Out of Time

by David Klass

  “I have nothing against hypnosis except that the results yielded from it can be controversial and they can also waste a lot of our time with false leads,” Grant said carefully. “Does it make sense to keep pushing down this road and trying to confirm what’s really little more than a hunch, given the resources we’ve already expended here without finding one confirmable and actionable clue?”

  Brennan glanced at Earl, and the two men did not need to speak. “We’ll try the hypnosis in five hours,” Brennan said.

  TWENTY-ONE

  High in his tenth-floor corner office, Brennan tucked his big hands into the pockets of his gray slacks and finished briefing the attorney general. She had just gotten off the phone with the president, who apparently wasn’t in a friendly mood.

  FBI director Haviland was also on the line and listened to Brennan explain about their possible break in the case, but the attorney general didn’t seem impressed. “So this cop from Nebraska may or may not have stopped Green Man a week ago? The president has read some of the reports and has his doubts, and so do I.”

  “The timing works perfectly, and everything from the van to his appearance checks out,” Brennan told her. “My best people agree that it was probably him.”

  “Let’s say they’re right. What has this cop told you about Green Man that pushes your investigation forward in any significant way?”

  “We’re concentrating on Michigan now,” Haviland interjected, and Brennan wished the director, who had no real investigatory background, would keep silent.

  “You were before,” she pointed out correctly.

  “There were three or four states equally in the mix,” Brennan explained. “Now one has emerged as the clear favorite. And the cop has been helpful in narrowing down the make and model of the van. We already have agents going door to door, with our profile and a sketch of the face, checking out vans that fit the description and their owners. If necessary, we’ll look at every van in Michigan.”

  “How many is that?”

  “Nearly twenty thousand,” Brennan admitted.

  “And what if he stole it or it’s registered in a different state?” she probed.

  “The license plate was from Michigan. And we have the first digit of that plate.”

  “Which may have been doctored. And the bumper sticker or decal that your cop says he may have seen was so small that he can’t remember any words or images, so how does any of that help us?”

  “Baby steps, but they add up,” Brennan said. “We can only do what we can do.”

  “And I can only do what I can do,” the attorney general replied, and it was clearly a threat. There was a pause that was longer than just for an intake of breath. “The president is considering turning this over to Carnes at Homeland Security.”

  Brennan stood very still, controlling his anger.

  “Meg, I really don’t think that’s wise or warranted,” Haviland said.

  “This is a domestic law enforcement case,” Brennan added quickly. “All the targets were domestic, and many decades of precedent dictate that—”

  “It has serious national and potentially international security implications that the president feels could move it into the DHS ballpark,” the attorney general interrupted. “Truth be told, he doesn’t give a damn about jurisdiction or process. He’s just frustrated. Livid. Steaming. And he’s not known as a patient man.”

  “Neither am I,” Haviland said, “and neither is Jim Brennan. We get the urgency over here. We’re doing everything right. We’ll break it.”

  “I’ve been betting on you,” she said, notably using the past tense. “Let me know if there’s anything you need.”

  “Will do,” Haviland promised. “Jim, anything else?”

  Brennan hesitated, hating to ask. “Did he say when he might bring Carnes in?”

  She had built a career out of smarts and directness—which was often mischaracterized by her misogynistic opponents or the press as bitchiness—but Brennan had never found her to be anything less than fair. She gave them the bad news in a hard, flat voice. “You have less than a month, and then you’re out.”

  “Okay,” Brennan said. “Thanks for letting us know where we are.”

  She wasn’t done with them yet. Frustration was clear in her voice, as if she had picked up the impatience of her boss in the White House along with some of his colorful phrases. “Where we are now is that Green Man is still out there, and he’s presumably planning a new attack. If he’s caught, it could swing a national election one way, and if he succeeds, it’ll swing it the other way. He’s become a nutty folk hero and rallying point, and the numbers are that close. And the man who has the most to win or lose is the man who appointed me, and he wants results now.”

  “Jim and I understand the realities of that,” Haviland said. “We’re going to get back to work now and get some results. I’ll personally call you night or day the minute we have a whisper of something good.”

  “Wake me up with good news,” the attorney general said, and then she instructed Haviland to stay on the line and Brennan’s phone went dead.

  Brennan lowered his phone to his desk and glanced out the window as lightning forked over the Capitol dome. The White House was just visible from a side corner of the window. He stood very still, watching the rain slash the large window. Politics always played a role in this city, but from long experience Brennan knew that when political calculations began to interfere with a law enforcement investigation, it was a slippery slope to hell.

  There was a knock on his door. “Yeah?”

  Tom entered. “He’s in a trance.”

  Brennan turned from the window and apparently didn’t do a good enough job of hiding the tension he felt, because the sharp young agent asked, “Are you okay, sir?”

  Brennan covered it with a question. “Do you believe that cop saw Green Man?”

  “Absolutely,” Tom said. “Anyone who wouldn’t believe that, at this point, would be . . . an idiot.”

  Brennan nodded. “The guy living in the White House has doubts.”

  “Proves my point.”

  The big man grinned. “You did a good job finding that cop in Nebraska. Earl was impressed the way you sniffed him out, and nothing impresses Earl these days.”

  Tom hesitated and then said, “Earl smokes a little too much.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was at his wedding. His wife was special, and they had a real thing going, for a long time.” Brennan studied the young agent. “You’ve been working out since you came back from Florida? Lifting weights?”

  “And swimming a lot. Just trying to deal with the stress and the crazy hours. I do better when I put myself on a routine, even if I have to work out in the middle of the night. I did a lot of late-night swims in college.”

  “So you’re not just a total nerd after all. That haircut?”

  “Small-town butcher in the wrong profession.”

  “And the pressed khakis?”

  “Turns out if you look the part around here, it makes it easier to deal with people.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way,” Brennan told him, “but you really are starting to remind me of your father.”

  Tom looked back at him. “We’d better go observe the session, sir.”

  They left Brennan’s corner office and walked into the hallway, which was completely empty at this time of night. “So you believe that Green Man lives in Michigan?” Brennan asked in a low voice.

  “Yes, sir, I do. But the dialect specialist doesn’t think he was raised in the Midwest. His pronunciation of a few key words suggests he grew up in New England.”

  “What do you think about the bumper sticker?”

  “Not a chance. Green Man doesn’t tip his hand.”

  “You think he’s perfect, but he’s not. Everyone slips up, everyone has blind spots. You do everythi
ng that’s difficult right but one obvious thing wrong. It happens.”

  “A bumper sticker, sir? Not Green Man.”

  “I’ve got a couple on my car from long ago that I never notice,” Brennan said.

  They reached a door, and Tom opened it and then followed the big man into an antechamber. There were double doors to a suite, but Brennan opened a side door and they stepped into a soundproofed viewing room that faced a much larger room through one-way glass. Brennan nodded to agents Grant and Lee.

  In the larger room, the young cop from Nebraska reclined in an armchair. His hands were on the armrests. Dr. Singh, a short man with graying hair, dressed in an elegant dark suit, sat just to his right and spoke to him in a resonant voice. “You’re walking up to his van. You can smell boxwood and sand. What do you hear?”

  The answer was several seconds in coming. Dwight’s speech was halting, as if he was filtering the questions and someone had hit a delay switch on his answers. “Katydids . . . in the bushes.”

  “What can you feel?”

  “The sun . . . and the breeze on my face.”

  “Can you hear your own footsteps?”

  “Yes.”

  “What kind of surface are you walking on?”

  “Gravel.”

  “Now you’re getting close to the black van. Is there an outside mirror?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you see the driver watching you through it?”

  “No.”

  The psychiatrist moved always from the general to the specific, careful never to impose himself or suggest answers. “Look at the outside mirror. What shape is it?”

  “Round.”

  “Can you see his eyes in that round mirror?”

  “No.”

  “So you can’t tell the color of his eyes?”

  Silence.

  “But you do see the back of the black van more clearly as you walk up?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re approaching that van from the left rear side. You’re very close. You see the license plate. What color is it?”

  “White and blue.”

  “The letters are blue and the background is white?”

  A pause. “I don’t see any letters.”

  “The numbers are blue and the background is white. And you’ve told us the first number is a seven?”

  “Yes.”

  “What number is next to the seven?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “We’re filming this like a movie,” Dr. Singh said smoothly, without the slightest change of tone. “We’re slowing down the speed of the images coming through our camera. Now we’re freezing frame on the blue numbers of that license plate. We’re starting to film the numbers through a telephoto lens. The images are becoming larger and clearer. What number is next to the seven?”

  The young cop sat very still, staring into space. “It’s curved.”

  “Keep looking at that curved number. When I say the number out loud, please raise your right index finger. Is it a zero? One? Two? Three? Four? Five? Six?”

  Dwight’s index finger elevated slightly off the chair’s arm.

  Despite the fact that the viewing room was completely soundproofed, they had all gone silent. “Jesus, he’s really good,” Grant whispered.

  “Vivaan is the best,” Brennan agreed softly.

  In the examination room, Dr. Singh neither praised nor chastised, neither accepted nor discounted. He went on in his sonorous voice, asking simple questions in a cadence that was both lulling and metronomical. “What number is next to the six?”

  “I can’t tell.”

  “We are looking through our telephoto lens. The first number is seven. The second number is six. Raise your index finger when I say the third number.” Dr. Singh spoke the numbers from zero to nine, but Dwight’s finger never twitched.

  “Is it a straight number or a curved number?”

  Silence.

  “We are panning to the right, across the van’s rear bumper, with our camera, to the far right side. There’s a small sticker there. We are freezing frame on that sticker or decal. We are looking at it through our telephoto lens. The sticker is becoming bigger and clearer. Can you see the bumper sticker?”

  “Yes.”

  “What shape is the bumper sticker?”

  “Square.”

  “What color is it?”

  Silence.

  “Is it a dark color or a light color?”

  “Light. And it’s faded.”

  “On that faded, light-colored, square bumper sticker, there is an image. We are looking at that image through our telephoto lens. The image is getting clearer.”

  The young cop’s fingers tightened around the armrests.

  “Can you see the image on the bumper sticker?”

  A whisper. “Yes.”

  “Describe what you see.”

  “A . . . face.”

  “What kind of a face is it? Describe the face.”

  Dwight’s lips twitched, but he did not make a sound.

  “We are taking another step forward. The face on the bumper sticker is looking back at you. What kind of face is looking back at you?”

  Dwight had started trembling. He finally gasped out one syllable. “Teeth.”

  “The face that is looking back at you has teeth?”

  “Yes.”

  “Describe those teeth. What sort of teeth are they? Why did you notice them?”

  The young cop’s trembling grew more pronounced. He was sweating, even though the office was well air-conditioned.

  “The sun is shining on you,” Dr. Singh said reassuringly. “You are walking across gravel. You can hear your footsteps crunching. You can smell the boxwood on the side of the road. You can feel the morning breeze on your neck and arms.”

  Dwight seemed to relax slightly.

  “You can see a face with teeth on the faded square bumper sticker. We are looking through our telephoto lens. That image is becoming clearer. Describe the face that you see. Why did you notice the teeth? What is so noticeable about them?”

  The long silence was painful.

  “Can you see other features on that face besides teeth?”

  Nothing.

  “Raise your hand and point to the bumper sticker.”

  Dwight’s right hand left the armrest and swam up through space and stopped.

  “Point to the face on the bumper sticker with your index finger.”

  Four of Dwight’s fingers retracted.

  “You are pointing with your index finger right at the face. What kind of a face are you pointing at? Who or what is looking back at you with its teeth showing?”

  Seconds ticked away. Dwight’s index finger quivered slightly, jabbing at the air and also at the fabric of memory. He said very softly, “Badger.”

  “It’s the face of a badger, with a muzzle and prominent, sharp teeth showing?”

  “Yes.”

  Inside the observation room Grant was already running a search on his laptop, and Agent Lee was dialing a number on her cell.

  Tom glanced dubiously at Brennan and shook his head. “I just don’t believe it. No way in hell Green Man would ever leave a bumper sticker on his van and go on a mission. Especially a sticker with a picture that would tell us so much. . . .”

  “It doesn’t tell us as much as you think,” Grant said in a low voice, glancing at his computer’s screen. “There are more than two thousand schools and sports clubs in Michigan that have a badger as their mascot.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  They discussed the toxic chemicals in flowback as they climbed through the deserted North Woods beneath the darkening sky. It was the least romantic subject of conversation in the world, but every minute of their time together was emotionally poignant.
They had been lovers—and then friends and secret allies—for almost thirty years, and they knew they would never see each other again.

  Even on the most tourist-filled weekends, this hilly forty-acre woodland sanctuary on the northwest corner of Central Park was fairly empty save for the occasional bird watcher, but on this cold weekday afternoon, with a downpour imminent, Green Man and Ellen had the Adirondack-like scenery all to themselves. It was hard to believe that they were in the middle of Manhattan and not three hundred miles to the north, except that they would occasionally mount a hill and the gray facades of tall buildings would appear, specter-like, over the treetops.

  Green Man had spent two days as a visiting researcher in Columbia’s Science and Engineering Library. He had fished out the journals he’d needed by himself and returned them to the shelves, so there was no data record of what he’d read. He was now certain that the liquid called flowback was the best way to strike the oil field. What better or more symbolic way to attack the fracking industry than with a flammable, combustible, and sometimes even radioactive liquid bomb of their own making? The fracking liquid was shot into the earth at high pressure by a diesel engine with the express purpose of blowing apart rock, and after accomplishing that, it bubbled back up to the surface as a convenient agent of further destruction.

  Ellen stumbled, and he took her arm and felt an electric charge. It was always like this when he touched her. He had been married to Sharon for thirteen years and had kept his marriage vows and never been with another woman, but he and Ellen shared a history that neither of them could forget. He had met her in Berkeley when he was twenty-four and she was nineteen, and they had been wildly attracted to each other on every level. They had shared long arguments about the best way to affect different kinds of environmental change, they’d explored the forests of Northern California together with a tent and a double sleeping bag, and a year after they met, he’d bought a small boat and they’d sailed up and down the coast and made passionate love in every rocky inlet they anchored in for the night. He let go of her arm and quickly asked a question about volatile hydrocarbons to cover what they were both pretending they hadn’t just felt.