Crane gave her the most cursory of glances and leveled the .357 at Powell.
“The day after your mother was discovered and she was transferred to the base, Powell calls me up, out of the blue, and says he’s ready to come back to work. I didn’t make the connection.”
“Why would you?” said Sophia, the pain from where she had been struck evident in her voice. “No one would have.”
“Of course, a man as loyal and trustworthy to me as he was,” said Crane with a wry chuckle, “I instantly put him in charge of securing the subject. Brass talked about brushing the whole incident under the carpet, making it disappear. But he sold me another idea. Illustrated all of the military implications an invisible could have.”
“What he really wanted was to keep her alive, to protect her,” said Ben.
“You were always so curious about the identity of your father,” said Sophia. “Now here you are, right next to him.”
41
Ben had received some big wake-up calls in the last couple of days, but they all paled into insignificance now. He wanted to tell these insane people how wrong they were, how crazy these revelations sounded. But he knew they were anything but.
Now he saw the tough training sessions with Jason at The Nest and his overly watchful eye in a completely new light. He was simply the protective parent preparing for him for the road ahead, giving him the education he would need to gain independence and survive in later life.
That last day. The whole episode out on the roof between Jason and Sophia. Ben had gotten the wrong end of the stick completely, misunderstood who was trying to protect and who was trying to kill him.
Sophia got to her feet. Crane regarded her coldly.
“I’m here to do the same job you are. Tie up loose ends,” he said. “That’s not going to need two of us.” He leveled the large handgun at Sophia, without a sniff of hesitation, and shot her square in the middle of her chest. The impact propelled her over the table behind. She landed in a crumpled mess on the floor, her arms folded at an unnatural angle, dead before she hit the ground.
Ben pictured Erikson, unconscious back on the floor where Jason had laid him out. Crane’s shot had not just killed Sophia, but the mercenary too. With the computer attached to her wrist no longer registering her heartbeat, it would have instructed the transmitters in Erikson’s body to self-destruct, sentencing him to instant death.
“Loose ends,” Powell mused. “That’s why we took the ghosts’ bodies with us. And there I was thinking you were going to give them a soldier’s burial.”
“I got Tennant to do that. Out in the desert. Just before he outlived his usefulness.”
“Thorough,” said Powell.
“What a mess you’ve caused,” said Crane. “Christ, I only tasked you with tracking down Cole to keep you occupied and out from under my feet. You weren’t supposed to actually find him. And that would have been the case if the devious little bastard hadn’t gotten greedy. You know, the fact you’ve chosen to conceal your hidden talent from me all this time, Powell, leads me to conclude you’re someone I cannot trust. And trust is something we cannot win this war without,” said Crane.
“And what war would that be?” said Powell.
Crane puffed out his chest. “The war on terror, of course.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong, Crane, but the path you’re on is one that leads directly to employing terror, not stamping it out.”
“Like they say,” said Crane, “you have to fight fire with fire. Play them at their own game, and then beat them to death with it.”
“Is that why you sabotaged the program, drove it underground?” said Powell.
Crane regarded him for a second and purred to himself. “Naul shot his mouth off before Woods did her thing, huh?”
“There was an experimental stealth helicopter, but no crash,” said Powell.
“Damn scientists. Damn politics and bureaucracy,” Crane growled. “Whole thing was going far too slow. Too many people involved, all looking for their share of the glory. I’m not interested in glory; I’m interested in the security of the nation. I’m a patriot, Powell. I’ll do whatever it takes to protect my country.”
“Even if it means sacrificing the lives of innocent soldiers?”
“Last people on this earth could be accused of being innocent are soldiers. You of all people know that. It takes more than invisibility up your sleeve to bring back the intelligence you did. It helps if there’s a blade up there too.”
“But Cole was no patriot,” said Ben. “By driving the project underground, any chance he had at fame or profit got buried with it too.”
Powell added, “Guy like him? Selling to the highest bidder once he cracked it was always in his head. You must have suspected that. You couldn’t have picked a worse candidate to put your faith in taking this thing solo.”
“It was a calculated risk I was willing to take,” said Crane.
“And it blew up in your face, big time,” said Powell.
“I wouldn’t say that. There have been learnings, that’s all, which we’ll factor in next time,” said Crane. “I like to hedge my bets. Split the risk. There are plenty more hungry, ambitious little lab monkeys waiting to take up where Cole left off. This journey is far from being over, gentlemen. However, this is where you both get off.
“Shame,” said Crane, looking at Ben. “You had such potential, son. How capable you’ve become on your own with no one to guide you. Such a shame we’ll never get to find out what could have been.
“Any last requests?” he said, leveling his gun at Ben.
Ben had a hundred he could think of. There was so much he wanted to know right now. Questions were swimming through his head like a huge shoal of fish, all clamoring to be the ones to reach his mouth first. But all he could hear was the hum from the MRI machine behind. It was all set to unleash another magnetic blast. The remote was still in Jason’s hand, well within his reach.
Crane edged across the room, coming directly in line with Ben, and well within range of the magnetic field once it was engaged.
“Well?” Crane said. “Nothing you want to know before you go?”
Ben looked at Jason. “I wish you’d shown me… how.”
“How to alternate? I would have,” Jason said. “Our time was cut way short in Louisiana. The ability comes only when you reach adulthood. Sort of a natural protection mechanism.”
“Show me now then,” said Ben. “Let me see how it works.”
Jason just stood there, not moving or answering Ben.
“Come on, already,” said Crane. “Give the boy his wish. You’re just prolonging the inevitable here, Powell.”
“Please, Dad” said Ben, the word feeling both alien and brilliant as it crossed his lips. He put his hand out to take the MRI remote.
Jason obliged. Ben didn’t know if his father understood what he was trying to do, but it didn’t matter. By the time Ben’s fingertips touched the device, Jason was already disappearing from view.
“And hey presto!” Crane laughed, cocking back the hammer on the revolver. “He’s gone.”
The split-second of distraction was all Ben needed to find the button on the remote. The low hum turned into a loud drone and there was an audible, shocked intake of breath from Crane. His hand went up to his eyes as if he’d been dazzled by oncoming headlights.
Ben quickly dropped the remote and rolled off the bench, pushing Jason across the floor away from Crane. The colonel took his hand down, squinting, his head panning left and right, and stepped back, pointing the gun indiscriminately about the place.
The MRI had done its job, just as it had the first time.
Only more effectively.
As well as knocking out the receiver attached to his optic nerve, the magnetic field had also disrupted the implants managing the colonel’s sight impairment.
Crane couldn’t only not see them; he couldn’t see anything.
Ben scrambled as silently and as quickly as he co
uld to the side of the room. Jason followed his lead, moving away toward the opposite wall.
Crane fired two shots in the general direction they had been moments earlier. He had to fight to control the weapon as the magnetic field tried to wrench it from his grasp.
He spun and fired two more shots wildly. One came roughly in Ben’s direction, but went way over his head.
Crane backed across the room, swinging the gun left and right, blindly trying to acquire targets.
Ben picked the MRI remote up from the floor and threw it into the far corner. The clatter it made was enough to spook Crane. The colonel immediately fired a shot after it. He pulled the trigger a second time, but the hammer connected with an empty chamber.
He was out of bullets.
Crane dropped the revolver and fumbled for the SMG he had taken from Sophia.
Ben hadn’t remembered the weapon being used at all since he’d first seen Erikson with it, so it was likely to be fully loaded. Crane knew they were still somewhere in there with him. He could just spray bullets around the room and hope to hit them.
Jason must have reached the same assumption, right at the same moment. He launched himself across the room and slammed Crane back into the doorframe. The colonel’s head bounced off the wall and the weapon fell to the ground. Jason kicked it to Ben. Crane stumbled forward, waving his hands out in front like a blind man, which for all intents and purposes, he was.
His attention was everywhere and nowhere, so disorientated that Ben was sure if Jason so much as breathed his way, the man would fall over. But he punched him instead, with a blow to the temple that sent Crane to the floor.
“I’m not the one who caused this mess, Crane,” said Jason. “But I will be the one to clean it up.”
Ben went to Jason’s side.
Crane sat up, squinting hard at the submachine gun in Ben’s hands, quickly determining what the blurry black shape must be. “Powell, it’s not too late to work something out.” He got to his knees. “I can give you anything you want.”
“You already have,” said Jason, taking the gun from Ben. “I’m not going to kill you. I’m just going to give you a little taste of what it feels like to live your life out, invisible. Stuck in a world where no one can see you.”
“What do you mean?” said Crane.
Ben knelt down to Sophia’s body and retrieved the keycards to the complex. They would need them to get out.
Figuring that Crane must have had the very same, Jason trained the gun on the colonel while Ben searched him.
As soon as Ben retrieved the transparent, credit card-sized items, Jason expelled the magazine from the gun and ejected the bullets out into his hand. He threw all of the metal at the MRI machine, where it stuck fast to the back wall of the scanner.
Crane put the palms of his hands out, pleading for some leniency, but he was ignored.
Jason brushed past his former commanding officer with Ben out into the hall, Crane not even realizing they had left. Father and son made their way in silence back to the central hub.
Where Kane had been before, there now only remained the clothes he had been wearing, soaking in a large puddle of syrupy fluid, which was spreading across the floor, coursing its way through the channels between the floor tiles.
Ben held up the key cards he had taken from Sophia and Crane. “How did you manage to get in here without these?” he asked Jason.
“I came in with those two. They were so slow getting the soldier out of their helicopter. I waited at the elevator for them.”
Outside, Jason led Ben to a rock formation half a mile away from the fence, where he retrieved his clothes. Over a small ridge they came upon a helicopter the likes of which Ben had seen only in comic books.
Jason prowled up to the cockpit. The pilot’s helmet was pressed against the glass. Jason worked the handle and opened the door slowly. The harness was the only thing preventing the man from falling out of the aircraft. He had been shot in the head.
Jason leaned in to look around the pilot and groaned.
Ben could see a second man in the rear. There was a laptop computer at his feet, lying on its side. The man was covered in sweat, dust and his own blood. Just like the pilot, he was dead.
Jason punched his fist against the door of the chopper. “No ties,” he muttered. “My guess is the only people that knew about this little excursion are all dead.”
“Do you think anyone else knows about this place?” Ben asked.
Jason shook his head. “Crane was closing out all his accounts. Explains why he wanted to make the trip out here with me so bad. Given what he was trying to do with Cole, if there was ever any record of it, he erased it a long time ago. Same way I reckon any record of your existence or my link to him has mysteriously vanished too.”
“What are we going to do now?” said Ben.
Jason shielded his eyes and looked up into the sky. It was going to be a beautiful day. He surveyed the horizon. Nothing but the two of them for miles in any direction.
“We walk,” said Jason. “That’s what we’re going to do now. And talk. I think I’ve some explaining to do.”
42
The train moved off from the platform much faster than usual. Freya barely had time to make it to her seat. When she grabbed for the pole to steady herself, her hand missed. In that split-second she was sure the next thing she was going to touch would be the floor, but a hand reached out and grabbed her arm.
“I got you,” a man’s voice said, warm, reassuring and very familiar.
He guided her to her seat.
“Thank you,” she said.
He said nothing in reply, but she could feel him smiling at her.
“I haven’t seen you in a long time,” she said with a laugh, “if you get my meaning.”
“I’ve been away,” he said.
“Prison, huh?” she said.
“Not exactly.”
She straightened her jacket, folding her stick and placing it on her lap.
“Ben,” she said, as if to say yes I remember your name.
“Freya,” he replied.
She sniffed the air deeply, as if she was savoring the smell of some beautiful, exotic flower. “You smell different.”
“Yes, I took the liberty of showering this morning,” he said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” she said. “That the reason you were away for so long? You were brushing up on your personal hygiene skills.”
“Among others,” he replied.
There was another smell there too. “A leather jacket. My, we did go all out. Smells new.”
“It is. I never wore one before. Decided I’d like to try new things.”
“A leather jacket? That’s a new thing?”
“For me it is,” he said.
“You need to get out more,” she said.
“That’s the plan,” he said. “That’s the plan.”
They sat in contented silence for the next minute or so, rocking from side to side in time with the movement of the train.
Freya felt the smile on her face growing wide.
“You don’t give much away, do you?” she said.
“Nope.”
“Which means,” she continued, “that you’re either one of the most boring people on the planet, or one of the most interesting.”
“How do you figure that out?” he asked.
Her bare knee touched his. He was wearing jeans.
“Well either you’ve got nothing to talk about. Or you’ve got something to hide.”
“Freya,” he said. “You have no idea.”
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