Part 21 (2/2)

”And you're saying the other suitcase is here in Miami,” said Baker.

”What I'm saying,” said Greet, ”is that when they found the one warhead, in the suitcase, it was in the hands of some people who are not real big fans of the United States. These people were taken into custody.”

”By whom?” asked Baker.

”That I definitely can't tell you,” said Greer, ”except to say that they don't waste a lot of time advising suspects of their Miranda rights.”

”The Israelis,” said Baker.

Greer nodded. ”Like I say, I can't tell you,” he said. ”Alls I can tell you is, they are very good at getting information from people who don't feel like talking. And the information they got is that the other suitcase was supposed to go to New York City, where it was gonna be picked up by a True Believer, who was gonna express his beliefs by turning Times Square and the surrounding area into radioactive grit.”

”No great loss,” said Baker.

”Hey, it's a lot nicer,” said Seitz. ”They fixed it up.”

”Anyway,” said Greer, ”this point, we still don't know when or how the suitcase is going to New York. But we do know who the True Believer is, so we got him under surveillance. We got this guy under a blanket. We know if he farts. So when he gets in a cab and heads toward Kennedy airport, we are on him. Except, guess what, some d.i.c.kwad Secret Agents from a federal agency that I will not identify here except by the initials C, I, and A ... ”

”Which don't even have f.u.c.king jurisdiction,” noted Seitz.

” ... which, as Justice Rehnquist here points out, don't even have f.u.c.king jurisdiction,” said Greer. ”These morons have also, without telling anybody, been watching the True Believer, who they think is about to flee the country, so on the access road to Kennedy they run the cab off the road and grab the guy in what they call a Clandestine Operation.”

”Which was as clandestine as a Super Bowl half-time show,” noted Seitz.

”So there we are,” said Greer, ”we're within sight of the f.u.c.king terminals, and we're about to shoot these morons who are supposed to be on our side, and of course now the True Believer is not gonna lead us to s.h.i.+t. We search the international arrivals, but we don't find the suitcase. Whoever had it, something spooked him, we're betting the Secret Agents, so he's outta there. We do some checking around, we think probably our guy took a cab from Kennedy to La Guardia, jumped a plane, and got the h.e.l.l out of New York, we think maybe either to Atlanta or here.”

”Or Houston or New Orleans,” said Seitz.

”Or them,” agreed Greer.

”Way to narrow it down,” said Baker.

”Hey,” said Greer, ”all we got to go on is a very vague description. Basically, we got, 'It's a guy with a suitcase.' But we keep asking around, and we hear, various sources, that this guy is scared now. He just wants to get rid of this thing and get enough money to get the h.e.l.l back to True Believerland. What we think he did, he sold it cheap to some illegal-arms dealers, guys who mainly deal in machine guns, things like that.”

”Why would they want a nuclear bomb?” asked Baker.

”We think they didn't really know what it was,” said Greer. ”The reason we think this is, far as we been able to trace it, they sold it to some other guys, who sold it to some guy runs a place here called the Jolly Jackal.”

”The bar?” said Baker.

”That bar,” said Greer, ”has more AK-47s than Budweisers.”

”Jesus,” said Baker. ”This town.”

”Thing is,” said Greer, ”we could be wrong about all of this. This could be another suitcase, unrelated. Could be drugs, could be counterfeit money. We also got guys looking in Atlanta, Houston, New Orleans, some other places. But based on the conversation we had earlier this evening with the guy who runs the Jolly Jackal ... ”

”Who will not be runnin' anywhere in the near future,” noted Seitz.

”No, he won't,” agreed Greer. ”Anyway, based on our conversation with him, we think this is the suitcase we want, and that it is now going to MIA with these local sc.u.mbags.”

Baker sat back in the seat and looked out the window for a few moments. He leaned forward again and said, ”Here's what I don't get.”

”Lemme guess,” said Greer. ”You don't get how come, if we think there's a chance the suitcase is here, we don't tell the cops, make some kind of announcement, evacuate the public outta here. That it?”

”Basically, yeah,” said Baker.

”Several reasons,” said Greer. ”Number one, these a.s.sholes don't know it, but we got 'em trapped at the airport.”

”What do you mean?” asked Baker.

”I mean,” said Greer, ”just before we ran into you, I made a phone call.” He held up what looked to Baker like a cell phone, except it was on the thick side, and it had a short, fat antenna. ”Until we say otherwise, no plane is takin' off from MIA. There won't be any announcements; the planes'll be boarded as usual, but they won't get clearance to push back from the gates.”

”You can do that?” asked Baker.

”You'd be surprised,” said Greer. ”Point is, we got these a.s.sholes bottled up.”

”Then why don't you evacuate the area around the airport?” asked Baker.

”That's the second reason,” said Greer. ”Think about it. If word gets out, which it would, there's a nuclear bomb practically in f.u.c.king downtown, what do you think would happen to this city? Do you think there would be an orderly evacuation? Women and children first? Cooler heads prevailing? You think that's how the citizenry of Miami would react?”

Baker thought about it.

”What would happen,” continued Greer, ”is that every idiot in this town who owns a gun, which is basically every idiot in this town, would grab his gun, jump into his car, or somebody else's car, and lay rubber for 1-95. Inside of ten minutes the city is grid-locked, and what happens next makes Iwo Jima look like a maypole dance. This whole town turns into the end of a Stephen King novel.”

”Good point,” said Baker.

”Number three,” said Greer, ”if word gets around about what's in the suitcase, it eventually gets to the morons who have the suitcase. Long as they don't know what they got, which apparently they don't, they ain't gonna think about trying to use it, like as a bargaining chip.”

”Could they set it off?” asked Baker. ”I mean, doesn't it have, like, whaddyacallem, fail-safe things?”

”This thing wasn't built by good guys,” Greer said. ”It's not like in the movies, where the president has to give the Secret Code and two trusty soldiers have to turn their keys simultaneously. This thing was built by bad guys who wanna be able to set it down in a public place in a crowded city and arm it quickly. We don't know for sure about this suitcase, but the other one? The one they recovered? All you had to do there was open it up and flip three electrical switches, and that starts a forty-five-minute timer.”

”Forty-five minutes?” said Baker.

”Forty-five,” said Greer. ”We think the True Believer was planning to hop a subway, be up in the Bronx, facing north, by the time it blew.”

”And now it's here,” said Baker, staring out the window.

”Looks like it,” said Greer.

”Jesus,” said Baker, shaking his head. ”I mean, you see this s.h.i.+t in the movies, and you think it's fiction, but I guess it was bound to happen one day.”

<script>