'Knew. A very long time ago. And this is crazy. It isn't like her. Not the Charley I knew.'
Helen Wagner shrugged. 'People change, Michael.'
'Not that much. Not deep down.' She looked sad, he thought, resigned.
'I have to show you this,' Helen Wagner said. 'It isn't a pretty sight. But you need to look. You need to help me understand.'
'I'm out of here.'
'This is bad, Michael. This could be everyone's worst nightmare. We thought we could keep this under wraps as much as possible, keep a lid on people's fears. But you're right, Charley's smart. After hitting Lone Wolf she put up a site on the Web. It's got her stated aims — sufficiently hazy so that we can't second-guess the detail — and some other stuff too. I believe you when you say she wasn't like this when you knew her. But something shifted inside her. She's sick, physically, and I think in some way she relates what is happening in her head to what is happening in the universe. People no longer matter to her. And she wants to hurt us, all of us, in a way we'll never forget. She thinks that she can somehow send a wake-up call to the human race.'
Lieberman shook his head. 'That's not the Charley I knew.'
'Take a look at this. We downloaded our own copy. The real thing is getting so many hits on the Web you'd never get through. There's something else too. We had someone inside. Charley found out. She E-mailed us a little extra, a picture of the body. If you're feeling up to it, click on the image. If you need more proof, that is. I won't nag. But you have to ask yourself this: Can you really stay apart from what's happening? If you do that, will you ever forgive yourself?'
'I told you,' he said, 'I'm out of here.'
A Web page came on the monitor. Brightly coloured text and background, the words Children of Gaia in red, and beneath a simple message: Prepare.
Lieberman shook his head and said, 'You people…' He clicked on the enclosed image she had sent straightaway and thought: She knew that was what would happen all along, she planned it just like that.
Half an hour later, a vodka in his shaking hand, Lieberman called the hospital in California on the videophone. Sara Wong had a bandage around her forehead, a big livid bruise showing up on her right cheek, and what looked like the makings of a serious black eye above it.
'Hey. I leave you alone for a little while and see what happens? Hell, Sara. What do I say?'
'You ask how I am.'
'I can see that from looking. Does it hurt? Can I do something?'
'No.' It was the look again, as if this were somehow his fault.
'I wish I was there.'
'Why? It's not so bad. Talk a little, Michael. I'm tired. I was about to go to sleep.'
'Right. So I'm out of this place. This whole job was just some kind of cover for a spook thing and I'm through. I can maybe get a plane to Madrid, be back home in a day or so.'
'Oh, Michael…' Yeah, he thought, he got the message.
'They spoke to you, huh? The Wagner woman.' Sara winced (and this was the pain he was giving her, not the physical side of things, he knew that).
'Of course they spoke to me. Someone attacked the goddamn facility, it looks like it's been firebombed. What do you expect?'
'Don't believe what they tell you. Don't believe a thing.'
'Really.' Her face looked tired, a little sour now too.
'No. You recognize that woman's name? She was in Time the other week. The spook appointments page or something. She's Pieter Wagner's kid, the guy the men in black hounded to death way back when. I just double-checked on the Net. Can you believe that?'
'I remember that story. Maybe she thought it was a good job. Maybe she thought that, if they got better people in there, mistakes like the one that screwed up her father wouldn't happen.'
'Yeah.' Always thinking the best of people. Sara all over.
'Is that so hard to believe, Michael?'
'For me it is.'
'Then that's your cross. Christ, it's nearly fifteen years since you walked out of that project like someone had stolen your very life. Don't you ever get over things?'
'She told you to say that.'
'So what? There's something bad happening in the world right now. You have to trust someone and it might as well be them because just now I can't think of anyone else. Either that or you just hide in a deep, black hole somewhere and wait for it to go away. Is that what you want?'
Lieberman drained the vodka glass, poured himself another.
"That's going to help, Michael. Why don't you just take the whole damn bottle, let it give you some comfort down there in your hole, with all those demons. Just let someone else take the responsibility for getting on with the job.'
'You don't mean that, Sara. I want to be home. I want to see you.'
'Christ.' Her voice got louder. It made him sweat in the lonely, airless bedroom, the sound of the Mediterranean washing in from the window.
'Michael. I don't want you here. Not because they told me to say that. Not because they asked me to persuade you to help them. It's simpler than that. I have a new life now. I have a husband. And I don't want you here.'
'Right.' The same old ritual, a few thousand miles apart.
'Believe me,' she said, eyes closing. Dog-tired, he thought, she wasn't faking that, or anything else either if he were to be honest with himself. 'Believe that, Michael, if you believe nothing else at all.'
CHAPTER 21
Precautions
Helen Wagner left the S&T block and headed for the old building and Levine's office. Larry Wolfit, Belinda's deputy, now hers, was by her side, a tall, slender man, dressed in a checked shirt and jeans, brought straight back from a few days' vacation by the crisis. He was a few years older than she, quiet, thoughtful, not given to hasty decisions. When the news of Belinda's death broke, Helen's first thought was that they would make Wolfit acting head until a permanent appointee was found. If he was disappointed by their eventual choice, it didn't show. When she considered it more carefully, she guessed it was predictable he didn't get the job. Wolfit was too introspective for the likes of Levine, maybe, and — she didn't enjoy the thought — too smart as well.
'We haven't had the conversation, Larry.'
He gave her a wry smile and strode out across the road. Wolfit had been somewhere in Yellowstone when they tracked him down, working on a wildlife renewal project that seemed to occupy most of his spare time. He was still wearing his mountain boots. It gave him an odd, rural air in Langley's neatly manicured environment. The office had nicknamed him Wolfit the Wolf Man, and it seemed so inappropriate. He looked like a college professor on a hike, tall and thin, with wispy fair hair that was falling fast. He could have swept aside what was left to hide the baldness, she guessed, but that was the kind of personal touch that probably never occurred to him.
'No need,' he said gently. 'I wasn't looking for the job.'
'All the same-'
'Really,' and he gave her a fixed stare. 'And besides, to be honest I've been thinking about quitting anyway. Not that now's the time. This work I've been doing, it's getting a sight more interesting than I ever expected.'
She knew, in a loose fashion, what the work was; everyone in S&T did. Larry Wolfit was involved in some scheme to reintroduce wolves into parts of the Rockies where they'd been chased out by man. It was an unusual hobby for an S&T employee, she thought, and she couldn't help but envy his energy and his commitment.
'We can talk about this later,' she said. 'Interesting hobbies don't necessarily make interesting careers, Larry.'
He smiled and, for a moment, she thought Wolfit was humouring her. 'I wouldn't describe it as a hobby. We're starting to learn things there that are pretty amazing. I wouldn't be surprised if it leads to some large-scale wolf reintroduction schemes pretty much everywhere before long.'