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“We have to go,” Sanchez said in English, and started walking back up.
But Fidel held firm. To Kincaid, he said, “Show me your passport, Señor Alan.”
“My passport? Sure, why not?” Kincaid slipped it out of a back pocket as he looked up the stairs at the door to the third floor.
•••
The six men of Juliet Victor came to the edge of the terminal operations building, took a knee, and Hash leaned out and looked both left and right. In front of them was the container yard, easily three thousand or more of the massive and multi-colored steel boxes stacked high. Some were twenty feet long, some forty; most of them were eight and a half feet high and eight feet wide, but some were even taller.
Massive forklifts rumbled about on the pathways between the containers; huge tractor-trailers brought containers in from the Estelle or out towards the exit of the terminal to Juliet Victor’s left.
The yard was fenced in, but multiple open gates ran up and down the eastern side in front of the CIA officers, as trucks were constantly rolling in and out.
Other vehicles called reach stackers—essentially wheeled crane devices that could secure and move the containers up higher into the stacks—rolled about inside the fence.
It was a busy morning at the port; the crew was trying to catch up after the storm, and Juliet Victor was smack-dab in the middle of it.
Travers knelt right behind Takahashi. “What do you see, Hash?”
“A shit-ton of people, boss. Soldiers on the left, they are near the front gate still so no worries, but there’s two dozen other workers who are going to see us running to the containers.”
“Overwatch? We good to move?”
Pace answered back quickly. “Soldiers are right behind you on the right, and on your left a couple hundred yards away. They are fanning out now, coming closer to your poz. Suggest you just try to walk right through terminal operations.”
Travers stood and turned to his men. “We act like we’re supposed to be here.”
The men all wore either T-shirts or long-sleeved spandex scuba rash guards and shorts, clothing they’d had on under their wet suits. In seconds their packs were back on and their guns hidden, but there was no getting around the fact that a half-dozen soaking-wet dudes in shorts and scuba boots were going to draw significant attention waltzing through this scene.
The men began walking across the pavement, some fifty yards to the fenced-in container yard. They moved with purpose, but not too fast, and as they did so, Travers spoke.
“How’s your situation, Overwatch?”
“Let’s focus on you until you’re clear.”
This meant to Travers that Pace knew he was fucked.
“We can make it without you. Get out of there.”
“Someday you’ll be calling the shots. But for now, shut the fuck up and focus.”
Travers sighed.
A big truck pulling an empty chassis stopped to let the men pass; Chris looked up to the driver and waved, and the man stared at him but slowly waved back.
Travers knew he wasn’t fooling anybody with this shit, but if they all broke into a run, the military would likely be alerted a hell of a lot faster than if someone just radioed terminal operations that a group of relaxed-looking white dudes in shorts were on the property.
They made it through the gates of the container yard, passed a cluster of men in hard hats performing maintenance on a reach stacker, and Takahashi leaned a little closer to Travers.
“We might as well be walking around with our dicks out the way we’re drawing attention.”
As he said this, a Cuban in his sixties lifted his radio to his mouth, his eyes on the Americans.
Travers said, “When we get into the containers, we’re running for the fence with weapons out.”
The sound of sirens began blaring behind them just as they entered the stacks, and in seconds the men had pulled their short-barreled weapons back out of their packs and started sprinting again, all aware that at any moment one of those soldiers was going to open fire and, after that, all hell would break loose.
FIFTY-ONE
