Out of Time

by David Klass

  Brennan paused. He had never been asked such a thing before. “I’m not political in any way, sir, if that’s what you’re asking, and I certainly don’t want Green Man to continue what he’s doing and kill more innocent Americans to advance a political agenda. I’ve been a loyal public servant for five decades and—”

  “You still have the fire in your belly?”

  “Yes, sir. But if you think there’s somebody better—”

  “If I thought there was somebody better, then you wouldn’t be sitting in my office making excuses right now.” The president held Brennan’s gaze for ten full seconds and let his charisma do its work. Brennan felt it, whatever it was. It was undeniable and tangible, almost visceral. “If you need anything,” the president finally said, “you just ask for it. More money, more people . . .” He pressed the black button on his desk and roared, “Betty, did you go to China for that goddamn ginger ale?”

  TWELVE

  The Endangered Species Club consisted of fourteen freshmen, seven sophomores, one junior, and one senior, which reflected how interest in the environment had spiked at the Carlyle Academy over the past two years. Their presentation was given before a good crowd in the school’s main auditorium in a handsome brick building on the Upper West Side. Julie, as the lone senior, went first, and Ellen felt a mixture of pride and dread as her daughter climbed onto the stage to talk about polar bears. Julie was a straight-A student, but she battled stage fright and hadn’t slept for two nights worrying about this presentation.

  She stood for a moment with her hands fumbling nervously at her sides, a tall girl with an afro, blinking out at the audience from behind her glasses. “Come on, girl,” Ellen whispered. She herself had never had this problem—Ellen had spoken in front of thousands of people at lectures and rallies and college commencements, taught dozens of large and small Columbia classes, and was frequently a guest commentator on live TV. She didn’t completely understand her daughter’s fear, but she knew it was very real. “You can do this, baby.”

  “She’ll do fine,” the woman on her right said kindly. Ellen realized that she had whispered too loudly. She thanked the woman with a smile and glanced around to see if anyone else had heard her. No one had, but looking around, Ellen was not surprised to see that she was the only black parent in the auditorium and that Julie was the only student of color. For all its talk of encouraging diversity, the progressive and highly selective Carlyle Academy remained rich and lily-white.

  “I’d like to thank you all for coming here today,” Julie began tentatively, her thin voice quivering. “We’re the Endangered Species Club, and today you’ll hear about species that are in real danger. Some of them you’ll probably already know about because they’re famous and cute. Others you might not have heard of because they’re obscure and . . . frankly, some people find them ugly.” There were a few laughs from the audience, and Julie broke off for a second. “But they all deserve a chance—polar bears and honeybees, tigers and monarch butterflies, and even the weirdest-looking tropical sea slugs that live in vanishing coral reefs. But before we start talking about those distant and exotic species, on behalf of my club members, I’d like to remind you about one other endangered species that’s closer to home.”

  Julie paused for a deep breath, and then she seemed to relax, or perhaps when she started talking again, her obvious nervousness started to work for the message she was trying to convey. “People say that every generation grows up with a looming threat they have to deal with. For our great-grandparents, it was World War I and the Spanish flu. For our grandparents, it was World War II and fascism. For our parents, it was the Cold War and the arms race. But in all those cases, there was hope. They could cure the flu or defeat Hitler or limit missiles. We’re different.”

  Suddenly Julie had them, and Ellen was beyond thrilled, because she had this gift, and she could do this herself, but she had never seen her daughter capture a crowd and hold them in the palm of her hand, which was now outstretched, as if Julie was asking for something, or even demanding it. Her voice was still thin, but it was no longer quivering and had become evocative and powerful: “We are the first generation to grow up without hope. In fact, we may be doomed.”

  No one in the auditorium was fidgeting. They were all watching the tall, nervous black girl under the spotlights as she spoke softly: “We all know it. A lot of us have decided not to have kids because we don’t think it would be fair to them. And we especially know it in the Endangered Species Club because we see it happening to animals, fish, and insects, some of which have been around far longer than we have. We study how they’re vanishing, and we can’t help thinking that it will happen to us. Where the dodo went, where the Javan rhinoceros is going, we may be doomed to follow. How can we live in a world where we can’t breathe the air or drink the water? So to the parents and grandparents in the audience who vote, thanks for coming today, but one thing we’d like to say to you is please give us what you had—some hope. And now I’d like to talk about the polar bears—”

  She was interrupted by loud applause, and the woman sitting next to Ellen leaned over and said, “Isn’t she sensational! Your daughter should be in politics.”

  “God help her,” Ellen responded, and then smiled proudly. “But thank you. She’s heard a few speeches at rallies, and I guess some of it must have sunk in.”

  The rest of the day was magical. Julie’s presentation on polar bears was a smash success, and the audience sighed at photos of forlorn cubs on drift ice that had broken off from the packs where their parents hunted seals. The other club members did well also. Ellen already knew most of the information that was presented, but that didn’t stop it from being powerful to hear fourteen- and fifteen-year-olds describing in vivid specifics the mounting global threats that were imperiling different species all over the planet, from the deepest oceans to the most remote islands to the polar ice caps, and how little time was left to turn things around.

  After the presentation Ellen headed out for round two—to watch her daughter play soccer against Carlyle’s arch foes. There is so little open land in Manhattan that the private schools played each other on Randall’s Island in the East River, and on one of those fields Ellen watched Julie score three goals, including the game winner. There was nothing shy about the way her daughter took on defenders and flashed by them with bursts of speed.

  Students were given the option of riding home on the team bus or with their parents, so after the post-game pep talk, Julie climbed into Ellen’s red Prius and they headed home together. “Baby, you were awesome!” Ellen told her as they headed up the ramp and turned onto the RFK Bridge. “And your speech was a knockout.”

  “I was so nervous I couldn’t even see people’s faces.”

  “Whatever you were doing, just keep doing it,” Ellen said. “And I swear you’re gonna get a D-III soccer scholarship. There were definitely a few college scouts in the crowd. I’ve heard the quality they look for most is speed. I don’t know where yours came from, because your mother runs like she’s wearing concrete shoes. . . .”

  “Come on, you can jog pretty fast. . . .”

  “After a year I can keep up a steady pace, but you blaze, girl. Their fullback was terrified.”

  “Then the speed must have come from my father,” Julie suggested softly.

  It was something they never discussed. “I guess that makes sense,” Ellen said, keeping her eyes on the highway, which was crowded with rush-hour traffic.

  Julie hesitated. “Do you know if the donor was an athlete? I mean, don’t they tell you things like that? Don’t you get a profile or at least a name?”

  “No, sweetheart, I don’t know anything. They tell you a lot if you ask, but all I wanted to know was that he was tall, healthy, and very smart, like his daughter,” Ellen said, and then she blinked.

  “MA, WATCH OUT!”

  Ellen jerked the wheel, and they swerved wild
ly, missing a FedEx truck by two inches. She steered them into the slow lane and drove so cautiously that the car behind them honked.

  “You okay, Mom?”

  “Sure,” Ellen said, gripping the wheel a little too tightly. “I’m fine. Sorry if I scared you.”

  “I thought we were FedEx roadkill for sure.”

  Ellen tried to laugh it off and managed an unconvincing chuckle. “Give me some credit. I’ve driven you home from a million soccer games. Have I ever had an accident?”

  “No, but there’s a first time for everything, and that was really close. Do you need to pull over?”

  “Honey, I’m fine. It was just a tough morning at work. I’m gonna put on some music.” Ellen switched on the radio and the news station she had been listening to on the ride out came on. The newscaster was announcing that they were going to replay the briefing earlier in the day, when the White House press secretary had given a statement to reporters about recent progress in the hunt for Green Man.

  Ellen quickly changed the station to some jazz, but Julie said, “Hey, I wanted to hear that.”

  “I listened to it driving out,” Ellen told her. “There’s really nothing new.”

  Julie reached down and switched it back to the news station. The press secretary was beginning her statement: “First, I want to reassure everyone that the law enforcement leaders behind me are doing their utmost to protect our country and catch this vile and cowardly terrorist who has taken the law into his own hands and already killed more than forty innocent Americans, including ten children.”

  “And maybe saved the planet,” Julie said, talking over her.

  “There’s no excuse for killing forty-three people,” Ellen told her, reminded of the debate with Richard in the Green Center.

  “How about saving six billion people? Isn’t that a good excuse?”

  “It is a good excuse, but when you let the end justify the means, it’s a slippery slope . . . ,” Ellen started to explain, turning off the crowded FDR onto 116th Street.

  But she was immediately shushed. “Quiet. You’re wrong, and I want to hear this.” Julie cranked up the volume.

  “For the first time in this investigation,” the press secretary was saying, “we now have solid and significant leads, thanks to our agents in the field and our expert forensics teams. I can’t reveal the exact nature of those leads except to say that Green Man made several critical mistakes, and the investigation is now moving forward quickly on several different fronts to identify him and arrest him. The president has been fully briefed and expects more breakthroughs in this case shortly. Thank you; we will not be taking questions.”

  Julie switched off the radio, looking worried. “They wouldn’t say they had solid leads if they didn’t have them.”

  “Relax, honey. They didn’t say anything definite,” Ellen pointed out. “A lot of the content in those scripted statements is political. I’m sure Green Man can take care of himself.”

  “But they have so many people looking for him now. He’s bound to slip up. Everyone makes little mistakes no matter how smart they are.” Julie looked at her mother till Ellen quickly glanced back at her. The teen looked angry and even accusing. “But you want them to catch him, don’t you?”

  “No, I just want him to stop. That’s a very different thing.”

  Julie went on a rant, speaking faster and faster till her words blurred together: “How can you say you liked my speech and also say that he should stop? The only reason there are fourteen freshmen in our club is because of him. The only reason we have any hope is because of him. Didn’t you hear me say that we live with the knowledge that we may be doomed? He’s fighting that, and you of all people should understand and care . . . Mom!”

  Ellen had veered sharply off the road into the parking lot of a high school that was empty and dark.

  “Why are we stopping here?”

  Ellen tried to answer, but she couldn’t stop the tears. She had held them back at the Green Center and in her classes, but now they came unbidden and unwanted, from some deep place, past all her defenses. They squeezed out through her eyelids and ran hot down her cheeks, and Ellen slouched forward to hide them from her daughter, leaning into the steering wheel and covering her face with her arms.

  “Are you sick? Mom, are you crying? Please tell me what’s going on?”

  Ellen’s body was shaking, and her tearstained face was turned away from her daughter, toward the dark high school. “Julie, I’ve never lied to you before, about anything important. And I never will again. I promise you that.”

  She slowly turned back to look at her daughter, who nodded and reached out to her. “Of course I believe you. I love you, Mom. But . . . what did you lie about?”

  Ellen looked Julie in the eye and took two deep breaths. “His name was James.”

  “Who?”

  “The sperm bank didn’t give his last name for reasons of donor privacy.”

  Julie was silent and frozen in her seat, repeating the new name softly to herself as if it held some magical power. “What else do you know about James?”

  “He had an IQ of 180, which is the biggest reason I chose him. He was an academic on the West Coast—tall, black, and healthy—and he didn’t wear glasses or have any major health problems. He certainly could have been an athlete and a very fast runner, I just don’t know. I didn’t ask them any more questions.”

  “Why? Didn’t you want to know more about him?” Julie asked softly.

  “No, honey, I wanted to know about you.”

  “But I wasn’t born yet.”

  “But you were coming, and that’s why I did it. I wanted to know about us and what we would be like together. I always thought it was about us, not him, and that I would be enough of a parent for you.” A pained gasp: “Baby, I’m sorry I lied to you. I won’t ever do it again.”

  Julie leaned over and held her mother close and whispered, “You are enough” and “I love you, Mom,” over and over again.

  THIRTEEN

  It was a war room. The manhunt for Green Man had swelled to totally unprecedented levels—more than four hundred agents nationwide—and this sprawling, high-tech space was its operational center. Tom had seen pictures of Churchill’s cabinet war rooms, located beneath the Treasury building in Whitehall, which had tracked progress in all the theaters of war for twenty-four hours a day, and that’s what this hangar at Quantico reminded him of.

  The room was dominated by thirty or so senior agents and experts who seemed to never eat or sleep. They all knew one another and had worked on large and small cases together for years, and their mutual respect, professionalism, and shared resolve to crack this case made the hangar buzz with a nervous collaborative energy. Tom was one of a few new faces, but no one questioned his presence. He arrived from Florida and plunged in, fascinated by the older agents and practically inhaling their expertise and excitement. He worked with an almost feverish intensity for nearly a week, barely pausing to eat or grab a few hours of shut-eye.

  They were surrounded night and day by clusters of computers and giant wall screens on which flashed a constant bombardment of forensics and data. Agents from the field arrived to make reports, and experts on degraded DNA and domestic vans produced in the past ten years and fiber microscopy came and went. Many of the senior agents Tom worked with were specialists who culled the information from the far-flung agents in their respective divisions, distilled what was potentially useful, and synthesized it within the framework of the larger investigation.

  Tom’s role was much less clear—he floated from expert group to expert group and computer cluster to computer cluster, tracking the newest information, asking the probing and “pain in the ass” questions he was becoming known for, occasionally summoned at odd hours to report directly to Brennan.

  The taskforce leader maintained an almost Churchillian presence, broodi
ng and pensive, popping into the hangar unexpectedly with sharp questions at all times of the day and night. He would arrive after briefings of higher-ups in Washington, in a rumpled suit and with his tie loose. Sometimes he would wander in in the middle of the night, once in a blue terry-cloth bathrobe, too excited to sleep and eager to follow up a new idea that had just occurred to him. He had a small office that he often slept in at the very back of the hangar, complete with a desk and a cot, and it was there that Tom briefed him, usually with two or three other agents listening in.

  The optimism generated by the so-called breakthroughs at Boon soon faded to a hopeful conviction that if the clues were reexamined by the right top experts in new ways, they would yield a eureka moment. That hope in turn gave way to a grudging recognition that this was still going to be a long slog and a frustration at the number of dead ends. No additional clues were found at the cliff or campsite. The DNA that had been recovered from the glove filaments turned out to be too degraded to be of help. The faint van tracks could not be used to further identify the vehicle. The family-manufactured deer hunting gloves from the Midwest remained the most likely source for the glove fibers, but the sporting goods stores that sold them did not have cameras. Even if Green Man had bought the gloves himself, if he’d paid in cash, there was no lasting record of him or the transaction.

  Tom paid particular attention to the attempts to project what route Green Man might have chosen if he’d driven home from the Boon Dam to the Midwest. Six large and small highways emerged by consensus as the most likely routes, and every police department along those winding roadways had been contacted to see if anything suspicious had been noted or any tickets given out when Green Man would’ve been heading home. Thousands of cameras in gas stations and stores along the way had their film requisitioned and turned into metadata. Millions of images were compared by the latest facial-recognition software to images taken near the other targets that had been struck in the past two years, searching for a match.