Part 9 (1/2)
”Gosh, I wouldn't be able to venture a guess,” Don said. A small lie; he'd seen Noonan's name on the manifests and felt a twinge of curiosity regarding the man's presence on an involved, if pedestrian, feasibility study.
”Have you met Dr. Herman Strauss? Old evil German scientist, did big things at R&D for the company back during the height of the Red Scare-became Herr Director, in fact. There's the secret to how we won World War Two-our n.a.z.i scientists were better than their n.a.z.i scientists.”
”Er, no. Should I know him?”
”Hah, well, maybe. Mrs. Miller interviewed him for her first book. The interview got edited for content or length, or whatever. Very interesting fellow, Herman Strauss. Specialized in mind control and unorthodox applications of medicine and technology. Heh, if he hadn't gotten press-ganged by the Allies, he'd probably be sipping mint juleps on one of those plantations in South America.”
Mr. Claxton tried next. ”Hey, ever hear of a physicist named Nelson Cooye? Great big Lakota Indian. Chummy with Plimpton. He did research for Caltech, Stanford, MIT. A real stallion for an egghead.”
”Never met him,” Don said, trying to picture Cooye. He had the unhappy premonition that the guy was famous and something bad had happened to him and that somehow this terrible thing presaged something equally dreadful for Don himself. He recalled a newspaper photo, two and a half inches of print, rumors of uncontrollable violence, of public tirades. He didn't normally keep track of physicists.
”Ah.” Mr. Claxton nodded. ”But you hearda Cooye. Rather a renowned figure among the radical elements, the lunatic fringe. He was buddies with that one dude, Tos.h.i.+ Ryoko, guy that made a movie about his expeditions in the Far East. Another cla.s.sic, lemme say. I heard a rumor he's in the planning stages for a trip to some deathtrap of a wildlife preserve in Bangladesh. Bet he gets a n.o.bel if he can find backers.”
”Oh, Tos.h.i.+,” Don said. Everybody in the civilized world knew of Tos.h.i.+ Ryoko the same way everybody knew of Jacques Cousteau or Dian Fossey. ”Did something blow up in his doc.u.mentary?”
”No. It's about an expedition, is all. Nothing to do with the price of tea in China. Anyhoo, Cooye was a smidge wacko; a saucer watcher. Got himself and a few radical kids from Stanford arrested for trespa.s.sing on a government research facility in Nevada. Nothing important there, by the way-it's the thought that counts.”
”Yeah, I don't recall. Who do you gentlemen work for? FBI? CIA?”
”CIA doesn't operate on American soil,” Mr. Claxton said. ”That's the line, anyhow. National Security Agency.”
”Uh-huh. Y'know, my grandfather always warned me to never talk to spooks.”
”Yep, he was a smart guy, your gramps. We'll get to him. Back to Cooye. He rolled in a teeny Volkswagen. Can you imagine this six-eight dude jamming himself into one a those contraptions? Went off the road near Eureka. Burned up on the rocks.”
”When?”
”About six weeks ago. Sad, sad, y'know. Wonder what he was thinking about on the way down.”
”The highway patrol couldn't locate the body,” Mr. Dart said. ”Cops say he was thrown from the wreck and taken out to sea.”
”Yep, like a commode flus.h.i.+ng.” Mr. Claxton mimed pulling a chain. ”There's a bore tide along that stretch of coast. No way they'll ever find him unless he washes up somewhere, which I doubt. But on to the good parts: Plimpton,” and here the agent gestured to encompa.s.s the party being thrown in the dead man's honor, ”and Cooye moonlighted for the CIA during the '60s. Cooye was a few years younger than you. CIA likes'em young and dumb. Your granddad knew Cooye pretty well, like a grandson, in fact; we're confident Luther handled him during his tour in Bali. Course this is speculation-the company boys don't play nice. But we're betting Luther was the control. Small, small world, ain't it.”
Don hadn't given the matter much thought since he was a kid-it was simply a dab of color in the magnificent canvas of his grandfather's larger-than-life persona, a childhood fascination stowed in the trunk where such dusty recollections languish. ”I never met Cooye, despite the fact you say he was close to my grandfather. Granddad didn't work for the CIA. The bra.s.s forced him out years before the company or the NSA even formed.”
”He worked for Army Intelligence. Same diff.”
”He was old, decrepit. Died not long ago... 1977.
”1977, there's an excellent year.”
”For some, I guess.”
”Well, three years, you should be done with the grieving and on with the spending of that inheritance loot. Old bird had a few bills stuffed under the mattress, I'd bet my left nut on that.” Mr. Dart grinned when he said it, like he was relating a dirty joke. ”This leads to the next piece of the puzzle and how your wife was Plimpton's star pupil and all those mysterious vacations they took together.”
”I'll thank you to consider very carefully what you say about my wife.” Don loosened his tie and turned slightly sideways. His hands flexed, loosened, flexed.
The agents exchanged a glance. ”Don't get crazy, Miller,” Mr. Claxton said.
”Let's see some ID,” Don said, and that also hit him with a powerful sensation of deja vu. He glimpsed, a shadow in his mind's eye, some rough men laughing, then wearing devilish masks while the fires of h.e.l.l burned away the darkness. He swayed as the room dilated and contracted.
”h.e.l.l, man. We're undercover. We don't carry badges undercover.”
”Hey,” Mr. Dart said, ”I'm curious-you ever ask yourself what the connection is between the Wolvertons, Rourkes, and Mocks? Other than big fortunes?”
”You gotta include the Redfields too,” Mr. Claxton said. ”Although, I don't know how deep that goes.”
”Let me think...They all live in Olympia?” Don said. ”The Mocks aren't moneyed.”
”Oh, come on,” Mr. Dart said. ”Those old b.i.t.c.hes are sitting on millions. Besides, I said it isn't just the money. And Plimpton mixed with them. His line was almost as mind-numbingly boring as yours. How did he fit in? Look at these clowns-they drove hundreds of miles to this joint in Timbuktu to pay homage to a lab jockey. Not like the guy did anything s.e.xy-no n.o.bel, no famous dino discovery, no Einsteinian breakthroughs on the true nature of reality...he always just plugged along researching the mundane stuff that only excites other lab jockeys and review boards. Odd, huh?”
”Wake up, Miller,” Mr. Claxton said. ”We're watching out for you. Something's rotten in Olympia and these rich a.s.sholes are in cahoots.”
”Cahoots?” Don blinked and tried to wrap his mind around the notion. ”You mean like spies and Deep Throat? Cloak and dagger? Commie moles?”
Mr. Dart smiled. ”Everybody knows who the commie moles are. You see them in small-town obituaries all the time.”
”Think worse,” Mr. Claxton said. ”Think bigger.”
”I don't know what my grandfather was into,” Don said. A half lie-that Granddad and Dad had done dirty business of the U.S. of A. was implicit in their very nature, the artifacts they'd left behind. He'd heard of the secret government black lists, and not only the kind McCarthy reserved for the un-American Activities Committee. Oh, no; the FBI kept tabs on all kinds of people from environmental activists to Pinko college professors to subversive authors and reformed hippies. Thus, in a way, given his relatives' exotic background, and the company Mich.e.l.le had kept over the years, he wasn't entirely surprised to occasionally encounter federal law enforcement types sniffing around like jackals on the scent of blood. His family had surely collected enemies.
”Here's the inside scoop. Plimpton committed suicide,” Mr. Dart said. ”The coroner's report is a dummy.”
”Baloney. Lou had a heart attack.”
”Wrong, my friend,” Mr. Claxton said. ”Any idea why the good doctor would want to off himself?”
”I wasn't close to the man. I don't believe you, though.”
”That's okay, Miller. Your wife might have an answer.”
”Sure. She'd be the one to ask.”
”We're not allowed to speak with her,” Mr. Claxton said. ”She's an untouchable.”
”You can't talk to my wife?”
”Nope, indeed we cannot. It's a real pain in the a.s.s.”
”She's in the parlor, last I noticed. Not a hard lady to find...” Don trailed off, belatedly noting how serious Frick and Frack were.
”Don't you get it, Miller?”
”He doesn't.”
”This is what we're trying to make you understand. Mich.e.l.le Mock isn't...How shall I put it delicately?” Mr. Dart paused and stroked his chin. ”She's got powerful friends. I don't often run across people blessed with the kind of friends as these. You?” He nodded to Mr. Claxton.
Mr. Claxton said, ”I've shot at potentates who aren't as secure as your woman. Truth be told, this whole visit is unauthorized. Our superiors would have our guts for garters if they knew we were here gathering intelligence. Spying on Mrs. Miller. Warning you.”
”That's why we decided to pay our respects and get to know you, Mr. Miller. Of all these splendid folks you're the only one who isn't protected by the forces of darkness. The only one who's in a vulnerable position.”