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The Presidio of San Francisco (originally, El Presidio Real de San Francisco or The Royal Fortress of Saint Francis) is a park and former U.S. Army military fort on the northern tip of the San Francisco Peninsula. From 17th September 1776, it had been a fortified location, when New Spain established the presidio to gain a foothold in Alta California and the San Francisco Bay.
Then it passed to
Mexico, and in turn passed to the United States in 1848. On 1st October 1994, it was
transferred to the National
Park Service, ending 219 years of military use and
beginning its next phase of mixed commercial and public use.
And so, dear reader, why the history lesson? That’s a good question and here’s the answer.
On Halloween, 31st
October 2001, 14 days after my gunfight at the Parc 55 Hotel, I found myself in
a hospital bed, cranked up to a sitting position, as I read the San Francisco Chronicle.
On 19th
June 1912, Fort Winfield Scott
was established in the western part of the Presidio as the headquarters of the
Artillery District of San Francisco. Around
1998 one of the four-storied barracks had been converted to a covert-private
clinic by the Federal Government for federal agents and civilians in “WITSEC,” the United
States Federal Witness Protection Program. Security here was extremely tight. Currently I had been dropped in that program
at Fort Winfield Scott – because I needed protection.
It
seems, dear reader, al-Qa’ida was upset
with me for blowing the whistle on their proposed nuclear attack of
Frisco. Dispatching violent people to hunt me down and perform nasty things to
my person. How on earth does Mrs.
Chisholm’s little boy get himself entangled in such dire straits?
Normally this program is administered by the United
States Department of Justice and operated by the United States
Marshals Service.
However, dear reader, since the
FBI initially took control of my case, they politely told the U.S. Marshals to
take a backseat, and retained control of me; typically law enforcement “empires”
competing against each other. Consequently
two, large, armed FBI Special Agents sat outside my door acting as watchdogs.
They gave me a private corner room on the clinic’s 4th floor, with a view of evergreen trees and the Golden Gate Bridge in the distance, through a picture window.
Outside it was a typically clear, crisp
October morning under a cerulean sky. In
addition, my room contained a TV, table and chairs, a couch and a bathroom.
I’m
happy to report, dear reader, that yesterday I was allowed to use the bathroom
under my own power. Of course I was
accompanied by my drip-bag, with its stand on wheels, and a nurse hanging onto
me as if her life depended on it. They’re
afraid of me having a dizzy spell and falling; screwing up my brain surgeon’s brilliant
work on my cranium; ergo the bathroom escort.
Which brings us to my personal physical inventory,
from top to bottom: A surgeon successfully removed my brain tumor, covering up
his work with a dressing similar to what the Sultan of Istanbul would
wear. They reset my broken nose, presently
sporting another dressing. My right hand
has a cast traveling up my arm almost to my elbow; they removed all of the
7.65 mm’s bullet fragments and reset the bones, which, according to writer
Ernest Hemingway will in time become stronger.
As for my left arm it also sports a dressing that covered 24 stitches,
and its hand is hooked up to a drip-bag.
Four more additional stitches have closed the .22’s entrance and exit
wounds above my hip, covered by a final dressing. As for my left eye, I can see out of it now,
but it retains a black, blue and green bruise; exactly like prizefighter Rocky
Marciano.
In
the words of Marlon Brando, dear reader, “I just wanted to be a contender...” From the movie “On The Waterfront.”
After my brain surgery a week ago, I’ve
experienced bouts of nausea, headaches and dizziness; nevertheless these
episodes are becoming more infrequent. Indicating
I’m on the mend.
That’s
the upside, dear reader. The downside is
I’m still waiting for the biopsy results on my tumor. Is it
benign or malignant? Holy Mother Mary on a motorbike! Why do these tests take so long?
To get my mind off the downside, I reached
for my freshly-squeezed orange juice, secretly praying for one of Mother Mary’s
miracles, namely, VODKA!
After
taking a sip with the straw, dear reader, my heart sinks. She’s let me down again.
And at this moment there occurred a rather
bizarre event. My door quietly opened a
crack...gradually the crack became wider.
Holy home invasion! What is this?
Then a chrome, gas-filled, Mylar balloon, on a long
string floated inside my room. The
balloon bears the image of jack-‘o-lanterns, with the words “HAPPY HALLOWEEN”
above it. This is followed by the dark,
neatly trimmed, handsome head of FBI Special Agent Fred Glover, who flashes me
a bright-white grin and says, “Trick or treat?”
In reply I laughed, more out of relief
than anything, and then said, “Holy gonorrhea!
If it isn’t my f-favorite pimp! Slippery Tenderloin Freddy!”
Fred entered my room, shaking his head in
disgust as he tied the balloon to the foot of my bed, saying, ”I told you that
story in the strictest confidence.
That’s the only time I worked undercover with Frisco Vice as it involved
an interstate prostitution ring. Because
I was black...they stuck me with being the pimp.”
I chuckled and said, “Fred, honestly, whenever
you w-walk in here I see you in that all-pink fuzzy hat, suit and C-Cadillac.”
Fred retorted, “Instead of taking out that
tumor, I wish they’d given you a brain transplant...so you’d forget my
undercover pimp story.”
We both laughed. I laid my newspaper down; getting ready for more
debriefing.
Fred is 38, of medium height, athletically
built, bearing close cropped hair and wire-rimmed glasses, dressed in a snappy grey
suit with maroon tie. In addition to the
balloon, he carried a thick file and notebook in his left hand. His features, and neat-smart appearance,
always reminded me of actor Jamie Foxx.
“So how are you feeling since the
operation?” Fred asked.
“Oh, Freddie, I’m d-doin’ okay, I
guess...I get these headaches once in a while with dizzy spells and n-nausea,”
I replied. “Except what really f-frosts
my nuts is waiting for the damn b-biopsy results. Why in Zeus’ mammoth gonads does it have to
take so long?”
Fred took a second to glance round my
white, sterile room, in a conspiratorial manner; making certain no one else was
within earshot. After which he said, in
almost a whisper, “Pete...promise me you’ll keep this under your hat.”
I raised my right hand, with the cast, and
said, “I s-swear on a stack of Halloween candy.”
“No...” Fred objected. “Seriously, buddy. This could put my ass in a sling.”
Lowering my hand, I became serious, “J-Jesus,
Fred, I can keep my mouth shut. What is
it?”
“Your surgeon doesn’t come on duty till
this afternoon,” Fred replied. “So I
slipped into his office and found your file.
The test results came in this morning...it’s negative. Your tumor was benign.”
Surprised, and greatly relieved, I
responded, “Well...I’ll be a son of a bitch.
L-Looks as though I haven’t reached my expiration date.”
“Your surgeon’s probably going to meet
with you this afternoon,” Fred surmised.
“For God’s sake try and act surprised when he breaks the good news.”
“No sweat, Freddie, I got ya c-covered,” I
assured him; agreeing to the conspiracy.
“And thanks, p-partner...that takes a huge load off my mind.”
“I can only imagine,” Fred confirmed. Then he motioned towards my bed, and asked,
”May I use the desk?”
“Oh, hell yes,” I replied. “P-Pull up a chair and make yourself at
home.”
Fred moved a chair over to the left side
and foot of the bed. He sat and spread
out the thick file and notebook on the bed.
Opening the file, Fred started shuffling through reports and
photographs.
As he did this, Fred said, “Well...to begin with we finally rounded up all the members of that Syrian family that owned the deli across the street from the O’Farrell Theater.”
He looked up at me and added, “I
swear...those damned Arabs breed like fucking rats!”
“T-Tell me about it,” I chimed in. “That’s why the Saudis have got 5,000 royal p-princes
inline for the throne...it’s unbelievable.”
“Yeah, that’s what I’ve heard,” Fred concurred. Returning to the file, he continued,
”Anyway...the Syrians in turn led us to surviving members of that al-Qa’ida
cell operating here in Frisco, and they’ve all been shipped off to ‘Gitmo’ for
interrogation. So far...they’ve
delivered a plethora of information on other al-Qa’ida cells operating in the
States and Europe.”
Fred stopped shuffling the file’s papers
and glanced up, saying, “Uncovering this little al-Qa’ida operation, which we
knew nothing of, is going to make careers here at the local field office. At present my superiors are extremely happy
with you, Pete.”
I shrugged, and said, “Jake Holman’s the
man your superiors s-should thank. Have
you had any luck in f-finding him?”
Fred checked his file again, and said,
“No...not yet. According to this the
Navy doesn’t have any record of him. But
we’ll keep looking...” Fred then studied
me; saying, “He never contacted you again after your meeting on the
bridge. Is that right?”
“Yeah...just that one night,” I replied. “I had been d-drinking a bit.”
Bullshit,
dear reader, I had been drinking a lot!
“Nevertheless,” I confessed, “...it was s-strange.”
“’Strange’...” Fred asked, “...in what
way?”
Being
similar to an itch I couldn’t scratch, dear reader; it kept me both puzzled and
annoyed.
“It was the way Jake appeared, talked, acted...his m-mannerisms...his laugh...” I replied. “I had seen this guy before...I knew this man...only I’ll be f-fucked if I knew from where.”
Fred, also puzzled, asked, “Is there
anything else you remember?”
And
here’s where I got uncomfortable, dear reader, remembering that night on the
bridge.
“No...I’ve told you e-everything I can
remember,” I replied. “Except...it was
really c-creepy...the personal things he knew about me and the s-stuff
regarding al-Qa’ida. I d-don’t know if
it was the booze or fog or both...sometimes he’d sort of f-fade from sight...and
then come back again.”
“Pete, you’re making the hairs stand up on
the back of my neck,” Fred admitted.
“That’s quite a Halloween ghost story.”
“Yeah, I realize it’s nuts,” I
elaborated. “I wish to hell I hadn’t
drunk so much b-bourbon and beer that night.”
My throat was dry, so I reached over with
my left hand and fetched the glass of orange juice off the nightstand. After lubricating and clearing my throat, I
had an afterthought, “Fred...w-what was that serial number for...that Jake had
me write down on the note I left at the d-deli?”
Simply as a reminder, dear reader, here’s that
passage from my note: “I have what you want. Serial
Number: EG&G KN2.”
Fred shuffled through his files, saying, “Let me see...oh, yes, here it
is. It was for a Krytron Capacitor
Device...also called a Krytron Trigger.”
Not clearing up the
mystery for me, I asked, “W-What does it do?”
“It’s a
hydrogen-filled, very high-speed switch designed to detonate a nuclear device,”
Fred explained flatly.
“Okay...well that
fits,” I observed. “Jake d-did indicate
that al-Qa’ida was going to l-launch a nuclear attack here in the city. Do you have any idea on how they p-planned to
accomplish that?”
Once again Fred
shuffled his thick file, until he located a specific report. “Umm...okay, here it is,” he muttered
absently. “You might say this all began
back in 1999. When Osama bin Laden
purchased an unknown number of Special Atomic Demolitions Munitions, or ‘SADMs,’
also known as ‘nuclear suitcases.’ These
‘suitcase nukes’ were the streamlined versions, measuring 24 inches by 16
inches by 8 inches, and weighing less than sixty pounds.”
“Sonofabitch!” I
exclaimed. “How in the Devil did he p-pull
that off?”
Fred adjusted his glasses, and replied, “It seems the Chechen Mafia got hold of these ‘suitcase nukes’ from the Russian KGB, then turned around and sold them to bin Laden for thirty million dollars and two tons of refined heroin from al-Qa’ida’s laboratories in Afghanistan.”
Fred
looked up; adding, ”It was one of these ‘suitcase nukes’ that al-Qa’ida
smuggled into San Francisco.”
“But how’d the bastards
get s-something like that inside the States?”
I asked in amazement.
“Well, sir...” Fred
mumbled as he screened the file, until he found what he wanted. “First of all they had to figure out a way to
enrich the plutonium. So they hired an
out of work, Pakistani nuclear physicist, with a PhD from Harvard in
astrophysics. It took him a while, except
in time he did achieve enrichment at an underground lab in Pakistan. Afterwards he tore the bomb down, and
concealed its parts inside two extremely large tool chests.”
Fred closed that file,
opened another file, scanned it, and then continued. “The tool chests were then shipped to Mexico by
sea via the Port of Veracruz. And, after
the appropriate bribes were paid to Mexican Customs, they were loaded in the
beds of a pair of battered pickup trucks, and driven across Mexico to the U.S.
San Ysidro Border Crossing at Tijuana.”
Looking up, Fred expanded,
“You have to understand that San Ysidro processes in excess of fifty thousand
vehicles per day, making it easy for these tired pickups to blend in with the
mob at the border. Evidently an American
husband and wife, a pair of junkies with valid passports, had been hired by
al-Qa’ida to drive the pickups and hadn’t a clue what they were carrying. Since the torn-down nuke was well camouflaged
in the tool chests, and the border dogs were trained to sniff out aliens, cash,
drugs and weapons, and not nukes, this couple passed inspection without a
hitch.”
Fred dropped the heavy
file on my bed, removed his glasses, and commenced cleaning them with a maroon
handkerchief that matched his tie. While
engaged in this chore, he said, “The Syrian family from the deli had already
leased a small warehouse near the docks here in Frisco. So when the pickups arrived at the warehouse,
the Pakistani physicist set up shop and began to reassemble the “SADM”.”
Fred stopped cleaning
his glasses, put them on and stared at me, saying, “That’s when they hit a
serious glitch.”
His words put me on
edge, prompting me to asked, “So...what was the ‘glitch’?”
Fred consulted his
thick file again, and said, “Apparently, what with all this dismantling and
shuffling around, somewhere along the line the Krytron Trigger went
missing.” Fred glanced up at me, “Maybe
it legitimately got lost...or perhaps someone pinched it...putting it up for
sale on the black-market. In any event,
no trigger...no big boom.”
“Then I show up and
claim to have one in my s-safety deposit box,” I confessed flatly.
Fred flashed me a huge
grin, and remarked, “Give that man a ceegar!”
“But, Freddy, where and
how did they p-plan to detonate the nuke?” I asked.
Fred held up his hand,
until he pulled out a red covered report and screened it. Patiently, I waited for its revelation.
At length, while still
scanning the report, Fred finally spoke, “Okay...this is the stuff we’re
getting from several different interrogations at Gitmo. It’s a bit disjointed...so give me a minute.”
While I continued to wait,
I took another sip of orange juice.
There’s nothing in the world like freshly-squeezed California orange
juice, dear reader, unless, of course, one can spike it with VODKA. Mother Mary where in the Devil are you
in my moment of need?
At last Fred imparted his secrets, saying, “It seems the Syrians had an uncle working for a janitorial service...cleaning the Transamerica Pyramid in the financial district.
They were reassembling the
nuke inside a janitor’s cleaning cart...which they planned to detonate upon
reaching the top floor just after rush hour.”
Puzzled, by their choice of a famous landmark, I asked, “Why the Transamerica Pyramid?”
Fred replied, flatly,
“In a word...height.”
I gave Fred a facial
expression that implied: “You’ve lost me, buddy.”
Fred took pity on me, reviewed
the red file, and continued, “For maximum devastation they needed to blow the
nuke well above ground level.
Transamerica’s top floor would get them over six hundred feet off the ground...not
exactly the optimum altitude...only it was better than nothing. At one kiloton they would have wiped out
everything in the financial district within a half-mile radius. By striking immediately after rush hour tens
of thousands would have initially died...with perhaps another hundred thousand
in the years to come from the radiation fallout.”
Fred closed the red
file; adding, “I swear to God, Pete...this city could never recover from such
an attack. It would have made
nine-eleven look like a mugging in Central Park.”
“Jesus H. Christ,” I
mumbled under my breath. “That’s what
Jake said.”
“Remember that
nineteen-year-old Arab kid that made your sandwiches at the deli?” Fred asked.
“Yeah...” I
replied. “W-What about him?”
“That was the
button-man...the suicide bomber” Fred replied adamantly.
“Holy fuck-knuckles” I
exclaimed. “You’ve got to be shitting
me!”
“Nope...” Fred
replied. “That kid was your typical
Palestinian Islamic-zero...with no future whatsoever. They recruited him from the Gaza Strip.”
Fred referred to his
thick file, and elaborated, “The night before the planned attack, al-Qa’ida and
the Syrians were scheduled to leave for Europe on various airlines. The following morning, after rush hour, the
plan called for the Arab kid to deliver the nuke. He had been thoroughly checked out on the
building...had all the security passes and keys, a forged work order to get
past the guards, the janitor’s overalls, the company’s van and the cleaning cart
with the nuke hidden inside. Plus...a
remote control in his pocket to activate the nuke.”
Fred glanced up, saying
dryly, “Our little Arab sandwich-maker was well on his way to screwing seventy-two
virgins in Allah’s backyard.
Unfortunately, because of you, he’s now some terrorist’s bitch at
Gitmo.”
“F-Forgive me if I
don’t lose any sleep over that,” I added.
“Padre,” Fred smirked,
then gave me his blessing, “...you are forgiven.”
“There is one thing
that has caused me to l-lose sleep, though,” I admitted.
“Oh, yeah...” Fred
replied. “What’s that?”
“Would you have any
idea...” I began, “how the Devil that beautiful, French-girl...D-Danielle, got
mixed up with al-Qa’ida?”
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