Walk the Wire

Chapter 64

Later that night Decker and Jamison were summoned once more to a meeting with Blue Man. Robie and Reel picked them up outside their hotel and drove them to a home about fifteen miles outside of town.

As they pulled up to the house Decker said, “Looks abandoned.”

“That’s what we like about this place,” said Reel. “So many free spaces to meet.”

“That’s the only thing we like about this place,” added Robie. “Otherwise, it’s turning out to be more dangerous than the Middle East.”

They were led inside, where Blue Man was sitting in a wooden-backed chair, dressed in a perfectly tailored suit and looking like he had just started his day.

“We have some things of interest to share,” he began. “Patrick McIntosh and Mark Sumter are currently lawyering up, if only to enter guilty pleas.”

“And Vector?”

“They should be permanently barred from future defense contracting, along with all their executives.”

“But will that actually happen?”

“We’ll see. Washington, DC, is full of successful second acts. But the uniforms involved in this are going to take a tumble. At least the ones who can’t find a chair to sit in before the music stops will.”

“Anything else?” asked Decker.

“For your purposes, something far more important. And ominous.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“It may mean nothing, or it may mean everything, but we’ve been getting some curious chatter from the Middle East lately.”

“What sort of chatter?”

“The sort that we do not like to get. We often get enhanced communication activity when something significant is going down. It happened before 9/11 but no one registered it. Now we take these occurrences very seriously.”

“Is there any indication where it might be coming from?” asked Jamison.

“Not precisely. But from what we can tell, there is a nexus to this country.”

“What does that mean?”

“Nothing good, I’m afraid.”

“What can we do about it?” asked Jamison.

“We need to solve this thing faster rather than slower. Time is not on our side.”

“You’ve said that before. And we’re working as fast as we can.”

“Then we must work faster.”

Decker stared down at him. “Do you know what was going on at London, AFS decades ago? And it had nothing to do with radar or prisoners.”

“Tell me.”

“They were making biochemical weapons,” said Jamison.

Blue Man nodded and said, “That was before my time, though I knew of the past military efforts in that regard. But those programs were ended and all stockpiles destroyed.”

“Maybe nobody told the folks over at London.”

“And this information came from...?”

“An old man in a nursing home named Brad Daniels. He worked there back then. He saw things. And he knew both Ben Purdy and Irene Cramer. We placed a security guard at the facility to look after him.”

“And Daniels told Cramer and Purdy about this past work?”

“Yes.”

“And the relevance today?”

“If people who knew about it are dying, there must be some relevance. Otherwise, what’s the point?”

“What do you think?”

“If the stockpiles weren’t destroyed, where might they be?”

“We were at the facility and didn’t see anything, but we didn’t come close to searching the whole place,” noted Jamison.

“Perhaps it would be a good idea to get a team in to more thoroughly go through it,” said Blue Man. “As discreetly as possible.”

“I think that would be a great idea,” said Decker.

“Then we will make that happen. Now, Purdy was transferred out of the facility, so if the stockpile is still there, I wonder what he was going to do about it. It’s not like he could have gone back to London AFS. And it also makes me wonder what Cramer’s plan was. What could she possibly think she could do about a weapons stockpile at an Air Force facility? She couldn’t go near the place.”

“It doesn’t make much sense,” agreed Decker.

“But if this is connected to the increased chatter from the Middle East, then it makes sense to somebody,” pointed out Jamison.

“Then those people must be here right now,” said Decker.

Robie said, “The guys who came after me were a mix of folks. But they could have been hired by others. They looked the mercenary type. Same with the ones chasing you to that barn.”

“Possibly,” said Decker.

“If these people want the stockpiles, assuming they actually exist, they must want to smuggle them out of the country,” said Blue Man.

“Or use them here,” said Decker.

“Which was my next comment,” said Blue Man. “Any indication from this Daniels exactly what sort of biochem weapons we’re talking about?”

“Only that they’re classified and he’ll take them to the grave,” said Decker.

“But Decker,” said Jamison, “remember Daniels said he told Purdy because Purdy was military and had security clearances. And he opened up to you more on the phone not just because you had his hat, but because you told him you had high-level security clearances.” She glanced at Blue Man. “If you all were to talk to him, he might open up even more. I mean, you can clearly receive classified information.”

Blue Man looked at Robie and Reel. “Attend to that. Right away.”

“We can give you the details,” said Jamison.

As they were dropping Decker and Jamison off back at the hotel Robie said to Decker, “While we’re seeing this old guy, you all are on your own.”

Jamison patted her holstered Glock and said, “We’ll be careful.”

“From what I’ve seen so far, you’ll have to be more than careful,” said Reel. “Good luck.”