Zero Option

21

Carson sat in his office clenching and unclenching his fists. That god damned Stafford! How in the hell had he figured it out? How in the hell could he know what the cylinder even looked like?

Lambry. Fucking Lambry must have said something to that idiot Dillard before his little accident. Boss Hisley had mentioned that Dillard had been seen talking to Stafford. Shit!

The Army had come and gone. He still owed Tangent a call, but Stafford had thrown some serious shit in the game. Should he tell Tangent that Stafford knew? That could well and truly queer the deal. But if he didn’t, and Stafford did go to the Army, the deal might be queered anyway. They’d either come back and tear the DRMO to pieces, or — what?

He thought furiously, it all depended on how the Army was handling this thing internally. They’d be in an uproar if they thought some of their precious CW was missing, but they’d be just as terrified about their screw up becoming public knowledge. They might just tell Stafford to take a hike. What Wendell Carson needed now was some leverage, some serious Washington leverage.

Well, hey, how about Mr. Tangent?

Tangent claimed to be well connected. He’d tell him exactly what had happened and let him neutralize Stafford, especially since Stafford was already in bureaucratic disgrace. The original source of Stafford’s information, however indirectly, had to have been Lambry, but Lambry was Monster piss and his house was a blackened memory. If Lambry was indeed the source, Stafford was shit out of luck. And evidence.

A feeling of calm certainty settled over him. Only well dell Carson now knew where the cylinder was. Lambry was dead, so Stafford had to be bluffing. The Army had not found it, and they were probably even now breathing a sigh of relief in the fervent hope that it had gone into the demil process with the shipment of coffins.

So tell Tangent, he thought. Tell Tangent and ask him to poison the well there in D.C. Absolutely. Discredit Stafford badly enough and no one would listen to him, least of all the Army, who had every incentive not to want to hear it. Yes, they might have to put off the transfer for a day or so, but once Stafford was out of the picture, they’d be in the clear. Then all he had to worry about was getting his money without losing his skin in the process.

He picked up the phone and called the 800 number.

Colonel Fuller rubbed the sides of his face with his hands as Major Mason concluded the briefing. “So, basically, nothing?” he asked. “No trace elements detected, the containers have all been cut into scrap metal, and the DRMO is clean?”

“Yes, sir. They gave the demil area and the compaction modules a very thorough sweep. The demil machine is, of course, designed to destroy toxic organics using multiple acid interactions. It’s a totally closed system, so even if the cylinder went into the machine inside one of the coffins, any release would have been contained anyway, and then neutralized.”

“Well,” Fuller said, stretching, “I guess that’s it. I’m going to recommend to the general that we take our packs off here.

Obviously, one of these things was overlooked during the unloading process at Tooele, then shipped back out with the containers to the DRMO. We’ll have to have a warm body or two swinging for that little screw up, but other than that, I think we’re done. You did say the manager at the DRMO confirmed that nobody inspected any containers?”

“Yes, sir. The CERT leader confirms that. The containers went right to demil just as soon as Receiving read the shipping manifest. The manager said they put them at the head of the line that very day.”

“That’s certainly what I would do with CW containers,” Fuller said, looking around the table for any signs of disagreement. Six eager staff officers were nodding back at him in total agreement.

“Right. So our official conclusion is that the cylinder was very probably destroyed in the demil process, and destroyed without a trace.

Agreed?”;

More nods. No dissent. The general had picked his team wisely, Fuller thought. Probably why he was the general.

He got up and told them to disband the working group and resume their normal duties, warning them once more that silence was literally golden, careerwise. He didn’t have to say that twice. He walked down to the executive assistant’s desk, which was empty at this time of night, and, per General Waddelfs instructions, placed a call to his home. He gave his report and the official conclusions.

“Nobody disagreed?”

“No, sir. Unanimous. Basically, that demil machine saved our asses.”

“The guy who runs that DRMO — did he catch on to what the ‘exercise’ was really all about?”

“We don’t think so, General. They took along a good looking blonde from the headquarters Public Affairs Office with the team, with instructions to keep the manager’s mind off things chemical.”

“And nobody but the manager knows about the ‘exercise’?”

“There was a DCIS agent there when the team came in. He’s apparently working with the manager on some internal investigation having to do with auctions of surplus equipment.”

“Is that a problem?”

“No, sir, we don’t think so. He apparently observed for a little while, then left. We have his name, and I’ve got one of the Security Working Group staffies running it down within DCIS channels, just to make sure.”

“Then we can declare victory and go home, you think?”

“Yes, sir. I assume you’ll hang some guilty bastards for letting it get loose, but otherwise, yes, I think we’re done. You might, um, want to have a word with General Carrothers. I’m not totally convinced he’ll be in agreement with our conclusions.”

“Not a problem. Lee Carrothers wants to be my replacement. Good night, Ambrose. And thank you.” “Yes, sir,” Fuller said, and hung up. As he went out into the hallway, he thought about the Wet Eye biologic simulation his people were running back at Dietrick. Should he shut that off? He stopped in the hallway and thought about it. No, let them proceed. It might be interesting to see what they came up with, even if the immediate problem was over.

A flare of headlights in the mirror announced the arrival of Ray Sparks.

Stafford unlocked his doors and Ray slid into the passenger seat. Two hotel security officers who had been giving Stafford’s government car the eye went off to do other things. One government car bore watching; two government cars meant problems, and the security guys wanted nothing to do with government problems.

“Okay, hotshot, lay it on me. From the beginning.”

Stafford walked him through the events of the past week again: his unfocused suspicions about Carson; the reportedly sudden exit of Bud Lambry, followed by the mysterious propane blast; his own visit to Graniteville. He trod carefully through the details of that visit, then reviewed its antecedents in the airport.

“Okay, right.” Sparks said. “And that the woman thinks the girl is a psychic.”

“That’s right. There have been two other witnessed incidents like that.”

Sparks was silent for a minute. Outside, the Peach tree Center plaza was empty except for a few passing pedestrians hurrying through the roseate light.

“Okay,” Sparks, said, “Let’s stipulate the girl’s a psychic and that she saw that cylinder thing in the drawing you told me about. What’s happened to get me out here at two in the morning?”

“Because two Army semis from Anniston, Alabama, showed up at the DRMO tonight,” Dave said. “Ostensibly to conduct a no-notice exercise of some kind of chemical response team.”

“And?”

“And there’s apparently a chemical weapons ammunition dump at Anniston.

And during the course of this so called exercise, I happened to see the thing in the girl’s drawing revolving in three dimensions on a monitor in one of the Army semis while an officer appeared to be explaining something about it.”

Sparks opened his mouth to say something but then shut it.

Stafford went on to describe what the press officer had told him about it being just an exercise. “I don’t think that was an exercise, Ray. I think those guys were looking for something under the cover of an exercise. My guess is that the cylinder contains some kind of chemical agent: nerve gas, or something lovely like that. I think maybe one of those environmental containers shipped in from Utah j wasn’t empty, and Carson, probably with Lambry’s help, found it and concealed it. Carson was thinking about it in the airport when I showed up on an unannounced visit from the DCIS in Washington.” J “And you’re saying he had the misfortune to think about it in front of a passing psychic? A teenage girl who can’t speak?”

“She can communicate. And she can draw. She says—”

“She says?” if “She can communicate, damn it! She uses sign language. And what she saw has been giving her bad dreams since they came home from the airport.”

“Why were they at the airport?” I ‘ They were coming home from Charlotte. Gwen had [taken the girl there for some medical tests.”

“What kind of medical tests?”

Uh-oh, Stafford thought. “The kid has chronic headaches. Gwen wanted to make sure the girl did not have a brain tumor.”

“Uh-huh,” Sparks said. “And Gwen is—”

“Gwen Warren is the woman who runs the school. Ray, she wanted no part of me or the DCIS, but she still felt compelled to call. Isn’t it obvious? Carson stole that cylinder. We’ve got to tell the Army before he sells the fucking thing.”

But Sparks was shaking his head. “No way, Dave. No way in hell. Look, the Army treats its chemical weapons the way the rest of the military treats nuclear weapons. They simply don’t lose that shit. And if they had, there’d be a full court press involving every federal law enforcement agency to find it.”

“Would there? This is the Army we’re talking about. The Green Machine. I think they’d cover it up like hell while they tried to recover it in-house. Like that little ‘exercise’ down at the DRMO, which just happened to have been the destination for the supposedly empty containers.”

“Yeah, but c’mon, Dave: a psychic, for Chrissakes? I didn’t say anything at lunch because it didn’t seem to make a shit, but this … Look, picture yourself telling DCIS headquarters this story. Picture my telling the colonel that you were coming in with this story. Based on the visions of a teenage girl living in one of those state homes for the sexually abused or otherwise mentally fucked up.”

“They’re not mentally fucked up, Ray. They’re just kids. They’re orphans, basically. This Willow Grove isn’t a loony bin for disturbed children. It’s a group home for wards of the state. They’re just kids from the north Georgia mountains.” But even as he said this, Stafford remembered Owen’s words about augmenting the state funding by including mild emotional disturbances in her charter.

Sparks was shaking his head even more emphatically. “No, Dave,” he said.

“Putting aside the physic bullshit, this is all supposition. I can’t have you roaring off into the night raising hell about a problem that doesn’t officially exist. Don’t you understand that this is the sort of shit that got you sent down here in the first place?”

Stafford sat back in the seat and took a deep breath.

Sparks grabbed Dave’s right forearm and then let go when he remembered.

“Look at me, Dave. Listen to me. Besides the colonel, I’m probably the only friend in the business you’ve got right now. This assignment down here is your last chance, okay? The colonel made that very clear, at least to me. And to you, I think. You come yelling out of the fucking woods with your hair on fire about something like this and they’re gonna terminate your ass. It’s not like you have legions of defenders up there in D. C., right? An office full of people ready to go to the mat for you?

Do you? Do you?” Stafford said nothing but shook his head slowly. Sparks nodded. “You know I’m fucking right. Now tell me something: Do you have any admissible evidence that this guy Carson is running some kind of theft scam at the DRMO?”

“Nothing but the pattern we detected in D.C.” “But that was at another DRMO, right? Not this one?” Stafford nodded, staring straight out the window. Disaster, he was thinking. Again.

“Then I suggest you put your head down and see if you can develop some admissible evidence, Dave. Not from psychics, not from peeping into the back of Army trucks doing some kind of out-there exercise, and not about an emergency that does not exist. Work your brief, and nothing but your brief, because if you don’t, you’re going to be an unemployed civilian.

Hey, you didn’t go bracing Carson up on this by any chance, did you?” Stafford said nothing, but his silence spoke volumes. Unmitigated disaster. I should have known.

“Aw shit, Dave. Goddamn it.” Sparks sighed and slumped in his seat.

“Okay, I’m not sure I can help you anymore. If Carson goes crying to his bosses in DLA, and they go to DCIS, this may be out of my hands. I think you better come up to Smyrna in the morning. Do not go back to that DRMO. You understand me? I want you in my office in the morning before the shit hits the fan.”

“And you will not even try to believe me?”

Sparks gave him what appeared to be a pitying look.

“On the word of a mute psychic teenager, Dave? Can’t we go for at least a mutant Ninja Turtle?”

“And on the word of a trained child psychologist who’s run that school for many years? Who does not want that kid involved in this?”

“I don’t know that and you don’t know that. For all I know, she wants to be a star on America’s Most Wanted. Is she a psychic, too, Dave? Look, I think you’re just overwrought. Go get some sleep. Then come into the office in the morning. Maybe if we can piss on this fire early enough, we can put it out, okay? Lemme make some calls, head this thing off.

I’ll tell ‘em you were whacked-out on your meds or something.”

Sparks slipped out of the car but held the door open. “Remember who your friends are, Dave,” he said.

“Yeah, right,” Dave said. “Both of them.”

“Bingo. So get some sleep. Forget about goddamn psychics. That’s an order.”