Bad Company

by P A Duncan

  “I’d never think such a thing,” Alexei said. “What do you think, Grace?”

  “I’d come down on the side of caution. Let the signatory government know there’s a possible threat.”

  “Attorney General Vejar might be receptive,” Alexei said, “but the FBI would want more substantiation.”

  “They’d doubt the smoking hole where their building used to be,” Mai said. “Especially if the warning came from The Directorate.”

  “Still,” said Grace, “you should try.” Grace read volumes in the next glance between the two.

  Mai stood up from the table. “I’ll go call Nelson and have him arrange a meeting with Vejar,” she said.

  “Now?” asked Alexei.

  “No better time. Lunch was delicious, but I’m stuffed. I’ll be right back.”

  Once Mai was inside, Grace said, “That brain of hers never stops.”

  “No. I think she analyzes in her sleep, something you can relate to.”

  He refilled Grace’s glass and his own and set the bottle by Mai’s glass. Wine glass in hand, he rose and went to the deck’s railing. Grace studied his profile as he took in the view.

  “Something wrong?” she asked.

  “Not really. I’m having some unusual thoughts.”

  “Uh…”

  “Not those kind of thoughts. That long break in missions last year got me thinking about what it would be like not to go on missions.”

  Grace almost spewed wine at the thought. Field ops hated being put out to pasture.

  “You mean retire?”

  “I hadn’t used that word in my thoughts, but I guess that’s what no more missions means.”

  “What does Mai have to say?”

  The line of his mouth tipped upward for a nanosecond. Russians didn’t give full smiles. Grace had always thought it had more to do with their sorry dentistry than their constipated emotions. After more than three decades in gregarious America, Alexei still didn’t bare his teeth in joy. At least not in front of Grace.

  “We haven’t discussed it,” he said. “I doubt we will any time soon.”

  “Other than Yugoslavia, why do you think this came up?”

  “It’s getting harder and harder to explain to Natalia why we’re gone so much. When Mai got shot last fall, Natalia blundered into our bathroom when I was changing Mai’s bandages, and we made up a story about a mugging. The child wouldn’t sleep in her own bed for three nights unless Mai was with her.”

  “She lost one mother. She doesn’t want to lose another. You’re right, though. Your explanations won’t wash much longer. Any other reason?”

  “I’m getting old.”

  “Never.”

  “I’m this old and still alive.”

  “Because you have someone to live for.” Grace nodded toward the house.

  His gaze went there, too. If anything, he grew more serious. “Sometimes, it’s as if our lives are like two trains going in opposite directions,” he said. “Mine left Kiev headed west and hers London going east. We met somewhere in between and now…”

  “You’re not pulling away from each other,” said Grace. “You’re stronger together than I’ve ever seen.”

  “We switched trains,” he said, voice so low she strained to hear. “She’s becoming more like I was. Her ethical boundaries shift and shrink again and again. She has almost no qualms about the things she needs to do.”

  “Sounds like the perfect operative who had an excellent instructor. I think you jumped on her train, and you two have a long, loving journey ahead of you.”

  The grimace, which may have been a smile, appeared again. “Do you have the solution to hunger and the means for world peace as well?”

  “Enough metaphors and clichés. You two are good.”

  Alexei’s eyes settled on the door Mai had used to enter the house. “I hope so.”

  9

  Dangerous Thinking

  Mai heard the lock on the office door cycle and turned. Alexei stood in the doorway.

  “I’m essentially ready,” she said. “Getting my thoughts together.”

  He entered, letting the door close and lock behind him. “We have some time. I’ve been thinking as well.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  He smirked but continued, “It’s too soon to bring up Carroll’s name.”

  “Really?”

  Alexei frowned at her. “You don’t agree?”

  “No. I’m surprised you agree with me when we haven’t discussed it.”

  “He hasn’t done anything illegal—that we’ve seen.”

  “Meth in his trailer?”

  “No evidence he cooks or sells it. Possessing meth for personal use isn’t enough to give his name to the FBI. It’s not their jurisdiction anyway. Talking about overthrowing the government isn’t an overt threat. Yet. Remember we’re dealing with an agency who could decide the best way to stop thoughts from moving to action would be to descend on him and his family en masse.”

  “I won’t be part of that again. Are you being overly sensitive to this?” Mai asked.

  His forehead creased as he thought. “You mean because I used to be part of an unfettered secret police?” He shrugged and said, “Now is not the time to cue the FBI onto Carroll.”

  His expression was neutral, but she’d learned to glean meaning from it after all these years. “You’re agreeing with me about something I hadn’t brought up, but you disagree with the point of this briefing.”

  “Mai, you said yourself one year isn’t enough time. I agree with that.”

  “Granted, I’m only half-convinced Carroll or anyone else will attack FBI headquarters on the Killeen anniversary.”

  “But?”

  As little as she’d learned to read him, she was still an open book to him. “Part of me hopes he’ll try and get arrested. His letters, his phone calls show me it’s part of his thoughts. I… We need more time, but in case he’s not the only nut job out there, we should alert the proper authorities.”

  “Agreed. Are your thoughts collected?”

  “As they’ll ever be, and no snide remark about that.”

  “Never. Ready to go?”

  “One request.”

  “For you, dushenka, anything.”

  The little joke made her smile. “At the end of the day, don’t say I told you so.”

  Department of Justice

  Washington, D.C.

  Attorney General Sheryl Vejar had listened to Mai Fisher’s briefing with growing skepticism. Alexei Bukharin had remained quiet. Though she couldn’t tell from his lack of expression, Vejar attributed his silence to not being in total agreement with his partner. Vejar generally trusted women more, but she also put stock in age and experience, which Bukharin had over his partner.

  Fisher had qualified the briefing by asserting there was nothing conclusive to indicate there would be some act of retaliation on April 19. However, the detail of the briefing would justify heightening security at FBI and ATF offices around the country on the upcoming Killeen anniversary.

  “Have you identified a specific target?” Vejar asked.

  “Not specific. Likely,” Fisher said.

  Vejar had learned from her earlier entanglement with The Directorate and her current experience dealing with the CIA, spies seldom answered a direct question. If they did so, it was probably a lie.

  “What’s the likely target?” Vejar asked.

  “We have nothing conclusive or we would have alerted you sooner, but FBI headquarters might be targeted.”

  “If there’s nothing conclusive, how did you come to that?”

  “It fits the pattern from The Turner Diaries.”

  “That’s it?”

  “No,” Fisher said, a hint of testiness in her voice.

  Bukharin caught Fisher’s eye and communicated something unspoken. Vejar had never seen such a depth of subliminal communication.

  Fisher gave Vejar a stack of paper. Vejar skimmed the first page. Chat room transcripts
. A lot of them.

  “Among the groups we’re monitoring,” Fisher said, “it’s well-known Special Agent Hollis Fitzgerald is now an associate director in the FBI. They consider that promotion the height of controversy. It’s also common knowledge his office is in FBI headquarters. Further, they believe the Killeen cover-up is centered in FBI headquarters.”

  “What ‘Killeen cover-up?’”

  “As ludicrous as it sounds, they believe the ATF agents killed at Calvary Locus saw or knew something damaging about the President and First Lady. These agents were about to go public, and President Randolph ordered the raid to execute those agents. The subsequent FBI raid was to destroy evidence to that effect.”

  “Well,” Vejar said, with a sigh, “the lunatic fringe can be creative.”

  “The irony is those four dead agents are now martyrs to that lunatic fringe.”

  “Conspiracy theories aren’t enough to warrant—”

  “My experience has shown me every conspiracy theory has a small kernel of truth.”

  Vejar gave a steely glare over the top of her reading glasses. “Ms. Fisher, the government did not raid Calvary Locus to kill ATF agents.”

  Fisher smiled. “No offense intended. I’m a bit of a cynic.”

  A smile ghosted on Bukharin’s face.

  “We do have internet chatter,” Fisher said, nodding to the printout, “chatter on short wave radio broadcasts, in right-wing publications, all fed by the belief the FBI is planning to crack down on militias with mass arrests. There has been chatter specifically about ‘taking out’ FBI headquarters in retaliation. To me, that rises to the level of a possible threat.”

  Vejar skimmed through more of the transcripts. She took off her glasses, the tremor she’d noticed in her hands pronounced from fatigue. Why had she taken a job where she knew the first sacrifice was a decent night’s sleep? Ah, yes; to make a difference.

  “Ms. Fisher, Mr. Bukharin, FBI analysts have looked at this same information. They came to a different conclusion.”

  “I’m aware. Not surprising. Let me guess,” Fisher said. “The fringe right-wing is too disorganized to take on the might of federal law enforcement. If they were organized enough, insufficient time has passed for a truly symbolic act.”

  How could she quote from a classified FBI report? No, Vejar thought, I don’t want to know.

  “You’ve said,” Vejar replied, “if these people live their lives by The Turner Diaries, the interval would be two years, the span of time in the book between the two major acts of terrorism that bring down the government. FBI analysts have concluded after two years, everyone will have moved on from Killeen. They don’t see a threat here and now.”

  “They wouldn’t, would they? To say otherwise casts doubt on their counterintelligence activities.”

  “All right, tell me what you want to do about it.”

  Vejar managed to keep a straight face when Fisher outlined a plan for massive surveillance of the FBI building for the purpose of catching a mythical bomber.

  “In your earlier reports, you mentioned a subject of interest,” Vejar said. “Do you have any reason to believe he or she knows how to construct a device as used in the book?”

  “The subject has read the book, several times, but we haven’t yet discussed that aspect of it.”

  “Does your subject have the materials to make a massive bomb?”

  “No, but the subject has a close friend who’s a farmer. That gives easy access to ammonium nitrate and a place to store it.”

  “Ammonium nitrate?”

  “For ANFO. Ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. Used by the fictional terrorists in The Turner Diaries. Middle eastern terrorists and the IRA have used it.”

  “You believe ANFO will be the weapon of choice for any act of revenge?”

  “Putting aside the symbolism from the book, they may use ANFO because the materials are easy to obtain, a device itself simple to construct if you know what you’re doing.”

  Vejar shook her head. “You indicated you’ve had limited contact with your subject.”

  “True, but I’m not saying my subject is involved.”

  “Mr. Bukharin, what can you add?” Vejar asked.

  “I don’t disagree with my partner’s conclusions. I’ve voiced with her the same questions you have. She answered to my satisfaction. Wouldn’t it be prudent to do something?”

  “We can adjust the surveillance parameters,” Fisher said.

  “Yes, several hundred additional agents and shutting down ten blocks of downtown D.C. would be a logistical nightmare. Yes, Mr. Bukharin, I agree. Prudence. We’ll put the FBI building on a security alert. Advise supervisors and managers to grant liberal leave that day. We’ll use agents from the Washington, Baltimore, and Richmond field offices to supplement security at headquarters. We’ll refuse any deliveries by truck, put up no parking signs around the building. We’ll speak to the new FBI director for coordination. Ms. Fisher, I don’t want you to brief the President on this. He’ll decide according to which way the political wind is blowing today. This is more within my and the FBI director’s purview anyway. He and I can handle this.”

  “Of course.”

  “If you have the time, I can have FBI Director Brasseau here in fifteen minutes.”

  10

  Indulgence

  FBI Headquarters

  Washington, D.C.

  April 19, 1994

  One year after the conflagration at Killeen, Texas, FBI Director Emmet Brasseau stood in his operations center in the FBI building and watched the feeds from surveillance cameras.

  Employees arrived for work, though he’d been told the absentee rate was high today. FBI agents turned disappointed tourists away from the FBI museum tours. Guards refused regular deliveries, citing an inventory backlog. Emergency “No Parking” signs had frustrated commuters and tourists alike. Uniformed Federal Protective Service Police patrolled the no parking zones and kept traffic moving. They photographed every large truck or any kind of delivery van cruising past the building, noted its tags, and checked those against motor vehicle records. FBI agents took up surveillance points in and around the building and waited.

  As the designated hour approached—0915—per something called The Turner Diaries, the voices on the tactical frequencies grew tight, strained. Brasseau, father of five, calmed and assured everyone.

  The U.N. woman worried a fingernail as the morning wore on, while the man with her was unflappable.

  Brasseau watched them both. Carefully.

  The attorney general had ordered him to keep Assistant Director Fitzgerald out of the loop. Today, Fitzgerald was Brasseau’s substitute at an awards ceremony at the FBI academy. Brasseau had no use for the man, but he resented being told what to do. By a woman.

  The quarter hour between 0900 and 0915 dragged, but the airwaves went quiet as 0915 came and went. For caution’s sake, Brasseau kept the alert active. By noon, everyone agreed no attack would come, and Brasseau walked over to the two U.N. “experts.” The man towered over him, and that added to Brasseau’s pique.

  “Are you satisfied?” Brasseau asked.

  “Thank you for the indulgence, Director Brasseau,” the man said. “We’ll be on our way.”

  Brasseau kept the heightened security for the remainder of the day. When he returned to his office from the operations center, he spent the afternoon contacting his sources in the intelligence community for information he might find useful.

  11

  Mission Accomplished

  Near Dover, Arkansas

  John Carroll washed paint from his hands with mineral spirits. His cuticles split and bled again, as they had every time. Though he anticipated the sting, he still winced when the liquid seeped into the unhealed cracks. No matter. He wanted clean hands.

  He worked the mineral spirits beneath his nails and looked around. Yeah, the place looked like he’d worked his ass off.

  Everything about John Addams’ farm gleamed with a new coat of
paint: fences, the house, barns, out buildings. Both toilets in the house worked consistently again, and the shutters were back in place on the re-painted wood siding. He’d weeded and re-seeded the lawn and mowed it when the new grass sprouted. The old tractor was now in good working order.

  Though Carroll never shirked hard work, he was glad he’d finished. Addams had worked him from dawn to dusk. Carroll didn’t go back on his word, even when he realized Addams had suckered him into a mound of work. The old man had made it seem like an easy five grand, but when Carroll had cruised up the dusty driveway and seen the neglect, he knew he’d been had. This was the hardest money he’d ever earned, harder in some ways than his combat pay.

  Carroll had wanted to go to Killeen for the first anniversary memorial, but when he’d asked for a week off, Addams’ girlfriend, June, had lashed into him for being ungrateful. She sounded as if Carroll were homeless and Addams was doing him the favor. The cash was too important to Carroll, and he’d backed down.

  He hadn’t told them about his birthday on the twenty-third. He knew in his mail box in Kingman a card from his dad awaited him. It would be a funny one, not sentimental, signed, “Love, Dad.” Maybe also by his sister. There’d be a fifty-dollar money order inside. He’d cash that as soon as he got it and use it for books and pamphlets for his gun show stock. Carroll trusted L.D. to watch his gun collection but never money, and he had no bank account because that required using your social security number. The Army could track that down and put a lien on his funds. No, best not to think about that. He was in a good mood; why ruin it with old troubles.

  Truth was, he and L.D. could have made a killing selling meth to their friends, but it wasn’t worth the chance of getting caught. L.D. made only enough for personal use, and Carroll bought some of that when his dreams were at their worst.