“Under strict protocol with proper safeguards, little to none.”
“So what you are telling me is that everything has to work at 100 percent, the safeguards have to be 100 percent effective to get what — a level of assurance of only ‘little to none?’”
“In the breaking of every scientific boundary, a certain amount of uncertainty…”
“Bill, we’re not talking about ‘Oops, I dropped the test tube; oh look, anthrax!’ Correct me if I am wrong here, but we are talking lights out forever.”
“Joey…”
“Bill, why do we have to even go there? I mean, what’s so goddamn important about breaking this boundary, when the cost might be everything that ever was, is, and could be — including my son and Richie? What value could possibly be worth that risk?”
“Look, it’s my job and it’s your job.”
“My job? My job is to protect: protect my family, my country, and now my universe. So I am doing my job. What are you doing?”
“Hey, have you noticed it ain’t just us? The Europeans are the lead on this. I keep our interest in the game. As long as we have input, we can affect the work.”
“Can we bomb the fucking machine?”
“Joey, take it easy. Talk like that, especially in this office, is unwise.”
“Oh, but possibly making everything disappear is somehow wiser?”
“Where is this coming from?”
“I started thinking, Billy, started thinking about what we are trying to do here, stopping the guys who want to stop this machine from possibly taking us all out!”
“No, Joey, you are too good of a cop to let that get in the way. It has to be something else. Who have you been talking to?
“Are you saying I ain’t smart enough to come to this myself?”
“You should be smarter than the apocalyptic conspiracy crap you have been spewing this morning.”
“What happened to you Billy? You always were a robot, but I always saw a soul in you, although you tried hard to hide it, first from Janice and now from me.”
“My personal beliefs don’t enter into it. I am the goddamn science advisor to the whole freaking United States. I represent science, not hearsay, not rumors, not scary stories. Quantify, qualify using qualitative analysis, otherwise it’s just a supposition. That’s what I owe my kid, my wife, my country, my world and you. And I don’t need you coming in here and accusing me of being some sort of criminal.”
“Look, I always follow any order you give me, but if I think it is immoral or unethical, you are going to hear from me. And I think you are not thinking this through, Billy. I think you might be a little too pumped up on being the ‘goddamn science advisor to the whole freaking United States’ to stop and think about what you are enabling here.”
“Enough! Look Joey, this ain’t a debate and your concerns are duly noted. Now can you please get back to finding Parnell Sicard?”
“Don’t blow me off! I’m not just some low-level flunky here. I am the one who you need to get this guy, who just may be trying to stop them, by the way, from possibly destroying everything. And what I want to know is, why? Why, Bill, are we protecting this Landau Protocol, this whole evil enterprise?”
“EVIL! Are you out of your mind? What’s evil got to do with it? The church pulled that shit on Copernicus. They tarred and feathered him as evil just because he said the Earth orbits the Sun. Evil has no scientific weight. Only objectivity and evidence rule the day around here.”
“Right or wrong, Copernicus didn’t have any power. He couldn’t have destroyed everything in God’s creation in a flash.”
“Listen, pal, as of now you are off this case and as of now you are on sabbatical. Take a few days, a few weeks, hell, take a fucking year; just get your fucking head on straight before you come back to work.”
“Fine with me; I just hope we have that long.”
“Get out, just get out!” Bill pointed his fingers toward the door.
Joey threw his papers down on Bill’s desk and stormed out. He blew by Cheryl without a word. She had never seen him like that. That couldn’t be about Brooke, she thought. She looked back to Bill’s office and something told her to give him a few minutes.
Joey walked out onto Pennsylvania Avenue and hailed a cab. “Airport — no, take me to the FBI.” Looking out the window he replayed what had just happened. He wasn’t going back to Paris; he wasn’t going to work tomorrow. He was on leave. Bill could be such an asshole. As he watched a group of first graders cross the street, all tethered together, led by their teacher in front and a parent taking up the rear, he thought about his little family. He changed his destination one more time as he gave the driver his home address. Bill could stop him from working for Quarterback, but he couldn’t stop him from protecting all that he loved.
Joey Palumbo and his wife, Phyllis, had an agreement about Joey’s work. She knew that sometimes there were things he could not share due to the security of whatever operation he was involved with through the years. Even so, she was shocked when Joey’s keys rattled in the door as he called out, “Phyl? Phyl, honey, I’m home!” Little Joe got there first, “Dad! When did you get home?”
“Just now!”
“Hello, stranger,” Phyl said, smoothing her hair.
Joey looked at her and opened his arms as she filled them.
“Why didn’t you call? I look terrible.”
“You look great, babe.”
They kissed, and after a quick breakfast Joe left for school and the morning quiet, interrupted only by raucous calls of blue jays, hung there for a minute. Phyllis looked over to him. “Can you tell me about it?”
“I am going to be home for a while, but everything else is fine.”
“Okay. I won’t ask. Are you going to work today?”
“I thought I’d work from home today.”
“Okay, now I really won’t ask.” Phyllis got up and cleared the dishes.
XX. PARIS BY NIGHT
Inspector Dupré was confused. Neither Palumbo nor Burrell was returning his phone calls. He had left messages at the Embassy but he knew those weren’t worth the recycled paper they were written on. He had a solid lead on Parnell Sicard, mostly because of the intelligence that had come from this Quarterback in Washington.
No matter; the cop in him wanted to ferret out this man because he felt responsible for the possible lapse in justice over the killing of the Franciscan Friar. To Dupré, it had become personal. He was also aware that Sicard was being protected by someone up high in the French government. The Americans would have added a little more lift to his efforts to get his hands on Sicard, but they weren’t essential, not with the plan he had devised. His intercom buzzed. “Yes…”
“We are ready in five minutes, Inspector.”
“Very well, I am coming down.” He took out his desk key, opened the always-locked bottom drawer, and took out his .32 caliber pistol and slid it into his ankle holster, then clipped his service weapon’s hip holster to his belt and slid something else in his waist band. As he came around his desk, his immediate superior entered with a tall American.
“Marc, here is someone I would like to introduce you to.”
Dupré zoomed past them, not stopping to even shake hands. “Hello, nice to meet you, but I am on my way out.”
He was almost out the door when his boss said, “Pity, I thought you’d like to meet Quarterback.”
Dupré stopped dead in his tracks, turned around, and extended his hand. “Pardon, I am running late; in fact, to pick up someone you have met! Would you like to come along?”
“Sure. Bill Hiccock…”
“Marc Dupré, pleasure to meet you.”