“Mobal?” Parker thought he mispronounced mobile.
“Yes, an Iridium. A satellite phone.”
“I see.”
“It has one number in it. You see it here, my friend.” Yousef showed a single number in the phone’s directory. “With this, a simple touch, I can activate the cells that will deliver this blow to the heart!”
“I don’t understand.”
“A nuclear weapon is being delivered to the heart.”
“The heart?” Parker was playing the journalist, writing on his pad. But to himself he thought, Chicago.
“Yes, my friend. But I cannot say more, not now. But you will be the first to report it. And the name of Yousef al-Qadi. You will report on the rise of a new Islamic nation.”
The wind started to howl through the encampment.
Parker was slowly slipping away. Fortunately, the interview with Yousef was long over. The headaches were becoming horrific now. He had begun to shake uncontrollably from the fever.
“You don’t look good, my friend.” Liaquat pulled next to Parker at the fire. “Do you have a fever?”
“I may.”
Liaquat turned to Umarov. “Oh, I spoke with London.” Liaquat had been gone for some time. This explained it.
“Yes?”
“Knez is dead.”
“What?” Umarov leaned up. As he did, he grabbed his head. The quick change seemed to have caused his head to pound. “Not Knez. Not Knez.”
“I’m sorry. He was found murdered.”
“In London? Who would have hurt my brother there? He knew no one.”
Liaquat glanced toward Parker at that moment. Liaquat knew more than he was saying.
“You had a brother?” Parker asked.
“Yeah.” Umarov’s face glistened with the sweat. “Not by kin, but by blood.”
“What?”
“I was a mujahideen with the muslimanska oslobod-ilačka brigada. He was my blood brother. We fought together. On more than one occasion, he saved my life.”
Parker had heard of the Gestapo mujahideen. A corps was formed of Muslim fighters from other countries. The best, or the best in killing, were then taken into the Crni Labudovi.
Umarov continued to mutter while Liaquat kept watching Parker.
Parker turned away, pulling his rug up against the remnants of the mud wall that once was a hut near the opening to the cave. The wind continued to blow. The stars were now gone. A sandstorm was just beyond the opening in the wall, causing the canvas covering the trucks to begin to flap. He would have to move quietly and quickly. He would have to find the trail that followed the ridgeline down and then around into the next valley.
God, I am sick.
Time was running out, but the mission had changed. Now he had two nuclear weapons to find.
Parker was thinking that the fierce sandstorm might provide a clean escape when the victorious raiding party arrived back at camp. He’d had only fitful bouts of sleep, and his temperature had risen through the night. He steadied himself against the wall as he stood, then wiped his drenched forehead with the shawl that his editor had given him.
God, it has to be now.
It was painful simply to move, to breathe. Nausea swept through his body.
Clark.
He thought of her running through her first marathon. The pain she had to endure. Not letting the idea of stopping even enter her head. Now he couldn’t let the idea of stopping enter his head.
Parker quietly stumbled across the roofless room, watching Yousef and Umarov for any sign of movement. At the door’s edge, he wrapped the shawl tightly around his head and across his face, leaving only a small slit for his eyes. He felt the windblown grit strike his face as he stepped out of the doorway.
Visibility was rapidly going to nothing. He turned his head away from the wind and used his hand, running along the mud wall, to guide him. The sand stung his hands. With one on the wall and the other holding his shawl as tightly as possible, he was working his way through the maze when he stopped.
Are those lights?
In the rapidly decreasing visibility, headlights bounced up and down as they headed toward the compound.
“Allah Akbar! Allah Akbar!” A guard was shouting behind him. In a second, Yousef and Umarov were standing nearby.
“My friend, have you ever seen a core?”
“I’m sorry?” Parker managed.
Not just escape, then. Escape with Yousef’s stolen nuclear device.
Yousef turned away and smiled as the Toyota SUV pulled up in front of them. The passengers and driver, all armed with their AK-47s slung over their shoulders, dismounted their trucks and hugged Yousef.
“Where is Zulfiqar?”
“He is with a convoy of warriors behind us. They ran into a Pakistani patrol. With the bombs missing, the army is everywhere. They will be here around dawn.”
“And where is it?”
The driver opened up the latch door on the rear of the SUV. There, in the low light of the Toyota’s lamp, was a box marked with the radioactivity warning logo.
Yousef pulled the small metal box toward him and unlocked the latches. He hesitated.
“Is it radioactive?”
A young man, a passenger from the second vehicle, spoke. He wore black-framed glasses and appeared to be more than a mujahideen. Probably a young scientist or technician.
“It is, but as long as you don’t touch it, you should be okay.”
Yousef swung the lid up. Inside, surrounded by a black, foam-like material, a bright, metallic gold ball no bigger than an oversized softball glowed in the dim light. It had lines that bisected it, giving it the appearance of having come in several parts.
“Like Allah, this can level their cities.” Yousef turned and spoke the words directly to Parker.
“Isn’t there more to it than this?” said Parker.
The young technician answered. “This is the enriched U-235 core. We surround it with a plastic explosive that must be triggered instantly and perfectly.”
It was then — in Yousef ’s moment of triumph — that Parker first noticed his face, which, despite the gathering wind and dropping temperature, was bathed in sweat.
The bastard isn’t far behind me.
Parker’s initial mission had been accomplished.
Again Parker had to wait. It took another hour, but finally the camp had started to quiet down. The wind was howling now. A torn tarp near the entrance to the cave flapped wildly.
As he sat by the fire, Parker rehearsed how he would make his way to the small pickup truck at the far edge of the row of mud huts. It now had an armed guard along with its most valuable cargo inside.
Parker slid up past the little Toyota pickup truck wedged in between the walls of the mud huts. The guard seemed half asleep, on his feet, with his scarf pulled up tightly around his face and head. Parker reached to the ground and picked up a rock the size of a grapefruit but with a sharp, pointed edge. He moved slowly, very slowly, placing each step carefully. The guard didn’t move. It would take one stroke at the base of the skull. There could be no mistake. It had to collapse the man instantly.
Thump!
Only someone this close would have heard the crush of bone as the point struck the skull, breaking it like an eggshell. Parker grabbed the man as he slumped to the ground, pulling the body to a nearby wall and placing it just out of sight on the other side. He slipped into the seat and closed the door very slowly, tugging it with all of his strength so as to close it without making a sound.