Margot smiled and gave Ben a kiss on the cheek. ‘I was a woman for a long time before I was a soldier. Besides my Mom taught me plenty when she was alive. Now
she
was a great cook. You would have loved her steak pie.’
Ben felt he should probably ask about Margot’s mother, but she seemed comfortable talking about it and he figured she must have passed quite some time ago.
They sat down to eat and Ben found the food tasted as good as it looked. The lamb was pink and tender and Margot had made some kind of potato cake with thin slices of potatoes and a creamy sauce.
‘So tell me about these other cases,’ she said.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said, ‘I’ve already passed them on to the FBI for further investigation. I’m done with the whole thing.’
Margot raised her eyebrows. She seemed to know Ben better than he knew himself and she waited for him to continue.
‘OK,’ he said. ‘I was watching TV the other night and I was bored and channel surfing. As I flicked through the channels, I came across an unsolved crimes documentary show that was about a young woman who’d been shot in the head whilst running in a park.’
‘I can how see that would grab your attention.’
‘Anyway, when I got to work, I searched the national crimes database and found there were a number of other cases with a similar MO, spread out from Chicago to LA.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. Each case has remained unsolved, included one French diamond trader that left behind a quarter million in diamonds in his hotel safe.’
‘Was he out for a run?’
‘No, he was making a phone call from his hotel balcony. Naked.’
‘That must have come as a shock,’ Margot said. She reached over and filled Ben’s wine glass.
‘I bet it was a shock, but it was probably over with pretty quickly.’
‘No, I mean for whoever he was on the phone with.’
Ben felt a real jackass. He hadn’t checked the phone records.
Were the others carrying phones too? Was that another link?
‘So you’re still off the case?’ Margot said.
‘For now. Is there any more of that potato pie?’
‘It’s called gratin dauphinoise, you uncultured swine, and yes, there’s more.’
Margot took Ben’s plate back to the kitchen. Ben thought about the victims. He let the details replay over and over in his mind hoping that something would jump out. An insurance broker from LA, believed to be a Muslim, with no friends. A diamond dealer from France, no wait, from Algeria, with at least one friend—on the phone. A Russian call-girl,
probably with too many friends
, he thought to himself with a wry smile. And a research assistant from D.C. with no close friends. Were these people loners? Why would anyone target loners? Were they all Muslim? Ben seemed to remember Algeria was a mainly Muslim state. But wasn’t the LA guy non-practicing, he didn’t even go to the mosque. And he was pretty sure there were no Muslim Russian call girls. He was deeply lost in thought when Margot came back in.
‘Your potato pie, sir,’ she said in a voice that he could only figure was meant to sound like a serving wench.
‘What do you know about the Muslim faith?’ Ben asked.
‘Are you asking from a “dinner with a girlfriend” perspective, or from an “army intelligence” perspective?’
‘Let’s try the girlfriend perspective.’
‘OK, I think the religion is
Islam
and a
Muslim
is one that follows Islam.’
‘You’re smart. And from the army intelligence perspective?’
‘That’s above you’re pay grade, soldier.’
‘Thanks. But seriously?’
‘I assume if you’re asking about Muslims from an army intelligence viewpoint, you’re really asking about terrorism. The FBI has a terrorist watch list that doesn’t focus on Muslims alone, but since the attacks of 9/11 it has been known to grow at an alarming rate. The last I heard it was approaching a million members.’
‘Holy shit.’
‘Well a million names, rather. A lot of names are thought to be alias’s. And don’t make the mistake of thinking that Muslim means terrorist. There are fundamentalist extremists in many religions, what about the IRA? You wouldn’t say that all Catholics are terrorists would you?’
‘No I guess not.’
‘Why do you ask?’
‘Just a hunch. Some of the victims may have a link to Islam. It’s a pretty thin hunch, I guess.’
‘Would you like me to run the names?’
‘You’re kidding?’
‘No problem. I’ll run them tomorrow and let you know.’
Ben wrote his list of names on a scrap of paper and then finished his second helping of gratin.
‘You know I could get used to this.’
‘What, gratin potatoes?’
‘No, having dinner with you.’
Chris went to help Michelle finish getting dinner ready whilst Wyn was in the shower. She was setting up plates and he walked up behind her and put his arms around her waist. It felt good to hold her and he kissed her gently on the neck. Michelle moaned softly and then grabbed his hands and pulled them away.
‘Come on,’ she said. ‘That’s not helping.’
Chris grabbed the wine bottle and started with the corkscrew. ‘I met up with Joshua today,’ he said. ‘The guy who’s been sponsoring my research project.’
Michelle was cutting a crusty French loaf into thick slices and dropping them into a cloth bread basket. ‘Really?’ she said. ‘Everything OK?’
If only you knew the half of it
, thought Chris, but he wasn’t going to get Michelle worried. If he was well behaved he was sure he wasn’t in any immediate danger. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. He wants to take things in a new direction.’
‘I remember from your last meeting, they were going to put some new guy in your team to help transition the project out of research mode.’
‘That’s right. Well things have changed a bit. Instead of Maynard coming to work with me at Foggy Bottom, I’m going to be working at their offices over in Arlington.’
‘Wow, that’s great news. They must really like your work. But what about your teaching time?’
‘We didn’t really discuss that, but I’m pretty sure that Joshua will arrange things with GWU.’
‘So is this some kind of promotion, will you be on more money?’
‘No. No more money. But Joshua made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. You could call it a lifestyle choice.’
Wyn came into the kitchen. He was wearing different clothes but his tee shirt was crumpled. He sat at the table. His hair was still wet from the shower and he had shaved, but still, he was one of those guys that never really looked clean.
‘That feels better,’ he said. ‘Thank you for putting up with me Michelle.’
Michelle smiled. Wyn didn’t seem half as bad as she’d remembered him. Maybe he’d mellowed over the years, or maybe she’d become more self-assured and now found him less threatening, or annoying. Whichever it was, Chris seemed to like having him around.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked.
‘Starved,’ he said.
They ate dinner and chatted about old times. Some of it about Chris and Wyn’s time in the army, but mostly about when they’d all three been together in London. Happy times. They drank too much wine and Michelle started to get a headache. She excused herself and went to bed. Chris decided to open a bottle of port and make a night of it. Wyn didn’t resist. Chris was in no hurry to go to bed. The sooner he gave up on the night, the sooner he’d be starting his new job, and that was something he wasn’t looking forward to.
‘What are your plans for tomorrow?’ asked Chris.
‘You mean today?’
Chris looked at his watch. ‘Shit. Today,’ he corrected.
‘Not sure. Why don’t you ask for some time off and we could hang out? What’s your boss like?’
Chris liked Wyn but he had a funny streak that was wide and deep, and often when he was being sarcastic it was hard to tell. ‘He’s a real asshole,’ said Chris. He tried to keep his face straight but couldn’t.
‘Do you remember,’ said Wyn staring at the light through his glass of port, ‘when we were in Bosnia together?’
‘Of course I remember.’
‘Remember those bodies we found?’
‘In the burnt out wreck, sure. What’s your point?’
‘I have nightmares about them Chris. I see their faces with blackened crispy skin stretching tight across their skulls. Their grizzly, toothy grins.’
Chris didn’t speak.
‘We wedged cigarettes in their mouths, between those damned teeth, and posed for photographs. Do you still have them?’
‘It seems sick now,’ said Chris.
‘It was just the way things were. You took the piss or you went crazy. That’s how it worked. It’s a fucked up world, Chris.’
Chris topped up their glasses and set the bottle back on the table. ‘Wyn, I want you to do something for me.’
‘Name it.’
‘Look after Michelle for me? When I’m working? I’ll ask her to show you around D.C., but I want you to look after her. Can you do that?’
Wyn knew what Chris meant. ‘Sure mate,’ he said. ‘I’ll keep her safe.’
Chris finished his glass and stood.
‘I’m done,’ he said. ‘See you tomorrow.’
Wyn grunted and topped up his glass.
When Chris got to his room he found Michelle already asleep. He stood for a moment just watching her in the glow of the lamp. She looked beautiful. Chris took off his clothes and climbed into bed. He slid up to her and put his arm over.
I won’t let anything happen to you
, he told himself. He breathed deeply and closed his eyes, then fell asleep.
Maynard walked into Joshua’s office. He looked tired; he’d been working long hours. Keeping the country safe was a serious business.
‘You said you wanted to see me,’ said Maynard.
‘Take a seat,’ said Joshua. He looked up from his computer and smiled. ‘Our friend Mr. Sanders is going to be working here tomorrow. We had a little chat and came to an understanding. I think it could work out.’
‘Does he know about Jasmine?’
‘He knows it was an accident.’
Maynard nodded. There were all types of accidents and this certainly was an unplanned event, although it hadn’t occurred by chance.
‘He’s going to work on the facial recognition routines,’ said Joshua. ‘I want you to be his mentor, show him the ropes, help him get set up.’
Maynard nodded again. ‘And I suppose you want me to keep an eye on him too?’
‘That would be prudent don’t you think?’
‘We could just make him go away.’
‘I’m quite aware of our options. I think that there’s a lot of use left in Chris and we certainly have a lot of work to do before we’re fully operational. He can’t do a lot of damage to us. We need to keep a low profile and let things die down a bit. How are the modifications to Horus coming on?’
‘Good. We’re about six months away from a field trial.’
Joshua had known at the start of this project that it was not practical to deploy a fleet of UAVs in the mainland United States that would be killing their targets using conventional weapons. No matter how covert he made the drones and how great the effective killing distance, there was always the problem of forensics. They’d been lucky so far. The few trials had been successful and whilst a mystery to the police, the cases had eventually gone cold due largely to the lack of evidence and witnesses. The new weapons system would change all of that, and when it was fully operational his dream of a safe America would finally be realized.
‘What do the results of the lab tests show?’ asked Joshua.
‘Initial indications are good. Obviously we have no measurements of our effective range as all tests have been in the lab, but we have some good evidence on the lethality. So far we’ve seen 90% of tests cause a fatal brain hemorrhage within five minutes of a weapon strike. The other 10% took anywhere up to three days to cause death, but the results are quite astounding, once the victim is hit by the concentrated high-frequency radio beam, they’re dead, the only question is, how long it takes.’