by J. M. Lanham
“Of course.”
“Are we sure?”
“This is an old safe house, Colin. I’m not about to violate a code that dates back to World War II. It’s just us”—she gestured toward his hand on the gun—“so there’s no need for that here, I assure you. Now tell me, what’s this all about?”
“Cline’s turned. Gone rogue. Following his own self-interests to keep Project THEIA up and running.”
“I’m the only one doing what I’m supposed to,” Cline said.
“Like hell you are, you fucking traitor.”
Calmly, “That’ll be enough,” Lancaster said, putting her hand up. Kovic backed off, took a deep breath, and let the director speak.
She asked, “How long have you been with the agency now, Colin? Five years?”
“And change, ma’am.”
“Before that?”
“Naval Intelligence.”
“A career path that began with your admission to Annapolis, correct?”
“That’s correct.”
“So tell me, Colin. Why is it that after a career spanning almost two decades in the intelligence community you still haven’t learned to follow the chain of command?”
“With all due respect, director, fear of retaliation from superior officers who are in the wrong is exactly what’s led to so much corruption in the federal government in the first place. If you’ll give me a chance to explain, I think you’ll find that in this case it was completely warranted.”
Cline muttered, “What a load of shit. Complete and utter insubordination unbecoming of an intelligence officer. That’s all this is.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Lancaster said, even though she already knew what had set Kovic off. Cline’s deception. Lies. The near-death of an American asset in Costa Rica. To Lancaster, the agent had every reason to question the system, especially with a questionable station chief at the helm. But there was a process to internal conflicts she simply couldn’t ignore. “Now, one at a time”—she looked to Kovic—“tell me your version of the events that transpired in Georgia.”
“As you’re aware, I was on assignment in Spring Hill under orders to locate and apprehend the outliers. Without Michelle Freeman’s cooperation it would’ve been a crapshoot. Luckily, she gave us just enough to get the ball rolling.”
“Meaning?”
“I got a hit at a local diner, but by the time the information came through they were already long gone. I suspected they were still in the area, so I decided to stake out a revival that was taking place at Fruit of the Faithful Ministries just a few blocks away.”
“Based on Mrs. Freeman’s statement?”
“Yes, ma’am. It was her father-in-law Frank Freeman’s credit card history that originally led us to Spring Hill in the first place.”
“I know that part, Colin. What’s unclear is what led you to a church service in the boondocks.”
“Right. Well it turns out that Frank Freeman’s mother Leigh Anne suffered from dementia in her final years. Apparently she emptied her retirement on Jonas Perch’s televangelist program, and once her accounts ran dry, they went after her next-of-kin for uncollected funds.”
“What’s this have to do with Fruit of the Faithful?”
“It’s Jonas Perch’s new digs. Brand-new, only a few months old. But in the last six months the guy has gone from a disgraced televangelist-in-hiding to the area’s most popular preacher. And in the same amount of time, he’s been on a prescription medication you may be familiar with.”
“Ocula.”
“Precisely. The info was buried in one of Mrs. Freeman’s lengthy interviews. She probably assumed it was worthless filler, but given the sordid history between Perch and the Freemans, I figured it was worth a look.”
“Wow, Colin. I must say, excellent work.” The comment drew a sneer from Cline, still sitting on a grindstone. Lancaster continued, “So, you located and apprehended Alex Freeman. Run what happened next by me.”
“Took him to a local motel for holding. Called for backup. Checked in with Cline to initiate the content-delivery program to try and locate the other outliers in the area.” He turned to look at Cline. “You know, sir. The original plan.”
“And everything would have gone to plan, if you’d just listened to me.”
“See, that’s where I’m fuzzy. I don’t remember the part about assassination by lethal injection. Care to refresh my memory, sir?”
“You’re not in your right mind, Colin. You knew there’d be tough calls. What in God’s name did you think that meant?”
“Not murdering civilians, Stephen—”
“ENOUGH!” Lancaster said. “I’m not going to tell you two again to stop with the incessant bickering. All I care about are the facts. That’s it.” She turned to Kovic, “Where is the younger Freeman now?”
Kovic motioned toward the street through the window behind him. “Out there, in the car.”
“The car?” Lancaster asked.
Kovic flashed his outlier-submission device, and the director nodded. “I see. And he’s relatively unscathed, I presume.”
“Relatively, yes.”
Lancaster walked past Kovic and Cline to the window, arms crossed behind her back. Outside, the street was quiet, the moon and stars shone bright, and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky—hardly indicative of the tumultuous weather pattern forming over her appointment. Every effort to distance herself from Project THEIA had resulted in more complications, more consequences, and more casualties along the way. American casualties. Americans protected by the Constitution, which she’d sworn she’d protect against all enemies, foreign and domestic.
In an instant, she was taken back to the day she was sworn into office. To the oath she took. It was the last part that stuck with her. Insure domestic tranquility. Provide for the common defense. Promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.
And in Lancaster’s eyes, that last part was where the lines got a little blurry. Hell, who was she kidding: it’s where the lines got really blurry.
From the window, she looked back at Kovic and Cline, then lowered her gaze to the floor. Over the last six months, both agents had shown their true colors: Kovic, the patriotic idealist willing to bend the rules when required for God and country, and Cline, an ambitious station chief willing to break the rules for his own self-interests.
On the surface, the choice seemed obvious. Only, it wasn’t.
She asked Kovic, “So tell me, Colin. You’ve just kidnapped your superior officer. Holding him at gunpoint. And you assaulted Mercer before returning to DC with one of the most dangerous people on the planet … What am I supposed to do with you?”
“Cline here has been working all along to sabotage your efforts to shut the project down. As of right now he’s got four outliers holed up at Skyline, with no plans to discontinue the program.”
“The four remaining outliers at Skyline were necessary to sway the FDA and DEA in our favor, Colin. You know that.”
“Yes, I know, but Cline wants to keep it that way.”
Cline said, “And what good would keeping them alive be? Skyline is set to be dismantled. Abandoned. Without Ocula 2.0, or the multimillion-dollar transmission equipment, they’re worthless. What’d you think, I was going to run a secret mind-control HQ out of my basement?”
“Try and bullshit the director all you want, Stephen. You know damn well what you’re hiding—”
“I’m telling you right now to think, Colin. Get your head on straight, before you say something you’ll regret later.”
Lancaster interrupted, “You never answered my question, Colin.”
He turned. “Ma’am?”
“What do you think I should do with you?”
“I’m not quite sure I follow.”
Cline mumbled, “I warned you about going to her with this.”
The comment through Kovic off-balance. “Wait, you don’t seriously think I’m in the wrong here, do you? Cline hijacked th
e content-delivery system. Executed the outliers in the woods. Was about to execute Alex right in front of me. Even had Mercer and Sanders working with him, pulling the same shit Tanner did outside of agency protocol.”
“About that,” Lancaster looked down at Cline, “do we have a status report on those two?”
“I wouldn’t know, ma’am, what with Captain America here dragging me around like some agency pariah.”
“Wait,” Kovic turned to Lancaster, astonished. “You knew.”
“Knew what, Colin? That Cline was working with the Consultants under my directive? This is the Central Intelligence Agency, intelligence being the key word. Of course I knew.”
“So you gave the order to have the remaining outliers eliminated?”
“I didn’t have a choice. Shutting down this project is more important than a dozen lives. For God’s sake, it’s more important than our lives. If word got out the CIA was involved in another MKUltra, it would’ve been the end of the agency, especially in this political climate. Like I said in the beginning, Colin. We’re going to have to make some tough calls in the days ahead. I, for one, wish you’d been on board with the rest of us.”
Shocked, Kovic reached for his gun, but was stopped short by a prick in his neck. Reflexively, he slapped the site of the sting and felt a small plastic object protruding from it. He pulled it out and looked at it, his vision quickly becoming fuzzy. A tranquilizer dart. No, two … no, three blurry, dancing, tranquilizer darts …
His head spun as his body hit the floor, and just like that, Kovic was out like a light. Cline watched the dust settle around his fallen colleague on the rustic floorboards, then caught the shadow of an operative emerging from the loft behind Lancaster, unscrewing the silencer on his rifle. Cline looked up and said, “Nice shootin’, Tex.” Silently, the rifleman gave a half-hearted salute, then continued to disassemble his weapon.
Lancaster looked down at the unconscious agent. “Shame, that one,” she lamented before opening her pocketknife and stepping over to cut the zip ties off Cline. “I never would’ve imagined he’d lose sight of the big picture so easily.”
Cline stood up and wrung the blood back into his wrists. “No doubt Kovic’s been a walking shit show ever since the Skyline incident. But I don’t think he’s had some sudden change of heart, at least not by choice. If I’m going to be honest—”
“That would be a nice start,” Lancaster said.
Cline ignored the jab. “I think he’s been influenced, ma’am.”
“Influenced? By whom?”
“The outliers. For the last week his behavior’s been erratic and unpredictable, and getting worse by the day. It all started with the incident at Skyline.”
Incredulously, “The man holds you at gunpoint and accuses you of treason, and you’re sticking up for him?”
“Come on, director. You’ve seen what these people are capable of, especially with a healthy dose of Ocula in their systems. And I don’t think we’ve been dealing with a rational Kovic here. Something or someone’s gotten in his head. That’s why I think we should give him a little leniency here. At least until he’s evaluated.”
Lancaster thought on the matter, her now-closed pocketknife swinging between her fingers. After the Skyline incident, Kovic’s recently precarious mental state made all the sense in the world. He had been Claire Connor’s point of contact; the first person to greet her at the Skyline entrance. An hour later, everyone inside the facility had been incapacitated. As it stood, the theory that a few unsavory thoughts could be lingering around after the neurological assault wasn’t as far-fetched as it might have seemed on the surface.
Then again, Cline, Ramírez, and the rest of the Skyline facility staff had come through the EMP event over the weekend just fine. At least, as far as she could tell …
Finally, “Okay, we’ll get Kovic back to Langley to undergo a psychiatric eval. In the meantime, we’ll need confirmation that the Freeman operation in Spring Hill did everything it was supposed to do before moving forward.”
“Well, if you haven’t heard from Mercer or Sanders, then odds are the program did exactly what you wanted.”
“Not quite,” Lancaster said as they both walked toward the door, the mysterious sniper in the loft joining another agent to remove an unconscious Kovic from the scene behind them. “I was hoping they would deliver proof the outliers were out of the picture long before the mountain lions got to them. That’s the problem with this technology, Stephen. It’s just too unpredictable.”
“Depending on the application, director. Couldn’t have worked better to bring down Asteria Pharmaceuticals.”
“I’ll give you that,” Lancaster said. “Still, we can’t afford to have anyone outside of the agency aware of Project THEIA, Bennett’s old contractors included. Like I said in the beginning, Cline. I want a tight little bow around this thing, so until we’ve confirmed all threats have been contained the facility must remain online.”
“What about Graham? He still not talking?”
“No,” Lancaster sighed, “and it’s a damn shame, too. Personally, I can’t see why anyone would pass up the plea bargain we offered him. He doesn’t owe Ford a thing.”
“It’s not about Ford. Never has been. He’s just worried about protecting everyone else.”
“Strangers.”
“He’s a rare breed, that one,” Cline said. “The kind of cop who can’t be gotten to, no matter what’s at stake. It’s in his DNA. In other words, he’s useless.”
“That may be. But if he were so concerned about the well-being of others, he’d hand over the people he’s protecting. He should know by now that they’re capable of causing irreputable harm to anyone who gets close to them.”
“That’s the problem with idealists,” Cline said. “He’d risk the lives of thousands—no, millions—just to save a few.”
“Well if he doesn’t give us something we can use soon, then we’ll have no reason to keep him at Skyline any longer.”
“So where do we go from here?”
“Take two of your teams off DC tower patrol and send them back to Atlanta. In the meantime, you and I need to get Kovic back to Langley. If what you’re saying is true, we’ll need to work 24-7 to confirm or deny whether the outlier threat remains. That means keeping all eyes on previous points of contact, including George Sturgis.”
“Sturgis? The guy who kicked off this entire shitstorm by trying to have everyone we’re looking for executed? He’s the last guy I’d talk to. Why in God’s name would any one of the outliers contact him?”
“Because he’s got something to offer,” Lancaster said. “Inside information. And, in all likelihood, they think that we think he’s the last guy they’d ever talk to.”
Chapter 18:
Set Thine House in Order
It was just after dinner at Sarah Fletcher’s townhouse when Claire decided to confront Paul at the kitchen table, sitting alone as he mulled over classified documents while everyone else focused on other tasks. Sarah was away in the foyer and had been on the phone and pacing for half an hour, preoccupied by a dozen midnight phone calls she had to make before the impromptu press conference they planned to hold at Atlanta Action News the following morning. In the living room, the argumentative voices of Sturgis and Fenton filled the air as the kid tried to explain to the grandpa that the files he’d retrieved from Cline’s server at Skyline weren’t useless. Technically, he was right, but it was obvious Sturgis didn’t see it that way.
Such a rare opportunity for privacy was sure to be short-lived, so Claire took it. She sat by Paul and leaned in to speak in confidence.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Do what, exactly?”
“Go with Sturgis alone. We can’t trust him, Paul. You above all else should know it.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Let me go with you. Or Fenton. Someone needs to watch your back.”
“Fenton?” Paul glanced down the hall toward the living room
where Fenton sat and argued with the old man. “The kid’s not even old enough to buy a drink. Wouldn’t be right to bring him along.”
“Then take Sarah. She’s trustworthy. I’ve known her for almost a decade now. Take her with you.”
“You’ve known her a decade. I haven’t.”
“So you don’t trust me?” Claire asked.
“Oh come on, Claire. Don’t pull that card with me. Of course I trust you. But I don’t know Sarah. And it’s got nothing to do with trust in the first place.”
“Oh? And how so?”
“Tomorrow’s press conference? I think she’s got enough on her plate without having to play chaperone. Plus, she’s an asset to you. So’s Fenton. If something goes wrong, there’s no point in everyone getting arrested, or worse. We can’t afford to lose anyone else, especially at this stage in the game.”
Paul mentioned the word ‘lose’ and Claire instantly thought of Donny. “Lose anyone else … You know, Paul, we haven’t talked about Ford since we got here.”
“No time,” Paul said.
“No time? So if something should happen to you, is that how you’d expect everyone else to react? No time to talk about Paul?”
“I would hope so,” he said. “Look, this thing is bigger than any one of us. Bigger than me, bigger than you, bigger than Donny Ford. Besides, for all we know he’s kicked back in a rocking chair on the porch of one of those cabins, sipping cheap whiskey and watching the local game wardens tag and bag those psychotic mountain lions one at a time.”
“Maybe,” Claire said, feigning belief in Paul’s whimsical narrative when there was none to be had. “But even if that’s so, it doesn’t mean this plan isn’t ill-advised. There’s little reason to go to his house tonight, even if he’s right about the files we have here.”
“He says there’s more. A lot more. And we’ll need to turn over everything at once. Tomorrow, at the press conference. Because once we’ve come out of the shadows, Claire, there’s no turning back. Not this time.”