by Kyle Mills
Instead of bolting awake and scowling at him by the glow of the alarm clock, she kept breathing in the same relaxed rhythm. She’d initially been reluctant to get the head studs but now told anyone who would listen that it was the smartest thing she’d ever done. Dresner’s Merge really was a miracle.
The encrypted text displayed in the phone’s window was typically brief and ambiguous: “At your convenience.”
Whitfield slipped on a bathrobe and navigated the dark hallway by memory, entering his small office and closing the door behind him. A gentle tap on his keyboard woke the computer and he put on a headset before bringing up a heavily secured link to the man who had contacted him.
“Sorry to bother you at this hour, sir.”
Unlike his wife, Whitfield had spent the night staring at the ceiling, running through endless—and pointless—worst-case scenarios relating to the Smith-Russell situation. If there was relevant information to be had, this would be a very welcome interruption.
“Do you have something on the helicopter, Captain?”
“Yes sir. If you hadn’t called in the surveillance planes, we would have lost it. And even so we were the beneficiaries of a lot of luck.”
“You were able to track it then?”
“We were. It landed on a vacant farm in West Virginia.”
“Owned by whom?”
“A maze of offshore corporations that I can almost guarantee you will lead nowhere.”
“A CIA safe house?”
“Not according to our sources, sir.”
Whitfield didn’t immediately respond. It wasn’t military intelligence and it wasn’t the Agency. Who else would have a property like this available for an army physician and a CIA operative normally stationed overseas?
“Go on, Captain.”
“The helicopter left the farm and landed in a clearing in the mountains, where it was met by a single four-wheel-drive vehicle. It was on the ground for a short period of time before it took off again and returned to the farmhouse.”
“What was the purpose of the flight to the mountains?”
“To unload cargo.”
“What cargo?”
“Our men. They were buried in extremely well-camouflaged sites. Two were shot and one died of a knife wound to the back of the neck. We’ve extracted their bodies and transported them to the crematorium.”
Whitfield took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When dedicated, talented men died in the field, it wasn’t their failure. It was a failure of leadership. In this case, his leadership.
“I assume provisions are being made for their families?”
“Yes sir. Through the normal charities.”
“Cover stories?”
“In process. There won’t be any problems.”
There won’t be any problems, Whitfield repeated in his mind. More and more, it seemed that’s all there were.
“What happened at the farmhouse in West Virginia?”
“Three people got out of the chopper and went inside. The helicopter returned just before dawn and picked up a single passenger. It flew to the end of a dirt road about a hundred and thirty miles southwest of DC. One man disembarked and got into a Yukon XL. We didn’t have capacity to follow both, so we chose the car.”
“And?”
“We got lucky. After about an hour, it went into a tunnel and a decoy came out. The surveillance plane picked up the heat signature of the colder engine or we’d have fallen for it. Ten minutes later the original vehicle continued on to DC. One man eventually got out and entered the Metro, where we lost him.”
“You lost him? How is that lucky?”
“We got a photo from an ATM camera as he was entering the station. We’ve cleaned it up, but the resolution and angle still aren’t ideal. It should be good enough for an ID and we’re working on that. I’m transmitting it to you now.”
“What about the farm?” Whitfield said as the photo decrypted pixel by pixel on his screen.
“Empty. Dense trees come right up to the south porch and we’re guessing that Russell and Smith went out on foot and got picked up somewhere.”
Whitfield turned and stared into the darkness. He was being outmaneuvered at every turn—a situation he was very much unaccustomed to. There were no excuses for this. With three men down, he had accomplished nothing but to expose himself.
“Sir? Has the file I sent come through?”
Whitfield redirected his gaze to the grainy photo of a man walking head-down through scattered pedestrian traffic. The collar of his suit was turned up, obscuring the lower part of his jaw, but there was still something familiar in the large forehead, the receding hairline, the long, slightly hunched stride.
“We’re estimating him at about five-ten or -eleven, sir. Probably in his early sixties, with…”
But Whitfield was no longer listening. A jolt of adrenaline surged through him and he reached a shaking hand out to eradicate all evidence of the photo from his hard drive.
“There’s no way to know what train he got on,” the captain continued. “We got the security camera footage but there was some unknown problem with the video. We’re trying to get something useful from it but—”
“You won’t be able to get anything useful,” Whitfield said.
“Sir?”
“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Captain. You are to permanently destroy all copies of this photo and all records of your investigation into the man in it.”
“I don’t understand, sir. I—”
“Then let me be perfectly clear. There is to be no evidence that any of this ever happened. You and everyone else involved are never to speak of it—or even think about it—again. Do you have any questions?”
“No sir. Your orders are clear.”
“Do it now, Captain.”
Whitfield severed the connection and wiped a hand across the perspiration forming on his upper lip.
Fred Klein.
It explained a great deal, but in the worst way possible. Of all the people in the world he could have found himself pitted against, Klein was one of the most dangerous. And, if he guessed correctly, also one of the best connected. While Whitfield’s own power base was quietly centered at the Pentagon, it was almost certain that Klein’s was currently occupying the Oval Office.
50
Marrakech
Morocco
JON SMITH SPRINTED INTO the courtyard while Randi fired upward from the cover of the balcony above her. A bullet impacted only inches from the prone Gerhard Eichmann’s head, kicking up a spray of shattered marble.
The near miss broke him from his stupor and he rolled to his knees, trying to crawl beneath the leafy branches of an orange tree next to him. Psychological cover at best.
Another shot from above slammed into the floor and Smith grabbed the elderly scientist under the arm, jerking him to his feet and dragging him into the house’s entry. Randi came in a moment later, her momentum carrying her into an ancient sideboard and knocking an undoubtedly priceless vase to the floor.
Eichmann jerked at the sound of it shattering, then grabbed Smith’s shoulder with adrenaline-fueled strength. “They were shooting at me!” he said in panicked German. “Not at you! At me!”
“That’s because they aren’t after me,” Smith said, crouching and ripping open the leg of Eichmann’s pants to get at the bullet wound. “They know we’re talking to you and they want you silenced.”
“No…I don’t believe…”
“How is he?” Randi said. “Because I’m almost out and if that guy comes down the stairs with a full clip we’re going to be screwed.”
“Just a scratch,” Smith answered, standing again. “Dr. Eichmann. Is there another way out of here? We can’t get caught in that alley with a shooter above us.”
“No…Yes! There’s a servants’ door that leads to the main street. We haven’t used it in years, though. I don’t—”
“Take us to it,” Randi said when the sound of cautious footst
eps reached them from the stairwell. “Now!”
He led them through the kitchen and Smith shoved him forward when he tried to stop next to his immobilized cook. They passed through a curtain at the back and down a narrow passage lined with food and kitchen utensils before coming to a thick wooden door.
It was dead-bolted with a rusted but extremely sturdy-looking iron bar. Even using both hands and a foot against the jamb, it took Smith a good thirty seconds to break it free.
“This leads out to the pedestrian shopping street?” Randi said, pressing her back to the wall and looking down the narrow hallway for signs of pursuit.
Eichmann nodded.
“We’ll want to get off it as soon as we can. Is the closest branch left or right?”
“Left. Yes, next to a jewelry stall. Twenty meters at the most.”
Smith nodded and glanced at Randi, who took a position by the door. “On three.”
He counted down and shoved the door open. Randi went first, hiding her gun beneath her chador and pulling Eichmann along with her. Smith followed, staying a few paces back as they integrated themselves into the shoppers and tourists jammed into the souk.
They’d made it almost halfway to the jewelry stall Eichmann mentioned when a shot sounded from above. There was no way to identify the impact point because of the crowd’s sudden, violent reaction. Deafening screams rose up as everyone scattered in different directions. A motor scooter hit a cart cooking chestnuts a few meters away and Smith found himself being pushed away from the side street that was their objective. Randi’s disguise was a little too good and he lost sight of her as he fought his way back to the outer wall of Eichmann’s house.
Smith flattened himself against the stone, edging along it in an effort not to be trampled by the people running past. He finally reached the door they’d come through and wedged his fingers into the crack between it and the jamb—there was no outside handle.
Finally, he managed to get it open and slipped inside before slamming the bolt home again. The woman in the kitchen let out a muffled scream as he ran past and started up the winding stairs.
When he broke back out into the blinding sunlight, he immediately spotted a man disassembling a rifle on the north edge of the roof.
“Jesus, Eric,” Smith said, slowing to a walk. “You actually hit him.”
The man shrugged and stuffed the stock of his weapon in a canvas sack. “You said to make it convincing, mate. He looked convinced to me.”
51
Marrakech
Morocco
JON SMITH HAD BEEN LOST at least eight times in the last hour—only six of which were on purpose. But now he felt confident enough that he wasn’t being followed to emerge from the maze of souks onto an open road.
Taxi drivers slowed as they drove by but he waved them off and kept moving along the sidewalk, avoiding eye contact with the people he passed. Sirens were still audible as the police and military responded to the shooting, but that was more than three kilometers east now.
He came to an innocuous door on a street dedicated to the sale of scrap metal and gave a complex knock calculated to sound clandestine. A moment later the door swung open and he stepped into the dim interior of an apartment he’d found on the Internet. It looked just like a safe house should: dilapidated and austere with curtains tucked carefully around the lone window.
“Is he all right?”
“Nothing serious,” Randi said, continuing to stand next to the door with her gun drawn while Eichmann sat frozen in a chair. Most of his right pant leg was cut off and a makeshift bandage was wound around his thigh.
“Were you followed?” she asked, already knowing the answer but wanting to milk the illusion of imminent danger.
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. But we probably shouldn’t stay long.”
“I don’t understand,” Eichmann said, exhaustion and fear clear in his voice. “Who are you?”
“We’re the people keeping you alive,” Randi said.
“You’re American. Do you work for the government?”
Smith took a seat across the small dining table from the scientist. “I’m Dr. Jon Smith.”
The immediate recognition wasn’t surprising. Eichmann would know the name of the man in charge of the U.S. military’s Merge program.
“Why are you here? What do you want from me?”
“We’re here because the Merge was used in Afghanistan before its official release.”
Eichmann was an academic, not a spy—something that was obvious in the way his every thought played out across his face. He knew about Afghanistan and was terrified that Smith did too.
“Yesterday, someone leaked that I’m looking into what happened there,” Smith lied. “And that I knew about you. We were concerned for your safety and came as fast as we could. Good thing we did.”
“Leaked?” Eichmann said. “Leaked to whom?”
Smith leaned back in his chair. “Christian Dresner.”
“I…I don’t understand,” he said, but again his face gave him away. He understood perfectly.
“There’s a lot of money on the table, Doctor. Not to mention Dresner’s entire legacy. If it were to become public that he was involved in these kinds of experiments…”
“But we’re…We’ve been…” the aging scientist stammered, suddenly incapable of getting a sentence out. His hesitation suggested that Smith had guessed right. Dresner was involved.
“What happened in Sarabat?” Randi said, getting impatient.
When Eichmann didn’t answer, she reached for the knob of the door and opened it. “I don’t have time for this. If you don’t want to talk, get out.”
“What?” the German said. “But—”
“But your old friend will have you killed?” she said. “That’s right, Gerd. He will. In fact, I doubt you’ll last two hours without our protection.”
When he didn’t move, she closed the door again. “I believe we were talking about Afghanistan?”
Again, Eichmann didn’t respond. He was clearly having a hard time processing the seismic shift in his universe—that his benefactor and oldest friend was now a mortal enemy.
“He’s a different man than he was when you escaped the Soviets,” Smith prompted. “Wealth, power, fame. Those things can change you.”
The German nodded numbly. “I’m nothing. Nothing compared with him.”
“Why didn’t the people in Sarabat fight back?” Randi said, but Smith subtly waved her off. He wanted to give the good cop some stage time.
“Doctor?”
Eichmann stared at the floor for a few seconds and then looked up to meet his eye. “It was the dream.”
“What dream? What were you trying to do? Influence people’s behavior?”
“Christian just wanted to help. After everything that happened to him—the Nazis, the Soviets—he realized that our primitive instincts were combining with modern technology, media, and politics to destroy us. He wanted to change that.”
“I remember that he spent hundreds of millions of dollars on educational research,” Smith said. “But that was more than thirty years ago.”
Eichmann licked his lips nervously. “Yes. We set up charter schools all over the world and educated tens of thousands of children for free. What wasn’t clear to the public was that the students were carefully chosen. Randomized.”
“So that you could test various educational theories,” Smith said. “Year-round school, separating boys and girls, classroom size, home intervention…”
“We tried them all. Every teaching technique and idea that had ever been conceived.”
“And it was a huge success. I learned about it in college.”
The German shook his head. “No. We made it look that way by choosing what data we released. The truth is that different educational techniques have almost no effect on intelligence and behavior. And what little impact they do have disappears in adulthood. But he didn’t believe it. Neither of us did. School and parent
ing virtually useless? The majority of our destiny written at birth? How could this be true?”
“So you created the study that I saw back at your house.”
“Christian decided we needed to try more drastic interventions—and to get the remaining cultural noise out of the data.”
The old man fell silent and Smith walked to the sink to get him a glass of water. “We’re not here to judge you, Dr. Eichmann. We’re here because the U.S. military needs to understand the technology it’s going to be relying on for the next hundred years. We’re not people who like surprises.”
Eichmann accepted the glass and took a hesitant sip from it. “As I’m sure you surmised, we took children from all over the world.”
“Took?” Randi said, but then fell silent when Smith shot her an angry glance.
“Some parents are willing to accept money, others are open to the promise that their children will be given opportunities they wouldn’t have otherwise. Hospital workers are amenable to mixing up paperwork for the right price. And sometimes it’s as simple as directing and facilitating adoptions.”
In his peripheral vision, Smith could see Randi’s horrified expression turn to anger. And as a human being, he understood completely. But as a scientist, he couldn’t help being intrigued.
“So you created a perfectly controlled behavioral study.”
“The first—and almost certainly last—in history. We put children from poor or abusive backgrounds into ideal environments, we put children from privileged backgrounds into brothels and on the street. We split up fraternal and identical twins. We even populated an isolated village in North Korea with children from all over the world and controlled every aspect of their life and upbringing.”
“Gathering data the whole time.”
“We had various ways of giving parents and children personality and IQ tests—through school, extracurricular activities, job interviews, and the like. We looked at every aspect of life outcomes and I just recently finished a comprehensive analysis of all the data. Though, in truth, we’ve known what we would discover for a long time.”
“And what was that?”