Joe Rush 02: Protocol Zero

by James Abel

  “I had to talk to her,” I said.

  “Of course.”

  I did not need this shit. “There’s nothing to apologize for.”

  “Oh? Maybe it’s me that needs to do it, you mean?”

  We slept in the same bed that night, but as separate planets. We woke the next morning and said we were sorry and the argument had been stupid. We made love. We made up.

  Outside, there was frost on the window. Outside, the sky had a sucked out, ominous cast. Inside, we made coffee and cooked our breakfast but the residue of something distasteful remained in the hut. I was glad when Eddie arrived to pick me up, for us to head over to the lab, to check the samples. I was glad to get away from Karen, I had to admit. The truck passed the Harmon hut, where the lights were off. It passed the oil hut and Bruce Friday’s hut and the hut where Kelley’s friend lived, where lights glowed.

  Goddamn Tilda Swann!

  We took the curving half-mile road that linked the huts to the new twenty-five million dollar Arctic Research Center where we had our lab, and planned to redo Sengupta’s toxic tests just to be sure. Eddie said, “Uno, can I just say one thing?”

  “No.”

  “It’s that when you two were dancing last night, I mean, speaking as your friend, it looked pretty close.”

  “What did I just tell you?”

  “I’m only trying to explain—”

  “Your superior officer, Major, gave a direct instruction, and it is for you to shut up.”

  “But our unit doesn’t follow instructions.”

  I sighed. “Then do it as a favor, Eddie.”

  He quieted but the phone began buzzing. I was surprised to see that the call was coming from the cellular phone of Valley Girl, except if it was 8 A.M. in Barrow, then it was 4 A.M. in Washington, when Valley Girl would never, ever be at work. She’d not even be awake. Valley Girl came in at ten, left at nine at night.

  “Joe Rush!”

  It was her, all right, but she was home, she said, not at the office. She sounded scared, her voice an octave higher than usual. This was the first time in three years of speaking to her that I’d heard her words come out as exclamations, not questions.

  “I’m being arrested,” she said. “Men are here from Defense Security. I’m in my bathroom. They’re in the hallway. I need help. It’s because of what you asked me to do.”

  SEVEN

  They were going to put Valley Girl in handcuffs when she walked out of her bathroom, she said, crying. They’d banged on the door of her townhouse fifty minutes ago, four of them, at 3:10 A.M., shown Pentagon ID, seized her laptop and desktop computers, searched her two-bedroom apartment and warned her that another agent was under the bathroom window, outside, so don’t try to climb out. They’d taken all drugs from her medicine cabinet before letting her shut the door. They’d terrified her cat, Ephraim, who was meowing under a couch.

  There’s no way they’d let her go into her bathroom alone normally, no way they wouldn’t have confiscated the cell. So someone is listening to us.

  “They think I’m a traitor, like Edward Snowden,” she said, voice quaking.

  I asked her, playing to the larger audience that monitored us, “Did you do what I told you to?” I envisioned listeners in a cubicle, or van, vultures who ate sound.

  “Yes, Colonel.”

  “Do anything extra?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Explain exactly what you did do?”

  “I went to appropriations to see if monies had been allocated for toxics or germ testing in Alaska, going back seventy years. I cross-referenced grants. I checked AEC and Threats Reduction, and PC’s and PU’s (private companies and universities) contracted for this sort of work. I ran all social security numbers of the victims, like you said, for links.”

  “Try to break in anywhere?”

  “I backed off if I saw ‘Classified.’”

  “Which you did, I gather.”

  “In 2008. Something called, ‘Enhancing Warfighters.’”

  “How did you learn that Enhancing Warfighters existed, so you could make that request?”

  “I found a reference in a grant to U Alaska, and another in an Army cognition study downgraded to normal classified two years ago.”

  I considered. “You’re saying that you sent in a proper request asking for details of Warfighters?”

  She sniffled. “Like we always do.”

  “Did you get an answer?”

  “It’s that these people showed up.”

  I nodded, but of course she could not see me. She was terrified and I was growing angry. I cautioned, “Listen to me. If there’s anything else I need to know, now is the time to say it. If you did something else, forced a back door, tried your way in somewhere, hacking, anything, tell me now. I won’t be able to help after this.”

  She was crying openly. I envisioned a shaking female hand cupping a tiny phone. “Are you kidding? I saw the scare movie that the security guys showed us when I joined up. It’s just . . . just that . . .”

  I felt my breath catch. “Just that what?”

  “Well, you said to concentrate on toxics or germs, and Enhancing Warfighters was experiments, all right, on volunteers, but with magnets. Do magnets count?”

  “‘Magnets’?” I asked, surprised.

  She’d always had a good memory, one reason I used her. “It’s called ‘transcranial magnetic stimulation.’ The Biosciences and Protection Divisions carried it out. Trying to get soldiers to do tasks better, using electrical current, magnetic coils . . . something about revving up cortical brain tissue. I didn’t exactly understand it, sir.”

  “On human subjects, you said?”

  “Volunteers, sir. And in military prisons.”

  “So you asked for more details?”

  “Yes, Colonel. You said to look at any experiments involving people or livestock, so I did.”

  If this description was honest, she’d not exceeded instructions. In my three years of dealing with her, I had found her never to exaggerate. I said, “You did right. You used judgment and initiative.”

  Which means, if she’s telling the truth, her normal request triggered this raid, not any breach.

  I asked, “Was Clay Qaqulik part of this brain study?”

  “I never got that far! The security people showed up.”

  “Okay. Don’t worry. Sarah, keep the line open and tell the people outside—in a loud voice—that you’ll walk out holding a phone.”

  “But why should I say . . . Oh, my God! OH, MY GOD!”

  “Just leave the phone on so I can hear. Calm down. Tell the person in charge that I want to speak to him.”

  A minute later I was speaking with a woman identifying herself as Air Force Major T. J. Cobb of the Pentagon’s Office of Defense Security. She had a soft, feminine voice, a hint of southwest twang; Arizona maybe, or New Mexico. But there was no softness in the accusation coming over the line.

  “You admit, Colonel, that you ordered Sarah Kemp to try to break in to classified files relating to certain activities that occurred in 2008?”

  “Are you a lawyer, Major Cobb?”

  A pause. “How do you know that?”

  “Because you talk like one. And because only lawyers use the word ‘certain’ that way. They do it when they don’t want to tell you what they mean.”

  “Sir, I’m asking the questions,” she responded smoothly. “Yes or no?”

  I said, harshly, for emphasis, “I did not order her to break in anywhere, nor did she try to, so don’t suggest she did. She made a legal request through channels. You will not handcuff her. You will give her time to dress properly and then politely escort her to wherever you’ve been told she is to go. You will leave food and water for her cat. You will not mistreat her, am I clear?”

  “Colonel, I r
eport directly to General Wayne Homza.”

  I sighed. Why am I not surprised?

  I snapped, “And he works for someone else, and she works for someone else. Get it? A chain? Am I clear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Yes, sir!”

  Standoff. She wouldn’t tell me more.

  In the background, I heard Valley Girl crying, and then the sound grew distant, so I envisioned big men escorting a tiny girl—I always imagined Valley Girl dressed out of a sorority house . . . she probably looked nothing like that—down carpeted townhouse stairs, into predawn suburban Virginia, toward a couple of big black Chevrolets—the Pentagon seems to be the only loyal customer left for GM’s rattletrap vehicles—with tall antennas on top.

  I called the admiral via encrypted sat-Skype to relay what had happened and up swam his secretary, Pauline, a large, pear-shaped fifty-nine-year-old chain-smoking grandmother, who sounded hoarse and showed none of her usual cheeriness. Her mascara had run down her rouged cheeks. Uh-oh, I thought. Pauline was not normally emotional.

  “The admiral is gone, Colonel.”

  “Find him, please, Pauline. Is he at lunch?”

  “No, that’s not what I mean,” she gasped. “He’s been replaced. General Homza took over and he’s in Admiral Galli’s office now, going through the drawers.” Her voice became a whisper. “They were shouting, him and the admiral. General Homza said to patch you through if you called. I’ll be reassigned, sir. They’re shutting down the unit.”

  “You’ll be fine, Pauline.” I soothed, hoping I was right. “Let me talk to General Homza.”

  Click . . .

  The screen went fuzzy for a millisecond. It did that sometimes from solar flares. Suddenly leaping forward on-screen was Homza, a blunt, fit-looking, middle-aged man wearing the two stars of a U.S. Army major general, and sitting behind the admiral’s Civil War–era walnut desk. Posture, ramrod. Behind him was the left side of the admiral’s World War One oil of the Coast Guard cutter Tampa, being torpedoed by a U-boat; flames high, crew members leaping into the sea.

  The eyes of the man looking back at me were steely-gray, inside wire-rimmed spectacles; the jaw was smallish for the round face, the cropped hair thinning, the few remaining bristles those of a tough, aging boar. I judged him a hard fifty. The mouth was set, the voice tight; the overall effect one of vigorous disapproval.

  “Colonel Rush,” he said, neutrally.

  “May I ask, sir, what has happened?”

  “Well, where to start,” he said with disgust. “The admiral has been running this unit haphazardly.” His disapproval hinted at satisfaction, I told you so, and suggested that any alleged lapses had provided Homza opportunity. He went on. “Special privileges. Avoidance of rules. Your girlfriend for instance, Colonel. Granted security clearance!”

  “She had that already, sir, at Electric Boat.”

  “Not from us. Starting now, share classified material and your pillow talk,” he said, as if those two words constituted a perversion, “will have dire consequences.” He looked disgusted. “Are we clear?”

  “Sir, my original deal with the admiral—when I extended my tour—was contingent on Karen being in the loop.”

  He looked astounded. “Your deal with the United States of America is not. Your personal life is not my concern. You’ve also shared information with local police. Admiral Galli failed to discipline you. Strike two. I’ve long argued that we need to rein in loose cannons around here, your unit in particular.”

  I thought, Put everyone under your control, you mean.

  I said, “You’re closing us down?”

  “You had your people in D.C. exceed your mandate, poke around in places that don’t concern you. Strike three. When this mission is done, you’ll be moved out of research, into field units.”

  I did not back down. “Sir, if by exceeding mandate you’re talking about Project Enhancing Warfighters, Sarah made a legal, logical inquiry. I was sent here to check on special projects. I’d say that human experimentation counts.”

  I saw a sneer. “Colonel. That sounds like Auschwitz. I’m authorized by the secretary of defense himself to tell you that, in Warfighters, no work was done near Barrow. Furthermore, all volunteers in that failed experiment are fine today, living wholesome lives, in different places, and none suffered side effects. So let’s put this to rest.”

  “That was always my intent, sir,” meaning: Then why not send me what I asked for?

  He seemed surprised that I was still pushing. Generals don’t explain things to colonels. But his eyes shifted. His jaw muscles clenched. He didn’t just order me to shut up. Something else was going on here.

  He said, “We don’t think it’s in the public interest to advertise every detail of every experiment. There isn’t a government anywhere that isn’t, at any given moment, looking at new germs, electrics, gasses. We both know what happens when you tell the public that. Shit blows up, shit that you’ll agree we do not need.”

  “Sir, my people aren’t the public. Sarah’s vetted for classified material.”

  “You are not to involve yourself further in an investigation that has no bearing on your mission. Just finish up, fast.”

  Surprise! I’d been expecting to be pulled out, if Homza was closing the unit. “You’re keeping us here, sir?”

  A sigh. “Your patron Admiral Galli made one last argument. He said the locals like you, and can make trouble in Washington if they feel jerked around. And that although we do not think a quarter-century-old law relevant here, it is law so someone has to carry it out. Five years from now, there will be no need for this. This is the last time.”

  Now I understood.

  “You’re ordering me to find nothing?”

  A pause. “You’ve been up there for months and found nothing so there is nothing to find. You and Major Nakamura take four more days, file your negative report, and come to D.C. At that point we’ll discuss your future, and also the future of Sarah Kemp, who for now remains in custody.”

  “Like a hostage?”

  He drew in a sharp breath and I took a deep one. “Sir, I’d like to see the files on Clay Qaqulik. That’s my right as investigator. I want to see Warfighters to determine if it is part of my mission. Or, General, I respectfully request that we include a note in my findings stating that I was instructed to avoid asking certain questions.”

  He didn’t move for a moment.

  “Thin ice,” he said.

  “Sarah only did her job,” I said.

  “Remember what I said about pillow talk, Colonel.”

  He clicked off.

  • • •

  THE SCREEN SHOWED GRAYISH SNOW. I TURNED ON THE LIGHTS. EDDIE Nakamura was seated at the opposite table in a lab coat, his mask on, preparing to run a back-up screen on the samples—blood, skin, and hair—that we’d taken from the victims and cabin. Ranjay had done one already.

  Eddie said, “Way to go, One. How to make friends and influence people.”

  “Hey, he’s sending the files. It worked.”

  “Sheep-dipped? Or real?”

  “Who knows?”

  “Sometimes I think on the day that Lord Jesus comes back to Earth, even then, the assholes will still play politics.”

  Clay Qaqulik’s files were forwarded to us twenty minutes later, and I consumed them, looking for any connections, links, hints. He’d been stationed in Germany and California, not Alaska. His psych reports were clean and his FBI files complimentary. Unless his records had been sheep-dipped, there was nothing indicating involvement in any Army experiments.

  Eddie looked puzzled. “Then why the big deal when Valley Girl asked for this? All they had to do was send.”

  “She gave Homza the opportunity he’s been waiting for. He couldn’t care less about the files. Politics is right.”
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  “What do you make of Major General RoboCop?”

  “He’s telling us he is big and we are small. He’s offering us an opportunity to fall in line, Eddie. That stuff about discussing our future? For Homza, training the rogue dog is a special challenge.”

  “We’re rogue dogs? Woof!”

  “Finish the screen, Eddie. We leave in four days.”

  The clock was ticking now. Four days was nothing. In Eddie’s gloved hand sat a small rectangular plastic dish the size of a tape cassette, lined with three dozen small, half-inch-deep wells. Eddie deposited different blood samples into each well, then poured in reagents. He refrigerated the dish. If, during the next twenty-four hours, a sample turned bright green, it meant we had a poison. If the sample remained unaffected, it was harmless when it came to the specific toxics that we tested for.

  “Hey, One! What are you going to do about Karen? You told off RoboCop, but truth is, he can yank you, or arrest you, he can stick you in ward seven,” he said, referring to a fourth-floor hallway at an Air Force mental hospital in Nevada. “Or he can do it the bureaucratic way, bust you down, post retirement, wipe away your pension.”

  “You’re a bundle of laughs today,” I said. “Anyway, its not like Homza can hear what we say in our hut, right?”

  Two days later all the results were in on our tests.

  “Nothing.”

  • • •

  THERE ARE NO FUNERAL HOMES IN BARROW. THE IÑUPIAT BURY THEIR OWN dead. A cakewalk held before the burial—the sale of homemade cakes and pies—raises expense money.

  The cemetery was a half mile from the airport, a small patch of tundra dotted with disorderly rows of crosses and markers, dwarfed by sky and horizon, rich with wildflowers in summer, but summer was over, and a big yellow borough-auger drilled loudly through thin topsoil, slashing into permafrost, to carve out a resting place for Clay. Four-wheel-drive vehicles circled the cemetery like wagons.

  Tomorrow we’d go home.

  On our last day in Barrow, Karen stood beside me at the graveside, as Clay’s wife, neighbors and friends remembered him, and a northeast wind whipped away every second word. The chill in the air seemed small beside the frost that had marked our Quonset hut since the dance. Nothing overt. No arguments. But something about my dance with Tilda Swann had set off a red flag inside my fiancée. I didn’t push. She would talk about it when she was ready. The truth was, I’d dreamed of Tilda for two nights running: graphic dreams, sex dreams, pumping bodies. It made me wonder if Karen’s intuition had picked up on even my dreams.