Perilous Panacea (7 page)

“The Washington way to a perfect solution,” Spanner said. “Got a problem, form a committee. Two or three committees are even better.”

Saul smiled at Spanner’s comment, but neither Logson nor Kraft did. Now, if the Senator could get in on it, he could fire up the congressional committees.

Spanner nodded at Saul and asked, “So how do we fit in?”

“The FBI investigation will be low key in consultation with DOE and DOD. Bart Kraft will consult for DOE, and I’ll represent the DOD hierarchy. You two will mount the investigation. Just you two.”

“What?”

“You were picked because you can keep quiet,” Logson said to Spanner. “Saul was picked because he’s new to Washington and hasn’t had time to build connections that could lead to disastrous leaks. It’s just you and Saul in consultation with us. Use anybody else you want, just don’t give them all the details. They can work on the hijackings and murders if you only tell them government property was stolen…say chemicals…or industrial silver…something like that.”

Spanner chuckled. “With all the people involved that you just mentioned, along with the CIA and military security, it’ll get out soon enough. This is Washington, not Beijing.”

Color drained from Kraft’s face. He unbuttoned his jacket.

Saul realized if he was to do most of the dog work on the case, he was looking at lots of traveling: Tennessee, New Mexico, and South Carolina, just for starters. He didn’t want to be gone that long, but maybe this was the time to be gone. Maybe by being apart, he and Mary could think things out. Trouble was, she would still be around them at work, and he couldn’t stop thinking about that, regardless of what she said.

Logson stood. “Let’s just get the stuff back fast—the swift in SWISILREC. Nobody’s going to build a bomb, but if whoever’s got that material screws up and lets it get into the environment…that could be serious. Talk about a toxic-waste mess…I can’t stress too much that the silent in SWISILREC is of utmost importance.”

Kraft nodded. “Above all, keep it contained.”

Chapter Eight

“They tried to blame it on us,” Ray Woodward said to Saul in a strong southern accent as he fidgeted papers on his desk. Woodward was chief dispatcher for NNSA’s Southeastern Office at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, the office that dispatched the lost shipments of nuclear material. He explained how CID and DOE investigators also wanted to know why three loaded trucks were sent out with only two escort vehicles, when their code four status required them to have four.

“Andy Jordan, my boss, said Washington instructed it to be a code two. Jordan figured it was an economy move. There’s always a new economy move…on paper anyhow. That and reorganization.”

Saul nodded. Everybody bitched about government work, but people like Woodward never quit. “You said they wanted to blame you for the hijacking.”

“That’s right. They claimed Washington never dropped it from a code four. There was no record of a change on the computer. Jordan told them the change was in an ED, electronic directive, but he couldn’t find it on the web either, even though we both saw it. Goddamn computer. Used to be, we were covered up with paper and everybody said it would be better with computers. It isn’t. We’ve got more web-based forms and directives than we ever had paper. It’s a wonder we ever get a shipment out of here.”

When Saul got to Andy Jordan, head of the NNSA’s Southeastern Office, he got the same story about the computer and Washington, how the ED that changed the code was no longer on the web. Jordan said, “Someone must have removed it when they found out what happened.”

“Do Washington people ever come down to look you over?” Saul asked.

“DOE and DOD people were all over the place when this happened.”

“What about other times?”

“Fortunately, not too often. Washington types would rather visit California or New York than Tennessee. We get enough of them though, like the young pup we had here six-eight months ago, one of those computer whiz-bangs I was griping about, name of Austin. He wanted to know exactly how we operate. We wasted two days showing him the procedures for storage and transportation. We showed him the trucks and everything, although I don’t know why he needed to see the trucks. He was studying how NNSA’s communications network could be improved. A lack of communications didn’t cause this screw-up. We weren’t lacking security either, because this wasn’t your run-of-the-mill hijacking. Security is what this job’s all about. Our trucks cost over a million dollars apiece. They are more like an Abrams tank than a normal truck.”

Saul nodded, knowing what Jordan was getting at. He and Spanner suspected the same, even before he left Washington, but he was happy to get out of there for awhile, although distance hadn’t improved his relationship with Mary. When he finally got hold of her at the office today, they argued. She claimed she’d been working late last night, and then she went out to eat. It was who she went out with that interested him. That’s when the argument started.

Jordan went on: “The trucks are called SSTs, Safe-Secure Transports. They’re made of armored steel. If one is attacked, the driver can push a button and lock the axles.” Saul had been briefed on the trucks, but let Jordan explain how they are tracked by GPS by the communications center at Kirtland Air Force Base outside Albuquerque. “And they’re not being tracked by some two-bit rent-a-cop outfit with pins in a map and a walkie-talkie. There’s a Cray supercomputer that knows what’s going on at all times. It’s a super-secure computer that nobody is going to get into from outside.”

“I know what you’re saying,” Saul said.

“What I’m saying is that your problem isn’t down here, it’s back in Washington. Then again, a lot of us think most everybody’s problems come out of Washington.”

- - - - -

Saul’s next stop was Tennessee State Police Headquarters, where he interviewed the investigating officers, who took him to the crime site. He learned nothing beyond what was in the DOD/DOE investigation report.

After a long phone conversation with Spanner, he got two FBI agents from the Knoxville office involved in the investigation. He told them everything but the contents of the shipment, which was classified, and which they did not need to know, at least not yet.

After Tennessee, Saul was off to Albuquerque. He wanted to go home, because the night before, he tried to call Mary seven times and never got her. Sometimes when he was out of town, she stayed with Joyce Able, but when he called Joyce’s apartment, he got a busy signal.

In Albuquerque, he spent two days interviewing people involved with the fail-safe communications system that crashed. Just as in Tennessee, little new was learned beyond what was in the CID report. A system with dozens of fail-safe protocols failed, and the computer and communications experts at Kirtland Air Force Base could not say why. A couple people said the cyber attack and the hijacking had to be coordinated, but they expressed reservations that anybody could pull something like that, given the complicated nature of all the systems involved.

After Albuquerque, he flew to Augusta, Georgia, rented a car, and drove to Aiken, South Carolina, where the next day he interviewed people in the receiving office at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL). As expected, they knew very little about the hijacked trucks that were scheduled to deliver their cargo to SRNL. Their only problem was that the manifest of the hijacked material did not agree with the one they received prior to the shipment, the one approved by NNSA headquarters in Washington. The hijacked shipment contained material they had not requested and would have no reason for receiving. Their conclusion: someone had used the computer to manipulate the shipment contents as a setup for the hijacking.

The next day he drove to Montmorenci, South Carolina to interview Luke Walker, the driver of one of the hijacked trucks. Walker, who had been shot in the head and left for dead was in his forties. He removed his red University of Georgia baseball cap to reveal a shaved head and a scar around the back where doctors had operated to remove the bullet. He spoke in a weak, southern-accented voice. “We were on this two-lane road…”

“Why were you off the interstate?”

“We wondered the same thing. We got this ED just after we took off that changed our route and took us off of Interstate 75 and put us on U. S. Highway 321 near Lenoir City.” He told how they seemed to lose communications momentarily, then voice communications was reestablished, and they were told to take an even smaller road with almost no traffic.

“We figured it had to do with NUKE WATCH, you know, those anti-nuclear peace protesters that sometimes follow us and harass us, take pictures and stuff.

“Anyway, we came round this bend, and there were four cars. It looked like they’d had one hell-of-a wreck. These two young women came running up to our truck with blood all over them. They waved their arms and screamed that they needed help back at the cars. Well, sir, we all got out to try and help.”

“Did everybody get out?” Saul asked, “The two in each truck plus the four in the two escort vehicles?”

“Yes sir.”

“Are drivers supposed to get out of the truck?”

“Only in an emergency, but we couldn’t get by because the road was blocked by the wreck, or what we thought was a wreck. And there looked to be a bunch of people hurt besides those two women. This one woman had a bloody face, and the other one’s arm was bleeding. Well, we thought it was blood. They had on these real-short shorts, and one of them looked like her clothes were about tore off her. These women led us to the cars screaming about somebody being dead. We barely got to the cars when a gun went off, and they told us to reach for the sky.”

“Don’t you carry weapons?”

“Yes, sir, the escort guards do. They probably pulled their guns, if they didn’t leave them in the truck. Amos King pulled his gun; I know that for sure, because I saw them shoot him down. Just puff and he was dead.”

“Did you get a look at these people?”

“No sir. Turns out some of them were drivers and guards. One of them was Ted Mitchell, the guy that rode with me. He was next to me when it started, and then somebody—one of the attackers—gave him a gun. He said to me, ‘Sorry about that, Luke.’ Then he shot me. They had to be in on the hijacking plan all along.”

“Did any of them sound like foreigners?”

“Some of them in the cars did, yes sir.” Walker hesitated. “Answer me a question, you being the FBI. How could all those guys get a security clearance to drive the trucks when they were really criminals? That ain’t supposed to happen, is it?”

“I’d say that’s a question that needs to be answered.”

Chapter Nine

Lori Reedan yawned and reached out to Curt’s side of the bed, the sheet cool and unwrinkled. Another restless night, but not because she slept alone, which she was used to. Her mind could not stop replaying the moment her attacker broke through the door and grabbed her legs…and the telephone call.

Rolling onto her back, she remembered how she had bounded down the steps, thinking she might shake herself up enough to start the flow. At least then she wouldn’t have to put up with Curt’s questions: “Are your breasts still sore? Are you still cramping?” If she felt miserable, there was a chance she would start and make him happy. Back before they got married, he talked about three or four kids, she didn’t. That was when his mind still had room for something besides computers and robots.

She marveled at how she had gotten pregnant despite Curt’s work habits. He woke early one Sunday morning and stayed in bed instead of heading for his computer. First his hands migrated to her side of the bed, and then he did, tangling his legs with hers. Not having seen him do anything that spontaneous and unpredictable in years, she didn’t think about stopping him to get her diaphragm. If she had, he would have been up in his study when she got back to bed.

Timing of the pregnancy could not be worse: school and the move were enough to worry about. Two more courses, just six more weeks to her MBA; that’s what she thought she wanted. Once Beth started kindergarten in the fall and they were settled in their new home, she would send out resumes. With her MBA in hand, she would welcome a move to Colorado—anyplace but Boston. Four years in Boston was enough. Curt mentioned Colorado on the phone from Miami, but she knew he still viewed MIT and Boston as his first and best choice. Knowing Curt, he had analyzed it thoroughly—probably programmed it on his computer—and found MIT the only choice.

She dragged herself out of bed, detecting a hint of the nausea that kept her from eating breakfast the last two mornings—the final determinant. Until that fateful day, her first stop every morning was the bathroom to check whether the red flow had broken through. Almost six weeks late, so forget it. Why couldn’t Curt be happy with the prospect? Would this be a repeat of her pregnancy with Beth? That time, he was finishing his PhD: “It would have been better in a year or two…after we were settled.”

Nothing had changed: “Things are unsettled. Maybe in a year or two…after our move…” It would be better this time. It had to be. If only that was all she had to worry about.

Like every other morning since that fateful day, she headed for the bedroom window and drew back the drapes far enough to search the street to see where they were—eyes on her bedroom window. Always the same: a deserted street or the familiar neighbor’s car going to work. Next stop, across the hall in Beth’s room to make sure she was safe.

All day she checked windows: the living room, the foyer, the bedroom. Nothing. Still, she felt their eyes on her body. The windows in back: maybe they were hiding in the woods with binoculars. She drew all the drapes and no longer studied on the patio.

Ten days since the fat man appeared and she talked to Curt on the phone. Did they really have Curt? Maybe he deserted her because of her pregnancy. No, never.

While driving the Oak Ridge streets, she eyed the rear-view mirror, hoping to spot a car following her. Nothing suspicious; everything suspicious. Cars bunched behind her and then disappeared. Another one behind her. The same one? One that was there before? One that was there yesterday?

On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, she left Beth with the sitter and spent the day in classes at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. For thirty miles, her gaze never strayed from the mirror for more than a minute. Walking to class, she glanced back every quarter of a block, looking for someone. Nobody there, or just the typical male student, staring at her ass. Not the squat little man or anyone she’d seen before.

Studying came hard. She forced herself to work at the computer in her study, the spare bedroom next to Curt’s office. Beth agitated to go outside, but Lori put her off. “You were outside at the sitter’s house. Maybe tomorrow.”

Today she forced herself to the computer to attack a term paper for Finance III: International Loans and the World Banking Crisis. Who cares about a world banking crisis? Concentrate. After an hour of struggle, an outline took shape.

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it, Mommy,” Beth yelled from the family room downstairs.

“No,” Lori screamed. “Just stay where you are.”

Why did she yell? Nerves? Probably a neighbor. She could use a visitor and conversation, somebody besides Beth. Except for her classes, it had been just the two of them for ten days. A gun, she thought. For the past two nights, she debated whether to call Dad. Twice he offered her a forty-five. To Dad, anyone “in the city” and not on an Iowa farm like him and Mom was in constant danger. “With Curt traveling so much, you need a gun.” He offered Curt the gun, but Curt reacted with indifference, his typical reaction to anything not issuing from a computer, or anything coming from her Dad. The two men in her life still treated each other from the distance that developed before they married. “Up to her,” Curt said. She said no.

“Too many guns in the world, too many killings with guns,” she said.

The doorbell rang again.

She hurried down the steps of the split foyer toward the door. Glancing down the steps to the family room, she saw Beth staring up at the door.

“Mrs. Reedan. I think you remember me.”

It was him. “Yes…Mr. Maxwell.” She remembered him as short, but the big man next to him squashed Maxwell into a short, fat, old man. She didn’t remember him being that old, somewhere in his fifties, Dad’s age. He wore the same mussed white shirt, black pants, same dark-rimmed, purple-tinted glasses that he again removed.

The tall man flipped off his aviator sun glasses and scanned her body, his gaze resting momentarily on her breasts. “I’m Larry Beecher,” he said. Younger than Maxwell, probably in his thirties, he wore neatly pressed tan trousers and a dark-blue knit shirt, but with the same foreign accent as the fat one. “We are checking to make sure you are doing what we asked.”

She wondered if she could still shoot. You didn’t forget, not after all those Sunday afternoons down by the creek shooting cans. At fourteen she could outshoot her three brothers with the twenty-two pistol, picking off three cans at twenty-to-thirty feet with six shots or less. She always won the game, and after a year, it took only three. Only Dad did it better.

“Yes, I did what you told me to do,” she said to the tall one. This one was Curt’s height, but more massive, with a large round face, small light-brown eyes, and a rather thin pointy nose. She longed to hide her body behind the door, away from his stare and exaggerated smile, his gaze dropping slowly from the front of her sleeveless blouse to her bare legs, but she didn’t move. She would call Dad tonight and have a forty-five in a week. Although good with the twenty-two, she was even better with the forty-five.

“Good to hear it,” Beecher said. “You might get the idea that because we’re not staying at your house, you can call the police. Don’t try it, because we will know. And that would be too bad for you and your husband.” He smiled and motioned his head to indicate Beth at the bottom of the steps. “And your little girl.”

She nodded, her hand on the door knob trembling. If she had a gun, could she shoot them? She couldn’t watch when Dad and her brothers shot rats out by the corn crib, always squeezing her eyes shut at the sound of the first shot, hating the sight of the little bodies ripped open, blood splattered in the dust. The bloody bodies of the rabbits and pheasants they dragged home from hunting trips twisted her insides; the dead deer and antelope were horrible.

Beecher waited for her to speak.

“I…I won’t go to the police.”

“That’s good, because I don’t think you would like somebody with you all the time, would you?”

Her mind raced, trying to understand. Somebody with her, he said. He said they’d know if she called. Were they listening to her phone calls? She would write Dad. But what if Dad called to ask why she changed her mind about a gun? “You won’t have to keep anybody with us.”

“Just go about your business like you do when your husband is on a trip.”

She nodded. Karl Eberhard, her neighbor, was a hunter and gun owner. Maybe he had a forty-five she could borrow.

“We’ll be watching you, even if you don’t see us,” Beecher said, smiling as he moved his gaze back to her breasts. “You’ve got a nice tan, lady.”

She refused to get behind the door. “Is Curt okay?”

“He is fine. And he’ll stay that way if you do what you are told.”

“I will.” Behind her, she heard Beth creeping up the steps toward her.

Beecher glanced at the shorter man. “It might be a good idea to move in with her, eh, Max.” They both laughed.

“I’ll do what you told me.”

As soon as she closed the door, Beth scrambled up the steps to her, sobbing. Lori’s heart pounded and her legs trembled. She resisted the urge to sink to her knees, hold on to Beth, and cry with her. Instead, she grabbed Beth’s hand and hurried her up the steps and into the bedroom, where she eased back the drapes far enough to see their shiny big black car.

She needed a gun and a plan.