Petkov was stung by the word. He couldn’t face the fact himself, and to hear it from someone else, someone he respected, somehow hurt more. “I can go to the rehabilitation—”
“You have already been, Major. That is what you talked my predecessor into. That is the game you have played before. It is even rumored that you gained access to your records then and changed them, to hide the fact last time that you had been to the special rehabilitation clinic before. So you bought yourself another chance then. But not this time, Major. You have come to the end.”
Petkov knew the Colonel was right. He fought back the sadness he felt. “What will you do with me, Colonel? You have always been a friend to me. You made me what I am.”
Stoyanovich paused. It killed him to look into Petkov’s face. But he was willing to do what he had to do. “You are being reassigned to security.”
Petkov couldn’t believe it. He thought the Colonel was just trying to frighten him, to get his attention. “For how long, Colonel?”
“Indefinitely, but probably for the rest of your career. I’m sorry.”
Petkov felt the life drain out of him. His boots against the floor sounded like they belonged to someone else as he saluted and did a smart about-face and marched out of the room as if nothing had happened. But something had happened. The one thing he loved had just been taken away from him forever.
4
Bill Morrissey didn’t like the report at all. As the head of the South Asia section of the CIA, Directorate of Intelligence, he generally hated the volatility that permeated the whole region. The report he held in his hands was another in the disturbing trend that was making it an even more dangerous place.
Morrissey carried the report into the office of Cindy Frohm, one of his senior analysts, and tossed it onto her desk. He trusted her judgment. “Read this,” he said, sitting in the chair across from her.
She glanced at the title of the report. “The Pakistan crossing incident?”
“Twelve hundred mils an hour. When they took the scrap metal off the truck, they found ten boxes just shitting radioactivity. Two of them weren’t sealed well, and two more had been breached by gunfire and the explosion. Ten boxes!”
“Weapons-grade,” she said.
“Plutonium,” he said ominously.
“I’d heard,” she said. “Who was bringing it in?”
“Well, if it was Pakistan, you’d think they wouldn’t do it on a scrap-metal truck, and you’d think they’d tell their own border guards to let it through.”
“Who else could it be?” she asked, confused.
“Maybe Pakistan, but not the government of Pakistan.”
“That’s pretty scary.” She considered some of the possibilities that flooded into her mind. “We should send someone from the NRC or the DOE over there to help.”
“We offered. They were offended.”
“They would be.”
“I want you to figure out where it was going.”
She saved the computer file she was working on and faced Morrissey. “What do you think?”
“Iranian driver, documents showed Pakistan as the destination, but passing through a lot of other countries, too, including Iran.”
“Could be anybody. Iranians sure would love to have nuclear capability.”
“But he was coming into Pakistan. He had passed through Iran. If this was their game, they would have kept it.”
She pondered some of the twisted possibilities. “Maybe Pakistan just wanted to be able to deny it if something went wrong. Plus, we don’t really know what happened at the border. Sounds to me like someone knew it was coming and tried to hijack it. What happened to the driver?”
“Big gunfight, but the radioactivity got him.”
“And the guards?”
“Same. And if this truck was trying to make a run through the mountains with ten boxes, how many other boxes have gotten through?” he asked.
“Any theories on how they got hold of it?”
“Lots.” He sighed heavily from the weight of trying to track the flow of boxes of radioactive material throughout his area. “Most likely, though, is the Mafia.”
“The Mafia? Russian Mafia? We’ve never confirmed they have access to any nuclear material. Plus, it was from Kazakhstan.”
“Nothing to do with nationality.” He shifted in his chair. “The entire Russian nuclear system, like most of their systems, is a wreck. They have guys with Ph.D.s in nuclear physics driving cabs. These Mafia assholes have sniffed out how hungry for nukes some of these desperate regimes are. They’re renting them nuclear engineers.”
“It’s all about money…”
“Exactly. Read that,” he said pointing. “Then come see me.”
Luke Henry brought his beloved silver Corvette convertible to a quick stop in his garage that looked like a barn. It was the older model Corvette. He couldn’t afford a recent model Corvette on a Navy pilot’s salary. He climbed out and slammed the door of the car so hard he was momentarily afraid he would break the window that was rolled down inside the door. He walked across the dirt driveway toward his house. He’d given his entire life to the Navy. He had gone to sea, risked his life every day and every night for years flying off a carrier, and now they’d turned on him. Betrayed him for a stupid incident that was unavoidable.
He noticed Katherine’s car was still there. She always left on the early-morning flight from Reno to San Jose every Monday to go to work. He frowned. “Katherine!” he called as the screen door closed behind him. “Katherine!” There was no response.
He walked through the house and found nothing but empty rooms. He finally made it to the master bedroom; she wasn’t there either. He stopped to listen for sounds. He suddenly heard her in the bathroom making an odd coughing sound. He wasn’t sure whether to stand there and wait or do something else. He decided to go to the kitchen to get something to drink. He opened the refrigerator and took out a beer while he waited.
When he had told her three days before that Gun had decided to board him, she assumed, as had everyone else, that it was just a formality. Nothing would come of it. He breathed deeply. Well, something had come of it. And all they had planned and counted on was out the window.
Things had changed a lot since they met. She had been working for a large law firm in Palo Alto, doing corporate and securities work: high technology, cutting edge, dot-coms, IPOs, M&A, VCs, Paige Mill Road. She knew all the lingo. Very heady stuff. As someone two years out of law school, she made four times what he made flying fighters off carriers in the dark. Something out of balance about that, he had thought, but he tried not to dwell on the pay. After all, she worked killer hours and didn’t get to fly fast jets. So he figured it was a wash.
He’d been stationed at an F/A-18 squadron that was based at LeMoore Naval Air Station in the central California valley when he wasn’t at sea.
They’d met at a concert in San Francisco —Rage Against the Machine. They’d run into each other. Literally. She had stepped on his foot and turned to apologize. Her gaze had lingered just long enough for him to know it might pay to begin a conversation with her. They’d gone out for coffee after the concert, both deserting the friends they’d come with. She thought it was “incongruous” that a Navy pilot liked a band called Rage Against the Machine. That was the word she had used: “incongruous.” That’s when he knew he wasn’t dealing with just another good-looking woman. He wasn’t even sure what “incongruous” meant, but he was sure she knew, and he was certainly willing to learn. She told him it was odd, since the machine against which they were raging was undoubtedly, at least in part, the government, those who told others what to do, and he was part of that government. He smiled, then laughed. She frowned, then laughed.