Final Winter

‘Information. What you can trust and what you can’t trust. Brian, you probably had a checklist of items to review for me. Am I correct? Schooling, contacts with friends and neighbors, bank accounts, credit-card debt, and everything else. Lot of work for one guy to perform, especially with a deadline handcuffed to you. So you did what you could. You looked again at old interviews. Maybe made a few phone calls. And relied on others who went before you to really look at my background. I was able to spoof the investigators quite easily. You see, they tend to look for secrets, for embarrassing little background items. A perfect person doesn’t exist. So if you give them something to write about — like a preference for women with huge breasts — they’re satisfied. They have found the flaw that they’ve been looking for, and they go on to other assignments. Especially during these troubled times, when so many-people are being investigated, from Cabinet secretaries to Saudi students to FBI job applicants. The investigators were able to check off their little boxes. But their jobs weren’t done. Not by a long shot.’

Brian now seemed amused. ‘You want I should go back and rewrite my report? Say that you’re gay?’

Darren shrugged. ‘In these alleged enlightened times, it doesn’t make much of a difference anymore. Back during the Cold War, there was the fear of having homosexuals in sensitive areas because their background meant that they could be blackmailed by the KGB or others. But nowadays…hell, there’s nothing there to blackmail about. But I do enjoy keeping the secret. It keeps me on my toes, and it tells me how we’re managing information.’

Brian said, ‘Secret’s safe with me, and thanks for the lesson.’

‘You’re quite welcome.’ Darren was enjoying this moment with the detective and didn’t want it to end. He folded his arms and said, ‘We all need to do a better job about the information we receive. Yet we don’t.’

‘I don’t get what you’re saying.’

Darren paused, and then said, ‘Oh, what the hell. You’ve got the proper clearance, or you wouldn’t be part of the team. It’s just that… well, you know what the big advantage is of having the Tiger Teams in place?’

‘Unless it’s going to screw with my pension, tell me.’

Darren unfolded his arms, leaned forward a bit on the couch. ‘It’s broken down the barriers. Information was kept in the different agencies, like big old vertical office buildings, everybody guarding their little turfs, their little pools of information. Very little in terms of cooperation and information-sharing. But the Tiger Teams broke that all apart. It’s like these huge office buildings suddenly had sky-walks installed between the different floors, letting information flow side to side, besides bottom to top, like it used to. Which means a lot of shared information. But a lot of shared questions, too.’

‘Like what?’

Darren said, ‘Just my paranoid nature, I guess. It’s just that…well, I’ve been poking around into other agencies. Like Homeland Security. FBI. Border Patrol. You would think that with Final Winter barreling down on us within a few weeks, that they would be on heightened alert, would call back their people, cancel all vacations and overseas trips. But if it’s happening, I’m not seeing it. And there’s another thing.’

‘Which is?’

‘The chatter,’ Darren said.

Brian shook his head. ‘I swear to God, I’m sick and tired of hearing the word. Chatter, chatter, chatter. Makes me think of those old dime-store chattering teeth you wound up and put on your kitchen table. Chatter.’

‘I’m sick of it too, Brian, but I’ve been reviewing the chatter. And you know what?’

‘What?’

‘It’s exactly the amount and level of chatter one would anticipate if a major attack like Final Winter was being undertaken. A lot of code phrases and sentences, being sent to and fro among a number of terrorist and support cells. And coming from different parts of the world. Pakistan. Great Britain. Bali. Among others. And then there’s the Predator surveillance of that car doing a test run in Damascus. Not to mention our dead Syrian friend in a Canadian hospital. It’s all pointing to that one thing: Final Winter, and coming soon to a metropolis near you.’

‘And what’s the problem?’ Brian asked.

Darren rubbed at his chin. ‘The problem is what I just said. Don’t you see?’

Brian, sharp operator that he was, picked right up on it. ‘I get it now. The amount and level of chatter you’re seeing is exactly what you’d expect. Nothing less, nothing more. It’s like… it’s like somebody is trying to warn us beforehand. Nothing dramatic. Quiet. So he or she isn’t putting themselves at risk for giving away secrets. Like somebody within the cells wants us to know what’s going to happen. A sympathetic ally, buried deep within the organization? Someone who secretly enjoys Britney Spears or X-rated video or racks of beer?’