by Greg Bear
‘Same as.’
‘I beg your pardon.’
Rebecca gave the DS agent a gesture with her hand and shoulder. ‘You’ve got cream on your lip, Mr. Cat. Willing to contribute something useful?’
Grange pulled up a folding chair and sat. ‘DS and FBI have a long history of friendly dealings. Though sometimes we do let you hog our credit.’ He pointed to the display. ‘The steel tubes are scorched inside and around the lips. Tests show traces of polybutadiene and sprinkles of aluminum—like the charge that blew the barn. Plus talcum powder and small glass beads driven down into the base. Do you know much about fireworks?’
‘No,’ Rebecca said.
‘You might want to learn. After all, the big question is, what’ll they think of next? I hear you have some interesting theories, Agent Rose. Maybe we can compare notes. I’d like that. But not now. Too much doghouse stink in your agency.’
‘You’re with BuDark, aren’t you?’ Rebecca asked.
David Grange stood and intoned, ‘You do not see me. I am not here.’ He walked through the rear door, waving his hand. ‘Give my best to Hiram Newsome.’
Rebecca looked at the door. She wore a simple frown, like a puzzled little girl. ‘Pug-faced shithead,’ she murmured.
‘Beg your pardon?’ William asked.
‘We live in an age of cooperation,’ Rebecca said. ‘But this case, this bastard, is mine.’ She looked back to the display.
‘I know a little about fireworks,’ William said. ‘Griff taught me one summer at Lon Guyland. New York. If this is a launcher, it’s weird. Custom job, small tubes. Rockets, not mortars. Backyard shows, not Disney World. My guess is, it would launch ten or fifteen simple starbursts in succession, not all at once—that much heat would warp the base—set to go off at between five hundred and two thousand feet. You’d load the tubes depending on where you wanted the starbursts to appear—left, right, center. Not a showstopper.’
Rebecca smiled, impressed. ‘Why glass beads?’
‘Insulation,’ William said. ‘Between layers. You can also use metal foil, paper wadding, sand, clay…sometimes, baby powder.’
‘Trune and Grange seems to think that this is the launcher that spread yeast all over the farm. What do you think?’
‘I don’t know,’ William said. ‘Gets pretty hot inside an exploding rocket. Should cook anything alive.’
‘That’s what they said about Challenger,’ Rebecca said.
‘The shuttle?
‘2003. Tumbled out of orbit, breaking up and burning. But big pieces came down.’
‘The astronauts all died,’ William said.
‘Small things survived. An entire ant colony experiment was found intact, remember?’
He shook his head. ‘I was just getting out of college.’
Rebecca ran the video back and then forward, several times. ‘That’s what brought the deputy out here in the first place,’ she said. ‘Lots of starbursts over four or five nights. How much yeast in each charge? A few ounces? Half a pound?’
Then she advanced the video all the way to the bags of yeast stored in the basement stalls. ‘French. Good stuff, I guess.’
William pointed. ‘They’ve been wrapped in double plastic. It’s shiny. The inner bags aren’t sealed. They’ve been closed up again with big staples.’
‘So they were,’ Rebecca said.
‘But the bags look full. Maybe they had been opened and then—either they weren’t used or they were refilled.’
‘Hm.’
‘But refilled with what—more yeast?’
‘If the analysts had found anthrax, we wouldn’t be here,’ Rebecca said. ‘Maybe the yeast was treated, mixed with glass beads. Maybe they used the empty bags to hold clay or baby powder.’ She ran the video ahead. Watson and Griff had pretty thoroughly recorded the barn’s basement.
‘Are those box kites?’ Rebecca asked.
‘Maybe,’ William said. ‘That could be a powder station,’ he added as Griff surveyed the benches. ‘Packing molds, shaping wedges.’
‘Just fireworks?’ Watson asked on the video.
‘Did the Patriarch do the packing?’ Rebecca asked.
‘His family, maybe. The kids. Griff and I put on a small show one August for some neighbors. Things going bang, what’s not to like?’
On the video, Griff was watching sparks dance at the rear of the basement. They could barely see through the drifting haze of black dust. ‘Screw this,’ Watson said.
Rebecca turned off the display. ‘The Patriarch wasn’t doing it all by himself,’ she said. ‘And he wasn’t the boss. This is not his style.’
‘What about his sons?’
‘He’d never let his sons take the lead on a project. But that’s not what I mean. He was working with somebody with new ideas. Somebody who convinced him it would be worth his while to stake his farm just to ride shotgun. Something huge.’
The trailer let out a few creaks as the wind blew. The valley was sheltered and the air had been relatively still for weeks. Now, the weather was changing.
‘Proof of concept,’ William said. ‘Box kites to check wind direction. And they could have launched a dummy load—yeast. Yeast wouldn’t attract as much attention as large amounts of BT.’
‘But did they have time to finish?’ Rebecca glanced at her watch. ‘I wonder if someone has caught up with the Patriarch’s family. Maybe they’re in protective custody. Maybe DS or Homeland Security has them.’
‘Wouldn’t they let us know?’
‘What do you think?’ Rebecca asked. ‘We’re second-class citizens, didn’t you hear? We could ask and say pretty please.’
‘Another conference in ten minutes,’ one of the agents alerted them from the door.
‘Five o’clock,’ Rebecca said, looking at her watch. ‘Gluttons for punishment?’
‘Eight o’clock New York time,’ William said. ‘News cycle coming up, everyone wants to be on the same page.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Virginia
Fouad Al-Husam woke to the gentle pulse of jazz from the motel clock radio. He washed, laid out his rug, and performed morning prayers. After, he read the Quran for an hour, then repacked his kit.
The tortured man had looked like Fouad’s uncle Salim, in his younger days, a handsome, smiling man fond of dispensing candy to his nieces and nephews at family gatherings. It was difficult to imagine Salim being tortured. Salim had been almost as much of a father to him as his own father.
The phone buzzed. Fouad zipped his kit and answered.
‘Be ready to move out in ten minutes,’ a female voice said at the other end.
‘Who is this?’ Fouad asked.
‘Lance Corporal Chandy Bergstrom. I’m your escort. There’s been a change of plans. I’m to take all of you here at the Podunk Hilton to a military airport for rapid deployment. Will you be ready, Agent Al-Husam?’
‘I will,’ Fouad said.
‘Thank you. Big adventure.’
‘Yes, of course.’
Fouad put down the receiver and looked around the room. He closed his Quran, slipped it into its leather travel bag, and returned the razor to his shaving kit.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Washington State
Rebecca had found them a decent motel just off the freeway in Everett. At two in the afternoon, William was asleep in his room but she sat on her bed—her hard, rented bed—with a glass of water balanced on the corner. She stared at the window. Daylight knifed through a crack in the drapes, then—a shadow. Someone with kids passed by on the walkway outside. A man and the kids laughed and tussled and a woman gently reined them in.
Real life. That woman did not have to sleep alone. That woman did not have an attitude that drove men away. Nearly everyone spent a life free from the immediate ravages of crime. They were the sane ones because they were isolated, deluded into feeling safe.
The insane ones broke their brains and bodies trying to protect them.
She
removed her notebook and flipped through her shorthand record of the briefing at the Patriarch’s farm. SAC John Keller had delivered the briefing to the governor and a group of top law enforcement officers. There were smears on the second page of her notebook. In the middle of the briefing, it had started sprinkling again.
Her slate chimed. It was Hiram Newsome at Quantico. ‘Rose here.’
‘Not much time, Rebecca. I hear Griff is breathing on his own. He’s off the supercritical list. He could regain consciousness tonight or tomorrow.’
‘I’ll tell William.’
‘BDI informs me they know the whereabouts of at least a few of the Patriarch’s family, but that info is being kept inhouse for the time being. Both Diplomatic Security and BDI have been behaving real peculiar lately. BDI may get whupped worse by the current administration than FBI, long-term. If DS is involved, that probably means BuDark. Alphabet soup gets cold fast, doesn’t it?’
Rebecca could hardly keep the agencies straight any more. With each intelligence and security failure, successive administrations had multiplied the bureaucracies, perhaps in hopes of spreading future blame. She was least fond of BDI—the Bureau of Domestic Intelligence, which had been formed two years after—and despite the existence of—the FBI’s National Security Service. It was rumored that BDI had been the source of much of the shit for which the FBI was now taking blame. ‘News, isn’t it about time some of us got told what in hell BuDark is?’
‘Well, they’ve taken one of our agents from the last class, Fouad Al-Husam, along with about twenty other Arabspeakers from FBI and CIA. BuDark has been raiding every agency in town except BDI and Secret Service, pulling out Middle East experts. I assume we’ll be told in the next few weeks where they’re putting our agents. If they feel the anxious need to be courteous.’
‘They’re not CIA?’
‘Presidential black ops would be my guess. I’ve had three meetings with the director in the last day and a half, and he’s not going to fight a turf war unless we come up with something certain.’
‘Well, here’s a certainty,’ Rebecca said, lifting a printout from her briefcase. ‘There is no anthrax in the ink cartridges from the printers found in the Patriarch’s barn. But the cartridges didn’t hold ink, either. They were filled with Canola oil. They may have been prepped but never used. And there were a lot more empty benches than there were printers.’
‘Something got interrupted.’
‘Two somethings,’ Rebecca said. ‘We took down the Patriarch, and the truck got stopped in Arizona.’
‘Maybe there’s a third something,’ Newsome said. ‘I’m hearing rumors about anthrax being used against civilians in Iraq. Could that be connected?’
‘I don’t see how.’
Newsome sighed. ‘Unless you find a connection, we’re not going to get any help from DS. I can send you a couple of prime guys to help.’
‘Griffin’s fine.’
‘Griffin’s green.’
‘He doesn’t irritate the hell out of me.’ Rebecca drew her brows together and looked at the sunny slit in the drawn curtains.
‘You’re a swell broad, Rebecca, you know that?’
‘I’m a bitch, News. How are they treating you?’
‘Don’t ask. OIG is done with me but they’re interviewing teaching staff tomorrow. The director and deputy director are going before Senate Judiciary on Wednesday. Senate reform bill is still in committee, but it’s got firm Democratic support, so headquarters is activating contingency plans just to keep ahead of the curve.’
‘Screw the Dems.’
‘Mr. Hoover had a fine relationship with FDR.’
‘He was the last,’ Rebecca said. ‘They’ve been gunning for us ever since Louis Freeh ID’d Clinton’s jism. Even before that. Good ol’ Jimmy Carter got Clarence Kelley when his wife was dying—’
‘Keep it to a simmer, Rebecca. I am.’
‘If BDI or some other agency has Patriarch family members in custody, I need to talk with them. My preference, give me one of the sons.’
‘I’ll push. I should know by tomorrow.’
‘Be well, News.’
She returned the phone to her pocket, then lay back on the bed—and rolled and grabbed the glass of water just as it started to spill. Fast as a cat. But sleep was never enough to keep her from feeling worn down.
Rebecca Rose was afraid of one thing—afraid that she wanted out. She had nine more years before she hit the GS-1811 wall, but still…
‘This bastard is the last one,’ she promised herself, and closed her eyes.
It seemed seconds later, she choked and looked up to see a man with dirty blond hair leaning over the bed. He had one hand on her throat and in the other he held a Leatherman with the blade out and locked.
‘My daddy’s dead,’ he growled.
A ribbon of spit fell into her eye.
Thump.
William opened one eye and stared at the bed cover. He had not pulled it back—he was still dressed—and for a moment he wondered where he was and why.
He looked at the clock on the nightstand but that was no good—it had been off by four hours when he came in. It said ten o’clock. He guessed he had slept soundly for about two hours. So it was now about six. Time to think about finding some food and getting back to work. There was a Panda Express across the street from the motel. Something with noodles would taste good.
He washed his face in the bathroom.
Thump.
Rose was up and making noise. But it wasn’t her style to make sounds loud enough to come through the walls. He glanced at the Lynx display. She was still on his team grid. Rebecca habitually kept her mike off but she had not switched to privacy mode, something older agents frequently forgot.
He lowered his arm with some embarrassment. Like looking in on a lady in her boudoir—he could get a sense of what she was doing by her vital signs.
He quickly wiped his face with a hand towel and pulled aside the curtain a few inches. A thin brown-haired girl in a pioneer dress—something in gingham, anyway, with blue checks and a kind of apron, real Little House on the Prairie—walked past. He heard the door to the right, Rebecca’s door, open and close.
Rebecca had visitors.
He wondered why she hadn’t told him.
‘Shit,’ he said. Typical new agent, jumping at boo-squat.
But Rebecca was quiet as a cat. He did not remember ever hearing her move or even take a step. She wore rubber soles.
And the pioneer girl was completely out of fashion in this part of the state. Real Bo-Peep. This time, his curiosity about Rebecca’s vital signs was purely professional. If she’s got Mary and her lamb coming up to the room, wouldn’t I need to know that about a partner?
He lifted his watch again and punched the display through her stats. Sure enough, her stress numbers were up…way beyond the levels of sexual stimulus. As well, her skin conductivity had altered and the sniffer in Rebecca’s unit was picking up a distinct pong of stress and fear.
If she’s a Lesbian, she doesn’t want to be.
He unbolted the door, let the chain and latch down gently. On the grit-surfaced floor just outside Rebecca’s door lay a piece of brass-plated chain. The end of the chain had been clipped with a bolt cutter.
William took a step. The next door beyond Rebecca’s room was open. He looked left. At the end of the walkway stood a service cart hung with a laundry bag and stacked with fresh sheets and rolls of toilet paper, buckets filled with little bottles of soap and shampoo, and folded white towels.
He turned to face the rail looking out over the parking lot. In front of the motel, a plump woman in a brown maid’s uniform ran across the street as fast as her stocky legs could carry her.
Getting the hell out.
Now was the time to jump to conclusions. Someone had taken the maid’s pass key and deadbolt shim. They had brought their own bolt cutters for the chain.
This was real.
Gingham=pioneer spirit.
Christ, it’s them. They found us.
William shut his door to a crack. Before his conscious mind could catch up, he had his slate in hand and had punched the button for agent assistance. Then he took his SIG from under the pillow. It vibrated in recognition of his keycode.
The automated Bureau phone voice came back; his location was pinpointed and local police or other agents would be there as soon as possible. ‘If you are able, leave your message.’
‘One agent hostage, one active, this location. Request any and all backup.’ He closed the unit and slung it on his belt. From here on, the slate would track his movements and relay whatever he was hearing to the Seattle first response center.
He put his ear to the wall. Through the plaster, just barely, he caught: ‘Strip her. She’s wired.’
Male, angry and not too old.
Then, ‘How do you know she’s a fed?’ A young woman or teenager. Paper crackled.
William’s Lynx made a little wheep. Rebecca was now off his team grid.
‘Check her purse.’
‘I don’t see a purse.’
‘Then check her jacket!’
William opened the door again and flattened himself against the wall to the right. He knew better than to announce himself. They would cut or shoot her and then try to shoot him. If they had gone this far, they weren’t too concerned about their own lives.
They had been followed from the farm, perhaps from the town. Do they even know I’m here?
From next door he heard a muffled grunt. Then the male’s voice, louder: ‘He went to get pizza, right? You kill my daddy and then you run off to eat pizza and fornicate, right?’
The girl’s voice: ‘Keep it down, Jeremiah.’
‘Get her badge! I want to make her eat it!’
They had opened the door to the wrong room first and found it empty. Then they had broken into Rebecca’s room.
William sucked in a deep breath, letting it go with a quick and nearly silent ohhmmmmmm. He had learned that from a homicide detective.
‘I’m going to slice you open like a squealing pig. We’re going to watch while you bleed to death.’
If he kicked at the door and went in now they’d kill her instantly. Backup would not arrive in time. He had just a few minutes, if that, while they toyed with her.