by Guy Garcia
Swarm9331: nope
mm629: just look at it. no strings. if you like what you see, we can talk more. If not you destroy it. Deal?
Swarm8206: i know you’re not heat because toke is a pal. I’ll look if you want but no promises
mm629: no promises, no strings. we’ll send an onion encryption to your server. the file will only download once. then the channel will self-erase.
swarm5082: gotcha
mm629: i hope we’ll be talking again soon, swarm
swarm4646: what’s meta militia?
mm629: self-explanatory. i’ll wait till you open zeph.r
Swarm0716: zeph.r?
mm629: yr wasting time …
Tom watched as zeph.r began to download. The progress bar inched across the screen counting megabytes: 300 … 400 … 500 … It stopped at 629.
From the instant he opened the file, Tom knew that this was no ordinary piece of code. He had expected a malware virus of some sort, but this was completely different. Besides instructions for various controls, there was a variable frequency generator and transducers for audio outputs. The bulk of the software was diagnostic, similar to an MRI brain scanner, except that it seemed to be connected to a transmitter of some kind. He was intrigued.
Tom saved the file to his hard drive and flipped back to the IRC chat.
Swarm6593: where did you get this?
mm629: ha. not yr problem
Swarm2356: it is now
mm629: DOD
swarm8144: really?
mm629: the one and only
swarm4778: jesus. why is it called zeph.r
mm629: u can call it whatever you want. it’s yours now
swarm5348: what’s the point of giving me something like this?
mm629: zeph.r increases the susceptibility of the human brain to visual and audio suggestion. it can be broadcast through airwaves or embedded in an app. you already rule the smart mob scene … imagine the possibilities …
Swarm2671: do you realize what you’re suggesting?
mm629: fuck yeah
swarm8801: I need time to think
mm629: understood. just don’t think too much or you might change your mind
mm629 has logged off
Tom checked the time and opened a specially encrypted version of Skype. He had considered using one of the various VR dating apps, but he ruled them out as too public, glitchy, and hackable, not to mention the mood-killing clumsiness of donning an ocular headset. Skype was simple, familiar, and relatively secure, and Tom knew several people in long-distance relationships who swore by it. Adding a live visual dimension to his trysts with Lucy was a big step, with plenty of potential to misfire. Maybe taking it slow on their first Skype date was the wisest option.
Tom clicked on the camera icon and watched as the screen filled with Lucy’s creamy skin, full red lips, and flowing hair. But it was that smile, so knowing, playful, and warm, that dissolved his resolve to keep a PG rating.
“Hi, stranger,” Lucy said. She giggled. It was a friendly, inviting sound.
Tom raised his hand and waved. “Hi.”
“Oh, thank you,” Lucy said, clasping her hands in pretend prayer. “Thank you, dear God!”
“What?”
“At least now I know you’re not some fat hairy stalker. Not to be so judgmental, but you have no idea how worried I was.”
“Yeah, it was a possibility, I guess.”
“More like a probability.”
“Well, thanks!”
“You’re welcome. And even though it’s a little fucked up that you still won’t show me your face, I can see already, just from your arms and body, that you’re, hmm, late twenties or early thirties and nice looking.”
“Really? You can tell?”
“For real. And your voice … It’s just how I hoped you’d sound—masculine yet sensitive.”
“Are those mutually exclusive?”
“Too often,” Lucy said. “How about me? Do I sound the way you expected?”
“Yeah, actually.” Tom added, “I already knew what you looked like, remember? From the Fourth of July flash mob.” He decided it was best to leave out the part about hacking into her laptop and eavesdropping on her phone conversations.
“Right, I remember.” Lucy ran her hands over her breasts and hips. “So you’ve seen me naked already. And you’re looking at my face. And what do I get? A torso shot from a men’s T-shirt catalog. Does that sound fair to you?”
Tom swallowed.
“Wait,” Lucy said. “I’ll make it easier for you.” She lifted her top and leaned into the camera lens. Her presence filled the high-def screen, almost to the point where he could smell her.
“Jesus,” Tom said.
“You like what you see?”
“Sure, I mean, it’s just that the way you looked at me right now … It was like that first time on the Fourth of July.”
“So then let’s have some fireworks. Your turn to lose the shirt, Mr. Don’t-Worry-I-Won’t-Say-It.”
This was exactly what he had hoped for and exactly what he had feared. Tom peeled off his shirt. He knew that their Skype tease was a degrading sideshow, a compromise that was equal parts sacred consummation and college dorm cyber porn. He had gone along with it anyway, against his better judgment, yet there was no denying the insistent throb in his pants.
“Get closer,” Lucy commanded. She stood up, and he watched as her hand slid down into her underwear. “Now you.”
Tom unbuckled his belt and pulled down the zipper.
“Nice Calvins,” Lucy said. “Keep going. Don’t be shy. Show me what you’ve got.”
Tom did.
“Well, well, “ Lucy said. “I see someone was ready to come out and play!”
Luminescence, for all its limitations, had been their iridescent Garden of Eden, a protected oasis of pre-carnal innocence. Now they’d graduated to the realm of visual contact, sexual lubrication, and self-conscious shame. He could feel the pastel flowers fading and the iron gate clanging behind them; no more carefree idylls in softly glowing pastures, no more delusions of a normal life, whatever that was. Could that cold exile be the forbidden knowledge denied by God to mortals, the knowing that some lives were meant to be lived on their own terms, that sometimes normal wasn’t good enough, that there was something sublime out there beyond the fringe of the pedestrian comforts his mother so ardently wished for him. And anyway, wasn’t this blessed body delirium normal too? It was easy to imagine it was Lucy’s hand on him, tugging him farther into the mossy meadows of Pan’s forest, gripped by an elemental force dating back to the first time homo erectus took hold of his own erection while staring intently at the original Lucy lounging insouciantly on a branch in the next tree. She was saying something, but it was hard for Tom to hear over the huffing bio-hydraulics, no longer caring what this might cost him, the last vestiges of prudence and restraint swamped by roiling spasms of original sin, just as he had dreaded and rehearsed it in the mirror so many times. He always knew that once they crossed the line, there would be no turning back, no redemption or forgetting the tart tang of apple, the silky slither of serpent, the vertiginous, delicious fall from grace.
10
Laura Fisk took a lot longer to answer the door the second time. Even then, she left the safety chain on and shouted at him from inside. “I already told you—he’s in the mountains fishing!”
“I know about the cabin,” Duggan shouted back. “It’s important that I find him. I have information about Donald Westlake, but I have to tell Marty myself.”
An elderly woman tending her garden across the street lifted her head and regarded him like a deer calculating whether to freeze or bolt. Duggan heard the scrape of the chain and the door opened, this time wide enough for him to step inside. There were children’s toys strewn on the living ro
om floor and dishes piled in the sink but no sign of actual kids. Duggan ignored the mess as he took a seat on the sofa. She was beautiful in a disheveled, unkempt way. He could tell from the way she glared at him that she was in no mood for friendly chitchat.
“I really don’t mean to bother you, Mrs. Fisk,” Duggan said. “Just tell me how to find him. It could be a matter of national security.”
“Hasn’t Marty already done enough for this country,” she said. It wasn’t a question. “He’s trying like hell to get his life back, but you people won’t let him.”
For the first time, Duggan detected a slight Western drawl.
“What people? Did someone else come to talk to him?”
Laura Fisk seemed perplexed. “I thought you said you were with the government.”
“I am,” Duggan said. “The Department of Homeland Security. My job is to make sure that what happened to Donald Westlake was an accident.”
“And why should I help you do that?”
“Because I’m starting to feel pretty sure that it wasn’t.”
Laura Fisk pursed her lips and reached for the purse beside her chair. “Mind if I smoke?”
“It’s your house.”
She acknowledged his comment with a shrug. He watched her pull out a Marlboro 100 and light it. “Is Marty a suspect?”
“I think Marty tried to save his friend.”
She took a long pull from the cigarette before speaking. “And who’s gonna save Marty?”
“All I can tell you is that I’m the only person who’s trying to find out who’s responsible. I don’t know who’s behind it or what side they’re on or where they’re hiding, but I’m running out of leads. My boss doesn’t even know I’m here. You and Marty are my last chance to find out what really happened in Afghanistan.”
Laura Fisk closed her eyes and took another drag from the cigarette. When she exhaled, the smoke made intersecting whorls in the air between them.
“He’s at Priest Lake, across the state line in Idaho. A friend of his has a cabin there. Take US 2 north for about two hours to Fifty-Seven, then follow East Lake Shore for about eight miles. You’ll see a wooden sign for Breuer on a dirt road. Take it to the trailhead. You’ll have to go on foot after that. It’s about a fifteen-minute walk to the cabin.”
She nodded to the door and turned away from him in the same motion.
“Thanks, Mrs. Fisk.”
“Anytime.”
She didn’t get up to let him out.
The road to Priest Lake took Duggan deep into a postcard flashback of the Idaho lake region, past dockside cocktail dives with neon martini glasses and stucco-sided motels shaped like cigarette cartons. At one point, a speedboat full of laughing teenagers tried to race him along a roadside river. A girl in a yellow bikini waved as the bow sliced into the turn and pulled her away, leaving a scar of white foam on the cobalt surface. Eventually, the Jet Skis and resorts thinned out to an occasional fishing skiff or wind-boarder, then the road lifted from the beach into a thicket of hemlock and cedar and he was there. Duggan parked next to a wooden sign that read “Breuer’s” and hiked up the slope, past patches of ferns and mushroom-studded stumps, across a trickling creek to a cliff-edged glen. The cabin faced a grove of ivory-barked aspens, but the deck out back had a sumptuous view of Priest Lake. He could understand why a man might come here alone to watch the water turn violet at sunset, the trees and solitude muffling the city racket and the silent screams of moving shadows on a remote-controlled camera feed.
“Can I help you?”
Duggan turned to the voice, which belonged to a muscular young man with cropped hair and a rash of blondish stubble on his jaw. It was easy to picture him kicking a soccer ball with Westlake and Wasson and the boys on the base. Fisk was half hidden by some bushes about ten yards back on the trail, meaning that he had watched Duggan for a while before deciding to reveal his perch. From the lowered tilt of his right hip and the way his hand hovered out of sight, Duggan guessed that his inquisitor was armed.
“Are you Martin Fisk?”
“Maybe.”
“Peter Palladino told me you had a cabin out here. Your wife told me where it was.”
“Is that a fact?”
“I need to talk to you about Donald Westlake.”
“I had a feeling you weren’t here to catch bass,” Fisk said. “Besides, there’s nothing you can tell me about Donny that I don’t already know, Mr. …”
“Jake Duggan, cyber-ops division of Homeland Security. Do you know who was sending those signals to Donald through his computer?”
Fisk’s posture shifted to the other foot. “Agent Duggan, would you do me a favor and turn around, take out your ID, and hold your hands up where I can see them?” Duggan did, and a few seconds later, he felt himself being patted down. Fisk returned Duggan’s credentials, holstered the gun in his jeans, and strode toward the cabin. “C’mon inside,” Fisk said, motioning to his guest to follow. “I just made some coffee.”
The cabin was obviously owned by a man of means—tastefully functional furniture in dark tones, a stuffed elk head, Bose stereo, the odor of burnt wood wafting from the wide granite fireplace, a stack of Esquire magazines on the floor, and a half-read copy of Drunk Tank Pink on the mantle. The book’s subtitle was And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave. Duggan took a seat on the Holstein cowhide sofa and waited for Fisk to fix their coffee.
“A pal of mine from college is doing pretty well on Wall Street,” Fisk said as he poured. “He got this place to remind himself where he came from. Unfortunately, he’s too busy making money to enjoy it. Kinda ironic, don’t you think?”
Duggan gestured to the book on the mantle. “Do you believe people can be influenced without their being aware of it?”
Fisk followed Duggan’s gaze to the mantle. “Hard to say. Is that what Palladino told you?”
“He told me that you came back from Afghanistan with nightmares and an aversion to loud music. He told me that you had to take down your own best friend.”
Fisk swiveled back to face Duggan. He was smiling, but the tendons on his neck were rigid. “Palladino’s a good man, but he’s a bit of a head case.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Yes.”
Fisk raised a bottle of whiskey over the coffee cups. “Black is fine,” Duggan told him.
“More for me,” Fisk said. He poured a couple shots worth into his cup and brought the bottle with him. Fisk sat and kept his eyes on Duggan as he drank. “You know, I come here to get away from people like you.”
“If it’s any consolation, I didn’t drive all the way out here to enjoy the view.”
“So why did you?”
“I was sent to your base at Kandahar to make sure that there was no terrorist involvement in the events leading to Donald Westlake’s death, particularly to certify that there was no evidence of a cyber breach by unauthorized individuals or foreign agents. I met the master sergeant, Quinn Davis, and talked to some of the guys in your unit. I did a diagnostic on Westlake’s laptop, but it was already wiped. Davis told me you were honorably discharged, voluntarily.”
Fisk’s gaze narrowed, but he kept his composure. “Did they tell you what Donny and I were doing on the base?”
“You were training the Afghans to fly their own drones. The air force couldn’t count on bringing Muslims to Nevada without attracting attention. So they flew you guys to Kandahar instead.”
“Correct.” Fisk took another gulp from his cup and topped it off again with whiskey. “But you didn’t come here to talk about drones, did you?”
“If you ever repeat what I’m about to tell you, I’ll deny it,” Duggan said.
Fisk shrugged. “I have a pretty lousy memory these days.”
“The Department of Defense wants me to certify that there’
s been no cyber intrusion from outside, which is probably the case,” Duggan said. “I do think there was a breach, but it came from the inside. I think Donald Westlake was the victim of some kind of test, some kind of experimental research by the DOD. I think the military is responsible for what happened to your friend, but they’re trying to deny their involvement and bury the facts. I think that’s why you were discharged. I think that’s why you’re hiding out in the woods, waiting for someone to come along and try to shut you up.”
It was only when Fisk exhaled that Duggan realized he’d been holding his breath. “I’m really glad I didn’t shoot you,” Fisk said.
“Me too.”
Fisk’s upper lip twitched as he drained his cup. “You know I gave back my medal.”
“I heard about that.”
“Donny was a good man. He deserved better.”
“So do you. Palladino said you had an adverse reaction to the therapy that involved listening to loud sounds through headphones. The air force report said that Westlake was wearing headphones when the shooting took place.”
“It was that fucking music,” Fisk blurted. “That heavy metal shit. That’s when it all started.”
Duggan drank some coffee. “All what started?”
“He joined a group. They met on the base two or three times a week. He didn’t talk about it, and I knew better than to ask. Then I noticed the change.”
Duggan held his tongue as Fisk reached for the bottle again.
“His flying got a lot better at first. It was weird how almost overnight he was so much quicker and smoother on the controls. Lots of pilots take Adderall and other stuff, but this was different, a total game change. He was like a machine. He was so much better than me that I started to feel inadequate.”
“Did you talk to him about it?”
“He wouldn’t talk to me or anybody. All he wanted to do was fly drones and listen to that goddamned skinhead garbage. I mean, he even shaved his head to look like one. I followed him one night to a building on the far side of the base. No windows. Two guards posted outside the door. It creeped me out. Then …”
“Then what?”