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Palmer said, “What’s your point?”

Kerry turned away from Palmer and faced President Hannister, saying, “My point is we can’t do this in secret. It has second- and third-order effects that we can’t control. If Iran did this, we need to publicly say so, then publicly state the repercussions before it’s too late. Let them publicly say it’s not them, and then, when the spacecraft crashes—either into the space station or here on earth—we have something to stand on. Because make no mistake, that disaster is most definitely going to be public. There’s no hiding it.”

President Hannister said, “I know, and I agree. I was just hoping to do this without all the political bullshit that comes with a public statement. It puts Iran’s back to the wall and stiffens their will to stand by their story. If we can do it back-channel, that’s the way I want to proceed. I understand there is a time limit.”

He turned to the NASA engineer and said, “How much longer do we have?”

Looking like he wanted to be anywhere but in that room, the engineer said, “We have about five hours before they leave orbit and attempt to dock with the space station. We need to execute the abort before that time. After that, they’ll most likely die with the abort, and we might not be able to spare the space station.”

“Why is that?”

“Sir, it’s too complicated to explain, but basically, if we abort while in orbit, we stand a chance of them coming home. Once they’ve left orbit on the preprogrammed trajectory to the space station, we assess about a fivepercent chance of success, and a fiftypercent chance of collision with the space station, because the Valkyrie capsule will be executing its last known orders, and I’m not sure Auriga can override those systems with the assets in place.”

Hannister said, “Five hours. That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

George Wolffe heard the words and thought,Come on, Pike. This is cutting it close even for you.

Chapter60

The rain hadn’t let up throughout the night, and now at six in the morning, it had turned into a slow drizzle that was absolutely miserable. Although it kept the tourists away, which worked in our favor.

We’d left Plitvice LakesNational Park right after midnight, lugging the treasure back up the stairs in the rain, which had been a hell of a lot harder to do than I’d thought it would be. The stairs were slicker than whale snot, and narrower than the box itself, causing us to have to hoist it in the air over the railing as we went. It had most certainly been easier carrying down my little Easter egg we left in lieu of the treasure. Eventually we’d made it back to our vehicle and had loaded up, calling Jennifer for our next location.

I’d tasked her and Veep to find a place for us to bed down and conduct planning, then find a site to conduct the transfer if that came to fruition.

What I wanted was a public place, but not in a downtown city, because I wanted to stage an overwatch element for protection. It sounded like an impossible task, but she’d found a location that not only had a hotel—more like a rustic farmhouse—but also facilitated both the security of the transfer site and the transfer itself.

Called Rastoke, it was a quaint little village situated at the juncture of the Korana and Slunjcica Rivers about thirty minutesnorth of the park. The water from the rivers split up around the site, forming waterfalls and little streams all over the place, which segregated one area from another. Only about ten acres, it had four distinct pieces of land connected by small wooden bridges, and was wooded, with old water mills and other ethnographic displays scattered about, surrounded on all sides by rushing water. The best part was they had a café and hotel—although calling the place where we stayed a hotel was stretching it a bit. The site catered to tourists, but reminded me of the old roadside attractions in the United States back in the day, where one could see Indian bones, a snake farm, Egyptian mummies, or the largest ball of mud.

It was perfect for us, and with the rain, even better, as the few tourists who’d stayed at the hotel and were up this early were all in the café drinking coffee instead of roaming about through the grass to see the sunrise over the various waterfall lookouts.

Jennifer looked at her watch and said, “They’re late. We’re going to look a little weird standing out here in the rain for an hour.”

I said, “Yeah, you’re probably right.” I glanced behind me, seeing a shed labeled “Point 11,” and motioned to it, saying, “I told him to come to eleven, so I guess hiding inside isn’t really off the instructions.”

While we’d found the treasure, nobody was sure our little iPad trick would do anything, least of all me. I was sure they wanted it, but if they waited a day or two to come get it, it would do us no good because the space capsule would have already turned into ash, either against the side of the space station, or in earth’s atmosphere.

Late last night I’d set up a roster to monitor the phone, not wanting to risk trusting the ringer waking me up, and before I could even start the first shift, at 2a.m.,it had rung.

We’d jumped at the noise, and then I’d recognized that it was the Taskforce by the ringtone. I’d answered, gone encrypted, and given Wolffe a rundown of what I was doing. He was incredulous at the plan, but never once asked about the stand-down order he’d sent. I’d hurriedly gotten him off the phone so as not to miss our call, and no sooner had I hung up than it rang again.

It was the Afghans. And boy, were they pissed. I’d introduced myself, saying I didn’t want the treasure, but that Branko was near and dear to my heart. The man who’d dialed was called Shakor, and I didn’t tell him why I wanted Branko, letting him think whatever he wanted. He’d ranted for a bit, threatening to kill Branko while I listened and other stupid shit involving him cutting off my head, but none of that mattered, because I had the treasure.

I interrupted him, saying, “You’re from the Badr 313 Battalion, aren’t you?”

That caused a pause in the conversation. He said, “Who are you?”

“I’m the guy who used to slaughter your asses. You killed a friend of mine in Tajikistan, and I’m trying mightily not to let that interfere with my mission. If you want this treasure, you need to listen to what I say, because I’m sick of hearing your shit.”

He started ranting about killing me again, and I hung up the phone.

Knuckles said, “What happened?”

“He was pissing me off.”

Incredulous, Jennifer said, “You hung up on him?”