by Bob Mayer
That was a basic contradiction in nature that Pitr still couldn’t reconcile in his old friend. Of course, others couldn’t understand why a Russian was running one of the United States’ most highly classified units.
It is as it is.
Ms. Jones sighed and collected her energy. Meeting the entire team face-to-face, a first, had drained her. But she’d been worn out prior to the meeting from her discussion/argument with Hannah, the person she reported to in the covert world. She’d thrown every argument that Moms had tried to start, and more, at Hannah and had been denied at every turn. It was more than just the issue of Burns, the failure of the Gateway mission, and the loss of the Snake. Tension between the Ranch and the Cellar had been building for over a year. Having to run the Nuke Op last December together had been both beneficial and disturbing.
Hannah’s insistence that Moms come to Maryland and meet with her brought its own set of questions, with most of the answers being bad ones.
“Please put me through to Hannah,” Ms. Jones ordered Pitr.
“What do you think?” Hannah Masterson asked Dr. Golden.
In another time and another place and another universe, they might have been two housewives chatting about their children. Or, given their business attire, two professionals discussing a client.
But they were three hundred feet below the main building of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. In an office where lives were evaluated, judged, and decided upon with regularity.
There was no chitchat. Hannah had once done chitchat. When she was Mrs. Masterson, appendage to her husband and doing all she could to help him climb the corporate ladder in the aerospace industry in St. Louis.
The fact he’d failed to mention his involvement in illicit covert activities in his past was something that had cost him his life and brought Hannah, by a very hard road, to her current position as head of the Cellar. It had also come close to killing her. And Neeley.
Hannah was half Ms. Jones’s age, in her late forties, with thick blond hair. She was fit, something she did for the job not for vanity, and her skin was pale, which was to be expected of someone whose quarters and office were deep underground. Her most striking feature was her chocolate-colored eyes.
She never thought of them as striking and only noticed the deepening lines around them when she looked in the mirror, which wasn’t often.
Dr. Golden was of roughly the same age, also blond, also fit. She wore glasses, which both she and Hannah knew was an affectation, something to give her more cache when she met with others. Even now, in the second decade of the twenty-first century, women still had to fight to be taken seriously, especially in worlds dominated by men. Hannah let her position and, when needed, operatives like Neeley implement her seriousness.
Often it was the last thing some people saw.
Hannah rarely ventured forth out of the Cellar, wielding her power in the darkness through her agents. Golden, on the other hand, as a psychiatrist, had to meet people to do her job. Many of those people were covert ops, toughened veterans, who conjured up initial impressions quickly and had little time or tolerance for those who tried to probe into their minds, especially a woman.
Even when that probing could determine whether they lived or died at Hannah’s command.
“Childhood trauma,” Golden said. She had no notes to refer to. Hannah didn’t believe in a paper or electronic trail. If one came into her office and couldn’t remember what they had to say, perhaps what they had to say wasn’t that important. The only papers Hannah kept were in the desk behind which she sat. There were no copies.
Hannah gave a wry smile. “Don’t we all have childhood trauma?”
Golden nodded. “Pretty much. But it’s the manner of the trauma and which parent figure it comes from that is the key. And then the environment in which one grows up.” This was Golden’s specialty: profiling backward, looking not at crime scenes but at lives, seeing the patterns to them, particularly in the formative years.
Golden did it first as a student, writing her PhD on it. She’d wanted to determine who had the predilection to be a killer long before they killed. Serial killers were born and also made in her opinion, and she wanted to study the combination that made the cauldron of evil. She then expanded her field and was drawn to further study in the military because they kept such good records of their members. Hannah’s predecessor, Nero, had done it instinctively, keeping files on numerous candidates, sensing the traumas and, most importantly, how the betrayals in their lives would cause them to blossom into adults of a certain nature.
Hannah had been one of those candidates. Nero had been looking for a person who could withstand the most base betrayal yet still be able to function, to perform their duty.
For Nero it had been an instinctive art; for Golden it was a science.
Hannah’s husband’s betrayal had been like the smash of a blacksmith’s mighty hammer on a misshapen lump of metal, splintering it, revealing a finely honed edge of steel hidden inside.
Sometimes, alone in the dark, and she was often alone in the dark, Hannah mulled over the issue of free will. Were we all a product of our genes and then our environment shaping those genes, as Dr. Golden postulated? Was it all just fate? Was her presence here, behind this very desk, a predetermined event, in which she was just playing her part? If she got up and walked away, quit her post as head of the Cellar, was that also preordained? A person could go crazy trying to understand the ramifications and possibilities.
However, this didn’t bother Hannah much. She only thought about them as a means of exercising her mind when she was bored.
Which wasn’t often. There was almost always something in the world of covert operations that demanded her attention.
Golden folded her hands in her lap as she waited on Hannah. The office was spartan, essentially little different from when Nero had occupied it, minus the medical equipment near the end of his tenure. And a bit more lighting, since, unlike her predecessor, she could see. Nero had lost his eyes at the hands of the Nazis after being captured on a covert operation during World War II.
After being betrayed. Making him the perfect candidate to head the Cellar.
“Bottom line?” Hannah said, because she always dealt in bottom lines.
“Moms appears to be a loner but she isn’t,” Golden said. “She took care of her brothers, all younger than her, while they were growing up, nurturing them, giving them what her mother wasn’t capable of. She works best on a team.”
“Neeley liked her,” Hannah said. “Thought she was effective,” she amended, surprising herself a bit at the term like. Like had nothing to do with what she had to do here at the Cellar.
“That was more a product of the observation than the observed,” Golden said.
Hannah graced her with a smile, revealing perfect teeth. “I enjoy how you phrase things. I imagine therapy with you would be most interesting.”
“Therapy for you would be counterproductive,” Golden said.
“True. I am who I am and who I am is what this job needs. So Neeley is”—Hannah searched for what she wanted to say—“needy?”
Golden swallowed and shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t have the full story, but she did know that Neeley and Hannah had come to the Cellar together after a trial under fire. When the toughest jobs came up, it was Neeley whom Hannah dispatched to deal with them. Perhaps for too long now? That was the question that had caused Hannah to summon Dr. Golden.
“You will admit,” Golden said, “that it is rather amazing Neeley is still alive after all the missions she’s been on. While her body is intact, I have concerns about her mind.”
“And,” Hannah concluded, “you don’t think Moms would be a good replacement.”
It was a statement, so Golden didn’t reply.
Hannah leaned back in her chair and gazed off, lost in thought. She
was like that for almost a minute before returning her gaze to Golden. “Can you help Neeley?”
Golden was startled. This was not what she had expected. “I can try. When can I meet with her?”
“As soon as she finishes her current mission,” Hannah said. “Also consider the possibility that Moms might replace Ms. Jones, not Neeley. Our Russian friend is getting on in years.”
Dr. Golden wouldn’t be sitting in this office if she hadn’t already considered multiple possibilities, playing the game out several moves ahead. She knew she would never be a move ahead of Hannah, but she tried her best to keep up. “That is a much better fit. But her emotional connection with the team could cloud her judgment.”
Hannah shrugged. “Teams can be rebuilt. It is the head that is most important.” She nodded. “Thank you, Doctor. Please listen in later today when I meet Moms.”
Golden nodded. She got up and left the office, the heavy security door swinging shut behind her, sealing the room.
Alone, Hannah lifted her hand in front of her eyes. She stared at it, noting there was a slight tremor.
This all would be so much easier if she were a psychopath. Or even a sociopath.
She wasn’t that lucky.
The phone rang and Hannah’s secretary, Ms. Louise Smith, announced a call from Ms. Jones. Hannah picked up the receiver.
“Yes?”
“Moms will be en route shortly. She’s in-briefing our latest addition.”
“Good.”
A long silence played out and Hannah waited. She knew Ms. Jones wasn’t happy. But Ms. Jones’s happiness wasn’t something she cared about.
Ms. Jones finally spoke. “I would like to reiterate my stand that the Nightstalkers should be allowed to pursue Burns. He’s an unknown entity. This might not be a simple Sanction.”
“No Sanction is ever simple,” Hannah said. “You’ve made your position known. Thank you.”
And then she hung up.
Scout rode Comanche along the riverbank as far as she could, which wasn’t far, since waterfront property was prime real estate. She reached the fence on the far side of the pasture and halted. She stood in the stirrups and looked downriver. The rhythmic thump of the pile driver started up behind her as they went to work on another pole.
The river was smooth and calm. Scout could see the reflection of the few scattered clouds overhead in the surface of the water. It might be a river, but it was a slow-moving river, the flow determined by how much the TVA opened the sluices at Fort Loudoun Dam. There were times when it did indeed seem more like a lake than a river, the water still, logs and branches floating in it seemingly suspended in place for hours on end.
Slow would be good, Scout thought. Whatever had been in her toothbrush had seemed to move with the water. The boat whose engine had died had restarted and was gone downriver. There had been no other traffic since then. Scout was about to turn Comanche around and give him a workout when the hairs on her arm tingled.
Hoping the anal neighbors beyond the farm weren’t home, Scout looped Comanche around and then straight at the fence. He jumped and they cleared the top board easily. Scout pushed Comanche along the riverbank, through someone’s backyard, past their dock. Then she came to another fence, which Comanche bounded over.
She wasn’t in anyone’s backyard now, but rather a stretch of land underneath the power lines. The tower on this side had vines growing up the metal legs. The power lines, all eight of them, crossed the river high enough that they had large red balls attached to them as warnings for low-flying aircraft.
Scout slowly turned the horse, looking for whatever it was that was making her skin tingle. Comanche stirred nervously and started to back up. Since the horse had firsthand experience with a Firefly, and Comanche was smarter than most people she knew, Scout gave her horse free rein.
Then she saw it. A thin line of black through the high grass, as if a line of flame had come out of the river and moved inland about six feet. There was no fire visible, just the grass curling and turning black. Whatever was causing this was moving very, very slowly. Scout watched it for a few minutes. The line was headed directly toward one of the legs of the tower. She guesstimated at the rate it was moving, it would reach it this evening. Of course, she knew her guess was about something no one had probably ever seen before, so who knew?
Then Comanche stirred and began pawing at the dirt.
“I don’t blame you,” Scout said, patting the horse’s neck.
And then Comanche galloped forward, right to the black line being etched into the ground.
“Whoa!” Scout yelled, but the horse ignored her. He reached the line and then raced along it to the riverbank, where he came to an abrupt halt, almost sending Scout flying.
“What is wrong with you?” Scout demanded.
The horse looked over his shoulder and rolled his eyes as if trying to tell her something.
“I know. Bad, bad, bad,” Scout said, pulling on the reins and turning Comanche around.
Scout looked up at the tower.
She didn’t know what was going to happen when the line reached the tower, but she was willing to lay off every dime in her piggy bank it wasn’t going to be good
Then she remembered the Nightstalkers had broken her piggy bank when they took out the Firefly in her curling iron back in North Carolina.
When they showed, and she had complete faith Nada and the rest would show, she vowed to get another piggy bank out of them.
Burns was driving the Prius on I-24, just past Paducah, Kentucky, when the engine died. He steered the car to the side of a bridge on the interstate and sat still for a moment, examining the dashboard. A yellow light was blinking, indicating he was out of fuel. The battery was dead.
Looking around, he saw a dam to his left. The GPS indicated it was Kentucky Dam, the last one on the Tennessee River before it joined the Ohio, which he’d crossed just a few miles back.
“Interesting,” Burns murmured to himself.
He got out of the car and opened the hood. He stared at the engine for several moments. Behind him, a pickup truck pulled over. Burns glanced over his shoulder as the driver got out. He was a young, tattooed man in coveralls, sporting the obligatory John Deere cap every male in the flyover states had in their possession.
“Even them fancy electric cars run out of gas, don’t they?” the guy said as he walked up.
Burns turned to face the man, who stopped in his tracks when he saw Burns’s face. “Fuck, dude. What the devil happened to you?”
“An old wound,” Burns said. The suppressed pistol was heavy in his coat pocket.
“Awfully sorry, dude, awfully sorry.” The man jerked a thumb back at his truck. “I can ride you to the next exit and we can get you a gas can.”
“No need,” Burns said as he turned back to the engine. He had a feeling that ride would turn out differently than the man indicated. He reached in, wrapping one hand around a wire. He closed his eyes.
“Hey!” the guy called out. “Be careful!”
Burns’s hand glowed gold and power surged into the battery. He held on for ten seconds, then let go. Burns staggered, drained just like the car had been.
“You okay?” The guy came closer. “What did you do? I ain’t never seen nothing like that.”
Burns could now see the tire iron hidden in the hand the man kept at his side. He put his own hand in the pocket of the coat, fingers curling around the pistol grip. Then he reconsidered. Given all the cars and trucks racing by just a few feet away on the highway, the gun was unnecessary. Burns stepped up to the man, who realized at the last second, his last second, that he’d made a mistake to stop and try to rob this stranger.
Burns swung his arm, sending the man tumbling out onto the highway. A large pickup truck, apropos for the hat, hit him, sending him flying. Both the man’s shoes were still on the
pavement where he’d been hit. As tires screeched and drivers swerved, Burns got back in the Prius, put on his turn signal, and accelerated around the traffic jam he’d just caused.
Heading southeast.
Following the river.
“We both have flights to catch and things to do today, so you’re getting the Cliff’s Notes version.” Moms jumped into Ivar’s in-briefing without a how-do-you-do. Of course, Moms never did a how-do-you-do, so it wasn’t a big deal. Doc was with them, because as soon as this was over, he was taking Ivar over to Area 51 and the Can and then the Archives.
Unlike Ms. Jones’s office, the CP (command post) that held Moms’s and Nada’s battered gray desks was secured by a solid steel door.
“Sit,” Nada said, pointing at a plush armchair facing the angled desks. As Ivar sank into the chair, Doc perched himself on a table covered with photos and documents.
Moms closed her eyes for a moment, as if remembering all the times she’d given this in-brief. “You don’t have a military background,” she started with. “So that makes things a bit different. Most of your teammates came out of elite Special Operations units: Delta Force, SEALs, Special Forces, Rangers, CIA, et cetera. So they came with a set of expectations, both good and bad. The good for you is we’re not like the normal military or even normal Special Ops. We’re a true team and don’t do rank or a lot of other military things. I’m the team leader and Nada is the team sergeant. What that means is that you have any problems, any questions, you go to Nada. The reason for that is I answer to Ms. Jones and that’s my focus. I’m the liaison between the team and her.” She paused. “Well, except for today apparently.” She and Nada exchanged another what-the-frak glance.
“Nada takes care of the team. I take care of the mission. Follow?”
Ivar nodded.
“But, if you need to, you can come to me. But always go to Nada first. He can solve pretty much any problem you got.”