by James Barney
“Am I getting a promotion?” asked Califano with a wry smile. He knew the answer was no.
“Sorry, Michael. A promotion would invite scrutiny. There would be fresh questions about your, uh . . . background.”
Califano nodded knowingly. His “background,” as the admiral had so quaintly put it, should have automatically disqualified him for this job. Indeed, as Califano well knew, he was lucky to have any job, let alone a job with an SCI security clearance and a direct line to the deputy director of the NSA. And he owed all of this to Admiral Armstrong.
“Besides,” Armstrong added, “you’d spend all your time supervising others, writing personnel evaluations, pushing paperwork. You don’t want to do all that stuff, do you?”
Califano shook his head emphatically. He hated bureaucracy with a passion.
“Trust me. You’re most valuable to us where you are right now, an assistant security auditor with no subordinates. Totally below the radar.”
“But I’m getting a little old for this position, aren’t I?” In fact, at thirty-four, Califano was already the second-oldest assistant auditor in the department, and the only one who’d held that position for seven straight years.
Armstrong seemed amused by this question. “Hmm, let’s see, Michael. You’re insubordinate and openly disrespectful to your supervisors. You keep bizarre hours, and you’re chronically late with your audit reports. Hell, you can’t even be bothered to follow the department’s dress code.”
“What? I’m wearing a blazer.”
“Yeah, over faded jeans and tennis shoes. Definitely not authorized. Plus your hair’s too long.”
“There’s no regulation on hair. I checked.”
“My point is, Michael, I don’t think anyone around here is surprised that you haven’t been promoted in nearly eight years.”
Califano smirked. “Yeah, I guess not.”
Armstrong reached across the table and patted Califano’s arm. “You’re a good man, Michael. An asset to this department and the NSA. The best scientific intelligence analyst we’ve ever had. Stick with us a little longer, and I promise I’ll get you that transfer you’ve been asking for.”
Califano nodded his unspoken appreciation.
Then Armstrong straightened in his chair, his expression suddenly turning grave. “But right now, I need your help on something very serious.”
Califano leaned forward, intrigued. Anything to get him out of Hutton’s training.
“There’s been some activity in one of your programs. We don’t understand what it means, and we need your help figuring it out. I’m afraid there’s not much time.”
“Which program?” Califano was already mentally organizing a list in his head of more than fifty top-secret research programs that he routinely monitored, flagging in his mind the most likely candidates for having recent and unusual activity.
“Winter Solstice.”
The thin program file for Winter Solstice instantly appeared in Califano’s photographic memory. “But that program is—”
“Dormant, I know.”
“No, not just dormant. I mean, it hasn’t had activity since . . .” His brain searched for the correct date.
Armstrong beat him to it. “Since 1959.”
“Right. So why would there suddenly be activity in that program now?”
Armstrong checked his watch and pushed back from the table. “I’ll explain it on the way.”
“On the way where?”
Armstrong pointed straight up. “The roof.”
3
WASHINGTON, D.C.
The rotors of the Bell 407 helicopter were already spinning when Califano and Armstrong reached the rooftop helipad of the Forrestal Building.
“Keep your head down,” Armstrong yelled over the rotor wash.
This warning was unnecessary, however. Califano knew his way around helicopters from his frequent trips to secret DOE laboratories all around the United States. As they approached the rear door of the helicopter, a hand suddenly reached out from the passenger compartment to help Admiral Armstrong into the chopper. Califano climbed in after the admiral and situated himself in one of the two leather seats that faced forward. It was only after he had buckled himself into his seat that he took a good look at the third person in the passenger cabin, who was now sitting directly across from him. It was the blond woman from the training room. And now it suddenly made sense why she’d appeared from out of nowhere this afternoon and with no training booklet.
Admiral Armstrong quickly performed an introduction, shouting above the rising rotor noise. “Michael, this is Ana Thorne of the CIA. She’s going to be helping us with this matter.”
Califano extended his hand. “Nice to meet you.”
Thorne grasped Califano’s hand firmly and leaned in close to him. “Nice to meet you, too . . . again.”
Califano cracked a smile. “You were stalking me this afternoon.”
“Just gathering intel,” Thorne said with a shrug. “Wanted to see you in your natural state.”
“Well,” said Califano, still holding her hand. “What’d you think?” By now, the rotor noise had reached a high, steady pitch, and the chopper was shuddering in undulating waves of resonant frequencies as it prepared to lift off.
Thorne shouted into Califano’s ear, “You’re cynical. And you tend to telegraph your emotions. Those are dangerous liabilities in the field.” What she didn’t tell him was the rest of her assessment: tall, reasonably athletic, good-looking in a dot-com-millionaire-nerd sort of way, and confident. Perhaps too confident. Likes to challenge authority, which could be a problem.
A moment later, the chopper lifted off from the roof.
Califano released Thorne’s hand and sat back in his seat as the chopper rose high above the DOE headquarters, nosed down about twenty degrees, and banked left toward the Washington Monument and the Tidal Basin. His eyes were still fixed, however, on the female CIA officer across from him. She had shoulder-length blond hair; smooth, pale skin; light green eyes; and the calm demeanor of a predator. She looked to be in her early thirties. Fit and serious and . . . What was that? Califano caught a glimpse of the woman’s right ear through a break in her hair. The helix and lobe of the ear appeared to be badly scarred, as was the surrounding skin of her upper neck.
Almost as if she could read his mind, Thorne quickly turned her head away and adjusted her hair. Her lips tightened as she stared out the window of the chopper.
Crap. Had he been leering? Telegraphing his thoughts again, as she’d predicted? Califano considered apologizing to her, but he realized that would only make matters worse. Instead, he put her out of his mind altogether and turned to Admiral Armstrong. “Where are we going, sir?” he shouted.
Armstrong cupped a hand to his ear.
Califano shouted the question again: “Where are we going?”
“To see our patient,” Armstrong replied.
The helicopter flew northwest along the Potomac River at a remarkably low altitude. No doubt some special clearance was needed for this flight plan, Califano thought. He watched as the Memorial Bridge, the Roosevelt Bridge, and then the Key Bridge glided gracefully beneath them as they made their way out of the nation’s capital. Soon, the river itself changed from a greenish-brown ribbon of glass to a tumultuous tumble of gray rocks and whitewater as they cleared the Chain Bridge and flew low over a portion of the Potomac River famous for its deadly rapids. Two minutes later, the chopper banked hard left and soared low above the dense canopy of the George Washington National Forest, already resplendent with autumn colors.
Califano knew exactly where they were, so he was not surprised when the dense forest suddenly gave way to a massive complex of office buildings flanked on three sides by twenty acres of sprawling parking lots. The headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency. “Nice place you got here,” he shouted to Ana Thorne.
“We make do,” she replied.
The Bell 407 hovered for a minute, awaiting clearan
ce to land. Then it descended gracefully onto a square patch of manicured grass on the east side of the main building, about a hundred feet from the white hemispherical CIA auditorium known as “The Bubble.”
The three passengers disembarked from the helicopter and were immediately greeted by a large, bespectacled man with reddish hair and fleshy features. He wore a blue V-neck sweater, white shirt, and striped tie with khaki slacks.
Admiral Armstrong shook the man’s hand and then gestured toward Califano. “Bill, this is Michael Califano, our very best scientific intelligence analyst. Michael, meet Dr. Bill McCreary, director of, uh . . . what are you calling your program these days?”
“Disruptive Technology Analysis and Intervention,” said McCreary. “DTAI for short.” He extended his hand to Califano.
“How you doing?” said Califano, shaking the man’s hand.
“So how’s our patient?” Armstrong asked.
“Not well, I’m afraid,” said McCreary. “Touch and go at this point.”
“Then let’s go see him.”
The Medical Intelligence Unit at Langley was housed in building 3 and consisted of an isolated corridor of four large “examination” rooms, each crammed with computers and scientific equipment. Not all of it strictly “medical” in nature, Califano guessed. Each examination room was fitted with a large two-way mirror.
The four of them entered a darkened viewing room overlooking examination room 2. Califano found himself looking down upon an elderly man secured to a hospital bed by several parachute-grade nylon straps. His abdomen was heavily bandaged. Two armed guards stood nearby as a medical technician tweaked knobs on what appeared to be an anesthesia machine. The patient was writhing beneath the straps, groaning and muttering nonsensical phrases. “Mein Gott!” he said in German several times. Then, switching to English, he mumbled something about “murder of science.” The medical technician quickly adjusted a knob on the anesthesia machine, and the old man seemed to relax a bit. After a minute or two, he stopped talking altogether and gave up his struggle against the restraints. As he drifted into a drug-induced stupor, he uttered one last phrase, which was clearly audible over the speakers mounted in the ceiling of the observation room: “Es gibt noch Zehn mehr.”
All four of them looked at each other and shrugged. “What’s he on?” Armstrong asked.
“At the moment,” said McCreary, “a mixture of amobarbital and morphine. But we’ve tried different drugs, different dosages, and different combinations over the past several hours. Trust me, if he had something meaningful to say, he would have said it already. I’m afraid he’s entered an advanced stage of delirium.”
“Caused by his wounds?” asked Armstrong.
McCreary shook his head. “Not entirely. According to our medical team, the wound to his abdomen was caused by a small-caliber, high-velocity bullet, which passed through his stomach and nicked his pancreas before exiting the left side of his lower back. A lot of internal damage, plus the onset of infection, which is typical for this type of injury when it isn’t treated right away. But according to our medical folks, none of that is the proximal cause of the psychological symptoms we’re seeing. These symptoms are more consistent with dementia, which is normally associated with old age.”
“How old is he?” Armstrong asked.
Califano was wondering the same thing. The man strapped to the bed looked ancient. He had long, wild, white hair and a white beard with a mustache to match. He looked like a crazed, skinny Santa Claus. His blue eyes were hazy and sunk deep into his face, rimmed by several layers of dark bags. His fingers were crooked and bony. And his fingernails . . .
“Doc, what’s up with his fingernails?” asked Califano. The man’s fingernails were long and curly, like frozen snakes. It reminded Califano of a picture he’d once seen in the Guinness World Records of a man with the world’s longest fingernails.
“We’re not sure. His hair and fingernails have been growing at a rapid rate ever since he arrived. A very unusual phenomenon that we’re still trying to figure out. We think he may be suffering from some form of Hutchinson-Gilford syndrome, also known as progeria or rapid aging.”
“Do you know the cause?” asked Armstrong.
McCreary shrugged. “No. In fact, there’s no recorded case of an adult onset of this disease. It’s an extremely rare birth defect, always associated with newborns. Typically the afflicted children don’t live past ten or twelve.”
They all looked down at the bizarre man strapped to the bed, whose body was now completely limp.
“All right, hold on,” said Califano, shaking his head. If there was one thing he hated, it was not being in full command of the facts. And when there was a puzzle to be solved, his brain craved resolution like a junkie craved drugs. “Can we just back up a bit here a bit?” He looked at Admiral Armstrong with raised eyebrows, as if to say, May I?
Armstrong nodded that he could proceed.
“All right,” said Califano. “Can someone please tell me how any of this relates to Winter Solstice?”
There was a moment of awkward silence as the other three exchanged glances. Finally, Dr. McCreary spoke up. “Yeah, I think I can explain that.”
4
THURMOND, WEST VIRGINIA
Malachi stood in the cold drizzle, the collar of his black leather coat upturned. Where were they? His contacts were supposed to be waiting for him at this very spot. He was sure of it. A man and a woman in a car. He couldn’t remember their names or faces, or the make of their vehicle, but he was sure they were supposed to be waiting for him here, flashing their lights to signal him. After all, they’d rehearsed this.
Hadn’t they?
The truth was that he could no longer be sure. His memory at this point was a tangled mess. He was oddly self-aware that he was suffering from some sort of delirium—a general sense of disorientation about time, place, and person. The rational part of his brain was able to identify these symptoms precisely, yet this did nothing to bring back his memories or straighten out the confusing jumble of thoughts and images in his mind. Random recollections had been trickling into his brain for hours, in no particular order and with no apparent logic or motif. As he stood motionless in the cold mountain rain, he could not remember exactly how he’d gotten there, or why. Nor could he remember his real name. “Malachi” was a code name; he knew that. But it was the only name he could remember.
Perhaps this isn’t the right spot after all, he thought. He scanned the muddy road that ran parallel to the railroad tracks and saw nothing in either direction. Then, as he’d done for the past hour, he studied the abandoned building on the other side of the tracks, scrutinizing every detail, hoping for a clue that might trigger some useful memory. The building’s crumbling brick facade was badly discolored with moss, climbing vines, and indecipherable squiggles of graffiti. A faded sign at the top of the building read THURMOND in large black-on-white letters.
Malachi slowly shook his head. This was all wrong. To begin with, why was it light outside?
He struggled once again to piece together the chain of events that had led him to this abandoned coal station along the New River Railroad Line. He’d entered the lab around 10:30 P.M., although it might have been a little later. Time—he lingered on that thought for a moment. Something about the time.
A new memory was now hovering just beyond his mental grasp, tantalizingly close yet still too vague to visualize. Slowly, bits and pieces came into focus. There had been a struggle. Shots were fired. There was blood. Lots of blood. He now remembered walking through the mine shaft alone. Which would explain the portable carbide lantern that now rested by his feet. His mind continued processing these new facts, moving mental puzzle pieces around to make room for the new information. Traversing the mine would have taken some time, which might have thrown the whole schedule off.
Still, that did not account for the daylight. How long had he walked? It should have taken only an hour to get here from the lab. He’d rehearsed it ma
ny times, practicing for this very rendezvous. He must have gotten lost. He checked the dial of his Omega automatic, which appeared to be working just fine. It read 1:55 A.M. Strange, he thought. It should be the middle of the night right now. Instead, it appeared to be late afternoon. Somehow, he’d lost nearly an entire day.
Frustrated and confused, Malachi reached into the inner pocket of his leather coat for his cigarettes. As he did, his fingernails snagged raggedly on the lip of his coat pocket. He cursed and looked down at his grotesquely long fingernails. Then, for the third time in as many hours, he carefully retrieved his pocketknife and proceeded to trim all ten of them. After this, he sat down, removed his shoes and socks, and did the same for his overgrown toenails.
With this process complete and his shoes back on, Malachi slipped the pack of Chesterfields out of his pocket, shook one cigarette loose, and brought it to his lips. By now, the drizzle had increased to a light rain. He quickly cupped his hands and lit his cigarette, then looked across the tracks at the welcoming shelter of the railroad depot. Although the roof was partially caved in, it looked like there were still some dry areas inside. He quickly crossed the tracks, but stopped short when he reached an impenetrable thicket of thorny vines. He turned left and forged a new path through the wet undergrowth, making his way slowly around the corner of the building. After some time, he stopped and gazed up at the weathered advertisement painted across the entire west side of the building, which had been obscured from his previous vantage point.
Something about it was familiar.
At the top of the advertisement was a large circular seal with the words WEST VIRGINIA MAIL POUCH TOBACCO—FOR CHEWING AND SMOKING written around the circumference. In the center of the seal was a brown, irregular object—presumably a mail pouch—and the words TRADE MARK. Below the seal, the words MAIL POUCH were painted in gigantic, western-style yellow letters. What caught Malachi’s eye, however, was a small addendum at the bottom of the sign, just below the letter H in POUCH. The addendum was painted in red, somewhat more crudely than the rest of the sign.