“Difficult to assess,” said McCarthy.
He wasn’t sure himself how seriously to take the rumors. Iran and its myriad political players remained largely an enigma.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Miss Alston,” he said, glancing at his watch. “It appears I am running late for my next appointment.”
Already out of her chair, Corrine followed him to the door. The President reached for the handle, then paused.
“Your father was asking about you the other day, Corrine. He wanted to make sure you were getting your proper allotment of sleep. I told him you were, but I do not think he believed me.”
“I’m getting plenty of sleep, Tom. He’s just — you know Dad.”
“Longer than you.” McCarthy winked. “But perhaps we would do a better job of convincing him if the e-mails you sent to him did not bear time stamps indicating they were sent at three a.m. It weakens our case considerably, Counselor.”
“Yes sir, Mr. President. I’ll try to remember.”
2
Ferguson took a walk alone around the block after the conference call ended, working off some steam. The gas theory was a crock. Worse, they’d drifted into decision-by-committee territory; he wasn’t supposed to do anything now until he heard from Corrine Alston.
Undoubtedly, she’d convince the President to notify the Italians, who would probably go apeshit and shut the whole town down. There’d be some cockeyed arrangement with the First Team acting as “consultants” or some such crap. T Rex would be smirking somewhere in the shadows.
Not only would he be tipped off here, but he’d realize that his operation had been compromised. If he was smart — and his track record suggested he was a genius — he’d tear it down and start from scratch. Arna Kerr would be out of work, and they’d spend years trying to find another lead.
Ferguson stopped into a cafe, and after a quick shot of espresso — for some reason the caffeine calmed him down — got back to work. The first thing to do was check out the university buildings Arna Kerr had gone to. They’d already planted video bugs in the foyers; he was interested in something else, something less obvious. He hoped he’d realize what it was when he saw it.
The art building was a large onetime mansion about a block off the Via Rizzoli. The place was being used as a temporary university building, but the choice was hardly haphazard. Though from the outside the building’s dull brown blocks and gray cornices were overshadowed by the bright bricks of its neighbors, inside the place was as ornate as any palace. The walls of the entrance hallway were covered with marble; baroque-era statues flanked the thick red carpet that brought students and visitors inside. A large double stairway made of marble sat at the far end; its bronze banister was inlaid with gold. On the ceiling above, a bright faux sky featured cherubim amid its puffy clouds.
A security guard looked at Ferguson cross-eyed from a nearby archway as the op scouted around. Ferguson saw him and ambled over in his direction to ask, in English, if the man knew where Professore Pirello’s classes were to be found. The guard told Ferguson in Italian that he was a security guard and not a member of the staff. Ferguson pretended not to understand and repeated the question. When he got roughly the same answer he thanked the guard profusely before walking past him into the main hallway.
Even in the corridor, the building’s proportions gave it a regal feel. The walls had been recently restored and painted, their blue and gold pattern so vivid that it seemed to glow. The hall opened into another wide reception area, this one just as ornate as the one near the front entrance. A set of arched doorways led to a room decorated with late-Renaissance frescoes that ran all the way to the ceiling three stories above. Rather than a faux sky, the ceiling was covered in panels of what looked like gold leaf. It was actually a relatively new coat of paint, carefully applied within the lines of the original paper-thin panels; the genuine gold had been replaced sometime during the nineteenth century, when the owners had fallen on hard times.
Large carts of chairs were being wheeled into the room, and a crew was setting up a stage to the right. Ferguson wandered over and asked two of the workers what they were setting up for.
“They never tell us,” said one of the men.
“Oh, I know what it’s for,” said another. “The genetics conference. Frankenstein will be here.”
The man, an art student in his early twenties who moonlighted as a roustabout to support himself, began a diatribe about genetic mutation and man’s inevitable decline. A large number of scientists from across the world were gathering to talk about using bacteria for man’s good, said the student. It was clearly a disaster in the making.
“I thought this was an art school,” said Ferguson.
The young man, himself an art student, sensed an ally, and gave Ferg a long diatribe in response, claiming that the school and the country were not serious about supporting its artists. His coworker rolled his eyes and went back to work.
“And the conference starts tonight?” asked Ferguson.
“There’s a brochure on the bulletin board in the second-floor lounge,” said the student. He saw his supervisor coming and decided to get back to work. “Read it, brother,” he said, walking away. “You’ll be surprised what they’re up to. Frankenstein in a test tube.”
3
When Jack Corrigan had first been offered the position with Special Demands, he’d seen it as a shortcut in his overall plan to advance to the upper levels of the intelligence establishment, where he hoped to become the boss of either the Defense Information Agency — his preference — or the CIA itself. He still thought Special Demands was a wise career move, but now realized it was not without its thorns.
Bob Ferguson being the main one.
“Ferguson can’t accept
“Ferg didn’t say he thought that was the target,” said Lauren. “He just said this conference might be significant and we should get the list.”
“And who’s going to be paying T Rex? Greenpeace?” Corrigan scanned the information on the conference. The topic was bacteria in the food chain and how they could be bred to combat spoilage.
“No fricking way anyone here is going to be important enough to spend a million bucks on bumping off,” Corrigan told Lauren, sliding the folder Lauren had given him back across the desk top. “I’m with Ciello. It’s some sort of gas attack. Tell Ferguson this is a dead end.”
“Ciello went ahead and did some background on the people attending the conference,” said Lauren, pushing the papers back. “There’s one person that’s interesting. Check the last page.”
Frowning, Corrigan leafed through the documents. The final page contained a single paragraph on a man named Artur Rostislawitch. Until three years before, he had been a top scientist with the Russian Federal Research Administration, on loan to a quasi-private laboratory outside of Moscow known to be used by the government for research into germ warfare. There had been some sort of internal shake-up; supposedly Rostislawitch no longer conducted primary research.
“All right, so big deal,” said Corrigan, handing the briefing paper back. “He’s not working with them anymore. This says he’s teaching.”
“Ferg thinks that may be a cover,” said Lauren. “He wants more information on him.”
“You discussed this with Ferguson already?”
