Cold Frame

by P. T. Deutermann

  Carl Mandeville was in the office bright and early Saturday morning. Many of the staff were in as well: a posting to the National Security Council staff meant that Sundays were yours, at least some of the time. Otherwise, you came in, too often with the word “Divorce!” ringing in your ears.

  Mandeville picked up his secure phone and dialed a number. When the ringing stopped and the tone sounded, he said one word: “Beacon.” Then he hung up and sent for coffee. Thirty minutes later his phone rang. The caller ID on the secure phone said, simply: Beacon.

  He picked up. “New orders,” he said. “I have your current subject under rendition at Petersburg. Maintain a watch there. I’ll be going down there soon to talk to him, see if I can turn him. If I can’t, I’ll need to ramp it up a little. Actually, a lot.”

  Then he hung up. There was something to be said for an operator who couldn’t speak.

  Then he placed a call to the commanding officer at the United States Army Research Institute for Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick, Maryland, on the secure link.

  “Colonel Kreckich speaking, sir,” a voice answered.

  Mandeville confirmed his identity and then told the CO that he would need some of the special materials in the near future.

  “Which specific materials, sir?”

  “Aerosol of belladonna sap,” he said. “We have an opportunity to take out a high-level meeting of AQ in Syria. I need a single canister. No, two. I want them delivered to my office suite in the EEOB for further transport to JSOC. Armed forces courier, with hand-delivery to me, personally. I have the DMX code ready.”

  “I’m ready to write.”

  “DMX 17454312. Authentication is venom 7789.”

  “Stand by.”

  Mandeville waited while the CO verified the authentication code from the daily tables.

  “Authentication accepted. We will advise delivery.”

  Mandeville hung up. The commanding officer of USAMRIID knew his business. Mandeville had been fascinated to learn that the CO was a veterinarian, but that actually made sense. Their research involved a whole host of primates, whom they subjected to the entire spectrum of horrible diseases that enemies of the state might choose to weaponize.

  The two canisters being brought to him were early-warning devices used by the army to warn of chemical attack, which the soldiers nicknamed “sniffers.” In practice, the canisters sat in a receptacle on top of a large detection-and-analysis device that monitored the air around it. If the device sensed any one of a dozen chemical agents, it fired the canisters, which blew out a mist of strongly scented mint. The rule was, smell mint, MOPP-up immediately. Get your mask on, then get your suit on. The neat part was that if the canister on the actual analyzer let go, it sent out an order by closed-loop cell phone to other canisters placed around the area being protected. Like house smoke detectors, if one went, they all went. It was that satellite spray system that Mandeville’s planted biochemist had converted to an actual weapon. One cell phone call, and the sprayer would fire, but it wouldn’t be mint this time.

  He wondered if that weird genius out in Great Falls had any idea of what the government was doing with some of his magic potions. The canisters represented what some of the more self-important senators up on Capitol Hill liked to call the nuclear option. He had no qualms about killing off the entire DMX and starting over. He’d have to figure out how he was going to survive this catastrophe, and then how to pin it on someone in the terrorist world. Maybe he’d set it up so that he could arrive at the meeting room only to find everyone dead. A precursor string—that’s what he needed. Gen up an intel report of a threat to the DMX, itself. Something that they could officially ignore because of weak provenance, and then, regrettably, say: oh shit, we should have paid more attention to that.

  He nodded to himself. That was definitely the way to do it. If he could turn the bothersome Metro cop, then maybe this escalation wouldn’t be necessary, but the cop was clearly a potential liability. The traitors on the DMX would just love to get him in front of a Senate committee to bolster their case against the DMX. Talk about a media firestorm.

  He shook his head. No. He couldn’t risk it. He needed to wipe the slate clean, along with the cop, then pin it on someone on the Kill List. Or maybe blame that Walker guy. He smiled at that thought.

  EIGHTEEN

  On Saturday, his first day in detention, Av had experienced the surreal environment of the master sergeant’s Benedictine rule. He went to breakfast with about thirty of the other inmates, being careful not to make too much eye contact or inadvertently pop out with a “good morning” to anyone. The food wasn’t bad—standard hotel buffet stuff in steaming Sterno-heated trays. The rest of the inmates looked to be a pretty bland bunch—middle-aged, all white, nothing extreme. A few shaved heads, but, for the most part, they all looked entirely normal. It was unsettling to be eating breakfast in total silence, watched by four guards who seemed to be bored but who were definitely watching.

  He skipped lunch, having nothing to do between breakfast and the call for the noon meal. He went to the weight room instead, waited for one of the few benches, and got as much of a workout as he could manage with other silent inmates looking on, waiting for a turn on the gear. That night he showed up in the dining room and was told that, since he’d failed to sign up for evening meal, he would have to wait to see if there were any no-shows. He was in luck and tucked into some kind of meat loaf. It didn’t taste bad and it didn’t taste all that good, either, and suddenly he missed his headache-bringing red wine.

  He watched TV that night, after finding out where he needed to be for the morning run with the guard force. Then he remembered it would be Sunday—their day off from the regimen of a ten-mile run at dawn. Batting a thousand here, he thought.

  It had begun to dawn on him that nobody knew where he was, except of course, the Bureau. Would they have told Precious that they had him in custody? On a Saturday, would she even know he was “missing”? No, she wouldn’t, not until he didn’t show up on Monday, which is when he assumed she was going to take the megatarbaby up the chain of command to the chief of detectives. Who would do what? Nothing, in all likelihood. Upstairs would hunker down and wait to see what, if anything, happened. Every day in Washington sprouted a crisis or two. Seasoned bureaucrats knew full well that often the best response was to do nothing at all. A surprising number of crises resolved themselves once it became clear that nobody cared all that much, or, that everyone was waiting to see what everyone else was going to do. It was a big government, and sheer inertia often won the day. Especially when she told them that the detective who’d lit this fuse was AWOL.

  * * *

  On Monday he got to run with the guard force. Any hopes that a morning run would present an opportunity to escape were dashed when he saw where they were running—between the two lines of razor-wire-topped perimeter fencing that surrounded the entire federal complex, complete with some enthusiastic German shepherds who clearly wanted to meet the new guys. The master sergeant had said that detainees could talk to guards, and so he did. They were, for the most part, young men in their twenties, physically fit, with shaved heads and an easy familiarity with both disciplined running and all the military gear draped over their bodies. Av ran in the middle of the pack; there were three other detainees running, and by some subtle maneuvering, they were all separated by at least a half-dozen guards. One of the two guys running on either side of him asked Av when he’d been in the Corps, and he told them.

  “I assume you guys are all marines?” he asked.

  The older of the two barked a laugh and told him never to assume. Av remembered hearing that golden rule a million times during his stint in the Corps. That comment also tied off the conversation. Av put his head down and settled into the comfortably familiar route pace, feeling a little peculiar running in a bright orange jumpsuit among all these guys in full battle-rattle. Somewhere up front one of the guards broke into one of the age-old drill chants—I don’t
know but I’ve been told—which was echoed by all the runners in the pack. The nice thing about a morning run was you didn’t have to think about the rest of the day. He picked up the chant with the rest of them.

  * * *

  That night, after skipping the evening meal, Av was summoned to the guardroom and told he was going to have a visitor.

  “Who is it?” he asked. The duty officer, who appeared to be a sergeant, shrugged his shoulders. They escorted him to a windowless room where there was a small, rectangular conference table, two chairs on either side, and one chair at each end of the table. Av recognized the one-way glass window in one wall and the AV camera rig surveying the table area from over the door.

  “You sit here at this end of the table,” the guard said. “Your visitor will sit down there. You are required to stay in your chair at all times. If you move, one of us will be in here to restrain you quicker than you can get to the other end of this table. For what it’s worth, we practice that. Everything will be recorded unless your visitor requests otherwise. You’re a cop—I assume you knew that.”

  “Never assume,” Av said, sitting down. The guard chuckled and left the room.

  It still felt surreal—all this between-us-professionals stuff—and yet he was a prisoner in every sense of the word. He wondered who the visitor was—Precious, maybe? He heard voices out in the hall and then the door opened. A guard came in, followed by a large and imperious-looking man wearing what looked like a really expensive suit. Everything about him was bigger than usual—his head, his upper body, his hands. Six-two, maybe three, and just big, not fat but outsized. Intense, glaring eyes, heavy brows, a steely, downturned mouth. Av had heard the term “command presence” and this man had it in spades. He resisted a sudden impulse to stand up as the man fixed his eyes on him.

  “I’m Carl Mandeville,” he said. “I am special assistant to the President and senior director for counterterrorism on the National Security staff. Are you Detective Sergeant Kenneth Smith of the Metro PD?”

  “That’s right,” Av said, quenching a reflexive “sir” at the last instant.

  Mandeville nodded. Then he told the guards that his conversation with Detective Sergeant Smith was classified and that he wanted no one in the room or in the adjoining room. He also wanted the audiovideo equipment disabled.

  “Sir, we have to—”

  Mandeville glared at him. “Detective Sergeant Smith is not a threat to me,” he said. “Go tell your commanding officer that I want total privacy, and that means total privacy, understand? Now: out, please.”

  The guards withdrew and Mandeville took a seat at the other end of the table. He didn’t say anything, obviously waiting for something. Two uncomfortable minutes later there was a knock on the door and Master Sergeant Lawson came into the room.

  Mandeville looked over at him and raised his eyebrows. “Problem, Colonel Lawson?”

  “No, sir, none at all,” Lawson said. “We tape everything for our protection, but if you want the equipment off, it’s off. I’ll have people outside in the passageway if you need anything.”

  “I need two bottles of cold water,” Mandeville said.

  “Yes, sir,” Lawson said. “Right away, sir.”

  Colonel Lawson? Av thought. Here we go again.

  Mandeville resumed his glaring-Buddha pose at the other end of the table until a guard came in with two bottles of water. Mandeville nodded. Once the guard closed the door, Mandeville slid one of the bottles down in Av’s direction. They both cracked the tops and drank. Mandeville glanced over his shoulder at the camera above the door. The red light was not on. Av had the impression that if the light did come on, Mandeville would somehow know it.

  “If I say the term ‘DMX’ to you,” Mandeville began. “Do you know what that means?”

  “I think so,” Av replied. “It’s a secret government committee that recommends names to the President for assassination because they are important people in the foreign terrorist organizations throughout the world. And you’re the chairman.”

  Mandeville sighed. “The fact that you know both of those things is why you are here,” he said.

  “Oh, bullshit,” Av said.

  Mandeville raised his eyebrows. “Bullshit?” he said.

  “Yeah, bullshit,” Av said. “Two members of the DMX have been murdered, possibly at your behest. They were killed because they expressed significant reservations about this committee’s legality, moral standing, and the constitutional implications of a secret American government assassination program. That’s why I’m really here. Not for something I did, but for something I know.”

  Mandeville sat back in his chair and took a long draught of water. He put the bottle down on the table. “You don’t know anything, Detective Sergeant,” he said.

  “Then why the fuck are you here?” Av asked.

  Mandeville stared at him. People did not talk to him this way.

  “Look, big shot,” Av said. “I’m Joe Shit, the ragman, okay? I’m just a cop. I have no ambitions to be a ‘player’ in your wizard-world of counterterrorism. Sounds to me like you’ve become a crusader with this DMX shit. And, you’re right—I don’t know that you are a murderer, but if you are—if you’ve been directly or indirectly orchestrating homicides in the District of Columbia? Then you’re gonna get caught and you’re gonna go to jail. I don’t care who you think you are—murder is murder, Mister Director of whatever-the-fuck.”

  “And who’s going to do all that, Detective?” Mandeville asked, softly. “You? From here?”

  “Here’s something you don’t know,” Av said. “Murderers always fuck up. By definition, they’re defective human beings, and they always fuck up. Somehow, somewhere. There’s no statute of limitations on homicide, and even if you think that what you’re doing is for the greater good of national security? If you’re doing it in the District, it’s still just murder.”

  “But that’s just the thing,” Mandeville said. “It’s not. What the DMX does is to identify, evaluate, locate, and then eliminate enemies of the state, our state, the United States. Eliminate. Kill. Disappear. Strike. Vaporize. Poison. Irradiate. Electrocute. Drown. Smother. Bury, especially bury. You can call it murder, but I can call it duty, see? Nobody can touch me as long as I am wrapped in the mantle of the DMX.”

  “Foreigners, though, right?” Av asked. “The chief of Al Qaeda in east-bumfuck-Egypt, right? What’s your DMX charter say about killing Americans right there in River City?”

  “Nothing,” Mandeville said, triumphantly. “Nothing at all. It is silent, and that’s a silence I can drive a truck through.”

  “Ironic, isn’t it,” Av said. “If you were an Arab, the DMX would call you a terrorist. So—let’s quit fucking around here. What do you want from me?”

  Mandeville took a deep breath, trying to control his temper. “Here’s why I came,” he said. “You can’t touch me, you and whoever you’re working with, and I think I know who that is, actually. I have friends in very high places, which is why you’re here in the quiet room at the snap of my fingers. I can see to it that you stay here forever. Or, I can have you moved every two weeks to some of the DHS’s more interesting ‘undisclosed locations.’ Remember those?”

  “Whatever,” Av said, trying to look bored.

  “You just don’t get it, do you, Sergeant. Why don’t you consider playing ball here? Because that’s the only thing that can save you—you need to work with me, not against me. I’m convinced that the rot in the DMX goes even deeper than I thought. People are losing their nerve—senior people. It’s an American character trait—if a war goes on long enough, the weaklings get tired of it. We Americans have become spoiled—we demand instant results.”

  He took another long pull on his water bottle.

  “The bad guys are living back in the seventh century, for the most part. That’s a cultural gap of over one thousand years. They’re cunning. They’re patient. They know us. They know that fat, soft America will eventually lose
its nerve. The DMX stands alone as the most effective, the most surgical method of eliminating our most dangerous enemies. Our people don’t do drone strikes that take out birthday parties because some Air Force stick monkey out in Arkansas got careless. We are focused. We take our time. And just when some stinking, bearded, mumbling piece of shit is beginning to enjoy the adulation of a few hundred ‘martyrs,’ he looks up one night and finds Death, himself, gliding through the doorway on titanium wings.”

  “And that makes you, what? The Crusader in Chief? The Lone Ranger? Everybody else is wilting in the heat, but there you are, standing tall, steadfast, and mighty?”

  “You need to join forces with me, Sergeant. You’re right: I am the DMX, and I need help. America needs help.”

  “Listen to you,” Av said. “You’re a psychopath. You know the definition of a psychopath? It’s someone who believes his own bullshit. If he says it, it just has to be true. Somehow you’ve turned yourself into a jihadi—and a killer. Jihad and murder go hand in hand these days. Look what just happened in Iraq. So, no thanks. You may have me neutralized, but somebody out there, and I, too, think I know who that is, is going to put your crazy ass in jail.”

  Mandeville glared at him. “That your final answer, Detective Sergeant?”

  “You bet,” Av said. “Isn’t DHS moving to the old Saint Elizabeth’s Mental Hospital facilities for their new HQ? You need to drive yourself up there. Check yourself in—they’ll take you as soon as they lay eyes on you. Get settled. Bounce around your rubber room for a bit. Then sing to yourself for a while in the dark. Squeeze your hands together twenty times a minute. Drool, maybe. I hear they’ve got some bitchin’ pills for that.”

  Mandeville’s face turned bright red with rage. He stood up, knocking his chair over backward. He started to say something, but then clamped his mouth shut and left the room, slamming the door behind him. Av heard a lot of shouting out in the hallway for a minute and then more door slamming. Man knew how to make an exit, he thought.