Perspectives, An Intriguing Tale of an American Born Terrorist (35 page)

“Right, so they just send me a QX-4, the
Blue Heron
programs, the Hologram program and all the personnel directories of the agency. Why would they send me that? Mary, this is getting more and more farfetched. I think we need to focus our attention somewhere else.”

“I think I’m right on target…..I think we need to find Bob. I have a confession to make, I sent Alex Moore an email.”

“You did what! Come on Mary, I told you not to mess around.”

“I couldn’t resist. I was in the Director’s email and I sent him an order.”

“Under the Director’s email?”

Mary nodded.

“I’m afraid to ask, but did he answer?”

“I don’t know, I sent it just before you got home. Can we check when we get to Virginia?”

Jonathan shook his head no. “Mary you’re losing it. Listen you have to pull back and let me handle this. I’m trained to fool these guys.”

“Please believe me, it’s a conspiracy. You’ll see when we go back in to the computer.”

“And what about the other emails? I suppose it’s them warning us about them?”

“It’s all a distraction,” answered Mary. “They probably mean nothing. They just want to keep us confused and occupied until they fulfill the next step in their plan. And they are going to do it again.”

“And that’s more nonsense, why would they do it again? If it’s as you say, they’ve gotten away with it and have everything they want.”

“Do they?” answered Mary.

“Look at the administration, record approval ratings, a unified Congress. What else could they want?”

“There’s a lot more to gain. Another attack would give the President complete control of this country through the military. He could set himself up as the fascist that he is, suspend elections.”

“Mary, you’re not serious. What do you think this is, Nazi Germany?”

“Do you think the Germans knew what was happening?”

“You’re talking of a repeat of the 30’s in Germany. And I think you’re crazy. What about the deposition? They found someone who is attached to terror.”

“Jonathan, that’s as big a farce as the rest of this. That’s their link to the terrorists. They will leak that to the press after the attack and it will draw all the attention away from them. We need to find Bob and get some answers from the agency.”

Jonathan just shook his head.

It was 1:00 a.m. and all of the executive staff at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, had gone home. There were intermittent lights in the buildings, like a hundred candles flickering through the carved holes in a huge jack-o-lantern. In the depths of the complex the technical teams continued through their second shift, with another group preparing to begin at midnight. Bill Reed sat in his office, exhausted from the stress, staring at the wall, drinking his 3rd glass of Scotch in the last hour. It had been a hellacious day and he struggled with the report he was preparing for the President. The report outlined the whole ordeal with Jonathan Anderson and concluded that the Andersons would be found responsible for July 15th and with their deaths, the affair was now under control. He waited patiently for Harry Davidson to call and confirm that the Andersons were aboard the CIA plane that had crashed in the Ozark Mountains before releasing the letter. His phone rang and the caller id illuminated Davidson’s cell number. He took a long drink from his glass of Scotch, letting the phone ring 5 times before picking it up.

“Go ahead,” he said.

“Sir, this is Davidson, I’m over the crash site; there’s a massive forest fire, and it may take days, even a week to find any wreckage.”

“Is the fire contained?” asked Reed.

“No sir, the Department of Forestry is out here with 3 helicopters with buckets, but the heavy stuff is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. It will take a fleet of water tankers and a large ground crew to get this fire under control. I would guess that there’s at least 25 square miles of raging fire down there. Something definitely happened.”

“Have you found the impact point?”

“Negative, but this is pretty dense woods here and the flames are at least 50 feet high, lighting up these big pines like Roman candles. It’s getting dark so we may have to suspend our search until the morning.”

“What about the ELT, the flight data recorder or the cockpit voice recorder? Are you picking up any signals?”

“No sir, nothing.”

“Explanation?”

“There’s none sir. Those devices should have withstood the impact and the fire.”

“Do you have any evidence other than the tower broadcast or the fire that the aircraft went down?”

“No sir.”

A shiver crawled down the Director’s spine as he thought about the possibilities; “Keep looking. Is there any possibility that the plane didn’t go down and that this is another one of his diversions?”

“It’s possible sir, he could have dumped fuel. But I’m not sure how he could have ignited it over a specific area. However, at this point I wouldn’t put anything past him.”

“If he didn’t go down, where could that jet have gone in the past 5 hours?”

“Anywhere in North America, sir, but if that happened, we’ll find him. It’s pretty difficult to hide a Lear 45. Do you want me to contact Flight Service and put out a national probe. We could have every airport, FBO and pilot in North America looking for that plane."

“Not just yet,” answered the Director. “The media will get their hands on it, and we’ll have a nationwide panic on our hands. Say your prayers Davidson that the plane went down and that the Andersons were on it.”

The Director pushed the Presidential letter aside.

“Where are you going?” asked Mary awaking from her stupor as Jonathan took the Occaquan exit off I-95. The windshield wipers continued their melodic pace, and the reflections from the street lights and other traffic made visibility difficult giving an eerie feeling of being awake in a dream world. Even worse was the decrease in temperature which caused the rain to freeze into intermittent patches of ice that looked like shiny “wet spots.”

“To the last place that they would ever look for us,” answered Jonathan in a fatigued and monotone voice.

“Jonathan, you’re not going back to our house in Occoquan?”

“Yep.”

“Why would you take us back there? It’s going to be crawling with agents and cops and bugs.”

“I think we’ll be okay. Besides, we promised our little girl that she would be in her own room tonight. Mary, wouldn’t it be nice to spend at least one more night in our own bed.”

“What about all that surveillance equipment they put in there?”

“I’m betting that it has mysteriously vanished.”

“How can you be so sure?”

“I can’t but I know procedure and they’re thinking we won’t go back. Once a place has been vacated, they don’t leave that stuff hanging around. It could get into the wrong hands. But I’ll sweep the place just in case. Do you still have the keys?”

Mary dug into her purse and pulled out the garage door opener, “One better,” she answered.

“Is there anything that you don’t have in that thing?” asked Jonathan.

Mary smiled. It was refreshing for Jonathan, because it was the first time he had seen her smile all day.

Mary hit the opener and the garage door rolled up. Jonathan’s Corvette and Mary’s 530i sat in the garage just as they had left them.

Jonathan picked Carly up as if he was lifting a bouquet of flowers. He carried her and Bruiser down the hallway and laid her gently in her bed. As soon as her head hit her pillow, her little eyes popped open, “Thank you Daddy,” she said.

“For what, sweetie.”

“For bringing me and Bruiser home. Can you get Brownie for me please?”

“Which one is Brownie, dear?”

Carly eyes showed disappointment in him, for not knowing her stuffed animals by name. “He’s in the net, the one with the red bandana.”

Jonathan handed her Brownie.

“And Grubby and Fluffy and……” Back and forth he went until Carly had virtually every one of her stuffed animals around her, under her and on top of her. All that Jonathan could see was her little nose and mouth. She let out a loud satisfied sigh and drifted into a peaceful sleep. Jonathan bent over and gave her one last kiss and then tiptoed out of her room.

Next, Jonathan led the two blindfolded pilots downstairs to the large recreation room and unshackled them. He cut the duct tape with his pocketknife and ripped it from their mouths and then from their eyes and ears. The tape made a horrible noise as it tore away hair and skin causing each of them to scream. Both were terribly disoriented and had to sit down to regain their equilibrium and let their eyes adjust to the light. Jonathan talked to them directly. “You guys can hang down here. The upstairs door is locked; there are no windows, so there is no place for you to go. If you scream, I’ll tape you back up. The bathroom is the second door on the right and I’ll order you some pizza and wings and there should be beer and soda in the refrigerator. This will all be over in a day or two, so don’t do anything stupid and you will be released unharmed. If you try to escape, you’re going to force me to do something I wouldn’t ordinarily do.”

“I don’t know who you are, but do you realize that you have kidnapped Federal Agents,” said the co-pilot. Jenkins gave him an elbow as if to say, “Shut up!”

“Oh, so you’re Federal Agents, I didn’t realize that,” answered Jonathan. “That changes everything. I should probably kill you and dump you in the river.”

Jenkins piped in, “Sir, don’t pay any attention to him, we’ll cooperate.”

Jonathan looked directly at the co-pilot who was nodding feverishly before smiling. “If you cooperate, I give you my word that you will leave here unharmed. Take a shower, you’ll feel better. I’ll bring you down some clean clothes. There’s one bed and the sleeper sofa is actually pretty comfortable. The sheets are in the closet.”

Jonathan was right about the bugs and the cameras. The agency had stripped the house. He could hear the shower running downstairs and the pizza was on its way. Mary was fast asleep in their bed.

Jonathan was startled awake by the image of Burton’s confused expression just before he collapsed and died. He was hoping that his death was only a dream and that this day had never happened, but the reality of the day’s events flooded back into his brain like water from an old spigot that was suddenly jerked open. He reached over to feel the warmth of Mary’s body and calm his terror and she let out a light sigh. He peered over at the clock and saw that it was only 5:45 a.m. meaning that he had only slept for about two hours. He got up and splashed some cold water on his face and stumbled out into the living room. The house was deadly quiet and he fired up the QX-4. He made himself comfortable and sat cross-legged on the couch. He looked around for a pair of reading glasses, something that of late had become a necessity in life. He knew that the agency would be looking for him to break back into their mainframe, so he used a technique he had learned at Carnegie Mellon years before. He logged into the chat room of AOL and posted the job control language necessary to break into the CIA’s computer. Within minutes, want-to-be hackers were responding. Jonathan knew that if hundreds of people broke into the agency’s computer at the same time, they would have to sort through them all to find him.

He sat there for an hour working his way through the agency computer, driven by Mary’s words of a massive government conspiracy. He had to develop an entirely new security approach to keep from being traced and knew that he would be safe for at least a day before they caught on. The first thing he did was open the Director’s email and

Was startled when he saw an email from Alex Moore had arrived at 2:20 a.m. providing an operational report. He guessed that the Director hadn’t seen the email. The report spoke of a project called
Benedict
and a target in Kentucky that would bring
cohesion and stability
to the administration’s plans. Like most reports it was very cryptic, assuming that the reader was up to speed with all prior events. It was very clear, however, that a liquefied natural gas plant was going to be the target, but it was unclear as to whether the project was to perpetrate or prevent the attack. He was so engrossed in the project that he didn’t here Mary come down the hall behind him. He was surrounded by 50 or so pages of emails, text and directories that he had printed, clumped in untidy stacks by category. Mary snuck up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders.

He jumped and nearly fell off the couch, “Don’t do that! You scared the shit out of me!”

“Sorry…..I woke up and you were gone.”

He took a couple of deep breaths to regain his equilibrium. “I can’t sleep anymore….too many images. It is like they’re all alive inside me, ghoulish, horrible characters”

“Is Matthew one of them?”

A tear ran down his cheek, “His little face is indelibly burned into my soul. And you?”

“Sometimes I dream and he’s there. I can hear his voice, I feel his touch and then he’s gone. What I would do for just one more minute with him.”

“There will be no peace for either of us Mary, until someone pays.”

“I hate those sons of bitches,” answered Mary.

“Is that why you shot Burton?”

“No, I was protecting you!” She bristled, “That son-of-a-bitch can rot in hell. I killed him for what he did to you and what he would do to you again.”

“Does it bother you? That you killed another human being.”

“I don’t know, Jonathan. I can’t think right now. I did what I thought I had to do and that is all.”

Jonathan sensed that she was upset, so he changed the subject. “How long have you been up?”

“Just a few minutes, how about you?”

“About an hour.”

“What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to figure out this mess. Mary, I’m sorry I gave you such a hard time in the car.”

“Well, you didn’t believe me and maybe I was being a little irrational.”

“Anyway I thought before I brought the subject up again I should study the facts. So, I’m putting together your case.”

“For what?”