Path To War. Don Pendleton

Kimsung inquired, looking slightly aghast.

      “My memory’s not what it used to be, Colonel. Proceed.”

      Heaving a breath, as if disgusted or amazed, Kimsung took a pair of keys, one larger than the other, from his coat pocket, tossed them to Baraka. “Pay attention. The small one is for opening the case itself, the larger key will turn on the device, but for complete activation and to keep it running, you will need the power pack. That is a backup set of keys. Do not lose them.”

      While his comrades kept slapping the wads of hundred dollar bills through their counters, Kimsung punched in a series of numbers that Baraka, using a pen, scribbled down on his touch pad. A snick, and the colonel opened the suitcase. Taking a knee beside Kimsung, his men hovering behind him, Baraka looked at the blackmail instrument of the coming revolution. It didn’t look like much, but he wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected. He had heard about but never seen the Special Forces version of the tactical, or what was lately dubbed as the landmine nuke. Supposedly the lifespan of the weapons-grade plutonium didn’t last more than a few weeks, but Baraka didn’t intend to test that educated theory beyond the next few days. The backpack specials, he’d heard, were primarily meant to destroy railroads, bridges, large compounds, or annihilate the spearhead of an advancing army. Whatever it was meant to do, he knew it would be nasty beyond any human comprehension. There would be ground-zero blast, then fires, outsweeping fallout, radiation for years to come that would drop thousands with an invisible web of cancer. According to Consortium brains, this particular device could obliterate ten to twelve city blocks. Thirteen kilotons had vaporized 130,000 in Hiroshima, he knew, another 70,000 dropping eventually from radiation sickness, and the Devil only knew how many cancer deaths beyond that or the number of deformed babies born just after the world’s first Big Bang. At eight kilotons, this suitcase nuke, depending on where in Luanda it was touched off, could produce six-figure casualties, in and near ground zero.

      Kimsung showed him the large key, grunted, then inserted it into a slot beside what he suspected was the control panel. He reached into the small nylon bag beside him and showed a small black box. “Power pack,” he said, then snapped the box into place beside the keypad. “I will provide you with one backup pack. They will only last for ten days.”

      “I don’t plan on keeping the thing around as a conversation piece, Colonel.”

      Kimsung grunted. “Indeed. I would think not.” The digital readout flashed on in red, the colonel tapping in the first set of numbers, Baraka writing them down as fast as he could. “Two more sets of numbers,” Kimsung said, then began tapping on the keypad.

      Baraka took them down, then saved the data.

      “This switch here,” Kimsung said, his finger hovering over a slender lever at the top right-hand corner. “Once the access codes I gave you are set—once you flip this switch up—there is no deactivating the device. The equivalent of eight thousand tons of TNT.”

      Baraka felt his body go utterly still, sensed his men, jacked up as they were on Z-Clops, paralyzed by the mere notion of the power of the utter destruction before them. If he didn’t know better, Baraka would have sworn a smile ghosted Kimsung’s lips. Did his finger just move an inch closer to the switch? It did, and Engels nearly shouted, “What the hell are you doing?”

      Kimsung chuckled. “I wanted to make certain you were paying close attention.”

      “Cut the crap,” Baraka said. “I need time-setting and shutdown instructions.”

      Quickly, Kimsung showed Baraka how to set the doomsday timer on the keypad, then wrapped it up with deactivating instructions, then, digital readout winking out, the colonel finally twisted the key and removed it. He shut the case, locked it, Baraka noticing the Colonel pocketed the other set of keys.

      “Yes,” Kimsung said, “I will keep the original keys, in the event some unforeseen disaster befalls us.”

      Baraka didn’t like it, noted Durban’s dark stare, Engels and Moralllis fidgetting, jaws clenched. “You don’t trust us?”

      Kimsung stood. “Understand, this is a highly volatile and what will be a fluid situation when the time comes. The buffoon-tyrant,” he said, glancing at Engels and Morallis, “your soldiers so flippantly referred to, has put us under orders to see this operation is a one-hundred percent success—or we do not return to Pyongyang. Should you or your men fall in battle, I will become your Plan B. Is that a problem for you or your men?”

      It was, but Baraka had the Consortium’s deal nailed down. Whatever glitch thrust itself into the operation down the road, he’d deal with it on the spot, by the barrel of his weapon if he had to. If he had to cut the NKs out of whatever they believed would be their lion’s share of Angola…

      “You’re aware the people I work for want to acquire two, perhaps three more of these devices?”

      “This would be the second time you mentioned the matter.”

      Engels took a step toward the colonel. “Hey, we just handed you ten million bucks.”

      “Relax!” Baraka growled. “What about that, Colonel? We negotiated a price of five mil per suitcase.”

      “Yes. So consider yourselves owed at least one more device. What concerns me is why I have not heard from my operators in the city.”

      “Meaning what?” Baraka said, tensing at what he believed was a sudden tone of accusation.

      “Meaning, you brought in a third party, these Arab fanatics.”

      “That was explained already,” Baraka said. “Their country. Their contacts. Their safe ouses for your men and for safe transport of the device.”

      Kimsung bobbed his head. “You see my dilemma.”

      Baraka felt his anger rising. “Not quite.”

      “These extremists will want just such a suitcase. Have you looked outside at the army of fanatics you are surrounded by?”

      “Their turf, their rules. And they’ve been paid for their cooperation.”

      “What’s to keep them from killing us and taking the device for themselves?” Kimsung posed.

      “How about twenty of the most ferocious, kick-ass and take-no-prisoners warriors since Ghengis Khan?”

      “I am pleased you have such great confidence in your men. Just the same, I would feel much better if we were on our—”

      Kimsung froze in midsentence, the sudden commotion outside alerting Baraka something was terribly wrong. Baraka was pivoting when two of his men rushed inside, voices beyond the armed shadows of his soldiers shouting in panic hurtled at his ears—along with the distant crunch of explosions.

      “We’re being hit!”

      Baraka cursed, wheeled on Durban and said, “Grab the suitcase!”

      THE EXECUTIONER WASN’T all that wild about Tachjine’s battle plan. Since they were on the enemy’s clock, and with the suitcase nuke believed to be somewhere in the sprawling terrorist camp, Bolan figured any last-second tinkering of the strategy would only delay launch time.

      It was going to be a straightforward blitz, three Hueys and a matching number of Cobra gunships laying down an aerial bombardment of machine, Gatling and minigun fire, peppering the enemy with a 70 mm rocket barrage while the Moroccan Special Counterterrorism Force jumped off into hot landing zones for hand-to-hand encounters. That left too much to chance, as far as the soldier was concerned, an errant missile perhaps finding the suitcase nuke, the potential of a nuclear firecloud being touched off never far from his thoughts if this Baraka or his North Korean cronies were spooked into some grandstand suicide play. Factor in all these extremists, many of whom he was sure wanted nothing more than to get their mass murdering hands on the suitcase nuke for themselves, and with Tachjine refusing to encircle the camp on all points with his flying armada, sealing off any escape hatch…

      The Executioner would have preferred the gunships blow the