by Greg Bear
‘Did you ever watch Apocalypse Now?’ Harris asked. They both had, Fergus five or six times. ‘Remember Robert Duvall—what the fuck was his name—going up to the wounded gook begging for water, telling Martin Sheen that any soldier holding in his guts with his bare hands was a hero. Anyway, he gives the gook his own canteen—spills water on him—and then a young jock tells him about some righteous waves. Duvall jerks the canteen away before the gook can take a sip. Right on. That’s America—a boatload of righteous sentiment, then we lose interest and pull out. We fucking go home and leave them to bleed to death.’
‘Beatty did not leave,’ Fouad pointed out.
‘He’s sticking around to prove a stupid point,’ Harris said. ‘Same difference. Screw that.’
‘Where do you want to go, right now?’ Fergus asked, with a wry smile.
‘Home,’ Harris said.
‘Me, too. Fred?’
‘I will bravely vote with the majority,’ Fouad said. Somehow, his turmoil and fear had transformed into lightheadedness, even levity. He did not have a clue what would be happening to them in the next few hours. ‘I am a young agent, lacking all experience, and yet, because I speak a strange language, here I am,’ he said. ‘With you two strapping Yankees, and we are all feeling very mortal. We will have a beer many years from now, in a bar, and laugh. We will be great friends.’
Harris gave Fergus a look. ‘You drink beer, Fred?’
‘I have been known to, to my shame,’ Fouad said. ‘But not at the Academy. My father would hear of it.’
‘Harsh man, your pappy?’
‘Not particularly,’ Fouad said. ‘But not a drinker.’
‘So if the anthrax isn’t from around here, where is it from?’ Harris asked Fergus.
‘Anthrax is everywhere,’ Fergus said. ‘But this particular stuff is special. Current thinking is, it’s our own domestic blend. One secret we’ve kept from John and Jane Q Public for a long time, is how many places in the U.S. used to work with anthrax. Agricultural schools, weapons research during World War 2—hell, back then every pharmaceutical company and university with a war contract worked with anthrax. Just inside the United States, we’ve traced leftovers to abandoned warehouses, old college labs, scientific supply houses. Nothing shocks me any more.’
‘Who in America still wants to kill Jews?’ Fouad asked. ‘Are we after Nazis or American Fascists?’
Harris and Fergus immediately sobered.
‘I am asking, who in America would make an anthrax that kills only Jews?’
The two men looked down and scuffed their feet but still said nothing.
‘Someone thinks it is American Muslims?’ Fouad ventured.
Master Sergeant called from the Superhawk’s cabin. The wind shredded his voice. ‘We’re leaving, gentlemen. All aboard!’
‘Whoever the fuck it is, it can’t be done,’ Fergus said to Fouad as they walked back across the rugged field. ‘There’s no genetic marker or receptor that singles out Jews. You just can’t breed that kind of germ. It’s a scientific impossibility.’
‘So what is it they are trying to accomplish?’ Fouad asked.
‘Someone’s lying,’ Fergus said. ‘Someone is delivering samples to radical Islamists and telling them a nasty fib. We need to know who, and we’d certainly like to know why.’ Fergus clutched his hat under the wash from the blades. Harris helped Fouad, and Fouad pulled up Fergus.
‘Hell, you know what the fanatics around here would likely do,’ Fergus said. ‘They’d round up six Jews, any old Jews, and dose them—but why do a double-blind and test it on the faithful? That would be an abomination.’
Fouad looked between them. They both returned his look, as if trying to figure out his disposition, his race, the psychology of all Islam, through his dark young eyes.
‘Six Kurdish Jews,’ Harris muttered. ‘And a year ago, seven Shiites dead in Baghdad.’
‘Sunnis wouldn’t mind killing both Jews and Shiites,’ Fergus said.
‘And now you probably know as much as we do,’ Harris said to Fouad. ‘The more you know, the less it makes sense.’
Master Sergeant welcomed them aboard, grinning with relief. ‘The hell with this, let’s motor,’ he said. They resumed their seats and strapped in.
‘If it is not modified to kill Jews, could it be modified to mislead fanatical Muslims? Simple souls that they are?’ Fouad smiled his most ingenuous smile.
Fergus snorted. Harris looked around the helicopter. ‘Fred, are you impugning the intelligence of our enemies?’ he asked.
‘Perhaps to convince these simple souls that there is a way to win an old war,’ Fouad said. ‘And make them pay great sums of money to get it.’
‘An expensive fake-out,’ Fergus said with wry appreciation.
Master Sergeant listened intently but his heart wasn’t in the discussion. ‘The whole world’s got to change,’ he said.
‘If Fred’s correct, selling fake anthrax wouldn’t be a major crisis, would it?’ Harris asked. ‘It would be like selling red mercury to the Serbs. That cost Slobodan Milosevic six million dollars for squat—a high-yield explosive that doesn’t even exist.’
‘But these American suppliers are not stupid people, if they can obtain or modify such anthrax. From who else would they extort money? From fanatics with equal hatred,’ Fouad suggested.
‘Who would that be?’ Harris asked.
‘I am thinking out loud,’ Fouad said.
‘Fred here believes we may not have the complete picture yet,’ Fergus said. ‘Maybe we’re all thinking simplistically.’
‘Amen to that,’ Harris said. ‘That’s always been our problem in this part of the world.’
Master Sergeant closed the hatch. The helicopter rose from the old farm field, turned into the snowy wind, and immediately headed west, making a beeline for Turkey.
Once again Fouad had closed his eyes. He was in the middle of a vivid dream of sick and dying cattle. They had the most sympathetic and pain-filled eyes. The cattle began kicking over huge oil drums. He heard rapid sounds of banging metal. As he jerked awake, he saw Fergus slump forward. Harris had crossed the aisle and was fumbling with his hands to cover a fountain of blood from Fergus’s chest. Master Sergeant calmly threw flak jackets at them. ‘Up front,’ he ordered. ‘Thicker armor.’
Fouad worked his arms to get into a jacket. He helped Harris drag Fergus forward. Master Sergeant popped open a first aid kit and flung compresses and tourniquets in plastic bags at them. ‘Open ’em, tie him off, press ’em wherever there’s blood,’ he instructed.
‘Hell with that,’ Harris shouted back. ‘He’s dying!’
Fergus was bleeding out in great gushes on the deck. His hands, held up in supplication, shook uncontrollably and his lips were blue in a chalk-white face. Despite the futility, Fouad went to work, helping Harris. They were covered in blood.
The Superhawk roared and veered and careened. ‘We’re being painted!’ the co-pilot shouted. Countermeasures screamed away from the chopper on both sides—flares and chaff. ‘Tango Victor Charlie, we got red eyes. Scorpios up our crack and we cannot shake ’em.’
‘Shit on a stick,’ Master Sergeant said, and doubled over.
The cabin hissed like a huge snake and filled with smoke and flame.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Silesia, Ohio
Sam parked the trailer by the curb at the north end of a pretty little park on the southwestern side of the town, about four miles from the warehouse district and the little bar where he had picked up Darly Fields, forty-two, divorced mother of two, currently working as a network maintenance supervisor for a feed supply company.
Next, he walked around the park with a little flag on a stick checking the wind direction and making notes on his city map of Silesia. On the south side of the park he had already counted three churches, all of medium size.
The wind was slow and relatively warm and dry for this time of year. All good. There was a big Town Talk bakery within
a mile of the park, directly downwind. Silesia had three bakeries within range that shipped bread all over the state. There were twelve feed stores, and of course the silos and warehouses.
The Patriarch had told him over and over again, in the presence of his wives and his sons, of his plans for the Endtimes, should the Federales Satanus flood down upon them. ‘God and me, we’ve dreamed up a real surprise,’ he had said.
And so they had. But it didn’t matter now. Shifting obstacles could be outmaneuvered, fixed obstacles could be worked around. Ambitious plans for five or six targets could be reduced to the two most important—and of course, Silesia. In the beginning Sam had hoped to have everything ready by the Fourth of July, but two Julys had passed with essential equipment and deals and personnel not yet in place.
Now it had to be a one-two-three punch. First the demo, followed within two months by the first city, and then—in the proper season—the most difficult and inaccessible target of all.
Past maximum heating, this was no time to let loose the first operational Pillar of Fire. He would wait until morning. And if the next morning was not good enough, if the wind had reversed and was blowing away from town, he would wait for the morning after that. But he could not wait forever. Like the Patriarch, Sam would have to put some reliance on God.
Sam pushed back his hair with one hand and kept a straight face as he walked over the short brown lawns and under the scattered shade of old oak trees. Of late, his features inclined to a fixed scowl of concentration. He was gaining lines in the wrong places. Soon nobody would trust him. Not that it mattered. Perhaps in the end he would become a true eagle-eyed John Brown with flames floating above his head, convinced that what he was doing was surely righteous—a true believer, like so many of the pious, hypocritical sons of bitches downwind from this new American Trinity.
God would not protect them. They weren’t listening any more. Perhaps they never had.
If his instincts were correct, tomorrow was going to begin with a fine calm morning, a breeze blowing ever so lightly from the northwest.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Seattle
Rebecca knocked on the door to William’s room just as he finished shaving. ‘Showtime,’ she called out.
They had moved into a suites motel downtown. The rooms were smaller than the rooms in Everett, and William preferred it that way now. Less to keep in his field of vision. But the rooms were also dirtier.
‘Be right there,’ he called.
William put on his tie, adjusted his holstered SIG, made sure the recognizer was keyed, and slipped his arms into his coat. He checked his Lynx button display, which flashed a bright 1-1-2, fully operational, then swung the deadbolt and opened the door.
Rebecca was carrying a folder in one hand and her slate in the other. ‘Ammunition,’ she said. ‘To justify our existence. As I suspected, we have irritated ATF, BDI, and apparently Homeland Security. The triumvirate. Fortunately, the heat is pretty much off—nobody much cares about the Patriarch or anthrax at the moment.’
‘You’ve been here before,’ William said as he followed her down the hotel corridor, through the glass door, and out to the agency van parked by the curb.
‘Yeah,’ Rebecca said. ‘I have.’
SAC Keller sat at the head of the table in the tenth-floor office of the U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington. The view of downtown Seattle and two stadiums from the new Internal Security building was obscured by a layer of wet fog.
Keller stood and rapped his knuckles on the table to get their attention. ‘The U.S. Attorney has kindly lent his office for this meeting,’ he said. ‘He’s in Washington, DC right now, fighting for his job, but he personally tells me that he hopes we will maintain the very most cordial interdepartmental relations in this time of world turmoil.’
Several chuckles around the long wooden table.
‘Times change, but crime is crime,’ Keller continued. ‘And we’re here to share what we know, to clear up some details about what was, until yesterday, a front-page case.’
Shuffling. Most of these people clearly had places to go and things to get done. To Rebecca, they resembled boys waiting in the principal’s office. She pushed her folder back and forth on the polished table and glanced at William, sitting quiet and still beside her.
‘Why are you always so calm?’ Rebecca whispered to him as Keller passed around a pot of coffee and paper cups.
‘Because you’re going to pull a rabbit out of a hat,’ William whispered, with a look at her folder. ‘I’m just waiting to see what kind of rabbit.’
‘Maybe I have no rabbits,’ Rebecca said. ‘Maybe I’m fresh out of all my little coneys.’
Keller introduced the agents and department representatives. Rebecca recognized Diplomatic Security agent David Grange, the pug-faced man who had irritated her on the Patriarch’s farm. She had not yet met the ATF’s new Deputy Assistant Director, Western Division, Samuel Conklin, a jowly man with nervous eyes, well past middle age. And she was surprised to find, arriving a little late and taking a seat next to her, the only other female in the room, a junior representative from CPSC—the Consumer Product Safety Commission. She smiled and handed Rebecca her card. Her name was Sarah North. With black hair cut in a page boy, North was plump, red-faced, and intense-looking, as if she had just scrubbed off Goth makeup and put on a tight brown suit.
Her presence did not encourage Rebecca.
‘The Secret Service has declined to join our meeting today,’ Keller said dryly. ‘There are matters of international importance demanding their immediate attention.’
‘And ours,’ Grange said.
Keller produced one of his enigmatic smiles. ‘I thought that Deputy Assistant Director Samuel Conklin could begin.’
Conklin arranged a packet of printouts in front of him, then fumbled with his slate and made a face. He drew himself up and rested his arms on the table. ‘First of all, I’d like to congratulate FBI for apprehending the Patriarch. That closes a major case. My deep regrets as to the injury and loss of your agents. When informed about the surveillance, and then the tragedy, ATF and DS offered our services in a difficult time for the FBI. Who says cooperation is dead? We all did a fine job, working through the evidence and the ruins. Very educational. A new type of fuse to add to ATF’s long list. Because of the added possibility that the Patriarch case might provide clues about another old case, American Anthrax 2001, ATF was given the lead by the Attorney General to move to the front in a number of investigations, following the patterns we discerned in ADIC Newsome’s activities. We regret not informing Newsome or his agents about our involvement, or the reshuffling of command—we did not mean to undercut anyone—but the Attorney General and the President do not have much confidence in the FBI. This is common knowledge.’
Grange made a little rictus and looked out the window at the fog.
‘You smelled a flower in all the old manure, and you decided to pluck it,’ Rebecca said.
‘Well, yes, ma’am, we smelled a Rose,’ Conklin said, ‘and the FBI certainly has its pile to shovel.’
Keller lifted his hand. His face had reddened, but his gesture was enough to make Conklin nod and make placating motions. ‘I was not in Washington, and I did not make the requests or issue the orders. I’m just explaining what happened. Carrying the message.’
‘Let’s hear it, then,’ Keller said.
‘We’ve had to sail into a stiff wind every inch of the way. I’ve personally reported to the Attorney General that SAC Erwin Griffin’s entry into the Patriarch’s barn was premature and ultimately destructive of what could have been crucial evidence.’
‘He had his reasons,’ William said. His face, too, was pinking.
‘I’m sure,’ Conklin said. ‘Furthermore, the Patriarch was forewarned and managed to order his family scattered to the winds before FBI or local law enforcement could set up an effective cordon. Whatever his reasons, Erwin Griffin did not foresee this, nor did he plan for i
t. Since ATF and Homeland Security became involved, with the help of U.S. Marshals we have rounded up nine of twenty-two fugitive family members, in three states. Two were apprehended by Agents Rose and Griffin Junior here in Washington, after an unnecessarily dangerous scuffle.’
‘You didn’t find them,’ Grange observed. ‘They found you.’
Rebecca fixed her eyes on Grange’s lips and nose.
‘Adding comedy to farce, because of a prior bungled interrogation, we had to question one of the Patriarch’s sons, Jeremiah Jedediah Chambers, in the presence of a poorly paid and seriously inept public defender. FBI bungled that one for us, as well. But my agents did follow up on what little we learned. And along the way, we found that Agent Rose had involved herself in another case, the murder of a Highway Patrol officer in Arizona. ATF and Homeland Security requested prior copies of lab results for that case and received them this morning.’
‘Have we received those results yet, Agent Rose?’ Keller asked.
‘No, sir,’ Rebecca said. She pulled a fist off the table to hide it, but the knuckles on her other hand were white. ‘I’m curious as to what they might be.’
Despite his sharp tongue Conklin was not enjoying himself. He was old school and did not like making fellow agents squirm. Still, he was not about to blunt the edge of his story. ‘Local authorities in Arizona were happy to assist ATF because the FBI apparently behaved with its usual courtesy and professional respect. As well, we learned today that Agent Rose pocketed two key pieces of evidence and had them analyzed in Virginia. So we requested those results, as well, with the Attorney General’s permission, and have used them to draw our own conclusions.’
Keller glanced at Rebecca. She sat very still, her face frozen. Game, set, match.
William could not feel much of anything except an almost childlike bewilderment. Just a short time ago he had been at Quantico, trying desperately not to screw up and keep ahead of an ever-expanding curve. Now, it looked as if he was going to sink out of sight in the company of some of the finest agents in the Bureau.
