Jude Devine Mystery Series (74 page)
Cautiously, she said, “It’s certainly possible that Hawke has relevant information, but we can’t afford to sound the alert by confronting him. The FBI will determine how this is handled.” To further dampen enthusiasm, she explained, “Last year the ASS broke away from Hawke’s organization after attempting an internal coup. I don’t think he’s talking to them right now.”
“So, what are we looking at here?” Pratt asked. “A car bomb?”
Jude had been of two minds about going into detail about the type of threat they were facing. It would only take one person in this room to leak the information and there could be a major panic. On the other hand, letting people have their reactions now instead of next week when they would need to be focused was probably a good move.
“The plot involves a biological agent known as ricin.”
Noise erupted around her. Pratt leapt to his feet, his face the color of putty. “Ricin? Deadly-poison-no-antidote ricin?”
“Twice as deadly as cobra venom,” Tulley said, abandoning the back of the room to claim a seat. “They make it out of castor beans.”
A couple of female officers craned around. Jude figured she’d be talking to the backs of their heads for the next five minutes while they swooned over the man chosen as Mr. January for the next Southwestern law officers beefcake calendar.
She tried to quell the rising panic level. “Just so everyone knows, the U.S. Army has a vaccine for ricin.” She didn’t mention its limited effectiveness and the continuing lack of inhibitors to slow the effects of the bio-agent. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Biochemical agents are notoriously difficult to weaponize. Ricin dispersal has to be by aerosol, injection, or ingestion.”
“Food contamination,” Pete Koertig interpreted.
“That’s the most likely possibility. Let’s face it, this isn’t the movies and these guys aren’t Jason Bourne. They’re not going to fire syringes at anyone, and for a credible attack they’d have to release gallons of aerosol. That’s not going to happen. They’ll run with the easiest method, poisoning hamburgers or something like that.”
“My God, that’s plain un-American.” Sheriff Pratt shook his head in disappointment that a bunch of race-hate extremists might desecrate the national dish. “Does Cortez have anything to fear?”
“Sir, they’re not coming after a whole town, not even Telluride. This is all about buying themselves publicity and hero status among their peers. I’m sure they expect a lot of Jewish people to attend the festival.”
Sheriff Pratt looked to Tulley. “Deputy, you’re the expert. Is that true?”
Tulley jumped to his feet, a response that elicited audible sighs from several areas of the room. “Sir, I’m guessing Noah Baumbach, Etgar Keret, and maybe Sacha Baron Cohen, the Borat guy.” Tulley paused. “Sean Penn and Werner Herzog usually show up, but I don’t think they’re Jewish. I heard Huang Lu, the actress is coming. Those white power types don’t like Asians either.”
“All the minorities you can eat,” Pratt noted sourly. “I don’t suppose the organizers will step up with a list of names.”
The Telluride lineup was always kept secret until opening day, a policy that burned those tasked with ensuring security for the celebrities who showed up. Jude wished she could be there to see the startled faces of the nerds who ran the festival when the FBI came calling. Their precious cultural event under siege by morons who’d never watched a movie with subtitles—oh, the horror.
She said, “I’m sure the FBI will secure their full cooperation. If not, they’ll be arrested.”
When the cheers and hoots died down, Tulley waved his hand. “There’s a film.” His speech danced up into the decibels Jude recognized as his anxious range. “
My Enemy’s Enemy.
If it’s on the program, the terrorists might want to target that screening.”
“Why? Does it make fun of Hitler?” Jude asked.
“No, it’s about Klaus Barbie.” At the generally blank stares, Tulley explained, “He was a real Nazi who ended up working for the CIA. They protected him.”
“Until he outlived his use-by date,” Jude noted.
Barbie was routinely held up by counterintelligence boffins as an example of the moral dilemmas their community faced. Yes, he was a sadist sentenced to death for war crimes, but the “Butcher of Lyon,” as he was colorfully known, wasn’t the only Gestapo officer recruited by the West after World War II. Worried about the emerging threat of communism, the U.S. Counter Intelligence Corps had helped numerous high-ranking Nazis escape via their infamous rat line. These grateful former enemies became CIA assets in Latin America. Evidently this unsavory fact was what the Barbie film was about.
“Why would these skinhead creeps care if one of their heroes is starring in a movie?” Pratt asked with a puzzled frown.
Good question. “What do you know about this film?” Jude asked Tulley. “Was it made by a Jewish director or something?”
“No. Kevin Macdonald. That’s the guy who did
The Last King of Scotland
.”
“Then what makes you think it could be a target?”
Jude would have expected opposition to an exposé movie about Barbie and the CIA to come from more illustrious quarters than the neo-Nazi movement. The Bush family would keep their distance for obvious reasons, but there were others who wouldn’t welcome a spotlight on their roles. Lt. Governor David Dewhurst of Texas sprang to mind, but Jude had a hard time believing Dewhurst would be stupid enough to involve himself with amateurs like the ASS just to stop a movie being aired. The lieutenant governor had political ambitions and a carefully constructed public image to maintain. Besides, much bigger fish than he were responsible for the sleazy bloodbath that was Latin America under the military dictatorships of Operation Condor. The same official silence that protected them also provided cover for Dewhurst.
“I think it’s a target because every Jew at the festival will go see it,” Tulley said with a trace of embarrassment. He glanced at Jude as if he knew she was expecting a more Machiavellian rationale.
She almost laughed. Sometimes her job and her training made her overlook the obvious in favor of darker explanations. But very few felons were Mensa candidates. Most often their crimes and motivations were banal. The seven deadly sins pretty much covered all the bases. In this case her deputy had flagged those most often connected to hate crimes: wrath and envy.
“Good thinking, Tulley,” she said. “I’ll inform the FBI and they can check with the organizers to see if that film is on the program. Meantime, people, our job is to coordinate and assemble everything we know about this event. Venues. Access. Catering. Accommodations. You name it.”
She glanced around the faces, reading a mix of excitement and stunned dismay. Apparently it was just sinking in that she wasn’t kidding and the Four Corners really was at the epicenter of a domestic terrorism plot.
An officer new to the area suggested, “Maybe we could set up checkpoints. Pretend it’s for drug prevention or something.”
“Telluride PD tried that a few years ago,” Sheriff Pratt said. “Camouflaged officers along the road. Signs saying Narcotics Checkpoint and so forth. There was a lawsuit.”
“Which we won,” a San Miguel undersheriff pointed out. “We conducted the operation during the bluegrass festival. You should have seen what those bozos threw out their car windows. It was the littering that gave us probable cause to stop the vehicles.”
Pratt shuffled his feet and looked at his wristwatch. “Problem was, you guys couldn’t make anything stick. What it all boils down to is we can’t make random checks. Although that might be different in this scenario. Devine, I take it the new Homeland Security regulations will apply.”
“We’ll know on Monday,” Jude said. “In an antiterrorism operation, federal agents have extremely broad powers but state and local law enforcement still have to work within constraints. The FBI will explain everything. In the meantime, we have an intelligence-gathering operation to conduct. When the feds step in, we want to own a piece of the pie.”
This sentiment, she knew, would strike a chord. If a plot to kill a bunch of celebrities was foiled, no one would want the FBI grabbing all the glory. She signaled Pratt, who rose and wrapped up the presentation, pointing out which undersheriffs would be in charge of leading teams from the various counties.
As soon as everyone filed out of the room, he dragged Jude aside. “How come I have to hear about this in a briefing?”
“Because I was only just told myself, and we have to move quickly.”
“Are you sure Harrison Hawke’s not in on this?”
“No, but don’t worry, I’ll find out.”
Jude had been avoiding her increasingly ardent suitor for most of the summer, trying to cool things down. She’d broken her ankle in May, so she had a good excuse. But her ankle was back to normal now, and she could not longer avoid visiting Hawke’s little corner of the Aryan nation.
Chapter Two
Black Dog Gulch wasn’t a town, it was the site of a frontier camp on the banks of a creek that had dried up eons ago, in the middle of nowhere, in canyon country. Jude usually drove past it, missing the faded red arrow nailed to the stump of a long dead tree on the winding dirt road. The isolation suited its one inhabitant just fine. Harrison Hawke wasn’t looking to be found except by true believers.
Recently a team from his organization had erected an impressive stone monument near the tree stump. This was adorned with a black Othala rune, a symbol especially favored by Hawke. A brass plaque above the rune was inscribed with:
In Memoriam
David Lane
2 November 1938–28 May 2007
We must secure the existence of our People
and a future for White children.
Below this quote, known by white supremacists as the 14 Words, were directions to Hawke’s compound.
The place had expanded since the first Aryan Defense Days, with various outbuildings occupying the zone around a bunkerlike concrete dwelling. New eight-foot security fencing encompassed the compound perimeter. The razor wire along the top was a source of pride to Hawke, who cherished this echo of forgotten glory. His security fence served as a reminder of other such fences, like the ones surrounding Auschwitz and Dachau, those jewels in the crown of the Third Reich.
Hawke was not among the ranks of the Holocaust deniers, as were many in his movement. He was more of a Holocaust downsizer, quibbling over the final tally of the dead. Outright denials of the Final Solution struck him as offensive to the loyal Germans who’d taken pains to keep official records of their accomplishments. Auschwitz commandant Rudolf Höss had written his own firsthand account. Who were soft, modern-day Nazis to call him a liar?
Hawke saw no shame in the existence of concentration camps; in fact, he considered them a testament to the will of the master race. In the interests of the entire
Volk
a few individuals had been called upon to carry out distasteful tasks, and they had manfully stepped up to the plate. He teared up thinking about those race heroes.
Jude honked her horn and a member of Hawke’s newly established personal security unit—named the Hakenkreuz Commando—rushed from an outbuilding to open the gates for her. With expressionless fervor, he raised his right arm in the Roman salute as she drove the MCSO Dodge Dakota into the “VIP” parking area in front of Hawke’s house. She was now unofficially acknowledged as the CRAP commander’s girlfriend, a fact greeted with rare emotion by her FBI handler. Arbiter viewed Hawke as the leader most likely to unite the fragmented white power movement, and the Bureau expected him to make his move soon.
So far, it had been a lousy year for American neo-Nazis. Reeling from deaths and imprisonments, they were ripe for muscular leadership. A lawsuit had bankrupted the Aryan Nations several years ago, and the movement was now punch-drunk from a fresh series of scandals. The National Vanguard was no more. Its leader was facing child pornography charges and the organization’s powerful Boston unit collapsed when its head honcho was arrested for statutory rape. Another white power outfit, the National Socialist Movement, had been thrown into disarray when chairman Cliff Herrington was driven from the fold. Amazingly, he wasn’t tossed out because of his notorious body odor, rages, or sexual harassment of Aryan women. He and his wife were discovered to be running a Web site called the Joy of Satan and having its mail sent to the NSM’s address. Another demoralizing problem surfaced at the same time. Upon closer inspection, Herrington’s wife turned out to be less than Aryan. They both had to go.