Page 75 of Soul on Fire
“Lieutenant!” Mallory barked. “Stand down! Donotapproach that body!”
“We have to know what’s in his backpack, ma’am.”
“And we will, as soon as the CBRN and HAZMAT teams arrive. They will properly secure the area and investigate his belongings in a controlled and safe manner. Getbackhere.”
Elliot stepped through the thick, midnight-dark pools of Majambu’s blood. He’d been at the bitter end, his blood clotting and congealing inside of him as his organs liquefied. The stench of raw shit and half-digested blood choked him, and he gagged, nearly vomited. Burned copper and rot, raw fish and the worst porta-shitters from his times downrange. “Ma’am, we might not have that kind of time.”
“I will not let my sailors get hurt or be killed, not even if they are trying their hardest to die. Get back behind the perimeter, Lieutenant, or I will have you court-martialed.”
“That’s the thing, ma’am,” he said, bending down and unzipping Majambu’s blood-soaked backpack. “I’m the only one that can do this.” He met her steel-eyed gaze. Her eyes were a cobalt blue and flecked with gray, the color of the ocean in the middle of nowhere where the deep waters reached for the earth miles beneath the surface. “I’m already infected, Admiral. I can’t get any more sick.”
He unzipped the backpack.
“Lieutenant?” Admiral Mallory’s voice was whipcord taut. “What do you see?”
“How long does it take for those CBRN and HAZMAT guys to suit up?”
“Five to six minutes. They’re inbound, ten minutes away,” Mallory’s executive officer said over her shoulder. He was a tall, barrel-chested man, perpetually wide-eyed behind his wireless glasses, as if he was surprised at the world every day.
“We don’t have that kind of time.” Elliot peeled the backpack’s flap back. Inside, a timer fixed to a lead-lined shoebox-sized brick gleamed, counting down from thirteen minutes.
* * *
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Bai confirmedeveryone’s worst fears. He studied the device as Elliot held it up, turned it over and around from behind the safe perimeter while the timer counted down. “It is North Korean,” he said. “Three kiloton warhead. The North Koreans build multiple safeguards into their warheads to try and outwit American missile defense systems. The initiator, for example, on this warhead is a flow of electrical current. No matter what you do to stop it—if you try to remove the timer or try to cut wires, or, say, if you were to try to blast it with an EMP pulse if this warhead was on a cruise missile heading for Hawaii—the electrical current has already been initiated and is flowing one way toward the ignition. Any tampering will only destroy the wall that holds the current back. You will only blow the warhead faster.”
“Options!” Mallory called. “I want solutions. Everyone throw out your ideas, I don’t care how crap you think they are. Let’s brainstorm this.”
Silence.
Until Elliot spoke. “Is there a RHIB tied up on the docks out there, Admiral?”
“There is. What are you thinking, Lieutenant?”
“Make a hole for me to pass through and I’ll drive this bomb out to the middle of the Gulf. Let it blow where it won’t hurt anybody.”
“What about you?” Mallory asked.
Elliot said nothing.
“That is unacceptable, Lieutenant, I will not—”
“Admiral, we don’t havetimefor this!” Elliot bellowed. “We have ten minutes until this nuclear warhead goes off. We can’t disarm it and we can’t kill it. All we can do is get away from it or get it away from us.”
“We can put it on a patrol boat and set the autopilot. Let an empty vessel take it out to sea.” Mallory’s executive officer stared at the nuclear warhead in Elliot’s hands like he was under its spell. Or like he was about to piss his pants. His face was a mirror of the officers around him, shit-scared and pale, sweating so badly their khaki uniforms were soaked.
Only Mallory was unbowed, facing off with the warhead like she could order it to not detonate, like her force of will alone was enough to save everyone. If only it was. They’d all be saved.
“It takes over ten minutes for those patrol craft engines to warm up. We don’t have the time,” Elliot snapped. “Look, we’ve got nine minutes now. I’m warning you, I’m coming down that hallway and I’m headed for the docks in ten seconds. I’m dripping hot with this guy’s blood, and I’m infected as well. Anyone who doesn’t want Ebola, you better back thefuckup now.” He held Mallory’s stare, squared his jaw, and started counting down from ten.
“Make a hole!” Mallory bellowed. “Everyone clear the deck!”
The officers crowding the hallway disappeared back into the CIC, watching from behind the glass walls as Elliot marched the warhead down the hall, passing Kline, Ramirez, and the corpsman working on Ikolo. They had a bandage on him, along with a mask and an IV line running into his hand. Kline’s gaze met his, and he nodded, a final goodbye from his commanding officer. “Take care of him,” Elliot said. “He deserves everything we can give him.”
Mallory fell in beside him. “Ma’am?”
“Move, Lieutenant,” she barked. “Aren’t we in a hurry?”
