Smith whistled softly in surprise. This was more than a simple dispute over jurisdiction. The FBI had made a clean sweep of every scrap of official evidence. “On whose authority?” he asked quietly.
“Deputy Assistant Director Katherine Pierson signed the orders,” Zarate answered. His mouth tightened. “I won’t pretend I’m happy about tucking my tail in and complying, but nobody in the mayor’s office or on the city council wants to rock the boat with the Feds right now.”
Jon nodded his understanding. With a major disaster right on its doorstep, Santa Fe would be depending heavily on federal aid money and assistance. And local pride and turf consciousness would naturally take a backseat to urgent necessity.
“Just one more question,” he promised Zarate. “You said there was a corpse. Do you know what happened to the body? Or who’s handling the autopsy?”
The police lieutenant shook his head in confusion. “That’s where this whole screwy situation gets very weird.” He scowled. “I made a few phone calls to the various coroners and hospitals, just checking around for my own edification. And as far as I can tell nobody did anything at all to try to identify the stiff. Instead, it looks like the FBI slid the dead guy right into an ambulance and shipped him off to a mortuary way down in Albuquerque for immediate cremation.” He looked straight at Smith. “Now what the hell do you make of that, Colonel?”
Jon fought for control over his face and won, maintaining a stony, impassive expression. Exactly what was Kit Pierson doing out here in Santa Fe? he wondered. Who was she covering up for?
It was a little before noon when Smith left the Santa Fe police department and walked out onto the Camino Entrada. His eyes flickered briefly to the left and right, checking the street in both directions, but otherwise he revealed no great interest in his surroundings. Instead, still apparently deep in thought, he climbed into his rented dark gray Mustang coupe and drove away. A few quick turns on surface streets led him into the crowded parking lot surrounding the city’s indoor shopping center, the Villa Linda Mall. Once there, he threaded through several rows of parked cars, acting as though he was simply looking for an open space. Finally, he drove away from the mall, crossed the encircling Wagon Road, and parked under the shade of some trees growing next to a shallow ravine marked on his map as the Arroyo de las Chamisos.
Two minutes later, another car, this one a white four-door Buick, turned in right behind him. Peter Howell got out and stretched while carefully checking the environment. Satisfied that they were unobserved, he sauntered up, pulled open the Mustang’s passenger-side door, and then slid into the bucket seat next to Smith.
In the hours since they had met for breakfast, the Englishman had found time to have his hair cut fashionably short. He had also changed his clothes, abandoning the faded denims and heavy flannel shirt he had worn as Malachi MacNamara in favor of a pair of khaki slacks, a solid blue button-down shirt, and a herringbone sports coat. The fiery Lazarus Movement fanatic was gone, replaced by a lean, sun-browned British expatriate apparently out for an afternoon’s shopping.
“Spot anything?” Jon asked him.
Peter shook his head. “Not so much as a suspiciously turned head. You’re clean.”
Smith relaxed slightly. The other man had been operating as his distant cover, hanging back while he went into the police headquarters and then keeping an eye on his tail to spot anyone following him when he came out.
“Were you able to learn anything yourself?” Peter asked. “Or did your pointed questions fall on stony ground?”
“Oh, I learned a fair amount,” Jon said grimly. “Maybe even more than I bargained for.”
Peter raised an inquiring eyebrow but otherwise stayed quiet, listening carefully while Smith filled him in on what he had learned. When he heard that Dolan’s body had been cremated, he shook his head, sourly amused. “Well, well, well … ashes to ashes and dust to dust. And no fingerprints or inconvenient dental impressions left for anyone to match up with any embarrassing personnel files. I suppose no matter how thoroughly the CIA and FBI databases were scrubbed, somebody, somewhere, would have been bound to recognize the fellow.”
“Yep.” Jon’s fingers drummed on the steering wheel of his car. “Nifty, isn’t it?”
“It does raise a number of intriguing questions,” Peter agreed. He ticked them off on his own fingers. “Who are these secret operations lads like the late and unlamented Michael Dolan really working for? The Lazarus Movement, as they seem to be on the surface? Or some other organization, sub rosa? Perhaps even your very own CIA? All very confusing, wouldn’t you say?”
“One thing’s certain,” Smith told him. “Kit Pierson must be in this mess up to her neck. She probably has the authority to take over the Plaza crime scene. But there’s no way she can justify cremating Dolan’s body, not under standard FBI practice and procedure.”
“Could she be doubling for Lazarus?” Peter asked quietly. “Working to sabotage the FBI’s investigation from within?”
“Kit Pierson as a Lazarus mole?” Jon shook his head firmly. “I can’t see it. If anything, she’s been pushing far too hard to blame everything that happened at the Institute on the Movement.”
Peter nodded. “True. So if she’s not working for Lazarus, she must be working against them—which suggests she’s covering for an off-the-books anti-Movement operation run by the FBI, or the CIA, or both.”
Smith looked at him. “You think they’re really running an operation that sensitive without the president’s approval?”
Peter shrugged. “It happens, Jon, as you well know.” He smiled drily. “Remember poor old Henry the Second? He gets a bit pissed one night and roars out, ‘Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?’ Then, practically before he can sober up, there’s blood spilled all over the floor of Canterbury Cathedral. Thomas Becket’s suddenly a sainted martyr. And the sad, sorry, hung-over king is down for a round of scourging, hair shirts, and public penitence.”
Smith nodded slowly. “Yeah, I know. Intelligence outfits sometimes exceed their authority. But it’s a damned dangerous game to be playing.”
“Of course it is,” Peter said. “Careers can be wrecked. And even high-ranking officials can be sent to prison. That’s precisely why they might have decided to kill you.”
Jon frowned. “I can understand a CIA/FBI covert operation designed to wreck the Lazarus Movement from within. It would be stupid and completely illegal, but I can understand it. And I can see a Movement attempt to sabotage the Institute labs. But what I can’t make fit into either scenario is the nanophage release that slaughtered all those protesters.”
“Yes,” Peter said slowly, with his eyes full of remembered horror. “That is the one piece which remains stubbornly outside the puzzle. And a bloody awful piece it is, too.”
Nodding, Smith sat back from the steering wheel and pulled out his phone. “Maybe it’s time we stopped pissing around on the outside.” He punched in a number. It was answered on the first ring. “This is Colonel Jonathan Smith, Agent Latimer,” he said sharply. “I want to speak to Deputy Assistant Director Pierson. Right now.”
“Bearding the lioness in her den?” Peter murmured. “Not very subtle even for you, is it, Jon?”
Smith grinned at him over the phone. “I’ll leave subtlety to you Brits, Peter. Sometimes you’ve just got to fix bayonets and launch a good old-fashioned frontal assault.” Then, as he listened to the voice on the other end, his grin slowly faded. “I see,” he said quietly. “And when was that?”
He hung up.
“Trouble?” Peter asked.
“Maybe.” Smith frowned. “Kit Pierson is already on her way back to Washington for certain urgent and unspecified consultations. She’s catching an executive jet out of Albuquerque a little later this afternoon.”
“So the bird is on the wing, eh? Interesting timing, isn’t it?” Peter said with a sudden gleam in his eye. “I begin to suspect that Ms. Pierson just received a rather disturbing call from t
he local police.”
“You’re probably right,” Smith agreed, remembering the nervous looks he had gotten from the policeman who had passed him up the chain to Zarate. The desk sergeant must have tipped off the FBI that an Army lieutenant colonel named Jonathan Smith was digging into an incident the Bureau was trying to bury. He glanced at the Englishman. “Are you up for a quick trip to D.C.? I know it’s outside your current area of operations, but I could sure use some help. Kit Pierson is the one solid lead I’ve got and I don’t plan to just watch her walk away.”
“Count me in,” Peter replied with a slow, predatory grin. “I wouldn’t miss this for the world.”
Chapter
Twenty-Six
The White House
“I understand you very well, Mr. Speaker,” President Samuel Adam Castilla growled into the phone. He looked up and saw Charles Ouray, his chief of staff, poke his head into the Oval Office. Castilla motioned him inside with a wave and then turned back to the phone. “Now it’s time for you to understand me. I will not be stampeded into any executive action I think unwise. Not by the CIA or the FBI. Not by the Senate. And not by you. Is that clear? Very well, then. Good day to you, sir.”
Castilla hung up, resisting the urge to slam the phone down in its cradle. He rubbed a big hand over his weary face. “They say Andrew Jackson once threatened to horsewhip a fellow off the White House grounds. I used to think that was just Old Hickory on a wild-eyed tear, letting his famous temper get the better of him. But now I’m mighty tempted to follow his example.”
“Are you receiving more helpful advice from Congress?” Ouray asked drily, nodding toward the phone.
The president grimaced. “That was the Speaker of the House,” he said. “Graciously suggesting that I immediately sign an executive order naming the Lazarus Movement a terrorist organization.”
“Or?”
“Or the House and Senate will enact legislation on their own initiative,” Castilla finished.
Ouray raised an eyebrow. “By a veto-proof majority?”
The president shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, we lose. Politically. Diplomatically. You name it.”
His chief of staff nodded soberly. “I guess it doesn’t matter much whether an anti-Lazarus bill ever really becomes law. If it passes the Congress, our increasingly shaky international alliances will take another serious hit.”
“Too true, Charlie,” Castilla said, sighing. “Most people around the world will see a law like that as more proof that we’re overreacting, turning paranoid and panicked. Oh, I suppose a few of our friends, the ones worried by those bombs in Chicago and Tokyo, might cheer quietly, but most folks will only think we’re making matters worse. That we’re pushing an otherwise peaceful group toward violence—or that we’re covering up our own crimes.”
“It’s a terrible situation,” Ouray agreed.
“Yes, it is.” Castilla sighed. “And it’s about to get much worse.” Feeling trapped behind his desk, he stood up and crossed over to the windows. For a short time he stared out across the South Lawn, noting the squads of heavily armed guards in helmets and body armor now patrolling openly around the grounds. After the Lazarus Movement attack in Tokyo, the Secret Service had insisted on tightening security around the White House.
He looked back over his shoulder at Ouray. “Before the Speaker dropped his little legislative ultimatum on me, I had another call—this one from Ambassador Nichols at the UN.”
The White House chief of staff frowned. “Is something up inside the Security Council?”
Castilla nodded. “Nichols just got wind of a resolution some of the nonaligned countries on the Council are going to propose. Basically, they’re going to demand that we open all of our nanotech research facilities—both public and private—to full international inspection, including an examination of all their proprietary processes. They say it’s the only way they can be sure that we’re not running a secret nanotech weapons program. And Nichols says he thinks the nonaligned bloc has enough Council votes lined up for passage.”
Ouray grimaced. “We can’t allow that to go through.”
“No, we can’t,” Castilla agreed heavily. “It’s basically a license to steal every nanotech development we’ve made. Our companies and universities have spent billions on this research. I can’t let all of that work go down the drain.”
“Can we persuade one of the other permanent members to veto this resolution for us?” Ouray asked.
Castilla shrugged. “Nichols says Russia and China are ready to stick it to us. They want to know how far we’ve gone in nanotechnology. We’ll be lucky if the French decide to abstain. That leaves just the British. And I’m not sure how far the prime minister can go right now to give us political cover. His control over Parliament is tenuous at best.”
“Then we’ll have to veto it ourselves,” Ouray realized. His jaw tightened. “And that will look bad. Really bad.”
Castilla nodded grimly. “I can’t imagine anything more likely to confirm the world’s worst fears about what we’re doing. If we veto a Security Council resolution on nanotech, we’ll immediately lend credibility to the Lazarus Movement’s most outrageous claims.”
Kirtland Air Force Base, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Still driving his rented Mustang, Smith pulled away from the Truman Gate guardhouse and headed south through the sprawling air base, passing Little League baseball fields crowded with teams and cheering parents on the right. It was near the end of the season, and the local championships were in full swing.
Following the directions the Air Force security police had given him, he made his way through the maze of streets and buildings and arrived at a small parking lot near the flight line. Peter Howell’s white Buick LeSabre pulled in next to him.
Smith climbed out of the Mustang and slung his laptop and a small travel bag over one shoulder. He tossed the keys onto the front seat and left the door unlocked. He saw Peter following his example. After they were gone, one of Fred Klein’s occasional couriers would arrange for the safe return of the two rental cars.
Commercial passenger aircraft in bright colors thundered low overhead, taking off and landing at precisely regulated intervals. Kirtland shared its runways with Albuquerque’s international airport. Heat waves shimmered out on the concrete, and the sharp tang of jet fuel hung in the hot air.
A large C-17 Globemaster transport in pale gray U.S. Air Force camouflage sat on the tarmac with its engines already spooling over. Jon and Peter walked toward the waiting jet.
The loadmaster, a senior Air Force noncom with a square, hard face and permanently furrowed brows, came to meet them. “Is one of you guys Lieutenant Colonel Jonathan Smith?” he asked after looking down at the clipboard in his hand to make sure he got the name and rank right.
“That’s me, Sergeant,” Jon told him. “And this is Mr. Howell.”
“Then if you’ll both follow me, sir,” the loadmaster said, after a long, dubious look at Smith’s civilian clothes. “We’ve only got a five-minute window for takeoff, and Major Harris says he ain’t disposed to lose his spot and wind up sitting in line behind a goddamned bunch of airborne buses full of tourists.”
Smith hid a rueful grin. He strongly suspected the C-17 pilot had said considerably more than that on hearing that he was making an unscheduled cross-country flight—solely to ferry one Army light colonel and a foreign-born civilian to the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. Once again, Fred Klein had waved Covert-One’s magic wand, this time working through contacts inside the Pentagon’s bureaucracy. He and Peter followed the C-17 crewman into the aircraft’s cavernous cargo bay and then up onto the flight deck.
The pilot and co-pilot were waiting for them in the cockpit, already running through their last preflight checklist. Both had active heads-up displays, HUDs, fixed in front of them. On the control console below the windshield four large multi-function computer displays flashed through a variety of modes, showing the status of the engines, hy
draulics, avionics, and other controls.
Major Harris, the pilot, turned his head when they came in. “Are you gentlemen ready to go?” he asked through gritted teeth, emphasizing the word “gentlemen” to make plain that was not the word he would have preferred to use.
Smith nodded apologetically. “We’re set, Major,” he said. “And I’m sorry about the short notice. If it’s any consolation, this is a genuinely critical mission—not just a glorified VIP jaunt.”
Slightly mollified, Harris jerked a thumb at the two observer seats right behind him. “Well, strap yourselves in.” He leaned across to his co-pilot. “Let’s get this crate moving, Sam. We’re on the clock now.”
The two Air Force officers busied themselves with the controls and brought the big plane rumbling out onto the apron, taxiing slowly toward the main runway. The roar of the C-17’s four turbofan engines grew even louder as Harris pushed the throttles forward with his left hand.
After Jon and Peter buckled themselves in, the loadmaster handed them each a helmet with a built-in radio headset. “Air-to-ground transmissions are pretty much it as far as in-flight entertainment goes,” he told them, raising his voice over the howl of the engines.
“What? You mean there are no stewardesses, champagne, or caviar?” Peter asked with a horrified look.
Almost against his will, the C-17 crewman grinned back. “No, sir. Just me and my coffee, I’m afraid.”
“Fresh-brewed, I trust?” the Englishman asked.
“Nope. Instant decaf,” the Air Force sergeant replied, smiling even more broadly. He vanished, heading for his own seat down in the aircraft’s cavernous cargo bay.
“Good lord! The sacrifices I make for queen and country,” Peter murmured with a quick wink at Smith.
The jet swung through a sharp turn, lining up with the long main runway. Ahead, a Southwest Airlines 737 lifted off and banked north. “Air Force Charlie One-Seven, you are cleared for immediate takeoff,” the tower air traffic controller’s voice crackled suddenly through Smith’s radio earphones.