I looked around and saw Church about fifty yards away just closing his cell phone. I signaled to him and went over. “Before we roll I want to set a few things in motion,” I said. “I want you to start building me a top-of-the-line forensics team. No second-stringers and nobody I don’t know personally.”
“Who do you have in mind?”
I pulled a sheet of paper out of my pocket. “This is a list of forensics people I know and trust. Most of all I want Jerry Spencer from D.C. I believe you already know him.”
“We offered to bring him on board, but he declined.”
“Make a better offer. Jerry is the best crime-scene man I ever met.”
“Very well.” Church touched my arm. “We have no leads at all on who the spy might be, Captain. That means it could be anyone.” He was looking past me to where Echo and Alpha Teams were gearing up. “Watch your back.”
He offered his hand, and I took it.
I turned away and yelled out loud. “Echo Team-let’s roll!”
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 2:51 A.M.
THE FOURTH OF July was still three days away but there were already fireworks. Not a pretty starfield or fiery chrysanthemums in the night sky-this was a single bloom of intense orange-red that soared upward from the edge of a weather-worn set of wooden steps that led from the choppy waters of the Tangier Sound to the creosote planking of the dock at the Blue Point Crab and Seafood processing plant in Crisfield. The impact followed the roar of heavy marine engines as a blue cigarette boat fishtailed through the black water while an apparently drunk pilot struggled sloppily for control. The boat hit the dock at full throttle and exploded, the full fuel tanks rupturing from the impact and igniting from the laboring engine. There was a deep-throated roar like an angry dragon and flames shot upward to paint the entire sound in shades of Halloween orange and fireplace red.
It was too early in the morning for witnesses, but there dozens of people sleeping aboard their anchored boats and within a few minutes each of them was on a cell phone or ship-to-shore radio. Almost immediately the air was rent with the piercing screams of fire engines and ambulances tearing along the country roads.
Simon Walford was on duty in his guard shack reading a David Morrell novel by lamplight and sipping coffee when the boat hit the dock. He spilled half a cup down the front of his uniform shirt and was sputtering in shock as he keyed the radio handset to try and call the incident in to his supervisor, who did not answer the call. It had been two days since Walford had spoken to anyone in the plant, and two weeks since he had seen a single living soul. The cars were all still in the lot, though. It didn’t make sense. He grabbed his walkie-talkie, ran out of his booth, and raced across the parking lot to the dock, but as soon as he saw the flames he knew there would be no hope of finding survivors. The heat from the blaze kept him well back. All he got was a glimpse of a blackened form hunched forward in the pilot’s seat, his body wreathed in flames, his limbs as stiff and unmoving as a mannequin.
“Good God!” Walford breathed. He called it into 911, but even before the call went through he could hear sirens in the distance. Had he been a little less shocked by what had happened he might have been surprised at how incredibly fast the local volunteer fire department had been able to respond to the crisis, especially at that time of night. As it was, all he could think of was how helpless he felt. He tried his supervisor’s number again, but still got the answering machine, so he left an urgent and almost incoherent message. Shocked and impotent, he trudged back to his station and unlocked the fence to allow the fire trucks to enter.
Chapter Sixty
Crisfield, Maryland / Wednesday, July 1; 2:54 A.M.
WE WATCHED THE boat explosion on Dietrich’s laptop.
“Sweet,” Skip murmured. We were parked on the side of the road three quarters of a mile from the plant, lights off.
“Christ,” complained Bunny, “I’m boiling in this shit.”
“Life’s hard, ain’t it?” said Top, who was sweating as much as the rest of us but didn’t seem to care. I’m pretty sure that if Top Sims had an arrow stuck in his kidney he wouldn’t let the pain show on his face. Some guys are like that.
“Okay,” yelled Gus Dietrich, “the 911 call just went through.”
“Light ’er up,” I told him, and the driver fired up the engine and punched on the lights and sirens.
So far our hastily formed plan was going well. One of Church’s staff engineers had rigged a remote piloting unit to the cigarette boat that had been confiscated when the task force took the warehouse, and they’d gotten two store mannequins from God only knows where and strapped them into the front seats. Dietrich worked the remote controls and made quite a show by zigzagging the boat through the anchored pleasure craft and generally causing a ruckus. If there were any witnesses they would report a drunk driving like a lunatic. The cigarette was loaded to the gunnels with gas cans and small C4 charges which Dietrich radio-detonated as soon as the boat struck the dock. It was way too big an explosion, more like something you see in movies, and it was damned impressive.
Within minutes we were being frantically waved through the open gates by the security guard. Our driver angled left and headed toward the big red-painted emergency standpipe and as we squealed to a halt everyone piled out. The second engine pulled closer to the dock and we had calls in for three more engines to join us. That would put a lot of men and women in identical coats and helmets running around. A few of them would even be actual firefighters. Police cars seemed to appear by the dozen-state and local. I knew that Grace was in one of them, and Alpha Team was peppered throughout the rest. Church was in a command van parked around the bend in the access road, and the special ops teams were in vans behind him. Close, but would they be close enough if we encountered heavy resistance?
As we piled out, Bunny and Top went directly to the standpipe, passing the line of parked cars and trucks that had been spotted by the spy satellite and helo surveillance. Skip and Ollie pulled a hose off the truck and began unlimbering it as they walked backward toward the pipe.
“Camera on my two o’clock,” I heard Bunny say in my earpiece. “Slow rotation on a ninety-degree swing.”
“Copy that. I’m coming in. Give me some cover.” They took their cue and began fitting a hose nozzle to the pipe. I closed on the group, watching the camera out of the corner of my eye. As soon as it swung toward the main part of the lot where all the activity was in full swing I dashed forward and flattened against the wall in what I judged to be the dead spot beneath the box-style camera. When I ran to the wall a firefighter moved from a point of concealment behind the door of the engine and hurried quickly over to take my place. We repeated this process four more times and then Echo Team was all scrunched up against the wall and real firefighters were attaching the hose to the pipe.
“Skip eyes on the camera,” I said. Bunny removed a sensor from his pocket and ran it over every square inch of the door and then showed me the readout.
“Standard alarm contact switch,” he said. “It’ll go off when we open the door.”
“Perfect. Ollie, go to work.” Ollie had volunteered to tackle the lock, which was a heavy industrial affair. He had to earn his pay, but in less than two minutes he had it unlocked. He kept the door closed, though, because the alarm would ring the second we opened it. If there was no one directly inside then our carnival act was going to pay off, but if even one person was inside then we were screwed as far as stealth went.
“Okay,” I said into the mike, “call the cops.”
The signal was relayed and a big-shouldered state trooper came loping over. I motioned to him to slow his walk so that the panning camera clearly caught him moving toward the door, and then as soon as it panned away I waved him in and he ran the last few yards. I turned and pounded my fist hard on the door for three seconds and then yanked open the door and we piled inside. Alarms began jangling loudly overhead. As soon as it closed, Ollie turned and reengaged the lock; and the trooper took his cue and continued to beat on the door, shaking it in its frame.
Immediately the five of us fanned out into a half-circle, guns out; but we needn’t have bothered-the room in
