“Papa, I missed you. I needed you and mama so much. So much.”
When his father didn’t reply, Johan pulled back and saw him as an old man, as if he were still alive. He wiped Johan’s cheeks and ruffled his hair, calming him as he always had. Still he didn’t speak.
“Papa, talk to me. Please. What is this about?”
It was in his eyes, telling him he couldn’t know, wasn’t allowed to – he would have to face it on his own. Then he spoke, his voice resonating beyond the attic, beyond the dream.
“There is no more noble a fight than the one you join.”
His father embraced him once more. When he stepped back, he was young again, their time at an end. Johan started to say goodbye but in the next instant only dust motes and the scent of cologne lingered. The familiar absence returned.
“Papa...”
With a splitting crash a telephone pole burst through an attic window and sent shards flying. He dove to avoid wires unfurling into the room and woke to stinging pain and wind rushing across his face. A power pole lay protruding through the living room window just feet from where he lay. Electricity arced between the taut wires leading outside. The lights flickered.
Still dreaming...? It was too much to process, too surreal, though the pain was convincing. He crawled to the bath and vomited in the toilet. Thunder crashed and the house creaked under the wind’s force.
He stood and looked in the mirror. Blood lines trickled from a thin shard of glass embedded in his cheek. He squeezed and plucked it free. The pain felt good... still drunk and high but alive, not drowned in a cave. This was the real thing.
The lights went out, the plunge into darkness followed by a transformer’s explosion in the distance. He barely noticed. If the world were to erupt in madness and soldiers were to gun him down in the street, he could go in peace knowing somehow he’d be with his parents again.
• • •
Soldado’s decision to manually gather the fragments and assemble them had required hours of careful planning, monitoring, and routing. Right in the middle of it all, SlotZero had used his botnet to grab Crosstalk’s file. While it was good to know he was still okay, the resulting scans and server failures had put Alcazar and Crosstalk’s file at even greater risk.
Once assembled, he watched the video.
Whether it was a classified piece of conspiracy propaganda or a beyond-classified dissertation on the inner workings of the world he didn’t know. It was that well done. Just viewing the video changed perspective in an awkward way, leaving a vulnerable feeling. The resulting thoughts and feelings seemed to make waves in a kind of mental pond, just as the narrator described. It reminded him of la gran locura, his cocaine induced paranoid episode that helped him swear off the drug. The feeling was simply there, spoiling his otherwise rational mind. Like imagination stuck in the on position.
The Overseer system was definitely believable, considering what they’d seen on the network. He immediately suspended all systems, setting admin-only access until he could get OB1Kenobi to retool the transport algorithms. It would screw over big projects everywhere but there was no choice.
He sat back and ran a hand through his hair.
“Un-fucking-believable. I watch a fucking movie and bug out?”
His comms lit up with messages from admins. He sent out one message to all of them: Avoiding NSA. Chill hard 24 hrs.
His thoughts began to stack up and crash into each other, making bigger and bigger waves. Something out there felt him.
“Fuck this.” He went to the bathroom and grabbed some pills to knock himself out. There was something awful working the heavens and he sure as hell didn’t want to run into it.
• • •
Mac Payant flicked ashes into a soda can and glanced at the clock. Three in the morning and still nothing on either Brent or his son. Plenty of time for Brent’s arrest details to have been shared. Instead a wall had gone up between the two agencies. It felt gray. Very gray.
On screen, he switched back to the chess game. He clicked queen’s knight, already deployed. Squares illuminated around it, possible moves, options. Unlike any other piece, it could soar over the play field and land at odd, tricky angles. Never a linear move, always a step out of sight, and harder to predict. Unlike real life, this knight kept its color and had to play by the rules.
The gray area of operations discovered by Brent seemed a lifetime ago. His reluctance to share details probably saved Mac his career, if not his life. Just the one meeting to say something wasn’t right in the agency and that he was going to dig deeper; the code phrase ‘gray knight’ a hasty designation, a precaution. Shortly after that, the car accident took Brent’s wife. “Just paranoia, forget it. Really.” The most earnest yet most unbelievable words he had ever spoken. For him to use the code phrase again with the mention of his son brought it all back. Only now, feigned ignorance and inaction didn’t have a place. Too many years, too much shoved under the rug. Whatever was happening, Brent and his son deserved more than another turning away.
He studied the chessboard. The questions kept circling. Who’d run the shuttle? If the FBI planned to move Austin they would’ve just done it as they had Brent – unless a black operation had been underway. He recalled the hacker’s message. The reference to mind reading... something the government would absolutely want to keep to itself. It would explain things, as everything had begun with the drop-off of the file.
He chose not to move the knight, instead advancing a pawn to create a left-flanking shield with the other pawns. A safe, reinforcing move. Non-confrontational but effective. Pawns were meant to go down first in defense, anyway. He thought of Brent, then of himself.
Frustrated and finally tired, he signed off and stood to stretch. Fifty years of life were trying to take their toll and as usual he would have none of it. He stretched thoroughly, feeling each set of muscles respond, some achingly, some gratefully. He left the small office and headed for his bunk.
Entering the residential wing with his keycard, he strode down the dimmed corridor. He preferred going home to staying at the facility but under the circumstances... he slowed as he neared Kaiya’s room. Light from under the door leaked into the hallway. She’d been given meds to help her sleep, but perhaps she hadn’t taken them or had passed out with the lights on. He thought of checking on her.
At the door he heard muffled cries; a second later he recognized distress. In one motion he drew his weapon and chambered a round, then took a quick breath and slammed the door open. He took aim at two men at Kaiya’s bedside. One held Kaiya’s face down in her pillow.
“Hands out, now! Let’s see the hands!”
Randall Vasco and Keith Crawford half-turned and slowly placed their hands out in front of them. “Easy agent, we’re on your side.”
Kaiya screamed an obscenity at the men before backing against the wall, heaving for breath. Tears streaked her face and red slap marks were plain. “Shoot the fuckers, Mac!”
He’d seen enough. “Quiet, Kaiya. Don’t move until I say.”
Crawford motioned. “You need to stand down, Mac.”
“Stop. No movement. None. Kaiya, crawl to the floor over to me. Stay low, stay low.”
Kaiya slithered from the bed onto the floor, clear of the agents’ reach. She made it to Mac and stood on unsteady legs. She’d obviously taken the sleeping meds but had been woken up. She wore a white t-shirt and gray sweats.
“Are you okay?”
“They threatened to hurt my mom. They know where she lives!” She glared at the agents. “They want Austin and the laptop. They strangled me and slapped me and grabbed my tits and... just shoot ‘em, Mac, just shoot the fuckers!” She slid her feet into deck shoes left by the door.
“Agents Crawford and Vasco, hands up and turn around, now. Face the wall.”
Agent Crawford hesitated. “You need to go talk with Brodie. That’s all I can say.”
“Bullshit. Brodie wouldn’t order this.”
; “The fuck he didn’t Mac. Ask him yourself. Call him right now.”
Crawford wanted to distract him. A single moment is all they’d need.
“Kaiya, grab your purse.”
Kaiya leaving disturbed them. “You’re out of line, Agent Payant,” Vasco warned. “Put your weapon down and we’ll get on the phone with Brodie. You may not like our orders, but fronting your weapon is way out of line.”
Mac knew little about the agents but knew the regional director wouldn’t order Kaiya roughed up. The video orb in the corner of the room peered down. First doubts pressed in. It appeared they’d acted with impunity.
“Hands above your head and turn to face the wall, now. Kaiya, go left down the hall. Stand by the door.”
“What, execution time? Fuck you.”
An absurd suggestion, a bid for talking time. He tracked their every expression, their every movement. “Hands up and face the wall. Do it! Hands up!”
He watched them roll their eyes and shake their heads. Vasco raised his arms wide in an exaggerated fashion and turned. Crawford also turned and raised just one arm, faking the other while he pulled on his pistol.
“Don’t do it–” Mac shot him in the knee. Crawford shouted and fell onto the bed.
Vasco drew his weapon in motion. Mac collapsed into a squat and fired – the round punctured the agent’s forehead, scattering brain and skull fragments on the walls and ceiling. Kaiya screamed in the hallway.
Time slowed to a crawl. He’d just killed a fellow agent. Crawford’s weapon came up.
Mac flash aimed and squeezed the trigger.
He entered the hallway in a rush. Kaiya crouched by the door, hugging her purse. “Oh my god, you shot them?”
Mac keyed open the door. “They drew, damn it. Come on.”
“Your arm–”
A flesh wound that bled but not profusely. “Let’s go, quickly.”
He rushed through the building and arrived at the security suite. He swiped his card but got only a red light and beep. He tried again with the same result. He pushed the call button.
No one answered.
“Jesus.” He struggled with the implications. “Fuck.”
“What is it?”
He grabbed her hand. “Let’s move.”
Mac’s sedan leapt onto the country lane and accelerated towards the interstate in the dark of predawn. That they’d made it out without being stopped was only a little reassuring. Shit had hit the fan in the worst way imaginable.
Kaiya asked, “What was that room? Why were you locked out? Talk to me.”
“I said I need a minute.” He pulled out his phone.
Things were happening too fast. Too damned fast. He called the director. Brodie answered on the second ring.
“Mac? What’s up?”
He couldn’t tell if he’d woken him or not. “Emergency, sir. I need to know what orders you gave Crawford and Vasco regarding Kaiya.”
“Crawford and Vasco? About Kaiya? Why? What’s happened?”
“Orders, sir?”
“Nothing about Kaiya. Vasco has the case with orders to look into Brent’s status and the FBI investigation. What’s going on, Mac? Out with it.”
“I just found them working over Kaiya. Strangling, striking, groping. Threatened to hurt her mother. They wanted Austin’s laptop. At gunpoint they said you’d ordered the shakedown.”
Brodie responded instantly. “Absolutely not. Where are they?”
Recounting the details was tough. It sounded bad even to his own ears. “I went to Security but my card was denied and no one answered. Sir, you need to secure the digital feed from the room. It’s all there.”
“Christ, Mac. Then they are both dead?”
“Almost certainly.”
“Where are you?”
He hesitated. To feel any doubt about Brodie stung. He scanned an intersection before running a red light to reach the highway onramp.
“Mobile, sir. Kaiya is with me.”
“Alright, alright. Where are you headed?”
Not a difficult question but again he hesitated. The regional director wanted to know where they were going, had denied ordering the attack on Kaiya, and Mac wanted to believe him. The moment drew long, an answer due.
“Westbound. Towards Regent’s Place, sir.”
“That’s fine. Prepare your report there, submit it, and stay put for debriefing. I don’t want you in any more situations.”
“Yes, sir. And sir, I have a feeling about this. Kaiya’s mother needs protection.”
“I’ll look into it. Now listen, Mac, don’t deviate. This is going to be a rough ride as it is.”
“Yes, sir. Just secure the digital feed from the room. Please.”
“Of course. Stay out of trouble.”
“I’ll do my best.”
He ended the call, knowing the trouble had already begun.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Do you want the good or bad news first?”
“Oh hell. The bad news.”
“The agency may be involved but to what extent I don’t know. Maybe at the operational level... could be from higher up.” A lot higher up.
“Jeez...” She slumped against the door and stared at the dash. “The good news better be damned good.”
“I don’t think it was our government that actually took him.”
“Not our government? You just said the CIA–”
“I said the CIA may be involved. They want him and the laptop but they didn’t take him.”
“Then who did? And how is it good news?”
He shook his head. “I’m not sure yet. Someone else is involved, someone on the outside.”
“But why? I feel like you know more than you’re saying.”
“I don’t. Trust me, I wish I did. Everything revolves around the file. Are you positive Austin didn’t download it or know what it was?”
“He said he didn’t have time and I believe him. I didn’t like any of it and told him to get rid of it. But did he listen?” She stared out into the darkness.
Mac drove with an eye on the rear view mirror.
The serious consideration of mind reading was old, dating back to at least the last century. Both superpowers performed significant research into telepathy, remote viewing, and related concepts starting in the sixties and seventies. The Soviet Union started their research before the United States and by the late sixties had an annual budget of twenty-four million dedicated to psi. The CIA funded formal research starting in ‘72 and five years later the Army initiated its own program. By the mid-eighties, word of the programs leaked and the Army terminated its program only to have the Defense Intelligence Agency redesignate it and fund it separately. Ten years later, the CIA took it over and sunk it via a commissioned report saying no value had come from the research. He had always wondered how, after spending years and millions of dollars on the subject, it could be deemed of no value. That kind of money built entire agencies, insured secrecy. There was more to it and could only be classified beyond black.
Austin must have stumbled upon real evidence. Hard intel of some kind. It stirred him on levels he hadn’t felt in years. The lengths they would go to in order to keep it concealed were limitless. Now that Crawford and Vasco had acted as they had in front of the room’s surveillance camera, there was reason to fear his own organization. Without the video, he wouldn’t have a defense.
He squeezed the steering wheel.
It was all wrong... he’d broken his own rule of staying off the radar. He’d earned a radar lock and the tone was deafening. He looked in the rearview mirror at headlights coming up an onramp.
Waiting around for inbound missiles just wasn’t going to work.
An option loomed, weighing in ominously: going rogue. A dark thought but one he’d fostered over the years. If ever his career went bad, he needed a way out, a method to survive beyond the reach of the CIA. The plan was squarely in place, set up years before with extraordinary care. However,
the design was for his own disappearance, not his and another’s.
Kaiya’s worry broke the silence. “Where is Regent’s Place, Mac? What is it?”
A turn in the highway revealed the valley lights below. “A safe house in Sacramento. Only I’m not sure how safe it will be.” He met Kaiya’s gaze briefly. “I don’t mean to scare you but I’m not going to lie to you either. Agents may take custody of you there.”
“No, Mac. I want out, now. Please. Get me out of this.” She looked ready to leap from her skin.
“Relax Kaiya, relax. You have to keep your head. Don’t give in–”
“Relax? Mac! There’s nothing relaxing about any of this. This can’t be happening but goddammit, it is! Look at me – the United States Central Intelligence Agency just roughed me up over computer files about mind reading! Hello? They threatened to kill me if I didn’t cooperate. They’ll go after my mom! She doesn’t know anything about this. She barely likes Austin for chrissakes. Now I’m driving to a safe house where I’ll be taken into custody and then what? Tortured? Raped? Over what? Proof of mind reading? Sure, just relax. What the hell is going to happen to me? What would you do!”
With as much conviction as he could muster, he said, “None of that is going to happen. Things have gone nuts, yes, I know it. Other people know it, too. Losing our minds now won’t help us – but it will help them. I have a feeling they are counting on it.”
She looked to the city-lit skyline, all fear and confusion.
“Kaiya, I will protect you and I’m going to try to find Austin. But you’re going to have to trust me. Can you do that?”
The lights of Sacramento disappeared as the highway descended into the valley.
“I don’t think I have a choice, do I? It’s the government. You’re all I’ve got. No offense intended.”
“None taken. Now, your cell phone, please.”
“No. I have to warn my mom.”
Mac thought about it. “Tell her to stay at a friend’s house. She needs to be with people at all times. Make the call short.”
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