Chapter 114. Questions Worth Asking
The Hummer’s heavy frame gave a dull shudder as we rolled over another speed bump and finally cleared the Pentagon’s inner perimeter. The concrete fortress fell behind us, along with our brief appearance in its classified records.
Our temporary passes had been canceled with almost insulting precision, exactly five minutes after the door to the executive office closed behind us. Military bureaucracy had done its job flawlessly. We had been given a very clear message: our allotted hospitality had run out, and we were no longer welcome there.
Gray government buildings drifted past the windows. Inside, the air smelled of cheap Alpine-fresh air freshener, heated leather seats, and lingering cigarette smoke.
“So, Ross, what’s it like shaking the general’s hand?” Leon casually tugged at his tie, unbuttoned the top of his shirt, and stuffed the wrinkled silk into his jacket pocket without the slightest regret. “Heart about to burst with patriotism? Army pride spilling over?”
Even if I had been sitting with my back to him, I could have pictured his smirk from that lazy, mocking tone alone. Leon had a talent for packing maximum venom into the simplest words without ever raising his voice.
“Don’t mock the ceremony, Leon.” Sam shook his head, sitting ramrod straight, as if someone had welded a steel rod to his spine. “Not every soldier gets a personal award from the highest levels of command. And Tom understands that perfectly well. Right, Tom?”
They both looked at me. Leon had his eyes slightly narrowed, wearing the expression of a seasoned cynic waiting for me to back up his bitterness. Sam looked at me with open, unmistakable hope, like a man for whom the regulations were still something close to the Bible. Up front, even twenty-year-old Hawk eased off the gas and pricked up his ears, watching me through the rearview mirror.
The evolved biochemistry of my brain was working flawlessly. No adrenaline spikes, no false euphoria over the medal on my chest, no childish resentment toward headquarters. Just the same cold, dry analysis I had relied on back when I combed through financial reports looking for discrepancies in the numbers.
“I appreciated the fact that the general found five minutes in his schedule to give me this piece of tin himself,” I said evenly. “It was a smart psychological move. It shows the rank and file that they are not just expendable names on a roster. It tells them that the people at the top supposedly see their work and value it.”
“There you go! Now that’s the right way to look at it, brother!” Sam broke into a huge grin and slapped me on the shoulder so hard the Hummer’s suspension seemed to dip. “The Army remembers its heroes!”
Leon merely shook his head in disgust, stuck his face out the window, and spat onto the asphalt with undisguised disappointment.
“But if you look at it from another angle,” I continued calmly, watching Sam’s expression change in an instant, “the whole meeting felt like the absolute bare minimum. I understand: security protocols, no bands, parades, or CNN coverage. But reading a dry order off a sheet of paper, pinning on a medal, and pointing at the door? The only way they could’ve put in less effort would’ve been to send the medal through USPS. If Arthur really wanted to show that he took a personal interest, he could’ve at least looked through my file and come up with one original sentence. Instead, he read straight from a junior officers’ handbook.”
“That’s exactly what the hell I’m talking about!” Leon leaned back into the leather seat, looking as pleased as a cat that had finally gotten into the cream. “The man gets right to the heart of it. The whole ceremony was just dry bullshit to check a box on some report. If the old man really wanted to thank the guys who are saving this world from going to hell, he would’ve given us the keys to a villa in Miami instead of inviting us into this concrete tomb. With a proper bar, a pool, and hookers.”
“Don’t push it, Leon. The chain of command still exists.” I met his gaze. “But you get the point. Instead of a drab briefing room, it could’ve been the Hall of Heroes, the White House, or at least a private reception room for VIPs. After all, we deal with threats on a planetary scale. We’re not chasing smugglers along the border.”
To my mild surprise, Leon did not pursue his favorite subject of pools and hookers. He merely gave a short, respectful grunt and nodded, accepting my logic. Sam’s reaction was more interesting. Our chief guardian of morality and army traditions did not argue. The good-natured giant simply smiled faintly, silently turning my words over in his head.
Still, I was much more interested in a practical question, one that had nothing to do with medals or honors.
“Didn’t any of you find our general’s physical condition a little strange?” I asked casually, shifting my gaze from one companion to the other. “Arthur is well into his sixties. Yet his biceps are thicker and broader than our driver’s. No offense, James.”
“No offense taken, sir.” Hawk answered from behind the wheel as he moved into the far-left lane. “I was shocked when I saw him for the first time, too. My grandfather is sixty-two. He’s a hard-working guy, but... let’s just say he looks like a man who can barely get out of bed.”
“But isn’t that freaking awesome?!” Sam immediately jumped in, clenching his massive fists with such enthusiasm that his knuckles cracked like dry branches. That same pure, unstoppable energy rang in his voice. “When the commander keeps himself in that kind of shape, it’s the best motivation for every one of us! It shows what we’re working our asses for! What other branch can brag about having a man like that at the top? The Marines have some bloated old walrus in charge who probably hasn’t done a pull-up since Nixon was president!”
Hawk listened to him, barely keeping his mouth from falling open at the sheer intensity of Sam’s speech.
And I had to admit, as childish as Sam’s enthusiasm sounded, his argument hit the mark. Any soldier, even the most cynical one, liked knowing that the system was headed by a battle-hardened old war dog who could put an enemy down with a single punch if necessary, rather than some desk-bound bureaucrat who could barely make it up a flight of stairs without getting winded.
Leon was suspiciously quiet throughout the speech. Usually, you could not give him a better gift than a chance to tear into Arthur or the brass, but this time the intelligence officer merely watched the asphalt sliding past the window. Either he knew exactly what was behind the Corps commander's anomalous physiology and wisely kept his mouth shut, or he suspected something serious enough to make even his normally boundless cynicism falter.
As we drew closer to downtown Washington, our Hummer gradually emptied out.
Sam was the first to get out, near the training camp. The fresh recruits were in the middle of drills, so our giant was leaving his dojo for only a couple of hours, just long enough to attend the ceremony.
“Come by when you get a chance, Tom!” Sam called, wearing the same tireless, genuine smile that would have left an ordinary person's jaw aching. “We’ll spar a couple of rounds! Show these rookies what martial arts are really about!”
Another ten minutes later, Leon got out at a completely random intersection. Naturally, he had no intention of giving me his real address. Paranoia came standard with the intelligence-officer package.
“Tom, you’re a smart guy, so remember what I told you.” The moment the SUV’s heavy door swung open, Leon flicked his lighter and lit a cigar. “With that shiny piece of crap on your chest, you can land yourself any cushy job in the Corps. Collect a fat paycheck and push papers around. But that’s a fool’s choice. Take my word for it: the only place where you’ll really be able to put that brain of yours to work is intelligence.”
Finally, I was the last one to get out of the vehicle, at the edge of the same little park where they had picked me up a couple of hours earlier.
“It was a pleasure working with you, sir.” Hawk turned slightly in his seat and looked at me through the rearview mirror. “You earned that Bronze Star fair and square. If you care what some ordinary driver thinks, of course.”
“Thanks, James. By the way, that number you called me from... can I reach you directly on it?”
“Yeah, that’s my work cell.” He glanced at me with interest. “Why? Something happen?”
“In case there are more delays with my checks,” I said in the most matter-of-fact tone I could manage. “I’d like to be able to call you and find out whether it’s another classified investigation or a problem with Finance. You understand. When the accounting department singles you out while everyone else gets paid on time, it creates unnecessary tension.”
“Oh, sure, sir.” Hawk visibly relaxed, completely satisfied with my mundane and petty explanation. “Call anytime. It’s no trouble for me to pull the status from the database.”
Naturally, delayed payments were the least of my concerns. My modified brain chemistry did not waste resources on pointless anxiety. Any mundane inconvenience was simply another problem requiring an algorithmic solution.
I needed Hawk’s contact for entirely different reasons. His ability to see past events could become an invaluable tool for handling highly specialized problems in the future. Resources like that were worth securing in advance.
When I returned to my hotel room, the first thing I did was take off my dress uniform jacket. The fabric still carried the smell of the headquarters’ conditioned air. Apparently, I would not be needing the uniform again anytime soon.
But the question of Crowley’s physiology remained in my internal task manager as a high-priority query with no answer. And I had one last contact who might be able to shed some light on the anomaly.
I dialed the number and held the phone to my ear while glancing at the wall clock. Seven in the evening.
“Hey, Selina,” I said. “Am I catching you at a bad time?”
“Of course you are!” she shot back, her tone crisp and emphatic. “You’re the one wandering around with no permanent address and no real job, while I’m a busy woman. I’ve got reagents in test tubes that need time to develop and instruments that require constant monitoring. I barely have time to grab a cup of coffee, let alone make it home. And all this headache, by the way, is because of you.”
“And how exactly is that my fault?” I frowned slightly. “I’m not your supervisor, and I’m not the one signing off on your reports.”
“Who dumped a mountain of raw data on me and disappeared?” Her voice took on a perfectly calibrated note of exaggerated offense. “Now I have to spend all my time crunching these formulas to come up with a new enamel-protection compound and a cream for problem skin. All this tedious lab work, and it’s fallen onto my delicate shoulders. You’re a terrible person, Ross.”
“I prefer the term investor,” I corrected calmly. “You’re going to make excellent money off those patents. And as the modest originator of the idea, I expect my dividends for contributing to science.”
“Money again...” Even through the speaker, I could practically feel her rolling her eyes. “You’ll get your cut, you cheapskate.”
A barely perceptible smile crossed my face. I had gotten to know Selina pretty well during our time together. She had a constant appetite for games and a habit of lightly provoking whoever she was talking to. No matter how much she played the exhausted victim of science, she was genuinely enjoying the conversation. But only as long as we both played by the rules.
“All right, Tom, get to the point.” Her tone changed, becoming more focused. “I really am in the lab, and I don’t have time to shoot the shit. Not even with you. What’s going on?”
“I had an audience with General Crowley today,” I said evenly, pausing like an experienced fisherman waiting for the right moment to set the hook. “And I used [Analysis]. The results were... highly unusual.”
Silence fell over the line instantly. For several seconds, all I could hear through the speaker was her steady breathing, slightly deeper than before.
Selina knew how to assess risk and the value of information quickly.
“Where and when?” she asked curtly, dropping the game. “The sooner, the better.”