The Hammer of God

“All the same, sir, it don’t look over from here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Not over the phone, sir.”

“What do you need?”

“Is that Palumbo guy available?”

“When do you need him?”

“ASAP.”

“I’ll call you back.”

Bill grabbed his regular phone.

“Well, he only said, ‘Cheryl, cancel my meetings for the rest of the day,’ then he left. He did say that I should tell you he’ll meet up with you at the theater.”

“You don’t know where he went?” Janice asked.

“You know when he gets like that, you can’t get anything out of him.”

Janice took out her phone. She tried Bill. No answer.

“He doesn’t want to be found,” Janice said. Both women knew that this must be some security thing. Neither woman could conceive of Bill having a clandestine meet or tete-a-tete with a paramour. Although something in Janice’s spine almost wished it was as simple as that. She knew if Bill disappeared, something big must be happening.

“Cheryl, could you try him again?”

Bill disabled his cell phone battery so that any GPS tracking data wouldn’t give away his position, or that of Bridgestone and Ross, who he was meeting. As he exited his father’s Cadillac, he approached two men sitting on the bench on the edge of the public park.

“Mr. Hiccock! We were expecting Palumbo.” Bridge said.

“He was heading out to Europe. I turned him around, but he’s at least four hours out. So I figured maybe I could help.”

The two warriors looked at each other. Bill felt the need to intercede in his defense.

“Look guys, I’ve seen my share of action and I can handle myself pretty well if it comes to that. Now, what do we got?”

“Our movie producer, Rashani, is too clean. We’ve run him through a bunch of checks and double checks and couldn’t even find a pissed off waiter that he stiffed. Too clean. Too neat.”

“Look fellas, the nuke is accounted for. It’s deep-sixed.”

“That may be, sir, but what we’re onto sure as hell lead us this far, and we’re here because we were on the trail of the nuke.”

“And…?” Bill asked, knowing that that fact alone could not form the basis of their case against the producer.

“Sheik Alzir El Benhan.”

The name of the bio-terror mastermind and reason for the kidnapping of an ambassodor sent a shiver up Bill’s spine. “Go on.”

“Seems the movie mogul, Rashani, had a security guard who is an ex-chopper pilot for the Iranian Air Force. After we did a little digging, we found that the pilot came there” — Bridge hitched his head at the building across the street — “a few weeks back.”

Hiccock could only imagine the trail of broken bones and ripped skin “a little digging” by these two might have caused. He looked across to the mosque on this quiet Jersey City street. “A little obvious, ain’t it, using a mosque?”

“Just another benefit of the great American Suicide Pact, Mr. Hiccock,” Ross said.

“No law enforcement agency could even surveil it now. Not with all the bleeding heart bullshit going on. But the subway boy who was released also came by this way. As far as we can tell, he’s still in there.”

“So why did you need Joe?”

“Ross did some investigating. Rashani’s ex-pilot is working on a movie here in New York.”

“But he’s not working for Rashani; he’s working for Alazir El-Benhan, who is posing as Rashani.”

“You go to the head of the class, Mr. Hiccock.”

“Been there, done that, got the egghead reputation to prove it. What’s the plan?”

“Ross will stay here and bird-dog Rodney.”

“Rodney?”

“Ali Rashid, also known as Rodney Albert, the guy who ran from the subway checkpoint. He’s a loose cannon but he made his money as a freelancer in the L.A. indie movie biz, as an assistant cameraman.”

“Movies again.”

“Yeah. They’ll be the death of Western culture.”

“Let’s go!” Hiccock said.

“Here. Know how?” Ross handed Bill a Sig Sauer.357. Bill popped the clip, checked the load, pulled back the slide, checked the chamber, released the slide gently, reseated the clip, and stuck the gun in his waistband.

“We’ll take our car,” Bridgestone said.

Bill tossed the keys of the car he drove to Ross. “It’s my dad’s.”

“I’ll be careful.”

On the way, Bridgestone filled Bill in on the details. Hiccock started processing what he was learning from the pointy end of the stick that he pointed at the problem. His training as a scientist kicked in as he listened to data that seemed to contradict the commonly held belief that the suitcase nuke threat was over. Bill instinctively knew that the trail that brought B amp;R to this point could have been correctly on the scent of another nuke device. A wholly different one not connected to the one that blew up in the Persian Gulf.

The scientist caught himself in mid-thought. It didn’t blow up. There was no detonation, just radioactive debris. Enough rads to be read as a spike by the satellites. But not a detonation.

He pulled out his cell phone and said, “It didn’t blow up!”

“What didn’t?” Bridge asked.

“Li, it’s Bill. Have you done a high-resolution analysis of the Mahgra spike against the Persian Gulf spike? Could ja? Like now! Call me back A.S.A.P.”