The Cobweb

by Neal Stephenson

  They climbed out of the van one by one. Millikan was still making small talk with Hennessey; he had positioned himself so that he could look over Hennessey’s shoulder and watch them emerge. He ignored all of them except for Betsy. When he zeroed in on Betsy’s face, he nodded to himself, as if mentally checking an item off a checklist. “Welcome to Kennebunkport, Ms. Vandeventer,” he said. Betsy did not think that he sounded terribly sincere.

  A White House aide, a perky young woman who seemed out of place around all of these saturnine spooks and burly machine-gun-toting guards, stepped toward Betsy holding a White House blazer, extra large. She introduced herself—Betsy forgot her name instantly—and explained, “You’re coming to dinner tonight, and you have to look like a staffer. Care to try this on for size?”

  Betsy tried it on. It fit perfectly. She was glad to have it; late afternoon above the ocean in Maine was much cooler than running toward National Airport at midday carrying heavy bags.

  A government sedan awaited. Millikan stepped toward Betsy. She almost flinched, half expecting him to sock her in the jaw, but instead he offered her his arm and nodded significantly toward the car.

  She took Millikan’s arm and looked back at Spector, who saluted her and said, “Bon appétit.” It was clear that the rest of the new arrivals were going to be dining on the Colonel’s Best Extra Crispy Chicken, with gravy and biscuits.

  Millikan continued to be the very picture of refined manners during the brief drive to the house. He was in an expansive and jovial mood. “The President, as you well know, likes raw intelligence. He has great respect for the analytical branch of the business and wants to meet you. But you should not misinterpret this.” Millikan held up one finger and shook it in a gentle and self-mocking way. “This is a social event—not an opportunity for you to circumvent the system. You are to keep substantive conversation to a minimum. You’ve been named part of the working group on nonconventional warfare—a signal honor. That group is a team, and I am the leader of that team—everything important goes through me. Do you understand?”

  Betsy, still remembering the abuse that Millikan had showered on her, nodded her head and said nothing.

  “You bypassed me once, but you’ll never do that again. Do you understand?”

  Betsy said nothing. The car pulled up to the residential compound; Marines opened the doors.

  “Remember,” Millikan said, “as long as we are out-of-doors, you are a White House staffer.”

  Marlin Fitzwater was giving a briefing to the press. Off to the side the first lady was entertaining some kids with Millie tricks. A tall man with a high forehead was poking around in a large net bag of life preservers and other boat stuff. He straightened up, mumbling, “Well, I thought I’d put the darn things in here, but I’ll be goddamned if I know where they went.” He focused on Millikan. “Oh, howdy, Jim. And good evening, Betsy. What say we go for a run in the boat?”

  Betsy could sense Millikan tensing up.

  “Ha, ha!” the tall man said. “I forgot Jim hates the water. He won’t admit it, but he does. You can stay home, Jim. Bar’ll fix you a drink.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Millikan said. “I’ll come with you and Ms. Vandeventer, Mr. President. I would just ask that you not try to make the boat flip over this time.”

  On cue a White House staffer, a young man in a blue blazer, stepped out of the house and approached them. “Dr. Millikan? Telephone call for you, sir.”

  Millikan glowered. It was clear, even to someone as new to Washington as Betsy, that all of this had been staged. “Unfortunately, I won’t be able to take you up on your invitation, Mr. President. Enjoy the ride, Ms. Vandeventer.”

  “You look like a large to me. Er, maybe a medium,” said George Herbert Walker Bush. He rummaged in his net bag and pulled out a couple of life jackets. “Try these on for size. We probably won’t need them, but”—anticipating the joke—“must be prudent.”

  Bush and Betsy went down to the dock, where a small contingent of Coast Guard and Secret Service waited next to the President’s Cigarette boat. “Bet you didn’t have anything like this in Iowa,” Bush said.

  “Idaho,” Betsy blurted before she realized what she was doing. But Bush seemed easygoing, not the type who would mind being corrected. She was so embarrassed that the next sentence came out in a tumble. “Hell’s Canyon—jet boats. They have them there. Big jet boats in the canyon.”

  “Oh, yeah. I know ’bout that. Big controversy down there with those jet boats,” Bush said.

  The motors were already idling, getting warmed up. Bush made sure that Betsy was properly squared away with her life jacket, then eased the boat away from the pier and ran the throttle up. The boat shot out and started pounding through a light chop. The water was rougher than Hell’s Canyon, the ride much wilder. Betsy shrieked as the spray slapped her in the face, and found it difficult to get her breath back, such was the speed of the boat. The President spent a few minutes trying to hit every large wave that came within range, trying to get the nose of the boat pointed as close to vertical as he could make it. Betsy spent half the time genuinely terrified and cried out more than once.

  Then he cut the throttle and let them drift.

  “Good work, Betsy. I know about all the nonsense you’ve been going through. Keep plugging away.”

  Betsy was still catching her breath. She felt relaxed and energized now and suddenly understood that the boat ride wasn’t just a boat ride. It was a tool Bush used to shake visitors out of the daze that came with being in the presence of the most powerful man in the world.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “What’s the story on this Iraq bioweapons thing? Been on my mind recently.”

  “Dr. Millikan said I should keep it general.”

  “I’m the President, not Millikan, and you tell me what you want to.” The President throttled the boat back up, not nearly as fast, and began to run it in long, lazy figure eights.

  Betsy laid out the whole thing from her first discoveries in 1989, trying to concentrate on the facts and not stray into whining about how the system had failed, how Millikan had treated her. The President said nothing, merely frowned. Finally he said, “Don’t you just wish that we could simply go after the bad guys? But all of this stuff is like a bad tumor, with millions of tentacles. We cut out the main tumor, the rest grows back.”

  “Well. That’s as may be, Mr. President. But—” She stopped, unable to bring herself to disagree with him.

  “Spit it out, Betsy.”

  “Well. I’m not supposed to do domestic. You know that.”

  “That’s a very important rule, Betsy. Got to take that rule very seriously.”

  “But there are some things I’ve become aware of accidentally.”

  Bush snickered. “Accidental intelligence is my favorite kind, Betsy. Good stuff.”

  “That is, I wasn’t doing domestic intelligence gathering or exceeding my task. I learned of this because of a family member who stumbled across it—or maybe I should say, stumbled into it.”

  “Gimme the upshot.”

  “Something’s going on at Eastern Iowa University in Wapsipinicon. There are some people there who should be watched.”

  Bush nodded. “Got the Wapsipinicon thing covered.”

  Betsy was stunned, delighted. “You do?”

  “Yep.”

  “Who’s covering it, if I may ask?”

  “Bureau. Hennessey.”

  “Hennessey?”

  “Got a man on the ground there.” Bush nodded toward the house. “Bar’s waving at me like mad. Better get back.” He ran up the throttle so fast that Betsy screamed again. “Gonna have a nice dinner,” he shouted. “A nice social thing.”

  twenty-seven

  DEPUTY CLYDE Banks stood stolidly in a column of steam that writhed and swirled all about him, wielding a spatula in each hand, stirring through a heap of shredded potatoes as if trying to find a pearl of great price that had somehow fallen into
the frying pan. It was a great big industrial frying pan about the size of a satellite dish, and the flame ring underneath it was consuming so much gas that the buckle of Clyde’s belt was beaded with condensed water vapor. The giant industrial-range hood above his head howled like a tornado siren, drowning out the ceaseless catcalls of the prisoners.

  Mrs. Krumm, the official cook of the Forks County Jail, sat in the corner, another cigarette in her mouth and a disposable lighter in one of her hands, trying to bring those two things together despite the constant shivering to which her advanced age, nervous disposition, and incredible nicotine consumption made her liable. Mrs. Krumm wanted to retire from this job and probably should have a long time ago, but she needed the money, and so she clung to the work as if it were the last carton of Virginia Slims on the face of the earth. Whenever Clyde was assigned to jail duty—increasingly often, since it was considered the worst of all duties—it was evident to him that Mrs. Krumm was just not physically capable of doing the work.

  Clyde should have been thinking about the sheriff campaign, but there was not much to think about there. His bumper stickers had all long since fallen off and blown away to Illinois, or else washed down into storm drains and formed a new variegated red-and-white lining for the regional sewer system. He had it on good authority that raccoons and other midsize animals were lining their nests with “Vote Banks” bumper stickers. The only thing left was the doorbell-ringing campaign. Whether or not this was useless, Clyde was determined to see it through to the bitter end.

  So the campaign did not occupy his mind anymore, except that he would visualize the next block of houses or row of apartments in Wapsipinicon that he would visit when his shift was over. He was much more inclined to ponder the recent events in Kuwait.

  For about a week the whole invasion business had been just another conversation starter for use in coffee shops and convenience stores, a welcome respite from many years of talking about the weather or the condition of the old one-lane bridges on County Road E505.

  For Clyde, however, the war had suddenly come much closer to home this morning, over breakfast, when Desiree had made some passing mention of calling up the reserves.

  Desiree had been in the Army Reserve for several years. She gave them a weekend a month and an annual two-week stint; they sent along a check; and that was that.

  But now it sounded as if it might be a hell of a lot more than that.

  It was inconceivable that they would need to call up the reserves to deal with a piddly-shit country like Iraq. But they said on the news that Iraq had the fourth-largest military in the world. The U.S. Army, accustomed to facing down the Soviets in Europe, could surely handle even the fourth-largest military with one hand tied behind its back. But they said on the news that the military was short in several key areas—such as medical personnel. Clyde’s mind had been seesawing crazily back and forth like this all day long.

  They couldn’t possibly call up the mother of a little baby.

  Why not? They called up fathers of little babies all the time.

  The potatoes were burning; the prisoners had smelled their lunch going up the chimney and set up enough pandemonium to be heard even under the range hood. Clyde grasped the handle of the frying pan with both hands, swung it around, and dumped the potatoes into a huge stainless-steel serving bowl.

  When Clyde turned around, he was startled to see another person in the room—a tall black man, stoutly constructed but not overweight, wearing a suit with a very clean, heavily starched white shirt.

  “Deputy Banks? Marcus Berry, special agent, Federal Bureau of Investigation,” the visitor said, holding out a business card. Clyde accepted it and shook Berry’s hand. For a moment he was confused; he irrationally thought that this had something to do with Desiree, that the government had sent this man out to take her away. That made no sense at all, but the notion of it shook him up anyway.

  “Wanted to talk to you about the horse mutilation,” Berry said, “if you have a minute.”

  “Mrs. Krumm, would you mind serving the prisoners lunch?” Clyde said.

  Mrs. Krumm gathered up her lighter and cigarettes, pulled herself to her feet with a deep sigh, and got to work.

  “I’ve been over your report,” Berry said. He was all business, which impressed Clyde favorably. It would have been common for a black man in Berry’s position to spend a while shooting the breeze, talking about the prospects for the Twisters’ football season and so forth, on the assumption that the brain of a Nishnabotnan would still be reeling from the shock of actually having seen a black person and would need several minutes to get back into some kind of decent working order. But Berry gave Clyde a bit more credit than that. “I hope you don’t mind my saying this,” he continued, “but usually I hate reading reports by local deputies and small-town cops.”

  Clyde nodded, having read a few himself. Many fine human beings worked in local law enforcement, but Sir Arthur Conan Doyle they were not.

  “Your report on the Sweet Corn incident was impeccable,” Berry said. “You’ve got my vote come November.”

  “Thanks,” Clyde said. “Don’t recall knocking on your door yet, but I guess I’ll cross your name off the list.”

  “Too late,” Berry said. “You knocked on it while I was out. Left me a brochure. Anyway, as I said, your report was an exceptionally thorough account of some exceptionally conscientious police work. So I don’t have as many loose ends to tie up as I normally would. But there’s always something.” He reached into his briefcase and pulled out a copy of Clyde’s report.

  There was something that startled Clyde about seeing a copy of his work coming out of the briefcase of a federal agent. His shock was redoubled when Berry began to page through it, and Clyde saw that it had been marked up and highlighted. Questions had been scrawled in the margins, and though Clyde could not read them, he could distinguish two or three different hands. Yet there was only one person in the local FBI office, and Clyde was talking to him.

  “First of all, let me express my condolences about your friend and colleague Hal Karst.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “He sounds like a fine fellow. Wish I’d had the opportunity to know him.”

  “Hal was a good one,” Clyde said.

  “I don’t really imagine you want to talk about it with me,” Berry said, “and I apologize for raising a difficult subject, but I thought I ought to say something.”

  “No offense taken,” Clyde said.

  “This fucking shit sucks shit!” shouted one of the prisoners from the cellblock.

  “Okay, down to business,” Berry said without batting an eye. “There are a few big institutions down in that part of the county—the high-tech park, the Vet Med College, and the Federal Veterinary Pathology Labs. Before you went to the scene of the incident, you visited all three of those places. Why did you do that?”

  “I’d read the reports on the first two mutilation incidents,” Clyde said. “They were well organized, so I thought I’d swing through the logical escape routes and look for any unusual vehicles.”

  “But you didn’t see any.”

  “None that I knew to be unusual.”

  “What were you looking for?”

  “Oh, if I’d seen a van or something stopped in one of those lots with its engine running, pointed at the exit, and the windows steamed up, that would have caught my attention.”

  “But instead all you saw were the kinds of cars you’d expect to see in such places.”

  “I hit each one with my spotlight. Didn’t see anyone sitting in any of those cars. No steamed-up windows. Nothing that stuck out.”

  “No black van?”

  “Nope,” Clyde said.

  A cow had been mutilated two nights ago in Cedar County, half an hour’s drive away, and a black or navy-blue van had been sighted in the vicinity. Sheriff Mullowney had wasted no time in proclaiming that the War on Satan had already forced the evildoers to take their business out of Mullowne
y’s jurisdiction.

  The van had left no tire tracks in Cedar County. But the tracks left along the railway siding on the night of Sweet Corn’s mutilation had been identified, and it was a type of tire that might commonly be found on a van.

  Those tracks suggested that the van, or whatever it was, had turned south on Boundary after leaving the scene of the incident; in other words, it had headed away from Wapsipinicon, probably to limit the chances of being noticed by someone like Clyde. Deputy Jim Green, heading north on Boundary, hadn’t passed any vehicles at all coming his way; but he had seen one turning off Boundary onto a section-line road ahead of him and heading off to the east. That road led to a junction with New 30 and Interstate 45 some four and a half miles distant. Once reaching the interstate, the vehicle could easily have fled north toward Rochester or south toward St. Louis, or just turned back into Nishnabotna a few miles to the north and made its way back to wherever the satanists lived.

  So it seemed quite clear that there had been one vehicle, a dark van; that it had been right there along the railway siding; and that Clyde’s probe of the nearby parking lots, while not a wholly bad idea, had been a waste of time. It was funny, then, that Berry kept asking about it. “What would you consider to be an unusual vehicle in those locations—setting aside the obvious things?”

  “There’s janitors who work those buildings at night. I sort of recognize their cars. Other than that the only thing you’d see would be the grad students’ cars. Sometimes high-school kids will go there to make out or smoke dope—you can tell them right away because they park in the far corner of the lot and the cars are different.”

  “Different how?”

  “Either it’ll be a hot rod, or else a nice car someone borrowed from Dad. Whereas the classic grad-student car is a ten-year-old import station wagon.”

  “Why?”

  “Because most of the grad students are foreign, and most of them have families.”

  “And you commonly see such cars there at night.”