“I’m afraid he would, lad,” observed the elder calmly. He turned and watched as Marie was about to leave the barn.
Just as the redhead was about to pass through the doors, John Maguire cried out: “Hold on! Oh God, forgive me for this! I’ll need some tools.”
Bernard grinned triumphantly.
“You’ve got them, Doctor.”
He then snapped his fingers and beckoned the redhead to fetch the tool kit. She obediently proceeded into an adjoining room and came out with a good sized galvanized steel container, which she then set on the floor beside the bomb. It was Bernard who opened it, revealing a wide assortment of tools.
“I believe this should suit your needs. Doctor,” observed the one-eyed terrorist.
John Maguire looked down at the kit’s contents and picked up a screwdriver. His hands were trembling as he inserted the head of this tool into one of the four screws that anchored the bomb’s trigger plate. Sweat flowed off his soaked forehead and splattered onto the metallic skin of the device as he removed the final bolt and pulled the plate off. Displayed inside was a complex grid of circuit boards and wiring. His practiced eye went to the arming switch that would have to be manually triggered by the B-52’s flight crew to open the firing circuit. He did a double take upon finding the switch unlocked, which meant that somehow the fail-safe mechanism had already been bypassed.
“Sweet Mother Mary, it’s already been cocked!” he exclaimed in wonder.
“What the hell does that mean?” returned Bernard.
The physicist’s expression was clouded with puzzlement as he explained.
“Somehow, whether intentionally or by mechanical error, the arming circuit of this bomb has been unlocked. This process was apparently done without the use of an authorized PAL code, which leads me to believe that the flight crew responsible for this weapon had been working on it when it was lost.”
“That’s all fine and dandy, Doctor. But how do we explode the damn thing?” asked a very impatient Bernard.
John Maguire answered him directly.
“All you have to do is hook up an electrode to the copper clip on this final circuit board. To initiate the arming sequence, you merely have to zap it with a 12volt charge. You’ll then have about two minutes before the final detonation takes place.”
“That’s it?” Bernard asked, incredulous.
“I’m afraid so,” returned the physicist.
“Because the way it looks to me, someone’s been in here already, doing all the work for you.”
Bernard fought to hold back his excitement as he looked up to address his two associates.
“Did you hear that, comrades? All it takes is a simple automotive battery charger for us to hit our enemy with the most painful blow of all time. We’ve done it, comrades!
And soon the Brotherhood will reign victorious!”
With his glance locked on the silver-haired elder, John Maguire dared to express himself once again.
“Are you still serious about using this device? We’re not talking about any ordinary bomb blast here. This weapon is seventy-five times as powerful as the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, and it is capable of killing millions.”
“Get him out of here!” cried Bernard in disgust.
“Would you like me to drive him back to Dublin?”
asked Tyronne Blackwater.
Bernard thought about this for a moment and answered, “I’ll be taking care of the good doctor, comrade.
Why don’t you go back to the house and find out the exact whereabouts of our tug. It should be docking in Dundalk shortly, and I want to know the second it arrives there.”
“As you wish, Bernard,” replied the current owner of Cootehill House, who briefly met the scientist’s concerned gaze before leaving the barn altogether.
“Why don’t you go and have a seat over by the peat stack, Dr. Maguire,” instructed Bernard.
“I’ll be taking care of you shortly.”
“But you said I could speak to my family once I finished helping you,” reminded the physicist.
“I said go over there and sit, Doctor!” directed the terrorist angrily.
Daring not to incur Bernard’s full wrath, John Maguire did as instructed. This left Bernard and Marie alone beside the pallet.
“Well, Bernard, should I return him to the city?”
whispered the redhead.
“Are you kidding?” returned Bernard.
“The good doctor knows too much already. I think it’s best for all concerned if I take him for a little walk in the bog.”
Knowing full well what he meant by this, Marie again queried.
“And his family?”
“Tell the lads to eliminate the pigs!” spat the terrorist icily.
Without batting an eye, the redhead turned to convey this directive. As she passed the seated scientist, she flashed him the briefest of pitiful stares before ducking out into the sunlight beyond.
Captain Mikhail Borisov had only one day to himself before his unexpected duty was to call him back to his command. With no family or friends to speak of, the blond-haired Spetsnaz officer was free to spend this brief leave as he liked. The island of Kronstadt was not the most scenic place, and since he had no time to travel into nearby Leningrad, Mikhail decided to spend his time holed up in the best hotel in town. To keep him company, the muscular commando invited Tanya Brusovo to join him.
He had met Tanya at a party at the officers’ club three months ago and was immediately attracted to her dark eyes, long black hair, huge breasts, and shapely legs. As he found out over drinks, she was a delightful conversationalist whose stories about growing up on the shores of Lake Baikal were genuinely interesting.
And as he was soon to learn that very evening, she was also a wild woman in bed.
Only recently divorced from a submariner, Tanya worked in Admiral Starobin’s office as a secretary.
Mikhail didn’t feel the least bit uneasy as he intervened on her behalf and asked the admiral if she could miss a day of work to spend time with him. With a grin and a wink, the senior officer approved this request and even provided three bottles of Ukrainian champagne in the event that either of them got thirsty.
A fierce storm was in the process of blowing in from the Baltic as the taxi carrying Mikhail and Tanya arrived at the canopied entrance to the Hotel Piskar.
The Spetsnaz commando shoved some rubles into the driver’s hand and roughly pulled his date from backseat of the Lada.
“It looks like we’re going to be in for quite a storm,” observed Tanya, who tried vainly to keep her new hairdo from being blown apart by the gale-force winds.
“As long as the roof stays on, let it blow!” returned Mikhail as he led the way inside.
The desk clerk was an elderly babushka whose eyes lit up upon spotting Mikhail’s uniform.
“Ah, I see I have the honor of serving one of our naval heroes this morning. My late husband was in the Red Banner fleet for twenty of our forty years together. Those were wonderful days, though now that he’s gone, I do wish we’d been able to spend more time together. My dearest Pasha loved the sea and was presented an Order of Lenin second class for seeing action against the Nazis while headed for Murmansk. Why do you know that once he even had the honor of seeing Stalin himself?
His ship was docked here in Kronstadt when our beloved leader emerged on the deck of the cruiser beside him. Pasha’s eyes never failed to light up whenever he described that special day.”
“He sounds like quite a man,” offered Mikhail quickly as the babushka halted to catch her breath.
“I’d love to hear more of his wartime experiences, but my leave is short and we haven’t seen each other in over a month.”
There was a sparkle in the old lady’s gray eyes as she turned toward Tanya and smiled.