A Murder of Crows (19 page)

Viola Tripping squeezed his hand. He came back to the present and looked down at her. She didn't speak, but she stopped and waggled his hand up and down, so he assumed they were in the right place.

“I need to know who . . .” He didn't know how to complete his sentence. “Can I turn on a light for a second?”

Again she waggled his hand.

He flicked on the small flashlight Yslan had given him and shone it at Viola Tripping's feet. The number 27 had been painted on the planking there. He consulted his chart and found number 27—Dr. Paul Dack, PhD in chemical engineering and computer sciences, red dot. He had full clearance.

In the penumbra of the flashlight he saw Viola Tripping take a step away, then stop, then turn, then take a half step back, then repeat the process.
As if she were a dog finding a place to defecate,
he thought.

Then she stopped, raised her arms over her head and slowly
began to turn—like a figure skater's spin but in slow motion and far more elegant, smoother, otherworldly.

The words from Dylan's song “Knockin' on Heaven's Door” bloomed in his head as he watched, never wondering how she managed to turn at such a consistent slow speed, seemingly without moving her feet, or how somehow she was bathed in a subtle greenish light, which seemed to come from her.

Then her jaw sagged open and her head lolled far back, sending her hair almost to the floor—and she spoke—but what came from her mouth were not her words or her voice. And as her eyes widened, suddenly able to see, the final thoughts and the voice of Dr. Paul Dack, PhD in chemical engineering and computer science, aged forty-four years and two months, now deceased—no, fuck that, assassinated—poured from Viola Tripping's small mouth as her eyes roamed the heavens.

Although eerie, the thoughts of the good professor were nothing particularly surprising. A concern about the length of the upcoming ceremony, the need to catch a plane, the hope that someone named Amanda would answer his phone calls, the need to upgrade his BlackBerry—then no thought, just the half word “Jee——”

Viola Tripping stopped spinning and looked in Decker's direction. Clearly for a moment she couldn't place who he was, then she smiled. “Did that help?”

Decker took a moment to find his bearings. Had he just seen what he thought he'd seen? Finally he shrugged. Her recitation clearly didn't help in the NSA's investigation, so Decker didn't bother testing for truth. She suddenly seemed deflated like a little girl who had disappointed her dad. He smiled at her and said, “One down; who knows exactly how many more to go. Come on, we have a lot to do and not all that much time.”

Viola Tripping repeated the process at chair 28, which had at one time been occupied by Dr. Ines Buchli, PhD in aerospace technologies and linguistics. Dr. Buchli's thoughts were more business oriented but hardly revealing of any complicity in a mass murder.

And so the night proceeded until they got to chair 67 in the back row—Dr. Neil Frost. It took Viola longer than usual to find the exact spot, and this time her spin seemed more erratic, but the voice of Dr. Frost was clear, British accented, concise and disturbing:

* * *

Deny me full professorship, will they? Won't give them the chance or the satisfaction to do it again. We'll see just who's smart and who's not. They thought that anyone with a shred of self-respect would have gotten the hint and moved on. Well, I got the fucking hint, but Neil Frost isn't moving on—you're all moving on. Every damned pompous one of you. Moving on to hell.

I'm fuckin' fifty-three and I've been summoned here like some stupid pimply undergraduate—and I hate this damned robe.

That's right, everyone, ignore me—ignore Neil Frost. Look the other way—then look down and that'll be your last look.

Neil's laugh erupted from Viola's throat. It hurt to hear. Viola Tripping stopped spinning. Her arms came down to her sides and tears coursed down her cheeks so that Decker couldn't tell if it was rain or tears.

“Are you all right?” Decker asked.

“So much hate. So much hate.” She held out her arms to him.

Decker enfolded her to his chest then sat on one of the folding chairs and pulled her onto his lap. He felt her entire body heave as she wept. Finally she stopped, slid off his lap and moved back to the final resting spot of Dr. Neil Frost, hater.

She opened her arms and it was as if someone yanked her head back—she screamed, then held out her arms and began to rotate, and her mouth opened and Dr. Frost's vitriol spewed out.

Fuckin' graduation and graduants and the rest of this idiot faculty. Full professors. Everywhere full professors. Morons!

I only came to get my final paycheck. What kind of sophomoric idea was it of the provost's to withhold final paychecks if you didn't attend the fuckin' graduation?

But this graduation is going to be like no other. No—this is going to be a momentous graduation. One that no one will ever forget. No one.

Look at them all. All so excited. So expectant. So young. Way too many are brownies and slant-eyed bastards! It'll serve the lot of them—the whole lot of indulged, pampered, preening pancakes. The Chinese, Japanese and Koreans—pancakes. The Southeast Asians—brownies. The Americans—puffed pastries. And the women—all of them—cunts, just cunts.

Pancakes, brownies, puff pastries and cunts—I'm saving you from being eaten alive by the American military-industrial complex the way I was. Saving you, you ungrateful peons.

Twenty minutes to show time. Time for me to make my ever so polite excuses—my bowels, you know, must have been something I ate, sorry, so sorry—and then like Snagglepuss make with my exit stage left—”

Decker felt the cold and the slime between his fingers then saw the perfect squares enter his retinal screen and knew beyond knowing that this man's words were the truth—at least the truth as he saw it. He opened his eyes and stared at Viola Tripping. Waited, but she put her arms to her sides and stared into space. “No more?” he asked.

“That was the last thing he thought.”

Decker nodded, then read the file of one Professor Neil Frost.

* * *

As he did, back in the provost's office Yslan and Harrison turned from their receiver and flipped open their copy of the professor's folder.

Neil Frost was a perennial assistant professor—the definition of an academic failure. He had been denied full professorship three times. He was fifty-three years of age and rented an apartment west of the village. He had no other address. Divorced twelve years ago, a sixteen-year-old daughter—whereabouts unknown—wife remarried, three kids, new husband works for the Pentagon, had been Frost's contact there. What other business contacts he'd had since then hadn't panned out. There was a note from the Pentagon warning that he was an unstable individual, and a reference to Gerald Bull that drew a scowl from Harrison.

There were several student complaints about his insulting language
and one about a sexual harassment allegation that had been settled on the quiet.

His departmental evaluations were below average, but it was noted that although he was tenured he saved the department big bucks by accepting a pittance of a salary to teach the introductory courses.

There was also a note about a petition he tried to start to stop the provost's new rule that required all faculty members to attend graduation to receive their last paychecks.

His security clearance was minimal, but there was no sticker on the front of his folder to indicate that he was a security risk.

“And we're sure that he died in the—”

Yslan held out another folder and nodded. “Dental match, came in yesterday.”

“Get a team over to his apartment. I want it taken apart piece by piece.”

“Let's wait for Decker.”

“Why?”

“I hope he can tell us whether this is truth or fantasy.”

They didn't have to wait long for Decker to contact them.

“I assume you got the Frost stuff?”

“Yeah, Mr. Roberts, we got it. So?”

“Who's we?”

“Not your concern. So, is it true?”

“As far as I can tell, yeah.” He didn't bother to mention the three perfect rectangles that crossed his retinal screen as Viola Tripping spouted the final thoughts of Dr. Neil Frost.

“And you're sure he was surprised by the blast?”

Decker didn't answer.

“Mr. Roberts, was he surprised by the timing of the blast?”

After a pause Decker said, “I think so.”

“You think so!”

“Hey, this isn't my usual way of working, so all I can say is that I think so.”

“Okay. Anything else strike you as possible?”

“No, just a whole lot of grocery lists, textbook requests, thoughts on how to avoid coming to graduation—stuff like that—but nothing else all that interesting.”

“How's Viola holding up?”

“I don't know. I've never seen anything like this before. I have nothing to compare it to. She seems okay.”

“How far have you gone?”

“We've done the professors on the stage—at least the ones we could identify. And part of the first two rows of students.”

“Anything there?”

“Yeah, a couple who were giving each other hand jobs while they waited, and they apparently had invented a porn site that they've sold for a bundle. Wanna hear the name of said porn site?”

“No.”

“Well, too bad. It was Reachoutandfuckapornstar dot com. They received just short of three million dollars for their little invention—I guess their hand jobs were celebratory.”

“And who says America is falling behind in research and development.”

“Not me.”

“What else have you got?”

“The need for a coffee. I'm beginning to lose focus.”

“Will do—strong, black, in a mug. It's on its way.”

* * *

Two hours later Decker and Viola Tripping came across the first hint of how the bombs might have been linked. A student named David Pern had been sitting in the fourth row awaiting his turn. He'd evidently been either talking or thinking to himself, because Viola Tripping's words came out in torrents and her spinning was unusually fast.

* * *

I turned down three major job offers. Three. Everyone else here is going to work, but I'm going home. Home to Momma. Four years away from her has about killed me. All the phone calls weren't enough and going home to La Porte was so expensive. Just getting
to the airport cost a hundred dollars. But I did it and every time I brought home inventions I'd made to make Momma's final years more endurable.

I wish you could have been here for this. I think you'd be proud of me.

It was so hard, but I did it. I did it for us.

What the . . . Flash of light from the stage. Jeepers. I know what this is—I'd warned them about it. My terrorist projection model had the graduation of the science class at MIT number four on the hit list.

Blood and flesh and bone on the proscenium arch of the stage—the dead on that stage were yesterday's news. Oh, shit—me and my classmates are the future.

A scream—then a single thought,

Who's going to help Momma now?

Decker contacted Yslan again.

“Is he telling the truth, Mr. Roberts?”

“You mean
was
he telling—”

“Okay,
was
he?”

“Yeah. Not sure if this kid's observations are of any value. But they at least confirm the sequence.”

“They do more than that,” Harrison said to Yslan. “Get this David Pern's terrorist threat assessment paper. I want to know exactly who read it and when. It could have given someone an idea.”

Agents were sent scurrying.

* * *

Just an hour before dawn Viola Tripping uttered the word “jihadi” for the first time. She was speaking the final thoughts of a chemical engineering student named Ahmed Veladi, who was in the seventh row.

Viola Tripping's spin this time was like a slow minuet. Her words though, were accented—clearly a South Asian, either an Indian or a Pakistani.

I don't love America—but I don't hate it, either. And I don't take
orders from illiterate beardos with cheap plastic glasses who believe that every word in some dumb book was supposedly dictated by God himself, like the Evangelicals in this country who believe the same thing about their silly book. These two groups deserve each other. Best two out of three mud wrestling would be good. Maybe an HBO pay-per-view special. The Christian Right against the Muslim Brotherhood—cheerleaders against women in burkas!

Sure, I've been approached—fuck, every brown chemical engineering student has been approached. Everyone has an uncle's friend's father's mechanic's third cousin who has jihadi contacts.

An ugly snicker.

If the West knew the extent of the jihadi movement they wouldn't allow a single Muslim from outside the country into America's places of higher learning.

What's that? Shit! This shouldn't be happening to me. It's not fair.

A scream of pain, then an even uglier snicker.

How stupid. Stupid of me. Who the hell said that there is fairness in the world except these foolish Americans?

Decker reported this only because of the jihadi reference, but Harrison latched on to it and got the information directly to the head of Homeland Security. Shortly this kid's dorm room was swarming with FBI agents.

* * *

Twenty minutes later Viola Tripping stopped her spinning and began to giggle. The sound of her innocent laughter was so odd in this place of death that Decker wondered if this was all too much for her. Finally he asked, “Do you need a rest?”