Ground Zero (The X-Files) (15 page)
“So what will you do with yourself now, Ms. Thorne?”
Scully asked. “Does your group give you a reference to find a job someplace else?”
Becka Thorne blinked at Scully with her huge brown eyes.
“No, I’ll just work for the new group. I follow the protesters. Whatever cause they’ve got is fine with me. They’re all interesting. And everybody’s 129
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got a point, as far as I can see. Can’t trust anybody these days, you know—especially not the government. Uh, no offense to you.”
Scully smiled. “I think my partner might agree with you.”
Becka Thorne gave a quick smile, then wiped the perspiration off her forehead. “Well, send your partner down here then. We always need new recruits for our work.”
Scully had to keep herself from laughing. “I think he’s too preoccupied for that—on this case, for instance.” She finally succeeded in getting back to the point. “We really need to talk to Miriel Bremen. Do you know how we can get in touch with her?”
The receptionist looked at Scully carefully. “She didn’t leave a phone number, if that’s what you’re after—but mostly likely she’s gone to the islands, or something. When her conscience gets too bad, she sometimes goes off on these pilgrimages. She even went to Nagasaki once, another time to Pearl Harbor. Who knows where else? She’s a pretty private person, our Miriel.”
Scully furrowed her brow. “So she’s somewhere in ‘the islands,’ but you have no idea where she might have gone?
Jamaica? Tahiti? New Zealand?”
Becka shrugged. “Look, Miss FBI—Miriel was in one hell of a hurry to get out of here. Came in last Friday afternoon and told us we were done—done. Just like that. She was turning over the lease, and the rest of us were on our own.
“Oh, she thanked us for our efforts and told us to use her as a reference if we ever needed it—as if a big company would pay the slightest bit of attention to a reference from someone like Miriel Bremen! She’s just lucky most of us have our own connections with the protest groups around here. We’re not going to starve.”
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Scully handed Becka a business card. “If you learn where she is, Ms. Thorne, or if you get in touch with her, have her call me at this number. I think she’ll be willing to talk to me.”
“If you say so,” the receptionist said. “We need to get back to work now. The environmental group wants to hold a rally this Saturday, and they’ve got flyers to go up on all the kiosks and light posts. We’ve got about a thousand phone calls to make. No rest around here. I sure wish
I
could go to the islands for a vacation.”
Scully thanked her again and then left, climbing the concrete stairs to street level. She was deeply troubled. First Dr. Gregory had been killed in his office, and then Bear Dooley and his team had suddenly pulled up stakes and fled to the Pacific to set up their secret test, and now Miriel Bremen, former member of the Bright Anvil Project and outspoken radical protester against the test itself, had also left abruptly, heading out for “the islands.”
Could it be a coincidence? Scully didn’t like coincidences. And how did old Oscar McCarron fit in?
The pieces of the puzzle seemed too widely separated, yet connected by invisible threads. Scully just had to feel around until she found the connections that bound the mystery together. She and Mulder would just have to keep looking. The truth was out there. Somewhere.
131
Scheck Residence, Gaithersburg, Maryland Monday, 6:30 P.M.
Late afternoon in the Washington, D.C., area, hot and humid. The air hung as thick as a damp rag. Brooding thunderheads in the sky promised only an oppressive increase to the mugginess, rather than a refreshing and cooling rain shower. On days like this, Nancy Scheck felt that the hassle of maintaining an in-ground swimming pool in her fenced backyard paid off.
She let the front screen door close by itself as she entered her brick-front house with the black shutters. Flowering dogwoods and a thick, well-trimmed hedge surrounded its white colonial pillars. It was just the kind of imposing mansion an important Department of Energy executive was supposed to own, and she relished it.
Since she had been divorced for ten years and her three children were all grown and away at college, 132
GROUND ZERO
the place gave her plenty of room to breathe, space to move about. She enjoyed the freedom, the luxury. Such a mansion was far more than she needed, but Nancy Scheck didn’t like the implications of settling for a more modest dwelling, not now. All her career she had been concerned with moving
up
in the world, clawing her way to the top. Exchanging an impressive big house for a smaller one did not fit in with the plan.
She dumped her briefcase on the small Ethan Allen telephone table in the front hall, then shucked out of her stifling business jacket. Her entire career had been inside the Beltway, and she was used to dressing in conservative formal outfits and uncomfortable pantyhose. At her level, such items were just as much of a required uniform as the quaint outfit a teenager wore behind the counter of a fast-food restaurant. At the moment, though, Nancy couldn’t wait to peel off her clothes, get into her sleek black one-piece swimsuit, and take a long, luxurious dip in the pool. She snagged the usual pile of mail and dropped it unceremoniously on the kitchen counter. She punched the answering machine to listen to the two recorded messages. The first was an offer from a company eager to come and give her a free, noobligation quote for aluminum siding. She snorted. “Aluminum siding on my house? I think not.”
The second message was in a rich, familiar voice. The words sounded formal and innocuous, but she could detect the hidden passion behind them that went orders of magnitude beyond a mere business relationship…or even good friendship.
In her persona at work and at DOE social functions, she called him “Brigadier General Matthew
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Bradoukis.” During his frequent visits here in her backyard or on the patio, she allowed herself to call him “Matthew”—and while they were in bed, she moaned endearing and never-to-be-repeated names into his ear. He didn’t identify himself on the answering machine, not that he needed to. “It’s me. I’m a little late at the office so I won’t be over until seven-thirty or so. I’m going to stop by my house and pick up the two Porterhouse steaks I’ve been marinating in the fridge all day. We’ll throw them on the barbecue grill, then we can take a swim and…whatever. With so many parts of the project coming to a
head
, reaching their
climax
—”
Nancy giggled, knowing he had picked the turn of phrase intentionally. She found it very erotic.
“—we both need a little release from our tension.” The tone beeped, and the tape rewound.
In her bedroom, she shed her clothes and, smiling to herself, she yanked down the satin sheets on her bed before changing into her bathing suit, black and smooth and slick. She admired herself in the mirror. At forty-five she knew she wasn’t as gorgeous or sexy as she might have been at twenty-five, but she had a body that stood out above most other women her age. She kept in shape. She dressed well. She exercised, and she had retained her appetite in sexual pleasures. Her hair was short and neatly trimmed. Luckily, blondes didn’t become gray—instead they turned “ash.”
Nancy grabbed one of the plush beach towels from the closet and went through the kitchen, pausing to pour herself a gin and tonic. She swished the alcohol and mixer around with the ice, making it good and cold. No sense not getting the buzz started before Matthew got here. He would fix his own drink when he arrived.
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With the towel slung over her shoulder, Nancy took the mail and her drink out the back patio door to sit by the pool. She pulled a chaise lounge up to her small patio table, then went to turn on the bug lights. The mosquitoes and gnats never relented, especially not near sunset. Finally, she picked up the pool skimmer and swept the net around the surface of the water, removing the drowned bugs and the leaves that had fallen from the neighbors’ trees. When the blue water sparkled clean and inviting, she returned to her shaded chair. Nancy settled back to relax, sipping the strong drink, tasting the tonic and the Tanqueray that burned along the back of her throat and into her sinuses. She imagined the taste of the rich steaks Matthew would soon be cooking. She could imagine the salty sweet flavor of his kisses as their breath mingled.
She squirmed in anticipation on the lounge chair, then ran her hands over the swimsuit.
It was so good to have a man whose security clearance was as high as her own, someone who worked on the same classified project, who knew about the money skimmed off the operating budgets of other programs, leaving no paper trail of funding. No accounting could ever be made for highly sensitive projects such as Bright Anvil. She didn’t have to worry about pillow talk when she needed conversation, since Brigadier General Matthew Bradoukis handled the Department of Defense’s operations of the new warhead concept, while she took care of the DOE
side. No worries there. He was her perfect match…for now. Nancy slicked baby oil on her bare legs and arms and shoulders, massaging it into her neck…imagining Matthew’s strong fingers working it there. She had to stop herself from thinking like that,
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or she wouldn’t be able to stand waiting until he arrived. She tried to distract herself by opening the mail, sifting through the form letters, advertising circulars, and junk mail without interest—until she came upon an express-delivery package with a postmark from Honolulu but no return address.
“Maybe I won a free trip for two,” she said, and tore open the envelope. To her disappointment, she discovered only a small glass vial of fine black ash and a scrap of paper. The message was written in neatly printed, razor-edged letters, carefully formed capitals, in a hand that showed elaborate patience.
“FOR YOUR PART IN THE FUTURE.”
She frowned at the note. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Out of curiosity, she shook the vial of black ash, holding it up to catch the light. “Am I supposed to convince people to stop smoking cigarettes?”
Nancy stood up, disgusted at somebody’s lame idea of a joke. Whoever was trying to threaten her, or pull her leg, couldn’t succeed unless she understood what the point was.
“Next time try adding a few more details,” she said, tossing the note on the patio table.
Nancy decided not to worry about it. The sun was dropping lower, though the humidity would hold the heat in the air for a long time to come. She was wasting good swimming time.
By the edge of the pool, the bug light crackled and snapped. She watched it give off blue sparks as it fed upon whatever gnats or mosquitoes had been lured to their doom in its voltage differential.
“Take that,” she said with a grin. “Hah!”
Then the other bug lamps began to spark, frying loudly, buzzing, popping. The lights flickered violently. The sparks returned like miniature lightning storms. 136
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“What is this, a June bug invasion?” Nancy said, looking around. Only the large beetles would cause the lights to sizzle so much. She wished Matthew would hurry up and get here—she wanted him to see this craziness. Finally, one by one, each bug light erupted like a small bomb, with a geyser of blue electrical sparks like a Roman candle into the air. Nancy groaned in disgust. Now they would have to waste valuable weekend time replacing the fixtures.
“What’s going on here, dammit?” Stilling holding the weird vial, Nancy slammed her drink down, somehow managing not to shatter the glass and dump ice cubes across the concrete patio. She felt unprotected and defenseless out here wearing nothing but her black bathing suit. Maybe if she could get to a phone…
Voices came at her from all sides, speaking in some strange and primal tongue, swirling invisibly around her ears—but she could see nothing.
The air itself sparkled and discharged, as if every object on her patio had become a lightning rod. Blue-white arcs shot from her lounge chair to the patio table. “Help!” she cried.
Nancy turned to run, but slipped and reached out instinctively for support. When she touched the chair, skittering electricity shot up her arms in a burning discharge. She opened her mouth to scream, and sparks danced from the fillings in her teeth. Her ash-blond hair rose up into the air like serpents, waving from side to side, spreading into a nimbus around her head.
Nancy staggered toward the edge of the pool, desperately seeking sanctuary there. Her skin crawled and burned, alive with static electricity. She dropped the vial of ashes into the water.
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A gathering storm of harsh light surrounded her. The screaming voices grew louder.
Critical mass
.
A sudden rush of thunder engulfed her.
The intense firestorm crisped her eyes. The force of the blast of heat and radiation slammed her backward into the pool with a surge of light. A cloud of vaporized water swept upward like a fog bank into the sky.
The final afterimage on Nancy Scheck’s optic nerve was of an impossible, spectral mushroom cloud. 138
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Tuesday, 1:06 P.M.
The body looked the same as the others, Mulder thought—severely charred, crackling with residual radiation, twisted in a flash-burned, insectlike pose that reminded him of that famous lithograph by Edvard Munch, “The Scream.”
Somehow, though, finding a radiation-blasted corpse in the backyard of an expensive suburban home seemed far more eerie. The mundane surroundings—swimming pool, lounge chairs, and patio furniture—gave the death scene a more frightening aspect than even the blasted bowl of glassy sand out in the New Mexico desert.
A local policeman blocked them from entering the pool area, but Mulder flashed his badge and ID. “Federal agents,”
he said. “I’m Special Agent Mulder, this is Agent Scully. We’ve been flown in to look at the site and examine the body.”
