The Leaves in Winter

by M. C. Miller

  “It’s not about New York. It’s about Kansas.”

  Faye rushed through possibilities. In context, Manhattan could only mean one thing. “N-B-A-F.” She spelled it out.

  Colin nodded confirmation. The National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility was a new BSL4 lab being built by Homeland Security in Manhattan, Kansas. When ready, the 520,000 square-foot facility would employ 300 biodefense workers. Bio-Safety Level Four was mandated only for work with the most dangerous agents, the ones posing the highest risk of fatal disease in humans. The ones for which no treatments or vaccines existed. NBAF would soon take its place in the heartland.

  Colin’s hesitation drew Faye out.

  “That lab isn’t supposed to be operational for another two years.”

  “For the most part – it isn’t.”

  “What did the memo say?”

  “It only mentioned Manhattan in passing. Nothing specific. But it was obvious a project related to what we’re doing is underway in Kansas.”

  “Related? How?”

  “That’s what I didn’t know. So I checked around.”

  “How could you check without exposing what you know?”

  “It’s an advantage of doing this for so long. The human web. Over the years, I’ve made some friends. Everyone knows their compartment. If you discover key compartments, you can deduce a lot about structure.”

  “Structure?”

  “Function follows form. The fact that Manhattan, Kansas has any crossover with our compartment is telling.”

  “But what are they doing there?”

  “It doesn’t make sense.” Colin took a breath. “They’re studying animals.”

  “You think that’s related to us?”

  Colin turned to face her. “They’re studying the fertility of animals.”

  “What does that have to do with sterility in humans?”

  “Exactly. And what’s the rush to do it at a place still being built? It’s not supposed to be open for two years. I can’t figure it out.”

  “And you can’t ask about it.”

  “Of course not. I’m not even supposed to know. That’s the strangest part. Why would a study of animals rate a higher security clearance than I have – especially if it’s related to what we’re doing?”

  “Maybe it’s not more important. You just don’t need to know. It’s like what you told me – you have everything you need for your work. Why do you want to know more? Would it make a difference? In my case, you don’t think so. I guess others think the same about you.”

  Faye’s sarcasm struck a nerve. Colin raised his voice. “They’ve decided not to tell me. It’s strategic. But I was ordered not to tell you. That’s the difference!”

  “So you admit it – there is more to this!”

  “Isn’t that what you believe anyway? There’s always something more. The closer we get to anything, the more complicated it gets. I don’t have to tell you that.” Colin paced farther into the desert.

  Faye pursued him. “If you know something, tell me!”

  “I can’t.”

  She grabbed him by the arms and spun him around.

  “Then I want out! I can’t do this!”

  “No. You can’t walk away!”

  “Why not? Are you going to threaten me – tell me lethal force is authorized?”

  “You can’t leave. The clock is ticking. You know what’ll happen if we don’t set this right.”

  Faye started to cry. “Things haven’t been right for a long time.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “What’s the point? It’s obvious nature didn’t do this to us. We did it to ourselves. Maybe in some weird way this is what’s supposed to be. Maybe time was up for our species anyway.”

  “What’s gotten into you?”

  Faye turned away. “Leave me alone.”

  “This isn’t like you. What’s happened?”

  Faye’s shout carried into the desert. “I’m pregnant!”

  Hugging herself, she hunched forward and sobbed. She braced herself as if a sudden impact was about to double her over.

  Colin was blindsided. All of his previous certainties evaporated. He had completely misread why Faye had come to the surface to be by herself.

  “When did you find out?”

  Faye was in pain. “Does it matter?”

  “Your physical exam…the results came back today.” Faye gave a nod. Colin took slow steps to narrow the gap between them. “I don’t know what to say.”

  “I don’t expect you would.” Faye’s open palms couldn’t wipe away the tears streaking her face fast enough.

  Colin let the barb pass over him. “I guess I deserve that.”

  Faye’s thoughts raced back to a snowy evening in Mt. Pleasant, Maryland. Long after dinner, the guests had finally left. Jacob tended the fire in the living room. Faye’s mind was made up. The sweep of events wouldn’t rob her of one last night of normalcy. She invited him to stay. They had made love all night long. Something so real and sweet had landed in a barren field of lost dreams.

  She had said Jacob and her were like bread and butter.

  Sophie had asked, but where were all the little croutons?

  Faye’s face was leaden but tears persisted. “This is somebody’s idea of a cruel joke.” Bubbling emotion caught in her throat. Sarcastic humor mixed with anguish. “I avoided having children all these years. And now it happens.” She struggled with a laugh. Bitterness filled her tone. “Don’t say it. Better late than never.”

  Colin rested his hands on her shoulders. She resisted his touch for only a moment, then caved into him. She buried her crying face into his chest and hugged him tight for comfort. Colin hugged back as a friend but it couldn’t be denied; the ex-lover in him was there too.

  They had not been this close to each other for so long. Both had forgotten how good it felt. A jumble of shared sensations confused them both. The incongruity of it all only heightened the irony of Faye’s sadness. This was no time to act out over her lingering love for Colin. She would always love him but they would never be together. Was that why she never married?

  She was carrying Jacob’s child. Life had moved on. It was now about other people, other things. The moment was now consumed by an unborn child marked with a terrible distinction. If nothing was done to stop it, the last generation of humans would walk the planet. Her child would be one of them.

  The care and comfort of the embrace softened Faye’s anguish. She could speak again. Her rage and grief gradually diffused as thoughts turned reflective. Steeped in the pathos of the moment, she recalled a simple action taken days ago.

  “On the jet ride out here, you asked me to fill out a form.”

  Colin thought the comment out of place but acknowledged it.

  “One thing you wanted me to do was fill in a name for my cover project.”

  “That’s right – in case someone tries to snoop into what you’re doing, The Project needed to set up a mock reason why you’re away. The fake secret means nothing but it has to appear real. We made your secret program work all about endangered sea turtles. If any snoopers find the cover secret, they’re usually satisfied and look no farther. One secret covers another.”

  “Did you see the name I picked for my cover project?”

  “No. We were too busy talking.”

  With her head against his chest, Faye closed her eyes and uttered the word as if it was a sacred invocation. “BIOPONORE.”

  “That’s it?”

  Eyes still closed, Faye whispered, “Yeah.”

  Colin snickered. “That’s odd enough to be real.”

  Faye opened her eyes. “It’s real enough – that’s what’s odd.”

  “Oh, yeah? What does it mean?”

  Faye closed her eyes again. She could feel Colin’s heartbeat against the side of her head. The pulse of it filled her ear. She paused while fast-forwarding through her college years. The rhythm of times past transfixed her.

 
; Colin prompted, “Does it mean anything?”

  In the desert, night was only minutes away. Once again, tears filled her eyes.

  In a flash, a flurry of thoughts passed through her mind – she should tell him how Janis made up the word as a way to needle her in college. How Janis had goaded her with tales of dying childless because Faye had avoided any entanglements with men. How such a life would leave Faye with regrets as her baby clock ran out and she found herself beyond the biological point of no return.

  It was a funny story, a sad story, a true story of girls who had lots of life and love ahead of them. But it was a story she could not tell Colin – him of all people.

  “It’s a made-up word. It’s real if we let it be...”

  Surrounded by nothing, an uneasy silence deepen until Faye found the courage to honestly finish her thought. “Today, for the first time, it feels real.”

  In the moment, their embrace became everything.

  Chapter 19

  Hall 1, Marseille Provence Airport

  Marseille, France

  Bienvenue.

  Janis Insworth rushed past the welcome sign wondering if the message was meant for her. She had researched and plotted out her stay in Marseille long before the wheels of Air France Flight 7664 touched down at 2:35 PM. Now that she had arrived, all she wanted was to get in and out of the city as quickly as possible.

  The airport concourse was a blur of people. Janis paused to get her bearings. The harried connection at New York’s JFK and customs inspection at Charles de Gaulle in Paris had taken their toll. Burlington, Vermont was fourteen hours behind her. It might as well have been a dream. The conversation with Knockout Mouse still swirled within. Impossibly real, the odd little man and agonizing bits of his horrific tale had only added context and validation to the nightmare scenario outlined on Malcolm’s laptop. Even more reason to see this through. Janis walked on.

  Beleaguered by worried thoughts, she hurried to execute her plan as if only its completion could provide relief. She drove herself forward. Tortured by raw feeling, she was intent on finding an area away from the bustle where she could sit and work. In the haze of the moment, her plan looked more and more like a frantic wish complicated by uncertain detail. She had landed in a new city, on a new day. Standing among strangers, it now seemed like another life altogether.

  Janis pressed on, dismissing clawing doubt. She wouldn’t give in to the idea that adrenaline and irrational hope alone were empowering her to go through with this. She fought to explain away such things. It must be the time shift, the change of language, the unfamiliar location. Her heart raced. Everything inside and around her conspired to make the simple act of moving forward suddenly surreal.

  The wisdom of her strategy had weakened while crossing the Atlantic. Strapped into her seat, she had felt like a prisoner of onrushing events. Sleepless through the night, there had been too much quiet time at 35,000 feet alone with her thoughts. Desperation was giving way to prudence. She dismissed it as nerves and ignored the little voice inside of her that knew better.

  At least the time spent at her mother’s place had allowed her to gather trip details she’d need. With so much as stake, there was no time for guesswork. If something unexpected came up now, she’d have to deal with it and move on. Her fervent desire was for any surprises to be manageable. There was no time to worry about all that could go wrong. She had to concentrate.

  She found an empty seat in a designated Wi-Fi hotspot and got to work on Malcolm’s laptop. She’d rehearsed the access procedure several times. It was 10:25 a.m. in Puerto Rico. The workday there was in full swing. She hoped the flow of business at the target site would help mask her activity.

  GeLixCo’s network was distributed among several locations but only the head office had VPN access to the research section in Puerto Rico. Malcolm’s contact had managed to get him the proprietary client software for the head office’s Virtual Private Network. Malcolm had automated a script to load the client and log in. All Janis had to do was run Malcolm’s script.

  That was the plan. But she had never run the script all the way through. Malcolm had inserted a prompt that stopped execution right before the username/password combination was entered. If she selected yes to continue, connection to GeLixCo’s network should complete.

  She hesitated and looked up from the keyboard. A businessman and a pair of students sat across the way, each buried in their own work. Outside, a jet roared up from the tarmac and angled for the sky. An airport service announcement droned in the background; the pleasant female voice and her fluent French was common on the concourse, but to Janis in the moment, all of it felt out of place. Passengers headed every which way. None of it mattered. Her next move would be a crime.

  Was she willing to take it that far?

  The need to know was too great. Riya had died for this information. Janis pressed the Enter key on the laptop. Connection was made. After authentication, the client software opened a directory listing. A group of named folders populated a window. All of them were on a partition named RABARCHIVE. If the first three letters were Riya’s initials, it made sense; otherwise, Janis had no idea what the word might mean.

  There was no way of knowing how much time she had. Downloading as much as possible was vital. Once the data was on the laptop, she could read and sort through all of it later. She recognized two folders that Malcolm had already acquired. She skipped them and selected everything else. In a few movements, she had the copy process started. A progress bar crept agonizingly towards completion. It was barely halfway done when the window closed and the VPN client threw up an error message. The connection had been terminated at the forty-eight second mark. She needed at least a minute and a half to get all of it.

  Janis shut down the connection to the airport’s Wi-Fi and powered down the laptop. She wanted to check inside the copied folders to see how much she was able to get but she dare not take the chance. Not here. She’d wait until she got settled in at her hotel. First she had a call to make and it had to be from a public phone.

  She stuffed the laptop into her backpack and hurried downstairs. It took only a minute to locate a phone by the check-in area. Her hand shook as she fumbled in her purse for the number to dial. Knockout Mouse had supplied the contact information. She had carefully vetted all of it. The number connected to a yacht brokerage located on Quai du Port in the old harbor section of the city. Janis wasn’t sure what André’s role at the brokerage might be. It would be the height of irony if the radical activist behind such groups as Friends of the Ocean and New Class Order was earning his living selling the rich their pleasure craft.

  The number rang and a man answered in French. Janis forced her voice calm. “I’d like to speak with André Bolard, please.”

  Responding to her English, the man paused before answering, “Just a minute.”

  For Janis, after the long trip, any more of a wait was an eternity. She huddled closer to the public phone and tried to ignore the commotion around her.

  “This is André. How can I help you?” The voice was deep, silken, and businesslike. It exuded confidence and sophistication along with guarded warmth.

  “Mr. Bolard, my name is Janis Insworth. I believe we can help each other.”

  “Say that name again…”

  “Janis Insworth. I am looking for my daughter.”

  “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”

  For Janis, the answer was clumsily abrupt. His flat reaction to her identity was telling. “Even if I can help you?”

  “How so?”

  “I have information on Eugene Mass.”

  “What kind of information?”

  “The kind you would desperately want. Information you’d be willing to exchange my daughter for.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Maybe you don’t, but I believe you know people who do.”

  “Where are you calling from?”

  “I’m in the city. I’m prepare
d to make a trade.”

  “I’ve heard about you. You expect me to believe you do this on your own?”

  “Yes.”

  André laughed. “It’s hard to believe one woman would be so bold.”

  “Why? Do you think it’s dangerous to meet with you? Or perhaps your opinion of women is antiquated.”

  “You have me mistaken for someone else.”

  “That’s right. You sell yachts. To meet with you, I should want a boat.”

  “You should desire an unparalleled luxury craft.” The sarcasm was apparent.

  “Of course. The pleasure of yachting is…priceless.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “So is my daughter. Along with the information I have. Don’t you want to know what Mass is really up to?”

  “I’m sorry. This is the business line. I need to free it up.”

  “Naturally. Some business can’t be done over the phone. I understand.”

  “I really must go.”

  “I am interested in a pleasure craft. If you’d like talk about it, I’m going to be down along La Canebière later today.”

  “That’s good.” The remark was dismissive.

  “If you think you can help me find something nice, I’d appreciate it. I’ll be at the carousel near General de Gaulle Place at seven o’ clock. I’m eager to see what kind of business we can do.”

  The line went dead. Janis stood on pins and needles. Had she said the right thing? Would André come to the carousel? If he thought the phone line was tapped, wouldn’t he suspect a meeting along La Canebière to be a trap? No doubt her knowledge of how to make contact had him spooked. To locate him so precisely, she had to be working with someone else. Would hunger for information overcome his concern? She’d know in a few hours. Until then, there was no time to dawdle.

  Exiting the airport in a taxi, Janis drove to the Sofitel Marseille Vieux-Port Hotel where she checked in under her real name and arranged for a safety deposit box at reception. All the while she critiqued herself. Her steps across the lobby were way too fast. Her voice much too tight. Her manner suspiciously constrained. She wasn’t acting like a tourist. The hotel staff had the appropriate smiles and demeanor but she fretted about the impression she had left with them.