“My detectives would very much like to talk to Major Kitman Bennings, who disappeared after arriving in Los Angeles two days ago. He is not a suspect in the murders or kidnapping. In fact, he’s exactly the opposite. There is concern that he might be a target and might now be suffering from some kind of emotional breakdown.
“General Stoakes, the newly appointed commander of CID, asked me to make clear that no charges will be filed against Major Bennings for any actions he has committed during the last seven days, if he reports for duty at any army post in the next twenty-four hours. That is an ironclad guarantee of amnesty and a good-faith public gesture on the army’s part to help solve the horrible tragedy that has befallen the Bennings family. That’s all I can say for now.”
“So a very unusual case continues to develop here in San Bernardino. I’m Roberto Riviera, Fox 11 News.”
Jen clicked off the video.
“Politics, politics, politics. They’re worried about me. That’s nice to know,” said Kit.
“The army sent a message through the sheriff granting you blanket amnesty.” Buzz looked Kit in the eye.
“They want the bomb back,” said Kit.
“Whatever their motivation, we all hope you take the offer seriously.”
“There’s nothing I can do to change the fact that my military career is over. They may not bring me up on charges, but I’m toast.”
“Toast sounds better than thirty years in a military correctional facility,” said Angel.
“I think they’re more scared of what you might do than of what Popov might do,” said Jen.
“They should be. Because I’m not giving up till my sister is safe, and until I’ve evened a score with Viktor Popov.”
CHAPTER 36
Popov watched from the shadows as technicians attached two bombs—one Russian, one American—onto hard points on the R66 helicopter’s undercarriage. This was done in the open in the unlit parking lot off South Las Vegas Boulevard. And as Viktor had predicted, no one noticed. A traffic cop could have pulled up and called it in, and the whole deception would be in the toilet. But no one in glitzy Las Vegas noticed a black helicopter with no lights and no markings sitting on a truck in the rear of a dark, empty parking lot.
The rotors were untethered, the tie-downs removed. The copter would lift off right from the bed of the lowboy trailer.
Popov’s already hulking form looked even larger due to the bulk of a slim black parachute he wore snugly over his black flight suit. The technicians smiled at the boss, but he only scowled. He turned away from them, and as a throwaway afterthought said, “See you in L.A.” They had no way of knowing that, win or lose tonight, he had no intention of ever returning to Los Angeles.
Popov stepped up onto the trailer and climbed into the cockpit. The first thing he checked was to make sure the transponder was switched off. Three minutes later he was airborne, flying dark as he gained altitude while heading northwest. One minute from the target, he activated the American bomb’s GPS guidance system.
Jen Huffman’s laptop alarm beeped, and she snapped to, ultra-alert. One of her screens displayed a map of the Las Vegas area and showed a “+” marker moving slowly.
“I’ve got it! I’ve got the bomb. Heading northwest, approaching the Two-fifteen freeway.”
Yulana, who had just made herself some tea, scrambled to her laptop.
“Yulana, we’re on!” said Kit, as he slipped on the shoulder holster holding the subgun.
“One second,” she said, diving into her chair. The computer had gone into sleep mode, so she pressed ENTER to bring it back to life. As the others looked on anxiously, she had to wait several seconds for her software program to refresh. “One second,” she said again, with anticipation.
When a new page finally popped onto the screen, her fingers flew over the keyboard. She hesitated, shot Kit a quick look, and then pressed ENTER. She exhaled. “It’s done. The American EMP weapon should be deactivated.”
“Let’s pray you’re right,” said Kit. “Okay, we roll!”
Angel began to muscle open the heavy sliding steel hangar door, and Kit and Yulana ran through the opening, toward the helicopter, as Buzz climbed behind the wheel of the diesel pickup.
Kit switched off the transponder and started the chopper. Buzz backed the truck out. Angel closed the hangar door and then jumped into the truck cab with Buzz.
The pickup drove off at the same time Kit lifted the copter into the Vegas night air. He stayed low, just high enough to clear the hangars, then flew westward as close to the deck as he could. Within seconds he was off the airport. Chances were, no one from the far-off tower would have spotted the lights-out takeoff, and chances were also good that on this busy night full of incoming air traffic, the controllers wouldn’t notice any image the airport’s BRITE radar might paint of the MD 530F, as long as he flew at minimum altitude.
Jen remained in the hangar and adjusted her radio headset as her eyes excitedly flashed across four laptop screens.
“We’re on, fellas,” she said into the headset boom mike as she rubbed her hands together in anticipation.
Bobby Chan and Ron Franklin stood in the office of Siegel Suites on West Tropicana going through the folders connected to all third-floor tenants. The company made color copies of driver’s licenses of all adults staying in each unit and also took Social Security card, credit card, and other documentation. But somehow, all of the paperwork didn’t keep the riffraff out.
Chan stopped when he got to the folder of Lily Bain. He stared at her photo. “Hey, Franklin, here’s a Blondie.” Chan looked at the other documents in the folder. “Shacked up with some guy named Gregory. Remember the long blond hair we found?”
“She looks kind’a hard,” said Franklin.
“She is kind of hard,” said the desk clerk.
“What do you mean?”
“I was working when she checked in. Pegged her for just another working girl. We get loads of them here. She had a fresh welt on the side of her head like somebody had hit her a good one.”
Chan and Franklin looked at each other.
“She have an accent?”
“When you came in, you said you were looking for Russians, but I don’t know what that sounds like, except from the movies. She could have been a foreigner, I guess, but her ID was all American.”
“What about Gregory?”
“He stayed in the car. She brought the ID in, so I never seen him.”
“You get a look at the car?”
“Tinted windows and it was night. Didn’t see a thing. But my girlfriend, JoAnn, lives just down from them on the third floor. She’s long-term, comes for six months every year, but she’s about to go back to Michigan for the summer. JoAnn keeps an eye on everybody ’cause she’s scared of being robbed again. She might know something.”
“Can you give your friend a call? We can meet her in the laundry room, ask a couple of questions.”
Popov had reached his intended altitude and released the bomb stolen by Kit Bennings from Sandia National Labs. He heard radio traffic from Las Vegas air traffic controllers demanding certain unidentified aircraft identify themselves. Idiots, he thought. In Russia, jets would have already been scrambled to shoot him down.
He wouldn’t be able to see the small aboveground explosion, and the actual effects of the device were invisible, but the affected area on the ground would go instantly dark. So he circled at a safe distance, watching for a patch of black to emerge from the light. It was a metaphor for his life, as Viktor Popov was a man who created darkness.