Drone

The Estrella had arrived at the Millennium Oil refinery on the Texas Gulf Coast loaded with a shipment of gasoline from PEMEX, the state-owned petroleum company of Mexico. Millennium was experiencing a shortage of summer-blend gasoline for its distributors and had made the emergency purchase after a recent spike in market price. It was a pretty standard run and the Estrella had made the exact same trip several times earlier in the year, though not always to the Millennium facility. BP, Marathon, Valero, and several other refineries were located in the Houston port area as well.

When Captain Norquist confirmed that his Grand Cayman bank account had received a deposit of $50,000, he gladly turned a blind eye to the twenty-eight unregistered civilian passengers and the unmarked crates of cargo they had hauled on board his ship. He assumed it was another drug and guns shipment; he’d had this arrangement with the Bravo organization for years. The Estrella had special passenger and storage compartments fitted out for just such transactions. The passengers always stayed clear of the crew on the short voyage, and the crew knew not to venture down to where the mysterious passengers were located. His ship was never inspected on the Mexican side because Bravo owned the Veracruz port authority. Clearing customs on the American side wasn’t much more difficult. It was just a matter of timing the unloading with the shifts of the customs officers who were on the Bravo payroll. Security on both sides had been something of a joke for years now.

A brilliant orange sunset greeted the Estrella as she docked in Texas. Once her lines were secured and the marine loading arms attached to the Estrella’s cargo manifolds, the unloading procedures began. The marine surveyor was already on board gathering samples from the cargo tanks to test for purity.

The captain stepped into the cargo control room along with his first officer and radioed in to the loadmaster person in charge (LPIC) onshore. The order of tanks to be emptied, their flow rates, and the destination tanks on the tank farm were all agreed to and soon the gasoline began to flow.

During the gulf crossing, the Bravo soldiers and their Quds Force officers remained well hidden belowdecks. They used their time to change out of civilian clothes into their combat gear. The officers also had the men break down, clean, and reassemble their weapons to keep their anxious young minds occupied.

After an hour, Captain Norquist checked his watch and decided it was time to go. The eager redheaded mistress he kept in Houston would be waiting for him in her cherry red Mercedes SL convertible down in the port parking lot. They would go out for a couple of thick rib eyes at Charley’s Steakhouse, and then he would spend the evening with her at her downtown condo, messing the sheets up for the better part of the night. They’d grab breakfast at their favorite diner first thing in the morning and then she’d drive him back just in time to cast off and set sail back to Veracruz. They were both creatures of pleasure and routine, and it had been a mutually satisfying arrangement for the past five years.

He turned over the control-room responsibilities and the overnight watch to his extremely competent Filipino first mate and headed for his small private cabin. At forty-eight years of age, Norquist still cut a dashing figure, like an old Hollywood leading man, with just a hint of silver in his thick blond hair. He didn’t bother changing into his civvies because his mistress said she loved him dressed like a sailor in his crisp white captain’s uniform.

Norquist stepped into his bathroom and ran the water in his small steel sink. His mouth watered; he could already taste the succulent slab of beef he’d soon be tucking into at Charley’s. He leaned over and splashed his face with cold water, then rose up just in time to feel a hand slap his forehead and yank his head back, exposing an enormous Adam’s apple. Norquist didn’t even feel the razor-sharp blade slice open his throat, but he heard the tremendous gush of air escaping out of his lungs through the gaping wound, and his dimming eyes caught sight of the arterial spray spattering against the mirror. The last thing his unconscious mind registered was the sound of his own body thudding against the steel deck.

* * *

The Quds Force commandos and their Bravo recruits were clad in black from head to foot, their faces hidden beneath balaclava masks despite the suffocating humid night air. They burst into the port control room and slaughtered the port technicians with suppressed semiautomatic pistols, then remotely opened the valves on the massive port storage tanks, emptying thousands of gallons of gasoline and oil, flooding the storage yard. They had already slapped magnetic demolition packs to several of the tanks and set the timed detonators to blow with just enough time for them to make their escape.