Alim checked his watch as the interpreter slipped the closed padlock into his back pocket, pulled a set of handcuffs from his left front pocket, and pushed Nitikin toward the front of the truck and into the shadows where anyone driving by or walking down the sidewalk was less likely to see him. Then the interpreter clasped one of the handcuffs around the Russian’s wrists.
Alim kept checking his watch, then looking over his shoulder for the blue sedan. The two brothers who were supposed to take care of the Mexican should have been here by now.
From his pocket the interpreter pulled several pieces of cotton cloth, balled them up, and stuffed them into the Russian’s mouth. Then he retrieved a roll of duct tape and placed pieces over the Russian’s mouth and eyes.
With his mouth closed tight, Nitikin had to struggle to avoid choking on the cloth while he breathed through his nose. Blinded by the tape over his eyes, he was forced to hang on to the tie-down rail for fear of becoming disoriented, losing his balance, and falling.
Only then did Alim climb into the back of the truck. He pulled a screwdriver from his inside pants pocket, removed the side panel from the wooden crate, and checked the electronic timing circuit.
The timing device had been procured from a manufacturer in Switzerland and modified by technicians in Alim’s homeland before being trekked across the ocean in a Cuban diplomatic pouch. It was designed for industrial use and employed a handheld time setter about the size of a cell phone. This plugged into the small electronic circuit board that contained the digital timing chip. The circuit board was connected by two wires to the electronic detonator, which in turn was embedded in the cordite charge in the breech of the nuclear gun barrel.
The timing circuit had been modified to include an antitamper loop. Anyone trying to sever the connection to the detonator, or damage or alter the circuit board, would trigger an immediate detonation.
Alim checked the time setting, then looked at his watch. In seventeen minutes, unless someone reset the electronic clock with the handheld setter, the circuit would fire, setting off the cordite charge in the bomb’s gun barrel. In the blink of an eye, a fireball hotter than the surface of the sun would incinerate everything within the radius of a mile, including the aircraft carrier and thousands of sailors and military families on the dock. It would leave at the epicenter a crater into which the ocean would flow.
He held the small timing tool in his hand and looked out the open end of the truck searching for the two idiot brothers in the blue sedan. They were late.
Alim and the interpreter had plenty of time to put enough distance between themselves and the blast if only the car would get here. Otherwise Afundi would have to reset the clock. He looked at his watch one more time, checked it against the digital countdown clock on the time setter, and watched the seconds tick down.
“Where are you?” Thorpe was now at a computer console with a headset and mike talking to one of the pilots on the incoming choppers.
“We’re about six minutes out,” said the pilot. “I can see Mission Bay up ahead.”
There were four helicopters, one each for the two sniper teams, with the NEST team and hostage rescue loaded onto the other two. It took longer than Thorpe had hoped to gather their equipment, muster the choppers, and get everyone on board.
The game plan was the same as for the cargo truck: bring in the snipers, take out anyone in or around the vehicle, hope that they got them all and that none of them had access to a triggering mechanism. Hostage rescue would move in to breech the truck and provide security, and NEST would deal with the bomb. They would now have to do it without their leader. The head of the NEST team had been pronounced dead moments before while on the medivac flight to the hospital.
Rhytag moved up behind Thorpe, at the console, looking over Thorpe’s shoulder at the monitor. The camera showed the ground streaming beneath one of the low-flying helicopters as it screamed south toward Coronado.
“Tell them to keep an eye out for Madriani,” said Rhytag.
“Sorry,” said Thorpe, “but we don’t have time to pick and choose or identify targets. If Madriani is around that truck, he’s dead. At most, we’ll have ten or fifteen seconds of tactical surprise. After that, all hell’s gonna break loose. We have got to isolate that truck. Gimme a second.”
“Can you patch me in to the NEST team leader?” he asked.
A few seconds later a voice came over the tactical frequency.
“Stop me if you don’t have time. But I have a question,” said Thorpe.
“Go ahead.”
“If the detonator is electronic, is there any chance of jamming it?” asked Thorpe.
“We have it covered,” said the man. “The answer is affirmative if the electronic detonator is wireless remote. We scrambled two EA-Six Prowlers for the container earlier. They jammed frequencies up and down the line, any radio or microwave signal, including cell phones. They’ll do it again over Coronado. But chances are the detonator is probably hardwired, with an analog backup or antitamper device. Which means if we try to fry their electronics, we run the risk of setting it off.”
“Understood,” said Thorpe. So much for second-guessing the experts. “Good luck!”
A few minutes ago, coming out of the truck with my back to Nitikin, I had no idea where I was. But for now my universe was the concrete curb a few feet from my face. It was the strangest sensation. Lying on the pavement under the truck, I thought about life and how short it might be as I heard muffled voices in the truck above me. I lifted my head and looked out between the two front tires. And there in front of me, like déjŕ vu, was the familiar image of a gate I had driven by a thousand times. Suddenly I realized I was home.
The open chain-link gate and the small guardhouse a hundred yards beyond is one of the entrances to North Island, the naval base. It is less than a mile from my house. I can easily walk there. A little over a mile to the office. I look at my watch and realize that Harry is probably there now. Oh, God. The only saving grace is that Sarah, my daughter, is away at school.
No doubt we all wonder from time to time what random thoughts will stream through our brains at the moment of death, but for me I have always known deep down that they would be memories of Sarah.
“There!” said Alim. He nearly dropped the timing device as he pointed from the back of the open truck.
Down the street, two blocks away, he saw the blue sedan coming this way.
Alim looked down at the timing device and checked the clock. Still enough time, if they moved. They could get across the bridge and head south toward the border. He had already mapped out a surface street that would take them on a direct line to the building on this side of the border and the tunnel beneath. Even if they got only halfway, they would be well beyond the blast zone. Once inside the building and into the tunnel, nothing could touch them. Within days, Alim would be back in the Zagros Mountains of his homeland, a hero to his people.
Alim turned once more expecting to see the blue sedan pulling up to the truck, but it wasn’t there. Now he could see it again, up the street. The idiots were backing the sedan into a parking space at the curb two blocks away. Were they blind? Couldn’t they see the truck? Afundi cursed out loud.
“Jamal!” he hollered at the translator, who was standing guard outside the truck. The interpreter stuck his head in the open door.
“Go get them. Tell them to drive the car down here, and hurry.”
The translator took off running, all the speed he could muster with his stodgy middle-aged body.
Alim checked the clock and his watch, then disconnected the lead wires. He didn’t bother to close up the wooden panel. Instead he quickly made his way to the door, jumped from the truck, and pulled the lift door down behind him. He sealed the latch and looked for the padlock, checked his pockets, and suddenly realized Jamal had been twirling it on his finger.