Intelligent Design: Revelations to Apocalypse (8 page)

Internal investigations? On who? What is going on here?

“They’ve been working on the Nakamura and Perez case for years.”

Riesman’s heart jumped and her breath came up short at the mention of Hiaki Nakamura, Anthony Perez and internal investigation all in the same breath. Riesman wished she had better control over her emotions; she’d be terrible at covert operations.

“What? Why is Hiaki under investigation, and what does Anthony have to do with him, or anything?”

Damon looked up from his tablet and stared at Riesman. Her emotions had apparently taken him by surprise. Though embarrassed by her own reaction, she maintained the eye contact, not in the mood to back down.

“Agent Harper? Agent Lee? Bring the director up to speed, please,” he said as he broke eye contact and returned to reading.

Agent Harper was a handsome young man with well-manicured hands, a warm smile and just a hint of musk and sensuality—a candidate for dating had she been fifteen years younger. He approached with a tablet and held it in front of her.

“Director? Do you know this woman?”

Riesman looked at the image of a serious looking young woman, maybe in her early twenties, surrounded by computers and white boards filled with all kinds of equations. Her mocha skin color, blue eyes and long curly hair made a striking and familiar picture, but no name popped into her head. “She looks familiar, but I don’t have a name.”

“Her name is Doctor Andrea Perez,” Lee said.

Riesman looked again. The woman had a different eye color and lighter skin but the same shaped face, jaw line and eyes as her father, Anthony Perez.

“This has to be years ago. He told me that she died …”

“Who told you that?” Agent Lee asked.

Riesman sized her up: handsome and well put together like Agent Harper, but less familiar and kind. She looked back at the picture as she formulated her answer.

“Anthony Perez told me this no more than six hours ago. We attended the funeral and luncheon of Dr. Hiaki Nakamura earlier this morning.”

“We know you were there, Director,” Harper said.

“This picture was taken about fifteen years ago,” Lee said. “Dr. Perez was a brilliant scientist in the area of spectrograph analysis and light, and how they might be bent or manipulated. She was on the cusp of rewriting some key equations that would have changed the way we think of light.”

“Dr. Perez had taken the mathematical works of Newton, Einstein, Hawking, Guth … all of them, and produced a series of formulas that would not only change our understanding of the world but also give us the right tools, calibrated the right way, so we could see things that we couldn’t before,” Harper added.

Riesman frowned.

Things we couldn’t see before?

“Like when the
Hubble’s
lens was repaired. The entire universe opened up,” Lee said.

“Okay. But she’s gone, right? And what does it have to do with Dr. Nakamura? He was a mathematician and statistician in light and wavelengths.”

Her mind bounced back and forth between Perez, his daughter and Nakamura. The confusing new data was too personal and close to her heart.

“Dr. Perez was not into astronomy either, and she’s not dead,” Lee replied. “Missing? Yes—she’s been missing for the last fifteen years. And her connection with Dr. Nakamura—he continued her work. He made progress where everyone else had failed.”

Riesman’s balance wavered as she tried to process all the information at once. Harper produced another image. This time of her beloved Hiaki sitting on a park bench with Anthony Perez right beside him. Both men looked very serious, as if they held the world on their shoulders. Riesman reached out to touch the tablet, but Harper pulled it away.

“This picture was taken three months ago when you and Dr. Nakamura were staying at the Queen Anne Hotel in Montreal,” he said.

Riesman’s gaze dropped to the floor, her face and neck flushed with heat. She thought her pale Wyoming skin and blonde hair must have looked like a genetically altered Maine lobster with white limbs and hair.

“How long have you known?”

It took all her courage to look at the Administrator. He stared at her— unlike the first part of the meeting.

“Probably right from the beginning, five years ago, but that’s not important,” Lee replied.

“What is important is that Mr. Perez was in contact with Dr. Nakamura three months before he died. His daughter went missing while working on a contract with NASA and the Department of Defense. And Mr. Perez tells you that she’s dead. We have looked everywhere for her. It’s as if she’s fallen off the planet. And, after all of these coincidences and mysteries, Mr. Perez shows up at Dr. Nakamura’s private funeral, specifically arranged by us and kept out of the paper, internet and everything. Mr. Perez is in the center of a great deal of mysteries.” The last line was said with great sarcasm.

“Then why don’t you bring him in?”

“Because Perez is not who we want. We want his sponsor, Ms. Christine Reich.”

Riesman, frowning in confusion, glanced from Harper to Lee and settled on Damon.

“What? Do you mean
the
Christine Reich? No one’s ever seen her. She’s a ghost. And how is Anthony connected to Reich?”

“We’re not sure. But Andrea Perez’s work had another sponsor, Reich Enterprise’s telecommunications branch, along with NASA and DOD. Again, it was there that she was on the cusp of something great, and then she disappeared, along with every piece of her work. Reich’s officials blamed corporate espionage, but her lab, computers and home were so thoroughly destroyed that it’s hard to really believe that an outside corporation had anything to do with it. We won’t bring Perez in unless we are sure he’s connected to Reich and get some leverage on him,” Harper explained.

“And that leverage is you, Director Riesman,” Lee said. “He did ask you to join him for Thanksgiving, right? He said there would be some friends there.” The question was rhetorical. Riesman focused on Damon. Dry sweat stuck to her clothes, and a chill ran down her back. Processing the information had drained her, but she managed to pull some moisture into her mouth and croak out some words.

“You … want me to spy on Anthony and his guests at Thanksgiving?”

Exposed and confused, Riesman waited for Damon to respond to her directly. Based on everything that had transpired in the past twelve hours, it must have been evident that she wanted some answers. It took Administrator Damon a moment to answer, albeit carefully and slowly.

“Roberta, Drs. Perez and Nakamura were the best minds this country had ever developed. We as a government and as a country invested time, money, resources and access to classified data so they could advance the human race. And just when the deliverables are within reach, they disappear and die. Behind all of this is one woman—a German national, private industrialist and financier, Christine Reich. A woman of multiple talents, heavily resourced and thought to be the wealthiest woman in the world. And yet the world’s best intelligence agencies can’t even get a picture of her, nor can we find any record of her past, school, church, parking violations, nothing. Now we have an opportunity to connect all the players. And you are the one person he seems to trust. If we have an opportunity to get them all together, including even a chance of meeting this mystery woman Reich, then the answer is yes, you will be spying next Thursday on Thanksgiving. It will be for flag and country. But if it helps, we are not interested in Perez, just his guests and some answers.”

It took a moment, but Riesman nodded as if she acquiesced. Her thoughts and heart were still with Hiaki
—
his warm smile and soft eyes.

“All right.” Judging by the quick looks they exchanged, her answer had taken them by surprise.

“All right then, Director Riesman. I assume you know this is classified at the highest levels and is not to be shared with anyone outside of this room,” Agent Harper said.

“Yes.”

“We will be in contact with you, starting on Monday, to go over questions and fit you with wires for tracking and listening,” Lee said.

“Yes.”

The room remained silent then, so she stood with her bag, nodded and waited to be dismissed.

“You know your way out, Roberta,” Damon said.

“Thank you.”

Riesman turned and walked slowly to the door. She noted, as she passed through the administrative assistant’s office, that the assistant was also elegantly dressed and manicured. After leaving the antechamber, she walked in silence down the series of hallways, mechanically producing her badge, bag and herself for inspection at the several checkpoints throughout the Homeland Security building. Fifteen minutes later, she sat in the back seat of her car, with a different driver and protection team, all of them immaculately dressed with similar accessories and manicured hands. Riesman looked out the window with multiple thoughts running through her head. Every time she rewound the conversation, she got stuck on the same couple of things.

Why is the Department of Defense involved? A weapon? What do Hiaki and Anthony have to do with all this?

When anger rises, think of the consequences
- Confucius

What's happened to you? You’re not this man. I don’t know this guy.

Riesman stared at the primitive artifacts scattered on Perez’s walls and tables. She moved closer to the mounted spears, easily seven feet long with heavy-looking metal tips and different colored feathers at the other end. The level of detail was impressive. After close inspection of other edged weapons, Riesman stopped and really looked around. Various flowers in pots attached to large columns gave the only hint of life in the spartan living room. Paleolithic era weapons and shields hung on every wall, interspersed with, and in stark contrast to, the abstract art scattered throughout the apartment. Expansive floor-to-ceiling windows overlooked the Boston Gardens, and the strong smells of honey, cinnamon and lilac filled the air. Rock and roll played too loud for her liking.

“It’s another world.”

Perez and his three other guests worked as a team, laughing and chatting in German while they cleaned and put away the Thanksgiving dinner plates. All three were short women with varying shades and length of red hair, and all three wore loose-fitting turtle-neck blouses over black tights. They gyrated to the music as they worked.

Riesman sipped the wine she’d brought as a gift along with a purchased, baked apple pie. She still had no idea why Perez was with them. Money, not looks, was her clinical analysis; roommates for the expensive piece of real estate—a penthouse in Boston proper.

Riesman looked out the grand windows. The building lights flickered on as the city skyline darkened.

She sipped more of her second glass of expensive wine, uncomfortable both with her task as a spy and where Agent Lee had put the tracking/transceiver device. Riesman walked around, hoping that both gravity and Kegel moves might help, but she only made it worse. She took another sip and tried to distract herself by analyzing the three women.

With red hair and large, dark eyes, they didn’t fit the German stereotype of the tall, blonde, blue-eyed Aryan. They had the robust quality though. Uniformly five feet in height, they had a broad, square build with muscular legs and arms. Riesman tried to look closely without being rude. Their facial features were not very feminine. All three had sloping foreheads, broad faces, broader jaws, and expansive eyes, set back and well protected by their brows. If it wasn’t for their hair, they’d have quite an exposed overhang, Riesman thought. Images of
Neanderthal
humans came to mind.

I got to say that for chicks who are pretty homely, they sure act like they’re the hot models around town. You got to respect that.

Riesman smiled and sipped her wine, glad that she fell well within the American ideal. Feeling suddenly self-conscious of her own appearance, she smoothed out her elegant, midnight-blue pencil dress and chided herself for being catty and shallow.

The women, still dancing to the music, placed desserts, tea and coffee on the table while Perez finished cleaning the kitchen. The setting and people were so surreal that she found herself forgetting why she was really there. The transceiver’s location reminded her. She walked around the room again. It still didn’t help.

Who are you, Anthony? Was it the loss of your entire family that changed you into who you are now, whatever that is? Are you in some cult? What happened to that simple, overweight, gregarious guy?

She realized she was staring at Perez. He fiddled with his small tablet—or was it a large phone?—clearly immersed in something. He’d never struck her as a technophile, but he’d never been far from his tablet all night, and it was the oddest one she’d ever seen: very sleek lines, no ports, almost like a smooth piece of marble. When its screen was off, it looked like polished stone.

Her gaze wandered to the set of primitive weapons that hung on the wall above his head, then to the martial statues on the table beside him. When she refocused on him, he was nodding and talking quietly to himself or his tablet. He made eye contact and walked over.

“I’m sorry for the delay, Bobbie Jo. Are you ready for dessert?” he asked.

Riesman pointed to his tablet.

“I’ve never seen a tablet like that. Can I take a look?”

He raised an eyebrow and blinked, as if taking a moment to understand what she was asking. A strange look crossed his face, then he smiled and handed her the tablet while offering to take her wine with his other hand.

“It’s a little heavier than it looks.”

She exchanged her wine for the tablet. It did feel heavier than she expected, and unlike a regular tablet or smart phone, had no visible buttons, slides, or controls. Both sides looked and felt like a polished, flat stone—perhaps light marble or granite. She’d never seen anything like it before
.
She turned the phone over again, looking for the screen housing.

“The screen is on the other side and is activated by you looking at it.”