"We need another war, to filter out pricks like that," she said. "What can I get you?"
Periglas's breath hitched. Sharp lines framed his mouth.
"Nothing," he said. He rose from the stool and leaned toward the bartender, practically in her face. "I've watched young pricks like that get filtered," he said. "I'll put up with happy bullshit any day."
He swung around and marched toward the exit.
Rebecca grabbed her purse and followed. She watched him with a fascinated grin, which she tucked away when he looked back at her, replaced with polite interest.
"Apologies, Rebecca. I usually don't show my bitter card until the second date. Let's stalk the evening like wolves," he said, arms swinging. His looseness came from dissipating anger, but also from self-assurance. He was happy to be here, expected nothing in particular, happy to be with her—happy in his own skin.
Not manic, not nervous, not showing off in the least.
He was just that way.
He glanced aside like an embarrassed boy as they came out under the cobalt sky. "So—let's find a little, out-of-the-way bistro and gorge on tiny plates of overpriced food."
Rebecca focused on what she could see of his face and smiled again, this time openly—she smiled a lot around Periglas. This was what she could expect: good talk from a decent man. Some of his stories were doubtless more interesting than hers.
Life at sea, camaraderie and discipline, engines and weather—anything but the creeps and monsters she had had to pursue, capture, help convict—and make miserable—throughout her entire career.
And yet there were always more.
She still kept three pictures in her wallet of a few of the worst that got away. Murderers and rapists—portraits of monsters rather than children.
Perhaps the monsters were her children.
"Forget the bistro," she said. "Let's get room service."
Periglas appeared genuinely surprised. For a terrible moment, Rebecca felt like a teenager pushing too far, too fast.
"All right," he said.
"We're civilians, mostly," she said. "They owe us time away from the world."
"No explanation necessary," Periglas said. "Lead on."
Rebecca's phone wheedled. She looked at the number. This was a call she had to take.
"My room," Rebecca said, and passed him a hotel key folder without the key.
Periglas drew his hand over his eyes, fingers spread. "I am beguiled," he said.
"Give me ten minutes," she said.
Rebecca closed the door to the room and set her purse on the nightstand. Biting her lip, more nervous than she had been in months—she returned the call she had been hoping would come.
A recorded voice answered. "Central California Adoption Services. Our offices are closed for the day—"
She punched in the code for Dr. Benvenista. The doctor's high, musical voice came through after the third chime.
"Hello, Rebecca. How's Los Angeles?"
"Nice," Rebecca said, her throat full. She wasn't used to being so scared. "Busy."
"Fresno is scalding. We have great news. You've passed the third round. Though I do wish you had a good man in your life. We could sail you right through."
"I'm working on it," Rebecca said, embarrassed and hopeful enough to stretch the truth.
"Mary is doing quite well. One inspector expressed lingering concern about the race issue, but I think that is not a major objection at this point. You are a stable person and well-motivated, and you are certainly qualified, and I have said so to the committee. Who better to protect a little child than a mommy who's an FBI agent?"
Bureau. On furlough.
"Thank you."
"There will be more news tomorrow, and perhaps the paperwork will clear by the end of the week. Until then, please keep in touch."
Rebecca expressed her thanks and relief, said goodbye, and closed the phone—just as she heard a polite rap on the room door. She opened it, her chest tight, stomach a-flutter. Too much all at once.
Tough to keep up her game face.
Periglas entered as she finished dabbing her eyes with her coat sleeve.
"I don't often have that effect on women," he said, his voice soft, wondering.
"It's not you," Rebecca said, and took his outstretched hand. "Not just you, I mean. It's everything. I think I'm becoming a human being again. It's been so goddamned long . . ."
She looked up, across two inches of difference in height, and searched his face.
Her lower lip trembled. She bit it, but did not stop checking out his forehead, his cheeks, his nose, then his eyes.
His eyes were slightly moist, reflecting hers.
"Damn," she whispered.
Periglas put his hands on her shoulders and leaned toward her, as if about to lead her into a dance.
"Dinner first?" he asked.
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed, frightened and incredibly hungry—ravenous, but not for food.
For a home. A place to rest and arms to rest in.
Hungry for all the glories and sins flesh was heir to.
Maybe you're finally cured.
"Dinner after," she said.
Chapter Fourteen
Sherman Oaks, California
Nathaniel Trace had arrived in California in a state of rolling nausea and hunger. He could not find the proper foods to eat.
He cabbed from LAX up the 405 to Ventura Boulevard, then checked into a back room in a sprawling old hotel—and locked himself in.
The hotel was seventy-two years old. It had two hundred and fifteen rooms.
He lay down for a two hours but could not sleep.
Rising from the rumpled bed, he shook his head to get rid of the dizzies—they came in late morning and sometimes late evening—and drew back the opaque curtains.
There was blood on his hand. It smeared on the rod and a drop or two fell on the carpet. A trail to the bed.
He had bitten his hand.
That made him chuckle.
Extra tip for the maid.
Through the white veil of the inner curtain, glancing at the parking lot, he instantly counted sixty-two cars. Fourteen trees, none of them very tall. Thirteen people walking, four drivers trying to park. Sixty-three buildings visible between nadir and horizon. Five hundred and sixty-four windows. No doors visible from his vantage point, except twenty-four car doors—six opening, one closing.
"Today, in the state where I was born, I am thirty-six years old," Nathaniel said. Numbers were important. If he thought hard enough, counted long enough, they would all add up—like a combination lock.
"I'm turning into fucking Rain Man," he whispered. "Jesus H. Christ. Nobody hires card counters."
He wiped his hand on the curtain, then thought again: time to stop acting like a bloody animal and recharge the old social programming. He went into the bathroom to wash out the bite. Could his own bite be septic? He used soap. There were marks on both hands. He'd have to stop that or wear gloves.
Already today he had cycled through seven different hells and seven different heavens.
When he realized that this was entirely up to him, or some part of him—that some or other will controlled his mood—it scared him. For a few moments there, floating in a disconnected and emotionless void, looking at the wallpaper and feeling like a fish flying through the air, he had for a couple of hours forgotten his real name.
"I should move into a creepy old house," he told the mirror, then looked hard at his reflection and smiled. He had finally found something he could not count: the thick mat of gingery hairs on his head.
Too confused.
My tire chocks have been pulled and I'm rolling free. My emergency brake is busted. It was a lovely feeling for a while.
Now, not so much.
But who the hell am I? If Mariposa is coming undone, then the others must feel the same way—wherever they are.
What if somehow his fingers could hold supremacy over his brain? What if c
entral control was now up to his arm, his foot—his liver, his bowels?
He had found several days ago that he could make his vision turn purple, or shade it into the pink—and then push it back to something like normal.
Not even a baby is born this clear.
Everything is possible.
When he believed he was capable of interacting with the public again on some minimal level, Nathaniel dressed, left the room, and forced himself to walk around the hotel grounds, then up and down Ventura Boulevard.
The sun peeking between clouds actually made his skin vibrate. That felt good—good and healthy.
So perhaps this was still just a boost phase and he had not yet achieved a stable orbit, and what then, old cosmic mind?
Nathaniel returned to the room and crept into bed. He wiped his hands on the sheets. After a few minutes of studying his palms, frowning deeply, he picked up his disposable cell and slipped in a new quantum card.
Then he typed in a key code and called a dummy transponder in Nicaragua.
The dummy flashed his call to a number none of them knew, which passed it on—again through a quantum EPR cell—to yet another number.
It took several seconds to connect with the Quiet Man.
"Checkpoint Turing." The low voice at the other end sounded calm but exhausted.
"Nathaniel here. I'm in LA."
"You're late. Hugh and Jerry have checked in but nobody's heard from Nick in two days. Have you heard about the vice president?"
"Saw it on a reader headline in the hotel lobby. Wild. What does Jones say?"
"I think he knew about it before the public announcement. He called it a 'potential triggering event.' But he won't say if it was planned."
"So what was it, a coincidence?"
"Unknown."
Nathaniel felt a little sting of mortal practicality—followed by irritation. "We were supposed to be free and clear before the shit hit the fan. Any luck with the new covering IDs?"
"They're in place, twenty-one of them. Better than federal grade. I've kept them away from Jones, so he doesn't feel any conflict. His attitude is fairly even and smooth. I'd like to keep it that way.
"I got a call from Dr. Plover, of all people," the Quiet Man continued. "None of you has had any contact with him for over a year, right?"
"I certainly haven't."
"He sounds unhappy. Says he wants to meet. He asked for you in particular."
"Do we owe him anything?"
"No. But he may have something for us. He's being cagey—seems to be caught between professional responsibility and complete paranoia."
"Maybe he should take some of his own medicine."
"He's staying somewhere in downtown LA, near the convention center—there's a security conference there, COPES, C-O-P-E-S. He was scheduled to give a presentation on Mariposa, but withdrew."
"Was he going to use me as an exhibit?"
"Unknown. I suggest that you meet with him. It's only a suggestion, of course."
Nathaniel thought this over, looked down at his hand. "I'm not all that presentable," he said.
The Quiet Man took one of his long pauses. Nathaniel could hear him breathing—soft, regular. It sounded almost artificial, like a machine.
"He wanted me specifically? Not the others in town?"
"Just you. I shipped him an EPR phone. Here's the number." The Quiet Man read it out to him. It was no problem to memorize the sixty-four digits. And Nathaniel was certain he would not forget.
"Get back to me with whatever you learn."
"What if I don't go?" Nathaniel asked, but the connection had already been cut.
He removed the card from the cell and cracked it in half. Code dust leaked out onto the floor. He scuffed the small mound with his bare foot, grinding the tiny polygons into the carpet.
Now no one could ever trace anything, no matter how hard they tried.
Nathaniel lay back on the bed and stared at the blank ceiling, just to quell his overwhelming urge to count. It didn't work. He started up again with the ghostly floaters drifting through his field of vision.
Closed his eyes.
Counted the speckles in the reddish dark.
Another hour passed.
The voice of interior reason spoke.
Why just you? Better call the others. Besides, don't you want to learn how they're getting along?
Let's surprise the old head poker.
He picked up his cell, inserted another card, and made three calls.
The last was to Dr. Plover.
Chapter Fifteen
Boise, Idaho
William Griffin stood in the middle of the wet street and turned full circle, surrounded by fire trucks, canvas hoses, water streaming into the gutters, backing up behind dams of slushy ash, scraps of black shingle, sopping pink insulation—
And the blackened skeletons of twelve suburban homes.
Everything smelled of deadly sweet smoke. His gray suit would reek on the flight back to Washington.
He walked around the hulk of a compact electric Toyota, formerly cherry red, one side now scorched and melted, the rear end twisted and blown out by exploding batteries. The car was still hooked up by a big yellow cable to the driveway plug stand.
The flames had begun in one house—this one, the residence of Maddy and Howard Plumber, now a low black pile and still smoking. High winds from the west had ignited ten other houses. Then the winds had reversed and thrown burning debris over the rest of the neighborhood on the cul-de-sac, skipping only two homes, which now poked from the ashes like healthy molars in a sick jaw.
In the first house, the firemen had found a charred body—female, identified by the coroner through DNA as Madeline Paris, formerly of Bethesda, Maryland. William knew a little about her: a doctor specializing in hormonal and astrocyte disorders.
Her husband, Dr. Terence Plover, aka Howard Plumber, was missing. He might be buried deeper in the smoldering debris, or he might not have been in the house at all. None of the neighbors seemed to know much about them. They had moved in just a couple of weeks ago and weren't very social.
An unmarked Boise police cruiser drew up beside William. A large, square head with a stub of mustache and short bristly brown hair poked out of the driver's window. One hand flipped open a silver badge. "Boise CID. They told me Griff's pup was out here sniffing around. You don't look like your dad, except maybe the eyes."
William turned to squint through his spex at the driver, a detective old enough to have known William Griffin Sr.—known to his friends and colleagues as Griff—an agent who had always been more popular and more accomplished than his son, back in the FBI's better days.
"I take after my mother's side," William said.
"Sorry to hear about your old man," the detective said. He stopped the car in the middle of the street and got out, then leaned on the car door—a bulky, muscular man with a craggy, critical face.
Sharp eyes, sees everything.
"Back in the day, we'd have welcomed Griff's attention. Can't say we feel the same now. Times change, Agent Griffin. Which is it—FBI, or just the Bureau?"
"Bureau," William said.
"That's right. FBI kaput. Draw the blinds, turn out the lights—make sure to flush before you leave." He turned to take in the destruction. "Fire Department has already ruled out arson. Electrical in origin—bad install for a solar power unit. We've got Ada County Crime Analysis, and of course, my people . . . I suppose we'd call ATF if we thought we needed federal help, but we don't. What interests the Bureau? Going after ecoterrorists again?"
William pointed at the white-flagged debris. "I came to interview Howard Plumber."
"What about?"
"Not at liberty."
"Well, either flash your sparks downtown and get a hall pass or move on, Agent Griffin. Feds don't pay their bills. Idaho is happy to take care of its own. Obviously you won't be talking to Plumber today."
William grimaced, half in amusement. "The Ada County coron
er's office and fire department have expressed a willingness to share what they know."
"At whose sufferance?"
"Governor Kinchley," William said.
"Fucking dyke," the CID detective said. "Her term's about up. You can tell her I said so."
"I will. Your name, detective?"
"Johnny Carson, Jonathan Bitch-hater Carson. Boise CID. She knows me."
"I'll bet she does."
"I'll be on this street watching until you move along, Agent Griffin." Carson climbed back into the cruiser. "Your dad would have sniffed the wind and left it to the locals."
"I'll tell him you paid your respects," William said.
That dropped Carson's smug grin into blank uncertainty.
"Next time I visit him in Arlington," William added. "He died for his country. A great big country. All you have is Boise—and maybe Green Idaho."
"Fuck you," Carson said.
William stood his ground, shoulders hunched, hands in pockets.
Carson shook his head in disgust and drove down the street a hundred feet or so, then swerved left and parked diagonally, gifting William with a glare.
William ignored him.
The Green Idaho secessionist movement was growing in political power in Ada County and Boise, as well as the rural counties. It freighted a weird mix of ecology, high-tech savvy, rural bigotry, and rugged libertarian individualism. As far as they were concerned, feds, big lumber, big oil and gas, industrialists, and all rich out-of-state landowners could fuck off and vacate, pronto.
Like most secessionists, Green Idaho was comprised mostly of white guys: anti-tax, failed geeks, anarchists—and a fine crop of bigots.
If this was a Green Idaho reprisal, blown out of control by an unexpected wind storm, then it stood to reason that Detective Johnny Carson would stand guard over the ashes and make excuses until the coast was clear.
A light blinked in the corner of William's spex. He took out his phone and answered the call.
"What's new in Idaho?" Deputy Director Kunsler asked.
Carson watched like a hawk hovering over a mouse.
William turned his back. "Dr. Plover has gone missing. His wife is dead. Looks as if his place was professionally torched—with her in it. But they haven't found his body—so they say."