Kill Decision (46 page)

“Wun isn’t a technical guy. He’s a shipping agent. It’s his connections I need, not his grasp of nuclear physics.” Odin turned to the wheelhouse and motioned to the left.

The pilot nodded and started turning the wheel.

Odin called out, “Wun! Hey, Wun!”

The Chinese man looked up.

Odin gestured to the docks, and Wun nodded, heading up into the boat’s wheelhouse.

Before long they were cruising along the concrete coast. It was a wall twenty feet high with stone pilings every ten yards or so, faced with thick rubber stanchions laced with chains. There was no apparent way to get up to the level of the container yard. But as she looked ahead, McKinney could see a smaller dock at water level linked to the island by gangways leading up. Several men in shirtsleeves, ties, and hard hats were waiting there, waving.

Before long the engine of the workboat roared into reverse, kicking up turbulent brown water, and the pilot brought the boat skillfully to a stop inches from the dock. The waiting men were fiftyish Han Chinese, with moles and jowls, smiling and nodding as the Americans came ashore. Apparently they didn’t know a word of English, because the lead one merely extended visitor badges and gestured for them to clip them to their lapels. Another handed them hard hats and motioned for them to follow him up the aluminum gangway. Evans went first, then Odin, and McKinney followed, looping her arms through both backpack straps to be certain it didn’t fall into the water.

She glanced around and spoke sotto voce to Odin as they walked in single file up the ramp. “What if the authorities show up?”

“These are the authorities. Unofficial arrangements are a national sport in China.”

When they got to the level of the shipping yard, McKinney got a full appreciation for just how vast the place was. Interlocking flagstones stretched away in two directions to a vanishing point. The yard was a hive of activity: Vehicles and people rushed to and fro, signaling as they guided crane clamps down onto the containers, and truck tractors roared around with and without loads.

Their hosts had a white compact car with a driver ready for them. The Chinese writing on the side was a mystery, but it had a circular logo identical to one on the massive cranes looming above them. McKinney and Evans took the backseat, while Odin got in on the passenger side, nodding good-bye to Wun—who waved enthusiastically.

The driver was a grim-faced, rail-thin man who could have been anywhere from thirty to fifty years of age. He looked more Vietnamese or Laotian than Chinese.

Odin looked in the rearview mirror. “Evans, tell him to just drive around from lane to lane. Let’s open all the windows.”

Odin and McKinney started rolling window handles, while Evans leaned forward and tapped the driver on the shoulder.

“Dài
qù
.
de kàn
huòguì
.”

The driver nodded and got them in motion, racing around despite all the truck traffic.

Evans made a steering wheel motion with his hands. “Hey, pal. Let’s not get us killed, okay?” He pointed.
“
xiàng gè

!”

The man laughed but didn’t change his speed.

McKinney held the pheromone sensor up to the cross-breeze. “If there’s any perfluorocarbon here, even in low concentrations, this should find it.”

The driver brought them for miles along narrow lanes dangerous with trucks racing around blind corners. McKinney wondered if the copious diesel fumes would ruin their sampling, but on they went for the better part of an hour. The team was weary by the time the car emerged at the end of the container yard to a stretch of open pavement extending several hundred yards along the sea. The damp outlines where containers had been were evident in neat rows on the stone.