ROGUESTATE, page 36
Harvey asked, “What about Dwayne?”
“They’ll reduce his rank and send him packing to East Billings, Montana, or some other God-forsaken hell hole,” concluded Cecil.
“Been there, done that,” muttered Harvey. “There’s not much future there.”
“Is that where they sent you?” asked Cecil. “I never knew.”
Harvey shook his head sadly. “I was assigned as a liaison to the National Park Service outside Yellowstone. My job was to make sure the tourists did not violate any federal laws while they were in the park. It’s deathly boring.”
“And now?”
Harvey smiled again. “Let’s just say I found something else to do.”
“You’re still packing a gun, Harvey. That’s hard to do in a state like Maryland,” observed Cecil.
Harvey just smiled.
Cecil straightened up a bit and said, “All right, you didn’t come here to cry in your beer and swap war stories.”
Harvey’s smile faded. “No.”
Cecil sensed the seriousness in Harvey’s offhanded manner. “I do appreciate the beer.”
Harvey nodded. “Dwayne’s investigation could lead into areas best left for—ah, how should I put it—other assets.”
Cecil stared at Harvey for a long moment. “You mean the lad has stumbled into something?” He was genuinely surprised.
Harvey nodded slowly.
“And people somewhere it this great big government are scared.”
Harvey did not acknowledge the sentiment. He did not wish to mislead Cecil; the older man deserved better. He pulled a folded envelope from his suit coat pocket.
“The man you’re looking for is in there.” He dropped the envelope on the bed next to Cecil.
Cecil set his beer on the nightstand, and picked up the creased and grease-stained letter. “Really?” he mused suspiciously.
Harvey nodded.
“Just like that—you waltz into my hospital room, feed me a couple of beers, and ‘oh, by the way, this is the guy you’ve been looking for’?” Cecil’s congenial tone slid towards heavy sarcasm.
“It’s not quite like that,” protested Harvey.
“Well then what’s it like, Harvey? People might like to know where the information came from—you know, little things like the chain of evidence!” he snapped.
Harvey shrugged and said lamely, “It’s better this way, Cecil. Trust me.”
Cecil gagged on the words. “Trust! No one trusts anyone in this town. The Justice Department hates our guts, the administration thinks we’re in league with the evil Republicans, and the evil Republicans think we’re whores for the administration. You want me to trust you?”
Things hadn’t changed much.
“Yes,” replied Harvey. “I want you to trust me. I’ve been to West Yellowstone. It’s a short trip from there to the unemployment line.”
Cecil glowered at Harvey. “You’re not doing this for Dwayne.”
Harvey shook his head. He hardly knew who Dwayne was, but he understood Feldman and the Bureau’s mentality. He was doing it for Conner Fadden and himself. He wanted to get back at Layne, but he had run out of ideas. Harper’sdiscovery of Layne’s activities at the Company safe house gave him a mechanism to sic the Bureau on Layne.
Cecil fumed as he opened the envelope and asked, “Who is he?”
“His name is Damon Layne. I think he might be a freelancer of a sort. He’s worked for the Chinese and others.”
The National Security Advisor and the Company and who else?
“He’s dirty, Cecil—I can tell you that. He used a detonator in one of the last explosions and Dwayne’s forensic query set off alarms in all the wrong places.”
Cecil eyed him skeptically as he examined the hard features and the simple dossier. “The Chinese—is that where you came across him?”
Harvey froze, wondering how much to reveal.
Cecil seemed to make up his mind. “All right, I’ll pass it along.”
Harvey smiled nervously.
“But I want some help, and you know what, Harvey, I think you might be just the guy to know where I could get some,” speculated Cecil.
“What kind of help?” asked Harvey.
“Gurov—I need help getting Gurov. I want you to get me out of this hospital and come up with a couple of live bodies to help me find the Russian.” His eyes blazed and he knew it was his last ride.
“I think I could do that,” responded Harvey. Dead bodies did not seem to be much a problem, but they were getting a bit thin in the live body department.
* * * *
Washington D.C.
Parvez Hyder carried the last of the explosive charges from his rented truck. He waded across the hip-deep water of Rock Creek and into the brick bordered outfall leading to the combined sewer system serving the central third of the District. He ignored the cold rain pelting him on his back and the icy water gripping his legs as he waded into the dark labyrinth.
Parvez had close to one hundred shaped charges he still needed to mount along the top of the sewer tunnel. He had them wrapped in waterproof tarpaulins along the many ledges leading into the sewer system beneath Rock Creek Park. He slogged into the open gate and hefted the last two charges over the top of the first barrier.
The rain came down harder and the runoff from the paved streets flowed down the drains causing the water levels to rise. There was danger from flooding and hypothermia—nothing he had not faced in Grozny last winter. The combined sewer system forming the older portion of the District’s system pulled at his legs as the current ran faster. For the moment, the sewer systems maintained separate water flows. If the rain continued, he needed to move the loose explosives off the ledges and into a series of tarpaulin slings he had arranged. The tarpaulins were strung between hooks and spikes left over from maintenance and construction.
He estimated the water rarely rose beyond the sixty percent capacity marks. He came to his conclusion after studying the water streaks on the cavernous tunnels. Normally, he would have hidden the truck he used to transport explosives. It was not proper tradecraft to leave the vehicle unattended in the prestigious neighborhoods along embassy row. The uniformed Secret Service tended to view anything they did not understand as a certain threat. But the heavy rain slowed his progress and dawn was too close to safely get rid of the truck. Parvez left it and vanished beneath the streets in the watery warren.
He pulled the gate leading into the outflow shut, and switched on the waterproof lamp attached to his shoulder. The system of tunnels was no longer a trackless warren, but a familiar maze. As he had spent the better part of his time tracing the possible avenues for any motorcade originating at the Russian Embassy, he had learned his way around the tunnels and nooks. He strode confidently into the swirling eddies, wearing hip waders favored by duck hunters and trout fishermen. Within seconds, the light from his torch was no longer visible past the iron bars on the outflow’s gate.
The sewer line running below Massachusetts Avenue NW
was already mined and wired. Massachusetts was of the few streets that crossed Rock Creek and the Potomac Parkway
. It also ran above the older sewer system that Parvez had gained access to. He still needed to handle the intersection of Connecticut Avenue NW
and Calvert Street NW
. The other targets were Q and P streets just before they flowed into Dupont Circle
. Rock Creek formed a natural barrier and an opportunity target.
He had mapped out lines of sight inside the park surrounding his ambush points. Parvez chose his ground carefully. Based on the GPS coordinates, he secured the shaped charges along the top of the sewer tunnels. Remote detonator antennae snaked up the storm drains and emerged between the iron grate bars. The detonators were attached to dry-cell batteries taped inside plastic bags to protect them from the moisture. Parvez had worked out the geometry of the LAW anti-tank weapons and the detonation points to maximize the Russian’s exposure and minimize his personal risk. He had enough food and water stashed in different places along the system to survive for days in his subterranean world.
A Uniformed Secret Service patrol discovered the abandoned truck early the next morning. They ran the truck’s plates as a routine check, and they generated a hit on the NCIC system. The NCIC notification worked better than its designers could have hoped. Ellen Grafft and theWild Bunch received word that Parvez Hyder’s truck had been found. Word reached Eduard Gurov a few hours later, and everyone converged on an abandoned truck along Potomac Parkway
between Massachusetts and Connecticut Avenues—the vultures and eagles were drawn to the same perch.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Khankala,London Telegraph,November 10, 2000 –Russian interior troops operating under the control of the FSB have discovered and destroyed four anti-tank grenade launchers, three 152mm shells, 12 grenades and 2100 cartridges.
Five mini-oil refineries and an additional arms cache have been destroyed in the same period as well as 14 suspected Chechen rebels killed.
The FSB is the successor agency of the infamous KGB and represents an ominous new twist in the prosecution of the second Chechen War.
Since the FSB’s increased involvement in the war, rumors of mass executions and torture have increased. This appears to have only radicalized the moderate elements still remaining in the Muslim populations.
Washington D.C.
Friday, November 17, 2000
10:00 A.M. EST
The FBI evidence technicians swarmed over the discarded truck. A fingerprint expert erected a plastic sheet around the cab to keep the cold rain at bay as winter tugged at the last vestiges of autumn and bullied its way forward. Their breath hung in diaphanous clouds and the rain numbed their fingers. The dampness made it difficult for the fine fingerprint powder to find the oily ridgelines left by Parvez without dissolving into a muddy mess.
A different group scoured the truck’s backend searching for the disturbing possibility that the vehicle had been used to transport explosives from Plum Point, Maryland. They had an idea of what to look for based on preliminary evidence gathered from theGay Chance before it became a fireworks display along Chesapeake Bay. The Bureau was still rebounding from the loss of three forensic agents at Plum Point, and anger, fueled by revenge, directed their operations.
US Marshals arrived on the scene with German Shepherds and Blood Hounds. The hounds let loose with their mournful sounds and pulled at their leashes as they sniffed the abandoned truck. A second marshal followed the dog handler with a dull, black Mossberg 12 gauge. Four man/dog teams spread out from the truck, checking bushes and trees. The activity alerted more than one Embassy, and security personnel retreated to their “clean” rooms to monitor the Secret Service’s encrypted communications.
The rain and the creek water effectively masked Parvez’s passage across the park and into the sewer system. No one thought to search the outflow entrances flowing into Rock Creek and the Potomac further south. None of the US Marshals considered the possibility of a “soldier” skulking through the sewers and preparing to attack from the ground up—it simply was not in their frame of experience.
Gennadiy Panferkov—SVR chief of station—watched the Marshals fan out on three 2.4-gigahertz wireless cameras. The high gain directional antennae poised atop the Russian Embassy plucked the remote signals out of the ether and piped them into the secure sub-basement two levels below the main floor. He rubbed his jaw pensively as he considered the Bureau’s evidence technicians feverishly going over the truck and the Secret Service commandeering the D.C. Metropolitan Police into a perimeter guard that penetrated further into the parkway greenery.
He examined the secured communications provided on theWild Bunch ’s encrypted link. On the desk next to the PC connected to the Internet was Parvez Hyder’s dossier. He had distributed Parvez’s photograph to his men and instructed them to think like Chechens. Two of his men were veterans of the ill-fated Afghan war. They understood Muslim fanaticism, and ignored the US Marshal man/dog teams. A Chechen would find a place to launch an ambush—a devastating, bloody, hit-and-run ambush.
Panferkov smoked half a pack of cigarettes as he considered the implications of doing nothing or actively assisting Gurov. He feared the FSB man’s rabid nature, and the possibility of compromising his position in a possible confrontation with the Secret Service or US Marshals. He attempted to predict the American response to a proactive Russian move and the consequences of running afoul of the State Department and a new administration. Perhaps he could use Gurov as a stalking dog to deflect potential problems.
A few blocks away, a nervous Secret Service had augmented their armed patrols at the Naval Observatory—the Vice President’s official residence. The official explanation said that additional security was required to keep angry demonstrators at bay. Except for a few fisticuffs, the demonstrators and counter-demonstrators remained separated by a beefed-up line of D.C. Metropolitan Police. The Secret Service was making a not-so-subtle statement that the man they protected was still the Vice President and no more than a heartbeat away from the presidency. The heavily-armed Secret Service patrols carried their dull black Heckler & Koch MP-10 submachine guns with a round up the pipe and safeties on.
Cable and satellite media vans were parked along Naval Observatory Curve. They recorded the unfolding drama between demonstrators for and against the Vice President. Both camps waved fluttering American flags and carried red, white, and blue placards declaring support in terms of GORE/LIEBERMAN and their sarcastic derision as SORE/LOSERMAN. It was a cauldron that had only begun to bubble.
* * * *
Harvey and Cecil joined Ellen beneath the evidence van awning. Hot coffee steamed into the gloomy, rain-soaked air from a white Styrofoam cup. She expressed relief at seeing Cecil hobble across the rain-slick grass until she saw Harvey following on his heels. Her smile fell to a frown and she snapped, “What’s he doing here?”
Cecil glanced at Harvey and shrugged. “He’s my new driver, Ellen.”
Ellen rounded on both of them and lowered her voice to harsh whisper. “I’ve got enough problems right now. Feldman will have a cow if he seesMister Randall.”
Harvey gave her a smile, and murmured, “I’d like to seethat .”
Cecil leaned against the evidence van. “Forget about Feldman; what do we know?”
Harvey helped himself to a cup of coffee and wandered across the parkway grass. He sipped the steaming liquid, contemplating the pedestrian traffic and watched the dogs as they scampered along Rock Creek.
Ellen glared at Harvey’s back and said, “It’s Hyder’s truck. The vehicle identification number checks out with the insurance papers.”
Cecil nodded absently. “The Russian Embassy isn’t very far from here,” he observed.
Ellen pulled an evidence folder securing a wrinkled and muddied slip of paper. “The only thing we found was this.”
Cecil squinted as she waved the evidence before him. “What is it?”
“Packing instructions for an anti-tank rocket,” she replied humorlessly.
Cecil cursed.
“The Secret Service is unhappy about this,” Ellen continued. “It looks like the weapon is inside the District and a couple miles from the White House, not to mention all these Embassies and high profile residences. I’ve already received a phone call from the Director—evidently the Treasury Secretary is upset we didn’t tell them Parvez was heading for D.C.”
Cecil shook his head and muttered, “They can pack sand.”
“Then you bring Randall around. All I need now is for Feldman to show up,” she scowled.
Cecil stared at the cars running along Massachusetts Avenue
and shuddered. He looked around the van and whispered, “Where would you stand?”
“Come again?” asked Ellen.
Harvey wandered back towards the two of them and asked, “Got any sugar?”
Ellen rolled her eyes and flipped a thumb towards the evidence van cab.
Harvey smiled as his eyes perused the evidence folder. He seized on the bold letter banner at the top of the page and nodded towards the sheet. “Nasty weapon.”
Ellen glowered at Harvey. “None of your business,Mister Randall.”
“Call me Harvey,” he said disarmingly.
Cecil ignored Ellen and asked Harvey, “If you had one of those things where would you stand?”
Harvey scratched his chin and stepped around the evidence van. “Not here,” mused Harvey. “We’re almost at a ninety-degree angle to the road. I’d get closer to Massachusetts and be able to point up and down the road.”
“Wouldn’t it be kind of obvious standing on the side of the street with an anti-tank rocket?” snapped Ellen.
Cecil looked at her and said, “You would think so, wouldn’t you.”
Harvey shook his head. “It’s not the kind of thing you’d shoot out of a window, and she’s right. It’s kind of obvious.”
“How about from inside a van?” asked Ellen.
Harvey chuckled and swirled his coffee, “Only in the movies. Hollywood doesn’t have to worry about the back blast.”
“It could possibly blow out the windshield,” suggested Cecil.
“This is all very nice, but we can handle this quite well by ourselves,” said Ellen truculently.
Harvey shrugged and ignored her. “I’d start doing a house-to-house search for your Chechen, because it doesn’t look like the dogs are finding much.” He nodded towards a tired looking Marshal climbing up the slope along Rock Creek.
“We’ll do quite fine by ourselves,” she repeated primly.
“Where do you think he took all those explosives?” continued Harvey, who stopped turning and fixed Ellen with a quizzical look.
