by Kirk Russell
“How many launches have you worked on?”
“If I answer, I could get sued.”
“Are you working with anyone else who’s staying at the hotel?”
“No.”
“Have you ever met with anyone who’s staying at the hotel?”
“Not unless you count Gina.”
“Do you know a Richard Wu?”
“Richard Wu?”
“A young man of Chinese descent, and before you answer I need to warn you to be very careful about lying.”
“I might know who you mean. There’s a young guy who may be working with the same employer.”
“But you’re not sure he is?”
“I think he is, but I don’t know what he does. I don’t have any contact with him other than giving him driving directions every morning. And I mean every morning. For some reason he can’t get the route down, though it couldn’t be simpler.”
“He’s working for the Chinese billionaire who wants to seed clouds in Africa too?”
“The billionaire is already seeding clouds. He just wants to do it cheaper. Look, I give the guy directions and we talk some, but that’s it.”
“Let’s forget about the Chinese billionaire,” I said. “It was a good story, but we’re way beyond it. You can stick with it if you want, but I strongly advise you to start cooperating.”
“I am cooperating.”
“No, you really aren’t.”
“I don’t know where you’re coming from, Agent Whoever-You-Are. It’s like I told you: silver iodide, cloud seeding in Africa, a Chinese billionaire, my screwed-up life, my debts, everything. Put me in a cell. I’ll get a lawyer tomorrow morning.”
“Sit on it a little longer and think about this: casino security followed both of you to the bowling alley, and now we’re in there. We got there a different way. We’ve gathered DNA, and if yours is there, that’s a problem. I’ll be back after I see how they’re doing with Wu.”
50
Wu jabbed the air as Steve Akaya, who’d joined us in the interrogation room, shook his head. We were into night now. I closed my eyes and listened while he told his version of the silver iodide cloud-seeding story and the work he was doing programming the missiles. Many of the words he used were the same as Stetts’s, though otherwise they spoke in dissimilar ways. That grabbed my attention when I first started talking to them, and here it was again.
When I opened my eyes, I could see Stetts watching through the glass two rooms away with a bored expression, as if to send a message that he was interested but not worried. In here, the missile expert continued to contradict and correct Wu, who became more animated then agitated as he described a cloud-seeding test flight in Mexico that Akaya doubted ever took place.
I stepped outside with Jace and tested an idea on her. “Wu and Stetts memorized the same story. Their speech patterns are nothing alike except for when they talk about cloud seeding in Africa.”
“What do you make of that?” she asked.
“This is going to sound off the wall . . .”
“Nothing is off the wall tonight.”
“Well, we’re not coming up with much background on either of them, and no one can find record of Wu’s wife or marriage or the schools where his kids are registered. These two guys have got the same story down pat but claim they didn’t know each other before this project. Add to that, Akaya is punching holes in everything Wu says.” I paused. “I think they’re working for a US government agency.”
“Whoa, Grale. Seriously?”
“Yeah.”
“And do you have one in mind? It can’t be CIA because they can’t work inside the US.”
“Unless an exception was made for a particular crisis. Let’s go back in, and I’ll question Wu. He’s already on edge. Akaya is taking him apart, and he knows he’s in over his head.”
We went back in and took our seats. I looked Wu in the eyes and asked, “What if I told you we’ve already figured out who you work for?”
“I told you who I work for.”
“I’m guessing you were promised that if anything went wrong, they’d be here for you. But I promise you it won’t work like that. Especially after you’re moved to a supermax prison, and we investigate you as a terrorist. It could be months, even years, before your cell is quietly unlocked. I say this because your employer would likely wait until no one is watching.”
“My employer is a Chinese billionaire!”
“We’re past that. We’re way past it; it’s time to get real.”
Wu turned to Jace with a puzzled look. “What does he mean?”
“Agent Blujace isn’t going to help you, or for that matter, play along any further,” I said. “Look at me.”
He turned back to face me.
“You aren’t credible in the role you’re selling,” I said. “The man at the end of the table is one of the top missile experts in the US, and he’s having difficulty following your explanations of what you’ve worked on. That much even I can understand. I’m guessing you believe you’ve accomplished your mission and now you go home a quiet hero. But in reality, you’ve screwed up. Your cover story is goofy. Why would you lie to hotel employees about your occupation? Is cloud seeding illegal? Not as far as I know.”
I pointed at Akaya and continued. “It sounds like he believes your missile guidance settings will revert to default flight trajectory settings. The missiles won’t be able to ‘fly into the clouds.’ That software can’t be altered.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tell us what you think will happen if a top US missile expert is correct and you’re wrong. What if the changes you made are overridden by a default setting intended to thwart sabotage?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about!”
“Oh, I think you do. You believe the missiles will miss their targets, a phone call will be made, and you’ll be released. Maybe we even shake your hand and thank you for your service. No. We’re going to move you first, and if the missiles launch and hit their targets, you’re going to face the same terrorism charges as the rest of them. I bet your employer will keep a very, very quiet background presence if that happens. The promises they made you? They’ll deny them. Not only that, they may well deny even knowing you, if we let them know you and Stetts thwarted our efforts to stop an attack.”
I leaned in then pointed once again at Akaya, now working at a laptop at the end of the table.
“I’ve listened to the back-and-forth between you and him, and he says they could hit their targets despite what you’ve done to reprogram. You say you helped build these rockets. We have you on record saying that. What are you going to do when you can’t come up with your fictional Chinese billionaire? And the president who gave your agency the go-ahead doesn’t acknowledge it for political and security reasons? At that point, you’ll get hung out to dry.”
He tossed me an indulgent smile.
“You’re smiling?”
“I’m listening.”
“Keep listening, and let’s take it another step, and this is an important one. You’re with us, or as I’ve said several times now, you’re impeding us. We’re in a race to find these missiles, and if your employer is who I think they are, they’ll ask, Why you didn’t contact them when the problem arose? Why didn’t you cooperate? If people get killed due to your bad judgment, there’s no scenario that has a happy ending for you.”
At that he went quiet. Jace and I went out with Akaya, and the three of us talked outside the interview room. We went back in and let Akaya try to reach Wu by showing him the exact mistakes he’d made reprogramming the missiles. Akaya turned his laptop around, and we saw the Indie building as a glowing dot at the center of what looked like an illuminated radar sweep with a seventy-mile radius. The sweep was shown in a lighter color, so it was easy to make o
ut the edge.
I asked for a copy before Akaya started dots moving, white lights representing missile launches at the seventy-mile mark, to show how the simulated missiles quickly closed on Independence Base. Akaya explained again to Wu how the onboard computer self-corrects any changes made without the correct series of passwords.
“In this simulation I can alter their flight paths, but watch what happens when I do,” Akaya said. “Here, I’m altering the target location and guidance.”
He typed for several minutes, and we all watched the screen.
“Keep your eyes on the uppermost missile in this simulation,” Akaya said.
We watched it veer off course to the north then turn back three seconds later. Wu’s face changed. He’d watched closely as Akaya typed and sat frozen now. That was enough for me.
I got up and went to Stetts’s interview room.
“The missile expert just got through to Wu. That’s the bald guy in the room. Wu thinks it’s okay not to come clean with us because he’s too stubborn to accept that his alterations to make the missiles fly straight up were overridden by a preprogrammed default code. In simpler words, there’s one expert in there, and it’s not Wu, or whatever his real name is. We’ve got a screen up, and it looks like Wu is finally getting it, but is it too late?”
When Stetts didn’t respond, I asked, “Why are you two impeding the FBI? Do you see the guy touching the screen?”
Stetts nodded.
“Do you want to look him up? We can do that together. Then we can Google Wu and see what pops up. Not much, right? And you, heck, you barely exist. What’s that feel like? Yeah, you’re an ‘independent chemical expert.’ I read that. Who are you really?”
“Who’s the missile expert in there?” Stetts asked.
“Steve Akaya.”
“That’s Akaya?”
So he did know something.
“It is. You’re looking at Steve Akaya. He’s out here on some tweak they’re making at Nellis Air Force Base, and we’re trying to thwart an attack on Independence Base. When we found the tables where the missiles’ components were assembled in the shells, we went looking for an expert and got very lucky.”
The wall fell. “Okay, Grale, I can’t say much about us, but we’re on the same side. But I’ve got to talk with Wu. Akaya really said they’ll self-correct?”
“Yeah. They added passwords after some screw-up somewhere else. I know about it but can’t talk about it here. Akaya took Wu through the steps to determine whether he’d actually overridden the prior programming. Wu missed a critical password step. You can question Akaya.”
“I need to talk with Wu.”
“Before we go in there, how do we find the others who worked in the bowling alley?”
“They kept us all separate and watched everything very closely. They had one guy per table watching, and no talking. There’s a little guy who came by twice who was running the overall. He drives a black GMC 2018 pickup, but I was never in position to get license plates. You’re going to ask about Dalz, right? Wu saw him. Wu’s the only one. I saw him but not close enough to be certain. Right height. Right look. That was less than twenty-four hours ago.”
“You’re probably lucky we found you.”
“I’ve had that thought.”
“How many missiles?”
“Twelve. They’re 9 feet 3 inches long, 281.94 centimeters, payloads of 113 kilos, 250 pounds of explosives.”
“What type of explosives?”
“You need Dalz for that. He fitted the warheads with a helper at night. Some Pakistani. Missile range is about seventy miles, but they’ll want to be in closer if they can so they get a secondary blast from the remaining fuel. And these things will click along. It’s kickass fuel.”
“How fast?”
“Four hundred and fifty miles an hour plus. You don’t want to be home when the doorbell rings.”
“How sure are you?”
“I’m certain.”
“How were they shipped?”
“Three at a time in plywood boxes that looked like long coffins. We used four-by-ten-foot sheets of plywood to build boxes to hold them. They were lifted onto a flatbed truck. Two missiles were side by side, five feet back from the truck cab, and the third was centered behind them. Four loads total, two of the four went north, two others went south on the freeway. The truck cab is green and white, and the driver was Hispanic. He’s big with black hair. He’s got a belly. The green paint is an olive color and the truck cab is in decent shape.”
“Stenciling, a name, anything.”
“If anything was there, I didn’t see it. But there was some sort of curlicue in white paint to give it a little flair.”
“Air foils?”
“No, this truck is back a couple of decades, no flash. It’s older but cared for. The cab is a Ford.”
“There you go. A Ford. That’ll help,” I said and asked if he thought the driver knew what he was hauling.
“No, and all the loads rolled in the early morning.”
“What time in the morning?”
“Right around dawn. As we finished three missiles they shipped.”
I walked him to the other interview room, and he talked to Wu with all of us listening. Then I left to call Ralin. I knew drones patrolled out to the highway and Indie stored the video. When my call went to voice mail, I hung up and called again. I did that three times before Ralin picked up and said, “I can’t talk right now.”
“You have to. We need Indie. We need your help.”
51
August 15th
Ralin asked for an image, a graphic, anything depicting long plywood boxes strapped down on a flatbed truck.
“I’ll get something to work with,” I said, though I didn’t have any idea how to do that yet. “Six missiles were shipped north, but we don’t know that they shipped up 95 North so you may come up with nothing.”
“And your understanding is they were shipped in wooden boxes resembling long coffins strapped down on a flatbed truck?”
“Yes, two side by side and one by itself with straps holding them down. The boxes are raw plywood, no paint. The driver is a middle-aged Hispanic male at or around six feet tall. The cab is older and more rounded than current models. No wind foils or spoilers.”
“I can work with what you’ve given me. We’ll generate an image for Indie.”
“Thank you for that. Call my cell if you find anything.”
He hung up, and I walked back into the room where Jace and Wu were saying good-bye. Wu was on his way but wanted to apologize. I wasn’t having it but did my best to be neutral.
“You take care,” I said because there was nothing else to say. I walked him out, and a car slowed to a stop on the other side of the street. Stetts hadn’t bothered with good-byes and was already gone. Now, I watched Wu disappear. Half an hour later the Director of the FBI called our SAC and reconfirmed both Stetts and Wu were legitimate and that their actions inside the US were approved at the highest level.
“Highest levels or level?” I asked.
“Highest,” the SAC said. “You did well. Now it’s down to what we do with what we know.”
He left, and I found a spot in the fusion center to lie down for a few minutes. Stabbing nerve pain was making it difficult to concentrate. I could hear people walking by in the corridor. At one point I heard someone say, “What’s up with him? He can’t do that right now.”
I kept my eyes closed and didn’t move. Every pulse brought pain as I waited for the Tylenol and Aleve to kick in and knock it down enough for me to move again. I drifted to a less-aware state and heard more voices in the hallway then opened my eyes to someone much closer. Jace was standing there.
“Hey,” she said, “Mara wants a squad meeting in about half an hour. Let’s get coffee. Have you eaten anything?”
“I’m okay on food but, yeah, let’s go find coffee.”
We found the kitchen, and while we waited for a fresh pot to brew, Jace said, “Mara is moving us around again.”
“When?”
“In this meeting so that’s a heads-up.”
“Do you know what’s coming?”
“He told me I’ll be jumping around and so will others.”
***
The meeting went down and got noisy as Mara announced that SWAT was already back in the FBI office so the DT squad wouldn’t be far behind. He bounced from there to a list of agent assignments.
“Grale, you’re still on Dalz. He’s your primary and anything else is temporary. Don’t carry the ball with anything other than Dalz, and you don’t do anything alone. If you find him, you do not engage. You call in, and we’ll respond with maximum force. Blujace will rotate between squad teams. She’ll move around and be on and off with you. We’re going to absorb some DT agents coming in from Salt Lake, LA, and Phoenix, and they don’t know the area, so there’ll be more rotation. With the missiles, the consensus is if they’re viable they’ll get launched sooner rather than later. Every resource possible is looking for them. It’s that simple, people. Blujace, why don’t you summarize last night?”
“Grale should. He’s the one who figured out Stetts and Wu.”
“All right, Grale, what do you know?”
“I know if I’m working only Dalz and come across him after looking for him for twenty years, I’m not going to blow him a kiss and wait.”
That got laughs, but I didn’t understand Mara reinforcing in a squad meeting that my role was to be limited. It stung. I talked as video from the bowling alley showed on a screen.
“Both suspects gave us information that led us to believe twelve missiles were built and shipped. Their identities turned out to be a surprise, as I’m sure you’ve heard. They had attempted to sabotage the missiles but failed. We’re looking for missiles that are in boxes about ten feet long and four feet wide.” I spread my arms to show the approximate width. “Six went north from the bowling alley and six south. Ninety-five North runs past Independence Base, so we’re asking for video from the surveillance drones there.”