MindWar (Nick Hall Book 3)

by Douglas E. Richards

  “I’ve come to respect you more than I thought I would,” said Victor. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m going to regret having to kill you.”

  “Yeah,” said Hall, wincing. “I’m going to regret that too. And no, it doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  54

  It was the hardest phone call Hall had ever made. Lying to his friend, a man who had been overjoyed to learn he was still alive. Luring him to his death. It was awful.

  Hall had insisted that the call be audio only so his facial expressions wouldn’t give him away, but his stomach was in knots and he had barely managed to keep his breakfast down. It was lucky he hadn’t had any lunch or he surely would have erupted.

  At least it was over. Girdler would have to run the situation by the rest of the team, but Hall had little doubt they would come.

  He and Megan were now once again in Victor’s office, both with their mouths taped shut and two guards looking on. Victor had left instructions to be called in the moment Megan awoke.

  Neither guard had any idea that this event had already occurred, ten minutes earlier.

  Once Hall had forged his agreement with Victor he had called out to Megan telepathically every few minutes, so he could catch her as she returned to consciousness. When this finally happened, he had instructed her to keep her eyes closed while he brought her up to speed.

  He explained how they were tricked and captured, and how Victor happened to still be alive. She was as astonished by these events as he had been.

  He considered telling her what he had learned about the president’s betrayal, and how Victor and a partner, Troy Browning, had stolen the data they had most wanted to safeguard, but decided against it. Once he was gone, she would be the only one who could pass this vital information on to the surviving members of the team, but it could keep until Victor was nearer to ending his life. She couldn’t pretend to be unconscious for much longer, and he didn’t want to give her even more to worry about.

  “I probably don’t need to remind you of this,” sent Hall, “but you’ll need to act startled the first time you see Victor.”

  “Are you kidding?” she sent back, “I totally killed as Juliet in Shakespeare in the Park. You haven’t seen ‘startled’ until you’ve seen my ‘startled.’”

  “Very funny,” he replied. “I know you’ve never acted. But even though you’re kidding, be careful not to overdo it. He’s very smart.”

  “I don’t care if he’s Albert Einstein, he’ll never guess telepathy,” she pointed out.

  “You do make a good point.”

  “So what does he want with us?”

  Hall decided he needed to lie once again. Now wasn’t the time for thorny debates about the ethics of trading one life for another. Besides, Megan needed her mind to be as clear as possible. “He’s using us as lures to attract the rest of the core team.”

  “Does he know that includes the President of the United States?”

  “Yes,” he replied. “But he’s interested in the original core team only. The president and Admiral Siegel get a pass. He had me contact Justin Girdler to tell him you and I would be killed if they didn’t surrender.”

  “And you went along with that?” asked Megan in disbelief.

  “He didn’t give me much choice. If I didn’t say what he told me to, he would have hurt you. And this wasn’t a bluff.”

  Megan swallowed hard, but not loudly enough to attract the attention of the guards. “I’m sure the general refused, right? You both know better. If Girdler brings the team here, Victor will kill us anyway—and then he’ll kill them.”

  “Maybe not,” replied Hall. “Victor told me that if the team does surrender, he’ll release us all alive—eventually. He’ll beat the crap out of us, but we’ll all live.”

  “Why are you telling me what he said, Nick? I don’t care about that. What was he thinking?”

  Hall took a mental breath. He was telling so many lies he wasn’t certain he would even recognize reality at this point. He was trying to make sure Megan stayed out of harm’s way while giving her hope. But if he told her he had read from Victor’s mind that they would all be fine, once she learned that he and Girdler had been killed, she would know that the last words he had ever spoken to her had been lies.

  Hall decided to at least introduce the possibility that he wouldn’t survive. “Victor’s intent is unclear,” he replied. “He’s waging an internal struggle. Half of him is tempted to kill us all, and the other half wants to maintain his reputation for keeping his word. It’s unclear which side will win the day. If his bad half does win, the general and I are in the most danger.”

  “Not exactly comforting, Nick. Did you at least pass this on to the general?”

  “I couldn’t. Victor was listening in. Girdler didn’t make any decisions during our brief conversation, but since Victor’s reputation for keeping his word is so well known, I think there’s a good chance the team will come. We have to assume as much.”

  “Great,” sent back Megan miserably. “This just keeps on getting better and better.”

  “There’s still hope,” broadcast Hall. “But I won’t lie to you,” he added, disgusted with himself, knowing full well how many lies he had already told, “our chances aren’t good.”

  “So what’s the play?” she asked.

  “You wake up in a few minutes and act surprised when you see Victor. I give you some platitudes, and trick you into taking a pill, putting on a performance that Victor will buy. Agree to take the pill, by the way, but don’t really do it.”

  “What’s in it?”

  “A knockout drug. So sit on a bed and pretend to take it. Then pretend it worked. I’m afraid you’ll need to fake being unconscious for a number of hours. I’ve read Victor’s mind. He’ll have a guard in the room with you, even if he thinks you’re out cold.”

  “That’s not good,” noted Megan.

  “True, but I don’t think it will be that big of a deal. Guarding an unconscious woman is being ridiculously cautious. The man watching you will know that. He’ll do a half-hearted job of it, at best. More like a tenth-hearted job.”

  “So why should I pretend to be out for so long?” she asked. “You’ll know from the guard’s mind when he’s convinced I’m a vegetable. You can direct me to get the drop on him and escape.”

  “Unfortunately,” replied Hall, “Victor plans to knock me out until Girdler and the gang arrive. The difference is that I’ll be unconscious for real. He’ll give me a shot, not a pill like I’ve arranged for you.”

  “But why?”

  “Just another of his precautions. He has a drug that will reverse the effect fairly rapidly. He plans to wake me just before our team arrives.”

  “So that’s what I’ll be waiting for while I’m pretending to be out? You to be revived?”

  “Exactly. I’ll read the situation on the ground when this happens and figure out a plan, guiding you telepathically.”

  “Just like old times,” broadcast Megan. “I have no doubt that with you reading the minds of anyone I’m up against, I’ll get free fast.”

  “That’s the plan. Then I’ll play it by ear from there.”

  “I know you’ll find a way to get us out of this,” she sent. “You always do.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen to you, Megan,” he replied, one of the truest things he had communicated yet, even though he meant it in a much different way than she would take it. “I love you too much.”

  He paused. “But I should save this mushy stuff for later, when Victor is around. I plan to put on a complex act for him—but my feelings about you won’t be an act.”

  “I know they won’t be, Nick,” she replied. “But if you don’t stop right now I’m going to start tearing up, which might blow my cover. I’m not sure unconscious people do that.”

  Hall laughed into the duct tape, which drew puzzled glances from the men Victor had left in the room. Even in this situation, knowing he was going t
o die while betraying his friends, even then she had a way of making him happy. She was a gift.

  “I can do this, Nick,” added Megan. “We can do this.”

  “Of course we can,” replied Hall, sickened by his biggest lie of all.

  The truth was he had no plans to contact Megan when he regained consciousness. She would pretend to sleep while he and Girdler were killed, Campbell was beaten, and the rest of the group was forced to watch, having no idea this was happening.

  He had little doubt he could guide her to elude the guard and gain her freedom. But only temporarily. He had to be realistic. Victor was too smart and had too many soldiers on the grounds. Hall knew all of the precautions Victor was planning to take when the team arrived. There was maybe a one percent chance Megan could rescue them, with Hall’s help, but a ninety-nine percent chance she would fail.

  And if she did fail, even if she wasn’t killed, Victor would know they had fooled him, that she wasn’t as knocked out as they had led him to believe. He’d know that she and Hall had somehow conspired against him. Victor would take this as a nullification of the agreement, freeing him to break his word and kill them all.

  Activating Megan would accomplish nothing but ensure that she was killed, that they were all killed, instead of just Hall and Girdler. So he had lied again. He never planned to contact her after he was revived. He planned to let the situation play out to its tragic conclusion, while Megan waited patiently to hear from him. Patiently, and safely.

  But he had set things up in case a miracle happened, set her up to play possum while maintaining consciousness, at the ready in case the calculus changed dramatically. If the odds somehow shifted in their favor, even if they only rose to fifty-one percent, then he would proceed the way he had told her, working together to try to save them all, despite the risks.

  But the likelihood of that happening was about the same as getting struck by a falling meteor.

  “Ready to open your eyes and put on our little show?” he asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied.

  “Great. Just follow my lead. It’s going to get strange. Victor agreed to let me spare you from the details of what’s really happening here. So even though you know, I have to pretend to fool you, to convince you everything’s okay.”

  “You do make things complicated.”

  “No doubt about that,” replied Hall with a sigh. And she didn’t know the half of it. Good thing his implants gave him the photographic memory he needed to keep all of his stories straight.

  He took a deep breath. “Okay,” he broadcast. “Here we go. Go ahead and come awake. Just don’t forget to shout into the duct tape when you first see Victor.”

  “Are you kidding?” she replied. “No one pretends to shout into duct tape better than me.”

  Hall couldn’t help but laugh once again, despite his mouth being taped and knowing he had but hours to live. At that moment, despite everything, he could not have loved Megan Emerson any more, or been any more determined to protect her.

  55

  Victor dismissed the guards and tore the duct tape from his prisoners’ mouths, both of whom were still seated next to each other on his couch, their ankles and wrists bound with zip-ties.

  Megan’s eyes continued to bulge from their sockets, as they had since Victor had entered the room.

  “Be careful,” Hall teased her telepathically. “You don’t want your eyes to explode.”

  “Everybody’s a critic,” she broadcast back.

  “Victor?” she whispered in disbelief the moment her mouth was freed. She glanced at Hall in shock and then back at her captor. “How can you be alive?”

  Victor gestured toward Hall, “Why don’t you take this one,” he said.

  Hall faced his fiancée and reached out to hold her hands, ignoring the zip-ties. “Thank God you’re finally awake,” he said.

  “How is he alive?” she asked again. “And where are we?”

  “We’re still in Utah,” he replied, “a few hundred miles from where we were. As to how we came to be here, and how Victor is alive, that’s a long, complicated story.” He sighed. “Which we really don’t have time for right now. The bottom line is that there is a lot going on here. A lot you don’t understand. Remember when everyone thought the general had gone off the reservation, but it was all part of a larger game?”

  Megan nodded, genuinely confused. “I said I’d follow your lead,” she broadcast to Hall, “but where the hell are you going with this?”

  “Well, it’s a similar story here,” continued Hall, ignoring her telepathic question. “Victor isn’t what you think he is. He captured us to put on a show for others, but that’s all this is. A show. We’re both going to be fine. I promise you.”

  “Look into my eyes like you’re unsure,” instructed Hall telepathically. “Victor thinks I’m telling these lies to put you at ease. It all fits with the sleeping pill angle.”

  Megan stared into his eyes, searching.

  “Now say that you believe me.”

  “This all sounds crazy,” said Megan, taking Hall’s cue. “But if you’re sure everything’s okay, Nick, that’s good enough for me.”

  “I promise I’ll explain everything,” said Hall, “and it will all make sense. But for now, Victor is going to have one of his men cut your restraints and escort you to a small structure nearby. There’s a bedroom inside you can stay in for a while. I’ll come visit as soon as I can and tell you what’s going on.”

  She stared at Victor for several seconds. While he kept his face impassive, she could tell he was enjoying Hall’s artistry in lying to the woman he loved.

  “This is very strange, Nick,” she complained. “I don’t like being kept in the dark.”

  “I know,” said Hall. “But not for long. Go to the room and try to relax. Victor will give your escort a pill for you to take once you’re settled in. Go ahead and take it.”

  “What kind of a pill?” asked Megan suspiciously.

  “One designed to counteract the gas they used on us,” he explained. “I took one earlier. You probably feel fine by now, but if even a tiny amount of the gas remains in your lungs it could trigger some very bad reactions. The pill will ensure it’s entirely out of your system.”

  “You’re sure about this?”

  “Of course I’m sure. I’m a mind reader, remember? The pill is for your own good.”

  “Right,” said Megan sheepishly. “Dumb question. I’ll take it right away.”

  Megan hadn’t known how Hall was going to pull off the pill deception, but he had played it beautifully. Victor was now convinced that Hall had fooled her, and that she would dutifully take the offered drug, knocking her unconscious. Her guard wouldn’t even be watching her closely to make sure she hadn’t palmed it.

  Hall’s eyes fell. “Before you go, Megan,” he said, “I want to apologize for being so secretive and strange about this. You’ll understand later. But I love you. You think you know how much, but you don’t. You can’t. Always remember that I would do anything for you. You bring a boundless joy with you whenever you enter a room. You brighten everyone’s life. You’ve kept me sane and grounded, and able to see the joy in life rather than the despair.”

  Hall’s eyes began to tear up and he stopped speaking.

  Megan teared up as well. “I love you, too, Nick. You know that. But are you sure we’re going to be okay? That sounded like a farewell address.”

  Hall faked a smile. “No, not at all. Just feeling guilty about this bizarre situation.”

  Megan leaned forward and kissed him gently, an awkward maneuver given their restraints. “Nick, I know you think our chances of survival are no better than the flip of a coin,” she broadcast to him hastily. “But I believe in you. In fate. You’ve done too much good in the world. You’re too good-hearted and talented. We’re going to work together and get out of this. I’ll prepare myself for when you regain consciousness, and I’ll await your instructions.”

&nb
sp; “Okay then,” he replied telepathically. “I’ll be contacting you before you know it.”

  56

  President Timothy Cochran was stressed to his limits, but the world just seemed to want to pile on, not caring in the least. He had a country to run, mundane things to do. Budgets to negotiate, education policy to develop, prime ministers to meet, and funerals to attend.

  Yet he was spending more and more time at the heart of stealth operations so Black that in the case of Bostic and his team, only Bob Siegel and he had any knowledge of them. And in the case of THT, not too many more.

  After learning of the disaster in Utah, Bob Siegel had rushed to the White House, creating, along with Justin Girdler at THT headquarters, a two-pronged command center. The president and the admiral sat around a small circular table in the Oval Office as Justin Girdler’s perfect three-dimensional avatar materialized across the table from them, looking for all the world like he was seated.

  “I just got off the phone with Nick,” he began without any greeting or pleasantries. “Nick and Megan are both alive and well.”

  Cochran and Siegel looked at each other and breathed heavy sighs of relief. “Thank God,” said the president for both of them.

  The day Nick Hall interrogated a new batch of terror suspects was always one Cochran, and now Siegel, circled on their calendars, but this day had gone horribly wrong from the start. Hall and those with him had never made it to the air force base. They had taken a detour, for no apparent reason. Nessie had flagged this change of plans immediately, and it became even more worrisome when satellite footage showed them rushing from their vehicle into a small building in the middle of nowhere.

  Mike Campbell had led a team to investigate, and they had found all four of Hall’s bodyguards dead on the floor, with Hall and Megan nowhere to be found.

  Girdler had insisted they were still alive. If those responsible wanted them dead, they would already be dead. Besides, whoever attacked them would find Nick Hall far more slippery than they bargained for. Even without implants or mind reading, no one thought better on their feet or was more creative, and the man had a knack for deception.