They wont find anything, Hanley said. Our pilot said he and Cabrillo saw the pilot of the Cessna drop the package out the side.
Why hasnt Cabrillo telephoned in, Overholt said, so we can coordinate help?
That, Mr. Overholt, is a question I cannot answer.
Youll let me know as soon as you speak to him?
Yes, sir, Hanley said as the telephone went dead.
THE MG TC rode like a buckboard wagon filled with grain. The thin tires, lever-action shocks and ancient suspension were no match for a modern sports car. Cabrillo was in fourth gear with the engine wound to her highest RPM and the old car was only doing a little over seventy miles an hour. Holding the wood-rimmed wheel with one hand, he slapped the side of his satellite telephone again.
Nothing. It might have been the landingdespite his best efforts to protect the device, it had hit the dashboard when they finally touched down. It might be the power supplysatellite telephones burned through power like a fat mans air-conditioning during a Phoenix summer. Whatever the case, Cabrillo could not
get the green light to come on.
Just then he caught sight of the van a few miles ahead as it crested a hill.
EDDIE SENG GLANCED over at Bob Meadows as the car Meadows was driving neared the Isle of Sheppey. Plucked from the Oregon by the Corporations amphibious plane, the two men had been flown to an airport on the outskirts of London, where the armored Range Rover had been left by the British intelligence agency MI5.
It looks like we received the weapons we asked for, Seng said as he picked through the nylon bag that had been left on the rear seat.
Now if we can just find where the Hammadi cell is hiding in London, Meadows said confidently, and locate the bomb and disable it while our chairman secures the meteorite, we can call it a day.
Sounds reasonably difficult.
I give it a seven on the ten scale, Meadows said as he slowed to turn into the port.
SENG STEPPED FROM the passenger seat as Meadows was still shutting off the engine. He walked over to a lanky man with strawberry-blond hair and extended his hand.
Eddie Seng, he said.
Malcolm Rodgers, MI5, the man said.
Meadows was out of the Range Rover and approaching.
This is my partner, Bob Meadows. Bob, this is Malcolm Rodgers from MI5.
Pleasure, Meadows said, shaking his hand.
Rodgers began to walk toward the pier. The captain was found at a local pub just up the hill. According to the customs slip, he had docked that evening.
Did the radiation kill him? Meadows asked.
No, Rodgers said, the preliminary autopsy showed traces of a poison.
What kind? Seng asked.
Nothing weve been able to verify yet, Rodgers said, some paralytic agent.
Do you have a phone? Meadows asked.
Rodgers slowed and removed a cell phone from his pocket then looked at Meadows.
Call your coroner and have him get in touch with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta. Ask them to send the toxicology profiles for Arabian Peninsula scorpion and snake venoms and see if they get a match.
Rodgers nodded then made the call. While he was on the telephone, Seng studied the port area below. There were several old cargo ships, three or four pleasure crafts, and a single catamaran whose upper decks bristled with antennae and two davits. The rear deck of the catamaran was crowded with crates and electronic gear. A man was hunched over a table on the rear deck with his arms inside a torpedo-shaped device.
Okay, Rodgers said, theyll check.
The men continued walking down the hill and reached the dock. They walked out on the planks then turned and headed down another dock that abutted the first at a right angle. Three men were visible on the Larissa s deck. You could be sure more were below.
Weve searched every inch, Rodgers said. Nothing. The logs are falsified, but by interviewing the crew we learned that the cargo was picked up near Odesa in the Ukraine, and they steamed here without stopping.
Was the crew aware of what they were transporting? Seng asked.
No, Rodgers said. The rumor was that it was stolen artwork.
They were just the delivery men, Seng said.
Meadows was staring back down the dock at the catamaran.
Do you men want to go aboard? Rodgers asked.
Did anyone see the man leave the pub after he met with the captain? Meadows asked.
No, Rodgers answered, and thats the problem. We dont know who he was or where he went.
But the captain didnt take the bomb with him to the pub, Meadows wondered aloud, so either someone on the crew made the switch, or it was stolen off this ship.
No one saw the bomb at the pub, Rodgers said, and the captain died there.
And youve grilled his crew? Seng said.
What Im about to tell you is classified, Rodgers said.
Seng and Meadows nodded.
What we did to the crew is illegal by world conventionthey told us everything they know, Rodgers said quietly.
The British were not playing aroundthe Greeks had been tortured or doped or both.
And no one in the crew made the switch? Meadows said.
No, Rodgers said. Whoever that man was at the pub, he had accomplices.