The Messenger (6 page)

“Yes, let’s share.”

The Sinhalese woman, long ago consigned to death by her own friendly impulses and Daria’s requirement to fit in, has now become her angel and guide. Once in their cab, the woman points out things, recommends restaurants and galleries. Money is never mentioned, since having flown first-class, Daria is obviously on an expense account. They are riding across a famous bridge into Manhattan; the afternoon light is hard and the shadows flit rhythmically across the windshield.

Her name is Sally, the woman says. Actually it is Saloni. Her father sold and repaired refrigerators in a town near Goa. He was successful and this ensured that she made a good marriage, to a husband who inherited a quartet of farms when his uncle died. “Back when it was Ceylon,” she adds.

“Omar immediately began buying and selling. I left home and didn’t come back for fifteen years,” she says.

“I’m sure it’s very painful to be away for so long,” Daria replies, looking out the window, and—still in shock, naturally—only thinks of her mother for a moment, and has to turn her face away to the looming city. “I hope to see my mother for Christmas,” she finally says.

“You must. I’m sure she misses you.”

“My father is dead. Or missing.” The softness in her voice surprises her. Shock or not, the need to talk has won her over, and … it feels good to talk. Why be so secretive? There’s nothing this woman can do with any information she might confide. Sally will be dead soon anyway.

“He was taken away by soldiers,” Daria says. “Two times, and then it was decided that he should leave, he was going to live with relatives, and my mother is still waiting for him.”

“Oh, my … dear …” Sally touches her heart and then reaches
over and clasps Daria’s hand. After a moment she digs in her purse and comes out with a tissue. “I’m so sorry.”

“Everyone has something … it’s okay.” Daria looks up at her. “There’s nothing I can do about it, is there?” she says, forcing a smile, looking away from Sally to the back of the cabdriver, safe behind his protected barrier, ignoring them completely.

They slip into the purple gloom beneath huge buildings that flank the gigantic street—the widest and straightest she has ever seen—seemingly heading straight across America.

Ahead of her there is something blocking the street, and the taxi abruptly slows.

A policeman.

Standing there in his safety vest, his hand raised to stop them. There is a great tremor in her chest, and she sits up straight.

“There are always traffic problems,” Sally says as they stop.

Now a trio of policemen are walking back and forth, all glued to their radios. They don’t look her way. They don’t seem to be interested in her cab at all.

“I was here when the Pope visited. It was true insanity, I assure you …” Sally laughs beside her.

The delay is all the more nerve-racking because there seems to be no reason for it. No cops are taking cover and drawing their guns and screaming for her to get out of the car. They just sit there, all traffic stopped. Waiting.

Then, crossing fast, a quartet of motorcycles followed by a half dozen black limousines. “It could be anybody, who knows?” Sally says. “Something at the UN … or maybe Sarkozy is in town …”

Once the VIP convoy has passed, they are released and the cab picks up speed as they race up the avenue. Daria is glued to the window now, craning her neck to stare up at the towering buildings … and when she turns back Sally is watching her, smiling.

“New York is a fantastic place, Daria. You’re going to have a good time.”

Only moments later the cab swerves to a stop in front of the white and gold awnings outside the Pierre. Except for these ostentatious
awnings, they could be in Europe, in Berlin, outside the historic Hotel Adlon. The dark face of the driver says something to them, and he pops the trunk.

“I wish you the utmost success,” Sally says, and they share a little hug.

She knew this would happen. She knew she would look into someone’s eyes. From the moment she unscrewed the little bottle and poured the fluid over her hands, inside herself she
knew
. She had let her guard down, but what was the difference? Deaths had to be accepted. The method didn’t matter, didn’t affect the principles of her actions. A suicide bomb would maim and kill plenty of so-called innocents. She was doing the same. That was the point. That was the definition of terror.

So, there is no tear she has to wipe away, and, shivering, she waves goodbye to Sally as her cab pulls into the traffic stream and turns toward the glittering Grand International Hotel, just across the park.

He has been deposited in an interviewing room up on the sixth floor of a glass-walled building. It is the FBI’s Atlanta field office, but it looks like any other anonymous suburban office building.

The interviewing room is not much different from other similar rooms he has visited: A table and three chairs placed in contravention of every dictate of feng shui. A camera lens poking through the top corner of the wall opposite. Others almost certainly. Assuming he takes the single chair, facing him is a large mirrored window that provides a good view for the evaluators next door. He walks right up to it, shades his eyes and tries to peer through. More cameras in there, probably. He takes a step back and raises his right hand.

“Hi. Nice to be back.” Then he goes back around the table, sits and waits.

Lansing brings in a female agent to help with his interrogation. “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” he can’t help but snap. “Not at the moment,” the female agent answers. “I think they just want to ask you some questions.” Playing the good cop, introducing
herself, a soft handshake. Martine Grimaldi is her name. Lansing leaves them, probably to make a beeline into the next room to watch.

“Do you want a lawyer? We can assign someone …” Grimaldi almost smiles.

“That’s the last thing I want.”

“I just need to clear up the basics, okay?” She has a folder to consult.

“Fine. Sure. Go right ahead. Ask away.” At least he’s not cuffed to the table.

“You’re the same Dr. Samuel S. Watterman who authored the report of the Committee for Biowarfare Preparedness in the Fall 2001 issue of the
Journal of the Federation of Amer—
”

“Yes, yes. I’m the guy. I did it. I was the evil genius who gave us biowarfare. Amerithrax was my creation, if not my idea. It’s all in the court records, despite the fact that the whole point of everything we did was to warn our superiors, and the government at large.…”

Grimaldi looks at him with her big eyes. “Why don’t we just go through the background one step at a time, okay?” She turns a page to start again.

“Okay … I’ll confess,” he says. That brings her head up. “How old were you when 9/11 happened?”

“Old enough.”

“You remember the anthrax letters?”

“I learned about it later.”

“Okay. Right after 9/11, seven letters were mailed. One to a newspaper editor in Florida, then three to the major networks, then another to the
New York Post
. Then two more were sent to politicians. All of them had anthrax spores in them …”

Grimaldi sits back, gripping her pen with both hands. No doubt some kind of interrogator’s neutral pose she’s been taught at one of Quantico’s finishing schools.

“Anthrax looks like powder, just like white dust, but it’s lethal. The politicians escaped, as always, but in the end it killed a woman in New Jersey, another woman in the Bronx, the editor in Florida, and postal workers who worked in the sorting rooms.”

“Yes, that’s right,” she murmurs.

“So … five homicides, okay? And then they had to completely decontaminate the buildings. Just the postal buildings cost forty-two million dollars, and at the time that was serious money.”

“Right … We’ve got all that.”

“Well, you can forget all that,” he says. “Ancient history. All that stuff is completely out of date, I hope everyone realizes that. Please get it in the record”—a nod at the mirrored window—“please pass that up the line … it’s completely out of date.” He says this with certainty, even though his security clearances have been revoked for so long that he’s an ignoramus in the field. Of course the dark sciences haven’t just stopped. Everything has kept on moving behind a cloak of secrecy. Except him.

“I had a good life, okay? A
real
good life. I was working with USAMRIID
and
I was working with the CDC. I was at the peak of my career. Right at the peak, you know?”

“Okay …”

“I was looking at early retirement, a place at the lake, maybe some consulting at Johns Hopkins or Princeton. I was up for
awards
, part of a team that even had an outside chance of a Lasker Prize. If things had worked out we might have even moved back to New York, which Maggie would have loved. Right at the peak …”

“Yes …”

“Then, bang—this stuff emerges out of my lab, the lab I ran, the lab I
signed
for. Suddenly I’m not a genius anymore, I’m a
suspect
. Investigations out the yin-yang. They came and searched the house in biohazard suits …”

“Yes,” she repeats, just watching him.

“Legal bills? Hemorrhaging money. Overnight, I’m a traitor, I’m a terrorist. Didn’t matter there was no evidence. Retired! Retired at the age of fifty-four. Pension is just about enough to buy dog food. I’m on everybody’s blacklist. Very few Christmas cards coming through the slot. Evidence? No. No evidence. Until Bruce Ivins kills himself, okay? You’ve got that in your archives, right?” he says, tapping the folder with his finger.

“I’ve got that. Yes,” Grimaldi says. Her face is frowning now.
She’d be a great elementary school teacher. Every kid would fall in love with her.

“So, one day Ivins pulls the plug on himself. Now things start coming to light. Oh! Big discovery—Ivins was
unstable
! Crazy, alcoholic, drug addicted, marital problems, you name it. Now they’re claiming they’d been watching him all along. Wow! Case closed. The Justice Department makes their half-ass statement, but by that point I’m a little out of the professional loop, you know?”

“That sounds pretty rough,” Grimaldi says.

“
Rough?
Yes, you could say it was rough. And then there’s the medical with Maggie. Insurance says it’s preexisting. Everything goes for that. You guys trashed my life, young lady, and now—”

A little tap at the door. Lansing comes in. A few whispers and he pulls her out of the room before she’s even got started on her backgrounders. Is it Sam’s imagination or does she suddenly stiffen? Does the blood run out of her cheeks? They leave.

And then nothing. Nothing at all.

Nothing for a half hour, maybe longer, until they come back and move him down the hall.

“What about my wife? Am I under arrest?” he asks Lansing as they walk along.

“As soon as I can better inform you, I will, but you’re staying here with us for a while.”

“What?
No!
I can’t stay here! Wait a minute—”

“They’re sending someone to get your clothes.”

“Clothes? What do I need clothes for?”

Lansing says nothing. His lips are pressed together in a tight crease. He probably
can’t
say anything. He probably isn’t even allowed to
think
anything.

“Man, this is the most anal situation in the world …” But by then they have reached his new room, where Lansing lets him in and leaves—locking the door behind him.

Her room is actually a suite; very modern and, by European standards, as large as a football field. It smells of “new.” No expense
spared. Her poisoned luggage has been rolled in and set upon a rack in the clothes closet. The operation of the television cupboard with its enormous screen has been demonstrated. On the writing desk there are all sorts of guidebooks for her to peruse. The menu for room service comes with a fourteen-page wine list. If she needs a taxi, she can call the front desk and they will have one waiting for her. There are two restaurants and a very good bar. Anything, anything at all, just call. The boy practically has his hand out.

“Tell me, what is the name of that street?”

“That street, running like that?” The boy goes over to the window and points. “That’s Broadway, and at the end of the block there is Fifty-sixth. This your first time in the city?”

“It’s a very big street.”

“Yes, I guess it is.” He’s not that cute. A little embarrassed, perhaps, to be in the room with her. Alone. They are close enough in age.

“Are you staying long?” he asks.

“Just a few nights.”

“Whatever you need, ma’am.” He makes a little bowing motion with his body and starts to leave.

“Yes, thank you—” Back in shiny new Brandenburg Airport she had gone to a kiosk and cashed five hundred U.S. dollars in twenties and fifties on the credit card. She peels one out of her billfold. “Thank you,” she says again.
“Grazie …”

And then she is finally alone, and in less than the time it takes to kick off her shoes, the shakes come.

She begins to tremble uncontrollably, and when she breathes it is in short gasping yelps. She rolls back onto the bed and presses her face into the pillow and tries to control her breathing. The pillow smells of disinfecting detergent. Unbelievably fresh. Like being smothered with a pine forest. When she dares to let in some air, it is frigid. She pushes her feet down under the covers, and puts her hands over her face.

Each time she thinks she can breathe naturally, it starts all over again. All she can do is wait it out, coming down from the panic in slow stages until finally, mercifully, it stops.

From where she has fallen on the bed, she can see one side of a gigantic building, rows of concrete, steel, glass. All parallelograms. Unending geometry. Glass that is meant to reflect the sky, the architects would have claimed. Artifice. Purposeless, grandiose, human-less construction. Buildings designed by machines. She stands and walks across the carpet and looks out the window at the angled streets.

She supposes it is the fear of getting caught. And the fact that she has passed through the most important barrier—the border of the United States.