Most interestingly, Ali had two grown kids who were special forces -- Jackson Ali and Jefferson Ali -- and who were killed in Afghanistan, but the Pentagon won't acknowledge ever existed. The FBI knows about them from interviewing their mom, Ali's widow, after the attack. Possibly the connection that let Ali find all the special forces guys to hire.
Perez carefully explains all of this to me, some of which she has certainly known for a long time. I get the feeling something else is coming.
"Air Force, we have traced two things. First, Ali got a death benefit when his kids died, and the kids got paid into their US bank accounts while they were stationed overseas. The money didn't come through standard channels, it came from the Special Operations Command at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina."
"Second, Ali got $3.5 million from a source in Afghanistan, his Russian middle man sent him $1.5 million and paid out $2 million to get the nerve gas components, minus his commissions."
"We do know that the same person or persons recently sent that middle man $5 million. He claimed to have given $500,000 to our bad guys, and $4 million to the arms dealer, who paid three Russian military officers. The last $500,000 was his commission."
Something worries me about why she is telling me this.
"Perez, are you supposed to be telling me this?"
"No, it's secret. I get to hear it because I have a temporary security clearance."
"What happened to don't do anything stupid?"
"It went out the window with what else we've learned."
I lean in, not knowing what else to expect. She makes a quick check to make sure no one is listening. My FBI watchers are still sitting outside.
"We think they bought a nuke from the arms dealer."
Fuck me. Nerve gas not enough, now nuclear weapons.
"A nuke. A nuclear bomb."
"Yes. And not a baby one, the warhead from a nuclear tipped cruise missile."
"And they put it in their carry-ons and brought it back in?"
"No. It weighs two thousand pounds, give or take, we assume they got it on a boat, and we've been inspecting every boat from Russia, but no joy. It could still be in transit, or it could have landed in Canada and come in on a truck, or through Mexico, or to England and then here on a boat from there, too many options for us to ever be sure. There are in-port radiation detectors at every dock in America, but they are not nearly 100 percent foolproof."
"And, you want something." Not a question.
"I know you are heading back to South America. Could you spare some time to spy on Ali's old house? His wife lives there, we can't get a warrant, but our bad guys might still be in contact. And maybe fly around a few docks, just in case you get one of those feelings?"
"Anything for you, temporary special agent Perez."
She doesn't hit me, but somehow I think she is adding up the missed opportunities, and I am going to get a beating once her arm is healthy.
"Oh," she says, "and I have a present for you." She reaches under the table and pulls up a black cloth thing, which she hands to me. I look it over.
"A fanny pack?"
"A holster disguised to look like a fanny pack. Flaherty says if you insist on running, you need to wear this with your weapon and badge inside."
I laugh. "If it makes her happy."
"You ready to go?" It sounds like a question, but I know it means we're leaving, so I stand up and help her up. She claims she's fine, I know better. She's just afraid I will do some healing, and shorten my time if she admits it hurts.
On the drive to my place, we figure out how I am going to sneak out. Not terribly difficult, just wait for the FBI guys to settle in, Perez takes them down some coffee, and I sneak out the back of the parking garage.
Fifteen minutes later, I am hovering over a house in Lake Forest, near what used to be the El Toro Marine Base, hoping something happens. Brought my camera and telephoto, but nothing shows up, the curtains are drawn so nothing shows out, and eventually I grab my backpack, hide everything, and fly toward Columbia.
It's been a while since I've been here, so I revisit all of my earlier sites, house, businesses, cocaine fields, poppy fields, warehouses, and processing plants, and clean up anything I missed the first time. No one hassles me.
Then I go remove two fields of badness from Ecuador, and head home in time to put on my nice new fanny pack, SIG Sauer inside, and go for a nice run with my tail following. No sign of any bad guy watching today, much to my disappointment.
I wanted to spend today as him, but it would be hard to explain to the FBI why Perez was suddenly home alone. We spend the day on the beach, at a little cafe near the beach, and on my balcony looking over the beach before I sneak off again after dark and have more equatorial escapades.
Sunday it's mom and dad's, restful except when dad explains that the insurance company is claiming terrorist attack and so far refuses to pay for anything involving my little accident. I should probably go visit them and demolish one of their buildings too.
Monday I should be headed to paradise, but I'm still technically grounded, so I play some golf (following my morning run) and wait for Perez to get home and talk to me about passport photos. I get takeout from the local steakhouse, ready to eat when she walks through the door. She has a pretty good sized smile on when she does.
"Air Force, you are not going to believe what happened." I actually bet I will, but I am smart enough not to say that.
"The passport photos from Russia came in, no surprises, all guys we recognize, but can't name."
"I actually believe that."
She hits me. The arm must be feeling better.
"Abdul Hassan and Mohammed Naziri. The Afghani's have them listed as US military obtaining second passports. The military claims they don't exist, but we found all kinds of civilian records for them, schools, doctors, relatives -- based on the addresses listed on the documents."
I know what's coming. "I sense more dumbass on stakeout coming."
"No. This was enough to get a warrant, and the Bureau has teams at four houses, watching. East coast, not here."
"They are here, not there."
"OK, got me there. You might still keep an eye on Ali's for me."
I reach over and kiss her. "This is a pretty big mistake for them to have made."
"Yeah, but remember they wouldn't have used such obviously fake names if they thought we'd catch on at all. It was to show us up after the fact."
I nod and we eat, then we get naked, followed by Perez taking coffee to the FBI (after getting her clothes back on), and me flying off to continue the anti-drug campaign, after spending a little useless time over Ali's seemingly uninhibited former abode.
Tuesday's basically a repeat, I run and then go hang at the mall, bored, Perez works all day. I am not quite Mr. Mom, but getting there. Fortunately, my grounding ends on Friday. In bed later, Perez informs me that she is flying off to North Carolina with Flaherty in the morning.
"The Marine Special Operations Command is at Lejeune, and some of the administration is at Quantico in Virginia where there FBI academy is located. Apparently she's tired of getting the run around on the phone, we're going to go see them face to face."
I'm fine with it, except they are not flying my airline. I spend the night wrapped around her, and don't go out. She takes off so she can take off about five in the morning, I, always the great boyfriend, decide to stay in bed. Then I run with my tail, go play golf with some random threesome who was looking for a fourth, and then sneak out without an assist to visit the drug lords.
Chapter 27
Thursday I'm Officer Packer during the day, then more South America overnight. Friday it's off to Kona, my first chance to fly since the accident.
Captain Amos is flying with me, apparently my original captain got wind of the fact that someone might have been shooting at me last week. Maybe we should have told the passengers too, but most of them are already afraid enough about flying.
I spend a little extra time in the walk around, trying to use the fog enhanced senses to make sure all is well. We get our clearance, taxi out uneventfully, and get lined up on the runway.
"Mountain 4-6-1, wind 230 at 12, cleared for takeoff runway 24 right."
"Cleared to takeoff, Mountain 4-6-1." I respond, working the radios today.
"Ready?" The captain has never said that before.
"Let's go."
He pushes the throttles forward. Normally, we use a reduced thrust setting to save the engines since we have a nice long runway, but today we decided to use full power. We're up less than half way down the asphalt strip, and climb quickly.
The tower hands us to coast control and we both give a quiet sigh, which we would never admit to making, as we cross to the open ocean out of range of any sniper.
Flight is calm, landing is perfect, and we celebrate by taking a couple flight attendants up to Waikaloa to play golf. I celebrate later by destroying the last South American poppy field on my list. If I keep to the plan a trip to Afghanistan is next.
I make a perfect flight back to LA on Saturday, landing on the proper runway, not on fire, and parking at the gate, not on the grass. Perez is waiting for us as we exit, recently landing herself from locales east.
We talk flying with Captain Amos, he tries to get Perez to go up with him, I get a little nervous that he's hitting on my girlfriend. The FBI drives us to my place, both Perez and I more than a little tired of them.
Halloween spends a half hour nuzzling Perez, then grudgingly acknowledges my presence long enough to ask for a treat. Kiana follows by asking for some salami to go, and I wrap up my best for her, followed in the morning with an experimental salami for breakfast, no omelette included. She's not recovered until lunch time when we bail for mom and dad's where we have to explain her extreme relaxedness on jet lag.
The FBI guys have adjusted their schedule with the senior agents now working Sundays. I suspect it's because mom feeds them while they wait down the street for us.
Back at my place later, Kiana fills me in on her trip. Seems it was breakfast then lunch then dinner each day with one high ranking officer after another who did the Sergeant Schultz and claimed to know nothing. Finally, Friday night they had dinner with the Commandant of the Marine Corps, made possible solely by the personal intervention of the Director of the FBI, though I bet the possibility of nuclear attack helped.
He, off the record, let them know that if the people we wanted to find out about were officially dead there would not be a single computer record of them in existence anywhere, and that what records there were would be paper locked away in filing cabinets in the basement of the SOC administrative building. In other words, no way to get to them.
"What's worse," Perez thinks there's something worse, "he claimed that if the SOC had them listed as dead, they were dead. We asked him about the folks using their passports, and he thinks its bad guys pretending to be dead good guys."
"They're alive." I am so insightful.
"Yes, Air Force, yes they are alive. I think the point was that we are not only not getting any help, they are going to continue to road block us. Whatever these guys did in Afghanistan, it must have been plenty interesting."
I have another stupid idea.
"The best way around a road block, in my limited experience, is to fly over it."
I don't think she was expecting me to be that stupid.
"Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?"
"Hey, I picked the stupidest thing I could think of, assuming of course that he wasn't lying about the records being in the basement."
"Do you still have your Army clothes?"
"I do." I give her my best conspiratorial smile.
"Let's sleep on it."
And with that, I spend a quiet week dodging FBI bodyguards, destroying poppy fields and Taliban arms depots in Afghanistan, and plotting to sneak into a high security military installation and steal top secret records. Nothing out of the ordinary.
The biggest problem is dealing with the FBI. I've been using a tried and true trick: sneak out as me, pretend to go for an evening dip in the ocean well out of their visual range, change in the water, get clear of the coast then hit the jets and head south. Works fine, both forward and reverse, except that now I need to take my Army clothes with me, and bring something back, which doesn't fit the scenario.
I also am time constrained. Subsonic it will take me four hours there and four hours back, which leaves precious little time to work when I don't really know what I am doing.
