CHAPTER 43

“Nine‑ one‑ one, this call is recorded, what’s your emergency? ”

Wherever they were going, the ride was awfully rough. Danny was holding on tight to a cargo strap near the open door at the rear of the moving truck, the only place in the metal compartment with a signal solid enough to make a call on Kearns’s satellite phone.

“My name is Danny Bailey, I’m out in the desert somewhere northwest of Las Vegas, and I’m with FBI Special Agent Stuart Kearns. I’m in the back of a truck that’s on the move, and this truck belongs to a terrorist organization that might have their hands on a nuclear weapon. ”

“What’s your location, sir? ”

“Listen, I know what you people can do. You already know where I am better than I do, you know whose phone I’m calling from, you know the route I’m on, and in about ten seconds you’ll be sure who I am because you’ll have verified my voiceprint, so stop wasting my time. ”

Some odd noise broke onto the line for a time; not interference, but a series of electronic clicks, tones, and dropouts.

“Okay, good deal, is everybody on now? Everybody listening? This is about an operation code‑ named Exigent. Did you get that? Exigent. So now you know who I am, who I’m with, why I’m here, and where to send the cavalry, and you’d by‑ God better know this is real. Just follow this signal down and get here, understand? ”

He left the phone switched on and placed it in a niche on the bed of the cargo compartment.

Kearns was near the front wall, kneeling next to the tarp‑ wrapped bundle they’d both seen earlier, before the shooting had started.

It was a body, of course, and the face of the dead man had been uncovered. When Kearns turned to look at him, Danny didn’t have to ask who it was that was lying there. He’d already known who it would be.

Agent Kearns had said that after these last few years of working this operation undercover‑ all the while doing his best to appear to be a raving militant agitator who’d turned against his government and was openly calling for a violent revolution‑ he really had only one remaining contact in the FBI. His frightening online persona was well‑ known to tens of thousands of fringe‑ group wackos and law enforcement personnel alike, but only one person alive could have credibly testified that Stuart Kearns was actually a loyal American doing his duty to protect and defend the United States. And here was that person, dead.

“Did you call 911? ” Kearns asked.

“Yeah, I did. And now they’ll either come or they won’t. ”

“What do you mean by that? ”

Danny touched the metal gantry next to him, the frame that held the thing that at first glance he’d thought might be a torpedo. “Take a look at this thing with me, and tell me what you think. ”

As Kearns moved to stand, he winced and leaned his head back against the corrugated wall of the compartment. Below the knee his right pants leg was stained with blood.

“Are you okay? ”

“I’ll be fine. Just help me up. ”

They stood on either side of the framework, bracing themselves on its crossbars as the truck moved over the rough road they were traveling.

“This looks like an old Mark 8 atomic bomb, ” Kearns said, “from the early 1950s. ” He pulled the light down closer and ran his hands over the surface, stopping at a series of seals and stickers that carried dates and the initials of inspectors. “It’s been maintained all these years. ”

“So this is a live one, then? ”

“Sure looks that way to me. ” A line of heavy metal conduit ran from the rear of the thing and Kearns followed it with a finger, pointing. The tubing went across the floor and through the wall to the driver’s compartment. “And it looks like they’ve jury‑ rigged it to be set off from the front seat. ”

“So your guy over there on the floor: he brought them this one, and you brought yours. You both got managed so you didn’t know what the other was doing, and we all got set up at once. ”

“But why, ” Kearns said. He wasn’t really asking; he was thinking it through.

“It’s like I told you before. Whoever’s behind this needed a patsy for a false‑ flag domestic attack, Stuart, and that’s you. And they needed to make my people the enemy, and that’s why I’m here. ”

“Based on your file, they could have had you picked up anytime they wanted, but they picked you up Friday night, to make you a part of this. And me, they’ve just kept me in cold storage‑ ”

“Waiting for the right time, when they needed a couple of fall guys, ” Danny said. “The crazy Internet conspiracy theorist who incited these thugs into violence, and the lone nut ex‑ FBI man who helped them pull it off. ”

“Well, whoever’s behind this, we’ve screwed up their plans for now. ”

“But not for too much longer. This guy’s driving somewhere like he means to get where he’s going, but if he calms down long enough to stop and come back here to check his load, we’re toast. We’re unarmed, and he’ll just stand back and shoot us like fish in a barrel. Then he’ll go on to Vegas tonight and do what he’s going to do. We can’t wait for him to do that. ”

Kearns looked up at him. “So what do we do? ”

The truck slowed briefly, made a turn onto what felt like a much smoother roadway, and then began to pick up speed again.

“I’ve got an idea, ” Danny said, “but I don’t know if you’ll like it. ”

He walked toward the tailgate, where the package they’d brought was strapped against the side of the compartment, and motioned for his partner to follow. When Kearns had sat and situated his injured leg, Danny crouched down and pulled off the tarp that was covering the device. He peeled off the keys that were taped near the arming panel and handed them to Kearns.

If one of these bombs was real, then it stood to reason that they both were real. And there was really only one way to find out.

“Here we go, ” Kearns said.

He inserted the two keys into the control panel, twisted them a quarter‑ turn, and pressed the button labeled ARM. The line of yellow bulbs illuminated, winked to green one by one as the soft whine from the charging electronics ascended up the scale.

Once the device had gotten its bearings, it was simple enough to reset the final destination on the touchscreen of the GPS detonator. It wasn’t an address they selected, of course, just an empty point on the deserted road they were traveling, a little less than three miles ahead and counting down.

The older man lit up a cigarette, and he shook another one up from the pack and offered it across.

“Nah, I told you, ” Danny said. “I quit five years ago. ”

“Aw, come on. Special occasion. ”

“I took an oath to an old friend, Stuart, and if you met this woman, you’d know why I can’t break it. ”

“When you put it that way, I guess I see what you mean. ” Kearns winced and straightened his leg, leaned his head back against the corrugated wall of the compartment, eyes closed.

“Hey, ” Danny said, and he waited until his partner looked over. “The other night when you were telling me about your career with the FBI, you said that after all they’d put you through, you wondered sometimes why you stuck it out. ”

“Yeah. ”

“This is why, man. Tonight is why you stayed on. What was it they had you say, when you put your hand on the Bible and they swore you in? ”

“It’s been so long, let’s see if I even remember…‘I do solemnly swear, ’” Kearns said quietly, “ ‘that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same. ’”

“Damn right. ”

“And how about you? ”

“Me? Oh, this is the perfect way for me to go out, really. The more I think about it, the more I realize I must have outstayed my welcome in my own movement. I take that back; it’s not even mine anymore. If guys like these can agree with anything I say, then I’ve been saying something wrong. And you know what, Stuart? A long time ago I pledged my life, my fortune, and my sacred honor to this country, and now I get to give all three of them at once. ”

Kearns took a last drag and stubbed out his smoke on the metal floor. “Does it matter that nobody will ever know what we did out here? ”

“Oh, somebody’ll figure it out. Somebody like me. Not that anybody else will ever believe them. ”

The device next to them issued a loud tone. A bright red light illuminated on the panel, under the word Proximity.

“Nice working with you, kid, ” Kearns said.

He reached out a hand and Danny Bailey took it in a firm clasp of solidarity, and just a moment later, they were gone.

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