A Knife Edge

by David Rollins

  The documents inside the wallet appeared to be remarkably well preserved, singed a little at the corners but otherwise unscathed. I peered at the photo ID. I'd recognize that haircut anywhere. Boyle's photo was only slightly fire damaged.

  “We got eight others like this guy so far, and we're gonna find more. When they're toasted like this, you can forget about dental records. According to the coroner, we'll be lucky if there's any DNA material worth harvesting for matching purposes, either. The wallet… finding some identification… that was a break and a half.” He shook his head, considering the stark reality. “If it wasn't for this wallet, we wouldn't even know if this was a John or a Jane Doe. Human is about as close as we could get. So, what do you wanna do, Special Agent?” Rudenko stood with his hands on his hips on the other side of the gurney, impatient. I handed the evidence bag back to him.

  Something didn't add up here.

  “Well, hello,” said a familiar voice behind me.

  I glanced over my shoulder. It was that walking stomach flu—Chalmers.

  “As you know, I'm the SAC on this case,” said Chalmers.

  “So?” I said.

  “So, back off.”

  I shrugged and did as he asked. Chalmers leaned over the charred remains on the gurney. He looked like a Hamptons country club member, a sweater around his neck, the cuffs on the sleeves rolled into a little ball. It reminded me of a superhero's cape that had shrunk badly. “Did I hear someone say this was Sean Boyle?” He nodded at the lump of charcoal between us. “Thank you, Officer.” He relieved Rudenko of the plastic bag containing Boyle's wallet. “National security.”

  “Hey,” the detective said, ramping up to a protest.

  Chalmers slapped a folded sheaf of forms against Rudenko's chest, hard enough to swat a fly, and said, “The paperwork, Officer. Makes it official.”

  “Where are you going with that? Why are you interested in Boyle? And who dressed you this morning?” I said, annoyed.

  “To answer your questions: none of your goddamn business, none of your goddamn business, and fuck you, Cooper,” Chalmers replied. As he sauntered past, he gave me the kind of smile he might have given someone he didn't like very much who was having his fingernails pulled out with pliers. The prick was obviously enjoying himself, mostly because he was denying me what was potentially valuable evidence. There was nothing I could do to prevent his claim on the wallet, and he knew it. “You should get your wife to do something about your fashion sense, Chalmers,” I said. “What would work with that thing tied around your neck? I know… try wearing your underpants on the outside.” This succeeded in wiping the smile off his face, though only because he had not the slightest idea what I was talking about. But I did, and that was all that mattered.

  As Chalmers stalked out, I asked Rudenko, “Did you call the CIA?”

  “Yeah. Metzler told me to give you both a call.”

  I got on the phone immediately to Metzler. Busy. I kept hitting the redial button until I got through.

  “Metzler,” said the harried voice down the line.

  “Cooper,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah, thought I'd get a call from you.”

  “So you know why I'm calling?”

  “Finally discovered what your flu virus wanted. Let me guess: He was in the vicinity when you found it?”

  “ Uh-huh. What gives?” I asked.

  “Can't give you details, Cooper. But only ‘cause I don't have any. Orders came down the pipe. I was told if your guy turned up to let the CIA—and only the CIA—in on it. Rudenko called me when the wallet belonging to this Boyle fellow was found. I told him to call Chalmers and you.”

  “Even though you were ordered not to.”

  “You got it.”

  “Thanks,” I said, digging deep to swallow my frustration.

  “So now I've done you a favor, you can pay it back. Tell me why everyone's so interested in this professor?”

  “I can't tell you that.”

  “You gonna claim national security on me, too?”

  “Depends on what your next question is.” I heard a sound on the phone like the detective was sucking air through his front teeth. He was thinking about it.

  “Has Boyle got anything to do with the hit on these buildings?”

  “That I don't know, Detective. He lived in the Four Winds. He was a scientist, doing some work for the government. That's all I can tell you.”

  He gave me that sound again, the air-whistling-between-his-teeth one. “I guess that's better than nothing.”

  “You still hot on the mob-hit theory?”

  “Unless you got a better one.”

  I said that I didn't and then I thanked him for his cooperation.

  “Don't mention it,” said Metzler. “One more thing. Can you tell me why the hell the CIA is sticking its pecker into a domestic case?”

  “Yeah, well, good question. I'll ask Chalmers next time I see him,” I replied.

  “I'm sure you will, Cooper. Gotta go.” Metzler rang off.

  Rudenko fired off a shrug at me when I caught his eye. He was embarrassed. “Sorry,” he said. “I thought the CIA was just coming to have a look.”

  “That's OK,” I said. Different rules applied during a terrorist act on home soil. The local police didn't stand a chance against federal agencies that got boners at the mere mention of the word “terror.” And that certainly seemed to be what we had in downtown San Francisco, even if no one knew who was doing the terrorizing. “If anything more turns up, you've got my number, right?” I pulled a DoD business card from my pocket.

  Rudenko gave me a nod as he took it and walked out.

  I asked myself again why the CIA would be interested in Boyle and came up with nothing except for the fact that they were specifically interested in the guy. Was Boyle the reason the Company was on the scene? Was he the only reason? There was something strange going on here, besides Chalmers's fashion sense. I thought about the wallet. If I still had it, I'd be handing it over to forensics immediately to have its authenticity verified. But I didn't have it. All I had were the remains of someone I could, if I wanted to, claim was formerly Sean Boyle, Ph.D., murder suspect. The trouble would come when I decided I didn't believe it was Boyle here on the bench, which was right about now.

  TWELVE

  I sat on the bed and flicked through a pamphlet left on the pillow, something about a low-fat breakfast special for Christmas Day—tomorrow. The pamphlet informed me that if I ticked the box I could enjoy it upon waking in my room. I gave some thought to calling Anna in Germany to give her season's greetings, but it would be 5 A.M. where she was based and I didn't want to shoot any remaining goodwill between us in the foot. So I called Chip Schaeffer in D.C. instead.

  Ordinarily, I'd have said the chances of finding Chip at his desk at eleven P.M. on Christmas Eve were somewhere between zero and none, but the events in San Francisco made the times unusual. So I wasn't entirely surprised when he picked up.

  “Captain Schaeffer,” he said.

  “Sir, Special Agent Cooper.”

  “Cooper. How's it going?”

  Chip sounded tired. I knew from past experience that the military would have moved to a higher state of readiness and nerves would be frayed.

  “Pretty grim, sir,” I said.

  “Yeah, Washington has broken out in hives. Word is it was a hit-on-a-wise-guy thing?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “What do you think?” he asked.

  I told him what I thought, which was that I didn't buy it. Mainly because if it proved to be true it would turn every federal and state law-enforcement agency into an instrument focused almost solely on dismantling organized crime. Carrying out a terrorist act such as the one here—no matter what kind of beans the informant was likely to spill—was just plain bad for business, and my reading of organized crime was that anything compromising the bottom line was to be avoided at all costs. Chip agreed. I told him I believed Metzler was sticking to it as a theory onl
y because he had nothing else to offer, and that the world was on his back to do something.

  “You got any theories of your own, Cooper?” Schaeffer asked.

  “Not yet, sir.” That wasn't accurate. I did have a theory, only I wasn't ready to share.

  “But you feel one coming on?”

  I gave him a clue. “Professor Boyle's wallet was found beneath burned human remains.”

  “Those remains been positively identified?”

  “I don't know, sir.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because the CIA has taken over on the ground here.”

  Schaeffer grunted. “Yeah, I know. That's the way the wind's blowing.”

  I could still see the smug satisfaction on Chalmers's face as he carried away the evidence bag containing Boyle's wallet, prancing out of the morgue, his middle fuck-you finger raised high and proud. War had been declared.

  Chip asked me other questions relating to the written case report I had yet to submit on the death of Dr. Tanaka. Unlike the last time he asked me these questions, I told him what I really thought had happened to the man, rather than what the hard evidence outlined. I told him I believed Boyle had a hand in his partner's death. I decided on this course because of a couple of factors that had come to light since my last debrief on the inquiry, most notably the verbal account given to me by Al Cooke, the Natusima's cook. There was also the uneasy feeling I had after the interview with Dr. Spears at Moreton Genetics. I thought my conclusions would take Schaeffer by surprise, but I got nothing back from the captain other than the tone and direction of his questions, which, the more I thought about it, only added to my suspicions that the case was less about a straightforward investigation into an accidental death and more about something I still hadn't been briefed on. There was just too much official and specific interest in Tanaka's demise coming at me, and now in Boyle's. But I could hardly tell Schaeffer that his interest in the case was one of the reasons I suspected there might be more to the business than an accidental death.

  “Well,” said Schaeffer after a little small talk, “with the Company taking over, there's no point you hanging around. In fact, I want you back here as soon as you can get on a plane. Your orders have come through. You're being transferred back to your old unit—OSI at Andrews. Something has come up and they're short-handed.”

  I was stunned. Off the case, ordered back to D.C., and transferred, almost all in the one sentence. Was I being rapped over the knuckles for something?

  Schaeffer wished me Merry Christmas and a pleasant flight home. I stared at the handset for a few moments before I hung up, and tried to persuade myself that I'd had enough experience with command decisions over the years to know that reason didn't always follow rhyme in the military. The problem was, I was slightly more able to convince myself that flying reindeer could deliver presents to millions of children all over the world in a single night.

  Then I surprised myself by having a long, uninterrupted sleep, waking at just after seven A.M. with the thought of a plate of low-fat Christmas bacon and pancakes on the brain.

  I lay in bed thinking about what to do next. There wouldn't be a next—at least, not on progressing this case. As I was officially removed from the investigation, standard operating procedure said that all my case notes, reports, phone logs, and evidence would have to be turned over. That meant that as the SAC, Bradley Chalmers would be the recipient. Galling was the first word that came to mind. Fuck was the second.

  I peeled back the covers and headed for the shower. The firm water pressure meant I had to stay in there at least twenty minutes. The bacon and pancakes would wait. I got out and toweled off. The light spilled from the bathroom directly onto the door to the hotel room. A large white envelope lay on the chocolate brown carpet. This being Christmas morning, it could only be two things: evidence of a visit from the fat guy in a red suit, or the express checkout bill.

  I turned on the lights, dressed, and threw back the curtains to let in the natural light. There wasn't much of it—the windows were streaked with heavy rain falling from a gray sky as solid and heavy as armor plate. I got down on all fours and examined the envelope. It wasn't the bill. Grabbing a hotel laundry bag and a couple of forks to use as tongs, I turned it over. Nothing obvious on the flip side. Not even “Attn Vin Cooper” written on it. I carried it across to the dinner-table-for-one and placed it on the laundry bag. The weight of it and the way it bent indicated the envelope carried something more substantial than a letter. Keeping my fingers off it, I slit the envelope open with a bread knife and tipped it up. Out slid a disk. I picked it up using the plastic laundry bag as a glove. The top side was blank; the underside was green, which meant it was a DVD. Both sides appeared to be free of scratches or prints. I checked the inside of the envelope. Empty. There was a player on the bedside table. I turned it on, placed the disk in the machine, and pressed “play.”

  THIRTEEN

  I had to watch it several times but even then I didn't understand it—not the bigger picture, anyway. The starring role was played by Sean Boyle before his conversion to carbon. I'd recognize that haircut in my sleep. The cinematographer was a security camera—actually several of them. A display indicated the time and date: nine-thirty p.m. on the second of August—nearly five months ago. I guessed that the location was most likely Moreton Genetics. I played with the sound, but there wasn't any.

  In that sketchy way security cameras operate, I saw a white room full of electronic apparatus I didn't recognize, plus a few scrolling computer screens. Boyle was leaning over something. He walked to a different bench to check on something else, then headed to yet another white box closer to the camera that featured a bunch of dials as well as a little screen. He could have been baking a cake for all I knew. Then one of the computer screens went blank, followed by two more. A desk light went out, and I noticed the streamers on the air-conditioning duct beside the camera grow less excited and then hang limp.

  Boyle stood up straight. He was smiling a private, self-satisfied smile. Then a line went through the screen, freezing the picture for an instant, before the screen went blank. Nothing happened for a few moments and I was wondering whether the show had finished, and then the picture returned. I was looking down on two people standing in a stainless-steel box. I assumed the location was an elevator. The time-and-date display had returned. One of the people, a male Caucasian in a uniform with a hand truck carrying bottles for the water cooler, was in a panic and pounding the doors, while a woman, also Caucasian, just stood there like a store dummy. I couldn't see her face—her head was tilted down away from the camera until the very last split second. Was she calm, or frozen in panic like the guy in there with her? It was impossible to tell. And then she turned and, as she did so, the picture again went blank—no signal again. I fast-forwarded but there was nothing else on the disk.

  The time display told me only a couple of seconds had passed from the footage of Boyle fiddling with equipment to the pair in the lift. The familiar double-helix logo in the elevator confirmed I was seeing something that had happened at Moreton Genetics, some kind of power surge or power failure. But wouldn't a high-tech place like that, with all its delicate and important ongoing research, have some kind of emergency backup power source—generators—that would kick in? I was intrigued by what was on the disk because someone thought it important enough to slip under my door and because whoever did so wanted their identity kept secret.

  I went to my laptop and called up the home page for the San Francisco Chronicle. I became a member and surfed around the site's archive, but I couldn't find any reference to power failures in any part of San Francisco in or around last August. If the power was cut, wouldn't everything at MG go out at the same time, rather than in a staggered fashion? I set up the news service to forward any articles containing the keywords “Moreton Genetics” to my Hotmail address.

  I took the disk from the player and put it into my laptop's CD drive. I made an MPEG copy and e-mailed it on t
o Arlen at OSI with a note explaining what I wanted him to do about it. Then I called Moreton Genetics and received a recorded message letting me know that MG would be closed until the fourth of January. Ten days. I turned to the online phone directories next. If I could get hold of Freddie Spears, perhaps she'd be able to tell me what I was seeing on the disk. But there was no Dr. Freddie Spears listed, nor was there any Frederique Spears in the data base, although there were twenty-three “F. Spears” in the San Francisco area. For a moment, I thought about cold-calling complete strangers on Christmas Day. I decided against it.

  I carefully removed the disk from the slot in the laptop and returned it to its envelope. Then I placed the envelope in the laundry bag and put it with the rest of my stuff. What to do next? A rumble in my stomach told me it was getting impatient for those low-fat yuletide bacon-and-pancake stacks. Problem solved.

  FOURTEEN

  Cooper! So you made it back in one piece,” Schaeffer said, looking up and then leaning back in his chair.

  “Yes, sir,” I replied.

  “Take a seat.” The fish tank's air filter thrummed away in the background. “How was it out there?”

  “They seem to be getting on top of things, sir,” I said. Schaeffer made a “humph” sound and raised a skeptical eyebrow at me. “You're best out of it, son.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said, not believing him but not having much choice anyway.

  “You'll make available all materials on the Tanaka case.”

  “Yes, sir,” I said. “Would you know whether the CIA intends to share any forensics with us from the Four Winds site?”

  Schaeffer ignored my question. “Anything turned up on the Tanaka thing I don't know about?”

  As much as I didn't like being excluded from the loop, there wasn't a lot I could do about it. I gave up what I didn't tell him when I called in from San Francisco. “Sir, I have a statement from a witness claiming he saw Boyle on deck moments after Tanaka was thrown overboard.”