Burying the Past (John Taylor #4) - Chapter 15

Taylor moved around the edge of the car he’d been using as cover in case more terrorist had come out while the tac team was clearing the building and holstered his weapon. Considering the tac team leader and the man with him both had their weapons slung over their shoulders, Taylor assumed there wasn’t any immediate danger, at least not from anything that a gun could help with. Considering the urgency in the man's voice a few moments before, that didn’t mean there wasn’t any danger at all.

Taylor was just walking past the bodies of the two terrorists gunned down by friendly fire, when he suddenly stopped and said, “Well, shit.”

“What?” Whitaker, who had been headed around the other end of the car, stopped and asked.

Taylor pointed at one of the bodies, causing Whitaker to also swear, albeit silently when she saw what he was looking at. Taylor hadn’t gotten a good look at the face of the terrorist who’d thrown down his weapon when the shooting had started, partly because he was obscured by trees and partly because there were more important things on his mind at the time, like avoiding being shot.

Once Taylor had gotten a closer look and the situation had calmed down; Taylor recognized Justin Sampson, the boy who’d gotten involved with Mary Bennett. Taylor frowned as he looked at the young man. From how his parents had talked about him, it was pretty clear he’d gotten in over his head with the Bennett girl. The fact that, at the first sign of real danger, the teenager had thrown his gun down and surrendered was proof of that. While Taylor would have been happy to see the college student prosecuted for assisting terrorists, even if he’d been a dupe and not a true believer, he hadn’t wanted harm to come to the kid. Being shot in the back while you’re trying to surrender is a sad ending to the kid's sad life.

Taylor made eye contact with Whitaker for a moment and was certain she was thinking similar thoughts about the kid. The moment passed and both headed towards the warehouse. While both felt bad about how the kid had ended up, they had a job to do.

Inside the building was essentially a large open room with an interior door on the far end. The front of the building currently stood open, and looked to lead to an office or some type of reception area. The front third of the building was taken up with rows of sturdy looking benches. Several of them still contained what Taylor could only think of as scientific instruments such as burners, beakers and large stoppered flasks.

The team leader stopped them from getting closer to that area.

“One of my guys got close to those tables and caught a whiff of something. He’s out front puking his guts out.”

“Have you called paramedics?”

“One of the guys on our team is trained as our team medic. He's checking our man over now. I called the chopper to come airlift him out, just in case. We’d been briefed on what happened in Amberville, and our medic has been prepared for similar toxins. He thinks my guy will be okay, but considering what might be in those containers, I think its best if no one else goes over there.”

Taylor turned and looked towards the door they’d come through and on the floor next to the entrance were three nose and mouth style gas masks, apparently dumped by the gunmen before they came outside.

“Do you think this is where they’re making the stuff?” Taylor asked Whitaker.

“Possibly. What’s in those drums?”

Closer to where Whitaker and Taylor were standing, in an area without tables, were several very old metal barrels and large wooden boxes.

“I didn’t want to open them until hazmat got here, just in case, so I’m not sure. Both the barrels and the boxes look really old like they could have been here from where these buildings were abandoned.”

“I don’t think so,” Whitaker said, kneeling down to get a different view of the containers but still keeping her distance. “Look at the nails in that box, they’re all still silver, not rusted at all. That box says Allied Mechanical Systems … I can’t remember exactly, but I know it from somewhere. It’s something recent but I can’t put my finger on it.”

“I bet that’s how they kept stuff here and managed to keep it under the radar. Put everything in old looking storage and the cops will think it’s always been here. All you have to do is pack away the stuff on the tables and take off. Everything else can sit in plain sight.”

“Huh.”

“When the chopper gets here, we need to hitch a ride back on it to civilization,” Whitaker said.

“Shouldn’t we stay till hazmat clears this place and we figure out what all that crap is?”

“They’ll call it in. Something’s bugging me and I need to look into it. I need an internet connection and cell service.”

“We could use the trooper’s radio?” the team leader suggested.

“No, they can’t patch us into the phone system. The people I need to talk to are civilians. The hazmat team can reach us by radio, so we can leave you guys to babysit this mess till they and more agents drive out here.”

“Great,” he said unenthusiastically.

“Aren’t you always the one going on about protocol?” Taylor asked as they walked out the back door of the warehouse and around to the front. “I’m surprised you’re just going to walk away from a crime scene.”

“I am following protocol. I’m assigning the task of securing the scene to qualified personnel until the scene is processed and released. SACs normally delegate the babysitting of crime scenes off, and sometimes it takes the techs days to clear a scene. You don’t think one person has to stay there the whole time.”

“Ok. It still seems unlike you.”

“Well …” she said and let it sit.

Taylor dropped it since he didn’t normally have a problem following gut reactions. The name on the crate didn’t mean anything to him, but if she had a feeling about them, he would go with it. He pulled out his cell phone and confirmed he still didn’t have any signal.

The ‘whomp-whomp’ of helicopter blades made him look up just as the Blackhawk cleared the tree line and set down in the middle of the road. Taylor and Whitaker jogged towards it as the side door slid open. They paused to let the tactical team medic get his teammate seated on one of the choppers' benches. As soon as the medic backed out of the door, Whitaker and Taylor climbed aboard.

As the crew chief slid the door closed Taylor asked the injured man, “How’re you feeling?”

“A little nauseous, that’s all. I don’t think I got a lot of it, just a whiff.”

“That stuff is pretty nasty,” Whitaker said.

“That’s what the sergeant said. If it was up to me I’d stay with the team.”

“I get that,” Taylor said.

He could also see the sergeant’s point, the man did look pretty green and was sweating.

“Why not take you to a local hospital?”

“Closest one that’s set up to handle this kind of thing,” the co-pilot said over the radio headset they’d all put on as they were taking off. “We radioed ahead and the docs at Walter Reed said they thought he could make it there, and they’d like to look him over. They have guys there that specialize in chemical weapons.”

“If he was really bad they would have taken him to the first trauma center available and brought the expert to him,” Whitaker said.

“Let me guess, that’s the protocol?” Taylor said with a lopsided grin.

“Bite me,” She said as she smiled back at him. She turned to the crew chief and asked, “Chief, could you call ahead and see if the Bureau can have someone with a car waiting for us?”

“Sure.”

The flight took several hours to get back. The sick agent didn’t seem to get worse, although he had to close his eyes a few times, and looked like he was close to letting loose again. Taylor was silently thankful the man managed to hold it in.

When they landed at Walter Reed they had to wait as a whole team of doctors and nurses rushed to the side of the chopper and put the man on a gurney. Taylor felt for him as he tried to convince them he could walk. Doctors, as they are wont to do, demanded he get wheeled in like an invalid.

As soon as the commotion cleared Taylor and Whitaker hopped off and walked over to a car that was sitting near the tarmac with an agent standing next to it.

“Agent Whitaker?” he asked when they walked up.

“Yes.”

“Agent Crawford asked if you could call in as soon as you got a chance.”

“Thanks,” she said as she took the keys from him and handed them over to Taylor as reached for the passenger door. “You drive. I want to look this stuff up.”

“Sure,” he said and got in. “Where are we going?”

“Just start heading out of the complex. I’ll have an address for you by the time we hit the exit.”

She had her phone out and was looking for something. Taylor put his phone on speaker and dialed Crawford.

“Taylor? Where’s Whitaker,” Crawford said when he answered.

“Sitting right next to me. She spent the whole trip back checking if she had cell service so she could look up a lead.”

“They radioed in and said you had something.”

“Maybe have something,” she said as she continued to stare at her phone. “I’m not sure if it’ll lead us anywhere. So far it’s just a name on a crate.”

“She kept saying something about the company she vaguely remembered and thought it might connect, but she can’t remember the specifics,” Taylor offered.

“Yeah, the team on the ground mentioned that. We looked them up here, but we didn’t see anything of note. Hazmat’s on-site and they opened the box you saw. It apparently had a mixture of mechanical parts and instruments from different manufactures in it. The best guess is they were using it as simple storage because it looked old enough that anyone checking on the buildings wouldn’t open it to see what's inside. Are you sure it isn’t just a box Qasim’s people found?”

“There’s still something. I’m nearly sure of it,” Whitaker said as she showed Taylor the address of where they were headed.

“Since you’re already back in DC follow it up, but don’t take long though. Those barrels were full of chemicals, some of which are controlled. We’ve already been in touch with the manufacturers. These are pretty large quantities. I don’t think they bought them through separate distributors, or if they did, there can’t be a lot that had those quantities on hand. I’m hoping there’s a paper trail we can follow.”

“Wouldn’t that go the other direction,” Taylor said. “It’ll lead us to Qasim’s money and maybe where he was when he ordered everything, but not to where he is now. If this is what he’s been using to brew up those chemicals he used in Amberville, we already know what’s in it.”

“We’re pretty sure it is what he used. Everything we’ve found matches the breakdown the lab boys wrote up. It’s the best lead we have at the moment, so I have people on it. As soon as you’re done chasing down this lead of Whitaker’s I want you to help us with this.”

“Will do. We’ll call you as soon as we figure out what set Loretta off,” Taylor said and hung up.

“Their offices are on K street and they’ve got a manufacturing facility outside of Richmond,” Whitaker said, still looking at her phone.

“Anything on their website help you figure out what’s bugging you?”

“No. They do specialty mechanical fabrication, which could mean anything. They have a lot of government contracts it looks like, but so do half the companies in DC.”

“You could call them and ask.”

“We’re almost there, plus I’m not sure what to ask them about. ‘Hey, have you guys done something that I should remember about you?’ isn’t an easy question to answer.”

“You’re going to have to ask the same thing when we get there.”

“I’m hoping something between now and then reminds me.”

It turned out Whitaker had a while to look up information on the company; partially because DC traffic is always bad, and partially because of the debates happening in a few hours. The streets were completely clogged with traffic.

When they pulled up to Allied Mechanical Systems a few minutes later Whitaker was still scrolling through the company’s website trying to jog her memory. Like all of the buildings along the section of K Street that housed lobbyists and defense contractors, Allied was in a grayish, square building that wouldn’t have looked out of place a hundred years ago. There were no spots along the curb thanks to the heavy traffic. Taylor didn’t want to circle around looking for something, and decided this was one of those times he could the abuse official prerogative that came with working for a law enforcement agency. He pulled up over the curb in a small gap, barely missing the fire hydrant that forced the cars to avoid that small stretch.

“You’re going to give the traffic control ladies a fit and they’re going to tell my boss on me,” Whitaker said as she got out of the car.

“Do you want to drive around and find a real spot?”

“No, I’m just saying don’t make a habit of that. The Bureau doesn’t like its agents to do stuff like this unless it’s urgent.”

Taylor didn’t reply since he thought the current situation fit that exact description as they both headed into Allied’s offices.

Whitaker badged the receptionist and shortly they were ushered into a small conference room just off the reception area, where they were met by a man named Tony Andopollis and one of the company’s corporate lawyers.

“How can we assist the FBI today?”

“We came across your companies name during a recent investigation. We have evidence that a suspect in an ongoing investigation bought something from your company as part of their criminal activities, but we haven’t been able to catalog everything they received from you. We are trying to figure out what they purchased from you.”

“Are you suggesting Allied is in some way supplying materials used to commit a crime?” The lawyer said.

“No, we’re simply conducting a routine investigation into a purchase. Yours isn’t the only company we are talking to about this. At this time, we have no interest in your company, as far as this case goes, beyond your ability to help us with getting a better picture of our suspects’ purchases.”

“That is fine for criminal investigations but we also have to worry about public opinion.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry about that. The FBI does not comment on ongoing cases and we have no interest in mentioning your company's name to the press or anyone else.”

The lawyer looked at Andopollis and nodded.

“Sorry about that, we just have to clear these things. We of course always want to cooperate with law enforcement.”

“I understand.”

“If you can tell us the name of the person who made the purchases, or a company they operated under, I can pull our records of everything we sold them.”

“That’s where this is going to get difficult. We think they may have used a cutout to make the purchases and we aren’t sure of that person’s, or companies, name.”

“Ahh, that does complicate things. How about what they purchased. We could then pull up a list of everyone who bought that item.”

Whitaker looked sideways at Taylor who was very purposefully maintaining a neutral expression and said, “We also don’t know what specifically was purchased.”

“I’m confused. You don’t know who bought something from us or what was purchased. I’m not sure how to help you with that. How do you know they bought anything from us?”

“We found shipping materials, although not a manifest or unique identifying marks, with your company's name on it.”

“I’m having trouble figuring out how I can help you.”

“Can you explain what you guys do? I know you do metal fabrication, but more specifically what do you guys do?” Taylor said.

“We specialize in precision fabrication.”

“That’s what I read but I’m not sure what that means,” Whitaker said.

“We machine parts that have very specific requirements, usually for companies that need to assemble larger machines but that don’t have the specialized equipment for pinpoint accuracy. We take contract assignments to engineer and fabricate specialty equipment.”

“So you both create parts for other companies, and design and create parts on your own for people who have specific needs, but can’t design them on their own?” Taylor asked.

“Essentially.”

“Have you taken any contracts that raised any red flags or seemed somehow suspect?” Whitaker asked.

“I’m not sure we’ve ever run into that but I can assure you that if something like that came up, we wouldn’t take the commission.”

“How about anything involving chemicals?” Taylor asked.

“Sure, but a large portion of precision machining is, in the end, used for chemicals. We do a lot of work for the oil and gas industry, for instance, creating fittings that can withstand high pressure and remain completely airtight and non-permeable.”

“Anything involving chlorine?”

“Sure. Chlorine is a pretty common substance. It’s used in textiles, solvents, paints, fabrics, and so on. We’ve taken a fairly large number of commissions that involve chlorine.”

“How about water systems.”

“Again, that’s not uncommon. Parts that can maintain pressure and remain sealed is a whole sector of our business. From hydraulics systems to municipal uses, we’ve made a wide range.”

“Did you make anything used in the city of Amberville, Virginia?” Whitaker asked.

“Let me check,” he said.

Reaching into a briefcase he had sitting on the table he pulled out a laptop and brought up some kind of database program. After a minute of searching, he pulled up a record of some type and pointed to it.

“We did. They were a test platform for something our municipal services division was working on. We placed our disinfectant injection system into their water treatment plant. Their MUD district is pretty small, so they normally wouldn’t have been able to afford this kind of an upgrade, however, we needed them as a showpiece, to help convince larger municipalities.”

“That’s it. You guys got some contract a few months ago to do some kind of upgrade to the water filtration system in Boston, DC, and Philadelphia,” Whitaker said, sitting up and looking at Taylor. “They had a feature on it in the Herald a few weeks back. It’s supposed to increase the effectiveness of purification systems while lowering the costs somehow.”

“I’m happy to hear we’re getting some good press, since that’s exactly what it does. Normally chemical disinfectants are added into municipal water systems after they go through the filtration systems, where it’s kind of dumped in. Well, that’s not precise, but you get the idea. They have to use a fair amount of it, to make sure the entire supply has the needed concentration to make it pass the regulations. What our system does is push the water through an injector, sort of like a car’s fuel injector except not really. The system uses high-pressure valves to mix small amounts of chemicals like chlorine and other disinfectants with the water as it fills from the filters into the water cistern itself. The amount of chemicals needed is cut to less than 10% of what’s used in traditional processes. This means it’s cheaper to disinfect the water, and the customer is drinking more pure H2O and fewer chemicals; and for today’s customers, that’s a big deal.”

Taylor exchanged another glance with Whitaker.

“Thanks,” Whitaker said standing up, “I think we’ve got what we needed. IF you’ll excuse us, we have to make some calls.”

As they were walking out, Taylor turned back towards the now standing men and said, “Why Amberville? I get you wanted a city to put your system in to show it worked, but I’m sure a larger city more like the places you ultimately want to sell the systems to, would also take the free setup. Why go to a smaller city? I mean, wouldn’t big cities like Chicago or whatever second guess the example since things work differently when the water supply is so much bigger?”

“It’s actually our second test platform. We already had one in place with Buffalo, but there were a few cities that had unique water systems that kept our system from fully purifying the water supply. Amberville had a similar setup so we gave them our system to both show it worked on these types of water reserves and to make the necessary adjustments since we had trouble duplicating the effects in our labs.”

“Do a lot of cities have this alternate setup?” Whitaker asked.

“No, it’s actually pretty rare. We were considering not doing it at all, but DC had asked for our proposal and we really wanted our system there, since it’s better for regulators to be familiar with your end product. No matter how many white papers you show them, nothing beats first hand knowledge.”

“Is that the system you put in DC and what other cities have that alternate system in place?”

“Yes, that’s the system we put in DC. At the moment, it and Amberville are the only ones we’ve changed.”

“Get me a list of every water treatment plant in DC you upgraded. I need it now!” Taylor said.

“Wait a minute,” the lawyer started to say.

“You can either get it voluntarily for me now, or I can get subpoenas and turn your world upside down,” Whitaker said.

“Just do it, Joel,” Andopollis said.

“Can you give us the room, we need to make a call,” Taylor said, pulling Whitaker back into the conference room and out of the doorway, making way for two employees to leave.

“Sure, I’ll have that list for you in a few minutes,” Andopollis said as he walked past them.

Taylor was already dialing his cell phone and put it on speaker as soon as he'd finished dialing.

“Crawford,” he said as soon as the agent picked up before the man could say anything, “the attack’s happening in DC, and it’s happening tonight.”

“What?” Whitaker said. “I agree we have enough to say the attack is happening in DC, but how do you know it will be tonight?”

“Can you two slow down and tell me what’s going on?”

“We figured out where Whitaker knew Allied Mechanical Systems from. She read a thing about their installing a new water filtration system in DC, and a few other areas. They built a system that injects chemicals into water systems so a smaller amount can mix with more water. They use it for chlorine and other disinfectants. They have two versions, one they’ve put into a bunch of cities, and a second alternate one for unusual water systems where their original version doesn’t work. They put their test platform in Amberville, and the only other city they’ve installed that one in, is here in DC.”

“Shit.”

“How do you know its tonight?” Whitaker asked again.

“Tonight’s Presidential debate is here in DC. Can you think of a better time, from Qasim’s perspective, to make an attack? You have the current Vice President in a room with one of the most powerful voices in the Senate in the same room. Except for the inauguration, I’m not sure there’s a better time to attack. I’m sure the White House has its own, separate filtration system so they couldn’t target the president, and the inauguration is too far away. He wouldn’t spread his test run and the actual attack too far apart. He’s smart enough to realize you’re already working on remedies to what happened. Normally I’d say he’d make the attack just a day or two after the test, unless something made waiting a little longer worthwhile, which this debate would do.”

“It’s worse than that. The President’s supposed to be there. He promised his guy he’d show up as a show of support, especially with how Caldwell’s kicking his ass in the polls. He only announced it yesterday, and from what I know, it was a last-minute decision. There’s no way they could pass up the target, now.”

“We’re getting a list of water treatment plants they upgraded, now,” Whitaker said. “We should probably have someone go back to Amberville and look at their injection system. It would help to know what modifications they’ve made if we have to dismantle these things. I thought they were just dumping something in the reservoir. It never occurred to me they’d done anything to the mechanisms themselves.”

“They might not have,” Taylor said. “They may just be taking advantage of the system that’s in place to get their chemicals mixed in enough.”

“Hold on a sec,” Taylor said as the door opened back up and the lawyer from before stepped back into the room.

“This is all the information we have on the Amberville and DC installation except for trade secrets. The city council approved three instillations as a test, but we’ve only gotten one set up. It’s actually not that far from here, since it serves most of Capital Hill.”

Taylor grabbed the paper out of the startled man's hands and dashed out the door behind Whitaker, who went around to the drivers' side of the car and stopped, looking at the bumper to bumper traffic.

“How far is it from here?”

“Looks like about three blocks,” Taylor said, looking at a map of the area on his phone. “We’re never going to make it in this mess and the debate’s only a few hours away. If they aren’t there now, they will be any time.”

“Screw it! Let’s just run. Call Crawford and have him get anyone he can to meet us there. Locals, tactical team, other agents … hell, the national guard or park police if they’re nearby.”

“Right,” Taylor said as both began to run down the street.