Robert grinned. “Of course, the poor man’s nuke. I knew that there was a reason why I keep you around. We could level the dock area if we wanted to, especially if we can’t get the ship. Don’t let Eric know about this option. I don’t quite yet trust him completely.”
Juan nodded his head. “Of course. He is still new and easily expendable.”
Robert assented. “Exactly. There will two of our guys boarding the ship with the pilot. One will watch the other who will make sure that the pilot brings the ship in.”
After being woken up in the wee hours by the earthquake, both Joe and Elise were exhausted. After dinner, and their walk through the vineyard, they finished getting El Zin loaded for the trip to Oakland. Joe Junior and Cathy watched TV while Joe showed Elise some more of the photos he has taken of the manuscripts.
Elise kept shaking her head as Joe showed her more writings. “To think, for all of these years, this stuff was right under our feet. Do you really believe the old story about how your Great Grandfather disappeared?”
“There are some elements which don’t seem to hold up. I have to believe, that if he had the wines with these powers, he would have been a lot better at using them than I am. The whole saloon kidnapping thing should not have occurred. He would have foreseen it.”
“There really is a great mystery here, but Joe, promise me that you will be careful. What if, somehow, the wines harmed him?”
“That thought has occurred to me. I have to figure out what is in these writings, although some are next to impossible to decipher. My Great Grandfather must have been quite a scholar.”
Elise looked up at the clock. “Oh, it is time for bed and I am exhausted. The kids need to get to bed also.” Walking out into the family room with the TV blaring, she came across Joe Junior lying on the floor and Cathy on the couch, both sawing logs.
Later, after sending the kids to bed and crawling into Joe’s and her bed, Elise cuddled up to Joe, spooning with him. Despite her exhaustion, an uncomfortable sense of foreboding kept her from easily falling asleep.
Derek sat in yet another meeting in the FBI briefing room, the monitors with their infrared video cameras providing a ghostly backdrop of the Oakland Cargo Terminal. “So plan B is to drop FBI Teams onto each of the four ships scheduled to dock in the next 24 hours?”
Sandra glanced over at Agent Young. “That is sort of a last ditch plan. We would be stepping onto the Coast Guard’s toes. We are not even sure if we can get the assets we need. Plus, we would have to get last minute authorization from the State Department.”
Young leaned back in his chair slightly. “Could we fabricate a story that fits into our jurisdiction a little more?”
Sandra shook her head. “Shipping interdiction is not really in our jurisdiction.”
Derek paused for a moment listening to the earpiece attached to his radio. “We have two more victims of the fighting coming in. One alive and one dead.”
Young set down his coffee cup. “How is the first guy doing?”
Sandra answered. “Not too good. He is still in surgery. His abdominal knife wound bled out a lot. Some of his organs are shredded. He has a fractured skull and a shattered pelvis from the fall, not to mention a broken arm and leg. The doctors are not optimistic.”
Young glanced up at the monitors. “Any clear ideas on who these guys are?”
This time Derek answered. “They all have prison tattoos. Two are from a white supremacy prison gang. One is from a Chicano prison gang. They are all Shindo’s people.”