by Jude Hardin
“I don’t make deals with criminals.”
“Then I’m afraid it’s going to be a very long afternoon.”
He rose from the chair and started walking toward the door.
“Wait,” Mike said. “What is it you wanted to know?”
Mike figured that if he at least pretended to cooperate, maybe Oberwand would tell him what happened to Nika. It was worth a try.
“The implant allows you to see in the dark, doesn’t it?” Oberwand said.
“Yes.”
“Interesting. Not that you’re going to live long enough for it to matter, but it is interesting. What’s your name?”
“Mike.”
“No, I mean your real name. The name you were given at birth.”
“I don’t know.”
Oberwand sat back down on the chair. “But you want to know, don’t you? You want to know more than anything in the world. You want to know who you are, and where you came from. You want to know about your parents and your siblings and your friends. You want to know what kind of cake you had at your eighth birthday party.”
“Get to the point,” Mike said. “What is it that you want?”
“Obviously, I want the MK-2. I could crack your skull and take it right now, but my intelligence sources have advised against that course of action. I need several passwords to access key portals in the circuitry, and it seems those passwords died with Dr. Aggerson. Without them, the device is useless.”
“It’s not like Aggerson died of natural causes,” Mike said. “Cara Skellar murdered him.”
Oberwand nodded. “She got a little carried away. That really wasn’t supposed to happen. Fortunately, there still might be a way to retrieve those passwords.”
“If you’re thinking about torturing them out of me, forget it. In the first place, I have no idea what they are. And even if I did know, I wouldn’t be able to tell you. There’s a protective circuit built into the BCI that will deliver a lethal electrical charge to my brain if I ever divulge any classified information.”
“But the passwords probably aren’t classified,” Oberwand said. “They belonged to Aggerson, and Aggerson only. I know for a fact that they weren’t included with the documents he delivered to the Department of Defense. He was a very clever man, and it was his way of preventing anyone—even those funding the research—from copying the device.”
“At any rate, I don’t know any of the passwords. And since the MK-2 isn’t any good to you without them, then you might as well let me go.”
Oberwand laughed. “I think we both know that’s not going to happen.”
“So what are you going to do? Just let me lie here and—”
“I want to hypnotize you,” Oberwand said. “I have a feeling that those passwords might be locked deep in your subconscious, along with memories of your former life. If I can bring everything out under hypnosis, then we’ll both get what we want. Of course I’ll need your cooperation. I can’t hypnotize you against your will.”
Mike thought about the game of hide-and-seek with the little girl. There were indeed memories hidden somewhere deep in the cellar of his mind, so maybe Oberwand would be able to draw them to the surface through hypnosis. Maybe Mike would finally be able to learn his true identity. But maybe Dr. Aggerson’s passwords were there as well, and retrieving them would help Oberwand copy the device for his own sinister purposes.
Mike couldn’t allow himself to be a part of that.
But maybe he could fake his way through the hypnosis in order to buy some time.
“I want to know what happened to Nika,” Mike said.
“And if I tell you?”
“I’ll cooperate. I’ll let you hypnotize me.”
“She escaped,” Oberwand said. “I made a mistake. I went into her room alone. She was not restrained, and most of my staff had gone home for the night. I underestimated her, and I paid the price.”
“Is that why you’re limping?”
Oberwand nodded. “I’ll spare you the gory details, but let’s just say my injuries involved several hours of ice packs and several doses of pain medication.”
“Where’s Nika now?”
“She’s somewhere on the mountain, trying to make it to the bottom. I’m not really worried about it. There’s an electrified fence guarding the entire perimeter, and I have a dozen men watching for her. There’s no chance that she’s actually going to get away.”
“What’s going to happen to her when you bring her back?” Mike said.
“That depends on how well our little hypnosis session goes. I’ll never be able to let her free, of course, but if all goes well I can promise you that no physical harm will come to her. She’ll be allowed to live out her life here at the complex.”
“What about me?”
“Unfortunately, I can’t make the same promise for you. I need the MK-2, and there’s no way to get it without cutting you open.”
“I want some clothes,” Mike said. “I’m not going to do this naked.”
“That’s no problem. I’ll record the session, and then I’ll let you watch the video before performing the surgery. As long as you cooperate, I’ll make sure that everything is quick and painless.”
Mike nodded. “All right,” he said. “Let’s get it over with.”
20
Oliver Fennel had just returned to his office from a late lunch when his cell phone trilled.
It was Sterns again.
“Good afternoon, sir. I just wanted to let you know that we dusted Nika Dunning’s house for fingerprints.”
“And?”
“Your missing test subject was there. We found a full set of his prints on a toolbox in the garage.”
“Nathan Brennan is with that nurse from CereCirc?”
“It looks that way. At least he was with her a few days ago, the night she signed the non-disclosure agreement. Of course they might have gone their separate ways by now.”
“I want her found,” Fennel said. “Today. Do you understand? Not tomorrow, not next week. Today. Pull as many operatives as you need to get the job done, and call me as soon as you find her. Okay?”
“Yes, sir.”
Fennel clicked off, started pacing back and forth in front of his desk. If Dunning and Brennan were together, Blake Howitzer needed to know about it. He punched in Blake’s number, let it ring until it went to voicemail.
“Call me,” Fennel said, announcing his frustration and anxiety as loudly and clearly as possible in such a short message.
He walked to the wet bar at the other side of the office and poured himself a glass of bourbon. Knocked it back, poured another. He switched on the television, caught the tail end of a news story about a shooting at a private residence in Memphis, a house where a retired dentist was practicing illegally. Three people had died, but so far only the homeowner had been identified.
Dr. Leonard Fergusson. Seventy-eight years old. Died of a gunshot wound to the head.
One of the others better be missing a head, Fennel thought, or Blake Howitzer was going to be missing his. That was the deal. Howitzer was supposed to bring Brennan’s head back so that the MK-2 could be preserved.
And he was supposed to make sure that the rest of Brennan’s body was never found. If the police were able to identify Brennan with fingerprints, or birthmarks, or whatever, then the world would soon know that he didn’t really die in the explosion at CereCirc, and Oliver Fennel would soon be spending the rest of his life in a federal penitentiary.
Fennel punched in Howitzer’s number again.
The call went to voicemail again.
“Answer your phone!” Fennel shouted. “One of those bodies better not belong to Nathan Brennan, or we’re going to have a big problem. Call me!”
Howitzer never did return the call. But an hour later, Fennel—who was about to have a heart attack by then—finally got in touch with one of his connections at the Memphis Police Department.
The two unknown victims from the shooting at
the dentist’s office still hadn’t been identified, but one of them had a very bad scar on the right side of his face.
Blake Howitzer.
Had to be.
Howitzer had botched the assignment, and the Associate Director of Paramilitary Operations was quickly running out of options.
21
A few minutes after Oberwand walked away, three men came in and pointed guns at Mike while a fourth unlocked his shackles and helped him get dressed. Sweat pants and a t-shirt. No underwear, no shoes. Mike was allowed to relieve his bladder into a plastic jug, and then the chains went back on and the men exited the room, switching the overhead light off and leaving the space completely dark.
Thirty-three minutes later, Oberwand returned. He pulled a cigarette lighter out of his pocket and held it up, its stainless steel casing glinting in the dim light from the open door.
“I want you to focus on this,” Oberwand said, holding the lighter about ten inches from Mike’s face.
“It looks brand new,” Mike said. “Did you buy it just for this occasion?”
“If you must know, I bought it because your friend Nika Dunning took my other one after she assaulted me last night.”
“Good for her.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get it back. Can we proceed now?”
“Sure,” Mike said. “As long as you don’t make me do some kind of crazy chicken dance or something.”
Oberwand sighed. “I want you to focus on the shiny silver object in my hand. I want you to focus on it like you’ve never focused on anything before. In your mind, there is nothing else. Just the shiny silver object. Its texture, its temperature, its smell.”
Oberwand continued rambling on about the Zippo, his voice a deep relaxing monotone. Mike stared at the lighter, stared into it, stared through it. Despite his intentions to secretly resist falling into a hypnotic state, he closed his eyes and started seeing flashes of bright purple light followed by a scene from a time when he was much younger.
“Tell me what you’re seeing,” the deep relaxing voice said.
“I’m at some kind of carnival,” Mike said. “I’m sitting on a bench watching the merry-go-round. There’s a little girl in a green shirt on one of the horses, and she waves to me every time she passes by. Her name is Rebecca. I know this somehow. She’s laughing and waving at me, and I’m waving back. Her name is Rebecca. Becky.”
“And what’s your name?”
“I don’t know. I want to know, but I can’t remember. Now Becky is sitting beside me on the bench, and we each have an ice cream cone. Hers is vanilla, and mine is strawberry.”
“Ask her your name.”
“We’re somewhere else now. Home, I guess. In the back yard. It’s warm, and there’s a gentle breeze, and there’s a tree with some kind of fruit on it. Becky and I are kicking a soccer ball back and forth. Just playing. Goofing around. She’s laughing at me, because I’m not very good at soccer. We’re having a good time.”
“Tell me what kind of fruit is on the tree.”
“Small green orbs. Apples, I think. It’s too early in the year to pick them and eat them. I know this, somehow. I’ve tasted them before, and they’re very sour at this time of year. Now we’re inside, sitting on a couch watching TV, eating chocolate chip cookies out of a bag.”
“Ask the little girl your name.”
“Every time I ask, she just looks at me and laughs. She thinks I’m being silly.”
“Try again.”
“I keep trying, but it’s no use. She just looks at me and laughs, like it’s the funniest thing she’s ever heard.”
“Ask her the password to the portal labeled Funnel G.”
“She’s gone,” Mike said. “I’m not at home anymore. It’s seven-thirty in the morning, and I’m in a classroom. There’s a test on the desk in front of me, and I’m worried that I’m going to fail it.”
“Why are you worried?”
“I’m not prepared. I haven’t been to class all semester.”
“We’ll do the test together,” the calm, reassuring voice said. “What’s the first question?”
“It says, ‘Name the password to the portal labeled Funnel G.’ But I don’t know the answer. I haven’t been to class. I haven’t studied. I’m going to fail.”
“Just write down the first thing that comes to your mind.”
“I see now that the test is multiple choice,” Mike said. “There are four possible answers. A, B, C, or D.”
“I’m going to ask you to tell me the answers one by one, and then we’ll make an educated guess as to which one is correct. Let’s start with A.”
“But that would be cheating. I’m supposed to know this without any help. I’m going to choose C. I believe that C is the correct answer.”
“Very well. Tell me what C says. It won’t be cheating, because you’ve already answered it on your own. Tell me, and then we’ll move on to question number two.”
“It says that the password to the portal labeled Funnel G is—”
There was a long pause.
“Please continue,” Oberwand said, his voice smooth as a lullaby.
The memory from the carnival had been real. The rest, Mike had made up. The apple tree, the soccer ball, the cookies, the test, all fabricated. Mike had no idea what the password to the portal labeled Funnel G was, but this seemed like a good time to make his move.
Earlier, while the fourth man had helped him to get dressed, Mike had picked the man’s pocket and had stolen the key to the shackles. He’d done it with the laser-like precision of a professional thief, knowing that the man probably wouldn’t miss the key until he needed it. Now Mike rose and grabbed one of the chains and wrapped it around Oberwand’s calm, reassuring throat.
“You’re going to lead me out of here,” Mike said. “If anyone tries to stop us, I’m going to twist your head off like a beer cap. Understand?”
“I’m not going to let you leave this mountain,” Oberwand said, his voice straining against the tight steel chain. “I’ll die before I allow that to happen.”
“Not a problem,” Mike said.
As Mike started to tighten the chain, intending to rip Oberwand’s head from his shoulders, the overhead light came on and the four men who’d been in the room earlier walked through the door.
“Shoot him,” Oberwand said.
The men raised their weapons. Three of them held semi-automatic pistols, and the other a sawed-off shotgun.
“It’s no good,” Shotgun said. “There’s no clean shot.”
“No,” Oberwand said. “Shoot him.”
An expression of understanding washed over Shotgun’s face. He stepped to the side, aimed and fired at the man Mike had stolen the key from, blasting a hole the size of a softball in his abdomen. The man looked stunned for a second, and then his eyes went blank and he collapsed to the floor. His gun skittered across the room and spun to a stop in front of the bunk.
Still holding the chain tightly around Oberwand’s neck, Mike reached down and picked up the pistol.
“I’m going to walk out of here now,” he said. “If anyone tries to stop me, I’ll take his head off.”
“What do you want us to do?” Shotgun said to Oberwand.
“Zero one two,” Oberwand said. “Zero one two.”
Shotgun stood silent for a few seconds.
“Zero one two?” he said. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
It was some kind of code. Mike had no idea what it meant, but after confirming Oberwand’s intentions, the men turned and marched out of the cell without saying another word.
“How many more you have hanging around?” Mike said.
“Just those three. Everyone else is at the bottom of the mountain watching for your girlfriend. What I said earlier no longer applies, by the way. Instead of being allowed to live her life out comfortably here at the complex, she’ll be shot on sight.”
“Is that what zero one two means?”
“Among oth
er things,” Oberwand said.
“What other things?”
“You’ll find out very soon, my friend. You’ll find out very soon.”
22
Nika had chosen the golf cart because of its quiet motor, but as it struggled up the mountain at around ten miles per hour, she wished she’d opted for the power of one of the four-wheelers. She tried to convince herself that slow and steady wins the race, but she wasn’t so sure that the old adage applied to her current situation. She was starting to think that it had been short-sighted to choose silence over speed, that one of the ATVs would have made for a better escape vehicle going back down, but there was no turning back now. She was almost there. She could see the mouth of the cave up ahead. Come what may, she would continue onward in her quest to rescue Mike.
She looked at the sun, guessed it to be about four o’clock. The temperature had already started dropping, and in less than two hours it would be dark. At least she had a flashlight now, and some food, and some fuel for the cigarette lighter. She wasn’t naked anymore, and she had some tools that could be used as weapons. She would survive, even if she had to spend another night in the woods.
Unless the bad guys caught up with her, of course. Then she would die. She doubted they would give her any sort of warning. They would just shoot her. Game over. One of them might even have a scope on her right this minute, she thought. A bullet in the back would have come as no big surprise. In fact, it was somewhat astonishing that they hadn’t found her and killed her yet. Maybe they were just stupid, or—
No, they weren’t stupid. They must have had some sort of safety net in place for such contingencies, for escaped prisoners and whatnot.
Then it came to her. There must be some sort of trap at the bottom of the mountain, something that would have prevented her from ever escaping in the first place. A trap, or an impenetrable barrier. An electric fence or something. And if that was the case, it would be something she and Mike would have to deal with eventually.
If they made it that far.