Vou sugerir o País do Spook de William Gibson (2º livro na série "Blue Ant", precedido por Pattern Recognition ), em que o prêmio perseguido ao longo do livro é um misterioso contêiner e seu conteúdo.
“Don’t know. The tasks of Bobby Chombo, though: One, as I’ve told you, consists of listening for the Flying Dutchman of shipping containers. When he took this job, he was given a set of parameters of some kind, and this task of fishing one particular signal out of a great many others. He did it. Does it still. The container sends a signal periodically, announcing its location, and probably that it hasn’t been tampered with. It’s an intermittent signal, encrypted, and it shifts frequencies, but if you’re Bobby, evidently, you’ll know when and where to listen for it.”
A revelação do clímax:
The container is full of money stolen or embezzled from the Gulf War, and is ultimately taken out by the protagonists by shooting it with radioactive bullets that make it literally dirty money.
Eu realmente tenho uma boa citação da cena em questão, mas a SE está se recusando a deixar que eu a coloque em spoilers.