The Devil's Pitchfork by Mark Terry Page A

in the empty room. He glanced at his watch. He had to make up his mind soon. Was this a chase of the wild-goose variety, or a long-shot worth pursuing?
    His gaze settled on the chair where Colonel Tallifer, the Military Intelligence spook, had sat.
    What would I do if I were M.I. and somebody official came around trying to dig up something they’d buried a long time ago?
    He came around the desk and took a look at the other chair in the room.
    He found it attached to the right metal leg with a magnet. What appeared to be a bug--of the electronic kind.
    Holding the tiny transmitter between his two fingers, Derek dropped the listening device into his second half-finished can of Mountain Dew. He rattled the can good and hard. “Half-full or half-empty, Colonel Tallifer? What do you say?”
    Derek called O’Reilly with a simple request: the current location and phone number of Captain Simona Ebbotts and a lift to a rental car facility.
    “What is that noise, sir?”
    Derek had been shaking the Mountain Dew can during their brief telephone conversation. “Sorry. Nervous habit.”
    “Yes sir. We can supply a vehicle. Secretary Johnston has expressed his desire for full cooperation.”
    “I’m sure he has. Thank you. That will be fine. The phone number, though?”
    “I’ll get it for you, sir.”
    “Good. And Sergeant? This request is confidential.”
    “Yes sir.”

    The military vehicle O’Reilly came up with was a forest green Ford Explorer. Derek loaded his gear into the back, took the slip of paper with Simona Ebbots’ contact information on it, thanked O’Reilly and sped away. He didn’t want to use his cellular phone for this. It took a mile of driving before he found a pay phone in front of a 7-Eleven.
    The number was in San Antonio, Texas. Glancing at his watch, he decided to try the work number first. It was late, but it was an hour earlier in Texas.
    Using a phone card, he dialed the number. After four rings, a female voice said: “Brooke Community Army Hospital, Medical Surgical Floor.”
    “Dr. Simona Ebbotts, please.”
    “Hhmmm. I think she’s with a patient.”
    “Please tell her it’s Derek Stillwater and that it’s an emergency.”
    “Well...”
    “Tell her,” he said, voice short.
    “Just a moment please.”
    He waited. And waited. He glanced at his watch again. He wondered how the investigation was going. What was Pilcher up to now? Spigotta? More important, what was ... what was Richard Coffee and his band of merry men doing?
    Because, whether true or not, he had begun to think of the terrorists as being linked to Richard Coffee.
    He thought about the woman he was trying to get hold of. His ex-wife. A military marriage that lasted two years until their separate careers had forced them apart more than they were together.
    “Derek, what do you want?”
    “Hi Simona. Look—”
    ”No, Derek. We’re very busy here. I’m doing follow-ups on surgical patients. And we’ve gone to Code Red, but nobody knows why. What do you want?”
    “I know why you’ve gone Code Red,” he said.
    There was silence on the line. “I thought you were retired.”
    “I’m with Homeland. A troubleshooter.”
    More silence. “This news in Baltimore...”
    “Yes.”
    “What is it?” She knew. She was so smart, he thought. She knew.
    “Bioengineered. Nothing like it. Pretend it’s smallpox without a vaccine.”
    “Dear God. What do you need from me?”
    “I need the names of some nurses and doctors who worked at the 807 th M.A.S.H. in February and March of 1991. Iraq. People with good memories.”
    “I can do that,” she said. “Honey. I can get you a list of names in ten minutes.”
    Derek’s mind locked on ‘Honey.’ He remembered Simona with long dark hair she usually wore in a braid. Remembered braiding that hair for her a time or two, both of them naked, fresh out of the shower, pink and clean, her fine straight back in front of him, her long silky hair in his fingers. So long