Silent Assassin (14 page)

“Novokoff . . .” The man coughed a wet, bloody cough. “He beats you. . . .”

“What? What are you saying?” asked Morgan.

“You will not find him in time. . . .”

“What the hell do you mean?”

The man just smiled a bloody smile.

“What do you mean?”

The man’s eyes went wide, his pupils became tiny dots, and he began seizing.

“Cobra,” said Spartan. “
The bomb
.”

Morgan looked at the device. It was stuck to the yacht’s outer hull. The timer read 6:22, and was counting down. He recognized the explosive agent as Semtex. He examined the device carefully, looking at how the wires were arranged.

“Shit,” he said.

“What?’ asked Spartan.

“It’s a difficult setup. Any tampering might blow us all to high heaven.”

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“My best,” he said. He probed the bomb carefully, but all he had were some wire cutters and a screwdriver from his standard field kit. He began to unscrew the casing from the electronic component of the bomb. He knew that it was rigged to blow if he just pulled it out. As he unscrewed the casing, he noticed a strange resistance.

“There’s an anti-tamper device inside,” Morgan said. “It’ll blow if I open it.”

“Well, then, what are you going to do?” asked Spartan.

Morgan looked at the timer. Going on less than two minutes. “Diesel, how are you coming along there?” he asked.

“I found the device, but I’m still working on it,” he said. “Gonna be another couple of minutes, I suspect, but I got this. There?”

“Still working too,” he said.

“Cobra,
can you do it?
” she insisted.

“I don’t know,” he said. “You’d better get out of here.”

“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not,” she said. “Better work fast. We’ll never get those people out of here before the ship sinks.” Morgan didn’t have time to argue, and he was glad to have her near him anyway. He continued to examine the bomb, but every passing second told him he wasn’t going to make it, he wouldn’t be able to disarm it before the time ran out.

Morgan had a sudden flash of inspiration. The bomb was tamper-proof, but the straps tying it to the hull were rigged with a simple anti-tampering device. All he had to do to pull it free was to connect two wires together and short out the larger circuit. He stripped the wires bare near their base with his pocketknife. From there, it was simple to cross them and pull the bomb loose from the ship’s hull. He took it into his arms and turned around.

“What the hell are you doing?” exclaimed Spartan.

“Saving the boat,” he said. He ran up back the way they had come, Spartan coming behind him, until he reached the deck. He clutched the bomb in his arm. The weight felt about right, and the shape was not entirely different. He raised the bomb, focusing on making the longest pass he had ever made as quarterback.

Morgan threw it as hard as he could into the black void of the open ocean. His old football arm still served him well, and the bomb sailed far away. He heard it as it fell into the water. Almost immediately, there was a flash, a burst, and water sprayed on his face. The yacht bobbed with the shockwave on the water, but otherwise, they were home safe. The boat was intact.

“Nice throw, Cobra!” said Spartan.

“Yeah . . .” he said.

“Why so glum? You did it! We’re safe!”

“Didn’t you hear what Novokoff ’s man said before he died? This isn’t over. And I get the feeling that we haven’t even seen the worst of it yet.”

“What? What do you think it might be?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”

C
HAPTER
28

 

P
rivate Corvey looked at the Montauk Air Force Base building and shuddered. The boxy construction with that enormous radar mounted on top of it was still catching the rays of the sun, which had, from his perspective, already disappeared behind the forest of Camp Hero State Park. The sun was low in the sky, and cast a red shroud on the entire scene. The only sounds were the cries of the occasional seagull, the crashing waves and the rustle of the needles of evergreens swaying to the wind.

A big part of his job was just intercepting snoops and sending them away. The base was a favorite destination among conspiracy nuts. The enormous radar tower, with its impressive antenna, was more than enough to excite the imagination to create a lot of crazy ideas. People believed all sorts of things about it, ranging from its being used for mind control to being retrofitted as part of some sort of massive laser weapon. And those were sane theories. Others talked about time travel and space aliens. So, inevitably, the crazies would come prodding, trying to prove the existence of the evil secret plots of the U.S. government. But crazy as they may be, no one really wanted to argue with his automatic rifle. Oh, they hollered to heaven almighty that this was an outrage, that the government wouldn’t get away with this, that all the newspapers would be alerted. But they always left.

Those were the exciting moments. For the most part, nothing happened. He spent his time either standing at his post or walking on patrol, looking at the square old concrete buildings or the greenery of Camp Hero State Park.

And this day was no exception. Not a soul stirred, not even a squirrel. Corvey walked among the buildings, with his rifle, held at low-ready position, weighing heavily in his hand and neck. He saw one of the other privates on patrol that day, Orr, about a hundred feet away, and raised his hand to greet him. He walked on, down the road and past the old WWII bunkers. He absently fingered the emergency alert device strapped like a pager to his belt. The existence of the device was enough to make him apprehensive. He was supposed to activate it on the event of a “serious emergency.” He had no idea what that might entail, and of course, no one would
tell
him.

He looked back at the radar tower. Today, the whole thing was a rusted hunk of metal that groaned when strong winds hit. Definitely no space lasers here. The truth was much more prosaic. Originally built in the Cold War era, the radar was part of the SAGE program, meant to detect approaching bombers. The base itself was older—built during World War II to detect passing U-boats. Nothing out of the ordinary here.

Except Private Corvey had seen things since he’d been stationed at Camp Hero. Men going in and out of the main building of the newly reinstated base in the dark of night, from boats that made shore in the middle of moonless nights—and then no one coming outside, not one, except in those clandestine midnight ins and outs. And on the really quiet nights, he swore that he could hear very faint and distant screaming. It might not be space lasers, but
something
was going on in there, underground.

Covey looked at the building again, and once more got a chill up his spine. The sun had fully set now, and darkness was beginning to encroach. Just a couple hours more, he thought to himself, and he would be relieved.

He heard a strange rustle in the bushes, and stopped dead in his tracks.

It had been soft, but his ear was trained to hear this sort of sound, and pick it out from the mere rustle of the wind. He gripped his rifle harder in his right hand, and fingered the emergency call button with his left.
Oh hell
, he thought.

“Who’s there?” he called out. “Orr? That you?”

He heard another rustle. Definitely too big to be a squirrel. He felt his heavy nervous breathing, his heartbeat picking up speed.

“Come out with your hands up!” he shouted.

There was no answer. He held his rifle with both hands and raised it. “Come out with your hands up or I’ll shoot!”

He didn’t have time. Muzzles flashed from three different places in the bushes. He felt the impact of three bullets hitting his vest, knocking the wind out of him. One bullet hit his neck, two his left arm, and two his right thigh. He dropped on the cold hard ground, feeling the dirt against his face.

With the last of his strength, he squeezed the emergency button.

C
HAPTER
29

 

P
rivate Sanders was puzzling over one of those cutesy, annoying crossword clues with the puns when the buzzing alarm went off. She tossed the newspaper aside and looked at the screen of the computer in front of her. It read,
BREACH AT CAMP HERO.
She quickly tossed aside the crossword and picked up the phone, making the connection to Camp Hero.

“Camp Hero, this is Crow’s Nest. Do you copy?” She got only static in response.

“Camp Hero, this is Crow’s Nest. Do you copy? I repeat, do you copy?”

She picked up the intercom. “Major Donnell,” she said. “I need you in here.”

He picked up the phone himself and said into the receiver, “Crow’s Nest here. Come in, Camp Hero. Come in.”

It annoyed her slightly that he did that.

“Connect me to this line,” he said, writing down a phone number on the margins of her crossword puzzle. “Sir, shouldn’t we contact the domestic emergency response—”

“I said connect me, Private. That’s an order.” Sanders didn’t like it, but an order was an order.

“Camp Hero has been breached by a hostile force. Requesting immediate response.”

From where she was sitting, Sanders heard nothing on the other end. There must have been silence in fact, because after a few seconds Major Donnell said, “Requesting immediate response on Camp Hero.”

“Has anyone else been contacted regarding this matter?” The voice came out loud enough for Sanders to make it out.

“No,” said Donnell.

“Keep it that way,” said the voice. “Responders will be en route shortly.”

C
HAPTER
30

 

M
organ convened with the other members of Zeta tac team on the upper deck, where the passengers and the captive crew were slowly trickling out.

“Smooth move getting rid of that bomb,” said Spartan. “Hell of a throwing arm you got there.” Morgan shrugged.

“There is such a thing as defusing,” said Diesel, grinning. Out of the corner of his eye, Morgan saw the little girl, Alison, running to hug her mother and father, who had just come outside. Many people were huddled together, crying, while others seemed energized by the relief of being alive.

Morgan looked down and saw their prisoner, slumped on the ground looking relieved, clutching his broken, bleeding leg. He walked over to him with a sense of purpose.

“You know,” Morgan said, looking down at the man, “there was something your friend said to me below decks. About something else that’s going down tonight.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, wincing in pain. His hands were still above his head, tied fast to the railing of the ship.

“I’m sure,” said Morgan. He bent down, putting his hands under the man’s arms. “Get up.”

“Where are we going?” he asked, concerned, but still using his one good leg to push himself up.

“Better to ask where
you’re
going,” he said. Then he heaved the man over the railing. With his hand still cuffed, his arm cracked audibly from the sudden impact of his full weight, but the cuffs managed to hold him up, dangling over the side. He screamed.

“Cobra, what the hell are you doing?” demanded Bishop.

“Questioning the prisoner,” he said. Then, to the man hanging overboard, he yelled, “Where’s Novokoff?”

The man just grunted in pain. “I do not know! I swear!”

“That’s mighty cold water down there,” said Morgan. “And I don’t know how long those handcuffs are going to hold you. If the bones in your hand break, I get the feeling it’ll slip right out, which means you take a little dip in the drink.”

“Pull me up! Please!” The man dangled helplessly over the water.

“Cobra, pull him up!” cried Bishop. “Rogue, Spartan, help me out here.” Then again to Morgan, “He’ll be questioned once we’ve brought him in.”

“We killed one of Novokoff’s men near our bomb,” said Morgan, blocking their way from pulling the man up. “He said something. He said we couldn’t beat him. That we wouldn’t be able to stop him. And I think this bastard knows what that’s about.” Morgan looked over the railing at the dangling man. “Tell me what I want to know!”

“He’ll kill me!” the man said. “Novokoff will kill me if I say anything.”

“
I’ll
kill you,” said Morgan.

The man looked at the others, Bishop, Spartan, Rogue, and Diesel, all of whom were looking over the railing down at him. Spartan turned to wave people in the crowd away. “You cannot let him do this!” said the man. “Stop him!”

No one made a move to help him. “See?” said Morgan. “Turns out I can do this. And no one’s going to question one missing goon. Now talk.”

“Okay! Okay! He was planning something else. Something soon,” said the man.

“What is it? When does it go down?”

“I don’t know! He did not tell anyone who was not assisting him directly. But he referred to it as his primary mission tonight.”

“Primary? What the hell could be more primary than this? Bloch, are you receiving? Guy says Novokoff is planning another strike tonight.”

“I know,” she said over the comm.

“What do you mean, you know? How?”

“Because it started fifteen minutes ago. I just got the call. He’s invaded a top-secret installation. He’s after something. Something far more deadly than anything he’s had in his hands so far.”

“Shit,” said Morgan. “Where is this installation?”

“Montauk Point.”

“That’s only some fifty miles from here,” said Diesel. “Bloch, where’s our transport?”

“En route,” said Shepard. “You’ll be picked up in twenty minutes.”

“That’s not soon enough,” said Morgan. “That time could make the difference between catching him and letting him walk free.”

“Well, what the hell other choice do we have?” asked Bishop.

Morgan looked around, and then the answer became crystal clear. “The chopper,” he said. “We’re taking the chopper.”