Radiant Dawn (33 page)

So tall was he that his head loomed out of frame, but Storch was staring at his forearm, at the tattoo almost obscured by the wiry tufts of hair and scars, but he could read it.

Don't Mess With Texas

And he remembered what really happened.

SA Martin Cundieffe sat in the back of the chopper carrying the twelve extra agents assigned to China Lake. No one paid him much attention, which suited him fine. His eyes pored over the opened file atop the stack of files on his lap, his lips moving mutely and so quickly he seemed to have a facial tic. The more astute of the agents took this as a sign of nerves, that Cundieffe wasn't up to the enormous task laid upon him, and they relished his apparent squirming. The rest simply saw Cundieffe's trademark overachievement in action, and resented him for it. Though he was well aware of their cynicism and hostility, he couldn't be bothered to disabuse them of their misreading, because he was practicing his speech.

In his short, exciting time in the field, Cundieffe had discovered the practical value of interpersonal communication as a skill. He'd been taken aback at first at his inability to finesse interview subjects. He was used to simply reading the aggregated data about a subject and composing a list of cardinal points for Lane Hunt to use in interrogations. He felt deeply chagrined that he'd actually had to threaten that pony-tailed Pentagon functionary, Tuttle. Though nothing had come of it, Cundieffe had taken stock of his abilities, and laid down a rigid self-improvement regimen. For a mentor, he'd looked no further than the Director. Mr. Hoover was a legendary master of rhetorical manipulation and psychological intimidation, who, one stenographer allegedly complained, could reach a peak oratory rate of four hundred words per minute. With this awesome power, the Director persuaded hostile political opponents to let him build the Bureau into an awesome force for law and order, and to operate without any meaningful oversight for nearly fifty years. Beneath the blunt, orderly plain of his thousands of statements before Congressional panels lay a jungle of circuitous logical bypasses and semantic clover-leaves in which any mind that dared to penetrate would be swallowed whole. Cundieffe had acquired several volumes of congressional transcripts, particularly from the Director's embattled early fifties, marked off the word counts in blue pen, and devoured them whole, reciting silently with a stopwatch balanced on his knee. He'd topped out at two hundred fifteen words per minute after six hours of practice, fast enough that everyone but Assistant Director Wyler blinked and nodded like zombies when he wound into a verbal attack. Cundieffe would guess that Wyler spoke at least three hundred words per minute. Maybe he should record Wyler and use his speech patterns instead. It would have to wait until after his presentation to the military arm of the China Lake investigation. The FBI had pressed for, and gotten, sole control of the case, and graciously opted to retain the Delta Force and the Navy in an advise & support capacity. Cundieffe had been given only the skeleton of a mission order, and had fleshed it out to AD Wyler's thorough satisfaction. The sell would not be any easier for having been bought and paid for in Washington. The FBI was not eager to place its elite tactical agents in the way of napalm-slinging terrorists, let alone in the potentially disastrous proximity to the media in Los Angeles. He would have to tell the Delta Force commander, Lt. Col. Greenaway, he of the short temper and the broken ballpoint, to accept the hazards of the mission, but make none of the decisions.

The other lesson he'd taken from the Director had been much easier to manage given his new association with AD Wyler.
Know Everything
was Hoover's unspoken credo—his father bragged that the Director knew Lucille Ball was pregnant before Ricky did. Beneath the outline for his presentation, he had an itemized mission order and timeline for the resolution of the China Lake investigation; DoD files on several DARPA projects, including RADIANT; separate SFPD and FBI reports on the School Of Night investigation; confidential dossiers on several of the officers he'd be meeting; and the OPR's preliminary report on Lane Hunt, whom he'd come to relieve. Cundieffe had yet to practice that speech.

The flight crew scrambled to prepare for landing. Cundieffe had never been to Death Valley before; though he'd memorized the temperature extremes tables along with everything else in the almanacs and Guinness Book of World Records before he was ten, and every year since, he was shocked to feel the heat closing around him, like the blasting wind of a kiln. The temperature was only a few degrees below the average July high of one hundred and four, but the humidity remained a freakishly high fifty percent. He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief and applied a fresh coat of prescription-strength zinc cream to his face and bare scalp. He'd already sweated great sopping racing stripes down the sides of his shirt, and putting his jacket on only aggravated the condition. The other agents, all in meshback FBI baseball caps and navy blue windbreakers, were looking to him, or looking at him, many openly laughing. He packed up his files and pulled himself to his feet, hanging from an overhead rail and swaying much more than befitted the dignity of a team leader. His eyes roved over them, pinning each on the authority of his gaze, and stopping the laughter, the conversations.

"Listen up, everyone. As of twelve hundred hours today, the FBI assumes full responsibility for the resolution of this case. I know my appointment comes as a surprise to all of you, and for most, not a pleasant one. I've never participated in a field operation, let alone led one, so your doubts are not wholly unfounded. However, I was selected to lead this investigation because the Assistant Director believes the assessment I've made of the situation is the most likely, and my proactive strategy for resolving this crisis promises to be more effective than the military solution, which has been to fly around California, knocking down doors and getting themselves killed in needless accidents. I think if you allow yourselves to wholeheartedly accept the strategic decisions I've been empowered to implement and implement them to the best of your respective abilities, the perpetrators will be neutralized without loss of life or property within seventy-two hours. I'm going to hand out assignment packets as soon as we hit the ground. I know these assignments may strike some of you as unorthodox, and may entail some subterfuge on our part in coordination with the Navy and Joint Special Forces elements of the investigation, but I assure you that we have the sanction and legal authority of the Attorney General of these United States, and I urge you to follow them with all due diligence. Are there any questions?"

There were none. They gawked at him in bemusement, and not a little awe. He'd shouted out his prepared speech over the chopper noise in just under sixty seconds. A new personal best.

Cundieffe could pick Lt. Col. Greenaway out of the crowd on the landing pad long before they touched down and the ground crew helped them out. He wore desert camo fatigues with no insignia, but stood a head taller than the other officers and the matched pair of Delta Force bookends flanking him with assault rifles at port arms. Cundieffe doubted this was an accident. It spoke volumes about Greenaway, sealed conclusions Cundieffe had reached upon his first contact with the Delta Forces commander.

Greenaway would never rise above his present rank, never ascend into the world of palace intrigues and "perfumed princes," as lower echelon officers referred to generals. He took a perverse pride in this, and probably hated everything about the military except the camaraderie of his men and the quickening thrill of battle. According to a file Wyler'd had delivered to him minutes before they left Los Angeles, Greenaway became Special Forces in 1971 and took part in Operation White Star, the CIA's covert campaign in Cambodia. He quit the Army after the end of Vietnam and disappeared into merc work in Africa—Rhodesia, Mozambique and Congo that they knew about, training guerrillas here, government troops there, before coming back to the States in 1978 to join Delta Force. The circumstances of his reinstatement were muddled by footnotes to documents which had evidently been shredded long ago; Wyler had filled in the blanks in blue pen— "
He blackmailed his way back into the service—White Star dirt.
" Greenaway's first action with the new elite antiterrorist unit was Operation Desert One, the ill-fated attempt to rescue the hostages in the American Embassy in Teheran. Greenaway stayed on the ground, but saw most of his comrades killed in a helicopter accident which would officially be blamed on bad CIA intel. From that day, he'd made no secret of his ardent hatred for the intelligence services, and he'd only risen through the ranks on his unmatched tactical skill and personal charisma. Cundieffe imagined the generals he held in such contempt must worship him as much as they feared him.

Drawing on these facts, Cundieffe felt comfortable with Greenaway. He might even be able to tell him some of the truth.

The ground rushed up at Cundieffe's flailing legs as the helicopter bucked up six feet under him, and the ground crewman seized his hand and yanked him off. He hit the ground hard on the ball of his right foot and leaned on one of the crewmen so as not to collapse or drop the bulky attaché case he carried. The shooting pain incapacitated his whole right side for a moment, but Cundieffe waved with his left and forced himself to walk up to Lt. Col. Greenaway. He didn't offer his hand to be shook, nor did Greenaway offer one. Higher ranking naval officers were present, but their body language deferred to Greenaway, so Cundieffe did not look at them. He met Greenaway's stare without blinking or smiling. It took mighty effort, for Greenaway's ability to project images of extreme personal violence out of his eyes was more nakedly demonstrated here than in the briefing room. He approached Cundieffe and one hand snapped up as if he were going to backhand the FBI agent across the helipad. His huge hand spread out before Cundieffe's eyes. He bit his lower lip clean through, but he didn't flinch.

"Give it here," Greenaway said. His hand wagged impatiently at Cundieffe's blank look. "The bag, it's got your reports in it. Give it here."

"I'm afraid there's been a misunderstanding, Lieutenant Colonel. I'm surprised you weren't informed. As of twelve hundred hours PST today, the FBI assumes control over this investigation, by joint order of the Attorney General and the Director and Assistant Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigations. It's been approved by the President, though I'm sure you understand why he wouldn't want to sign it himself." He plucked out a document on thick machined parchment, which flapped like a flag in the helicopter's blade wash. "Here's a copy for your records."

Greenaway snapped the paper out of his hands and looked it over for a moment. His forehead wrinkled and turned redder than the desert sun had already made it, but when he returned to Cundieffe-bashing with his eyes, he was smiling. "Best news I've heard all year. This was a fucking goat-rope, anyway. You're welcome to it, Junior."

Cundieffe bit his lip again. "I think you need to read the document again, Lieutenant Colonel. Your services will still be required here, but under the directives of the FBI. This is now a criminal investigation, but we're going to need your help now more than ever."

The cords in Greenaway's neck snapped with an audible twang as he rounded on Cundieffe and seized him by the arms. His face filled Cundieffe's field of view; he could see just enough of the world around him to sense that no one was moving to stop the Delta Force Commander from beating him to death. "Well, please convey my sincerest and humblest apologies to the President and the Attorney General for bungling this operation," he shouted, his spit hot flying in Cundieffe's face, "and thank them for sending us the FBI to dig us out. What can we do to help?"

Cundieffe started to open his mouth, an impromptu four hundred word oratory outlining the strategic improvements in the search which he would bring to the table, but Greenaway cut him off with a wordless hiss and a slashing hand that grazed his throat. "You—know—shit." A moment to let this blunt ground-truth sink in, then, "Your SAC on this base is a pathetic, grabasstic pussyhound who couldn't draw his weapon unless it was for a photo op. You don't know what happened here, and you're not going to find them unless they want you to."

Now Cundieffe did smile, and blood ringed his white teeth, as he said, "He's not in charge anymore. I am. And I think I do know what happened here, and who did it, and why. if you'll take me to a secure place, I'll endeavor to enlighten you."

Once Greenaway overcame his natural repulsion for Cundieffe, the junior FBI agent couldn't ask for a more receptive audience. Sequestered in a basement conference room with a silent gallery of naval officers and DoD functionaries looking on, Cundieffe launched into his presentation, beginning with a heavily expurgated recital of his theories regarding the China Lake heist and its implications. A few of the DoD people were predictably skeptical at the outset, but Cundieffe played to Lt. Col. Greenaway, particularly to his mistrust of defense intelligence, and within a few minutes Greenaway told them to shut the hell up. He asked insightful, pragmatic questions and didn't tell Cundieffe to slow down when he replied with exhaustive statistics and sketchy speculation.

Greenaway was a statue all through his strategy briefing. They would fall back to passive observational positions across the southeastern quarter of the state, and bolster defenses at all of the eight military installations in the area, especially proving grounds, storage and research facilities. FBI spotters would continue to watch interstate traffic and cargo shipping, and the military would wait. On the proactive side, they would use secure military channels and DARPA encryption to try to open negotiations with the group, which surely included defected DARPA and military personnel. He dropped his last bombshell only after the assembled officers had reluctantly assented to its role in the FBI plan.