“This can’t be who it looks like,” Anselm said firmly. “Geoffrey Kragen died twelve years ago. I was there when it happened.”
“A mis-identification”
“Possible,” Anselm looked at the picture with a sudden foreboding looming in the back of his mind.
After a moment, he closed his portable and stood up.
“Where are you going” Gwen asked sharply.
“Back to my room,” he told her. “I need to think about some things.”
“Who’s Kragen!” Gwen asked as he started to walk out, “Anselm Agent Gunnar!”
He didn’t answer, barely heard her, in fact. Anselm Gunnar had something else entirely on his mind now.
Some time later Anselm Gunnar found himself watching the thermal shimmer of the setting sun as it wavered through the plume that rose from the bore of the Tower, not really seeing the beautiful display, as his mind lay elsewhere. He’d been trying to resolve what he knew with what he was seeing on his portable and the answer wouldn’t come out in any way that he wanted.
Dr Kragan was dead. Anselm knew that, the way he knew that the sun would rise in the morning. He’d watched the man’s body being rolled from his own lab, pulled the sheet back from the body while protected by a Hazmat suit to confirm the identify, himself.
The face he saw in his dreams at night was barely human, but it had been Kragan. DNA had confirmed it, along with dental records.
So who was this Dr Krieg
Anselm shook his head, trying to work it out and failing yet again.
He didn’t believe in coincidence, that had been Anselm’s credo for years in a career where coincidence almost always seemed far too pat, to be comfortable. Nevertheless, there were times when things were the results of little more than pure chance.
This could be one of those.
However, Anselm didn’t feel that it was. He may have been biased, almost certainly was in fact. But just because you are biased doesn’t mean you’re wrong. There are often very good reasons for being bias, and if you are prejudiced based on good and real experience, then it was an excellent rule to measure things against.
So he wasn’t letting the `random chance’ card hit the table.
Not this time.
His mind said that Kragan was dead, his gut said that the man working at the Tower now was Dr Krieg. One of them was wrong, but Anselm wasn’t betting against his gut.
The Director, however, wouldn’t take his gut as decent evidence. The Employee file was a good start, but it wasn’t enough. The evidence was tainted now, useless in an investigation. She’d need more before she could act against Dr Krieg, especially since the man they believed him to be was declared dead in their own files.
It was time, then, to do what Anselm was paid to do.
Snoop.
The aging Blackhawk helicopter set down easily on the pad, its motor cutting off as the doors were flung open and the first of a group of men and women in jumpsuits jumped off, ducking under the still turning blades. A couple dozen feet away the disembarkation of the five men and women in jumpsuits was watched by two hard weathered men dressed much the same.
“Lieutenant Greene!” The lead man said, lifting his head and extending his hand as he stepped out from under the rotor wash. “Interpol. We’re on special assignment, and we need transport to Tower City.”
The higher ranked of the two soldiers standing there raised his eyebrow skeptically, “Why is Interpol sending a START unit to the Tower”
“We’re being detached as a protective detail, Major,” the Lieutenant said crisply, the whine of the rotors fading out behind them.
“Right,” the Major said dryly, “Lieutenant, do I look stupid to you”
Someone tittered behind Greene, but he studiously ignored it. Obviously the Major was playing a game here, and until he learned the name and the rules, he wasn’t going to risk antagonizing the man.
“No sir,” he responded.
It seemed like a safe answer.
The Major didn’t change his expression, “The day that Interpol feels the need to assign a START unit as bodyguards, is the day I dance naked in the outback with the tribes.”
There was another quickly smothered laugh, and Greene slashed his hands violently behind his back to shut whoever it was up.
“Major, I’m not certain what you’re talking about, but we have all appropriate clearances from the Australian Government.”
“I’m quite aware of your clearance, son,” the Major said, softening slightly. “Walk with me.”
The Major turned away, gesturing to the man at his side.
The man, a Lieutenant, stepped forward and gestured to the rest of Greene’s team. “If you’ll follow me, we’ll get you set for the last leg of your trip.”
Greene nodded to his team, then stepped off and followed the Major.
They walked off in a seemingly arbitrary direction, striding across the tarmac quickly, and were several dozen meters away from the other group before the Major spoke.
“Tell me about this problem of yours, Lieutenant.”
Greene swallowed, thinking about it. He hadn’t been specifically told not to tell anyone, but it had been made clear that his official reason for visiting Tower City was to protect the husband of Agent Somer. He hesitated only for a second, though, before making his decision. This Major clearly already knew more than the official story anyway.
“We have positive sighting of multiple terrorists on the most wanted charts inside of Tower City,” he said. “The data just came through last night confirming that at least two individuals wanted under international law are currently residing there, and our Agent on site believes that there is at least one more.”
“I see,” the Major nodded. “That was more or less what I’d been led to believe, though I wasn’t aware that you have positive confirmation.”
“Last night the photos came in, Sir,” the Lieutenant replied. “At least two employees of the Tower project are known terrorists, one of them has been presumed dead for several years.”
“Disturbing,” the major summed it up simply, then shrugged. “But what trouble can they get up to there There are no dangerous materials used by the project.”
Greene shrugged, “not my department, Major.”
The man grunted, nodding his assent.
“Alright, Lieutenant,” the Major replied. “My men and I will prepare transport for our teams.”
“Sir”
The Major smile was feral, “You didn’t think that the Special Air Service Regiment was going to let some nancy boy STARTers have all the fun right under our noses did you”
Penetrating the security of the project hospital had been a joke, pretty much as expected. Corvine knew better than to consider that a decent measure to judge the rest of the facility by. The hospital was in the public section of the tunnels that contained the Project administration, built under the immense greenhouse that stood above them.
Like everything else connected to the Tower Project, or the small city that had grown up around it, the hospital was connected to the outside world primarily through the Monorail system that serviced the entire community, though it also had a service entrance from the tower above, and a vehicle entrance for personal and emergency vehicles.
Corvine had used the monorail, however, having decided that his electric Honda CRV wasn’t going to be much of a getaway car if things went south. Or north, given that he was already about as far south as you got without packing a parka and a ski-doo.
His portable held the plans for the official tunnels, plus the ground penetrating radar readings from the satellite he’d tapped earlier, which gave him a good view of all the tunnels plus, how they connected. He used that information, displayed in vibrant technicolor, to plot his meanderings through the facility.