Eden's Gate (28 page)

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Authors: David Hagberg

BOOK: Eden's Gate
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“I will have to get back to you with that information.”
“Quit stalling, we're under the gun here.”
“I'm not stalling. It's that I do not know myself what went on in
Reichsamt Seventeen, except that it was very secret. I will talk to my superiors. The decision will be theirs. You must understand this.”
“Get back to me as soon as you can,” Hughes said.
“I will.”
Hughes broke the connection and looked at Lane. “They know about the virus.”
“No doubt about it. And they're not going to help us.”
“That's monstrous,” Frances said.
“It's politics.”
 
The regular staff wouldn't be in for a few hours yet, so Hughes and Frannie powered up two of the terminals. Lane looked over their shoulders.
“Where do we start?” Frannie asked.
“The box came to New York by ship. Let's start with that,” Lane said. “After the
Maria
was scuttled Speyer made a rendezvous, transferred the box, and then either headed off to Cuba, or sunk the gig and came aboard with his wife and Baumann.”
“He didn't go to New York with the ship,” Frances said. “That doesn't make any sense. Why did he go all the way back to Miami just to fly to Kalispell, and then fly back to New York?”
“Maybe the ship that picked them up made a stop in Miami first,” Lane suggested. “Maybe he and his wife and Baumann got off, but the box was sent on.”
“There won't be many ships that fit that profile,” Hughes said.
“If it was Gloria who got off here in Washington she might still be here getting ready for the attack,” Frances put in.
“A gold star for the mom to be,” Lane said.
“If you keep that up I'm just as likely to brain you as thank you.”
“Ta-ta, kids,” Hughes said. “Okay, what am I looking for exactly? If it's merely a safe house you're after, that could be anywhere within a fifty mile radius, and we would have to be very lucky indeed to stumble across it. Could be a rental under God only knows what name. Or, they could have purchased a house months ago, and under an assumed name.”
“This will have to be a very special place,” Lane said, pacing. “It's probably a rental unit, something that they picked up within the last six months. Speyer was starting to pinch pennies, so I don't think he would have spent the money to buy a house. It'll be off by itself to give them privacy. They don't want snoopy neighbors
watching their comings and goings, especially not if they brought their storm troopers with them.”
“We're looking for a place out in the country. Some woods, maybe. Near a highway, but not on it.”
“That's right. And it'll have an airstrip on the property, or it'll be very near a small regional airport.”
“You don't think this will be a static release, like off the Washington Monument?”
Lane shook his head. “Too many things could go wrong. Too many people, tourists as well as park rangers. And they would be at the mercy of the wind. Only the half of Washington downwind from the monument would be affected.”
“There was no evidence that their Gulfstream jet had been fitted out to accept an external spray mechanism.”
“See if there are any agricultural spraying companies in the area. Maybe he's talked to them about a job.”
Frannie looked up from her computer. “It's too bad we can't tap Thomas Mann's telephones. If the ever-alluring Mrs. Speyer is indeed here in town, she might telephone the dear old man.”
“I don't want to get the Bureau here in Washington involved,” Lane said. “It's too risky. If Speyer does have an informer inside the FBI the inquiries could get back to him. Besides, we haven't had much luck decrypting their telephone programs. Not without the CIA's computer system.”
“So we do it the old-fashioned way,” Hughes said. “I have a friend at the phone company who has done me a favor from time to time. Even if we cannot decrypt their conversations, maybe we can trace the calls.”
“Clever man—” Lane said, when Frannie let out a little shout of joy. She was beaming.
“With child I may be, but dumb I'm not.” She looked up. “Your ship is the
Akai Maru
, love, out of Nagasaki. Captain Shintaro Kato. At this moment she's at the Brooklyn docks, but she's scheduled to sail at noon.”
“What do you have, Frannie?”
The figures were scrolling up the screen. “Nagasaki to the Panama Canal and from there through the Florida Straits to Miami where she dropped off six containers of Sony electronic equipment and Japanese furniture. The times match, and she was a couple hours behind her ETA.”
“She's listed as a general carrier,” Lane said. “And there's nothing about three passengers.”
“Convenient,” Frannie said. “Should I keep looking?”
“I don't think it's necessary,” Lane said. “See if you can round me up some transportation to New York, and a car when I get there. Then you can help Tom.”
“Why did I know that you were going to leave me home?”
“Don't fret, my dear girl, lunch is on me,” Hughes said without missing a keystroke.
At ten o'clock Lane showed his Immigration and Naturalization Service identification to the gate guard and was directed to the
Akai Maru
. The Brooklyn docks were alive with activity; trucks came and went from the warehouse in steady streams while front-end loaders darted about like angry wasps. Giant cranes unloaded some ships, while others lifted containers onto outbound vessels. Pallets of goods from around the world were piled everywhere in seemingly haphazard jumbles.
Lane parked his government Ford Taurus across from the Japanese ship and, attaché case in hand, went up the boarding stairs to the port quarterdeck. The ship was down on her lines, which meant that she was fully laden, her hatches dogged down and deck containers securely chained.
A Japanese man in spotlessly white coveralls came on deck from the superstructure. “No visitors are authorized,” he said in reasonably clear English. “You must go.”
Lane held out his INS identification. “I'm Agent Bob Salmon. I want to see the captain.”
The crewman looked nervously from Lane to the picture on the ID and back. He took out a walkie-talkie and spoke rapid-fire Japanese to someone.
He got his reply in a moment, and motioned for Lane to show his INS identification again. He read the name and badge number back, and got another reply.
“Captain says there are no passengers on his ship. We get ready to sail now. You must go.”
Lane suppressed a grin. He'd not said anything about checking for passengers. “Tell Captain Kato that if he does not wish to speak
to me now, I will unfortunately impound this vessel and it may be days or weeks before the paperwork is completed.” Lane didn't think that the crewman understood all of that, but he spoke at length into the walkie-talkie. He got his reply immediately.
He nodded. “The captain is coming down to see you.” The crewman stepped aside, but kept a wary eye on Lane.
Captain Kato, a slightly built man wearing wire-rimmed glasses and dressed in khaki trousers and a yellow Izod polo shirt, came on deck. His mood was impossible to read from the bland expression on his round face.
Lane showed the captain his government identification. “You are carrying three passengers. I want to meet with them now and inspect their papers.”
“There are no passengers aboard my ship.”
Lane took photographs of Speyer, Gloria, and Baumann from his attaché case and handed them to the captain. “These three were reported to be aboard.”
“By whom?”
“That information is confidential. Are these people aboard?”
“No.”
Lane put the photographs back in his attaché case, smiled and glanced toward the bow of the ship, as if he were coming to a decision. When he turned back, the captain was watching him with interest.
“Look, captain, I know that keeping to sailing schedules is very important. If need be I will impound this ship until it can be searched top to bottom. That might take days. But the fact of the matter is I don't care about your involvement with these people. I merely want to know if they are aboard at this moment. And if they're not, where did they get off? And where is the package that they brought with them? When I have that information you will be free to leave. You have my word on it. The INS does not care about your ship, we only care about these three illegals.”
“They are not aboard.”
Lane shrugged. “As you wish—”
“They got off the ship in Miami, seven days ago.”
Lane gave him a hard stare. “Where did they board?”
“We picked them up in the ocean, in international waters between Florida and Cuba. Their small boat was sinking and we rescued them.”
“Why didn't you inform the U.S. Coast Guard?”
“We were asked not to do so.”
“What about the package?”
“They took it with them,” Captain Kato said.
“Not in Miami, they didn't,” Lane said. “Did they come here for it?”
The captain hesitated for only a second, but then he nodded.
“How was it passed through customs?”
“I don't know.”
“When was this?”
“Two days ago,” the captain said. “I have cooperated with you; now get off my ship, please. I have done nothing illegal.”
“I sincerely hope that you have not lied to me, captain,” Lane warned. “If I find out that you have lied, then the next time that you enter U.S. waters you and your crew will be subject to arrest, your vessel and cargo impounded.”
The captain nodded gravely. “No lies.”
Lane allowed a faint smile to curl his lip. “Except about the money.” He turned and went down the boarding ladder.
Hughes pushed away from the computer terminal and stretched his back. “Our jobs are certainly cut out for us.”
Frances looked up from her terminal across the narrow hall. “Have you found something?”
“Enough to know that we might be looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.”
She got up from her desk and came over. “What is it?”
“In a fifty mile radius from downtown Washington there are no less than twenty-seven airports. That's not counting Dulles, Reagan, Baltimore, and the other big commercial airports, or the military bases or even the small private grass strips. I'm just adding up the regionals.”
“What about crop dusting companies?”
“That reduces the number of airports to two, neither of which meets William's other conditions. Too big, too busy.” Hughes shook his head. “If this was the Midwest where there was more farming it would be relatively easy to hire an ag pilot. But not here.”
Frances looked out the window toward the vice president's residence. “Maybe he's not going to hire an airplane. Maybe he has his own.”
“The Gulfstream is out, and the Bureau says that his Bell Ranger is still tied down at his Kalispell ranch.”
“I mean a crop duster.”
“Somebody would have flown it out here,” Hughes said, then he gave Frances a smile. “That's a new angle. I'll check to see if any new airplanes have arrived at any of those airports in the last few days. But you and William saw no sign of such an airplane out there, did you?”
“No. And airplanes are tough items to hide. But it's worth a try.”
“That it is.”
Bernhard Metzler had agonized about his decision on the train all the way from New York, and he was no closer to knowing what to do than he had been two days ago as he walked into the Federal Building on Seventh and Arch Streets a few minutes before eleven. But he was here, carried almost as if against his will, to do the right thing.
He took the elevator to the third floor, walked into the FBI office and stepped up to the receptionist, an older woman, who looked up.
“I want to report a terrorist attack that's probably going to happen in New York pretty soon,” Metzler said. “A lot of people are going to get killed unless the Bureau does something damned quick.”
The woman's eyes never left Metzler's as she snatched her phone and called Special Agent in Charge Michael Hood. The heads-up on the biological threat had been sent to every Bureau office in the world, and this was possibly the break they were hoping for. The lengthy confidential directive had forbidden any publicity whatsoever, which hamstrung their investigation. As the clock continued to count down, everyone was getting desperate.
Hood and two agents, their hands inside their jackets, came from the offices in back.
“What's your name, sir?” Hood demanded.
“Bernhard Metzler. I know something about the guys you're probably looking for. It's about a hemorraghic virus, right? And unless I miss my guess these nut cases have already threatened somebody with it. Am I right, or what?”
“How do you know about this?”
Metzler smirked sarcastically. “I'm the one who loaded it into the big air bottles, and pumped a little of the shit into a two-hundred-fifty-milliliter
sample bottle.” He shook his head. “Did I come to the wrong place, or do you guys want to talk to me? Maybe we can save a few lives here. I can be the hero for a change.”
One of the agents came over. “Spread 'em,” he said. He quickly frisked Metzler for a weapon. “He's clean.”
“We certainly do want to talk to you, Mr. Metzler,” Hood said.
“Dr. Metzler.”

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