Stephen Berry - The Biofab War

Sutherland leaned forward, easing into his pitch. "It pains me to say it, but you're the best case officer I've had since… well, since I was a case officer."

It was, John realized as Bill continued, the classic Outfit pitch. The Russians are coming-to the wall, brothers! He interrupted with a laugh.

"I say something funny?" Sutherland glared.

"Bill, do you know how many times I've delivered that line? No, let me finish." He held up a hand. "I saved Uncle's ass a lot of times over the years. First with CIA in Asia, then with the outfit in Africa, and finally running your Eastern networks."

"Like I said, you were the best."

"Am the best. Good enough for the Outfit to pay me very well to bail it out, now and then. And when you're not in trouble, DIA or NSA is. It's a good living. I don't have to do it all the time, and I don't have to put up with bureaucratic b.s. So, William, save your pitch for the next candidate. I'm out.

"Whose ass needs saving today?"

Before Sutherland could reply, the door slammed back and a great white-haired bear of a man stormed in, wearing denim shirt and pants with red suspenders. Under his left arm was a star-spangled red, white, and blue motorcycle helmet.

"Can't ride a bike in this town without getting killed," he fumed. "Some turtlebrain's limo ran the light at Seventeenth and L. Another inch I'd have greased the road with my-" He spotted Sutherland.

"Bill! How's our merry master of mendacity?" He grinned.

"Bob-you unrepentant pinko." Sutherland shook the big hand. "Still riding that kraut suicide rack?"

"My daughter disapproves," the older man said with a smile. Sinking into an armchair, he plopped his helmet down on the blue-and-white Oriental. "But Jason and Melaine adore having the only grandpa in town with a two-wheeled BMW.

"What brings you over the bridge, Bill? Some lucrative chore we can perform?"

A lithe, olive-skinned woman in her late twenties came in, wet jet-black hair wrapped in a mauve towel, a man's red terry-cloth robe falling to her feet. Rather large feet, the CIA officer noted covertly.

"Good morning, Zahava," said Sutherland from the safety of his chair. He knew better than to rise for a sabra in the era of women's lib.

"Good morning," echoed John and McShane, also keeping their seats.

"Good morning," she said, pulling up a chair and lighting an unfiltered Camel. "This had better be worth my crawling out of bed, Bill."

"It's worth a listen, Zahava, believe me." He settled back in his chair, the center of attention. -"First, though, the usual tired protocols.'' Taking a small voice activated tape recorder from his pocket, he put it on the coffee table. "This briefing is classified Top Secret/Janissary. No one may reveal any portion of it without the prior written permission of the Central Intelligence Agency."

Stifling a yawn, Zahava poured herself a cup of coffee. They'd all heard this at least a dozen times in the past three years. She glanced at John, toying with his letter opener. Catching her eye, he gave her a lascivious wink.

"So much for that," said Sutherland. "Okay, here's the situation. Royal Petroleum's been trying to sink some test wells off the Massachusetts coast. The project is now a year behind. Supports for the first platforms haven't even been sunk. There may be as many as forty-eight billion barrels of oil out there, maybe five times that much in trillion cubic feet of natural gas."

"That would cut down on the filling station brawls, comes the next crunch," McShane said.

"And it would help hold the line till we diversify energy sources," said Sutherland.

"The delays, before last week, appeared to be coincidental: small accidents, bad hiring decisions, organizational snafus."

"Such as?" John asked.

"Oh, not ordering special equipment, damage to mapping gear, endless negotiations over the clearing and dredging of a modest port facility on Cape Cod.

"Royal's project crew is based at the Leurre Oceanographic Institute on Cape Cod. Last week they were finally set to begin seismic mapping and core sampling when the submersible Argonaut was lost with both divers. One of them was our man."

"This is domestic security," said John. "How did your people get into it?"

"Argonaut belonged to us. She was on loan to Leurre-Leurre's under contract to Royal. We used her last year when we raised the Ulianov.'' It had been a brilliant CIA coup, that, raising a deep-sunken Soviet nuclear sub, her weapons, navigation and communications systems intact.

"What happened to the sub?" asked Zahava, tucking her feet beneath her on the chair.

"Lost. And our man murdered." Sutherland quietly put his coffee mug on the ceramic tabletop. "The body came drifting ashore at Yarmouthport. A poor attempt had been made to sink it. There was a speargun shaft through the heart."

"Anyone I knew?" asked John.

Sutherland shook his head. "No. Joe Antonucchi. Used to be in Reports, mostly West Africa. Just transferred in.

"He'd been investigating the delays for the past month. The night before he was killed, he met with an informant on the Institute staff. But we don't know who the informant was-Antonucchi never got to file a report."

"Any idea who's behind it?" asked Bob.

"We first assumed an unfriendly power, trying to restrict our energy resources. But that's changed. Take a look at this."

Sutherland opened his attache case. Taking out a small flat package, wrapped in ordinary brown paper, he removed a triangular-shaped piece of rock, its edges fused. "This came, addressed to me, two days after we found Antonucchi's body," he said, passing the object to Bob. "The package had the right internal mail code. Joe's fingerprints were all over it."

McShane turned the fragment over in his large hands.

"What do you make of it, Bob?" asked Sutherland.

"I'm a political philosopher and historian, Bill," he replied, examining the marks chiseled into the front.

"But your hobby's Bronze Age languages, isn't it?"

"How much are you paying my grandchildren?" grumbled McShane, not looking up.

"You're a distinguished scholar, sir, your career one of public record," said Sutherland, velvet-voiced.

"Someday, someone is going to poison you, Bill, slowly," John said dryly.

Zahava peered over Bob's shoulder. "It looks like…"

"It is." The professor nodded. "The language Moses learned at the feet of the Great Ramses-Egyptian. Court Egyptian. It reads, 'The Exalted One: His Dwelling.'

"Fascinating." He handed it to John, who glanced at it, then gave it back to Sutherland. The officer carefully re-wrapped it and locked it back in his attache case.

"Good old igneous granite," Sutherland continued. "Found all over New England. Very rare on the Cape, though, but present."

"Why do you think it's from Cape Cod?" asked Zahava.

"Our resident geologists say it's from the northeastern United States. I believe Antonucchi sent it to me. He was on the Cape. I assume, therefore, that this three-thousand-year-old lettering is from Cape Cod."

"Are you sure it's not a forgery?" John asked, disbelieving.

"The stone and inscription are equally weathered."

"What is something from my part of the world doing in yours?" asked the Israeli.

"I'd have to brush up," Bob said, "but there's some evidence of pre-Columbian colonization of the Americas. Nothing as far back as this, though." He pointed to the attache case. "But then, who knows?"

"Again, why us, Bill?" asked John. "I'm not trying to drive business away, but why not the FBI? A federal officer's dead."

"We're in a double bind, John. I shouldn't have sent Antonucchi in. And sure, legally it's a case for the FBI. The Bureau, though, tried to penetrate whatever's happening at the Institute for eight months. Nothing." He paused.