Infidel

by Steve Gannon

  “Then it’s out of our hands,” said Taylor. “We have to—”

  “I hate to point this out, but we still don’t have enough for an arrest, or even a search warrant,” I interrupted. “Before we do anything, I think we should check out Parker’s so-called intentional community. His affiliation with some Trancas Canyon cult may have nothing to do with the terrorist killings.”

  “But if Snead or the Bureau stomp out there in the meantime, we lose the element of surprise,” reasoned Deluca, picking up on my train of thought. “Or worse, like Kane said, maybe Parker’s cult has nothing to do with the terrorists, in which case we all look like idiots. We should at least check things out first.”

  “Makes sense to me,” said Banowski.

  “I’m in,” added Arnie.

  Everyone glanced at Lieutenant Long, who as the ranking member present had the final say.

  “Well, we’ve gone this far,” Long sighed. “Assuming the prints match and we can locate this intentional community compound of Parker’s, surveillance would normally be the next step to confirm we’re on the right track. How about this: Let’s head out there tomorrow and check things out. If it looks like we’re on the right track, we give everything to Snead and the Bureau first thing Monday morning. That work for you, Taylor?”

  Reluctantly, Taylor nodded. “I suppose waiting one more day won’t make any difference. Unfortunately, I’m not certain how to explain things when we do finally reveal the results of our, uh . . . independent investigation.”

  “Simple. You came up with this on your own,” I suggested. Then, to Deluca, “You, too, Paul. Figure a way to leave the rest of us out of it.”

  “I could say I checked on some jammer purchases in my spare time and got lucky,” said Deluca.

  I looked at Taylor. “How about you?”

  “I guess I could do the same,” she said. “Anyway, if our information pans out, it’s possible no one is going to be looking too hard at the source.”

  I thought a moment. “Okay, next step. Does anyone have an idea on how to locate this commune of Parker’s?”

  “I saw something on TV last week about intentional communities,” offered Arnie. “It’s the politically correct term now for communes.”

  “I saw that, too,” Deluca chimed in. “A lot of hippy collectives are still in operation, not to mention a bunch of new ones—over a thousand in the U.S. alone. I think the show mentioned a registry. Want me to check it out?”

  “Yeah, do that.”

  “I’ll help,” said Arnie.

  “Me, too,” added Banowski.

  “Fine,” I said. Then, to Taylor, “Let’s see how Jimmy is doing.”

  Working with different fingerprint powders and a special LED light, my latent-prints friend had raised a number of fingerprints on Parker’s pistols, and a few on the shoebox as well. When Taylor and I joined him, Jimmy had just finished lifting a print with clear tape. “Raised a few good, clear latents,” he said, attaching the tape to a white “lift card” for preservation.

  “Can you do a comparison for us?” I asked.

  “Sure, if you have comparison prints handy. Tenprint cards, JPEG photos, something like that?”

  I glanced at Taylor.

  “I have access to the IAFIS fingerprint files,” she said.

  “Perfect,” said Jimmy. “Can you email them to me?”

  “No problem.”

  Using her phone, Taylor transmitted the IAFIS files in question to Jimmy’s email address. Within minutes my friend had the prints from Parker’s guns displayed on his laptop, arranged side-by-side with those of the unidentified terrorists from the Clark residence. By then the rest of our team had joined us.

  “Anything?” I asked, peering over Jimmy’s shoulder.

  “Just a sec,” said Jimmy, scanning through the IAFIS files. Then, leaning closer, he said, “Bingo.”

  I felt an electric current pass through our group.

  “A match?” I asked.

  “One hundred percent,” Jimmy answered, lining up an IAFIS thumbprint with a latent he’d lifted from one of Parker’s guns. “Right down to the scar,” he added, using the computer cursor to point out a V-shaped notch in the whorls and ridges on two adjacent prints.

  We all stared at the screen. Even to a layman, the match was unmistakable.

  “Damn,” Deluca said softly.

  I glanced at my print-analyst friend. “Thanks, Jimmy. I appreciate your help, but I don’t want to take up any more of your time.”

  “What do you want me to do with this stuff?” Jimmy asked, indicating at his stack of latent print cards. “You have a case number?”

  “Leave the cards with me for now,” I said. “Email me the latent-print photos, too.”

  “I get it,” said Jimmy. “I wasn’t here, right?”

  “You were never here. Not unless I need you to suddenly remember.”

  “Understood. You owe me one, Dan.”

  “Anytime, Jimmy.”

  After Jimmy had departed, I turned to Arnie. “Any success locating the Trancas Canyon site?”

  “Yep. I was right about the commune thing,” Arnie replied. “As I thought, they’re now being called intentional communities, and there are thousands of them—241 in California alone. Many are religious, with different levels of membership and so on, but some fulfill secular purposes as well. I located a registry listing all those in Southern California. One name jumped out—The Christian Apostolic Community Foundation, located in Trancas Canyon.”

  “Christian?” I said. “Not Muslim?”

  “Christian,” said Arnie.

  “Some old hippy communes were nonprofits, so I checked the California Secretary of State database,” Long jumped in, referring to his notes. “The Christian Apostolic Community Foundation is an active nonprofit corporation that was registered with the State of California about five years ago. The corporate officers are Jacob Lee Wallace, president; Caleb Wallace, secretary; and Zoe Yoder, treasurer. I ran those names through the DOJ and NCIC computers. No hits.”

  “I checked the commune’s IRS status,” added Banowski. “The Christian Apostolic Community Foundation is listed as a tax-exempt 501(c)3 religious organization. The registered contact name is Jacob Wallace.”

  “Any mention of Parker Dillon?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I located the compound on Google Earth,” said Deluca. “Check it out.”

  We trailed Deluca to his workstation, where he had a satellite view of a heavily wooded area displayed on his computer. Winding up the center of the screen was a narrow street labeled Trancas Canyon Road. After passing the outskirts of a more developed area near the coast, the road continued up the canyon, eventually dead-ending in the trees. Near its terminus lay The Christian Apostolic Foundation.

  “Can you zoom in?” I asked.

  “Sure.” Deluca expanded the image, bringing the Christian Foundation grounds into closer view. A large building sat in a meadow in the center of the compound, with a number of smaller structures scattered around it. A significant portion of the surrounding grounds appeared to be under cultivation, with a stream and irrigation ditches traversing the canyon to the west and livestock pens bordering a wooded area to the north.

  I stared at the screen, wondering whether this pastoral setting could harbor a terrorist enclave. The prospect seemed to be growing less likely by the minute.

  As Arnie and the others began discussing the best position from which to run our surveillance the following morning, I stepped away to check my security webcams—something I hadn’t done since visiting Sally Perkins in Sylmar. After returning to my squad-room workstation, something else I hadn’t done in quite some time, I booted up my computer. After logging into Padilla’s surveillance archive, I found I had four new motion-activated incidents from Allison’s house, along with seven more from the beach. The first three from Ali’s residence were the neighborhood dog again. The fourth was a kid selling
Girl Scout cookies.

  With a sigh, I checked the motion-activated incidents at the beach. Like Allison’s, the first two were useless—a bird on our back deck, and another dog. The next one sent a shiver up my spine.

  The third archived video showed two men outside my front door. One was tall and lean, with rawboned hands and a hard, deeply lined face. The shorter of the two was built like a block of granite and looked vaguely familiar. Both were wearing workmen’s coveralls. As I watched, the shorter one pulled on latex gloves and went to work with an electric pick gun. Within seconds he’d unlocked my front door.

  The camera picked up their entry, losing them as they stepped inside. Two additional incidents were recorded when the men activated concealed webcams in the house. A final shot from the front-door camera showed them as they exited. Scrolling back, I checked the timestamps. The men had been in my house for under six minutes, and they had been gone for almost an hour.

  What had they been doing inside?

  I had been arming my home security system each day upon leaving, and I was sure I’d set the alarm that morning. I considered calling the Malibu Sheriffs and sending them out. After a moment’s thought, I decided against it. Maybe I had left the alarm off. And anyway, the intruders were gone. Nevertheless, the presence of those men in my house shocked me more than I wanted to admit.

  I replayed the video from the beach house one more time, pausing on a frame that showed the intruders’ faces. As I listened to Deluca and Banowski going over details of tomorrow’s surveillance operation, I stared at the screen. Although balaclavas had concealed the terrorists’ features on their murder videos, I thought I recognized the short, muscular one—almost certain he was the killer who had stared into the camera lens while butchering Gary Welch.

  Taylor was the first to notice that something was wrong. “You okay, Kane?” she called across the room.

  “Yeah, why so glum, paisano?” added Deluca. “I’ve got a good feeling about this. I think we found our guys. In fact, I’m sure of it.”

  I nodded, a sick feeling growing inside. Things were moving quickly, and I realized we were approaching an end I couldn’t foresee.

  “Yeah,” I said, still staring at the computer screen. “And they found me.”

  Chapter 48

  The following morning, the El Niño-fueled storm that had been gathering over the ocean the previous afternoon struck full force, with sheets of rain sweeping the Southland and a fierce southerly wind whipping the Santa Monica Bay into an angry cauldron of white. From the looks of the downpour, I knew it was only a matter of time until flooded culverts and rain-triggered mudslides made life miserable for coastal residents, not to mention every commuter passing through. As usual, February in Malibu was shaping up to be a wet, miserable month.

  Upon returning home the previous evening, I had found my security system armed, just as I had thought I’d left it. Although I still hadn’t figured out how the intruders avoided tripping the alarm, I knew it was possible, and at my first opportunity I intended to call Charlie Padilla and find out. On the upside, the presence of the two prowlers now gave me reason to request a resumption of Metro’s protective surveillance. For the moment, however, as my family was safely out of the picture, I decided to postpone a decision on that. Nevertheless, in the hope that the intruders might return, Deluca, Banowski, Arnie, and I again spent the night at the beach, alternating watch every two hours.

  We had no visitors.

  The next morning our team assembled well before dawn, meeting at a Malibu café that opened early. Taylor, who had insisted on being included on the surveillance, and Lieutenant Long, who also had to drive up from Santa Monica, arrived after the rest of us had ordered coffee and taken a table near the rear. Long looked tired. With a nod in our direction, he stepped to the counter and ordered a large coffee. Arriving a few minutes later, Taylor ordered tea. Paper cups in hand, they both joined us at our booth.

  “Any luck with your facial recognition attempt?” I asked Taylor as she slid into the booth beside me. She had taken screenshot photos of the intruders from my computer, suggesting that feeding the images through the Bureau’s Criminal Justice Information Service’s facial-recognition system was worth a try.

  Taylor shook her head. “Facial recognition takes time, if it works at all. Duffy’s working on it.”

  “Duffy? What did you tell him?”

  “I emailed him the files and asked him to see whether any names popped up.”

  “That’s it? You didn’t tell him anything else?”

  Taylor hesitated. “I, uh, did give him the names of the corporate officers listed on the State of California filing. I thought it might help with the facial recognition search.”

  “Damn, Taylor,” said Banowski. “Now the feds are in on this?”

  “Don’t worry, I told Duffy to keep quiet,” Taylor replied. “Besides, tomorrow we’re turning everything over to the Bureau anyway, right?”

  “Right,” I said, unable to hide my irritation. “Depending on what we find. This still may turn into a wild goose chase.”

  “Maybe, but I have a feeling about this,” said Deluca. “Speaking of which, what are we looking for out there? Guys wearing balaclavas waving ISIS flags?”

  “That would be great,” I said with a brief smile. “Barring that, spotting either of the men who broke into my house would be grounds for a search warrant. A vehicle with phony magnetic signs or stolen license plates would be another.”

  “The presence of an automatic weapon would be cause for a search warrant, too,” Arnie pointed out. “Let’s keep our eyes peeled and see what turns up.”

  “Right,” Long agreed. “Everyone bring binoculars, raingear, and vests?”

  “I forgot my raincoat,” Banowski mumbled. “We’re not gonna be in the cars?”

  Yesterday, after studying a satellite view of Trancas Canyon, we had selected several possible surveillance positions, including a fire road that overlooked the compound. Unfortunately, we were still unsure whether any of those sites would offer vehicle concealment. “Maybe, maybe not,” I answered. “We might have to leave our cars and head up there on foot. If that’s the case, we’ll break into teams and take turns in the rain. Don’t worry, Banowski. If it comes to that, you and I can alternate using my raingear.”

  “Assuming John can squeeze his fat ass into your stuff,” noted Deluca.

  “Hey, I just started a new diet,” said Banowski, patting his stomach. “Gonna lose twenty pounds by this summer.”

  “Only thirty left to go,” laughed Deluca. “Face it, Banowski. Your idea of a balanced diet is a beer in each hand.”

  “Screw you, Paul.”

  “Enough, you two,” I said, checking my watch. “We need to get moving if we want to be in position by first light.”

  “I agree,” said Long, rising to his feet. “Let’s do this.”

  In the interest of maintaining a low profile, we decided to drive two of our vehicles to Trancas Canyon and to leave the others at the Malibu coffee shop. As we began loading our weapons, ballistic vests, and raingear into my Suburban and Long’s Chrysler sedan, I noticed that in addition to her other gear, Taylor had brought what appeared to be a scoped rifle in a gun case.

  At my questioning look at this, Taylor shrugged. “You never know,” she said, piling into the Suburban beside me. “Pays to be prepared.”

  The drive up the coast to Trancas Canyon took about twenty minutes. Deluca had printed several Google satellite maps of the area, and with one of them for reference, Taylor acted as my navigator. Upon proceeding several miles up the canyon, we stopped short of the road’s dead-end terminus, ensuring we wouldn’t be visible from the compound. After donning raingear, Taylor and I abandoned the Suburban and continued on foot, leaving Long and the others to conceal the vehicles.

  Taylor and I arrived at the compound perimeter about a quarter-mile farther on. Stepping off the dirt road, we took a washed-out fire trail to the right, climbing the c
anyon’s southern ridge to a point where we could make out most of the intentional community grounds. The trees bordering the fire trail were sparse, barely offering adequate cover for someone on foot, and I was glad we had left the cars farther back.

  After a brief inspection of the compound, Taylor and I made our way back down, rejoining Long and the others at the cars. By then they had concealed our vehicles well off the road, and minutes later the eastern sky began lightening to a somber gray. With the coming of dawn, the rain, which earlier had eased to a steady drizzle, again increased to a downpour. Following a short conference, Taylor, Arnie, and I decided to take the first watch. Long, Arnie, and Banowski stayed with the cars, agreeing to relieve us in two hours.

  The original plan had been for our teams to stay in touch via cellphone, but upon arriving we’d found there was no phone service in the canyon, and unfortunately we had neglected to bring radios. Hoping a lack of communication wouldn’t be an issue, Arnie, Taylor, and I returned to the fire trail and spread out, each taking a vantage position that covered a different portion of the compound.

  Hours passed. We were relieved by Long’s team. Two hours later, we again relieved them. Banowski and I repeatedly traded off raingear, with the result that both of us wound up getting soaked. During that time the enclave slowly came to life, with more than thirty men, women, and children going about their morning activities.

  At around 9:30 a.m., compound members began drifting into a large central structure. There they remained for over an hour, eventually coming out to resume their daily routines. Disappointingly, at no time did we see any sign of the men who had broken into my house. Nor did we note the presence of automatic weapons, stolen vehicles, phony magnetic signs, or any other basis for a search warrant.