Shaman Winter (10 page)

Dear Virgen de Guadalupe, Sonny thought as he stared at the altar, Madre de Dios, kachinas de los Pueblos, help me find Consuelo.

He turned his chair. “I'll find her,” he said.

“Do you really think so?” Arturo said.

“I have to,” Sonny replied.

Eloisa took his hand and kissed it. “Thank you, Mr. Baca. Thank you. We will be forever grateful.” Tears filled her eyes.

“Yes, we are grateful,” Arturo said. “I don't mean to sound so cynical.” He cleared his throat and asked the question Sonny had been waiting for. “Do you think she's alive?”

“Yes, I think she's still alive.”

At least until Raven abducted three more young women, Consuelo was still alive.

They said good-bye to the Romeros and boarded the van.

“Kind of arrogant, isn't he?” Sonny said as they drove away.

“Self-made man, old family name, knows how to use the Santa Fé politicos, yeah, he is kind of aloof,” Lorenza replied. “But he's hurting. It's obvious the daughter means everything to them. What do you think of the political angle?”

Sonny shook his head. “Raven will play any angle. Along the way he might even ask for ransom money. Why not? He needs to pay those who work for him, he needs to get around—but no. It's not Arturo Romero's political enemies who sent Raven. Hey, this is New Mexico, land of many strange political bedfellows, but we're not into kidnapping the winner's daughter.”

“Not yet—”

The phone rang and Sonny answered. The speaker on the other end introduced himself as Leif Eric, the director of Los Alamos National Laboratories. He wanted to know if Sonny could come up to Los Alamos Labs right away? No, he couldn't discuss it on the phone. But it was an emergency.

Sonny had never met the man, but he knew of him. After Sonny stopped Raven from blowing up the WIPP truck in June, Eric had written a thank-you letter to Sonny. With all the retooling the labs were doing to convert nuclear research into peacetime uses, Eric was often in the news. The Los Alamos Labs were a big factor in the state's economy. When Leif Eric told the governor to jump, he only asked how high.

“How'd you get my number?” Sonny asked.

“Matt Paiz, the FBI director in Albuquerque. You know Matt, don't you?”

“Yeah, I know Matt. Anyway, I'm not sure I can make it.”

“Hold on,” Eric said. “I want Matt to talk to you.”

The regional director of the FBI, Sonny thought. What the hell was going on?

“Sonny. Matt Paiz here. Listen, we've got a little problem on our hands. We really would appreciate talking to you. I can send someone for you right away. No cause for alarm, but we need to talk to you.”

“Can you explain?”

“Not on the phone. Look, I know you're kinda wiped out from your last meeting with Raven, but this is something you really need to know about.”

“It involves Raven?” Sonny said.

“Affirmative.”

“Okay,” Sonny replied, “I'll be there.”

“Come straight to the administration building. I'll be waiting for you.” The phone went dead.

“Qué?” Lorenza asked.

“That was the Los Alamos Labs and the FBI,” he replied. “Raven is on their mind.”

Just what the hell was going on?

5

When they pulled out of the Romeros' drive, they noticed a late-model Ford Explorer following them. They drove north to Pojoaque and turned east, crossing the river at the Otowi Bridge, then began the climb up the seven-thousand-foot-high Pajarito Plateau, where the city of Los Alamos sat.

“We're being followed,” Lorenza said.

“Yeah,” Sonny replied. He had been watching the Ford.

“Who?”

“FBI,” Sonny answered. He hoped. They knew how to trace and find him easily enough, but so did Raven.

The Ford tailed them all the way to Los Alamos, then disappeared as they drew near the security office that sat in front of the administration building.

“Sonny Baca,” Sonny told the armed guard who peered into the van.

“They're waiting for you inside,” the guard motioned. “Park right there, next to the Jeep.” A few cars were parked right in front of the building. The bigwig's Jeep, Sonny figured as Lorenza parked the van. An armed security guard stood nearby.

They were met at the administration building door by Matt Paiz. Sonny knew Matt, and although he didn't like some of the tactics his agents used, he had found Paiz to be a decent guy.

“Sonny, how are you? I'm damn glad you could come. Sorry to bring you out when you're still recuperating, but—”

“I'm okay,” Sonny said. “Lorenza Villa, Matt Paiz.”

Paiz took her hand. “Nice to meet you,” he said. “Look, we've got clearance for you, but we didn't plan on anyone else being in on the meeting.”

“Why not?”

“Lab security,” Paiz explained. “It's always tight, but today it's—” He didn't finish.

“I need her,” Sonny said. “She's with me or I turn around and go home.”

Paiz looked from Lorenza back to Sonny, nodded. “Okay. Let's get you a badge—” He led them to a receptionist's desk where he called the labs' director and explained the situation. Both had to fill out visitors' forms and were scanned by the computer. Until they were purged when their visiting time expired, their faces would exist in the memory of the computer. The secretary handed them temporary badges. “Wear at all times,” she cautioned.

“Is the Ford Explorer yours?” Sonny asked.

“Ford Explorer?”

“Nothing. So what's the deal?”

“I'd rather have Eric explain it,” Paiz replied, and led them down the hallway to his office. The hallway was bristling with the labs' internal security guards and FBI agents. Stern-faced men who stared but said nothing.

“By the way, Casey Doyle's here,” Paiz whispered.

Casey Doyle, the director of the FBI? This is big, Sonny thought, but what the hell does it have to do with me?

Eric was pacing back and forth when Matt let them into his office, and Doyle sat grimly in an armchair. Something very important had brought Doyle from D.C. and Paiz from Alburquerque, Sonny thought. What?

Paiz introduced Sonny and Lorenza. “Leif Eric,” the director replied, shaking their hands. “Damn glad you could come, Sonny. If I may call you Sonny. This is Mr. Doyle, FBI director.”

Eric appeared nervous, but congenial. Doyle hardly smiled. His wrinkled face was sour to the core.

“We owe you an explanation,” Eric began. “And it involves some very secure data. I think it would be best if Ms. Villa waited outside—”

Sonny shook his head. “She stays.”

“But—” Eric glanced at Doyle, who shrugged, then nodded.

“As long as both of you understand that what you're about to learn cannot be discussed outside of this office. Not to the papers, not to the local police, not to a wife or husband, not to anybody.”

“Okay,” Sonny said, and sat back to listen.

“Fine. I'll get to the point,” Eric continued. “We've just intercepted an illegal shipment of plutonium.” He paused, as if waiting for Doyle to add something. “Actually, it's a plutonium pit.”

“Do you mean the core of a nuclear bomb?” Sonny asked for clarification.

“Affirmative,” Eric replied.

Holy tortillas, Sonny thought. Intercepted the core of a nuclear bomb? He knew a black market in plutonium existed. Now that the world was dismantling its nuclear arsenals, the stuff was being bought and sold. He remembered a small amount of plutonium being intercepted at Kennedy Airport a few years ago.

“We believe it came from Ukraine,” Eric continued. “Ten kilograms. Enough to make a crude nuclear bomb, if someone were so inclined.”

“Taken right from a nuclear bomb?” Sonny asked, just to make sure he was visualizing the right thing.

“A nuclear missile.”

“Ah,” Sonny whispered. In its machined, metallic form, a plutonium pit could be smuggled across borders in a briefcase. That's what the CIA and other intelligence agencies had been afraid of all along—terrorist groups getting hold of a pit from a dismantled nuke.

“Is it ready to be used?”

Eric cleared his throat. “Yes. It was obviously taken when a nuclear missile was being dismantled. It came into New York City, went through Denver, and was on its way here when it was intercepted.”

Damn, Sonny thought, a plutonium pit. A real live core bouncing around the country.

“How'd you find it?” Sonny asked.

“By accident,” Paiz explained. “A state cop stopped a car near Raton. Two men. They shot the cop, but not before he got off a shot. Killed one of the smugglers, the other fled.”

Yes, the story had been on the radio yesterday. A state cop shot near Raton, but the story said nothing about the plutonium, and being more concerned with his own health, Sonny really hadn't paid attention to it. He figured it was one more dope smuggler stopped by a state cop.

“Besides the people in this room,” Eric continued, “only two of my people know we recovered the core. The two I sent to the crime scene to recover it. We haven't even told the state police what we're faced with.”

“So why tell us?” Sonny asked.

Doyle stood and spoke for the first time. “The description of the suspect that got away fits the description of a friend of yours.”

For being director of the FBI, Doyle was no superhero, only a seventy-year-old man with a stoop and the weight of the world on his back. He was a political appointee hired to try to clean up the agency. The president didn't want the mole scandal that wrecked the CIA a few years back to be duplicated in the FBI.

He stood in front of Sonny, his eyes boring into him. He was a bent old man, but his look was intimidating.

“A friend of mine,” Sonny said. “Who?” he asked, but he already knew.

“The guy who tried to blow the WIPP truck,” Doyle said, placing his hands behind his back and walking to the big plate-glass window that faced east. From there he could see as far as the Río Grande valley and the Sangre de Cristo Mountains rising above Santa Fé. Threatening storm clouds hung over the Santa Fé peaks.

“The man who uses the Raven alias,” Eric said.

Sonny looked at Paiz, Paiz nodded.

Raven smuggling plutonium? To make a bomb? Dr. Stammer's warning rang in Sonny's memory: Raven's going to Russia to buy a nuke. And I believe him.

“We've been after him since he tried to blow the WIPP truck,” Paiz said. “You almost caught him during the Balloon Fiesta when he tried to smuggle in the cocaine shipment. He was selling coke to pay for this. Then he disappeared. Now we know he was shopping in Ukraine.”

“How much does it cost to buy a plutonium pit?” Sonny asked.

“Millions,” Eric said.

“There are plenty of our enemies out there willing to fund this lunatic,” Doyle interjected. “North Korea, Iran, Iraq, you name it. We've followed a trail of money funneled through a Swiss bank account. Over twenty million dollars. Now the account is empty. Raven bought the plutonium all right. We were just lucky to intercept it.”

So Arturo Romero won't get a ransom note after all, Sonny thought. Raven has other money sources.

“Does he actually think he can build a bomb?” Sonny asked. “Don't you need a lot of equipment?”

Eric nodded. “If he's got the right people, a bomb can be put together almost anywhere. Out-of-work, disgruntled nuclear scientists from the former Soviet Union or Ukraine are selling their services. Ex-nuclear physicists are a dime a dozen. An expert in focused explosives could be bought. Someone with that kind of expertise could build the detonators. Actually, manuals on how to put together a bomb have circulated on the Internet for years now. What's been lacking is the heart of the bomb, the pit.”

“But you have the pit,” Sonny said, “so what's the problem?”

“This man is dedicated to a world revolution,” Doyle said. “We have a dossier on him a foot thick. He failed this time, but we're sure he'll try again.” He placed his hands on the desk, and his gaze bore into Sonny. “We need to find him and stop him.”

And I need to find him and stop him, Sonny thought.

“National security is afraid he'll try again,” Eric said.

Paiz spoke. “When we first met Raven, we thought we were dealing with a crazy activist who opposed the storage of nuclear waste at the WIPP site. But once we pulled a background check on him, as Mr. Doyle has just said, we found aliases a mile long. Turns out Raven is not Raven.”

Sonny checked a smile. How many times had he heard that?

“He's not just an ecoterrorist, and his knowledge of explosives is far greater than that picked up by blowing dynamite in the Grant's mines. He's been around the world, from Libya to North Korea. He's left his footprints all over the place.”

“Footprints?”

“A faint trail,” Paiz continued. “He's here, he's there—”

“But now he's here,” Sonny said.

“Yes. He's here, and he has a base of operations.”

“Why here?” Sonny tested their knowledge of Raven.

“Because of the labs,” Eric replied. “Between us, Sandia Labs, and Kirtland in Albuquerque, we've got the expertise and the nuclear capability—” He paused, pursed his lips, and said no more.

“So how do I fit in?” Sonny asked.

“He left a message. We believe it's for you,” Eric said.

“A message?” Sonny was surprised. So this is why they called him in.

“It's a bowl, and actually Matt's the one who figured the message relates to you.”

Sonny's hair along the back of his neck stood on end.

“What kind of bowl?”

“It's one of the most beautiful pieces of pre-Columbian art I've ever seen,” Eric said. “It resembles the work from Tula. Pre-Toltec obsidian. There are glyphs carved on the outside of the bowl. I've been collecting Indian pottery since I came to New Mexico, and I've never seen anything this beautiful. We think he was carrying the plutonium pit in the bowl. And here's the strange part, the bowl isn't lead lined, but an initial test tells us the plutonium doesn't emit radiation through it.”