Fredericks’ eyebrows arched, a look of mock sympathy on his face. “Do I hear… conscience? I have just the cure.”
The fat man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a smart phone. He called up a video and showed it to Kittredge. “That’s you, Romeo,” he said, pointing to a blurry male figure having sex with an obviously gorgeous brunette. Nora turned her head in the video, and Kittredge clearly saw her face. A pang of guilt washed over him.
“Look at you, Peter. You’re really laying that pipe,” Fredericks said. “I mean, you’re really giving it to her good and hard. Nobody would guess you’re gay.”
Kittredge recognized the setting. It was Nora’s apartment. He knew what was coming next.
“Now, let’s fast forward a little bit,” Fredericks said, futzing with the phone. “Here we go.”
The blood drained from Kittredge’s face. He saw himself sitting in a pool of blood in the kitchen, sawing through the dead assassin’s leg with a bread knife. “That’s what I want you to think of, Peter,” Fredericks said, an edge in his voice. “Whenever you’re feeling… unpatriotic… I want you to think of this video.”
“And the copy on the server at Langley,” Quinn added helpfully.
Kittredge sat in stunned silence, pondering his predicament. It didn’t take much ciphering to figure out that he only had two options: play ball, or kill himself.
He didn’t know which he would choose.
Fredericks nudged him in the ribs. Kittredge looked down. In Fredericks’ fat paw was a stack of cash, a passport, and a plane ticket. “Welcome back, Peter,” he said. “We’re going to have lots of fun together. Enjoy your flight, and I’ll be in touch.”
Epilogue
Dr. Fred Farnsworth woke up around nine. It was extremely unusual for him to awaken this late in the day. Especially on a Wednesday. He’d left the house every weekday morning at half past six for the past twenty years. He’d spent the first month of his retirement awakening at five for his morning coffee and a spin through the newspaper at the breakfast table, as was his habit during his decades at the CDC, but in the subsequent weeks he’d started to sleep a little bit later. Nine was as late as he’d slept in years.
The crisis had taken it out of him. Over two thousand people were infected during the outbreak. Nearly three hundred had died, most of them children. Most of the deceased had passed away before they ever had the chance to try the drug treatment. The FDA had turned a medical crisis into a bureaucratic one, even though the drug’s results were clear: for every one hundred people stricken with the disease and treated with the trial drug, only two or three died.
But nearly every person who didn’t receive the drug in time, whose approval, for some arcane reason, wasn’t stamped by some dimwitted, dustball FDA apparatchik, died an agonizing death.
Fred Farnsworth went to every funeral he could. He cried real tears every time. He had seen this coming for years and years, and he had failed to move the assholes in Washington, or anywhere else, to take the appropriate action.
He had succeeded in quelling the outbreak, obviously with the help of the pharma guys in New York and France, and he was thankful to be able to play a role. It just tore at his guts that it had to come down to a bunch of dead children before anyone did anything useful.
And nobody had ever seen hide or hair of the guy who had walked out of the NIH hospital with the cooler full of death. America was the most sophisticated police state in human history, and they couldn’t find one single asshole. It made Farnsworth a little crazy to think about it. He was sure there would be another line item added to the subsequent year’s federal budget. Six gazillion dollars for more surveillance equipment and SWAT teams and airport security detectors. Bioterror was the new thing.
But that’s how it was, his wife told him. A fact of life as a social animal. You couldn’t spend a dime to prevent a crisis. You had to spend a billion to deal with it after it started kicking your ass.
So he retired. He licked his wounds, tried to deal with his demons, wondered if everyone walked away with regrets of some sort or another. Only the good ones, his wife told him, but he wasn’t so sure.
Hell, maybe he would write a book. He’d heard that greasy Prizer CEO had signed a big book deal. Why shouldn’t Farnsworth cash in a little, too?
Maybe he’d do an internet search for literary agents.
After coffee. And after breakfast.
And maybe after a little golf, too.
There was no rush.
Devolution
Prologue
Crystal City, Virginia. Wednesday, 3:47 p.m. ET.
A gloved hand pressed hard against the priest’s mouth and nose. He felt a fast tearing sensation rip across his neck. Jets of deep crimson flew in front of his face as his own blood splattered to the floor.
His vision began to dim. He didn’t feel his knees buckle, but felt the cold tile flatten his cheek as his face hit the floor. Shallow, frantic breaths caused ripples in the growing pool of red.
It was over in a few seconds.
The killer watched as the priest exhaled his last breath. Vaya con Dios, Monsignor.
A phone rang on Capitol Hill. Senator Frank Higgs picked up the receiver.
“Curmudgeon has been retired,” said the disembodied voice on the other end of the line.
Senator Higgs was struck dumb. “What?”
Silence.
“Retired? How? Who?”
“You know better than to ask. The usual time and place, please. No mistakes.”
The dial tone interrupted Higgs’s reply.
Somewhere north of Las Vegas, Nevada. Wednesday, 10:58 p.m. PT.
“Clear the line!” the laboratory safety chief bellowed with far more force than necessary. His amplified voice exploded from a dozen loudspeakers spaced out over the eight-mile expanse of the Nevada desert.
With the exception of the fifteen officials and technicians gathered in the control room with the safety officer, no one heard the announcement. The weapons test range was in one of the most desolate locations in the United States, and every person involved in the test that evening had gathered in the control room to either conduct or witness the event.
Large high-definition monitors displayed infrared, ultraviolet, and low-light versions of the same image. An automobile, parked out in the middle of nowhere, engine idling.
Sensitive to temperature differences, the infrared images clearly showed the exhaust escaping from the tailpipe and the deep red outline of the engine, warm and idling.
Next to the sedan was a table, which looked exceptionally out of place in the middle of the desert. On the table’s surface were four television sets, arranged in a line from front to back. All four television sets were on, with images flashing in the darkness.
“Let’s zoom in on the engine compartment.” Art Levitow’s basso resonated in the small room over the hum of machinery. As the director of Senior Quantum, an unacknowledged government program that had consumed just shy of three billion dollars over the past seven years, Levitow’s was a voice that commanded respect. His deft political leadership was matched by equally impressive technical and scientific credibility. Despite the stakes, he wasn’t nervous in the least.
The same couldn’t be said for the technician operating the cameras, whose initial attempt to zoom in on the car’s engine compartment resulted in a close-up of the desert floor.
The Vice President of the United States chuckled. “Now you look like me, hunting geese.”
Secretary of Defense Bill Pomerantine grinned. “No, sir, that’s not quite true. He’s still aiming in the right county.”
Vice President Arquist’s chuckle turned into a good-natured laugh. “Bill, if you keep that up, you may be the first man in history to go from Secretary of Defense to coffee barista in a single night.”
Laughter tittered through the room as the technician slewed the cameras in the target area over the engine compartment of the late-model sedan.
&n
bsp; “Let’s expand out just a little bit. I’d like Vice President Arquist to see the dashboard electronics as well.” The camera operator zoomed out slightly in response to Levitow’s request.
Levitow continued. “Mr. Vice President, as you know, three years ago we made the breakthrough that enabled us to reliably and consistently demonstrate the fundamental physics, but the major technical hurdle has been to project and localize the effects. In other words, we had to figure out how to shoot the beam, and how to aim the shot. That problem has consumed the bulk of our effort, and it didn’t go as smoothly as we had hoped. But we’ve figured out how to do it.”
Arquist smiled. “I was relieved when Bill told me the news, and the president insisted I go see for myself.”
“We think you’ll like what we’ve put together, sir. Keep your eye on the engine compartment, and we’ll begin the demonstration. Go ahead, Amber.”
An attractive technician moved a mouse pointer over an icon, clicked the button, and answered “OK” at the warning that popped up. The lights dimmed in the control room, and a deep, throbbing hum rose above the usual computer noise.
Ten meters to the south of the control center, in a drab two-story concrete structure surrounded by concertina wire, an electric current began to flow through large coils of copper wire. The coils were attached to a circular array of six small dish-shaped antennae, all aimed in the same direction, parallel with the desert floor. The air around the antennae crackled for a brief second, and had anyone been in the vicinity of the apparatus, they would undoubtedly have noticed the unmistakable odor of ozone in the air.
“Keep your eye on the infrared monitor,” Levitow instructed. The small crowd in the control room saw numerous bright spots appear inside the sedan’s engine compartment and dashboard. A bright flash also appeared on the ultraviolet display monitor, adjacent to the infrared monitor. The flash dissipated in less than a second.
Seven miles away, the idling vehicle suddenly stopped.
“Mr. Vice President, you’ll notice that the exhaust is no longer coming out the tailpipe, and no lights are on inside the car. We’ve completely disabled the vehicle. Despite the brief infrared and ultraviolet emission, there is no fire or other noticeable physical damage.”
Arquist raised his eyebrows and let out a low whistle. “I’ll take a thousand of ’em.”
“We’re not finished yet. Amber, let’s move on to the second part of the demonstration.”
The technician’s mouse raced across several screens, and a crosshairs appeared on the main display. The cameras showed a grainy picture of the four television sets, all arranged in a row, one behind the other. All four flat screen televisions were powered on. The technician slewed the crosshairs, and they came to rest on the third television from the front.
Levitow continued his narration. “No sports addict would ever arrange his televisions this way, with three TVs hidden behind the front one, but we’ve set things up to show you just how precisely we’ve been able to refine the targeting solution. Keep your eye on the third television screen in line from the front. We’re going to pass the beams through the first two televisions without any effect whatsoever, disable the third TV, and leave the fourth one completely alone. Go ahead, Amber.”
Two clicks later, the third television began to glow and spark on the infrared camera. A brief, bright light flashed again on the ultraviolet display, and the visible spectrum monitor confirmed that the third TV went dark. The adjacent televisions droned on, completely unaffected by the weapon.
Arquist turned to the Secretary of Defense with a smile. “I like your new toy, Bill. When’s Christmas?”
“We think we’ll be ready for Santa’s sleigh by October of this year.”
“Good. Don’t get behind. I think you’re all probably aware that there’s a great deal riding on this program.” Vice President Arquist rose and extended his hand to Levitow. “Damn fine work, Art. Thank you.”
Vice President Arquist motioned for Levitow to join himself and Secretary Bill Pomerantine on their long walk through the weapons-testing bunker, back to the waiting helicopter that would take the two officials and their Secret Service agents to the relative civilization of Las Vegas.
Arquist spoke over the click of heels on concrete. “As you know, Art, there is no shortage of naysayers. Now that you’ve shown me the magic, I want you to help me understand how it works. I’ve got to put my salesman hat on when I get back to DC, and I want to be able to explain just a little about what the hell this thing does.”
Levitow’s eyes sparkled. Arquist was reminded that despite his cold administrative efficiency, Senior Quantum’s director was a scientist and academic at heart. He felt himself responding to Levitow’s genuine enthusiasm for the minor miracles the team had pulled off.
“When you boil the geekery down, it’s really fairly simple,” Levitow said. “Electrons are lazy. Inside an atom, they hang out in the lowest energy state possible. It takes energy to move away from the atom’s nucleus, and like my teenager, electrons need a very good reason to expend any energy at all…”
At the tail end of the small entourage, a large, fair-skinned and blue-eyed Secret Service agent, known as Whitey in the most important circle, extended two fingers on his right hand. Pinched between them was a small piece of paper. As his right arm swung forward on the next step, a tall, lanky scientist named Jonathan Cooper surreptitiously retrieved the piece of paper from the Secret Service agent.
Then, while his right hand scratched his nose, Cooper’s left hand deftly placed the small strip of paper into his lab coat pocket.
The exchange had been carefully planned so that Whitey’s bulk blocked the nearest security camera’s view. The next-nearest camera, at the far end of the long concrete hallway, was blocked by the mass of people, including the Vice President of the United States walking down the hallway in front of the two spies.
It was a seriously ballsy pass, one that Cooper was certain would be talked about for years to come. It had gone off without a hitch.
The small entourage wound its way through the labyrinthine network of low concrete hallways. Levitow’s voice echoed up and down the narrow corridors, as the vice president listened intently.
“With a strong enough magnetic field, you can temporarily stop a circuit or device from functioning. Or, by reversing the magnetic field, you can free up so many electrons that you fry critical connections within every semiconductor. It’s a handy trick.”
“Sounds pretty simple. What’s the catch?” Arquist was used to playing the straight man, which was also a subtle way of letting people know that he was following along closely and they should skip as much fluff as possible.
“There are two major problems. First, it takes a ton of power to make this happen. More importantly, at the beginning, we could only have these kinds of effects if we placed the target object inside a specially built magnetic field generator. That obviously doesn’t work well in a weapons application—if we can get our hands on the object, we may as well just stomp on it with our boot heel. It took us forever to figure out how to affect targets that were some distance away from the field generator.”
As the heavy concrete door opened into the hot desert night, Arquist gave Levitow a warm smile and extended his hand. He spoke loudly, but was barely audible over the whine of the helicopter engines. “I’m interested in learning how you ended up cracking that nut. Join me for dinner out east. My chief of staff will be in touch to set things up.”
Levitow’s reply went unheard as the vice president walked quickly onto the helipad. Levitow felt Pomerantine’s pat on the back, and watched as the rest of the group made their way to the aircraft, ducking instinctively to avoid the rotor wash.
Seconds later, the helicopter was out of sight.
1
The Pentagon, Crystal City, Virginia. Thursday, 9:46 a.m. ET.
A tall, lanky man left the Pentagon’s Metro entrance and ambled across the vast parking lot, beneath the high
way bridge, and across Army-Navy Drive to his office building in Crystal City.
People knew him by several different names.
His wife called him Mike. His friends from a twenty-year career as a fighter pilot knew him as Buster, a tongue-in-cheek homage to an episode involving an inadvertent sonic boom and dozens of broken windows.
And he was Mr. Charles to the eight hundred people in the Department of Defense’s Mobile Anti-Satellite Targeting System program office, a name usually shortened in bureaucratic circles to the almost-accurate ASAT acronym, under his charge.
But in the most important circle, he was known simply as Stalwart.
Stalwart had left the Pentagon meeting deeply satisfied. Things in the ASAT program were a mess. Nobody seemed to have any sense of what to do next. Nobody but Stalwart, that is, and he kept his thoughts to himself.
He loved opacity. Fog was so much more useful than clarity. It allowed him to declare confident certainties to the murmuring bureaucrats who were castrated by their own timidity. Forever in search of decisiveness, an exotic bird in the fatuous forest of any large, stagnant organization, the pencil pushers fell all over themselves to fall in line behind him. He was guidance and shelter.
But that was not to say he was a charlatan. Quite the opposite, really. A natural strategist, he could easily see and articulate simple connections between complex things.
He stood out enough already, but a confusing environment – and military weapons development programs were anything but straightforward – made him appear godlike next to his counterparts, whom he dubbed the self-herding sheep.
Many such sheep worked for him. They were a nuisance. He delegated only those things he didn’t care about. If a task was important, he did it himself.
And Stalwart worked for a few sheep himself. They provided nearly endless entertainment as they struggled to masquerade his trademark clarity and vision as their own.
The Essential Sam Jameson / Peter Kittredge Box Set: SEVEN bestsellers from international sensation Lars Emmerich Page 113
