“Yes, sir. It’s a full-blown cluster fuck. The really bad news is that we think Carson got away with the cylinder. Two of the perimeter MPs tried to stop a guy going through the back fence just as the last building went up. One of them took a shot at him, but apparently he missed. The guy got away.”
“Did he have the cylinder? Was it Carson?”
“Unknown to both questions, sir. But Tangent said he and Carson had already traded the money, and they were about to trade the cylinder when the first Ranger started throwing thermite. After that, it was pandemonium. It’s so totally rucked up, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry, except that We may now have some desperate sumbitch on the run with a can of Wet Eye under his arm.”
“Great God,” Waddell said. Carrothers had never heard Myer Waddell at a complete loss for words; it was a bad sign.
“Where’s this Tangent guy now?” Waddell asked finally.
“He’s right here at Fort Gillem, along with his crew. I gave him a satellite-link call to his headquarters in Washington. If they truly didn’t know about this, that will be an interesting phone call. Either way, General, I think it’s time for the elephants to get into this one.
If we’re going contain this thing now, it’s gonna take more stars than I’ve got.”
“Yes, you’re absolutely correct. And cover it we will. I’ll call General Roman right away, and get a line of communications opened to the Bureau.
The only thing we have going for us is that both agencies will have every reason, to cooperate in smothering this little PR disaster hi its crib. And find Carson. You wrap things up there at Fort Gillem, and keep the command trailer set up. We’ll be back to you. My God, Lee, this is about the worst screw up I’ve seen in thirty-five years in the Army.”
“Roger that, General. Carrothers off net.”
43
Stafford was awakened by the shrijl ring of the motel telephone. He sat up in the bed, momentarily disoriented, squinting at his watch.
“Yeah?” he mumbled. What had he been dreaming about? Something about a waterfall. And Gwen Warren.
You’re pathetic, he thought to himself as he rubbed his eyes.
“This is John Lee Warren, Mr. Stafford You seen the news yet this mornin’?”
“No, Sheriff. I just woke up.”
“You ought to have a look The NEC channel from Atlanta is on 41. Then I think you’n me ought to meet for some breakfast. Say eight-fifteen?”
Dave looked at his watch again. Seven-fifteen. “Yeah, fine, Sheriff. Let me get my heart started here, okay?”
“Watch the news. That’ll do it.”
Stafford hung up and sat up straighter, looking for the TV remotk He found it after some searching and flipped on Channel 41. Helicopter shots of the Fort Gillem DRMO came up on the screen. He unmuted and then listened with fascination as the newscaster described a disastrous fire at Fort Gillem, just southeast of Atlanta, Georgia, with die complete destruction of the Atlanta DRMO. “Complete destruction” about describes it, he thought, looking down at the rectangular outlines of blackened ashes. And men the scene shifted to a makeshift press conference set up at what looked like the main gate of Fort Gillem, which he noticed was now crawling with MPs. A tall hawk-faced brigadier general decked out in Desert Storm-style cammies stood in front of a makeshift podium. The man, identified on the screen as Brig. Gen. Lee Carrothers from Army headquarters in Washington, was reassuring the whole world that there had been no personnel casualties and that the damage had been restricted to some warehouses full of obsoleted and surplus military gear, a lot of which had been already slated for destruction.
Yeah, right, Stafford thought. And I wonder if you’ve told the reporters you’re Army Chemical Corps there, General.
The general stated that initial theories included a malfunction in the demil complex, where the possible explosion of combustible waste products might have started the fire. He said it would be several weeks before the cause could be pinpointed with any accuracy, given the extent of the destruction. And then came the kicker: The FBI had been called in to locate the manager of the DRMO, one Wendell Carson, who was missing.
Carson was wanted for questioning in connection with reports of safety violations at the DRMO, and about problems that had surfaced recently in a Defense Criminal Investigative Service inquiry about the auctioning of defense materials.
Stafford sat up straighter when he heard that little announcement, but there was no further explanation given. A snappy-looking colonel followed the general to entertain questions, but no one pursued the matter of the DRMO manager.
He switched the TV off and went in to shower and fj: shave. Standing in the shower, he speculated about the fire and its origins. It had happened sometime the previous night, and yet there was already an Army brigadier down there. The same brigadier he’d spoken to in Washington as late as yesterday afternoon. The same brigadier, he was pretty sure, who’d shanghaied one David Stafford to An nistpn, Alabama, and subjected him to a lie-detector test about what might or might not be lurking at that DRMO. He began to wonder if maybe the Army itself had burned the damned place down. That would sure be one way of — eliminating the DRMO as a hiding place. And now they were searching for Carson, based in part on a DCIS investigation? How very interesting. And then it hit him: This was the one contingency that threatened Gwen and Jessamine: Carson, on the run.
44
Carson jumped in his sleep and then opened his eyes. He was lying on his side on the bed, still fully dressed. He felt a surge of cold panic.
Something had awakened him, something bad or threatening. His breathing was rapid and his heart was beating like a jackhammer in his chest. He rolled his feet over the edge of the bed and tried to sit up, gasping as a sheet of pain ripped across his upper back, taking his breath away.
There was bright sunlight streaming through the crack in the curtains, and he could hear the sounds of the maids’ carts outside. He looked at his watch and saw that it was almost eight-thirty. His back was really hurting now.
It took him several painful minutes to peel his shirt off, and he knew he had torn parts of a clot when he did it. He got the rest of his clothes off and got into the shower, starting it on warm and increasing the heat as much as he could stand. He gingerly washed the wound first with his hands and some soap and then with a washcloth. He did it all by feel, watching the runoff turn pink at the bottom of the tub. Then he turned off the hot water, running only cold, in hopes of reducing any swelling and to accelerate clotting. When he got out, the wound looked redder in the mirror, with a pink discoloration blooming in the skin all along the length of it.
Gotta roll, he thought, although then he realized he had no idea of where he was going to run to. Or, for that matter, if anyone was even looking for him yet. He held one of the bath towels across the wound as he searched for the television remote. Finding it, he switched on the television, punching through several stations, looking for anything about the fire. He finally found a report running on one of the Atlanta stations. He watched the overhead shots taken from a helicopter, amazed at the level of destruction, and then a press conference where some Army general was putting out a line of bullshit about the cause of the fire.
And then came that one-liner about himself. And the FBI. And the DCIS.
He sat back down on the bed as a wave of fear washed over him. The FBI.
And it wouldn’t just be the FBI; it would be every law-enforcement agency in the state. The country, maybe. Safety violations and problems with the public auctions? DCIS inquiry? Bullshit! They knew. Whatever Tangent had told the Army and the FBI, that fucking Stafford must have corroborated. He could understand Tangent squealing to save his ass, but that fucking Stafford had put the nails in his coffin.