by James Barney
McCreary cleared his throat and looked at Armstrong with raised eyebrows. “You want to explain?”
Armstrong nodded and took Ana gently by the arm. “Let’s go where it’s a little quieter.”
“I’ll tell the pilot to wait,” said McCreary, heading toward the jet. “But don’t be long. Our flight plan has us taking off by six thirty, which is in twelve minutes. If we’re not in the takeoff queue by then, we’ll have to file a whole new flight plan.”
Armstrong led Ana Thorne toward an empty aircraft hangar nearby. Once they’d reached the relative quiet of the hangar, he turned and spoke. “Michael’s a special case. He grew up in Atlantic City, and his father was involved in some bad things. A lot of bad things, actually. When Michael was young, his father spent time in jail for forgery and check fraud. When he got out, he started dealing in counterfeit watches and jewelry, which led to counterfeit prescription drugs and eventually narcotics. On top of all that, he had a terrible gambling habit. When Michael was about twelve, his father got in over his head with a Bratva organization from New York. He’d run up a couple hundred thousand dollars in gambling debts that he couldn’t pay off.”
“The mob?”
“Uh-huh. So one night, while Michael was at a friend’s house, three men broke into his parents’ home. They forced his mother and father and fifteen-year-old sister into the basement. They bound and gagged his father and then—” Armstrong cleared his throat. “They raped Michael’s mother and sister . . . and cut their throats when they were done.”
“Oh, God.”
“Then they beat his father to death with a baseball bat.”
“Jesus.”
“Next morning when Michael got home, he found all three of them in the basement.”
Ana winced at the horrible mental image and shook her head.
“Can you imagine finding your entire family like that?”
Ana said nothing. Actually, she could imagine such a thing.
“Michael ended up in foster care. Not great in Atlantic City, especially for kids that age. He bounced around from home to home and had a real tough time for a while. But here’s the thing: Michael’s a prodigy, always has been. He was a phenomenal student, especially in math and science, and his teachers loved him. Despite everything, they kept him on the right path and made sure he applied to college. They even helped him get a scholarship. He ended up at Carnegie Mellon, where he majored in computer science and electrical engineering. Graduated top of his class. Got a scholarship to pursue a master’s at MIT . . . an NSA scholarship, actually. And that’s where his problems began.”
“How so?”
“What happened to his family . . . he carried that around like a ticking time bomb. After all those years, neither the local police nor the FBI had ever solved the crime. Imagine knowing that the animals who did that to your family were still out there, wandering around. I’m sure it ate away at him little by little, until one day something snapped. Or I should say, he discovered something that made him snap.”
“Which was what?”
Armstrong checked his watch. “We really need to get you on that plane.”
“Please tell me,” she said.
Armstrong sighed and glanced behind him at the plane. “Michael had developed a specialty in college, which he continued at MIT. He’d become an expert on data mining, which was an emerging field at the time. In fact, by the time he finished his first year at MIT, he’d already created one of the most sophisticated data-mining engines in the world. Single-handedly. As a twenty-two-year-old graduate student.”
“Impressive.”
“Oh, you have no idea.” Armstrong checked his watch again. “Look, we’ll have to finish this later. Let’s go.”
Ana started to protest but saw that Admiral Armstrong wasn’t waiting for her. He had already turned around and was heading back toward the plane. She caught up with him a few steps later. “But why does he speak Croatian?” she asked, walking a step behind him.
“Probably learned it on his own,” said Armstrong over his shoulder. “From a book.”
“Oh, I seriously doubt that,” said Ana.
Armstrong stopped short and spun around, nearly causing Ana to crash into him. “Don’t,” he said.
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t doubt him. His mind doesn’t work like other people’s. He’s . . . different.” He released her gaze and turned back toward the plane.
Ana followed close behind. “Okay, just tell me one more thing. What was he in prison for?”
They’d reached the plane. The ladder was down, the engines were spinning, and McCreary was emphatically motioning through his window for Ana to get on board. Armstrong turned slowly and gazed at her. It wasn’t a look of anger, exactly. It was more like a warning. “That’s classified,” he said.
Ana knew she’d crossed a line. In this field, confidential information was always compartmentalized. You knew only what you needed to know and nothing more. And it was clear to her that she’d just stepped into the wrong compartment. “Sorry,” she mumbled. “It’s just—”
Armstrong cut her off. “Ana, you need to go.”
Ana nodded reluctantly and made her way up the Cessna’s ladder. When she reached the last step, she turned and glanced back at Armstrong.
Armstrong gave her a slight nod and a smile that seemed to say: You’re forgiven, now go.
The flight to West Virginia took just over thirty minutes. They landed at the Raleigh County Memorial Airport, where three black Ford Explorers were waiting for them on the tarmac. “Courtesy of our DEA friends,” said McCreary as they exited the airplane. “Keys are in the vehicles. Michael, you head to Fire Creek and see what you can find. Remember, you’re FBI today. Be sure to show your credentials and explain clearly why you’re there.”
Califano nodded. Today he was Special Agent Michael Califano of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and he had the badge and ID to prove it. The CIA’s disguise people had even provided him with an off-the-rack blue suit, a pair of well-worn leather Oxfords, and a khaki raincoat. This was considered “FBI appropriate.”
“You’re here to investigate the escape of a mental patient from St. Elizabeth’s,” said McCreary, repeating the cover story he’d gone over twice on the plane. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“I still think we could do better than that,” said Califano. “I mean, seriously, the old ‘escaped mental patient’ story? Do people still buy that?”
McCreary frowned. “Michael, we’re not writing a novel here. It’s a cover story that works, okay? It accounts for Holzberg’s strange appearance and anything crazy he might have said to people before we took him into custody. Stick to it, okay? No improvising. If you leave people wondering why you’re here, they start speculating. I don’t want people speculating.”
“I got it,” said Califano.
Ana kept her eyes fixed on Califano and shook her head slightly. She still didn’t trust him, although now she had a bit more empathy for him.
“Ana,” said McCreary. “You work with the county sheriff’s office and find out everything they have on that carjacking last night. Tell them it’s related to the St. Elizabeth’s incident, but don’t elaborate.”
Ana nodded.
“Okay. You’ve both got your earpieces in, right?”
Thorne and Califano nodded in unison. Each had a tiny earpiece lodged deep in one ear, completely invisible, and a small wireless microphone hidden in their clothing.
“Remember, Michael, when you tap the unit in your breast pocket, everything you say will be picked up and transmitted to both of us. It’s voice activated, so it keeps transmitting as long as you’re talking. It times out after about one second of silence. Try to keep the line clear unless it’s important, okay?”
“Uh-huh.”
“I’ll head to Thurmond and see what I can find there. Let’s meet back here at four thirty.”
With that, they separated and headed to their respect
ive SUVs.
Ana paused before getting into her vehicle, and Califano did the same. Their eyes met momentarily over the hoods of their SUVs.
“Anything unusual happens out there,” Ana said, “make sure you call us.” She was about to say something else but stopped short. “Just . . . don’t take any chances, okay? You’re not trained for this.”
“Got it,” said Califano. He waited to see if Ana had anything more to say to him.
She didn’t.
A minute later, the three black SUVs exited the municipal airport and headed off in three different directions.
16
FIRE CREEK, WEST VIRGINIA
It was just after 9:00 A.M. when Mike Califano walked through the front door of the Fire Creek Diner. He observed three old codgers seated in a booth near the front and an elderly woman in an apron behind the counter. He approached the woman. “You Thelma Scott?”
The woman nodded. “That’s me, honey.”
Califano retrieved the leather ID holder that the CIA people had provided him with and flipped it open to show his FBI credentials. “I’m Special Agent Califano.” He felt awkward flashing his badge like that. It always seemed so natural on TV. “FBI,” he added.
Thelma glanced at Califano’s fake FBI badge but showed no particular interest in it.
“Do you mind if I ask you some questions about what happened yesterday?” asked Califano.
Thelma shrugged. “No, I don’t mind.”
Califano snapped his ID holder shut and motioned with his head to a vacant booth in the far corner of the diner. “Can we talk over there?”
“Sure.”
Thelma and Califano made their way to the empty booth and sat down across from each other. Once they were situated, Califano said, “Okay, please tell me everything you remember about the incident.”
Thelma recounted the prior day’s events as best she could, pointing several times to the spot on the diner floor where the man had curled up and nearly bled to death. She mentioned the man’s strange appearance, his hat, his foreign accent, and the fact that he claimed to have come from the Thurmond National Lab. She also remembered that he’d asked her to call someone.
“Yeah? Who’d he ask you to call?”
“Oh, gosh. It was Doctor somebody. Dr. Brown? Dr. Burns? Bernstein . . . hmmm . . . Dr. Somebody. Burr . . . Burt . . .” Her voice trailed off.
“That’s okay if you can’t rem—”
“Reynolds!” she exclaimed. “I was thinking Burt Reynolds. It was Dr. Reynolds. At Princeton. And he gave an old-fashioned number. Like Princeton one two three four, or something like that. That’s the way we used to do long distance when I was young. But not anymore . . .”
“Thank you, that’s very helpful. Now, did he mention any other names?”
“None that I can think of.”
“How about Opie? Did he mention anyone by that name?”
“Opie? No, not that I remember.”
“Can you remember anything else he said? Maybe particular phrases that he used?”
Thelma shrugged. “No. Just what I’ve already told you.”
Califano decided not to ask her about the phrase “murder of science.” Might freak her out, he figured. He could hear McCreary’s voice in his head: I don’t want people speculating. “Okay, Ms. Scott. Is there anything else you can recall about the incident that might be important? Anything at all?”
Thelma fidgeted with her hands and hesitated for a moment, apparently unsure about whether to proceed. “Well, there’s one thing.” Her voice dropped a notch as she spoke.
“Hmm?”
Thelma looked around the restaurant and then lowered her voice to nearly a whisper. “I think I know who that man was.”
“You do?” Califano leaned in closer. “Who was he?”
“Well, I don’t know his name per se, but I think he was one of those scientists who used to work up in Thurmond in the fifties. I recognized his voice ’cause he had a German accent. He come in here on Sundays for breakfast when I was still helping my mother on weekends. Said Mom’s pancakes reminded him of home.” She smiled. “I think what he really liked was my mother. Anyway, that’s who I think he was.”
Califano had nearly forgotten about the cover story he was supposed to be using. But he figured now would be as good a time as any to bring it up. “Actually, ma’am, I think you might be mistaken about that.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah. The man who came in here yesterday is an escaped patient from St. Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Hospital in Washington, D.C. He’s not German. He’s not a scientist. And he didn’t have anything to do with the Thurmond National Laboratory.”
Thelma looked hurt by the suggestion that she was misremembering things. “I’m . . . I’m just telling you what I remember,” she said. “You asked if there was anything else I recalled, and I’m telling you what I recalled. If you say I’m wrong, then . . . well . . . so be it. But I know what I saw.”
Califano decided to leave it at that. There wasn’t much else to say. Stupid cover story anyway. “I understand, ma’am. Now, is there anything else you think might be important?”
Thelma looked around again, and her voice dropped even lower. “Well, yeah. Now that you mention it.” She paused for a moment. “But first let me ask you something.”
“Okay . . .”
“Do you know what used to go on up there in Thurmond?”
Califano shrugged and said no. Which was the truth.
“Well, let me tell you something. I was about fifteen or sixteen when they first started doing all that stuff up there. And I remember lots of strange things happening. Most of all, our clocks would get all messed up. And watches, too. You wouldn’t notice it at first, but then someone would come to visit from another town, and you’d find out that every clock in Fire Creek was thirty or forty minutes behind. Always behind. Never fast. You’d reset them, but then it would happen again a week later.”
“How long did that go on?”
“Better part of a year, as I remember it. Eventually, a couple of the men in town complained about it, on account of it making them late for work at the mines. After that, a man from the government come down here and explained it was all because of solar flare activity or something like that. Not anything to do with the lab.”
Califano was nodding along.
“Well, we never really believed that for a second. We knew they were doing something strange up there. But it did get better for a while. After that, clocks just ran a little slower, a few minutes each day. Which they still do today, by the way.”
“What, even now?”
“Uh-huh. Every clock in town. We’re all just used to it, I guess. So we don’t really think much about it. But every morning, I have to bump my clock ahead three minutes, just to keep it on time. Same with everyone else. We don’t really worry about it none. Doesn’t seem to affect anything important.”
“Yeah, but it’s . . . strange,” said Califano.
Thelma’s eyes widened. “You think that’s strange? Well, let me tell you what happened to the folks up in Thurmond.”
Califano leaned in close. “You mean the people in the lab?”
“No, honey. In the town. There was still some folks living up there in Thurmond even after they built that lab. Probably fifty or sixty folks in several families. ‘Mountain folk,’ I guess you’d call them. Kept to themselves mostly. Never bothered no one. They’re long gone now, though. That place has been a ghost town for, lord, fifty years or more.”
“So what happened to them? The families in Thurmond?”
“Must have been late summer or early fall of 1959. I was already married and pregnant with my first child. One night, there was some big commotion up on the mountain, in Thurmond. You could hear it all the way down here. Some type of explosion, a big, loud boom, or more of a popping or whooshing sound. Anyway, there were helicopters and searchlights all over the place, and it went on all night long. Next morning, we expected
to hear some big news about it. We figured it was a mine explosion or something. But . . . there was nothing about it at all. Nothing in the newspaper. No radio reports. Nothing on TV. Nothing. Well, that didn’t sit right with folks here. Thurmond’s just ten miles up the ridge, and a lot of people in Fire Creek knew people up there. So, some of the men went up to investigate, including my father.”
“They drove up there?”
“Well, they tried to, but all the roads was blocked off by the army. So three of them decided to hike off into the woods to see what happened . . .” Thelma paused, apparently trying to recall the exact details of the incident. “They left on a Sunday morning, probably about nine, and didn’t come back all day. Sun went down, and they still weren’t back. Lord, I remember my mother was a wreck that night. She called the police, and they said no one was supposed to be going up there on account of the whole area being . . . what’s the word? Quarter-eened?”
“Quarantined?”
“Uh-huh, that’s it. So no one was being allowed in or out of Thurmond ’cause of the quarantine.”
“So what happened to your father and the other men?”
“Well, we thought they must have been put into quarantine with the rest of them. In fact, we were convinced it was radiation or something like that. Everyone was worried sick. But then, out of the blue, they come walking back out of the woods on Friday. Five days later. Said they were stopped by military police before they ever reached Thurmond and told to turn around, which they did. So we said: ‘Okay, but where you been for the past five days?’ And they was totally confused because, according to them, they’d only been gone a few hours.”
Califano’s brain was working overtime, fitting all this new information into his memory bank and comparing it with what he already knew about Thurmond. “Whoa, whoa. Hold on. They thought they had been gone only a few hours, but it was really five days?”
“Uh-huh.”
“So . . . did you ever find out what happened?”
