Solar Weapon

by David Capps

  “That’s a nice watch,” Jake said. “May I see it?”

  Sylvia extended her arm across the table. Jake held her hand and pulled her a little closer. He examined the watch and looked over at her.

  “At least it doesn’t run backwards.”

  She jerked slightly. He tightened his grip and whipped the handcuffs out from the back of his belt and snapped them around her left wrist. He stood and came around the table.

  “Stand up.”

  She stood slowly.

  “Sylvia Cuthbert, you are under arrest for violation of the National Security Act of 1947.”

  He finished placing her in handcuffs.

  “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him or her present with you while you are being questioned. If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed to represent you. Do you understand these rights?”

  Sylvia simply stared back at him.

  “Having these rights in mind, do you wish to talk to us now?”

  She stood silently, her gaze fixed on a spot on the wall.

  “Now’s your chance,” Jake said softly. “It’s only going to get worse from this point on.”

  “I want my lawyer.”

  “Yeah, about that. I’m afraid that is going to take a while.”

  “But you said…”

  “Sylvia Cuthbert, you are also under arrest for treason and conspiring with terrorists under the Patriot Act of 2001. You will be held in solitary confinement and without communications of any kind until the Government of the United States no longer deems you an eminent threat to the security of this nation. You can talk with me now, or later. Now will be much more pleasant for you.”

  “Enhanced interrogation?”

  “Is definitely on the table.”

  She looked deeply shaken, breathing rapidly.

  “I’ll tell you what. You think about it overnight. We won’t start until tomorrow morning.”

  Jake opened the door. Pettigrew took Cuthbert by the arm and led her down the hall, deeper into the security office.

  “You’re going to water board her?” Honi asked.

  “No,” he said. “That won’t be necessary. She’s already filled with fear. That’ll just get stronger overnight. She knows we water board terrorists. Let her imagination do the rest. She’s not really a terrorist. She’s a lead to a terrorist. She acts tough, but she doesn’t have the resolve.”

  “But if you thought she was a real terrorist?”

  “I’d send her to Gitmo in a heartbeat.”

  * * *

  Later that afternoon, Jake and Honi arrived at Giles Svensen’s apartment with an FBI forensics team.

  “Giles Svensen gave me permission and his keys to search his apartment, so we don’t need a search warrant.”

  Jake unlocked the door. The forensics team entered the apartment and began their search. Two hours later the search hadn’t turned up anything unusual. The forensics team left. Jake and Honi locked the apartment door and walked down the hall. Jake pulled his cell phone and dialed.

  “Kay, I have a cat that needs your support. I’ll leave the keys and address in the lobby at the FBI building. Thanks.”

  “So you do this a lot?”

  “Do what?”

  “Take care of people’s animals?”

  “I just see it as part of the job.”

  She scoffed. “Only federal agent I ever met that did.”

  CHAPTER 8

  Jake got a call from Briggs at 10:00 that evening. Jake needed to be at the FBI jet hanger at Andrews Air Force Base at 3:00 a.m. for an early flight to Killeen, Texas to assist Major Bob Stafford in the investigation of the missing nuclear weapon. He set his alarm and got four hours of sleep. When he arrived, Honi was getting out of an agency car, pulling her small travel case behind her.

  By 7:50 a.m. they were with Major Bob Stafford, alongside the road, one hundred yards from the front gate to Fort Hood. Two other cars filled with 8 CID agents waited behind them.

  “What about Sylvia Cuthbert?” Honi asked. “You were going to talk with her.”

  Jake pulled out his phone and called Sebastian Pettigrew in the security office at the NSA.

  “How is Cuthbert doing?” He waited, listening. “Okay, here’s what I want you to do.” Jake turned away from the group and continued talking. He disconnected and turned back to Stafford and Honi.

  “Well?”

  “She doesn’t think we will water board her.”

  Stafford raised his eyebrows.

  “I’ve arranged some entertainment for her.”

  “Entertainment?” Honi asked.

  “We’ve got company,” Stafford said.

  I’ll explain later,” Jake said.

  A black limo with a four star flag waving from the front bumper roared up the road. It pulled to a stop in the road beside them. The rear window glided down revealing a four-star general in the back seat. Major Stafford saluted crisply.

  “General Davies, sir, I didn’t expect…”

  “At ease, Major. Let’s get this done.”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The window buzzed up and the limo proceeded to the front gate of Fort Hood. Stafford, Jake and Honi hopped in the car. Stafford pulled in right behind the limo. The two cars of CID agents fell in line behind them.

  “Who was that?” Honi asked.

  “General Roger L. Davies, Commanding General of the United States Army Forces Command.”

  “He runs the army?”

  “He does.”

  “So we’re not going to have any issues over rank, are we?” Jake said.

  “Nope.”

  The black limo paused at the main gate. The window lowered. The guard saluted. The window rolled back up and the limo drove on with Stafford and the CID team in tow, while the gate guard continued to salute.

  By the time they reached the administration building, General Teague and his top staff officers were outside the front door, saluting.

  General Davies walked up to General Teague without returning the salute, standing nose-to-nose with him.

  “There isn’t a pit in hell deep enough or dark enough for you,” General Davies said. General Teague slowly let his right-hand salute drop to his side, his expression dropping in exact measure along with it. “But rest assured. I will find just such a place where you will rot forever.”

  As General Davies turned and walked into the building, a CID agent stepped in front of General Teague. “You are relieved of command. You are being held on suspicion of treason and conspiracy to commit terrorism.” He took the General’s left hand and pulled it behind him as he fastened the set of handcuffs to it, and quickly connected the cuffs around Teague’s other wrist.

  Once inside the building, the long and exhausting job of interviews and checking paperwork began. There was little hope of recovering the missing nuclear weapon. The goal was to find out who was involved in its theft. Three hours later Stafford approached Jake.

  “These can’t be right. I’ve seen the originals of the orders that initiated the transfer of three tactical nuclear weapons to Fort Hood. These records show only two weapons being transferred.”

  “We need a document expert,” Jake said. “I know just the guy.”

  He pulled his cell phone and called Briggs.

  “It’s Hunter, sir, I need Ken Bartholomew from the Secret Service here ASAP.”

  General Davies stood eight feet away. The General cocked his head to one side.

  “Your boss at the FBI?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  General Davies held his hand out. “May I?”

  Jake handed him the cell phone. Taking the phone, the General turned away, spoke with Briggs for a moment, he then handed the phone back to Jake.

  “I hate wasting time,” the General said, and then walked over to the Lt. Colonel who had been following the General around. They spoke and th
e Lt. Colonel headed out the door. The General walked off without further comment. Jake held the phone back up to his ear, but the line had disconnected.

  Forty-five minutes later Ken Bartholomew walked in the office door.

  “How the hell?” Jake said. “I thought you were in D.C.”

  “I was.”

  “And you got to Texas in forty-five minutes?”

  Ken checked his watch. “Thirty-one minutes. Traffic in D.C., you know...”

  “But how?”

  “I brought my document kit,” Ken replied, adding a smile.

  “You’re not going to tell me?”

  “Promised I wouldn’t.”

  Jake scrunched his lips together. “Okay, Major Stafford thinks these documents are phony.”

  Ken took them. “I’ll need exemplars from every printer on the base, plus any printer at General Teague’s home.”

  “So you think you can identify the exact printer used to make the phony documents?”

  “I know I can.”

  “You know how many printers that’s going to be?” Stafford asked.

  “Not yet, but I certainly expect to at some point.”

  Honi sat down at one of the computer terminals and typed. “I need a login and a password!” she shouted. One of the officers in the room stepped forward and typed.

  “Thank you.”

  Jake came over and knelt down beside her. “What are you on to?”

  “I’m accessing the printer records file for each device. We check the printers that’ve gone through the most cartridges first. Narrows the field.”

  “Awesome.”

  * * *

  Sylvia Cuthbert woke suddenly in her jail cell in the back of the NSA building security office. Distant reflections of light dimly illumined the hall. Otherwise everything was dark. She wasn’t sure what had awakened her, but it seemed like some kind of a sound. She listened intently for a moment and then relaxed a bit. Then she heard it again.

  “No, no,” a man’s voice said in a distant room. “I don’t know anything. I don’t. You have to believe me!”

  She listened closer. No one said anything else. She became alarmed as she recognized the sound of the man struggling, thumping against restraints, or a table maybe, as his body reacted. His screams sounded muffled and suppressed. She thought she heard water splashing to the floor, but she couldn’t be sure.

  The sounds of coughing and hard desperate breaths forced their way into her mind. What were they doing? Who is doing this? The sound of weak, deadened screams returned along with intensified thuds and sounds of struggle. She strained to hear more. Coughing again, and retching. She heard what might be vomit splattering on the floor, and then more exaggerated gasps for air.

  She got up and stood, frozen, next to the bars of her cell, listening, and thinking. Her stomach tightened into a painful knot as the conclusion leaped into her mind: water boarding. She broke away from the steel barrier that held her prisoner and wandered back to her bunk, too unsettled to even sit back down. I didn’t know they did that here, she thought. Of course, I’ve never been here in the middle of the night before, either, she rationalized. And there were always rumors of people who worked here and suddenly didn’t anymore. People she never saw again. What really happened to them?

  The sound of subdued screams and the panicked knocking noise returned, drawing her back to the bars of her cell. The voice was weaker, terrified, losing any semblance of control. Her breathing quickened. She gripped the bars, willing with all of her might for the suffering to end, and for the torture to stop. It didn’t. The palms of her hands began to sweat. Her hands trembled and her knees weakened. She wobbled over to her bunk and sat down. Silence enveloped her. She had never felt so alone, or so powerless.

  The coughing returned, weak and resigned. The retching barely heard, but painfully present. The frail murmur of protest against incessant, uncompromising abuse finally subsided. She waited, unsure of what would happen next. After about ten minutes she heard footsteps in the hall. She tensed, leaning forward to see who it was. Pettigrew slowly walked past her cell, shoes and pant legs wet, leaving shiny footprints in the poorly lighted hall. He didn’t look at her, didn’t even acknowledge that she was there.

  My god, she wondered. What kind of a place is this? Everything seemed so straight forward before. The risk was manageable; the reward was immense. They promised me I would be protected. She paced around her jail cell. She looked up at the ceiling and breathed out hard. I’m part of an elite group now. I have wealth; resources. I’m somebody. They will come and get me out. She tried to settle down enough to get some sleep, but she was still anxious about the sounds she had heard, and what may be waiting for her.

  It was almost two hours before she felt drowsy. Just as she was falling asleep, she heard the sounds again.

  “Please, I beg you,” the voice said. “I’ve told you everything I know. There isn’t anything else.”

  The thumping and sounds of intense struggle returned. She thought she could hear water splashing on the floor. The muffled screams seemed louder, but she couldn’t be sure. She still had to listen hard in order to hear what was going on. The feeling of panic rose within her. They have to get me out of here. They promised!

  The terrifying sequence repeated itself: the gaging, the coughing, retching. Each set of subdued screaming weakened and became more despondent. The man’s despair deepened in his muted voice and in her own mind. Her level of anxiety reached a new and painful high. How much longer can this go on? she wondered. Finally, the sounds stopped. Ten minutes later Pettigrew walked past her cell again, wet pants legs and wet shoes leaving those telltale footprints on the floor of the hall. Again, no eye contact; no acknowledgment of any kind.

  This time she couldn’t rest or calm down. She was still agitated and apprehensive when the awful sounds returned two hours later.

  “That’s everything I know,” the voice pleaded. “I swear, I’ve told you everything. There’s nothing else!”

  The sickening, deadened shrieks filtered down the hall. She covered her ears, but the horror was already embedded in her mind, constant and unyielding. Two hours later it happened again.

  * * *

  Jake stretched and yawned. The search for incriminating documents and additional suspects continued, with little progress, at the Fort Hood administration building. He looked at the clock on the wall again: One-thirty-eight in the morning. Everyone was exhausted. It was time to call it a night, and start fresh again in the morning.

  “Found it!” Ken shouted. Jake, Honi and Stafford rushed over.

  “When you accuse an army general,” Stafford said. “You better have rock solid proof.”

  “We do. Every printer ever made has its own characteristics, minor flaws, if you will. No two are exactly alike. So even though the same computer sends the same file to different printers, the end result is microscopically different. The paper showing two weapons transferred, instead of three, was created on this printer, which was purchased twenty-seven days after the transfer took place.”

  “So it is a phony,” Stafford said. “Which means Teague is responsible for the missing nuclear weapon.”

  “What size are we talking?” Jake asked.

  “Big enough. It’s a W79 nuclear artillery shell, the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.”

  “What size physically?”

  Stafford looked at him. “Eight-inch diameter, 44 inches long. You could put it in the trunk of a car, but not by yourself. It weighs 200 pounds.”

  “Would General Teague’s car be subject to search every time he left the base?”

  “Not normally.”

  “So he could have taken it.”

  “But he’d need help. Or access to a lift truck.”

  “I assume the army doesn’t leave these things just lying around.”

  “No, they don’t.”

  “Then the General, or somebody working for him, would have to have access to that secure area, too.�
�

  “They would. Everyone logs in and out. Signature’s required.”

  “Then we start there. Get the logs to Ken. See if he can tell us which ones are phony. It may give us a date when the weapon disappeared.”

  “On it.”

  * * *

  At seven in the morning, Jake, Honi and Stafford drove to General Teague’s residence.

  “CID removed everyone from the house as soon as we entered the base,” Stafford said. “As you can see, a perimeter guard has been in place since then.”

  Jake nodded as he saw how the guards were placed. Armed MPs stood in a circle around the house, such that each guard could see the next soldier on either side. That way no one could slip through, nor could any of the posts be left without being seen by two other soldiers.

  “Do your people have a ground-penetrating radar machine available?”

  “We do, actually.”

  “I want every square inch of this property examined with that machine.”

  “This can’t be the only property he has access to,” Honi said. “He could have buried or hidden something anywhere on this base.”

  “Yeah. But not the nuclear artillery shell. He would have to get that off the base and into someone’s hands before he got paid.”

  “So what do you think is hidden here?”

  “Something suspicious. Fake ID, a gun, money, keys, maps maybe.”

  Stafford moaned. “The base is 340 square miles. We’re all going to be old and gray by the time we search all of it.”

  “That may not be necessary. If General Teague knew we were coming for him, he’d need to disappear as fast as he could. That might preclude hiding something essential on the base, or at least it would need to be very close to an exit route.”

  “And there’re only two of those,” Stafford replied. “We’ll break it down by grids.”

  Jake pulled his cell phone and called Briggs.

  “It’s Hunter. I need a trace on all property associated with General Teague. His family, cousins, corporations and shell companies. Everything you can find. Thanks.”

  Stafford looked at Jake, a puzzled look on his face.

  “What?”

  “I was just wondering. If you needed to stash something off a road to an exit, how would you keep it from being damaged? I mean you can’t bury it in a sack, can you?”