car, and the bag containing two million dollars were nowhere to be found. Twelve hours later, the rented vehicle was found at the Las Vegas airport.
Lasker continued his way back to the Hoover Building, forcing himself to walk slower. The weather was perfect and he took a moment to watch a couple of attractive young women pass him.
With the Pentad claiming its fourth victim the night before, it seemed improbable that the missing two million dollars was in their possession. If they didn’t have it, the most plausible explanation was that Stan Bertok had just become America’s newest millionaire. And that meant the FBI would soon receive another demand for money to prevent a fifth killing.
If an agent selling out wasn’t bad enough, an even worse possibility existed. Just hours before, the lab had confirmed that all four victims, including Dan West, had been shot with the same weapon, a .40-caliber Glock, model 22. That particular gun was FBI issue and was part of Bertok’s property. Coupled with the possibility of “insider info” with which the group operated, the thought had crossed more than a few minds that Bertok himself might have committed the murders to set up the extortion drop.
Involuntarily, Lasker shook his head at the ingenuity of the Pentad. Everything it did was carefully designed to defeat the FBI, especially its choice of victims. Not only were they high-profile individuals, their deaths instantly gaining national attention, but their murders took place in California, Utah, and Pittsburgh, implying that no one was safe anywhere. And maybe most important, each of the victims was known to have a conflicted history with the FBI, making the Bureau waste time either defending itself or planning circuitous avenues of investigation to avoid the appearance of any “further” impropriety. With the public not knowing why the victims were really being murdered, the confusion continued as to who was actually killing the “enemies of the FBI,” as the media were now referring to them.
Most puzzling was how difficult the Pentad made it to deliver the money. It almost seemed that they wanted the FBI to fail; in fact, that was exactly what one of the Bureau profilers theorized. “Their primary motive,” he said, “is to disgrace the FBI. It is such an obsession with them that they consider murder nothing more than a necessary tool. They may not even want the money. Some people find self-validation in destroying institutions. They find power in destroying power. It’s being done every day through lawsuits. But legal channels wouldn’t produce the dramatic damage they feel they have a right to. And even though their methods would be considered by most as cowardly, they see themselves as great unsung heroes, defeating, in this case, an institution that the American people mistakenly see as heroic. The more times they can defeat it, the more heroic they are. And the more foolish we look. Do they want the money? Eventually they probably will. Greed is pretty dependable. But they’re not going to be in any hurry to get it as long as they’re beating us in these skirmishes. Waco and Ruby Ridge are apparently the justification of their actions. No one from the FBI was ever punished for those incidents, so they are taking retribution into their own hands. If Bertok did suddenly become a thief and take the money, they couldn’t have hoped for anything better. It proves their point that the FBI is really corrupt and can’t be trusted. And at some point they will reveal to the world that he took it. Again, to humiliate us. Not only do we have a dishonest agent, but we routinely cover up something like this. Which at the moment we are.”
Lasker knew that whoever was pulling the strings, whether it was the Pentad or Agent Bertok freelancing—or both—the effect was paralyzing the Bureau’s ability to go after them. That the FBI might be assassinating its enemies and blaming the killings on a fictitious group of terrorists was a ridiculous notion, but if the information about the Glock 22, the gun the Bureau had issued Bertok, became public, it might not seem so far-fetched.
At each of the crime scenes, a folded piece of paper with the same two words, “Rubaco Pentad,” had been left on the victim’s chest. Since “pentad” is defined as a group of five, the press felt safe in concluding that some sort of small domestic terrorism cell was committing the murders. And “Rubaco,” they decided, was an amalgam