Critical Mass

by Steve Martini

  To McCally it sounded like the agent might want to join them.

  “Define violent,” he said.

  “Most serious is recreational explosives. Stealing a rifle from a National Guard armory’s the equivalent of earning your bones in the mob. They consider it big-time. We can usually pick them up in a local bar bragging about it. Not what you’d call a well-planned conspiracy.”

  What the government had learned in Oklahoma City is that intelligence against such groups is almost useless. The most dangerous among them often acted alone or with one or two other friends. The first wind of any activity came with the pressure wave of an explosion.

  McCally thought for a moment. “Doesn’t sound like an organization that could get up to speed on weapons of mass destruction.”

  “You thinking chemical or biological?” said the agent. “Not unless they could make it in somebody’s garage.”

  “What I’m thinking of they couldn’t make in a garage,” said McCally. “I’m thinking nuclear. Remember the little piece of white plastic—the dosimeter we found in the water after Belden’s crash?”

  “I hear Russia is a major shopping center for nuclear arms. But how would they get the money? That would cost a bundle. Even Iran and Iraq haven’t been able … ”

  “As far as we know,” said McCally. “Let’s assume for a moment they found an open channel for such a weapon. Then they would need help. Professionals who knew how to arm and transport such a weapon.”

  “That would explain Belden and Chaney,” said the agent. “But how would they get the money for a bomb, to pay people like Chaney and Belden?”

  “Raise it. They have a network. Bogus check-writing schemes, a little fraud here and there, sell securities in the Comstock Lode to the aged.”

  “That might raise a few hundred thousand, maybe a million if they’re playin’ the market. But we’re talking multiple millions here.”

  “They could have a secret investor,” said McCally.

  “Whaddaya mean?”

  “I mean what if you were Saddam and you were itching for a little revenge, but you didn’t want to be it in a game of nuclear tag?”

  “A rogue state?”

  “Working from the shadows. I can think of a half dozen regimes that would love to blow the shit out of a major American city, especially if they could deflect blame to one of our own homegrown groups. Such a government might come up with a little subsidy to make a device available.”

  The agent thought about this.

  “They might even steer a little technical help in their direction,” said McCally. “Suddenly Mr. Belden and his colleagues are knocking on your door, courtesy of Saddam or Muammar.”

  “You think… ?”

  “I don’t know,” said McCally. “But people like Belden, and Chaney, are here for a reason. It is possible that they came as part of a package, attached to some kind of a device.”

  For a moment they simply looked at each other, each knowing the question but declining to put it into words: was it already here?

  “The militia groups up north,” said McCally. “Are they at all tied in with the bunch out on the island?”

  The FBI and ATF had identified a sizable contingent of well-armed militia members on a small private island in the San Juan chain just south of the Canadian border.

  “Not as far as we know. The group on the island came in from Idaho and Montana.”

  “What are they doing out there?”

  “We don’t know, but they’re armed to the teeth. ATF has spotted some major ordnance.”

  “Anything we can move in on? Get a search warrant?” asked McCally.

  “Not without the Marines.” The agent arched his eyebrows as if to emphasize the point. “We don’t know if the weapons are legal. We’ve taken some long-range photos, but we can’t tell.”

  “No full-automatic stuff?”

  “Haven’t seen or heard any bursts.”

  Possession of fully automatic weapons was illegal without a special license issued by the federal government. Evidence of such might be enough for a search warrant.

  “They’re under twenty-four-hour surveillance?”

  The agent nodded.

  McCally took a deep breath. He knew they were on the edge of something, but what? Without a warrant he couldn’t search the island, and without Chaney he had no one to squeeze for information. He didn’t want to look like a fool by going to intelligence agencies, but he had decided one thing. It was time to share what information he had with superiors in the Justice Department. Let them make the call.

  “Let’s assume Chaney’s involved with the ones on the island,” said McCally. “The local militia could be providing logistical support. Helping to spring him.”

  “That would demonstrate a lot more organization than we’ve seen before,” said the agent.

  “Let’s just suppose something big, very big, is in the works,” said McCally. “The people in charge have secluded themselves on the island.”

  “Why?”

  “To stay out of reach, to prevent us from infiltrating, from getting information until whatever it is they’re planning is finished.”

  “So why do they want Chaney out?” said the agent.

  “Maybe he’s key to their plan.”

  “And who killed Belden?”

  “I don’t know,” said McCally. “Maybe Chaney. He had a lot of explosives training in the military.”

  “But why?” said the agent.

  “What, do you think I’ve got a Ouija board?”

  The agent sat in one of the client chairs across from McCally’s desk and rocked his head back, counting ceiling tiles as the lawyer finished scanning the report on the jailbreak.

  “What’s this?”

  “Hmm?” The agent brought his gaze down and looked at him.

  “It says here this wasn’t the cell Chaney was assigned to.”

  “Yeah. Can you beat it? Jail staff lets ‘em move wherever they want within the unit. Fucking five-star hotel, and we get handed the bill.”

  “Who’s this guy, Chenko?”

  “He’s the other one, got out with Chaney. We’re probably lucky they didn’t allow a slumber party in the cell. We’d be hunting for fifty of ‘em,” said the agent.

  “It wasn’t Chenko’s cell either,” said McCally. “Says here he was in on an immigration violation.”

  The agent shrugged his shoulders as if to say, “So what?”

  “So what do we know about him?” Suddenly McCally sat upright in his chair.

  “Nothing beyond what’s in the report.”

  McCally looked at him. “You still don’t get it?”

  “What?”

  “Why would Chaney rob a bank and accept a packet of bait bills from the teller normally reserved for the mentally impaired, then within twenty-four hours after getting busted pick up with some guy in the county jail who speaks pidgin English and who’s in the country illegally?”

  The agent shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

  “They weren’t after Chaney,” said McCally. “Get me everything you can find on this guy Chenko. If you have to, contact authorities in Moscow. Do it. See if he has any prior record. Find out his occupation.”

  FRIDAY HARBOR, WA

  George Hummel’s file was missing. Joselyn was back at the open filing cabinet, rifling through it for records relating to other fishermen.

  “Who is George Hummel?” Gideon was behind her, looking over her shoulder.

  “He’s one of my clients. There are five of them,” said Joss. “All local fishermen with similar medical symptoms. I was looking for some kind of industrial causation, a link that would explain the condition and provide some financial recourse.”

  What Joselyn held in her hand was a medical report. It had come into the office late the previous week. She hadn’t had time to file it or to call Hummel. She had thrown it into a basket on her desk. Whoever trashed her office apparently had missed it, but the Hummel fil
e was gone; so were the files of the other four fishermen.

  “Can I see that?” Gideon gestured toward the paper in her hand, and Joselyn gave it to him. It was no time to make a stand at the bulwark of client confidence.

  He read it quickly, then looked up at her. “When did these clients first come to see you?”

  She thought for a moment. “I don’t know, maybe two months ago.”

  He looked at the medical report, the brief description on the piece of paper under the heading SYMPTOMS: Initial nausea and vomiting, anemia, rapid hair loss, intermittent and repetitive bleeding mostly from the gums and mucous membranes, periods of unquenchable thirst.

  “Where do these people work?”

  “They’re sport fishers. Some of them own boats; others work as chartered skippers.”

  “They all work here on the island?”

  “As far as I know.”

  “And the boats, where are they kept?”

  “Docked down at the harbor,” said Joselyn. “Why?”

  “Your clients are suffering from radiation poisoning,” said Gideon.

  “How would they… ?”

  “I don’t know. But you said this man Belden came to you out of the blue. You said you wondered why he hired you, why he picked you when he could have gotten a more experienced business lawyer down in Seattle.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Maybe he didn’t want an experienced business lawyer,” said Gideon. “Maybe there was something else you had that he wanted—information about these clients. Maybe what he wanted to know was whether you had discovered the source of their illness.”

  Joselyn thought about it. She remembered that Belden had asked her questions the first day she met him. George Hummel had been in the office, and Belden had seen him. He had asked her about him and had tried to pry for details.

  In an instant, their eyes locked. “We take my van,” said Gideon. “I have some equipment.” Before he finished the words, he was headed for the door with Joselyn at his heels.

  TWENTY-TWO

  WASHINGTON, DC

  The president put the pen to paper and formed a single letter of his name. The motorized clicks of a hundred cameras echoed like crickets in the Oval Office.

  With a smile, he handed the pen to one of the congressmen standing behind his chair, picked up the next pen, and repeated the performance. The last pen was presented to the attorney general, who thanked the president graciously, stepped back, and began the round of applause that brought the chief to his feet with a broad grin and handshakes all around.

  “Mr. President, if you have a moment when we’re finished,” Abe Charness, the attorney general, whispered in his ear. He got a smile and a nod from his chief.

  The little performance was the final chapter in a legislative package that did virtually nothing but was being hustled to the public as the administration’s centerpiece for campaign finance reform. It would give folks back home the cozy feeling that something good was happening in Washington.

  At the moment, the president was riding high in the polls, taking credit for an economy over which he had virtually no control. As a politician, he followed the first rule of medicine: do no harm. He coupled this with a lot of smiles and promises of vague new programs.

  Two of his military aides and a couple of White House ushers herded the press toward the door. After they left, the president took a couple of minutes and chewed the fat with some congressmen. Photos were taken of them, shaking hands with the president in front of his hand-carved cherry desk. They would use the pictures in their upcoming campaigns. The last congressman smiled, then took his leave. Finally they were alone.

  “Have a seat, Abe.” The president loosened his tie and undid the top button of his shirt. He was back in his doughnut phase, having put on twenty pounds since the last election.

  “Someday I’d like to get a golden screen,” said the president, “so I could lounge behind it in pajamas like the Empress Dowager, and whisper what I wanted done to some eunuch out front.”

  “I’ll build you the screen, Mr. President. But I draw the line at cutting off my pecker.”

  The president laughed. It was what he liked about Charness. What little ceremony the man stood on was grounded in some crude Georgia clay. They were both sons of the South, raised in families that eked out a living on the upper edges of poverty.

  “Sit. Sit,” said the chief. They took up the same ends of opposing sofas across the coffee table in front of a fire that was still crackling.

  “How’s Jenny and the kids?” asked the president. The two men hadn’t seen each other in three weeks. Charness had been in The Hague for a conference and had traveled through Europe meeting several of his counterparts.

  “Oh, they’re fine.”

  “I imagine the kids are getting big.”

  “John’s taller than I am,” said Charness.

  “Makes us all feel like we’re getting old.”

  “You bet.”

  “Well, what is it?” The president could tell something was bothering Charness.

  “It’s ah. It’s one of my assistants. Jim Reed. I think you know him.”

  The president arched an eyebrow and thought for a second.

  “Tall man, slender. A little sparse at the tree line,” said Charness.

  “Oh, yeah. Sure. You brought him by for a Cabinet meeting a few months ago.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Is there some problem?”

  “I don’t know. It seems Jim has been assigned to some team or special task force during the time that I was away. No one back at the office seems to know much about it, and when I talked to Jim, he indicated he wasn’t at liberty to discuss it.”

  “What kind of team?”

  “From what I understand,” said Charness, “it was authorized by you.”

  The president looked at him with an expression of surprise on his face. He shook his head as if he were at a loss.

  “I think it operates under an acronym, ANSIR. I don’t know what it means,” said the attorney general.

  “Ah. That,” said the president. Suddenly he was filled with recognition, a hearty smile, a lot of bluster. “I didn’t know what you were talking about. I’d forgotten all about it.”

  Charness looked at him, an expression of interest filling his eyes. “I figured there would be some explanation, Mr. President. You can imagine my surprise when he told me he wasn’t authorized to discuss it with me.”

  “Oh, it’s nothing. Nothing,” said the president. “Probably be wrapped up in a week or so.”

  “Can I ask what it’s about?”

  “Oh, one of the national security types brought something to his boss. It required a number of reviews, including legal. I figured your people would be the best for the job, so I just told them to tap whomever they needed. I guess this Reed fellow was drafted.”

  “It would have been nice if maybe I’d gotten a memo or something,” said Charness.

  He was worried about turf, the eternal battle of every bureaucrat. “Yeah, well I borrowed a few people from a dozen agencies. If I took the time to send memos to all of them, the task would be done before the memos went out. If your man Reed is taking too much time off the job, I’ll tell them to let him go, find somebody else.” The president started to get up off the couch.

  “No. No. That’s not necessary, Mr. President. I mean, if you need him, that’s fine. Not a problem. We can pick up the slack.” What Charness really wanted to know was what was going on.

  “Well, good.” The president wasn’t telling him. “Listen, we’re gonna have to get together for dinner over here, just the two families,” said the president.

  “We’d love it,” said Charness. The president had changed the subject, leaving his attorney general with nothing but heightened curiosity. He would have to pump other Cabinet members to see if they knew anything, who on their staffs had been tagged for the ANSIR group.

  “Is there anything else?” as
ked the president. He smiled. The last one he needed with his nose under this particular tent was the attorney general. He was already aware of the president’s false steps with Kolikoff, the acceptance of campaign money and the photos in front of his desk. Knowing Kolikoff, those pictures were probably already being used on labels to hustle some cheap brand of vodka in Moscow.

  Charness looked at the floor, then at his hands, which were on his knees. He was hoping that if he sat there long enough, the president would tell him why he was using one of his assistants.

  The president looked at his watch. “Got a reception in half an hour. Jesus, I wish I could get that screen. You sure you won’t reconsider?”

  Charness laughed and got up off the couch. The two men moved toward the door, the president with his hand on the attorney general’s shoulder, making sure that he kept moving in the right direction.

  “There is one other thing,” Charness added, as if he just remembered it himself.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s probably nothing,” said Charness. “Something that crossed my desk this morning. A report from my office in Seattle. Seems they’ve got an investigation going, dealing with some militia groups out in the Northwest.”

  “What else is new?” The president edged him toward the door, trying to get rid of him.

  “This one may be a little different,” said Charness. “There seems to be some basis to believe these people are shopping for weapons, something big, maybe out of the FSU.”

  Like a flashing red light, reference to the term FSU—Former Soviet Union—stopped the president in his tracks.

  Suddenly Charness could tell that he had the boss’s undivided attention. There was finally something he had that the man wanted to know.

  “Like I say, it’s probably nothing,” said Charness.

  “No. No. Tell me about it.”

  “Not much to tell. Just a brief report.”

  “What did it say?”

  The attorney general scrunched up his face, like he was trying to remember. “Oh, some group is holed up on an island. They seemed to be armed and waiting for the second coming. Probably just another group of nuts. As long as we don’t overreact, wait them out, I’m sure it can be handled.”