by Kirk Russell
“You’re not staying.”
“The fuck I’m not. I’m not leaving here. I’m a material witness and the best we have for bombings.”
“You’re leaving.”
“My sister and brother-in-law and nephew are dead in there. There’s no way I’m leaving.”
“I’m ordering you to come in.”
“I’m telling you, I’m not leaving.”
“There are other issues I’ll explain in here.”
“Explain now or come here. I can’t leave.”
“Jane Stone is on her way. Brief her, and she’ll take charge of the scene. Then come in, and we’ll get you back out there as fast as we can.”
“I’m not leaving.”
“Grale, listen, we’ve got a problem we can only solve in here. We’ve just been contacted by the Department of Defense. This is non-negotiable.”
“Talk to me. What’s the problem?”
“I can’t stay on the phone. I’ve got calls stacked up. You’re getting pulled temporarily because of a former drone pilot you were with tonight.”
“Jeremy Beatty?”
“Correct. Department of Defense investigators just contacted us. A pair from their Criminal Investigation Division are on their way here. They believe he’s involved. The rest you’ll have to get from them. We’ll get you back out there as fast as we can.”
Venuti broke the connection. When I called back, I got Venuti’s voice mail. I tried twice more, and then watched Julia being carried out on a backboard.
4
My niece was eased from a backboard to a gurney, and then strapped and lifted into an ambulance. As the doors closed, a first responder described a wound in the middle of her back near her spine and multiple shrapnel wounds on her legs. She had an arm wound and a torn ear. I thought of Melissa’s call yesterday, ostensibly about the party, though really about her kids. She was cheerful about Julia getting her learner’s permit, and told a funny story about Julia parallel parking. I’d felt her happiness with how her kids were growing up. Intense grief swept through me again as the ambulance carrying Julia pulled away.
I turned and saw a radio pole rising just beyond some For Sale vehicles at the edge of the Alagara lot. It looked like a police mobile command station setting up on Lake Mead Boulevard, too close to be safe. The line of For Sale vehicles there were yet to be cleared by a bomb squad, so I headed that way to get them to move.
The vehicles included two panel vans, two pickups, an older Cadillac, a dusty Jeep, and a tired Toyota sedan. All faced the street. I passed between a pickup with tricked-out wheels and custom gray fleck paint and the vintage Caddy, and then stepped over a heavy link chain bordering the lot. My focus was on the deputy commander overseeing the setup of the mobile command station. I recognized his drill sergeant posture. His name was André Dubrious, or “Dubious,” as he was called behind his back at Las Vegas PD Metro.
“You want to back your officers away until these vehicles for sale are cleared,” I said as I reached him.
“Our bomb squad will clear them.”
“Then let them do that first.” I pointed at the Las Vegas Metro bomb squad vehicle arriving. “Give them time, or set up farther away.”
He didn’t like that at all.
“Aren’t you the agent who got blown up playing soldier in Iraq that the Las Vegas Sun wrote up as a hero? I heard they bent the rules to let you back onto active duty.”
“We’re not talking about me. At least back your officers away. You stay. Only you. How about that?”
Dubrious pointed a finger at the Alagara where smoke still seeped from the roof and blast debris had sprayed across the lot.
“What happened here happens every Fourth of July,” he said. “When this is over, it’s going to be a fireworks explosion. Checking these vehicles is just practice for the bomb squad.”
“You’ve seen all this before?”
“I’ve seen enough.”
“What in the fuck does that mean?”
I don’t know where the anger that enveloped my grief came from, but it was bright and intense. Maybe it was because Dubrious had primped his hair in anticipation of a TV interview with the destroyed Alagara in the background. I took a step toward him, then had to get a grip.
“I’m going to report you,” he said. “Count on it.”
Without another word, he turned his back. I almost grabbed him, but saw an officer I recognized on the Las Vegas Metro bomb squad and walked over to him. We work together often. I know them. They’re top-notch and it was good to see they were close to moving onto the lot.
Then I saw Jane Stone coming toward me. She wrapped her arms around me and said, “I’m so sorry, Paul.”
“Why is Venuti pulling me? What’s going on with the Department of Defense investigators? Venuti said we got a call from DOD and two investigators from their criminal investigative division are on their way to our office. They think a former drone pilot I know should be questioned in connection with the bombing. The rest he’ll explain when I get to the office. When did we get this tip? I was just at Beatty’s place.”
“Maybe fifteen minutes after the bombing. How well do you know him?”
“Fairly well. He said a pair of air force OSI came out to question him last night about a drone pilot training job he did in Taiwan. But what’s this about?”
“He’s part of a joint OSI-DOD investigation. They’ve been tapped into his communications for six months. You’ll get it from Dan. Where do you know him from?”
“From my brother-in-law, who died here. I met Beatty at Melissa and Jim’s house years ago.”
I had to look past her after I said that.
“Beatty was a top pilot in the Creech flight trailers until he developed what’s called ‘kill inhibition,’ meaning he didn’t want to press the trigger anymore. The air force tried to bring him around, gave up, and discharged him with a PTSD diagnosis a couple of years ago. He had trouble adjusting to civilian life. A lot of trouble. I’d gotten to know him from barbecues at Jim and Melissa’s house, so Jim asked me to try to help him.”
“You’ve mentored him.”
“That’s too big a word. All I’ve done is try to help him. He had a tough first year—suicide was possible—then things started getting better. Last fall he connected with a job broker who’s been getting him drone consulting projects.”
My voice trailed off. I couldn’t stand here and explain Beatty’s drone consulting business or my friendship with him any longer.
“Paul, you’re going to have to go in and get briefed.”
I shook my head and said, “That’s not right, I belong here.”
“Would this Jeremy Beatty know about the party here?” She asked.
“He was invited. He’s always invited.”
“Invited? Oh, through your brother-in-law.”
Her cell rang and she showed me the screen.
“That’s Dan wondering how long ago you left. I’ve got to talk to him.”
She was still on the phone as my headlights caught the white Tyvek of the FBI ERT—Evidence Response Team—suiting up. But I didn’t drive to the office. Twelve minutes later, after passing under the rusted iron arch of the Wunderland Trailer Park sign, I came up behind a black SUV blocking the thin asphalt road leading to Beatty’s trailer out at the end of Wunderland. It wasn’t one of ours; I drove around it and arrived in time to see Beatty’s computers being carried out of the trailer. A young Department of Defense investigator flashed a badge and moved to stop me as I started up the trailer-deck steps.
“That’s as far as you go,” he said.
I pulled my FBI creds and said, “It’s a terrorism investigation that brought me here, so I could ask you to leave. What are you doing here? Who are you? Identify yourself.”
He looked around for help. What he told me without saying anything is that he knew my name and he didn’t want to give me information. I stepped around him and looked in the trailer. The computers and the small d
rone were gone. A scan of the trailer walls was underway. I walked back out to the young investigator.
“When did you get a search warrant?”
“This morning.”
“Does it reference possible bomb-making equipment?”
“I can’t talk about it.”
“You can’t talk about the search warrant to an FBI agent?”
“I can’t discuss this with you.”
“Why is it you can’t talk to an FBI agent?”
“My orders are not to talk to you, sir.”
“Your orders?”
“My boss.”
“Is your boss waiting for me at the field office?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Give me the person’s name.”
“Sarah Warner.”
“Is Sarah in the Department of Defense Criminal Investigative Division like you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Why are you looking at Jeremy Beatty?”
“I can’t talk about that.”
“Did Sarah tell you not to talk to any FBI agents or just me?”
“Just you.”
I pulled out my phone.
“What’s her phone number?”
Fireworks popped, popped, popped from the direction of the casinos, and I kept pushing the young investigator for the reasons why they were there. But then came a deep, hollow boom that froze and frightened me. The young investigator also heard it, but it didn’t mean the same thing to him. He saw my reaction though and went quiet. I asked again for Sarah Warner’s number, and to get free of me he gave it up.
I called Sarah Warner from my car, but not until after trying to reach Jane Stone and starting back to the Alagara. My call to Jane rolled over to voice mail. I called Sarah Warner next. I was going to call Venuti but wanted to be back on-site at the Alagara before talking to him. Caller ID wouldn’t give Warner my name, but I had guessed right. She assumed I was law enforcement and answered on the second ring.
“Sarah Warner here.”
“This is Special Agent Paul Grale.”
“I’m waiting in your field office. We’ll talk here.”
“I have a question first. Do you have any evidence tying Beatty to a bomb plot?”
“I’m not doing this over the phone.”
“It’s a yes or no question.”
“I’ll see you here.”
“You and I are going to have a problem.”
“Guess what, we already have one.”
She hung up, which annoyed and angered me, but didn’t matter anymore after Venuti called.
“Secondary explosion,” Venuti said. “A bomb in a pickup, at least seven dead, and we can’t find . . .”
His voice failed him.
“I heard the blast. I’m on my way back,” I said. “I’m almost there.”
“It’s locked down. You’d be standing around. Come in. Let’s get this cleared up with the Department of Defense investigators and get you back out.”
I didn’t answer.
“Grale.”
“I’m here.”
“Come in.”
I put the flashers on top and raced to the field office. En route I took a call from Jo Segovia—Dr. Segovia, Jo to me. I hadn’t heard her voice in six months, though we’d been together for a year before that.
“I’m calling as a doctor, Paul, and I’m outside the bounds here. You should be getting this directly from her doctor. How much do you know about Julia’s wounds?”
“I was there. I found her. Her ear looked bad, but her back was the worry. What do you know? How is she? A first responder said her legs and back took shrapnel. One piece was close to the spine.”
“Dangerously close. She’s on her way into emergency surgery. I’ve seen the X-rays. Most of the other shrapnel is embedded in muscle in her hamstrings and will come out. After those wounds are cleaned up, they should be fine. The fragment near a vertebra may cause bruising or swelling at the spinal column. That can lead to paralysis.”
“That can’t happen. Too much has happened to her already.”
“She’s with a top surgeon, and I’ll watch after her, Paul. I’m here. I’m calling to let you know and to say I’m devastated and sorry.”
“Please call me as soon as she’s out of surgery, Jo.”
“I’ll do more than call you.”
5
The agents standing near a TV in a conference room shifted so I could see the screen better. A Las Vegas TV affiliate of CNN with a helicopter up to catch casino fireworks had veered toward the column of black smoke soon after the blast. The TV crew filmed the initial response and caught the secondary bomb explosion before the FAA excluded unauthorized aircraft from the area. Their helicopter was low and close when the pickup exploded with a brilliant flash of white light. It was horrific to watch and was played over and over. In the upper right corner of the TV, a timer ran down the seconds to detonation.
I watched it yet again and saw the LVPD mobile command unit topple over, its radio pole bending and twisting across the median. In the fraction of a second it took for the blast cloud to swallow them, you could see other small figures. Seven law enforcement officers were known dead. They reported an FBI special agent missing but didn’t have Jane Stone’s name yet.
In an interview room the two Department of Defense investigators waited, a man and a woman, both on their phones when I walked in. They ended their calls and stood to shake hands. Sarah Warner was square shouldered and sober. Her partner Jon Griswold was older and deferential to her. He was mild mannered, balding, and loosening around the middle. As he cleaned his glasses, his myopic stare locked on me and only accentuated how wrong it was to be here rather than at the Alagara. It was wrong, but what did they know that put a smug look in the old boy’s eyes?
After adjusting his glasses, he gave me his name again, pronouncing Griswold like a puzzle answer on a TV game show. We traded phone numbers as Warner talked.
“After you left Jeremy Beatty tonight, he was out of his trailer carrying a gear bag within minutes.” She made that sound extraordinary, but Beatty had told me he was going out to the airfield tonight. “You weren’t half a mile away when he rode his motorcycle up a ramp onto the truck bed and strapped it down.”
“You were tracking me?”
“I’m saying it wasn’t long. It was planned. He was out of Wunderland eight minutes after you left. Are you hearing me?”
“I’m hearing you, but waiting for your point. Beatty didn’t know I was stopping by. He was packing, getting ready to go out to an airfield and a new job.”
“That’s hard for us to believe.”
I tried to make sense of that then skipped over it. “Tell me what you have on Beatty. Tell me why you’re here.”
“Special Agent Grale, I want to ask you something. You’re a SABT, special agent bomb tech, and highly trained. You’ve got quite a reputation. Could you build bombs like the two used tonight?”
“Probably.” I stared at her. “I left the bomb scene because my supervisor said you had something urgent. What have you got?”
When she stalled, I slid my chair back and got ready to stand.
“Please don’t leave yet,” she said. “How would Beatty get to this airfield?”
“It’s north of Indian Wells, approximately two miles beyond the Mercury cutoff. I can forward the directions he texted me.”
“So he would take 95 North?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not what he did.”
“Okay, tell me. I can’t do the rest of this game. I’m going to ask again, what have you got?”
“He drove toward Bar Alagara and we followed but lost him. He made a series of evasive moves, ran stop signs, reversed course, raced through yellow lights—my squad isn’t trained for that.”
“What are they trained for?”
That came out harsh. That was my anger again at the bombings and being pulled into the office.
“Criminal investigation,” she said
.
“With a computer and a mouse, right? They’re all good at driving a mouse, just not so good with vehicles. I was driving slowly along Lake Mead Boulevard. If Beatty was following me, he was driving slowly.”
“You were driving slowly. We saw that. Does that mean you were waiting for him?”
“Excuse me? You’re telling me you were following me and then followed Beatty as well. That’s what I’m hearing. Is that what you’re saying?”
“Were you always going to the party? Were you invited?”
“You’ve got to be kidding me. Was I invited?”
“Were you?”
It hit me, and it was unbelievable. I answered slowly. It was possible the DOD had nothing connecting me to the party. But if they had questions about me, why didn’t they tell Venuti? He would have cleared it up.
“It was my sister and brother-in-law’s annual party. I try to get there every year.”
She looked at Griswold then back at me.
“Your sister is Melissa Kern?”
I shook my head. “My sister is dead.”
She must have read the emotion crossing my face. She bowed her head. She looked at Griswold then back at me.
“We’ve made a terrible mistake, and I apologize.”
“My brother-in-law, Jim Kern, was one of the pilots killed tonight. Melissa was my sister and only sibling. I found her body and the body of my nephew. My niece is in emergency surgery right now. After his discharge, Beatty had a hard time and Jim got me involved, trying to help him. Beatty used to regularly send texts that sounded suicidal, like one I got last night. I hadn’t seen one like it in over a year, and since he didn’t return my calls or texts, I stopped by before going to the party.”
She shook her head, then found the grace to look me in the eye.