by Matt Eaton
She committed this note to paper and delivered it personally to the White House for consideration. Another of Tavon’s transport discs allowed her to travel to and from the President’s private residence unseen. She could leave a note in a small bathroom attached to a bedroom periodically used by Sherman Adams. Either Adams or Eisenhower himself could retrieve her notes without anyone else knowing. It dispensed with the risk of communicating over open telephone lines, which could be bugged by the FBI. She was getting used to the momentary confusion brought on by the dimensional gateway and even doing several jumps in one day didn’t bother her. Delivering her note to the White House took less than 30 seconds, but she was always relieved to get in and out without terrifying the cleaning staff when she materialized from thin air.
It was dark outside by the time she made arrived safely back to her room at Deborah’s house. The letdown from the adrenalin rush of the delivery left her feeling weak and hungry. But she knew an empty stomach would probably be best for what the rest of the night had in store. They were returning to the Monongahela National Forest in the hope of speaking with the Zeta Reticulans. If they appeared, she expected the experience to take a physical toll.
She’d suggested traveling to the forest alone, arguing this might be the best way to establish her own rapport with the visitors. Tavon pointed out it they were the ones who had first come to him and he doubted they would appear merely because she alone willed it.
The shift in temperature between the two locations was immediately apparent. It was cold in the forest, and eerily quiet. The air was still, the atmosphere damp and earthy. Not a creature was stirring, as the old story went. The best part about that was the welcome absence of mosquitoes. Welcome but odd, nonetheless. Where had the insects gone?
Tavon flicked a torch on and off as a signal to indicate their presence. Edna was pretty certain the Grar knew they were there. There was no immediate response. After almost an hour of inaction, Edna was pretty sure they weren’t coming, but Tavon urged patience. Half an hour later, she was shivering with cold, parched with thirst, hungry and dying for a cigarette when a light appeared above them.
From a glowing red sphere the size of a small car, a cone of light shot down to the ground. The night air was alive with charge and she felt a buzzing in her ears. Two of the Grar appeared at the bottom of the shaft of light, looking to her much as they had before. It looked like they were wearing jumpsuits of blue or silver, but their shapes were strangely ill defined. She moved to take a step closer, but found her legs wouldn’t move. She was glued to the spot and knew somehow this wasn’t of her own doing.
Her body was under their control. She tried not to panic. “Thank you for coming,” she said.
We know what you want.
It was an odd voice, beamed right inside her ears and head, though not through the air.
“Will you come? Will you help us?” she asked.
Why?
“So you don’t have to live your lives in secret.”
There is safety in secrecy. There is also freedom.
“If you value truth, you must also know it comes at a cost.”
This is easy to say when it is not you who must pay that cost.
“Nothing about this is easy.”
They stood their ground for at least a minute before responding.
We will consider your proposal.
Amid the strangeness of it all, their response was almost mundane. It occurred to her the words and the phrasing were her own. The Grar somehow used her lexicon as a framework for their communications.
A moment later they were gone. Within seconds, the normal sounds of the forest returned. Crickets chirped. An owl hooted as it buzzed over their heads. A swarm of mosquitoes descended on them like they were the only warm-blooded creatures for miles. Then, as the full moon poked above the horizon, a wolf began to howl.
FIFTY EIGHT
Saturday September 26, 1953
Edna was awake and lonely in her room on the top floor of Deborah’s suburban hideaway, unable to sleep. She didn’t have a clock but knew it was late. She felt like a drink. But more than anything else, she didn’t want to be alone.
Then she remembered Mexico. She opened the drawer on her bedside table and pulled out the black box Tavon had given her. She set the dial for Acapulco, hit the blue button that set this bedroom as the automatic return point then pushed the red button to activate the portal. With two steps she travelled two and a half thousand miles to her room at the Casablanca.
Staff rooms were on the lowest level, meaning there wasn’t much of a view from the window. But the room was bathed in a beautiful shimmering blue hue from the lights reflecting off the water below. It always made her feel like she was underwater. The hotel itself felt like a cruise ship far removed from the troubles of the outside world. She pulled on a black frock, set her hair back in a bun and made her way across the lobby to the elevator that rose straight to the rooftop nightclub.
At Ciro’s, events were in full swing. She stared up at the stars that hours ago entranced her for entirely different reasons from half a continent away. Here they seemed magical, romantic. Utterly human. Acapulco Bay shimmered and sparkled, and as the band finished its number the masts of 100 yachts rang like tiny bells from their cables catching the wind. She took herself behind the bar, threw ice into a tall glass and poured herself a Tom Collins.
“Edna! You’re back.” Teddy Stauffer patted her on the shoulder and offered a weary smile. “I guess you heard.”
“No? Heard what?”
“Rita and her husband didn’t come. They’re staying in Las Vegas. Rita never bothered to cancel the booking. She apologized profusely and promised to pay, which was kind of her, though I can’t help feeling disappointed. She would have been good for business.”
Edna knew it wasn’t all she was good for in Teddy’s eyes. “Now that you mention it, I did read something about police investigating a threat against her daughter. I guess they wanted to stay closer to home.”
“Dick has a nightclub gig in Philadelphia on the 28th. They were never coming,” he said ruefully.
“Guess that means I can stay,” she said. But a face that appeared behind him at that moment made her gasp. “Teddy,” she whispered urgently, “is your top drawer still fully loaded?”
“Of course. But...”
“Good,” she said, immediately shifting her attention to the woman now staring at her across the bar.
Nina Onilova looked pale. Maybe even scared, though she was trying hard not to show it.
“Sister Josephine. Out of uniform, I see.”
“Edna. It is you.” She sounded relieved. “Then I really am in Acapulco.”
“You’ve been sticking your nose in where it’s not wanted. I ought to turn you in to the FBI.”
“I don’t think they have a field office in Mexico,” the Russian replied, trying hard to laugh but stopping as it caught in her throat. She was close to tears. Terrified.
“You don’t know what’s happening, do you?” Edna said.
“Pour me a drink. A big one.”
Edna grabbed a tumbler, threw in a few ice cubes and filled it with vodka. Onilova downed it in a single gulp. She poured again. The place was busy, but Edna pointed to where a couple were just leaving a table at the back of the bar. “On the house. Go take a seat, I’ll be over in a moment.” The Russian looked skeptical. “Go on — what choice do you have, Nina?”
Onilova had done her best to pull herself together by the time Edna sat down beside her. “Nice place you have here,” she said.
“Let me guess what’s happened here,” said Edna. “You broke into my apartment in Washington. Am I getting warm?”
Onilova stared out across the water. “If I’m not back by morning, they will think the worst.”
“You just travelled the best part of three thousand miles in a heartbeat,” said Edna. “I think we can have you back by morning.”
Onilova looked at her in as
tonishment. “One moment I am in your lounge room, the next I am in tiny bedroom somewhere else entirely. Still in Washington, I think. But when I move toward the door, I find myself here in this hotel. I am afraid to try again. I see a door and I open it. Then I find you here.”
When Edna turned on the portal in Deborah’s house, she’d left it open. But by designating her bedroom at Deborah’s as the hub, Nina couldn’t return to Paulson’s apartment once she left it without resetting the destination dial on the black box. The device was back in her room at Deborah’s house — the last place she wanted to take a Russian agent. It was bad enough she’d been there once.
“What could you have possibly been hoping to find by breaking into that apartment?” Edna asked her. “You must have known I’d left.”
“That day you had so many visitors,” said Onilova. “I knew something was strange.”
Because the Russians had the place bugged. They must have deciphered some of what Tavon had said and gone looking for a black box. Luckily, Nina hadn’t found it yet. The moment they returned, Onilova would do everything in her power to take it. And Edna didn’t have the skill to take on a trained killer at close quarters.
“You had me totally fooled in Rome, you know,” Edna said. “You make a very convincing nun.”
Onilova shrugged. “Not so hard. They are simple creatures. Kind hearts, but weak of mind. Easy to manipulate.”
“Like us Americans?”
Onilova eyed her warily. “But now it is you who has advantage, no?”
“It’s not like I wanted you to find me here. But somehow you knew we would come to Rome. You were waiting for us. You were too clever by half. You had Paolo wrapped around your finger.”
Onilova smiled. “I hear he misses me.”
Edna lit a cigarette and offered her pack to the Russian. Nina accepted one gratefully and Edna lit it for her. “You’ve given him entirely the wrong idea about nuns,” said Edna. “He thinks they’re sex slaves for the priests. Of course, he’s a bit old-fashioned.”
“Take me back to Washington,” Onilova said pleadingly. “I will forget this ever happened.” It was a bald-faced lie, but she almost sounded like she meant it.
“Why should I?”
“We can help one another. Compare notes.”
“You want to defect?”
“Maybe,” she said, though it clearly wasn’t what she meant. “Yes, I can do that. I can work for you.”
“Could you persuade your people to stop listening to my private conversations?”
“I could tell you where the bugs are hidden. You fix them yourself.”
Edna smiled. “All right. I think we might be able to work something out.”
Onilova finished her drink and got to her feet, eager to leave.
They said nothing as Edna led the way back through the hotel. It was late, or early, depending on your point of view. The more determined drunks were huddled together at tables in the foyer bar. At the front desk, the night clerk nodded at Edna as they passed. Edna led the way around a corner in the corridor that led to her room. They passed Teddy Stauffer coming the other way. He apologized to Edna as he bumped into her, brow furrowed like he had something on his mind. “Good night.”
Onilova watched him leave. “Strange man, your boss. He says nothing when you bring a woman to your room so late at night.”
“Hotel managers never ask those sorts of questions.”
Edna turned the handle on the door to her room. She never bothered to lock it because there was nothing in the room worth stealing. She ushered Onilova into the room and stopped her just short of the portal — the disc itself was hidden beneath the carpet.
“Let me grab the control box,” Edna said. “It’s under my pillow.”
As Edna turned around, Onilova must have realized something was wrong. She leapt at Edna like a cat, but was a moment too late. Edna fired twice through her pillow, hitting the Russian in the head and chest. She fell on top of Edna, who swung her fists wildly and threw her to the floor. She pulled the gun up to fire a third time, but saw Onilova was already dead. Suddenly the room was flooded with light from the corridor as the door opened. James Jesus Angleton looked genuinely shocked as he took in the scene.
“I heard shots,” he said. He looked back along the corridor then stepped into the room and closed the door.
Edna sat down on her bed, the pistol shaking in her hand. “I should have known you’d be lurking out there in the shadows.”
“You’re full of surprises, Miss Drake. Here’s me thinking you’re working for the Soviets. Do me a favor and put that gun down.”
Angleton’s needle was stuck in the same groove. She unclenched her hand and dropped the pistol on the bed, but couldn’t stop the hand from shaking. “So, are you here to help me or hang me?”
He smiled grimly, surveying the scene as he weighed his options, but there was sympathy in his eyes. “Will you be all right?”
“I’ve never shot anyone before.”
“No, I thought as much.”
“I was terrified of her. She’s a killer... was a killer. She caught me by surprise... I’m no communist.”
He held up his hands to calm her down. “You did what you had to do. It’s over now.”
“She knew too much,” said Edna, “I had no choice. She found out...” She was rambling. She stopped herself just in time before mentioning the portal.
“Found out what?”
“Who I really work for.”
“And who is that?”
She looked at him with disdain. “Don’t play dumb. The wind will change and you might stay that way.”
Angleton nodded. “OK, I deserved that. Go throw some water on your face, we need to get this cleaned up. Whose gun is that?”
“It belongs to... a friend.”
“I don’t think your friend will want it back,” he said.
“What do we do?”
“We take a little cruise. We’re gonna need a boat.”
“I can ask Teddy. He’ll know how to do that.”
“Your manager. Do you trust him?”
She looked down at the gun. “With my life.” She lifted her shaking hand to her face and wiped away a tear. “We need blankets. There’s a utility cupboard two doors down. Can you go and grab some? I’d probably just drop them at this point.”
Angleton nodded and quietly backed out of the room, closing the door as he departed. She leapt to her feet unsteadily, figuring she had about a minute. Nina Onilova’s body lay sprawled across the floor. Her feet were missing. She had fallen down at the edge of the portal and now her legs were in two countries at once. It was sheer luck Angleton hadn’t noticed. Not wanting to touch the body, she jumped over it instead and fell through the portal into her bedroom at Deborah’s house. The air here was different. Fresher and cooler. No smell of death, though there was a pair of disembodied feet on the floor. She wondered what would happen if the portal was turned off now. Would those feet would remain here? She picked up the black box from her dresser and stepped back through the portal, then urgently kicked at the dead woman’s legs until her feet reappeared. She hit the red button to switch off the portal then shoved the black box in the drawer of her bedside table.
Her hands were still shaking as she adjusted her hair in the bathroom mirror. She took a deep breath and told herself to get it together. She had to tell Teddy Stauffer he was an accessory to murder.
FIFTY NINE
Saturday February 20, 1954
The jury of twelve arrived in a plain gunmetal grey bus at the floodlit gates of Plant 42 just after dusk. Edna was waiting for them at the front gate. She made a point of climbing aboard the bus to welcome them as it stopped at the security checkpoint. The project psychiatrist had said it was important they saw familiar faces ahead of what was to come. A dozen faces stared back at her in nervous silence. Had it been like this for the whole trip from LA?
Operation JD — shorthand for Judgement Day — had been condu
cted like an operation run by the French resistance. Information had been strictly compartmentalized. At each step of their journey, the twelve were handed off by one courier to another. Thus, the woman who met them at LA Airport with the friendly efficiency of a tour guide handed them over to another friendly female face who took them through reception and dinner at the Biltmore Hotel. After issuing them with written instructions that breakfast would arrive via room service and to stay in their rooms until further notice, she too vanished. Just before ten o’clock the following morning, a ticket for the bus to the Palmdale Philately Convention was stuck under each of their doors. The journey to the base had taken about 90 minutes. Time enough to develop a healthy dose of regret.
The twelve were unknown to one another, as would be the case with any jury. But these jurors had been gathered both from various walks of life and from vastly different parts of the nation. The process of selection had been quicker and less rigorous than Edna would have liked, but they were limited to a time schedule dictated by the President’s future movements. Today had been the only day they could make Ike disappear for several hours with a believable cover story.
The end result of the selection process, following weeks of argument between her and Adams, proved satisfactory to all. They were a suitable cross-section of American life, with the sole exception of Teddy Stauffer, who had been included at Edna’s insistence because he was already in the know about Verus operations and Outherian technology (to say nothing of being an accessory to the murder of a Russian spy). He was one more person Edna could count upon to act as a voice of reason if members of the group became deeply agitated or hysterical. A couple of others had similarly been selected for reasons of expediency. She and Adams both knew this was her attempt at shortening the odds on a positive outcome, but she doubted it would make much of a difference in the end. Getting them here was what mattered.
Teddy, like everyone on the bus, was told nothing of why they had been chosen or for what reason. All any of them knew was that they would carry out an important task in the service of their President, one for which they would be remunerated, but that demanded utmost secrecy. They must never, ever speak of what they saw to another living soul. That point had been earnestly underlined on several occasions, and this alone had been enough to prompt three people to walk away before today, prompting a hasty search for candidates to replace them.