Hunched over Mona now, his feet on the chrome rung of his stool, he slipped the fifth cylinder onto the scanner’s horizontal spindle and then glanced over at Nell, who was sitting at the system’s keyboard/flatscreen console.
“Oh, throw yourself in a hole, and say here goes nothing,” he said.
She looked around at him. “First known use of the expression?”
“Fibre and Fabric, A Record of American Textile Industries in the Cotton and Woolen Trade,” he said. “The Saturday, November third, eighteen eighty-nine edition.”
Nell looked wistful. “I want to eat oyster pizza with you until I can’t,” she said.
Eric swallowed, his throat suddenly thick.
“We should get this done,” he said.
She nodded, tapping her keyboard. An instant later, the cylinder began to rotate under Mona’s confocal laser lens—a virtual phonograph needle imaging its grooves in microscopic detail, then sending the three-dimensional profiles to the system software for reassembly as sound files.
Eric lowered his feet from the stool and pushed himself to Nell’s end of the table, where a composite map of the cylinder’s surface was forming on her display. To him it was like looking at tire prints, each tread representing an individual groove.
“Okay,” Nell said. “I’m sending the audio stream to the computer speakers.”
He inhaled deeply, staring at the screen.
“Your heavy breathing is so sexy.” she said, and clicked the keys.
A second later, a deep voice over the speakers:
“This is Admiral Elias P. Sutton, United States Navy, Commander Naval Construction Battalion Center, Port Hueneme. The date of this recording is August twelfth, nineteen forty-five…”
Eric glanced at Nell. He still hadn’t exhaled.
“…am preparing this document to log the storage site of the uranium two thirty-five that arrived aboard the hold of the German U-boat codenamed Minazuki-One, and was subsequently diverted from Los Alamos National Laboratory…”
Nell’s eyes widened.
“Eric,” she said in a trembling whisper. “Eric…”
He finally exhaled, realizing he hadn’t breathed in a long time.
“This is it,” he said, and then listened to the rest in silence.
20
“That’s it up ahead, as if you couldn’t figure it out for yourself,” Drew said, smiling. “The famous—or should I say famously dumpy—Piggyback Yard. Which must top the list of all-time first date turnoffs.”
Alysha laughed, walking alongside him on Lamar Street between the cement plant and the San Antonio winery. She was wearing the Dodgers cap he’d brought her as a gift, her quilted purse slung over her bare, tanned shoulder. Inside the purse was a makeup compact, her forged Milena James passport, and a wallet containing a driver’s license and some cash. In a concealed carry belt under the waist of her jeans was a hand-tooled Beltrame automatic stiletto, and a slim, lightweight Ruger LC9 handgun.
“Stop it, Drew,” she said. “This is going to be pure heaven.”
He looked at her, his smile growing surer. “You know,” he said, “I’m thinking you just might be the cure for my nerd insecurity.”
Alysha slipped her arm through his.
“You should probably think a little less, and enjoy a little more,” she said, walking closer to him.
They continued toward the end of Lamar Street. It led directly to the train yard’s access road, which ran toward its entrance between cracked, spalled concrete retaining walls. A railway overpass several yards up ahead marked the division with a wide band of shadow. The graffiti-tagged metal sign facing them from the middle of the span read:
LOS ANGELES TRANSPORTATION CENTER
PRIVATE PROPERTY
NOT A THRU STREET
“Heaven’s gate,” Drew said. He gestured up at it, then pointed straight ahead toward a sentry booth. “You won’t find Saint Peter in there, though. Just an ordinary security guard.”
“Will we have a problem getting in?”
He noticed she was no longer smiling, and realized he should have explained.
“We’re good, no worries,” he said. “Come on.”
They approached the booth, the guard stepping out onto the concrete island to greet them.
“Drew, qué pasa?” he said.
“Nada mucho,” Drew said as they soul shook. “Jorge, this is my friend, Milena. Milena, Jorge.”
The guard turned and offered her his hand in a more courtly manner.
“Pleasure,” he said. “You’re the history buff, huh?”
She nodded. “I see I’ve had advance billing.”
Jorge chuckled.
“Me and Drew go back to high school,” he said. “When he told me you were coming for a tour of the yard, I thought, ‘Girl’s in serious trouble.’”
“Oh?”
His look said he was kidding.
“Don’t get nervous,” he replied. “Drew can tell you everything about this place. I just never thought he’d actually meet somebody who’d want to hear it.”
She was smiling again.
“I assure you,” she said, “I’m a willing victim.”
Jorge grinned and checked his watch.
“Well, you two still have a few hours to the Dodger game,” he said to her. “Tell me on the way out how you like his tour.”
Drew laughed.
“You thinking of charging my victim admission?” he joked.
Jorge laughed, shaking his head.
“The tour’s free to all survivors,” he said, and motioned them around the lowered barricade.
A moment later, they walked past it into the yard.
* * *
“Piggyback Yard,” Hetty Lange said. “The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes.”
“Sherlock Holmes,” Granger said. “Study in Scarlet.”
Hetty shook her head. “Close,” she said. “It’s Hound of the Baskervilles.”
Granger looked at her.
“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I like keeping you on your toes.”
She smiled thinly. It was now 4:15 P.M., and they were standing with Nell and Eric in Ops, where the two analysts had just finished their second playback of the Sutton recording’s virtual clone. Kensi and Deeks stood nearby—they’d hastened upstairs from the bullpen after returning with the bad news about Holloway.
“When you think about it, the whole thing makes sense,” Eric said from his console. He threw a satellite map of the train yard onto the plasma screen, highlighting the yard’s borders in red, then dragging an arrow to its western margin. “This is the coastal shipping line. The uranium would have come south from Santa Barbara here, then been trucked to the hiding place somewhere else in the yard.”
Hetty was nodding.
“We assumed it was only a stop along the way,” she said. “That the drums were being shipped to a prearranged endpoint across the country.”
“But Piggyback was as far as they went,” Granger said. “Sutton and Holloway were playing the nuclear market. Salting the uranium away until they could gauge postwar supply and demand…”
“And set their price for the highest bidder,” Kensi said.
“We need to sort this out fast,” Granger said to Eric. “Run the recording again. Pick it up right after Sutton’s intro.”
Eric nodded, tapping the console again.
“…diverted from the Los Alamos National Laboratory pending final disposition,” Sutton’s voice said over the speakers. His inflections were clipped, with a slight British overlay—what was once called New York genteel. “After much consideration, it was decided to cache the materiel at Deep Dive Alpha Zero One, a former locomotive construction shop in the Union Pacific LATC. The structure was requisitioned for the war effort and deemed highly suitable for storage, as tunnel excavation could proceed from an existing basement—”
“Okay, pause it right there,” Granger said. “
Do we know where the shop was?”
“Not exactly,” Eric said. “In that way Sutton kind of blew it with this spoken map.”
“He had a clear crystal ball for playing the futures market with uranium,” Nell said. “But he had no idea the steam locomotive would be obsolete three or four years after the war. By nineteen-fifty all the construction and repair shops were torn down, including the one Deep Dive glommed…”
“Wait,” Hetty said, holding up a hand. She had been studying the satellite map as they spoke. “Let’s focus on the positive. We do know some things that can help us.”
She stepped behind Eric’s console and dragged the arrow onscreen to the southern edge of the yard.
“The yard’s oldest track runs along the banks of the Los Angeles River,” she said. “The river’s natural grade slopes, east to west, toward central L.A.—laying the line there made it easier for trains moving freight into the city.”
Granger’s eyes filled with comprehension.
“The general shops would’ve been built along the main track,” he said. “To service the trains after their cross-country hauls.”
“Most of them,” she said. “I believe some shops went up at the north end as the yard expanded. But if we’re playing the odds, I suggest we pull an old map of it from the historical archives and start our search there.”
Eric scratched behind his ear. “Aren’t those south tracks used by Metroline nowadays?”
“Yes,” Granger said. “They cross the river to Union Station. It’s the shortest and most direct route.”
“Very convenient for someone wanting to haul the uranium into the city,” Kensi said.
Silence.
Granger moved his gaze around the room again.
“Once LAPD starts scouring the yard, people will want to know why,” he said. “If even a whisper about hidden radioactive material leaks out…”
“…it’ll be mass freakout time,” Deeks said.
Granger nodded. “We need to keep a lid on this. For now.”
“Marty and I can head down to the yard and poke around,” Kensi said. She turned to Eric. “When do you think you’ll have those old maps?”
“It won’t take long,” he said. “I’ll shoot them over to you as soon as they’re downloaded.”
Granger exhaled a long, deep breath.
“Let’s move,” he said.
* * *
“We’re almost at the tunnel entrance,” Drew said. “Not that it’s visible from here.”
Alysha’s pulse quickened. They had crossed a small freight transfer station bordering the Los Angeles River, then turned to follow a high concrete embankment channeling its flow west toward the downtown area and out to sea.
“Where is it?” she asked.
He pointed straight ahead. “See that row of storage sheds?”
She looked. The long, windowless industrial structures—four of them—were lined along the wall as it ran under a sagging, disused rail trestle.
“Yes,” she said. “I see.”
“It’s in the fourth shed,” he said. “The last one in the group.”
Her dark eyes narrowed. The shed was partly blocked from sight behind one of the trestle’s steel pylons, and further hidden by the crisscrossing shadows of its rust-scabbed upper framework.
Drew lowered his hand. “Come on,” he said. “I’m sure you’d rather check it out than hear me go on and on.”
They continued up the littered path. Walking through the station moments ago, Alysha had observed several yellow forklifts parked around a spur of railroad track. But they were all unoccupied, and there were no trailer trucks or yard workers in sight.
“I hope this doesn’t sound ignorant of me,” she asked now, motioning toward the track. “But is the transfer station active? It’s so deserted.”
Drew turned his head to smile at her.
“Not ignorant at all,” he said. “In fact, you’re very observant.” He paused. “Once upon a time, American Pacific employed two thousand yard workers… most of them in giant shops along this stretch. You know how many there are now?”
She shook her head.
“A hundred,” he said.
“In the entire yard?”
“And that includes security, not that there’s a ton,” he said. “Rail freight isn’t totally obsolete, but Piggyback’s close.”
They reached the first of the metal sheds. It stood on a cracked concrete base, its door secured with a rusty chain and padlock. Random pieces of trash were heaped in front—newspapers, junk food wrappers, styrofoam takeout boxes, crumpled cigarette packs, and beer cans.
A squirrel chittered loudly from the shed’s roof as they went by, catching their attention.
“He’s the neighborhood watch,” Drew said. “These sheds haven’t been used in decades.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Back in the Caleb Holloway era they held crossties and rails,” he said. “Later on they stored crated cargo. But freight’s only allowed to stay in the yard overnight these days, so it never leaves the trucks. There aren’t enough personnel for long-term storage.”
They walked on into the trestles’ patchy shade. At a glance the fourth shed didn’t look any different from the rest—its exterior blemished with rust, rafts of garbage heaped against its front and sides.
Then Alysha noticed the chain on the door. It was enclosed in a nylon web, with an integrated lock.
“Modern,” she said, motioning to it.
Drew looked at her. “You really don’t miss a whole lot,” he said. “Somebody replaced the old one.”
“Do you know who?”
Drew reached into his pocket for a keyring and thumbed to a tubular key.
“Rocky the Squirrel isn’t the only guy looking out for things around here,” he said with a wink. Then he turned to the shed. “Are you bothered by creepy crawlies?”
“It depends.”
“On?”
“Where they creep and crawl,” she said.
Drew laughed and went up to the door, stepping over the brown and green fragments of shattered beer bottles. Turning the key in the lock, he flipped up the hasp and pulled at the door handle. The door squealed on its rotting hinges but opened easily.
While his back was turned, Alysha quickly pulled her cellphone from her purse to check that the GPS tracking was on.
“Ready?” Drew asked after a second, glancing back over his shoulder.
She’d dropped the phone back into her purse.
“I couldn’t be readier,” she said, and followed him into the shed.
* * *
Sam and Callen were driving back to L.A. on the Antelope Valley Freeway when they got an encrypted call from Hetty. In the passenger seat, Callen switched his smartphone to its secure voice mode and compared notes with her over the Bluetooth.
“I don’t like this,” Sam asked after she signed off.
“Neither do I,” Callen said. “If the uranium’s at the train yard, and the bad guys get hold of it before we can track them down…”
He let the sentence trail. A short while ago at the Flor Linda hideout, they had watched an SEB bomb dog give its handler a passive alert, instantly sitting down beside him in the room with the lab tables and gun cabinet. Minutes later, a chem-bio sweep team entering with handhelds detected the chemical constituents of smokeless gunpowder… and, worse yet, traces of nitroamine, a high explosive taggant.
It all added up to the people who’d bolted from the place carrying along some awesome firepower.
“It’s four-thirty,” Callen said. “That leaves seven and a half hours till the anniversary of the Armenian genocide is past tense.”
“I hear you,” Sam said, eyes on the road. “We’ve spent two days chasing after Sutton’s murderer. But the main thing is to find out what those Secret Army diehards are planning.”
“The nitroamine worries me,” Callen said. “It tells us they’ve got military grade plastic explosives. Half what it t
akes to build a dirty bomb.”
“The other half being the uranium,” Sam said. “But we’re talking two tons of the stuff. Four thousand pounds. How are they going to do it on the fly? It isn’t like they can pack all that into a suitcase.”
“Or even a car,” Callen said. “I’m betting on a vehicle, though.”
“Say they load it onto a truck… something like an eighteen wheeler,” Sam said. “That could do it.”
Callen didn’t appear convinced. After a minute he sat up straight in his seat.
“Sam,” he said. “Think.”
Sam gave him a look of dawning comprehension.
“A train?” he said.
Callen just regarded him in silence.
Gripping the wheel, Sam jammed his foot down on the gas and sped on toward the city.
21
It was 4:37 P.M. when the Metroline train pulled into Sun Valley roughly on schedule, air hissing through its brake pipes. Barring the unexpected, the train would arrive at Union Station a few minutes after 5:00 P.M.
In the cab car near the operator’s cabin, Tomas looked out his window at the almost empty platform. He counted five people spread out along its length, and a group of three young men in tee shirts and jeans at the front end. One was wearing a red Anaheim Angels baseball cap.
As the train drew to a halt, Tomas stood to take his haversack from the overhead compartment. His companions had done so minutes before, looking as if they were preparing to disembark—Pavel moving down the aisle into the third car, and Yuri into the fifth and last.
Now the doors slid open and he watched the three men in jeans board the train. The one in the baseball cap gave Tomas the slightest of nods as he and the other two took seats down the aisle.
Tomas slipped the pack over one shoulder, knowing he had to move fast.
Only a small fraction of the train’s seats were occupied. In his walk-through after it left the last stop—Newhall Station—he’d counted thirty-two heads: ten men, thirteen women, four children, and the five conductors. Add four of the seven who’d just gotten on and it made for a total of thirty-six people.
NCIS Los Angeles Page 26
