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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Critical Mass
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The chopper had set down in a parking lot a quarter mile from the ship, and they'd commandeered a delivery truck from a confused, angry UPS driver.
Wilke remained with his walkie-talkie in the truck parked at the side of the office about fifty yards from the ship. He'd called for a SWAT team, a hostage negotiator, and the
Bureau's Interpol liaison man. A pair of nuclear weapons experts had already been dispatched from nearby Travis Air Force Base on Carrara's orders and were expected on the scene at any minute.
McGarvey walked directly down to the ship and climbed the ladder, absolutely no time now for explanations or any sort of delicacy. Even if they tried to run, they couldn't possibly get far enough away to escape the probable blast radius.
At the top he halted for a moment, listening, his ear cocked for sounds aboard. Some machinery was running below decks, but there were no other noises.
Nakamura's people would have abandoned ship in time to get well away. At least they would have if they knew what they carried and when it would explode.
Wilke had given him a 9-millimeter Ruger automatic, which McGarvey pulled out of his belt and cocked. He didn't bother checking his watch; knowing exactly how much time remained wouldn't help.
He ducked through the hatch, and hurried as best he could down the stairs into the machinery spaces where he'd had his confrontation with Heidinora back at Fukai's docks. The big Jap had been doing something down here. Maybe making sure that the area was clear so that the sewage lift pump could be readied for the bomb.
Stepping out on the same catwalk he stopped. Below, the engines had been shut down, but a generator was running, and the lights had been left on.
There were pipes and lines running everywhere in a seemingly jumbled maze. Nothing seemed to make any sense, nothing seemed familiar.
Time. It always came down to time.
The same Company psychologist who'd once told him that he had a low threshold of pain had also told him that he was a man who did not understand when it was time to quit.
“I suppose I could study you for ten years and still not find the answer to that one,” the shrink had said. “If there is an answer.”
He spotted the oblong metal container, marked in French, PORTSIDE SEWAGE LIFT PUMP, attached to a series of pipes on the interior of the hull.
But there was no time left. It had to be nearly 11:02, and he could see with a sinking feeling that it would take a wrench or a pair of pliers to open the cover of the bomb. Two nuts held it in place.
Now there were only seconds. No time to search for tools. No time to call for help.
“Goddammit!” McGarvey shouted in frustration.
He stepped back, raised the pistol, turned his head away and fired a shot nearly point blank at the left-hand nut holding the cover in place.
The bullet ricochetted off the metal, bending but not breaking the nut and bolt assembly.
“Goddammit!” McGarvey shouted, and he fired a second shot, and a third, and a fourth, bullet fragments and bits of jagged metal flying everywhere.
But the bolt was off. Tossing the pistol aside, McGarvey pulled the left side of the cover away from the case, bending the metal back by brute strength, three of his fingernails peeling back.
The inside of the device was simple. A long, gray cylinder took up most of the space, while tucked in one corner was the firing circuitry and timing device.
The LED counter showed three seconds.
McGarvey reached inside to grab one of the blue wires, when someone came out onto the catwalk behind him. He looked over his shoulder as the LED counter switched to two.
A short, wiry man with bright red hair, wearing an Air Force master sergeant's uniform, came up, reached over McGarvey's shoulder into the bomb's firing circuitry, and as the counter switched to one, pulled out a yellow wire.
The counter switched to zero, and nothing happened.
“Sorry, sir,” the sergeant said. “No time to explain. But you had the wrong wire.”
 
THE END
WRITING AS DAVID HAGBERG
Twister
The Capsule
Last Come the Children
Heartland
Heroes
Without Honor
Countdown
Crossfire
Critical Mass
Desert Fire
 
High Flight
Assassin
White House
Joshua's Hammer
Eden's Gate
The Kill Zone
By Dawn's Early Light
Soldier of God
Allah's Scorpion
Dance with the Dragon*
 
 
WRITING AS SEAN FLANNERY
The Kremlin Conspiracy
Eagles Fly
The Trinity Factor
The Hollow Men
False Prophets
Broken Idols
Gulag
 
Moscow Crossing
The Zebra Network
Crossed Swords
Counterstrike
Moving Targets
Winner Take All
Achilles' Heel
 
*Forthcoming
“The cold war may have iced over, but the age of the terrorist still offers job opportunities for larger-than-life CIA assassins like Kirk McGarvey … . A HIGH ACTION THRILLER!”
—
Booklist
“STEP OUT INTO THE OPEN, MR. MCGARVEY, AND I PROMISE THAT YOUR WIFE AND DAUGHTER WILL NOT BE HARMED. WE WILL HAVE NO FURTHER NEED OF THEM ONCE WE HAVE YOU.”
 
A door on the far side of the courtyard opened with a crash and a man carrying an assault rifle burst outside.
“Don't!” McGarvey shouted.
Schade had pulled something from inside his jumpsuit and was tossing it toward the helicopter when the man above opened fire and the man across the courtyard started to fall back.
In the last possible instant, realizing what was about to happen, McGarvey threw himself against the church wall, burying his face in the dirt and covering his head with his arms.
A tremendous thunderclap burst in the courtyard, and McGarvey was lifted two feet by the force of the explosion, the night sky lighting up as if a thousand suns had suddenly switched on … .
“Hagberg now takes his rightful place alongside Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler!”
—
Mystery Scene
An exciting excerpt from
David Hagberg's
new novel,
available in hardcover from
Tor books
Saddam Hussein al-Tikriti stood at the open flap of his desert tent some miles west of Baghdad, the skirts of his flowing
galabia
ruffling in the cool evening breeze. He was alone, for the moment, as he seldom was, and it gave him a curiously disquieting feeling. As if he were the very last man on earth. Cities were empty. No one worked the land. No one lived across the sea. Emptiness.
Far to the southeast he picked out a slow-moving pinprick of light against the brilliant backdrop of the stars. His advisors told him that it was the CIA's latest spy satellite, the KH-15, sent up on the tail of an infidel rocket to watch them.
Almost on instinct he moved a little deeper into the darkness of the tent. This night he felt as old as the desert hills and
wadis
around him. He felt almost one with the spirits of the ten thousand years of history here. This was the Fertile Crescent. The valley of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The birthplace of a dozen religions, of civilization itself.
Like Muamar Quaddafi, Hussein had begun coming to the desert to find solace amongst his ancestors after his defeat over the reclamation of Iraqi homelands in Kuwait. The Revolutionary Command Council was still his to control, and therefore the nation was his. Western forces had, for the most part, finally withdrawn from the region. And once again his oil was flowing, bringing his people the much-needed revenue so long denied them by the infidels.
And yet it wasn't enough. A people could either grow and prosper, or wither and die. Iran to the east and Israel to the
west would have to be defeated. Decisively. But the Gulf War, as the western media called the battle, had taught him an important lesson. One of Patience.
“General,” the voice of one of his bodyguards called from the darkness.
Hussein's hand went to the pistol in the pocket of his felt jacket.
“'Ay-wa,”
—yes—he said, softly.
“He is here,” the guard, visible now just beyond the ten-meter-proximity detectors, said. A dark figure stood to the left and behind the guard.
The man was an old friend and comrade in the
jihad
against the West. Munich, Hamma, Beirut. A dozen places, a hundred times, he'd proven himself. And yet there was something different about him in the past months since he'd gone to Germany. Hussein had seen it in the man's eyes, and he wanted to see if there'd been any change.
He reached to a panel on his left and flipped a switch that would interrupt the elaborate protective alarm system protecting him for less than ten seconds.
“Come,” he said, and his grip tightened on the pistol. So much was at stake, and they were so close this time that he could not afford to take any chances. This time there would be no Desert Storm.
The dark figure came forward, his hands spread outward in a gesture of humility and peace. Seconds later the alarm circuits tripped with an audible snap.
“I serve at your command,” the man, known to the world only as Michael, said graciously.
He was taller than Hussein and just as thickly built. His features—which, unlike Carlos's, were in no police- or intelligence-service file anywhere in the world—were dark and handsome, his hair only slightly gray.
They embraced—left cheek, right cheek, and left again—then parted, and Hussein managed a slight smile. All was right with Michael. Some tension, perhaps, even expectation, but nothing was amiss.
“How was your trip?” the Iraqi leader asked, taking
Michael's arm and leading him into the more secure rear room of the tent.
“Tedious, in part because of the security precautions I had to observe. But it is good to be among friends. Believe me.”
“You are not tiring yourself out? The strain is not too much?”
Michael shook his head in sadness. “Germany has deteriorated since the reunification. Nothing is the same. Nothing will remain the same. They watch us continuously.”
“It is why we must be victorious,” Hussein said.
“Yes, my general. There is no God, but God.”
Hussein thought of Michael as his soldier of Allah.
The righteous fist of God will come down and smite mine enemies dead.
It was written.
“Now, come and tell me what progress you are making,” Hussein said, motioning Michael to take a place amongst the cushions at a low-slung laden with food and drink. Of all the men and women he'd sent to Germany on the project, Michael was the very best. Michael would be the tool of Iraq's salvation.
 
The three-story apartment building was thick, brooding, its windows mute against the chill, wind-driven rain. The windshield wipers of Whalpol's car flapped back and forth, providing a distant rhythm to Sarah's conscious efforts at keeping herself together.
“Would you like me to come up with you?” Whalpol asked her.
She stared out the window, fear washing over her as if she were lying nude and vulnerable on a dark, cold beach, the black waters coming to her in wave after wave.
“No,” she said, rousing herself. “I'll be all right.” She got out of the car, crossed the sidewalk and let herself into the building without looking back. Inside, she leaned against the door, her breath hot and sharp in her throat, her heart hammering. It wasn't supposed to be like this, she cried inside. Not this. There'd been so many promises in her life, so many far horizons, so many possibilities. But not this.
She half expected Whalpol to come after her, but a minute later she heard the car pull away, its noise lost quickly in the distance, the small domestic noises of the apartment building gently surging back into her consciousness.
Pushing away from the door she started up the stairs, her right hand trailing wetly on the banister. She was soaked to the skin, and very cold. When she reached the third floor she was winded and shivering. It took her a long time before she found her keys at the bottom of her purse, and then unlocked her door.
Inside, she closed the door and snapped the locks, a new fear washing over her that she shouldn't make any noise.
You dasn't disturb the sleeping ghosts lest they awake and devour you.
It was a line from something, but she couldn't quite remember from what.
We have seen the monster and it is us.
Her apartment was long and narrow, but nicely furnished. She thought of it as her railroad car, her Oriental Express. The living room was in front, a bathroom and the bedroom in the middle, and the kitchen in the rear, overlooking a courtyard.
She flipped on a light in the living room and then went into the bathroom where she pulled off her sodden raincoat and laid it over the wooden drying rack at the foot of the tub. She kicked off her shoes as she unbuttoned her blouse, peeled it off and dropped it over the edge of the tub.
She felt like a robot, like one of the remote handling machines for nuclear materials at the research facility. Someone else moved the controls; some force outside of her body was causing her muscles to contract and expand, while her mind remained blank.
Wrapping a towel around her wet hair she went into the bedroom where she flipped on the light and pulled off the rest of her wet clothes, letting them lie where she dropped them.
She put on a thick terry-cloth robe and padded barefoot into the kitchen where she poured a stiff measure of cognac and drank it down straight, shuddering as the liquor hit her stomach, but happy for its afterglow.
She turned and went back into the kitchen where she filled
the tea kettle and put it on to boil. She laid out her tea things and then, in the bathroom, started the water in the tub. Before she closed the drain, however, someone knocked at her door. She looked up, thinking at first that she had imagined it, but whoever it was knocked again, this time a little louder, with a little more insistence.
Ahmed already, she thought, as she turned off the water and went into the living room. He had said he was only a few minutes away. Perhaps he had called from the phone at the corner and decided to come up anyway. It was like him. He'd heard the fear and sadness in her voice and he'd come to help. The problem was, of course, that he could not help her, nor could she tell him what she knew she must tell him. She was in a no-win situation.
She unlocked the door and opened it. The killer was much taller than her, and he was bulky, his body filling the doorway. He wore dark slacks and a dark windbreaker, slick from the rain. A Greek fisherman's cap was pulled low over his eyes, and she noticed in the space of a split second that he wore thick-soled, heavy shoes—brogans—and black leather gloves. She'd never seen him dressed that way before. The effect was ominous.
“What do you want?” she asked.
The killer smiled, his grin feral. “You,” he whispered.
Before Sarah could react, his right fist smashed into her face, snapping her head back and driving her off her feet into the apartment.
There was no pain, and that fact surprised her as much as his attack. She did not lose consciousness, though she knew that she was stunned and could not control her movements.
She wanted to scream, and she tried, but nothing came out of her throat, and it seemed as if she were falling forever, tumbling over the arm of the couch and landing in a heap on the floor.
She could see the killer out of the corner of her eye as he came into the apartment, looked at her for a long second or two, then closed and locked the door.
He unzipped his jacket and she could see that beneath it he wore an ordinary white dress shirt, buttoned at the collar, but then he moved behind her, out of her range of sight, and she could not make her head move to follow him.
Her heart boomed far away, and she had trouble breathing until she was able to make the connection that her mouth was filled with blood and bits of something very hard. Her teeth, she thought, choking. He had broken some of her teeth. She managed to cough, and immediately her airway was clear so that she could breathe normally.
She was able to move her head an inch or two so that she could see toward the rear of her apartment. The killer stood with his back to her, looking into the kitchen, his gloved hands gripping either side of the door frame.
The telephone, she thought, looking at it. If she could get to the telephone before he turned around she could call for help. There was no doubt in her mind that she was in mortal danger. He had not come here to rape her, he had come to murder her. And she knew why.
She managed to roll over and gather her legs beneath her, and push herself up to her hands and knees. Blood and bits of her broken teeth dribbled out of her mouth. For several agonizingly long seconds she could do no more than remain where she was, one hip against the side of the couch, her arms shaking with fatigue, her stomach heaving, a thin mewling sound coming from the back of her throat.
There was a noise behind her. She started to move when something extremely powerful grabbed the back of her thick robe and lifted her bodily off the floor onto her feet. Her head snapped around as if her neck were broken. For a second her eyes were locked with the killer's and she thought how like a desert scorpion he looked. She had never noticed the resemblance before, and now she was amazed at her blindness.
“Why?” she croaked.
The killer shook her like a rag doll. Without his powerful grip she would have fallen to the floor; her legs were too weak to support her.
He shook her again, violently, her head snapping back so
forcefully that she was afraid her neck was going to break. It was as if he wanted her to come out of her daze. As if he wanted her to speak, to scream for help, to fight back. But she could not. Her stomach churned and she thought she was going to be sick.
His eyes darkened and his mouth set in a tight grimace. His teeth were bared as if he were a wild animal, warning her that unless she did something he was going to attack.
Maybe Whalpol would come back after all to see if she was all right. Or perhaps Ahmed would come to her. They were her only two possibilities for survival. She knew that. She could see it in the killer's eyes.
He pulled her to the end of the couch past the low coffee table, dragging her, supporting her weight effortlessly in one hand.
She could not make her feet work, and the material of the robe cut into her armpits as he hauled her down the corridor to the kitchen and slammed her against the counter, the sharp edge catching the small of her back. The air was driven out of her lungs. It made her see spots before her eyes.
He faced her, and he pressed his body against her. She could feel his erection against her belly, and she thought that perhaps he would only rape her after all, and that he had not come here to kill her.
The tie of her robe came loose. He pulled the robe all the way open and looked down at her body, at her breasts and the swell of her belly.

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