AllFreeNovel
Share Us
A buffet table holding plates of cold meats, at least half a dozen types of cheeses, and assorted fruit. There are juices, wines, and a coffee dispenser.
The French way of counterterrorism, I suppose.
Victor says, “Some refreshments?”
“No,” I say, grabbing a chair, pulling it free, sitting my weary butt down. “We’re looking for a debrief. Where’s Rashad? What’s he up to?”
I see Victor look to Jeremy and there’s the briefest flicker of an expression on Jeremy’s face. That little gesture has just marked an unofficial change-of-command ceremony.
Victor knows I’m in charge.
He says to one of the men, “Michel!”
The youngest man hands over a sheet of paper, and Victor and Jeremy sit down. Victor lets out a long, bone-weary sigh.
“As we were afraid,” he says, rubbing the back of his bristly head. “Rashad is here. And tonight…if all goes well for him—we hope not—he will be taking possession of an RA-115 from a criminal ring operating out of Kazakhstan. We have heard various whispers here and there that afterward he’s arranging transport to New York. Manhattan, I mean.”
Through my exhaustion and overwhelmed feeling of being here in France, cut off and alone, part of my intelligence training suddenly roars to life, and I’m not a bit tired anymore.
“Wait,” I say. “An RA-115? Are you certain?”
“Quite,” Victor says.
Jeremy slowly shakes his head. “That’s correct, Amy. A Russian-made suitcase nuclear bomb. And if we don’t stop Rashad in the next few hours, it’s on its way to New York City.”
Chapter35
A FEWdark seconds pass, and I look to Victor and Jeremy. There’s birdsong nearby, and the far-off grumble of aircraft engines at work, and I smell the cheeses, and that’s when you take a breath and hope that in the next few seconds, the two intelligence men—one from Britain and one from France—will break into grins and say, “Fooled ya!”
Oh, yeah, that’s what I’m hoping for: that these two capable and brave men will show their manly heritage and laugh at pulling one over on the naïve American woman. (After all, women will believe anything.) But there’s no laughter, no smiles, no knowing glances at each other.
My intelligence mind is really kicking into overdrive now, and I feel sick to my stomach, recalling a certain training module I experienced when I was once an Army captain.
I say to them, “You know what will happen if a nuclear device of just one kiloton—one-fifteenth the size of what we dropped on Hiroshima—were to detonate in Times Square?”
Victor nods and Jeremy says, “I think we all know the scenario.”
“The scenario…” I stare at the both of them and say, “Back in the Army, I once took part in a classified training mission, complete with virtual-reality helmets. It was like you were really there, south of Times Square on Broadway, standing on the sidewalk. There was a bright flash of light from the north…and then there were fires. Buildings. Cars. Men in suits walking to work. Sharp young women moving quickly, also on their way to work. Little lines of schoolchildren, heading to school. Instantly…all were turned into flaming lumps of screaming, charred bodies. Some of them moved a few feet before dropping to the sidewalk.”
Victor clears his throat and I roll right over him. “Others were cut down by all the flying glass, or crushed by the falling concrete. Paint bubbled up on buses and taxicabs from the thermal flash. That virtual-reality training…I was there. I saw it. Felt it. Heard it. Smelled the burning bodies. The training module said in the very first hours of that one-kiloton burst, seventy-five thousand people would be killed outright in Manhattan, with more than one hundred twenty-eight thousand injured. The radioactive fallout would extend from Manhattan all the way to Stamford, Connecticut.”
I pause. “That’s what the scenario says.”
Another few heavy seconds pass.
I have both men’s attention, and even the other French intelligence officers in the room—sensing something has changed in the tone, in the atmosphere, from having mentioned something so deadly and obscene—these professionals have also fallen silent.
I clear my throat, wipe my moist hands on my new black slacks. I look to Victor and then to Jeremy, and back to Victor.
I say, “You say Rashad Hussain is somewhere near here, and is going to receive a portable nuclear device?”
“Yes,” Victor says.
To Jeremy I say, “And you want to stop him?”
“Yes,” Jeremy says.
I shake my head. “We’re not going to stop him.”
