***
“This has ‘wild goose chase’ written all over it,” Buss said.
The BURY team was sitting, alone, having a very late lunch at a table in the C.I.A. cafeteria.
“Say what you will about Langley,” Sudden said, “they make a hell of a club sandwich.”
“Cheeseburger’s not bad, either,” Buss said. “How’s your salad, Rebecca?”
“It’s a damn salad.” Rebecca Soul was trim, fit and beautiful, and, of course, always trying to lose weight. “You guys better save me a couple of fries.”
“I wonder how many people work at CERN,” Sudden asked.
Both men looked at Soul.
“There are about 4,000 employees, a third of them part-timers,” she said, grabbing a French fry from Sudden’s plate.
“That’s just wonderful,” Buss said.
“It gets worse. Each year CERN hosts maybe three times that number of visiting scientists and engineers from just about every country on the planet.”
“This gets better and better.”
“We should be able to narrow it down,” Sudden said. “It shouldn’t be too hard to find out just who was visiting on the day of the message’s transmission. Although I doubt any visiting scientist is our guy. It’s more likely that the transmission went to someone who works at CERN on a permanent basis. But why CERN? It’s not a weapons lab, is it?”
“No, but it’s the cutting edge of human physics,” Rebecca said. “Maybe they are more interested in where we are going scientifically than where we were, say, with nuclear weapons.”
“I still can’t believe we’re having this conversation,” Buss said, “talking about the ultimate illegal aliens. I guess amnesty is off the table.”
Penelope Parsons entered the cafeteria and sat at their table.
“The Director is not happy,” she said. “He thinks you guys are a bunch of yahoos and wanted to know why I brought you in.”
“He never complains about the money we provide him,” Buss sniffed.
“He thinks you are too blunt an instrument for such a delicate assignment. He wanted to send in some of his Ivy League superstars.’
“Hey, I went to Yale,” Buss objected. “And I can even count.”
He told Parsons what they had just been discussing.
“I understand. It’s a hell of a lot of suspects. I don’t know what the vetting process was, or is, at CERN. The Europeans aren’t as particular about that sort of thing as we are. There are some Americans working there who have probably been checked out pretty thoroughly from our side. I’ll have them checked out again. As for the Europeans, I’m sure the N.S.A. and F.B.I., as well as our own intelligence section have plenty of background on everyone. We can probably discount scientists, technicians and staffers who have been married and have children. And there are probably other screens that we can use.”
“What about women?” Sudden asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t think we can eliminate them from consideration. If the new improved model has male genitals, functioning or otherwise, it stands to reason that our friends might have come up with a female version.”
“Shit. I didn’t think of that. I wonder if anyone has. I’ll pass that along. I also wonder how many women scientists work at CERN?”
“God, I hope it’s not a woman,” Buss said. “We don’t sanction women.”
“Get a grip, Nigel,” Parsons said. “We’re not talking about a human woman, if it comes down to that.”
“Hell,” Sudden said, “we’d be doing her, or it, a favor. Can you imagine that nutcase Yunner getting his hands on something with boobs and a vagina?”
“What about blood?” Rebecca asked. “Didn’t that Nazi quack, Zyster, note something about the color from the prisoner he dissected?”
“Yes,” Parsons said. “It was red, but slightly off. Same with the Area 51 incident. But the blood of the subject at Gitmo was spot on. Apparently they’ve made improvements.”
“The DNA can’t be the same,” Sudden said. “They are aliens, after all.”
“It is different enough to be detected. What are you suggesting?”
“Why can’t they test everyone at CERN. Remember that movie, The Thing, the John Carpenter one, not the one form the 1950’s. The people didn’t know who was human and who was alien, so they took blood samples.”
“I saw the movie. Gruesome. But there were only about 10 suspects, I think. And they had guns pointed at them. What are we going to do? Send in the First Marine Division to keep an eye on the thousands of people at CERN? Under what pretext? We think there’s an alien hiding out there? Can you see the headlines in the National Enquirer?”
“We should be so lucky. If it made the Enquirer nobody would believe it. It would be a perfect cover. But I was thinking more in terms of drumming up some phony epidemic. We could say that there were cases of Ebola or something from one of the visiting scientists from Africa, and everyone had to be checked. Get the blood samples that way.”
Parsons considered it.
“That’s not a bad idea, Cole. No wonder you write such good thrillers. But we’d have to be careful not to spook our target, who is probably on guard now.”
“We could fake a couple of horrible deaths to scare the hell out of everyone,” Buss said.
“We’d probably have to involve some people from the C.D.C.,” Parsons said. “But I suppose we could work it out without them knowing exactly what we were after. It might be worth a try. I’ll run it up the flagpole.”
She turned to the two operatives.
“In the meantime, Rebecca, we’ll get you credentialed from a Jerusalem-based scientific journal. It would be better for your cover if you flew to Geneva from Israel. Perhaps even arrange to have someone from CERN collect you at the airport. Cole, your cover is pretty solid. When can you leave?”
“A couple of days. I want everything we have on that Baker fellow. Can I get access to his farm?”
“I’ll arrange it. But we’ve gone over it with a fine-toothed comb. As well as his offices at the lab in Athens and at the university.”
“I like to do my own combing,” Sudden said. “I’d also like to get a feeling for what he did. I don’t know all that much about particle accelerators, and despite what you said, I don’t want to come off as a complete idiot when I get to Switzerland. And I think I’ll stop in New York to see my agent and tell her about my idea for the new book. Who knows? Maybe I will actually write it. I’m running out of plots for ‘Cole Swift’.”
“Suit yourself,” Parsons said. “But I want you and Rebecca up and running by the end of the week.” She paused. “You going to eat all those fries, Nigel?”
CHAPTER 11 - THE FARM
With all the agency’s jets spoken for, Sudden grabbed an 7 AM Delta flight out of Reagan Wednesday, arriving in Atlanta an hour and a half later, not looking forward to the the seemingly inevitable delays navigating the massive Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. Surprisingly, after two smooth airport shuttle train rides and with the help of an efficient agent at a rental counter, he was on the road to Commerce, GA in 40 minutes.
His luck ran out in rush-hour Atlanta traffic. It was only 80 miles to Commerce, but it was almost noon when he got there. He was hungry, having skipped breakfast. There was a Dunkin’ Donuts on the road out of town and he stopped for a sandwich. He’d been told someone would meet him at Charles Baker’s farm, so he also grabbed a few donuts and a cup of coffee to go.
The farm was about 10 miles out of town. Georgia was in full spring bloom and the pastures and rolling hillsides were ablaze with color. Sudden rolled down the window of his car and inhaled the intoxicating country fragrance. He doubted if there was a prettier place on Earth at that moment.
A blue-and-gray Georgia State Police cruiser was parked at the entrance of the gravel driveway that lead up to Baker’s farmhouse. Sudden pulled up next to it and got out. A squared-away black trooper got out of the other ve
hicle and put on his Smokey-the-Bear hat. His chest swelled against his shirt; the muscles on his arms had muscles.
“You Sudden?”
“Yup.”
He held up the bag of donuts.
“Got some I.D.?”
Georgia state cops are both tough and smart. He wasn’t going to take Sudden’s word for it. And it would take more than a couple of donuts for him to let his guard down. He looked at the proffered identification, nodded, and handed it back. Then he took the donuts as Sudden put down the coffee on a nearby fence post.
“I love being a cliché ,” the trooper said, biting into a donut. His name tag read B. Upton. “You’re I.R.S.? I thought this bird was some sort of terrorist, or something. I’ve never seen so many Feds work over a place in my life. Wouldn’t even tell us who they were.”
Sudden had I.D.s from just about any agency in the country.
“Don’t know what else he was up to,” Sudden said. “All I know is that he didn’t pay his taxes. Can’t let such people get away with that. Government is short of money.”
“Well, this is some spread he’s got. More than 40-acres.” The trooper reached for his coffee and took a swig. “How long has he been cheating on his taxes?”
“Light years.”
“Son of a bitch. No offense. I’m not crazy about you revenue boys, but I still hope you squeeze him.”
“Oh, he’s been squeezed. I can assure you of that.”
“Well, what can you expect from somebody at the University of Georgia.”
The trooper’s disdain was clear right through his broad Southern drawl.
Sudden laughed.
“Georgia Tech?”
“Damn skippy. I’m a ‘Ramblin’ Reck’ through and through.”
“Figured from the look of you that you played some ball. Right?”
“I was a walk-on. Played some halfback, some defensive back. Too small and slow for either position, but I was a good target for the scholarship boys so they let me stay on the practice squad. Quit before I got my brains scrambled.”
“They have you guys watching the place 24/7?”
“Nah. We don’t have the manpower. Neither do the local cops. We alternate cruising by pretty regular.”
A pair of horses came over to the fence by where they were standing. Sudden could see other farm animals in the fields.
“Who’s taking care of the place?”
“High-school kids from neighboring farms come in. I think some of them worked the farm for the owner in the past, so they know the drill. One of the perks for us and the local cops are the eggs they give us when we’re around. You ever have a fresh farm egg?”
“No.”
“Yolks are really yellow. Taste like eggs are supposed to. Not like the factory crap they sell in a supermarket.”
One of the horses nudged the trooper with his nose. He laughed.
“One of our guys is a horse guy. Made the mistake of bringing some carrots for them. Now every time they see one of our cars they come over for a treat. Hold on a sec.”
The trooper went to his car and reached in. He came back with a small brown bag and a set of keys, which he handed to Sudden.
“They’re all marked for the appropriate doors. You shouldn’t have any trouble. You want me to go up to the house with you?”
“I’d rather you stayed out here and made sure no one else bothers me.”
“No problem.”
The trooper reached in the bag and took out some carrots.
“Stopped by a Winn-Dixie for these. Want to feed one of the horses?”
“Sure,” Sudden said, taking a couple of the carrots.
He approached one of the horses, which up close was a lot bigger than it looked when it first came over. He tentatively started to hold out a carrot.
“No, not like that,” the trooper said. “Just lay it in your palm. Like this.”
Sudden watched the man feed the other horse and then did the same.
The horse gently mouthed the carrot off his hand, its tongue raspy but not unpleasantly so. He gazed in the animal’s huge eyes and patted its nose.
“They are beautiful.”
“They’re not as smart as they look,” the trooper said.
“A lot of that going around.”
“You got that right.”
***
It was a quarter mile up the drive to the main farmhouse. The road passed between two fenced-in pastures, with horses in one, cows the other. The pleasant smells from fresh-mowed grass and flowering asters, corn lilies and buttercups battled with the pungent odor of manure. In the spring heat, the manure was winning.
The farmhouse wasn’t what Sudden expected. It was a exquisitely landscaped rambling two-story stone structure with bay windows with a two-car garage. A long trellised walkway led to a separate guest cottage. Sudden parked his rental and started to walk the property. There was a stable, which was empty. About a dozen chickens, including a rooster, pecked the ground around a small hen house. He went over and looked into a pair of box-like structures that jutted out the front of the hen house. Each had a fresh egg in it. The farm was bordered by woods. He followed a steep path down to a clearing. Insects buzzed and he could hear small animals in the brush. The smell of manure had receded but the woods held other charms. A tan-colored snake lay coiled at the end of the path, warming in the sun that broke through. Sudden knew his snakes and recognized the brown-scaled crossbands on the body and the distinctive head shape. It was a copperhead, one of the less-venomous of the pit vipers. But still nothing to fool with. He picked up a stick and threw it at the snake, which slithered off.
The clearing was about the size of a football field.
“Just large enough for a flying saucer,” he said aloud, although he was pretty sure that wasn’t the favored mode of transportation used by the visitors, whatever it was. The only object in the clearing was a rusted wheelbarrow that was missing its wheel. There was a small puddle of water in the bottom of the wheelbarrow and Sudden could see little ripples on the surface. Mosquito larvae. He tipped the barrow over and the water splashed out. The world didn’t need any more mosquitoes.
Sudden walked back to the main house and spent the next hour and a half going through it and the adjacent cottage. As he expected, both had gotten a thorough going over by the various agencies that had already been there before him. He didn’t expect to find any pictures of the Coneheads, or anyone else. He assumed agents took any photos they found. The bookshelves were empty and there were no books or magazines lying about. Presumable the F.B.I. and C.I.A. were also analyzing them for clues.
All the furniture and appliances looked top-drawer. Sudden knew from the Langley briefing that Baker made good money, both as a scientist at the linear accelerator lab and as a professor at the University of Georgia. But that didn’t explain where he got the $400,000 to purchase his farm, all in cash, or how he furnished the buildings and ran the place. Alien pay must be pretty good, Sudden mused. Especially if Baker received a travel allowance.
Despite what he’d told the state trooper, Sudden knew that Baker paid his taxes. But he had a phony Social Security number and his resume, while also mostly bogus, had easily passed muster with both the university and the lab. Universities were notorious for their acceptance of credentials, especially if there were a lot of big capital letters attached to the end of a name. And the lab didn’t do the kind of work that required a Government security clearance. The “visitor” killed in the rollover accident near Area 51 in Nevada also had good, if phony, papers. If he hadn’t been such a lousy driver, he might never have been discovered. The aliens had apparently made adjustments since running afoul of the Gestapo in the 1940’s.
Sudden drove down to the farm entrance. The State Trooper got out of his cruiser.
“Get what you needed.”
“Maybe,” Sudden said. “I’d like to talk to some neighbors.”
“Nearest place is down that way,” the trooper said, pointin
g. “I’ll go with you. I know Hal Perkins. Make it easier if I’m with you.”
“Thanks.”
The Perkins farm was almost a mile down the road. Sudden and the trooper found the owner spraying some small mounds in a pasture.
“Fire ants,” Perkins explained after Sudden was introduced. “Watch your step. Damn things bite like crazy. Almost lost one of my calves to them. Now, what’s this about Baker? Everyone is buzzing about what happened. The cops landed on him like a duck on a June bug. Is he really a serial killer? Wouldn’t surprise me. They say it’s always the quiet ones.”
Sudden looked at the trooper, who shrugged. The rumor mill was apparently going full tilt around Commerce.
“Did you know him well, Mr. Perkins?”
“Like I told the other cops, just to say howdy,” Perkins said, putting down his sprayer. “Can’t say I liked the man. He was kind of stand-offish. Not rude or anything, mind you. But folks around here are neighborly. Somebody always needs a fence mended or help in chasing down a horse or a cow that’s wandered off. And this is fox hunting country and it’s accepted that every now and then a bunch of hounds and people with funny red hats on horses are gonna gallop through the woods on your property. Can’t tell a fox where to go when it’s being chased by a pack of dogs. Course, nowadays we have more coyotes than foxes and that’s what they hunt, mostly. But Baker made it clear that he didn’t like people on his property. And he had a thing about dogs.”
“What thing?”
“Didn’t like them. And to be honest, I think the feeling was reciprocated. I went over there one day just to say hello, see if I could break the ice, you know, and had a couple of my mutts with me. When he came to the door , they started growling, then they took off. It’s not like Boomer and Otto, that’s their names by the way, are mean dogs, or anything. Just the opposite. Worthless as guard dogs. They’d hold the door for a burglar. I have other dogs would tear your arm off. But they’re gentle and the grandkids and horses love them, so what am I gonna do? Baker was polite, laughed it off. Said he just wasn’t a dog person. I have to tell you, that’s strange around here. Just about every place has a couple of dogs, being so isolated and all.”
TWO SUDDEN!: A Pair of Cole Sudden C.I.A. Thrillers Page 22