Steve Martini - Guardian of Lies

“I don’t care if the agents thought it was a hoax.

“I know. I know. I’m aware that Madriani and his partner know we’ve been monitoring them. So what if they’re playing games. I still want to know. Has anyone checked out the information?

“What I’m saying”-his voice went up a whole octave-“is do we know if there’s a ship named the Amora scheduled to dock at Ensenada?

“Well, then find out! And call me back,” Rhytag shouted into the phone. He didn’t even bother to hang up. He just pushed the button for the other line and dialed a new number. He waited a few seconds and the instant the phone on the other end was picked up he said, “Zeb. Jim here, have you heard? Last night a phone call came in on the wiretap at Madriani’s partner’s house. There was no answer, so the caller left a message. He identified himself as Paul. The agents say the voice sounded like Madriani. He told his partner to call me and tell me that the bomb was on board a ship. According to the message, the ship is named the Amora and it’s scheduled to dock at Ensenada, Mexico, sometime today. They didn’t bother to report it because it’s clear that Madriani and his partner know the offices are bugged and the phones are tapped. The agents are certain it was a hoax.

“Why? Because yesterday afternoon there was another phone call. Presumably it came in over the lawyer’s encrypted cell phone, so the agents couldn’t hear the actual conversation. But according to what they heard over the bug in the office, the partner appeared to be using our wire to jerk the agents around. He was taking them right to the cusp of something important, apparently pretending to repeat information he was getting over the phone and then pretending the phone went dead…Zeb, Zeb, are you there? I thought I lost you,” said Rhytag.

“What’s that?”

Rhytag listened to the long explanation about triangulation and jamming as the blood seemed to drain from his head. He was getting the details when his secretary came through the door with a handwritten note and handed it to him.

He read the note as he was listening to the litany of excuses from Thorpe: “Confirmed. Panamanian-registered ship Amora , currently docked container port Ensenada, Mex. Agent M. Trufold.”

“Zeb, never mind that. Shut up and listen…”

We sit quietly on the bench and watch as the Amora clears the jetty and heads into the channel. She’s much smaller than the other container ship that left port almost an hour earlier, and she’s riding high in the water. As she swings her stern to clear the breakwater, I see a single cargo container resting on the deck, near the stern.

“You think that’s it?” says Herman.

“It’s gotta be, unless there are more containers belowdecks,” I say.

I scan with the glasses back in the other direction hoping to see a train of police vehicles streaming into the port. Instead all I see are trucks hauling cargo containers in the other direction, up the coast highway toward Tijuana and the border.

“Can I see?” said Maricela. Apparently she sees something on the ship she wants to look at.

I hand her the field glasses.

She puts them to her eyes and adjusts the focus, looks for a moment, and then says, “That’s him!”

“Your father?” I ask.

“No. Alim,” she says. “On the stairs.” She hands the glasses back to me. “Up at the top.”

I adjust them and look. A slender man with dark hair, wearing white coveralls, is standing on the wing of the bridge and just starting to make his way down the steps. I get a good look at him as he climbs to the main deck and disappears through a door in the tower section of the ship.

“Are you sure it’s him?” I ask.

“Yes. I would know that face anywhere. But where’s my father?” She wants the glasses back.

I hand them to her.

I turn to Herman. “If that’s the container on the deck, it’s not going to take them long to off-load. If they get it on the back of a truck and clear customs, they’ll be out along the jetty and up on the highway before we can move. Do you see a road coming in here anywhere?”

Herman turns, scans the parking area behind us. “It’s all fenced off. But back along the path by the canal, there was a street that came in.”

“Listen, see if you can get out on the road and flag down a taxi. Take it to the street by the canal and wait for us. I’ll stay here with Maricela, see if we can catch a glimpse of her father and keep an eye on the container. Just wait for us out there.”

Herman heads out on the run.

By the time I look back, the tugs have the Amora pressed up against the cargo dock across the way. It appears as if they aren’t even waiting to tie her up. One of the huge cargo cranes is lining up to lift the container from the aft deck.

Maricela is frantically scanning the deck from bow to stern looking for any sign of her father.

In no time at all the container is in the air and lifted free of the vessel. The mammoth arm of the crane swivels as the container swings over the side and disappears from sight down onto the dock on the other side of the ship.

“We’re gonna have to go,” I tell her.

“But where is my father?” she says.

“He could be on the other side of the ship, behind the superstructure, or in one of the cabins. Or possibly he’s already down on the dock.”

She looks at me with a certain anxiety in her eyes. Or he could be dead , she must be thinking. But she doesn’t say it.

“We can’t wait any longer,” I tell her. “We need to get to the taxi, grab our stuff at the room, and get out there.” I point to the end of the road that runs along the top of the breakwater where it merges with the coast highway heading north. “If we lose them now, we’ll never find them again.”

We head off running as fast as we can along the path toward the canal.

Listen, thank him for us. How many units are they sending?” Thorpe listened as he penciled notes on a pad on the table.

Rhytag looked on. They were closeted in the operations center in the bowels of the FBI building with communications at their fingertips and a small army of agents and technicians working computers and handling phones.

“Any idea how long it’ll be before they get there?” Thorpe flashed all five fingers of one hand at Rhytag twice in quick succession. Ten minutes.

“Did you offer them the NEST team?”

NEST was the Nuclear Emergency Support Team, a group of scientists, technicians, and engineers operating under the U.S. Department of Energy. The teams were trained and prepared to respond to nuclear accidents or incidents anywhere in the world.

Thorpe shook his head slowly and made a face. It was apparent that the Mexican government, at least for the moment, had declined the assistance of the specialists. “So they understand they may be getting in over their heads?”

“Okay, keep me posted.” He hung up the phone.

“They’ve got thirty police units going in. The Mexican government is also bringing in some military forces to cordon off the area around the port. The problem is, the container may have already left the facility. They won’t know for at least fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. Until then there’s nothing we can do but wait.”

“No. You’re wrong,” said Rhytag. “Contact the director at Homeland Security. Tell him what we’ve got and that our recommendation is that they close the border immediately. Every crossing from San Ysidro east to the Arizona border. Tell them to shut ’em down now. Nothing gets through. No cars, no trucks until we can figure out where this thing is and how to stop it. And tell them to be sure and warn our people at the border as to what they’re dealing with.”