by Vicki Hinze
“I don’t know yet.” The uncertainty had Amanda even more upset. “If he was forced to take on the role, then probably not. But if he took on doubling for Mark by choice, you can count on it.”
When? When had he taken on doubling for Mark? After they’d been captured and taken to the Texas compound? Or before?
The office leak.
A bleak certainty settled in on Amanda, weighed down on her shoulders. The double could act in Mark’s stead during his absences from the office; by telephone, when Mark was otherwise occupied. He could—and had—substituted himself for Mark at convenient times and never had aroused suspicion. He had been doing all that and more, intermittently ever since Mark’s three-month absence. Mark’s double was the leak in the OSI office.
Chapter Fifteen
The vault was buried in the bowels of Building One.
It had no windows, one door that was time-locked. To enter required top-secret or higher security clearance, an authorized ID badge scan, a biometric iris and fingerprint scan, and successfully crossing the threshold without setting off alarms for carrying metal—including watches and keys—recording devices, or anything, including pens, pencils or a sheet of paper, in your hand. To exit required the same rigid ritual.
Inside, there were four workstations separated by three-foot-high, tabletop dividers. Workers were visible at all times to security monitoring and surveillance, but maintained privacy from any other person in the vault. That was essential to the level of classified information accessed in the vault.
A conference table for secure meetings sat in the center of the room. It was scratched and well used; it’s finish dull and dark. Six chairs surrounded the table. Two people sat at one end, having a private conversation.
On the far side of the vault, a half door was open. A guard stood there, protecting the sensitive files kept on his side of the opening. They were stored in individual, locked safes. Only persons with specific clearances to view the material contained within each safe had the ability to open it. The guard assured no one tried opening one without proper authorization or access. A failed attempt to open any safe resulted in that individual being detained and questioned by agents from the Office of Special Investigations and Intel. There was a zero-tolerance policy in full force and effective at all times. No exceptions.
Amanda looked around at the half-dozen people currently inside the vault. “Everybody out.” She said it twice more, and no one in the vault questioned her. They got up, stowed files in their respective safes, locked them down then filtered through security and left the vault.
Amanda then retrieved Joan and her authorizations to enter from out in the hallway and brought her inside. The guard was instructed to close the top half of his safe room, which sealed him with the files in a soundproof room. Minutes later, Kate came in with Colonels Drake and Gray.
“What exactly is this about, West?” Colonel Gray asked, clearly peeved at being summoned by an officer of lower rank.
“You got something to say to one of my people, Gray, you come through me.” Colonel Drake’s temper had flared as hot as her spiked red hair. She turned to Amanda. “What is this about, West?”
Amanda grunted. “The man in the office isn’t Mark Cross.” Softening blows wasn’t possible under the circumstances, so Amanda opted for blunt and took care of business. “Mark is allergic to peanuts. This guy is eating them. Dr. Foster—” she nodded toward Joan, standing across from her “—withheld that information from Mark’s files when he and his files were brought to her so she’d have a way to determine whether she was dealing at any time with the real Mark or his double.”
“You programmed his double?” Drake asked.
“No, but I suspected he had one,” Joan said. “So I didn’t note that information. I always do that—keep some individual key fact to myself so that I know if I’m dealing with the actual person or one of Kunz’s doubles.”
Amanda was glad to hear that. “You’ve done this on each of the thirty cases you’ve handled?”
Joan nodded. “I have.”
“Excellent.” Finally, a decent break.
Colonel Drake frowned. “We can interrogate this guy, but I doubt he’s going to give us anything.”
“He won’t,” Joan assured her.
“We have methods you can’t begin to understand, Dr. Foster.” Colonel Gray lifted his chin, his legs spread in an arrogant, authoritative stance. “We’ll get what we need from him.”
“You have methods that won’t work,” Joan said, disagreeing with him. “No disrespect intended, Colonel, but Thomas Kunz knows your methods and he’s designed his own counter-methods. They’re effective.”
“How effective?” Colonel Drake asked before Gray could waste time denying Joan’s claim.
“If you want information from Mark’s double, then there’s only one way to get it and that is Kunz’s way.”
Colonel Drake interceded. “What exactly is Kunz’s way, Dr. Foster?”
Joan shifted her weight from her left to her right foot, clearly uncomfortable and probably fearful she’d be judged harshly for her part in this. “Drug therapy.”
“What kind of drug therapy?” Kate asked.
Lifting her chin, Joan let her regret shine in her eyes, but also her acceptance that she would be held accountable for her actions. “The kind I used routinely at the compound clinic to feed facts directly into the subconscious minds of detainees and doubles so those facts would be recalled by them as genuine memories. You see, if the programming was effective, Mark’s double doesn’t know he’s a double.”
Like everyone else in the vault, Amanda knew S.A.S.S. had this technology. But there were other factors to be considered—the moral and ethical consequences of actually using that technology. If she hadn’t known Kunz and hadn’t confronted the sadistic side of him herself, she would have been hard-pressed to believe anyone would violate another human being to this extent. But she did know him and she had confronted him, and unfortunately, she had no doubt whatsoever that he had the willingness to use the technology. “That guy out there honestly thinks he’s Mark?”
“Yes, he does.” Joan assured her. “If he was prepared properly and programmed effectively. And Kunz is a perfectionist. He wouldn’t have inserted him for Mark if he hadn’t been both.”
Colonel Drake pondered for a long moment, her hand on her hip. “So you use this drug therapy and you can get into his real mind and find out—what? What’s there?”
“His real identity, for one thing. His real memories, and any information he has relating to GRID. The double knows what classified information he or she has passed on to GRID and to whom he or she passed it. From what I’ve discovered, intelligence passes directly to either Kunz, Paul Reese, or if its classification is merely top secret or lower, to a select group of subordinates.”
“His double could know where Mark is now?” Amanda asked, her hope igniting despite her warning herself not to let it.
“He could. Some have only minimal information on the GRID organization. It depends on the assigned mission and what the double needs to know to do the job. But a few of them have intimate knowledge of the GRID organization. That’s how I discovered there was a Middle Eastern compound in the tribal area of Afghanistan near the Pakistani border, and that the compound where we were detained was in Texas.”
Colonel Drake nodded to Kate to see if Intel had yet found the exact location of that compound. She moved to security to leave the vault to take care of it immediately, and Colonel Drake turned her attention back to Joan. “What do you need to do this? To find out what he knows?”
“The drugs.” Joan shrugged.
Colonel Gray stepped up. “Dr. Vargus can get you whatever you need. Kate,” he called out to her. “Can you locate him and have him call Joan—secure line?”
“Yes, sir.” Kate snagged control. “Right away.”
For once, Colonel Drake didn’t take exception to Colonel Gray’s interaction with her S. A.S.S.
operatives. Amanda was glad to see it.
“Do we need to put guards on Mark’s double?” Gray asked.
Joan looked peaked. Certain she was reeling, Amanda answered for her, to give her a minute to come to terms with everything and her place in the situation. “Not if he thinks he’s really Mark. We do need to covertly monitor him, his calls, anyone he interacts with—everything he does—until we can find out what he knows. He could lead us to some of the others, if he’s given the opportunity to have contact.”
Amanda shifted uneasily on her feet. “Injecting him with drugs falls outside acceptable interrogation boundaries, Colonel Drake. We should get legal in on it.”
“Can’t do that,” she said. “National security interests.”
Gray’s eyes gleamed. If Drake didn’t seek higher authority, he would definitely use it against her.
Colonel Drake picked up on Gray’s gleam. “But we can seek counsel,” she relented. “Get General Shaw and Secretary Reynolds for me, Amanda.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Relief shimmered through her. Both men far outranked Gray. He wouldn’t dare to tangle with either of them. Silently lauding Drake as a strategic wonder, she linked up the call.
Gray muttered under his breath, clearly disappointed. Amanda didn’t spare him a glance. The man had started out low on her respect scale and he was now so far down he had to look up to see a ground-level pit.
Half an hour later, the group had cleared the vault and moved to the infirmary down the hall from the office they’d appropriated in the OSI facility. Dr. Vargus had spoken with Joan, received her instructions and arrived at the infirmary with a black medical case, which he passed to her.
“Dr. Foster.” He nodded. “I prepared three injections to your specifications.”
“Thank you, Dr. Vargus.” Joan took the bag, set it on a cabinet near the sink then opened it. Inside, three syringes full of a milky serum stood in a padded protective sheath. Otherwise, the case was empty. Tension flooded Joan’s face. “What if he refuses to allow me to inject him?” She shot a worried look at Amanda. “What do I do then?”
Amanda tried to reassure her. “Don’t worry. He won’t object. If he does, just back up, and stay out of the way. We’ll neutralize him, and deliver him to you.” She slid a look at Kate, who nodded her agreement.
Colonel Gray cleared his throat, warning them he was coming down the hallway with Mark’s double.
Moments later, the two men walked through the door. Colonel Drake stood to the right of the opening and, after they walked in, she filled the doorway, preparing to block any attempt to exit.
Mark’s double looked at Amanda, more curious than concerned. “What’s going on?”
Joan shot Amanda a look of pure panic.
Amanda stepped in without missing a beat. “Joan thinks we might have been chemically contaminated while we were at the compound. She’s testing us to see. Harry, Brent, Simon, Jeremy and I have had ours. Now it’s your turn.” Amanda grabbed him by the arm and led him to the patient table. “Sit here.”
He sat down on the table’s edge. “What kind of test?”
“One we need to make sure we haven’t been contaminated with anything that affects our security clearances,” Amanda lied. “Quit being a pain and just bare your arm.”
He rolled his eyes at her and whispered, “Pull in your claws, honey, your PMS is showing.”
“Up yours, honey. This isn’t PMS, it’s my normal sweet disposition.” She smiled and sent Dr. Vargus a conspiratorial look, since he had been gracious enough not to report her memory lapses. “Roll up your sleeve.”
Mark’s double sat down, and Joan injected him in the right arm.
When she pulled out the needle, both colonels quietly left the room, and Amanda sent Joan a look as clear as if she’d spoken the words. Now what?
Joan responded to it, recalling that Amanda should already be familiar with the process. “We wait ten minutes, Mark, and then run the samples. It’s totally painless.” Joan cooled her look and her tone, pivoted to Amanda. “I’d prefer you not be in the room during testing.”
“Why not?”
“You and Mark have a close relationship—I’m sorry if that was supposed to be private, but you did ask,” Joan reminded her. “Outside stimuli can negatively impact the test results.”
“How could her being in the infirmary skew the results?”
“Think hormones, Captain Cross,” Dr. Vargus said, looking at Mark’s double over the glasses parked on the tip of his nose.
“Oh.” He had the grace to blush.
This, Dr. Vargus would report. Colonel Drake would be panic-stricken at finding out there was a personal relationship involved in this already complicated mess.
Amanda’s stomach soured. “I’ll be in the corridor.”
Minutes later, Kate walked out of the infirmary and joined her. “Joan’s ready for the colonels. I’m going to get them.” Kate walked next door and stepped into the office and out of sight.
Amanda took in a sharp breath. Both Colonels Drake and Gray insisted on being present during the double’s questioning.
When Kate returned, she glanced back to make sure they were alone in the corridor then whispered, “Dr. Vargus is going to tell Colonel Drake about you two, Amanda. Mark asked after you left the room and Vargus said he would disclose everything revealed to him.” Kate looked worried. “I thought you’d want to know in advance.”
“Figures.” Minimal breaks. Absolutely minimal. Seemed she couldn’t catch one with both hands and a net. “I appreciate it, Kate.”
“No problem.”
Colonel Drake walked past them and entered the infirmary. Colonel Gray followed her, then shut the door. Kate cooled her heels in the hallway next to Amanda, who hadn’t had time to sort through her feelings on all this. Exactly how should she feel about Mark? About having opened up to his double? How would the real Mark feel about it?
She imagined, positions reversed, it’d go over about as well as a lead balloon. But she’d honestly believed he was Mark; that should count for something. It was absolutely humiliating was the problem. She’d never once dared to trust a man, and the first time in her life she made an exception, it was not only a mistake, it was a colossal, deep-and-serious-consequences mistake that had national-security-threat implications and drove her nuts.
When you screw up, Princess, you really do it right.
“You okay?” Kate asked, her foot propped and hands pressed flat against the wall behind her.
“Freaking fabulous.” Amanda tried but failed to keep the sarcasm and bitterness out of her voice. “In my position, who wouldn’t be?”
Thirty minutes later, Joan, Colonel Drake and Colonel Gray joined Amanda and Kate in the hallway outside the infirmary. Mark’s double had been left inside under the care of Dr. Vargus.
Colonel Gray asked the first question. “Is he helping us only because I’ve threatened to have him tried for treason, or because Kunz has set a trap for us?”
Joan schooled her expression, feigning patience. “He’s cooperating because he has no choice. It’s part of his programming. With all due respect, Colonel, your threat was useless, and if there’s a trap involved, he doesn’t know it.”
Colonel Drake absorbed that information quietly, then asked, “When he comes out from under the drug, will he remember that he’s a double and all of the real information about himself and GRID?”
“If I want him to, he will.”
“You want him to,” Drake said, her lips compressed, her body held stiff and straight as a metal rod.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Is the tactical team in position in Afghanistan?” Colonel Gray asked Kate.
“Yes, sir. Awaiting orders.”
He looked at Colonel Drake. “We should have them move in and level the compound.”
Amanda gritted her teeth, but she couldn’t neglect to voice her opposing opinion. Gray probably wouldn’t get over a subordinate’s having the audacity to
disagree with him, but that was just another unfortunate item he’d have to add to his list of her infractions, because she did disagree—strongly enough that she had no choice but to speak her mind. “Colonel Drake, that course of action isn’t consistent with assuring our success in the overall mission.”
“Overall mission?” Gray asked, his jaw ticking, his hands fisted and stuffed in his slacks pockets.
“There are other compounds. There are other doubles, sir,” Amanda said, keeping her voice level and her tone tightly controlled. “We know about those Dr. Foster treated and we’ve got Intel resources dedicated to locating them. But we don’t know the identity of the others. We do know they’ve infiltrated all domestic and foreign U.S. security forces. If we level the Middle Eastern compound without first examining the contents kept there, we might destroy the only records that will prove where and with whom Kunz has infiltrated.”
“Kunz is dead, Amanda,” Colonel Drake said. “We can’t hold off too long on taking over the compound or it’ll be deserted and all the records destroyed. That or we’ll walk into a turf war between factions battling for controlling power of whatever is left of GRID.”
“All true, ma’am,” Amanda said. “I don’t disagree.” Drake caught her intent. She didn’t disagree but felt they were moving down a destructive path.
“Then what do you suggest we do?”
“That depends, ma’am.” Amanda turned to look at Joan. “Do we know where Mark is?”
“No, we don’t.” Regret stole into Joan’s voice. “But his double made a cryptic reference to you having forty-eight hours to save his life.”
“Mark has to be at the Middle Eastern compound, Amanda,” Kate insisted. “Harry said they took all the detainees to it. At least, according to Gaston they did. He passed Harry the message before he evacuated with the other detainees, and said, if you were still alive, to make sure to give it to you.”
“Colonel Drake,” Amanda said, “I request permission to covertly infiltrate the Middle Eastern compound before tactical takes it down.”