Jihad

CHAPTER 59

The owner of the number one bait shop in Karlsruhe, Germany, was not particularly happy about being woken up at two in the morning, especially when he found out why. But he agreed to go immediately to the police station for more details on the break-in at his store. There was a bit of confusion when he arrived, since the police seemed to think that he had reported the break-in, and he thought they had discovered it. This was soon sorted out, however, and a patrolman accompanied him to the shop to identify what was missing. The latch had been pried from the fence, the burglars apparently stymied by the lock; it was a real hack job, in contrast to the rest of the operation, which had been so smooth only the owner would have noticed that anything had been taken — six small oxygen tanks used in scuba setups ordinarily stored around the side.

“There’s been a crime, which means you can investigate,” said Tommy Karr when he met Hess at the airport in Baden.

“Robbery is not terrorism.”

“You should check and see if Dabir took scuba classes. Maybe see who else took them with him.”

“As if we don’t have anything better to do,” said Hess.

“Hey, if you want help, just holler.”

“With that, you can help,” she said sarcastically.

“Good going, Tommy,” Rockman told him. “We’re downloading the names and addresses to your PDA right now. Two of them look like real possibilities.”

Floodlights had been set up on the land side of the lagoon at the MiRO petroleum plant, covering the large bay ships used to load and unload at the facility. Two helicopters were circling overhead, playing their searchlights on the surface. Sharpshooters were spread out along the shoreline, ready to plaster anything or anyone that came out of the water.

Out on the river, two patrol boats had moved in to close off access to the plant. MiRO I — the half of the plant near the water — had been shut down; the police were sweeping through to see if the terrorists were already inside. A NATO helicopter was en route from a base on the Baltic with hydro-phonic gear sensitive enough to detect the breathing apparatus that would be fitted to the stolen tanks.

“Cripes, there’s a creek down there,” said Karr, looking out the window from Hess’s helicopter as they overflew the massive complex.

“Yes?” said Hess.

The Alb Creek split the plant in two. It fed into a large pond at the north — a pond very close to a road and sheltered from the air by a patch of woods.

“Alert the security people. The terrorists are probably already inside,” Karr told Hess. “They’ll be in the eastern end of the plant, MiRO 2, not MiRO 1. Have the security teams check that creek.”