Greg Bear - Quantico

Rebecca had been at headquarters all afternoon. ‘I brought some material for you to look over,’ Rebecca said. ‘Fair warning from some old friends.’ She handed him a clipped folder.

He lifted an eyebrow. The folder hung in Rebecca’s hand. Then he grabbed it, pulled the clip, and muttered, ‘Too much goddamn paper.’

Nancy appeared at the door. ‘Is Senator Josephson joining us?’ she inquired archly. ‘Because I hear his name so often, I’m wondering what he likes to drink with his pot roast-beer or wine.’

‘Irish whiskey,’ Hiram said, lost in the pages. ‘Just a minute, Nancy.’

‘Table’s set, Hiram.’

‘Don’t get cross with me. The whole world is cross with me.’

‘Poor baby,’ Nancy said. She withdrew after exchanging a womanly glance with Rebecca.

‘These are OPM internal vetting documents, Rebecca. How’d you get them?’

Rebecca said nothing, just looked sweet and simple.

Hiram riffled through the papers, eyes wide. ‘Sam Adams, they’ve got dirt on half the people I work with.’

Rebecca leaned forward. ‘They’re looking for somebody whose hands aren’t covered with mud. Someone who can finish what he starts and knock heads-but the right heads, and with practiced charm.’

Hiram’s face went pale.

‘I heard something on the weed vine,’ she continued. ‘Nobody knows if the rumors are true.’

The phone rang. Hiram jerked, then sat up, looking as if he were about to be shot.

‘Scrub your hands, sir,’ Rebecca advised.

A second ring. His lips twitched. ‘I won’t do it,’ he said emphatically. A third. ‘I won’t preside over a funeral. I’m not a damned undertaker.’ The phone rang for the fourth time. Hiram looked as if he were contemplating the easy out of just dropping dead. ‘Crap,’ he said.

‘Answer the phone, Hiram,’ Nancy called from the dining room.

Hiram wrapped his forehead in one thick-fingered hand and rolled back to the desk. He picked up the phone and listened for a moment, then said, ‘Yes, Madam President.’

Rebecca took the folder from his hand, pulled back the brass screen, and tossed the papers into the light and heat of the office’s small fireplace. She walked into the dining room, where Nancy had just laid out on the damask tablecloth a large pot roast smothered with potatoes, carrots, and onions.

Nancy pushed through the kitchen door, balancing a tray of drinks in crystal glasses. ‘Elderberry wine?’ she asked archly, and handed Rebecca a tumbler of Scotch. ‘Pardon me for my big ears. I do not countenance profanity, my dear, you know that. But what in hell are they about do to my husband? I’ve actually enjoyed having him around, the last few months.’

Rebecca could not provide a comforting answer.

‘If they take him back and move him up the ladder, will I ever see him?’ Nancy sat with a flump on the nearest chair. ‘I remember Alice Sessions, way back when. I remember what they did to her husband. If the President has chosen Hiram without consulting the other senior executives, OPM will bring out the long knives. Hiram’s a healthy man, but this could give anyone a heart attack.’ She stretched out her hand, tears in her eyes. ‘Give me that, damn it.’

Rebecca returned the glass of Scotch. Nancy slugged it back neat.

The dinner was brief, the pot roast having been re-heated twice. They ate quickly and with hardly a word, and immediately after, Hiram retired to the study to make more calls.

Nancy insisted Rebecca stay for a glass of port. Sitting in the living room, she realized she was still wired-still on the grid, if anyone was tracking. She deactivated her Lynx and then looked at her slate: five calls from one number. She looked up the number. It was in Israel.

Nancy returned and caught her with her slate out. ‘Never mind me, dear,’ she said, a little tipsy, and set down a glass of Ficklin on the table beside Rebecca. ‘I know that look. Something demands your immediate attention.’

Rebecca took a sip of port. ‘What an evening, huh?’

‘I’m sure,’ Nancy said. ‘Use the guest bedroom, past the entrance and on the immediate right. It’s quiet. I sweep the bugs out every day.’

‘Thanks.’

The Jerusalem number belonged to a former Quantico student named Ehud Halevy, an international trainee now an officer in the Israeli Police-a brigadier general. The Israeli police used the whole range of military ranks. Rebecca had been an instructor at the Q during Ehud’s class a decade ago. She did the math and came up with Israel’s current time. It was four a.m. but he had left his message just a half-hour before.

Her call went through immediately. The general was wide awake. ‘Agent Rose, thank you for returning my call. I am distressed that we have not communicated earlier. But this is no time. Why has not anyone told me of BuDark?’

‘I don’t know much myself, Ehud. What’s up?’

‘We have come upon something terrible, something you must have certainly known about. Did we not discuss anthrax, American anthrax, ten years ago at FBI? Now it is here, in Israel, in the hands of Islamic terrorists. They were going to use it on Jerusalem, Agent Rose. Jerusalem! ’

‘Please, General. Tell me what you can.’

‘Fireworks rockets, brought in on private jet by a group working out out of Iraq and Syria, but they are receiving their supplies from America. Some of the captives are talking. It is an unbelievable story. We are analyzing what we have found. This will take time, because we are using such precautions. How could you allow this? Has America become a gigantic infection, a boil that is bursting?’

‘Listen, Ehud, what do you know about the American connection?’

‘Some have told us it is a tall man, blond and quiet. He minimizes his contact with others, but some say he is a lady’s man. He has one blue eye and one green eye, that he sometimes disguises with contact lenses. He is very careful, and he is no longer in Israel, if ever he was. That is all we have been able to learn.’

Rebecca sat on the bed and bent over, feeling as if she were about to be sick. ‘Can I reach you at this number, any time?’

‘Yes. I may never sleep again, Agent Rose.’

‘Thanks for trusting me, General. Let me do some work here.’

‘I only hope your FBI and government will trust us, Agent Rose. We have of course informed the Prime Minister and Knesset, and they are talking with your State Department. We need answers very soon. We have in custody only one team. What if there are others?’

Rebecca came out of the guest bedroom, her face ashen. Nancy was asleep in the chair. She could hear Hiram still talking in his office.

She slammed her fist on the heavy door.

Silesia, Ohio

William hitched a police ride from the tiny local airport. The driver, a young officer from the Ohio State Patrol, had been ferrying officials back and forth for two days now and she looked stretched thin. ‘They’re telling us nothing. Must be pretty big.’

Big enough to get him out of a garbage detail.

He quietly observed the neighborhoods of modest homes, trim and clean-except for block after block of overgrown yards. He noticed two or three burned-out houses and wondered if that was above average for a town this size. On the flight, he had hooked up to Web reports about Silesia, famous mostly for grain distribution, bakeries and local German food-as well as for its churches.

He had also read what little was available about Silesia’s medical crisis. That made his brain itch. He couldn’t fit these reports into a compelling pattern.

A large yellow tent had been set up in the Warren K. Schonmeyer Park. Three patrol cars, two local police cars, a big FBI van, and a CID semi-trailer had been pulled up on the grass next to the tent. Power cables and hoses ran to a brick restroom that had been marked off limits with police tape.