Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (7 page)

“Have Diane look at my afternoon schedule, too.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

After adjusting her nylons, she shed her jacket, wiped her shoes on the car mat, and noted with pleasure that her driver already had the air-conditioning on. Tablets, papers, and folders full of unfinished work spilled from her open brief case and spread across the seat. Now she had one more anomaly to figure out.

What was Perez doing here?

Riesman pulled her mirror, eyeliner and lipstick out of her handbag. After a few minutes of applying makeup, she stopped.

“When you age, you’re supposed to look older, right?”

The cautious seldom err.
- Confucius

“I gather you’re not a fan of the man and woman you were talking to?” Riesman took the last bite of her garlic mash potatoes.

“Sir Robert Philip Pierce,” Perez said with contempt. “He’s a traitor and a miscreant; too good to be so, and too bad to live.” He looked out the restaurant’s window.

Riesman’s eyes widened. Several times during their conversation he’d sounded as if he were reading from a classic book when a simple yes or no would have sufficed. She’d held onto his every word despite the noise of people talking, his quoting, and the three glasses of wine. She picked up her second cup of coffee and blew on it.

“What? He’s a miscreant?”

Perez’s eyes shone as he slipped into his old teaching mode.

“Sorry, Bobbie Jo, but I have a history with this guy. And I wish I could say I composed that saying, but William Shakespeare got to it first. I think it was one of the Richards plays, maybe
Richard II.
I’d rather talk about anything but that sack of crap.”

“Okay. Then tell me how come you look twenty years younger?”

She’d taken two gulps of coffee before it looked as if he might respond; a surprising length of time to answer what she thought was a simple question.

“What is it? Steroids or something?”

“Nope. I eliminated all processed foods and I’ve focused on exercise.”

Since nothing more followed, Riesman leaned forward and extended her hands, palms up, as if asking, ‘Well?’

“No. That’s it. Really. I wish there was more.”

“There’s more, but you’re not saying it. Come on, Anthony—I was born at night, but it wasn’t last night.”

“Do you remember our ward unit’s psychologist? She was Indian and always messed up phrases like that. You know, she would say something like, I was born at night, but it was yesterday. Now what was her name…?”

“Stop, Anthony! You’re stalling and doing a piss poor job at it too,” Riesman said. “Usually, I’m not so vain, but I’m in my mid-forties, and I’m killing myself to stay healthy and looking young. Yes, I said it: looking young. But you look younger than I remember twenty years ago. Not to be biased, and I may be projecting, but for a guy who has to be in his sixties, I would have mistaken you for late thirties.”

“Just thirty?”

Riesman put down her coffee, folded her arms, and waited.

“Did I mention that I spend about three hours a day exercising?” he said.

“No way! There is no way you can convince me that exercising every day and eating nothing but natural, unprocessed food has halted your aging, or rather reversed your aging in your case. It’s not my first day on the job, Anthony. I’m not that young, impressionable trainee who’s just showed up on the admissions’ unit, accepting without questioning your word as gospel.”

Riesman spoke a little louder than she wanted to. Fortunately, the noise level from the full restaurant covered it. Okay. Less wine and more coffee, she thought and lifted her cup.

“Yeah … she was funny,” he said.

“Who?”

“The unit director. I said, the only easy day was yesterday, and she’d mess it up later and say, the only hard day is tomorrow.”

Riesman put down her coffee and looked at him.

“Are you done?”

“Ah yes, the old days of me telling you to just do it are forever gone. You never did strike me as the kind of woman who’d just follow orders. It’s a good quality, you know,” he said.

A waiter appeared with a thermos of fresh coffee. He refreshed her coffee and took her dinner plate away. Perez waved off an offer of coffee. Riesman noticed that his drinks and appetizers remained untouched, and he’d only picked at his food.

“I would never expect the Executive Director of Readiness and Disaster Logistics in FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery to accept at face value any statement so fantastic without the required data and analysis to support it,” he continued.

Riesman sipped her hot coffee and observed him closely. He looked out the window. The thought that her former boss and mentor knew her present position, role, and title at the Federal Emergency Management Agency made her uncomfortable.

How could he know that when they’d assigned her new title just three weeks ago with an internal memorandum? It hadn’t appeared on the organizational chart.

Rather than ask another question, Riesman pulled a clinical strategy from her mentor’s own treatment strategies and said nothing. The din from the luncheon guests rose, and he too remained silent for a few moments. Then he smiled even more. Clearly, he’d picked up that she waited for some kind of response. Whether deliberate or not, Perez did go on, but not in the expected direction.

“Flour, sugar, chemicals, all that stuff I cut out fifteen years ago. High intensity exercise, especially weight bearing, in combination with eating non-processed food, has made a profound difference. Add to that teaching, helping people, and biblio-therapy, I can truly say that the stress in my life has dropped off to nothing.”

“Biblio-therapy? So you’ve discovered another treatment strategy?”

“No, Bobbie Jo. I wish. Biblio-therapy is another way of saying I’ve been writing. Freud was the one who discovered the art of writing down a stream of unconscious to get at neurosis, traumas and such. In other words, it helps when I write.”

“Speaking of writing, I did see that your book, while highly regarded, was quite short.”

Darn! I jumped to another subject. There was more. Man, my clinical skills have rusted.

“Eighty-two pages. Long enough to get my point across, and short enough for people to actually read it without skimming and scanning.”

“Well, it did work well, and it was inspirational. How did you come up with your title … what was it?” Riesman stopped with her coffee half way to her lips.

“
Life’s Directives: Twenty Ways to Live a Healthy Life.
”

He picked up his phone.

Two things struck Riesman at the same time: first, his expression had become remote and dark at the mention of his book, and the size of his smart phone was larger than any she’d seen before. Too big for a smart phone, it had to be a tablet.

“When my daughter died and I was left alone, I had a choice to make, live or die. As simple as it sounds, I needed a reason to live. After a great deal of soul searching and looking at everything possible, I found some inspirational Roman artifacts, and they became the impetus for writing my book,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone as he looked at the tablet.

The news of his daughter’s death stunned Riesman. How could all that happen to one guy? And how had she missed such a tragedy? Her friend’s entire family had gone, and she felt ashamed that this was the first she’d heard of it. Guilt, sadness, and anger at herself swept over her leaving her sad and empty. How could a man who lost both his children and a wife, albeit more than fifteen years ago, appear so serene and focused? Could she ever achieve the same level of equanimity?

Living without Hiaki was going to be unbearable. She glanced at Hiaki’s wife and daughters—a life she would never have. She shook herself out of her despair and turned back to her old mentor. Perez was touching his screen. After a moment, he tucked it back in his pocket with one hand and placed his napkin on the table with his other, then stood without a word. Peter’s sudden appearance startled her.

“Director? Administrator Damon needs to speak with you. It’s urgent,” he whispered in her ear.

Riesman frowned. With the number of directors in the chain of command between her and the administrator, why would he contact her? What disaster could have happened for him to call her directly? She stood, anxiety rising, and turned to excuse herself, but Perez embraced her in a hug.

“Looks like duty calls us both. If you’re not doing anything next week and find yourself in Massachusetts, come on over for Thanksgiving. I’m having a couple of colleagues over for dinner, dance, and fun. No pressure. Just if you’re around.”

Her anxiety shifted to curiosity. She nodded but wondered how Perez knew that work had called. He might have guessed, but it could have been a family emergency.

“Ma’am? We have to go,” Peter said.

Perez’s firm grip fell away. He smiled and turned to leave before she could respond.

“Hope to see you soon, Bobbie Jo,” he said without looking back. A sudden urge to ask for more details almost set her after him. He’d disappeared through the exit already, and by the time she made it to the veranda, he was getting into the back seat of a large, high-end green sedan with tinted windows that obscured the occupants. The car moved as his door closed and drove out of sight.

“Is everything all right, Ma’am?” Peter asked.

“Yes … everything’s all right,” she replied, but she couldn’t help feeling as if something was completely wrong.

He who learns but does not think, is lost. He who thinks but does learn is in great danger.
- Confucius

There's absolutely no sound in this office, Riesman thought. She sat on a leather couch, staring at a large plasma television embedded in the mahogany paneled wall in front of her. Closed captions flowed in large print beneath continuous images of the national and international news. The pair of smaller monitors flanking it showed local coverage of disasters occurring around the US.

She could see why Administrator Damon never had to visit any disaster areas, unless it was at the White House. Riesman stood to shake the cramps from her legs, and, for the third time, walked the perimeter of the office and examined the dozens of presidential citations and congressional awards. Then she listed all the ways her ten by ten office with its generic faux wood and plastic veneer differed from his thirty by thirty foot office with its polished pen holders, heavy oak furniture and matching rugs and drapes.

She still wore her black funeral attire and had the smell of old, dry coffee on her breath. An escort had whisked her off to the Administrator’s office as soon as the private jet landed, and the male secretary had brought her straight into the office, so she’d had no time to reapply her makeup and freshen up. While brusque, the secretary was kind enough to bring cups, a thermos of coffee, and a message that she would need to wait some time until he arrived.

The time would’ve passed quickly if her smart phone had worked in the office. The only time she’d stepped out of the office was to get a signal.

“Your phone is not rated or equipped to penetrate the signal dampening fields,” the secretary had said. “You also don’t have clearance to use any phones here. I am sorry, but could you please return to the office,” he added

He hadn’t sounded sorry. Riesman had returned to her seat and fumed about all the mystery and the time she was wasting. She also thought about her interaction with Perez and the bureau’s clampdown on Hiaki’s computer.

And why is there a dampening field in this office? A new protocol?

A caption caught her eye on the main news channel. General David Farrell, in full uniform, was giving an interview. Riesman returned to her seat, picked up her cup of coffee, and resumed reading the captions. Farrell, a man of mystery with an even more mysterious series of projects, all associated with space, was very high up in the Pentagon and never gave interviews. He sat calm and at ease with his hands folded on his lap, shoulders rounded, and face relaxed.

Interviewer: “…you haven’t denied the existence of another celestial body affecting our orbit. That said, do you acknowledge that there is something out there?”

Farrell: “I can’t confirm or deny what’s out there. But what I can say is that we’re eighteen months away from launching a series of manned exploration missions, including two to Mars. “Interviewer: “So you’re not willing to confirm or deny Planet X’s existence, but at the same time, American tax dollars will fund a mission for something you’re not willing to say is real?”

Farrell: “I think I just said that. But let me say it another way. Whether there is or is not a Planet X, we will soon find out. If no Planet X exists, we still have a problem as to why our orbit is slightly off kilter. If there is a hidden planet, then we have our answer and life goes on.”

Interviewer: “But how would it be possible not to see it? We’ve had spacecraft of all sorts out there. You’d think we’d have seen it by now.”

Farrell: “Yup. You’d think that …”

“Good evening, Ms. Riesman.”

She jumped at the Administrator’s voice, spilling some of her coffee on herself, the couch, and the rug. As usual, Administrator Richard Damon had arrived with two other people, a younger man and woman, right behind him. All three wore the same dark suit, shirt and similar accessories. The man and woman weren’t the same two people she’d seen at the funeral, but they looked similar.

Riesman put her cup down and stood to shake his hand.

“Good evening, Administrator.”

“Good evening.” He walked to his seat, reading on a tablet.

She retracted her unshaken hand and took a seat closer to his desk. The Administrator introduced the other two people without looking up from his tablet.

This is one the most bizarre and rude situations I’ve been in for a long time.

“These are Special Agents Arthur Harper and Donna Lee. They’re helping us with our internal investigations,” Damon said.