A Triple Thriller Fest (5 page)

“How do you mean, sir?”

“After we got back, I got on the horn to the Pentagon—General Roberts, CID. I asked him if he had any knowledge of why two FBI agents would show up so quickly at the murder of one of my officers.”

Del Valle rose and refilled his coffee cup, returning to his seat and replacing the cup on its saucer. Dan waited for him to continue at his own pace.

“It appears that, as I suspected, the FBI has their own version of ‘Deadbolt,’ and we have to assume that includes an insider. In light of the recent so-called executions, it would make sense. The murder of two federal judges would require it, I suppose.”

“Including
infiltration,
you say?” Dan asked.

“General Roberts wasn’t able to tell me more, but we have to assume they would be as thorough as possible. He did, however, tell me that the CID has kept the FBI and a special unit from the CIA fully briefed on our investigations.”

“Then you were right. If the FBI’s got a man on the inside, that would explain how they knew about McFarland so fast.” Dan hesitated a moment, looking toward the large window behind the general’s seat and suddenly back at Del Valle. “But, sir, if they knew about McFarland, why didn’t—”

“Why didn’t they warn us, or try to prevent his death?” Del Valle asked. “I don’t know, but I darned sure will find out when your two FBI guys arrive.”

“Agent Samuels and Agent Bentley are their names. I failed to mention, sir, that Agent Bentley is a woman.”

“Who’s senior?”

“They weren’t introduced that way, sir, but based upon their ages, I believe Samuels is the lead agent. He’s mid to late forties, and Bentley is in her late twenties.”

The telephone intercom on Del Valle’s desk buzzed, and Sergeant Pitama spoke. “Excuse me, General, the FBI agents you were expecting have arrived.”

Del Valle stood and pressed the key on his telephone. “I’ll be with them in a moment.”

“Yes, sir,” Pitama replied.

Del Valle stared down at Dan for a moment before speaking. “We’ll be involved in a jurisdictional turf war here, Captain. Keep your cool and let me do the talking.”

Dan rose and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

Del Valle stepped to the door, opening it and smiling at his guests.

“Good morning, I’m Bob Del Valle. Please, come in and have a seat. This is my JAG officer, Captain Daniel Rawlings, whom I believe you’ve already met.”

“We have,” Agent Samuels said, shaking hands with Del Valle. “I’m Special Agent Al Samuels, and this is my partner, Special Agent Nicole Bentley. We appreciate your giving us some of your time, General—under trying circumstances, of course.”

Del Valle closed the door, and as his guests took their seats in front of his desk, he assumed his position behind it.

“Now I want to know two things, Mr. Samuels—I assume you
are
in charge here.”

“I’m the senior agent in—”

“Good,” Del Valle interrupted, his demeanor brusque and his delivery abrupt. “I want to know why didn’t your agent inside the brigade prevent this needless death, or, if that was not possible, why didn’t he notify you, or us, so we could have taken some action to save this young officer’s life?”

Dan smiled inwardly. Keep your cool, Captain … while I go for the throat.

Samuels was visibly startled by Del Valle’s opening thrust, trying unsuccessfully to regain the initiative.

“General, we, uh, we’ve made no mention of any contact with—uh, was it the brigade, you said?”

Del Valle kept a straight face, his body language stiff and formal.

“Don’t jerk me around, Samuels. I’m the Adjutant General of the California National Guard, and I want some answers. We both know we’re talking about the Shasta Brigade, a loosely organized band of rabble headquartered about a hundred miles north of Sacramento, up in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. They killed that boy sometime during the night, and you knew about it.”

“General, I’m not able—”

“Well, I
am
able,” Del Valle said, banging his fist on the desk. He glanced at his watch and firmly pressed the speaker button on his telephone.

“Sergeant Pitama!” he bellowed.

Instantly the reply came. “Yes, General?”

“Sergeant, get the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on the horn immediately.”

“Yes, sir. Right away, sir.”

Del Valle looked directly at Samuels, who held his upright posture for a few seconds, and then his shoulders visibly slumped.

“General, I’ll tell you what I can without jeopardizing our operation.”

“What you
can?”
Del Valle repeated, leaning forward.

“General, give me a break here. I work under the same confidentiality and ‘need-to-know’ security restrictions that you do.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere.” Again Del Valle punched his speakerphone. “Sergeant, cancel that call.”

“Yes, sir.”

He punched off the speakerphone and leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers in front of his chest, waiting for Samuels to speak.

Slowly, Samuels smiled at Del Valle. “Now I recall why I got out of the army as a captain after my first hitch, General. I wasn’t willing to put that burr under anybody else’s saddle, and I wasn’t willing to live with one under mine.”

The room was instantly silent, and Dan caught a brief glimpse of Agent Bentley, who to this point hadn’t spoken a word. Her face was pale, and clearly the exchange between the two men had given her pause. She caught Dan’s eye momentarily, and he allowed a brief, subtle smile to cross his lips, looking away before she could respond.

 “Now, Agent Samuels—and Agent Bentley,” Del Valle said, smiling at the young woman for the first time, “I’ll do the best I can to remove the burr from my saddle so we can reach some joint conclusions. We
are
on similar tracks, I think, and we
do
work for the same government, and it increasingly appears as though we are facing the same enemy.”

Samuels nodded. “General, here it is in a nutshell: for several years, the bureau has been investigating nine selected militia units throughout western America. There are many more, of course, and we keep tabs on them all, but these nine have, well, shall we say, become a bit more operational in the past two years. We have a mobile strike team, but as yet have taken no overt action against any of their command headquarters. Each field office of the bureau—those nearest the militia units—has two or four agents assigned to investigate their activities. In the San Francisco office, that’s Agent Bentley and myself.

“The Shasta Brigade is indeed quite operational, and contrary to your ‘loosely organized’ description, they are quite well organized and have recently gone completely underground. We expected that, after the movement took public responsibility for the murder of the Superior Court judges. We’ve attributed seven bank robberies to them over the past year—seven we can confirm. That’s their main source of funding. Seems they’ve taken a lesson from the IRA and other terrorist organizations in how to raise money. We’re also aware of your ‘Deadbolt’ operation—your attempt to infiltrate the brigade and determine how many members of your National Guard unit participate.”

Del Valle looked quickly at Dan, who shook his head slightly and shrugged.

“As to the murdered officer,” Samuels continued, “we received a call around four o’clock this morning about a possible killing, but the caller had to disconnect … or was disconnected. I called Agent Bentley, and we headed for Sacramento, hoping to receive further information along the way that would enable us to intervene. We heard the police band radio call first, however, and cut across I-505 into Woodland where we met Sheriff Sanchez. Our information was limited, believe me, and when we saw your lieutenant … well, it was as difficult for us as it was for Captain Rawlings. If we could have prevented it, General Del Valle, I can assure you we would have done so. Remember, there was a law enforcement officer killed in the line of duty as well.”

“I understand,” Del Valle said. “And I apologize for any unintended implication that you didn’t care. Please, go on.”

 “There’s not a lot more, General. We have the identity of about two dozen, full-time regulars in the brigade, and they also have another fifty or so part-time regulars, but their total numbers probably exceed full-company strength—well over two, maybe even three hundred men
and
women. These newer guys don’t know much about the true objectives or the specific operations. It’s the central core of two dozen or so—most with criminal records—who call the shots. Their commander, a man named Jackson Shaw, is also former Army—West Point, class of ’87—discharged for negligence in the field, resulting in the loss of several men under his command.”

Del Valle looked at Dan. “Do we know anything about Shaw?”

“Yes, sir,” Dan replied. “We’ve pulled his package.”

“His
package?”
Agent Bentley spoke up for the first time.

“His personnel file, Ms. Bentley,” Dan explained. “His record of service in the Army.”

“General, that’s about all I can share without stepping over my limits. I hope you understand,” Samuels said.

“Are any of these regular brigade members you’ve identified also members of the guard?”

Samuels nodded toward Bentley.

“General Del Valle, Agent Samuels has assigned me to run background checks on the core members of the Shasta Brigade. None of the central leadership is involved with your guard unit, but over half have extensive military backgrounds. Shaw and his cadre of followers have dropped completely out of sight. Nearly a dozen of the new recruits are also members of the 324
^th
, and over fifty more are either active duty military or belong to various military reserve units. The brigade is on an extensive recruiting campaign, General. They’re growing larger and getting bolder all the time. We’ve suspected them of killing some dissident members or new recruits who wanted out, and as we’ve said, the patriot movement has claimed responsibility for killing the federal judges. But to our knowledge, this is the first time they’ve executed a federal military officer.”

“Why now?” Del Valle asked. “And how does the Shasta Brigade fit into this patriot movement?”

“We believe that all the California militia units have banded together, calling themselves the California Patriot Movement and hiding their individual actions behind the larger façade,” Bentley said. “Whether there is a central command structure yet, we don’t know. And as to why now, we believe they’ve embraced Senator Turner’s appeal for secession. It’s the clarion call they’ve needed.”

“And who killed McFarland?” Del Valle asked.

“That’s what we’re looking to find out, General,” she responded. “But we can assume that they’re sufficiently aware of military intelligence procedure to realize that our side needs to infiltrate their operations. They’ve probably established an internal security unit.”

“You mean an assassination squad,” Del Valle said.

“Exactly, General.”

Del Valle looked at the female agent. “We’ll have to go about it a bit more carefully, Agent Bentley, but we need to know what’s going on inside the brigade and the other militia units. We’ve developed a small internal group for just that purpose. Captain Rawlings is a JAG officer—a lawyer—as he’s most likely explained. But several months ago, I selected him to run an internal investigation with one of our Criminal Investigation Division agents. Only three other people know of his assignment: Colonel Harman, who serves as the battalion commander, myself, and the CID agent with whom he works.”

“General,” Bentley said, leaning forward in her chair and looking nearly straight up into Del Valle’s face, “we are sincerely sorry for the death of your officer. I want you to know that if there was any way,
anything
, we could have done to prevent it, we would have acted.”

“Thank you, Agent Bentley. Captain Rawlings,” Del Valle said, “Take the agents to your office and share what information you’ve gleaned through ‘Deadbolt.’ No holds barred, Captain—give them everything you’ve got, and don’t be surprised,” he smiled, looking back at Samuels, “if they already know most, or even all, of it.”

“Yes, sir,” Dan said, standing up. “And, sir, Lieutenant McFarland was married only about eight months ago, and—”

Del Valle held up his hand, nodded slightly, then stood and headed for the door. As they reached the exit, Del Valle turned and faced Dan. “Son, this part of our job never gets easier. When you finish with these folks, we have a visit to make—to Mrs. McFarland.”

“Sir, I should be in dress uniform, instead of BDUs?”

“It’s not necessary, Captain,” he said, shaking his head. “Mrs. McFarland won’t notice.”

* * *

Just before noon, First Sergeant Otto Krueger was back at a long-abandoned Shasta Brigade headquarters after dropping off the two recruits. The warning he gave them—that they would think Lieutenant McFarland had enjoyed a peaceful death compared to theirs if they opened their mouths—would keep them silent for a few days. He then drove north and turned off the highway onto a side road, heading up into the mountains.

Discharged from the Army’s Special Operations Group after fourteen years of service, Krueger had been accused of beating up the Fort Ord base chaplain. The fact that Krueger had also been suspected of selling military hardware to Bay Area gang members, and the resultant investigation would likely uncover security breaches, aided in the post commander’s decision not to prosecute. Krueger had agreed to a general discharge to avoid Leavenworth Prison, and the commander agreed to the discharge to avoid publicity and discredit to his career.

Leaving the Army, the former Green Beret settled in the northern California mountains near Yreka. He floundered around for several years, moving from job to job until he finally worked his way up to assistant manager at K-Mart.

One Saturday afternoon, Krueger intervened in a parking lot dispute between a yuppie, who acted as if his black belt inured him to injury, and a couple of teenagers who happened to scratch the yuppie’s highly polished BMW as they walked by. Krueger asked the parties to let the matter go and move on peacefully. The yuppie took umbrage at the middle-aged man’s interference and ended up throwing a punch. Parrying the younger man’s jab, Otto responded with a reflexive kick, bending the man’s knee backward, dropping him to the pavement, and rendering him partially crippled.