The Fourteenth Protocol_A Thriller

by Nathan Goodman

  “Baker. Yes, what is it? Jesus, you look like shit. Sorry, no offense. How are you holding up?”

  “Sir, you’ve got everything up here in Queens covered.”

  “And?”

  “And have we thought about the . . . well, I mean I know we’ve already checked for any lost or stolen nuclear material, but what if the loss wasn’t reported?”

  “Baker, they’ve got to report any known loss or theft of nuclear material immediately,” he said.

  “Exactly. Any known loss or theft. What if they don’t know it’s missing? The facility wouldn’t know to report it.”

  Latent reflected on that a moment.

  “Highly unlikely. But I see where you’re heading. What did you have in mind?”

  “I know it’s a long shot, but I’d like to go up to that facility in Connecticut. The one that was right next to the bridge where the commuter train bridge was bombed, and the train fell into the river. It’s a long shot, but it’s worth a try.”

  “I don’t know, Baker, sounds like a goose chase to me. And right now, I need every swinging dick in the field . . . oh, sorry. I need every agent in the field working these more direct leads.”

  “Sir, you’ve got four hundred agents working every other angle. They’re on the house, neighborhood, surveillance cameras, backgrounds, bank accounts, they’re checking overseas for missing nuclear material, everything. They’re all over this. Sir, I don’t need a team. It’s just another stone I think we should turn over.”

  “All right, Baker. All right. Tell your section chief I’ve assigned you to this and check out a bureau car downstairs.”

  He started to walk away but stopped.

  “Baker? Baker. You’ve got guts, and guts is enough. Just watch yourself out there. No one is going to forget what you and Kyle have done here, especially me. Be careful.”

  “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir,” Jana said, choking down the lump in her throat.

  “This is the emergency alert system. In cooperation with federal authorities, this station is conducting a broadcast of the emergency alert system. This is an actual emergency. People are urged to remain in their homes. A terrorist threat alert has been issued. The threat level is high and terrorist attacks are expected to occur at any time. This alert is for the continental United States excluding Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and all US outlying islands. Please remain in your homes. For more information on this actual emergency, tune to your local news station. This has been a broadcast of the emergency alert system.”

  76

  Alyssa made her way through the trees towards the glorious smell of roasted pork and the sound of pure bluegrass music. A grin as wide as the Kentucky sky molded onto her face and revealed pearly white teeth. There were people everywhere, yet it was not at all like the mob scenes she was familiar with at big events like Music Midtown in Atlanta. There, she’d keep her distance from the mosh pits and throngs of people glued together and banging into each other like stalks of wheat in a wind storm. Looking into a sea of people like that was frightening. It was too confining, and you never knew what might happen. Here, people were more spaced apart. Lots of them held hands and many ate at picnic tables. People smiled and said hello everywhere she turned. She had that feeling inside that was like greeting an old friend you hadn’t seen in years, then sitting down together and telling stories.

  Alyssa wandered past the craft fair booths and over towards the amphitheatre where most people were gathered. The amphitheatre was carved into the edge of the mountain and was dotted with row after row of people seated on wooden boards, each supported on either end by rock quarried from the mountain. The whole space formed a sort of bowl that pushed its way right up to the stage. There wasn’t a bad seat in the place. Deputy Skeeter was right, the people loved their bluegrass. Couples danced in front of the stage under a sky that was as blue as it was radiant.

  And surely, Alyssa thought, mom is watching, and she’s proud of me for going on this odyssey, and for finding my soul.

  77

  Jana shook Cade by the shoulder. He stirred, then startled awake and jumped to his feet. “What! What is it . . . ?”

  “Easy, easy, tiger. It’s just me.”

  Cade rubbed his eyes and tried to clear the cobwebs, barely remembering he was in the lobby of the FBI’s New York field office.

  “Man, I fell asleep. I was dreaming,” he said, his voice shaking a little.

  “About Kyle?” said Jana.

  “Yeah.”

  “Listen, we’ve got to go.”

  “Where to?” Cade said as they walked towards the elevator. “They’re going to let me come with you?”

  “I didn’t bother to ask, so yes,” Jana said. “Come on, let’s run across the street first. There’s a little deli over there, and they’ve got a great pastrami on rye. We’ve got a short road trip. Oh, and leave on that FBI Visitor tag, the deli gives us a discount.”

  Ten minutes later they left the basement garage and drove out paralleling the East River on the FDR. Maybe it wasn’t clean enough to swim in, but the river was pretty this time of year. Sunlight glittered across the water between Manhattan and Roosevelt Island, a ridiculously thin strip of land that seemed to always find room for more buildings. They crossed the JFK and headed straight for the Bronx. When they finally cut onto I-95, Cade interrupted the silence.

  “So you never said where we were going.”

  “We’re going up to Stratford,” said Jana.

  “Connecticut? The train derailment?” said Cade. “Why? What’s up there?”

  “A nuclear facility. It’s just a hunch, but it’s worth a shot.”

  “So, you going to tell me? Or am I going to have to beat it out of you?” said Cade.

  Jana looked at him, then flipped the dashboard blue strobe light on and accelerated.

  “You know,” she said, “I could whip you in a fight.”

  “Yeah, I know,” said Cade.

  “It’s just a hunch. We’re looking for the source of nuclear material.”

  “Wait, what nuclear material?”

  She explained the situation and her theory to him. Then he said, “Man, we’re really in this deep, aren’t we? I mean, this is really happening, isn’t it?”

  “There are a lot of things that go on, Cade. A lot of things we don’t tell people. The stuff I’ve seen already. We don’t tell people half of this shit because they’d react just like this. They’d stay in their homes. America would stop being America. Which is exactly what these bomb chuckers want. It takes a lot to protect a nation.”

  Sixty miles later they crossed over Stratford and passed a highway sign for the Housatonic River.

  “That’s it,” said Jana. “That’s the bridge. It happened right here.” As they crossed the six-lane bridge, silence befell the car. Several cranes leered over the heavily damaged train trestle that once sistered the highway bridge. Twisted metal at either end of the trestle bent like the fingers of a person with acute arthritis.

  “Down below. That looks like the nuclear plant,” said Cade.

  They exited, turned left in the direction of the plant, and headed down a winding neighborhood street.

  “Listen,” Jana said, “we’re going into that nuclear plant. Whatever happens, just follow my lead. Whatever I say, whatever I do, just act like it’s totally expected. Don’t act surprised. Play right into it. Let people assume you’re an agent too, but don’t say that you are—that would be a crime. Hell, don’t say anything.”

  “You’re kind of freaking me out.”

  Jana pulled the car off in between two yards in the neighborhood and jumped out. Cade followed her to the trunk where Jana slipped on a navy FBI windbreaker and put her badge on a chain around her neck. She pulled back the windbreaker, exposing the firearm on her waist.

  “Wait,” said Cade, “you don’t think we’re going to get trouble from them, do you?”

  “No, absolutely not.” She smiled. “Why do you ask?”

  78<
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  The neighborhood had been evacuated. There were no cars on the road and no boys on bicycles terrorizing the sidewalk. The mail truck did not come down 175th Street or the surrounding blocks. Electric and heating oil service had been shut off in the area. Whether through leaks or outright observation, the media now knew the contamination was from nuclear material, not chemicals. In order to keep the media’s low-flying helicopters away, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission pressured the FAA to clear the airspace above. The media were told there was a danger in spreading the nuclear material that had been found at the house.

  From the air, it looked like a scene out of the movie E.T. Old Mrs. Neebody’s house was shrouded in a dome of thick, milky plastic. Decontamination trucks lined the street both in front and behind the house. Long plastic tunnels that looked like habitrails led from the house to the decontamination stations. The overcast sky created a diffuse gloom across the area as FBI agents dressed in space suits ambled through the habitrails, looking like the Michelin man.

  The media had coined it The Hiroshima Hilton. Radioactive contamination was far worse than originally estimated. Neighbors who lived on either side of the house had been hospitalized, showing early signs of radiation poisoning. And the two police officers who initially responded to complaints of a foul odor at the house had spent the night in isolation in the critical care unit of Mount Sinai Hospital and were now being transported to Bethesda Medical Center’s acute care unit.

  Both deceased bodies discovered in the dwelling had not been moved. It was deemed too dangerous to move them yet. A specialized vehicle was being brought in from Ft. Carson, Colorado, to handle the removal of bodies and later removal of the house itself, which would have to be totally demolished.

  “Hey, Jones, get over here,” yelled an agent through his facemask and helmet while walking within one of the habitrails.

  “Yeah, what cha got?” said the other agent.

  “Get on the horn to Federal Plaza. Tell Director Latent that I said it’s worse than I thought. Tell him this stuff is weapons grade. This radiation emanates from high core uranium-235.”

  “Roger that.”

  A pair of crime scene specialists worked the basement for hours, documenting everything. The crime scene was the most complex thing they had ever encountered. The element of radioactive contamination made every bit of their job ten times harder. All samples, fibers, and other evidence had to be handled in such a way as to not contaminate the FBI crime lab. Photographs were made on site and uploaded wirelessly for evaluation. The cameras would later be left on site and destroyed with the house. They were working as fast as possible, but the enormous space suits they wore slowed them down.

  Two other Michelin men wobbled left and right down the groaning basement staircase. Agent Larry Fry, who was one of only a dozen or so agents dual-trained in crime scene investigation and hazardous materials threats, stopped at the bottom of the stairs and surveyed the boxy basement space. To Fry, it looked like a cinder-block coffin. He hoped it wouldn’t be his own.

  “You guys notice anything strange about this space?” he said.

  “You mean, besides the four of us assholes dumb enough to put on these suits and walk willingly into the Hiroshima Hilton?”

  “No, besides that. I mean, look at the shape of the basement.”

  “Yeah? It’s a square, so what?”

  “It’s a perfect square,” said Fry.

  “So what? You don’t like squares?”

  “The upstairs isn’t a perfect square. Where’s the rest of this basement?”

  “Well, maybe they were just cutting corners when she was built,” said the other agent.

  Fry shuffled his feet across the gritty cement floor and rotated a tripod holding bright lighting equipment, pointing it against a wall.

  “Yeah? Well look at this,” Fry said. “When you point the lights towards the cinder block wall, you can see the mortar on this wall is much whiter than the rest. The cinder blocks themselves look old, but the mortar looks brand-new. In fact, this is the side of the house where we should be seeing more basement.”

  “What are you saying? That this is a fake wall?”

  “Damn right that’s what I’m saying. Call outside, get us some sledgehammers. Hurry.”

  79

  Stephen Latent stayed in New York instead of returning to headquarters in Washington. He wanted to be on the ground with his men and moved between the field office and the command post near the site of the contamination in Queens.

  “Are those the images from the basement?” he said, looking at a computer screen. “Anything that stands out? Anything we can use to track down this bomb?”

  “Yes, sir, this is coming live from the dwelling’s basement. Nothing solid yet, sir. But we now have a list of all the nuclear facilities in the country that use the high core type of uranium-235, which is what has been identified here. Unfortunately, the list of facilities is huge. And again, not a single one has reported any misplaced or stolen nuclear material. The lab is further isolating the exact isotope so we’ll be able to match the uranium against any possible suspects.”

  “What do you mean?” said Latent.

  “Each nuclear facility uses a specific and unique tag, almost like a signature, to identify their uranium. It’s kind of like the way we tag ricin and other types of poisons that the CDC or other labs produce. It’s a way of being able to identify exactly where the radioactive material was produced, so we can narrow down the source in the event of a breach. Once we isolate it, we’ll know exactly where it came from.”

  “How long will that take?” said Latent.

  “About twelve hours, sir. We’ve got the best people on it right now.”

  Latent started to walk away, but the agent called back to him.

  “Oh, sir? One more thing.”

  “What is it?” said Latent.

  “The agents in the basement are asking for sledgehammers.”

  “Sledgehammers?”

  “Yes, sir. Larry, ah, I mean, Agent Fry thinks there’s a false wall down there.”

  80

  “Here, hold this in your hand,” Jana said, handing Cade a handheld radio. “And remember, don’t say a word.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” but as Cade took it, he was taken aback by the gaze in her eyes. It was like looking at case-hardened steel. “Are you okay?” he said.

  “You might see a side of me you don’t like.”

  The parking lot was straight ahead. Jana flipped on the car’s blue lights and sped through the sea of parked cars towards the entrance, jerked the car up onto the walkway, and screeched to a halt. They both jumped out and ran towards the door. The security guards at their post just inside the lobby stood up in alarm. Jana pounded the locked glass door.

  “Federal Agent, open the door! Federal Agent. Open the door right now!”

  One of the guards scrambled to the door in bewilderment. He opened the door and leaned out but couldn’t peel his eyes off of Jana’s blue windbreaker.

  “Ah, yes, ah, ma’am, ah, Agent-ma’am? Can I help you?”

  Jana bolted through him like he was made of marshmallows. Her hand wrapped around the ID tag clipped to his cheap button-down shirt. The guard backpedaled as fast as he could, trying not to trip. The other guard stepped up, “Hey! What are you . . .” but Jana stiff-armed him back down in his seat.

  “You. Shut up.” She turned her attention back on the first guard. “You, where’s the control center?”

  “Control? Ma’am, you can’t just barge in here like that. You’ve got to have a warrant or appointment or somethin’ . . .”

  The seated guard said, “Yeah, what authority do you have to barge in here?”

  “Authority!” Jana yelled, “how about the United States fucking government!” She ripped the name badge off the guard’s shirt in one violent motion, then read it out loud.

  “Jonathan Tipton. Well Jonathan, you’ve got about two seconds to show me to the control room before I arr
est you and charge you with obstructing a federal investigation.”

  “Yes, ma’am, ah, Agent ma’am.”

  “And you,” Jana said, “I don’t like your mouth. You want to play ball with me? Then sit there and shut up. If not, I’ll introduce you to a new set of steel bracelets. All right, let’s go.”

  Jonathan looked like a kid who’d just been caught graffitiing the school by the principal, with a can of spray paint stuck to his hands. He shuffled down the hallway to the elevator bank, nearly tripping over his own feet, and stood at the elevators.

  “Ah, ma’am? I need to hold that. My ID? It’s to get us into the elevator.” He reached out a trembling hand as if he was afraid it might not come back to him.

  As they got off the elevator several floors below, Jonathan swiped his ID badge again, and they were in the control room, the central nervous system of the nuclear plant.

  “. . . we bring you breaking news as it happens. The face of the man you’re seeing now is listed as number two on the FBI’s most wanted list. Baer Wayland has just been apprehended by federal authorities on the isle of North Caicos in the western Antilles, under a false passport. Wayland, a twenty-three-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been sought in connection with the TerrorGate cover-up. He is believed to have masterminded the CIA’s funding of a terror group in order to eventually penetrate and disrupt the organization. Those funds ended up being traced to direct attacks on American citizens that stretched from coast to coast. We’ll bring you more as the story develops. For news, weather, and traffic, stay tuned, to WBS News.”

  81

  Swinging a sledgehammer while dressed in what amounted to a space suit was awkward to say the least. Agent Fry hoisted the twelve pounds of steel over his head in a large arc, then blasted it downwards into the cinder blocks. Cement fragments exploded off the block and sprayed against the face-shield with ferocity. It was more of a backlash than he expected.