The first was his father’s death of chronic heart disease. The ailment, the result of years of smoking after the war, had afflicted his body during Aaron’s last years with him, but the sudden loss of his father was a terrible blow to the young soldier, who once again returned to the battlefield because there was nothing left for him anywhere else on earth. There Aaron witnessed the sheer terror of battle, the fear of ambush, the brutal nature of the jungle and all of its attendant dangers.
Aaron had returned after his second tour to the United States, taking up a role as an instructor. For two years he had trained young men to take to the field against the enemy and watched them return in boxes, if at all. For two years he had wrestled with psychological demons, the nightmares and the self–enforced solitude, the images of those terrible jungles that infected his scarred and broken mind. Throughout that time he had believed that he may never recover the self that was Aaron James Mitchell, so brutalised was he by the terrors he had witnessed. Diagnosed with what was then termed “shell–shock”, Aaron had been honorably discharged from the Corps in the midst of the public backlash against the Vietnam campaign. Unable to find work or even a home, like so many formerly decent soldiers he had become a vagrant, abandoned by the country he had fought for.
A year later, while scratching a meagre existence on Washington DC’s hard streets, he had been approached by a man from the Pentagon who had taken him into a hostel down Rock Creek way, cleaned him up and provided him with food and shelter. Aaron, too weary to care why anybody would provide for him without asking anything in return, accepted the assistance. There were others in the hostel, all former soldiers with nowhere to go. After a few days of leisure, about half of them were gathered into a room and informed of why they were there.
Aaron had listened with interest to the hour–long lecture, during which a suit from the Pentagon informed them that they were being recruited into a covert unit. They were free to leave if they did not wish to serve, and that their service would be neither strictly military or government but somewhere between the two. There would be no medals, no public recognition, nothing other than a cause and a career.
Half of the men in the room left afterward to once again take their chances on the streets, too embittered by their abandonment by both government and the people to even consider serving once again. Aaron had looked out at those streets and realized that there was nothing and nobody out there for him. At least here he had a cause, something to work for. And work he had for thirty years, until he had reached a sufficient level of trust and superiority to discover that the Pentagon knew nothing of what he did and nor did the administration. Aaron James Mitchell worked for Majestic Twelve.
‘You’re late.’
The voice broke Aaron from his reverie and he looked to his right to see an old man join him from another path. The man was shorter than Aaron, aged now by the passing of so many years, but still recognizable as the suit who had first lectured Aaron and his fellow vagrants thirty years before.
‘Past caring,’ Aaron replied as they strolled.
Victor Wilms looked up at Aaron through rheumy eyes. ‘Finally reached the limit,’ he said calmly. ‘It happens to everybody, Aaron. I’m surprised you’ve lasted this long.’
‘You doubted me?’ Aaron asked.
‘Not at all,’ Victor replied. ‘I figured that at some point you would lose patience and execute every one of us! You know that you’re the last man standing, don’t you, from that class?’
‘No, I did not.’
‘They’re all long gone, Aaron. Some quit, some got injured and were relieved of duty, some were killed and the rest vanished in various God–forsaken corners of the globe, never to be seen again.’
‘I’ll count myself lucky.’
‘I’d count yourself good at what you do,’ Victor snapped. ‘You got your ass kicked for the first time in thirty years. It’s not like you quit.’
‘I thought that I would be replaced.’
Victor smiled and shook his head. ‘MJ–12 prefers trusted operatives to fresher faces. You’re too valuable and still an effective agent. Trust me, they’re more than happy with your work over the years.’
‘And who is it that I work for?’
‘You know better than to ask me that, Aaron.’
Aaron stopped on the path alongside the reservoir, the smooth water perfectly reflecting the blue sky and drifting clouds.
‘I’ve dedicated thirty years of my life to MJ–12, never once questioned my role or the things I’ve been asked to do. I’ve taken many lives on the orders of men I’ve never met, and now it may cost me my life to continue to do so. I want to know whether it’s worth it.’
Victor stood before him, his hands in the pockets of his jacket as he directed a stony gaze at his former protégé.
‘You want to know whether it’s worth it?’ he echoed. ‘What’s brought all of this on, Aaron? I know damned well that it’s not the fear of death, you’ve faced far worse, and a couple of broken ribs isn’t it either.’
Aaron glanced out over the nearby water. ‘Stanley Meyer.’
‘Meyer?’ Victor echoed as though shocked. ‘You’re getting cold feet about the man that could have destroyed this country’s entire economy? Jeez, Aaron, and there was me thinking that this was serious.’
Aaron’s own gaze was no less chilling and Victor’s off–handed humor shrivelled.
‘It’s serious to me.’
Victor averted his gaze and gathered himself. ‘The man was a fool Aaron, to think that he could somehow put the entire globe before himself, render our entire fossil fuel industry irrelevant overnight. Your disposal of Meyer cleared the way for a stable economy and re–levelled the balance of power back to where it should be.’
‘Did it?’ Aaron challenged. ‘What Meyer had there, what he could have done would have ended the wars in the Middle East and removed Russia’s choke–hold on the gas supply to Europe. It would have ended climate change and brought in a new era of power generation that would have broken up the big fossil fuel companies and levelled that playing field and yet we killed him, stole the technology and buried it.’
Victor took a pace toward Aaron.
‘Yes, we did,’ he snapped. ‘Because there are too many people making too much money from those Middle East wars, too much money from fossil fuels, too much leverage from Russia’s control of gas. Majestic Twelve is the industrial–military complex, Aaron, you know that and you’re employed to protect them. That’s what you do, it’s what you signed up for and you’re in far too deep now to just suddenly get a conscience and walk away.’
Aaron glowered down at his former mentor.
‘When I become too old for this job, what happens then?’
Victor smiled. ‘You become like me, Aaron. You continue to serve in a less physical role but you remain a part of MJ–12. It’s like a family, Aaron, we look after our own.’
‘So does the Mob.’
Victor’s smile turned cold. ‘If you walk away, Aaron, they’ll hunt you down like a dog.’
‘Some family.’
‘I pulled you off the streets,’ Victor snapped. ‘Gave you a life again, gave you something to believe in!’
‘You lied,’ Aaron reminded him. ‘You told us that we’d be working for the Pentagon, remember?’
‘You do work for the Pentagon, for the administration, for the people and the country in their name. But they don’t own America any more than the administration does. Industry owns America. The Presidents of the United States live in the White House because people like MJ–12 finance their political campaigns. We live in the glory of a free–market capitalist economy, and that’s made MJ–12 not just bigger than government: they own it. The United States of America is a business, Aaron, just like any other. MJ–12 decides who does what, when, how and why, and what you, me or anybody else thinks isn’t worth crap.’ Victor took a breath and smiled at his own ingenuity. ‘You work for the people in a way that can never
be publicly admitted but you’re performing a public service Aaron, one that is essential to the continued dominance of America’s interests.’
‘Business interests.’
Victor sighed. ‘Are you saying that you want out, Aaron?’
Aaron shook his head slowly. ‘No, not at all.’
‘Then what’s this all about?’
‘I just needed to know where I stand.’
‘Well, now you do.’
‘Where can I find Ethan Warner?’
Victor smiled. ‘Ah, so you wish to exact revenge for your hurt pride?’
‘I wish to finish the job,’ Aaron growled. ‘Where is he?’
‘He caught a flight to Iraq two hours ago,’ Victor replied. ‘He’s back on the DIA payroll and he’s after something that I want you to find and bring back to America for me.’
Victor produced a file, which Aaron took and briefly leafed through. He saw a series of images of metallic, splinter–like objects an inch long, marked as “cerebral implants”, and the names of four National Security Agency operatives who had vanished in Kowloon some twenty years before. Beside their images were two words: Mind control. He looked up at Victor in surprise.
‘The killings at Fort Benning?’
‘Indeed,’ Victor said. ‘Our Islamic terrorist friends suddenly got all sophisticated. I don’t need to remind you of how important it is that they should not be able to deploy this technology on US soil again. Recover it and bring it home.’
Aaron closed the file and slid it beneath his jacket. ‘Warner has a head start in Iraq.’
‘You’re not going to Iraq,’ the man said. ‘You’re going to Hong Kong to look for a man named Jin Chen. You’ll be briefed on the way.’
‘I want Warner,’ Aaron growled.
‘You’ll get him in good time, my friend,’ Victor said with a smile that held no warmth, ‘Let Warner and the DIA track down the terrorists while you track down the technology, and this time you really are working for the security and benefit of the United States.’
***
XVIII
Basra International Airport,
Iraq
‘Been a while since I’ve been here,’ Ethan said.
The Arab Emirates connecting flight from Dubai had landed a few minutes earlier but the airport terminal was virtually silent as he walked with Lopez toward the exits, few international flights moving into and out of the country in the face of near–constant uprisings by Islamic State terrorists and other insurgent tribal groups vying for power and influence.
‘I don’t think much of our chances of hunting any of these people down,’ Lopez replied as they stepped out into the blistering heat outside the terminal, her hair hidden by a native hijab to avoid offending the more religiously sensitive Muslims. ‘The country’s in chaos as much now as it was a decade ago. They could be anywhere, maybe even dead.’
Ethan nodded in agreement.
‘Maybe,’ he said, ‘but they worked for our military and it’s my guess they’ll stay close to what they know.’
Before they had left on the flight to Iraq, Jarvis had provided them with documents taken from Heinrich Muller’s office detailing a number of junior doctors and surgeons who had worked alongside the doctor during his tenure in Iraq.
‘If the implant in General Thompson is the work of Islamic State or a similar organization, most of the people connected to it will likely have been executed,’ Lopez said.
Ethan heard his cell phone ring and answered it, switching to speaker phone as they waited beneath the searing sun for a cab.
‘Ethan, it’s Doug,’ Jarvis spoke to them both, ‘there’s been a new development while you were travelling and we may know the origin of the device we found in General Thompson’s brain.’
‘Go ahead,’ Ethan said. ‘We could do with some leads.’
‘The urgency of the mission has opened up some new channels through the Pentagon, and we’ve had reports that these devices were something being worked upon by the National Security Agency some twenty years ago, operating out of a safe house in Hong Kong.’
‘You mean these things are ours?’ Lopez asked in horror.
‘The technology may have been developed by NSA experts,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘But four of them went missing in Kowloon shortly before Hong Kong was handed back to the Chinese by the British, who had occupied and governed the city for some two hundred years. The technology was too sensitive for the NSA to dispatch military forces to recover it, and the four men were never seen again.’
‘The Chinese,’ Ethan murmured, ‘but how would they have come to be in Iraq?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jarvis admitted, ‘but if they grabbed the NSA’s technology in 1997 and started work on it, who knows what they could have developed in the time since?’
‘We’ll keep it in mind,’ Ethan replied. ‘We’re on our way to Basra’s hospital. I’ll check in as soon as we know anything more.’
A battered taxi cab awaited them outside the terminal, coated in dust and with faded paintwork blasted by the desert sun. Ethan tossed his bag alongside Lopez’s inside the trunk and got in as the driver smiled and greeted them enthusiastically.
Known as the Venice of the East, Basra was situated on the Shatt–Al–Arab waterway which flowed into the nearby Persian Gulf. Canals and streams intersected the city and were used for irrigation purposes, giving the city its comparison to Venice, but pollution and falling water levels had stripped most vessels of the ability to navigate the canals, further hindering the city’s progress in the wake of the American occupation. The cab pulled away toward the city as Ethan went on.
‘What we really need is a direct lead on this Abrahem that Muller mentioned,’ he said.
‘It might not be his real name,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘He might even be a she, or maybe they got into all of this more recently and haven’t yet committed a crime.’
Ethan used the door handle to wind down the window and let the breeze into the hot interior of the car.
‘It’s not going to be easy and this place is lethal. Basra’s under threat from Islamic State and what law enforcement exists won’t have much left in the way of records after so many years of war.’
Lopez could not add much as the taxi drove them through Basra’s city center, the site of so much conflict and suffering over endless decades of Saddam Hussein’s iron rule and then repeated wars and bombings by both the American military and now militant groups vying for control. Despite the harsh conditions endured by Basra a rebuilding program was underway, largely initiated by the British and American forces stationed at Basra during the conflict, and Ethan could see that in places Basra looked something like it once had before the wars.
Al–Faihaa General Hospital was located in the north west of the city just a few kilometres from the airport. A low, wide white building with a horizontal blue stripe running the length of its first–storey windows, the parking lot outside was virtually empty as Ethan climbed out of the cab with Lopez and they walked inside.
The interior of the hospital was quiet with only a few staff walking around and many of the wards empty of patients. Ethan walked toward the reception desk, grateful that so many of the hospital’s signs were written in both English and Arabic, and spoke to a woman sitting behind the main desk. Within a few minutes, a handsome man in a gray suit and blue shirt walked out to greet them.
‘Mister Warner, I’m Doctor Alin Darwish.’ Darwish’s English was heavily weighted with a British accent. ‘Oxford,’ he explained as he noted Ethan’s reaction.
‘Thanks for meeting with us,’ Ethan said. ‘Is there somewhere we can talk in private?’
Darwish led them into a sparse office and closed the door behind them.
‘We’re looking for anybody at the hospital who might have worked with this man,’ Ethan said as he handed Darwish a photograph.
‘Doctor Muller?’ he asked, recognizing the face immediately. ‘He worked here for many years and for the military
contingent at the airport. He is an excellent doctor.’
‘You worked with him?’ Lopez asked.
‘I was an intern then,’ Darwish explained. ‘The war gave us opportunity to learn fast, sadly. Most of the doctors have long since left Iraq because of the violence and oppression suffered here since the British forces went home.’
‘Why do you stay?’
‘Because this is my home,’ Darwish replied to her. ‘Would you leave America if war came to your door?’
‘No,’ Lopez admitted.
‘People here need my care and that of my colleagues. However, I thought that Muller also returned to America some years ago?’
‘Germany,’ Ethan corrected the doctor. ‘It was there that we’ve learned he was working for militant groups.’
‘Muller?’ Darwish asked in horror. ‘But he was one of the most generous doctors we ever had. He saved lives when we no longer had sufficient resources to do it ourselves, became something of a hero to the younger nurses and doctors working here, including myself. I don’t believe that he willingly colluded with militants – he hated them.’
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 11