Payback

50

“Marie, you better look at this,” Rockman told Telach, pointing to the monitor with the feed from the Peruvian television station.

As Telach came over, he jacked the volume so she could hear. A woman in fatigues — not an army uniform but undoubtedly chosen to suggest one — was interviewing a middle-aged man whose Spanish had a decidedly British accent. He was a reporter from the BBC, and he said that he had been with the army unit that made the incredible find in the guerrilla village after heavy fighting a few hours before.

“What incredible find?” asked Telach.

“Wait,” said Rockman.

The screen flashed to a still photo of a crated cylinder in what looked like a room dug into the hillside.

“That’s a missile warhead,” Rockman told Telach. “Russian. We briefed on those eight months ago when we were looking at the Russian ABM system. They’re calling it a bomb, but that’s a nuke. I remember the assembly at the rear.”

“Are you sure?”

“I just punched the image over to the weapons people, so we’ll get something definitive, but yeah. I’m sure of it.”

“In Peru?”

“This is a pre-broadcast feed. They’re just uploading it. It’ll go over the air in a second. I haven’t had time to pin down the location, but it’s up in the north, west of Iquitos. This is a BBC affiliate. The reporter’s an English guy.”

Telach leaned over and hit a preset that took the feed back to the image thirty seconds before, freezing it so she could look at the bomb.

“It’s a warhead, but it doesn’t go on a Gorgon,” she said, referring to the Russian ABM system. “There would be a set of blisters on the right there.”

“I swear I’ve seen it,” said Rockman.

“I’ll alert Mr. Rubens. How’s Lia?”

“She decided to go ahead and make the switch herself,” said Rockman, sitting back upright at his station. “Hang on. She’s almost done.”

Rubens grabbed the dedicated phone to the Art Room as soon as it began to ring.

“Rubens.”

“Mr. Rubens, there’s a report in Peru that the military has found a nuclear weapon in the northern jungles, apparently belonging to the rebels,” said Marie Telach.

Rubens prided himself on remaining calm under any circumstance, but even he had to take a moment before he could respond.

“Get me the details,” he told Telach. “I’m putting in a call to the White House right now.”