The Exterminators

by Bill Fitzhugh

  “The R&D branch of the U.S. Department of Defense.”

  “I don’t understand,” Bob said. “What do you want with us?”

  “Well, Bob, we want your help in the war on terror.”

  Chapter Ten

  There followed a silence, awkward and pregnant. The only thing threatening to make any noise was Treadwell’s radiant smile.

  “Did you just call me…Bob?” He tried to sound confused in an amused sort of way as he glanced at Mary and Klaus who both conjured a weak chuckle that failed to convince.

  Not that it mattered.

  Ever since he arrived, Treadwell had been playing along, referring to them by their aliases, the false identities Klaus had arranged six years earlier. But now he said, “I’m afraid so, Mr. Dillon.” Then he smiled and said, “But don’t think twice, it’s all right.” Treadwell chuckled as he extended his hand across the conference table and said, “Let’s start over, shall we? Mary? Klaus? Pleasure to meet you.” After Mary limply shook his hand, Treadwell checked his watch. “I assume Katy is on her way home from school.”

  “Uhhhh, who?”

  “Oh, please,” Treadwell said, all genial. “We don’t need to play that game, do we? We know who you are. I’ve told you who we are. Let’s just get in bed together. Make this world a safer place,” he said with a wink. “Whaddya say?”

  “I think you’ve made a mistake,” Mary said feebly.

  Treadwell understood the pretense but he didn’t want to spend time with it. He folded his hands on the table and recited the facts. “Okay, let’s see. Bob Dillon, son of Curtis and Edna Dillon, born September 12, 1963, Newark, New Jersey.” He paused a moment. “Or is it October 12? We found one date on your birth certificate and the other in your Social Security file.”

  Bob shrugged in mock confusion. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, though he knew there had been a typo on his original birth certificate that had been corrected when he hit the rolls at the Social Security Administration. “My birthday is May first,” he lied.

  “Ah, May Day,” Treadwell said with a conciliatory nod before continuing with Mary’s full biography, including the names of her parents, their blood types, the date of her wedding, and enough details to convince everyone in the room that he knew the truth. He turned to Klaus and pointed. “You, on the other hand, are a bit of a mystery. We found so many names in your file it’s not clear which one is real. And frankly, it doesn’t matter. I’ll call you Mickey Rooney if you like.” Treadwell tapped a spot just above his right ear. “But that scar of yours? I believe you picked that up one rainy night in Juarez when you were on the trail of that chargé d’affaires from the German embassy.”

  Klaus remembered it well, but how did this guy know about it? And what did it mean that he knew? The questions startled Klaus. His survival instincts, dormant after several years of peace, suddenly began to hum. His antennae fanned out like a European chafer beetle’s (Melolontha melolontha), tasting the air for trouble. This was decidedly bad news. If this guy knew about them, who else did? Was he really D.O.D. or had Riviera discovered the con and sent this guy to kill them? If so, what was he waiting for? Katy? Klaus decided to err on the side of caution. He glanced around the room, looking for a weapon of any sort. There was nothing. He reached into his coat pocket and found what he needed.

  Treadwell was complimenting Klaus’ marksmanship vis-à-vis the assassination of a particularly odious African warlord some years ago when Klaus made his move. Before Treadwell could finish his thought—a regrettable pun about piercing a man’s ear with a sniper rifle—he found himself pinned to the conference table, something cold and hard pressed to his carotid artery. He guessed it was a ballpoint pen.

  “Klaus!” Mary shrieked at the sudden violence. “What are you doing?”

  “Checking him for weapons.”

  Bob, who had jerked to attention when Klaus attacked their potential investor, was now holding his hands out in a calming manner. “Klaus, I think it’s a legitimate question.”

  Joshua Treadwell tried to nod his agreement but with Klaus’ forearm pressing his head firmly to the table top, it was tough going.

  Klaus leaned down and said, “Who are you?”

  Despite his position, Treadwell managed another bright smile. “Honestly,” he said. “I’m Joshua Treadwell with the Department of Defense.”

  Klaus tossed the man’s wallet to Bob who opened it up and said, “The I.D. says Department of Defense.”

  “Yes,” Klaus said. “But then, what does your I.D. say?”

  “Okay,” Bob said, thinking of his own phony driver’s license. “That’s a fair point.” He tilted his head sideways and squatted down, eye-to-eye with Treadwell. “How do we know you’re who you say you are?”

  “That’s a tricky one, isn’t it? Klaus is right. Fake I.D.s are easy enough, but check my wallet. What else is in there?”

  Bob flipped through the contents. “Triple-A, library card, Food Town preferred customer, Home Depot credit card. All with Joshua Treadwell on them.”

  “Now fake driver’s licenses and forged passports you could understand,” the man said. “But the rest?”

  Bob stood up and looked at Klaus. “A Home Depot credit card?”

  Klaus thought about it, then checked the man again for weapons. Satisfied that he was unarmed, Klaus backed off, but stayed behind him in a blind spot.

  Treadwell sat up, smoothed his crisp haircut and, with a laugh, said, “I know, hard to imagine. The guy with the government is the only one in the room telling the truth.” Treadwell held up a finger. “Now let me see if I can anticipate a few more of your questions. First of all, Bob, we’ve known about you and your research ever since you did that ‘extermination’ work for the C.I.A.”

  Bob shook his head, more frustrated than agitated. “I never worked for the C.I.A.”

  “No, of course not,” Treadwell replied with a nonchalant wave. “And I didn’t mean to suggest you had. But I suspect Agent Mike Wolfe would say otherwise. That is if he hadn’t had that unfortunate…death before or during the explosion that destroyed your house at 2439 Thirtieth Street in Astoria, Queens six years ago.” He looked over his shoulder at Klaus. “What’d you use? C-4?”

  Klaus shook his head. “Semtex.”

  Treadwell grinned and touched his head again as if he felt one or two hairs out of place. “Think you used enough? They said it blew windows out half a mile away.”

  “It was a last minute thing,” Klaus said, a bit embarrassed by the overkill.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Treadwell said. “What matters is that we found you and that we believe your research has potential military applications.” He gave them a moment before continuing. “I know, this is a lot to absorb, especially since you’ve been off the radar for so long. Probably starting to feel anonymous again. And honestly, we’d written you off. After reading the newspaper articles we thought you’d all gone up with the house and taken all your research with you.”

  “So,” Klaus said. “How did you find us?”

  “That’s the funny part,” Treadwell said. “We didn’t. You found us. When we got your proposal and saw the nature of the research, we couldn’t believe someone else was working on it. Then we realized it was you guys. We laughed ourselves silly when we figured out you’d changed identities and then—by sheer dumb luck—approached us for funding.”

  Despite the larger implications of what Treadwell, and presumably others, knew about their identities, Bob remained fixated on the funding issue. He said, “So is Blue Sky Capital Partners really a venture capital outfit?”

  “You bet we are,” Treadwell said. “Though not in the traditional way.”

  Klaus couldn’t believe he was hearing this conversation. He said, “Bob, perhaps we should focus more on the fact that our covers a
re blown and that our lives are once again in danger.”

  Bob held up a hand. “I hear you, Klaus. But I don’t see any harm in listening to the man’s pitch. I mean you frisked him, right? He’s not going to kill us, is he?” He turned to Treadwell. “Are you?”

  “Dead, you’re no good to me,” Treadwell said. “I need you alive and well and doing your research. Besides, killing’s not my department. They’re very strict about that sort of thing.”

  Mary folded her arms on the conference table and leaned forward. “You were saying that you’re not a traditional VC outfit.”

  Treadwell smiled at her. “That’s right. We’ve got an annual funding budget north of two billion dollars, and because of our structure, program managers like myself have sole discretion on who to fund.”

  “What do you mean, your ‘structure’?”

  “Oh, well, DARPA was designed to be a counterpoint to the traditional military R&D establishment, which is best described as ponderous,” Treadwell said. “On the other hand, DARPA has no bureaucratic oversight to impede our progress or ability to adapt. And one of our founding principles is that we have a complete acceptance of failure if the potential payoff is substantial. In other words, we’re not doing this to make our money back—hell, it’s not even our money,” he said with some delight. “It’s the taxpayers.’ As you can imagine, most venture capital outfits take a rather different view regarding return on investment.”

  Sensing the skepticism in the room Treadwell figured some background might help. He explained that a few years ago, the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Technology, in conjunction with the Subcommittee of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, had worked out the Defense Acquisition Reform Act, the goal of which was to develop what they called an innovative acquisition approach for weapon systems. The result was something known as Section 845 agreements, a funding process unconstrained by the frequently inflexible government policies found in the federal government’s cumbersome procurement system.

  “It all stems from the Dual Use Applications Program’s Commercial Operations and Support Savings Initiative,” Treadwell said. “Or what we call DUAP’s COSSI. What it amounts to is a smart way to leverage private sector technologies with public sector funding. So yes,” he said, nodding happily. “We’re in the venture capital business.” He straightened in his chair, held his arms out, and said, “Questions?”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Yeah,” Bob said. “What sort of military applications do you see with our bugs?”

  “A fair question,” Treadwell said, pointing at Bob. “One I’m sure you’ll understand I can’t answer fully since a lot of that is classified. But, for example, one project we’re working on is vectoring lymphatic filariasis using mosquitoes. Properly infected, they transfer hundreds of tiny worms that eventually grow to about eight inches. They ball up in the lymph glands until the victim’s legs swell up thick as an elephant’s. You imagine a terrorist training camp infected with something like that? Think how easy that fight would be.” He chuckled and said, “Hard to run with your legs swollen up like a pachyderm.”

  “That wouldn’t be considered biological warfare?”

  “The lawyers don’t think so,” Treadwell said. “Bio warfare is defined as the use of bacteria, viruses, fungi, or rickettsia. Doesn’t say anything about worms as far as I know. But think back to Afghanistan. The White Mountains, the caves of Tora Bora? Those al Queda terrorists holed up so deep in those bunkers the Air Force couldn’t even get ’em with those GBU-28s with 650 pounds of high explosive.” He shook his head in obvious disbelief, then after a pause, he assumed a look of wonder. He held up an index finger and said, “But imagine thousands, tens, no, hundreds of thousands of your assassin bugs pouring over a ridge and slipping into those caves in search of a blood meal.” His eyes grew wide at the thought of it and he counted off the advantages on his fingers as he said, “They’re stealthy, they’re too small to shoot, there would be too many of them to step on, and let’s say your idea with the spider venom pans out…heck, with that sort of a weapon system the war might be over already.”

  Bob nodded slowly as he thought about it. It wasn’t as crazy as it sounded. In fact, he’d seen it work six years ago, when his hybrid assassins killed the woman named Chantalle. Of course, the circumstances of her death would be somewhere between difficult and impossible to recreate on the battlefield, but perhaps there were other ways to make it happen. After a moment Bob said, “What do we have to do now?”

  “Nothing,” Treadwell said, apparently delighted. He pointed toward the lab with his thumb. “The presentation earlier? That’s what we call an Advanced Concept Technology Demonstration. It convinced me that with further development we’ll get a fieldable military prototype of your transgenic assassins. It’s all I need to move forward with full funding.”

  You could have heard the pop of a Champagne cork. It was a turn of events none of them could have imagined. At best they had anticipated protracted negotiations, a humbling loss of control over their own company, and the promise of a board of micro-managers second guessing every decision they made. But here was a man who, by all appearances, was handing them one hundred percent of their funding on a silver platter without so much as a repayment schedule. It was absolutely crazy. The one thing that made it at all plausible was that only the U.S. government would spend money this way.

  “So how does it work,” Mary asked. “You just cut us a check and we send updates every now and then?” She smiled to show she knew it couldn’t be that easy.

  Treadwell shared the smile and said, “No, I’m afraid the work has to be done under my supervision at our West Coast facilities.”

  Given how sweetly things had unfolded in the past hour or so Bob allowed himself to imagine the best possible scenario. “I don’t suppose your lab is at OSU.” He gestured in the direction of nearby Oregon State.

  “No, sorry,” Treadwell said. “Los Angeles.”

  Mary sagged like a pricked balloon, repeating “Los Angeles” in a tone usually reserved for discussions about hemorrhoids or Congress.

  Bob uttered a noncommittal, “Huh.”

  Klaus remained mum.

  A gasp of excitement caused everyone to turn. Sixteen year old Katy was standing in the doorway, her big brown eyes like the O’s in the Hollywood sign. “We’re moving to L.A.?!” Her head tilted back and she said, “Cooooool!”

  Chapter Twelve

  Joshua Treadwell left them with a DARPA brochure, information on DOD subsidized housing, and his business card. He said he’d like to hear from them as soon as possible.

  Mary looked up from crunching the numbers, tapping her pencil on the legal pad. “If everything he says is true, it’s a good deal.”

  “Good?” Bob said. “If everything he says is true, it’s unbelievable!”

  “Yes,” Klaus said, peering cautiously out the window. “Unbelievable is the word that comes to mind.”

  “Who caaaares,” Katy said. “It’s, like, El Aaaa! Hell-oooo.” Katy looked at her pale arms and legs and imagined how hot she’d be with a tan. “Anywhere has got to be better than this place. Especially, like, a planet with, I dunno, a suuun. I mean look at me. I’ve got, like, the complexion of tofu.”

  They were each right in their own way. For Mary, the numbers told the story. In addition to the funding, Joshua Treadwell said they’d be able to control any resulting patents relating to commercial applications of their insect research. But even if there were no patents, that the funding was essentially a grant instead of a loan made accepting the deal a no-brainer.

  For Bob, it was more than the money. A best friend from childhood, Ricky Molloy, keeping the family tradition, joined an engine company in Manhattan. Charged into the north tower that day, his last. The possibility that Bob’s work might result in some sort of weapon that cou
ld be used in the war against terrorists had powerful appeal. Bob was a New Yorker born and bred. And, despite his litany of complaints when he lived there, he loved the city and its people. He missed it—they all did—but their unusual circumstances dictated the move west.

  Life in Oregon was fine, but Bob would never forget New York, nor the images of the attack on it, nor his feeling of powerlessness as he watched the events unfold from three thousand miles away. And he would never forgive those responsible. He wasn’t naturally hostile, but after 9/11 Bob wanted to inflict terrible violence on everyone who had conspired to see those events come to pass. And now, against all odds, the government had come offering him the chance. In his mind Bob could see an army of his assassins—hundreds of thousands of them—transgenically altered into ruthless and unforgiving soldiers being brought to bear against a wicked and malignant enemy. He couldn’t wait to get started on his airborne assassins.

  For Klaus it was simply unbelievable that Bob and Mary were so nonchalant about what had just happened. Despite the assurances of Joshua Treadwell, Klaus knew their names were out there somewhere—on a memo or an email or in a phone call—and it was just a matter of time before the wrong people found out.

  Chapter Thirteen

  C.I.A. Headquarters: Langley, Virginia

  Agent Nick Parker didn’t join the CIA to get rich, which was good since he would never make more than fifty-one thousand a year. He joined because he believed in the CIA’s vision, mission, and values. He longed to be part of an organization that provided the knowledge and was willing to take the actions necessary to ensure the national security of the United States and the preservation of American life and ideals.

  In other words, he fell for the recruiting pamphlet. Now, nearly a decade later, Agent Nick Parker had serious questions about the wisdom of his career choice. After several years in the field, he now worked for the Directorate of Intelligence, the branch responsible for analyzing all the information gathered by the other branches, from human intelligence to satellite imagery to signals and communications intel, which consisted largely of intercepted radio transmissions, e-mails, and telephone conversations.