Dana Stabenow - Blindfold Game

“Shame.”

“Yeah.”

They communed together in silence over this grievous misfortune.

Kyle jerked his head at the window. “I see the CSX Anchorage is on its way in.”

“Yeah,” Joe said, and got to his feet to stand next to Kyle. “Riding low in the water.”

“I was noticing. What’re they carrying?”

Joe cocked an eyebrow. “What’s up?”

Kyle shrugged. “Curious.”

Joe didn’t believe him. “Well, you’d have to ask the port about that.”

“Okay. Wanna go for a ride?”

“Down to the port?”

“Yeah?”

“You sure you want to do that?”

Kyle’s brow creased. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Joe grinned at some secret joke. “Upon your own head be it.”

The Port of Anchorage was a three-story building painted beige with red trim, accented with oversized porthole-style windows. The manager was a large young man with the pink clear skin of a baby’s bottom and fine flyaway blond hair. Greg Wladislaw loved his job and he was a born cheerleader, anxious, even eager, to share every bit of this most wonderful job with anyone who didn’t move fast and far enough out of range first. He was devastated not to have an answer for Kyle as to the contents of the containership docking behind him. “We don’t have the manifests here, you understand. That’ll be over at Horizon with their agent. I can call, if you like. Or take you over and introduce you.”

Kyle said, “Can you tell me about traffic in and out of the port of Anchorage? When and what kind?”

Indeed Wladislaw could. “We get in two domestic ships a week, one Horizon on Sunday and one Tote on Tuesday. We’ve just started getting a third carrier in.” He dropped his voice, as if he were imparting a state secret to a select, trusted few. “Some are foreign carriers.”

If he was expecting expressions of awe and amazement he was disappointed. “Really?” Kyle said. “How often?”

“Once a week, out of Asia.”

“Asia?” Kyle said. “What ports?”

“Hong Kong-well, China now, I guess-Japan, Taiwan, Korea, Singapore.”

“Mmm,” Kyle said. “That it?”

Wladislaw was shocked at the very suggestion. “Oh no, we have petroleum tankers coming in and out, too.”

“Any ships come in from Russia?”

Wladislaw made a face. “What do they have that we want to buy?”

“Point taken. How often do the petroleum tankers come in?”

“One tanker a month,” Wladislaw said proudly.

It wasn’t exactly Long Beach, Kyle thought, and felt relieved. Not enough traffic to hide something the size of a freighter in. Maybe Hugh was wrong. He looked out the window at the dock, which appeared to stretch from the Knik River bridge to Turnagain Arm. The three men watched as three C-130s came spiraling in from the north to touch down at Elmendorf Air Force Base’s runway, which ended on the edge of the bluff immediately above the port. A subsequent roar of engines indicated a takeoff immediately following. Aircrews doing touch-and-goes, to keep their skills sharp.

“Man, I love those big old Hercs,” Joe said. “Been flying for fifty years. No place they can’t get into or out of. Ever cop a ride in one?”

Kyle nodded. “I got to go out to Savoonga with the Alaska Air National Guard. A fun trip. Noisy, though.”

“Yeah, I pack earplugs.”

“I’ll remember that for next time. So,” Kyle said, turning to Greg, “you only get one ship in at a time?”

“Oh, no!” Wladislaw said, clearly appalled at the suggestion. He hustled Kyle and Joe to the outer office to where an aerial photograph the size of a tablecloth dominated one wall. It showed the port of Anchorage on a sunny summer day and every inch of the dock of the port used up by four ships moored bow to stern along it. “Two containerships and two petroleum tankers, all on the same day,” Wladislaw said proudly.

“Must have been a busy day.”

Wladislaw nodded vigorously. “You bet. You should come down on a ship day, Special Agent Chase. It’s a real zoo. An organized zoo,” he hastened to add.

“It’s Kyle, Greg, and I’ll take you up on that. Next week, maybe.”

Wladislaw beamed. “Anything else I can help you with?”

“What kinds of goods move through here?”

Wladislaw spread his hands expansively. “What kinds don’t would be an easier question to answer.” He smiled widely at Kyle, and Kyle had to resist the temptation to scratch Wladislaw behind the ears. “The port of Anchorage supplies ninety percent of the population of Alaska. What do you drive?”

Startled to be asked a question instead of being answered, Kyle had to think. “Ah, Subaru Legacy.”

Wladislaw nodded approvingly. “Family man, am I right? But with style.”

Behind Wladislaw, Joe rolled his eyes. It wasn’t the first time.

“Well, that Subaru came in on one of those ships. So did the gas to power it. So did the parts and oil your dealer uses to service it. Got snow tires?”

“Yup,” Kyle said. Wladislaw was so delighted with his game that Kyle didn’t have the heart to shut him down. “All came through this port, did it?”

Wladislaw beamed at him the way a teacher smiled at a promising pupil. “Yes, it did. The raisins in your oatmeal, the oatmeal, the bowl you eat it out of, and the spoon you eat it with.” Wladislaw patted the aerial photograph proudly. “All through the port of Anchorage. Apples to zinc, straight from the port to your pantry shelves.”

Kyle looked toward the windows, at the ice choking the narrow neck of Knik Arm between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie. “Has the port ever been shut down?”

Wladislaw was affronted at the very idea. “The port of Anchorage has never been closed to cargo. Ever.”

“However-” Joe said.

Wladislaw seemed to wilt a little, and cast Joe a look that could only be described as reproachful. “Well, yes, now and then when the ice is thick, it has been closed, but only to single-hulled petroleum vessels.”

“We issue ice rules of the road every year,” Joe told Kyle.

Kyle nodded thoughtfully. “Lot of silt washes down the Arm from the Knik Glacier annually.”

Eager to redeem himself in the FBI’s eyes, Wladislaw said promptly, “We dredge a million cubic yards per year out of the Knik. We maintain a depth of minus thirty-five feet at mean low tide.”

“The dredge only works in the summertime, of course,” Joe said.

“May to October,” Wladislaw said.

Kyle nodded again. “Any other traffic?”

“Bulk cement ships, from China or Korea, also May through October. And, of course, a lot of ships make their maiden voyages to Anchorage, to see how the new ship handles in our weather and tides. We had two big cruise ships last summer, and a fresh-off-the-ways petroleum tanker. Double-hulled, too!”

“Quite the operation,” Kyle said, congratulatory. “Thanks, Greg. You’ve been a lot of help.”

Back in the car, Kyle said, “What’s the port got in the way of security, Joe?”

Joe started the car and let it idle, turning up the heater. “Right now, nothing. Next April, the new MSST will be in place and operational.”

Kyle thought back. “The Marine Safety and Security Team.”

“Got it in one. A one-hundred man unit trained and equipped to handle everything from explosives to drug and migrant interdiction. It’ll have dive teams, K-9 teams, and six boats.”

Kyle nodded. “This is the team you told us about at the last JTTF meeting.”

“Yeah ”Joe said.

“But not deployed until April.”

“Okay, Kyle, what’s going on? You knew most of this stuff before.”

“A refresher course never hurts.”

Joe raised a skeptical eyebrow.

“I got a heads-up about possible terrorist activity, maybe involving marine shipping,” Kyle said.