He hit a function button on his computer to turn the sound back on from the CNN news feed. Like most people in the intelligence community he was addicted to information and the twenty-four-hour news cycle helped feed his addiction. It was also useful to keep up to date on what was being reported, just in case a breaking story compromised an ongoing investigation. The Hubble/Marshall story had yet to break. At the moment the lead story was still the freak weather sweeping the nation. He watched for a while, distracted by the novelty of seeing people building snowmen on Miami Beach and New Yorkers in shorts and T-shirts paddling and splashing around in front of the huge Christmas tree outside Rockefeller Center where the ice rink usually stood. Strange days.
He nudged the sound down a little and turned his attention back to an open file on the screen, condensing everything Agent Franklin had just told him into a few bullet points that he added to the Hubble case notes, highlighting the name Fulton Cooper. The reverend’s high-profile Christian charity work, particularly in relation to wounded servicemen and women, had turned him into something of a media favorite. He was an outspoken advocate of what he called a “new crusade,” which favored a stronger and more aggressive military, particularly in relation to non-Christian countries. It was a stance that had made him much beloved of the Republican Party, who often brought him in to lend moral weight to various antigovernment rallies whenever military spending came under review.
The tone of the newscaster shifted up a little as he introduced the next story and O’Halloran glanced up in response. The summery scenes from New York had been replaced by cold gray images of warships and sailors in black uniforms. A Chinese battle fleet had unexpectedly pulled out from around the disputed Senkaku islands in the East China Sea and headed home. The Japanese were claiming it as a victory but the Chinese, true to form, had so far refused to comment. The news anchor listed other unconfirmed rumors of further large-scale troop and military withdrawals elsewhere in the world, name-checking Syria and Somalia before the picture cut again to footage of the U.S. Air Force base at Baghram in Afghanistan. O’Halloran leaned forward, feeling the usual tightening in his gut at the mere mention of the place. It looked like someone had kicked an ant’s nest over, there was so much swarming movement. Thousands of personnel were pouring out of troop carriers and onto massive C-5 transporter planes that then lumbered into the sky. It looked like the whole U.S. presence was packing up and coming home. O’Halloran frowned. He was usually kept up to speed on stuff like this. He opened another window on his monitor and checked the internal mail, scrolling back through the military dispatches. Nothing. Maybe the news had gotten it wrong. Or maybe someone higher up had kept him out of the loop because of his personal history.
He picked up the framed photograph from the desk taken two Christmases ago, just before Michael had been posted. His son stood between him and Beth, a solid slab of a boy who towered over them both and looked like he was still in uniform even in his button-down shirt and jeans. Perhaps it was because he was tired, or that Christmas was around the corner and Michael wouldn’t be home for it, but O’Halloran felt tears drip down his cheeks and glanced up at the door, nervous that someone might come in and find the big chief weeping like a sentimental drunk. He removed his glasses and placed them on the desk, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. What the hell did it matter if anyone saw him like this, there was no one here anyway. He’d signed more leave forms over the past few weeks than he had all year and had to deny even more. It was as if everyone wanted to go home.
He stared at his wife in the picture, leaning against the boy who dwarfed her: his Beth, smiling and radiant in the midst of the family she had created. He hadn’t seen that look in a long time. It had started to slip the moment Michael shipped out to Afghanistan with his unit and he had seen it melt from her face entirely the day they got the news that he had been killed and was never coming home again. He felt a sudden tug to be with her, to hold her in the silence of the home they had built and where their son had grown up. He could easily grab a quick lunch and be back before anyone missed him.
He closed the files, logged out of the system and grabbed his jacket from over his chair. Just as he made it to the door his desk phone rang but he ignored it. He locked the door and walked away down the corridor, leaving the phone still ringing and getting quieter with every step as he headed back home.
33
The river did not rise again. It settled back down to its previous level and the dam held fast. The only visible difference was the color of the flowing water and the red residue it had left high on the banks, as though a massacre had taken place along its entire length.
Once they were sure the dam was solid and the danger was over, everyone shuffled back to the pool, exhausted and thirsty. Liv brought up the rear. She imagined what they must look like, trudging across the desert, caked in red mud like a procession of unfinished clay people, chunks of it falling off the exhausted line ahead of her, turning the sun-bleached desert a dusty pink. She reached the place where the land dropped away and saw the pool again, clear and glittering below her. All she wanted was to fall face-first into it and drink forever, but as she saw the man at the head of the line draw close to the water’s edge, she realized she could not — none of them could.
“Stop,” she called out, breaking into a shambling run. “Stop. We must not wash in the pool.” She could see irritation in the faces that turned to her. “We must not drink either, not until we are clean.”
“We must drink.” The man at the head of the line wore white driller’s overalls so splattered with red mud he looked like a butcher. He turned away and made for the water.
“Wait!” Liv ran to intercept, stepping in front of him to bar his way. “What’s your name?”
The man looked furious. “I am Kasim Barzani.”
“Kasim, I need a drink as much as you do, but after all we did to keep the pool clean we must be careful not to contaminate it.” She pulled at her shirt and a cloud of red dust shook loose and drifted to the ground.
“It is just mud. What difference will a little bit of mud make?” Kasim turned to everyone. “How do we even know the water is poisoned?” He turned back to her. “How do you know?”
Nods rippled down the line of exhausted faces. Liv could sense the thirst raging inside them. It wouldn’t take much for them to trample her into the dust in their rush to get to the water. She thought about telling them of the symbols on the stone and what she had read there but it sounded crazy even to her as she voiced it in her head. “I don’t know if the water is poisoned, not for certain. But if you are so sure it isn’t, then drink some, but not from the pool. Go drink some of the red water on the other side of the dam — then we will see if it is poisoned or not.”
Kasim’s face flushed and Liv instantly regretted losing her temper. “I’m sorry,” she said. She felt like the sun was boiling the brains in her head. She was too tired for this, and she hadn’t asked these people to follow her into the desert — but that didn’t stop her from feeling responsible for them.
“I can wash everyone,” Tariq said, stepping out of the line. All eyes turned to him. “I was working away from the dam when the surge hit.” He held out his arms to show his clothes. “I do not have so much of the red clay on me. I can clean myself with water from my canteen, then fetch more from the pool to clean the mud off everyone else.”