Wildfire (43 page)

The man in the front passenger seat removed his sunglasses, stuck them in his shirt pocket, and sighed to himself. Then he stepped out of the covered jeep and walked across the rough tarmac toward the waiting plane.

"A1 Grynard?" he asked as he stopped in front of the waiting agent.

"That's right."

"Hal Owens. Welcome to the Bahamas." The two men shook hands. Owens was about five-ten, balding, heavyset, thick in the shoulders and arms, and looked to be in his early fifties. As Reggie Blackburn had said, one of the FBI's old-timers. Grynard interpreted the firm handshake as saying, "Welcome, but I sincerely hope—for both our sakes—that you're not here to cause me grief or screw up my operation."

"I understand you're the SAC out here?" Grynard said as he turned back to help Theresa Fletcher down the jet's short drop-down ramp, and then take their two carry-on bags from the copilot. He put the bags on the tarmac and looked back up at Owens.

"That's right," the supervisory field agent acknowledged in a neutral voice.

"Appreciate your taking time out to meet with us on this deal." Grynard nodded. "This is Deputy U.S. Attorney Theresa Fletcher. She's been handling our initial prosecutions in this case."

"Ms. Fletcher." Owens extended his hand in a similar but much less forceful greeting.

"Theresa will do just fine," the federal prosecutor said, offering one of her more beaming smiles as she clasped the agent's hairy and muscular hand in both of her own. "I'm sorry we had to drop in on you like this with so little notice."

"Not a problem, ma'am. I'm happy to do it," the supervisory field agent said, finding himself warming to the amiable prosecuting attorney in spite of his instinctive wariness. In Hal Owens' thirty-two years of experience as an FBI agent, surprise visits from the Washington office that included a U.S. attorney almost never worked out to the benefit of the supervising agent involved.

Then the significance of Grynard's statement registered. Blinking his eyes in confusion, Owens turned back to his visitor with a puzzled expression on his deeply tanned and crinkled face.

"Did you say 'case'?"

"That's right." Grynard nodded. "I'm the SAC out of Anchorage, in charge of a special task force investigating the murders of three federal wildlife agents on a covert assignment. Not internal affairs."

"But Blackburn—"

"I know." Grynard nodded. "And I apologize. I was the one who asked Reggie to set things up like that, to make it look that way."

"Mind if I ask why," Owens asked, his practiced neutral voice now tinged with irritation, if not outright anger.

"Did you guys get the word on those two boats: the
Sea Amber
and the
Lone Granger?"
Grynard asked, ignoring the question for the moment.

"Be alert to the presence of a three-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar sailboat and a multimillion-dollar yacht? Observe and monitor, but do not approach? Oh, yeah, we got the word all right," Owens replied sarcastically.

"Your agents give them plenty of room?"

"Like they were the original plague ships."

"Let me guess," Grynard said. "Because you and your agents figured they were part of some kind of internal affairs honey trap? Checking to see if you guys might have been out here too long? Starting to get susceptible to easy money, drugs, women, something like that?"

Special Agent in Charge Hal Owens started to say something, saw Grynard's slight smile, and then shook his head in sudden understanding.

"Jesus, Grynard, couldn't you have just picked up a goddamned phone and
told
me that this was some kind of sensitive operation?" the supervisory agent demanded.

"Yeah, I could have," Grynard acknowledged, "but the thing is, I've got five federal wildlife agents floating around out here somewhere in that goddamned yacht, and I think they tripped over something pretty damned serious. Something that's liable to get them killed too, if I screw this thing up."

"Wildlife
agents?"

"Let me put it this way," Grynard said. "Right now, I'm looking at an eighty-million-dollar terrorist training facility built right under our noses in Yellowstone National Park; ten dead international terrorists who were planning on taking out a bunch of environmental activist groups for some reason that I haven't completely figured out yet; two high-up Department of Interior co-conspirators who got blown away before they could talk; some commando freak with a four-bore rifle who kills four deputy U.S. marshalls so he can break a homicidal Cajun poacher out of a transport van; and then, the same day, takes out one of the surviving terrorists, three members of the bar, and four bodyguards in a safe house in Warrenton, just so he can run off with a GSG-9 trained counter-terrorist; not to mention a warehouse in Boston—a wildlife sting operation, mind you—that's going to have to be put back together with broom and dustpan."

"Woodson," Owens said, nodding to himself.

"What?"

"Stanley Woodson, former-FBI agent. One of the four bodyguards they found at the Warrenton scene," the supervisory field agent explained.

"You knew him?"

"Oh, yeah, I knew old Stanley, all right. Woodson and Whittman and I graduated out of the same Academy class. Jim sent me a fax a couple of hours ago." There was a sad, distant tone to his voice.

"Sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, me too." Owens nodded morosely. But then he shook his head and seemed to refocus his attention on the reason that he'd driven down to the airport personally instead of sending one of his agents. "So what's all this have to do with you and me and a bunch of wildlife agents?"

"As best I can tell, this whole situation, the escaped prisoners, the guy with the four-bore, and whoever's behind him, are all focused on one thing: five federal wildlife agents who—as of about three hours ago—were heading this way in a three-million-dollar yacht named the
Lone Granger."

"Christ!" Owens whispered.

"And there's one more thing," Grynard said. "For the last three months those wildlife agents have been trying to find a lead to the boy-friend of one of those DOI conspirators who helped blow away their three buddies. A guy who turns out to be one of our major industrialists."

"Alfred Bloom, the guy in the sailboat?"

"That's right."

Owens thought about that for a moment.

'You think he's doing all this by himself?"

"He could be, but from the scope of the operation—just the resources that went into that training facility alone—I'd say we're probably looking at two or three co-conspirators at a minimum. Maybe more."

"Any good suspects?"

"For starters, any major industrialist or developer who wouldn't mind seeing some of the environmental activist groups take a nosedive into an empty pool."

"That's a pretty long list."

"Yeah, tell me about it."

"And every one of them connected like a telephone switchboard. Congressmen, senators, governors, heads of state," Owens added knowingly. Then he turned his head and looked back at the small San Salvador airport terminal. "Customs officials too, most likely."

"That's part of the problem."

Hal Owens stared down at his dirty tennis shoes, deep in thought, for almost a full minute. Then he looked up at Grynard, his eyes filled with understanding.

"So it really
is
a honey trap after all."

"In a manner of speaking."

"Except that what you're
really
doing is trolling for a bunch of rogue alligators, and those five agents are the bait."

"That's right," Grynard said in a soft voice. "Which is why I need your help. I've got thirty-two agents assigned to my task force, but this all broke loose in the past twenty-four hours. We're still trying to get them reassembled and sent down here. But trying to move thirty-two agents and a support staff into position down here this fast—"

"It wouldn't take long for somebody to figure that you're up to something." Owens nodded. "Right."

"So what do you need?"

"Your team. Every agent you've got. Maintaining their positions on a twenty-four-hour standby. Nothing out of the ordinary, just ready to go."

"You've got them," Owens said. And then after a moment: "You got a deputy for this task force of yours?"

"No."

"You do now."

Grynard nodded in a gesture of unspoken appreciation.

"So what about these wildlife agents?" Owens asked. "Do they know they're the bait?"

"No, I don't think so," Grynard replied, a grim expression appearing on his tired face.

"You going to tell them?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Grynard took in a deep breath and then let it out. "Because if we do, it's likely that they'll react to that information in some manner that will alert the people involved and cause them to break away and go to ground, where we'll never find them. I don't want that to happen. And," he added, "it's my impression that the wildlife agents don't want that to happen either. That's why they're down here."

Owens turned to Theresa Fletcher.

"Mind if I ask how the U.S. Attorney's office feels about that?"

"Would you like the official opinion?"

"Sure, why not."

"Officially, the U.S. Attorney's office has complete faith in the ability of the FBI to conduct their investigations and bring violators to justice without putting innocent civilians or any other law enforcement officers at unnecessary risk."

"Ah," Owens said noncommittally. "And the unofficial opinion?"

"Agent Owens, over the past few months, I've managed to become very fond of those wildlife agents," the prosecuting attorney said, a steely expression appearing in her dark eyes. "If any of them
do
come to harm, I fully intend to bring the responsible individuals to justice, even if I have to do it with my bare hands."

The self-appointed deputy to A1 Grynard's newly acquired task force nodded in apparent satisfaction.

"In that case, ma'am, I think you and I are going to get along just fine."

Reaching down, Hal Owens picked up the two carry-on bags and then stared at Grynard.

"What do you say, Al? Ready to go meet your new team?"

"You don't have to do that, you know," Grynard said seriously as they all started walking toward the jeep.

"What's that?"

"Turn your task force over to me. They're your agents. I'm perfectly willing to go along as an adviser. Supplemental case, however you want to handle it."

Hal Owens stopped in his tracks.

"Al," he said, a gentle smile crossing his tanned and weathered face, "let me explain something to you. About thirty years ago some bureaucratic old fart of a training officer sat Stanley, Jim, and me down in a room and explained to us how every well-planned FBI raid has a command post and a team leader who mans that post until every suspect is in custody and every agent is accounted for. 'There's the wrong way to do something, and then there's the FBI way,' is, I think, the way he put it."

"Yeah, sure, but. . ."

"So the thing is, Al," Owens went on, the expression in his eyes changing from gentle amusement to something that wasn't gentle or amusing at all, "when that guy with that four-bore—the guy who nailed my old buddy Stanley and all those other folks—pops his head up around here, gunning for those wildlife agents, and Bloom and all his little cockroach buddies start scurrying around looking for some place to hide,
you're
going to be the one doing things the FBI way: manning that command center until everybody's accounted for.

"And while you're doing that, Jim Whittman and I, and maybe even Ms. Fletcher here"—Owens smiled warmly at Theresa Fletcher—"we're going to be the ones kicking the goddamned doors."

Chapter Twenty-seven

It was the first time in nine long months that the ICER Committee had dared to meet—the first time since the deaths of Lisa Abercombie and Dr. Reston Wolfe and the downfall of Operation Counter Wrench had sent these wealthy and powerful conspirators scrambling for their private sanctuaries.

But even now, out of a fear that bordered on paranoia, they could only agree to meet on a Saturday evening at Harold Tisbury's Cat Island villa—a remote site on the toe end of a bootlike strip of land widely considered by the local inhabitants to be possessed by an uneasy gathering of mismatched Christian and Obeah spirits—as if the weekend, and the superstitions and the distant offshore location might somehow shield them from the terrifying specter of plodding bureaucrats and self- righteous zealots who tirelessly sought their total destruction.

Incredibly and ironically, for these were men of immense power, influence, and self-confidence, the self-imposed isolation of the ICER Committee had caused them to fall prey to that one element of human nature which seemed to have no known antidote or remedy:

The overwhelming nature of their greed had finally, and inevitably, overcome their fear of the unknown.

As planned, Sam Tisbury was the last to arrive. But he did not arrive as planned.

Whether it was the certain knowledge that his father had been monitoring his movements with private detectives, or the simple—and understandable—belief than
none
of his fellow conspirators could be completely trusted, a sudden sense of intuition had caused Sam Tisbury to change his travel plans at the last minute.

Instead of taking his reserved commercial flight from Nassau's Oak Field airport to the Hawk's Nest Creek airstrip at the southern end of Cat Island, Sam Tisbury hesitated, considered some unpleasant possibilities, and then withdrew his pilot's license and his American Express card from his wallet.

It didn't take the owner and chief pilot of the small Air Shuttle Service long to decide that the offered fee of ten times his normal rate for a round-trip flight to Cat Island, plus a signed and verified insurance transfer on the plane, plus a five-hundred-dollar tip under the table for his trouble, represented a more than fair rental rate for a five-year-old twin prop that was long overdue for a scheduled overhaul.

Sam Tisbury's twin prop piloting skills were rusty—mostly because most of his flying the last couple of years had been limited to copiloting one of the corporation's Lear jets—and he found himself caught up in the adrenaline-rich sensation of being at risk again, so he ended up taking a low-level sight-seeing course along the eastern shore of Eleuthera Island that extended what would have normally been a one-hour flight into almost two. Thus it was nearly five-thirty in the evening by the time he touched down at the small airstrip at Fernandez Bay, which was located just above ankle level on the Cat Island boot.