by E L Russell
“Ask about Strake,” Nancy whispered.
Meret nodded. “Any progress with Jack Strake?”
“What do you mean? Come on down, we just escorted Jack in shackles into my room.”
She felt a flush of excitement and knew her face had lit up.
“I'll be right there.” She ended the call and stood. “Nancy, with me.” She shook two fists in the air. “You heard the man, we got Jack in the box.”
* * *
Meret left Debby in the gentle care of Robert and hurried to another wing in the complex that held the usual suspects. Minutes later she sat across a table from a shackled Jack Strake while Nancy observed through a one-way mirror.
"Well, well, well. What we got here? Aren’t you looking like arm candy. What took ya so long to visit wiv me?”
“I won't waste any of your TV time, so let’s get right to business."
“Whot? TV? Not in my room? I got nothing to watch, not even a window. Take your time.”
Meret studied her prisoner. "Have you been thinking about our last conversation?” Although he didn’t sound like he was operating in the real world, she knew he had a strong survival sense and a crafty mind to make that happen. He grinned at her as if he would be her prince if she allowed it and she shuddered at the thought.
Uninterested in his by-play, she reminded him. “You know, the one that could put you in a good position to bargain for reduced time. The ‘no harm, no foul’ one?”
When the vacuous grin on his face didn’t falter, she said, “Who knows? Maybe even a parole.” Damn stupid man. She needed info from him. “Maybe this will help you make the right decision.” She motioned toward the door and Nancy entered the room looking every bit like Katya’s doppelganger.
"Sweet mother of God." His vapid smile lost its bravado and revealed more missing teeth than Meret remembered as Jack pushed as far away from the table as his shackles allowed.
He looked Nancy up and down and frowned. "Jesus. She’s damn close, but not quite. Not Katya. He studied the woman again and kept his distance, just in case. “So, ooo’s this?” Although he was asking Meret, he kept his eyes glued on Nancy.
"Maybe, her twin, Jack, and every bit as nasty. It’s need-to-know.”
Nancy kept in character and tilted her head. "Do you believe that Katya mind-fucked you?”
He rubbed his stumbled chin and studied the look-alike. "”Phew. You’re freaky scary.”
“The question, Jack,” Nancy said. “Has Katya mind-fucked?”
“Possibly.” He tore his gaze off Nancy. “Can’t be sure. She makes you forget the training sessions.”
Nancy probed. "You observed her training someone. Tell me about it,”
He wiped his hand across his nose and took a ragged breath. "Hard to tell. When it starts. I mean . . . she walks about ‘er victim like a snake wrapping around its prey. Ya know what I mean? A snake. Her voice goes all silky and smooth then . . . she touches you . . . them. I mean like them, like snakes.”
"How? Where?”
"Don’t know exactly.” He shrugged. “Any where there’s bare skin?”
"Like the hand or face? Is that what you mean?” Nancy asked.
"Yeah, all hair-raising like.”
“Sit back down, Jack.”
Not knowing how much time Nancy would need with Jack and feeling like a third wheel, Meret headed back to check on Debby and Granger. As the elevator opened to let her in, her phone vibrated and she stepped away to take the call.
"Hey, Poppy, hi. How are we doing?”
“Good and bad, Poppy said. I hear you gave you know what to you know who and Zhen worked a fix for stopping PSI Corps SKV from killing all those government people, but—”
"But? But what?”
"Human trials, Meret. We have to find a way to test it and Zhen says if he's wrong about his antidote, people could die and the thought of that really bothers him. Seriously."
"Crap. I didn’t give that a thought. Have him—mmm." She suddenly stopped. "Poppy, don't you even think about it. You hear me?"
"Nah, but that's exactly what I was going to tell you. I have a lot of respect and faith in what Zhen does and we have to find out, so I would do it. But if you think not, I won't. I won’t volunteer."
“Definitely not. But lets give this the thought it deserves. We owe Zhen enough to find a work-a-round. One of us has to come up with something. Meanwhile, make sure you, Zhen and Ling don’t volunteer. That’s an order or I will fire the three of you.”
"Got it, nut so you know, Zhen did say that there might be time to intervene if someone shows symptoms."
"No, Poppy. That’s not gonna happen. Have him call me, will you?”
Poppy put her chin in Meret’s face space. “I will if you promise there are no other secret heroes on our team, right?"
"What? Me? No, no. No hero here.”
* * *
Meret rushed back to make sure Debby and Granger were doing all right and when her phone vibrated, she ignored it and impatiently waited for the lock to Granger's room to open. An angry voice from the speaker overhead penetrated her focus.
"Meret. Answer your damn phone when it rings, vibrates or whatever."
She stopped and let her head fall back on her shoulders to look up. "Steve? What’s up?”
"Don’t go into the room. Debby's contacted Henri and they’re having a heated discussion.”
“Why didn’t you just say so?”
No response.
"Well, good anyway. I hope that’s all it is. Are you recording it?”
No response.
"Of course you are. Open Katya's door, I'll spend a few moments with her. Anything else?"
"Answer the phone and I’ll tell you.”
He waited until she complied and filled her in. “I heard Zhen needed human subjects so I asked Director Davies for access to the Company lab. zoo. I can give you six healthy primates if they suit your testing parameters.”
" Steve, yes. How wonderful. Thank you. How did you know?”
" Zhen. He’s actually on hold. He asked that I get your go ahead.”
"Yes. My answer is yes. Where will the test be conducted?”
Steve said, "Here in D.C.”
"How soon can you get Zhen here?”
"He’s already on a Company jet and will land in thirty minutes. He should be in our special lab within ninety. Do you want to meet him?”
"Absolutely, but I need to talk to Katya first.”
"Hold while I pass the ‘go’ on to Zhen. I have more to tell you.”
Steve’s image froze and she entered Katya’s room. Sounds of muffled speech came from her bed but Meret couldn’t understand the words. She’d known she’d need an interpreter if Katya spoke in her native Russian and she crept closer, listening hard. Katya repeated a phrase again and again and then moved on to another phrase she repeated and repeated. Meret backed out the door to Katya’s outer room and when Steve came back on, she asked if Katya’s mumblings were loud enough that he was able record them.
“Yes, Meret, we get everything she mutters. Some of us speak some Russian, but none of us can identify what she says.
“How fast can you get a—”
“Already on it. A linguist will be contacting you any minute.”
No sooner had Meret clicked off, then her phone vibrated.
"Special Agent Mather? Agent Gable here. The language your suspect speaks is not Russian. It is an early dialect of Ukrainian. Agent Slusarenko, an instructor at the National War College, identified it. He will record his best translations and pass them on to Special Agent Nancy Buchanan and copy you in."
Ukrainian? Interesting. Yet the woman was dealing with Russian oligarchs. “You said an ‘early’ dialect. Do you mean as in ‘not spoken’ today? Is that why you referred to his ‘best’ translations?”
“Yes, and there's more,” Gable said. During Agent Slusarenko's conversation with Special Agent Buchanan, she said the prisoner used a seductive tone when
she said the phrases and she shared the tones and inflections your prisoner used. My associate had a female associate member of the faculty read his translations. She read each of the phrases with several variations of tone and nuance. We know the information is mission-critical. I’m smiling everything we have to date to you now. Call us anytime if you need more help."
"Excellent. Thank you, Agent Gable. I appreciate the speed of your response and the extra steps.”
The door opened and Nancy entered. “You heard from Special Agent Slusarenko?”
“Yes, Nancy, are the phrases any good for Granger? Can they help him?”
Nancy shook her head. "The three phrases Katya repeated while unconscious were phrases that would trigger a response from him rather than turn off the damage she has done. They would more likely be designed to make him do something without his free will. None of them appear to be an ‘undo' switch of a behavior she's already implanted in him."
Meret pulled in her chin and groaned. "What are the three phrases?”
“SA Slusarenko was able to determine they are part of the same phrase, ‘the word is,’ combined with one of three phrases. ‘The word is protect Katya,' the word is sleep', or ‘The word is kill Meret.' "
“Nice.” The sarcasm in her voice was nothing compared to her anger. The goddamned bitch. Meret could kill her outright. It was too bad they still needed info from her.
“Damn the woman.”
Nancy put her clipboard down and removed the large black-rimmed glasses. " We have to keep digging. We’ll continue recording her."
Meret walked up to Katya's window. "Hell and damnation. We don't have the time to wait for her dreams to align to our needs." There had to be something they could do, but what? What?
She clapped her hands to her mouth. "I’ve got an idea."
76
To Do
December, D.C. Black Site - and the word is . . .
Meret’s eureka moment came when she remembered Katya’s DNA had been found at the Aden townhouse in Yemen where Granger was held captive. The realization of her presence at Granger’s beating and interrogation gave Meret the willies. Katya had converted him into her bodyguard and an assassin. Even after they had rescued him, he could have turned on her with just a phone call from Katya. She wouldn’t have to be in his presence. All he had to hear was the phrase ‘The word is kill Meret.’ She shivered when a chill raced up her spine. God.
She reviewed her plan. It was full of deception but the translations they got from Katya should work. Her concern was for Nancy. Each step forward put more work and responsibility on therapist Dr. Nancy Buchanan who knew for certain the conditioning of Granger was deeply ingrained.
“Nancy, is it just me or does every clue we find add to our to-do list without bringing us closer to any answers?” She turned her back on Katya, who they could see sleeping through the window. “I have an idea I want to run by you. Instead of removing Granger’s conditioning, can we use propranolol hydrochloride to induce memory loss? You know, specific memory loss?”
“Are you referring to the study done at the University of Amsterdam?”
“Oh good. You know of the research. It was done with a drug you can buy over the counter. When we test our Katya phrases on Granger, can we use it to briefly block the neuron reconstruction of the memory the bitch created?”
“Sorry to interrupt,” Steve’s low voice in the ceiling interrupted. “I’m in the control booth for a meeting with the monitoring team and overheard you. Are you on to something? Is this drug part of some sort of a breakthrough in our treatment of Granger?”
Nancy folded her arms and threw a dark stare at Meret. “Hmm. Interesting. Have you been listening to us for long?”
“Yes, but you didn’t have my attention until I heard you lay claim to the possibility of inducing specific memory loss. How does it work?”
Nancy stepped back, and pointed her chin at the ceiling.
“Meret told me all we really need to do is use propranolol hydrochloride to briefly block the new neural link reconstruction of the patient’s memory of that specific memory.”
Steve sounded a bit dubious as he tried to clarify what he’d heard. “So your saying our memories are temporarily destroyed, as in lost, until, we build new neural links to restore them. How does that fit your plan?”
Nancy glanced at her cell phone.
Meret added, “Right, and That’s when we use the propranolol hydrochloride. At least that’s the slightly simplified form of the theory.”
“Doctors are trying something like that to treat PTSD.”
“They are. We feel that ability translates into several sessions with an expert therapist. In Granger’s case, that would be Dr. Nancy Buchanan.”
“I’m right here, you know.”
“I was aggrandizing your status in case it helps with the cure.”
“Ah. Well, it can’t hurt. So you believe we will be able to block the parts of his memory that controls his reaction to Katya’s ingrained phrases. Why wouldn’t it be possible to take what we heard from the recordings and electronically replace ‘kill Meret’ to ‘protect Meret,’ using Katya’s voice, tone, and rhythm.”
Meret loved working with Nancy. She was not only quick to catch on, but she took ideas to the next level without urging.
“I like it,” Nancy said. “I’ll work with our translator, Agent Slusarenko and his associate, until it sounds authentic. Having heard what Jack Strake observed watching Katya working on PSI Corps victims, I can also incorporate some of the physical clues she used.”
Steve chimed in. “I’m sure Strake came clean with us because he wants to save his own ass.”
“Agreed,” Meret said, “Jack Strake has no doubt Katya mind-fucked him into doing god knows what.”
They turned to watch Katya. “Resting as she is now, it almost makes her look innocent,” Nancy said.
Meret snorted “Not in a million years. We need to keep seeing her for what she is until we stop her slaughter of our elected officials or anyone who has something she wants. After we stop her planned Genecaust, we need to capture or eliminate the eight oligarchs and find Dr. Subash Sen and put him permanently out of business. We need, to restore Granger to the man he was. I’m sick of looking at her. I’m going to see how Debby’s efforts with Henri are going.”
* * *
Meret entered Granger’s room to find Debby sitting at one side of the bed where she could observe his sleeping face while working on her laptop. Although she wore earphones, she looked up at Meret’s arrival in time to put a finger to her lips and then point to one of the lounge chairs behind Granger’s head.
“We’ve had some good chats but Granger gets so tired after fifteen minutes or so that he can’t keep his eyes open.”
“Does he ever mention me?”
Debby tilted her head in question. “No. Is that important?”
Meret put her hand on Debby's shoulder and shook it gently. “No, no, I just wondered.”
Yes. It killed her. She thought they were in a pretty serious relationship. Then he tried to actually kill her and now it seemed he has forgotten her.
“We both know Granger’s been conditioned by Katya to think of me as the enemy. While we are working on that, I just wish we could sort it out sooner rather than later.” Not wanting to make the discussion about her, Meret switched topics. “How are you and Henri getting along?”
“Good. Wherever he is, I think he feels a bit more secure. He doesn’t come out and say it, and of course he is still edgy about Katya, but I think he is feeling better.
“Did he have anything to say that could help us?”
“He doesn’t want to come in, that is very clear.”
“Do you think it is because we have Katya here?”
“Maybe.”
“We need his help, Debby. Tell him we think we have a safe, chemical cure for Katya’s influence over him, and as soon as we have proof that it works, we can make that treatment available to
Henri.” She hesitated. “Of course, he may have a better reason to come in.”
“What?”
In a low voice so the monitors couldn’t hear, Meret said, “Is Henri the man for you?”
Debby flushed scarlet. “Maybe. Why do you ask? What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking you have some persuasive powers over him. I’m also thinking you would both benefit from being free from Katya. Can you try again to persuade him that coming to us is in his best interest as well as yours and ours?”
Debby raised her eyes, pinched her lips between prayerful fingers and whispered. “I hope I can. You are sure you can release him from Katya?” Her chin quivered and she looked up at Meret. “I’ll keep trying with Henri.”
Meret stood. “Good. How about we stretch our legs for some good coffee?”
Halfway down the hallway, Debby stopped. “Ya know, Henri did say something that got me thinking.”
“Oh? What was that?”
Although she kept her cool, Meret’s heart skipped a beat.
Please god, let it be useful.
“He mentioned he’d be off-line a few days in January on a job that could keep him in the deep dark for another week or so, but I was not to worry.”
Meret’s stomach knotted. January. Was the planned Genecaust going down in January? She took a deep breath to disguise her surging panic or excitement. It was hard to tell which. “Do you think he is performing some task for Katya?”
“Don’t know.”
With the fate of the country in balance, Debby’s casual ‘don’t know’ almost threw Meret into a frenzy. She managed a neutral response. “Debby, that’s another reason to make it clear to him he is safe here. Katya is in custody and we can keep him safe from anyone else who might be after him. It’s important that he understand that.”
“I know, I know. You made that clear before, but I can’t make him do it. It is a fat chance of him coming in. I know he won’t do it.”
Had she pushed too far? Instead of making another pitch for Henri’s help, Meret put her finger on her lips and when the elevator arrived, the two entered in silence. Meret hit the stop button and pointed to a camera in the rear corner ceiling. They turned her back to it. Meret held the phone close to her chest and tapped a text message and handed the phone to Debby, with no intention of sending it.