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  “Like our Area 51,” Grimes whispered to Val.

  “Shhh. I know. I wrote this damn briefing for Ambrose—he gave it to Cachoris. And there are no nukes in ‘51.”

  “Currently,” Cachoris went on, “over twelve thousand warheads like these—a combination of nuclear weapons evacuated from the former Soviet states and warheads from the tactical nuclear weapons of the Russian Land and Rocket forces—are stored in the facilities I just mentioned. The security of these facilities, and of the warheads they contain, is tentative at best.”

  The trucks bumped down the road, the red boxes jolting along with them.

  “The objects of our desire,” Bretnor whispered to the President. “And Mr. Hussein’s. And Mr. Bin Laden’s.”

  “The three warheads you see here,” Cachoris continued, “have the combined destructive power of thirty Hiroshima bombs. These warheads were smuggled out of the Seversk facility approximately eight hours ago. We believe individuals at the facility were bribed to install dummy warheads in their place so as to conceal their theft. The trucks transporting them are driven and guarded by select members of the Mafiya, commonly known as the Russian Mafia. The vehicles are on their way to deliver their cargo to an interim safe house. From there, they will be sold to the highest bidder. Our intelligence suggests this bidder will be Middle Eastern, financed by sources in Saudi Arabia.”

  Grey-haired Senator Paul Crahfosh, a thirty-year veteran of Senate politics and Southern to the core, didn’t like what he heard. “Why ahn’t the Russians taking care of this? We have treaties with those people.”

  “Russian Security forces have routinely proven unable to provide adequate security for these materials,” Cachoris said. “They have a serious corruption problem.”

  “I have serious issues,” Crahfosh put in, “with sending them mo’ money when they’re that corrupt.”

  “Good point, Senator,” said the President.

  “The team knows the composition of the target’s security?” Ambrose asked.

  “We updated them about ten minutes ago,” Cachoris replied. “Five in the rear of the first vehicle, plus driver and assistant. Four in the back of the trail vehicle, plus the two in the cab. Two in the target vehicle’s cab, two in back.”

  “Very good,” said the President.

  But it wasn’t very good for Jack Ambrose. He counted seventeen armed men in the convoy. There were only eight on the strike team, and two of those were technical experts. Cachoris kept the teams small, arguing it kept costs down, even as Ambrose warned him he was risking a mission failure.

  Officially, Ambrose was the senior Army member on the Joint Threat Reduction Action Committee. Unofficially, he provided Delta Force, Rangers, Special Forces, and Special munitions-qualified operatives to Cachoris’ covert action teams. When he wore his public “white hat” along with his three stars, Ambrose controlled every official Army-led team that decommissioned a warhead or deactivated chemical rounds anywhere in the world.

  When he wore his covert ops “black hat,” Ambrose helped control the unofficial teams, the ones that operated inside the shadows and outside international law.

  Val squirmed in her chair, her aches all but forgotten as the target closed on the team’s positions.

  “Target entering kill zone,” Cachoris announced.

  On the right screen, the lead vehicle outline jerked and suddenly slowed. Ambrose could imagine the driver and crew cursing the road’s new potholes and the impoverished government that could not repair them. The two trailing vehicles, not yet hitting the bumps, closed up.

  Too close.

  The lead truck’s wheel dropped into a cut across the road. It slammed to a stop, one front axle snapping like a twig in a vise and spinning across the road. The following trucks pulled hard to the left and right to avoid colliding with the lead vehicle or ending up nose first in the roadside ditches.

  There was no sound with the satellite imagery, but it was easy for the audience to fill in. Flecks of light danced from the strike team’s weapons, riddling all three trucks’ cabs and the cargo beds of the lead and trail vehicles. Two figures jumped from the middle vehicle’s cargo bed. One was cut down immediately, but the second rolled into the ditch and sprayed the area with bullets.

  He’s firing blind, Val thought, while our people have night vision goggles and laser aiming devices. Precision shots took out the remaining truck headlights. Val watched as one member of the strike team began a firefight with the convoy’s survivor, pinning him. As they traded fire, two other ambushers circled wide, then slipped into the ditch about forty meters away. They worked their way forward, then slid into position and fired.

  But it was not a clean kill. Like a wounded animal, the cornered Russian thrashed in the dark, then twisted around, spraying a long burst down the ditch.

  One of the raiders’ white forms buckled and dimmed.

  “Shit!” Ambrose cursed.

  Val covered her mouth as she cried out “No!”

  Heads turned, then swiveled back to the projection screens.

  “That’s not Wolfe,” Cachoris said. “The team commander carries a special thermal marker.”

  “It’s still one of our people,” Ambrose shot back.

  In turning to meet one threat, the Russian exposed himself to another. One of the raiders fired. One round. The Russian’s form jerked and then flopped sideways. Then the figure did not move.

  “That,” said Ambrose, pointing to the shooter, “was Wolfe.”

  The projections fuzzed, then refocused.

  Val relaxed.

  “The techs tell me we’ll will lose image in approximately thirty-two seconds,” Cachoris said.

  On the screen four figures tugged three oversize steel trunks from the back of the center truck, the computer-generated red rectangles clearly marking them as nuclear devices. Two others hauled away the lifeless team member.

  The team had what they’d been sent for. Cachoris didn’t need to watch any more.

  “Lights.”

  The assembled power elite blinked helplessly.

  “The mission was a success,” Cachoris said. “But we lost a man. We don’t like casualties.”

  “Nobody here does,” Bretnor said.

  “Especially those of us who trained with and know these people,” put in Ambrose.

  “Seems to me to be a waste of young American lives and American money,” said Representative Baxter Barkley, Chair of the House Armed Services Committee. “We’re putting up, what, eight billion dollars to help these people disassemble and decommission these bombs?”

  “Ten billion, Congressman,” Bretnor said. “Over ten years. The rest of the G-8 nations are putting up another ten billion.”

  “For all the assurance we’re getting, that money would be better spent at home on schools,” Barkley said, “instead of on one of Senator Crahfosh’s boondoggles.”

  “You’d just spend it giving away condoms in those schools,” Crahfosh shot back.

  “That’s a lot of condoms,” Grimes whispered, nudging Val. “What could we do with all those?”

  “You’re a jerk,” Val said.

  “Yes, but I’m a jerk that outranks you.”

  “That and a buck will get you a cup of coffee.”

  “How about I’m a handsome, virile, well-built jerk and I’m here and Wolfe’s not and you’re lonely?”

  “How about I kick you in the balls so hard they shoot out your nose?”

  Ambrose leaned over to Grimes.

  “Something to add to the discussion, Colonel Grimes?”

  “Ah, no sir. Not at all, sir. Just telling Major Macintyre how I wanted to get both sides of the story.”

  Val rolled her eyes.

  “I see,” said Ambrose.

  “Hell,” said Barkley, “spend twenty billion. No, thirty. Just throw the money away. We’re not getting anything for it. Are we any safer now than we were before we started writing billion-dollar checks?”

  “You ma
ke a good point, Congressman,” the President said, rising from his chair and turning to face the audience. “I don’t want to spend a dollar and get nothing for it. I’d rather spend two and get something.”

  Crahfosh sat back and folded his arms. “Do ah smell a proposition cookin’, Mr. President?”

  “Mr. Cachoris,” the President said, “what is the status of your operation?”

  “You saw what happened this morning—that’s what Contain Hydra has come to. At first we just used in-country operatives and made sure people like Hussein and Bin Laden’s buyers had ‘accidents’. Now we’re inserting our own teams and stealing the warheads after they buy them. The easy solutions—bribes, sabotaging the warheads so that they’re inert by the time they reach their client destination, false flag buys—we’ve done those already. How long do you think we can continue to stage raids in Mr. Putin’s back yard before his people get wise? The buyers learn from their mistakes, too. Every time we pull off one of these, my network gets more pressure, and their security gets a little tighter.”

  “You’re accomplishing the mission,” Crahfosh said.

  “We lost a man tonight,” Ambrose said. “We’ve lost others before. Do we have to lose a whole team before you people pay attention?”

  “Soon Contain Hydra is going to miss something or fall flat,” Cachoris said. “When it does, there will be loose nukes on the market, and this country will have big-time creditability problems with world leaders. At the rate these warheads are coming onto the market, I think—and that’s think—that the Agency can keep this serpent in the bag for another month. Maybe six weeks. After that, I won’t be responsible.”

  “So you want more money,” Barkley said. “Didn’t have to drag us down here to ask for that.”

  “He wouldn’t,” pronounced Crahfosh. “Mr. Bretnor, what does the Administration have in mind?”

  Bretnor stood—he’d been waiting for an opening. “The horrific casualties of 9-11 notwithstanding, the most serious threat to the security of the United States remains an attack by a terrorist organization or rogue state with a nuclear weapon.”

  “We don’t have the votes for missile defense,” Barkley said, “and your Defense people can’t get it to work—even when they rig the tests. I’m not throwing good money after bad.”

  “That’s exactly what we’re not going to do anymore,” said the President. “We’re not going to wait until one of those nuclear weapons finds its way out of Russian hands and into some van parked on main street, USA, with a terrorist’s finger on its trigger. Some time ago, I directed my staff to conduct very private discussions with the Russians about purchasing the nuclear weapons they have accumulated.”

  “You want to buy them outright?” Barkley said. “The Russians will never do it.”

  “Negotiations are essentially complete,” said Bretnor.

  “There goes our next pay raise,” Grimes said to Val.

  “Shut up,” Val said, “I want to hear this.”

  “So now you have to pony up,” said Crahfosh. “What’s the tab?”

  Bretnor didn’t blink an eye. “Thirty billion dollars.”

  “An amount that could be much better spent at home,” Barkley said, “even if the country could afford it. Which we can’t.”

  “Not sure we can afford not to,” Crahfosh said. “And we wouldn’t be heah if the Administration was requesting money or support. I think we ah bein’ told.”

  “Eighty percent of the warheads I mentioned have already been consolidated at Infernesk Technical Center, near the former Soviet “secret city” of Infernesk in the southwestern Ural Mountains,” Bretnor said. “There are pre-existing warhead assembly and disassembly facilities at Infernesk Special Munitions Depot. Additionally, the Infernesk depot lies on top of an underground storage facility that makes NORAD’s Cheyenne Mountain Complex look tiny. It is an ideal area for securing, storing, and staging until the systems can be processed.”

  “Can’t see it’s much different than what we’re doing now,” Barkley said, “just making one big problem instead of lots of little ones.”

  Bretnor said, “The United States has completed a purchase agreement and made full payment on the Infernesk facility. The munitions will be under US control on a US facility. “

  “There used to be a saying,” Crahfosh put in, “that no place was US soil ‘til the Stars and Stripes done flew overhead at least once.”

  “A company of Army technicians and support personnel has been assisting the Russians at Infernesk. By treaty, the Infernesk Center is now US soil. We own the ground and everything on it. Last week, they raised the flag. Next week, we will take ownership of the weapons and begin the pre-decommissioning and storage process.”

  “Infernesk, huh?” Grimes whispered to Val. “That’s vacation spot I’m going to avoid. Unless you’ll run away there with me.”

  “I’d sooner burn in hell.”

  “Colonel Grimes,” Ambrose said, “are you paying attention?”

  “Absolutely, sir.”

  “Then shut up, before I authorize Major Macintyre to execute her previously stated contingency plan of kicking your balls so hard they come out your nose.”

  ~*~

  Her body aching from the earlier thrashing, Val got through the next hour of the briefing minute-by-minute. When it was over, Grimes excused himself to chat with a ‘my class at the Citadel now Congressional staffer buddy.’

  Cachoris’ guards insured they carried out no notes. Grimes finished his glad-handing, and Ambrose and his two officers followed their guide through the CIA headquarters’ maze of corridors.

  “Worse than the Pentagon,” Val said.

  “You get used to it,” Ambrose replied.

  “Why were we here, sir?” Grimes asked.

  “You’ll be doing the detailed planning for the transition of the Russian warheads to US control at Infernesk. Reception and storage plan. Security plan. Decommissioning cycle plan. Contingency plans.”

  “Riveting stuff,” Grimes muttered.

  “The life of a staff officer,” Ambrose said.

  Not for much longer, thought Val.

  “Detailed planning is necessary for a successful mission,” Ambrose said.

  “I don’t mean to be pessimistic,” Val said, “but what’s that Army saying—’no plan survives first contact with the enemy’? This one is going to be a mess. Two armies, plus their staffs, plus scientists from two countries, plus politicians, plus civilians. What a goat-rope in the making.”

  “Val, you want a command so bad you can taste it,” Ambrose teased. “How about I send you to Infernesk to take charge?”

  “No thank you, sir,” Val said, shaking her head and drawing out her words. “I’ll wait for my spot on the executive officer list. I should find out any day now.”

  Chapter Two

  Headquarters

  Infernesk Special Munitions Facility

  Vicinity Infernesk

  Russia

  The Infernesk Depot’s senior American, Major Hank McRyen, took a moment out of his regular morning staff meeting to cement his reputation as a first-class ass.

  “A waste of time, Sergeant Major,” McRyen pronounced from his padded chair at the head of the rectangular conference table. “Leadership training—at an ammo dump? These nerds of yours couldn’t lead one another to the latrine.”

  Plate-glass silence.

  Sergeant Major Edward T. Denight sat directly opposite McRyen at the table’s far end. Their opposition was complete. McRyen was short and pale, his hair greased up and back in a pompadour that barely met regulations. Behind his back, most of the eighty-eight enlisted soldiers in Infernesk’s US. Army 55th Technical Assistance Detachment called their commander “Rodent Six,” a name conjured partly from McRyen’s pencil thin mustache, beady eyes, and squeaky voice, and partly from their innate distrust.

  The one hundred and ten contracted Russian guards bestowed their own native language nickname on McRyen, an untranslat
able combination of weasel feces and rat penis that was nevertheless fully understood by their uniformed American employers.

  Denight was simply “the Sergeant Major.” It was not a name taken in vain. The depot’s soldiers feared his toughness and respected his fairness. He was all muscle and all Army, even though age and some unseen force had dulled his fighting edge. At well over six feet, Denight towered over his soldiers in size as well as stature. Many of those troops almost believed that Denight, with his close-cropped gray hair and time-in-country lined and weathered face, really had been in the Army since “Christ was a Corporal.”

  Denight kept a poker face as he shoved his right hand out of sight and into the cargo pocket of his battle dress uniform’s trousers. McRyen was his senior officer; he was McRyen’s Sergeant Major. Denight balled and unballed a big fist. As Denight had done countless times before, he silently took the hit, much the same way as his depot took its neglect.

  Shaped much like an ill-rounded, layered cinnamon roll, the sprawling Infernesk Special Munitions Storage Facility had both a hole and a rise in the middle. A tall perimeter fence ringed acres of aging ammunition storage bunkers. Those rows of bunkers formed rough circles around a patchwork of buildings. Decaying warehouses and large, weathered service and storage bays surrounded the central area—the “rise”—of active administrative and maintenance buildings.

  The bunkers and buildings ringed the doughnut’s hole. Underneath the central area lay a honeycomb of tunnels leading to miles of underground storage, munitions manufacturing, and development and processing areas. Built by the Russians during WWII and expanded during the Cold War, the complex was deep and large enough to keep several hundred thousand tons of ammunition, development laboratories, and processing machinery well protected, first from Nazi bombers, then from American U2 spy planes and orbiting satellites.

  Then came the end of the Cold War. A bloated Soviet Defense industry collapsed on itself, much as the Soviet government did. The Russian Army lost its visions of empire in the daily struggle of trying to feed itself. The Army left the Infernesk depot, and on its way out its soldiers looted the surface bunkers, underground storage rooms, and buildings of everything of value—phones, furniture, even the toilet fixtures. They welded shut and bricked over the huge steel doors that once admitted trucks and even narrow-gauge trains. What remained were tons of obsolete, excess, and defective ammunition of all types and sizes.