Radiant Dawn (23 page)

"Now think of the possibilities for the Bureau, Cundieffe. Think of what we could accomplish if that kind of technology came under the auspices of the Department of Justice, of law enforcement, instead of military might." He didn't need to spell them out, and they both lapsed into a moment of silent visualization as the implications cascaded over them—bank robberies would become inconceivable, hostage crises and armed standoffs could be ended swiftly and decisively with zero casualties. No more Ruby Ridges, no more Wacos, no more Patty Hearsts. All through the gift of a new technology that could simply be seized by the right agency. Sure, there were thorny ethical questions to be worked over, but the light of the Greater Good shot them all full of holes. "Think of how much better the Bureau could serve the American people, Cundieffe," Wyler was still talking, leading Cundieffe out of his fugue and back to the present, with all its stupefying revelations and new responsibilities.

His skin felt tight, as if he were about to burst out of it and float away. He clenched his hands round his kneecaps until the discomfort brought him back to himself, and he said, "It would be an honor to serve in this capacity, sir. How soon can the transfer be affected?"

"Hunt can't be pulled out of the field by regular channels, so there'll be an emergency OPR review convened on some charges which will keep him suspended for the next ninety days, at least. A blot on his record, but a temporary one. You'll be posited as his interim replacement, but you're the man I want to see this through to its ultimate conclusion. Give it two days. During which time I'd like to see more information on this Storch character. I'd like him nailed down as either a co-conspirator or coincidence. If he worked with them, he's probably dead now, whether or not his actions in Furnace Creek were sanctioned. But I'd like to know. Can you put that together in forty-eight hours, Cundieffe?"

"If I don't sleep, sir."

"Good. Don't." As if summoned by silent alarm, Herb climbed back into the car and steered them out of the structure. The car bellied up to the curb and Herb got out and held the door for Wyler, who'd said nothing and done nothing but sip his drink. He shook Cundieffe's hand, said, "We're all counting on you, son," and merged into the torrent of bodies rushing into the terminal. Herb returned to the driver's seat and headed back for the freeway. "Back to the office?" Herb asked.

"What? Ah, yes, please," Cundieffe managed. He had a lot on his mind, he'd probably collect his things and go home to review the disk— and weigh everything else Wyler had dumped on him.

"Here," Herb said, handing something through the pass-through. It was another brown paper bag. "Your mother packed you a second sandwich."

Shame-faced, Cundieffe thanked him and took the bag. Inside was another egg salad sandwich, into which Cundieffe tucked with renewed gusto, and a note. Looking out for Herb's prying eyes in the rearview mirror, he sneaked a peek at it.

Wrapped up in the note, inside a tightly sealed envelope of wax paper, were two oatmeal cookies. Cundieffe ate them, and began to feel better.

He wasn't prepared for the city.

The constant roaring of cars, voices shouting at nobody, the stench of burning, of consumption. The day was hot, not nearly so bad as Death Valley, but muggy. The heat supercharged the motes of industrial dust and moisture in the air. He had no choice but to breathe it in, felt in congealing in his blood, oozing out of his pores with the consistency of glue. The sky pressed down on San Jose like a tarpaulin stretched taut under the weight of megatons of rain that would never wash the filthy ground. He felt it against his neck, smelled the reek of ozone and knew in his bones from one step to the next that he would be struck by lightning.

Storch had never liked cities: growing up on army bases, cities, by comparison, were like zoos with no bars. Too squeamish to fight real wars, civilians nevertheless killed each other, and themselves, in a myriad of sick, cowardly ways. Cities were unsafe, teeming with weak, unscrupulous people, the Army taught him, and everything he saw with his own eyes only endorsed their view. It wasn't as much of a stretch, then, for Storch to embrace the Special Forces take on civilians. They felt about them as white blood cells must feel about fatty tissue. Although they defended them and their way of life, albeit in a very roundabout way, they were disgusted by them, and secretly longed for a purging that would make the body of the nation a leaner, more efficient machine.

He stopped at the first payphone he saw with an intact phonebook and looked up Sperling. There were two in the county, one in Sunnyvale: Donald Sperling. He thought it strange to find the name there, despite his having looked for it. Most parents who'd lost children stayed put for the first few years, as if the missing had merely wandered, and would one day come home to them. Once hope melted away and the police stopped calling with leads, the memories caught up with them and they cleared out.

He called the number. It rang seven times before someone picked up. A hollow voice, nominally male, croaked, "Hello?"

"Mr. Sperling? Mr. Donald Sperling?"

"Yes? Who is this?"

"You don't know me, sir, but I need to know you. I've come a long way—"

"What's this about?"

"I don't know how else to tell you this, sir, so—I've found your daughter."

"My daughter? But…that's impossible…Who is this?"

"Mr. Sperling, does the name Radiant Dawn mean anything to you?"

The line went dead.

Storch walked into the Sunnyvale Public Library and had to stop, had to grab at his temples and tell himself he hadn't walked into a giant beehive. Everywhere, beneath every hushed sound, the sinister buzzing of fluorescent lights, like the all-pervading, susurrant voice of the library's secret custodians. Like a tuning fork, it set up a resonance in the fillings in his teeth, like his mouth was full of hornets. His eyes took several moments to adjust to the darkness; in the meantime, all he could see was a sickly sea-green murk out of which flashing shapes swam, like the emerging details of an overexposed Polaroid.

Storch stopped just short of the security portal, ignoring a woman who ran into his back as he considered the automatic still concealed in his waistband. It took a moment before he recognized that the portal wasn't a metal detector at all, only a screening device for detecting the foil security strips in the library books. By then, everyone at the circulation desk was staring at him, and he moved as quickly as he could across to the periodicals room. He found a computer in a shadowy alcove and set about trying to get some answers.

The computer offered a keyword search feature for local and national newspapers. First, he tried 'Radiant Dawn.' Three hits, one each from the
San Jose Mercury News
, the
Fresno Bee
, and the
Sacramento Bee
. All three articles were more or less the same sort of fluffy human-interest story that leads the local news section on a Sunday morning. He read only the first few paragraphs of each.

Georgette has had a harder row to hoe in life than most. Already an orphan and a ward of the state, she understands that she has less than three months to live. She has an especially aggressive brain tumor known as a Grade IV glioblastoma multiforme, which has spread through most of the tissue of her cerebrum. Radiation and chemotherapy have failed to stem the cancer's growth, and surgery was never an option. A massive regimen of medications keep her seizures under control, but doctors have written off Georgette, and hope only to sustain her quality of life for the time she has left. But Georgette smiles as she signs her sunflower picture and hangs it up to dry. "I still have hope," she says, in her soft, shy voice. "The counselors here have told me that with every new sunrise, there's the chance that something wonderful will happen.
"

Storch scratched at the irritable stubble on his scalp. It had to be a coincidence. There was nothing in the fluff pieces that smacked of child abduction or genetic terrorism. Still, something nagged at him. If only they'd turn down those lights.

He tried a search on Sidra Sperling. Twelve hits, the first few stories carried on UPI, the rest merely regional as interest and hope dwindled. He called up the listing for the first article, from Christmas Day, 1990, two days after the girl was taken.

Storch rubbed his hands over his skull, cupped his ears. A few moments away from the lights, and it came to him. He ordered another search of Radiant Dawn, this time going back to the time of the kidnapping. Nothing new. He tried again, this time going back to the time of the girl's birth, the only other milestone he had. One hit, from December 12, 1981.

The same fucking name. In the same fucking place.

A connection between the things he'd read nattered at him like the noise of the fluorescents, but he couldn't make out what it was trying to tell him for all the buzzing. Unable to stand it anymore, he lurched up and ran out.

As he wandered the city, first on foot, and then on a bus, Storch tried to put together what he'd read. Maybe it was stupid, trying to get a handle on some secret organization fighting a covert war in California by reading old newspapers, but something about both groups irritated him, made him do something he hadn't been able to do properly since the war. It made him think deeply.

Neither of the two organizations seemed to tie in to the abduction. One was a utopian hippie dream almost twenty years dead, the other a charitable organization for cheering up the doomed. But Donald Sperling, who still lived in the same house from which his daughter was taken and in which his wife had died, had bolted at the mention of the name.

He found it passing strange that a bunch of weirdos living out in the desert should've been able to keep such a low profile until they disappeared. True, a commune was hardly cause for alarm in California in the 1970's, but Jim Jones' Peoples' Temple and the Manson Family were still raw wounds in the mass psyche back then, and a large group in the middle of nowhere under the leadership of a fringe religious guru should've attracted more attention. That they broke up four or five months before the girl's birth, that she was snatched from a rest stop that was practically their front door, compounded his certainty that this was the link. Indeed, it was the only thing that tied Sidra Sperling to Radiant Dawn. That and the say-so of a star-chamber of paramilitary lunatics. What had he fallen into, and when would he hit bottom?

Lt. Col. Mort Greenaway hated civilians. He hated SCUD hunts even more. His immediate future looked to be chockfilled with both.

Never one to command from the rear, Greenaway had spent most of the last three days riding shotgun in a small, unarmed Navy TH-57 Sea Ranger helicopter, tracing the ever-expanding perimeter of their search field, watching the chopper's shadow sliding over a million different varieties of godforsaken wasteland, shepherding each of the motley assortment of search teams the Navy and FBI had mustered.

To say they were a mixed bag was putting it mildly. The FBI agents he'd been sent, under a dickbrain named Hunt, were in charge of bracing the locals, coordinating with local law enforcement to perform house-tohouse interviews and surveillance. Fourteen teams of Navy SEALS swept the ground, from Joshua Tree National Monument to the Owens Valley. Greenaway was fast becoming disgusted with their lack of initiative. Their reports came more and more frequently and offered less and less in the way of useful data. They were freaked out, sent on a search when they were told only that it was not a drill, and placed under a strange commander. Like hunting dogs tracking a scentless fox for a new master, they were chasing their tails, especially after the accident.