Code Word: Paternity, A Presidential Thriller (21 page)

Chapter 39

It was a typical, sweaty Baltimore summer day and Larry Cosgrove was
puzzled. The scarred, grimy sea container on the battered eighteen-wheeler
chassis passing slowly through what looked like a giant croquet wicket was
sending an unexpected signal. Larry, clad in jeans and a tank top, sat in a
hot, windowless room near the Consolidated Data and Inspection Portal (CDIP) at
the Seagirt container terminal’s exit, monitoring data emitted by each
container. These data, transmitted to receivers within the CDIP, identified the
container and sometimes also identified specific shipments within it. The
portal also contained other sensors that looked for other things, but that wasn’t
his concern.

Larry worked for a freight consolidator
serving shippers without enough cargo to fill an entire “box,” forty feet long
by eight square. The systems he monitored confirmed that not only had the
container arrived, the separate shipments within it were there, as they should
be. Nobody had screwed up the container manifest or taken contents out at the
last minute to place in another container for some made-sense-at-the-time
reason or stolen them.

The extra signal really wasn’t his
concern, but because he was bored, Cosgrove clicked his mouse. Seconds later a
truck driver swore. A yellow LED blinked on his
dashboard,
signaling him
to pull into the further-inspection lane. Moments later, a
harsh voice came from the cheap speakers i
n
Cosgrove’s
computer. “Hey, Larry, what’s with APL sixteen four fifty-eight?”

“It’s gotta extra emitter,” he said
through a mouthful of candy bar. “My gear’s getting a signal that doesn’t
correlate to any RFID tag in my system.”

“Dammit! This is the fourth load diverted
for inspection on my shift. I’m gettin’ real fuckin’ tired of this shit!”

Cosgrove, who didn’t like this particular
federal agent at all, flipped him off invisibly and munched the rest of the
candy bar.

A stumpy man wearing sweat-marked
blue-black fatigues with a badge denoting Customs and Border Protection (CBP)
stalked across grease-spotted concrete. Pulling himself up onto the cab steps,
he told the driver, “Awright, run us through the Vassis.” He was referring to
the Vehicle and Cargo Inspection System, or VACIS, another portal, one much
more sophisticated than the CDIP.

As the trucker pulled the container
through the portal, a light blinked red and a horn sounded. The driver and the CBP
man both swore.

“Bananas! Fuckin’ bananas, five’l get you
ten.” The CBP officer was referring to the tendency of the VACIS to alarm on
naturally occurring radiation, such as emitted by bananas, or several kinds of
granite, or cat litter, some types of porcelain, and a long list of other
harmless items.

“OK. Pull it over to dump and thump.”
That was the area where CBP opened containers and inspected the contents,
sometime removing them—“dump”—and sometimes tapping on them—“thump”—in search
of hidden cavities.

During the journey, Gus the CBP officer
thumbed his mike and said, “Larry, what’s the manifest say for this bitch?”

“It’s a grab bag. Consumer electronics,
plus some portable generators, and yeah, some toilet fixtures, probably
porcelain.”

When the truck reached dump and thump,
the K9 team—the explosive sniffer—was waiting. As the box was unloaded the
handler looked bored; the German shepherd looked happy. When the dog reached
the portable generators, he went to alert. The shepherd became elated; the men
became engaged.

The handler
called out, “K9 has a positive!”

Gus’ anger became alertness. The dogs got
fooled sometimes, but they were a lot more accurate than the VACIS. Gus keyed
his radio. “Blue Diamond. We have a Blue Diamond at site Charlie Three.” He and
the driver and the K9 backed off about one hundred feet. Other CBP officers set
up a security perimeter around the tractor-trailer, which sat patiently in dump
and thump with its doors open.

After working about an hour, army EOD
Specialist Breanne Murphy disarmed an explosive device, a relatively
small—meaning it wouldn’t have killed anyone but her—amount of Semtex rigged to
be triggered by a commercial asset tracking and control apparatus.

EOD—Explosive Ordnance Disposal—is a
craft that demands an audit trail. If the device blows, it’s crucial to know
everything the dead technician did, especially the fatal move. Thus, the
soldier “in the hole” describes and discusses every finding and every planned
action with others at a safe distance.

Murphy paused for a moment, wiping sweat
from her face. So, was that it—or was it sucker bait to lull her into tripping
a booby trap or failing to search thoroughly enough to find the main
charge?
 

God,
it stinks in here! They musta used this box to pack recyclables headed to Asia. But I do love this shit. It’s a head game for sure,
to make the bet you’ve got it figured out, then snip the wires and see if
you’re still alive the next second.

She swigged from her canteen, then
carefully, with step-by-step commentary, opened the generator’s weather shield
and saw something that literally terrified her.

With a mouth so dry she could hardly
speak, Breanne said, “Jesus! I see a probable implosion device.”

“I ain’t Jesus. I’m even better—I’m a
first sergeant,” said the team leader, observing the edge-liver’s code of
keeping it light.

“Are you sure?”

“Damn right I
am! It’s about the size of a basketball.”

“Any timing or
triggering device?”

“Shit, I can’t
tell. Not an obvious one but there’re a hell of a lot of wires!”

“What’s your PRD
read?”

Breanne, on her
belly peering under the “generator,” scooched around so she could see her
belt-mounted radiation detector.

“Fuck me! It’s
at the upper end of the yellow, about 25!”

“OK, video
everything, take a couple of IRs, and back out.”

***

 
“Mr. President, the NEST team has confirmed
it’s a nuke.”

Sara Zimmer’s voice came from the
speakerphone in the tiny White House bomb shelter.
 
“They do not, repeat do not, see any timing
device. That doesn’t mean it’s not armed, though. There could be an electronic
detonating device, say a cell phone. They believe the bomb
is stable enough to mov
e.
Our
plan is to
helo it to the air base at Dover, Delaware.
That’s a rural area; plus an aircraft out of Dover
is over the Atlantic almost immediately. I’ve
given instructions to handle it according to the protocol we developed—get it
out over the ocean, analyze it, disarm it, and deliver it to the Pantex plant
near Amarillo
for detailed study.”

“OK, Sara, I remember you briefed us
about that procedure at an NSC. That seems like the right thing to do.”

“I’ll keep you
advised, Mr. President.”

Martin broke the connection. Hearing
someone enter, he half-turned in his chair and saw Ella. He reached up; she
grasped his hand. They sat in apprehensive silence.

That silence was broken by Bart Guarini’s
arrival. “Mr. President, Ella. You’ll need to go on TV tonight! I’ve got the
speechwriters working on two—one if we lose another city and one if we don’t.”

Rick tried to think of a quip about how
one speech would differ from the other, but he couldn’t.

Discouragement washed over him.
This changes so much, just when we were
making progress! There’s going to be panic, anger, another stock market
collapse, more congressional hearings, and most of all, demands for action. But
what action? Against whom? Is this Kim or someone else?

Ella said, “Kim?”

“We haven’t analyzed the bomb yet, but
surely it’s Kim’s. How could there be another leader who’d run that risk? God
help the world if there’s another like him out there!”

Guarini spoke, with an edge of fear: “Mr.
President, if it’s Kim—and I agree it surely is Kim—we have to go to Plan B
immediately! We can’t wait any longer. We’ve got to remove him from control of North Korea and
its nukes!”

Another voice said, “I agree.” Guarini
and the Martins saw John Dorn, who reached the doorway as Bart spoke.

So
here we are,
Rick
thought:
Four people in a bomb shelter
trying to figure out how to save civilization by destroying a portion of it.
It’s come to that!

 
No, stop being dramatic. This is not about
saving civilization; it’s about saving the United States and the Martin
administration. Or maybe the other way around, if I’m honest.

“Sir, we’ve got
to take the gloves off!” said Dorn.

“What does that
mean, John?” said Martin.

“That means taking Kim out any way we
can—assassination, kidnapping, hitting Pyongyang
with a nuke. Whatever it takes!” Dorn’s face shone with sweat.

The president held up a hand and spoke
sharply: “So, the end justifies the means? It’s really
not
possible to defend ourselves without compromising our ideals?”

Dorn fired back: “Sir, the people who
agreed when you made that statement didn’t feel threatened! If we lose another
city,
everyone
will feel threatened!
Every city and town will become a fortress. The economy will collapse. No
security measure will be too intrusive or too destructive of civil liberties.
You could be impeached.

“If that bomb goes off, and probably even
if it doesn’t, the people of this country are going to be scared to death and
mad as hell. We can either ride that wave or be drowned by it!”

“What do you
think, Bart?”

“I agree with
John!”

“Rick.” The
three looked at Ella.

“The end does not justify the means, not
now, not ever. But that’s not all there is to it. Sometimes things have to be
done that cannot be fully justified. They have to be done by those who have
accepted responsibility for others. A family. A tribe. A nation. Those who have
responsibility sometimes have to accept the cost of doing the unthinkable, of
paying an awful price personally because it’s their duty to others who trusted
them.”

Rick was about to speak when Dottie
Branson’s voice came from the speakerphone.
I
wonder where she is . . . still at her desk while I’m safely in this shelter?
Who else is in the usual place, risking incineration? I hate the idea that I
have to be preserved, above all others, as if I’m some totem or god whose very
existence will save the nation. I know I’m not and, right now, I have no damned
idea how to save the nation.

“Mr. President,
Sam’s on for you.”

“Sir, there’s breaking news. The networks
and cables are running live feeds of police activity on the Baltimore waterfront and speculating about
it. The press room is filling with reporters expecting our statement.”

Looking into Martin’s eyes for
understanding and seeing it, Guarini spoke, leaving Martin deniability. “Sam,
tell them inspectors found a powerful bomb in a container at the port.” Still
looking intently at the president for some sign and intuiting agreement,
Guarini continued: “Experts have safed the bomb, and it’s being removed now to
a military base that for security reasons will not be identified. People in Baltimore are not in
danger from this bomb. Oh, and Sam, characterize this as a preliminary report.”

“OK, Bart.” Sam knew
the president had not been rushed to the
bomb shelter because of a truckload of TNT in Baltimore. She also knew not to ask. Still,
she refused to fly completely blind. “Bart—should I be prepared for substantial
revision to this preliminary report?”

“Yes.”

Dorn said, “I’d
better get the NSC together.”

“Right,” said Martin, “and we can’t do it
from down here—no teleconference equipment in this hidey-hole.”

He turned to Wilson. “Look, the bomb’s being managed. It’s
time for me to get back upstairs, at least to the Sit Room. The hunkering down
is over.”

The four of them watched the head of the presidential
protective detail consider briefly, then heard him agree. They trooped
upstairs, the president, Dorn, and Guarini striding away from Ella at the
corridor leading to the Sit Room. After a few steps, Rick spun around and went
to Ella, putting an arm around her shoulders and leaning in close to her ear.
After a brief, whispered conversation, they hugged and parted.

As they approached the Sit Room complex
the agent in front of Martin cupped his hand to his earpiece, then turned to
the president. “Sir, Secretary Zimmer reports the helo has arrived at Dover OK.”
Martin gave a thumbs-up and followed Dorn and Guarini into the large conference
room, where five screens displayed the networks plus CNN and Fox News.

Suddenly, all the screens cut to a worried
man at a podium, glancing down at notes. Rick felt a stab in that familiar spot
in his stomach because it was the mayor of Baltimore.