Gauntlet (42 page)

“Do you have any idea what it will cost to go from Yellow to Orange?” the President demanded.

“I have a fair idea,” responded Jackson. “But I don’t think you have much leeway here, sir. If this thing went sideways on us, and an inner harbor was polluted for a century, or a nuke went off in the middle of an NFL game, the cost would be infinitely greater.”

The discussion raged for over an hour. The executive director of the NSA was called, as was Dan Alexander at TTIC, and the director of the FBI. Information was drawn, sampled, and analyzed, costs were debated, and solutions considered. At the end of the meeting word went out, by telephone, e-mail, television, instant messaging, and whatever else was on hand. The West Coast and the Southwest states were officially going to Threat Level Orange.

T
ONER? A VILLAGE CALLED STONER?” Izzy howled with laughter. They had been keeping track of the strange hamlet and village names along their northern BC route as they drove. They had just passed Prince George — not Prince George County, in Maryland, but Prince George — a flat little bush town that smelled heavily of sulfides and other pulp manufacturing by-products.

Ba’al smiled to himself. He loved his friend’s humor and zest for life. Izzy had been like that ever since they were teenagers, acquiring properties for Yousseff on both the Afghanistan and Pakistan sides of the border. The two shared many memories. There was one grand trip that the seven of them — Yousseff, recognized by all as the leader, Marak, Omar, Kumar, Rika, Ba’al, and Izzy — had made together down the Indus. It had been a trip full of opium pipes and many many women. In a predominantly Muslim country, they got away with much more than they should have. Izzy always seemed to enjoy it more, and laugh louder, than anyone else. Sometimes Ba’al pined for those days so strongly that his throat constricted and his heart ached. He loved Yousseff. They all did. And this Canadian citizenship thing was nice. It was good to live in a palace in Vancouver and not worry about someone blowing you away with a gun at any time, around any corner. The Canadians had no idea how good they had it... but the old days on the Indus — there was no life quite like that. Before any of them had ever heard of Semtex or the Emir.

“Iz, as the Canadians would say, shut the fuck up, eh?” he said through his smile.

He was met with more gales of laughter from Izzy. “Yeah, dude, eh? You bet, eh?” There was more laughter. On a trip that was going to end like this one was, they needed that.

They did not stop along the way for anything other than gas and to use the bathroom, and at compulsory commercial weight scales. So far all they had eaten was Egg McMuffins — little cholesterol bombs, Izzy had said, but damned tasty anyway.

It was 2 in the afternoon when they reached Cache Creek, a small desert town with no apparent purpose other than to house fast food joints and gas stations, although Izzy had read that Vancouver’s garbage was deposited somewhere in the immediate vicinity. They turned left and headed east through the Thompson River Valley to Kamloops, cruising past some of the most beautiful northern desert country on the continent. Izzy had taken over the driving and, as usual, had started to pick up speed. Seventy miles per hour. Eighty. Eighty-five. He was too much like Yousseff in that regard, thought Ba’al. Everything with him had to go faster and faster. They passed Kamloops in a blur and were heading due east, toward the Rockies.

“Izzy, what the hell are you doing?” asked Ba’al, suddenly noticing that their speed had crept up over 90 miles an hour. But it was too late. The red and blue lights and the siren of an RCMP cruiser appeared right behind them. “You idiot,” said Ba’al in Urdu. “We’re driving down the road with more than four tons of fucking Semtex and you go 90? Marak would blow your ass off with that gun of his.”

“Relax, little buddy,” said the unflappable Izzy. “No different from the river police back home. Just stay cool. Let me do the talking.”

The RCMP constable walked toward them. Izzy already had the window rolled down and his driver’s license and insurance papers at hand.

“D’you know how fast you were going, sir?” asked the police officer rhetorically.

“Yes, constable, I do. I think I was going around 140,” Izzy answered. “The speed got away from me. I’m sorry.”

The constable was not used to this level of candor, and paused a moment before answering. “Yup, you were, and I’m going to have to ticket you. License and registration please.”

Izzy handed the paperwork over. The officer went back to his vehicle, and punched the numbers into his computer. In a few minutes he came back, ticket in hand. “That’s three points and a fine. You’ve got 30 days to pay.”

“Thank you constable,” said Izzy.

“What d’you boys got in the back?” the officer asked, glancing at the back of the truck.

“Mostly camping and fishing gear. We were out at Rupert, doing a little saltwater fishing,” said Izzy. “Wanna have a look?”

The officer nodded. “Open’er up.”

Izzy could see the “oh shit” expression and deepening worry lines on Ba’al’s face. He rolled his eyes at his friend’s cowardice. “No problem officer.” He hopped out of the truck, unlocked the back, and rolled up the rear door. The constable peered inside and noted the coolers, tents, food, tarps, tires, and junk.

“Did you guys get lucky out there?” he asked.

“Yeah we did. We got a few nice steelhead, but we have licenses for that,” Izzy answered.

“Wow, that’s a pretty good haul. All right guys, off you go. But watch your speed. We’ve got lots of radar out east of here.”

“Thanks, officer,” said Izzy, taking the ticket. “Have a nice day.” Izzy and Ba’al watched the officer enter some information on his in-dash computer and pull back out onto the highway.

“See how easy that was?” said Izzy. “No problem at all.”

“It was an unnecessary risk,” said Ba’al. “And he has a record of the plates. He knows the owner of this truck. It’s on his computer.”

“So what? It’s a holding company, and the shares are owned by another holding company, which is owned by an employee of the 24/7 chain. You know how it works, Ba’al. It can’t be traced. He doesn’t know anything that will lead him anywhere.”

“Yes, but the chain of stores is mentioned. If they dig hard enough they could find it. I’m not sure how Yousseff plans to pull this off, but it’s got to be a big deal, if so much money and manpower is being devoted to it.”

Izzy held his hands up in mock surrender, giving in to his friend’s lecture. “OK, Ba’al, eh? OK. I drive slower. You just relax.”

They cruised by Salmon Arm, a beautiful little lakeside city, and continued east toward the Rockies. On and on they went, at a steady 60 miles an hour. The sun set, and by 9 they had reached the Revelstoke Junction and turned south, into the Kootenay Valley.

T
HE ARGUMENT had been firing for half an hour in the TTIC control room. Dan, standing against most of the TTIC staff, was definitely on the losing end. He wasn’t taking it very well, and gracefully deferring to others had never been his style. The tension level was quickly rising to a boiling point. Turbee’s initial welcome back had been joyous, but it had been difficult for the youth. He’d never been good in a crowd, and was even worse at being the center of attention. He was also embarrassed over his black eye, and found the rolling IV stand to be a bit of an annoyance. Standing up to Dan in this condition wasn’t something he’d planned on.

“No way. Absolutely no way,” Turbee had said, with as much emphasis as his tiny frame would allow. “There is absolutely no way that the Semtex was anywhere other than the
Haramosh Star.
It has to be there. You need to search it again!”

“Turbee, how can you be sure? The last time we had this discussion, the President was almost impeached,” said Dan, arms folded, showing no sign of giving in. The new images had done nothing to convince him.

“I’m sure,” said Turbee. “Look at the composite images Kingston and I developed. It’s open and shut.”

“OK, Turbee,” said Dan, making no attempt to contain his temper or the biting humor he was inclined to use. “So where the hell is it? And why didn’t we find it before? Are all those SEALs just that damn stupid? Is that why they’re out there representing our country?”

To his credit, Turbee stood his ground against the cynicism. “Only two possibilities,” he answered quietly. “The first is that it’s stored in another container on the
Haramosh Star.
There may be a second hull, or a container completely independent of the ship. It would be impossible to find unless you knew to look for it.”

“And that’s why the SEALs missed it,” interrupted Rahlson, coming down firmly on Turbee’s side.

“Second possibility,” continued Turbee, ignoring Rahlson’s interruption, “is that it was transferred to another ship or perhaps a submarine, somewhere in the middle of the Pacific, where we couldn’t see it.”

“Doubt it. That’s an unnecessary complication,” said Dan. “Do you have anything other than a hunch to support that?”

“Look, Dan,” said Turbee. “They — and as far as I know, we’re still not sure who ’they’ are — but they did it once, off the south coast of India. These guys are good. Incredibly good. If they did it once, why couldn’t they do it again? It wouldn’t be a complication; a transfer of a few tons of Semtex probably isn’t a big deal to anyone who can design and manufacture the lifts and arms we saw in the transfer from the
Mankial Star
to the
Haramosh Star.”

“OK,” Rhodes stepped in. “Let’s be constructive. Let’s work this out. Suppose that happened, and they got or are on the verge of getting the stuff into British Columbia. It wouldn’t have come through Vancouver. I already spent a few hours on the phone with senior guys from the RCMP, the Vancouver City Police, and the Coast Guard. You’d have to be nuts to try and smuggle stuff like that in through that port. It’s under constant surveillance. They have thousands of cameras and hundreds of eyes. It would have to be somewhere else. I suggested Prince Rupert. It’s another option, but the cops there doubt it. Even the port of Prince Rupert is under incredibly tight surveillance right now. But suppose they found a way in? I think I know what they would do.” He paused, gathering his thoughts.

There was a short spell of silence. “We’re waiting with bated breath, Rhodes,” said Dan through his teeth. It didn’t sit well with him when anyone took Turbee’s side over his own. Right now, everyone was taking Turbee’s side over his.

“The people who are transporting the Semtex are drug smugglers,” continued Rhodes. “They’re from Afghanistan or Pakistan. They’ve been moving heroin around the globe for years. They’re a natural fit for transporting bricks of Semtex. It’s no different, really, from a large shipment of heroin.”

“So, where does that get you?” Dan interrupted again. “You’re wasting time, and we’re still no further ahead.”

Rhodes gave Dan a scathing glare. He bit his tongue to keep from pointing out that Dan had wasted days and hundreds of hours searching for nonexistent nukes. “Yes, we are,” he continued evenly. “There are apparently a couple of choice BC entry points into the US. If it’s the same crew, then they’ve obviously already developed their route across the border. They would also have a prearranged coastal location in BC, for getting things onto the continent in the first place.”

“Yes, but we don’t have a clue where or how, or even IF, the Semtex entered BC,” said Dan. “And there are a lot of ’if’s’ embedded in that theory.”

Turbee interrupted the conversation. He had been searching Canadian and American Coast Guard communications and had stumbled across a gem of information. “Liam,” he said, completely ignoring Dan, “we’ve just received information from the Canadian Coast Guard that the
Haramosh Star
has been spotted near the British Columbia port city of Prince Rupert, just south of the Alaskan Panhandle. The ship was apparently a bit off course. They didn’t know whether they were going to Prince Rupert or Vancouver. George,” he said turning to his friend, “can you put this point on the Atlas Screen?”

George looked at Turbee in surprise; the young mathematician seemed to have very suddenly come into his own. His orders were sharp and precise, and even the tone of his voice had changed. Standing up to Dan had been good for the boy, he noted with approval. Smiling at the thought, he brought the Atlas Screen online.

“Take a look,” Turbee continued, once the screen lit up. He pointed to the pulsing red dot that appeared just west of Prince Rupert.

“So what’s the point of that?” asked Dan scornfully. “We already knew that the
Haramosh Star
was heading for Vancouver. So now they’re a day away. They seem to be on schedule, and headed the right way.”

“Not exactly, Dan,” replied George. “Not quite. Take a look at this,” he added, changing the view of the Atlas Screen so that it depicted the Pacific Ocean, showing the Aleutians and Kamchatka Peninsula to the north, the west coast of North America along one edge, and Japan, the Philippines and the Indonesian archipelago along the opposite edge.

“Ocean-going ships, when traversing large bodies of water, obey the same rules airplanes do. They follow great circular routes. The closest distance between two points on a sphere is not a straight line, but a curve.”

“Yes, George. Thanks for that trip back to Math 101,” replied Dan, with his usual edge of disdain. “What’s your point?” Even though TTIC opinion, en masse, was beginning to lean toward Turbee, Dan saw no reason to be polite.

“Well, Danno,” replied George with equal sarcasm. “I’ve plotted the shortest route from the Philippines, where the
Haramosh Star
would have entered the Pacific Ocean, to Vancouver. And here it is.”

A red dot, pulling an ever-lengthening red line behind it, traveled from the Philippines northward, toward Alaska, and curved gradually south toward Vancouver.

“Nice animation, George,” said Dan. “But I still don’t see your point.”

“Just look over here, Dan,” snapped George as he enlarged the map west of the Alaskan Panhandle and Prince Rupert. “Can’t you see that, according to the path she must have taken, the
Haramosh Star
was more than 100 miles closer to Prince Rupert that she should have been? She should have been at least 150 miles west of Prince Rupert but was actually 10 miles northwest, well inside the Dixon Entrance between the Queen Charlotte Islands and Alaska. The Canadian Coast Guard had been following her closely, even when she was a good thousand miles out, because of what happened off the coast of India. She was so off course that the Coast Guard finally boarded the ship and talked to her captain, asking what the hell he was doing. The captain apparently said that the search by the SEALs had confused him, and somehow he thought they were going to Prince Rupert. They corrected their course and began heading directly south, to get to Vancouver, where she’s due in less than 12 hours.”