Roger O'Hare greeted me, then Angela Bonterri, an agent who had been especially nice to us during our first week at St. Ann's. The agents were drinking coffee all around, and I took a mug, though I hadn't quite become an addict in paramedic school. James Imperial was beside the coffee urn talking to Shahzad and an agent he addressed as Susan, and I gathered that this was Shahzad's Miss Susan, an agent he had worked with on Long Island.
"Can I apologize to you now, or are you never speaking to me again?" Susan said to Shahzad while I reached for a mug.
"Please, you mustn't remember firing me. You mustn't remember any of that from March," Shahzad said uneasily. "I speak to you ... much."
I had thrown on a T-shirt and jeans, not expecting this crowd, and I looked more like Shahzad than like the agents. I noted Tyler over in the corner, in some gangsta T-shirt to his knees, telling another agent, "I'm giving USIC my CellScan program. No charge. Just ... watch my ass henceforth. That's all I ask." And the agent grimaced, hand over his eyes.
It seemed apologies were running all over the place for things I wasn't privy to, but I gathered some of these agents had been stony toward them over being minors.
Mr. Steckerman asked Marg to take trays up to Rain and Owen, because it was a highly unusual day and they wanted to meet in the dining room with this many people. No one mentioned Cora. I actually sneaked up there while Marg took trays to Rain and Owen, and for once it was me standing outside her door feeling silly. I couldn't hear a sound, and when Marg came to deliver her breakfast, too, she asked me not to come in with her. She didn't say why, and there was a lot going on downstairs. I just headed down again.
The agents found chairs on some invisible cue that I realized was James Imperial taking a seat at the head of the table. All sixteen seats were taken.
"Good news to report all around," Imperial said, holding up his coffee cup.
"First, VaporStrike is in custody. Captured last night at a rest stop two miles outside Amarillo, Texas, in a blue Camry rental car."
He turned his mug slowly to Tyler as the agents applauded. Tyler made something akin to a Buddhist bow.
"That is a big load off our minds," Imperial continued. "The bad news? Omar never showed. He must have smelled trouble. We're hoping someone in this room can find him."
He looked warily at Shahzad, who shrugged nervously at Hodji. I got the feeling he didn't like being the focal point of a roomful of important people.
"As for Henry Calloway, his real name is Ovid Contescu. Born in Romania, raised primarily in a Russian orphanage, educated in Hamburg, then the University of Pennsylvania. Three years of his life between Hamburg and Penn are utterly missing, which means he was probably trained as a terrorist, and his money comes from backers in Kuwait. This is the worst kind of terrorist, our absolute worst nightmare. Because he's been here awhile, he has managed to infiltrate upstanding American institutions the way anyone else would. As an active member of the historical society for two years, biding his time, he was able to write the grant for this place, knowing that it would give him easy access to medical records that would help them in the back end. Alan? Report?"
Mr. Steckerman said, "Mike and I, and Hodji, quote, 'took a walk' past his cabin last night, but we didn't infiltrate or act interested, as it could be hot-wired. It could be Omar's lab. We want to do an ASAP raid but have no idea when he'll be there. He's not at the college or at home or the cabin right now. We'll nail him, no fears."
Imperial nodded. "He's a spy; he's not a thug. At least not in the essential sense of the word. But we need to consider him extremely dangerous, especially given the nature of what he was up to. The four patients in this house were 'swans,' in accordance with some code words he dreamed up for discussing his research. From Shahzad and Tyler's chatter and Marg's input, we believe he gave orders to Ibrahim Kansi to plant the corpse of the infected goat somewhere the kids might touch it. They wanted to see what their new strain of tularemia would do if a human made a flesh contact, and since they were watching the kids anyway, it fit their, um, fun and games. Unfortunately, they never got to find out. The point of impact was sucked completely clean by a snake kit."
I realized he was nodding at me. I shuffled in the chair, much like Shahzad had wanted to. I didn't need applause; I needed their asses caught.
"And earlier that morning Contescu, under the auspices of a visit to meet Cora Holman, laced Owen's orange juice with a clotting drug used primarily for hemophiliacs that brought on a severe headache."
Chairs moved back and forth defensively around the table, and I swallowed swill, wondering what I'd gotten myself into. It required so much self-control that my opinion of Alan catapulted into the stratosphere. All I could picture was Contescu's stones served up to him in an orange juice glass.
Imperial went on quickly. "And then, the very idea that he would try to befriend an innocent teenage girl, right under Alan's nose, reflects that he is long of nerve. We need him caught. Today."
Helpless to do much for Cora, I turned my wrath to Hodji, staring at him across the table. He had the guy in the house until ten thirty last night, losing three rounds of chess, while I sat by Cora, scared someone would walk up our nonsqueaking stairs and ... who knows? Attempt a kidnapping? I'd just felt like it was the place I should be. I thought my instincts had been dead-on, and maybe they were. But Hodji must have noted the look of challenge in my eyes. He sent a challenging look back at me before cutting a smile.
"Didn't you ever hear the expression 'Keep your friends close and your enemies closer'?"
"Oh," I said, for lack of anything better.
"I suspect everyone, especially when they show up with vats of liquid beverages to serve to people who drank poisoned water. Something about that didn't sit well with me, shell of a man that I am."
I shot up straight in the chair remembering something about lemonade.
"Don't worry," Marg put in. "I told him she'd already had her daily allotment of citrus and that I'd give it to her tomorrow. It's with the CDC. We'll see what's in it."
I hadn't noticed Marg here before.
"Are you..." I paused before realizing everyone at the table was looking at me.
She reached in her jacket pocket and flashed me creds and a second license. "Firearms," she said. "I'm one of the two agents not photographed by the media in these parts, so I had to keep my creds hushed, even from you guys. It was killing me Saturday. I actually ran out of the house because I got a good view of some movement out behind the pond from a second-story window. I'm sure now it was a ShadowStrike operative waiting to photograph it if Owen or Rain touched the corpse of the Professor. I couldn't find the guy, couldn't find the site where Rain got hurt, though I'd heard her scream ... Very frustrating. Anyway. I've been CIA for twelve years."
I kissed two of my fingers lightly and flipped them at her. She grabbed her cheek like it had landed, apology accepted. Nurses needed in Intelligence. I wondered if maybe I wouldn't have to forget about going to medical school if I became an agent. I would always love medicine, and at the moment, I wanted to design a cocktail specifically for Ovid "Henry" Contescu.
"And finally," Imperial said, standing up again, "there's the business of our two young v-spies and how sorry we all are that things had to reach such a state of desperation before something could be done about it. My father owned a grocery store in Des Moines for fifty-three years. He saved every last nickel so that I could go to college, and when that degree got me a government job, he said he was sorry—he never wanted me working for a place with more than two dozen employees. He said it would wear me down. He said policies begin to take precedence over people, common sense drifts away to the wind because it has to, and human dignity falls by the wayside. These were all things I didn't exactly comprehend. I'd thought he would have been proud, and I guess I always held it against him that he wasn't. Until this weekend. I had to draft a new policy amendment for our manual for classified clericals. I was up all Saturday night doing it. I made su
re it was forty-some pages long, and with all the convoluted, bureaucratic speak and worthless nonsense I threw in there, the paper pushers passed it on through yesterday, failing to realize I never included an age limitation."
There was so much snickering that he added quickly, "And that is classified to this table, Level Nine." Alan had told me that classified in USIC goes no higher than Level Four.
"Any opposed?"
The room was silent.
"All in favor?" Every hand went up.
"So, let's go find Contescu and friends before it's too late."
FORTY-EIGHT
SCOTT EBERMAN
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2002
11:30 A.M.
KELLERTON HOUSE
I KNEW ALAN SAID I wouldn't get top billing on any job, but it was a little hard to watch all the agents taking off to Griffith's Landing to look for hoods or to Astor College to look for Henry while I got stuck waiting with Hodji for a security crew to show up and hot-wire the Kellerton House like the president was staying here. It was especially hard because I had access to the basement and could hear the two other CCs typing away and talking to each other in the inner office.
"Anything interesting?" I gave my back a rest and sat in with them at one point.
Tyler shook his head. "Omar probably figured out that VaporStrike is in custody, and he's a chickenshit when it comes to his own safety. He's probably hiding out in the stall of some bathroom, like the Amarillo, Texas, Burger King, with his feet up on the toilet, afraid to move. Hey." He nudged Shahzad at a terminal beside him. "IM Amarillo. Tell them to check the stalls of all fast-food restaurants, and get down on their knees."
Shahzad searched his face. "You wants me to do this?"
Tyler cackled and looked at me with triumph. "Do you see what I have to endure? He can't tell a joke from a jelly jar. Hey, but it's not such a bad idea."
While tormenting Shahzad, he clattered out the IM he'd just spoken of, probably to some agent he was connected to in Amarillo. He had those fast fingers of hackers, so that he could type as fast as he spoke and tell a different joke at the same time.
"Was that meant to be funny?" I asked.
"I'm not sure yet. I'm bored. And very keyed up." He drummed his fingers on the keypad and cast a glance at Shahzad. "So. How's Cora?"
"She's down. That's our word for bedridden. She had some howler around four thirty this morning—that's our word for nightmare. We all have them. I charged in there to shake her, and Marg was sleeping on the cot in her room, though she swears it's not medicinal. I dunno. Cora's either whipping herself totally, or she is heartbroken over the guy. Marg wouldn't let me stick around to see. Cora is, let's say, an ocean of secrets. We're working on it."
Tyler drummed his speckled fingers on the edge of the keypad. "We call your womenfolk the princesses."
I laughed. "Rain's just a good old, down-home girl." I stopped. "Cora, though ... You're probably not far from the truth there."
Tyler wasn't stupid. "Okay. So, you're in love with her. Aren't you, um, kind of in a rough spot?" He spat out a couple of bars from a hip-hop song, "U Can't Touch This."
He wasn't demure either.
"I'm not in love with her," I argued. "But it's taking all I have to steer clear."
"Why not go? Offer some, ya know, words of wisdom and comfort."
"Because I'm the wrong person," I said. "I'm ... that 'other guy with feelings for her.' Anything I say lacks credibility. I tried really hard last night, but she'll think I'm gloating. She's got self-esteem issues, big-time. We're working on that, too."
"She probably feels like a fool," Tyler said, having gotten a joking reply from the agent in Amarillo, something about how they already have video cams in every fast-food toilet in Amarillo. He sent the reply, "Ew," and went on. "Which is ridiculous. The guy's a very charming cutthroat who's probably got her IQ times two. How's she supposed to resist him? I know what she's going through, though."
He told the classic story of being on the receiving end of mean girls placing bets just to hurt him. At least the guy could laugh at himself.
"Maybe you should go talk to her," I said. "She warmed to you. Honestly. When I walked in and saw her gripping your hand like that ... she's not real easy to touch. Once in a while she'll melt down for Rain or Owen. Other than that it's been me and nobody else."
"Except Henry."
"Sonofabitch..." I wished Tyler hadn't said his name. The guy had been in her room, which in my book was kind of a sacred shrine, and sat his perverted ass on her bed.
Tyler showed the same twitches I had. "No, maybe you should go talk to her. She might think I'm a spook again."
Cora's medication switch. She needed me, no matter how awkward it was. I'd hit Marg up for info and then head up there, I decided.
I looked at my watch. It was a little past noon. "We eat in twenty minutes. It's really good food."
Shahzad stood up slowly, rubbing his stomach. "Miss Marg won't let us make to the McDonald's. Now I wish we had not been caught."
They followed me up the stairs to the dining room, and I got out the silverware container, the smell of hot roast beef floating through the air. The chairs were all pushed out of place from this morning, and Tyler went around straightening them as I put the stuff on the buffet.
"Sorry," he said. "I could not sit in a room that looked like this. You know what obsessive-compulsive disorder is?"
"Sure," I said.
"You don't want to live in a car with a man who has this atrocious thing," Shahzad said, pouring himself a glass of water. He shuddered. "Go and see for yourself. You would think it is brand new, not the residence for two hackers for a day and night."
Marg came out of the kitchen, carrying a pitcher of juice.
"You need some help around here," I said. "You're an RN who shoots. Jeezus. That's enough talent for one person."
"Until Omar's lab is found and they know it's not near here, they won't let anyone work on this property who isn't actually USIC. I'll get by somehow. I always do."
I felt very soothed over and genuinely guilty. "Can I help you out with Cora now?"
She opened a drawer, pulled out a stack of paper napkins, and laid them on the buffet. "Very primitive, our setup right now. I've no background in, uh, banquet facilitating."
"Well?" I didn't like her pause.
"She's under sedation. I was up there twenty minutes ago. She was out like a light."
I flopped back down in the chair, not liking that either. "She didn't want to be sedated last night. What changed?"
Marg said nothing. And I really didn't like that.
"I'm going up there." I moved toward the door.
"I just told you, she's out."
"I've seen her awake, and I've seen her asleep. What's the—"
She turned around, looking at me with what I perceived to be sympathy. "It's more than having been betrayed by someone she liked. It's more than realizing a second terrorist had sidled up to her and could have killed her. There's another issue having to do with her mother that surfaced on one of her tapes early this morning. She'll have to tell you about that if she ever wants to—I can't. Trust me on this. She needed a sedative, and right now, she needs to sleep."
I backed toward the door, swapping gazes with her. "Call me when the security crew shows up," I said, and turned to run up there. I could at least park myself between her and the window in case she hallucinated again. Problem was, I nearly banged into Cora, who was coming through the door, looking like some kind of a zombie.
FORTY-NINE
TYLER PING
TUESDAY, MAY 7, 2002
12:01 P.M.
DINING ROOM
MY BELOVED CORA HOLMAN had raccoon eyes—with such deep lines under them that you'd think she'd been hit in the nose with a Frisbee. She had a blank look that overly medicated people can get. I'd seen my share while in the psych ward of Beth Israel when I was turning my mom in.
Scott pulled the chair out for her, and
she slid into it, didn't say thank you—didn't say anything—just put her camera case on the table and stared past it. She'd been behind me when I did most of my talking in last night's meeting. So it turned even my big mouth to stone to watch her look so disheveled yet sit so straight, like a ballerina might, or a princess. She had the air of a queen, without saying anything and without looking anywhere except the dead center of the place mat, in front of her camera case.
Scott pulled the chair to the left up beside her, sat down, and started slowly rubbing her back. I don't think she noticed at first. After an eternity, his obviously experienced Don Juan hands went to her neck. He massaged, and her eyelids drooped a little.
Then he shook her shoulder and said, "Spit it out. Or do you want these guys to leave?"
She raised her eyebrows to help open her eyelids all the way again. "No, they can stay, I ... may I have a Kleenex, please?"
Scott chuckled, like a private joke was passing between them, and Marg handed him the box from the buffet. He laid it in front of her.
"Voilà," he said, and after she pulled one out and mopped her forehead with it, he said, "Talk to me. Come on."
She said nothing. Scott simply waited, like this was some normal thing coming down around here—Cora not speaking when spoken to.
His eyes glanced down to Marg's shoe and flipped back, and he said so innocently you would never have guessed he'd been prompted, "If you're this tongue-tied, it's got to have something to do with your mother. What'd that she-devil do now?"
"You mustn't call her that."
"Okay..." The sarcasm came through slightly.
"I ... something just happened ... and I had to think quickly. And I hope ... that I can help USIC to catch Henry," she said.
Scott flopped back in the chair. "You are not helping to catch Henry," he said. "No penance is due. Don't be stupid."