Rubens started to get lost in some of the details of the bank accounts and the network of transfers.
“The bottom line, Johnny,” he said.
“There was a cash withdrawal in Lima on Saturday from an HSBC bank account set up in Singapore while Babin was there five years ago. A few hours later, that account was used to transfer money to another bank account, which had made a payment to a container shipping company in Peru the week before. That payment was the third in a series, and coincided with the sailing of a ship to Mexico. Last week — the day before the warhead was found. It docked yesterday. We’re working on tracking all of the cargo containers.”
Rubens picked up the phone to talk to the Art Room. “Give me the location, Johnny.”
112
Driving the 18-wheeler took Túcume back to his earliest days in the army, when he worked with a supply company in the southern Andes and made sure to familiarize himself with the equipment his men used. Their trucks had been geared differently but were very similar to drive. He knew he would not do well in a city or parking the rig, but on the highway he was mostly all right, lurching a bit when in traffic and probably driving a bit too slow overall, but certainly all right.
The girl slept between him and Babin. Her weight felt pleasant on Túcume’s shoulder, even reassuring. In their short time together, he’d come to like her very much. It wasn’t a sexual attraction; it was more as if she were the child he would have had if he’d married. It was clear from what she had said that she had intended to sell herself as a drug mule; he was glad to have saved her from that.
She would be a ripe target in America. She was too naive, too young, to survive on her own. The predators would snatch her up in a moment. Túcume didn’t think she was pretty enough to be a whore, but that wouldn’t save her; she would end up being used in some other way.
As he drove, he fantasized about how he might protect her. He could let Babin take the weapon and go on without him. But that made no sense; his course was set. Sooner or later, the Peruvians and their CIA collaborators would hunt him down. Most likely, they were already on his trail. The CIA had its tentacles everywhere.
Túcume glanced in his mirror, looking at the sparse headlights behind him. Maybe they were behind him already.
Babin stimed. “Where are we?” he asked.
“The border is a few miles ahead. What do you want to do?”
The Russian glanced at his watch. “Near midnight. We will cross now.”
“Do you think the passports look good?” asked Túcume.
“They’re fine. I’ve used much worse.”
Túcume was not so sure. They had bypassed the border controls to get into Ecuador — not very difficult in the mountainous jungle — and getting into Mexico had been easy. The Spanish passports they had used were of the highest quality; even the holographic laminate they pasted over the photos looked perfect. The only comment the passport official had made was one of condolence to the alleged Señor Oroya on the graying of his hair.
But the United States would be another matter entirely. Babin had obtained his own documents for their use and insisted they use them. They would appear to be two long-distance drivers who had picked up a paying passenger.
“What about the girl?” Túcume asked.
“We can leave her if you wish,” said Babin. “But here is what is likely to happen if she is with us. If we are stopped, the agents will spend their time questioning her story, not ours. Her documents are excellent, and they will have to let her go. They won’t even bother us.”
“The truck—”
“You worry too much.”
“Maybe a little rest before we continue.”
“No, we go now. If you’re worried, waiting will only make you more nervous. Once we’re past the border, you will feel much better.”
113
Even in the CIA’s custom-built Gulfstream V, it took roughly six hours to fly from Lima to Manzanillo, on the western coast of Mexico. Karr spent the whole time sleeping. Lia, sitting next to Adam Winkle, the head of the CIA working group on the warhead, spent the whole time thinking about Dean. The Art Room told her that he’d decided to take a week off. Telach made it sound like he had gone at Rubens’ urging, but it all seemed too out of character for Dean.
Less than eight hours before, NSA analysts had located a cargo container apparently connected with Stephan Babin in a transport yard in Manzanillo’s port. The container and the yard were under surveillance, with two CIA teams hidden nearby and ready to pounce if the truck was moved. A third team, which included U.S. drug enforcement agents and Mexican police, as well two CIA liaisons, was stationed at the entrance to the lot, inspecting every cargo truck that left.
In the meantime, the NSA had been using the shippers’ records to check on the trailers that had left the yard. On paper at least, all of the container trucks checked out. Most belonged to a company that made mining equipment about thirty miles to the north; the company was being inspected by another strike team, this one organized by the FBI.
Winkle checked in with the ground teams as they approached the airport. The cargo container had not been moved or approached overnight. Lia heard the disappointment in his voice — while the teams had been ordered not to move in until bomb experts were nearby, there had also been some hope that Babin or even Túcume would come by to pick up the container.
“It’ll be dawn soon. We’ve got to move in,” said Winkle. “I have two Department of Energy people with me, along with another bomb expert. We’re five minutes from the airport. Helicopters are waiting for us. Go ahead and move in.”
He snapped off the phone and turned to Lia. “We have to find out if it’s real, or if we should look somewhere else.”
“Absolutely,” she told him.
114
Babin’s prediction about the border agents had proven correct, and Túcume felt himself relaxing as they continued north toward Houston. The girl had fallen asleep and lay slumped against his shoulder.
“We should change vehicles again,” said Babin. “Sooner or later they will look for this one.”
“We can’t unload all the boxes,” said Túcume.
“We only have to unload one.”
“Two hundred kilos—”
“Two hundred and fifteen.”
“Too much weight, and no one to help this time.”
“That we can change easily. What we will need is a suitable vehicle.” Babin stared out the window. “Take the next exit. I know what we can do.”
* * *
Babin surveyed the vehicles parked in front of the bar two stores down from a large all-night supermarket. There were pickup trucks, but they were too obvious a choice, as bad, he thought, as another tractor trailer. A large station wagon on the other hand — that would be perfect, as long as he could find one with a rear hatch large enough to accommodate the crate.
He had listened to the radio religiously on the way north. There was no news about Peru, let alone his warhead. Still, he thought it possible that the Americans would be looking for him. He had the advantage of knowing where he was going — the conceited Yankees would no doubt think he would strike at Washington, D.C., a symbolic gesture against the world’s tyrant. But he was not so simple; he had never believed in symbols.
Still, if they were on his trail, they would be looking for a large truck. It was best to find something completely different.
There were no station wagons near the bar. He was just about to tell Túcume to start up the truck and move on when a small SUV pulled up in front of the bar. Two men got out — young men, Babin thought, though he couldn’t get more than a glimpse.
“Let’s try with those two,” said Babin, pulling open the cab. “Wait for me at the old building we saw. If I am not there in an hour and a balf, come back. I will be in the supermarket.”
Getting down from the truck was a struggle, but the pain made him more determined. He crutched across the parking lot, avoiding the puddles left b
y a recent rain. He examined the rear of the car, noted the license plate number, and went inside.
The room was almost empty. The two men who had just come in from the lot were sitting at the bar.
“Bartender, there was a car outside with its lights on,” he said out loud. “A red vehicle.” He gave the license plate.
“Yo, I left my lights on?” said one of the men, starting to get up.
“I turned them off for you,” said Babin.
“Good thing I don’t lock it, huh?”
“Nice car,” said Babin. He found English awkward after having gone so long without using it very much, and his unease dampened his courage.
“Have a drink, y‘all,” said the man. “What are you havin’?”
Remembering his last experience with vodka, Babin ordered a beer.
“Messed up your leg, huh?” said the man’s friend. They were in their early twenties, relatively big.
Could they lift five hundred pounds between them?
Probably not. Babin had a ramp in the truck, though. They could angle it down into the back of their car and manhandle the crate inside.
The trick was to get them to want to do it.
“My back is the problem,” said Babin. “It’s a big problem. My partner and I were supposed to make a delivery to one of the construction sites up the road. A bathtub. Special order. But the trailer can’t make it past the mud and, with my back, I couldn’t help him unload it anyway.”
“Bummer,” said the man who owned the car.
“Maybe I could hire some help,” said Babin, taking the beer.
The man closest to him turned and winked at his friend. “Five hundred bucks cash, no questions asked,” he told Babin.
“Five hundred?”
The man leaned toward him. “What you’re delivering’s hot, right?”
“Hot?”
“You’re going to remember you need to deliver the whole load, right? Five hundred bucks. Each of us.”
“It’s just one.”
“Oh, OK,” said the man, smiling and returning to his beer.
The liquid stung Babin’s mouth. He took another sip, realizing this would be much easier than he thought.
* * *
“Careful, man, this car has to last me another year,” said the American as he and his friend began easing the crate into the back of the Subaru Forester.
Though they were using the ramp, the job was made more difficult by the fact that the car’s rear hatch opened upward. The front of the wooden crate cleared easily, but then it hung up about three-quarters of the way in. Túcume came and helped, pushing on the crate with one of the Americans while the other held up the hatch. Finally, the crate made it all the way in.
“Take the girl for something to eat,” Babin told Túcume. “Then come back for me.”
“She’s still sleeping.”
“There was a McDonald’s restaurant down the street. Have her wait for us there.”
Túcume nodded. Babin walked back to the two men, who were trying to close the rear door on the crate. It was about an inch too long.
“We’ll just get some rope and tie it down,” said one of the men.
Babin looked at it. Clearly, this would not do; he worried that there might be some highway regulation about driving with an open hatch and they would be stopped. The rear portion of the crate could be pried away. Then it might fit.
They’d have to get different license plates, preferably from out of state. From as far from Texas as they could find.
“So what’s really in there, dude? You moving dope?”
Babin swung around, filled with fear. He expected the man would be holding a gun in his hand, but he was not.
Too bad for him, for Babin had pulled the general’s .22 from his pocket.
Without answering the man’s question, Babin fired quickly. As the man crumbled, his friend began to run. He got only a few feet away before Babin put a slug in the back of his head.
* * *
Túcume dragged the second body to the Dumpster, holding his nose as he picked the dead man up and dropped him over the side. He felt like a grave robber.
“How low I have fallen,” he mumbled to himself, going back to the car.
Babin had pulled part of the crate off to get the weapon to fit inside.
“We’ll need to find a blanket to throw on top of the crate.” said the Russian. “But let’s get rid of the truck first.”
“Why not leave it here? The building’s old. It looks as if it’s abandoned.”
“It will blend in better in the salvage yard up by the highway,” said Babin. “No one will look for it.”
“It’s a mile away.”
“I’ll wait.”
“The girl.”
“We should leave her.”
“No.”
“Then hurry or she’ll run off on her own.”
Túcume gritted his teeth, then climbed into the cab.
115
The Mexican port of Manzanillo had admirably modem facilities — which made it easy for the Art Room to obtain information about the location of the container. According to the computer, it was still parked in Lot 5A — and in fact, Rubens and the rest of the people in the Art Room could see it on the infrared feed from a U-2S that had been specially detailed to the strike team.
“Lia and Tommy are landing now,” said Rockman. “The CIA team is moving in.”
Of course, thought Rubens. They want to get the credit.
Three large black SUVs appeared in the frame at the right. Rockman toggled the controls for the viewer, zeroing in on the target. A dozen men jumped from the SUVs and surrounded the container, their M4 carbines and grenade launchers clearly visible.
Then the image blurred. The screen dissolved in whiteness.
“Technical glitch,” said Rockman. “Something in the air force system. Theirs, not ours.”
Rubens stared at the screen, waiting for information. They were just a resource here — helpers, rather than the lead agents. He’d have much preferred it if his people were the ones going into the truck.
Desk Three wasn’t set up to conduct an operation on such a massive scale as the search for the weapon in Peru; even when it took the lead on a mission, it had to draw on many other agencies for support.
Its capabilities should be expanded and extended to include others. The CIA and the military special operations should have Desk Three’s capabilities as well — in fact, they should work together seamlessly, as the original plan had called for.
His original plan.
If he had taken the job as national security adviser, he would have made doing so a priority.
Telach cursed as the image came back on the screen.
“It’s the wrong container,” she said. “The boxes are too small. Listen.”
An audio report came over the speakers, an account from one of the CIA people back to Langley. The boxes he was describing were about three feet by two feet by two feet.
“The radioactive kernel could be inside one,” said Rockman. “The bomb pit itself weighs only a few pounds.”
Rubens watched the screen, trying to remain optimistic though he agreed with Telach. The image from the scene showed the team beginning to remove the contents. The chatter began taking on a pessimistic tone.
“Maybe it’s further back,” said Rockman.
“No, I believe we’ve missed something,” said Rubens. “They’ll be going to Plan B next.” He turned toward the back of the room, where Johnny Bib was waving his hands furiously behind a bench of analysts.
“Working, working, working!” Johnny yelled before Rubens could say anything.
116
Plan B for Manzanillo was to check all of the other containers in the lot and then to look around the industrialized area for other possible hiding places. A second wave of DEA and FBI agents, along with a contingent of U.S. Army rangers, began fanning out across the area. Lia and Karr joined in the hunt. They were tasked to
work with a CIA agent named Jason Milano and check a string of industrial parks several miles from the port.
This was detective work at its shoe-leather worst. Or, as Tommy Karr put it, driving from the airport to begin their search, “Needle in the haystack time.”
“Yeah, but don’t you want to be where the action is?” asked Milano from the backseat.
“Action,” said Lia sarcastically.
This made Karr laugh so uncontrollably that he nearly missed the traffic light. He jammed on the brakes.
“Being where the action is is no big deal,” said Karr. “What we want to be near are the babes.”
“Real funny, Mr. Comedian,” said Lia. “I’m just rolling on the floor here.”
“I thought so.” Karr glanced back at the bewildered CIA officer — he was a paramilitary with about three months in the agency. “You OK, Spook Dude?”
“You can call me Jason.”
“Once he gives you a nickname, you’re stuck with it,” Lia said.
“You tell him, Princess.”
“One of these days, Tommy, I’m going to strangle you.”
“If your hands fit around my neck I’d be scared.”
“Mr. Karr, this is Bill Rubens. We have a truck you should make your top priority. It’s in a lot not far from where you are. The U-2 took a picture of it a short while ago. It’s not attached to a tractor, or I should say it wasn’t when we last looked at it. It’s isolated. It should be eminently approachable.”
“Great. Give me some direction.” said Karr.
“Who are you talking to?” asked Milano.
The Deep Black communications system was classified; while technically it was considered all right to tell him about it since he was working with them, as a general rule Karr wouldn’t unless it was absolutely necessary.
Besides, he loved goofing on CIA people.
“I hear voices,” Karr told him, turning left as Rockman began directing him. “Some people think I’m the reincarnation of Joan of Arc. Get that submachine gun out and make sure you have it loaded.”
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