Wildfire (26 page)

Grynard noticed that the AD had developed a pained look on his face.

"Another thing to think about," the FBI special ops section chief added, "there's no way that Wolfe and Abercombie could have put together a team of counterterrorist types like Maas, Saltmann, and Asai without help. Which means you're talking international connections too, with possible ties to the individual national security agencies."

"Christ!" The AD shook his head.

"What's the background on those three?" the violent crimes section chief asked.

"Maas was a GSG-9 team leader in the
Bundesgrenzschutz,
the West German Federal Border Police," the special ops section chief began, and then paused when the LIA inspector raised his hand. "What's GSG-9?"

"Basically the German equivalent of our Delta Team units," the special ops chief said. "Maas specialized in hostage situations. The unit commander describes him as one of the most lethal individuals he's ever seen in terms of tactics, aggression, technical skills, and physical reaction time. They bounced him when they discovered he was starting to take chances to get a clear kill shot. Exposing himself and his team to unnecessary risk was the way the commander put it."

"Meaning?"

"Maas had apparently developed a taste for the adrenaline thrill of coming face-to-face with imminent death. According to his commander, the closer he got to the edge, the better he liked it."

"Jesus!" the LIA inspector whispered.

"But at the same time he was effective," the special ops section chief went on. "Fourteen kills, all head shots, no officers or hostages injured . . . other than the psychological effects of having to wipe blood and brain tissue off their faces afterward."

"What the hell was wrong with that?" the violent crimes section chief asked.

"Not a whole lot as far as his unit commander was concerned. Apparently the political types decided that they wanted a somewhat less violent public image for their national headhunters. I understand that the next time a GSG-9 team was used, a couple of months after Maas picked up his retirement check and started working free-lance, they lost two hostages. One of them to friendly fire," the special ops section chief added.

"So much for public image," the AD snorted. "So what about Saltmann and Asai?"

"Saltmann was Secret Service, Presidential Protection Teams. His last two evaluations noted a progressive disregard for established operational procedures and minor—but increasingly frequent—acts of insubordination toward his supervisors. He was gone when an updated background check revealed an excessive amount of debt and questionable business dealings.

"Asai," the special ops section chief went on, "is simply an enigma. We have nothing on him locally, and our Japanese counterparts have been less than forthcoming."

"Doesn't matter in any case." The violent crimes section chief shrugged. "The man's dead. And so are Saltmann, Wolfe, Abercombie, and eight other members of their so-called counterterrorist team. The only survivors are Maas and one of Saltmann's men, an ex-Marine named Roy Parker. And so far, neither one of them is showing any inclination to talk."

"I wouldn't either if somebody was paying Little, Warren, Nobles & Kole to defend my ass," the AD growled. "What do we know about that?"

"Not a damn thing." ASAC A1 Grynard shrugged. "Other than the fact that Maas, Parker, and Chareaux are all apparently flying free on the same ticket. And to make matters worse, they've got Jason Bascomb III as the lead attorney."

"That bastard again?"

"Somebody wants those three held real tight to the chest," the LIA inspector commented.

"Sounds like it." The AD nodded.

"Oh, by the way," Grynard said, "Bascomb got Maas and Parker out on bail."

"What!"

"One point five million on Maas, two hundred and fifty thousand for Parker."

"How the hell did he do that?" the AD demanded.

"Bascomb pointed out that Maas is crippled and confined to a wheelchair, and Parker just traded in his chair for a pair of crutches, which meant that neither of them was likely to run too far. That and the fact that neither of them has been directly linked to the deaths of the three federal wildlife agents."

"The judge went for that?"

"Apparently." Grynard nodded. "The bond was paid in cash three hours later."

"That makes about as much sense as anything else in this damn case," the AD grumbled.

"What about Chareaux?" the white-collar crimes section chief asked.

"The Louisiana Fish and Game Department filed a deposition with the court that basically said if Chareaux walked out of that courtroom a free man, they'd re-arrest him on the
spot...
if they didn't shoot him on the courthouse steps first. That was on top of the fact that when the judge asked Chareaux how he pled, Chareaux called him something unpleasant in a Cajun dialect, and then followed up with a fairly graphic translation."

"No bail, I take it?"

"No bail."

"What's the story on this Chareaux character?" the AD demanded. "I thought he was a completely separate issue." He gestured at the open files on the conference table.

"That's one of the interesting parts," Grynard said. "Alex Chareaux is the surviving member of a three-brother illegal guiding outfit that Wolfe used to go out poaching on the side. As far as we know, he has no connection whatever to Operation Counter Wrench other than acting as a guide for Wolfe. Right now our best guess is that Maas executed one of Chareaux's younger brothers in the process of rigging the scene on the McNulty killing. And Saltmann killed the other one when he blew up that barn trying to nail those wildlife agents."

"Can we prove that?"

"What, the McNulty killing? No, we can't. We can't even figure out why he and Maas should be cooperating as codefendants. Or, for that matter, why somebody with big bucks is footing the bill. It doesn't make any sense at all."

"Presumably nobody on the defense team has gotten around to telling Chareaux how his brothers died." The AD shrugged. "What's he like?"

"An absolute freak. Louisiana Fish and Game wants to prosecute him for the torture killing of two of their wardens once we're finished with him. Guy's a genuine, deep swamp Cajun boy. Deadly shot, expert knife fighter. Has a thing about going after the femoral arteries and then hanging around to watch them die."

"Which is probably why nobody's told him about Maas and his brother." The violent-crimes section chief smiled. "Louisiana have a good case?"

"No, apparently not. But they don't seem to care. They just want him back in their custody."

"I see." The AD nodded. "So who's the U.S. Attorney on the case?"

"Theresa Fletcher."

"Good, she's first-rate. A real fighter," the AD said, seemingly relieved to hear a piece of good news for a change. "What's her read on the situation?"

"She and Henry Lightstone, the primary Fish and Wildlife Service agent on the case, have been trying to twist Maas or Parker into changing sides. So far, no go, although she thinks Parker might be starting to weaken just a little bit."

"What about Chareaux? If they're codefendants, he might have picked something up that he could use to trade."

"I don't think so," Grynard said. "Not with Bascomb in there running interference. And even if he does know something, it's not likely that he'd talk. According to Fletcher, Chareaux is still convinced that Lightstone killed both of his brothers. The judge has six bailiffs in the courtroom, and they've got Chareaux shackled to a chair, but they still expect him to go after Lightstone sometime during the discovery hearing or the trial."

The AD braced his forehead against his interlocked fingers and sighed heavily. He was well aware that the timing of this particular situation could not have been worse. The federal government was in a period of transition. A new administration was coming in; but a goodly portion of the old administration was still in place, not even counting the ones that had been planted deep into the civil service ranks. It was a time when careers were made or broken. And a time when a surge of bad publicity could result in wholesale change, especially at the assistant director level.

And then too, the AD reminded himself, if there really
was
another level to the Operation Counter Wrench conspiracy, then that level was almost certainly going to be comprised of wealthy and influential businessmen who, in turn, almost certainly made substantial contributions to both political parties. All of which was going to result in some serious oversight hearings if Grynard and his team of agents lived up to their reputation as aggressive and tenacious investigators.

For a brief moment, the AD let his mind drift back to his own field career, during the Hoover era, when he had been a young and aggressive agent like Grynard. Fortunately, as it turned out, he and his wife had been one of the few couples in the bureau who considered Butte, Montana, to be a desirable duty station. It occurred to the AD to wonder if there might be an open slot out there for a grouchy old agent who still had a couple of years to go before mandatory retirement.

"This is going to turn into a goddamned circus," he growled as he brought his head up and looked around the table to see if anyone cared to argue the point. Nobody did. Then he returned his attention to Grynard.

"Okay, Al, where do we go from here?"

"Two good possibilities," the assistant special agent in charge said in his characteristically calm and understated voice. "First of all, we may have a lead on an outside connection to Abercombie."

The AD's eyebrows came up.

"To the industrial community?"

"That's right."

"Is it solid?"

"No, not yet. But it looks promising."

"And the second?"

"Henry Lightstone."

"The Fish and Wildlife Service agent?"

Grynard nodded. "Right now, Lightstone seems to be the only obvious common denominator between Chareaux and Operation Counter Wrench."

"Yes, so?"

"When Lightstone and his fellow covert agents went after the Chareaux brothers for their guiding activities, Wolfe and Abercombie apparently decided that they were getting close to discovering Operation Counter Wrench and panicked. They tried to block the investigation. And when that didn't work, they arranged to get the covert team disbanded and the agents reassigned to separate duty stations. Then they turned Maas and his counter-terrorists loose on the individual agents. Special Agent in Charge Paul McNulty, ASAC Carl Scoby, and Agent/Pilot Len Ruebottom were killed."

The AD nodded to indicate that he had read the summary.

"In spite of their access to Fish and Wildlife Service personnel records, and for reasons that still aren't entirely clear to us, Maas and his team weren't aware until the very end that Lightstone was a member of the covert team. That put him in a position to realize what was going on without being a primary target."

"Yes, so?" the AD said impatiently.

"I have reason to believe that, in spite of orders to the contrary," Grynard said, "Lightstone and his fellow agents are continuing to search for a lead to the people ultimately responsible for the deaths of McNulty, Scoby, and Ruebottom. And if that is the case and they do manage to find a lead, then there's every reason to believe that those people might react or even panic."

"And as a result, go after the wildlife agents . . . again?"

The AD had his cold eyes fixed on Grynard.

"Yes, that's right."

The AD allowed his gaze to drift past Grynard as he considered the implications of the ASAC's answer.

"Do you fully realize what you may be setting into motion?" the AD finally asked the supervisory field agent.

"I think so," Grynard nodded. "Although, in fact, it may be more a case of our simply standing back, keeping an eye on things, and allowing a portion of it to happen."

The AD hesitated for another long moment.

"Tell me about this Lightstone."

"In my view," Grynard said, "Henry Lightstone is an extremely capable, aggressive, and innovative federal agent. I wouldn't necessarily recommend him for employment in the bureau, but he did work an Alaskan outlaw motorcycle gang
and
the Chareaux brothers at a covert level, on his own, without any backup whatever."

"So what does that make him, a fool?"

"Possibly. Or perhaps just reckless." Grynard shrugged. "But in any event, he was also directly responsible for the deaths of at least two of the counter-terrorist team members, as well as the injuries to several of the others, including Parker, Maas, and Chareaux. I also understand that he fought one of the Japanese counter-terrorists, a fourth-degree black belt, to a draw before one of the other wildlife agents — Paxton, as I recall—killed the man. I figure, if nothing else, that makes him a survivor."

"Wasn't Lightstone initially your primary suspect in the McNulty killing up there in Anchorage?" the violent-crimes section chief asked.

Grynard hesitated, then said, "Yes, he was."

"Yet one of your summary reports indicates that there was a close relationship between Lightstone, McNulty, and McNulty's wife," the violent-crimes chief pointed out.

Grynard took in a deep, steadying breath, then said: "In retrospect, Agent Henry Lightstone turns out to be a very aggressive, innovative, and protective law enforcement officer. He is also a risk taker who seems to have very little regard for the rules of the game. When he discovered that his SAC and ASAC—McNulty and Scoby—had been killed, he was clearly determined to protect the other members of his covert team. He viewed me as an obstruction to that objective. And because of some other extenuating circumstances, I viewed his evasive actions as an indication of guilt. I was wrong."

The AD seemed to view Grynard's admission as a rather startling event.

"Have you considered the possibility that Lightstone might be motivated by a desire to avenge the deaths of his three fellow agents, which just might cause him to ignore the rules once again, and thereby leave the Fish and Wildlife Service, not to mention the bureau, standing in a pile of shit?" he asked after a significant pause.