CHAPTER TEN
After receiving the bagel order from St. Petersburg, Herman Josef had put ten pounds of plastique in a shopping bag. He placed bagels on top of them. Then he walked three blocks to Everything Russian, a shop that sold books, videotapes, and other goods from the homeland. Sixty minutes later, he'd taken another ten pounds of explosives to Mickey's Pawn Shop of Brighton Beach.
During the day Herman had made fifteen deliveries, bringing a total of 150 pounds of explosives to different locations. He didn't know if he was being followed, but he assumed that he was. So at each stop he took payment for the deliveries, even bitching audibly on the way back if his tip wasn't big enough.
When Herman left each site, the explosives were carried by another messenger to the Nicholas Senior Citizens Home, where they were packed into a body bag, taken to the Cherkassov Funeral Home in the St. Marks section of New York City, and loaded into a coffin. The Chaikov family left the procuring of weapons and explosives to the Belnicks. Their expertise was in planning and executing operations.
The Queens-Midtown Tunnel stretches under the East River in New York, from 36th Street between Second and Third avenues. It connects Manhattan Island to the Long Island Expressway in the borough of Queens. The fifty-year-old tunnel is one of the principal arteries from the city, and at any given time its 6,000-foot length is filled with traffic.
At this time on a warm Sunday evening, the tunnel was not being used by commuters. The bright orange lights lit the way for families returning from a day in the city or travelers heading to JFK International or La Guardia Airport.
Tall, white-haired, white-bearded Eival Ekdol rolled down the window of the hearse. He breathed in the oil-thick air, air which reminded him of Moscow. He didn't think about who the people around him were or what they were doing. It didn't matter. Their deaths were the price of fighting for a new world order.
As he neared the tunnel exit, the Russian native pushed in the cigarette lighter. His left front tire blew, and he guided the swerving hearse to the wall. He ignored the curses of drivers who had to change lanes to avoid hitting him. Americans were always swearing, as though bad things had no right to happen and, moreover, were directed at each of them personally.
Ekdol put on his emergency lights, got out of the hearse, and walked to the tunnel exit. Upon emerging, he took a cellular phone from his pocket and pretended to speak. He continued to speak as he walked toward the tollbooths.
He passed a transit officer, who was sitting in a police car by the booths. The young man asked if he needed help.
"Thank you, no," said Ekdol in thickly accented English. "I've phoned for help."
"Is it just the tire?" asked the officer.
"No," Ekdol told him. "The axle."
"Well, it's dark in there," the officer said. "Someone's gonna hit you. You got flares?"
"No, sir."
He popped the trunk. "We'd better go put some out."
Thank you," said Ekdol. "I'll join you in a moment. I must phone the bereaved."
"Yeah," the officer grinned. "Helluva thing to have funeral with no body."
"Exactly, sir," Ekdol said.
The officer got out of the car and went to the trunk. Removing a box of flares, he headed toward the tunnel, whistling.
Still pretending to talk into the phone, Ekdol walked around the tollbooth. Moments later, a Cutlass came through one of the token gates and pulled up beside him. Before getting in, Ekdol pressed the pound sign on the numeric keypad.
As the Cutlass sped off, a yellow fireball erupted from the mouth of the tunnel, sending smoke, chunks of stone, and shards of metal in every direction. Cars just emerging from the tunnel were blown end over end. One cartwheeled over the transit officer and smashed into a van at the tollbooth. Both vehicles blew apart, engulfing the toll booth in flame. Other cars were pounded flat at the entranceway by falling debris, while inside the tunnel there were the muffled sounds of secondary blasts as burning cars exploded. Within moments, the toll plaza was covered with rolling white smoke and a thick, horrific silence.
After several seconds, the silence was broken by the bass-fiddle groan of bending girders and the crack of concrete. A moment later, a quarter mile of expressway and the buildings along it shook as the roof of the tunnel collapsed. The roar of the water was like an ocean gone mad as it poured into the breach. The walls of the tunnel were battered down under the pressure, and shattered pieces were washed through the mouth of the tunnel as the river pushed the cars and fallen stone out of the way. The hiss of extinguished fires was drowned by the surging water as the river flowed outward, along the highway, taking down the few cars and streetlamps that still stood. Steam poured from the broken mouth of the tunnel, rising skyward to mingle with the darker smoke.
As the waters settled and the debris came to a rest, sirens sounded in the distance. Within minutes, police helicopters were racing low along the expressway, videotaping traffic leaving the scene.
But Ekdol wasn't worried. In less than a half hour, he'd have reached the safe house. The car would be dismantled in the garage and he would have burned the false beard, mustache, sunglasses, and baseball cap he was wearing.
For now, his job was finished. Arnold Belnick and his mercenary "bagel brigade" would be paid handsomely for their role in this and then it would be up to other soldiers in the Grozny cell to continue what he had begun.
Though his own life was about to be forfeited, he was honored to surrender it in the name of the new Soviet Union.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Mike Rodgers loved Khartoum.
It wasn't soft and warm like Elizabeth or Linda or Kate or Ruthie, but he didn't have to go out in the middle of the night to take it home. The movie was right there in his laser disc library, along with other favorites like El Cid, Lawrence of Arabia, The Man Who Would Be King, and virtually everything John Wayne ever made. What's more, he didn't have to be sociable. The movie didn't require him to do anything except put it in the player, sit back, and enjoy himself.
Rodgers had been looking forward to watching Khartoum all day, which is why he should have known that something would come between him and his film.
He'd begun his Sunday by jogging his daily five miles. Then he made coffee— black, no sugar— sat at the dining room table with his laptap, and brought himself up to speed on Paul Hood's schedule— now his schedule— for the coming week. There were meetings with the heads of the other U.S. intelligence groups about sharing information more efficiently, a preliminary budget hearing, and lunch with the head of the French Gendarmerie Nationale, Benjamin. Just the thought of all that talk made his mouth dry. But there were some real challenges ahead as well. He'd be sitting down with Bob Herbert and Matt Stoll, their computer genius, to work out programs for coverage from the new ED satellite, the Electronic Disruptor. The ED satellite was being tested over Japan and could disrupt electronic impulses in objects as small as a desktop computer. He would also be receiving data from personnel on the ground in the Middle East, South America, and elsewhere. And then there were reports from U.S. agents in the Russian Army. He was looking forward to news of the Petroleum, Oil, and Lubricants Distribution overhaul, and he was curious to see how the new Russian President planned to compensate for personnel cutbacks in both the troop rear and operational rear.
Most of all, he was looking forward to the first conceptual sit-downs with Op-Center engineers for the proposed Regional Op-Center. After Korea, it had occurred to him that they should have mobile facilities which could be shuttled anywhere in the world. If it was feasible, one or more ROCs could make them an even more effective intelligence unit.