Proximity: A Novel of the Navy's Elite Bomb Squad

by Stephen Phillips

  “I’m sorry, LT, but that is my favorite training point. If I was a ‘bad guy,’ this is how I’d do it.”

  Maybe they haven’t given up on me yet.

  At the end of the day, Denke had won the contest. Ashland had set up a complicated minefield and booby trap trail that Denke easily defeated. Everyone agreed that he was clearly the victor.

  A HUMMVEE was driving toward the men of Det Four as they cleaned up the land mine training area. Jazz watched it as he handed tools to Sinclair in the back of a MU EIGHT pickup truck. He had a feeling the HUMMER was bringing them news.

  As it got closer he thought he saw Lou driving. His fellow officer got out and walked up to him.

  “Just got an ‘Immediate’ off the wire for you.”

  Jazz read the entire message quickly. He had never heard of Kosovo.

  “Why are Albanians living in Kosovo?”

  “I dunno man, but you guys got twelve hours to get to Aviano, then back to your ship.”

  “Okay.”

  “What’s up, LT?” inquired Denke.

  “Noble Anvil.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Evidence

  Elena stared at the bulletin boards around the room. There was something important about this case that eluded her. She wondered if it was on one of these boards staring at her, yelling at her, taunting her.

  An executive assistant knocked on her office door with a folder in his hand.

  “Here you are, Elena. I was asked to give you a copy of the report from Rome. It just came in.”

  “Thanks, Mark.”

  Elena sat down and shuffled through the file. Maybe something could be found from recent incident in Rome.

  Elena first flipped through the report casually to refresh her memory of the event. Then she sat down to read it in earnest, studying it for clues or patterns that could help her with the SANPAT case. When she saw the clue that she was looking for, she knew it immediately.

  “You bastard,” she murmured to herself.

  Forty eight hours later Special Agent Cruz stood silently in front of the desk of Special Agent in Charge Cameron Thompson, her boss. She waited patiently while Thompson sipped his burning hot coffee. Elena noticed him squinting as the Colombian roast passed through his lips. It was a sign that he was thinking.

  While he focused, Elena surveyed her boss’s office. Books and papers were strewn everywhere. Half filled cups of coffee and several ashtrays made an aroma that permeated Thompson’s clothes.

  Elena smiled to herself.

  This place is a mess.

  Thompson appeared tired and unkempt. He wore a different suit every day, but it was always rumpled. He would leave the office for only a few hours at a time in the late evening, returning before the sun was up. Most agents in the office believed that Cameron lived on coffee and tobacco. He was a mad scientist of criminology, more like a mystery novel detective than anyone else in the bureau.

  It’s no wonder the guy’s not married, Elena thought.

  Thompson’s cluttered personality was accompanied by an air of wisdom. The man was not arrogant; he just often solved the case before the lead agent did.

  Elena enjoyed working for the guy despite his quirks. She realized that he was teaching her to analyze in new ways. As a result, her investigation skills were improving. Thompson, known as Cam even by his subordinates, did not seem to think much of Elena however. In fact, he was the only man that Elena Cruz never caught looking at her. The fact that she could not impress him in any way was a sore point with her, one she was working hard to fix.

  Special Agent Cameron Thompson looked at Cruz quizzically.

  “Elena, you’ve been working hard on this, I appreciate that. But I think you haven’t had enough sleep. Go home.”

  “No, Cam, listen to me...”

  “I think it’s just a coincidence.”

  “Sit down and listen to me again.”

  The agent in charge threw his hands in the air in mock surrender and sat down at his desk again.

  “Okay, here are the elements missing from my investigation. One, how did this group gather the information or intelligence to research, plan, and execute the take-down of the explosive vehicle? Two, who provided or where did they obtain demolition training so sophisticated that no explosive residue was at the site? Three, why were the explosives so important to them that they carried out this operation, including murdering two armed soldiers?”

  “Okay, I’m with you.”

  “Obviously the supposed owner of the house is involved.”

  “Obviously.”

  “Okay, so he’s on the run. But there has to be more people involved in order to pull this thing off.”

  “I’m still with you. Have you had any mention of the caliber of the weapon?”

  “No, but I knew it was fishing anyway. I am surprised at that. I really thought that I would get some reaction from either the police or the EOD det when I told them it was a nine-millimeter round. I figured somebody would come up with a supposition that either police or military were involved since they both use nine-millimeter weapons. Nobody even asked about checking forensics on weapons held by officers on the scene.”

  “Yeah, good try though.”

  “Okay, so who else? We’ll start with the associates of the guy who owned the house. Maybe that will lead to something. But, I’ll bet we don’t find any.

  “Then there is the takedown of the explosive vehicle. Intercepting radio traffic regarding the arrival of Martin and West is impressive, but I’m not sure that can lead us anywhere. So here’s what is really interesting, one of my suspects had to know about the nuances of the movement of the explosives. Specifically, the security and re-fueling procedures that Martin and West would follow. That actually removes a lot of people. Of those living that I can connect to this incident, it leaves Jascinski and Ball. Right now they are the only guys I know of who answer all of these questions. My instinct tells me Jascinski.”

  “Why?”

  “Jascinski was there at the scene. He made the calls to 797th EOD and undoubtedly could easily find out or would already know their route and timetable.”

  “Right.”

  “He’s also had military demolition training, the best in the world.”

  “Obviously.”

  “One of the things they taught us in post-blast analysis is that when the job is perfect, when there is no explosive residue as evidence...”

  “You’ve got a military trained guy.”

  “Exactly. And he’s gotta be a Green Beret, or a SEAL, or most likely an EOD Tech since they work with explosives all the time.”

  “Those guys are very particular about that stuff.”

  “Precisely.”

  “Did you get any reaction from that ruse, about the job being shoddy?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm.”

  Elena continued, “Finally, Jascinski’s motivation is that he is involved with this group. He probably has been siphoning off explosives to these guys and may even be assisting in the construction of the IEDs. I believe there was something about these explosives... maybe something as simple as a fingerprint that would point us to Jascinski. He’d have to destroy them so we couldn’t trace them to him.”

  Thompson sipped his coffee, squinting again. The two sat in silence for another moment.

  Finally Cameron said, “Okay... now you’ve got my attention. Continue.”

  Elena felt like she just won a small moral victory.

  “Okay, again, the only two people at my scene that fit the description as far as I know are Jascinski and Ball. Now we got Jascinski at the scene of an attack on Secretary Koss.”

  “Okay, good point. Convince me it simply is not a coincidence.”

  Now it was becoming as a chess match.

  “Let me walk you through a scenario. Jascinski is providing explosives to these bad guys. We already know that the stuff was military. He arrives on scene and realizes that the game is up; he is going to
get caught. So he needs to get rid of the demo. How does he do that? Jascinski has an accomplice damage the vehicle tire somehow. He comes to the rescue, certainly in uniform, maybe even with another EOD truck. Three rounds to the back of the head, blow the truck up and make off with the rest of the stuff. I’ve begun with a cursory look into his background. Guess who else has had some demo training?”

  “Who?”

  “Dear old Dad. Jascinski’s father is a retired admiral who started training for UDT back in the sixties. He washed out after receiving demolition training.”

  “You’re shitting me? Okay, I’m beginning to see. You think this is like the kid who went through EOD school a few years ago? Remember they caught him right as he was in the demo phase.”

  “Exactly... so maybe we got us a family of white supremacists or something. So I’ve called around about this guy... the admiral. Fits the profile depending on whom you talk to. Some refer to him as old school Navy, a very tough, stern son of a bitch. Others say he is on the far right.”

  “‘Old school’ or ‘on the far right,’ huh? To many they are the same thing.”

  “I’m sure.”

  Thompson leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. He stained his teeth with more Bureau coffee.

  “Okay, Elena, now I play devil’s advocate. Your argument is weak. First, if Jascinski were smart enough to pull this off without a hitch, he’d be smart enough to hand over the C-4 without it being linked to him. Second if he is just worried about the evidence why not destroy all the C-4? Make it really look like an accident. Why did he save some?

  “The father? Phooey. So what, Dad tried to be UDT. His son follows in his footsteps and does him one better. Take all that away and realize that young Jascinski’s response will be that he was assigned to escort SECSTATE. It is not as if he walked up to the Secret Service and said, ‘Hey guys. Can I help?’”

  “And therein lays the beauty of it,” Elena responded. “Look at it from the other angle. As an EOD Tech he knew that he’d eventually get detailed on a job with a dignitary. It doesn’t matter which one. His goal was not to take out SECSTATE, his goal was to get a high ranking government official.”

  “In which case, he’ll never do this again. A second time would be too much of a coincidence to not consider him a suspect.”

  “Or he’ll do it one more time and skedaddle in the ensuing mayhem.”

  “Elena, you are either brilliant or a complete conspiracy nut.”

  “I’ll be honest, Cam, I’m desperate for something on this one.”

  “Okay, write up a formal report to propose how we proceed. I’ll consider it. I still need some convincing that this is not circumstantial.”

  “I’ve already started it. You’ll have it on your desk tomorrow.”

  “Fine, Elena. Before you go, I want to make one thing clear.”

  “What?”

  Thompson sat back up and placed his cup on the desk. His voice became more serious.

  “If you fucking screw this up, I’ll kill you. Got it?”

  “I got it.”

  “I’m serious. I’ve got ten acres, a shotgun, and a shovel.”

  “Boss, you know what you get when you add up three coincidences?”

  “What?”

  “Evidence.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  Crystal City, Virginia

  The parade of secretaries and receptionists down 23rd Street on their way to and from lunch distracted Sergeant Thomas Donohue. Most wore conservative blouses and suit jackets, but the legs were all bare. He loved the legs.

  From the back seat came a growl. Donohue looked in the rearview mirror. His Dutch Shepard was also eyeing the ladies.

  “Easy, Guinness. Steady, boy.”

  Donohue turned his cruiser left onto Jefferson Davis Highway, heading back into the jurisdiction of the Defensive Protective Service.

  Donohue worked at the Pentagon first as an Air Force Security Police Officer. DPS recruited him while he was there and he joined them a year after leaving the military. Donohue completed the perfunctory rookie year as a patrolman followed by two years on the elite Emergency Response Team. Since that time Thomas Donohue was a K-9 handler. His dog, Guinness, was a triple threat. The animal was an attack dog as well as a bomb and drug sniffer.

  The speed limit was fifty-five miles per hour. Gabriel ensured that he was not a mile over the limit. He had a video camera propped on a camera bag in the passenger seat of his sedan. It was aimed out the window, the power was on, and it was recording.

  It was his first reconnaissance of the area. Gabriel thought the camera would appear innocent enough.

  After all, he thought, it’s not like owning a video camera is illegal.

  He noticed an apartment building on a hill to his left.

  I could get a room in there and set up a nice observation post.

  Gabriel decided to look into that.

  It happened about four times a year. Donohue was visited by his police sense. The hair stood up on the back of his neck. It was the silver sedan; something was not right about it. Donohue pulled in behind it and began to observe it more closely.

  “Come on, bud, drive into my parking lot,” Donohue said out loud.

  In the rear view mirror he saw Guinness through the screen between the front and back seats. The pooch was now looking over his shoulder at the grey sedan. He had the same instincts as his handler. He growled again.

  “Come on, baby, turn right, turn right.”

  Saint Michael, patron saint of policemen, was working with Donohue and Guinness. Their prayers were answered and the sedan turned right into the parking lot.

  Donohue flipped a button on the console between the two front seats. From the grill of his unmarked cruiser, blue lights flashed and a siren began to wail. Guinness began barking. Donohue followed the suspect vehicle as it turned down one of the hundred rows of cars and stopped. He kept his eyes on the vehicle as he made a call on his radio.

  “Base, this is Kilo Five. Pulled over a silver Pontiac Grand Am for routine safety inspection. Vehicle tag is Virginia Mike Hotel Charlie One One Five. Requesting back-up.”

  In his mind’s eye, Donohue could see Marsha’s eyebrows rise.

  “Roger, Kilo Five. Say again regarding back-up?”

  “That’s right, base. I am requesting courtesy back-up.”

  “Roger.”

  This was a confusing turn of events. Gabriel wondered if he was seen filming.

  Impossible.

  He turned the camera off.

  Did he do something wrong? Were the feds onto him?

  Gabriel went through his wallet and pulled out the military ID he placed there an hour before when he was in the hotel. He grabbed the Virginia driver’s license that matched it. There was a tapping on the window.

  “Yes, officer?” he said, rolling down the window.

  “Good afternoon, sir,” the patrolman responded. “I’m Officer Donohue of the Defensive Protective Service. May I see some ID, sir?”

  Gabriel handed him the military ID card and driver’s license. He noticed the K-9 next to the cop.

  Holy shit he’s got a dog?

  After studying his credentials a moment the officer said, “Thank you, Lieutenant Smith. I am just doing a cursory safety inspection of your vehicle. I am sorry for the delay in your day. I also need your registration, sir. Wait one moment, sir.”

  Donohue put the IDs and registration in his pocket.

  “Guinness, seek.” Donohue kept his eye on the driver while following Guinness around the car. Near the trunk the dog gave him the sign.

  “Good boy,” Donohue said giving the dog a treat.

  Okay, wait for the back-up, he thought.

  Donohue returned to his cruiser. Guinness hopped into the back seat. Donohue got in front and called dispatch.

  “Base, this is Kilo Five. I needed back-up like, yesterday. Guinness gave me a positive on this guy’s trunk, probably drugs. I’m going to run his in
fo, but I’ll bet it is clean. He’s a Navy lieutenant.”

  “Roger, Kilo Five. We have one unit on the way, we’ll send a second.”

  “Thanks, base. Let’s run this guy’s vitals. Standby to copy.”

  Gabriel noted another police cruiser arriving. This one came from the other direction and parked in front of him. The officer did not get out. He just stared over his dash at Gabriel through his cop sunglasses.

  There was no moving. Gabriel knew the game was up. The dog probably sensed the explosives in the trunk. He wondered about the right to search his car. Was the dog probable cause? He decided to calmly try to fight them at every turn.

  You idiot, he thought to himself. You should have remembered what Nasih taught you. He remembered the man’s voice as he lectured them.

  “Never mix two missions. If you are going to conduct surveillance, only bring surveillance equipment. If you are going to carry out an assassination, only bring weapons.”

  Now what could have been explained away as simply forgetting to turn off a video camera was going to become possession of explosives on federal property.

  I’m fucked.

  To make matters worse, he gave the police officer his military ID. He now realized that that would be his last, fatal mistake. The ID was never made to undergo scrutiny. Now this guy was running a check. He would soon find out that Gabriel was not Lieutenant James P. Smith. Had he handed over just a driver’s license he could have acted lost. The military sticker could have been on the vehicle because he bought it used, just as he had done in San Diego.

  Now there was a third police vehicle. He could see a perimeter was being set up. Twenty yards away there was a dark Suburban. That would be the Emergency Response Team. Gabriel knew that inside were a couple of mean boys with MP-5 machine guns.

  Yep, I’m fucked.

  He saw the first officer approaching the window again. The dog was with him.

  “Lieutenant Smith?”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you step out of the car, sir?”

  “What’s wrong, officer?”

  “I need you to step out of the car now, sir.”

  “Calm down, officer...”

  “Sir, step out of the car.”