Bomb Grade by Brian Freemantle

Author:Brian Freemantle
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media LLC
Published: 2011-10-17T12:04:53.991000+00:00

chapter 22

Expectantly Charlie watched the wired-to-electricity shock go through the assembled Russians at Kestler’s announcement that the photographs proved the breaching of the nuclear canisters to be intentional.

There were two additional Russians, one in recognizable Militia officers’ uniform, the other a slightly built, anonymously dressed civilian whom Charlie’s like-for-like antenna at once recognized. They, like everyone else in the room, gave reactions similar to the ministers and the presidential aide. Natalia managed to look convincingly surprised. She showed no trace of tiredness. She was sitting with the spetznaz officers separating her from Popov, who’d abandoned the black tunic for one of his immaculate suits. The man had nodded and relaxed his face into the beginning of a smile at Charlie’s entry. Charlie had nodded and smiled back more openly.

Predictably the discussion began with the Russians, led by the spetznaz commanders, challenging the American photo interpretation. When that dispute ended with their reluctantly agreeing it was the only possible conclusion, Charlie let the increasingly wilder theories swirl about him but didn’t contribute, even when invited, unwilling to lose a strengthening idea among the general here’s-what-I-think eagerness to voice an opinion. As the discussion trailed into silence Popov abruptly announced that the weather had favoured them, with no disseminating wind, and that containment experts from Kirs and Kotelnich had capped the smashed housings and sufficiently water-suppressed the contamination not just around the site but throughout the carriages to enable the train to complete its journey with the rest of its untampered cargo. A comparison between the loading manifest and what remained on the train put the loss at nineteen canisters, not the American assessment of twenty-two.

‘And we have located the lorries and the cars used in the robbery,’ announced the operational director, triumphantly. With theatrical timing, he added, ‘Here in Moscow.’

Popov deflected the top table attention of Fomin and Badim to the uniformed Militia officer, who coloured although clearly prepared for the introduction, which he completed by naming himself to be Petr Tukhonovich Gusev, colonel-in-charge of the central Moscow region. In a pedantic, police-phrased account, Gusev said that at precisely 4.43 that morning a Militia street patrol had located three lorries and a BMW parked in central Moscow, close to the Arbat. The lorries were empty. The German Ford had been found thirty minutes later, abandoned on the inner Moscow ring road, empty of petrol.

‘In view of the Pizhma contamination, both areas have been sealed pending an examination by nuclear inspectors,’ picked up Popov, on cue. ‘No one involved in securing the areas has been told what the lorries contained, of course, to avoid a nuclear theft of this magnitude becoming publicly known. The initial Militia patrol carried out some preliminary general checks on all the vehicles. The engines of the lorries and both cars were discernibly hot, to the touch …’ He hesitated, for the implications to be realized. ‘They had clearly arrived in the city within an hour, maybe less, of their being discovered!’ Popov nodded to the Militia commander. ‘By six o’clock this morning, all major routes out of Moscow were sealed.

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