Memoria (16 page)

He t
urned to the desk, reached for the mug of
cold coffee and froze,
astonished
by his thoughts.
Now he could see
Gautier
and her migrant buddies in a to
tally different light. They had
youngsters in their camps who remember
ed
the war ve
ry well, and that had been
thirty years ago.
All right, they
might
be rightless, they had no access to proper education, but at least they knew
stuff
about their fathers' past.
People like those were a threat indeed.
For the government, but first of all, for Memoria's business.

It was all so simple. Forgetting the mug, he
plonked down
into the chair
. The coffee splashed out over his dress shirt and poured down his trouser legs.

"Shit!" he stepped aside, grabbed a sheet of paper and tried to
blot out a large brown spot on his belly. It didn't work. "Melanie!" he called for his secretary
without raising his head
.

The opening door caused a
window pane to rattle in its wooden frame.

"Sir," she sounded excited.

"Get me a few tissues, please."

"Sir, I was just trying to tell them
...
"

"Thank you," a strange male voice dismissed her.

Jessup raised his head.
A tall
ginger-haired
man stood before his desk.
Dressed in a cream-colored trench coat, he had a long face and
a slightly aquiline nose
. His eyes
seemed to pierce everything he looked at. He glanced over the office and fixed his
gaze
on the Shelby file in front of Jessup.

"Sir," the
secretary gave him a guilty look.

"You can go, Melanie. I'll fetch some tissues myself later."

When she closed the door behind her, the man showed Jessup his ID.

"Agent Archer."

Without further ado he
reached for a spare chair, turned it around and straddled it back to front.

Jessup moved aside. Behind the glass partition,
s
e
veral
of
Archer's
agents
crowded
in the hall
star
ing
at their boss
.

"Let's get straight down to business," he said.

"As you wish," Archer pointed at the file. "
You give me and my men whatever you've got on Shelby and Baker, and we'll leave."

Jessup paused, then nodded.
Leaning against the back of the chair, the agent rose and walked to the door.

"Oh," he said. "One last thing. The President's arriving tomorrow. Make sure there's no rioting
. Keep
the
migrants under control. The Mayor has already given them the afternoon off, so
make sure they're back in their camps
by thirteen hundred.

Jessup ground his teeth but kept himself
under
control.

"Ho
w about the President's safety?"

"The standard procedure," Archer reached for the door handle. "Your people will
assist
my agents
with on-site inspection. They will be responsible for cordoning off the possible cortege routes."

He opened the door and added out loud,

"It's the President's request to have no police inside the Memoria building. Their security will take over there. Make sure you control the adjacent streets and the airport.
The air
gate over Manhattan
is also their
responsibility. No police choppers
."

Jessup didn't speak. He wished he could
hurl his unfinished coffee into the agent's smug face. How dared he humiliate the entire
police force, all those people who
'd sacrificed their lives to protecting each and every New Yorker.
But even here Memoria had to have its pound of flesh.
He was out of it now, and as for
speak
ing directly to the President, he now had a slimmer chance than a snowball in hell.

Without looking away, Jessup moved to the desk and
pressed an intercom key.

"Melanie. I want you to ask Lieutenants Salem and Gizbo to see me now. Tell them to bring everything they have
on
the
Shelby case."

Before Jessup heard the secretary's "Yes, sir," Agent Archer closed the door behind him
. He went
to his
men still crowding in the hall and spoke to them glancing back at Jessup through the glass.

Jessup drummed his fingers on the desk and opened the file.
He'd
have
love
d
to
have
know
n
two things. First, what kind of item had Shelby collected at the post office. And second
ly
, what the man
planned
to do next.

The Captain wasn't going to abort the investigation.

* * *

They woke
Barney
up before lunch. He
drove them away from the kitchen table and started cooking.
In j
eans and T-shirt, he opened the fridge and produced a large cut of
neck
for a stew
.

"Migrants' meat," he said.

"Pardon?" Frank perked up.

"They raise cattle in those camps," Barney threw the meat onto the table and reached for the biggest knife on the rack. "Without them, New York
would have starved a long time
ago."

Max
moved his laptop onto the window sill.
Frank collected their notes covered
in diagrams and question marks. He
moved closer to the fridge and to
Barney
in order to tell
him their brainstorm results.

Barney
sliced the meat on the board, his enormous shoulders
unmoving. He listened carefully, nodding whenever
Max
asked if
he understood what Frank was saying. When
Frank came to the shootout,
Barney
forgot his meat and turned to him, listening. Once Frank finished,
Barney
gave the coach a meaningful glance.

"Same people," the coach summed up.
He ran his hand through his crew cut.
"
All bald
, mind you. Any idea why?"

"Expe
riment volunteers,"
Barney
suggested. "Same as
Claney
."

"Yeah
,
right," said Frank. "Children volunteers."

Barney
stared at him.

"You do the
math
," Frank said. "
Claney
is the same age as you two. When Baker was testing his technology, he was the same age as I am now. After
ward
, they solved the hair loss problem.
Now think. The attackers are all my age. All have hair loss. Why?"

Barney
stuck out a quizzical chin. Frank went on,

"Let's assume they
were subject
ed to Baker's experiments
while still children. Kathleen found out and wanted to go public and report
Memoria's
child abuse
. You think it's serious enough?"

The two men nodded.

"Until now,
it se
ems to add up," Frank glanced at
the sheets of paper in
his hand, sat back and crossed his legs. "One
thing I don't understand is their military traini
ng. What's that got to do with B
aker's experiments? Another thing. Those who attacked me at the post office couldn't speak clearly.
They didn't seem to be able to form complete senten
ces. Could that be a
side effect
of the experiments
? If so, how does
Claney
tie into the picture?
He
can talk the legs off a chair
, that one. We've just heard him do it."

"
Barney
? What do you think?"
Max
adjusted
his glasses. The laptop
started sliding
off his lap
. He caught it
by the monitor
just
in time. "Any ideas?"

Barney
took the cutting board and
used the
knife to
swe
ep
the chopped meat
into a large pan.

"Well," he mused, picking his teeth with the knife
. "I'm not a hundred percent sure, but it's possible they were specially trained. They wanted to use them whene
ver
need be." He looked at
Max
. "Did I make myself clear?"

"More or less,"
Max
shut the laptop. "Are
you imply
ing
that
their volunteers
were intended
to perform secret missions, just like I used to do for Hopper?"

"You got it,"
Barney
picked up a lid and covered the pan.

"Right," Frank butted in, "but why them and not somebody else? What makes them speci
al?
A
ll this fantasizing may not do us any favors."

"Sometimes fantasizing is the best way to find a solution,"
Max
said.

"Yeah, right,"
Barney
shrugged, put the knife down and
lifted the pan. "
I'll
never forget how you sank that U-boat in the Gulf of Mexico.
And they didn't believe you then
, either
!"

"
Leave it," the coach sai
d. "We'd better try to find
a connection between
Claney
and the baldheaded attackers. And if there is
one
, then what exactly is it?
So let's have a think and then a meal, and then Frank can finally go get some rest."

Without answering,
Barney
put the pan onto the stove and opened the fridge, looking for some vegetables.
Max
set the laptop aside
. He dragged the bag from under the table, took out an assault rifle and began taking it to bits, placing each part onto the window sill.

"And what if-" Frank stopped himself.

The veterans turned to him.

"No, sorry,"
Frank
waved them aside
. "Won't work."

"Spill it out, boy,"
Barney
pointed his knife at him. "
It'
s for us to decide whether it'll work or not."

"Exactly,"
Max
glanced at the clock over the fridge. "
Hurry up."

"Right," Frank rummaged
through
the pile of notes and pulled out a sheet. He turned it to the veterans so they could see a diagram with a few questions jotted down underneath.
"What would you say if the migrants were supposed to start a war in New York
? O
nly they don't know about it yet?"

"
In which respect?
"
Barney
munched on
a carrot.

The coach lowered the rifle onto his lap.

"Easy," Frank shrugged. "They'll
make
them do it."

"How
exactly
?"
Max
asked.
"You just can't let go of this migrant theory, can you?"

"First, a
question," Frank said.
"Do you agree that there is a connection between
Claney
and
the bald
ies
? I think it's pretty obvious."

"I only saw
Claney
. And he was on TV,"
said
Barney
finishing his carrot.