Burying the Past

by Travis Starnes

  The light difference between the warehouse and the street was enough that it was a black void until he was almost in the entryway. That was enough for him to lose her. He turned at the sound of footsteps pounding on the pavement, and saw the officer who was supposed to be on the back door just catching up to him.

  “Stay here and make sure she doesn’t double back,” he said.

  The officer gave a nod as Taylor dashed into the warehouse. He went down the aisle closest to the rolling door in the front, with his head swiveling back and forth. At the end of the aisle he hadn’t found any sign of Bennett. Looking to his left, he saw an exit sign with a small work desk next to it, that had a man sitting at it, writing on some kind of work order.

  “Did a girl just come through here?” Taylor asked as he ran up to the man and flashed the temporary FBI credentials he’d been given.

  When the man shook his head 'no,' Taylor asked, “Is there any other way in or out of here?”

  “Just the door up by the front.”

  “The door next to the big rolling bay door?” Taylor asked.

  He’d noticed a regular side door next to the open rolling door where he’d entered.

  “Yeah, just that one or this door, here.”

  Whitaker chose that moment to appear, skidding to a halt down the same aisle he’d come down, and jogging over to him when she noticed him.

  “Get some officers to help watch that front door and this one. He says they are the only way out of here, which means we have her trapped in this building.”

  Whitaker pulled out her phone and dialed the detective. Within a handful of minutes, all the officers who’d assembled for the takedown at the diner were in the warehouse. Taylor, Whitaker and all the officers not guarding the exits spread out and began checking for places someone could hide.

  Taylor wasn’t clear on what this warehouse was storing. There were large boxes with machines in them, and big rolls of what looked like paper, stacked from the floor to the ceiling. The stacks of materials and their wildly varying shapes left a lot of small gaps that someone could hide in. The warehouse had decent ceiling lights, but the stacks created a lot of shadows.

  Taylor had borrowed a flashlight from one of the patrol officers and was shining a light into each crevice, making sure he cleared each section of his row thoroughly, before he moved on to the next. He was just getting to the end of a row when he saw a flash of movement out of his peripheral vision.

  Bennett must have realized that with the methodical way the warehouse was being searched, there was no way her hiding spot was going to work, once the section of the warehouse she was hiding in was checked. At least, that was the only reason Taylor could come up with for her mad dash.

  She had been in the row of shelving behind Taylor and he'd been turned three-fourths away from it when she'd made her break. Unfortunately for her, one of the patrol officers had been making his way up that row. She skidded to a halt right before he grabbed her, and tried to do a side-step move around him. That pause was enough for Taylor to get around the row, and move up to her.

  Just as she started to take a step to the left, Taylor tackled her. He'd put his shoulder down and wrapped his arms around her as he smashed into the small of her back, causing her legs and upper body to bend behind her as she crashed onto the ground. Taylor landed on top of her, pushing the air out of her lungs. It was probably more aggressive than it needed to be, but Taylor wanted to shut this chase down.

  "Get off!" she screamed as she tried to wriggle free.

  Taylor pushed himself up, putting his knee in the middle of her back to keep her from getting up, while the officer she'd attempted to dodge stepped next to them and wrenched her arm behind her back. By the time the first cuff snapped closed around her wrist, more officers had joined them. Bennett went limp, the fight having gone out of her.

  It took another hour to sort out things like jurisdiction, and who had to take custody of Mary. It wasn't that there was a disagreement or anything. The locals were more than happy to hand her over, but everyone wanted to make sure all the T’s were crossed and I's were dotted.

  The timing worked out for the best. By the time all the paperwork was settled putting Bennett into the FBI's custody, the cavalry arrived. Otherwise, they would have had to rely on the locals to transport Bennett back to DC.

  They loaded her into the back of one of the Bureau SUVs and Whitaker slid in beside her with Taylor taking shotgun. Whitaker began questioning her as soon as they were on the road and headed back.

  "Miss Bennett, first I want to make sure you understand the rights you were read earlier. You aren't required to speak to us and can stop this interview at any time. You are also allowed to have a lawyer present if you want one."

  Taylor's eyebrows went up at that. While he was all for people having rights, and even the reciting of rights when they were arrested, he wasn't sure he would have started off questioning a suspect by reminding them they didn't have to answer questions. He knew this was part of her belief that they should follow not just the letter of the law, but also the spirit of the law.

  Mary Bennett just grunted at Whitaker.

  "Does that mean you do agree to talk with me?"

  Bennett snorted and said, "I don't care what you think I'm allowed to do. I don't recognize your authority over me."

  "Yet you're in our custody and headed to prison … or worse. You're partially responsible for the deaths of a whole lot of people, and you are tied to terrorists plotting violent actions on US soil. You could be looking at a trip to Gitmo or even the death penalty, regardless of whose authority you accept or not."

  "Kill me. I don't care. Allah will smile on me for my part in punishing infidels."

  "So you believe you're doing God's work?"

  "Not the false God you believe in. I am a soldier for Allah, and he knows my good works."

  "I heard you used to be very active in your fathers' church," Whitaker said, changing the subject slightly.

  May scoffed and said, "My father is a fool and is exactly why Dar Al Islam will be victorious. Publicly you embrace weakness, saying you should ‘turn the other cheek’ and ‘love thy neighbor’ and you save your hate for your children. Islam teaches believers to love our children and save our hate for infidels and devils."

  Taylor had pulled down the windshield's sun blocker and flipped up the cover to the mirror, so he could see Whitaker. After Mary's little speech he and Whitaker exchanged a look. It was clear Mary's father had done quite a number on her, making her exactly the kind of troubled kid the fundamentalists loved to target. It also told Taylor any appeals to her own morals or self-preservation wouldn't work. These were the main two things fundamentalists worked on to twist their recruits into people who'd willingly blow themselves up.

  "What about your boyfriend? He sounds like a good kid, and you've pulled him into this. How are you going to feel when you get him killed?"

  Taylor was surprised when she began laughing hysterically.

  "Another pathetic infidel. He pretends to be a soldier of God, but he's only interested in the flesh, like the rest of the house of war. You will all feel the wrath of the true God. We will bath in rivers of blood, and Allah will accept the true believers into his house. Qasim has been chosen, and he will see your entire country burn around you."

  White foam began to form at the corners of her mouth, and spittle began to fly. Taylor looked at Whitaker as Bennett began to rant and rave, her ramblings becoming a little more unhinged with each mile. Whitaker kept hammering away at her for the two-hour drive to DC, trying to pry anything useful loose, but each question just ramped Bennett up further.

  The small convoy pulled down into the Hoover building's garage area, into a secure section used for transferring prisoners into the small holding area housed in one of the basement levels.

  Taylor jumped out of the car as soon as it stopped moving with Whitaker following suit.

  "That girl is batshit crazy!" Taylor said as soon
as Whitaker closed her door.

  "She does seem pretty far gone."

  "We aren't going to get anything usable out of her."

  "I agree," Whitaker said turning to two agents who walked up. "Strip her and get everything to the lab. I want to know if anything out of the ordinary pops. We know she's been to Hagerstown and Amberville. We need to know if she's been anywhere else."

  Crawford came barreling out of the doors leading into the building, as the two junior agents went to follow Whitaker's instructions.

  "Anything?"

  "No," Whitaker said. "she's fully indoctrinated and is just babbling about how we're all infidels and we're all going to hell. We should keep working on her, of course. Maybe someone else will have better luck, but I don't think so. I'm having her clothes and anything else on her sent to the lab, to see if we can get anything useful. "

  "Good. She may be a convert but I'm betting she isn't as skilled at covering her tracks as the guys who've been training for this kind of thing."

  "Qasim sees people like her as expendable. He would've planned on burning her, and may have already cut her out," Taylor said.

  "Maybe, but we have to operate like she still has actionable intel. For now, it's all we've got. On a separate note … what's that?" Crawford said, pointing at Whitaker's hand.

  A smile crept across Whitaker's lips as she held up her hand to look at the ring.

  "I decided it was about time I made an honest woman of her," Taylor said, looking at Whitaker with a smile of his own.

  "He asked me while we were in Michigan."

  "Well, I guess congratulations are in order," Crawford said, shaking both their hands.

  "Thanks," Whitaker said.

  "Now let’s see if we can get anything out of the Bennett girl."

  Chapter 13

  Washington DC

  They spent the rest of the day working on Bennett without much success. Taylor had been more right than he knew, as her rumblings became more incoherent with each hour they pressed her. After six hours and five interrogators taking a shot at breaking her, Crawford held up his hands in disgust.

  "You're right, she's batshit crazy."

  "I told you," Taylor said. "Someone’s done a serious number on her. She might be telling us something we can use, but it's impossible to tell with it mixed in with all the crazy."

  "You two go home," Crawford said. "We won't get anything from the lab until the morning."

  “We could keep working on finding the other kid,” Taylor offered.

  “We don’t have anything new, you’d just be spinning your wheels. Trust me on this, take the moments when things slow down to get some downtime. I’ve worked a bunch of red balls in my career so I understand the feeling of urgency. These things don’t go down overnight and you don’t want to wear yourself down to the point that you’re no good to us when something breaks. I’ll have the lab push overtime looking over her clothes and possessions for trace evidence and we’ll keep someone going at her for most the night. Hopefully between the two we’ll have some new leads for you in the morning.”

  “See you in the morning,” Whitaker said, grabbing Taylor's arm and leading him to the elevators.

  “I just don’t get how you people work. Once I’m on something, I can’t just go home for the night and chill until something new drops. I’m not a fan of waiting for new leads to find me.”

  “The difference is on your cases, you work alone and you have to dig up all the leads yourself. You’re working with us now. We may be going home but there are still a couple of dozen agents working on this overnight. We’re not waiting on leads to come to us, we’re working as a team. Your real problem is you’re a control freak and don’t like handing over the reins.”

  “Look who’s talking,” Taylor shot back.

  “You don’t see me getting my panties in a bunch.”

  “Fine. We’ll let other people work on it for now. Let’s go get Kara and go home.”

  Taylor wasn’t happy to see several reporters lined up outside the gates to the Senator’s townhouse. He knew it wasn’t unexpected, considering it was the middle of the election season. Taylor didn’t follow politics closely, but he knew she’d won her party’s nomination and the election was contentious. News that her daughter had been kidnaped and taken out of the country had thrown gasoline on an already impressive fire, and the media had worked themselves into a frenzy.

  They’d called ahead, so one of the Senators' security people was already at the gate that nominally blocked off her DC home from the street. It was more of a gesture at security than an actual boundary and wouldn’t keep out anyone actually determined to get into the Senators' home. That’s what her armed security (which was now the Secret Service rather than private security now that she was one of the two major nominees for President) was for.

  While it was an impressive home in the elite DC suburbs used by high ranking politicians going back to Woodrow Wilson, it didn’t compare to the massive compound she maintained in South Carolina. While fancy, this looked a lot more normal, if you managed to look past the obviously armed men standing around watching the reporters who in turn watched them.

  They’d pulled up to the curb in front of the Senators' home and as soon as Taylor was out of the car the reporters recognized him. It wasn’t the mad rush he’d experienced at the press conference since there were a lot fewer reporters stationed outside the Senators home than had been present at that event, but they tried their best to make up for their lower numbers by sheer volume.

  The questions ranged from the fairly normal ones like ‘What do you think the Senators chances are?’ to the tin foil hat variety, including one guy who asked over and over if Taylor was in a secret relationship with Senator Caldwell.

  Taylor glowered at them, but Whitaker was surprisingly good at saying ‘no comment’ in a way that didn’t sound like she wanted to kill the person asking questions. They’d called ahead and were both already vetted by the secret service, so they were able to get through the gate and into her house quickly, limiting how long the reporters had to yell questions at them.

  “John, Loretta, how’s the investigation going,” the Senator said as she breezed into the entryway to greet them, giving both a hug.

  “Progressing, but slower than we’d like,” Whitaker said.

  “My committee met last night to talk about the attack in Virginia. Some of the members are making noises about calling out the National Guard until John’s terrorist has been caught.”

  While Taylor had by far the most experience with Qasim as anyone else in US law enforcement, he had to wonder at what point Qasim became ‘his terrorist’.

  “Where would they even be deployed? Amberville was a tiny dot on the map and clearly a test for wherever the real attack will occur. We still have no idea what his final target is, nor can we rule out another test in some other small town. You can’t just deploy the guard across the country, not and actually do any good at least.”

  “That was pointed out, but these are politicians. There was an attack on U.S. soil and they have to be seen doing something. The President is currently holding them at bay, but I know he’s already getting an earful. You’d make all our lives easier if you’d just catch them.”

  “We’re really trying ma’am,” Taylor said.

  “I know you are John. Now let's talk about what’s really important. I understand congratulations are in order.”

  Whitaker held up her hand to show the Senator her ring.

  “Very nice, it fits her very well. You did a good job, John.”

  If Taylor didn’t know Caldwell so well, he would have taken the ‘fits her well’ comment as a slight on the smaller size of the stone. The Senator, however, had never made him feel bad about their different status levels, so he took it at face value.

  “Kara helped me pick it out.”

  “Ahh, that explains it,” she said, patting him on the cheek. “You’re a good man, but fashion has never been one of yo
ur strong points. Have you set a date?”

  “No, Ma’am,” Whitaker said. “He just asked me last night, and there’s so much going on with the case right now that there isn’t really time to talk about it.”

  “I want to put you in touch with Meredith Smoot. She plans all my parties and did mine and my late husbands' wedding. She’s a miracle worker. I know you two never stop working, and she’ll make sure you have the wedding of your dreams.”

  “That’s a lovely offer,” Whitaker said giving Taylor side-eyed look, “but we wouldn’t want to impose. Once you win you’ll have a bunch of parties to plan and …”

  “Nonsense. Most of those will be thrown by the party, and they’ll handle it. I know you’re probably thinking you can’t afford to use my wedding planner, so I’ll make this easy and pay for it myself.”