Since Linc didn’t speak Spanish, Juan would have to be the one to scour the files and computers for anything relevant to the smuggling operation. He hit the jackpot when he found an encrypted computer. He didn’t waste time trying to crack it. That wasn’t his expertise, and they didn’t have time. He’d let Murph and Eric, the Corporation’s computer specialists, do their magic once he got the computer back to the Oregon.
A phone started to ring, but not one of the desk phones. It was the trill of a smartphone. Juan spotted it under some papers on Dominguez’s desk.
Before either of them could stop him, Dominguez lunged for it and swept it off the desk, smashing it into the concrete wall.
Linc grabbed him and pressed the barrel of the assault rifle against his chest. “Don’t do that again, por favor.”
Juan picked up the pieces, making sure to get the memory card. Whatever was on there was important enough for the young lieutenant to risk his life to protect it.
Juan put the laptop and the phone pieces into Dominguez’s briefcase.
“Let’s see if we can get some pretty pictures,” Juan said to Linc.
“What about him?”
“Hmm. Methinks he’s not going to be very cooperative.” Juan turned to Dominguez. “¿Dónde está el baño?”
The lieutenant reluctantly pointed to a door at the other side of the room. They slipped plastic ties around the hands and feet of both captives and used torn uniform fabric as gags. When the men were cinched up tight against the toilet with more ties, Linc locked the door from the inside and closed it.
Killing them, of course, would have been easier and safer, but that wasn’t the way the Corporation did things. Although they were technically mercenaries, killing in cold blood wasn’t part of their moral code. Juan created the Corporation to stop terrorists and assassins, not become them.
“Two minutes and we’re back here,” Juan said. “Nobody should need the potty that soon.”
Linc nudged open the only other door in the room. After a quick sweep of his rifle, he said, “Clear. And I mean clear.”
Juan followed him through into the main body of the warehouse.
“You weren’t kidding,” he said.
The vast warehouse was bare. Although the concrete floor was chewed up as if a rototiller had gouged it, the space was bereft of crates or vehicles. But Dominguez had mentioned a payload. There had to be more here than met the eye.
Then Juan saw it. The back of the warehouse—the side near the dock—had a large door identical to the one at the front. He looked up and saw a section of the ceiling above the door that was similar to the gantry crane above the moon pool on the Oregon. The difference was that instead of a submarine, this crane held a horizontal metal sheet that could be extended out beyond the door, large enough to cover anything moving the fifty feet from the warehouse to a ship from the prying eyes of a spy satellite.
Yet the only ship currently docked was a tanker named Tamanaco.
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“I think I know what’s going on here,” Juan said. “Let’s take a look.”
He and Linc went to the back of the warehouse and out the person-sized door next to the garage door.
Only this close could Juan spot a modification to the Tamanaco and, even then, only because he’d made similar alterations to the Oregon. A dark seam etched the outline of a huge door in the side of the ship. They had been loading the weapons onto the tanker, which must have been modified to carry cargo as well as fuel. No one would think of stopping a tanker to look for embargoed arms.
Still, they had no proof. One look inside and they’d have all the evidence they needed.
Juan spotted a sailor standing at his post next to a gangway.
“We’re going to continue the surprise inspection,” he whispered to Linc.
“Sounds good to me.”
They walked past the seaman, Juan returning the salute but saying nothing. Once they were on deck, they took the first flight of stairs they could find and went down until they saw another armed sailor posted at a bulkhead door.
“We’re here to inspect the cargo, sailor,” Juan said. “Open the door.”
The sailor probably had the same orders not to let anyone inside, but he wasn’t going to disobey a captain.
“Aye, sir,” he said, and turned smartly. He swung the door wide, and Juan and Linc stepped through. The sailor flipped a switch and fluorescent lights flickered on.