A Deeper Blue

Chapter Fourteen

“Track 738,” Greznya said, pointing to the screen.

The Kildar was looking… odd this morning. It would only be noticeable to someone who knew him well but it was clear to Greznya. He looked tired and the Kildar very rarely looked tired, no matter how long an op had gone on. Given that this one had been fairly easy so far, it was… strange.

“It came into range of the balloons from the north, somewhere north of Grand Island,” she continued, tracing the track. “Very high speed run down to the waters off Key Largo. Then it turned and headed over to the Bahamas cut. It was lost from radar while in the cut.”

“And it never slowed off Largo?” Mike asked, taking a sip of his coffee.

“No, Kildar,” Greznya said. “But it matches the profile perfectly.”

“So the boat is somewhere inside in the Bahamas,” Mike said, frowning. “Along with a billion others.”

“Yes, Kildar,” Greznya said.

“Okay,” Mike replied. “Let me think about this for a while.”

Mike left the intel shack, yawning. Fucking dreams. Even screwing the ass off of Bambi hadn’t helped. He wasn’t sure it had helped her, either, but at least she understood where he was at.

He walked out the back door and looked at the water. The boats were gone. Randy was taking the Keldara out for offshore practice. They’d only get in about an hour on the rough before they’d have to come back due to fuel constraints. Which led his mind to…

The landing craft headed for the beach. It had come around the point from out of his view. Don was on the way with the Navy guys.

Mike walked down to the beach and waited as the boat approached, sipping his coffee. The techs would have had a miserable night. The LCT had some bunks, but the crossing would have been awful; the damned things rocked like nobody’s business.

The problem being, he needed them to get started right away. Well, as soon as the boats got back. But it was going to take them at least that long to get set up.

When the ramp dropped, the first person off was a big blond guy with a civvie bag over one shoulder. He was looking around with interest but the techs behind him were clearly just glad to get back on land.

“You the NCOIC?” Mike said, walking up with his hand out.

“Yeah,” the guy said, eyeing Mike warily but shaking his hand.

“Welcome to the Abacos Estate,” Mike said. “The boats are out training right now. They’ll be back in an hour or so. I need the extended range tanks installed and the engines tuned by sundown. That a problem… Master Chief?”

“Senior,” the guy said, his jaw flexing.

“Get my boats functional and it won’t be for long,” Mike said. “Any issues?”

“Parts,” the senior chief said. “As in unavailability of.”

“I’ll hook you up with my logistics lady,” Mike replied. “She’ll see to anything you need. I’m headed over to the mainland in about an hour. You give her the list, I’ll get anything you need and be back this afternoon. If you need more, well, the Gulfstream’s just sitting there. If you need to go get it or send somebody to get it, that can be arranged, too. But I need those boats up. I’d prefer them by this evening since I’ve got an op going down that I need them for.”

“Yes, sir,” the chief said, looking pissed.

“What’s this all about, the chief is thinking,” Mike said, sipping his coffee. “Who the fuck is this guy giving me orders? Is he Delta or what? He’s in civvies, his hair’s a little long… Maybe he’s ANV or whatever they’re calling it this week. The answer, Chief, is that I’m a fucking merc. I’m a fucking merc who has been hired to do all the things that even ANV can’t do in their wildest wet dreams. And I’m going to do those things and in doing so I’m going to stop American civilians from getting killed. You, Senior Chief, are going to help me in doing that by making sure my fucking boats are up by sunset. I don’t care what you need, I don’t give a rat’s ass how much it costs. Because I’ve got a target I need to intercept to find out where Al Qaeda has dropped some nasty shit off the Florida coast. If I don’t get them tonight, that means that nasty shit gets used on American civilians. Are we clear, Senior Chief?”

“Clear, sir,” the senior chief said, nodding.

“So get your gear set up,” Mike continued, taking another sip. “Chow’s in the big house, as are quarters. Quarters are okay, chow’s good; I’m a big believer in steak and lobster as motivators. And, speaking of motivators, there is good news.”

“Yes, sir?” the senior chief said, suspiciously.

“The only beer on the island is Mountain Tiger,” Mike replied, grinning. “And if you’re a very good boy, I may let you sample the pure quill.”

The Wal-Mart driver cursed under his breath when he saw the blue lights in his rearview. He’d been doing right at the speed limit so it had to be a random check.

He pulled over to the side, though, there being plenty of room on the side of the nearly deserted turnpike. On weekends and holidays the road would be packed, but on a weekday afternoon there wasn’t much traffic.

Marshes stretched in every direction in the Big Empty between the burgeoning Miami area and the even faster growing sector around Orlando and Disney World. It was real old Florida, the Florida from back in the days when “I’ve got some dry land in Florida to sell you” was a scam. A kite swirled above on the light winds, searching for its morning meal.

Officer Jose Coqui, Florida Department of Commercial Vehicle Enforcement, got out of the driver’s door, after checking to make sure it was clear, and made his way down the narrow strip between the road and the truck until he reached the driver’s door.

“Hey, officer,” the driver said. His window was already down and he had his manifest out. “I’m clean.”

“I’m sure you are,” Jose said, smiling. “Just checking.”

“I weighed after I dropped my last load,” the driver said. “It’s in the manifest. Just running up to Orlando distribution center.”

Jose looked at the documents and nodded. The driver had followed all the restrictions that the government had put on truckers to the letter, including a mandatory rest break the night before. Gone were the days of “pop me up, jack me up, flying down the highway.” Truckers were only permitted to drive a specified number of hours a day. Violate it and they were liable to lose their commercial driver’s license.

They could also lose their CDL for being overweight. The interstate highway system was primarily paid for by taxes on trucks and those taxes were based on the weight of their cargo and how far they ran between pick-up and drop-off. The weigh stations by the side of the highway, though, were being more and more replaced by a series of sensors that picked up data from the trucks about their load and destination automatically and random stops, such as this, which made sure that the truckers weren’t cheating.

Jose’s partner had already rolled the scale in front of the truck’s rear tires and now waved.

“Could you pull forward a few feet?” Jose asked.

“Certainly,” the trucker said. “But you’ll see. I’m clean.”

Wal-Mart trucks almost always were. The company was too big, and too professional, to fuck around with a few pounds of cargo here and there. As the controlling company of the truck, they’d get fined, too.

The trucker pulled forward until he was on the portable scale and stopped, looking in his rearview.

Jose walked back to the scale with the manifest and held it out.

“Twenty-two, five thirty,” Jose said. “Running light.”

“Really?” his partner said. “Try twenty-three and change.”

“You sure?” Jose asked, looking at the readout.

The scale was a solid state model that used induction as opposed to the old “pressure” models. Sometimes they were off, but not by that much.

“I think we have ourselves a winner,” his partner said, grinning. Robert O’Toole was new to the department and “keen.” He loved finding truckers that were trying to skate the rules.

“Doesn’t make sense,” Jose said, shrugging. “But I’ll go get him.”

“Is there a problem?” the trucker asked when Jose walked back to his cab. He knew the drill. They should have rolled him off the scale after the check.

“You’re overweight,” Jose said. “Mind explaining why?”

“Honest to God, Officer,” the trucker said, opening his door and climbing down. “I weighed just before my stop. I can’t be overweight.”

“Well, we got to check your cargo against the manifest,” Jose said. “Open it up.”

“God damn,” the man said. “Nothing against you but…”

“I understand,” Jose said. But he let the man go first.

The threesome, hugging the side of the truck, walked to the rear where the driver opened the doors. Sitting at the rear of the palletized cargo were two blue plastic fifty-five gallon drums.

“Mind explaining that?” O’Toole said, looking at the manifest. “Not a damned thing here about drums of liquid. Or is it liquid?”

“Calm down, Bob,” Jose said, shaking his head.

“I didn’t put those there,” the driver said, his face ashen. “Honest to God!”

“You might not have.” Jose sighed as O’Toole clambered into the truck. “It’s a new way to run drugs. You do your mandated stop, a couple of smugglers slip this into the back. You have another stop in the interim, accomplices slip it out. It’s another reason we do these stops. But, if it’s illicit substances, I’m going to have to place you under arrest until you’re cleared.”

“Oh, fuck,” the trucker moaned. “Is it going to go on my record?”

“Not if you’re cleared,” Jose said. “And you probably will be. But the whole thing’s getting impounded until it gets cleared.”

“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” the trucker cursed.

O’Toole had managed to get one of the lids off and frowned down at the contents.

“It ain’t cocaine,” he said, leaning down. Then he flew back, his eyes wide and started gagging.

The officer fell to the floor of the truck, gasping and convulsing.

“JOSE!” he managed to gag. “What…”

Jose grabbed the officer and dragged him to the ground, over into the verge, then pulled his shoulder-mounted mike around.

“This is Unit 27,” he shouted. “We have a hazardous materials incident at mile marker one seventy-eight, turnpike! I need HazMat and an ambulance. Now! Officer down!”

“So they’re inside,” the President said, frowning.

“Yes, sir,” the secretary of Homeland Security confirmed. “So far, Wal-Mart is agreeing to the cover story. Hazardous materials somehow were loaded on one of their trucks. The turnpike was shut down for about two hours but it’s open again.”

“We got those, but we don’t know how many others have made it in,” the FBI director said. “Florida has reopened all their weigh stations in South Florida. The cover story is an outbreak of Mediterranean Fruit Fly. All trucks are being searched. Even moving vans are being searched.”

“But they got inside,” the President said, angrily. “What are we paying all this money for if they can just slip through?”

“We don’t know their methods, sir,” the CBP director said, nervously. “If they brought in a container, they’re apparently breaking it down somewhere in South Florida. We’ll find it.”

“And if they didn’t?” the President asked.

“That is the top theory at the moment, Mr. President,” the DNI said. “We’re relatively certain they brought in the full container. Find that and we find the mother lode.”

“I don’t care if they brought it in by balloon,” the President suddenly shouted. “FIND IT!”

“Yes, sir,” Greznya said, handing over the headpiece. “The President.”

“Hello, sir,” Mike said, looking at the document on his lap. The track had come from north of Grand Island. That meant that there should be a refuel ship up there. But, if so, it was probably sitting outside the two hundred mile “economic zone” of the U.S. Very long damned run. On the other hand, the Ronald Reagan CVBG was up in that area. They should have seen something by now.

“Where are you?” the President asked. “I called the primary number and they transferred me.”

“On the way to the hospital to see my two wounded men,” Mike replied. “Don’t worry, it’s not interfering with the mission.”

“That’s open for debate,” the President said. “Two barrels of VX were intercepted in Central Florida. The officer who found them only got a whiff of one of the binaries but he’s in the hospital. Tell me you have some good news.”

“I can’t,” Mike said. “What I have so far are hunches.”

“Your hunches have been pretty good in the past.”

“Okay, sir,” Mike said, closing his eyes. “I have a hunch that the boats are picking up their cargo from a container that’s floating somewhere north of Bahamas Grand Island. Probably underwater. That they then run down the coast of the Keys and drop it off. Another boat, probably two Scarab fast-fishers that we’ve lost track of, pick the stuff up. How were they moving it?”

“In the back of a Wal-Mart truck,” the president said. “Apparently it was loaded into it while the driver was eating. But we’re checking all the trucks now. They won’t be able to do that again.”

“You can move one of these in a big trunk,” Mike pointed out. “Two or three in an SUV. You can’t stop every vehicle.”

“I’d already thought of that,” the President admitted. “And I’m getting tired of everyone telling me the situation is ‘under control.’ Thanks for not doing so.”

“Under control is an overstatement if I’ve ever heard one,” Mike said. “Where’d they stop it?”

“On the turnpike, just south of Orlando.”

“Interesting,” Mike replied. “But not getting us anywhere at the moment. I’ve got an op planned that may turn up something soon. But I’m going to need some political muscle.”

“What do you need?”

“PO Johnson?” the CIC officer said, walking over to the radar tech with a message form in his hand.

“Yes, sir?”

“Your Lloyds Looper has generated some high-level interest,” the officer said. “We’re going to be putting a Viking up. When the Viking has to return they’re putting up a P-3. The take from both is going to go to your screen and your screen only. You will then send the take to this address,” the officer said, handing over the form. “You will not discuss any take from it with anyone else. Vanders will be briefed in on it but only Vanders. You may receive classified requests for retasking which you will then pass on with the minimum possible discussion. The classification on all data is Ultra Purple under code name Thunder Child. No one onboard this ship, with the sole exception of you and Vanders, is cleared for data regarding Thunder Child. Are those orders clear?”

“Yes, sir,” the tech said, her eyes wide.

“For anyone listening in,” the officer said, raising his voice slightly, “there had better not be any questions about this. Not here, not in the mess, not in the bunks. Forget you ever heard it. Chief, lock this down.”

“Yes, sir,” the section NCOIC said. “It is locked.” The crew might ignore such an order from the OIC, but they weren’t about to cross the chief.

“Sir, can I ask one question?” the tech asked. “The codeword I get. But what is Ultra Purple? I don’t recognize the security classification.”

“The group with access is restricted,” the officer said. “So even I don’t know. But Ultra class refers to working groups with CJCS and higher clearance. However, CJCS is only at Ultra White. Purple is higher.”

“Yes, sir,” the PO said, turning back to her screen. On it a contact, labeled as a friendly Viking, was just taking off. Somebody wanted to see what the ship was doing and not only did they not want the ship to know about it, they didn’t even want the captain to know about it. Hell, they didn’t want the commander of the CVBG or FLTATL to know what was going on.

What was so special about one Lloyds Looper?