W Griffin - Hunters

"Jesus Christ!" Special Agent Davis exclaimed.

"And you're taking this seriously?" Swanson asked, his tone serious. "It sounds incredible."

"Yes, it does," Britton said. "And that's what Chief Inspector Dutch Kramer decided when he heard it. First of all, it came from Fillmore, who slides back and forth between making sense and babbling, and is indeed incredible on its face value. Kramer didn't even tell the FBI. But when I told Charley, both he and McGuire, and I suppose Isaacson, too, decided I should look into it. That's when you got involved."

"You mean Joel knew this and didn't tell me?" Swanson asked, indignantly. "All I got was some bullshit about starting a 'highest priority round-the-clock surveillance' of these lunatics, the reason for which I would learn in due time."

"You weren't cleared for that information," Castillo said, reasonably.

"I've got a couple of security clearances," Swanson said. "Three or four of them with names. And Joel knows that."

"Joel couldn't tell you," Castillo said. "Only two people can decide who has the Need to Know."

The reply didn't seem to surprise Swanson. He nodded and asked, "The director of National Intelligence and the secretary of Homeland Security?"

Castillo shook his head. "The President and me."

"Only you and the President? That's impressive, Colonel," Swanson said. "Can I interpret that to mean somebody really high up thinks this threat is credible?"

"Ambassador Montvale thinks it's credible. And as soon as I have a look at this place, Jack, we're going to Washington. He wants to see you personally."

"Oh, shit," Britton said.

"Which reminds me," Castillo said. He pointed to a radio mounted under the Yukon's dashboard. "Is that tied into the Secret Service's communications system? I mean in Washington?"

Swanson nodded.

"I'd like to get word to Montvale that I'm here, and that I'm coming to Washington-with Britton-as soon as we're through here. ETA to come later."

Swanson nodded and pressed his finger to his lapel.

"Cheesesteak here," he said. "Is this thing working?"

The response came immediately: "Loud and clear."

"Get word to Big Eye that Don Juan is with me and will be coming to see him-with English-later today. ETA to follow. Acknowledge delivery."

"Got it. Will do."

Swanson turned to Castillo and said, "Done."

"Thanks," Castillo said. "Although I feel like I've just made an appointment with my dentist."

Swanson smiled, then asked, "You think this threat is credible, Colonel?"

"No," Castillo said. "I've been talking to some people who know about bombs like this and know about the Russians and they don't think so, and if I had to bet, I'd go with them."

"Why?" Swanson asked, simply. "There's supposed to be a hundred of these briefcase-sized nukes hidden around the country. There was even some KGB defector who testified before Congress that he'd scouted places to hide them."

"The defector's name was Colonel Pyotr Sunev," Castillo said. "And after the CIA set up a new identity for him as a professor at Grinnell College, he disappeared one day, then turned up in Europe, once again in the KGB."

"Disinformation?" Swanson asked.

Castillo nodded.

"And a lot of egg on the CIA's face?"

Castillo nodded again.

"And from everything I've learned about these bombs," Castillo said, "which I admit isn't much, they're the size of a suitcase, not a briefcase. And the firing mechanisms are coded. I can't imagine the Russians giving a bomb, much less that code, to a bunch of lunatics."

"What about our friends in the Muslim world?"

"I think if they had a bomb, and the code to detonate it, they would have already used it. The Russians have their own trouble with the Muslims. I just can't see them handing a nuke to any of them; they'd be liable to set it off in Moscow."

"So what's going on with these nuts in Durham?"

"I wish I knew. The first thing I'd like to know is where they got the money to buy the farm in the first place. Jack tells me the Aari-Teg mosque had trouble paying their rent."

"They paid for it with a cashier's check for $1,550,000 drawn against the account of the Aari-Teg mosque, Clyde J. Matthews, Financial Officer, in the Merchants National Bank of Easton, Colonel," Special Agent Harry Larsen said.

"Clyde, aka Abdul Khatami, is one great big mean sonofabitch," Britton added. "He's the head mullah of the Aari-Teg mosque. Before he found Muhammad, ol' Clyde was in and out of the slam from the time he was fifteen. Mostly drugs, but some heavier stuff, too-armed robbery, attempted murder, etcetera. He was doing five-to-ten in a federal slam-for cashing Social Security checks that weren't his-when he was converted to Islam."

"Mr. Matthews's account was opened six weeks before with six hundred in cash," Larsen went on. "It was essentially dormant-two small checks to pay for gas, signed by Matthews, but the payee-same one, a gas station in Riegelsville-amounts and dates filled in by somebody else…"

"I think one might describe Mr. Matthews as being some what literacy handicapped," Britton interrupted, in an effeminate voice, causing the others to chuckle.

"…until two days before the cashier's check for the farm was drawn," Larsen went on. "There had been a wire deposit of $1,950,000 from a numbered account in the Caledonian Bank and Trust Limited in the Cayman Islands." He paused and looked at Castillo. "I don't know if you know this or not, Colonel, but the Cayman Islands have stricter banking secrecy laws than Switzerland."

"I did. Not because I'm smart, but because Special Agent Yung told me. He's our resident expert in foreign banking and dirty money."

"Our reluctant expert," Britton said.

"He's seen the light, Jack," Castillo said.

"Did he see it before or after they popped him?"

"So," Larsen went on, a touch of impatience in his voice, "our chances of finding out who owns that account are practically nonexistent. On the day the check to pay for the farm was issued, there was a second cashier's check, for $59,805.42, payable to Fred Beans Cadillac Buick Pontiac GMC. Inc., 835 North Easton Road in Doylestown, as payment in full for a Cadillac Escalade, a white one." "Well, I've always said," Britton said, in his effeminate voice, "if you don't want to attract attention, get a white Cadillac Escalade."

Even Larsen laughed.

"Is this guy intellectually challenged, Jack?" Larsen asked.

"He's street smart, with a five-year postgraduate course in crime at Lewisburg behind him. He's ignorant but not stupid. Dangerous."

"And Matthews withdrew ten thousand dollars in cash," Larsen said.

"I don't know anything about this sort of thing," Castillo said. "Doesn't the IRS get involved in this some how?"

"Believe it or not, Colonel, there are a few nice IRS agents. I got most of what I have from one of them who's a friend of mine."

"Can he keep his mouth shut?" Castillo asked.

Larsen nodded. "They get notified whenever there's a cash transaction of ten thousand or better. When Matthews took the ten thousand in cash, that gave my guy the in to go into the bank records.

"When I asked him if I suddenly had a deposit of nearly two million from an offshore bank, wouldn't I have to answer some questions? He said I would. But I'm not a mosque. The Aari-Teg mosque, so far as the IRS is concerned, is a religious institution. Religious institutions do not have to identify their members or their donors. Or pay taxes."

"Shit," Castillo said.

"I'd say this whole suitcase nuke thing is absurd," Larsen said. "Except for all that money…"

"And except for the fact that Abdul Khatami and his loyal Muslims helped the Holy Legion of Muhammad steal that 727," Britton said. He turned to Larsen. "You know that story?"