Quantico by Greg Bear

Author:Greg Bear
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: War on Terrorism, Government investigators - United States, Political, General, Intelligence service, Science Fiction, 2001, Suspense, Thrillers, Suspense fiction, Fiction, Espionage
ISBN: 9781593154738
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Published: 2008-03-12T16:50:18.740000+00:00

Inside the house the stench of death was strong, but carried on wafts of cool moist air, the smell seemed somehow unnatural and frustrated. Fouad watched the men move through the empty trash-filled rooms with detachment. He did not like this strange sense of calm. There was a perversity in him that his mother would not have appreciated but that his father might have understood too well, and it had been exaggerated by his training at Quantico. To see the awful things is to see life as it really is. It makes you sharper, stronger, superior. You can stand it when others cannot.

That is why young men go off to war.

The house had looked better from the outside. Most of the rooms were open to the air, with gaping shell holes in the roof. The courtyard was filled with broken and burned sticks of furniture. Someone had tried to stay warm in the winter.

Al-Tabrizi took Fouad by the shoulder. ‘Be at ease with me,’ he said in Arabic. ‘I take solace that Muslims at least sometimes speak with these men and temper them. The bull, Beatty, is not respected around here. He has made too many deals, spoken from both sides of his mouth to gain information.’

‘I heard that, you old bastard,’ Beatty called out.

Al-Tabrizi ignored him.

‘Then tell me, what brings you here?’ Fouad asked the old man.

‘A pious man spoke out of turn for the sake of his closeness to God. Some of my people went at his behest to this house and found the Kurds, these Jews, dead. Ice was brought by police. Had they been Muslims we would have buried them…’ He shrugged. ‘It is possible the Sunnis have been doing experiments with our poor Jews. I do not know. They have no respect for life.’

‘Amen,’ Beatty said.

Walking around the courtyard, they approached the back of the house—the kitchen. A pump handle stood in one corner before a small stone and mortar cistern.

Fergus slipped on rubber gloves. He removed from his rucksack more gloves and fine-filter masks with little rubber bellows and a jar of nose cream and handed them around. ‘Slip these on and fasten them tight.’

‘Nobody else has fallen ill,’ Al-Tabrizi said, this time in English.

Past the kitchen, stepping over broken glass and empty cans, they came to what might have once been a workshop or a storage room. In the center of the room, blocks of ice had been arranged in a flat igloo and shaved ice had been sprinkled over a tarp that partially covered the blocks. Naked feet stuck out from under the tarp, heels soaking in puddles of filthy water.

Master Sergeant put his gloved hand over his mask. Harris stood with hands on his hips staring critically at the wrinkled and discolored feet.

Al-Tabrizi handed Fouad an old and battered compact flash memory card. ‘We took many pictures before the ice arrived, donated by a hotel and a hospital. The people who did this left Kifri two days ago in a truck. We have pictures of them as well.

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