compound. The White House, on the other hand, was guarded by members of the United States Marine Corps. It would have come as no surprise to Demonaco to learn that DARPA was protected by the U.S. Navy. Which would have explained all the Navy suits here now.
But no. If the NCIS was here, that meant something else entirely. Something that went beyond merely failing to protect a federal building. Something internal…
'I don't know if you remember me,” Mitchell said, “but I took your seminar at Quantico about six months ago. “The Second Amendment and the Rise of the Militia Groups”.'
So that was where he had seen Mitchell before.
Every three months, Demonaco gave a seminar at Quantico on domestic terrorist organisations in the United States.
In his lectures, he basically outlined the make-up, methods and philosophies of the more organised militia groups in the country—groups like the Patriots, the White Aryan Resistance or the Republican Army of Texas.
After the Oklahoma City bombing and the bloody siege at the Coltex nuclear weapons facility in Amarillo, Texas, Demonaco's seminars had been in high demand. Especially among the armed forces, since their bases—and the buildings they protected—were often the targets of domestic terrorist acts.
'What can I do for you, Commander Mitchell?' Demonaco said.
'Well, first of all, as you will no doubt appreciate, everything you see or hear in this room is strictly classifi —'
'What is it you want me to do?' Demonaco was famous for his inability to put up with bullshit.
Mitchell took a deep breath. 'As you can see, we had something of an… incident.., here yesterday morning. Seventeen security staff killed and a weapon of immense importance stolen. We have reason to believe that a domestic terrorist organisation was involved, which is why you were called in—'
'Is that him? Is that him?' a rough-sounding voice said from somewhere nearby.
Demonaco turned and saw a severe-looking captain with a grey moustache and a matching grey crew-cut striding quickly toward him and Commander Mitchell.
The captain glared at Mitchell. 'I told you this was a mistake, Tom. This is an internal matter. We don't need to involve the FBI in this.'
'Special Agent Demonaco,' Mitchell said, 'this is Captain Vernon Aaronson. Captain Aaronson has overall responsibility for this investigation—'
'But Commander Mitchell here, it seems, has the ear of those who would like to see this puzzle solved more slowly than it has to be,' Aaronson quipped.
Demonaco judged Vernon Aaronson to be a couple of years older—and at least a decade more bitter—than his subordinate, Commander Mitchell.
'I had no choice, sir,' Mitchell said. 'The President insisted—'
'The President insisted…' Aaronson snorted.
'He didn't want to see a repeat of the Baltimore freeway incident.'
Ah, Demonaco thought. So that was it.
On Christmas Day 1997, an unmarked DARPA transport truck travelling from New York to Virginia was hijacked as it travelled along the Baltimore beltway. Stolen from the truck were sixteen J-7 jet packs and forty-eight prototype explosive charges—small chrome-and-plastic tubes that looked like glass laboratory vials.
But these were no ordinary explosive charges. Officially, they were called M-22 isotopic charges, but around DARPA they were known as 'Pocket Dynamos'.
Put simply, the Pocket Dynamo was an evolutionary step forward in high-temperature liquid chemical technology. The result of thirteen years' concerted labour by the United States Army and DARPA's Advanced Ordnance Division, the M-22 utilised laboratory-created isotopes of the element chlorine to deliver a concentrated blast wave of such savage intensity that it literally vaporised anything within a two-hundred-yard radius of the detonation point.
It was designed for use by small incursionary units on sabotage or search-and-destroy missions—where the mission objective was to leave absolutely nothing behind. The isotopic explosion of an M-22 charge was second only in intensity to a thermonuclear blast, but without the attendant radioactive aftereffects.
What Demonaco also knew about the Baltimore freeway incident, however, was that the Army had handled the investigation into the theft themselves.
Two days after the daring robbery, the Army investigators received a tip-off regarding the location of the stolen weapons and without so much as consulting with the FBI or the CIA, a squad of Green Berets was ordered to storm the headquarters of an underground militia group in northern Idaho. Ten people were killed, twelve were wounded. It turned out to be the wrong group. In fact, more than that, it turned out to be one of the more benign paramilitary groups around, more like a gun club than a terrorist cell. No isotopic explosives were found on their premises. The ACLU and the NRA had had a field day.
The jet packs and the M-22s were never recovered.
Quite obviously Demonaco thought, the President didn't want another such embarrassment here. Which was why he had been called in.
'So what is it you want me to look at?' he said.
'This,' Mitchell said, pulling something from his pocket and handing it to Demonaco.
It was a clear plastic evidence bag.
In it was a blood-stained bullet.
Demonaco sat down at a nearby table to examine the blood- smeared bullet.
