Читать книгу The Crusaders of the Saltire - William Speir - Страница 17

Lt. Colonel Frederick (“Fred”) Burkhart strode down the hallway that led from his temporary office to the hanger area. He passed at least a dozen guards who snapped to attention as he passed. He acknowledged each of them without breaking his stride.

Lawson Army Airfield, Ft. Benning’s base airport, wasn’t as busy as it once was, now that troops had been recalled to the United States to participate in border protection. Burkhart’s project had taken over the largest hangers on the base, and for the moment, it was among the most secure facilities in the country.

Shortly after the terrorist bombings that occurred all around the country a few months after President Sanborn was sworn in, Burkhart was called into the office of the Commander of the Criminal Investigation Command (CID) at Ft. Benning, Georgia. A joint military-FBI task force was being assembled to review evidence and investigate the bombings. They wanted Burkhart to be involved as senior Army investigator. He was allowed to pick his own team and given access to any resource he might need at any time. This was highest priority.

Burkhart accepted the assignment and selected his team. They were all seasoned investigators, and Burkhart knew and trusted each of them. They were each paired up with an FBI Agent and sent out to do crime scene inspections and evidence gathering. All of the evidence, including bomb and car fragments, broken glass from buildings, mangled road signs, wreckage from the downed airlines, even a couple of dump trucks that happened to be passing one of the bombs when it went off, was photographed, tagged, catalogued, and shipped back to Ft. Benning. The human remains of the bombing victims had also been sent to Ft. Benning and wouldn’t be released for burial until after the investigation was concluded.

For the past several months, teams of scientists and investigators had been going over every inch of each piece of evidence to see what could be learned about the bombings. The floor of the hangars where the evidence was laid out was a strange mixture of evidence, life-size photographs of before-and-after images of the bombing sites, and dozens of investigators in protective clothing scurrying around trying to discover any clues about who was responsible for the attack.

Burkhart stopped at the hangar entrance to put on his protective clothing, which was required due to the decomposing human remains that were still being separated from some of the debris and the possibility of toxic biologic agents present in the bomb fragments. He needed to talk to several members of his team but refused to do it in his office or conference room. A week earlier, he had discovered that his office was bugged. Someone wanted to keep tabs on his investigation, and he wasn’t one to release any information to anyone until he was certain that it was correct. Now when he wanted to talk to someone, he did it on the hangar floor, where it would be more difficult to eavesdrop.

Burkhart hated the feeling that he couldn’t trust the people around him. He trusted his team but no one else. Every day there were new faces in the hangar – new guards, new technicians, new FBI Agents. He didn’t trust any of them. And if the information he had been given was correct, there weren’t too many people outside the hangar that he could trust anymore, either.

Burkhart finished putting on his protective clothing and opened the security door onto the hangar floor. He looked for his team members. Seeing where they were waiting for him, he walked over to them. As Burkhart arrived, the members of the team took positions that would allow them to hear the conversation while keeping watch for anyone trying to find out what was going on.

“Are you sure about this?” Burkhart asked one of his senior investigators.

“Yes, sir. Positive. We were able to take samples of explosive residue from over 15 of the bombs that went off. We gave samples to the FBI for their labs to process, but we kept samples for ourselves, as you instructed. We tested them thoroughly. All of the bombs were made of a very large C-4 core surrounded by ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel. These were very high-yield devices that were supposed to look like a homemade bombs, but the blast radius and power were too great for the quantity of nitrates and fuel used. That’s when we started looking deeper and found the C-4 residue. We’ve worked out how much C-4 had to be used to get the yield from each bomb, and it’s a substantial amount.

“As you know, all major manufacturers of C-4 use a slightly different chemical composition. By analyzing the residue, we can find out who manufactured it or if it was homemade.”

He pulled a stack of papers out of his notebook. “This is what we found,” he said, showing the papers to Burkhart.

It was right there on the paper. The C-4 was the exact chemical composition used by the United States Military. It was a unique formula that no one else used. This meant that the C-4 was either stolen from the military, provided by the military, or used by the military.

Burkhart looked in the faces of his team members. “You’re certain of this? I mean absolutely certain?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Do we know where it came from?”

“Not yet. We searched the explosives inventory system for any C-4 that had been issued in sufficient quantity to make these bombs, but the system is showing no C-4 was issued to anyone for the past several months, except the usual amounts for the bomb disposal squads who were doing training.”

“Do we know if the bomb disposal squads used all the C-4?”

“No sir, we’d have to do physical inspection of their inventory to find that out.”

Burkhart looked slightly annoyed at this. “Gentlemen, we’re potentially dealing with treason here. Someone used our own explosives to kill our own civilians. We have to find out how our C-4 got into these bombs, and we have to find that out quickly. All physical inventories need to be checked against the system to see if there is any C-4 missing, and anyone who received C-4 in the past 12 months had damn-well better be able to prove that they used it for the purpose they said they did.”

“Yes sir, we’ll get right on it.”

“One more thing, gentlemen. Trust no one. Don’t speak about this to anyone outside this group, and don’t speak about this anywhere you can be overheard or your lips read. My office was bugged, and there’s no telling what else has been bugged. Assume your homes and phones are tapped. I want regular sweeps on all communications equipment, and no open communication through any channel you’re not willing to stake your life on. We don’t know where this will lead us, but I guarantee there will be people who don’t want us to discover the truth. Trust each other, trust me; everyone else is a suspect.”

The team acknowledged Burkhart’s instructions and left to return to their assignment stations.

Burkhart watched them go, deep in thought. This is beginning to look like a case of domestic terrorism, rather than foreign terrorism. The bombings are the excuse used by the Administration to close the borders and kick out anyone who isn’t a citizen. It’s possible that the wrong people were blamed for the attacks. But why would an American set off bombs in protest of foreign nationals being forced to leave the country? Most Americans are happy that the foreign nationals were kicked out. Unemployment went down immediately as displaced American workers suddenly had job offers to fill the new vacancies.

It didn’t make sense to Burkhart why domestic terrorists would set off the bombs and then not claim credit by issuing either a list of demands or providing some sort of manifesto explaining why it had been done. No terrorist group has ever failed to take credit for its own work, but to-date, no one anywhere in the world has claimed credit for the attacks.

Burkhart’s mind switched to a new line of thought as he walked around the perimeter of the hangar. They had all been so busy trying to peer into the evidence to tell them who was responsible that they forgot to look at the issue from the other side.

Who benefits from the attacks? Domestic terrorists? They’ve been trying to get foreign nationals sent home for years. President Sanborn had already ordered them to leave, so the attacks would have no value to domestic terrorists unless they wanted something else. But if they wanted something else, why haven’t they come forward with their demands?

Foreign terrorists? They’d certainly have protested being kicked out of the country, but once gone, why not admit to the attack? Do they believe that by silence Americans will start to think that foreign terrorists weren’t responsible and let foreign nationals return some day? Now that foreign terrorists have been blamed for the attacks, it’ll be a very long time before any foreign national will be allowed back in the country for more than a 5-day vacation visa, and then only a few will be allowed in the country at any given time. The way President Sanborn sealed the borders, America can’t be attacked again easily. Americans feel safe, which is exactly what a terrorist doesn’t want. It doesn’t make sense.

Someone else? Who else benefits from the attacks? Burkhart thought back to what had happened following the attacks. Much of the military has been recalled, the borders have been sealed, the HSF has been created as a national security force, and a number of regulations have been passed and executive orders implemented to increase security around the country. Apart from the terrible loss of life, America has benefited from the attacks the most. The country is safe, people are happy, employment is at an all-time high… it’s as if the attacks were the end of one way of life and the beginning of a better one.

That doesn’t make sense, either. Burkhart continued walking around the hangar. Why would Americans kill Americans? Just to kick out foreigners and seal the borders? It would probably take something like this to give the President the power to do that.

Power. Burkhart thought about that word for a moment. It gave the President power – almost unlimited power that’s far beyond what the constitution allows. President Sanborn has been allowed to implement policies and practices that no President in history has ever been allowed to implement – not even Lincoln. Could the attacks have been planned to give the President that power?