Color of Blood(106)
Dennis stumbled backward.
“Jesus,” he repeated as he walked back to the car. “Jesus.”
He started driving again but kept his speed more moderate, concentrating on the highway ahead. It took him longer to get to Port Hedland, but he was determined not to kill or injure any other living creature this day.
It took him nearly an hour of driving around the town in the early morning hours to find a hotel with a view of the deep-water harbor. He found the Pier Hotel at the end of the Esplanade and checked in at 2:20 a.m., red-eyed and jittery with exhaustion.
He woke at 9:50 a.m. and pulled back the light-blocking shades. His room looked down over a portion of the huge port. Across a thin shaft of water he could see a long line of railroad cars brimming to the top with what he guessed was iron ore. To his right he counted at least six ships parked and waiting at sea to load up with the mineral bounty that Western Australia was churning up for the rest of the world.
After brushing his teeth and ordering room service, he took out Judy’s binoculars and scanned the horizon, looking for the telltale mounds of shipping containers piled high near the docks.
After nearly thirty minutes of eye-straining scans, Dennis found no containers. His concentration was interrupted by a knock on the door. A young, blond Australian man dropped off Dennis’s breakfast.
On a lark, Dennis said, “You know, I’m just checking out the sights here and am amazed at all of the mineral shipping. Does Port Hedland also have a container port?”
“Yeah, mate,” the young man said, pointing proudly to an area at least a mile past the railhead. “Big container port there. They’re piled high like building blocks. Can’t miss ’em.”
Sure enough, in the distance, Dennis could make out a pile of the universal twenty-foot by forty-foot shipping containers. He put down his binoculars and ate his breakfast.
Later, in the hotel lobby, he used the hotel’s complimentary computer and spent thirty minutes searching the web. After comparing a couple of products, he pulled out his Dennis Smith credit card and ordered a rush shipment to be delivered to him at the hotel. The shipper guaranteed arrival in forty-eight hours. Dennis prayed it was not going to be too late.
Later that day he took the LandCruiser to a service station and had them drain and replace the radiator fluid, as well as replacing the radiator hose that was being held together with tape.
“What happened here?” the mechanic asked.
“I ran over a rat,” Dennis said.
Chapter 39
He had to circumnavigate the town to get to the container dock on the other side of a channel. He passed a train with what seemed like a hundred railcars filled to the brim with some sort of ore. After switching back several times, he finally found the entrance to the container port, blocked by a guard shack. He bluffed his way in by explaining he needed to discuss a shipment with the port manager.
The guard, a small Asian man with an oversize baseball cap nearly covering his eyes, finally waved Dennis through. He pulled to a stop about four hundred yards away from the massive pile of containers.
Using his binoculars, the lunacy of his quest became apparent as he worked his way through the containers. Even if the special container was still there, the task was daunting. The pile stood easily eight containers high and perhaps ten wide. Not only were the color schemes of the each box diverse, but the containers in the middle of the pile couldn’t be seen at all.
“Shit,” he said quietly as he scanned the mountain.
A truck carrying a container roared by, leaving the facility, and he waited for the dust to dissipate.
Peering through the binoculars, he worked his way methodically from left to right, hoping to find a red container with a small horizontal yellow stripe running its length. He quickly abandoned that plan. Dennis tried to put himself into the shoes of his prey.
If this container was so important—and expensive—to fill up, what would I do when I shipped it? he thought. Would I insist on special treatment? Would I custom ship the container or meld it with the millions of other containers in transit daily throughout the globe? I’d mix it in to draw less attention. Would I just deliver it to the port and leave? No, not after guarding it during the long drive to the port. I’d keep an eye on it while it sat on the ground. If it were going to be tampered with, it would happen on land.
Dennis realized the pile was an inelegant rendition of a pyramid, being tallest in the middle but slimmed down at both ends to one or two containers high. It made sense that the newest entries to the mountain were placed on top or at the edges. An enormously complicated overhead crane moved the containers around like pieces on a chessboard, filling ships and unloading others.
Dennis concentrated on the very top of the pyramid but could not find the telltale yellow stripe. Then, almost as an afterthought, he scanned the low-slung administration building and its small adjoining parking lot. He scanned every vehicle in the lot.
“Gotcha,” he said softly.
A large, dust-covered white Suburban was parked at the edge of the lot, facing the pile of containers a hundred yards away. Dennis followed the direction the Suburban was facing. Sitting by itself on the ground at the edge of the mountain, but closest to the Suburban, was a red container with a yellow stripe around it.
***
Dennis returned to the container port the following day and used his binoculars to rediscover the Suburban. The container was still on the ground, but he did not know how much longer it would stay there.