‘That’s what you’d do?’
Pepper lowered his binoculars and regarded Ross with a faint smile. ‘We ain’t gettin’ any younger.’
FIFTY-ONE
30K’s watch read 10:41 p.m. local time.
He had the warehouse door open in seven seconds and lost his bet with Kozak. He’d bragged to his teammate that he could do it in six. A second is a second, but at least the six-pack of Terrapin Hopsecutioner craft beer he now owed his buddy wouldn’t set him back very much. Kozak had wanted to wager fifty bucks, but 30K was too damned cheap for a bet that large. So there it was: six seconds or a six-pack.
The warehouse was large enough to accommodate at least four tractor-trailers parked side by side, but they found only one with their cargo container still seated on the trailer. Assuming that at least the driver was still there, they shifted to the nearest wall and remained still, hidden beneath their optical camouflage while Kozak deployed the drone, wings buzzing as it flew toward the container.
Meanwhile, 30K surveyed the rest of the place. On shelves and stacked on at least fifty or more pallets were boxes with labels from the Abu Dhabi Tanker Company, Ethiopian Shipping Lines, Fuzhou Fishing Company, and Assaf Marine Services, among many others. Drums of fuel, lubricating oil, and marine chemicals filled nearly an entire wall near the loading dock at the rear. This was a busy warehouse, all right, which made the lack of activity for the past twenty-four hours all the more suspect.
‘30K, this is Ghost Lead. SITREP?’
Ross was crouched down on the apartment building’s roof, along with Pepper and Oliver. Pepper was staring through the sight of his Remington while Oliver had borrowed a pair of the team’s binoculars.
‘Ghost Lead, 30K. We’re inside,’ came 30K’s whispered report.
A window opened in Ross’s HUD. A night-vision-enhanced image of the warehouse’s interior captured by 30K’s helmet camera showed the tractor-trailer and container exactly as Ross had imagined them.
‘Container’s still locked up,’ said Kozak. ‘Cab is empty. Our driver’s either sleeping in the back and I can’t see him, or somehow he got out of here.’
‘Go check that office in the back,’ Ross ordered.
At the same time, Ross’s cell phone vibrated: It was an incoming call from Diaz. Not now …
The call was immediately followed by a text: I need to talk to you! Urgent!
Another data window opened in Ross’s HUD, and he now had access to the drone’s video as the micro UAV swooped down and through an open door, wheeling over a desk –
To find their driver lying on the floor with a foam cup still clutched in his hands.
‘Holy shit, Captain, you seeing this?’ asked Kozak. ‘He looks dead.’
Ross’s cell phone vibrated again — another text message from Diaz:
We’ve questioned Takana all day. Accessed his e-mail account. There’s a chance the weapons exchange in Sudan was observed. Security may have been compromised!
‘30K, I need you inside that container,’ Ross cried. ‘Do it now!’
‘Roger that.’
‘Kozak, I want to know what happened to that driver. Get over there and check him out. See if he’s got an ID.’
‘On it.’
‘What’s up, boss?’ Pepper asked.
‘Remember how you said this might’ve been for nothing?’
Pepper’s shoulders slumped. ‘Can I take it back?’
Kozak charged through the warehouse, arrived at the tractor-trailer driver’s feet, and began to examine him, searching his pockets and coming up empty. ‘No ID on this guy. I don’t see a cell phone around here. Maybe in the truck. No visible signs of trauma, no gunshot wounds, nothing,’ he told Ross. ‘Died with the cup in his hands. Maybe he was poisoned.’ Kozak removed the cup and tucked it into his pack, then began snapping close-up photographs of the man. A coffeepot sat on the desk, the carafe half-full, and Kozak reminded himself to grab a sample.
He had just taken his third picture when 30K shouted from across the warehouse, ‘Kozak! Get out right now! Run!’
30K had cut the combination lock with his portable laser torch, had removed his safety glasses, and had swung open the heavy container door, which squeaked loudly on its rusting hinges. He’d turned and directed his flashlight into the container –
Which was empty, save for two things:
Their tracking beacon … and a 9,600-pound Daewoo G25e forklift sitting askew in the container.
The SAMs were gone. Transferred to another container. And once the crew had finished, they’d left the forklift behind, but the dumb shits hadn’t tied it down. The forklift had shifted on its own, coaxed by the ship’s pitch and roll.
And he’d been wrong. There were three things inside the container …
Their tracking beacon was now taped on top of four or five blocks of C-4 rigged to a motion-activated detonator. The good news was that the forklift had blocked the path to the motion sensor receiver; however, 30K’s flashlight had just energized a photovoltaic cell — probably a jerry-rigged nightlight from one of the ship’s sea cabins — that had cranked up some kind of blinking backup timer.
30K didn’t get an exact count of those blocks of explosives. He’d already gone into fight or flight mode, deciding in that millisecond that yes, holy shit, it was flight time. Get out!
Ross was hollering for a SITREP over the radio as 30K bounded for the side door, then slowed, whipped back, spotted Kozak. ‘Come on, buddy! Come on!’
30K’s eyes were literally tearing at that moment, and his voice was cracking. He could tell Kozak was already scared out of his mind, but that was okay. If they were going to survive — and that was already doubtful — they needed an inhuman effort.
By the time Kozak reached the door and 30K was about to turn back, toward the end of the pier and the water beyond, the explosion came like a thousand lightning strikes and a thousand crashes of thunder all at the same time, his hearing suddenly gone, the night sky turning white. Even though the mass of the five-ton forklift absorbed and deflected nearly half of the blast pressure, 30K’s frame was struck by a tremendous force that launched him like a Wiffle ball into the air and across the pier, the wind whipping so hard that it blinded him.
That he remained conscious was either a blessing or a curse, he couldn’t decide. It either meant he had a chance to live or a few more seconds to contemplate his death.
He thought he heard Kozak shout, but he wasn’t sure. There was no life flashing before his mind’s eye, just that resigned thought that, yes, he was about to die.
Yet as a warrior through and through, he’d taught himself to abandon that negativity and just go on.
So maybe he wouldn’t die. Maybe he’d have one hell of a story to tell those apes back at Fort Bragg …
Ross gasped and watched the warehouse burst into a hundred thousand flaming pieces, the fire and smoke beginning to rise as he sprang away from his position and bounded for the stairwell.
Pepper was just behind, and they reached the street within another few seconds and were racing across the road and down on to the pier as heat from the blast struck like jet engine exhaust.
An alarm blared out near the end of the terminal, a second explosion booming from within the piles of debris, knocking down a small section of the warehouse’s wall that had remained standing. Fires were raging now, the flames six meters tall, the place a powder keg of noxious chemicals.
Ross coughed and waved his hands in front of his face as he jogged along the road, leaping over sections of aluminum, shipping pallets splintered and burning, along with a tattooed arm that nearly sent him tripping to the asphalt.