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Chkalov forced an unconvincingly subservient smile. “I wouldn’t presume to suggest anything, Mr. President. I was merely pointing out that you
r attempt to divert blame to ISIS and other similar groups may be at risk.”
“The Americans are terrified of the Muslims and blinded to all other risks by that fear. They’ll believe that their mainland is under a nuclear threat and will pull back to defend themselves. By the time they realize the truth, it’ll be too late.”
“They would say ’circling the wagons,’ ” the old man said. He was fond of flaunting his mastery of English. “I agree with regard to the American politicians. They both fear the Muslim threat and need it to keep their electorate motivated. Kennedy and Rapp, though, are different. They’re not afraid and they don’t have to worry about elections. Further, they’re as knowledgeable as anyone alive about the groups you are trying to use to blind them. More knowledgeable than even you, perhaps.”
“You overestimate them, Tarben. Kennedy is hemmed in by the increasing dysfunction of the American government and Rapp is nothing more than an assassin. Gifted in that realm admittedly, but hardly sophisticated enough to understand the forces at work here.”
Chkalov just nodded.
CHAPTER 23
SOUTHWESTERN VIRGINIA
U.S.A.
THE dull ring of a knock on the steel door echoed off the walls. Rapp sat up on his cot, looking through the semidarkness at the rusting pipes and crumbling ceiling. During the height of the Cold War, this is where the ICBM missile crews bunked. Now the room was little more than a relic of a largely forgotten conflict.
The only illumination was coming from a single battery-powered light on the floor. There was no functioning power in the room, and the lack of electric heat gave it the feel of a meat locker. Despite that, Maslick was snoring loudly in the top bunk, the fog of his breath rising rhythmically into the still air. For now, his role in this was over. He’d focus on recovery until he was needed again.
The knock came again, this time followed by the sound of the door scraping open.
“Mitch?” Craig Bailer’s voice. But more subdued than normal. “Are you awake?”
“Yeah,” Rapp said, sliding off the edge of his bunk. “What time is it?”
“Four in the morning,” Bailer said, motioning Rapp down a corridor fashioned from a concrete pipe twenty feet in diameter.
“Have you found anything?”
“After we made sure it was safe, we gave the forensics guys priority. They wanted prints, DNA, fibers, and God knows what else before my people contaminated it any more than it already has been. When they were done, we started with X-rays, MRI, and metallurgy.”
It was hard not to notice that Bailer was avoiding his question. “And?”
“Well, it’s definitely safe,” he said in an enigmatic tone. “We’re most of the way through the teardown—getting pictures and working on a virtual 3-D model.”
They came out of the pipe and arrived at a set of titanium blast doors that were part of the fifty million dollars in modifications the CIA had made. He pressed his palm against a pad set into the wall and the doors slid open to reveal a world of bright fluorescent light, stainless steel, and glass. No fewer than twenty people were milling around what had once been one of Pakistan’s most advanced nuclear weapons. Now it was nothing more than endless rows of individual parts laid out on a stark white floor.
“I hope you know how to put that thing back together,” Rapp said as the doors slid closed behind them.
“No worries. I took pictures with my cell phone.”
Rapp had always found watching Bailer in his element to be a bit surreal. Despite looking like a truck driver, it was abundantly clear that he was the smartest guy in the room. Gray-haired men in lab coats approached him with clipboards to sign, deferential nods were aimed in his direction, and numerous people vied for his attention to get approvals, ask questions, and have their work checked over. Rapp didn’t bother to pay attention to any of it. Computer screens full of complex diagrams and math equations were well outside his operating theater. Which was exactly the reason they went to such lengths to keep Bailer happy.
“What aren’t you telling me, Craig? The thing’s not going to blow up, right?”
“Definitely not.”
Bailer motioned him onto a platform that ran across the back wall. The people working on the computer terminals there suddenly found reasons they needed to be somewhere else, increasing Rapp’s apprehension. They knew who he was and didn’t want to be around when he got the news.
“How bad is it?” Rapp said as Bailer brought up a false-color image of the nuke on a monitor.
“Pretty bad, Mitch. We stitched this together out of the scans we made. “Metal shows blue, plastics and carbon fiber are black. Radioactivity comes up red.”
“What do you mean? There is no red.”
“Exactly.”