Benjamin Platt hated that Maggie sounded like she didn’t trust him. He knew her well enough to know that trust was a fragile commodity to her. That he had gained hers only to lose it in this way made him angry with himself. And it made him angry with Colonel Abraham Hess.
Hess had invited Platt to dinner. He knew the man was feeling pleased with how the congressional hearings had been going. He knew that Hess considered these hearings a mere excuse for Congress to cut the DoD’s budget. They had reviewed Project 112 and Project SHAD twice before and done nothing.
Platt had watched his mentor deliver his testimony, not only captivating his audience but controlling Senator Quincy and the rest of the committee. Now he wanted to celebrate and Platt was far from feeling any sense of victory. In fact, he had no appetite at all, but he wanted answers about North Carolina.
Earlier when Peter Logan met them after the hearing he seemed to have more questions than answers. He couldn’t get ahold of his assistant, Isabel Klein, and although Logan made it sound like a simple communication problem because cell phone towers had been destroyed by the landslide, Platt could see it was yet another excuse. Frustrated, Platt mentioned that he hadn’t had any problems getting through to Maggie O’Dell.
What disturbed Platt even more was that Hess and Logan didn’t seem to be on the same page. Hess said something about a special team on-site and Logan looked surprised. He tried to hide it, but Platt saw the irritation. That’s when Hess asked Platt to meet him for dinner and dismissed him with a nod of his head. As Platt left them he could hear Logan firing off more excuses. Platt glanced back in time to see Hess finally cut Logan short with a wave of his hand, and then he heard the colonel tell his deputy to “get the hell down there.”
Now, several hours later, Platt found the colonel in their favorite corner booth at Old Ebbitt’s. Hess was already enjoying what Platt knew would be a Scotch, neat. As Platt slid into the opposite side, Hess flagged the waiter, who came immediately.
“May I get you a drink, sir?”
“Coffee, black.”
Hess raised his eyebrows.
“Another Scotch for you, sir?”
Hess shook his head. As soon as the young man left, he said to Platt, “What’s wrong, Benjamin?”
“What’s going on in North Carolina? Logan sounded like he had no information and yet it’s been days since the landslide.”
“Logan.” He said the name like it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “The man has potential. He was a good soldier. I met him when he was a platoon leader in Afghanistan. He was instrumental in testing some of our new products in the field.” He looked across the table at Platt. “You know how important that’s been?”
Platt didn’t want Hess to get off the subject of North Carolina. He nodded, then asked, “Instrumental enough that you made him a deputy of DARPA?”
Hess stared at him with narrow eyes, obviously not pleased with Platt questioning his judgment.
Before Hess could answer, Platt continued, “There are dead bodies being recovered—one of them a scientist from your facility who may have been murdered. And Logan hasn’t even been there.”
Hess held up a hand, stopping him just as he had Senator Quincy. “Don’t worry about it. I have a special recovery team there. They’ve already started to take care of things even without Logan.”
“So do you have any more information about the facility?”
“It appears it’s buried. Gone. Completely shoved off its foundation and toppled somewhere under the mountain.”
Platt ran a hand over his face and held back his response as the waiter set a cup of coffee and a saucer in front of him.
“Don’t look so troubled, Benjamin,” Hess said as he took a sip of his Scotch. “Down there we can still control things. Up here is where the vultures will destroy us if we let them.”
By “vultures” Platt knew the colonel meant political vultures. How could he look so content when an entire facility had been destroyed by a landslide and its staff members were gone, one possibly murdered?
“Have you been able to reach Dr. Shaw?”
“No. Not yet.”
“By now you must know what was kept at the facility.”
“My team will take care of it.”
“Abraham, you asked me to send down an FBI agent. Is there a chance she might be exposed to something?”
“You know each facility takes all kinds of precautions. We have no reason to believe that anything has been breached.”
“What were they working on?”
Finally Platt saw a look of concern. Hess glanced around the noisy restaurant and scooted closer to the edge of his seat, placing his hands on his glass.