'There is an organization of Ukrainian nationalists who think Ukraine should be ruling Russia, the way it used to like a thousand years ago, instead of the other way around, the way they claim it is now-I don't know enough about Russian-Ukrainian history to get the details straight. And don't want to, actually. Anyway, this group wants to take over Russia, and they're willing to use terrorist tactics to make it happen.
'Of course, that's a local matter. Normally the Bureau wouldn't consider it an American concern. But, like a lot of these cockamamie terrorist groups, they've got cells here and they get a lot of their financing from Ukrainian- Americans. So the Russians asked us to lend a hand. And one of our assets in place in the Chicago cell passed on a report that the Ukrainians had autopsied the old lady… and found something weird.
'Take a look at your screens.'
It wasn't necessary to do anything to comply. The pop-up screens were rising again at every place, and what they displayed was a sort of X ray of a human skull. Where skull joined spine there was a fuzzy object the size of a hazelnut.
'This is a slice of a PET scan,' Pell said. 'It shows the thing the Ukrainians found in Dr. Artzybachova's head. And this other one'- click-'comes from the head of our agent, Dan Dannerman. There's one just like it in Dr. Patrice Adcock's head-and, we think, though we can't get at them to check, in the heads of Commander Lin and General Delasquez as well. Nothing like it has ever been found in the heads of anybody else we've examined, just in the people that went to Starlab and came back.'
He paused there, gazing amiably around the table, until Senator Piombero couldn't contain herself any longer. 'Well, what is it, Marcus? Some kind of a tumor?'
The D.D. shook his head. 'No, it's not a tumor. We have a copy of the Ukrainian report on the object they took from Dr. Artzybachova's body. It's metal. It does not resemble any human artifact. It appears to have been implanted in them while they were on the orbiter.' He paused, giving the group a sort of half smile-not so much a smile as the grimace of somebody who had bitten into something really foul. 'Now we come to Operation Ananias. There seems to be a lot of lying going on. Both Dannerman and Dr. Adcock deny that anything of the sort happened. The Floridians haven't been very cooperative, but we've established that General Delasquez denies it, too; we haven't been able to get much out of the Chinese about Commander Lin.
'But what it is, definitely, is a piece of that extraterrestrial technology that Dr. Adcock went looking for. We want to find out why one of our senior agents is lying to us, not to mention that we damn well need to know exactly what the implant thing is.' He glanced at his watch, seemed about to add something but changed his mind. 'There's more, but let's leave it at that for the moment. Now we should go to the interrogation theater so you can get a look at Dannerman and Dr. Adcock yourselves.'
CHAPTER TWO
With all twelve of them in it at once the elevator was pretty crowded. Conversation wasn't easy, but that didn't stop Senator Piombero. 'What I'm wondering, Marcus,' she said, leaning past the man Hilda couldn't quite remember to get the D.D.'s attention, 'is, why don't you just take the thing out of your agent's head? I mean surgically? I certainly wouldn't want anything like that in my own head.'
According to the flow charts, the National Bureau of Investigation is part of the nation's federalized police force, but it keeps itself clear of the street cops. Those are the thin blue line-though noticeably thickened since the passage of the police draft laws-that does its best to keep the peace-loving citizen from the muggers and murderers. The street cops share a headquarters with the Department of Defense in the old Pentagon. The NBI's headquarters is a few kilometers away, in suburban Arlington, and it has a different mission. Its quarry is the transnational crooks and druggers and terrorists. It has inherited its ID files from the old FBI, and its habits from the old CLA. Although it chooses its agents from the police draftees, the ones it picks are the cream of the crop, and they know it.
– Inside the Beltway: 'The NBI.'
'That is one option, yes,' he agreed. 'Unfortunately-Well, that's your department, Dr. Evergood.'
'It's not that easy,' the surgeon said obstinately. 'I've studied both subjects. Of course, the implants can be removed. But they are much more complex than they appear on your screens. Each of the implants has a large number of fine processes that do not show up well in those images but reach deeply into many areas of the brain. My opinion is that removing them might well kill the patients, and at the least would almost certainly cause severe loss of much brain function. I wouldn't like to take that kind of a risk if I didn't have to.'
Watching Senator Piombero, Hilda suspected the woman wouldn't be satisfied with that. She wasn't. She gave the surgeon a narrow-eyed look, then turned to the deputy director. 'Maybe we can get a second opinion,' she suggested.
He looked surprised. 'Of course, Senator. If that's what you wish. But Dr. Evergood is perhaps the best in the world at this kind of work. We've been grateful to her in the past for what she's been able to do for some of our own people. Truly amazing results.'
Hilda repressed a shudder, because she'd seen some of those truly amazing results: mummified corpses in life-support capsules, looking at the world through electronic lenses and getting around in overgrown wheelchairs. She did not want to think of her Dan Dannerman like that.
'So you see,' the deputy director said sunnily as the elevator door opened. 'Now if you'll go to your right we'll go into the Pit of Pain.'
The senator persisted. 'Well, then, couldn't you, ah, secure the device the Ukrainians removed from the instrument person?'
Pell looked surprised. 'Oh, didn't I say? They don't have it anymore. The silly buggers let somebody else steal it.'
Hilda Morrisey knew the Pit of Pain well. She had watched many an interrogation from one of those seats, had often enough been the interrogator down in the pit herself, when the subjects were bombers, tax evaders, smugglers, all the kinds of nasties that the Bureau had to deal with. It had never been like this before, though. The problem had never concerned ridiculous alien creatures from Mars or some other preposterous place. More important still, the sweaty person being interrogated had never before been one of her own.
As the Ananias team took its seats in one corner of the stands Hilda saw that Senior Agent Dannerman was already sitting on one of the straight-backed chairs. He didn't seem to be doing much sweating. In fact, she noted with a faint, hidden grin of approval, he looked pretty much as though he were asleep.
Daisy Fennell said chattily, 'It's all right to talk up here; they can't hear us. Now if you're all ready?' She looked at the D.D. He nodded; she spoke into the microphone at her place; down in the pit the door opened and the interrogator came in. Hilda didn't know the interrogator, who was female, young, good-looking in a severely no- nonsense kind of way-probably new to the Bureau headquarters. She placed a hand on Dannerman's shoulder and said, 'Wake up. I need to ask you some questions.'
If Dannerman had been asleep at all, he woke quickly and completely. He glanced knowingly toward the one- way mirror, yawning, before he said, 'Is there any coffee around?'
'No,' the interrogator said concisely, seating herself across the table from him. She plunged right in. 'Agent Dannerman, you are accused of filing false reports to the Bureau.'
'Yes, I know that; I didn't do it. By the way, I have to pee.'
The interrogator ignored that. 'When you returned from the Star-lab orbiter you reported-'
'I know what I reported. Pee, remember? I have to do it.'
For the first time the interrogator looked uncertain. 'I think that can wait until we finish here. You reported-'
'Well, if you think it can wait,' Dannerman said agreeably, 'but it doesn't feel that way to me. I think it'd be better if you took me to the men's room. Or else I can just go in my pants.'
The interrogator didn't scowl at him. Didn't look at the mirror, either, just got up, walked stiffly to the door and
