Lima Voyager, a nondescript cargo ship under Peruvian flag, approached San Diego harbor one cloudless, sunny morning. The ship came crawling over the sea and slunk toward land like a dark, furtive animal that hoped not to be noticed. The few who noticed her, particularly members of law enforcement agencies on duty around the clock to protect the American shorelines, got the creepy feeling that something was wrong about her--something undefinable and deeply troubling.

She was a boxy looking antique--27,000 tons, small, strangely high in the water as if her cargo holds were empty, and a smell of decay about her like the fungus rot of the jungle. A cluster of strangely reticent crewmen stared down from the rails above her flaking black hull. They regarded the U.S. shore with hollow eyes and open mouths, as if speechless at some impending and unstoppable doom that, so far, only they knew about. In the lolling seas outside the harbor mouth between Point Cabrillo and North Island, Lima Voyager was challenged for a routine U.S. Coast Guard inspection.

The boxy freighter hove to with foul orange-colored water spouting from her bilges. She rocked on the splashing sea, showing rust streaming down from dirty black upper hull down to her flaking red Plimsoll line. A Coast Guard cutter sent a team of inspectors on board. A Coast Guard chopper circled above to provide cover. U.S. Navy SEALs and other crack police and military units were within a few minutes' call--after all, eight nuclear submarines were berthed just within the dark, brooding arms of Point Cabrillo with its centuries-old fortifications and Ft. Rosecrans cemetery. A harbor master's pilot approached Lima Voyager on a launch and boarded at about the same time. Lima Voyager's last port of call had been Peru, which was one of the Treasury Department's red flags for drug searches. The T-Men of the Coast Guard took a drug-sniffing dog on board. Unlike the military services like the Navy, the Coast Guard are a U.S. law enforcement agency with powers of search, seizure, and arrest like any other police jurisdiction, and Naval patrols in offshore waters are usually accompanied by a Coast Guard officer to lead arrests.

Lt. Linsey Simon, of the uniformed Harbor Police Division, watched the proceedings from a small police patrol boat within her jurisdiction inside San Diego Bay. As she kept binoculars before her eyes, she steadied her elbows on the control panel on the canvas-topped bridge as the small patrol boat heaved lightly in calm channel currents. Linsey Simon was a trim, 30ish woman wearing a dark blue uniform and baseball capt of her police service. She looked swallowed up by a red life vest and belt full of equipment, including a 9 mm Glock and extra clips. The swallowed-up look was deceptive, and her small, wiry body was like a steel spring curled up in all that gear. She was one of the fastest runners and strongest swimmers on the force. With a black belt in Judo,she was known for good instincts and making good critical decisions under fire. Her husband, Jack Simon, locally well-known and tough-talking journalist, had ample respect for Linsey's determination and capabilities and enjoyed her attractive feminine side. Her associates respected her, and at the moment her partner Cleveland "Cleve" Bartlett and two other uniformed officers looked relaxed as they waited on the main deck below for her leadership. The three men--wearing the same dark uniforms, orange vests, and armaments as Linsey--comfortably eyeballed their leader and the decisions she was making about the strange ship clanking slowly toward the harbor mouth. Cleve wasn't actually Linsey's partner anymore, not since she'd made rank, but he was the colleague she always took with her when she went in the field and needed a backup person in the car or boat, wherever her duties took her. Recently, she'd been doing plain clothes laison work uptown with a Federal task force, and that was taking her ever more away from being grounded in her chosen profession. But it was all interesting.

As she watched Lima Voyager chugging in on the tide, Linsey thought there was something painfully strange about the ugly ship that was about to enter the harbor and tie up at a private pier within the 32nd Street Naval Yard. Maybe it was the ship's tawdry appearance versus the clean Coast Guard and Harbor Pilot vessels surrounding her. In Linsey's business, you looked hard--real hard--for the hidden drug deal, the approaching terrorist, the bomber, the smuggler. It was something every peace officer took deadly seriously, because the nation was under constant threat of attack from those who fanatically hated her, and the slightest slip or oversight could mean the death of thousands. So what was it about this clattering tub? Some corporation was paying top dollar for this piece of scrap to float into an expensive berth. What was that all about? Lt. Linsey Simon had a funny idea she wasn't seeing the last of this cargo tramp. Drugs? That was the likely profile, but something about this vessel didn't quite jibe.

As Coast Guard and harbor pilot boarded, Lima Voyager's captain and first officer stood on the bridge with their hands on the railing. With hooded, inscrutable eyes, they watched as the Americans fanned out and checked the usual spots in such a ship. The inspection took an hour and resulted in a broadband burst of routine web form reports. Finding nothing obviously amiss, the inspectors and their dog rejoined the cutter. Several would later remark on the chill feelings they'd gotten on board. Nobody could put their finger on what might be amiss, but they all had a bad feeling--starting with the odd, unpleasant smell of earth with something dead in it. And yet--the small cargo of machine parts, lumber, wine, and gourmet mushrooms seemed properly tagged and invoiced, and neatly stacked in the holds in wooden crates secured with chains. The Coast Guard vessel roared off north toward Torrey Pines State Beach to join a surf rescue, and Lima Voyager chugged at one quarter speed through the channel entrance into San Diego Harbor.

To hear the dog handler tell it weeks later, the dog had not picked up any drug or blood scents--but it had begun acting skittish. The dog had sidled against its handler's dark blue uniform leg as if spooked, even frightened. This was a courageous dog, which on previous occasions had attacked on command, even under gunfire, to bring down violent suspects. The same big-hearted dog had refused to go near any of the dark-eyed crew or officers of Lima Voyager--and, to hear talk in a dockside tavern around 32nd Street--oddly, not a single crew member or officer had so much as offered to pet the animal. They had stared at the German shepherd, which had its hackles up and a low growl never leaving its throat, with an unfathomable discomfort--as if it were a species of animal with whom their kind had never before bonded.

San Diego Today--In the Grantville neighborhood, Jimmy Mendez was pedalling happily along the sidewalk when he heard his mom's excited voice over the hedges: "Your dad is home!"

"Oh, yay! Let's go pick him up."

"Put your bike away, quick, Jimmy." Already, Mom stood with her purse in one hand and the keys to the old green Dodge in the other. Jimmy sailed around the corner, up the driveway, and into the garage. He had a way of dismounting by swinging his right leg over the seat so that he stood on the left pedal with the right leg wrapped around the back of the left leg, and this way he coasted into the garage and let the bike fly so that it drove in by itself, standing up, and came gently to rest still upright between two piles of plastic bags containing wood chips for the yard. Dad had bought the chips two years ago and never quite finished the back yard project. He'd promised to build Jimmy a swing, but then he'd been called out to sea on his Merchant Marine contract. By now, Jimmy had given up on ever having a swing set in the yard.

"That's odd," Mom said to herself as she headed down Waring Road to Interstate 8 and headed west toward the sea.

"What's odd?" Jimmy asked. With his softball glove on one hand, he casually tossed his ball into the glove over and over.

"I'm supposed to pick him up in National City."

"In Mexico?" he asked hopefully. It was where some of Jimmy's ancestors came from on his dad's side. On his mother's side they were Anglos who'd come from Oklahoma during the Great Depression. His mom had told him these things, and he'd also learned them in school.

"No, in National City, halfway down there."

"Dang." He'd hoped for a trip into Mexico for fun and to pick Dad up. "So what's odd?"

"Well, son, he usually has me pick him up at the dock where the ship pulls in. I'm sure there is some explanation, like someone owed him money or he owed some money and had to pay it. I hope he wasn't playing poker and losing his shirt."

Jimmy tossed his softball gently and watched absently as Mom took the high freeway ramps out of Mission Valley to head south on Interstate 15. Traffic was heavy but moving fast, and palm trees breezed by on either side of the road in hazy sunshine.

In about ten minutes they entered National City and took an exit ramp. High up, a passenger jet worked its way across the Palm Avenue freeway ramp for a landing at Lindbergh Field. The jet's twin tail engines left a white vapor contrail glistening in the blue sky. Lots of moisture in the air today.

They pulled up at a house surrounded by blue jacaranda trees in full bloom. Mom blared the horn, and a door opened. Out came a man who looked like dad.

Mom seemed excited and waved. "Hi honey!" she called out in a high, singsong voice. "Welcome home!"

The man noticed her. He looked in her direction as he came toward the car with his sea bag, but he didn't wave or smile. His eyes seemed to somehow not really recognize her.

Jimmy sat up and stopped tossing the ball. That man wasn't dad at all. He looked like dad, but something was wrong. A lot of things were wrong. The shape of his head, the way his eyes didn't focus on the same things dad's would have, the way he walked, the way he carried his heavy sea bag over the wrong shoulder. Worst of all, if it were dad, dad would be smiling and waving and calling Jimmy's name. This man just came toward them at a slow walk, looking more worried or something; busy; like he had someplace to go.

"Honey, move to the back seat," Mom said.

"Why?" Jimmy said. He was going to say "That ain't dad," but Mom seemed too excited to let him talk.

The man who looked like dad didn't seem to care. He got into the back seat as if he were climbing into a taxi in some big city and didn't care to learn the driver's name.

"Aren't you going to kiss me?" Mom said.

"I'll kiss you later," he said. Jimmy thought he smelled something dry and earthy. "Let's go home. I'm tired."

"Okay, honey," Mom said. She pulled away from the curb, hiding her obvious disappointment. "So you're tired, huh? Probably hungry too, huh?"

"I ate on the ship."

"Really." Mom looked in the rear view mirror and saw Jimmy staring at her. Her fake smile disappeared, and her eyes looked worried now, just like Jimmy felt inside.

That smell--it reminded Jimmy of the garden shed. It had taken him a few seconds to place it. It was the smell of earth, whether in the basement or the garden shed. "Daddy, have you been digging in a garden someplace?"

The man looked at him, and Jimmy realized this man did not recognize him at all. It broke his heart, though he hoped there was some mistake. Kids have instincts adults do not have. Jimmy knew deep down there was no mistake. Something indescribably horrible had happened. Was going on. Was just the beginning. Jimmy was too scared to even cry. What he saw in those lifeless eyes--a kind of reptile hate--made his knees knock together and he nearly wet his pants.