Page 61 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest
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The operation began just three minutes after 02:00 as the first tendrils of lightning cracked overhead. A series of squalls had begun rolling in. Weather reports indicated they would grow in intensity over the next twenty-four hours. Juan and his crew would be in and out before things got crazy.
The operation’s opening salvo was a narrowly directed energy beam fired from one of theOregon’s EMP cannons. Murph carefully swept one side of the container yard, knocking out lights and cameras with each burst. He continued that process until the Chinese warehouse was similarly darkened, as was the next one over. They hoped people on the ground would assume the storm was responsible for the temporary shutdown across the yard. By hitting a large portion of the yard, the Chinese wouldn’t think they had been singled out and targeted.
With the lights and cameras knocked out, theOregon’s newly acquired Joby S4 eVTOL leaped off theOregon’s deck. The four-passenger, electric-powered tilt-rotor flew in near silence through the thundering, windswept night.
Gomez carefully followed the Joby’s AI-chosen path, its sensors and algorithms assiduously avoiding visual and radar detection until it hovered just inches above the warehouse roof.
Juan and Eddie Seng slipped off the skids and padded over to the nearest transom as the stealthy Joby slipped back into the dark. If anything went sideways tonight with the Chinese guards, Cabrillo wanted both Eddie’s sangfroid bravado and linguistic expertise deployed.
Seng opened his pack, pulled out his surveillance gear, and quickly deployed a tiny quadcopter equipped with a night vision camera and audio. Thanks to his first-person view goggles and handheld controller, Eddie was able to deftly maneuver the whisper-quiet surveillance drone through the crowded warehouse stacked with containers. Within moments he located the four interior guards, each highly alert and attentive to their duty, deploying flashlights against the dark.Clearly, they were concerned about whatever it was they were guarding—yet another confirmation theOregonteam was in the right place at the right time.
With the guards located, Seng turned to finding the container. Their plan A hinged on a quick ingress and departure; no telling when shift changes or other potential disasters could upend the applecart. The prevailing thought was that the target container had only just been unloaded and therefore would be near the front entrance and not stacked somewhere in the back. It took all of two minutes for Eddie to find the correct alphanumeric-sequenced ISO code and signal a thumbs-up. “Got it.”
With all six positions of the guards confirmed and the container location secured, Cabrillo radioed back to Hali Kasim. “We’re good to go. Let her rip.”
Moments later, Kasim engaged theOregon’s supremely powerful electronic surveillance suite affectionately known as the Sniffer, a primary means of carrying out theOregon’s intelligence-gathering missions. The Sniffer was designed not only to hoover up all manner of electromagnetic signals but also to intercept and decode virtually any form of encrypted signals.
The Sniffer was equally capable of breaking into and manipulating those signals. Tonight’s plan A avoided direct confrontation with the guards, but still disabled them by hacking into the encrypted Chinese security comms.
The Cray-powered Sniffer then manipulated the comms signals in the guards’ earpieces, broadcasting a series of subtle binaural beats and other sonic wavelengths synced with theta and delta brain wave frequencies. The theory was this would induce a form of audio hypnosis that would immediately paralyze the guards in an eyes-open but mindless stupor, rendering them oblivious to the world around them. Once awakened, they would remember nothing.
“Wow, looks like it’s working,” Seng said. “I thought it was a load of sci-fi nonsense.”
“I was afraid Murph might have fried their comms with the EMP cannon,” Cabrillo said. “I never should have doubted the lad.” Bothmen carried holstered tranq pistols on their hips in case Hali’s audio hypnosis trick didn’t work.
“Okay, let’s go.” Juan had already picked the lock of the roof’s access door. The two men sped noiselessly down the steel staircase and onto the floor. The two operators moved in perfect sync. Thousands of hours of training together had given the entire Gundog team a near-telepathic connection. They always carried comms, but hardly needed them. They knew each other’s rhythms, strengths, preferences. As the head of shore operations, Seng knew each of his operators intimately, including his boss, Juan Cabrillo, who was as good as any of the decorated former combat operators on the team.
Within moments, they arrived at the target container. It was on top of a three-high stack, some seventeen feet off the ground.
“How much time do we have, Hali?” Cabrillo asked in his comms.
“Hypno-signal is still strong, so as long as you need.”
But who knows how long the effect will last?Juan asked himself.
“Let’s get after it.”
The two men scrambled up the container stack without climbing ropes, utilizing the forklift pockets, vertical locking bar brackets, and horizontal catches. They had practiced this maneuver a few times in the holds of theOregonfor just this eventuality. The practice exercise also taught them to bring carabiners and straps so they could easily secure themselves at their lofty height. They attached themselves to the left door, since the right door had to open first.
Eddie pulled out a pair of bolt cutters and snapped the bright blue bolt seal. The bullet-shaped steel pin with bar-coded numbers was an important security measure for any shipping container. The only way for thieves to open the bolt was to destroy it, signaling to the rightful owners that the contents had been either stolen or tampered with. With the bolt cut and its two parts pocketed, Eddie grabbed the handle for the right-door locking rod and rotated it, unlocking the cams from their slots in the doorframe. He nudged the door farther open with the toe of his boot and looked inside.
“Didn’t expect that,” he whispered.
Juan craned his neck over the smaller man’s shoulder. Inside was alarge steel tank approximately eight feet long, and three and a half feet wide and tall. It was well secured to the deck with bolts and heavy-duty straps. Chinese ideographs were stenciled on the facing side:
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“What does it say?” Cabrillo asked.
“Twenty-five hundred liters.”
No smell emanated from the enclosed space, but the hairs on the back of Cabrillo’s neck stood on end, his worst fears crystallizing in his mind. He and Eddie unhooked themselves and swung inside.
Cabrillo pulled out a respirator from his pack and slipped it over his face and donned a set of heavy rubber gloves. Eddie did the same. Not knowing what they would be facing on this trip, the two men had packed plenty of protective gear.
Eddie handed Juan a sturdy glass test tube with an absorbent test strip parked inside of it. Cabrillo stepped over to the small sealed opening at the top of the tank, twisted it open, and glanced inside.
