Rancho Buena Fortuna

by Bill King

  “Yes, ma’am. Her name is Gwen Thompson.”

  The brewing complete, the woman from the NSA walked back over to the table and handed him a cup of coffee, the steam rising, then sat back down next to him.

  “Do you know her?”

  “Vaguely. We’ve met once or twice,” he said, taking a sip of the coffee and burning his lip. “Very bright woman, in her mid- to late-twenties, I’d guess. If I remember correctly, she’s from somewhere on the West Coast. California, or maybe Oregon.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  Myron shook his head slightly from side to side before taking another sip of coffee. He was exhausted and all he wanted to do right now was to go back to his hotel and get some sleep.

  “Okay, I’ll notify the FBI,” she said, standing up and clasping her hands together before heading for the door. She turned back around to face him. “I need not remind you that this information is extremely close-hold. Under no circumstances should you mention this to anyone until after we have Ms. Thompson in custody.”

  ◆◆◆

  Gwen Thompson’s eyes lit up when she saw Pete Cortez making his way through the crowd at George Bush International Airport. The terminal was packed, as one might expect on a Monday morning, but she recognized the familiar face from a distance. She had enjoyed getting to know him at the reception and hoped that it might possibly be the beginning of a relationship.

  It was, but just not the kind of relationship she was hoping for.

  “Pete,” she called out to him, waving at him and smiling brightly. “I didn’t expect you to come and see me off at the airport.”

  She was puzzled by the fact that he was not smiling.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked, as he approached to within three feet of her. His expression was odd, as if the two of them had never even met before, much less spent several hours having dinner and dancing and talking together just a day and a half earlier.

  “Gwen Thompson, you are under arrest for aiding and abetting a terrorist enterprise, as well as for obstruction of justice,” he said somberly. It wasn’t until that moment that she noticed he had two other people accompanying him.

  Her face went flush.

  “What are you talking about, Pete?” she asked, trying to sound confused, but a brief, momentary reaction, a glimpse in her eyes, said otherwise. She knew she had been unmasked.

  He ignored her question. Instead, he read her Miranda Rights against self-incrimination.

  “Pete, what’s going on? You’re scaring me.”

  She now looked genuinely frightened and confused. She was good, he had to admit. But for that millisecond glimpse of guilt, she gave no sense that she had even the slightest idea what he was talking about.

  “You’re going to have to come with us, Gwen,” said Cortez, firmly grasping her by the elbow and gently nudging her in the direction of the main entrance to the airport. “If you show any resistance, we’ll have to place you in cuffs before we walk you outside to our vehicle. It’s up to you, Gwen. I don’t want to have to embarrass you in public any more than we already are.”

  She nodded her head and said, simply, “Show me the way.”

  The forty-five-minute drive from the airport to the FBI building was spent mostly in silence. Cortez sat in the back seat with Gwen but refrained from any attempts at conversation. She had already informed him from the start that she wanted to speak with her attorney, and he didn’t want to say or do anything that might inadvertently give her side a legal advantage.

  Cortez also didn’t realize that the clock was already ticking for the FBI—and for the entire nation, as well.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 33

  “JEEZ, I WONDER HOW much longer they’re going to be?” asked Pete Cortez, looking impatiently at his wristwatch. It was just past three on what had been another hot, sweltering late-May day in Houston. Spring, summer or fall, it didn’t matter. Houston was hot every day.

  It was now Thursday afternoon, three days since Gwen Thompson had been arrested. Cortez and Gonçalves had been waiting anxiously in the ASAC’s office for the past forty-five minutes while Gwen and her attorney were down the hall in the interrogation room discussing her options. The sudden and unexpected demise of Chucho had sent their investigation reeling. They were not going to make the same mistake with Thompson.

  It had been a long and exceedingly tedious last couple of days. She had refused to say anything to them since they had picked her up on Monday. No questions. No statement. Nothing. Her lawyer had notified them half an hour ago that her client might be willing to make an offer. She declined to give them a hint as to what that offer might be.

  An FBI agent stuck her head through the doorway into Gonçalves’ office and announced, “They’re ready.”

  Two minutes later, the four of them were seated in the starkly furnished interview room. Cortez and Gonçalves sat across the table from Gwen Thompson and her lawyer, a high-priced criminal defense attorney from one of Houston’s leading firms. Just the clothes alone that the woman was wearing probably cost more than half a year’s salary for the average American. I wonder how a low-level government employee can afford the legendary Rebecca Collins, Cortez thought to himself.

  “All charges dropped and witness protection,” said Rebecca Collins, matter-of-factly. “In return, my client will give you the name and location of the people who hired her.”

  “What makes you think her information is worth that much?” asked Gonçalves. He had a tiny device in his right ear so that he could communicate with the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Texas, who was watching and listening to the interview from behind the one-way mirror facing Thompson and her attorney.

  The lawyer leaned her head slightly to her left so that Thompson could whisper something into her ear. Collins listened impassively for about fifteen seconds before sitting back up straight.

  “My client has informed me that the people who hired her to insert the bug into the CBP communications software are also the same people behind the Federal Reserve bombings,” said Collins, her eyes intently studying the reaction from the two FBI agents.

  Neither man said anything. They just sat there impassively, looking at Collins and Thompson, waiting patiently for one of them to say more. Silence makes most people nervous, especially in stressful situations like this. It usually causes a guilty person to want to break the silence by talking more.

  Gwen Thompson was just about to say something when Collins put a hand on top of hers, indicating that she should keep her mouth shut and let her lawyer do all the talking.

  “Miss Thompson also wanted me to tell you that their next target is set for some time this weekend—Memorial Day weekend—and that you don’t have much time left if you want to be able to do something about it.”

  “Tell us about this target,” said Cortez. He still had a hard time accepting the fact that Gwen Thompson was involved in this, much less that she was significantly involved.

  “Am I to understand then that we have a deal?” asked Collins, her eyebrows raised. She stared inquisitively at the one-way mirror and knowing that the U.S. Attorney was seated behind it. Ten seconds passed before anyone spoke.

  “Yes, Ms. Collins, the AUSA has just informed me that we have the potential for a deal,” said Gonçalves, nodding his head and touching his earpiece. “Full immunity and WITSEC, assuming, of course, that the information she provides us is both accurate and useful…and actionable.”

  Collins turned to her right and nodded at Gwen, signaling that they had successfully concluded the preliminary negotiation phase and that they would now be moving on to the Q&A phase of the interview.

  “Well, then, shall we begin?” said Collins, a tight smile frozen on her face. “My client will tell you everything that she knows on the subject.”

  Cortez jumped in first. “Okay, Ms. Thompson, tell us about the next target. Which bank is it?”

  “It’s not just a bank,” said Thompson in
a soft, uncertain voice. She was still not totally confident that she might be able to salvage at least something from her now destroyed life, despite the fact that her lawyer, upon hearing her story, virtually guaranteed it. “It’s a city.”

  Cortez was stunned. Momentarily speechless.

  “A city?” he replied. “That’s it?”

  “Yes, a city,” she replied meekly. “The entire city.”

  “Which city?”

  “That, I don’t know.”

  Gonçalves rose slowly from his chair, his expression a mixture of frustration and anger. “You don’t know the name of the city? Miss Collins, I can’t believe you’ve waisted our time with this cock-and-bull story.”

  He turned to the lawyer. “Unless your client can give us some more detail—in fact, a heck of a lot more detail—I think we’re done here.”

  Both Collins and Gwen remained seated, expressionless. The lawyer looked not in the least bit concerned.

  “Oh, don’t worry, Agent Gonçalves, there’s more,” said Collins, resting her hand on top of her client’s arm to reassure her that everything was still under control. “Much more, if you’d just hold your horses.”

  He sat back down in his chair and looked across the table at the two women.

  “Okay. Talk to me. You can start by telling me who these people are.”

  For the next few minutes, Gwen told them about Graciela Montoya and how they had been close friends since both were students at Stanford.

  “You met Gracie at the wedding this past weekend,” she said to Cortez, who nodded his head but, otherwise, his expression remained passive.

  “Gracie is an engineer,” said Gwen, leaning forward and setting her crossed hands on top of the table. “A very gifted engineer. In fact, she was granted several patents while still a graduate student at Stanford. Her imagination knows no bounds and she possesses the technical skills necessary to implement her ideas. I always figured she would start her own tech company, maybe go head to head with Apple or Tesla. She is the one who designed the software patch I entered into the Border Patrol’s system.”

  “Great. She’s smart. I get it. Now tell us about the bomb.”

  “That’s why she hired another friend of mine from school. Her name is Rhonda Shaughnessy and she’s a Ph.D. candidate in physics. She’s already completed her coursework and was finishing up on her thesis when Gracie approached her.”

  “So, this Rhonda Shaughnessy was brought onboard to build a bomb?”

  “No, her bachelors and masters were in nuclear engineering, but her job in this was to prepare the device to be deployed,” said Gwen, her voice now beginning to show signs of confidence. “The actual bomb was provided by a man they only referred to as The Frenchman. I don’t know very much about him, but I hear he’s a pretty scary guy.”

  Gonçalves’ face went flush. Unlike Gwen, he knew quite a bit about The Frenchman. In fact, with the mere mention of his name, the seriousness of the threat they faced had just increased tenfold. People like The Frenchman have the experience and the wherewithal to pull off something like this. This is definitely not a bunch of hapless amateurs.

  It also answered the question with almost virtual certainty about what had happened to the Russian nuclear device after it arrived in port in Mexico.

  “How do they intend to deploy this weapon?” asked Gonçalves, the color still not completely returned to his face.

  “The people carrying out the attack are part of a Venezuelan radical group called M-28.”

  The name caught Cortez’s attention.

  “As in Mateo Calderón?” he asked. Now it was his turn to be surprised.

  “Yes, I believe that’s the name of the leader,” she said. “Tall, good looking man, probably about six-foot-six.”

  “He goes by the name of Fósforo, right?”

  Gwen nodded her head.

  Gonçalves looked at him quizzically. “How do you know about this guy?”

  “He and I grew up together in Caracas,” said Cortez, as if it were just the most natural coincidence in the world. “His dad was a high-priced Venezuelan lawyer and mine was an American oil company executive. We went to school together and played on the same soccer team for years.”

  “It sounds like you two chose different career paths,” said Gonçalves, smiling wryly.

  “Where is Calderón now?” asked Cortez. He glanced over at the digital clock on the wall by the door. It was nearly four.

  “I don’t know. I wasn’t in on the operational planning,” said Gwen.

  “That’s not good enough, Gwen,” said Cortez, who was now clearly pissed. “Don’t play games with us. You haven’t given us nearly enough to honor your part of the bargain. Where the hell is the target?”

  Gwen looked at her lawyer, a worried look on her face.

  “If you know the answer, Gwen, you need to tell him,” said Collins, placing her hand on top of Gwen’s folded hands.

  “I…I don’t know,” she said, her voice trembling. “But I do know that Rhonda keeps an apartment in Laredo. I don’t think she stays there every night—she also has a room at The Rancho—but I think she spends the night there a couple of times a week. I’m sure she would know the location of the target.”

  Gonçalves leaned over and whispered something in Cortez’s ear.

  “Pete, you finish up here,” he said in a hushed voice, covering his mouth with his hand. “I’m going to get Bobby Janak on the phone and have his people track down where this Rhonda Shaughnessy lives and take her into custody. We also probably ought to notify DOE to put a NEST team on high alert.”

  NEST stands for Nuclear Emergency Support Team, a group of scientists and engineers under the Department of Energy whose job it is to respond to radiological incidents anywhere in the world.

  Cortez gave Gonçalves a thumbs-up gesture as the ASAC left the room, closing the door behind him. He returned his attention to Thompson.

  “Tell me about this Rancho Buena Fortuna,” said Cortez, moving on to another line of questioning.

  “It’s a remote ranch located on the Mexican side of the border,” she said. “Kind of in the middle of nowhere. They keep the area clear of other smuggling operations so that they can use it as a secret border crossing for high-value customers. The smuggling part of it is located all underground.”

  “You mean like a tunnel?”

  “I mean like the Houston Convention Center, except that it’s all underground and on both sides of the river…but, yes, it’s connected by tunnels,” she said. “It’s used for a lot more than just moving people in and out of the country.”

  “This just keeps getting worse and worse by the minute,” mumbled Cortez.

  ◆◆◆

  Cortez did not leave the FBI building that night. He was supposed to meet a buddy at the Astros game and had finally remembered somewhere around the fourth inning to call him to tell him that something had come up at work and that he wouldn’t be able to make it.

  It was now eleven o’clock at night and Cortez sat slumped in an armchair in Gonçalves’ office, as the two men tried to make sense of the situation now facing them. They were at ground zero for what was either the biggest threat, or the biggest hoax, the United States had faced in decades, if not ever…a nuclear attack on an American city.

  The conundrum was which one.

  The U.S. Embassy in Caracas had transmitted the most recent photos they had of Mateo Calderón and these were disseminated to federal, state and local law enforcement agencies throughout the country. So far, though, they had come up empty.

  No one had seen hide nor hair of the M-28 leader.

  “You would think that, with every law enforcement officer in the country looking for him, the odds should be pretty good that we would be able to find a man who is at least six-foot-six,” Cortez said, loosening his necktie and unbuttoning the top button on his shirt.

  “Maybe he’s not even in the States yet,” said the ASAC. “Or maybe it’s all just a bunch of
BS. Thompson could be playing us.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Well, there’s a faction in the NCTC that thinks it’s a ruse designed to distract our attention to a sideshow while they attack somewhere else. They think the real target is the New York Fed building and that, by focusing our resources on a supposed nuclear strike in the heartland, we’re making it easier for them to attack their real target.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, boss. I hope they’re right…but I don’t believe they are.”

  ◆◆◆

  While Cortez and Gonçalves were sitting in the ASAC’s office trying to figure out what to do next, Mateo Calderón was closing the big sliding door to the old barn. He climbed back into the front passenger seat of the black Chevy Tahoe.

  “Well, we’re off,” he said, turning around in his seat to look at Isabela, who was sitting in the back seat with another M-28 member, a clean-shaven young man who looked like he could be an insurance salesman. “Is everyone comfortable?”

  All four passengers in the SUV appeared to be in good spirits, despite the fact that they would be spending the next six or seven hours in a closed vehicle with a nuclear device packing five times the explosive power of the bomb that decimated Hiroshima more than seventy years ago. The four of them had been in Dallas a week earlier on a reconnaissance mission and knew exactly what to do once they reached the Metroplex.

  The driver, a young woman in her early thirties, was also their electronics expert. At least, that’s the subject she taught at the university. Her long auburn hair, gathered together in a ponytail, was covered by a generic blue ballcap that bore no logo that could make her more memorable to any potential witnesses. Her face, although somewhat pretty, was slightly pockmarked, the remnants of a childhood bout with chickenpox.

  Their plan was to drive all night. If all went well, they would be pulling into the outskirts of the Dallas Metroplex sometime around six o’clock on Friday morning.

  ◆◆◆

  Chapter 34