The Eighth Day (27 page)

Interestingly enough, union shop steward Harry Hiccock is one of the shuttle motormen who would be replaced by the new computerized train. The Grand Central–Times Square shuttle has only two stops and no other traffic uses those rails. TA officials felt it was the best place to test the feasibility of the Automated Trains,’ etc. etc.”

Joe put down the old yellowed newsprint and picked up a ragged-edged oak tag file folder with a frayed blue string binding it. “The following police report was filed one week later. It reads, ‘Pursuant to investigation of Subway Fire, leading suspects, D’angelo, Hiccock, and Mercer seem to have alibis. NYFD indicates fire could have been set to ignite remotely. Therefore alibis are of little use in this case.’”

“Next time send me a briefing paper, ’cause I don’t know where this is going, Tate,” Reynolds said.

“I didn’t think you would want this on paper, Ray. That NYPD report mentions a possible accomplice to Harry Hiccock, Bernard Mercer. We checked the fingerprints; Bernard Keyes was then the 19-year-old Bernard Mercer. He changed his name in the seventies.”

“That’s your Sabot guy?”

“And Harry Hiccock is William Hiccock’s father.”

“Oh, no.”

“Thought you’d want to hear it first, Ray.”

“How many people know?”

“Just this room.”

“Why are you here, Agent Palumbo?”

“Ray, Joe grew up with Hiccock in New York. I have used his relationship with Hiccock to keep tabs on his rogue investigation.”

“Oh yes, I remember him saying you strong-armed an old friend to plead for information.” Reynolds didn’t know why he said it that way, but he guessed until proven guilty, Hiccock was still on his team and Tate was enjoying this a little too much. He turned toward Palumbo. “And you think Hiccock was deliberately obstructing this federal investigation?”

“The facts seem to suggest a possible link between Bernard Keyes, founder of the Sabot Society, and Harry, Bill’s father …”

“Yes, I am aware what the facts suggest Agent Palumbo, but I am asking what you think, Agent Palumbo.”

Palumbo took in a short breath and then let go. “I think it’s a pile of horseshit, Sir. I knew Billy’s dad. He wouldn’t park illegally even if it meant he had to walk ten blocks. And Billy is a straight arrow, always has been.” Joey deliberately did not make eye contact with Tate. Reynolds took it all in.

“You know that on the basis of what you just reported to me, Hiccock is finished. It doesn’t matter if he is a straight or crooked arrow. At this level, even the appearance of impropriety is as bad as having done the deed.”

“Ray, Hiccock never divulged anything about his father before,” Tate said. “He had the president looking at psychedelic web sites instead of following the guidance of his own Justice Department.”

“Sir, we didn’t divulge anything about Sabot to him. And again, I point out, we are
assuming
he is a member of Sabot.”

“What about that, Tate? Have there been any EI intercepts linking Hiccock to Sabot?”

“Not yet.”

“I will inform the president. When are you making the Sabot arrests?”

“At zero dark hundred hours, tonight,” Palumbo said.

“Then it’s all moot. When the Sabot Society is neutralized, the threat to America will end. Then if your investigation turns up anything about Hiccock, you’ll be free to prosecute.”

“How’s that?” Tate asked.

“Simple. I’ll recommend the president cut him loose as SciAd tomorrow. The press will read it as his failure to achieve results. In two weeks, his name will score lower than Mike Gravel on unaided recall polls. Then you can throw the book at him, if you want.”

“Thanks, Ray.”

Ray felt the need to add a personal note to Palumbo, knowing how hard it was to do what he had just done. “Agent Palumbo, if it matters, I was starting to like Hiccock. But, we all serve the president. If Hiccock is innocent then he will understand the need for distance. If he’s guilty, then who cares what he thinks?”

“It’s a raw deal any way you sell it, Sir,” Palumbo said as he left. Tate nodded to Reynolds and followed.

Alone in his office, Reynolds breathed deep.
What just happened?
What a good kid that agent was, not selling out his friend. What was it about Hiccock that made people stand up for him? Moreover, what was it about Tate that made even his own men hate him? He shook his head. He scratched a cryptic note to fire Hiccock and moved on to the new legislative agenda. Now that the FBI solved the case, the president should go up in the polls and along with that his political capital. Reynolds needed to be ready.

“Fire Hiccock?” the president said. “Ray, I’m looking at this morning’s agenda and I see ‘Fire Hiccock.’ Why?”

“Sir, can you excuse your man?”

“Don, would you give us a minute?” The president waited until the Secret Service agent closed the door behind him. “Now what’s this all about?”

“Would you consider just firing him because I’m asking you to and therefore absolving yourself of any need to testify before one committee or another?”

The president weighed these words and decided against common sense. “Tell me. Hiccock’s been a team player, I owe him at least that much.”

“The FBI has uncovered a very disturbing link between the Sabot Society and Hiccock. His father may have been a founding member.”

“Whoa … What?”

“Sir, I should point out that this has not yet been proven, but Bernard Keyes and Harry Hiccock may have been involved in the sabotage of a New York City subway in the sixties, the first traceable action of the Sabot Society.”

“That long ago?” The president chewed on this for a while. “And the thinking is that Hiccock buffaloed me into taking the investigative teeth out of the FBI’s efforts?”

“Whether it’s true or not, it has the appearance …”

“And appearance is as good as reality in this office.”

“Unfortunately.”

“So we cut him?”

“Again, unfortunately. If he’s not guilty, then everyone would understand that he failed in his investigation and you had no choice.”

“But in actuality we are really separating ourselves to avoid collateral damage.”

“Just in case.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Yes. He might resign.”

“You think he would?”

“I don’t know. Could go either way. It’s worth a shot.”

“You or me?”

“If I do it, that leaves you with a lot of deniability.”

“Okay, you float it by him, see if he bites. Ray, Tate and his people at the FBI are sure, aren’t they?”

“You mean about Hiccock? No, they aren’t sure.”

“I meant about this Sabot thing. The arrest tonight, this is the end, right?”

“It will be the end, according to Tate.”

The president shook his head. “Sometimes this job bites the big one.”

“There’s an historic quote.”

No big secret—politicians hated “Boy Scouts.” They were mirrors held up to men whose faces were soiled tilling the political fields. Boy Scouts, in their wholesome reflection, made them feel dirty and grimy. Reynolds, who also once believed in the idealistic notion of pure public service, was emotionally torn. At first, Hiccock seemed to be the mother of all Boy Scouts, out to change the world and truly selfless. The possibility of someone else actually
living
the ideal, the lofty goal he once strove to achieve, is what gnawed at him. His downfall was how quickly the dream was diluted by the gallons of blood shed in the act of political survival. Ray and hundreds of other politicians would fight right up to the line where their own personal power was threatened, then “do the politically expedient thing” and compromise. Deep down, at the bottom of it all, political power worked because it threatened the one thing cherished most by those who fought to attain it—the power itself. In Reynolds’s case, this permitted the backroom deals, the strange bedfellows, and the “enemy of my enemy is my friend” style of thinking. To a politician, the only real issue was surviving at all cost.

Misery loving company, buried deep inside Reynolds was the selfish hope that Hiccock was not a Boy Scout but a traitor. Ray hoped Tate was right about Hiccock’s true mission being to hamper the investigation, to distract from his father’s, as well as his own, beliefs.

As if on cue, Hiccock appeared at Ray’s door. “Ray, you wanted to see me?”

“Have a seat, Bill.”

“Uh-oh, you never call me Bill. What’s wrong?”

“I would like you to resign, effective immediately.”

“Wow, that’s not a ‘Bill,’ that’s a ‘William’ if I ever heard one. Why would I do that?”

“To save the president embarrassment.”

“Why would the president be embarrassed?”

“Bill, a connection between you and the Sabot Society has been revealed.”

“Me?”

“Actually your father.”

“My dad? Are you nuts? He’s retired.”

“Back in the sixties he worked with the leader of Sabot. Together they may have sabotaged a New York City subway. Those facts are a little murky but there is enough there to present the appearance of impropriety.”

Hiccock did not appear to be insulted or outraged. He seemed to be weighing each piece of information in his mind, scientifically, seeing both sides of the argument at once.

If he’s guilty, he has a great way of not showing it, Reynolds thought.

“No one ever accused my dad …”

“It was in a confidential police department file. Political pressures may not have had the cops dig too deep way back then.”

“That’s it? No grainy photographs of my father at the meeting wearing a Sabot hood? No scratchy-voiced informant turning state’s evidence? Just a supposition in some cop’s file folder?”

“Bill, you brought this on yourself. You made an enemy of Tate and his reach far exceeds your grasp of political realities.”

“And those same political realities mean if I don’t resign then you’ll fire me?”

“Either way, you are finished in this administration.”

“And the president?”

“He’s hoping you’ll fall on your sword.”

“What’s going to happen to my father?”

“That’s up to your good friend Tate after the FBI arrests the leaders of the Sabot Society.”

“Are they positive the society is behind all these terrorist acts?”

“They are swarming in tonight. Should all be over by the eleven o’clock news.”

Hiccock just sat there. Then his face changed and his eyes set. “I will not resign. I will, however, take a leave of absence to deal with a family matter. My dad is about to be attacked and I need to be there with him.”

“This isn’t a university. There is no sabbatical.”

“Let’s take it to the president then.”

“Goddamn it, I’ll fire you right here, right now!”

“You don’t want to do that, Ray.”

“Is that a threat?

“No, it’s common sense.”

Reynolds sat back. “Enlighten me.”

“The whole reason I am involved in this is because the president didn’t have any options presented to him. What if the FBI is wrong? What if the society didn’t create the subliminal screens that programmed the terrorists? If I am on leave, we pick up right where we left off. If I am fired …”

“You are not supposed to be that good at political positioning. Leave granted, but if the FBI wins the day, you’re fired.”

“If they are right, I’ll resign.”

“Either way.” Reynolds watched Hiccock and saw him forming a thought. Ray braced himself for some kind of blackmailing, butt-saving, last-ditch effort on Hiccock’s part.

“Look, Ray, as much as I hate to say this, for the good of the country, I hope they are right.”

Reynolds rolled his eyes. “You are a fucking Boy Scout, aren’t you?”

ANCHORMAN MARVIN WEITTERMAN sat in a tight, cramped studio in front of a sharply illuminated green screen. The color, so saturated and vivid, enabled the circuitry in the control room to separate his outline from it and replace the background with anything his producer desired. On the studio monitor was the result of this video trickery, a composite picture of him sitting in front of the “virtual set” of CFN’s
Mo
n
eyTime
.

A graphic appeared over his left shoulder. It read “SHAREWARE.” Marvin looked into the camera, reading the intro of his next story off the teleprompter. “Philanthropy in the cyber age? Many thought it went the way of the manual typewriter, but some anonymous donor is giving out free ‘Pocket Protector’ day-trading software, or shareware, to anyone who wants it. Her or his only request is that you send ten dollars to a charity of your choice. Brian Hopkins has more.” He waited until the red tally light on his camera went off, indicating that the viewers at home were watching the prerecorded report. He turned to the monitor showing the tape feed and asked the people in the control room, “Have you seen this? It is an amazing program. It protects your investments round the clock and is so fast it beats anybody to the punch.”

“Thirty seconds,” the floor manager called out, indicating there was a half-minute left to the taped report.

“You know this could have quite an impact.”

Like shooting fish in a barrel
, SAC Joey Palumbo thought as he sat on the front wheel of a long-abandoned tractor, which was now more of a vine-covered topiary of a tractor. He was officially awaiting reassignment by order of the director and present here at the scene purely as part of his investigation into the grenade attack on the airliner at SFO. As he surveyed the impressive number of men and material assembled under such incredibly tight secrecy on the Dunhill farm, he amended his previous thought.
Like shooting fish in a barrel … only with Recon scouts, armored personnel carriers and high-altitude infrared imagery
. That imagery of the Sabot stronghold two miles off told a different story than Joey expected. It showed that the Sabot Society, for all its operational ability in the field, was less than professional about its own security arrangements for the meeting. Not a lookout, sensor, or even a mean dog on a chain was detected at T minus twenty. In fact, twenty minutes before takedown, Joey thought this whole meeting might be a decoy deliberately set to embarrass the FBI. Either that or the Sabots were really dumb.

Inside the ramshackle barn, Bernard opened the meeting. He was especially proud of a little piece of theatrical intrigue he was about to introduce to his cell leaders. He got the idea from reality television.

“In front of you are envelopes. The contents are your targets for the next phase. Each one of you will take his envelope over to the grill and open and read the contents there. Then you will place the paper into the fire. You will not discuss your target with anyone other than me.”

As he glanced over at the glowing coals, Bernard started doubting his decision to place the open barbecue grill so close to the wooden wall of the barn. If, as the paper burned, the walls were to catch fire, this place would go up like a stack of matches. As the heads of thirteen cells watched, he went to move the hot grill. He was ten feet from the burning coals when he heard the sharp sound of breaking glass, followed a split second later by a concussive wallop that slammed his body into the base of the grill, tipping it over and spilling the hot coals. A total of three flash-bang grenades detonated in very rapid succession. The weatherworn timbers and notched joints of the old barn shuddered and rattled. Years of settled dust and microscopic grain fibers were rocked loose and instantly became airborne. All fourteen people in the room were temporarily blinded and rendered deaf in an instant, which was the intended purpose of the Mark 4 concussive flare. A second later, eight fully armed agents stormed into the barn.

DuneMist was zipping his fly when the explosions rocked the porta-potty in the corner of the barn. Protected from the flash-bang by the fiberglass construction, he instinctively grabbed his .38 revolver. He cracked the door of the plastic outhouse just as an agent in full SWAT gear approached. The ensuing seconds went by as if in slow motion. DuneMist raised the .38 and fired point-blank into the agent’s chest. The stunned officer reeled back. The spasmodic reaction of his muscles caused him to involuntarily squeeze off a three-shot burst from his Mac 10.

The hot coals from the tipped barbecue ignited the strewn hay by the wall. Grain dust instantly combusted into a ball of fire. The air itself was now aflame, immolating FBI and society members alike. Agents in the second attack wave had to switch from takedown mode to rescue mode as their intended targets, and many of their own, suddenly became fire victims.

Joey Palumbo approached with that second wave. Their principal job was to collect physical evidence. That part of the operation was the most important from both a legal perspective and a national security point of view. If this action were to fatally wound the Sabot Society, the death certificate would be issued on the physical evidence they recovered. The postmortem would also determine whether this horrendous wave of terror was merely interrupted or permanently halted.

But evidence recovery would have to wait as Joey Palumbo and company dealt with the human tragedy unfolding before them. Shielding his face from the heat with his forearm, he ran toward the tinderbox. A man engulfed in flame stumbled out the door, clawing at his face. Joey swept the man’s legs out from under him and started rolling him on the ground, pumping his hands, making momentary contact against the man’s boiling skin and saving his own flesh from severe burns. Two other agents took over, rolling and snuffing out the man’s clothing and hair. Joey headed back to the doorway. Choking on the thick acrid smoke, he peered through the flames, but not a soul was moving.

The bureau’s D.C. op center was tapped into the tactical operations radio traffic from the takedown scene. The cool, professional, by-the-numbers radio chatter normally associated with any well-coordinated, well-executed apprehension of suspects had suddenly turned into pandemonium. The color washed from Tate’s face as he sat down hard, stunned, as what seemed like a walk in the park a few seconds before turned into a human barbecue.

The crime scene is screwed, blued, and tattooed
, Agent Palumbo thought, mentally assembling the first draft of his action report. Three agents dead, ten Sabots dead, four burned and in critical condition. Four agents and two firefighters treated for smoke inhalation. The human toll ate away at Joey’s core. It took twelve years and plenty of sacrifice to become an agent of the caliber lost today. All the training, all the legal casework, the dedication … snuffed out in seconds. Joey’s gut wrenched tighter as the notion of the instantly widowed wives and decimated families rushed into his thoughts. The contributions those agents had yet to make would never be.

To balance the loss, Joey reminded himself that he, the FBI, and America were at war with terror. In war, three dead against ten enemy dead was considered a good “kill ratio,” but that was a calculus made of soldiers on the battlefield. These were cops. Cops weren’t supposed to be combatants. Much had changed since America’s first wake up call on that crystal clear September morning in New York, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Private citizens were now automatically deputized merely by being passengers on a plane, train, or bus. No American, be they policeman or grandmother, could ever assume they were a noncombatant. This way of thinking provided a little peace for Joey, as the mixture of anger, grief, and frustration he felt remained unfathomable.

He had been trained as a professional law enforcement officer. That entailed getting it right in times of pressure, keeping your head while those around you were losing theirs, rushing into places where others were running from. Above all, because we live in a democracy, the cop’s second-most-important job, after stopping bad guys from doing bad things, was ensuring the full effective prosecution of criminals. This was done by following the procedural rules designed to preserve chains of evidence and the legal rights granted by the Constitution.

Standing before the burned pile of rubble and ash that was the ill-fated barn, it was clear to Joey that little physical evidence had survived. Envelopes and pieces of paper were found, presumably with the names of future targets inside. Among the charred remains were personal papers, a few notes, and layouts of various factories, rail lines, and interstate routes scratched on yellow pads—in all, a pretty lousy haul for the price of three agents’ lives.

Twenty-four hours after the assault on Bufford’s farm, the news networks and daily papers anxiously awaited the press conference from the FBI on the details of the operation. Bernard Keyes was dead at the scene and two of the four surviving Sabot members had succumbed to their burns, leaving only Donald Mendleson (aka DuneMist) from Madison, Wisconsin, and Michael (Red Baron238) Spadafore from San Francisco alive. Both men were from notorious locations within the recent wave of bombings and terrorist actions—Wisconsin, the location of the train derailment, and San Francisco, where the plane exploded with Silicon Valley’s best and brightest onboard. FBI agents from field offices all across America were sifting through the lives and personal effects of not only these last two survivors but the twelve deceased members of the society as well. They searched for any shred of evidence or information with which they could piece together the extent and power of the now-decapitated organization.

Each special agent in charge had received an additional order from the top—find any references to Hiccock … William or Harold.