Shattered Bone Read online

  Then it became very quiet. Only the crackle of the burning cars filled the air. Off in the distance, sirens began to wail in the night.

  No one saw the two assassins scramble down the side tower and speed off in the small rubber raft that had been secured to the footings of the bridge.

  A few minutes later, the new president of Russia, Vladimir Fedotov, emerged from the icy waters of the Moscow River and fell into the waiting arms of one of the few surviving security agents. He was shivering with cold and shock, his shirt torn into tatters around him.

  Thirty feet below the surface of the Moscow River, jammed between two moss covered rocks, lay a discarded bulletproof vest.

  SOUTHERN RUSSIA

  Without warning, the Horse slipped from the shadows and grabbed the Russian by the shoulders with astonishing force. Lifting him by his jacket and shirt, he pulled him off the road and dragged him back into the forest.

  The Horse dropped silently to the wet ground, pushing the Russian beneath him. He covered the target with his body, positioning himself between the man and the road. He knew the Russian would be followed. He knew their lives were in great danger.

  The Horse held his gloved hand over the Russian’s mouth. The Russian didn’t move. His eyes were closed. Even through his gloves, the Horse could feel the man’s pulse pounding in his neck. The Russian held perfectly still.

  The Horse watched the forest for at least 60 seconds before leaning forward and speaking into his mike. “Trojans in,” he said in the tiniest voice, his breath hot against the Russian’s face.

  The agent turned to the Russian and planted his mouth next to his ear. “Do you have it?” he whispered.

  “He’s going to kill me!” the Russian sobbed. “Please, he’s gone crazy. He’s already ... my wife ... two of my children ... please.” The Horse covered the Russian’s mouth and pressed down once again. “Mr. Secretary, I will protect you. A helicopter is on its way. It is only minutes out. But I have to know! Do you have the document!?”

  “He will kill me,” the man sobbed. “He will kill us all. A million people are going to die! The Duma is gone. I saw the soldiers myself. They were everywhere. The constitutional court. The parliament. Everything. All of it gone.”

  “Quiet! Yes, we know!” the Horse hissed. “We know. I will help you. Now, Mr. Secretary, I will ask you for the last time. Do you have the document? Is it in your possession?”

  The Secretary shuddered and nodded his head. Freeing his arm, he reached into the crotch of his pants and pulled out a single piece of paper.

  Handing the paper to the agent, the Secretary lay back in exhaustion and dropped his head to the ground. He stared blankly into the darkness, eyes unfocused, his lips tightly drawn.

  “He’s already killed Komisarenko,” he whispered, more to himself than the Horse. “Komisarenko was my friend. And General Azov. Both of them dead.” He paused to swallow, forcing the bile down his throat. “Now you’ve got to get me out. Please, I’ve done my part!”

  The sound of approaching rotors beat through the air, steadily growing. The Ukrainian grabbed the paper and held it up to his face, looking for the signature at the bottom of the page. The dull whoop of the blades cut ever closer. In seconds, the helicopter would be overhead. After studying the paper, the Ukrainian broke into a quick smile. Then without hesitation, he lifted his gun and shot the Russian square in the head.

  The small chopper appeared over the trees, already stabilized in a twenty-foot hover. A harness and rope dropped from the left side of the chopper. The Horse broke from the bush in a run. Grabbing the harness, he slipped it over his shoulders and cinched it around his chest even as the helicopter climbed into the air.

  KIEV, UKRAINE

  Yevgeni Oskol Golubev, the Ukrainian Prime Minister, sat back in his chair and pushed his fingers through his thick, bristled hair. Andrei Liski, the Director of Ukrainian Border Security, dropped the analysis on the desk and stared the Prime Minister straight in the eye. A bony man with limp shoulders, thin neck, and delicate fingers, it was hard to imagine the cold and cunning heart that beat in his chest.

  Leaning toward the hapless Golubev, Liski lowered his voice and got right to the point.

  “Mr. Prime Minister, it is just as I said. He has already made great preparations. Last night’s document only proves what I have already told you. Now, clearly we have to do something. If we sit on this information and pretend the threat doesn’t exist, then, when the time comes and we are caught unprepared, we both will then deserve to die.”

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  BOOK ONE

  The central question is no longer how to avoid a nuclear exchange, but rather, how to predict one. It is our opinion that a deliberate nuclear detonation is now unavoidable and is likely to occur within the next 10–15 years.

  CIA Report to the President

  ONE

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  OSAN AIR FORCE BASE, SOUTH KOREA

  OSAN AIR FORCE BASE IS SITUATED APPROXIMATELY FORTY-FIVE kilometers south of Seoul, Korea. It sits low in the Son Mihn Valley, surrounded by gentle hills, cypress trees, and musky, slow-water creeks. A steady stream of C-141 and C-5 cargo aircraft make their way across the Pacific to Osan in an effort to keep the enormous military machine on the Korean peninsula adequately supplied. Twice a day, huge KC-10 transports bring in a fresh supply of reluctant troops. However, common as these transports and cargo planes are, most of the flying activity is generated by Osan’s resident fighter wing—the Fighting Fifty-First Aces of the south. Their motto—“Death from Above.”

  The 51st Fighter Wing is a front-line wing, consisting of three squadrons of F-16s. Because of the tense political climate in which they operate, air operations continue twenty-four hours a day, and the whine of jet engines constantly fills the air.

  The flight line is a nest of activity, vibration, and noise, with maintenance troops and technical specialists scrambling among the jets and aircraft equipment. Fuel and fire trucks lumber carefully among the fighters while bomb and missile trolleys are carefully positioned under the F-16’s wings to load them with weapons for upcoming sorties.

  After spending six hours to prepare an F-16 for take off, the crew chiefs breathe a weary sigh of relief when their jets finally begin to taxi, rolling from their parking spots in groups of two and four. However, their respite will be brief, perhaps as short as an hour, for that’s all the time it takes for the little fighters to burn their 7,000 pounds of jet fuel and fire off all their missiles. Upon their return to Osan, the pilots over-fly the runway at 1,000 feet before breaking into a hard turn to line themselves up for final landing.

  Then the whole process will begin once again. Within minutes after touchdown, even before the jet engines are shut down, the aircraft are surrounded by their maintenance crews and fuel trucks, all rushing to prepare the aircraft for another sortie.

  Scattered among the parking ramps are aircraft suffering through various stages of repair, surrounded by tool boxes, cooling hoses, fire extinguishers, maintenance stands, and teams of hustling mechanics. The technicians hunker around the broken aircraft, sweating in the early morning sun as they study their maintenance handbooks that lay spread across the baking cement.

  This was Senior Airman Stacy Derby’s world. This is where she belonged. Working on the fighters was all she had ever wanted to do, and once she was given the opportunity, she considered herself very lucky. As a crew chief on the Fighting Falcon, she loved her work on the flight line. She loved it all; the smeIl of burning jet fuel, the overhead floodlights that iIluminated the ramp at night, the pressure of pushing to have her jet ready for takeoff, then watching with satisfaction as it taxied on out to the runway, the ground vibrating under her feet. She found so much satisfaction in what she did. So why was she taking such an enormous risk? Was she rcaIly willing to give it all away?

  Greed is an evil t
hing, she thought, as she made her way across thc ramp toward her aircraft. Sometimes people do stupid things for money.

  But maybe things wouldn’t have to change. In fact, if she were careful, everything would turn out just fine. She would hear the terrible news when she reported to work in the morning. Then she would mourn with the others. Tears of pity and grief would stain her cheeks, but that was as far as it would go. There would never be any suspicion. No evidence. Nothing to trace back to her. If she were careful and did exactly as she had been told, none of the tragedy would affect her directly.

  Airman Derby walked up to her aircraft and gently patted its nose. This one was her baby. Aircraft number 87-341 had not flown the night before because of a faulty generator and Airman Derby had spent the morning troubleshooting, trying to find the source of the problem. Around ten o’clock, she had discovered a fault in one of the relays. Once she knew what the problem was, she could have fixed it within an hour. But she didn’t. Instead she tinkered and puttered around, always trying to look busy. She had to delay until the evening flying schedule was posted at twelve o’clock. She had to check on something before she completed the job and called her aircraft back in the green and ready to fly.

  Just before noon, she left her toolbox by the aircraft and walked into the hangar that housed Maintenance Control. There she found the newly posted evening schedule, written in bright red marker on a large sheet of Plexiglas mounted on the hallway wall. Derby quickly scanned the schedule, looking for her aircraft. She found it on the eighth line down. Aircraft number 87-341 was scheduled for a 23:38 local takeoff. It would be loaded with four Mark 82 bombs and two sidewinder missiles. Its pilot was Capt Richard Ammon.

  That was what she needed to know. After checking the schedule, Airman Derby stopped by her locker to get her lunch. She also picked up a small package containing a box of cigarettes. Derby had only recently begun to smoke, a nasty habit for which she seemed to take unending guff from her supervisor, but though still a rookie, she had learned early to keep her cigarettes inside a tin box to protect them from being crushed as she crawled around the aircraft. Stuffing the tin of cigarettes into her front pocket, she closed her locker door and began to walk back to her jet.

  Forty-five minutes later, she finished the work on the faulty generator. She then began to replace the aluminum panels that covered the aircraft’s electrical systems. When that was complete, she took an inventory of all her tools. If anything was missing, she would have to ground the aircraft until the missing tool could be found. More than one accident had been caused by a missing pair of pliers or a screwdriver that had been left behind, only to get jammed in an aircraft’s flight controls.

  When Derby had accounted for all of her tools, she walked around the entire jet, opening access panels and doors to ensure that everything was in order.

  The last thing Airman Derby did was climb on top of the aircraft and open the slip door that covered the air refueling receptacle. But before she climbed onto her jet, she glanced up and down the flight line to make certain that her supervisor was not around. Then, with a quick jump she climbed onto the fighter’s wing and stepped over to the fuselage to where she could reach the small door that covered the air refueling port. Before pushing the door open with her left hand, she glanced around once again.

  Working quickly, she pulled the tin of cigarettes out of her pocket and peeled back the wrapper with her teeth, exposing a strong adhesive which she used to attach the tin box to the inside of the slip door. Then, very slowly, she removed the last cigarette from the tin box. This activated a tiny switch which armed two ounces of plastique explosives. The explosives would remain armed until the slip door was opened during flight for air refueling. Once the door slid open, micro-sensors inside the box would sense the change in air pressure and send a fire signal to the explosives.

  And while two ounces of plastique explosives were hardly enough to down an F-16, she had been assured that, given the close proximity of the explosives to the aircraft’s fuel system, it would more than do the job.

  Airman Derby looked around once more before allowing the door to spring closed, then climbing from the aircraft, she gathered up her tools and headed back to Maintenance Control. As she walked across the flight line, she found herself deep in thought once again. Knowing she would soon be very rich she found herself wondering. What was it going to be like to have so much cash? How could she possibly spend so much money?

  TWO

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  OSAN AIR FORCE BASE, SOUTH KOREA

  CAPT RICHARD AMMON DIDN’T REPORT TO WORK UNTIL LATE AFTERnoon. He slept in until nearly ten, then spent the morning browsing through the tiny shops that lined the narrow streets of Song Tan City. For lunch he ate at the closest McDonald’s, where he paid the equivalent of eight dollars for a Big Mac and chocolate shake. Silently he nibbled on the burger and sipped at the frozen chocolate, forcing himself to eat, knowing that if he didn’t, by tonight he would be very hungry. But still, the burger made his stomach roll and turn. Lifting the bun, he stared at the soggy meat and marveled once again at the Koreans’ ability to make even one hundred percent beef taste like fish.

  Before he left the restaurant, Ammon walked back to the counter and ordered another Big Mac and fries. Hc packed three tiny bags of ketchup and a couple napkins into the paper sack, then turned and walked out onto the busy street. The dank vapor of sewer and mildew filled his lungs. But he didn’t notice. After sevcn months in Korea, he no longer noticed the smells.

  Half a block down the street, he found Kim La Sung. The old man sat at his usual location, his back propped against a crumbling brick wall, his bare legs and dirty feet stretched out into the sidewalk. The man stared straight ahead, holding a small cardboard box filled with hand-carved wooden toys.

  “How ya doing ol’ man?” Ammon asked as he approached the wretched street vendor. His Korean was barely understandable.

  The man’s face brightened at the sound of Ammon’s voice, but he didn’t turn his blind eyes away from the street.

  “Hey there, you ugly American,” he replied through tea-stained teeth. “Bring me anything to read?” The old man chuckled. It was the standard greeting between them, a personal joke that stemmed from the first time they had met.

  “Not today, Kim,” Ammon said. “I’m in a bit of a hurry. I’m flying tonight, so 1 don’t have much time.”

  “Okay, Captain Richard. But next time come and stay awhile.”

  “I will, old man,” Richard Ammon replied as he placed the bag of food next to his friend. The blind Korean immediately smelled the grease-soaked fries. He reached down and located the bag with his right hand and gently tore it open.

  “I hope you didn’t forget the ketchup,” the old man said.

  “It’s in there,” Ammon reassured him.

  Ammon turned to leave, then stopped and pulled out his wallet. Without even counting the money, he took all of the bills that were tucked inside and dropped them into Kim’s cardboard box. Kim immediately sensed the presence of the cash. Without so much as a nod, he reached out with unseeing hands, extracted the folded bills, and stuffed them into his shirt.

  “Next time, bring me more ketchup,” he demanded as Ammon turned and began to make his way back down the street.

  Ammon walked to the base, flashing his identification card to the guards that manned the sidewalk gate. Then he went back to his quarters to sleep. Normally when he flew at night, he didn’t take an afternoon nap. But tonight he wasn’t scheduled to take off until 11:38, which meant he wouldn’t land until after 3:00 A.M. By the time he finished debriefing and had completed the required paperwork, he wouldn’t be back to his room until nearly sunrise. He figured a little afternoon siesta would help him get through the long night.

  It was somewhat unusual for him to fly such a long sortie.

  Normally he would fly about an hour, maybe two hours if he did air refueling. But
tonight he would climb up behind a tanker to get gas not only once, but twice. Both times he would meet up with his tanker just off the western coast of Korea and refuel as they flew out over the Yellow Sea. After topping off his tanks for the second time, he would turn back toward home, knowing he had enough fuel for several practice instrument approaches before he would have to land.

  Inside his Q room, Ammon stripped to his underwear and settled himself onto his bed and tried to sleep. But although he felt very tired, sleep did not come. After laying on his bed for an hour, Ammon gave up and turned on the television to a rerun of ‘The Beverly Hillbillies.” “The Hillbillies” were a favorite of the Korean people. It reinforced their concept that all Americans were somewhat dim, but rich nonetheless. It was laughable to watch the voice-overs that mismatched the actors’ lips. Although Ammon couldn’t speak Korean well enough to follow the story, the familiar sight of Granny and Ellie May brought him some comfort when he was so far from home.

  At four o’clock Ammon picked up the phone. He dialed the international code for the United States, then a California area code and number. It took several seconds for the call to go through. When it did, the phone on the other end of the line only rang three times before an answering machine clicked on. Ammon listened to the message, then waited for the beep.