Tough Justice: Countdown Box Set

by Carla Cassidy

  “I don’t know. Maybe a dissertation, maybe just the ability to use it as a case study for educational purposes, and yeah, maybe a book, I guess,” he said, shifting his laptop bag from under his right arm to his left.

  “You have to sign a confidentiality agreement before we give you any details. But generally speaking, when we’ve caught a perpetrator, and he’s either dead or in jail, then the consultants are free to discuss the case. As long as the FBI has prior notice and can okay the text. It’s fairly routine.”

  The doors opened before he could answer. James stood at the doors with a clipboard and a pen. “Can you sign here, please, Mr. Dennison?”

  Dennison looked at Lara meaningfully and sighed. He took the pen and signed it with a flourish.

  James ripped off the top copy and gave the bottom copy back to him. “Thank you, sir. This way.”

  He led Dennison and Lara to the conference room and opened the door, gesturing them both through.

  Lara nodded at James. He really seemed to have rebounded—professionally at least—from the devastation around his brother’s death. She wondered how he was when he was alone. Not that any of them had had the opportunity to unwind or stop to actually feel anything at all since Halpert’s first bombing.

  Dennison entered the room, and although James introduced him to everyone in the team, his eyes fixed on the screens covering all four walls of the room. His gaze jumped from one to another. Lara allowed him a minute or so to soak in the pictures of victims, bomb parts and crime scenes, and then the maps they’d been working from.

  “I know it’s overwhelming,” Lara said, watching his eyes dart from screen to screen. She gave him a second, and then realized that he hadn’t heard her at all. “Mr. Dennison?” she said in a louder voice as she sat down.

  He didn’t reply, but remained standing, seemingly unable to take his eyes from the scenes displayed on the monitors.

  “Howard!” she said with slightly more force.

  His attention jerked back to her. “Sorry, I... I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

  “I understand. But we’re in a time crunch and we need your help.”

  He sat and rested his laptop bag on the table, even though he was still hugging it.

  Lara wondered if it was incredibly precious to him, or if it was more a security blanket or a barrier between him and everyone else. All of those possibilities were interesting, but she didn’t have time to ponder them.

  “I’m going to have Agent Harrington outline the relevant information we have that may help you try to pin down a location for us. Either for the perp, or somewhere he may frequent or a place he may be able to get supplies from.”

  “I’ve never heard of one terrorist bringing about this much destruction. It’s unprecedented,” he murmured. “With all the bombings, and evacuations, I was sure...well, everyone was sure that it was a cell. Maybe two. Multiple terrorists at least.”

  “He’s not technically a terrorist, he’s a serial killer,” Lara said. “Now can you concentrate on the—”

  “That’s where you’re wrong, agent. He is indeed a terrorist.”

  Well, that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Nick looked like he wanted to bang his head on the table. The word terrorist led directly back to Homeland Security. No one wanted that.

  “Why do you say that? He doesn’t have any ideological beliefs. He’s not following a doctrine,” James said.

  “He’s terrorizing a city, and yes he does have both a doctrine and ideology. But when one person is both the creator of the doctrine and ideology, and the idealist carrying out the deeds to feed the doctrine...it really is quite fascinating.” A smile spread across his face as he looked at the screens.

  “He’s not fascinating, he’s a criminal,” James said with a tightness to his voice that suggested something was about to snap.

  Lara held up her hand to James, before she addressed Howard. “Okay, so let’s assume he’s a homegrown terrorist. Really homegrown. How do we find him? He’s been using TATP, but in his last attack, he also used 2-NDPA. But we’ve checked all known distributors and found no one who has sold any in the past year.”

  “It’s pretty easy to get a metric ton of the chemical from China—but then you have to deal with US Customs. To get smaller amounts, you have to know where to look,” Dennison said with a shrug.

  Ty groaned. “So he definitely can’t make it, for example?” Xander asked.

  “Not unless you had an advanced chemistry degree, I wouldn’t imagine. But there are places who sell the compound to certain individuals with no questions asked,” Dennison said. He got up and looked at the tri-state map. His finger ran over the map as if he were scrying for a demon. Which Nick guessed, in essence, he was.

  “There. There’s a fishing store here. Worms, tackle, lures, with a side room of survival gear. Nothing too hard-core unless you know how to ask for something special.” He patted the town of Potterstown, just outside Cougar Mountain State Park, on its western border.

  “Is that legal?” Nick asked.

  “Of course it’s not legal.” Dennison looked incensed. “There are dozens of these places around. We’ve told law enforcement about them every time we find them.” He looked at them all. “Every time.

  “Look. There are networks of out-of-the-way places that certain people, with certain credentials, can purchase one innocuous item, and then be sent to another store for another innocuous item—and sometimes the item is not innocuous at all. And so on and so on, until the credentialed individual has everything he needs to make a bomb, or whatever it is he’s intending to make. Sometimes all it takes is exactly the right amount of one substance from one store, and exactly the right amount of something else from another and the instructions from a third store. It’d take a visit to just five stores to poison an entire city reservoir without a trace. Come on, guys. I published a paper on this.” He seemed chagrined that no one had read it.

  Nick’s mind was blown. How did they not know this? As soon as the thought occurred to him, he knew why. None of the police departments or agencies actually talked to each other. There was an interagency committee in which the sharing was supposed to happen, but when people like Mercer were on the committee it was easy to see how budgets, and not actual useful information, dominated the discussions.

  “What do I have to do to get credentialed then?” Lara asked, biting a cuticle in thought.

  Dennison snorted. “You have to have a letter from one of the militia groups or a personal connection to a group that can be verified.”

  “There are that many shop owners who subscribe to the militias’ ideals?” Nick asked, wondering how so many people could believe that an attempt to overthrow the government violently would go well for anyone. You only had to watch the latest round of TV shows to realize that the government was basically the only thing standing between citizens and war lords, or dictators. Or zombies.

  “They’re pretty clever at recruiting store owners. Sometimes they are devoted followers, sometimes they just think they’re doing an under-the-counter cash transaction or a lucrative favor for a regular customer, and there are shades of gray in between. In one case I investigated, the store owner actually had no idea this was going on, but one of the militias in the hills of West Virginia actually had one of his part-time workers on their payroll. It enabled militia in six states easy access to most of the materials they wanted to stockpile.”

  Lara grabbed her jacket. “So if this store is doing something illegal, I can just barge in without sweet-talking anyone, right?”

  Dennison looked around. “I guess.”

  “James. Fancy doing some barging?” she asked.

  “I sure do,” he replied with steel in his voice.

  “I’m not posting any bail money, so go easy on the barging please,” Nick said as the d
oor closed behind them. He shook his head. A tension headache was tightening a vise around his head. He just needed some ibuprofen, a beer and a long sleep. He went in search of the one responsible option in his desk drawer.

  As he rifled around for the pill bottle, he noticed a woman at Xander’s desk. Was that his girlfriend?

  “Can I help you?” he asked, palming the pills.

  “Xander Harrington called me and asked me to come in. I’m his girl... I live with him.” She had a worried look on her face. Understandably. And if Xander had brought her in to tell her that he knew about Maddy’s parentage, it was about to become a lot more worried.

  “I’ll get him for you.”

  Reluctantly, Nick went back into the conference room, and found Dennison holding court, and telling everyone about the other methods crazy people used to make weapons of mass destruction in their parents’ basements.

  In reality, what with the lack of mental health care, and the seemingly easy access to deadly ingredients, the whole country deserved a high-five for mass death and destruction not happening as often as it could.

  “Xander. You have a visitor at your desk,” he said as he sat down.

  He nodded and got up, face as grim as hers had been. He didn’t envy Xander the conversation he was going to have to have with his girlfriend. How do you say, “not only do I know you were unfaithful to me, and have been passing off someone else’s daughter as my own, but that information may be all over the internet in about twenty hours. Oh, and also I still want to see Maddy as I consider her my own.” Nick hoped he’d planned what he was going to say, otherwise the conversation could escalate pretty quickly. For a second he wondered if he should have someone surreptitiously watch them, but put that thought out of his mind. It was a domestic issue, not a professional one. Mostly.

  “I’m going to check in with my consultant,” Christina said, also getting up. She gave Nick a fast look as she passed him.

  He shoved some ibuprofen down his throat and took a swig of day-old water from the pitcher on the table. He winced as it all went down. He just hoped that Lara and James wouldn’t do anything stupid in the shakedown. All they needed was a lead. Nothing else. Normally, he’d trust James to keep her on the straight and narrow.

  So why did he have the feeling Lara was about to go rogue.

  Again.

  Chapter Three

  It took an hour and a half for Lara and James to reach Potterstown. They’d taken Nick’s car because it usually irritated Nick when she took the car without asking, and it was faster than the pool cars. With only 21 and a half hours until their deadline, she was willing to risk his anger.

  As they passed the city limits sign, James asked if he should call the local police.

  “Look at this place,” she said. Not that there was really anything to see. They passed a bar that was open twenty-four hours, a small courthouse and a run-down 7/11. “There’s a very good possibility that the police chief is the brother of the store owner. Maybe he is the store owner. No, in a place like this, we can’t risk it. We’ll just go—”

  “And barge in?”

  She glanced at him and saw a small smile. “Exactly. Nick did say something about posting bail money right?”

  “Something, yeah,” James replied, his smile getting wider.

  Nothing like a bit of legal forcible entry to make you feel better about just about anything.

  He looked at the GPS. “It should be about—”

  The rounded a sharp curve in the road and the store was in front of them. “Here?”

  She drove past, and parked in a vista-viewing spot about a quarter mile down the road. “No sense in advertising our presence here,” she said, getting out. Out of habit, she touched her gun and flipped her credentials out and tucked them in the waistband of her pants with the gold shield showing. Then covered it with her jacket.

  “So, how are we going to do this?” he asked. “The usual?” He grinned again.

  Lara realized how few times she’d seen him smile in the past few days. Understandable, of course, but it was good to see a glimmer of the old James. She’d partnered up with him several times during the previous year when Nick wasn’t around.

  “Sure. But let’s make it quick. We’re on a deadline, and I don’t want to lose anyone from the team because of that bastard.” She nodded to him and went into the store. A loud bell tinkled above her head.

  No one came to the counter, so she browsed the store. It was as Dennison had claimed. Fishing lures, fishing and hunting magazines that were a few months old, dog-eared by people who wanted to read, but not buy. Fire starting sticks, primus stoves, butane, burner cell phones. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

  An old man appeared at the counter. He said nothing.

  She smiled and opened her mouth to greet him, but before she could, she heard the unmistakable cha-chung of a shotgun being charged behind her. She froze.

  The man behind the counter’s gaze was fixed on the man behind her. “Now what’s a crusty girl like you doing in a fine place like this?”

  Before she could reply, a gun appeared pointing at the old man’s head. James.

  “I think you may have gotten that the wrong way around. Care to apologize to my partner? Please feel free not to because I really need a fun afternoon, and there’s nothing more fun than unwelcoming criminals. No, really. Reach for that gun under your counter. Go on. Just a little. A twitch is all it’ll take.”

  It was the man’s turn to freeze. His hands stayed very still on the counter.

  Lara spun fast enough to prod her weapon into the stomach of the other guy with the shotgun. She ripped the gun from his hands and poked him toward the counter. He was younger, and smelled as if there hadn’t been a woman around for many years.

  “Is there anyone else here?” she asked calmly.

  No answer.

  “Is there anyone else here,” she bellowed loud enough into the younger man’s ear to make him jump.

  He shook his head.

  “Awesome.”

  James cleared the counter area of three weapons and one baseball bat, and sat them both down in the chairs in front of the workspace. With Lara keeping her gun trained on them, she took off the safety. These guys were sure to take advantage of the delay if she left it on.

  “What are your names?” Lara asked.

  There was silence again.

  James rolled his eyes. “You know? I’m all for doing this the hard way, but I have to say, I expected it to get hard when we hit the harder questions. Not with the easy ones.” He reached into the old guy’s overalls pocket and pulled out a money clip. Next to a nice wad of money was a driver’s license. “See—that wasn’t so painful was it?” He called Christina and put her on speakerphone. “Can you run Gilbert Grundy, residence Potterstown, DOB 29 May 1953, through the system please?”

  “On it,” was Christina’s only response.

  “How about you, buddy? Did your daddy give you a name?” James asked.

  The younger man just glared at him.

  “Dude.” James shook his head and reached for his pocket as he did the old man’s.

  The younger man, fire still in his eyes, made a lunge at James, but he put him right back down in his seat with a fast jab to the nose.

  The man screamed and Gilbert Grundy just looked embarrassed. Lara bet to herself that this was a father and son team they were working, and the father was embarrassed that his son had screamed like a toddler who’d lost his favorite stuffed bunny.

  “Don’t tell me. Gilbert Grundy the second?” Lara asked as James took out a wallet this time.

  James winced. “The third.” He tucked the license back in its wallet and leaned toward his phone that he’d placed on the counter. “Did you get that, Christina?”

  “
Yup,” she replied. Over the speaker they could hear fingers flying over her keyboard.

  Lara was concerned about the time. “As much fun as this is...”

  James caught on. “Gentlemen, and of course I use that term loosely, we are not here for you. Not specifically anyway. Today is your lucky day. Today you are the inconvenience, rather than the target. Do you know what that means?”

  Grundy the elder nodded. So this wasn’t his first rodeo either. Despite what James was assuring him of, Lara was going to make sure his name was in some law enforcement system somewhere for being a cog in a terrorist’s wheel.

  James showed him a photo on his phone. “When was the last time you saw him?”

  Lara noticed that James hadn’t given them the option to deny he’d been there. Smart.

  The Grundys looked at each other and the younger shrugged. “About a few days ago I guess. And that’s all you’re getting from us. Dirty feds,” he sneered.

  “Well that’s unfair. I mean, I totally showered this morning,” James said, walking slowly around the counter. “Which, frankly, is more than I can say for junior, here.” He made an exaggerated sniff and winced. Something caught his eye. “Lookie here.” He scanned the walls and ceiling.

  Lara followed his gaze. There were about five cameras. No wonder the Grundys had come out fighting. They’d have seen her badge before she’d even seen them.

  “Where do you keep your tapes, boys?” she asked.

  “Tapes,” the younger scoffed. “It’s all kept on the Cloud. Just how old are you anyway?”

  A grin that she couldn’t help spread over her face. It was matched by James’s.

  “Okay, come on—we don’t have all day. Set me up so I can see when our guy came in.”

  The older man nodded and got up. “I’m too old for this shit,” he said.

  “You and me both,” Lara said, dragging the seat he’d just vacated behind the counter.

  She made herself comfortable, eyeing the coffee maker next to the cash register. The old man sighed and poured her a cup, sloshing it on the counter as he gave it to her.