The Gatekeeper

by Michelle Gagnon

  However one question still niggled at her: Where was Jake when that murder took place? Could he possibly have witnessed it without interfering? She suspected that if he thought it served justice, that’s exactly what he would have done. At the time Kelly decided she didn’t want to know the extent of his involvement. After all, she’d just agreed to marry him.

  Now, the initial glow of the engagement long faded, Kelly decided it was time for him to explain exactly what happened. She was sitting at the gate waiting for her plane to board. Rodriguez had uncovered a string of businesses filed under the same tangled web of parent companies, mostly located in Texas. They’d narrowed the list down to a few that looked promising, and Kelly booked a flight to San Antonio. As far as her boss knew, she was tying up a few loose ends, and would catch a connecting flight to D.C. the following day.

  “Hey, partner.”

  Kelly glanced up, startled from her reverie. Rodriguez stood there, clutching the handle of his carry-on as if it were the only thing keeping him upright. If possible, he looked even worse than he had in the hospital that morning. The bruises had darkened into a mottled mask of green and purple, and stitches strained against his still-swollen features.

  “Jesus, Rodriguez! What are you doing here?” Kelly jolted to her feet, trying to help him sit. He waved her off with annoyance and plunked down beside her. A young woman glanced up from her iPod and took in his appearance. She gathered up her things and shifted down a row.

  “Guess I’m not making any friends on this flight, huh?” he asked ruefully.

  Kelly caught the strain of pain in his voice. “You’re supposed to stay in the hospital for another few days.”

  “Not according to our government-issue health plan. Docs gave me the okay. I look like hell, but there’s nothing they can do for bruised ribs, and they can’t reset my nose until the swelling goes down.” He turned sideways. “I’m thinking of going with the ‘Jude Law.’ What do you think?”

  “I think you should be resting.” She eyed his ticket. “That better not be for San Antonio.”

  “Hey, I thought we’d reached a new level in our professional relationship,” he sounded wounded. “Besides, this is my lead.”

  “You’re insane.” Kelly gestured to him. “I can’t let you slow me down.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He straightened a leg carefully and grimaced. “I’ll be fine. Got enough Advil to get me through. Hell, I could probably run a marathon if I had to.”

  “ASAC McLarty doesn’t know you’re doing this,” Kelly guessed. His eyes confirmed it. “I’ll call him, say you’re not following orders.”

  “And you are?” he said pointedly. “I spoke with Phoenix P.D. They seem to think the Morris case is wrapped up with a bow. So I’m guessing you haven’t filled McLarty in on the details of your Texas layover.”

  Kelly clenched her jaw. Rodriguez was right, she’d led her boss to believe the case was as good as closed, but persuaded him to hold off on the press conference. At the moment, she was as off the grid as Rodriguez was. A year ago she would never have considered such a move. But since she was already viewing her FBI career in the rearview mirror, it hadn’t even given her pause. Which made her more like Jake than she cared to admit.

  Rodriguez caught her expression, mistook it for guilt, and extended a hand. “Listen. You don’t rat me out, I won’t tell on you. Deal?”

  Kelly eyed the extended hand, eyes narrowed. Rat was an odd choice of words. She wondered if he knew about the rumors. After a minute, she shook.

  “All right, then.” Rodriguez peered around. “Do I have time to grab a slice before boarding?”

  Randall worked carefully, holding the blowtorch at arm’s length. Beads of sweat ran down his face, both from the weight of the protective suit and lead apron and from stress.

  They’d assigned the largest and most dangerous-looking man as his helper. Randall tried to refuse, inspiring a flash of pure relief on the guy’s face before they were told it wasn’t optional. Thor was supposed to make sure Randall did what he was supposed to. Not that he would have a clue if something was wrong, Randall thought disdainfully. He obviously had as much experience with low-level radioactive waste as he did with an Emily Post manual.

  Thor stood at what he must have assumed was a safe distance, approximately twenty feet away. Close enough to intercede if Randall made a break for it. His nickname was so ridiculous that even under the circumstances Randall couldn’t glance at him without wanting to chuckle. Not that there was much funny about the situation.

  Low-level radioactive waste came from sources as varied as hospital medical equipment and the density gauges used by building contractors. Few people were aware of how much radiation they came in contact with on a daily basis; it would probably terrify them to know. But even direct contact with most low level waste wouldn’t have immediate dire consequences. For that reason, until 9/11 that form of waste disposal was at best loosely regulated and monitored on a state-by-state basis.

  More dangerous waste materials, like plutonium from spent fuel rods, were consolidated at a few sites in Nevada and Texas. The government generally made sure they were safely stored in specially designed water-filled basins or dry casks, and closely monitored them. Although sometimes even those safeguards failed: some high-level waste remained in boron pools right next to the reactors generating it.

  After 9/11, the government finally clued in to the fact that some waste, though categorized as “low-level,” could prove lethal in a dirty bomb. Which explained Randall’s promotion: his job was to oversee the transfer of low-level radioactive waste to a few secure facilities. So he’d spent the past two years making sure that for the first time since the Manhattan Project, everything was accounted for. All but the three items he’d redirected here.

  Before Randall started, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission estimated that every single day of the year, approximately one source of low-level radioactive waste was lost, abandoned or stolen in the United States. In Texas alone, between 1995 and 2001 more than one hundred and twenty-three items fell off the grid. The most hazardous were industrial radiography-related sources, a potential source of gamma radiation. In one high profile case known as the Larpen incident, three industrial radiography cameras were stolen after a bankruptcy judge refused to provide money for their safe disposal. The cameras were recovered after the Bureau of Radiation Control issued a statewide press release and one of the thieves, fearful for his own safety, turned himself in and told authorities where to find them.

  Something far worse happened in Brazil in 1987, when scavengers looting a defunct hospital came across abandoned teletherapy equipment. Fascinated by the deep blue light the cesium chloride emitted, they stole it, then sold it to a junkyard owner who planned to fashion it into a ring for his wife. His young niece painted herself with the blue powder dust scraped off the source. Other relatives used it to mark crosses on their foreheads. In what became known as the Goiânia accident, 249 people total were contaminated. Twenty people were hospitalized, four of whom died (including the junkyard owner’s wife, niece and two workers who initially hammered open the lead casing).

  In the aftermath of that incident medical facilities learned their lesson, keeping a tighter lid on used equipment. However one industry remained notoriously lax: oil production. X-ray radiography cameras were used to inspect oil and natural gas pipelines, making sure they’d withstand extreme stress. More technologically advanced cameras were constantly becoming available, and the older ones were discarded. Buried deep in the core of those cameras were gamma radiation sources, most commonly iridium-192 and cobalt-60. You could block other forms of radiation by simply holding up a cloth. But thanks to their short wavelength, gamma rays could penetrate skin. Exposure for even a brief period almost guaranteed a painful death.

  Which was why Randall was being so careful. In addition to a heavy-duty protective suit and apron, he was using a respirator and wearing heavy gloves and boots. Thor wa
s clad in a similar outfit; Randall was surprised they’d managed to find one in his size. Randall was using a blowtorch to remove the source material from the camera’s lead container. The cameras he had diverted were Philips 160 kV constant-potential X-ray systems, designed to inspect large oil and gas pipes. Hence the need for the flatbed trucks-the housings were enormous, which guaranteed that camera operators worked at a safe distance from the X-rays.

  The box holding the iridium wasn’t large, but thanks to the lead casing it was extraordinarily heavy. Once he got the case open, there would be temporary exposure to the source material until he transferred it to the other container. He kept checking the dosimeter clipped to the outside of his suit. It was still within normal ranges, although far beyond what a human should sustain on a daily basis. The dots marching up the badge ranged from 5 rads, the lowest level of radiation exposure, to 100 rads, or “your skin is about to bubble and fall off.” Right now the dot marking 5 rads was completely black. It was a good thing he wasn’t planning on having any more kids.

  The thought reminded him of Madison. Randall wondered if she was still alive. His bumbling attempt to secure proof of life had failed miserably. He cringed at the memory of posturing in the cracked bathroom mirror, thinking he’d shown them. The minute they brought him back into the main room, any illusion that he had control over the situation vanished.

  “So? Where’s my proof of life?” he had asked, trying to remember everything Jake told him. Be tough, they clearly need you more than you need them, Jake advised. Seize control of the negotiation process, don’t let them dictate all the terms. And by the way, your daughter is probably already dead, was the addendum, but he knew Jake hadn’t dared say it aloud.

  “Someone wants to talk to you,” the bald man in charge said, handing him a phone.

  “Dr. Grant?” The voice was deep, with a distinctive twang.

  “I want proof that my daughter is still alive.”

  There was a pause before the man spoke again, sounding bemused. “Oh, you would, would you?”

  “If you want my help, I want proof.” Randall tried to sound forceful, self-assured, but his resolve was wilting.

  “Let me make something clear to you, Dr. Grant. At the moment, you and every member of your family live and die at my discretion. And that includes Bree and Audrey.”

  “Bullshit. They’re somewhere safe, you can’t get to them.”

  “Oh, you mean your mother-in-law’s place in Massachusetts? She has a hell of a rose garden.”

  Randall’s blood ran cold. He’d been a fool to listen to Jake and Syd, he should have hidden them better. Of course it would be child’s play for someone with access to the inner workings of the facility to uncover their whereabouts.

  “I’m sending you a text,” the voice said.

  Randall pulled the phone away from his ear and squinted at the image. It was pixelated by the cheap camera, but he could still discern the outlines of his mother-in-law’s house. And Audrey’s VW was parked in the driveway.

  A tear snaked down his cheek as he pressed the phone back to his ear.

  “I have men stationed nearby who can be at the house in under five minutes. And they won’t kill them quickly. Those men with you now? They’re civilized compared to the ones I sent.” The sound of a throat clearing, then the man asked, “So I’m assuming we’ll have your full cooperation?”

  “I’ll need tools,” Randall responded dully.

  “Rest assured, Dr. Grant, you’ll have everything you need. Now put Dante back on.”

  Dante. The bald leader had a name now. Of course, if they weren’t bothering to conceal their identities, obviously the minute he finished the job he was a dead man.

  He glanced at Thor, who absentmindedly scratched himself. Randall was to transform the materials into a radioactive dust that would spread a cloud of death when the bombs detonated. Someone else was constructing the bombs, he had no expertise in that field. But he knew radioactive matter. For the past two decades it was all he’d studied. He could recite the properties of each isotope, knew the half-life of every source. And chances were Thor didn’t know an isotope from an isobar. Randall might not be able to stop this group without putting his family in horrible danger, but he could diminish the fallout from what they had planned. Literally.

  Randall bent to his task again. Despite the media hysteria in 2002 when Jose Padilla was accused of trying to build a dirty bomb, fashioning radioactive material into a dangerous weapon required expertise. Initially, the worst casualties would be the same as any bombing: people in the immediate blast vicinity would be annihilated by the explosion. Then iridium would be dispersed in a toxic cloud. Depending on wind speeds and other conditions, a huge area could be contaminated by gamma radiation. Few people would die initially, but over the long term anyone exposed was at risk of developing cancer or other genetic mutations. The area itself would be deemed uninhabitable, and the cleanup costs could be in the billions.

  And that was what made a dirty bomb so effective. Called a “weapon of disruption,” as opposed to a weapon of mass destruction, the greatest danger would be from panic. If detonated in a major city, containment and decontamination of thousands of terrified victims would present an enormous challenge. Survivors of the blast might be trampled in the aftermath.

  Transportation issues presented the largest impediment to unleashing a dirty bomb. Although the term “suitcase bomb” was coined after the Padilla case, unless a bomber used a specially lined container, he would probably die of severe radiation poisoning before reaching his target. And that container would be far too heavy to carry. Plus, they weren’t the sort of thing you ordered off eBay.

  Judging by the preparations across the warehouse, Dante already had that covered. The other men were converting metal drums, lining them with overlapping sheets of alloys. Probably not enough to prevent all traces of radiation from leaking out, but it would stop detectors from going off at every firehouse and police station they passed. And once the bomb exploded, those metal sheets would turn into lethal shrapnel. Randall had to hand it to them, they’d thought of everything.

  Randall returned to his task. Inside the lead box he maneuvered robotic hands, watching the monitor carefully. One claw held a file, carefully scraping off chunks of iridescence. Never in his life had he felt so helpless, responsible for the lives of not just his family but so many others. Scrape, scrape. He was finally going to achieve the fame he’d always aspired to. He’d be known as the man who helped engineer the single worst day in the nation’s collective history. And there was nothing he could do to stop it.

  Nineteen

  “Didn’t figure you for the religious type,” Jake said, slipping into the pew behind Syd.

  She half turned, grinning at him. “I’m hiding out.”

  “Yeah, I get that.” He examined his hands. Audrey and Bree Grant had arrived at the hospital an hour earlier and were rushed straight to Madison ’s room. He’d caught some of the reunion while standing guard in the hall outside. Flanking him were two Benicia cops. He got the feeling they were more interested in keeping an eye on him than protecting Madison. The local P.D. hadn’t been all that satisfied with his story, and the discovery of another body on the ship didn’t help matters. But no one had pulled out the handcuffs yet. Jake assumed the bigwigs downtown were still trying to make sense of it.

  He sat back and crossed his hands behind his head. The hospital chapel was small, three rows of pews facing a crucifix. The whole place seemed like an afterthought. Outside twilight sifted through the smog, tinting the concrete in shades of tangerine and magenta.

  “Still no word from Randall?” The shadows made it hard to read Syd’s face.

  Jake shook his head. “Nope. Talked to his coworker, Barry. Randall left work early yesterday, said he had a bug. Probably just couldn’t handle being there.”

  “Strange that he’s not picking up.” Syd leaned forward, and he saw the concern in her eyes. “I’m worried.”r />
  “I was going to check out his apartment. That is, if you’ve got this under control.”

  “I’ll come with you.” She stood.

  Jake balked. “Benicia P.D. feels strongly that at least one of us should stick around. Otherwise I get the feeling charges might be filed.”

  “Not going to happen.” Syd waved a hand. “One phone call and it’s taken care of.”

  “One phone call, huh? You’re not working for the Agency anymore, remember?”

  “They still don’t want me getting frog-marched through some podunk P.D. Trust me, if an arrest warrant goes out with my name on it, it gets handled.”

  “So what if it has my name on it?”

  Syd shrugged. “Dunno. Guess we’ll find out.”

  “Not comforting, Syd,” Jake said. “Maybe I will stay.”

  Syd laughed. “I’m kidding. It’ll be fine, trust me. We’ll check on Randall, then head straight back. They won’t even know we’re gone.”

  Jake debated for a minute, then sighed. “All right. Let’s go tell your boyfriend how you saved the day.”

  “He’s not my boyfriend,” Syd grumbled, but followed him out into the night.

  Neither of them noticed a battered sedan at the rear of the parking lot. A pair of bald men sat low in the front seat, watching their departure through binoculars.

  “This is bullshit,” Rodriguez said.

  “It’s not bullshit.”

  “So we flew all the way to Texas to park outside a warehouse?”

  “We don’t go inside without a warrant. And right now, no judge in his right mind would give us one,” Kelly retorted.

  Rodriguez made an exasperated sound and collapsed against the headrest, sulking. They had requisitioned a bu-car from the San Antonio field office. It had an oddly tangy aroma from the spray used to cloak stale cigarette smoke. The odor was nausea-inducing when the windows were rolled up to use the air-conditioning, but the alternative was sweltering with them open. It was even hotter here than in Phoenix, and dustier, if such a thing was possible, Kelly thought. Her shirt was soaked through, and she wished she’d taken off her jacket before getting in the car.