"And your protégée was there, as well," one of the Committee added. "Agent Cundieffe?" They were no easier to tell apart than before, but he noticed this one was sitting in Brady Hoecker's chair.
"Agent Cundieffe was present in relation to another investigation."
"He was inserted into the situation by my predecessor," the Mule said, "and seemed to be operating at cross-purposes with the designated field agents, and seeking to undermine your policy mandate out there— whatever that was."
Wyler squirmed in his seat. "You said yourself, Agent Cundieffe was led out there under false pretenses. I take full responsibility for his actions, of course, but I decline the inference that this was a point of policy."
"You allowed him to go. Either by negligence or complicity, you negatively impacted the execution of your mandate."
Sweat popped out of Wyler's forehead, plopped on the desk like tropical rain. Cundieffe found himself shrinking back behind Wyler, but his boss was withering under their gaze, aging weeks with every second they studied him. He started to open his mouth to rise to Wyler's defense, but Wyler pushed him back and stood up. "I shouldn't have to demonstrate my alliance with our current policy mandate any more than I already have. For the new Secretary of Internal Security to infer that I was an active participant in his predecessor's heterodoxy is outrageous and opportunistic, at this late stage, and I will address those charges in toto once this briefing is concluded. I don't need to remind the Committee who voted to bankroll the estimable Lt. Col. Greenaway, a loose variable who might have made become a sizable tack on the Institute's collective seat, had our agents not neutralized him?"
Cundieffe wondered, not for the first time, how much his boss really knew about what happened. Did he know he was lying? Wyler sat down and knitted his hands in front of him, looking straight ahead, like so many defendants Cundieffe had seen in court. The ones who know they're going to burn.
"Please, let us continue," said the Chairperson. "The Secretary of Enforcement will now review our options for domestic containment, as well as readiness issues which may or may not become important in the near future.
A Committee member who, absurdly, in this room, wore a toupee, stood and paced around the table as he made his remarks. "To be sure, the advanced state of the outbreak has caught us up somewhat short, but we don't anticipate any further complications with the domestic issues. We are in possession of a sufficient quantity of the Mission's lysing agent to cleanse the Wilmington colony, which is standing by at Los Alamitos Naval Reserve Air Station, less than five miles away, and ready to be delivered on the target on a moment's notice. Battle damage assessment of the Idaho site indicates this is an effective agent against the colony's homogenized germ line, but we have Army Reserve units on standby across the county."
"What about the possibility of already infectious agents in the air as we speak?" a hawkish lady Mule at the desk beside theirs shouted. "Have you shut down the airports, public transportation out of the hot zone? Have you closed down the freeways?"
The Secretary pointed to the monitors, which showed the unmistakable chemistry set skyline of the Wilmington refinery jungle as seen from a shoulder-held camera on the 405 Freeway. Another view, of a parking lot filled with buses. A woman with long black hair darted across the street and disappeared among them.
"We've placed LAX, Burbank and John Wayne Airports on high alert, and have people on the ground. If the situation demands, we can shut them down, but there's no question of closing the freeways. The situation is well in hand, I assure you. They're clustering together as closely as possible, as if they want to make a neat target for a surgical strike."
"And that doesn't worry you, Secretary?" someone else snapped. "When has anyone ever successfully overestimated Dr. Keogh's propensity for eluding containment? Should we assume this is simply another tactical feint to scare us, and not the end game strategy some of us advocated years ago?"
There it was. He looked sidewise at Wyler, whose face was utterly blank.
"Let's hear the preparedness strategies, Mallory," the Chairperson nodded to the Defense Secretary.
"As you're all well aware, the domestic issue is not our principal point of execution. The Iraqi threat is our cause, whether or not the Russians contain it.
"At zero hour, we will move SAC/NORAD down to Defcon 2, and the Vice President will board a second Kneecap plane. Mobile command posts with the power and communications lines to launch nuclear missiles will take to the roads across America, which will, of course, be nationalized and closed to civilian traffic. This will be a very delicate phase. Keogh wasn't supposed to have any groups meeting in the United States, but even this can be made to serve our purposes. Helicopters armed with spray tanks of lysing agent will fly over the stadium in LA and cleanse it, while the rest of the world will be selectively overrun. The world will look to America to save them. Here at home, long after the Russian threat has evaporated, Americans will look to us to restore order, protect them from the plague just outside their borders, and lead them into a brighter future. Thus will the current unrest only hasten the implementation of the master mandate, and the fulfillment of all that we have worked for." He sat down. More than a few of them actually applauded.
Cundieffe felt like running. What have we worked for? He wanted to scream. They'd stood up and said it, spelled it out. The ground seemed to tilt under him, but the sense of being in a dream had finally burned off. This was swiftly becoming more awful than anything he could have imagined.
Cundieffe scribbled out a note on a pad and shoved it under Wyler's nose. WHERE'S HOECKER?
Wyler stood again and said, "And now, if the briefing is concluded, I'd like to present a document which merits the Committee's immediate attention." The Chairperson nodded. Wyler pressed a few buttons, and half of the monitors in the room flashed snow for a few frames, then a discolored but unnervingly clear digital video image.
A counter at the bottom of the screen blinks 1:16 AM, with today's date. Brady Hoecker sits on the end of a bed and looks into the camera. His expression is bleak and broken. He wears a down comforter wrapped around himself like a toga, and holds a clay bowl in his hands. Something about the scene mimics something ancient, something in a book or a famous painting.
It came to him in a sickening, migraine-intensity flash: the death of Socrates.
"I confess that I have fomented dissent and sedition against the policy mandated by the majority," Hoecker says. "I have suborned others to engage in subterfuge and sabotage of the majority's plan, which is the preservation of stability for a sustainable human future. They are innocent of my crimes, and should be dealt with as transgressions of ignorance, not heterodoxy."
More than a few heads turned Cundieffe's way. He shrank further behind Wyler, until he was peeking over the Assistant Director's shoulder at the screens.
"I, however, knowing full well the penalty for dissent, go willingly to judgment, and hope that this document will in some way alleviate the disorder I have wreaked upon the implementation of the master mandate. Let those who witness this know that I am penitent, and go wishing the majority the best in the fulfillment of its sacred trust."
Sentenced to death for corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates willingly drank hemlock and, surrounded by his disciples and enemies alike, declaimed his immortal thoughts until the moment of his death. Hoecker's accusers made him do it alone in his room, and send them a tape. Cundieffe wished he had a bowl of poison, himself.
He drinks from the bowl, and immediately gags. His eyes roll back in his head. Hands clutching at his throat, he sprawls on the bed and flops around, legs peddling at air. He convulses a few more times, his gut trying to expel the poison in explosive retching fits, but his eyes are already glazing over.
Wyler stopped the tape. It probably just stayed that way for quite a while, Hoecker only turning blue and blowing bubbles while the tape rolled, until Agent Macy dropped by to collect it.
Cundieffe felt as if an eng
ine block had settled on his chest. He leaned back in his chair until it teetered on the edge of dumping him. He stared at the ceiling and asked it, Why am I still alive? They killed Durban, Hoecker, Greenaway's army, Heilige Berg, Storch. Why let him live?
Because they were all just dime-a-million gendered humans, and he was one of Them. And hadn't he been? What had he done, really, besides follow blindly along, doing research that opened a door for them here, letting himself get kidnapped and leading them there. He'd been nothing but a good Mule, up to now. His half-hearted moralizing and tangential wanderings had been only a minor annoyance as he went down their trail.
The Chairperson looked around the silent room, sounded a gentler tone that seemed to let slack into the strings holding everyone upright. "We'll adjourn here for a fifteen minute recess to collate data from the ground. When we return, we will observe full ceremonial protocols for what promises to be a memorable event."
Cundieffe snatched Wyler's arm. "Sir, is there a place, where we could—?"
If he expected Wyler to look shaken by what he'd just shown the Committee, he was rudely taken aback by the grim excitement animating his droopy features. "Martin, pull yourself together. None of this reflects on you."
"Sir, I—it's not about…that. There's something else that I have to understand, and I think now is the time."
Wyler led him up the steps past rows of Mules raptly picking at laptops and desk consoles. Cundieffe saw many screens replaying Hoecker's suicide tape, pausing it, taking notes.
At the top of the stairs, they went down a dim black corridor to a row of conference rooms. Wyler held the door for him, shut it behind them, and sat on one corner of the immense smoked glass table that dominated the room. "Now, what seems to be the trouble?"
"Sir, I suppose the Institute already knew that Lt. Durban was duped into turning NSA intercepts pertaining to the events of July, '99 over to Greenaway—"
Wyler only made a get-on-with-it gesture with one hand.
"What do you know about a project called ROYAL PICA?" Cundieffe asked. The words came out of his mouth like balls on a string, pausing after each to gauge some reaction from Wyler. "Maybe we have a different name for it, sir, but it…well, the evidence conclusively links the Institute with—with—"
AD Wyler pressed a touch-sensitive monitor built into the conference table. "Regina, could we trouble you for a moment of your time?"
"I'll be right there, Wendell."
Until she came in, Cundieffe just stood there, unable to form words. Wyler touched the screen a few times, reading something and nodding approval. He didn't look up when he finally spoke. "Martin, I like you. I've admired your work for years. Your father was an exceptional agent, almost good enough to have been one of us, and when we learned about you, we were none of us surprised. You're a purebred, but more, you've always exemplified what we believe, to the point where we knew you had internalized our ethic. You've always worked as if you get it, you know what's at stake, here. This is bigger than all of us. You know that. Hoecker understood it, at the end."
He almost shook, trying to swallow this one without choking. The look in Hoecker's eyes as he made his hollow confession, the look of utter defeat they were still studying out in the war room—that was the message he'd wanted to send. You're wrong, his eyes said, you're so completely, utterly wrong that I can't live in the same world with you. I tried to make you see—
The door opened, and a balding Mule agent who might have been Macy's first cousin scoped out the room, then ducked out to make way for the Chairperson.
Wyler stood as she entered and shook hands with him, then turned and beamed at Cundieffe. He retreated a step from the force of her charm. Telling himself that "she" was a neuter, like himself, and that her gender assignment was as much of an arbitrary disguise as his own, did nothing to make her seem less motherly. He felt cowed by her probing eyes and disarming smile. She knew all the proper cues and played them, so that he could only hang his head before her.
"You've been through so much, Martin. Wendell has kept me apprised of your tribulations, and we're all very sympathetic. We've all been where you are right now, but it's been a harder road for you than most."
Cundieffe risked a glance at her. She took his hands in hers. It was so hard to stare at her, but he had to meet her eyes, if only to remind himself that this was not his own mother. "Madame Chairperson—"
"Pardon my bad manners, Martin. My name is Regina Stapleton."
"I—"
"Wendell tells me you have questions. You're troubled by something you've read."
"It's ROYAL PICA, ma'am. It—what I read—it's not true, is it?"
Ms. Stapleton pursed her mouth a moment, weighing her words. "You want to know about RADIANT, then."
"Brady Hoecker told me it didn't exist, but he believed that Keogh posed more of a threat than the Institute was willing to accept, and now, with all that's happening…did he know about what's in ROYAL PICA? Did we do those things?"
"RADIANT was a classic example of realpolitik run amok, it's true. It was approved and developed entirely outside of our influence, but we took an interest as soon as it had become apparent that the defense program was being abused. When RADIANT was initially tested in the South Pacific in 1984, the results were disastrous, but we weren't so stupid as to believe that it simply self-destructed. Dr. Keitel, as he called himself then, contacted us to deliver his ultimatum, bypassing those nominally in authority. At the time, we had no leverage, but he offered very acceptable terms, given the times. He demanded only that we never try to locate him or the satellite, or interfere with his research. In return, he offered to contract out RADIANT for the purpose for which it was built."
"Giving people cancer?" Cundieffe blurted.
"Neutralizing enemies of the state, Martin. Consider for a moment the rules we have to play by to preserve order and administer justice. Not in Russia or China, but right here at home, and under the noses of our allies. Enemies of the government can openly profess their aggression, recruit more malcontents to their cause, and stockpile weapons, and well-meaning agencies like the Bureau are helpless to stop them. The few actions we have taken have been debacles—Ruby Ridge, Waco, you know better than I."
"But ma'am, this—according to the ROYAL PICA intercepts, it started long before Waco, and the first ones weren't terrorists."
The first demonstrations were performed on Russian military targets in Afghanistan, as per the Institute's orders. The file transcribed the request, and the subsequent battle damage assessment. A general and his staff all died within forty-eight hours of irradiation. There were two hundred eighteen more. Highlights: Ayatollah Khomeini; Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov; several colorful, failed attempts on Castro. So many others that nobody ever heard of, and never would. Long before they ever became a threat, Americans and foreigners were irradiated from space, and quietly died of cancer, with no autopsies officially performed. Even some military officials in the Pentagon and members of Congress were burned, for the good of the nation. The last one occurred only a week before July of last year, when Keogh took RADIANT away and the war started.
"Such people are cancer in the body politic," Wyler said, "fomenting dissent and fueling violence in every avenue of American life."
"But sir," Cundieffe stammered, "this contravenes what we're—what we were born to do."
"And what was that, Martin? What were we born to do?"
"To protect and preserve an orderly democratic society—"
"No," he scissored off Cundieffe's canned reply with a snap of his hand. "To protect an orderly human society. To preserve and cultivate the best aspects of that society, and save it from its own base animal tendencies. Democracy is the unholy ideal that opens the door to all that chaos, all that madness, badness and incivility."
Cundieffe heaved a huge sigh. The engine block didn't budge. A whole car had grown around it, and he couldn't get a whole breath. "Okay, so it's—necessary, then, to do this. But Keogh�
��what about him? He's not a man to bargain with, is he? What is he, do you even know?"
"Only too late did we discover what Keogh intended to do," Ms. Stapleton said, "and we'll probably never understand exactly what he is, but we were never used, Martin. His research has positive ramifications for our strategy for a survivable human future that are worth any amount of sacrifice. He is the oldest living organism on earth, but he is the past, and we are the custodians of the future. He believes he is manipulating us, using us for his own purposes, but we were using him, and use him still."
Cundieffe rubbed his temples. They were at Defcon 3, and going down. Keogh presented a crisis that had the President and the Joint Chiefs running scared, or did he? Maybe none of it was true, maybe it was all some sort of horrible simulation, an initiation rite, kill the old Martin Cundieffe with nightmarish lies, so that the new one might be born—
"Are there really Radiant Dawn militants in Iraq?" he asked.
"That, you don't need to know."
"But you're using him as a catspaw to create a global state of emergency. Why? If you control him, why risk letting him spread? Why not just put out the fire?"
"Because we have everything we need from Dr. Keogh as of today," Ms. Stapleton told him. "We have the Mission's weapon, which has been effectively field-tested, and we're ready to use it. We've gone as far as we can with the present system, Martin. Dr. Keogh has surged far ahead of our expectations in his progress, but thanks to the hard work of agents such as yourself, our own program is ahead of schedule, and if I say any more, I'll spoil the surprise." She smiled again, all motherly. "Recess is over, now, boys. Back to the war room."
Madame Chairperson buzzed the room to order. Cundieffe found his seat next to Wyler, but his eyes were on the door. Fresh air, that's what he needed. If he could just clear his head, he'd know what to do next, he could figure out what was right.
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