The Eternity Project

by Dean Crawford

  ‘Block all exits, secure the room and take them down!’

  The driver started the engine and pulled out, just as the second vehicle passed in front of them on Union. They pulled in behind and followed it to a weary-looking motel a couple of hundred yards down, drove into the lot and parked a short distance from a block of rooms that ran east–west along one side of the lot.

  The old man climbed from his own vehicle and followed his agents as they converged on the door marked with plastic numbers: 27. Three of the four agents pulled pistols from shoulder holsters and checked the mechanisms before looking at the old man for orders. The fourth man held a black iron door ram cradled in his arms.

  ‘Any chance of exit from the rear?’ he asked them in a whisper.

  Two of the men shook their heads and the old man gestured to the door. ‘Do it.’

  The agent with the door ram moved into position and hefted it up before smashing it into the door right alongside the lock and jamb. The door shuddered and splintered at the lock with the first blow, and with the second it smashed through as the door swung open and the five armed men plunged into the room.

  The old man walked in behind them, to see them staring about in amazement.

  The room was entirely empty.

  Ethan followed Lopez through the sparsely furnished surroundings of room 28. The room smelled of fresh linen and cleaning fluids. He turned to a large cabinet that stood against the wall opposite the bed.

  ‘Help me shift this one,’ he said.

  Lopez grabbed the cabinet and, with Ethan, hefted it away from the wall and turned it sideways. ‘What, you think you’re going to find the gateway to goddamned Narnia behind one of these?’

  Ethan smiled as he examined the wall and tapped it lightly. ‘Near enough.’

  Cheap motels had thin stud walls, built with timber and often not more than six inches thick. Ethan rapped his knuckles on the wall until he found what he was looking for and then lifted a boot and pushed it hard against the plasterboard wall, close to the thinly carpeted floor. The wall bowed and then with a soft crack it folded inward and exposed a gaping hole. Ethan swiftly pushed it out and knelt down. The timber frames in the wall were built in a cross-hatch pattern that created two-foot square gaps. Ethan got down onto his butt and slammed his boot through the wall of the adjoining room, smashing the plasterboard aside and then scrambled to his feet.

  ‘Off we go, quickly. They’ll check the adjoining rooms. Ladies first.’

  Lopez shook her head and hurled their backpacks through the hole before she scrambled through it and disappeared.

  Ethan turned to the bathroom and hurried through, reaching up for one of the dressing gowns hanging from the door and pulling the waist tie from it. He quickly dragged the cabinet as close to the wall as he could while still leaving enough room to wriggle through the hole he had created, and then looped the gown’s tie around the base of the cabinet.

  Ethan climbed backwards into the hole in the wall and through into the adjoining room, then hauled on the robe tie. He heard the cabinet shuffle back into place an inch at a time, until it bumped gently against the damaged wall, concealing the hole. Moments later, he heard two dull thumps, a loud crack and a rumble of heavy feet bursting into the room.

  Ethan released one end of the tie and then yanked on the other, pulling it through the gap. He got to his feet, dusted his hands off, and looked at Lopez with a bright smile. ‘You’re welcome.’

  Lopez raised an eyebrow. ‘Are we going to be doing that all the way down the block?’

  Ethan shook his head.

  ‘The rooms have just been cleaned,’ he said, ‘that’s why I knew these would be empty. My guess is that our government friends want to be discreet, so they’ll ask the cleaner instead, who will confirm that the rest of these rooms were empty when she cleaned. I’m hoping they’ll think we gave them the slip.’

  Another series of loud crashing sounds came from outside, and Ethan hurried to the window. Through the aged blinds, he saw a group of suited men barging their way into Room 28, pistols in their hands.

  ‘That’s a big chance to take,’ Lopez said as she heard the scene unfolding outside.

  ‘Not that big,’ Ethan said, and suddenly opened the front door of the room and stepped out into the lot.

  7

  Ethan covered the few steps to room 28 in silence as he saw the back of an old man peering into the deserted room. He drew his pistol from where it was tucked into his jeans and rammed the barrel under the old man’s ribs as he reached across and wrapped his other arm around the man’s throat, pitching him backwards and off-balance.

  ‘Jesus!’

  Ethan held the old man firmly in place, the pistol pressed securely against his torso, as the four agents in the motel room spun and aimed their pistols at him. He heard Lopez rush to his side, her own weapon drawn as she saw what Ethan had done.

  ‘Jarvis?’ Ethan turned the old man slightly until he saw both the recognition and the relief in the old man’s eyes.

  Jarvis waved his men down. ‘Lower your weapons,’ he snapped.

  Ethan released Jarvis and glared down at him. ‘Looking for someone?’

  ‘Both of you,’ Jarvis nodded, somewhat shaken but quickly recovering as he glanced at Lopez. ‘Good to see you, Nicola, you’re looking well.’

  Lopez forced a crooked ‘up yours’ smile onto her face. Ethan decided to do the talking.

  ‘Coming in a little heavy, don’t you think?’ he snapped as he gestured at the agents in their motel room. ‘You trying to clean something up here, Doug?’

  Jarvis raised his hands in placation. ‘I had no choice,’ he replied. ‘You’re under suspicion for multiple homicides and we didn’t know if you were responsible or not. For all we knew, you might open fire on us.’

  ‘What homicides?’ Ethan demanded.

  Jarvis turned to his men. ‘Form a perimeter, quietly.’

  The four men hurried out of the room and crossed the lot to their vehicles, as Jarvis walked with Ethan and Lopez into the room and closed the damaged door behind them as best he could. He looked at them both.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he asked. ‘You look tired.’

  ‘We’re fine,’ Lopez snapped. ‘Just cut to the chase.’

  ‘Several CIA agents have been murdered in the past few days,’ Jarvis said promptly. ‘The CIA believes that you’re responsible.’

  Ethan shook his head. ‘We’re not. But we did hear about one of the murders, out Wisconsin way.’

  ‘That’s what I thought,’ Jarvis replied. ‘And it’s what I told the Joint Chiefs of Staff’

  ‘You’re back at the DIA?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘I wasn’t until this morning,’ Jarvis admitted. ‘I got a call to come in. Turns out the DCIA is finally getting his just deserts and is in a world of hurt over MK-ULTRA. The rest of the intelligence community is keen to see the whole thing shut down, but there are loose ends and none of it can be brought to public trial.’

  Ethan rolled his eyes.

  ‘So we get to carry the can and the rest gets swept under the carpet, right?’

  ‘That’s what the CIA wants,’ Jarvis said, nodding, ‘but I’ve managed to reach a compromise with them. I’ve got our department up and running again and you’re both in the clear.’

  ‘In exchange for what?’ Lopez demanded.

  ‘They want you to find out whoever’s responsible for the deaths of the six agents, and bring them in.’

  ‘Six dead agents.’ Ethan repeated.

  ‘Last one was killed in New York yesterday,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘I’m assuming you figured that might happen.’

  ‘There seemed to be a hint of a trail of slayings being covered up,’ Ethan replied, ‘crossing states and pointing to the east coast. New York seemed like a good, crowded place to hide.’

  Lopez peered at Jarvis suspiciously.

  ‘You’ve got your entire department up and running and agents with you right now, but you want us
to go and sort this out for you.’

  Jarvis shrugged apologetically. ‘Deniability,’ he said. ‘You’re sub-contracted to the DIA, but since you’ve been off the books for six months if things go wrong they can simply deny any knowledge. There’s no paper trail.’

  Ethan rubbed his face with his hands.

  ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘And if this all goes to plan, how can we trust the CIA to stay off our backs?’

  ‘MK-ULTRA is finished,’ Jarvis promised. ‘It’s been far too compromised to continue its work. Even William Steel wants it shut down. He fears that any public exposure now could be the final nail in the CIA’s coffin, to the detriment of our intelligence-gathering capabilities, and, for once, I agree with him. Once this is done, you’re both free.’

  Ethan shook his head and Lopez sounded equally unconvinced. ‘MK-ULTRA is dead? You’re sure about that?’

  ‘It can’t survive everything that’s happened,’ Jarvis explained. ‘It’ll be signed to an Executive Order for classified materials and buried for at least fifty years.’

  An Executive Order was a directive signed and sent by the President of the United States and a policy that could transcend administrations. Any such order directed at projects concealed within the black budget would have been carried out without the knowledge of any American public office or the people, regardless of how long it continued.

  ‘I want to know everything,’ Ethan said. ‘Up until now, all we’ve heard is mention of this mysterious MK-ULTRA and no hard details. Fill us in so we know what we’re up against.’

  Jarvis sat on the edge of the bed and spoke quietly, as though even here in a lonely motel room there might be people listening in.

  ‘MK-ULTRA is the name of a covert project run by the CIA under various different guises over the last four decades,’ he explained. ‘Its origins were founded during Operation Paperclip, the rounding up of German scientists after the Second World War Two who had been responsible for torture and brainwashing programs run by the Nazi regime. Project Bluebird grew out of this operation with a purpose to study mind control, behavior modification and interrogation techniques. It in turn was renamed Project Artichoke in 1951 and run by the CIA Office of Scientific Intelligence, finally becoming Project MK-ULTRA in 1953. The cryptonym name of the program indicates that it was run by the CIA’s Technical Service Staff, via the designator ‘‘MK’’, and that it received the highest security classification rating, ‘‘ULTRA’’.’

  ‘And what, exactly, did this project do?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘It began with the study of hypnosis, forced morphine addiction and withdrawal, the use of chemicals and deprivation of sensory stimuli to produce amnesia and general vulnerability in subjects,’ Jarvis explained. ‘There was a memo, dated 1952, where a senior officer states the project’s main goal as being to ask: “Can we get control of an individual to the point that he will do our bidding against his will and even against fundamental laws of nature, such as self-preservation?”’

  Ethan frowned. ‘Mind control?’

  ‘It went on through the 1960s,’ Jarvis said, nodding, ‘with experiments on unwitting American subjects both in the military and as civilians: drugs like LSD injected into drinks and water supplies, hallucinogens administered without the subject’s knowledge or consent, and so on. It progressed eventually to full-blown deep-hypnosis programs designed to create unwitting assassins posted in politically volatile countries who would, upon a given command, carry out attacks on enemies of the state. Their actions could be explained away as psychosis or similar, divesting any shred of blame on the USA.’

  ‘Roving sleeper-assassins,’ Lopez said. ‘Similar programs were uncovered in Russia after the Cold War, right?’

  Jarvis nodded.

  ‘MK-ULTRA also had an overseas arm, MK-DELTA, which was responsible for the contamination of food supplies and the spraying of aerosolized LSD onto the village of Pont-Saint-Esprit in France in 1951. The event resulted in mass psychosis, the deaths of at least seven French citizens and thirty-two commitments to mental institutions. One of the CIA operatives involved, a man named Frank Olson, developed a crisis of conscience after the events and also after witnessing a terminal interrogation in Germany under Project Artichoke. He resigned his position and was later found dead after a suspicious fall from a Manhattan building.’

  ‘You’re kidding?’ Ethan gasped. ‘CIA-sanctioned murders, just like those my sister witnessed in DC?’

  ‘The same,’ Jarvis confirmed. ‘In 1975, our government admitted that Olson had also been dosed with LSD and that the CIA and the state of New York had been covering up the details of his death for almost a quarter of a century. The government settled financially with Olson’s family, out of court.’

  ‘How come this hasn’t come to light before now?’ Lopez asked.

  ‘The CIA canned the project and literally burned the evidence in 1973 after a congressional investigation attempted to gain access to files relating to MK-ULTRA,’ Jarvis explained. ‘However, it appears that not all of the project’s programs were shut down. You ended up in the middle of one when you went to Idaho. You all saw the news reports after you escaped, I take it?’

  Ethan nodded. A major embarrassment for the administration, there had been widespread accusations of a cover-up but as usual no evidence had been forthcoming. He knew that was nothing to do with a lack of evidence: those involved simply wanted to stay alive.

  ‘Okay,’ Ethan said finally to Lopez. ‘So we’re being asked to hunt for the assassin, in order to get our own asses in the clear. You up for this?’

  Lopez shrugged.

  ‘It could be worse,’ she said, ‘at least this time we’re searching for something human.’

  ‘What about Joanna?’ Ethan demanded. ‘We’ve been trying to track her down for six months. I figured that she may have something to do with the homicides.’

  Jarvis nodded.

  ‘So did I,’ he admitted. ‘The DCIA would not admit to anything when I spoke with the JCOS, but all of the CIA murder victims had at one time or another been posted to a safe-house in Gaza City.’

  Ethan took a pace forward as anger surged through his body.

  ‘You’re saying that the CIA was involved in her abduction? That she’s been killing these agents?’

  ‘It’s not something that you didn’t already suspect, Ethan,’ Jarvis said, ‘after all of the agency’s connections with arms companies working in Gaza. Joanna may have embarked on a revenge mission of some kind and her next target might even be the director himself. If we’re right and she’s behind it, all she’s doing is exposing herself to a federal prison sentence that will never end.’

  Ethan ground his teeth as he realized that he had no choice.

  ‘So we have to hand her over in order to save our own skins.’

  ‘Joanna will never be prosecuted,’ Jarvis replied. ‘She could hardly be tried without the reasons for her rampage being broadcast. This is better than the alternative, Ethan, which is the CIA finding her first. They’ll spirit her into Eastern Europe under extreme rendition, then have her tried before a military court as an enemy combatant. You think she’s been missing for a long time right now?’ Jarvis shook his head. ‘Believe me, this case is now so sensitive that nobody will ever see her again.’

  Ethan shook his head in disbelief as he stared at Jarvis.

  ‘All of that time, Doug,’ he murmured, ‘all of that time you could have helped me find her and you didn’t, and now it’s come to this.’

  Jarvis jabbed a finger in Ethan’s direction.

  ‘I’m not her mother!’ he snapped. ‘I’ve done all I can to help, but it’s Joanna who’s gone around shooting former patriots, not me. I can’t be held responsible for what happened to her or her response.’

  ‘No,’ Lopez agreed, ‘but you sure as hell could have made it easier for us.’

  Jarvis’s anger blustered away and he sighed.

  ‘I’ve already made contact with somebody who
can help us,’ he said. ‘You may not like everything that he has to say, but if you’re willing to come with me, we can meet him tomorrow morning. What he knows may help us figure out where Joanna may go next.’

  Jarvis reached into a pocket and produced a slim cellphone that he handed to Ethan.

  ‘Burner cell,’ he explained, ‘untraceable and linked to my own phone. You can call me securely on that, anytime, without fear of the CIA tracking the call. Let’s go.’

  8

  EAST VILLAGE, NEW YORK

  ‘You there, Tom?’

  Karina Thorne stood at the door to the apartment block near the corner of East 10th and peered up at the fire-escape ladders as she spoke into the entry panel on the wall. The low sun glinted off the metal railings, but she could see that the windows to Tom’s apartment were shut and the blinds drawn tight across them.

  No reply came from the device and she was about to turn away and pull out her cellphone when the entry door’s locking mechanism suddenly buzzed. Karina turned and pushed the door open.

  The apartment block had been recently renovated, the foyer clean and hushed as the door locked shut behind her with a sucking sound, the noise from the busy streets instantly deadened. She turned and climbed up the stairs, avoiding the elevator as she always did. Karina was claustrophobic, probably due to her having grown up in the open wilds of Blackwater alongside Chesapeake Bay. She had never quite got used to the towering steel-and-glass blocks of New York City.

  She reached Tom’s door and knocked softly. For a long time no sound came from within but finally the door clicked and opened. Karina saw the apartment in shadow within and Tom’s eyes staring out at her, black and devoid of emotion.

  ‘Can I come in?’ she asked, her voice almost a whisper.

  Tom turned away from the door without a word and walked into the shadows. Karina followed him in and shut the door behind them.

  As a cop, Tom would not have earned enough alone to afford a two-bed in the East Village, but his wife Donna had been a doctor and together they had been doing okay. The apartment was neat and tidy, the décor clearly chosen by a feminine touch. The only thing out of place was Tom’s disheveled hair and the cushions that had been scattered off the couch.