The Patrick Bowers Files - 05 - The Queen

by Steven James

  Despite numerous subsequent studies over the next decade, no conclusive evidence was found to substantiate the activists’ claims.

  But the environmentalists hadn’t given up.

  Over the ELF station’s operational years, socially progressive and environmentally conscious groups held regular protests at the base, cut down the telephone poles that supported the electrical lines, and filed relentless federal lawsuits to close the Wisconsin station. State senators Herb Kohl and Russ Feingold even got into the act, demanding that the ELF site be shut down.

  So.

  A few threads came together.

  All Ohio Class subs are equipped with antennas to receive the extremely low frequency waves and have onboard instruments that decode the ELF signals. However, since the subs don’t have miles of radio transmission wires, the communication between the station and the subs was one-way.

  For that reason, the ELF orders were typically requests for the sub to surface to receive further communication, or to remain at depth and at immediate battle readiness.

  Typically.

  In 2004, the Navy, without warning, announced that they were closing the stations because they were outdated and no longer needed. The Michigan site was completely razed. Then, the military dismantled the communications array here in Wisconsin, taking down all the telephone poles as well as more than twenty-eight miles of transmission wires that had surrounded the station.

  Naval personnel had bulldozed the station, removed all the rubble, and reseeded the field so that now all that remained was a looming maintenance building that was apparently left for the forest service to use.

  I found myself wondering if the Navy would really invest nearly a quarter of a billion dollars and fifty years of research and then abandon a project just because it seemed dated.

  Actually, they might.

  But still, why then? Why 2004?

  As all of this was circling through my head, I scrolled to the final PDF file and found a footnote that gave me pause.

  According to some protestors, the ELF signal could be used to issue first-strike orders, although the Navy maintained that the signals could never be used in that way.

  But in the 1996 case of Wisconsin v. Donna and Tom Howard, a former commander of a US nuclear submarine, Captain James Bush, testified that the primary purpose of ELF signals was to give go-codes to launch kinetic attacks against foreign adversaries.

  In other words, to initiate nuclear war.

  I felt a palpable chill.

  A biometric ID card.

  Above top secret access.

  The preliminary Project Sanguine work was done in Wisconsin, possibly including tunnels being constructed.

  Though I’m hesitant to make investigative assumptions, it was looking more and more likely that something still remained out there in the middle of the national forest.

  Using my laptop, I pulled up the topo maps of the area and overlaid the snowmobile trails Donnie Pickron might have used to get to the sawmill.

  The GPS coordinates showed that the site of the old ELF station lay just off the Birch Trail, one of the three routes that would’ve made sense for him to use. The Schoenberg Inn and the sawmill lie in northeasterly and southeasterly directions, respectively. Although much farther by road, the site was geographically relatively close to them both—a little over five miles as the crow flies.

  As I was considering the implications, I heard a knock at the door. After drying my foot, I hobbled across the room and peered through the peephole, a habit formed from too many years of tracking people who want to kill you. Amber stood outside the room.

  I cracked it open, letting in a gust of arctic air. “Hey, is everything all right?”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Um, well, that might not be—”

  “Please.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, I stepped aside, and she entered my motel room and shut the door softly behind her.

  42

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Good. I’m doing good.”

  “Your ankle?” She was eyeing the two buckets.

  “Well,” I said, repositioning myself so I was putting less weight on it. “It’s okay.”

  Amber looked at my swollen foot but refrained from comment.

  Being alone in a motel room with her like this brought back memories, sharp, vivid. The three nights we’d spent together talking, sharing—a fire of intimacy born of common interests, goals, dreams. The memories made me uneasy, and I waited anxiously for her to explain her visit, all the while, the information I’d read about the ELF station kept itching away at my attention.

  Quietly, and before I realized what she was doing, Amber approached me, then brushed her hand across my arm. “I was so worried about you when they brought you in to the hospital.”

  I took a faltering step backward. “Don’t be concerned. Really, I’m all right.”

  “When you were lying there unconscious, it made me think . . .” She took in a small breath. “I realized some things.”

  I couldn’t see any way that this conversation was a good one for us to be having. Especially not here. Not now. “Amber, maybe you should go.”

  “I came here to talk to you about me and Sean.”

  “Amber, I’m not sure—”

  “You know we’ve had our ups and downs.”

  Actually, I hadn’t known about any problems the two of them were having, which was just further evidence of how superficially I knew my brother. And from past experience I was all too aware that when people use the phrase “we’ve had our ups and downs” it’s just a euphemistic way of saying “we’ve had our downs.”

  “Things haven’t been good between us,” she said candidly.

  I moved toward the door. “It’s not my place to hear this, Amber.”

  Rather than reply, she abruptly changed the direction of the conversation. “Why did you end things, Pat?”

  “Please, I’m not—”

  “You never told me.”

  “It wouldn’t have been right for us to keep going.”

  “Just when things were . . .” She paused, searched for the right words. “Moving forward.”

  “You were engaged to my brother.”

  “You can’t tell me you didn’t feel it, though.”

  “I’m with Lien-hua now.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re with Sean.”

  A small pause. “Yes.”

  “What we had, Amber, it’s over.”

  She turned her back to me, and I wished she hadn’t. I wanted to see her face so I could try to read her, decipher what she might be thinking.

  “I know there’s more, Pat. All this time I’ve known. Was it something I did? I just need to know.”

  Her intuition was right. There was more, but it wouldn’t be wise to get into all that. I needed to do something to end this conversation, to rescue what little rapport I had left with my brother, to help, at least in a small way, salvage his relationship with Amber. Over the years I’ve found that sometimes when a lie serves a greater good it can be a gift.

  A lie.

  A gift.

  “I never cared for you like you did for me,” I said as convincingly as I could.

  She turned and looked at me, into me. “That’s not true.”

  No, it isn’t.

  No, it isn’t.

  You’re not a good liar, Pat.

  Telling the lie troubled me.

  The truth.

  The greater gift.

  Before I could edit them, rein them in, the words slipped out: “I ended things because Sean loved you.” Yes, it was true, but it wasn’t the whole truth. “And I didn’t want to hurt him, to—”

  “But so did you, right? You were in love with me too?”

  She seemed distraught, almost desperate to hear me say it, but I avoided answering her. “Amber, really, I think you need to leave.”

  “Just tell me if I was wrong all
this time. Just tell me the truth.” She’d always been a woman unafraid to show her feelings, and her eyes were beginning to glisten. “Please.”

  “Yes, I did. I loved you.” With every question, every answer, I was digging myself deeper into a conversation I didn’t need to be in. I decided to try and wrap this up quickly. “I didn’t want Sean to get hurt. You either.”

  “You broke things off to protect me?”

  “Both of you.”

  She was crying now, and my heart broke to see it. If only I’d pulled away sooner five years ago, not let my feelings tug me farther than I needed to go.

  “Amber, please.”

  “Are you doing it again?”

  “What?”

  “Trying to protect me?”

  “We can’t—”

  “You left me because you loved me, because you wanted to protect me? Both me and Sean? That’s what you just said.”

  You did this to yourself, Pat. You shouldn’t have said anything!

  “I never stopped caring, Pat.” Her voice had become soft, broken. “Seeing you now . . . it’s . . .” Her words trailed off, and she turned to hide her tears. As a man I couldn’t just stand there and watch her hurt, watch her cry.

  You hurt her, Pat.

  You shouldn’t have told her any of this.

  “Come here.” So I took her in my arms, and she leaned into my embrace and she held me the way she used to, and as I was brushing a tear from her eye I heard a quick double-knock at the door, and just as I was pulling away from her, it swung open, and Lien-hua, the woman I loved, the one I was hoping to marry, appeared.

  43

  The moment blistered apart.

  “Lien-hua?” I quickly stepped back from Amber.

  She’s supposed to be in Cincinnati. Why is she here?

  She told you she was sending up a surprise.

  She told you—

  Oh man.

  “Pat.” Lien-hua was looking from Amber to me and back to Amber. She entered the room, let the door close out the howling night behind her.

  “This isn’t what . . .” I started apologizing, wanted to apologize, but I couldn’t quite pinpoint what to apologize for. “This is Amber.” I took another step back so I could see both women at the same time. “Sean’s wife.”

  “Sean’s wife,” Lien-hua echoed softly.

  Turning to Amber, I said, “And this is Lien—my friend Lien-hua Jiang.”

  Your friend?!

  Amber slid away a stray tear that remained on her cheek. “I’ll go. I’m sorry.” She told Lien-hua, “I just came to talk. That was all. He was just trying to help.”

  “Okay,” Lien-hua replied, in a tone that was impossible to read.

  Amber collected her purse and headed for the door. Lien-hua stepped aside to let her through, but before Amber passed her, I realized it wouldn’t be safe for her to leave. “Wait. The roads.”

  “I made it over here.” Amber’s voice was strained with deep emotion. “I’ll be fine.”

  I fished out the key to the room I’d reserved for Tessa earlier in the day. “Tessa’s staying at your place. Take her room.” I hated having this conversation in front of Lien-hua.

  She shook her head. “I’ll be all right.”

  “No, they closed the county roads,” Lien-hua said. “State Patrol did. I had to ride with a trooper just to get over here.” Despite the awkwardness of the situation, I heard genuine concern for Amber’s welfare in her words.

  “If the county roads are closed,” I said, “you won’t make it home.”

  “I’m used to—”

  I held out the key to her. “Amber. For your own safety. Please.”

  After one final objection, she accepted it. “Room 104,” I told her. I left off mentioning the obvious: that it was the room right next door.

  She passed quietly out the door, into the storm, and then I was alone with Lien-hua, who stood by the bed and appraised me.

  And I, her.

  Asian elegance. Black hair with two curling strands that gracefully framed her face. A posture and grace that came from years of tai chi and competition kickboxing. A woman who was not only gorgeous and athletic but also had swift intelligence and deep perception, I’d fallen for her the first time I met her fifteen months ago. Since then we’d dated, faded apart, reconnected. Tried to make things work.

  Ups and downs.

  “How did you get a key to the room?” I asked lamely.

  “The manager gave me one when I told him I was your girlfriend and that I’d come to surprise you.”

  This was just not good.

  “The FBI credentials sealed the deal,” she added.

  I wanted to ask her about Cincinnati, how she got up here today, but a flight to Madison, St. Paul, or even Rhinelander would have been easy enough to arrange this morning. However, none of that mattered at the moment. She was here and so was I, and she’d walked in on me while I was in the arms of another woman.

  “Really,” I said, “you have to believe me, this wasn’t what it looked like, here with Amber.”

  Lien-hua chose not to reply.

  “She came to check on me.”

  And to ask you why you broke things off with—

  “Margaret told me about everything that happened today. Now, honestly. Tell me. Are you all right? You’re on your feet, so you must be feeling—are you feeling better?”

  “I am, except my ankle is having a little bit of a rough time.”

  “You can sit down if you like.”

  “I’m all right.”

  “Really, Pat—”

  “I’m all right.”

  “You almost drowned. You could have died of hypothermia.”

  “I just need you to know that I’m okay and that nothing was happening in here, a minute ago.” Truthfully, my ankle was throbbing, and I did want to sit down, but I forced myself to stand.

  A small silence. “Why was Amber crying?”

  Not the question I wanted to answer.

  “Because . . .”

  Sometimes a lie is a gift.

  Always the truth is.

  All right. Everything out in the open.

  “Five years ago”—I finally did take a seat on the bed—“I met her when she was engaged to Sean. We connected. Neither Amber or I set out to, neither of us wanted to, but we . . .”

  “You had an affair?”

  “It didn’t end up going that far.” I hesitated, then added, “But it went farther than it should’ve.”

  She was quiet.

  This was even harder than I’d thought.

  “I couldn’t stand the thought of hurting my brother, so I broke things off, stopped seeing Amber, stopped calling her. I still feel terrible that the relationship ever got started in the first place. It was five years ago.”

  “You mentioned that.”

  I could think of nothing else to say.

  “Were you in love?”

  I gave her a tiny nod.

  “And is that what you told her tonight? That you still loved her?”

  “No. I told her I was with you. That whatever we had was over.”

  Profiler that she was, Lien-hua watched me, no doubt discerning as much from my pauses, body language, tone as she did from the words themselves.

  “Are you still in love with her, Pat?”

  “No,” I said, but even I could hear the tiny hitch in my voice, and I hated that it was there. I’d chosen Lien-hua. Chosen her! Words rang in my head, from some TV show or movie I might have seen sometime: Being in love with more than one person doesn’t mean you’re being unfaithful, choosing to pursue more than one person does.

  And I was pursuing Lien-hua.

  Lien-hua.

  A silence broad and deep. At last she said, “So that’s why she was crying? That’s it?”

  “She’s had problems with Sean.”

  “I see.”

  I stood once again, approached her. “I didn’t even know that they—”

 
She held up a gentle hand to stop me. “She drove through a blizzard to meet you in your motel room to tell you this—that she and her husband are having problems?”

  “You have to believe me, Lien-hua—”

  “Please, Pat. Don’t tell me what I have to do.”

  I felt helpless. “Let me explain.”

  “I don’t think it’s me you need to explain things to. I think it’s your brother.” Her words were sharp but filled with a delicate kind of pain.

  Once again I started to respond, but she shook her head and said, “Pat, when you’re seeing someone, you set boundaries. You keep yourself from situations where you’re alone in a motel room at night with one of your former lovers.”

  She was right. Everything she’d just said was true.

  She opened the door to leave, letting a sharp blast of winter wind into the room. “I’m staying in 124 with Natasha.” Now her tone had taken on a remote and disheartening professionalism, just as it had in the days last spring when we’d drifted apart. The pain of hearing the coolness in her words struck me even more starkly than the chilled air rushing past her. “She told me that she was meeting with you and Jake in the lobby at 9:00 for a briefing. I’ll be there. Good night, Pat.”

  Come on, figure this out!

  But then she was leaving.

  “We can talk about this more tomorrow, okay?” I said. “Straighten everything out?”

  A small nod was the only response she gave me.

  And then she was gone.

  As I watched the door close, my initial thought was to go after her, but then I realized that pressing things at the moment would do more harm than good.

  I sank onto my bed.

  I tried to process what had just happened—the stirring of old feelings for Amber, our admissions of affection for each other, the look of pain in Lien-hua’s eyes when she found us in each other’s arms.

  Man, I’d screwed things up.

  I couldn’t help but think of the diamond engagement ring in the box in Denver, waiting to be offered to Lien-hua.

  What a mess.

  Regret swept over me, and for a while I just sat there and listened to the storm rage against the window, a frigid and angry wind pulsing through the night.

  Not only had Chekov escaped, not only had our one link to Basque gotten murdered, not only had Ellory and at least two members of the Pickron family been killed, but now two of the people who mattered most to me were hurting and it was all my fault.