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THE
TECATE TRUCK was just like all the other Tecate Beer trucks that went
back and forth daily at the border crossing, except that it was not
owned by Tecate. The driver of that truck spoke fluent Spanish and the
truck was always loaded with Tecate. In time the US border guards got
used to it. The difference was that this truck had, at its center, a
narrow, hollow space shielded with thin sheets of lead so that no
ambient radiation would escape.
It had cost The Base over $150,000 to convert the truck at a garage in
Ensenada a year before. That was little enough when it came to securing
the device which had cost the same group more than $10 million in
Russia in 1997. In any event, the truck did its job and passed without
incident over the border and into the United States at Tecate,
California on August 6th. Dates were important to The Base, and this
date was especially significant. After all, what could be more
significant than the day on which Hiroshima was destroyed?
After clearing the border the Tecate Truck followed Highway 94 north to
it's merge with Highway 8 at La Mesa, California, and then drove west
towards Highway 5. It pulled off the road at a rest stop where it
picked up a technician in a Tecate uniform who was carrying a case with
the necessary electronics and a couple of weapons. After that, the two
men followed the road thought the heart of San Diego. It got off the
freeway in downtown and quickly made its way to the intersection of
North Harbor Drive and West Broadway. It's total travel time from the
border to downtown San Diego was just over an hour. It was running
close to schedule. It was about 11:30 in the morning.
The truck pulled over and parked along North Harbor drive and the
technician took out some binoculars and scanned the harbor beyond the
Navy Region Southwest Complex whose entrance was less than 100 yards
away. Intelligence was correct. The USS Ronald Reagan was in its home
port and riding comfortably at anchor.
The technician opened his case and took a wire that ran from the back
of the truck along the floorboards. He plugged it into a jack in the
simple switching device in the case. He looked at the driver and
smiled. The driver smiled back. They both began to recite a prayer in
Arabic while looking over the San Diego harbor. At some point in the
prayer, without really thinking about it, the technician threw the
switch. In the next instant, at the intersection of North Harbor Drive
and West Broadway in San Diego, California on a warm August morning, a
miniature version of the Sun appeared on the surface of the Earth. [More]
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| Gerard first published this in October 2004. The last line in the essay, "To be continued....", sounded ominous, but now I think Part II is where we finish the tenth, and last crusade.
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