The Grid

by Nick Cook

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. I also have no idea why he would outline all his plans to a total stranger.’

  I look at my watch. It’s coming up to seven o’clock. I’ve a couple of hours to prepare for my appointment with Sergeyev. It doesn’t pay to keep the GRU waiting.

  But there’s something Hetta needs to show me first.

  Marty is a contractor security guard whose duty belt comes with a can of mace and a baton in its holsters. He’s a heavy-set lunk in his late forties with impressive jowls and bushy sideburns.

  ‘I think we had an open circuit issue,’ he says. ‘It’s done that a few times.’

  Hetta scans the rooftops. Dawn is breaking. An aircraft dips behind the Washington Monument on its descent into Reagan. Fast food wrappers skitter across the concrete floor of the empty fourteenth-floor office suite behind us. ‘I need for you to explain to me what that means,’ she says.

  I know Marty is grating on her nerves. He grates on mine for sure. But Hetta’s irritation is palpable. I can feel its heat.

  ‘The tamper circuit is a loop that connects all the infrareds, the shock sensors, the pressure pads and the magnetic contacts throughout the building.’ He rearranges his ill-fitting, company-issue pants by digging into the crotch and giving it a sharp tug. ‘It does what it says on the can. Anyone tries to fuck with the system, the alarm goes off. But occasionally, because ours is brand new and the building isn’t finished, it goes open-circuit – the current stops flowing and it trips.’

  This triggers an alert at the dispatch office within the MPD’s First District station on M Street.

  ‘Was it or wasn’t it a false alarm?’

  Marty pulls a face. He doesn’t want to be categorical. There was no one guarding the building Sunday night – there isn’t on weekends – but the system is also linked to his firm’s HQ, so it would have prompted a response. Somebody would have come by and swept the offices.

  Once the guy was satisfied it was a false call-out, he would have keyed in his user number, killed it and reset the system. Somehow or other, there must have been a gap between the alarm registering down at the First District and its reclassification as a false positive. Which is how it came to be picked up by the Secret Service’s pattern-mining algorithm.

  Marty tilts his oversize head. His gaze shifts somewhere beyond the balcony. ‘I guess MPD had other things on its mind that night, what with that shooting over at the church.’

  Lefortz woke me in the middle of the storm. A quarter of four. Six and a half hours after the system tripped.

  ‘And you say your colleague would have physically swept the building?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am, he surely would have.’

  Hetta gestures to the shell of an office behind us. ‘But not these offices, because these offices are unoccupied.’

  ‘Come agin?’

  ‘I want to know whether somebody could have physically accessed the building – these floors up here – while the system was in reset mode.’

  Marty doesn’t hesitate. ‘There are multiple sensors, including a hundred or so CCTV cameras, from the ground floor all the way to the roof. It’s physically impossible for someone to get up here without being detected, even with a malfunction in the tamper system.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Because every camera has a battery back-up unit; they continue to record throughout.’

  Hetta lets him know she’s going to pass by later so she can examine the footage, then instructs him to leave us alone. Marty doesn’t need to be told twice. He takes off like a whipped dog.

  As the sun comes up, it hits the gold cupola on top of the bell tower, two hundred fifty meters distant. I walk out onto the balcony. It offers a clear line of sight to the church. Police tape crisscrosses the portico. Lights burn within the tower. Forensics teams are still at work inside.

  Again I ask myself: why?

  St John’s, ‘Church of the Presidents’, is a stone’s throw from the White House.

  Why did Guido – Voss – pick it rather than the fence by the North Grounds for his protest? A protest that wasn’t a protest but a warning.

  I scan the area between the church and the tall buildings across the street.

  ‘Hetta? What’s over there?’

  She comes and stands next to me.

  ‘Next to the labor union? Offices. Nothing special.’

  ‘In the tower, he looked at them. A number of times.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Where was the sniper?’

  ‘There were multiple snipers.’

  ‘The guy who shot him.’

  ‘Not a part of my jurisdiction, Colonel. And the official report isn’t in yet.’ She looks at me. ‘Why?’

  I outline the facts, such as they are:

  Voss was killed by a single bullet.

  We know where that bullet came from.

  Anders has denied giving any order to shoot.

  We appear to be dealing with a loner, who knows some things about me and is obsessed with the President.

  And he may or may not have been crazy.

  A cold wind blows up from the street.

  But here’s the kicker: Voss couldn’t have been in two places at once – the church and Marty’s brand new office building.

  And if he had an accomplice, the ‘sad loner’ piece flies out the window.

  11

  I’M HAVING A MORE GROUNDED CONVERSATION WITH A RUSSIAN military intelligence officer than I’ve had with anyone else in the past twenty-four hours.

  Before getting down to the business that has brought me here, I study the framed pictures behind Sergeyev’s desk. Of Putin. Of the new Russian president. Of Sergeyev looking slim, tanned and Soviet-heroic in his uniform – with Fidel Castro. With his family at Walt Disney World. Smiling at the camera through a cloud of cigarette smoke as he sits on the back of a tank, with cam cream on his face and an AK-47 in his lap.

  If the pictures paint a thousand words, I still have no idea what they’re trying to say. Whether he’s old guard or a visionary reformer like his energetic new president.

  I point to the photo of his family and compliment him on his pretty wife and his blonde, blue-eyed daughter and son.

  ‘Do you know how much a nurse in Moscow takes home every month?’ he asks.

  I place my cup on the edge of his desk. His eyes are almost turquoise, his hair quite black.

  ‘I don’t, no.’ I glance again at the photo. ‘Is your wife a nurse?’

  ‘She used to be. The answer is about eight hundred bucks.’ He leans forward. His tendency to use slang when he shouldn’t underlies, I think, a desire to impress me. He doesn’t need to. His English is exceptional.

  ‘You know what a doctor gets? No, why should you? Around sixteen hundred a month. Two grand, if he or she is really lucky. I’m trying to give you a little context, Colonel, before your visit.’

  He leans back, adjusts his cufflinks and straightens the lapels of his blue Armani suit.

  ‘It goes without saying, Colonel Cain, that we want the President’s trip to go well and hope that it will lead to an entirely new era of cooperation between us. President Thompson is an interesting man. And yet we feel we still know so little about him.’

  His eyes reflect the sudden drop in temperature.

  ‘I have been tasked by my government with facilitating your visit. Your visa has been approved by me personally and I will ensure that the things we discuss and agree will be implemented.

  ‘You and I know that, whilst there are two or three hospitals in Moscow that might conceivably be acceptable to you and your president, I know this is a purely cosmetic exercise. If, God forbid, there is a genuine medical emergency while President Thompson is in my country, any necessary procedures will be performed on Air Force One.’

  This isn’t what I expected. In the silence that follows, Sergeyev presses a button on an old-fashioned intercom and speaks to his assistant, who I can hear t
apping away at her keyboard in the outside office. A moment later, she enters and replaces the silver coffee pot on his desk with another.

  ‘So,’ he says, when we’re alone again, ‘come to Moscow. Review our hospitals. We can, between us, come up with an acceptable list – the Burdenko General Military Hospital, the City Clinical Hospital No. 50 and the American Medical Center on Prospekt Mira, for example.’

  He pours two more cups of black coffee. As he hands me mine, he asks what I think of the threat of Islamic terrorism that plagues our two countries and whether, as a military man myself, I believe the administration’s Roosevelt-like policy of speaking softly and carrying a big stick will bear fruit.

  I know he’s questioning how Thompson’s pre-election pledge to restart a Middle East peace initiative sits with wave after wave of well-targeted and highly successful air, land and sea strikes by our military against jihadi terror cells from Libya to Afghanistan and Lebanon to the South Sudan, while diplomats shuttle between Cairo, Tel Aviv, Riyadh and Tehran. The policy has attracted criticism from the Russians, which, in turn, has angered a good many people here, given their record in this same area.

  Part of the reason for Thompson’s visit to Moscow is so that he and his young Russian counterpart can reset their compass.

  ‘Colonel, contrary to what most people might think, I don’t have day-to-day dealings with the President. I see him when I need to, and I’m happy to report that, as he is in robust good health, I really don’t get to do so that often.’

  I pause. ‘And, even if I were able to ask him about such things, he wouldn’t discuss them with me.

  ‘But what do I think? I think that the President’s visit is a good thing and it will be a great success. I also want to thank you for your candor, and look forward to doing business with you.’

  I get to my feet and smile broadly. He does too, giving me a glimpse of a shiny gold incisor.

  He stands, and grips my hand warmly. ‘The President is very fortunate to have a doctor who so selflessly puts himself in harm’s way to protect him. I trust you are unscathed by your experience yesterday.’

  I’m surprised it’s taken him quite so long to mention this. ‘I am a psychiatrist as well as a physician, and get to see many trauma victims.’ I glance at the picture of him smoking on the back of the tank. He looks at it, too.

  ‘Chechnya?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you know exactly what I’m talking about. Yesterday’s incident was, sadly, another reminder of the price we pay for conflict.’

  ‘Quite,’ he says. ‘Well, I wish you the best of luck. I look forward to seeing you in Moscow. Do svidanya.’

  He comes round the desk and calls out in English to his petite blonde secretary to escort me back to the embassy’s vault-like reception area, where she will arrange for a cab to take me wherever I want to go.

  I thank them both, but ignore the offer and wander out onto Wisconsin Avenue.

  It’s a fine morning – blue sky, bright sunshine, the snow crisp and crystalline – and, even though it’s a little over a mile and still cold, I decide to walk to the Woodley Park-Zoo Metro station.

  I read and process my messages on the way.

  I have one from Reuben and several from Molly about appointments and meetings, as well as a missed call from a 650 Bay Area number.

  Mo.

  I listen to his voicemail. Born here to Turkish-Armenian parents, he has a thicker accent than Sergeyev’s, and all I really catch are the profanities. I call him back.

  ‘Josh, fella? My God, I’m talking to a fucking rock star.’

  He laughs loudly.

  ‘Listen,’ he says, getting straight to it, ‘about that guy. The guy you called about? On the news?’ He hardly draws breath. ‘The description you gave me – Marine, brain injury, stammer, the age range and the place he’s from, which is West Virginia, by the way – it can only be one person. You were right. The injury that Gapes received to the skull produced a severe cell-memory—’

  I interrupt him. ‘Say again.’

  ‘The injury he received to the brain. I said it produced a severe cell-memory reaction.’

  ‘No. His name, Mo.’

  ‘Sergeant Duke Gapes.’

  I hold the phone a little closer to my ear. ‘That’s not the name put out by the MPD. They said his name was Voss.’

  ‘Well, then, they’re bozos.’

  ‘They identified him through his DNA.’

  ‘They’re wrong.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘I was the guy responsible for his treatment, Josh.’

  I double-check I heard him right.

  ‘TVB always said you were the natural and I was the guy who had to sweat my nuts off to keep up. Listen to what I’m telling you. Gapes is – was – a Marine sergeant who got blown up by a mortar in Iraq. He was a good-looking guy, too; nothing like that thick-set dude they released the picture of.’

  ‘He was badly burned, Mo.’

  ‘When I treated him, all he had was the brain injury.’

  ‘When did you treat him?’

  ‘Twelve, maybe fifteen years ago. We discharged him back east, to a veteran rehabilitation center in Maryland.’

  ‘No doubt?’

  ‘No doubt at all.’

  I wait.

  ‘Like you, Josh, I’m an anally retentive son of a bitch and I took the liberty of blowing up the picture they released. The guy in the photo’s got a coloboma.’

  A coloboma is a congenital malformation of the eye. It can manifest as a blemish on the iris, but I’ve only ever come across it once in all my years of clinical work.

  ‘It’s the classic keyhole shape,’ Mo says. ‘Take a look under enlargement. Then go check your corpse. If it’s Gapes on the slab, he won’t have a coloboma.’

  I’m thinking about what I’m going to say to Hetta.

  ‘Tell me about Gates.’

  ‘Gapes. With a “p”. The cell-memory issue needed repeat therapy. They gave it to him at the Maryland rehab center on a schedule we fed them from here. But then it went wrong for him.’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘He was re-recruited to some low-level job in the military. Some place nearby. He flipped out. Couldn’t take it. It surfaced in a compensation case. Some lawyer contacted me. Wanted to know if I would testify as an expert witness.’

  She was trying to sue the government on Gapes’s behalf. She was young, worked for a small-town firm close to where the family lived, a bit of a ball-breaker. ‘Distinctive name. Eastern European – with a hint of the mortuary about it.’

  Ever since I’ve known him, Mo has used mnemonics to remember names and places. He keeps telling me I should do the same.

  She now works for a notable firm of litigators right around the corner from Lafayette Square.

  I hang up.

  I elect not to call Hetta, because, on top of the revelations from Marty, even I can’t quite believe what I’ve just been told.

  The MPD put out a picture of the wrong guy.

  Guido isn’t Matt Voss; he’s Duke Gapes.

  Nobody can be that fucking incompetent, can they?

  Katya Dedovic is a good-looking woman in her early thirties with high cheekbones and a neat bob. She’s at a table in back where no one is likely to see her from the street.

  In the summer I pick up my breakfast here on my jog to work. The food’s nothing to write home about, but the coffee’s OK. I order two Americanos and sit down.

  It’s late lunchtime. There’s a line of people waiting to be served and the noise levels are loud enough for our conversation not to be overheard.

  We shake hands. Hers is very cold. The corporate front she tried on me over the phone is all gone. She looks like she’s about to throw up.

  ‘You sure it’s OK to be talking about this?’

  ‘Ms Dedovic, I told you. I’m from the White House. What do you want me to say?’

  ‘Duke Gapes’s case was a travest
y,’ she blurts. ‘But we fought them and we got justice of a sort. Well, his family did. But if I’d known …’ She stops. ‘Let’s just say I was younger and hungrier then.’

  I study her more closely.

  ‘You’re saying you wouldn’t take his case on now?’

  She stares into the contents of her cup.

  I try again. ‘You people take on the federal government all the time.’

  When I researched her, she’d popped up in a nanosecond. There is only one Katya Dedovic in D.C. Until a year ago, she’d been with a small firm in Heatherfield, West Virginia. Now she’s with Collins Lovelock Land LLP, trial attorneys specializing in complex litigation.

  ‘Doesn’t matter how old or experienced you are when there’s a refusal to declassify the information at the heart of the case you’re fighting.’ She pauses. ‘Plus they terrified the living shit out of me.’

  ‘Who did?’

  ‘The people Duke got mixed up with.’

  I wait for her to tell me more.

  ‘Duke Gapes went AWOL because he was traumatized. He’d suffered appalling injuries. What they should have given him was veteran disability compensation alongside his Purple Heart. Instead they gave him a job he wasn’t remotely able to handle.’

  ‘After his neurosurgery?’

  She nods.

  ‘What job?’

  ‘He worked for the Army’s Intelligence and Security Command.’

  I hide my surprise. ‘What did he do there?’

  ‘He was an office administrator. He worked in their headquarters complex at Fort Meade. Handled its IT.’

  ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘He was certainly recruited as part of an initiative to get injured vets back into government work.’

  ‘But?’

  ‘For an office hack, he racked up a lot of air miles. Helicopters, mostly. One of them crashed.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘A judge advocate from their legal team let it slip.’

  ‘So that’s how he got burned.’

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘And the apartment.’

  She sees my confusion.

  ‘They fixed him up with a place on the Fort Meade site. Part of his rehabilitation. That was when his mother started getting the calls.’