Milwaukee Deep
Chapter 51

“No, Mr President, I haven’t.”

“So when do you expect to hear back from him, Tom?” asked President Stoker

“Sir, I sent him out just over half an hour ago, if Agent Karidis replaces anything he will inform me as soon as possible.”

“I need to know, Tom. He’s my son – since Madeline’s passing, he’s all I’ve got.”

Harding closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“I understand, Mr President, and rest assured I have one of my best men on it. I’ve asked him to go to Columbia and retrace his steps – see if anyone saw him leave – hopefully we can catch a break there.”

“And there’s no way of replaceing out who Bell assigned to deal with this?”

“At the moment, Sir, no. Please, just give my man an hour to replace out what he can at campus and we’ll go from there.”

There was silence on the other end of the line.

“Mr President?”

“I understand. Thank you, Tom.”

“Sir, trust me, we’ll replace him.”

“I know you will, Tom. Give me a moment and I’ll call you back to discuss our progress on the search for the weapon.”

“Certainly, Mr President, I’ll await your call.”

Harding walked over to the large screen on the far wall of the control room. He stood there and stared at the thousands of tiny red squares that revealed all the subway cars still yet to be searched.

“How the hell are we going to do this?” he whispered under his breath.

Before he could answer his own question his cell phone rang.

“Yes,” he said as he brought the phone up to his ear.

“Tom, it’s me, Anthony – can you talk?”

“Perks, I’m a bit busy, what’s up?”

“We’ve got some bad news.”

Harding held his breath.

“I arranged for the psychiatrist to come back and re-interview Burton.”

“And?” Harding asked.

“And we’re in trouble. Burton didn’t escape, Tom – he was released.”

“What?”

“You heard me, released. We got him under hypnosis to trace his steps the day before he was found and he revealed that they let him go.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. It’s been a set up from day one, Harding. They double crossed us – they want this planet for themselves. Burton was set to release the virus at the end of thirty days and if we had killed him the virus would have been released instantly – that’s why they informed you guys that he had escaped.”

Harding went silent.

“Tom, I need you back here – we need to figure out what to do.”

“One crisis at a time, Perks.”

“What?”

Harding took a deep breath.

“I’m going to tell you something, Perks, but you have to swear to me that you won’t tell the others – do you understand?”

Perks hesitated. “What’s happened Tom?”

“We have a situation - there’s a nuclear weapon that’s set to detonate in New York. I have thousands of men searching for it as we speak – it’s been placed in among six thousand subway cars and right now I’m tied up trying to get through this nightmare. Now what I need from you is to stay put – we will replace this weapon and we will disarm it before it detonates.”

Perks’ silence echoed over the phone.

“Anthony, you still there?”

“How did this happen?” he finally asked

“Long story – I’ll explain later.”

“When is it set to go off?”

“In less than twenty-four hours so you do understand why I’ve got to end this call. Stay put and do not leave the facility, do you hear me. There is an underground bunker in the northern wing – if you haven’t heard from me by twelve pm tomorrow, tell the others and head down there – you’ll be safe from the blast. If we make it out of this alive then we’ll deal with our friends down below - take care and I’ll talk to you soon,” and Harding ended the call.