“Oh trust me. We’ve got some ideas. We’ve been working on that problem for a long, long time. We’ll be able to sort them all out when the time comes.”
6
The remaining ATF Headquarters offices on the eighth floor of the Treasury building were normally deserted by six o’clock on a Friday evening, except for the duty sections. With the Stadium Massacre investigation running at fever pitch, and the assault rifle turn-in deadline looming over them, more officials than usual were still in their offices. But one by one the last remaining supergrades were slipping away, leaving their secretaries and admin assistants to close up shop. The field agents would be beating the bushes around the stadium and down in southeastern Virginia all weekend, and nationwide the Field Offices would be coordinating the procedures for the collection of the banned weapons, but the senior officials were going home. They preferred to be “reachable” at home via cell phones and email. As they rationalized it, they were “on duty twenty-four hours a day,” so there was no need for them to physically be at Headquarters over a weekend.
Frank Castillo, the Deputy Director of the BATFE, was on the phone with his wife and clearing some items on his desk when his secretary called him on the intercom.
“Mr. Castillo, Mr. Malvone is here to see you.”
Frank Castillo sank into his black leather high-backed swivel chair and stared at the ceiling. Then he punched the button on his intercom. “Nancy, give me five minutes, and then send him in.” The five minutes was just to make Malvone cool his heels in the outer office. He said to his wife, “Honey, I’ll see you at home; I’ve got to go now. Bye.”
Wally Malvone was the Deputy Assistant Director of the ATF’s Office of Firearms, Explosives and Arson, but in reality he was much more that that, primarily because he was politically very well connected. Malvone also had a rough charisma which charmed many of his seniors, all the way up to the Attorney General’s office. At the same time he was seen as a macho field operator who commanded unflinching loyalty from the troops. He had come to the ATF after an unusual career path which led from the FBI to a senior staff position with Senator Schuleman in the 1990’s, and then back to federal law enforcement at ATF as an early-promoted GS-15. The promotion was widely considered to be a result of his political drag over on Capitol Hill.
In spite of the fact that he had spent most of his middle-grade years as a senate staffer and not in federal law enforcement, he was the only ATF GS-15 ever to regularly show up on the eighth floor in a black tactical uniform, dirty and smelling of gun smoke. It was his style to let them know that he had personally been out on the firing ranges with his experimental unit. After moving to the Office of Firearms, Malvone had quickly pushed for the creation of a new tactics development group, the generically named “Special Training Unit.” This effort stalled initially, but in the post 9-11 federal law enforcement environment, funding for many types of novel counter-terrorism groups had been allocated. After the ATF had moved most of its functions from Treasury to Justice in 2003, Malvone had worked his political contacts to secure some of the added transitional funding, and his small experimental unit grew once again.
Castillo had not supported the creation of this oddity, but Malvone obviously had clout in high places and the unit had been formed anyway, drawing most of its original personnel from ATF’s Special Response Team. The STU members were officially still carried on the SRT for accounting purposes, even though they were virtually independent, and answered only to Malvone.
The STU also became a collection point for ATF Special Agents on administrative hold following incidents of excessive force, or the repeated “misapplication” of evidence in pursuing investigations. In a short period of time, the STU had become an ATF-wide dumping station for a certain species of unwanted “problem children” that Malvone thought were deserving of a second (or third) chance.
Some of the STU personnel had been among those reprimanded in the 1990’s for their involvement in the overtly racist “Good Old Boys Roundup.” This was the whites-only law enforcement barbecue and picnic weekend held every summer in Tennessee, which was traditionally organized by ATF agents on their own time. Malvone claimed in justification that the salvaged “good old boys” had unique knowledge of, and contacts within, certain white supremacist fringe groups, which were connected to various right wing militias. Frank Castillo never doubted the veracity of that claim for a moment.
Promptly after five minutes the door opened and Wally Malvone entered, thankfully in a suit and tie. As usual his face was sunburned below the level which would be covered by sunglasses and a ball cap, giving him an unusual two-tone look: red from the nose down, white from his eyes up and over his shaved dome. Malvone’s bald head always reminded Castillo of his own rapidly receding hairline. Soon he would have to decide if he was going to continue the comb-over, get transplants, or just shave it all off like Malvone.
The only hair showing above Malvone’s collar was his shaggy walrus-sized brown mustache, which he deliberately kept hanging over his lip a half-inch beyond regulation length. This was just enough to irritate the more conscientious ATF senior officials, but not quite enough to make an issue of. Flaunting dress and grooming standards was one of the many ways Malvone ingratiated himself with the rank-and-file agents, and at the same time tweaked the noses of his superiors.
“Have a seat Walter, what’s on your mind? Something come up?”
“Yes sir, I’m afraid so. We’re getting some new intel reports from southeastern Virginia… Apparently it’s been confirmed that Shifflett belonged to a hardcore clandestine militia group down there. This group’s nothing at all like the open militia buffoons we usually deal with; they’re the real deal. Ex-Green Berets, that sort. Now some of them have dropped out of sight, and we believe they may be planning some kind of violent response to the new assault rifle law. I’d like permission to send the STU Team down there, but to operate independently of the Joint Task Force.”
Operate independently of FBI control and oversight is what you mean, thought Castillo. Malvone had created the Special Training Unit to develop new operational concepts and tactics to aggressively and proactively go after domestic terror groups, instead of merely waiting and reacting to terrorist incidents the way the FBI and ATF’s “conventional” special response teams did. It was understood that the purpose of the Special Training Unit was to develop new tactics which might at some time in the future be used by the ATF’s SRT. The STU itself would only be activated and “go operational” in the event of a serious domestic terrorism crisis.
For the past year the unpublicized STU Team had cross-trained with the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team, the Army’s Delta, the Navy’s “Development Group,” and other elite units. The rest of the time it was conducting its own in-house training under Malvone’s direction. Much of their training took place at private commercial academies set up to teach advanced skills to selected military and law enforcement units and personnel. Selected STU Team members learned to fly small planes out of rough fields, use cars as weapons both in pursuit and in defense, and pick locks in order to conduct black-bag “information retrieval” operations. All of the STU personnel received the latest and most advanced training in how to fire submachine guns and pistols, equipped with both visible and invisible lights and lasers, to “clear” buildings in pitch darkness.
Frank Castillo had observed some of their “CQB” or close-quarters-battle training at Quantico. The STU men were real pit bulls, straining at the leash and eager to bite. They wore non-regulation length hair and were not often seen in either a jacket and tie or the standard black tactical gear. They preferred to conduct most of their training in a variety of casual civilian attire, in order to always retain the element of surprise. Conventional hostage and terrorism response situations would still be handled by uniformed and helmeted FBI Hostage Rescue Teams or ATF Special Response Teams. The STU was created to develop the tactics needed to take the war on domestic terrorism to the next level: the
preemptive attack.
And now, thought Castillo, Wally Malvone wants to send his Special Training Unit down to southeastern Virginia to go after a clandestine militia group. Not to arrest them, but to “take them out.” This was not going to happen on Frank Castillo’s watch! Not even in the wake of the Stadium Massacre.
He kept his composure and answered evenly, “Not yet Wally, we’re not there yet, and with luck, we never will be. Let’s wait and see what happens down there with the Joint Task Force.”
Malvone seemed nonplussed at being refused, and replied, “Okay, but if the balloon goes up, I mean if the shit hits the fan, the STU is ready to go. And if the situation really gets bad, I think we’ll need to think about designating more ‘proactive’ units in a big hurry. The SRT is fine, as far as it goes, but we both know it has a certain…institutional mindset. I mean, it can’t just switch modes of operation and be as effective as a unit trained from the start for preemption.”
“Walter, we’ve been over this before, it’s old ground.”
“I know, but the situation is different now, since the stadium. I’d like to show you something… I’ve written up a proposal covering how the STU could be used in an emergency situation. It’s a concept of operations for preemptive operations, for when we’re faced with a domestic terrorist threat, and we’ve got an idea who the players are. I’d appreciate it if you’d pass the copies on to the Director and the Attorney General’s office.”
Malvone passed over three copies of his proposal. The cover sheet was titled “The Special Projects Division: Preempting Domestic Terrorism.”
“Thanks Wally, I’ll read it over the weekend.” Castillo left the three copies on his desk untouched.
Malvone thanked Castillo for his time, rose and left.
Where does the ATF find guys like that, Castillo wondered, spinning his chair around to look out over the White House. In his Army days men like Malvone were derided as “snake eaters,” and it was a matter of constant debate whether they were more of a danger to the enemy or to their own side. Today it seemed like the military was practically run by the Special Forces and SEALs, and the special operations “commando mentality” was beginning to permeate law enforcement as well. Malvone was not unique in seeking harder-edged military-type solutions to domestic problems. He was just an extreme example.
Malvone’s personal choice for the STU Team’s operational commander was a prime example of the type of knuckle-dragging Neanderthal he preferred. Bob Bullard actually made Malvone seem like a refined gentleman by comparison. Although on paper Bullard was a highly decorated ATF career veteran, Castillo privately considered him to be a psychopath, and so did many others with access to the restricted files. He had been at the ATF’s botched raid in Waco, and ever since he had hated right wing gun nuts with a burning passion.
Bullard had also led several pre-dawn raids against homes where the suspects were machine gunned in their beds, supposedly while reaching for a pistol. In the community it was widely believed that these consistently deadly raids were the result of Bullard settling old scores, against criminals who had humiliated him by beating his cases in court. It was said that Bob Bullard had a very long memory, and a very short fuse.
To Frank Castillo’s thinking, the entire STU was a waste of funding. It was a unit in search of a mission at best, and a ticking bomb at worst. Obviously Malvone had “guardian angels” much higher up the food chain than the Deputy Director of ATF, probably going back to his time as a staffer for Jack Schuleman, the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman. Castillo, who had been promoted on time and risen through a conventional federal law enforcement career path, despised the political pull that fast-track outsiders like Malvone brought with them.
He threw Malvone’s proposals into his open briefcase, snapped it shut and got ready to go home, dreading the long bumper-to-bumper drive down I-66 into northern Virginia.
****
As dusk was spreading Brad pulled into the parking lot of Lester’s Diner in Highpoint. He didn’t see any four-wheel-drive trucks carrying ATV’s or portable kennels for hunting dogs, or any camouflage-painted river boats on trailers. Lester’s didn’t appear to be the staging area for any “rod and gun club” outing on this particular Friday evening. There was just a typical assortment of cars and trucks and a few motorcycles.
Since his visit from the feds Thursday afternoon Brad had carried the cell phone they had given him at all times. He had no way to be certain, but he was fairly sure that the offer of the “free” phone had been an enticement to encourage him to carry it with him. Brad knew that the phone could be used as a tracking device, and possibly even a remotely activated microphone and transmitter. In the days of universally-carried cell phones, there was less and less need to put a “wire” on an informant, because the cell phone carried in plain sight could often do the same job. As an occasional ocean sailor (crewing on other people’s yachts) Brad had kept up with developments in Global Positioning System technology. He knew it would be a simple trick to modify a phone to silently receive and transmit GPS location data.
Brad discreetly checked the parking lot and up and down the street for dark Suburbans or possible surveillance vans, but he knew that the absence of such a vehicle meant very little. The cell phone he carried in his shirt pocket could very likely do the same eavesdropping job, at far lower cost, and with a huge savings in manpower for the feds.
He could have left the phone on his boat or in his truck, but he had a plan in mind for it. If the phone was indeed a tracker, he wanted to assure his unseen federal monitors that he was indeed routinely carrying it. Then when he truly needed to disappear, he might gain some head start time by leaving it on the dock while he fled down the river or out to sea on Guajira.
Of course, the cell phone might just be a cell phone, in which case all of his worrying and scheming was for nothing. He had often read that a healthy dose of paranoia was a necessary virtue for any intelligence operative, but that paranoia taken to extremes could be paralyzing. Now Brad truly understood those words.
Since his forced recruitment in the black Suburban, he had been seeing hidden cameras up in power pole transformer boxes, and surveillance teams in every van on the street. He was even feeling the gaze of cameras high above him in small planes or unmanned drones. The military had provided air surveillance assets during the Beltway Sniper case, and there was every reason to believe that they were still doing so when requested. Overhead watchers could be tuning in on his “free” cell phone, to keep him under their unblinking eyes…
Brad forced himself to shake off the mounting paranoia, and walked across the parking lot to Lester’s Diner.
He had given this meeting with the Black Water Rod & Gun Club a great deal of thought, planning out the possible permutations, considering his best options and approaches. He wore long blue jeans held up with a wide leather pistol-shooter’s belt, made to hold competition holsters firmly in place. Such pistol belts were a subtle marking recognized within the fraternity of serious shooters, but they went unnoticed by outsiders. On his feet he wore his Gore-Tex-lined water proof Danner boots, which were equally at home in the woods and swamps, or a country bar or pool hall. Topping it off he wore a brown Western style long sleeved shirt: if he was under observation by his handlers they would see that he had come dressed and ready to join the gun club on whatever kind of outing they had in mind, in the woods or on the water.
In each of his pants pockets he had a different carefully written and folded note. Which note, if any, that he used would depend upon whom he found at the back tables of the diner, and his appraisal of the situation. He had studied the member list and the information given to him on the key members of the club, along with pictures taken from their DMV photos, and committed it all as best he could to his memory.
Brad Fallon walked up the front steps to the landing, pulled open the stainless steel and glass front door and stepped into Lester’s Diner. The place was busy; some folks were
sitting in the waiting area waiting for tables to be cleared. No one paid any attention to him except a young brunette waitress, who made eye contact and flashed a brief smile as she went by with a tray. He walked past the counter and the front room tables, passing salesmen and truckers and farmers with their wives and kids. He continued all the way around the “L” shaped dining room to an extra-large circular booth in the furthest corner. Six men sat around the table, sharing draft beer from pitchers. To Brad, beer instead of coffee and iced tea meant there would be no hunting tonight.
He walked directly up to the table, nodded to them, gave a half smile and said, “Mind if I join you gentlemen?” All six faces turned to the stranger. Thank God, he thought, he recognized one of the men he had already met. It was Barney Wheeler, the old guy with the short gray beard that had been in the hardware store Tuesday morning. Even before that, Brad had already seen him on his creek: Wheeler had a small blue houseboat which could fit under most of the highway and railroad bridges throughout Tidewater Virginia and on into the Carolinas. Many houseboats wound up as permanent fixtures tied to the same dock year after year, but Wheeler used his boat for serious inland cruising. Wheeler had passed Guajira’s dock in his houseboat a few times and they had exchanged hand waves.
It was a relief to find Barney Wheeler at the table, he felt certain that no old guy who lived on a river houseboat could possibly be an ATF or FBI informant. At least, it hardly seemed likely. A few years before he had read that five out of the six leaders of the Aryan Nations white supremacist group in Idaho had been paid informants for different government departments, spying on one another and making their separate reports. The feds strongly believed in using multiple informants to determine the truthfulness of each other one, or when their loyalties might be drifting off course. In the case of the Aryan Nations, the BATF and FBI informants had in effect constituted the core of the Aryan Nations leadership, unknowingly spying on each others’ spies for several years.
Enemies Foreign And Domestic Page 8