“Jennifer, you sure you’re good going by yourself?”
“Yeah, Pike. I told you I could. Why do you keep questioning me?”
I handed her a radio that looked like an ordinary Garmin Rhino. Instead of the pathetic distance the Rhino achieved on its family radio frequency, though, these would work over much greater range.
“You see the blip on your screen? That’s me. I can see you on my screen. If you find the terrorist, I want you to simply press the alert button. I’ll get an alarm, and haul ass straight at you. Okay?”
She nodded once.
“All right. You take the shorter trail on the right. I’ll take the one on the left. When you reach the point where the trail begins to curve back south, mark it on the Rhino and continue north. If we don’t find them on the trail, they’re in the woods. Keep going until you bump into the nuke plant, then loop back to the trail. We’ll cloverleaf back and forth until we find them.”
She started to move to the trail, when I caught her arm.
“Jennifer, when you leave the trail and the people, you pull that Glock out and have it at the ready. If you alert, I’ll close in as fast as I can, but you need to be prepared to shoot, and shoot first. These guys are not going to fuck around.”
She tucked the Glock into the waistband of her jeans, hiding the butt with her shirt to prevent other hikers from seeing it.
She said, “Pike, I’ll be able to kill what I need to kill.”
She pulled away and entered the trail network.
77
Rafik helped Keshawn line up the final two EFPs, keeping them separated by a great enough distance so the explosion of one wouldn’t destroy the aim of the other. All four were targeted at the base of the nearest reactor dome, the hope being that the third or fourth would penetrate and damage some critical component.
Their primary problem was that there were only two of them, and only two M57 firing devices. Thus, there would be a volley of two EFPs, with a significant gap. They would need to fire the first volley, then prepare the blasting caps and connect the M57s to the second set. It would take time, and Rafik was worried about the possible response of the facility. He had been unable to find information on United States nuclear security on the Web, and imagined it was something robust and incredibly responsive.
He finished aiming and moved back to his original EFP, picking up the M57 clacker in his hand. Unspooling the wire, his actions were mirrored by Keshawn. They entered the small stand of woods on top of the ridge and placed their backs against a tree. Rafik held his hands out from his body, the clacker clasped between them. He looked over at Keshawn and could see a bead of sweat rolling down his face as the man tested the circuit of the detonation system.
Rafik squeezed his eyes for a split second, his hands shaking slightly, and gave a silent prayer for success. When he opened them again, he steeled himself, testing the spring tension of the clacker. His face grim, he looked one more time at his partner. Keshawn gave him a thumbs-up.
They locked eyes, then nodded together in a simple rhythm. Once… twice… then Rafik saw movement over Keshawn’s shoulder. He dropped the clacker and stood, Keshawn whirling around.
He heard Keshawn say, “Stop right there,” then “What the fuck else can go wrong?”
He ran over and saw Keshawn aiming his pistol at an attractive woman and a small boy of about eight.
The woman said, “We’re lost. We don’t mean any trouble. We saw the signs saying no trespassing and were just looking for help.”
Keshawn said, “What do you want to do?”
“I’ll handle it.”
He took Keshawn’s pistol and aimed it at the pair, motioning for them to begin walking back the way they had come. The woman began to cry.
“Be quiet. Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
The woman nodded her head, holding the small boy’s hands.
Rafik considered his problem. He couldn’t use the gun, because the noise might alert whatever magical security the nuclear plant possessed. He would have to use a knife, which meant he would need to tie them up to prevent one from running while he killed the other. He pulled out a length of rope from his pack and cut it into quarters two feet long.
He turned to Keshawn. “Give me five minutes, then initiate. I’ll be back to help with the second two.”
He pushed the female forward, forcing her and the boy back down the trail.
78
Keshawn watched until the group was lost in the foliage. He pulled his M57 over to the tree Rafik had used for cover, unspooling additional wire to make it reach. Sitting down with his back against the trunk, he consciously avoided looking at his watch, feeling the seconds crawl by.
He thought he heard movement in the woods, away from the direction Rafik had gone. He strained to pick up something besides the birds chirping. He heard nothing else, but the phantom noise put him on edge. Rafik had taken his pistol, leaving him feeling exposed should he be discovered. He glanced at his watch against his will and was aggravated to discover that only two minutes had elapsed.
He picked up both clackers, one in each hand, testing if he could fire them simultaneously. He found the spring tension to be too strong. He might be able to do one, but both together was asking for a mistake. He looked out into the valley, in the direction the two EFPs were aimed, and decided to fire his first. He glanced at his watch again, taking in the molasses drip of the seconds as they went past three minutes and thirty seconds. He made up his mind.
Picking up his clacker, he pressed himself against the tree, exhaled, and rapidly began to squeeze. Between the second and third stroke, the air around him cracked like a living thing, spiking into his ears, the pressure wave from the explosive charge slapping the tree he was hiding behind. Without even turning to survey the damage, he grabbed Rafik’s clacker and began to squeeze.
After the second blast, Keshawn rolled out from behind the tree to survey the damage. Running through the dust cloud raised by the EFPs, he scanned the dome the weapons had been directed against. He saw nothing. He began a methodical search, and caught a darkness near the base, about a third of the way up. He ran to Rafik’s pack and ripped through it until he found a mini eight-power monocular. He trained it on the small stain spread against the whiteness of the concrete, bringing the scope into focus. The stain crystallized into two fractures about five feet apart, with a spiderweb of cracks flowing out in myriad different directions, connecting the two together.
His face split into a grin, then he remembered what he had just struck. He swept the monocular around the compound, looking for a response. He saw none.
He ran to the next EFP and wired the blasting cap onto the clacker, then tried to insert it into the well of the third weapon, his hands shaking so much he had trouble getting it seated.
He managed to arm the EFP after the third attempt. He grabbed Rafik’s clacker and ran to prepare the fourth and final EFP. He began to wire the blasting cap to it, when he heard a crashing in the woods, from the same direction as before. Away from the direction Rafik had gone.
