Antonelli hobbled on his own from the Jeep to stand by his commander. “Jesus, Maj, that stuff is going to kill him.”
Sean propped his lieutenant up with a helping arm and watched with him. “I know.” So does he.
The metal bands gave way as Joe leveraged them with the short pry bar. Their ends snapped, and the buckled center sections that wrapped around the lens assembly broke much too easily. This wasn’t all from the impact, no matter how violent. This was lousy material.
“Ivan builds them worth shit!” Joe told his audience.
“Can’t we do anything?” Antonelli asked helplessly. His leg wound, just above the knee, was wrapped tightly under an olive-drab battle dressing.
“No,” Sean answered. “We can’t.”
Lewis returned first from the scavenging expedition, his helmet filled to overflowing with a rich brown soil.
“Set it here until he needs it,” Sean directed. The others did the same and joined the line to watch.
The final obstruction broke away, and Joe went right for the lenses. He brought the pry bar up, holding it over his head like a vampire slayer about to plunge a stake into his quarry, and brought the sharp end down, burying the tool in the hard blocks of explosive. Once it was in, he worked it around in a stirring motion. As chunks of the stable explosive came free, he tossed them aside. He repeated the same plunge-and-clear process over and over, the fire to his right intensifying, until the shiny silver surface of the pit was visible. Then he worked with his hands and the claw end of the tool, digging away the destroyed lenses to give access to the plutonium. When half the material was cleared, he nudged the pit with his hands. It moved, jostling back and forth.
A flash erupted from the secondary, showering Anderson with intense white sparks. He ducked and brushed those he could see or feel off, but several stuck to his jumpsuit on the back, setting small patches to smolder. Still, he ignored it. With both hands pressed tightly around the pit, he leaned into the case as far as he could, trying to get enough of a grip to lift the sphere of plutonium out. His body was weakened by the disease that was destroying his blood cells, an almost laughable malady considering what he was subjecting himself to, but he pushed his hands down, farther, deeper between the lenses and the pit, reaching… for… enough… of… a… hold… so… he… could…
He fell backward, out of the growing haze of smoke that enveloped his body before rising into a deep black column that leaned toward the Bay of Cienfuegos. The heavy basketball-size pit came out with him. Joe held it tightly to his stomach like a medicine ball and rolled to the side, small fingers of smoke still coming from several spots on his clothing. He looked up to see Graber make a move toward him.
“No!” Joe yelled forcefully, the command ending in a hacking cough that sounded painful and unnatural. “I’ll bring it closer.”
Sean laid his weapon on the ground and forced the others back. All but one followed his order.
“Colonel.”
Ojeda again looked down to the shorter man. “He is doing this for my people when he does not have to. I will help.”
Joe got to his knees, pulled the pit up from the ground into his gut, and struggled to his feet, his face grimacing in pain. Each step was labored as he traversed the fifty feet to the two men waiting with outstretched arms. “Take it!”
Sean and Ojeda followed the raspy command and cradled the heavy pit between them, its mass enough to test the steadiness of their knees.
Joe collapsed to a crouch before looking up. “It’s not hot enough to hurt you,” he explained, his voice almost gone. A trickle of bloody saliva ran from the corner of his mouth, clearing a channel on his soot-covered face. “You guard that son of a bitch with your life, Graber. It could kill a lot more than just me in the wrong hands, or in the right hands.”
“We need to get you out of here,” Sean said.
“No. You need to get yourself out of here, in case this breeze changes.” Joe pushed himself up to his feet. “I have to put that thing out. Gotta take its oxygen away.”
“Anderson,” Sean said, his eyes locking on the civilian’s. The blue centers were still clear and full of fire, but he knew that the well was almost dry.
“Just get your ass out of here and let me finish this.”
Joe took three of the dirt-filled helmets and walked back to the warhead, unafraid of the fire, or the smoke, or the invisible particles that had already sentenced him to a much quicker death. He dumped the damp earth into the fissure in the casing around the lithium deuteride. One helmet at a time. Then he walked back for a brimming bucket that one of the men had retrieved. The contents of that spilled into the opening, robbing the pyrophoric reaction of some of its strength. The white-hot glow simmered slowly down as he added more and more dirt, losing intensity until the flames barely licked from the casing. A final bucket of loam stopped the fire completely. Joe pounded on the fill, compacting it to remove all channels for air to reach the compound. He was satisfied after a minute’s work and stepped back from the warhead, looking upon its ugliness for what he knew would be the last time. Then he turned and walked halfway to where Graber still stood.
“I told you to get out of here.”
Sean stared at the man, his eyes feeling warm and moist. He had lost men today. Too many men. And here was a man who did not have to die but chose to do so that others would not. “We can get you to a doctor.”
“You can get a decon team in here to seal this thing up right,” Joe countered. The cough that followed this statement was heavy with blood, which he spit on the ground. “I’m hot. There’s residue all over me, and in me.”
Jesus Christ, Sean thought. What was he supposed to do?
“Get out of here!” Joe shouted in a weaker voice. “Now!”
Sean moved away, watching as Anderson lowered himself to sit on the ground. It wouldn’t be long. The blood was from his lungs, which were undoubtedly hemorrhaging. He was going to drown in his own blood.
“Major, we have the thing in the back of the Jeep,” Antonio told Sean, though the Delta officer did not look at him. “And Raptor is calling another helicopter to get you and it out of here. Colonel Ojeda says the plant is secure.”
“Good.”
“What about him?” Antonio asked, just as Anderson fell backward on the pavement, his hands dropped to his side.
“He’s going home.”
Testra knocked hard three times on the door. It opened inward, a burly man looking much like him blocking the entrance. “FBI. Move your ass.”
Sanz followed his partner in, his hands pushed into his coat pockets. Testra looked around the room for the objects of their interest but saw only lackeys. The door at the far end of the room was his next stop.
“FBI,” he said as he walked through the door, surprising the two men sitting on the couch. He recognized both. A cell phone in the pocket of Gonzalo Parra caught his eye. Sanz came in behind, shutting the door as his eyes scanned the room, then went for a desk on the near wall and leaned comfortably against it, his hands braced on its edge.
“What is all this?” Parra demanded, but a wave from José-Ramon Alvarez told him to cease his questioning.
“This, gentlemen, is to inform you that your son”—Testra looked to Alvarez—“is under arrest for espionage and conspiracy to commit murder. There’ll be more, I guarantee you. You see, when you kill one of our own, we get just a little angry.”