The Brain Eaters

Chapter 15

Corey got to the Herald office at ten minutes after eight the next morning. Dena Falkner was sitting at his desk, smoking a Carlton, looking annoyed.

“You’re late,” she said.

“Ten minutes?”

“To me eight o’clock means eight o’clock.”

“Well, mark me tardy and keep me after school.”

“That’s very cute.”

Doc Ingersoll, hacking dryly around his Camel, came over to the desk before Corey could get off his next crack. “Telling jokes?” he said.

“I’m just getting chewed out for being ten minutes late,” Corey said.

“If eight o’clock was too tough, you should have told me,” Dena said.

“What difference does it make? We’re not going to find any bureaucrat in his office before nine anyway.”

“I thought it would be a good idea if we got our act together before we went in to talk to the people.”

“Mine’s together,” Corey said testily. “Have you got a problem?”

“Why don’t you two stop bickering,” Doc said, “until we finish our business.”

“Who’s bickering?” Corey said.

Dena glared at him, then said, “Doc’s right. Let’s organize what we want to present to the EPA. Then, later, you can do your macho routine, and we’ll all applaud.”

Corey gave it a beat, then turned to Doc Ingersoll. “Anything new on the wire?”

“The AMA finally admits that something is going around. They say it may be a new strain of flu.”

“Flu!” Corey shouted. “Man, I saw what happened to Hank Stransky. If what he had was flu, I’m Prince Charles.”

“Just quoting the AMA,” Doc said. “It seems there have been flulike symptoms connected with some of the cases they’ve been able to trace.”

Dena said, “The flu, or something like it, is what kept people home at Biotron yesterday.”

“Baloney,” Corey said. “The AMA is under pressure to put some name on what’s been happening to people, so they make it something familiar … something curable. They’ll probably recommend everybody take two aspirin and call them in the morning. If they’re able to call anybody in the morning.”

“Do you think we’d better get started?” Dena asked.

“Might as well. Ready to go, Doc?”

“You two can handle the EPA,” Ingersoll said. “I want to stay on top of the wire so we’ll have the big picture. Also, I’ve got another idea I want to follow up on. I’ll fill you in when you get back.”

Corey looked at Dena. “Your car or mine?”

“I’m parked in a loading zone, so we’d better take mine. That is, if you don’t mind riding with a woman.”

As they went out, Corey turned to wink at Doc. “Cute, though,” he said.

Doc Ingersoll watched them go with a shake of his head. He dragged on the Camel, burned his fingers, coughed, and picked up the telephone to call his friend Dexter Horn, a pathologist for the county of Milwaukee.

Dena and Corey arrived at the Federal Building at a quarter after nine. The offices of the Environmental Protection Agency were on the third floor. They rode up in the elevator without speaking.

It took fifteen minutes to get past the receptionist, and after sitting another quarter of an hour in a cramped waiting room, Corey was grinding his teeth while Dena paged nervously through a pamphlet on auto-emission control.

“Excuse me?”

They looked up with a start to see a thin woman with large glasses who had come silently into the room.

“Mr. Macklin?” she said. “Dr. Falkner?”

They nodded in turn.

“I’m Mr. Zachry’s secretary. He would like to see you in his office.”

“About time,” Corey said, standing up. “Lead on.”

“Mr. Zachry is on the eighth floor,” said the woman.

Dena looked at her sharply. “Is he with the EPA?”

“Well … not exactly.”

“What does that mean?” Corey demanded. “Who is he with?”

“And how do you know our names?” Dena added.

“Mr. Zachry will explain,” the woman said, “if you will come with me.”

Corey and Dena looked at each other and shrugged. They followed the woman out of the EPA offices and down the hall to the elevator.

On the eighth floor, the secretary led them down a dimly lit corridor where none of the doors had names. The office they entered was small, sparsely furnished, with a single window that looked out over a drab rooftop next door. A colored photograph in a clear plastic frame on the desk showed an attractive dark-haired woman in shorts and a blonde little girl about ten years old. They were standing together in front of a suburban house, squinting into the sun.

The man seated behind the desk might have been fifty. He had the blocky build of a college football guard who had kept in shape. His light hair was short and neatly brushed. He gave them an all-American smile when they entered and came around the desk to shake hands.

“I’m Lou Zachry,” he said. “Thanks so much for coming up.”

Corey looked around the bare office. “You’re not with the EPA,” he said.

“No, I’m not,” Zachry said. He pulled two chairs over close to the desk. “Thank you, Miss Peters.”

The secretary nodded to everyone and withdrew.

“I’m with an agency you probably haven’t heard of,” Zachry continued.

“Try me,” Corey said.

“The IDI.”

Corey repeated the initials and shook his head. Dena shrugged.

“Inter-Departmental Intelligence,” Zachry said.

Corey looked bored. “That means nothing to me. You people come up with new sets of initials every day.”

Dena said, “Could you be a little more explicit?”

Zachry leaned back in his chair and grinned. “I’m not surprised you haven’t heard of us. Our budget doesn’t allow for a public-relations operation like some of our better-known colleagues have. And to tell the truth, we’re not all that eager for publicity.”

“Just what is it that you do?” Dena asked.

“You’ve probably heard the old wheeze that the government has grown so big and diverse that one department no longer knows what another is doing.”

“I’ve heard it,” Corey said.

“Well, unfortunately, it’s true. And there is a kind of secrecy fetish in some of the agencies that keeps the situation from changing. Sometimes it can lead to expensive duplication of effort and sometimes to dangerous ignorance among different branches of the government as to what’s going on. It’s the job of IDI to keep an eye on what everybody is doing and to try to minimize the problems.”

“How does that concern us?” Dena asked.

“We’ve been watching the action out at Biotron for some time,” Zachry said. “Specifically, we’re curious about some government contracts that people are reluctant to talk about. Some of us have the feeling that there’s more going on out there than it looks like in the official reports.”

“Amen to that,” Dena said.

“So when I heard you two were here with some information, I sent Miss Peters down to see if she could steer you up here.”

“And just how did you know about us?” Corey asked.

Zachry chuckled. “We have a sort of word-of-mouth telegraph in the building that gets the news around faster than the telephones.”

“Then maybe you already know what we came here about,” Dena said.

“Rumors only. I’d like to hear your version.”

Taking turns, Dena and Corey told their story of the events of the past three weeks. Zachry listened intently, nodding now and then. When they had finished, they sat back and looked at the government man.

Finally, Corey spoke. “I hope you’re not going to ask us to fill out some forms.”

“Nope,” Zachry said. “But I am going to ask you to let me work with you.”

“What will that involve?” Dena asked.

“I’d like you, Dr. Falkner, to return to Biotron, keep your eyes open, and let me know everything you can find out. In turn, I’ll fill you in on any reports I get from other sources. Agreeable?”

“So far,” Dena said.

“What about me?” Corey said.

“What were you planning as your next move?”

“I thought I’d go out to Biotron myself, talk to this Dr. Kitzmiller. It looks like he’s the key to what’s going on.”

“You may be right,” Zachry said, “but I’d like you to concentrate for now on following the other angles of the story. Run down what you can on the victims, look for similarities or differences. Hold off a bit on hitting Biotron.”

“Why?”

“If they know they’re under investigation, they’ll be on their guard. With Dr. Falkner on the scene, we’ll know what they’re up to and be ready to move when the time is right.”

“We may not have a lot of time,” Corey said. “If some sort of disease has been released from Biotron, the sooner we know everything about it, the sooner it can be stopped.”

“Quite right,” Zachry said. “I’m not talking about extensive delays. A matter of days at most, to learn as much as we can. Then we can take direct action.”

“Mr. Zachry,” Dena said, “I like your style.”

“Thank you. And since we’re going to be working as a team, how about using first names? I’m Lou.”

“Dena.”

“Corey.”

“Are you two going together?”

“Is that an official question?” Corey asked.

“Nope. Strictly personal. Curious about my teammates.” Zachry nodded toward the photograph. “Divorced myself. My wife didn’t like Washington, for which I can’t blame her. Ten years ago she took my daughter and left.” His eyes clouded for a moment, then quickly refocused.

“We’re not going together,” Corey said. “Not yet.”

Dena shot him a look that Corey pretended not to see.

“None of my business, anyway,” Zachry said. He scribbled a telephone number on two slips of paper and gave one to each of them. “You can get me at this number twenty-four hours a day. Don’t hesitate if anything comes up. Anything at all.”

“What if you want to reach us?” Corey said.

Lou Zachry smiled. “I’m not in intelligence for nothing.”