Part 12 (1/2)

He squatted down and emptied the Radio Shack bag on the blacktop. He had a soldering iron and a spool of dull solder. And an inverter that would power the iron from his car's cigar lighter. That meant he had to keep his engine running, so he started it up and reversed a little way so that the cord would reach.

The seal was basically a drawn lead wire with large tags molded on each end. The tags had been crushed together with some kind of a heated device so they had fused together in a large embossed blob. The old guy left the fused ends strictly alone. It was clear he had done this before. He plugged the iron in and let it heat. He tested it by spitting on the end. When he was satisfied he dabbed the tip on the sleeve of his suit coat and then touched it to the wire where it was thin. The wire melted and parted. He eased the gap wider like opening a tiny handcuff and slipped the seal out of its channel. He ducked into his car and laid it on the dash. I grabbed the door lever and turned it.

”OK,” Duffy said. ”So what have we got?”

We had rugs. The door rattled upward and daylight flooded the load area and we saw maybe two hundred rugs, all neatly rolled and tied with string and standing upright on their ends. They were all different sizes, with the taller rolls at the cab end and the shorter ones at the door end. They stepped down toward us like some kind of ancient basalt rock formation. They were rolled face-in, so all we saw were the back surfaces, coa.r.s.e and dull. The string around them was rough sisal, old and yellowed. There was a strong smell of raw wool and a fainter smell of vegetable dye.

”We should check them,” Duffy said. There was disappointment in her voice.

”How long have we got?” the old guy asked.

I checked my watch.

”Forty minutes,” I said.

”Better just sample them,” he said.

We hauled a couple out from the front rank. They were rolled tight. No cardboard tubes.

They were just rolled in on themselves and tied tight with the string. One of them had a fringe. It smelled old and musty. The knots in the string were old and flattened. We picked at them with our nails but we couldn't get them undone.

”They must cut the string,” Duffy said. ”We can't do that.”

”No,” the old guy said. ”We can't.”

The string was coa.r.s.e and looked foreign. I hadn't seen string like that for a long time. It was made from some kind of a natural fiber. Jute, maybe, or hemp.

”So what do we do?” the old guy asked.

I pulled another rug out. Hefted it in my hands. It weighed about what a rug should weigh. I squeezed it. It gave slightly. I rested it end-down on the road and punched it in the middle. It yielded a little, exactly how a tightly-rolled rug would feel.

”They're just rugs,” I said.

”Anything under them?” Duffy asked. ”Maybe those tall ones in back aren't tall at all.

Maybe they're resting on something else.”

We pulled rugs out one by one and laid them on the road in the order we would have to put them back in. We built ourselves a random zigzag channel through the load s.p.a.ce.

The tall ones were exactly what they appeared to be, tall rugs, rolled tight, tied with string, standing upright on their ends. There was nothing hidden. We climbed out of the truck and stood there in the cold surrounded by a crazy mess of rugs and looked at each other.

”It's a dummy load,” Duffy said. ”Beck figured you would find a way in.”

”Maybe,” I said.

”Or else he just wanted you out of the way.”

”While he's doing what?”

”Checking you out,” she said. ”Making sure.”

I looked at my watch. ”Time to reload. I'm already going to have to drive like a madman.”

”I'll come with you,” she said. ”Until we catch up with Eliot, I mean.”

I nodded. ”I want you to. We need to talk.”

We put the rugs back inside, kicking and shoving them until they were neatly arranged in their original positions. Then I pulled the roller door down and the old guy got to work with the solder. He slipped the broken seal back through its channel and eased the parted ends close together. He heated the iron and bridged the gap with its tip and touched the free end of the solder roll to it. The gap filled with a large silvery blob. It was the wrong color and it was way too big. It made the wire look like a cartoon drawing of a snake that has just swallowed a rabbit.

”Don't worry,” he said.

He used the tip of the iron like a tiny paintbrush and smoothed the blob thinner and thinner. He flicked the tip occasionally to get rid of the excess. He was very delicate. It took him three long minutes but at the end of them he had the whole thing looking pretty much like it had before he arrived. He let it cool a little and then blew hard on it. The new silvery color instantly turned to gray. It was as close to an invisible repair as I had ever seen. Certainly it was better than I could have done myself.

”OK,” I said. ”Very good. But you're going to have to do another one. I'm supposed to bring another truck back. We better take a look at that one, too. We'll meet up in the first northbound rest area after Portsmouth, New Hamps.h.i.+re.”

”When?”

”Be there five hours from now.”

Duffy and I left him standing there and headed south as fast as I could get the old truck to move. It wouldn't do much better than seventy. It was shaped like a brick and the wind resistance defeated any attempt to go faster. But seventy was OK. I had a few minutes in hand.

”Did you see his office?” she asked.

”Not yet,” I said. ”We need to check it out. In fact we need to check out his whole harbor operation.”

”We're working on it,” she said. She had to talk loud. The engine noise and gearbox whine were twice as bad at seventy as they had been at fifty. ”Fortunately Portland is not too much of a madhouse. It's only the forty-fourth busiest port in the U.S. About fourteen million tons of imports a year. That's about a quarter-million tons a week. Beck seems to get about ten of them, two or three containers.”

”Does Customs search his stuff?”

”As much as they search anybody's. Their current hit rate is about two percent. If he gets a hundred and fifty containers a year maybe three of them will be looked at.”

”So how is he doing it?”

”He could be playing the odds by limiting the bad stuff to, say, one container in ten. That would bring the effective search rate down to zero-point-two percent. He could last years like that.”

”He's already lasted years. He must be paying somebody off.”

She nodded beside me. Said nothing.

”Can you arrange extra scrutiny?” I asked.

”Not without probable cause,” she said. ”Don't forget, we're way off the books here. We need some hard evidence. And the possibility of a payoff makes the whole thing a minefield, anyway. We might approach the wrong official.”

We drove on. The engine roared and the suspension swayed. We were pa.s.sing everything we saw. Now I was watching the mirrors for cops, not tails. I was guessing that Duffy's DEA papers would take care of any specific legal problems, but I didn't want to lose the time it would take for her to have the conversation.

”How did Beck react?” she asked. ”First impression?”

”He was puzzled,” I said. ”And a little resentful. That was my first impression. You notice that Richard Beck wasn't guarded at school?”

”Safe environment.”