Warn Me When It's Time

by Cheryl A Head

  Twenty minutes later, the radio in the room squawked with the message that Don had entered the Donovan quarry and was headed toward the trailer. Even with the warning, when Don burst into the room, every person looked up with alarm.

  “Mack, glad you’re here,” he said, bypassing hellos. “It took me a half-hour to shake that asshole, but I left him somewhere on the freeway. The hard part was doing it without letting on I knew I was being followed,” Don said, pleased with himself.

  “Agent Garrow!” he called out. “What’s shaking?”

  She was on the phone and gave Don a thumbs-up. He dumped the camera on the desk next to her.

  Agent K explained briefly to Don what they’d completed, and went back to work. Don joined Charlie in the rear of the trailer.

  “You look tired,” she said.

  “It was another long day.” Don looked at his watch. “I’ve been at it for ten hours. I spoke to James. He’s going to call us back.”

  Agent Garrow headed their way, holding the Nikon. She was removing the back and held up the memory card.

  “I’m checking it now. Should I pull off everything?”

  “There are a lot of church shots, and the last three are of our guy. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to have all the photos in case someone asks to see them.”

  “Got it,” Garrow said, heading back to her side of the trailer. “Oh, Agent Saleh called. He said to let you know he’s coming here.”

  “She’s really good,” Charlie said.

  “That she is. She showed me how to use Facebook and set up my profile.”

  “Plan on using Facebook much after this case?”

  “Who knows, Mack? I have forty-three followers, and I’ve already been invited to eight groups. I kind of like it.”

  “Maybe you should check in with Rita on that.” Charlie smirked.

  James arrived a half hour later carrying bags with a dozen Chinese food choices. All the work stopped for ten minutes as the agents, Charlie, and Don scooped shrimp fried rice, moo goo gai pan, mushu pork, egg foo yung, General Tso’s chicken, and white rice onto their paper plates.

  “Saleh, you’re beginning to understand how I work best,” Don said.

  “Yep, I’m figuring out a few things about you.” James winked at Charlie.

  Garrow very quickly had printouts of the Spader photos. There were three of them, not very clear, but with enough quality to allow for matching. She placed them on the table in front of James, Charlie, and Don.

  “Let’s use this one,” James, said pointing to the one where Spader was looking straight ahead.

  Garrow scooped up the photo and left the others. They stared at the man.

  “I don’t like this guy,” Don started. “I don’t like the way he tries to manipulate Robbie online.”

  “He’s obviously working for Croft,” Charlie said.

  “Maybe not. We found the two interactions with Croft that Robbie told us about, but we haven’t found any other communication between them.”

  “Maybe it’s phone calls.”

  “We’re monitoring Croft’s office calls, and mobile calls. It’s possible Spader is using a burner phone,” James said.

  “It’s very unusual when we can’t identify a person through the normal channels. This Spader guy is an enigma. He could be with one of the agencies. Whoever he is, and whoever he’s working with, he’s done a good job of staying off the grid.”

  # # #

  Charlie was on her way home. Although the quarry wasn’t far from her east-side neighborhood, it would still be after ten before she got there. She was surprised when Judy called.

  “You’re working late tonight.”

  “I work late a lot of nights. Especially if it’s online research,” Judy said. “Charlie, I found something troubling about Gabriel Constantine.”

  Charlie downshifted into third gear and pulled into the right lane of East Jefferson Avenue. “What Judy?” Charlie said in a choked voice.

  “He’s not everything he appears to be. On the surface he’s a philanthropist and communications advisor. He has worked in the Upper Peninsula for a long time. Before that he was in the military, working in surveillance. I can’t find any evidence that he has children, or had a wife . . .”

  “Wait. I saw pictures of his children.”

  “You saw somebody’s children. But not his.”

  Charlie’s heart sank. She didn’t want anything or anyone to hurt her mother. Her anguish quickly turned to anger. She gripped the wheel.

  “Judy, I’ll be home in a couple of minutes. I’m too pissed off to talk and drive at the same time.”

  # # #

  Charlie and Mandy sat on the bed, the phone between them, while Judy reported the results of her research. Hamm, aware of the anger in their voices, had retreated to the doggie bed where he kept track of them with his eyes and ears.

  Gabe Constantine had been a Reagan Republican in the late eighties and now was a major supporter of the new conservative Tea Party. He was fairly well known in conservative circles and was credited with helping the party raise more than $100 million, half of which had been spent trying to derail the Obama campaign. Constantine was a longtime supporter of Libertarian groups, but he had also supported extremist conservative groups whose philosophies were steeped in racism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and misogyny.

  “What’s he want with my mother?” Charlie said between clenched teeth.

  “I’ve been thinking about that,” Judy said. “He came into your mother’s life right about the time you had contact with James about the task force. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.”

  “So Gabriel has been using Ernestine as a source of information on the task force work?” Mandy asked. “That means he might be a leader of the Turks.”

  Charlie sat quietly on the bed, going back over the sequence of events. It all made sense. After the task force leak was closed, Ernestine had asked more and more questions about Charlie’s work on the Pashia case and the rest of the investigation into these crimes. Egged on, no doubt, by the interest her new boyfriend showed in the cases. Charlie thought back on Commander Coleman’s allegations that the leak might be the result of loose talk among family and friends. She sighed. Charlie tried to remember how much detail she’d shared with her mother. Had she told her that Don was working undercover? Had she mentioned the plan to use fake bombs to draw these bad men out?

  “Shit!” Charlie said. “Shit. Shit. Shit!”

  “You want me to get the information I have to James?” Judy asked. “There’s a lot more, but I know the Bureau can get into places I can’t.”

  “Yes. Please do that. Meanwhile, I’m going to try the impossible feat of kicking myself in the ass.”

  “Charlie, I’m really sorry. About Ernestine, I mean. That she’ll be hurt.”

  “Yeah, me too, Judy. Goodnight.”

  Charlie leaned into Mandy. They sat like that a few minutes. Hamm got up and lay at their feet.

  “What am I going to tell Mom?” Charlie said, wiping at her eyes.

  “You’ll think of just the right thing, but you don’t have to do it now. You can wait until after Sunday.”

  “Mandy, I’m probably the source of the continued leak on the task force.”

  “Yep. You’re going to have to forgive yourself for that.”

  “What a fucked-up situation.”

  # # #

  Don was having a hard time sleeping so he navigated to the Turks listserv. There were a couple of guys chatting about weapons and ammunition, but no sight of Robbie or Spader. After fifteen minutes he logged into the private website of the Knights of the Citadel. Their chat room was active. There was a heated discussion about the dangers of Obama’s economic policies and the tax increases that would follow. The language was vile and incendiary.

  Don watched the back-and-forth for a while. He hoped the FBI was also tuned in to this site tonight because some of the members were making threats against the President and
his economic advisors. One man whose handle was TeaPartyTony published the address of a Harvard economist who had helped shape Obama’s economic stimulus package.

  Let’s kill this guy, someone posted. Followed by a flurry of “10-4” messages. Don scrolled through them and sat upright, as one post caught his eye. It used one of Robbie’s handles. The one Kamal Pashia had showed Charlie.

  Posted by: STORMTROOPER22

  He should die. He’s a traitor to the white race.

  Don turned off his computer and returned to bed to look out the window. Out of habit he touched his revolver hanging on the bedpost. This case was feeding his depression, the kind he’d felt after his discharge, and he couldn’t use his normal coping skills to move through it. No talking with Rita, or watching cartoons with Rudy. No bowling or working on his car. He thought about cleaning his gun, but he’d done that two nights before. He leaned against the headboard, grabbed the remote, and clicked through the channels.

  Tomorrow would be another long day. After spending work hours in the trailer, Don would transport the dummy explosives away from the quarry—some back to his apartment, the others to be left at the church. James had arranged for the bucket crane, and Don, Charlie, and two agents would be dressed in city emergency vests when they planted the fake bombs on the lower rooflines at St. Anne’s. It was an elaborate charade, and they hoped the Turks had someone observing. FBI agents would be in the area looking for those spying.

  The fact that James couldn’t immediately identify the blue-eyed man worried the Bureau, so starting tomorrow Charlie would shadow Don. She’d pick up a rental car, something compact and white, so she wouldn’t attract the attention she’d get in the Corvette. Don already had a tracker on his truck, and Charlie would have a monitoring unit.

  There were more than a hundred channels to choose from, and he was halfway through them when he stopped on a movie title he recognized. A guy using the handle RedWhiteBlue4everon the Turks listserv would be glad to know Don had taken his recommendation. The film had come on forty minutes ago, but it didn’t matter. He’d seen it before and the best part, when things started blowing up, was at the end. There were a lot of commercials, but the movie was pretty good. Might as well get in the right mood.

  Chapter 30

  “You’ll just have to shake it off,” Don said, loading a box of phony pipe bombs into the truck cab. “Like Coleman said, it could happen to any of us.”

  “Yeah, but I was so indignant when she suggested it could be me,” Charlie said, shaking her head. “And it turns out it was me.”

  “There’s nothing you can do about it now. Did you tell James?”

  “Judy called him last night to report what she learned about Constantine. He’s probably put two and two together.”

  “Where is Novak?”

  “At the FBI Field office digging further into the life of Gabriel Constantine.”

  “I’m guessing you want to kill the guy, right?”

  “What do you think? If he turns out to be one of the leaders of this mess, I might want to have five minutes alone with him before he’s arrested.”

  “I’ll hold your purse, Mack.”

  “You look terrible by the way,” Charlie said squinting at Don. “Did you get any sleep last night?”

  “Not much. I was feeling kind of blue, so I stayed up late watching a movie, and I had an extra beer I probably shouldn’t have had.”

  Don retrieved the last box containing six square-shaped packages, wrapped in the black material used in landscaping to slow the growth of weeds. Charlie carried a box with extra detonators and several cell phones.

  “So that’s your rental car.”

  “It should blend in nicely anywhere I have to park.”

  “That’s the only good thing about it,” Don said, raising an eyebrow at the little car. “Is your monitor working?”

  “Yep. I see your blinking dot.”

  “Good. That’ll allow you to hang way back in case anyone’s spying.”

  “Okay, and when I get to your place, I’ll just park across the street until you leave.”

  It was evening rush hour. Charlie stayed at a distance from Don’s truck, keeping an eye out for the green Jeep and any other following vehicle. Charlie called Judy who excitedly reported on her work with the FBI.

  “Charlie, you should see the equipment. They have access to databases around the world. You know how I have to pay for credit, military records, and education records? They can get that with a push of a button.”

  “Do you have any more on Constantine?”

  “Oh, lots more. But I’ll send it to you in an email. I’ve got to go. The agents received these new super-thin Apple laptops today, and I want to sit in on their training. Good luck tonight.” Judy signed off before Charlie could ask more questions.

  Don was in and out of his apartment in five minutes. Within ten they were headed to a parking lot near St. Anne’s where they’d meet the two agents who would drive the cranes to the church plaza.

  The cranes were smaller than Charlie had imagined. One was slightly larger, but neither much bigger than a full-size passenger van. The smaller vehicle had a telescoping arm attached to a one-man basket. The larger crane had a longer arm and a two-man basket. They rolled up the street mostly unnoticed by the cars and the few pedestrians they passed.

  The vehicles moved easily up onto the church plaza. A couple sitting close by on a bench were the only people in view. They were watching the sunset. Charlie was dressed in her homeless clothes, carrying orange cones and wearing a hard hat and vest. She asked the couple in a low voice to vacate the plaza while they changed the spotlights.

  “Oh, no problem,” the man said. “We were just, uh, we’re getting married here tomorrow and were taking in the beauty of the church at night.” The couple moved away quickly without looking back. Charlie thought it might be because of the smell of her clothing.

  The smaller crane moved directly under the light. The agent-slash-electrical technician emerged from the van carrying one of the cloth-covered plastic squares. He unlocked the basket and climbed in; then, using a remote, he lifted the basket into the air. Agent K suggested that if this were a real bomb attack, a small-load explosive in the light fixture would create terror as the shattered plastic and glass rained down on the plaza. The larger crane stopped close to the church’s front wall. Don and the other agent lifted into the air. When they were perched higher than the small crane, the agent pretended to give directions to the other crane operator about which way to angle the light’s beam while Don focused on the church’s buttresses. Anybody watching the activity would see Don lob a small black object onto the roof.

  They repeated the activity near the other light, and the cranes and personnel were moving away from the plaza within twenty minutes. No one from the church or the neighborhood had asked any questions. Back at the parking lot where they left the cranes, the agent in charge reported that a vehicle parked on a side street with two passengers had watched the light repair—through binoculars—with keen interest.

  James called, requesting to meet with Don and Charlie, but not at the trailer. He suggested meeting at the FBI field office. After calling ahead to Mandy who said it was no problem to set two more plates, Charlie suggested her house. She knew, even when things were dangerous and intense, a little downtime could help everyone’s sanity. She also believed a bit of dog petting and a home-cooked meal would lift Don’s spirits.

  Dinner was a hit. They agreed not to discuss the case while they ate the meat loaf, green beans, and garlic mashed potatoes Mandy had prepared. Hamm sat at Don’s feet getting occasional ear rubs and bits of meatloaf, and James took off his suit jacket and loosened his tie. For an hour they were four Detroiters from different walks of life enjoying a meal.

  After dinner Charlie cleared the table while James, Don, and Mandy chatted. Charlie loaded the dishwasher, then returned to the dining room with bowls, spoons, and a gallon each of rocky road and strawberry ice
cream.

  “You two really know how to pamper your guests,” James said.

  Don grunted his agreement and scooped huge amounts of both kinds of ice cream into his bowl.

  “We should get down to work,” James said. “I have a few things to report.”

  “Before we do, let me get something out on the table,” Charlie said. “I apologize for my laxness in discussing the case outside the confines of the team. I’ve always talked to Mom about my work. But it was inappropriate to do so in this case. I was wrong.”

  There was a moment of silence. Then James spoke up.

  “I feel some culpability, too. After I spoke to Judy last night, I tried to figure out how Constantine would have known you were connected to the task force’s work.”

  “But I wasn’t,” Charlie said. “Not until the Pashia family called me.”

  James shook his head. “Nope. It was before that. I involved you when I called for advice on the makeup of the task force.” James looked chagrined. “I discovered last night that my personal cell phone has a bug. I’m not sure when it happened. Maybe at the gym. Charlie, when I called you, I used my personal phone, and that’s when the Turks got wind of your connection to me.”

  There was another pause, and then Mandy stood. “Okay. Now that the mea culpas are out of the way, I’ll excuse myself so you three can do your work.”

  “Wait,” James said. “I’d like you to stay. I know you’ll respect the confidentiality of our conversation, plus you’re a good thinker.” James put a notebook and phone in front of him.

  “New phone,” he said. “It’s clean.”

  Mandy retook her seat. James cleared his throat before he spoke. “Thirty minutes after you left St. Anne’s, two men scaled the walls of the church. They spent several minutes on the roof before they rappelled down. They then entered the church through the side door. They were inside fifteen minutes.”

  “Was it the Turks?” Don asked.