Monday, August 13—13:52:48
Jen popped me out of diagnostic mode. When she left me, she had been an anxious preteen heading for her first merit badge test; now, the agitated woman in my head was pulsing anxiety off the chart.
“You okay, boss?”
No response. Bad sign. The captain must have chewed her out good.
“And don’t,” she added, “pump me with your damn drugs.”
I was going to say they were her damn drugs, but I decided to can it.
Earlier, while she had waited for Brooks to return, we had spent the morning digging up whatever we could about Teena Archambault, the woman in the foyer of Richard O’Neil’s club. There were reams of info—reams being another one of those near antiquated words humans hang on to, this one referring to a large stack or packet of paper. Although I guess not totally antiquated, since Jen and I had hidden behind reams of paper in the print room of said club—
Where was I? I’m finding as my mind expands, it’s becoming harder to stick with one train of thought.
Start again. There were reams of info about her career and good community deeds, photos of her shaking hands with other movers and shakers, and stories about what her one child was up to. Nothing explicitly said she was one of the Timeless, but then again, nothing ever did. There was no official list, you just assumed if some ultra-rich eighty-year-old showed up on a skateboard with their tongue newly pierced, he or she had gotten the full treatment. It was sort of like the old days in Hollywood, when actual people still played the role of stars and there were A-list and B-list actors, even though there were no actual lists.
As we’d suspected, it did seem she had indeed taken the treatment and had chosen to look in her late sixties. Her current position was senior vice president for government relations for GPRA, which probably meant she was the de facto ruler of several countries. She’d been recruited not only for her industry experience, but for her Rolodex—aha! another antiquated word—that included names in very high places. She seemed to spend no time at the GPRA Tower in London, or in any of their other offices, for that matter. She had homes in Zurich and Manhattan, and a superyacht wherever it wanted to be.
Finally, in the mid-afternoon, we knew we were closing in. There she was, in a photograph taken at a Fourth of July party at the White House, standing between the president and vice president, both of whom seem pleased as punch to be with her.
By four, we found her—or at least the building in DC where she was working. The Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building, or EOB, home of the offices of the vice president of the United States, along with many White House staff.
“Chandler,” Jen said, “grab your coat.”
When I was young, I never got awed by anything I saw. Things were things. But after hanging around the dump we call our District headquarters and visiting more buildings and homes than anyone other than a bio-computer could count, I’ve developed not only a large database but also an appreciation for style. The EOB had it in spades, especially, I read as we headed over on foot, after its 2027–2028 renovation. I’ll spare you the architectural tour, but let’s just say that the interior circular staircase was worth the price of admission. Jen said she could see why the building was her housemate Ava’s favorite.
The security check made the airport routine look like flipping a latch on a toilet cubicle. Eventually, we made it through and took the elevator up to an office on the fourth floor. A pleasant-looking young man sat at an ornate cherrywood table, which held a neat stack of papers, an oversized coffee mug, and a computer screen that looked like a sheet of glass poised above the table.
Jen produced her badge. “We’d like to ask Ms. Archambault a few questions concerning an ongoing investigation.”
“One minute,” he said. He went to a door, knocked, and disappeared inside.
We sat down on one of two chairs that served as a reception area. This place obviously wasn’t set up to entertain the masses.
He returned and repeated, “One minute.” Nice and polite. Neatly dressed. He sat at his table, his back to us.
Perhaps they count differently in these higher reaches, but one minute it wasn’t. Jen read on her phone. Boring stuff. I said we should look around the office. Nothing to see, she said, but she graciously scanned the room for me. It was elegant like no office I’d ever seen, but there was nothing that gave away what they were doing there. You win, I said.
She continued reading. After a while, she must have gotten bored, too, because she spent some time watching the nice-looking man as he read through a paper report, hand-writing notes on the side.
His phone rang. We looked up again. He listened. “One second,” he said, “let me check his calendar.” Head down, I said, and Jen pretended to read her phone but watched him, head lowered, looking up through her lashes. He pulled out a drawer under the ornate table and rested his fingers on his mousepad. The clear screen above his desk darkened. Only when he looked at the screen did it come to life. He touched an icon. Jen could make out a calendar, but it was all fuzzy, like hers before she typed in her secondary password. His hands seemed to hover over his keyboard.
“Crap,” he said under his breath.
And damn if he didn’t pick up the oversized coffee mug, drain the remaining coffee, and then hold it upside down as he one-finger-typed a password.
I wish, I said to Jen, that I had a head to shake in disbelief. No wonder systems keep getting hacked. Jen shook her head for me.
It might be helpful if we could get in there, I said.
Maybe I should give him a big smile and ask him.
It was a full twenty-four minutes before another nice-looking young man came out to speak to us. They seemed to go for nice-looking young men in old-school Ivy League attire around this joint.
“May I see your ID?” he said. He may have been polished, but he was as smarmy as they come.
Jen held it out, and if I hadn’t known better, I would have sworn he had his own synth who was now looking up Jen’s record.
“May I see yours?” she said.
“My what?”
“Your ID. Make sure you are who you say you are.”
The man looked startled. “I haven’t said I’m anything.”
“That would be a hint.”
“I work for Ms. Archambault.”
“Do you have a name?”
“Yes.”
“Would you like to share your name?”
“No. And unless you suspect me of committing a crime, I needn’t tell you. Need I?”
She lashed him just about the most withering look she could pull off, but the guy didn’t even flinch, let alone wither.
“As I was saying,” continued Jen, trying to regain the momentum, “I’d like to ask Ms. Archambault a few questions.”
“About what?”
“About whatever I’d like to ask her about.”
This was going extremely well.
“One moment.”
This time it was.
“I’m sorry,” he said when he came back, “that won’t be possible.”
“Who may I speak to?”
“What is this about?”
I expect this could have gone on well into the next century, but just then, the office door opened, and who should stroll right past the receptionist other than Taika Mete, aka Teko Teko Mea. I caught the expression on his face, a flash of surprise with a glint of fear, and then both were gone. He was good.
“Detective,” Teko Teko said, and there was almost warmth in his voice, “what brings you here to see us?”
Smart guy. Not, How the hell did you find out where I worked?
“Hello, Mr. Mea.”
“‘May-uh,’” he said, “not ‘mee-uh.’”
“Actually I came to see your boss, Ms. Archambault.”
Nice countermove.
“Ms.…?”
I noticed the assistant, or whatever he was, subtly move his head to signal to Teko Teko Mea. Jen noticed too, because she said, Saw it.
“Archambault,” he said quickly recovering. He turned to the assistant, but now with ice in his voice he said, “Is that possible, Giorgio?”
“Sir, she’s tied up.”
Teko Teko spread his hands by way of apology. “Too bad. Maybe come back another time.”
Giorgio said, “She’s leaving for—”
Teko Teko flashed the assistant a look that told him to go find a comfortable place to kill himself.
Jen said, “What’s the name of this office?”
“I don’t believe it has a name. We have this space to deal with a crisis.”
He didn’t smile.
“So, no way I can speak to her?”
He didn’t respond. The question had already been answered. However, he pinched her elbow and sent a lightning bolt of pain through Jen. He tugged us toward the open door of a side room. “But I think it’s time for you and me to have a coffee together.”
It was a small but elegant conference room with large windows and a chandelier sparkling above a mahogany table, American Empire, mid-nineteenth century.
Teko Teko let go of her. I could sense Jen was trying to think of something clever to say, but residual pain in her arm was gumming up her thought processes, and the pounding of her heart was so loud I expected to see the crystals on the chandelier shake.
Teko Teko motioned Jen to a chair and sat down opposite her. He didn’t offer any coffee.
“You have some explaining to do,” he said.
“About?”
He didn’t answer. He’d obviously taken Interrogation 101: Don’t let your prisoner know what you don’t know.
“What? Why I’m here?” Jen said.
“That would be a good start.”
“Could I have a glass of water?”
He didn’t budge.
Just lie, I said.
Jen said, “As you know, we’re trying to shut down the illegal treatment.”
He didn’t speak.
“I’m following every imaginable lead. And it came to my attention that Ms. Archambault was heading some sort of government office about this. I figured she’d be a good person to speak to.”
“Your source?”
“If I blow my source, she won’t be my source anymore, will she?”
She! Jen, you the man!
“Did you know I worked here?”
Avoid unnecessary lies.
“No.”
“But now you do.”
She shrugged. “So what?” But I could feel her mind racing.
“Did you tell your captain you were coming here?”
“Why would I do that?”
“You tell me.”
“The last thing he needs is his officers reporting details of every little investigation.”
“It’s not exactly a little investigation, is it?”
“No, and I’m sure he’s …”
Shit.
“He’s what?”
“Doing, you know, whatever a captain does.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ve never been a captain. Or even close.”
“Take a wild guess.”
“I guess reading our reports. Meeting with our teams. Maybe meeting with you. All that.”
Those hard eyes of his poking out through the sharp geometric tattoos stared at us for an uncomfortably long time. Then his posture seemed to soften. “What were you hoping Ms. Archambault could tell you? Perhaps I could help you out.”
I could feel the boss relaxing. She took out her pad as if this was the whole point of her visit. We asked questions about deaths from the counterfeit treatment in other US cities. (Three hundred and twenty and climbing.) The number of arrests nationally. (Seventy-two.) About any hunches or leads coming in from those places. (Nothing much.) Whether anyone had managed to obtain a sample of the fake treatment for analysis. (No.) Whether they had any clues about where it was getting manufactured. (No.) Stuff we actually wanted to know.
Just not the big questions: Why are a senior executive with one of the drug companies that makes the treatment and the head of international security for another apparently running a US government office? Why do you have all this private muscle backing you up along with the Secret damn Service? Who sprung Child’s Play out of the hospital, and if it was you guys, why did you cover it up? Did your people kill Child’s Play?
And most of all, what did both you and Teena Archambault mean when you said if people want it, they’re going to pay for it?