“And that’s just what’s going to continue to happen,” Cali agreed. “They’ll keep funding fanatics who will still try to fly airplanes into buildings or detonate a dirty bomb or simply strap on suicide vests and blow themselves up in malls and movie theaters.”
“This has turned grim,” Booker said, helping himself to a beer from Mercer’s retro fifties era lock-lever bar fridge.
“Unfortunately that’s the state of the world,” Ira replied. “I see more shit crossing my desk at the White House than you can imagine, but I do agree with Cali that fundamentalism is the single greatest danger today and there are no easy fixes either. We’re like the Russians playing catch-up with their nuclear materials. It will take us years to find a way to neutralize the Saudis’ influence by making oil obsolete.”
“In the meantime we have more pressing concerns,” Mercer said to get the conversation back on track. “What’s the plan once Cali and I get to Russia?”
“Grigori will meet you in Samara, an industrial city on the Volga River. From there you’ll take a military chopper to the mine. He’ll have a hazmat team on hand to make sure the plutonium ore is handled properly. They’re taking it to a weapons depot about a thousand miles from anywhere, in the middle of Siberia. Just so you know, that facility is the newest and best in the country, courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. Once you verify that the plutonium is safely in the depot, your mission is done.”
“Not even close,” Mercer said sourly. “We still have Poli and the Janissaries running around, as well as the Alembic of Skenderbeg to deal with.” He turned to Booker Sykes. “Are you up for a little trip?”
“Depends,” the Delta commando drawled.
“Ira, I take it you’re still not having any luck getting the Pentagon to send a team to check out the stele?” Lasko nodded. “Then, Book, how’d you like an all-expense-paid trip to the worst hellhole I’ve ever seen?”
“To do what exactly?”
“There’s an obelisk in the village where Cali and I found the mine. It was placed there by order of Alexander the Great. Cali and I both remember there was writing on it. I need to know what it says. I’m hoping that it will give us some clue as to where the alembic was stashed.”
“You just want pictures or the whole damned thing?”
“A couple of Polaroids and you’re out of there. Two days on the ground tops.”
“I recommend a digital camera,” Ira suggested.
“Figure of speech,” Mercer replied. “Don’t forget I’m a Luddite. I got my first cell phone last year.”
Sykes said, “The two guys with me on the boat, Paul Rivers and Bernie Cieplicki, both have to rotate back to Fort Bragg tomorrow.” He grinned. “I’ll see they come down with a case of the creeping cruds and spring them for the trip.”
Samara, Russia
By the time the Lufthansa Airbus from Frankfurt touched down at Samara’s airport, Cali and Mercer had spent fifteen hours in the air, and thanks to Mercer’s upgrading of the tickets from the coach Ira had provided to first class, they had enjoyed their time together. Cali had teased as they ate
For him it was almost like the beginning of a high school romance where the tiniest gestures came loaded with significance but were also fraught with pitfalls. Was it too soon after losing Tisa? Was he even capable of giving himself again? Each step forward came at a price of self-doubt. He wanted to believe that his burgeoning feelings weren’t merely a physical reaction to a beautiful woman. Yet when he looked into himself to find the truth, he saw nothing but a hollow, an empty void where once there was confidence. He felt paralyzed by a guilt he was trying to convince himself he didn’t deserve.
Cali gave his hand a squeeze as the plane began to taxi to the long one-story terminal building, then she let go. Mercer’s palms retained her nervous warmth.
They were met at Customs by a pair of men. One was short and handsome, with blond cropped hair and the insignia of an army captain on his uniform collar. The other was older, stooped, with haunted blue eyes and a large skull covered in wisps of gray hair. His suit was wrinkled and his shirt had an ink stain at the bottom of the breast pocket. He had the look of a muddled academic.
“Captain Aleksandr Federov,” the soldier said by way of introduction. He spoke with just a trace of an accent and smiled brightly. “Please call me Sasha. This is Professor Pavel Sapozhnik, of the Ministry of Defense. I will be leading your military escort. Professor Sapozhnik and his team are the disposal experts.”
“Mercer. And this is Cali Stowe of the Department of Energy.” They shook hands all around while the Customs inspector frowned. Federov said a few angry words to the inspector, then asked Cali and Mercer for their passports. They were quickly stamped and returned.
“Sorry about that,” Federov said as he led them to a closed-off section of the airport. “Samara was a closed city until the collapse. Customs still likes to give visitors a hard time. It’s not unusual for tourists to be denied entry for no reason, which makes it especially tough since Samara’s newest export is mail order brides. A lot of lonely German and American men have come here to meet the love of their life only to return more frustrated than before.”
Mercer chuckled, warming to the officer immediately.
“Of course, Ms. Stowe, you put all our brides to shame.”
She smiled at the compliment.
“I thought Grigori Popov would be here,” Mercer said.
Federov threw his hands up in a universal sign of annoyance. “Bureaucrats. He said he was detained in Moscow and will be here tomorrow or the next day. Most likely he will not come. Samara is not, how you say, a favorite destination. It is like your Pittsburgh without a good sports team.” He paused outside a restroom door. “We have another two-hour flight. You might want to avail yourselves.”
While Cali used the facilities, Mercer learned that Federov had studied languages during his military service and spoke French, German, and Ukrainian. He had been assigned to nuclear materials protection because so much of that work was carried out by foreign specialists. Professor Sapozhnik ignored them while they chatted, preferring to stare off into space rather than join in.
“Do you know anything about the mine Department 7 used as storage?”
“We did not know the facility existed until your superior’s call to Popov,” Sasha Federov answered candidly. “It is a sad state that we can misplace nuclear materials so easily but that is the fact we must deal with. The old system was so secretive that the right and left hands didn’t even know the other existed.
“It is like a story about an incident in the 1970s when one of our attack submarines almost fired a torpedo at a ballistic missile submarine returning to its port at Vladivostok. You see the two branches of the navy were in a bitter rivalry for additional funding and refused to divulge their patrol schedules. Catastrophe was avoided when the sonarman on the attack sub realized the computer was giving him a false reading on the boomer’s identity. He’d served on her a few years earlier and recognized her tonals.”
Professor Sapozhnik snapped at Federov in Russian. The younger man answered back just as hotly and an argument flared for a moment. Sapozhnik finally nodded and turned to Mercer. “Forgive me,” he said in a deep, mournful voice. “Old habits die hard. We have nothing to hide from our Western benefactors any longer.”
“No apology necessary,” Mercer said and smiled. He recognized Sapozhnik as from the old guard who believed the nation was better off under a Communist dictatorship. “No one likes to have their dirty laundry aired in public.”
“Anyway,” Sasha said smoothly, “it is an abandoned gypsum mine. There is a single road that leads to it as well as a railroad line. It was abandoned in 1957 because of flooding in the lowest levels. We now know that Department 7 commandeered it soon afterward to consolidate their warehouses of leftover war materiel.”
“Are the road and rail line still usable after all this time?”
“Yes. In fact we’re going to use a train to haul the, ah, ore to Siberia.” Even with no one around he was reluctant to use the word “plutonium.” “It’s much safer than the roads. The train has already left the main freight
