“A fairy tale, Mr. Gaznavi. What chance is there that over ten years, as little as a firecracker would go undetonated in the Middle East?”
“Please call me Prabhakar,” Gaznavi said, tearing into his cinnamon roll. “Now tell me this, Nick: You make it sound impossible to obtain a Russian nuclear weapon. So how’d you obtain one?”
“A little while back, a Moscow military insider sold me AK-seventy-four bullets from the Ukrainian stockpiles for ten cents each. He put them on the books as ‘vended to a private party at eight cents apiece’ and pocketed the difference, which added up to a hundred million rubles. Then he tried to buy himself a summer place in Yevpatoriya and found that, real estate exploding like everything else there, a hundred-million rubles could no longer buy much more than a peasant’s izba.”
“So he started thinking bigger than bullets,” Gaznavi said through a mouthful.
“Exactly. The trouble with nukes is there are extensive records for each one, including serial numbers for even the most insignificant screw, plus the Russians keep Bible-length logbooks. We made every last bookkeeper wealthy enough to afford a seaside home in Yevpatoriya. As a result, a two-hundred-kilo crate of artillery shells at the storage facility in-Dombarovskiy, let’s say-now has the curriculum vitae of a uranium implosion Aftscharka Model ADM. And I have a two-hundred kilo crate that really contains the Aftscharka.”
“An awful lot of work.”
“If only being a bum-kneed, middle-aged surfer paid as well.”
“So what is the number that you have in mind?” Gaznavi asked. He appeared more interested in the handle of his teaspoon.
Fielding wasn’t fooled. Not only was Gaznavi’s sentence clumsy, it was also the first in which he’d passed up the opportunity to contract verbs, indicating that he’d scripted and rehearsed the line in his head, maybe even in front of his mirror this morning.
“Nothing,” Fielding said. “It’s free-if you invest just ninety million dollars in the treasure hunt.”
“I am interested,” Gaznavi said.
Despite the dispassion-again Gaznavi’s delivery was as flat as the pool-Fielding heard the words as a song, in large part because Gaznavi ate the remainder of his cinnamon roll in one gulp, then helped himself to another.
All that remained was the inspection. Gaznavi had brought along a crack nuclear physicist, who was currently in the arcade, wowing the staff with his PlayStation prowess. Fielding was about to suggest they fly right now to the bomb’s hiding spot, when Alberto set a latte before him, a signal-Fielding never drank any sort of coffee.
Fielding decoded the message on the accompanying napkin, two sentences penciled in tiny letters on the border. He told Gaznavi, “I can take you to the Aftscharka but not until tomorrow morning.”
Gaznavi’s brow fell in such a way that there was no mistaking his disappointment. “The more minutes I spend here, the greater the chance of actionable intelligence that can be used against the ULFP.”
“Not to mention against good old Trader Nick,” Fielding added. His much greater concern was that Gaznavi’s feet would get cold.
“You must have one hot date,” Gaznavi said.
The devout Muslim would regret his words a short while later, when one of Fielding’s assistants revealed to him that the delay was due to the death of Norman Korey, who’d been a father figure to Fielding.
Korey was a beloved husband, father of four, grandfather of eleven, championship Little League coach, and a district vice president of the Benevolent and Protective Order of the Elks. He had succumbed to pneumonia at eighty-eight. His funeral service would fill the First Baptist Church in Waynesboro, Virginia.
Fielding had never heard of him. The news of the funeral resulted from the assistant’s search of today’s Virginia area services that were crowded enough that Fielding could lose Gaznavi’s people and anyone else keeping tabs on him.
His actual engagement was forty miles away, in Monroeville.
16
Although he had a Pilates physique and the latest scruffy-chic haircut, the waiter’s frilly blouse and loose- fitting knickers gave him the appearance of having just stepped out of the eighteenth century. He led two men in contemporary business attire into the tea parlor and over to Isadora’s table. With a start, Charlie recognized the pair as the too-jolly gunman and the pale driver last seen at the intersection of Fillmore and Utica in Brooklyn.
“Officers Cadaret and Mortimer of the Defense Intelligence Agency,” the waiter said by way of introduction.
“Glad to meet you,” Drummond said cheerfully.
So much, Charlie thought, for his hope that the recollection of the day Isadora left had triggered Drummond into battle readiness.
“We’ve met, actually,” Charlie told the waiter. He locked plaintive eyes with Isadora on the remote chance of stirring her maternal instincts-if she had any. “If you hand us off to these guys, Mom, you’ll be discontinuing our existence.”
“It’s not like that at all,” she said.
“They’ve already shot at us, like, fifty times.”
“In an effort to halt a ten-thousand-pound stolen truck. I’m aware of all of it. They just need to find out what you know.”
“If I knew anything, why the hell would I have come here?”
“I’ve been assured that if you answer their questions, you’ll be let go.”
“Where? To the target end of the shooting range?”
The waiter interrupted with a pointed clearing of his throat. From his breeches he produced a distinctly modern pistol. With it he directed Charlie and Drummond out of the tea parlor and into a wide, white marble hallway. And what choice was there but to proceed? Mortimer and Cadaret fell in behind, and Isadora brought up the rear.
Just down the hall, the party came upon a taproom, which, if not for electric bulbs in the sconces and modern contraptions behind the bar, could be a London public house circa the Crimean War. A smattering of patrons ate and drank in secluded mahogany booths and at a pewter-topped bar. Of course no one blinked at the pistol pointed at Charlie and Drummond, not even the helicopter pilot or the paramedics.
Hungrily eyeing the servings of bangers and mash set before that trio, Drummond asked, “Are we having lunch here?”
“We’ll be continuing down the hall,” the waiter said.
Charlie proceeded with the feeling that his legs were sinking into the floor-the same heaviness felt in nightmares when there’s no choice but to face the horror ahead.
The hallway terminated at a fifty-foot-long ramp covered in Persian carpet. The group descended, coming into a narrow corridor with the antiseptic scent and fluorescent colorlessness of a hospital.
“First room on the left,” the waiter said.
The brass plaque beside the doorway was engraved CONFERENCE ROOM. Through the open door, Charlie took in a spartan table and chairs, bare brick walls, and a rubber flooring possibly chosen for the ease with which blood could be wiped off.
The entrance to the conference room was blocked, briefly, by a man in surgical garb, wheeling an instrument cart. He pushed through the swinging, steel-plated door directly across the corridor, revealing a full-sized operating room with a multitude of beeping monitors and machines. Seven members of a surgical team hovered around the operating table. On it lay the man who’d been carried off the helicopter, now apparently under general anesthesia.
The scene momentarily captured the attention of everyone in the corridor.
Except Drummond. He shot a hand into his half-opened fly, withdrew the rock he’d been fidgeting with on the terrace, and threw a fastball. It struck Cadaret in the jaw with a crack that caused everyone but the patient to jump.
While the others reeled, Charlie realized, with a rush of euphoria, that Drummond was on.
Cadaret collapsed, banging the operating room door inward. Drummond pounced on him, pried the gun from
