Rick Mofina - Six Seconds

“We’re not sure what it is. We haven’t been able to identify it,” a state official said, as members of the new unit pulled on camouflaged hazardous-material suits and gas masks. “We don’t think it’s a germ or nerve agent. What we can tell you is that the case labelled beer held twenty-two bottles containing beer. Two contained an unknown substance. We need to identify it. Our concern is how many bottles, or cases, have penetrated the border. Somebody’s up to something.”

Takayasu’s team muscled their equipment to the site. It was protected by yellow police tape and a huge canvas canopy. They set to work to collect a sample of the liquid, analyze and identify it in order to determine whether it was lethal.

Each team member conducted examinations and undertook various component testing using advanced equipment, such as micro UV laser fluorescence bio sensors. They ran a number of protocols and formulas. They swabbed, chilled, burned and baked on-site, ana lyzing residue, processing it through secure laptops with links to databases across the country.

“I don’t get it, Tony,” Dyer said. “This liquid sub stance defies our on-site testing. What the heck is it?”

Takayasu was stumped, shook his head and kept working. At sunset he walked from the site and removed his mask, enjoying the cool refreshing air. He gazed out at the water.

The fog had lifted in the twilight and he recalled himself as a seven-year-old boy walking into the bed room of his newborn sister. She was so still. He’d alerted his mother, whose screams he still heard. His sister had died. Later, when he was a high-school student, Takayasu went to the county office and obtained her death records. The cause was sudden infant death, a syndrome that still perplexes many. It drove him to devote his life to science, to unravel that which is unknown.

Takayasu shifted his attention back to his current challenge and considered calling his wife in the east. He was going to miss his daughter’s violin recital in Georgetown. He’d reached for his cell phone, when some of the others approached him.

“What do you think?” one of them asked.

Takayasu showed them his notes where he’d circled C3H5(NO3)3?

“Nitro?”

“No, not nitro,” he said, “in some ways it exhibits similar characteristics but it’s not nitroglycerin.” Taka yasu gazed at the water.

“You look troubled, Tony. You got any thoughts on this?” Dyer asked.

“We’re going to have to do more work in the lab.”

“Sure, but what is your gut telling you?”

“I suspect this is a component that is to be applied to another. It could also be a substance not yet fully pro cessed. At a conference in New Zealand I recall learning about a wild theory or research going on in China. Something involving nanotechnology and radio trans missions. All of it undetectable. What I’ve seen here strikes me as being remotely similar to one of the theo retical components.”

“We’re talking about some kind of explosive?” the FBI bomb expert asked.

“It’s just one component, but I have no clue about the form of delivery.”

“So it could be anything, then?”

“Anything.”

Rat City, Seattle

Near Seattle’s southern edge at the fringe of a ne glected urban nightmare, an unmarked government sedan stopped at an aging apartment complex.

Two well-dressed federal agents entered, scanned the tenant list of the apartment’s lobby panel, then buzzed E. R. Glaxor.

“Yes,” the tin-sounding response came through the intercom.

“Mr. Edwin Glaxor?”

“Yes.”

“Special Agents Blake Walker and Melody Krover of the Secret Service. We’d called in response to your concerns, sir.”

“Yes. Come in. Unit 615.”

The door lock buzz-clicked, allowing them to enter.

They stepped into the elevator. Krover, a new agent with the Seattle Field Office, had pulled Glaxor’s name from the list. Seattle agents had visited him twice. Her valise contained his file, which Walker had read a third time on the ride over. He’d read it before on his previous two flights to Seattle. The field people took pride in their work, and resented Walker’s micromanaging of their files.

Walker didn’t care.

Edwin Richard Glaxor, age thirty-six, was a night watchman who’d bombarded the Vatican with letters demanding “the pope resign and confess his crimes as the anti-pope” in an address to the United Nations, or Glaxor would “eliminate” him during his visit to Seattle.

“I have been authorized to prosecute the act,” he wrote.

Glaxor’s file, which included notes from his em ployer, indicated he talked to inanimate objects. He had no criminal record, no history of violence. Did not own, or have access to, firearms, or explosives. Other than “showing up at the rope” at various presidential visits along the west coast over the years and glaring at the president, Glaxor had not acted on his threats.

A pungent mixture of muscle ointment and cat litter greeted the agents when Glaxor opened his apartment door for them.

The black-framed glasses he wore were held together by white tape. He was overweight with stringy hair and greasy skin. His apartment was dimly lit.

“I am averse to light, that’s why I work nights,” Glaxor said as he sat in a large, somewhat elevated chair, while the agents stood.

“I am glad you’re here. Time is of the essence.” Glaxor spoke articulately and rapidly. “I’ve recently been in contact with the GHD, and he demands the pope end his tyrannical reign and resign before fate- that being me-intervenes.”

Krover opened the file. “The GHD would be the ‘Great-Horned Demon’ you converse with?”

“Yes, the GHD’s manifested as a gargoyle in the park downtown as a conduit for communication.”

“Could we please let in a little light, Edwin? Just a bit?”

Walker opened the curtains slightly. Glaxor’s chair was a throne constructed entirely of Bibles. After lis tening to Glaxor’s nonsensical theories for nearly twenty minutes, Walker interrupted.

“Edwin, we believe your concerns warrant more research. We’ve talked to your family about a facility where you can discuss your situation with the appropri ate medical experts.”

Glaxor steepled his fingers, touched them to his chin and nodded.

“May I bring the data I’ve collected?”

“I’ll discuss that with the doctors, but it shouldn’t be a problem.”

“All right, I’ll do it.”

“Good, son. Under the circumstances, this is the right thing to do.”

Walker reached for his cell phone to advise Glaxor’s parents and psychiatrist.

Glaxor was a letter writer, like hundreds of other people on the Secret Service watch list. Part of the job was to be up to speed on the list, a file of several hundred people who had ever threatened the president, or a visiting head of state, even with an e-mail, a letter or a comment overheard in public.

People like Glaxor who weren’t in facilities were visited by agents in advance of VIP visits to update their threat status, chiefly to determine if they had the ability and opportunity to carry out their threat.

Glaxor’s family had agreed that he would undergo assessment in a psychiatric ward during the pope’s visit. Like the Secret Service and the FBI, King County and Seattle PD put him on their watch list.

This threat had been neutralized.

Back in the car, Walker reviewed his files. They had several more cases to double-check as part of continuing advance work to assess threats and identify risks. They worked on everything, from poten tial lone assassins to terrorist groups. As Krover drove them to the next case, Walker inventoried his files to ensure he hadn’t overlooked anything.