Brimstone

"With the usual precautions."

Within the space of a minute, the servant had ushered a man into the room: a tall man with thin lips and thi

He paused in the doorway and his eyes roamed over the group, coming to rest on Pendergast.

"Yes?" Pendergast said.

"Come with me."

"May I ask who you are, and on what errand you come?"

"No."

A short silence greeted this.

"How did you know I lived here?"

The man continued gazing at Pendergast with that expressionless face. It wasn't natural. It gave D'Agosta the creeps.

"Come, please. I'd rather not ask again."

"Why should I go with you if you refuse to divulge your name or the nature of your business?"

"My name is not important. I have information for you. Information of a sensitive nature."

Pendergast looked at the man a moment longer. Then he casually removed his Les Baer .45 from his suit coat, made sure a round was in the chamber, replaced it in his suit. "Any objections?"

The expression never changed. "Won't make any difference either way."

"Wait a minute." D'Agosta rose. "I don't like this. I'm coming, too."

The man turned to him. "Not possible."

"Screw that."

The man's only response was to stare at D'Agosta. His features, if anything, grew even deader.

Pendergast laid an arm on D'Agosta's. "I think I'd better go alone."

"The hell with that. You don't know who this guy is, what he wants, anything. I don't like it."

The stranger turned and walked swiftly out of the room. A moment later, Pendergast followed. D'Agosta watched him go with a mounting feeling of dismay.

{ 31 }

The man drove north on the West Side Highway, saying nothing, and Pendergast was content to leave it that way. Rain began to fall, splattering the windshield. The car approached the on-ramp to the George Washington Bridge, its gleaming lights strung across the Hudson. Just before the ramp, the car veered off on a service road and bumped its way down the pitted, half-paved surface to a turnaround, hidden in a cluster of poison sumac at the foot of the bridge's enormous eastern tower.

Only now did the man speak. "Wired?"

"No."

"I ask only for your sake."

"CIA?"

The man nodded at the windshield. "I know you could ID me in a minute. I want your word that you won't."

"You have it."

The man tossed a blue folder into Pendergast's lap. Its label tab bore a single word: BULLARD. It was stamped Classified: Top Secret.

"Where did this come from?" Pendergast asked.

"I've been investigating Bullard for the past eighteen months."

"On what grounds?"

"It's all there. But I'll summarize it for you. Bullard's the founder, CEO, and majority shareholder of Bullard Aerospace Industries. BAI is a medium-sized, privately owned aerospace engineering firm. Mostly they design and test components for military aircraft, drones, and missiles. They're also one of the subcontractors for the space shuttle. Among other things, BAI was involved in developing the antiradar coating for the stealth bomber and fighter programs. It's a highly profitable company, and they're very good at what they do. Bullard has some of the best engineers money can buy. He is a very, very capable man, if hot-tempered and impulsive. But he's one of the really bad ones. Know what I mean? He doesn't hesitate to hurt, or eliminate, those who stand in his way. Civilian or official."

"Understood."

"Good. Now listen. BAI also does research work for foreign governments. Some aren't so friendly. That work is subject to strict export controls and transfer of technology prohibitions. It's watched very closely. So far, BAI has kept within the law-at least as far as its U.S. facilities go. The problem is with a small BAI plant in Italy, in an industrial suburb of Florence called Lastra a Signa. A few years ago, BAI bought a defunct factory there. It was once owned by Alfred Nobel." An ironic smile flickered across the man's face. "It's a sprawling, decaying place. They've turned its core into a highly sophisticated R&D facility."

Rain continued to drum on the roof. There was the flicker of lightning over the river, a faint roll of thunder.

"We don't really know what BAI does in this Italian plant, but we have some indirect evidence that they may be working on a project for the Chinese. Last year we monitored a string of ballistic missile tests over the Lop Nur desert testing grounds. It seems the missile in question is a new type, specifically designed to penetrate America's pla

Pendergast nodded.

"What makes the missile special is a new aerodynamic form, combined with some special surface or coating, which together make it invisible to radar. It doesn't even leave a heat trace or turbulence wake on Doppler. But here's the rub: whatever it is the Chinese have done, it isn't working. Up to now, all their missiles have broken up on re-entry.

"That's where BAI comes in. This is right up their alley. We think the Chinese hired BAI to solve the problem. And we think they're solving it at the Florentine plant."

"How?"

"We don't know. The breakups seem to have had something to do with a resonance spike that occurs at re-entry. The shape of the missile is so constrained by having to remain invisible that it's almost unflyable. A similar problem occurred with the stealth bomber, but it was solved with some heavy computing power and wind-tu

"At a basic level."

"The mathematics of vibrations, resonance, and dampening. It has to be perfectly aerodynamic while having a surface that's black to radar. This missile can't have any curves, hardness, or smoothness-those would cause reflection or turbulence you could see on the Doppler-and yet it has to be aerodynamic. If anyone can rise to the technical challenge, BAI can."

"Is this file for me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

The agent looked at Pendergast for the first time, and his mask of expressionlessness fell away. What Pendergast saw was the face of a very, very tired man. "It's the same old story. The CIA is subject to partisan political pressure. Bullard has friends in Washington. I was told to deep-six the Bullard investigation. After all, he's raised millions for the reelection campaigns of a half dozen key senators and congressmen, as well as the president. Why, we're asked, is the CIA harassing a fine, upstanding citizen when there are so many foreign terrorists out there? You know the refrain."

Pendergast simply nodded.

"But screw it, this bastard is selling America down the river. He's a traitor, just like those good old American companies that sell dual-use technology to Iran and Syria. If Bullard gets away with this, the U.S. will have laid out a hundred billion dollars developing an antimissile system that will be obsolete on deployment. And if that happens, it's the CIA that's going to get hammered. The administration will experience sudden and complete amnesia as to how they deliberately shut down our investigation. The Congress is going to demand an official inquiry on the so-called intelligence failure. We'll be everyone's whipping boy."