Hunting Season (50 page)

Constitution Avenue was eight lanes wide, in keeping with its ceremonial use, and pedestrians crossed it at night at their considerable peril. By day, the traffic was usually dense enough that it was almost possible for a pedestrian to walk over the cars with impunity. One block away, diagonally to his right, was the FBI headquarters building, the. J. Edgar Hoover Building. It was on Constitution Avenue, between Ninth and Tenth streets, and bounded on the north by Pennsylvania Avenue, which went off at an angle from

Constitution. Architecturally, it was an oddity, which Kreiss thought lent a certain historical consistency to the design, given some of the stories that had surfaced about Hoover after his demise. From overhead, the building was shaped like a hollow rectangle, with the top of the rectangle cut back at an angle to accommodate the diagonal run of Pennsylvania Avenue as it diverged from Constitution. The upper floors were cantilevered out over the streets below, which made the building look top-heavy. Kreiss wondered if the architect had been having some fan with the Bureau’s design committee. The windows were slightly case mated giving the building’s facade a fortresslike character. Most of the windows were still illuminated, although Kreiss could not see people from where he stood. But one thing was for sure: The building was absolutely made for a truck bomb, because that cantilevered overhang would trap any street-level blast and focus its full force directly into the structure.

McGarand had come up here in a propane truck. His son had been killed at Waco. His grandson, who had apparently been helping him in whatever nastiness they’d been doing out there at the arsenal, was now dead. Given the appearance of feds at the arsenal and the subsequent explosion of the power plant, McGarand would surely link the feds to Jared’s death. In a manner of speaking, he’d be right. He looked around.

There were no street barriers to prevent McGarand from driving that truck right up alongside the building and throwing a switch, as long as he was willing to die along with everyone in the building. Suppose they’d been brewing some powerful explosive out there at the ammunition plant.

That truck could probably carry eight, ten thousand gallons of propane.

Having been a chemical explosives engineer, McGarand was surely qualified to construct a truck bomb. Look what McVeigh and company had done in OK City. If they had filled a propane truck with that much C-4 or even dynamite, it would be enough to put the Hoover Building out onto the Beltway.

Even from half a block away, he could see the array of security cameras on the building’s corners, and there were probably others right over his head. Most of downtown Washington was covered by surveillance cameras, and the Bureau’s headquarters was undoubtedly well covered. Some steely-eyed agent in the security control room could probably see him even now, standing out here on a street corner at 10:30 at night, looking at the headquarters. He started walking down the block toward Ninth Street, trying to act like a tourist, out from his hotel, taking a walk, getting some fresh air. He looked mostly straight ahead, but

he was able to scan the Constitution Avenue side of the Hoover Building without being too obvious about it. When he got to Ninth Street, he dutifully waited for the crosswalk signal. If anyone was watching him, that simple act would brand him as a definite out-of-towner. He kept going east, leaving the building behind him, passing the huge National Gallery of Art on his right, until he reached Fourth Street, at which point, he sprinted across Constitution and Pennsylvania avenues and then walked back northwest up Pennsylvania. This would take him along the diagonal segment of the headquarters building, where once again the pronounced overhang of the upper floors made the place look like a fort. But it was a fort with the same terrible vulnerability to a large truck bomb, and McGarand probably knew this. The question was, Did McGarand plan to make this a suicide bombing, or was he going to try to survive the operation?

He kept going up Pennsylvania, assuming he had been tracked along the sidewalk by the television cameras, until he was out of sight of the building. Then he cut back down along Fifteenth Street, walking by the White House and the Treasury Building, where the security forces were very visible. All the immediately adjacent streets near the White House were blocked off with large concrete objects in all directions, in celebration, no doubt, of the president’s popularity among the lunatic fringe. He kept his hands in his pockets and walked briskly down to Constitution, where once again he waited for the crossing signal.

He had seen dozens of no trucks signs on the bridges and along the main downtown streets, but he had also seen a large heating-oil tanker truck, bearing the logo of the Fannon Heating Oil Company, maneuvering into an alley behind the Smithsonian Building institution, across the Mall. So the propane truck would not have been an automatic stop for the local cops. McGarand must have known this, too. But getting a heating oil truck up next to the Hoover Building would require a ton of paperwork and advanced scheduling. Then a cop car swung in alongside the curb, going the wrong way. The driver’s window rolled down.

“Help you, sir?” the cop asked.

“Nope,” he said.

“Out for a walk. Got a big presentation tomorrow and I’m nervous as hell about it. This area’s okay, isn’t it?”

“If it isn’t, we’re all in big trouble,” the cop said, nodding his head back toward the White House.

“You have a good evening.”

The light changed and Kreiss crossed Constitution and headed back to the van. The Hoover Building might be the target, but, based on what

those cops had just done, it was also within the security envelope of the White House. A thought had occurred to him: Given that McGarand’s motive might be Waco, there was another possible target.

Janet drove carefully down the darkened mountain road, alert for deer on the road and lights in her rearview mirror. She had seen neither since turning off 460, and she hoped to keep it that way. Lynn was dozing in the passenger seat, the hospital blanket wrapped around her, despite the car’s heater being on. Janet’s clothes were just about dry, and she had the .38 out on the seat beside her. The girl had saved them both with that fire extinguisher trick, and perhaps had disabled their pursuer, at least for the night. It would depend on what kind of extinguisher that had been. A blast of CO2 in the eyes ought to do some damage.

She glanced into the rearview mirror again, but it was still dark. She woke Lynn.

“Do you recognize where we are?” she asked.

Lynn blinked and watched the headlights for a minute. They descended a steep hill and crossed a creek. Green eyes blazed at them from the creek bed and Janet tapped the brake.

“Yes, we’re about ten minutes from Dad’s cabin. Micah’s is a half a mile beyond. Nobody following us?”

“Not so far,” Janet said, looking in the mirror again. It would have been pretty damned obvious if there had been a vehicle back there. The night around Pearl’s Mountain was clear, but there was no moon, and the surrounding forest was dense and dark. She would not have liked to have driven that road without headlights.

“We’ll have to be careful going up to Micah’s,” Lynn said.

“That’s sometimes a crowd that shoots first, asks questions later.”

“What are they so sensitive about?”

Lynn laughed.

“They’re Appalachian mountain people. They distrust anyone who spends more than an hour a day walking on flat ground.

They make their own clothes, grow most of their own food, and hunt down the meat they eat. They also make their own whiskey, grow their own dope, and operate a pretty interesting black economy of barter and trade, for which they pay no taxes.”

“Sounds pretty good.”

“Well. It does, until you get a close look at sanitary conditions, pediatric health, the death rate from cancers caused by chewing

tobacco, the infant mortality rate, the prevalence of incest and other self-destructive practices. Paradise it is not. But they hew to their way of life, and treat outsiders poorly.”

“How did your father come to fit in?”

“Think about it, Agent Carter. Dad was a professional hunter. He’s a loner. He’s more than a little scary to be around. I think they recognized one of their own. Plus, he saved Micah Wall’s youngest son from a bad situation, literally the day he moved into the cabin.”

Janet braked hard to allow three small deer to bound across the road.

“What this guy Wall like?”

“Micah Wall is a damned hoot. He’s got this dog—it’s like a Jack Russell terrier mix? The dog’s idea of fun is when Micah brings out this huge old western-style Colt .45 and sits on his back porch. The dog takes off and Micah shoots right in front of it, and the dog chases the bullets when they go ricocheting around the back sheds and all the junk out there. He calls the dog Whizbang.”

They went down a long, dark hill, crossed another creek, and began to climb again. As they rounded the hairpin turn that came up just before the entrance to Kreiss’s cabin, Janet swore and braked hard again, this time to avoid a large white Suburban that was parked partially across the road, with only its parking lights on. There was barely enough room for her to pass the larger vehicle, and she would have to stop first to manage it. As she got her car stopped, two men got out of the Suburban. They were wearing windbreakers with aTF emblazoned in reflective tape, khaki pants, and ball caps with the aTF logo. She could see a third man inside the vehicle when they opened their doors. There were several aerials on the top of the Suburban, but no police lights.

“Shit,” Janet murmured.

“What do we do?” Lynn asked, gathering the blanket around her.

“Hold on to this,” Janet said, passing the .38 to Lynn as she rolled the window down. Lynn reached under the blanket and put it in her lap.

Then Janet reached back into the seat-back pouch and pulled out her own ball cap, which had FBI emblazoned on it. The men came up on either side of Janet’s car, but Janet told Lynn not to roll her window down.

“What’s going on?” she said to the man who came up to the driver’s side. He was a large black man, who kept one hand in his coat pocket.

She put both hands on the top of the steering wheel so he could see them.

“Evening, ma’am. We’re with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and

Firearms.” He glanced nervously at Lynn’s hands resting beneath the blanket. Then he saw Janet’s ball cap.

“You’re Bureau?”

“That’s right. Special Agent Janet Carter, Roanoke office.” She normally would have asked for his identification, but since she no longer had her own credentials, she had to finesse it.

“What’s going on?”

“We’re on orders to apprehend one Edwin Kreiss. Subject’s wanted in connection with a federal homicide warrant. Who is this with you, Agent Carter?”

“She’s my niece, visiting me from Washington.” The second man was standing three feet back from the right side of her car, in position to handle any sudden emergencies. Lynn was keeping her mouth shut and her hands were still beneath the blanket.

“And you’re going where?”

“I’m going to my uncle’s house; that’s a mile beyond the Kreiss cabin.”

“That… place? With all the junk? That’s your uncle?”

“Micah Wall. Her father, my father’s sister’s brother. We’re not necessarily proud of him, but, well, what I can I tell you? Now you know why I’m assigned to the Roanoke office.”

He nodded, obviously trying to sort through the father-brother-sister lineage.

“Would you mind waiting right here, please, Agent Carter? I have orders to call in anyone who comes down this road. There’s a pretty big manhunt up for this Kreiss guy.”

Janet shrugged.

“Sure, but can we make it quick? We’re late, and I’m tired of dancing through the damned deer on these mountain roads.”

He promised that he’d be right back and walked over to the Suburban, taking down her license plate number as he did so. The other man kept his station on the edge of the road, slightly behind her line of vision. She couldn’t see the third man inside the Suburban until the black man opened the door on the driver’s side.

“Hand me the cell phone,” she said quietly, “and hit the recall button and then the one for send when you do it. Move slowly.”

Lynn did as Janet asked, and Janet put the phone up to her ear. The man outside shifted his position when he saw Janet’s hand leave the steering wheel. The phone rang. C’mon, she thought urgently. C’mon. I need you to answer this time.

“Micah Wall,” a gnarly voice spoke into her ear.

“Mr. Wall, this is Janet Carter. You don’t know me, but I’m a friend of Edwin Kreiss. I have Lynn Kreiss in the car with me and we’re in trouble with the local law. We’re about a mile south of your place,

and we need somewhere to hide. And we may have some company on our tail when we get there.”

“Lynn Kreiss? She gone missin’,” Wall said. Janet handed the phone to Lynn, then leaned over to listen to what he said.

“Micah, it’s me. Dad’s in trouble and I need a place to hide.”

“How’n I know it’s you?”

“Lions, Micah. Dad’s cabin has lions in it.”

“Yeah, it does. C’mon, then. You got cops on your tail?”

“ATE”

There was a short laugh.

“The revenuers? Bring ‘em bast ids on.”

The connection was broken and Janet put the phone down. The black man was half in, half out of the Suburban, talking on either a radio or a phone. She could see him better now because there was suddenly more light, and then she realized there must be a vehicle coming up behind them, and coming fast. Really fast. She saw the man silhouetted in the right mirror moving back, his hands waving, and decided this was the moment. She slammed the car into drive and accelerated right at the Suburban. The black man looked back and then dived into the front seat as she clipped his door and roared past, fishtailing all over the place. She thought she heard a gunshot but it was hard to tell with all the gravel flying everywhere. She rounded the next curve as the other vehicle’s lights flooded her mirror, but then the hillside obscured them.