Craig Kreident #1: Virtual Destruction (14 page)

As Michaelson watched, a beat-up gray government pickup drove up to the double gate outside the portal building.
 
A uniformed security guard came out and opened the outer chain-link gate.
 
Metal bollards automatically sank down into the ground like giant steel teeth, allowing the truck to drive into the compound.

The guard closed the fence behind him as the driver ran around to pass his badge through the reader.
 
The guard took out a long angled mirror on a pole and began inspecting underneath the chassis of the old truck.
 
He opened the doors, looked under the seats, popped open the glove compartment, and rummaged around in the bed of the truck.
 
The driver came back through the portal building, and waited for the guard to finish his search.

Michaelson tapped his feet as he watched the tedious process.
 
What a pain in the ass
, he thought.

When the guard signaled by slapping the hood, the driver hopped back into the truck.
 
The second set of metal bollards lowered to allow the truck access to the Superblock.

 
“Okay!” said Aragon, coming out the side door and rubbing his hands together.
 
“Just had to reset the software.
 
We’re ready to go in.
 
Follow me and we’ll get you suited up and checked through.”

Aragon continued to chatter during the entry process.
 
They passed through another metal detector, then into the locker rooms where Michaelson had to squirm into a tight-fitting orange lab coat, clip on a nuclear accident dosimeter, and finally enter the Radioactive Materials Area.

The building was as ugly inside as on the outside, Michaelson thought: 1960s prison-barracks style . . . or worse yet, public schools from the ‘50s, with linoleum-tiled floors, white painted cinderblock walls.
 
More metal junk and pipes than could possibly be accounted for ran along the suspended ceiling and along the walls.

The workers seemed busy, like a bunch of good-old-boys who catcalled to each other, with a lot of back-slapping, punching in the biceps, friendly joshing.
 
It annoyed Michaelson.
 
They seemed like a bunch of high-school football studs playing grab ass.
 
Even though the workers seemed on good terms with each other, no one appeared to recognize Aragon; however that didn’t stop him from smiling and greeting each person he passed.

Michaelson felt bone tired, thanks to Amber, thanks to the long flight.
 
Traveling did little more than upset his stomach and make his eyes burn.
 
He’d been running on adrenaline for days before the presidential press conference, and now that it was over he felt exhausted, letdown.
 
He had little patience for a boob like Aragon.

“Just what exactly did you want to show me?” Michaelson asked as they walked down the hall, passing the third identical-looking glove-box lab.

“Well. . .” Aragon shrugged.
 
“We need to discuss the best place to set up those VR sensors of yours.
 
That’s a fabulous chamber you have by the way.
 
I witnessed a demonstration of it when Mr. Lesserec gave a wonderful tour to those kids from the Coalition for Family Values.
 
We want to bring them in here for a tour next, show them some nuts-and-bolts work.”

“Glad you were impressed,” Michaelson said in a flat voice. “It means a lot to me.
 
A hell of a lot.”

Aragon beamed, then faltered, not knowing how to take Michaelson’s comment.
 
The Associate Director took great pride, and a great deal of time, to show him the new array setups in the radioactive materials vaults, the forced separation of samples of fissile material, the careful accounting and security methods.

They passed the fabrication facility, then the welding and recovery lab.
 
Waving his hands, Aragon seemed euphoric as he showed off the new barrel counters, large neutron and alpha detectors that assayed barrels of mixed radioactive waste and suspected contaminated materials.
 
Aragon led him to the door of another lab area filled with more glove-boxes—grungy like a bad high school metal-shop project and just as uninteresting as the first three similar rooms.

Michaelson felt his brain turning into mush.
 
His eyes itched from lack of sleep, and he just plain did not want to be in the company of José Aragon, or inside the Plutonium Facility.
 
He either wanted to be home in bed or back at his T Program office.

Before they could enter the glove-box room, Michaelson held up his hand.
 
“Hold on a second.”
 
He walked across the hall to the bathroom.
 
“I’m calling a halt to this crap.”

Shocked, Aragon followed Michaelson like a puppy into the restroom.
 
Michaelson stood at the urinal, staring at the wall and ignoring Aragon.
 
Finally, he turned to the smaller man and said, “So what did you really bring me here for?
 
All this tour-guide baloney is a bunch of bullshit.”

Aragon didn’t seem to know how to answer.
 
“I, uh, just wanted to show you some of the things we do here in the Tech-Transfer/Defense Conversion Directorate.
 
You
are
part of it, Hal, even though you don’t participate in any administrative activities.”

“Thank God for that.”
 
Michaelson finished, zipped up, and glared at him.
 
“Look, I’ve got the President and a bunch of foreign dignitaries coming here in a few weeks.
 
I’ve also got a ton of catch-up work to do—and you’re playing show and tell with me.
 
I don’t have time for it.
 
No way, José.”

He looked at himself in the mirror, sighed at the red-rimmed eyes and the haggard face.
 
He turned the water on in the sink, hit the soap dispenser, and lathered up before stooping over to splash the cold running water on his cheeks, in his eyes.
 
It felt good, refreshing.
 
He splashed again.

Aragon started to say something, but the running water drowned out his words.
 
Michaelson shut off the faucet and stood up, flinging droplets from his hands.

“What I’m trying to say, Hal,” Aragon said, sounding panicked now, “is that I know we’ve had difficulties.
 
I’m trying to build a bridge between us—to bury the hatchet, or whatever you want to say.
 
I’d like us to make peace if we’re going to make this International Verification Initiative work together.”

Michaelson stepped back and looked at the AD in scornful amazement.
 
Aragon fled to the sink, hit the soap dispenser briefly, and washed his hands just for something to do.

“Look, José, the IVI Project is
mine
, not yours.
 
Not anybody else’s here.
 
I’m the only one who had the vision and the foresight.
 
I
developed the technology.
 
I
created this alone, in spite of the mess you’ve made out of just about every single thing you’ve touched.

“I don’t want to make peace with you.
 
I don’t want to talk to you.
 
I don’t want to see you.
 
Delicate instruments have not yet been calibrated to measure how
little
I care about what you think of me.”

He dried his hands, dabbed his face with a brown paper towel and tossed it in the wastebasket.

“Now, if you would escort me the hell out of here, I need to get back to work.”
 
He turned and narrowed his eyes at the befuddled Aragon.
 
“Or do I have to write a few more memos about your poor performance?”
 
He smiled coldly.
 
“Maybe this time I could send them to the President directly, since I’ve got his ear.”

José Aragon scuttled after him as Michaelson took long strides down the corridor of the Plutonium Facility, finally feeling good for the first time that day.

CHAPTER 14

Wednesday

Oakland Office

Federal Bureau of Investigation

“Craig, could I see you for a minute?”

Craig Kreident looked up from the paperwork to see his supervisor June Atwood standing outside the doorway of his small office.
 
Slim and in her mid-forties, June gave him a broad smile that halfway succeeded in masking her expression of concern.
 
Her skin was the color of polished walnut wood, with the same sheen; her black eyes seemed too big for her narrow face; her close-cropped hair lay like felt against her head.

“Sure, June.
 
Your office or mine?” said Craig.

His windowless office was cramped, bookshelves laden with old criminal law books, electrical engineering and computer science texts, and cardboard bankers’ boxes filled with handwritten notebooks from his patent law days.
 
June’s slender form was nearly blocked out by the two long metal drawers yawning open from his file cabinet and exposing a disarray of papers.

June looked around, saw no place for her to sit, and gestured out the door.
 
“Let’s go down the hall.”

He pushed up from his desk, surprised that his body felt so fatigued.
 
Coffee just hadn’t done it this morning.
 
A field agent, he wasn’t used to sitting for hours on end anymore, poring over reports and going over obscure facts.
 
But he had to tie up all the loose ends of the NanoWare incident.
 
Being intently involved in a case always made his body realize there were other priorities in life than paperwork.
 
As usual, he just didn’t have the time.

He had spent the entire previous day answering questions, being grilled by Internal Affairs personnel, filling out form after form, documenting exactly what had gone wrong with the Skraling arrest.
 
Jackson and Goldfarb had confirmed everything Craig had said, and the evidence against NanoWare was overwhelming.
 
But the CEO’s suicide had thrown everything into a whirlpool.

June Atwood’s office was as clean and spacious as Craig’s was cramped and sloppy.
 
Two pictures of her family sat on the credenza to her left; an undergraduate diploma from Grambling and an MBA from Harvard hung on either side of a cluster of framed government Superior Service awards.
 
A squeaky overstuffed chair waited for him on the opposite side of her wooden desk as Craig plopped his lanky frame down, adjusting his suit.
 
June closed the door after him.

“Don’t worry, this conversation’s not being recorded,” she said jokingly.

He forced a grin.
 
“That’s a first.”
 
Craig drummed his fingers on the arms of the chair, feeling uneasy.
 
“This looks serious, June.
 
I’ve nearly finished all the reports you asked for—”

Instead of hiding behind the barrier of her desk, June sat in the visitor’s chair opposite him, a colleague and a friend rather than a boss speaking to a recalcitrant employee.
 
She smoothed her khaki skirt.
 
“We haven’t talked for a while, Craig.
 
Whenever I’m back in the office, you’re out in the field or testifying.”

“You’re telling me,” Craig said.
 
“I suppose the CIA folks are all taking early retirement after the Cold War, but unfortunately, we’ve still got plenty of bad guys to catch inside our own borders.”

June looked away, distracting herself.
 
“Call it job security.
 
So, how are things going?
 
How’s Trish?”

Craig shrugged, then looked annoyed.
 
“It
has
been a long time, hasn’t it?
 
Trish has been gone for over a year.”
 
The memory hurt—she had been a medical student with one of those pre-midlife crises.
 
“Had to follow her own path, left for the east coast to take up residency at Johns Hopkins.
 
I hear she goes by the name Patrice now.”

June sighed.
 
“Sorry to hear that, Craig.
 
I didn’t—”

Tired of the small talk, Craig interrupted her.
 
“June, what’s going on?
 
I appreciate your concern, but something’s the matter, and you’re not doing a very good job at hiding it.
 
Am I going to be placed on administrative leave for the Nanoware mess?”

June nodded slowly while keeping her big, dark eyes on him. “Okay, I’ll come right out and say it.
 
I think it would be a good idea if you took a day or two off.
 
Let us finish going over the paperwork.”

Craig blinked.
 
“What are you looking for?”