Virtual Destruction

CHAPTER 25

As Paige drove through the upscale residential section of Livermore, Craig sat in the MG’s passenger seat and turned over the events in his head. Tall live oaks leaned over the street, casting glossy green shade. The price range of the homes probably climbed ten thousand dollars every block.

“Now be careful not to say anything at all during the interview,” he said. “Let’s see how Aragon reacts first.”

“Kay-O,” she said, then turned left into a subdivision of custom homes with expensive rock gardens and landscaping lavished on the front yards. She checked the address from Craig’s note, and pulled up in front of a large stucco house with a tile roof and a wisteria-clad arbor overhanging the double front door.

Craig retrieved a pad of paper from his briefcase, slipped a pen into his pocket, and drew a comb through his hair before climbing out of Paige’s forest-green sportscar. She stood waiting for him in her strawberry-red suit, ready to stride up the sidewalk.

He held his FBI wallet ID and Livermore Visitor’s badge out as soon as the left half of the broad entryway door opened. A petite dark-haired woman flashed an automatic smile at them. “Hello, Rona Aragon? I’m Craig Kreident with the FBI, and this is Ms. Mitchell from the Lab. We called earlier?”

She nodded. “Please come in, my husband is expecting you.”

Craig flipped his ID wallet shut and gestured for Paige to precede him into the two-story home. A polished tile foyer extended to a formal living room with an empty fireplace flanked by two small crucifixes; arrangements of dried flowers sat on several smoked-glass end tables and shelves. Beyond, he could see a carpeted family room with a TV buzzing in the background. White walls were covered with family photographs from the local budget studio, high school pictures, and paintings of bucolic mountain scenes of the type usually displayed in cheap hotel rooms.

A dark-haired man not much larger than his petite wife rose from a reclining chair when they entered the family room. He smiled broadly out of habit, tinged with a sore weariness, and motioned with bandaged hands for them to take a seat. “Mr. Kreident? Miss Mitchell? I’m José Aragon. Pleased to meet you.”

He held up his bandaged arms. “I’d offer you my hand, but I’m under doctor’s orders not to do anything but air them out.” His wife came over to stand by his side. “What can I do for you?”

Craig withdrew the notepad and snagged the pen from his pocket. “I’ve been assigned to conduct the investigation into Dr. Michaelson’s death. Do you mind answering some questions?”

Aragon’s face fell slack. He gestured to the floral-print sofa beside them. “Please, have a seat. I’m glad to answer any questions I can, but I’m not sure I can help you.” He shook his head. “Terrible news about Hal. A tremendous man and a great asset to the Lab.”

“Could you please tell me where and when you heard about Dr. Michaelson’s death?” Craig asked.

Aragon nodded to his wife who hovered behind him. “Rona heard the news yesterday on Good Morning America. I was at the Kaiser Medical Center for most of the day with this.” He held up his bandages. “I haven’t been to work since.”

Craig looked Aragon’s bandaged hands more closely. They were covered from the elbow down with thick gauze, stained from within with a brownish-yellow antibacterial ointment. “What happened to your hands, Mr. Aragon?”

Aragon looked dismayed. “I only wish I knew. Two nights ago I woke up feeling like my hands were on fire. I went to the doctor the next morning and learned I had been exposed to some kind of acid. They had to remove a large circle in the middle of my right palm and excised the outer layers of skin from my hands. I’ll be scarred, but still able to use my hands once I heal up.”

Craig kept the emotion out of his voice as he took a gamble. “Where were you exposed to the hydrofluoric acid?”

“That’s the strangest thing. My Directorate covers a lot of territory, tech transfer and defense conversion. My only guess would be our glass-etching facility, but I visited the facility last week, not two days ago. I’d need to check my day planner.”

Craig wrote down a note on his pad and glanced at Paige. Her blue eyes were wide, but she said nothing to let on that Aragon had admitted to knowing about the HF.

“When was the last time you saw Dr. Michaelson?”

“Two days ago, just before he died. I took him on a tour to get his opinion on recent changes in the Plutonium Facility. He’s using that as part of his showcase of new technology for the International Verification Initiative. We’re very proud of that.”

“Michaelson worked for you, didn’t he?”

Sitting on the armrest of her husband’s easy chair, Rona stared down at the floor. Aragon smiled thinly. “Officially, yes — Hal Michaelson was assigned to my Directorate. But in practice, Hal worked for no one but himself. With his successful track record, Hal had carte blanche to do just about anything he wished.”

“Did you two get along?”

“Professionally, yes — very well. But we never socialized much. The only real contact I had with him was through program management, or we both had ties with the Coalition for Family Values. I head up the visitors program for the Coalition, and Hal’s programs always attracted the most attention. They were patterned after himself, I believe: flashy and overbearing.”

After Craig finished his repertoir of questions, he closed his notepad and stood. “Mr. Aragon, I appreciate your time and your candor.” He gave Aragon’s wife a business card. “If you can think of anything else about the last time you saw Dr. Michaelson, please give me a call.”

Aragon glanced at the official FBI card and looked worried. “This seems to be a rather in-depth investigation for a heart attack victim.”

“Where did you hear he died from a heart attack?” Craig asked.

Aragon blinked his dark, doelike eyes. “From the news. Was it something else?”

“We’d rather not say at the moment,” Craig said. “I’ll be back in touch if I need anything else.”

Paige stood by his side, brushing down her bright red skirt. “Thank you for your time — we can find our own way out.”

Craig shut the door behind them and motioned for Paige not to speak until they were inside her MG. Once they hummed along with the sound of a lawnmower engine, Paige blurted, “He's got HF burns, too? Is that some coincidence or what?”

Craig tapped a finger on the dashboard, thinking out loud as the wind whipped past his ears, stirring the gray-streaked hair at his temples. “Yeah, it’s some coincidence. As he said, some places in his directorate stockpile the stuff.”

Craig glanced at Paige, and she gave him a worried look. Strands of blond hair escaped from her French braid and flew wildly in the wind. “I can track down the doctor Aragon saw through our Benefits office. Would that help?”

Craig nodded. “We’ll have to subpoena the medical records. Even the FBI can’t just walk in and get whatever files we want. First, though, when can we get that CAIN access list?”

Paige turned toward the Lab site and accelerated down East Avenue. “I’ll check on it again — this is the government, so you can count on efficiency!” She laughed. “Safeguards and Security promised to have it for me by this afternoon.”

Inside the T Program trailer complex again, Craig learned that the FBI forensics team had returned to the VR chamber, led by his backup agents Goldfarb and Jackson.

Since he and Paige had left an hour before, the T Program offices had become a lunatic asylum of activity. Most of the young workers wore t-shirts and bluejeans, clustered in groups of two or three at computer workstations. Inside the white-walled VR chamber he spotted two people in suits — FBI agents, of course — but they worked while sidestepping Coke-drinking, Dorito-munching techs hammering away at terminals, enhancing diagnostics in the chamber walls.

“What the hell is going on here?” Craig demanded. He spotted a flash of red hair and a freckled face among the people tearing apart the VR chamber. “Hey, Lesserec!”

The flushed computer scientist jittered out of the chamber slurping a can of soda. He scowled when he saw Craig. “I know what you’re going to say, Mr. FBI, but we’ve been granted leave to get back to work. So don’t go jumping down my throat. We’ve got serious time constraints here.”

Before Craig could express his disbelief, Lesserec pulled a folded sheet of paper from his jeans pocket and shoved it under Craig’s nose. “Here, call this number and argue with her. Don’t bug me about it.”

Craig snatched the paper from Lesserec. The number was a direct line to his FBI supervisor, June Atwood. He turned without saying a word and marched to the phone in Lesserec’s cubicle. Punching in the digits he listened to two rings before June Atwood answered.

“This is Craig. What in the living hell is going on down here? Am I on an investigation, or did I just get invited to somebody’s Christmas party?” He didn’t wait for her to reply. “I’ve got a room full of computer nerds walking all over a crime scene. No telling what they’re screwing up.”

June sounded nonplussed. Her voice remained smooth and cool. “Craig, calm down.”

“First I’m put on admin leave for the NanoWare case, and now this investigation is being royally botched. Is somebody trying to make me look bad?”

“Craig, listen a minute. Ben Goldfarb tried to get hold of you. The forsenics team found no trace of HF in the chamber, or in the entire building for that matter. Right after that I received a very belligerent call from the Director, insisting that we open up the VR lab or we would hear from the President himself.”

“What’s the Livermore Lab Director doing calling you? Doesn’t anybody care about this investigation—”

“Not the Livermore director—our FBI Director back in Washington. The White House, the Department of Energy, and the State Department are screaming at the Justice Department because we’re holding up the most important new project the President has in his Administration. Our national prestige is on the line.”

Craig opened his mouth, but decided not to say anything. He glanced around and saw Paige standing next to Lesserec; her arms were folded and she looked grim, but Lesserec grinned a goofy smile at him. Craig growled and turned away.

“This is not kid’s stuff, Craig,” June continued. “The President sees his International Verification Initiative as the defining program of the decade, the transition from the Cold War into a nuclear safe world — and, no doubt, his ticket to next year’s election. It’s on par with the Manhattan Project, the Apollo program—”

“A man was murdered, June.”

“Your investigation can continue.”

“But they’ve already screwed up so much evidence—”

“The President does not want this demonstration delayed. Is that clear? The Nevada Test Site is already prepping a nuke from the stockpile for the actual demonstration, as well as mounting a high-explosives test for a trial run. Meanwhile, you find out what you can. Deal with it. DOE and Livermore have given me their word they’ll cooperate as long as their scientists can have access to the VR chamber.”

Craig snorted. “Just like they gave their word in the ‘50s that radiation from atomic blasts were harmless.”

June spoke slowly. “Craig, you do not have a choice in this matter. Do you understand? Would you rather I turned the whole matter over to Goldfarb? Think about what your answer is going to be, because if it’s anything other than yes, I will order your immediate dismissal.”

Craig listened to himself breathing. “I understand,” he said, and hung up the phone.

Turning, he headed straight for the VR chamber to collar Goldfarb and Jackson. Lesserec snagged his arm. “Get the story straight, Mr. FBI?”

Craig squashed the urge to deck the freckle-faced hacker. Instead he kept his voice level. “Feel free to go about your business, Mr. Lesserec.”

Craig stepped into the VR chamber, fuming, and Paige followed him. “Nice control, Craig. Remind me to invite you next time I break up with a boyfriend.”

Goldfarb and Jackson stood as he entered the white room, wiping their hands. “Hey, boss. Results are in — no trace of HF anywhere in this building. Clean as a whistle.”

Craig sighed. “So where could the HF have come from?”

Paige answered before the other two agents could say anything. “I checked that, remember? Unfortunately, hydrofluoric acid is used in small quantities in plenty of our analytical labs. Our Plutonium Facility, the glass-etching labs, and some of the fabrication facilities keep particularly large amounts. Even on the outside, though, you can buy HF from a chemical supply company for about fifty dollars a liter — so anybody could have gotten some.”

Craig thought for a moment. “Plutonium building — why does that sound familiar?”

“That Lesserec kid said they were installing sensors for this VR test there,” offered Goldfarb.

Craig nodded. “And José Aragon took Michaelson to the plutonium building the day he died. I wonder, did Aragon accidentally spill some acid on himself while dosing Michaelson?”

Paige brushed wisps of stray hair with her hands. “But why would Aragon have done that? Don’t you need a motive?”

Craig looked into her blue, blue eyes. “That’s the next step.”