Payback

Fu Manchu had sent one of his bullets through the side of the pack. It was the sniper’s other bullet that had taken Turk, drilling through his temple.

Dean’s thought when he heard the second shot was that their quarry had failed — a second shot meant you had missed the first time.

And more important in this case, the second shot showed Dean where Fu Manchu was. He put his bullet there.

It took him several hours to get to the sniper’s body. Fu Manchu had crumpled into a pile of bones. He was so skinny he looked as if his flesh were made of paper.

He was a kid, younger even than Dean, who’d gotten into the Marine Corps the year before at sixteen, fudging on his age.

“Sentry, fifty yards,” said Karr, pointing to the left. He took point, moving through the trees toward the low- slung huts ahead. For a big man — and Karr was very big — he moved extremely quietly. He would have been a good sniper.

The village consisted of six small huts scattered around a clearing near the water. The woods on the south side were so thick that even with infrared night glasses, Dean and Karr had trouble seeing more than a few feet ahead. That helped them more than hindered them; the soldiers in the village had no night-vision gear at all.

Several vehicles were parked at the edge of the clearing and on the rough trail of a road, which snaked off to the west. Two men walked back and forth in the center of the compound.

Dean and Karr observed the area carefully, comparing what the Art Room had told them with what they saw, making sure they knew where everyone was. Knots of soldiers were strung out along the roadway and shoreline, but they were all far enough away that they could be ignored. Several soldiers were sleeping in the huts; they, too, wouldn’t be a problem — as long as they remained sleeping.

The target was a large military truck parked behind an SUV on the dirt road that ran in front of the huts. Dean counted seven soldiers, each about thirty feet from the truck, strung out in a loose circle around it. When they were sure they knew where everyone was, Dean and Karr backtracked ten yards into the jungle, circling to the east, where the brush and the alignment of the guards left a narrow lane they could use to get close to the truck without being seen. The night was almost pitch-black, but they couldn’t entirely count on the darkness to hide them; at least one of the guards had a flashlight on his belt, and Dean suspected flares would be kept nearby.

When they were five yards from the road and about a dozen from the truck, Karr pulled off his pack, dropped it to the ground, and handed Dean his rifle. Then he removed a small device about the size of a TV remote control. This was a radiation detector “tuned” to find specific isotopes of plutonium — the common warhead material for Russian missiles — and a uranium by-product that often accompanied the material.

Just in case there was any shielding, Karr carried a device that would look for extremely dense material by sending X-rays through it. Nicknamed “the interrogator,” it was about the size and shape of two fat coffee thermoses put back-to-back together. The interrogator had two modes, one for simply detecting large mass elements and the other for estimating their size. The X-rays were extremely powerful; the beam could burn flesh and cause radiation damage if you stood too close.

“Give me a whistle if anybody’s coming,” said Karr, and before Dean could say anything he began gliding toward the vehicle.

Just like Dean had done with Turk on the third day they were out.

“You got more guts than noodles.” the old-timer had told him. “Before we go anywhere we fully reconnoiter the situation, figure our in and our out, get our signals straight — then we go.”

The old-timer was right; acting impulsively was a good way to get killed.

Old-timer?

Turk was, in a sense, but he’d probably been in his early thirties at most. Maybe less. Certainly younger than Dean was now.

Unlike Rockman, Chafetz said almost nothing while the ops were in the middle of a mission. Karr transmitted the readings back through a link in the com system; she acknowledged with a simple “got it” as each one came through.

Dean saw something moving near the back of the truck. He raised his gun, then realized it was Karr, already on his way back.

“Fake. It’s a fake,” whispered the op. “The readings are all wrong.”

“I didn’t hear the Art Room say that.”

“They will. It’s a phony.”

“You sure?”

“I had a mission just like this in Russia six months before you joined us, babysitter,” said Kan, resurrecting the very first nickname he had given Dean. “Cruise missiles. Pretty much the same gig, though. Come on. Let’s blow.”

60

Rubens picked up the phone to call the White House as soon as he heard from Telach.

Peru’s president had pledged a few hours before to cooperate with “the U.S. and the entire world” in securing the weapon, so Rubens’ plan to retrieve the warhead would probably not have gone forward. But the readings Karr and Dean had obtained ended all possibility.

Still, the information that the warhead was phony would be welcome at the White House, enhancing Rubens’ reputation there.

Not that he needed to do that. Not that it was or should be or could be a consideration now.

If this “weapon” had been involved in Iron Heart, Rubens realized, the fact that it had been fake explained why the CIA had missed it in the jungle. Indeed, it was possible that the agency had known all along that it was a phony and not been worried about it.

No. If they had, they wouldn’t have launched the massive search.

Perhaps it was genuine at one point and material was removed. If so, it could still be hidden somewhere in the jungle.

More likely sold on the black market. But such a sale would have been discovered, Rubens thought, by any of the half-dozen standing missions assigned specifically to watch for them, including the NSA’s.

He’d have them quickly reviewed for gaps.

Rubens took a deep breath as the phone was picked up on the other end.

“Bill Rubens for the president.”

“Go ahead,” said Marcke, coming on the line immediately.

“The warhead does not contain plutonium or uranium,” said Rubens. “We have high confidence on this. It’s a fake.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes, sir, I’m sure. One of my people crawled under the truck with the bomb in it. We have X-rays of the weapon; it does not contain nuclear material.”

“Very good. Very, very good.” Rubens could practically feel the relief in the president’s voice.

“There was one other thing, Mr. President,” said Rubens. “The warhead bears a very close resemblance to warheads Brazil tried to obtain several years before. The CIA had an operation to stop it. One of the warheads was seized in Russia. Another was snatched on the ground. However, there was a possibility at the time of a third warhead.”

“A third warhead?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Are you saying that the CIA missed one, Billy? This one?”

“I’m not really in a position to say. The operation was a CIA operation. I would think that it’s possible that this dummy warhead was somehow involved. I should note that it’s possible that this may have been a legitimate warhead at one point, but the material, the bomb kernel, was removed. Honestly — candidly — I simply don’t know.”