Fracture Event: An Espionage Disaster Thriller Read online

  Someone cleared his throat in the doorway behind her and she turned to see Mark. He’d clearly gone home, showered, and dressed in his best, ironed chinos, a tie, and tweed jacket. He looked like a scion of Oxford rather than the Head of Anthropology at Wyoming’s only university. She wondered if Denise had made it back from Denver this afternoon.

  “Can I come in?”

  “What for?”

  He stepped into her office and closed the door. As he seated himself in a chair, he pointed to the papers on her desk. “Job hunting?”

  Coldly, she responded, “That’s the next step, isn’t it?”

  “That’s why I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Before or after orgasm?”

  He winced. “Sorry about that. I can be an ass, as you well know. I had planned to have this conversation yesterday, before your dissertation defense, but I couldn’t find you. Now, time is short. I have a meeting soon, then I have to be in Munich tomorrow.” He glanced at his watch.

  “Bye.”

  He gave her a tight smile. “How would you feel about taking my old position here at the University of Wyoming? You’d start as an assistant professor of anthropology.”

  Surprised, she blinked. “First of all, you can’t just give me your old position. I’d have to compete for it just like everyone else. Second, what’s the catch?”

  “I can give you the position. You see, it will come with special project funding. I already have the president’s and trustees’ approval. I spoke with them an hour ago. You have the job if you want it.”

  Her instincts—despite being numbed by alcohol—kicked in. “What’s the catch?” she repeated.

  He pointed at the computer model spread across her wall. “You’ll be doing exactly what you’ve been doing, but we’ll be taking the model in a different direction.”

  “How?”

  “Are you really saying you don’t want this job?”

  She leaned back in her chair. “I’m not the naïve young woman I was the last time you stole my research. I’ve learned who you really are.”

  “Now, Anika, we’ve discussed—”

  “You’re always working your own angle, Mark. What’s in this for you?”

  For a time he sat, apparently weighing what he should and should not say. Then he glanced at his watch again. “No matter what you think of me, you want to do more with that model, right?”

  “Of course. It’s critical for understanding why and how prehistoric civilizations around the world collapsed.”

  “I know that.” He stared at her. “Here’s the deal: You’ll get a position here, a nice signing bonus that we’ve already discussed, other perks, and unlimited opportunity to work on aspects of the model that you’re comfortable with. And all those survey courses that first-year professors get stuck with? You don’t even have to teach if you don’t want to.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “And in return?”

  “All you have to do is plug in the variables I send you and run data.” He hesitated. “Oh, and there may be some restrictions on what you can publish and say.”

  “I can’t publish or talk about my work? That’s a big catch.”

  He squirmed in the chair. “There are a few security clearances involved.”

  She hesitated while she considered the ramifications. “Is this a Department of Defense project?”

  He looked at the door, then leaned forward and opened his arms. “Look, after you sign the contract, I can tell you everything but, right now, I can’t. All I can say is that you can refine the model, add new data, publish anything you want to on any other subject. But the work you do for me? That will be different.”

  “Good Lord, Mark, I don’t have the energy to unravel your twisted motives. Just tell me—”

  “I’ve got a meeting. Sorry.” Mark stood up and strode for the door.

  “What meeting? About the project?”

  He opened her door a slit and looked up and down the hallway before he stepped outside.

  “Are you expecting someone?”

  For an instant, he turned back to look at her. “Do not, I repeat, do not tell anyone about this conversation.”

  Chapter Four

  Dr. Maureen Cole strode across the Mayflower Hotel’s famous lobby in Washington DC, glancing at the ornate walls, the woodwork, and artwork. Everything bespoke grace and sophistication, even the uniformed doormen.

  And smack in the middle of all that refined elegance stood the well-known southwestern archaeologist, Dusty Stewart—as out of place as a coyote in a petting zoo. In contrast to Maureen’s immaculately fitted wool suit, Dusty sported a sweat-stained Stetson and cowboy boots that were worn down at the heel. Mirrored sunglasses hid his blue eyes but, in concession to the place and time, at least his blond beard was combed. His garish yellow t-shirt proudly proclaimed ARCHAEOLOGISTS DO IT IN THE DIRT in big black letters.

  As she headed for him, a stream of European tourists hustled by, dragging suitcases. When two of the young women spotted Dusty, they stopped short, eyes widening, and smiled at him. The young men in the group laughed and pointed, calling, “C’est Roy Rogers, non?”

  “Non,” Dusty called back, loudly pronouncing, “Are-key-ol-o-gist.”

  The group walked on by but the women kept shooting glances over their shoulders. The man drew female attention like a magnet. What woman wouldn’t look twice? Dusty was, obviously, an untamed male as exotic as a Neandertal in western garb.

  When Maureen walked over, Dusty said, “Why are there so many foreigners in DC?”

  “It’s the nation’s capital? Home of the Smithsonian?”

  “Don’t look like museum people to me.” Dusty gave them a squinty look and stuffed his thumbs in his belt. The t-shirt pulled tight across his muscular shoulders, hardened by years of shoveling, screening, and backpacking through rough country.

  Maureen sighed. “I swear, if I can get you out of Washington without having to post bail, I’ll call it a miracle of biblical proportions. You can’t even go to Gallup without causing trouble.”

  “That wasn’t my fault. Joseph Klah kept buying me beer. Haven’t seen a single Navajo in DC, so I should be okay.”

  Maureen gave him a menacing look. “Let’s go over the plan again.”

  “I know the plan.” Dusty counted off on his fingers. “I take a cab to the Smithsonian. I ask for Brian O’Neil’s office at the information desk. We look at the Anasazi artifacts, then I come back here and meet you.” He hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go with you to the FBI? I don’t trust them. What do they want with you?”

  “It’s just a consultation.”

  “You’re a Canadian citizen. You’ve got rights.”

  “Dusty, it’s not like I haven’t acted as a consultant to the American government before.”

  “Yeah, and it almost got you killed.”

  “That was the Department of Defense, not the FBI.”

  “They’re all alike,” he said in a low authoritative voice.

  “At least they put us up in a nice hotel.” She indicated the lobby.

  “Yeah? The first time something explodes, don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

  Maureen gave him a sour look. “You really are annoying.”

  “I—”

  “Dr. Cole?” the doorman interrupted. “Your car is here.”

  When she turned to leave, Dusty called, “Wish me luck.”

  Maureen examined his worried expression. “Just ask the doorman for a cab and give him a couple of dollars when he opens the door for you.”

  “I know that.”

  Dusty wouldn’t blink twice if his truck broke down in the middle of the desert forty miles from the nearest paved road, but a cab ride in the big city terrified him.

  “You sure you’re okay?” she said.

  “Get going, Maureen. I got things to do, too.”

  She walked outside to where a black Lincoln waited at the curb and climbed into the back seat.

  “Dr. Col
e?” the driver asked, staring into the mirror to get a good look at her.

  “Yes.”

  “Welcome to Washington, ma’am. It’s about a fifteen-minute drive to your destination.”

  “Thanks.”

  Maureen settled back, watching through the tinted window as the Lincoln pulled smoothly into traffic. She couldn’t help but glance over her shoulder to see Dusty, obvious in his yellow t-shirt, talking to the doorman.

  She leaned back and pulled her long black hair over her shoulders. Absently, she noted a few more long white hairs mixed in. She’d had them since her early twenties, but her Seneca Indian ancestry had limited them to just a few.

  Fifteen minutes later, the driver turned off Pennsylvania, and down into the depths below the ponderous FBI headquarters. The driver lowered his window at the security booth and the uniformed agent glanced in before the barricades were lifted.

  As the car pulled to the underground entrance, another agent, wearing a suit, opened her door. The African American woman, perhaps thirty, was smiling. She offered her hand.

  “Dr. Cole? I’m Tony Jacobs. How was your trip in?”

  “Fine, thank you.”

  Jacobs ushered Maureen through security where she passed the metal detector and her passport was inspected. Several halls and an elevator ride later, Maureen was led to a small conference room sporting a central wooden table, chairs, and overhead fluorescents that illuminated starkly white walls.

  Jacobs asked, “May I have the secretary get you something to drink?”

  “Coffee would be great.”

  “I’ll send for it. In the meantime, please have a seat.” Jacobs indicated the chair-lined table. The room itself was up-grade institutional with a whiteboard at one end.

  As Maureen sat down, Jacobs produced a sheaf of papers, saying, “I’m sure you’re familiar with our nondisclosure forms. The information we’re about to discuss is classified and not to leave this room.”

  Maureen scanned the forms and signed.

  Jacobs took them and left.

  A few minutes later, two agents entered. The woman carried a laptop. They were professionally dressed, the man in a sport coat and tie, the woman wearing a gray, form-fitting skirt, a white blouse and gray jacket. On their heels came a young woman with a Styrofoam cup of coffee.

  “Good morning, Dr. Cole.” The man stepped forward, offering his hand. He looked to be in his mid-forties, blond hair graying at the temples. He appraised her with watery blue eyes. His belly suggested a desk job. “I’m special agent Phil Hart.”

  “Amy Randall,” the woman said, shaking Maureen’s hand. “Assistant to the Secretary, Department of Defense.” She had a blocky face and brown hair.

  The first inkling of unease went through Maureen. “Defense?”

  Amy Randall gave her a smile completely devoid of humor and placed the laptop on the table in front of her. “Secretary Rivera was impressed with your performance on your last assignment.”

  Maureen quietly said, “Sure, and those radical jihadist factions still have fatwahs outstanding that call for my execution.”

  Randall seated herself opposite Maureen. “This has nothing to do with Islam and, to set your mind at ease, we’re not setting you up to be a target.”

  “Good. Having done that, I don’t care to play again.”

  Randall gave her a bland smile. “All we want is your opinion of an article that is scheduled to be published online six months from now in the Journal of Strategic Assessment.”

  “I’m not familiar with the Journal of Strategic Assessment.”

  As Randall opened the laptop and pulled up the article, she replied, “It’s pretty specialized, catering to think-tanks concentrating on globalization, international law… what you’d call policy wonks. Most of the participants are NGOs, consultants, political hired guns. That sort of thing. You’re here because of your anthropological expertise.”

  “The world is full of anthropologists. Why pull me off an archaeological excavation in the New Mexico backcountry?”

  Randall was staring at the screen when she said, “Because mass murder isn’t just academic for you. You’ve excavated the bodies from graves in Ecuador, Venezuela, Serbia, and Armenia. You’ve touched the victims, given them names and faces. You understand the stakes.”

  Maureen shifted in her chair. “This is about mass murder?”

  Amy Randall pointed. “Please take a look at the article and let us know your opinion of its validity.”

  Maureen shifted the computer to read the title of the article:

  THE COLLAPSE OF THE NATION-STATE: A PREDICTIVE STATISTICAL MODEL.

  The author was Mark Schott, PhD. Maureen scanned the abstract.

  “Interesting.” She frowned. “I’m familiar with Schott’s computer models for the collapse of prehistoric civilizations, but this…”

  Her voice faded when she clicked on one of the figures and four maps appeared side by side with a timetable at the bottom. Africa, Europe, Asia, and America appeared in time lapse. She watched centuries pass in seconds as blue splotches swelled and shrank, spreading across the continents to show the rise and fall of civilizations.

  “Hmm. That’s a brilliant reconstruction but it’s not new.”

  “Keep going,” Randall instructed. “It’s the next figure we’re concerned about.”

  Maureen clicked on the next figure. The same maps appeared but, this time, they simulated the future rise and collapse of global cultures. Fascinated, she noted that America only had seventeen years left…

  She got out of the figure and returned to reading the article in earnest. The complicated statistical equations that predicted the future made up more than half the paper and were slow going. Through it all, the others sat silently until she looked up.

  “So?” Randall asked. “What do you think?”

  Maureen straightened in her chair. “It’s stunning. Radical. And, frankly, a little unbelievable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well—” she shook her head “—using mathematics to understand the past isn’t new. Archaeologists have been doing this for decades. What is new is suggesting that four human emotions can be quantitatively measured to predict human behavior and, thereby, predict the future. But, frankly, his statistics are way beyond my ability to understand.”

  Agent Phil Hart leaned forward and braced a hand on the table to look over her shoulder. “So, based upon your initial assessment, you think it could be spurious?”

  “No, I didn’t say that. I said the math is beyond me.”

  Randall frowned. “What did you think about the section that suggests American’s economic collapse is near?”

  “I’m not sure that just plugging four variables into a model can predict that—but based upon the known course of human history, I suspect it’s possible.”

  “Then you believe it?” Randall was watching her so intently it made her very uncomfortable.

  Maureen touched the screen to scroll through the article again, reading the equations before she glanced up to meet their eyes. “Am I here because of my publications about how a human sense of deprivation—even something as abstract as a deprivation of justice—fuels Islamic fundamentalist movements that inevitably lead to cultural collapse?”

  Amy Randall pulled a pen and small notebook from her purse to take notes. “Dr. Cole, our primary concern is that someone can use this model as a guidebook. If you follow the model step by step, plugging in specific variables, can it be used to plot the downfall of a nation?”

  “As I said before, I’m not the person you need. It would take a very competent statistician to give you that answer.”

  Hart and Randall looked meaningfully at each other and some silent communication passed between them.

  Hart said, “Let’s assume, for the moment, that Dr. Schott’s model can be used for that purpose. What then?”

  Maureen saw uncertainty in his watery blue eyes. “Then you’d better prepare for the apocalyp
se.”

  Randall inhaled and held the breath while her gaze drifted around the conference room. Finally, she exhaled the words: “I see.”

  Maureen’s gaze went to Randall. “By the way, how did you get this article six months before publication?”

  Randall made an airy gesture with one hand. “We have people who monitor such publications.”

  “You said the article was scheduled to be published. Did you—”

  “It’s a matter of national security; of course, we pulled it. That article will never be published. I guarantee you that. It would be like publishing a guidebook on how to create a nuclear weapon.”

  The tension in the room was increasing. Maureen said, “May I keep the article to study it more thoroughly?”

  “You may. But you’ve signed a nondisclosure agreement so, if you share the article with anyone, I’ll have you shot,” Ms. Randall smiled as though she was joking, but Maureen had the feeling she wasn’t.

  Pointedly, Maureen asked, “You’re not considering using this model to plot the downfall of China or Iran, are you?”

  Randall didn’t answer for a few long moments. “Thank you for your expertise today, Dr. Cole. We’ll have two agents escort you to your hotel. Have a nice flight back to New Mexico. We’ll be in touch.”

  Chapter Five

  Maureen glanced at the thermometer in the dash of the rental car as she turned off Speedway and into the University of Arizona.

  “Good Lord, it’s 103 and it’s not even noon.”

  “Yeah, pleasant day,” Dusty the desert-dweller replied from the passenger seat.

  “People live here on purpose?”

  “You should be here when the asphalt starts to melt. Now that’s hot.”

  She found the parking lot Fred Zoah had suggested, took a ticket, and prowled for a space.

  “So,” Dusty wondered from the passenger seat, “you gonna tell Fred more than you told me?”

  She glanced at him as she waited for a young woman to back out of a space. “What’s to tell? We’re going to get Fred’s take on a few statistical data clusters.”