Fireplay

by Suzanne Chazin

  “If my kid brother had ever read my diary,” said Georgia, “he would’ve remained a kid permanently.”

  Georgia walked over to the shelf and took a gulp of coffee. “Nathan, were you joking before when you said that you almost went to jail?”

  “For once, no,” said Reese. “When I was fourteen, I hacked into the National Crime Information Center’s computers. Found the names and Social Security numbers of a bunch of big-shot California politicians who’d been arrested for everything from DUI and wife battery to exposing themselves. I floated it all over the Internet. It was pretty juicy stuff. Some of it made the Los Angeles Times.”

  “How long did it take the Feds to catch you?”

  “Four days. I wasn’t as savvy back then. Anyway, they locked me up for a night, put the fear of God into me. But they were also really nice guys. They showed me all their equipment and told me stories about what it was like to be an agent. I was hooked. And I guess I had something to offer them, too, in the way of technical expertise, because they recruited me while I was still in grad school and accelerated me through the academy.”

  “You were a computer major?”

  “Mechanical engineering and physics, actually. But computers are my life. I got transferred to New York mostly to handle computer surveillance for the organized crime task force. But right now, I’m working with Nelson in the domestic terrorism unit. Pretty much anything that goes through this agency electronically goes through me.”

  Nelson reappeared to escort Georgia to Krause’s office. Reese remained behind. Charles Krause worked one flight up. They took a spiral staircase to reach the twenty-first floor—saving them a trip back through security.

  As the special agent in charge, or SAC, Charles Krause had a corner office with overstuffed leather furniture and a commanding view of lower Manhattan. A wall of certificates, plaques and photos showed him shaking hands with presidents, the pope and two New York mayors.

  “Welcome, Marshal Skeehan,” said Krause. “I’m delighted to have you on board.”

  “Thank you,” said Georgia.

  “I trust agents Nelson and Reese have helped you settle in?”

  “They have, sir.”

  “Good. Let’s take care of the basics first.” Krause walked over to his bookshelf crammed with leather-bound legal volumes and FBI procedures. He moved aside a picture of two very attractive dark-haired women—one in her late forties and the other in her early twenties—Krause’s wife and daughter, no doubt. Then he pulled down a Bible and held it out to Georgia.

  “Sir?” she asked confused.

  “Agent Nelson explained that you need to be deputized, yes? The U.S. Attorney’s office has completed the paperwork. This is merely a formality. Please put your hand on the Bible.”

  Georgia did as she was told and Krause rattled off an oath of allegiance to the United States government, which ended in Georgia saying, “I do.” It was almost like getting married. Except there was no death-do-us-part stuff. At least not yet.

  “Agent Nelson will help you with the paperwork later.” He motioned for her to have a seat across from Nelson but didn’t sit himself. “What I’m going to divulge to you now is highly classified FBI information. All of it falls under Rule Six-E. Are you familiar with Rule Six-E, Marshal?”

  “It’s a Federal statute regarding confidentiality, right?”

  “Correct. That means you cannot share any fact or circumstance that I disclose to you with your family, your friends, your fellow fire marshals—even your chief. To do so would constitute a breach of Federal law. And it would put a lot of lives in danger. Are we clear on this?”

  “Yes, sir,” said Georgia.

  “Good.” Krause perched himself on the edge of his desk and stared down at her, fixing her in his gaze like a judge. “Marshal, are you familiar with an organization that calls itself the Green Warriors?”

  “Weren’t they the people who claimed credit for that ski resort fire in Utah a couple of years ago?”

  “And a lot more besides,” said Krause. “The Green Warriors started out about ten years ago as an offshoot of some of the mainstream environmental groups. Their membership is small, but fanatical. They’ll do whatever they have to—arson, sabotage, even murder—to get their message across.”

  “Have you been following them from the start?”

  “Our West Coast offices have. So has the ATF. There have been numerous attempts to infiltrate the Green Warriors, without much success. Our intelligence sources tell us, however, that there has been a struggle within the ranks over the past couple of years. One faction of the Green Warriors wants to abandon violent acts and gain the mainstream respectability of such groups as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club, especially now that the word ‘terrorism’ has such intensely negative connotations. But another part of the organization is committed to continued acts of violence.”

  “Why is this a New York issue?” asked Georgia.

  “Because, Marshal, we have reason to believe that the leader of the violent faction—a figure we know only as Coyote—is based in the New York area and is formulating plans for a series of new attacks. And we want to take Coyote out and stop the attacks before they start.”

  “When you say ‘attacks,’ do you mean like putting spikes in trees?”

  “I can tell by the way you asked that that you don’t think of eco-terrorists as ‘real’ criminals.”

  “I’m sorry sir. I didn’t mean to imply anything,” said Georgia. “It’s just that…compared to the types of criminals we see in the FDNY, they seem more like a costly nuisance than a danger.”

  “What if I told you,” said Krause, “that eighteen months ago the Green Warriors blew up a generating plant in Tucson, Arizona? Thousands of homes lost power during a heat wave in which average daily temperatures soared to over a hundred degrees. Seven people died when their dialysis machines and respirators failed because of the power outage.”

  “You want to talk about dangerous?” Nelson added. “Six months ago in Michigan, Green Warrior operatives set off incendiary devices in a meatpacking plant. The devices were set to blow at four A.M., because—the operatives later claimed—no one would be in the plant at that hour. Just one problem: four A.M. is clock-in time. It was only by the grace of God that everyone managed to escape.”

  “What about in the New York area?” asked Georgia. “Have there been any incidents?”

  “Two,” said Krause. “Both fires at new housing developments on Long Island. At one of those fires, a volunteer firefighter fell off a collapsing roof. He’s paralyzed from the waist down.”

  “For a fringe group, they sure get around,” said Georgia.

  “They have money,” Krause explained. “Some of it is channeled through front organizations. The rest comes from sympathetic mainstream environmentalists and people in Hollywood, though that seems to be drying up since terrorism took on new meaning in this country.” He leaned forward. “The problem, as we see it, is the splintering of the group and the rise to power of Coyote. If the Green Warriors become mainstream, it’ll drive the militant element deeper underground. We’ve got to get their leader before that happens. That’s why we’ve had to depend so much on our confidential informant.” Krause paused and waited for the realization to sink in.

  “McLaughlin?” Georgia straightened. “Michael McLaughlin is your confidential informant? An ex-Westie who drives a lemon yellow Porsche?”

  “He’s not in the Green Warriors,” said Krause. “But he’s got a reputation as a good, reliable ‘events planner,’ as they call it. A lot of the Warriors’ early assaults were very amateurish. In one case, an alleged member blew himself up. So the Green Warriors started contracting out the jobs.”

  “But to a guy like Freezer? The man’s entire social conscience wouldn’t fill up a Tic Tac.”

  “The Green Warriors needed a professional torch, and McLaughlin wanted the work,” said Krause.

  “How did the FBI hook up with him?”

&
nbsp; “A few years ago, we busted up some of his interstate operations in stolen goods,” said Krause. “He was looking at maybe ten years. A guy like McLaughlin could pretty much handle that. But when he found out we were in a position to put a lock on his assets, he asked to deal. He said criminals made sense to him, but the radicals pissed him off. He was happy to hand them over, tidy up his affairs and retire.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  Krause shuffled about uncomfortably. “Marshal, you need to understand something. Fighting terrorism is this country’s top priority right now, and domestic terrorism is part of that mission. The Bureau is doing everything in its power to cultivate contacts among terrorism networks. We cannot question the motives of our informants too deeply when the information they give us gets results.”

  “Yet McLaughlin can’t tell you who Coyote is?”

  “It’s a very secretive group,” explained Nelson. “Everything is handled by email and passwords. We’ve got Nathan Reese working on that end of things almost around the clock.”

  “McLaughlin has assured us he’s on the brink of making contact with Coyote,” said Krause. His face grew positively radiant when he said this. Georgia felt a hollow thud in her stomach. The Feds had so much invested in McLaughlin, there was no way they were going to just hand him over to the FDNY when they were through.

  “Do you know what the exact nature of Coyote’s plans are?”

  Krause didn’t reply. Instead, he slid off the edge of his desk and walked over to the window. He stood there for several long, uncomfortable minutes studying the skyline of lower Manhattan. The morning sun glinted off the suspension cables of the Brooklyn Bridge and gave the high-rises a coppery glow. He turned to her. “Marshal, have you ever done any undercover work for the FDNY?”

  “Not unless you count the time I tried to deliver a bogus payment to an arsonist in the South Bronx.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  “No. It’s kind of hard to pass yourself off as the Latino girlfriend of a drug dealer when you’ve got reddish-brown hair and freckles.”

  “I’m sure you and your superiors believed that we would stick you in a corner, shuffling papers, while the real work of this investigation went on elsewhere.” He paused a moment to make sure she understood that that had been precisely his intention.

  “Instead, I’m in a position to present you with a unique opportunity. Michael McLaughlin is supposed to meet some high-level members of the Green Warriors late tomorrow afternoon to discuss Coyote’s New York plans. We need an agent to pose as his girlfriend—someone who looks nonthreatening and yet believable. We’d like you to be that undercover operative.”

  Georgia bounced a look from Krause to Nelson. She was sure she’d misunderstood. “You want me to go undercover?”

  “You don’t have to do anything, Marshal,” said Krause. “You just have to be present. You’ll wear a wire. Agent Nelson and I will be in a backup car, trailing you. We have no reason to believe that you’ll be harmed in any way—by McLaughlin or the Green Warriors.”

  Georgia swallowed hard and tried to collect her thoughts. “May I ask why you’re not using one of your own agents?”

  “We have four senior female operatives in the New York office. One is a rather large black woman with a Mississippi accent. Another is Asian. The last two are in their fifties. I doubt sincerely that the Green Warriors will buy any of them as McLaughlin’s girlfriend.”

  Georgia’s chest tightened. She closed her eyes. The only image she could see before her was the hideously scarred face of Rachel Cross.

  “It’s not that I’m not honored—” Georgia stammered out, but Krause cut her off.

  “Look, Marshal, surely you must have been wondering why we chose you over any number of more experienced FDNY marshals. This is the reason. We need a law enforcement operative at this meeting. You can provide that vital service. There’s nothing else you can contribute to this investigation. You walk away from this…” He held up his hands. “I can’t promise we’ll be in a position to give Mr. McLaughlin up for a long, long time. I’m counting on you not to let us down.”

  13

  Georgia walked through the rest of the morning in a daze, filling out paperwork and getting security cards and I.D. as if she were going to prison instead of getting clearance to work with the FBI. Here she was, expecting to have to fight to be included in the case, and suddenly, Krause wanted to turn her into their star undercover operative.

  At noon, Nathan Reese strolled by her desk. “I hear you’re going to be working undercover.”

  “I don’t know. I guess.” Georgia didn’t meet his gaze. He flopped down in a spare seat in her cubicle.

  “Nervous?”

  “A little.”

  “How about we grab some lunch? The FBI has a nice cafeteria.”

  “I don’t feel much like eating,” said Georgia.

  “It’s because you’re going under with McLaughlin, isn’t it?” asked Reese. “He’s a scary guy. Did you know on the street, they call him Freezer?”

  “Yeah. And I know why, too.”

  “Can you get out of the assignment?”

  “If I turn it down, there’s no way the Bureau will hand McLaughlin over for prosecution. The only piece of evidence we had tying him to the fire at Café Treize was an answering machine tape that Nelson confiscated. Now, we’ve got nothing.”

  Reese frowned. “An answering machine tape?”

  “Yeah. With McLaughlin’s voice on it. Why?”

  “Because I’m in charge of the evidence log, and I’ve never heard of that tape.”

  “But my partner gave it to Nelson,” Georgia insisted. “In my chief’s office. Yesterday. I saw him do it.”

  Reese beckoned Georgia across the hall to his office and logged into his computer. He pulled up a file and scrolled down it. “I’d remember the tape, but maybe Nelson logged it in himself.” He ran through a list of reference numbers then shook his head. “There’s no tape here, Georgia.”

  “That bastard.” She kicked a shoe at the trash bin. In the FDNY, it would be army surplus metal and make a lot of noise. Here, it was PVC and barely thudded. “I knew it. The FBI has no intention of handing McLaughlin over. The tape is gone. Maybe even destroyed.”

  “Do you want me to ask Nelson?”

  “I bet you he denies the existence of the tape.”

  “You think?”

  “Try it sometime when I’m not around. See for yourself.”

  Reese massaged his forehead. “This is bad, Georgia. I don’t know what to suggest. I love the FBI. Being an agent—it’s everything to me. But sometimes I really hate the way my people treat other agencies.”

  “Your SAC wants to look good with the boys in Washington,” said Georgia. “And all those guys seem to care about is fighting terrorists. I don’t think a couple of dead firefighters are going to be much of a priority to them.”

  “Then the only way the FDNY is going to get McLaughlin is if my people no longer need him,” said Reese. “Which means going undercover may be your only option.”

  “I feel like I’m going into this blind,” said Georgia. “I know almost nothing about Michael McLaughlin.” Then an idea came to her. “Say, Nathan, you have access to the FBI’s data files. Can you find a file on McLaughlin?”

  “Probably.” He hunched over his keyboard and began typing. His face suddenly lit up. “Let’s check our career criminal database.”

  “Isn’t that just going to show his rap sheet?” Georgia could get that herself through the FDNY. Reese shook his head.

  “Your files will only show his arrests and convictions in the State of New York. The Bureau’s CCD is more like a Who’s Who of career criminals. It will list every crime McLaughlin’s alleged to have been involved in nationwide, even if he was only a suspect and never arrested or convicted. And, get this—it will list crimes where he might have been the victim instead of the perpetrator, too.”

  “I don’t know why the Bureau
would care about that,” said Georgia.

  “With organized crime figures, it’s very important. If you know an attempted hit was made on their lives, you can figure out where there’s a power struggle brewing.”

  “I know McLaughlin did five years upstate for robbery when he was very young,” said Georgia. “But that’s all I think will show up.”

  Reese typed in a series of codes and commands, then pressed Enter. A few seconds later, some print popped up on Reese’s screen and he scrolled through it, a confused look on his face.

  “Nothing, right?” said Georgia.

  “Actually, plenty, but almost none of it in New York,” said Reese. Georgia peered over his shoulder. “In New York, all I’ve got is that robbery when he was nineteen. But I’ve got a dropped assault charge in Virginia four years ago. And last year, he was questioned about some illegal dumping activity in South Jersey. He was picked up along with an associate of Louis Buscanti’s.”

  “Louis Buscanti, the mobster?”

  “One and the same,” said Reese. “McLaughlin’s got friends everywhere, it seems.”

  “What about this?” asked Georgia, pointing to something on the screen.

  “This won’t help you because McLaughlin isn’t accused of a crime. He’s the one doing the accusing.”

  “McLaughlin went to the police?”

  “It looks more like the police came to him,” said Reese. “He and a bodyguard were ambushed by a guy with a baseball bat when they walked out of a Midtown restaurant. Doesn’t sound like a mob hit, though. Those guys use bullets, not bats.”

  “Freezer probably tried to shake down the wrong guy,” said Georgia. “Did he press charges?”

  “Apparently not.”

  “When did it happen?”

  “Two years ago.” Reese shrugged. “Knowing McLaughlin, the dude’s probably fish food by now.”

  He went to scroll down further when Georgia stopped him. “Scroll back for a moment. I want to take a look at that name.”

  “What name?”