“You never go wrong trusting the worst in people, do you?”
“The day I do, I can retire happy,” Jack replied. “It’ll mean humankind is saved.”
“You’ve got a job for life,” Doc laughed.
Jack grinned, still looking for the right building. They passed the Center for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry, the Center for Micro- and Nanotechnology, the High Explosives Applications Facility, the Jupiter Laser Facility, and the Joint Genome Institute before Doc spoke up.
“So where do we park for The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s Discovery Center?”
Jack was about to answer when the vehicle’s installed computer system beat him to it. “The Discovery Center is located off Greenville Road on Eastgate Drive,” said a calm female voice from the dashboard. “There is parking on site. Would you like me to give you directions?”
“No,” the two men said at the same time. As much as burgeoning technology interested them, they were both a bit old-fashioned when it came to talking cars. Or women telling them how to drive.
“I’ll find it myself, thank you,” Doc growled.
“You don’t have to apologize to the dashboard, Doc,” Jack jibed as he opened the door.
“Shut up,” Doc replied pleasantly as he stepped out, stretching. “Who are you seeing again?”
“Mel Connors, the media relations director. We’ve had a somewhat jousting relationship during my Truth Tellers years, but he once admitted I kept him honest about possible government excess in his programs. He said he’d point me in the right direction.”
By then Doc had found the Discovery Center and they joined a surprisingly large group milling around the lobby.
“All these people going to see your friend?” Doc wondered as he studied the myriad group of everyone from suit-and-tie business types to leather-clad latter-day hippies.
Jack frowned, then motioned Doc to follow him to the Information Desk. He smiled at the woman seated there. “I have an appointment with Mel Connors. My name is Jack Hatfield.”
“Welcome to the Laboratory’s Discovery Center,” she said pleasantly. “One moment, please.”
While she called over to Connors’s office, Jack turned back to Doc, who was still surveying the crowd.
“They’re having a lecture today,” Doc informed him, nodding to a poster and banner located near the entrance to an auditorium. “Part of an open series, apparently.”
Jack gave a small grunt in reply, busy thinking about how best to approach Connors—and how much to tell him.
“Excuse me, Mr. Hatfield?” the woman at the desk said. “His office has informed me that something has come up and Mr. Connors has asked for your patience. He’ll be down as soon as he can.”
“Do you have any idea how soon is soon?” Doc asked. Patience was not his greatest virtue.
“I’m sorry, I don’t,” the woman said behind a tolerant smile. “Please feel free to visit our exhibits while you wait, or we have a nice cafeteria in the building. I’ll page you as soon as Mr. Connors is available.”
Jack thanked her, resisting the urge to probe what the delay was. He turned to Doc with a sigh. “Want to go to a lecture?”
“Not especially,” Doc admitted. He was the kind of guy who liked to learn by doing, not by listening. “But it beats sitting in a lobby.”
Jack followed Doc to the signpost listing the lectures. Today’s talk was Security in the 21st Century and the speaker was General Thomas Brooks.
Doc nodded in recognition. “Second-ranking officer in the U.S. Special Command,” he informed Jack. Doc had seemingly been in every field of battle since ’Nam, and had an encyclopedic knowledge of the military. “On second thought, this might be interesting.”
“Sure,” Jack said, “if you don’t mind the same old party line. You know, ‘We’re facing grave times and ominous threats, but give us carte blanche and trust us.’ On second thought, you go ahead if you want to. I’ll be in the café.”
“We’re like a married couple,” Doc teased. “When I want to do something you don’t and vice versa.”
“I look at it as partners covering more ground,” Jack said.
He started to walk away when a text came in on his smartphone. It was from Sammy. The message was Getting close, sit tight and the attached picture showed the online newspaper clipping from the Flower & Garden Show.
Jack looked at the clipping as he walked toward the cafeteria, his eyes absently taking it all in, then froze. He enlarged the photo’s caption: “Son, Thomas, daughter, Brook.”
Jack turned back toward the lecture series’ poster. His eyes seemed to zoom in on today’s speaker’s name. “No,” he said quietly. “It couldn’t be.”
He hurried over to Doc, who was filing in with the eggheads. Doc turned in slight surprise as Jack’s hand clapped on his shoulder in the lecture hall doorway.
“I changed my mind,” Jack said. “This might be interesting after all.”
“You’re definitely the female part of this marriage,” Doc joked.
The lecture turned out to be very interesting. Far from being a bore, General Thomas Brooks was an electrifying speaker. While he didn’t quite come up to the standards set by Patton, a man whose name he seemed to insert in every other sentence, Brooks was definitely the real deal—the sort of man who could look a soldier in the face and get him to run directly into enemy fire.
“The world doesn’t realize that we’re at war,” Brooks was saying. “Iran is the tip of the iceberg. Islam and the West are on a collision course. The two will clash in a cataclysm of unprecedented violence and destruction. Whether the bomb comes from Iran, or Pakistan, Saudi Arabia—we are looking at Armageddon.”
“He’s playing your song,” Doc whispered.
Jack shushed him. He’d never heard a general—one still in the army—speak so candidly and openly about the dangers of radical Islam. Generals these days were extremely wary creatures, kowtowing to the status quo and political COWARDICE.
Not so Thomas Brooks. He said everything Jack had said on Truth Tellers, but with three stars on his shoulders. They could label Jack a racist, they could hound him off the air, but here was this military leader, second ranking in the Special Command, and no one was coming after him, and no one was shouting him down.
As the general passionately continued, Jack forgot Mel Connors and began visualizing Brooks speaking to Montgomery Morton this way.
“This is the truth about twenty-first century security,” the general concluded. “This is why we have the Patriot Act. This is why we have the NSA. I don’t mind hearing people complain about wiretaps. I don’t mind hearing people complain about security cameras. I’ve got bad news for those people. It’s not enough.”
The speech ended to polite, even shocked, applause. Several men and women—some of whom wore head scarves—had already walked out. Jack realized that many had attended to come away feeling safe, and were not expecting such a blunt call to action. But those people were not Jack Hatfield. He got up as Brooks began taking questions, and moved toward the side of the room. Doc followed.
“You got the digicam?” Jack whispered. Doc made a face as if to say “of course.” He had already palmed it and turned it on.
There was a door behind the stage and a man in uniform stood there—undoubtedly one of the general’s bodyguards. And there was Mel Connors, sitting at the end of the front row—the general’s official host, no doubt, with two more uniforms to their right. Well, no wonder. This lecture, apparently, was the “something that came up.”
Jack waited until the questions petered out, then moved up to the front, arriving just behind Mel as he congratulated the general on his performance.
“So,” said Jack, loud enough to draw the general’s attention, “as Patton said about Russia, war is inevitable and it’s better fought sooner rather than later.”
The general turned to see who was talking. He regarded Jack over a crowd of supporters. The look in his eyes was pa
rt challenge, part query.
Jack pressed on quickly, fearing he might get muscled away. “Once Iran has a nuclear weapon, it will be used. Whether by them or by other Middle Eastern countries who feel that they need the bomb as well. Because the Sunnis are not going to allow the Shia to have one. Am I right?”
Brooks nodded noncommittally. His eyes were now fixed on Jack’s.
He knows more than he’s saying, Jack thought.
“There’s no evidence that Saudi Arabia or any other country in the Middle East, outside of Iran, is interested in a weapon,” Mel Connors piped up, answering the group in general and Jack in particular.
“What about something nonnuclear?” Jack asked. “Know anyone out there who might be interested in trumping the Saddam Hussein or Bashar al-Assad strategy of gassing their own people?”
“How do you trump that?” a voice in the group asked.
“Weaponized bacteria or viruses,” Jack said. “Something launched with a cold delivery system.”
“A ‘cold’ delivery system?” Connors said mockingly. “Explosive grout, you mean. It’s used in demolition and mining to localize damage.”
“So far,” Jack countered. “But you’re avoiding the larger question.”
“Not avoiding. This isn’t the time or—”
“The Soviets played around with botulism, smallpox, anthrax, and Ebola,” Jack went on. “The Japanese terrorists Aum Shinrikyo sent people to the Congo during an Ebola outbreak in the 1990s to collect samples.”
Connors chuckled. Jack thought it had a nervous rattle to it. “You’re just looking for a sensational headline,” he said.
“Actually, sir, what I’m looking for is the truth.”
Connors replied coolly, “We’ve been through this mistake in Iraq, and it cost us dearly.”
“I don’t know that there’s no evidence,” said Jack, keeping his gaze on Brooks. “Another country could obtain uranium much more quickly than Iran did.”
Connors scoffed. “Now come on, Jack. You don’t understand the science.”
“Don’t have to. I understand robbery.”
“What does that mean?” Connors demanded.
Brooks continued to regard Hatfield. “Do I know you?” asked the general.
“Possibly.” Jack elbowed through the crowd that parted—not like the waters before Moses but like Romans before a leper. Jack stuck out his hand. “Jack Hatfield, formerly of Truth Tellers. I’m working on a documentary on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. I would love to do a formal interview with you.”
Brooks looked intrigued, but only for a moment. “I’m not sure I’ll have the time.”
“At your convenience,” said Jack, pulling out a business card. He handed it over and the general slipped it into his pocket. Jack knew it was a good sign because he didn’t hand it to a subordinate or bodyguard.
The other members of the audience closed ranks again, pressing around Brooks to ask questions. Jack slipped back, listening to people talk as they filed out. The crowd around the general was astoundingly starry-eyed. “Shouldn’t America use nuclear weapons first?” one man asked. “Why were Muslims more likely to use the bomb than Americans?” asked another.
It wasn’t so much their extreme politics that struck Jack—he had espoused those very positions at various times, but as part of a larger policy of rebuilding national stature. Rather, it was the naïveté of the group that bothered him. They wanted satisfaction now. They had been brutalized by terrorists, by the economy, by their own ineffective government and were looking to lash out. All they needed was a ringleader. As the Germans had learned, that never worked out well.
Jack started to retreat with Doc, but backward, so Doc could keep the camera on Brooks and company. He caught a glare from Mel Connors, who must have noticed the video, but Jack just smiled. The PR man would get over it.
Normally Jack would already be planning to follow up with e-mails and calls to the general, but he was fairly certain those would not be necessary. The general would want to hear more. No doubt he saw an ally in Jack, one who could help sell his vision of the future. Jack and Doc were about to slip out the main entrance just as Brooks was about to do the same in the back. The general kept going, but Jack froze. For, in that brief moment that the door opened just wide enough for Brooks to slip through, Jack, even from across the room, could see who was waiting for him.
General Montgomery Morton.
15
Brooks finally succeeded in escaping the small pack of sycophants and brown-nosers, ducking away with the media relations director, Mel Connors, and Morton. The latter started to lead the group to the Center’s private parking lot.
“Hatfield’s interesting,” mused Brooks.
“That’s not the word I’d use for him,” Connors grumbled.
The general smiled at the publicity director. “And what would that word be?”
“It’s actually four words,” Connors confessed. “Pain in the ass.”
Brooks chuckled. “Funny. That’s what they call me as well.”
By then they had reached the government black Suburban. The two generals got into the back of the car while the bodyguards got in front. The Lab men made their good-byes, and the bodyguards raised the soundproof glass between the front and rear seats, but Morton didn’t speak until the car was well on its way back to San Francisco.
“Hatfield was the one questioning Schoenberg during the press conference,” he said.
“I know,” the general replied. “It’s rare to meet a journalist who not only understands what I’m talking about but can reach the obvious conclusions.”
“That doesn’t concern you?” Morton asked.
“Not yet,” said Brooks. “What else do you know about him?”
“He was a cable talk show host,” said Morton. “He got kicked off the air for saying the same things you do. Only you don’t have advertisers to answer to.” Morton fleetingly thought about adding, You have the entire population of the United States to answer to, but thought better of it. He, too, had the entire U.S. population to answer to, plus-one: General Thomas Brooks, and that extra man made all the difference. “He asked you about stolen material,” Morton reminded his mentor. “That doesn’t raise any alarms?”
“He’s a journalist with good sources and a good mind,” Brooks replied. “Let’s wait and see what he does with any suspicions he may have. More importantly, what’s going on with the fusing system?”
Morton was looking out the window, oblivious to the sudden change in subject matter and the question hanging in the air. When had he changed from a general himself, with major responsibilities, to Brooks’s adjunct? When you agreed to help bomb Mecca, that’s when.
“Monty!”
“Yes?” Morton suddenly snapped to attention.
“The fuses?” Brooks repeated with smiling lips but unsmiling eyes.
“Almost there.”
“The lens?” pressed the general.
“That’s been in place for days. The fuses are the last pieces we need.”
“Good. Is it going to work?”
The question caught Morton off-guard. “It’s all new technology. The experts are agreed: in theory, nothing should go wrong.”
Brooks settled slightly in his seat. “The A-bomb was new, once. All right. I can live with that. And Schoenberg?”
“He still wants to meet with you.”
Brooks’s response was cold, stony silence.
“I can’t put him off,” Morton complained. “He’s not satisfied with me. He knows—everyone knows—you’re the boss.”
Brooks opened his mouth to say that he needed his second-in-command to be more assertive, then shut it again. Morton was right. He was the man in charge, the one people wanted to hear from. And that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It meant that when they did get to see him, his word—brief, handed down like the laws from Moses—was law.
“Is there something in particular he wants to discuss?” t
he general asked.
“The operation, and something new,” Morton replied. “As it happens, it’s this reporter. Hatfield had some pointed questions about Der Warheit Unternehmen’s earlier deals with Iran.”
“I like him more with each passing minute.”
“This could be pretty damning for Der Warheit Unternehmen.”
“It should be damning,” snapped Brooks. “Those bastards practically gave away the family jewels.” And a good thing they did, too, thought Brooks—that was how they had blackmailed Schoenberg into selling them most of what they needed.
“Fine, but now he shows up today?” said Morton. “Connors tried to put him off when he heard about the scene at the press conference, and—well, you saw. Hatfield got in anyway.”
“What are you saying, Morton? That he knows more than what he’s let on?”
“My guess? Yes. How much? I don’t know. He should be watched.”
“By all of America.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Morton said.
“Even if he does know what we’re doing, Jack Hatfield might be the best thing that’s happened for Firebird.”
Morton stared at his commanding officer, speechless.
“If anyone could sell the necessity of Firebird to the American people,” the general maintained, “it would be him. Frankly, after looking in those eyes and finding them as resolute as anyone I ever faced, I am seriously considering grooming him for just such a position—if and when the time is right.”
Morton’s managed to find words. “Sir, you’ve got to be kidding.”
Brooks looked back evenly. “Funny, that’s what I said when I heard about your whore.”
Morton’s mouth shut with an audible snap. He stared at his commanding officer, unblinking. “That situation is contained,” he said when he found his voice.
“Oh? Is she dead? In our custody?”
“She is hiding,” Morton said. “Or maybe she’s still running. And as long as she stays hidden or running, she is no threat. We will find her soon enough.”
“Is she unable to discuss what she heard with anyone else?”
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