Kitabı oku: «The Tower», sayfa 2
Franklin gave him the smile, only this time the warmth wasn’t there and it occurred to Shepherd that maybe he was nervous too. Then he opened the door and stepped into the room.
4
Assistant Director O’Halloran was a thin blade of a man worn sharp by a lifetime in the Bureau. Everything about him was hard and precise: the steel rims of his spectacles; the pale grey eyes behind them that looked up as Franklin and Shepherd entered the room; even his gunmetal hair appeared to have been parted with a scalpel rather than a comb. He was sitting at the same immaculate desk he had been photographed behind on the recruitment literature that went with the application form Shepherd had filled out almost a year ago: same flatscreen monitor, same keyboard, same desk phone and framed photograph. The only things different were the two files on the desk in front of him: one plain, the other with Shepherd’s photograph printed on the first page. Shepherd’s pulse quickened when he saw it.
‘You have quite the impressive resumé,’ O’Halloran said, tapping a thin finger on the file with the photograph. ‘Mathematics major with computer science at the University of Michigan. MSc in physics from CalTech. Best part of a PhD in theoretical cosmology from Cambridge University in England – though you never finished that one, did you? Even so, I imagine you could be making six figures and upwards in the financial sector, yet you chose to sign up as a GS-10 with a basic starting salary of $46,000. Why is that I wonder?’
Shepherd swallowed drily. ‘Money’s not that important to me.’
‘Really, you a Communist?’
‘No, sir – I’m a patriot.’
‘OK, Mr Patriot, tell me about your PhD, why didn’t you finish it?’
Shepherd glanced down at the file, recalling the psychiatric evaluations and background checks that had formed part of his recruitment screening. All of it would be in there, at least everything he had told them. But this was the Assistant Director he was talking to so there could well be other things in there by now – things he had hoped to keep hidden.
‘It’s all in the file, sir.’
O’Halloran regarded Shepherd from the centre of his stillness. ‘I want to hear it from you.’
Shepherd’s mind raced. He was being tested and Assistant Director O’Halloran was far too senior for it to be about something trivial. If it was to do with the parts he’d left out of his past then Franklin could easily have questioned him about it back at The Biograph, which meant it had to be about something else. He should stick to the story he’d already told, volunteer no new information, and hope things became clearer over the course of the next few minutes.
‘I had been in academia all my adult life,’ he said, saying the same lines he had spoken to his recruitment officer. ‘It was everything I knew but not everything I wanted to know. Some people like to gather knowledge just for knowledge’s sake, I always intended to apply mine.’
‘NASA.’
Shepherd nodded. ‘A large proportion of my education was funded by Space Agency scholarships. I also spent a lot of research time on various NASA projects, which is pretty standard for anyone on one of their scholarships: they get extra brain power, we get our feet under the table and gain practical experience of the work we will hopefully end up doing.’
‘So what happened?’
‘9/11 happened – sir. Homeland defence and the war on terror became the number one priority. It took a big bite out of everyone’s budget. Almost the entire space program was shelved. I suddenly found myself with no grant and no job to go to even if I did manage to complete my studies. It was … like hitting a wall.’
‘So you dropped out.’
‘That’s one way of putting it, sir.’
‘How would you put it?’
‘At first I felt cheated, like something had been taken away from me. It seemed pointless to carry on studying for a job that was no longer there. There were plenty of private companies offering to fund the remainder of my studies but they all wanted me to sign my life away in exchange. Work for them as soon as I graduated, study stock markets instead of stars. It wasn’t what I wanted. So I took off and went travelling to clear my head and try and work out what I was going to do with my life now NASA no longer appeared to be an option.’
‘Where did you end up? There’s a gap in your file of almost two years where you seem to have disappeared off the face of the earth: no social security records, no job history, no credit card records.’
‘I was off the grid mainly – Europe first then Southeast Asia and eventually Africa, travelling from place to place, working cash jobs in bars and as migrant labour on farms, staying in backpacker hostels that charged by the night. They don’t take credit cards in most of those places. I’d been a student for most of my adult life so I knew how to live cheap.’
‘Then what, you saw the light and decided to rejoin society?’
‘Yes, sir. I realized I was squandering an opportunity. What happened on 9/11 changed my life – but almost three thousand other people lost theirs. My future had been altered; theirs had been taken away. My intention had always been to pay back the money for my education by devoting myself to public service and working for NASA. I came to realize that just because that particular opportunity had been closed to me didn’t mean I couldn’t pay my dues in other ways.’
‘So you signed up for the FBI?’
‘Not immediately, sir.’
‘No, that’s right.’ O’Halloran opened the file for the first time and flipped to a page near the back. ‘First you worked as a volunteer for various aid agencies, setting up computer networks and fundraising pages and teaching computer skills to homeless people and the long-term unemployed.’ He looked back up. ‘You really weren’t kidding about money were you?’
‘No, sir – it’s never been something that has particularly motivated me.’
O’Halloran pursed his lips and studied Shepherd like a poker player deciding which way to bet. ‘I’m not entirely happy that the Bureau I have served all my adult life seems to be some kind of consolation prize for you, Shepherd, but I can’t afford to turn away a candidate with your qualifications.’ He closed the file and laid a hand on the second one. ‘Are you familiar with the Goddard Space Flight Center?’
‘Yes sir, I spent a few summers there running test data off Explorer 66.’
‘Is that anything to do with the Hubble Space Telescope?’
‘Not really. They both collect data from the furthest edges of the universe, at least they did – Explorer is pretty much used as a test satellite now. Hubble does everything Explorer used to and has a much greater reach.’
The lips pursed again. ‘Not any more.’ O’Halloran opened his desk drawer, removed a badge wallet and handed it to Shepherd. ‘I am not in the habit of sending trainees out in the field before they have completed their training or spent at least a year in a field office, but apparently, out of more than thirty thousand currently active Bureau personnel, you are uniquely qualified for a situation that has arisen.’ Shepherd opened the wallet and saw his own photo staring back from an FBI ID card. ‘That will temporarily entitle you to carry a concealed weapon and transport it onboard commercial airlines. You can collect your Roscoe and a box of shells from Agent Williams on your way out.’
Shepherd read the name printed next to a date that expired in a month. ‘My middle name is Thomas,’ he said, turning the badge to O’Halloran.
‘There’s already a Special Agent J. T. Shepherd in the Memphis office and, as no two agents can have the same ID,’ he raised his hand and made a small sign of the cross in the air, ‘I now baptize you J. C. Shepherd. That’s your Bureau name, and you will answer to it. I am placing Agent Franklin in full command of the investigation and you are to follow his lead exactly. You have been assigned to this investigation solely because of your unique and considerable expertise in the field of astronomy. You will use it to assist Agent Franklin in this investigation and give your opinion only when it is requested. The rest of the time you will look upon this as a valuable opportunity to learn on the job from a well-seasoned and highly regarded agent. Once your usefulness to the investigation has been exhausted, your temporary status will be revoked and you will report back here to finish your training, understood?’
‘Yessir.’
‘I trust you know your way to Goddard from here? There’s a car signed out to you in transport.’ He took the plain covered file from the desk and held it up. ‘Agent Franklin can brief you on the way.’
5
Shepherd and Franklin drove for the first ten minutes in total silence, the whump of windscreen wipers and hiss of tyres over wet tarmac punctuated only by the rustle of paper as Franklin read through the file. Occasionally he jotted a note in a pocketbook lit by the glow of a small Maglite clamped in his teeth. Shepherd sensed he was unhappy about the situation. That made two of them.
After his performance on Hogan’s Alley the last thing Shepherd wanted was to be heading out into the real world with a loaded gun tucked into his jacket. As promised, Agent Williams, the firearms instructor, had been ready and waiting in the armoury with an oiled SIG 226, which he made Shepherd speed-load from an open box of 9x19 Parabellums while he looked on. Shepherd’s Catholic education had hammered enough Latin into him to know that para bellum meant ‘prepare for war’. He tried to push the thought from his mind as he slotted fifteen shells into the magazine, fumbling two, before smacking it home and looking up into the pained expression on the instructor’s face.
‘Do yourself a favour,’ Williams had said, as Shepherd signed for the gun and the spare shells, ‘try not to put yourself in any situation where you may have to draw this weapon. Just keep it in your holster and come back as quickly as you can to finish your training.’
Shepherd checked the rear-view mirror. Behind him he could see the lights of the grey panel van that had followed them out of the gates at Quantico. It was a tech wagon, loaded with forensics equipment and two Physical Science Technicians ready to process the crime scene his former workplace had now become. They were on I-95, heading north: the bright lights of DC spread across the horizon ahead of them like a luminous stain, lighting up the low cloud that was spilling monsoon-level rain over everything. The weather was slowing them down but at least it would be too late for commuter traffic to be a problem when they eventually hit the capitol. He figured they would be in Maryland in twenty minutes, though he still had no idea why they were heading there.
The Maglite twisted off in the passenger seat and Shepherd heard the creak of the vinyl seat as Franklin turned to him. ‘That little story you span back there,’ he said, ‘your tale of travel to the far corners of the world to find yourself – I just want you to know, I ain’t buying it.’
Shepherd felt heat on his cheeks and was glad it was too dark for Franklin to see. ‘I don’t follow you, sir.’
‘I’ve spent over twenty years talking to people who have done everything from write bad cheques to kidnap children so they could torture them for fun, and you know what every single one of ’em had in common? They all tried to lie to me. Now you may have all your highfalutin’ degrees in astrophysics and rocket science and whatever else, but I got a degree in people and I know when someone is spinning me a line. I can smell it on them, and right now, Agent Shepherd, you stink.’
Shepherd said nothing and kept his eyes on the road.
‘Now I don’t really care all that much why you’re lying or even what it is you’re hiding, what does concern me, however, is having a partner I can’t trust. Having a partner you can’t trust is like having no partner at all, and that’s dangerous, Agent Shepherd, as you just discovered down in that basement. So if at any point you feel like kicking a piece of the truth in my direction – man to man, partner to partner, in the knowledge that, felonies aside, it will go no further – then we’ll get along a whole lot better. In the meantime, operate on the assumption that I’m apt to doubt every single goddam word that comes out of your mouth, understood?’
‘Sir, I promise you …’
Franklin raised his hand and turned his head away. ‘Don’t make it worse by lying to me again. I’m being honest with you, Agent Shepherd, I’m just asking for you to do the same.’
The seat creaked as Franklin turned back to the briefing documents. ‘OK, now I’ve put it out there so you know where we stand you can make yourself useful and explain to me the wisdom behind spending over a billion tax dollars putting a telescope into space that then costs over forty million dollars a year to run.’
Shepherd stared ahead through the spray and considered the question, relieved to be back on safe, familiar ground. He thought about the unimaginable distances the Hubble Space Telescope could penetrate compared to the relatively puny ones achieved by terrestrial instruments. He thought about the light from dead stars it could gather from the pure nothingness of clear space, carrying information all the way back from the beginning of time. But in the end he kept it simple. ‘How many stars can you see tonight?’ he said.
Franklin looked out into the wet, black night as a Big Rig hooned by, going way too fast for the weather and throwing up so much spray you could hardly see the edge of the freeway let alone the sky. ‘OK, fair point, but why not just build a telescope on top of a mountain in Mexico or somewhere the sun always shines. Hell, why not just wait for a clear night, be a lot cheaper.’
‘They did all that. There’s a fifty-metre dish on top of the Sierra Negra volcano in south Mexico that can observe both northern and southern skies. It’s pretty impressive. Trouble is the earth keeps turning, so it can only study a piece of sky for a few hours at a time. A space telescope like Hubble can lock onto a distant object and keep it in its sights for months, years even, while the earth turns beneath it.’
‘And that costs forty million a year?’
‘It’s a very complicated process.’
Franklin grunted. ‘Sounds like a scam to me.’
Shepherd considered letting it go but didn’t want to slip back into the uneasy silence. ‘How good a shot are you?’ he asked.
‘Better than you, Special Agent.’
‘You think you could hit a tin can on the side of the road from a moving car?’
‘Depends how fast the car is going.’
‘Say it’s doing thirty.’
‘Nine times out of ten.’
‘What if the car was doing eighty-five?’
Franklin considered. ‘Maybe three out of ten.’
‘OK, now imagine the car is doing eighty-five thousand miles an hour and the tin can is on the other side of the country, perched on top of the Hollywood sign. Think you could hit it then?’ Franklin didn’t reply. ‘Hubble could. It could lock onto that can and take a picture of it so steady you could read the label. It’s orbiting the earth at around seventeen thousand miles an hour, and the earth is orbiting the sun at sixty-seven thousand miles an hour. That’s a total of eighty-four thousand miles an hour and yet Hubble can still fix onto a tiny patch of sky nearly fifteen billion light years away. It’s one of the greatest miracles of modern technology, the pinnacle of man’s achievements in science. That’s why it cost so much and needs all that money to run it.’
‘And all of that is controlled out of Goddard?’
‘Yes.’
Franklin shook his head. ‘Not any more – right now your gold-plated telescope couldn’t hit a barn door with a banjo. It’s spinning around up there like a bottle at a frat party. Someone managed to upload a virus that knocked out the guidance system and shut down all communication.’
‘Really? That would be – very difficult.’
‘How difficult?’
‘When I was working at Goddard they had a small systems security scare. One of the ground operating stations for another satellite was left wide open via an email account and some kid hacked into it. He didn’t do any damage but some of the ops systems got infected with internet junk that flowed in through the hole he’d made. It was picked up pretty quick and fixed but it prompted a review of the whole system. How much do you know about government cyber security?’
‘About as much as you know about firing guns.’
‘OK, so all state owned and operated computer operating systems are rated according to the Orange Book scale drawn up by the Department of Defense. This lays out specific security criteria for all government systems ranging from a D grade for non-sensitive, clerical stuff all the way up to beyond A1 for things like the NSA, the FBI and the military systems that launch the nukes. Following the scare at Goddard all the operating systems had to be upgraded to at least an A1. That means the prospect of Hubble’s ground-based operating system being breached by any kind of regular cyber attack is extremely unlikely. It would be like a junkie with a twenty-dollar pistol knocking off Fort Knox. Whoever did this must have known exactly what they were doing.’
‘You think it’s an inside job?’
‘Has to be. We should talk to Dr Kinderman, he’s in charge of Hubble and helped redesign the new system. He’ll be able to give us the names of everyone with the right kind of technical knowledge and any ex-employees who might have an axe to grind.’
‘Good thinking, Agent Shepherd,’ Franklin said, ‘only problem with your otherwise flawless plan of investigation is that Dr Kinderman is AWOL. Right now he is our number one suspect.’
6
EIGHT MONTHS EARLIER
Badiyat Al-Sham – Syrian Desert
Northwestern Iraq
When Gabriel Mann pointed the horse towards the horizon his only wish was to get as far from the compound as possible before he died.
He headed northwest, into the empty heart of the desert, with the heat of the rising sun on his shoulder and the scent of oranges strong in his nostrils. He tried not to think about all he was leaving behind because it only made it harder for him to go, and that was what he had to do – he had to leave her.
Instead, he tried to focus only on staying alive long enough to be far, far away when the disease took him. He didn’t want to risk infecting others or falling where circling buzzards might draw human scavengers who would steal his clothes and weapons and risk carrying away something far more deadly. He needed to die where no one would ever find him, somewhere the desert sun could dry and purify his flesh and the wind could scatter his dust over the sterile ground where nothing grew and everything perished and was forgotten.
He travelled for nearly four hours before the fever struck. The heat had been building for some time, though it was hard to tell how much of it was coming from the sun and how much from him. He was in the scant shade of a low, dry wadi, keeping the hot wind away from his horse, when his skin started to prickle as if biting insects were suddenly swarming all over him. At the same time a sensation welled up inside him like a feeling of uncontrollable grief. Despite his efforts to put her from his mind he had been thinking about Liv, picturing her face, the green of her eyes and how her hair had spread bright and golden over the pillow the last time he had seen her, sleeping in the sick bay. This sadness of leaving her, fuelled by the fever, now spilled out of him and tears rolled through the dry dust on his cheeks. He raised a shaking hand to wipe his face and it came away bloody.
A blight – the monk from the Citadel had called it – a strong smell of oranges followed by a sudden and violent nosebleed.
It’s over, he thought, with something close to relief. Now I can lie down.
He steered his horse to an overhang that formed a small oasis of shadow amid the blinding white. This was it, the place his whole life had been heading towards, this dark nook that looked like a vertical grave.
This was where he would die.
