“We know all this,” Gorodin broke in impatiently. Warnow continued as though there had been no interruption. “There is no bomb among the trinkets because the suitcase itself is the bomb. Soft, pliable, workable into any number of shapes, the ultimate extension of the plastique explosive principle — fissionable nuclear plastic. The detonating device is miniaturized in the metal latch. And here, the triggering mechanism.” With his chest now bared, Warnow worked the tips of his fingers into what seemed to be a healed vertical scar on the left side of his chest.
Big Fyodor Gorodin shuddered and turned his face away. “Ugh, I can never stand to watch him do that” Warnow laughed shortly. “You have no compunction about watching several hundred people die from a distance. Yet you can’t stand to look at a man opening a flap of his own skin.” Gripping the edge of the scar with his fingertips, he pulled gently outward. With a sucking sound the flesh pulled away from his chest, exposing a pocket holding a round metal object the size of a silver dollar. A hundred tiny contact points no bigger than pinheads covered its face.
Warnow touched the edge of the disc lightly with the stylus. “The passkey, I call it For me the passkey to riches and revenge, for you the passkey to power.”
“And for those who stand in our way,” Zhizov added, “the passkey to oblivion.” “Quite right,” Warnow said. He began to touch the point of the stylus to a series of contact points on the trigger disc. “No need trying to memorize the order of contacts,” he told Zhizov. “It automatically changes after each completed signal. A man needs to cover himself.”
Zhizov gave him a thin smile. “I admire the thoroughness of your self-protection. Connecting your passkey to your pacemaker was a nice touch.”
“Yes, I thought so,” Warnow agreed. “If for any reason my heart should stop beating, the passkey is programmed to signal the detonation of all nuclear plastic bombs in existence. Once we are in business and all the terms of our agreement have been met I will disconnect the passkey from my heartbeat, of course.”
“Of course,” smiled Zhizov.
Warnow completed his manipulation of the stylus and smoothed the skin flap closed. “There. It’s done.”
The three men stared at the island on the horizon. Gorodin turned his massive head slowly.
“Nothing happened, Warnow,” he said, “Your bomb doesn’t work.”
“Just keep watching,” Warnow told him. “There is an automatic thirty-second time lag between the input to the passkey and the output to the detonator on the bomb. This would give me time, if it were ever necessary, to apply the disarming signal.”
“A wise precaution.” Zhizov approved. “But no such reprieve will be necessary this time.”
Warnow watched the sweep second hand complete its half circle on the face of his wrist watch. He counted the final second aloud. “Five, four, three, two, one.”
At first it was a second sun, rising as the other set. Hie yellow-orange fireball grew like some immense instant cancer as black smoke and white steam hid the island of Mumura. The shock wave raced across the water toward the yacht, visible as a ten-foot breaker rushing away from the holocaust. The wave smashed into the stern, washing over the vessel and its passengers. Simultaneously the sound hit them. A sustained rumbling roar like thunder amplified a thousand times.
Anton Zhizov turned to his companions with a thin-lipped smile of triumph. “I think we have seen enough. Let us go inside and dry ourselves while I tell the captain to get underway.”
The two dogs cowered, belly-down on the deck, their eyes wide with terror as the fireball, now a dull red, rose into the sky on a black smoke pillar. Zhizov yanked on the leash, snapping the choke-collars tight, and half-dragged the animals behind him as he led the way toward the cabin.
From the distance of the yacht, the towering club-shaped column of smoke had a certain violent beauty. On the island of Mumura, now blackened and crisped, there was no more beauty. Only the rush of the wind sucked in to fill the void where the boiling flames had consumed the oxygen. The rest was silence. And death.
One
It was two weeks after the fiery death of Mumura and its people that the nuclear explosion began to have its effect on my life. It happened at a most intimate moment.
Her name was Yolanda. She had straight blue-black hair and a creamy complexion. I had met her earlier in the evening in a small flamenco club just off Broadway. She was dancing there, wearing a tight red velvet dress that emphasized her fine breasts and small waist, and flared around her long dancer’s legs. She gave me a long, challenging look as she paused in her dance in front of my table. It was an invitation and a dare. It was a look that asked a question I couldn’t ignore.
Now, as she stretched her body on my bed, she wore only the proud smile. She wanted me to admire her nude body, and I didn’t disappoint her.
“Come, Nick,” she said, “get rid of your clothes now and come lie with me.”
I pulled off my shirt, grinned, and took another sip of my Remy-Martin.
Yolanda ran her eyes over my bare chest and down my body. “Come,” she said imperiously, “I want you now.”
I widened the grin a little. “Funny thing about me. I don’t respond too well to orders in my own bedroom. We’re going to have to come to an agreement about who’s in charge here.”
She sat up in bed, Spanish eyes flashing, carmine lips parted to speak. I stepped quickly to the bed and silenced her protest with my mouth. At first she tensed and gripped my bare shoulders as if she wanted to push me away. I slid my hands down her velvety sides, kneading the yielding flesh where the bulge of her breasts began.
She gasped under my mouth, and her tongue darted forward, tentatively at first, then more eagerly. Her hands moved around to my back and I felt the bite of her nails as her fingers trailed down my body. Her searching hands slid inside the waistband of my slacks probing, seeking.
Abruptly she pulled her mouth from mine. She was breathing hard, and her skin glowed with the blush of desire. She found my belt buckle and undid it with hands that trembled ever so slightly. I stood up and finished the job for her, returning to lie naked beside her. I kissed her open mouth, pushing my tongue past her sharp little teeth. She seized it in her lips and sucked, moving her mouth back and forward on my tongue in a sensual promise of delights to come.
I pulled back gently, kissing her rounded chin, then moving down to the hollow of her throat. Yolanda pulled in her breath sharply as my tongue trailed down the crevice between her breasts.
I raised my face above her, and she cupped her breasts in her long-fingered hands, offering them to me. The nipples stood erect, moist roses against the darker brown of the aureoles. As I bent forward to take the offering, an insistent beeping came from the small room off my livingroom, which I use as an office.
“Oh Nick, please don’t stop,” Yolanda gasped as I hesitated.
“Darling,” I said, “there is only one thing in the world that could make me leave you at a time like this, and that sound you hear is it.”
I swung my legs out of the bed and strode out of the bedroom and into my office. There on the desk the red scramble phone continued its shrill summons. Beside myself, only one man had the number of that phone — David Hawk, Director and Operations Chief of AXE, U.S. Special Espionage Agency. An electronic scrambling signal made it impossible for anyone to tap into the line. I picked up the receiver and spoke into the cupped mouthpiece, which made my voice inaudible in the room.
“You have a genius for picking the most inconvenient times to call,” I said.