Nobody’s Hero (Ben Koenig #2)

Chapter 128

Koenig thought Tas had played a perfect game. He’d pitched nine innings without a single batter reaching first base. No hits, no walks. Twenty-seven up, twenty-seven down. In 140 years of baseball, it’s only happened twenty-three times. Just once for the Red Sox. Cy Young threw a perfect game in 1904, back when they were called the Boston Americans.

Jakob Tas wasn’t going to be largely unknown. Margaret Wexmore wasn’t going to be a footnote in history. When they wrote the books on how the Lake Mead incident changed the landscape of the United States, Tas and Margaret were going to be infamous. Forever remembered. Like Sid and Nancy. Hitler and Eva Braun.

‘Is what we’re sitting on the reason you killed your colleagues?’ Koenig said. ‘You could have left the one body in that paint warehouse. We’d still have ended up where we are.’

He didn’t really care. He was buying time now. It was his only hope. Hope that someone would figure out what was really in the boat. Because if things played out like they were supposed to, Tas would make a run at the Hoover Dam, and Smerconish would make the biggest mistake in US history. Draper would object, but hers would be the only dissenting voice. Blowing up the boat would seem the logical choice to Smerconish. Oxymoronically, the only choice. The safe option.

‘I would have killed the Australian anyway,’ Tas said. ‘The man never shut up. Kept going on about how wonderful Australia was, despite having lived in Poland for twenty years.’

Koenig grunted. Australians were weird like that. Spent their entire lives bragging about a country they seemed desperate to escape. He figured it was something to do with the water going down the toilet the wrong way.

‘But you’re right, I killed Konstantin and Cora because I didn’t want them to suffer. They didn’t know what it was we’d brought into the country. They thought it was a nerve agent. Only Miss Wexmore and I knew it was nuclear rods. By the time we got to San Diego, they’d had too much exposure to the rods.’

‘I’m sure they’ll write folk songs about you,’ Koenig said.

‘They will write folk songs about me. Half the world will feign sympathy, but the other half will call a public holiday. No more bully in the playground.’

Koenig didn’t respond. The biggest dog in the pound was never popular.

‘This is suicide,’ he said. Weak response.

‘I’m already dead.’

‘Not for you. I mean for whoever provided you with the spent fuel rods. That stuff has a signature. It’ll take our guys twelve hours to identify the nuclear plant they came from. We’ll be at war with that country twenty-four hours later. A month after that it’ll only exist on historical maps.’

‘Speak softly and carry a big stick?’

‘It’s not a joke, Jakob. The US will have to retaliate.’

‘Against whom?’ Tas said. ‘The theft of the fuel rods has been reported. The relevant authorities have been notified. In two hours, Reuters will have it. Soon all the news agencies will have it. The accusations will fly, but ultimately everything will lead back to me. The bank accounts are all in my name.’

‘You had seed money, though,’ Koenig said. ‘You and Margaret needed a float to get this done. Someone funded this.’

‘Eighty million. Chump change for one of the world’s three thousand billionaires.’

‘It can still be traced.’

‘It will be traced, Mr Koenig. All the way to an American citizen. Driven by greed, not ideology. He thought he was buying influence. A favourable ruling on some strip-mining laws. Over the next few months, the details of my transgressions will be leaked. Your government won’t be able to control the narrative. The world will believe the story we’ve put out. They’ll believe America was attacked by a lone wolf funded by one of their own. There’ll be no country to retaliate against.’

He threw back his head and howled.

Koenig recognised it for what it was. The final scream before you went over the top. An adrenaline-fuelled way of steadying the nerves.

It was time.

Tas was making his run at the Hoover Dam.