“Who’s that?” Rob asked, ready to bolt.
“Some of my spook friends. We have a last-resort help line with an answering machine. I didn’t think anybody would believe me. If you’re crazy, you’re on your own.”
Rob followed a few steps behind as I approached the car. Stuart Garvey had been in the CIA before retiring in the early eighties. I hadn’t seen him in person since 1985, at an old spook reunion, but he was part of the Tom-Tom club. He had been the second man I had fired off my question to, back in El Cajon, the one who had not replied—and the last person I had thought might meet us in New York.
“You need transportation, don’t you?” Stuart asked casually, and opened up the rear door. He eyeballed Rob critically. “Your friend could take a header, he doesn’t get to sit down.”
“I’m fine,” Rob said. I doubt anyone believed him.
We got into the backseat and Stuart introduced us to the driver. “You remember Norton, don’t you?”
I did, vaguely, from sessions at the Marine base in Quantico. Norton Crenshaw, younger than Stuart, in his sixties and quite heavy even in his younger years. We had called him Melon. He wore a windbreaker and a faded E.T. cap. “I’m a silent partner,” Norton said with an easy smile. His face was pleasant but I remembered he enjoyed being trained to kill.
Stuart took us to a quiet diner where the owner knew him. We passed through an airport-style metal detector just inside the front door. Stuart held out his arms and pirouetted through. The machine gave a small wheep—just change and keys. The rest of us passed with as little fuss. The owner, a small Asian man, wrinkled and solemn, gave us a booth way in the back.
Stuart and I went to the men’s room. He glanced at me over the marble divider between two urinals. His flow got going quick and easy, mine took a while; that meant he thought he had the upper hand. “Do you know what you’re into here?” he asked quietly, shaking himself and zipping up.
“Hell, no,” I said.
“That’s all you have to say?” Stuart washed his hands first in the sink. Toy-dolly strawberry smell wafted up from the basin. He wrinkled his nose.
“Convenient to check us for guns going in,” I said.
“Yeah. Mr. Chung’s had some problems with punks packing heat, as the old cliché has it. Do you know all there is to know about Dr. Cousins?”
“You tell me,” I said, washing my hands next. He rattled down a length of cotton towel and wiped vigorously.
“The wind is up. Shit is flying loose that we thought we’d glued down forty years ago. Dr. Cousins is right at the eye of the storm.”
He pushed through the swinging door and left me standing in the rest room. My bush-sense was ringing some bad bells.
Back in the booth, Rob picked at his pastrami on rye with a fork and hadn’t touched his glass of iced tea. His look suggested he did not want to either eat or drink there. “How did you know which train we’d be on?” Rob was asking as I rejoined the group.
Stuart tapped his temple with his middle finger. “Once a spook,” he said. “Where are you staying?”
“We’re not,” I said. “We want to visit a building and get the hell out of here.”
“Which building?” Stuart asked.
Rob looked at me for advice. I nodded. “The Jenner Building,” he said, and showed them the address on a slip of paper.
“Christ.” Stuart lowered his voice and leaned over the table. “Anthrax Central? It’s closed. They can’t even tear the bastard down, it’s so contaminated.”
I could not tell what Stuart was up to. Then it dawned on me. Chemical and Bacteriological Warfare had been Stuart’s specialty. “That’s right,” I said. “You covered CBW way back when.”
“There’s no anthrax,” Rob said. “It’s just a cover.”
“That’s not what I heard,” Stuart said. He was playing with Rob and I did not enjoy it, but I needed to learn which way the water was going to rush when the dam burst, which would be soon.
Stuart and Norton had known all along where we were going. They were still on active duty. They had been assigned to find us.
“It’s not anthrax,” Rob insisted. His brow was covered with sweat. He jerked his head and looked at me. “We should take a cab.”
“Your friend’s not feeling well,” Stuart stated categorically.
“I’m fine,” Rob said.
“He knows what he’s talking about,” I said defensively. “Now, Stuart, explain.”
“Ben, how could you let yourself get involved in this? You of all people. You don’t know jack about CBW. Being kind to stray puppies?”
“When someone’s trying to kick the shit out of them,” I said. Norton snorted and tapped his lip with a pudgy finger.
Stuart made a sour face. “The hell with waiting,” he said. “Finished?”
Rob waved a dismissive hand over the sandwich. “I’m not hungry.”
“Let’s help you do this thing.”
We went back to the car. Norton whistled a jaunty little tune as he started the motor. Rob looked worse than ever.
“Manhattan used to be a hotbed for biological research, a lot of it secret,” Stuart said as we drove through the crowded, rainy streets. I touched the left-rear door handle. It flopped back and forth, attached to nothing important.
“They put up three special buildings here, beginning in the late 1930s. The most modern laboratories of their day. Some of them housed researchers working to cure smallpox, malaria, polio. They used the best isolation procedures available. Even so, it’s a miracle something didn’t escape and kill thousands. Maybe millions. The last building was finished and occupied in 1954.” He pointed up the street. “It housed Silk until the early sixties.”
Rob leaned forward, his cheeks pinking. “What do you know about Silk?”
“A lot more than Rudy Banning,” Stuart said. “My last job was to help get Rudy discredited. Wasn’t hard. The man’s a loon.”
