A quick count. The Kimber’s magazine had held seven cartridges including one in the chamber. I was down to three, and I didn’t know if Brecht now had access to a gun.
My firepower must have foiled his escape plan, because the car ceased moving. Although visibility between lightning flashes was nil, there was no way to anticipate when the landscape might suddenly be illuminated. I hesitated to approach from the front and be caught in the open at point-blank range. I chose to loop around my SUV so that it would provide some cover until I could assess the situation.
A bolt of lightning struck so close that the thunder boomed simultaneously. I saw that Brecht’s door hung open and the driver’s seat was empty. Had he circled around me? Another sequence of flashes revealed the jerky motion of a man running up the hill toward one of the towering radio telescopes. Brecht was trying to escape on foot.
A man in his midthirties should have no trouble outrunning a man in his late seventies. But a man with a prosthetic leg, and not the one he’d wear for rigorous exercise, found his youthful advantage diminished. Yet I was determined not to let this killer disappear into the forest and possibly be extricated through some preset plan that would take him beyond the reach of American justice.
I hurried up the hill, using the dim outline of the giant steel telescope as my guide.
Lightning flashed, and I saw I’d cut the distance in half. In those few seconds, Brecht turned, and I knew he’d seen me pursuing him. He stumbled, regained his footing, and pressed on.
I felt a burning in my stump as the soaked sleeve rubbed against my flesh. The slope put even more pressure on my leg, but if I could get close enough to fire a warning shot, I hoped Brecht would think I wouldn’t hesitate to put the next one in his back.
The intervals between the lightning grew longer. I knew I neared the telescope’s base and that the forest lay another fifty yards beyond. Better to take him in the open ground than try to track him in the even darker woods where trees would be impeding obstacles.
Another flash and I saw I was beside the girders supporting the giant upturned dish. Brecht had disappeared.
A rustle of fabric came from behind me and then a choking pressure as a wire looped around my neck. Brecht had circled the telescope with his deadly garrote ready to strike.
I felt him shift his weight as he tried to lift me onto his back, effectively becoming a human gallows. Sparks flared behind my eyes. My grip on the gun loosened, and it fell to the grass. Fear welled up. Seconds were all I had. And then my army survival training kicked in. I didn’t clutch at the wire but turned into him, ducking my head into his shoulder to halt his turn.
Now my body was between him and his hands pulling the noose. I head-butted him and heard the crunch of breaking cartilage. He took a step backward, pulling me with him. I punched him in the solar plexus, but I couldn’t put enough power behind it. He wheezed and then tried to step around me, still holding the garrote. I swung my left leg up between his two, catching him in the groin with the shank of my metal prosthesis. He snapped forward in a reflex of pain. His violent motion pitched me backward onto the ground, but the wire loosened, halting my descent into unconsciousness.
The lightning flashed. I saw Brecht struggle to stay standing. He looked down at me through his thick, rain-splattered glasses as his hand pulled something from the pocket of his slicker. A short stick. A flick of his thumb turned the stick into a knife. A switchblade. He staggered toward me, his silver disheveled hair swirling in the wind, his face twisted into a grotesque embodiment of rage.
He shouted something, but the roar of blood pumping through my head drowned his words.
I pushed my hands into the ground in an effort to get to my feet. My left palm felt the butt of the Kimber.
The stormy world was dark again, but I knew he was coming. I fired left-handed into the space where he’d been. The muzzle flash showed blood flying from his shoulder. The second flash captured the crimson spurt as the bullet ripped through his chest. He tumbled across my legs.
I rolled him off me, keeping the pistol with its one remaining cartridge aimed in his direction. Each subsequent lightning flash revealed rain washing more blood into the sodden ground. Brecht’s ragged breaths exhaled in gurgled whispers. I slid closer, putting my ear to his lips.
“They didn’t want me,” he rasped. “They threw me away. Had to show them I was useful. Never failed, never failed the cause.”
“What happened to Frank DeMille?”
A long pause as Brecht fought for breath.
“He suspected me. No other choice. Loretta came back. Saw my clothes. She remembered. No other choice. My mission, too important. They would want me back.”
“Who are they?”
A choking cough. He was drowning in his own blood.
“Who threw you away?” I shouted.
My question went unheard and unanswered. Theo Brecht was beyond time and space, beyond even the reach of the massive radio telescope towering above me.
I stood up, my whole body trembling. Slowly, I made my way down the hill. Somewhere, a siren wailed.
Chapter 28
At nine o’clock on Tuesday morning, two weeks and one day after learning about the skeleton at PARI and two days since my nearly fatal encounter with Theo Brecht, Nakayla and I sat in a conference room in the FBI offices in Asheville’s Federal Building.
We weren’t alone. At the table were Homicide Detectives Newland and Efird, Transylvania County Sheriff Hickman, Buncombe County Sheriff Browder, and Special Agent Lindsay Boyce. She’d requested the meeting, and one didn’t say no to a resident agent of the FBI. Coffee had been served. Note pads, file folders, and forensic reports were in front of everyone except Nakayla and me. Our presence carried no official status.
Boyce rose to her feet, signaling the meeting would begin. “Thank you for coming. I thought it would be a good idea to gather all of us who have a stake in this investigation so that we can come to a unified understanding regarding the events that transpired, the jurisdictions involved, and the procedure going forward.”
The rest of us exchanged glances, knowing “procedure going forward” was Boyce’s code that an investigation was ongoing and she didn’t want it compromised.
She sat, opened a folder, and then turned to Hickman. “Sheriff, your department had initial involvement with the discovery of DeMille’s remains. But as things developed, your jurisdictional case became last Sunday night’s attack on Joseph Gordowski and Sam Blackman. What can you tell us?”
Hickman had scribbled some notes on a pad. He studied them a few seconds before speaking. “With the help of your tech team, Special Agent Boyce, we’ve determined that the power supply that nearly killed Gordowski had been tampered with. Our speculation is that if Mr. Blackman hadn’t intervened, Theo Brecht would have made sure Gordowski died. We also found that the damaged vehicles, garrote, switchblade, and injuries sustained by Gordowski, Brecht, and Mr. Blackman support Mr. Blackman’s and Mr. Gordowski’s accounts.”
I dropped my hand from my neck where I’d unconsciously brushed it across the dark bruise displaying the savagery with which Brecht had attacked me.
“As for the case of Frank DeMille,” Hickman said, “we’ve ceded that to the FBI.”
Boyce nodded. “Thank you, Sheriff Hickman.”
The sheriff held up a hand to signal that he wasn’t finished. “One more thing, please.” He let his gaze sweep the room. “I’ve already spoken to Mr. Blackman and Detective Newland, but everyone should know the facts. I and my department owe Mr. Blackman an apology. He had called alerting us that a dangerous situation was unfolding at PARI. We didn’t take him seriously, and it wasn’t until Detective Newland called my private number that we took action.”
Nakayla had reached Newly to tell him about Brecht’s dinner at the Laughing Seed Café. He’d immediately headed for PARI and reached Hickm
an along the way. By the time Hickman checked with his department, twenty precious minutes had elapsed.
“But I’m not one to throw my own team under the bus,” Hickman continued. “PARI is the subject of numerous crank calls to the department, namely that alien ships are landing and we need to do something about it. Consequently, I’d set up the procedure that we immediately call PARI to speak with someone we have on an authorized list. There’s a code word they use if there’s an emergency. Janet Ingram, the receptionist, was just leaving. She assured my deputy that other than the storm, nothing was happening. Neither Brecht nor Gordowski had yet arrived. So my deputy ignored Mr. Blackman’s warning. I took action the minute I learned it was he who had made the call. Unfortunately, my deputy wasn’t aware Mr. Blackman had been working with us.”
He leaned across the table to better see me. “I’m sorry we weren’t there when you needed us. I’m grateful you did what you did and also for the contributions you and Ms. Robertson made in identifying the arsonist who started the forest fire.” He looked down at his pad and then back at Boyce. “I’ve said my piece.”
“We completely understand,” I said. I’d made my own mistakes, like seeing Gordowski’s licensed ham radio operation and immediately assuming he was tapping out crucial secrets in Morse code.
Hickman gave me a nod of thanks.
Boyce flipped a few pages down into the file folder.
“Sheriff Browder, you’re involved in the investigation into the death of Randall Johnson.”
“Yes. Evidence found at the scene of Johnson’s death contradicts the initial impression of suicide. The guitar strings meant to suggest Randall Johnson had strangled Loretta are not his brand. An interview in the hospital with Gordowski established that Johnson often brought his guitar to work to play at lunch or on breaks. Gordowski and Brecht both knew it was a Martin. Gordowski said he would have assumed the strings would be the same as the guitar.
“We also did a search of Brecht’s garage and found gasoline stains indicative that a can had been stored there. Some of the stains had been created by gasoline on the bottom which gave us the diameter of the can. We’ve matched it to a newer can in Johnson’s barn. Your team is analyzing the gasoline left in that can and the gasoline in Brecht’s mower to see if both grade and chemical composition can be matched. Looking at Johnson’s death through the lens of the larger picture, we feel confident Theo Brecht was the killer.”
Browder turned to Nakayla. “And he’s the person who firebombed your house. We don’t know if that was before or after he killed Johnson. Brecht thought he was playing it safe bringing the can to Johnson’s just in case some trace elements could tie it to the arson scene.”
Boyce made a note on her pad. “All right. We’ll let your department know the results of the analysis.” She flipped a few more pages. “Detectives Newland and Efird, that leaves you with the murder of Loretta Case Johnson.”
Tuck Efird nodded for his senior partner to take the lead.
Newly passed several typed sheets down to Boyce. “We took the liberty of bringing a written report. At your discretion, you can have them photocopied and shared. But with your permission, I’d like to yield the narrative of this most remarkable case to Sam, because none of us, in our own jurisdictional realms, would have closed our cases without the work of Sam and Nakayla.” He stopped and smiled at me.
I didn’t smile back. Newly had caught me off guard. He’d not warned me because he knew I’d have protested that it was not my place to make an official report. But he had created the written report. He simply wanted me to share the story that had nearly cost me my life.
So I walked them through the familiar ground and the new ground. The link to Vietnam, Eddie Gilmore, Chuck McNulty, Len Axelrod, Soviet spies, the mole buried first within NASA, then the NSA, and finally NOAA and its treasure trove of climate data. “From what Brecht told me as he was dying, I can infer he was an ardent supporter of the communist cause of the old school. A dedicated recruit who was probably a product of the radical, turbulent 1960s. Placement in NASA and then the NSA must have been extremely valuable to the Soviets. I’ll leave that to the FBI to determine.
“But then time and the Soviet collapse left Brecht without a cause. What happens to an aging, discarded spy? He tried to make himself relevant again. When Nakayla and I first met him, he told us he wanted to be useful. Now we have a fuller understanding of what that meant. And just when he thought he’d found a way back into the espionage fold, Frank DeMille’s skeleton was unearthed, and everything he’d worked for was threatened. Brecht killed to protect his past. He killed to safeguard what he hoped would be his future. I can’t help but wonder if his actions wouldn’t have been in vain. From the desperation of his final words, I have the feeling he was a spy who’d been left out in the cold and hoped the weather data was his way back in.” I looked to Agent Boyce. “Was he a mole, or was he reduced to nothing more than a rat who murdered in Rat Alley?”
I finished, and the room fell silent. I felt a lump in my throat as if the very telling had been cathartic in releasing the pent-up anxiety I’d suffered since escaping through the flames with Blue.
Special Agent Lindsay Boyce took a deep breath. “Thank you, Sam, Nakayla. For all of us.” She closed her file folder and clenched her hands on top of it. “Now I’m requesting everyone’s cooperation. As you can guess, there’s much more we want to learn about Theo Brecht, like how and when he might have been recruited. I’m not disputing Sam’s conjecture that Brecht had been discarded, but we have to determine if there’s a handler and if Brecht was indeed an active Russian asset. What damage did he cause, and more importantly, what has he done recently or prepared to initiate?
“There’s no question his infiltration into NASA and the NSA had grave consequences at the time. DeMille’s stolen computer programs and algorithms would not only have helped the Soviet space program but also could have been adapted for antimissile defenses, offensive missile guidance systems, and any weapons system relying on computer programming. Then Brecht’s work for the NSA put him in position to know what information was being intercepted, and perhaps more importantly, he knew what disinformation was having the greatest effect. What lies were being believed and acted upon and what lies were ignored.
“We’re taking Brecht’s home apart, board by board, nail by nail. We’ve discovered three burner phones, two unused and one used to communicate with Loretta. Her carrier’s records show calls to and from that phone the afternoon before her murder.” Boyce looked at Nakayla and me. “Probably soon after the receptionist at PARI told Gordowski and Brecht you were investigators. I’m confident we’ll find something else—a code book, a dark web internet site, a buried email account.”
She looked around the table. “For each of you, your case is closed. Theo Brecht is the guilty party. But I’m asking you to keep the motive vague. Brecht could have snapped and first killed Loretta, then Randall Johnson, and finally turned on his colleague Gordowski. Our nation is awash in crimes of indiscriminate rage. But references to Frank DeMille’s death and the trail of espionage are to be left to the Bureau. And we don’t want the word ‘espionage’ floating around out there during an ongoing investigation. I hope that can be agreed to and understood before we leave this room.”
She paused, giving her words time to sink in. “Is there any objection?”
Nakayla and I looked at each other.
We spoke in unison. “Yes.”
Chapter 29
The heat wave finally broke, and a hint of fall crept into the air. Over a month had passed since my ordeal at PARI, and the media had moved on from the unhinged Theo Brecht to other grist for their news cycles.
Lindsay Boyce had acquiesced to our request that her veil of secrecy surrounding the extent of Brecht’s espionage be lifted for those most impacted by it. So Cory had brought her aunt to Asheville, and we used Hewitt’s conference room
for a limited briefing in which Boyce outlined how Eddie Gilmore and Frank DeMille died. We spared Nancy Gilmore the details that her husband’s murderer was now a high-ranking official in Vietnam and beyond our reach.
Subsequent updates from Boyce indicated the FBI investigation was finding no evidence that Brecht was being run as an active spy. He had been discarded, and that could have been a terrible error by the Russians. According to Boyce, Brecht had correctly assessed the value of creating a back door into a secure data repository, not only of NOAA’s records but other private and government data as well. A team of forensic computer analysts was meticulously going through everything Brecht touched. But that was the FBI’s case, and Nakayla and I would probably never know the final outcome.
On a cool, clear Sunday in late September, Nakayla and I walked in a procession behind a simple wooden casket as pallbearers carried it across the hillside of a cemetery adjacent to a small Presbyterian church. The mountain ridges around us began to show early fall colors. The scene could have been near Asheville, but we were in Roanoke, Virginia, where Frank DeMille was being laid to rest in the home soil of his native state.
Hewitt and Shirley were behind us. They’d driven with Special Agent Lindsay Boyce. She had made sure the remains had been released and properly transported.
Directly in front of us, Boyce walked between two older men, one with a slight limp and an armful of roses. Chuck McNulty and Len Axelrod had made the trip together because this final chapter was as much about their comrade Eddie Gilmore as Frank DeMille.
Murder in Rat Alley Page 24
