by Bill King
IT WAS JUST BEFORE three o’clock on Friday afternoon and the Lancaster police department squad room was packed with uniformed officers gathered for the afternoon shift change. Lancaster is a suburban town of about thirty-eight thousand on the south side of Dallas County. The weekend was fast approaching, and the outgoing shift was eagerly awaiting the changing of the guard.
The boisterous chatter in the room quickly died out when the police chief, a heavyset woman in her early forties with short blond hair, walked into the room.
“Okay, people, settle down. Let’s get started,” said the police chief, who was still dressed in the same dark blue Class A uniform she had worn for the promotion and awards ceremony she and the mayor had presided over an hour earlier in the city council chambers.
The officers in the room were fully attentive. The chief usually didn’t preside over shift change, so they figured something big must be up.
“The most important item I want to go over involves the nationwide search for this man,” she continued, flashing a picture of Fósforo on the white drop-down screen behind her. “His name is Mateo Calderón and he is wanted for questioning in the Federal Reserve bombings. The Feds have strong reason to believe that he will strike again very soon, perhaps in the next couple of days.”
The room was completely still, as the police officers intently focused on the terrorist’s face. They had all seen the same picture at yesterday’s incoming shift change but, as good cops, they treated it with the same scrutiny as if it was their first time seeing it.
“According to the FBI, Calderón is six-foot-six …” the chief continued, her monotone voice sliding into a drone.
“Holy shit,” one of the police officers suddenly burst out. He was a chubby man who looked to be in his late-forties. The chevrons on his sleeves signified he was a sergeant. “Excuse me for interrupting, chief, but I’m pretty sure I saw this guy earlier this morning at the Denny’s on I-45.”
“How sure are you, Sergeant Dunston?”
“Real sure, ma’am. And once you mentioned his height, I’m almost positive he’s the same guy I saw this morning.”
“What time was that?” asked the chief, who was trying to remain outwardly calm although, on the inside, she was bursting with excitement.
“About ten o’clock,” the sergeant replied. “He walked into the restaurant as I was paying my breakfast check at the register.”
“Was he with anyone?” asked the chief.
“Yeah, chief, there were four of them. In addition to him, there were two women and another man.”
“Did you get a look at the vehicle they were driving?”
“No, ma’am, but it’s possible the security cameras outside the restaurant captured it,” said the sergeant. “And it’s almost certain they got pictures of them inside the diner.”
“Okay, John,” she said to the sergeant, now using his first name. In fact, if this lead panned out, she’d probably name her first grandchild after him, too. “I want you to get over there right now and get us their surveillance video. I’ll call over to the restaurant and tell them you’re on your way. And get back here with that film ASAP.”
“Copy that.”
“And call me if you have any problems,” said the chief, who motioned with her right hand for the deputy chief to take her place at the podium. “Any at all. I’ll let the folks at the FBI know that the guy they’re looking for is somewhere here in the Metroplex.”
◆◆◆
“What do we hear from the Americans?” Graciela asked casually as she walked through the heavy steel door into the Bunker. It was mid-afternoon on Friday and she had just finished a long conversation with The Frenchman, who had remained upstairs in the library to make a few business calls.
“Not a thing,” said Rhonda Shaughnessy, who was sitting in one of the comfortable leather theater chairs, her legs tucked underneath her. “There’s no indication that they know anything about either the weapon or the target. It just seems like business as usual for them.”
“You would think, with all the resources the Americans throw at intelligence gathering, that they would be better at it,” said Graciela, sitting down in one of the leather chairs next to Rhonda. She glanced over at the clock on the wall. It read four-fifteen.
“Lucky for us that they’re not,” said Rhonda, stifling a yawn. “We just need to make sure we don’t get overconfident and become sloppy.”
“That’s why I have you, Rhonda,” said Graciela, reaching over and patting Rhonda’s hand. “We play to each other’s strengths.”
“Speaking of strength, I’m really exhausted,” said Rhonda, massaging the back of her neck to get rid of a crick. “Do you mind if I take off early today and spend the night in Laredo at my apartment? I need to recharge my batteries before the big event.”
“Absolutely,” said Graciela. “Go have some fun and get some rest.”
“Thanks, Gracie. I promise I’ll be back by two o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
◆◆◆
Unbeknownst to Graciela and Rhonda, though, the American law enforcement infrastructure was, in fact, on high alert. That’s because, ever since the discovery of Gwen Thompson’s intrusive software patch, the Rancho’s window into the Border Patrol had been effectively cut off.
Not electronically, though. They did not want to alert the folks at The Rancho that their bugging gambit had been discovered, just in case they ever wanted to inject some false information. They did, however, alert the Border Patrol that they had confirmed the security breach and provided the Laredo office with daily scripts of routine video teleconference calls with their headquarters in Houston in hopes of reassuring whoever was listening at The Rancho that everything was normal.
In the two hours since the Lancaster police sergeant had reported sighting Calderón earlier that morning, every police and sheriff’s department throughout the entire Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was placed on high alert. The surveillance video from the Denny’s restaurant provided reasonably clear pictures of the terrorist they called Fósforo, as well as his three compatriots.
Those pictures were widely disseminated, as well.
To avoid widespread panic, it was agreed by federal, state and local officials that the public would not be alerted to the mortal danger they faced, at least not for the time being. After all, it was preposterous to think that they could safely evacuate an urban area of six-and-a-half million people, while at the same time searching for the bomb in hopes of disarming it before it could detonate.
So, like Winston Churchill three-quarters of a century earlier, the president chose the strategic gain over the near-term sacrifice.
◆◆◆
“There she is,” said the Laredo plainclothes police officer into her radio microphone. She was sitting behind the steering wheel of an unmarked blue Ford Focus sedan that was parallel parked just down the street from the Liberty Arms Apartments. Two more policemen dressed as electrical workman were speaking to one another while looking up at a white metal transformer cylinder mounted some fifteen feet in the air atop the pole beside them.
“Copy that,” whispered one of the workmen into his earpiece. “We’ve got it from here.”
As Rhonda Shaughnessy walked past the two utility workers, she smiled and said hello as she fumbled for her key ring, clumsily searching for the small key to her mailbox.
She stopped in front of a wall of metal mailboxes. With her elbow pinning her purse to her side, she inserted her key into the box with the number two-three-seven on the front. As she opened the small mailbox door, Rhonda suddenly became aware that the two workers were now less than a foot behind her. Before she could react, one of the men placed the palm of his hand against her shoulder blades and pushed her firmly, but not violently, against the wall of mailboxes.
“Rhonda Shaughnessy, you are under arrest for conspiracy to commit murder,” one of them said, as the other took ahold of her right wrist and secured a steel handcuff in place. He then reached
up and grabbed her left wrist and pulled her arm behind her body before slapping the other handcuff on her wrist.
While he was doing that, the other officer began informing her of her Miranda rights against self-incrimination.
Rhonda offered no resistance and said nothing as they escorted her to the black and white police cruiser that had previously been parked out of sight, two blocks away.
◆◆◆
Forty-five minutes later, a uniformed police officer held the door open as Rhonda Shaughnessy was led into the Laredo FBI interview room. She was accompanied by her lawyer, a silver-haired woman in her fifties who was still dressed in soft pastel workout clothes.
Moments after being apprehended outside of her apartment, Rhonda had given the arresting officers the name and phone number of her attorney. From that point, it wasn’t difficult for federal agents to quickly locate the woman, who had just finished taking a spinning class at a local fitness center. Saying only that it was a matter of national security, two federal officers escorted the attorney to the FBI building to meet with her client.
Since it was a Friday evening, nobody in her law office would miss her until Monday, which was critical because they did not want to alert Graciela and her associates that the FBI was aware of their activities.
Bobby Janak was anxiously waiting for them inside the interview room. He kept shifting uncomfortably back and forth in a rigid metal government chair in a vain attempt to find a comfortable position. His hemorrhoids had been flaring up all day.
The clock on the wall read seven-twenty-five. Once everyone was seated around the small, rectangular table, Janak introduced himself, then began the questioning.
“Miss Shaughnessy, we don’t have a whole lot of time here and I’m sure you understand why,” he said, getting right to the heart of the matter.
Both women remained expressionless.
“What can you tell us about the current whereabouts of Mateo Calderón?” the FBI agent asked.
Rhonda looked at her lawyer, who nodded that it was okay to answer the question.
“I have no idea who that person is,” she replied, her facial expression passive.
“Come on, Miss Shaughnessy, we know all about Calderón and Graciela Montoya,” he said. “We also know about The Frenchman and the missing Russian nuclear device.”
Rhonda was silent for a moment, her mind quickly calculating her options. She was, however, surprised and concerned that they also knew about The Frenchman.
“I knew a Graciela Montoya when I was a student at Stanford. She left school a year or two ago, after finishing her masters. I haven’t seen her since.”
He looked over at Rhonda’s attorney, who seemed pleased with her responses thus far.
“Ms. Clark, if you need a few moments to confer with your client, we would be happy to wait outside in the hallway,” he said, maintaining rigid eye contact with the lawyer. His voice was firm and steady. “This is not about something as inconsequential as an unpaid parking ticket. This involves a plot to detonate a nuclear bomb on American soil and kill hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children. Maybe even millions.”
Janak paused for effect, staring straight at the two women. Rhonda remained stoic, but the lawyer displayed the shocked look of a person who had just found out her parents might be space aliens.
“We know that your client is involved and that her background is in nuclear physics. We also know that, if that bomb actually does go off—something we believe to be imminent—she will never taste freedom again. That I can promise you.”
Janice Clark looked at her client and whispered something in her ear. The two women continued this back and forth conversation for about twenty seconds before Clark nodded her head and looked back at him.
“Agent Janak, I have already explained to my client the seriousness of the allegations made against her,” she replied calmly, her hands folded together on the table in front of her. “She maintains her innocence and says that, other than Ms. Montoya, she does not know any of the other people you mentioned.”
At that point, a tall, blonde woman dressed in a tan business suit walked into the room. She had been on the other side of the one-way mirror, observing the interview.
“Ms. Shaughnessy, Ms. Clark, I am Assistant U.S. Attorney Gretchen Contreras,” she said, standing just inside the door, which she had closed behind her. “Taking into consideration the serious and imminent threat to the safety and well-being of the United States, it is crucial that word not leak to her co-conspirators that we have spoken with your client. In fact, were these people to know how much, or how little, we knew of their plot, it would almost certainly lead to the death of untold thousands of innocent people.”
Clark began to object. This was Friday night of the Memorial Day holiday and she had planned to spend a quiet weekend relaxing and reading several books she had been meaning to around to for the past year.
Contreras raised her right hand, palm facing outward, to stop her.
“Therefore, we will be holding both of you incommunicado with the outside world, for at least the next seventy-two hours. You may, of course, speak to each other…in fact, we would encourage you to do so in hopes that you will have a change of heart and help us prevent this horrific catastrophe from actually happening.”
◆◆◆
Chapter 35
“IS EVERYTHING ALL SET to go?” the tall man asked, rubbing his face. He had not shaved for the past three days and the itchy stubble was beginning to annoy him.
“Just a few seconds more…there, it’s set to go off tomorrow morning at nine,” Isabela replied. She was sitting on her haunches, her attention locked on the electromechanical device in front of her. A bead of perspiration rolled down her forehead, stopped momentarily in its descent by her protruding eyebrow. She wiped away the sweat with the back of her hand and rose to her feet.
It was a bright, sunny Saturday morning and they were inside a vacant restaurant building just north of the Arts District in downtown Dallas. A third person, a clean-shaven young man who looked like he could have been an insurance salesman, stood guard by the front door to the building while a fourth, a young woman in her early thirties, sat in the driver’s seat of their van, which was parked in the service alley behind the restaurant.
Fósforo looked over at the clock on the wall which, since there was no electricity to the building, displayed the exact same time as when they first walked in ninety minutes earlier. He glanced down at his wristwatch. It read eleven o’clock.
“Are we done here yet?” he asked, eager to get moving and place some distance between them and Dallas.
“Everything is ready to go,” said Isabela, looking up at him with a look of satisfaction on her face. “We now have twenty-two hours to get as far away from this thing as possible.”
“I hear Mexico is wonderful this time of year,” said Calderón, grinning from ear to ear.
◆◆◆
It was now Saturday afternoon.
Twenty-four hours had passed since the Lancaster police sergeant had reported having seen Mateo Calderón and his compatriots at a restaurant on the southern outskirts of Dallas. Federal and state law enforcement had immediately descended upon the Metroplex and were now as thick as flies, scouring the sprawling metro of six-point-five million inhabitants.
So far, though, without success.
The Dallas Joint Terrorism Task Force had set up its command center at the Bureau’s headquarters in northwest Dallas, just west of Love Field on I-35 East. The Nuclear Emergency Support Team was set up just a mile away, on Love Field proper. From there, it was just ten miles down the interstate to downtown.
Their challenge, of course, was to look under every rock in the city without raising undue attention or setting off a panic that would doom any chance they had of finding the device in time. Amazingly, even with several thousand law enforcement officials actively engaged in the search, word of the impending Armageddon had not leaked out to the
press. For obvious reasons, though, only a select few knew of the nuclear device. Most thought that they were searching for a conventional bomb. Still, in the era of social media, it reflected a degree of self-restraint one would have not thought modern American society capable of.
Their big break came at four-thirty on Saturday afternoon, when reports came in that a traffic camera at a toll booth one-hundred-eighty miles south on state highway one-thirty near Pflugerville—just north of Austin—had taken a picture of Calderón in the front passenger seat of a vehicle headed southbound. The date-time stamp said four o’clock that afternoon.
The San Antonio JTTF was immediately notified and they, in turn, notified their field offices, including the one in Laredo, where Janak had just finished another fruitless attempt to extract information from Rhonda Shaughnessy.
The first thing he did was get on the phone to Cortez, who was still in Houston at the JTTF operations center.
“They’re heading our way,” he said, a smile forming on his face for the first time in days. “Based on the information we got from Gwen Thompson, I’d bet the farm they’re headed for the old barn by the river.”
“Did they mention anything about the vehicle?” asked Cortez. “Description? Color?”
“Yeah, they’re in a late model Mercedes Sprinter van. White, with Texas plates,” said Janak.
“I think we can reasonably assume the vehicle was stolen,” said Cortez. “They probably even switched the plates afterwards, just to screw with us. Not that it matters. At least we know what vehicle they’re in right now…or at least the one they were in half an hour ago.”
Cortez looked at the government-issue clock on the wall. It read four-thirty-five.
“Pflugerville is about three hundred miles from Laredo,” said Cortez. “If they stay on the interstate, they’ll reach the border in about four or five hours. I think we can pretty much guarantee they won’t risk attracting attention by going over the speed limit.”
