“Nothing?”
“Nothing at all.”
“At least we now have pictures of two of the Paladins to go on. One of whom might be Samms.”
Nancy started to say something, but Tom held up his hand.
She looked at him quizzically.
“I think, I may have just come up with something important,” he said. “How stupid that it took me this long.”
“Maybe you should have bourbon more often?”
He ignored her. Went on, “You remember when we discussed how the Paladins could get Intel not available to the agencies?”
“I do.”
“Do you remember our conclusion?”
“We never agreed on one.”
“Which did you venture was the most likely?” he asked.
“A former NSA contractor.”
“And you’re not Samms, right Nan?”
“What did you come up with, Colonel?”
“The partial fingerprint on the fake driver’s license you didn’t know I knew about.”
“We could compare it to all former NSA contractors.”
He pointed his finger at her. “All female Asian former NSA contractors. And, for good measure, all present NSA contractors. That should be a pretty manageable haystack for the Bureau.”
“Speaking of the Bureau,” she said, “the Director turned down my proposal that we circulate Cheese and Rita Moreno’s pictures along with the Ten Most Wanted posters.”
“That’s interesting. Why?”
“He didn’t say.”
Chapter 41
“Did you see the Post this morning?” Moose asked the President.
“Yes. What, specifically?”
“The article on why there hasn’t been more information about the Columbus bombing. It’s pretty vague on facts, frankly. Lays out several open ended theories, but none of them go anywhere. One of them is a secret vigilante force. You’re going to get asked about this by the press.”
“I think it’s easy enough to handle. All available resources are being used, etc., etc., etc.”
“True enough. I don’t like it is all. If somebody didn’t intentionally leak an enquiry to the press, then this could start it up.”
The President frowned. “Who would leak it? Samms?”
“Probably not them. The greater the public attention, the sooner and more likely they’ll get caught. But there’s enough sympathy with what they’re doing at the highest levels of the intelligence community, that somebody could do it to embarrass us.”
“They’d just be embarrassing themselves, wouldn’t they?”
“Still a potential hot potato. I’d duck it as long as you can. When this finally does get out the public is going to love this story.”
*
Samms, Tom, Cheese, and May sat in the safe house, sharing a pizza and a bottle of California red wine.
“How’s it feel to be famous, May?” Tom said.
May made a face.
“The good news,” Samms said, “is that the FBI has decided not to post the pictures of the two of you all over the country.”
“Why not, I wonder?” Tom said.
“No idea.”
“You see the article on us in the Post today?” Cheese asked.
“I did.”
“You leak that?”
“No. We’re not to that point yet. If it becomes too risky to keep this all up, we’ll give some lucky reporter all the Paladins have done and why, and just disappear into the woodwork.”
“Have you thought about the fact we’re past that now?” May asked.
“What do you mean, May?” Samms said. “Why would you think that?”
“As long as we stayed unknown, we could’ve stopped anytime and each gone on our merry way.”
“And now?”
“Now Cheese and my pictures are both on file at the FBI.”
“And every senior Intel officer in the United States knows who I am,” Cheese said. “And that I was involved in a series of known murders. I don’t think my exit from all our fun is so clean anymore.”
“Mine either,” May said.
“Not to state the obvious,” Tom said, “but we all knew Colorado Springs and Columbus raised the stakes.”
“Not to ask the obvious,” May said, “but what’s the new plan?”
*
Nancy dialed Licht’s cell.
“Hello?”
“Professor?”
“Yes, Nancy. What’s up?”
“You saw the article in the Post today, right?”
“Tom beat you by five minutes. I’ve seen it now.”
“What do you make of it?”
“Some reporter doing his job.”
“Or some leaker doing theirs.”
“Who would leak this?”
“Where do you want me to start, Professor?”
“Not Samms.”
“Unless she’s ready to come in from the cold.”
“This wouldn’t accomplish that.”
“It would if the story gets legs,” she said. “Or if the press forced the President’s hand. Or attracted the attention of Congressional investigators.”
“Too risky. Too likely to backfire.”
“Then, you? Or the President?”
“No motive.”
“To get her to come in?”
“Easier if I just push you and Tom and Linda. No need to go public unless and until that didn’t work. And each of you knows I haven’t tried that yet.”
“Well, at least I do.”
“Right.”
“Maye an innocent Intel officer who’s tired of looking foolish and wants to get this over with?”
“That only brings us back to the three of you. I seriously doubt any of you or your two colleagues want to embarrass your agency by revealing the depths of their incompetence.”
“Which incompetence? The fact that we can’t stop terrorism or that we can’t catch the Paladins.”
“Both.”
“Then who?”
“Occam’s Razor. The easiest explanation is usually the correct explanation.”
“And in this case, that would be?”
“Time’s running out for both the Paladins and for me. Some reporter is close to figuring this all out.”
Chapter 42
“You have to admit,” Cheese said, “it doesn’t get any better than this.”
May looked up from her computer screen, saw him sitting on the cheap couch, holding the chicken wing high in the air, and had to laugh.
They were in their suite at the Extended Stay in West El Paso, the closest decent place they could get to Sunland Park, New Mexico. They were one mile north of Mexico and a mile and a half east of the Sunland Park Racetrack and what passed for a casino. She had let him talk her into Kentucky Fried Chicken for their good bye to Sunland Park lunch.
“I can’t eat that shit and work on my computer. The grease just gums up the works.”
“You ready to call Samms?” he asked.
“Almost. I’m still uncomfortable with this mission. Let me nail down one more thing, then try to talk her out of this. It smells almost as bad as your chicken.”
Cheese finished the chicken basket. Carried it out to the dumpster in the back parking lot.
They had started this mission in Deming, New Mexico, which was the source of part of May’s discomfort. Everybody in Deming fit in like a glove. Except May and him. You couldn’t even pick out the undercover Feds, since even the U.S. government had the sense to only send Hispanics down here. He knew the ISIS dirtbags they were looking for kept a pretty low profile. Staying in during the day and trying to only travel under cover of darkness.
He had to admit that he hadn’t liked the feeling of vulnerability in Deming any better than she had. And he certainly didn’t like being back in El Paso.
Out of habit, he now stopped to scan the cars in the parking lot. Then across the way, toward I-10. Nothing suspicious. But then, he hadn’t expected
there to be.
At least here, this close to the University and with the Japanese restaurant up the street, May could pass for some version of a local.
He knocked. May opened the door.
“Ready,” she said. “Samms is on the phone.”
The two of them pulled chairs up to the table and briefed Samms on their concerns.
“Where is Tom?” Samms asked.
“Heading toward us. To Santa Teresa from La Mesa,” Cheese said. “The plan is still for us to meet him there at four.”
“How sure are you that the device is in the storage unit south of Santa Teresa?”
“Samms,” May said. “I’m simply not sure of too many things here. But I’m pretty sure that’s where they’ve put the damn thing.”
“Go ahead.”
“I continue to get fingerprints that somebody may be succeeding, at least occasionally, to track us. That we’ve been hacked. To the extent this is true, we can’t be completely confident of any of our Intel.”
“And, of course,” Cheese added, “if she’s right, then we are at risk of being targeted by whoever it is. If it’s the Feds, then we’re either finished here or being set up as a sacrifice. If it’s ISIS, then it’s potentially worse.”
“Losing confidence, guys?”
“I’m confident we’ll see them coming,” Cheese said. “But if we’re talking fifty ISIS guns, we’re looking at a Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid ending.”
“You know as well as I do, that, as sad as the Feds workings down there are, you’re looking at only a handful of terrorists. Small hill for a couple of mountain climbers like you.”
“If we get into a running gun battle with a half dozen ragheads in a town out here, we don’t have any exit strategy, Samms. Forget the Feds, the local police will be able to cordon off any escape routes. We’re not going to be in any position to blend in with the locals.”
“Let’s not get dramatic. Let’s go with what we know. Backing out of the hit is your exit strategy for now, guys.”
“Okay,” May said. “Here’s what we know as long as we’re not being intentionally misled by either the Feds or some clever ISIS hacker. The Feds know there is an ISIS presence here. Try as they might they haven’t been able to keep them from getting across the border again and again into New Mexico. There have been rumors in the past, partly debunked, that the ISIS guys recross whenever they get nervous. As we know, the ragheads are in no hurry. The Feds have come to the point where they think the Mexican Army is crying wolf. It’s easy for ISIS to come in and out here. Not only is the border porous, but there’s a decent size Muslim community, maybe a couple of thousand and a handful of Islamic Centers and Mosques, here in El Paso.”
“Hell,” Cheese said, “we’ve no doubt had dinner with them. There are two Mediterranean restaurants up the block from our palace here. Not too many Hispanics eating there.”
“I haven’t heard from Tom. Does he confirm that the border is as porous as we thought and you now believe?”
“Yes,” May said. “We’ll all call together when we hook up, but Tom says all his work in the mountains around La Mesa confirms that ISIS has mobile camps up there in the mountains. It’s only four miles from the border. The Feds have seen them, but persist on seeing them as merely coyotes moving illegals.”
“Which they also do nothing about,” Cheese said.
“Because,” Samms said, “NSA and the Bureau are cutting DHS out. And because all the illegal Muslims they catch immediately lawyer up and are cleared. They’re tired of being told that it’s just illegals and not worth the resources to track down every camp in the foothills. Agents get stuck arguing over evidence rather than tracking the real risks.”
“Any indication that NSA and the Bureau have brought JSOC in?”
“No, why?”
“The other thing we know is that they’ve stored explosives, a massive amount actually, between here and Santa Teresa.”
“Do their communications still suggest car bombs?”
Cheese looked at May. “Go ahead,” he said under his breath.
“No. That’s the other thing we know. They’re texting each other about something much bigger. They’re talking about only one strike. Something big. They knew their explosives wouldn’t fit in a car. They needed a truck. And they’re using a code name for it like it’s only one thing. One explosive. Singular. Not explosives, plural.”
“I can tell there’s more, May. What is it?”
“None of them want to be anywhere near this thing.”
“You mean when it goes off? They want to detonate it from a distance? What kind of suicide bombers are these?”
“No, Samms,” May said. “They don’t want to be anywhere near this thing any time. Even when it’s just sitting in the truck. They’re fighting over who has to go in and load it and then drive it.”
“So, do we think it’s a chemical weapon and they’re worried about leakage?”
“No, this feels like it’s nuclear, Samms. This may well be a dirty bomb. They, themselves, are scared to death of it.”
*
Licht walked into Moose’s White House Office.
“She on the line?” Moose asked.
Licht nodded, “Voice changer technology, but she says she’s Samms.” Reached down, and hit the flashing light on the phone.
“Samms?” Moose said.
“Mr. President? Licht? Is El Paso one of the entry ports where the radiation portal monitors have been turned down the most so as to materially reduce false positives?”
“The President isn’t available until late tonight, Samms? It’s just the two of us.”
“I said it was urgent I speak with the President.”
“You either get us on urgent or you get the President in,” Moose looked at his watch, “in seven and a half hours.”
There was a long pause.
“I’ll call back in five minutes, then. I need your answer urgently.”
“What precisely is the issue here, Samms?”
“I don’t have time in my three minutes’ connection to explain it to you, Moose. Licht, you there?”
“Yes, Samms I’m here.”
“Can you please explain the issue to Moose? I’ll have to allow for that before I call back.” There was a pause. “I’ll call back in eight minutes.”
And she hung up.
“What’s she talking about?” Moose asked.
“Call your highest level competent contact at DHS border protection, and I’ll explain while we wait for the answer. Tell whoever it is that it may be a national emergency and they have seven minutes to find out.”
Moose told him who he was proposing to call, got a shrug from Licht, and placed the call.
“So, Licht, what’s this all about?”
“Back, around I think, 2005 or 2006, DHS determined that the cheap scintillators they were using as radiation portal monitors for all traffic entering the U.S. were ineffective and inefficient.”
“Why?”
“A huge number of false positives from totally benign sources drove all the border patrols mad. It was incredibly inefficient and a huge time waster. So they put out requests for bids for new technologies. It came down to a French company and a U.S. company somewhere in Tennessee. At least I think it was Tennessee. DHS turned down the better performing, easier to use, and less costly to maintain American product on the grounds that they thought the French had a better chance to implement the project.”
“Something tells me there’s an ‘and’ coming, right?”
“Right. The American company still sells their proven, very effective spectroscopic radiation portal monitors all around the world, protecting countries from importing nuclear materials. The French product didn’t work and DHS decertified them.”
Licht waited for Moose to ask the next question. “Okay,” Moose said. “Please tell me that DHS went back to the American company for the superior product?”
“And admit a mistake that big
? Nope. DHS went back permanently to the original inefficient scintillators and their successors. Individual patrols essentially turn their monitors down by varying amounts to stop the false positives.”
“And also the true positives, right?”
“Right.”
“Still?”
“Still. To this day.”
“So we have an American company protecting people around the world from nuclear materials entering their country, everywhere except here?”
“Essentially.”
Moose looked thoughtful. “Wait a minute, now I think I remember something about this. Wasn’t a high level Bush Energy Department official on the board of the French company?”
“Something like that. Yes.”
“And this hasn’t been revisited by DHS why?”
Licht shrugged. “C’mon Moose, how many of these kinds of bureaucratic failures are out there?”
The phone rang. It was the DHS guy.
Moose listened and hung up.
He looked up at Licht. “He said they monitor this dynamically, case by case, location by location.”
“And?”
“The false positives drive the El Paso border patrols crazy. Worse than most. They’ve pushed back on them from Washington, but El Paso patrols have been pretty close to the bottom typically.”
“Let’s see what Samms has.”
The phone rang less than a minute later.
“Samms?” Moose said into the speakerphone.
“Did you find out?” she asked.
“Yes. Your and our worst fears realized, I’m afraid.”
“Do we have any reason to believe a device has entered the U.S., and the information hasn’t been circulated among the Departments?”
“Of course not.”
“Do you, Samms?” Licht asked.
“Yes, we’re on it.”
“Have your people alerted the JTTF wherever it is?” Moose.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“The special agent in charge did what they all do. Asked us to come in and bring the evidence in person. Said they’re following the people we identified, have talked to them, and we’re wrong. There’s simply nothing actionable.”
“And?”
“Unfortunately, you’ve at least partially confirmed what I feared, Moose. They’re wrong.”
The Point Of A Gun: Thriller Page 21