Quantico

"Today, a couple of women. A few kids. No animals. It"s quiet. They"ve been burning trash in barrels."

"What about the Patriarch?"

"Not a sign."

"Your Jewish law center guy should be here in a few minutes. He"s wearing snow pants. Looks like a cheechako."

"Maybe, but he knows everything there is to know about Chambers."

"You sure you don"t want to just hand this over to us?"

"Thanks, Cap, but I guarantee you don"t want it."

"We"re awesome and eager, Griff."

"Right," Griff said. He called up the stabilized image on the computer screen and showed Benson what he had been looking at all day. Three and a half miles away, green spruces, loblolly pines and sapling cedars spotted the seventy acres around a big gray weather-battered farmhouse. Sixty yards to the east stood a large barn. Right now, the farm looked deserted. No visible cows or other livestock. No dogs.

"Nice," Benson said. "Kind of place I might like to retire. I"d paint the house, though."

It was was a pretty place, a mile from the nearest road, serene and quiet on a chilly but clear April evening. Nothing like the Old Testament desert where sun-dazzled, long-bearded patriarchs stashed their wives and ruled their tribes. Though there a pretty place, a mile from the nearest road, serene and quiet on a chilly but clear April evening. Nothing like the Old Testament desert where sun-dazzled, long-bearded patriarchs stashed their wives and ruled their tribes. Though there was was a fire on the mountain-the high snows looked as if they were burning. a fire on the mountain-the high snows looked as if they were burning.

Judgment light.

"You sure it"s him?" Benson asked.

"We"ll have a positive ID soon enough," Griff said. "Pa.s.s me those binders, will you, Cap?"

Benson reached across to the small table and handed Griff three thick white binders filled with photographs. Griff laid them out under the binoculars and opened each one to a good photo or mug shot, for his next visitor. They could hear his footsteps on the narrow stairs.

A shaved tanned head crowned by a plain black yarmulke poked up through the hatch and swung a green army duffel bag onto the floor with a thump. "Ahoy there. Anybody home?"

"Come on in, Jacob," Griff said. "Good to see you."

The small, skinny man stood up from the step below the hatch, climbed onto the cabin"s rough board floor and brushed his baggy black snow pants with one hand. He wore a sleeveless purple down vest over a spotless and pressed white business shirt. "Always good to hear from you, Agent Griffin," he said. "You have such interesting things to show me." He grinned at Benson, who nodded back, polite but noncommittal, a seasoned cop greeting an outsider who was not himself a cop.

The hatch creaked again, making them all jerk. Griff was not disposed to like whoever climbed up through that hatch, not now. Three was already a crowd. Worse still, this one was female: thin strong hands with chipped nails, hazel eyes, mussed auburn hair, high cheekbones, and a G.o.dd.a.m.ned gray power suit.

"Pardon me, gentlemen." The female stood up straight and wiry on the drafty wooden floor and pulled down her jacket. She wore black running shoes and white socks, her only concessions to the woods and the climb.

Griff scowled at Levine. Levine lifted his brows.

"Apologies for interrupting," she said. Griff hadn"t seen this woman in over ten years and it took him a moment to go through his memory, age a face, and place her name.

Griff introduced them all. "Cap Benson, Washington State Patrol SWAT team, this is Jacob Levine from the Southern Poverty Law Center. And this is Special Agent Rebecca Rose. She investigates bioterror. That was what you were working on the last time we met."

"Still do," Rebecca said.

"Pleasure," Benson said. They firmly shook hands, but all three men looked like boys whose tree-house club had been violated.

"What brings you here, Rebecca?" Griff asked.

"Someone down in that valley has taken delivery of contraband biotech equipment. Fermenters, incubators, some driers."

"No s.h.i.t," Griff said. "And...?"

"Don"t mind me," Rebecca said. "I"m just an observer." She whistled at the array of binoculars and the telescope. "There must be two dozen guys loafing around at the trail head. What have you got down there?"

"Ant farm," Griff said.

"Sonofab.i.t.c.h," she said. "Can I see?"

"Be my guest."

Rebecca applied her eyes to the biggest pair of binoculars. "Your ant farm doesn"t have any ants," she murmured.

"Just wait," Griff said.

The operation had begun a week ago, following a complaint about illegal fireworks. Intense white flashes like giant morning glories had bloomed in the middle of the night over the hills around the farm, letting loose echoing booms, two a night for three nights in a row, bright enough and loud enough to wake up the nearest neighbor-a sleepless old codger who lived with his Airedale four miles away.

Two days after the complaint had been filed, a Snohomish County sheriff"s deputy had driven down the long dirt road to the farm to investigate. He had found a hidden homestead with a concrete and wood-frame barn, one large old house, and a newer, smaller house at the rear, almost lost in the trees. A polite knock at the door of the main house had roused a gray-bearded, broad-shouldered, proud old man with brilliant green eyes. The old man had two middleaged women, slender and worn-looking, living with him in the big house. Six kids had come around from the back and stood in the yard, ranging in age from three to seventeen, all well-fed, conservatively dressed, and well-behaved. Respectful. The deputy had asked about fireworks and been met with puzzled denials and the offer of a hot cup of coffee and fresh sourdough biscuits. He had been invited into the house. The deputy had removed his Smoky hat and held it to one side, leaving his gun hand free. Taking it all in.

The bearded old man had asked one of the women to get coffee. They had waited in the living room, the deputy"s brown uniform wrinkle-free, his equipment and holster shiny black, shirt tucked tight over a young patrol car paunch: a good and reasonable defender of the peace, standing straight and a little awkward on the throw rug in the living room; the old man tall and erect in a loose white shirt and denims, dignified and relaxed. The house inside neat and spare, with handmade shelves and a big antique oak table. Red curtains on the windows. Yellow daffodils in a big vase on a mantel over the stone fireplace.

The old man had seemed amused by the idea that he might be setting off fireworks. People around here, he had told the deputy, tended to be a little dotty. "It"s the air. Too pure for some, not pure enough for others."

The deputy had drunk one cup of good strong coffee poured by one of the tired women from an iron pot. Two kids, a boy and a girl, both about nine, had sat quietly side by side in a big rocking chair near the fireplace.

To be polite, the deputy had eaten a sourdough biscuit slathered with homemade jam and fresh sweet b.u.t.ter. He had found it very tasty.

The woman and the kids had let the old man do all the talking. The deputy was welcome to come back any time. His presence made everyone feel protected, watched over. "The Lord G.o.d provides for those who heed the necessity of strong arms," the old man had said.

The deputy had paid his respects and returned to his car. He could not begin to figure why a stern but hospitable old man with a Biblical grip on his large family would be lobbing starburst fireworks in the early morning darkness.

But something had stuck up in the deputy"s memory like a log rising in a smooth river. Back at the office, he had looked up the NCIS and NCIC files on one Robert Cavitt Chambers, AKA Bob Cavitt, AKA Charles Roberts. Chambers had last been seen in Texas in 1995. A computer artist at FBI headquarters had updated an ATM security photo taken that year to show Chambers in his sprightly eighties.

The aging trick had worked.

The deputy had recognized the biblical old man at the farmhouse.

"We lost track of Chambers years ago," Levine said. There was only one folding chair in the fire tower. He did not want to occupy the one chair, not with Cap Benson watching him like a hawk. Levine smiled, showing large, even teeth, lightly speckled. He had been raised in Texas on naturally fluoridated water and his teeth were colored like turkey eggs, but strong. "You sure this is him?"

"Positive ID from the deputy," Benson said.

"Too good to be true," Levine said. "But if it is true, we could be in a world of trouble."

"Why is that?" Benson asked.

"Who do you think we have down there?" Levine asked. Now it was Levine"s turn to give Benson a look, and slowly shift that look to Griff, then to Rebecca. At that moment, Levine owned the fire tower.

"Bank robber. Abortion clinic bomber," Benson said.

"Ah." Levine pressed his lips together. "That"s all?"

"That"s enough for me," Benson said. Griff let Levine have his fun.

"Well, I wouldn"t want you to underestimate him. If it is is him. Because the Patriarch has lived a life of almost uninterrupted criminal activity since 1962. Before that, he was an altar boy for St. Jude"s in Philadelphia, a predominantly Irish parish. In the seventies, he committed at least five bank robberies in Oklahoma and Arizona. One arrest and trial led to a hung jury. The Oklahoma County prosecutor"s office refused to try Chambers again. I quote the DA, "We will always have some trailer-trash slattern with damp panties sitting in the jury box. Just get him the h.e.l.l out of my state."" him. Because the Patriarch has lived a life of almost uninterrupted criminal activity since 1962. Before that, he was an altar boy for St. Jude"s in Philadelphia, a predominantly Irish parish. In the seventies, he committed at least five bank robberies in Oklahoma and Arizona. One arrest and trial led to a hung jury. The Oklahoma County prosecutor"s office refused to try Chambers again. I quote the DA, "We will always have some trailer-trash slattern with damp panties sitting in the jury box. Just get him the h.e.l.l out of my state.""

They all looked to see if Levine had offended Rebecca. He hadn"t. Levine continued.

"Chambers moved to Ireland in 1979. He became an expert in IED-improvised explosive devices. His specialty was nasty b.o.o.by traps. Don"t hold me to it, but he may have been the guy who actually set the charge in Margaret Thatcher"s toilet in a Brighton hotel in 1986. He returned to the United States later that year, when things got too hot in the UK, but he couldn"t stay out of trouble. In 1988, Nevada State Police caught him at the tail end of a barroom brawl, drunk out of his mind, with a broken pool cue in one hand and a perforated buddy bleeding out on the floor. Chambers was convicted of manslaughter and sent to prison in 1989. Sometime the next year, he broke from his Irish roots, swore off drink, and converted from Catholicism to the Aryan Church of Christ Militant. White supremacists."

"I am aware of that," Benson said.

"In 1992, his conviction got thrown out on appeal. Turned out an FBI technician didn"t conduct the tests he said he did. Chambers was released in 1993. After that, from 1995 to 1999, he robbed banks from Oklahoma to Alabama. They called him the Proud Poppa because he was a.s.sisted by two pre-adolescent males whom he referred to as "my strong and righteous sons." He then organized the bombing of three Planned Parenthood Clinics in Boston and Baltimore in 1999, resulting in two deaths and six injuries. He"s been on the Post Office hit parade for the last twenty years."

"All because of an FBI screw-up?" Benson asked.

"Uh-huh," Griff said.

"If that really is his family down there," Levine said, "and he thinks we"re on to him, he"s going to fight like a cornered bobcat. He will not go back to prison. How are you going to handle this?"

"We"re still working on that," Griff said.

Levine looked doubtful and took his turn peeking through the big binoculars. "Well, looky here. Ants."

The day after the Snohomish County sheriff"s department had pa.s.sed the deputy"s information along to the FBI, Griff had driven from the Seattle Field Office and taken over a seldom-used Forest Service fire tower with a pretty good view of the farm. Without asking permission, he had instructed two agents to chainsaw the single obstructing tree. He had then set up his surveillance. Seattle Field Office Special Agent in Charge John Keller had put Griff in command of the operation, but provisionally, in case it threatened to turn into another Waco.

FBI headquarters wanted to be very sure of their footing before they made a move.

Other agents had worked their way into Prince, the nearest town: a gas station, hardware/feed store, three churches, and a diner. They had learned that three women and at least seven children picked up groceries and sometimes their mail in Prince. Less frequently, the citizens saw four men ranging in age from seventeen to thirty-five. The family or families also drove into Prince for church services. Chambers himself never ventured into town. The best guess was that Chambers had about twenty men, women, and children living on his farm.

Their church was a th.o.r.n.y cane of the original Seventh Day Adventist bush known as The Empty Tomb of G.o.d Risen. Tombers, FBI files said, showed strong anti-Semitic tendencies, often a.s.sociated with Christian Ident.i.ty types, and were allied in some northwestern states with Aryan Nations. Their ministers were banned from visiting federal prisons.

Upon learning this, Griff had contacted Jacob Levine.

They took turns looking through the binoculars while the computer used a satellite link to try to make facial comparisons with National Security Service records in Virginia.

"What are all those posts and clothes lines for?" Rebecca asked.

Griff shrugged. "You tell me."

"Looks like an antenna. TV, maybe?"

"Even Jed Clampett has a dish out here," Benson said.

Two women stood on the porch. One was knitting and the other just stared out over the long span of weedy lawn in front of the main house. They were talking but there was no way of knowing what they were saying. At this angle and that distance, the lip-reading software on the computer wasn"t much good.

"They look nervous," Benson observed.

"Chambers starts out charming but in the end he rules by force," Levine said. "He picks women who want nothing but guidance and routine, but that doesn"t mean he makes them happy. Though he does provide, in his way, and he loves his kids. In his way."

"They"re all his?" Rebecca asked.

"Chambers has never shared his harem," Levine said. "He teaches his sons to be crack shots but forbids his wives or daughters to use guns, ever. When are you planning to make a raid?"

Griff winced at the word "raid" but he did not answer in the negative. Something would have to be done and he would likely be at the tip of the spear going in. "Not until we know all there is to know," he said.

"There could be an opportune moment," Levine said. "That is, if what the guys in town have found out is true-about them being Tombers."

"Do tell," Griff said.

"It is likely the women and children will all go to Easter services at the church, and that could be a good time to find Chambers home alone, or at most with his eldest son in attendance. He insists on piety but I"ve never heard of his entering a church, not since he was a kid. He needs to be top dog wherever he stands, and that includes before G.o.d."

"No way we"re going in at Easter," Griff said. "Besides, people in town are alerted. We can"t afford to wait."

Levine smiled. "You"re in luck. Tombers are Julians. They believe Easter comes before the date commonly observed by you goyim goyim. They"re eleven days off. The Gregorian calendar is the work of the devil, you know."

"Scout"s honor?" Griff asked. He was looking through the scope now. A Coleman lantern had been slung on a beam inside the porch overhang and the two women were setting up folding chairs.

"For them, Good Friday is tomorrow."

Then, down in the valley, the old man finally came out and stood watching the twilight. His face was clear in the bright white glow of the lantern: an aquiline, craggy profile. The old man appeared thoughtful. For a moment, Griff thought he might be watching them.

Rebecca folded her arms. "Just the kind of fellow to need a microbial incubator."

Griff set the digital cameras humming and backed away. "Is that him?" he asked Levine.

Levine peered. "I hope I look that good when I"m his age."

"Whenever you"re sure, Jacob."

Levine spent a few more seconds on the binoculars. "It"s him," he said.

CHAPTER SIX.

Quantico.

William Griffin jogged across the lawn to join the group of nine students standing in front of the Biograph theater, on the edge of Hogantown and just across Hoover Road from the towering dorms and walkways and the squat tan bulk of the Academy.

"All right, listen up," Pete Farrow called out. The recruits-two women and seven men: two blacks, one Asian, one Middle-Eastern, five shades of white-stopped talking and a.s.sumed parade rest. Compared to the instructor they were a motley bunch, spread over the range of physical specimens: plump and skinny, tall and short, dark-haired and light.

Farrow walked along the loose line. "All right, agents, this is it. Today, you will be using equipment worth about two hundred thousand dollars. Try not to break it. Only about twenty percent of our field offices have all this stuff. It is rare. It is valuable. But it is the future-and you will get used to it.