Project- Heritage

by Rob Horner

  As always, Brian was struck by Debbie’s height. Easily six feet in flats with long brown hair sprouting from the back of her head in a ponytail, she was a classic beauty with a humble air. Standing shoulder to shoulder, William and Debbie fit together; there was no other way to describe it.

  “Good to see you, too, Billy,” Brian said.

  “Have you met our new guy?” Debbie asked. The man in question was conspicuously dressed in the blue security outfit worn by all the facility’s guards. He was a recent recruit, a brother to one of the failed experiments who hadn’t believed the story concocted to explain his brother’s death. Using a program of his own design, which mined the Internet for specific search terms, William caught the young man digging for information, looking for clues, following leads. William and Debbie maintained if they hadn’t approached him, someone else would have.

  “Names Ian,” the young man said, holding out his hand.

  Shaking hands, Brian’s mind began an automatic analysis, a habit after years of investigating people. Ian stood about five-eight, with brown hair, brown eyes, average features, and an average build. His voice was deep, but not disturbingly so. This was a man who could lose himself in a crowd and who could pass by a group of people three or four times and never be remarked upon.

  “I’ve heard a lot about you,” Ian said, to which Brian responded with a smile. Debbie had a habit of bragging about her “resident fighter,” as she liked to call him. “Sure would appreciate it if you could teach me a few things sometime.”

  “I’d like that,” Brian responded honestly. He was used to receiving a certain level of awe from the newcomers, considering the tales Debbie and Billy fed them. He’d tried, once, to talk her out of it, but had relented after hearing her reasoning.

  “Let them be a little afraid of you,” she’s said. “It deters those who might have some other motive, and it makes the nervous members feel better, knowing you’re around to keep them safe.”

  Brian could relate; safe was something he hadn’t felt in a long while.

  “All right,” Debbie said, “here’s the plan. Ian says the woman was brought in about two hours ago.”

  “Heavily sedated,” the young man added.

  “Par for the course,” Billy said.

  “Right,” Debbie said, continuing, “they’ve put her into a basic observation room. She’s not scheduled for anything until tomorrow, so she doesn’t need to be guarded. She’ll just have the usual monitors on her to make sure her vitals stay stable and she doesn’t start to wake up.”

  Brian was familiar with the normal operations of the place. They didn’t waste manpower on guard duty unless someone was in the middle of an alteration or recovering from one. All others were kept sedated; it saved on nursing costs. The experiments were over, and the alterations were complete, so the facility was only staffed periodically for memory modification.

  “So…we’re just gonna walk in and take her?” Ian asked excitedly.

  Billy gave him the warm smile a father might give an impatient son. “We will,” he said, emphasizing the first word, “and you’ll return to your post.”

  “But I can—”

  “Get in a lot of trouble if you’re missing too long,” Billy hurried to continued. “Besides, we’re going to need you again, I’m sure, and it wouldn’t do for you to get yourself fired after your first operation.”

  “It’s not really all that dangerous,” Ian said. “After all, I’m only a roving security guard. I’m on my hour-long lunch break right now.”

  “An hour that’s almost over,” Debbie reminded him, her voice soft to ease his disappointment. “Don’t worry, Ian. I have a feeling we’re going to need you for other things. But for now, well, you need to do the job we got for you. I know you want to do more, but we can’t risk you that way. Not yet.”

  Brian wondered what she meant by all that, then decided to save his questions for later. If there was anything he’d learned about the tall brunette in the past five years, it was that she explained herself when she was ready and not before. He risked a glance at her husband, wondering how the curious man ever learned to live with that aspect of her character.

  Ian quieted, finally mollified. The young man might turn out to be an excellent member once he learned to overcome his impatience and listen to Debbie. Lord knows, she could probably pull this off by herself; he was along in case there was trouble, and because Debbie thought he might want to talk to the woman.

  “Brian, you and I are going to walk up to her room, get her into a wheelchair, and roll her out.”

  “While Billy handles the computerized doors and bypasses the monitor alarms?” Brian asked, smiling. They’d used this ploy before, sporadically, and with rotating personnel. The installation had not, to date, managed to stop Billy’s hacking.

  Cameras would turn off at the worst times; doors secured by key-card locks would slide open for no reason whatsoever; motion detectors would go off in areas of the facility as far removed from where their team operated as possible, while in their area it would appear as if nothing out the ordinary were occurring. Billy once set off the fire alarms when they weren’t trying to get in, just to screw with them. He thought it was the most hilarious thing he’d ever done.

  Their force was feared by the senior facility staff and regarded as myths by junior personnel who’d never had a patient snatched out from under their noses. Small modifications had been made over time, almost like putting new curtains over a hole in the wall, nothing Billy couldn’t circumvent.

  It was just like the military, Brian reflected. Suggest a solution to a problem, and they would create a problem out of the solution. Mindless, circle-running, paper-generating, circus freaks—Brian laughed to think it was their dogged adherence to ineffective security measures established by people with more brass on their shoulders than brains in their heads which made it easy for them to keep rescuing persons of interest.

  “Already thinking it’s going to be easy?” Debbie asked, turning to Brian.

  “Easy?” Billy said incredulously. “Hell, he’s already thinking about the beer he’s gonna drink once you’re outta there.”

  “Well,” Debbie prompted.

  “Miller Lite,” Brian said solemnly, drawing a laugh from the other three.

  4

  Brian drove his red Toyota pick-up truck to the front gate of the facility, which didn’t have the same entrance as the rest of the Recruit Training Center. The separate entrances kept cross traffic to a minimum, which kept the scientists and facility security happy. There were enough ancillary employees working in the building, often on completely unrelated material, that it was impossible for the guards to know everyone.

  Ten years ago, this was the base medical center. It contained a modest-sized Emergency Department, twenty regular hospital beds, four Intensive Care beds, and a small operating suite. As the Captain James A. Lovell Federal Health Care Center neared completion, the on-base facility shut down. It appeared shuttered and moth-balled, but inside extensive renovations were underway in 2008 and 2009. The building resembled nothing more elaborate than a three-story, haze-gray, utilitarian government structure on the outside, but the inside was vastly different. It no longer had an official designation on the Great Lakes base map, and since it had a separate entrance manned by a civilian security force, it was believed to no longer be a part of the military installation.

  Billy’s computer skill had procured the false identity for Brian, as well as the position as a botanist authorized within the facility. The guard at the booth gave their identification cards a cursory glance before waving them through. In the bed of his pick-up was a thin coverlet over a mound of dirt, atop which sat several potted plant specimens. When they returned through the gate—hopefully with the female victim—the dirt would be removed, and the coverlet would be placed over her.

  “You’re actually starting to enjoy this, aren’t you?” Debbie accused him, as Brian headed for the staff parking lot.


  “Of course, he is,” Billy’s voice replied, coming through the earbud inserted into his right ear. Debbie had one in her ear as well, and both had small microphones hidden in the lapels of their white lab coats. Brian hated wearing the things, not because they didn’t work, but because it meant wearing a collar around his throat which transmitted sound as an electromagnetic wave picked up by inductance and converted back into sound inside the earpiece. The collar was connected to his phone as a wireless receiver, and all three maintained communication via a three-way digital conference call.

  “Reading you loud and clear,” Brian said, avoiding the question.

  “Both mikes are a go,” Billy replied.

  “How’s it look from your end?” Debbie asked.

  “I’ve got both of you on my tracker.”

  “Good,” Debbie said. “Let us know when you’re about to start working your magic.”

  “Will do.”

  Brian had sat with Billy during enough of these operations to know what the technician was doing. Sitting in his dark van back at the visitor’s center, Billy had a laptop open in his lap with a second computer open on the passenger seat. The passenger seat computer displayed a real-time top down stick drawing of the facility, with electronically protected areas lined in red. Brian and Debbie’s smart phones doubled as location transmitters, so Billy saw them as small red dots moving about the screen. The computer in his lap, no doubt connected to the security system through one of his back doors, was where the real magic would happen. From its keyboard he could transmit instructions to the security system, opening doors, deactivating monitors, or sending false cues to draw the security teams away from one area or another.

  Brian parked in the employee lot, choosing a space as close to the large glass entrance doors as he could manage. Looking out through the windshield, Brian smiled. The cameras recording movement in the parking lot would no longer be showing real-time footage, but instead playing a looped video to whoever was watching inside. The glass doors, formerly the Emergency Department entrance and normally locked in the evening, would be standing open for them, another testament to Billy’s expertise. The security guard stationed on the second floor would have no idea anyone had arrived. Debbie might like to brag about his physical prowess, but he preferred an operation where no one had to get hurt. Though their credentials were authentic enough to get them past the guards with no hassle, their presence would be logged and connected with the rescue, rendering any such future expeditions impossible. It was easy to foil their technology, but no amount of hacking in the world could make the guards forget what they’d seen.

  “Doors are a go,” Billy breathed into their ears.

  “Let’s move,” Debbie said unnecessarily, as both she and Brian climbed out of the truck.

  Walking briskly, efficient but not hurrying, the pair moved to the glass entryway. The doors swung open automatically, providing entry to the lushly carpeted foyer of the installation. It was amazing such a facility could exist on military property yet go unnoticed by the thousands of sailors stationed a block away. Except for those few who had the bad luck to be dragged within, of course.

  “Ian said they took her to the third floor,” Debbie whispered.

  “Inpatient Residence,” Billy said, giving the words their due irony.

  Debbie snickered, then whispered, “Are the elevators safe?”

  “Take the stairs,” Billy replied, his voice a little strained. “They seem to have adopted a new closed-circuit system for their elevator cams. I’ve looped the stairway cameras, though, so no matter what you do, all they’ll see is the same empty stairwell. I can’t touch the elevator cameras right now. Probably need to get to the mainframe and create a new backdoor to access them, but I can do that later.”

  “Must be losing your touch,” Brian muttered softly, earning himself a light punch on the shoulder from Debbie. “I was just kidding,” he muttered in mock defense, openly smiling.

  “I know,” she replied, “but I’m the only one allowed to bust his chops.”

  “Don’t I know it,” Billy replied.

  “Watch it, or you’ll get some of the same,” Debbie warned Billy, and Brian smiled at the by-play. Despite the danger they were in—the guards had instructions to try to capture intruders but were authorized deadly force if necessary—Debbie and Billy acted as though this was nothing more serious than a raid on Granny’s cookie jar. He envied their easy camaraderie, which he’d shared with only one person. Realizing the unwanted path his thoughts traveled, the smile slipped from his face.

  As the two headed across the foyer, past the three elevators and to the stairway door, Billy said, “I’m checking the other monitors. All the guards appear to be accounted for. Of course, that’s assuming they haven’t added to their staffing.”

  “What’re the odds of that?” Debbie asked sarcastically. Even though they’d made a handful of successful raids in the past two years, the staffing numbers remained constant.

  “Actually,” Billy said a moment later, as his wife and friend passed the second-floor landing, “the odds are pretty good.”

  Brian and Debbie froze as the sound of a door opening on the landing above reached them. “Explain,” the tall brunette hissed.

  “There are three new guards on the third floor, and a fourth heading into the stairwell.”

  “Yeah,” Brian said, “we can hear him. He’s—”

  “Shhh,” Debbie whispered silently, pursing her lips and putting a finger in front of them. They could hear the slow and measured tread of someone coming down the stairs.

  Brian motioned her to stay put. Taking a deep breath, he began to mount the stairs, secure in his authorized presence.

  “Who’s there?” the guard’s voice called a moment later. “Barry? That you?”

  Brian smiled at the young man’s uncertainty. Rounding a mid-floor landing, he found himself staring up the last flight of steps at a very young-looking guard, whose face relaxed pathetically as he realized it was just one of the researchers.

  “I didn’t know there was anyone in here,” the guard said, a sheepish grin forming on his face.

  “Just trying to get in a few hours of peaceful work,” Brian said, smiling as he climbed the last few steps.

  Years before, when his life had been normal and his family still a part of it, Brian would have sworn he could never use his talents to commit cold-blooded murder. He wasn’t a killer; he was a private investigator. Years of living with the memory of his wife’s death and agonizing over the fate of his son, however, had left him with a drastically altered outlook on life. These people would stop at nothing to get what they wanted. He had to be prepared to act just as ruthlessly. It was the only way to protect people who’d done nothing to deserve what the government wanted to do to them. People like his Jimmy.

  He was prepared to kill, though he would try to avoid it if he could.

  “I’ll have to report your presence,” the guard said.

  Brian only smiled again as he drew even with the young man. The guard reached for his walkie-talkie, ready to make good on his promise.

  Brian was much faster.

  Reaching out with his right hand he grabbed the guard’s arm. The bones in the forearm broke as Brian twisted, forcing the guard’s hand back and up between his shoulder blades. The walkie-talkie fell from suddenly nerveless fingers. The guard drew in a breath to scream—Brian would never begrudge a man the right to do so—but again Brian was faster. Using the momentum generated by grabbing and twisting, he pulled the guard in the direction his body wanted to go to alleviate the strain on his shoulder. The stairwell was narrow; two short steps and the guard’s face met the wall with a sickening crunch. The guard’s head lolled back, blood covering the lower half of his face. His body sagged as Brian guided it to the ground.

  His face had been turned away and down as he ascended; the only thing the guard would have seen was the color of his hair. Even as he’d drawn level with him, the guard�
��s attention had been on grabbing the radio, not on memorizing Brian’s features. Chances were good the guard hadn’t seen anything memorable, and Brian could live with that.

  He checked the guard’s pulse. Finding it steady and strong, he thumbed up the young man’s eyelids. His pupils were rolled up in Bell’s Phenomenon, a defense mechanism. Satisfied the guard would be unconscious for some time, Brian dragged him to a place behind the landing door. If any other guards stepped out for a cursory look, the door would block sight of the unconscious man. It had to be enough.

  “Come on up,” he whispered. Then, as Debbie began climbing, he asked, “The other guards, where are they?”

  “I’m tracking two of them in the break room, drinking coffee. The third’s in the john,” Billy answered. “If you hurry, you can get into the woman’s room in Inpatient Residence before they have a chance to see you.”

  “Will it be unlocked?” Debbie asked.

  “It will be by the time you get there,” Billy said.

  Smiling, Brian and Debbie pulled open the door that gave onto the third floor.

  The floor plan of the facility resembled the hospital it used to be and wasn’t much different from any other hospital Brian had seen. A long corridor ran left and right, with doors opening to patient rooms on each side. The corridors described a wide square around the perimeter of the building, with a single short hallway bisecting the width. The nurses’ station took up most of that short middle corridor, though he’d never seen it manned. There would be at least one nurse on duty, but she was probably in the break room as well.

  “Room 303, to the right,” Billy said. “I’ve already looped the video.”

  Brian and Debbie turned right, counting off the rooms. They were coming from higher and working lower. 310, 309, 308… With no guards to interfere, it only took a few seconds before they were easing into room 303. Still dressed in street clothes, the sedated woman was laid out on top of the hospital bed. Debbie shut the thick wooden door as Brian hurried to turn on the bedside lamp.