Gone Dark (A Grale Thriller Book 2)

by Kirk Russell

  The death of the local officer was harder to understand. He was too close to the southernmost bomb despite the phoned-in warning of a 12:30 p.m. detonation. No one could explain it. A yellow flag in the grass marked the location of his right leg. Most of the rest of his body was close to there. A TV crew tried to zoom in on his decapitated head, so they moved the media back a quarter mile.

  “Two ANFO bombs,” I told Hofter as I drove away. “We’ve crunched data on farming orders for ammonium nitrate looking for the anomalies, but we’ve focused on large routine orders. We can’t wait any longer. Let’s go straight to the manufacturers.”

  “They’re going to say they report to Homeland Security.”

  “They can copy us. We can ask for all medium to small farm orders in California, all anticipated refills, a list of criteria. I’ll make the calls on the drive north.”

  Two and a half hours later, I got into the Bay Area, checked into the Emeryville Marriott again and found a place to eat before calling Jo.

  “We’ve had more trouble with the backup generators at the hospital,” she said. “The phone system there needs electrical power to work and that’s a problem. That’s how Julia calls.”

  “No new word from her?” I asked.

  “She may have tried and not gotten through.”

  “She should be calling on a new cell phone by now. I’m getting to a place where I’ll need to go find her. That may get me in trouble with the Bureau, but if I can’t get it cleared I’m going anyway. I may be in Vegas tomorrow night, Jo, but I could be working a good part of the night.”

  “Me too. I’ll be at the hospital tomorrow night until late. Good times.”

  “Soon, Jo,” I said.

  “Yes, soon.”

  The next morning near sunrise Jace and I crossed the Richmond–San Rafael Bridge, heading north into Marin County. We’d meet Farue at a shot-up cell tower just like old times. He was the real reason for the trip, but on the drive we talked Corti.

  Corti was shooting less but still taking out towers, and now he was close to a major metropolitan area. The first and the second cell towers we looked at today were likely his. At the second tower we’d meet Farue. We were early, and as we waited I took in the rich green color of the hills, the smell of bay leaves and new grass, and saw a brimming reservoir and ravines with dark bands of oaks. I looked at the summit of Mount Tamalpais then back at the access road as Farue arrived.

  He parked, pushed open the driver’s door, and we heard him talking on the phone though we couldn’t make out the words. As he walked toward us, Jace asked, “Farue’s motives for messing with us?”

  I answered, “Thrill. Money. Risk. Getting to talk regularly with the stunning Kristen Blujace. And he’s got some feel for the endgame.”

  “What’s that last bit mean?”

  I didn’t get a chance to answer before Farue arrived and said, “A Northern Brigade source says Jake is headed to San Francisco.” Farue looked hard at me. “Don’t arrest me. A Brigade soldier called me. I didn’t call them. They got my new cell number from Corti. That’s the only explanation I can come up with.”

  He nodded toward Jace.

  “Jace and I have been talking,” he said. “I told your partner here there might be a reason Jake is only killing inanimate objects. He met a pacifist in a chat room called the War Room. She’s younger, but he connects with her. He’s talked online with her for more than a year, but right now can’t reach her, which is bad since she calms him down. He comes from a place of violence, so without her or something else to slow him down, he could take a turn.”

  “Sounds like you’ve known for a while he’s been talking to her.”

  “I have but didn’t put it together.”

  “How do you know it’s a young woman?” I asked.

  “That’s what he told me.”

  “Give us something more. How does he know?”

  Farue gave me a shit-eating grin. “Ask him,” he said. “And take a look at this. It’s a text from him.”

  He turned his phone and showed us a text that read, I’m freaking, dude. These people are pushing me. Peace Girl is gone. Think I scared her when I said I wanted to meet up. She’s not answering. It’s been days. I’m spinning and bad shit could happen. They put a big ask out there. They want a lot from me. They’ve got all these reasons why it’s right. I need her.

  “What’s he saying to you?” I asked.

  “I can’t tell. He’s been different ever since he partnered up with the woods crackers, but what he’s saying is they’re asking him to do something. Those dudes see a civil war. They think they’re fighting a deep state. Whoever this Peace Girl chica is, she moved him away from that. She’s helped him, and now someone is pulling him back.”

  “We’re going to take your phone,” Jace said.

  “You’d need a warrant. Okay, hang on, I have something else. Here, Jace, I’ll text it to you. It’s how he signs in or signs off in that chat room. I told him I was interested in pacifism, and he gave me this so I would recognize him if I went to that chat room.”

  He texted L-Z-9-9-O&O to Jace, who then sent it to me.

  “I’m still going to take your phone,” she said. “It’s a terrorist investigation and you’ve been protecting your friend. I’m tired of you with a new phone number each time we meet. You want to cooperate. You really do. Hand it to me and you’re coming with us. I want to do this interview where I can tape it.”

  I stepped away for a moment. Peace Girl. Younger. Pacifist. Not online lately. I could hear Julia telling me, “There are more people against all war than you think. I go to these chat rooms . . .” Was it possible it was Julia?

  48

  Later as I left Jace and headed to Oakland Airport to return to Vegas, I turned more pieces of our puzzles in my head. Stuckey and Inze had gamed me and did it fairly well. If they had met up without me watching, it might have worked. Inze had confessed to leasing a moldering warehouse space to people she knew were up to no good and lately suspected could be part of the bombings. She claimed to never have really known, but that’s probably a lie. Their meeting up that night was only so they could be together, she’d said. They were seeing each other. Fuentes had left me a message about Stuckey. I called him back before getting on the plane to Vegas.

  “I want your take, Grale. Stuckey is hiding out in San Diego, but there are agents following him. If we arrest and throw the possibility of terror charges at him then jail him, given his prison experience, could being in a cell again be enough to get him talking, or will he freak out and shut down entirely?”

  “I’d be guessing just like you. But I’ve been thinking about Stuckey and Inze. She’s confessed to trying to make side money leasing a space. It’s gotten her fired, and she’s facing possible terror charges. She may or may not have seen the three used Edison trucks parked in there. We don’t know, and even if she did, it wouldn’t prove she knew they were being turned into bomb vehicles.”

  “She knew.”

  “Okay, but not until those first three bombings is what I’m saying. Stuckey had the vehicles and sold them for cash as he’s probably done for years with other vehicles. She came up with the space to lease. They both made money. Neither saw bombs getting built. We need the bomb maker or whoever bought the trucks, then we’ve got Stuckey cornered.”

  “We don’t have those individuals yet, and he’s trying to get to Mexico. I’m just asking what you think about Stuckey and the pressure of being in a jail cell. I know you barely know him, but what’s your feel?”

  I didn’t have a feel for Stuckey, and I didn’t feel anything for him either, or for Deborah Inze. They chose their paths. In the same way Fuentes and Mara felt nothing for Laura Balco, to me Inze and Stuckey earned what they had coming. Inze made a half-hearted run at putting it all on Stuckey, and then through her lawyer offered full restitution with penalties. Although the owners had fired her and a spokesman had conveyed their deepest sorrow that any employee of theirs aided
terrorists, they were apparently interested in the offer and were negotiating with her attorney.

  “Pick him up now as a flight risk, but focus on Inze,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “I’m guessing he had the truck deal in hand then talked to her about finding a space for the buyers.”

  “Could the buyer or front man for the truck deal have been Jody Gavotte?”

  “He fits, but I don’t think it was him,” I said. “The reason is Stuckey picked him out of the photos I showed him. Why would he do that?”

  “Okay, keep thinking about it. We’ll talk more.”

  My thoughts returned to Julia, who in so many ways reminded me of Melissa. When Julia stood defiantly in front of me arguing, I thought of her. Growing up, Melissa was nicknamed “Joan of Arc” by the neighbors. Julia had that same thing inside that allowed one hundred percent commitment to a moral cause. Passion is admirable, but passion is not truth. Somehow I had to teach that to Julia.

  I should have called Mara earlier but waited until I’d landed in Vegas. I wouldn’t be here long, and my guess was he would have said don’t come at all. I heard a click as he picked up the phone and said, “Grale?”

  “I’m in Vegas.”

  “Good, take a breather and we’ll talk in the morning unless you’ve got something pressing.”

  “I do.”

  “Before you tell me, let me say you might be onto something with the smaller ammonium nitrate fertilizer shipments. Homeland reran the small farm sales with consistent to above yearly average orders. They ran it nationwide, but I’ll break out California and send it to you.”

  Homeland Security was responsible for monitoring ammonium nitrate sales, but it was just one of many things dropped on them after 9/11. Sales of ammonium nitrate had declined but were still near a million tons a year, with a price that floated around $500 a ton.

  “I’m at the point of needing to go look for Julia. I hear Samantha Clark is here in Vegas and we have a surveillance team on her. I want to talk to her.”

  “Tell me how that would work. Is there some referee we go to and say we want a timeout so an agent who’s not on the surveillance team can have a side chat with Samantha Clark?”

  “It could be a chance encounter. She’ll call me out on it, but if she hasn’t spotted the surveillance, it could work. We met Farue today at a shot-up cell tower, and he gave us a new angle on Corti that I want to talk with Clark about. It involves a chat room she might be familiar with. Farue is a big question mark for us, so it’s important. He showed us texts from Corti on a phone with a different number than the one we have for him. I think there’s a way I could talk to Clark without hurting the surveillance. It might even help. Clark doesn’t know I was the agent with Balco before she was killed. If what Balco told me was true, she and Clark shared an understanding that led to the formation of their group.”

  “I’ll call you back,” Mara said.

  When he did, I was out of the airport and had just about given up on him. He said, “Head to the Mandarin Hotel and the twenty-third floor.”

  “The bar?”

  “Yes.”

  Mara and two agents were in a white SUV down the street from the Mandarin. One agent went up with me to the bar, the others waited on the ground floor for a call from us. I sat down at a table behind her and back from the bar. Clark was alone on the left side of the room, looking out the floor-to-ceiling windows, but every so often she glanced back at the elevators. When she picked up on me, she waved and came over with her drink.

  “I don’t know where Julia is,” she said as she sat down. “And I don’t know any bomb makers, so what can I do for you?”

  “I just want to talk.”

  “About life?”

  “You could say that,” I said. “This isn’t about Julia.”

  “Everything about you is about finding her.”

  “I’m the unidentified agent who was talking with Laura Balco before she committed suicide. I wish she hadn’t.”

  “Committed suicide?” she said. “Don’t you own a TV? An FBI sniper shot her. How can you say you’re sorry if it’s one of your own who took her out? I don’t get that.”

  “It was sad. It didn’t have to happen. Laura had the trigger in her right hand. She knew not to drop her hands below the dash. Or she could have detonated the bomb and taken me with her, but she didn’t. She talked about the same dream of living a mix of agrarian and tech that Julia talks about. She couldn’t see herself in a supermax prison for decades. I can understand that, but she shouldn’t have died.”

  “How is it you were in Sylmar?” she asked.

  I paused, then went for it.

  “You made it happen.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “Bill Stuckey looked at photos, picked you out, and then talked about you coming in last February shopping for trucks using the name Dalia. You made a big impression on him. I think he was attracted.”

  That got a rueful smile, then quiet sadness.

  I continued. “That started me turning around different ideas. I was working grid infrastructure attacks for eighteen months before Seattle City Light went down. I saw practice runs. I saw the botched attempts, the bombs that fizzled, the small ones that worked, and then domestic cells activating after Seattle went dark. We counted the cells and differentiated between them within the first week via their different styles, methods, and locations. They were all waiting for a signal, and they all activated when they got it.”

  “Sorry to interrupt your recap,” she said, “but let’s be real. If I made a visit to this Stuckey person, the FBI would have moved on it. You of all people know I wouldn’t be sitting here with a drink.”

  “Sam, we’re entering the endgame. I guess that’s what I’m trying to say. It’s really why I’m here tonight. No one else should die the way Laura died.”

  “You almost sound like you care about the evil Blond Bomber.”

  “I talked to a young intelligent woman who took the wrong road.”

  She nodded. She didn’t say anything, and I changed subjects to let her think about it.

  “I was north of San Francisco today with another agent looking at a snipered cell tower and talking to a Gary Farue. Do you know him?”

  “You really know how to jump it around. Does the Bureau teach that, or is it a brain issue, and why do I get the feeling this is all going to lead back to Julia?”

  “Julia is where you and Laura once were,” I said. “Or that’s what I see.”

  “Are you wearing a wire?”

  “I wanted to, but we couldn’t get it together quick enough.”

  That caught her by surprise, and I continued. “I’m being straight with you, and yes I am worried about Julia.”

  Clark tried a pitying smile, but the smile failed. She took a good pull on her drink and was close to leaving the table. I had only a few seconds before she ended the conversation.

  “This is no bullshit,” I said. “Laura asked me to remind you that in the beginning you were going to do it all without violence. She wanted me to tell you that. She said when the others came, they came with money, and the money was seductive. You knew the money was foreign money, but it didn’t really matter, you thought, because you had no loyalties to any foreign state and never would. Those were her words.”

  “I don’t have any way of knowing you’re telling the truth.”

  “She saw that coming too. She said there was a river in Wyoming running with snowmelt that I needed to remember. I think she wanted me to pass the message that everything that ever really mattered was said the day you walked the fork of a river together. She said to say this to you and you would know that she and I did talk. ‘Otherwise,’ she said, ‘Sam will never believe you. She’s the hardest of us all.’”

  That broke through. Clark sat up and ran a hand through her hair.

  “You of all people know idealism isn’t enough,” she said. “People need to know a revolution can succeed. If the fi
re-pit talk of resistance becomes grassroots revolution, that’s a whole different thing. Even the hippies changed America. It can happen. We were as naïve then as Julia is now with her pacifism.”

  “Or maybe you, like me, took the easier well-worn path of violence,” I said.

  “Listen to you, I didn’t know you had it in you.”

  “The cyberattacks are ending, and retribution is gearing up. Do you think it’s coincidence the two biggest Russian oil refineries shut down today and one is on fire? The price of oil spiked. Frackers here are benefiting. Look for more like that. And still, it’s going to wind down and end. Talks are underway. Without the cyberattacks, the ANFO bombings and the rest will just be loosely organized destruction that causes suffering for the wrong people. It’s not worth it, Sam. I’m telling you something that isn’t public yet.”

  “I don’t control anything.”

  “I’m going to ask you once more to spare Julia.”

  “Spare her?” she said. “Who am I to spare her? You have a crazily inflated idea of my reach.”

  “If she didn’t have an inheritance and an FBI uncle, you would have kept her at a distance. Or maybe you saw part of yourself in her and you wanted that feeling again. When did you lose it? Did it go away when you walked out of the Black Bear on Signal Hill, or was it before? I’m guessing Signal Hill is where it happened. Was it there you decided the end justifies the means?”

  I expected a quick answer, but nothing came. Just a stare at something beyond me.

  “Julia suffered grief and knows loss, so she prizes life,” I said. “Leave her out of the ending.”

  “What a nice thought.” She looked down at her hands. “I have to go.”

  “I’m not against your dream of a better world, Sam. I believe in it, but you and I are part of the old one. I have bomb injuries. I know how to make and defuse bombs. I’ve shot and killed people. You have blood on your hands same as me. Julia doesn’t yet. Let her go. She could make a difference.”

  She reached out and put her hand on mine, then got up and walked to the elevators without looking back.