by Greg Bear
Even so, he was glad to be out of the cell, and he actually looked forward to this discussion.
‘This is Gene, and I’m Kurt with a K,’ said the taller of the two men. Both were trim and wore golf shirts with alligator patches—one pink, one pale green—and beige pants, and both were shorter than William, less than five-ten. The taller one, Kurt with a K, had thinning brown hair and a wisp of mustache. The other, Gene, had thick curly black hair and green eyes. They seemed calm enough. Kurt pulled out the other seat and sat. William could not help but think of the men and women he had interrogated for the NYPD—and of course Jeremiah Chambers.
Gene leaned against the wall under the speaker grill. The east wall. The west wall held the windowless door. There was no knob on the inside of the door. It could only be opened by someone on the outside.
Kurt began. ‘You graduated from the Academy in April, and right away you were assigned to work with Special Agent Rebecca Rose, correct?’
‘It just sort of happened.’
‘You didn’t choose to work with her?’
‘She asked the Bureau if I could be temporarily assigned to work with her.’
‘So she liked you.’
‘I suppose.’
‘She usually doesn’t work well with others. Is that your evaluation?’
‘We got along.’
‘She’s prickly. A loner.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Did you know anything about Amerithrax before you worked with her?’
‘What we studied in training and read in books.’
‘She’s been working on that case for some time, hasn’t she?’ Kurt asked. ‘Crazy theory about inkjet printers.’
‘She and another agent, Carl Macek,’ William said.
‘Macek is dead. It was a cold case. Why did Hiram Newsome let her continue to work on it?’
‘Something like Amerithrax is never really a cold case, is it?’
‘Did you know that ten years ago Rebecca Rose had an OPR file opened against her? Sexual harassment. A fellow agent claimed she made inappropriate advances, then threatened to get him demoted and reassigned if he refused her.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Agent Rose,’ William said.
‘It was a scandal, and it took Deputy Ay-Dick Hiram Newsome to cool it down. The charges were eventually dropped. The other agent resigned. He’s working as an industrial security consultant in Chicago. Yet here’s that same predatory Rebecca Rose, shacking up with fresh young Feebeye veal in a Mobile Agent Domicile in Washington state. You tell me how that looks.’
‘She did not harass me. She didn’t make a pass at me. We did not sleep together.’
Gene came around and put both hands on his shoulders, then slapped him hard on one ear. His ear rang and then heated up. Keep it down, Griff said in the other ear. You know the drill. There are probably lives at stake. Either that, or these two are dirty. Either way, watch them.
‘Did she ever mention working with an agent named Larry Winter?’
‘No.’
‘Did Hiram Newsome ever mention working with Larry or Lawrence Winter?’
‘No.’
‘What do you know about anthrax?’
‘Not much.’
‘Was Rebecca Rose an expert in the manufacture and production of biological weapons, in your opinion?’
William thought this over for a moment. ‘She knew as much as an agent should, who’s investigating a case,’ he replied.
‘Doesn’t it make you suspicious that Hiram Newsome, Rebecca Rose, and Carl Macek—supposedly, but we can’t talk to him—that these three were the only agents in the FBI who were pursuing this particular theory?’
‘No,’ William said. ‘It didn’t seem inappropriate.’
Gene moved quickly to grab his shoulders and straighten him.
‘Don’t look at him like that, dickhead,’ Kurt said. ‘You have no reason to be afraid if you tell me the truth.’
‘You asked for my opinion,’ William said, and despite Griff’s best advice, he was getting mad. ‘I gave you my opinion.’
‘That makes us think you might have been involved all along. You don’t want us to think that, do you? Why don’t you tell it all nice and simple, just for the Bureau’s sake.’
‘I don’t know of any conspiracy. I don’t believe Rebecca Rose or Hiram Newsome were involved in a conspiracy.’
‘But we do know. There was a conspiracy. It may have reached to the highest branches of government. Hiram Newsome wanted to cover it up. Rebecca Rose was his partner. Do you think they’re fucking each other, William? And maybe they’re fucking with you, too?’
William pressed his lips together.
‘Maybe that doesn’t bother you,’ Kurt said. ‘Maybe you like that picture. You played queer for vice in New York. Personally, I could never do that. It would make me sick. Maybe you are queer. Maybe you secretly want to fuck Hiram Newsome, a real double agent jim-jam, right?’ He stood and let Gene take the chair.
Gene resumed the questions. ‘America is in real danger if we don’t stop this shit, Agent Griffin. How did you know so much about transgenic yeast?’
‘I did my research.’
‘Another convenient burst of genius. You found the answer to all these puzzles on a search engine, didn’t you?’
William nodded.
‘Rebecca Rose knows all about inkjet printers, and you know all about yeast. Amazing. Brilliant. You found Dr. Wheatstone all on your own, first guess. Amazing. Brilliant. You knew Wheatstone already, didn’t you? Because Hiram Newsome or Rebecca Rose told you who the transgenic yeast had been stolen from…’
William looked down at the table. ‘No,’ he said.
‘You mean, you’re admitting you didn’t make these discoveries all on your own?’
‘No,’ William said.
‘Do you know who we are, William?’
‘Secret Service.’
‘Wrong. I’m Border Security, Kurt here is ATF. We’ve been tasked to clean up the mess you Feeb-eye agents made, and we’re pretty determined fellows. So we’re going to be here for a while longer, if you don’t mind.’
‘If it helps get to the truth, I don’t mind,’ William said.
Kurt slapped his other ear.
‘Have you ever heard of an operation called Desert Vulture?’ Gene asked.
‘No,’ William said.
‘Are you absolutely certain it was never mentioned?’
‘I’m certain.’
‘What if I told you somebody was sent to find Amerithrax, and they found him—and didn’t turn him in? What if I told you that was Lawrence Winter? And Winter was ordered by somebody high up to use this freak as a source of weapon’s grade anthrax that no one could ever trace?’
William felt his stomach tighten. Then, he wanted to be sick. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Bullshit, Agent Griffin. You’re right in the thick of it. What do you think Winter was going to do with all that anthrax?’
‘It isn’t anthrax—’ William began, but Kurt cuffed him again, and he pressed his mouth shut.
Tight.
Three hours later, after nine rounds of interrogation but not much in the way of physical abuse—a bruised chin, chipped tooth, and two bruised ears—they returned William to his cell. He was none the wiser and neither were they.
But his head swam with bitter possibilities.
What do you really know, son? Griff asked.
The door opened with a mousy squeak. William rolled over on the cot and stared at the two men and one woman standing there. The woman was not Rebecca. It was Jane Rowland. She looked unhappy, and not just for William’s plight. One of the two men was the DS agent they had met on the Patriarch’s farm, David Grange. He smiled at William. That was good, wasn’t it? The other man William did not know. He was big and wore a dark blue suit with a narrow tie. A prison official.
‘Let’s go,’ Grange said. ‘We’re getting you out of here.’
<
br /> Jane Rowland had eyes as big as saucers. They escorted him from the cell and down the hall. ‘Do you remember me?’ Grange asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ William said.
Two senior corrections officers in dark brown suits joined them. Grange handed them pieces of paper and they signed without a word. The senior officers did not look happy that William was leaving their care.
‘All hell’s broken lose in Washington,’ Grange said. ‘We’re looking for a few good officers and agents, those without significant political baggage. You might have heard—they’ve arrested Hiram Newsome and two other Ay-Dicks. The Attorney General has been strongly advised to shut down the entire FBI, statim. Secret Service is being combed and a lot of nits and ticks are falling out. BDI is down in flames, of course. Border Security—do you believe it?—and DS are about all we have left. And a select few from Quantico, mostly because of the President’s Chief of Staff…and me. It’s an unholy mess.’
‘What about Rebecca Rose?’
‘Rose is traveling in another vehicle. I got her sprung this afternoon. We’ll see her in a couple of hours.’
‘Was she involved?’
‘Involved in what?’ Grange asked.
‘Desert Vulture.’
‘You know about that? Shit.’
‘Was she?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘They were going to attack Mecca, weren’t they—if there was a major terrorist hit on the U.S. They were going to cover Mecca with anthrax.’
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss any of these matters,’ Grange said.
‘You were tracking Winter. He had gone rogue. He was with Desert Vulture, but he changed his mind.’
‘I didn’t learn about Desert Vulture until yesterday,’ Grange said.
‘Then it was real?’
‘That’s all I can say for now.’
They had reached the end of the long corridor. More steel doors and then bars swung wide. The officials peeled off and went their separate ways. William winced at the dark sky. It was night. The stars were out and the air was cold. He embarrassed himself by making a little whooping sound as he sucked in the wonderful freshness.
‘Are you circumcised, William?’ Grange asked as he showed his badge and signed papers at the first gate.
‘Yes, sir,’ William said. ‘My parents did it for sanitary reasons.’
‘As it happens, so am I.’
Jane Rowland turned up her eyes.
A black Suburban pulled up to the curb and came to a halt with a slight screech of tires. Two agents inside stared at them with imperious suspicion through the half-open window.
‘Where are we going?’ William asked.
‘We’re leaving Cumberland,’ Grange said. ‘Other than that, do you care?’
An hour later, they boarded a Coast Guard jet on the runway at Dulles for a flight to Eglin. At Eglin, he showered and shaved in an officer’s quiet apartment, wasting twenty minutes under the needle-spray to scrub off the humiliation. Grange brought him a small case with personal items and a fresh change of clothes that almost fit.
From Eglin, they took a C5A military flight to Oman. He heard Rebecca was on the flight, but he wasn’t interested in talking or catching up. He was exhausted and he had too many tough questions. William hid himself at the back of the passenger seating area. Outside, the supernal drone of the turbo-fan engines lulled him into nothing at all like sleep, more like a hop, skip and jump along the nightmare border of death, and it was not pleasant.
Hours later, he came fully awake with a jerk and saw Rebecca sitting across from him. The plane was descending.
He stared at her.
‘Jesus, William Griffin. You’ve got zombie eyes.’
William swallowed and looked away. ‘I don’t like being soaked in shit,’ he said. ‘Your shit or anybody else’s.’
‘Mm hmm,’ Rebecca said. Again she made that motion with her upturned, scissored fingers, as if she really needed a cigarette.
‘I have never been treated that way,’ William said. ‘What other surprises do you have in store for me?’
‘It wasn’t me. You know that.’
‘Then what about the FBI? You sucked me into this. What did I do to be tarred with that great big old brush, huh?’
‘Nothing,’ Rebecca said.
‘And what about you? What did you do?’
‘Nothing.’
William grimaced. ‘I heard a lot at Cumberland,’ he said.
‘So did I. I tend to ignore big tough guys, or haven’t you noticed?’
‘They wanted to open me up and spill out my brains, Rebecca. They were scared. I could smell them even without a pong detector. Somebody told them something that made them want to shit their pants. I think if we had stayed there a few more hours, they’d’ve started injecting some really cool new drugs, and who cares what they damage? They wanted to turn our brains into alphabet soup and read the little words, Rebecca.’
Rebecca looked straight at him, her eyes showing something William had not seen before—real hurt and disappointment. ‘I didn’t do this to you, William.’
‘What the fuck is Desert Vulture?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to know.’
‘Did they ask you about it?’
She nodded.
‘Did they box your ears?’
She shook her head.
‘So with you, they were gentlemen?’
Rebecca lifted her eyebrows and looked down at her hands.
‘Why are we here, can you tell me that?’
Her hands were quivering. She took a shallow breath. ‘How long do you think a sunshine patriot will run around, once you cut off his head?’
‘Is that a rhetorical question?’
‘No time limit has ever been found,’ Rebecca said. ‘They go on for years. The rest of us take up their slack and shovel their shit—or soak in it—and they live to retire and fill their dens with trophies and flags. They get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to give talks before the American Eagle Forum or the Red White and Blue Institute of I’ve Got Mine, Jack, and then they write their memoirs and dangle their grandchildren on their knees. They cram our ears with tales of patriot glory, when all they ever really did was get good people killed. They squander blood and treasure, and then they try to figure out desperate ways to make it come out right. That’s what Desert Vulture must be. Some old guy’s brilliant idea of how to make the world right again, and to hell with you and me or the grunts on the line, or anybody else.’
‘It was anthrax, Rebecca. Even Lawrence Winter couldn’t go through with what they were planning.’
‘I suppose it was.’
‘And where are these bastards now? Why are we taking their lumps for them? Fuck,’ William said, and kicked the seat in front of him.
David Grange worked his way to the back, leaning into the seats as the plane banked. ‘Am I interrupting something?’
‘We’re done,’ William said.
‘We’ll be landing in Oman in an hour.’
‘Tell William what you’ve told me,’ Rebecca said. ‘About why we were busted.’
Grange squatted in the aisle. ‘There’s no way yet of knowing who’s involved in what. An executive order went out—it was pretty broad. They decided to detain anyone who had a connection to Winter or Amerithrax. ATF got handed the lead, but DEA and even the Postal Police are involved—it’s a real zoo. You two got scooped up in the net. Can’t tell the players without a program, and I don’t know anyone who has a program.’
‘David says News may or may not be implicated,’ Rebecca said. Her expression was fragile, hopeful.
‘Newsome may have been stringing some people along, trying to catch up with Winter before any harm was done. BuDark didn’t even exist four years ago,’ Grange said. ‘Why he wouldn’t tell you up front, I don’t know.’
‘He was senior. He had some armor,’ Rebecca said.
‘Yes, and look where that got him. You’r
e out and he’s still in,’ Grange said. ‘You must have made some impression on the President.’
‘News was there, too.’
‘Well, I don’t know who the hell impressed who,’ Grange said, shifting his knees. Then he stood and flexed his legs. ‘Problems at Quantico and in DC aren’t our biggest worries. Jordan and Turkey have refused permission to land. We’re going to touch down in Oman, then grab a chopper and transfer to a frigate or something in the Red Sea. After that, there’s talk about flying us directly into Saudi Arabia. The insurgency is consolidating its gains, trying to squeeze money out of the Hajj, I suspect, to finance their next moves. We have contacts with what’s left of the Saudi General Intelligence Service, al-Istakhbarah al-A’amah. They’re as interested as we are in preventing a Hajj disaster. So far, we’re just telling them it’s anthrax—that focuses their attention. We’d let them take the lead, but frankly, they’re fuckups when it comes to handling foreign nationals—in their prime, they were best at bullying immigrant workers. Still, I was deputy RSO in Riyadh for a couple of years. I know a few who aren’t too bad.’
‘What good are we in all this?’ William asked. Rebecca took a thermos from her travel bag and poured him a cup of black coffee.
‘We’re short-handed. Desperately so. Most of the career types are covering their asses. After I boosted her from Cumberland, Rebecca volunteered you.’
‘Thanks, I guess,’ William said.
‘We’re bringing along Jane Rowland to handle special communications.’
‘How about the full scoop on BuDark?’ Rebecca asked.
Grange nodded. ‘BuDark began as an internal DS and FBI response to rumors about Desert Vulture.’
‘Pete Farrow?’
‘Not one of us. Like News, however, probably a good guy —just not in the loop. Some agents tried to dig out facts on their own. Three years ago, we went to the senate and the effort became bipartisan. We found conspirators in just about every branch of government. The last administration tried desperately to shut us down, and then they lost the election—finally, and thank God. Right now, we’re a shambles, scattered all over Europe and the Middle East looking for a needle in a haystack. Half the operational directors don’t want to believe there is anyone in Mecca. The other half—well, we have UAVs watching the city right now, mostly from altitude. But we’ve dropped some midges into the town to scope out the street scene. Current plan is, we’re driving or flying to the outskirts of Mecca, escorted by undercover officers who’ve bribed their way into Hijaz Liberation. If we get through—and that’s a big if—we still need to find the truck or trucks. Based on the equipment captured in Jerusalem, we think there may be as many as three. When we find them, we have to stop them and destroy their contents—and that’s where Fouad Al-Husam comes in. He’s been made chief of a team of guys they call Janissaries. All American Muslims, orphans from the first Gulf War. Seems to be quite a story. He’s going to join us outside Mecca. His team has been trained and equipped but they’re not military, they’re not CIA—they’re not even heavily armed. And none of us is going to carry ID. If we get caught, we’re just crazy victims of the Hajj gone wrong—or the revolution.’