Big Trouble

"Number three," said Greer, "if word gets around about what's in the suitcase, it eventually gets to the morons who have the suitcase. Long as they don't know what they got, which apparently they don't, they ain't gonna think about trying to use it, like as a bargaining chip."

"Could they set it off?" asked Baker. "I mean, doesn't it have, like, whaddyacallem, fail-safe things?"

"This thing wasn't built by good guys," Greer said. "It's not like in the movies, where the president has to give the Secret Code and two trusty soldiers have to turn their keys simultaneously. This thing was built by bad guys who wanna be able to set it down in a public place in a crowded city and arm it quickly. We don't know for sure about this suitcase, but the other one? The one they recovered? All you had to do there was open it up and flip three electrical switches, and that starts a forty-five-minute timer."

"Forty-five minutes?" said Baker.

"Forty-five," said Greer. "We think the True Believer was planning to hop a subway, be up in the Bronx, facing north, by the time it blew."

"And now it's here," said Baker, staring out the window.

"Looks like it," said Greer.

"Jesus," said Baker, shaking his head. "I mean, you see this shit in the movies, and you think it's fiction, but I guess it was bound to happen one day."

Seitz snorted.

"What?" asked Baker.

"What makes you think this is the first time?" said Seitz.

"This isn't the first time?" said Baker.

Seitz snorted again.

"Never mind which time this is," said Greer.

"Here's the thing. What I told you here, it's because, like I said, you're a cop, and you got cops involved. But what I'm also telling you is, when we get these scumbags, we take them, and the suitcase, and we leave, and that's the end of this as far as you are concerned, understand?"

"What do you mean?" asked Baker.

"What I mean," said Greer, "is that as far as the federal government is concerned—and I am talking about way, way, way the fuck high up in the federal government—none of this happened. There was no nuclear bomb in Miami. There never have been any nuclear bombs going around loose in suitcases anywhere in this great land of ours. Because if people start thinking there are, we are gonna have panic like you cannot imagine—people leaving for Montana, hoarding food, taking all their money outta the banks, lynching every guy with a beard, you get the picture. The economy goes into the toilet, civilization collapses, end of story. So this did not happen. Understand? Whatever happens, it did not happen."

Baker said, "But I have to report ... "

"You don't have to report shit," said Greer. "You repeat any of this, Agent Seitz and I, backed by pretty much the entire federal government, will deny it. You push it, and we will push back on you, hard. Very hard. Nothing personal, because seems to me like you're a good cop, but we can and will fuck your career up so bad you won't be able to get a job policing Porta Potties."

Baker sat back in his seat, staring out the window again. He said, "What you said before, about if you told me what was going on, you might have to kill me ... "

Greer turned and looked back at him. "What about it?"

Baker said, "You weren't kidding, were you?"

Greer looked forward again. "Traffic's getting bad," he said.

eleven

Even veteran air travelers find Miami International Airport disorienting. It's often crowded, and it seems to have been designed so that every passenger, no matter where he or she is coming from or going to, has to jostle past every other passenger. The main concourse looks like a combination international bazaar and refugee camp. There are big clots of people everywhere—tour groups, school trips, salsa bands, soccer teams, vast extended families—all waiting for planes that will not leave for hours, maybe days. There aren't enough places to sit, so the clots plop down and sprawl on the mungy carpet, surrounded by Appalachian-foothill-sized mounds of luggage, including gigantic suitcases stuffed to bursting, as well as a vast array of consumer goods purchased in South Florida for transport back to Latin America, including TVs, stereos, toys, major appliances, and complete sets of tires. Many of these items have been wrapped in thick cocoons of greenish stretch plastic to deter baggage theft, which is an important airport industry, another one being the constant "improvements" to the airport, which seem to consist mainly of the installation of permanent-looking signs asking the public to excuse the inconvenience while the airport is being improved.