Solar Weapon

by David Capps

  “What the hell was that all about?” Honi yelled.

  “What did you drag us into the middle of?” Jake demanded.

  Stafford held his hands up, palms facing toward them. “I know, I know.”

  “That idiot almost shot me!” Jake screamed. “I’m in no mood to be shot twice in the same week!”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t anticipate anything like this. I’m really sorry.”

  “I can’t believe that members of our own military were ready to shoot us,” Honi said in an angry voice. “This has to be reported to the authorities!”

  “That’s actually the smallest part of the problem,” Stafford said. He looked from Honi to Jake and back again. “There are two things I need to explain. First, the only one who knew where I was going and what I was doing was my commanding officer. I purposely didn’t say anything to you or Agent Hunter about our destination to prevent leaks. If not my commanding officer, who then, exactly, am I supposed to report this to?”

  “And the second thing?” Jake asked.

  “I came here to investigate a missing nuclear weapon.”

  “Swell,” Honi said quietly.

  “And this missing nuke is part of our investigation now?” Jake asked.

  “Unfortunately, it is.”

  The massive engines spooled up as the three passengers took their seats. Major Stafford sat with his head down the entire way back. Once the C-130 landed and the engines shut down, Jake took off his ear protection and looked at Stafford.

  “I don’t understand why you wanted us along on this. This should be handled strictly within the army. You have the Criminal Investigation Division. Why involve us?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know who I can trust within the army anymore. Apparently, I can’t even trust my own commanding officer. Agent Badger has resources I can’t even dream of accessing on my own. You, Agent Hunter, impress me as having the kind of analytical skills I could only imagine having. The two of you trusted me and helped me with a case you were only marginally connected to. Short version, I trust you.”

  “So what’s the deal with Fort Hood? Why there?” Jake asked.

  Stafford sighed. “It’s not well known, but Fort Hood is the army’s primary storage facility for nuclear weapons.”

  Jake nodded. “Okay, that, at least, makes sense.”

  “So let’s go confront your boss,” Honi said.

  CHAPTER 7

  The following morning, the three of them entered Colonel Jensen’s office. The colonel’s face was etched with anger.

  “Colonel, this is FBI Agent Hunter and NSA Agent Badger,” Stafford said. “They were with me yesterday at Fort Hood.”

  The colonel looked stiff and unyielding to Jake.

  “This is an internal matter,” Colonel Jensen insisted. “We don’t discuss army issues with outsiders, Stafford. You know that!”

  “We were nearly shot by our own people, Colonel. You were the only one who knew where I was going and why. Who did you tell?”

  Colonel Jensen fumed and glared at Jake and Honi. “I’m not discussing this in front of outsiders!”

  “Then I guess I have my answer, don’t I?”

  Colonel Jensen glanced around his office, apparently considering the alternatives. He began to calm down. “Do they have the proper security clearances?”

  “Both of us have clearances significantly above yours,” Honi replied calmly.

  Colonel Jensen looked Stafford in the eyes. “Major, I didn’t tell anyone about your mission. I have no idea how this all went to hell.”

  “How long since your office was swept for bugs?” Stafford asked.

  “Security sweeps my office at the beginning of every day. It’s clean.”

  As Stafford and Jensen continued to stare each other down, Jake noticed Honi was looking at the phone on Jensen’s desk.

  “Gentlemen, will you excuse us for a few minutes,” Jake said. Stafford and Jensen seemed not to notice. Jake and Honi left the office and exited the building. They stopped in the center of the parking lot.

  “Do you think someone is listening in on the phone?” Jake asked.

  “One way to find out.”

  She pulled her phone out and connected with Brett at the NSA.

  “Hey, what’s up?”

  “I need a quiet audio check on a phone.” She gave him the number.

  “It’s on. Two guys really aren’t happy with each other. You should hear the language.”

  “Thanks, Brett. Don’t mention this to anyone.” She disconnected. “Someone within the NSA was listening in on Colonel Jensen’s phone.”

  “Mole?”

  “That’s only part of what concerns me. Our new project could be compromised.” She dialed her boss. “Deputy Director Ellington, it’s Honi. I may have screwed up. Brett’s project in B6, area 4, I need a full lock-down on the project. Isolate and polygraph every tech who has been in the room. I need to know everyone who has had access to the data in the project.” She looked at Jake. “Yes, sir, we have a mole. Maybe more than one. I’m sending you a phone number. Can you find out who is listening in?” She disconnected.

  “Time to rescue Stafford and let Jensen off the hook?” Jake asked.

  “My thoughts precisely. But we need to do it outside.”

  They re-entered Colonel Jensen’s office, at which point Stafford and Jensen shut up, but maintained glaring at each other.

  “Major Stafford,” Jake said. “This isn’t getting us anywhere. We need to leave.” He tugged at Stafford’s arm and motioned with his head toward the door.

  “This isn’t over,” Stafford said, anger still dominating his voice.

  When they reached the parking lot, Jake said, “He didn’t do it.”

  “How do you know?”

  “We know,” Honi replied giving him a knowing look.

  “NSA?”

  “We could hear your conversation with the Colonel. You should watch what you say.”

  “It’s the army—part of a standardized vocabulary.”

  “Not really my point.”

  Stafford closed his eyes and breathed out. “Now what?”

  “Do you know anyone who can get the Colonel out of his office without raising suspicion?” Jake asked.

  “I do.”

  Ten minutes later they pulled to the curb in Officer Country, the residential section of the base reserved for high ranking army officers.

  “Let me go get her. She knows me.”

  Jake and Honi watched Stafford walk up the sidewalk and knock on the door. A moment later Mrs. Jensen appeared. Stafford didn’t speak, he just motioned her out of the house and down toward the car. Jake and Honi got out to meet them.

  “Eleanor, these are friends of mine, FBI Agent Jake Hunter and NSA Agent Honika Badger.”

  They shook hands. Jake and Honi showed her their IDs.

  “Mrs. Jensen, I don’t quite know how to explain this, but we believe your husband’s office phone is bugged. Your phone at home may be, as well. We need to get your husband out of his office without whoever is listening knowing that we know about the bug. Can you help us do that?”

  Eleanor grinned and her eyes lit up. “Really! Nothing this exciting has happened in decades. Howie and I have code words that we established right after we got married. Haven’t ever used some of them. Well, the serious ones. Where do you need him to go and when?”

  “Just the parking lot in front of his office in, say, fifteen minutes?”

  “Could I come along?”

  “Jensen’s going to be expecting her to be there,” Stafford said.

  Honi glanced at Jake. He nodded.

  “Sure.”

  Eleanor pulled her cell phone out of a small pocket in her dress and speed-dialed her husband.

  “Hi honey. When you leave the office I need you to stop by the commissary and pick up a 15-ounce can of green beans for dinner tonight. Would you do that, please?” She waited. “Thanks, honey. I’ll see you then.” She clicked o
ff.

  Jake smiled. “Clever. What needs to be done—leave the office, a number for how many minutes and a color for the level of urgency? I assume the smallest size is for immediate action, and you normally don’t refer to each other using ‘honey’?”

  Eleanor looked shocked. “I didn’t think our code was that transparent. Do we need better codes?”

  “Not necessarily,” Honi said. “Doing that is kind of his thing.”

  “Still…”

  “Your code is fine, trust me.”

  Fifteen minutes later Colonel Jensen walked out of the administration building and spotted his wife. His expression darkened when he saw who was standing next to her.

  “What the hell is going on, Stafford?”

  “I know you didn’t tell anyone, sir, I trust you completely.”

  Colonel Jensen frowned.

  “Colonel,” Honi said. “Someone is listening in on your phone.”

  “Bullshit! That phone is checked every morning for bugs.”

  “Colonel. Can you trust me that somebody is listening to everything that goes on in your office?”

  Jensen looked at Honi suspiciously. She nodded.

  “Home, too?”

  “Probably.”

  Jensen looked Stafford in the eyes. They nodded at each other.

  “Okay. Now what?” Jensen asked.

  “You and Major Stafford need to arrange for sensitive conversations to take place somewhere far away from any phones. That includes any cell phones. At least until we can find out who is doing this, and why,” Jake said.

  Colonel Jensen looked at Stafford. “Wouldn’t be a bad policy from this point on, present circumstances notwithstanding.”

  “Agreed.”

  “We need to keep this need-to-know and as small a group as possible,” Jake said.

  “And we still need to get into Fort Hood and examine those records,” Stafford said. “I’ll take an armored column in there if I have to.”

  Colonel Jensen grinned. “You’ve learned the army way, Stafford–projection of power. But if you ever want to make Lt. Colonel, you need to learn projection of people. Eleanor and I will take care of the arrangements. I want you and the CID team ready to enter the front gate to Fort Hood at 0800 hours, tomorrow morning. Meanwhile, Eleanor and I have to invite someone out to dinner.”

  * * *

  Jake and Honi entered area 4 of the sixth basement level of the NSA building.

  “Damn,” Brett said with a strong hint of admiration in his voice. “You sure stirred up the hornet’s nest!”

  “So what happened?”

  “Three technicians failed their polygraph, plus one tried to run. He’s being held in the security office. One or more of them have broken security, so whoever is implicated as a suspect in our phone plot may know we’re on to them.”

  Honi raised her eyebrows.

  “Yes, it’s that serious. Our new project is now triple password protected, which rotates every hour through a manually disseminated list. Deputy Director Ellington personally delivers the list.”

  Jake and Honi returned to the security office on the ground floor. As they entered, Sebastian Pettigrew stood, a grim expression on his face.

  “FBI Special Agent Hunter. Somehow, I figured you’d be the one to show up. I’ve got two people in custody, each in a different interview room. One’s the technician who tried to run from the polygraph. The other is his old supervisor, who, according to Ellington, didn’t have access privileges to your new project, but got in, anyway.”

  “You know about the new project?” Honi asked.

  Pettigrew nodded. “You know how this place works. With the security shakeup, everybody in the building knows there’s a new project.”

  Honi’s shoulders dropped and she furrowed her brow. “It would have taken longer if I’d simply painted a target on it.”

  Pettigrew chuckled. “Agent Hunter, I assume you want to interview the technician first?”

  “Yes. I need as much information as I can get before I confront the supervisor.”

  Pettigrew handed Jake the files on the two people and led them back to the first interview room. Jake quickly reviewed the file on the first suspect, Giles Svensen, looking for anything he could use as leverage. He wasn’t married, no children, no family to speak of, so, many of the usual ways of emotionally leaning on people weren’t available with this guy. Jake and Honi entered and sat at the small table opposite the technician.

  Jake flipped through Giles’ file again and studied his ID card, which was clipped to his shirt pocket. Jake pulled out his FBI ID and badge pack and plopped it down on the table in front of Giles, who stared at it and began breathing more rapidly. That’s a good sign, Jake thought. Fear.

  “Mr. Giles Svensen, you are being held for violation of the National Security Act. Do you have any family we need to notify?”

  Svensen shook his head.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Svensen blinked twice before he shook his head.

  So, a lie, Jake thought. He’s emotionally involved with someone. His supervisor, maybe?

  Do you have any pets at home? A cat, maybe?”

  Svensen suddenly looked up at Jake. “How…How did you know that?”

  “There’s a small amount of gray cat hair on your shirt. I don’t want your cat to starve. I can take it to a shelter.” The guy seems to be mostly a loner with very limited emotional bonds. So who does he care more about? His supervisor, or his cat?

  “But I…”

  “You aren’t going back home, Mr. Svensen. You’ll never see your cat again. You’re going to prison for the rest of your life.”

  “You don’t have any proof that I did anything wrong, you can’t…”

  “You ran. That’s actus rea, the act of a guilty person. Plus, you have mens rea, a guilty mind, knowledge of wrong doing. I can see it all over your face. You also gave your old supervisor the password to the project you were sent in to work on, in a different department. That’s also a violation of the National Security Act.”

  The shock was starting to settle into Svensen’s face and body. He was beginning to tremble. Not a criminal master mind, Jake thought. It looks like he cares more about the cat than he does about his supervisor. Time to push him closer to the edge.

  “I just hope they don’t euthanize your cat at the shelter. That would be a shame. What’s your cat’s name?”

  Svensen glanced around the room. Looking for a way out, Jake thought.

  “Scooter,”

  “What kind of cat is Scooter?”

  “He’s a gray tabby.”

  “Like the cat on TV with the cat food?”

  “Yes. He looks just like the cat on TV.”

  Time to make him choose between his cat and his supervisor.

  “Look,” Jake said in an understanding tone. “I don’t want anything to happen to Scooter. I can help Scooter out, but you have to help me out, too. You understand?”

  Svensen nodded rapidly, tears welling up in his eyes. “What do you want to know?”

  “I need to know everything about your old supervisor, Sylvia Cuthbert. How you passed information to her, how you got into this mess in the first place, how long this has been going on. Everything. Plus, you’ll have to testify against her in court.”

  “You’ll take care of Scooter?”

  Bingo, Jake thought. “I’ll take very good care of Scooter. I love cats too. If you give me permission to search your apartment, I can get Scooter help right away.”

  “Okay.”

  An hour later Jake and Honi walked out into the hall.

  “So how did you get a read on him so fast?” Honi asked.

  “Single guy, your basic loner, with limited social connections. Only two emotional-based things in his life. His supervisor and his cat. One or the other was going to be the stronger emotional bond. I figured he would care more for his cat than he did for his supervisor.”

  “Good call. Now for Cuthb
ert. How do you see her?”

  “Probably come off tough as nails, but she’s got nowhere to go. With the testimony of Svensen, we’ve got her. She just needs to understand that.”

  They entered the interview room and sat down. Jake could see what Giles Svensen saw in her. He plopped his ID and badge pack in front of her. The FBI badge was heavy, so it made quite a thump on the table, demanding her attention.

  “Giles Svensen has been arrested,” Jake said. “He’s being charged with multiple counts of violating the National Security Act. What can you tell me about him?”

  She looked tense, untrusting. “Well, he’s worked for me about three years now. He’s always done a good job. I had no idea he was, you know, violating security. That comes as a complete shock to me.”

  “Did you know he had a cat?”

  She broke eye contact briefly and then looked back at Jake. “A cat? He had a cat? No, I didn’t know. How odd.”

  Her first lie, Jake thought. “Did he make any suggestive remarks or advances toward you?”

  “Advances?”

  “You know.”

  “No, not that I recall.”

  “Did he make any contact with you outside of work?”

  “Like ask me out on a date? That kind of thing?”

  “Anything, phone call, note, birthday card?”

  “Nothing comes to mind.”

  Cool and evasive, Jake thought. She’s the one in charge of the relationship.

  “Ever bump into him accidently at a public function?”

  “I’d have to think about that, it doesn’t seem like it, but it could have happened without my noticing it.”

  They heard a gentle knock on the door. Honi got up and answered. Pettigrew handed her several sheets of paper and then closed the door. She glanced through the sheets and handed them to Jake. He took several minutes to go through the list on the sheets. It was the inventory list compiled by the FBI forensic team that executed the search warrant on her apartment. The three things he was looking for were on the list: a small amount of gray cat hair, tying her to Giles Svensen, a burner cell phone not authorized by the NSA, and a watch that ran backwards. She’s connected to the criminals we’re investigating, he realized. She’s a spy. Jake took his ID pack and put it back in his pocket. He looked at her watch. It was a typical lady’s watch.