by Kirk Russell
“I’m sorry. You must be Julia. I’m working with the FBI. I work with your uncle Grale. I’m very sorry to put a gun to your head, but a lot is going down right now, and we had a report of an armed young woman as part of a sniper team. She may still be in the building or right outside, so we don’t want to attract attention as we leave here. Do you see the black SUV at the curb?”
Julia had seen other FBI vehicles like that. She nodded, and he gave her a kind of a hug and said, “Hey, I’m really sorry. I know what it feels like to have a gun to your head. I’m going to look around another few seconds here, and then we’ll just walk normal and get in and drive away. You ready?”
“Sure,” she said, not sure she believed him.
“Okay, here we go.”
The Suburban unlocked with a loud click. She opened the passenger door after he’d hurried up the other side and got in. He slid onto the seat and as he did, he said, “Get in—what are you doing?”
She shut the door and ran from the SUV. She ran around the front of the building and down the street, pulling out her phone without slowing. And still, he caught up to her so fast she couldn’t believe it. The street was steep, but he caught her left arm and held it, then pushed the gun against her skin under her shirt.
“Do anything and you’re dead. Walk back up and around the front of the building, and we’ll get in on the driver’s side. You’ll slide over. I have no problem with killing you. I have zero problem. If you look at anybody and they ask if you’re okay, I’ll kill them too. You look down at the sidewalk. Start walking.”
When they were back where it was flat, she dove to her right and rolled. She yelled. She scrambled away, and he kicked her. She started to get to her feet, but she was down again, and when she saw the barrel of the gun she knew it was over.
58
When we drove up the hill, I could see Farue frog-walking Julia up the sidewalk. I didn’t see a gun, but I could read his posture, and Julia resisted each pull forward. We were almost there as they reached the corner, but got blocked by a car. I saw Farue’s black Suburban and Julia switch from resisting to lunging forward. When she fell onto the pavement, I saw Farue’s gun and said, “Jace, I’m out.”
I swung the door open, cleared it, and shot him. It didn’t drop him, but it interrupted his aim. Two shots from his gun struck pavement near her head, kicking up chips and concrete dust. My next shot dropped him and should have killed him, but first responders got there fast enough to save him.
FBI, SFPD, and Secret Service converged on the building. Julia, Jace, and I went up the elevator before Farue was in an ambulance. Julia’s elbows were skinned and she was still catching her breath as we got off on the sixth floor. FBI SWAT arrived but waited in the lobby. Two SF homicide inspectors came up to the condo. Secret Service followed, and unit 607 became a homicide scene. A dozen FBI agents and more Secret Service fanned out into adjacent buildings after Corti’s weapon was identified as a sniper rifle.
Late sunlight slanted through the tall windows. A breeze blew in through the half-open sliding door. On the deck were plants in two cerulean blue pots that resembled urns. From the folding metal platform, the shot would angle down over the top of the wire railing. I looked at Corti’s body again and tried to see how it went down.
I turned to Julia and asked, “What are you seeing?”
“He said he was going to do something that could get him killed.”
“Shooting the president would do that.”
“That’s not what he meant.”
As she pointed at the gun parts I could see her right palm was raw and scraped.
“Jacob took his gun apart. He came here to shoot the president, then decided not to and that he was done. Sometimes he would write about breaking down a gun and cleaning it. He once wrote me that he wanted to get to the place where he broke his guns down and left them disassembled forever. He said it was a way of coming to terms.”
“With what?”
“I don’t know.” Then she asked, “Did the guy who grabbed me kill him?”
“Good chance he did.”
“Do you know who he is?”
“Yes. Do you know him?”
“No.”
I checked her face, wondering if she understood how close she came to getting shot. If Farue died he’d be the third person I’d shot and killed in my career. That’s a high number for an FBI agent, but with each there was no other obvious choice. With Farue I felt lucky. I’m a decent shot but not great and could easily have missed him.
The more I looked at the body and the quasi-ritualistic arrangement of the gun parts on white towels, the more I came around to the idea that Corti took apart the gun and Farue interrupted him. Corti may have been doing just what he’d talked to Julia about, breaking it down and walking away. But Farue wouldn’t have any interest in assassinating the president. If he did, I couldn’t see it. The Northern Brigade I could picture sending Corti here. Farue said Corti would rant about corrupt politicians and the deep state. And Farue once told Jace that Corti spoke through his gun. That rang true to me.
My phone rang after we were back in the lobby. Outside, the street was filled with media vans. The call was from the head of the presidential Secret Service detail. He handed me off to one of the president’s team, who said, “Agent Grale, the president very much wants to give this speech in San Francisco. It’s information the American public needs to hear. We understand the shooter is dead. The president wants to thank you.”
“He was dead when he was found, and we’re not certain who killed him. It doesn’t appear he was going to shoot. His gun was broken down.”
“But he is dead.”
“Yes, he’s dead.”
“If there’s no further risk, the president can still make his speech from Union Square.”
“That’s a Secret Service decision.”
The caller knew that better than me. I looked at the cameras outside wondering what the news stations had pieced together.
“Do you know of any more shooters, Agent Grale?”
“I don’t, but you might want to make sure the vice president is somewhere safe before the president starts speaking.”
“Thank you for your time.”
The president’s venue got moved. He no longer would stand on the wood podium at dusk with the lights rising in the buildings surrounding him. They put him upstairs in the Ferry Building, where he was safe. But it didn’t diminish the information he was delivering.
He said, “We have identified Russia as the foreign actor behind the cyberattacks. They deny this. They will continue to deny this, but we will show the world the proof we are sharing with allies. We are in negotiations with the Russians, and our negotiations include reparations. We do not expect this to be a rapid process.
“Over the course of the past few weeks, we have dismantled a sophisticated network of hackers. This network spanned seven countries. Some of those hackers are no longer with us. Some we will extradite. All will be tried here in the United States.
“As I speak, power is out in Moscow. Several large turbines have destroyed themselves. The Russians are experiencing power outages in other major cities: Novosibirsk, Samara, Nizhny, Saint Petersburg, to name several. It is a reminder of how interconnected the world has grown and how dependent we are on the goodwill of each other.
“It is the intent of the United States to avoid a larger war. To do that, it is necessary for the people in both countries to remain calm. It is also necessary for the people of the United States to see the immediate cessation of all cyberattacks by Russia, after which deaths and economic losses can be assessed. If reparations are agreed to and paid, we believe a comprehensive understanding can be reached to avoid a future war.”
Many had varying takeaways from the speech. What I heard was that the Russians would not admit to the attacks, and we weren’t going to officially admit the counterattacks. A rough eye-for-an-eye scenario was playing out. Some level of parity would be agreed to behind closed doors
. But there was no going back. A new form of warfare was emerging, drying its scaly wings in the sun.
The next morning Julia flew back to Las Vegas, where she was met by Jo. She’d stay at Jo’s house. I flew in late in the afternoon and talked to Jo as I drove to my house. Inside, it smelled like new paint. I tore back the red-brown paper covering the hardwood floors. They hadn’t looked this good since Carrie and I bought the place. Maybe that meant something. There were decisions to make in the kitchen, but the bathrooms were back together, and a hot shower sounded better than food. I met up with Jo and Julia after, and we went out to dinner, where I got a text I thought was from the Secret Service but turned out to be Dan Jenkins, the carpenter, sending me photos of Ikea cabinets.
The next day Jace and I worked through a timeline of Corti’s and Farue’s moves. One more day and the intubation tube would come out, and soon Farue, if he wanted, could talk. I planned to fly back to SF as soon as the tube was out, but if anyone could get anything out of him it would be Jace.
Two things changed my plans. The first was a message from Samantha Clark via her lawyer that she wanted to talk. The second was a seventeen-year-old kid from Idaho driving day and night with his Northern Brigade father. They arrived at SF General, where Farue was, and the young man sold the night-shift nurses a story of driving from Idaho to see his father, Gary Farue. He showed ID with the name Theodore Farue and teared up when they relented. The charge nurse said no more than ten minutes with Dad.
He didn’t need ten. He needed less than two minutes to bury a seven-inch hunting knife up to the hilt in Farue’s right eye. Jace, with her dark, dry sense of humor, asked, “Do you think Farue saw it coming?”
But that was to cover our frustration. I canceled my flight to SF and flew from Vegas to LA the next day, after the discovery of a gun.
In a reaction to Jody Gavotte hiding Julia’s car under debris and trash in the former commercial space, Max Tona had, at the owner’s expense, hired a crew to clean out all but the leaking barrels of chemicals. They used a Bobcat tractor to scoop debris and carry it outside. There, it was loosely sorted and broken up before being loaded into trucks.
During the sorting, a waterproof bag was found. Inside the bag were a modified assault rifle and 7.62 × 54R steel-core bullets that matched those used to kill the security guard in the Tehachapi and destroy the transformers.
Gavotte disappeared the same day after hearing a gun was found. A warrant went out in his name when fingerprints on the gun matched his. Hofter and I questioned Gavotte’s distraught father, who said he had no idea where his son would run, then added, “It won’t be far enough.”
He was right, though I’m not sure that’s what he meant. Jody Gavotte was arrested that night in Laguna Beach after breaking into a house owned by the parents of a former girlfriend. The parents were in London, where the father responded to an alert on his iPhone when cameras in the house detected movement. He’d called Laguna Police, who arrested Gavotte without incident. If I can be there when he’s arraigned on murder charges, I promised myself I will.
59
Century Regional Detention Facility
Clark was held without bail in LA, and terrorism charges were pending. With the Long Beach terror cell, FBI investigators kept working it, doubling back, reinterviewing, making certain everyone associated was arrested and that anyone peripheral not charged had provided testimony. The soon-to-be-charged were sweated in hopes they’d give up more.
Both the Bureau and the DA’s office kept circling Julia. The business of playing those held without bail pending terrorism charges, one against the other, would spin on for another month, maybe more. Among those repeatedly questioned was Samantha Clark. Her answers on Julia hadn’t wavered. I’d listened to the following tape of Clark.
She stated, “Julia Kern was not involved in any bomb making at the Tulare farm or anywhere else. She was never briefed, never rode with a bomb team or participated in scouting. She had no access to the site in the dark web. She was never in planning meetings. She was purposely kept in the dark due to her FBI uncle and her pacifism.”
When I got to the LA County jail, a sheriff’s detective named Greg Johnston was waiting. He wasn’t working terrorism. He was here about the Signal Hill officer slayings. He got out of his car after I had parked and started for the door. He was clearly tipped I was coming and called to me before I got in the door. He shook my hand like we knew each other.
“We’ve worked hard on this case,” he said.
“You really have, and I heard you’ve narrowed it down with phone records.”
“We haven’t made an arrest. Let’s just get right to it. What does Clark want with you? We can’t wrap our heads around it. We liaised with two agents out of the LA FBI office, but you’re out of Vegas, right?”
“I’m not here about Signal Hill,” I said.
I stared at him a moment. He knew Samantha Clark was from Las Vegas, but maybe he didn’t know much about Julia.
“Clark knows my niece.”
“Wasn’t your niece the girlfriend of one of the terrorists?” he asked.
“Where are we going with this?” I asked.
“I’d like to be with you when you talk with Clark today.”
“I’m here about my niece.”
“I hear you, but I’d like to be in there with you.”
“What are you worried about?” I asked and was genuine.
“I hear you’re trying to get your niece to skate through without charges. What are you giving Clark this morning? What’s the trade? What brought you here?”
“There’s no trade. If that’s why you’re here, you can leave. If you want me to ask her something, I will. If she wants to talk, I’ll come get you. Pop off any more about my niece on things you know little about—no, make it zero—that you know nothing about then I’m going to turn my back on you.”
He shook his head and turned away, but he’d wait. I left him and went inside. They brought her out and into a small room so we could talk face to face.
Clark’s face had paled, and her eyes dulled in just the short time she’d been jailed. Her lawyer hoped that what she’d created with Witness1 would foster goodwill with a jury. That, and how Russian foreign agents who operated undercover manipulated them. The pair of Russian agents arrested had been in the states for a decade. To at least three cells they’d provided money and expertise. They were how the farm was purchased. They were patient. Their operation had been designed to take years. They became enablers and empathizers, but that wasn’t going to sell to juries looking for revenge.
“I want to thank you for being truthful about Julia,” I said.
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“I want to, and I want to say Witness1 is a strong idea. Fix its flaws and keep it going. It may give you strength.”
“I can’t do anything from prison.”
“You can do more than you think.”
“No, you’re looking at a wasted life.”
“You took a wrong turn. Get back on the road.”
“It doesn’t matter what the lawyer comes up with, now or ever,” she said. “It’s over for me. I’ll never walk along a beach again. I’ll never wake at night, reach over, and touch the one I love. I’ll never have children. We were careful not to hurt or kill anybody, but then Tehachapi and Los Banos happened.”
We talked about that, and then her voice trailed off. She was going away. Before she withdrew, I asked, “What about Signal Hill? There’s a detective outside who wanted to come in with me.”
She looked back at me a long time. She had nothing to gain, only more notoriety.
“Why do you ask?”
“I’ve seen a lot, Sam. I’ve lived around it. I think it’s better to get it all out.”
She stood, perhaps to say she was done. She looked past me and said, “I wasn’t part of any planning. I was told to circle around in the Signal Hill area. I would get a call. I think he thought up the idea on his own
. Something was going down, and he knew about it but couldn’t tell me.”
“It was someone you know?”
“Yes, and you do too, you know him. I thought you’d already figured it out.”
I had.
“When I got the call, he said to go to the Black Bear and get a table by a window. I wasn’t told what would happen, but he did say ‘We’re going to make you famous.’ So I went. I didn’t quite put it together before I went. I saw those two officers get out of their car. They were tired, and happy their shift was winding down. You could see it in their faces. They were trying to joke with each other. I could see that from where I was without hearing anything they said. They were fellow human beings, and I realized as I was watching them that the call was about them, but I didn’t move. I betrayed them.”
She shook her head.
“I betrayed them, but it’s not like I knew what was going to happen. I didn’t know Nick would shoot them. Now I don’t know how to make amends. I don’t know that there’s any forgiveness for that. But you need to know that’s why I’m standing up for Julia. The others are being offered better deals if they can name more terrorists and deliver testimony. I’ll keep standing up for Julia. She was never involved. If they charge her, don’t listen to them. There wasn’t a single operation she took part in, either in planning or execution. I won’t let them trade away her life.”
“I thank you for that.”
“I know you do, and I know you mean that. Tell the county detective I’ll tell him Nick Knowles was the killer. I still find it hard to believe. But Nick once told me his father routinely beat him and he ran away when he was sixteen. Maybe it all comes from that physical abuse. I don’t know. I don’t understand.”
“He was nineteen when his parents died. They had retired from the State Department and were living in Africa. Police there think a young white man nailed the doors to their house shut, then doused it with gasoline and burned them alive. Every year they try to extradite Nick Knowles. It might have driven him to find new identities.”
