“We need to get local law out to that trailer, and then I think we need to get federal assets out to this goddamned arsenal. From where I stand, we have a missing persons case that might be a kidnapping-abduction case, and now, a possible homicide.
One of my agents nearly lost her life, and a Bureau vehicle, in the process of what should have been a routine inspection of a federal facility. Mr.
Foster?”
“Yes?”
“In deference to your bomb theories, I want to call in the local ATE We’ll look into this homicide situation in cooperation with the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department. Any information that develops with regard to Mr. Kreiss will be reported directly to you. How’s that sound?”
“I’d prefer to keep the aTF out of it until we ascertain whether or not this jared guy was doing something at the arsenal. For the reasons we discussed previously. I also need to confer with Ms. Bellhouser.”
Janet saw Willson mouth the name Bellhouser and then shake his head.
“I can understand that,” Farnsworth said.
“And I know how much we might like to bust aTF’s chops. But there’s something wrong here. I’ve got agents getting hurt, and a possibly related homicide. No one has ever mentioned any southwestern “Virginia bombing conspiracy to me before.
Now you tell me something: Are you and Bellhouser serious about that, or was that just a ploy to get us to stir up Edwin Kreiss so Marchand and company could whack his ass?”
Wahoo, Janet thought. The boss is back. Willson and Porter were looking on in undisguised fascination. Ransom was hiding his face in his hands.
“We are absolutely serious about that,” Foster said.
“But—” “Then we get aTF into it. Right nicking now. I’ll make the call. Ken Whittaker is our local liaison guy.”
There was a strained silence on the speakerphone. Then Foster said, “Well, may I at least request that the Kreiss angle be confined to Bureau channels?”
“We will try,” Farnsworth said.
“But if he becomes a suspect in a possible homicide—”
“He won’t if you neglect to tell the local cops about the switched tracking device.”
Farnsworth rolled his eyes and began shaking his head.
“I mean,” Foster said, “if they come up with evidence linking Kreiss to the possible victim, then that’s that. But in the meantime, I still think Kreiss may have tripped over something. If there’s any chance that he has, that’s more important to us, and I think to the DCB, than some hillbilly getting squashed under his trailer.”
“The guy under the trailer might not agree with that,” Farnsworth said.
“And that’s another thing: I need a phone number for a point of contact at that DCB.”
“Uh, well, that may not be possible. I’ll have to check with Assistant Director Marchand and the deputy AG’s office. The DCB operates at a senior policy level. I’m not sure we can have field offices, ah, interfacing with that level within the interagency process.”
Gotcha, Farnsworth mouthed silently to the people at the table.
“Okay,” he said.
“I’ll leave that to your discretion, since you’re at the policy level. In the meantime, I’m going to send some people out there to that arsenal just as soon as I get some aTF assets folded in. You tell your people that, okay?”
“What if we encounter Kreiss?” Janet asked.
“We’ll just ask the sumbitch what he’s fucking doing out there,” Farnsworth said.
“If we have to, we’ll pull his ass in, have an intimate conversation.
In the meantime, let’s take it one step at a time. It’s Sunday.
Let’s see what we develop down here before everybody gets all spun up, okay? Mr. Foster, we’ll get back to you.”
“Very well,” Foster said, and hung up. Farnsworth looked at the two squad supervisors.
“Get ahold of Whittaker. Today. Now. Whip a joint team up and go into that arsenal. Notify the Army, and ask them to get their security people out there. Go have a look, see what the hell’s going on out there, if anything. Paul, I want you to liaise with Sheriff Lamb’s office, get them going on the trailer business.”
“What do I tell them when they want to know how we know about this?” Porter asked. He was an intense, thin man and was a stickler for detail.
“Hell, I don’t know—we had a CI call in? Keep it vague. You plus one go out there—I don’t want a crowd. I do want info on the vie as soon as possible.”
Porter nodded, got up, and left the conference room. Farnsworth
turned to Janet and Willson.
“You people be careful out there. If Kreiss killed someone looking for his daughter, then maybe this kidnapping business has driven him over the top. It wouldn’t be the first time he has run out of control, and I don’t want the Bureau embarrassed again if we can avoid it.”
“What was that little phone game you just played with Foster?”
“That was an RA fucking with a headquarters horse-holder. That won’t keep the heavies off our backs for more than twenty-four hours, if indeed this was all about Kreiss from the git-go, which I’m beginning to think it was. But we have to be sure.”
“Why bring in the aTF?” Janet asked.
Farnsworth sighed.
“Because, Janet,” he said, “there’s always the chance, remote as this may seem right now, that the people at headquarters know something we don’t down here in the too lies of Virginia. And if there is some kind of bomb lab hidden at that arsenal, do you want to be the first through the door? Or shall we let our dear friends from the aTF have that honor? Hmm?”
Janet saw Willson and Porter grinning. It made her wonder if she was ever going to get ahead of the politics curve in this business. Like there had never been politics in the lab, she thought. Yeah, right.
“Mr. Ransom,” Farnsworth said, “I’d like you to go along in case my team runs into Kreiss. And if you do, I’d like you to talk to him, see if we can keep Pandora’s box shut until we see what the bigs in Washington are going to do next. Can you do that?”
Ransom looked down at the table for a moment.
“I can try,” he said, not very convincingly. Janet thought he actually looked a little scared.
Kreiss heard the noise of something happening up in the tunnel about the same time as the siphon chamber began another dump cycle. The roar of the water escaping the dark chamber beneath him overpowered all other sounds and filled the air with a fine wet mist. He decided to pull himself back up to the floor of the tunnel and was doing so when a sharp, noxious smell enveloped him. It was not only hard to breathe; it hurt to breathe.
He swallowed involuntarily, causing his eyes to water. He could still hear nothing but the rumble of the chamber emptying into the earth below, but when he got his hands and shoulders up onto the concrete lip of the tunnel, he realized that there was a small, viscous, fuming river headed right for him. He pulled hard right as the stream hit the center of the lip and shot over. The corrosive fumes were so strong now that he dared not
breathe, and then he saw a flat branch of the fluid sweep sideways along the lip. His rope disintegrated right in front of his eyes, and the metal on the end of the stick foamed ominously. He knew that smell.
Acid. Nitric acid!
He buried his nose and mouth in the vee of his crawl suit and took one deep breath, and then he got up and sprinted up the tunnel, trying to ignore the swelling stream of acid, until he reached the cone of sunlight and the ladder rungs. He stopped just outside of the light and took another deep breath, straining air through the tough fabric of the crawl suit. Was the shooter up there, waiting for him to stick his head out? His lungs were bursting, and his eyes were tearing so badly, he could barely see. No more choices here, he thought, and scrambled up the rungs, straining for the bright sunlight of the main street above. The makeshift grid of pipes slowed him down, but not much, and he rolled off the edge of the hole and kept rolling until he was all the way across the street and into
