Cloud stepped around the corner and found the guard, who was standing near the wall. He smiled.

“Mr. Vargarin,” he said. “Is everything all right?”

“No,” said Cloud. “I can’t sleep.”

Cloud swung his arm up and fired. The slug ripped the guard before he could even comprehend what was happening, kicking him backward.

“You, however, don’t seem to have that problem,” added Cloud, making eye contact as the guard slid down the wall, clutching his chest, trying to say something.

Cloud took the elevator to the lobby. As the elevator came to a stop, he raised the weapon. The doors parted. Cloud stepped forward and started firing at the front desk, before he even had time to aim. His first two bullets missed, but it didn’t matter; both guards were seated, legs up. They both reacted too late, reaching for their sidearms just as Cloud pelted them with slugs, hitting one man in the left eye and the other in the forehead, decorating the walls behind them in a riot of crimson, brains, and bone.

Cloud shuffled calmly to the front desk. One of the vodka bottles was sitting there, unopened. He picked it up, yanked the wax-covered cork from the top, and took several sizable gulps. He reached beneath the desk and found the entrance buzzer, hitting it, unlatching the front door to the building. A few seconds later, a small army of men swarmed in from the outside. Two were dressed in suits, like the guards at the front desk; two were in sweaters and slacks, similar to the men upstairs; and two wore one-piece dark green work suits, their hands already covered in purple rubber gloves. Each carried a large duffel bag, inside of which were body bags, industrial cleaning equipment, plaster, wood putty, and small jars of paint for fixing the walls.

The crew went to work, packing up the two corpses. Cloud took several more slugs of vodka.

“Are they in place, Leo?” asked Cloud, looking at one of the men in the cleaning suits.

“The team is in Saint Petersburg.”

“And the backup?”

“Yes, Cloud. The backup. And the backup to the backup. The two women too. They are all highly skilled. The best that money can buy.”

Cloud nodded. Saying nothing, he turned and walked to the elevator.

“If anything—”

“Nothing will happen to her,” said Leo. “You have my word.”

21

ABOARD THE USS DONALD COOK (DDG-75)

NEAR CÁDIZ, SPAIN

General Torey Krug was standing with five other men on the bridge of the USS Donald Cook, an Arleigh Burke–class guided missile destroyer. They were all looking at the same thing: an illuminated plasma screen tied in to various naval and land-based units. The screen looked like an air traffic control screen, though instead of tracking commercial airliners, this one displayed U.S. military assets, in real time, in the geographic area south of Spain. Krug and his senior officers were tied in to a gamut of teams, including two other Aegis destroyers, two submarines, UAV command centers, and on-the-dirt commanders, including members of SEAL Team 6, now in fastboats off the coast of Spain.

At that moment, those military assets were all doing the same thing: searching for a boat.

The focus was the crowded stretch of water between Spain and Morocco known as the Strait of Gibraltar. Twenty-two UAVs had been scrambled to the area. Gray Eagles, Raptors, and several other drones were flying in low-hover lines back and forth across the narrowest section of the waterway, between Tarifa, Spain, and Eddalya, Morocco, a nine-mile stretch of water Krug believed was the best opportunity to stop the rogue nuclear bomb before it got to open water and the relative freedom of the Atlantic Ocean.

The challenge for Krug and his team was multifaceted. They had only a vague description of the boat. That description, moreover, was of a type of vessel that was extremely common. Already, they’d pinpointed ten trawlers matching the description. They had no idea how fast it was moving. In addition, it was nighttime and, despite various thermal-sensitive cameras, it was difficult to see, and what they were able to see was starting to blend into a continuum.

With the help of the Spanish and Moroccan navies, along with local police forces, a small armada of speedboats patrolled the waters, looking for anything suspicious, their officers equipped with Geiger counters. Already, several boats had been boarded, without result.

Reflexively, Krug kept looking over at the line of clocks displaying time in various countries. It was five A.M. in Spain. Dawn was coming. On the one hand, the improved visibility would help. On the other, each passing hour diminished the chances of finding the boat.

A scratchy voice came over commo.

“General Krug, I’m putting up live video. This is UAV 16-Y. We have a report of a suspicious-looking ship close to the coast, near Nador, Morocco.”

“Roger, Major,” said Krug, scanning the plasma for the UAV, then reaching out and tapping a small icon. Suddenly, a grainy video started running on the plasma. It showed an empty stretch of water illuminated by the UAV’s powerful spotlight. A boat came into view. It was a motorboat, approximately forty feet long, with three uniformed men aboard. A hundred yards past them was a dilapidated fishing scow, running lights on, listing in the water, seemingly adrift.

“Send them in,” said Krug. “Keep the bird overhead.”

Krug and his men watched as the motorboat from the Moroccan Navy pulled up alongside the trawler and tied off.

A Vietnamese flag was flying from the aft of the ship. Its name was painted on the stern: BIỂN THIÊN CHÚA.

Sea God.

Two of the officers scaled a steel ladder and climbed aboard. They moved to the wheelhouse, the image blurry but decent enough to capture their movement.

Each officer clutched a submachine gun as he moved. A short time later, the two gunmen emerged, shaking their heads, indicating they’d found nothing.

One of the men pointed at his helmet.

“Patch him into commo,” said Krug, pointing to one of his staffers.

The plasma cut into two live feeds. One was the UAV feed, the other was from a camera mounted to the officer’s helmet.

The officers charged belowdecks, down a badly lit set of steel stairs. They moved along a dark hallway, opening door after door, finding nothing. Then, near the front of the ship, one of the officers opened a door, revealing a horrible scene of carnage. The ground was littered with the corpses of fishermen. The floor was a miasma of blood.

The officers moved from corpse to corpse, searching for anyone still alive.

“In the corner,” barked Krug, seeing a slight movement. “Get over there!”

One of the officers stepped to a man in the corner. He was a young Vietnamese man. His chest was covered in blood. His eyes were shut. The officer shook him, softly at first, then with force, trying to wake him. The man opened his eyes.

“Put it on speaker,” said Krug to the officer.

The officer set his phone near the dying man’s ear.

“Những gì họ muốn?” asked Krug.

What did they want?

The fisherman struggled to keep his eyes open.

“Vật liệu nổ,” he said, coughing.

“Explosives,” Krug, translated. He turned back to the image of the dying man on the screen.

“Bạn bị tấn công cách đây bao lâu?”

When were you attacked?

“Dêm qua,” the Vietnamese man whispered.

“Last night,” said Krug.

Krug looked at the map. He took a ruler and did a quick calculation, estimating the time it took the trawler to travel from Sevastopol to Nador, then measuring the time between Nador and the Strait of Gibraltar.