by C. W. Saari
Agent Campbell and his team were efficient. They’d confirmed the rental of office furniture but struck out on getting additional information on O’Brien. Campbell asked the FBI in Charlotte to pursue the rental of a ground penetrating radar system. Interviews were underway at a tunneling equipment company in Dahlonega, Georgia, where Sean O’Brien had purchased drilling gear, pipe casings, and other equipment.
Records at a rental car company at the Atlanta airport showed that Sean O’Brien rented a Ford Taurus for a week—the same week he’d signed the lease for the office. Another company showed O’Brien had rented a white panel truck for six months. It was due back next week. A BOLO (be on the look-out notice) was issued for the van and its Georgia license plate. Campbell’s team was also checking with ten companies that sold welding supplies. Later, they would scour Atlanta area wig dealers.
Derek Barnes was handling the neighborhood investigation around Mike’s Mini-Mart, but preliminary results weren’t promising. Mercedes Ramirez announced she had found two hairs, possibly human, in the surface debris she vacuumed from the tunnel. That could be a break.
An hour later Ernie Gonzales, the technical supervisor, called. “Ty, we’ve got a signal.”
“What?”
“Both transponders and the motion sensor from the money bag are working,” Ernie said excitedly. “One of the guys was repairing some equipment in the shop when the signals went off. It’s only been three minutes.”
“Do you have a fix?” Bannister asked.
“Yes. It’s coming from Piedmont Park. That’s about six miles from here,” Gonzales said.
“Get a team rolling, now! I’ll call the radio room and see if we have any units in the vicinity.”
Luck was on their side. Two agents were on Piedmont Avenue a half mile from the park. They responded to the call and were told to look for a white van or panel truck. SAC Brennan and ASAC Witt were notified of the development.
Bannister grabbed Mercedes and they headed for the park. Gonzales’s team arrived at the same time as they did. Gonzales pinpointed the GPS signal, which was still working but hadn’t moved. The signal was coming from a spot opposite a gazebo. Unfortunately, it was ten yards out into a lake. The bank robbery agents checked out the walking paths from the gazebo to the parking lots. They located a young couple pushing a baby stroller who had seen a man walking alone away from the gazebo in the opposite direction. They were unable to give a good description. The woman thought he was a white male. Her boyfriend said the man was black. No help.
Bannister and Mercedes were still on site an hour later when two of the office’s dive-trained SWAT agents came out of the water holding a canvas mason’s bag. Inside was the package of waterlogged hundred dollar bills with the hollowed-out center. The transponder, now visible, was still stuck in the middle of the package. Gonzales lifted a corner of the false bottom where the other transponder and motion sensor were installed. Both the transponder and the sensor were operating perfectly. Now they knew one of the subjects was still in the area.
While Bannister and Mercedes drove back to the office, they got a second break. A Transit Authority cop, remembering their BOLO notice, spotted a white panel truck in the long-term parking area of the Doraville subway station. The truck, without a license plate, had a VIN number matching the Budget vehicle rented by Sean O’Brien. Derek Barnes and an evidence team were dispatched to the lot, where they secured the truck and arranged for it to be towed to the FBI garage. The team was making progress.
Everyone was back in the office for SAC Brennan’s briefing. Brennan started the meeting by saying he was pleased with their efforts and was confident they would solve the Global extortion. When the boss turned to the ASAC for his input, Witt warned everyone to make sure their paperwork was current and accurate. Witt reminded everyone the inspection team from Washington was arriving in ten days for their inspection of the office. He said he didn’t want any heads to roll because of the Global case. A classic case of the carrot and the stick. They all preferred carrots.
Everyone briefed their part of the investigation. Additional assignments were made and they adjourned.
Bannister called Adam Kush at Global and checked to see if he had his list of discharged and disgruntled employees. He said he was ready and would be at the office late. Kush told him their insurance company agreed to reimburse Global for the five million dollars but was deferring payment for sixty days.
Before locking up, Bannister checked in with Doug Gordon in Washington.
“Hey Ty. I’m sorry we didn’t get much from processing your friend’s car. No real leads.”
Bannister bit back a curse and said, “I know you’re doing the best you can.”
“The lab guys analyzed dirt taken from the tire treads. Surprisingly enough, the soil is almost identical to that found in the vicinity of the FBI Academy. Unofficially, it looks like the car may have been driven in an area that is parkland or Government reservation. I know it’s not much, but it’s all we’ve got right now.”
“Thanks, Doug. Keep me posted. And if I don’t hear from you, have a good Turkey Day.”
Bannister hung up and immediately got another call.
“Special Agent Bannister? This is Candace at Best Atlanta. I just thought of something. I’ve got a recording of that Sean O’Brien’s voice. He left me a voicemail message on my office phone when he made an appointment to pick up the keys. I’ve still got that message on the machine.”
“Candace, you’re my new best friend. Can you stay at the office till I get there?”
“I’ll be here, but I have a closing in an hour. Can you come before then?”
“I’m on my way.”
Ernie Gonzales set him up with equipment for dubbing calls, either from a computer or phone, and Bannister was out the door in fifteen minutes.
Candace Miller welcomed him into her office. Bannister made two copies of O’Brien’s message and secured the original backup tape as evidence. When they shook hands, Candice held onto his hand a bit longer than necessary. Bannister detected something inviting in her voice when she said, “If I can do anything else for you, Tyler, please give me a call.”
He took the tapes with him and drove over to Global Waters for his meeting with Adam Kush. He was walking into the lobby right as the doors were being locked. He headed upstairs to the executive level where Adam and Robin were still working.
Inside Kush’s office at his round table, the three went over a list of fifteen Global employees fired in the past two years. Bannister was looking for the inside link. Six of the employees were women; nine were men. One woman had worked in the payroll department as the assistant manager, had access to all personnel files, as well as Global’s accounting system, and had managed to override a supervisor’s authentication for overtime payments. She’d padded her own salary by five hundred a month. At the time of her dismissal, she had been overpaid five thousand dollars.
One of the men had been fired for lying on his application about credit-related scams, one of which involved bilking an older man out of $18,000 for a used truck. He’d been sued in civil court, and no arrests were on his record. Another guy was one of Global’s computer troubleshooters who had been arrested for stalking a topless dancer. When he was fired, he had threatened to get even.
Bannister told them about the recording of Sean O’Brien’s voice. He took out the tape and played the call.
“Miss Miller, this is Sean O’Brien. Unless there’s a problem, I’ll be at your office this Friday at ten to pick up the keys. You have my number.”
Adam Kush was the first to speak. “Sounds like a young guy.”
As Bannister pushed the rewind button on his tape recorder, he looked at Robin. The pale expression on her face told him to stop and listen.
“I know him,” she said slowly. “That’s Terry Hines. The voice belongs to Terry Hines.”
“Come to think of it, his voice does sound familiar,” Kush said.
“How sure
are you, Robin?” Bannister asked.
“Play it again, please.” He played it two more times.
“It’s him. I’m sure of it.”
“Where’s Hines now?” Bannister asked.
“On a cruise, I think,” Kush said. “He went on vacation Wednesday and isn’t due back until a week from Monday.”
Bannister took out copies of the modified photo Germaine White had prepared and slid them on the table to Adam and Robin. They only needed a moment to glance at the photograph.
“That’s him,” Adam said.
“That’s Terry,” Robin said.
“We’ve identified Sean O’Brien.”
“No kidding. Who is it?” Witt asked.
“He’s one of Global’s current employees,” Bannister said into his cell. “Guy named Terry Hines.”
“Fantastic. How’d you make the ID? Where are you?” Witt asked.
“At the office. We still have a lot of checking to do, but it looks like he’s their international marketing rep. The realtor who leased the office to him had saved a message from him on her voicemail. I took a recording of the voice and played it for Robin Mikkonen and Adam Kush. Robin’s positive it’s Hines. I showed her and Kush a computer-enhanced photo of Sean O’Brien. They say it’s a match.”
“Have you got enough for an arrest warrant?”
“Not yet. What I want to do first is compare his DNA from a coffee cup he had on his desk to the DNA from the hairs Mercedes recovered from inside the tunnel. We’re processing the van O’Brien rented for the past five months. We may get something from that. I’m optimistic he’s one of our subjects.”
“Whadda ya mean, one?”
“We still don’t know how many people are involved. It’d be damn impressive for one guy to pull this off. He’d have to procure or make his own ricin, secretly rent an office, and dig a sophisticated tunnel.”
“Where’s Hines now?” Witt asked.
“Three hours ago he boarded a cruise ship at Fort Lauderdale, Florida.” Anticipating Witts next question, Bannister pulled up the cruise line’s web page on his computer and was staring at the planned stops for the Sunset Princess.
“How do you know that?”
“Kush pulled Hines’s itinerary. He’s leaving today from Fort Lauderdale on a nine-day cruise. His ship stops at Key West, Cozumel, and Grand Cayman. I got in touch with our Fort Lauderdale agent who handles liaison with the cruise ships. The security officer on board the Sunset Princess happens to be a retired agent out of Tampa. He said the passenger manifest lists our guy as having boarded.”
“Do you think he has the money with him?”
“It’d be a helluva risk to carry around a suitcase full of money. More likely than not, he took a few stacks with him and stashed the rest. We should be able to get the DNA results soon. Mercedes took the evidence to the CDC since they agreed to do the DNA testing. They already have the ricin and understand we’re dealing with a biological threat. We don’t know if there’s more ricin out there. I briefed Stu before calling you, and he’s assigned four agents to come in tomorrow to run down leads on Hines. I’ll put the details together for the US Attorney’s office and see if we can get a search warrant for his apartment, car, and computer.”
“Does the SAC know?”
“Not yet. I thought you’d want to call him with the news.”
On Tuesday afternoon Bannister was sitting at his desk jotting down notes for a meeting with the boss. SAC Brennan wanted to hear the evidence against Hines. Bannister had taken a call earlier from the security director on board the Sunset Princess, informing him the ship had just left Key West with Hines still aboard.
Germaine White had drawn a timeline on the case, as well as a link analysis between Sean O’Brien and Terry Hines. It looked damaging to Hines. Bannister walked over to Stu Peterson’s office where he was bent over his desk with some papers and a bottle of correction fluid.
“Witt’s driving me nuts,” Stu said. “He’s obsessed with the inspection. I’m trying to manage investigations, and for the third time today I’ve had to revise this statistics sheet for him. He asked if I minded him calling you directly for hourly updates on the Global case. He was surprised when I said yes. I’m trying to keep him off your back.”
“I appreciate that.”
“He’s wound up tight, concerned the inspectors are going to turn up something he’ll get blamed for. Believe me, that’s not what I want. None of the supervisors wants anything to delay Witt’s promotion back to headquarters where they can keep him on a short tether.”
Stu glanced at his watch and picked up his notebook. He stood and motioned for Bannister to head for the elevator. The two went down to the fourth floor to Brennan’s office. Witt was already there. The four of them took seats around the boss’s coffee table.
“What’ve we got so far?” Brennan asked.
“We have good circumstantial evidence pointing to Terry Hines. Robin Mikkonen is positive Hines’s voice is identical to a call the real estate broker received from O’Brien. One of our techs is doing a voice analysis of that call and Hines’s voice from a Global Waters training video. Physically, Hines and O’Brien are a match. Both Mikkonen and Kush said an enhanced driver’s license photo of O’Brien looks like Hines. Since he’s one of Global’s corporate managers, he definitely has inside information. The original extortion package used an internal address for Kush that outsiders wouldn’t have known.”
“Any useful fingerprints?” Brennan asked.
“No. He’s been careful. We’ve come up empty from the office, truck, and documents. We’ve tied the truck to the office and tunnel through concrete and soil samples found in the bed of the truck.”
“Anything from the money bag?” Witt asked.
“No. We recovered $4,800 in torn bills and our three tracking devices but didn’t get any other forensics. Gonzales believes the subject used some type of electronic shielding material to block our signals.”
“At least we got our sensors back so we won’t have to worry about accounting for missing government property,” Witt said.
Brennan rolled his eyes.
Bannister’s cell phone vibrated and he looked at the number. It was Mercedes. He excused himself from the meeting and stepped out to the secretary’s office.
“We’ve got a match. The DNA from the hairs in the tunnel is the same as the DNA we got from Hines’s coffee cup,” she said.
“Hot damn!” Bannister pumped his fist through the air. “That’s great, Mercedes. That’s all we need. I’m in a meeting with the boss right now. I’ll let him know.”
Bannister walked back in and told them the news.
“Man. That’s great!” Brennan said, pounding a closed fist into his open hand. “I knew you guys would solve this thing. Let’s get the warrants.”
“Your team’s doing great work,” Stu said, standing up and shaking Bannister’s hand.
“Where’re we going to pick him up?” Witt asked.
“No need to rush,” Bannister said. “There’s no indication the threat to poison Global’s water products will be carried out. Their people are still on alert. We need to find out where the ricin came from and if there’s any more out there. Hines thinks he’s gotten away with it. He’s confirmed on a Delta flight next Sunday from Ft. Lauderdale to Atlanta.”
“Why don’t we arrest him as soon as his ship docks?” Witt asked.
“We could, but it would complicate things. I’d like a shot at interviewing him as soon as he’s arrested. We can control everything if we take him down in Atlanta. If he’s arrested in Florida, extradition proceedings might drag things out.”
“I know the US Attorney would prefer to make a press release on a case that will probably receive international attention. I’d like to call him and let him know we intend to make an arrest in Atlanta,” Witt said.
Brennan nodded approval.
Witt put his cell phone on speaker mode and punched in three numbers. “I need the
number for the US Attorney in Atlanta.”
“Sir, this is not an emergency. You’ll have to dial 4-1-1,” the operator said.
After the laughing subsided, Witt, his face still red, said, “I’ll handle it later.”
Brennan looked in Bannister’s direction with a grin.
“We can search Hines’s apartment, office desk, and computer, and get more evidence while he’s working on his tan,” Bannister said. “I’ll make sure he’s under surveillance. We can have Ft. Lauderdale put an agent on the plane with him and search Hines’s luggage when he arrives.”
Brennan said, “Gary, let the US Attorney know we’re all in agreement.”
Stu said, “I want Hines arrested at Hartsfield as soon as he gets off the plane. Have him taken to the international concourse where Homeland Security has an office. You can take photos and prints, and interview him there. Unless he lawyers up, you might be able to find out if he’s in this alone.”
“I second that. I don’t want to give him an opportunity to think. Catch him totally off guard.”
Search warrants and an arrest warrant were signed early Wednesday. Bannister drove out to Hines’s apartment. One of Gonzales’s lock guys and a computer tech met him in front of the complex. Derek Barnes and Mercedes Ramirez pulled into the complex and parked near the back entrance.
Bannister didn’t notify the apartment manager since Hines was still on a cruise, and they didn’t yet know if he had any accomplices. His apartment didn’t have an alarm, but Hines had installed a second deadbolt. It took the lock guy only two minutes to open both locks.
Hines had more mirrors on his walls than any apartment Bannister had ever seen. There was even a full-length mirror on the back of his entry door. Ramirez had to photograph every room, and it took her extra time to make sure she wasn’t standing where her reflection would be in every picture. Hines had a large David Hockney print on the wall behind his couch. It showed a man, visible from the waist up, standing in a turquoise swimming pool. With its bright blues and yellows, the print was reflected all over the apartment through the placement of the mirrors. Bannister felt like he was standing outside of a beach condo. He knew Quantico’s Behavioral Science people would find Hines’s narcissistic decorating interesting.