"I don't," DeHaviland said. "This has been a CIA front-burner scenario since slightly before Russian General Alexander Lebed made the charge public on 60 Minutes in September of '97."
"You mean this is true?" Cameron asked. "We can't let this guy threaten us with a nuke in a suitcase and just let him walk out of here."
"The lie detector says he's telling the truth," Wheeler reminded him. "You have any idea how much damage that bomb would do?"
"Whatta you know about lie detectors or bombs?" Cameron responded. "Besides, the polygraph isn't foolproof. It's possible to beat the box. This guy is Chinese--maybe he was in some sort of yoga trance or something. Who the hell knows?"
"That's sorta bullshit," Verba said hesitantly. "I've been giving lie tests for twenty years. They're ninety to ninety-five percent accurate. So on that scale, we've got at least a ninety percent chance Mr. Wo Lap is telling the truth."
Then Alan Hollingsworth asked a question that needed an answer. "What makes you think this suitcase bomb even exists?"
Carter DeHaviland pushed his wire-rim glasses up on his nose, trying to decide how much classified information to give them. "First," Carter said, "I think we should notify NEST immediately. That's the Nuclear Emergency Search Team. I checked before coming over. They're on a field op right now. NEST is usually on a five-hour string. They are a self-contained unit, traveling in four C-141 cargo jets. Since they're presently gathered in New Mexico for training exercises, we can probably get 'em here by two. First you have to notify the FBI, because they have lead agency authority over NEST and have to call them in. You should also immediately notify the White House that you suspect a foreign agent placed a nuclear device at the L. A. airport, and simultaneously, you must clear the area, notifying the police and National Guard."
"We've already informed the Governor," Verba said. "He was going to take care of the White House."
"Okay, good. The first thing you must understand is, in the intelligence community, we deal with both factual and counterfac-tual probabilities. Every story has a counterclaim. People don't always give you the whole truth. We assign probability quotients to casual factors to determine counterintuitive scenarios."
"Jesus, talk English, will ya?" Wheeler said.
"General Lebed made these charges initially in '97," Carter went on, "He had just been fired by Boris Yeltsin. We know the General is planning to run for President of Russia in 2000. It therefore could be considered in his best interest to embarrass President Yeltsin, and this story about a hundred missing nuclear suitcase bombs could be counterfactual disinformation."
"Go on," Cameron said.
"On the other hand, we have some independent corroboration that one hundred nuclear suitcase bombs are, in fact, missing. This came last year from a Russian Deputy Defense Minister, named Andrei Kokoshin, who confirmed everything General Lebed said. A few weeks after Kokoshin made his confirmation, he was also fired by the Russian High Command ... a bad sign, we thought, in the hallowed halls of Langley. Kokoshin's firing was as good as a confirmation. After that, the CIA started taking Lebed's claim very seriously. We know these suitcase bombs exist in theory. It's not at all difficult to reduce nuclear technology down to the size of a suitcase or a backpack."
"How destructive are these things?" Cameron asked.
"They're not Start I or Start II nuclear devices, which means they're not covered by any international arms agreements. These are much smaller NUTS units."
"They're what?" Cameron asked.
"NUTS units. It's an acronym, stands for Nuclear Utilization Targeting Strategy. It's a theory based on the idea that it will be military targets, not cities, that will be hit in a nuclear exchange. These knapsack or suitcase bombs were designed to destroy tactical targets like power plants, airports, hotels, and munitions centers. Russian paratroopers could parachute in with them and wreak havoc on hard targets behind enemy lines. To the best of our knowledge, the missing suitcase weapons were deployed to Ukraine and Georgia, just before the break-up of the Soviet Union. This is much more disturbing to us because those governments are even less stable than the Russian government, and it's quite possible that their military establishments, or individuals therein, chose to steal the bombs and sell them on the world munitions black market.
"China would be a big buyer of this kind of ordnance. Their Poly Industries in Beijing is one of the biggest brokers of Russian armaments in the world. In theory, that would make it very easy for Wo Lap Ling to purchase one or two of these devices."
The room was now totally silent. Cameron Jobe got up. His chair squeaked as it slid back. He walked to the window and looked out, his broad back to the rest of them. "You're telling me this criminal has actually put a nuclear bomb at LAX?"
"Let me put it this way. . . . Nothing you have said surprises me. I don't believe this information is counterfactual. We have assigned a very high probability percentage to Lebed's claims."
"Shit," Verba said
"How big are these damn things?" Alan Hollingsworth asked. "How much damage will they do?"
"According to Lebed, these are what we call NO FUN weapons. Another acronym, meaning No First Use Nuclear devices. They are only one kiloton, weigh sixty to a hundred pounds, and could kill a hundred thousand people if detonated in a populous area. They would take an average person less than a half-hour to activate, and once activated, can be detonated by radio wave. If Wo Lap Ling has one placed at LAX, he'll turn the airport into a pile of rubble and the resulting ejecta will most probably knock out a good portion of Marina Del Rey, as well as points north and south. Nuclear fallout will be dangerous, but not immediately critical, depending on how 'clean' the device is. I can't speak to increased incidents of cancer and the like."
They sat in silence.
"In fairness," Carter added, "I owe it to you to say that there is some countervailing opinion. The chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee has gone on record as saying Lebed's charges are nonsense. He says they are political in nature and not substantive."
"Really?" Alan said. "Senator Peck said that?"
"Jesus Christ," Wheeler said, grabbing for the sheet of paper with the translated code names transcribed from Prescott's car tape. On the bottom of the page he found it:
SEN. JOHN L. PECK (D) WYOMING.
Chapter 41.
Cash Flow
After Carter DeHaviland's briefing, Wheeler and Tanisha were told to go home.
Alan said there was nothing they could do.
Verba said this was completely out of their hands.
T. Cameron Jobe said if they interfered he would personally bring charges against them for obstructing justice.
Then they were left standing alone in the fifth-floor corridor of Parker Center as activity swirled around them.
They were out of it. They left the building and found Rick Verba standing in the parking lot across from Parker Center. The hot noon sun was beating down on them. The outside of the architecturally uninteresting granite building showed no sign of the intense activity inside. Somewhere on the third floor, Willy Wo Lap Ling was sitting in a holding cell, his hands clasped on his lap, waiting to see what would happen.
"You guys did great work," Verba said to them. "If this turns out to be true, you've saved thousands of lives."
"Captain, can this bozack Attorney General just blow us off the case? We've been working this for almost two weeks," Tanisha said.
"What're you gonna do while NEST does its job, take pictures? You're counterintuitive or whateverGo home, get some sleep. You look bushed," Verba said.
"I can't go home. That piece of Triad gangsta shit upstairs put a bounty of fifty keys of pure heroin on our heads. The gangs in South Central aren't going to know that Willy is busted. Wheeler and I are marked anywhere south of Crenshaw."
"You can sleep in my office at ACTF," Verba said.
That was finally what they decided to do. They followed Captain Verba back to Hill Street and left the Jag in the parking l
ot at the side of the leased Asian Crimes building.
Things took a strange turn once they got upstairs. Al Katsukura was complaining to anyone who'd listen. He grabbed Tanisha and told her what had happened last night. While they were dragging Wo Lap Ling out of the L. A. Triad headquarters, he was out in the ocean, in pea soup fog, losing a boatload of illegal aliens and three Major Crimes detectives. He had spent the night answering angry questions from Deputy Chief Pitlick. Al had just finished his paperwork, and the owl-eyed Japanese detective was frustrated beyond anything Tanisha had ever observed in him before.
"These three U. C. dicks from Major Crimes aren't missing, they're dead, Tisha," he said, glancing only occasionally at Wheeler. His Asian poker face twisted in anguish. "I was bobbing around out there like a fucking asshole while they got washed out. I let those guys get taken. Operation Dry Dock was my deal. I feel like shit."
"Let's get something to eat," Tanisha said. "We all need lunch. I'll buy."
"Anyplace but the fucking Westin coffee shop," Wheeler reminded her.
They found a little greasy spoon on North Hill and Alpine, just outside of Chinatown. They picked the diner because the place was absolutely empty.
They sat in the back and ordered sandwiches and steaming hot coffee. Wheeler told the Hispanic waitress to keep the coffee coming.
When the food arrived, Al was still on a talking jag, retelling his story, trying to find a version that didn't make him feel quite so shitty.
"Where was this?" Wheeler asked when Al finally paused to eat.
"Where was what?"
"Where you found the empty boat?"
"We were in the ocean, somewhere south of Marina Del Rey."
"How far offshore?" Wheeler asked.
"I don't know. Mile, mile and a half, maybe five. It's water out there. They don't have mile markers."
"That's roughly out by the airport then," Wheeler observed, picking at his fries with a fork. "How often do undercover officers get shot on a deal like that?"
"It shouldn'ta happened. These Bamboo Dragons couldn't have known my guys were U. C. S. They were dressed like a Hornblower crew in corny sailor outfits. They weren't carrying any badges or I. D. S. They weren't there trying to make a bust. The deal was strictly Watch and Report. There would be no reason for them to get killed. That's what makes this screwy. If I'd thought there was any danger, I would've had half-a-dozen guys with me on that patrol boat and I woulda had troops stashed on the Hornblower. We'da been screwed tight into their assholes."
The waitress brought more coffee and left the carafe, while they all sat, thinking.
"What if all this shit is connected?" Wheeler finally asked Tanisha.
"It is, but not like you think," Tanisha answered. "The boys on the boat were Tong gangsters connected to the Chin Lo and to Willy, but the Bamboo Dragons are doing a whole menu of crimes. Nothing would stop just because Willy came into town. This immigrant smuggle probably started in Hong Kong a week ago. Besides, what does a bunch of Snake Riders have to do with a bomb scare at the airport?"
"I don't know. But once the immigrants were off-loaded, why kill three guys for no reason?" Wheeler pondered.
"Because they're jacked up on speed or adrenaline," Al said. "Who knows why they pull this dumb violent shit? It happens all the time now. It's just what they do."
Wheeler poured himself more coffee out of the carafe. "Is anybody out there looking for these missing Snake Riders?"
"We had a full-scale helicopter search in place as soon as the fog burned off. Nothing out in the ocean. Empty as a junkie's wallet."
"Let's go look for ourselves," Wheeler suggested. "My uncle Alan has a boat at the marina. I'll call him. It used to be my dad's boat. He left it to Alan when he died. I've run it a bunch. I know where the key is."
"Why? Whatta we gonna find?" the Japanese detective asked.
"I don't know. Probably nothing, but to tell you the truth, I'd a helluva lot rather sleep on that boat than on the couch in Verba's office."
It was hard to get to the slip in Marina Del Rey. The National Guard was already evacuating the marina. They had barricades up and stern-faced young men in Hogan's Heroes helmets that said HAZMAT, for Hazardous Materials, on the back were stopping traffic and turning it around. Al asked why the city was being evacuated. The HAZMAT lieutenant said, "Gas leak," and that was all he would say. Al and Tanisha had to badge him and threaten to arrest him to get them through the barricade. Cops were at every intersection in Marina Del Rey directing evacuation traffic. It took them almost half an hour to get to the dock on Palawan Way.
The boat was named Cashflow. Alan had contemplated renaming it Legal Ease, but in the end had not changed it out of respect for his dead friend.
The boat was a fifty-two-foot Bertram Sportfisher with a tuna tower. Wheeler was on the flybridge with the twin engines burbling as Al and Tanisha threw the lines off. He backed it out of the slip, using the twin screws to rotate it in the channel before heading it out of the harbor at the mandated five miles an hour. They moved toward the jetty, past the junction of Ballona Creek, past the channel markers, and then turned left, heading toward the general spot where Al said the empty Hornblower had been drifting on the tide.
After the marine layer had burned off, it left behind a calm sea and a beautiful day. Wheeler and Tanisha stood on the fly-bridge while Al sat morosely in a fighting chair just outside the main salon. He was lost in a deep depression over his failure to protect the three detectives.
Finally, they were offshore about a quarter-mile out, looking in at LAX. Wheeler throttled back and watched as a United 747 took off, roaring out over the ocean six hundred feet above their heads. The jet thundered in the cloudless sky, raining sound pollution down on them. As soon as the jet was away, another took off from the parallel runway.
"I thought they closed this airport down," Tanisha said.
"I've been watching since we turned out of the marina channel," Wheeler said. "Everything is leaving, nothing is landing. I think the airlines are trying to get their equipment out of here."
Another jet roared overhead, banking right and heading east.
Al Katsukura got out of the fighting chair on the deck below and climbed the ladder to the flybridge.
"Is this about where the Hornblower was?" Wheeler asked.
"How would I know? You couldn't see shit. It was socked in. I didn't hear any planes, but the fog was so thick the airport was probably closed."
Wheeler put the binoculars to his eyes and again looked at the airport a quarter-mile beyond. Through the lenses he could see several olive-green canvas-covered military trucks driving around on the field. Off to one side, parked near the Federal Express hangars, were four military C-141s with no markings. He wondered if they were the four NEST aircraft from New Mexico. He looked at his watch. It was one thirty-five. Carter DeHaviland had said two hours would get NEST to LAX. He could see men in olive uniforms running between hangars.
"This either happens or it doesn't in two and a half hours," he said. Then he turned his binoculars on Dockweiler State Beach. It was a broad strip of sand that started at the Del Rey Channel marker and stretched all the way past the airport to the housing development at Vista Del Mar. Wheeler scanned the beach carefully.
"What is it?" Tanisha asked.
"If the Hornblower was around here and they off-loaded it with small rubber boats from the shore, then Dockweiler Beach would be perfect. Nobody is ever there because of the noise from the airport. Could be this is where they landed."
"If that's true, they'd be long gone by now," Al added.
Wheeler didn't know what he was trying to prove or why this seemed so important, but something was driving him, pushing him to go ashore. Maybe it was the look of indifference in Willy's eyes when Wheeler accused him of killing Prescott, or the fury that had flashed when Wheeler had challenged the Triad mobster. "I'm gonna put the Avon in the water and go take a look," he said.
"And leave us floatin
g around out here? I did enough of that last night," Al whined.
"According to my depth finder, it's only fifty feet deep. I can anchor, and you both can come with me."
After backing down on his Danforth anchor to set it, Wheeler shut the engines down. He used the davit to put the rubber Avon boat with the fifteen-horsepower Yamaha outboard in the water. The two Asian Crimes detectives got in the Avon while Wheeler unlocked his uncle's gun cabinet aboard the sportfisher. He took out the shark rifle and two long-barreled Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum "Dirty Harry" revolvers, with drop-forged aluminum frames and full checkered walnut stocks. He grabbed a box of Remington ammunition. In a few seconds they were in the Avon headed toward Dockweiler State Beach.
He had to surf the boat in on the medium-sized breakers to get it ashore, gunning the motor as the wave broke, shooting ahead of the cresting surf, cutting the motor at the last minute, and running the light Avon high up onto the beach. They all jumped out and pulled the boat to safety ahead of the next breaker.
The sand on Dockweiler Beach was windblown and smooth.
"Let's split up, look for footprints," Tanisha said. "A whole boatload of Snake Riders should leave a pretty good trail."
Tanisha and Al went up the beach to the east, Wheeler went west. He had walked about 250 yards before he saw it: a windblown trail of footprints heading from the shore, up the beach to where he was standing. "Over here!" he shouted, but his voice was overwhelmed by a departing jet. He soon realized they were too far away to hear him over the thundering surf. He let out a shrill whistle, which they finally heard. He waved his arm and they began moving back toward him.
The footprints led to a huge round concrete drain, almost ten feet in diameter. It was a gigantic underground water run-off that headed diagonally back toward the airport; inside the dark tunnel was a small river of dirty water. In a storm, Wheeler guessed, it would be a raging river of spill-off from LAX that emptied flooding runway water into the ocean. The metal grate across the opening, which was designed to keep people out, had been cut out and removed. The white-hot burn of an acetylene torch had scarred the remaining ends. While Wheeler waited for Tanisha and Al, he saw something buried in the sludge and water, at the bottom of the concrete drain. He reached down and picked it up. It was a sodden black backpack. As soon as Al and Tanisha got to him, Wheeler showed it to them.
Riding the Snake (1998) Page 32
