There was a pause. Watson was probably reading from his notes. Temple held his breath and gave Kincaid the high sign.
"A Mrs. Vasquez. She lives down by the bridge, 101 Fox Island Drive. She told one of our guys she was up early this morning to let her dogs out and that she saw a whole bunch of UPS trucks leave the island. She counted a dozen altogether, like they were in some kind of convoy, and they seemed to her to be driving pretty fast for the narrow road."
"Dozen UPS trucks, huh?”
"Yes, sir. Mud-brown panel trucks with UPS right there on the side. She said she didn't think a whole lot about it at the time. She’s been noticing two or three trucks coming in every day for the last week or so. She just figured they were doing something out there at the old Navy lab, maybe working on them or something. But all of them leaving at once, just about daylight, and them driving that fast on a back road? That got her curious enough to remember it anyway."
Temple nodded and scribbled away on his notepad with his free hand.
"Okay. You got more?"
"Yes, sir. I took it on myself to call UPS. They say they've only made one delivery out here this week. One truck. And that was to an address a good two miles from where that lady lives. They haven’t had anything going on out here otherwise."
"Got it. Good work, Officer Watson. You got the makings of a good detective someday, you ever want to give up the glamour of writing speeding tickets at radar traps."
Temple disconnected from that call and punched in more numbers.
Kincaid raised his eyebrow. Temple held the cell phone to his ear and listened to the throb of its ring.
"Could be our break! Tell you in a minute."
"Police Central Dispatch."
"Central, this is Detective Temple, badge 2548. I need an APB on any UPS trucks in the area. I'm especially interested in any that might be traveling as a group. They are to be reported and followed at a distance. They are not to be approached."
The operator on the other end of the phone sounded as if she was having trouble believing what she heard.
“The area?”
“From Tacoma up past SEATAC, all the way to Bellevue and Everett.”
"Let me get this straight, detective. You want us to report sightings of all UPS trucks just about everywhere in the Pacific Northwest? There are probably a thousand or more of them on the roads around here at any given time."
"I know that. The ones I want are bogus. And get the state to keep an eye out on I-90 and I-5, too, in case they head south or east.” He paused a moment. “Oh, one other thing. I also want you to call UPS dispatch and tell them to pull all their trucks off the road right now and keep ‘em off until further notice."
"Yes, sir. I’m to tell UPS to go out of business until we tell them they can go back to work someday. And exactly whose authority do I use for this?"
Temple looked at Kincaid and grinned broadly.
“The authorization comes from Rick Taylor, Director of the DEA, who reports directly to the President of the United States. And it’s a matter of life and death. Young lady, this has National Emergency Precedence. Understand? National Emergency Precedence."
Kincaid smiled as Temple hung up.
"That was good, using my boss’s authority without bothering to consult with the bastard."
"You mind, Agent Kincaid?"
"Not in the least, Detective Temple. Hell, he'll probably try to grab credit for this whole operation anyway if we bring this scum down. We might as well let him earn his part of the glory. And if it goes bust, both our asses are grass anyway.” The cop driving the black-and-white grinned along with them. He knew about bosses, too. “By the way, what exactly is National Emergency Precedence, anyway? That’s a new one on me."
Temple chuckled and said, "No idea, but it sure sounded good, didn't it?"
Kincaid laughed out loud, then said, "Now, tell me what the hell’s going on."
And Ken Temple did just that as the black-and-white wound its way around to the junction with Interstate 5.
Jason Rashad met Carlos Ramirez at the sliding door, moving it open wide enough so he could drive in. The warehouse sat on the backside of SEATAC airport in a section of commercial storage buildings and light industrial installations. Most of the warehouses were on short-term leases to companies engaged in various types of Asian trading. One of the advantages of leasing here was that no one seemed to take much interest in whatever that business was. Most of them were doing perfectly legal business. It was the perfect place to hide a bunch of trucks for a few days before trans-shipping the stuff on out. There were comings and goings in this neighborhood at all hours of the day and night, plenty of truck traffic. No neighbors would raise an eyebrow if there were deliveries leaving out from the building down at the end of the row, the one right next to the high chain link fence that marked the far end of the complex.
Carlos gunned the powerful engine of his black 911 Targa as he steered it through the door, then slammed on the brakes and hopped out as soon as he had screeched to a stop.
"So, how'd it go down there with the mini-sub? Any problems?"
Rashad's face barely shifted, but ended up in a wicked, self-satisfied smirk.
"Nothing I couldn't handle. The other three trucks are on their way to the warehouse in Portland and the rest of the stuff's all here. And that damn little sewer pipe of a submarine is bottom-crawling its way on back to the rendezvous point. We’ll have the other part of the cargo back at the sound lab in a week." He nodded toward the line of trucks along one wall of the building. "We’re almost ready to start distribution. We’re working on repainting the trucks and we’ll send them out in a bit. I thought we'd make them bakery delivery trucks this time. How does 'Snow Bakery' sound to you?"
Ramirez didn't share the large black man's sense of humor. He grunted.
"I don't really give a shit what you call them. Just get the stuff out to our customers so I can report to de Santiago that everything is done. And we damn well better make sure he never finds out about the stuff we skimmed off the top. You screw up and that crazy bastard will cut off our balls and feed them to us."
Rashad shook his head. He cleared the thought of what the rebel leader might do if this part of the plan failed. He looked over at one of the trucks, its windows covered with paper, already getting its first coat of paint.
"Give me a day, Boss. It’ll take that long for the paint to dry in this damned wet weather."
Ramirez slipped back into the sports car. He leaned out the window.
"First shipment from here leaves Thursday at the latest, Jason.” He cranked up the engine. “No slip ups."
He spun the car around and disappeared in a haze of exhaust and burned rubber.
Vancouver, Washington, motorcycle officer Kevin McCoy had found himself a nice, sneaky niche between a bridge abutment and a chain link fence alongside I-5. Traffic barreling down on him along the last straightaway before the bridge over the Columbia River to Portland had no way of seeing him there. They showed up on his radar gun well before they had a chance to hit their brakes and get themselves legal. Today the fog had most drivers behaving. He was taking it easy, leaned back, resting his perpetually aching sacroiliac, listening to the jabber on the radio.
Three UPS trucks running nose to tail right at him. A light went on his head. There had been something from dispatch a few minutes before about watching for packs of the brown trucks. The readout on the radar gun said they were doing better than 75. That cinched it.
He turned on the blue strobes and took off after the convoy.
The last truck in line slowed at once and pulled obediently to a stop at the side of the interstate. The other two sped on as if they had not seen him at all. Ticket one guy and somebody else would see the others if they didn’t slow down.
He parked the bike on its kickstand. The officer walked toward the delivery van. Something wicked whizzed past his ear. He swatted at whatever it was. Another something took a bite out of the shou
lder pad of his leather jacket and shattered one of the mirrors on his motorcycle behind him.
“Jesus!” he yelped and dove for the cover of the rear of the van.
The cop slithered beneath the van and got his own service revolver unsnapped out of its holster. Whoever was inside could easily back up and run over him if he wanted to. He could bend down and let him have it while he cowered under there. He looked around. There was a culvert about thirty feet to his right. But then he saw a pair of legs hop down from the driver’s side of the van and run toward the rear of the vehicle.
Halfway back, the man realized the cop was not lying back there bleeding. He dropped to his knees to look beneath the truck. McCoy saw the glint of a pistol. He didn’t hesitate. He let loose four quick rounds.
The gunman went down hard, writhing on the asphalt, his gun skittering into the middle of passing traffic. McCoy scrambled out from beneath the truck. He slid along the opposite side of the van from the wounded gunman. Easing around, he held the gun out in front of him with both hands. He had to see if there was anyone else in the vehicle, anyone with a weapon.
Nobody else in the cab of the truck. He climbed inside and stepped through the doorway into the cargo area.
No one there either. Only white bricks wrapped in cellophane and stacked high down each side.
The shooter was still lying there when he got back outside. The guy’s eyes were shut. He squirmed in pain. A small pool of blood formed beneath him. McCoy stood over him, his gun pointed squarely at the man’s forehead.
“What the hell is going on?” he finally asked.
The man’s eyes burst open in wild panic.
“Don’t shoot don’t shoot don’t shoot!” he begged. “I’m only a driver. I tell you everything I know. I tell you everything I know.”
McCoy kept his barrel directed at the man’s head, trying to keep his hand from shaking while he reported, “Shots fired, suspect in custody, send an ambulance,” via the two-way radio microphone on his shoulder.
“Okay, while we wait for my buddies to show up, why don’t you just tell me everything you know before my finger accidentally squeezes this trigger?”
Ken Temple and Tom Kincaid sat staring at each other across Temple's desk. The cramped little cubicle had just enough room for the desk and two straight-backed chairs. Temple hated paperwork and it showed. The stuff filled the in-basket and toppled over to litter the desktop. Several of the buff-colored folders were stained with coffee rings. A telephone and two coffee cups sat amongst the litter. Neatness was not one of the detective’s virtues.
"Ken, you ever do any admin?" Kincaid asked, looking in disbelief at the size of the paper stack.
Temple shook his head.
"Nah. I give everything six months. Anybody asks about something in six months, it goes in that stack," he said, pointing at one corner of the desk. "If they ask again in another six months, I might consider doing it. If no one asks three times, it gets trashed. So far, it all gets trashed."
The phone started to jangle and Temple grabbed it. As the person on the other end talked, he rifled through the pile of folders. A bunch of them fell to the floor, joining many others that had already ended up down there. He found the legal pad he was looking for and started to take notes, scribbling around the residue of a jelly doughnut left on the page.
"What? Damnation! Okay, what’s the address of the place up here?"
He wrote something else on the pad. Kincaid tried to read the scratching but couldn't decipher what it was. He could tell the big detective was excited. Maybe their luck was continuing to get better.
Temple turned the notepad around and showed Kincaid the address he had scrawled there. The DEA agent walked to the large map tacked to the cubicle wall and tried to find the street while Temple continued his conversation. There it was, down by the airport.
"Okay, you say there were three of the trucks down there? The rest should be at the warehouse here?" Temple nodded. He flashed a huge grin at Kincaid. "Thank you, detective. You’ve been a tremendous help. "
Temple returned the phone to its cradle and rose to leave.
"Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. Come on, slowpoke. Time to go to work. That was a cop down in Vancouver. One of his traffic officers stopped a UPS truck running in a pack of three down there. He heard the APB go out on the radio. One of them pulled over and the bastard driving the thing started taking shots at him. The cop took him down. He says the driver started singing like a songbird when he thought the cycle cop was going to plug him between the eyes. The other trucks should still be at that warehouse up here, but if they get word we caught one of their guys, they’ll get out in one hell of a hurry, I bet. The other two trucks down there have already failed to show up where the perp said they were supposed to be going. I guess they knew their buddy would spill his guts if he got caught, so they went somewhere else. "
Kincaid couldn’t believe his ears. He ran to keep up with the amazingly fast moving detective.
"They have any idea how many people might be babysitting the trucks up here?"
Temple reached to hold open the elevator door.
"He didn't say. But get this. It'll really pique your interest.”
“I’m biting.”
“The guy said we should watch out for a mean-ass black son of a bitch in a gold Beamer."
Jonathan Ward stood on the bridge of his submarine and watched as the Coast Guard boat pulled alongside. It looked like a forty-footer, a good boat for these waters. It was a little cramped for the short run back to the pier with the survivors of the Cyclone ambush. Ward wished it could be far more crowded, that there were more men that had survived the attack.
Still it was good to be back in the sheltered waters by Port Angeles. The storm had blown out, the sky was blue, and a light breeze stirred a little chop in the straits. It was altogether a nice day.
He would be very happy when Helena K’s captain was in Coast Guard custody. Ward had turned him over to Chief Ralston to handle. The chief had kept the Swede shackled and under armed guard down in the torpedo room. It couldn't have been very comfortable, but Ward didn't care. The bastard could complain all he wanted about the bad food, the lack of booze, or whatever else. Ward couldn’t get the picture out of his head of the freighter circling the helpless Coast Guard vessel, pounding her mercilessly. On the trip back, he had been tempted to mete out a little old fashioned maritime justice, but he knew the authorities would take care of the bastard. And learn more about the whole operation in the process.
Ward watched the coxswain of the Coast Guard boat speak into his radio. Ward's walkie-talkie crackled to life.
"Good afternoon, Captain. Permission to come alongside?"
"Permission granted. Come alongside, cleat three, on the lee side. I'm making three knots, course zero-eight-six."
The coxswain spun the wheel around and the little boat swung around to pass astern of Spadefish. He brought it up along to port side, matching the sub's speed. One of the Coast Guardsmen jumped onto the fo’c’s’le of the boat and tossed a line over to the sub.
The radio crackled again.
"Ready to transfer the dead and wounded when you are, sir."
Ward looked down over the back of the sail, aft of the protruding fairwater plane. The white boat bobbed gently in the calm waters of the sub's lee side. The injured crewmen from the Cyclone slowly climbed out of the sub's hatch and were helped across to the boat. Chief Macallister, strapped to a stretcher, was the last of the ten. He waved and called out, "Thank you again, Skipper!" as he was lifted over to the boat.
"You're welcome, Chief,” Ward shouted back. “Don't go chasing any nurses until that leg’s healed."
Next came the bags that held the bodies of the men who had died aboard the Cyclone. Even the wounded men stopped, stood at attention, and saluted their fallen friends as the two craft rocked gently and the gulls circled overhead in the warm sun, as if they were paying their own tribute.
Finally, Hendrix and Kuhn climbed out of the hatch, each with his hands heavily bandaged. Kuhn stood at attention and saluted the Ensign flying from a staff extending from the top of the sail. He yelled, "Captain, permission to go ashore!"
Ward saluted the engineer right back.
"Permission granted. I expect you two on the pier when we get to San Diego."
"We'll be there. We'll bring the beer."
"Deal"
Jonathan Ward could hardly get the single word out past the sudden lump that had appeared in his throat.
He ended the salute by deftly wiping away a tear.
"See anything?" Kincaid asked.
He and Detective Ken Temple squatted together in the brush, fifty yards from a chain link fence. The back wall of the warehouse rose up high only a few feet on the other side of the fence. Temple was squinting through his sniper scope, peeking out from under the branches of a thorny yew bush.
"Nothing since the gold Beamer drove up. That’s been an hour ago now."
Kincaid glanced at his watch. Its luminous dial said it was a few minutes after 4AM. Two more hours until sunrise. He shivered in the light mist. It certainly got cold out here at night, the chill seeping right through the black Gore-Tex rain suit.
The continual warmth. That was just one more thing he missed about his old life in South Florida. Still, it felt good to now be here, doing something. Something that would make a difference, save lives.
Now he worked at picturing the bad guys, how they were out of the drizzle and nice and warm inside their dry warehouse. They had plenty of hot coffee in there, too. His own thermos had gone dry about midnight. He used the images and his own discomfort to further stoke the white-hot anger he was kindling.
"Okay, we go when Ramirez shows,” he said. “Everybody in place?"
Temple chuckled. For a cool DEA operator, Kincaid could be one nervous Nellie on a stake out.
Final Bearing Page 45
