by David Zeman
“I’m sorry, but I’ve forgotten the question you asked,” she said.
“I hadn’t asked it,” Karen said.
“Oh.”
“But I will now, if that’s okay.”
“Sure.” Susan awaited the question fearfully. The reporter turned on the tape recorder again.
“I was wondering what you think would be the worst thing about becoming the vice president’s wife at this particular time, and what would be the best thing.”
Susan breathed a sigh of relief. The question was harmless.
“The worst thing is easy to answer,” Susan said. “Being in the public eye. I’m a very shy person. Every public appearance is a struggle for me.”
“What about the best thing?” the reporter asked.
Susan thought for a moment. “Working side by side with the president and the First Lady. They’re both very good people. They work hard, but they’re fun to be with. I respect them both enormously.”
Karen noticed that Susan had not said the best thing about being in the White House would be the joy of being Michael Campbell’s wife. Her husband was noticeably missing from her answer.
The interview concluded with a series of easy, almost caressing questions about Susan’s hopes for the country and herself. When the tape recorder was turned off the two women exchanged pleasantries about life in Washington. As Karen packed up to leave Susan recalled her expertise in medical matters.
“Do you think the disease is really gone from here?” she asked.
“The Pinocchio Syndrome? No one knows for sure,” Karen said. “It isn’t well enough understood. But it’s possible. Remember how long the AIDS epidemic was concentrated in Africa? Even intensely contagious diseases sometimes stay within circumscribed areas. And don’t forget, they never could prove the Pinocchio Syndrome could be passed from human to human.”
“I hope we never see it again,” Susan said.
“Me too,” Karen said.
She got up to leave. “I appreciate your finding time to talk to me. You must be terribly busy.”
“It was a pleasure.” Susan was lying, but she had found it interesting to meet this bright young reporter. Karen Embry reminded her of herself, but in different colors and with a different psychology. Where Susan was soft, Karen was aggressive. Where Susan was smooth, Karen was messy. Yet they had something in common, something Susan could not name.
“May I call you if I need clarification of any of the details?” Karen asked.
“Sure thing,” Susan smiled, walking the reporter to the door. “I’d be glad to hear from you.”
“That’s a new one,” Karen said. “Most people aren’t glad to hear from me.”
Susan wondered why she had said she would be glad to hear from Karen. Perhaps it was because Karen seemed too blunt, too remorseless to be untrustworthy. Susan felt in need of someone she could trust.
Susan watched from the doorway as Karen moved on brisk legs to her car, a relatively new Honda that had not been washed in a long time. The engine sprang to life. The car did not move, though. The reporter must be checking her notes or looking at her schedule for the rest of the day.
Susan closed the door and disappeared into the house.
Inside the car Karen was scribbling as fast as she could on her note pad, trying not to forget what she had heard on the phone.
3 men eliminated to make room for Michael.
Truth like medicine . . . kills germs . . .
Michael will not get sick. No car will run Michael down.
Odd that epidemic now spares USA.
“It isn’t over.”
Karen thought for a moment, her eyes closed tight. “Damn,” she said out loud. “Come on. Come on.”
Ask him what happened at Harvard.
Ask him about donkey game.
With a sigh she wrote down the last words.
The minute the phone had started ringing in Susan Campbell’s kitchen Karen had glanced around the living room in search of an extension. It was on the table by her side. She had heard the whole conversation between Susan and the caller.
“Okay,” she said to herself now. “Okay, kid. You’ve got something to run with.”
She had interviewed Susan Campbell in order to hear her lie. She had hoped that by measuring the shape and tenor of Susan’s lies, she could glimpse a shadowed profile of the truth. This was the vocation of any reporter who interviewed important people—especially a Washington reporter. To catch the hints and connect the dots.
But thanks to that phone call, Karen had learned far more than she expected from this visit.
She closed the notebook and put it into her purse. As she did so she noticed a folded piece of printer paper that had been in the purse for two weeks.
She unfolded the paper and looked at it. The message was brief.
AFTER CAMPBELL SELECTION THE EPIDEMIC SPARES UNITED STATES.
The message was signed GRIMM.
Of course the epidemic did stop after Michael Campbell was selected by the president. The words in the note were perfectly true.
But Karen had received the e-mail a weekbefore Michael’s nomination. Six days before the untimely death of Kirk Stillman, which brought about that nomination. Thus Grimm had predicted the future on two counts. Whatever was wrong in Washington, Grimm knew the people who were behind it.
She had been putting personal ads to Grimm in thePost every day since. But Grimm had not answered.
She looked at the cryptic words. She thought about the voice on Susan Campbell’s phone.
Could they be the same person?
Karen folded the note and put it back in her purse. She lit up a Newport and watched the smoke billow against the dirty windshield.
Harvard.
She turned the key in the ignition. The engine sprang into life. A burst of dust came from the vents.
Impatiently she threw the car into gear. She hit the gas too hard, and the front wheels skidded as she hurtled into traffic.
Ask him about the donkey game.
39
—————
Atlanta
March 8
“Despite the reassurances of health authorities to the effect that there is no danger after the initial outbreak, a taboo seems to attach to the affected areas. They are like ghost towns. The houses are empty, the streets are silent. It is an unsettling sight. Looting is a serious problem . . .”
Colin Goss was sitting at the desk in his penthouse office, watching a tape of a CNN report on the worldwide effects of the Pinocchio Syndrome epidemic. Goss leaned forward as the image of an abandoned neighborhood in suburban London filled the screen.
“Fanciful cures and preventions for the disease are being hawked to an impressionable public by unscrupulous entrepreneurs,”said the reporter.“Exotic herbs, organic foods, and vitamin supplements are being sold at health food stores and homeopathic mail-order houses for inflated prices. Some of these products are not even what they claim to be, like the pulverized beef bones being sold as the tail bones of rare Brazilian monkeys. Health authorities have tried to warn the public against such fraudulent cures, but rumor and the Internet seem to have outstripped their warnings.”
Colin Goss smiled. He had wanted the Pinocchio Syndrome to appeal to the public imagination. He was not disappointed. The terror spawned by the Syndrome, unequaled since the great smallpox epidemics and the Black Plague, was causing civilized people to become as primitive in their thinking as the uneducated masses in Third World countries.
“We’re seeing a huge increase in suicide, street crime, and domestic violence. But perhaps worst of all, John, is the ethnic violence spawned by the Syndrome. Not only is there fighting among groups thrown together by history and geography, such as the Indians and the Pakistanis. There are even signs of vast, bloody migrations like the Aryan invasion of the Near East in the second millenniumB .C., or the Germanic invasions of the Roman Empire after the birth of Christ. It’s as though the human race had
been set back a thousand years.”
There were now over eleven million victims of the Syndrome in sixty countries. About six million had died. The authorities had long since given up trying to hide the victims’ macabre physical deformities from the families. The image of a dying human being with distended and distorted hands and feet had now become the official nightmare of the age, replacing the buboes of Plague victims, the pocked skin of smallpox, the baldness and telltale emaciation of cancer and AIDS victims.
Goss poured himself a glass of his favorite mineral water. The water had the tang of juniper berries, a result of the vegetation in the vicinity of the Tuscan springs from which it originated. Goss was in excellent humor, so excellent that when the phone rang and he heard the worried voice of his public relations consultant, he was unfazed by the man’s bad news.
“I’m afraid we lost another two points in the past week,” the consultant said. “I just don’t understand it. Your speeches in Detroit and Scranton were well attended, and you got good press all week.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Goss said. “Let’s just keep the pressure on.”
“Yes, sir.” The man did not seem encouraged. “We might think about changing our focus a bit. Since the epidemic has stopped in America, the public mood isn’t the same.”
“No, that won’t be necessary,” Goss assured him. “Everything is under control.”
Everything was going according to plan. Goss’s message of hate was playing poorly to a public whose fear of the epidemic had abated since January. The further Goss slipped in the polls, the higher the president rose—and with him Michael Campbell.
“Don’t worry about it,” Goss said. “Everything will work out fine. You’ll see. Don’t lose sleep over it, Ron.”
Goss hung up and took another sip of the tangy water. He glanced at the now-silent TV screen, on which news film of terrified Europeans and Arabs was being shown. Outside the window the great American heartland basked in the relief procured by its freedom from the spreading illness. With this relief came renewed optimism and hope for the future.
This was exactly as Goss had planned it.
A timid knock at the inner office door interrupted Goss’s reverie. He went to the door and opened it. A girl entered the office. She seemed younger than her eighteen years. She wore a skirt and blouse, and low-heeled shoes. Around her neck was a delicate gold chain. She wore no bracelets or rings. She looked diffident and a bit unnerved.
“Don’t be shy,” Goss smiled. “Come closer so I can look at you.”
She came toward the desk like a frightened child. She was a bit overweight, perhaps ten or fifteen pounds for her height. Baby fat, Goss thought, noting with approval the budding breasts under her blouse.
“I’m glad you could come,” he said. “Please sit down. Can I get you something to drink?”
“No, thanks.”
He motioned to a large leather armchair. The girl perched nervously on the oversized cushion. Goss took a sip of his mineral water and sat down opposite her.
“So,” he smiled. “You’re here on a mission of rescue.”
She nodded. “I hope you didn’t tell anyone.”
“Of course not. This will be just between us.” Goss studied her for a moment. She had blond hair and a fair complexion that accentuated her innocence.
“You look pale,” he said. “You should get more sun. But I suppose school doesn’t leave you enough time for that.”
She said nothing. She chewed her lip nervously.
“Don’t be nervous,” he said. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. Everything is going to be fine.”
She gave him a pleading look.
“I need to be sure nothing else will happen,” she said.
“On that you have my personal word,” Goss said. “Our little transaction today will end the entire business. You will never see me again. Your father’s sins will be wiped out, and it will be business as usual from now on.”
The girl’s father owned a large software company that Goss had tried to acquire for one of his subsidiaries a year ago. The father, a self-made man, had refused to be bought out. Routine intelligence had unearthed a crime that could put the proud entrepreneur behind bars for a dozen years, and ruin his reputation forever. Goss had discussed the case with his people and found out about the daughter. She was her father’s only child and his pride and joy.
Goss had his people working on cases like this all the time. Their work, however, did not always bring results as fetching as the beautiful child before him.
She nodded uncomfortably. “He’ll never know, will he?” she asked. “It would kill him if he knew.”
“He will never know.” On this one point Goss was lying. But the rest of his statements were true.
There was a pause. Goss looked at her calves, which tapered to delicate ankles.
“If he did know,” Goss smiled, “he would be proud. You’re making a sacrifice to save your father’s good name. Not to mention his livelihood.”
She nodded.
“Are you sure you wouldn’t like a drink?” Goss asked. “Perhaps a little wine, to steady your nerves?”
She took a deep, nervous breath. She shook her head.
“Fine. Let’s get started, then. Take off your blouse.”
She hesitated for a long moment, looking away. Goss watched her closely, as though measuring her distress.
Then she did as she was told, her fingers trembling as she touched the buttons.
“Good girl. Now the bra.”
The little bra came undone, revealing breasts that did not seem full grown. She had very much the look of a schoolgirl. This delighted Goss.
“Leave the skirt on. Take off the panties.”
She had to stand up to slip the panties down her legs. Goss watched with interest.
“Bring them to me.”
She brought the panties and held them out. Goss took them and held them to his lips. He sniffed them appreciatively.
“Your father made a mistake,” he said. “Didn’t he?”
Her arms were crossed over her breasts. She nodded.
“Put your arms down at your sides,” Goss said.
She did as she was told.
“Your father made a mistake for which he might be severely punished in the courts,” Goss said. “Thanks to you, and to me, that mistake will be wiped out. Isn’t that right?”
She nodded, a hopeful look on her face.
“He will never know, but you will know,” Goss said. “You will always remember this. It will be a memory that will make you proud.”
She was looking at him fearfully.
Goss studied her for a moment. “Step out of your shoes.”
She removed her shoes, which looked expensive and stylish. Why not? Her father was wealthy, he could afford to clothe her in fine things.
“Take off the skirt and lie down on the couch,” he said.
There was a low couch at right angles to the desk. It was backless, like a chaise longue. The girl looked at it uncertainly.
“On your tummy,” Goss said.
The girl took off her skirt and lay down somewhat clumsily. Goss admired her derriere and the fresh expanse of her skin.
“Very good,” he said. “You’re really quite lovely.”
He came to her side.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
He stroked the small of her back. She shuddered.
“Stop that,” he said.
“I can’t,” she replied.
Goss pushed warningly at her spine. “Stop that!”
“I can’t. I can’t help it.”
“One phone call from me, and he’s ruined. Everything he’s worked for. Is that what you want?”
She shook her head. Goss saw, and savored, a tear which flowed from underneath her face and down the leather of the couch. There was a forlorn quality to her posture, an aloneness as she prepared to face her ordeal. Goss noted
this with satisfaction.
“All right.”
His hand moved lower.
“No!” she cried.
“It’s you or him,” Goss said. “Which will it be?”
Sobs shook the girl’s shoulders. Her hands were clenched. The intoxicating aroma of youth and fear reached Goss’s nostrils.
“You or him. Make up your mind!” he hissed.
A siren sounded suddenly on the street far below, like a cry of pain.
“Me,” said the girl.
“Good,” Goss smiled, bending to kiss her. “Good.”
40
—————
Alexandria, Virginia
AT EIGHT o’clock on a windy March evening Karen was sitting at her computer as usual, her legs crossed under her, wearing cutoff jeans and a T-shirt, when the doorbell rang.
A Newport was sitting in the ashtray beside the computer. Behind it was a small cocktail glass half filled with straight bourbon. The glass was positioned so that if Karen knocked it over with her left hand when she was drunk, it would fall away from the keyboard.
She crushed out the cigarette, padded to the door with her pencil in her mouth, and opened it to see Joe Kraig standing on the stoop.
“Agent Kraig,” she said. “What can I do for you?”
“May I come in?” Kraig asked.
“Sure.” She stood back to let him pass. He entered her foyer, not taking off his mist-soaked trench coat.
“Sorry,” Karen said. “Let me hang up that coat in the shower.”
He let her take the coat. The apartment stank of cigarette smoke. It looked as though it hadn’t been cleaned in six months. It was far dirtier than his own place.
As she came back from the bathroom he noticed that Karen was thinner than ever. Her shoulder blades were salient under the T-shirt. If she were to take it off he guessed he would see her ribs.
“Don’t you ever eat?” he asked. “You look worse than the last time I saw you.”
“No time to eat,” she said, motioning to the couch. “Want a beer? A drink? Bourbon? Vodka?”