Naomi wasn’t going to be deterred that easily. “It could be everything.”
The sergeant on desk duty in Hanover returned the call ten minutes later. Naomi snatched up the phone and listened intently while Ryan looked on, rooted in place by a strange mixture of anticipation and apprehension. For some reason, he knew they were finally on to something.
She pulled the receiver away from her mouth. “Milbery leased a property less than three weeks ago. Just under a hundred acres, three miles east of I-95.” She turned her attention back to the telephone. “Did he leave a — okay, he did. That’s great, I need you to fax that over to me. What was the name again?”
Ryan started to say something but she waved him away. “Okay, that’s fine. Thanks for your help, Sergeant. Can you make your captain available? We’re going to need to talk to him if this adds up to anything… Okay, thanks.”
She hung up and turned to face him. “Timothy Nichols. Does that name mean anything to you?”
He thought for a minute, pushed the names out and together again, mixed up the letters, turned them around. When it came to him, the rest of the room seemed to fall away. “It’s him.”
“What?” She looked up, startled. “How do you know?”
“Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, Naomi. He always was an arrogant bastard.”
She went pale as she realized what he was saying. “Oh my God.”
As if on cue, the fax machine started up and produced a single piece of paper. Although the driver’s license was not blown up to magnify the features, and the face itself was blurred by copying distortion, Ryan knew exactly who he was staring at when he lifted the sheet to the light.
“That’s Will Vanderveen,” he said.
CHAPTER 31
TYSON’S CORNER, VIRGINIA
Patrick Landrieu stood at the head of the table and surveyed the people sitting on either side of the polished wooden surface. Despite the fact that he was the ranking person in the room, he knew better than to try to assert his authority over the group that he currently faced. The combination of their egos and ambition easily overruled his titular superiority, and he was well aware that they would crush him in an instant if they felt it to be in their best interest.
Landrieu was a round little man with a prominent nose, sparse gray hair, and cheeks flushed pink from the heart medication that he took twice a day, or at least whenever his secretary reminded him. The fact that he made a habit of working sixteen-hour days was reflected in his shabby appearance. His career, however, had never suffered from his slight physical stature. He had begun his government service as a terrorism analyst nearly twenty-three years earlier, and his rise through the ranks had been remarkable. He had served as chief of staff to the director of Central Intelligence, and then most recently as deputy executive director before being appointed by the DCI to his current position.
As he looked out over the sea of faces, he saw that they were appraising him in turn. Perhaps more than a few were wondering how much longer Landrieu’s reign could possibly last. He was already coming under heavy fire for the intelligence failures that had led to the most recent disastrous events in Washington, as well as for the lack of success in capturing the man believed responsible for both terrorist attacks.
Aside from Landrieu, there were seven other people in the room. Seated immediately to his right was Deputy Director Emily Susskind of the FBI. Next to Susskind was Assistant Director Joshua McCabe of the Secret Service and its advance team leader, Jodie Rivers.
Also present was Colonel Stephen Plesse, the superintendent of the Virginia State Police. Plesse had arrived by helicopter from the VSP Administrative Headquarters in Richmond less than ten minutes earlier. He was in full uniform despite the early hour, and his face was still red from the harsh winter wind that had cropped up in the past few hours and was now singing around the building.
The three remaining people in the room were seated to the left of Plesse. They were Jonathan Harper, Ryan Kealey, and Naomi Kharmai.
“Well,” Landrieu said, “you’ve all been made aware of the purpose of this meeting. I suggest we get right down to it. We have very little time to waste.”
“Do we have any guess as to how much time, exactly, sir?” Rivers asked. She had no desire to be at this meeting, figuring that her rightful place was back on the waterfront finalizing the security arrangements. Even if she had wanted to, there was no way she could spare the resources for anything they might have had in mind.
The director looked around the room, his eyes settling on Jonathan Harper. “Does anyone have an answer for that?”
“The timetable depends on what kind of weapon he’s planning to use, and that comes down to what kind of vehicle he’s driving,” Harper said. “Obviously, he’ll need a bigger window if he’s trying to bring a bomb into the city. I don’t believe we’ve come up with anything solid on that yet. Emily?”
Susskind looked up from her coffee and debated for a second, her slender fingers dancing on the rim of her cup. “The only vehicle registered by Timothy Nichols in the state of Virginia is a four-year-old Honda motorcycle. Unfortunately, that doesn’t really mean anything; he could have acquired another vehicle under a different name, or maybe he’s stolen one — there’s just no way of knowing.
“There’s something else we need to consider, though. Once we had his alias, the link between Vanderveen and Theresa Barzan was quickly established. We still don’t know her real identity, but we do know that, using that name on her Saudi passport, she wired him almost 35,000 dollars over the past several weeks. The funds were routed through the Caymans and the Cook Islands, which made it very difficult to trace. That’s not enough money for a payoff, but it is enough to purchase a lot of expensive equipment.” She paused and cleared her throat gently. “The kind of equipment he would need to construct and conceal a large explosive device.”
A grim silence ensued as the people around the table considered this news. It was Jonathan Harper’s measured words that finally shattered the calm.
“There’s a chance he went back to the source, despite the increased security that was put in place after the Kennedy-Warren bombing. Has this information been checked against the records in Norfolk?”
“I have people working on that right now,” Susskind responded. “We haven’t been able to get in contact with the director of operations or the terminal manager. The highest we could get was an assistant supervisor of the container division, and that particular individual is not exactly the picture of cooperation.”
It was the superintendent’s sonorous voice that rang out in response. “I might be able to help you with that,” he said. “Our department works pretty closely with the staff over there. I can save you a lot of time if you can get in touch with Gary Thompson and refer him my way. He’s the general manager at NIT.”
Susskind wrote the name down and nodded her appreciation to the heavyset colonel.
“Those records are going to be crucial,” Harper said. “If Vanderveen did use the terminal a second time, he obviously managed to get past Customs, or we wouldn’t be in this mess. At the same time, there will be a record of the type and weight of shipment he received. That could go a long way in telling us how he intends to deliver the package.”
“Getting access to those records needs to be a top priority,” Landrieu agreed from the head of the table. “We need to throw some weight around. It’s going to take us long enough to get a search warrant without wasting any additional time.”
He turned his attention to the deputy director of the FBI. “Make sure they understand in Norfolk that there’s going to be serious repercussions if they keep it up. We’ll shut their whole operation down if we have to. What about the residence itself?”
“Surveillance is already in place,” Susskind responded. “The SAC out of Richmond is running the show. Obviously, the Virginia State Police are on the scene as well. The state troopers have both ends of Chamberlayne Road blocked off, and a loose perimeter has already been formed around the house, extending a quarter mile out in every direction. The staging point is a half mile down the road — this part of the state is about as rural as it gets, which makes things a whole lot easier for us in some respects, harder in others. For instance, we can’t bring any choppers in without making our presence known.”
“Do we know if he’s in there?” McCabe asked.
