Nine hundred square miles per team.
Four teams were also assigned to start a door-to-door canvass of the Wapakoneta area.
“You know the drill,” McCurdy told his search squad. “Somebody saw that plane, he didn’t fly around here at treetop level and go completely unnoticed. I want to know the size, shape, color, number of engines, and anything else you can learn about it. The window is two days. We assume he followed Firestone into the target area from Fort Wayne on Tuesday morning and he made the kill Wednesday night about six-thirty. This guy’s a pro, he planned this operation down to the minute. My guess is, he was back in his plane and on his way home one to two hours after the hit. Anything you get that looks promising comes into base. We’ll coordinate all data.”
The activity served another purpose. In small communities like Lima and Wapakoneta, locals would gossip about the project, and anyone who did know something would either call or come by headquarters. McCurdy expected a lot of false alarms. Two were not.
The first hit came from a timid man named Kevin Young. He was husky, in his late thirties, wearing a plaid shirt and corduroy pants. He also wore a thick leather belt with tools holstered from it that clanked when he walked. McCurdy was hanging up the phone when Young walked in.
“Can I help you?” McCurdy asked the visitor.
“I think I may have seen something,” Young said tentatively.
“Seen something?” McCurdy asked.
“About that killing everybody’s talking about–-”
“What’s your name?”
“Young. Kevin Young. I work for the telephone company. Lineman.”
“And what’s the information?” McCurdy asked the shy man as they shook hands.
“I was working on a pole about half a mile north of the Anderson place that Wednesday and I saw this plane from a distance. It was shining in the sun, that’s why I looked over that way. It came flashin’ up over the trees. Musta been flying almost on the ground because when he pulled up, it looked like maybe he just took off and I knew there wasn’t any airfield around there, so I knew he was flyin’ lower than the trees.”
“What color was it?”
“Well, it was either white or silver. I really couldn’t tell from that distance.”
“One or two engines?”
“Engines? It was a twin-engine, I got a good look at the underside of the wings when she pulled up. But it circled around and was gone just like that.” He snapped his fingers.
“Do you remember anything else about it?”
“Sure was fast. Had a pointed nose. That’s about it. Sorry I can’t help more.”
“You did just fine, Mr. Young. If you should remember something else, give us a call.” He gave Young his card.
The second hit came from realtor Geri Bloom, who called in and spoke to an old-timer named Shuster.
“I’m a saleswoman over at Wiggins Realty in Lima?” she started. She ended every statement as though it were a question.
“Yes, Ms. Bloom?”
“I don’t know whether this is important or not, but I had a call on that Wednesday morning, the day poor Mr. Anderson was killed?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Shuster replied.
“The man said his name was Walter Dempsey from the Farm Journal. I never heard of the Farm Journal, but he said they were doing a story, actually he said it was the cover story, which means pictures and what have you?”
“Yes, ma’am, I know what a cover story is. What specifically did he want?”
“He wanted to know about farm properties that had been sold recently.”
“Did he say why?”
“Something about doing a story on farm values hereabouts.”
The FBI agent perked up. “What did you tell him?”
“Well, there weren’t that many, y’know. But one of the places I mentioned was the old Wainwright place.”
“Uh-huh.”
“That was the place the Anderson boy bought.”
Shuster paused for a moment. “You told him where it was located?”
“Yes, sir. Did I do something wrong?”
“No, no, Ms. Bloom, not at all. When was this again?”
“That Wednesday just as I opened the office up. It was right at nine o’clock, A.M.”
“Do you remember anything about him?”
“I never met him. He told me he was going to put me on the mailing list. Quiet-spoken fellow, very personable. I think he was calling from a phone booth in Lima.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Well, I could hear traffic in the background. Cars stopping and starting and such as that, a couple of horns blowing? And then I heard the clock in front of the First National strike the hour.”
“How do you know what clock it was?”
“Because they never turned it back at the end of the summer. It’s still on daylight savings. Struck ten instead of nine. Kind of the town joke.”
A week after the murder, McCurdy reported to Hardistan.
“Billy, we got two breaks. We’re sure now that the perp rented a car, unless he lives closer to Lima than we think. We’re pretty sure he called a realty company from a phone booth on a street corner in Lima.” He recounted his conversation with the Bloom woman.
“She gave him Waller’s location?”
“Yes.”
“Jesus.”
“Well, what’d she know? Also, this phone guy came in. He saw the plane, Billy. He was half a mile or so away but he ID’d it as light-colored and twin-engined. I’m narrowing my search down to airports and car rental offices.”
“You want to tighten it up that much?”
“We can always expand if we don’t turn up anything. But this smells awfully good. We’re only looking at maybe three dozen airports in the target area.”
“It’s your call, Floyd.”
“I feel good about this.”
“How about the media?”
“Cooled off for the moment.”
“Let’s hope it stays that way.”
“Amen to that.”
Geoff Isaac was handling the situation in Missoula. As Hardistan moved his teams into the area, Isaac kept them busy working the Lost Trail Pass case and interviewing people in neighboring towns. Others would be kept on alert in Butte and Helena. It was his job to keep the growing force of FBI and ATF agents spread throughout the area and less visible.
Nighthawks continued to fly over the mountains adjacent to the scene of the ambush, looking for any activity or sign of the missing semi. At night, AWACS made several swings over the area. The four-jet Airborne Warning and Control System E3s had a speed of 500 mph and a range of five thousand nautical miles. In addition to the flight crew of four, there were fourteen specialists aboard who were experts in its avionics, which included surveillance radar, navigation and communications data processing, display monitors, and “look down” radar that could separate airborne targets from ground clutter. Its radar “eye,” a six-foot-wide dish mounted near the tail, had a 360-degree view of the horizon. The trained observers could see ground objects more than two hundred miles away. Using body heat monitors, the technicians could detect personnel movement on the ground from 35,000 feet.
For days now they had been reporting frequent activity in the mountains next to Fort Yahweh. The AWACS located a dozen thermally heated survival tents capable of sleeping eight people, toe-to-head. One week after the Lost Trail ambush, during a sweep across the Yahweh area at three a.m., the crew reported seeing ninety-six people sleeping in the tents and another hundred scouting the mountains.
Stills and videos were shot and transmitted to Hines in the AMOC. Intelligence agents judged it to be the kind of survival training the Sanctuary normally conducted, but recommended increased surveillance sweeps.
By the end of the first week there was nothing new on the deadly ambush.
Vail decided to have a staff meeting of the Wild Bunch in the AMOC once a week. It was private. It was comfortable. A
nd Paul Silverman, who was still chief steward on the plane, served a great breakfast.
Naomi recognized worry in Vail’s face the minute she entered the dining room, but she decided not to mention it. The reports and updates were brief and inconclusive. Flaherty and Parver were gathering information on bank and armory robberies over an eighteen-month period prior to the ambush. They fed their info to Hines, who collated it and looked for matches or similarities in M.O. Meyer was building a database on all banks in the four-state area, looking for cross matches among the employees and officers.
The meeting was relaxed, yet there was an undercurrent of tension.
During a lull in the conversation, Shana Parver asked: “Martin, what is Parousia?”
“Parousia?”
“Waller mentioned it in the interview you taped. In fact I listened to it twice and there’s something on there that disturbs me. It’s toward the end of the tape. I marked it. Listen.”
“…the instructors are ex-SEALs, ex-Berets. They’re pros at stealth missions and tracking and guerrilla tactics…”
“Here it is,” she said.
“… The General talks about Parousia and A-Day…”
“I’m still not clear about Parousia and A-Day,” she said.
“Parousia’s a Greek word,” Meyer said. “It’s a term for the second coming of Christ. The end of history as we know it. It’s in Matthew. The disciples ask Jesus, When shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming and the end of the world?’ And Jesus answers, ‘You shall hear of wars and rumors of wars… nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There shall be famines, and pestilence, and earthquakes… and no flesh shall be saved.’ That’s not exact, but close enough. I’m a little rusty on the New Testament.”
“Is he talking about Armageddon?” Shana asked.
“A-Day. Armageddon day,” Vail said.
“Jordan mentioned Armageddon during the prison interview. Waller mentioned it, too. And Abraham talked about it in the sermon I heard. The question is, what do they mean by Armageddon?”
“Maybe they’ve started it already,” Latimore said. “Maybe they’re taunting us. Could be the reason they flagged the convoy ambush and Waller’s murder with the number code for Yahweh.”
“The last thing Waller said to me was, ‘Maybe it was an act of war,’” Vail said. “ ‘Maybe it’s A-Day.’”
“Maybe in Engstrom’s mind, he’s declared war,” Parver suggested. “There’s a landscape it would be interesting to explore,” Flaherty said. “Engstrom’s mind.”
Vail, who had seemed distracted throughout the meeting, now fell silent. He stared into his coffee cup for several seconds.
“Well,” he said finally, “we’ll never know whether Waller knew any more about it or not.”
“You’re worried about something, Marty,” Naomi said.
“A little.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know for sure. I feel like we’re on a truck going downhill without brakes. Everything seems to be escalating. The AWACS report there’s increased activity at Yahweh. Waller talks about Parousia and A-Day. Abraham is openly preaching revolution on the radio. I’m not sure we have eighteen months to put together a RICO case. I’m beginning to think we’ll be lucky if we have six months. Things are escalating too fast.”
“He’s nuts, isn’t he?” Flaherty said. “Like Koresh and Jim Jones.”
“Far more dangerous. He’s got several thousand people under his thumb.”
“Are you going to offer him a deal when you two meet?”
“We don’t have any deal for him,” Vail said. “I want to see the enemy up close. I want to judge for myself what we’re up against.”
Latimore listened but as usual was operating on his own wavelength. “I’ve been thinking a lot about the shooter,” he said. “I’ve got an idea I’d like to pursue.”
Vail shrugged. “It’s your job. Since when do you ask?”
Everybody chuckled.
“I mean right now.”
“Oh. Okay, why not?”
“Jimmy, who’s the head of Army intelligence?”
Hines went to his machine, clattered the keys, and the information flashed on his monitor.
“Colonel Otis Maraganset. Age sixty-one. Had the job four years, looking to make general when he retires in two more.”
“How do I get in touch with him?”
“You mean one on one?”
Latimore nodded.
“I call him and tell him Assistant Attorney General Harrison Latimore needs to talk to him on a matter of importance.”
“Think he’ll pick up?”
Hines laughed. “Latimore, nobody ignores a call from the A.G.’s office.”
“Let’s give it a shot. I’ll go in the back office, Jimmy can patch the call into the speaker system so you guys can monitor the call.”
“That’s not exactly legal,” Naomi reminded him.
Latimore smiled and winked. “Just gonna be a friendly conversation. No big deal.”
“Colonel Maraganset, this is Harrison Latimore, I’m Assistant A.G. attached to Special Prosecutor Martin Vail’s task force.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Latimore, how can I help you?”
“The A.G., General Castaigne that is, and Mr. Vail need some information, Colonel. I was told you’re the man to talk to.”
“At your disposal, sir. What kind of information?”
“It’s a personnel matter going back to the late sixties, early seventies.”
“Vietnam?”
“Yes. Particularly related to intelligence units that were operating in the field.”
“I’m not sure I—”
“Let me be more specific. Black ops.”
“Black ops?”
“Yes sir. We’re not interested in the men who served in those units, I know that’s all hush-hush stuff. We’d like the names of the liaison officers who worked with the, uh… projects.”
“Mmmm, that’s a bit sticky. Actually there were rumors about units working in the field, but—”
“Oh come on, Colonel, we know all about the Phantom Project and the others. No records kept, nonexistent, blah blah blah… that’s not the information the A.G. wants. She simply wants the names of the liaison officers who worked with them. How many could there be?”
“It’s classified information,” the colonel said abruptly.
“I see. Well, can I impose on you to give General Castaigne a call and explain that to her personally? I’ve got her number here and—”
“That won’t be necessary,” Maraganset said hurriedly.
“It has been thirty years or more, Colonel.”
“Let me turn you over to my sergeant major, Steve Kosloski. I’m sure he can get the data a lot faster than I can. Is this a rush job?”
“You know the A.G., she even gets her junk mail overnight air.”
“Right. Hold on just a second, sir.”
“Thanks very much, Colonel. I’m sure General Castaigne will be most appreciative.”
He was put on hold for thirty seconds.
“Mr. Latimore, this is Sergeant Kosloski.”
“Good morning, Sergeant. Did the colonel tell you what we need?”
“Yes sir. I believe he pointed out that this is delicate informa—”
“I understand that,” Latimore cut him off. “No one’s going to know about this. It’s purely for background, the data isn’t going to get public exposure.”
“Right, sir. I’ll need a little time. None of this stuff is in the computers.”
“How long would that be?”
“I’m sure I can have it by the end of the day.”
“Oookay…”
“Maybe sooner, sir. It’s on first priority.”
“Fine, Sergeant. Let me give you my fax number.”
“I’d rather not put it on fax, sir. How about if I call you and give you the names over the phone?”
“That’ll be
fine, Sergeant.”
CHAPTER 25
It was a day Vail would never forget, not only because he would come face-to-face with his adversary, but because for the first time in a very long time, he would have a spiritual sense of the beauty of the country whose laws he had taken an oath to defend.
They had left Chicago before dawn, and the rising sun chased the jet across Wisconsin, the southern corner of Minnesota, and South Dakota. Now the big plane whistled over central Montana toward Missoula and the Rocky Mountains. It was following what is known as the Montana “High Line,” which stretches from the plains of eastern Montana west to the fierce northern Rockies.
Firestone could have been a one-man Chamber of Commerce for the state. He entertained Vail as they ate breakfast. Between bites and sips of coffee, he described the land that slid below them and its history.
Long before Columbus discovered the Americas, the Blackfeet, the Assiniboine, the Cree, the northern Cheyenne, and the Nez Perce Indians roamed the great plains of Montana, hunting and fishing the Upper Missouri with free range over the “High Line.”
The current inhabitants were descendants of the pioneers who first came to this land: immigrants, farmers, railroaders, gold miners, fur traders, mountain men, the plains Indians.
Vail was stunned by the rugged beauty of the Big Sky country, still abounding in wildlife, grain, horses, game fowl, and awesome open spaces. To the south of the plane was the winding Yellowstone River, and beyond it the gold-rich Black Hills where Custer met his fate at the Little Bighorn, creating a myth that still persisted.
Firestone knew his history, particularly when it concerned Native Americans. In the 1870s, to make room for white settlers, the United States government hunted down and defeated the Indian tribes of Montana one after another. The government lied, cheated, and broke its own treaties with the Indians, confining the great plains tribes to reservations on the poorest of lands.
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