Donohue put Guinness back in his vehicle. He opened Smith’s car and found the trunk latch below the dash, left of the steering wheel. Donohue pulled it and heard a click. He walked back to the tail of the Grand Am.
“Perelli.”
“Yeah?”
“Better get the bomb squad down here.”
Elena sipped a cappuccino in the Starbucks across from the federal courthouse in San Antonio. The clientele this Wednesday morning were either clerks or lawyers who would spend their day across the street or tourists on their way to and from the shops and cookie cutter restaurants.
She looked into the swirls of white and brown foam on the top of the paper cup bearing the café’s logo and considered one last time what she was about to do. Elena was almost surprised that her boss accepted her theory. Perhaps it was the desperation of the case. There were rumors that even the Governor of Texas was calling the FBI weekly now, wanting to know how the hell someone could kill two soldiers and steal explosives within the border of his great state and not leave a trace of evidence. The criminal investigative services of both the Army the Navy were maneuvering carefully to get more involved in the investigation, but Cameron was keeping them at bay.
Elena wrestled with her uncertainty, and yet Jazz seemed the only lead. She remembered the sounds of Cam’s voice passing through coffee and tobacco stained teeth.
“If you fucking screw this up…”
Was she just grasping at straws? Had she missed something? Or was there nothing to be found?
Deep down she believed that there had to be something else, some evidence buried somewhere within the case files in his office that still eluded her. The FBI Academy taught her one certainty-there is always at least one remote clue that leads to the perpetrator. The key was to find it and exploit it before the criminals were able to separate themselves from it. But it had to be the right clue.
Was it the blue-eyed naval officer?
One more time Elena went over it in her mind. It was the best thing she could do right now to keep the case moving. She remembered what Frances said to her just hours before.
“Listen, I think you should go to the judge and get the ball rolling. I mean worse case you don’t find anything, right? Then you guys pack your stuff and go home. Nobody gets hurt, right?”
“Yeah, I guess, except it would mean that we devote a lot of time and energy to nothing.”
She watched Frances take a drag on her cigarette.
“Does that ever happen?”
“Yes, but not often.”
“What is it about this case?” Frances asked. “This one seems different somehow.”
It’s different because I want to bed my suspect.
Elena’s thoughts returned to Jascinski. She finished her drink and looked at the form requesting surveillance on Jascinski one more time. Maybe this will lead to something, she tried to tell herself.
She got up and threw her paper cup in the nearest trash can. Then she walked across the street, up the steps, and into the Chambers of Judge William Normal.
Thomas Donahue was exhausted after a long shift. He entered the department’s locker room at dawn, and considered napping on a couch in the squad lounge before driving home. He couldn’t stop thinking of the incident the day before. Perelli came in the locker room just behind Donohue.
“Donny, that was good stop,” he said slapping Donohue on the back.
“Then why the hell is he walking?”
“The man posted bail,” Perelli replied.
“He was going to blow up the fucking Pentagon! He had a false ID card!”
“Illegal possession of explosives of firearms and impersonating an officer.”
“So why isn’t he behind bars?”
“The man has got himself a lawyer,” Perelli said with resignation.
Perelli took the nine-millimeter Sig-Sauer out of its holster and released the clip. He pulled the slide back and ejected a round from the chamber. Out of habit, he sited the bore in the light above his locker to make positively sure there was not a round in the barrel. Then he released the slide and set the weapon in his locker. He looked at Donohue sitting on the bench in front of his locker, hunched over with his head in his hands.
“Listen, Donny. I have seen a lot of things in my day. Believe me this is not the first time some James Bond, Dick Marcinko wanna-be drove around the parking lot with an arsenal in his trunk.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“No. You should know by now that there are a lot of nuts out there. Heck, we even had a guy a few years back who posed as a DPS officer.”
“No way.”
“I shit you not. The guy studied us closely. Bought uniforms from the same supplier. He got a patch from somebody at a recruiting fair.”
“How did you catch him?”
“Bud Coffey caught him doing a traffic stop.”
“In what? Did he get a car?”
“Yep, bought a surplus cruiser from Prince George’s County. He had it painted white and acted as if it were an unmarked car.”
“No shit.”
“Donny, you done good. Now put it behind you. Let the lawyers do the rest of that stuff.”
Fortunately, Gabriel still had the contact number Nasih provided him in case he was ever in legal trouble. He noticed that the attorney that took care of him, like Nasih, spoke flawless English but seemed to be Middle-Eastern. Gabriel cursed himself again for his foolishness. He knew that his mentor would be angry with him. In the last few hours, much of Nasih’s teachings were coming back to him.
Damn, why didn’t I pay more attention?
He now realized that there was more to be learned from the man’s rhetoric than he originally thought. Gabriel endured Nasih’s ramblings just to get to the good part.
Come on, man. Teach us how to make bombs, he recalled thinking once during a particularly long session, besides we’re missing Monday night football.
It was becoming clear just how brilliant the man was. As he descended the stairs of the Navy Annex, Gabriel looked down the hill toward the Pentagon. He recalled something else Nasih said that same night.
“The Justice System of the United States of America will be your greatest ally.”
It would be a busy night. Gabriel would have to ditch the car, the “James P. Smith” Virginia license and accompanying social security card, and then the credit cards. He decided to make some purchases at a surplus store first. It was time to slip into the mountains. He was pretty sure that the Appalachian Trail was only a few hours away.
THIRTY
“So, what the hell is Noble Anvil?” Jazz asked Duvall as he sat across from him in Inchon’s wardroom.
“It’s the operation going on in Kosovo and Albania. Seems Milosovich and his boys are doing some ethnic cleansing on the Ethnic Albanians. They are fleeing over the border into Albania.”
“Whoa, I’m confused already. Ethnic what, to ethnic who? Albanians fleeing to Albania?”
“Yep. You missed our intel brief the other day. Way back when, and I mean like in the 800’s, the Serbs revolted against the Turks and got their asses kicked. As a punishment the Turks forced them out of Kosovo and moved in Albanians who were also under their control.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“No joke. Milosovich in his mind is trying to correct a two thousand year old wrong.”
“So, what are we going to do?”
“Security for the helos. Apparently there are few good roads in Albania. The Air Force is flying humanitarian rations into Tirane, the capitol. Our MCM helos are now going to become heavy lift cargo birds. They’re going to take rations, blankets, and other humanitarian stuff to the displaced Albanians.”