Plot counterplot, p.28
Plot/Counterplot, page 28
He scraped a sample into a plastic vial.
On his way out, he noticed something else of interest. A light brown smear, almost invisible, on Scheimer’s desk.
He rubbed his finger in it, then held it to his nose. It wasn’t chemical. It wasn’t poisonous. In fact, it reminded him of Ingrid.
He’d have to run a test to be sure. But he thought it was makeup.
He raced through his most reliable database—his brain. A few days before the PFD events, a film makeup artist named Bakersfield had disappeared, saying he was ill and quarantined. He never returned.
Curiouser and curiouser.
* * *
Turned out the blood was even more helpful than Seamus had imagined. He’d not only confirmed that Dylan Taggart was there—he’d possibly twigged onto a means of locating him.
“There are tiny digital sensors in this blood,” Kurasagi explained. “He’s been injected with what people in the intelligence community call ‘smart dust.’”
“For real?” Seamus had heard talk about smart dust, but he’d seen no evidence that it actually existed. They certainly didn’t have any at the NCTC. Unless Eustace was holding out on him. “How does it work?”
“The sensors emit a trackable signal.”
“Could we pick it up?”
“If we knew the frequenCy. Unfortunately, we’re not talking radio here. We’re talking about a combination of the infrared spectrum, magnetic resonance, and heat signatures. So there are millions of possibilities.”
“Can you figure it out?”
“I can try. But the signal fades over time. It’s probably already fading. I may only be able to give you a general location. May take weeks.”
Seamus looked at him directly. “I can give you forty-eight hours.”
Kurasagi frowned. “Guess I won’t be bowling tonight.”
“Thanks.” Seamus turned toward Leilani. “Are you following all this?”
“Well enough. But I don’t know if I can wait two days to find Dylan.”
Seamus led her toward the door. “I have an activity in mind that might help you pass the time. While I make another probably futile attempt to pry some information out of the people at PACOM.” Seamus had called about two weeks ago to request a repeat interview with Robert Taggart—only to find the officer had disappeared and no one knew where he was. “I also want to follow up on my other lead. The makeup smear.”
“What do you want me to do?”
“Not much. Just set up a chat with the world’s most closely guarded military scientist. Louis Scheimer.”
Chapter 59
“Put your elbows on the table,” Dylan said into the microphone.
Xavier, listening through the transmitter inside his mouth, murmured a reply. “Bad manners.”
Xavier had no problem with abduction, torture, and assassination, but he didn’t want to put his elbows on the table? “Is that something your mother taught you?”
“What mother?”
“Okay, your wife.”
“Irina was not—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
“She the girl back home?”
“No girl. No home.”
“There must’ve been at one time. What happened?”
Mr. X interceded. “Stop your infantile attempts at psychological profiling and stick with the mission.”
Dylan obeyed. “Get your elbows on the table.”
Xavier leaned forward and rested his elbows so the outside of his hands faced the man eating across the aisle and one booth down. Admiral Charles “Swifty” Stewart.
“That’s it,” Dylan said. “I’ve got him.”
He could see the leader of PACOM ordering his burger at this 50’s-style diner. Xavier had been following him since he left the base. Dylan could observe as well, because the “gemstone” of the ring on Xavier’s left hand concealed a tiny digital camera, an Aviflex 21-X. The transmission streamed to Dylan’s laptop. So long as Xavier kept his hands steady and pointed the right direction, Dylan could follow the admiral’s every movement.
Dylan suspected the admiral came here often because the waitress knew him. They chatted amiably for several moments. She already knew what he wanted. Cheeseburger and chili cheese fries. Vanilla malt.
Mr. X watched over Dylan’s shoulder. “We’d best move quickly.”
“Why?”
“The way that man eats, he’ll soon be dead of a heart attack.”
“He’s a widower. Got no one to cook for him. Burgers are comfort food.”
“He’s going to comfort himself into the grave.”
“Shh. What’s he reading?”
On the laptop screen, they could see that the admiral had brought a newspaper. “Honolulu Advertiser.”
“What section of the paper is he reading?” Dylan asked.
“Sports,” Xavier replied. “Football.” He appeared to be reading every word with intense interest.
A few minutes later, Stewart set down the paper and picked up a hardcover book.
“What’s he reading now?” Mr. X asked.
“Vince Flynn,” Dylan replied. “The admiral likes thrillers with a conservative, pro-military slant. That’s too bad.”
“Because he’s not reading one of yours?”
“Because it means I can’t steal any ideas from Vince Flynn. Stewart will see them coming.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.”
The waitress returned with Stewart’s food. After a few more pleasantries, he withdrew a small bottle from his pocket.
“Purell hand sanitizer,” Dylan noted.
“Admiral worried about germs,” Xavier grunted. “Wimp. Maybe I should start conversation.”
“Under no circumstances,” Dylan said. “You do not need to be on his radar.”
“I would get more information. And faster.”
“Once he hears your accent, you won’t get anything out of this cold warrior. Just sit and watch.”
The admiral consumed half the malt before he started on the burger and fries. He used the squirt bottle to get a quantity of mayonnaise almost equal to the quantity of fries.
“Good God,” Mr. X said. “My cholesterol is rising just watching the man eat.”
Dylan barely heard her. He was distracted by an entirely different aspect of the surveillance. Stewart ran through five napkins in the course of consuming his meal. He rarely took a bite without wiping both hands and mouth.
“How can he lead men to battle?” Xavier asked. “Afraid to get hands dirty.”
“Yes,” Dylan said quietly. “And the key word there is, ‘afraid.’”
When Stewart finished his meal, he again sanitized his hands. Then he read a bit, chatted with the waitress, paid his bill with a credit card, and left.
“Should I follow?” Xavier asked.
“Yes,” Dylan said. “Follow him home. You never know what you might learn. But,” he added quietly, “I think I have what we need.”
Mr. X’s eyes narrowed. “What do you mean?”
“Our admiral has mysophobia.”
“Talk to me in English, Dylan.”
“He’s a germophobe. Afraid of dirt, bacteria.”
“Maybe he’s worried about COVID.”
“Nah. That wouldn’t explain the way he eats. This gives us a door.”
“I don’t see the knob.”
“Surely an experienced terrorist like yourself knows the best way to control someone is through fear.”
“True.”
“Fear communicates directly to the amygdala. The fear center. Affects neurolinguistic programming. Influences the brain, autonomic responses.” He leaned back in his chair. “If you can influence someone’s fear reactions, you can persuade them to do anything.”
“Why are you smiling?”
“Because now I know how we’re going to get that Key. I need you to recruit a doctor.”
“What kind?”
“A specialist,” he said, his eyes turning inward. “A specialist in fear.”
Chapter 60
Seamus leaned forward, his fingertips pressed against the admiral’s desktop.
“There must be something you’re not telling me.”
“I can assure you there is not.” Admiral Stewart was a ruddy, portly man, but still distinguished in his own way. His silver hair was slicked back in a manner that recalled the stereotypical millionaire playboy of another era. He was tan, but not from working outside. This man sat at a desk and he didn’t play golf and, judging from the fact that he was not brown under his chin, Seamus inferred that he sunbathed, perhaps on his lunch break, trying to hide the wrinkles and recapture the flush of youth.
“So you’re telling me a senior member of your staff disappeared and you’re doing nothing about it?”
“That is the exact opposite of what I told you, Mr. McKay, and to be blunt, I’m not going to repeat myself. After three days of not reporting for work and not calling in, we initiated an investigation into Robert Taggart’s disappearance. We found no trace of him. We searched his home and office. We communicated with the police. We simply don’t know where he is. He seems to have vanished off the face of the earth.”
Seamus had heard that before. “You realize he’s probably dead.”
“I make no assumptions.”
“I’m not making assumptions. I’m employing common sense.” Seamus scanned the row of diplomas on the wall. Stewart had graduated from Annapolis. Given many years of loyal service. Repeatedly promoted, particularly during the second Bush administration. Nice photo of him shaking hands with Dick Cheney.
“Listen to me, Mr. McKay. I’m a busy man. I’m only talking to you because you’re NCTC and I try to honor the requests of other governmental agencies, even when I don’t know what they do and suspect they don’t, either. I can assure you I can find any number of national crises to occupy my attention to such a degree that my assistant will not be able to fit you into my schedule until next December.”
Message received. “I’m sorry, sir. It’s a frustrating case.”
“Imagine how I feel. One of my top commanders gone. That won’t look good on my monthly report.”
“No. I suppose it won’t.” Seamus stepped in a little closer. “Do you think it’s possible Commander Taggart has been captured by foreign agents?”
“I have no reason to believe so. He has high-level clearance, but he’s not the man I’d go after if I were working for North Korea.”
“Maybe the others are too hard to get.”
“An operation like that would make ripples. Someone in the intelligence community would’ve heard something.”
Yeah. And the same thing would be true if suspected terrorists started taking flying lessons in Florida, right? “You realize his brother disappeared only a few weeks before.”
“Of course I do.”
“Have you investigated that?”
“Not as such. But I’ve talked to the authorities who have. No one seems to know much about it.”
“Doesn’t that suggest some sort of pattern?”
“Not really.”
“Then allow me to be blunt. I know the Navy has some sort of secret project underway. A weapons project. I’ve spoken to Dr. Scheimer. I won’t waste time trying to get you to tell me about it. But if I know, others do, too. My associate asked a physicist friend a few questions about the work of Dr. Karelis, and some of your security people apprehended her.”
“And could have held her forever, if I’d wished it. But I didn’t.”
“I’m sure that seemed the politic thing to do—since she didn’t know much and you didn’t want to attract attention. But the word is out and I think some people are trying to get your weapon. Maybe you think your security is so tight you don’t need to worry about it. But I’m telling you, if you don’t do something fast, your weapon may fall into enemy hands. And the next Navy officer to disappear may be you.”
“I’ll ask you not to resort to melodrama.” Stewart leaned forward. “How much do you know about the Taggart clan?”
“Not as much as I’d like.”
“I wouldn’t want this to get around. A senior naval officer has to protect his own. We hang together or we hang separately.”
“I know how to keep a secret.”
“The truth is—the Taggarts are a weird bunch. Always have been. I’ve tried to work with Robert, but it hasn’t always been easy. He would’ve gone a lot further if he hadn’t been related to his father.”
“You didn’t like this father? Their father?”
“More to it than that. He’s a hard man—and an even harder dad, from what I gather. Never seen a man who could be so stone cold, so strict. ‘Course he came by it earnestly. Taggart saw some tough duty. In Vietnam. 1970. He was attached to Charlie Company, 11th Brigade, 24th Infantry Battalion. Military intel believed the Viet Cong were holed up in a hamlet called Son My. They coptered in some troops for an assault. Taggart guarded the only footpath into the hamlet. His orders were to stop or kill anyone who tried to pass through.”
“What happened?”
Stewart pursed his lips. “Children. Five or six VC kids, maybe eight years old. This was after My Lai and civilian casualties was a touchy subject. Everyone knew kids could be used by the enemy, but still. Kids. Taggart didn’t have the capacity to hold them prisoner. But he couldn’t bring himself to kill them. So he let them pass.”
“And?”
“The kids were spies. They gave away the battalion location and the enemy called in an air strike that night. Over two hundred casualties, killed in a few minutes, most of them burning to death, screaming in pain. Every single member of the battalion died—except Taggart himself, because he was still out in the field.” Stewart’s eyes turned inward. “One moment of weakness. Of normal human merCy. And as a result—all those deaths. Hanging over your head. Haunting you. For the rest of your life.”
“So Taggart vowed to never allow himself another moment of what he called weakness. And he taught his boys to be just as strong. Took some extreme measures, from what I hear. Came down hard on any sign of weakness.”
Stewart picked up a file on his desk. “Did a little reading up on you, Agent McKay. You used to be CIA, right? Worked in Afghanistan, other places. You must know something about the way the world really works.”
“I like to think so.”
“You can rattle on about peace all you want—the only way to get it is by showing the bastards of the world that they can’t screw with you. After Vietnam, Taggart got that.
He was a solid, no-holds-barred hawk. Ultra-hawk, really. Bit too much for some people. He believed in a strong defense. But his idea of a strong defense was dropping napalm on every enemy in sight.”
“I’m surprised he rose as high as he did in the military.”
Stewart waved the comment away. “Oh, hell, that’s all about politics, these days. During the Reagan era, he was exactly what they wanted. Clinton administration, not so much. The Bushies could count on him to support invading Iraq or whatever they wanted to do. But you can’t make much of a career out of being in favor half the time. You know what I mean?”
Indeed he did. The intelligence community was equally subject to the winds of change, the unpredictable vicissitudes of presidential administrations. Some thought the CIA would not survive the Carter years. Some wondered if there was anything they couldn’t do during the Dubya administration. “Are you still in contact with Admiral Taggart?”
“He contacts me occasionally, much to my dismay. From all around the world. Seems to stay well-informed and busy, although with what I have no idea.”
“You’d think he would’ve gotten in touch with you after his son disappeared. The second one, I mean.”
“But in that bizarre family, disappearances are not uncommon. The old man used to do it. Disappear for months, no one knows where he is, then he reappears and everything’s okay and some high muckety-muck has smoothed it over. I think he had his fingers in the NSA—they were sending him on clandestine missions with need-to-know clearance. But that’s just my theory. Youngest kid apparently did the same thing. Gone without telling anyone, then it turns out he was on a research trip and didn’t want anyone to know. Didn’t want other writers getting the jump on him.”
“He is not on a research trip. At least not a voluntary one. And you’re not going to find Robert unless you look.”
“My resources are already stretched to the limit. Do you realize how important PACOM is to the security of this nation? We’re the first line of defense against any threat from the Asian/Indonesian region, and just in case you didn’t get the memo, that’s probably the most dangerous part of the world these days. Some of those maniacs have nuclear capacity. They’re barely able to feed their citizens, but they could destroy New York in ten minutes. You think I’ve got time to run around hunting down some AWOL bean-counter from a family of eccentrics? I don’t.”
“I suppose not. I can see I’m wasting my time here, sir. Thank you for talking to me.” He excused himself and left the office.
Twenty minutes later Seamus was back on the street. But his brain was in another place altogether.
He had not learned much from the interview. But he had obtained one thing he wanted very much.
He flipped the lid on his wristwatch, revealing a small digital recorder.
He had Admiral Stewart’s voice.
Chapter 61
Leilani watched as Seamus rearranged sound bites on his computer.
“Once upon a time,” he explained, “this was difficult. Back in the analog days, when recordings were made on magnetic tape, creating a convincing composite could take days. Now any teenager can do it in a matter of minutes with software they can download free off the internet.”
“And the result will be?”
“A persuasive recording of Admiral Stewart saying exactly what you need him to say.”
“Are you serious?”
“Of course I am. Commonplace undercover operation.”
“But why involve me? You’re the superspy.”
