Fallout

15

Luke and Thud leaned on the hangar door as they watched Vlad and Dr. Thurmond climb down from the two-seat MiG-29. They looked for a bulging pocket in his G suit indicating a newly filled barf bag, or that green, peaked look people had on their faces that they tried to smile through to convince others that flying in a jet is really fun. They didn’t see anything on Dr. Thurmond’s face. They pushed away from the door and walked to meet them.

“How did it go?” Thud asked his father.

“Incredible,” Dr. Thurmond replied, a huge grin illuminating his face. “I’d forgotten how great that is.”

“Did you let him fly it?” Luke asked Vlad.

“Yes, of course. As soon as we got airborne, I gave him the controls. He did wonderful. Natural pilot.”

“How did you think it handled?” Thud asked.

“Great turning ability, incredible acceleration. When I’d get the nose pointed up for a long time at slow speed, I’d get real anxious. If you do that with a 105, you’ll find yourself in a hole in a hurry. With this airplane the speed just doesn’t bleed off. You can point the nose anywhere you want. Amazing airplane.”

They entered the hangar, and Vlad started over toward one of the MiGs that had an engine out of the bay. “I must check on the engine replacement,” he said, then stepped under the wing.

Dr. Thurmond pointed toward the paraloft. They walked in while he removed the borrowed flight gear.

“I want to keep flying here. I want to get back up to speed and get checked out in this jet.”

“You weren’t a TOPGUN instructor, Dad,” Thud said. “You can’t fly in the syllabus hops.”

“No, but what about postmaintenance check flights? Maybe just fly when I feel like it. I own the company, don’t I?”

Luke replied, “Yes, sir, you sure do. We’ll see what we can arrange.”

Dr. Thurmond finished hanging his flight gear, something he was clearly relishing, then turned to Luke. “How well do you know Vlad?”

Luke was surprised. “I don’t know, why?”

“He had alcohol on his breath.”

“Seriously?” Luke asked, troubled.

“Seriously. What do you really know about his time in Russia?”

“We’ve got copies of his records. I reviewed them…”

“I’d check into him, if I were you.”

Luke nodded. “Brian’s got the records. He was going to check them.”

“I’d follow up.”

“Yes, sir,” Luke replied.

“Good. Can I talk to Quentin alone?”

“Sure,” Luke said, glancing at Thud as he walked out of the room.

Thud was dreading what was coming. He expected another lecture.

Thurmond looked at his son. “Quentin, I think I owe you an apology.”

Thud felt awkward and cornered. “Dad, you don’t—”

“I’ve been hard on you. I was against your going into the Navy. I was against your flying, being a government employee, joining the military—the whole thing. I was putting my Vietnam experience before good judgment, before just allowing you to do what you want to do. Thanks for letting me be part of this.”

Thud smiled. “If it had been up to me, you wouldn’t be. Luke’s the one who thought you might want in.”

“Well, he was right. We need to do this thing together. I’ll stay out of your hair, but I wanted to let you know I’m behind you one hundred percent.”

Thud kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it never did. “Thanks.”

“Let’s go debrief with your drunk Russian.”

The tired-looking freighter crept through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It was a misty gray morning with the beautiful Olympic Mountains obscured by haze and rain. Water ran down from the sky over the entire ship in one continuous motion—down the bridge windows, the stack, and the rusting sides of the containers secured to the deck.

The tramp steamer worked its way through the beautiful bay to the busy docks of Tacoma. It was the scruffiest of many unattractive ships at the docks, mostly Korean and Japanese container ships stacked with innumerable containers. The ship slowly maneuvered to a stop with the help of two tugs that pushed it gently against the long pier. The captain yelled to the dockworkers to secure the lines and gave the engineer the okay to shut down the propulsion. The pilot made his way out of the bridge as the crane maneuvered the gangplank to the side of the ship. The captain glanced at the clock. They were to be unloaded in one hour. The two containers, the last items placed on the ship, were to be unloaded directly onto trucks. It was unusual for him to carry cargo so time-sensitive that trucks would be waiting, but there they were. He saw the trucks from the company that was on his cargo manifest. He could deliver the containers only to them.

A second crane approached the ship and slung over the cables to grab the container. The deck crew was waiting and hooked the four thick steel cables to the top corners of the container. The cables strained as the container rose slowly off the deck and began a gentle twist. The neck of the crane bent slightly as it absorbed the full weight of the container and slung it away from the ship.

It was lowered directly onto the bed of the waiting truck and secured by the dockworkers. The crane lifted the cables away from the container, and the truck rolled slowly down the pier. The second container was lowered onto the second truck, which followed the first toward the customs shed. Looking bored and tired, the two drivers waited patiently in line for the customs inspectors. They had been driving all night, and it showed in their faces and their attitudes. They didn’t understand the need for them to pick up these loads. All they knew was that they were to drop them off in a nearby warehouse today. It had to be their trucks, and they had to pick them up immediately upon the arrival of the ship. They couldn’t imagine why they had to drive all the way up to Tacoma from San Francisco or why some local company couldn’t do it. But it wasn’t their place to wonder why, just to pick up the containers.

The first truck pulled up to the customs inspector, who regarded the driver carefully. “Documents, please,” the inspector said.

The driver handed him the documents he’d brought as well as the bill of lading from the container off the ship.

The customs inspector took the documents and went back to look at the container. The door seal was intact, and the documents were in order. The inspector debated with himself whether to open the container. Only a few were actually opened and inspected. Hundreds, if not thousands, of containers arrived on an almost daily basis in every major port in the United States. If every container were opened and inspected in any detail, the entire system would fall of its own weight. The customs inspectors looked for other things: a nervous driver, documentation that appeared odd or strange, a means of delivery that was different or out of order, or a shipper or manufacturer they’d never encountered before. Every once in a while they would open a container on a simple hunch or just to be arbitrary, so even those who thought they could predict which containers would be opened would be wrong on occasion.

The inspector sipped coffee from a Styrofoam cup, something he wasn’t supposed to do while on the line, but he was cold. He walked back to the driver, signed the document, handed him the bill of lading, and said, “You’re cleared.”

The driver, still bored, pulled slowly away from the line. The second truck received the same cursory treatment from the same cold customs inspector.

The trucks threaded through the morning traffic with the mist enveloping the entire scene. It muted everything, as if nothing fast, loud, hot, or flashy was allowed. The trucks, staying together, worked their way down to the row of warehouses that was their destination. The driver checked the address again on the piece of paper he had in his shirt pocket. He drove through the narrow roads until he found the one he wanted and turned left, parallel to the water. The street was set back from the actual waterfront about two hundred yards. He came upon an open space in front of a large warehouse and saw the number on the front of the building in clear block letters. He turned sharply toward the large doors at the front of the warehouse, and the second truck did likewise. As the first truck approached the doors and started to brake, the doors slid open. A man stood in front of him motioning him to keep driving into the warehouse.

The driver released the clutch slowly, and the truck moved forward through the rain into the cavernous opening. Another door of equal size was open at the other end of the warehouse. A large steel crane hung from the girders above the truck.

Another man stood in front and motioned for him to slow down. The man watched the position of the crane and the truck, waved the driver forward slowly, and finally signaled him to stop. The driver set the emergency brake and got out of the truck with his papers. He handed his clipboard to the man who seemed to be in charge, a small dark man. “Sign for it,” the driver said.

The smaller man was of Asian descent, probably Filipino, the driver thought. He looked at the driver for any signs of suspicion or concern. There were none. The man signed with an indecipherable signature, took one copy of the form, and handed him the other. “Any problems with customs?”

The driver shook his head as he took the clipboard and tossed it through the window onto the seat. “You taking the container off now?”

The man nodded and gestured for the crane operator to begin hooking up the container. “It will be just a minute.”

The driver stood back, not relishing the thought of some crane accidentally dropping the heavy container onto the cab of his truck.

As the driver watched, the hanging crane rolled into place on large steel tracks on the beam above. He looked around the warehouse warily. He’d never seen a setup like this before. He couldn’t account for the huge, empty warehouse and the sterile, concentrated unloading of these two trucks. It didn’t smell right. He noticed several brand-new sedans and large Ford commercial trucks, which struck him as odd. He also found it strange that the vehicles were all parked inside the warehouse. Probably because of the rain, he concluded. He turned to the man who was supervising the container. “Whose trucks?”

The man looked at him. “As soon as you pull away from the crane, stop in the office,” he said, pointing. “They have your extra pay there.”

“What extra pay?” the driver asked, surprised. “We get paid by the company.”

“There’s a bonus.”

The driver frowned, then shrugged.

The crane lifted the first container off the truck and moved it slowly to the side. The truck stood up higher, grateful for the relief from the tons of weight it had been carrying moments before. Once the container was freed from the back of the truck, the driver clambered back up into his cab, started the truck, and drove out from under the crane. As soon as his truck was clear, he pulled to the side, climbed back down, and headed toward the office. The second driver pulled in behind him, right where he’d been, and began unloading the second container. He, too, was told to be sure to pick up his bonus in the office.

He followed the first driver into the office, where they sat down and waited. The small man in charge nodded to two men standing next to the office. They opened the back of one of the new trucks, took out the submachine guns, and strolled into the office. The shots were barely audible above the motor of the crane inside the warehouse.

“You Kevin Hayes?”

Kevin looked up from his computer screen at a man he’d never seen before.

“Yeah. Can I help you?”

The man walked in and sat down in the chair next to Kevin’s desk. He was in his early forties and looked authoritative. Not a good sign, Hayes thought. “What’s up?”

“I’m Bill Morrissey. Central Asia.”

Kevin extended his hand, and the man took it. “Nice to meet you. What can I do for you?”

“You’ve been talking with Renee.”

Here we go again. “Couple of times.”

“You had her contact agents on behalf of your brother, who’s working for a private company.”

Kevin was immediately defensive. “I asked her to look into something that I believe has implications for the United States. My brother told me about it. I didn’t think anyone else would consider it a big enough deal to look into, so I did it myself. How she was to look into it was her decision, and it was official government business. Why is it that everybody is on my ass for trying to do what we’re supposed to do?”

“It looks like you’re simply running a job for your brother. But if you’re really onto something, I want to hear about it. Tell me what you know.”

Kevin did. Then, “It’s mostly speculation. The latest stuff from Renee makes me really wonder about this guy, though.”

Morrissey thought for a while, then said in a clipped manner, “We really have no indication that he has anything in mind, or even remotely what it might be if he does.”

“What about showing up at the docks in Karachi? Don’t you find that odd?”

“Very,” he replied. “But what was he doing there? Why would he care about shipping? And if he was sending people over to that school, wouldn’t they ship over some of their equipment? Airplane parts?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t either. We should find out. Find out what’s been shipped from Karachi to the United States around those dates, what its destination was, and what has come of it. We could have customs take a look at it.”

“Could do. Then there’s the whole connection, the whole way that they got into the class. The Undersecretary of Defense.”

“What do you know about that?” Morrissey asked.

“Struck me as truly odd. Sounds to me like they’re a little too close.”

“Meaning what?”

“No way to know. I don’t want to accuse anybody of anything. It might pay to have the FBI look into it, though.”

Morrissey stood to leave. “They already are.”

Good, Kevin thought. But then he wondered what they knew. “Why?”

“They started wondering about him all on their own.” Morrissey paused. “Right after he disappeared.”

“What?” Kevin gasped. “Disappeared? Are you shitting me?”

“And a lot of money went through his bank account right before he skipped.”

“We may really be onto something.”

“Maybe, maybe not. I want you to start checking all the shipping records—”

“No way,” Kevin said, leaning back in his chair and putting up his hands. “I’ve already gotten my ass chewed once.”

“The witch?”

Hayes’s eyes got big. He didn’t dare confirm her name.

“She knows.”

“It’s okay with her?”

“She’s on board with you helping me. We’ve got to get more people on this. That’s why I’m here to ask for your help. This one is starting to worry me. A lot.”

“Shouldn’t we send someone to Nevada?”

“CIA doesn’t operate inside the U.S.”

“Well, then get the FBI to send someone.”

“They’re thinking about it.”

Wideman’s Gun Shop closed at exactly six o’clock every night. Greg Wideman was meticulous and punctual. He never stayed open late. As he turned the sign around on the door and prepared to pull the steel bars home, he felt a push on the door. He looked up and saw four men staring at him. “We’re closed!” he said loudly, annoyed. His annoyance was quickly replaced by apprehension when he got a good look at the faces of the four men who pushed through the door and stood in front of him.

They were small men with dark skin and hard, angry looks. They were all unshaven, and their clear leader had a thick black beard. They looked around his gun shop, the largest in Nevada, as if they’d never seen anything like it. The two in the rear were walking backward, looking at the machine guns suspended from the wall above the door through which they had just entered. They continued toward Wideman.

“You the owner?” the bearded man in front asked.

“Yes.”

“We need to buy some of your weapons.”

“We’re closed.”

“No, you are not,” the man replied confidently as he strolled casually through the store and gawked at the hundreds and hundreds of weapons.

“What did you have in mind?” Wideman asked grudgingly.

“Machine guns.”

The owner, who wore a Rueger baseball cap, frowned at the request. “Machine guns are illegal.”

“You have semiautomatic, right?” the man continued.

“Sure. All kinds. What did you want?”

“We want the most powerful you have.”

“What do you mean by powerful?”

“Largest caliber.”

The owner looked at the man’s face momentarily. He didn’t want to cross him. “We’ve got several types, nine-millimeter, even a ten-millimeter MAC-10—that’s a rare one, can’t even get those anymore—and, let’s see, an AR-15, that’s a .223-caliber, not big around but tremendous muzzle velocity, and”—he turned to look at the rack, which had a steel cable passing through the trigger guards of the guns—“lots of things. Depends on what you want it for.”

“We need twelve of them,” the tall man said matter-of-factly. “To take now.”

“Can’t do that. Only three guns per buyer per month.”

“Yes. There are four of us. That makes twelve,” the man said, unsmiling. The other three were looking around the gun shop for any other patrons, and one was looking for hidden cameras.

“Damned if it don’t,” the proprietor said. “Which kind do you want?”

“Do you have AK-47s?”

“Nah, those are impossible. Illegal to import them. But I do have a few… ‘replicas,’ “ he said.

“Are they automatic?”

“No. Like I was saying. That would be illegal.”

“Can they be made automatic?”

The proprietor chortled with his smoker’s laugh. “You with the ATF or something? You ask the most direct damned questions. Sure, somebody dedicated to doing it could do it easy. But that would be a felony, see. And I’m not doing that.”

“How is it done?”

“A little kit thing. Just sold as a curiosity. Most people I know use ’em for… paperweights. But if you get caught putting one of those assemblies into one of those weapons and turning it automatic? You’d go straight to the federal pen. Hell, now you can’t even own that. The ATF has taken all the fun—”

“How much are these replicas?” the man asked.

“A lot.”

“How much?”

“Where are you boys from?” Wideman asked. “I can’t place your accents. You from Nevada? Just move here?”

“Does it matter?”

“Sure. I’ve got to do a license check. Then I’ve got to do a felony check.”

“Is there any other way?”

The man sighed. “Nope, really isn’t.”

“You said the guns were expensive. How expensive?”

“Seven-fifty apiece.”

“We were prepared to pay a thousand apiece.”

“Whoa.” Wideman laughed. “That’s a lot of money. They’re not worth that—”

“We would pay a thousand apiece if they were automatic and did not include a background check.”

“I don’t think you understand,” the owner said as he hitched his pants up quickly over his belly. “I have to do a background check. Where are you guys from?”

“We will pay you twelve thousand dollars for twelve ‘replica’ AK-47s. We were told they would be available here.”

The man’s eyes got large. “Who the hell told you that?”

“Someone who knows. Was he wrong?”

Wideman glanced at the door to see if anyone was coming. “No, he wasn’t wrong. Let’s cut the bullshit,” he said as he walked to the front and pulled down the shade that covered the glass front door. “You want fully automatic AKs?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve got them, and I’ll sell them to you. None of this trigger kit shit. These are authentic, Russian made. The real things, still packed in cosmolene. I’ve got a source. Fully auto, and,” he said, glancing around at the four men, who had come closer, “I’ve got the ammo for them. And there aren’t any serial numbers on them, so if you hit something when you’re doing your target practice, they can’t be traced here. And if you ever get caught for hitting something, you’ve never been here and I’ve never seen you. Agreed?”

The leader nodded.

“Fully automatic AKs with no numbers are rare. They will run you more than those replica pieces of shit. They’re two thousand apiece. And I’ll throw in five hundred rounds of ammo for each and five banana clips.”

“Fifteen hundred and a thousand rounds of ammunition for each.”

“Two thousand.”

“Eighteen hundred.”

“Done.” Wideman headed to the back of the shop.

The four Pakistani men went out the back door and looked around anxiously as they stood by their trucks while Wideman stacked the crates. The second in command looked at the bearded leader of the group. “Who goes first?”

The leader looked at his digital watch that had the time and date. “You go first. One truck at a time.” The four brand-new commercial Ford trucks were lined up behind the gun shop. “We cannot draw attention to ourselves. We don’t have much time.”

“Leave from here now?”

“Yes,” he said, concerned that such a simple plan could be misunderstood. He examined his lieutenant’s eyes for fear or panic. There was none. “We stay in the four hotels separately, as I have told you. We will not see each other again until the night before.” He watched the crates being loaded. “Do you remember where we meet?”

“The exit on the freeway. Where there is nothing. One hundred miles north.”

The one with the beard nodded. “Don’t be late.”