Kreiss’s cabin. They weren’t exactly forthcoming, but indications are they’d seen Kreiss alive and well late this past afternoon, which was after the blast. But that’s all they would say.”
“And Kreiss is a suspect in the jared McGarand homicide?”
“Yes and no. You’ll remember what Ransom told you about putting bugs on Kreiss’s vehicle? How he got all but one off, and then Ransom finds that one at that McGarand guy’s trailer, where McGarand got dead?”
She nodded. The doughnut felt like it might be changing sides. She drank some more water and tried to ignore the queasy feeling in her stomach. It was hurting to breathe again.
“Local law hasn’t been told anything about that, or Kreiss. I sent a couple of our people to the scene after seeing Ransom’s report. Told the cops that it might, emphasis on might, relate to a case we’re working on telephone company fraud. Our guys weren’t fully briefed on the Kreiss angle, either. I simply told them to go see what the local cops came up with on this possible homicide and report back.”
“And—?”
“And the locals are definitely calling it homicide, but the physical evidence points all over the map. Jared McGarand’s wallet and keys seem to be missing, and there was evidence that someone had been into his phones, although he himself was a phone repairman, so that might not mean anything. There’s some unknown substance they recovered from the front steps that they were really interested in, because there was some more of it on the body, which for some unknown reason seemed to have been hosed down. But that’s not as important as what we think we’ve found out.”
“Foster still trying to tie this bomb-cell conspiracy theory to Kreiss?”
Farnsworth nodded and leaned forward.
“This is close-hold, for now anyway. I’m telling you because you and Kreiss know each other, at least superficially. We’ve tied Kreiss to the arsenal and to Jared McGarand.
Believe it or not, Foster apparently has a line of some sort into the aTF’s national response team. The NRT people found evidence of
vehicles being parked near the rail line entrance to the arsenal, and that the gates at the rail line were not in fact locked, which they should have been. They also found an electric-eye counter mounted on the interior rail gate. So Foster directed us to ask the local cops to see if there was any evidence that jared McGarand’s truck had been to the arsenal, and damned if they didn’t get a match in samples of mud off jared’s pickup truck. From that parking area outside the rail gates.”
“That quick?”
“The NRT has a mobile lab.”
She was confused.
“Are you saying Jared was a bomb maker? And what’s that got to do with Kreiss?”
“No, all I’m saying is that jared has been going into the arsenal. Why, we don’t know. But Foster thinks, based on what you’ve told us, that Kreiss may have stumbled into Jared or his truck at the arsenal, then followed Jared home to question him about his missing daughter. This happens, as best we can tell, on Friday night. Jared ends up dead, and Kreiss ends up back at the arsenal, bailing you out of the tunnel. Why did he go back? Did Jared reveal something? And then, when we go into the arsenal to see what the hell’s going on, a very big bomb is waiting for us. For you, maybe.”
“Or for Kreiss.”
“Yeah, okay, maybe for Kreiss. And then, who should we recover but Kreiss’s daughter, who’s babbling about H-bombs and Washington.”
“But—” “Wait. Jared’s grandfather shows up at the homicide scene today. His name is Browne McGarand. He id’s the body, agrees with the cops that something is fishy in Denmark, tells them Jared liked to live dangerously with married women, then leaves. Then later, he calls the cops, says he’s leaving town, purportedly to break the bad news to Jared’s brother, his other grandson, who’s down in Greensboro, North Carolina. Cops try to get back to him, go by the house, but he’s already gone. They’ve asked the state cops to see if they can spot him out on the interstate and confirm he’s headed for Greensboro. In the meantime, it turns out the chief of d’s on the sheriff’s force knows this guy Browne. That’s Browne spelled with an e, by the way. And based on what he says, Foster now thinks his theory was right and that this guy might be the second half of the bomb team.”
“Jared’s grandfather?”
“Because it turns out that the grandfather is a retired chemical engineer, whose entire career just happened to be spent with the
company that ran Ramsey Arsenal for the Army. He was the chief chemical engineer there when it closed.”
“Holy shit.”
“It gets better. You know Mike Hanson, our own arson and bomb guy?
He was one of the people I sent out to jared’s trailer. He comes back, runs the name McGarand through the NCIC just for the hell of it. There are several McGarands, but only one hit that ties to this area: There was a William McGarand, formerly of Blacksburg, Virginia, who had a local rap sheet of minor offenses and was listed as having ties to an antigovernment, quasi-militia group called the Black Hats. They’re based up in the mountains west of here in Bluefield; combination Aryan Nation, moonshine runners, and marijuana farmers who like to take pot shots at revenuers-that’s aTF these days. Jared McGarand is also listed as being involved with them. But that wasn’t the kicker.”
“Let me guess: William’s related to Browne McGarand.”
“Yes, he is—or was—Browne’s only son. But more importantly, he was one of the people killed at Mount Carmel.”
“Mount what?”
“Mount Carmel, otherwise referred to in these hallowed halls and in the media as the Waco disaster. William was Browne’s son; Jared was William’s son. William’s wife ran off with some guy, and then William took off, leaving their two kids, Jared and the brother, to be raised by their grandfather.”
“Browne,” Janet said. Her stomach was forgotten.
“God, if there’s a Waco connection, then maybe the theory of a bomb cell in southwest Virginia wasn’t just some wash job to cover up for losing control of Kreiss.”
“Hell, Janet, I don’t know. My guess? It was a smoke screen that just happened to be true. But now we’ve had a bomb, a big fucking bomb, and we have an aTF agent dead, and an Agency operative dead, not to mention two civilians, and now this Jared McGarand.”
“So what happens now?”
“The director is into this one, according to the SAC in Richmond. And because the Justice Department, deputy AG Bill Garrette, and Edwin Kreiss are involved, the director is ordering shields up.”
“He remembers the Kreiss affair?”
“Vividly. Plus, there’s been no love lost between Justice and the Bureau for the past four years. Now Kreiss is missing. Foster says there’s a fair chance that he’s hunting down Browne McGarand, not because of any bomb plot, but because he’s still searching for his daughter.”
“Oh God, that’s right: Kreiss doesn’t know we recovered his daughter.”
“Didn’t you tell me you gave Kreiss your pager?”
Janet blinked.
“Yes, I did.”
“I want to activate that pager, and keep calling it until Kreiss answers.
We’d really like to know where the hell he is and what he’s doing, but more importantly, I want you to tell him something.”
From the expression on his face, she thought she knew what was coming next.
“This is coming from the deputy AG at Main Justice, okay? And I don’t much like it. But you are instructed to tell Kreiss that his daughter was there in the arsenal—but that she was killed in the bomb blast. Second, you tell him that this guy Browne McGarand was responsible for abducting her and getting her killed. We’ll even give him McGarand’s vehicle description.”
“Sweet Jesus, boss,” she whispered.
“You don’t mean it!”
