The REM Precept

by J. M. Lanham

  Reluctantly, Kovic shook his head in agreement. He’d play along, for now. Cline tugged his jacket and said, “Good. Now let’s step inside to check on our boy before we head out. All right?” Kovic opened the door and they both stepped inside to see Alex still tied to the same office chair he’d been stuck in since the night before.

  “Well, well,” Alex said. “Another suit breezin’ right through the door. Tell me, fellas: how many fancy-pants agents is it gonna take to bring in a little ole country boy like me?”

  “You’re not going anywhere, Freeman,” Cline said. “Not for now, anyway.” Kovic stood just inside the door while Cline strolled in and inspected the scene. Most of the equipment had already been packed into the supporting agents’ sedans and was ready to ship back to Langley. Gone were the laptops and radio transmitters and LED headsets. Surfaces had been cleaned and sterilized; a standard protocol marked by the potent stench of bleach filling the room. Almost all of the incriminating evidence was gone, leaving the IV bag hanging from the open closet door the last thing left to pack before checkout.

  “Good man,” Cline told Kovic, referencing the IV line still running into Alex’s forearm. He tried to reach into his pocket, but the gun on his hip got in the way. He set his piece on the foot of the bed, then fished out a small package—medically sealed with a needle and syringe filled with five milliliters of a mysterious solution. “Sure makes wrapping up this mess a whole lot easier.”

  Concerned, “What exactly are you doing, Cline?”

  “Yeah!” Alex said. “Just what in the hell do you think you’re doing with that thing?”

  “I told you, Colin”—Cline stepped closer to Alex as he attached a hypodermic needle to the end of the syringe“—there’ll be tough calls in the days ahead.” He looked back at the bewildered agent. “You can step outside with Mercer and Sanders if you like. I know you’ve never had much of a stomach for this up-close-and-personal-type stuff.”

  Panicked, Alex said, “What sort of stuff?” He turned to Kovic. “Hey, man. Hey! You’re not seriously going along with this shit, are you?”

  Rattled, Kovic took a deep breath, but didn’t say a word.

  “No, no, NO,” Alex repeated, the words riddled with the kind of anxiety that only arose when a man knew he was moments away from taking his last breath. “You can’t let this guy do this, man.” He looked up at Kovic and begged, but the words seemed to fall on deaf ears. Alex kicked and jerked at the restraints holding him down while Cline moved closer to take the IV line in his hand. “No use in resisting, Mr. Freeman. It’s not going to hurt. It’ll be just like falling asleep.”

  Then, he pushed the needle into the port.

  “What the fuck!” Alex cried. With tears in his eyes, he pleaded with Kovic, who was still standing by the door. “This is wrong, man, and you fucking know it!”

  Yeah, Kovic thought. I fucking know it …

  The deadbolt clicked shut, and the sound stopped Cline in his tracks. He turned around to see Kovic holding a lock with one hand and pointing a pistol right at him with the other. “That’ll be enough, Stephen.”

  Cline looked at him incredulously. “You can’t be serious.”

  “As a heart attack.”

  “You need to think long and hard about what you’re doing here, Colin. One word from me and Mercer will be through that fucking door in half a second.”

  “Maybe. But that won’t stop me from putting a bullet in your head first.”

  Cline’s gun lay on the foot of the bed, and immediately he regretted setting it down so he could focus on Alex Freeman’s Mortality Cocktail. His eyes cut over at the piece, almost within arm’s reach, but Kovic was quick to catch it.

  “Don’t even think about it, Cline.” He motioned with the gun. “Put your back to the wall and stay put.” Cline obliged, stepping back against the wall furthest from the door, never taking his piercing eyes off the aggressor. Kovic matched his steps, carefully moving closer to Alex to untie him with one hand while keeping his gun carefully trained on Cline with the other.

  Cline stood and watched in anger, red-faced and lips quivering so much that he was having trouble getting the right words out, only spewing things like “you’re finished” and “you stupid fuck” and “you’re a dead man, Kovic!” But Colin paid no attention to his incensed superior. He loosed Alex’s restraints, and soon the former captive was wringing his wrists and popping his neck.

  “So,” Alex said as he rose from the chair. “What’s the plan now?”

  “Yeah, Colin,” Cline said. “What’s the plan?”

  Kovic hesitated, and Cline caught on fast. The younger field agent didn’t have a clue what he was going to do next. And, in Cline’s estimation, if Kovic didn’t have the stomach to make the tough calls …

  “MERCER, EMERGENCY!,” Cline yelled. “GET THE FUCK IN HERE, NOW!”

  The agent outside didn’t waver, and after two unsuccessful kicks, the third brought the door crashing inward. The agent stumbled into the dark motel room brandishing a semi-auto, but by the time his eyes adjusted to the scene, Kovic had already put Cline in a rear headlock and was using his old boss as a human shield while his free hand pressed a gun to his temple.

  Confused, Mercer said, “What in the hell’s going on here, sir—”

  “Behind you!” Cline yelled. But it was too late. Alex stepped out from the corner behind the door and swung hard, cracking a porcelain lamp over the back of Mercer’s head, splitting it open and sending the former linebacker crashing down with a slight bounce and a heavy thud before coming to rest on the dingy floor.

  Alex stood over the agent, slightly astonished. “Damn … Guy went down like a lead balloon, didn’t he?”

  “Good work,” Kovic said as he shoved Cline toward the door. “Now let’s get to the car before Sanders gets back.”

  “Sanders?”

  “The other agent. Rode down with Mercer. Come on”—he knelt by Mercer’s unconscious body and took his keys—“no time to explain.”

  Cline said, “Really racking up the felonies today, aren’t you, Colin?”

  “Just shut the fuck up and get to the car.”

  The three left the room, locking it behind them as they made their way to Kovic’s sedan. He shoved his boss in the back and then hopped in the driver’s seat, peeling out of the parking lot with Alex hanging onto the dash for dear life. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do with Alex, but with Cline his plan was crystal clear.

  With any luck, he’d have the station chief delivered to Lancaster in DC by midnight.

  Chapter 15:

  The Silver Chieftain

  It was just after five o’clock, and the scene on the street outside Sarah Fletcher’s South Atlanta townhome was like any other afternoon in late August. Everyone in the neighborhood took advantage of the reluctant-to-set sun as sidewalks bustled with people walking with four-legged friends and bipedal loved ones, and the occasional jogger slowed down to dart between unsuspecting pedestrians before sprinting up the paved straightaways. To anyone else, the man stepping out of the white sedan across the street from the brownstone located at 202 Lakewood Street would have looked like any other local: a benevolent retiree, maybe someone’s silver-haired grandfather coming to pay his big-city grandkids a visit.

  But, to the teenager peering through the blinds of the brick two-story townhome, the man represented anything but a cheerful visit from Gramps.

  “That’s the guy, isn’t it?” Fenton asked Claire. She crowded in and split the blinds with two fingers.

  “That’s him. The one and only.” She turned to alert Paul that George Sturgis had arrived and to grab the door.

  Within minutes, the four unlikely dinner guests were sitting around the kitchen table. Paul, Claire, and her editor Sarah sat on one side of the rounded cherry table, leaving Sturgis with plenty of elbow room on the other. Fenton hung back in the kitchen, moving from fridge to cupboard, pretending to snack while eavesdropping on the uncomfortable group of
adults sitting on the other side of the bar.

  Sturgis glared at Paul and said, “You assured me you’d give me all of the details once we were here. And here we are. So tell me, Freeman. What’s this ingenious plan you’ve got up your sleeve? Or are you just blowing smoke up my ass like everyone else?”

  Paul could tell from the start that the old man’s fuse was short. Measured tones, thought Paul. Big picture here. Big picture. “No smoke, Sturgis. No point in it. I think it’s safe to say we’re all at our wits’ end here, and all of us just want to bring this whole thing to a close.” Paul looked around the table. “Isn’t that right?”

  “Absolutely,” Claire said. “Believe me when I tell you that we’ve gone over every possible resolution a million times”—she slid a single-page document across the table—“and in the end, this is the only way to keep all of us aboveground without having to live the rest of our lives looking over our shoulders.”

  Sturgis glanced over the document and chortled. A prepared statement: an effective confession implicating the former CEO of Asteria Pharmaceuticals in a litany of legal and ethical genetics violations. “In all your years of journalism, Ms. Connor, you never once covered the prison life?” He slid the paper back across the table. “All there is to do in there is look over your shoulder!”

  “State prison, for sure,” Claire said. “But these charges would implicate you in federal crimes. That means federal prison. With the right legal team and your full cooperation, there’s a good chance you could land a minimum sentence in a Club Fed somewhere, maybe even get put on house arrest.”

  “A lot of ‘maybes,’ a lot of ‘ifs,’” Sturgis said. “It’s easy to see how this works out for you, for Freeman. Laughable, even. But I’m failing to see the incentive here.” He stood to button his coat. “Sorry, gang. Thought you had something serious to offer.”

  “This is coming out one way or another,” Claire said. “You can cooperate now, or face trial by media later. And you of all people should know that it makes more sense to get ahead of something like this.”

  “Do I look like the kind of man who doesn’t get ahead of things like this, Ms. Connor?”

  “Just drop the act, Sturgis, and look at what’s in front of you. First your CIA contacts betray you, then your friends over at the FDA and DEA do an about-face on Ocula’s approval. We all know this entire week’s caught you completely off-guard, and with the CIA involved you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

  The man was indignant. “Little lady, I was in the game long before any of you were a forethought in your daddies’ brains. I think I’ll take my chances.” He started to walk toward the door when Fenton shouted from the kitchen.

  “Won’t last a week.”

  The squeaky voice from behind the bar caught Sturgis’ attention. Annoyed, Sturgis turned and asked, “And why’s that, son?”

  “Because Lynette’s getting rid of her bike.”

  Sturgis’ steely gray eyes went from sharp and piercing to wide and vulnerable in half a second. Concerned, “What kind of bike is she getting rid of?”

  “Come on, man,” he said as he slurped down the rest of his red bull. “You already know the answer to that. It’s a silver Chieftain.” Sturgis was still as stone as Fenton explained. “Hacking Kovic’s email gave me a line on another agency player who’s calling some big shots on the Ocula 2.0 front: an Atlanta station chief named Stephen Cline. I’ve been keeping tabs on his communications ever since we accessed the servers at Skyline. It’s actually kinda funny, I used the government’s own Secure Data Act to access their servers using a backdoor they forced their own security companies to create—”

  “Get to the point, Fenton,” Paul said.

  “Right. So, most CIA operations use cryptonyms, or codewords, to communicate important operational tasks between the people involved. And the key players in an operation always get designated a code name.”

  “And as you may have guessed,” Claire said, pointing a firm index finger at Sturgis, “you’re the silver Chieftain.”

  “So who’s Lynette?” Sturgis asked.

  “Not who, but what. All CIA cryptonyms related to operations begin with a two-letter prefix, or digraph, that relates to the operation’s primary location. The prefix for an operation in the U.S. is LN, and T stands for THEIA, hence the code name Lynette. It’s kind of a play on words.”

  Sarah had been briefed on the plan, but was still playing catchup. “And the bike reference?”

  “Chieftain’s a bike,” Fenton said, “and Sturgis happens to be the name of a famous motorcycle rally held every year in South Dakota. So put two and two together and it sounds like the CIA wants to send Sturgis here to the scrapyard.”

  “You’ve got no proof,” Sturgis nervously mumbled, but Fenton was way ahead of him, feverishly working his laptop from the bar. After a few quick keystrokes he spun it around for Sturgis to see. “Go ahead, take a look. It’s all there. Make what you want of it, Georgy. But the point remains that there’s a good chance you won’t live to see the end of next week.”

  Walking with the caution of someone not quite sure what he was about to see, Sturgis slowly made his way back to the bar, pulling a pair of reading glasses from his shirt pocket. Just a few lines in and the old man had seen enough.

  “What’s the matter?” Paul asked. “Don’t like what you see?”

  On the screen flashed an email detailing Cline’s orders: sanitize the Skyline situation by eliminating anything and anyone that could tie the agency to Project THEIA, George Sturgis included.

  “Lancaster,” Sturgis said under his breath. “That evil bitch.” The evidence was damning, and impossible to deny. Margaret Lancaster—the very woman responsible for burning down the house Asteria and the agency had built—was determined to eliminate any evidence that such a precariously built house had ever existed in the first place.

  Paul said, “I know you know who’s calling the shots here, George. These people betrayed you. It’s what they do. Don’t you want to make them pay for their duplicity?”

  Sturgis didn’t answer. For the longest time, the group waited in silence while Sturgis stared at the floor, likely going over his not-so-great options one by one. Paul cut his eyes over to Fenton, then Claire, who appeared to return a what-the-hell-is-taking-so-long look. Finally, Sturgis looked up and around the room, stuck his hands in his pockets, sighed, and said, “Okay. I’ll do it. Now, where do I sign?”

  ***

  “Talk to me, Mercer,” Lancaster said, on the edge of her seat and leaning into the speakerphone on her desk at Langley.

  Exasperated, “Kovic’s gone rogue. Took Cline hostage and then took off.”

  “And Alex Freeman?”

  “He’s gone, too.”

  “With Kovic? How in the hell did this happen, Mercer?”

  “Cline ordered me to wait outside the motel room while he and Kovic discussed the Freeman situation. There appeared to be a struggle, and Cline called for backup. I busted the door down, and that’s when someone cracked me over the head. Knocked me unconscious.”

  “You sure it was Freeman?”

  “Had to be. Kovic was in front of me the whole time, holding a gun to Cline’s head.”

  “And where was Sanders during all of this?”

  “On patrol. Perimeter check.”

  Lancaster sat back and rubbed the bridge of her nose with thumb and middle finger. She hadn’t had a migraine in years, but if there was ever a time for one to set in, this was it. What was supposed to be a simple operation in the north Georgia boondocks had turned into another catastrophe; one that could result in a huge smear on her first performance review before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

  That was unacceptable.

  Sternly, “Is Sanders with you now?”

  “Yes, ma’am. He’s the one who found me on the floor with a shard or two of porcelain in my head.”

  “Are you still bleeding?”

  “No, ma’am. Sanders h
as a first aid kit—”

  “Listen, Mercer. This changes nothing. I want you to proceed with Sanders to the Red Oaks Rental Cabins and see what you can find. I’ll get another team on Cline and Kovic ASAP. I want you to report back to me the moment you arrive at the cabins. I want to know everything. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, ma’am. We’ll head that way now.”

  The call ended and Lancaster closed her eyes, taking the briefest of moments to collect her thoughts before getting on the horn to a dozen other departments to round up some semblance of a search party. It was all going through the motions, really. She could spend the rest of her afternoon following protocol; ordering traces on her subordinates’ associated phone numbers and call records; putting out APBs for local and state law enforcement officials to be on the lookout for a Crown Vic with a tag that wouldn’t register in the DDS in the first place, and it still wouldn’t matter. Just going through the motions to cover her ass. A colossal waste of time.

  That’s because she already knew exactly where special agent Colin Kovic was going.

  Chapter 16

  Road to DC

  “If you think they’re not going to kill me the minute we get there,” Alex said, hands cuffed behind his back and pleading his case from the front passenger seat of Kovic’s sedan, “then you’re crazier than your partner back there.” It was night now, and the setting sun had long been replaced by an interstate full of headlights and taillights and exit lights shining across reflective green signs that marked the rural towns and cities and rest stops between Spring Hill, Georgia, and Langley, Virginia.

  “He’s right, you know,” Cline quipped from the back, the zip ties Kovic had forced him to put on earlier binding his hands and feet, but doing nothing to keep his mouth shut. “You can’t turn him in, and you can’t let him go. So, what are you going to do, Colin?”