by Keith Yocum
The sound of the collision was deafening, and Dennis struggled to control the vehicle as it fishtailed, cutting into the dirt at the side of the road and spraying the car with pebbles and branches from shrubs. He fought the Cruiser back onto the highway, where he finally came to a halt fifty yards from the collision.
Dennis tried to reconstruct what had happened. He got out of the vehicle and used the light of the high beams to examine the bar protecting the engine compartment. A small smear of blood and fur clung to the left side of the roo bar. Dennis got in the car, slowly turned around, and drove back down the road to the scene of the crash.
At first he saw nothing, just the sparse spinifex clumps at the side of the road. Then he saw an animal’s huge hind leg emerging from behind a small hillock. Walking over, he saw a gray-colored kangaroo, perhaps six feet tall, lying on its side. A pool of black-red blood collected in the dust next to its open mouth.
Dennis stumbled backward.
“Jesus,” he repeated as he walked back to the car. “Jesus.”
He started driving again but kept his speed more moderate, concentrating on the highway ahead. It took him longer to get to Port Hedland, but he was determined not to kill or injure any other living creature this day.
It took him nearly an hour of driving around the town in the early morning hours to find a hotel with a view of the deep-water harbor. He found the Pier Hotel at the end of the Esplanade and checked in at 2:20 a.m., red-eyed and jittery with exhaustion.
He woke at 9:50 a.m. and pulled back the light-blocking shades. His room looked down over a portion of the huge port. Across a thin shaft of water he could see a long line of railroad cars brimming to the top with what he guessed was iron ore. To his right he counted at least six ships parked and waiting at sea to load up with the mineral bounty that Western Australia was churning up for the rest of the world.
After brushing his teeth and ordering room service, he took out Judy’s binoculars and scanned the horizon, looking for the telltale mounds of shipping containers piled high near the docks.
After nearly thirty minutes of eye-straining scans, Dennis found no containers. His concentration was interrupted by a knock on the door. A young, blond Australian man dropped off Dennis’s breakfast.
On a lark, Dennis said, “You know, I’m just checking out the sights here and am amazed at all of the mineral shipping. Does Port Hedland also have a container port?”
“Yeah, mate,” the young man said, pointing proudly to an area at least a mile past the railhead. “Big container port there. They’re piled high like building blocks. Can’t miss ’em.”
Sure enough, in the distance, Dennis could make out a pile of the universal twenty-foot by forty-foot shipping containers. He put down his binoculars and ate his breakfast.
Later, in the hotel lobby, he used the hotel’s complimentary computer and spent thirty minutes searching the web. After comparing a couple of products, he pulled out his Dennis Smith credit card and ordered a rush shipment to be delivered to him at the hotel. The shipper guaranteed arrival in forty-eight hours. Dennis prayed it was not going to be too late.
Later that day he took the LandCruiser to a service station and had them drain and replace the radiator fluid, as well as replacing the radiator hose that was being held together with tape.
“What happened here?” the mechanic asked.
“I ran over a rat,” Dennis said.
Chapter 39
He had to circumnavigate the town to get to the container dock on the other side of a channel. He passed a train with what seemed like a hundred railcars filled to the brim with some sort of ore. After switching back several times, he finally found the entrance to the container port, blocked by a guard shack. He bluffed his way in by explaining he needed to discuss a shipment with the port manager.
The guard, a small Asian man with an oversize baseball cap nearly covering his eyes, finally waved Dennis through. He pulled to a stop about four hundred yards away from the massive pile of containers.
Using his binoculars, the lunacy of his quest became apparent as he worked his way through the containers. Even if the special container was still there, the task was daunting. The pile stood easily eight containers high and perhaps ten wide. Not only were the color schemes of the each box diverse, but the containers in the middle of the pile couldn’t be seen at all.
“Shit,” he said quietly as he scanned the mountain.
A truck carrying a container roared by, leaving the facility, and he waited for the dust to dissipate.
Peering through the binoculars, he worked his way methodically from left to right, hoping to find a red container with a small horizontal yellow stripe running its length. He quickly abandoned that plan. Dennis tried to put himself into the shoes of his prey.
If this container was so important—and expensive—to fill up, what would I do when I shipped it? he thought. Would I insist on special treatment? Would I custom ship the container or meld it with the millions of other containers in transit daily throughout the globe? I’d mix it in to draw less attention. Would I just deliver it to the port and leave? No, not after guarding it during the long drive to the port. I’d keep an eye on it while it sat on the ground. If it were going to be tampered with, it would happen on land.
Dennis realized the pile was an inelegant rendition of a pyramid, being tallest in the middle but slimmed down at both ends to one or two containers high. It made sense that the newest entries to the mountain were placed on top or at the edges. An enormously complicated overhead crane moved the containers around like pieces on a chessboard, filling ships and unloading others.
Dennis concentrated on the very top of the pyramid but could not find the telltale yellow stripe. Then, almost as an afterthought, he scanned the low-slung administration building and its small adjoining parking lot. He scanned every vehicle in the lot.
“Gotcha,” he said softly.
A large, dust-covered white Suburban was parked at the edge of the lot, facing the pile of containers a hundred yards away. Dennis followed the direction the Suburban was facing. Sitting by itself on the ground at the edge of the mountain, but closest to the Suburban, was a red container with a yellow stripe around it.
***
Dennis returned to the container port the following day and used his binoculars to rediscover the Suburban. The container was still on the ground, but he did not know how much longer it would stay there.
Back at the hotel he checked for the package, but it had not arrived. He decided to stay in his hotel room as much as possible to avoid being spotted. He parked the LandCruiser at another hotel five blocks away and rented another car, a Holden sedan. If they were still looking for him and had found the LandCruiser, they’d canvas the other hotel. At least that was his thinking.
That afternoon, sitting in his hotel room looking at the busy, but strangely sterile port in front of him, Dennis could barely make out a human figure on the waterfront. From his window he could see ships stacked up at anchor outside the harbor, long snake-like trains parked near a terminal, huge cranes and conveyor belts—but virtually no humans. And what humans he did see through his binoculars were Lilliputians with tiny hard hats standing next to giant machines of commerce. He found the environment depressing and devoid of life.
Ants, he thought. They were nothing but ants crawling over the desert landscape. Stupid, brainless ants.
That was his signal that he was swaying into a dark period. He sat on his bed and felt a flash of anxiety, and then dread: or was it dread, then anxiety? He was never sure what came first.
Dennis had a sudden impulse to use his disposable mobile phone to call Judy, but he knew that was a bad idea. She needed protection, not more trouble.
I need the frigging package, he thought. I need it now so I can get the hell out of this place.
***
“Oh God, Cilla, I have no idea what love is,” Judy said. “Please!”
“I’m just suggesting that maybe you’
re in love with him, that’s all,” Cilla said.
Judy, Cilla, Sarah, and a fourth woman, Emily, were having dinner at O’Reilly’s, an Irish pub on Hay Street in Perth.
“I’ll tell you what love is,” Sarah said, holding her two hands about eight inches apart. “It’s about this bloody long.”
The group burst out in laughter, and Judy was just as happy to have the attention move from her.
“I’m being serious,” Cilla said, taking a sip of her wine. “Maybe you’re just in love with this crazy Yank.”
“Well, regardless of Sarah’s definition of love,” Judy said, laughing, “I don’t think that’s what I’m talking about. Can’t you just miss someone and not be in love? Why does it always have to be either love or not love? Life isn’t always so perfectly binary, is it?”
“Where did you say he was now?” Sarah asked.
“He’s up north on business, and then he’ll head back to the States,” Judy said.
“Why don’t you just appear at his house unannounced?” Cilla said. “Have you thought about that? And if it’s not love, then it’s profound like. And you don’t need any more motivation than that.”
They laughed again.
“But what if he’s married and has been lying to you all this time?” Sarah said. “I mean it wouldn’t be the first time in Western civilization that a man lied to a woman to get into her britches.”
“Yes, I’ve thought of that, which is why I’m not going anywhere,” Judy said. “Besides, as you pointed out last time we had dinner, he probably has at least two families.”
The group burst out in laughter again, and Judy took a huge gulp of her frosty sauvignon blanc.
***
The phone in his room rang.
“Mr. Cunningham?”
“Yes.”
“Your package has arrived. Should we send it up?”
“Yes, please. Hey, is there a hardware store here in Port Hedland?”
“Of course; I can write up directions for you.”
“That would be great, thanks.”
The sun was setting when Dennis had finished spray-painting the small device. He had purchased a can of flat red paint and had placed newspapers down on his narrow balcony to protect the cement floor.
He looked out onto the port, lit up like a massive baseball park. In an hour or so he would try to pull off this stunt; it was the last piece of this strange game that would lead him to the prize, or what he hoped was the prize.
***
He slowed down on the highway leading to the container port and checked his rearview mirror. At 10:00 p.m. it seemed he was the only driver on that lonely stretch of highway.
He switched off his headlights and turned slowly off the road into desert scrubland surrounding the port. Dennis was careful to avoid hitting the brake pedal—they’d shine like a beacon in the night landscape—as he meandered like a Galapagos turtle. He estimated that he needed to drive about half a mile or more to intersect the fence protecting the port. The port’s industrial lighting painted the area in an artificial orange wash.
It seemed odd to him that the port authority would build a ten-foot galvanized wire fence around the hundred-acre, mostly empty facility.
Perhaps they needed to keep the roos out, he thought, and other primitive mammals. Like me.
After nearly thirty minutes of driving through the uneven desert scrub, Dennis slowed to a stop next to the fence. In front of him, on the other side of the fence, lay a discarded and damaged shipping container.
The abandoned container offered Dennis an obstruction to protect the car from the prying eyes of the port authorities and the inhabitants of the dusty white Suburban. He had disabled the interior light of the car so that when he opened the door, it did not light up. Out of the car, he used his binoculars to find the Suburban. It was about four hundred yards away across a stretch of desert and looked like it had not moved.
He considered the three strands of barbed wire at the top, angled at forty-five degrees toward the outside. Reaching into the car, he brought out two towels that he’d borrowed from the hotel, the red painted device, and a tube of construction-grade adhesive.
He jammed the adhesive and the device in his pockets and climbed up the fence. He was startled to hear how his climbing sent a low metallic rumbling sound up and down the fence.
Navigating the barbed-wire section was difficult. He awkwardly tossed the towels over the barbed-wire overhang and pulled himself over the top, making much more noise than he wanted.
The towels were not as effective as he’d hoped, and he managed to cut the bottom of his rib cage. He felt the coagulating blood sticking to his shirt.
After climbing down the other side, he made his way across the red, barren soil to the container stacking area. He passed abandoned containers, sheds, and the mysterious detritus of industrial operations, including huge tractor tires, discarded wire fencing, a rusting automobile, and a pile of galvanized chains, each link the size of a loaf of bread.
It was relatively easy to move in the shadows, and after several minutes, he had positioned himself near the huge Lego-like pile of containers. A container ship was in the process of being loaded, and he was relieved to hear the motors, winches, and warning beeps that made it impossible for anyone near the port to notice the twanging of the fence that he had created earlier. The loading area was bright, with high-wattage lights casting strangle, elongated shadows.
Dennis could easily make out the red container with the small yellow stripe. He moved quickly, staying in the shadows and looping around to the farthest side of the container pile.
Dennis approached the container pile slowly. For all he knew, the agents in the Suburban were asleep, but he kept out of their line of sight. After reaching the enormous mountain of containers, he slowly traversed the pile on the desert side, away from the ship being loaded, since it was too well lit there.
Halfway down the length of the pile, Dennis was suddenly aware of a noise from above. He looked up and saw the huge scaffolding that held the sorting crane directly overhead. The crane had attached itself to a container at the top of the mountain behind him, perhaps eighty feet high, and with a loud “boom,” had clamped it tight and was lifting it across to the container ship one hundred yards away.
Using the deafening sound of the crane, Dennis scooted to the end of the pile and found the container where it had been the day before, about twenty yards away from the pile. Another fifty yards past the container sat the darkened Suburban.
He raced across the open space toward the container, praying the Suburban’s occupants were blocked from seeing him. Unfortunately he was not blocked from anyone else’s view, including the crane operator and at least one dockyard employee he saw a hundred yards away near the ship’s bow.
Dennis slid to his knees when he got to the container and took out the device and the tube of clear adhesive. He had already broken the thin metal seal on the tube and quickly pressed out a gob of it on the container next to the locking mechanism for the doors. He turned the device over and pushed a small switch. The device beeped to life. He stuck it to the adhesive and held it there for several minutes.
Again he heard the clanking and roaring of the overhead crane, this time louder. He looked up and was startled to see the huge clamping device coming straight down for the yellow-striped container.
“Shit,” he said out loud.
He held the device in the goo of adhesive as long as he could and then bolted back into the shadows of the container pile. As the crane clasped the container it boomed like timpani struck by an overexuberant music student.
The container flew upward into the floodlights and was gone. Back in the safety of the pile of containers, Dennis peeked at the darkened Suburban and then carefully retraced his looping path around the pile and back to the fence and his car.
He was back in the hotel forty-five minutes later and went right to his room, avoiding the bar. The container’s destination would, he
hoped, explain everything. Still, something was odd about shipping a whole container with only a handful of barrels inside. He read that uranium processing involved many steps including first creating a uranium powder called yellowcake. Later, yellowcake is further refined into nuclear fuel for reactors. Even further refinement can lead to weapons-grade nuclear material. But it required enormous amounts of yellowcake to start.
Maybe it wasn’t even yellowcake. Could it be opium flown in by plane and repackaged? Dennis was dizzy processing the possibilities.
Chapter 40
He flew back to Perth the next day, but his layover was brief, and he did not call Judy, though he was tempted. He flew on to Sydney, where he had another layover.
Dennis was certain that Langley knew where he was at this point, since he had booked the last leg under his real name. All plane manifests were open to the Agency and their good friends, the NSA.
The long flight across the Pacific to Los Angeles International Airport was marked by alternating bouts of boredom, anxiety, and an undercurrent of depression.
He drank several nips of Scotch, but the alcohol only managed to force him to hit the bathroom with a frequency that irritated the passengers in his row.
***
The Immigration Service agent at LAX looked at his passport, his Customs declaration form, then at her screen, then at him, then back at his passport, and finally back to the screen. Since he had an official government passport, he did not expect to be questioned, but she said, “Were you in Australia on government business?”
“Yes,” he said. “Official business.”
She looked straight into his eyes, then back at her screen, and handed his passport back.
Dennis picked his bag off the carousel and made his way to the Customs line. They were either going to take him into custody before he got to the line or right after clearing Customs.
But they didn’t take him in the Customs line.
After clearing Customs, they didn’t take him then, either, and he was confused. He knew his itinerary would have been flagged after he bought the ticket and was 100 percent certain they were going to take him at LAX.