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Fouad could not get the dead woman’s expression of slack horror out of his thoughts. How she had suffered. Muslims killing innocents again. At least it was to be assumed the guilty ones were Muslims. He leaned his head back against the bulkhead of the Superhawk’s cabin. The soft roar of the engines and the wind had permeated his entire body.

Outside, day had faded to night. The cockpit was lit with red, green, and white, and the pilots’ helmeted heads made little bobbing motions. Beside him Fergus was asleep. Riding with them back to Incirlik, Harris stared fixedly at the port in the emergency access hatch across from him as if sighting on a distant star. Master Sergeant carried his rifle like a baby in the crook of his arm. The crew was forward, leaning over their gear or lost behind thick helmets and goggles, surveying the terrain.

Fouad shut his eyes. He opened them to see a radiance in the cabin. The sun was rising in the southeast. Had he slept so long? No, the light had a brilliant pearl gray cast—spooky, all wrong. Not the sun.

‘What the fuck?’ Master Sergeant said. He shouted forward, ‘We got flares?’

The glow lingered, pulsing, then slowly died through a spectrum of greens, oranges, reds, and finally dull brown.

‘That was no flare,’ the crew chief shouted.

‘What was it? Where?’ Master Sergeant unbuckled and stepped forward to the cockpit door, tapping his headphones
with a scowl. ‘Satlinks are out. I’m not getting anything.’

‘We’re going to set down for a spell,’ the co-pilot announced.

‘Why?’ Harris shouted forward.

‘That was a nuke,’ the captain said. ‘A couple hundred klicks away, but definitely a nuke. This chopper is hardened but ITAR rules say we land after any strike. There’s overcast ahead at angels three, so I’m taking her down now.’ ITAR referred to the Iranian Tactical Area of Responsibility.

‘We’re still over the mountains,’ Master Sergeant said. ‘Extreme washboard down there.’

Fergus looked at Fouad, then at Harris. ‘Best guess?’ he asked.

‘Someone took out Shahabad Kord,’ Harris said.

‘Northern Zone, Iran,’ Fouad murmured. He had been studying the maps earlier. His father had taught him to always know where you were going and what you might find there.

‘That’s nuts,’ Master Sergeant said. ‘Who would do that? Israel?’

‘Shahabad Kord has—or had—some intermediate birds on standby,’ Fergus said. ‘Shahab 7s.’

Shahab. Shooting star.

‘Iran’s been using them as a last-ditch bargaining chip. Could be Israel, could be NATO.’ Harris looked both shaken and disgusted. ‘Only a matter of time. Lucky us. We just saw history being made.’

The Superhawk descended at a steep angle. Again, the rotor blades were making that growling steel-drum sound. Fouad could hardly believe what was happening, what he was being told.

Muslims are roasting in nuclear fire.

He felt his stomach leap and pressed his lips together. He could taste the sour acid in his mouth. It made the backs of his teeth feel rough.

‘Hang on,’ the pilot called back. ‘Anyone have a Michelin guide? How about finding us a nice hotel with a big parking lot, some shish-kabob and cold beer?’

Fouad closed his eyes and inclined his head to pray.

Rebecca Rose again insisted on driving. William Griffin sat quietly, trying to appear relaxed with hands gripping one knee. Early morning traffic was light as they headed south.

The Federal Detention Center rose dusky gold in the early morning light, a wedge of two pale angled monoliths atop split arcs of brown concrete brick. To William the facility looked like a huge piece of chocolate cake topped by twin Lego slabs. ‘Kind of pretty, don’t you think?’ he asked as they passed under an ornate radius wall, into the shadow of the imposing wedge.

‘I’ve never seen a pretty prison,’ Rebecca said.

They passed their credentials through narrow openings in thick security glass and were shown into twenty feet of curving arches mounted with sensors and interrupted by sampling stations. They were subjected to sniffers, iris-scanned, fingerprinted, gave a little blood, and then opened their mouths for a buccal cell swab. These details were tested, logged, and checked against an unspecified number of federal criminal and citizen databases.

Ten years before, most federal prisons had become supersensitive about the political, viral, and bacterial loads of their inmates. All visitors—even sworn peace officers—had to undergo biota exams along with the security checks. Some prison wardens saw their facilities as ecological preserves—pathogen restriction was as important to them as any other form of safekeeping.

‘You both test negative for HIV, HCV, HPV, PhD., and DDT,’ the chief of security told them. ‘But you should have taken care of that parking ticket,’ he said to William.

‘I was sixteen,’ William said.

‘Hey, we’re on your side,’ Rebecca snapped.

‘Sure. Agent Griffin, you appear to have an open case before the OPR. We have some concern that you are truly an active duty agent, as specified in your signed affidavit.’

‘I’ll vouch for him. And I’ll take back my slate, if you’d like me to make a few calls…’

‘We’re just being extra careful. Our farm kids are attracting a lot of attention. You’re lucky to even see them.’

‘We live in an age of cooperation, right?’ Rebecca asked. She took William’s shoulder and pulled him through the metal swing gates and then left into the waiting room. Their visitor escort arrived ten minutes later, a beefy Latina with large somber eyes and little to say or be cheerful about. She also was not impressed that they were FBI. The Latina took them deep, through two more glass-and-steel checkpoints, and introduced them to a young guard with spiky white hair and tattoos on his hands.

‘Warden Deiterly extends his greetings,’ the tattooed guard said, reading from a digital slate and then cross-referencing with a clipboard. ‘We can access you to only one prisoner, Jeremiah Jedediah Chambers. Your requested pregnant female, Hagar Rachel Chambers, has been transferred to a medical facility for treatment. You have until eight a.m. U.S. Marshals will pick up Chambers at nine. He will then no longer be a guest of SeaTac FDC.’

‘Who’s taking custody? And where are they taking him?’ Rebecca asked.

‘ATF, I believe,’ the white-blond answered. ‘Maybe BDI. We can’t reveal destinations. You probably know that.’

‘No claim by the FBI?’

‘Not that I can see,’ the white-blond said, referring to his clipboard.

‘Has he asked for an attorney?’

‘Not yet. He’s a bumpkin. But we like to extend all due civil rights to our prisoners, even the idiots, so he’s been assigned a VC—virtual counsel. We call our VC Max Detention. You don’t have to pay him much mind.’

He opened the door to the interview room.

‘We’d better give this our best shot,’ Rebecca murmured as the door closed and locked behind them. ‘I don’t think News expected to lose them so soon.’

‘Lose them?’

‘If you haven’t noticed,’ Rebecca said, ‘we’re in the thick of a free-for-all turf war.’ They sat at the rectangular table.

Jeremiah Chambers stood at the inmate door and was buzzed in. Two guards accompanied him. One of the guards touched a remote control and an old faded plasma display swung down from the ceiling to the right of the table. Chambers was shackled to the single chair across the table. His hair had been cut to a thin shag and he was dressed in brilliant orange jail togs. He wore slippers but no shoes. There were cuts on his face—from their encounter, William assumed. Chambers immediately lay his head on the table and closed his eyes. One guard gripped his shoulder and squeezed, hard. Chambers flinched but did not sit straight.

The screen switched on. They saw a backdrop of a bookcase filled with law books. A dark-suited figure faded in over the bookcase.

‘Is this the virtual counsel?’ Rebecca asked.

‘Yes, ma’am. You have two-way with the VC,’ the whiteblond said. ‘I’ll be sitting in on this session.’

‘No objection,’ Rebecca said.

At his nod, the escorts departed. The guard patted the screen with mock affection. ‘Max is better than some of the live ones.’

The virtual counsel appeared to be about forty-five years old and prosperous. His eyes had a discerning expression and he exuded reassurance and confidence. ‘My provisional client is facing charges relating to an assault on two FBI agents. He has been denied bail as a material witness before the Federal Internal Security Court.’

‘I did not know that,’ Rebecca said. ‘Thank you.’ To William, she said, ‘BDI again, and probably Secret Service.’

The VA continued. ‘A protest against his transfer into secret federal custody has automatically been placed before the state intermediary security court in Olympia. Other charges, open and secret, may be pending. I advise my provisional client to answer no questions relating to these matters until a human attorney is present and the pending charges to which I am not privy have been made clear to that attorney.’ The VC sat back with a look of deep concern.

‘He’s done,’ the guard explained. ‘He doesn’t usually say much after the first outburst.’

William was appalled by this expedient but kept his face blank.

Jeremiah let loose with a sad jailhouse laugh. ‘He’s a ghost. I have no rights.’

‘If you don’t remember us, you should,’ Rebecca said. ‘You and your step-mom tried to kill us. This is William Griffin. His father is the agent who shot your father.’

Rebecca now had Jeremiah’s complete attention. He sat up and placed his shackled hands on the table. His eyes bore into William’s.

‘William’s father was killed in the bomb blast,’ Rebecca added, with a sidelong glance, King’s X. ‘So you two have a lot in common.’

Jeremiah shuffled his hands together. ‘Like picking weeds and killing bugs. I make myself a big pile of bugs,’ he pinched and dropped one on an imaginary pile, ‘and I don’t care which ear of corn they chewed on. They’re all dead.’

‘Well, we’re not dead, Jeremiah. You may have tried to be a stone cold killer, but I think all you really wanted was to talk, not to commit murder. You wanted to tell your side of the story. That’s why I’m here this morning. William is here because you screwed up and busted into the wrong room.’

Jeremiah knit his brows. ‘You don’t know anything about me.’

‘But some of the things you said in that motel room—’

‘All conversations in this room are being recorded,’ the virtual counsel said. ‘If we are referring to the scene of an alleged altercation, my provisional client should remain silent.’

‘We’re not in court, Jeremiah,’ Rebecca said. ‘This is off the record, for now.’

‘I advise my client that nothing said in this room is off the record,’ the VC commented.

‘They put drugs in the food,’ Jeremiah said. ‘All the cells are bugged. They strung wires through the cement when they laid the walls and floors. Microphones and cameras everywhere. That’s what I’ve been told.’

The VC flickered but added nothing.

‘I was just curious—’ Rebecca said.

‘How does it feel?’ Jeremiah interrupted. He had not taken his eyes off William. ‘My daddy was my whole world. He left behind sons and daughters and grandchildren—he had four wives, you know—his flock…He was our Abraham. You can’t know what our life was like, how good it was. We lived in the presence of a true man of God. Some said my father
was
God.’

‘My father was a hardnose,’ William said. ‘Sometimes he made my life hell.’

A film fell over Jeremiah’s gaze and he glanced to one side. ‘We just want to be left alone.’

‘My father beat me when I didn’t meet his standards,’ William said. That was mostly not true, but he was following Rebecca’s lead.

‘I advise my assignee not to discuss any alleged beatings,’ the VC said.

Jeremiah lifted his eyes. ‘Your father’s dead, that’s fine. One more bug.’ He looked at William with slit-eyed curiosity. ‘Don’t you want to put your hands around my neck and chicken-choke me? What kind of family—’

‘Why did Chambers make you leave? Why didn’t he let you stay on the farm?’ Rebecca asked.

‘My father never really trusted me with anything important,’ William said.

Rebecca folded her hands, interested in the developing tension.

‘Well, that’s sad,’ Jeremiah said, with a remarkably believable tone of wisdom and pity. ‘My father was a fair man. His rules was hard but we got praise when we did good.’

‘Who came to see your father at the farm?’

‘Sheep seeking fodder,’ Jeremiah said. ‘Pilgrims.’

Rebecca opened her small folder and pulled out a picture of an inkjet printer. ‘Who brought these to the farm?’

Jeremiah looked at the picture. His eyes cleared and his lips thinned.

‘Someone came to the farm and gave some of these to your father,’ Rebecca prodded.

‘We was printing up flyers. I was learning to set up a print shop.’

‘Good job skills, great for getting work in the outside world,’ Rebecca said. ‘But you don’t care about the outside. How often did these people visit?’

Jeremiah chuckled. ‘They stood in line. We shooed them like flies. You don’t know nothing.’

‘There was only one,’ Rebecca said.

Jeremiah stared into a corner.

‘He brought bags of yeast,’ Rebecca said. ‘And the stuff to make fireworks.’

‘We packed fireworks. We sold them like Indians.’

‘Why put yeast in the fireworks?’ Rebecca asked.

Jeremiah cocked his head and winked at William. ‘She’s doing all the talking.’

William folded his arms. ‘She does the hard work. I listen.’

Rebecca passed William a quick smirk. ‘Jeremiah, why did you spread yeast all over the farm?’

‘Alleged yeast,’ the virtual counsel said.

‘We did a lot of baking,’ Jeremiah said.

‘Did you bake with the yeast that the visitor brought?’

Jeremiah shook his head and leaned forward, shackles singing against the table. ‘I’m glad your daddy’s dead. I hope your brothers and sisters are all sobbin’ their guts out.’

‘I’m an only child. Your father didn’t trust you, did he?’ William shot back. ‘He didn’t trust you to defend the farm, so he sent you away. Why was that?’

‘He loved us. He loved his children. God told him he had been discovered, and that soon all the minions of Federales Satanus would be on us. We didn’t want to leave, but we obeyed his plan.’

‘Well, it’s over now and I thought you should know,’ Rebecca said. ‘Your visitor—the man who brought the printers—was an undercover FBI agent. We sent him to the farm and he sold your father a bill of goods. You are such rubes. The FBI convinced you to do useless work and then got you on a terrorism rap. Sweet.’ Rebecca leaned forward. ‘Do you know what a sting is, Jeremiah? Your father fell for it. And now, all of you are heading deep into the Federal Internal Security System—and none of us are ever going to hear about you again. No headlines, no trials, no appeals. You’re goddamned for sure.’

For a second, naked fear played over Jeremiah’s face. William almost felt sorry for him. ‘The yeast was just a test,’ Jeremiah said, struggling to keep control. ‘We did not pack
yeast.
The sheep died, didn’t they?’

‘Would you like me to bring our agent into this room? I
can make a phone call and have him here tomorrow. Right now, he’s in Florida, on a well-deserved vacation. Would you even recognize him? I don’t believe you ever met him.’

‘I won’t be here,’ Jeremiah said, eyes going to the barred door.

‘Did your father let you in on those discussions?’ William piled on. ‘Did he trust you?’

‘We all was there, for different meetings,’ Jeremiah insisted.

‘Convince me. Tell us what he looked like. Maybe then we’ll believe you,’ William said. Rebecca pinched his knee, hard: he had gone too far, too fast. But it worked.

‘He was a tall guy. Taller than you.’ He pointed at William.

‘A
tall
guy, Jeremiah? That’s it?’ Rebecca asked, contemptuous.

‘Blond hair. Dirty blond, sun streaks, not like this
freak.
’ He rattled his shackles at the guard. ‘He wore jeans and boots. I…I don’t remember any more, but I
was
there!’

‘Tell us if there was something distinctive about him, Jeremiah,’ Rebecca ventured. ‘If you can’t tell us what he looked like, we know your daddy didn’t trust you.’

The young man’s face worked into a frown of concentration, then anguish, as if a fish were about to slip from his hands. ‘One eye blue, one eye green,’ he cried out. ‘I was
there.
’

Rebecca did not let up. She hammered. ‘What did you think you could accomplish—something big, something that would change the world? What in hell kind of story is that? You’re just a bunch of rubes, raised like farm animals—how in hell could you hope to
hurt
us?’

‘We was being trained! I was learning networks, to set up the printers when they came, and some of us was learning how to pack explosives and make fireworks. We packed boxes and boxes of them. We been packing them for a year now. Enough bugs to kill all the Jews in a big city. Where are all those boxes now, huh? You tell me that!’

‘Packing them with
anthrax
, Jeremiah?’ Rebecca asked, eyes wide, mouth open in disbelief.

Jeremiah sat back smiling.

‘Is that what you were told?’ Rebecca asked.

He put on a nasty, sly look. ‘The sheep died. You’ll learn.’