Brendan DuBois - Final Winter

‘It has.’

‘All right.’

Adrianna turned to him and he was conscious of how close she was, the light fragrance of whatever scent she had on (so unlike Marcy, who would sometimes drench herself with some flowery concoction after spending time and money with an aromatherapist), and just how delicate her eyes looked. She said, ‘I’m going to need your help tomorrow, Brian.’

‘In what way?’

‘Come,’ she said, ‘let’s sit on the couch, where we can talk comfortably.’

Brian sat down on the couch while Adrianna went to the kitchen and returned with two tiny glasses that each seemed to hold a thimble-sized amount of sherry. He wasn’t particularly fond of sherry, but he decided that being polite wasn’t going to kill him. He sipped a bit at the sweet liquid and said, ‘Once we thrash out the Final Winter scenario and the immunization options, what are you looking for?’

‘I’m looking for you to speak up for the only immunization option that can work. That’s what.’

He shook his head. ‘Don’t like the idea of secretly immunizing a couple of hundred million people. Too drastic, too overwhelming. ‘

She seemed to sink down into the couch cushions, ‘I agree.’

That surprised him. ‘You do?’

‘Of course.’ Adrianna put her glass down on the empty and clean coffee table and put both of her hands behind her head. ‘It could turn into an utter fiasco that would make that swine flu screw-up look like the greatest public health project of the last century. There’s no doubt that some people out there will react poorly to the vaccine. We will end up putting some people in the hospital, will no doubt kill some very old and very young people, as well as some who are already very ill, News of what we’ve done could send all of us to jail for life, if it gets out. It would bring the Tiger Teams out into the open and destroy the progress we’ve been making in protecting those kids out there and their families. And, of course, the damn vaccine might not work.’

‘Good points,’ Brian said.

‘Yes,’ she said, dropping her hands to her legs. ‘Yes, all good points, and I keep on looking at it and looking at it and… damn it, Brian, what else is there? What else can be done?’

Brian tried to think of what to say. Different things went through his mind as he heard the squeals of the children out there, safely at play. What to do? Remembered his Academy training, the times when his shooting skills were challenged by pop-up targets that either posed a threat or didn’t. Shoot or not? Live or die? Don’t just stand there, the instructor had said. Do something!

‘I don’t know what else can be done, Adrianna. I really don’t. I only know that the option that’s out there, if it’s the only one, sucks.’

She nodded. ‘Sucks wind.’

‘And what do you want me to do tomorrow?’

Adrianna rubbed at her eyes and said, ‘Monty will be in support of the immunization. Victor and Darren will be arguing against. But I guess that you’ll be supporting it. Even if you don’t like it.’

‘Why?’

‘Because of who you are, Brian. A cop. A cop who’s been out on the streets, knows the depths of evil that some people can sink to, and knows how to cut through the bullshit and be realistic. For Victor, his universe begins and ends in a laboratory. For Darren, it begins and ends on a computer screen. Intellectually, they know what we’re up against. But you, Monty and myself, we know the evil that men can do. Up front and personal.’

‘You know about evil, eh? And where did you come across that knowledge?’

And by God, for the briefest moment Brian felt as if he had burrowed through her defenses and seen the real Adrianna, for her expression flickered like a picture coming into snap focus and then broke up, back into something indistinct. And when she’d been in focus, her expression had been bleak and had suddenly reminded him of a case from a couple of years ago. An old woman, a survivor of the Holocaust, in her apartment, sitting in a stiff wooden chair, looking down at her husband — another Holocaust survivor — who lay on the floor, dead. Knifed in the heart by a sixteen-year-old boy who could barely spell his own name and who had been trying to rob the apartment. The look on the old woman’s face… as if God, having tortured her years earlier, had saved up one more awful torment for the end of her life.

‘I’m sorry,’ Adrianna said, her voice now snappish. ‘That’s classified, Brian.’

‘Oh. All right, then. Look, why don’t—’

‘Hold on,’ she said, a hand scrambling around the couch cushions. ‘It’s the top of the hour. I want to catch the news.’

Her hand emerged with a television remote, which she pointed at the television screen. It popped into life and she selected a cable news channel. The young male anchor looked somber and at his side on the screen was a graphic, showing a map of Connecticut with a rifle superimposed over it.

‘… We go to Bloomfield, a community north of Hartford, Connecticut, where a workplace shooting has left nine dead earlier today.’

The anchor tossed the link to a young blonde female reporter who was standing in front of a length of yellow police tape, microphone in her delicate hand. ‘State and local police are investigating a workplace shooting here at Tompkins Consulting, a business firm specializing in software in Bloomfield, Connecticut. While no police official will speak on camera, it is believed that a disgruntled former employee — not yet identified — entered the workplace and began shooting. Eight employees were killed before the shooter turned his weapon on himself and committed suicide.’

‘Kimberly, do police have a motive yet on what caused this former worker to return to kill these people?’

‘No, they don’t, and—’

Adrianna clicked off the television. Brian shook his head. ‘Some cover story, Adrianna.’

‘Has to be done.’

‘How the fuck did it happen?’

‘Intelligence leak, someplace. How else? You can bet the lights will be burning late tonight in Langley and other places, trying to find out how those clowns learned about this.’

Brian said, ‘Too fancy.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Intelligence leak. Sounds very hush-hush, very fancy. Like somebody in the pay of al-Qaeda or whoever, giving out information for money or because they’re being blackmailed. Somebody high up. Hell, they’ll probably find out it was something as simple as somebody getting drunk or getting laid and letting out the story of who actually worked at the site of Tompkins Consulting. Adrianna, look, people talk, people gossip. Information loves to travel, loves to find a welcoming place. All it took was a piece of information finding its way to a cell here in the United States, and there you go. Nothing fancy. Just rather fucking direct.’

Adrianna smiled. ‘See? That makes a lot of sense. In fact, I’ll pass your suggestion along, at our daily conference call. Told you I liked your cop mind. Suspicious, cuts through the chatter… a true asset, Brian. A true asset.’

Something about that made Brian laugh and when he saw her expression he said, ‘Just for a second, I thought you said something about my ass. A true ass.’

She laughed in return and said, ‘Oh, you have quite a nice ass, Brian.’

That got his attention. ‘Really? You think I have a nice ass?’

Adrianna seemed to blush — if that was possible. A hand rose up to her lips and she said, ‘I’m sorry. That’s the sherry talking. Or the wine. Or both.’ She got up from the couch and Brian followed, sensing again that whatever he had learned about her these past months had only revealed the faintest background glimmer of what made her tick.