Ground Zero

by Kevin J. Anderson

  “I just wish we had the information to solve this case,” Scully said.

  “If wishes were horses…” Mulder began.

  Scully shuddered, thinking of the equine corpse at the White Sands Missile Range. “I withdraw the comment.”

  They arrived at the converted barracks building and left their car in a Government Vehicle Only parking space. This time, Mulder knew to take a paper respirator mask to protect himself from wild asbestos fibers floating in the air. Handing another mask to Scully, he helped her fasten it over her hair. He carefully scrutinized his partner’s new appearance.

  “It’s a fashion statement,” he said. “I like it.”

  “First dosimeters and now breathing masks,” Scully said. “This place is a health nut’s paradise.”

  Down the corridor the construction workers had moved the translucent plastic barrier curtains after demolishing another entire section of the wall. A loud generator roared, maintaining negative air pressure in the enclosed work area, supposedly to prevent the lightweight asbestos fibers from drifting past the barricade.

  “Down here,” Mulder said, turning right and motioning for Scully to follow. “Bear Dooley’s new office makes my basement at Bureau Headquarters look like Club Med.”

  When they reached Dooley’s temporary office, the door stood wide open, despite the racket of crowbars and the generator and shouts from the workmen.

  “Excuse me—Mr. Dooley?” Mulder called. “I don’t know how you can work in this environment.”

  But when Mulder popped his head inside, the office appeared abandoned. The desk had been cleared, the file drawers taped shut. Framed photos were still stacked in cardboard boxes and various office paraphernalia lay scattered in disarray, as if someone had packed up frantically, leaving unnecessary items behind. Mulder pursed his lips and glanced around.

  “Looks like nobody’s home,” Scully said.

  Suddenly a young redheaded man entered the office. With his glasses, plaid shirt, and pocket stuffed full of pens, he looked like a poster boy for the “nerd’s dress code.” His badge identified him as Victor Ogilvy. Mulder couldn’t tell if the young man was smiling or frowning behind his white breathing mask.

  “Are you the Department of Defense people?” Ogilvy asked quickly. “We’ve got the preliminary reports ready, but nothing else I can deliver to you just yet.”

  “We’re looking for Mr. Bear Dooley,” Mulder said. “Can you tell us where he is?”

  Behind his round eyeglasses, Victor Ogilvy blinked rapidly. “Well, that was in the initial briefing. I’m sure of it. He left for San Diego last Thursday morning. The Dallas should arrive at the atoll in another day or two. The rest of us are getting all packed up to be flown out.”

  “Flown out to where?” Mulder asked.

  The question took Ogilvy entirely by surprise. “What do you mean? Are you sure you’re from the Department of Defense?”

  Scully stepped forward. “We never said we were, Mister Ogilvy.” She flipped out her badge and ID. “Federal agents. I’m Special Agent Dana Scully, and this is my partner Agent Mulder. We need to ask you a few questions about Bright Anvil and the death of Dr. Gregory…and this test that’s taking place out on an atoll in the Pacific,” she said.

  Mulder was amazed at how quickly and easily she had put together the details into a rapid, professional-sounding string of inquiries.

  Ogilvy’s eyes bulged out so far that they practically bumped the lenses of his glasses. He stumbled over his words. “I…I don’t think I should say any more,” he said. “It’s classified.”

  Mulder noted how intimidated the young man was and decided to press his advantage. “Didn’t you hear what Agent Scully said? We’re with the FBI.” He said the words with dire import. “You have to answer our questions.”

  “But I could lose my clearance,” Ogilvy said.

  Mulder shrugged. “One way or the other. Would you like me to start quoting you FBI statutes? How about this one: if you refuse to cooperate with our ongoing investigation, I just might cite you under Statute 43H of the FBI Code.”

  Scully quickly squeezed his arm. “Mulder!”

  He shook his head. “Let me handle this, Scully. Victor here doesn’t know what kind of trouble he could get himself into.”

  “I…” Victor Ogilvy said, “I think you should talk to our Department of Energy representative. She’s authorized to answer those types of questions. If she gives me the go-ahead, then I can respond. You’ll have no cause to cite me. Honest!”

  Mulder sighed. He had just lost this round. “Well, get her on the phone so we can talk to her.”

  Ogilvy rummaged around Bear Dooley’s abandoned desk until he found a Teller Nuclear Research Facility phone listing. He nervously paged through it, then punched in the number for Rosabeth Carrera.

  Scully leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Statute 43H?”

  “Unauthorized Use of the Smoky the Bear Symbol,” Mulder mumbled, smiling sheepishly. “But he doesn’t know that.”

  Within moments Rosabeth Carrera was on the phone. Her voice started out rich and sweet, its Hispanic undertones mostly hidden. She sounded polite, helpful. “Good morning, Agent Mulder. I didn’t know you had returned from New Mexico.”

  “Seems like a lot has happened over the weekend,” he said. “Most of Dr. Gregory’s team has disappeared, and we can’t get any answers on what’s happened to them. Since they are quite clearly involved in this case, we’ll need to interview them further—especially now that we’ve uncovered a clear connection between Dr. Emil Gregory and the other victim at White Sands.”

  Scully’s eyebrows shot up. Mulder was overstating his case, but Carrera had no way of knowing it.

  “Agent Mulder,” Carrera said, her voice a bit crisper now, “Dr. Gregory was working on a very important project for this laboratory and for the United States government. Such projects have milestones and schedules and a great deal of momentum behind them. People in very high political circles have a lot at stake in seeing that the research continues as planned. I’m afraid we can’t call our scientists back on a whim.”

  “This is no whim, Ms. Carrera,” Mulder said, growing more formal. “Your main researcher is dead under highly suspicious circumstances, and now another victim has turned up at the White Sands Missile Range, killed by the same means. I think that’s ample reason for proceeding with caution and asking a few more questions before moving on to the next stage. I’d like you to postpone this Bright Anvil test.”

  “Bright Anvil? No such test has been announced,” Carrera answered.

  “Let’s not play games,” he said. “It wastes valuable telephone time.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible,” Carrera said dismissively. “Dr. Gregory’s work will go on, as planned.”

  Mulder took the challenge. “I can make some calls to Bureau Headquarters, and I’ve got a few connections in the Department of Defense.”

  Carrera’s tone was brisk, almost abrupt. “Make whatever phone calls you feel you have to, Agent Mulder. But Dr. Gregory’s test will take place as scheduled. No question about it. The government has many priorities, and I have no doubt that you will find that your murder investigation is rather far down the list compared to the national interests that are at stake.”

  After he hung up, Scully said, “From the look on your face, I take it Rosabeth Carrera didn’t bend over backward to offer you her assistance.”

  Mulder sighed. “I’ve had more helpful conversations.”

  Victor Ogilvy hovered nervously by the door. “Does that mean I don’t have to answer your questions?”

  Mulder shot him a quick glare. “Depends on how badly you want to be on my Christmas card list.”

  The young redhead quickly ducked out of sight.

  Scully put her hands on her hips and turned to face Mulder. “Well then, I guess it’s my turn to ferret out some details,” she said. “Time to check my other source of information.”

  SEVENT
EEN

  Stop Nuclear Madness! Headquarters

  Monday, 3:31 P.M.

  Scully returned to the headquarters of the Berkeley antinuclear protest group, but when she trudged down the half-flight of stairs to the bomb-shelter basement, she found the temporary offices in the sort of chaos that might be expected at a fly-by-night business suddenly afraid of a bust.

  A group of student volunteers busied themselves removing the posters of Nagasaki victims from the walls, the poignant photographs of homeless Bikini Islanders, the long listing of aboveground atomic bomb tests, and the colorful graphs showing cancer statistics.

  Scully stepped through the door and stared at all the movement, the confusion, the shouting. Behind the fabric room dividers, the exhausted photocopier still whirred, working overtime.

  Standing on a stepstool, the receptionist, Becka Thorne, yanked push pins from the wall to release the draped, dot-matrix banner that warned against a second nuclear war. The black woman turned, her dress an even more dizzying riot of colors than her previous voluminous wrap had been, her hair still clumped together in its lumpy, tentacular dreadlocks.

  “I’m looking for Miriel Bremen again,” Scully shouted into the chaos. “Is she here?”

  Becka undid a last push pin, and half of the paper banner drooped to the floor like a falling streamer of fireworks. She climbed down off the stepstool and wiped her hands on her colorful dress. “You’re that FBI lady, right? Well, Miriel’s not here. As you can see we’re shutting down the office. No more Stop Nuclear Madness!”

  “You’re shutting down the office?” Scully asked. “Are you moving to a new location?”

  “No. Miriel just up and pulled our lease. We only had a month left in it anyway, but she handed it over to the next group coming in. These office spaces on campus are in great demand, you know.”

  Scully tried to understand. “Did your organization lose its funding unexpectedly?”

  Becka laughed. “Not in the least. We were probably the healthiest group Berkeley has seen in five years, lots of money dumped in from some corporation in Hawaii. But Miriel just pulled the plug and told us to call the next group on the waiting list. Said she had a change of heart, or something. Guess she became ‘born again’ again, but in another direction this time.”

  “What’s moving in here now?” Scully asked, still taken aback by the protester’s sudden disappearance. What could have driven Miriel Bremen to give up the work that had so ignited her passions that she would jettison her career and her security clearance, leaving a blot on her employment record that would haunt her for the rest of her working days.

  Becka Thorne gestured to the other volunteer workers. “It’s an environmental activist group,” she said. “I can show you some of their posters—very disturbing. They’re calling attention to increasing levels of environmental pollutants in our groundwater, how toxic chemicals are seeping into every part of our daily lives and causing an avalanche of health problems.”

  The receptionist flipped through several large foam-core posters, some with tables that listed organic and toxic chemicals discovered in a sample of everyday tap water. Scully recognized many of the organic substances, but others seemed like the ingredients from a chemistry set. Some of the listed concentrations gave Scully cause for concern, and she wondered if their “random” analysis was reproducible.

  She flipped to another chart that showed cancer statistics rising year after year—only this time they were blamed on toxic pollutants in the groundwater. The graph looked identical to the one used by Stop Nuclear Madness! that had connected the same increase in cancer to background radiation from nuclear tests in the 1950s.

  One of the student workers slid the stepstool to the other side of the wall with a loud rattling sound, then climbed up to pluck the remaining push pins. The entire paper banner fell rustling to the floor.

  “So what will you do with yourself now, Ms. Thorne?” Scully asked. “Does your group give you a reference to find a job someplace else?”

  Becka Thorne blinked at Scully with her huge brown eyes. “No, I’ll just work for the new group. I follow the protesters. Whatever cause they’ve got is fine with me. They’re all interesting. And everybody’s got a point, as far as I can see. Can’t trust anybody these days, you know—especially not the government. Uh, no offense to you.”

  Scully smiled. “I think my partner might agree with you.”

  Becka Thorne gave a quick smile, then wiped the perspiration off her forehead. “Well, send your partner down here then. We always need new recruits for our work.”

  Scully had to keep herself from laughing. “I think he’s too preoccupied for that—on this case, for instance.” She finally succeeded in getting back to the point. “We really need to talk to Miriel Bremen. Do you know how we can get in touch with her?”

  The receptionist looked at Scully carefully. “She didn’t leave a phone number, if that’s what you’re after—but mostly likely she’s gone to the islands, or something. When her conscience gets too bad, she sometimes goes off on these pilgrimages. She even went to Nagasaki once, another time to Pearl Harbor. Who knows where else? She’s a pretty private person, our Miriel.”

  Scully furrowed her brow. “So she’s somewhere in ‘the islands,’ but you have no idea where she might have gone? Jamaica? Tahiti? New Zealand?”

  Becka shrugged. “Look, Miss FBI—Miriel was in one hell of a hurry to get out of here. Came in last Friday afternoon and told us we were done—done. Just like that. She was turning over the lease, and the rest of us were on our own.

  “Oh, she thanked us for our efforts and told us to use her as a reference if we ever needed it—as if a big company would pay the slightest bit of attention to a reference from someone like Miriel Bremen! She’s just lucky most of us have our own connections with the protest groups around here. We’re not going to starve.”

  Scully handed Becka a business card. “If you learn where she is, Ms. Thorne, or if you get in touch with her, have her call me at this number. I think she’ll be willing to talk to me.”

  “If you say so,” the receptionist said. “We need to get back to work now. The environmental group wants to hold a rally this Saturday, and they’ve got flyers to go up on all the kiosks and light posts. We’ve got about a thousand phone calls to make. No rest around here. I sure wish I could go to the islands for a vacation.”

  Scully thanked her again and then left, climbing the concrete stairs to street level. She was deeply troubled. First Dr. Gregory had been killed in his office, and then Bear Dooley and his team had suddenly pulled up stakes and fled to the Pacific to set up their secret test, and now Miriel Bremen, former member of the Bright Anvil Project and outspoken radical protester against the test itself, had also left abruptly, heading out for “the islands.”

  Could it be a coincidence? Scully didn’t like coincidences.

  And how did old Oscar McCarron fit in?

  The pieces of the puzzle seemed too widely separated, yet connected by invisible threads. Scully just had to feel around until she found the connections that bound the mystery together. She and Mulder would just have to keep looking.

  The truth was out there. Somewhere.

  EIGHTEEN

  Scheck Residence, Gaithersburg, Maryland

  Monday, 6:30 P.M.

  Late afternoon in the Washington, D.C., area, hot and humid.

  The air hung as thick as a damp rag. Brooding thunderheads in the sky promised only an oppressive increase to the mugginess, rather than a refreshing and cooling rain shower.

  On days like this, Nancy Scheck felt that the hassle of maintaining an in-ground swimming pool in her fenced backyard paid off.

  She let the front screen door close by itself as she entered her brick-front house with the black shutters. Flowering dogwoods and a thick, well-trimmed hedge surrounded its white colonial pillars. It was just the kind of imposing mansion an important Department of Energy executive was supposed to own, and she relished it.<
br />
  Since she had been divorced for ten years and her three children were all grown and away at college, the place gave her plenty of room to breathe, space to move about. She enjoyed the freedom, the luxury.

  Such a mansion was far more than she needed, but Nancy Scheck didn’t like the implications of settling for a more modest dwelling, not now. All her career she had been concerned with moving up in the world, clawing her way to the top. Exchanging an impressive big house for a smaller one did not fit in with the plan.

  She dumped her briefcase on the small Ethan Allen telephone table in the front hall, then shucked out of her stifling business jacket. Her entire career had been inside the Beltway, and she was used to dressing in conservative formal outfits and uncomfortable pantyhose. At her level, such items were just as much of a required uniform as the quaint outfit a teenager wore behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant.

  At the moment, though, Nancy couldn’t wait to peel off her clothes, get into her sleek black one-piece swimsuit, and take a long, luxurious dip in the pool.

  She snagged the usual pile of mail and dropped it unceremoniously on the kitchen counter. She punched the answering machine to listen to the two recorded messages. The first was an offer from a company eager to come and give her a free, no-obligation quote for aluminum siding.

  She snorted. “Aluminum siding on my house? I think not.”

  The second message was in a rich, familiar voice. The words sounded formal and innocuous, but she could detect the hidden passion behind them that went orders of magnitude beyond a mere business relationship…or even good friendship.

  In her persona at work and at DOE social functions, she called him “Brigadier General Matthew Bradoukis.” During his frequent visits here in her backyard or on the patio, she allowed herself to call him “Matthew”—and while they were in bed, she moaned endearing and never-to-be-repeated names into his ear.

  He didn’t identify himself on the answering machine, not that he needed to. “It’s me. I’m a little late at the office so I won’t be over until seven-thirty or so. I’m going to stop by my house and pick up the two Porterhouse steaks I’ve been marinating in the fridge all day. We’ll throw them on the barbecue grill, then we can take a swim and…whatever. With so many parts of the project coming to a head, reaching their climax—”