Countdown: H Hour by Tom Kratman

succeeded in killing one of the little winged Satans. “ Il hamdu l’illah ,” the Pakistani muttered, in a language not his own.
    Odd , thought Janail, that this fat little scientist retains all the faith I’ve long since cast aside. Not that he needs to know that, of course, but playing along with his religious carping since we met in Brunei is getting wearisome.
    Where Janail traveled on a single, not very large bag, tucked under his seat, the Pakistani’s baggage took up most of the forward third of the skiff, from just ahead of their legs to just behind the man at the machine gun at the bow. Mahmood’s assistant, Daoud al Helma, sat in the sodden bilges, just behind that.
    First pointing his chin at the baggage, Janail then inclined his head toward his companion and asked, “And you’re certain that you can tell if the devices work with your instruments?” He spoke in English, their only common tongue.
    “Yes,” Mahmood answered, eyes automatically trying to follow an unseen flying pest. “At least insofar as anyone can tell without actually detonating one. I can check the quality of the nuclear material, judge the serviceability of the conventional explosive, determine the quality and serviceability of the switches and detonators. All that.”
    “You’re certain you can’t be fooled?”
    Mahmood shook his head. “No, another scientist with the right backing could perhaps fool me with a counterfeit. And the man we’re going to see could easily buy that scientist and give him that backing. But you shouldn’t worry, even so.”
    “Why not?”
    “Because some things can’t be counterfeited and, given the raw materials, I can make a bomb, or two of them, no matter what the pirate ahead may think.”
    Ahead loomed a massive yacht, well—even
ostentatiously—lit and very, very unconcerned with the infestation of pirates in the area. If the light had been natural and external, the yacht’s hull would have shown as blue. As was, it seemed a black to match the night.
    Janail couldn’t make out the details, despite the lights, but he was reasonably certain that the yacht was so thoroughly armed, and its occupants so willing to open fire on the slightest provocation, that the yacht’s master considered pirates the least of his problems.
    No more does the fully grown great white shark fear the hammerhead.

    Yacht Resurrection , between the coast of Kudat
    and the island of Pulau Banggi, South China Sea

    Physically unprepossessing, balding, very rich, and with the paunch that usually went with that, Valentin Prokopchenko sipped an almost incredibly ancient Dalmore from a chilled glass. He considered vodka a drink for peasants. And I am not a peasant.
    Born into an hereditarily highly placed—one may as well say, “aristocratic”—Communist family, in the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, as a young man Prokopchenko had seen the writing on the walls. “Let others try to salvage this house of cards,” he’d said to himself, back then, as Soviet communism had begun to crumble. “I’m looking out for me and mine.”
    And who could blame him? Even his parents—dedicated Communists, to be sure—hadn’t been so dedicated as not to watch out for the futures of their ever-so-precious children just a little more than they tried to ameliorate the plight of long-suffering mankind. Their wisdom in this was amply shown when son Valentin had, indeed, taken care of them, keeping them from the grinding poverty of the collapsing Soviet Union’s final and worst days.
    At least we thought they were the worst, Prokopchenko thought, then took another sip of his scotch. We lacked imagination. The worst days are now, except for the days to come.
    Where Boxer, back at Camp Fulton, in Guyana, kept a map on his wall which could have been labeled, “Advance of Barbarism across the Globe”—it was actually labeled, “Marketing”—Prokopchenko had a very large plasma screen. His organization, moreover, was