The Dreadful Renegade: A Thrilling Espionage Novel (Techno thriller, Mystery & Suspense) (6 page)

The extent of the damage was still being assessed by the NNSA but it was already obvious that the most advanced and detailed designs of nuclear weapons had been copied.  Two task forces had been nominated by the President himself. One team was in charge of locating and arresting Dr. Nagib Jaber and his wife Alia and recovering the sensitive files before they were distributed. This task force included representatives of the FBI, DHS and the NNSA as well as some other government agencies. They had a directive signed by the President that allowed them to enlist support from any local police force they saw fit, but at the present time they had no idea of the whereabouts of the culprits so they did not know whose help they would need. The second task force included representatives from the NNSA, NSA, DHS, CIA and other agencies that could help in finding the motives and objectives of Nagib. While the first task force had to focus on physical evidence to find the culprits the second task force had to rely mainly on intelligence and psychology.

June 18
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, Los Alamos, the First Task Force

The first task force convened in Los Alamos. They used one of the rooms in the Bradbury Science Museum as they expected they would have to question people who didn't have the necessary security clearance and access to the Lab. The representatives had arrived from Washington that morning or the previous night and after having a light lunch got down to business. Despite the objection of the DHS, the FBI was put in charge of the task force. Its representative, Penny Grant, was a no-nonsense former field agent who had risen through the ranks by a combination of intelligence, intuition and ruthlessness. Her first order of the day was to post an all-points-bulletin with the names, photos and description of Nagib and Alia. This was immediately distributed to FBI and police forces nationwide. In addition all border crossings were alerted, especially those that were close to Los Alamos, like the point between El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. The task force members were aware of the fact that it would take only five or six hours to reach that crossing from Los Alamos, and that the culprits could be long gone, but wanted to cover that point because it was the closest crossing.

Colonel Groovey was summoned to the conference room and was asked to provide as much background information as possible of Nagib and Alia. The Colonel knew that the only way he could redeem himself, at least partly, was by full cooperation with the task force. He was very frank about the fact that Alia was employed in his own office and that he had been grossly mistaken to trust her. He reiterated what had occurred during the two interrogations of Nagib – first the polygraph examination that he had passed with flying colors and next the session with Eugene Powers where Nagib had impressed him as a loyal patriot. The Colonel admitted that he had been negligent and did not notice any signs that there was a renegade in their midst. He said that he had believed that Nagib and Alia would be grateful to the US for giving them a real opportunity to lead a better life than their parents had in the old country, and was therefore surprised that they had turned into traitors. The main impression he left on the members of the task force was that he was totally unfit for his position as head of security in a sensitive facility like the Lab. Penny expressed the general feeling by designating the Colonel as "a stupid, narrow minded bureaucrat" who was suitable, at best, for "marching up and down the square" as in the memorable Monty Python film.

The next person to be questioned by the task force was Renaldo, the technician who had worked with Nagib in the Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque and later followed him to the Lab. Renaldo said that he was shocked by the allegations of Nagib's misconduct – rumors had spread throughout the Lab that Nagib was wanted by the security authorities. He alleged that although he had been Nagib's best friend for many years they had drifted apart after Nagib's marriage. He added that he had felt that Nagib was reverting to his Arab heritage and had become less appreciative of his adopted country. Renaldo said that he had no real evidence for that statement and that it was more of a gut feeling. He mentioned that he was under the impression that Nagib was very curious, perhaps even overly nosy, about what was going on in areas where weapons were handled. He went so far to say that this was also the case when they worked in Albuquerque but refrained from confessing that they had connived to provide false analytical data to their GCL employer.

The task force members had all read the Nagib's Resume but wanted to gain a less formal insight. Minnie Level was considered to be the best friend of the couple and was summoned. Her husband was still detained in Washington for further questioning but she was allowed to return to their home in Los Alamos. Minnie described how Nagib and Max had grown close at work and that their friendship gradually was extended to include their spouses. She said that the Level couple regarded the Jaber couple as their protégés and tried to help them assimilate in the small community of Los Alamos. She said that they sometimes went out to dinner together, but that due to the age difference and mentality gap they were not really that close. She added that to the best of her knowledge Alia had no close female friends and Nagib also kept pretty much to himself. Finally she said that although she did not know exactly why they had to return from Paris prematurely and why Max was detained and questioned she did figure out that it was due to something bad that Nagib had done to her husband and that she felt as if he had betrayed their friendship. Penny tried to console her by saying that Nagib had betrayed much more than friendship but promised that he would be brought to justice and made to pay for everything. This interview was not very helpful.

The report of the interview of the FBI agent who was sent to question Alia's parents in Durango was presented to the task force. It was obvious that her parents knew nothing of their daughter's plans and even less of their son-in-law's actions.

A search of the Jabers' house, as expected, did not provide any clues with regard to their whereabouts. A court order was issued that allowed the investigators to get a list of all the calls made from their home phone and their mobile phones but no useful information was obtained from these lists. A similar permit to get their bank records and credit card transactions showed that the maximum amount of cash withdrawal from their account was carried out on June 14
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from the ATM machine located at the employees' union of the Lab.  The New Mexico department of motor vehicles provided the details of Nagib's car – it was a latest model black Toyota with a four-wheel drive. Alia's car, an old green Ford, was found in one of the Lab's parking lots.

Meanwhile reported sightings of the culprits started flowing in to the task force temporary office. They were supposedly seen in Colorado, Texas, Utah and Las Cruces, New Mexico. This last location appeared to be credible as they knew that Nagib had attended school there and received his doctorate from NMSU. But this lead, like all the others, turned out to be a case of mistaken identity. The only report that seemed to be substantive was from a traffic police officer in Kingman, Arizona. The officer said that around midnight of the 14
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he had spotted a car that exceeded the speed limit and stopped it for examination. The driver was a woman who had a foreign name, probably something that sounded Arabic, but he was not sure if it was Alia Jaber. However, he said that his recollection of the couple exactly fit the photos posted on the APB. When asked what he had done after stopping the car he said that as their papers were in order, and they were not intoxicated, he let them go with an informal warning. He also recalled that they gave him a story about an uncle who was hospitalized in LA in critical condition after being involved in a hit-and-run accident, but added that he did not believe this story he had heard so many times from speeding drivers. He neglected to mention the cash "fine" he had received as he knew that this would be considered as a bribe and lead to his dismissal from the force, if not to a severe punishment. Penny wondered aloud if Los Angeles was indeed their true destination or just the first excuse that came to mind when they were stopped by the police. She said that her intuition was that the destination escaped their subconscious and called for an enhanced effort to locate them in the large LA area.

She directed the junior FBI representative of the task force to call the LA branch of the FBI and have them search for the Jaber couple and for the black Toyota they had driven in. The junior agent called ahead and said he would be arriving that evening and expected full cooperation of all the police departments in the LA metropolitan area. He said that they should focus on used cars dealerships as he assumed that the couple would need to get rid of the Toyota and get a cheaper used car and some cash.

The border crossings did not keep records of US citizens going into Mexico or returning to the US and usually just glanced at the car's registration and asked the occupants if they were US citizens. In some cases, when the driver or passengers looked suspicious they also requested to see some proof of citizenship, but on the whole the traffic flowed freely. The FBI saw no point in asking the Mexicans for information as their cooperation was less than enthusiastic. At the suggestion of the representative of the Department of Homeland Security, Patrick Batterson, prize money was promised to whoever would provide information on the two fugitives. The reward for information on Nagib was $100,000 and on Alia $50,000. Posters with their photos and promised rewards were distributed to all border crossings but, as feared by the experienced FBI people, the number of false sightings grew exponentially compared to the reports after the APB was published. This once again demonstrated that greed was the strongest incentive for getting the public's cooperation.  These reports were now a nuisance because every law-enforcement agent knew what would happen if it turned out that a true lead was not pursued, or more specifically if the media found that out after damage was done. As far as Penny was concerned the manpower dedicated to sift through all these reports and follow up on those that appeared to be serious could be put to better use in the field, but like any other committee the politics involved meant that she had to acquiesce with the DHS. She began to regard Mr. Batterson in the same light as she considered the Colonel – a bureaucrat with no imagination whose potential for causing harm should be curtailed.                  

June 18
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, Washington, DC, the Second Task Force

The mission of the second task force was to study the motives of Nagib and Alia Jaber and to try and predict their target. The members included Dr. Eugene Powers from the NNSA who had been appointed as its chairman, Brian Blade from the CIA who was addressed by everybody by his nickname BB and representatives from the DHS, FBI, NSA, State Department and the Pentagon. Eugene, who had interviewed Nagib in person just a couple of weeks earlier, recounted his impression of Nagib. He said that Nagib was very intelligent and managed to deliver his answers quickly and with what appeared to be complete frankness. He relayed the impression Nagib had made on Colonel Groovey and mentioned his own reservations about the smoothness of Nagib's response to all queries as if he had rehearsed them. He also mentioned the fact that he had conveyed his uneasy feeling to his colleague, David Avivi, from the Israeli Mossad. He assured the skeptical members of the group that David could be trusted and related their mutual involvement in the case that became known as the
Dreadful Alchemist
. Eugene also said that they would need the cooperation of the Israelis to carry out a thorough background investigation of Nagib that would be vital in understanding his motivation. BB was especially dubious because the CIA had come to expect the Israelis to cooperate fully only if it were in their own interests and he wondered aloud if any foreign countries were involved in this case. The DHS representative added that they should focus on dangers to US citizens and property and not worry about what happens in the remote Middle East where tribal wars between Jews and Arabs and between Muslims of different sects were constantly raging. The NSA delegate said that they had checked Nagib's international e-mail messages and phone calls (officially they were only allowed to monitor the international communications or those involving a foreign national) and found nothing at all since he had joined Los Alamos National Laboratory. He did mention that Alia had some relatives in Palestine but had not maintained any contacts with them after her visit several years earlier. The Pentagon representative said that he had reviewed Nagib's work as a contractor in the Albuquerque air force base, before joining the Lab, and got the impression that he had been a hard working, highly motivated employee with good professional skills.  The State Department delegate simply nodded and said that he had "no comment". Eugene said that they would work on getting information from the Israelis through official channels and summon the Israeli military attaché to their next meeting, but decided to share his concerns with David without informing the committee.

The task force members discussed their next steps for quite a long time until a consensus about the priorities was reached. They agreed that the designs of nuclear weapons in themselves were useless unless fissile materials could be obtained. They also postulated that all nuclear materials in the US were well guarded and therefore the designs themselves did not pose an immediate threat to the security of the United States. The CIA representative, BB, raised the point that these designs would be worth a fortune to terrorist organizations that could get hold of fissile materials or to state entities that did have the necessary materials but could only produce the most primitive atomic weapons. He continued to name the three states that suited this profile: Iran, Pakistan and North Korea. He added that a fanatic Muslim would rule out North Korea, but that they had no evidence that Nagib was a devout Muslim and even had ample evidence to the contrary - he liked to consume alcohol and had never refrained from eating pork products. The senior officer from the Pentagon said that military intelligence believed that Pakistan had already produced an arsenal of nuclear weapons that included multiple Megaton hydrogen bombs. Iran was therefore the most likely state that would be willing to purchase the stolen designs. Iran had a diplomatic delegation at the United Nations in New York and several of its members used their diplomatic immunity to carry out subversive operations like industrial espionage, purchase sensitive items and export them illegally with the help of fake export licenses and front companies. They also actively encouraged people to convert to Shiite Islam and turn them into "sleeping agents" that could be called upon to carry out seditious acts. Eugene said that the NNSA was also concerned that Iran would try to obtain detailed designs of advanced nuclear weapons despite its commitment iterated in the nuclear deal that was signed in 2015 not to pursue a military nuclear program. The State Department representative nodded and again said that he had "no comment".