Perilous Panacea (8 page)

Chapter Ten

Ten minutes after Saul dragged himself into his office, Uncle Nathan called. “Hey, boychik, I heard they finally let you out from behind your desk and right onto a big case.”

No way could there be leaks already, Saul thought. But if only some of the stories he’d heard from Bureau veterans were true, in this town, you never knew.

“Did your lovely bride tell you she and I had dinner together last week?”

“No. I got in late, and we didn’t get a chance to talk.” But plenty of time to argue. Everything was fine until he asked where she’d been on three of the nights he called. That question exploded ten minutes after he got home, even though he lectured himself for a week not to ask. He also asked who she’d been having lunch with and who she was working with, all the things he’d been hammering at for the past few months, ever since he visited her office and saw all those young guys and everybody joking and having a ball “running the government.” She wanted him to believe she was just “one of the boys” in the office.

Why did he shout those things? Why did he feel that way? Enthusiasm for her job threw him, even though she insisted she just loved her job, especially after not being able to get anything but secretarial work in Spokane. “I’ve told you a hundred times I’m not interested in anyone else,” she said. But the idea invaded his brain like a malignant growth.

In the heat of the argument, she yelled “separation,” Harry Bryson’s magic word. According to Bryson, “Once they mention a trial separation, it’s the beginning of the end. After that, you’ll soon be hitting the bars again, looking for pussy just like the old days.”

“Mary said you were gone for nine days,” Uncle Nate said. “It must be a mighty important case.”

“Just routine.”

“The reason I called was to tell you that Mary’s worried about you. She’s one great shikse.”

“That’s not what you called her when I told you I was getting married.”

“I didn’t have great expectations considering you were marrying a shikse from some small burg in Indiana. I probably said, better you should marry a nice Jewish girl, and knowing me, I probably said a JAP. So I was wrong.”

“You called her a typical empty-headed blonde shikse with a great tush and boobs. You didn’t want Mama to wind up a bubbe to a bunch of mishling brats. Your advice was to slip her that old kosher schlong until I got her out of my system.”

“Tactful, I’m not. Now, I’m telling you, this dreck you’re giving her about her looking for somebody at work, who needs it?”

“She told you that?” If she ever slept with somebody else, Nate would know before he did. Would he tell him?

“Who else can she talk to? Better you should worry once in awhile to make sure you don’t take her for granted. I should be so lucky.”

Listening to Uncle Nathan one-on-one, you’d never know that in public he looked and sounded like a handsome Ivy League English professor. And when there were women around, he turned on the charm to accompany the elegant words.

“Anyway, this big job that takes you away from your computer and out of town so long, could the Senator capitalize the information?”

“No, it is nothing like that.”

“Hey boychik, the only way I’ll ever be governor is with his help. His name’s been mentioned as a future vice-presidential candidate. Any help you give him is help for me…and for you and Mary. Once I’m governor, I’ll be able to help the both of you.”

- - - - -

Dressed in a tan jacket, crisp white shirt and tan tie, Bart Kraft reigned from behind his desk, empty except for two pictures and a pad of paper. Everything in the paneled room had its place, from books on their shelves to the computer on the table behind his desk.

Only Saul didn’t fit, sweaty in a wrinkled brown suit and out of breath from the sprint-walk from the parking lot—out of breath despite membership in Arlington Health and Fitness Club which Mary had talked him into “investing” in. Now she wanted him to invest in a wardrobe.

“I’m not sure why you came out here,” Kraft said. “I told you everything I knew last time. Besides that, Doyle Logson can’t make it.”

“I wanted to talk to you since DOE was responsible for the lost shipments, even though it was DOD material being transported.”

Kraft’s broad smile only lightly wrinkled his tanned face. “Our security failed, but with the budget cuts…Have you made any progress?”

“I’ve been to Tennessee, New Mexico, and South Carolina. The answer isn’t at any of those places.”

“Then where is it?”

The bastard knew as well as anybody, Saul thought. “Its here in Washington, at DOE.”

Kraft reached to the right side of the desk top and touched the frame of a blonde woman’s picture set at an angle to a picture of Kraft standing with two young men about college age. That’s what he and Mary needed: kids. Fortunately, he hadn’t brought that up last night.

Kraft looked directly at him. “If you’re saying this was an inside job, you’re wrong. Everyone involved with security here at DOE has been thoroughly checked and cleared.”

After eleven months in Washington, Saul had encountered enough guys like Kraft, and they were starting to grate. Smooth in everything they did, they filled most upper levels of government he’d come in contact with; the Bureau had more than their share. Saul remembered last Election Day when Mary gave him hell for not voting, as did the holier-than-thou TV commentators. Since being in Washington, he’d found a reason for him and the other fifty percent of eligible voters that didn’t vote: you don’t vote for the Krafts and the Logsons; you don’t vote for congressional staffers like Mary, who stand at their great man’s side and whisper wisdom into his ear. They run the government. Well, maybe not Mary—not yet, at least.

“Whoever did this had detailed information they could only get in your division.”

Kraft squared the pad of paper with the edge of the desk. “If I allowed you to snoop around here, in no time at all every big-dick reporter would be as well.”

Evasion, political expediency, it was everywhere, even where nuclear weapons were involved. But in this town, why would they be different? From his limited observations, Saul had concluded all anyone cared about was their career development. For many, that meant blending a proper government career into a better out-of-government career. Mary kept saying he wasn’t serious enough about his career development.

Earlier at headquarters, he found out Spanner was running into the same stone walls. Maybe that was sufficient reason for going to the Senator. Once the story hit the press, there would be action, at least public relations action to give the story the proper spin.

“I’m not interested in snooping around. To start, explain your operation to me.”

Kraft glanced around the office, obviously trying to figure out how to get rid of Saul. “Well…a shipment is arranged between the two contracting installations, as we call them, the shipper and the receiver. Then we schedule transportation. Everything is done by computer on a secure website.” He pointed to the darkened computer monitor on the table behind his desk and explained how they had recently updated the sophisticated program they used to arrange shipments.

Kraft explained how all the information was logged in, including dates, destinations of all past shipments and all shipments planned for the next month. All security arrangements, travel routes, everything was there at the click of a mouse. “Every shipment is tracked using a Cray supercomputer at Kirtland Air Force Base. They have access to the same information we do.”

“I visited Kirtland, and they know everything except what’s in a shipment. Tell me about Savannah River, the destination of the shipments. The people there say they did not request most of what was hijacked.”

“The computer tells a different story. Their request and agreement to receive the shipment were logged in and the SAVE was approved.” Kraft explained SAVE, the Shipment Agreement and Verification Evaluation process package. “The first step is an agreement between shipper and receiver on shipment contents. Then the shipper puts together a shipping plan that includes the manifest and the DSP—Detailed Security Plan—and these and other documents make up the SAVE package that is submitted for approval by SPAC, the Strategic Planning and Authorization Committee. The entire process is on our secure website.”

“Who is on SPAC?”

“Mr. Logson and I make up the committee.”

“And you approved this SAVE package?”

“Well, I really could not recall the exact SAVE, but then I read and approve many SAVE plans and other documents, and I can’t be expected to remember the details of all of them.”

“What about Logson?”

“He didn’t remember this specific SAVE either.”

“Would you or Logson normally approve a three-truck convoy as a code two?”

“Well…regulations state…no, probably not.”

“But the computer said you approved it, right?”

“Well, according to the computer, an ED was sent to people who needed to know. The secure website was checked during our investigation, and all approvals were in order. Neither Mr. Logson nor I remembered it.”

“So it comes down to this, Dr. Kraft. Someone in your division did this. The computer makes your job easier, but it also made it easier to set up the hijacking.”

Kraft stared at Saul, his face pale. “I can’t believe anyone here did it.”

“How many people in Washington can access the website information on shipments?”

“Access is tightly controlled. Probably only ten people.”

“I’ll need their names.”

Kraft took a deep breath. “I’ve got to protest.”

“We won’t talk to anyone without getting approval from on high.”

“I hope not. Because if the newspapers or TV get wind of this…”

- - - - -

Saul tapped the keyboard and another personnel record splashed onto the screen.

KRAFT, BARTHOLOMEW ARTHUR

DOE EMPLOYEE NO: 013967

BORN: March 13, 1971

EDUCATION: PhD…

Saul glanced quickly through the record: PhD in Nuclear Engineering from Michigan University. Worked at GE and then went back to Michigan as a Professor in the Nuclear Engineering Department before being nominated to his present position at NNSA two-years ago. He listed reading and chess as hobbies.

He leaned back in his chair and glanced around his cubicle: paper-cluttered desk, file cabinet, and another chair, fenced off from three other cubicles by portable gray fabric-covered partitions. By now he had combed the files of thirteen probables from Oak Ridge, New Mexico and Savannah River, the ten names from NNSA Kraft had given him, plus seven more he’d picked because of their management roles and top-secret clearances.

He wondered why he saved Kraft’s file for last. Did he expect Kraft to be most interesting or least interesting? In all, he examined files of twenty-two men and six women with degrees from places like Yale, Michigan, Northwestern, Cal Berkeley, all the good schools. Not an interesting hobby among them.

He considered taking a break to straighten up the desk. Twice in the last month he was told by Bureau veterans that such an office would not have been tolerated in the good old days. He picked up an e-mail memo from the travel office: “Minimization of Rental Car Expense.” He tossed it back on the pile and returned his attention to the computer.

What now? Run a PPI on the people Kraft gave him and on Kraft? Comb their lives to try and turn up inconsistencies, like spending too much or having an excessively large bank account somewhere? In the end, it always came down to money.

Saul tapped at the keyboard to access the National Crime Information Center computer. He entered the twenty-eight names to check for a criminal record. Nowadays, with drugs everywhere, unexpected names popped up in those files all the time. Drugs meant money—a lot or not enough. None of the names turned up in the NCIC computer.

He typed a request to the NNSA computer for all people who worked in the Security and Safeguards Division during the last year. Then he asked for names of personnel who no longer worked in the division and when they terminated.

JOHNSON, GREGORY LEE 15326 AUG 22, 2010

BROWN, RANDOLF GEORGE 17265 MAR 30, 2011

AUSTIN, STEVEN ALLEN 19223 JUN 15, 2011

Interesting: Austin quit only a month ago.

Saul focused on Austin. Jordan said a computer expert named Austin visited them at Oak Ridge. He typed:

DOE PERS FILE: AUSTIN, STEVEN ALLEN, 19223

The computer replied:

FILE INACTIVATED, 06/24/2011

Inactivated? Why? Files were rarely inactivated that soon after termination. To check that, he punched the keyboard for the files of Johnson and Brown, who were terminated over three months ago. Both files flashed on the screen with their new positions: Johnson retired and Brown moved to the Labor Department—still hadn’t found his high-paying out-of-government career position.

He checked Austin’s security-clearance file. No unusual notations, just a regular guy, PhD and all. So why did he leave just a few weeks after the robbery?

Saul grabbed the phone, and in the next hour, he spoke to people at Kirtland in Albuquerque and at Savannah River National Laboratory. It turned out Austin had visited both facilities, in addition to his visit to Oak Ridge. At Kirtland, Austin helped them revise their computer programs to improve the NNSA communications and security system.

Saul had one more call to make. After a lot of stalling by the secretary and insistence by Saul that it was urgent, Kraft came on the line. Saul asked if Austin was involved with scheduling nuclear-material shipments.

“Steve? No. He was a computer expert. He put together the new secure system for handling the shipments. He developed the SAVE process.”

Saul’s pulse quickened. Austin was their man. “Why did he leave the division? Where did he go?”

A long pause: “He was killed in an auto accident while driving his Porsche. You know how young people are with fast cars. It was a terrible loss.”

- - - - -

Contrary to Saul’s expectations, Spanner didn’t protest when he requested permission and manpower help to do a PPI on everyone with access to the NNSA’s Security and Safeguards Division computer files in Washington, Oak Ridge, Savannah River, and Albuquerque.