Warn Me When It's Time

by Cheryl A Head

  “Does James have anything more on this Croft guy, or the other guy, the recruiter?”

  “He didn’t say.”

  “I heard today from Barrett that the Stormfront recruiter and Croft are acquaintances. That might mean something to James’s investigation.”

  “Okay. I’ll pass that on. He may already know, if Robbie knows it.”

  “Also, I have an idea for how to get our hands on the top guys the day of the Sunday Surprise. It came to me when Barrett and I were checking out the church yesterday.”

  “Good. Let’s hear it.”

  # # #

  “I think it’s a good plan,” Charlie said to James through the car’s speakerphone. “For these guys, the incident is all about the show. They want to see and hear the explosions and the resulting terror. I think Don’s right. It won’t be enough for them to watch on TV. They had one or two guys out for the parade bombing, but this time the whole rotten bunch of them will want to be front and center to see their production. And if we can have them in a fairly contained space it will make it easier to round up the lot of them.”

  “It could work.” James’s voice sounded through the car speakers.

  “The Ambassador Bridge would give a spectacular view of the church being destroyed. It would also stop traffic on the bridge for a while.”

  “What’s Don’s idea to make them bite?”

  “He wants to use Robbie to keep up the anticipation; then Don will call Croft to suggest the idea. He’d tell them when to be on the bridge to catch the fireworks, and when nothing happens, a roadblock can snag them coming off the bridge. They’d have nowhere to run.”

  “It sort of reminds me of our Belle Isle sting, remember?”

  “How could I forget? Bullets were flying all over the place, and I was lucky I didn’t get shot. By the way, Don’s pretty sure he’s being followed again. Do you have men on him?”

  “No. But we do have eyes on Robbie so maybe it’s my guys giving him the heebie-jeebies. Let me see what I have to do to get the Ambassador Bridge blocked off. You want me to get in touch with Don?”

  “No,” Charlie answered. “He and I are going off schedule to meet again tomorrow, and I can give him your instructions and any updates. He’s getting kind of anxious, missing home, and this whole Catholic church thing is eating at him.”

  “It’s only a few more days,” James said. “Tell Don to hold on. His efforts have been invaluable to us. With Wyatt’s deal, we’re putting together a nice case of conspiracy and manslaughter. With the online snooping Robbie and my team are doing, we’ll also have additional criminal charges.”

  There was silence from the speakerphone.

  “Are you still there, James?”

  “Yes, I’m here. I’ll just be glad when we can lock these fuckers up, Charlie.”

  The kid’s doing a good job of jerking these guys around.

  Don was switching from one message board to another. Robbie had set up another alias for Don. As BUICKLOVER he was occasionally commenting on Robbie’s posts and joining in the overall fervor being generated by rumors of something for the record books on Sunday. The phrase Sunday Surprise had taken on a life of its own, and Don had even seen it referenced a couple of times on Facebook.

  Around midnight, Don spotted SEEINGBLUE liking and cheering the posts of other users. Then he posted a message to Robbie:

  Posted by: SEEINGBLUE

  BIKERDUDE. How’s it going?

  BIKERDUDE replying to SEEINGBLUE

  Going well on my end.

  SEEINGBLUE replying to BIKERDUDE

  Need to talk to you offline. Will text you in five.

  Don typed quickly into the chat room so Robbie would know he was still online, and had seen the last message from Spader.

  Posted by: BUICKLOVER

  Still awake here in the burbs. Anybody got a recommend on a good movie?

  The board lit up with the names of movies, most of which Don had already seen. The Day of the Jackal, Death Wish, Gladiator, First Blood, Braveheart, The Delta Force, The Alamo.

  No matter how badass these guys believed they were, their bravado rarely came from real-life experience. It was inspired by popular culture. The books, movies, TV shows, comic books, and magazines in sync with their views, tastes, and levels of testosterone.

  More movies popped up rapidly on Don’s screen: Rambo I, II, and III; Blown Away; Live Free or Die Hard. Most had the same themes and always the same heroes. A white man spouting a nebulous set of values—independence, sacrifice, patriotism, tradition—and set on protecting the women, children and the American/Anglo-Saxon/Christian way from nonwhite bad guys. Or revenge for some perceived harm to those same values culminating in explosions, car chases, and gunfire. The end was always the same. The cinematic hero—Chuck Norris, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, John Wayne, Mel Gibson, Tommy Lee Jones—either walked away from harm in slow motion, flames and chaos all around him, or died with a hero’s send-off.

  SEEINGBLUE got into the conversation by suggesting Black Sunday, the film about a troubled former POW planning and executing an attack on the Super Bowl. That asshole. He hoped Robbie could stand up to this blue-eyed devil.

  Chapter 28

  “Does Don know? Is he treating the kid any differently?”

  “Not as far as we can tell. They’re meeting again today. Buying supplies. Barrett says he’ll call in a full report when they’re done,” Spader said.

  “He knows not to use his own phone?”

  “I’ve given him three burner phones. He knows to use a different one every day. I was thinking of maybe moving him out of his mother’s house.”

  “Won’t that make the FBI suspicious?”

  “Maybe so. But they were close to pulling him in the other day.”

  “I think we have to leave it like it is. We only have a couple more days. Let them think everything is okay. Let the Bureau and this Don guy keep doing the heavy lifting for us.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are the explosives ready?”

  “They’re assembled and in a safe place. We’re just waiting to know where to place them.”

  “Good. Keep me abreast.”

  Spader’s Jeep had become his makeshift office and hotel room. This job was more complex than he’d imagined, but he’d follow the Angel’s wishes. The man was a good Christian, and he was exceptionally smart. Smarter than the FBI. He’d been a step ahead of them for months and always had contingencies.

  When the police leak dried up, he already had a backup plan in place. He hadn’t hit it off with the boy, so he’d put Spader in charge of handling Robbie’s conversion. The man had a knack for making doors open to him. I bet he could open the gates of Heaven themselves. Probably how he came to be known as the Angel.

  # # #

  “Where you been?” Don asked. “You’re late.”

  “Yeah, sorry. Something came up this morning,” Robbie said, sitting on the bench behind Don so they were back-to-back on the plaza of St. Anne’s.

  “You can’t be late on Sunday. They’ll be watching.”

  “I know.”

  “You biked all the way?”

  “Yeah. It was a good workout.”

  The sun reflecting on the plaza’s red brick made the whole area glow. It had rained earlier, and the water drying in the cracks sparkled. A few tourists had already found their way to the church, and they moved around the courtyard taking photos of the building and posing for their own pictures. Don had a camera hanging around his neck and took a few quick snapshots himself. He pointed in the direction of the gargoyles on the roofline, and the shutter clicked rapidly. He aimed at the buttresses next, then the cement planters.

  “Let’s move to the side,” Don said. “You take notes.”

  Robbie pulled out his phone and used a stylus. Don gave him numbers: “Fifteen feet between the planters. Mark them at twelve inches deep. The front roofline looks about fifty feet.”

  At the side, Don took pictures of t
he foundation and the door and entryway of the rectory. He aimed his camera at the roof again and fired off a few pics before replacing the lens with a panoramic one and taking some photos of the span of the Ambassador Bridge. Don headed back to the front, and Robbie dutifully followed. Don stood at the street wall to take a panoramic photo of the church’s front façade. The tourists noticed him with his camera. As he moved toward the center of the plaza with Robbie on his heels, a young woman in the group—pretty, with blond bangs and a turquoise scarf flung around her neck—approached smiling.

  “I was wondering if you could take a picture of me and my family,” she said, holding out her small camera. “We’re waiting to do a tour of the church.”

  “We’d be happy to, wouldn’t we, Father Barrett?” Don said to Robbie, whose face froze in shock.

  “Oh, are you a priest?” the girl asked with wide eyes and a more tentative smile. “You look so young.”

  Robbie couldn’t speak. His face was flushed, and he shifted his helmet from one hand to the other. He glared at Don then turned and stomped to a bench and threw his helmet on the seat.

  “He’s still in training,” Don said.

  “Don’t you ever do that again,” Robbie hissed when Don returned to the benches. “You embarrassed me in front of that girl. This is serious business we’re doing.”

  “I was just having a little fun, Barrett. Lighten up. I’d rather we look like a couple of happy tourists than two terrorists casing the joint. Come on. They’re doing a tour this morning. We’re going in.”

  Don followed the family into the church, and the young lady with the blond bangs held the door open for Robbie. Don put his hand on Robbie’s arm so they could fall back from the group. The tourists oohed and aawed at the impressive view. Robbie stopped and, mouth open, looked up at the ceiling and its display of magnificent stained glass.

  “Bet your church doesn’t look like this one, does it, Barrett?”

  “This really is something,” Robbie finally answered.

  Don led Robbie to the front, and they sat two pews before the transept, the area between the nave and the sanctuary. Don snapped a few photos of the elevated pulpit on the left of the church, the radiator in front of the altar rail, photos of the confessionals, and the open doors on either side of the sanctuary. One of them probably led to the sacristy where the priest and attendants prepared before the service. Don signaled to Robbie that they were leaving and stopped to take a photo of the organ on the second level over the vestibule.

  The tour group was returning to the side aisles, and the guide was looking their way. “Let’s head out,” Don whispered. There were a few more people in front of the church. The temperatures were forecast to climb into the seventies today, and folks were taking advantage of the mild weather.

  “Grab your bike. Let’s put it in the truck. Then we’ll get some Mexican food. I’m buying.”

  # # #

  At Lowe’s and Home Depot, they had bought some of the equipment they needed: pipe, ball bearings, duct tape, pipe ends, a few PVC parts, nails, and clamps. Next they had driven to a few hardware stores for other supplies, and now they were back in the truck.

  “Are you only doing pipe bombs?” Robbie asked.

  “No. A combination of IEDs and plastic. Some of the spaces inside will be easier to conceal plastic. Under the radiators, along the base of some of the columns. The pipes will go up in the organ balcony. Maybe a few taped to the underside of some of the pews. Outside will be all plastic. This is a strong building. But placed along the buttresses, an explosion should cause quite a bit of damage. We’ll also place some in the lower hall where the food pantry is. That will take out the heating system and maybe do foundation damage.”

  Robbie listened intently and put a few notes in his phone. “Medium to heavy load on the plastic?”

  “You’ve been watching those videos again, huh?”

  “Yeah. I’ve seen a few, but now that there’s a practical application, it’s interesting to see how it would work. If it were real, I mean.”

  “We’ll need to come back at night to make it look good. Put some of the pipe on the sides, on the roof, and in the planters. We’ll probably have twelve, maybe fourteen dummy devices.”

  “When do we plant them?”

  “Who’s we?”

  “You and me.”

  “This will be a three-man job, and it’ll be me and two agents. If you want, you can meet me on Saturday for the interior work. That’s when they do the cleaning, and I can slip in. It would be good to have an extra set of hands, and someone who can distract attention away from what I’m doing. Okay?”

  “Okay, but how will you plant the exterior devices to make it look real to the Turks?”

  “Use a crane with a bucket. Pretend to work on the outside lights or the trees and lob a couple of plastic loads with fake detonators onto the lower roof. We can be in and out in five minutes.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “What’ll you do with the rest of your day?” Don asked.

  “Oh. I don’t know. Maybe take another bike ride. I took the day off from my job.”

  “Okay. Well, I’ll see you on the boards tonight. Is this okay to drop you off?”

  “Yep.”

  Don looked back at Robbie as he lifted his bike from the truck, and did a quick safety check. Tires, chain, pedals. He put on his helmet, nodded to Don, and swung onto the bike headed in the direction of Fort Street. Within seconds he was out of sight.

  # # #

  Spader waited for the call from Robbie. He sat in his Jeep five rows behind the truck and watched the back of this Rutkowski guy’s head. He just seemed to be sitting there. Robbie had unloaded his bike and ridden off five minutes ago. His cell phone sprang to life. It was one of the burner phone numbers.

  “Barrett,” Spader said.

  “Hey, Mr. Spader. I have a lot of information for you.”

  Spader flipped to a new page on his clipboard. “Okay, kid. Let’s have it.”

  Robbie talked fast about everything Don had said. He excitedly reported on the number of explosive devices, their placement inside and outside the church, the specific areas of the interior where Don had seen the most vulnerability, and his idea about posing as electrical workers with a bucket crane. When Don wasn’t watching, he’d taken a couple of phone photos of their shopping cart with the tools and materials they’d purchased. He promised to send that photo, along with the ones he’d taken inside the church.

  “That’s very good work. Give me the timetable again.”

  # # #

  “I tell you, Charlie, the guy has been following us since we left the church. We’ve shopped at five stores, and I’ve spotted the Jeep at each place. He’s sitting behind me now just watching. I think I’m going back there to snatch him out of the vehicle.”

  “Don’t do that, Don. Play it cool. We knew they were still keeping an eye on you and the boy. That’s good. They see you going through the motions. That keeps them on the hook, and that’s where we want them.”

  “Wasn’t James checking on Spader? Have they found out anything about him?”

  “I asked. He says the Bureau didn’t have him in their database. The Jeep’s license plate is registered to an LLC in Lansing. They’ve monitored the listserv you told them about and tried a reverse trace on his IP address, but he must be using a virtual network they can’t track.”

  “I don’t know what that means, Mack, but I guess it translates into they don’t know shit about this guy. What if I can get a photograph of him? Don’t they have some fancy technology to identify him from his picture?”

  “It’s called face recognition.”

  “Yeah. Well, I’m going to try to get a picture of the guy now. I have this spiffy camera with all these lenses, and I think one is a telephoto lens. Hold on, Mack. I’m going to try to get a shot of him now.”

  Using the FBI camera, Don switched out the panoramic lens he’d used at the church for one marked as a 600-m
illimeter lens. He turned in the truck cab and framed the blue-eyed devil in the viewfinder. He took several shots. They wouldn’t be perfect because the photo was through the back glass of the truck and the windshield of the Jeep, but you could still see the man pretty clearly as he chatted on his phone.

  “Got it, Mack. Look I’m supposed to meet with Agent K at the trailer. Why don’t you meet me there? I’ll call K and tell him you’re coming. If this guy is following me, it might take me a few minutes to lose him, but I’ll be there.”

  Chapter 29

  The double-wide FBI trailer in the Donovan quarry had been transformed into a surveillance center and bomb-construction site. Charlie sat in a chair opposite the three technicians working under the supervision of Agent Peter Kapinski.

  “As you can see, Ms. Mack, there’s still a lot of work involved in making fake devices. The IEDs need to appear to be bombs and have the weight and sound of real explosives in case one of the Turks’ observers gets close enough to look at the detail of the devices,” Kapinski explained.

  The plastic explosive, which would be placed in both external and internal areas, presented a more difficult problem. Technicians were mixing a clay-like substance to replicate the look and feel of C-4.

  “I thought you used Semtex for the Memorial Day operation,” Charlie said.

  “Yes, but we were planting it outdoors, in tree boxes and such. Semtex has an orange or red color. To be placed around columns and foundations and pipes, we would use C-4 because it’s white and blends in better.”

  Another technician moved from chair to chair around three desktop computers. She’d told Charlie she was monitoring a half dozen chat rooms, message boards, websites, and phones associated with the task force case. She was nimbly typing, printing, texting, and talking to another agent. She left her workstation for a minute to hand Charlie a printout. It was the verbatim conversation she’d had with Don an hour ago.

  “It’s from the bug in Don’s mobile,” Agent Garrow said in answer to Charlie’s raised eyebrows. “He’s right. We really don’t know shit about this Spader guy. But when we get Don’s photo that might really help.”