The man standing in the shadows checked his watch for the third time in a minute. He hated this. He did not like doing it. At least, he did not like doing it himself. That was why he used others, a carefully chosen chain of well-paid associates who could get the job done with virtually no trail leading back to him. Nothing that could flow back. Except the money.
That was the way he liked it. But now that everyone with whom he associated had been either killed or arrested, he was hard-pressed to get the job done. Dr. Sentz had made one last withdrawal after he sent Officer Shaw on his merry way. And now that Sentz and Shaw had been arrested and the leaks from the hot lab at St. Benedict’s had been discovered, there were likely to be no more. He needed to get rid of this stuff as profitably as possible.
Who would’ve imagined he would end up doing this? He had barely paid attention to high school chemistry. When he was first approached by those in the black market, he had no idea substances of such value existed anywhere in Tulsa, much less at a medical facility. It had been time for his real education, the kind you don’t get at Will Rogers High School. Learned cesium was first discovered in 1860 in mineral water in Germany, the first element detected by spectrum analysis based upon the distinctive bright blue lines. An alkali metal, found naturally occurring all over the world, most especially at Bernic Lake in Manitoba. And he learned how useful it could be as a hydrology measure, an ion engine propellant, a hydrogenation catalyst, in magnetometers, in organic chemistry, as an oxidizer to burn silicon in infrared flares.
And oh yes. You could make bombs with it. Dirty bombs. Bombs capable of causing great destruction and also spreading radiation over a wide area. The former attorney general John Ashcroft had raised the alarm. This could be the means of the next terrorist attack on the United States, he had said. I mean, we all know it’s coming, right? We just don’t know when and how.
If he had been better educated, he might not have been so surprised when the dark men first came to his office.
A relationship was forged from mutual interest and need. He needed cash. They had lots. They needed cesium. He knew everyone.
How much did they have now? He couldn’t be certain, but it was no small amount. He knew they were using a great deal for testing. But how long could it be until they were ready to use it in a more productive manner?
The Chechen separatists had been the first to make the attempt. Two times they tried to plant dirty bombs. The first ever attempt at radiological terror was in 1995 with a canister of cesium-137 wrapped with explosives in Izmaylovsky Park in Moscow. The second came two years later. The bomb was found near a railway line not far from the Chechen capital, Grozny. KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was killed by exposure to polonium-210.
People had been stealing radioactive materials ever since that first time in Brazil, then elsewhere all across the globe. So long as these materials were processed, for medicine, for nuclear power, for weapons, for anything at all, there would be terrorists trying to steal them. And inevitably some would be successful. So he really had done nothing, he told himself, nothing that would not have happened anyway. The only question was who would profit. Why not him? He would use it a good deal more purposefully than most of the people in the black market arena.
He saw headlights flicker down the long desert trail. Saints be praised. He had been out here ruminating long enough. Let’s get this thing done.
They pulled up in a blue van, a Town and Country, if he was not mistaken. Tinted windows, dark. So clichéd.
The man who stepped out was not smiling. He was rough and angry and obviously in a hurry. Presumably that was his way of dealing with nervousness-to mask it under a veneer of arrogance and presumed macho toughness. It reminded him of nothing so much as the police officers he dealt with so often. Ironic, given what this man was doing.
“Do you have it?” the man asked brusquely. He spoke with a thick accent. Talk about another cliché. Was it wrong for him to wish there was no Middle Eastern origin? Why couldn’t he get a nice white backwoods bully determined to bring down the federal government by blowing up innocent citizens?
“I have it. Do you have my money?”
The man opened a steel-shell briefcase. It was all there, all in cash, all in small unmarked bills. More than enough to take care of his immediate needs.
“I’ll get the pig.”
He walked to the back of his truck and wheeled out the small covered bucket. He would not be sorry to get rid of that. He had been keeping it far too long. The cesium was supposedly safe so long as it stayed in the bucket-safe from contamination and safe from being detected by law enforcement officials with spectrometers. But it still creeped him out. Made him wonder if he should be sleeping in a hazmat suit.
“Still active?” the other man asked.
“I’m no scientist. But I’m sure it is.”
“And no one knows? We have heard what happened in Tulsa.”
“Dr. Sentz may have been an idiot, but at least he had the sense to realize that he couldn’t keep making little withdrawals forever without eventually being noticed. He took everything he could get the last time, then only sent as much as you asked for with Shaw. This is what’s left.”
“We are concerned that the police will find us.”
“No chance. Shaw knew nothing about you.”
“But if they investigate-”
“They will find nothing. Trust me. I’ve been watching the investigation very carefully.”
“And if they find you?”
“They won’t. The only one who knew I was involved was Christopher Sentz, and he’s dead. The rest reported to him. I communicated with his brother through anonymous text messages. They knew there was a higher boss, but they didn’t know who he was. Who I am.”
The man smiled with admiration. “We do things much the same in our own cells.”
“I know you do. That’s where I got the idea.”
“I hope we can do business again sometime.”
“I appreciate that, but I have to keep my nose clean for a while. I’m going to be under a lot of scrutiny. Besides, my source has run dry. But who knows?” He shrugged. “In four years, I’ll probably need money again. And that should give me about enough time to find another source of cesium.”
They made the exchange with minimum fuss. He took the briefcase full of cash and returned to his truck. He waited for them to leave, then started his engine.
It was a long drive back to Tulsa.
He plugged in his iPod and spun up the John Prine playlist. Nothing better than Johnny for a long drive. Down-home, smooth, easy to listen to, and very smart. Country music for those who can’t stand country music.
He thought about what the man had said. Would the police ever trace the cesium back to its buyers? He knew the current investigation would never get them there. He would like to think something would, someday. Before the big boom. Not that he wanted to see his most reliable source of funding dry up. But he did feel an itching at the base of his conscience that was hard to ignore. Like he should be a member of the French Resistance, but instead he was collaborating with the enemy. Still, he knew it was going to happen, and he knew someone was going to profit… and there was no point in beating himself up about it. Right?
He chuckled a little when he thought about the whole Dennis Thomas inquiry. Who was the mystery man who’d signaled Christopher Sentz to refuse to open an investigation into Joslyn’s disappearance? Kincaid was all around it, but he couldn’t see the answer, even when it was right before his eyes. Dennis had never gotten a good look at him, barely a glimpse, back at the police station. And no one else had noticed he was there. Ironically, those dunderheads assumed that if such a person existed, it must not be anyone they knew because they didn’t remember him. The truth was, they didn’t remember him being there because he was in there all the time.
David Guillerman adjusted his rearview mirror and peered into his own eyes. Still blue, still crystal clear. Nothing had changed. He was the same person he had always been. Right?
It takes a lot of money to mount a campaign these days.