FORTY-SEVEN
Palo Alto
15:00 HOURS
Special Agent Jason Henry prepared the documents for the Alameda County Superior Court to issue a requisition order of the personal records of Niles Penburton. Most important when requesting a court order was making a credible case that sufficient probable cause existed to warrant the action. Agent Henry had cited that Penburton was suspected as an accessory in the recent theft of nuclear material at the Lawrence Livermore Lab, a criminal activity that led to the death of over a dozen security guards.
Legal procedures required he procure an Alameda County judge’s authorization, which held jurisdiction over Livermore, even though Dr. Penburton lived in adjacent Santa Clara County. He drew up the request and drove to the courthouse in San Jose, determined to get the document back to Penburton by late afternoon.
Just as he was entering the San Jose courthouse, he received an urgent message from Washington to call his office. Apparently there was a personal message needing his immediate attention.
Agent Henry listened to the message and was amazed to hear the voice of his old friend Emerson Palmer. According to Palmer’s message, he had been contacted by Senator Alfonse Coscarelli, who made specific inquiries about the cleaners in conjunction with the abduction of his daughter. Palmer requested a return call at the first opportunity.
The message was startling from a couple of perspectives. First, he had not heard from Emerson Palmer since he had been fired from the Secret Service several years earlier. He felt badly that he had not kept in close touch, but as there was no professional interaction after Palmer left the government, he simply lost contact with his erstwhile colleague.
Secondly, he was alarmed that Coscarelli was asking about the cleaners. This made him uneasy. The organization was completely anonymous and unheralded. To have a seated senator asking about the organization was not good news, especially one who chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee. He wanted to investigate this further but decided to make the call to Palmer after picking up the court order for Penburton.
His trip to the courthouse yielded the expected outcome. There were the usual perfunctory questions from the staff clerk, after which Agent Henry was scheduled to see Judge Katherine McWhitney. The judge was busy, but when her clerk explained the urgency of the matter and what it entailed, she gladly admitted Agent Henry and signed the court order with only a cursory inspection. In just minutes, Henry had secured the order demanding Penburton’s personal records-records he was certain would expose the strategist behind the many disparate parts surrounding the disappearance of Dr. Jarrod Conrad. While he drove, he tried to remember the last time he had seen Emerson Palmer. Damn, it must have been the operation in Bolivia, he thought. Has it really been that long?
When Agents Henry and Palmer were last on assignment together, the cleaners had been contracted to infiltrate and destroy two competing drug cartels in Bolivia.
The South American country of Bolivia had long been one of the richest areas for growing coca plants, the precursor of cocaine. Coca plants were synthesized into paste and shipped to Colombia, where cocaine refineries purified the product for final distribution in the United States. Vast areas of the Bolivian rainforest high in the Andes had been clear-cut by local farmers to grow the valuable coca plants, and even though an anti-drug task force existed in Bolivia, it was largely ineffective in controlling the spread of coca cultivation. The biggest reason for this futility was because government officials feared a political uprising among growers whose livelihood depended upon coca. Because of this halfhearted effort to control the cultivation of coca plants, the United States wanted the Bolivian anti-drug forces to concentrate on eradicating the manufacturing sites. Their premise was that a successful campaign destroying the labs would leave the farmers without a place to sell their product, thereby constricting the market. Unfortunately this turned out to be a baseless proposition.
It was 2007, and President George Bush had made it his priority to stem the flow of cocaine entering the Unites States prior to leaving office. The president realized the difficulty of completely eliminating drug-trafficking, but ordered his advisors to formulate a plan that would reduce drug importation into the country. The cleaners were mobilized and developed a plan whereby Roberto Gomez, considered one of the largest coca plant growers in South America, would be implicated in the ambush of Mateo Suarez, a rival drug lord widely recognized as the godfather of Bolivia’s illegal cocaine trade. Gomez had enormous acreage in coca plants, while Suarez controlled most of the drug labs used by the Medellin drug cartel in Colombia.
The cleaners arrived in Trinidad to orchestrate a coup d’etat. After months of painstaking infiltration, they successfully carried out a plan that made it appear as though the two drug lords succumbed to a bloody turf war. Both men were killed and a huge quantity of their product was simultaneously destroyed. Agent Henry had successfully interrupted the flow of coca paste from Bolivia, while Agent Palmer destroyed a dozen labs that were producing the pure cocaine. The operation was incredibly successful and the American public was none the wiser for their efforts. The cleaners considered it a textbook case.
Agent Henry had fond memories of this highly successful triumph over one of the more despicable empires in the world. He’d gladly endure all the hardship and difficult planning for the opportunity to execute the bastards one more time. Burn in hell, you merciless sons-o’-bitches, he thought.
Henry placed a call to his former partner.
“Palmer,” he answered succinctly. It was approaching evening in Washington, D.C., but he didn’t hesitate to take the call.
“Emerson, ol’ buddy, it’s Jason Henry,” he said, happy to hear Palmer’s voice after so many years. “What the hell are you doing calling me? From your message, it sounds like we could both be working on the same case, old man,” he said good naturedly.
“Jason Henry…as I live and breathe, I never thought I’d get a chance to work with you again. Damn, it’s good to hear your voice. Still doing the joint chiefs’ shit work over at DOD?” he asked, hoping Henry’s return call heralded good tidings.
“Yep, still doing the crap no one else will touch…nothing’s changed. Freeman still thinks he’s the smartest man in the world; he’s an even bigger asshole than before…if you can imagine that. What about you? Hell…I hear you’ve got a detective firm. Jesus, people really pay you as a peeping tom?” he asked jokingly.
“Something like that,” Palmer replied, cutting him off short, wanting to skip the chit-chat and get to the point. “So, tell me all you can, buddy. Are you on assignment, or are you on government business?” Palmer was keeping his fingers crossed that Henry would confirm that the unit had been activated. How he responded would speak volumes. An assignment meant he was working with the cleaners; working for the government meant he was tracking something for the Department of Defense.
“I’ve kept my antenna tuned for any sign of life from our old unit, but haven’t heard a thing until this morning. And that was unofficial. What’s cookin’, ace?” Palmer asked.
“I wish I knew, dude,” Henry replied, “but unfortunately I’m not on assignment. Hell, there’s really only a handful of people who know we still exist…including the president, and sometimes I wonder if he even knows. But I’m working on something sinister, and it wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t all end up on this before it’s over. I may just need your help sooner than later.”
“Can you tell me what you’re working on?” Palmer asked, hoping for some insight that might help him with the Coscarelli woman.
“Yeah, sure, but you didn’t hear any of this from me,” he said, making certain Palmer knew he was divulging confidential information. “I’m working a case involving a Dr. Conrad out here in Stanford. He’s invented some sort of gravity machine the DOD has an interest in; General Freeman sees a future weapons potential. Anyway, he’s gone missing along with the theft of his research data and about twenty pounds of nuclear fuel the machine needs to operate. Conrad’s cousin, Ryan Marshall, also had his son abducted, and just this morning we find out about Dr. Coscarelli, who used to be romantically involved with Conrad. I know it sounds incestuous, but there’s a definite pattern here. And to top it off, you call with information that Senator Coscarelli is asking about the cleaners…we’ve got a situation on our hands,” Henry said.