V Plague (Book 11): Merciless Page 29
The loading continued for several minutes. Vans and medium sized trucks filled the empty spots around the GMC. Soon the vessel was fully loaded and Trevor jumped slightly when the Captain sounded the horn in preparation for sailing. Moments later the diesel engines roared and he could feel their power vibrating the floor and seat of the truck.
Checking his watch, Trevor noted the time. He had been instructed to turn the high beams on three minutes after the ferry left the dock. The huge boat would still be within Eliot Bay and close enough to the Seattle docks for the disaster to be clearly visible from shore. Maximum exposure, the team leader had called it.
Looking around, Trevor noted a crewman working his way through the parked vehicles. He was looking inside each one, pausing to speak with the driver of a truck parked two hundred feet in front of the GMC. After a moment, the crewman stepped back and the driver climbed down.
“They’re making drivers leave their cars,” Trevor thought to himself, panic threatening to take over.
He checked the clock again. One minute gone, two to go. The crewman said something else to the truck driver, who headed for a stairwell that led to the passenger decks above. Trevor’s eyes flicked to the clock as the crewman continued his inspection, quickly approaching.
Two minutes gone. Trevor’s eyes were glued to the crewman now, watching as the man drew closer. He knew when he was spotted, knew it was only moments before he would be told to get out of the vehicle.
Reaching out, he moved the turn signal lever forward until it clicked, setting the headlights to high. On the dash was a small switch that rotated left to right with three stops. Off, Parking, and Head Lights. He placed his hand on it and checked the clock, prepared to turn the lights on the instant the clock showed three minutes had passed.
The crewman paused at the window of the box truck directly in front of his, speaking with another driver who had stayed with his vehicle. Trevor checked the clock, but it wasn’t time. He jumped and turned to his right when the passenger window suddenly exploded in a shower of glittering safety glass.
A woman with long, red hair met his eyes, thrusting something through the opening she had just made. She was wearing a black leather jacket and black helmet with a clear face shield. The motorcycle rider that had been cutting in line on the dock!
As her hand came into the cab, he recognized the object she held. A gun! Her eyes were locked on his as she gripped the weapon. He saw it come in line with his face, the round hole in the muzzle appearing huge. Then her finger was moving onto the trigger. All Trevor could think to do was turn the switch. So he did. His brain registered a flash from the muzzle of the weapon, then nothing else.
When the GMC’s light switch was turned on, electricity from the battery flowed through the vehicle’s wiring harness, but was diverted before reaching the bulbs behind the lens covers in the front grill. Newly installed wires carried the current to a series of blasting caps embedded in sixteen, 55 gallon drums riding in the back of the truck.
Each drum contained the same explosive combination of chemicals that had been used by Timothy McVeigh to bomb the federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995. In total, the bomb driven by Trevor was the same size, weighing in at slightly over 7,000 pounds.
The resulting explosion tore the ferry boat in half and shattered windows all along the Seattle waterfront. In less than five minutes, the two halves of the devastated vessel sank beneath the calm waters of Puget Sound. Over two thousand passengers and crew lost their lives.
2
“She failed,” Ian Patterson said when the large clock reached zero.
The clock was mounted high on a wall, above a set of thick windows that looked into a small chamber. A round dais was in the middle of the room, surrounded by curved glass panels that slid open for access. A powerful, low frequency hum came from beneath the floor.
Turning, Patterson studied a muted TV screen. It was tuned to CNN and footage of multiple Coast Guard ships spread across Seattle’s Eliot Bay was being broadcast live.
“Run the security footage from the docks,” he said to another technician. “If she got close, we should be able to see it now.”
The TV screen went dark for a moment, then the image of Pier 52 in Seattle appeared.
“There’s the truck,” FBI agent William Johnson said.
Patterson nodded, intently watching the display. He watched as more cars arrived and took their place in the queue to board the ferry. Soon the arrivals had completed driving off the boat and boarding began.
“There!”
Agent Johnson pointed at a slight figure on a motorcycle, slowly driving along the back of each row of waiting cars. The rider was dressed in all black with a black helmet, pausing at each space between rows and looking for something.
“How are you sure?” Patterson asked without turning his attention away from the screen.
“She loves bikes, and I recognize her hair.”
Patterson didn’t say anything, looking closer at the thick mane of red hair that spilled from under the helmet and down the rider’s back.
“She sees the target,” Johnson said softly.
On the screen, the rider had cranked the big bike to the side and accelerated down a gap between two lines of vehicles. Arms were being waved by the waiting drivers and both men cursed softly when they saw the door of a pickup open suddenly, directly in the motorcycle’s path. The rider barely stopped in time, a large man wearing jeans, work boots and a flannel shirt stepping out and yelling at her.
By the time she had backed up and squeezed through a gap between two cars, the white GMC truck had disappeared onto the ferry. Weaving through moving vehicles, the rider chased after, having to stop again when a crewman stepped in her path and waved a minivan onto the boat ahead of her. As soon as it was clear, she gunned the engine and shot forward, swerving around the crewman and going out of sight aboard the ferry.
The two men stood watching the footage as the last cars were loaded. The ramp was retracted and minutes later the large vessel began moving away from the dock. Patterson started a stopwatch function on his phone and looked at the timestamp on the screen as the ferry left the dock. It was departing two seconds later than the last ten times he’d watched the same video.
“She caused a two second variation,” he said.
“How?” Johnson asked.
“Maybe the commotion during the loading. No way to know,” Patterson said.
The two men continued watching as the boat sailed out of the visual frame of the security camera. Workers adjusted the traffic cones and cars began to queue up, preparing for the arrival of the next ferry. When the stopwatch reached 2:54:38, the camera violently shook, then the image blurred when the lens shattered from the pressure wave of an explosion.
“Almost six seconds early,” he said, turning to look at Agent Johnson.
“She affected it.”
“Yes, it appears so. But, she didn’t stop it. And the window has closed.”
“Don’t forget she just died,” Johnson said, anger creeping into his voice.
“So did over 2,000 other people,” Patterson said, turning fully to face the FBI agent. “And frankly, I’m a little concerned that you may have grown too close to the asset. Should I be worried?”
The two men stood staring at each other for a long pause. Patterson noted a light sheen of sweat forming on Johnson’s forehead. It gleamed brightly against his ebony skin under the fluorescent lights.
“She was a person, not an asset. If you’d ever had a conversation with her, you’d know that,” Johnson said.
“It’s not my job to have conversations with assets,” Patterson said sternly. “It’s my job to make sure this project does its job. Perhaps you are having too many conversations with them.”
“You know better than that,” Johnson said.
“Very well. Just make sure you keep your relationship with the next asset strictly professional. What is his status, by the way?”
Johnson took a deep breath, calming himself before answering.
“My team is in place to interdict. They should have him in hand within twenty-four hours and will bring him directly here.”
“I’m not happy about this one,” Patterson said.
“We don’t have much choice. He’s all that’s available,” Johnson replied, earning a curt nod of agreement.
“Get started on him the moment he arrives. We’re out of assets until he’s operational. The way things are going in the world, I’m afraid it won’t be long before we need him.”
Agent Johnson nodded, turned and left the room.
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