The Enemy Within

by Larry Bond

  Privately, she was less certain about the wisdom of her actions. She’d invited Peter to come along on her own initiative—without permission from Special Agent Flynn. Some of her reasoning was soundly professional. But she couldn’t deny that many of her reasons were more personal. And by involving an outsider in an FBI investigation, she risked a reprimand if Flynn officially objected to his presence—despite the kudos she’d earned by smashing the Temple Emet attack. She looked inward for a moment, again considering whether or not she was willing to accept a black mark on her near-perfect record for his sake.

  The answer was yes.

  She still remembered that look of anguished frustration on Peter’s face when they first heard the news about the bombing. Standing idle on the sidelines in the aftermath of the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history would have been more than he could bear. Besides, Helen admitted to herself, she treasured every moment spent in his company. Being completely separated from him for the long days and nights her work on the task force would probably require might have been more than she could bear. If involving him meant breaking every single one of her precepts about keeping her work and personal lives separate, so be it.

  Certainly, the prospect of even an unofficial role in the search for the press club bombers had worked wonders on Peter. Despite his worries that his presence might get her in hot water, he couldn’t hide his eagerness to join in the hunt—an eagerness that mirrored her own. The death toll from the attack was still climbing as crews found more bodies inside the wreckage, but it had already soared to nearly two hundred. She wanted to find the terrorists who were responsible for the bloodbath—to find them and destroy them before they could strike again.

  Helen felt something patter down on her hair and looked skyward. The first full drops of cold rain spattered across her upturned face. She grimaced. There probably weren’t any significant clues outside the building for the storm to wash away, but the worsening weather would make their job even harder and more depressing than it already was. At least it might thin some of the crowds surrounding the explosion site.

  She tugged at Peter’s elbow. “Come on, Colonel Thorn. Let’s get inside.”

  He nodded gravely. “After you, Agent Gray.”

  They made their way through the milling crowds to the police line. A young cop stepped forward to meet them. His rain poncho whipped in a sudden gust of cold wind. “Sorry, folks. You’ll have to move back. No one’s allowed any further.”

  Helen pushed her Bureau ID under his nose. “I’m on the task force.” She nodded toward Peter, who held his own identity card in plain view. “Colonel Thorn is a liaison officer from the Pentagon.”

  The policeman scanned both cards quickly but thoroughly, carefully comparing the pictures with their faces. He looked up. “Okay, you can come through.” He pointed toward a temporary trailer parked just outside the entrance to the National Press Office building. “Just sign in at the command post, please. You’ll be briefed on site protocol there.”

  The rain was falling even harder by the time Peter Thorn and Helen Gray strode across the narrow gap between the command trailer and the press building. Both of them carried sealed bags containing sterile, white plastic suits and plastic booties that would go on over their shoes. Special Agent Flynn’s instructions to his special task force were clear. He wanted to make sure the investigators themselves didn’t track in clothing fibers, dust, or mud that might confuse the forensics experts combing through the explosion site. They’d also been issued hard hats that were color-coded to indicate status and function at a glance. As a member of the FBI task force command section, Helen’s was black. After minor haggling with the agent manning the security desk, Thorn had been issued a blue hard hat. The color proclaimed his status for now as an on-site observer.

  Thorn looked up for a moment before entering the building, ignoring the rain sleeting into his face. From the outside, there was little visible bomb damage. The windows on all the top floors were blown out, and there were scorch marks visible on the concrete facade—either from the blast itself or from the resulting fires—but beyond that, the structure itself seemed largely untouched.

  But when he and Helen stepped out of the central stairwell a few minutes later, he realized how horribly deceiving those external appearances were. It was hard to believe that this charred slaughterhouse had once been the third floor of the National Press Office. Rust-brown smears of dried blood were splashed everywhere on the scorched floor and walls. Massive hydraulic jacks braced the ceiling and some of the walls, indicating the immense force of the explosion.

  Teams of coroners’ assistants in white protective suits were hard at work in every corner of the room, still tagging bodies and parts of bodies for eventual removal. Similarly clothed photographers moved among them, taking hundreds of pictures to build a coherent record of the scene for later use in the investigation. Even the distribution of the dead could provide important clues to the number, distribution, and types of bombs that had gone off inside the room.

  Other teams of FBI agents and forensics specialists worked around and among the coroners, making precise measurements, sifting through the rubble, and collecting even the tiniest fragments of metal, plastic, paper, and cloth for more detailed lab work and analysis. In what was almost an obscene parody of an archaeological dig, even the smallest pieces of possible evidence were carefully tagged with the time of discovery and their precise location. Bright red hard hats identified experts in explosives. White, yellow, and green helmets signified fingerprint, fiber, and electronics specialists. Everyone wore the same plastic suits and thick rubber gloves.

  Thorn breathed in and fought down a sudden impulse to gag. A foul stench hung in the air—a stomach-turning blend of smoke, blood, the sickly sweet odor left by explosives, and the acrid reek of powerful disinfectants. He heard Helen coughing, but though pale, she was in full control when he looked at her.

  She swallowed hard and motioned toward the near corner of the dining room where several other members of the task force command section stood conferring over a set of blueprints. “I’ve got to check in. Coming?”

  Thorn nodded and trailed her through the tangled heaps of smashed, burned tables and chairs, careful to stay inside the cleared paths marked by yellow police tape pinned to the floor. He was already treading on ice just by being here without express authorization, so there wasn’t much sense in trampling ungathered evidence.

  The shortest of the men grouped around the blueprints glanced up at their approach. “Helen, glad to see you made it through the mob out there.” He looked curiously at Thorn, clearly not able to place him.

  “Tom, this is Colonel Peter Thorn. He’s with the JSOC and one of the Army’s top counterterrorism experts,” Helen said, accurately if somewhat disingenuously. She turned to Thorn. “Colonel, this is Special Agent Thomas Koenig. He’s the number two man on the task force.”

  The two men shook hands and stood sizing each other up while the other agents introduced themselves in a blur of names Thorn forgot almost as soon as he heard them. Aside from Special Agent Flynn himself, Koenig was the man who could make or break this informal consulting role Helen envisioned.

  “You here on a mission, Pete?” Koenig asked finally.

  Thorn shook his head slightly. “Just a watching brief, Tom. This is the FBI’s solo show as far as I’m concerned.”

  He noticed Koenig relax minutely and hid a wry smile. Despite the clear edicts placing domestic terrorism incidents under the Bureau’s jurisdiction, turf battles with other interested agencies and departments like the DOD were not uncommon, especially in such a high-profile case.

  “Where’s Flynn?” Helen asked, scanning the room.

  “On the phone with the White House again, I think,” Koenig answered. He sounded disgusted. “Between the National Security Advisor, the press secretary, the head of the Secret Service, and half a dozen other lesser lights, I suspect Mike’s talked to half the goddamned executive br
anch already.”

  Thorn shook his head. As much as he wanted in on this investigation, he didn’t envy the FBI the task of trying to cope with the nation’s rattled political leaders. By targeting so many congressmen, opinion leaders, and important journalists, whoever had masterminded the press club bombing had struck squarely at the heart of the current political elite. From everything he’d seen on TV and read in the papers last night and this morning, both Congress and the administration were undeniably and understandably in a panicked uproar. They wanted concrete results, and they wanted them now.

  He suspected that was part of the reason the FBI had summoned Flynn to Washington from the West Coast instead of handing the task force command to one of the Director’s immediate subordinates. Ever since he and his investigative team had cracked the Golden Gate Bridge massacre in less than forty-eight hours, Special Agent Michael Flynn had a media reputation as a miracle worker.

  From what Helen had told him, Flynn’s reputation inside the Bureau was equally impressive—but very different. He didn’t try walking on water to obtain results, he drained the whole pond. He was a detail man—a man who paid attention to every piece of evidence, no matter how insignificant it seemed at first. As a rookie, Flynn was said to have solved his first big case—a kidnap-murder—by following up on what at first seemed only a typo on a bank deposit slip.

  That was just as well, Thorn thought, carefully studying the bomb-shattered dining room. He doubted there would be any miracles this time. Everything he’d seen so far seemed professional to his practiced eye. The timing, the way the charges had been placed to maximize the damage and casualties. Everything. He said as much aloud.

  Koenig shrugged noncommittally. “Maybe.” He nodded toward the red-helmeted explosives experts scouring the wreckage. “Our boys have already identified at least six separate devices. There may have been more.”

  “All triggered simultaneously?”

  “Or so damned close together it makes no real difference, Colonel,” Koenig said.

  They were definitely up against a pro, then, Thorn decided. Bomb-making was a far more sophisticated and dangerous art than most people realized—knowledge that several vaporized sixties radicals had acquired the hard way. Rigging a series of six charges to go off at the same time required either enormous luck or practiced skill. Right now he would put his money on skill.

  “And the explosive used was plastique?” he asked.

  Koenig nodded again. “We’re picking up residues all over the place. The lab work will take some time, but we’re pretty sure it was standard commercial-grade C4.”

  At least that was good news. Explosives intended for peaceful civilian use included chemical tracers that would help law enforcement zero in on the manufacturer and even on the specific batch. Given enough time and a lot of legwork by its agents, the FBI should be able to track the plastique used here back to its source.

  “What about those phone calls claiming responsibility? You think they were genuine?” he asked.

  Koenig frowned. “They were genuine, all right. Both came in before the news of this massacre hit the wires. We’ve got partial audiotapes from the two newspapers, but I don’t know that they’ll lead us anywhere.”

  “Oh?”

  “Whoever made those calls used a lot of electronic filtering on his voice,” Koenig explained. “Plus, he was reading from a prepared script. We’ve got our sound techs trying to pick up what they can, but they tell me it’s like listening to a robot, not a man. Hell, the call could even have been computer-generated.”

  That was another indication that they were up against at least one professional, Thorn realized. He shook his head. No matter what the politicians wanted to hear, he suspected that finding those responsible for this butchery was not going to be fast or easy. “Does the Bureau have any data on this New Aryan Order? Anything that would make you believe they could mount a strike like this?”

  “Not much,” Koenig admitted. “We’ve got a handful of groups calling themselves that in our database—one in Maryland, one in Idaho, two in the South, and a couple more in the upper Midwest.” He scowled. “We spent most of last night poring over the bios of the top wackos and their chief lieutenants, but I’ll be damned if we could see anyone with the guts or the brains needed for this stunt.”

  The FBI man spread his hands. “Of course, this could be a whole new set of slimeballs calling themselves the New Aryan Order—one we hadn’t picked up before. Hate groups don’t pay much attention to copyright laws.”

  “Or they might be getting help from someone you don’t have on file yet,” Thorn suggested quietly. “Somebody with a good working knowledge of demolitions and security procedures.”

  “You have a candidate in mind, Colonel?” Koenig asked, narrowing his eyes. “Does DOD have some psycho ex-Ranger or Green Beret on the loose that we should know about? Is that why you’re here?”

  Thorn shook his head and then stopped. He hadn’t seriously considered that possibility before. Much as he disliked the prospect, he had to admit that the FBI agent’s suggestion might have merit. The Army’s special forces put a great deal of effort into screening out the bad apples, but no psych profile ever developed could guarantee one hundred percent perfection.

  “We might also be looking at an overseas link between extreme rightist groups,” Helen broke in. “Don’t forget those references to a German neo-Nazi we picked up from Burke and the rest during the synagogue siege. We know the Aryan Sword was getting sophisticated military supplies from old East German arsenals. Maybe this mysterious ‘Karl’ and his friends have started supplying military expertise as well.”

  “Could be,” Koenig agreed slowly. Ties between the National Press Club bomber and a foreign terrorist group would complicate the whole investigation. Because the attack took place on U.S. soil, the FBI would still have primary jurisdiction, but the State Department, CIA, and Pentagon would have a much louder voice if there were a connection to radicals overseas.

  Another agent joined the small circle, a taller, older man with slate-gray eyebrows and a harassed expression. The badge clipped to his protective suit read “Flynn.” “What’s up, Tommy?”

  Koenig swiveled toward his boss. “Just batting around a few theories, Mike. About whether or not the bastards who blew the hell out of this place were ex-military or might have had help from foreign terrorists.” He nodded toward Thorn. “This is Colonel Peter Thorn. He’s with the JSOC.”

  “I see.” Flynn turned his gaze on Thorn, clearly taking in his lean, well-muscled form. “You’re with Delta Force, Colonel?”

  Thorn nodded. “Until recently. I run a special intelligence outfit out of the Pentagon now.”

  “I see.” Flynn’s gaze sharpened. “You’re not on my official observers’ list, Colonel.”

  Thorn noticed Koenig and the other FBI agents stiffen. Hell. He nodded again, speaking before Helen could intervene on his behalf. If Flynn was going to be a hard-ass about this, there wasn’t any point in dragging her name and record through the procedural mud. “That’s right. I came down on my own hook.”

  “I’ve already got more than four hundred agents and other personnel working this case, Colonel. Is there something we’re not doing to your satisfaction?” Flynn’s voice was dangerously quiet.

  “No, sir.” Thorn stood his ground. With all the pressure the FBI agent was under from above, he couldn’t blame the older man for bristling at yet another outsider tramping through the crime scene. If their roles were reversed, he would probably feel much the same way. “But I’ve spent close to ten years studying terrorist tactics. I thought you might find that useful—on an unofficial basis.”

  “I see.” Flynn gritted his teeth. “Look, Colonel Thorn, besides the experts going over this building with a fine-tooth comb, I have agents out interviewing every survivor—some under hypnosis. There are others checking the records of every parking garage and taxi company in the metropolitan area. I even have teams reviewing eve
ry inch of footage shot by the Metro security cameras for every station within walking distance—just on the off chance we might spot something. So I’m going to ask you again. Is there some solid angle you think we’re missing?”

  Reluctantly, Thorn shook his head. “No, sir. Not at the moment.”

  “Fine. Then please go back to the Pentagon and let us get on with the job. There are already investigators from every damned agency and police force known to mankind crawling through this mess, and I sure as hell do not need the U.S. Army’s Delta Force adding its own two cents.” Flynn raised his voice, addressing his next comments to the poker-faced agents in earshot. “This is real life, not a movie, and this task force is not going to go running off at half cock to hunt for some supervillain. That’s not the way I work, and that’s not the way to produce results. Instead, we’re going to work systematically through the facts as they exist. I want hard evidence, not fancy theories. Is that clear?”

  The senior FBI agent waited briefly to make sure the others had heard him before turning his attention back to Thorn. He lowered his voice again. “Wait until we’ve found these bastards, Colonel. Then you or Agent Gray here are perfectly welcome to shoot them.”

  Great, Thorn thought, I didn’t fool him at all. He knows exactly who brought me inside.

  Flynn looked at Koenig. “Have somebody escort the colonel through the security barrier, Tommy. I’m sure he has work of his own to do.”

  Thorn nodded stiffly and did an about-face, following the shorter FBI agent back toward the staircase. He studiously avoided looking at Helen. Seeing the concern for him on her face would only make things worse. The FBI was within its rights, and he was out of line. But knowing that didn’t make it any easier just to walk away.

  The Pentagon

  Thorn was alone in his office, staring at nothing in particular, when Joe Rossini stuck his head in through the door. “You have a minute, Pete?”