Day of Wrath

“Berlin?” Farrell wrinkled his brow. “After that business in Pechenga, I’d have thought you’d be back home by now.”

“You heard about Pechenga?”

“Hell, Pete. Hear about it?” Farrell smiled wryly. “Anybody with a TV or radio heard about it. Louisa and I keep expecting to see you and Helen on Oprah on a show about Then and Women Who Date Under Fire.”” He’d never admit it to Thorn, but he’d also been greedily following any news about the O.S.I.A plane crash and the ensuing events in Russia. It was an interesting and intriguing story, but, more important, he’d known that Thorn was involved.

Farrell turned serious. “I’m real glad you both came through that mess unscratched. It sounded like a bad one.”

“It was, sir,” Thorn said.

This time Farrell caught the faint undercurrent of very real desperation in the younger man’s voice. He frowned. He’d never heard Peter Thorn desperate before. Angry, yes. Determined, always.

And sometimes as stubborn as a mule. But never desperate.

He gripped the phone tighter. “Okay, Pete. What the hell’s going on?”

There was a long pause — long enough to make him wonder whether he’d lost the connection to Berlin.

Finally, Thorn said, “Helen and I need your help, sir. But frankly I’m not sure you should give it to us.”

What? Farrell’s frown grew deeper. “Try me.”

“Okay, sir,” Thorn said. “Here’s the situation we’re in …”

Farrell listened intently as the younger man outlined what he and Helen Gray had done since escaping the carnage aboard that rusting freighter in Pechenga. He found himself shaking his head in growing astonishment at each successive scrape that the two had plunged themselves into.

He’d thought that Thorn’s ability to run himself into trouble doing the right thing had reached its peak during the Delta Force raid on Teheran. By rights, his refusal of a direct presidential order to abort that mission should have resulted in a courtmartial.

Even after Thorn and his troops returned home to a hero’s welcome it had taken every ounce of pull Farrell possessed to keep him on active duty. And since then the general had heard whispers around the Pentagon that his own retirement had been hastened by running interference for the younger man.

Farrell snorted silently, correcting that thought. He knew full well that holding his second star and command of the Joint Special Operations Command was as high as he could ever have gone.

No, he’d never really regretted backing Pete Thorn. But, Jesus, he thought, his former subordinate could sure find ways to make his own life difficult. Violation of movement orders. Unauthorized travel.

Leaving the scene of a crime. Nobody at the Pentagon was going to be able to sweep that stuff under the rug this time.

Suddenly, Farrell stood bolt upright — still holding the phone to his ear. “You and Helen just mugged a couple of German policemen!”

“Not intentionally, sir,” Thorn said, sounding moderately contrite.

“Helen’s boss at the FBI must have sicced them onto our trail after she asked him for help getting out of the country. We thought they were more of the same people who’ve been gunning for us ever since Pechenga.”

“Christ on a crutch, Pete!” Farrell rubbed a hand through his graying hair in distraction. “What the hell are you both doing? I don’t care how many kilos of heroin those bastards are smuggling in, you’ve gone way overboard here! For God’s sake, you’re in the U.S. Army, remember — not the DEA!”

“We’re not chasing heroin, sir,” Thorn said firmly. “We’re chasing what we think is one loose Russian nuke. And it’s already on its way to the States.”

Farrell felt the hair on the back of his neck rise. Ever since the Soviet Union came crashing down, every Western government’s nightmare scenario had revolved around the uncertain safety and security of the old U.S.S.R’s massive nuclear arsenal. And now Peter Thorn was telling him that the nightmare might be turning into a reality.

He took a deep breath. “Do you and Special Agent Gray have any hard evidence to back that assertion up, Colonel?”

This time Farrell waited until Thorn finished detailing their entire chain of evidence and reasoning. Then he let out a low whistle.

“That’s mighty thin, Pete. Mighty thin. A lot of people, good, smart people, too — would say that’s just a lot of halfassed speculation.”

“Yes, sir.”

Farrell checked a smile. Damn it. Peter Thorn was just as stubborn, and as painfully honest, as ever. So was his conviction the product of sound reasoning? Or just an act of faith? “Have you run this by anybody official yet?”

“Everybody seems to have bought the drug smuggling story hook, line, and sinker,” Thorn said. “Helen bounced it off her boss — and he tried frog-marching us into a German jail cell.”

Farrell shook his head. “It sounds like you’re out of friends, Pete.”

“I hope not, sir.”

Farrell knew that Thorn would never outright beg or plead, but there was a note in his voice that he didn’t hear often. “What do you want me to do, Pete?”