I leaned back in my chair, eyes shut, putting the narrative in order in my mind. “Someone ransacked August Veriden’s home and place of work up in Chicago, but they seemed to be looking for something small. How big was this cylinder?”

Baggetto pulled out his phone and showed me a photograph. “The cylinder looks like this. If you see it, please don’t open it or try to move it. Just call me.”

I shook my head. “It looks kind of like the coffeepot they had on the counter at Riverside Church when I was there yesterday afternoon.”

“Why do you turn everything I say into a joke?” Baggetto demanded, his parade-ground voice back. Private Warshawski, a hundred push-ups in the sun.

I pulled out my laptop and typed in a few search questions. When I’d finished, I showed the page to him. “Spent rods take up way more space than a coffee urn. What is this really?” I tapped on his phone screen.

He shook his head, his mouth a thin line. “You’re showing your ignorance. One set of rods is only about three to four feet high. This is a container holding a couple of spent rods. It’s vandalism or incipient terrorism, but it is not a joke.”

“I’ll just text the picture to my—”

He snatched the phone from me. “No. This is a top-secret item, and I don’t want to find it out on Facebook.”

I squinted at him. “I’m sure photos like this are all over the Web, unless there’s some kind of code hidden in it that you’re afraid I’ll find.”

Baggetto stood. “The stakes are very high, Warshawski. We’d like to believe that the cylinder is still in Douglas County, and we’d like to think you care enough about national security to help, not hinder us.”

“Of course, Colonel.” I stood as well. “I will do my very best.”

He walked out, leaving the pizza carton and the half-drunk bottle of wine on the desk. Of course, at Fort Riley he had Captain Arrieta to clean up his mess. I poured the wine down the sink and took the remaining three slices of pizza out to the garbage.

Peppy followed me, looking wistfully at the vanishing pizza.

“It’s okay. We’ll go over to the organic grocery and get something tasty, like barbecue-flavored tofu, for supper.”

Peppy curled her lip at me but jumped into the backseat.

31
Origin Stories

I was wandering gloomily through the store, trying to summon enthusiasm for steamed broccolini with fish cakes, when Cady Perec called.

“Can I talk to you?”

I stopped in front of organic Cajun salmon with whipped organic sweet potatoes. “Sure. I don’t have anything specific scheduled for tomorrow.” Unless the sheriff or the army decided to detain me, of course.

“I know it’s late, but I kind of meant tonight.”