Part 26 (1/2)

Seattle.

Rebecca knocked on the door to William's room just as he finished shaving. 'Showtime,' she called out.

They had moved into a suites motel downtown. The rooms were smaller than the rooms in Everett, and William preferred it that way now. Less to keep in his field of vision. But the rooms were also dirtier.

'Be right there,' he called.

William put on his tie, adjusted his holstered SIG, made sure the recognizer was keyed, and slipped his arms into his coat. He checked his Lynx b.u.t.ton display, which flashed a bright 1-1-2, fully operational, then swung the deadbolt and opened the door.

Rebecca was carrying a folder in one hand and her slate in the other. 'Ammunition,' she said. 'To justify our existence. As I suspected, we have irritated ATF, BDI, and apparently Homeland Security. The triumvirate. Fortunately, the heat is pretty much off-n.o.body much cares about the Patriarch or anthrax at the moment.'

'You've been here before,' William said as he followed her down the hotel corridor, through the gla.s.s door, and out to the agency van parked by the curb.

'Yeah,' Rebecca said. 'I have.'

SAC Keller sat at the head of the table in the tenth-floor office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Was.h.i.+ngton. The view of downtown Seattle and two stadiums from the new Internal Security building was obscured by a layer of wet fog.

Keller stood and rapped his knuckles on the table to get their attention. 'The U.S. Attorney has kindly lent his office for this meeting,' he said. 'He's in Was.h.i.+ngton, DC right now, fighting for his job, but he personally tells me that he hopes we will maintain the very most cordial interdepartmental relations in this time of world turmoil.'

Several chuckles around the long wooden table.

'Times change, but crime is crime,' Keller continued. 'And we're here to share what we know, to clear up some details about what was, until yesterday, a front-page case.'

Shuffling. Most of these people clearly had places to go and things to get done. To Rebecca, they resembled boys waiting in the princ.i.p.al's office. She pushed her folder back and forth on the polished table and glanced at William, sitting quiet and still beside her.

'Why are you always so calm?' Rebecca whispered to him as Keller pa.s.sed around a pot of coffee and paper cups.

'Because you're going to pull a rabbit out of a hat,' William whispered, with a look at her folder. 'I'm just waiting to see what kind of rabbit.'

'Maybe I have no rabbits,' Rebecca said. 'Maybe I'm fresh out of all my little coneys.'

Keller introduced the agents and department representatives. Rebecca recognized Diplomatic Security agent David Grange, the pug-faced man who had irritated her on the Patriarch's farm. She had not yet met the ATF's new Deputy a.s.sistant Director, Western Division, Samuel Conklin, a jowly man with nervous eyes, well past middle age. And she was surprised to find, arriving a little late and taking a seat next to her, the only other female in the room, a junior representative from CPSC-the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She smiled and handed Rebecca her card. Her name was Sarah North. With black hair cut in a page boy, North was plump, red-faced, and intense-looking, as if she had just scrubbed off Goth makeup and put on a tight brown suit.

Her presence did not encourage Rebecca.

'The Secret Service has declined to join our meeting today,' Keller said dryly. 'There are matters of international importance demanding their immediate attention.'

'And ours,' Grange said.

Keller produced one of his enigmatic smiles. 'I thought that Deputy a.s.sistant Director Samuel Conklin could begin.'

Conklin arranged a packet of printouts in front of him, then fumbled with his slate and made a face. He drew himself up and rested his arms on the table. 'First of all, I'd like to congratulate FBI for apprehending the Patriarch. That closes a major case. My deep regrets as to the injury and loss of your agents. When informed about the surveillance, and then the tragedy, ATF and DS offered our services in a difficult time for the FBI. Who says cooperation is dead? We all did a fine job, working through the evidence and the ruins. Very educational. A new type of fuse to add to ATF's long list. Because of the added possibility that the Patriarch case might provide clues about another old case, American Anthrax 2001, ATF was given the lead by the Attorney General to move to the front in a number of investigations, following the patterns we discerned in ADIC Newsome's activities. We regret not informing Newsome or his agents about our involvement, or the reshuffling of command-we did not mean to undercut anyone-but the Attorney General and the President do not have much confidence in the FBI. This is common knowledge.'

Grange made a little rictus and looked out the window at the fog.

'You smelled a flower in all the old manure, and you decided to pluck it,' Rebecca said.

'Well, yes, ma'am, we smelled a Rose,' Conklin said, 'and the FBI certainly has its pile to shovel.'

Keller lifted his hand. His face had reddened, but his gesture was enough to make Conklin nod and make placating motions. 'I was not in Was.h.i.+ngton, and I did not make the requests or issue the orders. I'm just explaining what happened. Carrying the message.'

'Let's hear it, then,' Keller said.

'We've had to sail into a stiff wind every inch of the way. I've personally reported to the Attorney General that SAC Erwin Griffin's entry into the Patriarch's barn was premature and ultimately destructive of what could have been crucial evidence.'

'He had his reasons,' William said. His face, too, was pinking.

'I'm sure,' Conklin said. 'Furthermore, the Patriarch was forewarned and managed to order his family scattered to the winds before FBI or local law enforcement could set up an effective cordon. Whatever his reasons, Erwin Griffin did not foresee this, nor did he plan for it. Since ATF and Homeland Security became involved, with the help of U.S. Marshals we have rounded up nine of twenty-two fugitive family members, in three states. Two were apprehended by Agents Rose and Griffin Junior here in Was.h.i.+ngton, after an unnecessarily dangerous scuffle.'

'You didn't find them,' Grange observed. 'They found you.'

Rebecca fixed her eyes on Grange's lips and nose.

'Adding comedy to farce, because of a prior bungled interrogation, we had to question one of the Patriarch's sons, Jeremiah Jedediah Chambers, in the presence of a poorly paid and seriously inept public defender. FBI bungled that one for us, as well. But my agents did follow up on what little we learned. And along the way, we found that Agent Rose had involved herself in another case, the murder of a Highway Patrol officer in Arizona. ATF and Homeland Security requested prior copies of lab results for that case and received them this morning.'

'Have we received those results yet, Agent Rose?' Keller asked.

'No, sir,' Rebecca said. She pulled a fist off the table to hide it, but the knuckles on her other hand were white. 'I'm curious as to what they might be.'

Despite his sharp tongue Conklin was not enjoying himself. He was old school and did not like making fellow agents squirm. Still, he was not about to blunt the edge of his story. 'Local authorities in Arizona were happy to a.s.sist ATF because the FBI apparently behaved with its usual courtesy and professional respect. As well, we learned today that Agent Rose pocketed two key pieces of evidence and had them a.n.a.lyzed in Virginia. So we requested those results, as well, with the Attorney General's permission, and have used them to draw our own conclusions.'

Keller glanced at Rebecca. She sat very still, her face frozen. Game, set, match.

William could not feel much of anything except an almost childlike bewilderment. Just a short time ago he had been at Quantico, trying desperately not to screw up and keep ahead of an ever-expanding curve. Now, it looked as if he was going to sink out of sight in the company of some of the finest agents in the Bureau.

'In ordinary times, all this might have pa.s.sed with little notice,' Conklin continued. 'Agencies could have gone through their usual p.i.s.sing up the side of the barn door-pardon me, ladies-and settled things behind the scenes. But these are not ordinary times.'

'Samuel, if you're the messenger,' Keller said, 'let's just have the message.'

'The message is, we've grabbed an empty Zippo. No flint, no fluid, no flame. We have nothing,' Conklin said. 'Oh, there are some interesting results-we have eliminated a major international criminal. But that has nothing to do with anthrax. It certainly does not merit further investigation, beyond the general cleaning up and writing of reports.'

'What were the findings?' Rebecca asked.

'There isn't a trace of anthrax anywhere on the Patriarch's farm. Not in the barn, not in the woods, and yes, Agent Rose, we have sent out cadaver dogs and are digging up any suspicious sites around the farm. Despite Jeremiah's story, we have found no dead sheep. We do not antic.i.p.ate finding any. To say that Jeremiah Chambers and Hagar Chambers are useless as witnesses is an understatement. They can hardly remember their own names. They are low-grade morons, whether from inbreeding or the Patriarch's beatings and indoctrination, who can say? They don't even know when they're lying. Furthermore, though Hagar Chambers is pregnant, the Patriarch is not the infant's father. We have yet to make a match, but we suspect the sire comes from completely outside the family-so at least it's not an incest baby.'

'And in Arizona?' Keller asked.

'At our request, they sequestered and scoured the three hundred printers in that trailer. They found no signs of anthrax on the printers or in the recycled ink cartridges s.h.i.+pped along with them.'

Rebecca coughed. She felt as if she had no more air in her lungs.

'At any rate,' Conklin said, 'no anthrax anywhere, and hence no additional evidence of interest to any of us. Thank you, John. That's my bit.'

'Someone could have used the Patriarch's family to get ready for an anthrax attack,' William said. 'They could have used the yeast-'

'BT is commonly available. It's almost exactly like anthrax, easy to grow, and perfectly legal. If I were going to spread anthrax, I'd use BT for any rehearsal. Yeast just doesn't cut it, in terms of conspiracies,' Conklin said, and looked sadly at his knuckles. 'There's nothing here.'