The deep growls of heavy machinery grew louder as we trickled past the work site and picked up speed. Behind me a black Audi two-seater flashed its brights, then pulled out across the double yellow lines, tailgated by a motorcycle, its rider clad in black leather. Blond hair trailed from the back of her helmet.
'So what do we do next?' Jasmine asked. 'I mean, after you see your wife?'
Wife. She said it so casually but it rekindled all the guilt and indecision that had kept me orbiting the body of a woman I had once loved.
'I'd like to drop in on a friend of mine who lives down toward the end of Topanga Canyon.' I told her about Chris Nellis and what he had found during his short dive. Without worrying about her discretion, I replayed everything Vince had said, overlaid with my opinions and fears and confusion over what was happening.
'That fits,' Jasmine said.
'It does?'
'I took a look at the MicroSD memory chip from Mom's Blackberry last night.' She pulled her own Blackberry from her bag and turned it on.
'I have the same model as she does'-her face lost its composure for an instant- 'as she did.' Jasmine concentrated on the screen for a moment. 'From what I can tell, the MicroSD chip contains a test dossier of some sort, and I think it came from Darryl Talmadge's former defense lawyer, the one who got booted after the military claimed national defense jurisdiction and Patriot Act violations. Or it might have come from someone working with the lawyer.'
'A test dossier?'
'Bait. Bona fides.'
'I don't get it.'
I slowed as we made our way into the southern end of Malibu.
'I think this is what got Mom interested in Talmadge's case. I think the lawyer promised her a taste of bigger things to come, something explosive that would make her commit to a deal and throw our legal foundation's muscle behind Talmadge's defense.'
'Far-fetched, wouldn't you say? I mean, given the crime?'
'Not so far-fetched. Mom's been pretty out front about opposing the death penalty, especially in places like Mississippi where white people still get jail time for the exact same crimes that send blacks to the gas chamber. So, no-it's not all that far-fetched.'
'Well, there is that.' I stopped for a squad of surfers in wet suits heading for one of the few public access spots not already illegally blocked off by wealthy Hollywood scofflaws. 'Or there is the issue of whether Talmadge was insane or suffering from some sort of detectable physical problem with his brain-the reason your mom first contacted me.'
'Exactly. But I think it runs a lot deeper and reaches into some scary places that somebody will kill to keep us out of.'
'Like what?'
Jasmine bent her head and looked at her Blackberry. 'Well, Clark Braxton's name keeps coming up, and-'
'Whoa! Heavy-duty stuff. With the Democrats still out in the political ozone, he's gonna be the next president for sure unless…' My voice trailed off as the implication hit me.
'Unless something comes along to screw it up.'
I glanced over at Jasmine.
'Whoa,' I said quietly.
CHAPTER 29
The shock stunned us speechless for a solid minute. Then Jasmine tapped the Blackberry with a manicured but not flashy, index finger.
'It's about Braxton,' she said. 'Talmadge's lawyer Jay Shanker, put the files together showing that Braxton served as a lab rat for some secret medical research program at one of the old POW camps in the Delta.'
I nodded. During World War II, the United State had a problem with Southernported cargo ships returning empty from Europe. On top of that, there were European food shortages and huge troop resources needed to guard POWs over there. Somebody looked at the situation and solved them all by loading captured German soldiers on the empty ships and sending them to rural Mississippi with its plentiful food and cheap land and open spaces where escapees had no place to run and few citizens who spoke German.
The Army located POW camps near Delta farming communities like Belzoni and Greenwood. After the war, most prison camps deteriorated, although as a child I heard talk of continuing activities at the camp in Belzoni, southwest of one of the Judge's plantations.
'Belzoni.'
'What? How did you know?'
'Educated guess.'
'You're right. The MicroSD card Mama gave you says the Army conducted some sort of secret medical experiments there, something not quite kosher-like the Tuskegee syphilis thing.'
An uncomfortable vision of my previous life burrowed toward the surface. As a new recruit, I participated in the end of Project 112 and later, Project SHAD, experiments that tested nerve gas and bacteria on more than five thousand military personnel from 1962 to 1973. Scores of soldiers closer to the release site than I had suffered permanent disabilities. These tests leaked into the media in 2003 with little interest.
Instead of mentioning this I said, 'Or like all the atomic tests on soldiers in the 1950s.'
Jasmine gave a rueful shake of her head.
'Jesus, it hurts me to think of things like that,' I said 'Here we have brave men and women who're willing to die to protect their country and they get betrayed by the fatassed, political paper-pushers in the Pentagon.'
I felt the anger rise as we finally cleared the Malibu congestion and started making some speed up the hill.
'Anyway, the stuff on the memory chip contains excerpts from Braxton's medical records. They indicate he underwent brain surgery in Belzoni as treatment for a head wound he received in Vietnam.'
'That's pretty famous.'
'Uh-huh, but these records say Army doctors experimented on him and others with head wounds in order to make them more aggressive. In their words, they wanted 'perfect killers' for the Army.'
I whistled. 'That's political dynamite.'
'More like a nuke.'
'On the other hand, maybe it helps: brave, mortally wounded hero gets taken advantage of by the military he so bravely served.'
'I doubt it,' she said. 'Nobody wants a head case for president.'
'Why not? They've all been head cases since JFK.'
'Good point.'
The road dipped toward a broad expanse of beach and ocean. 'What else is in the file?'
Jasmine shook her head. 'A lot of vague stuff, intended to tease Mom and get her involved.'
'It worked.'
'Jay Shanker promised her the microfiche archives of all the Belzoni medical records on a CD, including name, rank, serial numbers, dates, procedures, doctors, and chain-of-command approvals authorizing the whole thing.'
I whistled. 'Any number of people would kill to keep that quiet.'
A few miles past Point Dume, I slowed for a small, discreet sign designed to attract only the attention of people already looking for it. As I had twice a week for the past six years, I turned into a narrow, cobbled lane bounded with lavish landscaping; a sculpturequality steel gate fixed to stone columns loomed ahead. I stopped next to an intercom/keypad pedestal and punched in my code.
'Talmadge ties everything together,' I said as the gate opened. 'Which means the answers are back
