“No, it’s not,” the Emir said, and knelt down before the box.
Jack fired.
89
LATER, when asked BY Hendley and Granger, Jack Ryan Jr. would remain cagey about whether he’d intended to simply wound the Emir or, in the heat of battle, he’d missed his center-mass target. The truth was, Jack wasn’t sure himself. At the critical moment, the flood of adrenaline in his veins and the pounding of his heart had combined to seemingly both stretch and compress time in his brain. Contradictory thoughts fought for control of his fine motor skills: shoot to kill, stop the Emir; shoot to wound, gain an intel gold mine but risk the man getting a chance to push the button.
On seeing Jack standing before him in the darkened drift tunnel, the Emir had hesitated only seconds before returning his attention to the bomb-his eyes wide and feverish, fingers working inside the device’s open panel. It took only a split second more for Jack to realize he wasn’t facing a man who cared whether he lived or died-by gunfire or by nuclear detonation, the Emir had come here to finish his holy task.
Jack’s weapon had bucked in his hand, and the tunnel had flashed with orange, and when the sound faded and the darkness returned, he saw the Emir lying on his back, arms splayed, the flashlight illuminating his face. Jack could see the AK’s 7.62-millimeter bullet had entered the Emir’s right thigh on an angle, traveled upward, and punched out his buttock. Jack took two quick steps forward, weapon raised, ready to fire again, when he heard footsteps pounding up behind him. Then Clark and Chavez and Dominic were there, pulling him away…
Though they wouldn’t discover the reason until a day later via a Homeland Security intercept, Clark and company had emerged from the main tunnel’s entrance with their now bound-and-gagged quarry not to the sound of helicopter rotors and sirens but rather dead silence. As Clark had suspected, their helicopter’s course north along Highway 95 and their subsequent intrusion of the airspace above the Yucca Mountain hadn’t gone unnoticed on the radar net that blanketed the Nellis Air Force Range and the Nevada Nuclear Test Site. However, the alert that would have normally brought helicopters and security forces from Creech Air Force Base’s 3rd Special Operations Squadron had been short-circuited by the DOE’s test shipment from Callaway Nuclear Power Plant. Somewhere in the inevitable and often unfathomable bureaucratic process, the DOE had neglected to tell the Air Force they’d decided to forgo the helicopter escort for the shipment. As far as Creech was concerned, the stolen EC-130 on which Clark’s team rode was air cover for the shipment.
Whether from fear or a suspicion that his passengers were indeed the good guys, Marty had taken Clark’s “stick around” order to heart and had sat in the idling EC-130 until Clark and the others appeared jogging down the service road. Twenty-five minutes later they were back at Paragon Air, where they discovered Marty had also stayed off the radio.
“Hope I don’t regret this,” he’d said, as everyone climbed out.
“You’ll probably never know it, but you did a good thing, my friend,” Clark told him, then wiped down his Glock and laid it on the passenger-side floorboard. “Give us an hour, then call the police. Show them that gun and give them my description.”
“What?”
“Just do it. It’ll keep you out of jail.”
And besides, I’m not exactly what you’d call “findable,” Clark thought but didn’t say.
Twenty minutes after leaving Paragon Air, they were back at the Emir’s house, where they pulled into the garage and closed the door behind them. Chavez and Jack went inside to collect Tariq, while Pasternak and Dominic pulled the Emir from the rear of the vehicle and laid him out on the garage floor, where Pasternak knelt down and gave him a once-over.
“He live?” Clark asked.
Pasternak peeled back the hasty field bandage they’d applied before leaving Yucca, palpated the flesh around the puckered entrance wound, then slid his hands under the Emir’s buttock.
“Through and through,” Pasternak proclaimed. “No arteries, no bones, I don’t think. Blood’s clotting. What kind of round?”
“Jacketed seven-six-two.”
“Good. No fragments. Barring infection, he’ll make it.”
Clark nodded. “Dom, you’re with me.”
The two of them returned inside to give the house a walk-through. Though they’d all worn gloves the entire time they’d been there, sooner or later the FBI would descend on the house, and the FBI was damned good at finding trace evidence where none should exist.
Satisfied, Clark nodded for Dom to return to the vehicle, then dialed The Campus. Within seconds he had Hendley, Rounds, and Granger on conference call. Clark brought them up to speed, then said, “We’ve got two choices, anonymously dump them on the steps of the Hoover Building or finish this ourselves. Either way, the less time we stay here, the better.”
There was silence on the line. This was Hendley’s call.
“Stand by,” the director of The Campus said. He was back two minutes later. “Get back to the Gulfstream. The pilot knows where you’re going.”
Forty minutes later, they arrived at the North Las Vegas Airport and pulled onto the tarmac beside the plane, where they were met by the copilot, who ushered them aboard. Once airborne, Clark again called Hendley, who’d already begun the complicated and delicate process of informing the U.S. government that the Yucca Mountain Nuclear Waste Repository had been penetrated by now-deceased URC terrorists, and that while the suitcase nuke they’d left behind had been rendered safe, it might be wise to secure the device as soon as possible.
“How can you be sure this ain’t going to blow back on us?” Clark now asked.
“I can’t, but we don’t have much choice in the matter.”
“True.”
“How’s our patient?”
“Doc cleaned out the holes, stitched ’em shut, and put him on antibiotics. He’s stable but in one hell of a lot of pain. Jack’s given him a permanent limp, probably.”
“Least of his worries now,” Hendley observed. “Is he talking?”
“Not a word. Where’re we going?”
“Charlottesville-Albemarle Airport. You’ll be met.”
“And then where?” Clark pressed. They had in their possession the world’s most wanted terrorist; the sooner they found a bolt-hole where they could regroup and plan their next move, the better.
“Someplace quiet. Someplace Dr. Pasternak can work.”
At this, Clark smiled.
Four short hours after they departed Las Vegas, they touched down on CHO’s single runway and taxied up to the executive terminal. True to his word, Hendley had a pair of Chevy Suburbans waiting; in formation, they approached the Gulfstream’s retractable stairs, did simultaneous three-point turns, and backed up to the bottom step. From the passenger door of the first Suburban, Hendley leaned out and signaled to Clark and Jack, who climbed into the backseat, while Caruso and Chavez, trailed by Pasternak, escorted their charges to the trailing Suburban. Within minutes they were off the airport grounds and heading north on Highway 29.
Hendley brought them up to speed. From what little Gavin Biery was able to glean from the flood of coded electronic traffic, Creech Air Force Base’s 3rd Special Operations Squadron had arrived at Yucca within forty minutes of Hendley’s call. Two hours after that, in a sure sign the Department of Energy, Homeland Security, and the FBI had descended en masse upon Yucca Mountain, the electronic traffic dried up.
“Are they onto the Emir’s house?” Jack asked.
“Not yet.”
“Won’t take them long to find Paragon Air.” This from Clark. “So spill it, Gerry. Where’re we going?”