by Dom Testa
“He was put on trial,” I said.
“The church demanded that he recant his observations and theories, that he disavow any notion that did not place God’s beautiful planet Earth at the center of everything. And if he didn’t, he’d be tortured until he did.”
Jonas fell silent for a moment, stewing in the indignity suffered by one of his scientific idols. Then he said, “To add utter humiliation to it all, after he was forced to take back all of the science he’d proven, they still found him guilty. They sentenced him to house arrest until he died.”
I’d heard most of this, and shared Jonas’s resentment.
“So the name?” I prompted.
Aiken closed up the bags of junk food. “The home where Galileo stayed until his death, Villa Il Gioello — The Jewel — is in an area of Florence called Arcetri.” He faced me again. “Arcetri represents, in a symbolic way, all of the ignorance and humiliation that people of science have endured for millennia.”
Two large trucks whipped by on the highway, loud enough to necessitate silence from us for a few moments. I used that time to digest this story and the explanation it provided.
I certainly didn’t like what it implied.
“So this group of contemporary scientists, the Arcetri — they’re basically inspired to address thousands of years of mistreatment. And they’ll use their knowledge to lash out through violence, if necessary.”
He looked grim. “Not just the mistreatment of the giants who came before us. But to address the corruption of science today. You know, it’s not enough to create a life-saving vaccine, or to develop a gadget that tends to your every desire. No, it’s about monetizing everything. And if you can’t get your product to market before the other guy, you’re screwed. You lose your funding, you lose your status, and you damned well lose your career. Because some other enterprising young MIT graduate will beat you to the punch, file the patents, grab the available money, and leave you holding the beaker.”
I waited a moment before responding. “So that’s a yes?”
This time, when the smile returned it was rueful. “It’s a scary yes. Men and women who have devoted their life to science, years of school, pouring everything into it — and then get raped by the system? Hell yes, some of them will go rogue.”
“They won’t use their power for good.”
“No, they won’t. Parks may be the first; I don’t expect he’ll be the last.”
He offered the chips again but I waved them away. I’d lost my appetite.
Chapter Fourteen
“Did you know Ed? The guy from the Defense Department?”
The question caught me off-guard. We’d chewed up another fifty miles, mostly in silence, and it took me a moment to realize Aiken was referencing my former identity. I allowed myself another few seconds to process how I should answer it. Yeah, I knew him; he used to be me wouldn’t exactly work.
“He was a good man,” I said. “Loyal. Worked hard. Very generous. The most popular guy in the department. Helped anyone who needed anything. Left behind a beautiful wife.” I paused, then added, “His wife found out about his murder on her birthday.”
All right, I’ll admit that might’ve been overplaying it a bit, but I’d never been in this position before, and it was fun to torture the little asshole. Plus, the look on Aiken’s face was priceless. His mouth was shrunken and tight, lines creased his forehead, and he blinked several times as he stared ahead. He was churning with guilt, and it dawned on me that this was an angle I could milk. Jonas hadn’t really participated in killing me, but he knew there was still blood on his hands, even if only by association.
“I know you have a thing for Jayanti,” I said. “But you can’t stand by and do nothing when you find out she’s a cold-blooded killer, can you? Especially when a grand jury might reasonably decide your contribution to the events are enough for an accessory to murder charge. Doing nothing, when you could help, could easily be deemed enough for an indictment and probably a conviction.”
After letting all that sink in for a moment, I kept going. “Do you have a way of contacting her?”
He shook his head. “She and Parks both work exclusively on burner phones they purchased months ago. I know Jayanti doesn’t use one for more than a week, at most. When I talked with her at the conference she gave me the temporary number she was using. When I tried a couple days later she’d obviously moved on to another one. So, no, I can’t reach her. I have to wait for her to reach out to me.”
“Are you expecting that?”
“I’m not expecting it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear from her. Her needs come in waves. I might go a month without hearing from her and then get a flurry of messages in one day.”
“And you don’t feel used?”
He turned to look at me. “What an asinine question. No, I don’t feel used. I feel useful. There’s a difference, you know. Or maybe you don’t.”
I shrugged. “If you say so.”
With a snort, he leaned away from me and crossed his arms. “Haven’t you listened to anything I’ve said? I played the game. I worked hard, I helped my company and my country. I directed my intellectual capacity to help — no, don’t make that face. That’s what I did. And in return I got screwed over. More than once.”
“Sounds like you’ve memorized the Steffan Parks manifesto,” I said.
“Hey, he’s crazy, I’m not denying that. And what he’s planning, if it’s really what I think it might be, is criminal. I don’t endorse that. But his reasons for wanting to lash out are spot on. Those aren’t crazy.”
He fell silent for a moment, fuming. Then he added one last shot. “You know, the reason we might have a major catastrophe on our hands is partly because of that same condescending attitude you’re exhibiting right now. Parks put up with it for years. And remember, it started long before he ever dreamed of doing something like this. It began when he was trying to contribute to the country’s defense. I think anyone who had that much shit thrown in their face over and over would want to strike back. So maybe you should modulate your tone a bit.”
It was a damned good speech. There may even have been some elements of truth mixed in. But it would do no good to needle him any more, so I let it go. Besides, in my position it helped to allow a small victory here and there. Ultimately it might lead to him opening up about something critical. In fact, I was counting on it.
I also realized this was at least the second or third time Aiken had vehemently defended the position of the scientists in the Arcetri.
At two o’clock we passed a sign stating we were a hundred miles from San Antonio. I wanted to push straight through, but my bladder protested. I exited at another convenience center and we both went inside. While I used the restroom he poked around the aisles, looking for something new to pollute his body. I came out to find him clutching two bananas and a bottled water.
“You’re shitting me,” I said. “That’s it?”
“No, I have other stuff at the counter. Add these to the stash, will ya? I have to pee, too.”
I carried this latest handful to the front to pay for everything. Already bagged were Pringles, some sort of jerky, and a small box of Chips Ahoy. I started to explain that it was all for my friend, but in the end didn’t care enough what the cashier thought. I threw in a couple of protein bars for myself and walked out to the car.
Back on the road I discovered that Aiken had calmed down again. Food seemed to do that for him. He munched on the chips and cookies and asked random questions about what I did for the government. I sidestepped most of it and directed questions back at him.
“You know something, Jonas? When you talk about Parks it’s pretty vicious. Even the agent you got killed in Scottsdale, Ed Phillips, told us you really bashed him. I think it threw us for a while. That’s quite an act.”
Aiken gave a slow nod. “The craziest part is that it’s all Steffan’s idea.”
I glanced back at him. “It’s his idea for his follower
s to crucify him?”
“Yeah. He even has a name for it. Damnation Deniability.”
I laughed. “It’s a mouthful. What exactly does it mean?”
“It means that the best way to throw off suspicion is to not only deny association with him, but to rip him apart. The more you can damn him — not just his work but his personality, his style — the less it looks like you’d ever lower yourself to work with him.”
He reflected for a moment. “Now that I think about it, Damnation Deniability is maybe Steffan’s own little inside joke. He’s been trashed so much in the last few years that he’s putting the bad rep to good use.”
“Okay,” I said. “In a strange way it makes sense. Now, without getting upset, tell me what you know about Jayanti’s relationship with Parks. We know they were romantically linked; at least physically linked. I’m not sure how much romance was involved. But if he assigned her to seduce you, they can’t be that close.”
“Why not?” he asked.
This threw me. “I mean . . .” I glanced at him. “He asked her to have sex with you.”
“Yeah? So?”
I took my eyes off the road to look at him again. “You have no problem sharing her with Parks?”
He laughed. “I’m married. Should I have protested?”
“Oh. Right.”
“What about you?” he asked. “You married?”
It couldn’t hurt to tell him. “I am. Very happily.”
“I’m happy, too,” he said. “I didn’t get into a relationship with Jayanti because I’m unhappy at home.”
Call me old-fashioned, call me naive, call me any damned thing you want. This was just odd to me, but I didn’t want to get too deep into Aiken’s home life.
“Fine,” I said. “But back to the original question. Other than loaning her out, how does Parks feel about her?”
He thought about it. “I guess he might love her. I’ve never asked. What does this have to do with anything?”
“Maybe nothing. But people react differently in various situations if it’s a strictly professional relationship compared to a personal one. And so far I haven’t been able to figure out a damned thing about any of these relationships. His and hers, yours and hers, yours and his. It’s the goddamndest love triangle I’ve had to deal with, and you’re all involved in something that could kill a lot of people.” I shook my head. “Just trying to make sense of the players.”
“Good luck.”
It was my turn to laugh. “Yeah.”
“So about your wife,” he said.
“We don’t need to talk about my wife.”
“But I’m curious. We have another hour or two of driving ahead of us. Humor me.”
“You wanna sleep with her, too?”
“No. I know you’d kill me and dump my body, or whatever you said before. I’m just wondering how she manages to live with a guy who does what you do for a living.”
A fair question. “Jonas, I wonder about that myself. She’s obviously a saint.”
“No, don’t give me a stock, bullshit answer. You travel around the country or the world and I’m pretty sure you’re involved in a lot of violence. Not exactly the best ingredients for a marriage.”
I didn’t answer, so he plowed on. “All right, here’s an easy one. How did you meet? Can you answer that without shooting me in the head?”
I chuckled again. “God, you’re nosy.” After hesitating, I decided that talking about it might make Aiken feel like he could trust me.
“I wasn’t looking for anyone, which probably helped. I’d been burned by someone in college and decided I didn’t want to be in love anymore. Or at least for a long time.” The face of Stacey Haas floated through my mind, but Aiken didn’t need details.
“So I did what plenty of young Americans with shattered hearts do. I joined the military. Took my frustrations out on the enemy.”
“Ah,” Jonas said. “So that’s where you learned how to kill people.”
I ignored him. “Years later I was in New York. An attractive woman asked me to dinner, so I said yes. I didn’t know anything about her, except she was a friend of a friend. I wasn’t expecting — or even wanting — anything to happen. It was just a chance to get out for the night and have simple human interaction.
“Anyway, this date of mine turned out to be a nightmare. She complained about the traffic; I mean, it was New York. She complained about the weather. Once we were in the restaurant she bitched to the hostess about the wait for the table because we had reservations. She gave the bartender a hard time about the alcohol content of her drink. And when we finally got to our table she took one look at the menu and demanded to talk to the chef.”
“Why didn’t you just leave?” Aiken asked.
“To be honest, I was having the time of my life. I mean, there’s something about being around a person like that, someone you know you’ll never see again, just watching how outrageous they can be. And she never once grasped what a pain in the ass she was.”
Aiken was laughing now. “Okay, I see how this would be fun. But I don’t see where your wife comes into this story. Don’t tell me she was the pain in the ass.”
“Oh, hell no. My wife was the chef.”
He gawked. “What?”
“Yeah. My date demanded the chef come out and explain why certain ingredients were used and others weren’t — no, I’m not kidding — and a few minutes later this beautiful woman in an apron is standing in front of us, asking what the trouble is.”
“And you hit on her right there?”
“What? No, I was a gentleman. I probably had a smirk on my face while my date quizzed her about the menu, but I didn’t say a peep. Just sipped my drink and looked around the restaurant.”
The memory was making me smile, too. I could still see Christina, standing there with hands on hips, splotches of various sauce stains on her apron, looking with wide-eyed amusement at the very definition of high maintenance who sat next to me, bitching about the food before she’d even ordered.
I took up the story again. “But that’s all it took. I stole a few glances at this drop-dead-gorgeous chef and knew I had to go out with her. So the next night I went back to the restaurant.”
“Alone this time.”
“Naturally. I sat at the bar and asked if the chef had a moment to come out. It took almost 20 minutes, but she came out, wiping her hands on a towel. I explained that I’d been there the night before with the walking nightmare, and apologized for my date’s behavior. Then I asked her if I could buy her a drink later on to make up for the trouble .”
“You’re smooth,” Aiken said. “And she said yes.”
“She said no. She didn’t even wait around for me to make conversation with her. She thanked me for coming in again and went back to the kitchen. If anything she seemed annoyed that I’d bothered her during a busy time of the night.”
Aiken stared at me. “But you’re married now.”
“We are indeed. That’s another story. Maybe some other time.”
I let silence descend as I passed a sign that said San Antonio 82 miles. I thought about my bride for a few minutes.
Then I thought about what was to come in the Alamo City, and Aiken’s words echoed in my head:
I’m pretty sure you’re involved in a lot of violence.
Chapter Fifteen
We rolled into town and I consulted the directions on my phone. After exiting I-10 I took a few back roads, then parked on a residential street. We were two blocks from a Q2 safe house.
“You can’t come with me on this stop,” I said to Aiken. “And since I’ll be gone for about 20 minutes, I need to make sure you stay put.” I handcuffed him to the steering wheel. “You understand, I’m sure.”
The disgusted look on his face was answer enough. I grinned and handed him the half-empty Pringles can from the back seat. “This should keep you happy.”
A chill wind had kicked up and I walked around the corner and up the street wit
h both hands in my pockets. San Antonio might be hot and muggy in the summer, but on a January day like this it wasn’t unusual for temperatures to dip into the 40s. A school bus pulled up nearby and several chattering kids descended the steps and spilled onto the sidewalk. I gave a friendly wave to the bus driver and kept going.
The house I sought didn’t appear out of the ordinary; certainly nothing about the well-manicured exterior suggested that lethal government agents came and went on a semi-regular basis. I pulled open the screen door and knocked in one of our established codes, two taps followed by four. A curtain pulled aside, then the door was unlatched and opened.
A short, red-headed woman smiled at me from behind the screen. “Are you looking for someone?” she asked.
“Susan B. Anthony.”
With the silly code business out of the way, she pushed open the screen and ushered me in, then locked everything shut behind us.
“Susan B. Anthony,” I said with a laugh. “Did you come up with that one?”
“Can’t take credit for it,” she said and stuck out her hand. “Cole.”
“Swan,” I said, appreciating her firm grip. “I need an SL phone.”
She nodded. “I can do that. In here.”
I followed her through the living room into a kitchen that looked right out of the 1970s, complete with a formica countertop and green appliances. “This is hideous,” I said.
“You should see the bathrooms. Have a seat, I’ll be right back. Oh, there’s beer and soda if you’re thirsty.”
While she left to get the phone I peered into the fridge and removed a bottle of my favorite Texas beer. I screwed off the cap and took a long drink, then sat at the small kitchen table. Looking around, I admired the way Q2 gave no indication whatsoever that this was a way-station for its agents. It looked like an average, ordinary middle-class home, albeit one in desperate need of a makeover. Through the sliding glass door a trim, neat backyard rolled up to a concrete patio with the standard table, chairs, and umbrella. I was sure a grungy barbecue grill lay off to the side, just out of sight.