by Sean Ellis
Mira let the request drop and resignedly returned to the helicopter. She was finally free of Atlas, free of the prison that had held her for uncountable weeks. So why did she still feel like a captive?
When the helicopter lifted off again, just fifteen minutes later, she resumed her catnap. She wasn’t sleeping because she was particularly tired, and certainly not because she felt secure in her new environment. She slept because there was nothing else to do.
She had no illusions about being rescued. The SEALs had been there for the Trinity; they had no idea that she would be there, and if she hadn’t broken out on her own, her corpse would be moldering in the ruins of the compound right now. That meant she was something of a hot potato, and until the Navy figured out what to do with her, she would be consigned to limbo. It was conceivable that they might decide to “disappear” her—arrange some deluxe accommodations at Gitmo, or maybe just a tidy burial at sea—but given her knowledge of the Trinity, it was more much likely that they’d simply make her an unwilling volunteer—a prisoner once more.
She didn’t need anyone to rouse her when the helicopter arrived at its final destination. Whether it was the spike in the activity level of the crew and passengers, or the thump of the wheels hitting the tarmac, she came fully awake before the turbines started winding down. Outside, there were mountains and buildings in the distance, and closer, she could distinguish the outline of an air traffic control tower. They were at an airfield, though she didn’t see any planes coming or going. The sky above was a beautiful hue of violet, lighter in the east where the sun prepared to burst into view, but before that could happen, the SEALs urged her into a waiting van, which ferried them off the flight line and deposited them all at a small, nondescript terminal building. It occurred to Mira that she hadn’t seen a sunrise in what seemed like forever, and now it seemed her saviors were going to deprive her of yet one more.
Play along, she thought. Bide your time. Be patient and an opportunity will present itself.
As soon as she entered the conference room, she wondered if maybe she should have made a break for it out on the tarmac.
There was only one person in the room, perched casually on the edge of the long table, patiently waiting for them, but he wore a U.S. Navy service khaki uniform with a rack of brightly colored ribbons above his left chest pocket, a black plastic nameplate that read “PENTECOST” over the right, and two stars on his collar points. Mira had dealt with a lot military officers in the past, and knew all too well that the guys occupying the highest rungs of the ladder rarely considered the opinions of anyone below them. It wouldn’t matter what Booker or Collier said in her defense; Admiral Pentecost might not even ask for their input before sending her straight to the brig, and they wouldn’t dare gainsay him.
The admiral regarded her with a faintly annoyed expression, then turned his attention fully to Collier. He strode forward clapped the junior officer on the shoulder. “Eric, glad you made it out of there. Honestly, I can’t tell whether this is a win or not.”
“We lost seven good men.” Collier answered in a perfunctory manner, and that surprised Mira because she had expected a little more emotion from him. “Including Chief Ball. But their sacrifice was not in vain. Del, why don’t you show him?”
Without turning, he gestured for Booker, who was standing with Mira just inside the doorway, to come forward. Though Booker still towered above her, he seemed smaller now, as if intentionally trying to disappear from view, but he resolutely strode forward and laid his assault bag on the table where the admiral had been sitting a moment before. He unzipped the main pouch and shook it gently until the object inside slid out and clattered onto the flat surface.
Pentecost started to reach for it, but stopped short, with his fingers hovering just above one of the hexagonal crystals. He seemed poised to inquire about whether the object was safe to touch, but then simply drew back his hand.
“A win then,” he said finally. “At least something went right. I’m still trying to make sense of the tech failures we had on this one. First, the damn precision guided bomb missed the target…which I guess was probably a good thing, since otherwise we wouldn’t have this.” He nodded toward the Trinity. “And then there’s what happened with the helicopter.”
Mira had no idea what the admiral was talking about, but it was clear that he was probing his junior officer, trying to elicit a response without directly asking the questions that he evidently didn’t even know how to put into words.
“Yes,” Collier answered, without the least hint of discomfort. “I did that. I pushed the bomb off course to save the Trinity—and Del and Ms. Raiden, as well—and I took control of the helicopter when the pilot refused to go back for them.”
Pentecost was visibly nonplussed. “You…‘took control’?”
Collier waved a hand. The dismissive gesture was not lost on the admiral who stiffened, righteous indignation flaring behind his eyes, but Collier either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “It doesn’t matter. There’s much to be done and we need to get moving.”
“Captain, do I need to remind you who you’re talking to?”
Collier’s only response was to arch one eyebrow in an almost perfect, and surely subconscious, imitation of Mr. Spock. The room seemed to crackle with nervous tension, and Mira realized this was the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
She cleared her throat, just barely loud enough to be heard. “I don’t think you need me here for this,” she said in her best approximation of an obsequious manner, and then turned for the door before anyone could think to contradict her.
She wasn’t quite fast enough. As her hand closed on the doorknob, she heard Collier’s voice. “Wait a moment, Ms. Raiden. This concerns you.”
She had already decided that she was going to keep walking, but the doorknob refused to turn; the door was locked.
Pentecost, still sounding a bit put out, was quick to add his weighty opinion. “Actually, I’d like to know more about what you were doing there, Miss…Raiden, was it? I’m told you were a prisoner?”
Mira contemplated the doorknob that had defeated her, reluctant to turn around. It was an interior door; there was no bolt, not even a privacy-type lock mechanism. What the hell? But the problem of the unyielding door was no longer chief among her concerns.
“Yes, that’s right. I was held against my will for several weeks. She turned slowly to face the admiral, meeting his steady gaze. “I’m an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency. You can contact Langley if you want to check my bona fides. Deputy Director Carlson of the Special Activities Division would be the person you’d want to ask for.”
Without even realizing it, Mira took a breath and held it. Admitting her affiliation with the Company was by no means a get-out-of-jail-free card. For starters, there was no telling how the admiral would react. Would the Navy treat her like a bargaining chip in exchange for a favor? Would they have even more reason to simply make her disappear? Nor was there any guarantee that the CIA would be happy to learn of her survival.
In some ways, the best possible outcome—where Jack Carlson and the Agency welcomed her back with open arms—was what scared her the most.
Marquand Atlas had only been the most recent in a long line of people who had held her captive in one way or another. Granted, it hadn’t always seemed like captivity; some of her jailers had shown extraordinary kindness and compassion, but that didn’t make her any less a prisoner. For most of her life, her prison had been the Central Intelligence Agency.
They had actually turned her loose a few years earlier, literally pushing her out the door and onto the streets to fend for herself. It had been the first time—the only time—in her life when she’d known what freedom was like, and it had been a terrifying experience. Like an animal raised in captivity and then released into the wild, there had been times when she wanted nothing more than to flee back to the cage. Eventually, she had done exactly that, agreeing to work for Carlson in whatever capacity
he decided to use her. She had rationalized it as doing what had to be done—the only way to stop a deranged Walter Aimes from using the Trinity to destroy the world—but maybe on some level, she had really been looking for a pretext to give up the responsibility that came with too much freedom. Was she doing that again, right now?
“Carlson?” Pentecost savored the name. “Yeah, I know him. He runs SOG. I’ll make the call.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Collier announced in that same, dispassionate tone. “I need Ms. Raiden’s help with something urgent. And yours as well, Admiral.”
Pentecost’s eyes couldn’t have gone wider if Collier had slapped him. “Excuse me?”
Mira heard Booker mutter, “Oh, shit,” but Collier continued as if nothing was amiss.
“I don’t have to time to play games with the chain of command. I need to give my message directly to the president.”
“The president?” The admiral seemed to be having trouble articulating his reply. “Of the United States?”
Collier seemed to be reaching the limits of his patience as well. “Of course. Who else would I mean?”
That was enough for Pentecost to shake off his stunned disbelief. “Now just a goddamned second, Captain.” He carefully enunciated the last word as a none-too-subtle reminder of the man’s subordinate position. “I don’t know who you think I am, but I am not your errand boy, and I am most certainly not your bitch. You do what I say, not the other way around. You don’t give me orders.”
Collier stared back impassive and unflinching, refusing to be cowed before the senior officer. Mira too was finding it impossible to look away, but then a rattling noise from the tabletop behind the admiral distracted everyone.
The Trinity was vibrating.
At first, it was no more remarkable than the hum of a mobile phone set to silent mode, but with each passing second, the frequency and intensity increased until the clamor was nearly deafening. Mira recalled Collier’s earlier comments: I pushed the bomb off course. I took control of the helicopter. And then there was the conference room door, which refused to be opened, even though it didn’t actually have a lock.
Now it all made sense.
Deep down, she had known that Collier’s presence could only be explained by the Trinity. It had brought him back to life, just as it had Walter Aimes and Marquand Atlas. Evidently, it had returned him to the world of the living with an upgrade.
The Trinity began bouncing back and forth, like spinning-coin rattling to a stop, but in reverse. It jumped several inches off the table with each undulation, and then suddenly it was hovering in mid-air, like a spinning Frisbee.
“Orders?” Collier said when the noise abruptly ceased. “I’m not the one telling you what to do, Admiral. I am just a messenger. A spokesman for someone who certainly does have the authority to tell you what to do.”
Pentecost swallowed nervously, the fire of his outrage now completely extinguished. “Who?”
Collier flashed a wan smile, as if slightly embarrassed that the admiral hadn’t already figured it out, and then spread his arms in an all-compassing gesture. “Why, God, of course.”
PART TWO: MESSAGE
19.
Joint Base Andrews—two days later
Mira felt a twinge of apprehension as she started down the loading ramp of the now idle cargo-transport plane, and into a crisp early spring evening in the nation’s capital. It wasn’t a sharp feeling of danger—one of her life-saving prescient urges to duck-and-cover—but rather a general sense of dread. A fluid sensation, without definite form or structure, like that nagging feeling that some important detail in an otherwise perfect plan has been overlooked, or the anxiety that comes with accepting a blind date.
At the foot of the ramp, Mira saw the reason for her premonition: Jack Carlson, head of the Special Action Division of the National Clandestine Service—the operational arm of the Central Intelligence Agency—and unless something had changed in the last few months, her boss.
His smile told her nothing had changed.
“Well, well. The prodigal daughter returns.”
She stopped in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest, staring up at him; he was about five-nine, and while he didn’t exactly tower over her, she still had to look up to meet his gaze. “Do you even know what that means?”
There was a flicker of uncertainty in his eyes, and his smile slipped a notch. “Huh?”
It was too early in the conversation for an antagonistic footing, she decided, so she forced a more relaxed posture. “You’ll have to forgive me if I’m not quite ready to jump right into work, Jack. I’ve been sort of indisposed for the last few months.”
Carlson gave a vigorous if not entirely sympathetic nod. “Sure, sure. I get it.”
He might have continued in that vein, or switched tack, and bluntly made whatever demands he had come there planning to make, but then Booker appeared at Mira’s side. “Everything okay, here?”
The Agency man seemed to take a step back; he didn’t actually, but Booker’s presence had the effect of diminishing him, shrinking him, if only in terms of his ability to project authority.
Mira was at once grateful for the intercession, and slightly peeved at the implication that she was unable to take care of herself. Booker, of all people, should have known what she was capable of, but he did have his orders.
Collier and Pentecost had departed a day earlier, traveling on the admiral’s Lear jet. Collier had taken the Trinity along, a move that no one seemed inclined to question, but he had made a point of telling Booker to keep an eye on Mira. “Once I’ve spoken with the president, I’m going to have an important task for both of you,” he’d explained. “So please, stay together.”
Booker had evidently taken this as license to adopt her like a stray kitten. Although they were technically supposed to stay put and await their flight, Booker had nevertheless procured a change of clothes—a gold T-shirt and blue warm-ups, both emblazoned with the word NAVY—along with a pair of running shoes and a small toiletries kit. The ensemble was almost painfully utilitarian, but it was a vast improvement over the amenities her previous host had provided.
That had been fine while they were waiting for the flight, but now that she was back on her home turf, she didn’t need looking after. “It’s okay, Del. This is my boss.”
Booker nodded smoothly, but kept his gaze heavy on Carlson. “Ah, would that be the boss who left you to rot in Libya? You know, you might want to consider a career change.”
“Believe me, I am.”
Carlson gulped. “Now, that’s not fair. Mira, I spent three weeks in Nepal looking for you. I personally led the search. I got something called ‘high altitude pulmonary edema’—do you know that that is? It almost cost me a lung. I didn’t abandon you. We had no reason to believe that you were even alive, much less that you had been taken to Libya.”
Mira felt some of her anxiety fade. Carlson wanted something from her, and the fact that he felt the need to defend himself meant that she might have the edge in whatever negotiations followed. “Down boy,” she told Booker. “I got this.”
Booker gave her a sidelong glance, then after a final menacing glower at Carlson, headed off to join his teammates.
Mira waited until the SEALs were well out of earshot before speaking. “Look, Jack. I don’t hold you responsible for…anything. But right now just isn’t the best time to talk about coming back to work for you.”
Carlson took a breath, allowing a diplomatic pause. “I think we got off on the wrong foot here. I actually came here to see what I can do for you.”
“Really?”
He held up a hand, displaying a wafer of silver-colored plastic, stamped with the MasterCard logo. “Go get yourself a place to crash. Buy some new clothes. Eat. Take a long hot bath.”
The last suggestion had such a demeaning tone that for a moment, she considered punching him in the nose. A bath did actually sound pretty good though, as did the rest of it, s
o she unclenched her fist and snatched the card from his grasp before he could place any conditions on the offer. “If Uncle Sam’s picking up the tab, why not?”
Carlson appeared to be regaining some of his dignity. “How ‘bout I drive you?”
“No need.” She waggled the card. “I feel like riding in style. Maybe a stretch limo with a full bar.”
He chuckled. “In that case, I’ll ride with you. We need to talk.”
What a surprise, she thought. “On second thought, I don’t want to mix business with pleasure. Your car, it is. I’d better tell the boys not to wait up for me.”
That earned an irritated frown, which made Mira all the more determined to keep her options open. She jogged over to where the SEALs were loading their gear into the back of a pick-up. “Del. I’m going to head into the city with Jack.”
Booker was immediately suspicious. “Why?”
“Not really any of your business, but it’s about work. Is there a number where I can reach you?”
He frowned, but kept his curiosity in check as he scribbled a phone number on a piece of notepaper. “You’d better call.”
“They never call, Book,” quipped one of the other SEALs. “Haven’t you figured that out yet?”
Mira just nodded and ducked away before Booker could elicit any further assurances. She didn’t like the fact that Captain Collier had just assumed that she would go along with whatever it was he had planned, but right now it seemed prudent to keep all her options on the table.
Carlson directed her to a red, government-issue sedan, and while it was no limousine, it was luxurious enough after the austere and utilitarian appointments of military vehicles. Carlson, in a suspicious display of good manners, even opened the door for her. He waited until they were moving to resume the conversation.
“I don’t know if you’re aware of what’s been happening since you disappeared, but this Trinity thing has turned into a very big deal.”