Skinner

by Charlie Huston

  Skinner picks up the envelope.

  “Cross is good at talking.”

  Jae rolls her eyes.

  “And selling. And. But Muslim extremist terrorism. Cyber security. These are difficult concepts to get across until they are blowing something up. The threats and the responses to them. There wasn’t a meme. An idea or concept that snagged people’s subconscious and became a part of their thinking. Cross did enough to establish Kestrel as a cyber security leader before West-Tebrum, but his real interest is to shape the conversation. He wants to create the policy that will allow Kestrel to own the market. He’s never had something as catchy as, say, Shock and Awe that he could sell. The Iraq War bombing campaign. That was a doctrine that came out of the National Defense University. Ullman and Wade. It entered the popular culture. So hokey. Like a pop song. Shock and Awe. It became a meme, replicating and mutating in other forms. T-shirts, movies, repeated on talk shows, comic strips. Until it becomes a late-night monologue punch line.”

  Skinner slips the blade under the flap of the envelope.

  “Meme.”

  Jae picks up the conjecture, flips the pages.

  “Contraction. The name of the strategy. Radical isolationism sounds, well, radical. Contraction. So easy to communicate. Eloquent, but untainted by any negative connotation. It could be talked about. Just a conjecture. So Cross talked about it.”

  She leans her head against the wall, looking up at the ceiling, low, stone, cold.

  “It’s a matter of contraction policy, Congressman. Do you see any room for contraction advancement in that, Secretary? We’re curious about contraction territories, Ms. Vice President.”

  She drops the conjecture on the floor.

  “People start asking for the source material. Terrence’s conjecture. Hostile Climate Abatement: Endgame Strategies. They have staffers do coverage on it, half-page digests, and, after reading them during their morning crap, they walk away with an easily communicated concept of national security. Contraction theory.”

  She pulls her head from the wall and looks at Skinner.

  “At first it’s just Cross talking, lunch, drinks. Hey, have you seen our new SCIF design? Come in and take a look. While I have you in here, can we talk contraction?”

  She points at the file boxes.

  “It’s all over the place in there. Used in dozens of contexts. Contraction. It communicated itself. Security wonks love it. So theoretical. You can build models. Using fictional countries, of course. But Skinner.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Terrence didn’t write most of those documents. Contraction caught on. It’s like what Terrence used to say about current intelligence policy being built over cold war policy. Contraction is in the new foundation. He meant it as a worst-case scenario. The only option we’d be left with if we didn’t do something aggressive about climate change. And even then it was a conjecture, meant to spur thought, incite new ideas and solutions. But it’s been picked up as a strategy for all global national security threats. Moving forward. The problems. The things Terrence has been worried about in the last few years: Gray market economies undermining the financial markets. Food shortages. Asymmetrical warfare. Cyber terrorism. Neo-nationalism. The threats that are on the doorstep now, US policy reaction to them is being built on contraction theory. Without anyone explicitly saying anything about it, it’s being assumed that not doing anything will be a key element in response to all global threats. As long as the main weight of the threats falls outside the US. And Terrence.”

  She’s crying, tears that seem to scorch her eyes as she sheds them without a quaver in her voice, lachrymal rage.

  “He was already on to the next big threat. What he saw as the emergent hazard in the second half of the twenty-first century. What to do with all the dead bodies. Corpse load.”

  She wipes at the tears, grinding them from her eyes with the heels of her hands.

  “Cross has a mobile jail built inside a SCIF. Prototype technology for drop-and-deploy intelligence stations. Anticipating a security market based on contraction. Halliburton can set up a military base in a few days. Kestrel will be able to set up an intel ops hard point, SCIF-certified, near any piece of critical foreign infrastructure in the world. And man it with their personnel. Advance work for contraction. Making sure as many of the eggs survive the storm tides as possible.”

  Skinner draws the sharp edge of the blade across the envelope’s flap, sound of paper being cut.

  “Cross spoke. At Bilderberg.”

  Jae wipes her hands on her thighs.

  “Cross has been speaking at Bilderberg for years. Some of the documents in the files are diplomatic cables. Some of the ones WikiLeaks published. No one was looking for a word like contraction, were they? But it’s in there. Referenced by diplomats. Over tea, What’s the prime minister’s thinking on contraction?”

  Skinner nods, folds away the blade, and sets the Leatherman on the floor.

  “Genocide meme.”

  She puts her hands together, pulls them apart, spreading her fingers.

  “Self-replicating. Spreading in an environment in which it can thrive.”

  “High level politics and finance.”

  Jae shrugs.

  “You don’t have to do anything. No one is to blame. It’s just the way the world is. Let it work itself out. Like the markets.”

  She spits on the floor.

  Skinner tips the envelope, spills its paper contents into his hand.

  “Terrence was dead.”

  Small, brightly colored folders, he opens them and looks inside.

  “When I got the answer to the question I posted on the bicycle message board. The coordinates for this place. Terrence was already dead.”

  He rises from the floor, sets the papers neatly on top of the sarcophagus where one of the charged laptops is open. He turns it, shows Jae the screen: classicsteelbikes.com.

  Jae stands, comes over and looks at the screen.

  “Right.”

  Skinner puts a fingertip on the trackpad, bringing the screen out of power save mode, fully illuminating.

  “My first communication was a simple ping. Here I am. Where are you? I need to talk. The response was coordinates. Coordinates Terrence gave to someone. To bring us here.”

  She looks at the boxes of documents, the travel packages and miscellaneous gear.

  “And now.”

  He shrugs.

  “My asset has never been my employer before. We’re well equipped to run and hide. Or find out what Terrence wanted us to do. With all.”

  He lifts a hand, takes in the files.

  “This.”

  She’s rubbing the back of her neck.

  “I don’t think Cross is trying to kill us for this. For knowing about contraction. Maybe if he knew what Terrence left here. But I don’t think he knows.”

  Skinner is shaking his head.

  “No. Cross isn’t trying to kill anyone. Haven is. Kestrel is his asset. It’s a test, I think, of contraction. Cross has pulled back decision-making authority on matters like this. It’s all up to Haven. Terrence was a threat to Kestrel because he was doing something outside the lines. You’re a threat because you’re following Terrence’s lead. And I’m a threat because I’m alive. Cross is contracting. He doesn’t have to do anything to protect his company. He just has to look the other way and let Haven do it.”

  Jae looks at the laptop screen.

  “I want to know what Terrence was doing. I still want to know why he’d engineer an attack on West-Tebrum.”

  Skinner puts his hands on the keys.

  “If he did.”

  He types, a quick chicken-peck style. Do you happen to know anything about serial numbers for that period?

  And posts the question. Hits refresh. Refresh. Refresh. And again. Again.

  Jae eats some trail mix. Looks at the vacuum-packed clothes and starts opening the seals. Outdoor casual. Technical fabrics meant to be worn in an informal work
place on the side of a mountain. She picks out fresh cargo pants, sports bra, t-shirt. Dark, sweat- and dirt-concealing colors. She keeps her desert boots, jacket. Skinner changes his suit for one that is almost identical in cut but made of a lighter material. A polo shirt. There’s a trench coat. Terrence knowing his man. He keeps his boots. Returning to the laptop every minute or so to hit refresh.

  Jae is putting the lids back on the boxes. She can’t look at the papers again. She’ll fall down that hole and into the still-spreading configuration.

  “There might not be a reply, Skinner. This may be what he wanted. No next stop. He funded the anarchists, tried to make some gesture toward opposing the powers that be, and left these papers here. Our decision what to do with them. WikiLeaks. Rolling Stone. New York Times. Anonymous. That kind of thing.”

  Skinner hits refresh. Nothing.

  “Yes. That might be.”

  He’s still talking robot-voiced. Jae suspects that he’s close to some kind of emotional overload. His brother. The story of his mom. Terrence dead. Whatever it is he’s feeling for her. And the rest of it. The contemplation of genocide. Jae has switched over to automatic pilot. Unwilling to collapse, and lacking anyone to hit, autopilot is the best she can do. Who the hell knows what passes for emotional shelter inside Skinner’s head? She remembers him in the dark on the train. He’d not spoken, but his engagement had been total. Or it had felt that way to her. This Skinner, flat-voiced, unable to hold eye contact, unable to put complete sentences back-to-back, this might be the truest Skinner she’s seen. The lover in the dark may well have been more of his adaptation. Behavior he’s conditioned in himself.

  She gets out the other laptop and logs into the Gmail account Cross told her about. One email from a Kestrel account. Paris safehouse details. One email from angel.cervantes@creech.af.mil.

  Related to your visit, would like you to have a look at this. Our missing box? I don’t think so, but it could be a similar item.

  And a link to an encrypted air force file share. A log-in ID, and a password hint. Can’t send this in the clear. Password is the geometric shape you mentioned. If you can’t remember, bounce me an email and I’ll try something else. Already breaking security on this. Safe travels. She hits the link, enters the log-in ID. The password: cuboid.

  The files, a series of three satellite photos. Night. Taken as fast-moving weather passed through the area. Partially obscured by clouds. Chunks of time separating each photo, gaps while the storm system masked activity on the ground. Dense urban area. Hyper-dense. Low build quality. Very little ground light for the density. Slum. The primary element in each photo has been circled. Stages of movement. Turning from what looks like the only street on the landscape that an object that big should be able to traverse. Squeezing into a crack between shacks, impossible to see how that was achieved on the ground. Then half concealed, one end inside a building much larger than the card houses dominating the area. She looks at that last one again. Dots swarming the object. People. Pushing it. A cargo container, unmarked. Reddish-brown paint. A brother to the one Cervantes showed her in Afghanistan.

  Carrier-killer.

  Her brain is opening the configuration, ripping backward, unfolding maps again. The destinations suggested by the wardrobe Terrence left behind, cross-referenced to an urban slumscape and massive fast-moving storm systems. Heat, rugged, dirt, Western business concerns. The reduction. Brazil. India. She looks at the flatness of the landscape in the satellite photo. Compares it to images of Brazilian favelas her mind digs up. Hillside slums stacked in rising tiers. But there could be others. Right? No. Yes, there could. But, no. The satellite. Slum. Something she’s seen in the past. In the USB? Doesn’t matter.

  The cargo container in the satellite photo is in India.

  “Jae. Mumbai.”

  She looks at Skinner.

  “What did you say?”

  He shows her the screen of his laptop. He has a reply. No words this time, just a string of numbers. Coordinates. In his hand, the GPS unit Terrence left for them. Coordinates entered and searched. Mumbai. Slum.

  Dharavi.

  She rubs the back of her neck.

  “How do we get there?”

  Skinner picks up the small colorful folders next to his laptop. Opens them. Air charter tickets. De Gaulle to Mumbai. A private carrier. Specializing in highly perishable pharmaceuticals and high-paying long-distance business commuters. Nearly infinite flexibility built into the stratospheric cost. And, in their passports, how convenient, six-month Indian visas courtesy of Travisa Visa Outsourcing.

  “So. A next step. Final. I think. Mumbai. Find out what Terrence did there.”

  Jae bends, picks up the conjecture that she’d left on the floor, stuffs it into a jacket pocket, and zips it closed.

  “He gave them something, Skinner.”

  She turns her laptop, shows him the satellite photos. Circled container and its route to concealment.

  “He gave them a weapon. And while he was giving it to them he made everybody look the other way so they wouldn’t see what was being aimed at the backs of their heads. He set up West-Tebrum to hide this.”

  Skinner is looking at his own laptop, the message board. He frowns, taps a few keys, shows her what he has written.

  Thank you, Shiva. See you soon.

  Jae nods, and Skinner hits the enter key.

  Refresh. Refresh. Refresh.

  You are very welcome. -Little Shiva

  Jae looks at the screen name.

  “Little Shiva. Same contact as the Russian and the anarchists?”

  Skinner closes the laptop and packs it away.

  “Let’s go find out.”

  From under his jacket he takes the Bersa .380 and sets it on the sarcophagus. Its final resting place.

  Jae could almost laugh at the expression on the face of the caretaker when they come out the gates of the cemetery. She is rolling the two bags behind her. Skinner is pushing the hand truck loaded with file boxes. Unsure of what to do in these circumstances, he watches them as they hail a taxi and tell the driver where they wish to go.

  The winds have been blowing south, and the EU ministers, still reeling from the battering the euro zone has taken from repeated Greek, Italian, and Spanish credit events, Cyprus banks runs, have exerted backstage pressure to see that airspace be reopened promptly once the air quality has returned to its new, and lower, standards. The ash has left the sky, and planes are flying, and De Gaulle is excellently equipped. They are made quite comfortable waiting until their charter service departs on their night flight to Mumbai. Some of the time they pass at the shipping desk for FedEx France. The rest of the time they pass in the Air France lounge. Private showers, dining, workstations, a bar. Perks of the frequent flier status enjoyed by their cover identities.

  Terrence, so thoughtful.

  Jae drinks tea, an elaborate service. Skinner drinks a beer. He’s more himself again. Or not. More animated. But his presence is brittle. She feels she might shatter him with the wrong word. And doesn’t know what she would find behind the broken façade. So she doesn’t talk. Unsure what words could expose a sudden flaw. And looks where his eyes look. At the planes taxiing to and from the gates. Launching themselves skyward. Beacons flashing as the night deepens. She remembers Terrence in Haiti. Taking the Pelican Cube Case she’d retrieved from the buried safe. Great chunks of cash inside. She wonders what that money bought. And how far back he must have begun. This great engine of regret he set into motion. Violent atonement for his callous thoughts and dismal regard for the potential of humanity to do something better.

  Montmartre. As least that far back. Undermining the op with two results in mind. First, save Skinner, put him out of play until needed. And second, get himself finally and absolutely discredited. A man on the outside, with the freedom to move, light and lethal. A true sparrow hawk in his last seven years. And she sees it then, how she also was moved on the board. Terrence saved Skinner, and he did it by sending Haven to Ira
q. Knowing Haven’s methods, approving the changes to her op in order to keep him there, with her. Was she also meant to be shifted to the edge of things? Emotionally incapacitated and moved from the center until he could use her erratically jumping mind? She could cry again. Reaching, instead, across the small table in the hushed lounge, and taking Skinner’s hand.

  He looks down at their entangled fingers, squeezes, and nods in the direction of the fifty-two-inch LCD TV mounted over the bar, BBC World News, volume off in deference to the American jazz standards and French synth pop that play softly over the lounge’s excellent sound system. Closed captions are set to English. Still the language of internationalism, even in France (give China a few more years on that). Blonde newscaster, brisk manner, the kind of cold beauty that the English cultivate in their news media personalities. The still image off her left shoulder shows the Raj Hotel in Bombay, flames and smoke pouring from several windows. Seeing this, it takes Jae a moment to realize that it is a stock photo from the November 26 attack in 2008 and has nothing to do with the events being described in halting, and sometimes misspelled text scrolling in fits over a black background at the bottom of the screen. Something has happened in Bombay, a spate of killings by terrorists. An incursion by Naxalite extremists from the eastern provinces. Unprecedented urban guerrilla warfare from rural fighters, but seemingly isolated from the seats of Bombay governance and power. Attacks restricted entirely within the confines of the Dharavi slum. A story of relatively little international interest, coming as it does from a city where extremist activity has become at least a monthly occurrence. The Brits, with their special regard for their former colony, can be expected to prick up their ears at such goings-on, but, for the rest of the world, the news would typically receive only passing coverage the following day. Except for a last twist on the traditional models of gunfire and bomb blasts in far off cities. According to the closed captioning, one of the terrorists, captured by a Quick Response Team from the Riot Control Police, has claimed that the Naxalites have nuclear capacity.