by Gregg Loomis
“Reference”-Jason held the written pages up to the light-“document echo-tango-four-zero-two. Question: The bodies found all had traces of silica and ethylene in the lungs, though in quantities that should not have been fatal. Couldn’t that have come from natural surroundings?”
Pause.
“Unlikely with silica on the Bering Sea incident. Possible in Georgia, but the soil had low silica content. Unless there were a sandstorm. There was no record of a sandstorm in the area.”
Only a machine would exclude that possibility, given the locales. No, knowing the CIA…
Jason ran his eye down the page. “I note sulfates at almost uniform levels in all the victims’ lungs, too. Isn’t it unusual that persons with different-size lungs would have almost identical amounts?”
“Very.”
Not exactly helpful. “Any explanation?”
“As stated, tissue studies show nitrogen also, as well as trace carbon. As in some sort of smoke inhalation.”
“Smoke from what?”
“Unknown. Subsequent photographs of the ship and logging camp depict some sort of brush or scrub as the only flora nearby. One in a pot, the other beside the bunk-house. None of it appears to have burned.”
“Then what did the smoke come from?”
“Good question.”
Jason thought for a moment. “Let’s go back to the silica. That’s a common element in rocks as well as sand, right?”
“Right.”
“Any chance they breathed silica in the smoke?”
“Only if a rock was burning. Not likely.”
“Okay,” Jason went on, “any idea why they would be gassed at all? I mean, shooting would have been a lot more efficient.”
“We don’t know. That, Mr. Peters, is why we hired your company.”
Jason thought for a moment. “Anything else that’s surfaced since the report was written?”
Pause.
“There were traces of radiation. Very low rads, but ascertainable. Also some evidence of hydrocarbons in the blood, and ethylene.”
Jason paused, trying to pry loose a distant memory. “Ethylene is an anaesthetic, isn’t it?” “Was. Its use was discontinued in the sixties.” Jason stood, idly glancing around his hotel room. “Don’t suppose you have any explanation for the presence of the hydrocarbons, either.”
“You are correct.”
Swell.
Jason was dealing with a form of anaesthesia mixed with what amounted to sand, one or both radioactive, origins and purpose unknown. The agency needed a geo-or biochemist, not a spy. “You’ve been a big help.”
Pause.
“Always pleasure, Mr. Peters.”
Was that a trace of mechanized sarcasm?
Chapter Twelve
The National Mall, Washington, D.C.
The next morning
Shortly after sunrise, Jason had dropped by the Crystal City hotel to check on Pangloss. That had been a mistake. The big mixed-breed managed such a pitiful look from behind the bars of his kennel that Jason let him out and watched as the dog streaked for the backseat of the rental car Jason had just retrieved. What the hell? Jason rationalized. They both would be leaving Washington today, anyway.
The question was, for where?
At the moment, Jason was one of a number of people walking their dogs on the grassy mall in full view of the capital building. Restrained by an unaccustomed leash, Pangloss made a halfhearted lunge for a tourist-fattened squirrel, an effort Jason saw as more instinctive than motivated. Tail flicking indignantly, the intended prey unleashed a string of chattering rebuke while head-down on the trunk of a bare oak tree.
Jason gave the leash a tug, “Come on, Pangloss. You wouldn’t know what to do with him if you caught him.”
By now man and dog were in front of the original Smithsonian building, the redbrick Victorian pile that for years had housed the basis of the collection that now occupied most of the mall. Across the lawn was an unimposing structure, neither particularly modern nor classical. Its best architectural feature was that it was not of the type so common in Washington, a style Jason referred to as “Federal Massive.”
Jason checked his watch and slowly walked over, watching the parade of joggers, dogwalkers, and bureaucrats scurrying to standard-issue desks in buildings that were visually indistinguishable from one another. Stopping as though to make certain where he was, Jason appeared to read the words above the entrance that informed him he was entering the National Museum of Natural History.
No one in sight paid him any attention.
He pushed his way through a revolving door and came face-to-face with a man in the uniform of the Smithsonian’s security service. His name tag labeled him as W. Smith. Had Jason been asked, he would have guessed W. Smith had recently shaken Jim Beam’s hand. Red-rimmed lids were puffy, almost closed over piglike eyes. He winced at any sound as though magnified, and hands were shoved into pockets, perhaps to conceal shaking.
“You can’t bring the dog inside,” the man said sternly.
The man’s breath confirmed Jason’s suspicions. He hoped W. Smith would stay away from open flames.
Jason glanced around furtively, a man not wanting to be noticed, although the foyer was devoid of tourists. “It’s okay, Officer. This is a bomb-sniffing dog.”
The man with the badge seemed little less assured. “Bomb?”
Jason shook his head, lowering his voice. “Nothing to worry about; just a practice run.”
The guard glared at Pangloss. “Nobody said nothin’ to me ‘bout any dog, bomb-sniffin’ or otherwise.”
Jason managed a look of surprise. “Really?” He nodded toward a telephone hanging on the wall beside the door. “Why not give Dr. Kamito a call, tell him Jason Peters is here with the dog.”
With one suspicious eye on the tail-wagging Pangloss, W. Smith punched in a three-digit number and grunted into, the phone before turning to face Jason. “He says you know the way and for you and the dog to come on up.”
It was clear W. Smith did not approve as man and dog walked across the entrance hall to a single elevator. If ever Pangloss were to break house-training, Jason thought, Lord, let it be now.
Prayers unanswered, Jason stepped into a long hall at the top of the building. He and the dog drew curious stares but no comments from people in white lab coats bent over microscopes, chipping at rocks, or working in a huge chemistry lab.
Unknown to most, the CIA was one of the largest contributors to the Smithsonian, particularly its natural history and aerospace subsidiaries. In return for its generosity, the agency had access to a number of the museum’s scientifically oriented staff on a consulting basis.
For example, who better than a seismologist to predict, as far as predictions were possible, an upheaval of the earth’s surface likely to disrupt or distract an uncooperative government for a few days? Even less known, for example, was the prediction within seventy-two hours of the Afghan-Pakistan-Indian earthquake of October 2005. The resulting destruction and chaos enabled a thorough search for terrorists camps in an area of Pakistan that the United States supposed ally had insisted the Pakistan Army had secured.
Jason had previously used the services of Dr. Ito Kamito, head of the museum’s geology division and a specialist in geochemistry. Two years ago, Narcom had taken a rare job for someone other than the agency. The De Beers consortium of diamond fame was faced with rumors of gems allegedly mined in the Siberian permafrost. Knowledgeable sources told of gems indistinguishable from those of South Africa and half as expensive. The tension in the voice of the De Beers representative indicated that they took the threat very seriously.
The prospect of the loss of a few euros was one of two events that could provoke emotion from a Dutchman. Jason wasn’t sure what the other was.
Posing as an international jewel dealer of shady repute and enormous resources, Jason had managed to smuggle one of the Russian stones from a mine inside the arctic circle and bring it to Dr. Kam
ito. Within a week he ascertained that the gems were not formed by carbon under intense geological pressure, the definition of diamonds, but were a form of Mesozoic era glacially ground glass with the same weight and spectrographic properties as the real thing.
The De Beers company expressed its gratitude by paying Nacom’s bill promptly and without haggle, perhaps a first for the diamond consortium.
Near the far end of the hall, a small man stepped out of a door. Had Jason not recognized him, he would have mistaken him for a child in his parent’s lab coat. Myopic eyes peered through bottle-bottom-thick glasses. An almost perfectly round face was split by a megawatt smile as he bowed slightly and extended a hand. There was only a trace of his native Japan in his Speech.
“Jason! Good to see you again!”
Dr. Kamito might be Asian, but he was anything but inscrutable. Jason had never seen him in anything but a good mood.
The man clearly did not understand his world.
The two met with the doctor’s usual enthusiastic handshake, a. gesture that reminded Jason of pumping water from a very deep well. With his other hand, the scientist was scratching between Pangloss’s ears, incurring a potentially enduring friendship.
“So, this is the dog you told me about? Can he truly smell explosives, as you told Mr. Smith?”
“Don’t see why not; he sniffs everything. Whether he would know to alert us if he found any is another matter.”
As he indicated that they should enter the open door, Dr. Kamito’s slightly slanted eyes narrowed; he was unsure whether Jason was joking. “Bomb-sniffing or not, welcome.”
The office was as Jason remembered it: imitation wood desk in front of a wall paved with diplomas, certificates, and other documents in multiple languages, including what Jason guessed was Japanese. Two prints, both depicting Revenge of the Ronin, added primary color. Between the desk and wall were a chair on casters and a small credenza, which left scant space for the sole visitor’s chair. Nestled on the papers scattered across the desk was a plastic box, the sort that contained take-out food. Through the clear lid, Jason could see several slivers of what he gathered was raw fish.
Dr. Kamito followed his glance. “Some of the bestseeing-looking-tuna in a long time; makes a great breakfast.”
Jason sat, certain his face didn’t show the heave his stomach gave at the thought of raw fish first thing in the morning. “Better for you than a bagel, I guess.”
The chemist smiled broadly, exposing more teeth than Jason had seen since Jimmy Carter. “You are familiar with sashimi?”
Jason managed a weak grin. “I grew up with it.”
He managed not to add, Except when I was a kid, we called it “bait.”
The doctor proffered the box. “I have some chopsticks here somewhere.”
Jason put up a protesting hand. “Mighty generous of you, but I’ve already eaten.”
Pangloss wasn’t quite as eager to turn down the offer, but a gentle pull on the leash made him sit in front of the chair. Soon he was stretched out on the bare linoleum floor, snoring.
Kamito was digging around under the debris on his desk. “If I can just find chopsticks…” He produced an ivory pair from under a file folder, opened the box, and scissored a piece of fish into his mouth. “If you’re sure…”
“I’m sure. Thanks.”
Kamito smacked his lips in pleasure as he pursued another cut of tuna. “If you didn’t come for the sashimi, you must have come for the company.”
Jason reached into the pocket of his new jacket, producing both the report he had gotten from Mama and the one given him by Drum, or whatever the CIA man’s name had been. He handed them across the desk, and Kamito read as he finished the tuna.
“That explains it,” he said upon completing the reading of both papers.
Jason raised his eyebrows in an unspoken question.
“Your people, the agency…”
“Not my people, Doc. I’m just an independent contractor.”
Kamito shook off the distinction as though all people in Jason’s line of work were the same to him. “Ah, so. Yesterday some guy walked in here and handed me a package. Nothing unusual about that; we get samples of rocks and stuff all the time. This one, though, had no return address, no nothing other than a typed note asking that I do a chemical analysis with special attention given to trace ethylene. Just a test tube of what looked like clay, soil of some kind, with a few pebbles mixed in.”
The chemist shook his head in puzzlement. “It would have been easy enough to at least let me know what to look for, who it was from, something. Sometimes I think you guys believe in secrecy for its own sake. Who else would send stuff like that anonymously? I’m surprised you people sign your Christmas cards.”
“Not my people,” Jason corrected again. “We just do jobs for them, same as you.”
Kamito actually winked, two small boys sharing a secret from adults. “No worry. I can keep very tight mouth.” He continued as he carefully placed the food container in the trash. “I went ahead and did tests…”
Jason straightened up in his chair. “And?”
“I found silica, the usual thing you’d expect in any soil or clay, the ethylene, too. I also found traces of sulfides, slight radiation, the kind you’d assume around volcanic activity.”
“But there aren’t any volcanoes anywhere near where those samples came from.”
Kamito shrugged. “You asked for an analysis; you got an analysis. And that’s not even the real puzzler. I had to guess, I’d say the soil came from somewhere around the Mediterranean basin.”
Fascinated, Jason leaned forward, waking up Pangloss. “Lemme get this straight: you do tests on soil and a few pebbles from Georgia and a trawler’s rock garden and determine they came from halfway around the world? How did they get there?”
Kamito leaned back in his chair. “That’s what your employer pays you to find out.”
Jason sighed, despairing that the scientist would ever accept that he, Jason, was not employed by the CIA. Elbows on his knees, he said, “You’re probably right. Let’s start with how you came to the conclusion that this stuff is from the Mediterranean.”
Kamito stared at the ceiling a moment, as though the answer might suddenly appear there. “Although most soils contain common elements, the proportion of those elements varies. For instance, I would expect the water-leached soil of, say, a rain forest to be very low in chemical nutrients like nitrogen. On the other hand, desert sand would be high in nitrogen but, without life-sustaining water, low on hydrocarbons.”
Jason leaned back, aware that he had opened the jar and now the genie was going to take its time getting out.
“This particular sample is very rich in sulfides, which suggests past, present, or future volcanic activity.”
“Yeah, but there are volcanoes…”
Kamito held up a silencing hand. “To my knowledge, only one of the tectonic plates of the world contains these exact proportions of sulfides, sulfur nitrates, and the like.”
Jason searched his memory. “Tectonic plates? You mean those pieces of the earth’s surface that more or less float on a sea of lava?”
A smile, almost condescending. “Not exactly, but very, very close. There are a number of plates that rub up against each other. One may override another or submerge under it, usually with cata… cata…”
“Catastrophic,” Jason supplied.
“Ah, so. For instance, the plate that is the Indian subcontinent slid under the larger Asian plate a few years ago, causing a massive earthquake. The San Andreas Fault is the line between the plate to which North America belongs and that of the Pacific Ocean. One daytomorrow, aeons from now-everything west of that line is likely to slip into the sea.”
Submersion of the Hollywood glitterati was a pleasing thought. Likely to raise the average IQ of both the Pacific and United States.
“Along these fault lines, the magma below sometimes boils to the surface. Volcanoes
are least common where there is no fault line activity.”
“I don’t recall any volcanoes in the western United States.” Jason said.
Kamito grinned yet again, explaining as though to a small child. “Possibly the largest volcano in the world is in the western United States, We call it Yellowstone National Park.”
It took Jason a moment be sure he had heard right. In the meantime, the chemist continued. “Not all volcanoes are above surface to begin with. If you consider the amount of thermal springs that regularly erupt under pressure-Old Faithful, for instance-there must be huge amounts of pressure in the area. It can go dormant or, in days or aeons, erupt, taking Montana and Wyoming with it.”
Not as gratifying as California dropping into the ocean.
“Okay, I get the picture, but the Mediterranean basin is a little large. Could you be more specific?”
Kamito shook his head, the overhead lights shooting rainbow-colored streaks from his glasses. “Afraid not-not my area of expertise.” He reached into a desk drawer, fumbled around, and produced a card, handing it across the desk. “Call Maria Bergenghetti; take her what’s left of what you people sent me. She’s one of the world’s top volcanologists.”
Kamito stood, extending a hand; the interview was over.
Jason studied the card, hardly surprised it was in Italian. Like those of most of her countrymen, her business card bore a bewildering list of phone numbers. “Exactly which one of these should I call?”
“The agency surely knows how to find people. Or you could try calling her office and asking where she is.”
JOURNAL OF SEVERENUS TACTUS
Cave of the Sibyl
Cumae, Gulf of Naples
Campania, Italy
Nones Iunius (June 1)
Thirty-Seventh Year of the
Reign of Augustus Caesar (a.d. 10)
My feet felt as though they were encased in lead, so full of dread was I, almost as frightened of what I would hear as of my impending trip to the netherworld. My guide was silent, the only sound sandals on stone and the cooing of doves. ^1
