“I’ll find it,” King cut in with sudden determination. “It’s out there somewhere, and I’ll find it.”
Langley studied the screen for several long moments. “Okay, keep on it Ben. If what you say about Tesla’s research is true then at least the Bouda piece is safe for the time being. The final piece is the wild card. It’s out there, somewhere, and you’re not the only one looking for it now.”
King nodded and after brisk, to-the-point farewells, Langley cut the video feed and leaned back in his chair, mulling over in his mind everything he had just learned.
He closed his eyes and felt the tantalising fingers of sleep clawing at his consciousness. For a moment he considered letting it embrace him but then the intercom on his desk beeped. He pressed the speaker button and his assistant, Kelly’s, voice came through it.
“Ambassador?” She sounded more tentative than normal. “I found the contact details for Doctor Emmett Braun, the doctor who diagnosed Karen Weingarten.”
“Thank you Kelly. Send it to my screen.”
There was a pause. “Um, sir… Doctor Braun was killed in a road accident nine days ago.”
Langley threw himself upright and stared at the speaker phone as though it had just sprouted legs and done a little dance. His words to King echoed in his mind. ‘At least the Bouda piece is safe for the time being.’
He was beginning to think that his statement couldn’t have been further from the truth.
44:
Out of the Ashes
Alexander Langley drove the black SUV down the coastal road. To the left waves broke against the rocky shoreline while to the right the sun sank lower in the sky, casting long shadows from the trees which hemmed him in. The built in sat-nav glowed dully from the centre console, its muted screen taking up the position ordinarily occupied by a stereo system. Open on the passenger seat, wirelessly connected to the internet, his laptop continued its search through classified government files but he fancied that he already had what he needed.
Sitting dauntingly on his desktop was an encrypted folder. The data-tag read ‘Phoenix’ and, whatever it contained, was large, and very highly protected. Despite being a member of the president’s cabinet, a representative of the U.N. Security Council and a retired SOG field commander, none of his security clearance allowed him access to it. In fact, after trying for the third time, a stark warning had told him that his failed attempt to access the classified file had been logged and that any further attempts would be a breach of federal law.
Coincidentally, Jack Harman had been tied up in meetings all day and unable to take his numerous calls. In fact, no one high up enough in the CIA to help had been available all afternoon, which in itself was odd considering he was the appointed commander of an international U.N. mission of vital national, and even international security, and in direct command of a CIA Special Operations Group team.
Getting nowhere with the file he’d promised King he’d look into, he’d shifted his attention on to the death of Doctor Emmett Braun but had fared little better there. He’d found reports in online newspapers about the tragic death of a renowned scientist but he’d been surprised to discover that Braun’s speciality wasn’t in tropical diseases, as he had suspected. Instead, he was an eminent specialist of radiation related illnesses. He’d produced a number of treatments for radiation poisoning and had been instrumental in developing detection methods and classifications of different types of radiation and their varying effects. He had been involved with most of the major radiation-related accidents of the last quarter century, most notably Chernobyl and Fukushima. Yet, strangely, he had been brought in to identify a supposedly ‘tropical disease’ picked up by an archaeologist in the middle of Venezuela.
It was all the proof Langley needed. The U.S. had known about the tachyon radiation right from day one. Unsurprisingly, Braun’s reports had been classified, as had all the medical data gathered at John Hopkins hospital, above his clearance level.
The hands-free speaker phone system continued the shrill dial tone but this time he’d shifted track. With all his attempts to reach Harman or anyone else in the CIA either gone unanswered or been rebuked by surly receptionists with a mightier-than-thou attitude, he’d instead tried a totally different number.
“Hello?” a female voice answered casually. Langley could hear children in the background, the sounds of meat sizzling in a pan and the clatter of pots.
“Jenny? It’s Alex.”
“Alex? Hi, how are you?”
The number he’d dialled was the cell phone of Jennifer Harman, Jack’s wife, and Langley instantly felt a pang of guilt for using his friendship with the family to get through to the CIA chief.
“Oh, not too bad, not too bad,” he said as breezily as he could. “Listen Jenny, I don’t mean to be rude but I’ve been desperately trying to get through to Jack all afternoon but I think he’s cell phone must be off. You know what he’s like,” he laughed. “Is he there?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jenny replied happily. “I’ll just put him on.”
Got you! Langley thought triumphantly. As he had expected there was a muffled pause as Jenny told her husband who was on the phone and admitted that she’d told him he was there. After a lengthy wait during which Langley could picture his friend’s reaction, Jack Harman’s voice echoed through the tinny speakers of the SUV.
“Hello Alex.”
Langley couldn’t help but smile. He heard the reticence in the other man’s voice.
“Jack, you’re a hard man to reach.”
“I’ve been in meetings all day.”
“So I’ve been told. It seems that just about anybody who’s anybody in the Agency has been in meetings all day. In fact, your secretary just told me about five minutes ago that you were still in a meeting and would be unreachable for hours.”
“I managed to slip away early. A bit of family time. I’m sure you understand.”
“Oh sure, sure.” He followed the curve of the road to the right, leading him away from the coast. “I was just starting to feel a little neglected. I must have left a dozen messages on your answer phone.”
Harman cracked. They both knew they were wasting one another’s time playing this game. Harman had been avoiding his calls, simple as that. “What do you want, Alex?”
Any fake levity evaporated from Langley’s voice too. “I want Phoenix.”
The pause was a little longer than it should have been, confirming Harman’s knowledge. “Never heard of it.”
“Really? I’m looking at the encrypted file on my laptop right now. It was buried deep in the agency’s archives—”
“Becky, go help your Mom,” Harman said unexpectedly. Becky was Jack and Jenny’s eldest. “Because I told you to! Just do it!” Then all his attention was back on Langley. “Alex, I’m your friend so I’m going to give you a bit of friendly advice. Stay away from Phoenix.”