"Load it on now," Ramirez was saying. "We're taking it with us." He flashed a smile from behind his aviator shades. "You never know when you'll need a nuke."
Abdoullah couldn't believe his luck. He had been sure that Number One intended to try and kill him. But now it turned out to be the others, the ones he'd sent over to Command, that he planned to leave in the lurch.
Dawn was breaking, but there still was enough early fog to mask their movements partially. It was definitely time to get the show on the road. One of the bombs had been installed on the VX-1 vehicle and a countdown was under way. When that bomb devastated Souda Bay, nobody was going to be worrying about a lone chopper somewhere over the Med. And with the other weapon still in their hands, the whole operation was going like clockwork. The money was in place -he was now rich-and they were packing to leave.
The bomb they were now loading actually made him think. Maybe, he mused fleetingly, he could just kill Number One and return it. It would be the final revenge for what the bastard did to Rais.
No, that was stupid. Better to just take the money and run. Lose the heroics. In fact, given how things had gone so far, the whole thing was almost too good to be true. In fact, that bothered him a little. More than a little. He had seen too much double-dealing already to believe anything Number One said or did.
He trusted Dore Peretz even less. The Israeli, he was sure, had a private agenda of his own. He always seemed to. Maybe he was planning to divert the bomb and take out Tel Aviv. He was crazy enough.
But who cared? They were getting out. Better still, Number One had indicated he intended to take the old professor, the Jew, with them. With him on board, Number One had declared, there was no danger that the U.S. President would order the chopper shot down. The old guy made a perfect passport.
But with Souda Bay being incinerated as they made their egress, it hardly seemed to matter…
He grasped the lever on the forklift and, aided by Shujat, hoisted the bomb through the cargo hatch, guiding the edges of the crate. It weighed almost as much as they did together, but by now they were used to managing it. Interestingly, it still was wired to its radio-controlled detonator, with the explosive charges intact. He had the momentary thought that it should be disconnected, but now there was no time. That was something that should be done with extreme care. Maybe he would take care of it after takeoff, when they were airborne.
"Be careful," Ramirez went on. "But don't waste time. The vehicle is going up, and then we're going to be out of here. In less than an hour."