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Book Information
Genre:
FICTION / Action & Adventure
Publication:
Jul 16, 2008
Pages:
344
Books by John P Lintz
The CIA orders JJ Ibarra and the beautiful Elena Castellanos, to pursue and capture armed suicide bombers headed for a US Port of Entry in a van rigged to explode.
“Hey Mexican John, how's it going?” said Peter Johns, the analyst.
“So-so. How's Peter Short, today? You know why I am calling.”
“ Yes, I know, you are curious as to who has the HIV+. Well surprise, two out of three are bad! You picked up a couple of bad actors. Both have been A/Q associates. Trained and experienced.”
“The tall one is Salim Malik, an Al-Qaeda associate from Qatar We've been interested in finding him for some time. He may have been involved in the attack on the USS Cole. He flew into Tampico with a Lebanese passport identifying him as Sam Malas.”
“The other baddie is Abdul Al-Hakim. He flew into Mexico City on a phony American passport identifying him as Edward Hakis of Detroit. Another A/Q associate, he is a runaway Saudi, like ole Bin Layin-Low.”
“The third guy, looks like a Pakistani or East Indian, Muslim- I would guess due to the company he keeps. We haven't made him yet. Where'd you run into these guys? If you see them again, maybe you should be armed.”
“O.K. I have it recorded and scrambled,” said JJ. I hate to compliment you because your hat might not fit, but good work, Pete! I ran into them in a Mexican Seafood Restaurant, El Porvenir, about five kilometers from the Tampico Airport.”
“Thanks, I am good; I know. How did you get these Bad Boys to pose so nicely for you?”
“Simple, I just pushed the ring tone adjust button, pretended to be reading Caller ID and snapped the photos. Then I shut off the ringer, turned to go back out the door as if for privacy. They did not suspect anything. I think that they were busy eying my beautiful young employee, Elena Castellanos.”
“Still, if you ever see them again, be ready for action. If they recognize you, they may well remember the incident in the Restaurant. That's all we know for now. I'll get back to you when we find out the other ID. We may likely put out an H / K team on this bunch. Unless the higher ups decide that it is better to sic the Mexican Immigration guys on them.”
“Hmm, a Hunter / Killer team,” thought JJ, “these guys must be serious National Security Threats.”
“They should do both,” said JJ. “Cover all of the bases. Meanwhile, I'll stick to my assignment, like a good soldier. Adios, amigo.”
“O.K. Mexican John. Cover your back. You should stop by the American consulate and pick up a Baretta or something from the Marine armory.”
“No. It’s too difficult to explain away a gun to the Mexican Policia. I don't need one. My TASR and a knife are more than sufficient. I can throw either far from any action and not get caught.”
“Good bye, my friend.” Pete rang off.
“Still,” he thought, “having some backup weapons would not be a bad choice.” He put on a pair of brown deck shoes. He went outside the hotel, fetched his bike and rode down the street toward the tiendas not far from the docks. Almost anything could be found there, Quartermaster supplies for the ships, hardware stores, cheap import shops. Almost anything a ship or a sailor might need could be found there.
He first bought a cheap but sturdy, Chinese military canvas backpack with a stenciled picture of Mao Zedong on the back. The Chinese characters read “Serve the People.” It was maybe 60 X 60 cm., probably a Militia messenger's bag. Next, an ordnance steel, Hungarian military, single-shot flare gun. He found six 26.5 mm. military illumination flares in a waterproof package and three green marine flares, also in waterproof packaging. The color was unimportant. He added a navy blue watch cap, a nice sailor's touch.
Everything that he purchased went into his backpack. At the Ferreteria (hardware store), he bought six small round bastard files, pointed on each end. He had become adept at throwing these and sticking targets within 10 meters. While they likely would not kill anyone, they would make a pursuer slow down and stop and think about continuing. At the same store, he bought six nylon zip tie bands to use as restraints, sixty, large (16 penny nails), and a roll of duct tape. Next, he purchased a small spray can of fluorescent orange paint and a black marker pen. The cost of everything was less than 250 pesos, about $23.00 USD.
He rode back to the Hotel Delfin, feeling good about his purchases. He liked to keep a low profile. Anyone seeing him would likely think that he was a sailor on leave with a rent-a-bike. He needed to wait for dark. The port was presently operating, loading and unloading ships on a 24-hour basis. But all he needed to do was to wait for dark and to get into the container warehouse and find the 40-foot container whose ID number and location, he had found on the Portauria Terminal computer server.
Dark comes early in Tampico when October storm clouds darken the skies. JJ waited until midnight, watching Mexican NNN and checking his gear. He was taking his brown photographer's vest loaded with a cell phone, TASR with an extra set of projectile probes, flare gun with two military illumination flares and one marine flare, duct tape, zip ties, three bastard files, lock picks, two tracking devices, a marker pen and the small can of spray paint. His K-Bar battle knife was in a sheath in the small of his back, held in place by an elastic back-support belt. JJ preferred to skip the melodramatic black running suit and face mask costume. Ninja suits and costumes were way too obvious for someone who did not want to stand out. A guard would react to some Ninja character on the docks, but would hesitate just long enough for a drunken sailor wandering the docks. He had memorized the location and ID number of the target container.
Soon enough, the time came and JJ was riding the bicycle on the docks between containers being off-loaded from ships. The huge Gantry cranes were swinging containers and rapidly stacking them two high in neat rows. The names on the sides of the containers read: WONG, SEALAND, MAJERSK, DAC and CAP. He was looking for a CAP container. He knew where it should be.
He rode cautiously toward the warehouse location. The doors were wide open so he rode right in. A guard carrying a 12-gage Stainless Steel pump shotgun with the short pistol grip stock, hailed him. The guard looked to be an off duty cop. JJ stopped and said in Spanish, “I am looking for a container for a customer worried about delivery. He came to our ship. I am the Quartermaster. The trucker is supposed to be looking for it. He took out a pad of paper and a pen, wrote down and gave the man the location number and the container number.”
“Well,” said the guard, “he must have found it. They are loading it onto the trailer down on the right about twenty rows.”
“Thank you, señor.” He rode away toward the container. The truck was already outside where the loading ramp enabled the container to be rolled right onto the trailer and secured to it for transport.
The loading area was back at dockside. JJ had made a half loop through the warehouse. He parked the bike between containers and walked in the shadows toward the loading area. Focusing his cell phone camera, he was able to make positive ID of the container. Then he focused on the people in the area. Holy Crayola! There were the three guys from the restaurant standing close to a white Ford F150 delivery van, which was blocking the exit of the tractor trailer. The men were all smoking and not at all alert. He focused the camera on the dimly lighted Mexican license plates of the van. He took photos of the plates on the van, the trailer and of the men. The trailer truck driver, he did not recognize. The zoom camera was the best that you could get. It was limited only by the aperture of the lens available in the cell phone. The ultimate picture resolution is limited by the optics available. However, he knew that computer algorithms can sharpen pictures by mathematical interpolation routines. Hopefully, Pete could read the photos. He hit the transmit code and sent the pictures on the way. He sent the text: “Location- Altamira docks” and included the date and time.
JJ retrieved his bike and walked it farther toward the route where he planned to exit. Then he walked back behind double stacked containers closer toward the loading area. He sent a green marine flare arcing high over the waterfront over the area where he knew a ship was unloading cargo. He quickly followed up with a military illumination flare in the same trajectory more or less. This would temporarily blind anyone who looked, which would likely be everyone on the ships and docks.
He had judged correctly. The men in the loading area had moved close to the water and all were looking toward the light, trying to see what someone had tried to illuminate. JJ quickly went to the white van, climbed the ladder in back and placed a tracking device on the roof near the luggage rack. With the black marker pen he wrote HIV+ in graffiti style letters in front of the luggage rack.
Silently, he dismounted and went to the trailer truck. He climbed the ladder on the container. Again he placed the magnetic tracking device and spray painted the Graffiti, in large orange letters: “HIV+.”
He went back through the shadows, leaving the spray can and marker pen where his bike had been. As he rode away, he noticed the flare sink into the channel and men returning to work. He whistled the Old Spice sales jingle as he rode down the docks back to the Hotel Delfin.
About John P Lintz
John P. Lintz B.A., M.A. (Physics) is an American writer who spends much of his time in Mexico in the house he and his wife built.
The CIA orders JJ Ibarra and the beautiful Elena Castellanos, to pursue and capture armed suicide bombers headed for a US Port of Entry in a van rigged to explode.
John P. Lintz B.A., M.A. (Physics) is an American writer who spends much of his time in Mexico in the house he and his wife built.