“Okay. Twice is better than once,” she said, smiling.
Simms had to swallow. He was thinking, trying to calculate how he should handle this. This girl might be in play.
Unless this was some kind of trick—another Red Team drill, this one using a smoking-hot woman. “Excuse me one second.” Simms backtracked toward the windows in the roll-up door.
“Too bad we have to fly back to Washington tomorrow. I wouldn’t mind going out and having some fun.”
Simms shot a fast glance into the clean room. It was such a quick look, Bennings could have been playing air guitar nude and Simms wouldn’t have noticed.
“Which hotel are you staying at, Elfi?” said Simms as he crossed back toward her.
“The Hilton, but the bar there is boring.” She smiled the big smile, and Simms fell in love.
As soon as Simms left the window, Kit chanced making the switch. Any security officers watching the cameras were probably right now watching Yulana in the air lock, but still, he was careful to keep his movements screened from camera view.
He strained to lift the bomb up about eight inches above the cart; Bennings could do hundred-pound barbell curls with no problem, but he strained, because the position was awkward. He eased the unit into his toolbox and then used the towels as packing materials. He quickly loaded the lead pipes into the weapons crate and closed the lid. The switch took just under ten seconds.
He secured the toolbox. Kit gritted as he used both hands to manhandle his toolbox, which now contained the bomb, onto the hand dolly. He placed Yulana’s toolbox on top of his, then tilted the dolly and wheeled it over to the roll-up door. He then returned and quickly pulled the trolley with the weapons crate over to the door. He hit the button, and the interior roll-up door began to rise.
In the security office, three men crowded in close around one particular monitor.
“Come on, zoom it in farther.”
The guy with the joystick did exactly that, and Yulana’s figure filled the screen.
“Damn, Sarge! Get the hell away from my future ex-wife!” joked one of the men.
“This babe is CIA? I work for the wrong company.”
“Can we detain her? I’ll do the pat down.”
“Pat down? I’m thinking a body cavity search.”
Kit needn’t have worried; he could have emptied out the entire clean room and no one would have noticed.
With the hand dolly and trolley now in the air lock, Kit closed the interior roll-up door. He and Yulana discarded their clean-room garb into a plastic bin.
Simms looked like a salesman who’d been interrupted before he could close a big sale.
“Sergeant, appreciate all of your help.” Kit pressed the button to open the exterior roll-up door and heard the sudden footsteps of men outside. Was there a problem? Or were the men outside merely startled by the door opening?
“I need to check the weapon, sir.”
Kit sighed and looked at his watch. “Don’t tell me you opened this crate in the storage facility to ‘check it’ before you brought it here.”
“Well, no, sir.” Simms shifted on his feet. Yulana moved away from the soldier.
“Because this weapons crate can only be opened in a clean-room environment, which this air lock is not. Now I am well aware of how your unit was decertified in 2010 for its sloppy practices. They wouldn’t let you people handle nukes anymore, isn’t that right? Because of bad practices. That was a big scandal, wasn’t it?”
“Umm, yes, sir.”
“Well, I’m not here to get you decertified again. But don’t be opening the weapons crate unless you’re in a clean room, understood?”
“I’m not aware of any regulation that we have to open the crate in a clean room, Doctor.” It wasn’t a direct challenge, but Simms stared at Bennings, waiting for a response.
“The regs were amended for the RT-Sevens about a month ago. You can confirm that with your CO.” Kit said it casually enough so it didn’t sound like he was parrying the sergeant’s remark. It was pure bluff on his part, but being in the military himself, he knew how difficult it was to keep up with the minutiae of constantly changing regulations. And he knew the chances of the CO being awake, much less on duty, at this hour were slim at best.
Still, Bennings was sweating under his clothes. A quick glance at the overhead camera reminded him they were being monitored—a certainty considering Yulana’s presence. Simms had become the unanticipated monkey wrench in his plan. He now calculated that he might have to subdue the sergeant, overcome the troops outside, and just make a run for it. Kit could feel the odds of success rapidly slipping away from him.
The exterior roll-up door was all the way open now. The soldiers outside were readying the jigs to reload the bomb crate onto the truck. Yulana took another step toward the open door. Kit crossed to the hand dolly that held his toolbox that, unbeknownst to the soldiers, contained the RT-Seven EMP bomb. He didn’t want to move the toolbox until he had to, since it weighed a hundred pounds. If they saw how heavy the box was, it would raise suspicion, although suspicion seemed to have crept in all by itself.
“No disrespect, sir, but if we ever have to use one of these weapons, we won’t be opening the crate in a clean room.”
Damn, Simms wasn’t going to let this go. “That’s different, soldier. Now get this thing out of here. I want to go home,” snapped Bennings. Intimidation was the only play Kit had left, short of getting physical.
“Home? I thought you two were at a hotel.”
“First we go to the hotel, Sergeant, then we get to fly home. To Langley,” Kit said, working hard to sound exasperated.
“Sir, I have to check the weapon. I don’t want my unit to be decertified again, and for all I know, you are testing me right now in some kind of Red Team drill.”
No doubt about it now, this was going to be a race to get off the base. Kit’s SIG rested snugly tucked into an inside-the-pants holster, and it suddenly felt heavy.
“We’re heading back to the hotel,” said Kit, pretending to lose his patience and speaking loudly enough so all of the other soldiers could hear. “You’ve been watching the device for almost an hour. You haven’t taken your eyes off it. But if you have to check it, then close the exterior door, put on some clean-room garb, open the interior door, take the weapon inside, close the interior door, and then you can check it. Understood? Otherwise, I’m going to write your ass up and have a talk with your CO! Now good night.”
What happened in the next few moments would determine just how ugly this was going to get.
Simms stared hard and looked like a man trying to make a decision. If he shouted an order for his troops to stop them, Kit would put the bomb down and come up with his gun. No way he would shoot innocents, not even to save Staci’s life, but he could surely bluff if he had to.
But the soldiers had weapons, too, and might not be shy about using them. He doubted they’d shoot Yulana, but he had no doubt they’d send lead downrange in his direction.
Yulana moved out first and had the tailgate open as Kit tilted the hand dolly and wheeled it over the the SUV.
Yulana turned to face Simms, and took a stop toward him as she removed a cigarette from her blouse pocket. “Sorry for the trouble, Sergeant. Can I got a light?”
Thank God she was creating another distraction. Bennings quickly slid her toolbox into the SUV. As Simms gave her a light, Kit turned his back to Simms and the soldiers so they couldn’t see him strain as he lifted his bomb-laden toolbox into the vehicle. The soldiers watched closely, not because they were suspicious, but because they couldn’t get enough of Yulana.
And Simms didn’t say a word.