Locked On

81

Jack Ryan Jr. looked through the thermal binoculars at the warehouse a hundred fifty yards away. He’d just gotten off the phone with Sam Granger, who told him Clark and Chavez, along with Rainbow, had ended the terrorist incident at the spaceport in Kazakhstan. He’d relayed this to Mohammed and Dom, who were both elated. Now they were concentrating on making sure whatever Rehan had in store here did not come to pass.

“What is your plan, you son of a bitch?” he whispered softly.

His phone vibrated in his pocket and he grabbed it. “Go for Ryan.”

“It’s Clark.”

“John! I just heard from Granger. Great work!”

“Listen to me. You have problems.”

“We’re okay. We’ve tracked Rehan and his men to a warehouse at the Lahore Central Railway Station. They are in there now and we are waiting on more SSG soldiers to arrive so we can take him down.”

“Jack. Listen! He’s got a nuke!”

Jack opened his mouth to speak, but nothing came out. Finally, softly, he said, “Oh, shit.”

“He switched out a bomb with Safronov. It must be with him right now.”

“Do you think he’s about to—” Jack could not even say it.

“Kid, you’ve got to work on that assumption. When he learns the Baikonur attack failed, he may reason that the Pakistani government might hold on to power. He will be desperate to start a bigger war so the Army can take control. If a nuke flattens Lahore, Pakistan will retaliate immediately with their own weapons. Both countries will be devastated. Rehan must have a place he can go wait it out.”

Again Ryan tried to speak, but there were no words. “What can we … What do we … None of us know how to deactivate a bomb, even if we could get past the ISI and LeT men holding it. What the hell are we going to do?”

“Son, there is no time for you guys to get out of there. You have to go after the bomb. Just gain control of the weapon and our experts here will talk you through removing the detonators.”

Jack Ryan Jr. just muttered, “Understood. I’ll call you back.”

Just then, Ryan heard the low thumping of helicopter rotors approaching from the west.

Caruso was by his side. “I only heard one half of that conversation, but it sounded bad.”

Jack nodded, then called out to al Darkur, “Mohammed. We need the best nuclear munitions expert we can find in the area to get their ass here right now.”

Al Darkur had heard enough of the conversation to put it together. “I will call Islamabad and get my office to work on that, but I don’t know if we have time.”

Riaz Rehan stood behind Drs. Noon and Nishtar from the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission. The two scientists leaned over the bomb; it was still housed in the wooden crate marked “Textile Manufacturing, Ltd.” The bearded men made final adjustments to the detonator. They had bypassed the fuses, and now, with the press of a button, a countdown clock would begin running backward from thirty minutes.

When the clock reached zero, the northern half of the city of Lahore would cease to exist.

Rehan had devised Operation Saker’s fallback plan some months back. From the very beginning he had known that there were only two ways to ensure that the government of Pakistan would fall. If a stolen Pakistani nuclear device was detonated, anywhere on earth, there was no question that the prime minister and his cabinet would be forced from power in disgrace.

And if a shooting war with India broke out, there was no question that the Army would declare martial law, push out the prime minister and his cabinet, and then quietly sue for peace.

The first event, that Safronov and his militants blew up a bomb, was, of course, preferable, but the second event meant war, nuclear war. It would leave Rehan and the Army in power, but facing the possibility that they would rule only over nuclear ash.

Safronov had failed, so Operation Saker was possible now only with war. Detonating a nuke in Lahore in the midst of the current crisis would start this war. It was a pity, but Rehan knew that Allah would forgive him. Those good Muslims who died here would die a martyr’s death, as they had helped to create the Islamic caliphate.

That said, Rehan himself wasn’t planning on going out in a mushroom cloud. He looked at his watch as the thumping of the helicopter rotors filled the sky. His Mi-8 was here to pick him and his men up. He, Saddiq Khan, and the four other JIM men with him would leave via air, they would race to the north, and they would be safe from the blast in plenty of time. From there they would continue on to Islamabad, where Army units were already amassing in the streets.

The general thought it likely a military coup could be under way by daybreak tomorrow.

The helicopter landed outside, and Rehan ordered the PAEC doctors to initiate the detonation sequence.

Nishtar and Noon were honored to be the ones who cleared the pathway to the caliphate.

With a press of a button Noon said, “It is done, General.”

The twelve LeT men knew their role, as well. They would remain behind to guard the weapon, and in so doing they would be shahideen. Martyrs. Rehan embraced each man quickly with the charisma that had been getting men like these to do his bidding for more than thirty years.

The ISI men walked quickly toward the door, with Rehan the nucleus of the entourage. The thumping of the rotors just outside was nearly deafening as the Mi-8 landed in the parking lot. Colonel Khan pulled the metal door open and stepped out into the night. He beckoned the rest of the group forward, but his eyes shifted up quickly at the shouting of an alarm from one of the Lashkar operatives in the second-floor window. He spun back toward the rail yard in front of him, and he saw what had drawn the guard’s attention. Two dark green pickup trucks bearing the logo of Pakistan Railways raced across the access road of the tracks, approaching the helicopters.

Khan turned to Rehan. “Get in the helicopter. I will get rid of them.”

The trucks stopped just twenty-five yards shy of the chopper and fifty yards from the front loading dock of the warehouse. They parked next to a pair of full coal carrier cars left parked on a spur of track at the edge of the access road, and several men climbed out of the trucks. Khan could not see how many, since their bright lights were in his eyes. He just waved to the men, motioned for them to turn around and go away, and he pulled his ISI credentials out and held them up to the light.

A man stepped in front of the beams and walked closer. Khan squinted, tried to make him out. He gave up, just reached out his hand with his ISI credentials, and told the man to turn around and forget what he saw here.

He never did see the man’s face, and he never did recognize Mohammed al Darkur, and he never did see the pistol in the major’s hand.

He saw a flash, he felt the ripping in his chest, and he knew he’d been shot. He fell backward, and as he fell, al Darkur’s second shot caught him under the chin and blew out his brains from below.

As soon as al Darkur killed Colonel Khan, Caruso and Ryan, both having just climbed onto the coal carrier next to the trucks, opened fire on the windscreen of the helicopter with their booming G3 rifles.

While they fired at the helo, Mohammed’s two officers flanked to the right. They ran to the corner of a small switching station on the edge of the tracks. Here they opened fire on the men in the windows of the warehouse.

The LeT gunman quickly had al Darkur’s men sighted, and one of the two officers was killed with an AK blast across his legs and pelvis. But the second officer took out the sentries, and when al Darkur made it over to his position and picked up his fallen comrade’s G3, they suppressed the men firing at the loading door to the warehouse.

Ryan and Caruso’s heavy gunfire killed the pilot and copilot of the Mi-8 almost immediately. Their bullets — each man fired a full thirty-round magazine through the aircraft — also tore through the cabin, killing and injuring several of the ISI guards who had already boarded. Rehan himself was at the chopper’s door, and the gunfire, just barely heard above the sounds of the Mi-8’s engine and rotors, made him dive to the parking lot, and then roll away from the helo. His men returned fire on the gunmen on the coal carrier, five ISI men against two attackers, but the ISI men were armed with only pistols, and Jack and Dom picked them off one at a time.

Rehan climbed to his feet, ran behind the helicopter, and raced down an alleyway to the west of the warehouse. A surviving member of his protection detail ran behind him.

Caruso and Ryan dropped from the coal container. Jack said, “You and the others go for the warehouse. I’m going after Rehan!” The two Americans ran off in separate directions.