“Just coming…”
She walked to the door and opened it. The steward was standing there. But he held no message in his hand. Instead, he was pointing a gun at her, and there was not a trace of his former servility in his voice as he said, “Put some clothes on. You’re going on a trip.”
She stepped back into the room, opening the door wider to let him in. As far as the steward was concerned, she was just the little blond wifey. He was taken completely by surprise when she slammed the door back in his face, flung it open again and kicked him hard in the crotch. As he bent double in agony, Alix stepped forward and drove her knee into his face. She had no idea why the crew had suddenly turned on her, but there was no time to worry about that now. She ran back to her bed, grabbed the garbage bag, and hurried out into the passageway.
The master bedroom was on the main deck. Alix raced through the saloon where Vermulen had held his briefing and out into the open air. She had got as far as the stern rail, and was just about to leap over the side when a burst of gunfire exploded just a few feet above her, and a line of bullets tore through the planking at her feet.
She looked up and saw the captain standing by the rail of the upper deck, looking down at her over the top of an automatic rifle.
“You better stop right there, Mrs. Vermulen,” he said. “Or the next burst goes through you.”
88
Fifteen years earlier, the Zvečan lead smelter had been part of a thriving enterprise that had employed twenty thousand workers and provided wealth for a nation. Now it was just another ramshackle old Communist enterprise, brought even lower by the combined effects of corrupt mismanagement and social anarchy. The whole place, nestled at the floor of a valley between thickly wooded, mineral-laden hills, purveyed an air of irreversible decline: rusting pipes, stationary conveyor belts, office windows broken and unrepaired. A few desultory puffs of bitter smoke emerged from the giant red-and-white-striped chimney that towered over the plant, in feeble acknowledgment that this was, in theory, a round-the-clock operation. Occasional lights overhead shone a weak orange glow over their surroundings. But there was no one to check Vermulen’s team as their Land Cruisers rolled through the main gates, no sign of workers on the roadways between the giant processing sheds.
The bomb was behind another false wall, this one in the basement office of the maintenance worker in charge of the central-heating boilers. Vermulen was struck by the contrast between the drab banality of the leather case and the astonishing power of its contents. He was accustomed to systems whose capacity was evident in their appearance, be they mighty battle tanks or thunderous artillery pieces. But this was the ultimate stealth weapon. It gave no clue as to its powers of destruction.
The feeble bulbs in the office lights and the gray-green paint on the walls combined to create a grim, ghostly atmosphere, but Vermulen could see that Frankie Riva’s eyes were glittering with the fever of a treasure-hunting archaeologist who had stumbled into a pharaoh’s tomb.
“Ammazza!” he muttered, opening the case and seeing the metal gun barrel. “After all these years… incredible!”
“So it is a nuclear weapon?” Vermulen asked.
“Oh yes, General, most certainly it is that.”
“In working order?”
Riva raised his hands in a classic Italian shrug.
“Who can say? There is only one way to know for sure, and that is to set a detonator and see what happens. But, just looking at it, I can see no reason why it should not work. Fundamentally, this is a very simple device. One piece of uranium is smashed into another…”
He spread his arms wide. “Boom!”
Don Maroni had been a staff sergeant in the U.S. Army Rangers, a member of one of the finest light-infantry forces in the world, trained to the highest levels of fitness and competence. But the operative word was “had.” He’d been out of the service five years, working for a civilian security corporation, wearing a suit instead of a uniform. He still went to the boxing gym three times a week and kept his shooting up to standard. By any normal measure, he was not a man you’d want to mess with. But he wasn’t as sharp as he’d once been. He certainly wasn’t as battle-fit as the men who were slipping through the great, rusting hulks of the smelting works all around him, men who had spent a decade fighting hand to hand in conflicts of vile, unfettered ferocity.
Dusan Darko’s most trusted killers had confronted conventional armies, desperate civilians, and fanatical mujahideen flown in from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia, whose total absence of scruple equaled their own. They had battled knowing that death was a mercy, far preferable to the torture and mutilation that inevitably followed capture, and they had dealt out as much agony as they had received. More than that, they came from mountain villages where the culture of knife and gun had ruled for centuries. Murder was in their blood.
So as good as he was, Donny Maroni was taken by surprise as he patrolled the perimeter of the office block in which the bomb had been hidden. He caught a brief scent of tobacco and garlic from the hand that clamped across his mouth to stifle his screams, and then the knife was drawn across his throat and blood spurted from the gaping mortal wound.
Reddin’s men were scattered around the immediate vicinity of the office building. They were all well armed, all equipped with radios with which they could summon immediate support. And they all died without a word being spoken.
The video camera had been set up in the basement office, with a light that shone on Kurt Vermulen and the opened bomb case that he and Frankie Riva had lifted onto the maintenance man’s desk.
“You ready?” he asked Riva, who was standing behind the camera.
“Sure,” the Italian replied. “We’re running now. Just speak whenever you want.”
Vermulen cleared his throat, gave a sharp sniff, then looked directly at the camera.
“My name is Lieutenant General Kurt Vermulen. I retired from the U.S. Army after twenty-eight years’ service as a commissioned officer, during which I was proud, and honored, to serve the country I love. I am now in the province of Kosovo, Yugoslavia, in the Zvečan industrial plant. Within a few miles of here, units of the Kosovo Liberation Army are operating, assisted by fighters, weapons, and money provided by the forces of international Islamist terrorism. And this”-he pointed to the case on the desk-“is their ultimate weapon. It is a-”
From the corridor outside there came the crackle of small-arms fire, immediately answered by a blast of firing from the far side of the office door, through which could be heard an animal howl of pain. The door burst open and Marcus Reddin backed into the room. He was unsteady on his feet and his left arm was hanging uselessly beside him, blood pouring from the through-and-through bullet wound that had ripped open his shoulder.
“Red!” shouted Vermulen. Drawing the pistol that was holstered around his waist, he ran to his friend’s aid.
“Sorry, man… screwed up,” Reddin gasped.
Vermulen could hear footsteps scurrying down the basement corridor. Without looking back at Riva, he shouted, “Take cover!” Then he grasped his pistol in both hands, held it up to his face, and stood in the shelter of the door frame, steeling himself for the moment when he would have to step into the corridor and start firing.
But Vermulen never took that step. Not when there was a gun in his back and an Italian voice in his ear saying, “Drop your weapon, General.”
One hundred and twenty miles to the west, a helicopter landed on a patch of open ground near the Croatian village of Molunat. A small group of people was waiting for it. While the engines still ran, they hurried toward the chopper, instinctively bending over, even though the rotor blades were well above their heads. In the midst of the men there was a smaller, slighter figure, a woman whose blond hair was whipped around her face by the wind from the rotors. She was in the grip of two men, who had grabbed her upper arms. Her hands had been tied behind her back, and she stumbled as they dragged her up to the helicopter and bundled her through the open side door. After she was in, one of the men reached up toward the open door, holding a thin cardboard file. An unseen figure from within the cabin took the file and slid the door closed, and the helicopter rose again into the cloudy night sky.