Zero Day (John Puller, #1)(123)

He pointed. “That’s why.”

Cole turned around and saw what had captured his attention.

There was a light coming from the opposite side of the building. A soft green light. It had just come on. In the pitch dark he would’ve seen it before.

She hustled after him, her Cobra out.

Puller stopped and so did she.

She looked where he was looking.

The box was about four feet long and the same width and looked to be built of stainless steel. It was a nice job, no obvious seams. The metal looked like it had been cast in one piece; a nifty piece of craftsmanship. Puller knelt down next to it, put his gloved hand on the box. Then he took it away.

He looked up at Cole. “Warm.”

“What’s powering this thing?” she asked. “There’s no electrical source in here.”

“There’s lot of energy in here, Cole. There’s probably enough in those barrels over there to power New York City for a thousand years once you ran it through a nuclear reactor.”

She stared down at the box. “Is… is this it? Is this a bomb? It doesn’t look like a bomb.”

“Since when have you seen a nuclear bomb up close and personal?”

“I’ve seen them on the wings of planes. I watched a History Channel program of the ones they dropped on Japan. They didn’t look like a box.”

“Well, looks can be deceiving.”

“Did it just turn on? I didn’t see that light before.”

“Neither did I, which means that this sucker just woke up.”

She drew a sharp breath. “Does it have a timer? Is it ticking down?”

“You’ve been watching too many movies.” Puller was looking over every inch of the box, trying to find a seam, an indication of a hinge, a break in the metal. He ran his fingers over the top, feeling for anything his electronic-aided eyes had missed.

“So it doesn’t have a timer?”

Puller snapped, “Cole, I don’t know, okay? I’ve never been around a nuclear weapon before.”

“But you’re in the Army.”

“Not that part. And the Navy and Air Force control most of the nukes. The infantry are just the working-class guys shooting and getting shot at in all types of weather just like they did two hundred years ago. Biggest weapon I was around was a fifty cal. You can kill hundreds of people with a fifty. This thing can kill tens of thousands, maybe more.”

“Puller, if you open that thing won’t whatever is in there kill us?”

“It might. But if I don’t open it, whatever is in there will probably kill us anyway. Plus a whole bunch of other people.”

His fingers stopped probing and held on one spot, six inches from the right side of the stainless steel.

“Did you find something?” she asked.

In answer he picked up his dumbbell-sized phone and punched in a number. “It’s time to bring in the heavyweights.”

“What if the call won’t go through?”

“Then we are screwed, that’s what.”

She started to say something but he held up a finger. “The phone works.” He spoke into it.

“Hey, Bobby. Got time to give your little brother some tips on defusing a nuke?”

CHAPTER

89


ROBERT PULLER had been on standby at USDB for the last two hours on orders directly from the Secretary of Defense. Though the military had many experts in nuclear armaments, Puller had insisted that the only one he wanted or trusted was his older brother. That the man was serving a life sentence for treason made the choice problematic. But when Puller had held his ground against even the four stars, the Defense Secretary had intervened and approved his plan. And even the military men had to concede there were few people in the world who knew more about the science of nukes than Robert Puller.

Robert was alert and also anxious. His brother was sitting next to a nuclear bomb, after all. On an earlier phone call Puller had filled him in on everything that David Larrimore had told him.

“Describe the box to me,” said Robert.

“Four feet square. Stainless steel. Bolted to the floor.”

“Speak up. Can’t hear you clearly.”

“Sorry, I’m talking through a mask.” He repeated the information in a louder voice.

“Okay, implosion, not a gun device.”

“Right.”

“Talk to me about the barrels. The empty one was plutonium?”

“Right. At least that’s what it said.”

“This guy Larrimore have any idea how much plutonium was contained in each barrel?”

“If he did he didn’t say. I don’t think he ever believed they’d leave the shit behind. And I have to agree with him on that point.”

“I’m going to assume that this design is not super-sophisticated, so we’re talking at least six kilos and possibly more.”

“That barrel could hold a lot more than six kilos even with the lead liners.”

“I understand, but the size box you’re talking about clearly shows they didn’t put the equivalent of a fifty-gallon drum worth of plutonium in there. That would be overkill.”

“Maybe they’re nuts, you ever think about that?”

“Maybe they are, but I’m only concerned with the science of it.”