Waterkill (Dave Henson Series) (29 page)

C
hapter 47 (April 18, Monday 5:30pm, Dallas, Texas)

Dave and Fenton pulled into the parking lot behind the Chinese restaurant. There were several Dallas police cars and an ambulance parked in a semi-circle around a blue sedan. Cops milled around the vehicle and between the police cars. Dave and Fenton jumped out of the SUV and walked over to the man who looked like he was in charge of the investigation.

Fenton showed his identification to the officer and asked, “So what do we have going on here?”

“We have a late thirties, possibly early forties, dead male body seated in the front passenger seat of that Chevy Cobalt.” The officer glanced over to the vehicle. Its front passenger door was open and Dave could see the lower torso of a man sitting in it. “He appears to be of Middle Eastern descent,” said the officer.

  “Dead. Any idea how?” asked Fenton.

“The man appears to have suffered severe blows to the front of his head and face as well as a crushed windpipe. From our initial assessment he either died of suffocation or from severe brain trauma injury.”

“Was there any ID on him?” pressed Fenton.

“Nothing. He was clean.”

“How about in the rest of the vehicle? Anything found in it?”

“Again it was clean. We ran the plates and the vehicle is registered to a woman that lives in Granjeno, Texas. We’re now doing a full forensic sweep of the vehicle, looking for prints, hair and fabric fiber samples, but I’m not expecting to find much that will be of any help.”

“How long ago did you find this vehicle?” asked Fenton.

“We got here fifteen minutes ago. The owner of the restaurant called about the vehicle when he saw it while emptying the trash. He said the vehicle was not there at three o’clock this afternoon.”

Fenton looked at his watch and did some quick math. “Do you mind if we have a look at the body and car?” asked Fenton.

“By all means, have as much time as you need,” said the police officer.

Dave and Fenton went over to the vehicle and initially looked at the body.

“Hard to say, but he looks like he could have certainly come out of Iran,” said Fenton.

“Or anywhere else in the Middle East,” responded Dave.

“Based on his clothing, and the dirt on his shoes, it would appear he has been out walking around in fields,” said Dave.

“Or possibly around water utility stations,” responded Fenton.

The two walked around the entire car and looked inside of it, making sure not to touch anything to contaminate the crime scene. The trunk was open. Dave peered into it and looked closely at the cloth fabric on the floor of the trunk.

“Fenton, do you see this?”

Fenton leaned in closer to the trunk.

“There is quite a bit of dirt and mud sitting in here,” commented Dave.

“Agreed,” responded Fenton.

“I would bet my bottom dollar that Mr. Spencer Williams was the driver of this vehicle and that he had large heavy items sitting in this trunk. Items that included knapsacks that crossed the Rio Grande and got possibly wet and muddy in the process,” said Dave.

Fenton looked closely at the mud stains and saw the outlines of where two large and heavy items had been placed inside the trunk.

“I agree,” said Fenton. “It looks like our man may not be far from here, and that most likely he is targeting one of the two stations in this local area.”

“Unless he got himself another set of wheels,” responded Dave.

“He most likely did, but based on the mud on that corpse’s shoes, I still believe Mr. Williams is targeting a station in the very close vicinity of here.”

Dave went around to the front passenger seat again and looked down at the corpse once more. He observed that the mud on the man’s shoes was still damp. Fenton was probably right he concluded.

              Fenton started walking back to the SUV, with Dave following in quick pursuit. “I want to check on the two closest stations from here,” said Fenton. “See if our guys have seen anything.”

              “Actually, I think Ron is at one of the stations close to here,” said Dave. “He’s at the North-West station.”

              “Your right,” responded Fenton as he quickly recollected on what personnel he left where. “We’ll give him a call first, and then I’ll contact my guy covering the North-Central Water Utility Station next. I want to make sure that they are both on high alert.”

C
hapter 48 (April 18, Monday 5:45pm, Dallas, Texas)

Ron sat in a chair in a small guard shack at the main entrance to the North-West End Water Utility Station, located on the south shore of Lake Lewisville. The sole guard for the entrance stood outside the shack monitoring vehicles coming and going from the water station facility. Ron was focused on the tablet computer that he was holding in his hands. Five minutes earlier he had received a call from Dave who had told him about the abandoned car found only a few blocks from the station, and the body found in it. Consequently Ron was on high alert, monitoring the Hunter-Falcon data feeds for any strange movement on or around the water station complex. Dave had also said that Spencer may potentially be carrying one or two large pieces of luggage with him based on what they had discovered in the trunk of the vehicle. So far, however, Ron had not seen any unusual activity around the water facility. Similarly, the water tests that had been performed at the station in the past hour had all come back negative.

The sun was beginning to set so Ron was also reconfiguring the Hunter-Falcons, via the tablet interface, for night vision sensing. Though the night vision sensing technology in the drones did not provide the same level of image quality as the standard camera lens in the visual light spectrum, they would at least be capable of detecting any thermal movements in or around the facility. He set the audio-alarm feature on the tablet computer such that the detection of movement by any of the Hunter-Falcons, on any object that gave off heat and that was larger than a small dog, would trigger the alarm.

Across the road from the North-West Water Utility Station a beige Ford Escape pulled into a strip mall parking lot. Ahmad parked the vehicle at the far end of the parking lot, nearest the road, so that he had a clear view of the station and the sports field that was to the left of it. He could see that there was a youth soccer game underway.

Since there were no lights on the field, and with sunset coming soon, he expected the field would empty out within the next hour. But he was in no rush. With the sun about to set he would soon need to say his Maghrib prayers, and then afterwards eat. He glanced down at the KFC bag sitting on the seat next to him. Also, he wanted to wait until well after dark before proceeding with his mission, as he would be carrying the large duffle bag with him. He looked up at the sky. As the weather reports had indicated, there was a solid layer of clouds overhead. Fortunately, though, they were expected not to produce any rain showers.

As Ahmad waited for sunset, and began saying his prayers to Muhammad and Allah, he thought about his wife Aaila again and how much he missed her, the smell of her hair, her warm smile, and her soft and gentle voice. Oh, how much he missed her, the simple holding of her hand, the feel of her lips against his, the comfort and peace she brought to him when they lay together. A combination of sadness and anger boiled up from within him as he reflected on their life together, and how the United States government had stolen her from him in a flash. Tonight they would pay he thought to himself, as he looked across the road at the water station. They would pay for the death of Aaila and her family. They would pay for the horrible pain that they had caused him. They would pay for all the pain that they had inflicted on his Muslim community over the past century.  And this evening would only be the start of the pain that they would endure. He was Allah’s instrument, Muhammad’s sword. Tonight he would begin to unleash their wrath on the United States, a rage and fury that it had never experienced before.

C
hapter 49 (April 18, Monday 9:00pm, Dallas, Texas)

Dave and Fenton stood outside their SUV at the North-Central Water Utility Station talking to one of Fenton’s men. Thirty minutes earlier the man had reported a breach in the station’s perimeter fence, but it turned out to be a false alarm. A meth addict had attempted to climb the fence in a crazed state of mind. He had gotten hung up on the barbed wire that topped the fence and was screaming insanely from his injuries when the police had found him. Other than a meth pipe he had nothing else on him.

At the same time, about ten kilometers west of them, at the North-West facility, Ahmad stepped out of the Ford Escape, walked to the back of the vehicle, and opened up its rear hatch. He proceeded to put on the wet-suit boots he had purchased at the sporting goods store. Next, he placed several steel canisters into his knapsack, which already contained a 9mm handgun, bolt cutters, a crowbar and several other small items. He then placed the knapsack into the dry sack and made sure the watertight seal on it was fully closed. Finally, he hefted up the dry sack by its rugged rope handle and took one final quick survey of the sports field and the strip mall parking lot as he closed the Escape’s rear hatch. There were only a few cars left in the parking lot and the field was empty. He had not seen anyone in the park for over an hour.

Ahmad walked across the road, through the sports field park, and directly towards the water’s edge of Lake Lewisville. He made sure to keep at least a hundred meters distance from the water station’s perimeter fence as he walked through the park. The further he proceeded from the road and into the park, the darker it became as the street lights faded behind him.

When Ahmad made it to the water’s edge he took advantage of the near pitch darkness to walk in the direction of the water utility station’s perimeter fence. He saw no reason to have to extend his time in the lake water. It would only drain additional energy from him to swim or wade further through the water, and provide no additional cover of protection.

When he got to within a couple of meters of the perimeter fence he turned and began to walk into the lake. As he waded out into the water he noticed that the lake bottom felt muddy and thick with silt. With every step he took he had to break the suction of the lake bottom soil from his feet. He also noticed that the water was getting deeper than he had anticipated. Twenty five meters out, the water was already up to his waist and getting deeper with each step. He was beginning to realize he would probably need to swim to make it out and around the perimeter fence that ended about twenty five meters from where he currently was. No real problem for him since he could swim. However, he had been hoping to avoid fully submersing the dry sack for the off chance it wasn’t as leak proof as its packaging information promoted it to be. Though the canisters were sealed, he still had a touch of fear about swimming in water with cholera in it, albeit in a sealed container. He knew the terrible effects of cholera on the human body from both clinical and personal experience levels. While visiting India once he had passed through a small village that had had a recent outbreak of cholera. The sickness and death in the village caused from the disease was overwhelming. He had also just witnessed the same effects of it again when he was in Germany.

Ahmad continued wading his way out into the lake, towards the end of the fence. When he was within five meters of reaching it, the depth of the water had risen to his neck. He had begun to pray to Allah asking Him for the water not to get any deeper. The wet sack had already become fully submerged and it required both his hands to tug and slide it through the water a meter below his neck. He had come to the conclusion that there was no way he would be able to swim with the sack. There was not enough air in the dry sack to provide sufficient buoyancy in it to compensate for the weight of the heavy items that he had placed in it. So he just kept praying to Allah that the water depth would stop increasing as he continued to press forward, towards the end of the fence.

A couple of minutes later, and with Allah’s blessings, Ahmad finally reached the end of the fence and began to negotiate his turn around it. The water had risen up to his chin, and with the slight wave action in the water he had already swallowed a few gulps of it.  He actually had to push off the lake bottom with his feet to raise his head and mouth enough above the water to catch breaths of air. The effort took all of his strength due to the weight of the dry sack and its contents. With this bouncing action he slowly made his way around the end of the fence and began working himself back towards the lake shoreline, inside the perimeter of the water utility station fence. Five minutes later the lake water had receded to only a meter in depth. Nevertheless, he had decided to keep only his head above the water to minimize being seen. At this point, he figured the dry sack had either done its job and kept the contents dry, or if not, it wouldn’t matter if the items remained wet for a few additional minutes.

As Ahmad finally pulled himself up and out of the water, near the perimeter fence, he scanned the water utility station grounds for any signs of life. Though it was dark out, he had seen no sign of movement. No flashlight beams. No sounds of voices. No dark shadows moving along the grounds. This was looking too easy thought Ahmad.

Ron continued to stare at the tablet computer in front of him, monitoring individual Hunter-Falcon camera feeds to see if he could observe any type of anomaly or target on his own. Since Dave had called him about the Meth addict incident at the North-Central Water Utility Station, he had been on heightened alert and proactive in his monitoring of the Hunter-Falcons. He had concluded that if a man nearly one hundred percent mentally and physically impaired could just about make it over a two and a half meter high perimeter fence, a trained terrorist intent on killing thousands of people would have no issues scaling the fence, even with the three rows of barbed wire that topped it.

He had completed the transition of all of the drones’ visual sensors over to night vision sensing mode a couple of hours earlier, and so far there had been no sign of intruders attempting to enter the North-West Utility Water Station. Suddenly, as he was staring at the tablet display and flipping through the camera feeds, one of the sensors began to report a possible target.

Ron glided his index finger over the tablet screen and tapped a couple of radial buttons. A sensor on the two hundred meter radial arc with a current magnetic compass reading of three hundred and fifty degrees had indicated a sudden moving hot spot, and potentially a target threat. Ron tapped the tablet screen once again. A grid map of the North-West Utility Water Station became superimposed over the track of the Hunter-Falcon sensors, with the hot spot highlighted in red. The hot spot was near the lake shoreline, and adjacent to the perimeter fence. What was most alarming to Ron was the fact that the hot spot was within the confines of the fence. But there was also something else odd with it. The hot spot was blotchy in appearance, as if it might be two small targets instead of one large one.

Ron adjusted the flight path of the Hunter-Falcon sensor that had detected the possible target and that had continued to fly the two hundred meter radial arc. He sent a command to have it fly in a reverse direction on the arc, back towards the target hot spot, and then to have it hover over it. He also dropped its altitude by five meters so that he could direct it to another radial arc ring without interfering with the flight paths of any of the other Hunter-Falcons.

As the drone retraced its flight path along the arc, it began to report the hot spot again. However, it had shifted in position from just a moment earlier. The spot had moved away from the perimeter fence and in the direction of the water filtration building.  The hot spot had also morphed into a singular spot and was slightly larger.

While keeping his eyes fixated on the tablet, Ron pulled out his smartphone from his pants pocket and dialed Dave. As he waited for Dave to answer, he adjusted the Hunter-Falcon’s flight path to follow the hot spot. He noticed that it was moving at a snail’s pace of only two kilometers per hour, as if it was on high alert and proceeding cautiously.

“What’s up Ron?” asked Dave on the other end of the line.

“Dave, I am looking on my screen at a suspicious target approaching the water filtration building at this station. I suggest you and Fenton get over here quickly.”

“Roger that. We are on our way.” The other end of the phone went dead.

Ron yelled to the guard who was standing outside the guard shack. “Ivan, can you call one of your colleagues to check out the western side entrance of the filtration building? It looks like we may have an unwanted guest approaching it.”

“Will do,” said the guard as he lifted the radio that was clipped to his belt and made a call to the facilities main security office.

Two minutes later a water utility station guard walked lazily around to the western side of the water filtration building, sweeping a Maglite flashlight back and forth in front of him as he slowly made his way to the side entrance. He was walking about twenty meters away from the edge of the building itself.  Occasionally he aimed the flashlight in the direction of the perimeter fence which was nearly one hundred meters from where he was walking. He could only vaguely make out the shape of it in the distance and didn’t see anything of interest.

Since Ron’s call to Dave, Ahmad had already made his way to within thirty meters of the building. He was staying low and moving slowly to help avoid setting off any motion sensors that might be on the grounds. He saw the guard turn the corner of the building and froze. The guard was moving in his direction and based upon the sweeps of his flashlight, he knew his cover would soon be blown. He had to do something and do it fast. He reversed his steps ten meters to avoid being caught under the glare of the flashlight beam. He then sat still, waiting for the guard to pass him. After the guard had moved beyond him, Ahmad pulled a hunting knife from its sheath that was strapped to his belt, and made his way in the direction of the guard, approaching him silently from behind.  Fortunately for Ahmad, the water lapping on the shoreline helped to muffle his sound as he crept up behind the guard.

Just as Ahmad got to within a meter of the guard, the guard stopped to listen, as if some silent noise had signaled a warning message in his mind. He slowly turned his head to see if something was behind him. As he did, Ahmad rushed forward and with one horizontal sweep of his knife, slit the guard’s throat wide open from ear to ear. There was only the faint sound of a gurgle before the guard fell to Ahmad’s feet. Ahmad picked up the side arm that had dropped from the guard’s hand and put it into his waistband behind his back. He also removed the radio from the guard’s belt and his identification badge.  With the flashlight, he briefly examined the badge, and then smiled. It had a magnetic strip on the back of it. Ahmad took one final look around to see if all was dark and still, and then proceeded to move forward, towards the side entrance of the water filtration building.

The guard may have just made his work easier thought Ahmad. Hopefully the guard’s badge would make his task a little simpler in gaining entry into the building. As he made his way to the entrance Ahmad wondered if the guard was just making his rounds or had he been sent out for a particular reason. He hoped it was the former.

The SUV screeched to a halt outside the main entrance guard shack. Ron, along with the guard manning the entrance, rushed out of the shack just as Dave and Fenton jumped out of the vehicle. Ron and the guard had been monitoring Ron’s tablet computer and trying to contact the guard who had been sent out to check the west side of the filtration building.

“What’s the situation?” asked Dave as Fenton and him approached Ron.

“The guard who was sent out to check the possible breach in the security fence is not responding to his radio.  I’m also seeing an unmoving target near the vicinity of where the guard was last walking. The heat signature is also fading.” 

“We also just received word from the facility’s main security office,” said the guard. “The west side entrance of the building was opened using the missing guard’s ID.”

Without hesitation Fenton slipped the radio off his belt and called the other FBI Fly Team members. He directed them to leave their posts and to report immediately to the North-West water utility station for assistance. 

“Alright Dave, you and I are going to go check out the filtration building,” ordered Fenton. “Ron, remain here and direct the other fly team members to the building as they arrive. Also, keep watching your drones for any sign of movement away from the building.”

Fenton walked to the back of the SUV and opened up its rear hatch. He reached into a leather bag and pulled out a 9mm Glock.  He walked back over to Dave and handed it to him. “Here’s a little protection. I assume you know how to use it?”

“Definitely.”

Fenton and Dave jumped back into the SUV and drove the half kilometer to the filtration building. They parked right out in front of the main entrance to it.

From the outside, Dave observed that the building was a large, nondescript rectangular building made from a combination of brick and steel. However, as soon as they stepped inside of it, the view changed dramatically. The building was a labyrinth of huge machinery that hummed loudly, with massive plumbing pipes that crisscrossed upwards through the entire three stories of the structure. A network of metal catwalks and staircases separated the massive volume into the three quasi floors.  Several office areas, or more like large painted white boxes with a large window in each, were interspersed between the floors and piping. They must have been quiet spaces to enable a person to think without having to leave the building thought Dave.