It was a tone and manner of voice that Randy had heard from the General only once before, when they were both active-duty and the General had been a major, overseeing a maintenance unit on Qatar, just before the first Gulf War had kicked off, when men and women were going to fly into harm’s way with the equipment that Randy and his crews were servicing. Randy swallowed. Some heavy shit was going down, no doubt about it.
‘General,’ he said. ‘We won’t let you down.’
The General said, ‘I knew you’d say that, Randy. And I can’t tell you how pleased I am.’
~ * ~
Vladimir looked over at Imad, stunned at what the stupid boy had just done. What had gone through that simpleton’s mind to cause him to insult the American Customs officer like that? The Arab had a silly, triumphant grin on his face, like he had machine-gunned a school bus filled with Jewish children or some such, and Vladimir hissed, ‘What the fuck are you doing, idiot?’
Imad said, ‘I don’t bow to any woman, especially not to a nigger woman like that.’
‘You fool, you’re going to—’
Imad said sharply, ‘I acted like a man! Like you should!’
A woman’s voice, from outside. ‘Come along, fellas. I want to see what’s in that truck, and now.’
Vladimir’s head and hands felt thick as he let himself out of the truck, descending to the asphalt. It was noisy, with the other tractor-trailer trucks rumbling by, heading for the open highway, only meters away. But because of this...creature, this mis-spawned creature from that hellhole of a region that produced only oil and fanatics, all his years of dreaming and planning and all his hopes of revenge were about to come tumbling down.
Imad joined him at the rear of the truck, by the locked rear doors of the shipping container. A small black box with a thin cable secured the rear lock. Vladimir looked at the Customs officer striding over to them, a fierce look on her face, and he bowed and said, ‘My apologies, officer. My young driver has been on the road for a very long time. He didn’t mean what he said.’
The woman was having none of it. ‘Don’t care if he gets down on his knees and kisses my ass. He did what he did and now I’m gonna do what I’m gonna do. The rear of the trailer is getting opened, and after I get the drug-detecting dogs over here to look at every single package in there, you’ll be on your way. Probably by tomorrow.’
Imad stood there, smirking, and Vladimir knew now there was more going on than the boy’s attitude towards women. The boy was challenging him, was trying to see how Vladimir could pull this off, how he would do anything to prostrate and humiliate himself before this black woman so that they could get into the country.
Vladimir took a breath. ‘Again, madam, our apologies. We are behind schedule. Please. This time. Could you let us proceed? If we are late, we do not get paid. We could lose our business. Please, madam.’
The Customs officer shook her head. ‘Not going to happen, pal. Open it up.’
Vladimir’s legs refused to move. He could not believe this was happening. The trips across the dusty plains of Asia, following diesel buses belching thick clouds of soot, working and wheedling and bribing, all his years of schoolwork and study and lab work and Party membership and kissing the right asses of the right overseers - that it should all come to this? So that the great-great-granddaughter of some slave or tribe member from the Dark Continent would thwart his plans? It could not happen!
The woman was now in his face, her eyes flashing. ‘Get a move on, pal. Unless you and your buddy want a full body-cavity search as well. Is that what you’re gunning for?’
‘But. . . the lock, it’s a lock secured by—’
‘Mister, shut the fuck up and open the door. Now.’
The keys. The keys were in Vladimir’s coat pocket. How long could he stall her? How long?
Imad was looking over, still grinning.
Vladimir’s hand went into his coat. Felt the hard metal of the keys.
‘Move,’ the woman said.
The keys were now out of his pocket and in his hand. He moved up to the door.
Imad had disappeared. Where had the little shit gone?
Vladimir’s throat was dry. This could not be happening, could not be happening. He looked over to the woman again, to see if he could once more appeal to her. But there was no possibility of appeal there, not with that anger.
He went up to the lock, the key in his hand, and—
‘Tanya!’
Vladimir turned, as did the woman. An older Customs officer stood there, clipboard under his arm.
The woman’s tone changed instantly. ‘Sir?’
‘What’s the problem?’
‘No problem, sir,’ she said. ‘Just pulling this one out for a random check.’
The older man came over, looked at Vladimir, the truck, and then eyed the square black box under the lock. From his own coat pocket, the older Customs officer pulled out a scanning device, ran it over the black box, and said to Tanya, ‘Cut them loose.’
Her mouth was agape. ‘Sir?’
‘You heard me, cut them loose.’
Vladimir could hardly believe what he was hearing. The older Customs officer said, ‘You haven’t kept up with your circulars, Tanya. Recognize the box?’
‘Sir, I know it’s a SmartSeal, it’s just that—’
‘Right, a SmartSeal. Which means one of your brother or sister officers overseas, either in Tokyo or Singapore or Shanghai, cleared and verified what’s in the container. The scan I just did shows that nothing’s been disturbed since it was loaded last month. So Customs has already taken a look inside. Don’t waste your time or my time. Let ‘em go.’
‘Sir, I just wanted to do a random-’
The older man said, ‘You’ve already surpassed your quota today for randoms, Tanya. Now let’s get a move on, before the fucking Chamber of Commerce people start howling again at how we’re strangling international trade, all right? So they go south and you get back to work.’
The male Customs officer walked away and the younger, female Customs officer stared at him with such contempt and hate. Vladimir knew that he should feel triumphant, but all he felt was cowed. This had been, as the Duke of Wellington had said about Waterloo, a close-run thing.
And where in hell was Imad? He walked over to the driver’s side, saw Imad standing there, grinning, arms crossed, the door to the cab still open.
‘Come along,’ Imad said. ‘Didn’t you hear the man? We’re free to go.’
Vladimir shook his head, still not believing what had happened.
~ * ~
Tanya Mead stood there silently, still furious at what had happened, as the truck containing the young boy and the man with the Eastern European accent drove away. The young snot looked triumphant, the older guy looked like the two of them had just gotten away with murder.
Sure, she had gone over quota, but so what? Something was still hinky about those two and she hadn’t liked their attitude, even before the little dark-skinned one had called her a nigger. And then there was her supervisor, Herbert Corner, known to everyone - except himself, of course - as Captain Commerce. He was a regional office hack who had been demoted and sent down because of some indiscretion - the latest rumor had him surfing for Internet porn during his lunch hour - and his single goal was to keep the wait times down, the searches to the minimum, and the business concerns in Washington State and elsewhere happy.
Some damn attitude, Tanya thought.
She also thought about her heroine, Diana Dean, a Customs officer on duty years ago, back on- December 14, 1999. Dean had stopped a guy coming in on the Vancouver ferry, to Port Angeles. Something about the guy had made her look twice at him and his car, and when Dean went to talk to the character - later found to be a member of al-Qaeda - the little fuck had fled, before being tackled to the ground. And in his rental car? In the trunk, they found 130 pounds of plastic explosives, two 22-ounce plastic bottles full of nitro-glycol, and a map of LAX, Los Angeles International A
irport. That had been going to be al-Qaeda’s contribution to the millennium festivities on December 31 - blowing up the airport at Los Angeles. And that plot had been stopped dead in its tracks. Not because of the FBI or CIA or NSA. Not because of some whizbang satellite in orbit, snooping on cellphone conversations and e-mail messages. And not because of some multibillion-dollar agency.
No, the airport had been saved from destruction and people who would’ve been killed had lived because some sharp Customs officer had been doing her job.
Just like me, Tanya thought. Just like me.
Except for goddamn Captain Commerce.
She watched as the suspect truck made its way to the clear area, on its way into the United States. She took out a small memo pad and wrote down a description of the truck, its two occupants, and the British Columbia license plate number.
Tanya Mead had an idea that she would hear about this truck again.
~ * ~
As the truck crossed into the United States, photo equipment hidden in light poles, highway signs and ornamental planters at this station and so many other border crossings continued their quiet work, documenting every male and female who passed through into a frightened and increasingly paranoid nation.
~ * ~
Imad laughed as they made their way onto the American Interstate 5, heading south. Vladimir felt his hands shake, his arms quiver. How in the name of God had they made it through...?
His voice was low and even. ‘What were you doing back there?’
Imad laughed again, pounding the steering wheel with his fist. ‘I was putting that bitch in her place. Did you see it? I put that bitch right in her place. And her boss came over and backed me up. Oh, the joy, it was so funny!’
Vladimir said, ‘You realize what you did back there? You almost compromised everything. Everything! And all for your stupid boy ego!’
Imad shifted gears as the truck grumbled its way south. He said, ‘You’re overreacting.’
‘Overreacting! That Customs officer was only moments away from having me open that door. And what do you think would have happened after that? Hmm? After she went through the toys and the dolls and the soccer balls, and found the compartment with those canisters. What then?’
Imad turned, grinning. ‘It wasn’t going to happen. You had that SmartSeal there, just like the older man said. The container had already been checked overseas. Right?’
‘That’s not the point.’
‘Ah, but it is a point, my friend. You see, I never knew about the SmartSeal. You never told me. Care to tell me now?’
Vladimir looked around him as he entered America for the second time in less than a week. He said, ‘Part of the arrangement to ease Customs bottlenecks after 9/11. The United States set up overseas Customs offices. They would inspect containers at the point of origin. Seal the doors with an electronic lock and tracing device. Container coming into the United States didn’t have to be reinspected. I had this container inspected a month ago.’
‘Some inspection. How did this happen, without your mystery canisters being discovered?’
‘A hefty bribe to a Customs officer suffering through an opium addiction will work wonders.’
‘But suppose he changed his mind afterwards? Decided to confess all?’
Vladimir said, ‘A boating accident took care of that.’
‘And you didn’t tell me this earlier? About the SmartSeal and the bribed Customs officer? Why?’
‘Because...because I didn’t think you needed to know, that’s why. You just needed to drive. That’s all. Which doesn’t excuse a thing. You could have still jeopardized everything. Suppose that woman’s boss had not come over right then. What would you have done?’
‘Taken care of everything, that’s what.’
‘And how would you have performed this miracle?’
Imad was still smirking as they made their way south. He reached under the seat, pulled out a leather case, tossed it on the seat between them. Vladimir picked up the case, unzippered it, and looked inside. A semi-automatic pistol was in there. Holy shit.
He zippered the bag shut and threw it across the cab, where it bounced off the windshield.
‘Hey!’ Imad protested. ‘What the fuck is your problem?’
‘The problem is that you smuggled a pistol into Canada and then resmuggled it into the United States, you stupid shit - that’s what the problem is.’
‘Didn’t get caught, did I?’
Vladimir felt his breathing quicken. ‘Stupid fool. Worthless pile of shit.’
Imad said, ‘Well, I had a plan, which is more than you had. Shoot that black woman between the eyes and then roll across into the highway. Who could have stopped us?’
Vladimir knew that he could no longer have a reasonable conversation with the boy. He folded his arms, looked out at the Washington landscape. A kilometer or two passed.
‘Well?’ Imad demanded. ‘Why don’t you answer me?’
Vladimir took a breath. ‘Imad, why didn’t you tell me about that? About having a pistol with you?’
Another bout of laughter from the boy. ‘Maybe it’s because I didn’t think you needed to know. Hah. How does that sound?’
No reply. The truck and its cargo continued to speed its way into America.
~ * ~
Twenty miles east of the US Customs crossing station, Dan Umber sat in front of his computer terminal, trying to stifle a yawn as he came close to the end of his shift. He worked for the Department of Homeland Security, and his office was in the basement of an anonymous glass and steel cube that had sprouted up around Redmond after Bill Gates started making some serious change.
All around him in the dimly lit room were waist-high cubicle walls and terminals, just like the one he was sitting in front of. In front of him on the large plasma screen was a collection of faces - brown, white, yellow, red and every color in between, and male and female and a whole bunch of ‘I’m-not-really-sure’.
Another yawn. The photos were coming in at a rapid pace from the Customs station just up the coast. Must be having a busy day there, for Dan was already over quota, and it might mean a chunk of overtime, if it played right. Which was not a problem, because he had his eye on a new WaveRider, and the extra cash would be just fine.
Face, face, face. Dan’s job was to set them in some sort of order, following a template of ethnic appearance and background - hello, racial profiling - and then feed it along another chain of command until the photos, using the latest facial-matching software, were compared with the CIA, FBI and everybody else’s watch-list of terrorists. Or, as some memos primly put it, ‘persons of interest’.
Another sip of coffee. Most of the photos were straight-on head shots, but sometimes you had to deal with other types as well. Like those two. He clicked on the mouse, froze the program. Two guys standing outside, arguing, it looked like, with a female Customs officer. The head shots weren’t so bad, but he had seen better. One guy was white, the other dark-skinned. Maybe Mediterranean. Hell, maybe Caribbean. Who knew?
Dan clicked the mouse one more time, as the program went on its merry way. He finished off the coffee. Just another day, he thought, in the front line against terrorism.
~ * ~
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Brian Doyle sat in his room at a Sheraton Hotel in Memphis, staring at the phone. Another in a series of lousy phone calls with the growing young boy who was his son, and who still couldn’t understand why dad couldn’t do a better job of being around. Good question, boy, and time to get somebody to answer it for you.
He got up and left the room. It was late at night: he didn’t know the particular hour and he didn’t particularly care. The hotel was nice, with an outdoor cafe covered with canvas awnings and an outdoor pool, but he didn’t give a shit about that stuff right now. He strolled down the hallway until he found the door he was looking for, and he gave it a good pounding.
No answer.
He resumed the hammering on the door.
‘Hey, will you shut the fuck up down there?’ he called out.
Brian turned and glared at the guy. The guy rubbed at his face, muttered something, and went back into his room. Brian raised his hand again and then the door opened. Adrianna was there, yawning, wearing a white terrycloth robe.
‘Brian ... what is—’
He pushed by her and went into her room. ‘We’ve got to talk now, princess, and I mean now.’
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