A Time for War (13 page)

“Maybe.” “Might not,”
Jack thought. Those were not words that inspired confidence. If any of this was true, then coming down on Griffith, the ONI would also find him. And he had no facts, no protection of any kind, nothing to bargain with. He had to move this along before it made its way through channels in D.C. Besides, this was more than a matter of information being power. It was also news, and that's what he did for a living.

“So,” Dover said, “before I talk to the other agencies, is there anywhere else we can go for information?”

“I was just thinking about that,” Jack said. “There is one thing I can do.”

“What's that?” Dover asked.

He told her, “I can call Richard Hawke.”

Vancouver, British Columbia

On January 1, 2008, after existing separately for nearly a century and a half, three Canadian entities—the Fraser River Port Authority, the North Fraser Port Authority, and the Vancouver Port Authority—were joined to create the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, popularly known as Port Metro Vancouver. Located on the southwest coast of British Columbia, Port Metro jurisdiction spanned over 600 kilometers of shoreline from Point Roberts at the U.S. border to Port Moody and Indian Arm, east along the Fraser River and north along the Pitt River. It is one of the largest tonnage ports in North America, with twenty-eight major cargo terminals and three rail lines. Port Metro is a trade hub for over 160 world economies, handling nearly 130 million tons of cargo each year.

Security at Port Metro met or exceeded the standards set by MARSEC—the U.S. Coast Guard Maritime Security system—which was a collaborative between all hemispheric ports and the Department of Homeland Security, the Homeland Security Advisory System, the National Terrorism Advisory System, the Commandant of the Coast Guard, and their corresponding Canadian institutions. The port maintained round-the-clock high-definition video surveillance, secure card-gate access, sophisticated gamma-ray screening equipment, radiation detectors at all terminals, hands-on passenger and baggage screening, and random tracking of personnel who passed through Customs. MARSEC euphemistically referred to this as “visa support inspection” and “foreign personnel studies,” when it was, in fact, profiling. Any foreign individual whom agents felt was potentially suspicious earned a tail at least as far as the bar or motel they visited.

Among the visitors who received the least attention were those who entered the port without cargo. Lone Wolf fears were mostly centered on homegrown anarchists like radicalized Muslims or misguided Occupy Wall Street puppets. It was presumed that terrorists entering North America were doing so increasingly through the porous Southwestern border of the United States, typically under the protection of Mexican drug cartels; or via plane or boat that snuck in under the radar, quietly in the small hours of the night; or occasionally on private jets or yachts owned by oil sheiks who were happy to take American money but detested American morality and “multiculturalism”—a catchword that actually meant Christians and Jews.

The vessels whose personnel received the least attention were those that carried paying passengers. Among those were the 66,000 deadweight-ton freighters of the French
New Wave
fleet: the
Godard,
the
Chabrol,
and the
Truffaut
. Each working vessel provided simple accommodations for up to six paying guests. It was a comparatively economical way for travelers to visit multiple ports of call or even circumnavigate the globe.

The three-hundred-meter
Godard
was the freighter that made the round-the-world voyages, though passenger Liu Tang came aboard very late in an eastbound journey whose midpoint was Tangier. He joined the trip at the Port of Chiwan in Chiwan, Guangdong, China, having been detained by business. He had, in fact, applied for a partial refund—which, by the terms of his contract, could not be provided.

As he knew full well. Liu had never intended to go around the world. He merely wanted it noted that he had attempted to disengage himself from this voyage. That fact would show up on the manifest provided to MARSEC. It would suggest he had no urgent reason to be in Vancouver. He was coming to visit a half-brother in San Francisco—John Lee, of which there were over one hundred. That would immediately place him under low Level Three scrutiny: a border crossing that did not come with a ticking clock or imminent departure date. In short, it implied that he represented no timely terror threat.

The opposite was true. The threat was both real and immediate.

That was the problem with security measures,
he thought as he gathered his things in his modest compartment.
They were designed to spot aberrations.
All Liu had to do was not stand out.

Part of his strategy was to establish a routine in which the slightly unusual was done in sight of all and seemed normal. In Liu's case, that was playing chess. He had a small board with plastic pieces that folded into a neat leather carrying case. He had a pair of books with illustrated games and tactics. He had videos he watched of classic games. He played by himself on deck and carried his board with him at mealtimes, even if he had no intention of using it.

The other part of his strategy was an ivory chess set, which he proudly displayed to the crew and his fellow passengers, telling them he had purchased it for his brother. The pieces were large and ornate, manufactured before international regulations banned the hunting of elephants for their tusks.

“Very rare,” he told everyone in the limited English he had been taught.

But the real value of the chess set lay in how it would be wielded, like a chess piece in a game. Liu was going to use it as a false aberration—a distraction.

Having left the ship with the crew, Liu brought all his belongings through Port Metro Customs. He had one bag and a separate, expensive case for the ivory chess set. The inspecting agent, a big man with a big mustache, asked about the chess set. Liu winced and gestured that he didn't understand.

One of the deck boys standing behind Liu explained, “It's a gift for his brother in the States.”

The agent handled one of the pawns and frowned. “This is
ivory,
” he told Liu. “Contraband. No-no. Unless you have a certificate of antiquity, I cannot allow this into the country. The Americans won't let it in, either.”

“Sorry?” Liu said.

“Elephants,” the agent said. “Killing. It's illegal.” He spoke loudly and slowly as if that would make the English understood.

Liu grew anxious. “Sorry? China.”

“Yes, China is very lax about this sort of thing,” the agent said. “We are not.”

The deck boy grew restless. “Hey, can't you cut the guy a break?” The young man was in his twenties, Tasmanian, on his first voyage. He was eager to get to the city. “He's some kind of grand master. Always has his board and books.”

“I don't care if he's the Queen's own tutor,” the agent replied. “I can't let this in.”

The deck boy made a face. “How about the rest of his stuff?”

The agent put the ivory chess set aside and went through Liu's bag, examined the lining, smelled his toothpaste, gave a cursory glance at the chess books and videos and plastic chess set, and pronounced the bag fine.

The line behind Liu was growing longer. There were several unpleasant remarks from the back.

“We're going to have to move this along,” the agent said.

The deck boy nodded and looked at Liu. He pointed to himself. “Listen. I send to your brother.” He pointed at the ivory chess set, then made an arcing gesture with his hand to indicate mailing. He asked the agent, “You'll keep it here until I come back?”

“Safe and secure.”

The deck boy made an OK sign to Liu and gently pushed him forward. “It will be fine. Let's go.”

Liu moved forward reluctantly. The deck boy wasn't carrying any baggage and the agent passed him through quickly. Liu reached back longingly toward the ivory chess set.

“It's OK,” the young man assured Liu, moving him along.

Liu's passport was still in his hand. With gestures, the deck boy asked to see it. Liu handed it to him. The young man took out his cell phone. “See here?” he said. “I'm going to take your address—” he stopped. “Oh. It's in Chinese. Right. Never mind. I can take a picture and—”

Liu snatched back the passport as the young man went to take the picture.

“No!” Liu said.

“Hey, I was just trying to—”

“Thank you,” Liu said, pointing ahead. “Man here.”

It took a moment for the young man to understand. “Someone is meeting you? Oh. I assumed you were flying down.”

“No. Friend.”

“Great,” the deck boy said. “Then he—or she,” he winked, “can deal with it.”

The young man clapped Liu on the shoulder and then left the small, impersonal shell of a Customs building. Liu waited until he was gone, then stepped into the morning sunlight. The smell of the sea was strong as the harbor winds wrapped around him.

That could have been a disaster,
Liu thought.
It would not do to have a record of my fake passport.
It would have been ironic after his strategy had worked so well. The inspecting agent had fallen for the distraction completely, stirring up trouble over a relatively harmless ivory chess set when the real threat was hidden inside seemingly innocent plastic chess pieces, which easily passed hand inspection by anyone who was preoccupied.

That was one reason the team had selected Port Metro after months of dry-run passages along the west coast of the continent. The trips had shown Vancouver to be the most predictable in terms of security: nothing ever happened here so the routine was always the same. In Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, and other U.S. ports, occasional efforts to smuggle drugs and guns—as well as use-it-or-lose-it federal anti-terrorist funds—had resulted in an ongoing FBI presence and random, intense security checks. There was also a rising animus between Americans and Chinese to consider. That was based on the resentment of how much American debt was held by Chinese banks.

We are the new Muslims,
Jintao had warned them, speaking of the rise in hate crimes that had come to the attention of the consulate. The cell did not want to risk a vendetta crackdown at a port or air terminal in the United States.

Liu walked to the parking lot where a blue sedan was waiting for him curbside. There were four men inside. The mission did not require a team of that size except for something that must take place at the Peace Arch border crossing.

Liu looked back at the harbor as the driver paid the parking fee and headed out the rolling gate. He smiled before settling back into his seat. The smile was partly relief that things had gone as planned, but also because of the irony of what had just transpired. Port Metro was also one of the most environmentally responsible maritime facilities in the Western Hemisphere. Liu could not help but wonder what the board of directors would think if they ever discovered what had just eluded the system and entered the country.

 

5

Suitland, Maryland

At the start of her junior year at NYU, Dover Griffith was an education major. Her interest in teaching was an outgrowth of the dinnertime debates her father and her surviving grandfather had around the dinner table every Sunday in Whitefish, Montana. Her grandfather had served with the U.S. 2nd Battalion of the 119th Regiment during the Battle of the Bulge. Her father had served in Vietnam. In the fall of 1967 when the North Vietnamese shelled the U.S. Marine outpost Con Thien, her father was a spotter that helped to direct the air counterattack during Operation Neutralize.

Each man had an identical view of war, that it was an unfortunate but necessary way to achieve peace. What they could not agree on was who started them. Her grandfather maintained that it was the military prodding the politicians to get them in the game, while her father believed it was all the work of politicians.

“If they said the right words to one another, war would never be necessary,” he said.

The debate went on for years, like war itself. Ideological ground was taken, surrendered, retaken. It changed with the seasons, was colored by world events, was supported by this history book or that, which the men had read and bookmarked and brought to the table. It was fascinating but frustrating. Like religion, there seemed to be no absolute, undeniable truth. Dover wanted to learn more with a vague idea of becoming a teacher. She wanted to be, to a lake of youthful faces, what her father and grandfather were to her: “incoming,” as her grandfather called it with a laugh. An artillery barrage of ideas.

Dover returned to school her junior year with a suitcase full of new clothes she and her mother had bought at the outlet stores in Clinton, New Jersey. But they hadn't found any belts she liked, so she took a short subway ride downtown one morning to buy some at the Century 21 clothing store. The doors were locked when she arrived so she went across the street to Burger King to have coffee and read the
Village Voice
while she waited.

She was just sitting down when American Airlines Flight 11 plowed into the north tower of the World Trade Center. The impact rocked the floor, killed the chatter, and dropped a gray shroud over the sun. The initial, hollow bang—“like someone tossing a firecracker into an empty trash can,” as she later described it—was followed by an odd assortment of clunks, pings, grinding, and then cries.

Still holding her coffee, she followed the other breakfast patrons outside. The impact zone was on the opposite side of the tower but they could see the smoke rolling skyward, saw the glitter of glass falling in the morning sun, heard shrieks as large shards of the glass façade struck asphalt, concrete, and pedestrians on the corner of Vesey and Church Streets. A man ran toward them with his hand across his face, his eyes wide, blood streaming down his chin onto the topknot of his tie; the rest of his face had been cleanly severed. It appeared as if the man's nose had been slashed away.