Текст книги "Splinter cell : Blacklist aftermath (2013)"
Автор книги: David Michaels
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OUT OF THE FIRE . . .
“Holy shit.”
That expletive had come from the SMI table, where Grim was bringing up Keyhole satellite surveillance footage, along with imagery captured by the U.S. Army’s latest Vertical Take-Off and Landing Unmanned Aerial System dubbed the “Hummingbird.”
Fisher reached the table and scanned the schematics of the drone, displayed on a data bar to his right.
Equipped with the ARGUS array composed of several cameras and a host of other sensor systems, the Hummingbird and her systems were capable of capturing 1.8 gigapixel high-resolution mosaic images and video, making it one of the most capable surveillance drones on the planet.
At the moment, the UAV had her cameras and sensors directed at a rugged, snowcapped mountainside with a long pennon of black smoke rising from it.
“What?” asked Fisher.
“That’s Dykh-Tau,” said Grim. “It means ‘jagged mount’ in Russian. It’s about five klicks north of the Georgia border, and it’s the second-highest peak in the Caucasus Mountains.”
“That’s a pretty big fire down there.”
“That’s not just a fire. Kasperov’s plane just crashed.”
Novels by Tom Clancy
THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER
RED STORM RISING
PATRIOT GAMES
THE CARDINAL OF THE KREMLIN
CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER
THE SUM OF ALL FEARS
WITHOUT REMORSE
DEBT OF HONOR
EXECUTIVE ORDERS
RAINBOW SIX
THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON
RED RABBIT
THE TEETH OF THE TIGER
DEAD OR ALIVE
(written with Grant Blackwood)
AGAINST ALL ENEMIES
(written with Peter Telep)
LOCKED ON
(written with Mark Greaney)
THREAT VECTOR
(written with Mark Greaney)
SSN: STRATEGIES OF SUBMARINE WARFARE
Nonfiction
SUBMARINE: A GUIDED TOUR INSIDE A NUCLEAR WARSHIP
ARMORED CAV: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN ARMORED CAVALRY REGIMENT
FIGHTER WING: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIR FORCE COMBAT WING
MARINE: A GUIDED TOUR OF A MARINE EXPEDITIONARY UNIT
AIRBORNE: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIRBORNE TASK FORCE
CARRIER: A GUIDED TOUR OF AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER
SPECIAL FORCES: A GUIDED TOUR OF U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES
INTO THE STORM: A STUDY IN COMMAND
(written with General Fred Franks, Jr., Ret., and Tony Koltz)
EVERY MAN A TIGER
(written with General Chuck Horner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)
SHADOW WARRIORS: INSIDE THE SPECIAL FORCES
(written with General Carl Stiner, Ret., and Tony Koltz)
BATTLE READY
(written with General Tony Zinni, Ret., and Tony Koltz)
TOM CLANCY’S HAWX
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon
GHOST RECON
COMBAT OPS
CHOKEPOINT
Tom Clancy’s EndWar
ENDWAR
THE HUNTED
THE MISSING
Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell
SPLINTER CELL
OPERATION BARRACUDA
CHECKMATE
FALLOUT
CONVICTION
ENDGAME
BLACKLIST AFTERMATH
Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik
TOM CLANCY’S OP-CENTER
OP-CENTER
MIRROR IMAGE
GAMES OF STATE
ACTS OF WAR
BALANCE OF POWER
STATE OF SIEGE
DIVIDE AND CONQUER
LINE OF CONTROL
MISSION OF HONOR
SEA OF FIRE
CALL TO TREASON
WAR OF EAGLES
TOM CLANCY’S NET FORCE
NET FORCE
HIDDEN AGENDAS
NIGHT MOVES
BREAKING POINT
POINT OF IMPACT
CYBERNATION
STATE OF WAR
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
SPRINGBOARD
THE ARCHIMEDES EFFECT
Created by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg
TOM CLANCY’S POWER PLAYS
POLITIKA
RUTHLESS.COM
SHADOW WATCH
BIO-STRIKE
COLD WAR
CUTTING EDGE
ZERO HOUR
WILD CARD
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
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TOM CLANCY’S SPLINTER CELL®: BLACKLIST TM AFTERMATH
A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Ubisoft Entertainment SARL
Copyright © 2013 by Ubisoft Entertainment. All rights reserved.
Splinter Cell, Tom Clancy’s, Blacklist, Ubisoft, and the Ubisoft logo are trademarks of Ubisoft Entertainment in the U.S. and/or other countries.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-101-61599-7
PUBLISHING HISTORY
Berkley premium edition / October 2013
Cover art and design by Ubisoft, Ltd.
Interior text design by Kristin del Rosario.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Novels by Tom Clancy
Title Page
Copyright
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many talented and generous artisans contributed their expertise to this manuscript:
Mr. James Ide, chief warrant officer, U.S. Navy (Ret.), has worked with me as first reader, researcher, and collaborator on more than a dozen of my novels. His technical prowess and military experience have not only strengthened my manuscripts but have challenged me to strive for a level of authenticity that can pass muster with critical veterans like him.
Jackie Fiest knows more about the Splinter Cell universe than any reader or gamer out there. She’s even had a character named after her in the novels. It was my great fortune to have her review this manuscript and offer her keen insights on it and the Splinter Cell canon. I’m truly grateful for her help.
I’m particularly indebted to Mr. Sam Strachman, Mr. Richard Dansky, and Mr. Patrick Redding of Ubisoft Entertainment for their support, encouragement, and enormous help in shaping the story line of this novel. I’m thankful, too, to many others at Ubisoft, including Jade Raymond, Yannick Spagna, Maxime Beland, and Christophe Martin.
Mr. Ron Cohen, Mr. Tom Jankiewicz, Mr. James “Johnny” Johnson, Mr. Adam Painchaud, Mr. Robert Hirt, Mr. Bud Fini, Mr. Andrew Sands, and Mr. James Saltzman, along with the rest of the helpful folks at world-renowned firearms manufacturer Sig Sauer, provided me with technical support and hands-on training with their product line.
My agent, Mr. John Talbot, and editor, Mr. Tom Colgan, have allowed me to continue this awe-inspiring journey as a writer, and I’m thrilled that our teamwork has once more resulted in another rewarding project.
Last but not least, my wife, Nancy, and two lovely daughters, Lauren and Kendall, serve as my ultimate inspiration and most loyal fans, keeping me motivated and freshly stocked with peanut butter and coffee (writer fuel).
1
BOLIVIA’S North Yungas Road is known by the locals as El Camino de la Muerte, the Road of Death. It was constructed by Paraguayan prisoners of war back in the 1930s and is one of just a few routes through the mountainous rainforest that connects the country’s seat of government, La Paz, with the northern regions some sixty-nine kilometers away. The road is barely wide enough for two cars abreast, with dozens of sheer vertical drop-offs lacking any form of guardrails. There is no margin for error. When it rains, rocks and earth grow loose from the towering hillsides above and tumble down along the switchbacks. As drivers round a hairpin turn, they’re confronted by a mudslide or a wall of crumbling boulders that forces them off the ledge to plummet more than six hundred meters to the valley below, where the Coroico River rushes to join the Amazon. Even when nothing blocks the mostly unpaved path, dense fog often descends along the vine-covered cliffs, reducing visibility to zero. Numerous crosses and stone cairns mark the locations where, for two to three hundred loved ones each year, the journey ended and they became part of North Yungas’s dark legend. Though some say it’s cursed, clutched forever in the hands of the Devil, others have simply declared it the world’s most dangerous road.
Sam Fisher knew all about North Yungas, and he knew the man he was chasing had deliberately led him up there to turn him into another statistic. The son of a bitch had no idea that he’d awakened America’s newest and most formidable beast, a blacker-than-black special ops and counterterrorism unit known as Fourth Echelon, commanded by Fisher and free to sink its sharpened talons into men like him. Free to do whatever it took with impunity.
Fisher squeezed the stolen motorcycle’s clutch lever, geared up, and accelerated. He gritted his teeth and cut hard around the next bend, the old Yamaha fishtailing and sending a bolt of anxiety up his spine. As he came out of the turn, the bike’s rusting fenders rattled, and the faded sticker of Jesus affixed to the gas tank began peeling back. At once the headlight flickered through the gloom and heavy rain, and he found his prey just a few meters ahead, rooster tails of mud rising from the man’s own bike. Fisher was out of gears, wailing now at full throttle.
The man known to intelligence sources as Hamed Rahmani, and with the known alias of Abu Jafar Harawi, saw something ahead and cut his wheel sharply, weaving around two pieces of rock appropriately shaped like coffins, one lying across the other. Fisher did likewise, his shoulder brushing along the wet stone. The bike’s engine began to cough and sputter as they climbed toward nearly five kilometers above sea level. They sped by a wider section used for passing, then crossed onto a single-lane stretch running along at least a kilometer of cliffs whose ledges sent streams of water into the darkness.
Fisher’s arms tensed, his triceps already sore from keeping a white-knuckled grip on the handlebars. He shifted gears again as Rahmani whipped around the next bend and vanished momentarily, only to reappear—his headlight sweeping along the wall to his right.
Seeing that Rahmani was widening the gap, Fisher leaned into the bike and accelerated, tucking in his elbows, trying to make himself a little more aerodynamic to bleed every bit of speed out of the machine.
Suddenly, he was thrown to the right, the front wheel having connected with a piece of rock that served as a ramp, and as both wheels left the road, he thought the chase was over and that he should’ve stopped like most locals did to pour libations of beer into the earth and ask the goddess Pachamama for safe passage—because in three seconds it might all end here.
As both tires slammed back onto the dirt, the impact reverberating up his spine, he gasped and recovered control, cutting the wheel to the left to avoid another section of larger gravel and by necessity taking the bike to within a tire’s width of the ledge. He groaned and leaned to his right, guiding the motorcycle past the gravel, then back, closer to the wall. Yes, he’d earned himself a breath now.
What little he could see of the next ravine gave him pause, and he thought of the gear pack he’d left in La Paz, bulging with the rest of his weapons, along with his surveillance and comm equipment. He’d gone into the bar completely undercover, plainclothes. Somehow, someway, the bastard had been tipped off and had bolted. There’d been no time, no opportunity to get on Rahmani’s wheel armed for bear. For the time being it was just the two of them, mano a mano, motorcycle to motorcycle. Fisher’s custom FN Five-seveN semiautomatic pistol with integrated suppressor was tucked into a concealed holster at his hip, and he had to assume that Rahmani was packing at least one or more small arms.
Fisher checked the fuel gauge: about half a tank. If he couldn’t overtake Rahmani, then maybe the thug would run out of gas first. Or maybe Fisher would. There was no way to tell, so . . . he would have to catch up and take this man alive. Rahmani was an army major and intel officer with MOIS, Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security. That alone made him valuable. However, he liked to moonlight as a thief who along with a select group of friends had gotten their hands on one hundred pounds of highly enriched uranium, or HEU, from Mayak, one of the largest nuclear facilities in the Russian Federation. After the theft he’d been spotted in Baghdad, then had vanished for a while until he popped up in Bolivia with some drug smuggling associates. He’d thought he was safe. Of course, he had no idea who he was dealing with now.
Blinking wind and water from his eyes, Fisher riveted his gaze on that dim light ahead, trying to follow Rahmani’s trail in the mud, letting him have the more difficult job of picking the lines through, around, and across the debris washing onto the roadway.
After a relatively lazy turn to the right, with a curtain of vines extending three meters from the cliff wall to provide a few seconds of solace from the rain, Fisher’s jaw dropped, and a curse burst from his lips.
A refrigerated shipping truck blocked most of the road. There was only a half-meter-wide track to the left of the vehicle, running along the broken ledge. The driver had, as many did, pulled over and parked to wait out the storm, fearful that the road ahead might be too dangerous and he’d have better judgment in the morning. These assumptions were borne out as the obese driver, a ball cap perched on his head, leaned out from his cab and shouted in Spanish for Fisher to stop and seek cover.
But there, off to the left, was Rahmani, one hand on his handlebars, the other sliding along the truck’s side for balance as he finally reached the front bumper, gunned his engine, and was off again.
As Fisher slowed and carefully—breathlessly—guided his motorcycle around the back of the truck, coming alongside it, he reminded himself to keep his gaze on where he wanted to go. Don’t look down. Damn, the temptation was too great, and as he coasted forward, he flicked his glance to the left. Through chutes of rain and the swirling gloom, he saw how the edge of the cliff was just a hairsbreadth away and dropped off into nothingness. Just then, his front tire shoved through some loose rocks that tumbled over the side. Fisher’s heart was squarely in his throat.
Rahmani’s engine whined as he once again raced along the wall, creating a sizable gap. Tensing, Fisher pushed off the truck, reached the front bumper, then geared up and took off, popping a small and unintended wheelie as he did so. They were nearing La Cumbre Pass, the highest point along the road, which was followed by a breakneck descent all the way to Coroico.
After a final push at full throttle that brought Fisher within an estimated fifty meters of Rahmani, the road veered left, then pitched forward, and abruptly they were barreling toward the next set of hairpin turns.
Wanting to check his speed but fearful of averting his gaze for even a second, Fisher clutched the handlebars a little tighter but maintained speed. A pile of rocks off to his left sent him hard toward the wall once more, but he’d gone too far and was heading for the rock when he turned back and overcorrected. He was about to lose control but jerked once more and came out of the turn while dragging one boot along the ground.
Rahmani was weaving around the debris like a professional stuntman, his long black hair flailing in the wind. They dropped farther, swinging around as though on a roulette wheel until the road straightened out. Fisher thought he’d have a moment to speed up, but from a series of ledges above came torrents of heavy rain blasting down like a half dozen fire hoses running wide open.
Fisher wove around the first two columns of water, but the next one was falling far too close to the wall, driving him back to the outside and along the ledge once more. Here the ground was much more unstable; his back wheel felt mushy, and rocks tumbled into the ravine behind him. As he cleared the gauntlet, he swore aloud—because another lay before him:
A pair of waterfalls about three meters apart were raging down the cliff now, washing hard over the road and eating hungrily at the ledge. Rahmani, that suicidal maniac, muscled his bike right through the flow, getting kicked off to the side and nearly washed over before he slammed his wheel to the right and managed at the very last second to leap free with a high-pitched whine of his engine and sputter from his tires.
With a renewed resolve and drawing on a long career of taking risks that would leave most men weak-kneed and clutching their throats, Fisher rolled his wrist and blasted into the waterfall at top speed, assuring himself that his forward momentum was a greater force than the water but realizing at the last second that his assurances were bullshit. If he didn’t steer for the wall, he was dead.
For the span of three full heartbeats, he saw only the water, haloed in gloom and washing over him, until abruptly he broke free, smiled—and the bike slid out from beneath him. That he got his foot down before dumping was a small miracle, and he was able to kick up and right himself—just as his handlebar began dragging along the wall, a few sparks flickering. He leaned into his next turn and reached a stretch of more level ground.
Rahmani was far below now, having already negotiated the next hairpin, his headlight like a firefly, tiny against the colossal skyscrapers of rock.
But just ahead of him, lumbering downhill like a tortoise, was another pair of lights, and for just a moment the vehicle’s silhouette appeared: a sedan, probably a taxi, whose driver was either carrying a very high-paying fare or was desperate to get home despite the weather. At any rate, that driver was suddenly Fisher’s best buddy. If the road remained as narrow as it presently was, Rahmani would either lose time trying to pass the taxi or find himself stuck behind it—with Fisher roaring up behind him.
Riding a new rush of adrenaline, Fisher set about taking the hairpin turn as swiftly and violently as he could, letting his left foot drag as he flung himself into the curve, wishing he had a dedicated race bike so he could brush his knee along the mud. He spun out again, nearly lost it, then drifted his way to a straight course and began sewing up the gap.
One of the road’s few surviving signs—most of them had been struck by drivers and flattened or smashed off the cliff—indicated another sharp turn ahead. Fisher took a deep breath and held it. Bringing himself as close to the wall as he dared and locking his gaze on his headlight’s meager beam, he soared around the turn, losing a bit of traction before easing up and letting the bike guide him into the corner. The old Yamaha was a true piece of crap, but she was growing on him now, his gear shifts a little more intuitive, the sounds of the motor communicating speed much more clearly.
Rahmani drew up fast on the taxi, and a second glance there showed he was trapped behind it. Fisher gritted his teeth and remained tight to the wall, his speed nearly twice that of Rahmani’s. The cabdriver had to be confronting his own mortality, and for a moment, Rahmani looked back, his face cast in the pallid glow of Fisher’s light. His eyes bugged out as he realized he’d failed to lose Fisher and was seconds away from being caught.
A faint thrumming of rotors sent Fisher’s gaze skyward. Then another sound erupted, a large diesel engine, an engine much louder than the taxi’s.
They were nearing another sharp turn to the right, and abruptly it was there: an old Volvo F6 delivery truck from the 1970s, its daredevil of a driver taking up the entire road and rumbling head-on toward the taxi.
The truck driver locked up his brakes, as did the cabdriver, but their tires had little traction across the sheets of rain and mud.
“Sam, we’re back online, target locked on with FLIR, and Briggs is inbound,” came a familiar voice through the nickel-sized subdermal embedded behind his ear.
Fisher wasn’t wearing the subvocal transceiver, or SVT, patch on his throat, so he couldn’t respond, but that hardly mattered.
The truck and taxi collided in a thundering, screeching explosion of twisting metal and fiberglass and shattering glass that stole his breath and sent debris hurtling toward him.
The taxi’s front end crushed as though it were made of papier-mâché, and the truck kept coming, plowing the taxi back with the front wheels rising off the dirt.
Rahmani had no time to react. He screamed and struck the sedan’s rear bumper. His front wheel folded like a taco as the bike slid sideways, and in the next second he caromed off the rear window and vanished beneath the vehicle—
Into the meat grinder.
The squealing and gurgling and crunching of metal grew to a crescendo as Fisher cursed and steered for the barest of openings on the left side, trying to skirt around the bulldozing truck. He swore again because the taxicab with Rahmani beneath began sliding toward the ledge, cutting him off. He crashed into the taxi and flew headfirst over the handlebars, went tumbling across the cab’s trunk, and then the force of the Volvo’s momentum sent him rolling off the side of the sedan.
A stretch of rocks and earth about eight inches wide saved Fisher’s life.
He struck that patch shoulder-first, realized where he was—about to plunge over the ledge—and reflexively reached out with both hands, clutching some heavy weeds and grasses that sprouted along the cliffside.
His legs came whipping around, the force driving the grass through his fingers, his grip now tentative at best. He dug the tips of his boots into the mountainside, but there was no good purchase on the wet rock and mud, and his legs dangled. He groaned with exertion, his arms literally trembling under the load. Something flashed to his left, and there it was, the sticker of Jesus that had been peeling off his motorcycle’s gas tank; it fluttered on a rock for a few seconds, then blew away.
Above Fisher, off to his right, the truck’s rear wheels gave out, and the lumbering vehicle began sliding tailfirst toward the edge. The driver tried to steer out of the slide, but it was too late.
The entire ledge quaked as the Volvo’s rear wheels hung in midair while the undercarriage slammed down and was dragged along the stone. Finally, the front wheels left the road, even as the driver, a lean, bearded man in coveralls, tried to bail out, but the truck was already airborne. Fisher watched with an eerie fascination as the driver wailed and the vehicle’s headlights shone straight up into the rain, then wiped across Fisher before the truck tumbled away, twin beams flashing and dancing, growing fainter, fainter . . . until a distant impact and whoosh of flames resounded from somewhere below.
The helicopter was overhead now, the rotor wash whipping through the storm. That would be a Mil Mi-24 Russian-made helicopter gunship, one of a small fleet the government of Bolivia had purchased from the Russians to combat the drug trade. Fisher had sent Briggs to link up with the pilot and weapons system operator the moment their target had bolted.
A spotlight shone on Fisher, then the nylon fast rope dropped at his shoulder, within arm’s reach. He reached out for the rope even as, from above, an African-American man dressed in full Kevlar-weave tactical operation suit and wearing trifocal sonar goggles came sliding down, looking for all the world like Fisher himself.
Clutching the rope, Fisher managed to climb back up and onto the road, then he guided the rope toward the wall so that the man, Isaac Briggs, could hop onto the mud.
Briggs was a kid, really, just twenty-seven, former U.S. Army intel officer, former paramilitary ops officer with the CIA, current member of Fourth Echelon—which he liked to call 4E because he hailed from a world of e-books and theories and military history, a world dominated by acronyms and PowerPoints that, in the world according to Fisher, didn’t mean jack when you were in the field. Briggs was a good guy, handpicked by Fisher, and he was just now escaping from the clutches of theory and learning to trust his instincts. No more company man for him. He worked for Fourth Echelon now.
“Got here as soon as we could,” Briggs cried, tugging up the goggles and lifting his voice over the sound of the chopper.
Fisher shrugged. “Doesn’t matter. This thing’s gone to shit.”
Ignoring the needling pain that seemed to come from every part of his body, Fisher led Briggs back toward the taxi, which was now hanging partially off the ledge. The stench of leaking gasoline and oil still rose through the rain as they drew near.
“Damn,” Briggs gasped.
The taxi’s engine was somewhere in the backseat. The driver’s head—just his head—was lying on the rear dashboard, his severed left arm jutting from a rear window.
Fisher frowned at Briggs. “You’re not gonna be sick, are you?”
“I was already sick of chasing this bastard around the world.”
“Well, you got your wish. It ends here. And not well for us.” Fisher glared at the chopper. “Call that bird. Tell him to bug out for a few minutes till we’re ready for him.”
Briggs nodded and barked orders into his radio.
Tensing, Fisher dropped to all fours, called for Briggs to hand him a flashlight, and let the beam play under the wreckage. He spotted one of Rahmani’s legs, IDed by the color of the man’s pants, shoved up into the cab’s transmission, but the rest of him was missing.
Releasing another string of curses, Fisher sprang to his feet and directed the light across the road, the beam slowly exposing a trail of body parts near the wall, one they’d missed walking over because it was hidden in the shadows. They found the torso with the head still attached; it was lying among some rocks, the blood washing off in the rain.
Fisher was ready to strangle someone, and Briggs sensed that. He kept his distance, and without a word, they began a meticulous search of the body and scoured the rest of the road for anything Rahmani might have been carrying. Fisher found a small pistol, a beat-up old Makarov, but nothing else. Briggs snapped as many photos as he could before they gathered up the body parts in a “glad bag” and sent them up to the chopper when it returned.
Rahmani had been the best lead they’d had in locating that stolen uranium. That his group had pulled off the robbery was nothing short of miraculous, which had the world’s intelligence communities assuming that it was an inside job. The general public had no idea what was happening, and the Russians were thus far tight-lipped about the entire affair. Sorry, nyet, this is state secret information.
The Mayak facility was two hours south of Ekaterinburg, at the end of unmarked back roads, near a forested plateau of lakes and small rivers. It was protected by chain-link barbed-wire fences and a deforested strip of land that provided no cover. The facility had just been updated with a new electronic surveillance system provided by the United States and a radiation monitoring system that was well-nigh impossible to defeat—unless your name was Sam Fisher. The rest of its defenses were classified, but it was not reckless to assume that the Russians had a keen interest in guarding their nuclear material—especially when they’d been backed by the U.S. Congress to the tune of 350 million dollars to build a heavily fortified warehouse or “Plutonium Palace” to store approximately 40 percent of their military’s excess fissile material.
Nevertheless, Rahmani and his unidentified cronies had not only broken into the facility but had managed to escape from it with their pockets glowing green. Their smuggling route was still a point of conjecture. Kazakhstan was only a four-hour drive to the south, but that course would’ve taken them through Chelyabinsk and many border checkpoints. They had more likely gone southwest, traveling some 1,200 miles or more to the Caspian Sea, with the goal of smuggling the uranium through Azerbaijan and into Turkey.
What’s more, it took the Russian government more than three days to officially report the incident, giving the thieves ample time to escape the country. Whether the Russians were doing their own damage control or the theft was entirely unnoticed by their staff at the facility was a second point of conjecture.
A tip from the National Intelligence Organization of Turkey—Milli I.stihbarat 
, or MI.T—led to a raid on a small machine shop in an industrial sector of Istanbul situated near slums where the noise of constructing a nuclear weapon was easily masked. And yes, Fisher had learned long ago that the process of nuclear bomb making was, in fact, quite loud, which seemed rather fitting, given the nature of the device.
Their raid—a joint effort between the United States and Russia’s own foreign intelligence service, Sluzhba Vneshney Razvedki, or SVR—had turned up little. Rahmani’s group had already pulled up stakes before they’d fully moved in and begun constructing their weapon. The SVR agent operating with them was a sour-faced mute who offered little more than shrugs between playing on his smartphone. Fisher had suggested that Istanbul was merely a diversionary stop along their route. The SVR agent had agreed. Then shrugged. Then agreed again.
Bottom line: Rahmani had known where to find the uranium. And if he hadn’t, he would’ve at least known the players who could point Fisher and his team in the right direction.
For now, though, all Fisher could do was stare through the rain as he was hoisted up to the chopper.
The mountainside seemed darker and even emptier now. El Camino de la Muerte had claimed three more victims, and Fisher should have been grateful that he hadn’t been the fourth, but he wasn’t. He felt only anger—knots of anger—tightening in his gut.
