Bat out of Hell

by Alan Gold

  “I don’t know ma’am. I’m sorry, but we’re not told of the political reasons for decisions having been taken. We’re merely here to take the shot for you.”

  “Jesus!”

  He immediately regretted what he’d said. “I’m sorry, ma’am, that’s just an expression we use in the Service. I meant that I’m here to protect you against all threats.”

  “Okay, but who gave the order to give me protection?”

  “It came from the top. You and cabinet secretaries and a number of key government officials.”

  “The top?”

  “The Oval Office, via White House Security. You’re being protected by order of the president.”

  “Can we go over those security instructions once again? And for God’s sake, don’t call me ma’am. I’m Debra. If you have a problem with that, then just call me Doctor Hart.”

  They left the White House via the secure garage built underground outside the West Wing and drove by a circuitous route to her office in the Department of Health. When they pulled up into the building’s garage, Brett instructed her to stay low in the car until he’d examined the area. She watched him as he walked several car lengths in all directions. It was obvious that he knew precisely what he was looking for, and when he returned, he opened the door and escorted her to the elevator.

  “What if there’d been somebody on the other side of the garage with a rifle?” she asked. “I was a sitting duck in the car.”

  “Bullet- and explosion-proof windows. They were more likely to injure me in the ricochet.”

  As they stepped out of the elevator into the building that by now was full of employees, she immediately sensed an air of unreality. It was a chill that hadn’t been there when she’d left her office late the previous night.

  The sense of emptiness was felt by everybody, as the awful news of DeAnne Harper’s death became common knowledge. Women were sitting on chairs in hallways and on landings looking ashen-faced. Men and women walked around like ghosts; some had red eyes from crying. Most avoided her eyes.

  Debra realized with a start that she hadn’t reacted to DeAnne’s death in the same way as people in the building. In theory, DeAnne was her direct link to the president, but she’d only met her on three or four occasions, and always on business. So when she was told of her death, the news had affected her in the way that the death of any nationally important person’s assassination affected her—with shock and disbelief. But the people in the building were reacting to the loss of a friend, a colleague, a work-mate. Even though DeAnne wouldn’t have known 95 percent of the people who worked in the building, the loss of such a senior government official . . . a mother, her husband, and three children . . . was heartbreaking.

  They reached Debra’s office, and as she was about to enter, Brett held up his hand to stop her and pushed open the door. Four people in there looked up and were surprised by the entry of a strange man. Daniel Todd stood and began to ask, “Who are . . .”

  “Secret Service,” said Brett pulling out his identification badge. “Who are you?”

  “Daniel Todd. I’m Doctor Hart’s assistant.”

  “Are all these people known to you?”

  Daniel turned and scanned the group. Then he nodded to the agent. Satisfied that there was no immediate danger in the room, Brett opened the door and allowed Debra inside.

  “Sorry guys,” she said. “This is Agent Brett Henderson . . .”

  “Anderson.”

  “Right. Brett is my security person. He’ll just sit in here with a cup of coffee while we work. He shadows me until this nightmare is over and the bastard who killed the Harper family is caught.”

  “Debra, I’m so thankful you’re here. The Internet traffic has been going haywire. Since we were told about DeAnne, we’ve been looking at the CHAT website and most other animal liberation sites, and their weblogs, and they’re all going crazy. They’re saying that DeAnne was assassinated. On the news, it said that it was thought to have been a gas leak.” Daniel looked at Agent Anderson and frowned. “Why do you have security?”

  “Daniel, I’ve just come from the White House. It was a bomb that killed DeAnne and her family. It was probably planted by an animal liberation group. I’d be surprised if the president didn’t go on network television and address the nation. But I’m surprised that the websites are talking about it being an assassination. Nobody’s said that so far. How did they know?”

  Nobody answered.

  “I don’t understand? Why should she have been murdered? Why all the security? What’s happening?”

  Debra looked at her colleague and shrugged. “The thought seems to be that the animal liberationists are protesting about us killing the bats. They’ve been saying for some time, both in the UK and here, that humans caused the problems, and we shouldn’t take it out on the bats. Crazy, but if you think about what PETA and the other defenders of voiceless animals have done in the past, in a nutty kind of way, it fits. There have been deaths and raids on laboratories and the murder of people associated with experiments on animals. And people in the fur trade. These people are fanatics. They’re determined to save the earth and all its creatures, even if it means killing a few human beings on the way.”

  “Bats? They’ve killed a family of human beings to save diseased bats? It’s crazy,” said Daniel. “And why DeAnne? She’s in charge of Health. I can understand them going after the secretary of agriculture or the president or somebody like that, but Health? It doesn’t fit,” he said.

  “It fits in a perverted way if you think about it. DeAnne is . . . was . . . charged with protecting the United States against these viruses. The viruses are carried by bats. These wackos think that she gives the order for their extermination. Hence, they exterminate her and her family. It’s insane, it’s inhuman, but it’s logical to their perverted minds.”

  Debra nodded and looked around the office at her colleagues. All were looking toward her for explanations, reassurance, and sympathy. But it suddenly dawned on her that there was more to their immobility than being in a state of shock. They were suddenly very frightened. As their boss, leader, and mentor, she had to do something or the office and all its work would come to a standstill.

  “This has been a terrible shock to all of us. It’s brought the reality, the dangers of terrorism close to the hearts and homes of everybody in this room. We’re scientists, not security or military personnel. So if any of you, for any reason, wants to return to your universities or laboratories because of your concern for your personal safety, then not a word will be said against you. Of that, you have my promise. Please, friends, feel free to step forward and just say that you’d prefer to leave now, and I give you my word that nobody will think badly of you. We’re all mothers, fathers, sons, and daughters in this room. We have to consider others, aside from finding a way of fighting this virus.”

  Silence descended on the room as not one person moved. When he saw Debra nod in appreciation, Agent Brett Anderson moved forward and said, “Ladies and gentlemen, Doctor Hart is in charge of the science of this organization. I’m responsible for security and to assure your safety. If any of you feel that you’re being watched or that something unusual happens in your lives, immediately contact a number I’ll write on your whiteboard and which you’ll copy into your mobile phones. It’s the emergency number for A3 level security. If you have genuine reason to be concerned at something . . . anything . . . ring that number and you’ll have a dozen Secret Service men at your side within minutes.”

  “A3?” asked Daniel.

  “A1 is a protection given to the president and senior members of the cabinet. That affords a team of Secret Service personnel at all times, day and night. Level A2 is for senior people associated with cabinet secretaries and gives twenty-four-seven personal security in shifts of three people for eight hours of each day, the sort of thing I’m here for on behalf of Debra. A3 is your security which means that a team is available in emergency within minutes of your call.�
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  “And A4?”

  “The number of the Washington Morgue,” said Brett. He grinned, seeing the look of shock on everybody’s face. Only then did everybody laugh. And get back to work.

  11

  The interrogation room was deliberately lit with a harsh and intense light so that the mirrored wall could conceal the banks of analysts who sat behind rows of computers, sound and video recorders on the other side. The interrogator’s earpiece was alive with instructions from his controller behind the mirror, who was being fed with written instructions from a battery of experts.

  Speech and body language specialists listened and looked at every nuance of the way he responded to questions and the manner in which he reacted physically as the interrogator was instructed to raise or lower the intensity of his questions.

  Domestic terrorism authorities checked every answer he gave and prepared to instruct the interrogator to blow a hole in the subject’s responses; but so far, he’d not made one single factual, timing, or geographical error.

  After three hours of continuous investigations in an uptown New York office of the FBI, Professor Stuart Chalmers sat calm and poised while the two interrogators from Homeland Security continued to try to puncture his composure.

  It was a simple question, though, which caused silent mayhem among the audience of watchers.

  The interrogator asked innocuously, “So now WEL has killed the secretary of health, who’s your next target, Stuart?”

  Chalmers drew a deep breath, thought for a brief moment, and said softly, “The president of the United States.”

  “Excuse me,” the slack-jawed interviewer replied.

  Chalmers smiled, turned, and addressed the mirrored wall. “Just thought I’d throw you guys a bone so you wouldn’t go to sleep. Surely you’re bored by this inane line of questions, aren’t you?”

  Then he turned back to his interrogator and smiled.

  “You think this is funny,” the Homeland Security man said, suddenly becoming intensely angry with the academic’s perpetually composed demeanour. He just wanted to reach across and break his nose.

  “Oh Agent Carlson, surely you remember instruction number two in class 101 of the interrogator’s handbook. ‘Never lose your cool in front of the suspect. At all times remain calm and collected.’ Y’know I’ve never really understood the use of the word ‘collected’ in that sense. I wonder what it means.”

  Again, he turned to the mirrored wall, “I wonder if one of you gentlemen could look that up for me and whisper into Agent Carlson’s earpiece why it’s used in that way in the sentence.”

  “Okay, we’re wrapping it up. We know you were involved in this murder, Professor. We know you instructed some assassin to kill Secretary DeAnne Harper. And be assured that we’ll trace it back to you, and then the full weight of the law will put you out of action for the rest of your perverted life.”

  “And as I’ve been saying for the past many hours, Agent Carlson, neither I nor WEL nor anybody that I know would contemplate taking a human life. Our mission is to protect and save all plant and animal life. Secretary Harper was, like you and me, a human animal. We’re dedicated to care for her and her family as much as we’re dedicated to protect bats and bees and flowers. You may not agree with what we think, but you have to believe me when I say that we’ve never knowingly or deliberately harmed a living thing. Now, if I could be released, I have a class to teach tonight, and I’d like to get back to my university.”

  Two hours later, Stuart Chalmers arrived at Kennedy Airport and checked in at his flight. He smiled at the two agents who had booked the same flight, acknowledging that despite their best precautions to remain anonymous, he had spotted them and knew they were tailing him.

  He went over to one, who was reading a newspaper. “I often wonder why they waste time using people like you to tail guys like me when there’s so much government surveillance equipment. The federal budget appropriation is over forty-two and a half billion dollars in this country for surveillance on American citizens suspected of involvement with terrorism. Imagine what Joe Stalin could have done with that sort of money. We have an hour before our flight. Do you and your partner want a coffee? At least we should get acquainted if you’re going to be covertly trailing me all over America.”

  The agent looked up at him and hissed, “You might think this is a game, Chalmers. Okay, so you’ve blown my and my partner’s cover, but a cabinet secretary and her husband and three children were murdered earlier today, and we know you did it. You talk about Stalin; how long do you think you’d have lasted in the Soviet Union in the days of Stalin, or in Iraq when Saddam was butchering his people or when ISIS was butchering anybody who didn’t believe in Islam? It was the US of A, the land you detest, that put an end to those bastards. The only reason you haven’t got a bullet in the back of your brain is that the America you despise is governed by the rule of law, and unfortunately, assholes like you know how to take advantage of it.”

  Chalmers smiled. “You’re wrong, y’know. I don’t hate America. I just hate Americans.”

  The agent watched Chalmers’s back disappearing as he walked away toward the coffee shop. He wondered why US institutions like universities gave time and space to people like Chalmers or the vitriolic Muslim academics who were teaching hatred in their classes. Academic freedom? Civil liberties? Human rights? What about the rights of people like DeAnne Harper and her family to live in peace without being blown to pieces by some fanatic terrorist?

  ***

  Secret Service Agent Brett Anderson knew it would have to come sooner rather than later. It always happened with people who had never experienced close body security before, people who were normally living their lives out of the public spotlight. Then, through circumstances they probably didn’t fully understand, they were thrust into the glare of the media, arc lights, politicians, and others who lived their lives in sync with the biology of the 24/7 news cycle—a relentless parade of action and reaction, cause and effect, questions and answers.

  Debra Hart told her group that she wouldn’t be in the office that afternoon but was flying to Harvard University in Boston to see some electron microscopy that a team had recently done on some samples from Australia where two vets had died from the Hendra virus; apparently it was the first case ever reported where the virus had passed from bats or flying foxes into dogs and possibly cats, so she wanted to see its morphology to be in on the production of a possible vaccine.

  As she nodded to Brett to follow her on her way out of the door, and as they walked down the corridor to the elevators, she asked him, “So, how did you enjoy your first experience of working inside a scientific group? Pretty dull, huh?”

  “That’s not what’s concerning me, ma’am.”

  “Please don’t call me ‘ma’am.’ It makes me sound seventy years old. Can’t you cope with calling me Debra or Doctor Hart or something?”

  “Debra, you’ve arranged a trip to Boston. You didn’t tell me.”

  “Should I?”

  “Yes.”

  She smiled, suddenly remembering that she’d broken one of the rules that Brett had given her. “You’re right. I apologize.”

  He hated what was going to happen next, but it was straight from the song sheet. He steeled himself for the reaction.

  “I’m canceling your trip to Harvard.”

  They’d arrived at the elevator where two other people were standing. She turned and looked at him in surprise. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m cancel . . .”

  “I heard what you said. Do you mean I’m not allowed to go?”

  The others at the elevator turned in surprise and looked at Debra and Brett.

  “Yes, I’m forbidding you to go.”

  “You’re . . . are you telling me you’re . . .” She was lost for words.

  He turned away from her and faced the closed doors of the elevator, wondering what type of explosion he’d have to face.

  “The hell you are,”
she hissed. “I’m the United Nations’ chief scientific advisor right now on this issue, and if I want to go to Boston, I’ll go to Boston.”

  “No, you won’t,” he said quietly.

  “By what authority do you forbid me to do anything?” The two others at the elevator had turned back as the doors were hissing open but didn’t want to miss a moment of the exchange.

  “By the authority of the president of the United States. You will not be going to Boston or anywhere until my colleagues on the destination ground have thoroughly checked it out. You’ve given us no time and so . . .”

  “I only made the decision ten minutes ago as a result of a phone call I made to the virology laboratory that’s working with us. And anyway, how will you stop me? What’ll you do, arrest me for boarding a plane?”

  He forced himself not to smile, anticipating her reaction. “Yes.”

  She turned in shock and faced him. So did the other two in the elevator. “You’d arrest me?”

  “Yes,” Brett said simply. It was a scenario he’d played out a dozen times before with other important people who thought they could use their status to undermine his role in protecting their lives. He knew only too well how this scenario would play out.

  “You’d arrest me? You’d actually arrest me for traveling to Boston?”

  “No, I’d arrest you under National Security Enforcement legislation for failure to comply with a lawful request from a Secret Service agent.”

  Furious, she hissed, “You asshole. As soon as I’m out of this elevator, I’m going to phone the president of the United States, and then we’ll see who’s going where.”

  She was so predictable; it was almost like child’s play. Even the most brilliant person, confronted with laws, restrictions, and empowerment they’d never previously experienced—out of their comfort zone—resorted to bluster and gales of outrage. An ordinary person would shout, “I know my rights,” even when they didn’t, but somebody like Debra, a close confidante of the president, would fall back on her connections to protect her. And he knew what would happen in a few moments.