Mariposa

by Greg Bear

  Rebecca kept the gray military box and its records on that incident beside her at all times. It radiated political and tactical self-protection.

  Investigations of "encounters" involving civilian deaths had become routine, almost cookie-cutter by that chaotic stage of the war. No one in the Bush administration or in the Pentagon had wanted anything to obscure the success of the Surge, which after four years of trial and error, had finally been appreciable, then considerable—until the final combat draw-down, followed within two years by civil war and the end of all hope for sustained political influence in that part of the Middle East.

  Rebecca sat before the small desk and arranged five manila folders in a tall rectangle. Three flat displays relayed the morning's news and interdepartmental text feeds. She looked them over with a pruned-up face, then glanced down at the folders.

  Laid her hands beside them.

  Something had been left out or trimmed away; she knew it instinctively. But she wasn't sure she actually trusted that instinct. One of the first lessons drummed into those who would be law enforcement professionals, who must for the sake of public safety study the behavior and misbehavior of others, is the Prime Error: projecting one's own biography and experience over another's.

  She rearranged the folders as if searching for a perfect combination.

  I am not Quinn. But a career in the FBI, one big bomb in Washington state—one extraordinary day in Mecca. I've lived through a lot of violence and I've seen a lot of death. Didn't exactly leave me ready to smoothly transition back into the peacetime world. Messed with my head; I folded.

  I sought treatment.

  Quinn had lived on the outskirts of hell for over a year and a half. Twenty-three civilians killed in the middle of a fierce firefight, a convoy pinned down for two hours. And yet . . . no emotional scars. No recurring nightmares, no long hours of lying in bed sweating in a freezing room, jumping or shrieking at loud noises, seeing the faces of the dead come back like a string of ghosts hanging off the tail of a Chinese junk.

  For Quinn, apparently, nothing like the awfulness that had pushed Rebecca into special therapy.

  Another big bomb . . . Maybe I'll fold again, who knows?

  She tapped her stylus at the bottom left folder, rearranged them one more time.

  Lieutenant Colonel Edward Quinn had reacted to combat and injury like a hero, a true candidate for public office. Nothing could be allowed to get in the way of those goals. People did not like weaklings in the White House.

  Judith rolled in another cart.

  "Hey," Rebecca said, and raised her hand like a girl in class.

  "Yes, ma'am." Judith stood quietly beside the cart.

  "Where would an important, well-connected politician go in this town to solve a personal problem?"

  "What sort of problem?"

  "Psychological. Potential for political fallout. The Betty Ford clinic?"

  "Quinn no longer drinks, stopped taking drugs back when he was a soldier—ma'am. You know that." Judith frowned and thought this through. "Are you asking about combat related problems?"

  Rebecca shook her head. No sense playing her hand just yet. "I'm fishing. I'd like a list of all the treatment centers for embarrassing disorders of any sort . . . to be made available, by major donors or partisan groups, to a man being groomed for high office. Expensive, discreet. When am I scheduled to meet with Quinn?"

  "Tomorrow morning, 10:30 am, at Cumberland, ma'am."

  "Cumberland?" Rebecca swung around in her chair. "I thought he was at Fort McNair."

  Judith looked at her slate of appointments. "He was transferred yesterday to a terrorist compound at Cumberland. No explanation." She pressed her lips into an incurious line.

  Chapter Thirty

  Washington D.C.

  Rebecca walked around the mall in the lengthening shadows. Baumann usually managed to stay out of her line of sight when she jogged, but this evening, she said she needed complete privacy to meet with a reluctant informant. A half hour of hot debate and Rebecca had threatened to call the president. Baumann had turned red, made his own call—and relented.

  She had snuck out at 5:00 pm and now, half an hour later, was thoroughly enjoying the lovely feel of no bandage or ankle brace, and both of her feet shod in the latest high-tech sneakers, one luxury she could never cure herself of—the cop's best friend, great shoes.

  The new programmable protein drugs were remarkable. The doctors had told her she should walk only a hundred feet or so per day, nothing more strenuous; so she jogged a few dozen yards, then dropped back with a slight limp and a wry expression.

  The sky over the Capitol dome was a shade of pure enameled blue. The sun dropped with steadfast serenity behind a gray wall, a hovering front stalled to the west. The air had turned crisp and cool. Body heat puffed rhythmically from the collar of her sweatshirt.

  Stages were being set up at the north end for a concert. Joggers and pedestrians and tourists had worn the grass down to dirt; gardeners tried to stake out territories for new grass, but hardly anyone paid the ribbons much attention, and soon, fifty or sixty thousand people would gather and stamp their feet in time with the latest bluegrass sensation. Rebecca didn't mind; she liked bluegrass. Her momma had liked bluegrass. Her daddy had liked bluegrass, and their mommies and daddies before them. Bluegrass never went away. It might even outlast the sun. Billions of years in the future, there might be concerts playing bluegrass to people made of beautiful walls of light, jiggling with the rhythm as it was broadcast out to new stars in a thin black sky.

  She shook her head as she tried not to limp. Jogging didn't help her think. It helped her get away from thinking. She had been thinking too much the last few days and sleeping too little. Tomorrow she would talk with Edward Quinn. That meeting had taken two difficult days to arrange. Her ankle suddenly shot a bolt up her leg and she lurched toward a bench. Nothing big; the pain was already trailing off to a dull throb.

  She grimaced and sat, waiting.

  Tom Cantor appeared a few minutes later, also jogging. He wore jeans and a black sweatshirt with a transparent hoodie—D.C. regulations forbade opaque hoodies—that barely veiled his balding head and fringe of long straggly hair. Thin as a rail, he carried a slim backpack and nothing else. With a whuff, he sat beside her and leaned back, slung his arms over the bench, and regarded her with large brown eyes.

  He flashed a generously kooky grin. "Come here often?"

  "I'd like to," she said. "Ankle gives me grief."

  "Better soon, I pray. Well, this one's pretty interesting. More so every hour."

  "Interesting, how?"

  "I recovered a spreadsheet file—mostly a list of names. Put it on zip paper for you. Fingerprint the upper corner and all will be revealed. Pull back the plastic tab and bend the corner—all gone."

  "I know how to use zip paper. Thanks, Tom."

  "The biggest parcel looks like a digital sound file. It's desperately fragmented. I'll need another day. Any reason it's important?"

  "Fate of the planet," Rebecca said.

  Tom shook his head and pushed up with another whuff. "Hate to do all this work just to nail some boring old white slavery ring. So—one more day?"

  "Do I have a choice?"

  "Nope. Sorry." And he jogged off, waving his hand without looking back.

  Tom Cantor had never failed her—or anyone else who relied on his services. And many very important people did.

  Until now, no problem she had passed along to his expert hands had taken him for than a few hours to solve.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  4 DAYS

  Cumberland Federal Prison

  "We're breaking new ground here, no doubt about it."

  Lionel Blake walked beside Rebecca down the long corridor, lined with white tile and precisely laid ochre brick. Quinn's attorney nodded to three secret service agents, arrayed in a blocking triangle across the hall; the agents squinted and parted to let them pass. One tracked Rebecca's rear. The ot
her two, more professional, studied her face, her briefcase, and her purse—before glancing at her rear.

  Lionel Blake's representation of the former vice president of the United States could have cost at least a thousand dollars an hour. Quinn's family was not wealthy and the White House legal defense fund was not paying; perhaps Blake was doing it pro bono, for the considerable publicity. None of these motives endeared Blake to Rebecca, who as a rule was not fond of lawyers, less fond still of defense attorneys.

  "Your visit is the first real sign of attention from the White House since my client's arrest," Blake said. "I don't know whether to be encouraged or just accept it as another layer of ass armor."

  Two correctional officers sat outside the heavy, inset steel doorway. They rose and folded their arms like genies. Their faces—one black, one white, both beaded with sweat in the corridor's steam heat—were perfect blanks.

  Blake paused. "Nobody goes in without four guards present. He's no Hannibal Lecter but he's no fun, either. Strong and unpredictable. Make up your own mind. He's more dangerous to himself . . . well, I won't go so far as to say that. But he hasn't hurt anybody since he killed Beth-Anne."

  Rebecca glanced at the door—semi-gloss black enamel, featureless except for a small viewport at eye level and a pass-through near the base—and looked back down the corridor, then up at the steel plate ceiling. She hated prisons. Coming back here was no treat—the last time, she had been lightly worked over by a couple of beefy matrons, overseen by a super-zealous Diplomatic Security agent. They thought she might have information about a terrorist incident.

  She sincerely hoped they were all out on their asses now, slopped away in the departing flood of medieval thinkers.

  "I insisted you be allowed to interview him," Blake said. "Anything you learn can only support our case."

  "How much has he said?" Rebecca asked.

  Blake shrugged. "I can't stop him from saying whatever he wants. He's his own man, no doubt about it." Blake seemed cheerful, considering the atmosphere.

  Easy case, she thought. Open and shut. Edward Quinn is innocent by reason of stark, raving, hoo-ha insanity.

  Four more Cumberland officers came through the opposite door, one at a time to avoid knocking elbows—huge guys in padded suits with thick arms and thicker gloves, more suited to training guard dogs. The two officers at the desk had Blake and Rebecca sign in and finish the last round of waivers. One used a walkie-talkie to have the cell door remotely disarmed, like an airplane hatch. Small electric whirring and three clunks followed. Nothing was done hastily in this wing. The other guard peered through the viewport, then plugged a small mike into the door.

  "Mr. Quinn, stand back to receive visitors—your attorney and a guest."

  Quinn's voice sounded from a speaker in the wall to the right of the door, clear and pleasant. "Happy to have visitors. I'm feeling safe today."

  Blake cast a doubtful look at Rebecca. "Here we come, Edward," he said into the microphone.

  The correctional officers stood by for another ten seconds. Two of the guys in padded suits moved in like mirror images to flank the door. The door clicked again and opened a few inches with an oily piston sound. The third padded officer—the senior lead—pushed between Rebecca and Blake, as a shield, and pulled the door open the rest of the way.

  It was a very heavy door. The cells had been built to hold former Gitmo detainees. Quinn stood at the back. He had a cast on his left arm, covered with tough-looking black mesh. The mesh extended over his hand.

  "That arm's broken," the senior lead said in an undertone. "He's ripped the cast off twice. It's a bitch to replace. Takes five of us plus the doc. Anyway, he says he doesn't need it."

  "How did he break his arm?" Rebecca asked.

  "Exercising," the senior lead said, and entered the cell with a slight waddle, facing Quinn all the while. "McNair couldn't handle him. We're sort of used to tough guys—terror detainees were hard cases, you know. The shit they went through . . ." He shook his head.

  The men in padded suits surrounded Quinn where he had backed himself up against the bare wall. Quinn looked them over with little head jerks, like a cartoon fly.

  Then he fastened his eyes on Rebecca. They were sharp as needles. Another flick of his head, and he looked askance, as if staring at her was like staring at the sun.

  "If you're here to listen, that's terrific," he said. "Find out what went wrong. Because before all this happened, it worked. It really worked great."

  One of the guards carried in a folding plastic chair and stood beside it as Rebecca sat. She took out her notepad and switched on the record function in her new spex.

  "Cute glasses," Quinn said. "Never got used to them. Beth-Anne was going to buy a pair, for travel."

  "My name is Rebecca Rose," she began.

  "Son and daughter—okay?" Quinn asked.

  "They're fine," Rebecca said. "I'm here on behalf of the president. I'd like to ask some questions."

  "Wish her all the best," Quinn said. "Everything smoothes over. The past can be made to go away. Or at least you don't feel it."

  "We'd all like to finish this sooner rather than later, ma'am," the senior lead said. "He'll talk and talk if you let him."

  "Ask away," Quinn said.

  "The president has instructed me to investigate the circumstances leading up to—"

  "Beth-Anne." Quinn frowned until his eyebrows met and looked earnestly at her.

  "You remember everything?" she asked.

  "Yes. A mistake."

  "Why did you do it?"

  "Testing. Tried other things first. Experiments."

  "What sort of experiments?"

  Quinn continued in a light, conversational tone. "Hid things. Rearranged desk drawers after the staff had gone home for the evening. Pulled pranks. Put a pin—P-I-N, sharp—on a seat. Heard the office secretary Francine yelp when she sat on it. Didn't laugh—nothing."

  "What did you learn from your experiments?"

  "Could do anything without guilt or even embarrassment."

  "What else?"

  "Told lies during hearings. Aides to senators caught them, then the press. Got concerned reports from staff. Politicians always misspeak. A true Washington animal. At night, when everyone was asleep, sat in the office chair in the observatory. Went exploring through the past—very clear. Could remember events but they all seemed out of context, like someone else had lived them. Realized there was no need to worry. The worries went away. Erased them. But it's not disease that kills a leper, it's because he keeps hurting himself but feels no pain—no consequences. Losing a conscience, that's like having leprosy. Conscience gone—how much damage?"

  "Hurry it up," the senior lead said. "He'll go on and on. Ask him what you need to know. We all have other duties."

  The fact that she had gotten into Cumberland at all gave Rebecca confidence that she could take her own sweet time. "How did you compensate for having no conscience?"

  Quinn smiled. "Each morning, with coffee, read from a handwritten list of things to feel guilty about, just to stay human, you know, for the day's events. Didn't want to act like an arrogant prick. And then . . . different handwriting."

  "How?"

  "Looked at the old signature from signed documents. New signature, different. Caused concern—intellectually. But it didn't frighten. Becoming fearless is even more dangerous than not feeling guilt."

  "Nothing frightened you?"

  "Could imitate fear for a little while, thinking of really bad things that might happen. But then . . ." He shrugged.

  "Is it possible this condition began when you were in Iraq?"

  "Felt fear in Iraq, just like everybody else," Quinn said. "Normal."

  "After you got home, did the fear return unexpectedly?"

  Quinn focused. "Afraid all the time."

  "Flashbacks?"

  "Worse. Dreamed things that never happened. Very bad things."

  Rebecca relaxed her jaw. She had been clamping
her teeth as Quinn answered. "Were you suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder?"

  Quinn shrugged.

  "You knew there were treatment programs, didn't you?"

  Quinn's voice turned rough. He sounded as if he were quoting: "'Cowards and fools don't get elected.' Saw how officers looked at the broken soldiers. Disgusted. Wanted them out of the barrel before they contaminated the others."

  "I can't find any record of your being treated," Rebecca said. "Yet you admit that you experienced classic symptoms of PTSD."

  "Right," Quinn said. "Pure Terror, Surely Damned."

  "You must have found some way to control it, like you do now. Taking charge of your life."

  Quinn shrugged again.

  "Did you seek advice?"

  He looked away.

  "Are you feeling guilty now?" Rebecca asked.

  "Yeah," Quinn said. "Maybe. Damn." He grinned like a boy caught stealing cookies.

  "You say you can control all of your emotional reactions."

  "Sometimes it takes a day or two."

  "If I come back later, will you answer my question?"

  "Which question?"

  "About seeking help for your illness."

  Quinn looked down, shrugged.

  "This is a sham." Rebecca folded her notebook and removed her spex. "No personal pronouns. That's pretty on the nose, don't you think? Your attorney coached you."

  Blake started to protest.

  Quinn lifted his broken arm. "Bullshit. Better, quicker, stronger. If I . . . . there! If I had felt this way when I was in Iraq, would have been a better soldier—an excellent soldier. Would have come home ready to be with the family—no nightmares, no flashbacks. Look at . . . me." He tapped his chest with his cast. "Training so hard now," thump, "snapped this arm. Does that sound like something a lawyer would tell . . . me to say? Lawyers aren't that creative."

  "I don't believe you could accomplish all that on your own."

  "Well, score one for you."