“Yes, sir. Eagle One.”
Instantly all reticence was gone and Brognola walked over to the Hummer, holding out a hand. As he got close, the corporal in the back proffered a hand mike attached to a large transmitter situated between the seats.
Accepting the mike, Brognola impatiently waited while the soldiers moved away from the vehicle to give him some privacy. They might not be sure who he was, but they sure as hell knew the identity of Eagle One.
When the Green Berets were far enough away, Brognola thumbed the transmit switch and repeated his name, slow and clear. There was a brief pause as the signal was encoded and relayed across the continent via a series of military satellites. Once NSA equipment on the other side analyzed his vocal patterns to ascertain it actually was him, a familiar voice crackled over the speaker.
“Sorry for the interruption, Hal,” said the President without a preamble. “But I needed to talk to you immediately, and there was no time to fly you back to D.C. We have a problem in Russia.”
“Is Striker in trouble?” Brognola asked.
Striker was one of the many code names for Mack Bolan.
“Not at the moment, Hal, no. This is something completely different,” the President stated. “Just a few hours ago, a NATO courier delivered a coded report to the joint chiefs. One of their spy satellites detected a tactical nuclear explosion near Mystery Mountain.”
“But that is not a nuclear facility,” Brognola said, sitting inside the Hummer. The seat was damp from the rush up the river, but he paid it no mind. “The mountain mostly works on experimental weapons, plasma lasers, coil guns, orbiting kinetics, microwaves, robotics and such.”
“Correct. And this was nothing new. Just an ordinary nuclear weapon.” The President paused. “Except that the flash signature was Chinese.”
The words were said quite simply, but Brognola exhaled as if punched in the stomach. China nuked Mystery Mountain? “Has that been confirmed?” he demanded brusquely.
“Triple checked from multiple sources.” The President sighed. “There can be no mistake. The nuclear weapons of every nation are completely different, and the flash signature of the fireball cannot be faked to resemble another. This was a Chinese nuke.”
“Son of a bitch,” Brognola whispered. “How could a goddamn Chinese ICBM get that far inside Russia without being shot down?”
A scholarly man, the new President really did not approve of the crude language, but said nothing. Brognola had to be accepted on his terms, and thus was one of the very few people in the world who could address him this way. “It wasn’t an ICBM,” he corrected. “Just a tactical nuke. Barely a half-kiloton yield. Probably a suitcase model, very similar to our own man-portable charge.”
“Well, that’s something, then.” Brognola sighed, looking across the river. “There could not have been that much damage. With any luck—”
“Hal, the base was obliterated. Utterly destroyed.”
“With a tactical nuke?” Brognola scoffed. “That’s not possible, sir, unless… Goddamn it, the Chinese nuked the dam and flooded the base.”
There was an affirmative grunt. “As usual, Hal, you are correct. The death toll is in the thousands and the base will never fully recover. There is simply too much contamination.”
“The Kremlin must be going insane.”
“That’s putting it mildly,” the President agreed. “Their president has already contacted me to remind me of our mutual defense pact.”
Which was the first step toward declaring open war, Brognola realized, shifting the Glock in his belt to a more comfortable position. A goddamn nuclear war. “Any response from China?”
“They say it is a Russian trick, and are massing troops along the border to repel a possible invasion.”
“Which means Russia is doing the same thing to stop them from invading. Right?”
“Actually no,” the President said, speaking slowly. “The Kremlin has authorized a full mobilization, land, sea and air, almost everything they have. However, all of it is heading toward Mystery Mountain. Not China.”
“But why—?” Brognola inhaled sharply. “China had nothing to do with this—the nuke was a goddamn diversion.” The man ran stiff fingers through his hair. “Something was stolen from Mystery Mountain,” he stated with conviction. “Something new, and big.”
“Sadly, that is the same conclusion that my chief of staff, the national security adviser and I each arrived at about an hour ago,” the President stated forcibly. “We have no idea what this new weapon could be, but the very fact that the thieves used a nuclear weapon to obtain the device clearly indicates it is more powerful. You don’t use a rocket launcher to steal a handgun.”
“Unless a rocket launcher is all you have,” Brognola countered, momentarily lost in thought. “Could this have been done by some terrorist organization? Maybe Hamas, or the Warriors of God?” There was a brief surge of static and any response was lost.
“Sir? I missed that,” Brognola said. “Please repeat.”
“I said that terrorists doing this is most unlikely, but we should not rule out the possibility,” the President acknowledged. “This might even be the work of some lone madman trying to bring back the glory days of communism.”
God forbid. “What has been done so far, sir?”
There came the rustling of papers. “Homeland Security is trying to confirm if China is innocent or is working through some mercenary group. The CIA is concentrating on the larger terrorist organizations. Military Intelligence is looking into the radical splinter groups, while the FBI is tackling domestic terrorists, and the NSA is monitoring all cell phone traffic in western Europe and Asia for any reference to Mystery Mountain.”
“Sounds good. What would you like for my people to do, sir?” Even over a scrambled transmission, Brognola could not bring himself to name the covert Stony Man teams. In spite of every conceivable security precaution, the Farm had been invaded once, and the man was grimly determined to never allow that to happen again.
“For the time being, merely to stay alert and watch for any unusual sales in the underworld,” the President said. “If some new, experimental weapon has indeed been stolen, then most likely it will soon be offered for sale like those damnable Shklov rocket torpedoes a few years ago. Pay any price within reason—no, scratch that. Pay any price to get the whatever it is off the streets. We can decide what to do with it later.”
“Rabbit stew,” Brognola muttered.
The President snorted at that, obviously familiar with the military axiom. The recipe for rabbit stew was always—first and foremost—catch the rabbit.
“Confirmed, and what about the thieves?”
The President thought about that for a moment. How many people had been working at the dam when it blew? How many families, wives and children, had been living in the off-base facilities downriver? How many soldiers and scientists had drowned when the tidal wave arrived?
“Sir?” Brognola repeated. “What if we manage to capture the thieves alive?”
“Don’t,” the President declared gruffly, and hung up.
Staring at the radio for a long moment, Brognola returned the mike to a clip, then climbed out of the Hummer. “Lieutenant!” he bellowed. “Please have one of your men drive my car to the hotel where I’m staying. I’ll have somebody pick it up later.”
The soldiers walked closer. “And you will be coming back with us to the base,” the officer said, not posing it as a question.