Accidental Consequences

By John Russell

A Russian Nuclear Weapon Is On Its Way To A City Near You.

Unmarked automatic rifles are passed from trucker-to-trucker in a secret US Militia previously unknown to the FBI.

A frightened wife whispers the name "Truckers for a Safe America."

An Imam reports that a suitcase tthought to contain a bomb has disappeared.

A big rig carrying rebar headed for Houston sets off every radiation warning alarm at the Los Alamos National Labs.

These are the breadcrumbs that FBI Special Agent Rinda Bolton must follow to save an American city from total destruction.

Is the city Washington, DC? New York? Chicago? Los Angeles. No one knows except one wounded warrior bent on revenge.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Russell
• Release date: Aug 20, 2014

Book preview

Accidental Consequences

An Atomic Thriller

by

John Russell

SMASHWORDS EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

JEM Publishing on Smashwords

Accidental Consequences

Copyright © 2014 by John Russell

Table of Contents

Accidental Consequences

Chapter 1 - Nikolai Abramowitz Titov

Chapter 2 – Baghdad

Chapter 3 – UCLA Medical Center

Chapter 4 – The Spider

Chapter 5 – The Birth Of Patrick Kennedy

Chapter 6 – The Cell Phone

Chapter 7 – The Path Of The Package

Chapter 8 – The Scavenger

Chapter 9 – The Hunt Begins

Chapter 10 – The Imam

Chapter 11 – On The Road

Chapter 12 – Finding Will the Scumbag

Chapter 13 – Tracking Andy

Chapter 14 – Bell Weather Truckers

Chapter 15 – Noxon Montana

Chapter 16 – The Death Of The Spider

Chapter 17 – The Spider’s Lair

Chapter 18 – Door-to-Door

Chapter 19 – Road Trip

Chapter 20 – Washington DC

Chapter 21 – APB

Chapter 22 – The Boy’s Find

Chapter 23 – Hot Pipes

Epilogue – Ultimate Consequence

Smashwords Edition License Notes

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This story is a novel based on the questions posed by recent true events. It is an alternate history of real events that haven’t necessarily been covered by the corporate press but which are true none-the-less. Although many of the basic facts of the story are real, the characters and the outcomes are fictional.

Dedicated to:

My dearest friend and life-long supporter Hans Meijer who told me I had to finish this book. Thank you for everything you do and have done over these many years.

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Accidental Consequences

Chapter 1

Nikolai Abramowitz Titov

Nikolai Abramowitz Titov’s breath came in short stabs as he slipped from shadow to shadow, feeling his way through the maze of passages which had been cut into the mountain that ran to the sea. In the distance he could hear the waves lapping against the walls of the slips that had once formed Balaklava, the great submarine base at Sevastopol.

What the hell was going on? He asked himself. How could this meeting that should have been a routine transfer of money and goods have gone so terribly wrong?

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Titov’s highly polished Gucci loafers were marred with the thick dust that covered every surface of the once thriving submarine base on the outskirts of Yalta located on the Crimean Peninsula. Blood dripped from the fingers of his right hand. His arm hung limp at his side. Initially paralyzing, the first pain of the bullet wound had receded. Now his outraged nerves throbbed in a numbing agony. He worried that the pain might interfere with his ability to react. Even though he recognized with every fiber of his being that he would have to react or die trying.

Filthy traitor, Yuri Spachek hissed, the dim light of his flashlight holding Titov captive in its beam. Although Titov couldn’t see the weapon, he had no doubt that Spachek was also pointing his gun at something more vital than his arm. Unless, of course, the man intended to kill him by degrees, in which case, he had to continue to brace for more pain.

CIA pig, Spachek growled in fury.

What are you talking about, Yuri? Titov managed. Even as the adrenaline coursed through his veins, he tried to minimize his quaking and force his voice into a smooth, almost plaintive cadence. He fought the fear, steadying his shaking hand – the hand that hadn’t been numbed by the bullet. He tried, without obviously moving his eyes, to search with peripheral vision for a bolt hole somewhere in the dead shipyard. While he searched, he thought about reaching his ankle holster before Spachek could shoot him again.

How many years have we worked together, my friend? How many years have we broken bread at our family tables? I’ve brought your money as I promised. What is the matter? Titov asked.

Brewster Jennings, Yuri Spachek spat, The Company you work for. Did you know it was a CIA front company, my friend? Oh yes, I have it on the best authority.

What are you saying? Titov’s breath caught in his throat as Spachek’s words took him by surprise. Another rush of adrenaline coursed through his body and he was nearly paralyzed with terror. What nonsense have you heard about Brewster Jennings?

His mind was racing. There was a chance. He might live if he could make it to the feeder tunnel on his right before Spachek could get off another round.

"Your stupid American press has betrayed you, my once and former friend. The Washington Post’s, Robert Novak, have you heard of him? Did you know he was a mouthpiece for the Bush Administration? Robert Novak spilled the beans, as they like to say in America. You have been betrayed by the country for which you became a spy, my friend.

"What fools the Americans are and they fool their sympathizers too. Welcome to totalitarian rule, Niko, the new dictatorship of the once free world. Russians knew that our newspapers Izvetsia and Pravda were government tools – in rough translation, Isvetsia ‘light’ and Pravda ‘truth’. In Russia we understand what it means when truth means lying, light means shadows and the press betrays its nation’s heroes. In America they still believe what they’re told by their corporate press." Spachek was enjoying his little lecture.

Titov slid his foot to the right, ready to pivot. He punctuated his words with a small laugh, What are you talking about my friend?

"Have you heard of Valerie Plame – employee of Brewster Jennings? She is a CIA agent – was a CIA Agent. She was outed by the Bush Administration in the Washington Post this week. She worked for Brewster Jennings the firm on your business card Niko. Do you know her?"

"Why would the Post carry a story about a CIA agent?" Titov choked out the words. His throat was constricted with fear.

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Yet, even in his baffled state his survival instincts moved him toward the promise of safety. Another shot echoed against the disintegrating cement walls as a bullet tore through the muscles of his left shoulder. He grunted. His movement halted.

Now you die because the Bush Administration got mad at one of its ambassadors and revealed state secrets about his wife to the press. Spachek was tormenting him, cat to mouse. Do you know the very attractive Valerie Plame personally? Did she recruit you? Or, do you just work for the wrong firm under the wrong Administration?

I don’t know what you are talking about, Yuri. Valerie who? Titov kept his eye on the barrel of the gun.

All of you dedicated to stopping atomic weapons from getting into the Middle East – a noble cause, Spachek said. His voice was heavy with sarcasm. What a shame your government didn’t think you were important enough to protect. All your work for nothing, your life for nothing. At least we Russians knew our press was working for our government. If you still believe you’re spying for a democracy, I’ll make you a bet. I bet they will never punish those government officials that did this to you. You will die and they will still be honored citizens interviewed by the same corporate press whenever they want to express an opinion. Where is the justice in America, my friend?

Wait! Here! Titov swung his brief case toward Spachek in a forward arc. It caught his flashlight which flew into the air in a wild curve. The flashlight crashed onto the cracked cement of the floor and shattered, plunging them into immediate darkness. Titov dove to the right, even as the Russian fired at the position where he had been standing seconds earlier. The blast of Spachek’s gun echoed again and again in the tunnel system that surrounded them. Titov crouched behind an outcropping. He was safe for the moment, but he was afraid to move.

I will kill you Nicolai Abramowitz Titov. I will kill you here or somewhere else. You are a walking corpse. And the bomb you came to buy, that bomb will go to the Middle East, exactly what you hoped it would not do. Maybe it will end up destroying Jerusalem, maybe start World War III, maybe level New York, Washington or Los Angeles. See what your big-mouthed government has achieved. They actually destroyed you whom we trusted as one of us. Indeed, you were the one man capable of stopping this bomb from getting through. Greedy, petty fools the government to which you have given your life and the lives of your friends and family. Everything they touch turns to dust because the only people the Bush Administration think about are themselves.

Titov pulled himself deeper into the corner in which he hid.

I will get you, Spachek growled, and then I will get them.

Spachek picked up a battered tan suitcase that had been lying at his feet beside Titov’s briefcase. You will never stop this from getting through to the Middle East, my former friend. America has lost its one chance at safety.

Titov pushed his limp hand into his pocket so that the sound of the steady drip of his life’s blood onto the cement floor would not alert Spachek to his hiding place. He pushed through the weakness that was taking over his body willing himself to live long enough to alert Brewster Jennings to the fact that they had been compromised. He had to warn them that a nuclear bomb was on its way, possibly to Iraq.

He cursed the people in the Administration who had compromised him. He wished them years of pain and torment. He fervently hoped there was a Hell after death where they could spend eternity contemplating what they had done to him and to the people who would be blown apart by the bomb they had allowed to escape into the world of chaos that was the Middle East.

Chapter 2

Bagdad

The bomb which had left Kiev ten years earlier had lain in the rubble of Fallujah until after the Americans had left the country. Its discovery by the Sunni anti-government militia had been accidental. The members of the rag tag group had been searching through the ruins of an ancient mosque, one of the hundreds which had once defined this City of Mosques. They had been searching for explosives that were rumored to have been stored in the basement to be used in the destruction of the city. Exactly how the suitcase should be used had been delegated to Dariush Bahadur Al-Halabsa, the former general who now led the militia.

Al-Halabsa had once been handsome before shrapnel had torn a hole through his face. The shrapnel had cost him his right eye and the hearing in his right ear. Years ago when the Americans had disbanded the Iraqi Army, he had become a leader of the Sunni Militia which had dominated life in Iraq’s major cities. He was in charge of Fallujah He had worked hard to stabilize his territory. Some days he felt as if he had been a soldier in a machine that specialized in tearing itself apart forever.

The General, as he was often called, had been sent by Saddam Hussein to battle against the Iranians at the age of fourteen. He had survived the minefields and cannon fire that had killed a generation of child soldiers. He had returned home to heal from his wounds and attempt to create a life for himself. But peace had not lasted. In the blink of an eye he had returned to the battlefields to fight against the Americans in Kuwait.

He had learned significant lessons from that First Gulf War. Primarily he had learned that it was the ultimate in stupidity to fight the Americans on their terms. Iraq could never win at conventional warfare. The American weapons were simply too powerful. They only lost when they fought a hidden army; the army of the people who all looked alike. He had read about the defeat of America in Vietnam and had applied the lessons of unconventional warfare in Iraq with incredible success. That was the lasting and most valuable lesson he had been taught by Hussein’s defeat in the First Gulf War and he had carried it with him into the Second Gulf War.

As the Americans had marched into Iraq for the second time, he and his fellow Sunni officers had surrendered at their approach although they had kept their guns. They had wanted America to win. They wanted the Americans to stop bombing them as they had been doing for the past ten years. They had wanted the Americans to start building them back to an industrialized country. They had wanted peace and prosperity.

The soldiers like Al-Halabsa had faded into the population waiting to see what would happen. Within weeks it became clear that the Americans had no plan for what to do after their victory. The American government only sent carpet baggers to loot the ancient nation and to profit off of the conquered people.

As the weeks and months wore on, it became clear that the Americans would stay but they would not protect their Sunni allies. Electricity and clean drinking water disappeared. The museums were pillaged. The army was disbanded and Sunni soldiers suddenly found themselves without an income with which to feed their children. Even worse, the Americans threw their support to the Shi’ites and Kurds, traditional enemies of the Sunni the men and women who had held power for most of Iraq’s short history. The most civilized of Arab countries was reduced to fourth world status if that was possible.

To protect his family, Al Halabsa became a leader in the resistance army – the anti-government militia. Iraqis might not be able to win conventional wars, but they could do a great deal of damage in unconventional engagements.

Between the first and second Gulf Wars, he had enjoyed a brief time in civilian life. Using the skills he had mastered in the army, he had started a small electronics business. He had found a beautiful Samarian woman to marry, and between the countless American bombings that had defined peacetime and starved the population, they had started a family. They were all gone now; his beautiful sons, his exquisite daughters, his kind and loving wife; dead and buried in the shock and awe rubble of Baghdad.

There had been no peace once the destruction had begun. The Iraq War had fostered a bloody civil war with the ethnic cleansing that had pitted Sunni against Shi’a and ended his dreams of normalcy. Neighbors – who had once been his Shi’a friends – were now his Shi’a enemies. Civilians, who had once shared neighborhoods in peace and happiness, fled the carnage. He had returned to war, waging relentless campaigns in the name of sectarian violence that followed the Invasion in 2003. He had joined a resistance that continued the hostility even after the Americans had left with their tails between their legs.

Al-Halabsa was a master of the IED. He had made life a misery for the Americans. Now he made life a misery for the Shi’a. When the Americans had finally left only the people he was fighting changed. Iraq was once again engaged in a sectarian blood bath that would not end in one hundred generations.

Al-Halabsa was a bitter man. He would not stop fighting while he could still breathe but all the joy had been stripped from his life. One day he hoped to pay the Americans back for what they had done to him and his family. At the moment he was preoccupied with taking back Sunni dominance thereby restoring order and power to the land.

Now he sat looking at the object that the suitcase which had been dug from the rubble of Fallujah contained. With the Cyrillic writing on its surface, the switches and lights, he knew exactly what it was, what he didn’t know was what to do with it.

It is an atomic weapon, a Russian-made suitcase bomb, Ali Hammada Zenab said, his voice breathless with wonder at the evil thing sitting before him.

It’s an abomination, Al-Halabsa replied.

We can eliminate the Shi’ites in the south, Zenab said.

And take thousands of our own Sunni brothers and sisters with them. It will only add to our problems. The Americans have been waging an atomic war on us for years; an atomic war without the bomb. Already our mothers no longer wonder if they will have a boy or a girl. They wonder what deformities they will have to contend with because of the spent uranium tank busters the Americans have dropped on us.

Then so what? Zenab asked. If we are already dead what’s a little more death?

If we use this weapon on the south, the Americans will return to level the country, the General responded emphatically. We cannot use it here.

Israel? Zenab asked.

Same problem. We have one bomb which we cannot deploy from the air. They have hundreds of bombs and the planes to drop them. No matter what we do our people will suffer, Al-Halabsa responded.

So how do we use it? Zenab asked. His face was a picture of frustration.

I think we send it to America. We have people there who will give their lives to avenge us. In America we can bring death to millions, and with any luck the Americans will believe that Iran is responsible and attack the Persian nightmare in retaliation, Al-Halabsa said with a smile. Attacking Iran will bring truly bad repercussions to the Americans. Iran has not been at war for 30 years. It has an intact army and an efficient navy. It controls half the Persian Gulf and can block the Straits of Hormuz. Stirring that ant hill is the best result we could hope for.

You think the Americans will over reach? Zenab asked.

I would be willing to bet on it. Look at what they have done because of the loss of only two buildings in New York City? Al-Halabsa replied. If we blow up a whole American city, like Washington for example, it will drive them mad.

They didn’t go into Syria. Zenab remarked.

They weren’t attacked on their own soil by Syria, Al-Halabsa said.

We didn’t attack them on their own soil but they came here, Zenab argued.

That is another matter, a different time and a different administration, Al-Halabsa explained. Their President wanted war with us. He convinced the Americans that we had been involved.

How do we lead them to believe it was Iran that attacked them? Zenab asked.

We don’t have to, they’ll do it themselves, Al-Halabsa said. His scarred face broke into a triumphant smile. There is no other Middle Eastern country with anywhere near atomic capability. They will jump to the only conclusion they can; a preemptive strike by Iran. The war mongers in their Congress will chafe at the bit to get into another war particularly with Iran. It is a beautiful thing.

How do we get it to America? Zenab asked.

"I know a man