Huygens opened his mouth as if to retort, but Barris cleared his throat; the other man shut up. McLaughlin remained quiet, a forefinger curled contemplatively around his chin as he listened. “What Mr. Huygens means is that we now have a suspect,” the colonel said as he opened a desk drawer and pulled out a thick file folder. “What we have to do is catch him …”
He opened the folder, unclipped an eight-by-ten photo from a sheaf of paper, and slid it across the desk. I recognized the face as soon as I picked up the picture: the distinguished-looking gentleman with the gray Vandyke beard I had spotted at the Tiptree Corporation reception.
“You may have seen him when you visited my company this morning,” McLaughlin said. “His name’s Richard Payson-Smith. He’s a senior research scientist at Tiptree … one of the top people behind our Sentinel R amp;D program, in fact.”
“Born 1967 in Glasgow, Scotland,” Barris continued, reading from the dossier. “Received his B.S. from the University of Glasgow, then immigrated to the United States in 1987, where he went on to receive both his master’s degree and Ph.D. from the University of California-Irvine. After he became a naturalized citizen he went to work for DARPA at Los Alamos, where he was involved with various research projects until 2003, when he was recruited by Tiptree to head up a skunk-works team involved with the Sentinel program.”
He paused, then looked at McLaughlin. The executive picked up the ball. “At this juncture, Mr. Rosen,” McLaughlin said slowly, “we’re about to walk out onto thin ice. We need to discuss matters with you that are classified Top Secret, and I have to know for certain that you will not discuss any of these secrets outside this room.”
I opened my mouth to object, but he half-closed his eyes and held up his hand. “I know, I know. You’re a reporter, so you’re not in the habit of keeping secrets, nor did you ask to be involved in any of this. But we’re in a bind, and we need to have your full cooperation, so much so that the colonel simply doesn’t have time to ask the FBI to run a background check on you. Therefore, I have to ask you to sign something before we can go any further.”
Barris reached into his desk again, rifled through some papers, and produced a three-page document. “This is a secrecy pledge,” McLaughlin went on as Barris handed it across the desk to me. “In short, it says that you will not divulge to any third party any classified information that has been confided to you. Once you’ve signed it, you could be arrested under federal law for various felony charges-possibly including high treason-if you reveal anything that’s said in this room.”
I glanced through the document; as much as I could make out the single-spaced legalese, it was as McLaughlin said. The minimum penalty for airing out Uncle Sam’s dirty laundry was ten years in the pen and a fine so harsh I would never pay it off by stamping out license plates in Leavenworth.
“Sounds pretty stiff, Mr. McLaughlin.” I dropped the pledge back on Barris’s desk. “What makes you think I’d want to sign anything like this?”
Barris shrugged. “For one thing, it’ll get us a little closer to nailing the guy who killed John Tiernan,” he said. “That should mean something to you. Second, it’ll help you get your belongings returned. And third, once this whole affair is said and done, you’ll be the one reporter in town who has the inside story … within certain limitations, of course.”
“Uh-huh. And what happens if I don’t sign?”
The colonel smiled and said nothing. Farrentino stared at me, his face dark and utterly serious. Huygens pulled his hands out of his pockets, folded his arms across his chest, and studied me like an alley cat contemplating a small mouse it had just cornered. McLaughlin simply waited for me to add two and two together.
If there’s anything I’ve learned in life, it’s how to take a hint.
Now I knew the reasons why they had arrested me without charges, hustled me in here in handcuffs, and allowed me to see a group of prisoners being herded down to underground cells beneath the stadium. They had wanted to show me the true value of my life. These men could make me disappear without so much as a ripple if I refused to play their game. It was like the old saw about some guy asking his lawyer what his negotiating position should be. “Bending over,” the lawyer says.
It was midnight, and if I didn’t say or do the right thing, I’d never see the sun again.
After a moment, Barris picked up a pen from his desk and, without saying a word, held it out to me. I hesitated, then took the pen from his hand, laid the document flat on his desk, and signed on the dotted line at the bottom of the third page. I wonder if Faust had felt the same way.
“You’ve done the right thing, Gerry,” Huygens said. “For once you’re playing with the right team.”
“Yeah,” I whispered under my breath. “Call me when we make the playoffs.”
McLaughlin probably heard me, but he didn’t say anything. When I was through signing my pact with the devil, Barris accepted it from me. He studied my signature for a second, then slipped it into the drawer and slammed it shut.
“Thank you, Mr. Rosen,” he said as he cupped his hands together. “You may not believe it now, but you have done the right thing. For this your country is grateful.”
McLaughlin reached across the desk to pick up the glass snowball; he shook it a couple of times, then held it upright in his hand as he watched the tiny blizzard swirl around the miniature Gateway Arch.
“And now,” he said, “it’s time to tell you about Ruby Fulcrum.”
12
(Friday, 12:52 A.M.)
When the meeting was over, Mike Farrentino escorted me out of the Stadium Club. We didn’t say anything to each other while we rode the elevator down to the ground level, and once we had cleared the guarded front foyer I turned to walk away from the stadium.
“Hey, Rosen!” he called out. “Wait up a minute!”
I turned back around, hands shoved in the pockets of my jacket, and waited for him to walk over to me. “Need a lift back to your place?” he asked. “I got my car parked over here.”
“No thanks,” I said. “I’ll hoof it. It’s not far.” Nor was a ride necessary. Barris had assured me that I now had safe conduct on the streets after curfew, so long as I played by his rules. He had given me a laminated plastic card before I left and told me to carry it on my person at all times; it was printed with the ERA logo, and Barris told me if I was stopped or questioned by an ERA patrol, I was to show them the card. Sort of like getting a hall pass from the principal.
The plaza was almost empty now, save for a few troopers manning the barricades. Most of the LAVs I had seen earlier had vanished, presumably off patrolling various parts of the city. The downtown area somehow looked very peacefuclass="underline" no traffic on the streets, no city noises, only the faint twitter of night birds in the branches of the elm trees, abruptly broken by the low moan of an Apache coming in for a landing within the stadium walls.
Farrentino looked up at the chopper as it flew low overhead. “How much of that do you believe?” he asked in a soft voice, casting a glance at the ERA soldier standing guard near the Stadium Club entrance. “I mean, how much of that was bullshit or what?”
I hesitated. I had my opinions, but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to trust them to a cop. “I don’t know, Lieutenant,” I said carefully. “You’re the one who’s been investigating this mess, so you tell me.”
“Mike,” he said. “My friends call me Mike-”
“And so I’m your friend now, huh, Mike?” I looked him straight in the eye. “Most of my friends wouldn’t have my door kicked down and have me dragged off in the middle of the night.”
“Whoa, fella. Chill off.” He held his hands up defensively. “The colonel ordered the raid, not me. I simply reported that the evidence bag had been tampered with and that the disk was missing and that you were the most likely suspect. He was the one who sent in the goon squad …”