Dead or Alive - Tom Clancy [274]
“Andrews. Gulfstream waiting,” Hendley replied. “We’ve got gear and clothes already aboard. First things first: the ship—Losan. You were right, Jack. The Salims had two dozen pipe bombs. On the manifest there were forty-six propane tanks listed, all defective and empty, and heading back from Senegal to the manufacturer, Tarquay Industries out of Smithfield.”
“Well, we know they weren’t empty,” Clark said.
“Right. They won’t be sure for a couple days, but the Hazmat teams out there are guessing there was a couple hundred gallons of ammonia or sodium hypochlorite in each tank.”
“Bleach,” Jack said.
“Yeah, looks like. Common everyday bleach. Mix them together and you get chlorine gas. You do the math and we’re talking about at least thirty-five tons of chlorine gas precursors. As it stands, only a couple hundred gallons got mixed. They’ve got it contained.”
“Holy shit,” Jack said. “Thirty-five tons. What kind of damage could that have done?”
Granger answered. “Depends a lot on wind, humidity, and temperature, but we could have been looking at thousands of dead. Thousands more with skin and mucosa burns, pulmonary edema, blindness … It’s ugly shit.”
Hendley said, “Next piece of business. Chavez and Caruso grabbed Hadi.”
“What about the others in his group?” Clark asked.
“Dead in the Rocinha. That might have had something to do with it, but once Hadi started talking, he didn’t stop for a while.”
“We’ve got him?”
“No, they bundled him up like a Thanksgiving turkey and dropped him at a police station with a note attached. He’ll never see the outside of a Brazilian prison.”
“We were mostly right about Hadi. He was a longtime URC courier, and got tapped for the Paulinia operation at the last minute. His last courier job—Chicago to Vegas to San Francisco—he stopped on the way to visit an old friend.”
Hendley’s expression answered their next question before either Clark or Jack could ask it. “You’re shitting us?”
“No. The Emir came in on a Dassault Falcon from Sweden about a month ago. He’s been living outside Vegas ever since.”
“And Hadi knew where—”
“Yeah.”
“It’s bullshit,” Jack said. “He came here for a reason. The Paulinia thing, the Losan … Ding is right. Shoes are starting to drop.”
“Agreed,” Granger said. “That’s why you’re going to go snatch him up. Chavez and Caruso are already in the air. They’ll touch down about an hour after you.”
“So we grab him and drop him on the FBI’s doorstep?” Clark said.
“Not right away, and not until we’ve had a chance to wring him out.”
“That could take some time.”
“We’ll see.”
This Hendley said with a smile that Jack could describe only as slightly evil.
At Andrews, the Gulfstream was prepped and ready, the door open and stairs extended for them. Jack and Clark collected their gear from the back of the Suburban, shook hands with Hendley and Granger, then boarded the plane. The copilot met them at the door. “Sit wherever you want.” He pulled up the stairs, swung the door shut, and locked it down. “We’re taxiing in five, wheels up in ten. Help yourself to the fridge and minibar.”
Jack and Clark made their way to the rear of the cabin. Sitting in the last row was a familiar face: Dr. Rich Pasternak.
“Gerry didn’t tell me much,” Pasternak said. “Please tell me I’m flying across the country in the dead of night for a good goddamned reason.”
Clark smiled. “Nothing’s written in stone, Doc, but I think it’ll be worth your time.”
With the four-time-zone difference and a four-hour-and-twenty-minute flight, they technically landed at North Las Vegas airport only twenty minutes after leaving Andrews. It was a phenomenon Jack understood, of course, but thinking too much about the surreal flexibility of the temporal world could give a man headaches.
Between catnaps he and Clark had dissected the Losan mission, talked baseball, and rummaged through the fridge and minibar. For his part, Pasternak sat in his seat, occasionally dozing but mostly staring into space. A lot on the doctor’s mind, Jack knew. The man had lost a brother