“The admiral is gone, Colonel.”
“Find him, please, Pauline. Is he at lunch?”
“No, that’s not what I mean,” she gasped. “He’s been replaced. General Homza took over and he’s in Admiral Galli’s office now, going through the drawers.” Her voice became a whisper. “They were shouting, him and the admiral. General Homza said to patch you through if you called. I’ll be reassigned, sir. They’re shutting down the unit.”
“You’ll be fine, Pauline.” I soothed, hoping I was right. “Let me talk to General Homza.”
Click…
The screen went fuzzy for a millisecond. It did that sometimes from solar flares. Suddenly leaping forward on-screen was Homza, a blunt, fit-looking, middle-aged man wearing the two stars of a U.S. Army major general, and sitting behind the admiral’s Civil War — era walnut desk. Posture, ramrod. Behind him was the left side of the admiral’s World War One oil of the Coast Guard cutter Tampa, being torpedoed by a U-boat; flames high, crew members leaping into the sea.
The eyes of the man looking back at me were steely-gray, inside wire-rimmed spectacles; the jaw was smallish for the round face, the cropped hair thinning, the few remaining bristles those of a tough, aging boar. I judged him a hard fifty. The mouth was set, the voice tight; the overall effect one of vigorous disapproval.
“Colonel Rush,” he said, neutrally.
“May I ask, sir, what has happened?”
“Well, where to start,” he said with disgust. “The admiral has been running this unit haphazardly.” His disapproval hinted at satisfaction, I told you so, and suggested that any alleged lapses had provided Homza opportunity. He went on. “Special privileges. Avoidance of rules. Your girlfriend for instance, Colonel. Granted security clearance!”
“She had that already, sir, at Electric Boat.”
“Not from us. Starting now, share classified material and your pillow talk,” he said, as if those two words constituted a perversion, “will have dire consequences.” He looked disgusted. “Are we clear?”
“Sir, my original deal with the admiral — when I extended my tour — was contingent on Karen being in the loop.”
He looked astounded. “Your deal with the United States of America is not. Your personal life is not my concern. You’ve also shared information with local police. Admiral Galli failed to discipline you. Strike two. I’ve long argued that we need to rein in loose cannons around here, your unit in particular.”
I thought, Put everyone under your control, you mean.
I said, “You’re closing us down?”
“You had your people in D.C. exceed your mandate, poke around in places that don’t concern you. Strike three. When this mission is done, you’ll be moved out of research, into field units.”
I did not back down. “Sir, if by exceeding mandate you’re talking about Project Enhancing Warfighters, Sarah made a legal, logical inquiry. I was sent here to check on special projects. I’d say that human experimentation counts.”
I saw a sneer. “Colonel. That sounds like Auschwitz. I’m authorized by the secretary of defense himself to tell you that, in Warfighters, no work was done near Barrow. Furthermore, all volunteers in that failed experiment are fine today, living wholesome lives, in different places, and none suffered side effects. So let’s put this to rest.”
“That was always my intent, sir,” meaning: Then why not send me what I asked for?
He seemed surprised that I was still pushing. Generals don’t explain things to colonels. But his eyes shifted. His jaw muscles clenched. He didn’t just order me to shut up. Something else was going on here.
He said, “We don’t think it’s in the public interest to advertise every detail of every experiment. There isn’t a government anywhere that isn’t, at any given moment, looking at new germs, electrics, gasses. We both know what happens when you tell the public that. Shit blows up, shit that you’ll agree we do not need.”
“Sir, my people aren’t the public. Sarah’s vetted for classified material.”
“You are not to involve yourself further in an investigation that has no bearing on your mission. Just finish up, fast.”
Surprise! I’d been expecting to be pulled out, if Homza was closing the unit. “You’re keeping us here, sir?”
A sigh. “Your patron Admiral Galli made one last argument. He said the locals like you, and can make trouble in Washington if they feel jerked around. And that although we do not think a quarter-century-old law relevant here, it is law so someone has to carry it out. Five years from now, there will be no need for this. This is the last time.”
Now I understood.
“You’re ordering me to find nothing?”
A pause. “You’ve been up there for months and found nothing so there is nothing to find. You and Major Nakamura take four more days, file your negative report, and come to D.C. At that point we’ll discuss your future, and also the future of Sarah Kemp, who for now remains in custody.”
“Like a hostage?”
He drew in a sharp breath and I took a deep one. “Sir, I’d like to see the files on Clay Qaqulik. That’s my right as investigator. I want to see Warfighters to determine if it is part of my mission. Or, General, I respectfully request that we include a note in my findings stating that I was instructed to avoid asking certain questions.”
He didn’t move for a moment.
“Thin ice,” he said.
“Sarah only did her job,” I said.
“Remember what I said about pillow talk, Colonel.”
He clicked off.
The screen showed grayish snow. I turned on the lights. Eddie Nakamura was seated at the opposite table in a lab coat, his mask on, preparing to run a back-up screen on the samples — blood, skin, and hair — that we’d taken from the victims and cabin. Ranjay had done one already.
Eddie said, “Way to go, One. How to make friends and influence people.”
“Hey, he’s sending the files. It worked.”
“Sheep-dipped? Or real?”
“Who knows?”
“Sometimes I think on the day that Lord Jesus comes back to Earth, even then, the assholes will still play politics.”
Clay Qaqulik’s files were forwarded to us twenty minutes later, and I consumed them, looking for any connections, links, hints. He’d been stationed in Germany and California, not Alaska. His psych reports were clean and his FBI files complimentary. Unless his records had been sheep-dipped, there was nothing indicating involvement in any Army experiments.
Eddie looked puzzled. “Then why the big deal when Valley Girl asked for this? All they had to do was send.”
“She gave Homza the opportunity he’s been waiting for. He couldn’t care less about the files. Politics is right.”
“What do you make of Major General RoboCop?”
“He’s telling us he is big and we are small. He’s offering us an opportunity to fall in line, Eddie. That stuff about discussing our future? For Homza, training the rogue dog is a special challenge.”
“We’re rogue dogs? Woof!”
“Finish the screen, Eddie. We leave in four days.”
The clock was ticking now. Four days was nothing. In Eddie’s gloved hand sat a small rectangular plastic dish the size of a tape cassette, lined with three dozen small, half-inch-deep wells. Eddie deposited different blood samples into each well, then poured in reagents. He refrigerated the dish. If, during the next twenty-four hours, a sample turned bright green, it meant we had a poison. If the sample remained unaffected, it was harmless when it came to the specific toxics that we tested for.