‘Get your Janny boys up and ready to ship out. Let’s do it, now!’
Fouad jerked up from a light doze and stared at the bald colonel leaning through the open metal door. The colonel pulled back and Fouad wondered if he had been dreaming, but then he heard the sirens wailing throughout the base.
He quickly slipped into his flak vest and camouflage uniform, then checked his pack.
In the NCO mess hall, he spoke quickly with the twentytwo Jannies under his command. He did not like that name and they did not use it among themselves, but at Incirlik that was what they had been called, and it was now just below the level of official—Jannies or Janissaries.
Outside the barracks, on the runways, dozens of transport aircraft were roaring and fanning thin clouds of sand and dirt as if trying to imitate the recent dust storms.
Another colonel pointed them across the cracked asphalt runway to a truck. They climbed in with what gear they carried. Another truck arrived and soldiers threw some boxes in after them. Nobody knew what was happening. It was six in the morning and dawn gleamed like a sleep-folded eye in the eastern sky.
As they approached their aircraft, another colonel in flight gear ran alongside, pulled himself into the rear of the truck, and called out to Fouad. ‘They have Turkish troops circling the base. They don’t seem to like us right now, so we’re
pulling out all mobile commands. That includes Jannies and BuDark teams. We’ll reconnoiter at a site yet to be determined but way the hell away from here. Questions?’
They had none—for this colonel. They were a tight-knit group now, having trained together for weeks, friendly enough but suspicious of the soldiers, airmen, and officers around them. They were wide awake but not too curious. Life thus far had been boring. Something new was welcome even on such short notice.
The young men around Fouad shook hands and clapped shoulders. Then they passed around a thermos of hot coffee.
‘What are they going to do with us?’ they asked him, as if he might know.
‘Just a guess,’ Fouad said. ‘I think the fighting around Mecca is going badly. Wahhabi insurgents are coming in with pilgrims to the Hajj. Someone is losing control.’
‘Are we?’ they asked. By which they meant, ‘Muslims?’
‘We, Americans,’ Fouad countered softly, ‘and the people we supply, more likely. Anger among the faithful is burning like a fever. It must be getting particularly bad for Turkey to want us out. Hajj is almost upon us. It is a delicate time.’
‘When will they brief us? Why don’t we fight? What are they saving us for?’
‘God only knows,’ Fouad said. ‘Living near the heart of the world takes patience.’
Early in the morning, their plane landed at another nameless forward mobile air base, a patch of flat rocky terrain, nothing more than a bare airstrip carved from the desert. There were few guards and only light air support so they remained near the aircraft, five transports arranged in a pentacle, and took turns running and timing each other until the breezes subsided and the day became too hot.
Later that afternoon, more sandstorms moved in and they
slept and played cards and watched videos inside the hot cargo holds.
After the evening repast of MREs—some containing pork ribs, which they quietly set aside—an Air Force military intelligence officer approached Fouad. ‘Can we talk?’ the older man asked. He was short, gray-haired and big-shouldered, with just the slightest gut which he tried to hide by tightening his belt. ‘Do you know anything about OWL?’ the officer asked. He pulled out a secure slate and calling up a display tagged
Quantum Confirm ACCESS Only. This ACCESS is remotely logged.
Fouad shook his head. ‘Owl, O-W-L. No. It is not familiar.’
‘I have been instructed to give you a tactical briefing on how to call down an OWL strike. Don’t ask me why. Neither system has been fully tested, and personally, I wouldn’t rely on them, but orders are orders.’
OWL, Fouad learned, stood for Orbital Warhead Lancet, an enhanced self-guided kinetic kill weapon designed to pierce deep bunkers. As he listened, Fouad’s eyes watered with a hot combination of anger, fear, and exaltation.
Perhaps there would be no bloodshed after all. Blood would not have time to flow.
And there would be no bodies left to bury.
Mr. John Brown had moved most of the settlers’ sons into the tent city in Mina. They had kept the hotel room, and two of the young men were staying there to maintain their vigil over the garage where the trucks were stored.
Opening the sealed walls and privileges of the house of Saud had brought chaos and death to the Hajj, as in the times of old, but nothing could stop the hundreds of thousands of pilgrims; their accumulated power and passion had sobered even these sons of Zion, of Eretz Israel, and had turned them inward as they rested in their tent through the long night.
The enormity of what they were about to do had finally subdued Winter’s boys.
Once again after decades of tight Saudi control Mecca was dangerous. Thieves and rogue police and soldiers like lost ants worked the outskirts of the crowds. There had been beatings and rapes—of men and women, some said—and even murders. Yet around them now, in a bubble of enterprise and faith maintained by vigilance and a bond between the local merchants and pilgrims, they saw little but brotherhood and joy and a shared passion for God.
The entire city was drunk with God.
The settlers’ sons prayed in small groups, seeking a renewal of their strength. Yet not one of his young men asked for forgiveness. They had been raised with equal passion and focus, confirmed in a blood religion rooted in sacred land.
They had long since grown inured to the sting of hate, like scorpions immune to their own poison.
The tall American hardly knew what name to use now. John Brown, Sam Bedford, Larry Winter—he could feel his past falling off behind him like the slats of a cartoon suspension bridge. Soon the final slat would drop and he would tumble into a deep chasm of forgetting and all would be peaceful. His grief lost, his reason reduced to a simple matter of day to day, hunger and sustenance…should he live to see out the week, which was also doubtful.
I’ll return to them their first memory of a blue sky seen by an innocent child. All of them, victims and killers, equal under God.
The only problem was, now that the intense and constant memory of his grief was fading, Winter was less and less convinced any of this was necessary. He had assumed he was acting out of conviction and not hate. Unlike Tommy, he had reason, he had an achievable goal. Now, however, he was like a bullet. Gunpowder spent, the slug moved forward on momentum alone, impeded by the thickening air, slowed by the scent of hundreds of thousands of fellow human beings trying to talk to God.
Trying earnestly, desperately, submissively, to hear His words.
Listening.
As Rebecca had commented earlier, no prison was beautiful, but at least they hadn’t incarcerated William in a Virginia Department of Corrections hell-hole or in the Marine Corps brig on the base at Quantico.
But then, neither had they told him why he was being held or where they had taken Rebecca or what the hell was going on in the outside world that could explain why two special agents would be treated this way.
After eight hours, guards escorted William to the end of the yellow hall and across a small courtyard with one thin tree to a windowless room on the second floor of a windowless concrete building. The room had a table and two chairs and it was smaller than his cell. Its only other features were a round grill in the wall—some sort of speaker—and higher up two air vents with red ribbons. The ribbons rippled as the two men sat him in the northern chair. William had made sure to keep his sense of direction, if only to have this small bit of knowledge. The rest was a nightmare puzzle.
Even so, he was glad to be out of the cell, and he actually looked forward to this discussion.
‘This is Gene, and I’m Kurt with a K,’ said the taller of the two men. Both were trim and wore golf shirts with alligator patches—one pink, one pale green—and beige pants, and both were shorter than William, less than five-ten. The
taller one, Kurt with a K, had thinning brown hair and a wisp of mustache. The other, Gene, had thick curly black hair and green eyes. They seemed calm enough. Kurt pulled out the other seat and sat. William could not help but think of the men and women he had interrogated for the NYPD—and of course Jeremiah Chambers.
Gene leaned against the wall under the speaker grill. The east wall. The west wall held the windowless door. There was no knob on the inside of the door. It could only be opened by someone on the outside.
Kurt began. ‘You graduated from the Academy in April, and right away you were assigned to work with Special Agent Rebecca Rose, correct?’
‘It just sort of happened.’
‘You didn’t choose to work with her?’
‘She asked the Bureau if I could be temporarily assigned to work with her.’
‘So she liked you.’
‘I suppose.’
‘She usually doesn’t work well with others. Is that your evaluation?’
‘We got along.’
‘She’s prickly. A loner.’
‘If you say so.’
‘Did you know anything about Amerithrax before you worked with her?’
‘What we studied in training and read in books.’
‘She’s been working on that case for some time, hasn’t she?’ Kurt asked. ‘Crazy theory about inkjet printers.’
‘She and another agent, Carl Macek,’ William said.
‘Macek is dead. It was a cold case. Why did Hiram Newsome let her continue to work on it?’
‘Something like Amerithrax is never really a cold case, is it?’
‘Did you know that ten years ago Rebecca Rose had an
OPR file opened against her? Sexual harassment. A fellow agent claimed she made inappropriate advances, then threatened to get him demoted and reassigned if he refused her.’
‘That doesn’t sound like Agent Rose,’ William said.
‘It was a scandal, and it took Deputy Ay-Dick Hiram Newsome to cool it down. The charges were eventually dropped. The other agent resigned. He’s working as an industrial security consultant in Chicago. Yet here’s that same predatory Rebecca Rose, shacking up with fresh young Feebeye veal in a Mobile Agent Domicile in Washington state. You tell me how that looks.’
‘She did not harass me. She didn’t make a pass at me. We did not sleep together.’
Gene came around and put both hands on his shoulders, then slapped him hard on one ear. His ear rang and then heated up.
Keep it down,
Griff said in the other ear.
You know the drill. There are probably lives at stake. Either that, or these two are dirty. Either way, watch them.
‘Did she ever mention working with an agent named Larry Winter?’
‘No.’
‘Did Hiram Newsome ever mention working with Larry or Lawrence Winter?’
‘No.’
‘What do you know about anthrax?’
‘Not much.’
‘Was Rebecca Rose an expert in the manufacture and production of biological weapons, in your opinion?’
William thought this over for a moment. ‘She knew as much as an agent should, who’s investigating a case,’ he replied.
‘Doesn’t it make you suspicious that Hiram Newsome, Rebecca Rose, and Carl Macek—supposedly, but we can’t talk to him—that these three were the only agents in the FBI who were pursuing this particular theory?’
‘No,’ William said. ‘It didn’t seem inappropriate.’
Gene moved quickly to grab his shoulders and straighten him.
‘Don’t look at him like that, dickhead,’ Kurt said. ‘You have no reason to be afraid if you tell me the truth.’
‘You asked for my opinion,’ William said, and despite Griff’s best advice, he was getting mad. ‘I gave you my opinion.’
‘That makes us think you might have been involved all along. You don’t want us to think that, do you? Why don’t you tell it all nice and simple, just for the Bureau’s sake.’
‘I don’t know of any conspiracy. I don’t believe Rebecca Rose or Hiram Newsome were involved in a conspiracy.’
‘But we
do
know. There
was
a conspiracy. It may have reached to the highest branches of government. Hiram Newsome wanted to cover it up. Rebecca Rose was his partner. Do you think they’re fucking each other, William? And maybe they’re fucking with
you
, too?’
William pressed his lips together.
‘Maybe that doesn’t bother you,’ Kurt said. ‘Maybe you like that picture. You played queer for vice in New York. Personally, I could never do that. It would make me sick. Maybe you
are
queer. Maybe you secretly want to fuck Hiram Newsome, a real double agent jim-jam, right?’ He stood and let Gene take the chair.
Gene resumed the questions. ‘America is in real danger if we don’t stop this shit, Agent Griffin. How did you know so much about transgenic yeast?’
‘I did my research.’
‘Another convenient burst of genius. You found the answer to all these puzzles on a
search engine
, didn’t you?’
William nodded.
‘Rebecca Rose knows all about inkjet printers, and you know all about yeast. Amazing. Brilliant. You found Dr. Wheatstone all on your own, first guess. Amazing. Brilliant.
You knew Wheatstone already, didn’t you? Because Hiram Newsome or Rebecca Rose told you who the transgenic yeast had been stolen from…’
William looked down at the table. ‘No,’ he said.
‘You mean, you’re admitting you didn’t make these discoveries all on your own?’
‘No,’ William said.
‘Do you know who we are, William?’
‘Secret Service.’
‘Wrong. I’m Border Security, Kurt here is ATF. We’ve been tasked to clean up the mess you Feeb-eye agents made, and we’re pretty determined fellows. So we’re going to be here for a while longer, if you don’t mind.’
‘If it helps get to the truth, I don’t mind,’ William said.
Kurt slapped his other ear.
‘Have you ever heard of an operation called Desert Vulture?’ Gene asked.
‘No,’ William said.
‘Are you absolutely certain it was never mentioned?’
‘I’m certain.’
‘What if I told you somebody was sent to find Amerithrax, and they found him—and didn’t turn him in? What if I told you that was Lawrence Winter? And Winter was ordered by somebody high up to use this freak as a source of weapon’s grade anthrax that no one could ever trace?’
William felt his stomach tighten. Then, he wanted to be sick. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Bullshit, Agent Griffin. You’re right in the thick of it. What do you think Winter was going to do with all that anthrax?’
‘It isn’t anthrax—’ William began, but Kurt cuffed him again, and he pressed his mouth shut.
Tight.
Three hours later, after nine rounds of interrogation but not much in the way of physical abuse—a bruised chin, chipped tooth, and two bruised ears—they returned William
to his cell. He was none the wiser and neither were they.
But his head swam with bitter possibilities.
What do you really know, son?
Griff asked.
The door opened with a mousy squeak. William rolled over on the cot and stared at the two men and one woman standing there. The woman was not Rebecca. It was Jane Rowland. She looked unhappy, and not just for William’s plight. One of the two men was the DS agent they had met on the Patriarch’s farm, David Grange. He smiled at William. That was good, wasn’t it? The other man William did not know. He was big and wore a dark blue suit with a narrow tie. A prison official.
‘Let’s go,’ Grange said. ‘We’re getting you out of here.’
Jane Rowland had eyes as big as saucers. They escorted him from the cell and down the hall. ‘Do you remember me?’ Grange asked.
‘Yes, sir,’ William said.
Two senior corrections officers in dark brown suits joined them. Grange handed them pieces of paper and they signed without a word. The senior officers did not look happy that William was leaving their care.
‘All hell’s broken lose in Washington,’ Grange said. ‘We’re looking for a few good officers and agents, those without significant political baggage. You might have heard—they’ve arrested Hiram Newsome and two other Ay-Dicks. The Attorney General has been strongly advised to shut down the entire FBI,
statim
. Secret Service is being combed and a lot of nits and ticks are falling out. BDI is down in flames, of course. Border Security—do you believe it?—and DS are about all we have left. And a select few from Quantico, mostly because of the President’s Chief of Staff…and me. It’s an unholy mess.’
‘What about Rebecca Rose?’
‘Rose is traveling in another vehicle. I got her sprung
this afternoon. We’ll see her in a couple of hours.’
‘Was she involved?’
‘Involved in what?’ Grange asked.
‘Desert Vulture.’
‘You know about that? Shit.’
‘Was she?’
‘Absolutely not.’
‘They were going to attack Mecca, weren’t they—if there was a major terrorist hit on the U.S. They were going to cover Mecca with anthrax.’
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss any of these matters,’ Grange said.
‘You were tracking Winter. He had gone rogue. He was with Desert Vulture, but he changed his mind.’
‘I didn’t learn about Desert Vulture until yesterday,’ Grange said.
‘Then it was real?’
‘That’s all I can say for now.’
They had reached the end of the long corridor. More steel doors and then bars swung wide. The officials peeled off and went their separate ways. William winced at the dark sky. It was night. The stars were out and the air was cold. He embarrassed himself by making a little whooping sound as he sucked in the wonderful freshness.
‘Are you circumcised, William?’ Grange asked as he showed his badge and signed papers at the first gate.
‘Yes, sir,’ William said. ‘My parents did it for sanitary reasons.’
‘As it happens, so am I.’
Jane Rowland turned up her eyes.
A black Suburban pulled up to the curb and came to a halt with a slight screech of tires. Two agents inside stared at them with imperious suspicion through the half-open window.
‘Where are we going?’ William asked.
‘We’re leaving Cumberland,’ Grange said. ‘Other than that, do you care?’
An hour later, they boarded a Coast Guard jet on the runway at Dulles for a flight to Eglin. At Eglin, he showered and shaved in an officer’s quiet apartment, wasting twenty minutes under the needle-spray to scrub off the humiliation. Grange brought him a small case with personal items and a fresh change of clothes that almost fit.
From Eglin, they took a C5A military flight to Oman. He heard Rebecca was on the flight, but he wasn’t interested in talking or catching up. He was exhausted and he had too many tough questions. William hid himself at the back of the passenger seating area. Outside, the supernal drone of the turbo-fan engines lulled him into nothing at all like sleep, more like a hop, skip and jump along the nightmare border of death, and it was not pleasant.
Hours later, he came fully awake with a jerk and saw Rebecca sitting across from him. The plane was descending.
He stared at her.
‘Jesus, William Griffin. You’ve got zombie eyes.’
William swallowed and looked away. ‘I don’t like being soaked in shit,’ he said. ‘Your shit or anybody else’s.’
‘Mm hmm,’ Rebecca said. Again she made that motion with her upturned, scissored fingers, as if she really needed a cigarette.
‘I have
never
been treated that way,’ William said. ‘What other surprises do you have in store for me?’
‘It wasn’t me. You know that.’
‘Then what about the FBI? You sucked me into this. What did I do to be tarred with that great big old brush, huh?’
‘Nothing,’ Rebecca said.
‘And what about you? What did you do?’
‘Nothing.’
William grimaced. ‘I heard a lot at Cumberland,’ he said.
‘So did I. I tend to ignore big tough guys, or haven’t you noticed?’
‘They wanted to open me up and spill out my brains, Rebecca. They were
scared.
I could smell them even without a pong detector. Somebody told them something that made them want to shit their pants. I think if we had stayed there a few more hours, they’d’ve started injecting some really cool new drugs, and who cares what they damage? They wanted to turn our brains into alphabet soup and read the little words, Rebecca.’
Rebecca looked straight at him, her eyes showing something William had not seen before—real hurt and disappointment. ‘I didn’t do this to you, William.’
‘What the fuck is Desert Vulture?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe I don’t want to know.’
‘Did they ask you about it?’
She nodded.
‘Did they box your ears?’
She shook her head.
‘So with you, they were gentlemen?’
Rebecca lifted her eyebrows and looked down at her hands.
‘Why are we here, can you tell me that?’