Black Flagged Redux

Chapter 6





10:35 AM

FBI Headquarters Building

Washington, D.C.

Special Agent Ryan Sharpe adjusted the files on his desk and checked his watch for the fifth time in the last minute. He was nervous about this meeting. His career hadn't exactly flourished since General Sanderson and his crew popped up and decapitated HYDRA. The Black Flag group vanished into thin air and proved near impossible to track. The quick revenge demanded by the FBI's director, Frederick Shelby, never materialized, and his significantly smaller task force began to shrink with every uneventful month, until he was finally absorbed by the Domestic Terrorism Branch.

The time they had spent scouring the earth for traces of Sanderson's organization hadn't been completely fruitless. His task force stumbled upon some unsavory funding links between foreign organized crime syndicates and a rising domestic ultra-nationalist terrorist organization, True America. Soon after establishing these links, he had been given command of a specialized task force dedicated to investigating foreign funding sources linked to homegrown domestic terrorist groups. Thanks to Director Shelby, Sanderson's crew had been designated a Tier One domestic terrorist organization, which re-landed Sanderson high on Sharpe's list of priority investigative targets.

He had the best of many worlds working for the DTB, a renewed sense of purpose, job security and the ear of Director Shelby, who had vowed to bring the wrath of God down upon Sanderson if Sharpe ever located his new stronghold. After reading the preliminary report forwarded by Special Agent Mendoza, he felt goosebumps. Something about the ATF summary gave him the first real glimmer of hope he had experienced in nearly two years.

Sharpe heard a familiar knock at the door and stood up to walk around the desk. "Get in here, Frank," he boomed.

Special Agent Frank Mendoza entered, followed by Special Agent Dana O'Reilly and a short, angular-faced female wearing a navy blue suit jacket over a sharp-collared white blouse and matching dark blue trousers. She looked extremely serious, and her dark blue eyes pierced the room with a hint of disapproval. She wore an ATF badge clipped to her suit lapel.

"There he is. Special Agent Mendoza. Recently promoted to Ops Section One. You better not give up my favorite chair," he said, vigorously shaking Frank's hand.

"Well, it needs to find a new home. My so-called 'promotion' landed me in a cubicle. It's a whole different world down there. Small fish in a big pond. Ryan, this is Special Agent Marianne Warner. She leads the task force that nabbed Javier Navarre."

"Special Agent Warner, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to meet with me. Please have a seat," he said and nodded at Dana O'Reilly, who closed the door behind them.

Once they were situated in his cramped office, he opened the file sitting at the top of the smallest pile on his desk.

"Special Agent Warner, tell me a little more about Javier Navarre?"

"My task force had been watching him for quite some time. He specialized in what we consider to be exotic, special order weaponry. Not the usual crates of former Eastern Bloc discounted Kalashnikov rifles or RPG-7's. High end stuff. Modern assault rifles, large caliber sniper rifles, armor piercing ammunition. Scary shi…stuff, from our perspective."

"Please speak freely here, Marianne. Special Agent O'Reilly curses like a trucker, and Mendoza here, well…he taught me a few words I didn't learn in college," Sharpe said.

"I might reinstate that HR complaint," O'Reilly said.

"Don't listen to her. She's still pissed I dragged her along into Domestic."

"Shit, we all wanted to get away from you," Mendoza said, and they all laughed.

"Anyway. Please continue, and remember, these people are about as real as it gets in these organizations," Sharpe said, and Warner's face relaxed slightly.

"So, as much as we'd like to keep crates of assault rifles off U.S. soil, the special orders concern us the most. The crates go to groups that are easy to track, and the big orders or shipments are relatively easy to discover. We're all over those, so to say. It's the smaller, specialized orders that slip through the cracks and end up in very dangerous hands. High level drug cartel groups…not the street enforcers, but cartel execution teams or high value target protective details that operate on U.S. soil. They don't attract much public attention, but they're very real and pose a significant danger to law enforcement personnel that stumble on the wrong house, at the wrong time."

"Like last year in Dallas?"

"Exactly. Latest generation G-36C assault rifles equipped with enhanced optics and armor-piercing bullets. The Dallas PD SWAT team lost eleven men on final approach to the target building. All but one from headshots, most of which punctured their Kevlar helmets. These are the kinds of weapons we try desperately to keep off U.S. soil. Mr. Navarre was a key player in this realm, which is a small, exclusive group. With most arms dealers we track, quantity is usually the key to profit. Not with this group. It's highly competitive, cutthroat to be precise, and the clientele is brutal. Russian mob, South American drug cartels, and most recently, U.S. ultra-nationalists. Navarre had been around for nearly two decades, which is an eternity to survive dealing with these groups."

"You’re speaking of him like he's dead," Sharpe said and leaned back in his chair.

Warner raised one eyebrow and looked across the office at Mendoza and O'Reilly.

"This hasn't been released for intra-agency consumption yet, for obvious reasons…but Mr. Navarre was shot in the face during a transfer from the Federal Courthouse to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles. A Mexican gentleman with terminal pancreatic cancer and a very well forged California driver's license fired three "frangible" 10mm bullets from a pistol at a range of five feet and tried to turn the gun on a U.S. Marshal, who had already drawn his service pistol. We didn't get a chance to question the suspect."

"How many days had he been in custody?" Mendoza said.

"Five. We discreetly snatched him out of a Beverly Hills home after DEA received a tip from an actress turned recently busted coke distributor, who wanted desperately to stay out of jail. The homeowner, a surprisingly well known director and kingpin for the coke distribution, apparently loved guns so much that he'd been paying Navarre exorbitant amounts of money to personally deliver the latest weapons. Bad timing for Navarre. The DEA's snitch thought Navarre was the drug connection.

"We get called in when DEA finds the director's vault. This guy had a weapons stockpile that would put all of our agencies' combined SWAT arsenals to shame. Anyway, you can imagine Navarre wasn't very happy being snatched off the street like that. He didn't know who to blame, but kept a level head. I think he sensed that we had a spotty case at best against him because he lawyered up and shut up really quick. He did, however, have a few tender moments before his lawyer arrived."

"Which is why we're here," Mendoza added.

"Navarre knew better than to start talking about the cartels, not that it made any difference in the end. Still, drug cartel activity remains one of the highest priorities for the ATF and DEA, so we started there. Javier was a shrewd businessman…his long tenure a testament to that fact, so before his team of lawyers could shut him up, he got a little cocky. He told us that we were being played by our own agents, and that he could prove it.

"He wanted immunity for this information, which at that point wasn't even a suggestion we were willing to entertain. Not until he expanded his theory a bit. Of course, we kept the talk alive and spoke about the amazing immunity deals granted to big time catches. His eyes widened a little and he told us more. According to Navarre, he'd been supplying some top shelf equipment to Argentinian contacts in Bolivia. Enough to equip a SEAL team. His exact words. He had also arranged smaller weapons cache deliveries for what he believed to be the same group in several locations around the world: the Middle East, northern Europe and western Russia."

"Why did he think this was an inside play?" Sharpe said.

"He suggested these were rogue DEA assets. Undercover assets. Said they spoke flawless Spanish, every nuance and inflection, but he just knew they weren't Argentinian. He couldn't place it at first, but then he said it hit him. It was the way they carried themselves. He knew they were American. He got panicky and started to investigate the contacts. Navarre's assets traced one of the men back to Buenos Aires, where he vanished. He did the same with the rest and couldn't find a trace of them. He stopped dealing with them."

At the mention of Buenos Aires, Sharpe glanced at O'Reilly, and Agent Warner continued. "I figured he was grasping at thin air, trying to come up with some conspiracy theory nonsense to get us thinking about a deal. Either way, he was killed before any further discussions could progress. His lawyers kept him buttoned up good. Nothing really came of this information, until my team entered it into the intra-agency database, with the search tags 'rogue U.S. assets' and 'Argentina,' among many others. That's when I got a call from Special Agent O'Reilly."

O'Reilly broke into the conversation.

"Right. The tagged information came to me through a routine system alert, since we're subscribed to get any information tagged close to this title. I get over two hundred alerts per day, but 'Argentina' caught my eye. This information got tagged again with 'domestic terrorist group' less four hours later."

"My techs added this tag because one of the agents recalled being told by Mr. Navarre that these guys were collecting weapons right here in the U.S. When pressed further, Navarre verified that one of the meetings took place on U.S. soil," Agent Warner said.

"As soon as I saw this, I called Frank and Marianne to compile any information regarding Navarre's business contacts. I know Navarre supposedly dealt with Al Qaeda at some point, so I figured Terrorist Operations would have a file on him. Photos, aliases, travel records…anything. That's when I stumbled upon an incredible coincidence in the ATF files. I found a picture of Navarre with a suspected buyer in Amsterdam. ATF didn't have any follow up information on the buyer, but I recognized the photo immediately. Robert Klinkman…or in this case Reinhard Klinkman."

At this point in the conversation, Sharpe stood up and picked up a different file on his desk.

"Sorry to hit you with this, Agent Warner, but I wanted to do this in person and not over the phone. I need to permanently requisition all files associated with Javier Navarre, as directed by this executive Justice Department order."

"What? This is highly—"

"Unusual? Yes, it is, but I'm not prepared to completely yank this out from under your feet. I understand this may feel like a rude slap to the face after all of the work your team has put into tracking and assembling evidence in Navarre's case, but the link between Mr. Klinkman and Mr. Navarre now falls under Compartmentalized Information Security Category One classification."

"Jesus Christ," Warner muttered.

"Not even J.C. has access to this information," Mendoza quipped, failing to amuse Warner.

"I want you to work with Special Agent O'Reilly to sort through all of Navarre's files, and see if we can find any more links like these. I'm specifically interested in Navarre's travels to South America. This has all been cleared by the assistant director in charge of your investigative division, and I have CIS Category One paperwork here for you to sign…whether you accept the assignment or not."

"Do I really have a choice?" she said.

"Probably not, but we really need your help with this. You know Navarre's case inside and out, and with Navarre shot dead by the Sinaloa Cartel, your investigation is running on fumes. Trust me, I know the feeling. This is a great opportunity to work on a project that has the direct attention of my director and a few extremely high-placed officials in the Justice Department."

"How did you know the Sinaloa Cartel killed Navarre?"

"Sign those papers, and Dana will explain it to you. Navarre's murder was big news in certain circles. Is there anything else that will help make this temporary transition any less painful?"

"We should bring over my lead data analyst. He can work directly with Dana to speed up and optimize the process of merging and analyzing the files," she said.

"Dana, please make this happen and ensure that the CIS agreements are fully explained, signed and filed. Welcome aboard, Special Agent Warner," he said and extended his hand for a formal handshake.

Agent Warner accepted the file in one hand and shook Sharpe's hand briefly without saying a word. Once O'Reilly and Warner stepped out of the room and the door was shut, Mendoza sat back down.

"Good to see you again, Frank. Looks like we might be back in business."

"We? I'm working on Muslim extremists, not Black Flag. I have to admit, you might be on to something finally," Frank said.

"I have a gut feeling about Argentina. This is the second link in three months. We busted Victor Almadez flying back into the country using false papers."

"Part of the reconstituted list?"

Since the Black Flag file had been stolen in its entirety by Colonel Farrington, and the late Harris McKie had been parsimonious in the dissemination of its contents to the FBI during his short stint as gatekeeper in the Sanctum, Sharpe had less than half of the list of living Black Flag operatives. His reassigned and significantly reduced task force spent the first six months creating the missing list. They started with missing persons reports filed within a block of time extending two months before and after May 26, 2005. Specifically, they categorized male adults, aged thirty years or older, and started to compile a surprisingly large list of missing males. They eliminated any reports filed by direct family members, since the families of known east coast and Midwest operatives had either disappeared with the operative, or had gone to live with relatives in protest.

The only home they found occupied had contained Jessica Petrovich, and there had apparently been a good reason for that. The FBI's database had been hacked shortly after Edwards temporarily vanished from the grid. The cyber-attack appeared to be a simple probe, using Edward's computer and intranet password. Probably designed to confirm the information released by McKie to the FBI and view any key FBI assumptions that might hinder their vanishing act.

Once O'Reilly's team of data analysts compiled a list of missing males that fit the general demographic pattern, they further narrowed the field by discarding any profiles without prior military service. Known operatives to that point had been one hundred percent connected by military service, and this assumption whittled the list down to a manageable number. Examination of known operative military and personal backgrounds yielded no discernible pattern for further breakdown of their list. Black Flag operatives came from every branch of service, often from specialties not directly tied to combat, and examining personal history data offered a vastly diverse picture with no connections. At that point they started the real work, creating a database alert system linked to friends, relatives, work contacts…hundreds of variables that might trigger a possible contact event with one of the ninety-eight contacts on their list.

Their hard work produced tangible results on February 8th of this year, when the system alerted Special Agent O'Reilly to the fact that Victor Almadez's grandfather, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, had passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. Based on the alert, Sharpe issued the highest level priority terrorist alert for Victor Almadez, providing enough imaging data for both TSA and Customs to effectively utilize their new facial recognition software systems.

Three days later, customs agents at the Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport seized Manuel Delreyo after debarking an American Airlines flight that originated in Buenos Aires and made a stop in Santiago, Chile. Almadez/Delreyo proved to be as difficult to read as the escape artist Jeffrey Munoz, and Sharpe couldn't shake the feeling that they were being played again.

He had been so badly burned by Sanderson's Munoz play that he felt tinges of paranoia as soon as he received the phone call from Customs. Two months later, they still had Almadez in custody, held under some very tenuous Homeland Security Act provisions that wouldn't hold up if put under any public scrutiny. Unfortunately for Almadez, he was a nameless prisoner stuffed away in an obscure detention facility designed and administered by the Hallister Corporation. Sharpe wasn't worried about Almadez.

"The capture kept me from being fired and resulted in my transfer to Domestic. The last nod from Director Shelby I can expect. Unfortunately, Almadez hasn't said anything substantive, other than a promise to 'take this personally' if he doesn't see a lawyer by the end of June."

"He's willing to wait four months?"

"He said, 'I'm a patient man, and I understand your predicament…I'm willing to wait four months,' and that was it," Sharpe said.

"You're going to let him go, right?"

"Not with the Navarre link. I'm going to start poking around down south. Argentina and Bolivia."

"You gonna bring the CIA in on this?"

"No. I don't trust the CIA after the Black Flag debacle. Too many aspects of that day didn't add up in the end. Jeremy Cummings is paid nearly two hundred thousand dollars to assemble an off the books team to kill Petrovich. All we get from the CIA is the suggestion that this might be a revenge play by Serbian nationalists. A little too convenient that they stumbled upon the same connection regarding Petrovich and Resja so quickly. The CIA liaison, Randy Keller, vanishes from the face of the planet after walking into a Georgetown residence that literally explodes minutes later. And the payment to Cummings came from an extremely sanitized money trail leading nowhere, deposited into his account after he was killed. The director himself told me to keep the CIA out of it. I'm going directly to our counterparts in Argentina and Bolivia. We have a good working relationship with Argentine Federal Police."

"Argentina's a big country…let me know how I can help. We're still shaking down the Navarre/Al Qaeda connection, but it doesn't appear to have any meat. Even a scumbag like Navarre kept his distance from that group."

"Thanks, Frank. Always a pleasure. We should grab a drink soon. My treat," Sharpe said.

"Damn straight. Good luck with this. It would be nice to nail Sanderson to the wall. He set the domestic Al Qaeda investigation back two years with his stunt," Mendoza said.

"I'm keeping my fingers crossed on this one. Catch you later, Frank."

"You too," he said and closed the door as he left.

Sharpe had enough confirmation to contact the FBI legal attaché at the U.S. Embassy in Buenos Aires, but he'd have to be careful. The embassy crawled with spooks, and the wrong conversation, at the wrong time, could bring the CIA into the fold. He desperately wanted to avoid this and needed to do a little more research into Dan Bailey and Susan Castaneda, resident legal attachés in Argentina.