“I need some advice.”
“I’m going to give you advice? You were my boss. What do I know that you don’t?”
“Let me show you something.”
He led James to his desk, opened a drawer, and took out a sheaf of the latest AWACS flyovers of Yahweh. He spread them out on the desk.
James leaned over them and studied each from a foot away. “This that compound out in Montana?”
Pennington nodded.
“That lady on World News has sure been raising hell over that,” James said. “Last night she was comparing it to Waco, only worse.” He looked up from the photographs. “You looking at a siege here?”
“The Bureau and the ATF couldn’t begin to contain this area. It would take most of their field agents, and that still wouldn’t be enough manpower. And we can’t trust the National Guard in that area. A lot of them also belong to the Sanctuary.”
“Looks like this mountain is crawling with people.”
“As of this morning the AWACS specialists are estimating seven to eight hundred.”
“Jesus Keerist!” James looked back at the photographs. “That’s about what? Three square miles? They must be bumping into each other up there.”
“Seven square miles counting the backside of the mountain.” James picked up a magnifying glass and went over the pictures again. “Are they mining this mountain?”
“And stringing razor wire. We assume they’ve got very sophisticated weapons. Stingers, Dragons, M-16s, probably AKs and .50 calibers. And a ton of C-4.”
“Been busy little bastards, haven’t they?”
“They’re on a monthly bivouac. Usually they meet on Friday and wrap up on Sunday. They started gathering two days ago. If they don’t come out and go back home on Monday, we have a situation on our hands.”
“And Engstrom knows it,” James said.
“Sure he does. And he’s going to rub it in.”
Pennington opened a humidor on his desk and took out two Cuban cigars. He snipped the end off both of them, handed one to James, and lit them both with a specially made gold Zippo lighter. He went to the sofa, followed by James, and they sat down.
“If Engstrom’s planning a standoff,” Pennington said, “we have a major situation on our hands. They could send terrorist teams out of there at night, raise havoc, then bring them back a few nights later.”
“Have you got any legal recourse against them yet?”
“This man Vail is working on it. He’s making a lot of headway already and he hasn’t been on the job three weeks yet.”
“That’s the RICO case?”
“Yes. But that could take months.”
James puffed on his cigar and stared into Pennington’s eyes. Finally he said, “What’s on your mind, Larry?”
“What do you think it will take to dislodge them?”
“A lot of casualties on both sides, if they’re as serious as you think they are.”
“How about a blockade?”
“Phew!” James said. “A long, boring siege involving a lot of troops. It would cost a fortune.”
“It would be like a cancer, Jesse. A big tumor sitting out there festering while the taxpayers count the dollars.” He hesitated before he added, “How about a preemptive strike?”
“You’d consider using the Army?”
Pennington didn’t answer. He puffed on the cigar and blew smoke toward the ceiling.
“You can’t do that, Larry.”
“We’ve been using the military on the southern border for over a year.”
“Against wetbacks. These guys in Montana are American citizens.”
“Supposing they declared war against the United States?”
“I’m a military man, Larry. It’s not my decision to make. What does the A.G. have to say?”
“I haven’t discussed this with anyone but you. Supposing they attacked us first? We’ve got a couple of Nighthawks out there. Supposing they took one out?”
“I’d be very pissed. But I don’t know whether that’s provocation to launch an assault on several hundred American citizens. Have you thought about the public reaction?”
“Of course. I don’t know how it would float if they started trouble.”
“Not my expertise, either. I think you need to talk to one of those hotshot PR. firms in New York.”
“I’m talking to you, Jesse. I’d like you to do me a favor.”
“Of course.”
“Work up a plan of attack for me, estimate of body count, you know the drill. Just so I know what all my options are. Of course, this is just between you and me.”
“Between you and me.”
Pennington nodded.
“I’ll have to consult with some of my people, Mr. President. Stryker, head of the Rangers, Joe Ringer with Special Forces. Norris with Logistics.”
“Tell them it’s an exercise. Classify it top secret. They work for you, Jesse.”
“They work for you, Mr. President. You’re their commander in chief. How soon do you want this proposal?”
“This is Thursday. How does Sunday sound?”
ALBANY, GEORGIA, THURSDAY 11:46 A.M., EST
“Just call me Laverne,” she said with a smile. She was a chubby, flirtatious woman in her mid-forties and not at all impressed by the credentials of an FBI agent named Buddy Harris, who had flown to Albany from Atlanta.
“Good, I’m Buddy, Laverne. Maybe you can help me.”
“I’d just love to,” she said, leaning on the counter in the Office of Vital Statistics. “Are you spending the night? I can take you to the best barbecue shack in south Georgia.”
“Sorry, I’m out of here on the two o’clock plane.”
“Lunch?”
“Well, now, that’s a possibility.”
“Okay, Agent Harris, what’re you after?”
“A birth certificate for one Elijah Wells. Just want to take a look.” She looked genuinely surprised, then shrugged, said, “No problem,” and went away. She returned in a minute or two with a thick ledger book, leafed through it, found the entry she was seeking, and spun the book around to face the agent. She tapped the page.
There it was: Elijah John Wells, date of birth, March 12,1962. Parents: Frank and Helen Wells. Born in the local hospital.
“You lived in Albany very long, Laverne?”
“All my life. Went to work for the county the day I graduated from high school. Done about every job they got. Worked in the sheriff’s office for a while. Boooring. Transferred over here to Records about a year ago. Boooring.”
“You wouldn’t happen to know Frank and Helen Wells, would you?”
“Sure would. Live right over on Oak Street.”
“Do you know their children?”
“Why, of course. I’ve known them since they were born.”
“Are they still around town?”
“Hazel went to Atlanta after she graduated from Georgia Southern. Frank Junior works with his father down at the lumber mill.”
“How about Elijah? Is he still around?”
She looked at him curiously. “I can tell you exactly where he is at this very moment.”
“Really.”
“Uh-huh. Been there for over thirty years.”
“Here in town?”
She nodded. “Tell you what, Mr. FBI man, I’ll take you to see Elijah and then you can take me to lunch.”
“That sounds like a fair enough deal.”
They left the courthouse and she directed him across town.
“Turn left here,” she said, pointing to an arched drive.
“This is the cemetery,” Harris said.
“Uh-huh. Drive up there to the right.”
The road curved around through a blanket of green grass and old oak trees, past elegant tombstones surmounted by marble angels and crosses.
“Stop here,” she said finally. They got out of the car and she led him out across the expansive lawn to a large headstone. Across the top in fancy scrolled letters was the word
Wells, and beneath it the names of Jeremiah and Edith, both of whom had died in the late seventies. There was a second smaller stone beside the larger monument.
Elijah Wells
Beloved son of Frank and Mary
Born March 12,1962
Called home to God’s bosom
March 14,1962
Rest in peace our little angel
Elijah Wells had died two days after he was born.
CHAPTER 31
CHICAGO 2:42 P.M., CST
Vail liked to say that all it takes to win a RICO case is half a dozen good lawyers, hard work, no sleep, and a stroke of luck. In the Sanctuary case, that stroke came from out of nowhere. It started when Naomi took a phone call at the task force office.
“This is FBI Agent Alan Burger in the Bureau’s Des Moines office,” a tough old-timer said. “May I speak to Mr. Vail, please.”
“Sorry, Agent Burger, he’s out of the office. This is Naomi Chance, I’m deputy director of the task force. Can I help you?”
“You tell me. I got one crazy galoot here who comes in off the street about half an hour ago and demands to see Martin Vail. He won’t talk to me or anybody in this office but he says if Vail is looking for information on the Sanctuary, he’s the boy.”
“Who is he?”
“Name’s Ernest Gondorf. Kansas City address. This could be a lot of air, Miz Chance. The guy spent last night in the local drunk tank. Ran his car into a tree in the city park. He’s driving a new Firebird with Montana plates, he’s staying in an upscale motel here in town, and he had four thousand bucks in his wallet when he fell out of the car.”
“Interesting. Will he talk to one of us on the phone?”
“He says he wants to talk to Vail mano a mano. We invited him to leave but he won’t budge. The guy appears to be scared, but he’s putting up a tough front.”
“Scared?”
“Says he needs protection, that this guy Engstrom put out a hit on him.”
“Hold on just a minute, will you, Alan?” She put the agent on hold. Only Parver and Firestone were in the office. She explained the situation to them both.
“How about it, Sam, you want to play make-believe and see if this guy’s for real?”
“Sure.”
Naomi got back to Burger. “Is he nearby?” she asked.
“Right across the room.”
“Tell him you’ve got Vail.”
“He got back in a hurry.”
“Sure did.”
There was a muffled chuckle from Burger. She handed the phone to Firestone.
“Hello,” a voice on the other end said.
“This is Martin Vail. You wanted to talk to me?”
“Not on the phone. In person.”
“Mister… what was your name again, sir?”
“Gondorf. Ernie Gondorf. And I’m telling you I can put a dent in Engstrom and the Sanctuary, but I gotta have protection. You understand what I mean about that?”
“Des Moines is a long way from here, Mr. Gondorf. Could you give me an idea of what this is about?”
“Just come and get me, okay? You won’t be wasting your time.”
A moment later Burger came on the line. “He went back to his chair,” he said.
“And you don’t have a hold on this guy?”
“Nope. Bailed himself out of the drunk charge, got his car out of impound, and came over here.”
“And he won’t leave?”
“Nope. And he says if we make him leave, we’ll be responsible for his death.”
Firestone cupped the mouthpiece of the phone. “What do you think, Naomi? The guy won’t leave the Bureau office over there, says they’re going to kill him.”
“Phew.” She leaned back in her chair and made a face. “Well, the plane isn’t busy. What’ve we got to lose?”
“Mr. Burger, we’ll come on over there. Two hours, probably. Think you can put up with him until then?”
“I don’t have any choice. But hurry, will you?” Burger growled. “He’s sitting at my desk humming country songs and he’s tone deaf.”
“On the way.”
DES MOINES 5:13 P.M., CST
Ernie Gondorf was a wiry man in his late thirties, five-seven or so, with bad teeth behind a smirk of a smile, and hair trimmed in a crew cut. He was wearing a wool plaid shirt, dark green corduroy pants, and hiking boots. His narrow, paranoid eyes flicked around the small interrogation room when Burger led him in and left. Burger joined Parver and Firestone in the observation room.
Burger was a heavyset man with stringy, graying hair, cut short, and the beginning of a beer belly. He was dressed in a crisp white shirt, a green tie, and dark blue pants. His voice sounded like a gravel grinder. “All yours,” he said.
Gondorf looked into the mirror, his face a few inches from Shana Parver’s, separated only by the two-way glass. He straightened his hair and then, for some inexplicable reason, checked out his teeth.
“Sheesh,” Parver said. “Hasn’t this guy ever heard of a toothbrush?”
“Don’t get too close,” Burger said. “He’s got the breath to go with it.” Parver was dressed as conservatively as possible: a dark blue pantsuit and a wine blouse, her long, jet-black hair pulled back in a tight bun, and wearing glasses instead of her contacts. She was still beautiful. Firestone was dressed as usual, in a suede sport coat, Levi’s, a dark green wool button-down shirt, and a pair of vintage black Tony Lama cowboy boots. He looked more like John Wayne than Martin Vail.
Gondorf sat down behind a table scarred with cigarette burns, put his feet on the table, crossed them at the ankles, and crossed his arms. “Beautiful,” she said. “Looks like a real handful.”
“Slap his feet off the table when you go in,” Burger said. “It works to establish chain of command.”
“I’ll keep it in mind,” she said.
“Mind if I watch from here?” Burger asked. “I got a kind of vested interest in this.”
“Sure,” Parver said. “Is that video recorder loaded?”
He nodded. “Always is.”
“Mind shooting the interview?”
“Don’t you have to ask him first?”
“If he says no, turn it off.”
“Gotcha.”
She and Firestone entered the room, Firestone standing against the wall and leaving the field to Parver.
She said, “Mr. Gondorf, I’m Shana Parver, Assistant U.S. Attorney General. This is U.S. Marshal Sam Firestone. Please take your feet off the table.”
“Where’s Vail? I told him I’d only talk to him.”
“I’m authorized to speak in his behalf. Now put your feet down and we’ll get started.”
“I wanna see Vail.”
She slapped his feet off the table. “Listen, Mr. Gondorf, we just flew all the way over here at your invitation. You want some help from us? Stop acting like an asshole and start talking or we’re out of here and you can go out and go get your head blown off for all we care.”
“Whoa,” he said, snapping to attention.
“We’re videotaping this interview, I’m sure you don’t mind.”
“Well I—”
“We’ll start with your name, address, age, you know the drill, I’m sure.”
“I ain’t ever been arrested, this is all new to me. I mean, I ain’t a criminal, y’know. I tied one on. Big deal.”
“Why are we here, Ernie? Okay if I call you Ernie?”
“Everybody does.”
“So, we’re here. Give us a little bio on yourself and tell us your story.”
He hunched his shoulders and moved his head around. “You the one interested in the militias, right?”
“Possibly,” she said. “Let’s hear what you have to say.”
“My name’s Ernie Gondorf. I’m thirty-seven. Used to drive rods and then I had a ride for two years and did the whole southern circuit. Winston-Salem, Daytona, Atlanta. I looked good until I blew an engine and spun out at the Daytona 500. Gary Burrell was right be
hind me and he clipped my rear end, hit the wall and, you know, the car went all over the state and he ended up in the morgue. Everybody said I lost control, that it was my fault, yak yak. I lost my ride, lost the car, and it ain’t been real cheery since.”
“When was that?”
“Two years ago.”
“You live here in the city, Ernie?”
“Uh-huh. I been moving around a lot.”
“What do you do now?”
Gondorf leaned across the table and said, very seriously, “I never been arrested and I wasn’t in the Army.”
“That’s your career?”
“What I mean, my prints aren’t anywhere, or weren’t till last night.”
Parver stared at him but did not respond. She knew when to let them do it in their own way and in their own time.
“What I mean,” Gondorf said, “until last night, nobody had my prints on record. Not by name, okay.”
“But the cops have your prints now, that it?”
“Yeah, they do now. They printed me when I got arrested last night.”
“That’s the DUI?”
“The DUI.”
“So, what you’re saying, correct me if I’m wrong, sometime back you left your prints where they shouldn’t have been, that it?”
“Not here.”
“Well, where then?”
“Seattle.”
“Washington? That Seattle?”
“Only one I know of.”
“There’s a Seattle in Maine.”
“Oh, I didn’t know that.”
“So they have your prints in Seattle, Washington.”
“But not in my name. They just have, y’know, a set of prints, but no way to ID them.”
“And…”
“Last night I got nailed for this DUI, mugged, and printed. If they did another print run in Seattle now, they’d get a match-up, turn me for this other event.”
“What other event?”
“This thing in Seattle.”
“And what thing was that, Ernie?”
“Look, before we take this any further… I mean, if I tell you what I know, I want immunity.”
“Immunity from what?”
“From this event.”
“Now how can I do that, Ernie? I don’t have any idea what we’re talking about here.”
Gondorf leaned toward Parver and said quietly, “If you’re interested in the militia movement, I got what you want. Take my word for it.”
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