The Bitter Past, page 20
Building 11 was surrounded, mostly by fence, two separate rows of chain-link and razor wire, but a full complement of guards was there as well. Outside of a very small group of people, no one at the site even knew there was going to be a test. There were Army guards at the front gate and the two posted in a jeep next to the building. Georgiy’s pulse quickened at the sight of the .30 caliber machine gun mounted just behind the front seat of the jeep.
The Army corporal checking Ellison’s credentials seemed surprised. “Sir, we were notified the project has been delayed. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”
Ellison yawned. “It’s my experiment, Corporal. My warhead. There are some final checklist items I need to run through. Shouldn’t take long.” He turned and winked at Georgiy. A minute later, they were waved through the gate. Georgiy heard the guard radio that Dr. Ellison was coming in.
Parking, Georgiy took a quick look at his wristwatch—11:25 P.M. Twenty-six minutes since he had administered the drug. He and Ellison got out of the truck and Georgiy addressed the lanky FSI guard at the entrance door. “Hey, Finn. Dr. Ellison has some final checks he needs to do.”
Finn stepped away from the door. “This man is going to be my son-in-law,” Ellison told him.
“No kidding? Well congrats to both of you,” Finn replied.
Georgiy watched as Ellison entered six digits into the lock. 8–4–7–7–2–7. William’s source was good. The lock made an audible click, and Ellison opened the door and went in. Georgiy followed but held the door for a moment. “He’s pretty hammered,” he murmured to Finn. “It’s amazing the guy can still operate.”
Finn nodded. “Smells like a still.”
As the door closed behind him, Georgiy realized for the first time that it was really going to happen. He was inside the storage facility not twenty feet from a nuclear warhead. Under the intense fluorescent lighting that lined the ceiling, the XW-25 lay at a forty-five-degree angle off the concrete floor, strapped to a large four-wheeled yellow hand truck that easily supported its cargo. It was Georgiy’s first time in the secret building, and he was disappointed that there wasn’t more to it. It wasn’t like CP-1 with its instruments and monitors. It was essentially a huge tool shed, with rows of cabinets along the walls and work tables with drills and pneumatic devices and hoses. Normally, he knew, this is where the device would be assembled and armed prior to a scheduled shot. For Project 57, that was unnecessary. The engineers in New Mexico had simply removed the warhead from its existing bomb casing. It was ready to go.
“Look at it, Freddie. Come closer. It’s spectacular, isn’t it.”
Georgiy approached the warhead slowly. When he had agreed to become an illegal and work in the American nuclear program, he believed he would be accessing intelligence that would help stabilize the world and reduce the chances of war. But staring down at this instrument of destruction, his heart sank. How stupid to believe such things. He was trapped in a game played by madmen, and his only possible way out was to do his duty.
Ellison looked over at his young charge, sensing his sadness. “I was hoping for a little more enthusiasm, Freddie. This is the future of physics.”
Georgiy looked up at him. Ellison’s face was damp with sweat and flushed. “Are you all right, Doctor?”
Ellison’s eyes clamped shut, his brow suddenly knitted together. “Yes, touch of heartburn from the pot roast, I think.”
Moving quickly around the warhead, Georgiy caught the man just as he grabbed his chest and collapsed. Ellison’s face contorted and his mouth opened. “Oh no,” he groaned. Georgiy laid him gently on the floor and checked for a pulse. It felt like machine gun fire.
“Easy, Doctor.”
“My chest,” Ellison croaked.
Georgiy raced to the door. “Finn!” he yelled, loud enough for the Army guards in the jeep to hear. “I think Dr. Ellison is having a heart attack. We need to get him to the hospital.”
Everyone came running. One of the soldiers said they needed an ambulance. “Too far away!” Georgiy yelled. “You need to transport him. Now.”
The guards, both privates, both younger than Georgiy, gazed at each other in complete confusion. “Can we do that?” one asked. “Are we allowed to do that?”
“Back your vehicle up to the door,” Georgiy commanded him.
“You should take him,” the other private said. “In your truck. We’re posted here. We can’t leave.”
Georgiy seized the man by the collar of his coat. “Listen to me, Private. You can call another unit to take your place. I will wait here for them. Right now, you are transporting Dr. Ellison to the hospital in your jeep, which has a back seat. Finn here will go with you. Call the gate guards and let them know.”
“Me?” Finn said apprehensively.
“You. Building 11 security is our team’s responsibility now. I’m the head of the team. Go with them, Finn. I’ll meet you at the hospital as soon as I get somebody to cover me here.”
“We’ll take his arms,” Georgiy said to the men. “You guys get his legs.” He looked down at Ellison. “Hang on, Doctor, you’ll be at the hospital in no time.”
They lifted him, and it took all four to carry the big man. “Kitty,” Ellison said, grabbing Georgiy’s hand as they laid him in the back of the jeep.
“I’ll let her know,” Georgiy said. “You’ll be okay. I’ll see you at the hospital.”
As the jeep shot forward, Georgiy knew its headlights were blinding the two guards at the front gate a hundred yards away. He moved to the door, his index finger frozen above the numerical buttons on the lock. If he reentered the storage facility, he was committed to taking the warhead. If he didn’t, someone else might. William had a plan B, a backup. Of course he did. Someone else had the combination in case Georgiy lost his nerve. He entered the code. Click.
“Sixty seconds, Georgiy,” he said out loud. “You have sixty seconds.” He ran to the bomb.
In less than thirty, he was out of Building 11 with the warhead at the side of his vehicle. Georgiy cursed himself for not backing the truck in, for now he would be in plain sight of the gate guards if they turned his way. But if he was going to be caught, it really didn’t matter how. He would not let them take him. The capsule William had given him was in his pocket. All he had to do was place it between his teeth and bite down.
Bending down and pressing upward with his knees, Georgiy hoisted the warhead into his arms, all 218 pounds. His hands were slippery, though, and the bottom of the device slammed into the truck’s side panel. The noise seemed deafening to Georgiy, but he didn’t dare stop to look toward the gate. He found a better handhold and rolled it up to his chest. If he dropped it now, the game was up, so he braced his legs against the side of the truck and allowed the weight of the warhead to roll his upper body up over the side and into the bed, his back screaming the entire way.
Georgiy released the package and collapsed into the dirt. There were no lights streaming his way from the front gate, but he could hear the radio chatter, so he stumbled to his feet and pushed the hand truck to the side of the building and into the shadows where it could not be seen. Racing back to the truck, he removed a blanket from the bed and covered the warhead, sliding it lengthwise along the tailgate.
“Hey! You there.” Georgiy’s blood ran cold. Hearing the soldier’s boots slapping the pavement at a run, he turned, expecting to see a rifle in his face. Instead, it was the sergeant who had checked Ellison’s badge at the gate, but there was no rifle.
“What the hell happened?” he yelled.
“Hell if I know,” Georgiy replied, gasping. “He was doing some final checks, and then he just grabbed his chest.”
“Holy Christ,” said the sergeant. “He’s the guy in charge, right?”
Georgiy nodded. “He is.”
“We got another jeep on the way. You’re staying, right?”
“No,” Georgiy said. “I have to rotate to Area 13 and relieve one of the guys up there. One of my men should be down here in the next hour.”
“Shit,” the guard said. “This is not procedure.”
From his own experience in the Army, Georgiy knew that soldiers just want direction. They are not comfortable with and don’t expect to be making decisions. “Just lock the gate, Sergeant. My guy should be here shortly. Nobody comes in until then. Are we clear?”
Absent any other authority and the will to wake his commander up in the middle of the night, the man nodded. “Clear.” A minute later, Georgiy passed the front gate, a live nuclear warhead six feet behind him.
CHAPTER 15
I believe in hunches. I think they’re just the dots in your brain that aren’t fully connected yet. As I drive out of the Mill Valley compound, my hunch tells me the only way to satisfy the man holding Michaela Edwards and Sana might be with something of equal value, and since I don’t have the illegal or have a clue who he might be, I call my new buddy, X-Files. The conversation lasts the full thirty-minute ride back to the office.
When I arrive, Tuffy is manning the station solo. I pull a chair up next to her and check my watch again. I have eight hours to deliver somebody to Ivan. “Whatcha got, Tuff?”
She stares at me blankly.
“Okay,” I say, “let’s go back through it again.”
“It? There isn’t anyone else to look at, Beck. We’ve checked everyone in this county.”
I nod. “Right. Maybe we should look at the people who were there at the time.”
Tuffy seems baffled. “Where?”
“The NTS. The test site. We now know that in the early morning hours of April third, 1957, four Russians were found dead in the desert outside of Las Vegas, one of them a test site employee.”
My senior investigator grabs at her curly temples. “Excuse me? How do we know that?”
“Agent Locke. It’s all still classified, so you don’t know any of this. I didn’t know until yesterday. So, who was the employee they found in the desert?”
“Why do we care, if he’s dead?”
I lift a shoulder in a half shrug. “Sometimes dead people can tell you things.”
Tuffy pulls a thick sheaf of paper off her inbox and begins scrolling through it. “From Atterbury’s files,” she says. “Everyone who worked there from 1955 to 1958. Do we have a name?”
I think back to the conversation I had with Sana, my verbal memory coming fully online. “Meyer. Frederick Meyer.”
Tuffy scrolls through the alphabetical listing. “Yep, there’s a Frederick Meyer here. Employed by Federal Services Incorporated as a security guard, October 1955 through April third”—she looks up at me—“1957.”
“Anything else?”
Tuffy pops up from her desk. “Follow me. Maybe Atterbury had a file on him.” We walk into the adjacent detention facility where Atterbury’s boxes and filing cabinets are still taking up a cell. Tuffy goes to one of the cabinets. “He had test site employees in here. None of these are actual personnel files. Mostly just summaries of work histories and the occasional photo. Like he had compiled them himself.” She fingers through the third drawer. “Nope, no Meyer here. That’s strange.”
“No,” I say. “That makes sense. He was Russian. The Feds would have erased any record of him.” A memory, vague and unformed, floats behind my eyes, and I can’t grab it just yet.
We walk back into the main station and my office. “What’s this?” I ask, picking a file off my desk.
“Shooting board. It’s all there. I took the liberty of running it by our two civilian members. They signed off. Pete’s good for active duty again, officially. Just needs your signature.”
This is good news. I’ve been using Pete for more than the normal desk duty required when an officer is out on administrative leave until being cleared by the shooting review board, which consists of me and two of our five county commissioners. I take a cursory look at the photos taken at Big Rocks where Pete shot the other Russian.
“Pretty good shot,” Tuffy says. “He should be our main sniper, unless you can convince Brinley to come on full time.”
I nod, my eyes now glued to one photo, taken from where Pete was standing at the time of the shot and looking down to where the Russian lay in a dirt clearing two hundred or so yards downhill.
“What?” Tuffy asks.
“This is the exact line of sight?”
She nods. “Yeah, from Pete’s position up above. Had the .308 set on a nice flat piece of rock. Why?”
I look up at her. “I thought he said the only thing he could see was the Russian’s head.”
Tuffy takes the photo from my hands. “Yeah.” She looks at me. “There was nothing blocking his field of view. He would have seen the whole man.”
I tuck the photos back in the file and hand it to her. “Guess I’ll have to ask him about that.”
“You want me to—”
“No, it can wait.” That vague memory again is trying to come into focus. “See if you can get Pop on the phone for me, will you?”
When she’s gone, I get up and close the door. Sitting back down at my desk again, I unlock my bottom right drawer and open it, removing Peter Alexander’s personnel file. I know the acid sloshing around in my stomach is not from coffee. I leaf through the pages. Two tours in Afghanistan. Military police. Germany before that. Typical military CV, listing postings and responsibilities, medals and commendations. References listed. Peter Alexander.
I say the name out loud. And repeat it. Again. “Shit.” I open my cell phone and speed-dial a number. “What’s up?” Wardell Spann asks.
“Wardell, where are you right now?” He doesn’t answer. “Wardell?”
“Meg’s,” the crusty cop says under his breath. “Just getting coffee.”
My eyebrows snap together. In the two hours since I directed my lieutenant to start checking every house and building in Caliente, a town twenty-five miles from here, the man has managed to make it three blocks from the sheriff’s department. “Are you alone, Wardell?”
“How do you mean?”
I want to reach through the ether connecting us and choke the man. “I mean, is anyone with you. Can you speak confidentially?”
“Give me a sec,” Wardell replies. Ten seconds later, I can hear the wind blowing into Wardell’s phone. “Good now. What’s up?”
I pause a moment, gathering my thoughts. “Wardell, I need to ask you some questions, and I need you to keep this conversation between you and me because people’s lives may depend on it. Do you understand?”
“I’m not a moron, Beck,” comes the gruff reply. “Ask away.”
I lean back in my chair. “Before you hired Pete, did you check his CV?”
“His CV? What the hell is that?”
“His military record, Wardell. Did you check it?” There is no answer. “What about his references?”
“What the hell are you into, Beck? Are you still hung up on me hiring him instead of letting you do it?”
“So that’s a no, then?”
“That’s a go fuck yourself,” Wardell growls. “Sorry, go fuck yourself, sir.”
I hold my breath a moment and then release it slowly, as if I’m about to put one in his brain from a few hundred yards out. “Wardell, I need you to come into the office. Don’t speak to anyone. Tuffy will tell you what to do when you get here. Above all, say nothing to Pete. Do you read me?”
“I don’t report to Tuffy, Beck. Tuffy doesn’t tell me shit.”
I get up on my feet. “Wardell, if you want to spend another day on this job, get your ass to this office now.” I click off and quickly look up another contact in my phone.
“Colonel Berryman,” the voice answers seconds later.
“Mike, it’s Beck.”
“Beck! You miserable shit, how are you?”
“I’m good, Mike. You still at the Pentagon?”
“Counting the days, brother. In forty-seven, no, forty-six days, I’m out of here. Maybe I’ll come out to the wild west and work for you.”
“Nah,” I say. “You would have to qualify with a pistol.”
“Fuck you.” Except for Brinley, Mike Berryman is the best shot I have ever met. “What’s up?”
“I need you to pull a jacket for me.”
“Beck, I have forty-six days—”
“Mike, I need it, brother. It’s important.”
There is some dead air for a few seconds. “Name?”
I give him what I have in the file, including postings and date of separation. “I have no one with that name and date of separation,” he says a minute later. “I could check those postings for you, but I doubt very much you’re looking at valid information. As you know, we don’t do a whole lot well in the Army, but nobody is better at record-keeping.”
“I owe you, Mike.” I hang up.
Peter Alexander. Something about that name. At the other end of my brain, another name starts pinging. Freddie Meyer. Freddie Meyer.
I walk out and give Tuffy instructions for Wardell. “When he drags his ass in here, make sure he stays put. Sit on him if you have to. I don’t want him going anywhere. Have him go back through every file in those boxes and find whatever we can on Frederick Meyer. Do not let him out of this office, Tuff. And keep him off the radio.”
Tuffy knows my expressions well but hasn’t seen fear in them before. “What is it?”
I think about telling her, but all we have is a man with a phony record at this point. “I’m not sure. Were you able to raise the old man?”
She shakes her head. “No answer.”
I tell her I have to run out to the house for a few minutes. “Won’t take long.”
On the drive out to Lost Meadows, I run through the facts. One: the man who took Sana complimented me on “finding the FBI man’s files.” How did he know I had the files unless he was in the vicinity of Atterbury’s house when we removed them? Two: there was no forced entry at Atterbury’s or the home of Guy Pollack. How did the killer gain entry? Someone in uniform, a fellow law enforcement officer would have tipped the scales for Atterbury certainly. Three: Pete knew where I was with every step of the investigation, including Chuck Wolverton, since he was in the office when Tuffy related the old miner’s name to me over the phone. But he didn’t know Sana and I were baiting a trap for him. Four: Pete Alexander’s existence is artificial, yet carefully constructed. He has been on the county’s payroll for two months, well after the Russians received the intelligence from their source in the FBI. Five: Pete shoots and kills the other Russian at Big Rocks behind Atterbury’s place, saying he only had a head shot, when clearly, he could have seen the entire man. This one is odd, one assassin taking out a partner, but the guy was wounded and bleeding out, and shooting him solidified Pete’s position. Six: and this one gives me a headache—Pete’s name. In Russian, it is essentially Peter the Great. How did I miss that?
