12

If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?

12.1. Jill Talcott

“What exactly is the one-minus-one wave?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Speculate for me.”

“I really couldn’t.”

“Oh, yes,” Agent Calder Farris said with forced cheer, “you could.” He flipped his notepad open. “In fact you already have. Shortly after discovering the one-minus-one you jotted down a number of hypotheses including cosmic radiation, the wake of extra dimensions, the modulating wave of space-time…”

Jill clenched her jaw. Old notes, probably from one of her desk drawers. They’d gone through her office.

Agent Farris wasn’t what Jill had expected. She’d expected the police, not the FBI. She’d expected to be questioned about the explosion, but ignorantly, by men who didn’t have a clue about her work. This wasn’t like that at all.

“I’m sure you’ve made a lot of progress since you wrote this, Dr. Talcott.”

“I… I don’t think it’s cosmic radiation.”

“No.”

His eyes—those spooky bizzaro eyes—narrowed at her, as if trying to judge her veracity. He moved on.

“What is the impact of the one-minus-one on matter?”

“It does impact matter,” she admitted. Her hands twisted the sheet at her chest. “Matter and the one-minus-one are intercoupled, but I don’t yet understand the relationship.”

He stared.

“Listen, can we back up a minute? I’m not clear on what h—” There was a catch in her throat. She swallowed. “I’d like to know what happened at Smith Hall.”

“What was the nature of your experiments?” Farris asked her, face blank.

She looked down at the sheet mounded in her hands, confused. “Well, that’s just it. There was nothing that could have… We didn’t have any chemicals down there. Nothing that should have caused a fire or…”

She glanced up. He was watching her, completely unmoved. She realized what bothered her about his eyes. They were so cold and flat they appeared to be those of a blind man, as if he were seeing her with blind eyes or maybe not seeing her at all but feeling her with some alien sixth sense.

“What was the nature of your experiments?”

Why wouldn’t he tell her about the explosion? How did he know so much about her work? Why was she all alone in this?

“I’d like to have a lawyer present.”

“You don’t need a lawyer.”

“It’s my right, lega—”

“This is not about your rights.”

Farris didn’t shout. In fact, his words were accompanied by a tight smile. But there was an underlying violence in his tone that made her blood turn cold. It hinted at a rage that lurked just below the surface and promised hell on earth should it ever get out. She shrank back on the bed, silent. He went over to the window and looked out, his face averted.

“You see, this is not a criminal case. If you cooperate, in fact, I am prepared to guarantee you immunity from prosecution. Therefore, you don’t need a lawyer.”

“Prosecution?”

Agent Farris didn’t answer. He let her think about it. The room was still; even the hallway sounds were muffled. She twisted the sheet harder.

The outline of his body at the window didn’t help. His dark pants and white shirt were starched like a uniform. The body underneath was hard, slablike, uncompromisingly male. It wasn’t a sexual thing, this maleness; it was more a personification of everything aggressive in the gender. His very image spoke of crime and punishment.

Prosecution.

He walked back to his chair and sat, knees spread. “You should understand the situation you’re in, Dr. Talcott. On the one hand there’s arrest, media coverage, having to face the families of the victims and very likely jail time for manslaughter. I would guess a minimum of ten to twenty.”

Yes, she could picture it all, thanks to images in her head from CNN. The long shot goes down.

“After all, there are twenty-three dead.”

Twenty-three. Jesus. But even while part of her collapsed under that burden, was responding to all of this with utter despair, another part, the survivor who had clawed her way out of rural Tennessee, was still swinging.

“There’s no proof that my lab had anything to do with this!”

“No? That would be up to a criminal trial to decide. On the other hand…” Farris left it dangling.

“On the other hand? What do you mean?”

Farris tried to look helpful. It was like a shark trying to smile. “Dr. Talcott, we believe that you didn’t mean to hurt anyone. Unfortunately, these tragedies occur when you don’t take the proper precautions. We’d like to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Frankly, we’re interested in your work, and we’re willing to give you an opportunity to pursue that research in a more suitable—and safer—environment.”

His words rang in the silence that followed like the clanging of a lighthouse bell in a troubled sea. And Jill understood then that her career was not over, that Farris wanted more from her than her head on a platter. She had blown it—badly blown it. But.

Yes, but. There was always the work, wasn’t there? The value of the work. Reardon would have given his firstborn son. Had they learned enough about her work that even twenty-three dead did not matter? She looked at Farris and knew that they had. They didn’t care about the body count. That thought made her feel both triumphantly vindicated and pretty damn disgusted.

“I don’t understand. Are you offering me a job with the FBI?”

Farris hesitated a fraction of a second. “No. That’s a cover story for the media. I’m actually with the Department of Defense. Dr. Talcott, let me be blunt. If you cooperate, this situation goes away. The explosion is put down to… say, a faulty furnace, and you’re off the hook. If you cooperate. Now. What was the nature of your experiments? We know you were a student of the late Dr. Henry Ansel of the University of Tennessee. How is your work related to his?”

To buy time, Jill reached a hand to the tissue box next to her bed and spent an inordinate amount of time caring for her nose. The mention of Ansel’s name shocked her as nothing had yet done. How the hell did they know?

She was frightened… but she was also incredibly excited.

“Agent Farris… no, it isn’t ‘Agent,’ is it?”

“Lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant Farris, you’re offering me a job with the Department of Defense, is that correct?”

He looked surprised at her bluntness. “Yes.”

“Because I’m getting a mixed message here. Am I a criminal or a desirable recruit?”

“Desirable recruits are not normally facing charges for manslaughter.”

“Well, you appear to be interested in me regardless. I’d be happy to consider your offer, but I want it in writing. I’d like details: position, title, salary, who I’d report to, how many people I’d have on my team, and what kind of facilities I’d have for my research. I want to know if I’d be able to publish under my own name and what you’d expect to be held back for security purposes. I want everything to be absolutely clear. Of course, I’ll need to interview the people I’d be working with before making any final decisions. Also, I’d like to see something legal outlining the immunity from prosecution that you mentioned. And I—I really do want to know what caused that explosion. If the fire department issues a report, I want to see it.”

Farris studied her, cheeks sucked in. He managed a patronizing smile. “There’s no way we can even begin to discuss such things as salary and facilities until you’ve been a lot more forthcoming. How would we know what we’re paying for?”