When I was done talking, DuBois sat quietly, digesting what I’d told him. After several minutes, he cleared his throat and turned to me. “You know I work for?”
“I’ve got a pretty good idea. I’m a Taurus, myself.”
Dubois smiled and nodded. “Have you heard what’s happened to our organization?”
“I know about the bombing, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
Dibble shook his head solemnly. “The bombing was just the final blow. CAPRICORN has been effectively destroyed.”
“What do you mean?”
The waitress interrupted us. Dubois ordered another beer, and I asked for bourbon. I figured I could talk young man into buying my drink. When the waitress walked off, Dubois took a deep breath and continued in a quiet voice. “How much you know about CAPRICORN?”
I shrugged. “Not much. From what I understand, you guys do what you can to put hate groups out of business.”
Dubois nodded. “I joined CAPRICORN just over a year ago. I was a reader. My job was to read certain publications and find discriminatory references. Whenever I did, I’d pass the information up the ladder. If the top people felt like it was worth looking into, they’d send out agents to determine whether or not there was a major threat involved. If the discrimination was linked to a certain group or corporation, we’d send an agent to infiltrate. If there was a real problem, CAPRICORN’s goal was to bring down whoever it was, thereby limiting or eliminating their power and influence.”
Dubois paused. I nodded to show I was following him, and he went on. “I was never an agent, but I did move up from my position as a reader. My new job was in resource allocation. It required a security clearance and dealt with prepping agents who’d been assigned to infiltrate organizations. Our department would fix up the agents with everything they’d need, and then we’d receive reports from the agents and pass them along to the higher ups. It was while I was in resource allocation that I first found out what was happening.”
The waitress returned with our drinks. I didn’t even need to ask, as Dubois handed her a ten. I thanked my young friend and took a swallow of bourbon.
“You were saying that something was happening.”
Dubois took a quick sip of beer. “Our agents were being taken out, one by one.
Overnight. Within the space of a month, practically all the reports had quit coming in.
We sent out recons to find out what had happened, and then they started disappearing.
After six weeks, 90 per cent of CAPRICORNs personneI was dead or missing.
CAPRICORN just didn’t operate in the US… it was worldwide. We had thousands of agents, from Moscow to Santiago. Now, as far as we knew, only those of us in the home office were left. There was a meeting the day before the bombing, and everyone who attend was given final orders. I don’t know what kind of orders the others got, but mine were to meet Colonel O’Brien here and get a package from him.
“How was the Colonel involved with CAPRICORN?”
“I’m not sure. He could’ve been on the Supervising Committee. We never knew any of the committee members names.”
“Any idea what was supposed to be in the package?”
Dubois shook his head. “No. And he was going to tell me what to do with the package when he gave it to me.”
I sat back and let Dubois take a drink. So, the Colonel had a package. That would explain what his killer had been looking for. But he hadn’t found it, at least not in the Colonel’s office. And the police hadn’t found anything. Where was it? A thought occurred to me. I pulled the blue index card from my coat and handed it to Dubois. “This mean anything to you?”
DuBois looked the card over carefully, sounding out the letters and numbers silently.
After a minute, he handed it back. “It doesn’t mean anything to me. What is it?”
“Hell if I know. I got it anonymously in the mail. I think it might be related somehow to his disappearance. I figured it might be a code, like the one I broke to find you.”
Dubois shook his head. “CAPRICORN usually kept communications direct. If that wasn’t possible, we’d use messages in newspaper personal ads.”
I nodded and took another sip of bourbon. Another question popped into my head.
“What do you know about something called the Winter Chip?”
Dubois almost choked on his beer. He set the glass down and wiped his mouth. His voice fell to a hoarse whisper. “How do you know about the Winter Chip?”
“The Colonel said something about it on the disc I recovered from his office. I think it was what his attacker was looking for. Maybe the Winter Chip was going to be in the package the Colonel was supposed to deliver.”
Dubois was silent for some time. With some resolve, he turned back to me. “Look, I don’t know that much about all this, but, since you know about the Winter Chip, I’ll tell you what I do know.”
I stuck an unlit cigarette between my lips and motioned for him to continue.
“Some of the most accomplished computer scientists in the world were working on some top secret project for CAPRICORN. I only heard rumours, but apparently they were working on something they called the Winter Chip. I don’t know what it was, or what its purpose was. I can only tell you that it supposedly had something to do with our fight against the Crusade for Genetic Purity. Working in the Resource Allocation department, I knew that we’d sent dozens of agents to infiltrate the crusade. Word was, one of the agents had gotten in early and worked himself into a high position. I don’t know if he was rooted out with the other agents, but my job was to get the package from the Colonel and leave it some place where this undercover agent could pick it up. What he was going to do with it, I don’t know.”
I looked at my cigarette. It had burned halfway down without me taking a single drag.
“You have no idea who this agent is?”
“I don’t. But I did find out something about the mole, as we called him. He’d been undercover for months before I got promoted. Just after I started work at my new position, the higher-ups requested that all of the mole’s reports be sent directly to them.
But I did get a peek at one report before the order came down. It mentioned something about a plan being developed in the Crusade, some sort of eugenic cleansing that would be used to destroy the Mutants. I also remember reading something about Reverend Sheppard. The agents said that Sheppard wasn’t the real leader of the Crusade, that it was someone known as Phoenix. There was also a reference to a Chameleon. The only other name mentioned was a professor. Perriman. I think that was the name.”
I pulled the Colonel’s small notebook out of my pocket and jotted down the names Phoenix, Chameleon, and Professor Perriman. When I finished, I glanced at Dubois.
“So, what do you do now?”
Dubois shook his head and looked into his beer. “I don’t know. I haven’t been able to sleep since the bombing. I want to go back to LA and see if any others survived, but I’m afraid if I do, someone’ll find me and I’ll disappear, just like the agents.“He looked up, hopefully. “What do you think I should do?”
I’d been in some dangerous spots before, but had never run for my life, so I couldn’t really empathize with him. He was terrified, and probably with good reason.
“Do you have any family?”
“Yeah. Back in Des Moines. My mom and sister live there.”
The mention of kinfolk seemed to calm Dubois. It seemed like a trip home would be just the thing.