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The Energy of Sun Rays

Amanda: Surprises

Amanda slipped her gloved hand into Lee's as they made their way along the sidewalk. "What were you talking about just now, in French?"

As he explained, her stomach responded by getting more and more unhappy. She finally held up a hand. "Stop. I…I'm not sure I'm ready to hear the rest of this."

He peered at her. "That's all there is to hear, except for the last sentence, when I told them that this conversation is absolutely not over. I —" he shook his head. "I can't believe they'd even consider an offer like that."

"It sounds to me as though they requested it, actually. But did you tell them our news?"

"I started to." Something that might have been a smile threatened to appear, but it wasn't reaching his eyes. "That's when you and Joe came down the stairs."

"We're still planning to tell them though, right? Sooner instead of later, I mean."

Now the smile did come through, transforming his entire face. "I'd tell the whole world if you'd let me. I still don't understand why we can't."

"We can. We will. After I've finished the first trimester." She patted his cheek. "Jamie should be the first to hear, anyway, once I've gotten confirmation from the doctor on Monday. That means Joe and Carrie will find out then, too, since we don't ask him to keep any secrets from them."

"Secrets," he mumbled, and she could see the grin drop away. "Yeah."

Any further conversation was interrupted when Douglas drove up in his rental car, with Francine in the passenger seat. He'd opted for one of the nondescript gray sedans that were ubiquitous in the Motor Pool. Thanks to the recent snow showers, it was now covered in leftover dirt.

"Ought to get that washed," observed Lee as they waited by their front door. "It'll ruin the paint job if you don't."

"The chaps at the Pool tell me they'll do it sometime this week," replied Douglas as they shook hands. He put a hand at the small of Francine's back as she made her way up the steps. That earned him a disdainful look and an actual toss of the head as she stepped away from it. Amanda had to smother a chuckle; did they have any idea how that looked to an outside observer?

They might, she realized, since they were playing a cover. Then again, they might not; after all, she and Lee had been among the last to know what they'd looked like, even when they weren't playing covers.

That was as far as she got before the heat from indoors hit her, and her stomach finally rebelled in earnest. She barely made it to the downstairs bathroom in time. Whoever named this morning sickness can't have truly experienced a pregnancy.

Lee tapped on the door as she was cleaning up. "Amanda?"

"I'm all right," she replied after she spat out the mouthwash. It was a shame that she'd lost her dinner; Carrie's casserole had actually been really good.

"You sure?"

"Yes," she confirmed as she joined him in the kitchen. In the living room beyond, she could see a look of concern on Francine's face as well. "I'm fine," she called out in a louder tone. "We'll be out in just a moment."

Lee brushed hair back from her face. "If I'd known it was going to be like this —"

"Don't even think like that, Stetson." While this child was coming as a surprise, it was far from unwelcome. "Let's get out there before they kill each other."

They made it in time, though she wasn't sure how close it had come. "…but we've confirmed the Colonial Cookery case wasn't a Stasi op," Francine was saying.

"Confirmed, how?" asked Douglas in a tone that suggested it wasn't the first time he'd raised the question. "You asked them, did you? 'I say, Mr. Chancellor, we had agents getting killed until we found an information leak in a cooking show. Would that happen to have been your government's doing?' There's only one answer the East Germans would have given."

"Of course that's not how we confirmed it!" Her face was a bit flushed. "It was…well, it was probably through mutual contacts or a double agent."

"'Probably'? You didn't confirm it yourself?"

The flush grew darker. "The compromised agent was from our division, so another division did the confirmation."

"And you've checked with them, yes? To be certain how it was confirmed?"

"That'd be a waste of time! Time that we do not have to spend!"

"When all other leads are proven wrong —"

"Don't start on that again! I've already heard it enough."

"That's enough from both of you!" Lee waded into the argument. "I suppose that's the answer to our first question, though. You don't have anything new, do you?"

They both fell silent, having the good grace to look embarrassed as their gazes pointedly falling anywhere but on each other. The redness in Francine's face began to fade as Amanda doled out the water glasses she'd brought in with her. "We have something stronger, if you need it. Just ask."

"No, but thank you," said Douglas quietly. "I suppose I should apologize, if anything I said seemed to impugn your agency. I've never questioned its professionalism. Or yours, Francine. My behavior, I think, was mostly begotten of frustration. That doesn't excuse it, but I hope you'll all be kind enough to overlook it."

"I thought Amanda was long-winded," replied Francine after she'd taken a long drink of water. "But that's fine. I'm sorry, too. Lee, Amanda, you're right. We've gotten completely nowhere. It's really looking like the Colonial Cookery case was the product of a rogue faction that wanted to use our media toward its own ends."

"'Was'?" repeated Lee. "Any evidence they're still active?"

"Not that we can find, although that's not saying as much as it sounds like. We can't review every piece of information from every media broadcast in the country."

"Of course not," said Amanda. "But maybe we could narrow it down. What if…" she paused to think. "Media. Well, what about news stories that would make this country look bad? We know some of those are put out as propaganda from behind the Iron Curtain. You know, in some cases they're also trying to start a panic, too. I mean, Phillip was…" she trailed off automatically so that she could keep her voice from catching, surprised when that turned out not to be necessary. "Phillip was working on a social studies project about the use of media that way, and had run across some articles about that report. You know, the one that supposedly proves that AIDS was created at Fort Detrick as a bioweapon? Which reminds me that if we're talking about media, the best place to start would either be here or in New York, since that's where most of the news bureaus are. Don't we have press contacts? Could we talk to some of them off the record?"

"Amazing," murmured Douglas.

She stopped short. "What?"

"You, Mrs. Stetson. That you were able to say all of that without finding yourself short of breath."

She, Lee, and Francine exchanged glances before all three of them dissolved into laughter that swept away any lingering tension from the earlier argument.

Lee recovered first. "We've all gotten so used to it that we don't even notice anymore. Amanda, were you finished?"

"Um." She fumbled a little, trying to remember her earlier train of thought. "I was just trying to think out loud. Where were we? Media reports, right?"

"Yes," said Douglas.

"Right," she acknowledged, and then it came back to her. "News bureaus. Press contacts. We have a lot of them, don't we? Maybe we could start at — oh, what was the name of that government broadcaster? Ours, I mean, the one we've sometimes listened to when we've been in Europe on a case. Not Radio Free Liberty, the other one. Oh, gosh, I don't remember its name, but we can't pick it up from here."

"The Voice of America?" asked Francine.

"Right. That one. Could someone from there help us? What department are they a part of, anyway?"

"State, I think. I've got some contacts over there, so that's a place I can start."

Lee wrote something on his pad before tearing off the paper and handing it to Francine. "Try him. He's one of their news directors, and he's usually tuned in to what's going on. I did him a couple favors a while back, so use my name if you need to."

She tucked the slip away. "Thanks. I will. It's still a pretty wide net, though. We need to narrow the topics down."

Amanda thought back to her college journalism courses. "Don't reporters protect their sources?"

"I don't think the Voice's reporters are allowed to do that," said Lee. "At least, not from their editors or bureau chiefs."

"I'll find out when I talk to him," said Francine. "I can also check with my contacts over at Tass and Pravda to see if they know anything, or if they'd know anyone at the East German news services who might. The question is, what would any media sources be doing that would lead up to an attack on Amanda's family?"

The grief and sadness were definitely still there, she decided. So was the anger. But somehow, focusing on problem-solving kept her feelings from becoming overwhelming. Did that, and the fact that she could mention Phillip without her voice catching, mean she had made it another step down the road toward healing? Or was it just the effect of pregnancy hormones?

"Amanda?"

She blinked back to the conversation. "Are you sure it was my family they were targeting?"

"It's your family that was hit. What have you been working on lately, other than those Middle East transcripts you keep talking about?"

"Well, let's see. I know those have included some psy-ops, which could tie in to media coverage, so I can start there. And — oh. Oh. Wait a minute. When Mother and Phillip were…when the wreck happened, they were on their way back from ordering a birthday present for Jamie. It was supposed to be a surprise, a scaled-down version of one of those photographer's vests, although I don't know why it had to be ordered since those aren't that unusual. I guess it's because he wasn't quite into men's sizes yet. And you know what? I've not heard from the store either, so I should probably call them tomorrow. The thing is, though, to throw Jamie off their trail, they'd told him they were going to the library so that Phillip could do some extra research on that current affairs project, the one I just mentioned about a report involving AIDS and Fort Detrick. They'd been to the park to play basketball when Mother picked him up, so someone could have overheard that conversation. If they did, and if that report is a disinformation campaign, then —"

"— then they could have perceived a potential threat," concluded Douglas. "Which, I believe, would be sufficient to create a motive."

Author's Notes:

(1) The Voice of America was administered by the State Department in the 1980s, although it now falls under the US Agency for Global Media. Lee is correct about their reporters; under some circumstances, they can be required to reveal confidential source identities to their managing editors, although the editors must maintain the confidentiality of identity. In a common mistake, Amanda miscalls the name of the associated, but distinct, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

(2) The Segal Report was presented at a conference in September 1986 and, despite being immediately denounced as scientifically unsound, was disseminated by media worldwide, including in the United States. The effects of its disinformation are still felt today.