by Blake Banner
“I don’t want your money, Gilbert. I am not your employee.”
He looked at his watch. “It is now ten thirty. Shall we reconvene for an aperitif at, say, twelve?”
I stood and walked out onto the deck. Marni came after me. I rested my ass on the gunwale, crossed my arms and looked across the narrow stretch of water at my boat. Right then, all I wanted was to get on it and go home.
Home.
There was a small table with a couple of chairs. Marni sat in one of them, leaned her elbows on the table and studied her thumbs. After a moment she said, “I’m sorry about Philip. You know what he’s like.”
“You don’t need to apologize for Philip. He’s old enough to do that for himself.”
She didn’t look up. “Meaning I should just apologize for myself?”
I shrugged. “You don’t have to apologize, Marni.” I gave my head a small shake. “The fact that we discussed getting married, the fact that you know I have loved you since we were children, the fact that we lived together for six months and you shared my bed, and we discussed having children, the fact that when I took you to San Francisco airport you told me you would be in touch…” I paused, fighting to slow and control my breathing. “The fact that when you did, finally, contact me it was to give me instructions… All of that might merit an explanation, but I don’t honestly expect an apology, not when you are clearly a great person, and all I am is a barbaric employee.”
She wouldn’t meet my eye. “I am sorry, Lacklan. I really am. I just didn’t know how to tell you, or what to say.”
“Did you meet somebody?”
Now she looked at me, frowning, surprised, shaking her head. “No! Of course not! If it was going to be anybody, it would be you. I love you, Lacklan.” She shrugged and looked out at the vast blue. “But it’s not going to be anybody. I have to do this, for my father, for humanity…”
I sighed. “Well, that is the mission you and Gibbons have set yourselves, and you both decided a long time ago that I was not great, unique or special enough to be a part of it.” A twist of anger still burned in my gut. “Even though I’ve caused Omega more damage than all your fraternity put together, and you’d both be in your damned graves today if it hadn’t been for me and my barbaric, unseemly ways.”
“I said I was sorry.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry too. I’m going to go now.”
“Please wait. I really do need your help.”
“Marni…” I hesitated a moment, then said it. “You didn’t meet anyone. You are a great person and you’re married to your cause. I’m not a great person. I’m just an average person. I’m not married to any cause, and I did meet someone.” She stared at me without expression, but her eyes were bright with tears. “I want a home, Marni. I want somebody I can give myself to, somebody I can fight for and be loyal to. You are all that, but I also want somebody who will be there for me, that I can turn to, rely on and trust. And you are not all of that. You are not any of that. You made your choice, and I knew when you went through the security gates at the airport in San Francisco, that you were leaving me.” I shrugged. “I moved on. And isn’t it just symptomatic that I had no way to contact you, or tell you?”
Her bottom lip curled in. Tears spilled from her eyes, but she didn’t make a sound. Eventually she wiped her eyes on her sleeve and said, “First my dad, then your dad, and now you. Every man I trust ends up abandoning me.”
I shook my head. “No, Marni. You don’t get to do that. I never abandoned you. Never, not once. You weren’t there to be abandoned. You never forgave me for London, and you never let me back in.[3]”
I waited for a reply. She didn’t say anything so I stood and walked to the retractable ladder down to the dinghy. “Goodbye, Marni.”
“Lacklan.”
I stopped. “What?”
“We need you.”
“Not you anymore. Now it’s the Great People’s Club who need me. But not as a member, just as an employee to be adequately remunerated.”
“Please stop, Lacklan. I never said any of those things. Stop putting Philip’s words in my mouth. The only thing I am guilty of is being a coward and not contacting you when I should have.” She sighed. “You’re so… intense! Everything is either peace or war, heaven or hell. I was scared to tell you how I felt.”
I closed my eyes and sighed. I couldn’t argue with what she was saying. I exhausted myself sometimes, what must it be like for somebody like Marni? I said, “I’m sorry.”
She half smiled and wiped her eyes on her sleeve again. “Well, now we are both sorry.”
I nodded, then shook my head. “But, I have made up my mind. I have a home now, Marni, and I am going back there.”
“Don’t make me beg, Lacklan. I will if I have to.” She spoke through her tears, with her lower lip quivering. “They can’t be allowed to continue. They have to be stopped. You know what they are doing to people. You can’t walk away, Lacklan. That is not who you are. I don’t want… I can’t believe that you will do that. Just do this one thing for me, and I will never ask you for anything else ever again. Go to your woman with my blessing. If you love her, she must be a great person, and you deserve a good woman. But please, I beg of you, do this one, last thing. Please.”
I took a deep breath, intending to say no, but somehow, instead, I sat at the table and said, “What does it involve?”
She took a deep, shaky breath. “We killed the director, you remember.”
“It’s another thing I am not going to forget.”
She searched my face for a moment, then went on. “They appointed a new director, Theodore Ogden. He is a Harvard neurologist, a psychoanalyst and a Master of Neuro-Linguistic Programming. He is also a ruthless, soulless sadist and a son of a bitch. They have students there, on various programs. The lower level students have no idea what is going on there. But the ones with promise are approached to see if they want to be inducted into deeper programs. Higher level students range from having some idea that something is going on, to being fully-fledged members of the program.”
“You keep talking about the ‘program.’ What program? Not Omega, surely?”
“No, of course not.” She sighed. “It is very complicated to explain, but Omega have a whole range—hundreds—of programs all over the world designed to draw promising candidates in. They cover every kind of discipline, medicine, law, politics, and psychology and neurology. More besides. But psychology and neurology are the ones that most concern us, because they are the ones that involve control of thought, emotion and behavior. And the main center for research in that subject has become the Institute.”
I shook my head. “But what do you think I can do? You’ve said it, Cyndi said it, Gibbons has said it repeatedly. I am a barbarian. All I know how to do is kill.”
She sighed. She was quiet for a while. “Actually, Lacklan, I don’t think I ever said that, and if I did, I was wrong. We need you to get inside the institute, get photographic, video and documentary evidence of what is going on there, and leave without being detected.”
“That’s a tall order.”
“Yes…” She spread her hands. “That’s why I told Philip we needed you for the job. You have the necessary skill.”
“I disagree. You need someone undercover, to join one of the courses, work their way in and gather intel.”
She nodded but made it look exasperated. “Obviously! And we considered that option, but it would take too long.” She hesitated. “We believe there are experiments being conducted, on people. They have labs. We don’t know precisely what goes on there, but we are pretty sure it has to do with what they call their ‘Compliance Program’.”
“The mind control.”
She nodded, then made a ‘so-so’ face. “The term is simplistic. Even today we don’t really understand how the brain works, but we do know that the brain’s functions are governed to a great extent by neurotransmitters. Get the balance right, and you can achieve a state of compliant obedience. The
point is, levels of neurotransmitters can be altered artificially, for want of a better word, by introducing chemicals into the body, or by inducing the brain to alter the levels itself.”
I frowned. “How would you do that?”
She shrugged. “There are many ways, meditation, hypnosis, even listening to music, just going for a walk, or having a talk with a good friend can cause a slight alteration. The levels of neurotransmitters are in constant fluctuation. That’s why our moods change. But deep, radical changes need to be induced in some powerful way.”
“And you think that’s what they are experimenting with. It’s the Sun Beetles all over again.”
“It’s an extension of the same program, yes. But I think they’re taking it to another level.” She gave a small laugh, but it was a grim, unhappy sound. “We have left science fiction far behind, Lacklan. The research that is being conducted today, behind closed doors, in artificial intelligence, in mechanical-cerebral interface, is beyond what you could imagine. Science fiction can’t keep up with what the nerds and the geeks are dreaming up, and all of it is being funded by multi-billion dollar corporations that have a vested interest in the technology of compliance.”
I puffed out my cheeks and blew. My mind wandered away from the ugliness she was discussing. I thought of spring in Independence. The snow would be almost melted. The blossoms and the first tender leaves would be in bud on the trees. Abi would be wondering where I was, what I was doing.
“I need to call Abi…”
“Abi? Is that her name?”
“Yes.”
“You know that’s not wise. You could put her at risk.”
“This is the last job I am doing for you, Marni. When it’s finished I am going home. I need to make sure I have a home to go to.”
She was quiet for a long time, looking down at her hands. Eventually she raised her eyes to mine. “It could have been us.”
I nodded. “It could have been. But now it’s too late.”
She didn’t answer.
I spread my hands. “So what happens now?”
She shrugged. “We give Philip the good news.”
I stood and walked back into the cabin. Cyndi turned to look at me and they both watched me approach. I addressed Gibbons. “I’ll do it. But it’s the last job I do for you. After this, you leave me to get on with my life.”
He raised an eyebrow. “You’ll get no argument from me.”
“I haven’t slept since the night before last. I’m going to get four hours sleep. Then I’ll sail back to Corpus Christi. You want to brief me on the job? How do you want to do this?”
He thought for a moment, chewing his lip. “Are you going back to Independence?”
I frowned. “How do you know about that?”
“Because we’re professionals, Lacklan. Are you going back to Independence?”
“Yes, I’d like to. But it depends on the briefing, doesn’t it?”
He looked away, staring at the window as though he was staring at his thoughts, projected there.
“We will deliver the senator to Washington. You rendezvous with us in New York in, say, a week.”
I shook my head. “No.”
“I beg your pardon?” He gave me a look I figured he used a lot with impertinent staff.
“You can rendezvous with me at my house in Weston. I’ll be there within a week. I’ll prepare the job from there.”
He sighed. “Very well. I suppose it’s pointless to argue.”
“Yes.” I caught Cyndi’s smile. I smiled back. “Goodbye, Cyndi. It’s been fun.”
“I hope we meet again before long, Lacklan. But no more road trips.”
I nodded. “No more road trips.”
Marni was waiting for me on deck. She took hold of my hands and frowned into my face, like I was an equation that had given her the wrong result.
“Lacklan.” She tried a couple of times to go on, but couldn’t seem to find the words. Finally she said, “I don’t know how we got here from Wyoming. It all seemed so perfect.”
“Are you looking for a way back? Or are you just looking for a way to feel OK about where we’ve arrived? We wound up here after Wyoming because you left. You went to Oxford and stayed there, and you didn’t want to call. It’s that simple, Marni. You left.” I bent and gave her a kiss on the cheek. “Goodbye. Stay safe.”
* * *
I had called Abi from the Corpus Christi airport on a disposable cell. It rang for a while but finally she answered.
“Abi, it’s me. I’m on my way back.”
“Lacklan! I’ve been so worried! Are you OK? You’re on your way? Where are you?”
I smiled so she could hear it in my voice. “I’ll be in Reno in about three and a half hours. I figure you can make it in two.”
“Reno?”
“I chartered an air taxi.”
“You did what?” She laughed out loud. “Did they pay you? Did you win the lottery?”
“Yeah, in a sense. Abi, there’s a lot you don’t know about me. I want to start changing that. I want you to know who I am. Everything.”
“Wow. You make it sound serious.”
“It is serious. I am serious. Abi, I’d like you to pack an overnight bag. I want you to come with me.”
“Come with you? Where…?”
“To Boston. I want to show you my…” I hesitated. “I want to show you my other home, and introduce you to my… To the closest thing I have to a family.”
“Oh, my goodness.”
I could hear the smile in her voice, but I asked anyway. “Is that OK?”
“Of course it is. I’m thrilled. It’s just so unexpected.”
We had talked some more. Then I had hung up and boarded the small Gulfstream, ordered a martini dry, and slept for the next three hours. We landed at Reno Tahoe International at three fifteen in the afternoon. She was waiting for me with her suitcase, looking a little bewildered but happy. We hugged and stood holding each other for a long time without speaking. It was a good feeling. Then we kissed for a long time too, as the people milled around us. If we were in the way, I didn’t give a damn. Finally she held my face in her hands.
“What’s going on, Lacklan? What’s this all about?”
We found a coffee shop and sat at a small, plastic table with two plastic cups of what tasted like plastic coffee. I took a hold of her hand and looked into her face.
“The people I used to work with, they are good people and they are doing good work. They asked me to do one more job. They didn’t know that I had decided to retire. So I told them that I would do it, but that this would be my last job.”
She nodded, gave a small frown. After a moment, she said, “Good. I am glad to hear that, Lacklan. I know you can’t tell me about it, so I won’t ask, but I hope you stand by your word. I already lost one man I loved, I don’t want to lose another.”
“You have my word.”
She smiled. “So, why are we going to Boston?”
I nodded slowly, then returned her smile. “When the job is finished, I want to ask you a favor. But before I do, I want you to see the house where I grew up, and meet what’s left of my family. The people who stood in for my mother and my father.”
“You’re being very mysterious. What is this favor you want to ask me? Why can’t you ask me now?”
“I can, and I will, but I don’t want you to answer until we get there. Can you do that?”
She frowned. “OK…”
“Abi, I would like you to marry me, and make a home with me. Will you be my wife?”
FOURTEEN
We landed in Boston at seven thirty the next morning. I’d had Kenny leave the Zombie in the parking lot for me, and we took a leisurely drive up through Watertown and Waltham onto Boston Post Road, where the scenery changed from suburban New England to the insane abundance of the New England countryside in spring. She was quiet most of the way, tired and sleepy from a seven hour flight, but entranced by the spectacle of green around her, a
million miles from Nevada.
“You grew up here?” She asked it not looking at me, but looking everywhere else.
I nodded. “Till I was nineteen.”
“Where did you go? To college?”
Now she looked at me, and I could see the curiosity in her eyes. We had never discussed my past. I had never wanted to till now. “I went to stay with my mother, in England, and then I joined a British Regiment. The SAS.”
We followed the Post Road into Weston, then turned right onto Concord Road. It was a strange sensation. At one time I had never wanted to return. I was happy to leave Kenny and Rosalia caring for the place. But now, cruising slowly among the rich green woodlands and parkland, I did feel I was coming home. Something had changed, but it had changed in me. I smiled at her again. “Do you like it?”
“It’s beautiful. You grew up out here? You were a country boy?” She smiled, as though she liked that idea. I didn’t answer, and after a couple of minutes I slowed and pulled into the driveway of the house I had not seen since my father’s funeral: his house, my inheritance. I stopped and killed the engine. She sat in silence, staring at the three-story pile of Georgian red brick and stucco.
“This is your house?” She turned to gaze at me.
I nodded.
“You told me you had money, but this?” The door opened and Kenny stepped out to wait for us. Abi started to laugh. “You have a butler?”
The next hour was taken up with introducing her to Kenny and Rosalia, which took a surprisingly long time, showing her around the house and the gardens, and getting through Rosalia’s endless stories about all the mischief I used to get up to as a boy. At long last, at half past eleven, we finally sat in the conservatory and Kenny brought us coffee and freshly made croissants.
“May I say, madam,” he said, with a complacent smile, “what a pleasure it is to have you both at home.”