“This is a matter of national security,” Wilson countered.
Burke paused a moment, studying the eBay listing. Then he observed, “But this is a book published in London in 1907?” He sounded earnestly befuddled. “How can the contents of this book be classified? How could my client be expected to know this is classified? I don’t see any markings or labels that might have indicated the page was classified.”
“All we want to know is what your client knows about this book,” Wilson asked.
“Unfortunately, any records my client may have had pertaining to any of his or his father’s property were destroyed in last night’s fire or are in your possession as the result of your search.” Burke pointed out. “Oh, that reminds me,” he added, “my client was never provided a copy of the warrant you executed on his parent’s house last night. Would you please provide me with, (1) a copy of the warrant as well as, (2) a receipt and list of any property you may have seized, and also (3) an itemized list of my client’s property destroyed in the fire due to your negligence and, (4) your written acknowledgement of responsibility as well as the damages you intend to pay?”
I marveled at how Mr. Burke completely dominated the interrogation. I had to grit my teeth to avoid breaking out in a smile. I got the impression Special Agent Wilson wasn’t used to tangling with an expert on a level playing ground.
“I will see to it that a warrant and list of seized property are delivered to your office, counselor” Wilson said. “The fire was an unfortunate accident – probably due to the negligence of your client’s father and the excessive quantity of dangerous electronic hardware. Now, I would like your client to explain what he knows about this.”
“I’m sorry, but I understand you seized my client’s property in a civil forfeiture procedure. I’m still confused. What is the crime my client or his father are alleged to have committed?”
“Your client’s father is a suspect in a cyber-terror investigation and his property was seized on that basis,” Wilson argued.
“What does this eBay book have to do with an act of cyber-terror?” Mr. Burke asked in feigned confusion. He sounded amazingly sincere.
“This eBay seller was not authorized to have this book and may have colluded or conspired with your client’s father,” Wilson was becoming increasingly irritated and flustered.
It was like watching a magician at work. Mr. Burke deftly ran Wilson around in circles again regarding the alleged conspiracy between my father and the eBay seller, all the while trying hard to be ever so helpful, but just not understanding what legal justification Wilson had for asking me about the book. Dad used to say that an hour of a maestro’s time is worth more than days of an amateur’s. I could see how that worked with lawyers. The sheriff sat back quietly, sternly, and just watched, his expressionless face pierced by steely cold eyes. I could tell Wilson was getting exasperated. Finally, Mr. Burke deigned to pass on Wilson’s question to me. “Son,” he said to me. “Did your father own this Lodge book?”
“Dad had lots of books,” I said flatly. ‘Dumb juvie,’ I told myself. ‘Little words. Simple sentences.’ “Or, he used to,” I added sadly, with genuine emotion. “I don’t know. I don’t remember him owning that one.” Which was true. I’d never laid my eyes on the original Lodge book with the bouncing waves language, only the edited version from the Tolliver Library – which was now in Uncle Rob’s possession, not that I was going to add anything about that. We only had the scans from the eBay seller. I hoped he wasn’t another victim of EVIL’s cover up. Now, Mr. Burke was asking me another question and I needed to stay focused.
“What about this paper Special Agent Wilson has? Do you have any knowledge of your father communicating with this eBay seller?”
“No,” I answered. Amit had communicated with the eBay seller, not Dad. “Dad had lots of papers,” I added. “He kept most of them in his study,” I offered earnestly, but unhelpfully.
Mr. Wilson didn’t press me further. He added. “What about the fire? What do you know about the fire?”
“My house wasn’t burning when you dragged me out of it,” I noted in a level voice.
“No,” said Mr. Wilson with frustration. “Not that fire. The library.”
“What library?” I looked confused. Did he mean Dad’s books in the study?
“The fire that burned down the Tolliver Library,” Wilson clarified.
Now it was my turn to be dumbfounded. So, that was why there’d been all the extra chaos and alarms and fire engines coming in from Knoxville. “I was in jail,” I explained. “I didn’t know there was a fire.”
“You didn’t know the Library burned down?” Mr. Wilson was incredulous.
“I don’t recall mentioning it to the kid,” the sheriff noted, levelly. “And he’s been locked up since I took him off your hands.”
I got the impression Wilson was tired of the runaround. Maybe he figured pursuing me wasn’t worth the hassle. Maybe he was simply biding his time until later. He gave up. That was about the end of the interrogation.
In an hour, I may have answered a handful of questions in total. For all the anxiety and worry and preparation, it was anticlimactic. Scratch that. It was a rout. Mr. Burke had stood his ground and dominated Special Agent Wilson. I didn’t doubt the power of EVIL. Wilson was dangerous. He and his crew would stick a knife in my back in a heartbeat if they thought they could get away with it and if they saw some advantage in doing so. At this time and place, though, EVIL was defeated. For now.
After Mr. Wilson left, the sheriff cleared his throat. “So all of this,” he said, fixing my gaze in his, “this is all about some old physics book?” He seemed incredulous. And really furious, although he was controlling himself with a noticeable effort. I didn’t blame him.
“Yes, sir.” I figured I owed the sheriff a direct answer for keeping me out of the clutches of EVIL.
The sheriff escorted me into the county courtroom with Mr. Burke following close behind. Uncle Rob was sitting there, and he gave me a subtle nod when our eyes caught. And there was… Uncle Larry? I was a bit surprised to see him, but there he was. He stood up, stopped the sheriff, put a hand on my shoulder, and said how sorry he was about my folks. He asked how I was holding up. I told him I was OK.
“Excuse me sir,” the sheriff said to him. “I need to escort the boy to the judge.”
Uncle Larry sat down, and I stood with Mr. Burke before the judge.
The hearing with the judge lasted just long enough for His Honor to express his regrets and condolences on the loss of my parents. Then he dismissed all charges. I was free to go. But where?
Uncle Larry, Mr. Burke, and Uncle Rob all wanted me to go with them. Both my uncles were strong-willed men used to getting their own way. And I’d just seen how ruthless and tenacious Mr. Burke could be when he put his mind toward it. I’d been coasting through the last day, letting Uncle Rob, Mr. Burke, and the Sheriff take care of me and tell me what to do. Not that I was complaining. Between the three of them, they’d gotten me out of the clutches of EVIL. Now, it was time for me to start taking back control of my own destiny.
I defused the argument. “Gentlemen,” I said. “I appreciate all your help and support, and I’m sure I’ll need more of it in the days to come. Let’s go across the street to Kudzu Joe’s and talk.”
Once we all settled in with our coffee, the first order of business was where I was going to stay. “Your parents’ last will and testament needs to be probated,” Mr. Burke explained to me. “It is held at my firm, and I took the liberty of making copies. Your Uncle Rob is executor of their estate as well as your guardian.” He passed copies to Rob and me.
“Your parents had life insurance, but the estate may be rather complicated to resolve,” Mr. Burke advised. “The feds seized your and your parents’ personal property and real estate in a civil forfeiture. Then it was mostly destroyed by fire. The government may argue that they exercised reasonable care and are not liable for any damages. They and the insur
ance company are likely going to have to fight that one out, and even if there’s a settlement, the government might try to claim it under the terms of the forfeiture. It’s not really my area, but I want to warn you it may be a long and complicated process.”
“A trailer up in the hills is no place for a young man who has just lost his parents,” Uncle Larry interrupted. He genuinely seemed to want the best for me. I could live in comfort and luxury with him, but I’d be always tense, always on edge around him and Aunt Nikki and Abby. Not to mention, his obvious interest in molding me into a future scion of the Tollivers completely creeped me out.
“That is a decision for the boy’s guardian to make,” Mr. Burke noted. I knew Uncle Rob was not about to let Uncle Larry have his way, but Uncle Larry was not used to being thwarted. I weighed in.
“I can stay with Uncle Rob for a while and see how it goes,” I assured Uncle Larry. He wasn’t happy, but he bowed to the inevitable. I was sure I’d be hearing more about this before too long, though.
“I understand the sheriff would like you to stay at the Berkshire Inn the next couple of nights,” Uncle Rob explained. “Kira can stay there with you.” She was on her way from Nashville. Uncle Rob and I would meet up with her, we’d have dinner with Uncle Larry, Aunt Nikki, and Abby, and then the three of us would head over to the hotel. I noticed a sheriff’s deputy come in. Joe handed him a cup of coffee for free. The deputy took his coffee back to his patrol car parked outside.
I thanked Uncle Larry for his support. Larry clearly wasn’t happy about leaving me with Rob, but there wasn’t much he could do in the face of Mr. Burke’s insistence that Rob was my guardian. He gave my hand a hearty shake, and he put his other hand on my shoulder. Then, he left.
“We’ll need to talk more later, once things settle down a bit,” Mr. Burke said, circumspectly. Ah, yes. He’d been working on the Xueshu Quan investigation. Rob and I thanked him, and he departed.
Finally, I was alone with Rob. “Amit sends his regards,” Rob explained. “I told him to lay low and keep out of it all. No sense dragging him in publicly while EVIL lurks about.”
The wall I had built to hold back the grief so I could carry on came crashing down.
“I as good as killed my parents,” I looked Uncle Rob in the eye. “I know I didn’t do it directly. I know EVIL is ultimately responsible. But still, I set it all in motion, and they died because of me.”
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of EVIL is for good men to do nothing,” my uncle observed wryly. “Don’t think of your parents as passive victims. Don’t you ever think of them that way,” he insisted. “Your parents chose to do something. They turned their backs on safety and sanctuary. We call it ‘running to the sound of the guns.’ They had my friend drop them back at their car. Probably figured they could take the back roads in from Nashville and make it to my place. Maybe their car was found where they left it and EVIL put a trace on it. Maybe they were spotted by law enforcement somewhere along the way who called EVIL in. I don’t know.
“Your folks’ death probably saved you. It drew all the attention to your father and to Mr. Burleson. It made them the scapegoats and set up a firewall that kept you and the rest of us safe. If EVIL had captured and interrogated him and your mom… well let’s not go there. Your folks did what they thought was right at the moment. They did the best they could with the information and resources they had. Even looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, I can’t honestly say they made the wrong choice.”
I was going to have to think on that.
We drove by Tolliver Library, or what was left of it. The deputy’s patrol car tailed us. They still had the library site cordoned off, and a team was picking through the debris. The entire structure collapsed in on itself – only a few jagged fragments of wall thrust defiantly upward. EVIL was so determined to keep its secrets to itself that it wiped out an entire library. The wholesale destruction of knowledge seemed yet another horror, yet another abomination on this day that had already seen so much tragedy.
Then we went by the remains of my house – a few scorched walls, a chimney, a pile of debris. Dad’s antenna hung limply, the transmission line severed where it melted. I got out and walked through the debris, recognizing small bits and pieces and fragments of my former life. I saw some tiles from the upstairs bathroom. I saw a shattered piece of my father’s china lamp. No one knew exactly where it came from or how old it was. That lamp had burned whale oil, and later kerosene. It survived the Civil War and the confiscation of the family homestead up in the Cove. Carefully removed from the second farm near Oak Ridge before the final seizure, my great-grandfather converted it to electricity. It served three more generations of our family, illuminating countless meals and gatherings in our dining room, only to come to an end last night. I picked up and pocketed the shard.
The only place more or less intact was the old tree house. I climbed up. When I was a boy, my dad built the tree house and installed the control panel from an old washing machine. The tree house was my space ship, and the washing machine buttons and knobs were the controls. Someone had ripped it apart, looking for evidence I supposed, then decided it wasn’t worth seizing. I put it back together, taking advantage of the first real privacy I’d had all day to cry. I hadn’t been up there to play in years. I surveyed the ruins of my former home from the vantage point of my space ship’s bridge. I set the controls – full speed ahead – warp 9. I hit the “engage” button. I gathered myself back together, wiped my tears away, and climbed down.
I pulled the shard of antique lamp from my pocket and looked at it. The lamp – and my former life – were no more. I had a new life to build now. I couldn’t just cling to the broken fragments of the past. I threw the shard back into the rubble, and I walked to where Uncle Rob was waiting in his truck.
“That patrol car has been following us,” I told him.
“I know,” he acknowledged. “Sheriff’s keeping an eye on you in case the feds make a move. Let’s check in to the hotel and go meet Kira.”
“Smuggling me in the back door to hide out is one thing, but is it a good idea for us all to stay in the same hotel a few days with the EVIL feds?”
“I checked with Amit,” Uncle Rob explained. “The EVIL feds are enjoying their Double Platinum suite upgrades at a Berkshire Inn closer in to Knoxville. The investigation is centering on Jim Burleson, not on us here.”
We went to meet Kira.
* * *
I skipped school on Monday. Uncle Rob took me to the store and bought me some new clothes. Kira was distant. I think she held me responsible for our parents’ deaths. I couldn’t blame her. She was spending most of her time catching up with friends. A deputy shadowed Rob and me wherever we went. There was even a deputy staying across the hall from us in the hotel. The sheriff wasn’t taking any chances. The inquest into my parents’ deaths was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon. Rob let me know that the sheriff had asked to meet with us. We met the sheriff at Kudzu Joe’s Tuesday morning. Joe had a back room he sometimes closed off for private parties. Bill Burke drove from Knoxville to join us. The sheriff arrived not long thereafter. We got a round of coffee and settled in for our meeting.
“Thanks for coming,” Sheriff Gunn said gruffly. Looked like he still hadn’t seen much sleep. “This is one of the prettiest tangles of lies and half-truths I ever have seen,” he explained. “But, I think the kid is in the clear, assuming y’all don’t go poking around and making a fuss.”
Mr. Burke began. “I have certain obligations as an officer of the court, as do you, Sheriff. Neither of us can go about suppressing evidence, let alone to a capital crime like the murder of my client’s parents.”
“Oh you don’t have to worry yourself any on that score, counselor,” the sheriff said. “This afternoon at the inquest, the duly appointed triers of fact will hear all the evidence from distinguished expert forensic analysts, brought in by the director’s own most special FBI agents. I even wrote up most everything
I’m about to tell you, only to have His Honor tell me it wasn’t credible and my opinions didn’t hold any weight against such distinguished outside experts.”
“And mark my words,” the sheriff predicted, “they will be concluding that your client and his wife suffered an accidental death in a collision of such extreme violence as to cause instant death at the hands of a drunk driver, who then hopped out of his car and has not yet been found. So what I am about to tell you are the amateur observations of a poorly qualified yokel, who just happened to be at the scene not long after the accident. Understand?”
“Very well,” said Mr. Burke.
“I’ll tell you what I know and what I think,” the sheriff continued. “But, first I want the truth.”
“You’ve seen these men won’t hesitate to kill if they think you have a piece of their secret or even if they think you realize their secret exists,” Rob cautioned. “If they knew we knew what we know, we’d be dead in a couple of days or less. You join our little club, and you’ll be a marked man too. You have to keep this a secret.”
“Your brother could have told you about the secrets I’ve kept,” the sheriff said. “so talk.”
Rob nodded at me.
“We call them EVIL – the Electromagnetic Villains International League,” I began. What once seemed a whimsical joke was now devoid of any humor. I told the sheriff about the book with the bouncing waves language. I described the disturbingly high mortality rate among the pioneers of electromagnetics. I discussed meeting Nicole, getting the Xueshu Quan list from her and how we presumed that EVIL had strangled her and killed her co-worker from the bookstore in a hit-and-run. I relegated Amit to a very minor role, and left out his ability to keep track of them and tap into EVIL’s communications. The sheriff probed all the while, asking questions.
“You still don’t know why this bouncing waves stuff is so important?” the sheriff asked.
“No, sir,” I said. “I think I understand it. The concept seems very simple. It’s a bit counter-intuitive, maybe, but apparently EVIL will do whatever it takes to suppress the truth and kill anyone who comes near it.”
The Hidden Truth: A Science Fiction Techno-Thriller Page 25