As they walked back to the admin office’s front door, Carson asked casually how Stafford’s day trip had gone. Stafford demurred, saying something vague about the local DCIS in Smyrna and some internal liaison work. Carson didn’t pursue it.
He got them into the admin office, found Stafford a spare key, and gave him a keypad combination card in case he came in after hours when no one was there. Stafford went to his office, and Carson went out through the back door to watch some more of the exercise.
Stafford waited ten minutes, then went down to the back door. He cracked it slightly to see what he could see. The two big trucks were still out on the tarmac, but most of the people had disappeared. He saw that the doors to the demil feed-assembly warehouse and the demil building itself were open, and that there were lights on in both buildings. He could see into the end of one of the trailers, which appeared to be a mobile operations center. What the hell, he thought, everybody looks pretty busy.
He stepped quietly out onto the tarmac. The sound of portable generators assaulted the evening quiet from atop the trailers. He hung his credentials from the pen pocket in his suit coat like Carson, then walked casually over to the open trailer. He stood on the tarmac outside the operations trailer for a few minutes, watching what was going on inside. Just beyond the ramp, there were five soldiers suited up in CW gear sitting at consoles of some kind, surrounded by status boards and bright lights. Another soldier stood behind them, filling out a form on a clipboard. If they were communicating with the people inside the warehouses, Stafford could not hear them over the noise of the generators. There was no sign of Carson or the pretty PAO lieutenant, or the two civilians.
As he was about to give it up, the soldiers at the consoles got up from their seats, grabbed gear bags of some kind, and came down the ramp, accompanied by the supervisor. They paid no attention to him as they went around the truck and into the demil building. Stafford was tempted just to walk up the ramp and look around, but he thought that might be pushing it a little. The PAO had told him to stay out of the area. A moment later, he was glad he’d hesitated, because an extremely fit-looking young man with a military haircut came around the corner and stopped short when he saw Stafford.
“Stafford, DCIS,” Stafford announced immediately, j turning his badge so the officer could see it. “I’m observing with Mr. Carson.”
The officer shot him and his credentials a quick look, nodded, and then went on up the ramp and into the trailer. Stafford stepped away, pretending to stare out into the tarmac area, but then he eased back to the ramp so he could see inside the trailer. The officer was sitting at the end console, nearest the ramp, and speaking urgently into a microphone headset. Stafford still couldn’t hear anything over the generator noise, but there was a lot of head shak j ing and gesticulating going on as the officer’s hand flew ‘ over the console’s control buttons. When he saw what came up on the monitor, Stafford stopped breathing momentarily.
There, in living color, rotating slowly in three dimensional motion, was a stainless-steel cylinder with a knurled cap at each end. It was almost identical to the drawing Gwen Warren had given him in Graniteville, except for the decals with bright red lettering running the length of the cylinder. There were warning banners down both sides of the screen, but all Dave could make out were the words Top Secret at the top.
A little voice in his head told him to beat feet out of there, and for once in his life, he listened.
20
From the edge of the tarmac, Carson watched the two semis grind their way out of the DRMO parking lot. It had gone perfectly; in fact, almost amusingly, as the Army team tried to pretend this was just some scripted exercise. But he knew better. They had examined the feed and product streams for the Monster in clinical detail, but apparently they’d found nothing. How could they? The cylinder was still sealed. The fact that it had been hidden right in front of them added to his sense of victory. Now Wendell Carson was safe, although he knew he was making some assumptions about what the Army would do next. From his own days in the Quartermaster Corps, he was pretty sure he knew what that would be. Give the Army an opportunity to cover something up and all those eager-beaver, forward-leaning, team-playing general staff officers would positively sprint with it.
He went back into the demil complex and shut off all the lights and reset the door locks. It was too late to call Tangent. But first thing in the morning, he’d give him the good news, then agree on a date to transfer the cylinder. Sunday was still good: There’d be nobody here, and now that the Army had come looking for it, he had a better argument than ever for not moving the cylinder off the DRMO premises. He let himself in the back door of the admin office and walked down the hall to his own office— where he found Stafford sitting in his chair. He had to work hard to catch his breath.
“That wasn’t an exercise, was it, Carson?” Stafford said, folding his hands under his chin and looking up at him very much like a cop.
“What?” Carson barely managed to keep his voice from squeaking as he pushed the office door shut.
“That team being here tonight. That wasn’t an exercise, was it? They were looking for something. Something I think maybe you’ve got.”
“What the hell are you talking about? What are you doing sitting at my desk?”
“Waiting for you. I’ve had a sense about you since I came here, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. DRMO auctions. That’s small potatoes.
Maybe steady beer money, or Vegas money, but nothing to shout about. But CW? That’s different. Wa-a-a-y different, Carson.”
“What the fuck are you saying?” Carson shouted. He was trying not to sound scared, but he sensed he wasn’t succeeding. “You accusing me of something, you come right out and say it. Then I’ll. go get a lawyer and you can say it to him, and then we’ll sue your ass and your agency for harassment. You think you can just waltz in here like—”
Stafford put his hand up for silence. He got up and started walking around the room. “So tell me: What really happened to Bud Lambry?” he asked.
Jesus, where the hell did that come from? Carson wondered. His knees felt buttery, so he went around his desk and sat down. “Lambry?” he said. “What’s Lambry got to do with anything? He quit. I told you that.
Good riddance. Guy was a pain in the ass.”
“Must have been. One of your guys talks about Lambry, and then his house blows up. Did he know something he shouldn’t have? Like about the cylinder?”
For an instant, Carson thought he felt his heart stop. What had Stafford just said? The cylinder1?
Stafford had stopped pacing and was looking at him. “That’s right, the cylinder. Let’s see: stainless-steel, a few feet long, maybe — what, three, four inches in diameter? Sound about right? Containing some grotesque CW shit?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carson squeaked. Even to himself, he sounded scared. There was just no fucking way …”Oh, I think you do. I think you and Mr. Lambry found something in that shipment of containers the Army press lady out there was talking about.
I think that’s the real reason the Army is suddenly down here conducting some kind of bullshit exercise. Something’s missing.” “You’re whacked out, Stafford,” Carson said, shaking his head. He needed to stop this, stop this right now. He decided to attack. “Totally whacked-out. This the kind of shit you were doing up in D. C., got you thrown out of town?”
He saw that it was Stafford’s turn to be surprised. He stood up behind his desk. “Yeah, that’s right. I checked up on you, Pal,” he said. “I know some people who know some shit up there in D.C. So before you go making any more wild-ass accusations, you better think about why you’re here in the first place.