Warn Me When It's Time

by Cheryl A Head

  “Probably.”

  “That’s what we expected, isn’t it?” Charlie asked. “They wanted to confirm that the devices were planted. That’s why we went through the trouble to make them look authentic.”

  “There’s more. Whoever broke in tried to bypass the security system, but a silent alarm was sent directly to the city police. Because it was St. Anne’s, Coleman was alerted and she drove over to check it out. The police found our phony bombs, but they also found real ones. The cops were about to do the whole red-alert, bomb squad thing, but Coleman called it off and called me. My guys are there now disarming the devices.”

  “Oh god. Real bombs?” Mandy blurted.

  “We’re dealing with some shrewd people. I’ve underestimated them,” James said. “They’ve been on to us all along and, in some cases, a step ahead. They know technology, have surveillance experience, state-of-the-art equipment, and trained personnel. What I can’t figure is if they have all these resources, why they’d need a bomb maker in the first place.”

  “Wait a minute,” Don said. “The guys at the meeting I attended were no sophisticates. That Croft guy might have been cut from a different cloth, but the others were pure corduroy. No way they had guys who could scale a wall.”

  “Is it likely the Turks have paired up with Stormfront?” Charlie asked James. “We know they already have a connection through Croft.”

  “And Robbie,” Don added.

  “Right. That’s the next thing to report. Robbie’s turned. For good this time.”

  “Are you sure?” Charlie asked.

  “Yes. We can’t find him. He hasn’t reported in to the handlers, and he’s not at his home. And, yes, collaborating with Stormfront would explain the Turks’ sudden competence.”

  “Do they know I’m a plant?” Don asked.

  “They must. Either because Robbie has told them, or through their own surveillance. We got a hit on the photo you took of Spader. His real name is Thomas Fox. He’s former DEA. Fired from the agency in ’93,” James said, reading from his phone. “He was spotted overseas in 2003, but he’s been off the radar and out of our databases since then.”

  “Do we believe he’s really a Stormfront recruiter, as Robbie said?” Don asked.

  “Maybe. But he might be recruiting for other groups as well. There are a few guys who work across groups. Most of them have specialties, such as software programmers, weapons engineers, various kinds of trainers.”

  “So that brings us back to the question of why they needed to find a bomb maker,” Charlie said.

  “I’d guess it was the Turks who needed a bomber, but once this Spader guy got involved, with his connections to the larger network, the need was filled,” Mandy said.

  “Don, have you had any messages from them?” James asked.

  Don shook his head. “They asked how the job went. I answered fine. Then the guy, I think it’s the money guy in Croft’s office, asked if everything was set for tomorrow. I told him we were a go. That was three hours ago. Nothing since then.”

  “What if they want to make a bigger point than any of us expected?” Charlie asked.

  “Well, it’s clear they were actually going to blow up the church,” James said.

  “But what if there’s more?”

  “What do you mean, Mack?”

  “What if they want to show up the FBI?”

  “They’ve been doing that all along anyway,” James said.

  “If that’s the case, they know about everything,” Charlie said. “Robbie. Don. The Memorial Day charade. The fake bombs.”

  “. . . and the plans to nail them on Sunday,” James said glumly.

  “Right. So why keep Don on the hook?” Charlie said more than asked.

  “Maybe just to make Don do all the legwork,” Mandy offered.

  “Mack, do you still have that whiteboard in your basement?” Don asked, rubbing Hamm’s ears.

  The whiteboard was mounted on an easel near Charlie’s treadmill. Sometimes she worked through a case while she exercised. For tonight’s brainstorm she moved the board to the bar side of the basement. Mandy sat on the couch with Hamm. Don and James grabbed bar stools while Charlie jotted questions, facts and other notes on Post-its. It helped to see all the questions at once. James filled in answers where he could.

  At almost eleven o’clock, James made a call to his techs. “The fake and real bombs in and outside of the church have been removed and are on their way to the lab for fingerprint testing.” James turned to the group. “These were big bombs, wired for remote detonation. Someone wanted to do a lot of damage.”

  “Damn,” Don said.

  “How do we know the bad guys aren’t still monitoring your equipment?” Charlie asked.

  James shook his head. “When I discovered the bug in my phone, we changed out all our communications equipment. Techs are sweeping our intranet network now for bugs, reinforcing our firewalls, and everyone’s phone and laptop have been replaced.”

  “You can do it just like that?” Charlie snapped her fingers.

  James raised his eyebrows.

  “Yes, yes, I know,” Charlie replied. “You’re the FBI.”

  “There’s one question that’s not on the board,” Mandy said. “What is Constantine’s role in all this?”

  “I forgot. Judy said she’d send me a file with the info,” Charlie said, grabbing her laptop. “Here it is.”

  James was still on the phone, but Don and Mandy watched Charlie read Judy’s updated report with raised eyebrows, shaking head, and clenched fists.

  Michael Gabriel Constantine was a former air force lieutenant colonel who resigned his commission after the Gulf War and started up a private security business. The company ran afoul of the CIA several times, and the Justice Department labeled them nothing more than mercenaries. The company was finally dissolved in 2000, but not before he made a shitload of money. He hadn’t lived in the Upper Peninsula for the last twenty years. He had lived in Toronto and moved to the UP a few years ago where he had a private compound near the Menominee River.

  “According to his tax returns,” Charlie said, “he’s worth $80 million. He’s funded David Duke, The American Nazi Party, and he’s a major sponsor of far-right media. He funds a dozen nationalist groups through a foundation he’s set up and has supported right-wing candidates for local office in a half dozen states.” She finally looked up. “This guy is an out-and-out racist.”

  “If you’re going to catch these guys, you can’t let them know you’re on to them,” Mandy said. “Don should be on the chat boards right now, mixing it up and joking. He’s got to show up to plant the bombs inside the church tomorrow as planned.”

  “That’s it!” Charlie said with alarm. “They want to show the world how they can make fools of the federal government. Don’t you see? That’s why they still have Don on the hook. They want him to show up to plant the fake bombs. There’s a wedding tomorrow at St. Anne’s—a young Latino couple. I talked to them for a moment tonight. There will probably be a hundred people there. The Turks and Stormfront, and god only knows who else, plan to bomb the church tomorrow, not Sunday. That’s the surprise.”

  Chapter 31

  Robbie looked out the window of the motel. Although the view was nothing to look at, he could keep an eye on his bicycle parked, and double locked, right outside his door. He’d finally made it to Canada. Thanks, Mr. Don Rutkowski. I can take this off my bucket list.

  He’d had to pay a surcharge for a taxi ride across the bridge to Windsor, but it was the best way to travel without calling a lot of attention to himself. The Commuter Motel was fine for his needs. The room had two full-size beds and a small desk. After he arrived, he’d had a three-hour bike ride along the road where the motel was located. The road didn’t have many hills, but it had some excellent curves. He found a pizza place, picked up bottled water and beer for the tiny refrigerator in the room, and got to bed early although he couldn’t sleep.

  He was feeling amped up
. Normally when he felt this way, he’d take a long bike ride, but Spader had told him to stay close to the room today. He was the subject of an FBI manhunt. They’d been to his house and the insurance company, and observers were parked near all the bike trails he normally used. Spader emphasized they couldn’t protect him unless he stayed put.

  They were also monitoring all his social media.

  Robbie lay on the bed. The TV monitor was small, but he had it on mostly for company anyway. He’d walked out of his job, the Turks, and his family, and since then he’d spoken only to Spader. He looked at his new burner phone. He hadn’t even said goodbye to his mother or brother. He thought about calling Kathy, but what had started off as an exciting online romance took a nosedive when she’d called him a racist. Prissy, elitist bitch from Grosse Pointe.

  Robbie popped the cap on a beer and swigged down a third. He opened his new laptop and navigated to the Turks website where he logged into the back door as an administrator, using a portable Wi-Fi hotspot. The message boards were quieter than usual tonight. The chatter was mostly the same old stuff. People were reacting to news reports on immigrant crossings at the border, showing anger about attacks on the second amendment, and spewing threats and profanity directed at Obama. A couple of posts asked about the Sunday Surprise, with responses from one of the Turks leaders who was still in the dark. Boy they’ll really be surprised.

  It had finally been proven to Robbie what he’d suspected all along: Stormfront was light-years ahead of the bungling Turks. It took Spader and Croft to identify the FBI’s infiltration of the Turks. Last night Robbie saw Don in the chat rooms trying to draw him into a conversation. But he didn’t engage. Don was a traitor to his race.

  Robbie hadn’t realized how angry he was at Don, and all those federal traitors, until Spader showed him evidence that they didn’t care a thing about him. Spader let him hear the taped conversations where FBI agents and Don talked about locking him up for the rest of his life. They’d also taken that Arab kid’s side even after he attacked Robbie at work—but he’d take care of that kid himself. The final straw was when Spader showed Robbie photo after photo of Don with that Black woman. Spader said she was Don’s boss.

  Robbie looked at his desk where two IEDs were packed in his saddlebag. He’d receive the detonators from Spader tomorrow. He wasn’t the only person bringing bombs; there were others. Spader had come up with the idea of moving up the timetable after learning there was a large wedding at the church on Saturday. While the FBI concentrated on how they would round up the Turks on Sunday, Stormfront would blow the hell out of that church, and all those illegals, the day before.

  In six hours he’d return to Detroit on his bike in the deep cover of night. He’d scouted a spot to pull the bicycle off the bridge and onto the embankment well before he got to the customs checkpoints. At 4 a.m., he wouldn’t be seen or heard.

  Spader’s plan was brilliant. But just in case, Robbie had stuffed a tin box with some cash, his new passport, and two thumb drives with all the account information he’d phished for the Turks and Stormfront in the last few months. He’d buried the box in the park he’d visited yesterday while on his bike ride. If shit hit the fan, he’d be coming back to Canada, sooner or later.

  Chapter 32

  Last night’s discussion in Charlie’s basement had gone far into the early morning, and an ambitious plan was set in motion. Even though the bureau had removed a dozen high-load explosive devices from the roof and interior of the church the day before, electronic surveillance determined that these paramilitary domestic terrorists were expected at the church again this morning. James speculated the Turks and Stormfront might bring additional explosive devices, but they certainly hoped to detonate the ones they’d already planted, and witness the ensuing chaos. The FBI, Detroit PD, and the Mack team were prepared to stop them, and Mandy volunteered to be part of the operation.

  Charlie and Mandy arrived at St. Anne’s at ten o’clock dressed as wedding guests. They’d received radio earbuds, which connected to the FBI command truck near the Ambassador Bridge, and Charlie had also been issued a bureau BlackBerry. They sat on one of the plaza benches and chatted, all the while keeping an eye on cars, pedestrians, and building rooftops.

  Final preparations for the 11:30 nuptials were underway. What seemed to be a professional wedding planner team, plus a group of older Hispanic women, worked in tandem on exterior decorations. Following the ceremony, the bride and groom would exit the main door under a ten-by-twelve-foot canvas canopy draped in ribbon and flowers. A dark red carpet fringed in pink carnations had already been laid.

  One side of the main door was open, and Charlie watched nine people, some already dressed in the burgundy and pink colors of the wedding party, others carrying garment bags, enter the church. No one looked suspicious, but it was impossible to tell who belonged and who didn’t.

  Charlie’s BlackBerry vibrated with a message from Don, asking her to call him.

  “Are you in place?” Don asked.

  “We’re in the plaza.”

  “The FBI’s analysis of the bombs they retrieved last night suggests the triggers will be transmitters for either a car alarm or ignition starter, so whoever has the remotes won’t be far away.”

  “How many people do we expect?”

  “James says three, maybe four. Agent K says the church walls are so thick the radio signal for the interior bombs will need to be close. Probably not inside, but not much farther than where you are now.”

  “Are we sure they got all the live bombs from last night?”

  “They did another sweep this morning. The church is safe,” Don said with relief.

  “Where are the Bureau agents?”

  “Everywhere. They have people in a couple of nearby houses, and agents on the other side of the customs yard fence, and in the bell tower. I think they even have a drone.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’ll be there in twenty minutes with the dummy devices. Judy’s coming, too.”

  “Judy? No!”

  “She wants to be involved, Mack. She’s got to get her feet wet sometime. Plus, she’s mad at these guys for turning the kid, taking a shot at her, and for what they did to Ernestine. Anyway, you can’t talk her out of it. She’s on her way now, and she’s meeting me in the parking lot.”

  A few early wedding guests arrived and began filling the benches and milling around on the plaza. Two people joined Charlie and Mandy on their respective benches so they moved to stand together beneath one of the lampposts. Although the sun was out, with temps in the 60s, wind gusts rippled the canopy and whipped at the hems of women’s skirts. Don arrived with Judy, posing as florists. He pushed a metal cart with two shelves stuffed with blooms, while Judy pointed to areas to place the potted plants.

  Charlie and Mandy tracked the flower cart’s trek along the plaza. At one point someone on the wedding planner’s team approached the two would-be florists, and Charlie noted how efficiently Judy handled the young woman’s queries. Don made a show of putting two of the larger blooms in the center of the cement planters, and in the small beds between the three front entrances. A Turks’ observer would see him going through the motions of placing bombs.

  Don and Judy entered the church, each carrying a few plants. Don had a canvas bag draped over his shoulder. When they exited ten minutes later, Don wasn’t carrying the bag. He glanced toward Mandy and Charlie, pointed to his earbud, then pushed the cart back to St. Anne’s Street in the direction of the parking lot.

  The wedding guests were arriving in steady streams now, and the wedding planner had arrived. She was a middle-aged white woman wearing a beige skirt suit, a floppy hat, and white gloves. She opened both doors of the main entrance and beckoned family and friends to enter the church. She stood at the entrance smiling, nodding as invitations were presented and guests were ushered through the door. The young Latino standing next to her, wearing a dark suit and tie, held an electronic tablet. He checked names against the i
nvitation list as each person stepped through the threshold.

  “I bet he’s an agent,” Mandy said.

  “You’re probably right.”

  There were two long lines of guests now, and Charlie and Mandy split up. Mandy walked to the back of the plaza, moving back and forth along the perimeter. As she walked, she spotted a woman and a man wearing the small pineapple lapel pin identifying them as part of the operations team.

  Charlie kept her eye on the crowd, scrutinizing each person in line. No one stood out so far, but many more people were arriving. The crowd seemed in a pleasant mood, ready to witness the joyful union of the two people Charlie had spoken to briefly. They’d never recognize her as the man who had asked them to leave the plaza last night.

  Charlie moved deeper into the church courtyard to scrutinize the guests in the back of the line. Many of them took note of her stares. Some smiled; others raised eyebrows. She was too focused to be concerned with their reactions. Abruptly, Mandy’s voice rang in her ear.

  “There’s a guy on a bicycle who just stopped at the flower boxes. He’s headed to the west door.”

  Charlie couldn’t see the west side of the plaza from her position, and she brusquely broke through the two lines of people to get a look at the entrance closest to St. Anne Street. She spotted the bike leaning against the raised flower planters and headed toward it. Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a man stooping near the base of the green and gold sign marking the church’s historical designation.

  Charlie was more focused on the bike, which she circled. It was a well-maintained hybrid with brown saddlebags attached to a rear mount. The saddlebags bulged with something large. When she glanced back at the marker sign, the man was gone.

  “I have an unattended bicycle on the plaza,” Charlie said, trotting toward the sign. “And a guy dropped a bike helmet near the front walkway. I think he turned your way, Don.”

  “A bike?” Don asked, then shouted out orders in urgent staccato. “Charlie, get out of there. Now. It’s a bomb. I see Robbie. He’s walking away. James, do you hear? We got a bomb on the plaza, and Robbie planted it. I’m watching him now, and he just turned onto Lafayette Street. He’s shaved his head, but it’s him. I’m giving chase on foot.”