Double
Drop
H. A. Hurtt
This is a work of fiction. Persons, locations, organizations, and events are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance between characters in this book and real persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2009 by Howard A. Hurtt
www.hurttliterary.com
All rights reserved
ISBN 14 4990 699-0
Cover design copyright © 2009 by Bill Frantz
To my wife and lover, Janet Hubner, whose patience and encouragement made this book possible.
I am grateful to my peer editing group, Elnora King and the Monday Night Sharks, who were right about everything.
Special thanks to Lou Aronica of The Fiction Studio, and to my volunteer manuscript readers: Shari Bohigian; Marek Cichanski; Amanda Mortimer; Roger Mortimer; and Red Watson; and finally to Joe Hemphill, who charged me a case of Milky Way bars.
Love and gratitude to the cavers of Cave Research Foundation SEKI operation, whose strength and camaraderie inspired this book.
Behold, the youths betook themselves to a cave: they said, O Lord, grant us mercy, and show us the way we should go. Qur’an, Surah al-Kahf: 10
Sima Norte, Oaxaca, Mexico
Kayif Alreza descended a rope the diameter of a ring finger. Its nylon sheath whispered through his leather glove with a sound like a fingernail dragged across a silk sheet. His boot tips kissed the water-slicked limestone. A small cascade hissed somewhere off to his left. Droplets flared like meteors in his headlamp beam, then winked out, swallowed by the utter blackness below.
Now in a crevice of indeterminate length, with walls that in places squeezed so close together, Kayif and his co-leader Dolfo Rodriguez had run their line horizontally to a gap wide enough to fit through. Kayif and his team had drilled high-strength masonry anchors into the stone at intervals and threaded the ropes through them using carabiner clips. These rebelays stitched the 4,000-pound-test line to the walls of the pit, angling it toward the cavers’ goal: the as yet unseen bottom of Sima Norte, the deepest pit-cave in Oaxaca – possibly the deepest in North America.
Anyone who has moved along such a line will tell you that while the process is technical and painstaking, it’s as safe as the drive to the cave.
Safer.
Kayif saw the glimmer of the next anchor just at the edge of his headlamp beam. He stopped rappelling, pulled up a loop of rope from below, and tied the loop into a double overhand bend around the body of his descender. This blocked the rope from moving through the friction device and allowed him to let go with both hands. He shook out his arms, then picked up a small radio that dangled from a neck lanyard. “Pablo, I’m at seven. Tell me when you’re ready for me to shine.”
The walkie-talkie was silent for a moment, then squawked, “Listo.”
Kayif took up the next item on the tether. He pointed the black cylinder up the pit and pushed a button. A thin green beam stabbed upward flashing with emerald brilliance where water drops flew through it. He held it steady, waiting. Soon, from high above, he saw the beam brighten and flare.
“On my reflector,” the radio crackled.
Kayif squinted at a glowing screen on the side of the laser rangefinder. He remembered the number, then let the laser drop back onto its lanyard and picked up the radio. “Four one decimal six meters,” he transmitted, “and the offset to the anchor is about three meters.”
Pablo repeated the figures. Kayif would take the next reading from the bottom. By then, hopefully, Pablo would have descended to 7 to reposition the reflector.
Kayif glanced down and found his cow-tail, a carabiner clipped to a length of bar-stitched flat nylon webbing that would allow him to hang in his harness while he disconnected his rappel brake and transferred it to the far side of the knotted loop at the anchor. He untied his descender, paid out a meter of slack, and walked along the wall toward anchor seven, letting a bit more rope slide through the brake as he approached the tie-in. Dolfo, now on the floor of Segundo, had rebelayed the rope to the right to move the descent into wider crevice and out of the spray of the cascade. Now at the rebelay, he grabbed the cow-tail, clipped it into the stout locking carabiner at the anchor, and rappelled down a bit more until all of his weight shifted to the tail. This allowed him to sit in his harness while he unthreaded
the rope from his rappel brake. Toes tense to the rock now, he grabbed at the slack loop of rope on the other side of the rebelay. He would thread it into his brake and…
A loud snap. Kayif felt his guts rise toward his mouth.
The rope. Where was it?
The waterfall roared. No. Not waterfall. Wind.
Falling.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Black. All black. Something smacked his head to the left and jagged light forked across his vision.
Pain. He heard an animal cry burst from his lungs.
Floating now – air rushing.
A stinging impact. The sound of his cave suit’s fabric screaming along a wall.
Free-fall again. In the flailing beam of his headlamp he saw his leg pointing straight up, twisting.
Kayif felt himself lying on a rubble floor. He could not remember landing. He felt a thin mist of cool water sprinkling his face. And in a moment of perfect clarity, felt blood pulsing in his shattered pelvis.
A face appeared, radiant with pure white light, and spoke to him. “We’ll get you out, Kayif. It’s not bad, really. Hang in there, amigo.”
The face faded.
Friday, May 30
Fresno Community College, California
“Besides squeezing all those extra ATPs out of food, who remembers something else about mitochondria?” Henry Berwyn scanned his freshmen. At a quarter to eight on the morning of the last day of instruction before summer vacation, he did not expect much. Two-thirds of them looked like they were barely clinging to consciousness. Christina Urrutia, her face shining, shot her hand up. Christina, as always. Henry looked around to see if anyone else might have read the chapter. Not a soul. “Yes, Miss Grainger,” he intoned. The back row snickered.
“They have their own DNA,” Christina answered.
“Ooh!” Henry crooned. “Which means what?”
“They, like, don’t exactly belong to us?”
“Yeah. Is that cool or what? Lynn Margulis thinks an ancestor of all Eukaryote cells caught this oxygen-using bacterium one day, and instead of eating it, adopted it.
“Midichlorions!” It was Gurbinder Singh, an English major on track to transfer to U.C. Merced. One of the back-row slacker-literati.
“Yes! And in Episode II what does Quaigon tell Anakin these mythical midichlorions are?”
Darrel Cullen, the soft, round president of the Anime Club, raised his hand. He would know. Henry acknowledged him. “Symbionts,” Darrel said.
Henry saw relief on the faces of the back-row boys. “Thank you, Mr. Cullen,” he said. “And can anyone tell me what a symbiont is?” Henry saw Christina’s hand go up, but Darrel seemed ready to continue so he signaled him to go ahead.
“Creatures that live inside other creatures.”
“Good,” Henry said. He felt his cell phone vibrate, and discreetly peeked at the screen. It was coming from the resource manager’s office at Sequoia National Park. Bonnie. He checked the wall clock. There were only a couple of minutes left in the period. “So that’s what the fictional midichlorions and the real mitochondria are,” he said. “Symbionts. Endo-symbionts, technically. Creatures that do business inside other creatures. We require their help to get energy, but although they’ve lived deep inside the eukaryote bloodline for a billion years plus, they still bear the marks of their own prokaryote heritage. This makes the tree of life quite a bit more complex and messy than biologists would have guessed even fifty years ago.” He closed his notes. “So from whom do we get our mitochondria?”
“Our mommies,” Christina sang out. “Sperms only carry DNA. Our mitochondria come from the cytoplasm of our mother’s egg.”
“Right!” Adam slain one more time. That’s what good science teaching – any teaching – really is: subversion. “Okay. This week you’ve heard the answer to every question that will appear on Wednesday’s final. I’ll see you here at the usual time. Good luck.”
By the time the last student had cleared out and Henry had a chance to look at his phone again, he saw that the system had taken a message. He autodialed the number.
“Sequoia Park resource office. Chad.”
Bonnie’s young coworker sounded tired. Sulky. “Hey, Chad, this is Henry Berwyn. Did Bonnie just call me?”
“Oh, hi, Henry. Yeah. Hey, can she call you back? She’s in the ladies’.”
“Sure.”
“Henry?”
“Yeah, Chad.”
“It’s bad. She’s in the bathroom because she’s crying.”
Oh, hell.
Henry had a good guess what this would be about. The love interests. How many did she have these days? Three? One of them must have decided milady’s couch was getting too crowded. Who? Dolfo? No way. He’d moved on to Fiona. That’s what project cavers did. They passed each other around like trail mix. Chad himself? He’s so young. Would he even think himself a contender? Kayif? Mister Sensitive? Damn. Maybe Kayif. Just the gent to domesticate a badass like Bonnie. But why did this merit an early morning call to the absent-minded professor? Surely she wouldn’t be pining for him. For the most part, Bonnie respected other people’s marriages. Besides, their little firework had burned out a long time ago. She had experimented with an older man, learned what she needed to know, and moved on. She had told him so.
“So who broke her heart this time?”
“I beg your pardon?” Chad’s voice fluttered as Henry moved across the riser to collect his laptop and notes.
“Okay, Chad, tell me what’s going on,” Henry said.
“Here she comes. I’ll let her tell you.”
There was a rustle as the phone at the other end was passed from hand to hand, a sort of a moan, then a great rush of breath. Bonnie’s voice came splattering across the connection. “Henry? Oh, God, thanks for calling back.”
He had to hold the cell away from his ear. “What’s happened, Bonnie?”
He heard her take a calming breath. “Okay. Here it is.” Another big breath. “When I passed by the spur road to Crystal this morning I saw that the chain was hanging unlocked at the gate and… chunks… of calcite…” Her voice broke into a sob, and for some time her breath rushed and fluttered in the phone.
“Somebody vandalized Crystal Cave?”
“No.” He heard her fighting for control. He felt his own insides tightening. “No,” she said, her voice in shreds. “Midnight.”
The most pristine, the most heartbreakingly beautiful cave in the Sierra Nevada. The most secret. Midnight Cleft. Henry’s guts clenched in earnest. “What? How?”
“I don’t know. I got my headlamp and went running toward Crystal, of course, but the footprints and drag marks went right on by toward Midnight. The gate was open and… and the shield…”
“The Shield of the Maiden?”
“Yes.”
Henry felt tears coming. What kind of monster? What kind of hate?
It was awhile before she composed herself again. “They hammered the whole damn thing out, Henry. They dragged it out the entrance crawl, through the cave gate, and just walked, bashing on it. There’s flowstone, and spar, and helictites, all over the road. Oh, God, Henry!”
“They walked in from the paved road?”
“Yes.”
“They used the road key, and the cave key?”
“Yes.”
“And the keys are?”
“In the safe in the Visitor Center. Right where they’re supposed to be. I’m responsible for those keys. Damn me! I’m such a stupid…”
“Bonnie. For God’s sake. Don’t blame yourself. How many people on Earth know Midnight even exists? Thirty? The number who actually know where it is? Fifteen? The number who could possibly get at those keys? Less. It’s probably somebody we know, Bonnie. It has to be, though I can’t imagine who. We’re going to find out who did this. This is a caver, and they have violated...”
Christina had lingered after the rest of Henry’s class left, her eyes bright; expectant. She probably had some trivial question about the final exam. Henry felt snot run into his moustache and sniffed. “Death in the family,” he said. Christina gave his arm a sympathetic touch, then departed.
“We’ll find them,” Henry told Bonnie. “We’ll find out who did this, and we’ll…”
“All right, Henry.” Her voice had cleared. “Thanks for the macho therapy.”
“You think I’m kidding. These bastards need a dose of bad luck.” He wasn’t kidding. Perhaps he’d feel more charitable later, but at the moment, he wanted to hurt someone.
Saturday, May 31
Crystal Cave parking lot, Sequoia National Park
“Thanks for coming,” Bonnie told the eight-year-old girl in denim shorts and ruffly pink blouse. “Did you like the cave?”
“It was cold, and my brother Frank kept pushing.”
Bonnie addressed the boy of perhaps ten who crowded close behind as the tour filed out of the cave gate. “Frank?”
“Yeah?”
“Did you like the cave?”
“It was okay, I guess,” he said. “Those big bacon things are cool, but not as cool as Carlsbad.”
“Wow. You’ve been to Carlsbad?”
“Yeah, when I was a little kid. It was warmer than this.”
“So, Frank, why did you push your sister?”
The boy shuffled his feet. “I had to go the bathroom.”
“It’s right over there.” Bonnie pointed toward the portables.
“Oh, I don’t have to go anymore.”
Bonnie made pleasantries with the rest of the tourists as they left, counting to be sure no one had been left behind. She blew her lank bangs from her forehead. This was not the time of year to be short-handed. It was eighty degrees in Yucca Canyon, and the day was young. Five tours to go. She made a mental note to tell the next guide to check for urine. Damn that Kayif, taking off for Mexico right before high season, and damn that Dolfo for insisting they finish the survey before flash flood season. Kayif had left without so much as a farewell cuddle, and now he was three days late. If she smelled strange woman on him when he returned, he was dead meat.
She opened the side door of the ticket booth. Chad was just hanging up the phone. He looked stricken. “Your tour,” she said. “I think a kid might have pissed in the cave. Be on the lookout. You all right?”
Chad pulled a flashlight from the wall-charger and pulled his Sequoia Volunteers hat down over his blond mane. “Bonnie…”
“What?”
“That was a satellite-phone call from Dolfo from Oaxaca. He said there’s been an accident in Sima Norte.”
“So he and Kayif are late because they’re helping with the rescue?”
“Bonnie, the one being rescued was Kayif. He… He fell, and… and the rescue turned into a recovery. I’m sorry, Bonnie. I’m so damned sorry.”
Granite Peaks Administrative Center
Sequoia National Park
A single high, pole-mounted light illuminated the Granite Peaks parking lot. Henry Berwyn turned his Outback onto the gravel and switched off the engine. He swung his feet out. An hour and a half behind the wheel had stiffened his knees.
Getting old sucks. You can’t cave anymore. Not like the young ones. Unless you’re an ibuprofen-popping immortal like Dave Schwann. Still, caving had changed Henry’s life. He remembered the day. The hour. In his seventeenth summer, wandering hills of Ventura County one blazing afternoon, he had happened on a rectangular opening in the sandstone. Cool air, and the sound and scent of water, beckoned him in. He descended perhaps three body-lengths before darkness turned him back. He returned the next day with a candle, and when that proved insufficient, with a flashlight. The cave proved to be of an uncommon type – a roofed slot-canyon. It would eventually map out to over six hundred feet long, the county’s longest, and when the Southern California chapter of the National Caving Club found out about it, they had adopted him. He’d been a caver ever since. They had taught him to move in three dimensions, and when they thought he was ready, led him to secret places in the earth. But most of all, they had shown him the exit of his timid, unsteady youth.
Henry felt that youth gone forever now. Not counting his Ventura County discovery, he had been present at some of the biggest cave breakthroughs in California: White Marble in the northwest; Big Spring in the central Sierra. A preference for backstage work, and a diversity of connections and talents accumulated in military, aerospace, wildlife management, and teaching had in time won him the guardianship of Big Spring. He had begun to feel he’d spent his life there. Now sixty, with decades of alcoholism and knee abuse collecting their toll, he unlocked the cave and cabin for the new generation of mappers and scientists. Henry stood, clipped his keys to his belt, slammed the car door, and stretched. He took a moment to inhale the mountain air. No matter what the occasion, it’s always worth it to get a whiff of good air when you can. And on this occasion he needed it more than usual.
He walked to the door of the resource office, his scuffed cross-trainers crunching on the gray quartz. Light spilled through the small window in the door. He could see Chad Benjamin hunkered down at the computer. He went in.
Chad looked up. “Henry. It’s good to see you, man. Are you going to Big Spring?”
“Yeah,” Henry said. He wondered what life would be like working up here with two hundred caves in your backyard and nothing to do but cherish them. One fairly nice cave thirty thousand people a year see and forget, and a hundred ninety-nine others few people would ever see. In one of those, Big Spring, Henry had led cavers from all over the world. Big Spring was Category 5: closed to all except researchers and their support. Tourists, and locals, for the most part, had no idea it existed. He shook the romance out of his head. Poverty: that’s what working here would be like. Macaroni and cheese. Young people’s work. He’d been there. He had a nice house down in Fresno now, a great job, and a wife who tolerated his association with cavers. “How’s Bonnie?”
“Have you heard?”
“About the vandalism? Of course. You called me, remember?”
“No. About Kayif.”
“He’s in Mexico with Dolfo, right?”
“He’s dead, Henry.”
Dead. Something disconnected. ‘Kayif’ and ‘dead’ did not belong in the same sentence. Kayif was young. He was a world-class caver. He was almost done with his geology Master’s at Fresno State. He was supposed to marry Bonnie out of circulation and the two of them were supposed to live forever.
“How?”
“He got hurt in Sima Norte. They started evacuating him, but he didn’t make it.”
“What do you mean, ‘got hurt’?”
“Look, Henry, I told you what I know. I got the call from Dolfo by sat-phone.” Chad’s face colored. “I answer phones and pass messages. That’s what I do.”
Henry stepped behind the desk and squeezed Chad’s shoulders.
Chad shook him off. Henry raised his hands. “I’m sorry, man.” Chad was taking this uncharacteristically hard. Henry guessed that in a moment of jealousy Chad had wished Kayif dead and was now digesting his karma. “Look, don’t sell yourself short. You see more caves in a weekend than I do in a year. You protect more caves...”
“The fuck I do.”
“Look, Chad,” Henry said, resisting the urge to comfort the quaking man, “somebody got into Midnight somehow. Some freak. But like I told Bonnie, we’ll find them. We have to. And blaming ourselves is not how we do that.”
“Nice words,” Chad muttered.
There would be no consoling him. Bonnie would be worse. Ten times worse. “And now Kayif,” Henry said. We lose…” He felt himself falling into the place Chad was, and he felt as though his face were melting. Why Kayif? No more decent human being ever breathed. There had been times when Henry had doubted his atheism.
No more.
“Where is she?”
At home,” Chad said, eyes closed. “She’s freaked. I mean, really freaked.”
“I can imagine. I’ll go see her.” He peeked at the screen. A database form. He recognized the names of quite a few cavers on it. “What are you working on?”
“Suspects. In the vandalism. Bonnie told me to list everybody who knows where Midnight is, with as much on each one as we know.” He pivoted the screen so Henry could see. “Everybody’s on here. Except you and Bonnie, of course.”
“Why not?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Why are Bonnie and I not on the list? We know where the cave is.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t...” Chad turned and cocked his head, and for the first time, Henry saw the redness under his eyes. “Did you,” he said with assurance.
“No,” Henry said. “That’s why I should be on it. Make sense?”
Chad sighed. “Oh. Sure, Henry. Of course.” He began to type. “Berwyn. With a ‘y’, right?”
“Right.”
“Tab, Henry. Address?”
Georgina’s Diner, Jarratt, Virginia
“And would you like to see the Pallies push Israel into the sea?”
“No, sir,” the blonde man answered. “Of course not. And we need to make good and sure they never get the chance.”
“So why is that America’s business? What have we got to fear from a bunch of towelheads?” the gray-haired man in the linen suit inquired.
“Well, Jerusalem is Christian, after all, sir. And of course, so is America. Christ can’t come back until it’s all ours, can he?”
“Indeed. So what would you say an intelligent man should hope for the future of this weary world, Mister Knight?”
“Well, Senator,” Knight said, and took a sip of his iced tea, “I see us returning to our roots. Our Christian roots. Make Israel safe enough for the Jews, then give them the chance to come to the Cross, but for the rest of them, the Catholics and whatnot, why, they can have Mexico or wherever. Fags and atheists, now, if we can’t cure ‘em, lock ‘em up. But the main thing is, don’t spend too much money doing it, you know? A rifle round costs forty-nine cents.” He gave the diner a quick scan as if to check who might be within earshot, and slightly lowered his voice. “The niggers, now, I don’t know. We have a relationship with them that goes way back, and the ones here in the South still know it, most of ‘em. Out west, of course, they’re out of control. But maybe we could offer them a deal. Say, the old way or the highway. As a businessman, I know how unsatisfactory it is to outsource your labor. So we keep the ones who want to stay and work, and cut the rest loose. That’s what Liberia’s for, isn’t it?”
“Perhaps. But what’s your broader vision? What about the role of government?”
Knight took another sip, then tapped his spoon on his napkin. A server approached, but he waved her away. “People that know how to lead should lead,” he said, “but other than that, the less government the better. Particularly, stay out of the way of the businessman. Why, I can barely operate with all the meddling. We need national defense, for example, but I don’t see why we need a public-funded army for that. Some kind of internal security to make sure those elements that might cause trouble keep their heads down…”
“Some kind of internal security,” the senator said, his eyes on the departing waitress. “Like, for example, FBI?”
“Something like, yes, but not them. Christ, not them, you know? What a bunch of…”
“I know.” The senator put up his hand in a gesture of collegial agreement. “Lord, how I know. They fumble everything they put their fingers on, don’t they? And the worst part of it is, just like the army you mentioned, they sup at the public table. So, Mr. Knight, can you suggest how that organization might be improved?”
“Well, sir, I don’t think they can. It’s bad enough that they’re a socialist entity, but to make matters worse they have a culture of ineptitude going all the way back to Hoover. God bless him, but he was a retard. And a sex maniac as big as any of the men he was supposed to be watching, I hear. Bottom line is, I think you’d have to totally remake that organization.”
The senator chuckled. “Yes. So tell me, Ethan. How are things going with your company?”
“Right well, sir, all in all, in spite of all this attention we’ve been drawing lately. You might have heard that we acquired Dragon Scale.”
“The personnel armor folks, yes. Didn’t they have trouble with their product?”
“The trouble those California idiots had was they didn’t know how to file a test report. Bottom line, I figured it was easier to buy them than teach them how to pass ballistics.”
“And how are things going overseas, Ethan?”
“More smoke than fire, I’m afraid, sir. Can you imagine a bunch of hajis actually suing? Who in God’s name taught them to do that? But what’s your point, sir?”
“My point is, if you were given some responsibility for a total remake of the FBI as you suggest, do you think you could make time for it?”
Knight looked as though he’d just received a jolt of electricity. This was going very well.
“Yes sir,” Knight said, almost too loud for a public place in spite of the rumbling juke. “I mean, things are pretty routine these days, otherwise. Hell, demand for private security is so good I can’t shit operatives fast enough - excuse my French.” The server disappeared into the kitchen. “You know, the bureau took way too long deciding what to do with that King jigaboo, then made a total hash of it. And now look at what we have – a national holiday. When you’re America, chosen by God to lead the world and all, why, you can’t afford to make martyrs of your enemies, Senator. You take forever recovering from a mistake like that.” He picked up his lemon wedge and juiced it onto what was left of his green beans, then looked the senator in the eye. “I could do better, sir. You bet I could. I’m not afraid of offending a bunch of yankee liberals.”
The senator gave a warm laugh. “I didn’t think so.” He picked up his fork and traced an arc in the gravy at the edge of his cold, untasted Salisbury steak. “Mr. Knight, there’s somebody I would like very much for you to meet.”
Sunday, June 1
CRI cabin, Sequoia National Park
Henry, laboring under his forty-pound pack, turned off the Barton Canyon trail and ascended the short spur trail to the cabin’s dooryard. A spicy aroma rose from a pot simmering on a gasoline stove. Strains of Friend of the Devil drifted from within the cabin. This Cave Research Institute expedition had been scheduled seven months ago and despite the run of horrible news lately he had seen no reason to bail out. For twenty years, CRI had been mapping Big Spring Cave and playing sherpa and den mother to the geologists and biologists who did research there. Big Spring, a brain-scrambling maze of cold, wet subterranean canyons, had grown to twenty-three miles of survey, with no end in sight. Henry had caved here for most of his adult life. He was a project elder - a silverback.
Henry unfastened his chest and waist straps, then hung his pack on a rack by the door. Judging by the number of packs, six other cavers had already arrived. He leaned his trek poles against the cabin wall, then flapped the back of his t-shirt to evaporate the sweat. Seeing Dave Schwann and Jans Angsen seated inside on lawn chairs sipping from steel mugs, Henry mounted the stairs and extended his hand. “Ethanol,” he demanded.
Jans gave Henry the mug he was holding, then rose and filled another for himself. “Is anyone else coming with you, or do I actually get to drink this one?”
Henry brought the mug to his lips. The first swallow of red wine washed the heat and dust of the trail from his mouth. The second would wash them from his memory. He decided he had better have some water, too, or he would end up on his face. It wouldn’t be the first time. “I’m solo,” he said. He reached into the cabin and shook Dave’s hand. Dave, another old-timer, knew the cave as well as anyone alive, and although he no longer went on grueling twelve-hour push-trips, he could still move through Big Spring like the water that had formed it. Henry checked his watch. Four-fifteen. “A little early for tunes and wine, isn’t it?”
Dave rested his guitar against the hearth. “Jans and I came in last night and actually got into the cave before noon. We staged forty liters of water at the new restoration site, and that pretty much burned us out. John, Jeff, Pete, and that Luann person are on their way up from a new lead they were checking out above the Hex Room. And what with the sun having gone over the yardarm, we’re just about to break out the hors d’oeuvres.”
“Pecorino and prosciutto on pepper wheats,” Jans announced.
“Boiled eggs topped with sturgeon roe,” Dave said. He looked at Henry. “What did you bring?”
Henry put his wine down and took a deep breath. “Nothing but bad news, I’m afraid. You might not feel much like feasting after you hear it.”
“What news is that?” Jans put his wine down.
“I heard about the vandalism at Midnight,” Dave said. Makes you want to kill someone, doesn’t it?”
“Well, Dave, there’s one less person we’ll have to think about killing,” Henry shot back, his own voice angrier than he had intended. “I’m sorry. Let me start over. This isn’t about Midnight.” He picked up his cup, thought better of it, and put it back down. “On top of that bad news, there’s been a fatality.”
Dave and Jans queried him with silent attention.
“In Sima Norte. Guys, we lost Kayif.”
“No,” Dave moaned. “Oh, hell, no.”
“What happened?” Jans asked.
“No one this side of the border knows. All we have is, Kayif took a fall. A rescue was started, but he didn’t make it.”
“When?”
“Bonnie got the call yesterday morning. The accident happened Sunday.”
Dave exhaled, and slowly shook his head.
A harsh electronic ringing cut the still air between them. Big Spring was wired along much of its main passage with a multi-conductor cable to carry water level and air flow data to a logging computer at the cabin. Henry had used a spare wire to create a phone system cavers could use to call the cabin in case they changed their plans, or in case of emergency. Mostly, they used it to report that they were half an hour from the entrance and could someone please make sure there was plenty of hot water ready for pasta.
Jans picked up the receiver. “Surface.”
Henry heard excited voices echoing on the monitor speaker. “We’re just starting up the Crevice.” The voice was that of chief scientist and expedition leader John Sedley. “We’re tired, but, as you can hear, in fine spirits.” An echoing whoop erupted, answered by another.
“Did you have a good trip?” Henry asked.
“Did we ever,” John replied. Wait ‘til we get up there and show you. Is this Henry?”
“Yeah.”
“When did you pull in?”
“Just now.”
“Okay, well, give us half an hour or so, then call out the cavalry.”
“Will do,” Henry said.
The line disconnected with a pop. Henry hung up.
“You didn’t tell them,” Jans said.
“No. They seem to be in a good mood. I thought I’d let them keep it for a few more minutes.”
Visalia, California
“You heard me, Georgia. I stuffed him. He’s neutralized.” The trim young man hooked one leg over the back of the overstuffed leather couch. It was one of very few furnishings in his new tract home, but right now he felt luxury seeping into him. He imagined a nubile, servile, perpetually horny mistress sharing that couch. He imagined the now-bare walls decorated with citations. With photos of him canyoneering, shooting, caving, skydiving. He imagined two cars: a Subaru wagon for invisibility; a black Escalade with tinted windows for when he didn’t give a damn. He imagined the clothes. The airplanes.
Then the words he heard over the phone blew that all away.
“But it was him,” the young man shouted. “The Carpet Cleaner mug-shot. The known associates. The gear in the locker had his name on it, for Christ’s sake. You’ll see, I’m telling you. I’m bringing the whole list in, and when I do, those… Look, I know you don’t care for my methods, but…”
“Your methods?” The voice on the phone stung with sarcasm. “The last time I checked, we used the Bureau’s methods, Agent Clardy.”
“Yeah, Mizz Desk Job? You think this country can wait forever while you..?”
A harsh clank was followed by dial tone.
Rude little black shit. Still, he had no doubt she would take this up a level. Right where it needed to be. He hoped he hadn’t overdone it.
Barton Canyon trailhead
The man opened the door of the trailhead outhouse. He turned on his mini-light, clamped it in his teeth, and walked to the first car, senses alert. He saw the caver sticker on the bumper; memorized the license tag; looked inside. Feathers dangled from the rear-view. The skull of some long-snouted animal adorned the dash. An empty blister pack that had held four AA batteries lay in the passenger foot-well. He tried the door. They hadn’t locked it. He opened it. Carefully. Sometimes they squeak.
When the man had finished searching the cars, he opened the hatch of his Expedition. He had confirmed that three of the subjects on the Carpet Cleaner list, including Luann Hazelton, were down in that canyon, caving, at that very moment. Luann. He knew her. Oh, yes. He knew her well. He wished he could just bop down there and take care of things. Even more, he wished he could get into that famous cave. He patted his pocket. All according to the time line. As for now, it was time to go home. Home to a couple Jeffersons and a few hours on his favorite web site before bedtime.
Monday, June 2
FBI Regional Office, Sacramento, California
The Washington end of the secure line picked up. “Western Ops, Agent Coleman speaking.”
Agent Georgia Sutherlin wondered whether she really should be doing this. If she was wrong about Bob, he’d make her life hell. He was the type: young, new, full of himself, and anxious to prove his talents would be wasted behind a desk. He was convinced he was onto something big. If he was right about it, he might save a lot of lives and property. Then Agent Sutherlin would look the fool for ever having doubted him, and the Bureau would probably leave her in that miserable little office for awhile so Bob could torment her until his juicy transfer came in. Then, while he lived it up in some suburban Virginia paradise, she'd desiccate in situ waiting for the order to clean out her desk.
But if he was wrong…
“Hello?”
“Oh, sorry,” she stammered. “This is Agent Sutherlin. I, uh, wonder if you could tell me something about my new field agent, Robert Clardy.”
“Probably not, but what’s your question, Agent Sutherlin?”
“Well, the agent has been assigned to confirm the whereabouts of people on the Carpet Cleaner list, and I guess he must have thought one individual was hot-and-now, because he told me he had, quote, neutralized him.”
“He did.”
“Yes, sir. He said he neutralized the listing, and I was just wondering…”
“Do you believe Agent Clardy’s remark to be credible, Agent Sutherlin?”
“Well, that is point of my call, sir. I do not believe he is authorized to terminate subjects on his own reco, so frankly, I laughed when he told me. He’s quite a frisky young man, but on the chance he actually did…”
“Well, Agent Sutherlin,” came the long-suffering voice of Agent Coleman, “Let me suggest you just keep on laughing.”
“Sir?”
“Agent Sutherlin, as you said, he is not authorized to neutralize anyone. Now, that said, we care deeply and sincerely about the professionalism of our field agents, so if your colleague makes any further such claims, I want you to keep track of them. And if you start seeing a pattern that suggests he may not be suited for this line of work, why, you get back in touch. Then, if my supervisor feels it’s warranted, we’ll have someone drop by and check him out. Sound good to you? All right. Bye, now.”
Patronizing son of a bitch. Georgia slammed the phone down. It occurred to her that the last time she had done that it was to Bob Clardy.
Her field agent was delusional and Coleman flat didn’t give a tinker’s damn.
Tuesday, June 3
Cross Creek Village, California
Bonnie sat with Chad and Henry on the floor of her apartment. The smells of sweaty polypropylene long underwear, flame-warmed tortillas, and pale ale fragranced the gathering. Bonnie handed a tortilla to Henry and put another on the burner to brown. He rolled it, bit, and chewed.
“I hate having to be the one to deliver the news about Kayif,” Chad said, breaking a twenty-minute silence.
Henry examined his tortilla. “Yeah. Well, I think Kayif would be proud of what the team did today. Big Spring has been in need of a breakthrough.”
“I know what you guys are trying to do,” Bonnie said, “and it’s neither necessary nor sufficient.”
“Sorry,” both men muttered at once.
Bonnie put her half-drained bottle down. “I was going to say. I mean, when a man…” She broke down. Chad put his hand on her thigh. She swatted it away, as Henry knew she would.
“When a man… When a man, like Kayif… You just can’t…”
“I don’t,” Henry said. He waited until Bonnie’s breathing subsided. “He would be proud,” he said. “Forty stations and still booming. All totally outside the envelope of known cave. We haven’t seen that kind of progress since the Eighties.”
“Shut up,” Bonnie said. She bit her tortilla wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her polypro top, and made something like a game face. “Do you think he died well?”
“I know he did, Bonnie,” Henry said. “He died caving. In the deepest cave in the hemisphere. That kind of man makes six hundred feet of survey in Big Spring look like chump change.”
Bonnie turned to Chad and touched the hand she had just slapped. “Would you mind if Henry spends the night with me?”
“Uh, no,” Chad coughed, stood, and tottered slightly. “Why would I? I mean, I was just about to leave anyway. First shift at Crystal.” He touched Bonnie’s shoulder. I’m sorry,” he said. “As sorry about this as anybody.”
A soft mooing sound emanated from one of Bonnie’s clothes piles. She reached into it and extracted a cell phone. “Hello? Hey, Dolfo. Dònde estàs?
“I’m so glad. So when are you… Oh, not much. We were just debriefing the Big Spring expedition. They found…”
“Uh huh.
“No shit?”
“Nooo shit.”
Henry looked at Chad. “I can’t stay, actually, but I’ll make sure she’s okay before I go.”
Chad left without a word.
Henry swirled the last of the warm backwash in his bottle, contemplated drinking it, but reconsidered and set it down. He did not relish the two-hour drive back to Fresno.
Bonnie shut her phone. “You won’t believe this, Henry,” she said. “You will not freaking believe this.” She took two cold beers from her fridge and offered him one.
Henry put up a hand. “I have to drive,” he said.
“No you don’t. I meant that, about spending the night, and now I mean it more than ever.”
“What do you mean?” But Henry knew. They weren’t kids anymore. He shrugged and took the bottle. He accepted the opener, popped off the cap, and let the cold liquid possess him.
“Murder.”
Henry coughed up a mouthful of suds. “Huh?”
“Dolfo is pretty sure somebody killed Kayif. He fell crossing a rebelay. His cow-tail blew.”
“Blew? Cow-tails don’t…”
“Yeah. I know. Dolfo brought back all of Kayif’s gear. He says the quick-draw strap Kayif was using as a tail had just exploded.”
“Exploded?”
“Yeah. Turned to dust. So he tasted it.”
“Tasted.”
“Well, he’s a chemist. Anyway, he says it tasted bitter.”
A chill truth blossomed from Bonnie’s words. Only one class of compounds tastes bitter. Only one turns nylon to dust. “Alkali.”
She nodded. “Dolfo says he swished it in distilled water and the water came up pH 12.”
“Whoa.”
“Yes, whoa, and there’s more. The Mexican authorities deported all the Americans on the team. Said their visa papers were not in order. Said the whole expedition was illegal. They almost didn’t let Dolfo cross.”
This was bullshit. U.S. cavers had been working the big caves in Mexico for twenty years, gradually phasing the project over to the University of Mexico geology department. The expedition leaders were pretty much all green-card UMex grads like Dolfo. Surely their papers were in order. “So, is everyone on the right side of the border?”
“All but one.”
“Who?”
“Kayif. Immigration won’t let his body in. Dolfo’s spent half the day trying, but no love.”
Henry set his beer on the floor. “This is going to sound cold, but he’s, like, evidence, isn’t he? All his family’s in Iran. I’ve heard his border stories. The Mexicans are as bad as the U.S. about Iranians. It could be weeks before they get around to letting his folks claim him. And in the meantime, how do we know he’s being properly… uh… refrigerated?”
Bonnie gave Henry the most perplexed, forlorn look he had ever received. “You know, Professor Berwyn,” she said, “you really have a way of getting right to the nub.” Her eyes filled.
“Oh, hell, Bonnie. I’m sorry.”
“Shut up, Henry. Just shut up and hold me.”
Wednesday, June 4
FBI Regional Office, Sacramento
“Where the hell have you been?”
“Out playing. Are you my new mom?” Agent Clardy retorted with a wink. He rounded his desk, dropped his black Italian leather fanny-pack on the chair, and, leaning over from a standing position, opened his laptop. He turned it on, and after a moment, pressed his thumb on the window of the bio-key.
Georgia couldn’t decide whether she disliked Bob more when he was present or when he was absent. When he shared their tiny office he tortured her relentlessly with condescension and crudeness. But lately, he had done things, or claimed to have done things, that gave her the creeps. A week ago he said that, under special orders from ‘the big boys’, he had broken into a cave in a national park to distract the staff while he searched buildings - staff who, according to him, were tied to the Carpet Cleaner list. This was the Bureau’s code name for a California sleeper cell suspected of planning to hit a number of high-profile targets in San Francisco at once, most likely including the BART tunnels, the Regalo refinery, and either the Bay Bridge or Golden Gate. The Bureau considered the refinery most vulnerable to air attack, but had uncovered no evidence of an action plan, and apart from tightening its watch on independent pilot schools, had begun no remedy. The bridges were another story. On a tip from a Turkish operative, agents in Italy had intercepted a courier carrying plans for two truck bombs with downward-focused shaped charges. If detonated simultaneously at the pylons of the Golden Gate, the devices could cut the intervening span and drop it into the mouth of the bay. The Gate would make a grand symbolic target, but take out the Bay Bridge instead and the trans-bay BART tube at rush hour and you shut down the whole region. Under creative interrogation the courier had said things that allowed agents to trace the plans to a Berkeley-educated chemistry prof at Rai University in Teheran.
Said prof would know the Bay Area well, and, as it happened, had a nephew in the States on a student visa. Kayif Alreza attended Fresno State, an ag school in the heart of California. A three-hour drive from San Francisco.
“You’re staring at me. Trying to snoop my password?”
“Actually, Agent Clardy, I’m looking at your shoes. Been playing in the woods?” Georgia had noticed the pine needle fragment in the welt of Bob’s boot the moment she buzzed him in.
“As a matter of fact, I have.”
“Would you care to tell me about it?”
“You monitor my personal hygiene now? You really do think you’re my mother.”
“I wonder about agents who attract undue attention to themselves.
“Fair enough, Georgia. I visited a trailhead in the Sierra. The trail leads to a humongous cave. The subjects were caving.”
“Caving. As in…”
“Spelunking. Our listing was into extreme sports.”
“Learn anything interesting?”
“I learned the names of three more close associates of our number two Carpet Cleaner listing – former number two – who went caving with him.”
“And you think these people are involved?”
“I used to be a bit of a caver myself, Georgia, before I got busy with this job. I know something about cavers. They’re tight. At least, the ones who do the really hard caves like this one are. They hold each other’s lives in their hands. Literally. Team trust. Like a commando unit. So that’s why I’m logging in with D.C. I have a man and two women to add to the list.”
“Women? Women do this?” She began to feel she might be mistaken about Bob.
“Yes, Georgia, women,” Clardy said, and flexed. “Buff, scary women.” One’s an ex-girlfriend of Number Two, and the other one has a SCI/TK clearance.”
“You don’t say. What does she do?”
“Writes code for geoint birds.”
“She programs recon satellites? That’s handy.”
“Yes, indeed.” Bob typed, looked down at his screen, and smiled. “Can you spell ‘compromise’?”
Georgia had to admit this rude little pup was impressing her today. “I can spell ‘bonus’,” she said.
Thursday, June 5
Cross Creek Village
Henry Berwyn lay on a well-used foam pad with Bonnie spooned at his back. He heard the brash territorial claim of a Steller’s jay, then the tinny yank, yank of a nuthatch. Had he awakened in Fresno the dawn chorus would have been sung by mockingbirds imitating phone ringers and car alarms. And he would have been spooning with his wife.
Bonnie stirred, stretched, and rolled away. “Thanks for staying,” she yawned.
“Uh huh.”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“I know,” Henry said. “Since about four forty-five.”
She turned toward him. “How do you know, Sherlock?”
“That’s when you stopped snoring.”
“You are a keen observer,” Bonnie said. “So, what are we going to do about Kayif?”
“Question of the hour,” Henry replied. “Remember when Midnight was all we had to worry about?”
Bonnie got to her knees and stretched like a cat. Then she stood, letting the down comforter they had shared drop away in waves. Before him stood one hell of a gorgeous forty-five-year-old. Her unshaven but smoothly-sculpted calves and thighs carried a round, muscular butt and flat belly. Above, while gravity is no woman’s friend, Bonnie’s modest endowment and rigorous upper-body use had spared her the worst of time’s cruelty. But Henry’s relationship with her had been strictly collegial since before he’d married Alexis, and he felt nothing for her but admiration. Sympathy, too. She had loved Kayif. His death was going to leave a big void in her life.
“I’d like to think I had forgotten about Midnight,” she said, “but of course I haven’t.”
Henry watched her pull on socks, jeans, a sports bra, and a Park Service work shirt. He rose, having gone to bed fully clothed except for his shoes and belt. “I wonder if any of this is connected?”
“Connected? How?”
“I don’t know,” Henry said, now sounding rather stupid to himself. “Forget it.”
“No, Henry,” Bonnie urged, handing him his belt. “Let it flow. I know you. You put things together better than anybody I know. I want to hear it.”
“Okay. You’re going to think this is dumb, but I couldn’t get this out of my head last night. Two horrible, and utterly off-the-wall things happen to us – to Big Spring cavers – in one week. You’ve heard that things happen in threes, right?”
“I have.” She dove to her knees and grabbed his arm. Hard. “But let’s please not have a number three.
Henry winced and continued. “Truly. Anyway, that’s not just a superstition. It’s cluster distribution. Now, this is a stretch, okay, but in nature when you get clusters it’s because of predator pressure.”
“Predator. As in, somebody is messing with on purpose. Trying to, uh, eat us.”
“Yes. Like a school of fish.”
“Henry, that’s dumb. Fish are individuals. This is a cluster of events.”
“You’re right. See. I told you this would be stupid.” He ran his fingers through his short hair. “Anyway, suppose Kayif didn’t just accidentally get alkali on his gear and really was murdered. Now, women have fought over him, but I’m betting such fights would never escalate to murder. Not of him, at any rate.”
Bonnie arched her brows and nodded. “Go on.”
“Well, I mean, Kayif was a sweetheart, right? Nobody in the world who knows him could possibly want him dead. There’s no reason for anyone to do such a thing. With one exception.”
“The government? Because he’s Iranian?”
“What do you think?”
“That’s nuts.”
“That’s what I thought.”
Bonnie stared at him. “Thought. You say you thought that. Past tense.”
Henry took a breath. “Okay. Yeah. So here it is. See, there’s no reason anyone would vandalize Midnight, either.”
“And now you’re going to propose an exception to that, too?”
Henry returned her touch. “We both know where Kayif kept his gear.”
Bonnie’s eyes shifted to the door, then back to Henry. “You’re saying the Midnight vandalism was supposed to be some sort of… distraction? To keep someone from looking at the lockers?” She stepped into her boots. “Who the hell would plan something like that, Henry?”
“Um, somebody in the government who thought Kayif was some kind of terrorist? Just a blind hunch. What do you think?”
“I think you’ve been getting into Alexis’ stack of pulp thrillers.” Bonnie tugged at her laces, then took a step toward the door. “And I think we should be able to disprove your idea in about ten minutes.” She scowled at him. “You know, speaking of your better half, I think you ought to give her a call. I’d hate for you to find all your stuff on the sidewalk when you get back to Fresno.”
Granite Peaks Visitor Center
There were already two cars in the visitor lot when Henry and Bonnie arrived at the VC. Bonnie unlocked the main door and smiled the tourists in. One carload, a German couple, bought tickets for the eleven o’clock Crystal Cave tour. The others, Valley folk up to escape the heat, listlessly wandered the interpretive displays while Dad used the restroom. The girl begged her mom for a cougar sticker. No sale.
When the visitors left, Bonnie unlocked the back office. The sight of the wall-mounted key cabinet evoked an immediate twinge of disgust in Henry, and seemed to do the same to Bonnie. Built of gray-enameled .040 steel, the cabinet could easily have been forced. But there was no sign of that. Whoever had taken the key to the gate at Midnight Cleft had used either the NPS master or a pick. Bonnie opened the case. The keys within were plainly labeled, but whoever took it would also have to know Midnight’s location. Very few people did, and Henry and Bonnie knew them all. Bonnie caught the ring of the Midnight key on the teeth of her master and lifted it from its hook. It rocked and gleamed. “Does this seem a little shinier than the others?”
Henry inspected the key, then looked at the others that dangled from their hooks. He returned his attention to the one Bonnie dangled, and sniffed it. “Stoddard.”
“What?”
“Stoddard solvent. You know it by its brand name : WD. The key’s shiny because somebody sprayed it.”
“Why would anyone spray WD on a key? Doesn’t that stuff make locks gummy?” Bonnie took her own sniff, then returned the key to its place. “Whoever did this was an idiot, then. Or…”
“Or?”
“Would that stuff erase fingerprints?”
Henry scratched his chin. “Maybe. It would also help release the key from a mold.”
“Which means there’s a dupe Midnight key out there somewhere.” Bonnie stepped past Henry and unlocked the inner fire cache door. “Great. We’ll have to replace the lock. That’ll take a week. Two, knowing Maxine.”
“Who’s that?”
“Park locksmith. Impeding access to Park resources is her reason for living.” Bonnie snapped on the light. Within, neat rows of fire tools hung: shovels; McLeod fire rakes; Pulaskis. Chainsaw kits nestled in cubbies. A red cabinet in the corner housed chainsaw mix and drip-torch fuel. There were Indian sprayers, gasoline-powered pumps, tight rolls of canvas hose, Stokes litters, and at the end, a caver’s dream: a veritable mountaineering shop of static and dynamic ropes, sling, carabiners, pulleys, cams, descenders, headlamps, mountain rescue packs…
Henry inhaled the aroma of gear and salivated. But only for a moment.
Bonnie had gone around behind the office door and swung it closed to reveal a bank of high-school-style lockers. “This is his,” she said. “Was his.” She lifted the catch on one of the lower units. “He never locked it.”
Henry heard anguish in her voice. He heard the locker door give a soft moan as Bonnie swung it open.
“There’s a couple old non-locking ‘biners,” she began. “Nothing else.” She stuck her head all the way into the dark interior of the locker. “Wait. Get me down one of those headlamps, will you?”
Henry went to the gear wall and unhooked a headlamp: an old Kestrel Zoom. A battery eater, but a workhorse. He turned the lamp’s rubber bezel of the headpiece until it lit, then passed it to Bonnie. Angles of light and shadow played in the Soviet-green walls of the locker. Bonnie backed out, stood, and handed Henry the lamp. “Take a look at the floor in there and tell me what you think.”
Henry pulled the lamp onto his head, pivoted the headpiece down, and knelt at the locker opening. The floor, barely a foot square, held two SMD aluminum oval carabiners, the wrapper of a watermelon-kiwi Happy Farmer hard candy, two deermouse turds, and a half-centimeter spot of some white material. It hadn’t been there long because it rested on top of the layer of dust that coated the locker’s bottom. Henry nudged the substance with his finger. It was dry and somewhat rough. He nudged it harder. It crumbled and sheared off onto his finger. Bright metal shone on the locker floor where the spot had come up. Henry pursed his lips, gathered saliva, and let a drop fall onto the bit that clung to his forefinger. He rubbed it against his thumb and felt an unmistakable soapy slickness. “This is it,” he said. “Kayif died in Mexico, but here is where they killed him.”
Locklear-Morley Aerospace, Palo Alto, California
“You wanted to see me, Jack?” Luann Hazelton caught her Division Manager’s slight nod, closed his office door behind her, and sat across from him at his desk. The desk was tidy, unlike hers, and decorated with plastic models of some of the company’s products: recon satellites; secure communications birds; one spacecraft of whose mission even Jack Poria denied full knowledge.
Jack closed a yellow file folder and scratched the short gray hair at his temple with the point of a mechanical pencil. “Yes,” he said. “Sit down, please.”
“I am sitting down, Jack.”
He flicked his eyes at her as if to say he didn’t think her joke was funny. “You know those SSBIs we do every five years?”
“Selective Subject Background Interviews. Yes, I do. So is that what this is about?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out. It says here you had one two years ago.”
“That’s about right. So?”
“Well, they’ve ordered another one for you.”
“They? You mean the company?”
“No, the Bureau,” he said. “And they will be visiting you at home.”
“Why?”
“It doesn’t say.” Poria handed Luann the folder. She opened it. The single sheet sported a small FBI logo and two terse paragraphs.
…Required due to heightened security concerns.
…Not to access classified materials until clearance is re-authorized.
Luann handed back the folder. “So, this means I’ve lost my clearance.”
Poria clicked his pencil. “I’m afraid that is what this means, in essence, yes.” He put up a finger. “Temporarily.”
“In essence. Temporarily.” Luann stood. “What is with all this cloak-and-dagger nonsense? How am I going to feed my cats, Jack? How is this company going to…” This was going the wrong way. She blew air and sat back down. “Look, I don’t pretend I’m the only person in the world who can do what I do, and I know I’m not the easiest person to get along with sometimes, but damn it, Jack, if you or somebody in the Cube wants me gone, or Denver doesn’t love me anymore, then why the hell don’t they just come out and say it? You know, if this is what it smells like - if this is harassment… Well, Jack, you know how I feel about that.”
“Yes, indeed I do, Ms. Hazelton.”
“Glad you do, boss. So, could I beg a favor?”
He made an Accommodating Supervisor face. “Shoot.”
“See if you can find out where this is coming from.”
Jack flipped the cover open, then closed. “FBI?” he said with a shrug.
“No, I mean really. We both know FBI doesn’t initiate anything on its own. So kindly tell whoever it is to either fire me or let me do my job.” She stood again.