take that risk until we’re fully operational. We need to…hey, why am I bothering explaining all this to you? You’re a lab rat. You go off and do whatever you feel like doing anyway…”
“I’m a what?” Jason asked angrily. “What did you call me?”
“I meant you’re an engineer, not an operations guy, and you obviously don’t care about operational procedures or protocols,” Kelsey said. “What do you care about security, coordination, or teamwork? Apparently not much. I suggest…no, I order you to report back here immediately!”
“Maybe I should go to Jefferson directly.”
“You just can’t learn to be a team player, can you, Richter?” Kelsey asked acidly. She shrugged. “Go ahead. You’ll look like an ass. He’ll tell you the same thing I’m telling you. Now discontinue all contact with anyone outside the task force and get back here on the double!”
“We’re missing an important opportunity here, Kelsey…”
“I strongly advise you to cut off this contact with Kristen Skyy or whoever you’ve been talking to,” Kelsey said sternly. “The information may be useful and even accurate, but you’re risking the safety and security of everyone on the team. Cut it off.” And she terminated the connection.
Back at the conference room at the training base, Carl Bolton stepped up to Kelsey, scanning her surprised expression. “What in hell did he want? What was all that about Kristen Skyy?”
“He said he had information on a GAMMA leader hiding out in Brazil,” Kelsey said breathlessly, her mind racing.
“GAMMA! Did he say anything about…?”
“He mentioned a connection between GAMMA and Kingman City.”
“Shit! That bastard!” The other task force members looked at Bolton curiously, wondering what he was so riled up about. They didn’t trust either Richter or DeLaine very much yet—Sergeant Major Jefferson was their leader, no matter what the organizational chart said—but they trusted Bolton even less, if at all.
“Carl, you have got to get updates from all our researchers and investigators and get an update on the whereabouts of all the known GAMMA leaders,” Kelsey said. “Richter’s source claims to have one localized.”
“How localized?”
“Pretty damn close. He wants to take the entire team down there to grab him, including both CID units.”
“He’s smoking something,” Bolton said dismissively.
“He might be on his way down there right now with the CID unit he was riding in this morning.”
“Is he crazy?” Bolton exclaimed. “Who authorized that?”
“I don’t think anyone did.”
“Richter has lost his mind,” Bolton said. “Jefferson will strangle him.” He fell silent for a moment; then: “Who in hell could he be talking to? Our sources haven’t come up with squat yet.”
“Call Washington and have Rudy get us an update, fast,” Kelsey said. “If Richter got his hands on something, we need to find out right away. Hit up our sources in SATCOM One in New York and Washington. If they won’t talk, threaten to arrest them.” Bolton pulled out his secure cell phone and made the call. “And one more thing: have someone keep an eye on Richter. If he tries to leave the base, notify Sergeant Major Jefferson and us right away.”
“It’ll be my pleasure,” Bolton said.
“What did she say?” Ariadna asked Jason when he hung up the phone.
“She said get our butts back to the training area.”
“Did you tell her you’re working with Kristen Skyy and SATCOM One News?”
“Not by name, but she guessed who it was.”
“What about Jefferson?”
“He said ‘stay put.’ ”
“We’re in deep, deep dog doo, J,” Ari said seriously. “We’ll be thrown off this task force so fast it’ll make your head spin. We need to head back to the base right now and forget all this.”
“Maybe that’s what we should be doing, Ari, but I still feel we need to be moving on Kristen’s information,” Jason said. They noticed a blue Air Force sedan with flashing yellow lights roaring up the street toward the general aviation terminal—followed by a Security Forces Humvee. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
“Gee, I wonder where we’ll be sleeping tonight—in a jungle in Brazil chasing down terrorists, or in a federal prison cell?” Ariadna asked absently. “And I wonder which would be worse?”
Richmond, California
That same time
After all the delays and endless paperwork, the job of unloading the cargo vessel King Zoser was finally underway, with a long line of flat-bed trailers waiting to pick up the oil-derrick parts. One by one, massive overhead Takref/Gresse container cranes picked up the parts and pipes and placed them on the trailers, where armies of workers secured the parts to the trailers with chains. As they worked, U.S. Customs Service inspectors, augmented with Army National Guard soldiers with military working dogs, looked on, occasionally asking to look inside the pipes or recheck a serial number.
Captain Yusuf Gemici looked and felt immensely relieved as he watched Boroshev’s heavy equipment being loaded aboard the trailers. American National Guard troops watched the pumps as they were chained in place, but they made no move to check them. No sign of any law-enforcement activity whatsoever, just normal, albeit heightened, port security and customs scrutiny. He couldn’t wait to get on with his voyage and…
Just then, a U.S. Customs Service officer who was sitting in a Humvee nearby stepped out of his vehicle, said a few words on a walkie-talkie, stepped quickly over to the pumps being chained onto the trailer, and started examining the lead tamper-evident seals on the safety wires on the sealed flanges. What in hell…they went to precisely the pump that had Boroshev’s mysterious delivery in it! Gemici fished out his cigarettes and lit one up to help steady his nerves…but as he looked away, out the port side of the ship toward the west into San Pablo Bay, he saw the Coast Guard patrol boat Stingray approaching them, just a few hundred meters away now, with the skipper watching him through binoculars and with two Coast Guardsmen on deck with M-16 assault rifles. Another customs service interceptor speedboat was a bit further north, officers lining the rails on both sides watching carefully for any sign of anyone trying to jump overboard and escape.
Gennadyi Boroshev came strolling up to him a few moments later. “Do you see this?” Gemici shouted. “The Americans are looking at your damned cargo and will be arresting us any second! What the hell have you done? What is in those pumps? Tell me!”
“Relax, Gemici,” Boroshev said, lighting his own cigarette. “You’ll have yourself a heart attack.”
“I will not relax! You had better tell me, dammit!”
“Shut up, you fucking old hen, or I will shut you up permanently,” Boroshev said. A white van without windows drove up to the cargo on the pier, and several men in protective MOPP suits emerged with detectors in hand. Armed officers started appearing, M-16 rifles in hand; Boroshev looked behind him and saw several Coast Guard seamen lining the rails with M-16s drawn as well. “If they find anything, we’re fucked. But they will not find anything.”
One of Gemici’s crew members ran up to the captain. “Sir, the Coast Guard and the harbormaster wish to speak with you.”
“May Allah help me, I am going to be arrested…!”
“If they wanted to arrest you, fool, you’d be in handcuffs by now,” Boroshev said. “Go see what they want. Be cooperative, and stop babbling like a damned monkey.” He didn’t trust Gemici one bit to keep his cool, but it didn’t matter—the more nervous he seemed, the more the damned American customs officers would think they were on the right trail.
“All hands, the smoking lamp is out, waste disposal in progress,” the loudspeaker announcement said. Boroshev stubbed out his cigarette and kicked it over the side. Christ, the air would stink of shit and diesel for the next eight hours, even though offloading the waste would only take one hour.
He wanted to stay and watch Gemici, but he had to act natural in case he himself was being watched, so he left and filled out logbooks in the engine room for several minutes, had a bite to eat, then returned to the rail. It took over an hour of sweating, hand-wringing, gesturing, and pleading from Gemici, and a careful search by the
