"Why do you think it's so important?"
"You're a profiler. You should know. It tells us how they will behave. The Book makes them predictable."
"A terrifying thought," he said.
At nine A.M. we walked past firing ranges to a half acre of grass near the tire house HRT used in the very maneuvers they would need now. This morning, they were nowhere to he seen, all of them at Old Point except our pilot, Whit. He was typically silent and fit in a black flight suit, standing by a blue and white Bell 222, a corporate twin engine helicopter also owned by CP amp;L.
"Whit." Wesley nodded at him.
"Good morning," I said as we boarded.
Inside were four seats in what looked like the cabin of a small plane, and a copilot was busy studying a map.
Senator Lord was completely engrossed in whatever he was reading, the attorney general across from him and preoccupied with paperwork, too. They had been picked up first in Washington and did not look like they had slept much, either, the last few nights.
"How are you, Kay?" The senator did not look up.
He was dressed in a dark suit and a white shirt with stiff collar. His tie was deep red, and he wore Senate cuff links.
Marcia Gradecki, in contrast, wore a simple pale blue skirt and jacket, and pearls. She was a formidable woman with a face that was attractive in a strong, dynamic way. Although she had gotten her start in Virginia, before this moment we had never met.
Wesley made certain we knew each other as we lifted into a sky that was perfectly blue. We flew over bright yellow school buses that were empty this time of day, then buildings quickly gave way to swamps with duck blinds and vast acres of woods. Sunlight painted paths through the tops of trees. and as we began to follow the James, our reflection silently flew after us along the water.
"In a minute here, we're going to fly over Governor's Landing," said Wesley, and we did not need headphones to speak to one another, only to the pilots. "It's the realestate arm of CP amp;L, and where Brett West lives. He's the vice president in charge of operations and lives in a ninehundred-thousand-dollar house down there." He paused as everybody looked down. "You can just about see it. There.
The big brick one with the pool and basketball court in back."
The development had many huge homes with pools and painfully young vegetation. There was also a golf course and a yacht club where we were told West kept a boat that right now was not there.
"And where is this Mr. West?" the attorney general asked as our pilots turned north where the Chickahorniny met the James.
"At the moment we don't know." Wesley continued looking out the window.
"I'm assuming you believe he's involved," the senator said.
"Without question. In fact, when CP amp;L decided to open a district office in Suffolk, they built it on land they bought from a farmer named Joshua Hayes."
"His records were also accessed in their computer," I interjected.
"By the hacker," Gradecki said.
"Right."
"And you have her in custody," she said.
"We do. Apparently, she was dating Ted Eddings, and that's how he got into this and ended up murdered." Wesley's face was hard. "What I am convinced of is that West has been an accomplice to Joel Hand from the start. You can see the district office now." He pointed. "And what do you know," he added ironically, "it's right next to Hand's compound."
The district office was basically a large parking lot of utility trucks and gas pumps, and modular buildings with CP amp;L painted in red on the roofs. As we flew around it and over a stand of trees, the terrain beneath us suddenly turned into the fifty-acre point on the Nansernond River where Joel Hand lived within a high metal fence that according to legend was electrified.
His compound was a cluster of multiple smaller homes and barracks, his own mansion weathered and with tall, white pillars. But it was not those buildings that worried us. It was others we saw, large wood structures that looked like warehouses built in a row along railroad tracks leading to a massive private loading dock with huge cranes on the water.
"Those aren't normal barns," the attorney general observed. "What was being shipped off his farm?"
"Or to it," the senator said, I reminded them of what Danny's killer had tracked into the carpet of my former Mercedes. "This might be where the casks were stored," I added. "The buildings are big enough, and you would need cranes and trains or trucks."
"Then that would certainly link Danny Webster's homicide to the New Zionists," the attorney general said to me as she nervously fingered her pearls.
"Or at least to someone who was going in and out of the warehouses where the casks were kept," I answered.
"Microscopic particles of depleted uranium would be everywhere, saying that the casks are, in fact, lined with depleted uranium."
"So this person could have had uranium on the bottom of his shoes and not known it," Senator Lord said.
"Without a doubt."
"Well, we need to raid this place and see what we find,"
he then said.
"Yes, sir," Wesley agreed, "When we can."
"Frank, so far they haven't done anything that we can prove," Gradecki said to him. "We don't have probable cause. The New Zionists haven't claimed responsibility."
"Well, I know how it works, too, but it's ridiculous," Lord said, looking out. "There's no one down there but dogs, looks like to me. So you explain that, if the New Zionists are not involved. Where is everyone? Well, I think we damn well know."
Doberman pinschers in a pen were barking and lunging at the air we circled.
"Christ," Wesley said. "I never thought all of them might be inside Old Point."
Neither had I, and a very scary thought was forming.
"We've been assuming the New Zionists maintained their numbers over recent years," Wesley went on. "But maybe not. Maybe eventually the only people here were the ones in training for the attack."
"And that would include Joel Hand." I looked at Wesley.
"We know he's been living here," he said. "I think there's a very good chance he was on that bus. He's probably inside the power plant with the others. He's their leader."
"No," I said. "He's their god."
There was a long pause.
Then Gradecki said, "The problem with that is he's insane."
"No," I said. "The problem with that is he's not. Hand is evil, and that's infinitely worse."
"And his fanaticism will affect everything he does in there," Wesley added. "if he is in there-he measured his words-then the threat goes bizarrely beyond escaping with a barge of fuel assemblies. At any time, this could turn into a suicide mission."
"I'm not sure why you're saying that," said Gradecki who did not want to hear it in the least. "The motive is very clear."
I thought of the Book of Hand and of how hard it was for the uninitiated to understand what a man like its author was capable of doing. I looked at the attorney general as we flew over rows of old gray tankers and transport ships, known as the Navy's Dead Fleet. They were parked in the James, and from a distance it looked like Virginia was under siege, and in a way, it was.
"I don't believe I've ever seen that," she muttered in amazement as she looked down.
"Weil, you should have," Senator Lord retorted. "You Democrats are responsible for the decommissioning of half the Navy's fleet. In fact, we don't have room to park them.
They're scattered here and there, ghosts of their former selves and not worth a tinker's damn if we need seaworth vessels fast. By the time you'd get one of those old tubs going, the Persian Gulf would be as long past as that other war they fought around here."
"Frank, you've made your point," she crisply said. "I believe we have other matters to attend to this morning."
Wesley had put on a set of headphones so he could talk to the pilots. He asked for an update and then listened for a long time as he stared out at Jamestown and its ferry.
When he got off the radio his face was anxious.