Behind Wladislaw, Joe rolled his eyes. It wasnt the first time.
“Well, that Subaru came in on one of those ships. So did the gas to power it. So did the parts and oil your dealer uses to service it. Got snow tires?
“Yup, Kyle said. Wladislaw was so delighted with his game that Kyle didnt have the heart to shut him down. “All came through this port, did it?
Wladislaw beamed at him the way a teacher smiled at a promising pupil. “Yes, it did. The raisins in your oatmeal, the oatmeal, the bowl you eat it out of, and the spoon you eat it with. Wladislaw patted the aerial photograph proudly. “All through the port of Anchorage. Apples to zinc, straight from the port to your pantry shelves.
Kyle looked toward the windows, at the ice choking the narrow neck of Knik Arm between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie. “Has the port ever been shut down?
Wladislaw was affronted at the very idea. “The port of Anchorage has never been closed to cargo. Ever.
“However Joe said.
Wladislaw seemed to wilt a little, and cast Joe a look that could only be described as reproachful. “Well, yes, now and then when the ice is thick, it has been closed, but only to single-hulled petroleum vessels.
“We issue ice rules of the road every year, Joe told Kyle.
Kyle nodded thoughtfully. “Lot of silt washes down the Arm from the Knik Glacier annually.
Eager to redeem himself in the FBIs eyes, Wladislaw said promptly, “We dredge a million cubic yards per year out of the Knik. We maintain a depth of minus thirty-five feet at mean low tide.
“The dredge only works in the summertime, of course, Joe said.
“May to October, Wladislaw said.
Kyle nodded again. “Any other traffic?
“Bulk cement ships, from China or Korea, also May through October. And, of course, a lot of ships make their maiden voyages to Anchorage, to see how the new ship handles in our weather and tides. We had two big cruise ships last summer, and a fresh-off-the-ways petroleum tanker. Double-hulled, too!
“Quite the operation, Kyle said, congratulatory. “Thanks, Greg. Youve been a lot of help.
Back in the car, Kyle said, “Whats the port got in the way of security, Joe?
Joe started the car and let it idle, turning up the heater. “Right now, nothing. Next April, the new MSST will be in place and operational.
Kyle thought back. “The Marine Safety and Security Team.
“Got it in one. A one-hundred man unit trained and equipped to handle everything from explosives to drug and migrant interdiction. Itll have dive teams, K-9 teams, and six boats.
Kyle nodded. “This is the team you told us about at the last JTTF meeting.
“Yeah Joe said.
“But not deployed until April.
“Okay, Kyle, whats going on? You knew most of this stuff before.
“A refresher course never hurts.
Joe raised a skeptical eyebrow.
“I got a heads-up about possible terrorist activity, maybe involving marine shipping, Kyle said.
“And you think Anchorage might be a target?
The disbelief in his voice was plain to read. “You never have?
Joe shrugged. “I heard what your buddy Hugh said last October, same as everyone else, Kyle, but come on. Anchorage?
“You got family in Alaska, Joe?
“No, Joe said. “Im divorced, no kids, parents live in Michigan along with about a billion other relatives. All of whom are among the reasons why I moved to Alaska.
“I do have family here, Kyle said. “And in Seldovia, and a lot of friends in Anchorage.
“I get that, Kyle, but its not like we wouldnt notice if someone sailed a destroyer up the inlet and parked it at the dock.
“It doesnt have to be a warship; all it has to be is a cargo ship with the wrong cargo on board. Bombs arent as big as they used to be. Have you watched the news from Iraq lately?
Joe wasnt convinced. “Still, he said.
Many Alaskans shared this odd sense of invulnerability. Partly it was an inferiority complex, in that most Americans, informed by weather maps on the television news, thought Alaska was a small island off the coast of southern California. Partly it was location, twenty-seven hundred miles northwest of and an hour behind Seattle, a place where the polls were still open when the loser in a presidential election was giving his concession speech. Ninety percent of it was owned by the federal government in the form of national forests and parks and wildlife refuges. It was also a bank of raw materials, timber, fish, and minerals upon which the nation could draw when needed and when such a draw was justified by the current price of the commodity. There were only six hundred thousand people in the state and it returned only three electoral votes. As a result Alaskans were defensive and pugnacious in their attitude toward the rest of the nation. “We dont give a damn how they do it Outside, a local bumper sticker said.
But they did. They were acutely aware of their unimportance in the national scheme of things, and Joe was no different than any other Alaskan. It made it difficult for Kyle to mount a convincing argument that a terrorist could consider Alaska a target worthy of his attentions.
Joe looked at his watch. “If thats all, Ive got to be somewhere.
And Joe, evidently, remained unconvinced. Kyle, carrying the image of Lilah and the kids headed down the Seward Highway at the back of his mind, yielded to Joes skepticism, at least for the moment. “Blonde, brunette, or redhead?
Joe grinned. “Want me to ask her if shes got a friend?
“Ill have you know Im a happily married man.
Joe held his hands up, palms out. “Just asking. You never felt the urge?
Kyle thought of Eve and said virtuously, “Never.
“Yeah, Joe said, “right.
JANUARY
EN ROUTE TO DUTCH HARBOR
HUGH HELD ON TO the back of the pilots seat, peering through the port-side window at lower Kachemak Bay passing beneath their left wing. “I was born in Seldovia, he said, raising his voice to be heard over the droning of the engines.
“That a fact, the pilot said incuriously.
Nobody else in the five-person flight crew seemed interested, either, so Hugh retreated to the padded bench that ran across the rear of the flight deck. From there he caught only the merest flash of white glacial rivers between ragged tips of mountains that formed the southeastern edge of the bay he had once called home. That was home to them all.
Theyd been only children, he, Kyle, and Sara, one of the many reasons they had banded together almost from birth and by far the least important. Their fathers were fishermen, their mothers a housewife, the city librarian, and a nurse, respectively. Their fathers had fished king crab in the heyday of king crab, from the late sixties, when Lowell Wakefields at first idiotic and then visionary idea of creating a market for a brand-new gourmet shellfish came to fruition. All three men, owners and operators of their own crabbers, had done very well indeed, right up until the crash of the king crab stocks in the Bering Sea in the early eighties, and by then theyd made their pile. They were sorry, of course, for the failure of the local canneries around Kachemak Bay, exacerbated and accelerated by the urban renewal following the 1964 Great Alaskan Earthquake. Hugh knew for a fact that the city library would have been out of business were it not for the generous financial support of his father, but those who no longer have to worry about the rent money tend to tune out the woes of their neighbors.
That was something else that set Hugh, Sara, and Kyle apart, and the proximate cause of friction between the three of them and their classmates, the children of those lessfortunate? hardworking? adroit in their political affiliations? pick onethan their parents had been. School in Seldovia was not joy unconfined. Hugh remembered Saras tenth birthday party. The sight of Sara, struggling to hold back tears, surrounded by balloons and games and little paper bags full of candies and toys for prizes for guests who never came was one of the more vivid memories of that time.
When his father didnt have him
out on the boat beating ice, anyway. Hugh hated everything about fishing, the endless hours, the numbing cold, the constant heaving of the deck. He suffered from chronic seasickness, which didnt endear him to his father. No one had ever been happier than Hugh when the king crab stocks crashed at pretty much the very moment he graduated from high school; it meant he wasnt going to have to carry on the family business at the helm of the Mae R. He went to college instead, in search of a warmer, drier job.
His gift for languages had brought him to his present employment. Hed been recruited right out of Harvard, received his masters in Russian studies from Georgetown and his doctorate in Asian studies from Princeton while on the job. His mother lost no opportunity to brag about his admission to Harvard, but she bored everyone first in Seldovia and then in Wailea over her sons graduation from Princeton.
Hed never felt all that Ivy League. Hed spent his childhood in Seldovia chafing beneath the need to get out and see with his own eyes that the rest of the world was really there. He had wanted an education that would get him a job that had him traveling all over that world.
His face stretched into a grim smile. Be careful what you wish for.
They landed in Dutch Harbor two hours after the Sojourner Truth departed the dock. Hugh swore a lot as the flight crew waited him out placidly. When he ran out of breath he turned to the pilot. “Anything you need in St. Paul?
The pilot regarded him for a moment with a meditative expression. “No, but they may need something from Dutch.
“Like todays paper, the copilot chimed in. He didnt care where Hugh was going so long as it got him more hours in his logbook.
Hugh looked at the pilot, who was not immune to the siren song of more hours, either. He looked from Hugh to the copilot and said, “Lets top off the tanks.
JANUARY
EAST OF AGATTU, IN THE ALEUTIAN ISLANDS
THE INSIDE OF THE container smelled like a prison sewer. In spite of the deliberately reduced diet, both chemical toilets were ready to overflow. The floor was slippery with vomit, piss, and shit, and last night Jones had given the order for the stove to be disconnected for fear that the open flame might actually ignite the air. Pirates, mercenaries, and terrorists alike had been reduced to a state of speechless misery.
The cold air whistling in through the cracks and the air holes and the flapping canvas roof was the only thing that made the journey endurable. Chen Ming, Fangs second in command and suffering from the cold even more than his boss, stayed in his hammock, cocooned inside his sleeping bag with only his nose exposed. Jones was not forthcoming with information, but with the degree of roll they were experiencing Chen was sure they were on the deck of their freighter, which meant they were probably on an older vessel, possibly a tramp freighter.
He wasnt sure if it was the fourth day or the fifth day of the voyage when Jones pulled out the satellite phone and dialed a number. Chen watched through the forest of swaying hammocks as Jones spoke in Korean, a language Chen recognized but did not speak himself.
He watched Jones listen, speak a few more words, and hang up. He wondered why Smith and Jones hadnt just brought walkie-talkies, which would have been cheaper and just as effective on five hundred fifty feet of ship, but Jones stowed the phone and raised his voice to speak to the men. “It is time. Arm yourselves.
Almost before he finished speaking men began to roll out of hammocks and drop to the floor, indifferent to the muck they stepped in. Elbows were thrown in the rush to get to their gear but no one took it personally. They were all professionals, this wasnt their first or even their tenth op, and there was the added bonus that to go to work they had first to get out of the container.
Chen was interested in seeing how Jones was going to accomplish that, and was impressed in spite of himself at Joness combination of imagination and finesse. He used four very small amounts of plastic explosive slapped to the four corners of the doors, with a remote detonator triggered while the men crouched behind the cargo lashed between them and the doors. The resulting explosions were four loud pops barely distinguishable from each other and completely drowned out by the noise of the ships engine and the rush and plunge of water against the hull. All four hinges were destroyed and the two doors, still locked and sealed, fell outward as one unit, the top edges landing on the next container over. The doors separated a little down the middle, twisting, but they had to kick the bottom half of the left door free before they could climb out and shinny down the two containers stacked below them to the deck.
It was tricky because the ship was experiencing a roll of about five degrees. The prevailing wind appeared to be coming out of the southeast, Chen guessed at around twenty-five to thirty knots, and it was cold enough that ice was beginning to form on the outsides of the forty-foot containers stacked three deep on the deck. He felt a sudden desire to get to the bridge immediately for a look at the barometer.
But this was Joness show; Chen was just the hired help. He called up the specs of the vessel in his head. She was an aging catcher-processor three hundred forty feet long, with a crew of a hundred twenty-five. Theyd smuggled themselves on board in an empty container, one of a dozen that the ships crew was confidently expecting to fill with filets of Bering Sea pollock and Pacific cod.
Fifteen men going up against a hundred twenty-five might seem like bad odds, unless the fifteen were armed as well as Smith and Joness were. Chen checked the magazine of his AK-104, the smaller, lighter, faster version of that classic assault rifle that won the Vietnam War, and, as always, felt reassured. Thirty rounds in the hands of someone who knew where to put them were always capable of calming hysterical crowds.
“Lets go, Jones said, and they filed out behind him into a dark, dank hold that smelled of salt air, fish, and rust.
JANUARY
ANCHORAGE
“IFS YOUR WIFE ON line one.
“Thanks, Eve. Kyle picked up the phone. “Hey, baby.
“Hey. Just wanted to check in.
“You all settled?
“Weve got rooms on the top floor overlooking the bay for one quarter the summer rate. One has a small kitchen, so we dont have to eat out unless we want to.
“How are the kids?
“A little restless. I took them to the SeaLife Center today. There were a bunch of kids there from the local school, and I talked their teacher into taking Gloria and Eli along on the tour.
“Lilah?
“How much longer are we going to have to stay down here, Kyle?
“A few days, Kyle said.
“When are you coming down?
He took a deep breath. “Im not coming down, Lilah.
“But you said
“I know what I said.
“Kyle
“I cant, Lilah. I have to stay here. Im the head of the task force. If Hughs right, if somethings going to happen, I have to be here to work it.
There was another silence. When she spoke again her anger was obvious. “When this is over, you and I are going to have a conversation. He winced. “I know.
IN SEWARD, LILAH HUNG up without saying goodbye and stood for a moment, staring unseeingly out at the wind-whipped surface of Resurrection Bay. Behind her, Gloria was reading Green Eggs and Ham to Eli, hitting hard on the last word in each line so her little brother would get that it was written in rhyme. He was making those deep, rich chuckles that only seem to come from five-year-olds.
If it hadnt been for Gloria and Eli, Lilah would still be in Anchorage. Shed be at work, maybe involved in whatever it was that had Kyle so spooked. Here there was nothing to do but tick down one interminable hour after another.
“The hell with it. She found the phone book, looked up a number, and dialed.
“Kenai Fjord Tours.
“Hi. Do you guys do any boat rides at this time of year?
JANUARY
BERING SEA, MARITIME BOUNDARY LINE
ON BOARD THE SUNRISE WARRIOR
ARE WE THERE YET?“ Vivienne Kincaid said. Dylan Doyle grabbed
for a handhold when the Sunrise Warrior heeled to port as they ascended the weather side of the swell. We are there, Vivienne,“ he said with a faint hint of County Cork in his accent, but be damned if I know where there is.“
“Do my ears deceive me? Youve finally found a stretch of water that has the North Sea beat?
Doyle gave a snort of laughter. “It might be that Im wishing I was on my way to Foinaven. The ship rolled over to starboard and skidded down the opposite side of the swell into the trough. Heaving green seas gave way only to dense ice fog in every direction. Vivienne was hovering over the radar, attention fixed on targets.
“Theyre icebergs, a new voice said at her shoulder.
She looked around to see that Kevin had arrived on the bridge.
“I dont think so, she said.
“Its ice, and were drifting into it.
“There are two echoes with the same course and doing the same eleven knots. Of course they are ships. Not to mention which, the last reports have the ice pack stuck at fifty-nine degrees.
Kevins lips tightened. Doyle grinned at him, which didnt help.
Footsteps sounded and Ernie Hart and Darryl Hickey tumbled into the room. Jack Lestenkof, Concetta Dalilak, and Evelyn Caudle were right behind them. They were dressed in orange jumpsuits, hard hats, and their Deep Sea Defender vests. “We got em? Jack said. “Vivienne? We got em?
Vivienne looked at Doyle. “Full steam ahead.
Everyone whooped except Kevin, although he looked less sullen than he had a moment before. Doyle worked the controls, and the engines responded with an eager roar. They closed to within half a mile of the closest echo, and the outline of another ship materialized out of the fog.
“And what to our wondering eyes should appear, Vivienne said. She was tempted to stick her tongue out at Kevin, but resisted.
“Hello, Marinochka, Doyle said.
“Oh, shit, someone else said.
In one of those rapid Arctic shifts the weather had decided enough with the fog and the snow and the ceiling was rising rapidly, all the better to see the scene before them. Everything was still green and gray, sky, water, everything except for the rich red of the blood draining from the carcass of the little narwhal tangled in the long net the catcher-processor was at present winching in.
Stabenow, Dana - Blindfold Game (v1 Page 15
