Fires of Midnight

by Jon Land

  “I’m not sure,” the registrar responded, pausing as if expecting her to explain further. “I can find out.”

  “And if such a list does exist, I’d like a copy.”

  “Of course.”

  “As soon as possible.”

  Susan hung up the phone. She settled back in the chair and tried to settle her thinking, focusing on the moves immediately before her. All of the materials in this room had to be impounded and sent to Atlanta for more detailed analysis at Firewatch Command. Once there—

  Susan felt a slight whiff of wind on her back and turned to see the door to Joshua Wolfe’s room opening. A broad, bearded man entered and closed it behind him as she lurched out of her chair.

  “Who are you?”

  “Sorry to interrupt,” said Blaine McCracken.

  EIGHT

  “I asked you who you were.” Susan’s voice was calm but her stance remained rigid as she half-eyed the phone.

  McCracken turned his gaze about the room. “You’ve been busy. Accomplished quite a bit, by the look of things.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “Same thing you are, I suspect.”

  “Who sent you?” Susan asked him. “Washington? Atlanta?”

  He was moving through the room, inspecting and cataloguing everything with his eyes.

  “Well,” he replied, “Atlanta sent you. I think we can call that a fair assumption.” He locked his stare with hers. “You haven’t found the boy, I assume.”

  Susan’s eyes bulged and the red of her cheeks deepened. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

  “The name’s McCracken, and maybe I always wanted to see how the CDC, specifically Firewatch Command, operates in a crisis.”

  Susan tried not to show her surprise. “You know an awful lot ordinary people aren’t supposed to.”

  “I’ve never been accused of being ordinary, miss—excuse me, Doctor. I mean, it must be ‘Doctor,’ right?”

  “You seem to know everything else.”

  “Friend of mine who told me what was going on up here didn’t have time to dig that deep.”

  “What did he tell you?”

  “Cambridgeside Galleria. That sufficient?”

  “Plenty, but that doesn’t explain what you’re doing in this room.”

  “Like I said, the same thing you are: looking for the boy who lives here.” Those eyes sweeping again. “Or used to, anyway.”

  “His name. You didn’t use the boy’s name.”

  “Josh. Happy?”

  “Susan Lyle.”

  “What?”

  “My name. It’s Susan Lyle.”

  Turning his attention to the business at hand, McCracken began going through the desk drawers, barely ruffling the contents as he searched.

  “You’ve been through these.”

  “Not the bottom ones,” she said, not sure why she was telling him.

  Blaine went to work on those.

  “If you do indeed know what I’m doing here,” Susan went on, “it seems only fair that you tell me what you’re doing here.”

  McCracken found what he was looking for and straightened up. “This,” he said, his eyes lingering on a snapshot that showed Harry Lime with his arm around the shoulder of a boy of about fourteen or fifteen. Both were smiling, Harry in a fresh tropical shirt that hung over his belt, the boy wearing his hair long and dark, the smile not looking right on him.

  Blaine didn’t want to let it go, as if doing so would mean letting go of Harry for the second time in twenty-four hours. He studied the boy’s slightly blurred, smiling face. The long hair framed his face well. His eyes, even in the picture, were strangely intense and yet not quite mature. Harry’s crazy, impossible tale suddenly made some kind of sense. Blaine made himself place the snapshot in Susan Lyle’s outstretched hand.

  “Joshua Wolfe,” she said as she reached out to grasp it.

  “You recognize him?”

  “From a picture in the registrar’s office.”

  “Until a moment ago, I wasn’t sure he existed.”

  Susan looked up from the picture, confusion compounding her simmering suspicions. “What are you talking about?”

  “Man in that picture is what brought me up here.”

  “Then we’re not here for the same reason at all, are we?”

  “I think we are; we just came from different directions.”

  “You always make this little sense when you talk?”

  “Until I trust the person I’m talking to, usually.”

  “I’m the one who’s in the dark here. All I know is your name, while you seem to know just about everything.”

  “Not where I can find Joshua Wolfe.”

  Susan felt her features relaxing. “You know what happened at the Galleria. He could have been one of the victims.”

  “Possible, but not likely. Someone placed a phone call from this room on Sunday afternoon two hours after the disaster occurred.”

  “To your friend, the man in the picture?”

  “That’s where things get strange, Doctor, because when I talked to my friend he didn’t say anything about a phone call. He was quite specific about the fact that he hadn’t heard from the boy in quite some time. Thought he’d been kidnapped.”

  “And he wanted you to find him.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And you’d be just the man who could.”

  “I owed him a favor, a big one.”

  “So you came here.”

  “I came here, Doctor, because my friend disappeared last night and this kid is the only clue I’ve got as to why. Only now it looks like Joshua Wolfe has disappeared, too.”

  Susan felt even more perplexed. “Why are you telling me all this, answering my questions?”

  “Because I’ve got a few of my own and I figure both our interests would be better served by sharing information.”

  “My interests happen to be those of the United States government.”

  “Thanks to Firewatch Command. I know you’ve got jurisdiction and I know you’re all doing your best to keep a lid on what happened. It’s not working. It almost never does.”

  “Okay, so we’re both trying to solve mysteries.”

  “And at the center of both is a missing teenage boy.”

  “He’s fifteen,” Susan elaborated. “Sixteen in September.”

  “Spending a summer at Harvard.”

  “More than just the summer; he’s enrolled full-time.”

  That piqued Blaine’s interest again. “For how long?”

  “Since last fall.”

  “About the time the ‘kidnapping’ took place, according to Harry.”

  “And what is your friend’s connection to him?”

  “Harry thought he was the kid’s father.”

  “No, his father’s name is—”

  “Don’t believe everything you read.”

  “It was right there on the boy’s transcript.”

  “Because that’s the way they operate.”

  “The way who operates?”

  “They buried Harry in Key West and then they made him disappear after the memory they provided got the better of him. Could be they went after the kid, too. Could be that’s why he disappeared.” It made perfect sense, until McCracken looked beneath the surface. “Of course, that wouldn’t explain why you’re here, Doctor, would it? Firewatch control officer leaves the primary site to spend an afternoon in a prodigy’s dorm room in Harvard Yard—must have your reasons, I assume.”

  “Even if I were at liberty to tell you, what makes you think I would?”

  “Because you’re starting to realize I might be able to help you get to the bottom of things. But if you can’t help me I’ve got no reason not to part company with you as soon as I’ve seen what this room’s got to show.”

  “You are Washington.”

  “Used to be. Not anymore. Managed to maintain my security clearance, though.” Blaine’s eyes drifted to the phone. “Certai
n number you can call to check that, you want me to give it to you.”

  “I’ve got it.”

  “Use it.”

  “There’s no need for that.”

  “Then tell me what you’re doing here.”

  Susan Lyle hesitated, but only for a moment. “I think Joshua Wolfe caused what happened at the Cambridgeside Galleria,” she said, “and I think it was an accident.”

  “What happens now?” Susan asked, after explaining the conclusions she’d reached in this room. She had told the stranger named McCracken everything she’d pieced together, convinced there was nothing to hide any longer and that he could, in fact, help her. By the time she finished he no longer seemed like a stranger. Something about him invoked trust and deflected suspicion. Conviction rimmed his eyes and laced almost every word he spoke.

  “You keep doing what you’re doing,” he told her, “while I keep doing what I’m doing.”

  “How do we stay in touch?”

  “I can give you two very private phone numbers to reach me. One will be watched, the other not.”

  “What do you mean ‘watched’?”

  “Manned—by an ally. I don’t suppose you’re in a position to take similar precautions.”

  Susan thought briefly. “I can open a private voice-mail box. Would that do?”

  “So long as you give only me the number.”

  “Is that really necessary?”

  “It is if we want to keep whoever’s behind Harry’s disappearance from making the connection between us.”

  “Sounds a little paranoid to me.”

  “There’s a fine line between paranoia and precaution, Doctor,” McCracken told her. “I’ve been there before.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Until now.”

  NINE

  As was his custom, Hank Belgrade was waiting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial when McCracken arrived. Belgrade was big, beefy man who like a select few in Washington drew a salary without holding any official title. Technically, both the Departments of State and Defense showed his name on their roster, but in actuality he worked for neither. Instead, he liaised between the two and handled the dirty linen of both. He had access to files and information few in Washington had any idea existed.

  Blaine had once saved his career back in the Cold War days by bringing a Soviet defector safely in after security had broken down, a leak detected. In return, Belgrade was always there for McCracken when he needed information. They met here on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial every time, Belgrade wearing his perpetual scowl, never looking happy to see him. Today Hank had a thick manila file folder wedged under one of his knees.

  Belgrade was silent as he watched Blaine approach.

  “I think I’ll sit down, if you don’t mind,” McCracken said by way of greeting.

  “Do whatever the fuck you want.”

  “Testy today, aren’t we?”

  “Not until you called. You got a real knack, MacNuts, you know that?”

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t bother. I’m talking about shit and your unfucking-canny ability to step in it. Tell me something, how do you do it?”

  “It just follows me around, Hank.”

  “Yeah, I wish you’d stop following me. When we gonna be even?”

  “Whenever you say. Now, if you like. Leave. Take the folder with you.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “In such a historic location?”

  “Last time, MacNuts! This is it!”

  “Sure.”

  “Biggest shit yet this time. Least it ranks up there.” Belgrade frowned and lowered his voice. “Your friend Harry Lime got about ten years washed out of his life. Him and maybe a dozen others who fit the same profile.”

  “Profile?”

  “You know, crazy enough to control but not so crazy as to be unreliable. I haven’t got hard numbers or even data. What I got’s words, indications, and some cross-references make your skin crawl. And it all starts with something called The Factory. Ever heard of it?”

  “No.”

  “We’re talking capital T, capital F, and for good reason. The Factory was into shit, doing shit twenty years ago we can’t even pull off today. And they didn’t give a hoot about ramifications or morals. Cross a few species to see what you come up with? Why not? Radiate some mental patients? Who cares, if it gives us a better idea of the effects of fallout? Expose soldiers to a deadly toxin? Good idea, if it’ll help us win a chemical and biological war. Cold War was going full tilt, and so were the boys at The Factory. Till the late seventies, anyway, when a single stroke of Jimmy Carter’s pen effectively slashed it out of existence. Reagan managed to salvage it for a while but a year into his first term it was history. Too bad in many minds, I’d wager, ’cause the eggheads there had just gotten into a new field big-time: genetics.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  “You got it, MacNuts. Files on what exactly they were able to pull off before the end have been wiped clean out of existence. But it’s a safe bet they treated the DNA map like an Etch-a-Sketch game. Take the stuff we’re just starting to figure out today and eliminate all the safeguards and precautions. Last recorded project they went operational with in ’79 is what links Harry and the others in this folder together.

  “Operation Offspring,” Belgrade finished, after a pause long enough to slide the manila folder Blaine’s way. “All I got’s in here and it ain’t much. Profiles of Harry Lime and the others. Reasons why they were judged the most able candidates.”

  “Candidates for what?”

  “That’s where I draw a blank, MacNuts. That’s where I sign off.”

  Operation Offspring, Blaine reflected.

  “We talking 1979 here, Hank?”

  “Or ’80. Thereabouts, anyway.”

  McCracken thought of the picture he’d found at Harvard of Harry Lime with his arms around the shoulder of a boy who was fifteen now.

  Operation Offspring …

  “You’ll keep me in the loop with this one, okay, MacNuts?”

  “First time you ever asked me that, Hank.”

  “This one’s got a real bad smell to it.”

  “It’s like that every time innocent people get killed.”

  “Maybe Harry wasn’t innocent. Maybe he volunteered.”

  “He and the others were selected to volunteer, Hank. I don’t have to read the contents of your file to figure that much out.”

  “All the more reason to keep me in the loop. One thing I’ve learned about line items like The Factory. Slash ’em and they don’t die; they just hibernate for a while until they get reborn with new call letters. This town’s a fucking revolving door.”

  “Good thing for us it swings both ways,” Blaine told Belgrade.

  “I rolled the dice on Operation Offspring, boss,” Sal Belamo explained over the phone several hours later,”and came up with snake-eyes. Nada. You get my drift. But those names fat Hank was kind enough to provide, they were something else again.”

  Belamo had been an efficient and trusted intelligence operative until he started working with McCracken. That eventually cost him any position remotely classified as formal. His past, though, had left him with a network of contacts who either owed him or wanted him to owe them. Consequently, there was little information the government possessed he could not obtain, much of it classified or red-flagged for restricted access. And when he couldn’t find the answer himself, he found someone who could.

  “A link?” Blaine asked him.

  “Several. To begin with, none of them got active files anymore. You tell me Harry Lime’s flying with the new Air America out of south Florida, but military data banks list him gone, no forwarding. Same thing goes for the other names. Their files just stop running, with no further updates.”

  “As of when?”

  “1981.”

  “Around the time The Factory was dissolved.”

  “Which closed the front door. But you know me—the front door’s closed,
I go in through the back. Find that locked, too, and I try a window. This time I found a crack in the wall. Made myself real small and slithered in.”

  “To see what?”

  “Damnedest thing. I ran the names fat Hank gave you in search of common denominators. Lo and behold there was only one: woman by the name of Gloria Wilkins-Tate. See, Harry Lime and the others were all military fringe players. The kind who can’t go to the VA when they got a problem or expect to collect their pensions when they turn sixty-five. Trouble is, all the names on this list had psychological problems. Gloria Wilkins-Tate was their caseworker. Turns out she’s about as qualified to help wackos as I am to teach kids manners. Ms. Wilkins-Tate is a spook herself. Goes all the way back to the OSS, when Langley was just a thought in the Company’s forefathers’ heads. The only woman among the original cadre. Rumor was she had an affair with Wild Bill Donovan himself. But her real specialty was salvaging and integrating Nazi scientists into our network. In fact, she helped create one mostly just for them.”

  “Don’t tell me—The Factory.”

  “Gloria Rendine was one of its original founders.”

  “I thought you said her name was Wilkins-Tate.”

  “It used to be until she changed it upon retiring ’round fifteen years ago. Started herself a whole new career in the rare books department of the New York Public Library. I was you, I wouldn’t call ahead.”

  TEN

  By Tuesday afternoon, Erich Haslanger’s fascination with the results of that morning’s test had become an obsession. The subjects’ clothes had caught fire first, indicating that the focused light reacted with the material of their uniforms and explaining why that response had never turned up during animal testing. He was on to something tremendous here with unlimited potential.

  Haslanger dimly registered the phone in his private lab ringing and felt for the receiver.

  “Haslanger.”

  “It’s been a long time, Doctor,” came a familiar voice.

  “What do you want, Larkin?”

  “Want? Nothing. I’m calling to let you know someone’s been making inquiries. The name Wilkins-Tate has come up several times.”

  “Ancient history,” Haslanger said.