The Nuclear Option Ch. 01

"You think?..." he gasped. I just nodded. Muscone said "Stay here a moment, would you?" He got out of his seat and to the aisle, then hurried, and I mean hurried, up to the front, and spoke to the Air Force Captain. She nodded, they both looked over at me, and then they disappeared in the direction of GEN McFarland's office.

Meanwhile, Sheriff Griswold and Chief Moynahan were standing on the floor between the front row and the stage. I got up and went up to them.

"We're giving them the Old Mill as a Command Post?" I asked.

"Har." said Griswold. "I told you he'd figure it out."

"Yezzzz." said Moynahan. Turning to me he said "Yes, Mr. Crowbar. We've had a contingency plan for something like this for a while. 2nd Precinct will operate out of Police Headquarters, and General McFarland will be in the Old Mill. By the wayyyy, how did you know what building it would beeee?"

"Elementary, my dear Chief." I said jovially, though the mood in the room was totally against levity. "County Jail is County Jail and cannot be vacated, and we're not giving up Police Headquarters, where our own leadership is working. There is space at the Old Mill, and only the Precinct Captain and Precinct Lieutenant will need office space in Headquarters; everyone else will be like they were before we went to Precincts in the first place."

I continued: "And I remember that we wired up the Old Mill with far more communications and computer wiring that we could ever hope to use. Now my question is: why haven't I been told about this contingency plan?... especially as it might've happened after the Police Chief was assassinated or something..."

"I didn't know about it, either." said Chief Moynahan.

"That's my fault, Crowbar." said Griswold. "I knew about it, and Mayor Vaughan and Daniel Allgood knew about it when he was Sheriff. But it was vague, even for us, and Homeland Security asked us to not disseminate it until it became necessary."

"And this qualifies as 'necessary', I daresay." I quipped.

"Your defense mechanism of humor and levity in this grave situation is... disturrrrbing." noted Chief Moynahan.

Just then, Jack Muscone came up. "Don, Chief, Sheriff," he said, "General McFarland wants to speak to you."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

We were ushered into the office room. General McFarland was seated at the head of the conference table. MG Just was to his left. I was pointed to the chair to McFarland's right, Laura next to me, Muscone next to Just, and the Sheriff and Chief down the line among a number of FBI Agents and military Officers.

I noticed who some of the Federal Agents were. Special Agents Peter Page and James Conrad of the FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) that I'd met while in pursuit of Red Brooke were there.. FBI Special Agent Arthur Wilshire, who had infiltrated the City Police and helped me bust Susan Wexler, was now with the BAU unit, as well. And next to them was a man that looked just like David Rovers, but was older.

(Author's note: 'Agents and Angels' for Page and Conrad; 'Reichenbach', Ch. 03 for Wilshire; 'Riverboat Gambler' for Rovers.)

"Special Agent in Charge Muscone has briefed us on a DEA operation that led to other crimes, and he said you might have some important information, Commander Troy." said GEN McFarland. "You think you know who is behind this?"

"I believe so, General." I said. "First, let me go back to a case we had several years ago." I detailed the 'Eyes Only' case involving the nuclear power plant, and Tomoko Shimono's involvement in it. "Ms. Shimono was disavowed by the CIA, and her body was later discovered in Coltrane County, north of here and south of my home County. Laura, will you tell the General the CIA aspects of the story?"

As Laura told everyone the CIA angle of Shimono, and then Shimono 2.0, I used a laptop computer to access the TCPD's evidence servers via a special one-time-password ID that Myron Milton had set up. I obtained and then showed everyone the photo taken in Turpin Heights.

"As Special Agent In Charge Muscone said," I said after Laura finished her part, "a few months ago the DEA obtained this photo. They thought at the time that this was drug-related. The woman is Tomoko Shimono 2.0, as we call her. The man in the middle is the late Paco Domingo. The other man in the bad suit is named Jerry Barsbane. Paco was known to be a part of a security team that protected high-level CEOs or Government officials. Just the other day he was interdicted attempting to murder a little girl, and he fell off a cliff to his death."

I continued: "Jerry Barsbane is an expert in transportation of stolen goods, drugs, and other contraband. He was once well-connected with the Mob, though he broke away from them and worked on his own in more recent times. We were wondering what possible connection these three had to each other, especially when Shimono and Paco were seen in my County... by the little girl that Paco was trying to kill. She identified the third man she saw as Edward Blassingame, CEO of State Parcel Service, and recently named to be CEO of BigAgraFoods Corp."

"You don't think he's involved with this, do you?" gasped Major General Just. General McFarland glanced over at him with an irritated look on his face.

"I don't know, General." I said. "What I do know is that Shimono might be able to get information about the plans and operations to move this nuke to Redbird Arsenal, and that Jerry Barsbane is capable of arranging for its transportation to wherever they want to take it. And Paco's possible role is now explained: the Office of Secure Transportation liked to hire ex-Special-Forces people to guard the cargo. Paco was an assassin highly skilled in the martial arts, and a team of people like him would be required to overcome those well-trained guards."

"And you think all this connects together?" asked MG Just.

"If I may, General McFarland." said Jack Muscone. "Commander Troy is better at putting together seemingly disjointed bits of information into a cohesive picture than anyone I've ever known. I've been watching him do this for years as he's busted up some of the biggest crime rings the FBI has ever seen... and in fact, he was the one that busted up Tomoko Shimono's attempt to sabotage the nuclear power plant near here and steal that directed energy weapon."

"Oh, I well know who the Iron Crowbar is." said General McFarland, and I could not tell if that was a positive or negative comment. "He busted up those White Supremacists, those Black Supremacists, and put Mitt Willis in handcuffs, too." There were murmurs going through the room as my name and exploits were being realized.

Muscone said "He and other TCPD Officers also pursued and stopped Red Brooke after the FBI's BAU totally failed." That was a shot at the BAU Agents, and the looks on their faces clearly showed their bitter hatred. Ah, there's still bad blood there, pun not intended, I thought to myself.

And speaking of them, their SAC, Bob Rovers, spoke up. "General," he said, "our unit is doing workups on the psychology of the perps. While we will certainly look into these people that this local Police Officer has tangled with, there is certainly much more to consider before assuming it's these people."

"That's certainly true." said MG Just.

"Of course." said McFarland witheringly. "I just wish you guys were half as good as this local LEO... who's a damn good FBI Consultant, as well. So, Commander, any idea where they took the weapon?"

Just then an Army Second Lieutenant burst into the room. He was fairly tall, skinny, and redheaded, darker red than my hair. "General!" he exclaimed, "they've found the truck and the follow-up car!"

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Bettina Wurtzburg's phone rang and she answered it: "This is Tim Sioban in the City." said Tim Sioban. "I just got some big information from Diane Williams at KCTY."

"Oooooh, working with the competition, Tim?" Bettina said teasingly.

"Not really. Diane is a friend." Tim said. Actually Tim had been giving the older Diane Williams pickle-tickles, and per Benjamin Franklin's theories on dating older women ("they are so grateful!"), Diane shared tips with Tim.

Tim continued: "She didn't give me much. She only said her national connections in Washington were getting word of something serious going on, that even the White House was buzzing. So I called my own contacts in Washington. A contact of mine who is working the White House beat said that the President got a FLASH message earlier today."

"What's that?" Bettina asked.

"It's a precedent message, higher than IMMEDIATE, PRIORITY, or ROUTINE." said Sioban. "It basically means something very critical has happened, something that had to be brought to the immediate attention of the President himself."

"Wow." said Bettina. "Is the pot boiling all over the country?"

"As near as I can find out," said Sioban, "there's nothing going on in New York, Los Angeles, or the other big cities... only our City. Whatever it is, Bettina... it's in our own backyard."

"Wow." said Bettina. "Oh, hold on." She looked up to see cub reporter Keith Madden come in, his face red and him out of breath. "What is it, Keith?" Bettina asked.

"I just confirmed that the military has shut down Valley Villages, and all access to and from it." said Keith. "The military brought in a large number of Escalades, which are enhanced with communications equipment and are believed to be bulletproof and such. My contact down there told me that at least one General Officer was seen at the Hotel down there."

"Tim?" said Bettina into the phone. "Did you get that?"

"Sure did." said Sioban. "Call me back if you get more. I'll do the same for you." With that, he hung up.

Bettina said "Okay, Keith, see what else you can find out. Call the FBI offices here, Homeland Security, the Police... oh, and there's a couple of contacts at the University you can try. And see if Dr. Laura Fredricson is in her office where she should be today..."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Major Mark Martin of the Signal Corps had joined the group in the Conference Room. He and Laura had exchanged smiles and silent greetings, which seemed to irritate both General McFarland and MG Just. My face remained unperturbed.

Another Army Major, Major Wedbush, was giving a lecture on a map of the State west of us, projected onto a screen against the wall to General McFarland's left, across the table from me. "The follow up car was found here, 20 miles west of Hammondsville." he was saying. "It was on the side of the road, facing west. The truck was found fifteen miles west of Hammondsville, but facing east."

"The truck was empty; the nuclear weapon had been removed." said Wedbush. "There were no sign of struggle, no spent cartridges nor bullet impacts or blood to suggest anyone fired a shot. And no sign of any of the two crews. No bodies, no living persons found anywhere in the area."

"General," I said, "may I ask a question or two?"

"Sure." said McFarland.

"Major," I asked, "what kind of truck was it, and how many persons were assigned to each crew? The crew in the truck and the crew in the follow-up car?" The General nodded to the Major to answer.

"It was a box truck, the size of an SPS freight truck." said Major Wedbush. "There were three in the truck crew: the driver, the communications man, who rode shotgun in the cab, and the 'courier', as we call him: he rode in the back with the nuclear weapon, and officially was assigned to it, and it to him. All three men were armed with Sig Sauer pistols, 357 SIG caliber, and were assigned M-4 rifles with full automatic fire capability."

"There are normally three men in the follow-up car." said the Major. "But one man called in sick at the very last minute. Normally when that happens, we change out the crews, but in this case the decision was made to go with the two-man followup crew."

"Who makes that decision?" I asked. "By that, I mean does the company make that decision, or the military or whoever the weapon belongs to?"

"It could be either." said the Major. "The company would usually make the change internally, but the military, in this case the Air Force, could override them and make the decision to go with the original crew less one man."

"General, Mr. Muscone," I said, "I'd check very thoroughly into that followup car crew. I'm willing to bet the third man, the one that called in sick, looks an awful lot like Paco Domingo... before he went over the cliff the other day."

"We'll check on that immediately." Jack Muscone said. "You think the other two were clean or dirty? Part of Paco's team?"

"Dirty." I said. "I think they and Paco got themselves hired by this company, got themselves assigned to this mission, and they ambushed the three men in the truck. It was supposed to be three-on-three, but apparently two-on-three was enough to get the job done. Or they picked up some extra help along the way."

Then I asked the Major: "Major, did the crews stop along the way? Overnight, maybe?"

"No, they left the starting point at 5:00am, as dawn was breaking." said Major Wedbush. "They're not permitted to travel in darkness."

"What about the truck crew? Were they dirty, too?" asked MG Just.

"My FBI team is checking on both crews right now." said Muscone. He then said "Major, have any bodies at all been found?"

"None so far, sir." said Major Wedbush. "But we're still looking. They swallow transmitters when they begin their missions, and we're looking for pings now."

I asked "Do the men of the truck crew have codes that can disable the nuke, if needed?"

General McFarland said "No. As you probably know from your own Army experience, every nuclear weapon from artillery shells to ICBMs have two-man control security. No one person can arm the weapon, as no one person should ever have both codes."

"There are ways to render the weapon completely inoperable." said MG Just. "But they involve physically going in and removing or destroying internal parts. And why would the criminals steal the weapon just to disable it?"

"They wouldn't." I said agreeably. "I was just wondering if anyone on the three-man crew could do something so that the weapon could not be armed at all."

"No, they have no special way of doing that." said GEN McFarland.

"So," I said, "presuming that the three-man-crew are good guys and not a part of this, is there any reason the perps would want to keep them alive?"

"As hostages, perhaps." said GEN McFarland. MG Just nodded vigorously in agreement.

I nodded as I studied the map... then went into a reverie.

"Don?" said Jack Muscone. "Four hundred years away?"

"Er, yeah." I said, coming back to reality, feeling as well as seeing all the eyes on me. I said: "General, Hammondsville is a pretty big rail junction. Just southwest of the town is the Hammondsville Railyards, where BigRoadAndRailCorp has a big yard with maintenance buildings. They're disassembling and reassembling trains there all the time."

I continued: "Trains come from then north, near to the road where the convoy came down; then there's an east-west railroad, the east track going into my Town & County, and the west track headed towards Western State University in the State to their west. Then there is a line branching southwest towards their capitol city, and another going straight south, which later branches southeast towards Southport, crossing the Big River on bridges owned by OBT Rail & Shipping, and another line that goes southwest and on out of the Region. We need to watch the railroads as well as the highways and possibly air traffic."

"The question I would have about that," said MG Just, "is how they'd be able to transfer the weapon, which requires at the very least a heavy-duty forklift to move it and it's cradle, to a train? The railroads are a closed system; one can't just put a railcar on the tracks, and of course it would be noticed if someone was trying to load a nuclear weapon onto a train in the rail yard."

"I don't know." I said. "But the Hammondsville Railyards is one place I'd start asking questions, to see if anyone saw anything."

"General," said Major Mark Martin, standing up, "As you know, I'm Major Martin with the Signal Corps. The railroads closely monitor their trains via sensors in the tracks, radio, and all trains are monitored by satellite. If they attempted to use a train to get the weapon out of the area, we should be able to find some trace of that."

"Yes, let's check up on that." said McFarland. "And doesn't the weapon itself have tracking devices on it? Let's monitor the roads and see if we pick up something."

"We're already on that, sir." said Major Wedbush. "The weapon itself does have homing devices, but we've been unable to pick up those signals, so far. We're not sure how they're blocking the signal."

"Same way they blocked the signals to the followup car and then the truck." I said. "They're jamming the frequencies, and shielding the device from being picked up by satellite or on the ground."

"But... " said MG Just, "but that would generate its own ELINT signature, and we'd have picked up on it."

"No sir, you might not." said Major Martin. "It would take too long to discuss here, and it's 'need-to-know', as well, but if they knew the frequencies being used, they could set up harmonics to interfere with the signals that would not be picked up unless our detectors were specifically looking for those harmonic frequencies. Also, if they were anywhere near the Hammondsville Railyards, the large amount of radio waves and microwaves there could create interferences that could cause our satellites to lose the specific signal."

"I'm still not seeing how they could get the device onto a train." said MG Just.

"That's where Jerry Barsbane would come in." I said. "He's a transportation expert... of stolen goods and contraband. He once had associations with OBT Rail & Shipping, and Orrin B. Taggart of OBT Rail & Shipping is the Mob Boss of Bosses in Southport. I'd bet that if anyone knows the train systems, their communications and radio frequencies... it'd be Barsbane."

"If he's the one behind this." said Just. "And if he's such an expert, he could just as easily be using his skills to transport the weapon by another truck."

"Either way," said General McFarland, "Commander Troy, where do you think they're taking the weapon? The University? The City? Southport?"

"As Sherlock Holmes would say, General," I said, "no data yet. And the first piece of data to find out is... which way did they go------"

The redheaded Second Lieutenant had returned to the room. "General," he reported, "Press vans are converging on Valley Villages. We've got the road from the highway cut off, but they're demanding to be let through, and they're also calling the Federal Buildings in the City, the Town & County, and in Washington D.C."

"The God-damn Press." said the General. "Okay, keep them out of Valley Villages. General Just, get some choppers in here to take us out of here and to our command locations. And get the vehicle convoys ready to take everyone back to their homes. Cars will all leave at the same time, and arrange it so they alternate one turning left and one turning right. Any Press tries to follow anyone in particular, pull 'em over and arrest 'em."

A man after my own heart, I thought to myself. At least regarding the Press...

Part 5 - Business At Home

Darkness had enveloped the land by the time we left the Valley Villages Hotel in our Escalades. In addition to me and Laura, Teresa and Joanne were in our vehicle, and Chief Moynahan was riding shotgun up front.

As we drove home, I said to Laura "So you know General McFarland?"

"Why don't we talk about that later." Laura said. I just nodded.