the shippers; I could see on some of the containers that they had been restenciled, the shadows of old paint edging the new numbers.
Most containers I saw boasted a so-called tamper-proof seal. But I could see a few of the seals dangled from the openings, broken. Again, these seals are not quite up to the ironclad image that politicians feed the public masses. The seal is often a strip of plastic, sized like the wristband a patient wears in a hospital. The number matches the ID number on the side of the container and the seal is simply fed through the door’s levers. I saw a few that had no seal at all: the moving, positioning, emptying, loading, and moving again of a multiton container means that these strips of plastic can easily be torn off or brushed away during the process.
And no one checks; no one cares. The rivers of commerce cannot be dammed.
A line of big ships lay ahead. The ownership marks disclosed a shipping company based in Rotterdam, in the Netherlands. It would have to do. Unfortunately the containers headed for the UK did not have a large neon sign marked London over them. But I could hide and slip away, unseen, in the chaos and the maze of Europe’s largest and busiest port. I chose a container on the bottom of a large stack—it would be the last to be loaded. The door faced away from the crane and I didn’t care what was being shipped—as long as it wasn’t snakes or scorpions. This was my chance.
The seal was in place; I sawed through it with a knife from my bag, leaving ragged edges so it would appear that the seal had been damaged in transit. I opened the door, stepped inside, closed the door.
It took all of five seconds. I knelt close to the door. Listened. I waited to hear footsteps running toward me, but there was only the sound of the continual movement of goods, the screech and grind of the containers above me, slowly being hoisted into the air. I dug in my duffel and found a flashlight. I clicked it on and scanned the container. Stacks of boxes. I had half expected it to be empty—after all, what does America build anymore that the rest of the world uses? Maybe I’d find leveraged financial products or subprime mortgages.
I inspected one section of boxes. They all read CLEAN-PAK HAND WIPES. Others read VERMONTER HERBAL SOAPS HANDMADE IN USA, with a stylized landscape scene of a New England farm on the boxes. Eight to ten days stuck in here; at least I wouldn’t smell as bad as ten days with no shower.
I hunkered down away from the door. Eventually I felt the container rise, leave earth, swing toward the ocean, and then settle down—slowly.
I leaned against a box of Vermont soap, wrapped a blanket around me, and slept.
19
TEN DAYS IN A STEEL COFFIN. No way to pass the time, except to think, and to plan. Imagine if you had ten days shut off from the world; no phone, no web, no television. Cutting the electronic cord separated me from the incessant twittering chatter of modern life. The quiet might drive many people mad, but I welcomed it. The only good thing about the prison in Poland had been, after the initial weeks of questioning, the long silences, just me and the stone walls. The power of time to think is a forgotten pleasure in today’s world. This was not so different from the stretches of useless quiet in the CIA prison, except no one was torturing me. But the line I’d crossed weighed on me in a way it hadn’t when I’d thought out the plan. Howell might well issue a kill-on-sight order on me. I had broken away from the invisible cage. No second chance now.
Waking, I used the flashlight and established my tiny camp inside the steel coffin. Inside the duffels, I had the Glock and two clips of ammo I’d stolen from the safe in Ollie’s office. I had a hopefully delicious assortment of protein bars and fruit. Bottles of water. Extra batteries for the flashlight. Toothbrush, toothpaste, and toilet paper. A small container for waste. A first-aid kit and sleeping pills. A charged iPod with Mahler and the Rolling Stones and an extended battery. Two changes of clothes: gray shirts, jeans. All the cash I’d saved after the passport fiasco, a few hundred dollars.