The Glass House (10 page)

Then there was the shrine. It had an old purse that she'd thrown away, an empty bottle of her perfume and a pair of her sneakers that she'd “lost” at the office and dozens of other personal items of hers, all neatly balanced to form a rough pyramid. She'd removed
only one thing: the nude photo of her with the chemical formula, which she hadn't yet deciphered, and the Bible citation on the back.

That night she applied her considerable computer skills and found out, much to her surprise, that the formula outlined the use of a catalyst in a chemical reaction. On further searching she found the basics. A catalyst was a freak of nature. An entity—an element—that needed to be present to allow a chemical reaction to take place between two or three or four others. The other entities changed—but the catalyst never changed. Yet without the catalyst the entities could come into contact, could be heated or mixed and nothing would happen. But put the entities together then add the catalyst and an entirely new entity would come into being—although the catalyst remained unchanged. The catalyst was simply used by the other entities to do their work.
Moses leading the ancient Israelites to the promised land but never being allowed to set foot in it,
she thought.
He caused the change but would not experience the change.
So she wasn't surprised when later she checked the Bible citation from Deuteronomy 34:

1 And Moses went up from the plains of Moab unto the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, that is over against Jericho. And the Lord shewed him all the land of Gilead, unto Dan,

2 And all Naphtali, and the land of Ephraim, and Manasseh, and all the land of Judah, unto the utmost sea,

3 And the south, and the plain of the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees, unto Zoar.

4 And the
LORD
said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.

She re-created the image of the room in her mind, then viewed it from the opposite direction and reconfirmed what she had seen before. All the chalk lines radiated from the picture of her. She was somehow the very centre, the epicentre of all this—whatever this was.

That night sleep evaded her. Odd images of Decker and Harrison and the perverse shrine kept pummelling her like pop-ups on a computer screen.

At four in the morning she'd had enough. She got into her car and just drove—although she knew where she'd end up.

At dawn's light she was by the Vietnam Memorial in D.C., her hand touching the name of the father who had died in the swamps of the Mekong Delta, the father she'd never met. As the sun peeked over the horizon a single beam of light crossed the memorial, and she was able to read her father's dates—and realized that she was now exactly ten years to the day older than her father had been when bullets ripped through his body and pinned him to the thick mud of a South Asian river.

She allowed her fingers to trace his name and whispered, as she had so often done in the past, “Your little girl's in over her head, Dad. Way over her head.”

• • •

An hour later she grabbed a coffee.
Crap, at a place that should have been called D.C.'s Worst
, she thought and made her way to Mallory's office. She badged her way through security and was met by Emerson, who seemed as fresh as someone who'd had ten hours of sleep. Maybe he'd had ten hours of sleep.

“You look—”

“Fresh? Yes I do. You, on the other hand, look like a somewhat worn dishrag.”

“Thanks.”

“An attractive dishrag who's in trouble.”

“Why's that?”

“Because I found it.”

“It?”

“You'll see.”

“Enough. Where's the meeting?”

“This way, Your Highness.”

As they walked, Yslan noted that government buildings were built like warrens—hives. She shivered as she realized that they were built that way to defeat an invading force—modern castles.

Emerson opened a door and stepped aside for her to enter ahead of him.

She did and was greeted by a sight that surprised her. Overnight the techs of Homeland Security had recreated in exacting detail the room above Harrison's study and were just now adding the final touches. She turned to speak to Emerson, but Mallory was there.

“So what did you take?”

“Excuse me?”

“What did you take?” He grabbed her by her upper arm. His manicured nails bit into her flesh. He guided her to the shrine and pointed to the place on the pyramid of things that had formerly been occupied by the catalyst formula and the Bible citation. “There. Emerson says there had to be something there. What was there?”

“A picture.”

“Of?”

“Me.”

“And you took it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It was lewd.”

He stepped back to get a better look at her. “Lewd?”

“Yes. I don't know how he got it but it was . . .” She allowed
her voice to trail off, and she shook her head. When she looked up, Mallory was staring at her. Then he turned to Emerson.

“Are you sure?”

Emerson walked up to the shrine and spent a long time looking at the objects there. It surprised Yslan that Mallory waited patiently—but waited for what? For Emerson to do what?

Emerson turned to Mallory and said, “It wasn't just a photograph.”

Yslan stared at Emerson, who raised his shoulders. “It's a special talent of mine.” Yslan thought,
Decker could tell when people were telling the truth, Viola Tripping could stand on the spot where someone had died and tell you what had been in his mind and Martin Armistaad could predict events based on the mathematical reality of pi. What is it that Emerson—

Emerson said simply, “People called my grandmother a witch. I was with her when she died. I was six. She taught me how to see patterns—even in her crazy quilt.”

Yslan vaguely remembered Decker talking about a thing that he called semblant order—was that what Emerson was talking about?

He was pointing at the pyramid again. “It looks random, where he put the objects, but there's a pattern—and a nude picture of you, however charming that might be, doesn't totally complete the pattern.”

“So what does?” It was Mallory, and he was openly angry.

Yslan reached into her pocket and took out the photo, formula and Bible quotation side up.

Mallory called out, “Henderson.” A classic tech raised his head. If there were still pocket protectors he would have had one, maybe two. He had a coffee stain on his wrinkled white shirt. The man left his task and his cup of Seattle's Best coffee on his table, then approached. “What do you make of this?”

Henderson glanced at it and quickly said, “Standard formulation for a catalyst, sir. Why?”

“No particular reason.” Taking back the photo he said, “Thanks,” in a manner that those with power are comfortable using to dismiss a subordinate—and Henderson ambled obediently away.

Mallory took out his BlackBerry and expertly navigated to a Bible search site, entered the citation, read the text and grunted.

Mallory turned to Yslan and stepped inside her personal space. “Explain. You have two minutes to explain why I shouldn't have you locked up for interfering with a federal investigation.”

Yslan took the photo from Mallory, walked over to the shrine and put it where it belonged, then turned back to Mallory and Emerson. “Because somehow I'm part of all this—whatever ‘this' is. And I don't mean just as an investigator or agent for the NSA—but part of all this. I've felt it for a long time.”

“Since you met Mr. Roberts?”

“And before.”

Mallory stepped forward and raised his voice. “That's enough—every nonessential out. Now. Out.” And after a bit of scurrying the room was empty except for Yslan, Mallory, Emerson and the tech who had decoded the catalyst formula.

“Explain.”

“I can't.”

“Why?”

“Because I don't know why myself. But I believe it's true.”

“The house was immaculate but this room was by comparison somehow chaotic. Why?”

Yslan thought,
Because the chaos allowed him to feel closer to the ‘other.'
Instead, she said, “I have no idea. Maybe because he never thought anyone would find his hidden room.”

Mallory looked at Emerson, who had a profoundly lost look on his face. “Makes no sense to me, sir. If there was a pattern then I'd have found something in the rest of the house that would have preambled this.”

“Preambled?”

“Foreshadowed. Patterns always have predecessors—always. And there were those three sets of prints we found.”

“Three?” Yslan asked.

“Yours, Harrison's, and an unidentified set.”

“You've run—”

“Of course, and no hits.”

“Were there any—”

“Dozens. Hair samples, clothing fibres, enough that whoever it was might have been up there for quite some time.”

“How could that be?”

“I don't know.”

It seemed clear to Yslan that Mallory had rarely, if ever, allowed those words out of his mouth.

The tech approached them, his coffee cup in his hand. Yslan grabbed it from him, hot coffee splashing his already coffee-stained shirt.

“Hey!”

“What the hell?” Mallory demanded.

“Something was snuck into Harrison's food, right?”

“That's about the extent of what forensics is willing to commit to.”

“Yet, Harrison was a maniac for preparing his own food. He had a real thing about that.”

“So?”

“Except for coffee—from Seattle's Best.”

• • •

Mallory watched Yslan and Emerson leave, then turned to the tech. “Out.”

The tech quickly left the room. Mallory allowed his eyes to trace the chalk lines to the four chalked numbers, then back to the shrine—just as he had done when he was in Harrison's hidden room all those months ago.

Well before anyone else had seen Harrison's creation, his world of wonders.

He'd arranged for Harrison to attend a conference in Malaysia, which gave him lots of time to follow up on the doings of one Leonard Harrison. That's when he'd found the man's family Bible—and chanced upon the hidden room that Special Agent Yslan Hicks thought she had been the first to discover. The third set of fingerprints were, of course, his.

He stepped into the midst of the reconstruction and stared at the photo of Yslan Hicks. “Find him, Special Agent Hicks—find number one.”

THE SEATTLE'S BEST ON WISCONSIN
Avenue was the nearest one to NSA head offices and looked pretty much like every other Seattle's Best. Yslan didn't enter, she just stood outside looking in the window.

“Waiting for something?” Emerson asked.

She had to get used to him being by her side.

“Yeah,” she said, “till nine o'clock.”

“It's almost—”

“But not exactly nine.”

She waited for the digital clock behind the coffee bar to register 9:00. When it did she stepped into the coffee bar. The barista behind the counter was talking to his customer. “She'll ring you up.” He took off his apron, and another young barista stepped out of the back room, smiled and approached the cash register.

Yslan watched the shuffle closely. Watched the coffee cup on the counter—and saw quite clearly that in the nine o'clock switch it would have been easy to reach over and lace Harrison's coffee with whatever it had been laced with.

The music changed from early James Taylor to something classical.

Yslan approached the cashier.

“Hi, what can I getcha?” the barista asked.

“Information,” Yslan said, flashing her NSA ID.

“About what?”

“Do you usually work the nine o'clock shift on your own?”

“For now—until they replace Jason.”

“Where's Jason?”

“Who knows. The guy up and quits and leaves me to deal with the crowds.”

“When?”

“When what?”

“When did he quit?”

“Last Friday, and I really thought he liked working here. It's why we got the dumb classical music—for him.”

“Not a fan?”

“Hell no, not me.”

Yslan smiled. The barista smiled back.

After that it took Yslan only three minutes to get Jason's address, four to find out that a barista only makes $405 a week, five more to find that Jason had made a $500 deposit to his savings account last Friday. Fifteen minutes later she was standing outside his apartment door and signalling to the cops carrying the battering ram to use the damned thing.

The door gave with a nasty screech and Yslan found herself in a small apartment that clearly belonged to classical musicians. A string quartet was playing on the iPod dock, two music stands were set up with scores opened and annotated. There were posters of classical music concerts on the walls.

Jason's two roommates made some noises about warrants, police brutality and Nazis but shut up when Yslan told them that they could go, that they should go, that it was only Jason who she wanted to talk to.

Once his roommates were gone, Jason looked around wildly. He wore an old pair of pleated and cuffed Dockers and a large cardigan sweater that failed to hide his bulk. A long strand of hair
fell across his eyes, and the cello bow in his right hand vibrated like a hummingbird's wings.

Yslan lowered her voice and said, “Five hundred dollars isn't nearly enough to commit a murder.”

“Murder!”

“Yes, a murder, Jason.” She heard the cops behind her shuffling, but she didn't care. Dead, catatonic—what's the difference? “So, who gave you the money?”