The Cobweb

by Neal Stephenson

  “Ah,” Town said, seeming to find this slightly less implausible. “Well, I’d believe it. But you’ll have to make your case to my readers.” He shifted position for the first time since he’d got into the car, rummaging in the breast pocket of his blazer for a reporter’s notebook and a ballpoint pen. “Why would some foreign students want to do that?”

  “Well, but then I decided it was the FBI, because they knew more about me than they ought to,” Clyde said. “And then I decided it was some other folks just pretending to be FBI agents.”

  “Uh-huh,” Town said quietly. “I hate it when that happens.”

  Clyde downshifted the big wagon and let its weight pull them down into the valley at not much more than a jogging pace. He told Jonathan Town an edited version of the story, leaving Fazoul out of it.

  This shifted attention away from the truly wild part about fake FBI agents and toward more down-to-earth elements of the story, such as Tab, who had been a tried-and-true news item for decades—ever since he’d become the heaviest ninth-grader in the history of Iowa. Town wrote it all down and asked the inevitable question: “You told your boss about this?”

  “FBI handles anything that crosses state lines. They also handle counterespionage. So I told them about it a couple of weeks ago, right after the election.”

  “How do you think Mullowney would feel about your going over his head?” Town asked, smiling at the thought of it.

  Clyde cracked a smile, too. “It don’t much matter what he thinks,” he said. “He couldn’t like me any less than he already does.”

  “How can you stand to work for him?”

  “I can’t. Went ahead and handed in my resignation. But that’s another story.”

  “When’s your last day as a deputy sheriff, then?”

  “End of the year. But I got some vacation days stored up, so it’ll really be sometime around Christmas.”

  “What’s that going to do for the family finances?”

  Clyde heaved a big sigh and ground his teeth. “Desiree’s getting special combat pay,” he said. “When she gets back, if things get bad, she can always go back to nursing full-time.”

  “Well, back to the main story,” Town said, sensing he was wandering into a minefield. “How’d the FBI react to the news that Saddam Hussein is building a biological-weapons production facility in Forks County, Iowa?”

  Clyde winced. “Well, they haven’t done anything dramatic, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Anything dramatic?”

  “Anything that would be obvious.”

  “In other words, as far as you know, they haven’t done diddly.”

  “Yeah.”

  Clyde saw Town writing this response down in his notebook and thought about how lame it would look in a Des Moines Register story. “The local agent went to D.C. just to show this report to his higher-ups,” Clyde said. “I know they’re real interested.”

  “But that’s not news. At least it’s not Iowa news. Iowa news is lots of new FBI agents coming into Nishnabotna and fanning out across the city, or something like that.”

  “Well, I’m not sure if that’s the tack they want to take with the investigation,” Clyde said.

  “What tack do they want to take, then?”

  “Sort of a wait-and-see approach, I guess. They seem to agree that these guys are shady characters, but they don’t just want to swoop down and make arrests and file any charges—the way a cop would.”

  “But FBI agents are cops.”

  Clyde sighed again.

  “Oh, yeah,” Town said. “You said something about their not really being FBI.”

  “I don’t know how the G-men operate,” Clyde said, “but a cop is very organized and disciplined about gathering solid evidence that will stand up in court, and then filing charges and securing convictions. No one seems to have explained that to these guys.”

  “Well,” Town said, sitting up in his seat and flipping way back to the very beginning of his notes, “the thing about the horses producing botulin antidote for the Army is definitely story material. The fact that the military only had two horses in the whole country for this purpose seems like a lack of preparedness on their part and would make a nice little exposé. And the fact that one of them got mutilated—by someone—makes the story even better because it dramatizes the vulnerability of the program.” Town stared out the windshield for a minute, chewing thoughtfully on his lip. “Would the Register run it? Well, I don’t know, I’m only a stringer. But I’m inclined to think they might spike the story, or at least put it on ice until the crisis in the Gulf has resolved, so it doesn’t look like they’re undermining the military effort. Of course, you’re going way, way, way beyond that story and into an incredible, amazing espionage thing. Which isn’t bad in and of itself, because amazing espionage stories really happen sometimes. But all you’re giving me in the way of evidence is the Tab Templeton story—which was already covered to death on the sports page—and a memo from the internal files of the Howdy Brigade, and this little black-and-white photo from an old wrestling magazine. Is that right?”

  Clyde ground his teeth. “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “And on top of that already amazing story, you have a whole ’nother story brewing about something fishy happening with the FBI. And the only evidence you have for that is that you talked to some FBI guys on the phone and ended up with a gut feeling that their heads were not where a cop’s head should be.”

  Town said nothing for a while, letting all of this speak for itself. Clyde ground his teeth some more. “Okay, okay,” he said, “separately, each one of those sounds like a wild story. But together they reinforce each other.”

  “Could you explain that?”

  “The idea that Iraqis are up to some shenanigans here might sound pretty wild. But if they were, you’d hope that someone in the government would be worried about it. Like the CIA or something. And that might explain why the folks in Washington have been acting kind of funny.”

  “From my point of view that makes it a worse story, not a better story,” Town said, “because I can’t break it down into bite-sized chunks. I’ve got to explain this huge tapestry of events. I’ve got to write a damn book.”

  “I’m not used to dealings with the media,” Clyde finally said, “so I don’t know the drill. But isn’t it the case that sometimes a paper will send out an investigative reporter to dig for more information?”

  Town drew a deep breath and let it out, and Clyde got the impression that, out of politeness and respect for Clyde, he was making an effort not to break out laughing. “The investigative-reporter thing is largely a Hollywood myth,” he said. “No one really does that. No one has the attention span. No one has the budget. Not that many people have the talent.”

  “Okay. Well, that clears up a lot of misconceptions for me,” Clyde said.

  “Basically you need to give the Register, or the Trib or whomever, this story on a platter.”

  “No one’s going to investigate this thing except for me,” Clyde said.

  “You got it.”

  “Okay, well, let’s get out of this dang valley, and I’ll buy you a cup of coffee for your time,” Clyde said.

  “Nah, you don’t have to do that,” Town said. But a few minutes later, as they were winding their way back up, he said, “I tell you what. I’m going to bounce this off my editor at the Register. Like I said, based on what you’ve told me, there’s no story here. But it would be such a big deal if something was going on—I’d hate to miss it.”

  “Whatever you think is best,” Clyde said.

  “But even if they like it, they won’t move unless you can give them a smoking gun. Something they can take a picture of.”

  “Like what?”

  “Come on, Clyde,” Town said, finally sounding a little impatient. “You’re claiming that Tab Templeton constructed a botulin factory for these guys. Where the hell is the factory?”

  “Could be anywhere,” Clyde said. “In
a house or an old barn or garage. None of the neighbors saw Tab or the van at the house where the Iraqis live, so it’s not there.”

  “Show me the goddamn factory. That’s what it comes down to, Clyde.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Clyde said.

  forty-seven

  DECEMBER

  GEORGE BUSH had always got a bad cold around the beginning of December, and he had one now on the morning before Pearl Harbor Day as James Gabor Millikan gave him his early-morning national-security briefing. Millikan, on the other hand, was exultant. He had retrieved himself from the ruin that he had almost suffered from being too pro-Saddam. Through his Iraq task force he had blocked both Hennessey and that bottom fish in the Agency whose name he had forgotten, but who had been sternly dealt with and who would soon be cast back into the outer darkness. He had had a triumphant time organizing the United Nations effort, for which he had received so much approval from the President and from the press. All was going well—except that the President had that look on his face.

  George Bush, underneath all the stiffness and Yaliness and malapropisms, had one big problem for James Gabor Millikan. He was a softy. He really liked people. He worried about people. He worried himself sick about gas attacks and chemical warfare and his precious Americans dying in the sands of the desert. This irritated Millikan.

  “So what about the biological and chemical developments?” the President asked as he turned to his military adviser.

  “Nothing new. If they launch anything, it will be out of those South African weapons, and it will be nothing that we can’t control.”

  “Are you sure? Are you really sure?”

  Millikan interjected. “If I could, sir, you were unduly upset by the reports written by that analyst who has been mustered out of the service after miserably failing a routine polygraph examination.”

  Bush had a way of looking through people, and at this point he began doing it to Millikan. Bush said nothing, which made it even worse. Millikan at times like this could not stand the silence. “Our task force, which you yourself said was blue-ribbon all the way, is on top of this.”

  “What about Hennessey?”

  “He’s on board, sir.”

  “Who’s he working for now? I can never remember.”

  “The Bureau, Mr. President.”

  “Oh, good! So he can do domestic stuff without kicking up a fuss in the press.”

  “If need be, Mr. President. But we don’t see domestic as being a major concern.”

  When Millikan left the meeting, his assistant, Dellinger, was waiting for him, looking troubled. “Out with it!” Millikan said as they walked down the corridor together.

  “The Des Moines Register has got wind of a wild story again and, once again, is asking some funny questions,” Dellinger said, and went on to tell a bizarre little tale about a backwater university town in Iowa.

  “Jesus Christ,” Millikan said, “do whatever it takes to kill that story. That’s just what we need! For the President to get wind of something like that.”

  “Yes, sir. I anticipated that you’d feel that way and already set some things in motion.”

  “Is there anything else?”

  “Yes. You should know that Hennessey has had a couple of meetings with Vandeventer—the CIA person. None too discreetly, I might add.”

  “I am getting so tired of that woman,” Millikan said, and heaved a deep sigh. “What access does she have? Weren’t all her clearances removed?”

  “Affirmative, as per your orders.”

  “Then I would like for you to investigate the possibility,” Millikan said, “of making Hennessey’s life very complicated and unpleasant for a while—using Vandeventer as the smoking gun. This pretense of working for the FBI is a paper-thin charade. Anyone with an IQ out of the single digits knows he’s really CIA. And I didn’t care as long as he was chasing Turks around, or whatever he was doing.”

  “Yes, sir. Chasing Vakhan Turks.”

  “But now he’s stepped into this other business. And I think he’s got rather careless by dealing so openly with a woman who is only a few hours out of the Agency. Really, what is the point of having a law against the Agency operating within the United States if this kind of leakage is tolerated? I think that Hennessey’s actions in this case raise deeply troubling ethical issues that would make a much better newspaper scoop than any of this nonsense about Iraqis and botulism.”

  “I know of some editors who are highly sensitive to issues of government ethics,” Dellinger said, “and who have no love for Republican administrations in general. If you don’t mind, I will pass your insight on to them—anonymously, of course.”

  But Millikan was just warming to the task. The more he thought about it, the broader the horizons that seemed to open before him. A wonderful idea came to him, and he toyed with it for a few moments before voicing it. “In fact, I think that this is just the sort of thing that we have inspectors general for.” He raised an eyebrow at Dellinger, who looked stunned at the audacity of this notion.

  But Dellinger’s astonishment rapidly developed into a sort of mischievous excitement. “That’s rather heavy artillery,” he said.

  “We’re at war,” Millikan said. “That ups all antes.”

  “Then I will look into the idea,” Dellinger said, and threw his boss a crisp salute. He exited the White House and headed for his car at a run, off in search of inspectors general.

  forty-eight

  We are all miffed at our Saudi hosts. They invited us here to protect their country, but they don’t want us to mingle with their people and so they have put us on sort of a reservation—an old cement factory on the edge of Dhahran. We are in long rows of tents living on this great big slab of dust while we wait for the Big Green Machine to get us sorted out and sent off to the desert. Was sitting in the mess tent yesterday waving both hands over my plate trying to shoo all the flies away. Then the wind shifted and I smelled something foul and saw the latrines only a few yards away, with the same flies swarming around them. Pointed this out to my commanding officer (not that I was the only nurse or doctor who had noticed it!), and now the whole Medical Corps is in an uproar over what some people are calling “Civil War Hygiene.” But that’s not entirely the Saudis’ fault. It’s pure Army.

  Clyde had arrived at the Happy Chef a few minutes early, and read this and two other letters from Desiree as he sat on the bench just inside the entrance, waiting for his breakfast date to arrive.

  Happy Chefs always had to be close to the highway, because each one was marked by a giant fiberglass effigy of an ebullient, potbellied chef in a big white hat, holding a huge wooden spoon over his head, much like a Civil War colonel brandishing his cavalry saber. This one looked pretty big as Happy Chefs went; it had to be, in order not to be dwarfed by the Wal-Mart behind it, which looked like something out of Abu Simbel.

  It was the first week in December, and the Happy Chef (both the fiberglass statue and the restaurant itself) had been adorned with garlands of emerald-green tinsel and blinking lights. Christmas advertising supplements to the Des Moines Register and the local paper were strewn like red-and-green chaff all over the bench and the lunch counter, reminding Clyde of the ill-fated business with Jonathan Town. Town had called him a few days ago, sounding irritated. “Thanks for nearly getting me fired,” he had said.

  “You in trouble at school?”

  “No, no, I’m talking about my stringer job.”

  “The Register?”

  “Yeah. I talked to my editor in Des Moines about your Iraqi thing. He said he’d take it the next level up. Four days later I hear from my boss’s boss’s boss directly—he calls me on a damn cell phone from Washington. He reads me the riot act, tells me that if I breathe a word about the story to anyone, they will disavow any knowledge of my actions, fire me instantly, and let it be known that I’m some sort of a crackpot who has no connection with the Des Moines Register whatsoever.”

  Clyde had mulled this ove
r. “I suppose this isn’t a normal way for them to reject a story idea.”

  “Let me put it this way. When one of my kids comes to me with a lousy story idea for the school paper, I usually break the news personally—I don’t have the secretary of education call him from Washington and yell at him for fifteen minutes.”

  “Why do you suppose they did it that way?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine. The guy who bawled me out lives in Washington, if that tells you anything.”

  “I’m not sure it does,” Clyde had said, remembering his and Fazoul’s conversation about how clueless Clyde was when it came to the big bad world.

  “Look, all I’m saying is that this guy sounded scared,” Town had said.

  And then Clyde had had an insight: Town was talking about how this big Register honcho was scared. And that might very well have been true; but what he really meant was that he, Jonathan Town, was scared. And when Clyde had understood that the big Register honcho and Jonathan Town were both scared, he had begun to feel scared himself. Not that he didn’t already have plenty to be scared about. But it was all local stuff, personal stuff, and the news that people who lived in Washington were scared threw a whole new layer of generalized dread onto the thing.

  The area in front of Happy Chef’s cash register had two benches facing each other about six feet apart, and for several minutes an older fellow had been sitting across from Clyde, reading the newspaper and chewing on a mint toothpick that he had plucked from the cup next to the till. Clyde had glanced up at this gentleman when he’d come in. Not recognizing him, he had turned back to his intensive study of all items from all newspapers pertaining to Desert Shield. Someone had left a Chicago Tribune on the bench, and this provided a lode of data that Clyde wouldn’t otherwise have seen.