The First Horseman

by John Case

  ‘You think?’ Frank asked.

  ‘Yeah. I do.’

  ‘And Gleason?’

  ‘I don’t know – the FBI gets into everything. What happened to the expedition – the British have a word for it. Gazumped. The expedition was gazumped, so . . . the federales show up to see what happened.’

  Frank thought about it. Finally, he said, ‘You’re probably right.’

  Deer nodded, then swiveled a quarter turn in his chair. ‘On the other hand,’ he mused, ‘if someone wanted revenge . . . if they were mad at the world . . .’

  Frank frowned, and leaned forward. ‘Like who?’

  Deer shrugged. ‘Oh, I don’t know. What about . . . what about the Sioux?’

  ‘The Sioux,’ Frank repeated, uncertain if he was kidding.

  ‘We don’t know a lot about icebreakers,’ Deer went on, ‘but . . . some of us are pretty pissed off.’

  All Frank could do was stare at him.

  Then Running Deer’s inscrutability cracked and his cheeks were lifted by a grin. ‘Psych . . .’

  15

  ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA

  THEY’D BEEN WAITING six days in the safe house, and Tommy was missing Susannah. He was used to having sex with her, and the lack of it was making him antsy. Despite the yoga and the mindfulness exercises, and the relaxation techniques drummed into them during training, he just couldn’t seem to kick his case of nerves. The worst of it was there was nothing at all to be nervous about. That was a stone fact. It was just a test, is all. Just a boat ride.

  Maybe it was the on-again, off-again part that was getting to him. When they were on a go basis, as they were now, he got real wound up. Useless worries, all of them, but he couldn’t seem to keep them from crawling into his head. What if the engine didn’t start? What if there was trouble at the marina? What if the Coast Guard showed up? He was the one responsible for the boat. Test or no test, he didn’t want it to be his fault if the whole thing blew up in their faces. So, he’d get keyed up, and then, when the decision was made to abort – which had already happened three times now – he’d go back to being bored. But nervous-bored, with all this energy jamming him up. He was also getting pretty damn sick of the Weather Channel, which Belinda and Vaughn wanted to watch, like all the time. One more pulsing mass of green surging toward the Mid-Atlantic and he’d puke.

  The dry run, of course, had gone off without a hitch. Didn’t miss a step. Despite his secret worry that it might gum up, there was no trouble with the nozzle on the aerosolizer, which was something he’d made in the workshop. Basically, it was just a heavy-duty pressure pump attached to a standard pesticide dispersal unit. Chemlawn meets a snowmaking machine. It looked like a water cannon, and it worked like a bandit. During the tests at the compound in Placid, Tommy’s homemade gizmo outperformed the custom-made device Solange had ordered, a thing designed by someone called an aerosol engineer, whatever the hell that was. Kicked its ass. He could still hear the pride in Susannah’s voice: ‘Tommy can make anything.’ Solange had favored him with a beaming smile and the ultimate praise: ‘Well done.’

  The dry run had gone off without a hitch, but ever since, they couldn’t seem to get past the drive to the marina without the wind shifting, or a scatter of raindrops appearing on the windshield. And then it was back to the television and the Weather Channel, and he was so fucking bored, he was practically crying.

  ‘Would you stop that?’ Belinda said, shooting him an annoyed look.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Tapping your foot.’

  ‘Now I can’t tap my foot? I got to tap my feet.’ He stood up and did a little tap-dancing routine, his legs loose and rhythmic. He finished with an exaggerated bow toward her. ‘It’s in my blood.’

  Belinda smiled; she had a kind of mother thing about him. She called him Tommy-O. She couldn’t really get mad.

  ‘Just cut it out,’ Vaughn said in his flat New England voice. But not like it was really bothering him or anything. Nothing bothered Vaughn. It was like he was pretending to be bothered, so he could line up next to Belinda. ‘We’re trying to concentrate.’

  ‘Sor-ry’.’

  It was all right for them. They weren’t bored. They were working. Belinda was deputy chief of the Special Projects unit, and she was busy as hell. Just communicating with headquarters was a pain. Every message she sent had to be triply encrypted – an encryption of an encryption of an encryption – using three different algorithms, each of which ran to 128 bits.

  Tommy didn’t actually know what an algorithm was, nor why the number of bits was important. But 128 was a lot. He knew that much.

  Anyway, Belinda was a control freak. Which meant that she had a finger in every pie, and had to keep track of it all, all the time. Except when she was sleeping or exercising, she was either talking on her cell phone or hunched over her laptop.

  And Vaughn was just as wired as she was. He sat on the bed all day long, clacking away on his laptop. What was he doing? He didn’t talk like a normal human being, so it wasn’t always so easy to tell. But Tommy liked to ask him, just to hear him talk.

  ‘Hey, Vaughn, what’re you doing?’

  ‘I’m working up projections on dispersal rates.’

  And then, half an hour later: ‘Hey, Vaughn . . .’

  ‘Toxin pattern studies.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Wheat-stem rust.’

  And five minutes after that, he’d look over his shoulder at the laptop: ‘What’s that?’ he’d ask.

  ‘Flare-droplet nuclei drift.’

  Sometimes Belinda and Vaughn would jabber back and forth about things that made no sense at all. Susannah called it ‘word soup’ when the techies got talking. It didn’t seem to bother her, but it made him feel left out. And being here all this time, cooped up, he was like a fish out of water. Missing his workshop. Missing Susannah. Missing everybody at the compound. Missing the out-of-doors. Whereas Belinda and Vaughn, they hardly noticed where they were at all. They could work in a closet.

  Vaughn was a strange one, all right. So remote, it was almost like he wasn’t a real person. Susannah once told him she’d put her hand on Vaughn’s arm to see if he was cold to the touch.

  Belinda got up and stretched, picked up the remote and punched the button for the Weather Channel. The weather guy was still running the numbers for the Midwest, but Belinda had already come to some kind of decision based on whatever she was getting off her computer. ‘Numbers look good,’ she said. ‘We go at noon.’

  ‘You’re the boss,’ Tommy replied.

  He filled the time with push-ups, sit-ups, lunges, a whole yoga series. He did his affirmations. He did the self-examination ritual and found that he was chock-full of negative thoughts! Putting down Vaughn. Feeling superior. Pride in his aerosol gizmo. Whining about being bored. Sucking his thumb about sex. He did the blue-water meditation exercise, which almost always worked, but even though he was really focused, he couldn’t help but hear Vaughn say: ‘Oh man! Check it out!’ Must be something practically earthshaking to get that out of him, Tommy thought, but then he caught himself. Blue water! Focus! On task! He let the blue water fill up his mind, the level rising slowly until there wasn’t any space left, not even for a single thought. It was all blue. Just an ocean of no-think.

  Tommy had grown up around boats, that’s why he was on the team. He was at home in any kind of marina, comfortable with knots and lines, engines, docking and mooring. The others just followed his lead, and since he was at ease, and the two of them were decked out like tourists, nobody at the Belle Haven Marina paid them any mind. The boat had been leased for three weeks and towed up from Virginia Beach. Tommy himself had made the removable mounts for the water cannons two weeks ago. He and Vaughn had lugged the gear – concealed in coolers and canvas tote bags – on board. Belinda sat on deck, applying sunscreen. In nothing flat he had the Sundancer out of her slip and was picking his way through the congested area around the marina. A minute later they were out on
the open river.

  The sky was overcast, and there were only a few boats on the water, which was not surprising, since it was Tuesday. The operation was timed for midday, when people would be leaving their offices, walking to restaurants, and strolling or jogging on the Mall.

  Jets rumbled overhead, heading into National Airport. In the middle of the river, with the airport on one side and East Potomac Park on the other, he cut the engines and let the Sundancer drift. Then he set up the portable mounts while Vaughn and Belinda pretended to fish. When everything was squared away, he restarted the engines and headed upriver, moving closer and closer to the District shore.

  There were lots of people out, he could see that. There were joggers and bladers, bikers and golfers, tourists and mommies with their strollers. A little motorboat passed to starboard. Some kids in life vests waved. He waved back.

  Belinda had done a gazillion calculations, but the truth was, the operation wasn’t all that complicated. The main variables were humidity and wind direction, and the boat’s proximity to shore. The force of the water cannon was fixed, and so was its arc – which was optimal for droplet dispersion. But the closer they got to shore, the deeper their penetration would be. And the deeper their penetration, the more people would be hit. The wind was the biggest variable, though, because it had to be steady, and it had to come from one of two directions: northeast or southwest. Anything else and they’d have to abort.

  The boat was heading up the Potomac in a more or less northerly direction. This meant that if the wind was coming out of the northeast, they’d run as close to the Virginia shore as they could, and dump their load on the Pentagon. But if the wind was blowing from the southwest, as it was today, they’d run next to the District shoreline, shooting their payload into the air between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

  If they got enough penetration, the mist would reach the White House, and the President would start wheezing, just like everyone else. Which was funny as hell except, if he had his druthers, he’d have the wind coming the other way, so they could gas the Pentagon. It was only a test, after all, and he liked the idea of fucking up the military.

  Still, they had some good targets, even with a southwesterly wind. They’d begin spraying at the 14th Street Bridge, which would give them coverage from the Jefferson Memorial all the way up to the Kennedy Center – and everything in between. Like the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, and the athletic fields behind the Tidal Basin.

  It would be a helluva hit, if it weren’t just a test.

  When they reached the 14th Street Bridge, which was bumper-to-bumper with traffic, Tommy went aft to ready the aerosolizer. As Belinda piloted the boat, he showed Vaughn exactly what to do, then went below and switched everything on.

  And it worked perfectly. You could barely see the plume, the mist was so fine. It arced into the sky and disappeared, trailing a rainbow. ‘We got liftoff, man!’

  Belinda laughed, and Vaughn said what he always said when he was excited: ‘Oh boy.’

  ‘Gimme five!’

  Vaughn held up his hand next to his face, like he was swearing on the Bible, and when Tommy smacked it, the hand bent back, limp as a glove.

  Talk about a killer nerd, Tommy thought, this guy did not have a clue.

  16

  RUNNING ON THE Mall was Annie’s idea.

  Usually, he ran along the towpath, or else through Rock Creek Park, but the Mall’s broad paths were a nice change – if a little crowded. And it was easy to talk because there weren’t any hills to take your breath away.

  He liked the way Annie ran. Walking, she seemed a little awkward, like a self-conscious schoolgirl dragged to the front of the class. But running was different. She moved in an easy, graceful way, her long legs gliding over the ground.

  Reaching the Lincoln Memorial, they pounded up the steps, side by side, then turned at the top to catch their breath and look at the view they’d run through.

  ‘It’s like Seurat,’ Annie said.

  ‘The guy with the dots.’

  ‘Afternoon –’

  ‘On the Grande Jatte.’

  People were everywhere: in cars, on bikes and Rollerblades. Jogging and picnicking. Strolling along the Potomac. Planes rumbled overhead on their way in and out of National Airport. Motorboats plied the river’s broad expanse. And everywhere, there were monuments: Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, and Einstein. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The Reflecting Pool. The Capitol.

  Halfway back, they found themselves running beside a makeshift playing field on which a hotly contested game of touch football was being played. As they ran, a badly shanked punt sent the ball out of bounds, where it took a couple of long and crazy bounces, rolling toward the street.

  ‘Little help!’ someone called.

  Instinctively, Frank retrieved the ball, turned and threw a perfect spiral to the punter, a clothesline pass that covered forty yards in the air.

  ‘Whooaa!’ the man exclaimed as the ball thudded into his chest. ‘You wanta play?’ Frank shook his head, gave a little wave and continued jogging.

  ‘We could play,’ Annie said. ‘If you want to.’

  ‘Nah . . . I don’t play football.’

  ‘You coulda fooled me. That was like . . . the Redskins or something.’

  He shrugged. ‘I used to play,’ he said.

  ‘But you could really throw that thing.’

  He picked up the pace a little, forcing her to catch up. She was trying to be nice, but . . . he didn’t want to get into it. Football made him think of his father, and . . . I wonder if he’s still alive. The thought was almost an idle one.

  They ran in silence for a while, with Annie wondering at his mood. Finally, she changed the subject, whatever the subject was and however unspoken it had been: ‘So!’ she blurted. ‘Is it over?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The Kopervik story. You’re at a dead end, right?’

  ‘No!’ he replied, offended. ‘I’m not at a dead end.’

  ‘But what can you do?’

  ‘Lots of things,’ he said.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Follow out the leads.’

  ‘What leads?’ she asked.

  He glanced at her. Good question. ‘I don’t know. There are lots of leads.’

  Annie laughed. Then she dodged a kid on a bicycle and, returning to his side, repeated the question. ‘What leads?’ she asked, looking up at him.

  ‘What are you, Torquemada?’ Frank asked.

  ‘I’m just curious,’ she said.

  ‘Okay . . . the flag!’ Frank suggested. ‘The flag’s a lead.’

  ‘You mean on the helicopter?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  She thought about that as they ran, and then: ‘How’s that going to help?’

  Frank rolled his eyes, a remarkably ineffective gesture for a man on the run. ‘It’s an American flag,’ he said, ‘so I figure it’s probably an American ship. So maybe the bodies came to an American port.’

  ‘Yeaaah?’

  ‘Well, there’d have to be a record of it,’ Frank said.

  ‘Unless they smuggled them in.’

  ‘Except, maybe it’s not so easy to smuggle them in. I mean, not if you had to keep them cold.’

  ‘And you would!’ Annie exclaimed, her voice so clear and emphatic that a couple passing the other way stared at her. She blushed and lowered her voice. ‘I mean you would if you wanted the virus. It wouldn’t survive above freezing.’

  ‘And once they got into the States –’

  ‘They’d need a lab to work with the virus.’

  ‘What kind of lab?’ Frank asked.

  He didn’t get an answer right away. She was thinking, and as she thought, she slowed down. Frank adjusted his pace.

  ‘If they had a Cold Room, like a big commercial freezer?’ She was walking now, and so was he. ‘They could take core samples from the bodies – starting with the lungs – and work with a little bit of tissue at a time. That way
, they wouldn’t need spacesuits. They could work with glove boxes.’ She frowned.

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  She shook her head and chuckled ruefully. ‘God! I can’t believe it!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m actually worrying about them. I’m thinking – like – “I hope they realize that, even in the Cold Room, you have to be careful when you take samples. Some of the instruments can get hot, and if that happens, you could aerosolize the virus.”’ She shook her head. ‘I’m sorry. I’m babbling. I’m thinking, “I hope they know what they’re doing.” But do I?’

  ‘Tom Deer thinks it’s a pharmaceutical company,’ Frank said.

  Annie looked skeptical.

  When they reached the steps to the Capitol, they ran to the top, arriving completely out of breath – though Annie had enough strength left to raise her fists into the air, bouncing triumphantly from one leg to another, acting like Rocky.

  In the car, on the way back to her place, she picked up the conversation where they’d left it.

  ‘So!’ she said. ‘The flag. What do you do with it?’

  ‘Well,’ Frank replied, turning onto the parkway, ‘the first thing I did was call the State Department. Told them I’m doing a story about Americans who die abroad. How do their bodies get back to the States?’

  ‘But these were Norwegians,’ Annie said.

  ‘Yeah, but if they said they were Americans . . . I mean –’

  ‘Okay. Then what?’

  ‘Well, it turns out there are all kinds of regulations, rules about mortuary certificates, various kinds of containers, how they’re sealed . . . God knows what else. Anyway, then I called Customs, which oversees human remains coming into the States.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘We danced around for a while, and then I just asked them.’

  ‘Asked them what?’

  ‘If anybody brought five bodies into the country, how could I find them?’ A cop car hurtled past, going dangerously fast. ‘Jesus! You see that guy?’ Frank made the turn off Beach Drive and stopped at the light. The Saab stalled, and it took him half a dozen cranks and quite a bit of revving to get it going again.