Still grinning, Grant put his hand on Connor’s shoulder and guided him to the tables at one end of the room.
“You know, I saw a line item tucked away in that last defense spending bill that looked like it might have had your signature,” said Grant, perching himself on the edge of the table. “A fifty-million-dollar request for a Counterintelligence Resource Analysis Program. C-R-A-P. That you?”
“I’m not that clever, Joe.”
“The heck you’re not.”
The last staffer left the room, closing the door behind her. Without bidding, Grant flipped a switch under the table, activating the lock. A subtle hum was instantly audible. The Bubble was secure.
“So, Frank,” said Grant, losing the smile, “why do I get the impression that I should not be happy to see you?”
“Broken arrow,” said Connor. “You remember what that means, don’t you?”
“The signal a pilot gives if he loses a nuke. Everyone knows that. You don’t need me to tell you.”
“How often has it been given?”
“Luckily, not very often. That’s not an incident you can hide. It’s a matter of public record.”
“I know about the public record.”
In fact, Connor had memorized the details of each incident.
March 10, 1956. A B-47 bomber carrying two nuclear cores, or detonation devices containing fissile uranium, vanished during a routine flight over the Mediterranean. A thorough search turned up no trace of either of the weapons.
June 25, 1957. A C-124 transport flying off the eastern seaboard jettisoned two nuclear weapons without their radioactive material after experiencing mechanical problems. Neither weapon was found.
February 5, 1958. Following a midair collision between a B-47 bomber and an F-86 Sabre fighter, a nuclear weapon without its fissile core was lost in the waters of Wassaw Sound near the mouth of the Savannah River, not far from Tybee Island, Georgia. Again, no trace of the weapon was found.
January 24, 1961. A B-52 bomber carrying two fully operational nuclear weapons broke apart in midair over Goldsboro, North Carolina. Both bombs were equipped with parachutes for this eventuality. Only one parachute opened. The second bomb broke apart on impact. After it was retrieved and examined, the military determined that five of six safety switches had failed. A single switch prevented the hydrogen bomb from detonating its twenty-kiloton fissile core.
The most famous occurred above the town of Palomares, Spain, when a B-52 collided with a KC-135 tanker during midair refueling. Four hydrogen bombs plummeted to the ground. The high explosives in two exploded on impact, resulting in a “dirty bomb” that spread radiation across a two-square-kilometer area. A third was recovered safely, and the fourth fell into the Mediterranean Sea and was recovered intact after a two-month search.
“I didn’t come all the way up here to talk to you about something on the books,” said Connor. “I was hoping you might be able to shed some light on any incidents that didn’t make it into the public record.”
“Why are you asking me? A lil’ old congressman from Nebraska?”
“I think you know the answer to that question.”
Grant leaned back in his chair, pushing the hair off his forehead. Prior to seeking elected office, he had spent thirty years in the air force. He’d started off flying B-52s and ended up a major general assigned to the Strategic Air Command, or SAC, as it was better known. One important element of SAC’s mandate involved overseeing the nation’s airborne nuclear arsenal, including interfacing with NEST (the Nuclear Emergency Search Team), which was tasked with locating and retrieving lost nuclear materials.
Connor went on: “Anything you want to tell me about? You have my word it’ll stay between us.”
“Sure, there have been unrecorded incidents,” said Grant. “We just called out one of our squadron chiefs for allowing a few of his planes to overfly the States with nukes aboard. But have we lost a nuke since the seventies? No sir, we have not. You have my word.”
“Scout’s honor?”
Grant gave the three-fingered Boy Scout salute. “Cross my heart. Now it’s your turn, Frank. Spill.”
Connor helped himself to a glass of water sitting on the table. He was obliged to give Grant something, but he didn’t want to tip his hand. “Got wind of something turning up on the black market,” he began cautiously. “Just a rumor, mind you, but one of my operators thought enough of the source that he passed it on.”
“Go on.”
“There may be an American cruise missile for sale.”
“What kind? Tomahawk? ALCM?”
“A big one. An air-launched cruise missile. Swept-back fins. Whole package.”
“You said it was a rumor. Has your operator seen this thing?”
“There’s a photo making the rounds. Who knows if it’s real?”
Grant appeared unfazed by the disclosure. “If it is real, then the missile will be carrying a conventional warhead. I wouldn’t worry.”
“So it’s not the other thing?”
“A nuke? Are you kidding me?” Grant laughed as if this were the most far-fetched notion he’d heard in years and Connor was a damned fool for even considering it. “No way we’d lose a nuclear-tipped cruise without all hell breaking loose.”
“That’s what I thought,” said Connor. “Apparently it’s an old one. Maybe twenty years or so. Still, word is that the broker is claiming it’s a nuke.”
Grant began to tap his foot. “He’s bullshitting. There is no way on God’s green earth that anyone could get ahold of a nuclear-tipped ALCM.”
“Glad to know it, Joe.”
“Where did you say this thing’s for sale?”
“Pakistan,” said Connor. “Right on the Afghan border. Apparently someone stumbled across it high in the mountains. We’re talking very remote. It had been buried for years.”
At the mention of the word Pakistan, Grant froze. His foot stopped tapping, and the animated face turned waxen. “Now hold on, Frank. Your story’s changing awful fast. Are you telling me that someone actually has this thing? I mean, physically possesses it?”
Connor took his time answering, observing the steady blanching of Grant’s ageless features. “Not that I know of,” he said finally. “Like I said, there’s a photo, that’s all.”
“Just a photo?”
“Yeah.”
Grant regained his color. “Sounds like quite some story.”
“That’s why I’m here. You were a B-52 pilot. You used to fly around with those things in your payload every day. It’s impossible, right? We couldn’t lose a nuclear-tipped cruise missile and just forget about it?”
Grant sat forward, his jaw raised to defend his impugned integrity. “This is the United States of America you’re talking about, Frank. Not one of them ’stans or banana republics or African dictatorships where you boys conduct your dirty business. We do things the right way.”
“Good to know.” Connor put down the water glass, stood, and walked to the door. “You’ve taken a lot off my mind. I’ll be able to sleep better tonight.”
“Hey, Frank,” called Joe Grant, his smile back in place. “You still in contact with this operator?”
“Sure thing. Why?”
“Tell him not to believe everything he hears.”
19
The Toyota pickup rocked to a halt on the muddy track.
Sultan Haq clutched the dashboard, grimacing as pain racked his body. “Dammit,” he said, staring out the windscreen at the dense foliage pressing in on all sides. “I was here two days ago. Where has it gone?”
Haq threw open the door and stepped outside, fighting back the tangle of branches that threatened to envelop the truck. He sniffed the air, and his eyes watered with the scent of ammonia and wood smoke. He was close. He stepped to the front of the truck and gazed ahead. The track continued for a brief stretch, then curved to the right and was swallowed by forest. According to the route marker on his handheld GPS, he was in the right place. Yet no matter how hard he looked, he could see no sign of the security fence or the long wooden building or the corrugated tin roof and chimneys that carried away the toxic smoke.