Chapter 33
Aboard the Oregon
Juan and Eddie made a beeline straight from the Oregon’s landing pad to the biophysical lab belowdecks.
Dr. Eric Littleton, the lab’s director, was primed and ready like an eager prizefighter waiting for the first bell.
Juan had called ahead with his suspected fentanyl discovery and Littleton was ready to receive it for testing confirmation. He began his investigation immediately.
Like Juan, Dr. Littleton was a Caltech grad.
He earned his doctorate in biochemistry with secondary specialities and certifications in nuclear physics, biophysics, and weapons design.
The former weapons inspector had performed site inspections and forensic analyses of weapons of mass destruction sites as an officer in the U.S.
Army before transferring to the civilian side of the house.
He’d overseen numerous overseas missions involving chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, and explosive weapons.
His education and experience were impeccable.
Cabrillo knew in the current environment of asymmetrical warfare there was no telling what they would come up against. Today’s fentanyl discovery proved his wisdom in bringing the dapper southern gentleman on board and creating his department.
“How long, Doc?” Cabrillo asked.
“If you want a definitive confirmation of fentanyl, a liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry analysis is the gold standard.”
“So…how long?”
“If it’s a pure, unmixed sample, should be fairly quick. Thirty minutes max.”
“Make it fifteen, if you can.”
“Go grab a cup of joe in the canteen. Should be done by the time you bring me back one.”
“You got it.”
Twenty-one minutes later, Cabrillo reappeared with two steaming cups of fresh-brewed Cuban pour-over with Linda Ross and Max Hanley in tow. He handed one to Littleton.
Despite the early-morning hour, with an operation underway, the entire crew was wide-awake and alert, and ready to contribute any way they could. The galley was fired up and serving hot coffee and breakfast burritos to fuel the crew for the long day already unfolding.
Littleton popped the lid on his coffee, and pointed at the computer screen on his desk.
“You were right, Chairman. This sample is a saturated solution of fentanyl base, the most potent form of all. You said you found twenty-five hundred liters?”
“Yup.”
Littleton whistled. “It’s worth millions. Could kill millions and millions more.” He blew on his coffee and then took a noisy sip.
“The question is, what do we do about it?” Cabrillo asked.
“We’ve discussed some options but none of them good,” Linda said. “We need to knock this thing out, and do it without the Chinese knowing about it. We can’t destroy the container or the warehouse. Can’t drain it away—”
“Heavens no. You’d have a mass-casualty event on your hands.”
“Then what can we do?” Hanley asked.
Littleton took another thoughtful slurp of his hot coffee.
“We’ll need some kind of enzyme or catalyst to neutralize it…and in sufficient quantities.”
Max frowned. “What kind of enzymes or catalysts?”
“We could possibly neutralize it with certain chemicals we might have on board.”
“Such as?”
“Ethanol could partially denature it. Hydrogen peroxide could oxidize it, rendering it inactive. Sodium hydroxide might neutralize it through a base-induced hydrolysis reaction…”
“Everybody knows that,” Max said, trying to cut the tension with his snide sense of humor.
Littleton was still lost in thought.
“Calcium chloride, maybe? Some ships use it for moisture control and deicing. Mixing it with the fentanyl might form a less soluble complex, which might precipitate out of the solution. Even a sufficient amount of bleach—”
Linda Ross shook her head. “We’re not carrying hazardous chemicals these days.”
“Not even as cleaning supplies?”
“Afraid not. We’ve rid ourselves of as many combustibles as we can given our combat operations.”
“Any other possibilities, Doc?” Cabrillo asked.
Littleton’s laughing eyes narrowed, his mind running through countless chemical formulas. He snapped his fingers. “You know, if we had enough styrene monomer…even acrylic acid…”
Linda shook her head again. “Nope.”
“You’re sure? Not even as cargo?”
“As director of operations, I promise you, we don’t have it.”
“May I see the cargo manifest?”
Linda shrugged. She wasn’t used to being challenged, but she was humble enough to know that Littleton was the expert on this one.
“Sure.”
She pulled it up on his computer screen, then stepped back.
Littleton set his coffee down and scrolled through the list. A wide grin brightened his face.
“I know how we can do it.”
“Do what?” Max asked.
“Polymerize the fentanyl.”
“How long will it take?” Cabrillo asked.
“It…depends.” Littleton stifled a laugh.
Cabrillo wasn’t sure what was so funny. “Depends on what?”
“How many box cutters do you have?”
★
Linda Ross sounded the ship-wide call. Thirteen minutes later, every available Oregon crew member assembled in the hold, where Dr. Littleton and Juan stood next to a shipping container, both of its doors flung wide open.
“When you answered, ‘It depends,’ you weren’t kidding, were you?” Juan said.
Littleton’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Pun intended.”
The head of the Oregon’s biophysical laboratory worked his calculations and determined he needed one hundred eighty-five pounds of SAPs—superabsorbent polymers—to neutralize two thousand five hundred liters of liquid fentanyl.
But rather than try to manufacture a time-consuming batch in his lab, he discovered a hidden treasure trove supplying more than he needed.
To get the final amount of absorbant required tearing open and stripping out two thousand eight hundred XXL Depend-branded adult-size overnight diapers and extracting the dry, granular powder from them.
In fact, the Oregon had picked up an entire forty-foot shipping container filled with several thousand boxes of adult diapers, and in particular, the double-extra-large, overnight variety.
An enterprising retailer discovered there was a large American retired expat community in El Salvador, and apparently a quite incontinent one.
The Oregon had been hired to deliver it.
Ross organized the team into two highly efficient production lines.
She had rounded up fourteen box cutters, which wasn’t enough but hardly a problem.
Nearly every member of the crew carried their own personal pocketknives—razor-sharp Benchmades, Kershaws, and Spydercos.
The former Marines invariably wielded their venerable Ka-Bars.
Thanks to Linda’s organizational skills, the task was completed in just over eighteen minutes.
The first members of the team stripped the cases off the pallets.
The second passed along the cases.
The third cut the cases open.
The fourth yanked boxes out of the cases.
The fifth cut those boxes open.
The sixth pulled out the items from inside each box.
And the seventh group, all masked, harvested the absorbant from each diaper.
The final group in the chain gang stood nearby stacking and bagging the trashed remains and disposing of them in designated containers.
The Oregon crew had broken open the shipping container and pillaged the contents of a retail product designed to absorb urine and turn it into a jellylike substance.
And that’s exactly what the absorbants would do to the fentanyl shipment—transform twenty-five hundred liters of the clear liquid poison into a thick, gelatinous mass unyielding and dense within the tank, rendering the drug useless, its fatal potential neutralized.
Eddie and Cabrillo planned on heading back to the warehouse with the absorbant load, but the weight of the material and the fact it would be getting light within three hours required at least three more pairs of hands.
Littleton insisted on being the point man to deliver the contents into the tank, since it was the most dangerous job, but also the most technical.
Cabrillo suspected the latter argument was specious, but obliged him anyway.
He knew the man would take the appropriate precautions.
Eddie checked his watch as the last bag was being cinched up. “I sure hope that audio hypnosis trick works again.”
“Lightning never strikes twice,” Max said. “Maybe we need an alternative.”
“Of course it’ll work,” Eric Stone said, his pride stung. He had worked with Hali to design the audio hypnosis program. “Roy Sullivan proves it.”
“Who’s Roy Sullivan?”
“Roy Sullivan was a U.S. park ranger in Virginia. He holds the Guinness World Record for being struck by lightning seven times over the course of his life. Heck, all we need is for this to work twice. Piece of cake.”
“Sometimes you worry me, son.”
Suddenly, Hali Kasim’s voice echoed throughout the cargo hold. “Chairman, we have a problem.”
“What is it?”
“That Chinese container is on the move.”