Nightwatch

Chapter 4

One hundred and fifteen miles to the northeast of the Eleven Point’s Greer access site, Thomas Kellogg greeted the morning from a town square that could easily belong to another era. Except for the modern vehicles and the clothing worn by the pedestrians, the courthouse he had just emerged from and the classic square that surrounded it were more reminiscent of America at the turn of the century.

Thomas had seen very little of Union when he arrived here in the wee hours of the morning. It had taken him the better part of an hour to get here from the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms office in St. Louis. A good portion of the drive followed Old Route 66, with Union lying to the southwest of St. Louis, at the gateway to the Missouri Ozarks.

Thomas had originally been called to St. Louis in early June, when several local Planned Parenthood clinics began receiving threatening letters and phone calls. Three weeks ago, the threats turned violent, when an Improvised Explosive Device exploded inside a clinic reception area. Fortunately, the timer malfunctioned, and the device detonated less than an hour before the clinic would have been filled with patients.

Their luck ran out four days later, after an IED exploded inside a Planned Parenthood laboratory. A technician was partially blinded by the blast, which was repeated the very next day in the adjoining clinic, injuring seven including three patients.

Thomas had spent the rest of the month gathering evidence and running down leads. Because such cases usually took a good deal of time to solve, he was hoping he’d be able to squeeze out a couple of days to join Vince and his family in Branson. It would be a rare opportunity for them to get together outside Washington.

An understanding boss and a fortunate set of circumstances had sent Vince packing for southern Missouri. And with Thomas close by in St. Louis, a Kellogg family reunion never looked so promising.

Just when it seemed as if he’d be able to spare the time, another IED detonated inside a dumpster behind the Planned Parenthood clinic in Ballwin, Missouri, a St. Louis suburb. This incident occurred three days ago, and though no one was hurt, an adjoining supermarket was damaged when falling debris set its roof on fire.

Thomas arrived on the scene within sixty minutes of the blast.

He was there while the fire department put out the blaze, and was the first one to brave the smoke and climb into the dumpster.

His efforts uncovered the most promising piece of evidence so far. It was a still-smoldering, fire-scarred section of cardboard box, originally designed to hold electric detonators.

That very day, Thomas sent the evidence sample to the aTF’s National Tracing Center in Falling Water, West Virginia. Experts working there for the Explosives Technology Branch were able to determine that the cardboard container had indeed been part of the IED. By using a laser scanner, they were also able to find out who manufactured the original detonators, along with the all-important date shift code. This alphanumeric series indicated the exact date and plant where the detonators were produced, and provided the vital information needed to complete the trace.

A check of the manufacturer’s shipping records indicated that a box of fifty electric detonators had been sent via FedEx to an address in Labadie, Missouri. They were sent on May 28, only a few days before the first threats were issued, with the special-use permit stating that the detonators were to be used for agricultural purposes only.

The small town of Labadie was in Franklin County, only a few miles from the St. Louis County line. A title search showed that the address in question was indeed a farm. Yet when Thomas contacted the owner, he learned that the farmer had long since retired, and had subsequently leased his property to his nephew.

It was as Thomas began investigating this nephew that he knew they had hit pay dirt. Conrad Whitten had a rap sheet longer than Gussie Busch’s tax return. A convicted felon and former leader of the Satan’s Outlaw motorcycle gang, Whitten appeared to be their man.

With the assistance of the Franklin County Sheriff’s Department and the Missouri Highway Patrol, the farmhouse was placed under twenty-four-hour observation. An operations center had just been set up in the Franklin County courthouse, thus necessitating Thomas’s trip to Union this morning.

Before they could move in and make an arrest, the aTF had to know exactly what they were up against and who was involved.

Was Whitten the bomber, or was he just making the IEDs for someone with an extreme social agenda? The botched raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas, had taught the aTF many an invaluable lesson in the importance of accumulating proper intelligence, and Thomas found himself preaching this dictum all morning.

After a quick stroll around the square, he was ready to return to the courthouse and complete the stakeout schedule. An aTF forward observer team was presently providing clandestine surveillance.

They would need to be relieved shortly, and Thomas decided to accept the Sheriff’s offer to replace them with two members of his elite SWAT team.

Even at this relatively early hour, the temperature was well into the eighties, and his forehead had a light sheen of perspiration on it as he headed inside. Halfway down the brick walkway, he passed a ground crew busy putting up a red, white, and blue banner for the upcoming Fourth of July holiday. A lawn mower growled to a start nearby, and Thomas looked up as the door to the courthouse suddenly swung open. Quick to exit was the Sheriff, with two uniformed highway patrolmen on his heels.

“We’ve got company down at the site!” he shouted.

“One of my deputies just reported seeing three bikers in full colors turn into the driveway leading to the farmhouse, with a large Ryder rental truck following close behind.”

Though he would have liked to call in an ATP Special Response Team, Thomas knew they didn’t have the time. The Ryder truck most likely meant that Whitten was about to be on the move, and could indicate that the next IED was going to be substantially larger.

“Make certain that your men don’t move in until we get there,” warned Thomas while they sprinted over to the nearby parking lot.

“As planned, we’ll meet at the turnoff to the power plant to consolidate our forces.”

Thomas accepted a thumbsup from the Sheriff and climbed behind the wheel of his own car, a well-broken-in aTF Chrysler.

With the Sheriff’s vehicle leading the way, siren wailing, Thomas stepped on the accelerator to follow him. They had a fifteen minute drive ahead of them, most of which was on well-paved, two-lane highways.

Once Union was behind them, the road began traversing a series of rolling hills. For the most part, this was farming country.

Corn and soybeans were the major crops; an occasional pasture was filled with grazing cattle, pigs, or horses.

Traffic was light, and the Sheriff was able to turn off his siren and travel at a good eighty miles per hour, using only flashing warning lights. Thomas easily kept up with him.

When they turned onto State Highway T, they passed a group of cyclists. It was obvious that the bike riders were making the most of this glorious summer morning, and Thomas couldn’t help but envy them. An avid rider himself, he remembered well his last bike trip. It had taken place during the Memorial Day weekend, on his last full day off from work.

Brittany had joined him then for an invigorating, early-morning sprint on the bike path from Alexandria to Mount Vernon.

Their continued relationship turned serious last fall, shortly after he returned home from England because of his near brush with death aboard the QE2. Brittany felt responsible for forcing him to volunteer for the mission, and upon his safe return, there was an even tighter bond between them. From that moment on, weekends were spent exclusively together.

Lately they had been making plans to move in together, and Thomas was genuinely disappointed when she revealed that she wouldn’t be able to join them at the lake for the Fourth. Brittany couldn’t tell Thomas the reason that she couldn’t come to Branson.

She was beginning her last year representing the U.S. Navy as the Military Aide to the President. This was a job of vast responsibility. With an office in the East Wing of the White House, Brittany was one of five officers whose duties included maintaining the President’s emergency satchel — the infamous “football.”

She also provided a liaison between the White House staff and the Navy, and acted as the Commanderin-Chief’s aide-decamp.

As Thomas and the Sheriff continued speeding down Highway 1 and passed by the village limits of Labadie, the approach of an elementary school on the left side of the road caused the Sheriff to dramatically slow down. He also switched off his warning lights, and after passing through a single-lane, one-way tunnel, he activated his left-turn signal. Thomas did likewise, and followed the Sheriff’s vehicle onto the road leading to the Missouri River and the Labadie power plant.

A trio of police cars was parked across from a quaint country inn, where they drew up a hasty operations plan. Because of time constraints, Thomas knew it was essential that this plan be simple and basic.

He contacted his forward observer team by two-way and learned that the trio of newly arrived bikers had joined Conrad Whitten inside the farmhouse. The Ryder truck had been backed up to the front door. Its driver was a leggy redhead whose short shorts and skimpy halter top hadn’t escaped the notice of the aTF sniper watching her every move from the shelter of the surrounding bushes. Before entering the farmhouse herself, she had unlatched the truck’s back door, revealing an empty cargo hold.

“It’s obvious that whatever they’ve got going on inside that farmhouse, they’re about to transfer something of significant size into that truck,” mused Thomas to the seven men of his raiding team.

“My biggest fear from the start of this case was that the bomb maker would try to construct a real attention-grabber, like the ammonium nitrate fuel oil device that took out the Oklahoma City Federal Building. That Ryder could easily hold such an IED, and we could be getting there right when they’re prepping it. So use your weapons only if absolutely necessary, and if you are forced to shoot, pick your targets carefully and don’t miss!”

They decided to assault the farmhouse from the woods surrounding the backyard. One of the deputies revealed that he knew of a gravel road that would convey them to these woods without being seen from the main compound. The two highway patrolmen were tasked to block the main driveway near where it intersected Highway T. While they got in position, Thomas climbed into the Sheriff’s car, along with the other men of his raiding party, and they sped off for the gravel roadway.

They assembled in an abandoned apple orchard. Before moving in by foot on their objective, Thomas made sure that each of them had his body armor properly fitted. After doublechecking their weapons’ load, he contacted both the Highway Patrolmen and his forward observer team on the two-way to synchronize their movements. When one of his snipers reported that the bikers had just begun loading the truck with a variety of crates they were carrying from the house, Thomas said a brief, silent prayer, crossed his fingers and gave the assault order.

They moved forward in a modified wedge formation, with Thomas at the forward point of the inverted V. His own weapons were limited to a Winchester Model 12 shotgun, with six 12gauge rounds in its tubular magazine, and his Glock 17 9mm handgun. His five associates were also armed with a variety of revolvers and shotguns.

He took some solace knowing that his two forward observers were expert marksmen, armed with state-of-the-art Heckler & Koch PSG-1 semiautomatic sniper rifles. They fired specially selected 7.62mm Lapua Winchester match ammunition, put on target by times six magnification telescopes, and pity the poor biker whose wallet-chained ass ended up inside the illuminated crosshairs.

With his greatest worry being that they hadn’t had the time to properly rehearse this raid beforehand, Thomas completed his climb of the small rise that lay between the orchard and their objective. Upon sighting the gabled roof of the farmhouse, he immediately signaled the men behind him to halt and kneel.

Thomas knelt himself, before lying prone on the weed-filled rocky soil and slowly crawling forward.

The back of the clapboard farmhouse was directly in front of them, at the bottom of a gently sloping hill, a bare one hundred yards distant. He smiled upon noting that the sole window was boarded up, and slowly scanned the thick bushes that extended beyond the left side of the structure. Somewhere inside this cover, his ghillie-suited snipers were situated, and even though he knew the general area in which they were deployed, Thomas spotted not a trace of them.

Thomas crawled backward, stood, and signaled his party to stand and form a tight line behind him. This would be their assault train, and the strategy now was to rush down the hillside at the back of the house and utilize the cover of their snipers to move forward along the structure’s left side. Then, without hesitating, they’d sprint around the corner of the house with weapons raised, and hopefully catch their suspects by complete surprise while attention was still focused on loading the truck.

They initiated their movement and reached the back of the house without giving away their presence. The moment of truth was almost upon them, and as Thomas led the assault train around the structure’s left side, misfortune struck when the Sheriff tripped and fell to the ground with such force that his shotgun discharged. The element of surprise now compromised, Thomas had no choice but to lead the rest of his troops around to the front side of the house, where their destinies awaited.

“Federal agents!” he proclaimed to the shocked group of leather-clad longhairs standing alongside the partially filled rental truck.

The smell of marijuana wafted past his nostrils, and Thomas scanned the astounded faces of the four bearded men and one gorgeous woman who stood with jaws agape, staring at the assortment of weapons pointed their way.

“Conrad Whitten, I have a warrant for your arrest,” one of the deputies informed him.

“Aw, shit!” cursed the tallest of the bikers, a beer-bellied giant of a man with a full, bushy red beard and long, scraggly hair to match.

While the deputies moved in to frisk their suspects, Thomas peeked inside the back of the truck. A rectangular wooden crate sat within reaching distance, and he thought he could make out a light coating of black powder covering the lid.

“See something of interest in there, Mr. Pig?” asked a deep male voice from behind.

Thomas turned around and found himself staring into the stubby barrel of a chrome revolver. The muscular, tattooed biker who held this weapon had apparently been on the far side of the truck during their initial raid, and he called out loudly so that all could hear him.

“Keep those hands where I can see them, and back away from the truck real nice and slow.”

Thomas did as instructed, with the biker jamming the pistol into Thomas’s stomach while addressing the others.

“Drop those weapons, deputies, or your buddy here is gonna have a new belly button.”

The deputies appeared to be momentarily flustered by this unexpected command. They looked to each other for guidance, and when they finally lowered their weapons, Thomas exhaled a long breath of relief.

“Attaboy, Jester,” said Whitten, who reached out for one of the deputies’ pistols.

Before the redheaded giant could gain possession, the firm voice of the Sheriff broke from the right side of the farmhouse.

“Freeze!” he ordered, while chambering a fresh round into his shotgun.

All eyes went to Whitten, who took a second to consider the risks involved before slowly backing away from the deputy and meekly nodding in submission.

“You fucking pussy!” shouted Jester, who roughly pushed Thomas to the ground and went sprinting for the nearest Harley.

The chopper roared alive and peeled off down the gravel driveway, leaving a cloud of exhaust in its wake. Thomas scrambled to his feet and listened as a pair of high-powered rounds exploded from the nearby tree line. A bare second later, the motorcycle went tumbling on its side, its tires shredded by a salvo of expertly aimed bullets.

With his pride bruised more than his body. Jester was pulled out from beneath the bike and led back to the porch. The deputies quickly cuffed him, and reinitiated the frisking process.

Only after he was certain that there were no other bikers who had yet to be discovered did Thomas return to his inspection of the truck. He reexamined the powder-coated crate, and spotted the label cherry bombs stenciled in red on its side. With the edge of his pocket knife, he cautiously pried open one of the slats.

Packed in sawdust inside was a line of bright red, gum ball-sized objects with short fuses projecting from them.

“I tell ya, all we’re doin’ out here is makin’ a bunch of fuckin’ fireworks!” pleaded Conrad Whitten to the Sheriff.

“Sure, we’re also smokin’ a little skunk, but it’s only for personal consumption.

And I swear that I was gonna get that fireworks permit as soon as I could afford it.”

Thomas found it hard to hide his disappointment as he entered the farmhouse and got a good look at their operation.

“Theresa, I told ya Whitten was nothin’ but a pussy,” said Jester to the only female in their midst while she was being cuffed.

“Shut the fuck up!” countered Whitten, who now sported his own pair of shiny steel bracelets.

“We’re in enough trouble as it is, and I’m not gonna take your rap of threatening to shoot a police officer all for a mess of bootleg fireworks.”

Thomas had busted an illegal fireworks factory before, and as he stepped inside, everything he saw confirmed that this was what the bikers were doing here. A pair of long wooden tables held a variety of commercial powder presses, cardboard wrapping material, and several boxes of fuses. He also discovered three large barrels of black powder, an invoice made out to St. Alban’s Country Club for three dozen high-altitude star clusters, and an assortment of red, white, and blue airburst projectiles.

Although Thomas could take some satisfaction in knowing that a dangerous operation had been shut down, he realized they had failed to apprehend the bomb maker. He shared this disappointing information with his forward observers as they emerged from the bushes in camouflaged ghillie suits. For all effective purposes, they were back at square one, and when his cellular phone began ringing, Thomas supposed that he’d next have to pass on the frustrating news to the Special Agent in charge of the St. Louis field office.

The gravelly voice on the other end of the line was strangely familiar. Yet Thomas still found himself totally caught off guard when the caller finally identified himself.

“Thomas, you old dog. You’re harder to track down than the Secretary. It’s Ted Callahan. I realize I’m about the last person you expected to hear from today, but I was able to convince Director McShane to divulge your number. I understand from the Director that you’ve got your hands full with a major investigation, but he gave me the all-clear to ask a little favor of you.

Army CID needs your help, good buddy. And I’m willing to forget about those Orioles tickets you promised me last Labor Day and never delivered, for a couple hours of your time down here at Fort Leonard Wood. A mere hundred-mile drive down Route 66 is all it will take to square the account, my friend. So get cracking, before I’m forced to send out the MPs!”