A small, rickety metallic table fan, its rusted joints creaking as it oscillated, provided the only relief for General Tomlinson from the sweltering heat of the tiny room in which he sat, alone.
"Come on, come on!" He complained at the unwillingness of the small DVR system he operated to fast forward at a pace he found sufficient. "Chinese piece of garbage!"
The owners of the facility DETA had rented for use in facilitating the transportation of Polyphemus had told him that their surveillance system was state of the art. He wasn't on top of today's technology as well as some of the younger members of his team, but even he knew that the equipment which had recorded the load-out process was far from a top-notch video system. It was slow to react to user input, the video was grainy, and the camera angles almost useless. Still, it was something... the only tangible piece of evidence he could unearth that might lead him to the truck hauling the real payload.
The equipment put off incredible heat, a myriad of cooling fans blasting it into the cramped space around him as they tried to preserve the functionality of the aged processors. He had endured the temperature for hours, scrutinizing every frame from each of the angles available.
Most of what he observed amounted to the blasting of chipped ice from large hoses into the back of semi-trailers, their refrigeration units casting off exhaust that made the high-angle views even more obscured than they generally would be. The problem was; all of the loads shipped out of Oceanside that night had received a healthy dose of ice. Most were then loaded with steel or concrete ballast -- only one got what was behind door number two.
As fate would have it, the area of the building in which Polyphemus had been stored wasn't covered by any of the cameras. Only the top corner of a massive doorway to that wing of the structure was visible; so Tomlinson watched for any hint of it opening.
It did so several times, of course, throughout the night in question... technicians had been advised that it was important to check the temperature of the room every half hour, introducing a mist of frigid Glycol whenever it started to show any signs of warming. This process was carried on even after Polyphemus was moved out of its holding; only a select few were allowed to know exactly when it was loaded up.
Lieutenant Dix, the brain-surgeon who had handed the loading manifest to Glen Cross, was among them; he would be able to identify the trailer immediately, if he were available. It seemed that Mister Dix had gone AWOL -- either out of fear of being court marshaled for his ignorance, or as a result of some interference from the Phloxans.
The latter seemed most likely, as all of the members of the team with knowledge as to which trailer pulled the real payload had gone missing within the past thirty-six hours. Tomlinson was more than familiar with the phenomenon of coincidence, but this seemed a bit too convenient for his liking. Had one of them been taken alive and spilled the beans to the purple-eyed folks, The General's work might be entirely in vain... that would be bad.
Working the video for all it was worth, Tomlinson tried to cross-reference the camera that allowed a look at the door and another that provided a panoramic view of the facility, showing the front ends of the trailers lined up for loading. Each time one of the giant forklifts zooming around the frame would place something on a trailer, there was an obvious jostling of the box. Throughout the entire night, there were three instances in which one of these indications of the burden of weight was present while the door to the Polyphemus room was open... one of those that was loaded in concert with the doors had to be the trailer that received the payload.
Tracking down three would be much easier than fifty -- but they could be anywhere along the route between California and Florida at this point... it was still a nearly impossible objective.
Nearly Impossible might as well have been Rich Tomlinson's middle name, though, as much of what he had accomplished in his past had been described the same way by others without the determination to try. He was willing to take on any challenge, no matter how insurmountable the odds may seem.
Tackling this task would be no different than climbing the incredible mountains that stood behind him; though successfully reaching this particular summit would represent his greatest achievement to date.
Determined to succeed, he decided that the first step in finding these trailers was, obviously, being able to identify them. This required a good deal of patience; he essentially had to trace the path of each one backwards from the moment of loading through the numerous camera angles until he was able to catch a glance at something which made that particular trailer unique. The resolution wasn't nearly adequate to make out any license plates, so he had to rely on fleet unit numbers marked either on the rear doors or the noses of the trailers.
Two of the three boxes in question belonged to large truck lines; a simple call to their dispatchers with the unit number would allow him to identify the driver assigned to that equipment. With any luck, he would be able to contact them directly via their cell phones -- if the Phloxans hadn't already discovered and taken hold of them at the very wheel of the rig. Better yet, the trucks might be equipped with GPS units, like the one that had led the team to Annette Cassidy in Mississippi.
The third trailer would be much harder to identify. It bore no company markings whatsoever, and was likely operated by an independent trucker. It was by far the nicest vehicle of the bunch; the sides were corrugated stainless steel as opposed to factory-issue flat aluminum, and far more marker lights than were required decorated its running lines.
Tomlinson watched the video from beginning to end in an attempt to pick up any detail that would reveal who the box belonged to. A holding lot camera allowed him to see it being pulled into the yard by a boxy red Kenworth, but its marking were obscured and too small to read as well. Despite his best efforts, the ownership and identity of this particular trailer was still a mystery.
The door of this surveillance room opened, a blast of considerably cooler air flooding in from the hallway outside as Sergeant Elaine Dickinson entered the space.
"Any luck?" She asked.
"A little -- but not enough." He replied. "How about you? Anything interesting out of Sun Spot?"
"Just this." She continued, dropping a thick stack of papers onto the desk in front of him. "Ten drivers called in after loading, complaining that they were overweight. Barb pulled permits for them and sent them on their way. It's not much -- but maybe we can dig in a little further and get more out of it."
Tomlinson leafed through the papers, examining the details of each permit. "This is excellent, Elaine! Don't sell it short! I'd bet the farm that the truck carrying Polyphemus would've been overweight and is, therefore, among these permits!"
"I agree, but that still leaves ten trucks to find! That doesn't seem likely to happen quickly; and the Phloxans are probably two or three steps ahead already."
"Maybe we can narrow that field down a bit with what I've found in here." He thought aloud. "There are three trailers that receive their load while the doors to the payload room were open... if we can determine that one of those trailers also had an overweight permit pulled, I bet we'll know exactly who we're looking for."
"What if all three got permits?"
"Then we're right back where we started -- but at least we'll know that my suspicions about these three were accurate. You can't think like that though, Sergeant -- not if you hope to take over the big chair one day. You must have faith... these two pieces of the puzzle will lead us to Polyphemus... we will succeed."
Chapter 18