The predawn twilight illuminated the Oakland Estuary, lighting the glistening chop on the water behind Juan and Robert as they stood on the dock, next to a large gray metal boat. A boom truck and a flat bed truck with a tarped load were parked next to the boat.
“Boss, as long as I have known you, you still amaze me.”
“I am rather fond of these old swift boats. More than once, they pulled my ass out of a bad situation in the Mekong.”
“How on earth did you get a-hold of a twin 50 caliber and the over and under 50 – 81 mm naval mortar?”
“One of my buddies was visiting Vietnam last year and spotted some old Mark I PCFs moldering away on a mud flat at low tide. He inquired about their armament and was informed that the guns had been stored in a warehouse for several years. He knew that I had restored this Mark I and called me to see if I was interested. I wired him the funds to grease some of the local officials’ palms, buy the guns, and had them smuggled in to Monterey, where I had another one of my old Nam buddies refurbish them.”
“Isn’t it going to look a bit obvious when you install these?”
“We will open the engine hatches to the twin V-12s. Everything will be tarped. The casual onlooker will think we are doing engine maintenance. We will leave everything tarped until tonight. Once we hit that ship, we may have to run for it. This boat is built for speed and shallow water, plus we out gun almost everything out there that is not military. If we have to, we should be able to run for the San Joaquin Delta. I know of a slough where we can hide this boat for while if we need to. At the worst, I know where we can sink it temporarily in fresh water so that we can recover it in several months and rebuild it.”
“I’ve got to hand it to you boss, you really have some brass cojones.”
Dawn found Joe standing at the mine tunnel collapse, looking into the hole with the now collapsed tunnel opening. He thought about what he would have to do to dig up the likely collapsed area and then to reinforce the opening. He would have to do it all himself to maintain the secrecy of the wine tunnel. Perhaps he could build some sort of barn over the site to help hide the entrance.
About that time, Porto came proudly bounding up with what looked like a furry leg in his mouth, obviously having found the remains of a recent coyote kill. He dropped it in front of Joe and then proceeded to roll on it. Joe moaned. Now he would have to give Porto yet another bath before he left for Oakland. Or maybe it could wait.
DeMario and his buddies snoozed on cots in a room next to the FBI briefing room. An alarm started beeping.
Charlie reached over and turned off his alarm. “I am glad that I managed to convince the Maritime Safety and Security Team to hold exercises today. The orange alert helps. However, with the short notice I am not sure what kind of resources we will have.”
DeMario was instantly awake. “Please be sure to keep us informed. This situation could get real ugly real fast. Getting clearance from Derek for you to coordinate potential help from your team is a big help. Too bad that you can’t brief them on what really is going on.”
Pete stood himself and poured himself some coffee from a thermos. “Keep your powder dry. What kind of personal armament are you going to be allowed to take?”
“Not as much as I would like. We don’t have a lot of room on those Defender boats. The boats are armed with the M240 machine guns, which can pack a pretty good wallop.”