Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [339]
“No, thanks,” she told him. “I’m meeting Gwen in a little while for dinner.”
“So you buy licorice to tide you over?” Another frown.
“No. I got this at Agent Delaney’s funeral.”
“They were handing out red licorice?”
“His daughter was. Are you ready for me to interrupt you yet?”
“You mean you haven’t already?”
Her turn to frown. “Very funny.”
“I’m getting the file to A.D. Cunningham first thing Monday morning. Can’t you wait until then?”
Without answering, she folded the long string of licorice, holding it up in front of her to measure, then pulling it apart at the fold. She handed him one section of candy. He took the bribe without hesitation. Satisfied, he left his microscope, began nibbling at the candy and searched the counter for a file folder.
“It was potassium cyanide in the capsules. About ninety percent with a mixture of potassium hydroxide, some carbonate and a smidge of potassium chloride.”
“How difficult is it to get your hands on potassium cyanide these days?”
“Not difficult. It’s used in a lot of industries. Usually as a cleaning solution or fixative. It’s used in making plastics, some photographic development processes, even in fumigating ships. There was about seventy-five milligrams in the capsule the kid spit out. With little food in the digestive tract, that dose causes almost an instantaneous collapse and cessation of all respiration. Of course, that starts only after the plastic capsule is dissolved, but I’d say within minutes. Absorbs all the oxygen out of the cells. Not a pretty or fun way to die. The victims literally strangle to death from the inside out.”
“So why not just stick their guns in their mouths like most teenage boys who commit suicide?” Both images bothered Maggie, and Ganza raised his eyebrows at the impatience and sarcasm in her voice.
“You know the answer to that as well as I do. Psychologically it’s much easier to swallow a pill than pull the trigger, especially if you’re not so keen on the idea to begin with.”
“So you don’t think this was their idea?”
“Do you?”
“I wish it were that simple.” She ran her fingers through her hair, only now noticing the tangles. “They found a two-way radio inside the cabin, so they were in contact with someone. We just don’t know who. And, of course, there was a huge arsenal underneath the cabin.”
“Oh, yes, the arsenal.” Ganza opened a file folder and shuffled through several pages. “We were able to track the serial numbers on about a dozen of the weapons.”
“That was fast. I’m guessing they were stolen instead of bought at some gun show, right?”
“Not exactly.” He pulled out several documents. “You’re not going to like it.”
“Try me.”
“They came from a storage facility at Fort Bragg.”
“So they were stolen.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Then what exactly did you say?” She came to stand at his side, looking over his arm at the document he had extracted.
“The military never knew they were missing.”
“How is that possible?”
“They retired the weapons long ago, sent them to storage. Whoever got ahold of them would have had to have high-level clearance or some type of official access.”
“You’re kidding!”
“It gets even more interesting.” He handed her an envelope stamped Document Department and motioned for her to open it.
Maggie pulled out several sheets of paper, which included a land title from the state of Massachusetts for ten acres of property, as well as for a cabin and docking rights to the Neponset River.
“Great,” she said after scanning the copy. “So the land was donated to some nonprofit organization. These guys really know how to hide their tracks.”
“Not that unusual,” Ganza said. “A lot of these groups filter weapons and money, even property, through bogus NPOs. Saves them from paying taxes and allows them to thumb their noses at the government they profess to hate so much. That’s usually all they have the courage to do.”
“But this group is into more dangerous stuff than tax evasion. Whoever is behind this, this maniac’s willing to sacrifice his own men…boys, really.” Maggie flipped through