“Yes.” Konovalenko listened intently for a full minute. “You have no doubts?… Good. Thank you.”
“What did Voyska PVO have to say?” Yakovlev asked cautiously.
“It was not Voyska PVO,” Konovalenko replied, looking at Bogdanov. “It was State Security. Your comrades, Georgiy Ivanovich.”
The barest glimmer of salvation dangled before the interior minister. State Security, though not party to what he and the military elements had attempted, were without a doubt of the same mind. Possibly now they were exercising the influence they still held to rescue him from the president’s treasonous activities. That hope survived only until his nemesis spoke.
“An intelligence-gathering vessel operating off the east coast of America has recovered debris from the USS Pennsylvania. That is a raket submarine, Georgiy Ivanovich. The one that was missing.”
Bogdanov felt the last of his strength drain away. He could accept that he might have been wrong about some aspects of the previous days’ events, but not about the trustworthiness of the Americans. Yet the leaders of the Motherland were too blind to see that. The wonder as to why left him without hope. His world had simply come to an end.
“I will face my firing squad, Gennadiy Timofeyevich. That will be my punishment for attacking your authority.” Bogdanov stood, ready to present himself to the guards outside the door. “But your punishment will be much worse. The Motherland has little mercy for those who forsake her.”
Konovalenko smiled and nodded. “I agree. It would seem, then, that a firing squad will be but the beginning of your punishment.”
“Ground, this is Raptor. Toolbox is approaching from the west. He’s acquired some transport.”
Six Jeeps pulled up to the bunker a few minutes later. Sean and Lewis kept their weapons trained on the convoy until it stopped.
“Major Graber.” The voice was decidedly American.
Sean stepped into the open, his weapon coming down until the suppressor pointed at the ground. The NVGs were flipped up on his helmet. “Here. Toolbox?”
Antonio climbed out of the back of the lead Jeep, followed by the front-seat passenger, a tall man with huge white eyes set in hollow black valleys.
“Antonio Parades. This is Colonel Hector Ojeda.”
Sean gave the Cuban a quick salute and shook the CIA officer’s hand. “How many men do you have?”
Ojeda looked down upon the American officer, who had directed the question to Papa Tony. “I have three hundred men.”
Sean realized his breach of etiquette. This was a Cuban matter, after all. Not another Bay of Pigs. “Very good, Colonel.”
“You have nine men?” Antonio inquired.
“Five left,” Sean answered tersely. “One of those is wounded.”
Half of his force gone? Antonio noticed where the fire was for the first time. He had seen the flash and the fireball from a distance, but not where it had come from. “It blew up?”
“Yeah.” Sean’s earpiece crackled. “Go ahead, Raptor.” He listened for a few seconds, his expression changing from melancholic to very serious. “Copy.”
Antonio’s radio was in the Jeep. “What is it?”
“We’ve got to get somewhere fast,” Sean said. “A mile and a half that way.” He pointed northeast, beyond the burning remnants of Tower One.
Ojeda turned and ordered three of the Jeeps brought up. “We can go in these. Do we need more men?”
“No, Raptor says the area is clear.” Sean called into the bunker. Goldfarb and Quimpo helped Antonelli into the second Jeep, and Lewis climbed into the third vehicle with Ojeda’s radioman and another soldier. Sean, Antonio, and Ojeda got into the lead Jeep, which moved off at speed for the new objective.
Joe stopped fifty feet short of the warhead, which lay in the open on the far side of the equipment park. Duc ran up behind him.
“What is it?”
“It’s burning.”
Duc instinctively stepped backward. “The warhead?”
Joe stepped a few yards closer, leaving the pilot behind. The steel casing was fractured, he saw, and a good chunk of concrete had been dented where the warhead had impacted, then bounced to where it lay. Just like that Titan warhead back in the States, except that one had landed in a lot softer ground, leaving the casing intact. This one was split right open, and the innards were burning, and burning hot. There were only two fuel sources in the thing that would generate that kind of heat.
“Stay back there.” Joe dropped to his knees and opened the case, removing only the pry bar and hammer.
“Wait. Isn’t that shit radioactive?”
“Yep, and it’s gonna get a lot hotter if I don’t stop it.” Joe ignored the few safety items in the case. Goggles. A flash hood. They were useless for this.
“But you…”
Joe turned his head. “Listen. There’s a city of a hundred thousand people across the bay, and none of those people asked for any of this. I can’t educate you in physics here and now, but what’s burning now isn’t the worst that’s going to happen. If the plutonium burns, you’ll see a lot more smoke, and that will mean fallout over the city.”
Duc saw that the little smoke coming from the thing was drifting skyward and east in the breeze, a bright whitish glow lighting it from where it emanated. From behind, the sound of racing engines drew his attention, three American-made Jeeps emerging from the darkness and stopping just short of his position. Graber was the first out.
“Anderson!” Sean yelled, running toward him. Duc grabbed him before he could pass.
“He says to stay back, Major.” Duc turned as the glow intensified.
“You heard him, Major!” Joe shouted back. “Keep your ass away from this!”
Lewis ran up. “Maj, he can’t stand that.”
Sean said nothing but nodded just enough for Lewis to notice.
Joe had no time to think about the consequences. It was a one-way ticket. He circled around the mangled warhead, approaching it from the crumpled nose. Staying upwind, he inched closer, rising to his tiptoes every few steps until he reached a point, ten feet from the thing, that he could peer inside the opened case.
Damn… It was good and bad news concurrently. The cylinder of lithium deuteride encasing the uranium initiator rod for the warhead’s second stage was burning. Pyrophoric like the sphere of plutonium a few feet forward, the compound combusted spontaneously when the inner case broke open on impact, allowing air to enter the sealed chamber. Joe estimated by sight that a fifth of the lithium deuteride had already burned. As more ignited, the fire was growing, and soon it would be hot enough to burn the explosive lenses surrounding the plutonium. Then the nickel plating that sealed the PU 238 would be breached. After that…
“Get me dirt!” Joe yelled back to the group watching him. “A lot of it! And hurry!”
All but Graber went off to collect whatever dirt they could find among the endless stretches of concrete. Joe would need that to try to snuff out the fire. But before he could do that, he had to make sure that the plutonium would not ignite, and there was only one way to accomplish that.
“Anderson! No!”
Joe ignored the screams from the Delta major and went straight for the warhead. Specifically to the forwardmost section. The heat from the burning second stage was intense, but he twisted his body so his face was shielded and started tearing away the shards of metal and bracing structures that blocked access to the circular first stage. He was close enough that the smoke wafted around his body, passing over his face and filling his nostrils with an acrid smell that also became a taste. He tried to spit it from his mouth but gave up the futile attempts and concentrated on what had to be done. On what he had to do.