Better off Dead

Chapter 52

The plane was waiting when I reached the airport. It was sitting near the end of the runway, alone and aloof from the handful of crop dusters and two-seater trainers that were dotted around. It was some kind of Gulfstream. All sharp angles and glossy black paint so that it looked like it was going fast even when it wasn’t moving. It had a tail number, but like the Sikorsky I’d flown back from Texas in, there was no agency designation. Just the words United States.

The agent flashed her badge at the video camera on the intercom at the gate and then drove right up to the plane. Its engines were turning over and when we looped around its tail, I saw that the steps were down. Thirty seconds later I was on board and strapped into a seat. A couple of minutes after that we were in the air. No safety briefings. No lining up to take off. And no other passengers.

The vibe inside was more mobile office than luxury club. There was plenty of blond wood with all kinds of plugs and ports and connectors for computers. There were twelve seats. They were finished in navy leather and could be swiveled around. Tables could be folded out from under the windows. There was a projector on the ceiling. A display screen. And a coffee machine. I helped myself to a cup and then settled down to doze. The flight was smooth and quiet. The pilot flew high and fast. We were in the air for less than three hours. I woke up when she began our final descent. The landing was gentle. The taxi was short. And a car was waiting for me when I climbed down the steps.

The army airfield is in the northwest corner of the Redstone Arsenal complex. The TEDAC buildings are at the southeast, more than a mile away. The Bureau driver who collected me didn’t say a word as he zigzagged through the warren of NASA laboratories and army facilities and other kinds of FBI operations. I guess getting sent to ferry scruffy civilians around wasn’t the plum choice of duty around there. He finally pulled up alongside a line of shiny, knee-high security bollards and pointed toward a glass-fronted building on the far side.

He said, “In there. Ask for Agent Lane.”

Inside there were three security guards, all in private contractor’s uniforms. The first was sitting behind a reception desk. She asked to see my ID. I handed her my passport. She didn’t care that it had expired. She just laid it on a scanner and a minute later a machine to its side spat out a laminated pass with my photo, the date, and a two-hour validity period. I clipped it to my shirt and the next guy held out a bin for my other possessions. I dropped in my cash and my phone and he fed them through an X-ray machine. He asked for my shoes. I slipped them off and dumped them on the conveyor belt. The third guy then directed me through an arch-shaped metal detector. It didn’t buzz or beep, and by the time I had replaced my shoes and retrieved my things, a fourth guy had showed up. He looked like he was in his early forties. He was wearing a dark gray suit with a tie and he had an ID badge on a chain around his neck.

He said, “I’m Supervisory Special Agent James Lane.” He held out his hand. “Quite a mouthful, I know. I’m heading up the team we’re putting together in response to these new developments. I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me. I hope you’ll be able to help. Come on. This way. I’ll show you what’s what.”

A stone path stretched away from the exit to the security building. It led up two sets of matching stone steps to a broad, flat area that was full of wooden picnic tables with gray umbrellas. There were two neighboring buildings. Lane pointed to the one on the left. It was big, gray, rectangular, and featureless.

He said, “We call that one The Building. Never tell me G-Men have no imagination, eh? Anyway, ever seen that Indiana Jones movie about the Ark of the Covenant? The scene at the end where they hide its crate in a warehouse? That’s what it’s like inside. Shelves, floor to ceiling, end to end. More than a hundred thousand containers. Every piece of every device we’ve analyzed over the last eighteen years. The place is almost full. We’ve already broken ground on another one. But that’s not where we’re going.”

Lane started walking toward the right-hand building. This one had two distinct sections. A single-story part with a flat roof, stone walls, and tall windows. And a part with a higher, angled roof, white walls, and no windows. The way they were butted up together made it look like the second half was trying to swallow the first.

“This is where the magic happens.” Lane paused at the door. “The labs are here. Plus the less interesting things. Like admin. And the meeting rooms. That’s where we’re going. Sorry.”

Lane used his ID to unlock the door then led the way along the main corridor until we reached a room labeled Conference One. Inside there was a space about fifteen feet by twenty. There was a wooden-topped table in the center. It was rectangular. Surrounded by eleven chairs. They were angled toward the far wall, which was plain white. I guess it doubled as a projection screen. There were three closets built into the wall on the right. Windows to the left. And a carpet that looked like a kind of muted, textile version of a Jackson Pollock painting.

Lane took the chair at the head of the table, facing the wall. He said, “I’m sorry to be treating you like a regular visitor. I’ve read your record. I know all about your service. I would like to give you a full tour. But, you know, regulations. There was no time to get clearance. And at the end of the day more than two hundred people work here. We have a lot of equipment that would be extremely hard to replace. And a trove of evidence from all over the world that’s vital in the war on terror. This place might not be the most glamorous target. But it’s near the top of the list, strategically. It’s what I’d hit if I were on the other side. So we have to take precautions. And we can’t make exceptions. I hope you understand.”

“Of course.”

“So, down to business. Khalil’s fingerprint. Finding it is a two-sided coin. The good thing is, he can be arrested now. If anyone can find him. But the bad thing is that if he’s active here, currently, we must stop him. Fast. The problem is figuring out where to look. There are so many potential targets available to him. We need to narrow them down. The bomb you helped us secure will be arriving in the next thirty minutes or so. That may give us some pointers. Or it may not. We won’t know until we try. Either way, it will take time. In the interim we’re looking for all the help we can get. The angle I’d like to start with is the delivery mechanism. Khalil could be working on a bomb to be carried in a car, for example. Or a truck. Or a plane. Or worn as a vest. Or even sent in the mail. Did anything you saw or heard give any kind of a clue?”

“Dendoncker was running a smuggling operation. He was piggybacking it on a catering service for private planes out of small airfields. But that’s pretty much been shut down. He seemed unconcerned about it. Strangely so, like he had already planned to move on to something else. The question is, what? I’m not convinced Dendoncker’s working with Khalil. I think he was terrified of him.”

“These guys – they’re weird. Paranoid, most of them. They start out as introverts, then live their whole lives doubly desperate not to draw attention to themselves. Trying not to visit the same electronics store too often. Or to buy from the same websites over and over. They wind up running from shadows. It’s probably nothing. But even if they have fallen out already, there could still be useful clues from when they did work together.”

“The flight thing is all I can think of.”

“OK. Then the second angle is materials. Is he using precursors, for example. Things like ammonium nitrate or fuel oil or nitromethane. Or specialist compounds like TATP, or ethylene glycol dinitrate. Or even military grade explosives like C-4.” Lane paused for a moment and looked right at me. “As an aside, the Beirut barracks bomb used precursors. You were there. Well, we recently recovered new evidence, after all these years. We should have good news on that soon.”

There was something strange about the way Lane spoke those words. How he said, “You were there.” It sounded half like a question. Half like a statement. It caused an echo at the back of my mind. I’d heard something similar recently, but I couldn’t put my finger on what.

Lane said, “Mr. Reacher? Materials?”

“Artillery shells,” I said. “Dendoncker had a bunch of them. At least three hundred. They were locked in a shed. At the abandoned school he was camped out in.”

“Any idea what was in them?”

“No.”

“You didn’t see a code book? If they were recovered from an enemy they’re often deliberately mislabeled. The code book is needed to confirm the contents.”

I shook my head.

“OK. Let me have the location. I’ll arrange collection. Now, the third angle is the method of detonation. We know Khalil used two kinds in his first device. A timer and cellular. Those are quite normal. And three kinds in the device that’s incoming. A timer, cellular, and a transponder. That’s unusual. But whether he was looking for another level of backup, or whether he’s messing with us, I don’t know. Not yet.”

I said nothing.

“Do you know how transponders work?”

I said, “I have an idea what they do. Not so much how they do it.”

“A good example is a car’s ignition. Try to start the engine and a chip in the car sends out a radio signal. A transponder in the key automatically bounces back a reply. If the reply is correct, the chip completes the circuit. That’s why you can’t hotwire modern cars. Even if you join the right wires, there’s no transponder to reply to the car’s chip, so the circuit remains open.”

“And the same thing could happen with this bomb?”

“I assume so. I haven’t seen it yet, obviously. I need to examine it to be sure. But if it’s a technique Khalil has perfected it could be a massive problem. Imagine you have a target with an unpredictable schedule. You plant a bomb somewhere along his route. Sneak a transponder onto his keychain or into his pocket. Anyone else could go by without a problem. But when he approaches – boom.”

“OK. But you said the transponder’s in the key. Not the car.”

“Correct. The chip in the car initiates the communication. The key responds.”

“So the chip in the bomb would be like the chip in the car?”

“Correct. I’ll verify that once the bomb is here, but I don’t see another way it could work.”

“What kind of range do these things have?”

“They vary. Depends on the application. Planes use them for automatic identification, in which case the signal can travel many kilometers. If you use one to unlock a door in place of a key, you’d want the signal to only go a few millimeters. You put one in a bomb, you’d want it to be similar, I guess, or your target would be out of the blast zone when it detonated. Unless it was a giant bomb and you didn’t care about collateral damage.”

Lane had done it again. The way he spoke, I couldn’t tell if “You put one in a bomb” was a question or a statement. And I suddenly realized who he reminded me of. Michael. When he briefly spoke to Fenton, right after we first found him. He either said, “You came.” Or “You came?” And that was right after something else weird. He said, “You got my warning?” Fenton had described it as a cry for help. An SOS. That was nothing like the same thing. I thought about what she had found. What she had based her conclusion on. And stood up.

I said, “Excuse me. I have to make a call.”

“Now?” Lane checked his watch. “The bomb will be here any minute. I’ll have to step out. Can’t you do it then?”

“No.” I moved to the corner of the room and dialed Dr. Houllier’s number. “This can’t wait.”

Dr. Houllier answered and I asked to speak to Michael.

He said, “Not possible. Sorry. He’s unconscious again.”

“Again?”

“Correct. He was awake for a while earlier, though he wasn’t saying much. Nothing coherent anyway. Just rambling about finding a goal or something like that.”

I thanked Dr. Houllier and hung up. Then immediately called him back and asked for Fenton.

I said, “Please hurry. This is important.”

Fenton came on the line after thirty seconds. “What’s up? Make it quick. I want to get back to Michael.”

I said, “I need you to think very carefully about a question. Don’t guess. Only answer if you are one hundred percent sure. OK?”

“Sure. Fire away.”

“The condom you found in the message Michael sent. What brand was it?”

“Trojan.”

“You sure?”

“One hundred percent.”