London Bridges: A Novel (19 page)

“This is the dark side of the moon,” he said. Then he opened it for me to see inside.

“It's called a tactical nuclear explosive device. More simply, a 'suitcase nuke.' Produces a horrific explosion. Unlike conventional warheads, it operates at ground level. Easy to conceal, easy to transport. No mess, no fuss. You've seen pictures of Hiroshima, of course. Everyone has.”

“What about Hiroshima?”

"This suitcase has approximately the same yield. Devastating. We, the old Soviet Union, used to manufacture these bombs by the truckload.

“Want to know where some of the others are right now? Well, there is one or more in Washington, D.C., Tel Aviv, Paris, London. So, as you see, we have a new member in the exclusive 'nuclear community.' We are the new members.”

I was starting to feel cold all over. Was there really a nuclear bomb in the suitcase?

“That's the message you want me to deliver?”

"The other reactors are in place. And to show my good faith, you can take this reactor back with you. Let the boys in the shop look it over. But tell them to look very quickly.

“Now, maybe, maybe, you understand. Get out of here. To me, you are a gnat, but at least you are a gnat. Take the nuclear weapon with you. Consider it a gift. Don't say I didn't warn you about what was going to happen. Now, go. Hurry, Dr. Cross.”

Everything was a blur from there on that afternoon. The dark cloth hood had just been for show, I figured, since I wore nothing over my eyes on the ride back to Paris, which seemed a lot shorter than the ride out.

I kept asking my captors where I was being taken with the suitcase bomb, but neither man in the car would give me an answer. Not a word. They spoke nothing but Russian on the ride.

To me, you are a gnat. . . . Take the nuclear weapon with you. . . .

Soon after we entered Paris, the Peugeot stopped in the crowded parking lot of a shopping center. A gun was held in my face, and then I was handcuffed to the suitcase. “What's this about?” I asked my captors but received no answer.

Moments later the Peugeot stopped again, at place Igor Stravinsky, one of the more populated areas of Paris, though mostly deserted now.

“Get out!” I was told—the first English words I'd heard in close to an hour.

Slowly, carefully, I emerged from the sedan with the bomb. I felt a little dizzy. The Peugeot roared off.

I was aware of a certain liquidity in the air, particles, a real sense of atoms. I stood motionless near the huge plaza of the Centre National d'Art et de Culture Georges Pompidou, handcuffed to a black valise that weighed at least fifty pounds, probably more.

Supposedly it carried a nuclear bomb, the full equivalent of the ones Harry Truman had ordered dropped on Japan. My body was already covered with cold sweat, and I felt as if I were watching myself in a dream. Could it all end like this? Of course it could. All bets were off, but especially any bets on my life. Was I about to be blown up? Would I suffer radiation sickness if I wasn't?

I spotted two policemen near a Virgin record store and made my way up to them. I explained who I was, and then told them to please call the directeur de la sécurité publique.

I didn't tell the cops what was in the black valise, but I quickly revealed the contents to the director when he came on the line. “Is the threat real, Dr. Cross?” he wanted to know. “Is the bomb live?”

“I don't know. How could I? Please respond as if it is. That's what I'm doing.” Get your bomb squad over here. Now! Get off the phone!

Within a few minutes, the whole of the Beaubourg district had been evacuated, except for a dozen or so patrolmen, the military police, and several bomb-squad experts. At least I hoped they were experts, the best France had to offer.

I was told to sit on the ground, which I did. Right alongside the black valise, of course. I did everything I was told to do, because I had no choice in the matter. I was feeling sick to my stomach, and sitting made it a little better, though not much. At least the initial dizziness I'd felt was starting to pass.

First, a bomb-sniffing dog was brought in to smell me and the suitcase. A handsome, young German shepherd, the chien explo, approached very cautiously, eyeing the suitcase as if it were a rival dog, an enemy.

When the shepherd got within five yards, she completely froze. A low growl rumbled up from her chest. The hair on her neck rose. Oh shit. Oh God, I thought.

The dog continued to growl until she was certain of radioactive contents, then she quickly retreated to her handlers. Very wise of the shepherd. I was left alone again. I'd never been more frightened in my life, nothing had come even close. The thought of being blown apart, possibly vaporized, isn't pleasant. It's a tough one to wrap your mind around.

After what seemed like an eternity, though it was only a few minutes, two bomb-squad technicians in moon suits cautiously headed my way. I saw that one of them was clutching bolt cutters. God bless him! This was such an incredibly surreal moment.

The man with the cutters knelt down beside me. “It's okay, you're okay,” he whispered. Then he carefully sliced through the handcuffs.

“You can leave. Get up slowly,” he said. I rose cautiously, rubbing my wrist, but already backing away from the suitcase.

My alien-looking escorts and I hurried out of the designated “hot zone” to where two black bomb-squad vans were parked. Of course, the van was still in the “hot zone” as well. If a nuclear bomb went off, at least a square mile of Paris would be vaporized instantly.

From inside one of the vans I watched the team of technicians work to deactivate the bomb. If they could. I never considered leaving the scene, and the next few minutes were the longest of my life. No one in the van spoke, and we were all holding our breath. The idea of dying like this, so suddenly, was almost impossible to conceive.

Word came back from the French bomb technicians: “The suitcase is open.”

Then, less than a minute later, “The fissile material is there. It's real. It seems to be in working order, unfortunately.”

The bomb was real. It wasn't a fake threat. The Wolf was still keeping his promises, wasn't he? The sadistic bastard was everything he said he was.

Then I saw one of the technicians pump his arm in the air. A cheer went up around the console in the van. I didn't understand exactly what had happened at first, but it seemed like good news. No one explained anything to me.

“What just happened?” I finally asked in French.

One of the techs turned to me. “There's no trigger! It couldn't blow up. They didn't want it to explode, thank God. They only wanted to scare the shit out of us.”

“It worked,” I told him. “I shit you not.”

Over the next couple of hours it was revealed that the suitcase bomb had everything necessary for a nuclear explosion except a single part, a pulsed neutron emitter, a trigger. All the difficult elements were there. I couldn't eat that night, couldn't keep anything down, couldn't concentrate at all. I'd been tested, but I couldn't get the idea of radiation poisoning to leave my brain.

I also couldn't get Maud Boulard out of my mind: her face, the tenor of her voice, our absurd lunch together, the detective's stubbornness and naïveté, her red hair splayed out on the sidewalk. The casual brutality of the Wolf and his people.

I kept flashing back to the Russian who had struck me in the farmhouse. Had it been the Wolf? Why would he let me see him? And then, why not?

I went back to the Relais and suddenly wished that I hadn't asked for a room facing the street. My body felt numb all over, exhausted, but my mind wouldn't stop racing at warp speed. The noise rising from the street was a disturbance that I couldn't handle right now. They have nuclear weapons. This isn't a bluff. It's going to happen. A holocaust.

I decided to call the kids at about six o'clock, their time. I talked to them about all the things in Paris that I didn't see that day—everything except what had really happened to me. So far, the media had none of it, but that wouldn't last.

Then I called Nana. I told her the truth about how it had felt sitting on the pavement with a bomb attached to my wrist. She was the one I always told about my worst days, and this was probably the worst of them all.

When I arrived at my small office at the Préfecture I got another surprise. Martin Lodge was waiting there for me. It was 7:15: ten hours and forty-five minutes to doomsday.

I shook Martin's hand, and told him how glad I was that he was there. “Not much time left. Why are you here?”

“Last words, I suppose. I have to give the final update on the situation in London. As well as Tel Aviv. From our vantage point, anyway.”

“And?”

Martin shook his head. “You don't want to hear the same rotten story twice.”

“Yeah. I do.”

“Not this story, you don't. Oh hell, it's all cocked up, Alex. I think he might have to blow up a city to get them to act. That's how bad it is. The worst is Tel Aviv. I think it's basically hopeless there. They don't make deals with terrorists. You asked.”

The morning briefing started at eight sharp and included a quick summary on the briefcase bomb from the technicians who had taken it apart. They reported that the bomb was authentic in design, but there was no neutron emitter, no trigger, and possibly not enough radioactive material inside.

An army general spoke about the current situation in Paris: the people were frightened and staying off the streets, but only a small percentage had actually fled the city. The army was prepared to move in and declare martial law about the time of the deadline, which was sixP.M.

Then it was time for Martin. He strode to the front of the room and spoke in French. "Good morning. Isn't it incredible what can happen once we adapt ourselves to a new reality? The people of London have been splendid, for the most part. Some rioting. Not too much in terms of what could have happened. I suspect that those who might have given us the most trouble got out of London early. As for Tel Aviv, they're so accustomed to crisis and living under threatening scenarios—let's just say that they're handling this very well.

"Anyway, that's the good news. The bad is that we've raised most of the money, but not all of it. That's in London. And Tel Aviv? As best we can tell, they're not going to make a deal. The Israelis hold their cards very close to the vest, so we're not sure what's transpired there.

"We're putting on pressure, of course. And so is Washington. I know that private individuals have been approached to put up the entire ransom. That could still happen. But it isn't clear if the government will take the money. They simply don't want to meet terrorist demands.

“Less than ten hours,” Martin Lodge said. “To be blunt, we don't have time for a lot of bullshit. Somebody has to drop the hammer on anyone who's resisting paying the ransom.”

A policeman had come up to me and was whispering against my ear. “Sorry. You're needed, Dr. Cross.”

“What is it?” I whispered back. I wanted to hear everything that was being said in this meeting.

“Just come. It's an emergency. Right now, please.”

I knew that, ironically, an “emergency” had to be considered good news at this point in the countdown. At 8:30 that morning I was inside a speeding police cruiser, the blare of its siren disturbing the peace all along our route across Paris.

My God, the streets were bleak and deserted. Except for soldiers and the police, anyway. My part in an ongoing interrogation was explained to me during the ride. “We have an arms dealer in custody, Dr. Cross. We have reason to believe that he helped supply the bombs. Maybe he's one of the men who you saw out in the country. He's a Russian—with a white beard.”

Minutes later we arrived in front of the Brigade Criminelle, a dark, nineteenth-century building in a quiet neighborhood along the Seine. Actually, this was the infamous “La Crim” from countless French movies and police stories, including several about Inspector Maigret that Nana and I had read together when I was a kid. Life imitates art, or something like that.

Once inside La Crim I was led up a rickety staircase, all the way to the top floor, the fourth. The interrogation was being conducted up there.

I was brought down a narrow hallway to room 414. The brigadier who escorted me knocked once, and then we stepped inside.

I recognized the Russian arms dealer instantly.

They had caught White Beard, the one who'd told me he was the Wolf.

The room was small and cramped, as it was situated right under the eaves. It had a low, rain-stained, sloping ceiling and a tiny Velux, a skylight. I looked at my watch—8:45. Tick, tick, tick.

I was hurriedly introduced to the interrogation team of Captain Coridon and Lieutenant Leroux—and their prisoner, a Russian arms dealer, Artur Nikitin. I already knew Nikitin, of course. He wore no shirt or shoes and was cuffed, hands behind his back. He was also sweating profusely. He was definitely the white-bearded Russian from the farmhouse.

I had been told during the ride over that the Russian hoodlum did business with al Qaeda that had made him millions. It was believed that he was involved with suitcase nukes, that he knew how many had been sold, and that he knew who had bought them.

“Cowards!” he was shouting at the French police as I entered the room. “Fucking goddamn cowards. You can't do this to me. I've done nothing wrong. You French claim to be such liberals, but you are not!”

He looked at me and pretended he had no idea who I was. His bad acting made me smile.

Captain Coridon told him, “You may have noticed that you have been brought to the Préfecture de Police rather than the offices of the DST. That's because you're not being charged as an 'illegal trafficker in arms.' The charge is murder. We are homicide detectives. Trust me, there are no liberals in this room, unless it's you.”