Spy Thriller: The Fourteenth Protocol: A Story of Espionage and Counter-terrorism (The Special Agent Jana Baker Book Series 1) (30 page)

78
             
 

The neighborhood had been evacuated. There were no cars on the road and no boys on bicycles terrorizing the sidewalk. The mail truck did not come down 175th Street or the surrounding blocks. Electric and heating oil service had been shut off in the area. Whether through leaks or outright observation, the media now knew the contamination was from nuclear material, not chemicals. In order to keep the media’s low-flying helicopters away, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission pressured the FAA to clear the airspace above. The media were told there was a danger in spreading the nuclear material that had been found at the house.

From the air, it looked like a scene out of the movie
E.T.
Old Mrs. Neebody’s house was shrouded in a dome of thick, milky plastic. Decontamination trucks lined the street both in front and behind the house. Long plastic tunnels that looked like habitrails led from the house to the decontamination stations. The overcast sky created a diffuse gloom across the area as FBI agents dressed in space suits ambled through the habitrails, looking like the Michelin man.

The media had coined it The Hiroshima Hilton. Radioactive contamination was far worse than originally estimated. Neighbors who lived on either side of the house had been hospitalized, showing early signs of radiation poisoning. And the two police officers who initially responded to complaints of a foul odor at the house had spent the night in isolation in the critical care unit of Mount Sinai Hospital and were now being transported to Bethesda Medical Center’s acute care unit.

Both deceased bodies discovered in the dwelling had not been moved. It was deemed too dangerous to move them yet. A specialized vehicle was being brought in from Ft. Carson, Colorado, to handle the removal of bodies and later removal of the house itself, which would have to be totally demolished.

“Hey, Jones, get over here,” yelled an agent through his facemask and helmet while walking within one of the habitrails.

“Yeah, what cha got?” said the other agent.

“Get on the horn to Federal Plaza. Tell Director Latent that I said it’s worse than I thought. Tell him this stuff is weapons grade. This radiation emanates from high core uranium-235.”

“Roger that.”

A pair of crime scene specialists worked the basement for hours, documenting everything. The crime scene was the most complex thing they had ever encountered. The element of radioactive contamination made every bit of their job ten times harder. All samples, fibers, and other evidence had to be handled in such a way as to not contaminate the FBI crime lab. Photographs were made on site and uploaded wirelessly for evaluation. The cameras would later be left on site and destroyed with the house. They were working as fast as possible, but the enormous space suits they wore slowed them down.

Two other Michelin men wobbled left and right down the groaning basement staircase. Agent Larry Fry, who was one of only a dozen or so agents dual-trained in crime scene investigation and hazardous materials threats, stopped at the bottom of the stairs and surveyed the boxy basement space. To Fry, it looked like a cinder-block coffin. He hoped it wouldn’t be his own.

“You guys notice anything strange about this space?” he said.

“You mean, besides the four of us assholes dumb enough to put on these suits and walk willingly into the Hiroshima Hilton?”

“No, besides that. I mean, look at the shape of the basement.”

“Yeah? It’s a square, so what?”

“It’s a perfect square,” said Fry.

“So what? You don’t like squares?”

“The upstairs isn’t a perfect square. Where’s the rest of this basement?”

“Well, maybe they were just cutting corners when she was built,” said the other agent.

Fry shuffled his feet across the gritty cement floor and rotated a tripod holding bright lighting equipment, pointing it against a wall.

“Yeah? Well look at this,” Fry said. “When you point the lights towards the cinder block wall, you can see the mortar on this wall is much whiter than the rest. The cinder blocks themselves look old, but the mortar looks brand-new. In fact, this is the side of the house where we should be seeing more basement.”

“What are you saying? That this is a fake wall?”

“Damn right that’s what I’m saying. Call outside, get us some sledgehammers. Hurry.”

79
             
 

Stephen Latent stayed in New York instead of returning to headquarters in Washington. He wanted to be on the ground with his men and moved between the field office and the command post near the site of the contamination in Queens.

“Are those the images from the basement?” he said, looking at a computer screen. “Anything that stands out? Anything we can use to track down this bomb?”

“Yes, sir, this is coming live from the dwelling’s basement. Nothing solid yet, sir. But we now have a list of all the nuclear facilities in the country that use the high core type of uranium-235, which is what has been identified here. Unfortunately, the list of facilities is huge. And again, not a single one has reported any misplaced or stolen nuclear material. The lab is further isolating the exact isotope so we’ll be able to match the uranium against any possible suspects.”

“What do you mean?” said Latent.

“Each nuclear facility uses a specific and unique tag, almost like a signature, to identify their uranium. It’s kind of like the way we tag ricin and other types of poisons that the CDC or other labs produce. It’s a way of being able to identify exactly where the radioactive material was produced, so we can narrow down the source in the event of a breach. Once we isolate it, we’ll know exactly where it came from.”

“How long will that take?” said Latent.

“About twelve hours, sir. We’ve got the best people on it right now.”

Latent started to walk away, but the agent called back to him.

“Oh, sir? One more thing.”

“What is it?” said Latent.

“The agents in the basement are asking for sledgehammers.”

“Sledgehammers?”

“Yes, sir. Larry, ah, I mean, Agent Fry thinks there’s a false wall down there.”

80
             
 

“Here, hold this in your hand,” Jana said, handing Cade a handheld radio. “And remember, don’t say a word.”

“Yes, ma’am,” but as Cade took it, he was taken aback by the gaze in her eyes. It was like looking at case-hardened steel. “Are you okay?” he said.

“You might see a side of me you don’t like.”

The parking lot was straight ahead. Jana flipped on the car’s blue lights and sped through the sea of parked cars towards the entrance, jerked the car up onto the walkway, and screeched to a halt. They both jumped out and ran towards the door. The security guards at their post just inside the lobby stood up in alarm. Jana pounded the locked glass door.

“Federal Agent, open the door! Federal Agent. Open the door right now!”

One of the guards scrambled to the door in bewilderment. He opened the door and leaned out but couldn’t peel his eyes off of Jana’s blue windbreaker.

“Ah, yes, ah, ma’am, ah, Agent-ma’am? Can I help you?”

Jana bolted through him like he was made of marshmallows. Her hand wrapped around the ID tag clipped to his cheap button-down shirt. The guard backpedaled as fast as he could, trying not to trip. The other guard stepped up, “Hey! What are you . . .” but Jana stiff-armed him back down in his seat.

“You. Shut up.” She turned her attention back on the first guard. “You, where’s the control center?”

“Control? Ma’am, you can’t just barge in here like that. You’ve got to have a warrant or appointment or somethin’ . . .”

The seated guard said, “Yeah, what authority do you have to barge in here?”

“Authority!” Jana yelled, “how about the United States fucking government!” She ripped the name badge off the guard’s shirt in one violent motion, then read it out loud.

“Jonathan Tipton. Well Jonathan, you’ve got about two seconds to show me to the control room before I arrest you and charge you with obstructing a federal investigation.”

“Yes, ma’am, ah, Agent ma’am.”

“And you,” Jana said, “I don’t like your mouth. You want to play ball with me? Then sit there and shut up. If not, I’ll introduce you to a new set of steel bracelets. All right, let’s go.”

Jonathan looked like a kid who’d just been caught graffitiing the school by the principal, with a can of spray paint stuck to his hands. He shuffled down the hallway to the elevator bank, nearly tripping over his own feet, and stood at the elevators.

“Ah, ma’am? I need to hold that. My ID? It’s to get us into the elevator.” He reached out a trembling hand as if he was afraid it might not come back to him.

As they got off the elevator several floors below, Jonathan swiped his ID badge again, and they were in the control room, the central nervous system of the nuclear plant.

“. . . we bring you breaking news as it happens. The face of the man you’re seeing now is listed as number two on the FBI’s most wanted list. Baer Wayland has just been apprehended by federal authorities on the isle of North Caicos in the western Antilles, under a false passport. Wayland, a twenty-three-year veteran of the Central Intelligence Agency, has been sought in connection with the TerrorGate cover-up. He is believed to have masterminded the CIA’s funding of a terror group in order to eventually penetrate and disrupt the organization. Those funds ended up being traced to direct attacks on American citizens that stretched from coast to coast. We’ll bring you more as the story develops. For news, weather, and traffic, stay tuned, to WBS News.”

81
             
 

Swinging a sledgehammer while dressed in what amounted to a space suit was awkward to say the least. Agent Fry hoisted the twelve pounds of steel over his head in a large arc, then blasted it downwards into the cinder blocks. Cement fragments exploded off the block and sprayed against the face-shield with ferocity. It was more of a backlash than he expected.

“Hey, Dan, you think there’s any chance we could puncture one of these suits doing this?”

“No, not really,” said Agent Dan Keller. “The outer core is Kevlar fiber. We just need to be careful and keep our distance from one another. Do me a favor—don’t crush my helmet with your sledge.”

The two pounded against the cinder blocks. It was slow work, but the block began to relent under the force of their blows.

Fry stopped. “Hey, you hear something?”

“Huh? No, I don’t hear anything,” said Keller.

“Must be my imagination.” The two continued the pounding, but this time, Fry’s hammer penetrated through and exposed a gaping hole about one-and-a-half feet in diameter. Darkness, thick and pure, oozed from the hole as if to consume their light and scoop them up along with it.

“I told you,” said Fry. “If this wasn’t a false wall, we’d have hit dirt. There’s hollow space behind here.”

“I’m going to hear about this for years. I hate it when you’re right,” said Keller.

The sledges pounded faster. They could hear large chunks of cement block fall to the floor and then crack apart in the echoing cavern.

“Hey, wait. Did you hear that? I know I’m not imagining that,” said Fry.

“I heard it too. Where the hell is that coming from? Sounds like . . . like . . . moaning.”

Fry picked up a tripod supporting one of the sets of lighting equipment and placed it close to the wall, then angled the lights into the dark oblivion. He wasn’t quite tall enough, so he climbed a stepladder and peered through the hole and into the unknown.

“Can you see anything?” said Keller.

“Just an open space. I guess there’s about another five feet of floor space in there. Lots of crap laying around. Looks like trash . . . oh my God! That’s a body in there! Holy shit, a body!”

The moaning sound came again.

“Holy shit!” said Fry. “It’s moving! We’ve got a person in here. He’s alive! We gotta get this wall down!”

Fry leapt from the stepladder onto the ground and yelled into the radio, “This is Fry! We’ve got a victim down here! He’s alive! Send me some more manpower! We need two more sledgehammers and maybe a battering ram. Get me a medic. Expedite that. Over.”

82
             
 

The control room was wide and circular with at least a thirty-foot ceiling. Twenty people sat at control consoles or studied large monitors hanging in the center of the room. The guard, Jonathan, stood with his ID badge trembling in his hands. He looked like a man on a first date that had wet his trousers.

Without waiting for an introduction, Jana blurted out, “Everyone listen up! I need your attention! F—B—I. This is a federal investigation. I need your full attention and cooperation right now. Who’s in charge here?”

“Ah, that would be me.” Allen Mize was senior operations chief and was responsible for monitoring and controlling the operation of the reactor. “Ah, what, who are you?”

“Special Agent Jana Baker, FBI. This is a federal investigation and there is precious little time. What type of nuclear material does this facility use?”

“I’m not authorized to disclose that information. Now if you’ll . . .”

Jana crunched his shirt collar in her hand and yanked him to the wall near a large digital control panel.

“Listen up, dipshit. We can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard way.” Mize started to speak, but she cut him off. “The easy way is where you cooperate, and I mean, right-the-fuck-right-now. The hard way is where I toss your ass on the ground, and when you get up, you’re wearing handcuffs. Got it? I’ll ask you one more time—what type of nuclear material does this facility use?”

“Yes, ma’am. If you can be more specific in what you’re looking for, I can tell you what we use.”

Mize’s skin flushed. All the heat in his body wanted to jump ship.

“If you were a terrorist, what material from this facility would you be interested in?”

“Uranium-235. We use uranium-235. It’s the high-core type. It can be weaponized. If, if it got into the wrong hands, it would be . . . well, it’s highly enriched. It would be really bad.”

Jana said, “Has any, and I mean
ANY
, gone missing? Can you account for every tiny bit of the shit?”

“Well, sure. I mean, no, none of it is missing. How on earth would it go missing? This place is like Fort Knox.”

“How do you know? How do you determine the amount of uranium-235 that you have on hand?” pressed Jana.

“Agent Baker, I assure you, none is missing.”

Jana rapped the back of her hand onto his nose causing his head to recoil backwards.

“Ouch!”

“You didn’t answer my question. I don’t have time for this. Turn around, put your hands on your head, and interlace your fingers . . .”

She grabbed Mize by the shoulder and spun him into the wall.

“No, no! Wait, I’m not trying to be evasive. I . . . I . . . ouch! Damn, that hurts. No! Listen, okay. Listen. I’ll do, I’ll do whatever it takes. What do you need? There’s no need for this, please. Honest. I swear to God.”

Jana let him turn around. “I’ll ask you again. How do you know that none is missing?”

“We do an inventory. I don’t know how often—it’s not my department. Probably every week or so, I suppose. We could find that info in our system though.”

Jana returned her handcuffs to her belt and tucked them into their holster against the small of her back. Mize walked over to the center of the room to a large computerized console.

“Charlie,” Mize said in a scattered voice, “pull up the inventory control records. We need to see the logs.”

“Inventory control? Jeez, I don’t know if I even have access to that system. Hey, you got a warrant or something?”

But before Jana could even pounce, Mize said, “Charlie. Look at me. Just do it.”

“All right, all right. So let me see,” said Charlie. “I think I know where to access it from. Mind telling me what we’re looking for in the logs?”

After several clicks and log-ins, the three leaned in closer to the monitor.

“No, I don’t see any irregularities here,” said Mize. “Certainly nothing reported missing, anyway. Hmmm, right here . . . the sixteenth of the month. See how the inventory level shifts? Seems like on this date they must have done the swap out.”

“What’s the swap out?” said Cade, leaning over them.

“It’s where the fission material in the reactor is removed and replaced with new material. That must be what we’re seeing here. See how the inventory went from sixty-four units down to twelve, all on the same day? That’s what happened—the swap out.”

Jana stood straight up. “The sixteenth?”

“Yeah,” Mize replied. “What’s the big deal?”

Jana looked at Cade. “The sixteenth was the day of the train bombing and derailment.”