“That quick?”
“The NRT has a mobile lab.”
She was confused.
“Are you saying Jared was a bomb maker? And what’s that got to do with Kreiss?”
“No, all I’m saying is that jared has been going into the arsenal. Why, we don’t know. But Foster thinks, based on what you’ve told us, that Kreiss may have stumbled into Jared or his truck at the arsenal, then followed Jared home to question him about his missing daughter. This happens, as best we can tell, on Friday night. Jared ends up dead, and Kreiss ends up back at the arsenal, bailing you out of the tunnel. Why did he go back? Did Jared reveal something? And then, when we go into the arsenal to see what the hell’s going on, a very big bomb is waiting for us. For you, maybe.”
“Or for Kreiss.”
“Yeah, okay, maybe for Kreiss. And then, who should we recover but Kreiss’s daughter, who’s babbling about H-bombs and Washington.”
“But—” “Wait. Jared’s grandfather shows up at the homicide scene today. His name is Browne McGarand. He id’s the body, agrees with the cops that something is fishy in Denmark, tells them Jared liked to live dangerously with married women, then leaves. Then later, he calls the cops, says he’s leaving town, purportedly to break the bad news to Jared’s brother, his other grandson, who’s down in Greensboro, North Carolina. Cops try to get back to him, go by the house, but he’s already gone. They’ve asked the state cops to see if they can spot him out on the interstate and confirm he’s headed for Greensboro. In the meantime, it turns out the chief of d’s on the sheriff’s force knows this guy Browne. That’s Browne spelled with an e, by the way. And based on what he says, Foster now thinks his theory was right and that this guy might be the second half of the bomb team.”
“Jared’s grandfather?”
“Because it turns out that the grandfather is a retired chemical engineer, whose entire career just happened to be spent with the
company that ran Ramsey Arsenal for the Army. He was the chief chemical engineer there when it closed.”
“Holy shit.”
“It gets better. You know Mike Hanson, our own arson and bomb guy?
He was one of the people I sent out to jared’s trailer. He comes back, runs the name McGarand through the NCIC just for the hell of it. There are several McGarands, but only one hit that ties to this area: There was a William McGarand, formerly of Blacksburg, Virginia, who had a local rap sheet of minor offenses and was listed as having ties to an antigovernment, quasi-militia group called the Black Hats. They’re based up in the mountains west of here in Bluefield; combination Aryan Nation, moonshine runners, and marijuana farmers who like to take pot shots at revenuers-that’s aTF these days. Jared McGarand is also listed as being involved with them. But that wasn’t the kicker.”
“Let me guess: William’s related to Browne McGarand.”
“Yes, he is—or was—Browne’s only son. But more importantly, he was one of the people killed at Mount Carmel.”
“Mount what?”
“Mount Carmel, otherwise referred to in these hallowed halls and in the media as the Waco disaster. William was Browne’s son; Jared was William’s son. William’s wife ran off with some guy, and then William took off, leaving their two kids, Jared and the brother, to be raised by their grandfather.”
“Browne,” Janet said. Her stomach was forgotten.
“God, if there’s a Waco connection, then maybe the theory of a bomb cell in southwest Virginia wasn’t just some wash job to cover up for losing control of Kreiss.”
“Hell, Janet, I don’t know. My guess? It was a smoke screen that just happened to be true. But now we’ve had a bomb, a big fucking bomb, and we have an aTF agent dead, and an Agency operative dead, not to mention two civilians, and now this Jared McGarand.”
“So what happens now?”
“The director is into this one, according to the SAC in Richmond. And because the Justice Department, deputy AG Bill Garrette, and Edwin Kreiss are involved, the director is ordering shields up.”
“He remembers the Kreiss affair?”
“Vividly. Plus, there’s been no love lost between Justice and the Bureau for the past four years. Now Kreiss is missing. Foster says there’s a fair chance that he’s hunting down Browne McGarand, not because of any bomb plot, but because he’s still searching for his daughter.”
“Oh God, that’s right: Kreiss doesn’t know we recovered his daughter.”
“Didn’t you tell me you gave Kreiss your pager?”
Janet blinked.
“Yes, I did.”
“I want to activate that pager, and keep calling it until Kreiss answers.
We’d really like to know where the hell he is and what he’s doing, but more importantly, I want you to tell him something.”
From the expression on his face, she thought she knew what was coming next.
“This is coming from the deputy AG at Main Justice, okay? And I don’t much like it. But you are instructed to tell Kreiss that his daughter was there in the arsenal—but that she was killed in the bomb blast. Second, you tell him that this guy Browne McGarand was responsible for abducting her and getting her killed. We’ll even give him McGarand’s vehicle description.”
“Sweet Jesus, boss,” she whispered.
“You don’t mean it!”
“Look, Janet, if there’s even an outside chance that some maniac is loose with a hydrogen bomb and headed for Washington? You bet your ass I mean it. According to Foster and his pals at Justice, Kreiss will react by hunting this McGarand bastard down and boiling him in oil.”
“But what the hell is the Bureau doing turning loose a—what is Kreiss anyway? A retired bounty hunter? I thought we wanted to tie these bomb people to the antigovernment groups. You know, make a case in court and all that good stuff? With evidence, even?”
“The deputy AG has apparently spoken to the Secretary of the Treasury.
aTF headquarters has worked up an official spin on the explosion.
They’re reporting that it was an accident—a buildup of gases over the years in the industrial complex. Big bang, but end of story. Public and media interest goes south. Privately, of course, they’re still looking.”
“Because of the word hydrogen?”
“Right. That fact has spun official Washington up pretty good, especially when aTF admits it can’t identify what kind of explosive did the deed. The Justice Department’s internal response was pretty simple: Find this guy and stop him. Forget building a case. Essentially, the Bureau and the aTF are gearing up to defend the capital, but we’re the only ones besides the Agency who know about Kreiss.”
“Who is a professional loose cannon!”
“But he’s no longer our loose cannon, Janet. He’s now the Justice Department’s loose cannon. Which is why the director, while officially ignorant about Kreiss, is going along with this. He’s saying, Let him run.
Assuming McGarand is loose with a bomb, if Kreiss tracks down McGarand and does something off the wall, Washington’s immediate problem is solved. If it later turns to shit, the director will state that Kreiss was not our asset.”
“Kreiss will be Bill Garrette’s asset,” Janet said wonderingly. She blinked again. This sounded like bureaucratic hubris on a grand scale.
“I’ve got to tell you,” she said, “when Kreiss finds out you lied about his daughter, you personally may move to the top of his hunting list.”
“That’s where the Agency will come in, Janet,” the RA said.
“Bellhouser told Foster that Deputy AG Garrette has made some arrangements with the Agency, which probably knows Kreiss even better than we do. While we’re all hunting the bombers, they’re going to be hunting Kreiss.”