Lopez raised a perfectly arched eyebrow. ‘Both of us?’
‘You’re a team,’ Jarvis replied. ‘And as it’s now Lopez & Warner Inc, it would have looked odd not to have you both there.’
Ethan glanced out of the tinted windows as the limousine passed through the last of the NSA checkpoints and began heading for the cluttered skyline of Washington DC. He had last met the current President several years before when he, along with Lopez, had prevented a crazed pastor by the name of Kelvin Patterson from infecting the then senator with an alien virus that the pastor had believed was in fact the blood of angels.
Despite the remarkable nature of their encounter they had won the eternal gratitude of the senator and now, it would seem, the President’s ear.
‘If we can let him know about Majestic Twelve, about what’s been happening, about LeMay’s involvement,’ Ethan began, ‘we could really start to root out the twelve men behind everything and…’
‘That’s not going to happen, Ethan,’ Jarvis cut him off. ‘You’ll put the President in a position where he’ll not be able to trust his most senior advisors. Short of replacing his entire administration there’s no way for us to let him know of what’s happening without fatally flawing his presidency, and you’re forgetting one important thing.’
‘What’s that?’ Lopez asked.
‘The President himself might be a member of MJ–12.’
Ethan stared at Jarvis for a long moment. ‘He wouldn’t have gone down that road – he was one of the staunchest senators when it came to government transparency and the reduction of corporate influence at the Capitol. It’s what got him into power.’
‘That’s the public face of politics,’ Jarvis replied as the limousine whispered along the asphalt. ‘What happens out of the eyes of the media, behind closed doors, is another matter entirely. Right now the only people we can trust besides DIA Director Nellis are the three of us and my assistant, Hellerman, as he’s too damned Uncle Sam to even think about taking MJ–12’s coin against our country.’
‘And yet we were working for them and didn’t even know it,’ Lopez pointed out. ‘They didn’t need brain implants to have us around their little fingers. A group so closely woven into the fabric of political life in Washington can’t be unraveled overnight even if the President is on our side, because we can never know exactly who to take this to.’
Jarvis offered them a tight smile.
‘That may not be true,’ he said.
‘What do you mean?’ Ethan asked, suddenly cautious.
Jarvis leaned back in his seat and watched the suburbs of the city passing by outside beyond the tinted windows as the limousine crossed the Anacostia River on the 11th Street Bridge.
‘I had an idea.’
‘I don’t like it when that happens,’ Lopez replied.
‘It sounds like government speak for “I’ve had a dangerous idea”,’ Ethan agreed. ‘We’re only in this to stop Abrahem Nassir, not run errands for the DIA and the Pentagon.’
‘I haven’t told them about this,’ Jarvis replied. ‘Not even Director Nellis.’
Ethan stared at Jarvis in amazement. The one person who had done more than any other to resurrect the covert unit that Ethan, Lopez and Jarvis represented was now being kept out of the loop for reasons that Ethan could not fathom.
‘What’s going on, Doug?’
Jarvis took a deep breath.
‘You said it yourselves, we can’t do anything because we can’t trust a soul on Capitol Hill or down in the Pentagon. So, the only way we can get that trust is to ensure without any shadow of a doubt that we recruit people who are utterly loyal to us.’
Lopez shrugged.
‘Back to square one then as we can’t do that. We don’t know how far MJ–12’s reach extends.’
Jarvis nodded. ‘Unless the people we recruit have no choice but to help us,’ he said.
‘That’s blackmail,’ Ethan said. ‘That would make us no better than the people we’re trying to bring down.’
‘I wouldn’t use blackmail,’ Jarvis replied.
Ethan’s mind went blank as he struggled to understand what Jarvis was suggesting, but beside him Lopez gasped.
‘You want to implant people,’ she said. ‘You want to control our own people and find out what’s going on using the same tech’ that Abrahem’s been using!’
Jarvis raised his hands.
‘It’s only an idea at this stage,’ he said. ‘But it represents a technological leap in our intelligence gathering capabilities and it cannot be cast aside simply because human rights lawyers are…’
‘It’s illegal,’ Lopez snapped.
‘The subjects would be carefully selected and would not be controlled, only monitored in the same way that the criminals under The Identity Mine program are observed.’
‘Until somebody blows it wide open,’ Ethan said. ‘Another Snowden for instance, then what would we do? Can you imagine the fallout from something like that? It would make PRISM and MYSTIC look tame in comparison.’
‘But the reach we will have in pinning down MJ–12 could be unparalleled!’ Jarvis insisted. ‘The ends justify the means in this case, as the individuals we implant will know nothing of the device in their brains, just like the criminals we’re already tracking. The intelligence we’ve uncovered using The Identity Mine has solved countless law enforcement cases. With this technology we could extend that reach into counter–terrorism and in the case of MJ–12, counter corruption at the highest levels.’
Ethan shook his head.
‘And those highest levels of corruption would have no problem with murdering anybody they suspected of informing against them,’ he pointed out. ‘You’d be putting innocent lives in harm’s way and they would know nothing about it. It’s like putting a child in a blindfold and letting them walk into a lion’s cage.’
Jarvis waved Ethan’s argument aside with a waft of his hand.
‘They wouldn’t be informing, they’d be listening on our behalf without ever knowing it and what we learn would be available to us in real–time. If we thought that somebody was in danger we could prevent an attack long before MJ–12 could put it into action. And besides, the goal behind my plan was not to implant any civilians or military personnel at all.’
‘Who then?’ Lopez demanded, and then she got it.
‘LeMay,’ Ethan murmured, almost afraid to say it. ‘You want to implant the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation with an illegal monitoring device that hacks into his brain.’
Jarvis nodded, clearly aware of the magnitude of what he was proposing.
‘If you want to kill the Hydra…’
‘You can’t keep cutting off its heads because they’re replaced. You have to pierce its heart,’ Lopez replied. ‘Jeez, how would we even go about something like this? LeMay knows about what’s happening, right?’
‘Wrong,’ Jarvis replied. ‘The task force behind this is being held back by the President, remember? Nobody knows right now, because everybody wants it covered up. That means that MJ–12 may not yet have the full story, and we know that LeMay has dispatched Agents Ford and Vaughn to Hong Kong in an attempt to discover what’s going on, presumably because they’re aware of a connection to what we’re investigating. I figure that means he knows squat, at least for now, because both Vaughn and Ford are missing.’
‘They’re missing?’ Ethan asked.
‘We intercepted communications between two FBI field offices,’ Jarvis explained. ‘The two agents disappeared somewhere on the south of Hong Kong island.’
Ethan looked at Lopez, who despite her dislike of Hannah Ford could not conceal her concern.
‘Mitchell,’ she said.
‘We should have made more of an effort to warn them,’ Ethan snapped at Jarvis.
‘I did everything that I could,’ Jarvis insisted. ‘Ford wouldn’t listen to me.’
‘If both Ford and Vaughn are missing,’ Ethan added, ‘then LeMay’s main source
of information on the ground in Hong Kong is limited, unless Mitchell is working for him. LeMay might by now know about the implant technology.’
‘Either way, you’re ahead of them,’ Jarvis pointed out. ‘If we do this, we do it soon and get an implant into LeMay during the security operation around Abrahem Nassir at the White House.’
‘But the security will be tighter than ever,’ Ethan said. ‘How do we get to him and pull this off?’
‘I don’t know,’ Jarvis said, ‘but remember; LeMay is in bed with MJ–12 and as such has already betrayed his country in favor of his own pursuit of power and financial interests. He has become the enemy. What we do now, however illegal it might be, could be the difference between justice being done and our country falling into the hands of businesses obsessed with their own profits over Americans’ civil rights. This isn’t about turning our technology on our own people, it’s about using MJ–12’s own techniques against them. Now, are you in or not? If Ford and Vaughn did uncover what’s happening, joined the dots and decided to inform LeMay, then they’re likely dead. Do you want their sacrifice to be for nothing?’
Ethan and Lopez exchanged a glance and then made up their minds.
***
XXX
Hong Kong
Consciousness came slowly, drifting toward her and then receding like dark waves on a beach at night. Hannah Ford was lying on her back on something hard and she could feel her skin as cold as ice, her bones aching.
The pain reached out to her, called her in, and she opened her eyes and stared into absolute blackness. For a moment she panicked, believed that her sight had failed her, and then she heard the faint sound of a breeze among the leaves above her, saw the subtle motion of branches against tiny stars in the night sky.
Hannah groaned as she forced herself up onto her elbows, her muscles stiff and her head throbbing. She rubbed her forehead with one hand and felt her skin caked with something dry that flaked off in her fingers. She reached down for her weapon but it was gone, along with her cell phone and her identification papers.
Hannah dragged herself to her feet and realized that she was in the same clearing in the forest as when she had been attacked by Mitchell. She turned as she heard a groan of misery from her right and saw another body lying in the foliage nearby.
She scrambled across and recognized Vaughn’s stocky form and black hair as he rolled over. To her horror his face was bruised and swollen, his eyes dark slits that she could barely make out in the starlight.
‘Vaughn?’
Vaughn groaned something as she helped him sit upright and he squinted at her as his eyes widened a little.
‘What happened to you?’ he asked, his voice distorted by his swollen lips.
Hannah realized that she too must have been beaten to some degree as she could taste blood on her lips, could feel it oozing from her nose.
‘Mitchell got the jump on me,’ she said. ‘What about you?’
Vaughn shook his head to clear it, struggled to his feet.
‘I parked the car, started up here, and then somebody came up and slugged me from behind. Before I knew it I was being hammered by a lot of guys and I passed out.’
‘Did you get a look at any of them?’
Vaughn shook his head. ‘I didn’t see any faces, didn’t hear anybody speak. Mitchell must have had back up. We should have known.’
‘Forget it,’ Hannah said as they clambered to their feet and started walking through the darkened forest, seeking the way back to the road. ‘All we can hope is that they didn’t know which car we were using. Do you have the keys?’
Vaughn reached into his pocket and nodded. ‘Yeah, but my cell’s gone.’
‘Mine too,’ Hannah said. ‘Let’s just get back to the Consulate and get in touch with Director LeMay. He needs to know about what’s happened.’
Vaughn limped alongside her, and like two geriatric government agents they made their way down the hillside to the darkened road. The route was devoid of traffic at this time of night, although Hannah could not be sure of the precise time as her wrist watch had also disappeared.
‘They’ve made it out to be a robbery,’ she surmised as they hobbled through the darkness. ‘Two FBI agents overpowered by common thugs, maximum embarrassment.’
‘Mitchell’s a clever guy,’ Vaughn uttered. ‘He’s going to have been avoiding agents like us for years if he’s doing his job completely under the radar.’
‘I don’t give a damn,’ Hannah uttered. ‘What matters to me is that he was interrogating a man up there that he’d tied to a tree, and I got his name. Jin Chen.’
‘Who’s he?’
‘I don’t know, but we’ll figure that out when we get back. He confessed to Mitchell to being involved in the abduction of the NSA agents in 1997.’
Hannah looked up as Vaughn led her to a small wooded parking lot, and there saw their silver sedan still parked where he had left it. Hannah limped across as Vaughn deactivated the locking system and climbed in, Vaughn handing her the keys as he climbed stiffly into the passenger seat.
The drive back into Hong Kong was far quicker than the route out, but the city was still a dense galaxy of lights and moving traffic as they made their way back to the Consulate Building on Garden Avenue. Without papers, they had to wait at the main gates until their identities were verified to the guards, and even then when Special Agent Brad Hinkley walked out to them he was accompanied by two armed agents.
Hannah clambered wearily out of her vehicle and Hinkley hesitated as he saw her.
‘Jesus Hannah, what the hell happened?’ Hinkley turned to one of the guards before she could answer. ‘Get a medical team down here, right now!’
Hannah saw the agent hurry off and she shook her head.
‘There’s no time,’ she mumbled. ‘I need you to pull anything you can on a Chinese man by the name of Jin Chen, who worked at a British bank in the city.’
‘Jin Chen?’ Hinkley asked. ‘What’s happened?’
‘It’s a long story, okay?’ Hannah shot back. ‘Just do what I’m asking and contact the FBI Headquarters. I need to speak to Director LeMay as soon as possible.’
Hinkley looked at his watch and shook his head. ‘He won’t be available for at least an hour or two.’
‘Then wake him up!’ Hannah yelled at the Texan. ‘The Chinese are preparing for some kind of major cyber–attack, and if we don’t let home base know about it what do you think will happen?!’
Hinkley raised his hands in supplication as he whirled and dashed back toward the offices, while in the other direction walked two medics.
‘We need to debrief LeMay or at the very least get this written up,’ Vaughn said.
‘The hell with that,’ Hannah muttered as she was gently led by the arm toward the offices. ‘We need to get the hell out of Hong Kong and back to DC. Whatever’s developing here is going to break on home turf and we need to be there to…’
Hannah was cut off as suddenly four armed police dashed out of the building, their weapons raised toward Hannah and Vaughn.
‘On your knees, now!’
Hannah stared in shock as the police surrounded them, Hinkley hurrying out of the building in pursuit.
‘What the hell’s going on?’ Hannah uttered in disbelief.
Hinkley approached them cautiously. ‘You said that you lost your weapons, papers and cell phones?’
‘We were attacked,’ Hannah said as rough hands yanked her arms behind her back and cuffed her.
‘That’s not what the police are saying,’ Hinkley said. ‘Yours and Vaughn’s weapons were recovered two hours ago at the scene of a homicide in down town, that of a respected businessman by the name of Jin Chen.’
Hannah stared at Hinkley as her heart felt as though it were plummeting into freefall inside her chest. ‘Jin Chen was being tortured by Mitchell in the woods on the south of the island!’
Hinkley stared apologetically at her.
‘Local police uncovered pl
yers with your fingerprints on them,’ he explained. ‘The bullets in Jin Chen’s body have already been matched to your gun, Hannah. The police are requesting that you be detained in Kowloon until further notice.’
‘You’ve got to be kidding me? I saw Mitchell torturing Jin Chen. He was involved in the abduction of the NSA agents in 1997! Mitchell got it out of him!’
The police yanked her aside as Hinkley replied.
‘They’re saying that you must have done this,’ he replied. ‘Nobody knows anything about anybody named Mitchell.’
‘Aaron James Mitchell!’ Hannah shouted. ‘You need to locate him to corroborate what we’re saying.’
Hinkley looked at Vaughn. ‘Did you see this Mitchell?’
Vaughn stared at Hinkley for a long moment. ‘No, I didn’t. I was attacked before I made it to Agent Ford’s location.’
‘Can you identify the people that attacked you?’ Hinkley asked him.
‘No, but it’s likely that they were the ones who also attacked Hannah. This is a set up, Hinkley. If the Chinese or Mitchell is behind it then they’re trying to prevent us from getting back to the states.’
Hinkley nodded.
‘I’ll do what I can.’ he promised. ‘We’ll get on top of this, okay?’
‘You’ll do what you can?!’ Hannah screeched. ‘Get us the hell out of the country!’
Hinkley managed not to shout back at her as he sucked in a deep breath and turned to the police.
‘This is the sovereign territory of the United States of America, gentlemen, and I cannot allow my people to be treated in this manner.’
The police sergeant confronted Hinkley. ‘These people are wanted for murder, Agent Hinkley! What do you think will happen to our countrys’ international relations if they are allowed to leave?’
‘They’ll survive,’ Hinkley snapped. ‘Release them or I’ll have you and your men detained here until this is all cleared up.’
The Identity Mine (Warner & Lopez Book 3) Page 19