“You mean Glower still had his job?”
“Yes. Kreiss had no proof, or not enough to convince the Agency, so they got rid of Kreiss and left Glower in place.”
“That’s unbelievable.”
“They do it all the time, Janet. Then if it blows up, they cover their
asses by saying they were just letting the bad guy run so as to control what he did or gave to the other side. What’s important is that the Glower episode ended in a very bloody mess out in a little village called Millwood, Virginia, up in the Shenandoah Valley. Glower ended up dead.”
“Wow. Kreiss?”
“Well, after he got stepped on the second time, Kreiss went to Millwood and confronted Glower. Glower called for help from Agency security and they forced Kreiss out of the house. But then that night, Glower apparently killed his wife and two kids and then shot himself. The local law said the scene was right out of one of those chain saw-massacre movies. The Agency director called Marchand; for a while, they actually thought Kreiss had done it.”
“So he was there?”
“Not when that happened, but of course they knew he had been there earlier. Fortunately for Kreiss, one of his subordinates at the Bureau could verify that Kreiss had been back at headquarters, writing up his report, at the time of the actual shootings. There were some questions about Kreiss’s alibi, because it was one of his own people providing it. Needless to say, it was a helluva mess, and it became complicated by the fact that Kreiss wasn’t done yet. He surfaced new allegations, that there wasn’t just one scientist-spy at one lab; that there was a whole network. Based on what I’ve read since, he may have been right about that.”
“Why did Glower kill himself?”
“That’s unclear. According to Kreiss’s theory, Glower was running top cover for the spy network. Being a deputy dog in Agency counterespionage, he could throw a lot of monkey wrenches into the various investigations, which is why it all went on for so long.”
“Why would he do that?”
“There was the money.”
“Money from?”
“Money from China, money that went into a certain prominent reelection campaign, which I’m sure you’ve also read about. Kreiss’s theory was that Glower was only doing what he had been told to do—namely, to stymie the investigation at DOE and at the Agency, in return for keeping the Chinese happy, because the Chinese, of course, felt they had bought and paid for happiness.”
“Could Kreiss back that up?”
Farnsworth sucked on his unlit pipe.
“My guess is that if he could have, he would have. But it’s kind of
hard to tell when you start a fire at that level. Those kinds of fires usually get extinguished in a Mount Olympus-level deal of some kind. Although, from what I’ve heard, Kreiss was anything but a deal maker, as the Agency bosses found out much too late.
Supposedly, this guy Glower came from a very rich family, so money should not have been a likely motive. But who knows. The upshot was that Marchand caught hell, and in turn, he forced Kreiss out administratively, using the blood bath at Millwood as a pretext, via the Bureau’s own professional standards board. That in itself should have de fanged anything Kreiss had to say about what or who was driving Glower.”
“A bitter end to an interesting career.”
“Yes, a very interesting career. There are all sorts of stories about Kreiss. You’ve met him and I haven’t, but he apparently went pretty far afield with some of the Agency’s counterespionage specialists, some of whom redefine the notion of ‘far afield.” I’ve been told that he actually trained with some of their people, the ones who are called sweepers.”
“Yes, Larry Talbot mentioned that term. Said they were highly specialized operatives, guys who went after their own agents when they went wrong.”
“And you think that’s all a bunch of Agency bullshit. Ghost-polishing, right?”
Janet started to reply but then stopped. Those were her very words.
Fucking Larry. The RA was still smiling.
“Let me tell you what I’ve heard, and let me again stress the word heard” Farnsworth said.
“A sweeper is ‘reportedly’ someone our beloved brethren at Langley send when one of their own clandestine operations agents goes off the tracks in some fashion. We’re not talking about their regular CE people, the ones who help us chase enemy agents around the streets of Washington. We’re talking about a very special operative who hunts—and retrieves—that’s the term they use—clandestine operatives who have gone nuts, gone over to the other side, or started running some kind of private agenda—like assassinating bad guys instead of playing by the rules. In other words, someone who is so completely out of control that he or she needs to be ‘retrieved’ from the field and brought back to a safe house in the Virginia countryside. Someplace where the problem can be attended to, quote unquote.”
““Attended to’?”
“Define that as your imagination might dictate,” Farnsworth said.
“The interesting thing is, if they develop a problem child out on their operational web, they tell the problem child that a sweeper is coming.
Supposedly, a sweeper notification is enough to bring said problem child to heel. Coming in is preferable to being brought in.”
Janet didn’t know what to say.
“And Kreiss?”
“Kreiss was at the agency on an exchange deal, our FCI with their CE.
Word was, he worked with the sweepers, trained with them. Did several years away from the Bureau. I talked to a guy, he’s SAC now in Louisville, who knew Kreiss back in those days. Said he basically went native. Really got into the Agency hugger-mugger. His supervisors back in Bureau FCI didn’t know what to do, because the one time they borrowed him back to deal with a rogue Bureau agent, the agent turned himself in, requesting protection. He was apparently so scared of Kreiss that he confessed to shit the Bureau didn’t even know about. Then, of course, came Millwood.
People who knew Kreiss tended to keep their distance.”
“I can understand that,” she said.
“I got an impression of contained violence, I mean. And I found myself wondering about the degree of containment.”
“That’s the essence of it. Of course, no one knows what really happened at Millwood, or who else might have been involved by that point in the investigation. Once Glower was dead …”
“What do you mean? Oh, you mean—” “Yeah. The Agency protested a lot, but our FCI people speculated that the Millwood blood bath may have been the Agency itself taking care of business—you know, with one of these sweeper types. But once Kreiss started making accusations about the Chinese government, hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the highest levels of our own government, nobody either side of the river wanted it to go any further.”
“Wow. And that’s whose kid is missing.”
“Right. And two others, don’t forget.”
“Could there be a connection?”
“I doubt it. But I’ve been given specific direction from Richmond to put a lid on this right now and shop it to MP.”
“Just because it’s Kreiss’s kid who’s involved?”
Farnsworth just looked at her with that patient expression on his face, which always made Janet feel like a schoolgirl.
“Or are you saying the Agency is going to work it?” she asked.
Farnsworth put his pipe away in the desk.
“Don’t know, as we Vermonters like to say. Don’t know, don’t want to know. And neither do you. I am saying that I’ve, the Roanoke office,
are not going to work it, other than as a routine missing persons case. And you are going to move on to other things.”
Janet thought about that for a moment.
“But what if Kreiss works it?”
“What if he does? If someone was fool enough to abduct Edwin Kreiss’s daughter, then, in my humble estimation, he’ll get what’s coming to him.”
Janet sat back in
her chair. Her instincts about Kreiss had been more correct than she had realized. Farnsworth was looking at his watch, which was his signal that the interview was over.
“You, on the other hand,” he said, “need to forget about making any more calls to Washington, okay?
It’ll be a lot better for you, all around. And for me, and for probably everyone in this office. Are we clear on that, Janet?”
She nodded. Clear as a fire bell, she thought. An image of Edwin Kreiss flitted through her mind: coiled silently in that rocking chair, those deepset gray-green eyes like range finders when he looked at her. Crazy man or fanatic? She exhaled carefully. The few spooks she had met from that other world across the Potomac River, military and civilian, had mostly been pasty-faced bureaucrats. Kreiss was apparently from the sharp end of the spear.
“Yes, sir,” she said.
“Got it.”
“Knew you would,” Farnsworth said with a fatherly smile.
“You have a great day.”
Janet went back to her cubicle, grabbing some coffee on the way. The coffee had a slightly stale, oily smell to it, which was typical of the afternoon batch, but she felt the need for a jolt of caffeine.
Billy was still snoring quietly in the next cubicle when Janet sat down at her desk. She was surprised to see a yellow telephone message indicating that a Dr. Kellermann, of the headquarters Counseling Division, wanted to talk to her. Whoops, she thought. Their deputy dog had called Farnsworth but probably had not canceled Janet’s original query. She looked at her watch. It was 3:15. On a Friday.
She thought about it. Farnsworth had made things pretty clear: Back out. And yet, she could not get Edwin Kreiss out other mind. She’d been in southwest Virginia for a year and a half, and had met absolutely zero truly interesting men in Roanoke. She’d been taking some post doc seminars at Virginia Tech over in Blacksburg to fill the empty hours. And despite the fact that she had married and then divorced an academic before joining the Bureau back in 1991, she knew that she was at least subconsciously hoping she might meet some interesting faculty people.
As it turned out, so far at least, everyone old enough to interest her was either married or so completely engrossed in his or her work, S-corporation, or themselves as to bore her to tears. After her first few appearances in the local fitness center, a couple of the married agents in the office had made it clear they wouldn’t mind a fling, but she had a firm rule about both married men and dating other agents. It wasn’t that Kreiss stirred her romantically, but he sure as hell was interesting.
She decided to take Kellermann’s call. Just to be polite, of course. The case was still theirs, technically, wasn’t it? Maybe Kellermann had something that could keep it here in the field. She looked around the office.
Talbot wasn’t in. It was Friday afternoon; nobody would get back to Farnsworth with the fact that she had called this late in the day.
She dialed the number. A secretary put her through.
“Dr. Kellermann,” a woman’s voice said. Janet identified herself.
“Ah, yes, Dr. Carter. Brianne Kellermann. I was Helen Kreiss’s counselor.
How can I help you?”
The voice was educated and kind, and Janet was momentarily flattered to be called doctor again. Here, she was just called Carter. She briefly described the case, then asked if Dr. Kellermann had any opinions, based on her sessions with Kreiss’s ex-wife, that might bear on the case.
“Please, call me Brianne,” Kellermann said.
“And I’d need to think about that. I need to consider Mrs. Kreiss’s privacy.”
“I understand that, Brianne,” Janet said.
“Although she is, of course, deceased.” She waited for a reply to that, but Kellermann didn’t say anything.
“And I should tell you that this case is being sent up to MP because we haven’t uncovered any evidence that there has been a crime here-these kids might well have just boogied off in search of spotted owls, you know?”
“Let’s hope so. But technically, they are missing? I mean, there’s no evidence the other way, is that what you’re saying?”
“Correct. There are three sets of parents involved, and they had no indication that the kids were just going to take off. Given that these kids were senior engineering students, I think it’s highly unlikely that they did just take off. But—” “And your boss is looking at his budget and wants you to move on.”
Janet smiled. This doc knew the score.
“Right. Which I can understand, of course. Even down here in the thriving metropolis of Roanoke, we’ve got plenty to do.”
There was a pause on the end of the line, and Janet wondered if it was
Dr. Kellermann’s turn to smile. She decided to fill in the silence.
“I’m really calling because one of the parents is Edwin Kreiss. I’m actually more interested in him than in Helen Kreiss.”
“Who is now deceased, of course,” Kellermann said, as if reminding herself.
“Yes. I understand she remarried before the plane crash.”
“Yes, she did. So your interest is really in what Mrs. Kreiss may have said prior to divorcing Edwin Kreiss. Do you suspect he has something to do with the three students’ disappearance?”
Janet hesitated. If she said yes, she’d have some leverage she didn’t have now.
“Actually? No. But one of the things I’m learning here in the field is to pull every string, no matter how unlikely.”
“I understand, Janet. May I call you Janet? And since this case goes back awhile—I think it was 1989 or even ‘88—let me review my files, think about it, and get back to you, okay?”
Janet hesitated. Get back to me when? she thought. As of Monday, the case officially went north. Well, in for a penny … “That would be great, Brianne. Send me an E-mail when you’re ready to talk, and I’ll get in touch.”
“I’ll do that, Janet. Although I may not have much for you. There’s the problem of confidentiality, and my focus is usually on the spouse I’m trying to help, not the other party. That way, we can move beyond blame, you see, and on to more constructive planes.”
Janet rolled her eyes, spelled out her E-mail address, and hung up. She sat back in her chair. She’d given Kellermann her direct E-mail address to avoid any more phone message forms on her desk. Okay, she thought, but let’s say Kellermann goes to her boss, who tells her that Roanoke has been told to put the Kreiss matter back in its box. How would she explain her call if Farnsworth asked? Kellermann contacted her before Farnsworth had called her off? She was only being polite in returning the call? Billy, that well-known Communist, did it?
The Communist woke up with a snort and some throat-clearing noise.
He saw Janet.
“Hey, good-looking,” he said.
“How do you get a sweet little old lady to yell, “Fuck
“Billy—” “You get another sweet little old lady to yell, “Bingo!”
” She laughed.
“Hey, Billy, why don’t you get some of this wonderful coffee and let me run this missing college kids case by you.”
Browne McGarand approached the smokeless powder-finishing building from the east side of the complex, staying in the shadows as he walked through the twilight. He had parked his truck well off the fire road that branched to the left off the main entrance road, then had hiked a mile southwest until he intercepted the railroad cut. From there, he had turned northwest, walking along the single track until he reached the security gates that bridged the rail line. When the installation had been shut down, the gates had been padlocked and further secured with metal bars welded top and bottom across, in case someone cut the chains and locks.
Browne had left all the bars, chains, and locks on the exterior gate in place. Instead, he had used a portable cutting-torch rig to cut through the tack welds that married the chain-link fence to the round stock frame of the gates. By undoing one bolt, he was now able to lift a corner flap of the chain-link mesh and simply st
ep through.
There was a second set of gates fifty feet inside, to match the double security fence that surrounded the entire 2,400 acres of the Ramsey Arsenal.
These had been locked but not welded, and here he had cut down and replaced the rusty padlock with a rusty one of his own. The Ramsey Arsenal, which was really an explosives-manufacturing complex, had been in caretaker status for almost twenty years. A local industrial-security firm made periodic inspections. He had watched them often, but their people made all their security and access checks from inside the inner perimeter.
More importantly, with the exception of the main gates, they never physically got out of their truck, choosing simply to drive around and look at everything from the comfort of their air conditioning.
He shifted the backpack with the girl’s supplies down off his back and onto the ground. The water bottles made it heavy. He unlocked the inner gates, slid the right one back a few feet on its wheels, and stepped through with the pack. He closed the gate but did not lock it. Directly ahead lay the main industrial area, which covered almost one hundred acres. The complex consisted of metal and concrete buildings large and small, many connected by overhead steam and cooling water piping. There were mixing and filling sheds built down in blast-deflection pits, chemical-storage warehouses, metal liquid-storage tanks, the cracking towers of the acid plant, rail-and truckloading warehouses, and the hulking mass of a dormant power plant with its one enormous stack. The complex was the size of a small town, behind which slightly more than two thousand acres of trees concealed
the finished ammunition-storage bunkers. The rail line, a spur of the Norfolk & Western main line that ran through Christiansburg, immediately branched out into sidings that pointed into the complex in six different directions.
He checked his watch. It was almost sundown. There was just enough light to see where he was going. He did not want to use his flashlight until he was well into the maze of buildings and side streets of the industrial area. The only sounds came from his boots as he walked down the main approach road. A slight breeze stirred dead leaves in the gutters. The largest buildings flanked the main street, which ran from the admin building down to the power plant four blocks away. A series of pipe frames in the shape of inverted U’s gave the main street a tunnel-like appearance. At fifty-foot intervals, there were large hinged metal plates in the street, measuring twenty feet on a side. The plates gave access to what had been called “the Ditch,” which in reality was a concrete tunnel into which large batches of toxic liquids could be dumped quickly in the event a reaction went wrong. All the buildings were locked and shuttered, and, for the most part, empty. Each building had a white sign with a name and building designation reference number for the use of the security company.
Hunting Season Page 5