stuff. The analysts warned about this — I know the man who put the estimate together. Very reliable. I have an inquiry into NSA to see what intercepts may link with this.”
Thomas’s hair poked out at odd angles, and his eyes nearly bulged from his head. As much as Corrigan wanted to believe that the analyst had solved the problem, the portrait he saw before him did not inspire confidence.
“Take me back to the beginning,” he told Thomas.
Thomas explained what he had found a second time. Even laid out in a semilogical manner the shadows and glimpses of trucks near but on the base sounded less than definitive. Corrigan brought up a sat picture of the abandoned base on one of the computers.
“Where exactly would they do the work?” he asked. “The Russians dismantled the hangars they had there in the eighties. These buildings — are they big enough?”
“That is a problem,” said Thomas. “I don’t know.”
Corrigan frowned. “What do they do with the bomb once they put it together?”
Thomas shrugged again. “I haven’t figured it out yet. But it would be a perfect site. It hasn’t been under Russian control for the past five or six years, exactly when the head of Allah’s Fist disappeared.”
“That’s all you have? No intercepts there, no nothing?”
“Not yet.” Thomas peered over Corrigan’s shoulder. Maybe the Russians had burrowed into the side of the mountain, putting the planes in a nukeproof shelter. Or maybe there was a ramp elevator along one of the aprons.
Now if it had been an alien base, the transnuclear engines would allow it to slide through a fissure in the mountains without detection.
Probably he could rule that out.
“Maybe you should get some sleep while we work this over,” said Corrigan. “I’ll put in a request to NRO for every scrap of satellite data they have.”
“I have that all under way already,” said Thomas. “But I’m sure this is the place.”
“Sure sure, or just sure?”
“Sure,” said Thomas.
Corrigan debated calling Ferguson. If he was wrong, the officer would bash in his head.
“Get some more backup,” said Corrigan finally.
“On it, boss,” said Thomas, running from the room.
Corrigan finally realized there might be such a thing as too much enthusiasm, not to mention eccentricity.
Even so, he picked up the phone to call Ferg.
8
The marshaling yard was less than two years old, and while small by Western standards, it stretched out across the landscape like a city unto itself, with close to a hundred miles worth of track. Freight cars from all over Russia and Europe were scattered along the various spurs, each located and tracked by computer as massive freight trains were put together. Nearly all contained garbage.
The cars carrying the rad waste were in their own section of the yard, heavily guarded. They’d found a spot to watch the yard nearly two miles away from the perimeter of the facility, and though the view was unobstructed, Rankin had to sit on the roof of the car with his binoculars to see.
Corrine slept inside. Rankin had almost had to slug her to get her to take a rest. He was worried that she was going to burn herself out; she was clearly pushing herself because she thought she’d screwed up somehow losing the boxcar.
Rankin reached across the roof for the thermos of tea — coffee had become increasingly difficult to find — and poured himself a cup. He was just taking his first sip when the sat phone rang. To answer, he had to enter a personal ID code, then say his name into the receiver. The computer analyzed his voice pattern; if it didn’t match its records, the phone was temporarily locked into transmit mode and Corrigan — or whoever was making the call — alerted. Once the embedded GPS device gave a positive marker on the phone’s location — a matter of two seconds — the person on the other side could decide how to proceed.
“This is Corrigan. We have new information,” he said. “There’s a former Soviet airbase in the southern mountains of Chechnya called Verko. Ferg’s en route to check it out, but we think they’re gathering their waste there. Van Buren needs Corrine to authorize the SF mission if it pans out.”
“She’s sleeping right now,” said Rankin.
“Well, wake her the fuck up,” said Corrigan.
“You sure it’s the place?”
“Just wake her up and let me talk to her. Her phone’s off-line.”
Rankin climbed down and tapped on the window. Corrine opened her left eye slowly, then closed it. He tapped again, then opened the door and gave her his phone.
“Corrigan,” he told her.
“Thanks,” she said sleepily. She pulled herself upright in the seat. “I’m here.”
“We think we know where the waste is headed. Ferguson’s on his way to check it out — it jibes with some information he already had. This could be it.”
“All right,” she said. “Tell Mr. Ferguson to proceed. Inform the assault group and give them whatever preliminary data on the target is appropriate. But no action until my authorization.”
“You’re sure about that?”
Corrine waited a moment before answering, reminding herself that not everyone was against her — and that even if they were, she wasn’t going to help herself by blowing up.
“I’m absolutely sure,” she said in an even voice. “I need you to get me on a plane out to Turkey to meet with the strike force ASAP.”
“Civilian or military?”
“What’s faster?”
Corrigan hit some keys on one of his computers. “I can get you on a flight to Aktau, if you can get to the airport in fifteen minutes.”
“Where’s Aktau?”
“It’s on the Caspian. From there I can get you to Turkey, no sweat. Or Chechnya.”
“Turkey will do.”
“Someone will be there. It may be a contract; going to be hard to get a military plane in there without drawing attention. I’ll round up whatever I can.”
“You’re a regular travel agent,” she said, hanging up.
9
Ten miles east of Verko the highway turned into a minefield. Two burned-out Russian tanks tipped them off; Conners pulled off the road and got out of the truck, scouting it out. They were on a ridge that ran along the side of a mountain maybe twenty-five hundred meters high, with the peak another thousand or so meters above them. Conners felt as if he were being watched, and guessed that the tanks had been mined.
Ferg, who’d been sleeping lightly, climbed down out of the cab and walked over.
“Looks like a bitch,” said Conners.
“Yeah, this has got to be the place,” said Ferg.
“How we gonna get there? Take us two or three days to drive all the way north and around on the other
