Page 13 of Fortress
“It’s all a government lie,” Mr. Krueger continued at an aggressively loud volume, either oblivious or resistant to the general mood of his neighbors. “Just a smokescreen for therealstory.” He took a gulp of water from the glass in front of him, then turned his focus back to the Hawthornes.
“So,” Tobias said carefully. “When the president was attacked in 1983...”
“That footage was completely doctored! Those were people in costume, not evengoodcostuming, just some contact lenses and fake teeth and hair extensions, and they were sent by the White House itself! It was all a ploy to get the First Lady out of the picture. They knew she wouldn’t keep quiet!”
“Okay,” Jake said after a long pause, during which Mr. Krueger looked at them with hopeful, wild sincerity from his rheumy blue eyes. “I’ll bite. Keep quiet about what?”
Mr. Krueger leaned forward, hands planted on his knees, eyes fiercely squinted. “That the president was actually a Soviet plant. Yes,” he added, seeing their faces. “Yes, he was. Do you know what’s in the FREACS facility?Do you?”
Jake opened his mouth and then closed it again, lips tight, but Tobias leaned forward, eyes wide. “What is it?”
“It’speople!” Mr. Krueger shook his bent finger emphatically, and Tobias twitched, then covered by reaching for his own glass. “It’s people that get too close to the truth. The government tosses them in that black hole, calls them monsters, and it’ssafe, see, because no one wants to look too close, no one cares about a freak, right? But it’s just propaganda instituted by the Red State!”
Jake took a breath and leaned back, reminding himself that the guy was a nutjob. “Look, Mr. Krueger, what does that have to do with...” And then it hit him, the last words catching in his throat.
Tobias finished for him. “What does that have to do with children?” Compared to Jake he looked unruffled, but the hundred-kilowatt smile he’d given the waitress was gone like the old man had flipped a switch. “At least,” he amended, “with the eight children who’ve recently come down with an illness no doctor can diagnose?”
“Well, it’s all the same brand of evil, ain’t it? This government’s just the old government in a new suit! You think this is new, how these kids are getting poisoned? Happened back in the seventies when all the flower girls and boys thought they were gonna make peace with the Reds by taking off their clothes and smoking them psycho-Daleks, and back in the fifties right when the Reds were moving into our turf, scoping out the ground after Hitler. You remember Hitler?”
“Not personally,” Jake said.
“Well, he was the first Red Spy, the preeminent tsar! But they found him out in the end.”
“What happened in the seventies and fifties, Mr. Krueger?” Tobias’s voice was firm, focused, and Jake would never stop being so goddamn proud of him.
Mr. Krueger, delighted at having a no doubt rare captive audience, raised both hands to gesture. “The commies seeded the city water tank—which was in Rosebud in those days—with an experimental toxin compound. It was meant to soften us up for the invasion, but when old McClellan kicked up a fuss in Washington, they had to call it off. About a dozen kids died. Same thing happened in 1978, and that time we almost lost the whole dang town, except the EPA opened an investigation, and the socialist Fed goons had to back off before they got their paws dirty.”
“I... see.” Tobias, who could usually wear a bland mask at the most outrageous witness statements, couldn’t completely cover his confusion. “So, you’re saying that twice, about twenty years apart, this town has suffered from a number of children falling mysteriously ill?”
Mr. Krueger looked disgruntled. “Didn’t I just say that?”
“Yes, you did,” Jake agreed. “Perfectly clear, thank you for your time, Mr. K.” He stood, dropped a couple bills on the table, and raised his eyebrows at Toby. “We’re just gonna head out now and look for some of those commies.”
The man smiled so happily that for a moment Jake almost felt bad. “You boys take care out there. You can’t trust anybody these days. Not neighbors, not television, and definitely not the government. You see a van full of those alphabet organization types poking their noses into this thing, you get out. They get wind of this in Washington, those ASC goons’ll be all over this. I’ve had people flashing their badges and asking me questions about those kids before, and I was lucky they didn’t haul me away to that prison, so you watch yourselves. Never take a wooden nickel, don’t talk politics in church, and never trust the ASC.”
Jake paused in the act of handing Tobias his jacket, one hand lingering over his shoulder as he helped him pull it on. Tobywasn’t a child who needed the help, but it was a safe way to touch when Toby’s eyes were a little too wide and fixed on Krueger, his movements belated and jerky as he got up.
Jake quirked a smile at the old man, but it wasn’t pretty. “Oh, I never do.”
A couple blocks past the diner, Jake huffed out a breath that steamed in the sharp December air and tugged up the collar of his jacket. “What a kook.”
“Was he... ill, do you think? Like, not right in the head?” Tobias split his attention between Jake and the sidewalk traffic, but Jake didn’t spare a glance for the other pedestrians. Most of them dodged out of his way without much trouble, but when it looked like he might collide with a particularly zoned-out businessman fumbling with his pager, Tobias grabbed Jake by the sleeve and pulled him to the side. “Should we contact a doctor or someone?”
Jake sighed. “Probably wouldn’t do any good. Did you see the side-eye he was getting? I could hearOh, Ernest’s waylaid another innocent bystander. He’s just one of those nutcase conspiracy theorists who wouldn’t believe in the supernatural if they got strung up by a djinn. But this is the first time I’ve run into one or tried to get info off of ’em. Fuck. Since he’s clearly playing without any face cards, it’s going to be damned hard to trust the details he did give us.”
“We can easily verify the childhood illnesses in the previous decades,” Tobias offered. “If the pattern he identified can be tied to our current case, we’ll at least have a lead.”
“Dammit, Toby.” Jake stopped abruptly and leaned against a wall, resting one elbow against the peeling paint over his head. His gray eyes were stormy and distant. “It’s awesome, don’t getme wrong, but how can you be cool about that asshole just... getting it wrong, just dismissing... everything, the crap we deal with every day? Sure, people can be really messed up sometimes, but how can he refuse to acknowledge everything laid out in front of him?” He punched the wall, a short sharp jab that would have scared Tobias months before and now just made him worry that Jake might hurt his hand.
“Hey.” Tobias lay a hand on his shoulder. “We can focus on the hunt. We don’t need to talk to him again.”
Jake looked at him, and his eyes were clearer, lighter. Something in Tobias’s chest eased. Before, it looked like it might be a night that Jake went out and drank so much that he gave Tobias the keys.
“He was right about one thing,” Jake said.
Tobias blinked. “What?”
Jake shrugged and tucked his arm over Tobias’s shoulders, pulling him close enough that Tobias could feel the warmth of his breath against his cheek. “Don’t trust the ASC. And not everyone they take is a monster.”
