by Jack Bowie
“Yeah.”
“I read about it.”
“Not all about it. One of the FBI agents found a bio lab buried in their farm. It was booby trapped. The agent was blown to bits along with the lab.”
“I’m sorry. Did you find any C. Pneumoniae there?”
“No, all the material was destroyed in the explosion. But about a month ago, the CDC discovered that a C. Pneumoniae sample was stolen from their mailroom. An hour from the Georgia farm.”
That was it! From the labs of the CDC to a backyard kitchen of death run by a bunch of political extremists. And Vision One was stonewalling on the cure.
“What are they going to do with it?” Braxton asked.
“That’s what we’re trying to find out. You knew about the militia connection didn’t you?”
“Not all of it. I got some ideas from a friend.”
“That friend wouldn’t possibly be a reporter?”
Braxton tried to stay cool, but the probe came too quickly. He needed to get back on the offensive.
“Speaking of friends, did you know who Marino was?”
“No,” Slattery responded. “There was a flag on her file. I couldn’t check any further without raising alarms. And that was not something I was too anxious to do. What was she doing at Vision One?”
“Look, that’s it, Slattery. All I know. Now get out of here. And out of my life.”
“Nothing I would like better, Adam. One last piece of advice, though. I’m sorry about your ex-wife, but leave Vision One alone. You got your hand slapped the other day. Don’t give anyone an excuse to do anything more. These are bad folks. And I can’t help you if you get in their sights.”
“Thanks for the advice. But I never wanted your help, and I’ll not be asking.” Braxton spun on his heel and walked to the stairway. He wasn’t going to stand around there any longer.
When he reached the first step he turned and called back to the agent.
“Oh, Slattery. You do have an antidote for this bug don’t you?”
“I don’t think that’s relevant, Mr. Braxton.”
“Oh, yeah. Right. It’s a secret. If I were you, Slattery, I’d talk to some of your friends about their secrets.”
* * *
“Everything is ready, Mr. President,” Dawson announced. They were gathered in the Oval Office for a final review of the next day’s events. “The State Dinner will begin at 7:00 this evening; the signing ceremony will be in the Rose Garden at noon tomorrow. It looks like the weather will be ideal.”
“Have the press details been worked out?” Matthews asked his Press Secretary.
“Yes, sir,” Newington replied. “Invitations to the dinner went out to the lead anchors of NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox and CNN. They will all be attending. There will be limited taping permitted at the reception tonight. We’ll get spots on the 11:00 news programs. The real attention will be tomorrow. We will have live coverage beginning at 11:30 a.m. on all the networks. After the signing ceremony, you’ll hold a short press conference. It will be a real showcase, sir.”
“Thank you, Warren,” the President replied. “It sounds like you’ve got quite a party set up.”
“This will be a significant event for your presidency,” Secretary of State Donovan Fletcher added. “It will guarantee your place in history.”
“I’d rather it guaranteed my re-election in November, Donovan. In case you hadn’t noticed, the approval ratings have begun to slide.”
“I’m sure it’s just the post-convention doldrums, Mr. President,” Fletcher replied. “The signing of the intelligence exchange agreement will make every American sleep more soundly at night.”
“I wish I had your confidence. I’m especially concerned about the domestic policy numbers. Are we likely to get any questions on this militia problem, Steven?”
“I don’t think so, Mr. President,” Carlson said. “We’ll be sure to keep Luckett out of the corps. My team has been meeting . . .”
“Yes, Steven,” Matthews interrupted. “I know what you’ve been doing. But we don’t seem to be making any progress. Get me some answers.”
“Yes, sir,” Carlson replied quietly.
“Warren.” Matthews started down his action list. “Work with Steven to put together Q&A’s for the militia events. I don’t want any surprises. Get me a draft this afternoon.”
“Yes, Mr. President.”
“Donovan. The electorate will identify most closely with the Brits. Keep PM MacAlister close to me. Who else is up front Chad?”
“Besides yourself, the V.P., Speaker Andersen, DNI Carlson and SecState Fletcher will be on the podium. The rest of the Cabinet, Joint Chiefs, House and Senate leaders, and the Supreme Court will be in the first rows. We’ll fill the spare seats with some Congressional staffers.”
“Good way to hand out some favors, Chad. Just make sure they’re photogenic. One more thing. Put LaRoche at the end of the table. I don’t know why the French keep electing the ugliest men as their Presidents.”
* * *
The Lincoln Memorial cast long shadows from the late afternoon sun as Braxton walked up the Colorado marble steps to the sculpture. He saw his appointment sitting on the top step writing in a small notebook. Luckett looked up in time to see the consultant approach.
“I was wondering when I’d get your call, Braxton,” he said.
“Just had some checking to do, Mr. Luckett. Believe it or not, lately I’ve run into a few people who don’t always tell the truth.” Braxton swiped his hand across the marble step and squatted down.
“Can’t imagine who that might be. Nice place for a rendezvous, by the way.”
“Thanks. I’m sorry about your friend. George Brown, right?”
Luckett stared off across the reflecting pool toward the Washington Monument then returned his focus to Braxton. “Yeah. He was a good reporter. They’re not going to get away with this.” Luckett’s easy going attitude transformed into a steely-cold hate. His story had turned very personal.
“Have you heard anything more about the militia attacks?” Luckett asked.
“I read the FBI raided the Georgia cell.”
“Yeah. Interrogated everybody. The militia’s contact was a mercenary named Gary. The FBI’s got a nationwide manhunt out, but my guess is this guy’ll just disappear back into the shadows. They’ll never catch him. So what is your role in all this?”
Braxton had spent all morning on the story he would give to Luckett. He hoped it was enough to keep them both out of jail. “As far as I can tell, the CIA was monitoring electronic communications about the conspiracy between this Gary and his boss. A couple weeks ago, the encoding changed in the messages. They couldn’t read it any more. Slattery asked me to try to try to see if there were any new encryption schemes being described at the conference in Amsterdam.”
Luckett listened intently to the description, his eyes never leaving Braxton’s.
“And I suppose the deaths of the Yang brothers were just a coincidence.”
“You’ve done your homework, Luckett. Let’s say there are a lot of loose ends.”
“Okay, we’ll leave that one for now. Did you find anything in Amsterdam that would help?”
“No. But there is another connection here. The FBI discovered a biological lab buried on the Georgia farm. The militia, or at least this Gary’s friends, were replicating a microbe they stole from the CDC. Something called Chlamydophila Pneumoniae. And it’s not the common venereal disease.”
“Germ warfare!” Luckett exclaimed. “No militia group has ever done anything like that! How bad is this stuff?”
Every time Braxton told his story it made him even more depressed. How were they ever going to stop this madness?
“Normally pretty benign,” he continued. “Common antibiotics can usually kill it. But if this Gary has found a strain that’s resistant it could be disastrous.”
“Jesus. They used it yet?”
“I don’t think so. That’s probably why the Feds wa
nt Gary so badly. But if he’s good enough to put all this together, I doubt he’ll leave anything behind.”
Luckett paused, then said, “Well, he did make one slip.”
“What!”
“The FBI tracked him to a motel outside of Atlanta. Raided it early this morning.”
“You’ve got good contacts, Mr. Luckett.”
“Taylor, please. I do have a few friends left.”
“Did they find anything?”
“Gary was long gone and had emptied the place, but the cleaners found a scrap of paper under a table leg. And it had some writing on it.”
“What did it say?”
“All it had was ‘Yale 82.’ ”
“What does it mean?”
“Beats me. You’re the Ivy Leaguer from Boston.”
“Boston College is not Ivy League, Taylor,” Braxton replied. He visualized the scrap of paper and possible connections flashed through his head. “Yale University? A class year. Or a basketball score.”
“Or the start of a combination,” Luckett added. “Yale makes locks, too.”
Braxton shook his head. “I vote for the University. I think we need to do a little research.”
“We? I appreciate all the information, Mr. Braxton, but I can take it from here.”
“Sorry, Mr. Luckett. We’re partners now. That’s the way I work. Anyway, I’ve got just the resource we need for this investigation. Meet me at National tomorrow morning. We’re taking a trip to New Haven.”
Chapter 54
Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut
Wednesday, 10:00 a.m.
The flight to New Haven was thankfully short. Braxton hated flying twin turbo-props. It was like huddling in an over-sized beach ball in a hurricane. The reason they never served meals was because no passenger could ever keep one down.
Luckett disappeared behind the morning’s New York Times, leaving Braxton by himself to work out a strategy for the day. What they had was a tiny clue to a huge puzzle. Hopefully the trip would let them connect a few more of the pieces.
“So who is this guy Cavendish?” Luckett asked in the taxi on the way to Yale.
“Professor Duncan Cavendish, Taylor.”
“Great. Sounds like a snooty Brit to me.”
Braxton nodded. “Close. A Brit who went to Yale on scholarship and adopted Yale, New Haven, Connecticut, and the United States the way a lonely child adopts a lost puppy. I always thought he was angry over missing out on the British Empire and was looking for the next best thing. He’s a renowned expert on early American History. He could recite every battle of the American Revolutionary War, who won, who lost, and all the political ramifications.”
“How did you run into this guy? I thought you were some kind of computer geek.”
“I’m a computer scientist, Taylor. But I always had a love of history. Cavendish was a Visiting Professor at Boston College when I was a junior. I took a couple of courses from him and we became friends. I’ve tried to keep in touch over the years.”
“Can he really be of any help? We’re not looking for ancient history here.”
“His avocation is keeping track of everything at Yale worth remembering. If something happened here thirty years ago, the Professor will know it.”
The taxi dropped them off on College Street and Braxton led Luckett into a grassy valley enclosed by the ivied buildings of Yale’s Cross Campus.
“Are you sure this is the right place, Adam?” Luckett asked as they approached an imposing Gothic building. “It looks like a church.”
“It’s Sterling Memorial Library, Taylor,” Braxton replied with a smile. “And you haven’t seen anything yet.”
Braxton had already noticed a portly gentleman in a sport coat and tie standing like a Beefeater guard at the top of the entrance steps. He took the steps two at a time and stuck out his hand.
“Adam!” the man roared, ignoring the hand and wrapping Braxton in a bear hug. “How good to see you. I was so surprised when I received your phone call.”
Braxton extracted himself from the embrace. “Professor Cavendish. Good to see you as well. This is Taylor Luckett, ah, a colleague of mine.”
“Mr. Luckett. Very good to meet you.” Cavendish downgraded to a hand shake for the reporter. “Now come along inside and tell me more about this important search.”
They followed Cavendish through the massive arched wooden doors and into the interior of the library.
“Is this your first time at Yale, Mr. Luckett?” Cavendish asked as they walked down the main aisle.
“Taylor?” Braxton repeated, not hearing a response.
He turned and saw Luckett standing transfixed ten feet behind them just inside the doors.
“It is a church,” Luckett finally whispered, staring up at the vaulted ceiling sixty feet above their heads.
“No, but it was designed for study and contemplation,” Braxton explained after he retraced his steps. “Complete with stone arches, clerestory windows, stone and wood carvings and over three thousand stained-glass windows.”
“Actually, there are thirty-three hundred,” Cavendish corrected.
Braxton shook his head. “Of course, Professor. But we really should get going. Is there somewhere we can talk? It’s quite important.”
“Certainly,” Cavendish said. “We’re going to my favorite lair.”
Braxton grabbed Luckett’s coat sleeve and pulled him forward. Cavendish led them down the long main aisle, then took a right at the altar—which looked suspiciously like a circulation desk—through a breathtaking limestone cloister to the north wing—and finally into a room marked “Manuscripts and Archives.”
It was a quiet, dim reading room where they took seats on opposite sides of a huge oak table. Braxton would have felt uncomfortable carrying on a discussion in the chamber, except for the dearth of students. Looking at his watch, he realized that 10:30 was a little early even for Ivy Leaguers.
“We’re looking for someone, or something, having to do with Yale in ‘82,” Braxton began. “Unfortunately that’s about all we know. I believe whatever it is, however, was memorable. A famous person, a significant event. Taylor and I are very grateful for any help you can give us, Professor.”
“Think nothing of it, Adam. I have missed our discussions over the past few years. I trust you have kept yourself busy?”
“Yes, Professor. A little too busy sometimes. But if we could get started.”
“Oh, yes. Now the records are a bit sketchy before nineteen hundred, but I’m sure I can find . . .”
“Excuse me, Professor,” Luckett interrupted. “But we’re looking for nineteen eighty-two. Not eighteen eighty-two.”
“Oh.” The excitement drained from Cavendish’s face. “Nineteen eighty-two?”
“Yes, Professor,” Braxton replied. “I’m sorry I wasn’t clearer.”
“So recent,” Cavendish said sadly. “Well, that will be significantly easier. We should start with the Yale Banner. That’s our yearbook. We can branch out to specific clubs and organizations from there. The Class of 1982. Let’s see what I can remember.”
* * *
“Find anything, Taylor?” Braxton asked. In the past half-hour, he and Luckett had gone through a stack of eleven books Cavendish had deposited on their table. “I don’t see anything that could connect to . . . our friends.”
“Me either. All pretty standard stuff. No familiar faces, no special events.”
“These are all the Yearbooks for 1982?” Braxton asked his host.
“Yes, all the Yearbooks and Activities Guides. But I can assure you that a number of very significant events occurred that year. Why there was the dedication of the new statue in the west courtyard, . . .”
“Yes, Professor,” Braxton interjected. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean that nothing important happened. Just nothing that fits our parameters.”
“I see. Well, are you looking for anyone in particular?”
“I’m afraid I really don�
�t know. It might not even be a someone. But something about 1982 was significant.”
“Oh,” Cavendish replied wrinkling his forehead. “Then you didn’t mean the class of 1982. You meant the year.”
“Well, yes,” Luckett replied. “I guess we did.”
“Then you shouldn’t just look at these. You need to look into the next year too.” Cavendish got up and again disappeared into the stacks. When he returned, he dropped another pile of books onto the table.
“Perhaps, these will help,” he said.
Luckett shook his head and rubbed his eyes. “Now I remember why I wanted to get out of college so badly,” he whispered to Braxton.
“Look at the silver lining, Taylor,” Braxton replied. “At least he gets the books for us.”
“Professor, Cavendish,” Luckett asked as they began their new search. “Do you remember whether there were any significant events in the first semester that year? A violent demonstration? Sit-in?”
“Oh, heavens no. Nothing like that. We had our small demonstrations but nothing untoward. Certainly nothing like those barbarians up north.”
“Barbarians?” Braxton asked.
“Yes. In Cambridge.”
“Oh, you mean Harvard,” Luckett said.
“Sometimes they are so very, well, uncivilized. I have never been able to understand why they are held in such high esteem.”
“Yeah, I always wonder about that too,” Luckett added.
“It’s like The Game,” Cavendish said.
“The game?” Braxton asked. “What game?”
“The Game.” Cavendish looked at the pair as if they were idiots. “The Harvard-Yale game.”
“Oh, the football game,” Braxton said. God, why can’t Cavendish just let us do our work? After two hours of historical ramblings, even he had run out of patience with the academic.
“Of course. We always have a remarkable team. But Harvard has much, well, beefier players, you know.” Cavendish’s eyebrows crowned in a knowing look. “It’s their more liberal admission policy, you know.”
“Yes, I see, Professor. But, if you don’t mind I think we’d better get back to these yearbooks.” Braxton turned back to his book in hopes of shutting the old academic off.