She got up and stood, frozen, next to the bars of her cell, listening, and thinking. Her stomach tightened into a painful knot as the conclusion leaped into her mind: water boarding. She broke away from the steel barrier that held her prisoner and wandered back to her bunk, too unsettled to even sit back down. I didn’t know they did that here, she thought. Of course, I’ve never been here in the middle of the night before, either, she rationalized. And there were always rumors of people who worked here and suddenly didn’t anymore. People she never saw again. What really happened to them?
The sound of subdued screams and the panicked knocking noise returned, drawing her back to the bars of her cell. The voice was weaker, terrified, losing any semblance of control. Her breathing quickened. She gripped the bars, willing with all of her might for the suffering to end, and for the torture to stop. It didn’t. The palms of her hands began to sweat. Her hands trembled and her knees weakened. She wobbled over to her bunk and sat down. Silence enveloped her. She had never felt so alone, or so powerless.
The coughing returned, weak and resigned. The retching barely heard, but painfully present. The frail murmur of protest against incessant, uncompromising abuse finally subsided. She waited, unsure of what would happen next. After about ten minutes she heard footsteps in the hall. She tensed, leaning forward to see who it was. Pettigrew slowly walked past her cell, shoes and pant legs wet, leaving shiny footprints in the poorly lighted hall. He didn’t look at her, didn’t even acknowledge that she was there.
My god, she wondered. What kind of a place is this? Everything seemed so straight forward before. The risk was manageable; the reward was immense. They promised me I would be protected. She paced around her jail cell. She looked up at the ceiling and breathed out hard. I’m part of an elite group now. I have wealth; resources. I’m somebody. They will come and get me out. She tried to settle down enough to get some sleep, but she was still anxious about the sounds she had heard, and what may be waiting for her.
It was almost two hours before she felt drowsy. Just as she was falling asleep, she heard the sounds again.
“Please, I beg you,” the voice said. “I’ve told you everything I know. There isn’t anything else.”
The thumping and sounds of intense struggle returned. She thought she could hear water splashing on the floor. The muffled screams seemed louder, but she couldn’t be sure. She still had to listen hard in order to hear what was going on. The feeling of panic rose within her. They have to get me out of here. They promised!
The terrifying sequence repeated itself: the gaging, the coughing, retching. Each set of subdued screaming weakened and became more despondent. The man’s despair deepened in his muted voice and in her own mind. Her level of anxiety reached a new and painful high. How much longer can this go on? she wondered. Finally, the sounds stopped. Ten minutes later Pettigrew walked past her cell again, wet pants legs and wet shoes leaving those telltale footprints on the floor of the hall. Again, no eye contact; no acknowledgment of any kind.
This time she couldn’t rest or calm down. She was still agitated and apprehensive when the awful sounds returned two hours later.
“That’s everything I know,” the voice pleaded. “I swear, I’ve told you everything. There’s nothing else!”
The sickening, deadened shrieks filtered down the hall. She covered her ears, but the horror was already embedded in her mind, constant and unyielding. Two hours later it happened again.
Jake stretched and yawned. The search for incriminating documents and additional suspects continued, with little progress, at the Fort Hood administration building. He looked at the clock on the wall again: One-thirty-eight in the morning. Everyone was exhausted. It was time to call it a night, and start fresh again in the morning.
“Found it!” Ken shouted. Jake, Honi and Stafford rushed over.
“When you accuse an army general,” Stafford said. “You better have rock solid proof.”
“We do. Every printer ever made has its own characteristics, minor flaws, if you will. No two are exactly alike. So even though the same computer sends the same file to different printers, the end result is microscopically different. The paper showing two weapons transferred, instead of three, was created on this printer, which was purchased twenty-seven days after the transfer took place.”
“So it is a phony,” Stafford said. “Which means Teague is responsible for the missing nuclear weapon.”
“What size are we talking?” Jake asked.
“Big enough. It’s a W79 nuclear artillery shell, the equivalent of 1,000 tons of TNT.”
“What size physically?”
Stafford looked at him. “Eight-inch diameter, 44 inches long. You could put it in the trunk of a car, but not by yourself. It weighs 200 pounds.”
“Would General Teague’s car be subject to search every time he left the base?”
“Not normally.”
“So he could have taken it.”
“But he’d need help. Or access to a lift truck.”
“I assume the army doesn’t leave these things just lying around.”
“No, they don’t.”
“Then the General, or somebody working for him, would have to have access to that secure area, too.”
“They would. Everyone logs in and out. Signature’s required.”
“Then we start there. Get the logs to Ken. See if he can tell us which ones are phony. It may give us a date when the weapon disappeared.”
“On it.”
At seven in the morning, Jake, Honi and Stafford drove to General Teague’s residence.
“CID removed everyone from the house as soon as we entered the base,” Stafford said. “As you can see, a perimeter guard has been in place since then.”
Jake nodded as he saw how the guards were placed. Armed MPs stood in a circle around the house, such that each guard could see the next soldier on either side. That way no one could slip through, nor could any of the posts be left without being seen by two other soldiers.
“Do your people have a ground-penetrating radar machine available?”
“We do, actually.”
“I want every square inch of this property examined with that machine.”
“This can’t be the only property he has access to,” Honi said. “He could have buried or hidden something anywhere on this base.”
“Yeah. But not the nuclear artillery shell. He would have to get that off the base and into someone’s hands before he got paid.”
“So what do you think is hidden here?”
“Something suspicious. Fake ID, a gun, money, keys, maps maybe.”
Stafford moaned. “The base is 340 square miles. We’re all going to be old and gray by the time we search all of it.”
“That may not be necessary. If General Teague knew we were coming for him, he’d need to disappear as fast as he could. That might preclude hiding something essential on the base, or at least it would need to be very close to an exit route.”
“And there’re only two of those,” Stafford replied. “We’ll break it down by grids.”
Jake pulled his cell phone and called Briggs.
“It’s Hunter. I need a trace on all property associated with General Teague. His family, cousins, corporations and shell companies. Everything you can find. Thanks.”