“C’mon, from one Boulevard Blade to another.” He then gave the secret club gesture, making a fist but with the thumb between the index and middle fingers. Hiccock could not believe Joey was actually invoking schoolyard ethics but his face softened. “Here’s my card, Bill. I’m the head of the San Francisco office now, so call me personally, please. Despite my asshole political boss, us worker bees actually do know what we’re doing, you know.”
Hiccock was about to decline, but then flashed on the fact that with his three science degrees, he didn’t know diddly-squat when it came to investigations. A lifeline to an experienced agent could be a good thing. “Deal.”
Joey smiled. “So I heard you got married … to a doctor, no less.” Hiccock took a deep swallow from his drink and proceeded to relate the ballad of Billy and the head doctor.
Three drinks later, there was a lull in the conversation. Joey fingered the edge of his glass as Bill swirled the last bit of liquor around the ice cubes.
“You’re right, you know,” Joey said. “We really blew it.”
“Forget the fact that on September 10, 2001, the whole country cared more about some congressman’s zipper than Bin Laden’s attack on the U.S.S. Cole. We stopped appreciating how good we had it and that there was someone out there who wanted to take it all away from us.”
“But we were supposed to be the guardians, the ones on watch while others slept. Hell, we got seduced too.”
“Bullshit, you got declawed, de-balled, and defanged by politically correct, political bullshit that took the war out of warrior, the police out of policeman, and the secret out of secret agent.”
“So you really think you’ll get these fuckers, Bill?”
“Think is the operative word. I’ll leave the guns and the bombs to you guys. I just want to make sure they don’t get away with this because I didn’t think, didn’t consider every possibility.”
“So is that how a brain guy fights crime?”
“Nope, that’s how a dumb guy tries to get out of something he has no right being in the middle of in the first place.”
Joey’s FBI sedan, probably borrowed right out of the Washington D.C. motor pool, was pulled around first. Bill was waiting for the valet to fetch his car when his cell phone rang.
“Mr. Hiccock, Carly Simone.”
Hiccock was glad to hear from her, but his radar was bristling a bit. “Nice to hear from you, Carly. What’s up?”
“Can I get 10 minutes tomorrow? Something’s come up and I would like to run it by you.”
“I can do that, around three maybe?”
“Fine, I‘ll be there.
“I will be too!”
His Ford Expedition pulled up. He threw the car jockey a five spot. He rolled down the driver’s side window and opened the moon roof; it had turned into a warm and clear evening. He hoped the fresh air would diminish the slight buzz he had going. He was starting to have sssssdsecond thoughts about refusing a personal car and driver. As head of a presidential commission he was entitled to one, but his blue-collar upbringing made him think it was a little too much. Then, a sobering thought crossed his mind. If the cops stopped him right now, it would mean a DWI for sure. There was little doubt Tate would make a federal case out of it. His brief career as a special investigator for the president and, to a lesser extent, a mole for Joey from Gunhill Road would be even briefer. He instinctively slowed down and put his hands at the prescribed ten and two o’clock positions on the wheel and made doubly sure he obeyed all traffic laws.
Pulling into his spot, he shut off the engine and took a deep breath. He was home safe and sound, promising himself he would never do that again. As Hiccock stepped away from the car, his head turned to the sound of a branch snapping. He was startled by a man coming toward him from the bushes. Instinctively, Bill ducked low and, extending his right leg, swept the man’s legs out from under him.
As he fell to the ground, the man protested, “Hey, what the … ahh. Owww.” Hiccock was about to stomp on his face when the “Ow” caused him to hesitate.
“Ow? What kind of mugger are you?” Bill’s fists were still poised to punch his lights out.
“I’m not a mugger. I need to speak with you.”
“Why did you jump out at me like that?” He grabbed the man’s shirt pulling him halfway up, with his arm cocked, ready to clock him, for emphasis.
“I’m not too good at all this cloak-and-dagger stuff,” the man explained nervously, his hands up protecting his face.
Bill sized him up as no real threat and extended his hand. “Here, let me help you get up there, Mr. Bond.”
“Wendell, Wendell Simmons.”
“What’s so cloak-and-dagger that you need to ambush me from my own bushes?”
Rubbing his knee, Wendell looked around. “Inside?”
Twenty minutes later, Wendell was holding a bag of frozen peas on his knee as Hiccock attempted to restore his own equilibrium with strong black coffee. Wendell was a short man who seemed better suited to be an air-conditioning and refrigeration repairman than the research scientist he claimed to be. Seated across from him, Hiccock couldn’t help but imagine this late-forty-something balding man in a blue uniform shirt with “Chuck” or some such name embroidered on it, his shirt pocket holding a dial thermometer and an AC current tester. That image faded as Wendell got deeper into his story. Was this man offering Hiccock the smoking gun evidence he needed? If so, the Intellichip explosion was indeed a case of sabotage.
“My job was to ensure the formula’s integrity as we ramped up to higher volume production runs.”
“Did you work in quality control?” Bill inquired, remembering his brief series of courses in chemical-industrial techniques.
“That was the first flag that something was amiss. I was a technician before I became a project manager. I didn’t have any latitude on the rules. I followed them because I knew they meant scientific repeatability and safety. Then, suddenly I’m meeting with the CEO, who is not a chemist I might add, asking me to fudge results.”
“And did you?”
“Most of the stuff was budgetary. But then he hit me with a doozy. He wanted me to increase the amount of suspension in the formulation originally intended for a plant in Arkansas.”
“And why was that strange?”
“That amount of suspension wasn’t necessary, because the load was being delivered in a matter of days. We suspend to decrease the possibility of unintended combustion or impurities affecting the batch during shipping.”
“So this level of suspension was better suited for something that would take how long?”
“Months — like the shipment was going real far. We had already registered the shipment with the ICC for interstate travel, but to me it seemed as though this batch was going outside the country.”
“And the amount of suspension you added to the batch in the Intellichip building should have inhibited it from exploding that night?
“Absolutely. That formulation was stable and would have remained so until the suspension was intentionally stripped at the point of delivery.”
“How would that have been done?”
“Lots of ways. Any low-boiling-point liquid would destabilize the suspension.”
“Like Freon?”
“That would do nicely.”
“That’s an incredible story,” Hiccock said as he sat back from the edge of his chair. “And you were an engineer on this project?”
Wendell nodded. “The head of the project. Thank you for not calling the cops.”
“Mr. Simmons, why are you risking so much to help?”
“Heather Simmons … you wouldn’t know her or recognize her name …” He stared down at the floor. “She was twelve, asleep, safe in her bed, when the windows … the windows imploded, that’s the term. Her carotid artery was severed. By the time I came to, she was so white … and the sheets soaked red …” He looked up at Hiccock, tears in his eyes.