natural heart attack, he’d been tapped to replace him. Since that day he’d never gotten a night’s sleep without a triple dose of the strongest sleeping pills known to man. And don’t even get started on the acid reflux.
As an ADD, even of the smallest and most secret section in the Bureau, he reported directly to the Deputy Director. And while other ADDs might have to wait on hold or call back later, he never did. Of course, he rarely hit the red button on his STU-III. But when the DD got a call from SC-SIU, he dropped everything . Because it meant the shit was about to hit the fan.
Nobody visited SIU. Damned few people had any idea what it was other than a box on the manning chart. It was deliberately buried deep in the belly of the Hoover Building. If he didn’t occasionally have to run to the DD’s office like a bat out of hell, he’d rather it be in the satellite office in West Virginia. SIU didn’t exist, and he liked it that way.
So he’d been sort of surprised to be asked to meet with a guy from DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency often interacted with the Bureau on aspects of national security and counterintelligence. But how the guy had picked SIU for his visit was anyone’s guess.
“Doctor Roland,” George said as the scientist entered his office.
Roland was a “suit” scientist. Nice suit, no less. Armani. Probably an egghead as well, but he’d gotten far enough up the feeding chain to have the standard bureaucrat look. Five foot eleven. Two hundred, maybe two-ten. Brown, brown. Wore contacts. No distinguishing marks.
“ADD Grosskopf,” Roland said, shaking his hand. “Thank you for meeting with me so quickly.”
“I was curious what interaction there might be between my office and yours,” Grosskopf said, noncommittally.
“I can’t open up the details of the compartment; the information is highly secure,” Roland said, uncomfortably.
“It’s a shield office,” Grosskopf said. “My SCI classification is the same as the Director’s and I do more secure work. You can talk.”
“In that case, I think it’s a case of blue on blue, frankly,” Roland said, smiling disarmingly and sitting down in the lone chair. “We have a contract with a company that is investigating some advanced concepts in crowd management. Some of the people they work with are…unusual people. Recently some of them had a visit from the FBI. The company contacted me to find out what was going on. I checked into it and found that it was an SCI investigation out of your office. So I’m here to try to calm the troubled waters.”
“That’s vague enough that while I get what you’re saying, I have nothing to go on,” Grosskopf said, flatly.
“It involved some officers of a corporation called Trilobular,” Roland said, sliding a packet onto the SC’s desk. It appeared to be a pamphlet for a corporation, and the design on the front was…three curves forming three lobes.
There had been occasional moments in his job when George wished he could crawl under a rock and forget everything he knew about Special Circumstances. He knew he was the best guy to be sitting in the seat; he just wished he wasn’t. But there had never previously been a time when he wished he could just have a stroke, right now—go out quick and not have to hear the rest of a conversation.
He was feeling that way.
There were never very many SC investigations. So he read the field reports every morning. And he had a near-eidetic memory. Furthermore, not only were the Madness killings a major SC hot spot, the description of the jewelry the “hostess” wore was strangely hard to forget. He’d read Kurt’s report, including his reporting of Adept Three Everette’s reactions and suspicions.
And now he had found out that the US Government, specifically the DOD, had its fingerprints all over the Madness killings.
Oh. Joy. Might as well call Chattanooga “Raccoon City.”
There was only one thing to do.
As an ADD, even of the smallest and most secret section in the Bureau, he reported directly to the Deputy Director. And while other ADDs might have to wait on hold or call back later, he never did. Of course, he rarely hit the red button on his STU-III. But when the DD got a call from SC-SIU, he dropped everything . Because it meant the shit was about to hit the fan.
Nobody visited SIU. Damned few people had any idea what it was other than a box on the manning chart. It was deliberately buried deep in the belly of the Hoover Building. If he didn’t occasionally have to run to the DD’s office like a bat out of hell, he’d rather it be in the satellite office in West Virginia. SIU didn’t exist, and he liked it that way.
So he’d been sort of surprised to be asked to meet with a guy from DARPA. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency often interacted with the Bureau on aspects of national security and counterintelligence. But how the guy had picked SIU for his visit was anyone’s guess.
“Doctor Roland,” George said as the scientist entered his office.
Roland was a “suit” scientist. Nice suit, no less. Armani. Probably an egghead as well, but he’d gotten far enough up the feeding chain to have the standard bureaucrat look. Five foot eleven. Two hundred, maybe two-ten. Brown, brown. Wore contacts. No distinguishing marks.
“ADD Grosskopf,” Roland said, shaking his hand. “Thank you for meeting with me so quickly.”
“I was curious what interaction there might be between my office and yours,” Grosskopf said, noncommittally.
“I can’t open up the details of the compartment; the information is highly secure,” Roland said, uncomfortably.
“It’s a shield office,” Grosskopf said. “My SCI classification is the same as the Director’s and I do more secure work. You can talk.”
“In that case, I think it’s a case of blue on blue, frankly,” Roland said, smiling disarmingly and sitting down in the lone chair. “We have a contract with a company that is investigating some advanced concepts in crowd management. Some of the people they work with are…unusual people. Recently some of them had a visit from the FBI. The company contacted me to find out what was going on. I checked into it and found that it was an SCI investigation out of your office. So I’m here to try to calm the troubled waters.”
“That’s vague enough that while I get what you’re saying, I have nothing to go on,” Grosskopf said, flatly.
“It involved some officers of a corporation called Trilobular,” Roland said, sliding a packet onto the SC’s desk. It appeared to be a pamphlet for a corporation, and the design on the front was…three curves forming three lobes.
There had been occasional moments in his job when George wished he could crawl under a rock and forget everything he knew about Special Circumstances. He knew he was the best guy to be sitting in the seat; he just wished he wasn’t. But there had never previously been a time when he wished he could just have a stroke, right now—go out quick and not have to hear the rest of a conversation.
He was feeling that way.
There were never very many SC investigations. So he read the field reports every morning. And he had a near-eidetic memory. Furthermore, not only were the Madness killings a major SC hot spot, the description of the jewelry the “hostess” wore was strangely hard to forget. He’d read Kurt’s report, including his reporting of Adept Three Everette’s reactions and suspicions.
And now he had found out that the US Government, specifically the DOD, had its fingerprints all over the Madness killings.
Oh. Joy. Might as well call Chattanooga “Raccoon City.”
There was only one thing to do.
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