Greg Bear - Quantico

‘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.’