Hard Target

by Alan Jacobson

  “Russian. You sure?”

  Meadows gave him a look. “Yes, I’m sure. Look at the shape of the cartridge. Right here,” he said, pointing at the screen. “Russian cartridge has a rimmed case. American doesn’t.”

  Uzi nodded. “Okay. So it’s Russian. Type of weapon?”

  “Traditional army-issue Russian sniper rifle is the Dragunov SVD. It’s not considered to be the best choice because it’s a semi-auto, and inherently less accurate than a bolt action. A new high-quality Russian bolt-action rifle was designed in 1998, the SV-98. Here’s where it gets interesting. The SV-98 is chambered for either 7.62 x 54mmR or 7.62 x 51mm NATO rounds. The 54 mmR round isn’t used in many other rifles. The 51 NATO, however, is very common.”

  “And my casing fits...which?”

  “The fifty-four.”

  “Less common. Good,” Uzi said. “But how rare are we talking about?”

  Meadows struck another key. A different photo appeared. “The fifty-four is common to only two rifles, the SV-98 and the obsolete Russian/Finnish Mosin-Nagant. The Mosin-Nagant was the Eastern Block sniper rifle in World War Two. Both rifles have four lands and grooves in the barrel, and the rifling in both rifles twists to the right. The difference between these two rifles is that the SV-98 has a barrel twist rate of one in twelve-point-six inches, and the Mosin-Nagant has a twist rate of one in nine-point-five inches.”

  Uzi looked at Meadows again. “How do you keep all this shit straight—I mean, how many hats do you wear?”

  Meadows leaned close. “I gotta confess, Uzi. You know me, mister honesty. When it got down to the nitty-gritty I had to ask a buddy of mine next door. I got the Mosin-Nagant but I couldn’t accept it. It didn’t seem to fit. I was racking my brain till he told me about the SV-98.”

  “So a Russian SV-98,” Uzi said, rubbing his chin with the back of his right hand.

  “Probably. I did some checking with the ME, found out the round he recovered from your friend Bishop had a one-to-twelve-point-six twist ratio. That’s why I say ‘probably,’ because it’s possible to have a gunsmith change the chambering on a rifle to almost anything within reason. Just to throw us off.”

  Uzi chewed on his lip. “What’s the most likely?”

  “Depends on who you’re dealing with, but if you’re looking for ways to focus, I’d say you’d have to be dealing with someone who really knows his shit—and who doesn’t want to get caught.”

  “None of ’em want to get caught, Tim. But maybe they’ve got significant exposure—in other words, they’re easily connected to the rifle. This is a way of disguising themselves.”

  “Could also mean that by choosing a Russian SV-98, they’re trying to throw you off. They’re a tad bit rare in the US.”

  Uzi chewed on that a second, then realized something. “Is the SV-98 a bolt-action rifle?”

  “Yup. Why?”

  “So the bolt has to be manually cycled after each shot to eject the spent case, and then manually moved forward to chamber the next round. Right?”

  “Yeah.” Meadows tilted his head. “So what?”

  “Just something that’s bugged me. We found a casing at the crime scene. Now I can accept that after the guy ejected the casing, it rolled away from him in the dark and he couldn’t find it and he had to get the hell out of there. But what’s bothered me is that he ejected it in the first place.”

  “A pro would only need to take one shot and there’d be no need to chamber another round.”

  “Exactly.” Uzi looked again at the on-screen image. “Law enforcement and military snipers are generally taught to automatically chamber a round to be ready for any eventuality, even if they don’t expect to have to shoot a second time. Target could sneeze just as you stroke the trigger and your bullet passes through thin air instead of the guy’s eye socket.” Uzi shrugged a shoulder. “Of course, that doesn’t mean our assassin is an ex-cop or military-trained sniper, but it sure makes it interesting, doesn’t it?”

  “‘Interesting’ to me is a hard drive that contains encrypted data. That’s the kind of stuff that gets me going. This investigative stuff is more your speed.”

  Uzi rose from his chair and gave Meadows a pat on the shoulder. “I’ll be in touch. As soon as this case breaks, we’ll do dinner, okay?”

  “McCormick and Schmicks, that’s where I want to go. The lobster’s to die for.”

  Uzi snorted. “Again with the McCormick and Schmicks. GS-15’s a solid salary, Tim, but isn’t their lobster like forty bucks?”

  “I think it’s closer to sixty.”

  “Sixty.” Uzi’s hand covered his wallet. “You’re killin’ me, man.”

  “Oh—oh—wait a minute. I hear violins playing.”

  “Yeah,” Uzi said with a grin. “It’s that New Age shit you listen to.”

  UZI LEFT MEADOWS AND took the elevator up to the sixth floor to meet with the Bureau’s expert on militia groups, Pablo Garza. Hoshi had set up the meeting but hadn’t had time to assemble a background sheet on the man. At a minimum, Uzi liked to know the agent’s FBI pedigree—most importantly, was he known among his peers as someone whose information could be trusted? Was he a diligent investigator? Did he accept the information given to him as fact, or did he dig to verify?

  He located Garza’s office and rapped on the door with his knuckles. One thing was sure: Garza worked out of HQ, a floor below the director. Proximity to power meant you had some yourself.

  After knocking, Uzi heard a noise to his right. Down the hall, staring at Uzi as if he were Osama bin Laden risen from the dead, stood Jake Osborn. Uzi turned back to the door, hoping to avoid a confrontation so close to the director. He wondered what Osborn was doing in the Hoover building. On a Sunday, no less.

  As Uzi raised his fist to knock again, the thick wood door swung open. Uzi almost rapped Garza in the face.

  “Agent Uziel,” the agent said, “come on in.”

  “Call me Uzi,” he said as he glanced over his right shoulder—and saw that Osborn had moved on. He shoved his hands into his dress pant pockets and stepped into Garza’s office.

  Papers were stacked haphazardly across the desk; magazines, folded back to specific articles, and a variety of textbooks sat beneath official reports and periodicals.

  But Pablo Garza the man painted a different picture: with a starched white shirt and burgundy tie, charcoal suit and gold cufflinks, he looked like a show-quality FBI purebred. Crisp and professional. Self-important.

  What grabbed Uzi’s attention, however, were his dark, deep-set eyes.

  “What can I do for you?” Garza asked, standing behind his desk.

  Uzi was tempted to sit down, more by instinct than fatigue, but with Garza remaining on his feet, Uzi felt compelled to do the same. “I was told you’re the man to see about militia groups.”

  “I’ll accept that. What would you like to know?”

  “I’m heading up the task force on the downing of Marine Two. We have reason to believe ARM might be involved.”

  “Wouldn’t surprise me.”

  “Why’s that?” Uzi asked.

  Garza waved a hand dismissively. “Just a feeling. After a while dealing with these people, you get a feel for who might be capable or inclined to do what to whom.”

  “Just a feeling?”

  “You want evidence? Can’t help you. You’ll have to do your job yourself.”

  Uzi felt his face flush. What was this guy’s problem? He’d never asked anyone to do something for him he could do himself. “How about just telling me about ARM— Any unusual activity in recent months?”

  Garza thought for a second, then shook his head. “Nope. Nothing comes to mind.”

  “So you feel ARM is capable of bringing down Marine Two.”

  “Like I said,” Garza said with a shrug, “just a feeling.”

  Uzi twisted his lips in frustration. “What can you tell me about them?”

  “Don’t you have someone on JTTF that handles domestic militia groups? Os
born, right?”

  Uzi forced a grin. “I’m interested in your perspective.”

  Garza hiked both shoulders, then launched into a monologue that lasted a solid two minutes, delineating the beginnings of ARM, including the rise to power of Jeremiah Flint, and how son Nelson succeeded him. It was all info Uzi already knew, most of which he’d gotten from DeSantos, the Internet, or Bureau database.

  Uzi realized he was wasting his time. Either the Bureau was horrendously ill informed about ARM, or his colleague Garza was purposely withholding information. He was inclined to think it was the latter, but his FBI loyalty forced him to conclude it had to be the former.

  Uzi thanked Garza for his time. Don’t ever come knocking on my door, pal, he felt like saying. But he kept his mouth shut.

  He was in the elevator, heading back to his car, when a thought occurred to him. There was another source of information on extremist groups, one whose sole purpose was keeping tabs on organizations like ARM. He just about ran the rest of the way to his car, buoyed by the possibility that he might actually gain some insight that would help push his case to the next level.

  9:42 AM

  100 hours 18 minutes remaining

  The Washington offices of the Anti-Defamation League, or ADL, were located in a nondescript highrise in the heart of downtown. The building’s only distinguishing characteristic was the modern entrance that conspicuously jutted out onto the sidewalk.

  Uzi flashed his credentials at the lobby guard, then took the elevator up. He slid his badge and ID through the bulletproof glass pass-through, along with his business card. The receptionist examined them, then picked up a telephone to make a call.

  There was no shortage of surveillance cameras—those he could see, as well as those he couldn’t, even though he knew they were there.

  He figured the woman was calling the number on the card, verifying his identity. At least, that’s what he would be doing if he were them. And because of who they were—the target of just about every racist, hate-mongering group in the world—they had to exercise extreme caution. Some considered their safeguards paranoiac, but Uzi knew better. He sat down and absently thumbed through a magazine while his mind ticked through the various facts he had thus far amassed.

  Ten minutes later, the receptionist ushered him down a hallway, past several dark and vacant offices, to a modest-sized room. The door was slightly ajar, as if the room’s occupant was expecting him. The woman pushed it open, stepped back, and cleared the way for Uzi to enter. “Would you like something to drink? Coffee, juice, water...?”

  “Coffee would be great. Black, two sugars, if you don’t mind.”

  The woman nodded and moved off.

  “Agent Uziel.” The voice came from the man behind the desk.

  Uzi stepped in and extended a hand. “Call me Uzi. Sorry to drop in on you like this.”

  “Uzi,” repeated the man. “I’m Karl Ruckhauser. Karl, if you don’t mind. And it’s not a problem. It gives me a break from the daily grind.”

  “Even on a Sunday?”

  “‘Hate’ doesn’t take weekends off.”

  “No, it doesn’t.” Uzi took the seat to his right and gave the office a quick once-over. Like Garza’s office, there was a storm of paperwork, journals and books—but Ruckhauser’s desk was organized as if it sat in a model home of a new tract of houses. Uzi wondered if the comparison between the two men’s offices bore any significance to the extent of their knowledge base.

  “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m here about American Revolution Militia. I’m in the middle of a sensitive investigation, so I can’t go into details. But I have reason to believe they may be...involved.”

  “Involved in what?”

  Uzi squirmed a bit in his chair. “I can’t say.”

  Ruckhauser nodded. “But it doesn’t take a genius to put the recent assassination attempt together with your question about a large, well-armed domestic militia, now, does it?”

  “Guess not.”

  Ruckhauser took a seat behind his desk. “So you want some background information. Who they are, who’s in charge, who they’re in bed with, what they’re capable of, what they’ve been up to lately. Right?”

  A small smile tickled the corners of Uzi’s lips. “Exactly.”

  “Kind of like a newspaper article: who, what, when, where, how, and so on.” Ruckhauser waved a hand in the air. “I was a journalism major. They stamp it in your brain.”

  “Got tired of writing stories?”

  “I saw the demise of the newspaper business a mile away. Decided to jump ship before others got the same idea. But what I do here is pretty much the same thing when you get down to it. I dig for information, do my investigative stuff, and use it to help people like you keep tabs on people like ARM.”

  The door opened and the receptionist entered with two steaming, jacketed paper cups. She set one down on the desk beside Ruckhauser, the other in front of Uzi; they thanked her and she left.

  “Why don’t we start with some basic background on domestic extremism? That’ll help you put it all into perspective.” Uzi nodded for him to continue. “How much do you know about it?”

  “With all that’s gone down the past several years, foreign threats have taken all my time. But after Fort Hood, we’ve scrambled to beef up a separate group within my task force dedicated to homebred terrorists. But their focus has been on Americans who’ve got ties to Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia...wherever training camps spring up. My own knowledge base is limited to what we get in our threat assessments.

  “But all of us have studied Oklahoma City. And obviously I’ve been fully briefed on the more recent stuff, like Nidal Hasan at Hood, the Hutaree in Michigan, Faisal Shahzad in Times Square, the Northwest Airlines underwear bomber, and a bunch of other attempts we cut off at the balls and were able to keep out of the media. That good enough?”

  “Not really,” Ruckhauser said, “but let’s start with Oklahoma, because it opened our eyes to well-armed, obsessively antigovernment fanatics and neo-Nazis. Basically, we’re looking at disaffected loners who frequent the gun-show circuit and camouflaged paramilitary ‘officers’ who dress in fatigues and go out into the backwoods of the South and Midwest. They used to get together to play soldier, but now they go on extended maneuvers and train hard for combat like a serious militia, with high-tech gear and high-powered weapons. And they’re angrier and more volatile than they used to be. They see themselves as revolutionaries, plotting to attack America in order to save it—no matter how many innocent people they take with them.”

  Ruckhauser sipped his coffee before continuing. “But let’s back up a bit, because there’s a deeper history here. People know Oklahoma City because of the sheer magnitude of the carnage. But if you’re asking if a militia is capable of doing what you’re asking, my answer is definitely.”

  “Let’s hear the deeper history.”

  “History can be boring, so I’ll hit the high points. You’ll catch the pattern. Blue Ridge Hunt Club, which was really a militia, recruited a gun dealer into its ranks so they could get their hands on all sorts of untraceable firearms. The dealer, a sympathizer, would merely ‘lose’ the paperwork. When ATF raided their compound, they found illegal machine guns, suppressors, grenades, and explosives. Not to mention elaborate plans on a computer for raiding a National Guard Armory, blowing up bridges, airports, and a radio station.”

  Ruckhauser swirled his coffee cup and leaned back in his chair. “Then there was the Tri-State Militia in South Dakota. It was going to bomb several buildings that belonged to civil rights groups, including an ADL office in Houston, abortion clinics, and welfare offices. Luckily, the Bureau got a tip from an informant. Sure enough, when arrests were made, the plans—and explosives—were found. The White Patriot Party. Ever hear of them?”

  “Can’t say I’ve had the pleasure.”

  “You’re not the only one. They were led by an ex-Green Beret. They stockpiled thousands of dollars o
f stolen military hardware and got active-duty military personnel to train its members to use antitank weapons, explosives, and land mines. The leaders were arrested and got short prison terms. But that only pissed them off. When they got out, they planned to rob a restaurant to fund the purchase of stolen military rockets so they could blow up the office and kill the attorney who prosecuted them. When that plan fell apart, they tried to blow up a hydroelectric power dam. Dumb luck led police to a dozen of their explosives stockpiles.” Ruckhauser sipped his coffee.

  “Another group,” Ruckhauser continued, “had plans—and explosives—to detonate bombs at the Olympics. During the raid, your colleagues also found a hit list containing the names of a dozen prominent citizens they had a beef against. You get the point?”

  “Loud and clear.”

  “None of that is common knowledge. It gets a small blurb in the morning paper, but because no one was killed, because there were no gruesome images on TV playing over and over for weeks at a time, everyone forgets about it. But when McVeigh hit...”

  “It caught everyone’s attention.”

  “Even the FBI seemed to have a short memory. It treated McVeigh like an anomaly, as if the threat of homegrown radicals who would act on their fantasies to take down government institutions was either never going to happen again, or a distant reality.”

  Uzi was under no illusions that the Bureau was perfect. Mistakes were inevitable. The key was doing your best to prevent them, and learning from those you did make so they weren’t repeated many years later when institutional memory faded. “There must’ve been a reason why we thought that.”

  “After 9/11, Islamic radicals and the war on terror became the big deal—along with Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran’s nuclear program, the hunt for bin Laden, unmanned drones, and so on. But there were factors that seemed to support the FBI’s theory about domestic groups posing a lesser threat. The economy was going strong, people were prospering, the militias were suffering from infighting, and there wasn’t much of an increase in their influence after Oklahoma City. Certainly nothing like what happened after Ruby Ridge. If McVeigh meant it as a call to arms, it fell on deaf ears. For the most part.”