Milwaukee Deep

Time remaining…24:51:28…

“So what’s the status, Lieutenant?” asked Harding, “have we made any progress?”

“Negative – he’s done – there’s nothing else I can get out of him,” replied Tasker over the phone.

“What do you mean he’s done?” asked Harding.

“It means he’s dead, Agent Harding – the electric shock treatment cooked him from the inside.”

“What!?” Tom exclaimed, “Are you fucking kidding me! So where does that leave us now?”

“We have the time he departed the train – we now need to start cross checking all arrival times across the board – see if we can get lucky.”

“Do you have any idea how long that will take, Lieutenant? Damn it, did we have to kill him?!”

“There was no other way, trust me! I gave him every opportunity to tell me where that fucking bomb was – every opportunity to cooperate!”

“Well obviously not enough,” replied Harding.

“Fuck you, Harding – I did my job. Just remember this guy was a true believer, one of Crane’s own creations – trust me he was never going to talk.”

“But he told us that it was on a subway train – he gave us the time, surely it wasn’t going to be long before we got the station name.”

“He was going to tell us everything. He just died too fucking soon. He was ready to talk to save his family, but his heart gave out. Not sure what it was that killed him but I am truly sorry he couldn’t have lived a minute longer so we could have pinpointed the location.”

“How sure are we that the bomb is even on a subway train?”

“Believe me, it is.”

“How the fuck can you be so certain?”

“It makes sense. Put a bomb on a moving target and it makes it hard to follow. It gives you the opportunity to have multiple exit points once you plant it. Also putting it underground makes it near impossible for satellite to get a heat reading. No, Harding; the weapon is definitely on board a subway train. It was a smart move.”

“So now what?” Harding asked.

“Continue the search,” replied Tasker, “and get started on that cross checking.”

“Easier said than done, Lieutenant.”

There was a slight pause.

“There’s one more thing I think you ought to know, Harding,” Tasker finally said.

“And what’s that?” asked Tom.

“I didn’t get the access codes from Fanning – if we find this weapon, we’re going to need to defuse it without those codes.”

Harding shut his eyes.

“Anything else, Lieutenant?” he asked.

“No,” came the reply.

“Then if you’ll excuse me,” Harding said, “I’ve got to put in a call to the bomb squad – I think they ought to know sooner rather than later that they’ll have their hands inside the casing of a nuclear weapon by day’s end.”