The Army knew gas. Had worked with gas since World War I. Was afraid of germs. Knew little about them. The military guys came in with their flip charts and meteorological charts to explain how and why the Iraqis would use gas. They were not stupid. As the group that had to actually put the rubber to the road, they had to deal with the situation with the tools they had at hand.
The people at NSA always prided themselves on knowing things—which they did. But they weren’t good at organizing their knowledge into a decent presentation. They were like people who owned a large furniture store but had no idea about how to arrange things. They had incredible infrared satellite imagery, they could spot small buildings that might be rather large biological warfare sites, they had phone intercepts, they had every Iraqi checking account under surveillance. But they had no overall notion of what Saddam was up to in this area.
A couple of treasury types sat in and had interesting ideas on the flow of cash to and from Iraq, as well as a complete guide to the financial structure of the European chemical industry as it had evolved since the days of I. G. Farben. But nothing came together.
The State observer updated the group on his department’s current policy: a psychological attack on all fronts to convince people of the Hitlerian tendencies of Saddam, the beginnings of the drive through Mubarak to isolate Saddam within the Arab community, the freezing of all Iraqi assets, and the use of the UN as a rallying point for the coming counterattack. Domestically, the spin doctors were trying to figure out the best way to justify the sending of American people out to a vast and foreboding desert to face unknown threats.
Spector and Betsy represented the Agency, and they split the work. Spector reviewed everything the Agency had done on the subject, from all aspects of the vast resources available to Langley, with no firm conclusion except that Saddam was probably up to something. Betsy pulled together all her records since 1989, and all the little think pieces she had written to herself, together with what she had learned, and what she suspected, about what was going on in the domain of Professor Larsen—and all the other Larsens at the other universities.
The night that Kevin and Margaret were attacked in Adams-Morgan was the one, ghastly interruption in the cobwebbed life that Betsy led in the weeks following her trip to Kennebunkport. On that Friday night, she had come home late from work, where she’d been trying to pull her report together in preparation for the Monday meeting. The streets of Rosslyn had been crowded with foreign students and officials in town for the NAISS convention, which had only reminded her of the futility of her quest.
When she got back to her apartment, she smelled vomit in the hallway, not quite masked by the sharp scent of ammonia floor cleaner. She knew that it must be connected to Kevin somehow.
She opened her door and found Kevin sprawled across the living-room sofa, looking sick unto death, and Cassie in the kitchen talking on the telephone in low tones. Cassie was wearing a T-shirt. On top of that she wore a shoulder holster with a large gun in it.
Cassie interrupted whoever was on the other end of the line. “Can I call you back?” she asked in a hoarse voice, and then hung up without waiting for an answer. She turned and leveled her gaze at Betsy. Her eyes were red. “Found him passed out in front of our door with a bottle of gin in his lap,” she said. “There was quite a mess.”
“I’m so sorry, Cassie. You shouldn’t have to put up with his behavior.”
“Skip it. You want to know why he was there, in that condition?”
“Because he’s an alcoholic?”
“He and a friend got mugged.”
“Mugged! Where?”
“Adams-Morgan. Two young Hispanic males approached them while they were sitting in their car. Pulled guns. Demanded their money. Something went wrong. Or maybe they just got jumpy. Shots were fired. Couple of them went right by your brother’s head. Few more went into his friend’s body.”
“He’s hurt?”
“She.”
“Who was he with?”
“Our neighbor.”
“Margaret’s hurt?”
“Margaret,” Cassie said, “is dead.”
Kevin had got up the next morning, declined to talk about anything, declined to eat, refused to accept a ride to the airport. Had told a vague rendition of the story more or less like Cassie’s. He had flown back to Wapsipinicon and stopped answering his telephone. But he continued to change the message on his answering machine several times a day, just to let people know he was still there.
So if someone had been trying to shut Kevin up, they had succeeded.