“The whole fucking thing is disturbing, Ray. Especially if whoever has the weapon is trying to sell it. Think about one of the wacko militia groups armed with a cylinder of blood boiler.”
“Blood boiler? Jesus H. Christ. Where’d you pick up a term like that?”
“During my little seance with the high pooh-bah in the bunker; whoever he was. I’m telling you, Ray, this thing is real. And I don’t know who the hell to tell..Especially if the Army won’t even admit it’s missing.”
“What were you planning to do?”
“First tell me where we stand, Ray. You and me. Where’d your two buddies go?”
Ray nodded and rattled the ice in his drink. He put down his glass. ‘ “We came down here to take you back to Smyrna. I have orders from Colonel Parson’s boss, Mr. Whittaker, to get you under government control, as he put it. But that’s before I’d heard this Army shit.”
“Whittaker? He replaced Bernstein, right? SES-Two type?”
“That’s right. Senior Executive Service. Political appointee. Came over from the Justice Department. Still wired directly into the Justice Department. Connected. Seriously connected. He’s starting to talk bent-cop talk. I don’t bring you in, I’ve gotta explain why, and not necessarily to my friends.”
“Where’s the colonel on this one?”
“In the dark, like the rest of us.”
Stafford nodded. “Okay, I can see that. Let me propose something: You tell them I never came back to the hotel. You don’t know where the hell I am. Then request the electronic net be activated — you know, I use my government gas credit card or my government phone, Visa card, whatever, the system alerts. I’ll use those cards so you can quote/unquote track me. You give me one day. I’ve got to go to Graniteville, warn those people there’s a shit storm brewing. They trusted me, and now I can’t protect them.”
“Why can’t you just call them?”
“Because I want to see that girl again.
I want to question her myself. I’ve got to know if this is real or if it’s bullshit. The first time, Gwen Warren wouldn’t let me. This time, she might, after I tell her what might be coming down.”
“And then?”
“And then I come back to Atlanta. This is Sunday night. I go up there tomorrow. I come back into town— what, Tuesday? Or wherever you want me to go.”
Sparks gave him an appraising look. Stafford leaned forward. “Ray, think about it. I haven’t done anything wrong. I’ve stumbled into something that could be fucking huge. A missing chemical weapon. It’s probably right here in Atlanta, Georgia. The Army is breaking all the rules, detaining some of their own people illegally, sending CW emergency teams into the city at night, detaining federal agents. I don’t care if the whole government gets into the cover-up — this is going to come out. You want to be on the side of the angels when it does, Ray.”
“There’s nobody up in D.C. who’d consider you to be one of the angels, Dave.”
“If I’m trying to find this thing while everybody else is trying to cover up the fact that it’s even missing, anybody who’s my ally is going to dodge a bullet. You don’t have to get out front, Ray. Let me do that — I’m already expendable. You be my agent in place, within the system. I think it’s this Carson guy who has it, or knows where it is.
Give me a day to warn the people up in Graniteville, then let me come back here and work this bitch.”
Sparks ran his fingers through his hair while he thought about it. “What I still can’t figure,” he said, “is why he Army let you go.”
“Maybe it’s because someone wants me to find the fucking thing. If they can’t admit that it’s lost, then they can’t really mount much more of an operation to recover it than they have. That would explain the session in the bunker. Why treat me to a scary-monster Kabuki drama if they just wanted to put me in a box? Plus, they don’t know what I know about Carson.”
“From a psychic.”
Stafford hesitated. “Yes, that’s true. But Ray, that thing I saw on the monitor was identical to the kid’s drawing. How else can you explain such a thing?”
“I do not fucking know,” Sparks said. “I do not fucking know. And I don’t like all these wheels within wheels here.”, “You mean you know your government too damned well. Will those two guys keep their mouths shut about tonight? The fact that you and I had a meet?”
“Yeah. They will, unless it means their jobs. You’re asking a hell of a lot, Dave.”
“But you know I’m right, Ray. Give me thirty-six hours. Then I’ll come back to town, and we can meet offline somewhere and work the Carson angle. All I need is thirty-six hours. I may be a loose cannon, but I’m not a bent cop. Besides, what the hell can happen in thirty-six hours?”
Sparks snorted. “With you in the game? Shit!” He looked across the table at Stafford for a long moment. Then he sighed. “Fuck me,” he said. “If this isn’t a Dave Stafford special, I don’t know what it is.”
Dave got up. “I’m going upstairs, and I’m going to try to get some sleep. Look at it this way, Ray: If this is all bullshit, you can cut me loose. It’s not like anyone in DCIS would blame you.”
Sparks shook his head and signaled the waiter for another one as Stafford left the lounge.
33
Dave Stafford drove into Graniteville a little after eleven on Monday morning, suppressing the umpteenth yawn. He had not slept well at all.
He had vague memories of disturbing dreams, courtesy, no doubt, of his late-evening excursion to the field of tombs at the Anniston Depot.
In contrast, this Monday was bright and sunny, and the north Georgia mountains had greened out into their early summer colors. He wasn’t looking forward to his upcoming talk with Gwen Warren. She would be horrified to hear that they had been swept up into something that was probably going to get worse before it got better. He had left a message on the office answering machine to say he was driving up to Willow Grove, calling early enough to be pretty sure he would get the machine and not Gwen Warren.
He drove down toward the square, where the streets were busy with Monday-morning traffic. A noisy line of gravel trucks from the quarry passed him going the other way, leaving clouds of black diesel smoke and white dust in their wakes. There was no sign of the sheriff as he drove around the courthouse square, but he was grateful to be in a nondescript rental car this time. He decided to proceed to the Waffle House for a late breakfast of “strangled and smothered,” or whatever they called it, and then call Gwen. Throughout the morning drive he had resisted the temptation to call Ray Sparks to make sure he still had an ally; now that it was Monday morning, things might have changed. He had duly used the government gas card to fill up the rental halfway up to Graniteville.
There were clearly some things going on behind the scenes in Washington that were being aimed right at him. Ray had revealed that Bernstein’s replacement was going around making not so subtle hints that Stafford might be a bent cop. And the Bureau had been present for the polygraph in Anniston. If Washington pressed Ray Sparks hard enough, he might not have thirty-six hours, so this had to go right, or else he might have to execute his one remaining option.
He drove into the diner’s potholed parking lot and parked among the usual collection of dusty pickup trucks. His rental was the only sedan there. He took a corner booth away from the door and ordered a breakfast platter. While he was waiting for his breakfast, he got up and placed a call to Willow Grove, holding the phone pinched between his chin and his shoulder while he dialed. He again reached the answering machine. He left a message that he was at the Waffle House in town and needed to speak to Gwen, that it was urgent, and that he would call back in an hour.