“We should close the airspace over the Las Vegas Strip and all military and federal sites in Nevada,” said Shay, trying to sound helpful now.
“We’ll need armed jets over Las Vegas and other sites in Nevada flying continuous sorties. If the e-bomb’s GPS gets activated, we will have a very short shoot-down time,” offered Stout.
“We’ll need to move more fighter squadrons into the area,” said Bartok.
“Alert FEMA and the governors of every state within five hundred miles of Las Vegas to ramp up their disaster response agencies,” suggested the FBI director.
“I disagree with most of what’s being suggested here.” Donna Ibrahim, the president’s chief of staff, was perhaps the craftiest political player in the room. Her remark garnered sharp visual reactions from everyone. But no one spoke, because they all respected just how sly, conniving, and totally amoral she was.
“Elaborate on that, Donna,” said President Lane.
“First, we’re talking about a nonlethal weapon that will cause no loss of life. Second, the bomb’s target zone is very small and would affect relatively few people. Third, there’s a very good chance the target is civilian and does not threaten national security. So since there’s no evidence that Popov possesses a Russian bomb, and since Bennings can deactivate the Sandia bomb if the GPS signal becomes active, we should take only very discreet actions.
“Forget about going public in any way, and don’t notify any states or governors that they may have a crisis on their hands—that would leak out to the press almost instantly. Instead, we implement a covert, full-court press to hunt down Viktor Popov and his gang’s leadership and terminate all of them, unofficially, of course. Popov’s entire U.S. organization must be dismantled, regardless of whether they are legal entities or not. This will send a message to the Russians not to try anything like this again.
“We should announce a training exercise and close all airspace over military installations and sensitive federal sites in the Southwest. And yes, have twenty-four/seven armed jets patrolling with secret orders to shoot down any intruders.
“We tell the Sandia folks that a secret CIA Red Team stole their device and to keep their mouths shut about it. We tell Albuquerque PD a training exercise went awry, to cover up the shoot-out there. The shopping mall explosion in El Monte is easy: since Russian gangsters were the only fatalities, we have DEA sell it as a drug beef. The LAX smoke-bomb business we call another Red Team exercise. And by the way, why didn’t the local yokels find those devices before they went off? Put some public pressure in the press for LAPD to tighten up at LAX.
“As for Major Bennings and his team, they must be captured and extensively debriefed. Bennings should then be promoted, given some medals, and forced to retire from the army. But make it an honorable discharge, and let him keep his pension.”
After a few moments, a number of people in the room began to nod in agreement; not Stout or Shay, but a consensus had emerged.
Padilla had a slight smile on her face as she stared at Ibrahim. A bigger snake you couldn’t find in D.C., but the woman had hit on a plan that would probably satisfy most in the room. And it protected the powers that be while leaving the public with their asses hanging out, making it business as usual in Washington.
Bennings would only lose his career, not his freedom. That was more than he expected he would get when he made the decision to go rogue. Of course, his freedom was contingent upon his not being killed by Viktor Popov.
CHAPTER 35
Two pickup trucks, a couple of big “bucket trucks,” and a lowboy semitrailer carrying a giant, 87-ton D10 bulldozer, turned as a convoy from South Rainbow Boulevard onto West Post Road just north of the 215 freeway on a beautiful Las Vegas night, with the faint scent of desert sage wafting in a slight breeze.
The convoy pulled over and parked a half block from Rainbow Boulevard.
Dennis Kedrov, wearing a white hard hat, sat in the passenger seat of the lead pickup. A pile of weapons on the floorboard was covered with a dirty blanket.
Dennis lit a Turkish cigarette and marveled at how well built the road was for such a lightly traveled street. It would not be so in Mother Russia, where too many hands reached in, hands like his own, so there was seldom enough money to do simple things right.
He would surely miss America, but with the bonus money he was about to earn, the south of France would do just fine. He already had his eye on a couple of chalets.
Alex Bobrik bent down in the small underground room, grabbed the handles, and eased the wooden panel out of the concrete wall as his two assistants watched. Alex crawled through the opening into the room on the other side of the wall, and his assistants began passing electronics and the other gear to him that had been stacked and was ready to use in the long-awaited deception.
An orange-pink sunset painted the horizon above the Spring Mountains. The Vegas Strip ran calmer with a quiet interlude before the controlled chaos of the evening’s diversions. One in a seemingly constant stream of blue-and-red Southwest Airlines jets roared in low at McCarran Airport and touched down on runway 1L.
In a private hangar not far from where the Southwest flight just landed, Yulana dozed with her head on the table next to a laptop; the tips of her fingers, which twitched slightly as she slept, rested on the now-dog-eared photograph of her and her daughter, Kala.
Kit stirred from his own nap and checked his watch. He rubbed his eyes, grabbed an untouched cup of cold tea, and crossed over toward Jen and Buzz, whose tired eyes scanned laptop screens. Angel slumped in a chair as he made adjustments to the guts of a handheld radio using his lucky green screwdriver.
“Any word on Staci?” asked Kit.
Buzz shook his head.
“I’ll hang around another hour. Then I’m going to join the search.” Kit looked over to Yulana. “She’s got to be worried sick about her daughter, but you should have seen how she handled herself in Albuquerque.”
“Life-or-death stakes. People do things they never thought they could do,” said Buzz.
“Kit, there’s something here you need to see. It’s about your family, and about you.”
Kit’s face grew serious as he walked around behind Jen. “What you got?”
“News item from the Internet,” she said, as Angel joined the group.
Jen clicked PLAY and the video of a Los Angeles TV news reporter appeared on the screen.
“San Bernardino County Sheriff Jim McCain held a press conference today and announced that the death of a Chino Hills woman was now being classified as a homicide and is linked to a recent multiple murder and possible kidnapping in a Chino Hills home.
“Gina Bennings, age sixty, was found dead in her car at the bottom of an arroyo off of Carbon Canyon Road.
“Forensic evidence now links her death to the grisly scene of a gun battle in her home, where Rick and Maria Carrillo were shot to death by unknown assailants. The fingerprints of Gina Bennings’s missing daughter, Staci, were found on a tranquilizer dart at the scene, and detectives now believe she was tranquilized, kidnapped, and remains missing.
“Here’s what Sheriff McCain had to say about the strange case”:
“I’d like to reassure the citizens of Chino Hills and all of San Bernardino County that they are not in danger. While I can’t get into details, my department has a good idea of who the perpetrators are, and now that we are working closely with the FBI and the army’s Criminal Investigation Command, we expect a breakthrough very soon.