9 More Killer Thrillers

by Russell Blake

  “You make a pretty good case for POS number three,” I said, smiling. “You’ve got a name and address, I’m guessing?”

  “Name, address, birth date, phone number – home and office – email, social security number, banker’s contact info. Shall I go on?”

  “Favorite flavor of ice cream?” I joked.

  “Peanut butter fudge,” Beth said, without breaking stride.

  I half believed that cyberspace held information on everyone’s ice cream preferences, and that it only took someone like Beth to excavate it. Maybe more than half believed it. In any case, I wasn’t going to ask her whether she was joking.

  “Can you put that all in an email and shoot it over to my cell,” I asked, tapping the smartphone in my pants pocket. “Please?”

  “Consider it done,” Beth said. “Would you like fries with that?”

  Beth smiled.

  I smiled back.

  “I’ll skip the fries for now,” I said. “But maybe you could save me something sweet for later?”

  CHAPTER 41

  Ames, Iowa.

  Kent Evans spent the day after sending the second email to Ottawa County as he had the one before, scouring the internet in search of any mention of a Foot and Mouth Disease outbreak in Minnesota. He searched using every browser he could think of – Yahoo, Web Crawler, Bing, Altavista, and even Lycos – just in case Google had failed to index the latest news out of rural America.

  No matter how or where he looked, the results were the same – there was no mention of FMD anywhere. But he kept on trying . . . search after search, minute after minute, hour after hour, he punched the keyboard a little more harshly with each iteration, willing the computer to return the result he sought.

  By evening, his fixation had turned to obsession, with curses erupting after each failed search.

  “Kent.” It was his wife, Jeannie. She was standing on the steps leading from the kitchen down to his basement office.

  He didn’t want to look away, couldn’t stop searching until he’d found the answer.

  “Kent!” she said, more forcefully. “Look at me!”

  Kent looked down at his fingers as they hovered over the keyboard. They wanted to keep typing. But he needed to respond to Jeannie. Didn’t he?

  With no small effort, he retrieved his hands from the computer and laid them flat on his jeans. Turning to his wife he said, “Yes, Hon?” He tried to project calmness and control.

  Jeannie looked angry . . . and worried.

  “What in the world has gotten into you, Kent? For heaven’s sake, the kids are home. Your cursing is frightening them.”

  “Uh . . . everything’s good,” he said. “Just . . . uh . . . just can’t get this dang account to balance.” He looked to her for understanding and found none.

  “Frustrating,” he said. “Frustrating is what it is.” He suddenly became aware of his rigid hands dementedly rubbing the denim of his pant legs. With an awkward effort, he forced them to his hips.

  Jeannie took a deep breath. “I don’t suppose you’ll be joining us for dinner,” she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “Probably can’t break away just now.”

  Kent’s heart sank. One hand cupped his forehead then slid down over his eyes, where it stopped, thumb and two fingers massaging his temples.

  “I . . . I’m . . . sorry,” he said, the hand still covering his eyes. “I just . . . I’m sorry.”

  Jeannie made no response. A moment later he heard her footsteps climbing the stairs back toward the kitchen.

  He sat like that for a while, elbow on the desk and one hand over his eyes. His mind ricocheted from the virus, back to Jeannie, then to his kids, then back to the virus again. He couldn’t seem to corral his thoughts long enough to regain control.

  Darkness began to envelop the room. The sun was setting. He checked his watch. Eight-thirty. Where had the time gone? He needed to get back on the computer, back to his plan.

  He centered himself on the keys and looked up at the screen.

  There, in boldface type, were the words: “All work and no play makes Kent a dull boy.”

  He stared at the sentence, rolling it over and over in his mind.

  So this is what it has come to, Kent? You’re losing your mind? But, no . . . you haven’t lost it yet, have you. You’ve still got Plan B.

  Yes.

  Now is the time for all good men . . . No!

  Now is the time . . . the time to act. You’ve waited too long already. Tomorrow will be D-Day . . . the day Kent Evans will show the world he is a smart boy after all.

  CHAPTER 42

  Red Wing, Minnesota.

  I was thrilled that Beth had identified a possible POI for the Foot and Mouth threat. Unfortunately, Costa would be visiting Mr. Cho’s widow later today and I couldn’t run two directions at once. My first call was to Costa.

  “Costa,” he answered.

  “I’ve got a lead on the FMD threat,” I said. “A possible POI in Ames, Iowa.”

  “Unbelievable,” he said. “My guys still don’t have squat. How did you get this information?”

  I contemplated the methods by which Beth had undoubtedly obtained the critical info. I was pretty sure she had accessed Classified databases without proper authorization. Passport records, certainly. Who knew what else?

  “My source is confidential,” I said at last, “but highly reliable.”

  “Okay,” Costa said. “Let’s deal with that issue later. What did you find out and who is our POI?”

  I told Costa as much as I could without incriminating my wife.

  “The man’s name is Kent Evans,” I said. “He sells drugs to veterinarians. I have good reason to believe that he has recently traveled to South Africa, which if you recall, is where the CDC guys said the FMD virus at Holton’s farm likely originated.”

  “They didn’t say that, exactly,” Costa pointed out, quite correctly. “They said the virus strain was of a type found in South Africa.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but only in South Africa. So that makes South Africa the logical source for the virus. Right?”

  “Maybe,” Costa said. “I shall give that one more thought. What else have you got? Does this guy, Evans, have any known terror connections?”

  “No.”

  “Is he a foreign national?”

  “No.”

  “Criminal record? Suspicious increase in income? Subscribes to jihadi literature? Has grudge against cattle farmers? Belongs to PETA?”

  “Honestly,” I said, growing frustrated with Costa’s doubts, “I have no idea. He’s upside down on his mortgage though, and his credit cards are maxxed out.”

  “If that made a person a suspect,” Costa said, “we would have to put a tail on half the country.”

  That was true enough.

  “Look,” I said. “I have complete confidence in the knowledge of my informant, and the accuracy of his . . . or her . . . information. We have a good shot at preventing this guy’s next attack, but we need to act now. Are you in, or what?”

  I suddenly recalled with great clarity why I loathed bureaucracy.

  “I hear what you’re saying, Beck,” Costa said. “But I simply cannot send a team of FBI agents on a wild goose chase after some unremarkable American citizen of . . . what? Norwegian? . . . descent, who hasn’t done anything remotely illegal, at least as far as we know, unless you give me more to go on than this.”

  “Okay,” I said. It doesn’t pay to piss off a bureaucracy. It’s not going to change just for you anyway.

  “Okay?” Costa said. “That’s it?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Can’t fight City Hall. So . . . moving on . . . when are we going to pay a visit to the Cho family homestead?”

  “We have almost all the assets assembled,” Costa said. “It should be maybe a couple more hours.”

  “Man, you guys are slow!” I immediately regretted saying that out loud. It was not a productive comment. “I mean . . . I shall await your call, Constab
le. You have my number, of course?”

  “Oh, I do have your number,” Costa said. “Now if you will excuse me, I have to get on with plodding through my day.”

  “Please let me know if there’s any way I can help,” I said, already quite certain that there wouldn’t be.

  * * *

  After speaking with Costa, it became apparent that I would need some help if I were to properly assist the FBI with doing its job. Things shouldn’t be so complicated, but they almost always are.

  I had two calls to make. I dialed the first.

  “Yeah?”

  “Bull,” I said. “It’s Beck.”

  “I got caller ID,” he said.

  Everybody’s a wise guy.

  “Bull, I need your help with a Classified project,” I said. “Counter-terrorism stuff. You interested?”

  “Sure,” he said.

  Bull never utters one word more than necessary. At least, it sure seems that way.

  “Listen up,” I said. “I’ve got two separate deals going and you’ve gotta help me cover at least one.”

  I gave Bull a military-style synopsis of the two separate terror threats, including suspects – Bull doesn’t use POI. Who can blame him? – locations, likely obstacles – including the FBI – and my thoughts on how he might be of service. Bull listened silently . . . or took a cat nap . . . the two things sound the same on the phone.

  “Some choice,” he said. “Sheriff on the one and FBI on the other.”

  “Yeah, well,” I said, “Life’s a bitch sometimes. You in or not?”

  “I’m in,” he said. “I’ll cover whatever gets most screwed up.”

  “Great,” I said. “I’ll be in touch. In the meantime, you should talk to Beth to get the details. Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you’ll call her, right?”

  There was a buzzing in the phone line. Bull had hung up.

  My next call was to Gunner. This one would require more finesse. If Gunner just had the proper clearances, my life would be a whole lot easier. Then I remembered what I had just told Bull. C’est la vie.

  I punched up Gunner on speed dial.

  CHAPTER 43

  Cho residence. Bloomington, Minnesota.

  Mr. Cho’s widow, Sun-Hi, received word of the FBI visit to Park Heating and Cooling from her second cousin, Young-Soo, who worked for her husband as the company’s part time receptionist. Young-Soo had tried to go to work the day of the raid and found the place surrounded by police. Rather than pursuing entrance to her work place, she had returned home . . . and immediately called the Cho residence.

  Sun-Hi had told her cousin not to worry, that it was probably just some vandalism in the neighborhood. She should take the day off . . . with pay.

  The FBI presence at the shop wasn’t a complete surprise to Sun-Hi . . . but they were earlier than she had anticipated. She would have to get out of the house immediately and move to a more secure hiding place. The general would probably want her to move up the date of the attack as well. She would check in as soon as she and the ricin were safely relocated.

  Sun-Hi swung the newly rented Cadillac smoothly out of her driveway, and headed off to a Holiday Inn near the target. She would register under the name on the counterfeit driver’s license and pay for her stay with the Visa card Pyongyang had issued to her specifically for such eventualities. If necessary to facilitate Pyongyang’s timeline, she would rent another car tomorrow, and change hotels again, remaining in limbo until the appointed hour. But she had a feeling the schedule would accelerate when the general learned of her husband’s death, as she would inform him very shortly.

  She didn’t think the general would suspect her role in Shin’s death. After all, accidents happen when working with dangerous materials. In any case, the life insurance proceeds would make his murder worth her risk. If the general raised a fuss, she would just have to deal with one useless man at a time.

  CHAPTER 44

  Red Wing, Minnesota.

  By the time I received Costa’s call, it was nearly 5:00 o’clock in the afternoon.

  “We are all set,” he said. “We plan to rendezvous the vehicles at the Southdale Mall at 1800 hours and then head right over to Mrs. Cho’s. I hope you can make that work, because we won’t be waiting.”

  “Thanks for the ample notice,” I said. “Don’t worry. I’ll be there on time.”

  I grabbed the Pilot keys from the hook in the kitchen and headed for the front door.

  “Gotta go,” I called to Beth. “I’ll probably be late.”

  Beth’s voice came from upstairs.

  “Be safe, Babe. I want you back in one piece.”

  “Me, too,” I yelled back.

  Yeah. Me, too.

  * * *

  It was nearly six-thirty and I had been waiting just around the corner from the Cho residence for almost forty minutes. I was beginning to think the FBI had stood me up.

  At long last, a parade of six black FBI sedans and an unmarked black utility van entered the street a few blocks back. They drove right past me without so much as a turn of the head.

  I started the Pilot and fell into formation behind the van.

  As the cars reached the Cho home they scattered like a starburst, blocking the driveway and the street at apparently random, but probably well-rehearsed, angles. FBI agents in bulletproof vests wearing full helmets with face shields poured out of the vehicles with the practiced elegance of a child’s ballet. I’m certain it must have been a more organized effort than it seemed because in seconds they had the house surrounded. Snipers had taken up stations behind two of the cars, and two agents carrying a battering ram were closing fast on the Chos’ front door.

  I guessed they had procured a “no-knock” warrant, because about two seconds later the wooden entry door exploded into splinters under the battering ram’s assault.

  “FBI,” they all yelled, as they streamed through the open doorway and into the house.

  I was still seated comfortably in the Pilot as I watched all this go down. It had been a good show, but a few agents were now exiting the house, their exaggerated shoulder shrugs displaying obvious disappointment. It was at this point that I finally saw Costa. He had been crouching behind his car with one of the snipers.

  Now to be fair, this was likely a highly trained assault team and they had probably made it clear to Costa to stay out of the way. Not everybody gets to go in first, after all. I couldn’t fault him for assuming his current, relatively safe, location. That was simply his assigned spot.

  When the buzz around the house had worn down to a hum, I cracked the Pilot driver’s door and stepped out.

  “Hello,” I yelled. “Friendly here.” It is best to move slowly and obviously when surrounded by armed folks, even the ones who are supposed to be on your side. I chanced a further step into the street. “Looking for Agent Costa?”

  Costa saw me and called out, “He’s okay. I got him.” He waved me toward his position.

  “Hi,” I said to the first sniper, waving conservatively as I passed. “Nice scope. Is that a Swarovski?”

  No response. That’s okay. They’re trained to act tough on the job.

  Costa was talking to one of the “fast entry” crew as I approached. He finished up with the other agent and turned to me.

  “As you can see,” he said. “No Mrs. Cho.”

  “Yeah,” I said, hooking my thumbs on the pockets of my Levi’s. “Whattya make of that?” I was just making conversation.

  “My professional assessment would be that Mrs. Cho is elsewhere at the moment,” he said without a smile. “Perhaps shopping.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I imagine your guys are gonna search the house for ricin, etcetera. Any other thoughts on where we go from here?”

  “We’ve got a BOLO out on all the vehicles belonging to the Chos or to Park Heating,” Costa said. “Some local cop will likely track her down in short order . . . unless she comes home to us first. In either case, I thin
k the house is more important than the wife. It’s a good bet we’ll find the missing ricin in there.” He pointed at the Cho residence.

  “I hope so,” I said, staring across the street.

  Costa squared himself to face the threat. “What do you mean by that, exactly?”

  Costa was tired and he was frustrated. It was understandable that he might be cranky. On the other hand, cranky or not, he . . . we . . . had a job to do.

  “What if Mrs. Cho is in on the ricin plot?” I asked. “And what if she got wind we were coming? We made a lot of noise over at the shop.”

  “You do have a way of anticipating the worst possible scenarios, don’t you, Beck,” Costa said. “I, on the other hand, am optimistic that we shall find what we’re looking for right here.” Again, he pointed at the house.

  “That’d be great,” I said. “But what if you don’t?”

  “We shall cross that bridge if we get there, shall we?”

  I was pretty certain that Costa was a good cop. But there’s a big difference between a being good cop and being a good counter-terrorism operative. Costa was in reactive mode. As a cop, his default mindset was to catch the criminal – or the POI, to be politically correct. That sort of thinking does you no good if the terrorist carries out his plan . . . or perhaps in this case, her plan . . . before you make the bust.

  It only took a few days for the cops to catch the Boston Marathon bombers. The Sandy Hook guy caught himself, with a nine millimeter to the head. And the cops were on the scene at the Aurora, Colorado movie theater within ninety seconds after the shooting started.

  That’s the problem. And cops will tell you, too. They’re only minutes away when seconds count. It’s not their fault. That’s their job description. They are trained to arrest the people who have committed crimes, not the ones who plan to commit them.

  In our situation, with a good amount of ricin unaccounted for – enough to kill thousands in the right venue – we couldn’t wait around to react.