

“Look,” he continued to the EOD tech. “Go in looking like repair technicians. That is what everyone in the area is expecting. Enter the forward part of the van; I’ve seen him use the door, so it can’t be rigged. You have his keys. Set up in there, out of sight. Do your magic. Get cracking, though. It’s going to be a tough nut.”

“That will work,” one of the senior police said, to nods. “We can give you cover clothing. You’ll have to pack your gear so it is out of sight.”

“Don’t bother with carrying pads,” Mike said, chuckling. “If it goes up, you won’t need them.”

“You need to leave,” Madame LaSalle-Guerinot snapped, turning to the senior inspector. “I want him out of this area in fifteen minutes,” she continued, standing up. “I am going to go brief the president.”

“Well, I wonder what got her titties in a twist,” Mike said, sighing. “And who, exactly, is going to answer the phone if I leave?”

“You are,” Colonel Chateauneuf said, standing up. “She said you have to leave, not that you couldn’t take the phone with you. Does anyone have a specific use for it?”

“We’d like to check the directory,” one of the civilians at the table said. He had a faintly military bearing and Mike had pegged him as DGSE. “Run down some of the phone numbers.”

“We have a list of all of them already,” the senior inspector said.

“Does that mean you don’t want me to keep it?” Mike asked, waving it in the air.

“Oh, no,” the DGSE agent said, smiling. “By all means. And… try to be as convincing as you just were.”

“Will do,” Mike replied in a Southern accent. “Gentlemen, much as I respect the capabilities of the French security establishment, you wouldn’t mind if I watch the goings-on from, say… twenty klicks away or so, would you?”

“Not at all,” Colonel Chateauneuf said somberly. “I will escort you to your car.”

“I take it you’re not leaving,” Mike said as they walked to the sedan.

“No,” Chateauneuf said, shrugging. “My place is here.”

“Been there, done that, got the T-shirt,” Mike said. “I’ve got to introduce you to a song called ‘Winter Born.’ ”

“Crüxshadows,” Chateauneuf said, grinning. “A very good band. You will not tell people that I Goth, I hope? It is so hard to retain respect when people know you Goth.”

“Of course not,” Mike replied as he got in the car. “When it comes down to popish time, give me a holler and give me a play by play, okay?”

“I shall,” Chateauneuf said, holding out his hand. “Adieu.”

“Even I know that much French,” Mike said, shaking his hand. Adieu meant Go with God; it was a permanent farewell. “Let’s go for au revoir.”

“So what did you find out?” Bruce asked as they drove away.

Mike didn’t bother to answer, just picked up his cell phone and dialed OSOL.

“Pierson.”

“Go scramble.”

“Scrambled.”

“It’s here, Bob,” Mike said, breathing out. “Notre Dame. The embassy driver and I are getting the fuck out of Dodge.”

“We heard,” Pierson replied. “Along with a very sharp message about your encounter with Madame Two-names.”

“Gabby LaSalle-Guerinot?” Mike said. “What a nice gal. We got along so well.”

“So I heard,” Pierson said dryly. “I believe the term ‘insufferably arrogant’ was used.”

“What? About the French?” Mike said.

“No, about you,” Pierson observed. “But, yes, arrogant is a good word. Not to mention lacking in leadership skills. The entire government is quietly evacuating. The president and Madame Two-names are already gone, taking their families. The president was supposed to be attending the pope’s high mass, but he sent his regrets. Some minor stooge, clearly not in the loop, is going instead.”

“Ah, French heroism at its finest.” Mike sighed. “All joking aside, we’ve got ourselves one fucked-up situation here. I don’t know for beans about EOD, not at this level, so I’m leaving it up to the experts. And, as I said, getting the fuck out of Dodge; I don’t see how they can prevent it from detonating.”

“Your phone call was intercepted by NSA,” Pierson said. “They were aware of the number before we were and traced the call to Amsterdam.”

“That’s nice,” Mike said. “The bomb’s scheduled to go off in about six hours…” He paused. “You want me to go to Amsterdam?” he added incredulously.

“Up to you,” Pierson replied. “The voice match was Assadolah.”

“Yeah,” Mike said thoughtfully. “I was pretty sure it was him. That English/Pakistani accent. But I’ve got to sit on the phone.”

“NSA has it covered,” Pierson said. “Calls to that phone will be transferred to your sat phone. And they can feed in artificial background noise from the event at Notre Dame. When a call comes in from the same phone, it will read ‘Assadolah.’ ”

“Gotta love modern technology,” Mike said sourly. “Bruce,” he continued, “about face. Charles DeGaulle. Step on it.”

On one level Mike loved Amsterdam’s red-light district. He’d stopped through on his European tour and sampled the wares, and lovely wares they were. But it was, in a way, just too “in your face.” As he walked down one of the narrow alleyways of the district, the curtain behind a plate-glass window moved and a very attractive young woman, a redhead wearing a green teddy and high heels, stepped out and reclined on the pillows in the window. She smiled at him as he passed and he smiled back distractedly. Pretty as she was, she wasn’t who he was looking for.

The street was lined with brothels, like the one he’d just passed, their “wares” casually presenting themselves in the windows, topless bars that doubled as brothels, brothels that doubled as bars, and “sex clubs” that were some of each.

“The call came from somewhere around cell tower 4793,” Colonel Fagan said. The colonel was another military attaché, in civilian clothes, but much less stuck on himself than Forester had been. With Mike’s haircut and build they just looked like two soldiers out for a good time. “That services the red-light district and some of the areas around it.”

“Assadolah’s into women,” Mike replied. “And the sounds that were behind him were from a bar, probably a topless joint from the music.” He paused at the first one they came to and shrugged. “What a horrible job we’ve got.” He paid for both their covers with a fifty-euro note, getting back forty euros in five- and ten-euro notes and a handful of one-euro coins.

The strip joint ran to form, dark with the only light coming from the three stages. In the middle of the room was the main stage, a long walkway with a pole at both ends and a swing in the middle. A blonde was dancing on it, down to nothing but her platforms and money-filled garter, doing a pole dance that Mike had to admit was spectacular. The women wandering around the room were equally spectacular, mostly blonde, long-legged with large breasts. You could tell the fakes from the real ones, even the very good fakes, and it was apparent that mostly they were real.

The two of them split up on either side of the stage, wandering casually to the back, then retracing their steps on opposite sides. There were two side rooms, one a “champagne” room where for probably a ton of money you could sit and talk to one of the girls while sipping champagne, and the other a “dance” room where for less the girls would perform “lap dances” for their “gentlemen friends.” When they got back to the front, Mike sat down in one of the chairs along the wall and shrugged.

“I don’t see him,” Mike noted. “But he could be getting a lap dance. Or a blow for that matter; it’s Amsterdam.”

“I’ll take the champagne room,” Fagan said, grinning. “But the U.S. government is going to have a hard time keeping up with my tab.”

“Uncle Sam can afford it,” Mike replied, handing over a wad of hundred-euro notes. “Keep an itemized tab and we’ll submit an expense report.”

He grabbed a passing blonde and smiled at her.

“Care to dance?”

The lap dance room turned out to have several curtained cubicles in it. Mike rather obviously twitched several aside, getting angry looks from the men in the cubicles, one of whom, sure enough, was getting a blowjob, and causing the girl with him to pull him along to an empty one.

“Sorry,” Mike said, sitting down in the chair. “I like to watch.”

“It is very much against house rules,” the girl said, sitting down next to him. The previous song hadn’t finished, so they had to wait for the next one. “I am Hanne.”

“Pleased to meet you, Hanne,” Mike said. “I’m Mike.” It made just as much sense to use his “real” name as a cover. The girl didn’t give a shit who he was.

“Is twenty euros for a lap dance,” Hanne said, taking off her halter top. “Is fifty euros for blow. That is two songs. If you don’t come by end of second song, well, I do my best.”

“I’ll just take a dance,” Mike replied. “Do I get to touch?”

“You can touch,” Hanne said gravely. “If you touch too hard, though, I will tell you to stop. If you don’t stop, you get sent out.”

“I can live with that,” Mike said as the previous dance ended and the next began.

The girl slid to her knees in front of him, spreading his legs and dragging her hair over his crotch, then slowly slid up his body, humming as she did so.

Mike slid his hands down her back and along her sides, then up her stomach to her high, firm breasts. She clearly hadn’t been dancing long, since they were natural and had hardly a hint of sag. He continued to run his hands over her body, gently, teasingly, as she teased him in turn.

“You are very good with hands,” Hanne said huskily.

“Maybe you should be paying me,” he replied, smiling into her eyes.

“Is very nice,” she whispered in his ear. “I like.”

“I’m glad,” Mike said, licking her ear lightly. “But all you get is one dance. I have to save my strength for all the other girls in the district.”

She giggled at that and slid her head back down, rubbing her face in his crotch. Then she slid back up and licked at his ear.

“I think maybe you wish you’d paid for blow, yes?”

“You’re very nice,” Mike said, nipping at her earlobe. “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

The song finished and Hanne backed away slowly.

“Wooo,” she said, holding out her hand for the money. “That was more than usual fun.”

“I’m glad you liked it,” Mike said, handing her thirty euros. “You take care.”

He walked back out to the main area and looked around for Fagan, but the colonel was nowhere in sight.

“Come on, man,” Mike muttered. “One dance is enough.”

When two more dances, six minutes more or less, had passed, Mike walked over to the champagne room door, a curtain rather, and tipped the bouncer to let him in without a girl.

“Fagan,” Mike said loudly.

“Coming,” the colonel replied in a strained voice.

He exited one of the cubicles a moment later, zipping his trousers.

“I don’t care what that comedian said,” Fagan noted. “If he thinks there’s no sex in the champagne room, he’s never been to Amsterdam.”

They had hit two more strip joints, where Mike very pointedly had the colonel go for a single lap dance while he took the champagne room, and were headed to another when Mike’s phone rang.

He stepped into an alley to cloak the street noise and hit the connect.

“Ay-yup?” he said.

“The technician is on his way,” Assadolah said. “All is well?”

“Turr’ble,” Mike replied. “Jist turr’ble. Been sittin’ here watchin’ the cops go by for the last few ahrs. Jist a wond’rin’ when that techie’d show.”

“He will be there soon,” Assadolah said. “You can go, now. How is traffic?”

“Baid,” Mike said. “But Ah figur Ah kin git back in plenty of tahm fer the evenin’ shows.”

“That is well,” Assadolah said. “Have a safe trip.”

“Bet on it,” Mike replied, hitting the disconnect. He immediately dialed OSOL and went through the scramble routine.

“Got a call,” Mike said.

“We were listening in real time,” Pierson replied. “One hour until the pope’s mass.”

“He cut it kind of close,” Mike said. “That tech, whoever he is, isn’t going to have much time to get out of town.”

“The tech turned out to be a former IRA member,” Pierson said. “The bomb is not only encased in lead, it’s filled with booby traps. The French had never seen anything like it but the British had; it was a full IRA rig. IRA bombs are…”

“The toughest in the world,” Mike finished. “Fuck, I hate those Provo bastards. Now they’re selling their expertise to the mujahideen.”

“We talked to the Dutch police,” Pierson said. “They’re willing to not flood the place to find Assadolah, for obvious reasons. But there are a couple of undercover cops moving around as well. And there’s a tac team on standby if you need backup.”

“Nice to know,” Mike said, walking back to the street. “I have to keep looking.”

“Terrible job, I know,” Pierson said, chuckling blackly. “Nero only fiddled while Rome burned.”

“You wouldn’t believe the tab that Fagan is running up,” Mike agreed, looking over at the colonel. “I’m surprised he can still stand with all the blowjobs he’s been getting.”

“Oh, thanks very much,” Fagan said, shaking his head. “You realize all those calls are recorded.”

“So is most of what goes on in the lap dance rooms,” Mike replied. “I wish we could get access to the tapes; it would make this a lot quicker.”

Chapter Eight

They crossed the street, dodging traffic, and headed to the next strip joint. This one was rather seedy: the cover was only three euros and the girls were pretty worn out. The crowd was also different, running a lot more to Middle Eastern males. Mike spotted on that looked a bit like Assadolah and did a double take. But he was pretty sure it wasn’t him. And there was no evidence of a phone on the guy. He looked like a day-laborer and was staring at the girl on stage like she was the Holy Grail.

He passed around the stage and back to the front, meeting up with Fagan, who had also noticed the guy and dismissed him, then headed to the champagne room with one of the halfway decent-looking women.

This champagne room had larger cubicles, with couches that were wide enough to be beds, and Mike caught more than one guy going at it when he looked behind the curtains. Most of them didn’t notice, but the girls under them did. In the third cubicle he saw the target. He was sitting on the couch, lying back with his eyes closed, being fellated by a naked redhead. Her hair was obviously out of a bottle since her exposed pubic tuft was dark brown and flecked with gray.

Mike dropped the curtain disinterestedly then took one step forward, drawing his sidearm, and stepped back to the cubicle. He stepped through the curtain, took a double-handed grip and carefully shot Assadolah Shaath in the right shoulder, covering the whore in front of him in blood-splatter.

The whore backed away, screaming, as Mike crossed the room and grabbed the terrorist by his shot arm, dragging him to the floor, face-down, as he screamed in pain.

“Which one is the disconnect code?” Mike growled, stepping on the terrorist’s wounded shoulder to hold him down and socketing the .45 into his ear. “Which one?”

“Fuck you!” Assadolah shouted, then switched to Arabic for a long, solid, curse.

Mike plucked the phone off the terrorist’s belt and pitched it across the room as the first bouncer came into the cubicle in reaction to the shot and screams.

“Back off,” Mike said, pulling out his diplomatic passport and holding it up. “This is a terrorist we’ve been looking for. Call the police, they know all about it.”

“Put the gun down and I will,” the man said, drawing his own sidearm.

“This is a diplomatic passport,” Mike said, waving it at him and then tossing it across the room. “You shoot me, for any reason, and you’re going to jail for the rest of your life. Put your own gun down, call the police, and in the meantime I’m going to talk to this gentleman.” He leaned his weight into his foot as the terrorist screamed, and then shifted his pistol to the other shoulder. “I can go for two. Which one is the disarm code?”

“ICE!” Assadolah screamed. “Ice. Fire for the explosion, ice for the disarm. Ice.”

“Thank you,” Mike said, lifting up his weight. “Don’t try to move or I’ll gladly shoot you some more.”

“He said ‘Ice’ was the disconnect.” Mike was back in the airplane, his chair reclined, a drink in his hand and the headset of the sat phone plugged in his ear. The Dutch police had been less than happy about the shooting, not to mention the torture of the suspect. But it was amazing how well diplomatic passports worked. He was, however, persona very non grata at the moment. Which was why he was sitting in an airfield in France, well away from Paris.

“So we heard,” Pierson said. “Along with how you got the information. You’re a regular one-man coalition breaker, you know that?”

“Hell, the Dutch couldn’t even hold Sbrenica,” Mike said. “What do we need them for?”

“What’s the chance the information was good?” Pierson asked.

“Zero,” Mike admitted. “I just wanted to see what he would say. Look something up for me on the Internet, will you? Google: ‘Some say the world will end in fire.’ ”

“Robert Frost,” Pierson replied. “I know the poem: ‘Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice.’ That one?”

“That’s it,” Mike said musingly. “Both of them could be a disconnect, but I don’t think so. If the pope got held up, if something happened to slow down the crowds, they’d want to wait. There’s probably a timer, with the cell phones as backup controls. The output isn’t going to him, is it?”

“Nope,” Pierson said. “It goes to a phone in Germany which is connected to a webserver. Then it posts a text message to the webserver. Anybody can view it. NSA cracked the server and took a look at who was visiting. All the links have been coming out of Iran. But we know some of the Al Qaeda leadership are still there. The circuit on the phone is set to detonate if the phone doesn’t connect to the right number. The French are talking about spoofing the server and the phone output system, but it’s a bit tricky. Frankly, they don’t want to fuck with it if they don’t have to.”

“I looked at his cell phone before it got taken away by the Dutch,” Mike said. “He’d only called the sentry on the bomb and he hadn’t received any calls in two days. So I don’t think the take-down is going to cause a problem. Sunni bombers. Shia supporters and fighters. Who says the Sunni and Shia can’t get together to fight the jihad?”

“Democrats,” Pierson said. “Academics. The Council on American-Islamic Relations.”

“Wise people, all,” Mike said. “We’re down to less than a half an hour. I’m calling Chateauneuf.” He hit the disconnect and dialed the colonel.

“Mon cher,” Chateauneuf said after they were on scrambler. “I understand you had an interesting time in Amsterdam.”

“I’d like to say it was enlightening,” Mike replied. “But it wasn’t. How goes it?”

“Oh, it goes so very, very well,” Chateauneuf said lightly. “The bomb is clustered with antitampering devices. There were movement detectors, X-ray detectors, ultrasound detectors and even a motion detector inside the casing. They managed to find a part that wasn’t covered with some sort of detector and have now managed, finally, to get a drill into the inner casing of the bomb. This is as far as they have gotten. We have less than thirty minutes until the pope arrives. And he has refused to forego his arrival, stating that if all of his children must die, than he shall go with them.”

“Nobody ever said the pope was a coward,” Mike replied, picking up the sentry’s phone and regarding it with interest. “Where are you?”

“Oh, I’ve moved to the press van,” the colonel said. “It won’t matter if I am here or at the command center. So I thought I would watch the proceedings. The men are very cool. They know how perilous is what they do. But they proceed. Ah, the senior technician tells me they have gotten to the stainless steel. Now they must change drill bits, yes?”

“Yes,” Mike said.

“They begin to enter the bomb casing,” Chateauneuf said calmly. “They can only drill slowly. It will take some time. Perhaps as long as ten minutes.”

Mike looked at the time readout on his cell phone and shook his head. It was seventeen minutes until four.

“So, you got any family?” Mike asked.

“A wife, Josee, and three children: Claude, Colette and Danielle,” Chateauneuf replied as if discussing the weather. “They, fortunately, live well outside Paris. Josee was going to come into town to go shopping, but I managed to dissuade her. Danielle is just starting school. They study English in the primary, yes?”

“Probably learning whatever the equivalent of ‘Frere Jacque’ is in English,” Mike said, just as calmly.

“It is, I believe, ‘Yankee Doodle,’ ” Chateauneuf said, sighing painfully. “At least, she was singing it a great deal when I was home last.”

“That makes sense,” Mike said. “Although I’ve always wondered about the macaroni line. I don’t think macaroni was a major food group in colonial America.”

“I would think not,” Chateauneuf agreed. “It was probably another word and got changed. Do you have any family?”

“No,” Mike admitted. “I was married, once. It didn’t work out.”

“That is unfortunate,” the colonel said sadly. “With what you and I do, it is always possible we will not be able to leave children behind if we do not do so early.”

“Well, I’ve got some people that don’t like me very much,” Mike pointed out. “I’d hate for them to take that out on any kids, if you know what I mean.”

“I do,” Chateauneuf replied. “Your exploits in this adventure alone would cause some angry reactions.”

“I’ve done worse,” Mike said, looking at his time readout. Six minutes. “Where we at?”

“They are through the casing,” the colonel said. “They are inserting a camera into the hole.” There was a pause and Mike heard the colonel sigh. “It is never a good thing when you hear a bomb disposal expert curse.”

“Nope,” Mike agreed lightly. “What’s the problem?”

“There are more antitamper devices,” the colonel said to a background of muted, and remarkably calm, French. “And a timer. It has less than four minutes to go. Three minutes and forty seconds.”

“Wonder why they set it so early?” Mike asked, humming a Pat Benatar song.

“Perhaps they mistook the time zones?” Chateauneuf said, chuckling grimly. “The Palestinians did this once. They had the timer set for Palestinian time and it went off as the bomb was being carried to the target. Very sad.”

“Terrible,” Mike agreed, mentally adjusting the time left. “Mon Colonel, you’ll forgive me if I don’t stay on the line? The static…”

“I understand,” the colonel said. “I have a call to make as well. Adieu.”

“Au revoir,” Mike said, killing the call and picking up the terrorist’s phone. He brought up the speed-dial list and hit the “Fire” number.

Cedric Jalabert had been an EOD technician for ten years. He had been chosen as the “point” disarmer of the device due to his experience and the fact that he still had “it.” There were techs that had been working with demolitions for longer. But those with real world experience, handling actual explosives, tended to lose the edge after a while. They had seen too many of their fellows blown to bits over time. He knew of one Brit bomb tech who had stood up in the middle of a disarm, walked far enough away to be outside the blast area and then had a complete, raving nervous breakdown. So it was always a trade-off between experience and edge.

Cedric still had the “edge,” but he knew he was losing it as he watched the timer count down. He had to penetrate the arming device to disarm the bomb, but it was loaded with antitamper devices. The visual timer was totally unnecessary. Whoever had put it in place had done so purely to screw with any technician who got this far, as it was screwing with him.

He put the countdown out of his mind and manipulated his driver, which was at the end of a long, mobile wand, into place on the first screw to remove the control panel. He had several of the wands running through the narrow hole they had drilled in the lead and steel surrounding the bomb; it was somewhat like trying to disarm it through a straw. He loved pressure — he ate it with a spoon. He also knew he didn’t have time; the timer was down to less than two minutes. But he was going to keep working the problem until the device detonated.

“Incoming call,” Master Sergeant Mimoun said. He was the team leader, but not the point, and he had been watching the various monitors double-checking Jalabert’s progress. “The ‘Fire’ circuit.”

Jalabert froze as the phone rang. They had been unable to disconnect it, due to its output, and now, it seemed, the terrorists had jumped the gun. Perhaps they had finally become aware that the police had the bomb.

“It’s the sentry’s number,” Mimoun snarled. “The phone we gave the American agent.”

Jalabert switched to watching the countdown timer as the phone in the bomb, audibly, rang once, twice…

“The timer has stopped,” he said, reapplying his screwdriver to the screw.

“’Fire’ was the disarm code,” Mimoun said, sighing. “But it can still be detonated on the other circuit.”

“Not anymore,” Jalabert replied, switching to another tool and cutting the appropriate wire. “We have ten minutes, maximum. But I can finish in that time.”

Mike walked into the suite and looked around.

“Magdelena?” he called, tossing his jump bag on the table in the living room.

In his room, on the bed, he found a note written on the hotel’s stationery.

“Well,” Mike said, letting out a breath. “That’s one problem solved. I had no idea what I was going to do with her.”

He pulled his sat phone off his belt and dialed a number.

“Hardesty? Spool ’er up. Since Amsterdam is out, we’re headed back to Russia.”