“Hello, Simon,” Art said, feeling out of sorts offering a greeting to someone whose parents had just been brutally killed. He felt Anne’s grip on his hand increase. It was her ‘You’re doing fine’ touch. “It’s nice to meet you.”
“It’s nice to meet Simon.” He did not close the scant distance to Dr. Anne.
“Simon, Art is my…very good friend.” Anne waited for a reaction, hoped that he would make the connection himself. A few seconds passed before he pulled his cards out and turned to the one marked FRIENDS. Then he waited, pen in hand.
“What’s he doing?” Art asked.
“Tell him your name,” Anne prompted.
Art hesitated for an awkward few seconds then said, “My name is Art, Simon.”
“Dr. Anne is my friend.” The pen clicked and hovered over the card. “There was a loud noise.”
“I know,” Art said. He felt himself drawn to Simon, and took a step closer.
Simon’s eyes flashed over him, then, with the pen gripped intensely in his right hand he wrote ART in the space below DOKTR AN.
“What does that mean?” Art asked, looking back to Anne. She was smiling over tears.
“It means he trusts you.”
Chapter Five
The Bell Curve
G. Nicholas Kudrow usually paused only long enough at his secretary’s desk to grab the morning’s briefs, but her look this day stopped him cold.
“Mr. Folger is in there,” Sharon said, her expression hinting at the futile battle that had been fought and lost not long before.
“So he is,” Kudrow said, seeming not very surprised as he took the briefs in hand and entered his office.
Brad Folger, in an uncharacteristic three-piece gray number, sat in a chair facing Kudrow’s neat desk, his back to the door, the Lichtenstein staring down at him. “What time did they wake you up?”
Kudrow let the door close of its own accord and walked around his assistant. He placed his briefs where he would remember them in a few minutes and set his briefcase aside his desk. He did not sit. “At four this morning. And you?”
“I’ve been fucking awake since two!” Folger swore, his crossed legs and folded hands incongruous with the rage on his tired face.
Kudrow adjusted his glasses and moved his chair close before sitting. “You managed a shave.”
“A shave…” Folger’s posture loosened now, and he slid close to the desk, leaning toward Kudrow. “Are you fucking brain dead?”
“Watch it,” Kudrow snapped.
Folger fell back in mock apology. “Oh, pardon moi. I forgot — I wasn’t the one who brought Mike Bell in.”
“This wasn’t the plan.”
“You bring Bell in and you expected a plan to be followed?” Folger challenged.
“He fit the requirements. I didn’t know his weaknesses like you did.”
“Exactly why I was called in at two!”
“Ease up, Bradley,” Kudrow suggested with a coolness that hinted at waning patience.
“You knew he’d be linked to me,” Folger said.
“They came to my house,” Kudrow informed his deputy.
“Poor fucking Nick,” Folger said, standing angrily and showing Kudrow his back as he seethed.
Kudrow sensed the tantrum was over and let his deputy’s emotion simmer away while he began perusing the morning briefs.
Folger turned back to the sound of shuffling paper. “Nick, why didn’t you ask me about Bell? You knew I was the one that had him booted when I was in O.”
Nothing interesting from the stations in the Caribbean. “You answered your own question, Brad. What would you have told me?”
“Just what you think.”
“Next question.” Some tidbits, interestingly enough, from Chile. Traffic from the Russian Antarctic station to home. Ozone measurements. Surprise, the hole isn’t that big on their instruments either.
“Wonderful,” Folger commented through a dry throat. He felt parched, and like he’d stepped from the real world to some horrid parallel universe created a few days earlier by one stupid phone call. “So what did they ask you?”
“They asked me about you,” Kudrow said, hiding the pleasure, and power, he felt in doing so. He saved Europe for later. No one could figure that continent out before noon.
“Wonderful,” Folger repeated. He began pacing in the path worn by Kudrow.
“At least he died with his screw up,” Kudrow said. “And I can assure you things will be quite different now.”
Folger slowed, his feet taking a second to catch up with his brain, which had been frozen mid-thought by the statement. “Things? What things? You’re not going on with this?”
“If you will recall, Brad, as a Deputy Director I have authority to initiate investigations as needed to ensure the security of our product.” Kudrow noted the incredulous, gaping stare directed at him. “Or are you too frazzled to remember that? Do you need the day to recompose yourself?”
“You’re going to do it.”
“We are going to find out what we can about this kid who made the call. Right now we don’t know much, not even if your old O buddy learned anything before he died.”
My old O buddy. Folger looked away.
“All we know for sure is that the kid is staying with his doctor.”
“Why does he need a doctor?” Folger asked, the timbre sucked from his voice, replaced by a tired hollowness.
“He’s autistic.” Kudrow nodded when his assistant looked his way. “An interesting spin, wouldn’t you say.”
Folger chuckled weakly and rubbed his eyes. “An interesting spin. Yeah, that’s the way to look at it.”
Kudrow folded his hands slowly on his desk. “Maybe you need more than a day, Brad.”
Folger felt the threat slide by. His concern was elsewhere. “You know, Nick, if they know who Bell is, or was, this will go beyond the local police.”
“It already has.”
“I’m not talking about our security.”
Kudrow let his assistant’s worry die slowly without response. “The beauty of a rogue is that it explains itself eventually.”
“You hope,” Folger said.
Kudrow said nothing and returned to the morning briefs. Somewhere during the silence Folger left his office. When the door clicked shut, G. Nicholas Kudrow’s eyes came up and fixed on it for a long time.
Friday, noon, and Art Jefferson was already exhausted. He pressed his hands against his face and yawned hard. When he pulled them away, Lomax was standing in the doorway, mild smile twisted by the prominent scar on his cheek.
“You could scare children, you know.”
Lomax nodded and came in. “Only when I need to.” He plopped into the small couch across the office. “You look as whipped as I feel.”
“The nights have been rough.”
“How’s he doing?”
Art shrugged. “I don’t know. You ask him and he just repeats the question. All I know for sure is that he hardly sleeps. He stands and rocks most of the night until he’s so tired he drops off.”
“That’s a hell of a thing to deal with,” Lomax observed. “Sometimes I wonder if God dreamed these things up on a bad day.”
“That would explain it.”
Lomax moved from the couch to a chair near the desk. “How’s Anne holding up?”
Art breathed deeply. “She’s doing it somehow. The University gave her some time so she could deal with Simon. That helps.”