You could tell Kreiss about that. Then imply that if you could solve the case, working with him, your career would be rehabilitated.”
Janet felt her face redden. She sat back in her chair, embarrassed to have Farnsworth air her career problems in front of these people.
“That all would be true, by the way,” Farnsworth said to no one in particular.
“Let Mr. Foster tell you what’s going on before you say anything.”
“This involves the BATF,” he began, and Janet snorted contemptuously.
Foster stopped.
“The Texas toastmastersV she exclaimed.
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“Janet,” Farnsworth began, but Foster waved her comment away.
“This involves a series of bombings that have been going on since the
early nineties. Abortion clinics. The Atlanta Olympics bombing. And of course, some major incidents, such as the World Trade Center and the Oklahoma City bombing. Three letter bombs to federally funded universities that were not the work of the Unibomber. And three other potentially major federal office building bombings that did not succeed, or were derailed by security people.”
“The theory of interest,” Bellhouser said, “is that the anti-issue and antigovernment groups suspected to be behind these incidents are not technically qualified to design and construct some of the devices that have been used. Even more interesting is that the explosives used in several of the incidents were chemically similar. Some were identical.”
“Basically,” Foster said, “the BATF thinks that there is one expert or expert group that these anti-everything groups are using to get their big bombs from, because the kind of people who protest at abortion clinics are more likely to be soccer moms than explosives experts.”
“So they use what, a consultant?” Janet asked.
Bellhouser nodded.
“aTF and the Bureau have intercepted communications between some of the groups involved. We’re talking one of the more violence-prone ‘anti’ groups, and some people who might be supporting that guy Rudolph, the one we’re all chasing through the North Carolina woods.”
“You’re implying that there is a national conspiracy among the anti groups?”
The two Washington people nodded their heads.
“Actually,” Foster said, “there’s been an interim national-level task force working that theory since 1994: Justice, the Marshals Service, the Bureau, and aTF It’s focused mainly on the anti-abortion bombings, but the feeling now is that it may be bigger than that. The task force is called the DCB, which stands for Domestic Counterintelligence Board.”
Janet had never heard of any DCB, but she knew that Washington was full of interim task forces, a sure sign that the permanent organizations had become ineffective.
“So what’s this got to do with the Roanoke office?” she asked.
“The Board has only one lead on the so-called consultant,” Foster said.
“And that is, he’s supposedly based in southwest Virginia.”
Janet still didn’t see the connection. Foster explained.
“You’ve told us Kreiss might be looking for something called Site R. Kreiss hunting anything is something that concerns us very much. We ran the national databases on Site R, and that surfaced the Ramsey AAP,
an explosives-manufacturing complex down here in southwest Virginia. Our query brought the DCB staff up on the line, asking what we were looking for. We didn’t really want to share our Kreiss problem with anyone, so we waffled. But aTF, which is a full member of the DCB, put an agenda item on the board’s next meeting, asking what the Bureau was up to.”
“And, of course, nobody at the Bureau wanted to give the aTF the time of day,” Farnsworth said. Foster nodded. Janet understood, as did everyone in the Bureau, that after the Waco disaster, cooperation at the policy level in Washington between the Bureau and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had become a very strained business. The BATF worked for the Treasury Department; the FBI worked for the Justice Department. The competition for federal law-enforcement budget dollars had always been fierce, but the Waco disaster had added an extra dimension of enmity between the two law-enforcement agencies. But there was something she did not understand.
“If you people or this board think there’s something going on at this Ramsey Arsenal that’s related to a national terrorist bombing campaign,” Janet said, “why doesn’t this DCB or whatever just send in the Marines, toss the place?”
“Because aTF already had,” Foster said.
“It did an inspection of all such sites two years ago, and it found nothing at Ramsey but a mothballed ammunition plant. For the Bureau to suggest otherwise now is to imply that aTF screwed up or missed something.”
“What a concept,” Janet muttered.
“More importantly,” Bellhouser added, ignoring her gibe, “the proximate cause for such an allegation would be Edwin Kreiss’s unauthorized activities. Speaking for the Justice Department, we do not want our Kreiss problem exposed, and certainly not to Treasury and the BATF.”
“I guess I can see that,” Janet said, although she sensed something was not quite making sense here.
“So now what?”
“My principal, Mr. Garrette, has discussed this matter with Assistant Director Marchand. It has been decided that there might be a way to finesse this situation. We’ve told the aTF at the DCB level that an ex operative of ours had maybe stumbled onto something related to the bomb-maker conspiracy theory, and that it might, emphasis on the word might, have something to do with the Ramsey Arsenal. We informed aTF that we proposed to let this guy run free for a while and see what, if anything, he turns up.”
“But what makes you think there is something going on at this arsenal?”
“Because Kreiss recently contacted an old buddy who used to work for the U.S. Marshals Service,” Foster said.
“He did Kreiss a favor, but then his company security officer asked some questions, and in turn, the company reported the matter to the Bureau. They happen to have a contract with the Bureau, and they found out Kreiss used to work for the Bureau.”
“What was the favor?”
“The friend is a pilot who does airborne geo-information systems surveys.
Kreiss wanted an aerial map of the Ramsey Arsenal. He told his friend that something was going on there that shouldn’t be, and that it had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance.”
Janet frowned. This was news.
“Let me get this straight,” she said.
“You’re saying that now you want Kreiss to go operational again, because you think he might lead you to some bomb-making cell operating out of this arsenal?”
“Correct,” Bellhouser said.
“Now, if we can put you alongside Kreiss, we can perhaps achieve two objectives: We can find out what he’s doing, and maybe we can catch some serious bombers.”
“Actually,” Foster said, “nobody knows whether or not the antigovernment groups have organized nationally. It isn’t out of the question that they have in a limited way—say in the matter of getting their bombs. But if this works, we might have a chance here to roll up not only the bomb makers but some of their customers.”
Janet frowned, but then she thought she understood. Foster had an unspoken objective on the table: If the Bureau could unearth a bomber cell where aTF had failed to find them, the Bureau stood to count considerable coup. At the expense of aTF, she reminded herself.
“And you think that Kreiss acting independently has a better chance to find something than an overt joint aTF Bureau operation?”
“The last one of those was something less than a signal success,” Bellhouser pointed out.
“And Kreiss is that good?” Janet asked.
