“Can you?” asked the Chechen.
Before Corrine Alston had “joined” the Team, Ferguson would have agreed easily — and sincerely. Now, though, with a lawyer looking over his shoulder, he wasn’t sure.
“I don’t know if I can,” said Ferg truthfully. “Help me anyway.”
The Chechen stared at him. They had come from entirely different places to the same valley of gray, both living with the ambiguity of the death they inevitably faced. Ferguson’s prognosis might be slightly better, and his cause more clear-cut, but the two men walked in the same land of shades and shifting sands.
But Ferg was the one with the gun.
“If you say you will try, that will be enough,” said Daruyev.
“I will try,” said Ferg. “Take us to the closest spot.”
ACT IV
I am one, my liege,
Whom the vile blows and buffets of the world
Hath so incensed that I am reckless…
1
Thomas Ciello sat on the floor of his new office, a viceroy of paper. He had estimates, reports, briefings, hints, and scraps of sheer speculation spread in various piles before him; they covered every square inch of the twelve-by-twelve room, including the desk, the three computer monitors, the bookcases — some pages were on the shelves, which were empty except for a dictionary — and two chairs.
He had started with a system, but the organizing principle now involved several layers of calculus, and Thomas had never been very good at math.
“Oh, my God.”
Thomas looked up at the door, where Debra Wu was standing.
“I think I almost understand it,” he told her.
Debra glanced down the hall, then bent to her knees and scooped up pages and files so she could get inside. Thomas noticed that her short black skirt rode up high on her thighs.
“You can’t do this. These papers — this is such a massive security violation — they’ll hang you by your toes.”
“I signed everything out, and nothing’s left the room,” he told her. “A lot of this isn’t even classified, I mean, beyond secret. It’s just—”
Exasperated, Debra put down the papers she had gathered. “Security is — it’s, it’s psychotic—”
Indignation welled up in Thomas’s chest. The staff assistant was hinting that he was less than professional. He tried to temper his response — it was a
“If we’re talking about security,” he said, “are you allowed to see these reports? Are you even allowed in my office?”
Debra rolled her eyes. “Corrigan wants to see you in ten minutes.” She pulled open the door and left, papers fluttering as she went.
Thomas went back to sorting and sifting. Leaving the office was certainly problematic security-wise, but as far as lie understood protocol — and if there was anything he prided himself on it was his understanding of protocol — he simply had to cover all of the compartmented material and lock up when he went out. In his desk was a gray blanket, ordinarily used to cover the desktop. There were actually two of them in his desk, which helped him cover a good portion of the floor. A wall map of the world, several empty manila folders, and his jacket took care of all but two small piles near the door; he considered taking off his Oxford shirt and leaving it on them, but it was one of his favorite shirts. Instead, he simply carried the folders with him as he went to see Corrigan.
Downstairs in the Cube’s situation room, Corrigan used a video feed to watch Thomas clear a security gate before being allowed down the stairs. Debra Wu had buzzed to say the new staffer was “on another planet,” but Thomas seemed perfectly reasonable as he went through the security. He had some documents with him, which he quite properly refused to show the guard at the post. The request was actually a nasty trick; if Thomas had agreed, the man would have written him up for a security violation since he didn’t have the proper clearance for the compartmented data.
Cleared, Thomas walked down the corridor and into the stairway, practically hopping as he walked to the sit room. That was just the sort of enthusiasm Corrigan liked, and he awaited Thomas’s approach with growing optimism.
“All right,” said Thomas as he was buzzed through the glass door. “You wanted to see me?”
“Yes, I did,” said Corrigan. “What do you know?”
The question caught Thomas off guard. “About the mission or about anything in general?”
“The mission,” said Corrigan. He reached for his coffee cup.
“The mission. Okay. The ship was clearly not related to the plot. See, Kiro — he and the Iranians don’t get along. The Iranian defense minister—”
“We’re a little past that,” said Corrigan. “Tell me about the waste.”
“Which waste?”
“The stuff we’re tracking.”
“Oh that. Nasty. They’ve scraped uranium — most of it’s uranium, but there’s strontium, cesium, other by- products — nickel, that’s ugly. Now if that were stolen, it’d be important. See, it’s being placed in these long containers. They call them casks, but they’re actually flat, and you can handle about fifty at a time with a forklift. The French process allows them to get high-level waste in manageable quantities. As long as it doesn’t get into the air, you’re OK.”
“How are they getting it?” asked Corrigan.
“Uh, aren’t you working on that?” said Thomas.
“I was just wondering what you had found from your end,” said Corrigan, his faith in the new man starting to slip.
“They have bought two forklifts,” said Thomas.
“Who?”
“Allah’s Fist. They’re in Chechnya.”
“Are you sure? Bin Saqr is supposed to be dead.”
“Ha-ha.” Thomas had a quick, tight laugh, as if it were powered by a pneumatic drill. “No. There’s absolutely no evidence that he’s dead. He just hasn’t showed up anywhere. And two companies that were associated with his organization in the past still exist. There are other connections. A Pakistani scientist named Zedian. And the hospitals — there’s a real connection there. They’ve collected and diverted material from cancer-treatment wards. It’s gamma-wave generators, mostly low-level, but if there were enough of it — a matrix, see, with all sorts of different wastes together. You explode it in a bomb, there’s stuff all over the place, and it’s a real bitch to clean up.”
