CIA - The Slave Traders

by Joe Bob Newman

and had a flashing control panel.

  Lynda told the Ranger, “Close the door and start evacuating this area right now!”

  “How far?” The Ranger asked.

  Lynda had no idea, but said, “A radius of ten miles.”

  The Ranger looked at the trooper and said, “Wow.” They both hurried off, leaving Lynda with the truck driver. She could hear rotors far off, and saw the other helicopter coming in.

  The second helicopter touched down, and Lynda could already see a mass exodus of trucks out of the lot. She waited for the men to walk to her. She pointed at the truck. “Looks like the real McCoy. Make sure your suits are sealed.”

  The truck driver pulled out a ramp and set it up. The three suited men walked up the ramp and then climbed up on the back of the trailer. One had a Geiger counter that he was swinging all around. Finally he pointed it at the box. All three men backed up a step.

  Lynda was on her cell phone to Tom. “Looks like the real deal. The team is here. I will get back to you later.”

  The three men came down the ramp. The lead man said through his face shield, “Ma’am, this is the third pallet like this that we have found. The timer reads three hundred and fifty-three minutes. We believe that gives us almost six hours to disarm it or find out if it is a ruse. It has all the components, but it may still not be a bomb. I would suggest that you treat this like it is though.”

  Lynda looked around her. The lot was nearly deserted. The last trucks were leaving. She said, “You guys know what you are doing; don’t let us stop you. What do you need from us?”

  The man looked around and said, “Nothing, just don’t bother us.” He walked off and joined the other two men. They were getting tools out of the now-quiet chopper.

  Lynda wondered if she should leave the area. Instead, she called her mother. “May I speak to Tasha?” Then she said, “Honey, Mother loves you very much. I should be home soon. If not, always know that I loved you so very much.”

  Tasha did not pick up on the implication; she was cheery. She said, “Oh, Mother, I will see you soon. We have the wedding to prepare for.”

  Lynda smiled. “Yes we do, sugar. I will be home soon.” She hung up and wiped the tears from her eyes.

  Ranger Johnston was back. “What did they say?”

  She scrunched up her mouth and said, “They said that it could be the real thing. We are doing everything that we can do.”

  He asked, “What happens if it detonates?”

  “I don’t think you and I will ever know.”

  “I like you, ma’am.”

  She looked at the Ranger intently. “I like you too, Ranger Johnston.”

  Lynda looked at her watch. If they had six hours, then there were five and half hours left. She wondered if that was all she had to live.

  The three technicians worked at getting the package opened up. They had to check every piece for booby traps. This made their work slow and painstaking. They had the walls of the crate off now. They could see a mess of wires and gadgets. The lead man checked his watch; four hours and forty minutes left. He located two wires that went to a battery pack. One wire was red, the other black. He used his power sensor to verify that there was power in the wires. He checked the voltage with his meter; thirty-six volts. Three twelve-volt batteries were hooked in series. The red wire was positive.

  The second tech had the Geiger counter and was searching for the radiation leak. It was not a big leak. He found it. It was near the center of mass, right where it should be. This still looked like the real deal, not a ruse.

  The third tech stood at the back of the pallet. He could see a group of wires. He was tracking them. They did not seem to go anywhere. He suspected a booby trap. He had to verify and tag each wire. Each wire ran to a blinking light. He could not find where they were attached to any other components. This was very confusing.

  Lynda looked at her watch and calculated four hours and ten minutes. She did not know whether she wanted to speed things up or not. Time seemed to move so slowly.

  Ranger Johnston checked his watch. He looked at the young woman. She looked so poised. He was as worried as he could be. He planned to leave at some point, but was not sure when.

  He walked up to the young woman. “Do you have family around here?”

  Lynda said, “No, do you?”

  He said, “Yeah, my wife and kids.”

  She turned around and looked at him with intense blue eyes. “Ranger, go take care of your family. I have this under control.”

  She watched the Ranger run to a trooper’s car.

  Shortly he was back, standing behind her. She could feel his eyes on her. She turned back to look at him. “What happened, Ranger?”

  He said, “I talked to my wife. She is leaving. She didn’t need me. So you are stuck with me.”

  For some reason, Lynda was glad that he was there. She looked back at the trailer. The three techs were working feverishly. She looked at her watch. Three hours and thirty minutes.

  In Pensacola, all the Seals’ beepers went off. Duty called. They left hurriedly and were at the Navy base within minutes. Marcus met with the Navy Commander and found out they were to be deployed in Houston, Texas. A special jet ranger helicopter would take them. He grabbed his war bag and got the men lined up and ready to go. The team was short, but all nine men left in the fast helicopter. He wondered if that had anything to do with what Lynda was doing. He suspected so. He was correct.

  The jet ranger zipped along the coastline. It had priority clearance over all aircraft. They landed at the port authority tower. All nine men got off with rifles at the ready. They were to board the ship and find the bomb, if there was one. Marcus and Mac both had Geiger counters. They would be protected by the other seven Seals. They ran down the dock, and up the ship’s boarding ramp. Nothing had been taken off this ship. The port police had it surrounded and off-limits to everyone but the Seals.

  Lynda looked at her watch; two hours and fifteen minutes. She wondered what Marcus was doing. She said, “Ranger, why don’t you get out of here? There is still time. In fact, get everybody out of here, at least ten miles away.”

  The tall Ranger looked around and said, “Everyone is gone but us. I just hope they are far enough away.”

  Lynda wasn’t sure if he was talking about his family or the truckers around here.

  Marcus and his buddy Mac split up, and Marcus went to the left. The deck of the ship was littered with large steel containers.

  Marcus had worked his way to the center of the ship’s top deck, when he heard Mac cry out, “Got something! Come here, Marcus!”

  Marcus ran around the end of the ship and started running down the right side. He found Mac pointing at a container. It was steel, painted dark red. It had “China Shipping” on the side. From the best that Marcus could tell, the radiation emanated from inside this container. He walked to the end and found the door. It just had a small seal lock on the door. He broke the seal and turned the handles. The door opened, and he saw the pallet inside. The first thing he noticed was the meter counting down. It read two hundred and forty. If that was minutes, they had four hours. If it was seconds, they were out of time.

  Marcus began searching the pallet. Right away he found the batteries. He measured the voltage: thirty-six volts. He began tracing wires. He was looking for the detonator. He found a foot-diameter chrome-plated ball on the end of the device. It had six wires sticking out one side. Four of the wires went to blinking lights. The other two went to the battery group. After looking the entire device over, he was certain that it was a fake, but a good one. He held his breath as he undid the red wire from the battery group. The lights went out and the timer froze. Good, he thought.

  Marcus stood quietly and watched the device. Suddenly the lights came on and the timer began to spin. It had back-up batteries and a fail-safe built in. If anyone messed with it, it would go o
ff quickly. Had Marcus screwed up? He was not sure what to do. He looked at Mac and they both began to pull wires out. The ones they could not pull free, they cut. Soon all the wires were cut or broken and all the lights went out. They stayed out this time. However, the timer kept spinning. It was now under a hundred. He must find the back-up batteries. Then Marcus found the box. It had twenty-four size C batteries. It was a small box. He pulled the wires loose from this box, and the timer froze again, at seven. Seven minutes or less, he thought. Nothing else happened with the device.

  Lynda looked at her watch again. One hour and forty-three minutes to go. The lead tech looked at his watch at almost the same time. They had found the back-up batteries and cut the wires to them. Once they had the power shut off, there would not be a chance for a booby trap to go off.

  The second tech was taking off the door on a large cylinder. He had the last screw out, and the door slid down. The tech caught it with his gloved hand. He looked inside the door. His heart froze. The cylinder was packed with sticks of dynamite. This was not a nuclear device, just a plain old bomb. He looked at the lead tech. He said, “Bill, cut the wire. This is a standard electrical bomb.”

  Bill cut the thick red wire. Everything stopped. They waited and nothing happened. They had diffused the bomb in record time.

  So far five devices had been located. Apparently the Americans were intended to find and disarm these