Quantum Read online

  I’d be foolish to trust whoever’s staying within reach of Dick until the data tell me differently, and at a glance it makes little or no sense that a complete stranger could have slipped in between the cracks. I can’t think of a worse breach of security than someone with ill intentions staying under the same roof as a 4-star general who has the ear of the president. An assassin or pretty much anyone could attack Dick at every twist and turn of the creaky old floors, I don’t care how adept he is with his Beretta.

  Saying his hall mate is an innocent guest with no connection to him, it’s also hard to imagine what rational mortal would check in the night before a major storm. One runs a serious risk of being evacuated or getting stranded here. And why was the drop-off at the front entrance and not the back? Most high-level people staying at Dodd Hall use the rear door.

  It’s more private, there’s a parking lot, and if your passenger is a recognizable VIP like General Melville, you don’t have to stop to let the person out on a busy road for all the world to see. The only obvious exception is when it’s raining or snowing, the front sidewalk and entry covered by an awning. But there’s no precipitation tonight. Plus, the wind would be more brutal in front of the building because of its exposure to the water.

  Whatever the case, I find it odd that Dick acted stone-cold indifferent to whoever might be staying in the same building with him. In my logical way of reasoning things out, that suggests he already knows who it is. Possibly a security detail but I’ve not noticed any big SUVs in the area, not on the roads or parked off to the side. Certainly not the two Suburbans I noted barely an hour ago.

  Most puzzling is that Dick would trust me with sensitive information about my own flesh and blood. Let’s start with that, because it goes without saying that it can’t be expected that I’ll be totally objective. No matter my best intentions we’re still talking about my identical twin. Yet in the same breath he basically lied about who’s staying on his floor in an air force officer’s lodging house. That’s assuming he knows who’s in suite 600.

  Of course, he does.

  Leaving the AFB, I drive along Wright Avenue, then Dodd Boulevard, heading back the same way I came. Traffic is heavier now, a lot of people leaving work, running errands or getting the heck out before the storm hits.

  Never make assumptions. He might not know.

  What I don’t see are people walking, jogging or out with their dogs, the temperature dipping into single digits, the windchill below zero. I keep thinking about the barking I heard a little while ago, uncertain why it nags at me, bothers me at a deep level beyond my obvious concern about any animal freezing to death. Gosh, I hope not, and now that the idea is firmly planted in my head, I navigate and keep up my scan accordingly.

  Passing the Command Surgeon, then the Langley Chapel, the conference center, the headquarters for Air Combat Command, all of the buildings handsome brick and timber. Cruising main roads and side streets, one end to the other, I wend my way back to the Durand Gate, searching for anything or anyone at risk out here. Gliding past the big white tanks of the fuel farm, F-22 hangars, the frosted fields blinking red with runway beacons, the empty fitness path snaking alongside to my right.

  I follow the rocky shoreline, the river a void without a single light on the horizon. Driving with my window cracked, I listen for the dog. Hoping no creature great or small is lost or abandoned in this weather, and I imagine one of the neighbors in permanent base housing taking out his or her pet. A beagle, a basset hound, something with a deep throaty baying howl that carries.

  I feel unduly worried about Dick, even scared, or maybe I’m projecting my feelings about my sister onto him. Sometimes knowing a lot about psychology can be a real detriment, doing more harm than good when I’d be better served taking things at face value. Like MP Crockett, for example, as I deliberately slow to a crawl at the Durand Gate, making sure I lock eyes with him, neither of us smiling. Go screw yourself, but he can’t hear me or penetrate my bulletproof affect.

  Not that I actually would swear at him or anyone if avoidable. I’m quite decided about my use of language, believing words are like computer code, once executed they have a life of their own. Compared to most people, including my twin sibling, I probably come across as a Goody Two-shoes from the 1950s with my use of euphemisms, spoonerisms and made-up expressions.

  I don’t curse, cuss or turn an ugly phrase unless I really mean it, and you’d better hope I don’t. I’m not all that nice when sufficiently riled, and the tall gangly officer with his big teeth and Old World brogue-ish accent isn’t a worthy opponent. Although it would be a lie if I said I’m not secretly enjoying myself right now. It must be killing him that I was driving a famous 4-star general all by my lonesome with no assist from him or his comrades.

  It also wouldn’t escape anyone’s notice that Dick doesn’t ride in the back seat as if I’m nothing more than an armed driver. He sits up front like a colleague, a friend, and MP Crockett no doubt can’t stand that I keep such company to begin with. A lowly protective service agent like me.

  A female to boot. And here I am spending private time with someone who thinks nothing of dining with the secretary of state. Or attending White House briefings in the Situation Room.

  13

  MP CROCKETT’S disgruntled stare follows me in my mirrors.

  Jerkoff, I think without so much as a facial twitch, startled by my sudden solar flares of anger, reminded of what Dick said just minutes ago:

  “How has your fuse been? Shorter than usual or the same?”

  How ironic that he would ask me about my moods today of all days when I’m getting increasingly aggravated and not 100 percent sure why. As if it’s not coming from me but from elsewhere uncontrollably, and I’ve experienced emotional power surges like this before when something is wrong.

  Big-time wrong. Usually wrong with Carme, and it certainly would seem that something is. Not to be selfish, but in addition to my fears about her welfare and future, I also have to worry about mine, explaining why I asked Dick about JSC. For research purposes, identical twins are an asset to the astronaut program. Comparisons can be made to show the physical and psychological effects of traveling and living in space, and Carme and I are considered an attractive package, to hear NASA people talk.

  But that was then and this is now. Who’s to say that Dick isn’t preparing me for the disastrous news that my sister and I didn’t make it to the next round? Not just one but both of us, it gnaws at me as MP Crockett vanishes from view in a swirl of exhaust.

  Picking up speed past the base hospital and emergency room, then the exchange, I head to where Sweeney and Armistead Boulevards meet at the end of Runway 8.

  The roar of F-22s taking off shakes the air, and I check my phone, doesn’t matter that I know better than to multitask while driving.

  Just because I’m well versed in what will do you in doesn’t mean I always heed my own advice. It all depends, and I’m surprised to see that Fran called repeatedly while I was with Dick, my ringer set on silent mode. I try her back, and when she answers, I hear voices in the background, recognizing one of them as Special Agent Scottie Ryan. Then a male voice belonging to Butch Pagan. He’s saying something about opening the front door again, doesn’t want “too much air blowing in and disturbing anything.”

  “You’re on speakerphone and I’m alone,” I say right off. “What’s going on, Fran?”

  “Seems like I’m the one who should be asking you that. Are you okay? Where the hell have you been?” She’s full of her usual bluster, but I detect her stress. “I was beginning to think you’d dropped off the edge of the earth.”

  “The earth isn’t flat, as it turns out. So, that’s not likely,” I reply, and she’s at the Fort Monroe scene.

  Has to be, suggesting something about the alleged suicide isn’t sitting right
with her. Or sitting less right than it was, and I’m not surprised based on what Dick just relayed to me. In fact, I’m plenty freaked out.

  “I’m on my way, have some intel that makes the situation at hand of concern . . . ,” I start to say cryptically.

  “What intel?” she interrupts. “And please pass it along because I sure would appreciate anything that might help explain exactly what we’re dealing with out here.”

  “Are you familiar with Pandora Space Systems?”

  “Only that Vera Young worked there. And that they’re a huge aerospace company with a lot of military and NASA connections.”

  “They do a lot of classified work for our government, including DARPA, and one must always be concerned with spying,” I reply, on LaSalle Avenue, squinting in the glare of oncoming traffic. “Don’t forget about her so-called stolen badge.”

  “Oh, I haven’t forgotten. That’s what I’m trying to say. Turns out you were probably right to get hinky about it. Hold on, I’m walking outside.” The sounds of Fran’s booted footsteps, a door opening and banging shut, and what she really wants is to smoke.

  Not that she makes a habit of it after quitting several decades ago. But if she’s lighting up in a subzero windchill after responding to a scene she expected to be garden-variety ordinary last we talked, then without additional input from me, she’d already determined the situation is trouble. That’s putting it mildly as I think of Noah Bishop and wonder where my sister is right now.

  “What else?” Fran’s voice booms out of the speakers in my truck as I drive.

  “I’ve made the important point for now.” I steer her as far away from Dick and Carme as I can. “Suicide or not, we need to explore any possibility that Vera Young’s death could be connected to yesterday’s incident. In other words, could it be a cause and effect? And has anybody checked to make sure her badge hasn’t been used unauthorized? I haven’t had a chance to run a search of her ID number, to interrogate the security system . . .”

  “Well, Scottie did, and that’s another puzzle. She deactivated the smartcard yesterday at 5:33 p.m. But somehow it wasn’t deactivated after all.” What Fran is saying makes me feel exponentially worse. “Or got reactivated, don’t ask me how.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding.” That bad feeling at the back of my neck.

  “Do I sound like it?”

  “It’s not possible the card reactivated on its own. Have you asked Scottie if she’s absolutely sure there wasn’t some sort of glitch?” I ask. “Or that she actually did what she intended, that the system saved the change?”

  “Swears on her own life that she took care of the card the minute it was reported stolen yesterday, and that the status was changed to inactive,” Fran insists.

  “But what you’re telling me is the card was still active as of just a little while ago,” I make sure, thinking of the sensor alert in 1111-A that seems inexplicable.

  “She says yes. It was still active,” Fran’s voice confirming.

  “This is bad, really bad.” I’m not going to sugarcoat it. “Either the ID wasn’t deactivated after all, or something far more nefarious is going on.”

  “I guess you can drill down into the metadata or whatever and see if something was tampered with,” Fran says with little enthusiasm, likely thinking such a thing isn’t possible, and she couldn’t be more mistaken. “I sure hope not, but again, what’s the truth about her badge, and why is she dead? Have you had a chance to look at the call sheet I sent you? And the suicide note?”

  “Not yet. I’ll take a look when I’m not driving.”

  “You want to fill me in on what you’ve been doing since I talked to you, what . . . ? Forty-five minutes ago?” she then says. “Not answering emails or your phone. Off the radar. Where have you been and with whom? You get abducted by aliens? You sure you’re okay? You don’t sound happy.”

  “I’m headed to a death scene,” I almost snap at her, and that’s not like me. “What’s happy about it? Especially this one?”

  “Something’s happened since I saw you last. You’re in a funk, all right.” Fran cares about me enough that she’s not going to stop until I confide what’s wrong, and I can’t.

  “It’s not important now, we’ll save it for later,” I tell her, and the truth is it’s not something I can talk about with her ever.

  As close as we are and as much as we’ve always shared, I can’t possibly divulge what Dick said to me. Although Fran wouldn’t be completely shocked. I’m not the only one who’s noticed that the fluctuations in my sister’s behavior have gotten increasingly turbulent and unpredictable. Fran’s heard me mention it in the recent past, and it settles over me coldly, horribly that I can’t say a word or make allusions about what I’ve learned. Not to my closest friend or anyone.

  Including Mom and Dad when I see them later at home. Or to Carme herself, and it crosses my thoughts that I almost hope she doesn’t contact me anytime soon. I won’t know what to do if she does, and I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alone.

  “Where am I supposed to be headed?” I talk hands-free while driving fast. “The only address I have is Fort Monroe.”

  “The apartment’s in the renovated barracks near the Jefferson Davis memorial.” Fran’s voice inside my truck.

  “There are a lot of renovated barracks. Which ones?” As I cross Back River, water on either side of me in the dark as if I’m going full throttle in a boat.

  “I don’t know if the particular barracks have a name,” she says. “I’m looking out here in the tundra and don’t see one. Off Bernard Road, just head toward the lighthouse.”

  “The address would be helpful,” I answer, and she gives it to me.

  “You’ll see all the cars,” she adds as if I don’t know how to navigate around here. “How far out are you?”

  “About 15 if I step on it. Is Joan there yet?” I take the exit for East Mercury Boulevard, flipping on my emergency strobes, flashing blue and red.

  “She pulled up a few minutes ago,” Fran says, and I’m passing other drivers with impunity.

  Nobody’s going to stop my police truck. Not to give me a hard time, a ticket or for any reason, and the more I think about MP Crockett, the faster I drive. My replay of his demeaning antics toward me are like dirty rotor wash I need to fly out of before I crash-land. It takes a lot to anger me. I’m not one for fits of pique. It’s rare I raise my voice, and unheard of for me to slam a door or throw things. But I could do some real damage with the mood I’m in.

  Rubbing my right thumb and index finger together. Passing Hardee’s, jolted by nostalgia that almost brings a mist to my eyes. Like so many places around here, the burger joint has been in Hampton for as long as I have. Rubbing my scar, images flashing of school friends in the parking lot back in a day when life was simple and innocent compared to now. When it felt safe.

  I can see my sister and me sitting inside Dad’s rebuilt ’68 Camaro as if it were yesterday, eating french fries, drinking soda, talking about girl stuff and boys. Watching people while we plotted and planned our futures. Most of all, looking up at the moon and stars, imagining ourselves there and beyond.

  Rubbing and rubbing in little circles, feeling the looped indentation on my finger pad. Better now. There was a time when there was no sensation at all.

  00:00:00:00:0

  SLOW DOWN, slow down, slow down. Deep, deep breaths. Soothing myself the only way I know.

  Envisioning the river and weathered wooden dock. The huge oak tree with its rope swing long enough to slingshot you to Oz. And the ducks and geese flocking in the emerald-green grass. Going out on the boat. The sun high in the big blue sky. The weather severe-clear, fighter jets screaming over runways on the other side of water white capped from the wind.

  The sights and soun
ds are there. Then gone. As I’m swept away by a turmoil of emotions far too strong for me to tolerate. I can’t go home again. Can’t transport myself there with my mind, not this time. As I sit on my bed, the top sheet as tight as a trampoline.

  “. . . I feel bad I’m not there with you right now.” Dick is kind over the phone, and I detect the pain in his tone as I’m keenly aware of my physicality.

  I experience my reality not virtually but miserably, held fast by the gravity of my officer’s quarters some 2,700 kilometers, or 1,700 miles, from Hampton, Virginia. Unable to fathom feeling soothed or happy ever again. Listening to my entire world crashing in. Staying surprisingly steady. Not shedding a tear or complaining. Inside my spartan room. With its one window over the twin bed. And the antique wooden apple crate, where I park my coffee and Beretta.

  The bookcase crammed with textbooks from grad school. Lots of training manuals. Computers, signal analyzers, a gooseneck lamp on the desk. The ergonomic chair piled with body armor, other gear.

  “. . . I’ll track down Carme, but wanted you to hear it from me first . . .”

  Dead calm, no reaction at all, as if something in me has shorted out. Listening.

  “. . . I’m sure you want to talk to your parents. And of course, talk to Carme. But not right away. For all her toughness she isn’t all that strong when it’s emotional stuff. As you know better than anyone . . .”