Wild Fire (41 page)

“I was already convinced. This is the clincher.” I added, “If you notice the silverware glowing tonight, let me know.”

“John, we are not going—”

“What is the downside of going there for dinner?”

“Death, dismemberment, disappearance, and divorce.”

“We can handle that.”

“I have a better idea. Let’s get in that van and drive to Manhattan.
Now.
We’ll call Tom on the way—”

“Forget it. I am not going to be on the fucking Thruway talking to Tom Walsh on my cell phone, while the shit is hitting the fan right here. In fact, the real reason we’re going to the Custer Hill Club tonight is not dinner, or to gather more evidence, but to determine if we can and should place Mr. Bain Madox under arrest for the murder of—sorry, the assault on—Federal Agent Harry Muller.”

She thought about that, then replied, “I don’t think we have enough evidence, or probable cause to—”

“Fuck the evidence. We
have
the evidence. It’s in those bags. And the probable cause is the sum total of everything we’ve seen and heard.”

She shook her head and said, “An arrest on
any
Federal charge—especially of a man like Bain Madox—would be premature, and could get us in
real
trouble.”

“We’re already there.” I added, “We need to arrest this bastard
tonight
. Before he does whatever he thinks he’s going to do next.”

She didn’t say anything, and I thought I’d made my point. “All right, let’s have the bad news.” I added, in a nicer tone, “Then I can make a rational decision about what to do next.”

She said, “I thought you might have figured it out by now.”

“I would have mentioned it if I did. Hold on.” I thought for ten full seconds, and something was trying to connect in my brain, but I had too many things on my mind, so I asked, “Animal, mineral, or vegetable?”

She moved to the desk and, still standing, pulled the laptop closer. “Let me show you something.”

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

K
ate hit a few keys on the laptop computer, and a page of text came up on the screen. She said, “That’s an unpublished piece about Mikhail Putyov, written ten years ago.”

I glanced at the screen. “Yeah? And?”

She turned the computer toward me and said, “The writer is a fellow named Leonid Chernoff, another Russian nuclear physicist, also living in the U.S. This piece is in the form of a letter to fellow physicists, in which he praises Putyov’s genius.”

I didn’t respond.

She continued, “And here”—she scrolled—“Chernoff writes, and I quote, ‘Putyov is quite content now in his teaching position, and finds his work challenging and rewarding. Though one must ask if he is as challenged as when he worked at the Kurchatov Institute on the Soviet miniaturization program.’” She looked at me. “End quote.”

“Miniaturization of
what
?”

“Nuclear weapons. Like nuclear artillery shells, for instance, or land mines. Also, nuclear suitcase bombs.”

It took me half a second to get it, and I felt like I’d been kicked in the stomach. “Holy shit . . .” I stared stupidly at the illuminated laptop screen, my mind racing through everything we’d heard, discovered, knew, and suspected.

“John, I think there are two nuclear suitcase bombs in Los Angeles, and two in San Francisco.”

“Holy
shit
.”

“I don’t know the final destination of those weapons, or if Madox’s two aircraft are going to be transporting those suitcases to their ultimate destination or destinations, or if they’re going to be put on a ship, or—”

“We need to ground those aircraft.”

“Done. I called my friend Doug Sturgis, who’s the ASAC in the LA field office, and told him to put those two aircraft under surveillance in case the pilots show up, or have the planes impounded as evidence in a Federal case that was urgent and of the highest priority.”

I nodded. Her “friend” Doug was, I think, an old boyfriend from when she’d been posted in LA some years ago. I’d had the pleasure of meeting this pin dick when Kate and I had chased down Asad Khalil in California—and I had no doubt that this wimp would jump through his ass for his old pal Kate.

Still, I didn’t see how Kate could kick off a major case with a single phone call to some assistant special agent in charge in LA. I mean, the workings of the FBI remain a mystery to me, but I seem to recall a chain of command.

I asked her about this, and she replied, “What I did—to avoid going through Tom Walsh—was to ask—plead with Doug—to treat this as an anonymous terrorist threat tip.” She informed me, “That will actually get the ball rolling faster, if Doug says that the tip sounded legitimate.”

“Right. And he’s doing this?”

“He said he would.” She added, “I explained that I . . . and you . . . were having some credibility problems with the ATTF, but that I had this extremely reliable information, and it was
urgent,
and it was in
his
jurisdiction, and—”

“Okay. I got it. And he’s your pal, so he stuck his neck out for you.”

“He wouldn’t stick his neck out for anyone. But he does have to respond to a credible terrorist threat.”

“Right. I guess he knows you’re credible.”

“Can we move on?”

“Yeah. I just needed to know that this is in the right hands, and it’s not sitting in someone’s tomorrow box.”

She moved on. “I also gave Doug the names Tim Black and Elwood Bellman, and I told him that Black was probably staying in a hotel in Los Angeles, and Bellman in San Francisco, and that we needed to find these pilots ASAP.” She added, “I told him my suspicion that they could be transporting suitcase nukes.”

I nodded. That was the right move, obviously. “Did that get his attention?”

She ignored that and continued, “He promised to begin a manhunt in LA immediately, and to call the San Francisco field office, and also to put this out to all local law enforcement agencies in both cities and suburbs. He will also speak to his boss in LA, and both of them will call the Directors in Charge in New York and Washington, and report this tip. Doug will affirm that he believes it is a credible tip, based on the specific nature of the information and so forth, and he’ll describe the actions he’s taking.”

“Good. But if this turns out to be four suitcases filled with porn magazines for Madox’s Arab friends, will Doug take the rap? Or will he mention your name?”

She looked at me and asked, “Do you think I’m wrong on this?”

I thought a moment, then replied, “No. I think you’re right. Four suitcase nukes. I’m with you.”

“Good. Thank you.” She continued, “I told Doug to ask for an elevated domestic terrorist threat level.”

“That should get the LA office off their surfboards.” I reminded her, “This is not actually a domestic threat.”

“No. And Bain Madox is not a terrorist . . . well, maybe he is. But I couldn’t figure out how to classify a plot to send four suitcase nukes overseas, so I said to Doug, ‘Treat it like an elevated domestic threat, as long as we believe the suitcases are still in LA and San Francisco.’”

“Good move.”

“The FBI in both cities are contacting all the local cab companies to see if any of their drivers remember picking up a male passenger at the taxi line at LAX and SFO, carrying a large, black leather trunk. But I think that’s a long shot because, as you know, many of those cabbies are foreigners, and they don’t like to talk to the police or FBI.”

That was not a politically correct statement from a Federal employee, but when the pressure was on, even the Feds had to retreat into reality.

She continued, “We have a better description of the trunks than of the pilots and co-pilots. So, I asked Doug to call the FAA and get Black and Bellman’s license photos e-mailed to the FBI in LA and San Francisco ASAP. Then, I learned, to my amazement, that pilot licenses don’t have photos on them.”

“Unbelievable. Another incredible example of FAA post-9/11 stupidity.”

“So I used the FAA addresses for the pilots to get their state
driver’s
licenses with their photos. Black lives in New York, Bellman lives in Connecticut.”

“I see you were busy while I was gone.”

“I got real busy after I realized we may be dealing with suitcase nukes.”

“Right. And how is Doug?”

“I was too busy to ask him. But he did send you his regards.”

“That’s nice.” Fuck him. “Did he appreciate you telling him how to do his job?”

“John, I had the information, and I’d been thinking about this, and he was . . . well, stunned. So, yes, he appreciated my input.”

“Good.” Also, I recalled he seemed dim-witted.

I thought about this new and exciting development, and my mind was trying to compute all the angles, equations, and possibilities. I said to Kate, “If these pilots went to hotels, and if this is some kind of secret Madox mission, which it seems to be, then these four guys probably checked in under false names.”

She nodded. “But we have the real names of the two pilots, so the FBI will have their driver’s license photos very soon, if not already.” She informed me, “Doug is asking the Kingston regional office in New York to send an agent to the GOCO dispatch office at Stewart Airport to find out who the co-pilots were.”

“Good thinking.” It seemed that this end of the problem was covered, but I thought that finding those four pilots would not be easy, especially if Madox had instructed them to lay low, not answer their cell phones, stay in their hotel rooms, and use false ID.

Kate said, “Unfortunately, the suitcase nukes—if that’s what they were transporting—could very well be out of their hands by now.”

“They
are
suitcase nukes. Just call them what they are.”

“Okay, okay. Madox is going to ship them someplace out of the country. My guess is the Mideast, or another Islamic country.” She went on, “I called Garrett Aviation Service back and got a guy on the phone who said that the Cessna Citation could not make a Pacific crossing unless it went up the West Coast to Alaska, then the Aleutian Islands, then Japan, and so forth.” She pointed out, “This would involve many refueling stops, not to mention customs checks along the way. So, I think we can rule that out.”

I nodded and processed all this. Madox’s Cessna Citations had landed Sunday night in LA and San Francisco. The pilots and co-pilots had left no local address, but had indicated that they were flying out Wednesday—tomorrow—and heading back to New York. And I was sure that the pilots thought they
were,
and maybe they really were. Meanwhile, where was their cargo? Most probably it was not with them any longer.

I said to Kate, “I’m thinking that Madox is going to use—or has already used—one of his own oil tankers to transport these nukes someplace.
That
is why his aircraft landed in seaport cities.”

Kate nodded. “I came to the same conclusion, and I asked Doug to begin a search of ships and containers at both ports, beginning with GOCO-owned ships.” She said unnecessarily, “This is a big job. But if they get the NEST teams activated soon, and the port security people, who also have gamma-ray and neutron detectors, we might get lucky.”

“Right . . . but they need to sweep not only ships and containers but also warehouses and trucks . . . and for all we know, those nukes are going to be shipped by commercial air carriers.”

“They’re also checking all area airports.”

“Okay. But this really is like looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“These needles are radioactive, and we have a good chance of finding them.”

“Maybe, if they’re still in LA and San Francisco. But here’s a more likely scenario—those nukes are already on their way by sea or air to their final destinations. I mean, it’s been almost two days since they arrived on the West Coast.”

“You may be right, but we need to search for them in these cities in case they’re still there.” She added, “It will be easier to find the pilots, especially if they turn up at LAX and SFO tomorrow.”

“Right. Okay, here’s the bottom line on those pilots. It would be nice to find them, but I don’t think the FBI will find them with their suitcases. The pilots will, however, know where they delivered the suitcases, or maybe who picked them up. But the trail will probably end there.” I pointed out, “Unfortunately, we’re about forty-eight hours late on this, and the next time those suitcase nukes are seen, it will be in the form of four mushroom clouds over Sandland.”

Kate stood silent and motionless for a while. “God, I hope not.”

“Yeah.” Well, it seemed that Kate and what’s his name in LA had done all they could on short notice, and they’d done a good job—though this was not rocket science, or nuclear physics for that matter. It was standard police and FBI work, and it would yield the four pilots, and maybe even some information about the suitcase nukes. The problem, however, was—as it had always been with this case—time. Madox had started the game before the visiting team had even shown up, and he had points on the board before his opponents took the field.

But there was, possibly, good news. A weak link in this nuclear chain. I said to Kate, “The ELF transmitter.
That
is how he is going to detonate those bombs.”

She nodded. “
That’s
what ELF was about. Each bomb must have an extremely low frequency receiver connected to the detonating device. The ELF waves, as we discovered, can travel around the world and penetrate anything. So, when the bombs are where Madox wants them to be, he sends a code from here, and within an hour, the signal reaches the receivers in the suitcases, wherever in the world they are.”

“Right. So it seems as though this asshole built this elaborate ELF station almost twenty years ago to send bogus messages to the U.S. nuclear submarine fleet in order to start World War III. But that didn’t work out, so now he’s figured out another way to make his investment pay off.”

Kate nodded and said, “It all makes sense now.”

“Right . . . and Putyov was the guy who did whatever he had to do with those suitcase nukes to make them detonate by way of an ELF wave.”

“Also, I discovered online that miniature nuclear weapons need periodic maintenance, so that was also Putyov’s job.”

“The late Dr. Putyov.”

Kate nodded.

I asked, rhetorically, “Where the hell did Madox get these nukes?” Then I answered my own question. “I guess they’re for sale from our new friends in Russia—which is why Madox hired a Russian. Shit, I couldn’t even find a good Swedish mechanic to fix my old Volvo, and fucking Madox has a Russian nuclear physicist to tune up his atomic bombs.” I added, “It’s all about money.”

“Money and madness are not a good combination.”

“Good point. Okay . . . so, I guess four cities someplace are in trouble in a few days . . . or a few hours—Islamic cities. Right?”

“Right. What else makes sense?”

I thought about who might be in Madox’s crosshairs. But the potential targets were too numerous to count. And it depended to some extent on if those nukes were being transported by air or sea or some combination of air, sea, and land. I wouldn’t put it past this guy to nuke Mecca or Medina, but maybe this was purely a business deal, and he’d picked oil-shipment points in countries that had pissed him off. Bottom line—what difference did it make?

Kate said, “Well, I think I did everything I could, and Doug is going to do everything
he
can.”

“Yeah . . .” I glanced at my watch. “This will give the LA field office something to do before their evening aerobics classes.”

“John—”

“But on the subject of who knows what, and when—Washington
does
know something about this. It’s just that they forgot to tell us about it.”

No comment from FBI Special Agent Mayfield.

“That’s the only way Harry’s assignment makes any sense.” I continued, “The Justice Department and therefore the FBI in Washington know what Madox is up to. Right?”

“I don’t know. But, as I told you, this was something a lot bigger than you realized when you started sticking your nose into a Justice Department investigation.”

“I think we both understand that.” I said to Kate, “Here are two conspiracy theories for you: one, the government knows what’s going on at Custer Hill, and Harry was the sacrificial lamb sent to give the FBI an excuse to bust down Madox’s doors and arrest him. But here’s a better one—the government knows what’s going on at Custer Hill, and Harry was the sacrificial lamb sent to get Madox and his friends off their asses so that they’d pull the trigger on those nukes.”