C. Graham - The Solomon Effect

She cleared her throat. “Hello?”

A man who had been bent over at the far end of the counter straightened with a jerk, and she understood why Matt and Jax called Herman Mudd the Bowling Ball. Short, and as round as he was high, the archivist had a shiny bald head with sparse, nearly invisible eyelashes and eyebrows. His skin was pale and pink from a lack of sunlight, and while she doubted he’d been around since the days of the OSS, he was doubtless coming up rapidly on retirement age.

He rushed toward her, pale plump hands waving, tongue clucking in annoyance. “No, no, no! You are not allowed to lean over the counter! Get back, please.”

Tobie jerked back. Not exactly an auspicious beginning. She gave the angry man a broad smile. “You’re Mr. Mudd, right? How do you do? It’s such a pleasure to meet you. I’ve heard you’re very particular about the way the legend archives are run. It’s always a pleasure to work with a professional.”

Herman Mudd cleared his throat and blinked at her rapidly, like a man who wore contact lenses but had never quite gotten used to them. “Yes, well…what do you want?”

She breathed a long, troubled sigh. “I’m hoping you can help me. I need to see the file on the legend given to a German processed in late 1945. A man by the name of Dr. Martin Kline.”

“1945? Those records aren’t computerized, you know. I’d have to look him up in the ledgers.”

She parodied surprise. “Oh?”

He stared at her solemnly. “May I see your authorization?”

“Authorization? But…These records aren’t classified, are they?”

“No. But you can’t expect me to show these records to just anyone who asks to see them.”

Since Langley was hardly open to the public, she didn’t see how she could be described as “just anyone.” But she swallowed a rising spurt of frustration and said, “The problem is, I need this information now.”

Mudd turned away. “Without authorization, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Good day.”

Tobie resisted the urge to reach out and grab him and haul him back. Instead, she huffed another sigh. “I guess this means Jax wins.”

Mudd paused to look back at her. “I beg your pardon?”

“That dirty rat. He bet me I wouldn’t be able to get the information I need.”

Mudd blinked ten times in rapid succession. “Who are you talking about?”

“Jax Alexander. I know it’s not your fault. It’s just that he’s such a sneaky, lying cheat, I was hoping I could show him up for a change. Give him a taste of his own medicine. But…” She let her shoulders slump. “I guess he wins.”

“Jax Alexander wants this information?”

“Not exactly. He just doesn’t want me to get it.” She started to turn away.

“Wait!” Mudd flung out one of his pale, plump hands. “What did you say this German’s name was?”

“According to the records in the archives, Dr. Martin Kline was officially processed by the OSS in September of 1945,” said Tobie. They were sitting around the battered old table in Matt’s office. Tobie had a stale roll and a cup of lukewarm tea from the cafeteria; Jax was still in a suit that looked as if it cost as much as the entire contents of Tobie’s closet.

“I can’t believe you got all this out of Mudd,” said Matt.

“Using Jax’s name worked like a charm.” She flipped open her notebook. “Kline’s new identity was Dr. Marvin Clark. You’re right about the time-honored tradition of bureaucratic red tape. He signed for everything from a new birth certificate to a social security number and fake degrees. And then, in November, they issued new birth certificates for his wife, who changed her name to Caroline, and to his baby daughter, Hannah.”

“That must have been part of the deal he struck,” said Jax. “The U.S. government got his family out of Eastern Germany, and he went to work for them. When and where did he die?”

“He didn’t. He’s still alive. I Googled him. He’s ninety-three years old, and he published an article in Scientific American just last year.”

“An article? On what?”

“Colony Collapse Disorder in bees.”

“Bees?”

“Bees. They’re his hobby.” She frowned down at her notes again. “He worked at Fort Detrick until 1967, then moved to Boston and became a professor of biochemistry at MIT.”

Matt said, “But he didn’t have a degree in biochemistry.”

“He did by the time the OSS got through with him. That’s what they gave him, rather than an MD.”

“Nice.”

“When he retired from MIT in 1988, he moved back to Maryland.”

“Any particular reason?”

“That’s where his daughter and grandchildren live. She works at Fort Detrick herself, although for a while she was assigned to the human genome project for the Department of Energy.” Tobie looked up. “What I don’t understand is why the genome project is under the Department of Energy.”

“For the same reason the Manhattan Project was,” said Jax. “Because this is not about making people’s lives better. It’s about killing them more efficiently.”

Matt said, “Kline’s daughter is a scientist, too?”

Tobie nodded. “Dr. Hannah Clark. She has a Ph.D. in biochemistry. A real one.”

Jax loosened his tie and unbuttoned the collar of his dress shirt. “I wonder how much she knows about what Daddy did in the war.”

“She may not know anything.”

“Maybe. Maybe not. You remember what that Communist from Dachau said in those old reports Andrei gave us? About helping load Kline’s files and medical specimens on an American truck? Somehow, I can’t see Kline shipping all his discoveries off to the Far East on U-114. He must have kept some of the pathogens with him at the camp.”

Tobie stared at him. “You think the U.S. government brought the Dachau pathogen back to the States with Kline??”

Matt said, “It makes sense.”

“But…Then why would Rodriguez and Boyd-or whoever we’re dealing with-need to salvage U-114?”

“Maybe they tried to get their hands on the government’s stock and couldn’t.” Jax pushed to his feet. “See if you can get someone at Fort Detrick to talk to us-preferably Kline’s daughter. October and I will head up to Maryland and see what we can get out of Kline.”

Matt glanced at the clock. It was already a quarter past nine. “You’d better hurry.”

General Gerald T. Boyd settled back into the comfortable leather seat of the aircraft provided for his particular use by the United States government, and nodded to his aide, Phillips. “Let’s go.”

Phillips looked at him in surprise. “We’re not waiting for Rodriguez?”

“Rodriguez has some business to attend in Maryland.”

After thirty years of special ops, Boyd knew that the success of an operation always depended upon the ability to improvise and remain flexible. Which was why he’d decided to send Rodriguez up to Maryland today.

Originally, they’d planned to quietly eliminate the German, Kline, in a few weeks, when the old man’s death-and any possible speculation that might arise from it-would be lost in the chaos of the plague sweeping the world. But the situation had changed. The man needed to be silenced, now.

Boyd was not pleased with Rodriguez’s recent performance. It was bad enough the way he’d screwed up with the Russian kid. But by letting that asshole from Division Thirteen slip through his fingers again and again, he’d seriously jeopardized the operation.

The most critical segment of the operation-the actual release of the pathogen-would be carried out by Walker himself, with Boyd and Phillips as backup. That segment was simply too crucial, and too delicate, to delegate. Besides, Boyd had learned long ago that the best way to run a black op was to keep each stage carefully compartmentalized, with the men working on one stage kept ignorant of both the details of the other stages and the big picture.