by Larry LaVoie
Martin looked at Nichols. “Green Keepers, are you certain he mentioned that name specifically?”
“I’m certain. I kidded him about them coming for the golf cart we had ridden in while touring the tunnel. Green Keepers. It sounds like it belongs on a golf course.”
“I think we’ve taken up enough of your time,” Martin said, ending the meeting abruptly. “We’ll show ourselves out.”
“Sorry I couldn’t be of more help,” David said, rising and following them to the door.
“You’ve been a big help, Dr. Wayne.” Heather handed David a card. “If you think of anything else, give me a call.” She flashed him a smile, “My first name is Heather.”
David took the card, Special Agent H.M. Martin, I wonder what the M stands for? He watched as they drove off. The sun was peeking over the Coast Range Mountains. David breathed in the cool morning air, now there is a girl I’d like to get to know better. He went back inside and sat at the kitchen table, still deep in thought. Something big just went down. There’s no way the FBI would be here this time of the morning, and Heather flew in from Washington: she thinks someone attacked those people, but why? She sure ended the meeting in a hurry after I mentioned Green Keepers. I wouldn’t be disappointed if she wanted to see me again.
Chapter 17
August 16th, Washington, D.C.
Heather was always nervous when she met with Agent Green. Since she had returned from Oregon, she felt like she was being followed and meeting with Green might compromise her cover. She wasn’t certain Josh had bought her excuse that her mother was ill in Oregon. To ease her fear, Green had agreed to put a tail on her from the time she left her apartment. He assured her she wasn’t being followed.
“We’re clear,” Green said, as he sat at the table across from her. “How are you holding up?”
“Okay, I guess. I thought there’d be more questions after I got back from Oregon.”
“We still have some questions, but your interview confirmed our suspicion about Green Keeper’s involvement.”
“I meant from Joshua Stone. Sorry I don’t have more, but I haven’t found any link to chemical weapons. These guys aren’t big on writing stuff down.”
The waitress dropped her pad on the table. “You two ready to order?”
Heather looked up at the elderly lady. Her hair was an off-color of red, not a shade you’d find on anyone after their teen years. “Just black coffee for me.”
“Same here,” Green said. “Bring some cream.” After the waitress left, Green leaned across the table toward Heather. “You need to find the trail, where they are coming from, or at least where the chemical weapons are stored.”
“This was supposed to be a money laundering gig. It’s not like I get to hang out with these guys. How am I going to get that kind of information?”
“There has to be a trail. Shipping receipts, trucking company records...they can’t move that kind of stuff without some kind of record.”
Heather scooted back in her chair to give room for the waitress to pour the coffee. After she was gone, she stirred in two teaspoons of cream and one sugar. “I haven’t eaten today,” she said, as explanation for the added ingredients. “I’ve seen Josh with a thumb drive. He keeps it in a safe at the house. It’s covered by surveillance cameras. They’re watching everything I do. There may be information on the drive that I haven’t seen.”
“Do you know the combination?”
“It’s biometric. It reads his fingerprints when he enters the combination. I can’t be certain, but I think it also has voice recognition required. I’ve only seen him open it once.”
“A biometric combination. No way we’ll be able to break that in a reasonable amount of time. What time do you arrive at work in the morning?”
“The driver has me there by 8:00. The security gate doesn’t activate until 7:45 and locks at 8:05, why?”
“I’m thinking the house has sprung a gas leak,” Green said, with a grin.
“A gas leak? Are you out of your mind?”
“You said no one lives there. If we blow up the house, we can gain access to the safe without you being compromised.”
“Ninety-percent of the time, I’m the only one there. He’ll suspect me.”
“Remember that city block that blew up in Oklahoma, last year?”
Heather looked at him and shook her head. “You didn’t do that.”
“Let’s just say, one of the houses had information we needed.”
Heather was concerned and was whispering loudly. “Why not get a warrant? It’s a hell of a lot less destructive, and legal, I might add.”
“Come on, Heather. How likely is it that the thumb drive will be in the safe by the time we serve a warrant? Be on time to work. You need to be close, but not too close. You’ll be with your driver when it blows, so your cover will be safe.”
Heather finished her coffee. “You guys do this all the time?”
Green shrugged. “I think your job is wrapping up. Once we find out where these guys are storing the chemical weapons, we’ll round them up and you can go back to tracing white collar crime.”
“I should live so long,” Heather said, pushing away from the table.
It was 7:00 A.M. when the driver pulled up to her apartment. On the way to Joshua’s house, she had the driver stop at a Starbuck’s while she picked up a double caramel mocha latte. The last thing she wanted was to get to the house early this morning. Quite frankly, she didn’t really know whether Green was serious, but if he was, she didn’t want to be a casualty. Ten minutes later, she was in the back of the black SUV, being chauffeured to her job.
The day before she had had a hard time digesting the conversation with Green. She had looked up the Oklahoma explosion Green had mentioned, and couldn’t find any evidence it was a government job. Usually there were a hundred different conspiracy freaks out there accusing the government for everything from the Twin Tower collapse on 9/11 to staging the first walk on the moon. Strange as it seems, there wasn’t any speculation as to what had caused three houses to disappear in the middle of the night in Oklahoma. It all came down to a ruptured gas line. Did the FBI really go that far to get information? She shook her head and smiled as they approached the gate to the house. She saw the house still standing through the wrought iron gate. Green was feeding me a line of bull. As Dad used to say, “Boy did he see you coming.”
The driver stopped and leaned out the window to enter the security code into the keypad. The sudden explosion caused him to panic and hit the accelerator, driving the SUV through the gate as debris from the house was flying toward them. The SUV came to an abrupt stop against a large tree. The driver side airbag deployed, throwing the driver back in his seat. From the back seat, Heather saw everything as if in slow motion. Like a bad 3D movie, bricks, glass and pieces of wood flew toward them and started hammering the vehicle.
Heather remained in the vehicle, stunned at the devastation around her. She dug her cell phone out of her purse. It had happened so suddenly, and even though Heather should have been prepared, she was shaken by the experience. A few seconds later and she could easily have been a victim. Her voice was still shaking when she called Joshua to let him know his house was leveled. As she was talking to him, she couldn’t put it out of her mind that she had narrowly escaped harm. A piece of wrought iron from the gate had lodged itself in the radiator, causing scalding water to burst into steam and rise in a cloud in the cool morning air.
With some effort, the driver managed to get his door open and was leaning on the back of the vehicle shaking his head.
“I’ll be right there to get you,” Joshua said. “Are you hurt?”
Heather checked herself. “Just shook up, I think. You can’t miss us, we’re the pile of twisted metal right inside the gate,” she said, into the phone.
Joshua stopped in front of a fire truck blocking the road to his house. He got out of his SUV and walked the few hundred yards to where his gate used to be. There wer
e police and fire personnel everywhere. By the time he got to Heather, she and the driver were standing beside the disabled SUV, recounting their experience to a uniformed police officer.
“What happened?” Joshua asked, approaching them. “I’m the owner of this house.”
“Our best guess is a gas explosion,” the officer said. “The fire marshal is on his way to investigate. The gas company is also on the way.”
“I’ve got some things inside,” Joshua said, starting to walk through the rubble.
The cop grabbed his arm. “Sir, you’ll have to wait here until they say it’s safe.”
“Any idea how long that will be?” Joshua asked.
“I’m here to secure the site. If there is no one inside, you’ll have to wait here with me.”
“No one was home,” Joshua said.
“You’re lucky. Your maid here, was lucky she wasn’t two minutes earlier.”
“Maid?” Joshua glanced at Heather. “Yeah, she usually arrives around this time. You’re all right, Heather?”
“I’m fine, just a little shook up; a minute earlier and we would have been part of the rubble.”
“Let’s go.” Josh grabbed Heather’s arm. “We’ll be back later,” he said to the officer.
Joshua stopped his Jeep at the nearest coffee shop. He had a worried look on his face.
“Are you, OK?” Heather asked, as they entered the restaurant.
‘What do you think? I should have never gotten mixed up with that camel jockey.”
“Andy?” Heather asked.
“Let’s grab a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you about it.”
Heather swallowed hard. She had never seen Joshua this nervous. They sat in a booth and ordered coffee. “You think Andy had something to do with your house blowing up? The cops said it was a gas explosion. That seems like a little overkill if he wanted to get back at you for something.”
Joshua shook his head and lifted his cup. His hand was shaking. “It’s not overkill for Andy. Two weeks ago we were in a demonstration at a construction site in Mexico.” He set his cup on the table and wrung his hands. The look on his face was that of a very worried person. “I should never have let him see the report.”
“Report?”
“Yeah, that’s what started this whole thing.”
“I still don’t follow you.”
Joshua leaned close to Heather and talked in a low voice. “Andy took thirty demonstrators to a little town in Baja California to demonstrate against a tunnel project. Believe it or not, they were boring a tunnel into an active volcano! The tunnel was being dug by the United States Army Corps of Engineers. I leaked the demonstration to the news. I just wanted to get some publicity; you know, make the headlines on CNN. I got wind of the project through a report a confidential source gave me. I gave the report to Andy and he jumped at the idea of stopping the project. I argued with him that it was too risky. Why do I want to get involved in an environmental fight in Mexico? All I was looking for was to let the local population know what a stupid idea it was to let our military bore a hole into their volcano. I thought it would get some international recognition for Green Keepers. Andy had bigger ideas.” Joshua sipped his coffee.
“You said you were there.”
“Andy called me to come down. He wanted me to film the demonstration for posting on You Tube and Facebook. He thought it would be good advertisement for the organization. I wasn’t prepared for what happened there.”
“What happened?”
He pulled his hand from hers. “You won’t believe this, but it’s true. Andy sent in suicide bombers to blow up the tunneling headquarters. Something went wrong. He said the cell phone they were using as a detonator turned itself off because of a low battery. The vests they were wearing didn’t explode. I thought, good, now he will stop this craziness and we can go back home. It was like some terrorist plot. I don’t use suicide bombers in my demonstrations. I don’t even know where he found them. Come to find out the Mexican Army was guarding the tunnel site and they took the suicide bombers captive. That’s when Andy went completely crazy. He already had a backup plan worked out and wanted me to video the whole thing. What he did next was awful. He attacked the tunnel site by helicopter with gas grenades. I had no idea they were not tear gas. Of course, we all had on gas masks so we were not affected by the fumes. But I knew something was wrong when everyone started running for that massive black hole in the mountain. Andy kept dropping these gas grenades from the helicopter and I was busy holding my cell phone getting it all down. One of the soldiers started firing from the tunnel opening, and Andy, making like Rambo, tells the pilot to set down so he could finish the job. I was still recording it on my smart phone. Andy was running toward the soldier when the soldier just collapsed. Andy turned around and came back to the helicopter and told the pilot to get out of there, quick. I’m sure Andy was looking for the video in the house.”
“Why wouldn’t he just ask you for the video? He wouldn’t blow up your house.”
Joshua gave her a sheepish look. “You’re right. I must be paranoid. More like guilty.” Looking down at the table, he massaged his forehead with his right hand and then looked up at her. “When the helicopter took off, I dropped my phone. I watched it fall and I couldn’t catch it. My first thought was, Andy will kill me. I was so shook up, I was afraid to tell Andy. When he asked about it, I told him it was stored in the safe at my house.”
“You dropped it?” Heather had a hard time keeping a straight face. She had just witnessed a side of Joshua she had not seen before. He was scared of Andy.
“When Andy finds out, he’ll kill me.”
Heather hadn’t touched her coffee. “Well, maybe it really was a gas explosion and Andy had nothing to do with it. Then, Andy would never know. You can tell him it was lost in the explosion. Maybe you’re off the hook.”
Joshua snickered. “Wouldn’t that be a hoot. More likely, he’ll think I blew up my house so he couldn’t get his hands on the video.”
“Why don’t you take this to the police?” Heather asked. “Andy seems like a loose cannon. Who knows what he’ll do next?”
“Not a chance. Andy would kill me, and the FBI already has me on their radar. They’re not going to give me a break.” He shifted in his chair. “I’m caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place. Andy isn’t going to stand by and let anyone with this kind of information live. My only chance is to work with him. You know the old saying, ‘keep your friends close and your enemies closer’.”
Heather became genuinely worried. “You need to tell Andy exactly what happened.”
Joshua shook his head. “I lied to him. In his book, that’s enough for him to kill me. Better to hope he wasn’t the one who blew up the place. I’ll have to play dumb.”
“I guess you’re right. Is there anything I can do to help? There was a lot of data stored on your computer. You think Andy was after that, too?”
“I doubt it,” Joshua said. “Everything was backed up on the cloud. I’ll get you set up in my office, until I can find another place. If Andy comes around, don’t say I said anything.”
“Not a word,” Heather said. “You want me to pay for this?”
Joshua waived her off. “I think I can handle it.”
It was after midnight when Heather slipped out of her apartment and met up with Agent Green in the D.C. subway. She discreetly handed Green a tiny flash drive. “You’ll find this interesting.” It was the recorded session she’d had with Joshua Stone after the explosion. “Did you find the thumb drive?”
“We’re getting the information off it now. We’ll nail this bastard.”
“Once you listen to the conversation, you’ll know Abdul Rahmani is really running Green Keepers, not Joshua Stone.”
“That means we have a terrorist cell in D.C. I don’t have to remind you to be careful.”
“You want me to be careful! You know the car I was in took a piece of shrapnel. That could have been me.”
“I would have preferred to know that before I got so close.”
“Buck up, girl. You said you were ready for ‘prime time’.” He watched as a smile formed on her lips. “That-a-girl. Stick close to Rahmani and Stone. This thing could come down fast.”
Something told her it wasn’t that close to being over. She still hadn’t found out where the stash of chemical weapons was hidden, and had no idea what Andy would do next.
Chapter 18
August 18th, Florence, Oregon
When he was in Mexico, David had longed to be home, get some relief from the local food, bad water, and cheap tequila. He had longed for a fresh salmon filet roasted over a barbeque with lemon butter, or a tasty Dungeness crab cocktail. Now that he was home, he had eaten his fill of seafood and was anxious to do something other than sit around the house and be reminded of his wife and son. It was too depressing. He couldn’t concentrate, was frustrated hobbling around on his walking cast, and he kept thinking he could have done something to prevent the dead bodies in Mexico. He kept going over the incident in his mind and lay awake at night thinking, but for accidental timing, he could have been one of the victims. The FBI had called it a massacre. Why would anyone be targeting a tunneling site? These days nothing should surprise him, he convinced himself.
He thought back to the day he had arrived in Santa Rosalia. He remembered an environmental group protesting outside the airport, but it was no more than a dozen people holding signs saying, Don’t mess with Mother Nature. He tried to think how anyone could be killed by gas in such an open spot on the mountain. He assumed the gas canisters were used by the Mexican troops to thwart the demonstrators. Now the only thing that made sense was that it was an attack by some outside force on the tunnel site. This brought him back to the first question, Why?
