Elevated Threat

by William Robson

  The dock workers were just starting to come to life when a call from the pilot of the Hanjin Mundra came across the intercom letting the crews know that he was just clearing the Strait of Juan de Fuca and turning south into Puget Sound. The crane operators started their long climb up to the cabs. The deck crews started moving all the scattered equipment out of the way and preparing the various forklifts, deck ramps and mooring lines needed. The short-haul truckers fired up their rigs and started to line up on the holding lot.

  Clyde was peeking out of the trailer at the choreography of it all when the main gate opened and a passel of white government vans pulled onto the lot. Clyde was completely caught off guard since they seldom came unannounced. When a big SUV stopped right in front of Clyde’s trailer and his old buddy Captain Dan popped out of the passenger door, Clyde was invigorated with excitement.

  “Hey, Captain. What brings you to my little abode?”

  Agent Dan Spores’ dour expression was a not so subtle clue he wasn’t going to be jovial on this visit.

  “Hey, Clyde. Sorry but this is an official visit this time. My team needs to check out the Mundra before it gets up to the dock. Unfortunately, this process is going to take quite some time so you might as well relax. In fact, we probably won’t have it ready for unloading to begin until tomorrow.”

  Clyde was bummed at the news about no work, but his interest was now peaked. Holding back his usual flair for overstatement Clyde just responded with:

  “Cool, it’s been very boring around here lately. So what’s going on anyway?”

  Agent Spores obviously had lots to prepare for but took the time to explain as best he could.

  “Well, Clyde. All I can really say for now is that we have a reason to suspect there may be something on board the Mundra that we need to check out before the cargo is off-loaded. So we are going to keep the ship out in the Sound and go onboard and have a look around. We will do some tests and if it checks out we’ll let it dock and you can have at it.”

  Clyde just couldn’t help himself.

  “Come on, Captain. You know I have been assisting Agent Andrews get to the bottom of it all, so you can tell me the true skinny.”

  Agent Spores looked at Clyde in disbelief. First, Clyde called him Agent Andrews, not Pig Face, the Ugmeister, or one of his other usual slams. So he must really be trying to impress. Unfortunately for Clyde, Agent Spores was also a by-the-book kind of guy. He wouldn’t give out operational information to his friends, or anyone else.

  “Sorry, Clyde. That’s all I can say about what’s going on. But I would like to ask a favor. We will be bringing in a bunch of equipment and we will need all the dock space we can get, so could you please ask the short-haul guys to clear all of the trucks from the waiting areas and ramps and explain to them that there won’t be any loads for them today. Thanks.”

  Clyde wanted to continue the discussion, but Agent Spores pulled out his radio and started issuing instructions to the teams of people in the blazers who were now spreading out across the docks. Clyde excused himself, went into the trailer, got on his own radio, and delivered the message to the drivers that there would be no payday for them today. Clyde looked out the window and saw several gestures toward him from the truckers that would get a younger man than he hot under the collar. Clyde just shrugged it off.

  Since it was clear that he had time to kill, Clyde decided to look up the information he had about the ship pulling into Puget Sound, which was now under suspicion. His discovered that the Hanjin Mundra had originated form Qianwan Port in Qingdao China, and that it was fully loaded with 1 TEU containers carrying a wide variety of products from all regions of China. It had been scheduled to arrive at the Hanjin Port T-46 dock in Seattle at 1:00 p.m.. Clyde noticed that the ship was coming in from the same location in eastern China as the last time things got interesting on the dock.

  Clyde walked out of the trailer and had a look around. The truckers were now almost all gone and the people from white vans had unloaded equipment of all types and shapes onto the main ramp. Way out in Puget Sound, Clyde could just make out the Homeland Security boat heading his way. Clyde assumed that it would be used to ferry the white-coated scientists out to meet the big ship. While he watched all the choreography taking place in front of him, he started to wonder why they didn’t just dock the boat and check it out from land. Why go to all the trouble of parking it way out in Puget Sound and then use smaller boats to go out to it. Unless?

  Clyde’s mind started to invent all kinds of reasons why they would not want to have the boat docked in port. None of his theories rattling around his brain ended well for the Seattle docks… or him. He decided this situation was getting too big to keep to himself. Since no one told him not to, he called Anne.

  “Hi, Anne. I thought you might want to know about the craziness going on down here. We have a ship that’s being held out in the Sound and all the FBI boys are down here again checking it out. This time they are not even letting it dock. I think something big is going on.”

  While Clyde was talking, Anne was already checking her contacts to see if this scenario was only playing out here in Seattle. If it was a repeat of the last time where events were happening up and down the West Coast, she wanted to know in advance.

  “Hey, Clyde. Thanks for calling. I am just checking to … hold on a second.”

  Clyde could hear Anne talking to herself in the background.

  “Holy crap, Clyde! It’s happening again! I have a report here of a ship in Vancouver that is also being held out in deep water for investigation. They are not releasing any other information about it at this time. I am going to grab a photographer and I’ll be right down to meet you.”

  The Mundra had been stalled out in the Sound and the majority of the agents and equipment on the dock had been ferried out to the ship by the time Anne arrived to meet with Clyde. Anne found Clyde standing on the edge of the dock looking at the ship through binoculars. Clyde let out a big smile when he saw Anne approaching.

  “Hi, Anne. I thought you were bringing along a photographer.”

  Anne pointed to the sky and a helicopter that was just emerging from over the north Seattle downtown.

  “Hi, Clyde. Well, I thought we wouldn’t be able to see much of anything from here so I sent him up there.”

  The helicopter was now approaching the stalled ship and was starting to make a long circle around it. Clyde smiled at her good call. Clyde and Anne passed the binoculars back and forth looking for clues, but unfortunately for them, there wasn’t much they could see from the shore. They could make out the agents climbing aboard with some sort of test gear, but then they would just disappear down into the bowels of the ship or behind the countless containers that were stacked like a cord of wood on the deck.

  To add to the frustration, Anne received a call from the photographer in the helicopter informing her that they had been ordered by Homeland Security to leave the airspace above Mundra. The pilot reported that a national security directive for a no-fly-zone encompassing most of the Puget Sound area had been released. All air traffic was being diverted within ten miles of the ship. Anne and Clyde realized that gaining any new information from the Mundra was now going to be hard to come by.

  It was looking like Anne and Clyde would be in for a long wait. They decided to sit on one of the wood pylons along the shore while Anne used her laptop to search for news about the situation in Canada. Both were silently starting to ponder what kind of threat could be on the ship that would cause air traffic to be diverted, and what that could mean for them. Clyde jumped in his seat when his phone rang, but he tried to look nonchalant. Based on the big grin on Anne’s face, it wasn’t working. Once Clyde realized the ringtone was that of his little brother Mike, Clyde’s rush of adrenalin subsided. His brother’s excitement could be heard plainly through the phone.

  “Hey Clyde, you’re not going to believe what’s going on down here. The feds have made us take a container ship that we had started to
unload back out to sea. We had unloaded about a dozen 40 footers when all of a sudden the gates swung open and all these trucks came pouring in. The next thing we knew, they had the ship pushing off again.”

  Clyde tilted his phone so Anne could listen in.

  “Hey, squirt. We have the same thing going on up here. In our case the ship never made it to the dock. They have it parked about a half mile out in the Sound. No one seems to know what’s going on. Was there anything odd about the containers you off-loaded?”

  “No idea. They won’t let anybody near them. However, they don’t seem to be giving them much attention, so whatever is going on must still be onboard. The dock is full of press, FBI, Homeland Security, Coast Guard, and who knows who else. Everyone is going around saying there is nothing to see, but at the same time no one is leaving. It’s kind of spooky. ”

  Anne was checking her laptop for news from Portland. Clyde tried to give his little brother some reassurance.

  “Well, if you do hear anything, let me know. By the way, I am here with Anne, my reporter friend, and she is continuously looking for more information from her news reporter buddies. If she comes up with anything about what’s going on I’ll call back.”

  Mike sounded somewhat relieved.

  “Cool, I’ll do the same.”

  Anne was feverously searching for tweets or blogs out of Portland. Sure enough, word of the mystery was already spreading. Interesting chatter was starting to appear from various sources relating stories about ships being sequestered from ports in Seattle, Portland, Vancouver, San Francisco, and Everett.

  Agent Andrews’ arrival on the Seattle dock was certainly dramatic, if nothing else. His blacked-out helicopter flew in from the east over James Street at what seemed like 20 feet over the tops of the surrounding buildings. The helicopter then made a landing so fast on the pavement that it looked like it wasn’t even stopped on the ground before Agent Andrews was out the door and on his way to the waiting Coast Guard skiff. Clyde thought about yelling out a greeting, but quickly thought better of it. After Anne’s exposé, Clyde knew he wasn’t on Agent Andrews’ best buddy list. If that wasn’t enough, Agent Andrews’ body language, as he headed across the port tarmac, was not indicative of someone wanting to make small talk. Agent Spores met up with Agent Andrews as he stepped onto the deck of a waiting Coast Guard transport boat.

  “Sir, this is what we know so far. We have isolated the source of the signature to the aft and starboard side of the ship. We have a team in the area trying to isolate it down to a specific container right now. So far, the signature is strong, but based on the calculations we have from the April event we believe we only have a couple of hours before it starts to decay. Assuming, of course, that we have the same chemical agent to deal with.”

  Agent Andrews looked serious.

  “Thanks, Dan. So far, we have identified and isolated five ships that have exhibited the same chemical signature. We need to figure out what, if anything, is in those containers before the signature fades again.”

  Just then Agent Andrew’s radio crackled to life.

  “Sir, this is Daniels from Forward Action Team 1. We have isolated the source of the contamination. It’s located in container A-1524. This container’s exterior and construction matches those from the April event. Unfortunately, the container is buried under several others and containers are stacked on either side of it, so we cannot get direct access to it. We are preparing to send down the remote cameras to get a better visual.”

  As Agent Andrews started to answer Agent Daniels, an explosion ripped apart container A-1524. The explosion was powerful enough to break open the container on three sides, but fortunately for the men of Forward Action Team 1, the surrounding containers absorbed the brunt of the blast and the explosion did not have anywhere close to the power needed to damage the ship itself. Daniels and his team had crawled back from their vantage point above the container to prepare the remote camera when the explosion went off and they were shielded from the majority of the blast impact. Other than a twisted ankle, a couple of concussions, and several pairs of pants that needed to be changed, the Forward Team appeared to be unscathed.

  Agent Andrews immediately got on his radio in an effort to warn the other ships that were similarly being inspected. Unfortunately, before his warning was received by them, two of the other ships had a container on board similarly explode and three members of those inspection teams had not been as lucky as the one in Seattle. Shrapnel from the exploding containers killed the agents immediately. Agent Andrews’ warning was able to get to the other two ships in time. The inspection teams had been able to take cover when the explosions went off, and they suffered no casualties.

  All five of the ships had one cargo container explode within fifteen minutes of each other. The most immediate concern for Agent Andrews now was how many more containers were similarly rigged to blow up. One of the favorite attack strategies by jihadists is to have a second explosion go off a few minutes after the first to maximize the damage.

  Even before Agent Andrews had worked out a strategy for his men, reports were quickly coming his way from the teams that a nasty surprise had been exposed when the containers were breached by the blast. A putrid smelling cloud of very fine brownish particles was being released into the air and was spreading all around the containers and the deck of the ship. The forward teams ran out of the area as fast as their legs could take them. A level-two face mask and eye protection gave the agents little sense of security over whatever was now wafting up into the air from between the containers.

  Agent Andrews ordered everyone off of the ship immediately and for the hazmat crews to be ready on the dock. A top priority warning was quickly relayed to all of the teams on the other ships. These containers were not turning out to be as benign as the ones in April.

  The forward team on the cargo ship in Vancouver had sustained several serious injuries in the container blast. A medevac helicopter was deployed in an effort to extract them from the ship as quickly as possible. The cloud of particulates from the breached container was blown by the helicopters rotor blades all through the mini-canyons between the stacked containers and then back up to the ship’s deck surface. The helicopter inadvertently widened the dispersal area of whatever nasty business was in that container to essentially the whole aft end of the ship. A move the pilots later regretted.

  The spectacle of five giant container ships being abandoned in the bays and ports of five of the largest American and Canadian ports of entry made for quite a sight on the news. Video of Homeland Security, Coast Guard, and other non-identifiable ships, fleeing away from the behemoth ships as fast as possible, was being shown on a continuous loop on every news outlet around the world. Virtually every person in the western world was glued to their TV or computer, watching the commotion and wanting answers to what had happened. Agent Andrews and all the first responders wanted that very same information, but since they were the ones with the mysterious dust on them, they were somewhat more adamant about getting an answer.

  For the first time in the history of America, Homeland Security issued an order for all inbound cargo ships to remain at sea until they could be inspected. The five ships already in the West Coast harbors with the ruptured containers were ordered to be moved at least two nautical miles away from shore. Not surprisingly, after being told they would need to wear level-3 bio-hazard suits before they would be allowed to approach the ships, few of the available tugboat crew members available for the job were lining up to volunteer.

  Seawater misters from local fire boats were called in to spray water on the breached part of the ships in an effort to contain the, now widespread, deadly particulates. Even with the situation in full crisis mode, the Pacific Northwest’s ever present environmental groups were busy blogging about the danger to the ocean from the water spray on the chemicals. Save the whales.

  Hazmat control stations were quickly assembled on the docks and all non-essential personnel were summarily di
spatched away from them. Clyde and Anne didn’t have to be asked twice to leave. Within minutes, everyone within a mile radius of the Seattle dock had been moved away, and the local police were dispatched at every entrance to keep the reporters and looky-loos alike from getting back in.

  It didn’t take the medics at the hazmat staging areas long to recognize that the agents being paraded to them were exhibiting the effects of a nerve agent. It was less obvious to them what the exact chemical was that they were contaminated with. There was a detectable signature of methylphosphonyl-difluoride showing up on the test swabs. they took, and the medics first thought the contaminant was Sarin or some derivative, but they could not get a 100% accurate assessment. The best guess they could proffer for an antidote was a rapid injection of an atropine and obidoxime cocktail. When several of the advanced team members started to exhibit tightness in their chests, the medics thought a quick treatment was preferable to waiting for a more clear diagnosis at the autopsies.

  It turned out that the medics onsite made the right call. After inoculation, relief of the symptoms by those affected were quickly being reported. By the end of the day, 22 of agents that had boarded the ships, as well as, the first responders in the support ships were hospitalized. Thanks to the quick response and preparedness by the medics on scene, only two of the agents were believed to have contracted long-term effects from the chemical exposure.

  While the direct result of the container explosions and the associated contamination resulted in a comparatively minimal loss of life, the realization of the far larger implications of it was now starting to make its way through the intelligence community. The West Coast had just been attacked with a new form of a chemical WMD, and no one knew how many more containers were out there waiting to be opened by an unsuspecting dock operator or customs agent. West Coast merchant shipping was ordered into a lockdown.

  May 18, 2015

  Washington, DC