Measure of Darkness

by Chris Jordan

  The former Pease Air Force Base in Newington, New Hampshire. Miles upon miles of wide concrete runways built heavy enough and long enough to accommodate squadrons of B-52 bombers. Now reconfigured into a civilian trade port, but back in the day this was a fully manned SAC base. Strategic Air Command, charged with keeping a third of the fleet in the air at all times, armed with nuclear weapons, just in case the Russians decided to go for the final option, a first strike. The golden age of atomic bombs and mutually assured destruction, long before Gatling was born. Method of delivery, the magnificent B-52 Stratofortress, with a wingspan of nearly two hundred feet and an enormous tail section towering more than forty feet above the tarmac. Loaded weight of a hundred and thirty tons, which explains the overbuilt runways, since one of the heavy beasts was landing every fifteen minutes, like clockwork. More like deathwork, really. That was the point. Making sure the Russians understood that a first strike would leave hundreds of the enormous bombers still airborne, capable of destroying at least three thousand targets in the old Soviet Union. A million megatons of atomic madness delivered right to your door, Mr. Khrushchev, turning Mother Russia to glowing dust. Your call.

  Glory days. Back when not even U.S. presidents dared mess with General Curtis “Bombs Away” LeMay, who personally selected the enemy targets and didn’t bother to share the list with the Pentagon, for security reasons laid out by the general himself. There was no second-guessing in LeMay’s Air Force, just a perpetual readiness to unleash Hell. And it worked. The Russians never dared to pull the trigger and the old Soviet Union eventually collapsed under the weight of all that armament. All because one righteous man was willing to take a stand.

  Something to keep in mind when the going gets tough, as it surely will in the next few days and weeks. The reckless insubordinate Kidder being just one of the many problems to be solved.

  “Sir? Bird One on vector, sir.”

  Below the balcony one of the young technicians calls up, notifying him that the drone aircraft is about to be recovered. Taylor sweeps the binoculars to the southwest and is pleased to pick up the glint of wings just above the tree line. The new Predator RQ-Mini isn’t easy to see, for obvious reasons. The Mini has a wingspan of only twelve feet, and is transparent to radar. Virtually undetectable once airborne, unless you know exactly where to look. The little craft is limited to low altitude and has a fairly short range, but is capable of making the fifty-mile trip to the designated target, in this case downtown Boston, and hovering at low altitude for up to three hours before returning to base. Armed not with weapons but with state-of-the-art hi-res video cameras and signal detection receivers. A million bucks per unit, not including the remote-control console, and well worth the cost, although this particular bird hasn’t delivered, for reasons yet to be determined, although he has strong suspicions in that regard.

  Gatling joins the tech on the tarmac, awaiting recovery.

  “Bird One is down,” the tech announces. “Bird Two in place over the target, circling at seven hundred feet.”

  “Any joy?”

  “Like before. Nice pictures, no signal.”

  No signal meaning the drones have been unable to recover data from the bugs the recovery team left in place. There’s only one possible explanation. Gatling waits until the little unmanned aircraft—there are model airplanes bigger—taxis into the open hangar under remote control. Then he heads for the control room, housed in an unassuming one-story cinder-block building that was once a bunk room for bomber crews, and therefore christened the Bunker.

  The Bunker is his own dedicated unit, off-line and off the books. Here in the States, GSG has recently acquired a long-established company that supplies uniformed security guards, patrolling office buildings, investigating employee theft and so on. But the bulk of GSG’s business—the big revenue generator—remains overseas, employing ex-military in a number of venues. Armed security details for civilian contractors, plus load and flight crews for the full-size missile-firing Predators deployed over countries identified as terrorist hot spots. That particular subsidiary, tasked with operating unmanned aerial vehicles, is funded by an open-end, no-bid contract worth hundreds of millions per annum. All of which has made it possible for him to run his own security operations here at home, in his own stomping ground, as it were, without regard to budget. An operation that includes not only reconnaissance UAVs and the tech crews required to run them, but a stealth helicopter and a superbly trained special-ops team available on a moment’s notice.

  In Gatling’s mind he’s continuing in the patriotic tradition of General Curtis LeMay, who for a crucial time in American history had the entire Strategic Air Command under his unquestioned leadership, answerable to himself alone. Like his hero, Taylor Gatling, Jr., is prepared to cut through the bullshit and accept the responsibility of making difficult decisions for the protection of the homeland. He may not have access to thousands of nuclear warheads, but in his own small way he’s making a difference, standing guard against those who want to destroy America. In particular, unreliable characters like the late Joseph Keener, who openly consorted with the enemy, and who, if he wasn’t actively passing secrets to the enemy, certainly had the capacity to do so. The FBI, in Gatling’s opinion a bunch of useless, vacillating, butt-covering ’crats, had declined to keep the professor under close surveillance. So Gatling had made the call, and even though the unexpected had happened and the crap had hit the fan, he didn’t regret the original decision. Plus, how could he resist the opportunity to put a personal enemy’s reputation in the shredder?

  Things hadn’t gone according to plan; it happens, and when it does a righteous leader makes adjustments. That’s what he’s doing now, making adjustments.

  In the Bunker, Gatling makes straight for the team controlling the Minis. A couple of New Hampshire kids, fraternal twins, who’d started out as gamers and progressed to joysticking—or “sticking”—unmanned aerial vehicles. Known in the Bunker as B1 and B2, the brothers affect swamp-water Yankee accents—“ayuh, bubba” their equivalent of “hey, bro”—but they’re bright and capable and love what they’re doing. Gatling likes hanging out at their consoles because their enthusiasm is infectious, and because they defer to him as something of a legend, a local boy who made spectacularly good and who has all the toys to prove it.

  The brothers look up from the glow of their LCDs, shaking heads in tandem. B1, aka Bart, has the active bird, with images split on screen. B2, or Bert, has control of the Mini that has just landed, and is going through the remote checklist as the plane is refueled.

  “Sorry, boss. We tweaked the receiver to high-gain but the birds are still deaf.”

  The phrase “birds are still deaf” pronounced without recourse to the letter r. Gatling grins like a sympathetic older sibling, slaps them both on the back. “Not to worry, boys. You’ve established that the building has state-of-the-art shielding, just as I suspected. So now we know.”

  “That sucks,” says B2. “But look here, boss, what we got on viz. Intruders.”

  Introodahs.

  “Damn,” says Gatling, watching the LCD as a black SUV circles the block, dropping off operatives, picking them up. “When was this?”

  “Within the hour. Plus we picked up a scrambled broadcast from a white van parked on the same block. Some kind of walkie-talkie bullshit on an FBI frequency.”

  Gatling’s expression darkens as he turns serious, and none-too-pleased. “For future reference, I need to know this in real time. Pull the bird pronto. Get it out of there.”

  “Boss, there’s no way that—”

  “Now.”

  At the tone of his voice, brooking no argument, the twins seem to shrink into their swivel chairs. “You got it,” says Bart softly, working the joystick. “Bird Two disengaging target area.”

  “Vector eleven degrees until clear of Logan airspace,” says Bert, flipping though the checklist. “Maintain seven hundred feet.”

  “Vector eleven, maintaining seven hundr
ed.”

  “Cleared target area. Going to auto.”

  “Standby for next waypoint.”

  “Standing by.”

  The brothers push back from their consoles, letting the Mini fly itself to the next waypoint. Obvious, from their tense postures, that they’re awaiting further instruction, expecting to be reprimanded.

  Gatling takes a deep breath, calming himself. “I thought I had made it clear at the beginning of the operation, but let me explain again. It is absolutely essential that any and all surveillance of this particular target go undetected. No one can know we’re there. No one can suspect. And now that you’ve detected an FBI operation in progress—congrats on that, by the way, job well done—our invisibility is even more critical. If I can spot a Mini a thousand yards away, coming in for a landing, then a Bureau agent might do so as well, even if the odds are against it. For the time being we will stand down. All recon flights suspended. Understood?”

  “Yes, sir,” they say in tandem.

  Without another word—how could these morons have failed to understand?—Gatling exits the Bunker and trudges back to his office, all lightness gone from his step. Talk about a mood crash. He’d anticipated the FBI or some other Homeland agency would investigate the mysterious death of Professor Keener—that was a given, from the moment it happened—but running a full-scale surveillance on the private investigator Naomi Nantz? That made him extremely uneasy. What did they hope to find? His great disdain for bureaucrats—that’s why they call it the Bureau—doesn’t blind him to the fact that if enough monkeys type on enough keyboards, eventually a plausible story will emerge.

  It’s essential that whatever scenario the Bureau comes up with, that it not include Gatling Security Group in any meaningful way. Which means that finding a solution for the Kidder problem is all the more crucial.

  On the way into his office Gatling briskly instructs his secretary to hold all calls. He locks the door, reclines on his ten-thousand-dollar leather couch and for the next hour or so thinks seriously about murder.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Enemies in High Places

  As I organize my notes for this narrative, it becomes clear that this was the day when the case finally began to break wide open. Day Four. The day we went up to the roof deck for iced tea while Teddy examined Shane’s laptop, and Jack Delancey smoked his smelly but interesting cigar, and Naomi and I stared out at the river, wondering aloud why the FBI had us under surveillance.

  “Shane’s old boss visits him in the hospital, chats with Dane, next thing we’re being followed,” I say, making my point. “Can’t be a coincidence.”

  “She was never Shane’s boss,” Naomi says, taking a sip of her tea. “They were colleagues. Friends. In Dane’s opinion she’s sincerely concerned for his well-being.”

  “Still, she’s a big mucky-muck. Director of Counterterrorism.”

  “Assistant director. There’s only one director of the FBI. The subordinates are designated as deputy director, associate deputy director and, down the line, a number of assistant directors. AD Monica Bevins reports to the associate deputy director, who reports directly to the director.”

  I stare at her. “So you know the whole organizational chart? You do. You have it in your head, from the big boss at the top to the part-time custodian at the bottom.”

  She shrugs, admitting as much.

  Typical.

  I say, “My point is, whatever her title, she has the power to make things happen, and what happens when she gets here to visit her sick friend? She puts us under surveillance. Why? Are we suspects in the murder or the kidnapping?”

  “No. But we’re representing the only suspect. Maybe we know things.”

  “So they know about the missing laptop?”

  “Possibly. Although, if so, I’d have suspected a widespread search of the area, or even a search of these premises, based on the fact that this was Shane’s last stop before he was abducted. And yet none of that happened.”

  “It still could.”

  “Possibly.”

  “But you have another theory.”

  Again with the shrug. “There’s also the possibility that we’re in the middle of a turf war,” she says.

  Jack, releasing a perfect O of white smoke, chimes in. “That fits…?. That’s what I’m thinking, now that I’ve had time to, you know, actually think about it. Monica knows we were hit by some other agency. Maybe she knows who it is, maybe she doesn’t. But she wants to find out. So she puts eyes on us.”

  “You know the woman,” Naomi says. “You worked for her, albeit briefly. In your estimation is that how she’d react?”

  He shrugs. “All bureaucrats want more information. She has the authority to order surveillance, therefore she did.”

  Naomi leans back, fingertips brushing the glass of tea. “So in your opinion the FBI has two objectives. One, to keep an eye on us. Two, to see who else is keeping an eye on us.”

  “Exactly,” he says. “Hey, did you see that?”

  Pointing skyward with his cigar, eyes squinting, a puzzled look on his face.

  “What?”

  “Like an eagle, circling.”

  “An eagle?” I say. “You mean over the harbor?”

  “The harbor’s too far away—my eyes aren’t that good. No, straight overhead. Whatever it was, it had a big wingspan.”

  We all study the sky. Other than a TV news chopper in the vicinity of Bunker Hill, and a plane climbing out of Logan, there doesn’t seem to be much in the way of birds at the moment.

  “Maybe it was an osprey.”

  “I know what an osprey looks like. We’ve got tons of ospreys in Gloucester. No, this was much bigger.”

  “And you’re convinced it was an eagle.”

  “Hell, no. Just that it was bigger than an ordinary bird.”

  Naomi looks thoughtful. But then, that’s her default expression. Sensing that she has an idea or opinion, we wait for it.

  “Let’s go back inside,” Naomi suggests, picking up her glass. As we enter the stairwell she says, “So tell me, Jack, is the FBI in the habit of employing surveillance drones, do you know?”

  Back in the command center, Teddy looks like he’s given birth. Okay, I’m exaggerating just a teensy bit, but he does look quite pleased with himself.

  “Kathleen Mancero,” he announces before we’ve had a chance to settle. “Born Kathleen O’Hara. Divorced but kept her married name. Driver’s license has her current residence as Olathe, Kansas.”

  Our young computer whiz is no longer working directly from Shane’s laptop, having transferred the contents to his own workstation. Identifying the woman in the emailed video attachment turns out to have been straightforward and relatively simple, as such things go. She popped almost immediately in the facial recognition software because she had once been a suspect in the disappearance of her own daughter, a seven-year-old girl.

  Young Teddy has done an amazing job of organizing available data into a concise narrative, exactly as Naomi has taught him.

  “It all started five years ago in Kansas City, Missouri,” he begins, laying out the story. “Her husband was a big-time car dealer—Hummers—who dumped her for a newer model. His secretary, so no imagination there. A nasty custody battle ensues. The husband tried to make it look like his soon-to-be ex-wife was involved in kiddy porn—selling images of her own daughter over the internet—and when little Stacy goes missing, it’s assumed that Mrs. Mancero has kidnapped her own daughter to sell her to the highest bidder.”

  “Damn,” says Jack. “That’s the connection. Shane.”

  “Right, right,” says Teddy.

  “Yeah, I remember this one,” Jack goes on. “Not the details, but I remember Shane going to KC to help some poor woman who he said was being framed. As I recall, there wasn’t a happy ending.”

  Teddy’s gel-stiffened hairdo bobs in agreement. “Yup, you’re right. According to media accounts, former FBI Special Agent Randall Shane established
that it was in fact the husband who had traded images of his own daughter online. The husband, Gerald ‘The Hummer Man’ Mancero, was eventually arrested on pedophile charges and the wife was proved innocent. Shane managed to prove that the images of the daughter were downloaded by one Jason Hargrove, who was a crony of the husband’s. Hargrove, scion of a wealthy family in the chemical business, confessed to kidnapping and killing seven-year-old Stacy Mancero, and disposing of her body in such a way that not much of anything was ever recovered. Dissolved the remains in a vat of acid, courtesy of the family business.”

  “What a nightmare,” says Jack. “And it didn’t end there. The husband shot the guy, right? The killer? As he was being transferred for arraignment? And then, let me see, was in turn shot dead by courtroom officers. They called it ‘The Kansas City Bloodbath.’”

  Watching Naomi, I get the distinct impression that she had the whole awful case in mind as soon as Teddy spoke the woman’s name, but hadn’t said so because she wanted to let him make a full presentation of the facts. Now that he has, she’s free to comment.

  “There’s no doubt in your mind that Kathleen Mancero is the woman in the video clip?” she asks.

  In answer, Teddy puts the image of her driver’s license up on the screen next to a still from the video and lets the pictures speak for themselves. Same eyes, same facial structure. Clearly both images are of the same woman.

  “What happened next?” Naomi says, prompting him.

  “After the shoot-out Mrs. Mancero had a serious breakdown. She became delusional, kept seeing her daughter in the faces of unrelated children—rushing up to families in malls, and so on—and was several times taken into protective custody. Eventually she voluntarily checked into a psychiatric hospital and was treated for six months. According to a follow-up story in the Kansas City Star, which ran a year ago, she was finally able to accept the fact that her daughter was dead, even though there was never a body to recover or bury. She also continued to have contact with Shane.”