"Yes, my FPA counterpart has a sense of humor. The woman dragged one of the bouncers out of the blaze, and the forensics team determined that he had been stabbed through the neck, just above the collarbone. Knife plunged through the spinal cord on the same strike," she said.
"Can you get me that forensics report?" he said, feeling his pulse quicken.
"It shouldn't be a problem. Sounds like this might have been helpful?"
"Yes, I think it has. Were there any theories about who was doing this? Other than a foreign black ops team? I'm just having a hard time believing that this isn't being actively investigated," he said.
"Luckily, my counterpart has a little bit of a crush on me and likes to drink Sangria during our lunches. He was hesitant with this information, so I need your discretion," she said.
"Absolutely, Susan. I'll use this to corroborate, but nothing beyond that."
"All right. He said the only serious theory circulating through the ranks was that a man named Ernesto Galenden had hired an outside team to send these groups a message. This might also explain why the investigations have stalled," she said.
"I can't wait to hear this," he said.
"Ernesto Galenden is one of the wealthiest and most influential citizens of Argentina, owning a huge stake in one of the primary oil companies within the country, and of course, dozens of lucrative business ventures. He also owns more real estate than you can imagine. For the most part, Galenden has retained a good reputation in Argentina across the board and has never been implicated in any illegal schemes.
"He owns a vast portion of the shipping waterfront along Argentina's coast, which put him at odds with the Chechens. He hasn't made it easy for them to expand their efforts to ship Andean cocaine to Europe and ports north. Once the strife turned deadly on the docks, Galenden turned to his government cronies to put some pressure on law enforcement, but this tactic didn't prove very effective. FPA thinks Galenden took matters into his own hands."
"It's not a bad theory. You said Galenden owns land all over Argentina?"
"He owns localized assets and buildings in most cities, but the vast majority of his land lies in western Argentina, along the Chilean border. This is where his father discovered oil," she said.
"Interesting. Susan, I trust you to keep this quiet there. I'm working on something very sensitive, and if the wrong person at the embassy found out, I could have a complication that would jeopardize my investigation. I can't thank you enough for the help. I'll be in touch shortly with some more questions, as soon as I figure out which direction to pursue. In the meantime, can you get me the forensics report of the knife attack at the neo-Nazi club?"
"Sure. I'll give my guy at AFP a call. I'm sure he won't mind another lunch," she said.
"Not very sporting of you to lead him on like that, but I'm not going argue against your methods. This was great work, Susan. Talk to you shortly."
She hung up the phone and smiled. She wasn't sure how to classify what she was doing with Federico. Technically, she wasn't leading him on because he had no chance in the first place. Despite his handsome, Italian inspired face, muscular build and pleasant manners, she had never been interested in him romantically. In fact, she'd never been interested in men and was on an "unaccompanied" tour to Argentina. Her partner of eight years, Stephanie, eagerly awaited her return to the states.
Chapter 9
Special Agent Ryan Sharpe made room for Special Agent Eric Hesterman, which was no small sacrifice given the agent's size. Hesterman, a broad, muscular African-American in his early thirties, stood over six feet tall and took up twice the amount of shoulder room of most agents. He literally dwarfed Dana O'Reilly, who stood on the other side of him, invisible to Sharpe through his large, expensively-tailored suit. At 225 pounds, Hesterman had trimmed down considerably since his linebacker days at the University of Michigan; scaling back in size during law school, and finally settling in at his "target" weight upon graduating from Quantico as a Special Agent. Eric was one of six agents permanently assigned to Ryan's task force within the Domestic Terrorism Branch, and despite the fact that he had no background in finance, he had quickly impressed everyone from Sharpe's veteran finance tracking team. Sharpe could tell by the grins on both Hesterman's and O'Reilly's faces that he had found something.
Hesterman manipulated the screen with a mouse on the computer station in front of them and zoomed the satellite imagery into an area of western Argentina, less than twenty miles from the Chilean border. Suddenly, a yellow line appeared to outline areas throughout the province. Sharpe glanced around at the Joint Operations Center, looking for any faces that were overly interested in his semi-private meeting. Luckily, Hesterman blocked most of the screen from view.
"The yellow line roughly demonstrates Mr. Galenden's land holdings, the best I could calculate using public-sourced documents. Most of it is held within the Nuequen Province, where his father struck oil in the sixties. He holds some vast tracts of land in Mendoza, La Pampa and Rio Negro, but I focused on some of the parameters we discussed and narrowed the possibilities to a few locations. Most of the land is held in national reserve status, though not to be confused with the concept of a nature preserve. A national reserve opens land to the country, but the landowner retains mineral rights and can restrict access to fifteen percent of the reserve. Restricted areas need to be filed with national and provincial government at the beginning of the year, so I started there, looking four years back.
"If we figure that Sanderson started his plans at least a year prior to the events of May 2005, it made sense that he would have already broken ground on his new organization's headquarters, and that the location might not have been on restricted land. Most of the restricted areas retained by Mr. Galenden were located in flatter, arid zones, better suited for oil and mineral exploration. I found three separate filings that immediately attracted my attention and led to the image you're viewing on the screen.
"First, in January of 2003, Mr. Galenden filed for the immediate restriction of a relatively small area here, which encompassed a local airport. Not a big one. Two runways, one capable of landing small jets. The airport was manned by volunteers on weekends and sported a small café, limited fuel and basic air traffic control capabilities. It was used as a weekend leisure stop for pilots interested in some great trout or fly fishing in the nearby foothills. I spoke with one of the volunteers listed on an old website, and he confirmed that it wasn't a busy location. Maybe ten to fifteen planes on a busy weekend. Said the buildings were mostly run down and that pilots couldn't land or take off at night. No lights. He heard rumors that some major improvements would be made to the facility, but hasn't been able to visit. Based on satellite imagery graciously provided by the powers that be, we can now see that this airport has been completely refurbished. The most interesting aspect is this dome right here.
"I had to dig around on this one, but found similar images and determined that this is a remote air traffic control module…RATCOM. The airport now sports a small radar, VFR transmitters, new radio transmitting equipment, new hangars, and of course, lights. This facility can now be used day and night, in any visibility condition, and can remain completely unmanned due to this extremely expensive device. It allows for a real time connection between all of the airport’s equipment and a contracted air traffic control site. This site could be located anywhere in the world. There are several companies that specialize in this service, and none of them are located at an airport. It's really quite innovative, if you have the money and don't really want anyone seeing what comes in and out of your airport."