Blowout

by Byron L. Dorgan

  They came over a rise at the bottom of which was the Initiative’s main gate, open now, a pair of Air Force Hummers flanking it. Two television vans were pulled off to the side of the road, and it looked as if an argument was going between the security team and cameramen. Just inside the gate a tent had been set up, to verify press credentials, Ashley explained. Several of the project’s ATVs along with two gray Ford Taurus sedans were parked beside the tent. And as they got closer Osborne recognized Deb Rausch getting out of one of the cars, along with another man plus two from the second car, all of them wearing dark blue parkas, badges on lanyards around their necks.

  “Looks like the Bureau has the same idea I do,” Ashley said.

  But Osborne didn’t like it. He’d expected at least a courtesy call from Rausch if she was coming into his county, but after what she considered was a large, career-busting mistake letting Egan fly out of Minneapolis right under her nose, she had become a different person. Tougher, less amiable; a by-the-book SAC.

  Osborne powered down his window as they approached the gate and an air policeman motioned for him to stop.

  Deb Rausch walked over as Osborne and Ashley got out of the car.

  “Morning, Nate,” she said stiffly.

  “Not surprised to see you here,” Osborne said. His stump was aching from sitting too long in the car, and he was a little irascible. “But I thought you might have given me a heads-up if you had something going in my county.”

  “Actually you’re on federal property now,” she said.

  Ashley came around from the passenger side of Osborne’s SUV. “Looking for bad guys?” she asked.

  “Found the one I was looking for,” Rausch said. “Ms. Borden, I’m placing you under arrest at this time.”

  “What?” Ashley sputtered.

  One of the FBI agents came over, pulled Ashley’s hands behind her back, and cuffed her.

  “You have the right to remain silent,” Rausch said. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney, and to have an attorney present during any questioning. If you cannot afford a lawyer, one will be provided for you at government expense.”

  Osborne was suddenly very cold, but he kept calm. “What is she being charged with?”

  Rausch looked at him. “Espionage. And I strongly recommend you stay out of this, Nate.”

  “That’d be Sheriff Osborne, and the cuffs are not necessary, I’ll vouch for her.”

  “Too late for that.”

  The television crews had their cameras up and were filming everything.

  “Call my dad,” Ashley told Osborne. “He’ll straighten this crap out.”

  “It was General Forester who suggested the charge,” Rausch said.

  68

  AFTER THREE NEARLY sleepless nights Forester sat at his desk in the Forrestal Wing of the Department of Energy in downtown Washington, watching a replay on his computer of the arrest of his daughter outside the Initiative’s gate about four hours ago.

  Gerry Soderbloom had been the first to come down the hall and burst into his office as soon as the news had hit FOX and CBS, a look of deep distress on his square-jawed face. “Turn on the television, it’s your daughter,” he’d said at the door.

  “Who’d she scoop this time?” Forester had asked, hiding a smile. Of the three men he’d suspected as spies, Soderbloom would have been the one to hurt the most. He’d been more than a chief of staff on the Kosovo KFOR NATO operation in the summer of 1999, he’d been a good friend.

  “The bureau’s arrested her for espionage,” Soderbloom had practically shouted. “Fucking unbelievable.”

  Which left only Vernon Harris, who’d covered his back during their first and only firefight before the hot zone in Kosovo’s southeast corner had been totally pacified, and their driver, Master Sergeant Mike Acers, who later got his Ph.D. in nuclear energy systems design at MIT, and had been in the same firefight. A full bird colonel, a major, and a sergeant shoulder to shoulder, sharing the same foxhole.

  Forester had come to the painful realization that of the two dozen people on his staff here at the DOE, only those three had total access not only to him personally but to the entire project, and only those three had his unconditional trust. If there was a spy here, and not out in North Dakota, it would have to be one of them.

  He’d convinced Edwin Rogers over at the Bureau who’d agreed to set up the sting operation, and who’d offered his sympathy.

  “Won’t be pleasant for anyone, especially your daughter. Maybe you want to warn her.”

  Forester had considered doing just that, but in the end he’d decided that her arrest would have to be real enough that it would come as a complete shock to her and to everyone who knew her, except for the real spy, who would have to be relieved and might do something to reveal himself or herself.

  “We can’t stage-manage the situation,” he’d told Rogers. “We’re going to have to keep everyone in the dark, including your Minneapolis SAC Deb Rausch who I assume will be making the arrest.”

  “Any possibility your daughter will try to do something stupid?”

  “No. She’s smarter than that.”

  “They’ll suspect that you’re her source.”

  “I’ve already told the president that I would retire once Donna Marie was up and running.”

  “Soon as she’s arrested heat will be coming your way. You’ll be brought in for questioning.”

  “This won’t last that long,” Forester had told Rogers. “I think we’ll have an answer, if there is one, within an hour or two after her arrest hits the networks.”

  The Bureau’s director was silent for a beat. “Okay, Bob, I’ll go along with you for now. But I won’t let it drag past the end of the workday. Fair enough?”

  “Fair enough,” Forester had replied.

  Watching the replay of his daughter’s arrest made his heart ache. Nate Osborne had been at her side, and he’d telephoned three times and e-mailed twice. Forester had not responded, and he felt sorry for the sheriff who was just trying to straighten out the mess Ashley was in. But if it worked out today, he would do whatever it took to make it up to them.

  His secretary buzzed him. It was Rogers from the Bureau.

  “We have your man,” the director said.

  “Are you sure?” Forester asked, not so certain he wanted to know even now.

  “He’s across the street from you sitting on a bench. He told the agents that he wanted to talk to you before we took him into custody. Said he owed it to you.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “We bugged all your phones, but apparently we missed a satellite phone that was on one of the NSA’s watch lists. It was a blind number through a remailer that they thought connected with the chief of SEBIN operations here in the States. When the call came up, it was automatically recorded, and since the caller was on our persons of interest list we were notified.”

  “I’ll go down and talk to him right now.”

  “I’ll order your daughter’s immediate release,” Rogers said.

  “Thanks.”

  “Do you want to know who it is?”

  “I’ll find out soon enough, won’t I,” Forester said, and he hung up.

  Out in the corridor he walked down to the elevator and rode it to the ground floor, crossed the lobby and outside stopped until the light changed so that he could cross Independence Avenue, busy at this hour of the day.

  A couple of black SUVs with government plates were parked in front of the bus stop, several men in dark windbreakers, FBI stenciled on the back, keeping passersby away, but it wasn’t until Forester got across the street and came around the back of the nearest SUV that he could see who it was sitting on the bench, and he almost pulled up short, his breath catching in his throat.

  It wasn’t Harris or Acers, none of the three and it came as a total surprise. The slightly built man in a sport coat that was a little too big for him, as were most of
the clothes he wore to the office had been over the past six years, was Karl Weathers, the Initiative’s comptroller. The man who held the purse strings, who controlled the research grants, payrolls, equipment expenditures, every penny that had been spent over the entire six years. And he had been a stickler for details the entire time. If someone needed a spectrum analyzer or electronic microscope or box of number two pencils, he needed a statement of purpose before he released a penny.

  “He’s the one man on the mission who the GAO is going to love once this is a done deal,” Harris had said a couple of years ago. “He’s a genius. He knows everything.”

  Forester nodded to the agents and sat down next to Weathers, who looked up. “You wanted to talk to me?”

  “I wanted to apologize, you know. But I needed the money.”

  “So you sold our secrets to Venezuelan intelligence. Didn’t you understand what that would do to us? Lives were lost.”

  Weathers seemed genuinely surprised and shocked. “What are you talking about?”

  “The attacks out in North Dakota.”

  “I had nothing to do with that sort of nonsense, General. You know me better than that. I mean, good God, what must you think of me? Heavens!”

  “You were spying for the Venezuelan intelligence service.”

  “No,” Weathers protested and Forester could almost believe the man was telling the truth.

  “But you used a satellite phone to call them to let them know about my daughter’s arrest.”

  “Not at all. But I’m very sorry about your daughter, I would never have guessed she was behind all of our trouble.”

  “Then why did you make the call?”

  “To my broker,” Weathers said. “If we needed something for the lab—say a thirty thousand G mini centrifuge from somebody like Thermo or Drucker—I’d get a couple of quotes for which I would allocate the funds, but then phone my broker who could get me the same devices at less than half the price. Between us we would pocket the difference.”

  “Money,” Forester said.

  Weathers lowered his head. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry, but I was in need. It’s my wife, you see, she likes the nicer things in life. Things I couldn’t afford on my salary.” He looked up all of a sudden, pained. “Not that I’m complaining about my salary.”

  “Then what was today’s call about?”

  “Dr. Lipton wants a new gas chromatograph. Dynalene’s price was high, so I wanted to get a quote from my broker. In fact it was he who told me about your daughter. I’m so sorry for you.”

  “What is his name?”

  “Alessandro, I don’t know his last name.”

  “A new gas chromatograph,” Forester said in wonder.

  “You can’t image how expensive.”

  69

  THE LAST THIRTY days had seemed like a lifetime to Barry Egan. Two lifetimes. But sitting across the kitchen table from Rodriguez, drinking coffee two days after the arrest of the general’s daughter, he felt a little fuzzy but overall pretty decent. He had a new assignment. A one-way ticket, but when it was over his name would be one for all the other Posse motherfuckers to live up to.

  The money would’ve been nice, but in the end it was the status. That’s what it was all about, had always been important. As a kid he’d been nothing, ditto in the service, and he’d never done jack since—nothing to compare with his daddy’s gig down in Texas. Until now. And maybe he’d always understood there’d never be any money for him. For guys like him.

  Thing was he’d never understood the kids over in places like Baghdad and Mumbai and Tel Aviv strapping on a ton of bad shit and walking into a crowded sidewalk café or bazaar or climbing on a bus packed with old ladies and pulling the trigger.

  Never would be any pain, but he’d never understood the thing until Alessandro had explained it one step at a time. These kids were just like him, nobodies who were going nowhere and never would in any ordinary sense. So they did the one decent and good thing left open to them, to make a difference, to make people sit up and take notice.

  This morning, Rodriguez told him, was D-day, which stood for sobering up. No more of the good shit they’d been doing all month, and Egan felt a little clammy, his mouth so dry it was hard to make any spit. But he was steady.

  He held out his right hand and didn’t shake. “Steady as a rock, comp. Dig?”

  “I’m impressed, Barry, I really am,” Rodriguez said. “You’ve come a long way. You’re going to do yourself proud.”

  “Fuckin’ A.”

  Rodriguez finished his coffee and got up.

  “Time to rock and roll?” Egan asked.

  “Finish your coffee and come on back, I’ll have everything ready,” Rodriguez said, and he disappeared into the back bedroom of the small Alexandria house they’d shared since North Dakota.

  Once in a while if the weather was mild, they would go out into the backyard and sit on the picnic table and share a couple of beers and a smoke. Shoot the shit about nothing much in particular. But those evenings were standouts in Egan’s mind, because he’d finally found the sense of camaraderie he’d always wanted but had never achieved. A couple of guys watching each other’s back hanging out. It was cool.

  He finished his coffee and walked back to the bedroom where Rodriguez was laying out the ten kilos of Semtex, each block wrapped with two layers of duct tape that were imbedded with screws and nails and pieces of beer bottle glass, on a nylon vest with a lot of Velcro attachment points.

  “Take off your shirt,” Rodriguez said without looking up.

  Egan pulled off his big sweatshirt, his skin mostly white except on his back, which was still puckered and red in a couple of spots where he’d been shot from behind. Hadn’t been for his comp he wouldn’t have made it out of the power station. He knew it and Rodriguez knew that he knew it. It could’ve been another tough old world out there.

  Finished wiring the plastic explosive blocks in parallel so that they would all blow at once, Rodriguez helped Egan put it on, and fastened it securely in the front.

  “It’s heavy,” Egan said.

  “Twenty-two pounds plus the hardware,” Rodriguez said, and he wrapped three turns of duct tape around Egan’s chest and middle. “Can you breathe okay? I don’t want you fainting on me.”

  “I’m fine.”

  Rodriguez helped Egan ease the sweatshirt back on, and ran the thin, flesh-toned wire attached to a Bluetooth headset through the neck hole, and hooked the receiver over Egan’s left ear.

  “You know how this works. Just before you get in range put your right hand in your pocket, and when it’s time push the SEND button. Soon as the signal hits your earpiece the vest will go off.”

  Egan nodded. The cell phone was in the pocket of his light gray jacket. The weather in Washington had been cool lately, so a man walking up Constitution Avenue in front of the Senate office buildings with his hands in his pockets would attract no attention.

  “The general has an eleven o’clock meeting in the Dirksen Building, so you’ll have two chances. The first when he arrives and the second when he leaves.”

  “If I miss the first how will I know about the second?”

  “A blond woman wearing a Tammy Hill Junior High School maroon and gold jacket leading a class field trip will come out, cross the street, and walk down Second behind the Supreme Court building. It’ll mean the general and probably an aide are coming down the elevator.”

  “And the kids, too?”

  “They’ll be out of range before Forester shows up. And I’ll be nearby, so that if anything should happen to you I can send the signal,” Rodriguez said. “You good to go?”

  Egan gave him the thumbs up, even though he was starting to feel a little sick in his stomach.

  “Good man.”

  Egan managed a weak smile. “Could I have a glass of water?”

  70

  RIDING SHOTGUN IN the front seat of the Cadillac Escalade, Osborne still wasn’t sure how he wanted to deal with the situatio
n Ashley’s father had put her in. They were in the backseat for the short drive from the DOE to the Dirksen Senate Office Building where they had an eleven o’clock appointment with Texas Senator Daniel Packard.

  “He did what he had to do,” Ashley told him in Minneapolis six hours after she’d been arrested.

  They were gathered in Deb Rausch’s office where the FBI director had phoned to explain what was going on, and the necessity of the thing.

  “You’ll have to keep out of sight for the next few days,” Rogers had warned.

  “Do you want me to keep her in protective custody for her safety?” Rausch had asked. She had been furious that Osborne had followed them from North Dakota, but she hadn’t mentioned it to Rogers, nor had he apparently been surprised by the sheriff’s presence.

  “From what I understand she’s in good hands with Sheriff Osborne.”

  It was a sentiment wholly shared by her father, who had called a few minutes after Rogers. “Are you okay, sweetheart?” he’d asked.

  “Now I am, but it was a bit interesting there for a few hours,” Ashley had told him. “Ed Rogers explained everything, and now he wants me to keep out of sight for a couple of days. That include from my newspaper?”

  “Especially your paper.”

  “They know that I was arrested and they’ll demand to talk to me.”

  “The Bureau will stall them. All we need are a couple of days tops.”

  “To do what?”

  “We’ve already found out who was leaking information about the Initiative from my office, and he’s been arrested. Now we’re trying to find his contact, who probably works for Venezuelan intelligence. We don’t think they’re finished yet.”

  “Is Ashley in danger?” Osborne had asked.

  “I’m told that Mr. Egan is still at large,” Forester had said. “As unlikely as it might be, he might show up at some point, probably back in Medora where he figures you’ll be. And wherever you are might lead him to my daughter.”

  “They can stay here in Minneapolis,” Rausch had suggested.