by Bob Blink
Chapter 7
Sunday
Mark hadn't slept well, and was awake and roaming around just after six. The get-together with his family had left him uneasy, with his past apparently considerably different than he remembered. He made a cup of coffee, then sat down at his computer, determined to see if the others had followed through on their promise to get untraceable phones so they could communicate. He wanted a meeting. There was more they needed to discuss as a group.
It didn't take but a few minutes to get logged onto Jessie's website. The attractive Homeland Security agent was apparently reliable and as eager to pursue the matter as he was. More of the group had provided phones numbers. First names and a number in most cases. That was okay. More wasn't required. Two of the group had yet to respond, both people he'd had doubts about their following through. The older Jerry Marshall and the small Asian woman Pam Chou had yet to provide any contact information. Quickly he committed the numbers that had been added to the page to memory, a bit disappointed that there was nothing more from Jessie.
Still staring at the page as though that would force more information to appear, he heard the unfamiliar ring of his phone. At first he thought it was the one he'd put his SIM into, but then he realized it was the special one with the number he'd posted for the group contact. His heart raced suddenly at the realization.
With a combined sense of anticipation and uncertainty, he pulled the phone out of the desk drawer where he'd placed it. A quick check of the caller ID was disappointing. It showed that an unknown number was calling him. While he hadn't stored any numbers in the cheap phone, he'd expected the ID to show him who was calling.
Assuming it was one of the group, or perhaps some random advertiser, he pushed the small green button and lifted the phone to his face.
"Mark," he said simply. That would be enough for anyone in the group, and anyone who'd called by mistake wouldn't gain much information.
"It's Jessie," replied a slightly husky voice he recalled.
"Morning," he said. "I see a few others have responded. Have you spoken with any of them?"
"No," she replied. "How did your visit go?"
"Disturbing," he admitted honestly. "I'd have to say it supports our fears that something very strange is going on."
The line was silent for a moment, then Jessie said, "We need to meet. Today. This morning. I have to tell you some things that are better not said, even over these phones."
For some reason a cold shill traveled up Mark's spine. Something in her voice caused the reaction, hairs standing up along his arms.
"Okay," he said simply.
A moment ago he'd been wanting contact, now suddenly he wondered if he wished to know more. Jessie had apparently learned something.
"Are you familiar with the Vietnam War Memorial?" she asked.
"Of course. Isn't everyone?"
"Meet me there in an hour. Wander around, looking at the names. I'll make certain you aren't being watched. When I'm certain, I'll come for you and we can wander off to a spot where we can talk."
"Isn't it a bit cold for someone to be visiting there?"
"I've never seen it without someone visiting. Trust me on this."
Mark checked his watch then replied. "An hour and a half. I just got up, am not dressed, and it'll take me a bit."
"Ninety minutes then," Jessie said, and the line dropped off.
"Damn," he muttered, looking at the now dead phone.
Heading for the shower, he finished in a record five minutes, dressed, grabbed two cups of yogurt and a glass of Mango nectar, and quickly polished them off. The gun was back in his belt holster along with his spare magazines in a jacket pocket when he made his way outside for the walk to the Metro thirty minutes later.
He'd been walking slowly along the wall of dark stone for nearly twenty minutes now, examining the names as he went. Where the hell was Jessie? He'd arrived as planned, and as he'd expected, he was the only person here. The drifts covered part of the monument, and it was easy to see anyone who might be nearby against the stark white snow covered ground.
"Thanks for being prompt," Jessie said, somehow managing to sneak up on him unobserved. "I believe we are clear. Come with me and we can talk."
She took his hand, his in her left, as if they were lovers, more of the charade he decided, and he played along. She was considerably smaller than himself, nearly nine inches he realized, but something told him she could toss him to the ground and whip his ass without hardly trying. He wished it were spring. He'd like to be holding her hand for real, but now all he could feel were the thick gloves separating their hands. He noted that her right was inside a jacket pocket, supposedly for warmth, but he couldn't help wondering if that right hand might be wrapped around the small automatic he'd seen her with a couple of nights before. He realized his own would be difficult to use given the thick gloves he wore. Jessie wore something that was thin, but he was willing to bet were warm, yet leaving her hands able to use her weapon.
She lead them a considerable distance without speaking, finally turning into an alleyway that sheltered them from both the wind and any prying eyes. Finally she stopped and turned to him
"Isn't this a bit dramatic?" he asked.
"Let me tell you a few things, and then you decide," she suggested.
Mark wanted to suggest they go somewhere more comfortable for chatting, but the sharp look in her eyes told him that wouldn't fly.
"Okay," he agreed.
Surprisingly concisely she told him what she had discovered during her trip to New York City. He listened without interrupting, the strangeness of it made him want to hear everything she had to say before commenting.
"This is for real?" he asked, hardly able to believe what he'd been told, but knowing she wasn't out here this morning to play games.
"I was open to finding a lot of different things, but not what I encountered," she admitted. "The man I spotted and had a brief lunch with was Bud Johnson. He was aware of everything that happened the morning we all arrived for that briefing. But then, he boldly lied about what happened later in the day. Or didn't know, which is more likely, because he'd have to know what he was saying wasn't true.
"So it wasn't him?" Mark said bluntly.
"It was, but it couldn't be," Jessie said. "It is too unbelievable for me to get my mind around. We saw him die. I'm certain of that."
Mark recalled the gunshot and the blood, followed by the few words and then the strange greenish flames which totally consumed the body.
"He was dead," he said bluntly. "Whoever you interacted with was an imposter."
"That's what I want to believe, but I don't think that's the case. But if you are right, then he knows that I'm checking up on what happened to the real Johnson, which means we need to be real careful. Someone who can react this quickly and with such a perfect substitute isn't someone to take lightly."
"I wish I'd been there," Mark said, still having trouble believing all that Jessie reported. Perhaps she wasn't as reliable as he'd believed.
"I broke into his apartment afterwards," she said, surprising Mark again.
"Johnson's?" he asked, although who else could she be talking about.
"Yeah. Didn't find anything, although his life is as sparse and empty as some of the rest of our group described the other night. He's clearly one of us. Another loner."
Mark didn't like hearing himself described that way, but after the meeting with his parents and the hours of thought, he had to admit it was accurate.
"We need to inform the others and plan how to react to this. They need to know," Mark concluded.
Jessie nodded.
"There's more," she said.
"More?"
"I wanted to talk with you yesterday, but knew you'd planned to go to Denver. So I went to check on something."
"Where did you go?" Mark asked.
"Back to where this all started. I went to the building where we have these unexplained meetings."
&nbs
p; A logical place to check he admitted, wondering why he hadn't thought about it.
"Find anything?" he asked.
"Just the opposite. Nothing, or perhaps in an odd way a lot. Did you know the entire block that building is on is condemned? All of the buildings are owned by something called the Smith Corporation."
"Very helpful name," Mark noted wryly. "Except ours, right?"
Jessie shook her head.
"The one we go to as well. I never noticed, but there is a large sign in the front window that looks like it has been there for a considerable period. It says the building is scheduled to be demolished along with the rest of the block to make way for a new industrial center."
Mark stared at her in disbelief.
"I would have seen such a sign."
"I'm not exactly unobservant. I think I can safely say the same. Yet there it is. There is no one in the lobby, and I walked the entire street. One of the reasons it wasn't plowed the other night is because the entire street is closed off as there are no businesses there."
"I thought I walked to it for security reasons?"
"So did I, but a cab wouldn't have been able to bring us there even had it been spring."
"Are you implying we never went there?" Mark asked, head swimming. "That we were somewhere else?"
"I don't think so, but at this point I'm not sure what I know and what I don't. The sidewalks weren't shoveled or cleared, and I think I found spots where the snow had been disturbed by our passing, but the wind had pretty much blown enough snow around it wasn't all that obvious."
"But you believe we met someone in a condemned building?" Mark asked. "I don't suppose you checked inside?"
"It's on my to-do list," she replied. "I plan to do some careful checking, but yeah, that's what I think. And while my memories claim I have been going there for a couple years, I'm not all so certain that's actually the case."
"Damn!" Mark muttered, all of this too much to take in so fast.
"What do you suggest we do now?" he asked.
Chapter 8
The hotel room they selected cost them just shy of three hundred dollars a day. Mark had wanted to balk, but Jessie explained she had access to funds to quietly cover the cost, but wouldn't specify their origin or extent. It wasn't a place they would be staying, but it was large enough for a group to gather at the table in the living area, had high-speed Wi-Fi, and a small kitchenette in addition to the spacious bedroom. It would be their war room.
They had shed their heavy winter coats in the warm security of the posh room, and were both dressed casually and comfortably. It should have been an intimate situation, the two of them facing an unknown threat, alone in a comfortable hotel suite, Jessie being considerably more than a little attractive. In any movie Mark had seen they would have been destined to fall into the king sized bed in the nearby bedroom within minutes. For reasons Mark couldn't explain, that wasn't the case here. He couldn't deny the physical charms of his companion, but his lustful urges had not been challenged at all, and it was clear that Jessie wasn't thinking along those lines either, as she pulled a small MacBook Air out of her oversized purse.
Mark was admittedly uncomfortable with the tale Jessie had told of her discoveries, and if not for what he had personally observed when Johnson had been consumed, and the unexpected surprises resulting from the visit with his family, he probably would have dismissed her revelations as ridiculous. But he was very aware that something completely unheard of was taking place, and from his own reactions he knew that trying to report this to anyone and get any acceptance was going to be neigh unto impossible. Given the sensitive nature of their jobs, such a tale would likely get them removed from their positions and placed under observation.
"What are you thinking?" he asked.
Jessie had powered up the tiny laptop and was going through some kind of complicated login. He noted she hadn't connected to the hotel Wi-Fi, but was using a small device he recognized that would connect her securely, and directly. "Do you have access to the secure net?" he asked, referring to the government's private Internet system.
"Yeah," she replied. "Two of the nets anyway."
Mark knew there were several different nets with scaled levels of access and security. He spotted the logo which told him which she was accessing. It was one of those he had intimate familiarity with, and even knew some tricks she probably wasn't aware of.
"I want to see if the remaining two have logged into my website yet, but don't want to leave a traceable path to it. "Last I checked Miss Chou and Jerry Marshal hadn't left any contact information. I'm not real comfortable that that woman took to heart our agreement to keep this matter to ourselves. She was pushing awfully hard to contact the authorities."
They had discussed the matter again on their way to the hotel, and both agreed their strange situation wasn't something they were ready to reveal to anyone outside their group. They were clearly being used in some manner, but neither could think of who had the ability to do some of the things they had witnessed. One thing was very clear to Mark, however, and that was once they raised the matter to certain people, their freedom and ability to control their destinies would be severely compromised.
Jessie had suggested this room, and the plan of getting the group back together today. The timing was important. Everyone would have had the weekend to think over events, and tomorrow when they returned to work would be the most likely time someone would decide to reveal the strange events. That was assuming no one hadn't already ready. Also, she felt it important that all of them were aware of what she had discovered.
There were seven of them, eight given that Bud Johnson in some guise appeared to still be alive. But Johnson wasn't one of the inner circle. While whatever was going on clearly affected him, he apparently wasn't aware of what they had observed, and hadn't been party to the dinner the other night that discussed his killing. Mark felt distinctly odd thinking of it that way. Whatever they decided, he would have to be watched. His odd presence might provide a link into who was behind whatever was going on, although explaining away and making the others believe Jessie's story was going to be the hardest part. He wasn't certain why he believed it, but somehow he did.
"And if not," he asked, his mind returning to her actions. "There's something you can do to make any searches you do even more secure," he said.
Jessie glanced at him, her deep blue eyes questioning.
"This is a very secure system," she countered.
"For those who don't know about it and can't get access. Who do you think oversees it?" he asked.
She considered who Mark worked for, then shook her head.
"Of course," she agreed. "Someone has the ability to monitor even the secure nets. What do I do?"
Standing close behind her, he leaned over, and directed her through a series of commands that he knew by heart.
"I never knew this existed," she said when he had connected her to a deeper level of the system.
"People aren't supposed to," he said, realizing he had just broken security in a way that could potentially place him in jail. "No one is going to track anything you do now," he added.
"Our two friends haven't been here," she said once they had connected to the site she'd constructed.
"We go and talk with them?" Mark asked, already able to read his companion's thoughts to some degree. They had their addresses from the information exchange the other night, and he was pretty sure that Jessie had already verified their correctness.
"After we call the others and set up a meeting here for this evening," she agreed. "How about you take Glen Taylor, and I'll take Monica and Stephanie?"
Surprisingly, all answered almost immediately, as if they'd been expecting to be called. The two women agreed easily enough to the meeting, taking down the hotel room number from Jessie. Glen Taylor, the Air Force Officer who Mark had ridden in the taxi with the night before, wasn't as eager to get involved. Mark wasn't surprised. He'd gotten a sense of the man's position during
that ride.
"This could be detrimental to my career," he said. "We should have reported it right away. By delaying we've put ourselves at risk. I'm not sure I want to get any further involved."
"You already are," Mark said forcefully. "Besides, Bud Johnson appears to be alive."
"Bullshit!" Taylor responded. "We saw him die and burn. The hood shot him at point blank range. No way he's alive."
"Jessie saw him yesterday in New York. She has pictures. I suggest you come and hear her out."
A long silence followed Mark's words.
"This better not be some trick to rope me into something," Taylor finally replied. "This is something I think we all should simply walk away from at this point. Okay, give me the time and location."
After hanging up, Mark turned to Jessie.
"He's not going to be much help. Wants to bury the whole thing. More of that same suggestion from Johnson do you think? Maybe that's what's driving Pam and Jerry."
"I hope it's that. Pam worries me. She was far too anxious to do the normal thing and get someone official involved. I just hope she hasn't already done so. I don't see that working out well for us."
"So now is as good as any to go and find out?" Mark suggested.
Jessie nodded.
"I assume you are armed," she said, surprising him.
He nodded slowly.
"Do you think we'll need to be?"
"Obviously you believed it a possibility or you wouldn't be," Jessie responded. "Actually, I wanted a reading on how seriously you are taking this, and what kind of person I will be trusting to watch my back," she added. "If you'd said no, I'd be having some second thoughts about how capable you are."