A War of Shadows

TWENTY-ONE

“Bingo!” shouted Bob Hartman. He almost ran up one flight and down the hall to Jake Edelman’s office.

Edelman was looking over some reports when the excited younger agent burst in. “What’s up?” he asked.

“John Braden. He is in fact with the Bureau, the Chief Inspector of the Syracuse office. Lots of time in, an old pro.”

“You’re sure it’s the right man?” Edelman asked. “Remember, I’m supposed to have kidnapped O’Connell and Bede.”

“Dead on,” Hartman assured him. “Prints, handwriting, physical description all match. They had to move fast to get there before we did and they used him.”

Edelman assumed his thoughtful pose. “Syracuse, huh? Not much for an old pro.”

The younger man nodded. “It’s fairly new. He was shifted up there replacing Ben Waxier just after the emergency was declared. His own office said he was out most of the time at the Martha’s Lake VA Hospital about twenty, thirty kilometers west of the city.”

“That would figure,” Edelman noted. “Okay, then, so we have an old pro switched to a nothing post so he can oversee security at a VA hospital rather than the GSA who’s supposed to. You know what that means.”

Hartman nodded. “Hot potatoes. So? What do you think?”

“Raid the son of a bitch,” snapped the Chief Inspector. “I want the staff and the doctors involved. Bury ’em at Whiteoaks. And run a check of plane drops in the Syracuse area.”

“Ahead of you,” the younger agent said. “I already got one. He landed there the day after the snatch. Courier plane, unscheduled. We’ve run it down.”

“You get up to Martha’s Lake,” Edelman ordered. “Take care of it personally. I’ll take care of the crew on this end.”

“I’ve got a plane waiting,” the excited agent said, and left quickly.

Jake Edelman called Internal Security. It was his base of power, this counterespionage section, and it was both cleared of questionables and secured in its conversations.

“Billy? Pick up on Bob’s rundown of an unscheduled courier drop in Syracuse. I want the crew in the IS tank yesterday, get it? Then call me.”

He hung up and sighed. For the first time he seemed to be getting some breaks. More than he expected, he admitted, looking at the papers in front of him. Plants in the terrorist organization had now tipped him to nine locations. Nine. Now this was breaking, too. They had to know. Had to at least suspect that he was starting to break it open.

Why were they letting him get away with it? he wondered.

Bob Hartman got to Syracuse in what he believed was record time. The sleek Air Force jet had used more time taking off and landing than it had in the air.

The rest of the team was all ready and waiting for him at the airport. He didn’t ask if they were all cleared; he knew that Carlos Romero, the agent in charge, was and Carlos had picked the others.

They sped off in a five-car caravan to the West. There was one military checkpoint, staffed by a hunch of green kids. For a moment he considered drafting them, then decided better of it. These people wouldn’t be gang chiefs or terrorists.

Twenty-two highly trained and experienced agents walked into the hospital and simply took it over. Hartman, authoritative, rounded up the staff and separated them by occupation and classification without trouble. A small green cigar box was produced, and a calculator-like device, and a call was made.

Less than three-quarters of an hour passed before military busses from Whiteoaks Air Force Base started rolling up. General Kneiss had been prewarned and ready, one of Jake’s good guys.

It took more than three hours to evacuate the staff and “patients” at Martha’s Lake, and Hartman’s team left it an empty shell, lights still burning.

Special staff flown in on Edelman’s orders were already arriving at Whiteoaks by the time he arrived. The severely drugged patients were placed under guard in the small hospital they had on the base; the others were billeted in spare barracks. Hartman recognized quite a number of the patients. They were all scared shitless, he thought, but to an absolutely frightened and beaten person authority is authority and force is force. They had no idea whose side anybody was on, or if in fact there was another side.

The staff proved different. They knew they were in the wrong hands; most demanded to make phone calls or see various government personnel. A few demanded lawyers. The names and numbers of everyone they wanted to talk to were dutifully recorded, but messages were left unsent.

General Kneissel’s trained, cleared, and hand-picked Intelligence boys tapped eight officers and nineteen noncoms trying to make interesting phone calls. Again the numbers were recorded, and these people joined the staff.

The doctors broke first, of course. One little Iranian doctor who said his citizenship was on the line finally admitted all and told the story of Sandra O’Connell. Crofton, the attendant who’d let her escape, was hauled in next and informed that he was in for highly unpleasant treatment for the kidnapping and possible murder of O’Connell. He broke, blaming Braden for everything.

“Where is Braden now?” Hartman demanded.

Crofton shrugged. “I dunno. An Army helicopter came and got him a couple of days ago and we haven’t seen or heard from him since.”

This was also noted. A circle was drawn around Martha’s Lake, and the Army helicopters capable of getting to Braden within the time frame were catalogued. Flight logs and orders were run through computer networks.

Not having to play by the rules made life a lot simpler, Bob Hartman had to admit to himself.

The helicopter, and the name of the captain who had flown it, was quickly isolated. A Bureau helicopter then took Hartman to a National Guard unit just outside Syracuse.

The Officer of the Day and CQ were surprised and startled by the FBI visit, but the OD had been a used car salesman until the emergency and the CQ had been a supermarket clerk. They weren’t about to argue with the authoritative agents.

In an Army car Hartman traveled in the early hours of the morning to the home of one Captain Irving Wentzel, getting him out of bed. His wife’s protests and shrieks were a bit too much; they had no kids, so they took her, too.

The whole thing had been done under tight security, and yet too many people were involved, too many bystander types and buck-passing types to keep it completely quiet.

While Captain Irving Wentzel was being harshly interrogated as to where he’d gone in that helicopter after leaving Diefenbaker Hospital, somebody called somebody who called somebody else.

Finally, somebody dialed 1-500-555-2323.