The Alarmists (10 page)

They spent the next half hour eating and exchanging pleasantries, with Brent noticing that the men at the next table did not eat but kept their eyes on the door and the other patrons. When last he’d eaten with Oman, the man had been alone. The presence of three hired men signified a change in status, which made Brent grateful he’d agreed to the meeting.

After a suitable time, Oman leaned back and set a hand on his stomach. “I’m assuming you did not come all this way just to share a meal with a simple trader like myself.”

Brent pushed away his plate and chuckled.

“The food is definitely good enough to have traveled so far,” he said. “And you are
much
more than a simple trader.”

Oman smiled. “Perhaps. So what can I do for you, my friend?”

“Oman, what can you tell me about Tablisi?”

As the man took in the question, Brent watched the smile drain from his face, replaced by a thoughtful expression.

“It is a city like many others in this part of the country,” Oman said. “A bit more affluent but not as far removed from Balkh as one might think.”

When he did not seem prepared to provide anything else, Brent said, “I’m interested in the fighting that occurred there a few days ago. Is there anything you can tell me about that?” He understood the ambiguousness of the question, yet he also knew that Oman knew what he wanted.

Oman’s response was to lean back in his chair, his eyes never leaving Brent’s. Then, with a shrug of his shoulders, he said, “What would I know about the politics of a distant city?”

“As I recall, you knew everything about everything when I was here last. I wouldn’t have expected that to change.” He fixed Oman with a look that recognized the other man’s superiority in these matters. “I need to know what was behind the unrest. From what I’ve been able to gather, there was no warning—nothing that signified an escalation in tribal hostilities.”

It was a fine line Brent was walking: the acknowledgment that he needed help but without coming across as weak. Weakness was not something Oman would respect. Assisting a worthy associate, however, was acceptable. Even so, the Afghan made him wait for an answer. He gestured to one of the men sitting at the next table. He whispered something in the man’s ear that sent him from the restaurant. Brent suspected it was all show but kept his silence. Then, with this interaction concluded, Oman returned his attention to Brent.

“This is a dangerous business, my friend,” Oman said. “Why are you concerned with a small disturbance in a city far from your university?”

Brent was no military operative; he had no training in extracting information from a source without revealing too much. No doubt Maddy would have been able to handle it better, but he could only work with the tools in his possession.

“Because I’m convinced that whatever is behind the incident in Tablisi is also responsible for a number of similar events around the world. I need to know what made the Pashtuns destroy the oil refinery.”

When the professor had first worked with Oman to gain an understanding of the various factions in the country, he couldn’t recall a single instance when Oman displayed hesitation or unease. Unable to discern what he now saw in the Afghan’s expression, Brent waited for the man to make himself clear, even if that meant an end to their meeting.

Instead, Oman did something unexpected. After a time during which he seemed to be weighing his options, he motioned for his associates to leave. He waited until they exited the restaurant before turning back to Brent.

“One must be careful who he trusts,” Oman said. “Even among those on his payroll.”

Brent nodded, waiting for Oman to continue. And when he did so, his words were absent much of the Afghan cultural baggage, evincing instead a Western sensibility.

“Foreign money floods into the tribes,” he said. “This would make them do whatever the providers of the money deem necessary.”

Brent sensed Maddy tensing next to him. He placed a hand on her knee beneath the table, but Oman’s eyes had already moved from the professor to the captain.

“You are military, are you not?” Oman asked. Before Maddy could respond, he added, “Your carriage bespeaks the discipline of the U.S. armed forces. And you have a gun concealed in a shoulder holster beneath your jacket.”

His eyes shifted back to Brent.

“For months I’ve watched the money come in; watched as once-ignoble men achieved wealth and a following to which they are unworthy. I have extended resources to discover who funds them and what their objective might be.”

The Afghan stopped, and Brent saw him scan the room as if, in the absence of his protectors, he wasn’t sure how to separate ally from foe. Once his attention had returned to Brent, he said, “I have learned that they are careful. They spend their money so no one can trace it back to them.”

“And what is their objective?” Brent asked.

Oman shrugged. “From what I can see, it is the same as that of the Soviets—destabilization.”

This seemed to fit with what Brent had uncovered from the research done by the NIIU. Still, he needed more. Something that would add weight to his theory. But he didn’t know how to ask the question that hovered just beyond reach. He decided to turn the question back on Oman.

“Destabilization?” he asked.

“So it would seem to this simple trader,” Oman said.

It was then that Brent stumbled on the question, and he was careful to harness his emotions before asking it.

“Can you give me a name?”

Years ago, when Brent spent time and money prying information from this man—information that he used to craft a report that put into English the words of a local—he never saw him display the level of insecurity he did now. Had Brent not known otherwise, had he not sufficient experience with the Afghan to recognize the repercussions of the question, he would have thought Oman was shutting him down. But because of his familiarity with the culture, he understood that Oman was fighting a battle against his instinct, and anything he revealed from this point on could impact his very survival. And so it was with gratitude that Brent saw the Afghan’s face set in resolve, taking a last look around the near-deserted restaurant.

“The name whispered in certain circles—the one on the lips of those who perform acts that no one would perform unless enriched by foreign dollars—is Standish.”

As soon as Oman released the name, he seemed to close in on himself, telling Brent that he would get no further information from him.

They finished their time together in near silence, each of them knowing what the meeting had exacted from the local man, with Brent unable to provide a suitable reward.

December 11, 2012, 10:13 A.M.

Canfield could scarcely understand why he was on a plane headed toward Antarctica, to a research vessel anchored off the continent’s lonely islands, when his wife lay comatose in a hospital bed. Yet he knew that his presence at her side would do nothing for either of them. Phyllis was somewhere he couldn’t reach her, and all that remained now was guilt—and the growing realization that his own future was less than secure.

He blamed himself. What made him think that Arthur Van Camp, a man who ran his businesses with a meticulousness bordering on the obsessive, would allow him to live once the project concluded? Since leaving the office, after assuring Van Camp that he could manage the project despite his wife’s condition, he’d had time to think. And the topic that occupied his thoughts was self-preservation. How did one extricate himself from an operation involving untold numbers of deaths, and walk away clean? He suspected it couldn’t be done—not without having someone else on whom to place the blame. That was why Van Camp had assigned the project to Canfield, why he’d been insistent about leaving no paper trail. If at some point the house of cards Canfield had built fell, Van Camp could reasonably avow that it was all the work of a rogue employee.

The chief problem, as he saw it, was that his hands were too dirtied for him to walk away, perhaps turning Van Camp over to the authorities. Without a paper trail, the possibility existed that he would be unable to prove that the orders came from above.

For the last two hours, as the Learjet took him to the southernmost endeavor under the Project: Night House umbrella, he’d pondered his exit strategy. The more he thought about it, the more he understood that only one way existed, the first step of which was seeing his assignment through to completion. If Night House succeeded, he had a chance, slim as it might be. That meant hurrying completion at Shackleton, escalating operations in the Middle East, continuing to stoke the end-of-the-world fervor, and making sure that news crews were there to cover it all. Canfield had much to do in the few days remaining.

Which was why he muttered a curse when his phone rang, and again when he saw the number on the display. Calls from the field were allowed only when something was amiss.

“Standish,” he said.

As he listened to the heavily accented voice on the other end talk of a meeting between two Americans and a local Afghan trader, his mood darkened. Then the informant gave the names of the foreigners, and Canfield found things escalating beyond his ability to control them.

When the military unit forced the shutdown of the Afar project, Canfield had paid it little mind. But when that same team showed up to investigate Hickson Petroleum, he knew it was no coincidence and so began to investigate Colonel Jameson Richards’s small group of scientist soldiers. And now that they’d sent two of their number to Balkh, Canfield realized he had to act—although he didn’t recognize the name Brent Michaels as belonging to the unit.

As Canfield imparted his instructions to the man in his employ, he understood that he was opening a door he would never be able to close. All he could hope for was that his cost/benefit analysis would, in the end, come back in his favor.

He ended the call and initiated a second, intent on delivering a message Stateside as well.

—

Since the next flight out of Afghanistan didn’t leave until the following day, Brent decided to use the time remaining to explore Mazar-e Sharif along with Maddy. They walked together past the food stalls set up near the shrine of Hazrat Ali, pausing now and then to look at the wares. Maddy seemed to have let go of the tenseness she’d held since their leaving the restaurant and the Afghan contact. At one point during their walk Brent stopped and purchased two fruit shakes, one of which he handed to Maddy, and the two of them found a bench that offered a view of the mosque over an expanse of well-kept lawn. Maddy sampled the shake and gave an appreciative nod.

“That tastes good after how spicy that lamb dish was,” she said.

Brent smiled, taking a sip of his own. “Most of the food here is pretty spicy, but there are a few places in town that will whip you up a burger if your stomach won’t take any more.”

Maddy chuckled and resumed sipping the shake, her eyes taking in the enormous, ornate mosque. They sat in silence for a while, enjoying the day despite the looming threat that his research seemed to be pointing to.

“So what can we do with a name?” he finally asked.

Maddy considered that and offered a shrug in response. They watched a young girl pass by on a bicycle, Brent amazed that her long garments remained clear of the chain. When they lost her around a corner, Maddy glanced at him.

“I’m not sure,” she said. “I’ve already sent the name on to the colonel so he can run it through CODIS, Interpol, and a few other databases. If we’re lucky, we get a hit. But even if we do, there’s no telling how useful it will be.”

She paused as a group of people walked past them, heading toward the mosque for evening prayers. A man and his wife with two young boys in tow. The man offered the foreigners a nod and smile as he passed.

“I wasn’t sure how useful this trip was going to be,” Maddy confided. “I mean, what were the odds that you would know a guy with intel related to our investigation?”

Brent thought about this and decided that Maddy was right. Oman was the only card he had—although knowing what he knew about the way the Afghan operated, Brent had considered it a definite possibility that he would know
something
.

“To be fair, I’m not completely convinced that whatever it is we’re investigating is even real,” he said. “Coincidence is a genuine presence in systems analysis.”

“Which makes coming here something like a step of faith, doesn’t it?” Maddy asked.

Her question pulled a smile from Brent because it was quite the opposite to what he’d proposed to her boss just a few days ago, when he’d suggested that he was the man of reason to Richards’s man of faith.

“I don’t think so. Tenuous link or not, this is a legitimate avenue for investigation. No faith involved.” Then he finished the last of his shake before catching Maddy’s eye.

She frowned at his comment, which evoked a feeling in him that suggested he was growing very fond of this woman. And he may have been wrong but he got the impression that the captain had feelings for him as well. Granted, his experience with Amy Madigan extended back a scant few days. For all he knew, the way she interacted with him wasn’t much different from her interactions with other consultants brought within the sphere of the team. Except that he guessed that was not the case, as evidenced by what she said next.

“Look, I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” she began. “When I joined this team I was at a certain place—a place that made it difficult for me to accept a lot of what our research hinted at. . . .” She trailed off and glanced at Brent, and whatever she saw in his expression must have encouraged her to continue. “You’ve already noticed the cross I’m wearing. I have no idea what kind of upbringing you had, but mine was pretty religious. Church three times a week; we would have gone more if the doors had been open.”

“My father was an atheist,” Brent said, “but my mother was very devout.” He laughed at the memory. “My mom dragged us to church whenever she could. My father didn’t seem to mind too much.”

Maddy smiled at his recollection, which while not an exact match for her own, showed he could at least relate to what she was trying to say.

“This job can be a challenge at times,” she said. “My background tells me there are only two reasons things happen: God and science.”

“That’s funny. Usually I hear people arguing God
or
science.”

“What I mean is most Christians are okay with giving scientific answers to the easy questions. It’s the other stuff—the stuff without a ready explanation—where we often throw up our hands and say, ‘I don’t know. I guess God did it.’ ”

“And you don’t buy that?” Brent asked, wondering what peculiar brand of Christianity the captain practiced.

“No, I don’t. I think God is responsible for
all
of it. I also think that science can explain all of it.” At Brent’s raised eyebrow, she added, “Like I said a few days ago, I’ve seen a lot during my time on this team that runs the gamut from strange to truly frightening. But nine times out of ten we find a good reason that things happen like they do.”

Brent grunted. “And the one out of ten?”

“Just means we haven’t worked hard enough to figure it out.”

Brent leaned back against the hard surface of the bench, trying to put some distance between himself and the conversation. Even so, he had to point out what he saw as a flaw in her argument.

“What about miracles?” he asked. “If you had such a religious upbringing, you must believe in miracles. Aren’t they, by their very definition, unexplainable?”

“Sure,” she agreed. “But I think there’s a big difference between making a few loaves of bread feed five thousand people and finding a six-foot-diameter circle in the middle of the Amazon where anything made out of copper floats. See, eventually we figured that one out. Who knows? Maybe because of our work in a decade or so they’ll be manufacturing airplanes that use half the fuel they do now.”

“Wait! You found
what
in the Amazon?”

“That’s not important,” she said. “All I’m trying to say—” She stopped, seemingly looking for the right words. Finally she shrugged and offered him a weak smile. “I don’t really know what I’m trying to say. I guess I’m just trying to let you know that things aren’t as chaotic as you might think. The ground we walk on is pretty solid; it’s the only way we can deal with the stuff that isn’t.”

Brent mulled that over and he thought she was right—she didn’t know what she wanted to say. Still, he thought she’d said it pretty well anyway. The professor found himself very much intrigued by this woman. Of course it didn’t hurt that she was more attractive than most, if not all, the women who had crossed his path.

The sun had lowered while they talked, and the streets that had, just minutes before, teemed with people were now nearly deserted. Brent gazed at the mosque, where the devout now prayed to a god who was foreign to Amy Madigan. He wondered how she reconciled the fact that in the end few people deviated from the beliefs of their parents. As the sun finished its descent, he gave some thought as to how he himself fit into that paradigm.

A moment later, he pushed from his mind such weighty thoughts of differing ideologies, stood, and offered a hand to Maddy. Then the pair started off in the direction of the hotel where they’d planned to dine together.

—

The restaurant was attached to the hotel and catered mostly to tourists in its offering dishes without the spice so favored by the locals. The proprietor had led them to a booth, speaking passable English and making it very clear that the Americans were welcome in his restaurant. Brent had selected a pasta with vegetables, while Maddy chose a hamburger with all the fixings. Neither of them had ventured further into the conversation begun on the bench, and Brent now sensed some reticence in her. He knew, though, that as a general rule people seldom broached the topic of religion in polite conversation. At least that was his experience.

He allowed the silence to linger, pleased it was not of the uncomfortable variety. On the contrary, the two of them sat and ate like old friends, content in both the meal and the company.

Finally, Maddy broke the silence, bringing up the business that had brought them to this foreign city.

“So what will you do when we get back?” she asked.

After wiping his mouth with his napkin, Brent said, “Good question. Although I’m not entirely convinced this is a global phenomenon, I think we’ve uncovered enough data to head that way. I think the thing we have to start looking at, beyond who is behind this, is
why
the escalation?”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, the incidents in your data set start a little over two years ago, right? But up until about nine months ago they were spaced pretty evenly. Then
boom
.” He shook his head. “In my experience, when you see an escalation like the one we’re tracking, there’s an endgame that’s approaching sooner rather than later.”

Maddy absorbed that and then smirked at Brent. “So in addition to figuring out what’s going on, we now have the added concern of doing it on a timetable we don’t know anything about.”

“Pretty much,” Brent said.

Despite the ludicrousness of the situation, Maddy laughed and Brent couldn’t help but follow suit. Engaged as he was, he hardly noticed the dark truck that rolled past the restaurant’s large front window. From where he sat he could see the tail end of the vehicle in his peripheral vision, but almost as soon as he registered seeing it, he let it go. He had no idea what was happening at the table, this easy rapport with a woman he’d known for such a short time, yet he recognized an opportunity when he saw one.

But then he saw a cloud pass over Maddy’s face and he frowned, wondering what he might have said to shut her down. It took a moment for him to recognize that she was looking past him. He glanced over his shoulder to see what had caught her attention, which left him unprepared as Maddy lunged forward and shoved his head down onto the tabletop.