by Kirk Russell
“Great. Thanks, UG.”
“No, really, you’re putting yourself in situations where things can happen. Like being a couple of drinks into a party with a boyfriend who disappeared when you got there.”
“How about we just say I’ve screwed up a whole lot in the last eight months and need to get it together,” Julia said. “I haven’t stolen anything. I haven’t done anything illegal. I know you think I hang with the wrong people. But you know what, they actually care about the world and what happens to it.”
“Is Nick one of those?”
“I thought he was, but he’s not.”
I left that alone and took a drink of coffee, but Julia was like her mom. I saw that more and more. She wasn’t disrespectful, but she wasn’t done.
“At least my friends aren’t pretending climate change isn’t happening so they don’t have to do anything. They know there isn’t going to be any social security system left when we get there, but there will be a big debt and a lot of old people wanting to be taken care of.”
I nodded and asked, “Is moving into that house in Long Beach the right decision? I’m asking because of the connections to Nick and Samantha Clark.”
“How come you don’t call her Sam like everyone else does?”
“Samantha is how I first heard her name.”
“Let’s be real, UG. You think I’m moving because Sam Clark has so much influence over me that if she thinks it’s a good idea I’m doing it. Actually, one of my friends from high school is living in the Long Beach house.”
“What about renting an apartment first and getting to know the people in that house before moving in with them?”
“What are you so worried about, and why should I live alone? I don’t want to live alone,” she said. “Let’s face it, Sam started Witness1 and you have problems with it.”
“I think Witness1 is a great idea. It’s just gone a little sideways.”
“Right.”
She put her coffee down on the table and folded her arms the way she does when we disagree. Julia’s friend and sometimes mentor, Samantha Clark, had started Witness1 several years ago when she was nineteen. She’d gotten some serious press coverage for it. The idea was that if you witnessed a serious crime like a shooting, let’s say an unarmed black man killed by a police officer in a disputed incident, you’d video and write out your eyewitness account, and then post to the Witness1 website. It was an idea made for its time. It took off.
Julia had $180,000 that came from selling her family’s house, a small life insurance policy Jim had, and what Jim and Melissa had saved. It was earmarked for college, but she could rent an apartment in Long Beach then figure the rest out.
“I have a question for you,” she said. “Did you know Nick was bad news for me? I mean from the start.”
“You seemed happy. I didn’t think it was my place to say anything. He fooled me too.”
“Did you think he liked you?”
“Not really.”
“Nick despises the FBI, UG. He said if you work for the FBI, you do bad things every day, and I would learn the truth and turn against you. I had to prepare myself to hate you.”
“How’s that coming?” I asked.
“I’m working on it. Thanks for the help this morning.”
She smiled and I smiled, and it broke the tension.
“Actually, I love you,” she said, “even though you put yourself in bad situations.”
“Like giving you advice?”
“Yeah, like that.” She smiled, but in the next instant tears ran down her cheeks. “Nick made a video that supposedly I’m in. I think he drugged me and his friend Joel raped me, or I had sex with him because I was drugged. Nick sent someone to tell me if I don’t get that box to him, I can watch myself on the Internet. He’ll post it after the drop. I know him.”
“Can you talk about what happened?”
“He or they put something in my beer when we got back to Nick’s apartment after a concert. Or that’s what I think. That was on Saturday, not this past Saturday but the one before. I started to remember on Wednesday. I’m going to talk to Jo when I’m ready.”
“Report it to the police. I’ll go with you. They can question Joel now and use whatever they learn when they catch up to Nick.”
Julia shook her head. “I’ve thought about it. Nick and Joel will have their version down by now. I told Nick I knew. It was the only reason I was with him that night. To tell him I knew and to break up. I’ve thought about what I can prove or not. Too much time has gone by.”
That was possible, but I said, “I can think of any number of investigations where we had two suspects with a bulletproof story they’d worked out together, and then we separate them and tell one what the other guy is saying about him, and pretty soon their stories come apart.”
“I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet, UG, and I can’t move until I do the fake delivery to Nick.”
“What fake delivery?”
“The dummy bullets with the GPS tracker. What do you mean? Do you not know? Susan, I mean Agent Egbert, is working on it.”
“I haven’t talked to her,” I said. “She’s not going to tell me what they’re planning.”
“Well, it’s going to happen soon, and when Nick finds out it’s not the sniper bullets, he’ll post the video.”
“Post it where?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to know. He’ll post a link and people will go there. He’ll post it no matter what. It’s time for me to move out, UG. I can’t be here when he does that, and it’s just time anyway. I have to get figured out on my own.”
That I could understand. I paused and took her in as a young woman rather than Julia, my niece. Then I asked, “What do you think your mom would say?”
“She would say if you’re going to make a new life, do it well. If you screwed up, get clear on what happened then put it behind you. People who don’t make mistakes never really live. That’s something she always said. If you haven’t made mistakes, you haven’t really lived. I’ve thought about what she would say. It’s time, UG. It’s time for me to move. Give me a hug.”
I gave her a hug, then headed to the meeting with Mara.
11
I came in the back door of the Vegas office and went upstairs to Mara’s office. He was at his desk on the phone and pointed at a chair. I looked at the chair but didn’t feel like sitting. My thoughts were with Julia.
When he hung up, Mara said, “The Speaker of the House just released a statement saying foreign enemies are waging economic jihad. In the Senate they want the Director to testify tomorrow at a closed hearing and detail what we’re doing to stop these attacks. I want anything you can contribute to that.”
“Tell me that’s not why we’re meeting,” I said.
“It’s not. The agents who have taken over what cases you had left have asked for an hour with you before you return to LA. I told them right after our meeting.”
“Okay.”
“Fuentes isn’t happy about the amount of things you’re working outside the LA field office area. That’s another reason we’re talking this morning. We’ve agreed to modify your temporary transfer such that you report to him anything in his territory. Anything outside it you’ll report to me and copy both of us. I’ve gone to the top here. I’ve asked the special agent in charge to make the request, and I’m not even sure where it went, possibly the executive assistant director’s office. I’d have to ask the SAC where he sent it. Either way, we should know this week. Normally, it would never get approved, but now isn’t normal. This is the best idea we can come up with to give you flexibility, but you still need to let go of most of your extraneous leads and investigations outside of LA FBI territory.”
“I can do that, but I’m not walking away from the cell-tower sniper.”
“Which brings us to Gary Farue. He was in—and it’s not certain he’s out—an Idaho militia called the Northern Star Freedom Brigade or NB. If you’re a me
mber, you’re a soldier and you’re sworn for life.”
“He sure talks like he’s out, though mostly to agent Blujace. He told her the Brigade is after him. He told me the opposite, but there could be something to it. He’s got a house in Ukiah but lives in hotels. It’s believable to me he’s watching his back. He also said to Jace it’s Ashton Croft, the guy heading the Brigade, he worries about. He deeply offended Croft somehow. He hasn’t told Jace the why of it yet.”
“He’s the kind of recruit the militias look for long term,” Mara said. “He’s got actual combat experience. Be careful with him.”
“We are being careful with him.”
“How much do you know about them, Grale?”
“I’ve read three or four reports an FBI agent out of the satellite offices wrote. He was working out of Kalispell, Montana, and reporting to the Salt Lake field office. He tried to penetrate and get recruited, but the Brigade didn’t take him, and I didn’t learn that much from his report other than Ashton Croft is really the one who decides everything.”
“Few militias are dangerous. NB is dangerous. Most are all talk. No killings have ever been traced to the Northern Brigade, but they’re suspected of several.”
Mara knew more about American militias than anyone I’d met in or out of the Bureau. He was mixed race and sensitive to the reality that militias got a big recruitment bump when America elected a black president. It hurt his heart that he could do what he does here every day and race was still a big issue in America.
As I got ready to leave him and sit down with the agents here, he said, “Hey, some of the higher-ups would like you to fly to Washington and talk grid security with them. They’ll put you on a business-class flight tomorrow.”
“Business class.”
Mara smiled broadly, and we both laughed at the idea. He was working eighteen-hour days, and I was moving around like a wanted man. It was a good way to end the meeting. Three hours later I skipped through TSA as a LEO, a law enforcement officer, and caught a flight to LA.
12
JULIA
Julia liked the first car enough to buy it. The guy selling gave her online access to all the servicing, repairs, and warranty records. After they agreed on a price, the seller hit on her, asking if she wanted to take a ride in his new Audi.
“Another time,” Julia said. “I’m moving to California and packing today.”
It felt strange yet good to say that. It definitely chilled the dude’s interest in her. She transferred the money with the Venmo app and went home to pack.
Packing her room triggered the feeling of when she was much younger and she’d go to Uncle Grale’s house. He was the uncle who was around for holidays and barbecues and then sometimes gone mysteriously for a long time. Mom had loved him like crazy, and he’d been Dad’s best friend before he met Mom. She knew Uncle Grale’s wife had died and that he was alone. She didn’t really remember his wife, though Mom would ask her sometimes if she did. UG also carried a gun, which her little brother, Nate, had thought was so cool.
When she moved here, UG started acting more like a parent. She got it, but it was kind of weird, and then he sorta figured it out and turned pretty chill, except for not connecting with Nick. She’d resented that. For a long while it made her angry, but now everything was turned upside down.
She would miss Jo. They never argued, and Jo knew about a lot of things. Julia had screwed up more things in the last year than in her whole life, but she would fix that too.
UG had said she didn’t have to put things away in the closet or take the whole room apart, but that wasn’t right. She wasn’t ever moving back. She took the posters off the walls, then vacuumed, washed the sheets, and remade the bed with a flutter in her stomach because it was late afternoon. The call would come soon from Agent Egbert.
She didn’t have to leave tonight. She’d told UG she probably wouldn’t because Agent Egbert had said don’t load the car up yet. Don’t show them anything about what you’re doing next. She got everything packed and at the front door, so when she did load the car it wouldn’t take long.
As she waited she wrote a note that became a letter for UG. She’d thought about the things he’d done for her since her mom, dad, and Nick were killed. Her mom had taught her how to drive, and she had a learner’s permit. UG showed her how to spin a car and regain control, how to change a tire, what to carry in case things really went bad, how to shoot, how to defend herself and hit back, but mostly how to keep composure and think things through. That was it. It was that last part that really mattered. He said it’s about knowing who you are.
She was nervous about the fake bullet drop, but she was ready because of UG. Straight up, that’s true, she thought. There was the drop and then what Nick would do after. Ten minutes later, when she was still at the house, a call came from Shanna.
“I’m going to give you directions,” Shanna said.
“Don’t bother. It’s not going down that way.”
“Okay, then Nick uploads the video.”
“If he uploads, I drop the box in some Dumpster. You aren’t dictating how this goes down, Shanna.”
“Nick is telling you. He’s going to call you.”
“Tell him not to call me. Tell him I hope he falls dead in the street.”
“This is Julia Kern the pacifist talking?”
“Everybody dies, Shanna, even you. I’ll text you where. I’ll text you what time. Check with Lowlife then call me back. He doesn’t call me. You get an hour from when I hang up, which is right now, so pick up your pretty little pink phone and look at the time.”
Julia broke the connection and looked at her phone screen: 6:38 p.m. Agent Egbert would call soon. Egbert promised her she wouldn’t be alone. The FBI would listen in on all the conversations.
Egbert called her a few minutes later, saying, “You were awesome. You’ve got steel in you, girl.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“They’ll go for it. We knew they’d want to do the drop at night to cut down on anybody watching. We’ll have you covered. Night makes it harder for us to follow, but we’ll deal with it. Where are you going to be until this goes down?”
“At my uncle’s house. I’m going to hang here until it’s time. I’ll have my phone.”
She turned on the TV but watched the clock on her phone. When it got down to twenty minutes to go, her heart pounded. Her chest felt tight. She forced herself to breathe deep and hold it, then let the air out evenly, but it wasn’t working. She was angry at Nick and pictured finding him and calling him out on everything. On TV they were showing supermarkets stripped clean, and long lines at gas stations in Los Angeles. People were freaking.
Her phone rang. She didn’t recognize the number. Another burner phone probably. Could be any one of the people she knew. Half of them used burner phones and switched around all the time.
Egbert had said, “Answer like normal.”
There was a pause, then Nick said, “Hey, babe, I—”
Julia hung up. The phone rang twice more and she didn’t answer. Then Shanna’s number showed on the next ring.
Shanna said, “What’s up, girl? Where’s it going to be?”
“At a shopping mall. I’ll text you the address. You go around back. You’ll see a pole by itself with a sign on it. I’ll leave it at the base of the pole. Why did Nick just call me?”
“I told you he was going to.”
“And what did I tell you?”
“You were talking big, so I didn’t tell him.”
“Talking big?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t ever call me again, Shanna. We’re done.”
Julia hung up, then texted UG, It’s happening tonight.
13
On February 28 this year, a trucker hauling a shipment of military-grade ammunition took a break for food and coffee at a truck stop just east of Grand Junction, Colorado. When he returned to his truck, another man was with him. There was no appearance of
coercion. Surveillance cameras captured both getting in the cab and driving away.
The following morning the trucker was rescued 110 miles west in Utah along a freeway shoulder on I-70. He had no coat, no shoes, no phone or ID. He claimed the other man, another trucker, a friend of a friend, had pulled a gun on him and directed him to a freeway exit, which led to a road where three men in two cars were waiting. They hogtied him and heaved him into a car trunk.
It was hours later, he wasn’t sure how long he was in the trunk, two and a half hours he guessed, before he was freed way out on a dirt road without his shoes. He’d walked ten miles to get back to the freeway. They left him with a bottle of water and a promise to kill his two daughters, Kayla and Kylie, if he talked to police.
A Good Samaritan picked him up along I-70 at dawn and drove him to the nearest hospital. That led to a county deputy hearing his story and witnessing him call his trucking company. The company was skeptical, but what could they do but support him?
They checked him into a hotel, notified his family, and scrambled their top investigator because the story didn’t quite hang together. At this point both the Denver and Salt Lake FBI offices were aware of the hijacking. Three days later the driver confessed to FBI agents he’d received a payment of $20,000.
I had that on my mind walking into the LA FBI bomb squad meeting, where we had a good back-and-forth on the three substation bombings. Nitromethane was a component of two of the bombs. In the most powerful bomb, hydrazine had been substituted for nitromethane. Another open question was why the largest bomb at the Olin substation was the weakest. The working theory was that when ammonium nitrate absorbs moisture from humid air, which it does readily, its explosive capability can be dampened.
The higher moisture content might help determine where the largest bomb was constructed. Since early March there’d been little to no rain in Southern California and not much fog along the coast. We could rule out surrounding desert, but somewhere the bomb makers had exposed the ammonium nitrate to moisture.
