Blink of an Eye

by William S. Cohen

Parker (Amos). Leader. Gets cryptic cell-phone calls from untraceable phone. Has expensive, sophisticated bug-proof room on second floor.

  Albert Morton, ex-Navy (Jonah). Was captain of nuke sub that carried SEALS for Special Operations Command. Founder of Lodestone, think tank with DOD contracts.

  Ed Hudson (Malachi). Ex-Special Forces. Commercial diver. Lives in Morgan City, Louisiana.

  Dr. Michael Schiller (Micah). Nuclear expert, Department of Energy. Wife ex-Stanfield staffer. About to become vice president of a lobbying outfit for nuclear power plants.

  “Interesting bunch,” Lassen said. “As a researcher, I’m impressed. I can see how the Israelis could get a lot of this with bugs and taps. But you said those guys used their biblical names at the meetings that the Israelis bugged. So how come we have the real names?”

  “The Israelis also had outside surveillance. Got the real names from license numbers—Miller’s Mercedes, Hudson’s Harley, Morton’s SUV, which had vanity Virginia plates: ADMIRAL.”

  “And Schiller?”

  “Used the Metro to Capitol South station. Clandestine photos. Schiller was still wearing his DOE ID tag. I think they may have had more on him but didn’t give it to me. I assume that the Israelis don’t talk about keeping a very close watch on nuclear weapons scientists at DOE and elsewhere in the U.S.”

  “Okay,” Lassen said. “What’s the plan?”

  “The Mossad routinely got their addresses and their landline and cell-phone numbers. Call them. Try to rattle them. See what they might drop.”

  “So you buy Falcone’s idea that these guys somehow set off the bomb?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Jesus, Phil! It just doesn’t make sense. These guys may be fundamentalist nuts. But they aren’t terrorists.”

  “Well, let’s find out. You take Schiller and Morton. I’ll take Miller and Hudson,” Dake said, looking at his watch. “Let’s see what we can get in two hours.”

  “Record?” Lassen asked. Spotted around the room were four cubicles containing phones and Skype Web cameras. The phones were all connected to audiovisual equipment that recorded and stored conversations and videos. Lassen and the other researchers were under strict orders to obey various privacy laws by recording only with permission.

  “Record without permission this one time,” Dake said, adding with a sly smile, “in the name of national security.”

  Dake went off to one cubicle, Lassen to another.

  58

  WHEN FALCONE returned to the White House, Anna told him that J. B. Patterson had taken personal command of the examination of the Regal digital images. “He’s in the EOB with Tony Knox,” she reported. “Set up what he called a crime command center in the Vice President’s ceremonial office. Max gave him permission. He got a kick out of his office being commandeered by the FBI.”

  Falcone again took the tunnel to the EOB and found Patterson amid Victorian splendor, sitting on one of the spindly legged, gold-cushioned chairs around a long table. Illuminating the room were multibranched chandeliers that were replicas of gaudy gasoliers: gas globes on top, electric lights below. Behind Patterson was a huge black marble fireplace with a gilded mantle. Ornamental stenciling and marine symbols adorned the walls and ceiling. In the nineteenth century, the room was the office of the Secretary of the Navy. Now it was the ceremonial office of the Vice President.

  Computer monitors were glowing in a room where a typewriter had once been a novelty. Next to Patterson, Tony Knox was squinting at an oversized monitor connected to a black metal case and a device that looked like a miniature sound-mixer console. Cables snaked down the highly polished table to other monitors being watched by four young men and women in blue windbreakers emblazoned with FBI in yellow.

  Patterson rose and greeted Falcone. “There’s something else, Sean. Somebody also gave Ned Winslow an FBI document. He gave it up when our agents questioned him. Said it came to him with the report on the Iranians. It’s got to be leaked by someone in the Bureau. A Brethren bastard, I assume.” He handed Falcone a sealed manila envelope marked FBI CLASSIFIED. “Seems a passenger on the Regal sent a message from the ship about seeing suspicious characters. The passenger’s name was Flanagan, Patrick Flanagan.”

  “That’s terrific, J. B.,” Falcone said, holding up the envelope. “It absolutely proves that the man who took the photo was definitely aboard the Regal.”

  “Well, I’m glad it makes you happy. I’m not happy about having to track down a leaker at the Bureau. But the good news is that we’re making tremendous progress on the photos.” Like a master of ceremonies, he swept his arms to take in the people at the table. “I brought in some more techs from Quantico to speed things up.” He nodded toward Knox. “Tony, tell Sean Falcone what’s going on.”

  “First of all, I asked Director Patterson to send agents from the Boston office to Sergeant Flanagan and have her retransmit the images to this computer,” Knox said, pointing to the black metal box. “That way I am not working with printouts. I got much, much better images. More important, I got what is called Exif, meaning exchangeable image file format. That’s the name for the nonimage information contained in the image’s data. By teasing Exif, I can extract date and time, the make and model of the camera, the shutter speed, and data indicating the sensitivity of the camera’s digital imaging system.

  “By having several separate images, I can deduce subtle bits of data that varies with each image. In this computer I am mimicking the camera’s digital imaging system and essentially adding more power. I can enlarge and enhance. I can also cordon off sections of the image so that I can concentrate on part of the overall image. Here’s what I mean.” Knox pulled back so that Falcone could lean in and view the monitor.

  At the lower left corner of the monitor was a miniature version of the original snapshot of a smiling Kathy Flanagan. The rest of the monitor contained a greatly enlarged image of the upper right portion of the snapshot: a murky silhouette of something not quite as black as the night sky surrounding it.

  “Now watch,” Knox said as he moved control levers. The silhouette grew larger and sharper. It looked like the arm of a crane with a taut cable hanging from it. Knox touched the levers again, producing the illusion of the image shifting. Now on the monitor was a dim outline of what could be the bow of a ship. Floating inside the outline were spectral white letters: J-A-M-A.

  “What do you make of it?” Falcone asked, his eyes on the screen.

  “Jeanie,” Knox called out. A woman on the other side of the table looked up.

  “Copy me what you’ve got,” he said, touching a lever. On the monitor appeared an overlay on the dim silhouette.

  “Jeanie has extrapolated, adding an interpretation over the true image,” Knox said. The overlay looked like a sharper version of the white lines that TV weather forecaster draws over maps. Now the image was clearly the starboard bow of a ship, the arm of a crane with its cable in the water, and something emerging. J-A-M-A was also sharper.

  Falcone turned to Patterson and said, “We’ve got to talk, J. B.” Falcone walked down the long room and stood in front of the second ornate fireplace. Patterson followed. “You saw that image, J. B. Would you say that it looked like a crane hauling something out of the sea?”

  “Yes, looks that way, doesn’t it?” Patterson said, sounding puzzled.

  “J. B., I’ve been keeping very close some information that I received from the head of NEST in Savannah,” Falcone said. He went on to tell Patterson about the U.S. nuclear bomb off Savannah.

  “My God, Sean!” Patterson said. “Why didn’t—? Never mind. You’re Lone Rangering this. But, you’re right. It does look like something being lifted out of the water. And, of course, Tony and Jeanie did not have prior knowledge. Still”—a note of caution cut into his voice—“still, this isn’t forensic. We can’t prove—”

  “Forget proof, J. B. We need an active investigation, starting with J-A-M-A.”

  “Right. I’ll get people on this i
mmediately. It shouldn’t take long to get the name of every ship whose name begins with those letters. And then find it and—”

  “If what I assume happened,” Falcone said, “that ship does not exist anymore.”

  “Of course. Okay. We’ll throw everything we have at identifying it, tracking down the owners.” He pulled a cell phone from a holster on his belt. “Director here. Get me Deutermann.” After a moment’s pause, Patterson added, “Meet me in my office in ten minutes.”

  Patterson holstered the phone, saying to Falcone, “Assistant Deputy Director Henry Deutermann is running the Savannah investigation—under my direct supervision. Luckily he came back to headquarters this morning to brief me. Ray Quinlan wants all we’ve got. For the President, when he—”

  “Tell Deutermann what I just told you. But keep it away from Quinlan. I want the chain of command to be you-to-me-to-the-President. I’m as anxious as Ray to help the President at the joint session tonight. But I must be the only one handling the Savannah bomb information. Got it?”

  “Not quite, Sean. My boss is Attorney General Roberta Williams. And I’m in law enforcement. My job is to bring in criminals so they can be put on trial. I can’t follow your kind of chain of command. I will do my job. And I will keep you informed. Period.”

  “Okay, J. B. We play it your way. But please tell me about that ship as soon as you get anything solid. And one more thing. Very sensitive. That last image, the one that is all bright light?”

  “What about it? Tony gave it a pass. Says it looks like a malfunction of some type.”

  “Before you head back to headquarters, tell Tony to e-mail that image to me, and tell him to give me its day and time data.”

  *

  SHORTLY after Falcone returned to his office, the image arrived. He immediately called Lanier.

  “Something has come up, Rube.”

  “So I see,” Lanier responded. “GNN’s calling it a constitutional crisis.”

  “Well, yes. A crisis in a crisis,” Falcone said. “I’ve got something else. I’m sending you a digital image, a photograph taken by someone aboard the Regal. The last of a series of snapshots. All it shows is a brilliant light. Can you please see what you and your deployable lab can do with it?”

  “Brilliant light? My God!”

  “Right. Now, something else. Ever hear of a Dr. Michael Schiller?”

  “Sure. Met him a few times. Didn’t know him personally. Worked in DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory. Last I heard he was transferred to DOE in Washington. What’s up? I can get some more information if you want. I have general access to personnel information. But—”

  “Was he involved in weapons development?”

  “I believe so.”

  “Get me what you can—as fast as you can.”

  59

  DAKE DECIDED to call Hudson first. He Googled Morgan City, Louisiana. It was about seventy miles west of New Orleans and called itself the gateway to the Gulf of Mexico in the hunt for the Gulf’s shrimp and offshore oil.

  “My name is Philip Dake. I’d like to talk to Ed Hudson,” he said to the woman who answered the phone.

  “So would I,” the woman said. “I’m his wife and I’d like to know where the hell he is.” She paused. “You don’t sound like the guy who calls him. You from Washington?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I guess you don’t know where he is, either.”

  “That’s right. When did you last see him?”

  “About ten, twelve days ago. He called me every day or so, from Washington, I guess. Said he was on a diving job in Chesapeake Bay. Haven’t heard from him for … let’s see … four days, yeah, four days ago.”

  “Oh,” Dake said, keeping his voice calm. “Well, I’d like to leave my number for him to call … when he gets back. Thank you.” He gave her his number and hung up.

  *

  MICHAEL Schiller answered the phone on the first ring.

  “Good afternoon, Doctor. My name is Mark Lassen and—”

  “I am very busy. I do not know you.”

  “This is just a routine call, Doctor.

  “What is this about?” Schiller asked. Lassen thought he sounded nervous.

  “I am calling for the Washington Post.”

  “Wh … what is this about?” Schiller repeated.

  “It’s about your meetings with General George Parker—who called himself Amos, I believe. You were known as Micah, interesting name. And Albert Morton, or Jonah. And a diver named Malachi, or Hudson. And—”

  “Enough! Enough!” Schiller hung up.

  Lassen called him back immediately, getting only a busy signal. Assuming that Schiller’s phone was off the hook, Lassen called Albert Morton, who lived not far away, in Falls Church, Virginia. A male voice answered.

  “I am calling for Albert Morton,” Lassen said. “Captain Morton?”

  “This is his son, Albert Morton, Junior. Do you have news?”

  “Not exactly,” Lassen said.

  “I thought you were the Coast Guard,” Morton Junior said. “I reported…”

  “Oh, yes,” Lassen said, taking a chance, “the report that Captain Morton is missing.”

  “Any news?”

  “Actually, I was calling for any further information you might have. The name of the boat, for instance?”

  “I’m sorry, sir. As I said when I called, I don’t know the name of the boat. All he said was that he would be away on a friend’s boat for a few days. That’s all my mother and I know.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Morton,” Lassen said. “Sorry to bother you.”

  Lassen ran to Dake’s cubicle just as Dake hung up on Schiller.

  “Phil, we’ve got to call the Coast Guard,” he said, rapidly repeating the conversation with Morton’s son.

  “No. Better to call Falcone. He’ll be able to get a faster response,” Dake said, turning back in the cubicle and dialing Falcone’s cell phone.

  Falcone put in a call directly to Admiral Mason aboard the Trumbull on the assumption that the commandant of the Coast Guard would get the information faster than a mere national security advisor.

  Minutes after Falcone pocketed the cell phone, Lanier called.

  “Something interesting, Sean. Schiller did work at Los Alamos in weapon development. He was transferred, rather abruptly, to Washington right after a serious incident at the Los Alamos lab. I’m sending you an e-mail over what they tell me is a secure line.”

  Falcone had turned his office into his version of a crime command center. Mae had found a large square table and had it set up in the middle of the office. Around them, at laptops, sat Mae, Anna Dabrowski, Jeffrey Hawkins, and James Annaheim, the analyst from the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency who had worked with Falcone on the night of the Savannah disaster. There was also a White House communications technician at a laptop and a phone console. Periodically, Falcone dropped off a piece of paper or talked to one of the tablemates. They were gathering the ingredients for what Falcone envisioned as the narrative of discovery that would be presented to the President before he headed off to Capitol Hill.

  60

  NORMAN MILLER’S grand home in Potomac looked like a Venetian doge’s palace that had been transported to a Maryland hill. The mansion, full of excessive splendor, looked over the Potomac River and was surrounded by five acres of the most expensive real estate in suburban Washington. A six-foot fence of wrought-iron pickets surrounded the property. A driveway curved up to the front door from the gatehouse security post at River Road, the two-lane highway that ran from Potomac to Washington.

  Behind the mansion’s facade of limestone handmade bricks were both a regal residence and a modern office complex, the headquarters of Miller’s creation, the private equity firm that he had named True North. Its five employees parked their cars behind the mansion. Nearby was at the entrance of an underground garage, where Miller tinkered over vintage cars from the collection at his Florida home.

  Miller was working
on the fluid-drive transmission of a green 1950 DeSoto when his cell phone rang. He, like many cell-phone users, believed that few people knew his number. He did not recognize the number on the phone’s identification screen.

  “Mr. Norman Miller?”

  “Who is this, please?”

  “My name is Philip Dake. I work for the Washington Post.”

  “Look, you’ve done enough coverage of True North. Whatever your question is, my answer is ‘No comment.’”

  “This is not about True North, Mr. Miller. It’s about your meetings with General George William Parker, also known as Amos, and Albert Morton, whom you also may know as Jonah, a commercial diver named Hudson, or Malachi, and—”

  To Miller’s churning mind came a memory: a poker game in his Dartmouth dorm. He had scooped up fifty-four dollars and seventy-five cents with a pair of eights. His roommate later told him that he had thrown in a hand that contained three kings. Miller always considered this the beginning of his high-risk, high-gain career.

  “Look, can I call you back?”

  “Yes, in fifteen minutes. Otherwise we will have to go with what we have.”

  “Which is?”

  Dake, deciding to take a chance, replied, “What we have is that you and fellow members of The Brethren were involved in the detonation of a nuclear bomb at the mouth of the Savannah River.”

  After a short pause, Miller said, “Where do you live?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to talk to you man-to-man.”

  “Why? To make a deal?”

  “Please give me your address.… I can certainly find it.”

  “Yes, you can. And you can send somebody with an AK-47.”

  “How much do you know about me, Dake?”

  “The usual publicly known information. Plus a lot of knowledge about Hosea and his friends.”

  “Yes. I am somewhat of a public man, Dake. And whether you admit it or not, I am sure you are recording this conversation. I kill you, I am in big trouble.”

  “Well, yes. But, you kill me, I am dead.”