by Nancy Kress
But Watergate was not mass murder. In fact, Cavanaugh had always felt reassured by Watergate. Minor corruption, major condemnation. Malaria reading embodied just the opposite—if it had been deliberately conceived by, manufactured at, dispersed by, and exported by a group or groups at Fort Detrick. Major corruption, minor condemnation. By, among others, the FBI that Cavanaugh believed in.
The real danger of taking on the FBI was finding out how rotten its soul might be. And then deciding if you could still bear to be a part of it.
“Get thee glass eyes,/And, like a scurvy politician, seem/To see the things thou dost not.” King Lear.
Was Cavanaugh seeing a thing that “dost not”? Or was he seeing, all too accurately, what was?
Abigail, tired of sniffing at flower beds and peeing on the sundial, nuzzled Cavanaugh’s feet and whined. He stood and walked on. Maryland Historical Society, grocery store, pharmacy, barbershop, Betty’s Custom Framing. The air smelled of honeysuckle. Sometimes it seemed to Cavanaugh that all of Maryland smelled of honeysuckle.
Maybe he should just let sleeping dogs lie. Sleeping jackals, sleeping vultures, sleeping carrion. What did it matter? In a hundred years they’d all be dead anyway. Him, Melanie, “Colonels Thompson and Broderick,” Director Broylin, all the relatives of malaria reading victims. Dead and forgotten. And the world would roll on anyway. Who was Cavanaugh to presume to affect its course? Hubris, pure hubris.
Cavanaugh realized he must have been walking longer than he’d thought; the sky had lighted and the stars had disappeared. Abigail trotted toward the grassy island in the middle of the street, which held that mandatory southern town centerpiece, the Civil War monument. Cavanaugh followed.
But it wasn’t a Civil War monument. It had been erected November 11, 1921, to Leonardtown soldiers killed in World War I. GLORIA PRO PATRIA MORI. Well, maybe in 1921 the phrase had been less hackneyed and more heartfelt. There were two separate lists of names.
COLORED
Raymond G. Biscoe Pvt., 16th Co., 154th Dep Brig.
Died Camp Meade 10-7-18
Joseph H. Branson Pvt., Co. A, 333d Labor BN A.E.F.
Died France 9-23-18
Thomas Briscoe Pvt. …
Ten names, total.
WHITE. Seventeen names. All the “Colored,” shunted off to their own list, had been privates. The “Whites” had ranged from private to first lieutenant. All were equally dead.
Cavanaugh hoped like hell that Melanie didn’t wander down from his apartment and see this monument. He didn’t want to listen to the explosion.
But the monument sealed his decision.
“Abigail! Come on, girl! Here, Abigail!”
The dog loped to him. Cavanaugh walked back to his apartment and into the day.
Nineteen
It is the right of the American people to know what their government has done—the bad as well as the good.
—Senator Frank Church, Select Committee to Study Government Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, 1975
* * *
“Ready?” Cavanaugh asked Melanie. She’d showered, dressed in a conservative blue suit, and sat drinking her third cup of strong black coffee.
“Ready.”
Cavanaugh turned up the phone volume so that, if he held it slightly away from his ear, she could hear both sides of the conversation. He punched in the first of the numbers on his list.
“Good morning, Federal Bureau of Investigation. Can I help you?” Cavanaugh didn’t recognize the mature female voice. Possibly it belonged to one of the Betty Bureaus who’d married themselves to the FBI decades ago. In that case, he already knew the script.
“This is Agent Robert Cavanaugh. I’d like to speak to Director Broylin.”
“I’m sorry, he’s in a meeting right now. Have you discussed your concern with your special agent in charge?” Meaning: Why are you violating the chain of command?
“That’s not possible. I need to speak to Director Broylin.”
“If you’d like to leave a message, I’ll see that he gets it.” Meaning: At the bottom of a huge stack of irrelevancies. If you had anything interesting, it would come through your SAC, and Director Broylin is too busy for trifles. Betty Bureaus were fiercely protective of their bosses. They had a bad time during administrations with accessible, open-door directors, but that didn’t describe Broylin.
“I would like to leave a message, yes. Please tell Director Broylin that I have some important information about Project Birthday.”
“I’ll give him the message.” Meaning: You’re bothering him about a birthday party?
“He’ll know what I mean. It’s a top-clearance CIA project.” Cavanaugh gave his phone number.
“I’ll tell him.” And now her voice said, A nut in the ranks of agents? If he’d been a common citizen reporting a stealth UFO landing on the White House roof, her tone would be more respectful. Prophet in his own country. But at least he’d upped the chances that she’d actually tell Broylin. Betty Bureaus were as protective of the FBI’s reputation as of their bosses’ time. Cavanaugh repeated his phone number.
Melanie poured herself yet more coffee. Usually Cavanaugh would drink anything with caffeine, but now he turned his eyes away from the stream of hot coffee cascading into Melanie’s mug. His stomach roiled.
The director of the CIA and the commander of Fort Detrick were also in meetings. Their receptionists also took messages.
“Now we wait,” Melanie said.
“Now we wait,” Cavanaugh agreed. “And forgive me for asking, but why are you suddenly so calm and poised, when all through this you’ve been … been …”
“A raging lunatic,” Melanie said calmly. “But that was when I thought nobody would do anything. Now somebody will have to.” She took another quiet sip.
Cavanaugh wished his anxiety worked that way. Obviously it didn’t. He circled the tiny room, pacing and jiggling, feeling like Felders.
Forty-three minutes later, the phone rang.
“Agent Cavanaugh, please.”
“Speaking.”
“This is Assistant Director Arnold Sutton. I understand you have a message for the director.”
“Yes, sir. The message is that I must meet with him today. It’s urgent.”
“A meeting is not possible, Agent Cavanaugh. The director’s calendar is completely full. And I think you already know that your request is in violation of proper Bureau procedure. Please tell me the nature of your concern.”
“My concern is about Project Birthday. And I—”
“There is no such project in the FBI.”
“Yes, sir, there is. I’m sorry, sir, but there is. It’s top clearance.”
“I repeat Agent Cavanaugh, that I know of no such project within the FBI.”
“No, sir, you don’t. But the director does. And I have vital information about it.”
“Vital information obtained how?” Sutton asked.
“I’ll reveal that only to the director. But please tell him that I’m not the only one with this information, sir. Dr. Broylin needs to know that.”
“Aren’t you on OPR suspension, Agent Cavanaugh? For unauthorized disclosure?”
“Yes, sir. But the information I have for Dr. Broylin is independent of my status with the Bureau.” Both true and not true. It was getting harder to tell the difference.
Sutton said, “You’re out of line, Agent Cavanaugh. I’m taking due note of that fact. Please remain in your present location, keeping your present phone number free, until you hear from me again.” The phone clicked sharply.
Melanie said, “What does that mean?”
“It means he was told to call me by Broylin. Otherwise, an assistant director who may or may not have heard of Project Birthday wouldn’t call me directly. And he had my Bureau record right there in front of him. Broylin’s taking me seriously.”
“And the others? The CIA and Fort Detrick?”
“He’ll check with them, or has checked with the
m, depending on who he needs to talk to and where in the country they are. But they’ll stay in the background, let Broylin handle it. He’s the one in hot water. I’m one of his.”
“And now—”
“Now we wait.”
“Okay,” Melanie said, with her new unnerving serenity. “Want some coffee?”
Cavanaugh shuddered.
There were 642 books on his shelves, counting paperbacks. Two hundred ten medallions on the bathroom wallpaper. Six packages of food in his freezer. Four ants in his kitchen. Thirty-one dollars and forty-six cents in his wallet. Twelve stamps left on the roll. Melanie shifted to lemonade and spent most of her time in the bathroom. Serenity took odd forms.
The phone rang at 1:30 P.M.
“Agent Cavanaugh. This is Grace, Dr. Broylin’s secretary. A car will pick you up in approximately twenty minutes. Please remain inside your apartment. Dr. Broylin will see you when you arrive in Washington.”
“And my colleague. There will be two of us.”
A sharp intake of breath. “The director is unaware of a second person.”
“The second person is Dr. Melanie Anderson, Epidemic Intelligence Service, Centers for Disease Control. Background already on file. Please tell Dr. Broylin that Dr. Anderson is fully aware of everything I know.”
“I’ll inform Dr. Broylin,” Grace said, not warmly.
Melanie said again, “Now we wait.”
“Now we wait.”
There were twenty-two CDs in Cavanaugh’s collection. Seventy-three tapes. Immigration had occurred in the kitchen; the four ants were now nine.
Cavanaugh didn’t know either of the agents in the Bucar. Probably they belonged to the director’s security detail. Everybody exchanged credentials. Throughout this, Cavanaugh couldn’t shake a feeling of unreality—weren’t they all on the same side?
Were they?
The Hoover Building, possibly the ugliest official structure in D.C., didn’t lessen the unreality. Watched by his escorts, Cavanaugh signed in. As a field agent, he no longer had a Headquarters pass, and he’d never had the electronic code for the director’s suite. Melanie signed in with him and submitted to a weapons search without even a protest. Cavanaugh didn’t know if that was a good or bad sign. Their escort took them up in the elevator to the director’s suite and punched in an electronic code.
Peter Broylin sat behind his desk, facing him. Sixty-three years old, thin and fit and mostly bald, he followed a spate of younger, more liberal directors who all had, one way or another, been media disasters. Too concerned with the field at the expense of Headquarters, too concerned with Headquarters at the expense of the field, too flamboyant, too cautious, cheated the press, hogged the press, ran a sloppy ship, the ship engaged in piracy … Broylin had avoided most of this criticism by being honest, firm, and mostly invisible. He gave few speeches and fewer press conferences. Instead, he occupied himself with running the FBI through his chain-of-command, and running it well. Respected by both his agents and the general public, Broylin projected the personality of a stealth plane: powerful, finely tuned, and difficult to be sure of.
“Sit down, Agent Cavanaugh, Dr. Anderson.”
They sat. The security detail, on cue, left the room. Cavanaugh knew they’d be watching, but not listening. Although that didn’t mean that others might not be hearing whatever transpired here. The director’s office included side doors, and Cavanaugh doubted that they all led to bathrooms.
“Thank you for seeing us, sir.”
Broylin’s much-praised efficiency included not wasting meeting time. “What do you want to tell me about a birthday project?” Cavanaugh heard the deliberate lack of quotes or capitals. Broylin was giving nothing away. Cavanaugh had about two minutes to establish his own credibility.
His throat suddenly went dry. Before he could swallow, Melanie said calmly, “We know that the Birthday Project is a bioweapons project funded by the CIA, created at Fort Detrick, and deliberately tested in Congo. And that some of the Anopheles quadrimaculatus genetically altered for the project escaped in a car accident on Route 301 near the Potomac River Bridge the night of May 2. Those infected Anopheles began the—”
“I addressed my question to Agent Cavanaugh, Dr. Anderson. We’ll get to your information in due time.”
“Fine,” Melanie said, unruffled. But her eyes glittered.
Cavanaugh said, “Dr. Anderson is essentially right, sir. But I’d rather explain it by starting at the beginning of my personal involvement in this case, and following through. If you’re not taping this conversation, I’d like to suggest that you do so.”
“Go on,” Broylin said expressionlessly.
As he told the story, step by step, Cavanaugh realized all over again how well all the pieces interlocked. The CIA car hitting the deer. The timing of the epidemic. The failed attempt to use elephant mosquitoes to unobtrusively end the plague. The targeting of Michael Sean Donohue, a credible decoy, to deflect public attention while USAMRIID and the CDC stopped malaria reading by conventional containment methods that aroused no suspicion. The uneasiness of Jerry Dunbar and Jim Farlow when they were told, as they had to have been, why certain facets of the investigation had to be kept secret. Both men’s willingness to take promotions in other countries. The removal of Cavanaugh and Melanie, the two investigators too stubborn to quit and too low-level to be brought into the cover-up. The hate calls to Melanie, indirectly traceable to Fort Detrick, to discourage her from staying in Maryland and expounding her genocide theories. The paper trail of unprecedented purchases of Anopheles to Fort Detrick. And, finally, the parallel epidemic in Africa, and the—
“I’ll tell this part, Robert,” Melanie said, and Cavanaugh found he was willing to let her. He wished he had a glass of water. Broylin had not changed expression. No skepticism, no disgust, no anger, no contradiction. He looked like a man hearing information he already knew.
It was real, then, as real as all the trash cynicism about government: the movies, the bad TV series, the routines of stand-up comics. The United States, which Cavanaugh had sworn to support and defend, had casually killed innocent people in order to test a weapon to kill more innocent people. “The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere/The ceremony of innocence is drowned …”
“… part that can’t be explained away,” Melanie was saying, “is the vector samples. The CDC now has samples of mosquitoes whose salivary glands show clearly what’s been going on here. One set of genetically altered Anopheles to infect people—mostly blacks—with malaria reading. Another set of genetic alterations to vaccinate against the first. Human blood samples from Congo would confirm that to any lab in the world that cares to do so. The epidemiological curves are also hard data, Mr. Broylin. Not—what do you call it?—‘circumstantial evidence.’ Someone started that epidemic in Congo. Someone ended it. Both trails led to Fort Detrick. And if you think—”
“You have made some leaps to unwarranted conclusions, Dr. Anderson,” Broylin said dryly. “As Agent Cavanaugh can—and should—have told you.”
“Oh? Like what?” Melanie’s eyes glittered again.
“Please wait here for a moment. Don’t leave.” Broylin stood and vanished behind one of the side doors.
They waited. For what? Cavanaugh didn’t know. Maybe he’d never actually known anything anyway. About anything. Maybe everything he’d thought he’d known had been wrong, or incomplete, or falsified. Or maybe there wasn’t anything really to know, to be sure of. “Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world …”
The side door reopened. Broylin came back in, alone. He resumed his position behind the desk.
“You present a very interesting problem, Agent Cavanaugh. So do you, Dr. Anderson. Who else have you told about your investigation and your conclusions?”
Melanie said quickly, “A few others. In writing. So if anything happens to us, those—”
“Who, Agent Cavanaugh?” Broylin said, as if Melanie hadn’t spoken.
The two men’s eyes lo
cked and held.
“No one, sir. We’ve told the whole story to no one. Although a few people know parts of it, such as Special Agent in Charge Martin Felders and CDC epidemiologist Dr. Joseph Krovetz.”
“Goddamn it, Robert!” Melanie cried.
Broylin nodded slowly.
“I see,” he said. “And I think you see, too.”
“Yes,” Cavanaugh said. “We’re an interesting problem because you have so many choices about Melanie and me. You can keep us from going to the press, by threats or bribes or whatever. Or you can let us go and then do everything the Bureau is capable of to discredit what we say. Or you can try to convince us we’re wrong about what we’ve uncovered. Or you can tell us the real truth, and risk everything on our voluntary silence.”
Broylin said, without any flattery whatsoever, “I see we almost lost a good agent in Maryland when the OPR recommended transfer to North Dakota. Tell me, Agent Cavanaugh, which of those choices am I going to make?”
Melanie said bitterly, “You’re going to try to silence us,” and finally Broylin turned his attention to her. “You mean, Dr. Anderson, that you think the FBI is going to kill you. Or arrange for a ‘fatal accident.’ Or immobilize you under Thorazine in some institution. Don’t you?”
“Yes! I wouldn’t put anything past a government that would do what you’ve already done!”
