by J. M. Lanham
But now, after years of research and the gamble of Sturgis’ life, Asteria was in the red. And here was Tanner, a man with viable ties to Central Intelligence (and their checkbook), sitting across from him, smiling, waiting for him to agree to work with the agency. He looked down at the paper, then up again. He smiled a firm yet favorable smile, and Tanner had his answer.
There was no doubt it was the offer of a lifetime. Paying down hundreds of millions in debt in exchange for sharing research and resources with the feds, along with treasury-backed residuals for the next twenty years was just the agency’s way of saying thanks for being a good sport. On paper, it appeared to be a win-win for all parties involved. A sure thing.
What kind of CEO would say no to that?
***
The only time Sturgis ever allowed himself to dwell on the past was when the spirits were flowing, which was one reason why he rarely drank, if ever. But as he sat in his favorite wicker chair and poured another glass of scotch from the comfort of his second-story balcony, he couldn’t stop ruminating over the recent whirlwind of changes.
How was it that within seventy-two hours of the massive Monday morning sell-off of Asteria shares (an event that was already being dubbed “Pharma Flight 2021” in financial circles) the longtime CEO had already been given the boot? Was Asteria not the company he had founded? What gave the board the right to ax the man who had dedicated his life to leading one of the most successful pharmaceutical companies in the country because of a PR scare?
For starters, it was a risk that came with running a publicly traded company, and Sturgis knew that. He also knew better than to think his job title was bulletproof, made evident by the golden parachute he’d had the board put in writing during a contract renewal several years earlier. $120 million—that was the cost of firing George Sturgis. Not a bad retirement plan, even for a man known for having a taste for the finer things in life. But as he swirled the slowly melting ice in his $200-a-bottle glass of scotch, he realized that for him, it wasn’t about the money at all.
It was about the power.
Sturgis craved it, and for the last three decades he had wielded it over Asteria like a finely honed sword. Now, his sword had been taken away, replaced with a pink slip and instructions to retire with dignity; don’t cause a stink; take your millions and enjoy the rest of your days getting drunk on the second-floor balcony of your mansion nestled high on a hill in the North Atlanta suburbs. Not a bad plan for most folks with their best years behind them, and if he had had someone like Rachel to spend the rest of his days with, he might have been able to go quietly into the twilight of retirement. But even in his late sixties, Sturgis was still a man full of ambition, drive—and not one to keep quiet.
He stood and paced the porch, gazing out at the sun setting behind the Atlanta skyline some twenty miles out on the horizon. He turned his glass up and finished his drink, then poured another. It was the first time in decades that he wasn’t sure what to do with himself, but for the time being, another drink seemed like a good idea.
“Goddamn Tanner,” he mumbled as he sank back into his wicker chair. The mere thought of the late employee-slash-company man turned his stomach (of course, it could have just been the liquor). Everything that had gone wrong over the last eighteen months had led back to him. Treasury-backed riches. Sturgis tossed the ice from his empty glass in disgust the moment the thought of Tanner’s hollow promise crossed his mind. He had done just fine without getting involved in side projects in the past; why had he felt the need to get involved with Tanner’s friends at Langley?
He wanted to tell himself it was always about the money, but that would’ve been a blatant lie; hiring Tanner based solely on his CIA credentials was proof of that. It was the power, plain and simple. For Sturgis, it had always been about the power.
And now, it was all over. Kovic had made the agency’s intentions crystal clear when he had delivered the news a week earlier that the new director was bringing their little arrangement to an abrupt end. Now, with barely enough time to process the agency’s move to cut ties with Asteria, Sturgis was being let go from the company he’d helped found like he was some damned pariah.
It was enough to make him sick. And combined with a healthy dose of nerves washed down with half a bottle of scotch, there was a good chance he’d be hurling over the edge of the balcony before the night was over. He started to get up again, perhaps a little too fast this time, and the world began to spin. To his right, two bottles of half-empty scotch appeared to sit on the coffee table next to one another, but he knew he’d only had one. He put one hand over an eye, and that’s when he saw his cell phone almost vibrate off the table.
“Nosy bastards,” he groaned. He’d had the phone on silent for days now, but that hadn’t stopped the journalists and analysts and wannabe financial bloggers from ringing the damn thing off the hook. Normally, he’d just hit the decline button, but the scotch was flowing, and this time he’d finally had it. Tell ’em where they can shove it, Sturgis thought as he answered.
“Now I don’t know how many times I’ve got to tell you goddamn reporters that I’m not going to make an official comment,” he said, trying his best not to slur. “But I do have something I’d like to fill you in on, off the record: if you pencil-necked weasels don’t stop calling me and harassing me and doing everything in your power to piss me off, I’ll have no choice but to come down to whatever newsroom you’re calling from and … and …”
For the first time in ages, Sturgis had embarked on an epic rant only to forget where it was going. He took a deep breath, tried to regain some form of composure, cursed the scotch again, and said, “I’m sorry. You’ll have to forgive me for the outburst. It’s been an incredibly stressful week, as I’m sure you can imagine. Now, to whom do I have the pleasure of speaking with this evening? The Financial Times? Action News Atlanta?”
“No,” the man said. “And I’m not a reporter, either.”
“Okay, so who in the hell is calling my house this late in the evening?”
“It’s Paul Freeman, George. And we really need to talk.”
Chapter 12:
Plausible Deniability
It was 10:35 a.m. on Wednesday morning when Alex opened his eyes to dingy curtains dancing above a loud motel air conditioner. His immediate instinct was to run for the door, but a quick jerk of his legs reminded him that he was still strapped into Kovic’s modified office chair. The agent had been reading a paperback from a more comfortable chair in the corner, and got up the moment he noticed Alex was awake.
“Never ceases to amaze me,” Kovic said as he checked the clock on the wall. “Exactly eight hours from the time the medication entered your bloodstream. Simply amazing.”
Sunlight cut through a break in the curtains and hit Alex square in the eyes, making him turn his head and squint. He tugged at the restraint binding his right wrist to the arm of the chair and said, “Can I get a hand, or you gonna rub my eyes for me?”
Kovic thought on it for a second, pressed his lips and said, “Sure. Why not. Can’t hurt anything. Besides, I think you’ve earned it.” He loosened the strap, and Alex’s hand immediately went to soothe his eyes.
Curiously, he asked, “So, what exactly have I done to earn it? Feels like I’ve been asleep for days.”
“You led us to your friends, for starters,” he said, sipping on a Coke from the mini-fridge. “Well, led your friends to us, to put it more accurately.”
“I’m not quite sure I follow,” Alex said.
“The program we ran last night across the content-delivery system was designed to convince your friends you were waiting for them in this hotel room. With any luck, they’ll be knocking on the door to Room 106 before nightfall.” He parted the curtains to check on the black Crown Vic with tinted windows parked outside. “And we’ll be ready.”
He walked to the nightstand and picked up the satellite phone to give Cline an update when Alex asked, “What makes you think they’ll be head
ing this way?”
“I just told you.”
“Yeah, I know,” Alex said. “You mentioned the program. But nothing I remember from last night had anything to do with you or this motel or anything like that.”
Concerned, Kovic put his hand over the receiver and asked, “What exactly do you remember about the dream, Alex?”
“Could’ve told you everything just a few seconds ago,” Alex said. “It’s already getting fuzzy.”
“Just try. Tell me everything you can.”
“Okay. Well, my brother and Claire and Donny and that Fenton kid were all in this cabin, and they were getting ready for something. Like going hiking, I think. Then—” Alex stopped cold, the realization of what he could be responsible for setting in.
“Then what?”
Alex swallowed hard. “Mountain lions. A whole bunch of mountain lions, moving in on the cabin. Hungry. Stalking … My God.”
“Mountain lions? Like big cats? Cougars?”
“That’s what I said. Mountain lions. Weird, because they don’t hunt in packs. Wouldn’t make any sense …” Alex trailed off as the thought that he could have caused this weighed heavy on his chest, and for a moment he tried to convince himself that such a dream couldn’t possibly influence reality.
Then he remembered his own dreams that had followed the clinical trials; dreams of big-game glory and record-breaking trophies. Whitetail deer. Rainbow trout. Wild hogs and black bear. He had dreamed about bagging every single one of those animals, and every single animal had ended up in his crosshairs. Inadvertently deploying a pack of hungry mountain lions on the other outliers while under the influence of Ocula 2.0 wasn’t just a possibility: it was highly plausible.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Alex said, pale face turning a subtle shade of green. Kovic had already abandoned the call, and was now face-to-face with the captive. “Listen to me, Alex. I want you to think long and hard about this. You don’t remember anything about a room, this room?”
Alex shook his head no.
“Nothing about coordinates, directions, anything to lead them here?”
“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”
Kovic muttered under his breath, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” as he fumbled with the content-delivery headset. He switched it on, took one look at the montage of images playing, and immediately threw the device across the room, his curses muffling the sound of it shattering on the far wall.
“Not what you were expecting?” Alex asked.
Kovic didn’t answer. He picked up the phone to call Cline again, his angered voice thundering as he recited the necessary codes to get a secure call through to his duplicitous superior.
The program wasn’t what Kovic had expected at all.
***
At Langley, Cline sat in the interim office reserved for station chiefs in town for long durations and overnighters in Washington, DC. The ten-by-ten room was a far cry from his Atlanta office, and might as well have been a storage closet. Stark white walls were blank and featureless (minus a couple of Sheetrock patches that had never been painted over) with no window in sight. Water-stained ceiling tiles hung above him like a grid of Rorschach inkblot tests; the closest thing to art in the room. Flavorless digs, for sure, but he had a chair, a desk, a phone, and a computer—everything he needed to stay in the loop while monitoring his agents in the field.
Red dots moved slowly across the map of the DC area on the computer monitor as Cline munched on a granola bar while watching the field agents assigned to the radio tower surveillance mission change shifts. Crumbs littered his keyboard, a problem that quickly took precedence over national security the moment the veteran office jockey noticed them. Nothing a Can-O-Air couldn’t fix. He was about to address the situation when the phone rang.
“Cline here.”
“Just when in the fuck were you going to tell me you switched the Freeman program?”
“Ah, Kovic. Good to hear from you. I take it our boy’s awake now?” he asked between shooting bursts of compressed air across the keyboard.
“Define success, Cline. Because I just watched the bullshit video you put together for Alex Freeman—”
“You know you’re not supposed to view the content, Colin.”
“With all due respect, sir, this isn’t what we discussed in the least.”
“What we discussed is of no consequence. You apprehended Freeman; what happens from here is my call—not yours.”
“Is that why you sent the Consultants for backup instead of field agents? We were supposed to locate and apprehend the remaining outliers, not have them terminated using the very program we’re trying to shut down.”
“The very program you’re trying to shut down.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means some weapons are too valuable to bury in the mud, just waiting for the other guys to dig ’em up.”
“Sounds a lot like insubordination,” Kovic said, taken aback. “I wonder how Lancaster would feel about your true intentions.”
“I don’t like your tone, Colin.”
“I don’t like being lied to, Stephen. Your bullshit got Alejandro Aguilar killed, and almost took out Claire Connor in the process. She was my asset, Cline. Not yours. And now you’ve proven once again that you can’t be trusted. Why wouldn’t I go to Lancaster with this information? Tell me, Cline. Why?”
“You know, I think it’s worth mentioning, Colin, that six months ago you didn’t have a care in the world as to how the threats were eliminated, so long as the mission was a success. That’s why I chose you as liaison to the Consultants in the first place. But lately you’ve second-guessed every decision I’ve made since Skyline was reopened, and frankly I’m getting sick and tired of it. Give me one reason why I shouldn’t drag your ass back to Langley myself.”
“Didn’t I just give you the only reason you need?”
Cline sighed. This was getting nowhere. It wasn’t the first time his subordinate had expressed a reluctance to play ball, either. He paused to get his thoughts in order, then said, “Listen, Colin. I understand you’re upset. No one likes being lied to, but you know as well as I do that in this business, sometimes decisions are made that run counter to our consciences. I know that’s not an easy pill to swallow, but what happened in the woods down there was the only way to bring this dark chapter in the agency’s history to a close. And we had to bring it to a close, Colin. North Korea. The War of the Baltics. Violence at the Mexican border. The world’s on the verge of falling apart, and America needs the agency to forget about mind-control programs and genetic testing and get back to doing the intelligence work that really matters.”
“So why lie about it to me? To Lancaster? Why keep everyone around you in the dark?”
“Two words, Colin: plausible deniability. Innuendo makes a good ninety percent of judgment calls in this business, and it’s how the powerful stay in power. In the end, folks like you and I are all pawns in a chess game. Just the way the game is played.”
“So you’re saying Lancaster signed off on the murder of American citizens …”
“That’s an oversimplification of an impossibly difficult situation. You’ve been with the agency long enough to know better. The director made it crystal clear there’d be tough calls to make in the days ahead, and that we’d be responsible for those calls. If you can’t stand the heat, Colin—”
“Sorry, Steve, but I wouldn’t categorize American assassinations as ‘tough calls.’ Just my two cents.”
“What were we supposed to do then? Bring the outliers at large into custody, for what? To give them the Edmond Dantès treatment? Lock them up without due process so they could rot away in some dank prison cell at Guantanamo Bay?”
“It worked for Diana Everly. For Julie Griffin.”
“And therein lies your biggest weakness: cognitive dissonance. You were completely fine when Tanner was running the Consultants, or when we were socking outliers away
in Caribbean prisons. But the moment you have to make a few tough calls, you clam up.” He sighed and said, “Come on, son. Don’t you see the hypocrisy here?”
“Spin it however you want. Whatever you’ve got to tell yourself so you can sleep at night. It’s not going to change the fact that you’re actively working to interfere with the director’s efforts to shut down Project THEIA, which is one campaign I know she’s hell-bent on. Just wait till she finds out you’re working against her to continue the very project she’s trying to shutter. Tell me, Cline. Does she even know about the mobile unit?”
Instinctively, Cline looked toward the door to make sure no one was about to walk in. Then he turned his back to it, lowered his tone, and cupped his hand over the receiver. “Listen to me very carefully, Colin. You absolutely do not want to go to Lancaster with this.”
“Of course you’d say that.”
“I’m serious, Colin. I’ve already been ordered to catch a flight to Atlanta. One of our teams picked up on a series of 911 calls reporting several mountain lion sightings in the Red Oaks Rental Cabin area near Spring Hill. I guarantee you that’s where the outliers were holed up, and if you’ll just wait until we can talk about this in person—”
“You’re not talking me out of anything, Cline.”
“Look, I’ll be the first to admit you’ve got me dead to rights on Project THEIA. The director finds out I used it to bring the outliers down and I can kiss that Washington appointment goodbye. But if you go to her with apprehensions about the agency’s agenda, nothing good will come of it. Do you understand?”
“Is that a threat, Stephen?”
“It’s a warning, Colin. From one friend to another.”
A loud click, and Cline knew Kovic had ended the call. Fool. Just a damn fool.
Or was he? Because to Cline, it seemed like Kovic’s behavior had grown increasingly out of character …