Quantico Part 8

Griff rubbed his upper lip, first checking to make sure there was no blood on his finger. 'He knew about us all along. He saw us cut down the tree.'

'Makes you wonder where his righteous sons are,' Rebecca said.

They both stared into the far stands of cedars and larches.

Griff cringed as a helicopter pa.s.sed slowly overhead. Even at three hundred feet, the steady beat of the rotors thumped the barn and the ground under his boots. Three crime scene techs came around the main house, stringing yellow tape. The tape flapped and curled in the downdraft. There was a news station imprint on the chopper's side-KOMO Seattle. Someone must have radioed the pilot that the scene was unsecured and dangerous, for the helicopter abruptly backed off and swung around, heading west over the woods to the highway, probably to take more pictures of the base camp.

Cap Benson approached bearing in his arms a more suitable blue blazer he had pulled from the trunk of his car. Griff slipped the blazer on over the T-shirt and decided he looked if anything even more ridiculous than he would have wearing Levine's vest.

They all stood in the broad, scrubby front yard of the old farmhouse. Inside, the Patriach still lay sprawled on his stomach in a pool of blood, cuffed, awkward and bedraggled and not giving a d.a.m.n one way or the other. Griff could see him like an after-image over the barn. He had killed three times-four, now-in his FBI career. Six or seven times before that, in the Navy. Much more than the average. He did not enjoy the distinction.

From the road, blowing in on a westerly breeze, they could hear the faint sounds of big trucks on the move. Washington State Patrol, FBI, ATF, Homeland Security, whatever.

Dogs running to sniff at the old man's kingdom.

'That's one big barn,' Benson said. 'Wonder what's in it?'

'Why don't you go have a look?' Griff said. He would have to re-evaluate the entire scene. If Chambers had known he was being watched for several days, who knew what he could have accomplished? What chain of events he could have started by making a few night visits to the barn, or the second house...?

Chances were, with all the kids, there would not have been tripwires or other traps spread around the yard, or in the houses...but Griff just could not be sure.

He turned to the north. Several techs in white plastic suits and hoods were swabbing samples of powder off the distant trees. 'Your people?' he asked Rebecca. She nodded. 'What do you think they'll find? Chambers said they had sprayed for pests.'

'I doubt that,' Levine said. 'He hated pesticides. Called them a conspiracy by the Jews to help feed the Mud People of the world.'

Rebecca looked amused. Griff did not know what to think about the world's evil. Another tech closer in had climbed a ladder braced against one of many wooden poles around the property and was attaching a multimeter to the wires suspended overhead.

'How many long arms of the law do you have back there, Cappy?' Griff asked.

'There's me and my boys. ATF has pulled back, I don't know why.'

'Bureau asked for primacy. We still have some chips to play.'

'I don't see your boss, Keller,' Benson said.

'He was called back to Washington, DC,' Rebecca said. 'He's going to testify before some senate committee.'

Griff sucked that back in. Not even collaring the Patriarch stopped the wheels of partisan politics, trying to grind down the FBI. Trying to kill it and hand its responsibilities over to others. No matter. His retirement was secure. One more year and he would cross the boundary of GS-1811-into mandatory retirement.

Benson continued, 'There's Sergeant Andrews and four guys from the state inter-agency bomb squad. We got Dan Vogel from the K9 explosives unit. I saw Child Protective Services hanging around with nothing to do, and one black girl in a leather jacket, like a G.o.dd.a.m.ned Black Panther, but I suppose she's one of yours.'

Griff nodded.

'And two other feds I don't recognize.'

'Homeland Security and Bureau of Domestic Intelligence,' Griff said. 'They'd love to horn in. I want Dan and his dog to sweep the main house, then the second house, in that order.' He waved his hands, drawing a plan in the air.

'Not the barn?' Benson asked.

'Griff thinks the barn is rigged,' Levine said. He paced in a small circle, eyes on the ground, sweat on his forehead despite the chill.

'Bots coming soon?' Griff asked.

Benson nodded.

'Send a bot into the barn. And get some more troopers into those woods. His sons could be drawing a bead on us right now.' He closed one eye and c.o.c.ked his finger at Levine.

'h.e.l.l, they would have taken you out after you killed their pappy,' Levine said. 'The sons are long gone.'

'Maybe.'

Griff did not think the houses were rigged with explosives. Kids had been there too recently; tough to control kids, keep them from setting something off. No one had seen anybody walking outside to the rear house after the bus had departed. Still, it would be necessary to thoroughly check for both explosives and kids in hiding-and the K9 could do that.

He now stood with hands on hips and faced his main nightmare directly. The big sliding barn door had been left open six or seven inches, not enough for a man to easily squeeze through. He did not want to touch that door. It was too much like an invitation.

'The Patriarch would plan for bots, don't you think?' Griff asked Rebecca.

'Sounds like,' Rebecca said. 'X-ray triggers. Trip mikes tuned to machine sounds.'

'All these wires,' Griff said. 'What the h.e.l.l are they for? What level of paranoia should we consider unreasonable? He's been at this for fifty years, right?'

'We should wait,' Rebecca said. 'Less chance of someone clumsy hitting a tripwire.'

Griff turned on her but kept his voice low. 'What if it's all hooked up to a G.o.dd.a.m.ned timer, Special Agent Becky Rose?'

'Your call,' Rebecca said, pursing her lips. Griff was the only agent who called her Becky and she didn't like it much, but in the grand scheme...

'Is it? Or is News breathing down my back?'

'As I said...'

'Right. It's my call. Well, f.u.c.k that, too.'

The police waiting up at the start of the clearing were milling about, observing the four of them as they faced the barn.

'He'd know,' Levine said. 'He'd plan for dogs.'

'Our dogs are trained to avoid wires. They work through all sorts of masking scents,' Benson said. 'I'd rather trust them than the bots.'

'No dog I ever met could spot a tripwire in dim light or slip past a motion detector,' Griff said. 'I think the houses are safest. Dogs for the houses. We'll send bots into the barn.'

He was starting to shake. It had been hours since he had shot the old man. Shot him six times in his f.u.c.king living room. A man's home is his castle. Deep things were churning in him and making his hands and shoulders tremble. 'Well,' Griff said. 'Let's bring them all forward. Get me Watson.'

Rebecca used her comm.

Special Agent Alice Watson pushed through the crowd of police and agents and walked down the road with quick, offkilter steps. She was a plump woman of thirty-three with one leg shorter than the other, acres of att.i.tude, and the expertise to justify it. Long scars pulled her face on one side. She wore a thick lens over one eye but with the other eye she could still see clearly.

Watson had nearly died two years ago, in Paris. She had made one small mistake dealing with an Al Aqsa handbag packed with a proximity fuse and two charges of T6 Anafex, set to release a vial of osmium tetroxide through spray cans that had once held Raid. The bag had been found in a public park. There had been no time to bring in robots. The main charge had dudded. The canister of tetrox had remained intact, sparing a large crowd-and Watson. But there had been a third fuse buried under the pack, and she had taken the backup charge-just a pinch-square in the face.

Later, in the hospital, she had told Griff, 'I met the ghost of that bomb. I put both my fingers up its nose and twisted. That's why it let me go. Next time, it'll share some secrets.'

Watson had spent time recuperating with her husband and kid. She had returned to the job after six months but had spent the next four months in a powered walker. The bomb ghost might or might not be a joke. Griff didn't care.

She was the best bomb expert he knew.

Watson shook hands with Rebecca, then stood beside Griff and said, 'We're on bombnet at HDS and Eglin. They're feeding it to experts in Los Angeles and Washington. We're going to have about fifteen good eyes on this one, including mine.' Her grin was a cruel parody but it bucked up Griff's spirits.

A few steps behind Watson followed a short man with close-cut brown hair, wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt and leading a golden retriever on a glittering chain. The dog whined and dodged, eager to earn her play treat. This would be Dan Vogel and Chippy, Griff thought. Beautiful dog, fluffy and reddish-gold, recently shampooed and totally focused on the red ball that Vogel clutched in one hand. A happy dog with way too much energy. Under one arm, Vogel carried a thick folder filled with scent tabs: a library of bomb ingredients to help Chippy focus. In the last ten years there had been a substantial revolution in both the variety, the compactness, and the strength of explosives. Microreactors-chemical factories little bigger than a breadbox-had put the creation of lethal amounts of dangerous substances into the hands of small groups, and even individuals.

'Chippy's happy,' Watson said.

'All my b.i.t.c.hes are happy. Where first, boss?'

'That is a big barn,' Watson said.

'What's your ghost telling you?' Griff asked.

Watson glared at him with one good eye, the other goggling behind its lens like a blank moon in a telescope. 'That was private, Griff.'

'All right. What kind of bomb would fill a barn?' he asked. 'Fertilizer,' Watson said. 'But this b.a.s.t.a.r.d has used kitchen TAMP, C4, Semtex, Anafex, triminol, pa.s.sage clay, Poly-S phosphate, and aerosol kerosene-that's a baby daisy-cutter, to you guys-you name it. I really don't know. This would be his piece de resistance piece de resistance?'

'Sounds right,' Griff said. 'He died proud. He said it was all in G.o.d's hands.'

's.h.i.t,' Benson said, and his face went a shade more pale in the dusk. Levine stopped pacing and shoved his hands in his pockets. Rebecca looked down at her feet, then up again, eyes slitted.

Vogel knelt by the retriever and opened the book to the first page, a stimulating scent. The dog snuffled happily, eyes bright and tail wagging. Then she sneezed.

Watson looked at the network of wires on poles surrounding the house and strung over the dirt road. She took a cleansing breath, let it out, pointed to the edge of the clearing, and said, 'Gentlemen, Agent Rose, if you're nonessential, you best move on out. Who knows what you might step in-or on?'

Rebecca said, 'I'll stay.'

'You're not going in there, Rebecca,' Griff said.

'We'll see,' Rebecca said. 'I've put in my request.'

's.h.i.t. We need to reduce personnel and do our search, no c.r.a.p. I've been involved in tracking this b.a.s.t.a.r.d for twenty years.'

'No c.r.a.p,' Rebecca said steadily. 'I've been working bioterror for longer than that. I'm here, I'm interested. I won't get in your way.'

'Becky-'

'Can you identify a minilab, Griff? Sequencers? Fermenters? Do you know what to look for?'

Griff set his jaw. 'You could tell me. You're a Janie-come-lately here. You three, bug out.'

Benson shrugged. 'You've got enough grief, you don't need any more from me,' he said, and patted Griff's arm. He and Levine walked up the road, leaving the field and the barn to the experts, and to Rebecca Rose, who had set her jaw and was interested. interested.

Levine looked back over his shoulder. Griff did not like having people look back, one last glance; that sort of s.h.i.t bothered him. He pointed his finger at Rebecca. 'You're not even rated for a bomb suit.'

She folded her arms.

Watson eyed them both with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Chippy was whining and tugging toward the barn.

'Is Chippy good on her own?' Griff asked Vogel.

'Got a four zero on the Fairview course last month,' Vogel said. 'Found ten out of ten devices, including Anafex.'

'Is she okay with kids?' Griff asked.

'Loves them. Kids play fetch.'

Chippy strained at her leash. She really wanted into that barn. Griff did not want her or anyone else in there. That barn was creeping him out badly. He glared at Rebecca.

'Number one.' Griff pointed to the main house. 'Then the house behind.'

Vogel led the dog away to the first house. He opened the screen door then reached down and unclipped her collar. The golden retriever trotted inside.

A snow-white and freshly waxed inter-agency bomb truck, sporting the odd symbol of a flaming wasp nest, rumbled through the cordon and approached the house. Cap Benson rode the running board, wearing a boyish grin. Inside was the bombot coordinator, a sergeant whom Griff had hung out with in Portland during a training session for local police departments. They had gone drinking together. His name was George Carlin Andrews.

Benson jumped off as the truck pulled up beside them. 'No guts, no glory,' he said to Griff.

Griff brushed past him without a word. Watson opened the door for Andrews. 'The machine G.o.ds have arrived,' she announced.

'Why, thank you, pretty miss,' Andrews said, stepping down with his aluminum box of goodies. 'Griff, is that you, all dolled up?' He peeled off a glove and held out his hand. He was tall and thick across the middle but he had delicate fingers, jeweler's hands.

Griff nodded and shook with him.

'What are we hoping not to find? Any clues?' Andrews asked.

'Not many,' Griff said. He told Andrews about the way Chambers had looked at the barn and a little more about his history. 'He said it was all in G.o.d's hands.'

Rebecca liked that even less the second time she heard it.

'Uh huh,' Andrews said. 'Jacob Levine filled me in. We probably can't move back far enough to escape that sort of wrath. We could take time to dig some foxholes. What do you think?'

'If something that big blows, we'd just get sucked out,' Watson said.

'Pink clouds,' Rebecca said.

Andrews faced her square. 'We haven't met, have we?'

'Special Agent Rebecca Rose,' Griff said. 'She thinks there might be biologicals in there.'

'I surely do love this job,' Andrews said. 'I'm told Homeland Security could have EEOs flown up from Walnut Creek in a few hours.'

'It would be wise to-' Rebecca began.