“Thank you.”
Another long pause, Venuti working around to something else and trying to be sensitive before asking, “Who authorized you to question Omar Smith?”
“I did.”
“Say that again.”
“I’m working Juan Menderes, the missing driver. Omar Smith was his employer. I had questions for him.”
“Make sure you’re on the call and find me when you get in. I want to hear what you got from Smith.”
I got the call-in number from Venuti, then hung up and walked the house before leaving. I stood at the door of each kid’s bedroom. I remembered their births and the joy. Seventeen-year-old Nate had looked like his dad. Julia had a string of soccer trophies on her dresser and two dolls from younger days leaning against the second pillow on her bed. I turned off her computer, then walked back down the hallway to the study and faced a wall of photos.
One was of Jim beneath a B-52 wing in Idaho before the move here, another of the family in Bryce Canyon National Park, and then Jim with drone pilots at Creech, and one of Jim and me along the Green River in Wyoming in a different world in a different time. Could we have ever imagined Jim would someday become something called a drone pilot and die in a bombing on the Fourth of July? I don’t know how we could have.
Jim once said, “I’m a legitimate enemy target. I’m on the battlefield here. Think about it, bud. It’s the asymmetry of modern warfare.”
I had thought about it many times and sat in meetings in the field office where the risk was evaluated. For several quiet minutes I stood in front of a picture of Jim and Melissa, then I walked out and sat with Coal, who closed his eyes as I held and talked to him. It calmed him. It helped me a little too.
“You hang in here, Coal, and we’ll make a plan you’ll like. But you’ve got to be tough right now.”
The Joint Terrorism Task Force call went down as I drove to the office. I answered questions about my first minutes in Alagara and about Melissa’s party planning and Facebook interaction, neither of which I knew anything about. Melissa didn’t talk with me about the party planning, and though I have a Facebook account, I’m never on it. I answered a stream of questions about Jeremy Beatty. The call ended just as I reached the field office garage.
Venuti was upstairs at the Domestic Terrorism Squad, and as I came up we walked together to the ASAC’s office.
Our ASAC, the assistant special agent in charge, was Mark Thorpe, a large man light on his feet and careful with his words. He could be acerbic. He could be hard and offended some, but never me, because he was always forthright. I liked it that Thorpe knew who he was. The prior ASAC lacked self-awareness, and working with Venuti was like riding in a rodeo.
Thorpe offered condolences. He said, “You’re very strong. I don’t know if I could be working.” But of course he would, so I went on alert. Venuti and Thorpe must have something in mind.
“How’s your niece?” Thorpe asked, then added, “The whole country is pulling for her.”
I saw he meant it and told him the details of what the surgeon had said. We talked about that for several minutes. Thorpe asked, “What do you want to do? Given the magnitude of what’s happened to your family, where do you fit in the investigation?”
At the Bureau you don’t get to decide what you’re going to do next, so I paused on that. It was a critical moment, Thorpe assessing me. Venuti no doubt was arguing for a passive role that would confine me to the office, where he’d assign me work and give me time for my niece and the memorials for Melissa, Jim, and Nate. I needed to be very clear with Thorpe.
“I belonged at the Alagara, but I understand the decision last night.” I gave it a beat and said, “Put me on finding the bomb maker.”
Thorpe responded with, “You’re one of the top special agent bomb techs in the country, not just here. That’s not the issue. You lost family. You were first in. You know a possible suspect. If we put you out there, will you be able to focus?”
“I’m already focused.”
He heard something in that and said, “We’re not after revenge. We’re after justice and stopping anything else that’s been planned. What about this ex–drone pilot Beatty?”
“I don’t think there’s anything there. I know people disagree with that, but we know where to find him, and we can look closely at him. He called me earlier this morning, distraught over headlines saying we’re looking to question him. He expects to get fired today. He’s very disturbed. I don’t think he understands why this is happening.”
“Why did you stop and see him before going to the party?”
“Didn’t anyone tell you?”
“I want to hear it from you.”