Schmidt caught up with MayAnn as she stood in the doorway. She gestured at the empty room. “Everything personal’s been removed. I suspect they even cleaned off Mark’s fingerprints and DNA. Of course, we have those on file—don’t we?” Her question was driven by an unaccountable feeling of alarm.
“We’ll check when we get back. At this stage, nothing’s certain. The two marshals appear to have been drugged. Don’t know how—probably something in their food or coffee. We need to analyze everything. However, given the cleanup here, I suspect we’ll discover nothing,” said Schmidt.
“Are you worried about Mark?”
“Yes, I hope he’s unharmed. This security failure’s worrying—I don’t know who could do this. The Russians didn’t do it—they’d come in shooting. Army or Agency—unlikely, they each have enough of a mess to handle, without adding more. It must be the same people who killed the agents at Cherry Point, and that implies a very sophisticated organization.”
“Director, now, I think?” asked MayAnn.
“Yes, once I get statements from the marshals—they are struggling to accept that their service may’ve been penetrated.”
“You think it’s them?” MayAnn was startled at the thought.
“Well—someone obtained details of their activities. Although, it could’ve equally been from within the FBI.”
~~~
The Director did not hide her concern when MayAnn contacted her. “We—FBI or Department of Justice—have been penetrated by some covert group? Can we identify which? If it’s us, I’ll collect scalps.”
“No, Director—it’s too early to tell where the leak was. We’re checking whether we still have Mark’s fingerprints and DNA on file. I asked my team to report to me here as soon as they can.”
“You think they’re that deeply into us?”
Schmidt spoke up. “This is an extremely adept group, whoever they are. They knew about Cherry Hill, and took action—proving they can penetrate US Army bases with impunity. They discovered Mark’s safe house, and removed him, almost clinically. Cleaned out his room, removed his fingerprints—there’s not even a hair in the bathroom. That doesn’t make sense, unless they’ve the skill to remove records from FBI files.”
“What do you suggest?”
The Director was interrupted by a knock on the office door. MayAnn rose and spoke with the agent who handed her the result of his search. When she turned back to face the Director and Schmidt, she was frowning.
“Yes?”
“Director, my team ran a computer trace. They checked our paper files. Nothing. There’s no record of Mark Midway in our files or on our database.”
“Keep this totally confidential. Tell your team not to discuss it with anyone, whether team member or otherwise. I’ll need to table this at Cabinet level, possibly with the President. Now, any thoughts, suggestions? How do we uncover a covert operation with the skills to penetrate our database, remove files, kill rogue CIA agents, kidnap witnesses?”
MayAnn and Schmidt looked at each other; neither had a word to say.
~~~
The room was painted stark white, and there was nothing to soften the harsh glow of the overhead light. He frowned. His eyes hurt and he had a headache. He was trying to remember where he was. His mind was telling him this was not the safe house. Mark struggled to sit up. He failed in his efforts—something was holding him back. Straps. He was strapped onto the bed. His arms were immobile, and he could see a tube running down to a needle inserted into a vein in his arm. He frowned and collapsed back onto the pillow, and his eyes closed.
“Oh, you’re awake. Good.” The speaker was female, her voice soft. Someone lifted back an eyelid and shined a bright light into his right eye. After a moment, the person moved the light to his left eye. “No issues there. No, don’t struggle. The doctor will be here shortly and we can probably remove the intravenous drip.”
“Where—who are you?” His throat was dry and he was still seeing flashing lights from the eye examination. His thought processes seemed to be clogged with cotton wool.
“The doctor will explain.” She patted his hand. “Just relax, go back to sleep if you like.”
The suggestion worked and Mark drifted back into unconsciousness. He did not know how long he slept. He was woken by a short jab of pain as the intravenous needle was removed from his arm. A cold antiseptic pad was quickly applied and held against the insertion point.
“Sorry about that,” murmured the same voice he had heard earlier. “The doctor said we could remove the drip. I’ll also unstrap you if you promise not to move suddenly—you need to recover before you can move about. It will take an hour or two before the lightheadedness disappears.”
Mark opened his eyes. He still had a headache, and the glare of the overhead light made his eyes water. He blinked, trying to focus. The nurse—he assumed the voice belonged to a nurse—was unstrapping his arms and his legs. “I—my throat’s dry,” he croaked.
“Just a moment.” He heard movement and then the nurse spoke again. “Here. Sip slowly.”
He obeyed the instruction. The water was cold. He stopped drinking after a few moments.
“Thank you.” His voice was not so croaky. The container and straw were removed.
“That’s all right. Can you sit up for me?” She helped him to a sitting position and straightened the pillow and bedclothes. “Lay back.” The bed felt more comfortable.
Mark was starting to recover, and his mind was clearing, although the harsh light still hurt his eyes.
“Tell me, what am I doing here? Is this a hospital?”
“The doctor will be here in a moment.” As she finished speaking, Mark heard the door open and close.
“Oh, good. Our patient’s recovering. Thank you, nurse. I’ll take over now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Young man, I’m your doctor. We had to stabilize you, thus the intravenous drip. You’ll be dizzy for a few hours. Then you’ll be brand new.” The doctor was checking Mark’s vital signs—pulse, blood pressure, temperature—as he spoke.
“Doctor?”
“Yes.”
“Who are you? Where is this—where am I?”
“Almost back to normal, I see. Perhaps the captain would be a better person—all right, I’ll cover some of it. You needed stabilizing, as I said. I assume you’re aware—you have been growing—aging—at a very fast rate. Yes?”
“I knew I was aging quickly. No one said anything about stabilizing me.”
“Well, probably because they didn’t know. We lost track of you in Amsterdam. We only found you again when we heard about the proposed attack on LifeLong, so haven’t had an opportunity to treat you. Stabilization was becoming critical in order to prevent your premature death, so I’m pleased we caught up with you. When was your last attack?”
“Attack?”
“Yes—you’ve been suffering from very severe bouts of pain—body pains, headaches, perhaps visual problems?”
“Aah.” He recalled the pain. “Just over a week ago.”
“They were warning signs. They should stop now we’ve treated you. So relax, your maturing process is stable, and you’ll outlive most of your peers.”
Mark’s mind was whirling, and it was not because of the intravenous drip treatment. The doctor’s comments left him bewildered and at the same time he was excited to hear someone knew of him before Amsterdam.
“I still don’t know how I got here, to this hospital. What about before Amsterdam? You’ve said enough to confuse me, without clarifying anything,” Mark protested. He sat up, intending to get off the bed. The doctor reached out a restraining hand.
“If you try to stand, you’ll probably collapse and hurt yourself. Wait at least another hour before you exert yourself.”
“But who can tell me—?”
“I’ll see if the captain’s available. Stay in bed, now.” The doctor left the small room, apparently seeking the absent officer.
Mark was agita
ted. He wanted to get out of bed. He suspected the doctor was correct, he would fall over if he tried to stand. He lay back on the bed, trying to control his spinning head. This time he did not sleep, and was awake when the door opened.
“You can call me Captain, or if you need to use a name—Thomas will do. At the moment we won’t use real names. I understand you have some questions?” The man was dressed in a military-style uniform, without nametags or rank indications. He was, Mark thought, about fifty, and looked as fit as the trainers who Schmidt employed on his training course. His words were accompanied by a genuine smile.
Mark rushed his reply. “Far too many. Can you help? Where is this, what am I doing here, what do you know about me prior to Amsterdam—and who are you?”
“Oh, I think we can cope with those questions. Let me see. I’ll commence with prior to Amsterdam, first. What do you remember?”
“An old farm building, a housekeeper, a drunk tutor—lots of cruelty. After a while, a stranger came and took me to Amsterdam, where we met a middle-aged woman. From there, as far as I can tell, we flew to America—I think Canada first, then to Washington, and shortly after, traveled to the LifeLong complex, where Dr. Otto and Dr. Anna adopted me.”
“Good. I can add some general details. About eleven or twelve years ago, one of our senior people stole some of our intellectual property and fled to Europe. He found backers—we’re not sure whether they were criminals, corporate, or a black ops group—and persuaded them to fund his laboratory in Europe. He intended to carry out DNA-customization and breed so-called super soldiers. You know, for some, that concept is appealing, on the basis that after a short period, perhaps no more than ten years, as in your case, you’d have a mature, fully functional professional soldier, an on-demand killer—not quite programmed, but close to it.”
“He and his backers fell out, probably when costs escalated and results were not realized quickly. You were the only surviving realization of his processes. Anyway, he was killed—murdered—by his backers, and we surmise they sold you to the doctors at LifeLong. We tracked part of that activity, but we didn’t know your final destination.” The captain paused for a moment and then continued. “We have no details of your natural parentage, and only a few details of your first three or four years of life.”
“Thank you. That’s more than I knew, even if it’s still sparse.”
The captain added. “We knew you needed stabilizing and decided to bring you here—.”
“But I need to get up, to go back—.”
The captain pressed a call button. In response, another uniformed person opened the door and peered into the room. The captain spoke softly to the newcomer, who nodded his head vigorously and left the room, closing the door.
“No, you shouldn’t return there. We removed all of your records from the FBI computer system and destroyed their manual files. You don’t exist, and we want to keep it that way. We need you. I have authorized a guard. We can’t permit you to leave. There’s a lot we need to discover. I’ll be back shortly.”
The captain backed away from Mark, towards the door, ever cautious. After the man left the room, Mark heard the key turning and knew without checking that he had been locked inside this small room.
***
Chapter 27
Schmidt looked at the growing pile of files on his desk and turned to MayAnn. “This is a nightmare,” he protested. “We’re supposed to read all of these?”
“A good agent does just that,” said MayAnn. “We’ve arrest reports, background details, criminal histories, a large number of very detailed interview transcripts, a smaller number of signed confessions, and mountains of supporting documents, especially from Pickover, and details of contents of all the laptops we’ve gathered. We’ve Mark’s details of the attack on LifeLong. My team’s reviewing crime scene reports, lab reports, and witness interviews. I think the investigators have written a large book on the LifeLong crime scene. Plus we haven’t started yet with the subpoena results from the banks. And we’ve security reports about missing files and data. There must be some detail here which will give us a lead to either Boothby, the Russians, or to whoever has taken Mark.”
Schmidt groaned. He selected the first file and started to leaf through it, rapid reading the contents. “This is going to take all day,” he protested.
“I estimate a week, at least, if we share the files,” said MayAnn. “Longer if you leave it all to me.” She smiled at Schmidt. “And you wouldn’t be that cruel, would you?”
He groaned again. “You’re a sneaky woman. Can we delegate some of your team to go through the laptops? There’re thousands of files on some of them—from videos to PDFs and Word documents. Even spreadsheets.”
“Already done that. The technical team’s identified files of interest, already. We can dive into any laptop and access other files, if we want to check their work.”
“OK, OK. I know when I’m defeated.” He waved the file he had been leafing through. “This is Barker’s file. I’ll read it and note anything I think you should read, will that work?”
“Very helpful. I have the largest file—Pickover’s—and I’ll do the same. This is going to be a three-cup morning, to stay awake.”
They worked in silence, each making occasional notes or highlighting sections of text for later review.
Two hours later, MayAnn’s cell phone broke the silence and she quickly answered the call. “Reprieved, at least for a while. We have to go with the Director to the White House. She’s meeting with some of the Cabinet and may need our input. She’ll probably meet with the President as well.” MayAnn smiled. “I’ll be interested to see if he recognizes you.”
Schmidt frowned. “I’m undercover, so he won’t give me away.”
“Come on, we need to get to the Director’s office in a hurry. I’ll lock these files away, and also secure the room. Fortunately these are copies. Security’s decreed a more stringent approach with all our records. I think they’ve been shaken up—losing DNA and fingerprint records has never happened before.”
~~~
“I asked you to accompany me,” explained the Director to MayAnn as their SUV started off, “in case someone wants detailed answers immediately. Responding at a high level wastes time if details are not immediately to hand. Now please brief me on status.” She was sitting in the back seat of the SUV with Schmidt and MayAnn; the Director’s personal guard was in the front passenger seat, beside her driver.
MayAnn took the lead. “We’ve made no progress with finding Midway. Justice suspects their marshals were attacked with a sleeping gas that wipes out the victim’s memory for some seconds before the person was dosed. The Army’s been experimenting with a gas which has a similar affect, although we can’t prove it was the same. The Army’s gas is apparently harmless. They say it just ensures a very sound sleep for eight to ten hours.”
“And our security penetration?”
“Nothing. No leads at all. Security’s drawing a total blank. The computer experts have no idea of what was done, or when or how. They’ve checked data center disks and there are no records of Mark anywhere, in current or backed-up databases. They’re examining all user access rights and reviewing application and database logs to see if they can identify how the records were removed and who did it,” MayAnn said.
“This is my major concern. It implies any of our law enforcement or other departments or agencies can be penetrated to remove files and data. If data can be removed, it also can be inserted. The national security implications are horrendous.” The Director shook her head.
Schmidt interrupted. “Director, is this your usual route?”
She looked out the side window. “Yes, as far as I can see. Why?”
“There’s very little traffic on this road for a weekday. I think vehicles are being diverted, but not us, and not our escort.” He leaned forward to talk to the driver. “Be alert, I think we might be in a trap. Advise the others.”
“Yes, sir,” replied
the driver. “I was wondering as well.” The front seat guard acknowledged Schmidt’s comment and initiated contact with the escorting vehicle.
As Schmidt sat back in his seat, the shockwave from a tremendous explosion rocked the vehicle and shrapnel bounced off the rear door. A bomb had exploded beneath their escorting vehicle. The force of the explosion tumbled the second SUV, sending it spinning across the road and crashing into parked vehicles. Fortunately for the passengers, an FBI SWAT team, the vehicle had not driven directly over the bomb and a substantial portion of the blast missed its target. Shattered window glass from buildings on either side rained down onto the street. At the same time, a large truck lumbered out of a side street, and drove in front of the Director’s SUV. Her driver braked sharply and immediately commenced an evasive turn. As he did so, the tires on the SUV were flattened, hit by bullets fired from either side of the vehicle. The driver grappled with the out of control vehicle as it skidded on metal rims with sparks flying. It came to a halt when it impacted a parked car almost head on. At impact, airbags had inflated in both the front and rear passenger areas of the vehicle. No one would be driving the Director’s SUV anytime soon.
~~~
Schmidt was dazed. MayAnn was nursing what appeared to be a broken arm, and the Director was semi-conscious. The driver was silent, stunned by the impact. The guard pushed through the airbags and opened his door. As he stepped out, he was shot by one of the attackers, and collapsed onto the road. Both rear doors were pulled open and armed men crowded each doorway. Someone was threatening the driver from the front of the vehicle.
“Throw out your weapons. Quickly, or we shoot the Director.” The voice carried a definite menace. The speaker’s accent was foreign, and Schmidt identified him as Russian.
“All right,” said Schmidt. He could not see any way to respond without causing the Director’s death. He eased his weapon out of its holster and handed it over. He did the same for MayAnn, protecting her arm.
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