Hunting Season (22 page)

“Unfortunately, all we know about this little deal is what those people have told us, no more, no less,” he said.

“I’ve got some calls into the Criminal Investigations operations center at our headquarters to verify this DCB thing—I’ve never heard of it, although that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. And much as I hate the idea of working with aTF, I’m uneasy about cutting them out if this is turning into a bombing case. For all their Washington warts, their field people are pretty good at working bombs.”

“I got the impression that those two weren’t telling us everything,” Janet said.

“You’ve got good instincts,” Farnsworth said.

“I’ve got to be careful here. Foster works for Marchand and the FCI people. As the Roanoke office, we don } work for Marchand. I have the authority to put you on this thing, but I want some top cover before it goes much further. I also want to know more about this purported bomb-making cell operating down here in southwest Virginia, which I damn well should have been told about.”

“One final warning, Janet,” he said.

“I know you’ve had one previous field tour, but that was in your specialty, right?”

“Yes, sir, in Chicago. I didn’t do much street work.”

He nodded.

“That’s what I’m getting at, your lack of street experience, through no fault of yours, of course. But this guy Kreiss is the walking embodiment of street experience, and, apparently, then some. You’re a smart young lady, but don’t try to use those brains to outwit Edwin Kreiss.

Use them to know when to back out and call me. Maintain situational awareness, and keep it simple, okay?”

Another “Yes, sir,” and then she was out of there. And now she was here. The parking lot was almost full, and there were people unloading bags from cars lined up by the hotel’s front entrance. She wondered if Edwin Kreiss was standing under a streetlight nearby, a newspaper in his face, watching her. Yeah, and a brown fedora, tan trench coat, and some shades to complete the ensemble. She smiled and automatically checked her makeup. She had deliberately put on plain clothes, not wanting to put any boy-girl elements into the meeting. He’s just a retired Bureau agent, she reminded herself. Which isn’t quite true, is it? she thought. Ransom’s story of the acoustic attack and then the .50 caliber fire down the hill would have been almost funny except for one thing: Ransom and his partner had been frightened out of their wits. His partner was apparently quitting over what had happened up there. She closed her eyes for a moment and tried to imagine what lions roaring at 150 decibels would do to her own presence of mind. A

flash-bang grenade was 175 decibels. And, yes, your forebrain would tell you there couldn’t be lions in the house, she thought, but she was pretty sure her own instincts would have been to bolt out of that cabin while trying not to leave a trail. This Kreiss was a piece of work.

She got out of the car and walked directly to the front entrance. She was carrying a leather purse, which held her credentials. She had her Sig Sauer model 225 in a hip holster under her jacket. Farnsworth had asked her if she carried more than one gun, but, like most agents, she did not.

She carried the CFR pod, which was the size of a change purse, in her pants pocket. If squeezed hard, it would begin emitting a coded signal on one of the satellite-monitored search and rescue frequencies, which in turn would key a reaction transponder at FBI headquarters. It couldn’t pinpoint her precise location, but it would tell the system who was in trouble. Ransom had agreed to follow her to Blacksburg but to stay away from the hotel. She hoped he wouldn’t get all independent on her and blow their cover, such as it was.

She found the lounge located to one side of the lobby and took a table at the back. There was a conventional bar running down one wall, booths along the opposite wall, and smaller tables out in the middle. A couple of men at the bar were looking her over. She went through the looking-at her-watch pantomime to discourage any walk-ups. C’mon, Kreiss, she thought, and then realized she was the one who was early.

Three floors above, Edwin Kreiss kept watch on the parking lot from his darkened window. The building front faced northeast, so anyone looking up at the windows at sunset should not be able to see in. He had watched Janet drive into the lot in her rather obvious Bureau car, complete with the small whip antenna on the trunk. He had wondered what she’d been doing down there for ten minutes, but then she’d gone inside. He was waiting to see if any more unmarked cars showed up. He had, in fact, been watching the lot since five o’clock, looking for any vehicle that came into the area either to make repeated passes or to park, with no one getting out. His own vehicle was parked almost a mile away, on the other side of the Virginia Tech parade field, behind the main administration building. If Carter was working with a surveillance squad, her backup might try to plant something on his truck while she was inside with him. Assuming she had backup.

He was still suspicious about her call for a meet. It had to be more than something generated out of the goodness of her heart, and, regrettably, something to do with the firestorm he’d caused when he

left the government. He swore quietly. If that’s what this was all about, his life could get really complicated. Especially with Lynn missing.

And then he saw a minivan come into the parking lot, turn its headlights off, and start to cruise the lanes with just its parking lights on. That was okay, except that it went by two perfectly good parking spaces, and then a third and a fourth. He got out his binoculars, trying for a make on the plate, but the plate light was conveniently not working. The windows must have been tinted, because he could not see inside the van, either.

The van cruised down one more lane and then came up past Carter’s Crown Vie. There was a brief flare of brake lights, but then the van continued on. Bingo, he thought. The van went out of the parking lot and onto a small side street that led into the main campus. A passing car honked and flashed its lights at the van to get its main lights on. The van complied, then pulled into a handicapped space to one side of the hotel building. As Kreiss watched, a tall man got out and walked purposefully back to Carter’s car, where he looked both ways and then bent down to put something under the left-rear wheel well. The man then walked back to the minivan and got in. A moment later, he drove away.

Kreiss pulled the drapes closed. It looked like Carter had backup all right, but not necessarily working for her. He slipped on his sport coat, having decided to dress up a little, in deference to the fact that Carter would probably still be in her office clothes. He went downstairs.

Janet saw him come into the bar and raised her hand. He was wearing khaki-colored slacks, a white shirt open at the throat, and a dark blue sport coat. With his gray-white hair and clipped beard, he looked almost professorial, except for the heft of his shoulders and a look in his eye that made other men in the crowded room ease out of his way as he came across to her table. He nodded to her as he sat down and ordered a glass of sparkling water from the waitress.

“Special Agent Carter,” he said.

“You called.”

“Yes, I did,” she said. The bar was really filling up now, and the noise level was growing. Up close, his face looked a little puffy on one side and there was a bandage peeking up over his collar.

“Hurt yourself?” she asked, looking at the bandage.

“Let’s get to it,” he said, ignoring her question.

“I want to find my daughter. What do you want?”

“I reinterviewed Barry dark. He said he told you they were going to Site R. I think I can help you identify what that is.”

“I already know,” he said.

“It’s the Ramsey Arsenal. What do you want?”

She was taken aback and suddenly didn’t know what to say. She realized she should have had a plan B. He leaned forward, his eyes intense.

“Listen to me, Special Agent Carter. I want to find my daughter. Three case folders gathering dust up in the MP shop don’t cut it. I’m going to do what I’m going to do, regardless of the Bureau. If I determine that she’s been abducted and injured or killed, I’ll find out who did it and put their severed heads on pikes out on the interstate.”

She blinked, desperately trying to think of something clever to say.

This wasn’t going anything like the way she had anticipated. She had forgotten how intense he was. Focus, she commanded herself. Focus. Then he surprised her.

“Who would want to plant a bug on your Bu car?” he asked.

“What? A bug?”

“I watched you arrive in the parking lot. Tan Crown Vie? You parked and stayed in the car for a few minutes. Then you walked in. Ten minutes after that, a nondescript minivan came into the lot, cruised all the lanes, paused at your car, left the lot, and then parked long enough for some tall white guy to walk back and put something under your left-rear wheel well. Who would want to bug a Bureau car?”

What the hell is this? she thought.

“I looked for you,” she said.

“Where were you watching from?”

“My room, Special Agent.”

His room.

“Oh” was all she could manage.

He sat back in his chair and drank some of his water.

“You’re obviously not a street agent. What’s your specialty?”

The look in his eyes was one of calm appraisal. She decided this was no time for bullshit.

“I’m a materials forensics evidence specialist. Most of my assignments have been in support of Washington task forces, qualifying the evidence. I did one field tour in Chicago, but it was in-specialty.”

“You do a lot of materials forensics over there in beautiful downtown Roanoke, Virginia?”

“Well,” she said, “some senior people at the headquarters thought it was time for me to get some field experience.”

“You mean you were playing straight-arrow in the lab, upset some prosecutor’s preconceived notions about the evidence, and your mentor was concerned enough about your career to get you out of Dodge for a couple of years.”

She colored and then nodded. To cover her embarrassment, she drank some Coke. It was watery.

“What brought Bambi and Marchand’s lapdog down here?”

“I did, I guess.”

“You guess?”

She winced mentally. Talking to him was like being back at the damned Academy. She kept forgetting he had been a senior agent with many years of experience.

“I made a routine inquiry. It’s… it’s perhaps not something you want to hear.”

He just looked at her, so she described her conversation with Dr.

Kellermann.

He nodded when she was finished. He had been coming at her like an interrogator. Now his expression softened.

“And that inquiry got back to the Justice Department how, exactly?”

“That, I don’t know,” she said. The waitress buzzed by and asked if they needed anything else. Kreiss didn’t look at her, just shook his head.

“I mean, I guess the Counseling Division notified somebody,” she said.

“Although I don’t know why, exactly. My inquiry concerned your ex-wife, not you.” She was trying to keep the conversation going, but there he was, looking at his watch. She had gotten nowhere.

“Have you been to this Ramsey Arsenal place?” she asked.

He sat back in his chair and steepled his hands beneath his chin.

“Who wants to know?”

“I do. Why did you ask that?”

“Because I don’t believe the PA to the deputy AG and her counterpart from Marchand’s office came down here to work a missing persons case. I think they came down here to find out what the hell I’m up to. Let me guess: They send you to get close to me?”

The question came so directly and so unexpectedly that Janet couldn’t keep her expression from revealing the truth. Kreiss smiled wearily.

“They’re so damned transparent. They sit around in Washington for years and years, playing all these palace games. They think field people believe their bullshit.”

“That’s not quite it,” she said.

“They think there’s some kind of bomb making cell that might be working out of the arsenal. They—” “Bombs?” he said with a snort.

“The Bureau doesn’t work bombs; aTF works bombs. If they thought that, they’d turn loose a herd of aTF agents in there and find out. This

isn’t about any goddamned bombs. If those two are here, they’re here about me. Which is probably why two Agency CE worker bees were waiting at my cabin when I got back this morning.”

She thought she saw an opening.

“Got back from where, Mr. Kreiss?”

“That’s my business, Agent Carter,” he said, ignoring her gambit.

“Now, I have a daughter to locate. I don’t really think there’s anything you can do for me. I appreciate your telling me about the Washington interest, but that’s between me and them. If I find my daughter, I’ll let you know. If I don’t but I find the people responsible for her disappearance, you’ll hear about that, too.”

“Right,” she said.

“Heads out on I-Eighty-one.”

He smiled, but his eyes remained grim.

“It’d be a change from all those billboards,” he said.

“Did you really operate alone?” she asked. She surprised herself, asking the question, but she couldn’t imagine what that must be like.

He thought about it for a moment.

“Not at first, but later, yes. The backup was available, but it was more technical than human. Once I went down a hole after somebody, it was an individual effort.”

“But why? Why give away our biggest advantage, our ability to overwhelm a subject, with agents, with data, with surveillance, the whole boat?”

“We weren’t sent after ‘subjects,” Special Agent. We were only activated to retrieve professional clandestine operatives. That’s not a game for groups. Besides, we applied a different theory of pursuit.”

“Which was?”

“A single hunter. One-on-one. That made it personal, which gave us a chance to provoke an emotional reaction.”

“Why?”

“Emotion distracts. The more emotion, the more distraction. Distraction leads to mistakes. Mistakes lead to capture. This is all news to you, isn’t it?”