Chapter 46. Raid
It was two in the morning, Mexico time. Special Agent Jimmy Pond was dressed in black, his brown face painted black with grease paint. He squatted behind a large rock. Lying on their stomachs in black clothing next to him were Roger Tsung and five Navy SEAls. Pond took out his digital binoculars and scanned the area beyond the chain link fence. Everything was quiet.
The NSA and CIA had been hard at work during the last week. They had tracked all ships which had traveled from Marrakech to anyplace in Mexico. There had been six such ships in the last few weeks, but none listed the Italian scientist as a passenger. Field agents had spread out in Marrakech, showing the scientist’s photograph to workers on the docks. But the Muslim dock workers in Morocco were generally suspicious of men they suspected to be American spies. Even if they had seen a dark-haired Italian man carrying a cage with a bat in it, no one was about to tell the Americans.
However, the search for monkeys proved to be more fruitful. With the assistance of the Mexican government, the NSA was able to locate ship manifests for dozens of crates of spider monkeys sent from the Philippines to Puerto Vallarta. The purchaser was a corporation called Vortex, Inc. Once again, the organizers of the corporation had false names. The address listed for the corporation was non-existent. But the timing of the animal shipments was right. The monkeys had been shipped from the Philippines only days after the explosion of the hospital in Kigoma. That evidence pointed to the likelihood of a lab somewhere in or near Puerto Vallarta. CIA Agent Jimmy Pond hit the docks in Puerto Vallarta, but no one there remembered anything about Vortex or the animal shipments.
Using the Vortex lead, the Mexican government served subpoenas to Telmex, the country’s largest telecommunications provider, asking for any records relating to the company. Vortex, Inc. had set up Internet service with Telmex at a small office in downtown Guadalajara. Guadalajara was close to Puerto Vallarta, so that fit. The Mexican police raided the office, but whoever had been there had cleared out. FBI agents assisting the Mexican police dusted for fingerprints but found nothing.
Working on the assumption that the monkeys had been shipped to Guadalajara, analysts at the NSA, for the next several days, had begun a painstaking search of satellite photos of warehouses in Guadalajara. Agents from the FBI conducted a computer search of Mexican land records to find the most likely warehouses in Guadalajara where the terrorists might be conducting operations. Warehouse properties which were owned by well-recognized American or Mexican corporations were eliminated from the search as being unlikely targets. The search resulted in 52 possible locations. It was Agent Bobby Fils at the NSA, at 1:00 a.m. the previous night, who had finally found the connection to the warehouse in Guadalajara where Jimmy Pond was now observing through binoculars.
Fils went with his boss into the office of Tom Irvine, Director of the NSA. Fils’ boss told Irvine that Fils had found something urgent on the bioterrorist search.
Fils put his laptop down on the Director’s desk. “Look at this,” he said. “This is aerial reconnaissance of a warehouse in Guadalajara on Tecadal Street. It is on the western edge of the city. It is in a secluded location. The property is owned by a bunch of shell companies, but when you trace it all back, the owner is a Mexican trust. The sole beneficiary of that trust is Julio Cezanne.”
“The drug dealer?” asked Irvine.
“Yes,” said Fils.
“Why is a drug dealer interested in bioterrorism?” asked Irvine.
“I don’t know,” said Fils. “But I went back and looked at satellite images of the property for the last several weeks. Look near the edge of the property. This black line is a fence surrounding the property. The first thing you can see is that there are men posted along the fence line.”
“Security,” said Irvine.
“Right. Now this is a shot taken four days after the Kigoma explosion. These are trucks coming in through the gate. I freeze-framed this shot here. Look at the side of the truck.”
Irvine tried to make out the lettering. “It’s very grainy. Can you punch it up a little more?”
Fils hit a button on the computer. “That’s as good as the image gets. But I am pretty certain that the word on the side of the truck is Vortex.”
Irvine squinted at the image. “I can see the ‘V,’ but it is hard to make out the rest.”
“Now look at this,” said Fils. He pressed fast forward to a clip on the video and then hit Play. “They are unloading crates. Look at all the holes in the crates. I think those are animals in there.”
“Hmmm,” said Irvine, straining to see the image on the video. “Maybe. I don’t think the Mexicans would even have enough for a warrant based on this. But I agree it is as good a place to start as any. Thanks, Bobby. I will get on it.” Irvine got on the phone to his contact at the CIA.
The next day, the infiltration operation was planned. The team would consist of five U.S. Navy SEALs. Jimmy Pond, who had prior experience relating to the Kigoma operations, would also be part of the team. In case the Mackinac Ebola Virus was on site, Roger Tsung from the United States AMRIID would also be part of the team. The team flew on a military jet into Gudalajara in the evening and had spent the last several hours performing a recon of the perimeter. It did not appear that there were any security guards near the fence. Infrared sensors picked up no heat signatures on the property.
The SEAL Team Leader motioned them forward. Using bolt cutters, the Special Forces soldiers made quick work of the chain link fence. The team stealthily made their way over to the warehouse door, dodging back and forth behind piles of tires and other debris on the property. The team scanned the warehouse building again with infrared and saw no heat signatures. One of the SEAL members managed to pry open a painted-over window on the side of the building and inserted a scope. The interior looked like a laboratory from what he could tell. He did not see anyone inside the building. “Clear,” he radioed into his mike. Another member of the SEAL team by the front door inspected the doorway for booby traps or tripwires, and could find none. He motioned the thumb’s-up sign to his Team Leader, and the team put on their night-vision goggles. The team then donned gas masks in case the virus was in the warehouse. After giving the Go signal, the team silently went through the front door scanning right and left. The smell was terrible in here. It smelled like a barn where someone had died. They fanned out throughout the warehouse, pointing their assault rifles. After moments in the dark, the Team Leader was convinced that no one was here, so he gave the signal to remove night-vision. One of the soldiers found a light switch and lit up the interior of the warehouse.
Jimmy Pond and Roger Tsung looked around and frowned. They did not like what they saw. Roger Tsung quickly advised all members of the team not to remove their gas masks, and told everyone to leave the warehouse immediately. He went outside the warehouse, and took a RACAL suit out of his bag. He took ten minutes to suit up. After checking his duct tape, he went back inside the warehouse. He used his radio uplink to speak to Sheila Simms, who was in the Situation Room with the President and was monitoring their channel.
“This is Foxtrot One, over.”
“Go ahead Foxtrot One.”
“We have a bad situation here,” said Roger Tsung. “We have laboratory area with about one hundred animal cages. Each cage has the remains of a spider monkey. The monkey cadavers look ravaged by disease. Their eyes are bloodshot. Many have exploded intestines. It looks like a slaughterhouse in here. There are also about twenty human corpses here, lying on the ground in a back room here. Can you see this? I am sending you the video link. Judging by the looks of them, they have been dead for over a week. Each of them looks like they have been exposed to the virus. Same symptoms as the monkeys. I am going through their pockets now to see if they have any I.D.” Carefully, with gloved hands, Tsung reached into the pants pockets of each of the dead bodies. After a few minutes, he spoke again.
“No luck. No I.D. on any of them, but judging by their clothes and their appearance and their lack of I.D., I would hazard a guess that they might be beggars or homeless people. I am walking into another room now.” Tsung went into another room, which was equipped with sophisticated electron microscopes.
“This room has electron microscopes, big ones. And I see two orange RACAL suits on a coat hooks. The have what appears to be a decontamination shower here.”
“Any computers or files?” asked the voice on the other end.
“No computers or files yet,” said Tsung. “I am going into what looks like the production area now.”
“This looks kind of like an assembly line of some kind. I am sending you a video. Can you see it?”
“We have it.”
“It almost looks like a bottling plant, like a soda factory or a bottled water plant or something. They have a little conveyor belt which kind of snakes around.”
Sheila Simms, back in Washington, D.C. in the Situation Room of the White House, gave a worried look to the President.
“Are there any bottles or containers left? Anything with a label?”
“Checking.” Roger Tsung walked around the rest of the factory. He did not see any bottles or labels. “Negative. Looks like everything has been cleared out. No computers. Filing cabinets have nothing in them. Nothing in the desks but a few pieces of paper and a couple paperclips…. Wait. Cancel that. I found something.”
“What is it?”
“It is a computer printout from two days ago. Shit.”
“What is it?”
“It is a Mapquest printout. It says on here it takes 17 hours to drive to Dallas.”
Natal, Brazil
Julio Cezanne was pleased with himself for leaving the Mapquest directions at the warehouse. That had been a last minute improvisation. Cezanne figured that if the Americans found his warehouse, the Dallas wild goose chase would be give him at least a couple days. And a day or two was all he needed. Earlier in the day, the Americans had crushed Ghana 7-0. As predicted, The Netherlands had beaten Australia. Tomorrow, the Americans would face off against Portugal in the morning and Germany in the afternoon. In two days, if everything worked as the scientists planned, the big match between America and The Netherlands would occur. And that’s when they would strike.
Cezanne and his cousin Davy Branco were in the stadium watching The Netherlands beat up on Chile. It was already 3-0 and there was forty minutes left to play. Cezanne was eating a soft pretzel, which was a new addition to the Brazilian concession stand. The crowd was roaring. No group of people loved football more than the Brazilians.
“I hate these pretzels,” said Cezanne. “They taste like cardboard.”
“That’s what you get for ordering fuckin’ German food in Brazil,” said Branco. “How ‘bout a little pepperoni sandwich or maybe a feijao tropeiro, eh? Eat like the Brazilians.”
“Look at that Number 10 from Chile. What kinda haircut is that?” remarked Cezanne. “Do they even have footballs in Chile?”
Davy Branco scowled. His cousin was in a bad mood. They watched a Dutch footballer dribble down the right sideline and shoot the ball over the crossbar.
“Ah, almost. So, Davy, how are we doing?”
“Good. We got the stands set up early this morning. People are buying the things like hotcakes.”
“You haven’t sold any yet with American or Dutch flags, have you?”
“No, we keep tellin’ ‘em they’re coming two days from now.”
“Good. What about our infestation problem?” asked Cezanne.
“Taken care of. No traces to the warehouse in Natal. The merchandise has been moved. And the workers… um…received their final paychecks.”
“What about the locals, any trouble?”
“Not yet, but we got ourselves an insurance policy just in case.”
Cezanne looked at Branco with a worried look. “I don’t want to know about that. Where is the merchandise now?”
“It is safe, and the Geniuses are gonna give everything a final onceover to make sure we are good to go.”
“Where are they now?”
“We got ‘em holed up in a hotel in town.”
“Davy, when this is all over, you know we’re going to have to do something about those boys. No loose ends, you know what I mean?”
The Netherlands scored again and the crowd all stood, erupting with applause.
“Sure thing, Julio,” said Branco.