Face, The (22 page)

Renee

B
y the next morning, Sarah seems to have moved past her anxiety about the MRI. She comes into our makeshift therapy room and drops into a chair, tucking one leg under the other.

“Don’t have too much time this morning,” she says, her hand moving to turn the freestanding mirror away from her face. “Mr. Traut’s breathing down my neck about adjustments to this project I’m working on.”

“Then let’s not waste any time.” I open the program I’ve installed and pull up several photographs.

“Social researchers,” I begin, “have identified seven universal emotions and corresponding facial expressions. I’m going to show you photographs of people exhibiting those emotions. Your job is easy—just tell me what emotion the person in the photo is displaying.”

Sarah shrugs. “Doesn’t sound too hard.”

“Trust me, it’s easier than computer programming.”

I tap a picture on my computer and send it to her monitor. “What do you think about the man on the far right? What emotion is he expressing?”

The photo, a black-and-white candid, was snapped during a tavern brawl—probably during the seventies, if the clothing and hairstyles are reliable indicators. The man on the far right is striding forward, his hands fisted, his teeth bared in an un-smiling grimace. His eyes are nearly closed, and his brows are lowered.

Sarah studies the picture. “I can see all his teeth,” she says, “so he must be excited about something. So…maybe he’s excited about going to a party. Right?”

I make a note on my notepad:
Limited recognition of anger.
“Let’s look at the next shot.” I click the second image on my screen and send Sarah a picture of a young woman cowering in a closet. The girl’s eyes are wide, and the corners of her mouth are pulled back into a fearful grimace.

“She’s hiding,” Sarah says, “and her eyes are wide. So she must have been startled when the door opened.”

“That’s possible.” I tap the tip of my pencil on my notepad. “But a startle is more of a reflex than an emotion.”

“Then she’s surprised,” Sarah says, her voice matter-of-fact. “She’s surprised to be discovered in her hiding place.”

I make another note on my pad:
Patient does not recognize fear…does she feel it?

I tap my pencil against my chin. “Living here must be one surprise after another. After all, with injured spies and government big shots landing at a moment’s notice—doesn’t all this cloak-and-dagger stuff ever frighten you?”

She blinks at me. “Why should it?”

I falter in the silence. “Well…if I knew that a—”

“I
don’t
know,” she interrupts, “unless I need to know, and I don’t need to know about most of the things that go on upstairs. Dr. Mewton handles everything in the medical ward.”

Of course she does.

I draw a deep breath. “Maybe I wouldn’t strictly need to know, but if I lived here I’d be constantly asking questions. With so much going on, how could I not be curious?”

The corner of Sarah’s mouth twists. “Curiosity…isn’t that what killed the cat?”

“Well. Yes. Let’s move on.”

I send her a picture of a teenage girl holding a plate of worms. The girl’s nose is crinkled, her upper lip slightly raised, and her eyelids relaxed, not tense.

“Disgusting,” Sarah says, and I’m not sure if she’s talking about the worms or the girl’s expression. Since the expression is one of disgust, however, I give her credit for the answer.

The fourth photo is a well-known image from 1972, taken when Vietnamese officials released several American prisoners of war. This photo shows a soldier walking toward his family. We can’t see his expression, but we can see the faces of his son, daughters, and wife. All three wear broad smiles, and the first daughter has her arms spread wide in greeting.

“They’re happy,” Sarah says. “They’ve missed their father.”

Something in her tone tears at my heart.

“How about this one?” I click on the photo of a smiling female tennis champion who is leaping in the air, arms raised, to celebrate her victory.

“She’s angry,” Sarah says. “She’s about to run over and hit someone with her stick.”

I peer more closely at the image. The racket is tilted and the picture one-dimensional, so perhaps the racket does resemble a stick. “Are you sure she’s angry?”

Sarah crosses her arms. “I see teeth.”

“Some people show their teeth when they smile.”

“Not that many.”

Okay…
Subject does not recognize jubilation.

I show her a photo of a grief-stricken woman cradling the body of her lifeless child.

“She’s sad,” Sarah says. “She’s crying.”

I show her a photo of Richard Nixon the day he left office—his lips are curved in a smile, but his eyelids are tight and not a single tooth is showing.

“He’s…” Sarah hesitates. “I think he’s just smelled something bad.”

I snort softly. “That’s apt. Can you put a word to the emotion?”

Sarah studies the picture again. “He’s definitely not happy. Do you know this man?”

“That’s Richard Nixon, our thirty-seventh President. He was forced to resign during the Watergate scandal.”

“Oh.” She looks at the picture with renewed interest. “I remember reading about him for my history course.”

“I lived through it—but I don’t remember much, because I was a toddler at the time.” I exit the computer program and watch my photos fade away. “That’s it. Our little test is finished.”

“Did I pass?” Her voice is dry.

“You did better than I expected. But we still need to do some work.”

“If that’s as hard as it gets, this therapy will be a breeze.” Sarah stands and pauses at the edge of the table. “I’ll be going, unless Dr. Kollman needs to see me.”

“He didn’t mention anything, so you can go on to the operations room. I wouldn’t want your boss to think we’re not doing our part to keep the world safe for democracy.”

I am finishing up my notes when Dr. Kollman steps into the room. “How’d our girl do today?”

I lower my pen. “Our girl has just confirmed that she is deficient in three abilities—recognizing universal facial expressions, making those expressions, and feeling the emotions behind those expressions. The art of communicating with a face is a three-pronged approach that most of us take for granted. Instead of three solid prongs, Sarah is operating with three little stubs.”

Dr. Kollman’s eyes narrow in thought. “Prognosis?”

“Excellent, because she seems eager to learn. I can teach her to read faces, and we can begin to work on manipulating the facial muscles she has. The emotions themselves will come in time—they’re a natural by-product of the process.”

He leans on the edge of the table. “Good. She’s a nice kid, and
nice
isn’t a word I’d apply to most of the people who come through this place. Half of them are crazy or completely paranoid by the time they arrive here. Too many years of living in alias, too much lying to their friends and family. After I fix ’em up, the lucky ones get transferred to another assignment. The smart ones go home and quietly retire. The majority, though, are loners, so they return to the field. The strain of living a double life means that one life—usually the real one—ends up in the trash bin.”

I listen with rising dismay, wondering if that’s how Kevin felt in those last few months. I can’t help him now, but I can make sure his daughter doesn’t find herself in the same position. “Sarah’s been protected from having to live a life of deception—once you get past the fact that she’s living in a place that’s anything but a convent. But even in her case, protection has come at a price.”

“How can it be otherwise?” The surgeon drops into the chair Sarah vacated a few minutes ago. “She grows up with Glenda Mewton, who’s not exactly nurturing, if you know what I mean. Nearly everyone in this place is transient, so she forms few friendships and meets no other children. The people she does meet are either crazy, maimed, or transferred before too long.”

“Don’t forget paranoid,” I add. “I keep feeling that the plaster is listening to every word I say.”

Dr. Kollman laughs. “True. Information doesn’t exactly flow around here. At the convent, if you don’t
need
to know, you don’t
get
to know. All that had to affect Sarah while she was growing up.”

I drop my chin onto my hand. I haven’t thought much about Sarah’s immersion in the CIA mind-set, but the man has a point. Since these people work for a top secret agency, they can only talk freely with other agency people…while they treat everyone else with suspicion. How normal is that?

“Dr. Kollman—”

“I asked you to call me Vincent.”

“All right. Vincent.” I meet his gaze. “Why are you being so open with me?”

He smiles, setting a dimple free to wink in his left cheek. “If I were trying to charm you, I would say it’s because I feel completely comfortable with you.”

“Since you’re
not
trying to charm me?”

“Who says I’m not?”

“You wouldn’t do it on company time…unless you simply couldn’t help yourself.” I lift my pencil and point to the surveillance camera discreetly tucked into the corner of the ceiling. “Mama is watching.”

The dimple winks again. “Then I could say I’m being open because we’re partners in the same project. Sarah is within her rights to ask for the agency’s help, but altruism is not their only motivation for helping her. Certain people are also interested in the outcome of her procedure. Face transplants, after all, could be a foolproof way to defeat facial recognition technology.”

“Always putting the company first,” I whisper, my thoughts drifting again to Kevin. “My brother must have been a company man to the bone. Two days after his wife died in childbirth, he went on a mission for the CIA.”

Kollman shifts in his seat and eyes me with a calculating expression. “Where did you hear that?”

“Why? Do you know something different?”

He shakes his head in a barely perceptible movement. “Need-to-know, remember? I don’t know anything about your brother, but I can tell you this—don’t trust anything you don’t read in an official file.”

“And where would I read an official file?”

He gives me an apologetic smile. “That, my dear, I don’t know.”

Sarah

F
or more than two months, I’ve been using my alternate operating system to troll the Internet as a script-kiddie, one of the thousands of unsophisticated young hackers who test random IP addresses for weaknesses. But I’m not unsophisticated, and the IP addresses I’m pinging aren’t exactly random.

In my calculatedly haphazard search, I’ve discovered that CIA servers forty-six through fifty are stored at a server farm in London—an arrangement, I suspect, much like the agreement that supports the covert work of Echelon, a classified program that allows five English-speaking nations to monitor electronic communications. Since the United States has no authority to spy on its own citizens, the nations involved in Echelon have reportedly entered an arrangement that allows them to monitor the other nations’ phone calls, faxes, and e-mails.

For all I know, the Brits could be storing some of their top secret information at the Lincoln Memorial or the Washington Monument. What does it matter? All I care about is my father’s file, which I have finally located.

The British server farm holds primary and backup servers allocated to a single task. Server forty-seven, therefore, exists in two places. I only need access to one.

As the quiet of evening steals over the convent, I say goodnight to Judson, Aunt Renee, and Dr. Kollman, who has joined us for a game of cards after dinner. Pleading a stomachache, I hurry up the stairs, close the door to my apartment, and enter the server farm’s network.

Once I’m inside server forty-seven, I type
ls
and wait for the contents of the directory. The command
setfacl
allows me to modify the access control list, so I grant myself permission to continue unimpeded. Finally, I type
locate Kevin Sims,
knowing the command will list any file in the archived database containing my father’s name.

Two file names appear on my screen. I open the first and am about to skim the contents when my speech processor picks up a strange sound—the
whompa-whompa-whompa
of whirling chopper blades.

I glance at the clock—11:30 p.m. Too late for ordinary activity, so something unusual is afoot. I hesitate, not sure whether I should print or save the file, then decide to close it and log off. Printing or saving would leave an electronic trail I don’t have time to cover.

When the secondary OS has shut down, I stand and peer out my window, but I can’t see anything but the star-filled sky. So I go to my door, open it, and look into the hallway. No one stirs in the shadows, no light burns in Dr. Mewton’s office or the conference room.

The chopper must be transporting an injured officer or asset. This medical emergency has nothing to do with me, but I can’t help thinking about what Aunt Renee said earlier. Why am I not more curious about the things that go on around here?

Since no one is moving on the second floor, I slip into the hallway and tiptoe to the stairwell, then tilt my head and listen for sounds from above. I hear voices, and they are enough to entice me up the stairs.

I reach the landing and see no one, but the door to room 335 is ajar. I push on it, expecting someone within to slam it shut at any moment, but the door swings slowly on its hinges, allowing a stream of light into the padded room.

It’s empty. Hightower has vanished.

I turn, about to tiptoe back down the stairs, and nearly bump into Dr. Mewton, who stands behind me in a bloodstained surgical gown, cap, and soft-soled shoes.

“Oh! Dr. M. You startled me.”

She frowns at me. “What are you doing up here?”

“I heard the chopper. I was…curious.”

She frowns and takes a deep breath as her gaze drifts toward room 335. “He—” she points to the empty room “—suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm. We had to bring a neurosurgeon from the mainland.”

“But Dr. Kollman’s here.”

“He diagnosed the problem and recommended the neurosurgeon. We’ve done the best we can, but I don’t think Hightower’s going to make it.” She swallows hard and points toward the stairwell. “It’s not something you need to worry about, so go downstairs. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

But I know we won’t.

Even as I walk back to my room and climb into bed, I know we won’t ever mention Hightower again. Dr. M has already told me more than she would have if she weren’t tired and stressed. If Hightower recovers his cognitive functions, she’ll send him to a facility where he can be useful and content. If he dies, she’ll have room 335 cleaned and set aside the knowledge that our enemy destroyed a wonderful man’s brain. Life will go on at the convent, and people who don’t need to know about our tragedies never will.

In all my dealings with the officer, I never learned the man’s real name.

I wake before sunrise and stare into the lamp-lit gloom, trying to pin down the startling thought that slashed my sleep like a knife. Hightower? I’m still sad about his condition, but no, it was something else….
My father’s file.

I spring out of bed, grateful for the early hour. Mr. Traut keeps demanding further progress on the Gutenberg program, but these predawn hours are not his. They belong to me.

I log on to the network and enter the rehash command. If anyone wonders what I was doing on the computer at this early hour, they’ll think insomnia drove me to take care of computer maintenance. While the system is recomputing the internal hash table of my directories’ contents, I open my secondary operating system and hack into the London server farm again. Within five minutes I’m back at server forty-seven and opening my father’s file. It’s encrypted, but one of my decryption programs makes short work of decoding the twenty-year-old report.

I am startled when a familiar word leaps out of the text:
Saluda.
Before reading another paragraph, I walk across the room and lock my door, then return to my computer.

The information here is rudimentary, but it’s far more than I’ve ever been given. According to the record, Kevin Sims joined the CIA in 1979 and trained for two years. He served in several stateside positions, but in 1985, shortly after his marriage, he was assigned as a NOC to the Crescent Chemical Company in Valencia, Spain. While working under nonofficial cover, he was tasked with aiding the DEA in monitoring Saluda, one of two Spanish pharmaceutical firms authorized to cultivate opium poppies to produce narcotic raw materials, or NRM.

I glance toward my locked door when I think I hear footsteps in the hall. I wait, half expecting to hear a knock or a voice, but the only sound is the faint whistle of my own quickened breathing. I’m not wearing my speech processor, so I’m probably imagining things.

I return to reading. Saluda used the NRM to produce CPSM, or concentrate of poppy straw rich in morphine. The production of Morphine, Codeine, Methadone, Demerol, and Vicodin is a legitimate enterprise, but heroin is a combination of morphine and acetic acid. DEA officials suspected that Adolfo Rios, president of Saluda, was trafficking in heroin and using his company as cover.

My mouth goes dry as I continue reading. While living in alias, my father was tasked with offering a formula for a more addictive heroin to a Saluda contact. On July 1, 1986, he met with his contact and explained his formula. On July 5, he was to meet the contact again and provide a sample of the drug. He was also supposed to tag the contact’s vehicle with a tracking device. After the meet, DEA agents were planning to follow the contact, find the heroin processing plant, and expose Saluda’s underground operation.

I was born—and my mother died—on July 3.

My father, who had to have been distracted with grief and worry, went to Valencia on July 5, but didn’t check in with his handler after the meet. Neither, apparently, did he plant the tracking device on his contact.

On March 7 Kevin Sims’s car was discovered nose-down in a gorge outside Valencia, his body sprawled across the shattered windshield. After learning of my mother’s death, local police investigators ruled my father’s death a suicide.

Though the investigation into my father’s death has been closed, Saluda is still under investigation and Adolfo Rios remains at the head of the firm.

My mind shifts abruptly to Judson, whose scarred body lies in the next room. He was investigating Saluda when he was tortured and left for dead. Hightower is only the latest in a string of officers who have sacrificed their lives in our efforts to stop this drug lord. Who will be next?

I glance out the window, where a faint glow on the horizon signals the sun’s approach. Jud will wake soon, and Dr. Mewton, and my aunt. Do any of them know the truth about what happened to my father?

I shut down my connection to the server farm and cross to my dresser. I slip my speech processor behind my ear and power on the device, then creep to the door, half expecting to hear the sound of breathing from the other side. All is silent…until I hear the groan of aging plumbing in the walls. Judson’s awake.

I give him a minute to finish whatever he was doing in the bathroom, then step into the hall and rap on his door. “Jud?”

“Sarah?” His voice is muffled.

“Can I speak to you?”

I hear the creak of the leather in his wheelchair and the click of the latch. The door opens and he leans toward me. “You’re up early.”

I bend to whisper in his ear. “We have to talk. But not here.”

He lifts a brow and grins. “Meet you outside, then. In twenty minutes.”

A loud wind howls in my earpiece as I stride across the graveyard. Judson is already waiting by the wall. He lifts his head as I approach, and I know he recognizes me by the sound of my steps on the gravel.

“Is this about the choppers last night?” he says.

I stop and shove my hands into my pockets. “I know about the medical emergency. I heard the team arrive.”

“Choppers coming and going all night,” Jud says, scrubbing his head with his knuckles. “Last one arrived at four and woke me up. I’m betting it was Traut.”

My stomach drops. “Traut’s here?”

“I thought that’s why you wanted to talk.”

I shake my head. “No, it’s something else. Did you know my father was working on the Saluda case when he was killed?”

Judson releases a low whistle. “What was that—twenty years ago?”

“Twenty-one. I’d like you to fill me in. Everything you know about the organization.”

“Wait.” His brows flicker above his closed eyes. “Why do you want to know?”

“Doesn’t a girl have a right to know about her father?”

“I suppose she does.” He draws a deep breath and opens his hands. “I don’t know that any of this is going to help you understand what happened to your dad. Okay…we know Adolfo Rios is manufacturing illegal drugs and using Saluda as a cover, but no one’s been able to find his manufacturing plants or uncover any proof of his operation. Twenty years ago, his black market op focused on heroin, but these days he’s into other chemical concoctions—powerful drugs that are far more dangerous.”

I sit on the stone bench. “Dangerous…how?”

“Dangerous enough to fry your brain. Think about Hightower. We don’t know what happened, but I’d say Adolfo Rios got wind of what he was up to.”

“Who were his contacts? Besides Espinosa, I mean.”

The corner of Jud’s mouth pulls downward. What kind of expression is that?

“Mewton would kill me if she knew I was telling you this.”

“Why? It’s not like I’m going to tell anyone.”

“It’s classified.”

“But we’re partners. Besides, I’ve been involved in the Saluda investigation. The more I know, the more I can help.”

Jud blows out his cheeks. “Remember the op where Hightower first met Espinosa? For over a year the bookkeeper fed us paperwork—details about Rios’s income, production profits, shipments and destinations. We were expecting great things, but none of it was useful. Saluda was moving a lot of poppy products, but all of it was legit.”

“Hightower must have been ready to strangle the little twerp.”

“The feeling was mutual. Espinosa kept demanding cash and a visa; Hightower wouldn’t give him anything more than pin money until he got something worthwhile. So last May, Espinosa promised details on the development of a new drug. I had Hightower wired—everything went according to plan. Espinosa gave Hightower an envelope, Hightower gave him a package with ten thousand U.S. dollars and the promise of another ten thousand if the information paid off. Espinosa walked away and Hightower went to his apartment. But on the way, he’s talking to me on coms and he suddenly cuts out. I send an officer to check on him. Ten minutes later, he finds Hightower curled up and hiding behind a garbage can, shivering like a baby and scared spitless.”

“And that’s when Hightower arrived here.”

“Yeah, you saw him. He never recovered. And we haven’t been able to figure out how Saluda got to our man.”

“Wait a minute—we went upstairs together. You were surprised to see Hightower in room 335.”

He shakes his head. “I was hoping to find him in a bed, not in a padded room.”

“So you know—you
knew
—what happened to him?”