by Mark Terry
She pulled out another device that looked like a blow dryer with a PDA mounted on top. “Scintillation counter. Let’s go. Warehouse to warehouse. And just so you know, this isn’t like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s like finding a needle in a needle stack.” She abruptly smiled. It was a grim smile, but a smile nonetheless. “Actually, my favorite analogy so far has been that it’s like finding a drop of vodka in a rainstorm. In other words, it’s a waste of time, but we do it anyway.”
“Pretty much my job description.”
At the nearest warehouse, O’Reilly flashed her badge and walked past the hard-hatted warehouse supervisor. She said, “We don’t need to go box to box—”
“Good thing,” Derek said. The warehouse was cavernous, filled with thousands of crates and trucks; a half dozen forklift trucks loaded crates onto trucks. As they watched, a truck pulled up to the rear gates and began unloading more crates.
“—because these are NEST quality gear. High sensitivity. Just wander around a bit—”
“—and try not to get run over.”
A burly man in denim and steel-toed boots was waving at them to step back. When they did, a truck backed out of the warehouse. The air smelled of exhaust and was filled with alarms sounding from reversing trucks, the roar of engines, and the thud and clanks of cranes and boxes being moved out.
He followed O’Reilly, watching the meter on the Geiger counter, but it remained in normal levels. O’Reilly explained that U-235, which would be used in a real nuclear bomb, probably wouldn’t show up unless they were right on top of it. But maybe they’d get lucky.
And we’ve got to do something, thought Derek, besides stand around talking to cranky office managers.
With a shrug, they finished their first sweep and moved to the next warehouse. More of the same.
They were entering the third warehouse when Lora Worth, Shelly Pimputnikar, and a tall, broad-shouldered man in khakis and a brown shirt wearing a hard hat, waved them down. The man was Ali Tafir. His dark eyes were angry, his mouth twisted in a snarl beneath a thick mustache.
“Hey, what the hell you think you’re doing? You can’t just run around here. You’ll get yourself killed. Know what that would do to my insurance rates? Look, look, look, I cooperate with all you guys, I allow inspections, I fill out all your paperwork. You—” He pointed at Derek. “You’re the guy from Homeland, right? I work all the time with Taylor Zerbe. What, the right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing? Don’t you guys ever talk to each other? You get Taylor on the phone. He’ll tell you. Call him.”
O’Reilly said, “Mr. Tafir, we have reason to—”
An explosion nearly knocked them off their feet. They all spun toward the source of the detonation. The explosion hadn’t come from any of Tafir’s warehouses, but from north of where they stood. Already they could see a large black cloud of smoke rising toward the sky.
Derek checked the Geiger counter readout, but it hadn’t budged. It wasn’t nuclear and it probably wasn’t a dirty bomb. But whatever it was, it had been big.
“Sorry to trouble you, Mr. Tafir,” O’Reilly said, and turned and ran back toward the bucar. Shelly and Derek sprinted alongside her.
CHAPTER 26
Mary Lynn Travnikar stood on the top deck of the Alaskan Princess, gripping the rail with one hand while she waved enthusiastically with the other. Down on the ground, what seemed like miles down, which was why she was holding the rail so tight, were her two daughters and their families. They had sent her and her husband Donald on this Alaskan cruise for a fiftieth wedding anniversary gift.
It was their first cruise. She wanted to take in everything. Don, who was standing just behind her, mostly wanted to find the nearest bar, order a Bloody Mary, and then locate the casino.
Mary Lynn squinted against the bright sunshine. A warm breeze blew her short, curly silver hair around her head. She wanted to see it all. She wanted to experience everything. She was seventy-one years old and she doubted she’d ever be on another cruise. It was another thing to check off on her life wish list. As she waved, her daughters and grandsons waved back, then turned and headed toward the car. Feeling slightly disappointed that they weren’t waiting for the ship to actually leave port, she turned to Donald and said, “Isn’t this fun?”
“Yeah. Let’s get a drink.”
She gave him a playful slap on the shoulder. “You’ll have the entire trip to play blackjack, Donny. And it’s too early in the morning to go to the bar. I want to watch us leave. Let’s go over to the other side of the boat. I want to look out at the port. Isn’t it amazing?”
Donny shrugged. Mary knew Donny was thrilled to death, but he had played the grumpy old fart for so long that he couldn’t quite break out of that role. She thought that was the problem with getting older. Sometimes you acted a certain way because that’s what people expected of you—the motherly grandma, the grumpy grandpa, the dutiful wife, the loving mother, the dedicated employee—and before you knew it, that’s what you were, whether you wanted to be or not.
She caught his hand. How long had it been since they’d held hands? His eyes widened a little at her touch. I’ll show you, she thought. I’ll remind you tonight in our cabin just why you married me in the first place. “C’mon, big boy. Let’s go look out at the ocean. This is an adventure.”
He allowed himself to be dragged to the other side of the boat, which wasn’t nearly as crowded as the rails alongside the docks. They stood next to each other and looked out at the main channel. Another cruise ship was just leaving the mouth of the channel into the Pacific. Coming in the other direction was a freighter flying the flag of China.
She had been right. Donny was more interested in the ships and the harbor than he had been in waving at his daughters, sons-in-law, and grandchildren. She noticed the faraway look in his eyes when he looked at ships. She wondered if all men felt that way, if embedded in their DNA was a memory of ships and the sea. Did all little boys want to be pirates and sailors?
She pointed at a few smaller boats that were buzzing through the channel. “I would think they wouldn’t let pleasure boats in here. They might get run over by a freighter or something.”
Donny leaned forward. “Particularly that one there.” He pointed. “I’m not sure it’s even staying in the—what’re they doing?”
The white cabin cruiser, which had been racing up the channel, suddenly changed course right toward them. With a far-off buzz of a boat engine revving, the cruiser suddenly leapt forward, shooting a beeline directly at the stern of the Alaskan Princess.
“Are they crazy?”
“I don’t—”
The cabin cruiser struck the Alaskan Princess at full speed. Mary and Donny felt a slight tremor run through the big ship at the impact. They had just time to look at each other in concern when the smaller boat exploded, tearing a huge rent through the port stern side of the Alaskan Princess, and sending steel, aluminum, fiberglass, mahogany, and glass shrapnel blasting upward and outward, destroying everything—and everyone—in its path.
CHAPTER 27
Derek, O’Reilly, and Shelly found it wasn’t easy getting to the site of the explosion. The World Cruise Center was on the other side of the port, easily five miles if they could have gone in a straight line, which they couldn’t do. They had to drive all the way around a number of canals and basins, and by the time they arrived, fire trucks and ambulances and other emergency vehicles were already in place.
Climbing out of the car, they took a moment to just stare. A large white cruise ship was sinking into the harbor as flames licked at its hull and black clouds of smoke billowed into the pale blue morning sky.
O’Reilly’s phone buzzed. “Yes, we’re already here. Where are you? Really? Okay, we’re—yes. Okay.”
She clicked off and shook her head. “Givenchy and Welch are here somewhere.”
Shelly pointed and waved as the two START agents appeared out of the crowd and walked toward them. Givenchy was the first t
o speak. “We were here when it went off.”
Welch nodded. “We were fuckin’ useless. We were four hours behind these guys. We followed down a lead that there were some guys loading barrels of something onto a pleasure boat, a cabin cruiser, and it might be explosives. How about you guys?” He took in Derek’s appearance for the first time. “Jesus, Stillwater. What the hell happened to you?”
“Long story.” He gestured at O’Reilly, who told the two agents about being at The Compass Organization on the other side of the port when the explosion occurred.
“So it was a suicide bombing?” O’Reilly asked.
Givenchy nodded. “Big time. From what we’ve been able to tell, these guys loaded a thirty-two-foot cabin cruiser full of ANFO, piloted it up the main channel, and drove it full speed into a cruise ship headed for Alaska.”
Shelly said, “How many dead?”
Givenchy shook his head. His Texan drawl was more pronounced than usual. “No solid numbers. It could’ve been worse, but the boat was getting ready to sail. All those people lined up on deck. They’re the ones who got killed, those on the starboard aft rail and anybody in their cabins on that side of the boat. I would say dozens. We offered to help, but by the time we got close enough, they had things under control. The ship crew was well trained and so was the port’s fire and rescue.”
O’Reilly leaned back against the bucar, appearing defeated. “So that gives us Dallas, Chicago, and L.A. We can look at New York and D.C. now. I guess we call in and see if they want us to come home.”
Derek turned from watching the smoke. The ship was listing, but not sinking. Besides, the port was only about forty feet deep at the docks. Even if the hull had been completely breached the ship would have just sunk into the mud.
He wondered why the suicide bombers hadn’t waited for the boat to get out to sea, where more would have died. Or maybe that wouldn’t have been quite as spectacular. He’d had a similar thought about the 9/11 World Trade and Pentagon attacks. If they had taken place a couple hours later, they would have been more deadly than they were. Derek supposed that was one of the downfalls of his experiences with terrorism—he always thought things could be worse.
And of course, today they had managed to pretty much shut down the Port of Los Angeles. Even if they got it up and running again in twenty-four hours, millions of dollars would be lost.
Derek said, “Who owned the boat?”
Welch said, “What?”
Derek turned. “Who owned the boat? The one they drove into the cruise ship. Who owned it?”
Welch frowned. Reaching into his jacket pocket, he pulled out a notebook, flipped pages and said, “It was a Thompson St. Tropez. The Hull Identification Number was TMS38947D998. Owner of record was—”
Givenchy interrupted. “According to the harbormaster, it was some sort of corporate ownership. Berth was paid for by a law firm in L.A. Jamieson, Perzada, Suliemann and Hill. Entertainment lawyers.”
Derek recognized the name. It was the firm in the Avco Center on Wilshire, three blocks from the Federal Building, where the Pakistani Consulate was located. They had employed a courier named Abdul Mohammad who had been around a few weeks earlier feeling out Greg Popovitch about whether or not he could acquire a suitcase nuke for him. And now he was dead.
And a boat owned by the same firm had been used in a suicide bombing.
Derek didn’t say anything. In truth, he was feeling pretty lousy. He walked over to the bucar, opened the door, and sat down. The rest of the team talked among themselves. Derek watched O’Reilly walk away from them and make a phone call. He wondered what she was thinking. He got the impression that leading a START had been important to her. She’d always been ambitious that way. He wondered what her title was at the ODNI, if maybe she had plans for running an intelligence agency someday, or ending up in the bureaucracy at CIA.
After a few minutes, she walked back and said, “We’ve been called in.”
Everybody nodded, unsurprised.
She said, “I’ll meet you back at the Federal Building, then I’ll see about heading back to D.C. I’m sure we’ll have some reports to write.” Her gaze flickered toward Derek. “Oh. Hey, Shelly, I’m going to take Derek back to his bucar. Why don’t you ride with Givenchy and Welch.”
Shelly nodded. She retrieved her Go Pack and computer from O’Reilly’s bucar and followed the other agents back into the crowds. O’Reilly settled into the driver’s seat, her fingers tapping on the wheel.
“Back to Malibu, I guess.”
Derek grunted. His mind was elsewhere.
She looked at him, gaze sharp. “What’re you thinking?”
He stared at the cruise ship. Helicopters beat the air overhead, circling. Finally, “Anything about these attacks seem odd to you?”
She followed his gaze. “This one was pretty effective.”
“Yeah, but Dallas was a screwup. Even if it had gone off during the election tomorrow, everything we’ve seen so far suggests that as a dirty bomb it wasn’t more than a—”
“What?”
He murmured, “—a distraction. It all feels like a distraction. And Chicago, that was a joke. You don’t do a suicide bombing at an abandoned building.”
“Maybe he lost his nerve. Maybe he got confused. Maybe—”
“Maybe this whole deal is screwy.”
O’Reilly sighed. “We’ve been recalled. We’re going to get flown back to D.C., write up our reports, and if—”
Derek shook his head. “I’m not going back. I’m not done here yet. There are too many loose ends.”
After a moment O’Reilly said, “What do you want to do first?”
“I want to go back and talk to Ali Tafir. It was kind of convenient that during this explosion his witnesses were three federal agents, wasn’t it? And I’d really like to see if there’s some connection between Tafir and this law firm at the Avco Center. That’s where I want to start.”
O’Reilly fired up the bucar. “Then let’s do that.”
Shelly Pimpuntikar appeared in front of them, a frown on her face. She walked back and flung open the rear door and slid in. “Just what I figured. You two are going to continue the investigation. Okay, I’m in. Where are we going?”
O’Reilly and Derek shared a look. Derek grinned. “What about Givenchy and Welch?”
“They want to stay here and make sure the scene gets investigated properly. They’re pissed that they didn’t avoid this. They were awfully close.” Shelly deepened her voice and added a Texas accent, giving a very effective impression of Agent Givenchy. “’I may ’ave fucked the dog today, but that don’t mean I gotta like it. I can at least clean up afterward.’”
“Colorful,” Derek said.
O’Reilly said, “I’m beginning to think that as a START leader I’m a total failure.”
Nodding, Derek said, “Call Welch and tell them you ordered them to stay here and we’re going to keep looking at our loose ends. That way your ass is covered.”
She agreed. “I’ve never thought of you as a guy who worried much about covering his ass.”
Derek smiled. “I’m not in prison and I’m not dead.”
“Yet,” Shelly said.
“Yet,” Derek agreed. “The day’s still young.”
CHAPTER 28
It was almost noon by the time they finally made it back to The Compass Organization. A long day, Derek thought, dragging himself out of the car. Shelly and O’Reilly went to talk to people working in the warehouse. Derek had convinced them to let him talk to Ali Tafir alone.
He pushed through the door and it was only seconds before the office manager strode toward him. “I don’t know why you’re back here, but—”
Derek walked past her without speaking. Shelly had told him Tafir’s office was on the second floor in the back. He beelined toward the stairs, the woman yapping at his heels.
“Hey, you can’t just walk in here like this.”
Derek’s reply was to flip out his Homeland
Security badge and keep on walking. She trotted after him.
“I’m going to call Taylor Zerbe. You have no right to come in here like this.”
Derek made a tapping gesture with his index finger. “Ring him.”
On the second floor, he strode through a door into a large office whose windows overlooked the rear of the port. From this vantage it was mostly train tracks, cranes, and warehouses. Tafir sat behind a maple veneer desk, feet up on its surface, phone pressed to his ear.