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“It’s not a bottle of nitro, Mas. Do you have any idea how many intricate reactions it takes to set one of these things off?”
“No.”
Bailer grinned. “Me neither. But I figure it’s got to be more than two.”
Rapp gave a subtle nod and Maslick rolled the weapon out the door. It hit the bed of the truck with an earsplitting clang, nearly bottoming out the shocks.
“Hop in the back, Mas. There’s not enough room for all three of us in the cab.
Maslick jumped in, his two-hundred-twenty-pound frame pushing the chassis the rest of the way down. “Anything in that cooler?”
“Would I leave you hanging?” Bailer said, sliding behind the wheel.
Rapp opened the passenger door and picked up a stick of dynamite lying in the seat. Bailer grabbed it and tossed it into the back. “I was doing a little fishing last weekend. So how’s the Charger?”
“Stereo sounds like shit,” Rapp said as they accelerated up the tarmac.
“Yeah, I had to take out the main speakers to make room for the Kevlar. They’ve got some thinner stuff now and I’ve got a great sound guy I work with. You should bring it by.”
Maslick banged on the top of the cab with a beer can and Bailer held a hand through his open window to take it. “You want one, Mitch?”
“No.”
He popped it open and took a healthy slug as the vehicle bounced across a grassy field. With the shocks already at their limit, the nuke was making quite a racket bouncing off the sides of the truck’s bed, but Rapp didn’t worry
about it. If Craig Bailer said it wasn’t a problem, it wasn’t a problem.
They finally skidded to a stop in an unremarkable part of the field and Bailer pointed to the visor above the passenger seat. “Could you hit that garage door opener, Mitch?”
He did and a moment later they were descending on a massive elevator platform once used to move intercontinental ballistic missiles.
“So are you looking for anything special, man? Or do you just want to know if the Pakistanis can detonate the thing without blowing their dicks off?”
“Irene wants a rundown of the technology and power,” Rapp said.
“What about you?”
“Someone tried to steal it. I want to know who.”
“No problem. I’ll bring in some of the forensics guys I work with. Anything else?”
“No,” Rapp said, watching the gray concrete walls slip slowly by.
“You all right, man?”
“Yeah.”
“You sure? Because it’s a beautiful night and we have a cooler full of beer and a stolen A-bomb. It don’t get any better than that.”
CHAPTER 22
NORTH OF ISLAMABAD
PAKISTAN
GRISHA Azarov pulled his hat down his forehead and tilted his face into the upturned collar on his jacket. The sun was gone but the heat was still hovering at thirty-eight degrees Celsius, making his choice of clothing both uncomfortable and likely to attract attention. Fortunately, the private airstrip was all but abandoned at this time of night.
He jogged up the steps of his company’s Bombardier Challenger 650, heading for the back as the pilot closed the door. The interior had been redesigned to his specifications, reducing the number of seats and adding a sofa long enough to sleep on without causing stiffness. He entered the expanded bathroom and closed the door, leaning over the sink and staring into the mirror.