Sacred Stone

36

ROGER LASSITER SAT on a bench outside the restroom in the train station at Newcastle upon Tyne. He had been watching the door and the areas nearby for the last twenty minutes. Nothing seemed amiss. He waited until the man who had just entered had finished and left. Now the facility should be empty. Glancing around one last time, he stood up and walked inside.

Then he made his way down to the far stall and took the lid off the tank.

The locker key was inside, and he quickly removed it and slid it in his pocket. Then he walked from the facility and located the locker. After watching the area for another half hour and finding nothing out of place, he waited until a luggage porter walked past and hailed him.

“I have a rental car in the parking structure,” Lassiter said, smiling, with a twenty-pound note in his hand. “If I pull it up to the doors, will you bring out a package I have?”

“Where is it, sir?” the porter asked.

Lassiter handed him the key. “Over there,” he said, “in a luggage locker.”

The porter took the key. “What kind of rental car should I look for?”

“It’s a black Daimler sedan,” Lassiter said.

“Very good, sir,” the porter said, wheeling his cart toward the locker.

Lassiter walked out of the lobby and crossed the road to the parking structure. If he got in the car, started it, and was allowed to exit the garage, he was home free. If anyone was on to him, they’d make their move by then.

No one came. No one stopped him. No one knew.

After paying the parking fee, Lassiter drove around the loop to the front of the train station. The porter was waiting alongside the curb with the box on his cart. Lassiter pulled alongside, then popped the trunk release inside the glove box.

“Put it in the boot,” he said, as he rolled down the passenger window.

The porter lifted the box into the rear of the Daimler and closed the lid. Lassiter placed the sedan into gear and pulled away.

THE CIA’S LIAISON to MI5 sat inside an office at MI5’s headquarters in London.

“Your contractors gave us a tape that shows a license number for the van that we believe left with the nuclear device,” he said. “We have a team descending on the rental agency as we speak. As soon as we retrieve the information about the renter, we should be able to recover the bomb.”

“Excellent,” the CIA agent said evenly. “Now, what is the status of our missing meteorite?”

“That should be resolved shortly,” the MI5 agent said.

“Do you need our help?” the CIA agent asked.

“I think not,” the MI5 agent said. “We have the Royal Army and Marines on the job.”

The CIA agent rose from his chair. “Then I’ll just wait for you to contact me,” he said, “after you’ve made the recovery.”

“Once we have it, I’ll contact you immediately.”

As soon as the CIA man left his office, the MI5 agent reached for the telephone.

“How long until we intercept?” he asked.

“The train is five minutes away,” a voice said.

IN A WOODED area one mile north of the village of Stockton, the nearest train station to Middlesbrough, it looked as if a war was commencing. A pair of British army Challenger tanks sat on each side of the railroad tracks. Farther up the tracks to the north, approximately where the end of the train would be after it was stopped, two platoons of Royal Marines in camouflage hid in the woods, waiting to enter the train from the rear door. Farther to the left and right of the tracks, in cleared fields hidden behind the rows of trees that lined the tracks, were a single Harrier jet and an Agustawestland A-129 Mongoose helicopter with a weapons pod attached.

From the distance to the north the sound of the number twenty-seven train grew louder.

The British army colonel in charge of the operation waited until he could see the nose of the locomotive. Then he called the engineer over a radio and ordered him to stop. As soon as the engineer caught sight of the Challengers he slammed on the brakes and the train started sliding to a stop, with sparks flying from the wheels. The Harrier and Agustawestland, which had both been hovering, popped up over the trees and assumed a fire support role at the same time that the Royal Marines slid from the woods and boarded at all the doors.

A methodical search would be made, but they would find nothing.

AT THE SAME time, Roger Lassiter was driving south on the highway leading to London. Passing Stockton, he noticed the commotion in the distance and took the exit to the right toward Windermere. Once he reached the main north-south highway that passed through Lancaster, he would continue on through Birmingham and access southern England. Lassiter lit a cigar and stared out at the rain.

APPROACHING THE THAMES from the air, Adams studied the GPS for his exact location. Cabrillo was glancing out at a park across the river. A huge tent, lit by spotlights, was swarming with workers completing the installation.

“To your left, sir,” Adams said over the headset.

The square outline of the heliport pad was lit with flashing lights. Then a car nearby flashed its headlights. Adams lowered the collective and started down.

“Seng and Meadows are here,” Cabrillo said. “I’m going to have them take me to the hotel so we can regroup. Hanley is having someone meet you at the executive air terminal at Heathrow with your hotel key. What else will you need, George?”

“Nothing, sir,” Adams said. “I’ll refuel and head to the hotel. When you need me, just call.”

“Get some sleep,” Cabrillo ordered, “you’ve earned it.”

Adams was on his final approach and didn’t bother to answer. Dropping down over Battersea Park, he edged forward to the pad and then lightly touched down. Cabrillo opened the door and grabbed his telephone. Ducking down, he crab-walked away from the Robinson. Once he was clear he stood upright. He was nearing the Range Rover when Adams lifted off and flew across the Thames.

Meadows climbed from the passenger seat and opened the rear door for Cabrillo.

“Where are we at?” Cabrillo said as he slid into the rear and closed the door.

“We forwarded what we have to Mr. Hanley,” Seng said. “He said you’d fill us in.”

Seng steered away from the heliport and out of the park. He stopped at the light and waited to turn onto Queenstown Road to cross the Albert Bridge.

Cabrillo began to explain as Seng drove them toward the Savoy.

THE OREGON WAS racing south. It was almost midnight on December 30 and the ship was scheduled to reach the docks near London at around 9 A.M. local time. The conference room was crowded. Hanley was writing notes on a dry-erase bulletin board. The board was becoming crowded.

“Here’s what we know,” he said. “We now believe that the theft of the meteorite and the missing Ukrainian nuclear bomb are not related. We believe that Al-Khalifa and his group got wind of the meteorite through an officer that was bribed at the Echelon listening post and then decided to combine it with their existing plan, which we believe is a terrorist strike in the heart of London.”

“Who was originally after the meteorite?” Murphy asked.

“The latest information, which was recovered by Mr. Truitt in Las Vegas, seems to point to Halifax Hickman.”

“The billionaire?” Ross asked.

“Correct,” Hanley said, “we just don’t know why yet. Hickman has interests in hotels, resorts, casinos, arms manufacturers, household products. Along with that he has a string of funeral homes, a hardware manufacturer that makes tools—nails and fasteners. He also has railroad and oil interests, and a satellite television operation.”

“An old-fashioned tycoon,” Pete Jones said. “Not like today, when the truly rich make their money from one source, like software or pizza chains.”

“Isn’t he a recluse?” Julia Huxley asked.

“Sort of like Howard Hughes,” Hanley answered.

“I’ll run a psych profile,” Huxley offered, “so we know what we might be dealing with.”

“Halpert’s digging through the computer files as we speak to see if we can determine motive.”

“What’s the status of the meteorite now?” Franklin Lincoln asked.

“As you all know, Juan and Adams witnessed it leaving the Faeroe Islands aboard a Cessna that they followed. Once the helicopter ran out of fuel, Juan chased the Cessna by car to a railroad station near Edinburgh. He was ready to intercept when the president, through Overholt, ordered him off to let the British authorities handle the problem. They were planning to stop the train an hour or so ago, but we’ve yet to hear the outcome.”

“So if they have recovered it,” Hali Kasim said, “our only involvement would be to return it to the United States.”

“Correct,” Hanley said, “and that’s why I want to concentrate on the nuclear device. We believe that it was shipped through the Black Sea to a port named the Isle of Sheppey on a Greek cargo ship. There, we believe operatives of Al-Khalifa’s terrorist organization grabbed the weapon without paying and drove away. Seng and Meadows were on the ground there and found a videotape that gave us leads to the possible current location.”

“It seems odd,” Jones said, “that after Al-Khalifa’s death, the others didn’t scrub the mission. Their leader is killed and they’re still planning to go ahead?”

“That’s the beauty of it,” Hanley said. “We don’t think they know that Al-Khalifa is dead yet.”

“He obviously has not been in contact with them,” Ross noted.

“True,” Hanley said, “but apparently he’s done that before—at least according to the reports we’ve amassed over the years.”

“So one of us is going to become Al-Khalifa?” Murphy said.

Hanley motioned to Nixon, who nodded and reached for a tape recorder. “We recovered Al-Khalifa’s satellite telephone from his pocket. There was a short message on his voice mail. I matched that with an existing surveillance tape we had and printed his voice on the computer.”

Nixon turned the tape player on and Al-Khalifa’s voice floated into the air.

“We think we can call his contact with his telephone and arrange a meeting,” Hanley said, “then recover the bomb.”

“How much time do we have?” Kasim asked.

“We think they will strike tomorrow at the stroke of midnight,” Hanley said.

“New Year’s Eve,” Murphy said, “those grandstanding bastards. Any idea where?”

“There’s a celebration and concert in a park right near Buckingham Palace,” Hanley said. “Elton John will be performing.”

“Now I’m really pissed,” Murphy said. “I love that guy’s music.”

“All right, everyone,” Hanley said, “I want you to all make your way to your cabins and get some sleep. Most of you are going into London tomorrow to work the operation. We’re going to meet here in the conference room at seven a.m. for assignments, and as soon as we near London, you’ll be off-loaded and sent into the city. Are there any more questions?”

“Just one,” Huxley said. “Does anyone know how to defuse a nuclear bomb?”