“His personality. It doesn’t make sense that he would commit suicide.”
“You didn’t know him that well. You’ve been there two days.”
“I get the guy. He’s a fun, upbeat guy. Connected to friends and students. They all loved him, they called him Mr. Y.” Chris flashed on the scene at practice this morning. The players had been so distraught when they heard the news. Raz had been dropped off by his mother, after he had obviously been crying. Coach Hardwick had made them practice anyway, but they played horribly and left crestfallen.
“I don’t see the point.”
“That’s because you never heard the justification for the operation. You were in D.C. when I got the authorization—”
“I read the file. I’m completely up-to-date on your reports.”
“It’s not the same thing, and besides, there’s no downside. It costs nothing. My rent is $450, and I buy my own clothes.”
“Don’t forget we had to pay to place you in the school. The superintendent wanted four grand to send the teacher and her old man on a vacation.” Alek rolled his eyes. “Your tax dollars at work.”
“But still, it’s cheaper than a house or a boat, and the upside is great.”
“You know what your problem is, Curt? Your premise is wrong.”
“How? It’s cost–benefit. The typical budgetary analysis—”
“No, your premise is that you’re the one who makes that analysis. But you’re not. I am. I’m shutting you down.”
“You haven’t given it a chance. Let me break it down.” Chris commandeered the Rabbi’s laptop, logged into the network using his password to get beyond the ATF firewall, then found his private files. “Did you see the video? Did you even look at it?”
“I read—”
“It’ll take fifteen seconds. Watch.” Chris hit PLAY, and the video showed a shadowy image of a tall figure forcing open a door in a dark shed, then hurrying toward bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer. The figure reached for one of the bags, and as he did so, he came closer to the camera. The man’s features were obscured by a ball cap, but it captured the lettering of his blue T-shirt, which read Musketeers Baseball.
“So?” Alek sighed theatrically.
Chris hit STOP. “We know that ammonium nitrate fertilizer is the go-to ingredient for IEDs made by domestic terrorists and that its purchase, transport, and storage is strictly monitored by Homeland Security and it’s restricted to those with a permit, mostly farmers. The only other way to get it is theft.” Chris pointed to the screen. “This video was taken by Herb Vrasaya, one of the farmers in Central Valley, whose farm is located five miles from the high school. Mr. Vrasaya grows corn and he has a permit to buy and store the fertilizer. He installed the camera two weeks ago, because he thought rats were getting into the shed and he wanted to see how.”
“I read that part.”
“Mr. Vrasaya sent the video to our office, like a good citizen. ‘If you see something, say something,’ and he didn’t want his permitting jeopardized. I think this video is evidence of a bomb plot that has a connection to the baseball team at CVHS. The blue Musketeers T-shirt is issued to only the varsity players, the boys I coach. It’s a badge of honor. I’m inflitrating the team to identify this kid and learn why he’s stealing fertilizer. And it would be no problem at all for an underage kid to rent a box truck in Central Valley. All the locals know where to go, to a guy named Zeke. I went there myself to see how hard it would be to rent a truck and what the pitfalls would be. I met the guy. He always has them available, and there’s no paperwork.”
The Rabbi interjected, “Remember that it’s April, Alek. April 19 is the anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Anybody trying to blow something up would be stockpiling fertilizer now. It takes a ton of fertilizer for a major explosion. That’s fifty bags. Bottom line, I agree with Curt. I’m backing him.”
Alek threw up his hands. “Why? Because some kid has a T-shirt? He could’ve gotten it at Target. Curt, you said so in your own report, didn’t you?”
“What I wrote in my report was that I talked to the manager at Target, and he told me that only the Booster moms buy T-shirts at Target. The store never sells any large or the extralarge, only the extrasmall and small.” Chris thought ahead to preempt Alek’s next objection. “And don’t think that the kid in the video wore the T-shirt to frame a member of the baseball team, because there’s no way they could’ve known about the security camera.”
Alek scoffed. “But what kind of an idiot would wear a team uniform to steal something?”
“Not an idiot, a kid. I’ve been a teacher for two days and I can tell you they do dumb stuff. Especially the boys. They don’t think anything through.”
“Not that dumb. All it takes is one kid to buy the T-shirt or one mom to buy a larger size.”
“Then assign another agent to follow up with Target. I can’t do it myself with my cover, and the video alone isn’t enough for probable cause. We can get the name, address, and credit card of everybody who bought a Musketeers T-shirt in the past five years. I think it was a newish one because the color stayed true.” Chris had washed four T-shirts thirty times to see when the color faded. The answer was, the twenty-third time.
“We don’t have the agent to spare.”
“I’m making progress. Like I told you, I’m in: I picked my guy, Jordan Larkin.”
“Is that the name of your unwitting?” the Rabbi asked. An unwitting was the ATF term for an informant who was being pumped for information without knowing that he was part of an undercover operation.
“Yes, and he’s perfect. It took me only two days to befriend him, that’s step one, and step two, I’ll cast my net wider to find who stole the fertilizer.” Chris hit REWIND, stopping the video when the shadowy image first entered the room. “The height of the doorway in the shed is eighty inches, and this figure is over six feet tall, between six-one and six-five. There are five boys on my varsity team who are over six feet tall. Three of them are the ones in my AP Government class, including my unwitting—Jordan Larkin, Raz Sematov, and Evan Kostis.” Chris kept talking, though Alek glanced at his watch. “Step two is to get to know the other two players who are over six feet tall, Trevor Kiefermann and Dylan McPhee. I’m investigating them and I know I’m going to get a break.”
“When?” Alek snapped.