Текст книги "Radiant Angel"

Автор книги: Nelson Demille

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Текущая страница: 18 (всего у книги 20 страниц)

Gleb said, “It appears that we have been boarded, Colonel.”

“Viktor will kill them.”

“He has not killed them. He has only managed to kill Arkady, who was not a moving target with a gun.”

Petrov ignored the sarcasm and stared through the windshield, fixated on the lighted skyline of Lower Manhattan. He would have enjoyed seeing the post-apocalyptic photographs and news footage of the nuclear wasteland, but that was not to be, though his father would see them and be proud of his son’s sacrifice.

Gleb had set the autopilot on a course to bring The Hana to the ferry terminal at the tip of Manhattan, so Gleb was no longer needed. But Petrov wanted more speed, so he said, “Full speed, Captain.”

“How do we get off this ship?”

Petrov was prepared for the question and replied, “We don life vests and jump.” He added, “When we come ashore, we will go to our car—or find a taxi to take us to the diplomatic residential complex in the Bronx, where we will be safe.” He glanced at Gleb to see if he was believing any of that.

Gleb pointed out, “We will not get far in the water before the Americans capture us, or the explosion kills us.”

“I know what I am doing, Captain.”

“And I know what you are doing.”

Gleb turned on the radar and looked at the screen. There were now four craft within a few hundred meters of The Hana, and overhead he could hear a helicopter. He said to Petrov, “We are surrounded by hostile craft, and there are at least two Americans with weapons onboard.” He looked at Petrov. “It is over.”

Petrov stared at the Manhattan skyline.

“It is over, Colonel.”

“It is within reach, Captain.” He took the arming device from his pocket.

“Yes, if we intend to die in a nuclear explosion. I do not.” He said to Petrov, “Give me that thing in your hand.”

Petrov looked at Gleb and saw that Gleb had his pistol pointed at him.

Gleb repeated, “Give me that thing in your hand.”

Petrov held out the arming device. “Do you mean this thing? Or…” Petrov drew his Makarov from his pocket. “… this one?”

Gleb pulled the trigger on his pistol and was surprised to hear a dull thud.

Petrov said, “We seem to have a problem today with malfunctioning guns.” He aimed at Gleb’s face and fired a bullet between his eyes. Gleb’s head snapped back and he fell to the deck.

Petrov pocketed his pistol and took Gleb’s place at the helm. He looked at the autopilot light. The ship’s speed and course were set, and if he did nothing, The Hana would continue toward the tip of Manhattan Island at ten knots. But if he pushed the throttles forward for more speed, the autopilot would disengage and he would have to steer the ship himself. He wanted more speed, but he didn’t want to cancel Gleb’s pre-set course, in case he had to leave the bridge—or if he was killed. All he had to do now was reset the timer on the nuclear device.

The autopilot display showed that The Hana at this speed would be close to the tip of Manhattan in less than fifteen minutes. He looked at the clock on the dashboard: 06:11. He reset the detonation time on the arming device to 06:27, then did the same with the backup device. He dropped the two arming devices on the deck and put a bullet into each one, sealing not only his own fate but the fate of the City of New York. He would have also put a bullet into his own head, so he didn’t have to wait for death, but he wanted to watch the skyline getting closer as the minutes ticked off. Perhaps, he thought, there would be a moment of incandescent beauty at the instant of nuclear fission. This was the way to die.

Well, I thought, if you gotta die, it’s good to die in a bar.

I didn’t know who these people were, but I knew they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

With Tess close behind, I led the way into the dining room, and I saw two more bodies on the floor. I also noticed that the table was set for ten, but the guests were still lingering over cocktails.

I pulled the deck plans from my pocket and Tess shone her penlight on them. I could see an area marked VESTIBULE where there was an elevator and a spiral staircase that connected the decks toward the front of the yacht, and we headed quickly in that direction, guns drawn.

We got to the vestibule and I unslung my MP5. You never take an elevator in a tactical situation, and I whispered to Tess, “I go up the stairs face first, you follow ass first.”

I climbed the stairs, two at a time, my MP5 to my front, and Tess followed, climbing the stairs backwards, covering our rear with her Glock pointed at the base of the staircase.

I had no idea how many hostiles were aboard this ship, but there was a minimum of two. Petrov and Gorsky. And there was probably a Russian skipper aboard. There could also be a few other SVR killers who came aboard along with the Russian captain and the nuke, but maybe not if Moscow wanted to limit the number of people who knew about this. Which was why we found Urmanov waiting to die. So hopefully the only other Russians aboard were the party girls, and based on what I saw in the barroom, the party was over.

And then there was the crew. Maybe twenty of them. Where were they? Could Petrov and Gorsky have whacked them all? If so, Petrov was the worst ship passenger since Count Dracula.

I reached the vestibule on the salon deck and dropped to one knee as I swept my MP5 around the dark space. The ship was very quiet and I could hear my breathing.

Tess backed up the staircase and into the vestibule, her Glock still pointed down the stairs.

The next deck was the bridge where the ship’s office and captain’s quarters were located, and I stood and moved toward the spiral stairs.

Tess, however, moved toward the glass doors of the salon and motioned me to follow.

Well, you’re supposed to check out everything to make sure you’re not leaving hostiles behind you, but in my head I heard a timer ticking.

Petrov’s handheld radio beeped and Gorsky said, “I am not sure they are still here.”

Petrov replied, “In any case you must stay there and guard the device and kill anyone else who comes aboard from the swimming platform.”

Gorsky did not reply immediately, then said, “The Americans will start boarding over the sides, and in force—”

“I see no craft from the bridge,” though he did see them on the radar.

“But they know who we are, Colonel, and why we are here.”

“It is too late for them, Viktor.”

Again, there was a silence, then Gorsky said, “It is also too late for us.”

Petrov did not reply.

“Are we going to die?”

“Yes, we are going to die.”

Gorsky said nothing, so Petrov advised, “Be brave. Stay at your post—as Captain Gleb is doing.” He reminded Gorsky, “We cannot be taken prisoner. We cannot betray our country.” He assured Gorsky, “Your family will be taken care of. If you do your duty.”

Again, Gorsky said nothing, and Petrov had nothing more to say to him, so he signed off and turned his attention to the radar and the windshield, confident that Viktor Gorsky would do his duty. And if not, it didn’t matter because there was literally nothing that could stop The Hana at this point, except perhaps a naval cannon. But even if the Americans had a warship in the area, would they take the risk of firing on the ship that they suspected had a nuclear device onboard?

Petrov stared at the approaching skyline, then glanced at the Statue of Liberty in the harbor. “Yob vas.”

I followed Tess into the long salon. She stopped and took a deep breath. “Oh my God…”

So as it turned out, Tasha and her friends were just throwaway props, easily expendable in the pursuit of some psychotic goal of world domination. Well, Buck and I agreed on another thing—the Russians needed closer watching.

There was nothing more to see there, so we returned to the vestibule and approached the spiral staircase carefully, knowing that at least one person was on the bridge deck—and also knowing that these people carried submachine guns and knew how to use them.

We listened for a sound at the top of the stairs, but all I heard was that ticking in my head.

I made a tactical decision and said to Tess, “The only chance we have of stopping this fucking nuke from leveling Manhattan is if we split up. I go back to the tender garage, kill Gorsky, pump the garage dry, and try to disarm that thing. You go up to the bridge and see if you can get rid of whoever is up there and turn this ship toward the middle of the harbor.” I looked at her in the dim light and I could see she understood that this was our only play. She nodded.

“And if you get a chance, jump ship.”

She looked at me and our eyes met. “Well… nice working with you, Detective.”

“Yeah. You too.” I promised, “I’ll buy you that drink later.”

She started up the spiral staircase toward the bridge, and I moved quickly down the stairs to the lower deck.

Well, there are good plans and there are desperate plans. Petrov, too, had a desperate plan that obviously included dying for his country. He could have stopped the ship and raised the white flag, or he could have jumped overboard. But he wasn’t doing that, so neither were we.

Tess Faraday stopped near the top of the spiral staircase, noting that the bridge door was closed and that the other two doors in the vestibule were also shut.

She climbed the last few steps and swept the vestibule with her Glock, noticing blood trails on the floor that led to the captain’s quarters and the ship’s office, and she understood that dead bodies had been dragged into the rooms. Nothing in there to check out.

She turned toward the bridge door. Behind that door, as Corey said, was the asshole who controlled the nuke and the asshole who controlled the ship.

She took a deep breath, hit the entry pad, and dropped into a low crouch with her Glock aimed at the door, ready to empty her nine-round magazine. This could all be over in a minute.

But the door did not slide open.

She stepped back, aimed at the door, and began firing.

Tess felt a sharp pain in her arm and realized she’d been hit by a ricochet, and that the door was armored. “Damn it!”

An intercom speaker near the entry pad crackled, then a voice with a Russian accent said, “I am watching you on the camera. Where is your friend?”

“Open the fucking door and put your hands in the air!”

“I can’t hear you. Push the intercom button.”

Tess hit the intercom button, took a deep breath, and said, “Listen… we know what you’re doing, and we know this is not an attack by the Saudis. We know all this, and if you want to start fucking World War Three—”

“Shut up.”

“Look… Colonel Petrov… think about—”

“Shut up.”

“Asshole!” Tess took her finger off the intercom button and began kicking at the door. “You bastard! Stop this!”

There was no reply, but then Petrov’s voice came through the speaker. “You will be dead in thirteen minutes.”

I ran through the dark passageway on the lower deck between the staterooms, and at the end of the passageway were the double doors that led to the garage—and to Viktor Gorsky and the nuke.

I gripped my MP5 in my right hand and threw open a door, then dove into a prone position and scanned the darkness.

I could hear the blood pounding in my ears, but that was all I could hear, and I could see nothing except some moonlight coming through the doors that led to the swimming platform across the flooded garage.

Okay, I’d outflanked Gorsky, but where was he?

If I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. But he had to have heard me diving through the door and hitting the deck, so he knew approximately where I was, and I expected to see the flash of his MP5 and hear the bullets smacking into the deck around me—or into me. I tried to control my breathing, but it sounded too loud. Someone had to make a move. But time was still on Gorsky’s side, and he didn’t have to do anything. Unless he’d decided he didn’t want to be standing at ground zero when the nuke blew. So maybe he’d put on a life vest and gone off the swimming platform, leaving me alone with the nuke. File that under wishful thinking.

I rose slowly to one knee and suddenly the underwater lights came on, and I turned quickly toward the catwalk. And there was Viktor Gorsky, not twenty feet away, aiming his submachine gun at me.

I knew I was dead, but Gorsky seemed to hesitate for half a second, or maybe the light momentarily blinded him. I used that half second to dive over the side of the dock into the water, just as I saw the flash of his muzzle and heard the bullets impacting on the dock where I’d been.

I sank to the bottom of the illuminated water and saw bullets coming at me, but they lost their velocity before they traveled a foot into the water.

I found traction on the submerged deck and I half walked and half swam toward the catwalk. I was running out of breath, but if I surfaced for air I’d be inhaling hot lead.

Gorsky kept firing into the water, desperately trying to overcome the laws of physics. He was losing his cool.

I got under the catwalk and hoped that Gorsky would not think of the only thing he could do to save his ass, which was to jump off the catwalk and join me in the water. But he didn’t think of that fast enough and I extended my arm until the submachine gun was out of the water and aimed straight up at the catwalk’s floor grate and squeezed the trigger, hoping the MP5 really could fire when wet.

I felt the submachine gun bucking in my hand, and I looked up through the water to see Gorsky lying facedown on the catwalk, hopefully with a few rounds in his balls and up his ass. Surprise!

The water around me was turning red, and I surfaced, took a deep breath, then reached up and grabbed the edge of the catwalk. Gorsky’s face was right above mine, and his eyes were open, staring down at me through the grate, and his lips were moving. I put the muzzle of my MP5 to his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Now for the nuke.

Vasily Petrov stared at the video monitor. Was it possible that Gorsky was dead? He kept staring at the dim image on the screen, then watched as the American climbed out of the water and onto the catwalk, then found the switch to the pumps, then the switch to the overhead lights. The garage brightened and Petrov continued to stare at the screen as the man Depp searched Gorsky’s body, then ran to the dock toward the submerged lifeboat—and the nuclear device.

It was not possible that this man could disarm the device even if he was trained. There simply wasn’t enough time for the water to recede and for him to get the locked trunk open.

Petrov looked at the clock on the dashboard. Then back at the image on the screen.

The time until detonation was so short that Petrov knew he needed to do nothing… but the American had found Urmanov’s tool kit… so perhaps he needed to go below and kill this man. But first he needed to kill the woman outside his door.

Tess stood in the vestibule, her gun drawn, staring at the bridge door, thinking about how to get to Vasily Petrov and whoever else was on the bridge.

Petrov’s voice said, “I can see my man Gorsky on the monitor. He has killed your friend in the garage.”

Tess felt her stomach tighten.

“It is finished. Save yourself. Go!”

Tess aimed her Glock at the intercom, fired, and silenced it. “Bastard!”

She looked up at the eyeball video camera in the ceiling and fired three rounds into it. “Fuck you.”

She also noticed a skylight on the ceiling, and she moved under it, seeing that it was hinged. It was about ten feet above her head, impossible to reach, but there must be a ladder.

She looked around, then saw a lever next to the elevator buttons, marked ROOF HATCH. She pulled the lever and a collapsible steel ladder fell from an overhead compartment.

Tess slapped a fresh magazine into her Glock and began climbing the ladder, which would take her to the roof above the bridge, and also to the sloping windshield where she could lie flat over the edge of the roof, look into the bridge, and empty her Glock into Vasily Petrov.

I stood on the catwalk and hit the switch marked PUMPS, and heard them engage. I found the light switches, turned them on, and the garage brightened.

I also noticed a switch marked SHELL DOOR, which I assumed opened the door in the hull. I glanced at the amphibious craft tied to the dock. That was a way out of here if the pumps didn’t work fast enough to get the water below the nuke. The question was, How fast was that amphibious craft and how big was that nuke? I hoped I didn’t have to find out.

I also hoped that Tess was having better luck on the bridge, but I could feel that the ship was still moving forward, meaning that the bad guys were still in command.

I quickly searched Gorsky’s body to see if he had something, like a remote control device, or a code to stop the clock, but all he had on him was a small pistol and a knife. As for extra MP5 magazines, apparently he’d used them up murdering everyone. I pocketed his pistol.

The water level was dropping, and I came down from the catwalk and ran along the dock to the submerged boat. I glanced at Urmanov, whose slumped body was soaked in blood. Another asshole who’d made bad decisions.

I noticed an overnight bag on the dock, and it looked like the one Urmanov had carried to the amphibious craft. I knelt and opened it, finding an aluminum box that I also opened and saw it was filled with small precision instruments, which were obviously for the suitcase nuke.

I looked at the black trunk, still underwater. Maybe another two or three minutes before I could get to it. I jumped into the half-submerged boat and examined the trunk, noticing now that it had a hasp and combination padlock. “Damn it!”

I also noticed a wire coming from the side of the trunk, and I followed it visually and spotted a black ball floating in the water. This, I guessed, was the antenna that would pick up radio signals from a remote control and transmit the signals to the device; and Petrov undoubtedly had the remote, so there was no question now that the asshole had reset the time from 08:46 to… now.

I left the wire plugged into the trunk, thinking that if Tess could get onto the bridge and get hold of the remote, and if she or I could figure out how it worked, we might be able to stop the clock. Not likely, but… Well, I was due for a break. But I actually needed a miracle.

The water had dropped to an inch above the trunk. I moved off to the side, knelt in the cold seawater, pulled my Glock and put the muzzle right above the water. I aimed at the combination lock and fired three rounds.

The bullets hit the lock and it swung on the hasp, and I fired four more rounds, then grabbed the damaged lock and pulled. It held fast.

“Damn it!”

I sat in the submerged boat, waiting for the water to drop a few more inches. Seconds, minutes, inches.

The speaker crackled, and Petrov’s voice said, “What are you doing, Mr. Depp?”

I looked toward the catwalk where the public address speaker was mounted on the hull. “Fuck you.”

“I can see you, but I cannot hear you.” He suggested, “Come to the catwalk and use the intercom. I need to speak to you.”

“No, asshole, you need to die.”

“I cannot hear you, Mr. Depp.”

“The name’s Corey!” I flipped him the bird, then I looked at the trunk. The lid was now above water.

Petrov said, “I have killed your lady friend.”

I took a deep breath, then unslung my MP5 and pointed it at the top of the trunk.

Petrov’s voice was a bit urgent. “Do not shoot at the device. You could detonate it.”

Or stop the clock. Well… either way was okay. Tess would agree.

“Save yourself.”

I shifted my aim to the lock, which was now clearing the water, and emptied my last MP5 magazine into it.

Petrov had no comment.

I knelt and pulled at the lock, which still held. “Damn it!”

I remembered the Halligan tool I’d tossed here to draw Gorsky’s fire, and I saw it lying on the dock. I jumped onto the dock, grabbed the tool, and jumped back into the half-submerged boat. I shoved the tapered end between the lock shank and the hasp and twisted, reminding God that it was time for a break. The lock shank held, but the hasp ripped loose from the trunk. “Thank you.” I tossed the lock and hasp aside and lifted the heavy lead-lined lid until its supporting arms locked into place. And there in front of me was the bomb.

There were no dials, no switches, and no ticking clock. Just a smooth metal faceplate, secured by four recessed screws or bolts. The four color-coded ports were obviously for leads and wires attached to the arming device, which, more obviously, I did not have.

Okay, so back to basics. I pulled my Glock, stood, and pointed it at the shiny metal faceplate of the nuclear device.

I expected to hear from Petrov again, but the speaker was silent. He could have jumped ship, but I didn’t think that was part of his plan. And maybe he was lying about Tess and she’d whacked him… but the ship was still moving forward, and I didn’t hear anyone’s voice on the speaker. Not Petrov’s and not Tess’.

I took a deep breath and squeezed on the trigger, wondering if I’d hear the sizzle of fried electronics, or the Big Bang. One way to find out.

Tess scrambled up the ladder and slid quietly across the white fiberglass roof, between the radar tower and the antennas.

Up ahead she could see the skyline of Manhattan, maybe three miles away, and getting closer. A pink dawn was visible on the eastern horizon. It was going to be a nice day.

She saw a helicopter overhead flying in slow circles, and a few hundred yards off the port side was a Coast Guard cutter, keeping pace with The Hana, and to starboard was an NYPD Harbor craft, also running alongside the yacht.

She waved her arm, hoping they knew that a female agent had boarded the hostile ship. Don’t fire.

Tess held her Glock in both hands and propelled herself over the edge of the roof until she was staring down through the windshield into the dimly lit bridge. She saw a body on the floor, and it wasn’t Petrov’s, who was off to her left, looking down at the lighted video screen on the instrument panel. She held her Glock at a downward angle and took aim.

Petrov suddenly looked up and saw her face staring at him a few feet away, and he went for his gun.

Tess fired three rounds into the windshield, realizing instantly that they weren’t penetrating. Petrov returned the fire, with the same results.

They looked at each other for a moment through the fractured glass, then Tess jumped to her feet and emptied her magazine into the fiberglass roof, above where Petrov was standing, but she realized the roof was also bulletproof. “Damn it!”

She scrambled back to the hatch and dropped ten feet to the vestibule floor, then reached into her pocket for a full magazine.

Before she could reload, she was aware that something was moving, and she looked toward the bridge to see the door sliding open. Standing there was Vasily Petrov, pointing his pistol at her.

“Bitch!”

Tess saw a flame spit out of his silenced pistol, and felt something hit her in the chest, knocking her back against the elevator.

He fired again, and again he hit her in her Kevlar vest, knocking her off her feet.

Petrov seemed momentarily pleased, then confused.

Tess dove for the spiral staircase as Petrov fired again. She went over the railing and dropped to the deck below.

Petrov was at the top of the staircase and he fired again, this time hitting her in the left thigh.

She rolled as she slammed a magazine into her Glock and emptied it up the staircase, then ran into the salon and sprinted across the bloody carpeting, tripping over a body, then getting to her feet and continuing until she reached the outdoor lounge.

She was aware that she was covered with blood and that some of it was hers, but it wasn’t gushing, though the wound was starting to throb. She took a deep breath and looked back into the salon, but she couldn’t see Petrov.

As she moved down the outside staircase to the main deck, she saw a large ship about three hundred yards off the starboard side. The ship had a strange bow and she realized it was an icebreaker. They were going to ram The Hana and sink her—her meaning The Hana, but also meaning her. Well… it was a smart move. Maybe the only move left.

She had no idea where Petrov was, but she hoped he was following her so she could kill him before the nuke did.

Tess moved cautiously down to the main deck, then to the staircase that went down to the garage, and began to descend. The wound in her thigh was now sending sharp pains down her leg, and she held the rail with one hand and her Glock in the other.

There was no good reason to descend into the flooded garage, except to see for herself if Corey was dead. And if he was, that meant that Gorsky was alive, and she would also kill him.

Before I fired into the nuclear device, I had a lucid moment and remembered Urmanov’s aluminum box. I’m not good with tools, but I evolve fast.

I found what looked like a screwdriver, except that the tip had a very odd shape with three prongs. I looked at the four holes in the corners of the metal faceplate, which I assumed held recessed screws, and I put the screwdriver in one of the holes and twisted, but it didn’t budge. Shit.

I was about to give up on this idea, but then I thought that this being a Russian suitcase nuke, it was not user friendly, so I twisted clockwise, which is supposed to tighten a screw, and I felt it turn.

I quickly removed all four screws, but there was no place to get a grip on the recessed steel faceplate to lift it off. Then I noticed a narrow notch on the right edge of the plate, big enough to get a knife blade into. I took my pocketknife—Swiss Army—and extended the blade, which I slid into the notch and levered the faceplate up an inch, enough to get my fingers under it. So if I lifted it, would it blow?

One way to find out. And I did, and it didn’t.

I threw the faceplate into the water and looked down at the inside of a nuclear suitcase bomb. Holy shit.

I’m a little squeamish about radiation exposure, but I understood that this was not my immediate problem.

… if you can remove any one of the three components… I looked for the digital countdown clock, one of the items that could possibly be removed, but there was no such thing. The clock must be internal, part of the electronic circuitry, not visible to human eyes. Petrov, of course, had the remote arming device and he could see how many minutes we all had left, but I could not.

I looked for the power source, but I didn’t see anything that looked like a battery, so it must be buried deep in the electronic bowels of this monster.

The third component was the explosive charge… but this explosive was made up of two elements: the nuclear core and the conventional high explosive that was wrapped around the core. And all of this was contained in a beach-ball-sized metal globe, which I was staring at, and there was no way to get into it. Nor did I want to.

Two electrical wires led into the globe, one on each side—and those wires led to the detonators buried in the high explosive material. And the wires came from a battery that I couldn’t see, and somewhere in the circuit was the clock, which I also couldn’t see. Damn it!

Okay… now what? Cut a wire? If you cut one wire leading to the charge, it collapses the other circuit, setting off the charge. Not a good idea according to my Bomb Squad instructor.

I felt sweat forming on my forehead, but my hands were very steady if I wanted to do something with them.

Then I understood that this was actually a win-win situation. If I got lucky and disarmed the bomb, all was good. But if I blew it, this far from the city, then the damage would be… well, acceptable. So if I removed myself from the equation, then I knew what I had to do. I grabbed both wires leading to the metal globe, understanding that they had to be pulled simultaneously—if one was pulled first, the other circuit would probably collapse in a nanosecond and send an electrical charge into the detonator, which would blow the high explosives, and the nuclear core would achieve critical mass and do its fission thing.

I tugged on both wires to sort of rehearse, then I heard a voice in my head, and the voice said, Submerge the electronics, stupid.

Then another voice said, “John!” That voice sounded more like Tess than God.

I stood and looked at her on the opposite dock, and saw blood on her left pant leg. “You okay?”

“I’m okay… Petrov said that Gorsky killed you.”

I wasn’t sure how she’d had a conversation with Colonel Petrov, and I didn’t care, but I cared about his health, so I asked, “Is he dead?”

“No. He’s… he may be following me.”

Shit.

She started limping toward the catwalk, and I asked her, “Who’s steering this ship?”

“I don’t know… I saw a dead man on the bridge.”

Well, he wasn’t steering. So either Petrov was steering or the autopilot was. I informed her, “Gorsky is dead. On the catwalk.”

“Good.”

“How far are we from Manhattan?”

“Maybe… less than a mile.”

So we had maybe five minutes—or less.

She moved across the catwalk and stepped over Gorsky like he was dog turd. She looked at the nuke as she came toward me on the dock and exclaimed, “You got it open!”

“Right.”

“Do you know what to do?”

“I do.”

“Thank God.”

I was about to dash to the catwalk and open the shell door, flooding the garage and submerging the nuke, which, if it was like my cell phone, would die quickly.

But Vasily Petrov had other ideas and he said, “Put your hands up and move away from the device.” He was standing at the double doors and aimed his MP5 at Tess. “Or I will shoot her.”

He was going to shoot her anyway, but he wasn’t going to shoot at me standing in front of the nuke, so I knew I could try to pull my Glock. Or pull the detonator wires.

“Move away!” He raised his submachine gun and pointed it at Tess, who knew the same trick I knew, and she dove over the side of the dock, but the water level was less than two feet now and she took a hard fall, though Petrov lost sight of her.

I used the opportunity to pull my Glock and pumped my remaining two rounds at him, then the gun clicked empty.

Petrov was down but not out, and he got to one knee, blood all over his arms and shirt. He raised his MP5 and aimed it at me, but hesitated because of the nuke behind me, which he did not want to blow prematurely, though I did, so I said, “Shoot, asshole!”