CHAPTER EIGHT
The information Super-fuckin’-highway runs deep, Garrett thought. His computer screen glowed with more official military brands.
U.S. ARMY PERSONNEL AGENCY
FORT BENJAMIN HARRISON, INDIANA
RESTRICTION CODE FOR THIS SITE:
CRYPTODINARARCO
WARNING: THIS IS A RESTRICTED DATA-VAULT.
ILLEGAL OR UNAUTHORIZED VIEWING OF RESTRICTED DATA
CAN BE PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.
“Yeah, yeah,” Garrett dismissed the warning. Further down on the white- and powder-blue-blocked screen, he found what he’d been looking for.
m__ALLOCATE/SEARCH OBJECT [NAME]——…
FIND: SEARCH OBJECT:
[SANDERS]\U.S. ARMY COUNTER-INTELLIGENCE CORP.
**** [SEARCH OBJECT FOUND] ****
“Got it!” Garrett celebrated, but then his enthusiasm deflated.
On the screen was a personnel photo of a man in a khaki shirt with a silver 1st lieutenant’s bar at the tip of one collar, and a gold sphinx at the tip of the other.
But the man’s face had been rubbed out in black.
A lot of good that does…
OFFICIAL DELETION: PHOTO-OBJECT REDACTED FOR REASONS
PERTAINING TO NATIONAL SECURITY
“What do you expect, Harlan?” Lynn said, standing behind him. She was intently watching the screen over his shoulder. “You’re in real deep here. You’re waltzing around in some highly restricted data channels.”
“Shit,” Garrett sputtered, lighting another cigarette. “Well, looks like we’re never going to know what he looks like, but at least we know who he is now.”
“So what’s the big deal with him anyway?” Lynn inquired.
“His name’s John Sanders,” Garrett began. “He was a field operative for the Army’s Counter-Intelligence Corp—among other things, an assassin. This guy was pulling jobs all over the world—stuff even the CIA wouldn’t sanction. Laos, Burma, Guatemala. In 1970, this guy went deep cover all the way up to Dong Hoi in North Vietnam, staked out a command post for a week, barely moving a muscle, and assassinated Ho Chi Minh’s second-highest-ranking ground-forces commander. In ‘72 he car-bombed the East German MfS liaison for KGB’s Joint Reports and Research Unit. Sanders was the guy next in line to try to kill Castro before the NSC threw in the towel.”
“That stuff was ages ago,” Lynn pointed out. “The guy’s got to be pretty old by now.”
“His D.O.B.’s redacted too, but based on the mission dates in some of these files, he’s probably in his late-fifties. He may be the most successful assassin the good old U.S. of A. has ever produced, and he’s obviously not over-the-hill yet because he’s already scratched two people just this week.”
“All right,” Lynn said. “Go on.”
“When CIC was disbanded by the Carter Administration, Sanders flew the coop, to work on his own. He was a hire-out, or a “K” as your people call it. Now he’s killing again, and it all relates to the Nellis Crash. It all has something to do with the Edgewood Arsenal. Someone stole an old defensive nuclear device from Edgewood last week, and for some reason that theft was a warning sign to—”
“General Norton Swenson, the same man who slapped you with the bad conduct discharge from the Air Force.”
Garrett nodded. “That’s right. He ran the Air Force Aerial Intelligence Command for nearly thirty years. He reported directly to the President about any sighting or crash that was deemed to be authentic. And there are some other people who fit into the mix.
A former FBI agent named Urslig, a former Army officer named Farrell who used to work with the Judge Advocate General’s office and went on to be an influential federal judge. Both Urslig and Farrell have been murdered within the past few days. Those names were on a list in the suitcase.”
“And you’re sure this runaway spook named Sanders made the hits?”
“Of course. That’s the sole reason Swenson warned me about him.”
Lynn frowned sharply when she took another look at Garrett’s computer screen. “Harlan, how on earth did you get access to these databanks? This is super-sensitive stuff.”
“Let’s just say a little bird gave me the passwords.” Garrett smiled cunningly. “This is incredible, Lynn. I can get into anything with these. DOD, Justice, CIA, and every classified data warehouse in the military. You’d need a TS/SI clearance with an SAR access plus the full load of compartmentalized National Security suffixes to get into these banks. There probably aren’t twenty people in the country with these passwords.”
“Great, Harlan. And you can brag all about it to your buddies on the cell block, when they put you in federal prison for a hundred years. They could even execute you for this if they wanted to.”
Garrett sluffed it off with a wave of hand. “They change the primary password every forty-eight hours, and it’s blinded. There’s no way I can get caught.”
“That’s what the Walker spies said,” Lynn reminded him “And, anyway, what possible connection can there be between the Nellis Case and Edgewood Arsenal? The Nellis Case is strictly Air Force, but Edgewood is an Army facility.”
“I don’t know the connection, but I think I found some clues. There’s one more name on the list, Kenneth Ubel. He’s an Army redeposition officer. I can’t imagine what he’d have to do with this, but…care to guess where he works?”
“The Edgewood Arsenal?”
“Right. And I found something else.” Garrett raised a finger. “Watch.”
Garrett tapped rapidly on his keyboard while Lynn continued to watch raptly over his shoulder.
“Check this one out.”
Lynn squinted at the next block that popped up on the screen.
File allocation command for following security designations:
TS
SI
SAR
TEKNA
BYMAN
ULTIMA
DINAR
INTERAGENCY GROUP ACTIVITY
BACK-PROCESSING BRANCH
SPECIAL ACCESS REQUIRED
FREE ROAM SEARCH OBJECT
**** [U.S. ARMY MUNITIONS COMMAND/EDGEWOOD ARSN.] ****
SEARCH OBJECT FOUND
DEPARTMENT 4 SPECIAL CONTINGENCY GROUP
RECORDS AND PROCESSING UNIT, FORT BELVOIR, VIRGINIA
PRIMARY SEARCH GROUP: “Abductions, Reports of”
SECONDARY SEARCH GROUP: “MUNCOM, Edgewood Arsenal, Maryland” TERTIARY SEARCH GROUP: “Vander, Daniel, D.O.B. 25 May 1990.”
Several seconds later, an image box loaded a picture of a young boy with fox-brown hair, smiling as if for a class yearbook photo.
“The optical computer pulled this kid’s name up when I programmed a free-roam search through Aerial Intelligence Command, using Edgewood as the find topic,” Garrett specified from his aura of cigarette smoke. “The boy’s name is Danny Vander, eight years old. Just a typical American elementary school kid like a million others…or so we might think. You know what this is, Lynn? It’s a certified abduction report.”
Lynn’s expression drooped through a pause. “I take it you’re using the word ‘abduction’ in reference to—”
“Yeah, an abduction by an extraterrestrial species.”
Lynn fell silent, frustrated.
Garrett looked up at her. “But that’s not all—actually, it’s just the beginning.”
“How so?”
“Danny’s father is Brigadier General Anthony Vander…who just happens to be the post commander of the Edgewood Arsenal.”
««—»»
Danny had always liked Dr. Harolds; he was a nice man, and always seemed to understand. He never looked at him funny the way Danny’s father did. It was just everything else that Danny didn’t like. This building, this place. This stuffy waiting room and the sign outside that read BASE MENTAL HYGIENE UNIT. No, Danny had never liked the sound of that. It was so Army.
This was a place for people who weren’t right in the head.
Dr. Harolds was young, like Miss Romesch at school. He always had a smile and always wore the neat long white doctor’s coat over his Army shirt, with his captain’s bars on the lapel.
“Here we go,” Dr. Harolds said. He had his hand on Danny’s shoulder as he showed him out of the office into the waiting room. Danny sat down in one of the hard plastic chairs. Dr. Harolds got down on one knee and smiled at him.
“So what do you think, Danny?” the doctor asked. “I’d say we had a pretty good session today, didn’t we?”
“Yes, Dr. Harolds.”
“Are you feeling better?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll try some new medication for the headaches. I know you didn’t like that last stuff, but you’ll like this new stuff a lot better. It won’t upset your stomach or make you tired. It’ll be ready later this afternoon; they’ll deliver it out to the house, okay?”
Danny nodded dejectedly.
“And I’ll see you next week.” Dr. Harolds looked at his watch. “Looks like your father’s a little late—”
“He’s always late,” Danny said.
Dr. Harolds nodded. “Yeah, I know, but that’s because he’s the base commander. That’s a pretty important job, and it means he’s got lots of stuff to do. But I’m sure he’ll be around any minute to pick you up. And remember, any time you’re not feeling good or want to talk, just tell your mom or dad to call me, okay?”
“Yes, Dr. Harolds.”
“Good.” The doctor patted Danny on the back. “See you next time.”
“‘Bye…”
When Dr. Harolds went back to his office, Danny looked uncomfortably around. The same magazines seemed to always be sitting in the wicker basket, and the glare of the sun through the windows always seemed to shine in his eyes at the same angle. And there was always that same poster on the wall: MEET THE CHALLENGE…BE THE ARMY!
At least he was alone this time. Most times when he had to wait for his father to pick him up, the were other people in the room, waiting to see Dr. Harolds. Mostly men in their fatigues. They always looked unhappy or mad about something. Or sometimes there’d by other kids here waiting with their mothers, and some of these kids looked pretty messed up.
Danny supposed he had a lot to be grateful for, even if—
Suddenly his face twisted up and his head hurt so bad he doubled over in the seat. It was another headache coming on, and it felt like a real bad one. He hated the pain, but what he hated even more than that were the things he saw.
It was the Stickmen.
This was how they reminded him—
—of what they want, what they need. He still doesn’t understand, but somehow that doesn’t seem important—
—and he’s standing on the hill again, standing in front of the churning red and yellow light from the window—
—then the light turns bright white in less than a second, and he hears that funny ticking sound, and then a thread-thin line of white light begins to form along the ship’s black hull right next to the trapezoidal window—
—the line draws down from top to bottom, and that’s when the doorway opens, and the Stickman inside comes out and waves at him with his weird long two-fingered hand—
—and—
Just as he thought his head would break open, the pain—and the visions—stop. Puff-faced, sweating, Danny sat back upright in the waiting room seat and let out a long breath. He had just enough time to wipe the tears from his eyes when the door clicked open and his father walked in.
General Vander seemed to be repressing a frown from the opened doorway.
“Come on, Danny,” he said. “Time to go home.”
««—»»
“Am I going to get brain damage from all those metal-detectors and x-ray machines?” Garrett asked.
“Don’t worry about it, Harlan,” Lynn replied. “You already are brain damaged, so what difference does it make?”
Lynn dressed smartly as usual, a nice business dress, conservative high heels. Garrett dressed sloppily. As usual. Threadbare jeans, beaten sneakers, and a black t-shirt that read IT WAS THE 2ND FLOOR OF THE DAL-TEX BUILDING.
“Or maybe I’m the brain-damaged one,” Lynn continued. “I must be out of my mind bringing you here.”
“Here” was the West-Southwest Spoke of an infamous fifty-six year old building in Arlington County called the Pentagon. Garrett had always dreamed of getting a gander inside this five-sided, five-story nexus of global military supremacy but, until today, such an opportunity seemed as likely as Manson getting invited to Roman Polanski’s house for dinner.
“Wow, this is great!” Garrett exclaimed, toting along the suitcase he’d retrieved from the storage unit. He looked to and fro down the long concourse, a gleam in his eyes like a kid in Toys-R-Us. Garrett eyeballed each passing door sign in wonderment: NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL, OFFICE OF IMAGERY ANALYSIS, SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR CONGRESSIONAL AFFAIRS
“Oh, man, this is so cool…” He shot an enthused gaze at her. “Hey, is there really a giant shopping mall here?”
“Yes,” Lynn groaned.
“Can we go, can we go?”
“It’s for employees only.”
Garrett seemed disappointed. “Is there really a hot-dog stand in the center court called Ground Zero?”
“Yes,” Lynn groaned.
“Can we go, please? Can we go?” Garrett was nearly jumping up and down.
“This is the Pentagon, Harlan,” Lynn snapped. “Not Disneyland. We’re not here for lunch. And I still can’t believe I let you talk me into this.”
Garrett calmed down, let the excitement of being here lower back to reality. “Well I still can’t believe you let me talk you into spending the night at my apartment. It’s a start.”
“Yeah, it’s a start , all right. And by the way, how was the couch?”
“Lonely.”
“Good. And just because I’m a pushover doesn’t mean Myers is.”
Garrett shook his head. “Don’t worry, I’d never ask him to spend the night—”
Lynn’s annoyance couldn’t be more obvious. “Would you be serious for just one minute? Myers is a good man and a good friend, but he’s also a senior case director and a former chief-of-outpost. He’s got field guidelines, Harlan, and I don’t have to mention that he’s not exactly your greatest fan.”
“I agree,” Garrett admitted. “He won’t believe me. But I’ll bet my subscription to Conspiracy Illustrated that he believes you.”
“You better hope he does,” Lynn warned. “Because if Myers loses his professional respect for me because of you…”
“Relax,” Garrett insisted. “Women. Jesus.” Just then a large window display caught his eye, and the fancy stenciled lettering: THE MAXWELL TAYLOR GIFT SHOP. Garrett stopped in his tracks. “Lynn, Lynn! Can we go in? I want that Pentagon ashtray! Pleeeeease?”
Lynn offered him the bleakest of stares. “Harlan, you’re damn lucky I had to check my gun in at the admissions desk.”
««—»»
Garrett’s faddist wonder did not abate as his very stolid ex-wife took him up the personnel elevator to the fifth floor. Next she took him into a rather drab office whose rather drab door read:
DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
PENTAGON LIAISON BRANCH
Senior Case Director Myers had not-very-enthusiastically attended Garrett’s wedding to Lynn; that was the only time Garrett had met the man, and it was Garrett’s good fortune that looks couldn’t kill. To Myers, Garrett was a conspiracy kook at the least and probably an anarchist at the worst. Jesus, Garrett thought now, seeing the man again for the first time in years. If he was bald, he’d look just like the Chief on Get Smart.
But Garrett minded his manners when he received the otherwise impossible opportunity to make his pitch. Lynn kept to a corner while Myers sat poker-faced behind his desk, listening to Garrett’s extraordinary claims. During his clipped discourse, Garrett showed the director the most convincing of the documents, the photographs, and the ciphers, and at the end of his first segment, Garrett felt pretty proud of himself. All in all, it was a great presentation.
“Well?” Garrett bid after a long silence. “What do you think so far?”
Myers’ emotionless face finally tightened into something that could be called a human expression.
A negative human expression.
“What do I think?” Myers answered. “I think this pile of paper here is more useless than a picnic basket full of gorilla shit. That’s what I think. Don’t you know counterfeiting government documents is a federal crime? Don’t you know that trying to pass them off as genuine to an officer of a government agency can land you in prison for fifty years? Look, Garrett, I know you’re a nut-bar, I know you’re rebellious anti-Constitutional flake, and I know you’re a criminal…but even I couldn’t imagine that you could be this stupid.”
Garrett shuffled in place. “Gee, I guess you didn’t like my presentation, huh?”
Myers pushed away from his desk in disdain. “You conspiracy nut-bars are all the same. When you can’t prove anything, you make the shit up to support your own ridiculous beliefs because you’ve got nothing real to do with your lives. Your whole world becomes a sewer full of your own bullshit. Jesus Christ, you idiots think the Apollo moon landings were staged and Kennedy was killed by an Oswald imposture planted by the CIA.”
“Actually,” Garrett elucidated, “the imposture, William Seymour, was planted by Army intel, not CIA, while the real Oswald was in Russia, and Kennedy was actually killed by shooters in the Corsican Mafia recruited for Santos Trafficante by the Marseille heroin syndicate…but that’s beside the point. Look, sir, these documents aren’t fake. This brand of photographic paper isn’t even made any more, and look at the watermarks, look at the typographical protocol, look at the ciphers. Christ, check the signatures with your graphology unit.”
Myers was wincing so harshly he could’ve just bitten into a lemon. “This shit is fake, Garrett, and you’re the one who manufactured it. You and your nut-bar cronies. And, Lynn—” Now Myers’ glared shot to the corner. “You must have some serious flaws in your power of judgment, to actually bring this idiot here. Frankly, I’m astonished that you haven’t been able to see right through this two-bit ploy.”
Stoop-shouldered, Lynn sighed. “Sure, boss, I can imagine how this appears to you, given Harlan’s…escapades in the past. But I don’t think my judgment is faulty. I don’t think the documents and photos are fakes. And, yes, Harlan is a bit loopy sometimes, but I do know him. I was married to him—God knows why—and one thing I can attest to beyond all doubt is that he’s not a liar. And I think that you won’t be so quick to dismiss him once you hear, and see, the rest.”
Myers looked momentarily flabbergasted. “You mean…there’s more?”
“Plenty more, sir,” Garret hastened to answer. “The Nellis business is just Part One. Ready for Part Two?”
Myers simmered where he sat. “If this isn’t good, and I mean real good, I’m going to have you booked and charged. And, Lynn? I’ll make sure you never get on a promotion list again. Business is business, and our jobs are very sensitive. Just because you and I are friends doesn’t mean I won’t transfer you to our field office in Wainwright, Alaska.”
Then Lynn did the strangest thing. “This is good, boss. If I didn’t think so, then I never would’ve brought him here in a million years.”
Garrett felt inclined to smack himself in the ear. Did I hear her right? Did she just express some confidence in me? Somebody pinch me.
“All right, Garrett,” Myers gruffly consented. “You’ve got five minutes to convince me why I shouldn’t have you imprisoned.”
Garrett rubbed his hands together, sweaty as they were. “Everything I’ve just explained to you about the Nellis crash in 1962 is directly related to several things that are happening right now. The DIA processes and analyzes intelligence for all of the military branches, so I’m quite certain you know about the atomic demolition device that was stolen several days ago from the U.S. Army Munitions and Redepositions Command in Edgewood, Maryland.”
Myers pounded his fists on the desk, then stood up and shouted, “That’s hot off a restricted CID file! It’s an official EEi report that’s classified crypto/citadel! There’s no way you can possibly know about it!”
Garrett stepped back as if he’d just had a trumpet blown in his face. “Um-hmm, and I couldn’t possibly know about the murder of a former JAG officer named Farrell, either, or the murder of former FBI agent name Jack Urslig.”
“GodDAMN it!” Myer blew right up. “You’ve infiltrated a national security database!”
“Actually, several national security databases,” Garrett corrected.
Myers’ face was turning red as he reached for the phone. “The Marines are carrying your ass to jail RIGHT NOW!”
“Forget about that for now,” Lynn calmly implored. “There’s something serious going on here, and I think it bears some investigation. Harlan didn’t actually hack into any databases. He was given the entry codes, he was following a lead under the directions of an Air Force general.”
All at once, Myers’ rage siphoned out of him like a balloon deflating. Suddenly he looked perplexed. “An Air Force general? Not Norton T. Swenson.”
“Hey, how’d you know?” Garrett asked in surprise.
“Fuck.” Myers sat back down, his ass dropping into the seat like a dropped bag of cement. All at once he looked flustered, even troubled.
“What gives?” Garrett asked.
“About fifteen minutes ago, I got a classified FYI telex from the Interagency Branch.”
“Yeah?”
“Last night General Norton T. Swenson was murdered in his home in Bethesda.”
“Oh no,” Garrett groaned. His spirit seemed to plummet.
“And the thing that bugged me most about it,” Myers went on, “is that…those two other names you just mentioned?”
“Judge Farrell and Urslig, the FBI agent?” Lynn said.
Myers rubbed his face. “Yeah. They were both killed by the same m.o. as Swenson. Unforced entry, small-caliber handgun fired through a chambered silencer, elaborate security systems overridden.”
Garrett couldn’t have been more morose at the news. Swenson was already dying, and he knew Sanders was gunning for him. But—
For some reason, Garrett didn’t expect this.
“Come on, boss,” Lynn edged. “How about giving this some consideration. I hate to say it, but Harlan isn’t always a total nut-bar.”
Thanks, baby, Garrett thought. “You’ve got nothing to lose,” he addressed Myers. “If I screw up? Hey, it’s just me, the nut-bar. Nothing can lead back to you or Lynn.”
Myers, very reluctantly, looked back up at Garrett. “What do you want?”
“All I’m asking is for a simple cred pass, sir,” Garrett tried to make it sound nonchalant. “Give me a phony government ID that’ll get me onto Edgewood.”
Myers pawed his gut as if he had an ulcer. “I couldn’t possibly—”
“Oh, give me a break. You guys print out phony ID faster than Dark Horse Comics prints out copies of Buffy. I’m not asking you to for the key to Ellsberg’s office. Just call up the boys in the print shop and have ’em make me something that’ll stand up past a Class IV cred check.”
Myers’ face creased; he squirmed in his seat. “You’re a private citizen, for God’s
sake. I can’t just—”
Garrett rolled his eyes. “Oh, and you’re telling me that the Defense Intelligence Agency has never contracted private citizens for shadowed intel operations? What about the plumbers you hired to case the new Russian Embassy?”
Myers frowned. “How the hell did you find out about—”
“They were private citizens who you set up with phony State Department ID’s so they could properly blueprint the Embassy’s domestic water lines which you later traced with milliwave surveillance sensors, and the whole job came out of your shadow-op budget. And let’s not forget about that private ambulance crew you hired to contradict the testimony of the paramedics who first saw the White House Counsel’s body at Fort Marcy Park.”
Myers abruptly pointed a finger at Garrett. “That wasn’t us, damn it.”
“Hey, Big Brother by any other name is still Big Brother, right?”
“List it as a statutory inquest and send me,” Lynn suggested. “I’m official, in case anything goes wrong.”
“That’s even more out of the question,” Myers said. “With a freelance hitter out there? I can’t risk one of my most valuable operatives on something that’s probably just a wild goose chase.”
“All the more reason to give me that cred pass,” Garrett reminded. “If I get killed, you’ve got nothing to worry about. And if I get caught, do what you Big Brother guys do best. Disavow all knowledge and discredit the source. Plausible denial and all that good shit.”
Myers hesitated with more pained looks. His eyes scanned the piles of documents and photos lain across his desk. Then he shook his head. “It’s just too risky. This evidence just isn’t strong enough to justify something like this.”
“I thought you’d say that.” Garrett winked at his ex-wife. “Lynn? Why don’t you show your dutiful boss the rest of the evidence.”
Lynn placed the suitcase on Myers’ desk, withdrew the black plastic bag, and after unwrapping it removed the charred alien forearm.
Its two black fingers pointed right into Myers’ face.
««—»»
In the underground parking lot, Garrett leaned on the fender of his dented Malibu, grinning down at the new leather ID wallet in his hand. Lynn stood aside with her arms crossed.
“You look like a kid at Christmas who just got a bag of Beanie Babies,” she observed.
Garrett continued to look in awe at the opened wallet. On the left side was the ever-familiar crested silver badge, and on the right was a federal photo ID card identifying “Richard Odenton” as a Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All it had taken was a quick haircut in the Pentagon’s mezzanine barber shop and a quickly borrowed shirt and tie from the Ident Section’s wardrobe unit.
“This is cooler than cool,” Garrett said, still grinning at his new ID. “I always wanted to be in the FBI. And I like the name—Richard Odenton. Has a nice black bag kind of ring to it, don’t you think? Good work on the driver’s license, car registration, and Social Security card, too. Christ, even phony license plates.” As an added treat, he’d also been given a cellular field phone with all the latest scrambling filters and a pager with a GPS direction-finding frequency. Man, I’m set! Garrett thought in a rush of excitement.
“Congratulations, Special Agent Odenton,” Lynn joked. “It figures Myers would give you Bureau ID. They’re in enough trouble as it is, so if you screw up—”
“—then it’ll just look like a typical day in the FBI. Hey, let’s assault a cult compound full of explosives, ammunition, flammable material, and children, and forget to bring a fire truck.”
Lynn frowned at the comment’s poor taste. “Come on.”
The Malibu’s twenty-year-plus bench seat springs groaned when they got in. Garrett drove out of the lot. As they drove up the exit ramp into daylight, Lynn kept glancing over at him.
“What?” Garrett asked. “I got a tick on my neck?”
Lynn sighed, opened her mouth to say something, but then declined.
“Come on,” Garrett insisted. “What are you looking at? You’re making me paranoid.”
“You were born paranoid, Harlan.” Then she shrugged and just said. “Don’t take this out of context but…you’re actually a pretty decent looking guy with your hair cut short.”
“Oh yeah?” Garrett exclaimed. “So when do you want to do lunch?”
“Never. I was simply making an objective observation.”
“And a damn perceptive one if I must say. And that geezer Myers said he doubted your sense of judgment. Ha!”
“This is no joke, Harlan,” she reminded. “You better be damn careful flashing that ID; you could get yourself made real easy. You’ve got no experience as a field agent.”
“No, but I did read Strasberg’s book on acting. Relax, I can play the spook game.”
Lynn didn’t seem so sure. “I’d feel a lot better if I went with you. At least I’d be around to make sure you don’t step on your dick and make a complete asshole out of yourself.”
Garrett winced behind the wheel. “Please, Lynn. Foul language doesn’t become you.”
“Yeah, well you’ll hear plenty more if you fuck up.” Lynn noticed he’d taken the Shirley Highway exit. “Where are you going? Shouldn’t we got back to your place and plan this out.”
“I’ve already planned it out,” Garrett told her, lighting a cigarette. “Up here.” He pointed to his head and grinned with the cigarette crimped between his teeth. “I’ll be going into the field, and in the meantime, you’ll be doing the follow-up here.”
“Follow up on what?
Garrett pulled to a stop around a plushly shrubbed service court. The long signed loomed just ahead of them:
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER.
Lynn squinted. “Harlan, what the hell are we doing—”
He tapped her shoulder. “Oh, and before you go, I need your piece.”
“My what?”
“You know, your gun.”
Lynn gaped at him, then chortled a low laugh. “Yeah, right. You expect me to give you my government-register service weapon?”
“Lynn, you’re the one who just told me I better not fuck up. How credible will I be impersonating an FBI agent if I don’t have a gun? You guys carry SIG-226s just like the Bureau, so hand it over.”
Lynn just stared at him.
“Come on, Lynn. No one’ll believe I’m Bureau unless there’s a piece printing against my jacket. I’ll be arrested in two seconds.”
Lynn sighed long and hard. “I can’t believe the things I let you bamboozle me with. It’s almost like we’re still married.”
Garrett’s brow did a jig. “We can be, hon. All you gotta do is nullify that absurd divorce, and we—”
“Harlan, don’t even say it.” She reluctantly handed her pistol over to him. “There. You happy now…killer?”
Garrett hefted the attractive black gun in his hand. “I like it!”
“I’ve got more, Harlan. Just remember that.” Her blond hair tossed when she turned her head and looked back at the sign. “And would you please tell me what we’re doing at Georgetown Hospital?”
Garrett hastily scribbled something on the back of an old credit card receipt. “This is a friend of mine, just say you know me, and get on with the workup.”
Lynn took the slip of paper, but still looked cruxed. “A workup? On what?”
Garrett reached into the back seat, pulled the black plastic bag from the suitcase. “A workup on this,” he elaborated, setting the parcel right into her lap.
««—»»
Garrett knew that in order to effectively masquerade as a special agent of the F.B.I., he’d have to wear a decent suit. He also knew that he didn’t own a decent suit and hadn’t in years. Hence, the quick stop at Joseph Abboud Ltd. and another poke into Swenson’s charitable contribution. Garrett didn’t have to spend $1100 on a suit but— An agent’s gotta look good, he reasoned. Might as well look REAL good. What the hell, right?
It made sense to him.
When he was set and ready to go, he and the Malibu were heading out of the city. Up Route 50 to the Beltway, then change off onto 95 North; that would get him to Edgewood.
Every so often, he’d catch a forced glimpse of himself in the rearview, and wink at himself, smiling in self-satisfaction.
“Special Agent Richard Odenton… You know, I like the sound of that.” Another wink, then, and he couldn’t help the next observation. “It’s tough being this good-looking, but I guess it’s just a burden I’m going to have to bear.”
Just then, however, even before he crossed the District’s official boundary, one last very essential priority occurred to him.
He was running low on cigarettes.
He stopped at a traffic light, then roved his gaze to the right. The high GAS’N GO flagged him. Garrett pulled in and parked. But just as he was about to get out of the car—
He couldn’t believe what he was seeing.
Some tall skinny twitchy kid with pimples and tufts of frizzy black hair sticking out of his head in stalklike braids was walking briskly toward the convenience store’s entrance. The kid couldn’t have been more than seventeen, and he was a dead give-away; he was wearing a long tacky black raincoat in spite of the heat. Garrett wasn’t surprised to see the kid whip open the coat and check the small pistol stuck in his belt. Then he pulled open the door and strode in into the store.
Garrett was waylaid as his eyes registered the sight. “You’ve gotta be shitting me,” he said aloud to himself. “Don’t kids today have any brains at all?”
Evidently, this one didn’t.
I really shouldn’t do this, he thought. No, I’m not going to. I’m NOT. That would be crazy… Then he made some further considerations. Oh the other hand, that punk could be killing people in there any minute…
Garrett frowned and whipped out his own pistol—Lynn’s pistol actually—then got out of the car.
Dumb, dumb, dumb, he was thinking. The little bell on the door jingled when he entered, and—Fuck, he observed. The were several customers in the store, more people to get killed if shooting started, and—fuck! he thought again. There was a woman scanning the diary products toward the rear, and she had a baby slung to her in a harness.
The punk kid stood just before the register; he was bending over a waist-high magazine rack, pretending to be interested in the variety of tabloids. Garrett winced, in spite of the situation’s gravity: one of the tabloids—The National Reporter—Garrett had freelanced for several years ago.
The kid was obviously working up his nerve.
“Hey, son,” said the old duffer at the register. “You wanna read that crap, you gotta buy it. This ain’t a library.”
The kid stood up, glaring. “Yeah, well it ain’t a bank either, you old fuck, but I’m gonna make a withdrawal.” When the kid had stood up straight, he was pointing the gun right at the old man’s belly.
The woman in the back screamed, dropping a bottle of Gatorade. The baby started bawling. The other customers started yelling, ducking for cover.
Garrett, his own gun drawn, managed to slip around the potato chip aisle and creep up from behind. “Federal agent!” he shouted. “Drop the gun and put your hands in the air!”
Garrett was impressed by how well he done it. But the punk just stood there, as if calculating.
“Hands up!” Garrett repeated. “Drop the gun! Do NOT turn around!”
The kid turned around very quickly.
Garrett winced again. Now the two of them were facing each other, guns aimed. Christ, I can’t shoot this guy! I’m carrying a phony FBI badge and a handgun registered to someone else!
“The fun’s over, Pimples,” Garrett said.
The kid grinned, his dredlocks shaking. “No it isn’t, it just started. Drop your piece.”
“No, you drop your piece, crank-head,” Garrett replied. “What’s that you got there anyway? A Taurus .22? Gimme a break, buddy. Your gun’s bottom-heavy, has no sights, has no recoil compensation, and is notoriously inaccurate. If you pop caps at me, you’ll probably miss, and even if you hit me with that pea-shooter, I guarantee I’ll
have three 9mm Q-Loads in your face before I go down. So go on. Show all these
people here how stupid you are.”
The kid stared Garrett down. “Son of a bitch fuckin’ federal pig.”
You’d be surprised, Garrett though. “Your move, Pimples. You can die right here or you can drop the gun. Use the brains that God gave you. If you drop the gun, you’ll go to joovie hall because you’re a minor, and you’ll probably be back on the street in thirty days playing Bad Guy again. Think about it. Drop the gun…or leave in a body bag. It’s your choice.”
Garrett cocked his pistol.
The kid tremored, gritting his teeth. His eyes focused to pinpoints of hate. Then he cursed under his breath and dropped the gun. He slowly put up his hands.
Garrett let out a long, allaying breath, wondering just how close he’d come to wetting his slacks. The customers and the clerk began to applaud, and the woman with the squalling baby kissed him. “You saved our lives!” she blubbered. “All in a day’s work, ma’am,” Garrett said.
A few minutes later, the metro cruiser arrived. Now came the really hard part. Garrett tried to seem as casual as possible when he flashed his badge and ID card to the muscle-bound cop who entered. A second cop took the kid away in cuffs.
“Special Agent Odenton, FBI,” Garrett said. “I scoped the rock-head checking his piece outside, then followed him in and took him down.”
The big cop looked impressed as well as grateful. “That kid’s Spaz Coleman. We’ve been trying to nab him for a year. He’s knocked over eight convenience stores since November. Good work, Agent Odenton.”
“Piece of cake,” Garrett feigned.
The second cop came back inside, laughing. “Hey, FBI, you’ll love this! The kid pissed his pants when you drew down on him!”
“Tell him to send his dry cleaning bill to the J. Edgar Hoover Building,” Garrett said back. “Look, I know this is technically my collar but I’m in transit to an urgent case—kidnapping and interstate flight. How about we make a deal? You guys take the paperwork, and you can have the collar. Is that cool? I’m really in a hurry.”
“Sure, no problem. Thanks!”
“My pleasure. Later, guys. Be careful out there.” The customers applauded again as Garrett left the store.
I guess there really is a God, he thought once the shock wore off and he realized how he could just as easily have been killed. He got out of D.C. fast, heading for the highway. It took a while to calm down.
Only then did it occur to him that he’d forgotten the one thing he’d stopped at the store for: cigarettes.
««—»»
Danny’s sneakers scuffed up dust as he wandered alone in the field behind the officers housing blocks. He kicked at rocks and old tin cans, kicked at dandelions and watched their ghostly puffs of fuzz explode and blow away.
The summer sun beamed down on him. A few hundred yards up ahead he could see the baseball field where the Boys Club leagues played, then the picnic grounds with its rows of tables and brick grills. Beyond that stretched the forest. There was no one in sight for as far as he could see.
It’s just me out here, he thought. Alone.
Danny didn’t generally like to be alone, but today being alone felt good. His mom and dad had been arguing again back at the house. About me, Danny knew. “Why can’t he be like other kids—normal kids?” his father had thundered from the family room. Danny had been down in the basement, working on some new drawings. He could easily hear them upstairs; their voices carried right down through the heat vent.
“Because you’re so goddamn repressive, he’ll never be normal!” his mother yelled back.
“Oh, that’s right! Blame it on me, pass the buck like you always do! He’s your kid too, you know! He should be out playing ball, roughing it up, getting a taste of life, but all he does instead is hide in the basement drawing all that junk because you encourage him to! Jesus Christ, if you didn’t coddle him so damn much, maybe he’d be like regular kids!”
“Yes, Tony, he’d be out there ‘roughing it up’ just like a good little soldier, huh?”
“For God’s sake! He’s got to learn about life sometime! It’s not all cookies and milk and mommy tucking him in at night! It’s no wonder he’s so weird, doing all those weirdo drawings and talking about goddamn spacemen and spaceships and all that shit! Jesus Christ, it’s no wonder we have to take him to a shrink!”
And on and on.
By now Danny had learned to block it out but sometimes it was real hard. He’d slipped out through the basement door because his head had started to hurt again and he had to get away from all the yelling. He felt bad about the whole thing, because it must be all his fault.
But if that were true…then it must be the Stickmen’s fault too. Why are they doing this to me? he wondered.
A sudden breeze gusted, knocking down the summer heat and mussing his hair. He wandered further, over the low rolling hills before the forest. A dragonfly buzzed by; several sparrows pecked at the grass just ahead of him, paying him no mind.
Yes, sometimes Danny liked to be alone. No one yelling. No one to bother him and make him feel bad. No people.
And no Stickmen.
He stopped at a patch of bare dirt. He knelt down. He picked up a thin stick and began to draw a picture in the bare spot.
Tall and thin. Only two fingers on each hand and two toes on each foot. No ears, no mouth, no nose.
Just a line where the eyes should be.
“Stick…men, stick…men, stick…men,” he whispered to himself as he wielded the branch.
It didn’t take him long.
In a very short while, he’d drawn several of the Stickmen, and also the front of their ship with that weird trapezoidal window on the side.
Danny stood back up and gazed down at the dirt sketch.
“The Stickmen…”
Another sudden cool breeze swept up, ruffling his hair.
They’ll be coming soon, he thought and turned and walked back home. They’re coming tonight…