Targets of Opportunity

by Jeffrey S. Stephens

  “What the hell,” Martindale said, banking the chopper to the left as they peered through the dense rain at the sea behind them.

  Just a few seconds later they heard the crew aboard the Burgwyn whooping it up over the radio as they were barely able to make out the distant flash of the fiery destruction of one submarine, then the second, MK-32 torpedoes taking out both vessels.

  “You boys see that?” the captain asked.

  “We saw enough,” Sandor told him, “but we heard your men and that was even better.”

  “We’ll do a full recon, make sure we didn’t leave any moving parts behind.”

  Sandor thanked him, then told Jake he had better contact Washington before he called Baytown.

  Deputy Director Byrnes had already been informed that the two subs were not “hot,” news that was immediately passed to the joint task force. That good news was tempered by Sandor’s concerns about the missing truck and the possibility of a second target.

  “It’s worse than that,” Sandor told the DD after he confirmed that both subs had been taken out. “I think these subs were an elaborate version of an old-fashioned bait and switch.”

  “You don’t believe Baytown was ever their real objective?”

  “It was just too easy for us to connect the dots. The attack plan was too impractical. I think Adina told the men who invaded Fort Oscar that it was all about a strike on Baytown; that way if they were caught that’s what they would tell us. Same with the two idiots he left behind in St. Barths. Why put them there unless you actually wanted them to be captured? I believe even Hwang was dealing disinformation and didn’t know it. Adina’s too good a chess player for all these mistakes.”

  “And the two AUVs they just took out?”

  “How in hell were they going to make it through the cut into Galveston Bay, then all the way to Baytown without being stopped? Anyway, they were carrying conventional explosives; how much damage would they have done?”

  “I understand.”

  “And the entire game they played with this guy Amendola selling them security information, then making him disappear just before the attack. All too pat.”

  “So you figure it’s all about this tractor-trailer.”

  “I do. Adina is using this hurricane as cover. It’s perfect for him. He’s got us chasing a couple of drone subs armed with TNT and everyone else in the area is fighting Hurricane Charlene. We need to find the damn truck, then take it out in some way that minimizes the damage.”

  Byrnes said he would report all of this to the joint task force and rang off. Sandor’s next call was to Brendan Banahan and Patrick Janssen to find out what they had heard about the tractor-trailer.

  “Nothing,” the Baytown security director admitted. “Not a single lead.”

  “Well, the only good news I’ve got is that we took out the two subs and, unless I miss my guess, your refinery is in the clear.” Sandor gave a quick description of what had taken place in the Gulf.

  “Hell,” Janssen said, “that’s something anyway. Meanwhile, your boys in Washington spoke with the governors of Texas, Mississippi, and Louisiana, they’ve got the National Guard mobilizing and every state trooper that isn’t tied up with Hurricane Charlene is out there on the roads.”

  Sandor was not encouraged. “We’re missing something, guys, something obvious.” He thought it over for a moment. “This truck isn’t going to be on the move. It’s got to be in a warehouse someplace. The packages arrived thirty-six hours ago; they’re not riding around risking the chance of being caught. Let’s assign a couple of agents to cross-check every possible warehouse that might have taken in a large rig since yesterday.” He paused again. “And truck stops, what about truck stops? That’s the oldest ploy in the world, hide in plain sight.”

  “We’re already working on the truck stops, but we’ll double up on that, and we’ll do a computer run on all the independent garages that might take in a tractor-trailer like this.”

  “All right,” Sandor said, his voice betraying his concern. “Be sure to let everyone know we’re running out of time, if we haven’t already. You hear from Krause?”

  “No, want me to patch him in?”

  “Why not?”

  They connected to Corpus Christi and brought the commanding officer up to date. “Damn,” he said, “that’s great work those boys did on the AUVs, wish we had something more on your truck, Sandor.”

  “Me too.”

  “You heading back here?” Banahan asked.

  “What do you think, captain?”

  “They’ve got things under control in Baytown and you’re running low on fuel. I say you play your hunch and check out Baton Rouge.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-TWO

  OUTSIDE BATON ROUGE, LOUISIANA

  JORDAN SANDOR HAD been right about two things. First, his guess that the refinery in Baton Rouge had become the real target. Second, that it was too late to stop the truck from reaching its destination.

  By the time the all-points bulletins had circulated through the three states and the law enforcement personnel and National Guardsmen could be mobilized, Adina’s men were already driving along Scenic Highway, circling the refinery on their way north.

  As Hurricane Charlene hammered the Gulf Coast, there were just too many logistical issues and not enough manpower to blanket the entire southeastern United States with the level of surveillance Sandor wanted. Every available trooper, soldier, and police officer was already on duty trying to prevent another Katrina-like calamity. The plant at Baton Rouge had temporarily shut down operations—it had sustained so much damage in the hurricane season two years before, it had had to be closed and refitted over several months, and they had no interest in sustaining another similar loss.

  Adding to the difficulty was the sheer impracticality of disclosing to the world at large that a truck with nuclear weapons was barreling through the storm somewhere in an area with a radius of up to a thousand miles. The panic that would result and the devastation the public reaction would cause might be worse than the explosion itself.

  Given that risk, most of the law enforcement officers and soldiers involved were told nothing about a possible plutonium bomb; they were only warned of a potential terrorist strike.

  Patrick Janssen’s counterpart at the Baton Rouge refinery was on high alert. Between the storm and the newly released warning of a terrorist threat, military units were moving into place at all the refineries in the region as quickly as the weather allowed.

  Sandor worked the radio lines while Marty and Jake guided the Seahawk through lethal crosscurrents until they reached landfall over Louisiana. All manner of information was being fed from law enforcement personnel and military on the ground, filtering it through Captain Krause’s office at the naval air base in Corpus Christi and the temporary communications center in Baytown. Although nothing had turned up yet, every man in the field was being encouraged to relay even the most insignificant data they came across. Nothing should be considered inconsequential, they were told—the stakes were too high to overlook a single detail.

  Their first break came on a call that was routed through Bay-town.

  “I know this isn’t much,” Janssen told Sandor over the satellite hookup, “but the police have been rousting every truck stop from Little Rock to Miami. You talk about terrorists to these truck drivers and that’s a hot button, as you can imagine.”

  “I got it,” Sandor replied. “So what’s the news?”

  “Found a guy in Opelousas who had a strange observation.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “There’s a big diner and rest area right off Interstate Ten. This driver noticed a tractor-trailer show up, didn’t stay but a few minutes, then took off again. Says he only noticed it because they pulled up right beside him and nobody ever got out.”

  “When you say it isn’t much, you’re not kidding,” Sandor replied.

  “Hang on, there’s more. When the truck left, it didn’t get back on the interstate.
He said it made a turnoff to the side road. This trucker calls it one of those roads to nowhere.” As Sandor thought it over, Janssen continued. “In this storm, why come to a rest area, immediately leave, but not get back on the highway?”

  “When?”

  “This morning. A couple of hours ago.”

  “Did he describe the truck?”

  “Freightliner cab, sixteen-wheel rig, trailer plain white, didn’t catch any logos, but get this—when we gave a description of what we’re looking for, he said he noticed the trailer had some unusual-looking doors on the side.”

  “And how far is Opelousas from Baton Rouge?”

  “How about, down the road a piece?”

  “You hear that, Marty?”

  The Marine nodded. “Copy that.”

  “Okay,” Sandor said, “it’s a long shot but you never know. Let’s get word to everyone in that area, scope out every road that could lead from Opelousas to Baton Rouge. In fact, every road from Opelousas to anywhere.”

  “Already done.”

  “Good. Order them to identify but not to engage. If there’s any chance we can take them down before they ignite those nukes, it’s worth a try.”

  Banahan was on the line. “Got it, Jordan.”

  “Good. I’m getting on the horn with Washington; we’ll get the Air Force and the Air National Guard on this right now.”

  Sandor cut them off, made the connection through Langley, and gave his latest report to Byrnes. Meanwhile, Martindale was approaching Baton Rouge from the southwest. The helicopter was still being tossed about and fuel was becoming an issue, but now they had no choice except to stay in the air and try to find the truck.

  As Sandor finished with the Deputy Director, he was peering out the windows, but there was still nothing to see but rain and dark clouds. “Marty, if you were coming at this refinery in a truck, would you try to make a direct hit?”

  “Hell no, couldn’t get close enough, not with a low-yield nuke. And they’ve gotta assume we’re on watch for them by now.”

  “Agreed. So the questions are, how would you go at it and what’s in that truck besides the weapons?”

  Jake said, “Sir, the Baton Rouge refinery is right along the bank of the Mississippi River.”

  Sandor nodded. “And water seems to be their preferred medium of attack.”

  “Any kind of airborne assault is too likely to get shot down.”

  “I’m with you on that too,” Sandor said. “And the Mississippi, last time I looked, runs south, that right?”

  They both agreed.

  “Which means, if we’re going to find this damned needle in a rainstorm, we’ve got to get north of the refinery.”

  “Aye aye,” Martindale said, then increased his speed.

  “But we’ve got to run low enough to see the damn thing.”

  The Seahawk took the turn smoothly, even in the gale winds, and Martindale banked the craft in an arc that led them west so he could circle back around from north to south along the sweeping curves of America’s largest river.

  Sandor radioed back to Janssen and Banahan.

  “It’s only an educated guess,” he told them after he explained the approach they were taking along the Mississippi, “but we’re on our way now. Call and have some of the men positioned for an attack from that direction.”

  Banahan assured him he would take care of it.

  “How’s my Korean girlfriend?”

  “Safe and sound.”

  “No flights north today.”

  “That’s right. Ronny Young is babysitting her as we speak.”

  Sandor nodded to himself, wondering, if these nukes went off, whether he would have done Hea a favor after all, putting her in harm’s way. “Keep pushing for information,” Sandor said, then signed off and contacted Captain Krause.

  ————

  The two drivers who were ferrying Luis and Francisco and their deadly cargo to their destination had already made the turnoff from Samuels Road and were heading west to the area above the eastern bank of the Mississippi.

  They had been spotted by a state trooper when they passed Port Hudson, but the officer had not yet received the APB, so he didn’t think much of it—other than the fact that it was an odd place to take a large rig in this storm. Now that he had the alert, he called it in.

  Sandor was making another vain attempt to see something on the ground when Banahan relayed the report, immediately patching in the trooper to provide details.

  “There are a whole lotta places a trucker can pull off the road in a hurricane like this,” the officer told them, “but headin’ down to the river, you’ve gotta have shit for brains to be anywhere near the water today.”

  Sandor asked him for the precise location of the turnoff, then told him to stay where he was. “Do not approach or engage them,” he said. “We’ll be back to you in a few minutes.”

  Martindale, who was listening in, swung the Seahawk around while Sandor got back in touch with Captain Krause.

  “It’s sketchy at best,” Sandor admitted, “but it’s all we’ve got right now, and I’m not far from there. Two problems though. First, we’re about to run out of fuel. Second, if we get too low they might spot us before we see them, which is going to be a real problem if they actually turn out to be the guys we’re after. You’ve got Coast Guard and Navy running up and down the river?”

  “That’s affirmative, we’ve asked them to get moving, although we’re about to get slammed by the brunt of Charlene so I don’t know how much good they can do.”

  “And I don’t know how much longer we can stay in the air,” Sandor admitted.

  Just then the copilot, who was working with binoculars, saw a sixteen-wheeler parked near what appeared to be a municipal boat launch. “Off the port side!” Jake called out.

  Through the rain he could make out the tractor-trailer sitting just beside a concrete ramp used to roll small craft on their trailer hitches into the river. In these conditions, there was no one with a boat anywhere near the area. In fact there was no one in sight but the large rig.

  “Marty, take us back hard to starboard!” Sandor hollered, then he told Krause what they’d seen.

  “Roger that,” the CO replied. “I’ll have two CG vessels there pronto.”

  “We need to approach with caution,” Sandor reminded him. “We don’t know how or where these devices are supposed to be detonated. We go barging in and we may be the problem instead of the solution.”

  “All right,” Krause agreed, “give me the coordinates and we’ll make an oblique approach. But remember, I’d rather have these things go off three miles upriver than right beside the refinery.”

  “Understood,” Sandor agreed. Then he turned to Martindale and his copilot. “You boys know what this is about, so here’s the deal. You’re going to set me down somewhere in the woods on this side of the river and I’m going after them. You’re short on fuel and you’ve risked your lives for the past two hours, so you get the hell out of here, nothing to be gained by hovering around in the middle of a hurricane, especially given the payload they’re carrying.”

  “And what are you supposed to do when you get down there?” Martindale asked. “If that’s really the truck those kids at Coulter told you about, there are at least four men aboard. Maybe more by now.”

  “I’ll try to get close enough to take a couple of them down, delay them until the cavalry shows up. Then we’ll figure out how to disarm the bombs.”

  “Easy as that?”

  “As long as our friends get there in time.”

  “Well, sir,” Martindale said as he unbuckled his harness and climbed out of the pilot’s seat, “at least you’ll have me for company in the meanwhile.”

  Sandor smiled. “I guess this is not a debate.”

  “No, sir,” the Marine replied with a grin. “Jake can land this thing on a dime, and two of us on the ground will be a whole lot better than one, don’t you think?”

  CHAPTER EIGHTY-THREE<
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  ALONG THE MISSISSIPPI RIVER, NORTH OF BATON ROUGE

  JAKE TOOK THEM toward the river, north of where they had spotted the truck. Sandor and Martindale lowered themselves from the Seahawk with the same ropes and winches the Navy SEAL team had used to enter the Gulf of Mexico. As soon as they hit the ground they disengaged their harnesses, unhooked the bundle of weapons they had packed, then hurried into a wooded area that was about half a mile inland.

  Given the strong winds and relentless rain, they hoped their landing went unnoticed by the men near the truck. Whether it did or not, they were ready to move as soon as they unclipped themselves. When they signaled to Jake that they were clear he hit the recoil switch that drew in their lines, then banked the chopper hard to the northeast and disappeared into the storm, away from the sight line of the targeted area.

  Martindale was in full assault garb, Sandor in black slacks and sweater, although he was still wearing the helmet from the helicopter with the two-way radio connecting him to both Marty and their COMCENT in Corpus Christi. Each man was armed with an S&W .45 1911 automatic, an M-4 carbine with extra clips, grenades, and flares. In the knapsack they had one pair of binoculars, a satellite phone, a portable Geiger counter, and an array of other monitoring devices. They went through the package, setting themselves up with their weapons as Martindale shouldered the backpack with the remainder of the electronic hardware, then they pushed off at a trot, heading south and toward the edge of the river.

  It was possible, of course, that this truck was not the one they were searching for, but logic told Sandor otherwise. Not only had they run short of leads, but there was something about a large tractor-trailer stopping at the shore of the Mississippi River three miles north of the Baton Rouge oil refinery in the face of an oncoming hurricane that defied any reasonable explanation other than enemy action.

  Occam’s razor, DCI Walsh would say.

  They moved swiftly through the sparsely wooded area until they were less than a hundred yards from the boat launch.