"Only one reason," Sergeant Cole said.
Herman could hear coldness in his voice that matched the disgust
he'd seen in Cole's eyes when the sergeant was standing at the foot of his bed.
"What's that?" Herman asked.
"Somebody
in the big bureaucracy don't agree. The case must have major federal
implications, otherwise they wouldn't be here."
"Yeah—I see what you mean," Herman said and hung up the
phone. He stood in the hallway feeling something close to vindication. He
realized his theory, the one he dared not express to anyone, could in fact be
true.
One thing he knew for sure, he couldn't go back to the hospital
and be out of commission for two weeks. Not now, not with this going on. Herman
had to move fast. He had to figure out what Roland had found in the Gen-A-Tec
computer that was so important that it had gotten him ripped apart.
There was no doubt in Herman Strockmire's mind that whoever was
investigating Roland Minton's murder also knew who killed him.
S
usan found out that Herman hadn't
returned to the hospital, because there was a message on her beeper from Dr.
Shiller. She called the doctor on her cell phone after leaving Jack Wirta's
office.
"He didn't show up," Shiller said angrily.
"Damn!" She made a U-turn, heading back to Fairfax and
the Santa Monica Freeway.
"I feel like I'm always chasing an ambulance with this
guy," Shiller said. "If he doesn't come back here, fine. That's it
for me, Ms. Strockmire. I'm through. I can't help him."
"I understand," she said. "But, Doctor, at least
let me find out why. I mean, maybe there's a good reason he didn't show
up."
"I'm through trying to convince him. As far as I'm concerned,
he should get another doctor."
"I'll get him there," she said. "I promise."
"Whatever."
It took her over forty minutes to get
out to Malibu, because she took the Coast Highway and had forgotten how
congested it could get in the late afternoon. She pulled the borrowed station
wagon into the driveway of the huge French Provincial beach house and parked
next to the Mercedes her father had been driving. That meant he was there. She
let herself in through the side gate, punching the security code numbers and
using her key, then walked past the Olympic-size pool to the large one-story
guesthouse.
It was empty, but as she passed through the billiards room she saw
her father through the window, sitting out on the sandy beach about thirty
yards away, his back to her, staring at the ocean. He had his arms wrapped
around his knees, looking very small and alone.
She slid open the glass doors and walked across the narrow brick
patio and through the little white gate. She kicked off her shoes and trudged
across the sand, finally settling down next to him. "You broke your
promise."
"I know," he replied, but he seemed so sad and lost she
didn't have it in her to beat him up over it.
"Dad, I talked to Dr. Shiller. He wants you there
immediately."
"No he doesn't. He's washed his hands of me. Admit it."
"Dad,
please."
"I'm right, aren't I?"
"He said he won't chase you around, and I don't blame
him."
Herman nodded, then picked up his little laptop computer that was
sitting open on the sand next to him and handed it to her. On the screen was
Roland's e-mail.
She read it hurriedly, then looked up. "He got the corn file.
They only did minimal testing. This would have been great if we hadn't been
thrown out of court."
"Yep," Herman said, then pointed to one specific
sentence in the e-mail. "He sent us an encrypted file from DARPA. I
transferred it to a disk. It's inside."
"What is it?"
"Fifty or more pages of code. You read the e-mail. Roland
wants us to take it to his friend, Zimmy. He told me about this guy. His name
is Dr. Gino Zimbaldi, out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. He uses
JPL's computers to break code. It's like a hobby with him, so he does it on the
sly after hours."
She sat still for a long time, not sure what to say. Then she
handed the computer back. "Dad, you've got to go back to Cedars and get
the operation."
"Honey, they won't release Roland's body. Worse still, the
feds took his murder investigation away from the San Francisco police. They
scooped up the whole case. They shipped what's left of Roland's corpse to
Washington. I think it was feds who killed him, and now they're investigating a
murder they committed themselves. Good luck solving that one, huh?"
"Dad, you have got to get this procedure done."
"Just give it a rest with the fucking doctors, okay? I'm
trying to tell you something."
Susan was stunned. In thirty-plus years she only remembered one or
two times that he had snapped at her like that.
"I've been sitting out here thinking about Roland. About him
going up there trying to get this stuff for us and then getting murdered.
Shredded. Pulled limb from limb."
"Dad, don't. Don't do this to yourself."
"I've been thinking about why.
Why
would they kill him
like that? What did he get from Gen-A-Tec that was so dangerous he had to be
murdered for it? And why so violently? I think the answer is sitting inside. I
think it's in that fifty-page encryption. In fact, I know it is. That printout
is waiting to tell us the secret that got Roland killed."
"Dad, you have to let go of this."
"I can't, sweetheart. I just can't."
"Are you afraid of the surgery? Is that it?"
He didn't answer. He was looking out at the late afternoon sun hanging
in the L.A. smog, floating above the rolling Pacific like a big, orange
Japanese lantern.
"Are you
afraid
to get the operation?" she asked
again.
He seemed to think that over. "I confess I'm not the bravest
guy on the planet," he answered softly. "Y'know all those tubes and
drip bags and the smells in there. . . I just. . . I. . . Yeah, kinda . . . I
guess."
"But, Dad, it's only going to take a day, then a week or two
of rest and it's over."
I know . . . I know.
But.
. . I just. . . I just can't."
Now she knew she was being conned. He was bull-shitting her and
she shook her head sadly. "You're a rat, you know that?"
"Why, because I'm scared of this operation? 'Cause I need a
day or two to get myself up for it, get my mind in the right place?"
"You're not afraid of surgery. You just don't want to let go
of this thing and take two weeks off. Not with Roland's e-mail in there, so
you're trying to get me off your back."
"Honey, this could be much bigger than even I thought. DARPA
. . . you saw that mentioned in his e-mail."
"Yes."
"I know about DARPA. A secret government think tank. They
developed weapons and special projects. Very twenty-first century. I always
suspected DARPA might be behind all of that stuff going on at Area
Fifty-one."
"Dad, please don't start up with that. Not now."
"Honey, what do you suppose killed Roland? 'Cause, it was a
what,
not a
who.
A
what.
That's what Sergeant Cole said. A thousand
pounds per square inch. Gimme a break, what could do that?"
"Some kind of monkey," she said. "A gorilla or a
chimp."
"Not on your sweet life. Monkeys don't have the mental acuity
to undertake a military mission . . . commit a complicated B and E, then a
premeditated murder. They live in the here and now. They don't have memories,
pasts, or futures. Trust me, they would make piss-poor assault weapons."
"What then?"
"Roland says that the fifty pages of code he sent us is
something called the Ten-Eyck Chimera Project. Gen-A-Tec's research on it is
being funded by DARPA. I couldn't find anything on a Ten-Eyck, but I looked up
chimera in the dictionary, and you know what it says?"
"What?" She was beginning to get a feeling of
hopelessness. She'd been on these scavenger hunts before.
"So, what is it?" she finally said dutifully, because he
was waiting for her to ask.
"It's spelled C-H-I-M-E-R-A, but it's pronounced ki-mir-a.
It's from the Greek: a fire-breathing she-monster having a lion's head, a
goat's body, and a serpent's tail."
"That's ridiculous. You're saying DARPA's making one of
those?"
"It's also an illusion of the mind."
"I like that better."
"Or," now he turned and looked right at her, "any
life-form consisting of tissue of diverse genetic constitution." He was
still staring at her after he finished the sentence, seeing her thoughts turn
stormy, but still reading them like rain through a window. "Not corn or
soybeans, not plants, but flesh and blood—
tissue."
"Dad, just say it, will you?"
"They're making a hybrid animal. It's just the kind of thing
those DARPA guys would try for."
"Why? Why would they? Why would anybody want to make a
genetic monster? For what possible reason?"
He looked out to sea, reluctant to answer.
"I'm listening." she challenged.
"Honey, you know what's been happening in this country—you
more than anyone. You've seen it. You've been with me fighting against the
shallowing out of American values. In the new America the total doesn't have to
equal the sum of its parts anymore. 'If it bleeds, it leads.' Don't debate,
obfuscate. This country is suffering from the complete loss of a moral
imperative in the face of profit and power."
"You're not answering my question. And stop with the rhyming
polemics, Dad."
"The war in Kosovo is when it started. That war changed
everything."
"And don't shift to history. Get to the point."
"No, listen. This is the point, because it's the basis of my
theory."
She nodded, so he went on. "Clinton had a huge problem
in Kosovo, and
it became real clear to Milosevic that, despite the ethnic cleansing and mass
murders, the American public didn't really give a shit. They weren't willing to
lose even one GI over it. The same problem existed in Afghanistan and Iraq. If
thousands of U.S. soldiers start dying, the American public will throw in the
towel. The U.S. is the last remaining superpower, we have a responsibility to
be world policemen, but as a nation we no longer have the stomach for it. It's
okay to fight an air war, use smart weapons, push buttons where no one is
hurt—everybody gets some popcorn and watches it on CNN. But what happens once
our smart bombs have knocked out all the military targets?"
"I don't know." She was getting angry. "The war's
over, I guess."
"No. You have to send in ground troops to mop up. You still
have to put boots on the ground to wipe out pockets of resistance and hold the
terrain. That's where the problem arises. This country won't sit still for
losing any troops in a place like Kosovo or Iraq. We want our new fall
fashions; we want to know who Britney Spears is dating. We've got appointment
television and Tiger Woods. So, what do we do?"
"Dad. . ."
"We make disposable soldiers."