“Since the stadium, we’re right at the critical point,” said Malvone. “We just need to give a little push, and the President will be ready to let the STU go hot. I’ve seen some reports that covert militia groups in Virginia are planning more actions, but their timetables are unknown, and we don’t know their targets. What we need to do is disrupt them, throw them off balance and put them on defensive. What I’ve got in mind is an ‘accidental’ premature explosion. I’ve got a list of three possible subjects for you. I want you to head down to Norfolk tomorrow morning, but don’t check in with the Field Office, obviously. Use the credit card I gave you for your expenses, and use this prepaid cell phone to call my pager and I’ll call you right back. Don’t use your own cell phone down there, okay? Don’t even take it. Don’t leave any tracks.”
“When does it need to happen?”
“No later than Monday morning.”
“A house or a car?”
“A vehicle if possible, but a house if you have to.”
“Do you have a device, or should I put one together?”
“I’ve got one.” Malvone went back into his storage closet under the stairs and brought back two small brown cardboard shoe boxes. “There’s ten pounds of C-4 in this one; the caps and firing assembly are in the other one. It’s a radio firing device: dual frequencies, multiple safeties. The old garage door opener; nothing tricky. Check it out, you’ll see.” One of the advantages of working for the ATF in the firearms and explosives division was ready access to demolition materials for training purposes. After a day at the Fort A. P. Hill demo range blasting holes in the ground, it was impossible for anyone to ascertain just how many pounds had been detonated, and how many pounds had gone home in the trunks of cars.
“I got the picture Wally. An unlucky stray radio emission, and a dangerous militia terrorist goes kaboom on his way to planting a bomb.”
“That’s it exactly—kaboom too soon.” They both chuckled at their witticism. “You provide the ‘stray radio signal’, and America breathes a sigh of relief that the incompetent bomber blew himself up, instead of his target. Same old-same old. I’ll admit it’s not original, but it always works.”
“What about bystanders?”
“Well, just use your judgment. Try to avoid collateral damage, of course, but it’s got to happen by Monday morning. When it’s done, call the pager number I gave you with the prepaid phone, I’ll call you back. Don’t get sloppy; do it right, okay?”
“Wally, you know I’m a professional.”
“I know you are Bob. By Monday, right?”
“You got it. By Monday morning.” Bullard swallowed the rest of his bourbon and left through the basement door with the two shoe boxes.
****
Malvone glanced at the wall clock over his bar; it was after one AM, early Saturday morning. He’d been prowling between his first floor office (where he was checking a few news-oriented websites while keeping an eye on the cable news channels) and his kitchen, where he was grazing on the honey ham and roast beef left over from his party. By now things should be happening in Tidewater Virginia, and any time he’d be getting the first situation report.
Nothing was being reported on the television from southeastern Virginia yet. CBA news was rerunning an old documentary on right wing militia types firing fifty-caliber rifles on a farm in Wyoming. It was at least the second time Malvone had seen that five year old “special report” aired since the stadium. Any piece of videotape showing middle-aged white men in camouflage uniforms firing “assault rifles” which had been shot in the last decade had been dusted off and re-aired as if it were breaking news. These clips were always accompanied by dire warnings from Malvone’s old boss Senator Jack Schuleman, or other perennial gun control advocates such as Senator Geraldine Randolph of Maryland, or Senator Ludenwright of Delaware.
Over on FreeAmericans, the usual paranoid anti-government right wingers were spouting their usual conspiracy theories. The beauty of these conspiracy nuts was that their ravings totally discredited any factual information that surfaced which could point to an actual conspiracy. As long as these “tin foil hatters” (as they were called) continued to weave everything from the JFK assassination to Oklahoma City to 9-11 together in grand plots, no “serious” reporter would ever pay attention to what had actually happened 1,250 yards east of the stadium last Sunday.
Some of the many posters on FreeAmericans were treading dangerously close to what had actually happened, but their bits of information, mainly on Shifflett’s background, were still submerged in a sea of absurdity. Anyway, Shifflett had already been analyzed, discussed, and dealt with in the media. The “fact” that he was a white racist militia kook was accepted as gospel truth on all the networks, even on the right wing TOP News.
At 1:35 AM a “FreeAmerican” with the screen name of SwampFever posted a self-generated news story that there had been several arsons in Tidewater in the past two hours, and that according to information gleaned from police scanners and eyewitness accounts, the arsonists seemed to be targeting gun stores.
Malvone’s pager chirped. Hammet was contacting him. It was a pager he had bought for thirty dollars cash at a mall kiosk, good for a year, with no contract required and no information given. He jotted down the number, converted it to the number of the pay phone he would call, and punched the new number into his prepaid throwaway cell phone. The call was picked up after the first ring. There would be no trace of the call that could ever be connected to Wally Malvone.
“Hello.”
“Hi boss, it’s me,” said George Hammet
“Uh huh. I’ve been watching the news. Nothing’s on TV yet, but there’s something being reported on the internet. Tell me about it.”
“It looks like we went eleven for eleven. Clean sweep.”
Malvone replied, “I see…great. Well, we’ve really jammed a sharp stick in their eye now. We’ll just have to wait and see what happens next. Any loose ends? Any problems? Any exposure on our side?”
“No, none. The cars were all wiped down and abandoned; everybody used gloves, no problems. Say boss, I’ve been watching the local news down here today; I might have a nice target of opportunity.”
“Hmm… tell me about it.”
“We’ve got sort of a local Louie Farrakhan down here. He’s on all the local news, raving that Shifflett was a white Christian racist, the ‘militias’ are trying to start a race war, the usual stuff. He goes everywhere with armed guards. You know, ‘we’re going to defend ourselves by any means necessary’ and that kind of talk. He’s a very intimidating guy, and he’s a pretty big player in the local black community.”
“What did you have in mind?” asked Malvone.
“He has a storefront ‘mosque’ in Portsmouth. I was thinking a drive-by might liven things up.”
“Hmm… Well, that has potential. Sure, why not? Keep this one to yourself, and definitely don’t use any of your local contacts. Do it solo. Use one of the, ah…items…I gave you, and then leave it there. Just hit the property, keep your exposure to a minimum, and don’t take any chances. Don’t do it unless it’s just right. This sounds pretty good, it sounds like you’re doing some great work. Keep it up, and we’re going to go far together.”
“Thank you sir, I won’t let you down.”
8
Ranya Bardiwell had made the 150-mile ride from Charlottesville to Suffolk at least forty times during her three years at the University of Virginia. Saturday morning, after her first full week back at school, she had returned from a three-mile run up Observatory Hill to have a phone thrust into her hands by her frantic roommate, with a number to call immediately. Upon calling she had been connected to a Suffolk police sergeant who informed her that there had been a fire at her house, and she needed to come home as soon as possible.
Why were the police calling about a fire? Could she speak to her father? “Not right now, just come home as soon as possible.”
Without changing out of her runn
ing clothes, she threw on jeans and her jean jacket and boots, tossed her purse and a few items into a daypack, pulled on her helmet and in minutes she was screaming down I-64 on her Yamaha YZF 600. On her many trips between school and home she had found the hidden locations of every radar trap that the state police had ever dreamed of, but today she didn’t even bother looking. The angels were riding with her and she made the 150 miles in less than 80 minutes. The road was wide open and where it wasn’t she slalomed around cars as if they were parked, sometimes splitting lanes between pairs of shocked drivers like a streak, rarely dropping below one hundred miles per hour.
On her last half mile, Ranya cut through the Union 76 to shave the corner and shot down 32, downshifting rapidly in succession as she saw the fire truck and all the police cars on the parking lot and along the road next to her family business. There had been a fire all right, the walls of the store were scorched black, and the Freedom Arms sign was barely visible under the soot and charred paint. As she drew nearer and cleared the last stand of pines, she looked across to her house, but it was gone!
She braked to a hard stop by the side of the road a hundred yards away to survey the unbelievable scene: the store was burned and her house was gone. On the lawn between where the house had stood and the store a cluster of men were huddled over a black lump on the ground, and a darker awareness took hold. Ranya kicked her bike into gear and shot around the outside of the wire property line fence, just inside the trees to the open back vehicle gate, and almost dumped the bike as she spun through the turn. She dropped the bike with the engine still running and threw off her helmet as the huddled men scattered before her, and she saw him.
It couldn’t be him, it mustn’t be him, but… She fell to her knees and then onto her face, her eyes shut against upwelling tears, her wet face in the burnt grass next to the charred body of her father. She had only looked closely for a moment, her father’s corpse had almost no face, little of his head at all, just burned teeth and bones, but she had seen the silver cross he had worn around his neck and she was certain.
The Suffolk policemen who had been so surprised by her motorcycle charge reacted quickly, covering the body with a blanket. An older uniformed police officer sat on the ground by her, pulling her face from the ground, pulling her away from the body, cradling her against his chest, his own tears falling on her neck.
“Oh Ranya darlin’ I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I never would’ve… you never should have seen him that way, never, I’m so sorry. I thought for sure you’d be another hour getting here from school, you must have broken every record getting here…thank God you’re safe, but what a thing for you to see...” Her arms were clenched tightly to her chest; her hands covered her face as she sobbed against him.
Suffolk police lieutenant Jasper Mosby had known Ranya since she was a toddler and he was a patrol officer. He had bought shooting supplies and a few guns at Freedom Arms over the years and had considered Joe Bardiwell a friend. Young Ranya had been a fixture around the shop as long as he could remember.
An only child, she had tried to fit into the macho world of the gun culture which revolved around her family business, but her amber eyes and long brown hair and ready smile had always betrayed her femininity. Countless boxes of ammunition had been purchased over the years by wistful men who had stopped by Freedom Arms secretly hoping to win a laugh from the increasingly curvaceous “tomboy” Ranya Bardiwell. During her teenage years customer visits to the store seemed to increase during the after-school hours when Ranya did her homework and helped at the counter.
Hundreds of cartons of reloads had been bought two at a time by customers willing to spot Ranya a free box, in exchange for an impromptu match on the indoor pistol range. As a teen she had mastered all calibers, and customers would buy her boxes of .45 and .44 magnum just to see her out-shoot grown men. She was considered a minor celebrity within local shooting circles, and she was the secret sweetheart of most of the men who knew her, including Jasper Mosby.
A similar pattern developed for her in the world of motorcycle riding. Customers who saw her zipping around the property on her lawn mower engine powered mini bike offered her rides on the back of their Harleys and Gold Wings, and this fine addiction also grew deep roots from an early age. Ranya was racing motocross by the time she was thirteen, and she was winning her share, but serious talks by her father and her orthopedic surgeons convinced her to give up competition, before her knee and shoulder damage became permanent and debilitating.
So Suffolk police lieutenant Jasper Mosby didn’t care what anybody thought as he sat on the grass in his uniform with a young woman crying herself out against his chest. It was the least little favor he could give to his friend Joe Bardiwell, and he did not hurry her. After a while the sobbing stopped and he pulled her up and walked her away from the covered body.
“What happened Jasper? How did it happen?” Ranya’s hair was full of grass, her eyes reddened and her face smeared with dirty tear tracks.
“After midnight. It was an arson attack. Not just here, all around Tidewater. About a dozen gun stores were burned. It looks like your dad came out, I don’t know, maybe an alarm went off, and he was shot. From the looks of it he was shot four or five times, then the arsonists burned him and burned your house. And they shot your dog too.”
“Armalite? My dobie’s dead too?
“Yep. He’s over there, by the fence. You just rode by him on the way in. He must have heard them and alerted Joe. They were both shot… If Joe had a weapon, they took it.”
“…I can’t believe this is happening, I talked to him yesterday… I just can’t believe… My father, my house, everything…”
“I know it darlin’, I can’t believe it either.”
“What’s going to happen to my father now? I don’t know what to do.” Ranya forced herself to talk as her tears kept falling. “Do I have to make…arrangements today? You know, I’m the last of my family, I’m the last one. The last one.” She was trying very hard not to completely break down again.
“Not today Ranya. The M.E. has to take him first, it’s the law. It looks like they tried to burn him to hide the gunshots, or maybe who ever did it was just crazy.”
“God, I just can’t believe this, any of this.” She sighed deeply, and wiped her face with the sleeve of her denim jacket. “Well, I’ve got to bury my dog. I can do that can’t I? Do they have to take my dog too?”
The dog had been killed by a single through-and-through bullet wound, and Mosby told her that she could have him.
“And Jasper, can you please get my father’s silver cross? It was from my mother, from her family…”
****
“Hey, anybody have a shovel in their unit?” Mosby asked around among his subordinates and colleagues on the parking lot. Nobody did. Some friends of Bardiwell stood behind the yellow police line tape, and Mosby asked them too. A tallish young man with light brown hair standing alone behind the tape said that he did, and retrieved a soldier’s folding shovel from the cab of his red pickup truck.
“Are you a friend of the Bardiwells?”
“I knew him,” said the man, a steady enough looking fellow in his late twenties or early thirties, one that Mosby did not recognize as a local.
“The owner’s daughter wants to bury her dog. Her dog was killed too. You mind helping her out? It’s up to you.”
“Sure, why not?”
“What’s your name?”
“Brad Fallon.”
“Fallon… you have a sailboat with no mast?”
“That’s me.”
“What were you doing here? Today I mean.” Mosby had to ask, he couldn’t leave a loose end like that hanging. Everyone who showed up at a crime scene had to be looked over carefully, especially arsons. In this case, with eleven gun stores burned, it was more a matter of professional habit than real suspicion that he asked.
“I heard the ammunition cooking off, and the sirens. Joe Bardiwell was working on a rifle for me.”<
br />
“Okay Brad, I appreciate your help. Her name’s Ranya Bardiwell. Let me grab a blanket from my trunk and we’ll go around back.”
****
Ranya was sitting cross-legged a yard from her dog, staring across the field to the smoldering wreckage and ashes of her house, and the silent pine woods beyond. Lieutenant Mosby crouched by her and put the silver cross into her hand. He had needed to clip the chain to remove it from Joe Bardiwell’s remains.
“Ranya, this fellow volunteered to help you bury your dog.” She said nothing, and after a few moments Mosby left them to return to his police business. Brad stood off a little to the side with his shovel and Mosby’s gray army blanket.
After an uncomfortable minute she asked, “Who are you?”
“I’m just the guy who had the shovel. My name is Brad Fallon.”
“What are you doing here?”
“I knew your father. As a customer I mean. He was working on a rifle for me.”
“Looks like your rifle got burned up.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“What a great dog. I raised him from a puppy, he was nine years old. There was never a better dog. We named him Armalite, like the rifles, because he was skinny and black and fast. He was the best dobie there ever was, and he died trying to defend my father. I guess you can’t ask for more in a dog.” She began to quietly weep again, tearing up little pieces of grass and staring at the Doberman.
“I’m sorry. I’m just real sorry about all this.”
Another pause, another deep breath, and she said, “…Yeah.”
“Looks like he was shot right through. It would have been quick anyway.”
She said, “That’s what they do. They shoot the dogs first.”
Enemies Foreign And Domestic Page 10
