Ravenous Dusk (26 page)

When he finally arrived at the Steer Crazy Steakhouse, he was pleasantly surprised to find it a lot less frowsy than its name suggested. A big mock-ranch house of uneven stones and weatherbeaten timbers, with a crumbling replica of a covered wagon parked on the frost-bitten frontage. It was, however, one of those places where they make a big ceremony of shearing off any neckties that come in the door. Cundieffe stopped just short of the revolving doors, staring at the wall behind the hostess's podium, at a barbaric tapestry of severed ties that wrapped around into the restrooms and dining area. Many specimens were displayed in a glass case beside autographs of the celebrities and celebrated politicos who'd sacrificed them. A quick perusal of these through the window proved that the Director was not among their trophies. The burgundy silk necktie he wore was a gift from his mother. Hoping casual dress did not disqualify him for entrance, he ran back to his car and deposited the tie in his glove compartment.

Brady Hoecker was waiting for him at the door when he came back. He had also secreted his tie before entering. Cundieffe checked his pulse as he approached the Mule council-member, even as he tried to puzzle out what to be afraid of next.

They traded rigorously nonchalant small-talk while they waited to be seated, Cundieffe only half-hearing the flow of conversation as he studied the other Mule, only dimly aware that Hoecker was doing the same. Seen in bright light, Brady Hoecker was no more imposing than Cundieffe, in fact, they might be mistaken for brothers. Hoecker's features were almost British in their boniness, while his hair looked not like it was receding, so much as regrouping for some imminent counterattack. His was a minimalist sculpture of pattern baldness. His suit was several shades smarter than Cundieffe's, as well. He supposed they looked like exactly what they were, junior and senior bureaucrats on a government lunch.

As they were led to their table, he decided that this was to be only a small-talk lunch, replete with the obligatory sniffing and probing disguised as banter which characterized all the luncheons he'd attended so far in this part of the country, but nothing of consequence would be revealed. He tried to curb his frustration, diverted it into a question that'd been burning his brain.

"Mr. Hoecker—"

"Brady, please."

"All right, Brady…I don't mean to sound like an idiot, but—"

"Go ahead, it's all the rage at the Institute."

The booths at Steer Crazy were set up like individual rooms, the upholstered backs of the benches extending up to meet the padded leather ceiling. The hostess, still carrying her ceremonial tie-shears, waved them into a big corner booth in the remotest depths of the dining room, passed them menus and vanished into the murky labyrinth in which she'd stranded them.

"I thought we—I mean to say, I'd been told that we—that is, all of
us—
"

Hoecker chuckled. "We are. Vigorously. But this steakhouse has the best salad bar in or out of the Beltway. And it's secure. It's swept daily by a private security service, because a lot of our NSA people come over from Ft. Meade." His face went stony grave so fast Cundieffe wanted to look for the smiling mask in his lap. "We have issues of great import to discuss."

"Like—like what, Brady?"

Hoecker sprang out of his seat. "Let's eat first."

They each filled three plates over the next half hour from the salad bar, which was very impressive, indeed. Hoecker talked about everything, citing exactly nineteen people, books and articles of which Cundieffe had never heard, while Cundieffe, who feared to say anything, fought the urge to sneak off and try to call AD Wyler again. Was this lunch some sort of betrayal? He ate too quickly, finishing each plate only to watch Hoecker methodically spearing each green bean and portioning out dressing like a pharmacist making nitroglycerin tablets.

When he laid his knife and fork across his last plate, Hoecker drew the heavy curtain to seal off the booth and pushed the plates aside. He laid his briefcase on the table and fixed Cundieffe with an intimidating polygraphic gaze.

"So, Martin, you're still not officially assigned to Bureau Headquarters, are you?"

Cundieffe blinked, pursed his lips. "Not officially, no, Mr. Hoecker, um—I suppose I'm here for special training, but I'm still attached to the Los Angeles field office."

"Haven't been out to Quantico much, though, have you?"

"There's been a lot of reapportionment of assets back here, what with the Counter-terrorism Division in development. I have been learning quite a bit, however."

Hoecker nodded at the implication. "Must be a shock," he said, nodding.

"Sometimes I forget what country it is, I'm living in." He smiled, choked when Hoecker's eyes flashed at him.

"I'm not going to insult you with a lot of rubbish about loyalty oaths or security clearances. We know who and what you are, and what you've done, and we're satisfied with your integrity. There are some in the Institute who take a more ritualistic view of things, who believe that clearance is earned over time. But there are others among us who recognize the dire press of events. We feel that if you're to be useful to us, then you must be shown the geometry of the situation, not isolated points."

One and not many indeed
, Cundieffe thought. His sick smile tightened. Before Cundieffe could ask who 'we' was, Hoecker opened the briefcase and took out a folder. He held it just under his chin for a long moment, looking at it and at Cundieffe with a silent movie actor's hesitation. He finally passed it across to Cundieffe, laying it down before his reaching hands as if actually putting it in them was somehow a greater breach of security. It worked. Cundieffe felt as if there were a bubble around the file, which he could not penetrate. The front of the folder was a bloodbath of arcane stamps, labels and scrawled designations he'd never seen before.

Hoecker gestured for him to open the file. Inside was an 8X12 inch print of a satellite image. Serrated peaks formed a collage of shattered glass draped in a cloak of fog. But with infrared filtering, a blocky heat signature the size and shape of a small town clearly stood out on the shadowed side of the ridge. "This is a Keyhole image of the Seven Devils Mountains in western Idaho, taken two weeks ago. This image was never taken, it does not exist. Do I make myself clear?"

Cundieffe nodded, gazing avidly at it.

"Good. All normal security clearance protocols are waived in situations such as this, where an initiate such as yourself has eminent jurisdiction over a particularly emergent issue, and this is right up your alley."

"Has Assistant Director Wyler seen it?" Cundieffe asked.

Hoecker laid the photo face-down. "Maybe you should call him now. He probably has someone else who could take your place." There was no malice, no sarcasm in Hoecker's tone, but Cundieffe cringed as if slapped.

"I didn't mean it that way, Mr. Hoecker—" he trailed off, clamping his mouth shut before he damaged things further.

"I hear your Director gave the go-ahead for the response center Wyler's been clamoring for. You're doing a lot of collation and updating work with their database. Must be fascinating, crank-calling fringe group front companies into the wee hours." Hoecker made a show of starting to close the file folder.

"Sir, I'd like to please continue the briefing."

"Security is not always top-down, Martin. Often, for the sake of plausible deniability, compartmentalization must also work from the bottom up." He flipped the sat photo over. "That compound there belongs to a Christian identity sect known as the Teutonic Heritage Church. You're familiar with them?"

He laid another file in front of Cundieffe. ABOVE TOP SECRET: SECDEF/NATSEC/DIRNSA EYES ONLY. It was an internal NSA file. Opening it, he was thunderstruck to see that the posture paper and fact sheet on top quoted extensively from his own work. He skipped through these, thoroughly familiar with their contents.

Teutonic Heritage was a Germanic white separatist cult with a congregation of about six hundred in Idaho and Montana, their stronghold, Heilige Berg, a compound in a valley on the edge of the Snake River. Their rhetoric was inflammatory, but they kept mostly to themselves, stockpiling weapons and waiting for a sign of the coming apocalyptic race war. Cundieffe looked up to find Hoecker waiting for his next question.

"Listen, Brady, I'd really like to help, but we've got our hands full with official business and with the Mission, and you have my information on Heilige Berg right here, and I don't think this is the time to drag the Bureau into another Ruby Ridge scenario—"

"Martin, Heilige Berg has gone dark. All communications with the outside world cut off as of last week. We don't know if there's still anyone alive in there."

Cundieffe scratched his head, waiting for Hoecker to drop the other shoe.

"As I'm sure you already know, Heilige Berg has no telephones, but maintains online communications with a network of hate groups which fund and feed off each other both here and abroad. The group is surprisingly well funded, receiving laundered money donated by several basic-cable televangelists who don't publicly espouse racism. The postings from one week ago state that the whole compound suddenly became falling-down sick, and the leader, a German immigrant named Egil Reuss, claimed they had been poisoned by their quote, 'natural enemies.' He pleaded with one of his colleagues to send a doctor to consult, but asked that he be disguised as a sympathetic journalist coming for an interview. Rev. Reuss preaches faith healing, and must keep up appearances. He also tried to find someone who could get him TOW and shoulder-held surface-to-surface missiles. Sadly, he was too irrational to convey meaningful information on the situation inside, and didn't respond to our agents' attempts to draw him out online."

Cundieffe leafed through the folder, scanning transcripts of increasingly hysterical online postings from Rev. Reuss. He noted that there were no responses included. The NSA had blocked his access to help, in hopes of getting in undercover, while his people were dying—or being murdered. It was a controversial, but not unheard of, strategy for containing dangerous radicals, but only when a federal court had granted its sanction upon review of legally acquired evidence, and even then, it invariably went wrong. "And you acquired this data how?" he asked.

"How much has Wyler told you about the EAR?"

"I've never heard of it."

"But you've seen the final product. It's—a very sensitive subject." Hoecker bit his thumbnail and his eyes went unfocused, as he measured out how much to tell him, from
here
to
here
. "Elint Acquisition Research is an interdepartmental agency so deeply undercover that the President need not know of its existence, and may be briefed on information from it only on a case-by-case, need to know basis. Most of its operations and personnel are folded into NSA, which employs a huge number of us at the highest levels. EAR 'listens' to a broader domestic watch-list than ECHELON or even the new mobile MAUVE project, monitoring emails, telephone, fax, mail and other communications to stop threats to national security almost before they leave the originator's imagination. By partnering with GCHQ in the UK and Canada's National Research Council, we're able to keep a closer watch on the population as a whole through our allies, while sharing information gleaned on friendly countries' dangerous citizens without flagrantly violating their right to privacy." Cundieffe must've made a face, because Hoecker cracked a smile and added, "It's a derived right, Martin, not an explicitly guaranteed one." Still seeing doubt, he pressed further. "Listen, Martin, it was through EAR that they learned of the Mission's operations in Colombia, and of their imminent arrival in this country. I can't begin to tell you how many other plots have been neutralized through its judicious use, over the years."

Cundieffe nodded, solemnly, and said, "I understand. Please continue." His hands gripped the edge of the table and dug into the waxy finish on the oak boards, so intense was his feeling that he was rising out of his own skin.

"A week ago, all e-mail traffic from Heilige Berg stopped dead. Many at the Institute believe the group has either committed suicide, or was murdered, probably poisoned, by the Reverend Reuss or his lackeys."

"But you believe differently."

"We've done all kinds of analyses of the text and on Rev. Reuss's infrequent radio broadcasts. He's sociopathic, but not insane, stupid or cowardly, and he sure as hell isn't suicidal. He is, however, a very devious man, even for a cleric."

Cundieffe remembered. He had only to scan his memory for a sampling of Reuss's rhetoric, though it lay transcribed before him. "Deceit is a recurrent theme in his work, as a fight-fire-with-fire tactic. I seem to recall that he urged his followers to adopt a meek, poverty-stricken aspect, and hide their wealth in weapons and supplies." Hoecker nodded indulgently, so he went on, warming to the topic. "He also invoked an image of a lamb lying down and baring its pure white throat for the black wolves, only to draw them in to be slaughtered when they moved in for the kill. You think he's that far-gone?"

"We hoped you would know more, and could put this information to good use." He placed a Zip disk on the table before Cundieffe, and tapped it with one finger. "As a pretext, we've collected legitimately corroborated evidence of federal crimes committed, most notably transportation of stolen vehicles. An old favorite staple of FBI work, if I'm not mistaken."

"I fail to see what sticking the Department of Justice's head into a trap might do for the Institute or my own career, Mr. Hoecker. This sounds like a job for the local and state authorities."

Hoecker took hold of his plate as if he were about to leap up and get more salad, or brain Cundieffe with it. "They don't understand the situation. They're white middle class rural folks themselves. They don't see Heilige Berg as a danger, just a nuisance. We have reason to suspect that some local law enforcement may even have been involved, if only by accepting bribes. Of course, there's always the possibility they're genuinely sick…"