Hunting Season

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Based on his reputation, if something is going on there, Kreiss will uncover it,” Bellhouser said.

  “If and when he does, that’s when the DCB would want to reassert control.”

  “And bring in some more assets, like maybe the aTF?”

  “Or the appropriate Bureau people,” Foster said.

  “And also because if someone hurt or killed his daughter, and those other two kids, you know—they broke into the arsenal on a lark, stumbled onto something, and somebody took them—Edwin Kreiss is likely to stake them out naked on the forest floor and build small fires on their bellies. For starters.”

  “Sounds about right to me,” Janet said.

  Ransom grinned in the background, but Foster and Bellhouser did not

  see any humor in it, “The objective,” Bellhouser said, “over and above our Kreiss problem, is to see if we can smash the whole thing—the bomb consultant, his lab, and his conduits into the violent antigovernment groups.”

  “These are the people who bomb whole buildings full of innocent civilians,” Foster said.

  “Remember OK City? The day-care center?”

  Ransom stopped grinning. Janet nodded. That was certainly a worthwhile objective.

  “All right, I think I understand. And Kreiss is not to know anything about all this, correct? I offer to help him where I can, and then keep you people informed via our office here?”

  “You said she was smart,” Bellhouser murmured to Farnsworth.

  Puh-leeze, Janet thought.

  “This all assumes Kreiss will give me the time of day,” she pointed out.

  “He doesn’t exactly strike me as a team player.”

  “He may or may not accept your help,” Foster said.

  “The first thing we want to know is whether or not he’s been into the arsenal, and what, if anything, he’s found there. How you get that information will be entirely up to you.”

  This guy’s a master of the obvious, Janet thought.

  “It’s been several days,” she said.

  “Since the incident in that kid’s apartment, I mean. We may be a little late here.”

  “For what it’s worth, he was gone all night last night,” Ransom said.

  “And when he came back, he also anticipated that somebody might be waiting there in his cabin.”

  “How? we wonder,” Bellhouser asked rhetorically.

  Janet kept her face a perfect blank.

  “Maybe he is just that good,” she said.

  “Especially if he’s working something after you guys told him never to go operational again.”

  “Perhaps,” Bellhouser said, giving her a speculative look.

  “But for now, this is a Bureau/fustice Department play. With a little help from our Agency friends here.”

  Agency friends? Janet thought. Then she realized Bellhouser was talking about the two so-called liaison men.

  “And aTF doesn’t suspect you’ve got something going?” she asked.

  “We think not,” Bellhouser said.

  “If Kreiss turns up solid evidence of a bomber cell, we’ll take it to the DCB, and, of course, that will fold in aTF

  But right now, Kreiss and what he’s doing is our focus.”

  “What this ‘we’ shit, white woman?” Ransom murmured.

  “Maybe you should go deal with that crazy motherfucker. Him and his fifty-caliber rifle.”

  Bellhouser looked over at Ransom.

  “I will if I have to, since you failed to deliver the message.”

  “Didn’t need to,” Ransom said.

  “He doesn’t think it’s you.”

  “Huh?” Janet said.

  “What message? What are you two talking about?”

  Bellhouser ignored her question.

  “We’ll coordinate this through Mr.

  Farnsworth. You will report exclusively to him. Think of him as your field controller.”

  Field controller, Janet thought with another mental roll of her eyes.

  Just call me Bond, Janet Bond.

  “Okay,” she said.

  “Boss, would you please back-brief Larry Talbot?” She looked at her watch.

  “It’s Friday afternoon.

  I should get in touch with Mr. Kreiss ASAP, don’t you think?”

  “Absolutely,” Foster said.

  Janet hesitated, an image of Edwin Kreiss’s watchful face in her mind.

  “You don’t think Kreiss will tumble to all this?” she asked.

  “He seems pretty… perceptive.”

  “Not if it’s done right,” Foster said.

  “Think of it as the ‘frog in the pot’ analogy: You drop a frog into a pot of boiling water, out he comes. Put him in a pot of cold water and slowly turn up the heat? He boils to death without ever realizing he’s in trouble.”

  Janet just looked at Foster. From her brief acquaintance with Edwin Kreiss, she saw a hundred things wrong with his little analogy.

  “And Mr. Ransom here has some equipment to show you. Why don’t you go with him, while we sort out communications and coordination with Mr. Farnsworth.”

  Janet glanced at Farnsworth, who nodded. She knew she would have to talk to him later, to make sure she understood the real bureaucratic ground rules here. As she got up to leave, the Bellhouser woman was giving her a studied look. It occurred to Janet that their scheme depended entirely on Mr. Kreiss going along with her offer of “help.” The woman’s expression somehow reminded Janet of a snake who’d just missed a rabbit.

  She followed Ransom out of the conference room and closed the door behind her. The more she thought about this, the more she thought Kreiss would just blow her off. On the other hand, she had warned him about the Agency people showing up. Maybe he would be grateful. Edwin Kreiss grateful. Sure.

  “So,” she said, “what’s this about a fifty-caliber rifle? And a Bronco?”

  He shook his head.

  “It’s in your impound lot. You know what a Barrett light fifty is?”

  “I’m a materials forensics nerdette, so, no. What’s a Barrett light fifty?”

  They went down to the basement and then took back stairs out to the multistoried parking garage behind the federal building. A fenced area on the lower level held impounded vehicles. The Bronco was in one corner of the compound, hunkered down in a pool of its body fluids. Ransom walked them over to it.

  “A Barrett light fifty is a big-ass rifle. Currently being used by Navy SEALs as a long-range personal communicator. The Army is using it to detonate land mines. He did this with three rounds.”

  “Wow. Was he after you guys?”

  “Kreiss? No way. He normally doesn’t use guns on people. He uses guns to scare the shit out of people. Like me and Gerald back there at his cabin. We were playing dive the submarine by the time that second round came down the hill. Somebody lets off a Barrett, you know you’re in a world of shit.”

  Janet looked at the car and wondered what she’d gotten herself into.

  Ransom was watching her.

  “I guess I don’t understand,” she said.

  “Somebody pops a cap at Bureau agents, the immediate result is that a hundred more agents come kick his ass. Tell me some more about this Kreiss guy.

  And you work for the Agency? Did you work with Kreiss?”

  “Nobody worked with Edwin Kreiss. For him, maybe, but never with him. That’s part of his charm. And me, I’m just a glorified gofer.”

  Janet looked sideways at him. Ransom’s flexible speech patterns were beginning to make her think that he was perhaps being modest.

  “Well, look, whatever you are, I’m a regular whiz bang in a federal forensics investigation. You want courtroom-ready evidence to lock some wrong guys up, I’m your agent. I’m here in Roanoke to get some out-of-specialty field experience, which means I have next to no field experience. Get the picture?”

  “Got the picture. Man upstairs said you pissed off some heavy dudes.

  What you do—tell the tr
uth on ‘em?”

  “I was working in the Bureau laboratory. As you may have read, we’ve had some problems there. I told them what the evidence said. Not what they wanted to hear. You know, facts getting in the way of preconceived notions. Some of the bigger bosses hate that.”

  “See, we don’t have that problem where I work.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yeah, see, at the Agency, ain’t nobody ever asks for facts in the first place. That way, nothing interferes with their preconceived notions. Lot less friction.”

  She smiled.

  “I’ll bet. Anyway, I do believe I’m out of my league getting mixed up with a guy like this,” she said, pointing with her chin to the deflated Bronco.

  “We all out of our league, Special Agent Carter. That’s why he was so damned effective when he worked for us.”

  “I don’t understand. If he’s such a big problem, why don’t you all just gang up and take him in, do some spooky number on him?”

  Ransom stopped and looked around.

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  he said.

  “No, I don’t.”

  He looked around again.

  “Okay, there’s two reasons. The first is because he’s Edwin Kreiss. Listen, Gerald and me? We were sent to just have us a little talk with the man last night. Just talk, now, nothing heavy.

  He don’t come home, and next thing I know, it’s morning and I’m looking for coffee makings. I’m opening a cupboard door and a fuckin’ zoo-ful of goddamn monster-ass lions sound off in that big room.”

  “Lions.”

  “Fuckin’ right, lions. I never heard a live lion in my fuckin’ life outside of the movies, and I not only knew it was lions but that there was a hundred of them bastards in the house. We talkin’ loud motherfuckers, aw right I mean, we talkin’ a hundred fifty decibels’ worth of roaring lions. Then it was a machine gun, blowing all the windows in the house out, along with our eardrums. I’m talkin’ glass flyin’, bullets blowin’ through walls, dishes breakin’—and it’s so loud, I can’t hear myself screamin’.”

  “He shoot at his own house?”

  “Naw, he didn’t shoot nothin’—then. My man Kreiss does sounds.

  These were just sounds. I knew that—still scared the shit out of me. And Gerald? My man Gerald crapped himself.”

  “He does this with what—speakers? Tapes?”

  “Tactical sound. It’s a Kreiss trademark. See, if you can hear it but you can’t see it, then your imagination automatically comes up with the worst case monster, right? And if you get your target spooked enough, he’s gonna move in straight lines. He put a rattlesnake tape in a guy’s car one time—rattles, hiss, ground sounds, the whole nine yards. Dude drove it into a tree tryin’ to find that snake. I gotta tell you, I knew all about this, but Gerald an’ me? We both out the fuckin’ door in about two nanoseconds, all that shit starts up, runnin’ for the Bronco, and then, then, here come the crack of doom to split the engine block into four pieces.”

  “Okay, so he has a bad temper,” Ransom started laughing.

  “Temper? Temper! What are you, Special Agent, a comedienne? Temper! No, no, no, no. Kreiss? He wasn’t mad. He cool as a fuckin’ cucumber when I go up the hill to pay my respects, you know, say hello, see how his morning is goin’. No, no, see: This the kind of shit he does when he just workin’. Now, rumor has it he does have a teeny little problem with rage. That’s when he does the really bad shit, the shit got him retired. And that leads me to the second reason. You sure you don’t already know this?”

  “I’ve heard a little bit about the Glower incident, if that’s what you mean. I’m not sure I want to know any more.”

  “Well, you better, you be messin’ aroun’ with those executive back stabbers in there. Edwin Kreiss, when he flamed out after the Glower thing, he supposedly said some things. Made some accusations. Like he’d been right about Glower, seem’ as Glower offed himself and his whole family rather than answer to what was comin’. Some other people where I work thought the same thing, only they couldn’t say so, because sayin’ so wasn’t such a healthy thing to do, careerwise.”

  “My boss said Kreiss thought there was someone else who had been obstructing the DOE laboratories investigation. Somebody in another agency.”

  “But that’s the thing, Special Agent. That’s the reason nobody willin’ to order up a gang bang on Mr. Kreiss. Because, the way the jungle drums told it, brother Kreiss just might have some evidence to back up all those accusations he made. You know, evidenced Like what got you sent down here to East Bumfuck Egypt? Me, I’m just a workin’ stiff, but my guess is there are some senior people in both your outfit and mine who just might be afraid of Edwin Kreiss.”

  She stared at the bleeding Bronco.

  “Fuck me,” she said quietly.

  “Now you talkin’ like a veteran,” Ransom said approvingly.

  They headed back toward the building. Janet still felt that there was something wrong with the logic of what Bellhouser and Foster had asked her to do, but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

  “So where does a retired FBI agent get his hands on a fifty-caliber rifle?” she asked.

  “Probably got it when he was with Agency CE,” Ransom said.

  “You gotta remember: Kreiss worked with the sweepers, and those are some serious spooks. Those guys can draw on any kind of equipment the CS-that’s our Clandestine Services—have in the toy store, along with DOD’s toy store. Word is, those dudes go out and get some of their own

  shit, ‘cause the operatin’ cash is, shall we say, loosely controlled? When it’s time for them to retire, go raise plutonium somewhere, they turn in the issue stuff, but there’s no tellin’ what kinda shit they got stashed, or where. Ain’t nobody asks ‘em, either.”

  She stopped at the door, took a deep breath, and blew it out though pursed lips.

  “Maybe I need to go back and talk to Farnsworth. I’m definitely not qualified to do this by myself.”

  “Who says you be by yourself, Special Agent? You gonna have some top line backup while you on this little vacation.”

  She looked at him. He was smiling broadly.

  “You?” she said.

  “One and only.”

  They went through the door and she stopped again.

  “And you just walked up the hill to talk to him?”

  “Couldn’t dance, Special Agent. Might as well go see what the man wants, makin’ all that noise. Besides, I didn’t like the sounds Gerald was makin’.”

  She shook her head.

  “He okay now?”

  They started up the stairs.

  “I believe Gerald’s had a small change of heart,” Ransom said.

  “Brother Gerald has decided he’s going into another line of work. He was in the computer-research end of the CS before he came to the retrieval shop. I believe the Barrett influenced his career thinkin’ this morning. And maybe the lions, too. Hard to say which.”

  “Gerald sounds intelligent,” she said.

  “So, what was significant about the message you were supposed to deliver to Kreiss?”

  He looked down at her for a moment.

  “I can’t tell you that,” he said.

  “Because I don’t know what it means. What I can say is that it involves something’ way above your pay grade and mine. Now, let’s go look at some of my surveillance toys.”

  Kreiss spent the rest of the day checking his property’s perimeter, retrieving his truck, and then cleaning and re stashing the Barrett. Micah Wall wandered up about midmorning to inquire if everything was all right at the Kreiss homestead. His eyes widened when he saw the Barrett.

  “Been some years since I heard me a fifty-cal,” he said, looking around for bodies.

  “Korea, I believe it was. They didn’t look like that.”

  “Unmistakable, aren’t they?” Kreiss said.

  Micah eyed the bandage on Kreiss’s neck but said nothing about it.
>
  “Fifty works real good on Chicoms, specially when they bunch up. We gonna have buzzards? You need a mass grave dug or anything?”

  Kreiss laughed.

  “No, this was just a little domestic dispute. I think we got it all sorted out. For the moment anyway.”

  “Hate to hear you do a big domestic dispute, neighbor. Oh, and my dogs was inquirin’ about them lions?”

  “The wonders of modern science, Micah. Just a little something to make people move out of their prepared positions.”

  “Uh-huh,” Micah said, nodding thoughtfully.

  “Well, like I’ve said before, you need me or any of my kinfolk to take a walk in the woods now and then, you just holler. Any word on Lynn?”

  “I appreciate the offer, Micah. And no, nothing on Lynn from the authorities. I may have found out a couple of things, though.” He told Micah about finding Lynn’s hat inside the Ramsey Arsenal, and that he thought there was something going on in there.

  “What kinda something, you reckon?”

  “I’m not sure. My guess is a meth lab, maybe some other kind of heavy drug thing. Something that made those two guys willing to shoot first and talk about it later. I did find out who one of them is, however. We’re going to have a talk.”

  “You think maybe them kids went in there and ran into the wrong kinda folks?”

  Kreiss nodded, sighing.

  “It’s possible, Micah. And that’s not a happy thought.”

  “You want, I got some kinfolk who can go git this fella, bring him back to our place. We can put him in the caves for a while. Give him time to reflect. Then you can have that there talk in private, you want.”