“As of right now,” she said hotly, her well of strength seemingly replenished by Harry’s presence, “your mission, whatever it is, means nothing to me. I am getting Mercer back. I suspect you will do nothing to help me, but you damned well can’t stop me either.”
“What she said,” Harry echoed and settled onto a couch, his body language dismissing Bruneseau. He lit a cigarette. “You said it was a long story. I’ve got all day to hear it.”
The Frenchman wouldn’t let his point drop. “I cannot believe your unprofessionalism. These men are civilians.”
The rage Lauren had been holding in since the canal exploded. “My unprofessionalism? Don’t you dare lecture me. You and Foch were the ones who tried to infiltrate Liu’s camp at the lake and nearly got us all killed. You still haven’t explained what you were looking for, and don’t give me some cock-and-bull story about Chinese listening posts.”
“I will not answer your questions.”
“But I will.” The voice came from the hallway leading to the bedrooms. It was Foch.
“Lieutenant!”
“I am sorry, monsieur. They deserve the truth.”
Although the two men switched languages, there was little difficulty following their argument. Bruneseau’s anger did nothing to blunt the Legionnaire’s resolve, even when faced with what sounded like a direct order. When it was over, the spy leaned against a wall with his arms crossed. It was evident by his expression that Foch was going to pay for what he was about to reveal.
“Eleven weeks ago, a shipment of spent uranium fuel was transported from Rokkasho in Japan to the reprocessing plant in France owned by Cogema.” Foch overrode the startled gasps and the quick looks of confusion directed at him. “The route, like the previous one hundred and sixty times such a load has been moved, took the specially designed double-hulled ship through the Panama Canal. The fuel was stored in what are called type-B casks, huge drums about twenty feet long and weighing over a hundred tons. About six tons of spent uranium are carried in each cask. Since 1971 about thirty-five thousand tons of spent fuel have been transported in these and other types of containers.
“This is all sanctioned by the International Atomic Energy Agency under guidelines drawn up in the 1970s,” Foch explained when Lauren drew a breath between her teeth at the amount of radioactive material routinely shipped around the globe. “When the ship arrived in France, and each cask was reweighed, one came up five hundred pounds light.”
“Jesus Christ! You lost five hundred pounds of radioactive fuel?” Harry said.
Foch nodded. “There are two ways this could have happened. Either it wasn’t loaded in Japan or it was taken from the ship during its run to France. French regulators are working with the Japanese at Rokkasho to see if the problem occurred at the plant—”
“And you’re working with Bruneseau to see if it was somehow taken off when the ship passed through the canal,” Lauren finished for him.
“It is an unlikely scenario,” Bruneseau scoffed. “The ship never stopped on its way through and only three pilots came on board to guide it. Not enough men to open one of the casks and steal a deadly fuel assembly weighing almost two hundred kilos.”
“But you were still given orders to check it out anyway?”
“My government wanted every contingency investigated.”
“How big is the ship that carried the fuel?” Roddy Herrara spoke for the first time.
“One hundred and four meters, about three hundred and forty feet,” Foch answered after Roddy told him he had been a canal pilot.
“A ship that size,” Roddy said, “would only need one pilot.”
“Except for its extraordinary cargo. Surely they’d bring in extras to help.”
“Maybe one other,” the Panamanian replied. “Not two.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Bruneseau said. “Even two men couldn’t have done it alone. There’s no way the uranium could have been taken off the ship here. The safety monitors on the vessel never recorded a spike in radiation, the ship’s officers said that the pilots never left the bridge and the security tags on the cask hadn’t been tampered with. The five hundred pounds of missing uranium was not on board. The Japanese screwed up by shorting the load when they put the fuel into the casks. It’s a clerical error.”
“You’re probably right, sir,” Roddy said respectfully, “yet you seem to have stumbled onto something here or you wouldn’t be so vehemently pursuing your investigation.”
Bruneseau remained silent for a moment. “I’ll grant you something’s going on, but it’s not about a lost shipment of uranium. We focused on Hatcherly because of their connection to China’s military, but in the weeks we’ve been monitoring them with gamma detectors we’ve found nothing. Their activities at the lake were something we didn’t know about, and yet there was no evidence of radiation at that location either.” He turned to Lauren. “You’re right when you said my mission has nothing to do with yours. I don’t care that Hatcherly Consolidated is robbing this country blind or that they’re about to complete a Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal. Your country should have considered that when they gave the damned thing away. As I told my superiors when they sent us here, the whole trip is a waste. Nous sommes fini, ici. We’re done here.”
“Señor.” A little of the respect had drained from Roddy’s voice. “I am not saying that it is likely that your ship was tampered with in the canal, but I think you should know it is possible. Many times during a transit, tugboats are used to nose a ship into a lock. Depending on the time of day your ship went through, enough men could have boarded the vessel from the tug and broken into one of these casks.”
“Don’t you think I’ve had men sweep all the tugs looking for residual radiation?” Bruneseau retorted. “That’s the first damned thing we did when we got to Panama. I’m telling you the casks weren’t tampered with. The missing uranium is still sitting in Japan and eventually some clerk will find the error that wrongly listed it on the ship’s manifest.”
“You’re willing to take the risk if you’re wrong?” Harry growled.
“If there was a risk, no. But there isn’t.”
“And what about Mercer?” Lauren had gone bitter, knowing how the agent would reply. “Don’t you owe him something for using him to gain access to more of what Hatcherly is doing? I thought the Legion always took care of their own?”
“And I,” Rene pronounced, “am not with the Legion.”
Lauren looked to Foch, imploring. The soldier seemed to have gone as far as he was willing. He couldn’t meet her gaze. “Neither was Mercer. I am sorry, Captain.”
“You cowards,” she hissed. “Mercer risked his life not knowing what you were looking for and you’ll just abandon him now that you think you’ve been on a fool’s errand.”
“Even if we wanted to help,” Foch offered, “we don’t know where Hatcherly took him or even if he’s still alive.”
Harry White leaned forward, his eyes drilling Bruneseau to the wall even as he spoke to the whole room. “I know where they’re taking him.”
Rodrigo Herrara nodded. “Sí, we know.”
A feeling of hope surged through Lauren’s body. Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. “Where?”
Harry, never one to let an opportunity to be the center of attention pass, ground out his cigarette and ceremoniously lit another. He decided against opening the whiskey-filled flask at the top of his sword cane. With Mercer in danger, time was of the essence.
“Okay, after your little romp in the container port, Mercer asked Roddy and me to find out where those dump trucks were bringing all that gravel from and why. No surprise, we didn’t find a trace of the armored car. Liu probably stashed it that night after moving the gold someplace else. Bank most likely.