“Reverend, there’s a really good chance that you were the target today, not this campus. If Investigator Clah hadn’t found that bomb when she did . . .” Blalock purposely let the sentence hang.
Fear flashed in Ford’s eyes, but in an instant that was replaced with understanding and acceptance. “If you’re right about that, then I’m still a target, and I could endanger whoever I’m around. That means I can’t go back to our church or hang around any group of people. I should probably go home right now.”
“I need you to think really hard, Ford. Do you have any idea why someone would come after you?” Ella asked.
Almost a minute passed before Ford finally spoke. “At this point in my life I’m no threat to anyone, so the answer’s no.”
“What were you going to speak about today?” Blalock asked.
“Evangelists on the reservation. That’s scarcely a controversial subject—except maybe to a few fringe historians,” Ford answered.
“The bomb was placed right in front of where you’d be standing. Someone wants you dead. Why do you think that is?” Blalock pressed.
“It doesn’t make any sense to me. It takes a powerful hate to want to kill me at the expense of all the students in the room,” Ford said, shaking his head slowly. “My activities on the Rez just don’t warrant that.”
“What about activities outside the Rez?” Blalock said immediately, following up.
“Except for an occasional meeting with other ministries, I spend most of my time here, Agent Blalock,” Ford answered.
“That’s not what Blalock was asking,” Ella said firmly. “Think hard, Ford. Could someone who knew you before you became a preacher have tracked you to the Rez?”
“I don’t see how—or why. My past isn’t all that interesting.”
“Stop avoiding the issue,” Ella snapped. “Ralph Tache went into that classroom to protect your life, now his own hangs by a thread.” Her words had the desired effect, breaking through Ford’s reserve.
“If I knew anything at all that could help you, I wouldn’t hold back, Ella. Don’t you think I realize that you could have been killed today by a bomb that was clearly meant for me? Now one of your men is in the hospital, and here I am, safe and sound. I wish I could trade places with Officer Tache. If I could, I would in an instant.”
The quiet desperation that colored his words touched her deeply. “Ford, I know this has been one heckuva day, but we need your help. You’re the key to establishing a motive. That’s what’s going to lead us to a suspect.”
“I’m willing to do whatever’s necessary to help you. But I can’t you give answers I don’t have.”
“Let’s try a different tack,” Ella said. “Where would you normally be right now?”
“This late in the day, I’m usually home feeding Abednego,” he said, referring to the large mutt he’d adopted.
“Okay. Let’s keep to your schedule. I’ll follow you from a distance, and if you pick up a tail, I’ll move in.”
“So be it,” he said with a nod. “Should I leave now?”
“Give me a moment to confer with Agent Blalock, then I’ll follow you to the parking lot. We’ll say good-bye there, and leave separately. I won’t be far, but don’t look for me.”
As soon as Ford was out of earshot, Blalock’s gaze locked with Ella’s. “Watch your back. Although he kept talking, he still didn’t give us any information. That’s classic training. Divert and misdirect, don’t oppose. While you’re with him, I’m going to do a little digging into his background, off-the-record, and see how far I get.”
“Good,” she said. “I’m hoping that I can get him to open up more when he and I are alone, but I’m not counting on it.”
Ella met Ford a few minutes later. “Stay in the left lane on your way home, and stick close to the speed limit.”
The highway had four lanes, two eastbound and two westbound, and was separated by a wide median most of the way. Ella suspected that Ford, in his previous career, had been cross-trained in pursuit driving and ambush tactics. He’d automatically make it hard for anyone trying to get in right beside him to take a shot.
“All right, and I’ll also make sure not to deviate from any of my regular patterns.”
“Good.” Ella studied his expression. Despite an afternoon filled with moments of terror and the threat of more evil to come, Ford appeared calm. Half of her wished he’d yell, joke, or do something . . . more human. It was that reserve of his, one she suspected was a part of the training he’d received somewhere along the way, that made her uncomfortable. That quality had always kept her from completely lowering her guard around him.
“I’ll also be praying for Ralph,” he said quietly.
“He’ll appreciate the gesture,” she said. Ralph wasn’t a Christian, but he also wasn’t the type to turn down wellintentioned help, regardless of where it came from. “Keep a sharp eye for anything or anyone that doesn’t look right. Call me on your cell phone if you spot anything open to question.”
“Count on it.”
She gazed at him wordlessly. Ford noticed details most other people overlooked. His powers of observation would be his greatest ally now, something he hadn’t lost simply because he was no longer an employee of the CIA, NSA, or whatever he’d been involved with before.
“Once we’re both at your place, you and I need to talk. I mean really talk. No platitudes or evasions. You get me?” Ella said.
He didn’t answer right away. “What you’re asking—and what I can give you—are two very different things.”
“I’m going to need your cooperation, and you’re going to need mine to stay alive and avoid risking other innocent lives. Talk to whoever you have to, or reconcile yourself to the inevitable. But we need to be on the same page on this, Ford.”
“I understand,” he said.
He said the right things, but gave her nothing. It was like trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.
“Your imagination is working overtime and you’re seeing way too much in my past,” he said after a moment. “I am the man you see—a simple minister on the reservation.”
She shook her head. “You may want to believe that, Ford, but it’s what came before that turned you into the man you are today. And my gut’s telling me that we’ll find our answers back there—in your pre-minister days.”
He didn’t argue, and that worried her even more, but she didn’t say anything else as he got into his old sedan and drove off.
Ella waited thirty seconds, then set out. The taillights on his car were distinctive, making it easy to find him. Once she had his vehicle in sight again, driving down the only real main street in Shiprock, she varied her distance, trying not to make it look obvious that she was following him. At this point, with so many people heading home from work, it wasn’t possible to tell if anyone else was interested, but she watched every car that passed her and then him.
Several miles east of the Rez, traffic was lighter and there were still no complications. Ford turned off the main highway into the inexpensive semi-rural subdivision where he currently lived, and she closed up the distance quickly until she was only a few car lengths back. It was almost completely dark outside when they drove up the gravel driveway to his home, a small three-bedroom wood-frame house.
The house was as dark inside as out, and this set off alarms for Ella. She knew Ford had a lamp that came on at night—for security, and for the dog. Grabbing a flashlight from the glove compartment, she hurried out of the car. Aiming the beam toward the porch, she could see the front door was ajar a few inches.
“Don’t go in, not yet!” she yelled, seeing him rushing forward.
“Somebody broke in! I have to check on my dog, Ella,” he replied, slowing down only slightly.
Abednego, Ford’s enormous dog, stuck his nose out the opening, hearing his master’s voice. Then the animal pushed the door open with his muzzle and took a step forward.
“He looks okay,” Ella said quickly, directing the l
ight toward the dog. “But there’s glass on the porch. Put him at stay.”
At Ford’s signal, Abednego stopped and sat just past the threshold, watching Ford, his tail wagging furiously.
Ella rushed past Ford and saw a lump of something on the step in front of the dog.
“Keep him there, Ford,” she said, aiming her flashlight at it as she stepped closer. Resting on a carpet remnant that the dog used as a bed was what appeared to be a pound of raw hamburger shaped into a ball. Abednego hadn’t touched it, thanks to Ford’s training.
Glass crunched beneath her boots, and Ella realized it had come from the broken porch light. Directing the flashlight beam, she noted what looked to be a pellet stuck in the siding just beyond the place the bulb had been. Beside that fixture was a new motion detector, but the two floodlights connected to it had also been shattered by pellets.
Ella went into the darkened house, gun drawn. She flicked on the living room light, then, using the walls and furniture as protection, checked out each room. Although nothing appeared to have been taken or even disturbed, the home still held a few surprises for her.
Standing at the doorway of Ford’s office, she could see a new computer and a variety of unfamiliar electronic hardware. Ford had gone high tech—very high tech—making her wonder if he was moonlighting for NASA . . . or, more likely, the NSA.
Questions filled her mind as she headed back outside. When she reached the entrance, she realized that the sturdy metal door hadn’t been kicked in—the normal method of entry for small time burglars. From what she could tell, the perp had picked the lock, and since it had been equipped with a high-end deadbolt, that had taken some serious skill. The one mistake the otherwise professional burglar had made was not counting on Abednego’s loyalty to Ford—or his intelligence. The dog knew how to push the door back with his nose. Whomever had picked the lock must have had to retreat fast and hop the fence to avoid getting nailed.
Ford was poking the lump of meat on the steps with a stick when Ella came back outside. “Good thing I trained him never to accept food from anyone except you and me,” he said. “There are capsules in this mixture—maybe poison or tranquilizers. Your lab will be able to tell you for sure.”
Ella walked back to her unmarked tribal cruiser, retrieved an evidence bag from the storage compartment, then labeled the outside with a marker and put the tainted meat inside it. “I’m going to put this into your refrigerator for the moment. You and I need to have a talk.”
“You’re connecting this to the bomb,” he said with a nod.
It hadn’t been a question so she didn’t answer. “You’ve recently acquired some new, exotic-looking electronic equipment. You’ve also taken time to install a top-notch deadbolt and that motion detector,” she said looking directly at him. “What’s going on?”
Putting the dog at stay, Ford started to pick up the shattered glass on the porch and Abednego’s carpet. Among the pieces, he found a pellet. “You probably noticed these,” he said, handing it to her, then pointing to another pellet in the wall. “This could have been the work of kids looking for something to steal.”
Ella gave him an incredulous look. “Kids who can pick a hundred-dollar deadbolt, bring tainted meat for the dog, and just happen to strike on the same afternoon that some lunatic tries to blow you up? You don’t believe that any more than I do.”
Making sure there was no more glass around, Ford took Abednego by the collar. “Let’s go inside. Then we can talk.”
Ford closed the door before switching on a desk lamp, then turned off the living room light. “It’s clear they never got beyond the door,” he said, walking to the hall and taking a look inside his office. “Nothing was touched.” He bent down to pet the large mutt. “Good boy!”
“So what were they looking for, Ford?” Ella demanded. “What’s put a bull’s-eye on you?”
FOUR
Ford’s gaze remained on the dog. “You do have a need to know, so that’ll help,” he said at last. “But I need to make one call—in private.”
“All right. I’ll be in the kitchen. Just stay away from the windows, okay? And keep the lights low.”
“Understood. Will you take Abednego with you and give him a large slice of cheese from the fridge? He earned it today.”
Ella took the dog by the collar and led him away from Ford. It wasn’t easy. All ninety pounds of him wanted to stay with Ford.
“If he resists, just say the word c-h-e-e-s-e in an upbeat tone,” Ford said. “He’ll follow you into Hell itself for that.”
Ella glanced down at the dog and said, “Abednego, cheese! Let’s go, boy! Let’s go get some cheese.”
Abednego looked up at her, his tail started wagging, and before she knew it, the dog was barking and pulling her into the kitchen.
Ella placed the tainted meat in the refrigerator, then brought out a one-pound brick of cheddar and, using a kitchen knife, cut a generous chunk. The dog swallowed it in two chomps, then barked for more. Ella gave him a second slice, this time about the size of a sugar cube, then started moving toward the hall, hoping to eavesdrop, but Abednego began barking again.
Suspecting that had been part of Ford’s plan all along, Ella returned to the kitchen. With Abednego insistent on more cheese, there was no chance of her slipping away anyway. Taking advantage of her experience with dogs, she decided to turn it into a training session. Every small piece of cheese came only after he’d sat, laid down, or spoke.
She was working on rollover when Ford came back into the kitchen. He took one look at the pieces of cheese still in her hand and started laughing. “Hey, who’s training who around here? Or is that whom?”
“The big guy and I hardly ever get quality time together like this. I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity.”
Ford reached down to scratch the dog behind his ears. “You’re spoiled, my friend, but I don’t know what I would have done without you today.”
“Tell me you weren’t counting on him keeping me in the kitchen,” Ella added with a smile.
He looked up at her and grinned. “There are very few things a man can count on in this life, but Abednego’s love of cheese is one.”
“Boy, are you good with non-answers!”
Ford gestured for her to sit down at the kitchen table, then started a pot of coffee brewing. “I spoke to the people I work with—yeah, I said work, not worked—and I’ve got permission to tell you whatever you need to know. But I think you’ve already put a few things together.”
“I know you haven’t always been a pastor and that you have experience in code breaking,” she said, remembering a case he’d helped her with in the past. Justine had done an unofficial background check on him back then and had discovered that Ford had more security clearance than both of them put together.
When Justine had tried to dig deeper, her computer screen had flashed an “access denied” warning, followed by a blank blue screen.
A week later, Ford had warned Ella about being too curious and encouraged her to talk to him directly. He’d promised to answer what he could—which had turned out to be darned little.
“It’s been a while since I’ve worked for the government—the FBI actually—but I’m doing classified work for the Bureau again, this time on a contract basis,” Ford said. “Before I became a minister, my Bureau cover was that of an analyst working on scams and crimes involving Native American casinos.”
“If that was your cover, what was your real job?”
“I was analyzing all forms of communications coming from, and passing to, foreign nationals—suspected terrorists—living inside the US. I was based in various tribal offices—away from Washington and prying eyes and ears, even the innocent kind.”
This was the kind of directness that had initially drawn her to Ford, and she was glad to be getting the real story at long last.
“I hadn’t done that kind of work in years. Then a few weeks ago, I was contacted again,” he continued. “They’d picked up
messages in one of their big data-mining operations that suggested terrorists were planning to take some action against our nuclear power plant here on the Rez. They wanted me to identify all the players involved and thought my work as pastor would be the perfect cover. The basic problem is that Tsétaak’á Generating Station has received too much attention, being the first of its kind in the US.”
“It’s the first new commercial reactor of any kind in this country in around thirty years.” The Navajo tribe had named it Tsétaak’á, Hogback, after the prominent rock formation close to the site. “Specifically, what did the Bureau want you to do?”
“The FBI asked me to monitor all communications to and from a local Navajo professor at the community college, Dr. Jane Lee.”
“What tipped them off to her?” Ella asked, wondering why her department—at least Big Ed Atcitty, her boss—hadn’t been alerted. Homeland Security, for one, supposedly encouraged interagency communications and information sharing. Yet Dr. Lee, at the moment, was just a name she’d heard before, nothing more.
“They’d been watching Dr. Lee because of her ties to old anti-nuke activities, in and out of state. She’s also got a record of arrests at several of those demonstrations.”
“Along with maybe a hundred other activists, I imagine.”
“There’s more. She subscribed to one of those Internet services that’s supposed to create a virtual link between her computer and the company’s proxy servers. Theoretically, that makes any e-mails she sends out anonymous. The service is called Kloset. Only the company itself knows who you are and where you’ve been.”
“Kloset—and the Feds?”
“Yeah. They have some people on the inside, naturally, looking for this very thing. And for a very brief time, Dr. Lee corresponded with someone—still unidentified—and they discussed ‘taking out’ the Hogback reactor, ‘one way or the other,’ ” Ford said, emphasizing the words. “But now the messages have stopped. She’s switched to sending, and receiving, coded messages through another, less attention-gathering Internet service. Maybe something tipped her off.”
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