Perry got up first, screaming, snarling, and hit his father with a heavy left hook. That blow broke his father’s jaw, but Perry only found that out later. Jacob Dawsey tossed his son away like so much rubbish. Perry jumped up to press the attack. His father grabbed a shovel and proceeded to give Perry the worst beating he’d ever suffered.
Perry fought like he’d never fought before, because he was sure he was going to die that day. He landed two more shots on his father’s jaw, but Jacob Dawsey barely flinched as he brought the flat of the shovel down again and again.
The next day the pain was too much for even the mighty Jacob Dawsey. He went to the hospital, where the doctors wired his mouth shut. When his father returned home, he called his son to the kitchen table. Black-and-blue, cut in a dozen places, Perry could hardly walk after the shovel-beating, but he sat at the table as his father scrawled out childish writing on a piece of paper. Jacob Dawsey was only semiliterate, but Perry could make out the message.
Can’t talk, broke jaw, said the scribbled writing. You fought like a man. Proud of you. It a shit world, you got to learn to survive. Someday you understand, thank me.
What had been fucked up—like, really fucked up beyond belief—wasn’t the beating itself. It was the look in his father’s eyes. The look of sorrow, of love and the look of pride. The look that said, “This hurt me more than it hurt you,” and not because of the broken jaw. His dad saw the shovel-beating in the same light a sane father might see a spanking—something unsavory that had to be done as a parenting responsibility. Jacob Dawsey didn’t think he’d done anything wrong—in fact, he thought he’d done the right thing, the responsible thing, and although he hated hurting his only begotten son, he’d do what had to be done to be a good father.
Yeah, thanks Dad, Perry thought. Thanks a bunch. You’re the best.
But as much as he hated the man, Perry couldn’t deny that his father had made him who he was. Jacob Dawsey had set out to make his son tough, and he had succeeded. Perry’s toughness helped him excel on the football field, which earned him a scholarship and a college degree. As crazy as Jacob Dawsey was, he’d also instilled a die-hard work ethic that Perry very much considered a key part of his personality. He liked working hard. He liked being the one people relied on to get the job done.
And rash or no rash, Perry was at work and doing his job. But being at work and being effective were two different things. He just couldn’t concentrate. He continuously pursued the same avenues, the same possible solutions over and over again in his mind. His brain felt fuzzy, as if it couldn’t grip the task at hand.
“Perry, can I speak to you for a moment?”
He turned to see Sandy standing just inside his cube. She didn’t look happy.
“Sure,” he said.
“I just got a call from Samir at Pullman. Their network has been dropping out for three days now.”
“I’m working on it. I thought I had it fixed yesterday. I’m sorry it’s taking so long.”
“I know you’re working on it, but I’m not sure you’re paying attention. According to Samir, you had him reboot the network routers yesterday. Twice. And even though it didn’t work either time, you had him do it again this morning.”
Perry’s brain searched for an answer, but found none.
“They’re losing money, Perry.” Sandy sounded more than a little angry. “I don’t mind if my people can’t solve a problem, but I don’t want you bullshitting your way through something if you don’t know how to solve it.”
Perry felt his own anger rise. He was working as hard as he could, dammit! He was the best one in the department. Maybe there were problems that just couldn’t be solved.
“So can you tell me what’s wrong with their system?” Sandy asked. Perry noticed for the first time that her eyes grew very wide and her nostrils flared when she was angry. The look seemed childish, petulant, like some spoiled little girl who thinks people should jump at her orders.
“I don’t know,” Perry said.
Her eyes widened further and her hands went to her hips. Perry felt another stab of anger at her haughty posture.
“How the hell can you not know?” Sandy said. “You’ve been on this for three days. You haven’t known for three days and you haven’t asked for help?”
“I said I’m working on it!” Even to himself his voice sounded strange—full of anger and impatience. Sandy’s eyes flashed with trepidation as she looked down. Her gaze returned to his face, the petulant look gone, replaced by a questioning, slightly fearful expression. Perry looked down himself to see what she’d stared at. His hands were balled into fists, squeezed so tight the knuckles glowed white against his reddish skin. He realized his whole body was coiled with aggressive tension, the same posture he used to have before the snap of the ball—or before a fight. The office suddenly seemed very quiet. He pictured how frightening the scene must be to her; his big angry body hovering predatorily over her smallish, weak frame. He must have looked like a rabid bear about to pounce on a wounded fawn.
He willed his hands to open. His face flushed with embarrassment and shame. He’d made Sandy afraid of him, made her afraid that he’d lash out and hit her ( just like the last job, his conscience teased, just like the last boss).
“I’m sorry,” Perry said quietly. The fear left Sandy’s eyes, replaced by concern, but despite the change, she backed another step out of the cube.
“You seem to be under some stress lately,” Sandy said quietly. “Why don’t you take the rest of the day off and relax.”
Perry blanched at the thought of leaving work early. “I’m okay. Really, I can fix the problem in Pullman.”
“I don’t care about that,” Sandy said. “I’ll get someone else to fix it. Go home. Now.” She turned and walked away.
Perry stared at the ground, feeling like a failure, feeling he’d betrayed her loyalty. He’d been moments away from hitting the one person who’d given him a chance, who’d let him straighten out his life. She’d done everything for him by giving him that chance. This was how he thanked her. In unison, the seven itches flared all over his body, adding to his frustration. Like a huge child, he packed his duct-tape-patched briefcase and sluffed into his coat.
His IM alert dinged:
StickyFingazWhitey: Hey man, you okay? Can I help?
Perry stared at the message for a second. He didn’t deserve help, he didn’t deserve sympathy. Without sitting down, he typed in a reply:
Bleedmaize_n_blue: Don’t worry about me. I’m tip-top.
StickyFingazWhitey: Like hell you are. Just be cool, go home, I’ll patch this up for you.
Bleedmaize_n_blue: No, stay out of it.
StickyFingazWhitey: Fine, I promise I won’t say a word to Sandy. Of course, I lie a lot. I also promise” I won’t fix Pullman for you.
StickyFingazWhitey: Go watch your Pope Porn™, I’ve got this. No bout-a-doubt-it.
Bill had his back. Somehow that made Perry feel even worse. Even if he insisted Bill leave it alone, his friend would just do the work anyway.
He walked out of the office, feeling the eyes of everyone on his back. Red-faced and frustrated, Perry walked to his car and headed home.
20.
SHORTHANDED
It was hard to believe it had only been seven days since Murray had sent for him. Seven days ago, when he’d never heard of triangles, Margaret Montoya or Martin Brewbaker. Seven days ago, when his partner wasn’t in a hospital bed, a bed that for all intents and purposes, Dew had put him in.
Seven days ago Murray had called for Dew. They’d fought side by side back in the day, but after ’Nam they didn’t exactly keep in touch. When Murray called, it meant only one thing—he wanted something done. Something…unappealing. Something that required getting a little dirt under the fingernails, something that Murray—with his tailored suits and his manicures—wasn’t willing to do. But they’d been through hell together, and even though Murray had advanced in the CIA ranks and done his da
mnedest to rise above the shit-stomping lieutenant he’d been in ’Nam, when Murray called, Dew always answered.
It was only seven days ago that Dew had stood in Murray’s waiting room, eyeing the twenty-something, red-haired secretary, wondering if Murray was fucking her.
She looked up with her sparkling green eyes and a genuine smile. “Can I help you, sir?”
Irish accent, Dew thought. If he’s not banging her, or at least trying, he must be impotent.
“I’m Agent Dew Phillips. Murray is expecting me.”
“Of course, Agent Phillips, go right in.” The redhead added in a confidential tone, “You’re a few minutes late, and Mister Longworth hates tardiness.”
“Does he? Ain’t that a bite in the ass. I’ll have to get on some kind of schedule.”
Dew walked into Murray’s sprawling, spartan office. A bullet-ridden American flag decorated one wall. On the opposite wall hung a row of pictures showing Murray with each of the last five presidents. The pictures were like a stop-action movie of Murray’s aging process, from hard-bodied young man to more-than-slightly-overweight, cold-eyed piece of gristle.
Dew noticed the absence of any pictures showing Murray in his army uniform, either dress or fatigues. Murray wanted to forget that time, forget who he’d been back then, forget the things he’d done. Dew couldn’t forget—and he didn’t want to anymore. It was a part of his life, and he’d moved on. Mostly, anyway.
He certainly remembered the flag on Murray’s wall, remembered the firebase where he and Murray and six other men had been the only survivors of an entire company, remembered fighting for his life with all the savagery of a rabid animal. It had been like something from World War I at the end, just before the choppers arrived, fighting hand to hand in wet, sandbagged trenches, the 2:00 A.M. stars hidden by clouds that poured rain and turned the firebase into a slick sea of mud.
Murray Longworth sat behind a large oak desk devoid of decoration, unless you counted the computer. The desk’s empty top gleamed with layers of polish.
“Heya, L.T.,” Dew said.
“You know, Dew, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t use that nickname. We’ve had this talk before.”
“Sure thing,” Dew said. “I guess I forgot all about that.”
“Have a seat.”
“Nice place you’ve got here. You’ve had this office something like four years now? Glad I finally get to see it.”
Murray said nothing.
“It’s been, what, three years since we talked, L.T.? Seven years since you needed something from me? Your career in trouble again, is that it? You need Good Ol’ Dew to come in and pull your ass out of the fire? Make you look good, is that it?”
“It’s not like that this time.”
“Sure, L.T., sure. You know, I’m not as young as I used to be. My old body may not be up to your dirty work.”
Dew stood in front of the flag. A grimy-brown color stained the top left corner; just delta mud, Murray told anyone that asked. But it wasn’t mud, and Dew knew that better than anyone. The flag had once been attached to a flagpole that Dew used to kill a VC, driving the brass point into the enemy’s gut like some primitive tribal spearman. The bottom right corner held a similar stain, where Dew had tried in vain to stop the blood pouring from Quint Wallman’s throat after an AK-47 round had all but decapitated the eighteen-year-old corporal.
They hadn’t used the flag for motivation, because at the time none of them had been particularly patriotic. The flag just happened to be where they made their last stand, where they held off the attack until the choppers came and bailed them out. Murray was the last one to board, making sure the other men—all wounded, including Dew—were on before he worried about himself. He grabbed the flag, the bloodstained, burned and bullet-ridden flag, on the way out. No one knew why at the time, probably not even Murray. When they realized it was all over, that they had escaped death, left the corpses of both friends and enemies behind, the flag somehow took on more meaning.
Dew stared at the tattered fabric, the memories pouring back, and it was a second before he realized that Murray was softly calling his name.
“Dew? Dew?”
Dew turned and blinked, quickly returning to reality, to the present. Murray gestured to the chair in front of his desk. Dew thought about antagonizing Murray some more, then walked to the chair and sat down.
Dew pulled a Tootsie Roll from his jacket pocket, unwrapped it, popped the brown candy into his mouth then dropped the wrapper on the floor. He chewed for a moment, staring at Murray, then asked, “Did ya hear about Jimmy Tillamok?”
Murray shook his head.
“Ate a bullet. Used an old .45—wasn’t much left of his face.”
Murray’s head sank, and a long sigh hissed from his body. “My God, I hadn’t heard.”
“Imagine that,” Dew said. “He’s only been in rehab a half dozen times in the last four years. He crashed hard, Murray. He crashed hard and he needed his friends.”
“Why didn’t you call me?”
“Would you have come?”
Murray’s silence answered the question. He looked up from the floor to return Dew’s stone-eyed stare. “So we’re the last ones, then.”
“Yep,” Dew said. “Just the two of us. Golly gee, it’s a good thing we stayed so close all these years. Now we’ve got each other to rely on. Let’s get to the fucking point, L.T. What do you want?”
Murray pulled out a manila folder and passed it to Dew. It was labeled PROJECT TANGRAM. “We’ve got what could be a major problem.”
“Murray, if this is just some bullshit where I get shot at so your career can advance, I’m not doing it.”
“I told you it’s not like that this time, Dew. This is serious.”
“Yeah? Batting cleanup again, Murray? Who gave you their dirty laundry this time?”
“I can’t tell you.”
Dew stared hard at Murray. L.T. didn’t mind dropping names, that was for damn sure. It all clicked at once: Murray couldn’t say who, and he’d called the one man who would do whatever it took to get the job done.
“Holy shit,” Dew said. “This is from the big man, isn’t it? This is some secret presidential action, am I right?”
Murray cleared his throat. “Dew, I said I can’t tell you.”
The classic nondenial denial. Murray’s way of confirming Dew’s theory without actually saying the words.
Dew opened the folder and started browsing the contents. There were only four files: three case reports and an overview. Dew read the overview twice before he looked up, his expression ashen and disbelieving. He looked back to the report and started quoting some of the more fantastical phrases.
“‘Biological behavior manipulation’? ‘Bioengineered organism’? ‘Infectious terrorist weapon’? Murray, are you yankin’ my crank with this stuff?”
Murray shook his head.
“This is bullshit,” Dew said. “You think that some terrorist created a…let’s see here…‘bioengineered organism’ to make people psychotic?”
“That’s not exactly what it says, Dew. We’ve got three cases so far where normal people have contracted some kind of growth, and shortly afterward they became psychotic. We don’t know for certain that this is a terrorist activity, but I think you appreciate that we have to act like it is. We can’t be caught sitting on our hands.”
Dew read. Charlotte Wilson’s report had a picture attached, a Polaroid that showed a bluish triangular mark on her shoulder. The picture attached to Gary Leeland’s file showed a scowling old man. A hateful, suspicious expression marred his wrinkled, stubbly face. The lumpy, bluish triangle on his neck accentuated the unpleasant expression.
“So this thing turns people into killers?”
“It made Charlotte Wilson, a seventy-year-old grandmother, kill her own son with a butcher knife. It made Blaine Tanarive kill his wife and two young daughters with a pair of scissors. It made Gary Leeland, a fifty-seven-year-old man, set his own hospita
l bed on fire, killing himself and three other patients.
“Could this be coincidence? Did we check the background of these people? Any mental conditions?”
“I’ve checked it out, Dew. I wouldn’t have called you in if I hadn’t. In all these cases, the victims had no history of violence, no medical conditions, no psychological problems. All their friends and neighbors said they were good people. The only thing they have in common, in fact, is the sudden onset of acute paranoid behavior and those triangular growths.”
“What about foreign occurrences? Anyone else dealing with something similar?”
Murray again shook his head, a solemn look on his face. “Nothing. And we’ve looked, Dew, we’ve looked hard. As far as we know, we’re the only country with cases like this.”
Dew nodded slowly, now understanding why Murray chose to see a conspiracy amid the carnage. “But how could terrorists come up with something like this?”
“I don’t think terrorists invented it,” Murray said. “But terrorists didn’t invent nuclear warheads, sarin gas or passenger jets. Someone created this, and that’s all that matters.”
Dew reread the report. If it was a terrorist weapon, it was a doozy. It made car bombs and random plane hijackings look worthless by comparison: imagine a country where you never know if your friends or neighbors or coworkers are suddenly going to snap and try to kill everyone in sight. People wouldn’t go to work, wouldn’t leave their houses without a gun. You would suspect that everyone was a possible killer. Hell, if parents murdered their own children, no one was safe. Such a weapon would cripple America.
Dew reached for another Tootsie Roll. “Murray, this couldn’t be one of our weapons, could it? Something that maybe accidentally-on-purpose got a bit out of control?”
Murray was shaking his head before Dew finished the sentence. “No, no way. I checked everything, and I mean everything. This isn’t ours, Dew, I give you my word.”