Greg Bear - Quantico

‘Are you all right?’ William asked.

‘Right as rain. This is nuts,’ she said. ‘Pack anthrax for a year in a dusty old barn and live? I don’t believe a word of it.’

‘Can we afford not to believe?’

‘I know anthrax, William. The anthrax we dealt with back in 2001 graded out at one trillion spores per gram, so fine it acted like a gas. It went everywhere .’

‘Maybe he’s smarter than he looks. He was having us on, playing back our story and upping the ante.’

Rebecca shook her head. ‘They might have been creating a diversion. The farm might have just been a testing station.’

‘Who’s Bobby Keel?’

‘A veterinary epidemiologist,’ she said. ‘We need to know if any sheep near the farm have come down with anthrax.’ She unlocked the driver’s side door. ‘A tall blond man with one blue eye and one green eye. How about some breakfast?’ Her hands worked like an ex-smoker searching for cigarettes, the cop’s second drug of choice. Then she turned the key in the ignition and switched on the radio. They caught the tail end of the news:

‘… no confirmation from the White House that the seismic tremors detected around the world came from a thermonuclear explosion in northern Iran. A State Department spokesperson is quoted as saying that the demolition of large ammunition stores can create a similar signature, but weapons experts disagree.’

Rebecca gripped the steering wheel.

‘Kind of puts what we’re doing in perspective, doesn’t it? Anthrax killed five people in the U.S. I wonder how many are dying out there, in Iran or wherever the Christ it is? ’ She pounded the wheel to each shouted word. Then, quieter, ‘This will suck up every resource, distract everyone. We’re sunk.’ She bowed her head over the wheel. ‘Shit.’

After a moment, William said, ‘I can drive.’

‘Then drive, Goddammit.’

She turned the car off in the middle of the parking aisle and they exchanged seats. William watched her from the corner of his eye. She was trying not to bite her fingernails. Beneath the chipped polish, they were already down to the quick.

Silesia, Ohio

He was about to put decent Americans in peril, make them unknowing sheep before a new American Trinity: and so he came to an inland shipwreck of a town washed up on the midwestern shores of that endless tidal sea of red ink-the young out of work and moved away, the old begging along the highways.

The town he had chosen had once boasted a population of fifteen thousand, too many even for Sam’s angry, fanatic heart.

Now, at five thousand, it was just about right.

At seven-thirty, the tavern parking lot was nearly empty. Sam parked the truck and trailer, taking up two spaces, then got out and stretched. The moon was up, a crescent hanging one handspan above the low skyline. The dingy neighborhood on the outskirts of town was quiet. The single-story brick-walled tavern made a small pool of friendly light-orange and red neon from beer signs, a golden glow through the small windows-in the general grayness of warehouses and grain elevators.

Sam was hungry but he did not much care if the tavern served food. He had been shoring up against a heavy wave of black doubt. He needed something to distract him. Something to temporarily replace all he had lost-the warm press of willing flesh, a moment of oblivion.

He entered and stood by the door. Four women sat at the bar. They had long ago stopped looking for Mister Right. All they wanted now was what Sam wanted-a night when they weren’t too lonely.

Young or middle-aged, it did not really matter. Just as long as he could stop the little machine in his brain and get a good night’s sleep.

Tomorrow would be a busy day.

Seattle

Griff had his eyes open and his lips-what could be seen of them-were trying to move but speech wasn’t on the menu and would not be for days or weeks to come. He could, however, move his arm and hand, and one of the agents standing vigil had set out a legal pad on the bed and taped a large marker to Griff’s hand. The markings recovered thus far were taped to the wall beside the medical monitors, showing substantial progress as jibs and jabs settled into single large letters.

Now Griff seemed to have returned in force. He was aware that William was in the room, and he made soft but determined grunting sounds. William held up the pad so that Griff could see it and Griff wrote in large block letters, with so much effort at control that sweat beaded up on his cheeks,

WATSON?

William looked his father in the left eye-the only eye that showed signs of life-and said, ‘She’s dead, Father.’

Griff looked at the ceiling and blinked. William knew that even had his father’s face been capable of showing emotion, Griff would have tried to suppress it, to let it out in private later when no one could see him.

Griff again looked at his son. William flipped to a new page. Griff wrote two words with no space between:

WHATFIND

‘Fireworks makings, bags of yeast, inkjet printers,’ William said.

Then,

VID?

‘We got video, and we’ve all seen it, if that’s what you mean,’ William said.

WHYYUO

‘Does that mean, why am I here?’

Griff nodded, then winced.

‘Special Agent Rose has taken me under her wing,’ William said. ‘Out of pity for you.’ He smiled.

REB

‘Right, Rebecca Rose.’

PRNTRS MPORTNT

‘We know, Father,’ William said.

NEWS

‘Hiram Newsome? He’s supervising,’ William said.

Griff shook his head, wrote N, then

NWS ABUT JEW

William thought this over for a moment, then said, ‘We’re investigating what someone told the Patriarch, about killing Jews. We’re not working on this alone.’

Griff closed his good eye, squeezed it. The other remained open. Then he looked at William and scrawled, with quick, sharp strokes,

D JEWS A-BMB?

‘You heard agents talking about Iran?’

Griff nodded.

‘So you’re asking, did Israelis drop a bomb on Iran? We can’t get a straight answer from anybody,’ William said.

MAD, Griff wrote.

‘True enough,’ William said.

Y YEAS

‘I don’t understand that one.’

Griff stroked in a rapid W and then a T: WY YEAST.

‘Maybe to study dispersal of a biological agent.’

NTHRX

‘It’s a possibility.’

FND NTHRAX

‘No. No traces yet of anthrax in the barn, or anywhere else, for that matter.’ They were almost out of paper. ‘You should rest now, Father.’

Griff shook his head and glared.

‘Now you’re scaring me, Griff,’ William said. ‘You’re going to turn into Donovan’s Brain or something if you keep it up.’

Griff continued to glare.

William shrugged, turned the pad around, ripped off the cardboard, and placed it on the opposite side, giving Griff more relatively blank paper-minus marker bleed-through.

CREDS

‘Yes, Father. I did get my credentials.’

ASSGN OFFC?

‘Not for the moment. They sent me out here to watch over you, and, like I said, Agent Rose has me working with her. I…had a moment with some flaming toilet paper, to distract…’ He wondered how much of this story Griff could stand. ‘It worked, but I’m being investigated by-’

Griff shook his head and continued to glare.

‘Right. Not important.’ William drew close to the plastic curtain around his father’s face.

ESIA

‘What’s that mean, Father?’

ESIA, again. Griff was trying to make sounds and the effort cost him.

OHI

The last letter started off as a U. He capped it with a slash. It looked like an upside-down hat.