Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [270]
Down the block, the Intrepid had pulled into the parking lot and stopped beside the first row of storage units. Citra Salim climbed out and trotted up to a unit, which she opened with a key.
“Don’t like this,” Jack said. “What do two kids on vacation need with a storage unit?”
“No good reason,” Clark replied.
Citra was back out. She closed and locked the unit, then returned to the Intrepid. She was carrying two small canvas backpacks.
Within minutes they were back on the highway and headed into the bay tunnel. Once through to the other side, the Intrepid continued to retrace the afternoon route, ending up once more at King Lincoln Park. They didn’t pull into the parking lot, however, but drove past it, then turned right onto Jefferson and headed back in the same direction.
“Think they made us?” Jack asked.
“No. They’re just careful. We’re okay.”
They were in an industrial-park area: trucking companies, gravel suppliers, scrap yards, and boat repair shops. The Intrepid took another right.
“Twelfth Street,” Jack said. “Heading east again.”
Clark let them get a little farther ahead, then shut off his headlights, made the turn, and pulled to the curb. Three hundred yards down the road, the Intrepid was turning left into an apartment complex.
“Visiting new friends?” Jack wondered.
“Let’s find out.”
Clark turned on the headlights and pulled out again. As they drew even with the apartments, two figures walked out of the parking lot and started down the sidewalk. The Salims. With their backpacks. Clark passed them and looked in the rearview mirror. They were heading back toward Jefferson. Clark turned the next corner, stopped again, headlights off.
“See them?” Clark asked.
“Yep, got ’em.”
At Jefferson, the Salims crossed the street and disappeared down a grassy median behind a trucking company.
“Time to move,” Clark said.
Lights still off, he did a U-turn and rolled down Twelfth to Jefferson. As they reached the intersection, they saw the Salims turn left and disappear behind the trucking company’s fence.
“They’re running out of room,” Jack said. The trucking company backed up to 664, a raised, four-lane highway.
“Let’s hoof it,” Clark said.
They parked, got out, and trotted across the street to the grass median. At the rear of the trucking company, they found a marshy creek bordered by thick brush and a narrow trail. They were halfway down it when Clark realized where they were. “It’s the Six sixty-four canal. Remember to the right, as we came out of the tunnel?” They’d seen dozens of motor yachts and speed-boats berthed in the canal.
Down the trail, an engine gurgled to life. Clark and Jack sprinted forward. Fifty yards away at the end of a dock, the Salims were sitting in a speedboat. The boy sat down in the driver’s seat and eased the throttle forward. The boat pulled away from the dock and headed into the canal.
Jack and Clark were back to their car a minute later. They pulled onto Jefferson and headed south. After a few blocks, the canal came into view through the passenger window. They could see the Salims’ boat motoring toward the mouth of the canal.
“They’re going for the terminal,” Clark said.
“What about the harbor patrol?”
“Jack, once they get around the jetty, they’re a quarter-mile from the first berth. We’ve got five minutes, if that.”
Clark did a U-turn and headed in the other direction.
They crossed under the 664, turned south onto Terminal. At the bottom of the ramp the road forked at a tank farm. Clark veered right and followed the winding dirt road. Halfway down the tank farm, Clark braked to a stop. A hundred yards away was a lighted guard shack. A swinging gate blocked the road.
“Shit.”
“Marshal’s badge get us through?” Jack asked.
“Once inside, yeah, but main gates switched to TWIC in January—Transportation Worker Identification Credential. You don’t have one, you don’t get in.”
“How do you know that?”
“Rainbow had an E-Six devoted to keeping up with