“That means we take it apart here,” said one of them.
“I’d say that looks like the best alternative among a bad lot.”
They all agreed. “Let’s get the tools,” said one of them.
They had already taken steps to move everyone back along the highway a distance of at least two miles in either direction, including all of the highway patrol units. All that lingered now was the single helicopter for support that mounted the camera through which Thorpe, Rhytag, the head of Homeland Security, and the rest in the room watched on the big screen. The chopper hovered about a quarter mile off and zeroed in with a powerful telescopic video lens.
“Why don’t you guys go back to the safety point?” said one of the agents. “There’s no sense in all of us staying up here. I can pull the doors by myself.”
“Two miles out and two miles back, we don’t have time,” said the head of NEST. He was already donning a radiation suit from their equipment bags, dropped from the helicopters when they landed. “Besides, if we get a full-yield detonation it won’t make much difference. On the other hand, if we get a fizzle I want you and all of your agents as well as the rest of my team to take cover over there behind that concrete divider.”
None of them argued with him. Thorpe and Rhytag watched on the screen as two more members of NEST put on radiation suits. Then the two men joined the agents behind the concrete divider.
There were two doors on the rear of the container, each with two sets of heavy locking pins, one at the top and one at the bottom. Each locking pin was controlled by a levered handle. Pull up or push down on the handle and the pin would be released.
The head of NEST gripped one of the levered handles on the container door. “Are you ready?” he called out.
“Go ahead. Do it.”
He pulled the handle up, sliding the heavy steel pin from the latch at the top of the container. “Got it. That one’s out. One down, one to go,” he said.
He took the second lever at the bottom of the door. “For some reason this one doesn’t want to come,” he said. He let go of it, straightened his back, and took a deep breath.
He pushed again. “Damn thing’s stuck…”
“Be careful, don’t force it,” said one of them.
“The container’s got some dents. It’s just bent.” This time he put his full weight on the lever. The pin started to slide from the hole. “Got it,” he said.
Several hundred pounds of steel plate backed by a liner of lead shielding hit the leader of the NEST team like a rocket sled. The heat from the blast radiated in ripples from the back of the container, tearing the door from its hinges. It tossed the man’s limp body fifty yards down the highway as the steel door, sliding along beside him on the pavement, threw up sparks.
An instant later the shock wave rattled the camera on the helicopter a quarter of a mile away and broke up the picture for a few seconds.
“Oh, no!” said Rhytag.
When the images flickered back into focus, they could see sheets of flame and smoke billowing from the open end of the cargo container. The side nearest them was bulged out by the blast. It flattened the rear tires of the truck, and one of them caught fire.
“Bring in fire suppression. Foam…And get an ambulance in here now.” There was chaos at the scene as two of the agents jumped the divider and ran toward the downed man. The two NEST team members, hampered by the bulky radiation suits, moved more slowly. They cleared the divider and approached the back end of the twisted container. One of them was holding a Geiger counter.
“What are you reading on the meter?”
“Nothing. A few rads above background.”
“Doesn’t make sense. The shielding’s been blasted out.” The two men disappeared into the smoke at the rear of the container.
Everyone in the command center sat silently, their eyes riveted on the huge screen as they listened for voices over the tactical communication system.
A few seconds later the two men emerged from the smoke. “Conventional explosives,” said one of them. He pulled off his hood, sweat pouring down his face as the camera zeroed in on him.
“It could be Semtex or C-four, or some other synthetic, I can’t be sure.”
They could hear the electronic wail of sirens in the background as the ambulance made its way up the highway. “There are traces of elevated radiation around what’s left of the wooden crate inside, but the device is not there.”
SIXTY-THREE
After separating from the cargo carrier, the rental truck continued west for almost a mile until it approached a high-arching bridge over what appeared to be a big harbor dotted with yachts and large ships. The truck moved along at full speed, staying with the traffic as it climbed onto the bridge, two lanes in each direction separated by a concrete divider.
Yakov could see what appeared to be a kind of fairyland through the mist ahead of them. Below the bridge on the left were white sand beaches and a nestled cove harboring luxury boats, brigantines, and other exotic sailing craft.
Straight ahead there was what looked like an island except for the endless strip of sand that disappeared into the haze along the ocean to the south. The area directly across the bridge was awash in lush vegetation, a green oasis of palms and billowing eucalyptus. Though he didn’t know it, Nitikin was looking at a golf course. In the distance he could see the broad blue expanse of the Pacific. And laid right at its sandy shore, the fantasy touch of a layered wedding cake, an immense wooden structure with red roofs in various shapes, its round one topped by a cupola itself capped by a large American flag. It was the Hotel del Coronado. The place where the film Some Like It Hot had been shot back in the sixties.
None of this meant a thing to Alim. He was seated next to the Russian on the front seat with only one thing on his mind.
Off to the right, a little over two miles away, Alim could see the immense flat expanse of the ship tied up to the dock as four fireboats out in the channel shot arcs of colored water, red, white, and blue, high into the air in celebration. It was the moment Afundi had worked for since that morning in Havana at Fidel’s linen-covered dining table, when through sleepy eyes he first saw the photograph of the aircraft carrier the Americans called the USS Ronald Reagan, the viper that had nursed the warplanes that killed Alim’s mother and father.
For months, information had come from comrades-in-arms around the world tracking the progress of the ship as it moved from one ocean to the next. Reports were sent to Havana from newspapers and online blog sites reporting the current location of the carrier and its strike force.
From his camp in Colombia, Alim devoured the news, like Ahab chasing the great white whale. At one point he was nearly sick with stress when he read reports that the carrier was expected to proceed to its home base, restock its stores of supplies, and return to sea before the bomb could be ready.
But as Castro had told him that morning, this was destiny. A typhoon swept across the far Pacific and the great carrier, which was on its way home, was diverted to the Philippines. According to American propaganda the ship and its devil fleet were assigned to fly aid missions carrying food, water, and medicine to stricken islanders. Despite all of the Americans’ lies, Afundi didn’t care as long as the ship was delayed.
Then ten days ago he’d received the final piece of information that the Reagan had weighed anchor in the Philippines. Two sailors on leave the night before had told some girls in Cebu that they would call them from San Diego the minute they reached port, and gave them the date the carrier would arrive back home.