by Ken Hansen
Frickin’ Dracoratio had not resurfaced despite every resource the U.S. had expended looking for him. Was he now dead somewhere or still working the nukes? Was he the real Pardus? It probably didn’t matter, because they could not have spent more resources searching for him if he were the reincarnation of Adolph Hitler with a couple of mini nukes in his back pocket. Hell, maybe he is.
What about Sonatina? He never had anything tangible on her. She just seemed too damn right too damn often to be fully trusted. But she had never really said anything requiring some secret knowledge, had she? He had ignored her these last few weeks, telling his assistant to report that he was “indisposed” and would “return the call at the first opportunity,” but “it might be awhile.” Hopefully, she just figured he was in deep cover or something. If he slipped and she found out he believed a nuke was heading for New York and she did have some connection to Pardus, then what? Then they switch the plan and we never catch the bastards. But I won’t let the CIA torture her. Would he still love her if she were his worst enemy? There should have been an obvious answer, and yet…
One day last week, he had begun obsessing about her. She was still in Rome. Damn, he had thought, that was one of the possible targets. If it were live, would they set it off when the Coast Guard found the nuke bound for New York? Patismio had confided that the Carabinieri had made no further progress with Armondo Fine and were now at wits end on where to look next. He had stopped and picked up his phone and stared at her name in his contact’s list, but he simply could not bring himself to hit the phone icon. Maybe a text? Why not? He could craft it without risking giving up anything with his tone. He had typed the message:
Hey - sorry I know its been awhile. Really miss you. Cant talk now. But want to warn you - leave Rome at once. Hell - leave Italy and go on vacation. Stay away until I tell you otherwise.
The text was long, but he had only one chance. This could not turn into a long discussion string. He hit send.
A few minutes later he saw Sonatina’s reply: “OK, will come see you. Where r u? Love u.”
He had not known how to answer that. If he had said he was in New York, then she would have wondered why he had not called. Worse, if Pardus had learned he was in New York, then he might think they were not taking the DC threat seriously. He typed a response and sent it: “Cant say. But stay away from US—may be just as deadly.”
“Had a bad dream about ur friend. Beware. Hey - U still love me?”
Ur friend? Maybe she had not known Anwari and Mayer were dead. Then there had been the love thing. Huxley had begun typing into his cell and stopped. He had reached for the delete button and stopped again. Finally, he had shaken his head and hit send: “Like a Leopard loves his spots.”
It took a few minutes, but the response had come: “Im no leopard. U?”
He had typed: “Maybe we should go on a safari together.”
She had responded with only a happy, excited emoji.
He also had spent more time studying the last stanza of the poem Pardus had written for him. Pardus had promised Anwari that the entire poem revealed the location of the bomb “and more.” What other secrets did the last stanza hold? He pulled it up again:
On truth lies yet obscured thy fathers’ end.
To myths our hearts do reach and then depend.
We seek our consolation with a friend.
Remember now the Maine and then ascend.
To know his fate you must to hell descend.
What could this mean other than the obvious personal references to his father descending into hell? Why would Pardus know or care about what had happened to his father?
When the Jayhawk jumped with the turbulence, it tickled Huxley’s belly and brought him back to the current mission. He said into the intercom, “ETA to the Finis Lineae, Lieutenant?”
“Five minutes.”
“How far out from New York is she?”
“Nearly 20 nautical miles. Our cutter, the Egeria, forced the Finis Lineae to halt just a few minutes after they got the alert.”
“They aboard yet?”
“Waiting for reinforcements. Could have a well-armed crew given the expected cargo. Navy SEALs will arrive about the time we do. The Reliant should arrive about the time we get there. Her bird will be armed in the air. We’ll land on her pad and drop you, then join the air patrol. You can check out the cargo after the SEALs do their thing.”
Huxley nodded. “You think we’ll need ‘em—the SEALs?”
“Not likely. Word from Egeria is that the master of the Finis Lineae has agreed by radio to comply. Says he doesn’t understand what this is about. Sounds sincere. SEALs will handle the boarding to make sure.
Huxley nodded. “Sounds like a plan. We got air cover?”
“Roger. We have coordination as planned.” He tapped on a screen showing several concentric circles over a map with little diamonds moving here and there. Each little diamond was accompanied by a plus or minus sign, a two or three digit number, and a line in front of the direction of the movement of the diamond. The Lieutenant pointed to the diamonds with +150 and +180 ahead of their position. “Heavy movers are already above the target.” He pointed to the diamonds to the southeast that were plus or minus 001 or 002. “Whirlies on the way.”
Coordination—such a nice, positive, friendly word: Navy and Air Force jets ready to chip in a few bombs and destroy this vessel at sea if need be along with Army Apache helicopters available to stick a quick missile up the butt of any perceived threat. Of course, any of those coordinated resources might kill Huxley, the SEALs and the Coast Guard crews as well, but who is going to cry about a few friendlies when a nuclear bomb is at stake? He wouldn’t. He just hoped nobody had a quick trigger finger. If Pardus had some rocket attached to that thing and set it off out here, the jets might even have a chance to shoot it down before it got anywhere. Always good to have resources. Coordinated resources.
A few minutes later, the Lieutenant nodded to the front. “There she is.”
Huxley saw the huge Finis Lineae ahead carrying hundreds of intermodal containers stacked five to six deep along her deck, the hull swaying slightly with the waves of the ocean, the USCGC Egeria before her bow, the Reliant approaching to her port side. The ships’ two CG Jayhawks were already in the air, ready to deploy their M240J machine guns at anyone thinking of firing a shot from the deck of the container ship.
As they landed the Jayhawk on the Reliant, the Apaches arrived and pointed their guns and missiles at the bridge castle while hovering a few hundred yards to the side. About 20 men stood on the top of the bridge castle, their hands locked behind their heads. Several SEALs rappelled down lines from two Sea Hawk helicopters to containers at two corners of the ship. They immediately crouched and took aim at the bridge castle. Another Sea Hawk moved above the bridge castle, the wind from its rotor rippling the uniforms of the Finis Lineae’s seamen. Four SEALs rappelled to the bridge castle in seconds, their rifles pointing at the twenty or so crewmen as the leader motioned to them to lie down on steel grate top deck of the bridge castle. Another Sea Hawk moved to the bow of the giant ship and ten SEALs dropped to the surface of the ship. They began moving down the long outside aisles of the ship toward the stern, carefully checking each aisle between containers for any targets.
With the Finis Lineae substantially secure ten minutes later, Huxley came aboard and signaled to the Coast Guard captain. The two Coast Guard ships now began to slowly pass down either side of the ship, the UNGARD device sending signals between them, trying to pinpoint the location of the target container. When he reached the bridge, Huxley found the master of the Finis Lineae, his hands already pinned behind his back with high-strength straps. Beads of sweat ran down the captain’s cheeks, flowing around and through hyper-wide-open eyes that kept darting between Huxley and the M-16 rifles pointing at his head. “You speak English?” Huxley asked calmly.
“Si. A little.”
Huxley switched to Italian. “Do you know why
we have boarded you?”
The master shook his head slowly and deliberately. “I have been boarded before for inspections. This is different? What have we done?”
“We are looking for a particular cargo aboard your ship that might have been placed by some terrorists. Are you carrying anything unusual?”
The master shook his head slowly but deliberately several times. “Standard voyage. Garabundi, chief mate, handles cargo details.”
Without much trouble, Huxley found Garabundi. He was calmer, more talkative, but no more helpful. They searched the manifest. Nothing looked out of place, but they wouldn’t list “nuclear weapons” on the manifest, would they? They reviewed the inspection certificates from the U.S. CBP for each port under the CSI initiative. All of the inspections seemed in order. Either Rosenthal’s device was fooling the gamma ray detectors or an American inspector in one of the ports had been compromised somewhere. Could be both.
Huxley stared back at the master. “Any of your crew new to the ship?”
“Sì, due. But they have been vetted.”
“Show me.”
The master walked out of the bridge toward the men lying face forward on the steel grating, their hands clipped behind their backs. He nudged one with his foot and the man looked up. Huxley nodded to a nearby SEAL, who picked the man up and led him back to the bridge for questioning. As Huxley turned back to the line of men, he saw one on the far side scrambling to the edge of the bridge castle deck. “Stop!” yelled a nearby SEAL, pointing his weapon at the man’s head from ten feet away. The man ignored him and slid under the railing head first off the bridge castle, his arms still tied behind his back. A clang sounded from the metal deck six stories down. Huxley peered over the railing at the mess below, the man’s head looking much like a squashed watermelon, a pool of dark red splattered about. They would get nothing more from this terrorist, but his desperate suicide confirmed a nuke was probably aboard. After interrogating the other rookie seaman for a few minutes, Huxley was quickly convinced the man new nothing.
A voice in Huxley’s ear piece said, “Mr. Huxley, we think we have found it—at least the aisle—two to the fore of the bridge tower. Narrowing the vector now to see if we can get a distance between the cutters.”
Huxley shot back, “Roger that. We’ll be there in a few minutes.” He approached the chief mate. “You got the keys to these containers?”
“No keys. I have passwords for the few that are locked. In the safe.”
A minute later, Huxley had the password manifest in his hand—a spreadsheet with container numbers in one column and eight digit codes in the other. “Any other security?”
The chief mate responded, “If the contents are valuable enough, they use tomographic motion detectors that trigger alarms we see on the bridge electronically.”
“Tomographic?”
“Si. Node to node radio signals. Something moves in them, we know.”
“Which containers have security in the second aisle to the fore from here?”
The chief mate nodded to a security panel in the center of the bridge. “Hit that second button and the schematic lights up the security net. Those with green have tomographic. When they go red, there is motion and a siren sounds. The container has its own siren as well. Container numbers are identified on the schematic.”
Huxley looked at the schematic and focused on aisle two, then shifted to the password manifest. Five containers in aisle two, each with locks.
The Coast Guard Captain spoke to Huxley through his intercom, “Mr. Huxley, looks like we have a fix. Somewhere within a twenty-foot radius of the center of aisle two, likely the top container or two.”
Huxley looked at the security schematic. At the center on top, container AG93728B was locked and incorporated the tomographic motion detection system. He pointed to it. “Where’s this headed?”
The first mate looked at a small code on the schematic next to the container. “Red Hook. First stop. That is why it is on top.”
“Red Hook?”
“Container port in Brooklyn, no more than a mile across the East River to Manhattan.”
“That’s gotta be it.” Huxley nodded and the four-man SEAL team escort followed him out of the bridge. With the help of a few of the Navy helicopters, they made their way to top of the container mountain near aisle two. Four other SEALs joined them as they peered down the six-story canyon between containers. With container AG93728B standing across the canyon just below them, Huxley looked at the SEAL commander and spoke softly, “How you want to do this? Could be hostiles inside waiting for us to open the door.”
The SEAL commander nodded. “We could drill and fill, but that might alert them if they don’t know anything yet.
“Drill and fill?”
“Drill a hole and fill the thing with gas to incapacitate them. They might hear the drill, though.”
Huxley shook his head. “If they do, they might detonate the device. Can’t take that chance.”
“But they must know the boat has been stopped.”
“Could be a routine inspection as far as they know.”
“Alright, assuming the thing unlocks, we open and swing in ready to pop them. Otherwise, we’ll use detcord.”
Huxley nodded. He handed the code to the commander. The SEALs hooked up some ropes around the tops of the nearby containers, carefully avoiding container AG93728B. After they all signaled they were ready, one SEAL pressed the code into the lock, and quickly opened the door. A piercing alarm came out of the container. Almost simultaneously, two SEALs swung into the opening, their weapons ready to fire. Two others followed immediately. Huxley tensed up, waiting to hear shots fired, but nothing came.
Huxley’s earpiece rang out. “Clear. We have the packages but no tangos. All clear.”
Huxley sighed. “Any launcher, actuator, anything counting down?”
“Negative. Ticker might be hidden. Weird wiry liquid contraption around them, though, and a small control panel. Nothing counting down.”
“Alright, I’m coming down.” A nearby SEAL threw him a rope, and he swung into the poorly lit container. He smiled when he saw the two warheads looking exactly like the ones that had disappeared from Pakistan. At least what he could see of them. They were surrounded with a strange wire and plastic-like mesh filled with an odd clear viscous liquid. The whole contraption was connected to a control panel glowing with various green and amber diodes.
“Good work, men,” Huxley said as he walked toward the SEAL team, but something was wrong. Their eyes narrowed, and they began crouching down and raising their rifles in his direction. They moved quickly to each side and fired several rounds as he spun around.
“Down, Huxley!” yelled the commander. More small arms fire screamed from behind Huxley as he fell on his back to the steel floor of the container. He heard a loud explosion well to his rear and then silence. “Any tangos left?” the commander asked.
“Moving in now to confirm.”
Huxley raised his head just in time to see two SEALs entering the container opposite, its door now open, smoke still billowing out. A few seconds later he heard, “All clear. Two tangos neutralized. No packages here.”
Huxley looked back at the warheads. They were still intact. He moved closer and found their serial numbers beneath Rosenthal’s handiwork, snapping a few pictures to send to Blount. He brought up the notes in his phone. The serial numbers matched the warheads stolen from Pakistan. Both of them. Rome would be safe as well. Sonatina… He fell to his knees, looked up and laughed, shaking his fists in the air. It was finally over.
Chapter 91
A few hours later, Huxley was gathering his things in his makeshift Coast Guard office on Staten Island when a familiar old face peeked around the door. “Well, well, it looks like you were right, Hux.” Deputy Under Secretary Blount walked over, slapped him on the back and shook his hand. “NNSA gave us a preliminary confirmation. The warheads are the same ones that were stolen from Pakistan—well, except f
or all those wires and plastic and liquid shit that surrounded them. That was the Israeli chemist’s work. His fingerprints were still on the control device.”
Huxley smiled gently and nodded.
“Stop being so humble you son of a bitch. It’s your doing. Outstanding work, Huxley! When we get back to DC, we’ll have a party and toast a few to the savior of the world—or at least New York. Oh, and I’m guessing there might be a presidential or congressional medal in this for you. You are a goddamned hero, Hux, a goddamned hero. Maybe we should hold a ticker-tape parade for you or something.”
Huxley grinned. “Thanks. You know you can shovel bullshit with the best of ‘em. Parade—hell, you know damn well none of this will ever go public. You and I will just have to celebrate with a beer as always. Tonight?”
“No can do, unless you’re staying here. I need to calm down the New York folks before some crazy fake news story about nukes on board makes them all paranoid.”
Huxley chuckled. “A Guard chopper will take me back in a few minutes. Three long weeks here.”
“Yeah, well, when I get back in a few days, the President is going to want to thank you and me in person. Probably not over a beer, though.” The burly man laughed loud and hard.
Huxley nodded with pride, but caught himself glowing too warm in the praise. His smile turned sideways. “The real heroes are Anwari and Jinnah. They died for this.”
Blount nodded slowly. “Anyone on the Finis Lineae talk?”
“Nothing useful. I suspect everyone who knew anything on the ship is now dead. They were on a suicide mission and must have known it. Just didn’t end the way they’d hoped. SEALs are searching every container, but I doubt they’ll find anything. The ship was supposed to slide in under the radar, not end up in a fire fight.”
