ROGUESTATE, page 20
The technician waved his hand, and Dwayne followed the man’s finger.
Detective Moses Finney saw Dwayne approach. Moses Finney scowled and walked away. Dwayne Morton represented the federal hound dogs bounding after their charge. The Bureau was not coming to avenge Alicia Montgomery’s death or pursue her murderer; instead, they were rushing to the scene to protect their precious masters.
Dwayne doggedly ran up the steps behind Moses saying, “Detective, I need to talk to you.”
Moses stepped through the front screen door and let it slam shut behind him. Dwayne joined Moses in the foyer. Moses looked down the corridor leading away from the foyer where they stood. Bronski and his aides were long gone. “Yeah,” he snarled and tapped out a cigarette.
“Dwayne Morton,” announced Dwayne. He stuck out his hand to shake Moses Finney’s hand.
“Yeah, I know who you are.” Moses lit his cigarette, ignoring Dwayne’s outstretched hand. He stepped further into the house.
“Detective—what can you tell me?” Dwayne mumbled and dropped his outstretched hand to his side.
Moses coughed and took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Your precious Congressman is safe and sound. That’s why you’re here isn’t it?”
Dwayne nodded, unsure of where this was going.
Moses walked into the kitchen where shattered glass littered the floor, and Alicia’s dinner was scattered on the floor tiles. The door leading down the steps to the carport was bent and the hinges appeared twisted. “I’ve got a fifty-four–year–old woman blown all over the neighborhood. But you’re not here about that.”
Dwayne shook his head.
“She was black you know,” he continued. “Black like me and most the people in this city.”
“I hardly know what that has to do with anything,” countered Dwayne.
“It has everything to do with things,” snapped Moses. “You’re here on rainy autumn night because your boss told you to show up! You ain’t here to protect the people; you’re just here to protect the powerful. Well one ofmy people got killed tonight, and one ofyour people walked free.” Moses waved his hand at the bent door. “You see that door?”
Dwayne nodded, wondering why so many things had to turn into a black versus white or a fed versus local confrontation.
“It’s two inches thick and mounted inside a brick wall a foot wide. The bomb cracked the wall and broke the door. The bomb wasn’t aimed at Alicia Montgomery, it was aimed atyour man.”
Dwayne pinched the bridge of his nose. “Detective, don’t turn this into something it’s not.”
Moses stared at the door, noting the soot seeping in around the edges and the broken doorknob. “It’s a murder, Mister FBI man, and one ofmy people was killed.”
“Look detective, this isn’t aboutyour people ormy people. Someone blew up a congressman’s car.”
“And killed Alicia Montgomery,” pressed Moses Finney.
“And killed Alicia,” agreed Dwayne. “What kind of evidence do you have, detective?”
It was pointless. Once Moses shared his information, the Bureau would roll over his investigation like a London fog. No one would remember Alicia Montgomery after tonight. She was simply the wrong person in the wrong place.
Moses flipped open his pocket notebook. “The fire department tells me the center of the explosion was the driver’s seat. In fact, there’s nothing left of the middle of the car. We found the engine block and the backend. We don’t know what happened to the driver’s side door.”
“Oh,” muttered Dwayne as he walked out of the kitchen, leaving Moses Finney with his anger and his notebook.
Dwayne found the Bureau’s evidence team garbed in white smocks and helmets sporting mounted Xenon bulbs. They were congregated where the driver’s seat should have been. Nestled between their feet was a two-foot wide crater that was six inches deep on Bronski’s concrete garage floor.
One of the technicians glanced in Dwayne’s direction, recognizing the identification badge hanging around his neck.
“What’ve we got?” asked Dwayne. He did not like the looks of the crater in the floor. It suggested something beyond the run-of-the-mill pipe bomber.
“We appear to have residue samples at the bottom of the hole,” announced the nearest man.
Dwayne squatted to peer down the hole and nodded. It looked like a lot of dirt and broken rock to him. “What kind of residue?” he finally asked.
“It’s not dynamite,” answered the second technician.
“We’re not sure what it is.” admitted the first technician.
“I need a report on my desk tomorrow morning. “
They both nodded.
Dwayne stretched and moved away from the crater and the crumpled car frame implanted in the carport’s far wall. He stepped into the light rain and looked about. Was the bomber watching them? Many psychopaths loved to observe their work. Politicians and bombs made a bad mix.
Moses Finney came down the front steps. His stormy countenance showed no signs of abatement. “I suppose you’ll be issuing a statement to the jackals,” he said, pointing at the assembled cameras and lights beyond the police barricades.
Dwayne shrugged. He suspected he had other problems besides the fourth estate. He also doubted they had peacefully confined themselves to the area outside the police barricades. The tabloid photographers with their foot-long telephoto lenses probably already had remains of Bronski’s carport catalogued and mapped. Dwayne expected to see the photographs in tomorrow’sWashington Post .
“I wouldn’t know what to say,” replied Dwayne.
* * * *
Pine View, Virginia
Isaac Timmerman huddled in the penetrating cold of a miserable rainstorm. The plastic, camouflage poncho draped over his shoulders dribbled water to the sodden ground. His breath steamed in the twilight, and after six hours of rain, wind, and a penetrating humidity he could hardly feel his fingers, and his nose felt like an ice cube.
Damon Layne’s computer hard drive held one secret: driving instructions downloaded from expedia.com. The step-by-step map led from Arizona to an obscure farm in the Virginia countryside. Isaac deposited the disk drive in a dumpster before crisscrossing the country again.
He drove his car off the road and hid it behind a stand of pine trees. Isaac hefted a handheld GPS, a short-barreled Heckler & Koch MP-10 automatic rifle, and a pair of range-finder binoculars. He settled into the autumn tinged woods and watched the farm.
After six hours and two energy bars, he wiped the rainwater from his rifle’s muzzle and started his approach. He measured his steps, checking for twigs, trip wires, and pressure plates. The lessons learned at Dolan Springs remained a constant in his thinking. Damon Layne had proven he was capable of developing interlocking layers of booby traps.
The motion detectors embedded in the buildingssaw Isaac first. The infrared imaging scopes resolved Isaac into a loosely assembled series of orange, red, and purple bubbles carefully picking its way through hip-high ferns and around fallen logs. The low-light cameras swiveled to examine the threat. The microwave relay built into the cupola perched atop the barn signaled the action security team at the CIA’s Langley campus.
Isaac popped up on an operator’s screen and a second inset window identified the farm’s location. Most trespassers were lost hunters and teenagers looking for a place to party. Had Isaac chosen to carry a 30-06 hunting rifle, he might have been mistaken for a lost deer hunter. The H&K automatic rifle removed all doubt.
The Company’s reaction force was assembled only ten minutes after Isaac tripped the computer alarms, and the UH-60Black Hawk transport helicopters lifted off for the twenty-five minute flight to the farm. Two M60 7.62mm machine guns hung off each side and an eight-man squad dressed in black body armor, armed with M16 A2 rifles equipped with M203 40mm grenade launchers, readied themselves for action. They sat like hunched black spiders next to the rappelling ropes. Their helmets were a computerized array of infrared, night vision, solid-state encrypted radio communications and heads-up technology integrated into theBlack Hawk ’s battle support system.
By the time Isaac realized theBlack Hawk was overhead, the eight-man squad was on the ground and moving across the damp ground. They did not suffer from seven hours in the numbing rain and cold. They moved swiftly and silently converging on the main cabin. Isaac had used twelve rounds to blow off the two deadbolt locks. He stuck his head out the door to find out what the racket was above, and found three dull black muzzles pointed in his direction.
He was a silhouette framed in the doorway with the cabin lights burning behind him. His numb fingers released the MP-10 and slowly came even with his ears. His eyes glanced furtively, probing the darkness. He counted five black clad troopers pointing rifles at his head. Whoever Damon Layne was, he had some very nasty friends.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Washington D.C.,Reuters,October 30, 2000 – Very quietly, counterintelligence investigators for the CIA and FBI have reinstated three mid-level analysts after eighteen months of suspicion. These investigators are looking for the second spy.
Ever since Aldrich Ames was arrested on February 21, 1994, counterintelligence officers have been looking for the second source. KGB defectors have shared with investigators that the Russian spy agency would never have accepted Ames’ information without independent confirmation.
The CIA has been turned inside out as mole hunters search for Ames’ accomplice. The subtle changes suggest they have come up dry at the CIA.
Alexandria, Virginia
Monday, October 30, 2000
9:00 A.M. EST
Parvez Hyder sipped a warm cup of coffee as he leaned back in the Old Town courtyard behind the Alexandria, Virginia, City Hall. He joined old men and pigeons on the benches amongst the yellow daffodils and antique gas lamps. The morning held autumn’s crisp promise and fresh scents wafted up King Street
from the Potomac. The trendy restaurants were housed on both sides of the street in buildings erected prior to the Revolutionary War.
At five minutes after the hour, Parvez finished his coffee and tossed the cup into the trash. He stuffed his hands into his pockets and hunched his shoulders against the morning chill. He strolled towards the river and Founders Park. After half a block, another man matched his steps. It was one of the men Ayatollah Kambiz Abbasi had sent to keep a watchful eye on Parvez Hyder.
Parvez never looked left or right. He concentrated his gaze straight ahead and said quietly, “I need specialized explosives.”
“What kind and how much?”
Parvez shrugged. “I don’t know exactly.”
His contact sighed. “Alright, what are you trying to blow up.”
Parvez had walked the sewer tunnels below the streets. Using the GPS coordinates he had measured during his walks past the Russian Federation Embassy and the surrounding streets, and his physical inspection of the underground sewer tunnels, he had walked off the distances for the different target areas.
“Five hundred meters in length of concrete.”
His contact nodded slowly. “What thickness?”
Parvez could only guess. “Five meters.”
The two crossed Lee Street
in silence. His contact finally asked, “Anything else?”
Parvez nodded. “Radio controlled detonators and three or four handheld anti-tank weapons.”
“How soon?”
“A couple of weeks,” he breathed.
His contact continued walking next to him until Union Street
, and he turned away. Parvez continued on to Founders Park.
* * * *
J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington D.C.
Mary Kirsten arrived at Ellen Grafft’s office carrying a file folder full of bad news. Mary was an independent contractor who had worked for the Bureau forever. Her computer skills were legendary inside the Justice Department and a carefully guarded secret beyond the tight federal law enforcement community.
It was her prowess inside a myriad of operating systems, network protocols, and the ever-expanding realm of HTLM, XML, ASP, and JAVA Internet scripts that gave her the flexibility to tend to her two children and a career, naval officer husband. Josh drove ImprovedLos Angeles Class submarines for the navy. The frequency and duration of his missions had increased over the last eight years.
Josh had seventeen years inside the navy, and he was seriously considering retirement before the twenty-year mark. Certainly, he would probably be a candidate for flag rank next year—the dream of every Annapolis Academy graduate—but the personal and physical toll of the navy’s increased responsibilities was beginning to tell. Josh had filed his absentee ballot before leaving Norfolk two months ago. If the Vice President prevailed over the Texas Governor in the upcoming presidential election, Josh intended to vote a second time by leaving the service. It was not an uncommon sentiment.
Mary was a navy wife, and her husband’s prolonged absences were part of the package. As the number of ships dwindled and recruitment goals fell short, the burden of the nation’s defense fell on an ever-shrinking manpower pool. The strains rippled beyond deteriorating equipment and overworked soldiers. It struck at the very fabric of a sailor’s soul—his spouse and children.
Mary found herself torn between wanting her husband home, and the dreams he had shared with her when he had been a midshipman at the Academy. He was destined to ride the waves as his father and grandfather had done before him. He was the third generation to come through the Academy. It was a heritage stretching back to Guadalcanal. It was a legacy not easily abandoned.
She wrestled the concerns over family, marriage, and duty back into a small corner as she confronted a different and equally ominous development.
Ellen was a bit intimidated by Mary. After her role in 1999 during theSAMSON crisis, the Director issued a standing order stating the Bureau would do whatever was needed to retain Mary’s services. In the convoluted world of regulations, federal job service levels, and human resource law run amuck, Mary earned a special and rare exemption. The Bureau allowed her to write her own ticket and provided the necessary secured data lines into her home.
Mary hardly considered her special status. In her mind, she was doing her job—nothing more. It was an unassuming and refreshing outlook in the paranoid, finger-pointing iron triangle stretching from the Justice Department to the White House and over to the Hoover Building.
Ellen’s office door swung closed behind Mary as she settled into a chair across from Ellen. Her first words formed a question, because the facts in the case did not make any sense to her. “What are you working on?”
Ellen shifted uncomfortably. She was used to asking the questions and receiving the answers, but then one did not tamper lightly with a legend. “We had a double homicide in Chicago that came up on our terrorist screens.”
Mary glanced at her notes and frowned. “And the Chicago police issued a search order for this vehicle?” She handed a document listing Elisa Hyder’s Honda.
Ellen glanced over the words and nodded curtly. “Only they said they never issued the request. Seems they did not even know the vehicle was missing.”
“Was it missing?” pressed Mary.
Ellen shrugged. “I’m not sure.”
Mary pulled out a stapled set of pages and flipped through them until she came to a highlighted entry. “Someone went to a great deal of trouble to issue this request then.”
“What do you mean?”
Mary looked up from the NCIC system log, and explained matter-of-factly, “It’s one thing to issue a request through the NCIC system. I mean, people do it every day, and with over eighty thousand agencies linked into the system, we process more than two million transactions each day.”
Ellen nodded, but she had no idea what the computer mumbo-jumbo had to do with Kevin Crosby’s obvious incompetence.
“Presumably, whoever did this expected the data to get lost.” She turned the page around towards Ellen.
The NCIC system request log looked like a cluster of numbers and letters. It appeared meaningless.
“I called over to Clarksburg where the new NCIC system is located and had the operators to go back to the archived tapes. The main contractor was quite helpful and sent me the system log format.”
“Yes,” wondered Ellen.
Mary leaned forward and tapped an eight-character section in the line circled in red ink. “This entry was entered by the SYSADMIN user account.”
“So?”
Mary paused for a moment before revealing, “Weare the SYSADMIN account.” Neither woman was aware of the investigation underway to snare Robert Hanssen—one of the Bureau’s top counterintelligence officers. Handing over account passwords to his Russian controllers was one of the minor tidbits he had betrayed.
“We?” queried Ellen.
Mary nodded.
“Likewe as in the Bureau?” continued Ellen.
Mary nodded. “Yes, as in the Clarksburg, West Virginia, facility.”
Ellen pulled the Hyder file from her open case log and shuffled through her notes. “But no one knew about the car when this was issued,” she complained.
Mary shifted the attention of her gaze to a second red circle. The entry was blank. “This indicates the terminal is unknown.”
Ellen narrowed her eyes, uncertain where the evidence led.
Mary left the log on Ellen’s desk and leaned back. “I made a couple of calls. A number between one and two billion identifies every terminal. In other words, we should never run out identifiers. Before anyone can connect to the system, one of our security screens checks for a valid terminal ID. In this case, we don’t have a terminal ID—and that’s supposed to be impossible.”
Ellen pulled the log towards her. “But you have an entry.”
Mary smiled and dug into her folder for two more stapled copies. “I decided to see how impossible it was. After all, it might just be a system glitch.”
“Glitch?”
