“They take a great deal of care to avoid casualties. Doesn’t that tell you something about their motivation and psychology? Their objective seems persuasively aboveboard: trying to raise security and insurance costs for carbon industries to make them unprofitable.”
Chen delivered what I might call a “who the hell knows?” expression: “I’m done speculating. The investigation’s become so politicized—we’re following wingnut hunches more than we’re following actual leads. A QAnon senator picks up a conspiracy and suddenly the bureau is actually getting pressure to track down Kobe Bryant’s widow in case she knows something. I mean, it’s all just…”
He shook his head and trailed off. Aside from the activity of investigators tiptoeing over scattered detritus, the scene felt unnervingly still. The distillation tower reminded me of a forlorn lookout of an abandoned castle.
“The La Grange and McMurray devices were delivered by consumer drones?”
“TEDAC says it’s ingenious work. Hell, my daughter could pilot a drone when she was five, but these things were carrying complex IEDs.”
“Perhaps it’s just a coincidence that this district is represented by the chairman of the Unmanned Systems Caucus in Congress.”
“That’s who we have to thank for the sky the way it is? Robots crashing into each other every damn day?” His hands tucked into his pants, a stain of sweat under each arm and more breaking out on his brow, Agent Chen scuffed a foot at the dirt unhappily. “Between you and me, this investigation is a catastrophe. Ten years, and we have almost nothing to show for chasing backpack scraps and fertilizer receipts. A handful of arrests, none of which have yielded any insight into the operational core. We’ve had two computer glitches that have lost reams of evidence. Mismanagement up and down the chain of command.”
“I’m sympathetic to your predicament, Agent Chen. This group has catalyzed an ugly reaction to environmental remediation. No one would prefer that you arrest these conspirators more than myself. You flew me a long way. How I can be of service here?”
He removed a hand from his pocket and began picking at a cuticle. His black-pitted eyes searched the nail bed carefully. This made what he said next unnerving.
“The lists you’ve been compiling for me, of potential vulnerable infrastructure, it’s helpful. But what I really need to get in your ear about, Dr. Hasan, is the political situation. I was coming up through Quantico after 9/11. I knew a lot of what was happening was counterproductive to the goal of finding and stopping the people who’d do the country harm. I was around during Trump when the bureau was effectively at war with a traitor. None of that scares me as much as the efforts to politicize us now. It would be helpful if you could alert certain allies in Congress and the White House.”
“I assure you, Agent Chen, I will.”
Chen propped a leg up on a piece of fallen concrete and then draped his arms across it. He reached out and touched a piece of twisted rebar, protruding from cement blocks. Then he glanced around to see who might be paying attention to our conversation. Satisfied, he looked back at me.
“I wanted you out here, Doctor, because holo-conferencing, VR, FaceTime—eyes and ears are everywhere now. What I need you to relay, it has to stay off-channel. Vic Love is going to win this election, and he has a track record with law enforcement. What he’s done with policing in this country—and that was before he was even elected to public office. Word I’m hearing is he wants to turn the bureau upside down. Meanwhile, Republicans in Congress are goading us to shut down task forces on, if you ask me, much more dangerous groups. Militias and white nationalists. We’re getting resources yanked from important operations left and right, and it’s all political pressure.”
“A troubling situation, I agree, but I’m not sure that 6Degrees doesn’t constitute the more potent threat.”
“You haven’t seen the intelligence on the League then.”
“Indiscriminate murder is hardly sophisticated. The materials involved cost a few hundred dollars and with the modern artillery available to civilians, hitting a number of targets can be accomplished with only a modicum of training. What 6Degrees has conducted is much more impressive—a sustained, multiyear campaign of clandestine bombings with absolutely zero penetration of its leadership. They’ve demonstrated not only expertise with explosives but law enforcement protocol, surveillance techniques, and most importantly, counterintelligence. The fact that neither the FBI Laboratory nor the ATF has been able to understand how they are procuring high-explosive material, particularly Tovex, Semtex H, and pentaerythritol tetranitrate, is troubling.”
“Marie Newman gave us some clue. And 6Degrees is not more dangerous. Twenty-two years ago, this refinery had an industrial accident after a maintenance restart gone bad. The explosion killed seven. That toll exceeds 6Degrees’ entire decade of operations.”
“I’ve read your reports, Agent Chen. There were surely others like Marie Newman unwittingly supplying them. Still, other than the patsies, there has been no DNA evidence gathered, no latent fingerprints. Materials analysis, toolmark examinations, metallurgical analysis, device reconstruction have all yielded few leads other than the conclusion that you are now searching for more than one bomb maker. They are growing. And they understand how to cause greater chaos than their current efforts suggest. Should they ever decide to raise the stakes, that, Agent Chen, is what would put the fear of God into me, so to speak. L. Victor Love has called 6Degrees the number one threat to the security of the United States, and though I’m not typically given to agreeing with such promulgations, I have to say I see his point for one reason: effectiveness.”
Agent Chen said nothing to this, he simply extended his hand to shake mine, and when he tucked the thumb drive into my palm, I finally understood why he’d flown me all the way out to the relative safety of a crime scene.
The government SUV took me around Fidalgo Bay under low iron clouds. Past the still beauty of the Pacific Northwest, skirting the belly of the temperate rain forests that make up Olympic National Park, I saw a field of horses grazing in the summer sun, and I thought about how little of the world I’d actually seen. How very much of my life has been spent in front of computer screens. How little opportunity I have had to explore in the brief shock of light and color between otherwise eternal respites.
Once back in the hotel, I packed away Agent Chen’s thumb drive, slipped on my VR set, and entered The Pastor’s worlde. While waiting, I looked out over the assembled avatars moving through a fluid lambency in the futuristic Christian megalopolis. The crenellated towers of this neo-Disney kingdom spiraled majestically into a mustard-colored sky, supposedly mimicking the sky under which Jesus walked with the cross. There would be a meeting soon, Ned Stark told me. And we would all take down our avatars.
When Seth and I moved into our apartment in Georgetown, he broached the subject of becoming fathers, either through adoption or a surrogate. I told him this was not something I wished to discuss so soon into our cohabitation and left it at that. There are many things about Seth I find distasteful. He’s a poor cook, though he thinks he’s a good one. Ideologically, he is heavily invested in identity claims to one’s sexuality and pushes me to attend “Pride” events, though I find them tasteless, corporatized alcoholic displays. He doesn’t rinse food from dishes before placing them in the dishwasher, which usually means some granule will cling on, and I’ll have to wash them again by hand. When we hike, particularly our favorite trail, the Billy Goat at Great Falls, he prattles too much and too excitedly, which obviates the serenity of the forest. Nevertheless, I’m fond of him. Fond of his passion, optimism, and skewed Roman nose. His boyish blond cowlick and bright blue eyes tend to erase all petty grievances. And yet, how badly he wants to be a father. On the night of August 20 of this year, I returned from a run, and he put a picture of a lean, aesthetically pleasing African American woman in front of me.