by Dee Davis
“But if it’s really that easy to get the components,” Annie asked, “why haven’t we seen more portable nuclear devices in terrorist hands?”
“Access and money,” Tyler answered. “Obtaining the subsidiary parts of a nuclear weapon may be easy. But not so much with obtaining and securing fissionable material. Especially in a post–9/11 world. And even if you do have the infrastructure to pull it off, you’re still going to need a lot of cash, for production as well as for obtaining the needed parts.”
“Eight pounds of plutonium was offered recently on the black market for ten million dollars,” Owen said. “The culprits were arrested before a sale could be made, but that gives you an idea of the going rate.”
“Isn’t there a possibility that they could produce their own uranium at a significantly reduced cost?” Hannah asked.
“Not in this case.” Owen shook his head. “Uranium is much heavier than plutonium. You’d have to use around 130 pounds of uranium to get the same yield as about twenty-two pounds of plutonium. So while uranium is easier to obtain, it’s more difficult to transport, and virtually impossible to use efficiently in a miniaturized nuke like the one Smitty designed.”
“But the very fact that plutonium is so much harder to obtain,” Harrison added, “makes it that much more valuable on the black market. Hence the prohibitive price.”
“Well there’s no question these people have money,” Tyler said. “I mean, look at the amounts they paid Smitty and Ms. Waller.”
“So it’s possible they bought the stuff,” Avery said.
“Or maybe they stole it,” Nash suggested. “They’ve certainly proven themselves adept at that. Either way I think we’re in agreement that they have the means to have obtained weapons-grade plutonium.”
“Yeah, but it would be a lot harder than you’re making it sound,” Tyler said. “Plutonium isn’t just lying around waiting for someone to steal it.”
“Isn’t the stuff transported from nuclear plants to storage facilities?” Drake asked. “Seems to me all you’d have to do is figure out when the stuff is being moved and intercept it. Kind of like with the detonators.”
Tyler nodded. “It’s possible. Last year nuclear inspectors discovered that a plant outside Tokyo couldn’t account for some of its plutonium—enough to make at least twenty-five bombs.”
“But it’s more likely that the ‘lost’ plutonium was actually discarded in small increments after being reprocessed,” Owen said. “The stuff sticks to pretty much anything it comes in contact with. But the amounts are so minute there’s no way to reconstitute it into something that could be used to make a nuclear bomb, suitcase or otherwise.”
“So, you’re the expert,” Nash said. “What do you think the most likely scenario is for obtaining plutonium with a minimal chance at discovery?”
“In a word, Russia.” Owen nodded to Harrison, who exchanged the blueprint on the screen for a map. “This is a map of nuclear weapons storage facilities in the country. As you can see, there are over a dozen documented sites, and these are just the ones we know about.”
“Our people have been working with their government to help safely dispose of as much of this material as possible,” Avery said. “But as it stands now, it would be easy enough to get into any of these facilities. Most of them are in poor repair and understaffed.”
“Yeah, but I’d think you’d still have to have access,” Tyler said, studying the map, her brow furrowed in thought. “I mean, surely if there was an overt attack on one of the facilities we’d have heard something.”
“Not necessarily,” Harrison said. “Especially considering the current political climate. Russia is being more guarded than ever these days, and if someone did steal plutonium, the Russian government is far more likely to cover up it up than to take it public. That said, I’ve done a little digging and I’ve got two possibilities. A facility southwest of Voronezh. Golovchino. Near the Ukrainian border. Here.” He used a pointer to indicate it on the map. “And a second facility, Borisoglebsk, just south of there, also near the Ukranian border.”
“I assume there’s significance to the location?”
“Yes,” Harrison nodded. “There’s no love lost between the Russians and the Ukrainians, and it’s well documented that there is a huge black market in the Ukraine for stolen Russian goods, particularly weapons.”
“Makes sense,” Nash said. “But is there anything specific to make you think that plutonium has been liberated from either facility?”
“Actually, they’ve both come up short on recent inspections. But Golovchino had a significant amount go missing. More than enough to fuel the weapon we’ve been discussing. The Russians claim the material was moved, but there’s nothing to verify that. And the timeline works. If the plutonium was stolen—it would have been within the last six months, because it was noted as present in the previous inspection, which took place in March.”
“It’s still a shot in the dark,” Annie said, frowning up at the map.
“But at least it’s something we can follow up on,” Avery said. “Hannah, let’s go back over the chatter for the past six months with an eye to substantiating the possibility of a heist or possibly a black market sale out of the Ukraine.”
“Emmett, you and Drake work on sorting through the list of terrorist groups with the kind of infrastructure and financial backing to be able to pull something like this off—particularly ones with cells or connections in the Northeast, since most of the threats made in America center on New York City. And include outliers as well. Anyone that potentially could have the wherewithal to orchestrate this kind of operation.”
“But what if this is someone new? Someone off the radar?” Tyler asked.
“By eliminating known possibilities we’ll be able to narrow our focus and quite possibly turn up evidence that will lead us to the real culprits. But I’m guessing it isn’t someone new. They’ve been too organized, and it takes time to build up the kind of infrastructure necessary not only to build and deploy a nuclear weapon, but also to infiltrate an organization like ours. I’m thinking it’s someone we already know, but who may be wearing a new face. Or realigning in a new way. Maybe that’s what Jason meant when he mentioned their changing focus.”
“What do you want us to do?” Tyler asked, looking over at Owen.
“I want you to go through Jason’s things. See if there’s anything there that can give you a lead as to what he was involved with. Nash and Annie can help.” Avery pushed back from the table. “I don’t have to tell you all how critical it is that we move quickly. They’ve got to know that eventually we’ll be able to track them down, especially now that their conduit to knowing our every move is gone. Which means, whatever it is they’re planning, they’re going to need to execute quickly, before the opportunity is lost.”
Jason’s study was filled with mementos of a life lived well. As Tyler went through the contents of his desk drawers, she found it hard to justify the smiling man in the photographs with the one she’d found hanging from the rafters. It just didn’t fit. And no matter how many times she went over it, she still couldn’t make herself believe that Jason had turned on them.
He’d pulled her ass out of the fire so many times she couldn’t even put a number to it. How could someone so intent on saving her life have decided suddenly to play for the other team?
“I feel awful. Like we’re invading his privacy,” Annie said as she leafed through the books in the bookshelf. Jason had been a huge fan of comics—Batman in particular. His collection had been his pride and joy.
“He didn’t leave us a choice,” Owen shrugged. “If there’s a chance that something here could lead us to finding the bomb, then it’s worth whatever discomfort we might feel.”
“Yes, but he wasn’t your friend,” Annie said, the words not meant unkindly.
The three of them had been at it for more than an hour. Nash had begged off—Adam had soccer practice. Tyler wished she’d had an excuse, particul
arly one so incredibly removed from the reality of their everyday lives. Here, surrounded by Jason’s things, Tyler wondered if all the sacrifices they made for king and country were worth it.
On the one hand, Annie and Nash had triumphed, created a niche of normalcy in the middle of the chaos that seemed to always surround A-Tac. But they’d come close to losing it all. And then there was Jason—funny, techheaded Jason—he’d had his chance at real life, too. With Lara. But he’d thrown it all away for reasons she couldn’t understand, and somehow, somewhere deep inside her, knew she didn’t believe.
“Let’s just keep digging,” she said, with forced brightness. “The sooner we get through this stuff, the sooner we can get out of here.”
Lara had let them in, looking like a ghost, her face pale, dark circles under her eyes. She hadn’t even asked them why they were there, just let them in and waved them back to the study. Though Tyler couldn’t imagine her pain, she could come close. She knew what it would cost her to lose Owen. And they’d only just begun their journey together, wherever the hell it would lead.
“I think he’s got every Batman comic ever made,” Annie said, taking one out and carefully shaking it to be sure that nothing had been hidden inside.
“There are more in the basement, if you can imagine.”
“I loved comic books when I was a kid,” Owen said to no one in particular. “Although I was more into Superman.”
“Personally, I preferred Betty and Veronica.” Annie laughed, the mood lightening a little. “Although I gave up on Archie when I was about ten.”
“I think that’s the wonderful thing about Jason,” Tyler said, her throat tight with emotion. “For all his sophistication with computers, he’d never really grown up. I mean, look at how he related to Adam.” Jason had been one of the first ones to reach the boy after his kidnapping, the two of them playing computer games for hours on end, whooping and hollering like there was no tomorrow.
“Case in point,” Owen said, lifting a baseball glove from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. “The great American pastime.”
Tyler held her hands out and he tossed her the glove, the smell of worn leather bringing back hot Saturday afternoons spent at the baseball field. To her father’s dismay, she’d shown an early aptitude and played with the boys instead of the girls.
She opened her fingers to slide her hand into the glove, then froze, everything falling neatly into place. “I think I know what it is that’s been bothering me. About Jason’s death, I mean.” Her gaze encompassed both Annie and Owen as she lifted the glove for them to see. “Jason was left-handed.”
“All right,” Owen said, frowning at the glove in her hand. “You want to tell me why that matters?”
“It’s in the photographs.” Tyler dropped the glove on the desk and reached over to pull out the file she’d been carrying with her since the night before. “From the scene. When Jason was—”
“Hanging,” Annie finished for her, her eyes lighting with comprehension. “The knot was wrong.”
“Exactly.” Tyler nodded. “I knew something wasn’t right, but my mind wouldn’t let me see it. And then I picked up the glove and everything suddenly made sense.” She pulled a photograph from the file, laying it on the desk. “Look, here,” she said pointing at the knotted rope. “It’s a standard slipknot, but it’s on the right side. If Jason had tied it himself, it would have been on the left.” She moved so that Owen could see as well. “And it’s more than just the knot. Look at the placement of the rope.” She tapped the picture impatiently, her heart pounding.
“It’s under his chin,” Annie said, staring up at the rafters, reinvisioning the incident. “If he’d hung himself it should have been lower. Caught on the Adam’s apple.”
“This is more like somebody lifted him up there,” Owen mused. “Bloody hell, this means that Jason didn’t kill himself.”
“No,” Tyler said, her heart leaping to her throat. “He was murdered.”
CHAPTER 23
So if Jason didn’t kill himself,” Avery said, “who did?”
He was sitting across from Tyler and Annie at a picnic table in Tyler’s backyard. The smell of fall filled the air, but it was a warm day, and it seemed safer to hide in plain sight, out in the open away from prying eyes and listening ears. If someone had been able to get to Jason, there was every possibility that person had access to other parts of campus as well.
Owen was pacing along the fence line, talking on the phone, updating Logan Palmer, his hand cutting through the air as he attempted to explain the newest developments. Inside the guesthouse, Harrison, who’d also been apprised of the situation, worked feverishly to re-examine the evidence against Jason.
“Well, the most obvious answer,” Annie said, “is that the people behind all of this murdered him just like everyone else that had some kind of link to their operation. Maybe Jason simply outlived his usefulness.”
“Maybe, but if this was simply about getting rid of a loose end, then there’d be no reason to disguise it,” Avery mused. “We still don’t have anything to give us a lead to the identity of this phantom group. And thanks to Jason, they probably know that. Besides, they’ve been offing people right and left without seeming to care that we know. So I’m thinking there’s got to be more to it.”
“Okay, what about this?” Tyler flattened her palms on the table, the wood still warm from the now-fading sun. “What if we got it wrong? What if Jason wasn’t the mole? Instead, what if he’d figured out who the real traitor was? He said in his text that he had something to tell me. Maybe the something was that he knew who’d been betraying us. Lara said he’d been working really hard to try to find answers. Maybe he found some.”
“And somehow the real culprit figured out that Jason knew the truth.” Annie frowned as she considered the possibilities. “So then to keep Jason from spilling the beans, he or she silenced him. But why the cover-up?”
“It’s the perfect way to safeguard identity,” Tyler said. “I mean, if we believed Jason was the traitor, then we’d stop looking over our shoulders, leaving Jason’s killer free to continue his work with none of us the wiser.”
“But you said there’s a possibility of forensic evidence.” After their discovery about Jason’s death, Tyler had called the ME and requested additional tests to verify their suppositions.
“There is. But if I hadn’t asked for it, no one would have bothered to look. Initially the ME was only there to help cut through the bureaucratic red tape. I’m sure the killer didn’t expect anyone to figure out Jason was murdered. The truth is that if I hadn’t seen Jason’s baseball glove, I might not have realized what had been bugging me. Or if I had, it would have been too late to prove anything.”
“But what about the evidence Harrison found on Jason’s computer? The key logger and the surveillance video?” Avery asked, playing devil’s advocate.
“Evidence can be planted,” Tyler said.
“Yes, but your house had been bugged. And Jason had the live feed on his computer. Harrison verified it was the real deal.”
“I’ll admit the stuff Harrison found was pretty damning. But I remember when the evidence said Annie was guilty of murder,” Tyler said, shooting her friend an apologetic look. “Only she wasn’t. It was a set-up. And this smells like one, too. Which is why Harrison is in there going over all the evidence again, this time with an eye toward proving Jason was framed.”
“Well, if you’re right and Jason was framed, then we’ve still got a traitor in our midst. The question is who?”
“My money’s on Lara,” Annie said. “She lived with Jason. Which means she’d have access to his files and all of his computers.”
“Yeah, but she wouldn’t have had the expertise to pull it off.” Tyler shook her head. “She’s a doctor, not a computer tech.”
“Jason could have showed her,” Annie said, “maybe in conjunction with another operation. Or maybe Jason was in on it with her. Maybe he really did get cold feet
. If he was going to come clean to Tyler, then Lara would have had reason to take him out.”
“But she can’t be more than five foot five,” Avery scoffed. “How the hell do you think she managed to get an incapacitated Jason into a noose hanging from a twelve-foot ceiling?”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Annie said. “She could have put the noose on him first, and then, using it like a pulley, hauled him up into the air.”
“I suppose it’s possible,” Tyler admitted. “But you can’t discount her reaction on finding out Jason was dead. I was there. And she totally lost it.”
“Or maybe she’s just a good actress,” Annie said.
“Come on,” Tyler argued, “this is Lara we’re talking about.”
“I’m not trying to point fingers, but it does make sense. She’s the logical conclusion. She had access. She had the means. And if I’m right about Jason threatening exposure, she had the motive as well.”
“But she loved him,” Tyler protested, having trouble wrapping her mind around the idea that Lara had killed Jason.
“Sometimes love isn’t enough,” Annie said. “Reality gets in the way. You cared about Jason. He was your friend. But when the evidence pointed his direction, you bought into it.”
“And look where that got me.”
“The bottom line here, ladies,” Avery said, “is that this is all speculation. We don’t have anything to connect Lara to Jason’s death. And nothing that would make us believe that she had reason to sign on as a turncoat.”
“Actually, I might have something,” Owen said, flipping his phone closed as he dropped down on the bench next to Tyler.
“I’m assuming you brought Logan up to speed?” Avery asked.
“I did. And I’m sorry to report he’s not all that keen on A-Tac continuing to take the lead in this investigation.”
