William Bernhardt - Capitol Offense

“Have I told you about the foundation?” Dennis asked eagerly. “Whatever we get from the state, I’m putting into the Joslyn Thomas Foundation. To help those with medical difficulties who can’t get proper care. It’s not right that people have to endanger their health because they can’t afford to pay for it. It’s not right that children go uninsured through no fault of their own. Let’s face it-if Officer Shaw’s sister had been able to afford treatment, this whole mess might never have happened. So I’m going to try to make sure it never happens again.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I’m a better person now, Ben. Much better than I was before. It took a tragedy to get my life in order. But sometimes I think that’s why tragedies happen. We need something dramatic to shake us by the shoulders.” He smiled. “So we can outwit the stars.”

He leaned forward, gripping Ben’s wrist tightly. “We all can.”

He stood up and clapped his hands together. “Well, I suspect you’ve had about enough of me for one lifetime. I’m going to get out of here. So you can move on and obsess over something else.”

His eyes twinkled a bit. He walked toward the door, and just before he left, added, “Thank you, Ben. For giving me my life back. And making it better.”

He left the office. But even halfway down the hallway, Ben was able to hear him shout, “Now read the book!”

Ben blew air through his teeth. Honestly. He supposed it was sweet, in a way. So many people wanting to help him. As if he needed it. The only thing he needed right now was a little time off. Although he saw from the message on his desk that Jones had a potential new client for him. She had no money and the evidence was totally stacked against her, but she seemed sincere and her trial was scheduled to start in less than a week-

He looked up. What was it Dennis had said?

Slowly, almost grudgingly, he flipped open the pages of the big blue book.

“… the soul is ever-free; it is deathless because birthless; it cannot be regimented by stars…”

The man standing in the shadows checked his watch for the third time in a minute. He hated this. He did not like doing it. At least, he did not like doing it himself. That was why he used others, a carefully chosen chain of well-paid associates who could get the job done with virtually no trail leading back to him. Nothing that could flow back. Except the money.

That was the way he liked it. But now that everyone with whom he associated had been either killed or arrested, he was hard-pressed to get the job done. Dr. Sentz had made one last withdrawal after he sent Officer Shaw on his merry way. And now that Sentz and Shaw had been arrested and the leaks from the hot lab at St. Benedict’s had been discovered, there were likely to be no more. He needed to get rid of this stuff as profitably as possible.

Who would’ve imagined he would end up doing this? He had barely paid attention to high school chemistry. When he was first approached by those in the black market, he had no idea substances of such value existed anywhere in Tulsa, much less at a medical facility. It had been time for his real education, the kind you don’t get at Will Rogers High School. Learned cesium was first discovered in 1860 in mineral water in Germany, the first element detected by spectrum analysis based upon the distinctive bright blue lines. An alkali metal, found naturally occurring all over the world, most especially at Bernic Lake in Manitoba. And he learned how useful it could be as a hydrology measure, an ion engine propellant, a hydrogenation catalyst, in magnetometers, in organic chemistry, as an oxidizer to burn silicon in infrared flares.

And oh yes. You could make bombs with it. Dirty bombs. Bombs capable of causing great destruction and also spreading radiation over a wide area. The former attorney general John Ashcroft had raised the alarm. This could be the means of the next terrorist attack on the United States, he had said. I mean, we all know it’s coming, right? We just don’t know when and how.

If he had been better educated, he might not have been so surprised when the dark men first came to his office.

A relationship was forged from mutual interest and need. He needed cash. They had lots. They needed cesium. He knew everyone.

How much did they have now? He couldn’t be certain, but it was no small amount. He knew they were using a great deal for testing. But how long could it be until they were ready to use it in a more productive manner?

The Chechen separatists had been the first to make the attempt. Two times they tried to plant dirty bombs. The first ever attempt at radiological terror was in 1995 with a canister of cesium-137 wrapped with explosives in Izmaylovsky Park in Moscow. The second came two years later. The bomb was found near a railway line not far from the Chechen capital, Grozny. KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko was killed by exposure to polonium-210.

People had been stealing radioactive materials ever since that first time in Brazil, then elsewhere all across the globe. So long as these materials were processed, for medicine, for nuclear power, for weapons, for anything at all, there would be terrorists trying to steal them. And inevitably some would be successful. So he really had done nothing, he told himself, nothing that would not have happened anyway. The only question was who would profit. Why not him? He would use it a good deal more purposefully than most of the people in the black market arena.

He saw headlights flicker down the long desert trail. Saints be praised. He had been out here ruminating long enough. Let’s get this thing done.

They pulled up in a blue van, a Town and Country, if he was not mistaken. Tinted windows, dark. So clichéd.

The man who stepped out was not smiling. He was rough and angry and obviously in a hurry. Presumably that was his way of dealing with nervousness-to mask it under a veneer of arrogance and presumed macho toughness. It reminded him of nothing so much as the police officers he dealt with so often. Ironic, given what this man was doing.

“Do you have it?” the man asked brusquely. He spoke with a thick accent. Talk about another cliché. Was it wrong for him to wish there was no Middle Eastern origin? Why couldn’t he get a nice white backwoods bully determined to bring down the federal government by blowing up innocent citizens?

“I have it. Do you have my money?”

The man opened a steel-shell briefcase. It was all there, all in cash, all in small unmarked bills. More than enough to take care of his immediate needs.

“I’ll get the pig.”

He walked to the back of his truck and wheeled out the small covered bucket. He would not be sorry to get rid of that. He had been keeping it far too long. The cesium was supposedly safe so long as it stayed in the bucket-safe from contamination and safe from being detected by law enforcement officials with spectrometers. But it still creeped him out. Made him wonder if he should be sleeping in a hazmat suit.

“Still active?” the other man asked.

“I’m no scientist. But I’m sure it is.”

“And no one knows? We have heard what happened in Tulsa.”

“Dr. Sentz may have been an idiot, but at least he had the sense to realize that he couldn’t keep making little withdrawals forever without eventually being noticed. He took everything he could get the last time, then only sent as much as you asked for with Shaw. This is what’s left.”

“We are concerned that the police will find us.”

“No chance. Shaw knew nothing about you.”

“But if they investigate-”

“They will find nothing. Trust me. I’ve been watching the investigation very carefully.”

“And if they find you?”