John Ringo - Queen of wands

“Your side of the investigation,” Kurt said. “I’m not seeing anything. But here’s an interesting fact.”

“What?” Barb asked, looking around. There was no one and, as far as she could tell, nothing in sight except the buildings.

“Chattanooga has its fair share of street people,” Kurt said, looking around. “Lots of sheltered nooks and crannies in this area. As far as I know, the cops don’t specifically roust people around here. So where are they?”

“Not here,” Barb said.

“As if they know better?” Kurt asked.

“Possible,” Barb said, nodding. “It would probably be a question for one of your cop friends. We’re supposed to meet with Hugh tomorrow evening, right? Let’s pack it in.”

“There, I told you,” the woman said, peering through night-vision binoculars. “They’ve sent another.”

“Not a powerful one, though,” the man with her said. “Not from what I can see.”

“She’s strong. She tries to Cloak it, but she does so poorly. On the other hand…”

“They’re looking in the wrong place.”

George Grosskopf, Assistant Deputy Director, Special Investigations Unit, thought that he might as well buy stock in Pepcid AC and Ambien. There were things man ought not wot of. And he, for his sins, was the guy in the federal government in charge of all of them.

During his slow climb up the FBI ladder George had tried, like any sane agent, to stay off the Special Circumstances call list. Unfortunately, not only did he get more than his fair share of SC investigations, he managed to survive them all, not a common characteristic of the positions. If you weren’t killed by your third, you were generally driven insane. Statistically, five was about the maximum any field agent could handle. He’d had a total of eight.

So since he’d managed to get up to Section Chief when the previous head of SIU had dropped dead of an almost assuredly natural heart attack, he’d been tapped to replace him. Since that day he’d never gotten a night’s sleep without a triple dose of the strongest sleeping pills known to man. And don’t even get started on the acid reflux.

As an ADD, even of the smallest and most secret section in the Bureau, he reported directly to the Deputy Director. And while other ADDs might have to wait on hold or call back later, he never did. Of course, he rarely hit the red button on his STU-III. But when the DD got a call from SC-SIU, he dropped everything. Because it meant the shit was about to hit the fan.

Nobody visited SIU. Damned few people had any idea what it was other than a box on the manning chart. It was deliberately buried deep in the belly of the Hoover Building. If he didn’t occasionally have to run to the DD’s office like a bat out of hell, he’d rather it be in the satellite office in West Virginia. SIU didn’t exist, and he liked it that way.

So he’d been sort of surprised to be asked to meet with a guy from DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency often interacted with the Bureau on aspects of national security and counterintelligence. But how the guy had picked SIU for his visit was anyone’s guess.

“Doctor Roland,” George said as the scientist entered his office.

Roland was a “suit” scientist. Nice suit, no less. Armani. Probably an egghead as well, but he’d gotten far enough up the feeding chain to have the standard bureaucrat look. Five foot eleven. Two hundred, maybe two-ten. Brown, brown. Wore contacts. No distinguishing marks.

“ADD Grosskopf,” Roland said, shaking his hand. “Thank you for meeting with me so quickly.”

“I was curious what interaction there might be between my office and yours,” Grosskopf said, noncommittally.

“I can’t open up the details of the compartment; the information is highly secure,” Roland said, uncomfortably.

“It’s a shield office,” Grosskopf said. “My SCI classification is the same as the Director’s and I do more secure work. You can talk.”

“In that case, I think it’s a case of blue on blue, frankly,” Roland said, smiling disarmingly and sitting down in the lone chair. “We have a contract with a company that is investigating some advanced concepts in crowd management. Some of the people they work with are…unusual people. Recently some of them had a visit from the FBI. The company contacted me to find out what was going on. I checked into it and found that it was an SCI investigation out of your office. So I’m here to try to calm the troubled waters.”

“That’s vague enough that while I get what you’re saying, I have nothing to go on,” Grosskopf said, flatly.

“It involved some officers of a corporation called Trilobular,” Roland said, sliding a packet onto the SC’s desk. It appeared to be a pamphlet for a corporation, and the design on the front was…three curves forming three lobes.

There had been occasional moments in his job when George wished he could crawl under a rock and forget everything he knew about Special Circumstances. He knew he was the best guy to be sitting in the seat; he just wished he wasn’t. But there had never previously been a time when he wished he could just have a stroke, right now-go out quick and not have to hear the rest of a conversation.

He was feeling that way.

There were never very many SC investigations. So he read the field reports every morning. And he had a near-eidetic memory. Furthermore, not only were the Madness killings a major SC hot spot, the description of the jewelry the “hostess” wore was strangely hard to forget. He’d read Kurt’s report, including his reporting of Adept Three Everette’s reactions and suspicions.

And now he had found out that the US Government, specifically the DOD, had its fingerprints all over the Madness killings.

Oh. Joy. Might as well call Chattanooga “Raccoon City.”

There was only one thing to do. Dissemble.

“I can take care of that, I’m sure,” Grosskopf said. “But I’ll need the contract code, the SCAP box, and the name of the contracting company.”

“Why?” Roland said, frowning.

“To make sure we don’t stumble on each other again,” Grosskopf said, smoothly.

“Very well,” Roland replied. He pulled a file from his briefcase and laid it on the desk. “I rather thought you might need some of that. This is all that is transmissible for the purposes of this discussion. It’s a very sensitive project.”

“I understand,” George said, standing up and holding out his hand. “Sorry we had this little bump.”

“No problem,” Roland said, all smiles. “But to be clear, there are no more issues, right?”

Grosskopf knew what he should say but he just couldn’t do it.

“When you speak to the company representative, assure him that there will be no further interest from the FBI.”

“That’s not the same as there is no further interest from the FBI,” Roland said, a touch angrily.

“Dr. Roland,” the ADD said. “Let me be perfectly blunt. If you do not assure the company representative that there will be no further interest from the FBI, then you will never work in government service again. Or as a Beltway Bandit. When it comes to who meets the criteria for secure information, the FBI Deputy Director is God. And in certain matters, and this is one, I sit at his right hand. You. Will. Assure. The. Company. Representative. If you have to give an Oscar-winning performance to do so.”

“What is going on?” Roland asked, ashen.

George flexed his jaw muscles for a moment then smiled thinly.

“This is all that is transmissible for the purposes of this discussion. It’s a very sensitive project.”

“Satire…”

“Is all I’m willing to give you at the moment,” Grosskopf said, now furious. “Except one more thing. The next time DARPA decides to go fucking around with the supernatural, clear it with this department first!”