“That I cannot tell you,” said McCally.
Charness looked at the ceiling and fumed. He did not want to get into the specifics, not in front of staffers and military brass. Members of the Cabinet knew or guessed what the problem was. The president couldn’t be sure if Kolikoff’s name had surfaced. If it had, and if indictments were later handed down in connection with militia activity in Washington State, and if Kolikoff was involved in brokering a weapon of mass destruction to the group, nothing the president could do would keep it under wraps.
If on the other hand Kolikoff’s name hadn’t come into the investigation, then a low-profile search for the bomb might be in order. If they could find it quickly and quietly, Kolikoff’s connection to the device might never become public. The president’s acceptance of campaign contributions would be a minor blip on the screen.
“Are you telling us that you don’t know?” said Charness.
McCally said nothing.
“Are you telling us that you can’t remember whether you ever heard that name in connection with the investigation, Mr. McCally?”
“I’m telling you that I will not get into the substance of grand jury testimony in a room filled with people who are not authorized to receive that information.”
“Then you would be free to tell the attorney general what you know concerning this matter in private?” said the president.
McCally paused for a moment and took a deep breath. “If I were assured that it would go no farther and that the disclosure was for legitimate law enforcement purposes,” said McCally. “Solely for purposes of investigation and prosecution of crimes.”
The president looked at Charness and smiled. Finally they were getting somewhere. Charness could go into a closed room with McCally, get the information the president wanted, then come out, and spill his guts to the president in private.
Charness did not look happy. Clearly what the president had in mind was the commission of a felony and the use of the Justice Department to do it. He had to know where Kolikoff was in the entire scheme of things before he charted his course and decided how aggressive to be in the search for the device.
“I’m going to suggest, Mr. Charness, that you confer with Mr. McCally in private.” The president nodded. “You can use one of the small conference rooms.” He pointed to what looked like a closet just off the Situation Room.
McCally saw Joselyn for the first time when he got up. He swallowed hard and found it difficult to maintain eye contact. Both of them knew the government’s investigation was about to be compromised, that unless Charness was made of steel, the president would vacuum him like a rug for information the second they emerged from the conference room.
Joselyn had a whole new respect for people like McCally, working in the trenches.
She leaned into Gideon’s ear. “Who is this guy Kolikoff?”
When she looked at him he had an enigmatic smile.
“Arms merchant,” he whispered. Kolikoff’s name had appeared enough times in reports from the institute in Santa Crista that he was well known in circles concerning arms control.
Joselyn looked up at him. “Nuclear?” she whispered.
Gideon held one hand just off of his lap and waffled it a bit as if to say anything was possible.
“What about this other lawyer?” said the president. “This woman, what’s her name?”
“Joselyn Cole.” Hirshberg spoke up.
“Yes, Cole. Has anybody heard from her?”
“She’s here, Mr. President.”
“Oh.” Suddenly the president perked up, looking around the room for a female in a business suit. “Where?”
Joselyn tentatively raised her hand. After seeing what happened to McCally, she wasn’t sure she wanted to do this.
“Oh.” He looked at the way she was dressed, the bruises on her face, then whispered to a man at his right shoulder, who passed him several sheets of paper and a small box. The president listened and nodded while he looked at Joselyn, the way people do when you know they’re talking about you.
The president’s brows arched and his forehead furrowed, some hint of surprise registering in his expression as he listened to the quick briefing. The aide straightened up, and the president squared his chair to the table again.
“Well, young lady, you’ve had a very harrowing couple of days. Please move up to the table. Gentlemen, make room for her. Find her a seat.”
The waters parted. Suddenly she found herself headed for McCally’s vacant chair. She balked and wouldn’t go without Gideon.
“Is that your friend?” said the president.
“This is Gideon van Ry,” said Joselyn. “He’s the reason I’m here. Otherwise I would be dead.”
“Please come forward. Mr. van Ry. You, too.”
One of the men seated at the table got up and gave Gideon his chair. They moved forward into the chairs and sat down at the table.
“I trust you both understand the seriousness of the situation?” said Hirshberg.
“I think so,” said Joselyn. “We don’t know everything.”
“I dare say you probably know a damn sight more than we do,” said the president. He smiled, and there was some light banter around the table.
“That’s why you’re here. We need your help. We understand, Ms. Cole, that you represented this man, Dean Belden, before the grand jury in Seattle,” said the president.
“If that was his real name,” said Joselyn. “It appears he told me a good many things that were not true.”
“I’m told that you believed he was dead, killed in a plane crash.”
“That’s correct.”
“It seems that both you and the U.S. attorney were taken in by this.”
“Yes.”
“But he wasn’t killed?” said the president.
“No. Somehow he managed to stage his death for my benefit, so that I would tell the authorities. You see he used me to identify him. He wanted to be officially dead, so that the government would stop looking for him. It was the only way he could finish whatever it was he was doing.”
“And what was that?” said Hirshberg.
“I’m not exactly sure. He tried to kill me twice, the first time, the night that his plane crashed. I’m certain now that he tried to push my car, with me in it, off of a state ferry into Puget Sound.”
“And the second time?” said Hirshberg.
“On the island,” said Joselyn. “He left orders for me to be killed. The only reason I’m alive is that a Navy diver saved my life, and he paid with his own. A good many men died on that island. I saw the bodies.”
“Yes. I know.” The president seemed very uncomfortable with the thought. “These people. The people on that island. They may have a nuclear device. You understand that?”
She nodded.
“Do you have any idea where it is?”
“No.”
The president looked at Gideon, who shook his head.
“You, sir. You’re with the Institute Against Mass Destruction in California?”
“That is correct, Mr. President.”
“I want to thank you for your help. We have been in touch with the director at your institute. He has been exceedingly helpful, very cooperative. We’re aware of your travels in the former Soviet Union and of the information you turned up there. That was exceedingly useful, and we are all very thankful.”
“Not useful enough, Mr. President.”
The president looked at him as if he didn’t understand.
“To keep the device out of your country,” said Gideon.
“Oh, yes. Indeed.”
Hirshberg interrupted. “Ms. Cole, you were on the island with these men. They took you captive, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“While you were there, did you hear anything?”
“I saw Belden. He came into the room where I was being held. I believe he went by another name as well.”
“Yes?”
“Thorn. The men o
n the island referred to him as Thorn.”
Notes were being scrawled on pads around the table.
“He seemed to be in charge,” said Joselyn.
“We’re trying to identify the bodies on the island now,” said Hirshberg, “to see if he’s among them.”
“Don’t waste your time,” said Joselyn. “You won’t find him there. He left the island with another man before the raid.”
Joselyn’s words inspired a flurry of eye contact among the men around the table, along with more intense note-taking.
“We have a picture of the man we believe you call Belden,” said the president. “Would you look at it for us and identify him?”
Joselyn nodded and an aide handed her a file with the photo in it. She opened it and looked.
“That’s him.”
“Good. Send that photo out to all state and federal law enforcement agencies,” said the president. “Say that he is wanted for … ” He looked down the table at the attorney general’s empty chair. One of his assistants stepped up from against the wall, looked at the president quizzically, and said: “Kidnapping, murder of a federal officer, assault on federal officers.”
“That’s enough,” said the president. “Let’s not put anything in there on the nuclear device. At least not for now. We don’t want to start a panic.”
“Be sure and let them know he’s extremely dangerous,” said Hirshberg. “And if state or local authorities see him, no attempt should be made to take him. They should call the FBI immediately.”
“Good,” said the president. He turned back to Joselyn. “You say that he left the island with another man. Can you describe this man?”
Joselyn thought for a moment. “He was short, maybe five-foot-five, five-six. Thinning hair, brown, dark eyes, dark complexion. A kind of sad face.”
“Could you help the FBI artists prepare a computer composite of the man?” This question came from an intense-looking man along the right side of the table.
“I could try.”
“You say he was dark,” said Hirshberg. “Could he have been a foreign national?”
“He didn’t speak with any apparent accent.”
“You heard him speak?” said the president.
“A few words. They were in a hurry. He came to the door of the room where I was and told Belden it was time to leave. That’s all I heard.”
“You were bound, gagged?” asked one of the other men.
“Tied up, on a bed. Belden had torn the tape from my mouth. He was questioning me.”
“What did he want to know?”
“He wanted to know what I had said to the authorities after the plane crash. Who Mr. van Ry was. They had seen him down on the dock, by the boats at Friday Harbor the night I was taken. They thought he might be with the government.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing. There was nothing I could tell him. I didn’t know anything. He already knew about my clients, the fishermen who had become ill. We thought it was an industrial injury of some kind.”
“And what was it?” asked Hirshberg.
“Radiation poisoning,” said Gideon. “The military confirmed that the docks and several of the boats were contaminated.”
“How?” said the president.
“The device. The outer casing split open. The plutonium core somehow got loose on the deck during a storm. It abraded “
“What’s that?” said Hirshberg.
“Plutonium is very soft,” said Gideon. “If it is rubbed on a rough surface, it will turn to dust. If that gets into the lungs, it is usually deadly. But I do not think that was the only problem here. There was too much contamination on the boat that I found. I believe there was something else.”
“What?” said the president.
“I believe that whoever engineered the device had in mind something particularly deadly. I believe they have combined the nuclear device with a quantity of cesium-137.”
“Explain,” said Hirshberg.
“Cesium is a particularly toxic material. A by-product in the refinement of plutonium. It emits very strong gamma radiation. It must be carefully handled in order to shield anyone from uncontrolled exposure. At room temperature it is a liquid, but it reacts violently to contact with other materials. It is soluble in water and a big worry for those who must dispose of it.”
“Why would they be bringing what is basically a nuclear waste product on the boat?” said one of the military men.
“As insurance,” said Gideon. “In case the device itself failed to reach critical mass, in which case there would be no nuclear chain reaction. Then at least the conventional explosive around the core of the device would vaporize the cesium, releasing it into the atmosphere. In sufficient quantities, it is very deadly. Carried on the wind, it would have killed thousands, perhaps tens of thousands.”
“If nothing else,” said one of the other military men, “it would have been a hell of a message from Saddam or Muammar.”
“If that’s who really is behind this,” said Hirshberg.
“I believe there was a quantity of cesium on that boat, and that some of it spilled.” Gideon ignored their obsession with fixing blame. The nuclear genie was coming home to roost.
“So essentially we have a dirty bomb?” said one of the military men.
“No,” said Gideon. “A dirty bomb relies solely on nuclear fallout for its destructive force. I believe this is a nuclear device with cesium to make it more deadly. Wherever it is detonated, that place will become a toxic wasteland and deadly for decades.”
There was silence around the table, deep lines of concern etched in the president’s face.
“It is the only thing that can explain the levels of contamination on that boat,” said Gideon.
“How far would this fallout travel?”
“It would depend on the wind,” said Gideon. “Whether there was rain.”
“Where is this boat now?” asked the president. “The boat that was contaminated.”
“It has been towed out to sea, along with several of the other fishing boats.” One of the military men answered the question. “They are decontaminating the dock. They may have to remove part of it.”
“Have they analyzed what was on that boat?” said the president.
“I don’t know,” said the man in the uniform.
“Well, find out.”
“Ms. Cole. Did the men on the island ask you any other questions?”
She shook her head slowly. “Not that I can remember.”
“Do you know how Belden and the other man left the island?”
She shook her head and thought for a moment. “It was a boat. I think the other man said something about a boat.” She couldn’t remember now whether she’d heard it or simply assumed it.
“Did you hear a boat leaving?”
She shook her head.
“Did they say anything about a destination?” asked Hirshberg.
She thought again. “No. Just that time was getting short. That they had to leave.”
“Anything else? Any other names?” said Hirshberg. Joselyn searched her memory, racked her brain. “No. But the two men on the porch. They mentioned names.”
“What men?” said the president.
“I don’t know. I could only hear their voices, outside when the shooting started. They mentioned a name.” She thought for a second. “Oliver. Edgar.” She looked down at the table-top. “Oscar.” Suddenly she looked up. “That was it. Oscar. I remember because they said he’d left the island earlier that morning as well.”
“With Belden and the other man?” said the president.
“I don’t think so.” Suddenly a look of revelation came over her face. “Oh, my God.”
“What is it?” said the president.
“They were talking about the bomb,” said Joselyn.
“What? Where?” said the president.
“The two men. They were out on the porch. There was a lot of confusion. Shooting.
They had a boat tied up in a cove somewhere on the island. They were talking about escaping. It’s how I heard about the bunkers’ being wired for explosives. They said Thorn had ordered it done. They mentioned Oscar, said he had left that morning and that they were supposed to get off the island if anything happened. The two men. They were supposed to go to a truck. And get the thing moving. Those were their words.”
“Does that island have ferry service for vehicles?” said Hirshberg. He looked at the people around the table. They were all scratching their heads and looking at one another.
“It did not.” The voice that spoke up was Gideon’s.
“How do you know?”
“I checked before I flew out of Friday Harbor on the Marine helicopter. I was supposed to help search for the device. I did not want that weapon placed on a car-carrying ferry in the sound as we approached. There was no public ferry service to the island.”
“Then it was never there,” said the president.
“No,” said Gideon.
“The Coast Guard threw a blockade around the island,” said Hirshberg. “There’s no way they could have gotten it off once the assault started.”
“Unless the man Belden took it out on the boat with him.”
“No. Not on a small boat,” said Hirshberg. “Satellite surveillance would have picked up a vessel that big coming from the island. Especially if it was on a truck.”
“That leaves one other matter,” said the president. He opened the small box that had been handed to him by the aide when he first called Joselyn’s name. He lifted the top and poured the contents out onto the table.
Gideon immediately recognized the wristwatch as his. Joselyn’s was next to it. Everything from the pockets of their clothing, including wallets, scraps of paper, and change, was lying on the table. Someone had gone through their wallets: driver’s licenses and credit cards landed on the table in a small heap.
“We have checked everything,” said Hirshberg. He was speaking to the president. “There are only a few items that we have questions about. I hope you understand.” He looked at Joselyn and Gideon.
Joselyn was angry. The authorities had gone through their clothing at the air station on Whidbey Island, searching through their wallets and pockets for information.
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