Page 64 of Clive Cussler's Quantum Tempest

She pulled it up on his computer screen, then stepped back.

Littleton set his coffee down and scrolled through the list. A wide grin brightened his face.

“I know how we can do it.”

“Do what?” Max asked.

“Polymerize the fentanyl.”

“How long will it take?” Cabrillo asked.

“It…depends.” Littleton stifled a laugh.

Cabrillo wasn’t sure what was so funny. “Depends on what?”

“How many box cutters do you have?”

?

Linda Ross sounded the ship-wide call. Thirteen minutes later, every availableOregoncrew member assembled in the hold, where Dr.Littleton and Juan stood next to a shipping container, both of its doors flung wide open.

“When you answered, ‘It depends,’ you weren’t kidding, were you?” Juan said.

Littleton’s eyes sparkled with mischief. “Pun intended.”

The head of theOregon’s biophysical laboratory worked his calculations and determined he needed one hundred eighty-five pounds of SAPs—superabsorbent polymers—to neutralize two thousand five hundred liters of liquid fentanyl. But rather than try to manufacture a time-consuming batch in his lab, he discovered a hidden treasure trove supplying more than he needed.

To get the final amount of absorbant required tearing open and stripping out two thousand eight hundred XXL Depend-branded adult-size overnight diapers and extracting the dry, granular powder from them.

In fact, theOregonhad picked up an entire forty-foot shipping container filled with several thousand boxes of adult diapers, and in particular, the double-extra-large, overnight variety. An enterprising retailer discovered there was a large American retired expat community in El Salvador, and apparently a quite incontinent one. TheOregonhad been hired to deliver it.

Ross organized the team into two highly efficient production lines. She had rounded up fourteen box cutters, which wasn’t enough but hardly a problem. Nearly every member of the crew carried their own personal pocketknives—razor-sharp Benchmades, Kershaws, and Spydercos. The former Marines invariably wielded their venerable Ka-Bars. Thanks to Linda’s organizational skills, the task was completed in just over eighteen minutes.

The first members of the team stripped the cases off the pallets.

The second passed along the cases.

The third cut the cases open.

The fourth yanked boxes out of the cases.

The fifth cut those boxes open.

The sixth pulled out the items from inside each box.

And the seventh group, all masked, harvested the absorbant from each diaper.

The final group in the chain gang stood nearby stacking and bagging the trashed remains and disposing of them in designated containers.

TheOregoncrew had broken open the shipping container and pillaged the contents of a retail product designed to absorb urine and turn it into a jellylike substance. And that’s exactly what the absorbants would do to the fentanyl shipment—transform twenty-five hundred liters of the clear liquid poison into a thick, gelatinous mass unyielding and dense within the tank, rendering the drug useless, its fatal potential neutralized.

Eddie and Cabrillo planned on heading back to the warehouse with the absorbant load, but the weight of the material and the fact it would be getting light within three hours required at least three more pairs of hands. Littleton insisted on being the point man to deliver the contents into the tank, since it was the most dangerous job, but also the most technical. Cabrillo suspected the latter argument was specious, but obliged him anyway. He knew the man would take the appropriate precautions.

Eddie checked his watch as the last bag was being cinched up. “I sure hope that audio hypnosis trick works again.”

“Lightning never strikes twice,” Max said. “Maybe we need an alternative.”

“Of course it’ll work,” Eric Stone said, his pride stung. He had worked with Hali to design the audio hypnosis program. “Roy Sullivan proves it.”