Page 52 of Nikolai
“You coming too?”
“Love to.But tonight Alex is getting some kind of science prize.Can’t not be there.She’d dump my ass.I’ll fly over tomorrow when it’s all over.”
His wife was as madly in love with him as he was with her.She definitely wouldn’t dump his ass if he wasn’t there when she got a prize.She was always getting prizes.But Jacob knew Nick was more than covered.If Nick were on his own, Jacob would already be on his way.
They’d always had each other’s backs.
Which was why Nick loved his job, except the part where he had to deal with shithead psychopaths.That part sucked.
Jacob closed the connection.
“Nick?”
Parker.She must be exhausted.And thirsty.Nick was thirsty too, and they had no access to water.He had several bottles in his SUV, but it could have been on the back side of the moon for all the good it did them.
But Parker wasn’t complaining.She hadn’t complained once.She was pale and dirty and dead on her feet, but with all that, focused on him.Her eyes kept going to the gash on his shoulder.It hurt, yeah, and needed disinfecting and stitching up, but he’d had worse.
“So,” she said.“I guess now we wait for the cavalry to arrive.”
ChapterTen
Broken Arrow!
George Stillwell put his cell down.His hand was trembling.This was it.He knew exactly what Broken Arrow meant.
Nuclear weapons.
An Operation Gladio cache.He knew what that meant, too.Either a Davy Crockett or a man portable.Maybe both.Nineteen fifties stuff.Primitive, but nuclear.
This was it.That once in a lifetime opportunity.How to make best use of it?Pointless to offer it to the Russians.They were awash in nukes.They had so many they’d lost count of them.And sometimes they had even lost their location.The same for the Chinese.They had their own.But terrorists…that was something else.Even an old nuke, set off in the center of a city, would make a big statement.Could destroy a country if it was the right city.And if nothing else, the uranium could be used to create a dirty bomb.
And if he could get it into the right hands, he could ask for whatever he wanted.Shake the dust of these consulates from his feet and start living.
He knew who to call to start the ball rolling.A man who was clever and fast, because George knew soldiers fromthe Sixth Fleet would be arriving soon.They’d come and find crickets.
The man picked up before the first ring ended.Marco de Luca.“De Luca here.”
The English was without an accent.He’d studied economics at Stanford and was the reason the Camorra was so rich.He was an expert in money laundering and knew how to invest.
He had perfect English and acceptable French.Wore Hugo Boss suits and Prada shoes and knew how to behave.He was also ruthless and cunning.
They said he was dating the niece of the President of the Italian Republic.
Smart and untouchable.
“Sir.We met at a party for an incoming consular officer.”
Keep it vague.He knew his phone was unhackable, but though de Luca was smart and tech-savvy, you never knew.They’d met at a huge reception where Caroline Munro had been introduced to the top layers of Neapolitan society.
“Indeed.Cultural affairs attaché, I believe?”
That blew his cover.De Luca had done it deliberately.To show he knew George’s identity and to compromise him.But George’s end of the conversation wouldn’t be recorded.When de Luca played it back, George’s words would be static.Another really useful app.
Feeling time pressing, George got straight to the point.“There are eight nuclear weapons that have been uncovered by the earthquake.An Operation Gladio cache.At the moment they are unguarded, or rather guarded by one man and one woman, an historian, an expert on Rome.The man is a former soldier, but he is wounded.They have called it in to the Sixth Fleet and no doubt soldiers are on their way.If you get there first, you can grab eight nuclear weapons.They date back to the 1950s, but they would have been protected.And at any rate the uranium could be used for a dirty bomb.I don’t have to tell you what one nuclear weapon is worth on the open market.”
Silence.
A modern nuke would be worth upward of forty million dollars.Ten million at least for a 1950s weapon.Times eight.Its destructive power would be less, but a nuclear weapon set off in London or Paris or New York would be devastating.An attack for the history books.And nuclear material would go for at least two million dollars per kg.
