Colonel Johnson returned, and in his beefy fists were three thick files. General Tingle suggested we adjourn to the long conference table in the corner of his office. A general's wish is your command, and we got up and rearranged ourselves.
Tingle read each file first, then me, and I handed them to Jennie, who slid them down the table to Colonel Johnson. Having perused many CID files, Tingle and I raced through, whereas Jennie kept thumbing around, searching for the relevant pages and passages.
We were nearly halfway through when another gent wandered into the office. He wore a gray suit and was about twenty years younger than the other agents, nor did he look really sneaky, just slightly shifty. He walked directly to the far corner of the room, and Colonel Johnson left the table and the two of them engaged in a quick whispered conversation.
As I read, I learned that the M72 Light Antitank Weapon comes stored in boxes of two, and the Bouncing Betty mine- the proper nomenclature being the M16A2 mine-comes stored in boxes of four. Thus it seemed a fair assumption that Jason and his pals had at least one more LAW, at least three more Bouncing Bettys, and, hopefully, no suitcase nukes or canisters of anthrax some idiot packed in the wrong box. But it happens.
One theft occurred from an arms storage bunker located at Fort Hood, Texas. The bunker was inventoried on November 16-everything on hand and shipshape-and was then re-inventoried on December 16, a perfunctory monthly check done by a lieutenant detailed from a local infantry battalion. During the second inventory, the lieutenant noted that three containers of 81mm mortar rounds, two containers of LAWs, and three boxes of M16A2 mines that were present for duty at the first inventory were now AWOL, and he dutifully filed an appropriate Oh- Shit report.
The second open case was a bit more interesting, and from our perspective, more hair-raising. At 2:00 a.m. on the night of December 22, a flatbed truck pulled up to the Port of Galveston Pier 37 Roll-on, Roll-off Terminal. The driver dutifully showed the night guard a set of authorization documents and was allowed entry to the facility. Three bulk containers were loaded on board the truck's flatbed, and the vehicle and crew drove off into the steamy night. One container held forty boxes of LAWs, another held sixty containers of M16A2 mines, and the third held forty M16 automatic rifles. A routine check the next morning revealed that nobody in existence had dispatched the truck, and with the impressive clarity of hindsight it was swiftly concluded that the authorization documents were forgeries, and expert ones.
I truly hoped this wasn't the one. Jason and his pals could have enough stuff to turn D.C. into Baghdad.
On the other hand, the earmarks were there-superior organization, boldness, and cleverness. Not good.
The last theft was more ambiguous, more haphazard, and for its sheer brazenness, in a way the most ingenious. On February 9, also at Fort Hood, three different units engaged in marksmanship training on three different firing ranges reported the disappearance of munitions. An infantry unit at a LAW range reported two boxes of M72 LAWs mysteriously missing. Twenty minutes later, an engineer unit training at an explosives range reported that one box of M16A2 mines, a twenty-pound container of C4 plastic explosive, and two boxes of blasting caps were on the lam. And within minutes, a different infantry unit at a third range reported that twenty M203 grenades, as well as an M203 grenade launcher, were missing.
The reports rolled into the headquarters, the post commander went nuts, and a post-wide lockdown was immediately initiated. Within three hours, two range control inspectors were found, hog-tied with tent cord, in a small ravine beside a tank trail. Their unhappy story was that they had stopped on the trail to help a uniformed soldier who flagged them down, who then approached their humvee, suddenly whipped out a handheld Taser, and efficiently dispatched them both to la-la land. Their humvee and their range control armbands were stolen. The humvee turned up the next morning ditched beside another tank trail.
This theft was unsettling and curious, but of the three cases the one from Galveston had the ugliest possibilities. If Jason had that much stuff, an all-out assault on the White House was a possibility. Looking first at me, then at Jennie, General Tingle asked, 'Well… any conclusions?'
I was sure the question was rhetorical. We didn't have a clue.
Tingle turned and requested the most recent arrival to join us. Back to us, he explained, 'Chief Warrant Eric Tanner, our resident expert in munitions and weapons security. One of our top investigators.'
We all shook hands. Without any ado, Eric Tanner made a sweeping announcement, suggesting, 'If international terrorists are behind these murders, you're wasting your time with all three of these cases.'
Jennie glanced at me, and then informed him, 'Our lead suspect is a Secret Service agent named Barnes. If there's a connection to foreign terrorists, it's only financial.'
'Okay.' He considered that a moment, then asked, 'Accomplices?'
'Three we know of, possibly more. Barnes appears to be the mastermind. At least one woman is involved.'
Eric raised an eyebrow but did not comment on that news.
I asked, 'Why are you so sure these thefts didn't involve foreign terrorists?'
'Start with the first case at Fort Hood, the bunker theft. Here's what happened. The munitions bunker has a double lock system. It's electronically monitored whenever it's opened.' He looked at me and said, 'You get it, right?'
'The thefts occurred during an authorized entry.'
From the corner of my eye I saw Tingle nod and Tanner continued, 'The bunker was opened only once between the two monthly inventories, by a quartermaster team-a sergeant and three privates-delivering fifty containers of 5.56 ammo. It might interest you to know that this is our most common form of munitions thefts.'
'I thought the case remained open.'
'It is.' Tingle again nodded, and Tanner explained, 'We interrogated the four soldiers. Nobody confessed, though obviously at least one of them's lying. Nearly always in cases like this, it was a crime of opportunity. So now the thief has to locate a buyer, and we're watching all four of them.'
I thought about that a moment. 'Isn't that… a little passive?'
He gave me a sneaky smile. 'Each of the four will soon be approached by a fat-cat arms merchant from the Middle East-one of our guys. He's already in Killeen, the town outside the base, casing his targets.'
'I see.'
'We know how to cover our asses, Mr. Drummond.'
General Tingle coughed into his hand.
Eric Tanner shrugged, and continued, 'The case at Galveston, on the other hand… well, you read the case file. These were professionals. They knew exactly when to arrive, where the containers were located, and had expert forgeries. The combination of the large quantity of the munitions and the level of criminal sophistication made us more concerned than usual.'
'As it should.'
'So after we reported it to the Bureau, we also notified your people at the Agency, Mr. Drummond.'
Colonel Johnson got into the act, informing me, 'About three weeks later, your people got word to us that a government military platoon in Colombia walked into a minefield and two soldiers were killed. The descriptions of the incident indicated the killing devices were Bouncing Bettys. They also reported a sharp step-up in vehicular ambushes by FARC rebel units using short-range rockets.'
Eric surmised, 'So we know where the weapons ended up.'
'But not,' General Tingle concluded, looking sharply at Tanner, 'who orchestrated the theft.' He turned back to me and asked, 'Do you believe this Barnes is in some way connected to the Colombian FARC rebels?'
'No. Rule it out.' So now we were down to the third and final case, the second theft at Fort Hood. These were all crafty men, and I doubted this was serendipity.
Colonel Johnson, who appeared to be Tingle's executive assistant, asked, 'Anybody need a refill?'
While we refreshed our cups, Chief Tanner said, 'Let's talk for a moment about what happened at Fort Hood on February 9'
Jennie glanced at her watch. 'Let's do.'
'But I'd like to precede that discussion with a little background. Around Fort Hood-around all our bases-are crime rings that feed off our troops, our families, and our equipment. Insurance fraud rings, phony mortgage and car loan setups, prostitution, and even burglary rings. Some of these parasites are strictly amateur hour. Others
