“You have to remember for a couple years he’s been drugged into a near coma. Without being pumped full of sedatives, the world’s going to be a scary place to him. So before we can expect him to make any sense we have to wean him off the drugs and let him become familiar with his new surroundings.”
“And how long would you expect this is going to take?” Howie trying to be on his best behavior. Knows the nurse will eat his face if he steps out of line.
“Look, I’m not going to drag it out but we have to give him time.”
So Howie spent the day scrambling around the Web looking for any information they might use to jumpstart the major’s memory, ordering food from the nearby diner, trading football stories with Sharon and staring at the wallpaper while they waited for Risstup to get his bearings. Which was the last thing Howie wanted to do since he knew it was only a matter of time before Vector Eleven put two and two together. But Sharon made herself clear. The major would be available when she damn well pleased. And for now, I can’t do without her.
At the crack of dawn Sunday, Howie’s back at the diner ordering breakfast. Around the corner from the Nite Owl, the greasy spoon is run by a Lebanese family. The place is bustling, the owner shouting out orders, bacon hissing on the grill, plates clattering, the odor of fryer oil hanging in the air. He puts his order in then walks toward campus. Sharon was right, there is a sea of hot spots in the F&M neighborhood, the connection window of his laptop jumps from hot spot to hot spot like an electronic frog, offering him three, then four different avenues to the Net, a bunch without passwords.
Taking a seat on a bench next to the college library, he smiles as he opens the email from Winn Straub and reads,
. . . so I suggest you get your butt back to Charlottesville and bury your nose in a good book, play some golf, take that nice wife of yours out to dinner. Enjoy life and keep yourself out of trouble.
A little late for that, Winn, Howie thinks. When he notices the new email address Winn recommends he use, Howie immediately substitutes it for the old one.
There’s a second email from Straub. Sent late Saturday night, it has more of an edge than the first.
The Pentagon is all over me like a cheap suit. They sent a stooge out in the middle of the night to tell me they are after you. This is serious business, Howie. If you’re off on some cockamamie mission, you better think twice because they are wheeling out the big guns. I think Vector Eleven’s after you and you know those guys play for keeps.
Just as he figured. They had to be the ones who gave the order to raise the dose on Risstup and then to jack it up to a fatal level. It was only a matter of time before the alarms would go off at Vector Eleven. As he reads the last sentence of Straub’s email, a smile flashes across his face.
. . . but if you’re onto something you think I should know about, Howie, let me know what I can do to help.
Only a college roommate would try to scare the piss out of you and then in the next sentence ask you if he can come out and play.
In his response, Howie briefly sketches out the situation without giving many details. He asks Winn to contact Sylvie and make sure she’s okay and then gives him a list of programs he needs: Keyhole, Photoshop, his customized versions of X-Plane and Taxiway and he tells Straub where to locate all the special programs he developed in his years at the Pentagon—his grab bag of visuals, tricks, special effects—he knows his whole repertoire is going to have to come into play on the buried memories of the pilot.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” Howie announces as he nudges the door open carrying his laptop and bag of breakfast goodies. Things have lightened up since their testy exchange in the car Friday night.
“If it isn’t the Nite Owl Motel room service,” Sharon jokes.
“Wait until you see the spread I’ve got.” Twenty bucks bought the place out. Howie has enough scrambled eggs for a Little League team, hash browns, three egg sandwiches, a container of oatmeal and cups of OJ and tomato juice.
“No fruit?”
“In this place, if they can’t fry it they don’t serve it.”
Howie notices Sharon has wheeled Major Risstup’s chair into the room. He sits in the corner staring at the television. The volume’s off, a Wheel of Fortune rerun on.
“Major Risstup, how are you doing today?” Howie leans around the side of his chair, smiling into the major’s wrinkled face. No reaction. He glances at Sharon.
She shrugs as if to say, Look, buddy, I told you it would take a while.
Howie changes the subject, attacking the food from the eatery around the corner. “C’mon, time for some chow.”
Sharon joins him and soon they are both downloading calories. As he shovels scrambled eggs into his mouth, he says, “You’re right about the hot spots. There are loads around the campus.”
“I was pretty sure there would be.”
“Got an email from Winn Straub. He has me on an encrypted server so I can email him freely.” Howie knows he has to focus on the good news. What he’s learned about Vector Eleven would freak Sharon out.
“What’s this encrypted business?”
“It’s an Internet site that’s buried so deep in codes and passwords no one can get near it unless they know the language. Our emails are secure.”
“You certain about that?”
“Winn Straub has worked for the CIA for thirty years. Senior guy there, he knows the ins-and-outs of the intelligence business better than anyone.”
Sharon stabs a hash brown and pops open her coffee. When she sees milk in it, she realizes it’s for Risstup. She’d noticed his coffee on his breakfast tray at the VA hospital was served with milk so she asked Howie to bring him a light coffee.
Risstup is sitting in his wheelchair silently gazing at the curtains.
“Brought you your coffee, Major Risstup,” Sharon swings the cup in front of him.
“Thanks, with a little milk?” Risstup says to her casually, as if carrying on a conversation was the most normal thing in the world to him.
The word yes is almost out of her mouth before she realizes Risstup is speaking to her for the first time in three weeks. Howie’s holding his paper plate, his mouth agape, he can’t believe what he just heard.
Sharon manages to keep her cool despite the fact that her heart rate just doubled.
“Yes, Major, with a little milk just like you like it.”
“Thank you,” he says, taking a sip. His brow wrinkles as he looks around the room. He’s taking everything in, eyes sweeping the floors, walls, ceiling and examining her face. After a minute he asks, “Can you tell me where are we?”
“In a motel in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.”
“Why here?”
“It’s a long story.”
He looks up at her, the questions running through his mind contorting his expression, “Don’t get me wrong—you seem very nice—but who are you?” Sharon shoots a quick look at Howie, as if to say, What did I tell you?
“I’m Sharon Thorsen, your nurse from the hospital. You were in a VA hospital, remember?” She takes the major’s hand in hers. Looks at his crooked, shriveled collection of fingers, the skin thin, almost transparent and dappled with age spots.
“I’m not sure.”
“That doesn’t surprise me.”
“I was in a VA hospital?”
“For a number of years, yes.”
“Was I sick?”
“The Pentagon put you there to keep you from talking.”
“Why would they do that?”
“Because you have information about something they don’t want anyone to know.”
“I don’t understand,” he says, his eyes fogging over. “Where are we again?”
“Lancaster, Pennsylvania. In a motel. I went to college here, Major Risstup. At Franklin and Marshall.” She’s making small talk as she eats, hoping something will stick.
“Franklin and Marshall, I think I’ve heard of Franklin and Marshall. I went to college—” Risstup’s voice
trails off.
“You were a Bruin, Major Risstup. You told me you went to UCLA— the fight song, you recognized it back in the hospital, remember?”
Risstup’s face is a complete blank.
“Sons of Westwood,” she says, then hums the tune.
Howie’s wincing at her singing, “I’m not surprised he doesn’t recognize it. You sound like a crow with a cough.”
Risstup swings a finger in Howie’s direction and asks Sharon, “Who’s he?”
“Some wiseacre I picked up in Pittsburgh.”
Howie steps up and offers a handshake, “I’m Howard Collyer, Major Risstup, good to have you with us.” Risstup stares blankly at Howie’s outstretched hand.
Howie lets his arm drop to his side. “Guess that’s it for today, huh?”
“Look, for someone who’s hardly made a peep in the last three months, that was the Gettysburg Address.”
“You’re the boss. More hash browns?” Howie asks, threatening to ladle another deep fried hockey puck on her plate.
“It’s cardiac arrest if I eat any more of that crap,” Sharon says, pushing back her plate.
“Good, then you can start on the day’s mission,” Howie hands over the laptop. “I’ll babysit and you take a stroll, glom onto a hot spot and do a search on the name ‘Risstup.’ Maybe we can uncover some of his relatives. Maybe get really lucky and get a picture from someone. That would sure go a long way toward rebuilding his memory.”
“How many Risstups do you think there are in the United States?”
“If he went to UCLA like you say, start in California.” Howie gives in to temptation and snatches the last hash brown.
“Okay, I’ll do that,” she says, an okay, smart ass, you want to play it that way, here goes look on her face as she thrusts Risstup’s bowl of oatmeal and the spoon at him.
“And you finish feeding the major.”
15
Charlottesville, Sunday morning
It’s a bracing late fall morning in Central Virginia. As she walks to the car the leaves crunch under her feet. Though it’s sunny and clear, the breeze is chilly. Her Volvo starts sluggishly. Grace gives it a minute to warm up before putting it in gear and pulling out.
Out for the Sunday paper and coffee, Grace navigates the potholed driveway toward the main road. Pauses before pulling out, checking to her left and right as the road is twisty and has seen nasty accidents over the years. If she had looked more carefully, she might have noticed the mid-sized motor home pulled into a turnoff down the way from her parents’ mailbox. Had she seen it, she might not have given it another thought after reading the tall black letters painted on one side, Environmental Protection Agency, Mobile Air Quality Monitoring Station.
But the motor home was well concealed, blocked from her view by shrubs, tree trunks and a thicket of bamboo, and Grace, preoccupied with getting back to keep an eye on Sylvie, never saw it.
Even on her return, coming back from the convenience store in the other direction, she’s worrying about spilling the coffee as her station wagon jounces up the narrow and rutted gravel drive toward her parents’ house so she doesn’t peer through the woods toward where the motor home, its roof bristling with satellite dishes and antennas, is parked.
Pulling up in the courtyard, she tucks the paper under her arm and carefully juggles the coffees off the seat, slamming the car door with her hip.
“Got the goodies, Mom, come on down before it gets cold.”
Grace’s voice can be heard over the three men’s headphones as clearly as if she was sitting next to them. As she clumps toward the kitchen her footsteps echo through the house. On the monitor, she can be seen setting the newspaper and cardboard drink carrier down, then opening a microwave.
During the night, while they were out to dinner, five wireless high-resolution cameras no larger than matchboxes were carefully situated in strategic positions around the Collyer residence. Now everything is projected on five plasma screens on one wall of the motor home. Sensitive mini-microphones snaked into air conditioning and dryer vents pick up the faintest sounds, a wireless router was positioned to peek into electronic communication and the phone system was tapped. Everything instantly transmitting to the dishes and antennas mounted on the roof of the motor home.
The Collyer house is now an open book to the three government gumshoes sitting at the consoles. Up and running since dawn, they’ve been eavesdropping for three hours. So far, they have notified the Pentagon that Collyer’s car is missing and that there’s no sign of him.
When they hear Collyer’s wife say, “I got another email from Howie,” their ears perk up. Waving a sheet of paper over her head, she steps into the camera’s view wearing a plaid housecoat and slippers.
“Get that email up now, Ed,” the man on the right orders, his tone of voice indicating he’s the boss. Retired military, still in shape, gray hair cropped to fuzz. The man sitting in the middle, trim and efficient-looking, plastic penholder in each of his two shirt pockets, enters a code into the keyboard in front of him and the window of the Collyer’s desktop flashes across the monitor.
Ed toggles down, selecting and opening Howie’s email:
Sylvie—I’m fine, how are you and Grace? My research is going well up here, shouldn’t be away more than a few more days. Will talk to you soon.
Love, Howie
“Where’s Collyer sending from? Locate that email’s origin,” the gray-haired man demands.
“I’m checking, Pete, gimme a quick minute,” Ed Grossman says, his fingers a blur flying over the keyboard.
Grace says, “Let me see it,” as she takes the printout of Howie’s email from her mother.
“How does he sound to you?’ Sylvie Collyer asks.
“Okay, I guess. A bit cryptic, if you want to know the truth.” Grace finishes reading the email and tosses it on the counter. “I’d like to know what’s this research he claims he’s doing.”
At the console, Grossman turns to his boss, “The email came from downtown Pittsburgh.”
Pete runs his hand over his fuzz, “Backtrack the location.”
“Coming right up.”
On the screen, Sylvie Collyer can be seen throwing up her hands. “The whole email thing had me tossing and turning all night. Why doesn’t Howie pick up a payphone and call us? That’s what any sensible person would do. So that’s why I’m so worried. Now I know you think I go overboard when I start talking about the Pentagon . . .”
“Don’t go there again, Mom,” Grace warns.
Sylvie Collyer carefully opens the plastic lid and takes a sip of coffee. “I just hope it’s something else beside lost bombs. That scares the bejesus out of me.”
In the motor home, Pete snaps his fingers three times, anything about lost bombs is what they’ve been waiting to hear, “Quick, get the Building patched in.”
Grossman instantly routes the audio and video to the encrypted, preselected address at a classified location in the Pentagon.
General Greg Watt hears the steady, high-pitched beep coming from his computer and promptly touches the button on the screen. Within seconds, the color feed from the kitchen in a rural area of central Virginia appears, as it does on his assistant’s screen in the office outside.
“Sir,” Watt listens as the team leader explains, “You’re looking at the interior of the house. Collyer is definitely after a bomb, his wife just mentioned it. And she seems concerned about the Pentagon’s reaction.”
She damn well ought to be, Watt thinks.
Pete continues, “Collyer sent an email to his wife yesterday at 1715 hours. We’ve tracked it to somewhere in downtown Pittsburgh.”
“Not good enough, I need it pinpointed,” Watt says.
“We’re working on it. When we get it, we’ll be able to identify the machine and locate the sender.”
“I’ll stay on the line,” Watt tells his team leader. Two minutes go by, then three, then four. Watt knows he has to be patient. Even if he is a general,
it is Sunday and harder to get stuff done when everyone’s at home munching Cheetos and watching football.
His patience is rewarded when the team leader announces, “General Watt, that email came from an Internet café. We’re running a locate on the machine.”
Two minutes later, Williams gives a perfunctory knock on his boss’s door and barges in. General Watt will appreciate the good news. Fortunately, a high-level VP at the cell phone company was at his desk on a Sunday afternoon. In ten minutes, he’d retrieved the needed information. Nothing like the phrase in the interest of national security to get someone’s attention.
“Sir, I have the records of their calls. Sharon Thorsen made a call to Howie Collyer at 1135 hours Friday. At 1530 hours Collyer called Thorsen and at 2105 hours he put in a second call to her.”
Watt remembers the time code on the surveillance tape, “2105 hours— that was around the time they were taking Risstup out of the hospital.”
“That’s correct, sir.”
“Any other calls?” Watt asks. He knows Collyer’s next move will be to communicate by computer since he’s aware cell phones are a snap to trace. Though Collyer is a decent computer jock, he’ll be no match for the legions of highly trained professionals at the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. It will be David against ten thousand Goliaths. Watt smiles at his analogy. Corny but no overstatement.
And when they manage to hunt down the machine used to send the email, the noose will tighten on Howard Collyer.
Watt’s attention is drawn to Collyer’s wife on the screen. “I wish there was something we could do to find him,” she says, setting down her coffee cup and leaning on the kitchen island as if she needs its support. “I don’t know how much longer I can just sit around. I’m about to go bonkers.”
She hasn’t yet told Grace of her suspicions about Winn Straub’s involvement. Still trying to decide whether she should give him a ring at the CIA and flat-out accuse Straub of colluding with her husband or demand that he send Howie home and stop this craziness. But she doesn’t know Straub that well. Would I even be able to get past his secretary? She’s decided to give it another day.
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