Strong, finally finding a comfortable position, smiled and yelled through his hood, “Just get us there, deputy. This is bad enough without all the bad humor.”
The boat, loaded, pulled away from the dock, and headed south to the long piers, showing large letters on their ends. They passed Pier A, Pier B, and then Pier C. Approaching Pier D, the boat slowed and pulled left, into an empty row. Staring in disbelief at the empty slip, the deputy shouted, “Where the hell’s D-22? It’s supposed to be here. I checked it last night.” He grabbed his radio and jammed the talk button. “Reyes? Did someone authorize removal of D-22? It’s not here.”
Seconds passed. With urgency in his voice, Reyes replied, “No deputy, it’s still logged in. Should be there.”
Johnson, passing the empty slip, jammed the boat into reverse, then forward and pulled into D-22. As he reached out to throw a line over the mooring post, he noticed another line looped over it, hanging into the water. He pulled it up, examined the free end, and said, “This line’s been cut.” He looked at the other posts on D-22 and saw the same thing, more mooring ropes dangling in the water. Radioing Reyes again, he spoke rapidly, “Reyes, the boat’s been cut loose. Start a search. See if we can find it. It may have drifted out with the tide or been stolen.”
“10-4, Deputy Johnson. It’s in the works.” Johnson, pissed that it disappeared on his watch, looked at Strong and Dover, sitting patiently waiting, angry that their evidence had vanished, and offered, “I’m sorry guys. We’ll find it. Hope it wasn’t too important.”
“Well, deputy, does it look like it wasn’t too important?” Dover motioned to the suits they wore, the toolbox and the Geiger counter they carried. “Please take us back to our car so we can get back to work. We’ve wasted enough time here. I’ll radio the Coast Guard a BOLO for the Sea Ray when I get back.”
At the patrol boat dock once again, Johnson dropped them off, apologized for his loss, and headed off to search for the missing boat.
Cursing their misfortune, they waddled back to the truck, stripped off the CBRN suits, stuffed them into the truck’s bed and drove off. The black Prius, previously parked four spaces over, was gone. It was never noticed.
On the PCH, headed home, Dover said, “Wonder what happened to Lieutenant Poole. She said that she might join us. Good thing she didn’t; she’d have been pissed, too.”
Strong nodded in agreement. “Hey, let’s stop for breakfast. At least we can accomplish something today.”
A mile down the road, Dover exited off the PCH and pulled into a Denny’s.
Special Agent Lashawn Gibbs had spent much of the morning on the phone with her home office in D.C., explaining the progressing details on the Adam case. It had not been a pleasant call; they wanted more: more progress, more information, and most importantly more involvement.
She continued, speaking through her scrambled cell, “But we have a competent team now. Just the right size. You send more people down; we’ll need an auditorium for our meetings.”
The voice on the other end sounded mechanical, sluggish and distorted, normal for a scrambled conversation. “You realize, Lashawn, this is the first valid WMD threat we’ve had since the inception of our agency. The President is not happy with our lack of results. He’s demanding action.”
“Well, you just tell him to get his butt down here, put on a scuba suit, and find this thing himself. We’re working on it, trying to narrow down a hundred and twenty-seven square mile search area. And that’s making assumptions, trying to eliminate the whole damn Pacific Ocean.”
“Okay, calm down Lashawn. I understand your frustration, but we’re looking at the larger picture. With prevailing westerly winds expected for the next month or so, our computer models are predicting a half-megaton explosion a thousand-feet down, after obliterating southern California, will send a radioactive cloud several miles into the sky. Three days later, it will drift over Las Vegas, then another day to Phoenix, then Albuquerque and so on. In a week, it will hover over the Dallas-Ft. Worth area. Thirty-one million citizens killed. Some by instant death, others by slow radiation poisoning, like those poor souls in Fukushima. Not a pretty picture. You let that bomb blow and it’s all on your shoulders, Agent Gibbs. Understand?”
“Yes sir, I do. How many and what kind of support personnel are we talking about?”
“We’re considering sending you a Special Homeland Defense Battalion, trained in nuclear disaster response. We can deploy and have them at working strength in about two weeks.”
Well, that’s just great, boss. You’re shipping out some five to eight hundred soldiers to southern California, giving them less than a week to work miracles, and you expect results? Can they swim? Scuba dive? Pilot deep sea submersibles?”
“Some of them, maybe. Most are trained in special ground force operations.”
“Mercenaries?”
“Well, I wouldn’t venture that, but it is a very select group of nuclear and radiation specialists.”
“Keep them! They’ll just get in our way. Their presence here will bog us down in bureaucratic red tape until suddenly we see a flash and cease to exist, along with some thirty-one million people, as you say. Let me handle it. I know what I’m doing. I have a great team behind me and it’s going to get better in a few days.” She was referring to Commander Norton’s new hotshot DSV team: Matt Cross and his mini-sub, Canyon Glider. She preferred not to stake her life on an unknown commodity, but she trusted Norton. She felt his admission that Cross was better than his entire navy, spoke volumes.
The line went silent for moments, except the buzz of the scrambler carrier, then continued, “Are you sure, Agent Gibbs? This is highly unusual. You could lose your job if you fail.”
She laughed, “Sir, I’m afraid that’s not all I’ll lose if I fail. I’m taking that chance.”
“Okay then. I’ll report your decision up the chain and see how it fares. Don’t be surprised if you receive a call from the President; he’s following your progress very closely.”
“Yes, Sir. Expect my scheduled daily report by twenty-hundred hours EST tonight. I’ll reference this conversation. Have a good day.”
“Fine, Agent Gibbs. You too.”
She clicked off, sat thinking, staring at her phone for minutes, then speed-dialed Norton on her other, non-scrambled, cell phone.
“Norton here. Go.”
“Commander Norton, this is Agent Gibbs, DHS. Sorry to bother you. Are you busy?”
“Just talking with the Admiral of the Navy about our stance on the Adam search. Other than that, no. What do you need Agent Gibbs?” She heard chuckling in the phone’s background.
“I’m so sorry to interrupt your meeting. I just refused a nuclear response team, a battalion of soldiers, offered by my home office in deference to your superstar civilian diver. Is he coming aboard? When will that happen?”
“Well, thank God for that, Agent Gibbs. We don’t need a battalion of anything; we need a few good men. I plan to contact him early tomorrow and start him packing. We’re sending a mother ship, the R/VX Trident Tine, to bring his DSV down; we’re only looking at a few days max until he’s searching. Do not worry. He will be here, if I have to swim him down myself. He just got married a few months ago and his expenses shot up. He’s ready for some heavy funding.”