Fallout

CHAPTER 37

With tension clenching his abdomen, Goldfarb stood beside his rental car under the streetlights, looking across at the warehouses. He hated putting himself in situations like this, and here he had done it several times this week alone. Julene would lose sleep for a month once she found out about it.

Dennisons slot-machine repair shop was located in an industrial area not far from the Strip — close enough, he supposed, for a nuclear device to devastate the entire area, but far enough for the Eagle’s Claw to operate freely outside the crowds of tourists and gamblers.

Major Braden had rushed his nuclear surveillance vans over to the machine repair warehouse, driving by with gamma counters in search of an incriminating background trace that would be evidence of the smuggled nuclear device. But the initial sweeps had turned up nothing, not even a blip.

Having no other leads, Goldfarb and Jackson decided to go in, regardless. It was better than returning helplessly to the command center, where they would twiddle their thumbs and wait for something else to turn up.

Unless they found something, and soon, NEST would be forced to call for an evacuation of the entire city.

Goldfarb sipped his sour, cold coffee, holding the Styrofoam cup clumsily in his bandaged hand. He had reversed his shoulder holster to put the Beretta within reach of his left hand, but he didn’t know if he’d be able to shoot straight. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

They had no real reason to believe this would turn out to be anything other than one more wild-goose chase — but Craig himself had suggested the agents prepare for an armed response.

As he waited by the car for the rest of the backup to arrive, a few splatters of rain drifted down. The wind picked up, carrying a metallic smell of ozone as the precursor to the storm. Goldfarb wondered where Craig had gone, what he had learned at Mike Waterloo’s house. He just hoped their own search here would uncover something.

Jackson and two other Las Vegas agents — Rheinski and Holden — took up positions on the other side of the street, bracketing the darkened storefront with DENNISONS MACHINE REPAIR stenciled in a half circle on the glass. The agents wore black windbreakers with the letters FBI stenciled boldly in white on their backs; if the situation turned hot, the distinctive garb would help them tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Old pickup trucks lined the backstreet, each one displaying a prominent gunrack. Two converted Oldsmobile “low-rider” cars sat on bald tires in the parking lot of the pawn shop next to them.

A white van rolled down the street from the opposite direction, its engine idling, and parked a block away. Goldfarb knew the white van contained SWAT backup forces, just in case the FBI men should need help. Major Braden was taking no chances.

Goldfarb took the last swallow of his coffee and tossed the empty cup inside the car. His own bullet-proof vest pinched him, and he adjusted it, feeling like one of the Excalibur’s knights in armor.

“Does the SWAT team have ears on the building yet?” he said into the small microphone at his collar.

A thin voice came through his earphone from the communications officer inside the white covert van. “They’re using both the sonic horn and a laser Doppler on the window, sir. Getting ragged background sounds, like snoring, possibly from two people, but I get no movement from inside. Uh, one moment, Agent Goldfarb, Major Braden wishes to say something.”

The redheaded NEST commander said, “Agent Goldfarb — since we’re not picking up any special nuclear material inside, I’ll let the FBI run the entry. We’ll move back to an assist mode.”

Goldfarb felt a surge of adrenaline and second thoughts. In many ways he had secretly hoped the NEST team would take the lead in the raid — with the enormous consequences of surprising someone holding a nuclear weapon, the assault team would be empowered to shoot first and ask questions later.

But with the responsibility now relinquished to the FBI, Goldfarb had to follow conventional “rules of engagement” for a legal raid. He would have to give fair warning, identify himself before charging in — he hoped the militia wouldn’t start shooting the minute he rapped on the door.

“Just keep the SWAT team handy, Major,” he cautioned. “We don’t know exactly what we’re expecting in here.” Raising his hand, he signaled Jackson and the two other agents. All four moved together, converging toward the door.

“No sound from inside,” Jackson said.

“It’s still pretty early in the morning,” Goldfarb said.

“Not too early for a warehouse shift.” The tall black agent tugged on his Kevlar vest beneath his windbreaker. “Maybe the militia already pulled out.”

Even when coupled with the scraps of work orders from Connors’s house, Craig’s lead had not seemed too definite in the first place, and now the Dennison’s tip was a day old, thanks to the bomb on the railroad bridge. Goldfarb should have followed up the lead earlier… and Craig should have spent the day scouring DAF paperwork, and the NEST response should have been launched by noon Thursday.…

Now, their time was running out — unless the Eagle’s Claw was bluffing. And he doubted that, after the militia had already rigged high-powered bombs and murdered several people.

With his bandaged hand Goldfarb checked his pocket to make sure he had the warrant. Play by the rules. And hope the other guys did too. He wanted to make sure he came back home to Julene and the kids.

He wished he would have at least called his wife back in Oakland this morning… for nothing else but to reassure her. It made him even more nervous to be thinking about such things right now.

“I’ll take the lead,” said Goldfarb. “Jackson, you and Rheinski fan out. Holden, back me up. We’ll enter through the back. The SWAT team will cover the front, just in case. Any questions?” They shook their heads. “All right. Nobody screws up, nobody gets hurt. Let’s go.”

Goldfarb trotted around behind the building, keeping to the shadows. He motioned his team to the side, back by the warehouse doors. No sense raising a ruckus and going in through the front, giving the bad guys a good thirty seconds’ warning as they made their way to the back. He hoped the SWAT team was right about only two people being inside.

Goldfarb searched the shadows, clumsily holding his Beretta upright in his left hand. Jackson pointed at him and gave the high sign. Drawing in a breath, Goldfarb motioned with his head. He fought back a sudden wild urge to pee. Nerves. And too much coffee. Worry about that later.

He slammed his hand against the door. “Federal agents! We have a warrant to enter and search the premises.” He waited long seconds. “FBI — if you do not open up immediately, we will break it down.”

After a moment of silence, Holden bashed into the door, which bent but did not buckle. They had full locksmith equipment in the van, but that would take too much time. Still holding his handgun high, Goldfarb stepped back and kicked the doorknob. Wood cracked, and the side of the door splintered.

Holden threw himself against the door, and it finally crashed inward. A loud bell began clanging as they set off Dennisons’ built-in alarms.

Flushed and breathing hard, Goldfarb launched himself into the darkened warehouse. In the dim emergency lights glowing from the high ceiling, his eyes made out dark shapes, rows of machines, low work tables, storage boxes. The noise from the alarm startled birds that had roosted inside the big building; other staccato movement came from the shadowy rooms.

“Lights!” Goldfarb called into the monotonous din of the alarms.

Jackson slithered farther inward along the wall. “Got ‘em.”

The bright overhead lights snapped on, banks and banks of blazing fluorescent tubes, and Goldfarb suddenly saw the entire warehouse. Like frozen soldiers, rows of slot machines stood on pallets, some dismantled, some wrapped in sheet plastic. He recognized electronic machines as well as the old mechanical “one-armed bandits.” Tools and testing equipment lay strewn across workbenches.

A disembodied voice sounded groggy. “Hey! What the hell is going on?” The alarm bells continued their head-pounding clamor, throwing everything into confusion. “Oh shit!”

“Hey, you!” Jackson shouted. “Freeze! Over there.”

Goldfarb saw a young man staggering away, ducking for shelter between the rows of slot machines. The kid had close-cropped blond hair and wore only a pair of khaki boxer shorts. “Hold it right there! Federal agents!”

Jackson and Rheinski crouched, their handguns drawn, as they went in two different directions to head off the young man. A young woman screamed, then shouted a string of obscenities. Holden ran to investigate as Goldfarb hurried after the kid in the underwear.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Goldfarb called impatiently — then the young man lurched up from his hiding place and pointed a handgun at him. Goldfarb scrambled to the side as the kid fired two quick shots. “Aww, not again!”

The two bullets ricocheted from a half-dismantled slot machine. Goldfarb instinctively fired back with his left hand, but his aim was off and the shot went wide.

“Watch it, Ben — don’t hit me!” Rheinski shouted.

Underwear Boy shoved a big slot machine, crashing it off its pallet as he dashed in another direction, weaving around and trying to get to one of the rear warehouse doors. Jackson stood up, both hands locked around his handgun in a professional firing stance. “Throw down your weapon, sir!”

But the kid shot wildly at him, sending sparks up from another slot machine. Jackson ducked out of the way, a befuddled expression on his face.

The alarm bells continued to rattle with skull-cracking volume.

Goldfarb saw the kid limping severely; one arm and shoulder had been bound and bandaged in a recent injury. Taking cover behind the squat machines, he slid from one row to another, looking for a shot. His broken pinkie throbbed like a jackhammer.

“Johnnie, look out!” a young woman’s voice shrilled. Goldfarb turned toward the sound to see a half-naked blond teenager struggling against the wall, handcuffed to one of the electrical conduit pipes that ran down a support girder.

The unexpected sight so startled him that he didn’t notice Holden until the other Las Vegas agent stepped out from behind Underwear Boy, pressing his handgun right up against the young man’s spine.

“I don’t think you’ll be wanting to resist any more, kid,” Holden said. Underwear Boy froze, his face writhing with a storm of desperate emotions — but his eyes seemed unfocused, glazed with some kind of drugs.

Panting, Goldfarb and Jackson converged on him, leveling their weapons as Holden disarmed the captive. He slid the young man’s handgun in his own pocket as the warehouse alarm bells rang and rang.

Handcuffed to the wall, the young woman continued to writhe and spit curses at them. Goldfarb ignored her — they would have plenty of time to question the girl later.

Underwear Boy was in his early twenties, his freckled skin pale and bruised. Bandages covered his arm, shoulder, and shin, but other angry red scrapes and contusions showed on his back and chest. Someone had smeared salves on the worst wounds.

“Looks like you’re pretty banged up there, kid,” Goldfarb said.

“What do you think you’re doing?” the young man said slowly. His voice was slurred and his eyes unfocused, as if he had taken massive amounts of pain killers.

Suddenly, merciful silence dropped back upon them. Rheinski came up, patting his hands together. “Couldn’t find the trip switch, so I used a wire cutter. Worked like a charm.”

“This is private property!” the girl shrieked. “You got no right! Damn Nazis!” She didn’t look older than seventeen.

Jackson put his own handgun away, then marched off. “I’ll check the rest of the premises. Maybe I can find some clothes for Cinderella,” he said.

“Or at least a gag for her foul mouth,” Holden muttered.

“Leave her alone —” the young man said, turning to go toward her, but Holden slammed him back. He winced in pain. “Watch the ribs, man! Ah, shit, that hurts!”

“Hey, I recognize you!” Goldfarb suddenly said, staring at the young man’s lean figure, short sandy blond hair, freckled cheeks, watery blue eyes. “Back at the bridge in Laughlin. You’re our friendly train bomber! Looks like you just barely walked away from an avalanche.”

“I’m not saying anything,” the young man said. “You can’t do this, breaking into a private business. This isn’t Russia!”

“No, this is the United States — and here we use search warrants.” Goldfarb displayed the paper for only a second, but Underwear Boy didn’t seem interested in it anyway. “I’m placing you under arrest for destroying the railroad bridge, conspiracy, attempted murder, reckless endangerment of life, firing upon a Federal agent, resisting arrest, felony destruction of property.” He glanced over at the half-naked girl. “And probably statutory rape.”

“Yeah, that won’t mean much in a little while,” the man snorted.

Goldfarb felt cold. “We already know about the nuclear warhead. We’ve dispatched teams to disarm it.”

Shocked, the militia man took a moment to recover. “They’ll never get all the way out there in time. They can’t get through the security checkpoints. No way. You’ve already lost.”

Goldfarb frowned. What security checkpoints? All the way out where?

Jackson came up, holding a military uniform. “Rest of the place is empty. I found his clothes, all torn and muddy from taking a long tumble into the river.”

Goldfarb shook his head in disbelief. “His girlfriend here probably picked him up from the canyon, brought him back here to do a bit of First Aid. I bet Dennison’s is some kind of a militia safe house.”

“You’ll never find the bomb,” the militia man said again. From her position on the wall, the girl began to curse again, thrashing against the handcuffs, but Goldfarb ignored her.

“Just read him Miranda,” Goldfarb said, leaning against one of the dismantled slot machines. “We sure hit the jackpot here.” He fished the man’s wallet from the pocket of the uniform slacks and flipped through the papers and ID.

He pulled out a green laminated card and turned it over. The blond man’s picture was on the front. “Department of Defense. Staff Sergeant John Marlo, United States Air Force.” Goldfarb unfolded a Leave Statement that listed the address of Dennisons Machine Repair as Marlo’s place of residence. It specified NELLIS as the sergeant’s base.

“I want a lawyer. You can’t bust in here and arrest me like this —”

“Oh, shut up,” Holden said.

Goldfarb heard the front of the store open, and the SWAT team entered in response to the gunshots fired. He took a moment to calm them, reassuring them that the facility had been secured and the situation was under control. “Get one of the women on the NEST team as a chaperone so we can let the young lady here get her clothes on,” he added. “We don’t need a sexual harassment suit on top of all this.”

Jackson reappeared, carrying a box of ammunition. “We found what must have been a weapons cache back behind the banks of broken-down slot machines — but it’s empty. From the weapon mounts it looks like it held a lot of automatic weapons. This box of ammo was all that was left.”

“You don’t know anything,” Marlo said, his words still slurred, but his eyes had brightened, as if his predicament had penetrated the fog of pain-killers. “And you don’t have any time left. We’re putting a stop to the UN shit, and it’s too late to stop us. You hear me? It’s already too late!”

“Thanks.” Goldfarb tossed Marlo’s wallet to one of the other agents. “Let’s get on the phone to Craig. Maybe that’s all the information he needs to make sense of all this.”