Triple Threat Page 4

  And what were the odds that he himself would detonate some ordnance, mangling his legs?

  What about the kids then?

  What about his possible life with Kathryn Dance?

  He decided that those questions were pointless. This was military ordnance. He'd end up not an amputee but a mass of red jelly.

  The chopper moved closer. God, they were loud. He'd forgotten that.

  The suspect stopped, glanced back and then turned right, disappearing fast behind a dune.

  Was it a trap? O'Neil started forward slowly. But he couldn't see clearly. The chopper was raising a turbulent cloud of dust and sand. O'Neil waved it back. He pointed his weapon ahead of him and began to approach the valley down which the perp had disappeared.

  The helicopter hovered closer yet. The pilot apparently hadn't seen O'Neil's hand gestures. The sandstorm grew more fierce. Some completely indiscernible words rattled from a loudspeaker.

  "Back, back!" O'Neil called, uselessly.

  Then, in front of him, he noticed what seemed to be a person's form, indistinct in the miasma of dust and sand. The figure was moving in.

  Blinking, trying to clear his eyes, he aimed his pistol. "Freeze!"

  Putting some pressure on the trigger. The gun was double-action now and it would take a bit of poundage to fire the first round.

  Shoot, he told himself.

  But there was too much dust to be sure this was in fact the perp. What if it was a hostage or a lost hiker?

  He crouched and staggered forward.

  Damn chopper! Grit clotted his mouth.

  Which was when a second silhouette, smaller, detached from the first and seemed to fly through the gauzy air toward him.

  What was--?

  The blue backpack struck him in the face. He fell backward, tumbling to the ground, the bag resting beside his legs. Choking on the sand, Michael O'Neil thought how ironic it was that he'd survived a UXO field only to be blown to pieces with a bomb the perp had brought with him.

  # # #

  The Bankers' Association holiday party was underway. It had started, as they always did, a little early. Who wanted to deny loans or take care of the massive paperwork of approved ones when the joy of the season beckoned?

  Carol and Hal were greeting the CCCBA members at the door, showing them where to hang coats, giving them gift bags and making sure the bar and snacks were in good supply.

  The place did look magical. She'd opted to close the curtains--on a nice summer day the water view might be fine but the fog had descended and the scenery was gray and gloomy. Inside, though, with the holiday lights and dimmed overheads, the banquet room took on a warm, comfy tone.

  Hal was walking around in his conservative suit, white shirt andoversized Santa hat. People sipped wine and punch, snapped digital pictures and clustered, talking about politics and sports and shopping and impending vacations.

  Also, a lot of comments about interest rates, the Fed, and the euro.

  With bankers you couldn't get away from shop talk. Ever.

  "We heard there's a surprise, Carol," one of the members called.

  "What?" came another voice.

  "Be patient," she said, laughing. "If I told you it wouldn't be a surprise, now would it?"

  When the party seemed to be spinning along on its own, she walked to the stage and tested the PA system once again. Yes, it was working fine.

  Thank goodness.

  The "surprise" depended on it. She'd arranged for the chorus from one of her grandson's high schools to go up on stage and present a holiday concert, traditional and modern Christmas and Hanukkah songs. She glanced at her watch. The kids would arrive at about 3:45. She'd heard the youngsters before and they were very good.

  Carol laughed to herself, recalling the entertainment at last year's party. Herb Ross, a VP at First People's Trust, who'd injected close to a quart of the "special" punch, had climbed on the table to sing--and even worse (or better, for later water cooler stories) to act out--the entire Twelve Days of Christmas himself, the leaping lords being the high point.

  # # #

  Kathryn Dance spent a precious ten minutes texting and talking to a number of people in the field and here at headquarters.

  It seemed that outside the surreality of the interrogation room, the investigation hadn't moved well at all. Monterey's Forensic Services Unit was still analyzing trace connected with the Taurus and the suspects' pocket litter and Abbott Calderman said they might not have any answers for another ten or fifteen minutes.

  Lord, she thought.

  Michael O'Neil, when last heard from, had been pursuing the third conspirator in the abandoned army base. A police chopper had lost him in a cloud of dust and sand. She'd had a brief conversation with FBI agent Steve Nichols in a nearby mobile command post, who'd said, "This Paulson isn't saying anything. Not a word. Just stares at me. I'd like to waterboard him."

  "We don't do that," Dance had reminded.

  "I'm just daydreaming," Nichols had muttered and hung up.

  Now, returning to the interrogation room with Wayne Keplar, Dance looked at the clock on the wall.

  3:10.

  "Hey," said Wayne Keplar, eyeing it briefly, then turning his gaze to Dance. "You're not mad at me, are you?"

  Dance sat across the table from him. It was clear she wasn't going to power a confession out of him, so she didn't bother with the tradecraft of kinesic interviewing. She said, "I'm sure it's no surprise that, before, I tried to analyze your body language and was hoping to come up with a way to pressure you into telling me what you and Gabe and your other associate had planned."

  "Didn't know that about the body language. But makes sense."

  "Now I want to do something else, and I'm going to tell you exactly what that is. No tricks."

  "Shoot. I'm game."

  Dance had decided that traditional analysis and interrogation wouldn't work with someone like Wayne Keplar. His lack of affect, his fanatic's belief in the righteousness of his cause made kinesics useless. Content-based analysis wouldn't do much good either; this is body language's poor cousin, seeking to learn whether a suspect is telling the truth by considering if what he says makes sense. But Keplar was too much in control to let slip anything that she might parse for clues about deception and truth.

  So she was doing something radical.

  Dance now said, "I want to prove to you that your beliefs--what's motivating you and your group to perform this attack--they're wrong."

  He lifted an eyebrow. Intrigued.

  This was a ludicrous idea for an interrogator. One should never argue substance with a suspect. If a man is accused of killing his wife, your job is to determine the facts and, if it appears that he did indeed commit murder, get a confession or at least gather enough information to help investigators secure his conviction.

  There's no point in discussing the right or wrong of what he did, much less the broader philosophical questions of taking lives in general or violence against women, say.

  But that was exactly what she was going to do now.

  Poking the inside of his cheek with his tongue once more, thoughtful, Keplar said, "Do you even know what our beliefs are?"

  "I read the Brothers of Liberty website. I--"

  "You like the graphics? Cost a pretty penny."

  A glance at the wall. 3:14.

  Dance continued. "You advocate smaller government, virtually no taxes, decentralized banking, no large corporations, reduced military, religion in public schools. And that you have the right to violent civil disobedience. Along with some racial and ethnic theories that went out of fashion in the 1860s."

  "Well, 'bout that last one--truth is, we just throw that in to get checks from rednecks and border control nuts. Lot of us don't really feel that way. But, Ms. Firecracker, you done your homework, sounds like. We've got more positions than you can shake a stick at but those'll do for a start... So, argue away. This's gonna be as much fun as Twenty Questions. But just remember, maybe
I'll talk you into my way of thinking, hanging up that tin star of yours and coming over to the good guys. What do you think about that?"

  "I'll stay open-minded, if you will."

  "Deal."

  She thought back to what she'd read on the group's website. "You talk about the righteousness of the individual. Agree up to a point, but we can't survive as individuals alone. We need government. And the more people we have, with more economic and social activity, the more we need a strong central government to make sure we're safe to go about our lives."

  "That's sad, Kathryn."

  "Sad?"

  "Sure. I have more faith in humankind than you do, sounds like. We're pretty capable of taking care of ourselves. Let me ask you: You go to the doctor from time to time, right?"

  "Yes."

  "But not very often, right? Pretty rare, hmm? More often with the kids, I'll bet.Sure, you have kids. I can tell."

  She let this go with no reaction.

  3:17.

  "But what does the doctor do? Short of broken bone to set, the doctor tells you pretty much to do what your instinct told you. Take some aspirin, go to bed, drink plenty of fluids, eat fiber, go to sleep. Let the body take care of itself. And 99 percent of the time, those ideas work." His eyes lit up. "That's what government should do: Leave us alone 99 percent of the time."

  "And what about the other 1 percent?" Dance asked.

  "I'll give you that we need, let's see, highways, airports, national defense... Ah, but what's that last word? 'Defense.' You know, they used to call it the 'War Department.' Well, then some public relations fellas got involved and 'War' wouldn't do anymore, so they changed it. But that's a lie. See, it's not just defense. We go poking our noses into places that we have no business being."

  "The government regulates corporations that would exploit people."

  He scoffed. "The government helps 'em do it. How many congressmen go to Washington poor and come back rich? Most of them."

  "But you're okay with some taxes?"

  He shrugged. "To pay for roads, air traffic control and defense."

  3:20.

  "The SEC for regulating stocks?"

  "We don't need stocks. Ask your average Joe what the stock market is and they'll tell ya it's a way to make money or put something away for your retirement fund. They don't realize that that's not what it's for. The stock market's there to let people buy a company, like you'd go to a used car lot to buy a car. And why do you want to buy a company? Beats me. Maybe a few people'd buy stock because they like what the company does or they want to support a certain kind of business. That's not what people want them for. Do away with stocks altogether. Learn to live off the land."

  "You're wrong, Wayne. Look at all the innovations corporations have created: the life-saving drugs, the medical supplies, the computers... that's what companies have done."

  "Sure, and iPhones and BlackBerrys and laptops have replaced parents, and kids learn their family values at porn sites."

  "What about government providing education?"

  "Ha! That's another racket. Professors making a few hundred thousand dollars a year for working eight months, and not working very hard at that. Teachers who can hardly put a sentence together themselves. Tell me, Kathryn, are you happy handing over your youngsters to somebody you see at one or two PTA meetings a year? Who knows what the hell they're poisoning their minds with."

  She said nothing, but hoped her face wasn't revealing that from time to time she did indeed have those thoughts.

  Keplar continued, "No, I got two words for you there. 'Home schooling.' "

  "You don't like the police, you claim. But we're here to make sure you and your family're safe. We'll even make sure the Brothers of Liberty is free to go about your business and won't be discriminated against and won't be the victim of hate crimes."

  "Police state... Think on this, Ms. Firecracker. I don't know what you do exactly here in this fancy building, but tell me true. You put your life on the line every day and for what? Oh, maybe you stop some crazy serial killer from time to time or save somebody in a kidnapping. But mostly cops just put on their fancy cop outfits and go bust some poor kids with drugs but never get to why of it. What's the reason they were scoring pot or coke in the first place? Because the government and the institutions of this country failed them."

  3:26.

  "So you don't like the federal government. But it's all relative, isn't it? Go back to the eighteenth century. We weren't just a mass of individuals. There was state government and they were powerful. People had to pay taxes, they were subject to laws, they couldn't take their neighbors' property, they couldn't commit incest, they couldn't steal. Everybody accepted that. The federal government today is just a bigger version of the state governments in the 1700s."

  "Ah, good, Kathryn. I'll give you that." He nodded agreeably. "But we think state and even local laws are too much."

  "So you're in favor of no laws?"

  "Let's just say a lot, lot less."

  Dance leaned forward, with her hands together. "Then let's talk about your one belief that's the most critical now: violence to achieve your ends. I'll grant you that you have the right to hold whatever beliefs you want--and not get arrested for it. Which, by the way, isn't true in a lot of countries."

  "We're the best," Keplar agreed. "But that's still not good enough for us."

  "But violence is hypocritical."

  He frowned at this. "How so?"

  "Because you take away the most important right of an individual--his life--when you kill him in the name of your views. How can you be an advocate of individuals and yet be willing to destroy them at the same time?"

  His head bobbed up and down. A tongue poke again. "That's good, Kathryn. Yes."

  She lifted her eyebrows.

  Keplar added, "And there's something to it... Except you're missing one thing. Those people we're targeting? They're not individuals. They're part of the system, just like you."

  "So you're saying it's okay to kill them because they're, what? Not even human?"

  "Couldn't have said it better myself, Ms. Firecracker." His eyes strayed to the wall. 3:34.

  # # #

  The helicopter set down in a parking lot of the outlet mall in Seaside and Michael O'Neil and a handcuffed suspect--no ID on him--climbed out.

  O'Neil was bleeding from a minor cut on the head incurred when he scrabbled into a cluster of scrub oaks trees escaping the satchel bomb.

  Which turned out to be merely a distraction.

  No IEDs, no anthrax.

  The satchel was filled with sand.

  The perp had apparently disposed of whatever noxious substance it contained on one of his crosscut turns and weaves, and the evidence or bomb or other clue was lost in the sand.

  The chopper's downdraft hadn't helped either.

  What was most disappointing, though, was that the man had clammed up completely.

  O'Neil was wondering if he was actually mute. He hadn't said a word during the chase or after the detective had tackled and cuffed him and dragged him to the helicopter. Nothing O'Neil could say--promises or threats--could get the man to talk.

  The detective handed him over to fellow Monterey County Sheriff's Office deputies. A fast search revealed no ID. They took his prints, which came back negative from the field scanner, and the man was processed under a John Doe as "UNSUB A."

  The blond woman with the big soda cup--now mostly empty--who'd spotted him in the crowd now identified him formally and she left.

  The crime scene boss strode up to O'Neil. "Don't have much but I'll say that the Taurus had recently spent some time on or near the beach along a stretch five miles south of Moss Landing." Calderman explained that because of the unique nature of cooling water from the power plant at Moss Landing, and the prevailing currents and fertilizer from some of the local farms, he could pinpoint that part of the county.

  If five miles could be called pinpointing.

  "Anything else?"<
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  "Nope. That's it. Might get more in the lab." Calderman nodded to his watch. "But there's no time left."

  O'Neil called Kathryn, whose mobile went right to voice mail. He texted her the information. He then looked over at the smashed Taurus, the emergency vehicles, the yellow tape stark in the gray foggy afternoon. He was thinking: It wasn't unheard of for crime scenes to raise more questions than answers.

  But why the hell did it have to be this one, when so little time remained to save the two hundred victims?

  # # #

  Hands steady as a rock, Harriet Keplar was driving the car she'd stolen from the parking lot at the outlet mall.

  But even as her grip was firm, her heart was in turmoil. Her beloved brother, Wayne, and her sometimes lover, Gabe Paulson, were in custody. After the bomb detonated shortly, she'd never see them again, except at trial--given Wayne's courage, she suspected he'd plead not guilty simply so he could get up on the stand and give the judge, jury and press an earful, rather than work a deal with the prosecutor.

  She pulled her glasses out of her hair and regarded her watch. Not long now. It was ten minutes to the Dunes Inn, which had been their staging area. And would have been where they'd wait out the next few days, watching the news. But now, sadly, Plan B was in effect. She'd go back to collect all the documents, maps, extra equipment and remaining explosives and get the hell back to Oakland. She bet there was a goddamn snitch within the Brothers of Liberty up there--how else would the police have known as much as they did?--and Harriet was going to find him.

  It was a good thing they'd decided to split up behind the outlet mall. As the Taurus had temporarily evaded the Highway Patrol trooper and skidded to a stop, Harriet in the backseat, Wayne decided they had to make sure somebody got back to the motel and ditched the evidence--which implicated some very senior people at the BOL.

  She jumped out with the backpack containing extra detonators and wires and tools and phony IDs that let them get into the banquet hall where the CCCBA was having their party. Harriet had been going to hijack a car and head back to the Dunes Inn, but the asshole of a trooper had rammed Gabe and Wayne. And police had descended.