Days of Rage (37 page)

A
s we lurched forward, the wheels clapping in rhythm like a metronome, an idiotic hope flashed in my head that maybe he was clinging to the underside of the car, but I knew he had fallen, chewed up under the steel of the train. Just as I knew we had probably lost our ability to find the weapon.

Brett looked at me, his expression conveying the same thought, but we didn’t have any time to mourn Chiclet’s passing. I clambered down the ladder, the fresh air replaced by the foul odor of manure and cattle sweat. I ran to his carry-on and ripped it open, flinging out the few small possessions that were inside. Socks, two shirts, an extra pair of pants, toothbrush and toothpaste. Nothing else.

I unzipped the outside pouch and found a key-card to a hotel called the Sienna. The rest of the bag was empty.

I said, “Call Aaron. Tell him we’re coming out. Have him check the computer and figure out how we get off this train, the sooner the better.”

Brett nodded and began dialing. I called Jennifer. She answered on the first ring.

“You have him?”

“No. He’s dead. Long story. What do you have? Anything?”

“Nothing at all. We’ve made a grid search of the stadium area, but we can’t get very close because we don’t have tickets to the World Cup. So far, Doctor Dolittle here has come up with squat.”

“What about his equipment? I mean, he’s the guy that’s supposed to be able to find nuclear shit.”

“Pike, I don’t know. He’s tried all manner of scientific stuff. Geiger counters, multispectral analyzers, something called a sodium iodide detector, and a bunch of other things that look like they came from
Ghostbusters
. He thinks the weapon is shielded. He’s now saying he might have to be within five feet.”

Brett hung up his phone and pulled my sleeve. I asked Jenn to hold on and gave him my attention.

He said, “Pike, we’ve got about two minutes to get back outside. Aaron says the train’s about to cross a large lake. It should slow down when it does because of the bridge. We don’t get off there and we’re riding this thing for an hour until the next switchyard.”

“Get off? You mean jump? Into the lake?”

“Afraid so.”

“Fucking great.”

I went back to the phone. Jennifer said, “What was that about jumping?”

“Nothing. We’re apparently going to get wet on our way back. When’s kickoff?”

I heard Jennifer bark a small laugh. “I don’t think they call it a ‘kickoff,’ but it’s in two hours.” She paused, then said, “Pike, I’m wondering if we should be keeping this secret. Shouldn’t we call an evacuation?”

“It’ll do no good. We’ll only succeed in creating massive panic. It would probably take over an hour just to get someone important enough to be able to disrupt the game, then another hour before anyone started moving. Very few would make it out of the blast radius in time, and the chaos will hamper our ability to operate. We’re all in on this one.”

She said, “What’s the cutoff? How much time do we have?”

I knew what she was asking. Jennifer wanted to know what
all in
really meant. Were we going to search until it went off, or was I going to order our evacuation via the rock-star bird while we still had time to get out of the blast radius?

Given I didn’t know what time it was set to blow, the cutoff was all a guess anyway. I said, “I haven’t gotten that far yet. Let’s exhaust all options.”

“What options? I’m driving around in circles with a guy waving a wand in the air.”

“I found a key-card to a place called the Sienna Hotel in Chiclet’s bag. That’s the only anchor we have.”

Brett got on the ladder and pointed at his watch. I nodded.

“Look, I gotta go. Brett’s saying they’re announcing my flight. Exploit that room. Maybe the device is in there.”

“Pike, that’s not much of a lead.”

“It’s all we’ve got. We’ll make the call on evac when I get back.”

I disconnected and followed him up the ladder to the roof, retracing our steps to the outside rungs at the back of the car. We crawled down until we were standing in the same spot we’d found to get on this magnificent ride. I felt the train slow and leaned out into the wind like a jumpmaster spotting a release point. I saw the lake ahead, stretching out to the horizon on both sides, an old-fashioned wooden trestle bridge spanning across it. To the right I could see the highway about a hundred meters away, and a vehicle that might or might not be Aaron’s.

I studied the bridge and saw that the damn thing was about thirty feet above the water. And while we’d slowed, we were still moving at a good clip.

I shouted to be heard above the wind. “That’s a pretty steep drop. Aaron’s sure this thing is more than five feet deep?”

Brett leaned out, then came back in and shouted, “Thirty seconds.”

Ignoring my question.

The earth fell away from us and we were racing across the trestle, the water shimmering in the sunlight. Brett looked at me and pointed to himself, then turned without a word. He swung out, still holding on to the rung. I could almost hear him counting in his head.
One . . . two . . . three.

And off he went, hand over his face like he was helocasting for an infiltration off the coast of Panama. I saw him hit the water, a plume of white, then it was my turn.

I hope that lake is deep enough.

I pushed off from the train, then put my feet together and hands over my face, feeling the drop. Just before I hit, I realized it didn’t matter how deep the water was. The odds of finding that nuclear bomb were so minuscule that if the lake was shallow, all I’d be doing is shaving an hour off of my life.

J
ennifer hung up and immediately began tasking her little team. “Shoshana, get online and find a hotel in Curitiba called the Sienna. Get me some directions and vector me in. Doc, we think the weapon is inside a hotel room. I need you to start thinking about rendering it safe. Forget about detection.”

Doctor Nicholas Sharp said nothing, holding the back of the passenger seat Shoshana was sitting in and looking literally like he was going to throw up, his eyes unfocused.

Jennifer said, “Doc, doc, hey! Are you listening?”

He snapped out of his trance and said, “We should get inside the stadium. He probably put it in there. I can’t detect from inside a car. We need to get some tickets.”

Jennifer waved her arm at the crowds flowing to the stadium, the dull roar inside heard even though they were a block a way. She said, “It’s the damn World Cup. It’s like the Super Bowl. Tickets sold out months ago. Did you hear what I said about rendering it safe?”

Shoshana cut in. “I got the hotel. It’s only a few blocks away.”

“Which way?”

“Straight north on Buenos Aires.”

Jennifer began driving, fighting through the people now spilling from the sidewalks to the street, the crowd growing like a thousand tailgate parties at an NFL game, handheld horns blowing and goofy hats worn. All happy to have paid enormous money to travel to the World Cup, a once-every-four-year event, but a lifetime trip to anyone attending. A special occasion that was about to turn horrific.

Getting no response from Doctor Sharp, Jennifer’s lips drew into a grim line and she snapped her fingers in front of the NEST scientist, saying, “Doc, did you hear me?”

He said, “Yes. I don’t know if I can do that. I don’t know enough about the device.”

Jennifer shook her head. “And you’re the best we’ve got? The front line of defense?”

“I’m not a magician!”

Shoshana said, “If it is to be, it is up to me.”

“What?”

“Nothing. It’s just a thing we used to say. It’s up to us. Period.”

Under her breath, Jennifer muttered, “I knew I should have run when Pike asked to start a business.”

Shoshana laughed and said, “Too late now. Take your next left.”

Jennifer turned the wheel and Shoshana said, “There it is.”

“There’s no parking here. It doesn’t have a lot.”

“Park in the street. Let’s check it out.” Jennifer honked the horn, clearing the crowds away from the curb, the stream of people breaking around them like a rock in a river. Shoshana turned around in the seat. “Doc, stay here. Anyone tries to move the car, tell them you’re only parking for a minute. If you’re going to vomit, open the door.”

He nodded, holding a wand attached by a tube to a briefcase, meekly waving it out the open window.

Shoshana exited, saying, “Let me do the talking.”

Jennifer said, “Okay by me.” They went straight to the reception desk, fighting through a rowdy crowd hell-bent on having World Cup fun. One of the men interdicted their path, said something, and slapped Shoshana on her butt. She glared, causing him to fall back and his buddies to start whistling and catcalling. Jennifer followed in the wake, the actions appearing as if from another world. Some other place where happiness still existed.

They made a lewd comment to her as she passed and she gave a sickly smile, knowing they were doomed. Knowing they were all going to die. The man who’d groped Shoshana saw the look and his revelry faltered. He took in the pain, understanding something bad was in the room, but not understanding what it was. He let her pass.

Shoshana reached the reception desk and pulled out two one-hundred Brazilian
real
notes, setting them on the desk. The woman behind the counter eyed the money, then said, “Yes?”

“We’re here for a friend of ours. He’s an African. He checked out today, but he left something in his room. We came to get it back.”

“What’s his name?”

“His name is on the money in front of you.”

She looked from Jennifer to Shoshana, considering. Then she said, “His name wasn’t on either one of those bills. Perhaps it’s on a different one.”

Shoshana placed another one-hundred
real
note on the desk and said, “His fucking name is on that one. Understand?”

The receptionist tapped on the keys and said, “Yes, here he is. Room three thirteen, but he’s not checking out until tomorrow.”

Jennifer saw Shoshana’s expression and knew she believed the same thing.
Jackpot
.

Shoshana said, “Give me a key, please.”

Jennifer pulled out her phone as they went to the elevator. “Doc, get in here. We might be in luck. Room three thirteen.”

Not waiting on him, they raced up the stairs, knocking World Cup tourists out of the way and clanging open the door on the third floor. Shoshana used the key and Jennifer went inside. It was sparse, with a small bathroom and a wooden wardrobe instead of a closet. By the time the Doc had entered, they’d searched it. And come up empty. The room was clean.

Doctor Sharp said, “I think it’s time we evacuated. The game is in thirty minutes. If it
is
something besides a dirty bomb—if it’s a live nuclear weapon with a one kiloton yield—we’ll need all that time to get through the traffic. To get far enough away.”

Jennifer dumped the trash on the bed, sorting through receipts and used Kleenex. He said, “Did anyone hear me? I think at least
I
should go back to my team in the capital. They might need me.”

Jennifer picked up one receipt and studied it, ignoring him. Shoshana said, “What do you have?”

“A rental car contract. Why does Chiclet need to hop a train if he’s got a rental car?”

Shoshana started moving toward the door, saying, “Because it’s being used to hide a bomb.”

T
hey reached the lobby, the drunk guys still there, Shoshana moving back to the reception desk.

A different man approached, saying, “You speak English? You two going to the match?”

Shoshana ignored him, saying to the receptionist, “You don’t have a parking lot here. Where do people park their cars?”

“We don’t get a lot of people with cars.”

“You got one the other day. The man from room three thirteen. Where would you tell him to park?”

She said, “Maybe it’s written down on another bill.”

Shoshana leaned over the counter, grabbed her by the hair, and slammed her ear into the wood. The woman squealed and said, “Across the street! There’s a parking garage across the street. We have an agreement with them.”

The drunk staggered back, his eyes like shiny plates, dropping his bottle of beer. Shoshana released the clerk, who fell against the counter, rubbing her head. The doctor put his hands on his knees and threw up, gushes of bile splattering onto the tile floor.

The World Cup patrons parted like the Red Sea at the bile streaming out, fleeing out the door onto the sidewalk or into the adjacent coffee shop. Jennifer and Shoshana followed them, running by the doctor to the front door. He wiped his mouth and said, “We need to go!”

They ignored him again. Shoshana saw the parking garage and swore. “That thing will have a million cars. We don’t have time to find a needle in a haystack like that.”

The building was five stories tall and appeared to be serviced by the entire city, with everyone at the World Cup event two blocks away using it. Jennifer knew it would house at least five hundred vehicles, maybe more if the roof was used to store cars as well. For the first time, she thought about fleeing.

We aren’t going to succeed.

She said, “Shoshana, I think we’ve reached the point of no return. I think it’s time to go.”

Shoshana turned from the garage and said, “I didn’t expect that from you.”

“Shoshana, we need to look at this realistically. We’d need to find
and
disarm the weapon in less than thirty minutes, and all we have is a license plate.”

Doctor Sharp said, “Yes, yes. Listen to her.”

Shoshana bored into him with her eyes and he wilted back, hiding behind Jennifer, pretending to adjust his equipment. She said, “Jennifer, I know you don’t understand, but this is just like Munich. The bomb is here to wipe out our national football team, all because we’re Jewish. We haven’t made the World Cup since 1970. Our entire country is watching this match, and they’re going to kill them on live television. Just like the Munich Olympics.”

She turned away and said, “I can’t let that happen. If they go, I go with them.”

Jennifer heard the dull roar of the stadium. A crowd of thirty thousand civilians from Israel and the United States, all traveling across continents to see their teams play. A man and woman passed to her front wearing the colors of Israel, laughing and joking. On the man’s shoulders was a small child of five or six, blond hair flowing behind her, matching the color of her mother’s. Giggling and bouncing up and down, she knew nothing of war or death. Jennifer saw the mother take the father’s hand and grin. A blindly joyous expression that was about to be forever obliterated.

She said, “Go start on the bottom floor. I’ll be in shortly.”

Shoshana broke into a wolf smile, her teeth bared but showing no joy. She jogged across the street. Doctor Sharp’s face went pale.

Jennifer started walking toward their car, pulling out her phone. Brett answered on the fourth ring, saying, “You found it?”

“No, I need to know if you packed a MLPR in the go case.” She pronounced it
milper
.

He said, “As a matter of fact, I did. Why?”

“Not enough time to explain. We’re in the parking garage across the street from Sienna. What’s your ETA?”

“I’m not with Pike. I’m at the rock-star bird. We’re prepping to get out of here. He’s on his way to you. He didn’t call?”

She said, “No,” and her phone beeped with call-waiting. “He’s ringing now. Gotta go.”

She jumbled through the buttons, then Pike’s voice came on. “Jennifer, I’m initiating an abort. Time’s up. Move to the airport. Brett’s getting ready for exfil.”

Opening the trunk of her vehicle, she said, “I can’t. Shoshana’s staying. I’m staying.”

“What do you mean, you can’t? Damn it, as your team leader, I’m
ordering
you to leave. Fuck Shoshana. If she wants to stay, so be it.”

Jennifer hung up without another word, then began rooting through the Pelican case that Brett had packed. She said, “Come here, Doc.”

When he did, she said, “Mount this camera to the front windshield on the right side. Aim it toward the right at license-plate level, then run the cable through the window.”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Do it
.
”

Her tone took him aback. Her expression scared him. He picked up the small wide-angle lens and used the suction cup to affix it to the windshield, saying, “What is this?”

Now in the front seat messing with a small laptop, Jennifer said, “Mobile license-plate reader. It’s used by the police to find criminals, but we use it to track terrorists. It’ll scan every plate just driving by. When his registers, we stop.”

He muttered, “You mean
if
it registers.”

She ignored that and said, “Get in.”

She goosed the gas pedal and bolted across the road, causing the flow of people to jump out of the way, two men from the crowd slapping her hood as she went by. She ignored them. She pulled up to an automated machine with a drop bar and purchased a ticket. She saw Shoshana and whistled. When the Israeli entered the car, Jennifer said, “That laptop is going to recognize every license plate we drive by. I’ve programmed in Chiclet’s. If it’s here, we’ll know shortly.”

She goosed the pedal and they went up the garage, much faster than was safe, causing spectators for the Cup to dodge out of the way. In back, Doc started moaning. They reached the fourth level and he said, “It’s not here. It’s not here. Please, for the love of God, we need to leave.”

Grim-faced, Jennifer continued on, breaking out onto the upper deck of the roof, the sunlight blinding them. Shoshana said, “Nothing. No signature.”

Jennifer whipped around in a U-turn, the camera now aimed on the opposite row of cars, then began going back the way they’d come.

The MLPR blared an alarm on the third floor.