“With ease,” Yaeger said.
“How’re things progressing with the Adelaide?” Dirk asked.
“Not well,” Gunn said. “We’ve been in contact with every major port authority along the coast of North, South, and Central America. No one has a record of the Adelaide making an appearance in the past week.”
“Guess that leaves two options,” Dirk said. “They either off-loaded at a private facility or they headed in another direction.” He neglected to mention a third option, that the ship had sunk.
“We’ve been talking about those scenarios,” Yaeger said, “and we don’t believe they headed west. First, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to hijack a ship out of Australia in the eastern Pacific if you plan to take the cargo someplace in the western Pacific. The second problem is fuel. Fully loaded, the Adelaide would be stretching it to make a double crossing of the Pacific without refueling.”
“Makes sense. That only leaves about a thousand other places she could have ducked into along the coast.”
Gunn and Yaeger nodded. They were searching for a transparent needle in a very large haystack. Gunn described the details of their port searches and the latest surveillance images while Yaeger grabbed the keyboard and began typing. A few minutes later, he called to the others.
“Got something on your van,” he said, as a Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles registration form appeared on the screen. “The owner is SecureTek of Tysons Corner, Virginia.”
Yaeger brought up another site on his screen. “The state corporate commission describes their business as providing data encryption links for closed network computer systems. They have eight employees, and their primary customer is the U.S. government.”
“Doesn’t sound like the type of security company that would be eavesdropping on people,” Summer said.
“Unless,” Dirk said, “their declared business is a front.”
“It doesn’t appear to be,” Yaeger said after some additional research. “They have a number of valid contracts with the Army and Navy for data line installations.”
Returning to the corporate commission’s site, he noted that SecureTek was a wholly owned subsidiary of Habsburg Industries. “It’s a privately held firm, so information is rather limited, but they’re based in Panama and have interests in mining and shipping.”
Yaeger performed several searches but found only brief mention of the firm. A shipping periodical displayed a photo of one of the firm’s bulk carriers, the Graz, dockside in Singapore.
Dirk glanced at the photo and sat up in his chair. “Hiram, can you enlarge that photo?”
Yaeger nodded, blowing up the image until it filled the entire screen
.
“What is it?” Summer asked.
“The logo on the funnel.”
Everyone peered at the image of a white flower centered on the ship’s squat gold funnel.
“I think that’s an edelweiss,” Summer said. “In keeping with the ship’s Austrian name, I imagine.”
“I saw that same flower on the freighter docked in Madagascar,” Dirk said.
The computer room fell silent. Then Gunn asked, “Hiram, can you determine what kind of mining this Habsburg Industries is actually involved in?”
“They operate a small gold mine in Panama near the Colombian border. The firm also has an active brokerage business in specialty ores, including samarium, lanthanum, and dysprosium.”
“Rare earth elements?” Summer asked.
Gunn nodded. “Rare earth elements. Habsburg Industries suddenly looks very interesting.”
“I’d wager the operation in Madagascar was stealing rare earth minerals,” Dirk said. “The reason they attacked our submersible was because we were working around the spot where they sank a hijacked ore ship.”
“We found a pristine wreck in the area that had recently been sunk,” Summer said. “There was no apparent damage, and the ship’s name was intentionally obscured.”
“Jack Dahlgren did some digging and thinks it was a bulk carrier called the Norseman,” Dirk said. “She was lost in the Indian Ocean four months ago, carrying bastnasite ore from Malaysia. In case you hadn’t guessed, bastnasite contains rare earth elements.”
“Could the Habsburg ship in Madagascar have been hijacked, too?” Summer asked.