He put down the red-and-black portable X-ray machine they used to check for booby traps, then rolled onto his back in his eighty-pound suit like a dusty upended turtle. One of his buddies handed him something, and he began expertly rolling a cigarette with his oversize, muscular mechanic’s hands.
His name was First Sergeant Matthew Battista of the 789th Explosive Ordnance Disposal Company. He taught at the EOD school at Eglin Air Force Base, near Destin, Florida, and was said to be the best and most technically proficient and experienced bomb tech in the army and perhaps the world.
“Okay, Mattie, what’s the story? If we all weren’t currently having heart attacks, the suspense would be killing us,” Commander Nate said, handing him a baby wipe.
Mattie wiped at his sweaty face as he lay against the rock, staring up at the cloudless sky. He smoked his cigarette in the corner of his mouth without touching it.
“The blast was from a disposal failure,” he finally said. “We were pulling out pieces of detcord through the ring bolts next to cables in the walls, and something must have screwed up — probably a bad piece of deteriorated cable. It’s the same really old Soviet shit we saw in Iraq. Bad cable coupled with some friction burn is my guess. Only a small piece went off, though. About four feet. Thank God we cut it up beforehand.”
“So you were able to defuse everything else?” said Emily. “Did you find the detonator? Was it on a cell-phone trigger? A mechanical timer?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s all wired up, ready to go. We found this.”
He reached over and took two items out of his smock. He held up a small black box with some wires sticking out of it and a brown plastic device with three buttons on it.
“Is that a garage door opener?” I said, looking at it.
He nodded.
“And the black box is a garage door receiver,” he said. “Seen them before. You press the opener, and it sends a signal to the receiver, just like a cell-phone trigger. The whole daisy chain in there was wired up to this receiver except for one crucial detail. The receiver also has to be wired up to a battery in order for it to set off the detcord. There was no battery. Also, there was no battery for the opener, either.”
“So there was no way to set it off,” Emily said.
Battista shook his head.
“They left out the final piece. Makes sense in terms of safety. I wouldn’t want any juice within twenty square miles of this much explosive. Much safer to bring the final pieces together right when you want to blow it.”
“So what do you think, Mike? Rezende had the batteries on him?” Emily said. “Remember how he insisted on hitting his house and throwing on his hiking boots before getting on the bird? The first thing we need to do is retrieve Rezende’s body and begin scouring his records. He didn’t do this by himself.”
“No, that’s the second thing we do,” I said, taking out the satellite phone. “First we call New York City and cancel the evacuation.”
Chapter 90
Thirty-eight nautical miles due north of Árvore Preta, back at Amilcar Cabral International Airport on Sal, the first-class passengers on a flight from Munich had cleared customs and were entering the main terminal.
The terminal was very modern — clean and bright, with white walls and polished glass and floors. The in-flight magazine had said its recent remodel was evidence of Cape Verde’s growing appeal to vacationing Europeans looking for an exotic tropical experience.
As he walked, Mr. Beckett remembered what the place looked like in the early ’70s, when he arrived on his first field assignment during the rebellion. The Portuguese military helicopters behind sandbags out on the tarmac; the bullet holes in the barred windows; the nervous-looking troops and press. It had been an exotic experience then as well.
“Gorgeous day. Truly breathtaking,” Mr. Joyce commented, staring at the shining squeaky-cleanness of the glass terminal.
They were both dressed casually now, Eurosporty, with tailored sport coats over Adidas tops, expensive jeans, and Chanel aviator sunglasses.
“Indeed,” said Mr. Beckett as he pulled his rolling Gucci suitcase around a group of Africans and Western travelers sleeping and reading magazines in a row of pleather airport seats. He gazed up at the beams of light spilling down from one of the many overhead skylights.
“One might even call it a momentous day,” he said.
They laughed together as they walked. Then Mr. Beckett yawned. He hadn’t been able to sleep on the flight. Then he smiled again as he took a deep breath.
That was okay. He felt a second wind coming. One last sprint left for the final mile.
“Where is Katarina?” Mr. Joyce said as they approached the airport exit. “I specifically told her to be waiting for us up ahead, at the car-for-hire. I don’t like this.”
“Don’t be paranoid, Mr. Joyce,” said Mr. Beckett, grinning at his companion. “We’re here. It’s done. You need to enjoy it. In an hour, we call Armenio, who will rig the detonator. All we need to do now is go to the hotel and order Champagne. We dial the number and sit back on the seaside balcony and watch.”
“Watch the fun?” said Mr. Joyce.
Mr. Beckett nodded vigorously.
“Yes. There’ll be so much fun the entire world won’t know what to do.”
“For Mikhail?” said Mr. Joyce, looking at his partner.
Mr. Beckett agreed with a solemn nod. “All for poor Mikhail.”
They were near the exit, and Mr. Beckett was turning his phone off airplane mode, when a plain, petite, dark-haired woman in chic business wear and heels burst through the terminal’s entrance and made a beeline for them.
“Katarina! What is it? What’s wrong?” said Mr. Joyce.
“Everything!” Katarina said, swallowing. “Everything is wrong!”
Chapter 91
“Slow down, Katarina, before you run us off the road,” said Mr. Beckett as they sped out of the airport in her tiny pale-green Fiat.
“I’ve been calling you since this morning,” she cried. “It’s a disaster!”
“Slowly, Katarina. What happened?”
“What happened? I should be asking you that,” she said. “You said this would be discreet and that no one would ever know. Why did you contact the authorities? You never said anything about a ransom.”
“A what?”
“A ransom! Don’t give me that. Like you don’t know! It’s all over the news! The BBC! Where have you been?”
“We’ve been out of contact on an airplane,” said Mr. Beckett. “What’s all over the news?”
“You really don’t know? They’re evacuating New York!” she shrieked.
Mr. Beckett and Mr. Joyce looked at each other in horror.
“No,” Mr. Joyce groaned. “Not now. We’re so close.”
“You said a ransom. What ransom?” said Mr. Beckett.
“The BBC said the Americans said they were evacuating New York and the Eastern Seaboard because of a tsunami warning,” Katarina said as she screeched around a traffic circle, nearly on two wheels. “But the BBC said that was an unlikely story and that there were rumors about an impending terrorist attack and a ransom demand.”
“We didn’t ask for a ransom,” Mr. Joyce said. “Who would do that if we didn’t?”
“Two words. Dmitri Yevdokimov,” said Mr. Beckett after a long thirty seconds.
“That son of a bitch we bought the aluminum dust and the pump trucks from?” said Mr. Joyce.