Chapter 12

Durban, Union of South Africa

Two days later, Georg Kuznetsov, known as George Mainz to people in Durban, had spoken to everybody and anybody within ten miles that had rented, or could have rented, a semi-truck to anybody – no terrorists, but there were several unidentified persons on the list. Only one was for a rental to be dropped at the Port Elizabeth end of the truck rental company. He was always amazed at how foolish people could be. You are going to set off a nuclear bomb near a big city, and you’re worried about the rental deposit on a truck. Amazing. 2 + 2 = dumb

Rhamid Rashek of Damascus, Syria, purportedly a food middleman, was trying to set up a relationship for a shipment of mixed groceries, in Port Elizabeth. At least that’s what the rental agent said that Rashek said. The trailer picked up a shipping container from a newly arrived Iranian ship yesterday.

Georg punched a message into his cell phone: “Grandma left for the beach cottage. She should be arriving sometime in the next – 6 hr or so.” Meaning that he thought the nuclear material would arrive in Port Elizabeth six hours AGO.

He was so sure, that he packed up his cases, and drove to Port Elizabeth. He wasn’t planning on contacting Clara / Cora, but he wanted to be closer ... in case.

Port Elizabeth

Clara had spent the last two days in the water. So much so, that she packed food in the waterproof pack that was tied to a tether that was clipped to her dive belt. Each morning she took a look at the SSN950 just to make sure it was still there; it was sitting on the bottom under 50 meters or so of Algoa Bay. Then she swam slow laps close to the beach, and back out again, each lap covering about 20 km. It was boring: northeast to within a few kilometers of the beach, then back out to a few km. past the location of the sub with occasional jaunts to the harbor entrance. She was looking for a boat of significant size heading out to sea.

She concentrated on the approaches to the two groups of islands that were close to the shore. The first was three small islands: Jahleel – close to the harbor and an unlikely target for the terrorist bomb, in Clara’s opinion – St. Croix and Brenton islands – about 20 km. from shore. It seemed more likely because of the distance. The other group was a half dozen small islands concentrated in the area of Bird Island, some 50 km. due east of Port Elizabeth. The Bird Island group was part of the Addo Elephant National Park – Clara had looked it up. There was a lighthouse there, but no permanent residents. Just a whole lot of penguins and terns. That was the most likely target, she thought.

This morning, she saw a fairly large wooden boat – about ten meters long – putt-putting slowly out of the harbor and heading south-southeast. SOUTH?? There was nothing to the south except Antarctica some hundreds and hundreds of kilometers away. This little tub would never make it that far. She decided to follow: it was named “Easy Tyme,” not that that would matter.

There was a four-meter-long, great white shark that decided to follow the Easy Tyme also. Clara could hear the great white moving through the water. Swish-shoosh – it was a quiet sound. She heard the sound long before she could see it. She dropped back, quietly waiting. The white took a circuit around Clara, twice, and she readied herself for a fight. But then the Easy Tyme accelerated a little and the volume of the noise from its engine – the white turned away. She knew that sharks didn’t hunt by sound – not really. But they were attracted by unfamiliar shapes moving through their waters, making noise. The shark started following the Easy Tyme, Clara started following the shark. It made a nice, slow train of decreasing size. Easy Tyme, shark, Clara. She thought about looking behind her to see if something smaller was shadowing her ... but she refrained from giving in to her curiosity. The swish-shoosh was overwritten by the steady drone from the Easy Tyme’s engine.

And suddenly there was a burst of very high-frequency sound, it was like various sounds that she could hardly make out. Then a large pod of dolphins attacked the shark. She’d never seen such a vicious attack – at least since her training period with the Mossad squad leader, years ago. This was bloodier and more aggressive than the practice attacks she’d participated in. This was REAL life and death. One after another, the dolphins slammed into the side of the shark. The shark, in its turn, tried to get away, but the dolphin pod was much faster. Whap. Whump. Whap. Whump. She swam after the pod, watching. Then she noticed that the pod was really two pods. Or maybe it was one, split into two parts. The lagging half turned out to contain several smaller, young dolphins – the caretakers of that bunch of youngsters, would she call them mothers? No, she didn’t want to anthropomorphize the dolphin pod. Maybe it was the females who attacked the great white. She swam after them, watching. The shark was swimming slower and slower. Whap. Whump. The attack continued, if anything increasing in intensity. The water around the shark was tinged with blood. As suddenly as it had started, it stopped. The dolphins broke for the surface, the shark had stopped moving and was slowly sinking to the bottom, more than 300 meters below.