A Murder of Crows (10 page)

“Decker Roberts? Yeah. We've tracked him to South Africa and we're on him now.”

Harrison laughed, turned to the sink and stared into the mirror.

“Something's funny, sir?”

“No. Nothing's funny. Nothing's funny anymore.”

The finality of his statement stunned her.

Then he smashed the mirror with his fist.

Glass tinkled off the porcelain sink and to the floor; blood blossomed from his fist.

And she knew.

It had happened—shit, it had happened again.

She stood perfectly still and said only one word. “Where?”

TWO HOURS LATER YSLAN AND HARRISON ARRIVED AT ANCASTER
College. The campus was beautiful in the early spring light. Mature oak and maple trees were in bud and seemed to leap up the mountain upon which the famous college housed its vast lab complexes and state of the art research facilities.

They noted that if you looked up the hill the upper New York State idyll was on view and complete—an elite college for the best and brightest science and math students in the country, perhaps in the world.

But when they lowered their gaze to the base of the mountain they saw a scene reminiscent of a war zone. Two buildings teetered ominously just north of the blast site. The late eighteenth century Calvinist church was no longer a model of perfect symmetry as its iconic steeple, which embossed every piece of the college's stationery, listed far to one side. And almost half a square mile of pavement had evidently been shot into the air. Some of it was now embedded several feet deep in the earth at angles that seemed to defy the laws of physics.

In the epicentre was the huge crater. It was now surrounded by police tape and so many armed and body-armoured soldiers that this could easily be mistaken for a street in Tripoli rather than a quiet upper New York State town that prided itself on its college, its green approach to the environment and its massive U.S. military contracts.

Yslan and Harrison badged their way through the cordon of soldiers and cops until they stood on the very edge of the gash in
the earth. The gaping hole before them was still populated by the remains of hundreds of human beings and the obscenely twisted flimsy folding chairs upon which they had been seated only four hours earlier—some of which seemed to be bowing down in prayer to some as of yet unnamed underworld god of vengeance.

From the few still-standing poles the remnants of the huge graduation tent flapped with obscene gaiety in the fresh spring wind.

Yslan was surprised by the overall quiet of the place. She looked skyward at the bright sun, which seemed to be mocking them all. Then her eyes were drawn by some motion down in the pit. At first she thought it was a large stone rolling down the east wall of the blast site, but she was wrong. When she understood what it was that had drawn her eye, her gorge rose. The head bounced, then came to rest on the blast floor, a single eye open—staring, or at least seemingly staring—right at her.

Yslan looked away and tried to concentrate on the preliminary forensic reports that she'd just been given.

There'd been two devices. Why techs insisted on calling bombs devices was beyond Yslan's understanding or concern.

The fucking things blew up—period.

But the devices—bombs—and the hundreds of pounds of scrap metal that had surrounded them were placed perfectly to cause maximum damage. The first blast instantly killed forty-three of the finest maths and science professors in the western world. The second immolated the entire summa cum laude and cum laude graduating class—amongst them seventy-two degrees in advanced electrical/civil engineering, thirty-nine in computer science, twenty-two in nuclear physics and twenty-one in chemical engineering.

She put aside the report and knelt as she had done that September day long ago when the locusts had come and in one afternoon eaten their entire tobacco crop. She had been only a kid but she knew that the disaster visited from the skies had irrevocably changed her life. For a moment she heard the locusts all around her—in her hair, up her shirt, in her nostrils. She shook her head.
Here!
she commanded herself.
Stay here and find out what the fuck happened here.

HARRISON AND YSLAN STARED AT THE PHOTOS OF THE BLAST SITE
lined up on the desk in the provost's office. To one side stood a terribly thin man, the Provost himself, clearly anxious not to be in the same room as the two NSA agents.

Of the photos there were only two of the faculty on the stage—all of whom were now dead. One shot was from so far away that they could barely distinguish male from female. The other was from the side of the stage so that only a few of the faculty members' faces could be seen.

“Wasn't there a seating plan or something for the faculty?” Harrison demanded of the provost.

“They were all such free spirits, you couldn't tell them anything, like where to sit.” The man's voice was a cross between a whine and whimper. “Why is this important; they're all dead.” This last word came out more as a breath than a word.

Yslan looked to Harrison. Both knew the provost's question was reasonable, but until they had real forensic evidence to work with, identifying the victims was at least a place to start.

Yslan had already established the provost's whereabouts at the time of the blasts. He was puking his guts out, evidently frightened at having to read aloud all the foreign-sounding names of the graduates. The students had refused to give their names in phonetics, stating in an open letter published in the school newspaper, “It's time you learned how to pronounce our fucking names!” A janitor who had cleanup duties in the restroom had confirmed his alibi.

“So all we really have to identify the professors who were victims is this?” Harrison said, pointing to the list of attending faculty members and the two photos.

“And the inquiries from families missing loved ones,” Yslan added.

“In the hours to come there'll be a lot more of those. Have we asked for dental matches?”

“Yeah, but it could be some time before we get any.”

“I can identify some of them from their gowns and tassels,” piped up the provost, suddenly alive and confident—lecturing. “You see, in determining your academic regalia colors, all PhD degrees use PhD blue, which is dark blue. For example, a doctorate in psychology would include in your academic hood colors the color gold—of course we don't have any psychology degrees here since we're a science college—however a PhD in psychology, if we had one, would use dark blue. If you have multiple degrees, like Professor Zhang Fang or Professor Charles David—well, almost all of them have more than one degree—the rule is that you use only one hood and only one degree or discipline color. You use the hood and color that represents your highest-ranking degree, with doctoral as highest, master's as second highest, bachelor's as third highest. If you have two different degrees at the same highest ranking, you generally use the most recently awarded degree as your hood.

“If you have an unlisted degree, there is no official color and it is dependent on the individual college or university to determine the color to be used for your hood. Typically, the most similar degree on the official chart is chosen. For example, if your degree is in an advanced computer science field, usually the school chooses science gold for the degree color. Clear?”

“Yeah, perfectly,” Yslan said quickly, fearing he would continue. She already felt a familiar weariness in her bones that she remembered all too well from lectures delivered by other self-satisfied professors.

Then much to Yslan's surprise, using the academic colours, the provost named more than half of the professors in the photos.

“What about the students?” Harrison asked. “Surely they were sitting in alphabetical order, weren't they?”

“Some were, yes. Some had already left for jobs. Some were too drunk to attend. Most refused to take any more orders and sat wherever they wanted.”

“Swell,” Yslan said. “ ‘Anarchist Geniuses Blown to Bits'—good headline.”

“Hicks!” Harrison's voice was as ragged as she'd ever heard it. “Get it through your head what happened here. More than eighty percent of the brains behind this country's present defence systems and as much as fifty percent of the defence network's future brains were obliterated today. This is the single most serious blow to the safety of this country—ever.”

Mr. T stuck his head in the office. “Forensics are ready, sir.”

“Send them in,” Harrison said, then turned to the provost. “Do you mind?”

The provost was about to say that this was his office, then looked at Harrison and decided he didn't really need his office for the foreseeable future. He made his way out as six forensics techs shoved their way past him.

As they flipped open their laptops, Harrison turned to Yslan and said, “Recheck the provost's alibi. He wasn't on the stage when the fucking thing blew up. I want to know why.”

“He's a suspect?”

“He's alive when the rest are dead—so yeah, he's a suspect.”

“I'll send for the janitor who saw him in the men's room.”

The techs began to spout figures.

Harrison put up his hand for them to stop. “When you boys talk numbers it usually means you don't have dick.”

The head tech looked up and eyed Harrison. Yslan noted that there was clearly no love lost here. “Two huge blasts, one just seconds after the other. Shards of metal—”

“What kind of metal shards?”

The tech reached into his briefcase and pulled out a clear plastic evidence bag. Inside it was a piece of steel plate maybe six inches by four inches with razor-sharp edges. It clanked as it hit the desktop.

“And you found—”

“Hundreds and hundreds of them.”

Harrison picked up the evidence bag. It was heavier than he thought it would be.

“So it wasn't a suicide bomber?”

“Not unless there were two of them and they were both world-class weight lifters.”

“So the bombs were planted before the ceremony?”

“Yep.”

“Anything more?”

“Not yet.”

“When?”

The head tech shrugged.

“We need more,” Harrison said, then added, “Quickly.”

The forensic guys closed their laptops and headed out.

The white-haired agent that Decker Roberts had named Ted Knight stepped into the room, and Harrison turned to him. “I want names of dissidents within a two-hundred-mile radius and the addresses and names of anyone who's been in a mosque in the entire state—include Pennsylvania, New Hampshire and fucking Vermont, too.”

“Already done,” Ted Knight said, handing over a lengthy printout.

“How many men—”

“We have forty.”

Turning to Yslan, Harrison said, “Get them a hundred more and every Arabic speaker we have. And get our photo geniuses to work on those pictures. Once they're worked up show them to the provost, show them to the grieving families, show them to the goddamned janitor. I want names put to those faces and exactly who sat where.”

WALTER JONES WAITED PATIENTLY IN THE PROVOST'S OUTER
office. He'd only been there once before and then it was to clean up after a party of some sort. And of course the place had been empty then. After five or six these admin offices were all empty. Now, however, it was a hub of activity as what Walter assumed were federal officers came and left the provost's inner office like bees reporting back to the hive then being sent out on new missions.

Walter had been told to be there at six thirty, and he'd arrived a few minutes early, but it was now almost eight o'clock and he had the evening shift. When a large black man came out of the inner office, Walter gathered his courage and said, “My name is Walter Jones. I was told to be here at six thirty.”

The black man looked at his watch and mumbled an apology and went back in the office. Five minutes later an attractive woman opened the office door. Walter caught a brief glimpse inside. It reminded him of a war room scene from a World War II movie. He liked World War II movies.

The attractive woman introduced herself. Walter missed the first name, but got the second—Hicks.

“Sorry to make you wait, Mr. Jones.”

Walter shrugged and said, “That's okay.”

A marine entered, and the woman talked to him in a hushed voice, then turned back to Walter.

“Look, I just need to know one thing.”

“Okay.”

“Did you see the provost in the men's room shortly before the graduation?” She paused. “Before the bombs.”

“Yes,” he said.

She smiled and turned toward the office. Then turned back to Walter. “What was he doing?”

Walter wasn't going to tell her that the guy was reciting over and over again to the mirror “We can do this, yes we can, yes we can do this” while he was popping Ativan like it was PEZ. Which he was. But Walter shrugged again and said, “It's a men's room.”

This Hicks person smiled, turned and reentered the provost's inner office.

That's it?
Walter thought.
That's the entire investigation?
Walter tried not to smile, but he wanted to. Oh, how he wanted to.

THE MEDIA COVERAGE INTENSIFIED AS IDENTIFIED BODY PARTS
were slowly released to grieving family members. A memorial was planned to be held in ten days' time. The president himself was going to deliver the eulogy. His imminent presence caused yet more delays as agents had to be pulled from interrogations into protection planning. And all the nation howled for revenge—and the president's office applied pressure to Harrison, that he promptly passed on to Yslan and the interrogators.