The Manganese Dilemma

by Ian Miller

  "Nice scenic spot," Burrowes remarked.

  "Yeah, well, the idea with what we do is to do some of it where nobody will expect it."

  "I guess. So, why am I here?"

  "I've got a small job. How would you like to do some field work?"

  "Field work? Um, what sort?"

  "Before I go into that, what's your attitude to firearms?"

  "If I were going to a knife fight, a gun would sure be handy," he replied. "Why?"

  "Have you used guns?"

  Burrowes paused. How much did Lawton know about him? Probably just about everything, but did that mean he had checked up on his FBI training. After becoming such an agent, he had worked for a while in their cyber division, before being transferred to the NSA. Accordingly, he had done the initial training at Quantico, and that, perforce, included firearms training. Notwithstanding the fact that Lawton probably knew that, he might not, and it was worth finding out what he did know. Time to be a little evasive. "I've done a little hunting," he remarked. "Animals, that is."

  "Do you know how to use a pistol?"

  "The principle's reasonably clear," he said. Still not time to give anything away.

  "Good. That building you see has a firing range, so we can use it to test you out. Follow me."

  Burrowes followed. The building was dilapidated brickwork, and there were signs that vandals had been at work, but only occasionally. As they entered a large open area it was clear the building had been a factory. Across the ceiling there were strong steel girders with rails, presumably for supporting equipment to move heavy loads around, while from various places there were a number of electrical cables that had been cut and left dangling when whatever they powered had been removed. The walls had graffiti, but only some; the floor, strangely enough was clean, apart from the odd can left against a wall. Someone was looking after this area, at least to some extent.

  They crossed the rather large open area and came to a door. Lawton took out a key and opened it. Burrowes walked through to see a corridor well lit with fluorescent tubes, the walls had recently been painted, and the floor had quality vinyl.

  "By the look on your face, you didn't expect this," Lawton said with a smile as he closed the door and locked it.

  "If I didn't know better," Burrowes said, "I would think this was a secret facility."

  "You would be correct, and I rather think you do know better. Now, if we turn right here and go down to the next door, we come to a shooting range."

  Burrowes was continuing to wonder where this was going; still, this was not the time to argue. He was given Perspex eye shields and earmuffs, then they walked up to where they would obviously shoot. The barrier was waste-high, but unlike what he expected, there were drawers below it.

  "Open the top drawer and show me what you can do."

  The top drawer contained a nine-millimetre automatic and a box of ammunition. Burrowes checked the safety, unclipped the magazine, then checked the chamber. As expected, it was empty. Burrowes then began the job of slipping cartridges into the magazine, then he clipped it back in, and after pointing the gun down the range he brought a round into the chamber.

  "I assume you can see the target?"

  "Yes." Rather depressingly, it was the image of a gunman with a blackened area around where the heart should be.

  "Then see if you can hit it."

  Burrowes had given this a little thought. His future would be a lot safer if he missed, and made out that he was incompetent with guns, but then he realised that would not work either because if he were that incompetent, he would not have known how to inspect it and load it. And if Lawton had access to his training at Quantico, he would know he was not incompetent. So, he thought to himself, he would do the best he could. He took what he felt was a reasonable stance that would not give too much away, switched the lever to the fire position, lifted the pistol up so he could look along the sights, then squeezed off a round at the centre of the blackened area.

  "Keep going," Lawton said.

  He squeezed off three more rounds.

  Lawton had a headphone at his ear and was apparently communicating with someone who had a better view of the target, because he nodded. "OK, try some a little faster."

  Burrowes gave a nod of acceptance, lifted the gun up, and squeezed off six rounds as quickly as he could, then another three at the head.

  "Very good," Lawton said, and he sounded as if he meant it. "Put the gun back in the drawer."

  Burrowes returned the lever to the 'safe' position then took the magazine out, freed the few remaining cartridges, then emptied the chamber and put the unused cartridges back in the box.

  "OK, here's the situation," Lawton said. "This project you're on is starting to run into trouble. There was that guy who got into your workplace –"

  "Yes, but since Brian was killed, we assume nobody will try again," Burrowes said.

  "And that might be a bad assumption. Whoever that guy was working for might want a second round."

  "True."

  "There've been attempts to hack into your work place, and we suspect the hackers came from Russia."

  "So?"

  "It's just that in the same way we have agents in Russia, they almost certainly have agents here, so things might get dangerous. I think it only fair to give you the chance to defend yourself. Finally, I've got a job that has to be done. It should be quite safe, and the chances of having to use a firearm are very remote, but I want whoever does it to be armed. If you accept, you will turn up here over the next week or so and get a crash-training course. I know that's not going to be adequate, and I know you look like you know how to handle yourself, and that actually is not good, but you're the most suitable that I've got in other ways. Hopefully it won't come to using firearms."

  "You want me to carry a gun?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you going to give me a permit?"

  "I'll do better than that. You'll get ID as a Federal Agent."

  "Not that I am."

  "You will be," Lawton countered. "You might have been fired from the NSA, but no paperwork was done. Strictly speaking –"

  "I could turn up and demand my job!" Burrowes said with a grin.

  "Then you would be fired properly," Lawton countered, "for taking so much leave without authority. You would owe us."

  "Returning pay I never received."

  "Exactly, but do what I'm asking, and you become a temporary field agent."

  "With the emphasis on temporary."

  "That depends on what sort of a fist you make of it."

  "Suppose all goes well and nothing happens?"

  "You have the promise I gave you before of returning as an analyst, which, as an aside, stands whether you take this job or not. So, will you accept this job?"

  "OK," Burrowes said. He was not exactly enthused about it, but he was only too well aware that he had no long-term future with Rutherford, other than as a criminal, and he was more or less certain there would be no bad consequences from a short experience at fieldwork.

  There was one thing that puzzled him. The NSA was not supposed to do field work. Or was it? It would hardly surprise him that he was given a job that was not supposed to exist.

  * * *

  It did not take long to be outed. He turned up on the Monday morning, as required, to be greeted by one of his instructors from Quantico. He did his best to greet him cheerfully, and to his surprise, the instructor also did not seem to know whether Lawton knew of his previous FBI training.

  "It would make more sense if he did," the instructor said, "anyway, let's put that to one side. We have a lot to do, and I suspect you've got rather rusty in some ways."

  He had, but he had tried to remain tolerably fit, if for no other reason than that sitting behind a computer all day required some reasonably vigorous exercise when he was not there.

  At the end of two weeks, the instructor informed him that he would be about as useful as could be expected, given he had so little experience.
/>
  Burrowes wondered what the hell that meant.

  * * *

  Once again he met Lawton in a car park. Burrowes had teased him once about not having an office so he couldn't be very important, but the response surprised him. "Of course I've got an office, but I'm sure it's being watched."

  There was no answer to that.

  "So, what do you want me to do?" Burrowes asked.

  "I'll get to that. First, let me say I was quite impressed by the way you handled that torpedo file. You made up an alternative in what? Four hours?"

  "Three," Burrowes said with a superior smile, "but of course I was prepared. There was a copy of the application for funding on a computer file, so I printed that, and I got some text on torpedoes and homing devices from the web, and cut and pasted, then when I got the real document, I copied off the first four pages, because these defined the problem, and in any case, apart from McKenzie, nobody would know whether what followed was real or not."

  "Yes, that was really clever. What made you think of it?"

  "I didn't want to tell the Jays, but their safe wouldn't take any average safe-cracker more than a few minutes to open. Instead, I told them and the two who brought the document that the safe was the obvious place, and just in case someone could crack it, it would be better to hide it somewhere else, and the junk room was the place. Even if anyone had time after opening the safe, they would never find anything in there, so we found a place to hide it. After they left, I took it out of there, made my copies of the top pages, made the substitution, and brought the real document to you."

  "As I say, that was clever, except apparently the burglar had a plan as to where the substitute was hidden, at least more or less."

  "Yeah, well, someone leaked. That didn't entirely surprise me."

  "Who do you think it could be?"

  "Well, it was someone who told Goldfinch, so I think that eliminates the Jays."

  "I agree," Lawton said in a tone that encouraged Burrowes to continue.

  "Unless there's some sort of surveillance there, and I checked later, although . . ."

  "Although?"

  "I never thought to check before the theft," Burrowes said. "They could have removed it. Sorry."

  "At this stage I discount that anyway," Lawton said. "So who?"

  "Either Hooper or McKenzie," Burrowes said. "Either could have blabbed and been overheard, or Hooper could have sold out."

  "You favour Hooper?"

  "I've got no evidence, but he strikes me as the most likely. He's the so-called salesman, but he's also the least useful from now on. If someone big takes this over, McKenzie will be taken on as an expert, but Hooper has no real value to the project, so if he's worked that out, he'll be getting what he can, while he can."

  "OK, let's suppose I buy that. Who's the guy who caught our burglar, took the documents, and left them in a drawer?"

  "It's obviously some third party, but I have no idea who," Burrowes said. "Sorry."

  "Don't be. Nobody else has either. Anyway, your job."

  "Yes?"

  "Someone has to escort Hooper and McKenzie to Super Dynamics."

  "And that requires me, and me to be carrying ID as a Federal Agent?"

  "Yes, because McKenzie and Hooper will be carrying the documentation, but as you know, that is worthless. Someone has to explain, after Hooper and McKenzie are out of sight, why Super Dynamics should follow the correct documentation but keep the rubbish. And, of course, someone has to take the real documentation. If whoever does this is just you, they won't know what to make of it. As a Federal Agent, they will take notice."

  "So why the gun training?"

  "The third party," Lawton said. "My guess is by now they'll have worked out they've been duped."

  "You think this third party took photocopies of the document?"

  "Don't you?" Lawton gave Burrowes a penetrating stare.

  "Fair enough point," Burrowes said. "I more or less assumed that, because otherwise, what was he doing while staying so long?"

  "Exactly, and that is why you need the gun. You will be carrying the real documents, or at least copies. We have to assume the third party might make another attempt. If they don't, you'll have a pleasant trip to Boston."

  "I wonder what Hooper and McKenzie think of my accompanying them? My guess is, they won't like it."

  That was a successful guess. Hooper was outright surly, but as Burrowes pointed out, if he did not accompany them, that was the end of their project. So Hooper then acquiesced. McKenzie just shrugged his shoulders and looked as if the troubles of the world had been dumped on him.

  "You don't look happy," Burrowes said.

  "This isn't going to work, is it? We're going to be done over like –"

  "Not if your invention works," Burrowes said, "and I'll tell you something. If you were to do a little something for me, you would serve your country as well, and I might be of more help than you think."

  "Oh yeah, and why would that be?"

  "Because, and keep this to yourself, I'm a Federal Agent." No need to inform him that this was almost certainly temporary, especially if things turned to custard.

  "Oh yeah, pull the other leg."

  "How about this, then?" Burrowes pulled out his shiny new ID badge that was designed to clip onto his belt.

  "What? How?"

  "Ssshh! You mustn't tell anyone. Especially not Hooper, but –"

  McKenzie's eyes lit up as he interrupted, "No, I won't tell him, or anyone else."

  Burrowes smiled. As expected, McKenzie was getting tired of his business partner's antics. "Good."

  "So, what do you want me to do?"

  Burrowes told him. At first McKenzie frowned a little, then he agreed he could do that.

  "And whatever else, tell absolutely nobody you're doing it, and especially Hooper."

  "No worries on that one," McKenzie said, and for the first time Burrowes saw a smile cross his face.

  Chapter 28

  Burrowes looked down at his ID, then he folded it and put it in his interior jacket pocket. He had been told that if anyone wanted to check it, they would be taken to a web file that would assert he was who he said he was, and would then take the questioner to a site that required top-level security clearance to enter. The Director of the FBI could get in; anyone much lower could not.

  Burrowes shook his head in despair at the antics of Hooper. Hooper had continued to protest about Burrowes accompanying them, but Justin had told them that any funding would be dependent on them accepting such assistance. Hooper threw a tizzy fit, then eventually caved for the final time, but only because McKenzie told him to. That was interesting, Burrowes thought, because it indicated that McKenzie had probably pointed out Hooper's shortcomings previously. That would support the hypothesis that Hooper was likely to think he would be dumped when the big boys started to participate. That would reinforce his theory that Hooper was the likely source of any leak of information.

  Burrowes did the best he could: he sat in the front of the aircraft, keeping his briefcase between his legs, while the other two were down the back. The interesting part of this ID was that nobody questioned his right to carry a gun on board. It was true that they had scanned it and waited for computer verification of his ID, but he was immediately cleared, and he actually received unexpected politeness as well as attempts at providing helpful advice. There was also an Air Marshall aboard, and the two were introduced, which annoyed Burrowes to some extent because he did not want Hooper to know any more than he had to, but here he was fortunate because Hooper wanted to stay as far away from him as possible and did not want to look at him. The advice was unnecessary as long as there were no terrorists or such on the flight. All he had to do was to sit in a seat, and he was convinced he could do this by himself. He did, however, concede that if there were to be trouble, it would be useful for each of them to know the other was one of the good guys.

  There was no trouble, and it was a boring flight. Boring flights are good
flights, Burrowes reminded himself. Being at the front, he was first off the aircraft, an important requirement because the last thing he wanted to do was to lose those two. Hooper scowled when he saw him, but he probably had accepted they were going to have to put up with him. He escorted them to a taxi stand, and to Hooper's general annoyance, he placed himself in the back seat, placed his briefcase against the door, and suggested Hooper sit beside him. He was convinced Hooper was the more dangerous of the two.

  The drive to Super Dynamics was uneventful. Nobody spoke. Burrowes felt tempted to start a conversation, mainly to annoy Hooper, but in the end he decided the best he could do would be to leave them as calm as possible. As they got out of the car, Burrowes scanned the surrounding area, but there was nothing that struck him as suspicious. Still, he tried to commit to memory all the people he could see. He let them lead the way into the Super Dynamics building, where he stood with his back against a wall as the other two asked reception to get the required engineer. The receptionist then gave them visitor ID badges, and Burrowes had to come over to receive his, but when he did, he returned to the wall. He continued scanning to see if anyone from outside came in, but nobody did. It occurred to him then that maybe he was taking this "special agent" job too seriously. Maybe he was, but the one thing he recalled from his time in Quantico was the person who was not paying attention was often the first dead person if the situation was going sour. The bad guys always had the initiative; the good guys had to be alert.

  The engineer came down and escorted them to a nearby office. Hooper and McKenzie effused over their technology and the engineer nodded wisely, although Burrowes could see he was a little bored about this. He had been involved with the first trial so he knew what this should do. Then, as Burrowes once again stood back against a wall, there were many documents to sign. Finally, with a flourish, Hooper handed over the big envelope that carried the precious specifications. The engineer signed a receipt for it, and said, "Right, you can leave this with us. I'll get someone to escort you out."