“That’s it? No grainy photographs of my father at the meeting wearing a Sabot hood? No scratchy-voiced informant turning state’s evidence? Just a supposition in some cop’s file folder?”
“Bill, you brought this on yourself. You made an enemy of Tate and his reach far exceeds your grasp of political realities.”
“And those same political realities mean if I don’t resign then you’ll fire me?”
“Either way, you are finished in this administration.”
“And the president?”
“He’s hoping you’ll fall on your sword.”
“What’s going to happen to my father?”
“That’s up to your good friend Tate after the FBI arrests the leaders of the Sabot Society.”
“Are they positive the society is behind all these terrorist acts?”
“They are swarming in tonight. Should all be over by the eleven o’clock news.”
Hiccock just sat there. Then his face changed and his eyes set. “I will not resign. I will, however, take a leave of absence to deal with a family matter. My dad is about to be attacked and I need to be there with him.”
“This isn’t a university. There is no sabbatical.”
“Let’s take it to the president then.”
“Goddamn it, I’ll fire you right here, right now!”
“You don’t want to do that, Ray.”
“Is that a threat?
“No, it’s common sense.”
Reynolds sat back. “Enlighten me.”
“The whole reason I am involved in this is because the president didn’t have any options presented to him. What if the FBI is wrong? What if the society didn’t create the subliminal screens that programmed the terrorists? If I am on leave, we pick up right where we left off. If I am fired …”
“You are not supposed to be that good at political positioning. Leave granted, but if the FBI wins the day, you’re fired.”
“If they are right, I’ll resign.”
“Either way.” Reynolds watched Hiccock and saw him forming a thought. Ray braced himself for some kind of blackmailing, butt-saving, last-ditch effort on Hiccock’s part.
“Look, Ray, as much as I hate to say this, for the good of the country, I hope they are right.”
Reynolds rolled his eyes. “You are a fucking Boy Scout, aren’t you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Best Intentions
ANCHORMAN MARVIN WEITTERMAN sat in a tight, cramped studio in front of a sharply illuminated green screen. The color, so saturated and vivid, enabled the circuitry in the control room to separate his outline from it and replace the background with anything his producer desired. On the studio monitor was the result of this video trickery, a composite picture of him sitting in front of the “virtual set” of CFN’s MoneyTime.
A graphic appeared over his left shoulder. It read “SHAREWARE.” Marvin looked into the camera, reading the intro of his next story off the teleprompter. “Philanthropy in the cyber age? Many thought it went the way of the manual typewriter, but some anonymous donor is giving out free ‘Pocket Protector’ day-trading software, or shareware, to anyone who wants it. Her or his only request is that you send ten dollars to a charity of your choice. Brian Hopkins has more.” He waited until the red tally light on his camera went off, indicating that the viewers at home were watching the prerecorded report. He turned to the monitor showing the tape feed and asked the people in the control room, “Have you seen this? It is an amazing program. It protects your investments round the clock and is so fast it beats anybody to the punch.”
“Thirty seconds,” the floor manager called out, indicating there was a half-minute left to the taped report.
“You know this could have quite an impact.”
∞§∞
Like shooting fish in a barrel, SAC Joey Palumbo thought as he sat on the front wheel of a long-abandoned tractor, which was now more of a vine-covered topiary of a tractor. He was officially awaiting reassignment by order of the director and present here at the scene purely as part of his investigation into the grenade attack on the airliner at SFO. As he surveyed the impressive number of men and material assembled under such incredibly tight secrecy on the Dunhill farm, he amended his previous thought. Like shooting fish in a barrel … only with Recon scouts, armored personnel carriers and high-altitude infrared imagery. That imagery of the Sabot stronghold two miles off told a different story than Joey expected. It showed that the Sabot Society, for all its operational ability in the field, was less than professional about its own security arrangements for the meeting. Not a lookout, sensor, or even a mean dog on a chain was detected at T minus twenty. In fact, twenty minutes before takedown, Joey thought this whole meeting might be a decoy deliberately set to embarrass the FBI. Either that or the Sabots were really dumb.
∞§∞
Inside the ramshackle barn, Bernard opened the meeting. He was especially proud of a little piece of theatrical intrigue he was about to introduce to his cell leaders. He got the idea from reality television.
“In front of you are envelopes. The contents are your targets for the next phase. Each one of you will take his envelope over to the grill and open and read the contents there. Then you will place the paper into the fire. You will not discuss your target with anyone other than me.”
As he glanced over at the glowing coals, Bernard started doubting his decision to place the open barbecue grill so close to the wooden wall of the barn. If, as the paper burned, the walls were to catch fire, this place would go up like a stack of matches. As the heads of thirteen cells watched, he went to move the hot grill. He was ten feet from the burning coals when he heard the sharp sound of breaking glass, followed a split second later by a concussive wallop that slammed his body into the base of the grill, tipping it over and spilling the hot coals. A total of three flash-bang grenades detonated in very rapid succession. The weatherworn timbers and notched joints of the old barn shuddered and rattled. Years of settled dust and microscopic grain fibers were rocked loose and instantly became airborne. All fourteen people in the room were temporarily blinded and rendered deaf in an instant, which was the intended purpose of the Mark 4 concussive flare. A second later, eight fully armed agents stormed into the barn.
DuneMist was zipping his fly when the explosions rocked the porta-potty in the corner of the barn. Protected from the flash-bang by the fiberglass construction, he instinctively grabbed his .38 revolver. He cracked the door of the plastic outhouse just as an agent in full SWAT gear approached. The ensuing seconds went by as if in slow motion. DuneMist raised the .38 and fired point-blank into the agent’s chest. The stunned officer reeled back. The spasmodic reaction of his muscles caused him to involuntarily squeeze off a three-shot burst from his Mac 10.
The hot coals from the tipped barbecue ignited the strewn hay by the wall. Grain dust instantly combusted into a ball of fire. The air itself was now aflame, immolating FBI and society members alike. Agents in the second attack wave had to switch from takedown mode to rescue mode as their intended targets, and many of their own, suddenly became fire victims.
Joey Palumbo approached with that second wave. Their principal job was to collect physical evidence. That part of the operation was the most important from both a legal perspective and a national security point of view. If this action were to fatally wound the Sabot Society, the death certificate would be issued on the physical evidence they recovered. The postmortem would also determine whether this horrendous wave of terror was merely interrupted or permanently halted.
But evidence recovery would have to wait as Joey Palumbo and company dealt with the human tragedy unfolding before them. Shielding his face from the heat with his forearm, he ran toward the tinderbox. A man engulfed in flame stumbled out the door, clawing at his face. Joey swept the man’s legs out from under him and started rolling him on the ground, pumping his hands, making momentary contact against the man’s boiling skin and saving his own flesh from severe burns. Two other
agents took over, rolling and snuffing out the man’s clothing and hair. Joey headed back to the doorway. Choking on the thick acrid smoke, he peered through the flames, but not a soul was moving.
∞§∞
The bureau’s D.C. op center was tapped into the tactical operations radio traffic from the takedown scene. The cool, professional, by-the-numbers radio chatter normally associated with any well-coordinated, well-executed apprehension of suspects had suddenly turned into pandemonium. The color washed from Tate’s face as he sat down hard, stunned, as what seemed like a walk in the park a few seconds before turned into a human barbecue.
∞§∞
The crime scene is screwed, blued, and tattooed, Agent Palumbo thought, mentally assembling the first draft of his action report. Three agents dead, ten Sabots dead, four burned and in critical condition. Four agents and two firefighters treated for smoke inhalation. The human toll ate away at Joey’s core. It took twelve years and plenty of sacrifice to become an agent of the caliber lost today. All the training, all the legal casework, the dedication … snuffed out in seconds. Joey’s gut wrenched tighter as the notion of the instantly widowed wives and decimated families rushed into his thoughts. The contributions those agents had yet to make would never be.
To balance the loss, Joey reminded himself that he, the FBI, and America were at war with terror. In war, three dead against ten enemy dead was considered a good “kill ratio,” but that was a calculus made of soldiers on the battlefield. These were cops. Cops weren’t supposed to be combatants. Much had changed since America’s first wake up call on that crystal clear September morning in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Private citizens were now automatically deputized merely by being passengers on a plane, train, or bus. No American, be they policeman or grandmother, could ever assume they were a noncombatant. This way of thinking provided a little peace for Joey, as the mixture of anger, grief, and frustration he felt remained unfathomable.
He had been trained as a professional law enforcement officer. That entailed getting it right in times of pressure, keeping your head while those around you were losing theirs, rushing into places where others were running from. Above all, because we live in a democracy, the cop’s second-most-important job, after stopping bad guys from doing bad things, was ensuring the full effective prosecution of criminals. This was done by following the procedural rules designed to preserve chains of evidence and the legal rights granted by the Constitution.
Standing before the burned pile of rubble and ash that was the ill-fated barn, it was clear to Joey that little physical evidence had survived. Envelopes and pieces of paper were found, presumably with the names of future targets inside. Among the charred remains were personal papers, a few notes, and layouts of various factories, rail lines, and interstate routes scratched on yellow pads—in all, a pretty lousy haul for the price of three agents’ lives.
∞§∞
Twenty-four hours after the assault on Bufford’s farm, the news networks and daily papers anxiously awaited the press conference from the FBI on the details of the operation. Bernard Keyes was dead at the scene and two of the four surviving Sabot members had succumbed to their burns, leaving only Donald Mendleson (aka DuneMist) from Madison, Wisconsin, and Michael (Red Baron238) Spadafore from San Francisco alive. Both men were from notorious locations within the recent wave of bombings and terrorist actions—Wisconsin, the location of the train derailment, and San Francisco, where the plane exploded with Silicon Valley’s best and brightest onboard. FBI agents from field offices all across America were sifting through the lives and personal effects of not only these last two survivors but the twelve deceased members of the society as well. They searched for any shred of evidence or information with which they could piece together the extent and power of the now-decapitated organization.
Each special agent in charge had received an additional order from the top—find any references to Hiccock … William or Harold.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Authority
THE MORNING MIST was just burning off as Bill pulled up the gravel drive. His parents called it “the cabin,” but this was a house nestled in Roscoe, New York, the epicenter of the trout-fishing world. William Hiccock’s father discovered the joys of fishing late in life. Every day the weather allowed, however, he made up for the time lost with a vengeance.
Holding his peeled-back, plastic-lidded cardboard cup in one hand, Bill grabbed the bag from the Roscoe Diner off the front seat. It contained one black coffee, one tea with milk, and three fresh-baked muffins.
“Mom, Dad,” he called as he placed the bag on the kitchen table.
Alice Hiccock, in a robe and slippers, came down the stairs first, beaming at the sight of her one and only son. “Hello, Billy. You look thin.”
Bill laughed and hugged his mom.
Dad came down the stairs. “How are you, Billy?”
“Fine, Pop, how have you guys been?”
“Oh, can’t complain, things have been good,” his mom said as she opened the bag and poured the coffee and tea from the cardboard cups into her own mugs. “We see ya on TV every once in a while doing your job for the president. It feels real good to know my son is such an important person in the government.”
Alice got plates from the cabinet and, for reasons Bill could never fathom, sliced each muffin and placed them on the small dishes. Hiccock got his father’s attention and motioned toward the door. In response, the older Hiccock said, “Come out here, Bill. Let me show you my new rod and reel.”
Hiccock and his dad walked out to the porch.
“How’s it going, Dad?”
“Oh, you know, a little of this, that, and the other thing.”
“Fishin’ good?”
“Been pretty good.”
“Yeah, I got to get around to trying that sometime.”
The moment lingered. “You didn’t come here to fish, Bill. What’s got you up in God’s country during the middle of your big investigation?”
“Well, Dad, that’s on hold for a while.”
“Bad guys taking a vacation?”
“Pop, something’s come up. I’ve made a powerful enemy.”
“If you’re a worker, then it’s best not to rock the boat. But if you’re a leader, and you aren’t making waves, then you’re probably doing it wrong. When I was …”
Hiccock realized he had just assumed the emotional equivalent of sitting on his father’s knee as the man pontificated on life, work, union brotherhood, and good Christian values. As cherished a memory as that was, he forced himself to snap out of it. “Pop, they’re going after me through you.”
“Me?”
“They dug up some crap about the time the 42nd Street shuttle burned.”
“What? That was over forty years ago. What the hell …?”
“The Sabot Society.”
“Some Jewish group?”
“No, Dad, Sabot. As in wooden shoes, remember?”
Bill watched his father looking over the railing, imagining him traveling back four decades. “You remember that old story about the shoes? I must have told you that when you were six.”
“The current terrorist attacks are about to be blamed on the Sabot Society.”
“Who are they?”
“That’s the problem, Dad. They think it’s you.”
“What? What kind of lamebrain came up with that idea?”
“Do you remember a guy named Bernie Mercer?”
“Bernie …? Yeah, he was the kid who told me the shoe story. He was an apprentice in Signals and Switches.”
“Well, now he’s got his signals crossed. He’s the head of the group the FBI thinks is blowing up the country.” Bill detected a glimmer of recognition in the face that foreshadowed what his own would look like in thirty years.
“That idiot? He couldn’t blow up a balloon! He got canned right after the fire.”
“Did he start it?”
“Nah. He was a screw-up!�
�
“Dad, they think you and he did the job on the shuttle.”
“Those sons-a-bitches. It was a grease fire. The NTSB confirmed it in their report.”
“Wait a minute. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the fire?”
“It was rolling stock within the U.S. borders. That’s their turf. They found the cause to be a fire under the train on track three. Back then, grease fires from hotbox axle bearings were a pretty regular thing. This one got out of hand because a box had been leaking grease for months and it got all over the undercarriage of the train. When that happens, the least little …”
“Wait. You say the fire was on track number three? Didn’t the computer train run on the track by the wall?”
“Yep, track number four.”
“So it wasn’t the computer train that burned?”
“No, not at all. It was a manual consist.”
“Then why did they cancel the automated train after the fire?”
“The TA never really wanted it. The fire gave management an excuse to shut it down. And we in the union, well, you know how we felt about it.”
“So this was a non-event!”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. They had to cut open 42nd Street just to get the burned car out.”
“Yeah, but what you’re telling me is that the fire was in no way the first case of industrial sabotage committed by the Sabot Society.”
“Nah, it was a stupid track fire that got out of hand ’cause of crummy maintenance. I, of course, would never say that in public so as not to taint the work practices of my brother union members.”
Bill sighed. “Pop, I can’t tell you what a load off my mind that is.”
“Does this help you in your work, Billy?”
“It makes the FBI’s case against me tougher, but I’m learning a lot about politics and how the truth or facts seldom enter into it.”
The Eighth Day Page 28
