Nucflash by Keith Douglass

planned.”
    Hopke smiled. “Perhaps, Lieutenant, they don’t know you are a SEAL. Or that SEALs are such formidable opponents. They must have thought that the threat of four people, displaying guns, would be enough to make you submit.”
    â€œMaybe. If they didn’t know I was a SEAL, though, the question remains why they tried to pick us up at all.”
    â€œIf they have a mole with customs,” MacKenzie pointed out, “they would know we came in on a military flight. We’re in civilian clothes and we go straight to the BKA. One of us takes a lovely BKA agent back to her apartment. That’s got to make them curious.”
    â€œQuite right,” Hopke agreed. “We will know more when we have interrogated the prisoners.” He looked back and forth between Inge and Murdock. “In any case, perhaps you two would like to resume your evening together?”
    â€œI think Inge might like to get some rest,” Murdock said.
    â€œNonsense!” All evidence of the shock that had threatened her earlier was gone. She seemed animated and very much alive. “After what we’ve just been through? I’m hungrier than ever now. That steak we were talking about sounds wonderful!”
    â€œI’m not sure that’s a good idea, L-T,” MacKenzie warned. “Suppose they try again.”
    â€œAbout that gun,” Murdock said, turning to Hopke.
    â€œWhat kind do you prefer?”
    â€œI don’t suppose the Federal Republic would go along with me packing a shotgun. Or an M-16.”
    â€œHow about something concealable?”
    â€œFirst choice would be a .45 Colt. After that, just about anything in semi-auto and .45 caliber.”
    â€œI will see what can be done.” Hopke removed his suit jacket, revealing a shoulder holster rig which he began unbuckling as he spoke. “In the meantime, why don’t you take this. Just don’t get caught with it until I can put the proper paperwork through.”
    â€œThis,” was an H&K P9S, a 9mm double-action semiautomatic with a nine-round magazine. Tucked into its holster with a Velcro strap and positioned under Murdock’s left arm, it hardly showed at all when he put his jacket back on.
    â€œGreat,” he said, shrugging, then moving his arms back and forth to settle the harness comfortably into place. “Of course, some official backup might be nice too.”
    â€œI’ll see what we can do.” He grinned suddenly. “Why do I have the feeling, Herr Murdock, that you are making of yourself a target?”
    â€œI’m not really. And I wouldn’t deliberately use Inge here for bait either. But my feeling at the moment is that no place we go is going to be all that safe.” He shrugged. “Who knows? The guy in the panel truck may organize another try with some of his buddies. If we’re ready for them when they do, so much the better.”

    The Cattle Baron was a pseudo-American restaurant located on the Büdingenstrasse in Wiesbaden. As Inge had promised, the steak was excellent, and both of them were hungry.
    Their conversation, however, remained centered on things professional. At first, Inge was interested in the aspects of SEAL training. “Drown-proofing” fascinated her, though she thought the sink-or-swim mentality seemed a bit barbaric. The idea of tying a man hand and foot and throwing him into the deep end of the pool, literally to sink or swim . . .
    Later, their conversation had grown more technical, with Inge probing Murdock’s thoughts on nuclear proliferation . . . especially now, with the old Soviet empire gone.
    â€œWe’ve been especially concerned about the possibility of radicals in the former Soviet states getting hold of nuclear warheads before they can be disassembled or shipped back to Russia,” she told him. “Even a so-called battlefield weapon, a tactical nuclear artillery shell, for instance, could kill