by Greg Bear
‘In ordinary times, all this might have passed with little notice,’ Conklin continued. ‘Agencies could have gone through their usual pissing up the side of the barn door—pardon me, ladies—and settled things behind the scenes. But these are not ordinary times.’
‘Samuel, if you’re the messenger,’ Keller said, ‘let’s just have the message.’
‘The message is, we’ve grabbed an empty Zippo. No flint, no fluid, no flame. We have nothing,’ Conklin said. ‘Oh, there are some interesting results—we have eliminated a major international criminal. But that has nothing to do with anthrax. It certainly does not merit further investigation, beyond the general cleaning up and writing of reports.’
‘What were the findings?’ Rebecca asked.
‘There isn’t a trace of anthrax anywhere on the Patriarch’s farm. Not in the barn, not in the woods, and yes, Agent Rose, we have sent out cadaver dogs and are digging up any suspicious sites around the farm. Despite Jeremiah’s story, we have found no dead sheep. We do not anticipate finding any. To say that Jeremiah Chambers and Hagar Chambers are useless as witnesses is an understatement. They can hardly remember their own names. They are low-grade morons, whether from inbreeding or the Patriarch’s beatings and indoctrination, who can say? They don’t even know when they’re lying. Furthermore, though Hagar Chambers is pregnant, the Patriarch is not the infant’s father. We have yet to make a match, but we suspect the sire comes from completely outside the family—so at least it’s not an incest baby.’
‘And in Arizona?’ Keller asked.
‘At our request, they sequestered and scoured the three hundred printers in that trailer. They found no signs of anthrax on the printers or in the recycled ink cartridges shipped along with them.’
Rebecca coughed. She felt as if she had no more air in her lungs.
‘At any rate,’ Conklin said, ‘no anthrax anywhere, and hence no additional evidence of interest to any of us. Thank you, John. That’s my bit.’
‘Someone could have used the Patriarch’s family to get ready for an anthrax attack,’ William said. ‘They could have used the yeast—’
‘BT is commonly available. It’s almost exactly like anthrax, easy to grow, and perfectly legal. If I were going to spread anthrax, I’d use BT for any rehearsal. Yeast just doesn’t cut it, in terms of conspiracies,’ Conklin said, and looked sadly at his knuckles. ‘There’s nothing here.’
Rebecca slowly opened her folder. ‘They knew that we track BT,’ she said. ‘One of our master analysts, Frank Chao, decided to connect some of our apparently unconnected results. He compared the DNA from the blood sample in Arizona to the DNA of Hagar Chambers’ unborn child. They match. I have the proof of paternity right here. Whoever shot our Arizona patrolman was in Washington state, where he impregnated a seventeen-year-old girl right under her elderly husband’s nose, and he was very likely stopped in the act of returning to the Patriarch’s farm to deliver a load of inkjet printers.’
Conklin was momentarily conciliatory. ‘That’s interesting. We will certainly let Arizona know about the match.’ He threw a warm smile in Rebecca’s direction, below very cold eyes.
She nodded.
Conklin continued. ‘It may be they were getting hot from holding weekly orgies out there in the woods. It may be they were complete fanatics, planning to print and distribute millions of Nazi propaganda tracts. And maybe they were messing with yeast and spreading it around to develop their own special sourdough starter.’
‘That’s bacteria, actually,’ Sarah North said.
Conklin shifted his gaze above the table, as if talking to the back wall. ‘Nobody knows what they were really up to, but there’s still nothing compelling, Agent Rose. Not in this time of international emergency, when we need to focus all our resources.’
Grange wanted to be heard, but Keller held up his hand. ‘I’ve received my orders from the Attorney General, by way of the Director,’ Keller said. ‘Hiram Newsome has been reprimanded for using bureau resources without obtaining official approval. We’re reassigning Special Agent Rebecca Rose to Baltimore and instituting an investigation through OPR, to see if anything could have been done differently. Special Agent William Griffin will report to his original probationary assignment in…ah…New Jersey. I have been ordered to apologize to our fellow agencies, on behalf of the director of the FBI. There will be follow-up communications at a higher level.’
‘I’d like to say something,’ Rebecca said.
‘I’d prefer that you didn’t,’ Keller said. ‘Ms. North, while other charges are being prepared against the Patriarch’s family, I’ve been instructed to hand over our evidence to you, as a representative of the Consumer Products Safety Commission, with an eye to prosecution for the production of illegal fireworks.’
Sarah North stood with trembling hands. ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.
Outside the office, Rebecca followed Keller. William tagged behind at a discreet distance and caught the whispered conversation in mid-sentence.
‘Iran has overshadowed everything, Rebecca,’ Keller was saying. ‘Fortunately, because of that, this fox-up won’t matter much in the IG proceedings at Headquarters. We may all be able to stay on our feet in the middle of the bigger storm. But Hiram’s still out on a limb. Talk to him—and I mean seriously—before you think about wasting any more effort.’
‘I will,’ Rebecca said. ‘Why did we attract so much attention? I mean, if we’re such screw-ups…’
‘Best guess? As far as Grange is concerned, BuDark was created to follow a peculiar trail, and your investigation looked like an interesting side path. Oh, one other thing. Apparently they sent a helicopter into Iraq to investigate something of interest to BuDark. It came within a hundred klicks of the explosion at Shahabad Kord and made a safe tactical landing in the Zagros Mountains—but was subsequently shot down by Iranians or Iraqis before it could make it back to Turkey. We had two agents on board. One of them was an interpreter, I think you know him, William. His name was Fouad Al-Husam.’
‘What were they doing in Iraq?’ William asked.
Keller shrugged. ‘Headquarters is accusing DS of requisitioning our agents and then sending them on a deadly wild goose chase. There’s a lot of bad blood. I doubt there will be any enthusiasm for anthrax for years to come.’
Keller turned and put his hand on William’s shoulder. ‘We’ll take care of Griff. Keep your heads down and look to your careers, both of you,’ he advised.
CHAPTER FORTY
Northern Iraq
Fouad came down out of the hills with a backpack and a sack of provisions, followed by Harris, who was clutching a pistol in one hand. The brown plain ahead was dotted with yellow dust devils. Blue-gray clouds to the east and north threw long shadows over the red-painted mountains. It was empty and beautiful. There was no place to hide out there. It would be better to stay in the rocks.
They had fled the Superhawk’s wreckage as soon as they could, as soon as they had made sure there were no other survivors, to avoid being found and killed by whoever had shot them down.
The small aluminum case filled with the Kifri tissue samples hung from Fouad’s hip clip. He touched the radio attached at chest level to his flak vest, then turned back to watch Harris. Their analog voice signals were being jammed. The digital signals were not getting through, either, which was pretty surprising, considering they were transmitting directly to at least ten possible satellites. Someone was using chaff, aerostats, pop-ups, or possibly even other satellites to actively jam basic communications over the entire area—probably the Russians but perhaps the Turks as well. Having a nuke go off in your backyard tended to do that to people.
Or the radio was simply busted. The M2GPS on his belt was haywire, working only about half the time.
Their last hope was the C-SARB that relayed their position and aircraft ID in microbursts at irregular intervals. To enemy trackers, it would sound like cosmic hash—or nothing at all.
When Harris caught
up, Fouad handed him a bottle of water from the pack. Harris was trying to look in all directions at once. His broken arm, slung close to his chest, was obviously hurting but now was no time for painkillers. They had about a week’s worth of food. The water would last at most two or three days.
Harris took a drink from the bottle. ‘They’ll find us,’ he said. ‘To them, it’s like a day in the country picking flowers. They’ll track us from the wreckage. They’ll kill us and take pictures and spread our headless corpses out on the desert to dry. That’s how screwed we are.’
Fouad did not feel much more sanguine about their chances.
They had pulled Fergus and as much equipment as they could from the smoking ruins of the Superhawk. Master Sergeant, the Captain, the co-pilot and crew chief, and two other crew members, whose names Fouad had never learned, had been inaccessible, along with the more powerful weapons and most of the survival gear.
The forward bulkhead and the floor beneath Fergus, Harris, and Fouad had been ripped up and slammed to the back of the cabin by the initial impact and that had saved them when the helicopter had finally bounced off one boulder and ploughed into another. Fouad was not clear on all this. Some of the memories were returning, but right now, they were simply not relevant.
Fergus had died while they were still in the air. They had dug a quick grave and covered him with a hatch, the most they could do under the circumstances.
‘Well, pilgrim,’ Harris said, trying to stand straight. ‘What’s say we hide like furry little rodents.’
Fouad checked his compass and the chart from the map pack. He had looked at the stars the night before, after arranging the sling for Harris’s arm. They had not traveled far from the high barren field before being shot down. Or had they? He had been napping. Still, he thought he knew where they might be within twenty or thirty klicks. He hoped he knew.
Any crumb in a famine.
‘You take the blanket,’ Fouad instructed Harris, who was already shivering. ‘Sleep. I will stand watch.’
‘I’m not going to argue,’ Harris said. He found a crusty, sandy place next to a large boulder, lay down gingerly, and pulled the silvery thermal blanket over himself. The sun was past zenith and the air was already chilly and dry. Fouad’s throat hurt and his legs ached and his bruised chest felt tight. Breathing deeply hurt, as did pressing on his right side. Very likely ribs were broken. Finally, he was grateful for the extreme fitness regimen at Quantico. Victory over pain, Pete Farrow had called it.
‘Any guess?’ Harris called from the side of the boulder.
‘Still in Iraq,’ Fouad said. ‘Near no place we would know the name of.’ He walked over, held the chart out to Harris, and pointed to a square several centimeters across. ‘Somewhere in here.’
‘Very good,’ Harris said. ‘Awesome. That’s totally reassuring.’
‘Now sleep.’
Harris saluted and lay back with a groan.
A few minutes later, Fouad heard him shout ‘Shit, shit, shit.’ Harris shuffled past him, brushing his pants with his good arm.
‘Scorpion,’ he said. ‘Got my trousers but missed my leg. Fuck this. Fuck this to almighty hell. Did you know scorpions out here produce cytotoxic venom? Like a recluse spider. Haemolysis, necrosis, ankylosis, kidney failure, you can even go off your head—even. Very nasty shit.’ His eyes were red-rimmed and his face looked hot from fever. He danced from foot to foot for a few seconds, then let out his breath with a whoosh and barely controlled his fall to one knee.
‘Again, you are lucky,’ Fouad said.
‘Yeah, lucky,’ Harris said. ‘Do you think anybody cares what’s in this box?’ He reached up to tap the aluminum case.
‘For the sake of Fergus and Master Sergeant and the others, yes,’ Fouad said.
‘Did you ever learn Master Sergeant’s name?’ Harris asked.
‘No.’
‘Wait. I’ve got it here.’ Harris pulled out the duplicate tags that had been slung by the rear hatch, fanned through them with one hand, and read the stamped label above the ID chip. ‘Jerry Walton. Jesus. We’re as dead as Jerry Walton.’
‘Sit and be still,’ Fouad suggested, patting the ground beside him. ‘They could have infrared.’
‘I don’t want to take a pain pill,’ Harris said. ‘I want to be clear-headed when they kill us.’
‘Shh,’ Fouad said.
‘Fuck, it hurts.’ Harris squatted beside him and they watched the skies over the plain. Soon, Harris was on his back again, asleep but restless. The last of the dust devils had cleared. The sun was within minutes of setting. Soon it would be dusk, then night.
Fouad used his compass and quickly oriented himself, then laid down the flap edge of the sack and knelt on it to pray. He had to begin before sunset. Eventually he would have to catch up on the missed prayers. To pray was more than relief, far more than duty; it was a marvel of renewed strength.
He performed four raka’at.
A few minutes later, Fouad heard Harris cursing softly in his sleep. This was a profanation, but what could be done? His companion was in pain. He finished his prayers, then added a Ya Latif. As the evening deepened and the plain was covered in a veil of gray, Fouad spoke in a soft voice,
‘You who is gentle with children still in the wombs of their mothers, exhibit thy gentleness and grace towards us, a grace that befits Your Generosity and Your Mercy, O You who is the Most Merciful…’
He did not often pray for relief from his distress. It was his thought that God, even in his deep and abiding love, had many concerns and should not be bothered for petty ills and sorrows. This his father had taught him, though his mother had also said that God never tired of listening. But now was definitely the time for extraordinary help and guidance.
When night fell, they could not risk using any light, and so they would not see the scorpions.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
Seattle
‘I am no longer your boss,’ Rebecca said. ‘You’re buying the first round.’
‘You’re still senior,’ William said. This brought a look from her that seemed at once angry and vulnerable. She turned back to the bar menu.
‘For someone of my age and seniority, I am hungry,’ she said with forced cheer.
‘Not what I meant, of course,’ William said. He smiled at their figures in the mirror behind the ranked collection of bottles filled with amber, green, blue, and pale fluids. ‘We could buy all of those and forget for an entire evening. That’s what blue people often do.’
‘Tell me more about people who are blue.’
‘All right,’ William said. ‘We are few. We are blue. We protect him and her and you. I had a partner when I was working OCID—’
‘Organized Crime Investigations Division,’ Rebecca said. ‘Right after getting kicked out of vice. That’s how you got into FBI. The joint taskforce.’
‘That’s part of it. My father’s reputation preceded me like Cyrano’s nose.’
‘Cyrano? Was he a goombah?’
‘Cyrano de Bergerac. He had a huge nose and flew to the moon. You know Cyrano. He wrote letters for a guy who was in love with Roxanne. But he was in love with Roxanne, too, so it was tragic.’
Rebecca gave him a you-are-shitting-me stare.
‘Steve Martin, Darryl Hannah,’ he said.
‘Right.’ Rebecca lifted her martini. ‘Here’s to romantic poetry and big noses. Tell me more about your partner. What was he like?’
‘She, actually. We used hang out after work, plotting how to improve our record in the department. We were both pretty marginal.’
‘No hotshots?’
‘Our instincts were hinky,’ William said. ‘We just naturally liked people.’
‘Bad juju,’ Rebecca said. She tapped the bar and asked for another. ‘This one is on me.’
‘Thanks,’ William said. ‘Anyway, it was good, and it was bad. We were great at interrogations. Together, we could get under the skin of a perp so soft and easy he didn’t eve
n know we were injecting verbal truth serum. My partner was great at psychology. Big brown eyes, plump, sort of a Mediterranean mama. The goombahs, as you say—and the Russians, but not so much the Cambodians or Vietnamese—just wanted to open up and spill their guts. There, there, she’d say, and pat their wrists as they signed off on their confessions. But we weren’t all that good at pegging them, not right away.’
‘Bad for a cop,’ Rebecca said. ‘But good for the soul.’
‘Her name was Karen Truslow. Upstate New York money, but to her folks’ dismay, she turned blue. We spent a lot of time in the backs of vans listening to taps, and when things were slow we made up a dictionary of slurs. We could use them, blue people, but nobody else. “Cop” is mostly okay, but “Copper” or “Flatfoot” or “Screw” or anything a Dick Tracy villain would say is a mortal insult.’
‘You liked her,’ Rebecca said. ‘But she died a tragic death and now you cherish her memory and feel guilty.’
‘No, she’s still in OCID. She recommended I go FBI. “They’re not so blue. They pass.”’
‘That’s a lie,’ Rebecca said. ‘I’m deep midnight. But wait. I’m senior, so I’m wrinkled and faded, like old denim.’
‘You’re fishing,’ William said.
‘That means you think I’m hitting on you,’ Rebecca said, turning on her stool. ‘That I need to hook a compliment out of that manly, tall, broad chest…Whatever. Christ, I’m a cheap drunk. But tell me, young William Griffin. You saw me in my nightie. Is it all over for me?’
‘You’re tired.’
Her expression drooped. ‘I’m gone. I’m dead. I’ll crawl back to my desk and shuffle papers for the rest of my career. I’ll retire with blue hair, my stomach hanging below my knees, and dream of filing cabinets. I’ll be a faded blue bag hag.’
William shook his head. ‘Let’s pay.’
‘You don’t like my company.’
‘I don’t like my liquor talking with an anger chaser.’
‘What?’
William’s serious face broke. ‘I’m tired, too.’
