Page 22 of Kate's Gifts


  “Behold, I am the destroyer of worlds,” she whispers, gently placing her hands on the two containers of mankind’s greatest, and most horrible, scientific achievement. It is exciting, like the first time driving over a hundred miles per hour or holding a loaded gun. The power of a thousand suns beneath her fingertips is intoxicating.

  “Here, I charged these last night,” Stani says, handing her two brick batteries. “You remember, yes?” She knows what to do with them.

  He watches her power up the devices, thinking that the years have been good to her. The mischief still in her eyes makes him smile. “She has always been a good soldier…” An idea pops into his head. “Could she have killed Eddy?”

  After a nod for her to go ahead, she flips the power switch. Instantly, current flows into the capacitors, starting an ascending whine as the charge builds, like a camera’s flash. A small panel next to the battery slot holds the electronics, the trigger, the locking mechanism and the system test button. A green light flashes, indicating the charge is ready. She touches the test button and with an unexpectedly loud “SMACK,” the system fires.

  It still makes them both jump. She catches herself smiling before the gravity of what she is doing hits hers, as if she had almost stepped off a curb in front of a bus.

  “Check the other one,” he says, turning away. Stani retrieves the binary element of the fission package, the high explosive and the sealed cores, and begins the final assembly.

  She thinks of her gun. “I can end it here.” Kate is good, but Stani is better. That’s why he’s in charge. “He’s probably thinking the same thing.”

  Somehow, she has to stop this from happening, and if not, at least minimize the loss of life.

  “Stani, do you get the feeling that something is wrong about all this? I mean, why now, after all this time?” Kate asks casually, scattering the seeds of doubt, but Stani is rocky soil. She has to be careful not to make it sound like she is talking him out of it. He’ll kill her.

  “Yes, I’ve been thinking about it. It does seem odd,” he relents.

  “I’d hate to think this is some stupid mistake,” she says.

  “You’re thinking too much, Katrina,” he chuckles. “There are many safeguards to prevent that. We must trust our country and our leaders. This world is in desperate need of a change anyway, and we will help that take place.”

  “But wouldn’t you agree that there are other methods to do that?”

  “Yes, of course, but desperate times demand desperate measures. The people that will benefit from this the most—the poor, the destitute, the oppressed—in the end will reap the rewards of what we will do, and the rich, the greedy and the depraved will be gone. The meek will inherit the Earth because the rich and powerful will kill each other off!” Stani assures her.

  “And the innocent? What of them?” she counters, thinking of her own children, and fighting to stay composed.

  “Is anyone really innocent, Katrina? Life is a crime, always punished by death.”

  Stani puts the final elements into the bomb housing, and the bombs are ready to go. The devices require two sets of combinations to unlock the triggers once they’ve been assembled. He has one set of numbers, which he now enters into the panel. Then he steps away and gestures for Kate to enter hers. She doesn’t move.

  “Please insert your code, Katrina.”

  “Only just before the devices are to be deployed That is the procedure. Why would you ask me to do that, Stani?”

  They stand staring at each other, neither reacting for long moments. He doesn’t need her numbers because Eddy has another set. Kate suspects what Stani is up to. If she inserts her code, she’s dead.

  “Because I am ordering you to. Are you disobeying a direct order?” he asks coolly.

  “It is not a legitimate order, so there is nothing to be disobeyed. Do you really need to be reminded of them, Comrade Major?” she asks.

  They stare at each other warily in more uncomfortable silence.

  “You know, Eddy wants to kill you. He doesn’t trust you. He thinks you’re a threat to the mission.”

  “Right now you are the biggest threat to the mission, Stani—”

  “He thinks you told your new boyfriend all about us,” he says, cutting her off.

  She gives him a what the fuck are you talking about look, but then she understands. “Eddy has no fucking idea what he’s talking about. That boyfriend is my best friend’s brother. I’m helping him stay sober.”

  He sees the truth in her eyes.

  “When we get to the target area, then and only then, or ask Eddy for his,” Kate says defiantly.

  “Good, by the rules, as I expected.” Stani reaches over and closes the case, trying to regain his balance.

  “Speaking of targets, Willow Grove Naval Air Station would be a waste. The Anti-Submarine Warfare wing is no longer there,” she warns. For now, the best she can do is try and get the bombs as far away from her children as possible.

  “Yes. That leaves us without a primary target,” Stani says.

  “No target, no mission.” She holds her breath, knowing she’s crossed the line.

  “If you have a suggestion, Mrs. Wilson, now would be a good time to share it.”

  Kate smiles to herself. A prayer has been answered. “You’re out there!”

  Yes, Mrs. Wilson has a suggestion.

 

  Chapter 13

  Willow Grove Naval Air Station

  The propellers of the lead black HC-130 Combat Shadow cut off and begin to wind down. Over the decades the venerable cargo plane has been produced in many different forms, but none more sinister than this. A door drops down a short set of stairs and a young woman with a tied-back mop of red curly hair bounces out. Even with her green jumpsuit and black aviator glasses on, you wouldn’t mistake her for military. The pink Converse high tops are a sure giveaway. She’s followed out by an Asian guy with a ponytail. Together they head over to the welcoming committee.

  “Hi there. Looking for Bob Stevens,” she says cheerily.

  “That’ll be me,” Bob says, extending a hand.

  “Jill Abrams. This is Kevin Lee. We’re with the Department of Energy, Nuclear Emergency Support Team,” she says.

  “You guys are looking for something, we hear,” Lee says with a sarcastic smile.

  Bob motions them to follow him inside the hangar. “Something the red cat dragged in,” he explains.

  “I’m guessing this really isn’t a drill,” Jill says.

  “Would it matter?”

  “Not really,” Lee replies.

  As Bob briefs the two new team members, Edward’s stomach starts to feel a little queasy. The newcomers work at Sandia National Laboratory, the less advertised magic shop that tries to keep the country a few steps ahead of the competition and provides the locks and keys for America’s nuclear arsenal.

  The nuclear weapons business is a far-flung and secretive industry, but also very lucrative. It has to be to attract the best scientific minds America’s universities produce.

  Dr. Jill Abrams is an alumnus of MIT and Caltech who, when she isn’t designing the next generation of Permissive Action Links, the locks the U.S. puts on all our nuclear weapons, she tries to untangle super symmetry.

  Dr. Kevin Lee came to Sandia via Princeton and Stanford, where his dissertation on Quantum Gravitation still has the best minds scratching their heads. Instead of rock climbing or skydiving, they get their thrill out practicing for the unthinkable. Their job is simple; if someone finds a nuclear bomb, they make sure it doesn’t go off.

  “So what’s the game plan?” Bob asks.

  “As soon as we refuel, we start flying. The birds have super sensitive radiological detection devices. We try to get a hit, pinpoint the location, then move in.”

  “Sounds like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Edwards says.

  “More like thousands of haystacks, but with
really powerful magnets,” Jill explains.

  “Radiation is pretty hard to hide. If it’s out there, we’ll find it,” Lee tells them.

  “And if you don’t?” Edwards asks.

  After a reverent pause, Jill answers him. “Then we won’t have anything to worry about, because we’ll all be dead.”

  “What was it Oppenheimer said?” Bob asks openly.

  Dr. Lee has the answer ready. “Behold, I am become death, destroyer of worlds. Hindu scripture.”

  “Boss!” Mayo shouts across the room, holding a phone. “Haddad and McDowd found the church. They’ve got an ID.”

  Chapter 14

  Wynn Marh Cathedral

  Fifteen minutes after Haddad hangs up on Edwards, a UPS truck arrives and pulls to the front of Stani’s workshop. In the back are six heavily armed FBI SWAT team members. Sweeping in from the woods behind the shop are another fifteen assorted agents, led by Freaks.

  Mayo, brown uniform and all, jumps out of the truck’s door, package and scanner in hand. He rings the buzzer at the shop door and waits as over a dozen fingers flutter on triggers. He hears no movement inside, so he rings again, followed by a sturdy knock. Nothing.

  Now he tries the door. It’s unlocked. Mayo gently pushes it open and calls inside. “Hello, anyone home? UPS delivery!” After a moment, he steps back away from the door.

  The back of the truck swings open, and the men inside silently move into action. They begin their sweep, whispering their progress, adding a narrative to the images beamed from helmet cameras to monitors in a nearby truck, and back to the hangar for Bob to see.

  Moving from floor to floor, room to room, they find no one until they check the back of the barn. A shoe protrudes from under a blue tarp. They silently surround the spot. Freaks eyes a bag of seed and hefts it onto the mound, but nothing happens. Somebody grabs a corner of the tarp and flings it aside.

  “Looks like three bodies here, black males, twenties…” an agent says over the radio.

  Freaks and Mayo take closer looks. “All three GSWs,” Mayo adds.

  Once every corner and closet has been checked, the all-clear goes out over the radio.

  Haddad and McDowd come in for a look. Freaks meets them at the door. “Our guy isn’t here, and hasn’t been for a little while. Come check out the kitchen,” he says with a nod of his head.

  On the table in the center of the room are bloody bandages and other spent first aid items.

  “Some one has a boo-boo…” McDowd comments.

  “Big boo-boo,” Haddad adds.

  “He had company too,” Mayo says, looking at the empty glasses.

  “We’ll toss the place. Maybe we get lucky.”

  Luck does have a tendency to change. Not six hundred yards away, a car tries to pull into the entrance, but the cop standing there waves them off. The couple inside wave okay, then drive off.

  “Shit,” Elayna says, looking back.

  “Too late?” Hutnikov asks.

  “Perhaps, but it won’t matter. They won’t take him alive, and he’ll take a few with him. It will teach them a good lesson.”

  Chapter 15

  Glenside Bike Shop

  Stani is standing outside Eddy’s shop, looking at the BACK IN A FEW MINUTES sign hanging on door. When he peers inside, he can see things aren’t right. Getting back into his car, he drives around to the back of the building. His leg has increasingly been bothering him, but he’s not concerned, yet. Using the key Eddy gave him years ago, Stani lets himself in and pulls out his gun. Almost instantly, he can tell no one is there…alive.

  The instinct proves him right when he enters the workshop and sees the body of Eddy’s gal pal face down on the floor. A few steps farther, he sees Eddy. Surveying the wounds, particularity the shot to the groin, he shakes his head. “Boy, you must have pissed somebody off good! I wonder who?”

  He has a pretty good idea. He goes to the surveillance system he helped Eddy install. Stani rewinds the tape and smiles. Another instinct proven right, or so he thinks.

  Chapter 16

  Langley, Virginia

  The endless stream of data is dizzying. An avalanche of information nearly buries America’s intelligence agencies every day. Video feeds from Reaper UAV’s over northern Pakistan, e-mails and cable traffic from embassies, radio signals, voice calls, satellite imagery, fiber optic intercepts, wire taps, and that just the stuff that’s already been filtered. It is a maze of secrets hidden among secrets. Managing the information and the complex routing and protection of it is such a daunting task that the agency has its own agency just to handle it, as well as for the other seventeen intelligence agencies. After 9/11, authorities realized that the clear warning signs of the attack hadn’t gotten to the people who needed to know, and that even a direct warning from a friendly foreign government was either not passed up the ladder or was just flat-out ignored. Never again.

  When critical information from a high-value credible source is received, it now gets to where it belongs. So when the office of the Chief Information Officer, which has direct access to the Director of Central Intelligence, receives information from a highly classified source inside the Russian defense ministry, Doc Tillman will see it. Knowing what to do with it is another question. Within seconds of seeing the information, Tillman knows exactly what to do with it.

  Chapter 17

  Stani’s Shop

  The team has no obvious clues to work on, though they know they’re headed in the right direction. Stani has been trained too well. So now FBI forensics has to turn something up, and fast. The blood from the bandages gives them DNA for identification purposes and for a criminal case, not that there will ever be one. Right now they need leads, and they don’t have any, dead guys included.

  “These guys are still kinda fresh,” Haddad says, surveying the pile of bodies.

  Linda Carpenter checks her PDA. They’ve already taken digital fingerprints from the dead men and learned their identities. “Two are local gang-bangers. The big guy is one Kesean Johnson, a mixed martial arts tomato can from Philly.”

  Freaks takes a closer look. “Good shooting. Looks like .308 caliber, military issue. Single shots to the head. Poor Kesean here will have to have a closed casket,” he tells them. The entry wounds are always smaller than the exit wounds, and since Kesean was shot on the run, from behind, most of his face is gone.

  “Well, Stanley is our man. Let’s find the connection to these guys. McDowd, find the dumpster and go through the garbage,” Haddad orders.

  “Huh? Wha? Why me?” McDowd balks.

  “Low man on the totem pole, son,” Haddad smiles. “Get a suit from the CSI, dudes.”

  McDowd sulks off. The rest of the guys at least wait until he’s out of earshot before they begin to chuckle.

  Chapter 18

  Second Life Book Shoppe, Abington

  The bell on the door tingles as Kate enters the cozy used bookstore. As she removes her sunglasses and gloves, the memories of the untold hours spent here rush to greet her like a warm hug. This is where Kate got sober.

  When she first came into the program, she was lost, in desperate need of being found. Thanks to Julie, she found Lydia. She took Kate under her wing, becoming her sponsor, pulling Kate away from the edge of that pit of despair and self-destruction. Lydia became her guide, her teacher, mentor, and friend. Gradually, Lydia showed Kate an entire new way of living. When the time came for Kate’s fourth and fifth steps, their bond had reached a new level. Lydia was like the big sister she never really had, a person with whom she could share all her darkest secrets, except one. It is the secret she needed to share the most.

  Their relationship was never the same again.

  The still attractive but slightly worn Lydia appears from a backroom behind a counter cluttered with books. She starts out with a cheery and helpful “Good afternoon,” but stops upon seeing Kate. Her perky expression melts away.

  “Hello, Lydia,?
?? Kate says, closing the book she has been reading and placing it back on the shelf. It is her favorite, The Varieties of Religious Experience.

  “Great Kate, the sponsor who doesn’t need a sponsor. Who should I thank for the honor of your presence?”

  “That sounds like resentment Lydia,” Kate says smoothly, but with a smile.

  “Maybe it is, but I won’t hold it against you.”

  An unsettled moment passes between the two women as they remember mutual triumph and tragedy, fear and joy, friendship and finally estrangement. Regardless, they are both happy to see each other.

  “Do I smell coffee back there?”

  “Come on,” Lydia grins.

  The small office is made even smaller by the endless piles of books, but it is always large enough for the two women.

  “How’s business?”

  “You know, not great, not bad. How are the kids?” Lydia notices Kate’s face is filled with anxiety and despair. Lydia freezes, about to pour the coffee, cup in one hand and pot on the other.

  “Are they all right?”

  When Kate looks up, tears have started to run down her cheeks. “Lydia, I’ve done something horrible.”

  “Did you slip?”

  “No,” Kate replies, agitated.

  “Well, as long as you didn’t drink. We’re not saints, as the book says.”

  Kate looks at her bewildered, unable to hold her composure. “That’s all you think there is, don’t you! You could commit murder, but as long as you didn’t pick up, it’s just ducky.”

  Lydia is flabbergasted by Kate’s rant.

  “There’s more to life than not drinking. There’s another level of evil beyond this,” Kate says, trying to make her understand. “Would you drink to save a life, your life, Lydia?”

  Lydia sees the frustration in her eyes, but still can’t understand, and isn’t sure she wants to. “I don’t know Kate. That’s up to my Higher Power.”

  Kate leans in closer, squeezing her eyes shut as if it hurt by what she needs to say. “If I put a gun to your head and gave you a choice between death and a drink,” she opens her eyes and stares deeply into Lydia’s, “what would you do?”

 
David McDonald's Novels