RW12 - Vengeance

by Richard Marcinko

  “Nada so far. The company checked out as a legitimate shipper. They ran a credit check, that sort of thing. They stopped one of their transports at some point and inspected it; it checked out completely. The company’s on a watch list that’s as long as the phone book. The guys working on the gun dealer and the Bosnian cells went back to square one, figuring it was just a screwup. They think the slimer probably reversed the digits on a legitimate address he knew of, or even made a mistake.”

  “Did the guy with the papers have any dealings with the company or any other company?”

  “We haven’t been able to check that.”

  “Let’s ask.”

  “He was deported. They only developed some of this in the last week or so. And even with everything I’ve told you, there’d be no reason to hold on to him.”

  In movies and books and on television, terrorist networks snap into full view with a single sentence or intercepted message. In real life, nothing is ever smooth or in full view. Was this guy related to a company that was a cover that shipped weapons all across the world? Was the address just a bizarre coincidence? Remember the story of the blindfolded scientists placed in a room with an elephant and allowed to touch only once? That’s what a real-life investigation is like—except, instead of an elephant, you’re in the room with a ticking bomb.

  Or an alarm clock. Up to you to figure out which.

  “I did more checking on the trucking company,” Danny said. “They do a lot of business with a trucking company out here every so often. That company took a shipment of surplus Army gear two months ago and delivered it to them.”

  “M16s?”

  Danny rifled through his papers. “Blankets.”

  “Did the shipment go to France?” I asked.

  “How’d you know?”

  “Find out when the last shipment is going out.”

  “I already did,” said Danny. “It’s due the day after tomorrow in the container port near Hoboken. Caught my eye because it was the same place where we were going to drill.”

  “Danny, pack up and drive to the airport. Call us and tell us what flight you’re on.”

  “Where am I going?”

  “New York. Just tell us what airport and we’ll meet you. Let me give you a number.”

  Container ports are basically very large parking lots with giant Erector set contraptions near a dock area. Containers come in on one side and go out on the other, hoisted from and aboard ships by special cranes. In the fall of 2002, the feds unveiled a program to improve security at the ports of New York under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey that included electronic tags tracking each container. They also increased reporting standards, mandated more “manual” inspections, and announced plans to buy one hundred portable X-ray scanners that make random inspections somewhat quicker. Money was even set aside for detectors to track radiation through the ports. Senator Chuck Schumer and some other big shots gathered round and proclaimed this “pilot program” the greatest thing since sliced bread was packaged in plastic bags.

  That stuff looks great on the press release and probably made a kick-ass spot on the nightly news. I’m sure it’ll be part of Schumer’s reelection ads. No strike against the senator; he’s at least trying to do something to protect his constituents. But think about this: it’s a pilot program, children. It hasn’t been done before. Until the fall of 2002, there wasn’t even a plan to beef up security at the ports.

  And how secure do you think those electronic tags are?

  “Might take a few minutes to break in if you didn’t have an EPROM reader handy,” said Shunt, checking out the tag on one of the Brod Prevoz containers.

  An EPROM reader is a fancy electronic tool that reads data on memory chips; if you look around, you can get one for under five bucks, though a really good one may set you back a bit more. We didn’t need to hunt around for one, though. We’d borrowed a real tag reader from a state police truck stop on the turnpike a few hours before. They had two. I doubt they missed it until we FedExed it back to them the next day.

  Four of us infiltrated the cargo container’s outbound holding yard while Hulk and Danny Barrett, newly returned from the Midwest, played lookout beyond the fences. We had some of Capel’s people watching for Shadow’s net. Inside the yard, Trace and Sean took up covering positions, while Shunt and I did the work. Not that getting past the locks and seals of a shipping trailer is real work.

  The fact that we had originally been scheduled to hit the container port made our unauthorized foray a little easier than it might have been, but I doubt it would have taken more than a few hours of advance work on the scene to figure out how to get in and out. To be honest, we could’ve probably called ahead and told the site security, the state police, or the Feds that we were tiptoeing and they wouldn’t have caught us. But we saved our quarters.

  Anyone who would have checked the electronic tag on the container would have seen where it had been. They would have had no trouble (assuming all the computers were working) discovering what it contained and whether the shippers had dotted their t’s and crossed their i’s. And they would have felt very confident and secure, assured by modern technology that they were keeping a close eye on the world around them. But they’d have been wrong.

  Remember the old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out”?

  The data on the shipment indicated that the trucks contained industrial drills. And there were industrial drills aboard—the first two rows of crates at the back, and at least some on the side. But the first crate we checked in the middle of the third row had M16s in it.

  Early models, probably U.S. Army surplus. We didn’t bother checking them closely; we kept the box open long enough to slip a tracking device inside and then resealed it. My idea was that Doc would stay in France and help the French authorities there as they tracked the guns. When they captured their bad guys, we presumably would have information on Shadow as well.

  As we repacked the crate Sean spotted a port security car headed our way. Everything was snugged and buttoned up by the time the beat-up white Taurus passed down the lane where we’d been. It had searchlights on both windows but the beams hit the cargo containers around chest high; we could have sat down next to the roadway and probably not been seen. We waited for the car to pass, and then went on to the second part of the job on the other side of the lot.

  Danny’s information had led me to wonder what else the company might be hauling. As it turned out, the company didn’t seem to have any more business in the metropolitan area, or at least none Cox’s records hound could find. Naturally, this made me suspicious, so I had Shunt fire up his laptop to see what he could come up with. He also drew a blank, and then I knew we were onto something. Danny called on some old police contacts, and we began running back registrations and license plates, getting nowhere—until we found that Brod Prevoz and another company, this one called American Furniture Hauling, had sold each other the same truck twice over the past two years.

  And, as it happened, American Furniture Hauling was supposed to make a pickup on the other side of the yard in the morning. The container had supposedly come from Albania—which isn’t all that far from the former Yugoslavia, is it?

  By truck it is, and even with porous borders, this was a long-shot play. But since I was already in the container port, I figured I might as well have a look-see. You never know where you’re going to find mustard gas or other more interesting items these days.

  Security in the incoming area was a bit tighter than over in the outbound lot. Dogs and more than a dozen teams checked containers in a dedicated area directly off the highway. Once a container passed through customs and whatever dockside inspections had been ordered for it, it was stored in a fenced-off no-man’s-land just beyond the inspection station. I wouldn’t say getting into that part of the compound was easy, but I wouldn’t say it was particularly hard. Trace had probed the situation the day before, testing responses at the gate. I had originall
y thought we’d come in posing as truckers making a pickup. But that turned out not to be necessary. Once past the customs area, trailers generally didn’t stay very long in the holding paddock. All of the security was concentrated in two places—on the preinspection side of the fence, where the idea was to keep something from slipping over to the cleared spot before inspection, and on the exit ramp, which was really a double-lane highway winding around the perimeter of the complex. This was supposed to be an emergency exit for the holding area and had a chained gate with two guards posted at all times. But if you came in from the side of the lot, all you had to deal with was some razor wire and a chain-link fence. It was at least a hundred yards long and only one corner was lit. Of course, to get in from the side you had to be in the incoming section of the plant—where, by golly, we just happened to be.

  We worked our way inside and located the trailer in question. But before Shunt and I could examine the locks, Hulk sounded an alert from outside. A pair of Crown Vics had driven up to the entrance of the yard and were being quickly waved through security.

  “Feds or state people. All suits. In a hurry.”

  My interest piqued, we slipped back to watch as the cars cruised down the access road toward the emergency exit. But then they passed right by, continuing around on the road behind the lot. I was disappointed at first—then I realized where they were going.

  “Move toward the outgoing lot area,” I told the rest of the team. “Be careful, because they’ve got a good view of the outgoing lot from the row where the M16 containers are. Keep plenty of distance between you and them.”

  The rear of the trailer was exposed to the other lot and getting inside it would be risky with the Feds stumbling around; besides, I wanted to see what the hell they were up to. Shunt and I slipped tracking sensors on the trailer we’d located, just in case someone came for it before we got a chance to get inside. We went back over the wire, using a Teflon blanket to avoid an unnecessarily close shave, and moved around the last row of the trailers. The trucks hid us from the automated lifting area, where the claws pick up the containers and ramp them across to the ships. A low chain-link fence—no clue what the hell that was supposed to do beyond routing traffic—separated the parking area from the railroad tracks. Beyond the fence, it was an open run to the water.

  I kept Shunt next to me the whole way. I trusted the kid’s computer skills, but he was more Boy Scout than shooter. Though his heart was in the right place.

  “We could pick them off from here, Dude, bam-bam-bam,” said the techie as we crawled up to two rows from the trailers.

  Somehow, the words “bam-bam-bam” don’t sound right coming from a guy who’s six-one and weighs a hundred and thirty pounds, even if he had exchanged his glasses for sports goggles and tucked his long frizzy black hair under a cap.

  The suits did a circuit of the yard. As they came back to the security gate, an HRT unit—the FBI counter-terror SWAT people—drove up in three plain blue vans. (“HRT” stands for “Hostage Rescue Team.” They’re like a super SWAT team, trained in techniques SEAL Team Six and Delta pioneered.)

  “Skip? This looks like a big show,” said Hulk. He was sitting in a car not far from the sentry box. It was one thing to avoid being noticed by bored security types and quite another to slip under the HRT radar screen; they actually know what they’re doing.

  “Go over to phase two,” I told Hulk. “Grab a boat and play backstop.”

  “On it.”

  “What the fuck are these assholes doing?” asked Trace. The HRT team filtered through the yard, setting up lines of fire around the M16 containers.

  “Shunt, are you sure there was no bug on that container?” I asked.

  “I used the scanner, Dude. You think they’re looking for us?”

  “I’d say they’re looking for somebody else. You sure we didn’t trip anything?”

  “Can’t rule it out.”

  “Danny, can you hear me?”

  “Gotcha, Skipper.”

  “What do you think about getting to a pay phone and seeing if you can find out what HRT is up to? Call the New York Terrorism Czar on his cell phone. If that doesn’t work, go through Karen.”

  “What about Cox?”

  “Or Cox. Or anyone else you can think of.”

  “You think they’re going after our boxes?”

  “Don’t you?”

  “Well, maybe, but, these containers are on the way out, not in. If somebody wanted to grab something they wouldn’t have put it in, right?”

  A very logical mind. But not every situation called for logic.

  “I can’t argue with you, Danny. But I can’t argue with twelve shooters, either.”

  That’s how many were piling out of the vans and taking up positions around the yard. Things remained quiet for a half hour or so. I considered sneaking back to the other container and opening it, but decided against it—not only because I thought we might be seen, but because I thought there might be a possibility the FBI or someone else had planted some sort of device on it we couldn’t pick up. Our sensor would allow us to track the trailer; we’d just have to wait to get it open.

  Danny made his phone calls, but probably because of the time—it was now past one A.M.—found nobody to talk to. We were trying to come up with some other possibilities when Sean saw two figures come in off the water. We watched in dark clothes as they snuck through the yard toward the containers that were staked out. As soon as one of them put a hand on the seal, a portable searchlight flipped on behind them.

  “Shit!” I said—but not loud enough or soon enough to prevent the slaughter.

  In the FBI’s view, they were completely justified in taking down the two men. Both spun around, pistols in firing positions. One of the men took a shot, probably at the searchlight that had blinded them, though if so he missed. The HRT people had legitimate orders to fire if fired upon, and they did so.

  They did not miss. So, rather than having two potential—emphasis on potential—sources of information about a clandestine smuggling operation, we had two more dead illegal immigrants, sprawled in front of the trailers. I waited until the Crown Vics drove up, then slipped through the shadows and appeared right behind them so quickly the HRT people thought I’d gotten out of the car. Among the suits was my friend, the local FBI counterterrorism wannabe expert, who proceeded to strut and frut as he congratulated himself on snatching a full load of rifles destined for America’s overseas enemies. I guess he thought they were headed for the French army or something.

  “Why the fuck did you kill these assholes?” I told him. Fortunately for him, I was in a diplomatic mood. “You just screwed up everything.”

  “I screwed up everything? What the hell are you doing here, Marcinko? How the hell did you get in here? What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m involved in an investigation. What the hell are you doing here?”

  Members of the Fucked-Up-Beyond-Imagination Bureau don’t like to hear the word “investigation” coming from someone who doesn’t have a government-issue BuCar; they think you’re trying to hone in on their pension plan. Wannabe started sputtering and stuttering about how he had just apprehended a major terrorist organization and saved America from another 9/11.

  It’s hard to argue with logic like that, let alone try to understand it. I waited for him to mention the other container, but he didn’t. And if he wasn’t going to bring it up, I wasn’t going to, either.

  The dead men had carried backpacks filled with electric circuit boards. This seemed very interesting to the FBI honcho, who started spouting something about secret coded information.

  Shunt rolled his eyes off on the side.

  “First of all, Dude, the word is encrypted,” he said. “Second of all, if they were shipping data, they wouldn’t do it on boards like these.” He held them up to the light. “More likely they’re just beating some sort of export restriction or maybe, like, a weird tax. These look like, uh, Pentium III chips. Old ones. Not w
orth much. Too bad, like, you don’t know who stole them and who was getting them and like that.”

  Smoke started coming out of Wannabe’s ears. He started yelling about having his own people “handle the technical aspects, thank you very much.”

  “Doom on you, Dude,” snapped Shunt.

  We all cracked up, even the nearby HRT shooters. Wannabe turned so red his face glowed in the searchlights.

  “Armstead is going to hear from me,” he said.

  “You want his home number?”

  “Fuck you, Marcinko. Fuck you.”

  A dollar for every time somebody says that and I’m on a beach in Antigua.

  With the full weight of the FBI thrown into the investigation, I had no doubt that what had been a promising lead was now completely shot to shit. Even so, we set up to track the inbound container. Wannabe made it impossible to get into without being noticed, so we planted a small video cam on an old signal bridge on the rail line nearby to keep an eye on it in case the tracking transponder screwed up; then we broke into shifts, waiting down the road. Danny got hold of some friends in the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and they agreed to detail a strike team of Treasury agents trained in HAZMAT situations as a backup strike force. The agents needed an hour’s notice to assemble; this wasn’t optimum, but I figured it would beat having the FBI blow the last chance we had of developing the lead. Danny also worked out a plan so that Jersey state troopers would be able to cut off the container truck if it went off the highway and into an area we didn’t think we could control safely.

  In the meantime, I called Doc and got him just before he was to start his morning rounds—sightseeing with Tiffany at Versailles.

  “I’ve never been to the Sun King’s palace, Dick,” said Doc cheerfully. “I’m really looking forward to it.”

  If he’d lived back then, Doc would have been one of the people Marie Antoinette told to eat cake. But I guess there’s some sort of poetic justice in rabble like us trooping through the marble halls and snorting at how the king and queen pissed through their loot.