Fog Bastards 1 Intention

by Bill Robinson

  Jen and I head back to my place. She's nervous that some dirtbag is going to break in, and it makes her even more wild, and my second birthday present better than ever. It's late, that is to say early in the morning, when we finally get to sleep. Fog Dude thankfully stays away. I, of course, whimp out on telling her what I know she deserves to know.

  I cook breakfast, and Jen leaves me, letting me know she has to work late. I run, lunch, and gym, then get Perez to take me to the shooting range and give me a lesson after shift. She is a good teacher, but I am a bad student, though she promises to get me at least to acceptable by the time my class starts.

  Tuesday, I make my usual trip to the islands. Perez calls after I land to say that forensics has finished analyzing everything from the Mountain Pacific crime scene, and not a single fingerprint from either of us came up. We both know that is not possible, unless someone, human or fog, intervened. Wednesday is an uneventful trip home.

  Thursday morning starts like any other day in Terminal 7. Perez and I helping old ladies cross the terminal, she harassing me about being on the cover of the Times so often, and both of us trying to figure out how to deal with whoever was stalking us.

  About 10, we get a hint that something is up. The radio traffic increases dramatically, and units that are not normally on line in the morning suddenly are. At 10:30, both our radios go off almost simultaneously. "Red 7" and "Air Force 1" have immediate recall orders to Main, and Red 17 is on his way to cover for us while we were gone.

  We cross the tunnel into main, fight through a hideously crowded hallway. Someone calls our names, and adds "conference room one" after them. That's our favorite spot, the small conference room at the front of the building.

  I don't know about Perez, but I notice the back of the room first. Captain Spears and somebody with even more silver on his shirt are sitting in the corner. Five men in suits and Sergeant Johnson fill out a row of chairs, and they have conveniently placed two of the little red plastic butt busters facing the rest. Perez and I get the hint and sit.

  Johnson introduces us as Officer Perez and Reserve Officer Packer. Sounds good, except not in this environment. The five suits turn into two homicide detectives, two internal affairs detectives, and an airport terrorism expert from Homeland Security. I'm thinking that Perez and I are soon to be inmate Perez and inmate Packer. We don't get introduced to the man in the back. Johnson coughs, then puts on his serious face.

  "Lieutenant Crane was murdered last night. Shot once in the back of the head at his house. Seven of his fingers were broken, and there were fresh burns on his body. He was tortured. I noticed that there was some tension between the two of you and the Lieutenant when we met the other day. That is the only work related item we wanted to discuss before we head out to the crime scene. I think you know something we need to know."

  Kiana leans forward and starts to speak, I put my hand on her knee. She stops. Six men stop their pens.

  "Let me. I have less to lose if I say something unkind." She says nothing, but her body language defers. She sits back, the pens start again.

  "Five weeks ago, my first day, Officer Perez and I were patrolling Terminal 2, when she noticed four men in the concourse who had a military bearing, and who all had identical metal briefcases. She and I collected information on the men, who, despite being of African-American and Middle Eastern appearance, had Russian passports with Russian names. The men boarded aircraft for Canada. The day after filing the report, Captain Spears and Lieutenant Crane ordered Officer Perez to not investigate these men."

  "Ignoring that order, we tracked these four men and four other men who were using last names such as Arm and Hammer, in a pattern of entering the US from Europe on Thursday morning, and departing a week later on Thursday night, alternating between them so that four were in LA at any moment, except for Thursday afternoon when all eight were present. When presented with this evidence by Sergeant Johnson, Captain Spears and Lieutenant Crane barred us from working Terminal 2."

  There was some new obvious tension in the back of the room. The five suits had all shifted their positions to leaning forward. I had their attention.

  "We left the dates and times of the inbound flights out of the report at my suggestion. I assumed if we told our superiors that they were arriving at the Bradley Terminal, we would be prevented from working there as well. Officer Perez went along, I assume, just to humor the rookie."

  "Three weeks ago, we were stationed at Bradley when two gentlemen we had identified landed on a flight from Moscow. I observed one of them slipping something under one of the chairs at the arrival gate. When he left, I went over and retrieved a package from under the seat, a fact which I even hid from Officer Perez at the time. Captain Spears and Lieutenant Crane appeared and barred us from working anywhere except for Terminal 7. Lieutenant Crane remained behind after the captain, Officer Perez, and I left the terminal."

  "After that day, Officer Perez discovered that her emails were being hacked. We sent a false email saying that the package would be at the Mountain Pacific office, as would we, at midnight on the 13th. We intended to retrieve the video from that night, given my connection to the airline, and see who was in it. You know what happened instead. We tried following them once, and lost them at the Marquis."

  "Both my apartment and Officer Perez's apartment have been broken into and searched in the past week. The video of the Bradley terminal is gone for that day, as is the video of the Mountain Pacific office. It seems to me we have an obvious conclusion. Lieutenant Crane was supposed to retrieve the package and take it out without going through Customs. He failed, tried to get it back, failed again, and someone killed him for it."

  To say they were stunned would be an understatement. If Perez didn't like my little white lies, she didn't show it. The Homeland Security guy jumps in.

  "Where's the package?"

  "We x-rayed it, and then I took it to Hawai'i and put it where no one will ever find it."

  He turns to Johnson, "We need the digital record of the scan."

  Johnson nods to Perez, who walks to the computer terminal in the corner of the room, the HSA man walking with her. The Internal Affairs detectives walk out, both talking on their phones. The homicide detectives ask for the information on names and flight numbers, which I get by walking over and producing Perez's notebook for them.

  The HSA and Perez return, neither of them particularly happy looking. Everyone looks at him. "It's the headend," he says, "for a Soviet-era nerve gas system."

  Ninety minutes later, the room is full, standing room only, when he starts talking again. I don't recognize any of the extra people who come in, and I'm still shocked they let Kiana and me stay, but I don't ask any questions. All Kiana has done since the announcement is whisper in my ear, "Nice story, Air Force."

  The HSA man starts talking. I have never seen anyone talk with such rapt attention from their audience. He's drawn a diagram of our nozzle on the white board.

  "This system was developed in the 1970s in the old Soviet Union. It is ingenious in its simplicity. Most nerve gases are made up of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and phosphorous, it's a matter of arranging the atoms in a lethal way. Methane gas is carbon and hydrogen, and about 80% of what makes up natural gas. Pure oxygen is available from many industrial sources. You can buy large quantities without attracting much attention."

  "You connect the methane to this value and an oxygen source to this valve," he says, pointing. Then you pour a specially designed liquid containing the phosphorous into the third valve under pressure, and heat this flat area," pointing again. "The result will be a highly toxic nerve gas flowing out the end."

  "From what Officer Perez says, each of the dirtbags coming into the country had eight ounces of liquid with them in their carry on bags. Given how long they have been doing this, they have chemicals sufficient to make enough gas to kill everyone in the greater Los Angeles area, though exposing that many people is difficult."

  "Without the nozzle, th
ey can still create the gas, but it is a much more difficult proposition. Most likely, they would have to mix the chemicals, and then create an explosion to generate the heat and pressure. It means they would have to settle on one site, and limits casualties to a few hundred thousand within a wind borne radius, rather than millions, though that is still an unacceptable figure."

  Then he turns to another suit I don't recognize, a 40 something woman dressed in an impeccable blue outfit. "Special Agent Rona Flaherty will bring you up to date on the last few hours of activity."

  She gets up, and a PowerPoint starts simultaneously. I didn't know that so much work, including the presentation, could get done in an hour and a half.

  "Bureau agents went to the Marquis, and showed a picture of one of our suspects to the staff who confirmed an extended stay in a suite on the 27th floor, but that he checked out this morning. Forensics is in the room as we speak. The van was found abandoned in the Marquis parking lot. They left via taxi, but unloaded at a Ralph's grocery store on Santa Monica without cameras in its parking lot. Four of them were scheduled to fly to Vancouver tonight, and we will be at the gates, but it is logical to assume that the suspects will not be. Pictures are being circulated to every law enforcement agency in the five county area."

  "LAPD cyber crimes unit has confirmed that Lieutenant Crane's account was used to hack Officer Perez's email, and that the account was active in the past eight hours, meaning the bad guys had access to LAPD computer systems. We have deactivated the accounts we know about, but no sensitive information should go in the system, or through LAPDmail until we advise otherwise."

  "We found $500,000 in cash in Crane's home, and are attempting with the help of Secret Service and Treasury to identify its source. We have agents and LAPD officers out talking to every major supplier of methane and oxygen gas."

  "Gentlemen, at the moment we have no actionable leads. Sans a very observant young police officer who was willing to ignore her chain of command, we would not even know a major attack was about to happen. The implications of our failures will be shaped by our ability to make up for them before whatever the plan is can be brought to fruition."

  She finishes, I squeeze Perez's shoulder during the last bit of the talk. There is more talk going on, but it's the distribution of assignments, and a rookie reserve officer is not on the yellow pad. Flaherty and Johnson head our way as the room clears. We shake hands as she introduces herself.

  "Officer Perez, you are being reassigned to me as my liaison to the LAPD effective immediately."

  Kiana gets out an "I...." but little more than that. Flaherty keeps going.

  "Three hundred plus officers in this fucking airport and one of you saw what was going on. You've earned a spot on the team, regardless of what those assholes think." I am sure that FBI agents are not trained to talk that way. I like her. Then she turns to me.

  "You're flying to Denver tomorrow and Kona on Monday, correct?" I nod, a little surprised that they bothered to research my flight schedule. "Good. When you're in town, you'll be under FBI surveillance. They'll almost certainly come after you again if you are accessible. We will keep you safe, and out of harm's way. How's that?" I don't like her as much as I used to.

  "Personally, I would prefer you left me in the open and encouraged them to try. It might be the only way to catch them." I hope I sound stupid, not brave.

  "Not likely cowboy," she opines.

  "McConnell's working 7 on his own," Johnson steps into the conversation, "You should get up there and go to work, Simon." Clearly, I am dismissed, and I head out without looking at Perez. I should be happy for her, but I'm more pissed about me.

  I find McConnell and convince him I need food before I get to work. Perez texts me while we're at the taco counter, apologizing. I text congratulations back to her, and apologize for leaving without saying it first. We finish the shift without incident, and I head for home, Jen once again working late as they deal with year end business.

  An unmarked blue car pulls out behind me, follows me onto the freeway and all the way home. Standing on my balcony, I can see them sitting across the street. Really messes with my flying schedule, and I don't mean in the airplane. I should be out there looking for the bad guys, not hiding in my room.

  I'm getting ready to cook dinner when there's a knock on my door. I open it, and Perez is standing there with a plastic bag containing good smelling takeout.

  "Jen called and asked me to come feed you. Since my duties involve standing around doing and saying nothing, it wasn't too hard to get away."

  I invite her in, help her set the table and spread four boxes of Thai delicacies between us.

  "Any news?," I ask between bites, strangely not sure what I want the answer to be. Part of me wants this over, but my brain also wants us to be the ones to solve it.

  "Not a damn thing. No sign of them, no large purchases of methane or oxygen, nothing at Crane's place, just a whole lot of nothing. We did get a couple of fingerprints, which turned out to be former Army Rangers with Bad Conduct Discharges. Soldiers for hire, not the brains of the outfit."

  "Any ideas of your own?"

  "No. Everyone's convinced the attack will be Christmas, New Year's Eve, or New Year's Day, which makes sense, but that doesn't help with the where in 5,000 square miles."

  "Speaking of Christmas," I cleverly change the subject, "are you staying in town now? Should I tell mom you're coming over?"

  "Yeah, that would be great."

  "What did your dad say when you told him you got this special assignment with the FBI?"

  "A, I haven't told him yet, and B, you really don't get the cop thing yet. The only time a local cop sees a fed is when they're stepping on your toes. I'll tell him I'm on a special task force, not that I'm hanging with the Bureau."

  "So we're not one big happy family in law enforcement?"

  "Not even close, Air Force, not even close."

  We finish eating and she heads home, not wanting to start any rumors about us on the task force. I change, turn off the light, close the curtains, read until daylight, then head off for Denver.

  Chapter 17

  Christmas Eve is Jen time, we spend the day and night together, then head over Christmas Day to my parent's, where I spend the day of joy and peace being made fun of by Jen, Perez, my sister, and my dad. Mom feeds the feds parked outside, which I'm sure they appreciate.

  Kiana and I spend 20 minutes talking about the lack of progress on the case, but her new boss thinks that's a good thing, and nothing bad is going to happen today. The theory seems to be that the bad guys don't have their oxygen and methane yet, and will acquire it just before they attack. The only interesting note is that their rental van went out with 10,000 miles on it, and now has 85,000, so they did a lot of driving in six months, even for LA. Just like me, though, Perez has no idea of anything else we might try.

  Monday I am due to fly to Hawai'i, and only make the trip because Perez insists. I do learn that Ms. Mankat, while technically not of a Christian faith, still expects Christmas presents. I promise to return with a Mele Kalikimaka present from the islands. There are high clouds and some turbulence much of the way, which serve only to remind my why flying in airplanes is sometimes better than flying naked.

  Perez and I exchange frequent texts while I'm in Kona, leads that come and go like the fog. I fly back to the mainland overnight again, just to keep an eye on her, but no dirtbags appear. Everybody is sure that we are days away from catastrophe, but so far we can't do anything about it. I can't even figure out a way to make myself bait, since it's unlikely that they are reading our emails. No Jen at dispatch when I return, so I lead my FBI escort home.

  Wednesday is another eight hours of frustration. I want to do something, anything, except I am patrolling Terminal 7 with Officer Emily Bradford, one of the few women besides Perez in the airport command. She's as frustrated as I am, says that most of the officers have rotated in to help the task force a day at a time, except her name has ye
t to come up on the list. Still, she's good company and we survive our day.

  Jen puts me off one more evening, with only three working days before the new year, she is buried eyeballs deep in work. She promises that she will make it up to me over the weekend. So I drive home with my tail, stopping on the way to get groceries to cook a hamburger delight. It occurs to me while I'm shopping that eating healthy isn't as important as it was a few months ago, and I scoop up a small tub of chocolate ice cream as well.

  Sitting at my kitchen table, I eat and read until about nine, when there's a knock on my door. It's got to be Jen done early or Perez come to talk. I bounce over to the entry, deciding on my way that the t shirt and shorts I have on is good enough for either of them.