Hummingbird Salamander(49)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She’d come close, defiant, like I was the cause and not another victim.

“And when Larry couldn’t give them any information, they ran him over.”

“Allie—”

“No. No. Don’t.”

“Allie…” But I didn’t have much to say. I was in a different place, or the same place, a different room in the maze, and no time or patience.

But here it came.

“You asked me to look up Silvina’s information knowing it might be dangerous. Not client-takes-you-to-dinner dangerous. Worse than that. And it’s not for a potential account, no matter what you say. You haven’t even reported a lead to sales. And I’m going to tell Alex, and Larry is going to tell the police what I told him.”

I knew Larry hadn’t told the police, calculating how much time must’ve gone by since Allie’s visit. They would have dropped by my house or the office by now.

But Allie would tell Alex. I already knew he frowned on em ployees having “hobbies,” by which he meant he was paranoid about employees doing a little business on the side. Would he think I was cheating on the company? Would he believe her?

“I’ll fire you if you tell Alex,” I said.

She drew herself up at that, gave me an appraising look, as if seeing me for the first time.

“I mean it,” I said.

“No, you don’t understand,” Allie said, shoving a finger at me. “I quit. I am quitting and I am never coming back to this fucking place again.”

Quivering with anger and fear. If only she could see how I was doing the same, deep inside.

“Allie.”

“I left one last report on your desk. You’re putting the whole company at risk.”

She stormed away from me. Receding down the corridor until she was just a wraith, a trick of the light.

I think I made a motion as if to stop her, but only after it was too late. Too late in so many ways. I wanted—needed—to say something else, but she was gone.

Because I’ve lied to you about Allie. Just a little. I did care about her. I just hid it from her like something I needed to hide from myself. Because I couldn’t be seen to care. If she faltered. If she failed. If I failed her.

Alex didn’t know I felt a connection, a sympathy. Larry didn’t. If they had, it might have gone poorly for her, was my reasoning. I tried to teach her what could be taught. Found excuses to give her the kind of work that would help her. So she would have it easier than I had in the business.

Irrational. Irrational that Allie leaving felt like my daughter rejecting me.

So I went back to my office with a different kind of doom in my mind.

What would Alex do? If she talked to him?

How quaint. How useless. How irrelevant. But it mattered at the time.



* * *



The report was on my desk, as promised. A photo of Silvina, like a mug shot, confronted me, and the signs and symbols of a declassified top secret report. With the stamp across the top, the agency unclear. Allie had dug deep for this, risked something to find it. Called in a favor I didn’t know anyone owed her.

The gist, even at a glance, was clear. Bioterrorism. It was a report on Silvina’s activities since she’d gone dark, since the trial. Names, places. Known communications. Known associates. Substances and supplies acquired with wealth stolen from her father, funneled through third parties and ever more shell companies.

Warehouses involved and trucking companies. Every last “associate” was rogue in some way. Rogue biotech. Rogue bioweapons. Rogues who liked to play with viruses. A list of names. I couldn’t tell if Contila had branched out or imploded and these were all the nasty fragments.

Also, a mostly unredacted page or two from a federal agency interrogation of Langer, undated.

Did you facilitate the sale of genetic contraband including to one Silvina Vilcapampa on in the township of in ?

Langer: No. I’m purely an export-import business.

Don’t be cute, Langer. We can detain you indefinitely if we want to.

Langer: I wish I knew what you were talking about. I buy and sell things. Legally. Illegal sounds like it would be a headache.

What if it aligned with your political views?

Langer: I have no politics. That I am aware of. Not a nice thing to accuse someone of. Politics.

Will you be so cute, I wonder, when you’re languishing in a black site with a hood over your head?

Langer: Sounds relaxing.

Let’s make a deal. I’ll stop threatening you if you stop cracking wise.

Langer: It’s just how I talk. I can’t help it.

Did you post this rant from an extreme “socialist-anarchist” position in which you advocate the violent overthrow of government?

[Detainee provided with relevant documents.]

Langer: Got hacked.

Did you get hacked when you browsed this website devoted to biological weapons?

Langer: Curiosity didn’t kill the cat. Buying illegal shit did. Did I buy anything, ? Did I?



It went on like that, proving nothing except guilt by association. Langer came across as a special kind of head case. Some weird strain of altruism an overlay on his sociopathy. And I didn’t like the part where he called by his name. Felt too familiar. The whole conversation, the more I thought about it, felt overly familiar.