The Monolith Murders

by Lorne L. Bentley

  Donna pointed. “We won’t be landing at an airport.”

  For a moment Fred thought her line came from the old movie Back to the Future.

  Fred’s eyes followed Black’s pointing finger toward a Sikorsky Sy6 helicopter.

  “This way, Fred, we can land right at our destination.”

  “How fast will this baby go? I never rode in one of these before; and frankly, I’m not that happy about it right now.”

  “It’s perfectly safe, and it will go up two hundred miles per hour; we’ll be there soon.”

  A few hours later, Fred was looking down at the traffic-stalled Washington D.C. Beltway. A couple of minutes later, the pilot pointed out the home of Ethel Kennedy near McLean, Virginia. The copter was starting to rapidly descend.

  Before the helicopter touched down, Fred spotted the CIA Langley welcome sign. Fred recalled at one time the Feds wouldn’t identify the location of CIA’s headquarters. But since even tour guides had been clandestinely pointing out the site for several years, the secret that was already known to everyone finally became public. Now even the internet provided information as to its location.

  Fred knew full well that this area was the hub for the nation’s intelligence operations by the U.S., as well as other cooperating governments.

  The only reason he could think of that he was landing here was that the Feds were going to prosecute him for holding on to the monolith, and worst of all, for not safeguarding it. Why they took him here and not to a federal court for prosecution he could not understand. Maybe this is their first step in that federal judicial process, he thought.

  Two tall men dressed in black suits were waiting on the pad, impatiently waiting for the copter to land. They escorted Debra and Fred into a white stucco coated circular building encased in reflective glass windows. As they entered, each of the agents pressed their eyes against some type of security device that Fred had never seen before. Immediately a green light went on. On the nearby guard’s table, a computer monitor displayed the name and a confirming picture of the agents, as well as the level of their security clearance.

  “Impressive,” Fred said.

  Black showed the guard a letter which Fred assumed provided authorization for his entry into the bastion of world secrets. The guard said, “You will not be allowed to go above floor six.” Fred assumed that, since he held no clearance, that was the limit of his access in the building.

  All four entered an elevator, and got off at the sixth floor. They walked to the entrance of a large office whose walls displayed the photos of past and present CIA heads. The two security men waited outside.

  At the other end of the room a well–dressed woman acknowledged their presence. She said, “Mr. Shade’s busy at the moment, but he won’t be long. Both of you please take a seat.”

  Fred said “Debra, I’ve been good for all this time; do you want to tell me what this is all about?”

  “Fred, please don’t be so impatient; you’ll know in a minute.”

  In a short time a man about Fred’s height with a well-trimmed salt and pepper beard which seemed to dominate all the other features in his face, opened the inner office door.

  “Please step in. I’m John Shade. Nice to meet you, Lieutenant.”

  Mr. Shade extended his hand. Shade’s grip was strong; Fred, still unsure what was going on, returned a meek uncertain handshake.

  “I’m not yet sure if it’s nice to see you or not,” Fred said.

  Shade ignored Fred’s comment and turned to face Black. “Has the Lieutenant taken the security oath yet?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Are you a good American, Lieutenant?”

  Fred hated an open-ended question like that. Did he mean do I eat apple pie regularly; do I have a turkey on Thanksgiving Day, hold my hand over my heart when I hear the national anthem, know all the words to the Star Spangled Banner, or never buy a foreign car? Maybe all the above, Fred thought.

  “I suppose I’m as good as the next guy.”

  Shade paused for a moment, not quite sure if he approved of Fred’s terse response.

  “Fred, why did you take the psychic chip, and what were you going to do with it?”

  No more pleasantries, now Shade was cutting to the heart of the issue.

  “I don’t know why I took it; a guy by the name of Marv Atwell gave it to me. I simply took it and didn’t know what to do with it afterward.”

  “We know all about Atwell, and we know that he gave it to you. My question is why did you take it?”

  “I don’t know; I really don’t—I just did.”

  Shade continued to press, “What was your end objective, what did you ultimately intend to do with it?”

  “I had no end objective; that’s why I kept it on my dresser for four years.”

  “That’s an answer that makes little sense, but I’ve found that truthful answers often don’t make a hell of a lot of sense. Please come over with me to the corner of the room.”

  Shade pulled a Bible out of a drawer from his desk; he then retrieved a typed page from the top of his desk.

  “Fred, please put your hand on the bible and respond honestly to the series of questions I will ask you.”

  Fred did as he was told.

  His responses proceeded from, “No, I was never a member of any organization whose objective was to overthrown the United States government,” to, “Yes, if my wife turned out to be a foreign spy I would turn her in to the proper authorities.” But his response didn’t come so easily when he was asked, “Would you do all in your power that you could to support the Constitution?”

  Fred lived his life in a gray world; he rarely perceived issues to be totally correct or entirely wrong. He felt the constitution was an evolving document, scrapping, as society changed, the components that were the expressions of an earlier more uninformed culture. Fred felt that in recent years, meaningful changes came simply through the Supreme Court’s interpretive powers without the need for, or the political ability to enact, formal amendments. With the Democrats, Republicans and now the Tea Party fighting for control to win the hearts and minds of the voting public, constitutional amendments were a thing of the past because there was no longer any way to secure the necessary requisite state votes to effect a change.

  Fred’s answer was, “Since the constitution is not static, I’m not sure what your question really means.”

  Shade was in no mood to play semantic games.

  “Look here, Harris, you took something that rightfully belonged to the CIA. You’re a police officer; you can hardly claim that, due to ignorance, you didn’t understand the consequences of your actions. Do you have any idea of what we could do to you?”

  “I don’t, but I’m sure it wouldn’t be pleasant. Something like a really painful root canal, I would guess.”

  “Damn right, it wouldn’t be pleasant. Ms. Black, get this sarcastic bastard out of here. I don’t want to see his face again.”

  Debra Black wasn’t happy. As she escorted Fred out of Shade’s office she said, “Damn it, Fred! I did everything I could to protect you, and now you can’t say yes to a simple question? You deserve to have your ass thrown into jail.”

  “Well, I just had a hard time answering the stupid questions he threw at me. I still don’t know why I’m here.”

  “And you never will, unless Shade tells you, which he won’t do unless you comply with CIA procedures.”

  “So where do we go from here?”

  “We have an area in which you can spend the night, and sleep on your answers to Mr. Shade. I’ll call you in the morning; I hope by then you’ll have reconsidered your response. If you do, I’ll try to get another meeting between you and Shade.”

  “I guess I did blow it,” Fred acknowledged.

  Fred’s mind shifted to Maureen’s well being; actually it was there in his subconscious all along. He didn’t enjoy playing this robotic game in this geographic center of the super-spies, while he was concerned about protecting h
is wife’s life.

  “Debra, I need to call AU to see if Maureen called. Do you have a phone?”

  “Sure, there will be one in your room; and, no, it will not be monitored. We’re not the bad guys you seem to perceive that we are.”

  Fred checked his phone calls at AU, and returned one that he had missed from Maureen.

  Maureen was at the Red River Bar in Boise, Idaho. He could tell by her slurred speech that she had consumed quite a few drinks. Maureen was not a person who enjoyed the hard stuff; and when she did drink it didn’t take much for her to get drunk. This was not good. It was obvious that she was in a highly depressed state. Normally she tried to hide it from Fred when she migrated into her dark, quiet moods, but her depression was now buried so deep that she could no longer camouflage her feelings, nor did she care.

  Fred said, “Hon, I have to tell you something that’s very important.”

  Maureen was not listening. “Fred, I can’t live like this; I’m going from place to place; most of the time I don’t even know where I am. I look for a motel in the busiest part of town with a window facing street lights so I can see who might be coming to kill me. I stay awake most of the night; and when I do fall asleep, it’s always on the damn window sill facing the street. I fear the dark, I fear it more than I ever had in my entire life. And each morning when I get into my car to move to the next town, I’m totally enervated.

  “Fred, on two occasions I almost fell asleep at the wheel. I was headed directly into oncoming traffic, but in both cases something woke me at the last second.”

  Fred’s belief in a God was significantly different from hers. She believed, as Steven Hawking did, that once God created the universe he could rest because it could now operate efficiently forever without the need for further intervention. Her interpretation of a deity, if he existed at all, was one who gave man the skills to resolve his own destiny and then remained removed from human affairs. In her mind, he’s a laissez-faire God.

  To Fred, the positive serendipitous events she had experienced were caused by the direct hand of God. The precise collision of the galaxy of events that had to unfold to allow Maureen to avoid head-on collisions could only be due to God’s direct intervention in man’s affairs.

  “Honey, I’ve got an idea. I know you’re exhausted. I don’t think you have to move on. I’ve concluded that there’s no way Donna could know where you are. You’ve covered your tracks well; and most importantly, Donna can’t pick up any of your mental processes from the distance where she is.”

  “But how do you know where she is, and how do you know she can’t get into my mind?”

  Fred didn’t want to divulge to Maureen that he knew the general area where Donna was, because she had just killed both AU’s security man and Dr. Anderson; and therefore, he was sure she must be in or near Sarasota. Maureen’s emotional state was much too fragile to hit her with that revelation.

  Instead he said, “All evidence points to the fact that she’s still in the Sarasota area. As far as her ability to read your mind, Atwell once told me his ability to do that was limited to short distances. Donna has only a fraction of the powers that Atwell had, so we shouldn’t be concerned about that at all; you are much too far away for Donna to pick up on you.”

  “But Fred, somehow she knew where Atwell and I were. She found him and killed him; I read about it in the newspaper. I’m sure I’m next on her list.”

  “Maureen, please listen to me. She knew where Atwell was because he was easily traceable; his location wasn’t a state secret. She could easily have used information she gleaned from a home computer to track him down. I know that she took classes in prison to become familiar with a computer’s operation. He was not in hiding; he had no reason to be, the authorities were not after him. I’m sure her psychic powers had nothing to do with her ability to find him. I think her sole objective was to kill Atwell; and it’s entirely possible when she got into the area she picked up your psychic scent, so to speak.

  “I have a plan, stay where you are, you’ll be perfectly safe there. I’ll give you a call tomorrow, and maybe we can work something out.”

  “Fred, I love you so much; I so need to see you again and soon.”

  Fred only had the barest outline of a plan; it still had to unfold and be given body with details. First, however, he had to get back in the good graces of Mr. Shade.

  Chapter 43

  Fred’s phone rang early the next morning. Debra was on the other end. “Fred, have you reconsidered what your answer will be to Shade?”

  “Yes, I’ll be a good boy and answer all of his questions without any issues or challenges.”

  “Good, let me see if I can arrange another appointment with him. I just hope that you haven’t pissed him off too much.”

  In just minutes, Debra called right back. “We’ll see him this morning at 10:40 a.m. Remember, Fred, he has no sense of humor and he is without a doubt from the old school. He believes in his country without reservation. Reagan was the world’s greatest leader ever; every Democrat is a socialist as well as a communist; and there are no exceptions to his dogma whatsoever. His world is all black and white; and if you’re not white you’re black, metaphorically speaking.”

  “Then, I guess I won’t invite him to any of my pin-the-tail on-the-donkey parties.”

  “Fred, no humor please; I would bet he doesn’t even like Good Humor ice cream.”

  At 10:15 a.m. she knocked on the door of Fred’s unit; it was a short walk to the main CIA building. Two agents walked closely behind them all the way to the conference room where they would meet Shade.

  The receptionist barely looked up when the entered. Fred whispered to Debra, “We’re a bit early, aren’t we?”

  “You don’t want to be late for a meeting with Shade. If one of his earlier appointments gets canceled, he wants us here so that none of his precious time will be wasted.”

  “Seems a hell of a lot like a doctor’s office to me, with the pain and all of that.”

  At 10:40 on the dot, the receptionist motioned for them to come in. This time Shade was not welcoming them at the door. He was sitting at his desk working on some papers.

  Debra and Fred were kept standing for at least five minutes before Shade finally looked up and spoke. He looked directly at Fred. “Miss Black indicated you had a change of heart since yesterday; is that true?”

  “Well, sir, I never really had a problem with anything you were asking me about; but as a detective I do tend to over analyze at times. Unfortunately, yesterday was one of those times.”

  “I understand. Go over to the corner.”

  What the hell comes next, Fred wondered, a dunce cap perhaps?

  Shade picked up from his desk the same piece of paper that he had yesterday when he asked Fred the series of questions. He retrieved the Bible again and had Fred put his hand on it. He started the questioning process all over again.

  Shit, Fred thought, can’t this guy just get on with it? Then Fred thought, maybe this spook can read my mind, I’d better be careful what I think. Fortunately, it was apparent that Shade could not read Fred’s mind; Shade carefully re-read the entire paper, patiently waiting for Fred’s response to each question. Only then did he move on. Finally he got to the constitutional question, and Fred replied, “Yes, sir, I will honor it and obey it without question.”

  Shade had only one more question and Fred’s final response to it seemed to please him.

  “Congratulations, Fred, you’re now one of us.” Shade put his hand out and Fred started to shake it; instead Shade hugged Fred long and hard. Strange, strange reaction, Fred thought. Maybe this guy is related to J. Edgar Hoover.

  Fred turned to Shade, “Now may I ask you a couple of questions, sir?”

  Fred glanced at Debra, and she was mouthing the words, “No, no, no.”

  Fred plunged on. “I thought you guys always did some background checks before one could become a CIA agent.”

  “That’s already been accomp
lished. If everything in our check had not been positive you wouldn’t be here today.”

  So that’s who those guys were who were following me to the diner when I met with Debra, Fred concluded.

  “I still don’t understand; if I’m an agent now, what will be my role relative to my police department’s responsibilities?”

  “That will not change, nor will you receive any salary from us. You will, however, be reimbursed for any trips you take for the agency. We use the standard government per diem rates, so you’ll never get rich even though many non-government workers believe that we do. As far as assignments, your boss has agreed to grant you leave whenever we request you for an assignment; but officially, you will always remain an employee of the Sarasota Police Department.”

  “Jim has a big heart,” Fred said.

  As he glanced at Black she was again mouthing, “No, no, no.”

  Not picking up on Fred’s obvious sarcasm, Shade said, “I wouldn’t know about that,”

  “Now, Fred, we have to put you through a series of psychological tests and the like.”

  “Wait a minute. I thought everything was completed when you did the background check on me and I took your oath.”

  “Ms. Black, did you brief him on the operation?”

  “No sir, I thought that, until he took the oath, it would be premature.”

  “Oh, yes, good point.”

  Shade continued looking directly at Debra. “In fact we should continue this sequentially. We have completed the nearby checks and the family and friends investigation. He has taken the oath, next will be the battery of psychological tests. Depending on how he does on them, we will then brief him on the operation.”

  Black and Shade were talking as if Fred was not in the room.

  “Wait a minute,” Fred interrupted. “How about letting me know what’s going on?”

  “In due time, Fred, in due time.” Shade said.

  Fred asked, “How long will I be here?”

  “Most likely three weeks to a month, or even possibly more. We’re never quite sure how these things will pan out; and at this early stage, I have no way of predicting.”