by John Case
Frank shook his head. ‘Actually,’ he said, ‘if a strain of influenza – like the Spanish flu – came along, we wouldn’t be a lot better off than we were in 1918.’
‘You’re kidding – why not?’
‘There’s no vaccine. We’re talking about something that’s so contagious, they buried people in mass graves.
‘What, like in India?’ Jennifer asked.
‘No,’ Frank replied. ‘I’m talking about Philadelphia.’
‘Yes, but what you’re suggesting,’ Coe said, dismissing the idea with a flourish of his hand, ‘is a one-part series. That’s what it amounts to.’
Frank smiled wanly. ‘No, I’ll have two parts for you. But I don’t know what the second part is. Not yet. But I will.’
Coe grunted. ‘Or so we must hope.’
Frank shook his head. ‘No, there’s definitely something going on. Annie was unbelievably helpful –’
‘Who’s Annie?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Dr. Adair. She really went way out of her way. I mean, she put me in touch with Shin-Li, she helped me with appointments at the CDC. And there was a point – when there was some doubt about finding a slot for me on the icebreaker, she went to bat for me.’
‘And then had a change of heart,’ Coe said. ‘Happens all the time.’ The foundation director glanced at his watch, then raised a manicured hand and scribbled in the air to indicate that he wanted the check.
‘I don’t think she changed her mind,’ Frank said. ‘Something happened. In Kopervik. I know it.’
‘Oh?’ Coe extracted an ivory toothpick from a tiny leather key case that he carried. ‘How can you be sure? You weren’t there.’ He began to chew on the toothpick.
‘That’s true, but I was in Hammerfest. And someone else was there, too – and that’s interesting.’
‘Who are you talking about?’ Coe asked, his voice edged with skepticism. The waiter came to their table with the check, and Coe signed it.
‘Neal Gleason,’ Frank answered.
Coe blinked once or twice, thinking about it, and then gave up. He rotated his wrists so his palms were turned toward the ceiling. ‘And who’s that?’ he asked.
‘He’s an FBI liaison to the CIA. He’s with the Bureau’s National Security Division – which is a very spooky shop. The job description’s classified, but it looks like he’s the point man for WMDs.’
‘And what are those?’ Jennifer asked.
‘Weapons of Mass Destruction.’
Coe blanched. ‘You mean, like . . . atom bombs?’
Frank nodded. ‘Yes but – not just that. There’s chemical and biological weapons, too.’
‘And this man was in Hammerfest?’ Coe asked.
‘He was on the dock,’ Frank replied. ‘He was on the boat. He shoved Kicklighter and Adair into a car. And that’s when they stopped talking to me. Right after Gleason showed up.’
‘Interesting,’ Coe said. ‘But . . . it’s just that I hate throwing good money after bad.’
Frank nodded in agreement. What else could he do?
‘Still,’ Coe said, ‘you think we could have part one –’
‘In two days. Three days, tops.’
‘Mmmm.’ Coe pulled a pocket watch from his vest, glanced at its face, and got to his feet. ‘Meeting,’ he said. On their way out, the foundation chief gave a little two-fingered waggle to a man who looked a lot like William Rehnquist, and a second waggle to a giant. Bill Bradley, Frank thought.
At the entrance to the lobby Coe shrugged into a somewhat tattered camel’s hair coat, and carefully wrapped a chenille scarf around his throat, Nearby, Jennifer paced back and forth, speaking into a tiny cell phone that seemed to be made of burled walnut.
Coe cocked his head and looked up at Frank. ‘You know, the more I think about it . . .’ A long pause.
‘Yes?’
A kindly smile. ‘I think one part will probably be enough. You don’t need all this hugger-mugger about the Arctic.’
‘But –’
‘It’s a question of cutting one’s losses, don’t you think?’
‘I think Gleason’s involvement –’
‘Well, that’s the other shoe, isn’t it?’ Coe pulled on a pair of soft leather gloves.
‘What do you mean?’
Coe looked pained. ‘I mean that if you pursue this, you’re going to have to commit investigative reporting.’
‘That’s bad?’
Coe looked away, then took a deep breath. ‘Times have changed. We have to change with them.’ Coe frowned for the appropriate part of a second, then clapped his hands together. ‘Ciao,’ he said and, turning, walked toward the waiting limo, with Jennifer hard on his heels.
As Frank watched them go, a black doorman stood next to him, rocking back and forth on his heels, hands behind his back, eyes on the street. Finally, he turned to Frank and said, ‘And how are we today, sir?’
For a long moment Frank didn’t know what to say. So he followed the path of least resistance and told the truth. ‘We’re fucked,’ he said,
The doorman’s face lifted in a bright smile. ‘Yes, sir! So we are, and so we have been!’
After Russia and Norway, Frank’s Washington apartment seemed like a palace. It was on Mintwood Place in Adams-Morgan, a rich-and-poor, black-brown-and-yuppie neighborhood that the guidebooks called ‘hip and lively’ – which meant that it had a lot of good ethnic restaurants, some interesting bars, and virtually no parking.
Even during the day, the streets were packed with young professionals in search of yebeg wat, pupusas, and nasi goreng. Teenage Goths lounged on the sidewalks, raven-haired and pale, while groups of Salvadorans gathered in threes and fours to share a bottle or make a deal. Boom boxes vied.
The apartment was an almost spectacular space – he’d rented it long before the neighborhood became chic. There were Palladian windows, lots of exposed brick, and a $2,000 sound system that had been stolen twice (but never in the last three years). The rooms were large, and had once been stylishly decorated. Now they seemed almost spare, a consequence of the very attractive Alice Holcombe having taken most of the furniture with her when she decamped. (That was six months ago, and all Frank could say was, Oh, well . . .)
He lit the flame under the teakettle, then picked up the phone and dialed his voice mail. There was nothing of importance, really – certainly nothing from Kicklighter or Adair. An invitation to dinner. An invitation to play poker. Calls from friends who were ‘just checking in,’ and calls from sources and would-be sources, including one who claimed to have solved the Kennedy assassination ‘and more!’ The most recent call was a reminder that he had an indoor soccer game on Monday night at nine.
Frank measured an ounce of coffee grounds into a paper cone, then sorted through a stack of mail as the kettle began to simmer.
There wasn’t much: the Journal of Scientific Exploration, the Economist, a bill from Visa, a bank statement from Crestar, and a lot of junk that wasn’t worth the paper.
When the kettle finally whistled, he wet the coffee grounds and waited for the water to drip through to the cup. Then he poured some more and waited a little longer. The thing was: he was onto a big story. He was absolutely certain of that. Even though he couldn’t say exactly what the story was, it was out there, and there was no mistaking it. He could see it, obliquely, in the peripheral vision of his mind: it was like a black hole that reveals itself, indirectly, by the behavior of objects that are drawn to it – objects that disappear.
Objects like Kicklighter and Adair.
That afternoon, he sat down at the long wooden table that he used for a desk and wrote a form letter on Washington Post stationery to an alphabet soup of agencies: FBI, CIA, NIH, CDC, NOAA, DOD, and State. Each of the letters was addressed to the agency’s Director of Information and Privacy, and each began with the same words:
Dear Mr._____
This is a request under the Freedom of Information Act (5 U.S.C., 552), as amended.
&nb
sp; I am writing to request any information or documents you may have concerning the expedition of Drs. Benton Kicklighter and Anne Adair, who recently sailed from the Russian city of Murmansk to the Svalbard archipelago aboard the Rex Mundi, a Norwegian icebreaker. It is my understanding that the expedition was mounted under the auspices of the National Science Foundation (NSF), and had the object of recovering the bodies of five miners buried in the village of Kopervik. The ship left Murmansk on or about March 23, 1998, and returned to Hammerfest (Norway) five days later.
Elsewhere in the letter, he asked that his request be expedited, inasmuch as it was being made in the public interest. When the letter was finished, and almost as an afterthought, he appended the following notation to the letter’s end:
c: Williams & Connolly
This was the law firm that represented the Post. Reference to it should not have been necessary, since the law required that government agencies reply to FOIA requests within ten days. In practice, however, many of the agencies subverted the law’s intent by responding in a formulaic way, acknowledging the letter’s receipt without ever actually acting upon it. This was most often done when the letter writers were ordinary citizens, acting on their own, and unknown for their litigiousness. Frank wanted the agencies to know that he (and the Post) were ready to go to court.
When the letters had been printed out, he took them to the post office on Columbia Road. It was a short walk, but a colorful one, that took him past a man selling inflatable animals, shops that specialized in retro toasters, lava lamps, and gargoyles, a new Ethiopian restaurant, a funky bar named Millie & Al’s.
The postal clerk was a cheerful Jamaican whose head was covered in a blue bandanna, tied foursquare in precise little knots. ‘What you got dere, mon?’
Frank handed him the letters.
‘Official biz-ness!’ the clerk called out as he cocked an eye at one address after another. ‘Check it out! C-I-A! Eff-Bee-Aye! Pent-a-gone!’ He looked up. ‘Interesting life, mon!’ With a chuckle, he took Frank’s money, made change, and tossed the FOIA requests into the canvas mailbag behind him. ‘We thank you for your biz-ness. Next customer, please!’
In the days that followed, Frank made telephone calls and worked on the influenza story – which he still thought of as ‘Part One.’
The calls went to the same three people, and the result was always the same. Neal Gleason was out of the office, and Kicklighter was away from his desk. Adair was simply nowhere to be found, though her answering machine recorded his messages. Gleason’s home phone was unlisted and so, in the end, was Kicklighter’s. Twice, Frank got through to the scientist late at night, but the old man never said anything other than ‘Hello?’ After which he hung up – after which he changed the number and went ex-directory.
When the influenza story was finished, he had a courier take it over to the foundation’s offices on K Street. The next afternoon, Coe called to say that he liked the piece a lot and thought it would ‘stand on its own.’
‘Great,’ Frank said. ‘I think so, too.’
There was a pause, which Coe soon filled with a question. ‘What’s next? Nothing expensive, I hope.’
‘I was thinking of going to New Mexico,’ Frank replied. ‘There’s a piece to do about the Sin Nombre virus. I thought I’d visit Taos, talk to the public health people there. It’s a good story.’
Coe sounded relieved. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘I’ll look forward to seeing it.’
‘Yessir.’
But Frank didn’t go right away. On Monday night he went out to Springfield, where he played indoor soccer with guys he’d known on and off ever since he’d come to Washington. It was a close game against a Peruvian team that was almost as violent as it was skilled. Frank scored two goals in what turned out to be a losing cause, and went home bruised and cheerful.
That night, he called Annie for about the tenth time in a week, and to his amazement, he got through. ‘I’ve been trying to reach you,’ he said.
‘I know. I just got back. I was seeing my parents, and – there were eight calls on the machine.’ There was no irritation in her voice, no impatience, just a kind of constrained regret.
‘Were you going to return them?’
There was a long silence on the other end, and then: ‘Well . . . I don’t think . . . I don’t think there’s anything to say, really. Except – I’m sorry you went to so much trouble. But, really, there isn’t any point in talking about it.’
‘Well,’ Frank said, ‘yeah, there is. It’s an important story.’ She was silent for so long that he finally prompted her: ‘Dr. Adair?’
‘Yes . . .’
‘I said it’s an important story.’
‘I know. I heard you. It’s just that – I can’t help you with it.’
‘Well, actually – you can. But you aren’t. And what I need to know is, why?’
‘Well . . .’ She was quiet so long that he thought, for a moment, she’d put the phone down. Then: ‘I have to go.’
‘But it’s so rude!’
The accusation took her aback, and Frank had to admit it wasn’t something he’d ever have said to Gleason. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘It’s rude!’ he answered. ‘When you think about it . . . I mean, I went all the way to hell and back on this thing. I spent a fortune. And now you won’t even talk to me.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘I just can’t.’
‘Because of Gleason, right?’
It was the first time he’d mentioned Gleason’s name, and it surprised her. ‘What?’
‘I said it’s because of Gleason, right? Neal Gleason.’
‘I have to go.’
‘That’s it? That’s all you’ve got to say – “I have to go”?’
‘No, really –’
‘Are you under some kind of . . . what?’ He couldn’t think of the word. ‘A secrecy oath, or something?’
Once again she was silent.
‘Look, Dr. Adair –’
‘Annie.’
‘Huh?’
‘Everyone calls me Annie.’
‘Okay. Annie. The thing is, I really thought we got along. I mean, before all this . . .’ He paused. The word he was going to use was ‘bullshit,’ but he didn’t want to swear at her. ‘You were so helpful! So nice!’
‘Thanks,’ she said. And then, a moment later, ‘I guess.’
Frank laughed. ‘So how about dinner?’
‘Dinner?’
‘Forget about Spitsbergen. We’ll go out to eat. You name the night. You pick the place. Except – no Canadian food.’
The phone was silent for a moment, and then: ‘That’s funny, but . . . I don’t think so. I mean, under the circumstances, I don’t think that’s such a good idea.’
She sounded genuinely regretful, and her regret encouraged him to plunge on. ‘What “circumstances”?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know about any circumstances.’
It was her turn to laugh. ‘Well, you want me to tell you something and – I can’t.’
‘“Can’t.” Which means you did sign something!’
An exasperated sigh blew through the phone. ‘I’ve got to go,’ she said. ‘And anyway, this isn’t going anywhere. It can’t.’
‘Don’t hang up!’ he said. ‘Give me credit for trying.’
‘You should talk to Dr. Kicklighter.’
‘Well, now, there’s an idea!’ Frank replied. ‘Dr. Kicklighter! Why didn’t I think of that – except, I did. And the problem is, he seems to have blown up his telephone.’
‘I’m sorry. He’s very busy.’
‘We’re all busy. You’re busy! I’m busy! Even Gleason’s busy!’
‘I know, but . . . I really have to go. Really!’
‘Why?’
He could hear her take a deep breath. ‘Because I have a chicken in the oven, and it’s burning, and even while we’re talking, my apartment’s filling up with smoke, and if I don’t go, the smoke alarm wil
l go off, and the fire department will come, and then the police, and then I’ll lose my lease, and then I’ll become a bag lady and freeze to death – is that what you want?’
Frank thought about it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘But I’ll be back in a week – and I think we definitely ought to have dinner.’
11
LOS ANGELES
APRIL 11, 1998
SUSANNAH ADJUSTED THE diaper bag, propped the baby on her hip, and collapsed the new stroller. She had the hang of it now. There was a lever you pushed with your foot and it folded right up, easy as pie. Behind her an elderly Asian lady held the stroller for her as she climbed onto the number 20 bus.
‘I put it here,’ the lady said as Susannah paid her fare. ‘Okay?’ She put the stroller in a corral just behind the driver.
‘Thank you so much,’ Susannah said, and tossed the woman a big, grateful smile.
‘Your baby sure cute.’ The woman handed the driver a transfer.
‘Isn’t he, though?’ Susannah lowered her face to the baby’s and rubbed noses. ‘He’s just a doll-baby,’ she sang. ‘He’s just a sweet lil’ ol’ doll, is what he is!’
She asked the driver to tell her when they got to Wilshire Boulevard, and then she took an aisle seat near the front, putting the diaper bag on the seat next to her so she wouldn’t have to share. Then she touched her finger to the little guy’s button nose and pushed it very gently. This always made him laugh, and he gurgled and smiled and showed his dimples. ‘How did you get so cute?’ she asked, seesawing her head back and forth. ‘Tell me that. How did you? Hmmmmm?’
She looked out the window, where L.A. was sliding by, jiggling Stephen up and down, just a little, so he wouldn’t fuss. She couldn’t get over how much of the city was paved! Or how itty-bitty most of the houses were. And the palm trees – what good were they, anyway? They were skinny and straight and they didn’t really give you any shade. They just stood there, next to the street, like a row of disappointments.
Which was too bad because, when she thought of palm trees, she always imagined them in a romantic way – leaning into the wind on an ivory-colored beach, a few feet from the water. Blue water. And a cloudless sky. But here in L.A., in real life, stranded in the desert, surrounded by concrete, they were . . . what?