“I gave Magdelena a tip,” Mike said, cocking his head to the side. “A very large tip.” He dipped into his pants and came up with another hundred-euro note. “This is your tip. Her tip is hers. I’ll be checking up. And just to be clear, I’m tight connected with IFOR. Do not think you can have part of her tip, or you’ll end up sorry and sore as she is. Am I being blunt enough?”
“Yes,” Kovacic said, pocketing the money.
“She’s off for tonight unless she wants to work,” Mike said. “That’s for her share of tonight. We okay on that?”
“Yes,” Kovacic replied. “I could hear some of what was going on. She won’t be good for much tonight, maybe tomorrow.”
“She’s got some strap marks on her ass from my belt,” Mike said, shrugging. “No bruises. A hand print on the face that is mostly faded. I may be back later for… fifths I guess.”
“It will not be on the house,” Kovacic said. “I normally don’t let my girls be treated like that.”
“You’re such a sweetheart,” Mike said, walking out.
Chapter Five
There was a large cordon set up down the street. Mike walked up to the line of soldiers securing the area and pulled out his diplomatic passport.
“Michael Duncan,” he said. “I’m here to meet Mr. Northcote.”
“I have to clear it with the sergeant of the guard, sir,” the private said, swallowing nervously. “Normally that would get you past, but we have a serious security issue here and…”
“Fine,” Mike said, grinning. “I know where you’re at, son. Follow procedures, I’ve got time.”
It took a visit from both the sergeant and the officer of the guard before he was past, the officer of the guard escorting him to the warehouse. Even then he wasn’t allowed to enter until Northcote was called outside. The van was gone, he noticed. He wondered, idly, if they’d loaded it on a tow truck or if some poor bastard had had to drive it. It had been, radioactively, hot as hell. He wouldn’t have wanted to drive it.
“There you are,” Northcote said, exasperated. “I was wondering when you’d bother to show up.”
“I figured it would take most of the day to get a full read on the situation,” Mike said, yawning. “And I’d been up for about sixty hours. What do we have?”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Northcote said, dragging him into the warehouse through the personnel door. Mike noticed that the lock had been knocked out by a door-knocker. “We’ve got a briefing set up…”
“Spare me the Powerpoint,” Mike said, looking around. About half the warehouse was now covered in a set of plastic bubbles with guys in clean-room suits waving detectors around and using small vacuums to pick up dust. The office had apparently been converted back to being an office. There were at least thirty people in the room outside of the investigation area, standing around and looking worried. “Just the facts, as they say. And you’re on pins and needles. Why?”
“Besides the fact that a nuke slipped into my AO and back out?” Northcote asked exasperatedly. “Maybe it’s the fact that the last call I got was from the Office of the White House asking about you. What or who the hell are you? I’d pegged you as a CIA Office of Special Actions guy, but the White House doesn’t call about them as a rule. And they asked for you by name; I had to tell them you were sleeping.”
“I am not now, nor have I ever been, CIA,” Mike said bluntly. “I do favors for the United States government and they, in turn, do favors for me,” he added, tapping the pocket where he had his “official” passport.
“Contractor?” Northcote asked.
“Not even that,” Mike said. “A contractor signs up for a specific payment. I consider myself more in the field of… salvage operations.” He grinned and then shrugged. “What do we have?”
“This is Todd Jameson,” Northcote said, leading him over to one of the groups. The guy he addressed was a big blond in a blue jumpsuit with NEST printed across the back. The other people were military, ranking up to a bird colonel. “He’s the head of the nuke team.”
“You must be Duncan,” the NEST leader said, shaking Mike’s hand.
“Mike,” Mike replied, shaking his head. “Duncan’s a name that gets you into fights and I hate getting in fights.”
“Mike, then,” the guy replied, smiling humorously. “Well, the nuke was definitely here. We got the isotope signature from the Russkis and the remnants we picked up are a match. Whoever was working on it knew what they were doing, too. There’s remnants of wiring and the detonator circuit had been pulled. It would have degraded from radiation by now, so it was one thing they had to replace.”
“Wouldn’t they have had to reshape the explosives and the plutonium?” Mike asked.
“No, these older nukes are remarkably stable that way,” Jameson said, shrugging. “They had to replace the tritium; it would have degraded. And the plutonium might be a little degraded. But I’m ninety percent sure, based on the evidence, that we’re going to get some sort of nuclear reaction. What gets me is the rest of the evidence.”
“What’s that?” Mike asked. “The lead smell?”
“Yeah,” Jameson said, leading him over to the side of one of the bubble tents. “See those?” he asked, pointing to some metal pieces on one of the tables. “Those are metal bars that have been cut with an arc welder. And there were large bolts sitting on the floor.” Jameson waved to one of the space-suited guys and made a motion like turning a wrench. The person in the bubble went over to another table and picked up a bolt, turning it back and forth.
“Can I see it up close?” Mike asked. “How hot is it?”
“It’s not hot enough to bother about,” Jameson said, walking over to the entrance and waving for the bolt to be brought over. “About like a tritium watchface. The shavings that were on the floor were hot as hell, though.”
“Yeah, I ran into those,” Mike said. “Slid through them, to be precise.”
“Jesus,” the NEST team leader said, his eyes wide. “You need to be decontaminated!”
“I took a shower,” Mike said, shrugging and turning the bolt around and around. It was familiar, but he couldn’t place it. “I’ll survive. I’ve survived worse, trust me. A little radiation’s good for you. So we’ve got metal bars and big bolts. Anything else?”
“Well, they were melting and pouring lead,” Jameson said, looking at him askance. “And there’s a big crane,” he continued, pointing to the device. “That’s cold as snow. It wasn’t in contact with the live weapon. For the rest, I’d suggest you talk to the forensic guys.”
Mike walked back over to Northcote, who was talking with a civilian in a rumpled suit and a major with an IFOR MP brassard.
“You the forensics guys?” Mike asked.
“Major Forester,” the major said, shaking his hand. “And Agent Wilson with the FBI.”
“Pleased ta meetcha,” Wilson said in a thick New York accent. “What do you think?”
“They encased the nuke in lead,” Mike said. “That way it can’t be detected as readily. Probably rigged it to blow. Maybe a timer, but more likely a cell phone. Maybe more than one. I’d want the ability to turn it off.”
“My guess, too,” Wilson said, looking at him sharply. “But what did they move it in?”
“Big engine,” Mike said, holding up the bolt. “But what kind? Any read on the bolt?”
“Used in various systems,” Wilson said, shrugging. “Engine blocks, mostly.”
“That’s where I’ve seen it,” Mike said. “When we had to strip down the engine on my boat. A Volvo diesel.”