McCann dragged his hand down over his face, wrapping his fingers around his chin. Ellison had seen this move from the colonel before—not often, but enough to read the signs. McCann was stalling; wrestling with his own thoughts.
Finally, when he looked up at Ellison, he was decided. “And why do you believe Agent Hayden is the man responsible for these murders?”
Ellison hesitated again. This part of his story was going to prove more difficult. Ellison had ordered the covert surveillance of a CIA operative, and he had done so without the colonel’s permission. Going over McCann’s head was inexcusable. Still, Ellison had gotten this far, and the colonel was still on his side. He would have to see how the ends justified the means.
Ellison drew in his breath and answered, “Sir, Agent Hayden was AWOL from this base between the hours of 1500 yesterday and 0700 this morning. I think it’s safe to assume he was in Philadelphia, perpetrating these—.”
“You have someone keeping tabs on me, Major?” Hayden’s lip curled up, and if Ellison didn’t know any better, he would have thought the man was actually amused at the revelation.
McCann shook his head. “And did you share your suspicions regarding Agent Hayden with the men in the command center?”
“No, sir. And I classified their search.”
“Good. That’s something, at least.” McCann was nodding slowly now. For a long moment, no one spoke.
Finally Ellison started again, his voice as crisp and confident as ever. “Sir, I know it’s not much to go on, but I truly believe—”
McCann raised his hand, stopping Ellison mid-sentence. “No, Major, I know Agent Hayden killed those women.” Then McCann fixed his eyes on Ellison, and there was a flash of anger. “Christ, Stuart, who do you think gave the order?”
Ellison stood frozen. The words stabbed through him. He knew what they meant—the colonel left no room for doubt—but for the moment, the truth of it all didn’t matter. Ellison couldn’t accept it. He wasn’t ready for a world where Andrew McCann could sanction the murder of Americans. So instead Ellison stood at rigid attention, a perfect statue of military form, and he waited.
McCann spoke again, and his voice was low. “The hardest part of any command, Stuart, is that you must divorce yourself from the small picture. In command it is always—always—about the greater good.”
“And how did killing two women serve the greater good, sir?” Ellison spoke quickly, without thinking, and his voice was far more bitter than he intended.
“Stuart, I need you to understand what I did—the decision I made. You and I both know the Red Moon would have found those two eventually, and if not the Red Moon, it would’ve been someone else. They would’ve tortured them both for information—”
“They didn’t have any information.” Ellison looked sharply away from McCann, staring instead at the far wall of the empty room. He was angry, and he wanted to hold on to that anger, but he also heard the truth behind McCann’s words. He could start to see the “greater good” for himself.
McCann looked down at the floor. “They both knew enough. They knew what our faces looked like and they knew our names. Maybe they couldn’t point us out on a map, but they would’ve been breadcrumbs on the trail. You know that, Stuart.”
Ellison still looked away, but he could feel himself nodding at the colonel’s words.
McCann continued. “So I made a decision. I sacrificed two lives to save…what? Hundreds of men and women on this base? Thousands if you consider what we’re working for? It was a terrible decision—one I have to live with, and one I would make again. Such is the burden of leadership.”
Ellison nodded again. “Yes, sir.”
Then the tenor in McCann’s voice rose; his apology, such as it was, was over. “I told you before, Stuart, that as my EX-O you need to know everything I know. I kept this from you, and it was a mistake. I had hoped to spare you from the truth out of fondness, I suppose, and for the sake of our friendship. I see now I was wrong to hide it.” McCann placed his hand down on Ellison’s shoulder. “But I wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, was I, Major?”
Ellison answered, “No, sir.”
“It’s time for the truth to come to light. No more secrets now. I want you to give me the name of the man you have watching Agent Hayden.”
Ellison’s face twisted. For a second, he couldn’t follow what was happening. Why would they want to know the man’s name?
Then McCann added, his voice low. “Sacrifices for the greater good, Major.”
*****
Ellison stood up quickly from the table, pushing the chair back as he rose. He looked over at the clock. It was almost three in the morning.
He looked down at the table. The glass of tap water was just about empty. He picked it up and finished it off. Then he looked over at the legal pad. He turned it around again; now Hayden’s name was back on top.
Ellison knew Colonel McCann as well as he knew anyone. He served under the man. He knew how his mind worked. He understood what the colonel was capable of—how far he was willing to go. Killing the two women back in Philadelphia was the right decision—Ellison could see that now—but he also knew something else. That order never came from McCann. The colonel didn’t have it in him.
Hayden, on the other hand… Hayden was the unknown. He was CIA. He was the relic from the past—a reminder of another time when Fort Blaney was run by Langley. He was the forgotten man left behind to serve as their liaison. He didn’t matter, because Colonel McCann was given command. McCann was in charge. That was always Ellison’s assumption. Now he knew he was wrong. Hayden and McCann were equals.
That was the knot. Ellison traced his finger back and forth over the heavy ink line connecting the two names. Hayden was linked to McCann. If Ellison hurt the one, the other would have to suffer, and that was unacceptable. It was like Hayden was a cancer infecting the colonel.
And then, suddenly, Ellison saw it. The answer was on the page, staring back at him. What do you do with a cancer? You cut it out. Ellison picked up the pen from the table and drew a line across the thicker bar connecting the two names.
Then he understood, and it all seemed so simple. The CIA, Rhea Labs, Fort Blaney, Colonel McCann—they were all connected by the same thing: the Anoms. They were all invested in making that joint venture a success. But what if it failed…
Ellison whispered to himself, “No more Hayden.”
Chapter 16
Hayden leaned back in his chair in the corner of his hotel room, a half-smoked cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth. He had been there for the better part of an hour, reading from the Bible left behind in the nightstand drawer. Hayden, himself, was not a man of faith—any faith, really—but he was intrigued by those who were, fascinated by the simplicity of it all.
He peeled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ash into the corner. He was bored now. There was a TV just to his left, sitting on top of the low dresser in front of the bed. He could have turned it on, found something to watch to pass the time, but he hated the noise. Instead, Hayden put the Bible down on the table, stood up, and walked over to the window.
It was quiet here. That was one of the things he liked best. He took the room at the Morgantown Inn the day he arrived. He gave no name and left very specific instructions: fresh linens and towels were to be left outside his door once a week. He would remove the trash himself and leave it for them in the hallway. No one was to enter his room. Ever.
The manager of the motel had been hesitant to agree at first, but when Hayden paid for the first month in advance, in cash, things changed. They were grateful for the steady flow of income, and that insured their compliance. Even so, Hayden had put a camera in the room and his own locks on the door as insurance. He told the manager as much.
Now he stood at the window, looking out at the river. During the day, the Monongahela was visible through a thin strand of trees just on the other side of the motel parking lot, but now, at this hour, all he cou
ld see was an inky blackness and the lighter gray shadows of the latticed branches. The only light outside came from the amber glow of streetlights stationed around the parking lot.
Inside, of course, it wasn’t much brighter. Hayden turned back to look at the room. It was sparse at best. Bed, dresser, table, chair, lamp, nightstand, and TV—none of it was nice. The furniture was either chipped, scratched, or broken. The TV offered basic cable—sometimes—and the bed was more spring than mattress.
It didn’t matter. Hayden didn’t reserve the room to sleep in. He just needed the space. It served as his own private staging area away from the prying eyes on base. Still, there were benefits: the peace it afforded—the solitude.
Hayden closed his eyes, and for a minute he was alone with only his thoughts, and it was perfect. Then the alarm on his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. He opened his eyes, pulled out the phone, and looked down at the time. Quarter ‘til two. Time to go.
Hayden picked up his gray suit jacket from the back of the chair and pulled it on. He walked for the door. Just inside the room, on the left, his camel-hair overcoat hung in a small alcove. Hayden took down the coat and slipped it on, pulling the lapels tight around his body. He looked back at the mirror, straightened his tie, and walked out.
Outside of the hotel, standing in the parking lot, the air was cold and thin. Hayden could see his breath. He flipped up the collar of his overcoat and started up the street. The road was empty here, and all around him the night felt still. It was quiet. Peaceful.
Hayden came to the first intersection. It was another abandoned street, as if the whole city were dead. He crossed quickly and started up the next block. He was looking down now at his feet, trying to keep his eyes out of the wind.
At the next corner he turned left, and then, suddenly, there was life again. From opposite sides of the street, two bars were emptying out onto the sidewalks. A dozen paces ahead he could see a crowd of college students, half-drunk and some more than half-drunk, milling around each other, talking, laughing, and waiting for the cars to come and take them back to campus.
Hayden smirked, his upper lip curling over his crooked tooth. This next part was always simple, and a college town meant there was never a lack of targets.
He pulled his coat tighter around his body, holding it up by his throat, as he walked toward the crowd. Hayden had learned over the years how to stay hidden even in plain sight. The uneven gait and lowered eyes—even with the expensive coat he seemed a perfect combination of drunk, sick, and poor. Not crazy enough to be dangerous, but enough of an outcast to be avoided.
As he reached the crowd standing in front of the bar, it was almost comical to see the sorority girls turn their backs and edge out of his way, pretending to talk to a friend in order to ignore the vagrant. Hayden lowered his hand from his throat to his side. He had picked his mark. She was a young blonde halfway through the crowd, her eyes half-closed from the alcohol and her oversized purse hanging off the back of her shoulder.
Hayden staggered intentionally to his right. He would walk right past her now, almost brushing against her shoulder. He reached out with his hand. For a second it looked as if he was ready to snatch the purse off the girl’s shoulder, but then, just as he was about to grab the bag, his hand seemed to fade into nothing. It flickered translucent, like a wisp of fog in front of a flashlight, and his whole hand passed through the side of the bag.
Hayden kept walking, his eyes fixed on the ground, and with his next step, his faded hand appeared again, passing through the other side of the girl’s purse, only now he held a bright-pink cell phone. He tucked his hand and the phone into his coat pocket and kept walking, still staggering. At the corner he turned left, and then Hayden was alone again on an empty street.
He pulled out the girl’s phone from his pocket and looked down at the screen. From his other pocket he fished out a small cable and plugged it into the port at the bottom of the phone. Then he pulled out his own phone from his coat pocket, flipped it over, and plugged in the other end of the cable.
Hayden pressed the home button on the girl’s phone. For a second the lock screen appeared, some black and white picture of the blonde kissing a whisker-faced frat guy on the cheek, but then it pixelated into gray and green static, and just like that, her phone was unlocked. Hayden brought up the number pad and started dialing. He had the number memorized—he had to. The phone rang twice, and then a connection. Suddenly the receiver came alive with a series of tones, whirrs, and beeps, like an old dial-up modem. In the stillness of the night, the electronic sounds seemed piercing. Hayden covered the speaker with the heel of his hand, trapping the noise inside. It didn’t last long. After a couple of seconds, the connection went dead.
Hayden could appreciate the need for caution, even if some of the security felt excessive. A one-time phone call to Chicago from a random cell phone stolen in West Virginia meant there was no reason to run a trace. An encrypted audio pulse meant that even if the call were intercepted it would take a week to crack the code without the cypher program, and by then it would be too late.
Hayden looked at his own phone now. He tapped open the cypher program and read the message: Pegasus X0415. It was the time and location of tonight’s dead drop. Pegasus was the place, one of 16 locations in the city he had memorized prior to deployment. The “X” preceding the number meant the drop was scheduled for two hours before 4:15 a.m. In other words, he had to walk four blocks in ten minutes. Hayden unplugged the girl’s phone and tossed it into the street. He kept walking.
Seven minutes later, he made a right turn and he could see the building they referred to as Pegasus. It was old, brick, and empty. At one point it was used by the city waterworks—at least that’s what he’d gathered from the handful of letters hanging on the front wall and the discolored bricks left behind where other letters were missing.
It was the perfect choice for a dead drop. To the left, far down the street, Hayden could see the fluorescent lighting of the city bus terminal. Then, on the other side of the building, off to the right, there was an entrance to a walking trail along the bank of the river. It gave someone just enough reason to be in the area without causing suspicion.
Hayden walked down to the building and up the concrete steps. He lifted the corner of the heavy mat in front of the door and found the manila envelope underneath. He slipped the package inside his coat and started up the walking trail along the river.
The trail was dark—not meant to be walked at night—but it was perfect for what came next. Hayden retrieved the envelope from his coat and opened it. He reached inside and pulled out a small igniter—standard issue for these kinds of drops. Five minutes after the drop and it would spark, and then the whole message, envelope and all, would be gone forever in a brilliant blaze of light. Hayden threw the igniter toward the river and kept walking.
He pulled the sheet of paper from the envelope, and looked down at it. Here, in the shadows, it was too dark to read. He took out his phone and turned on the flashlight, scanning his eyes over the document. It was a change of orders.
The message read:
PRIORITY 1
ASSET CODE NAME: GHOST
STATUS: ACTIVE
MISSION OBJECTIVE(s): Updated
OBJECTIVE 1: Establish connection and timeline between ASSET CODE NAME: G-FORCE and ASSET: DR. JONATHAN FAIRBANKS.
RELEVANT BACKGROUND: Direct descendent DNA match confirmed between ASSET: DR. JONATHAN FAIRBANKS and ASSET CODE NAME: G-FORCE. ASSET: DR. JONATHAN FAIRBANKS currently designated—MISSING.
RESOURCES: ASSET CODE NAME: SQUID and ASSET CODE NAME: HEATSINK redeployed to FORT BLANEY. ASSET CODE NAME: GHOST in command.
Hayden could fill in most of the blanks for himself. Apparently, the new recruit at Blaney was the son of a target already on their radar, this John Fairbanks. Fairbanks went missing, and now they wanted Hayden to use the son to find the father. The only real question was why?
Hayden repeated the name in a whisper to hi
mself. “Fairbanks. Fairbanks.” That kind of information didn’t go in his phone, or anywhere else for that matter. He would have to remember the name and look it up later from the archives on the base.
The last part of the message, the lines about Squid and Heatsink being deployed to Blaney, was the only real disappointment. He preferred working alone, but it wasn’t his call. He had worked with Squid before. He remembered the man as arrogant, efficient, and borderline sadistic. Heatsink he only knew by reputation, but that reputation was the same as Squid’s, and in their line of work, reputations were earned for a reason. Hayden pulled out a cigarette and lit the end. At least he would be the one in charge. That counted for something.
He put the letter back in the envelope, and took a deep drag on his cigarette. The embers flared bright orange.
He looked down at the envelope and whispered the name again, “Fairbanks.”
Then he took the cigarette from his mouth and touched the end to the paper. For a second, the air was lit in brilliant white light and Hayden had to close his eyes. Then, as fast as it started, it was all gone. The darkness returned, and it was like the envelope and the paper inside never existed. There wasn’t even ash to blow away. Hayden put the cigarette back in his mouth and kept walking.
*****
Deron Mandel hated the cold—always had. He was born in Chula Vista, California, just south of San Diego. He spent his whole life there, and if the temperature ever dropped below sixty for more than a day, his neighbors would start talking about a cold snap. So, when he signed up for the Army five years ago, Mandel was picturing jungles and deserts, not the frozen tundra of West Virginia.
Mandel stood fifty yards back from the southwest corner of the perimeter fence, waiting. He had been tasked with watching Agent Hayden a little over a week ago, and certain things about the assignment had become routine. Like where Hayden came and went from the base—always this same corner. Mandel wasn’t sure how or why. He had walked the fence line for himself days ago, and there were no breaches—nothing remarkable about the southwest corner—nevertheless, this was the spot.
ANOM: Awakening (The ANOM Series Book 1) Page 17