Case File: Bright Sun (Case Files of Newport Investigations) Read online

  I knew that locking the door provided nothing in the way of security because it had been kicked in twice before, once by a distraught wife who thought her adulterous husband was hiding in our office. As it turned out, he was hiding in the tax accountant's office at night, doing the receptionist who knew more about him than his wife knew. So if a girl can kick a door open it really isn’t going to provide any more protection than what we call token security.

  Jimmy dragged his favorite high-backed chair with arms over to the side of our old maple office desk and sat facing Jack. I walked behind the desk and sat down on my antique library chair. My chair had one of those hand carved seats that cradles your buns like two large hands. The chair had been built by Morgan Blumenthal in New York City in 1927. I bought it 6 years ago at a Newport Beach estate sale for $35. I know the name of the craftsman because his name and the date of construction were hand stamped onto the bottom of the seat. I even found a grandson of Morgan Blumenthal in New York while on vacation two years ago and offered him the chair, which he gracefully refused much to my relief. You can sit in my chair all day without a problem.

  "Ok Jack," Jimmy said, slouching back in his chair. "I'm going to ask this question one more time and only one more time. Why are you talking to us and not to the FBI?"

  Jack swallowed, took a deep breath and let it out. "We insure the power plant, the storage facility, and the fuel processor. Hell we insure most, no, we insure all of the nuclear power plants and storage facilities in this country against thief and liability. It's a pretty safe bet because we have paid out less than fifty million in claims for liability over the years. Compared to the premiums, it's a very good business. The main reason it's a good business is because the industry as a whole has a statutory liability not to exceed three hundred and fifty million dollars. The limit was set almost forty years ago when a dollar was worth a lot more than it is today. Our lawyers are concerned because the courts might consider the old law somewhat unconstitutional given the current climate.

  Also, the politicians who passed the legislation are gone. Today’s congressional crew would probably throw us to the wolves if some wacko group created an incident with the fuel."

  "Back to my question," Jimmy said, "why us?"

  "The FBI backed away from the theft about six months ago when they couldn't link anyone or any group to it. The processed fuel came up missing in a random audit. Processed fuel is stored in common facilities scattered around the country. This one was in New England, out in the countryside. No one wants a fuel storage facility in their back yard, so, they are located in the country."

  I couldn't contain myself so I asked the obvious question, "Farmers have a hell of lot of clout with their congressmen so how does putting radioactive materials near farms get past the congress?"

  Jack was ready for that one. "Money gets power plants, processing plants and storage facilities past the congress and local governments. In some respects, power is only a by-product of the whole industry. The military needs the plutonium for weapons. The state department trades fuel to countries like Japan and the Seven Asian Tigers for economic concessions, like them financing our national debt. The industry funnels unbelievable amounts of money into congressional election accounts. This is what we in the business call big bucks."

  "You said a ransom demand had not been made so money is not the motive," Jimmy said, looking up at the ceiling.

  "Money is never the motive in something like this," Jack said, "and the reason is because the United States Government buys all of the uranium that is mined. You cannot just pick up the yellow pages and find enriched uranium stores. The Feds also control the price of the material which is set at $18 a gram."

  Jimmy and I sat bolt upright.

  "18 bucks a gram!" I said. "Let me guess, what are the taxpayers forking out for the raw material?"

  "I'll save you the trouble," Jack said, "the taxpayers drop between six and ten thousand a gram for first processed ore."

  "And the reason for the big difference is?" Jimmy asked.

  “It prevents the bad guys from stealing it for ransom. If you steal a hundred grams or a thousand grams of fuel, regardless of how processed and enriched it is, all you have is something that will eventually kill you if you keep it too close. All the power company or the fuel processor has to do is call up the Department of Energy and order some more for pocket change."

  "That's it?" I said.

  "Actually it's slightly more complicated than that, but not a whole lot more. We don't have to worry about common thieves. What has had us worried for the past ten years has been terrorists."

  "You talking about the Middle-Eastern kind and I don't mean the ones from Kansas?" I said.

  "No, I’m talking about the environmental terrorists, eco-terrorists, left wing terrorists, or the right wing terrorists, locally known as the militia. We don't have to import terrorists anymore like the group who blew up the trade tower in New York City back in 1993. We have the home grown terrorists like the boys who bombed the Olympic Village in Atlanta or the federal building in Oklahoma City. Imagine Tim McVey in Washington D.C. or New York City with a nuke, or for that matter, the Unabomber with a nuke."

  For one of the few times in my life I did not have a smart answer.

  -4-

  "So where do we come in," Jimmy asked.

  "We need to find the fuel and get it back. We really don't care who took it or why. Actually we do, but we'll settle for getting it back and then let the FBI deal with the people who stole it in the first place."

  "So," Jimmy said, "where are we here? I still want to know how you found your way to our door and what it is you expect us to do for you."

  "Ok," Jack said, "we were sort of referred to your firm by someone in the agency, and.."

  Jimmy cut him off, "Whom in what agency, the FBI?"

  "Right, the FBI. The FBI via the Department of Energy informed us they could find no evidence of theft other than the substitution of the plutonium with lead. There were no fingerprints on the inside of the containers, nothing on the videotapes, no evidence of forced entry at the fuel processor or at the storage facility. So as far as they are concerned, the status of the fuel is GOK."

  "What in hell is GOK?" I asked, not really wanting to ask the obvious but impelled to, out of ignorance.

  "It means 'God Only Knows'", Jack said. "It's a term coined by the fuel processing companies. For every one hundred kilos of fuel they process they will lose ten to fifteen grams. This is after they make allowances for material that has coated the inside of the pipes and what has been lost to the vapor scrubbers. Despite incredible accounting methods and tracking fuel weight to a thousandth of a gram, some of it always comes up missing."

  Jimmy was not to be put off, “Getting back to the question...” he said.

  "Right, we were told to pay the power company, the owners of the fuel, the cost of the fuel and the last reprocessing fee, which we did. Processing runs around eighteen hundred a gram. In total we paid 41.4 million dollars for the processing fee and pocket change for the cost of the actual fuel. We paid out the claim six months ago. Shortly afterwards, we picked up on a rumor that some right wing group had the means to make a, and I'm quoting here, 'a really big bang'. That did it for me. I called in the legal beagles and put the question to them."

  "And the question was?" I asked.

  "The question was”, he said, “Are we liable. The lawyers believe we are. The fuel still belongs to the power company regardless of who has actual possession. The logic for laymen to use here is you have a trained guard dog. Some 17-year-old kid with a history of breaking and entering manages to get the dog off of a kryptonite chain that not even Superman could break. He then cuts off your back yard gate lock and gets the dog out without your knowledge. He takes Rover for a walk past the local day-care center to show him off. The dog sees all of the toddlers running around and thinks 'lunch'. He eats 6 or 8 of the little tykes; they are small and bony. Question: who is liable, the k
id who stole the dog, his parents for not having put him in a gunny sack and drowning him at birth or the owner of the dog?"

  I knew this one. "The owner of the dog” and looking across at Jack “the owner's insurance company” because he was smart enough to declare the dog on his policy.

  "The defense rests," Jack said.

  "So, you want the fuel back so Bubba doesn't blow up the congressional building," Jimmy said.

  "Right on," Jack replied. "The FBI, much to their chagrin, believes someone on the inside is leaking information to whomever took the fuel. They tried investigating the rumor we had and got nowhere. All of their sources came up cold. I met with an FBI agent in Los Angles two days ago who is not known to anyone in my company or in the nuclear industry. He advised us to bring in a contractor to chase down the fuel and recommended that I have a talk with the two of you, so here I am."

  "So," Jimmy said, "here we are."

  Both of us knew the agent was Mike Mendoza, Jimmy's sometime friend and contact but we did not volunteer this information to Jack Faraday. In this business, information is King, and we don't give it away, especially to insurance companies.

  "The next question rearing its ugly head is about the fee arrangement." Jimmy said, looking at Faraday.

  "I was thinking a daily fee plus expenses," Jack said with a look of innocence on his face and a voice that would have melted butter.

  That invoked a snicker from me and Jimmy got up and walked over to the middle window on the Newport bay side of our office and opened it. The windows in our office are the old fashioned kind that actually open. The windows are split down the middle and each half swings outward. I have suspected that over the years, more than one drunk has fallen to the sidewalk below while forcing these windows open or trying to get them closed. Jimmy walked back to his chair and sat down, all without saying a word. Once he was seated he turned to Jack Faraday.

  "I'm going to ask one more time and if I hear the same answer I'm going to assume you think we’re a couple of ignorant sons of bitches. Just remember though, violence is the tool of the ignorant. Also consider, it's fifteen feet to the sidewalk below. Not high enough to kill you but high enough to make you think about your offer."

  Jimmy sat back and put “the look” on Faraday. Jimmy is like a cat; once the pose is struck he can hold it for hours.

  "We were thinking of at least a thousand a day," Jack said, putting his best concerned look on his face.

  I decided to take the initiative and cut to the chase because I could see that Faraday thought we were a couple of Newport Beach idiots.

  "Jack," I said, "I'm going to take the initiative here and cut to the chase. I'm going to assume that you are a complete idiot even though you work for an insurance company because you have never paid for a property recover before. The way it works for property recovery is we return your property and you give us ten percent of the value."

  Jack started to speak and I made the 'Time-out' football signal to stop him.

  “I'm going to assume that you are also concerned for our well being because the actual fuel is worth so little. So, I'm going to tell you what the fee is up front. The fee is ten percent of the fuel processing fee or four million in round numbers. Furthermore", I said without taking a breath or stopping, "the fee has to be escrowed in an interest bearing account and we get the interest even if we don't find the fuel." I stopped. Jack looked from me to Jimmy then back.

  "One more thing," Jimmy said, “Mike Mendoza releases the escrowed funds to us. We don't trust you or your company."

  "Oh, by the way", I added, causing Faraday's attention to shift back to me. "You have two hours to put this together."

  I opened the center drawer of my desk and removed two different business cards. I snapped both of the cards down on the desk in front of jack.

  "This is the business card for the escrow office you will use and this card is ours. Now get out of here and if we don't see you back in two hours, we are going to assume that we can go home early."

  -5-

  It was about 11:00 AM when Faraday left, presumably to return to a hotel room to use the phone. Jimmy and I walked over to the Newport Bay ferry dock and waited for the next boat.

  The Newport Balboa ferry is more than one boat. It is actually two or three boats that ply the half-mile waterway separating the Newport Peninsula and Balboa Island. During the rush hour or during the tourist season they operate three boats coming and going across the bay. When traffic slows down they drop back to two boats or even to one if the volume of cars and passengers are really slow. This being mid- week at the end of the season, more than a few people were still hanging around in town. There were two boats running back and forth and the wait was less than ten minutes. The boats are long enough to allow five full size cars, end to end, to make the five-minute trip. With today's gas prices, the 75 cent toll for cars and 35 cent toll for walk on passengers is a real bargain.

  Traffic was light this day and there were only two cars, both compacts, on the boat. Other than Jimmy and I, there were three other passengers, the walk around toll taker, and the boat skipper. People in California tend to keep to themselves so we had our share of privacy once we paid the toll and the ferry departed the Newport Peninsula.

  "So, what do you think?" I asked.

  The noise from the bay water slapping against the front and sides of the boat, the wind noise, and the screeching of the gulls overhead, masked anything we would say.

  "I think four million dollars is a lot of money and I think it could buy a lot of things," Jimmy said, “and could help a lot of people.”

  I remained quiet because this was something I did not want to make a snap judgment about because Jimmy’s business sense was a lot better than mine. In areas of money I generally went with his decisions and in areas of tactical considerations while we were on a job he generally went with mine.

  "On one hand," Jimmy continued, as I believed he would, "you don't want to voluntarily take on an assignment where you might get your ass fried. But this gig could end up saving a lot of people and we would be doing the country a great service, not to mention the greater good to mankind."

  He was leaning back against the railing of the boat, his weight on his elbows and looking up at the clouds.

  "Maybe, just maybe, there could be a higher purpose at work here," he said.

  I was standing beside him, leaning back against the railing with my arms folded over my chest and looking up at the clouds. Jimmy was to my right and I looked over at him, shifting my eyes up and to the right. He was looking down and to his left, at me.

  "Nah," we both said, "it's the four million."

  We both laughed.

  When the boat landed on Balboa Island we walked to a small restaurant named 'The Garden Place' about a quarter mile from the dock. We only eat at there when the sun is shinning because the inside is dank and dark and the outside is really nice. It's one of the few places on the island where you go to eat red meat. A sign above the door says they know how to take care of a man. It certainly works for Jimmy and me. We entered the establishment by stepping over the three-foot hand forged wrought iron fence surrounding the outside dining area. Margaret, the waitress and part owner, “Maggs” to her friends, waved to us when she saw us sit down. Maggs is about sixty-five and has a crush on Jimmy. She hits on him whenever we stop by to eat or drink.

  "What'll it be boys?" she asked, sitting two bottles of Corona, a fine golden Mexican beer, for each of us on the table.

  Maggs did not offer menus and we did not expect them because we knew what they served and we only ever order one thing at this restaurant, New York Sirloin. We gave her our order, knowing it would include a baked potato, string beans, and two pieces of thick bread, toasted on one side. Maggs removed her hand from where it was resting at the back of Jimmy's neck and hurried inside.

  "Ok, how do you think this will play out?" I said.

  Once Jimmy has a small amount of information he is good at guess
ing how something will go. He took a pull on the long neck Corona bottle and thought about it for a few seconds.

  "Here's what we know," Jimmy said. "First, someone, probably a right wing group, but we don't know for certain, has lifted about 70 pounds, more or less, of processed uranium fuel. Second, the boys at the FBI don't have a clue, which doesn't mean one of the other agencies doesn't know who actually has the fuel. Third, other than what I know from reading news magazines and a few books, we don't have enough information to know what we are looking for or how the people who are holding it would process or fashion it into a bomb."

  "That little," I said. "It would appear if we get the job we are going to have to get educated in a hurry. Who do we know that knows anything about building a nuke?"

  Jimmy thought for a while, taking several more hits on his first bottle of Corona and finishing it. He sat the bottle down and looked at me.