Devil's Gate (NUMA Files 9)

With that, he reached for a briefcase at his feet and lifted it up to the table. He laid it flat, popped the latches, and opened it. Reaching inside, he pulled out a folder, which he handed to Dirk.

“This is the information you seek,” he said.

“What am I going to find in here?” Dirk asked.

“The truth.”

“Which is?”

“The cargo on the Kinjara Maru was bound for Hong Kong. Most of it was standard bulk materials, but included in the mix and not listed on the manifest were three hundred tons of titanium-doped YBCO.”

“What’s YBCO?” Pitt asked.

“Yttrium, barium, copper, oxide,” Takagawa explained. “It’s an intricate crystalline compound that acts as a high-temperature superconductor. A newer, more advanced version has been developed that can be doped with titanium and iron peptides: the Ti version. It’s by far the strongest superconductor ever created.”

“Strongest?” Pitt asked. “What do you mean?”

“I wouldn’t be able to explain it,” Takagawa said. “I’m just an old ship’s captain. But you must have people who will understand. The information I have on it is in there.”

Pitt would get the information to Hiram Yaeger as soon as he returned to the office. “Why were you afraid to tell me that?” Pitt asked.

“Because it’s not a naturally occurring compound,” Takagawa said. “It’s created in a lab. The Ti version is patented by an American corporation, and, more important, it’s listed as a restricted technology. Transfer to other nations, including China, is illegal. By allowing it onto our ship, Shokara is in violation of this law.”

Now Pitt began to understand. With economic tensions between the U.S. and China always simmering, and claims, mostly substantiated, that the Chinese government and its corporations preferred espionage and theft to honest development, neither the Chinese nor the U.S. government would be happy to hear that this compound had been shipped to Hong Kong. But with both countries needing each other, the most likely candidate to be punished and made a scapegoat would be the shipper: Shokara.

“Why would you be involved in something like this?” Pitt asked. “This country has been phenomenally good to you.”

“I was not aware of it until after the Kinjara Maru went down,” Takagawa said.

Dirk believed that. He sensed the heavy heart and the weight of dishonor that Takagawa felt.

“I believe someone boarded that ship to steal something,” Pitt said. “It sounds like this YBCO was the most likely target.”

“It is worth more than its weight in gold,” Takagawa said.

“Do you know anything about the people who hit your ship?” Pitt asked. “Any rumors even?”

Takagawa shook his head.

There had to be something. “Where did you load the compound?”

“Freetown,” Takagawa said. “Sierra Leone.”

Dirk had been in Freetown ten years back when NUMA had consulted on a project to deepen the navigation channel. Though the country was still a shambles, Freetown was still one of the busiest ports in West Africa at the time.

From what he’d heard, things had improved quite a bit under the autocratic leadership of its president, Djemma Garand, but it wasn’t exactly a hub of high-tech activity.

“Could it have come from there?” he asked.

Takagawa shook his head. “Sierra Leone has mines and mineral wealth, but, as I said, YBCO doesn’t come from the ground.”

“So Freetown was a transfer point,” Pitt said.

“It happens this way,” Takagawa said. “The loophole. You transfer to a country that is legally allowed to take the material and they send it to a third party without violating any of their own national laws. And then that third party sends it to Russia or China or Pakistan.”

“Do you have any idea who the buyer is?” Dirk asked.

“They will deny it, but it’s in there,” Takagawa said. “Certainly it does not matter now. They did not receive what they paid for.”