In days past, the officers’ mess had been full of noise and bustle, radiating the kind of irrepressible glee more common to a frat party than a remote army base. This morning it felt more like a morgue. People sat in twos and threes, picking listlessly at their breakfasts, barely talking. Furtive, suspicious glances were exchanged, as if the guilty party could be anyone. Standing in the doorway, Marshall realized this was, in fact, true: anybody in the mess might be the culprit.
His eye settled on a far table, where a man sat alone, reading a book. He was light-haired and thin, with a carefully trimmed beard. Logan, the history professor.
Marshall helped himself to a slice of whole wheat bread and a cup of tea, and then-on impulse-took a seat across from Logan. “Good morning,” he said.
Logan put down the book-
“All too true.” Marshall peeled open a small tub of marmalade and spread the contents over his bread.
“I guess it’s worse for them than for us.” Logan nodded toward the next table, where the two photographers, Fortnum and Toussaint, sat woodenly pushing scrambled eggs around their plates with shell-shocked expressions. Much of the documentary crew had been put to work searching the base and its surroundings for the missing cat.
“That’s right. Nobody’s made off with
Logan stirred his coffee. “Unaffected by the events.”
“I’m relieved to hear it. Professor, right? Of medieval history?”
The stirring slowed. “That’s right.”
“I’m fascinated by the subject. In fact, I’ve been reading a history of the Counter-Reformation.” This was only half true- Marshall ’s nightly reading was, in fact, a book on the Counter-Reformation: but it was with the desperate hope that the incredibly dry exposition would help him find sleep.
Logan raised his eyebrows. He had blue eyes that while at first impression seemed almost drowsy were in fact subtle and penetrating.
“I just finished a chapter on the Council of Trent. Amazing, the impact it had on the Catholic liturgy.”
Logan nodded.
“And since it convened for the fourth time in-1572, right?-there hasn’t been another council as influential.”
The stirring stopped. Logan took a sip of coffee, made a face. “Terrible coffee.”
“You should switch to tea. I did.”
“Maybe I will.” Logan put the cup down. “There were three councils of Trent, not four.”
Marshall didn’t reply.
“And the last was 1563. Not 1572.”
Marshall shook his head. “Guess I was more tired than I realized, getting it wrong like that.”
Logan smiled slightly. “I get the feeling you got it just fine.”
There was a brief, uncomfortable silence. Then Marshall laughed ruefully. “You’re right. I’m sorry. That was really ham-handed of me.”
“Can’t say I blame you. I arrive out of nowhere, with a bizarre job description and no good reason to be here-and immediately all hell breaks loose.”
“Even so, I had no right to play with you like that.” Marshall hesitated. “Not that it’s any excuse, but I just came from this really unpleasant meeting with Conti.”
“The director? He and that pit bull from the network, Wolff, gave me a good going-over yesterday afternoon. I’ve never seen anybody so paranoid.”
“Yeah. And the worst thing is, it’s catching. I caught a good dose just now.” And it was still resonating: some of the things Conti had said about Sully, in particular, were more persuasive than Marshall cared to admit. He glanced at his watch: he had three and a half hours to make up his mind.
He took a bite of his toast. “So why are you here, if you don’t mind my asking?”
Logan pushed his cup away. “Doctor’s orders. The climate, you know.”
Marshall shook his head. “I deserved that.”
Another silence settled over the table, but this time it was neither especially awkward nor uncomfortable. Marshall finished his toast. He found his suspicions of Logan fading. There was no logical reason for it, of course, other than the professor was almost certainly what he claimed to be. Rather, it was something about the man-a degree of straightforwardness-that made him difficult to suspect.
Logan sighed. “Okay, let’s start again. Jeremy Logan.” He reached a friendly hand across the table.
Marshall shook it. “Evan Marshall.”
Logan sat back and spoke quietly. “When it comes to my research, I tend to play my cards pretty close to my vest. I make more progress that way. But I guess there’s no reason not to tell you. In fact, you might even be able to help-so long as you don’t mention it to the others.”
“Deal.”
“Actually, I think you’ll see for yourself the wisdom of keeping mum.”
“Somebody told me you were an enigmalogist. I haven’t heard of that particular, ah, discipline.”
“Nobody else has, either. My wife gave me that title once, in a playful moment.” Logan shrugged. “It helps remind me of her.”
“What does it have to do with medieval history?”
“Very little. But being a history professor is quite useful. It opens doors, discourages questions-most of the time, anyway.” He hesitated. “I solve mysteries. Explain the unexplained: the stranger and more bizarre, the better. Sometimes I do it professionally, for a fee. Other times-like now-I’m on my own nickel.”
Marshall sipped his tea. “Wouldn’t teaching history bring in a more regular paycheck?”
“Money’s not really an issue. Anyway, the jobs I do for others tend to pay extremely well-especially those I’m not allowed to write up in the professional journals.” He stood. “Excuse me, I think I’ll try the tea.”
Marshall waited while Logan fixed himself a cup, returned to the table. He moved with easy, graceful motions more appropriate to an athlete than a professor. “How much do you know about Fear Base?” he asked as he sat down again.
“As much as anybody does, I suppose. An early warning station, designed to guard against a preemptive Russian attack. Decommissioned in the late 1950s when the SAGE system went online.”
“Did you know that, while it was still in active use, it briefly housed a team of scientists?”
Marshall frowned. “No.”
Logan sipped his tea. “Last week I gained access to a newly declassified archive of government documents. I was researching something else-medieval history, as it happens-and was looking for some relevant army records from the Second World War. I found them, all right. But I found something else as well.”
He took another sip. “Specifically, I found a report from a Colonel Rose, written to an army board of inquiry. Rose was the commander of Fear Base at the time. It was a short report-a summary, really. He was scheduled to fly to Washington a few weeks later to make a more detailed report in person.”
“Go on.”
“The report had been misfiled. It was stuffed behind the file I’d been looking for, unread and obviously forgotten for half a century. As I said, it was very brief. But it mentioned the fact that the scientific team attached to Fear Base died very abruptly, over a two-day period in April 1958.”
“The
Logan made a suppressing motion with his hand. “No, that’s not quite correct. There were eight members of the team. Seven died.”
“And the eighth?” Marshall asked more quietly.
“Rose’s report doesn’t specify what happened to him-or her.”
“What were they doing up here?”
“I don’t know the details. All that Rose said is that they were analyzing an anomaly of some kind.”
“Anomaly?”
“That’s what he called it. And his recommendation was that the research be immediately suspended and no second team sent up to continue it.”
