As if on cue, Morgan heard gunfire from up ahead. He spun out of the way, hiding behind a metal pillar. Morgan pulled a flash grenade from his belt and signaled to Spartan. He tossed it, and as soon as they heard the bang, they pivoted into position and opened fire. Spartan fired and missed, but the man dropped to the ground when Morgan sunk several bullets into his chest. As he approached the fallen man, Morgan saw that he wasn’t quite dead.
“Novokoff . . .” The man coughed a wet, bloody cough. “He beats you. . . .”
“What? What are you saying?” asked Morgan.
“You will not find him in time. . . .”
“What the hell do you mean?”
The man just smiled a bloody smile.
“What do you mean?”
The man’s eyes went wide, his pupils became tiny dots, and he began seizing.
“Cobra,” said Spartan. “The bomb.”
Morgan looked at the device. It was stuck to the yacht’s outer hull. The timer read 6:22, and was counting down. He recognized the explosive agent as Semtex. He examined the device carefully, looking at how the wires were arranged.
“Shit,” he said.
“What?’ asked Spartan.
“It’s a difficult setup. Any tampering might blow us all to high heaven.”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“My best,” he said. He probed the bomb carefully, but all he had were some wire cutters and a screwdriver from his standard field kit. He began to unscrew the casing from the electronic component of the bomb. He knew that it was rigged to blow if he just pulled it out. As he unscrewed the casing, he noticed a strange resistance.
“There’s an anti-tamper device inside,” Morgan said. “It’ll blow if I open it.”
“Well, then, what are you going to do?” asked Spartan.
Morgan looked at the timer. Going on less than two minutes. “Diesel, how are you coming along there?” he asked.
“I found the device, but I’m still working on it,” he said. “Gonna be another couple of minutes, I suspect, but I got this. There?”
“Still working too,” he said.
“Cobra, can you do it?” she insisted.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You’d better get out of here.”
“I’m not going anywhere if you’re not,” she said. “Better work fast. We’ll never get those people out of here before the ship sinks.” Morgan didn’t have time to argue, and he was glad to have her near him anyway. He continued to examine the bomb, but every passing second told him he wasn’t going to make it, he wouldn’t be able to disarm it before the time ran out.
Morgan had a sudden flash of inspiration. The bomb was tamper-proof, but the straps tying it to the hull were rigged with a simple anti-tampering device. All he had to do to pull it free was to connect two wires together and short out the larger circuit. He stripped the wires bare near their base with his pocketknife. From there, it was simple to cross them and pull the bomb loose from the ship’s hull. He took it into his arms and turned around.
“What the hell are you doing?” exclaimed Spartan.
“Saving the boat,” he said. He ran up back the way they had come, Spartan coming behind him, until he reached the deck. He clutched the bomb in his arm. The weight felt about right, and the shape was not entirely different. He raised the bomb, focusing on making the longest pass he had ever made as quarterback.
Morgan threw it as hard as he could into the black void of the open ocean. His old football arm still served him well, and the bomb sailed far away. He heard it as it fell into the water. Almost immediately, there was a flash, a burst, and water sprayed on his face. The yacht bobbed with the shockwave on the water, but otherwise, they were home safe. The boat was intact.
“Nice throw, Cobra!” said Spartan.
“Yeah . . .” he said.
“Why so glum? You did it! We’re safe!”
“Didn’t you hear what Novokoff ’s man said before he died? This isn’t over. And I get the feeling that we haven’t even seen the worst of it yet.”
“What? What do you think it might be?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m going to find out.”
CHAPTER 28
Montauk, New York, January 29
Private Corvey looked at the Montauk Air Force Base building and shuddered. The boxy construction with that enormous radar mounted on top of it was still catching the rays of the sun, which had, from his perspective, already disappeared behind the forest of Camp Hero State Park. The sun was low in the sky, and cast a red shroud on the entire scene. The only sounds were the cries of the occasional seagull, the crashing waves and the rustle of the needles of evergreens swaying to the wind.