She shrugged, smiled. "So we lied, sue us. Now. I've done all the talking. It's my turn. Who's Whizzer?"
I looked at her with a steady gaze. "I have no idea."
Her face whitened. "You told me earlier that you knew who he was."
I smiled, shrugged. "So I lied. Sue me."
Chapter Twelve
I think she thought about leaping out of her chair and coming over to strangle me. Her face reddened and her bag dropped to the floor as she said, "You son of a bitch, what kind of fucking joke is this?"
"No joke, Laura," I said. "I wanted to talk to you, and I wanted you over here, alone. I didn't want to be on your turf anymore, with your muscle boys and all the trappings of your job. I needed to get your attention, and I used the best way I could."
"You lied!" she said, her voice rising. "You lied about---"
"Ever hear the word ironic?" I put a hand on my desk, picked up my well-worn Merriam-Webster's dictionary. "Here. You can look it up. One of the most popular definitions is that of a government official, who's been lying from the get-go, complaining that the person she's been lying to has just returned the favor. Care to look it up?"
"Right now I'd care to see you choke on it," she said.
"Probably won't fit, no matter how hard you try," I said. "Look. I’ve done some preliminary work on this Whizzer character already. That’s a given. Now that I’m to speed on what you clowns are doing, I’ll be even more serious in my efforts.”
“What the hell do you mean by that little remark?”
"Look, having me snoop around for a druggie, well, how much effort above and beyond do you think I'd expend? Now that I'm looking for someone who claims to hold enriched uranium and is willing to sell it to the Libyans... well, you've got my attention. Earlier you appealed to my patriotism. That wasn't going to work, coming from you. But it will work, coming from me. I don't like the idea of uranium ending up where it doesn't belong."
"So you're saying that me telling you all is a good thing?"
I nodded. "Best damn thing that probably happened to you today."
I was surprised to see a smile appear. "You're probably right." She suddenly rubbed at her face with both hands, and when she took her hands away she looked ten years younger and about a half foot smaller. "People just don't know," she said, her voice just above a whisper. "They don't care anymore. We no longer have those idiots over in Red Square and those big May Day parades and submarines lurking off the East and West Coast to worry about, and people no longer care. Our fellow citizens think they can earn their money and fatten their portfolios, and that nobody hates us anymore. To most of them, foreigners are just people who care about getting better Internet access. There's no threat out there, no threat at all."
Another rub of her face. "Last year I saw some public affairs show about the lack of interest people have in current events. They talked to some surfer guy out in California, with earrings through his eyebrows. He said all he cared about was getting a buzz on and worrying about a nice killer wave. That's it. That's the kind of people I'm defending, day in and day out. Killer waves. I'd like to educate him about killer waves, like gamma rays from a nuclear burst. Gamma rays that can punch through almost everything and give you a death sentence from miles away. I'll bet there's some people in Baghdad and Tripoli and Pyongyang who know all sorts of things about killer waves, and would like to show them to that surfer dude and his friends.”
“I’m sure,” I said.
She looked at me. “I’m venting, aren’t I? One of my many faults. Pops up every now and then on my performance appraisals. I get fired up about something and I start venting. Blathering on and on, especially when I'm tired. And especially when I'm hungry. Which reminds me, I'm starved."
"Really?" I asked.
"Really," she said. "I think now I'd like to take you up on your offer."
"And which offer is that?"
"To make me dinner," she said.
I looked over at her, different things conflicting in and out inside of my mind. I felt like someone being urged to pet a grinning rattlesnake. Then I smiled and said, "All right."
Downstairs I opened a bottle of Merlot and got my outdoor grill going. Earlier in the week I had purchased a nice piece of tenderloin steak for tonight, but it was big enough so I was sure that it would feed us both. She sat at the kitchen counter and said, "Anything I can do to help?"
"No," I said. "It's my kitchen and while it may not be much, it does belong to me. Just chat with me to pass the time, why don't you?"
"About what?" she said. "More secret information?"
"No, not at all," I said, washing some lettuce in the kitchen sink and placing the leaves in a salad spinner. "Give me some basic stuff. Like what a nice girl like you is doing in the service of her country, hunting nukes and nuclear material."
She poured both of us a glass of wine. "Quick and dirty story, coming right up. Grew up in Wyoming--"
"The great outdoors out west?"
"You didn't let me finish," she said. "Wyoming, Delaware. Did well in high school, very well in math and physics. Ever hear about women having a fear of math? Well, not this woman. I did great in my SATs and applied to CalTech, and there I went. Majored in nuclear physics, and before I graduated decided that working for the civilian nuclear program was a dead end. No offense but that lovely power plant you have down the coast, but nobody’s building any more nuclear power plants, and probably won’t think of doing it again until both poles melt from global warming and we have to build dikes around Miami and Manhattan. That's not a particular attractive time frame to build one's career around."
I started washing two baking potatoes, and after poking dozens of little holes in them with a knife, popped them into the microwave. "So there you were, in school, big loans coming due, your career options limited. Then somebody showed up from the government and gave you the Great Lie Number One."
She sipped from her wineglass. "How true. 'We're here from the government and we're here to help.' Which actually wasn't too far from the truth. After graduation, went right into the Department of Energy. Paid my dues, did the usual things here and there, and then I applied to NEST. Not to brag, Lewis, but only the best get to apply to NEST, and only the very best get chosen."
I took some more dinner fixings out of the refrigerator.
"What do you think your selection committee would do if they knew that you've just revealed all to a civilian while you were on a mission?"
A defiant shrug. "If I can get that uranium secured and in a safe place, they wouldn't give a shit. Success breeds success, Lewis, and I haven't screwed up on an assignment yet. And this won't be the first one that I screw up on. Not by a long shot."
I got the potatoes out of the microwave and put them in the oven, juggling the hot spuds in my hands. "Care to tell me what other missions you might be on?"
"Sure," she said. "I would care not to. Sorry, you know the ins and outs of this little baby. I'm not about to tell you any more."
"Fair enough," I said. "Excuse me for a second, will you?"
I went past her and opened the sliding doors to the rear deck and went to my new grill to check the temperature. Almost there. I leaned against the railing, looked at the darkening sky. This morning I had been in Boston trying to confirm something I had guessed about, and less than twelve hours later, all had been revealed. Surprise, surprise. I looked through the sliding glass, saw her on the phone. Probably telling her workmates that she won't be home for dinner. How sweet. As I looked at her on the phone, I thought again about who she was and what she did. When I had first met her, she had seemed the very model of a federal bureaucrat. Now, looking at her form and hair and eyes... she still looked like the very model of a federal bureaucrat. But definitely one who did more than the average employee of the IRS.
Temperature check on the grill. Perfect. I went back inside, and Laura was at the counter again, wineglass in her hand. "Oh, the phone rang while you were out there. Some woman named Paula. She didn't leave a message."
Uh-oh, I thought. "Why didn't you come get me?"
"She insisted that I not do that, so I didn't," she said, eyeing me curiously. "Who is she, your girlfriend?"
I went over to the phone. "She's a woman and she's a friend. Let's leave it at that, shall we?"
I dialed, got a busy signal. Damn. "Did she ask you who you were?"
"Nope, and I didn't offer. Hey, is this messing things up for you and this Paula?"
I tried again. Still busy. I put the receiver back down. "Let's just say that we're working through some things, and I wished I had answered the phone and not you, no offense. It's time to start grilling. You still starved?"
A smile. "Famished."
Three more tries on the telephone later, I managed to get past the busy Signals. But either she wasn't home or wasn't answering, but I did manage to leave a message for Paula to call back. By then, dinner was ready. Laura had ignored my instructions to stay out of the kitchen and she had found a couple of plumber candles, which I keep around to use when the power goes dead during an ice storm or blizzard. The meal of steak, baked potatoes and salad was simple --- one of these days I'll become a gourmet cook, right after learning to play the bagpipes --- but it seemed to suit Laura.
She said, “A home-cooked meal seems to blessedly heavenly. After eating restaurant food or takeout service for a while, it all starts to taste the same. One of the first things I do when I get home is to camp out in the kitchen and just cook to my heart's content. Some people get fat while they're away. Not me. I eat poorly, and I definitely don't eat enough."
"And where is home?" I asked.
"Don't laugh. A condo in a suburb outside of Las Vegas. Real estate still relatively cheap, and it's an easy commute to work."
"Live alone?" "Of course."
"So that story about your boyfriend, that wasn't part of the cover story?"
She had her fork about halfway up to her mouth when I said that, and then she lowered it down to her plate. "I may be guilty of a lot of things, Lewis, but telling lies about Tom isn't one of them. He really did go to MIT. He was in Air Force ROTC and was studying aeronautical engineering. Only way he could afford to go to that place and get the brass rat. We... we managed to spend a lot of good times together, even with me working in the DOE and him being a pilot. And yes, he did get shot down in Colombia. Hell, I even got word of it before his parents did... His poor mom. She couldn't understand why she couldn't see her boy in the casket before they buried him. She wanted to kiss him one last time. The poor dear didn't realize that what was left of him --- was left of the boy she had loved and kissed and wiped his nose --- once he and his aircraft slammed into the side of a mountain looked like a lump of greasy black charcoal. And I wasn't about to explain it to her."
Her eyes began to fill. "So that was all true. I was in fact wearing his sweatshirt. I wish to Christ it was a cover story, I wish the whole goddamn thing was a cover story, but it wasn't. Your curiosity satisfied?"
I found myself reaching over and touching her hand. "Quite. And my apologies for jumping to a conclusion."
She softly pulled her hand away, picked up her fork again. “Apologies accepted. I can’t rightly blame you, considering the crap I spun you way earlier. Which reminds me, belated and hateful congratulations for sniffing out my real job. You must have been a real pisser back at the Pentagon."
I wiped at my lips with a napkin. "It had its moments." "I've opened my life to you, my friend. How about repaying the favor?"
"Like what?"
"Like how did a nice boy like you end up working in the bowels of the five-sided puzzle palace."
I smiled at her. "You sure you have the clearance?"
She rested her elbows on the counter, leaned her chin into her folded hands. "Trust me," she said. "My clearance level is such that I know things even the President doesn't know."
"All right," I said. "Born and raised in New Hampshire. Moved to Indiana as a young boy. Went to the University of Indiana at Bloomington. Worked on the school newspaper. Was going to enter journalism when I got out. But there was... oh, I don't know. I had a sense that I should be doing more than just reporting on a zoning-board conflict or a car accident. I had a talent for writing, no doubt about it. But I had no talent for fiction writing and I wasn't too compelled to enter newspaper work after I graduated, but... let's just say I was a conflicted college youth."
She gazed at me. "Let me guess. Then a man from the government showed up with Great Lie Number One."
I laughed. "Good, very good. Close. A man from the government placed an ad in the very same newspaper I was writing for. They were looking for energetic, talented college students who wanted to make good money and do something in service of their country. So me and a few dozen others took a test in a gymnasium. I'm sure you know the kind of test I'm talking about."
Laura leaned up and picked up her wineglass. "Sure. Multiple choice. Number lines. Problem solving."