The engineer lost his smug expression.
Emma hopped into the ditch and lay down on her back. Steel rivets held the rectangular access panel in place. The rivets wouldn’t be a problem. All the equipment needed to open up the missile and free the weapon sat in one of three duffel bags. There were drills and wrenches and power saws and even an acetylene torch. Earlier she’d asked the men if they’d ever worked on this kind of missile.
“Of course not,” came the unworried reply. “Our expertise is in ground-based ballistic missiles. But we’ve studied the schematics.”
The crackle of the satellite radio echoed through the tent. Emma climbed out of the ditch and answered it. “Yes?”
“How are you progressing?” asked Balfour.
“About to open it up.”
“What does that mean, about? When will work be completed?” There was an urgency in Balfour’s voice that hadn’t been there an hour before.
“What is it, Ash? What’s wrong?”
“You must hurry. You don’t have much time.”
Emma turned her back on the porters raising the picks over their heads and the engineers staring transfixed at the missile. “What do you know?” she whispered.
“Your presence has been noticed. The U.S. military is sending a team to investigate.”
Emma held her tongue. The implications of Balfour’s words were too complex, too far-reaching to absorb at once. Who had spotted them? How had they known where to look? And, most important, who had passed along the information to Balfour? Emma had no doubt that he knew more than he was telling, but now was not the time to press him. It was imperative to focus on matters at hand. “How long do we have?” she asked.
“The order was passed down to a special operations unit in northern Afghanistan a few hours ago. I suppose it depends on how quickly they can get a team to you.”
Emma had worked with members of special operations units in the past. She knew firsthand that they could mobilize very fast. “So they could be here any second?”
Balfour offered little consolation. “I suggest you get the weapon out now.”
“We’re trying.”
“You’ll have to do better than that,” said Balfour. “The Americans have an order to shoot to kill. They don’t want anyone to learn about their lost nuke.”
The line went dead. Emma paused to bridle her anger before rejoining the others. “Gentlemen,” she said. “There is a new development. We need to accelerate our efforts. Balfour expects us back by morning. Accordingly, he is doubling your fees.”
Fifteen minutes later, the porters had finished digging and both engineers had taken up position beneath the missile. The panel came off. More time passed as they exchanged wrenches for screwdrivers and back again. Bundled in oversized parkas and down-lined pants, with oxygen masks covering their mouths, they worked with agonizing slowness.
Emma stepped outside the tent. Snow like goose down fell from a low-lying cloud cover. She scanned the sky, seeing nothing, knowing all the time that when they came, it would be with lights doused. Then she heard it-the distinctive rhythmic batting of a helicopter. And a second, with the same signature. Twin rotors. Probably Chinooks. That meant a large team, at least ten operators. The Americans were loaded for bear. No prisoners, indeed.
Emma squinted, seeking out a shadow among the clouds. It didn’t matter that the pilots could not make visual contact or that they were flying with night-vision goggles. The helicopters carried sophisticated infrared scanning devices that would spot their heat signatures through the densest cloud.
Dum… dum… dum… dum… dum.
The throbbing grew louder. Just then the wind gusted and she could no longer hear it. She stood stiller than she ever had, waiting for the gusts to pass, fearing that when the wind quieted, the helicopters would be upon them. But a moment later the gusts calmed and the sky was silent. The pilots had flown up the next valley.
Emma stepped back inside the protective tenting and dimmed the floodlights. “Can you get the device out in the next ten minutes?”
“We need more light.”
“Out of the question.”
One of the engineers frowned. “There are still seven bolts attaching it to the wall of the fuselage, and then-”
Emma grasped him by his shoulders. “Just a yes or a no.”
“If I must, yes.”
“You must.”
The engineer went a shade paler, then barked a few commands to his thin colleague, and the men attacked their task with renewed vigor. Emma took up position half in, half out of the tent. One eye kept watch on the engineers while the other scanned the sky. She heard a yelp and saw that one of the engineers lay on his back and that a stainless steel projectile had dropped halfway out of the missile’s belly and landed on his chest.
“Careful!” she shouted, nerves getting the better of her. She put her head back outside and heard the helicopters again. This time there was no mistaking it, nor the fact that the helicopters were approaching. The moment the Americans turned their infrared cameras onto her location, their screens would light up, showing red human forms against a black background.
“Anyone who doesn’t need to be here, leave now. Get back to the cave and go as far inside as you can. Hurry.”
The porters and the guide took note of her voice and fled.
If I sound as scared as they look, thought Emma, we’re in deep trouble.
She hurried to the missile. “Get the payload clear.”
“It’s stuck,” the engineer said. “I can’t free the last bolt.”
Emma hopped into the pit. “Give me the wrench.”
The engineer thrust the tool into her hand and pointed to the recalcitrant bolt.
Emma tightened the wrench on the bolt and gave a tug. Nothing. Then another. Still nothing. Above the wind, she could hear the batting of the helicopters. “Get out of here,” she said, motioning for the engineers to scram. “I’ll take care of this myself. And make sure you go at least twenty meters inside the cave. Those helicopters are looking for us. And they don’t plan on asking us too many questions.”
The engineers ran from the tent.
Emma lay on her back, staring into the guts of the missile. It looked like a souped-up Chevy, she thought. One of those cars that Jonathan always dreamed of having. A ’68 SS Camaro with a racing stripe down the hood. She laughed grimly. This was hardly the moment to be reminiscing. She tried the wrench again, to no avail.
“Sod it all.” Drawing her pistol, she placed the barrel a few centimeters from the bolt, shielded her eyes, and pulled the trigger. The bolt shattered as the bullet passed through the steel skin. The warhead dropped from its carriage onto her chest, crushing her. Gasping, she rolled it one way while rolling her body another. The warhead slid onto the dirt.
The nuclear weapon was encased in stainless steel and measured one meter in length. It was shaped like a bullet, rounded at one side and wider at the shoulders. A litany of serial numbers ran along the side, but there were no warnings except a small yellow-and-black radioactivity symbol. Anyone who got this close to a nuke didn’t need to be reminded to be careful.
Emma slid from beneath the missile and hefted the bomb onto the lip of the ditch. It weighed at least forty kilos, and she needed all her strength to maneuver it to the door of the tent. The helicopters were closer, and though the wind was driving the snow horizontally and the Gore-Tex was snapping wildly, she could make out the pitch of the two aircraft. It was impossible to tell where they were. Noise traveled strangely in the mountains. Close enough, thought Emma.
Still her feet did not propel her out of the tent toward the cave. She felt the weight in her hands dragging her down. She considered carrying the warhead outside and sitting down on top of it to wait. She wouldn’t feel a thing when the machine gun bullets struck her. Existence would simply end. Death was not always the worst tragedy. The bomb would be discovered and whisked to safety. Her last act would be seen as having spared thousands of lives and forestalling untold misery.