MayAnn nodded her thanks.
“Dempsey, Mark is leading a task force to set up education and training activities for the children. I want him to be able to call on Alpha Company whenever he needs resources, equipment or assistance. Currently his team consists of four or five of the older children.”
The major nodded his agreement. “It’ll give the company something to do. Mark, let’s meet tomorrow at 1000 hours with your team and get this underway.”
“Certainly, Major,” said Mark. “I need help setting this up for all the children.”
~~~
Schmidt and MayAnn were utilizing their Quantico FBI offices for a working weekend. Schmidt had said he needed to find some quiet time to focus on reports and MayAnn quickly agreed. “I’ll try to interview Jamieson one last time,” suggested Schmidt to MayAnn. He thought for a moment. “Do you think I should have Mark with me?”
“Mark? Are you sure?” She seemed intrigued at his suggestion.
“Yes. I don’t know if you’ve noticed? I’ve seen him in some of the preliminary Alpha Company interviews. He has a remarkable knack of getting the interviewee to talk. Plus, he seems to know when he’s being fed a line of bull.”
“I thought there was something like that; the older children have a similar technique. It must be part of their engineering, undoubtedly unintended.”
“Mark should be able to get here in an hour. The traffic’s light. I’ll get Symmonds to send a vehicle and driver for him.”
When Mark arrived, he, Schmidt, and MayAnn headed to the interview room where their prisoner was waiting. MayAnn intended to observe the interview via a video feed. Mark questioned Schmidt, “Why do you want me in the interview?”
“The general is in a very distressed mental state. With his background, I think these recent events have overwhelmed him. He’s depressed, we have him on suicide watch, and this is likely to be our last chance at getting sense from him. I’ve seen the effect you have on interviewees and wondered—grasping at straws, I suppose—if your presence or influence would help us. Will it work? Probability is about 25 percent, I suppose.”
“I’ll try my best.”
They reached the door of the interview room and MayAnn continued to the adjoining room where she could watch the interview on video. There were two FBI agents outside and another agent inside the room where the general was waiting. Schmidt and Mark sat at a table across from Jamieson. He was handcuffed; he appeared disheveled, distraught, perhaps not fully cognizant of his status.
“Good afternoon, General,” said Schmidt. He did not wait for a reply. “This is Mark Midway; I’ve asked him to sit in on this interview with me.”
Jamieson did not react to Mark’s name. The general tried to wipe a drool of saliva from the corner of his mouth. He was unsuccessful. “Schmidt. Come to gloat, have you?” He ignored Mark, almost as though he did not see him.
“Certainly not. I’d like to remind you, we’re taping this interview. I want to discuss Cerberus with you. We have a hundred or so researchers under arrest—they’re being interviewed by FBI agents.”
“Researchers? What have they done, to be arrested?”
“Research on, and DNA customizing of, human embryos is illegal. Also, we have classed Cerberus as a terrorist organization. It has been responsible for a number of deaths and other crimes. The researchers are members of Cerberus. Tell me, do you know Dr. White?”
The general tried to hide his reaction. “No, why should I? I’m not part of this—what did you call them? Cerberus.”
Mark moved his hand, catching Schmidt’s attention. Schmidt nodded. Mark said, “General, you and Dr. White have a relationship, a very close relationship. Close enough to be regarded as lovers. You’ve know each other for what—nearly ten years?”
Jamieson stared at Mark. “Who told you that?”
Mark shrugged. “It’s true, isn’t it?” He returned the general’s stare.
Jamieson wilted. “I don’t suppose it can damage me, any more. Yes, you’re correct about us, about our relationship.” He turned to Schmidt. “Did you arrest her?”
“Unfortunately, no. She had enough time to leave the Center before we arrived and we haven’t located her, yet. Do you have an address?”
The prisoner did not answer.
Mark said, “General, we have thirty Cerberus children and want to ensure they’re not in any danger from their DNA engineering. Dr. White is, as far as we can determine, the only one who can help them. What is her address?”
“She’s gone. They prepared plans that they would implement if they’re facing exposure or arrest. They called them removal plans, Alpha and Beta. They probably implemented Alpha.”
“What do you mean, gone?” asked Mark.
“Gone. She won’t be here to help me. She’s gone. Removed. Everyone’s gone.”
“General, you said they have plans. Who are ‘they’?”
There was only silence.
Mark reached out to touch the back of Jamieson’s hand. “General, who else is involved in Removal Plan Alpha?” He hid his shock at the almost electric reaction as he made physical contact with the prisoner’s hand.
The general muttered, almost to himself, “Davis. Jones. They’re based in New York. They’ll be gone, as well. The Chairman. He’s hardly ever in the country, he’s always traveling in that fancy yacht of his. Gone. Everyone’s gone. I’m alone.” He wiped his lips. “Everyone’s gone.”
Mark lifted his hand and looked at Schmidt. He did not mention the flow of memories he had received from Jamieson. “I think that’s all we’ll get, at least today.”
Schmidt nodded his agreement. “General, thank you for your help. The FBI agents will take you back to your cell.” Schmidt then spoke to the guard. “Treat him gently. You must maintain a twenty-four hour watch. Please arrange for a psychiatrist to see him as soon as possible; the doctor may need to prescribe medication.”
***
Chapter 28
Mark returned to Camp Brewer in Schmidt’s vehicle, a newer model Humvee, with an Army driver. He was lost in thought for the hour, trying to analyze his experience with General Jamieson. He now had a set of memories that were not his own; they were separate and readily accessible. The general’s memories contained a mix of emotions as well as factual details. Dr. White and Jamieson definitely had been lovers. Davis and Jones were located in New York. The details he was able to access included the address of Cerberus’s main office and he knew it operated under a more commercial name: APTC International. He decided to discuss this memory addition with Martin and Anna when he reached the Army base.
The driver dropped him at the front of Building A and he went searching for the older children. He found Martin and Erikk together and then, on their way to a secure meeting room, they encountered Anna. The four of them sat around a table, and the three children regarded Mark with interest.
Anna hid a smile. She said, “Well?”
Mark regarded each of them and after a minute said, “I have a new ability, I think. I was assisting Schmidt to interview General Jamieson. I touched his hand and it was like making an electrical connection and his memories seemed to flow into my brain. Do you all have this ability?”
Erikk nodded. Martin smiled. Anna said, “We wondered when it would become more obvious to you. Subconsciously you have been sharing our memories, without realizing it. Of course, we restricted the transfers to very superficial details, except, you’ve been getting more from Alpha Company because they don’t have all our abilities.”
Mark sat back in his chair. “Aah, so that’s why you didn’t need to speak when you were prisoners? It wasn’t just body language and signs.”
Martin said, “Correct. Let’s see what you got from Jamieson. We can all hold hands in the center of the table. Relax, we’ll just take the general’s memories.”
Mark reached his two hands out. Anna clasped one hand with both of hers. Martin and Erikk held his other hand. Mark concentrated on the
separate set of memories he had received from Jamieson. After a moment the three children released his hands.
“Well done,” said Anna. Erikk nodded.
Martin said, “Indeed, that was excellent memory management, better than we can do.”
“The general’s in a bad way,” said Anna. “I hope the FBI have him under a suicide watch.”
“I noticed that as well,” said Mark. “I tried to relax him but I’m not sure I succeeded. The FBI agents are watching him. Schmidt said they needed to have him examined by a psychiatrist, that he probably needed medication.”
“So now we have details of their New York office. You haven’t mentioned this to Schmidt or to MayAnn?”
“No. I didn’t want to tell them how I found the details. There’s a lot more information as well, although nothing of substance for our investigation of Cerberus—just more about Jamieson’s activities. He was an associate of Senator Boothby: that’s the senator who tried to have me killed, last year. Jamieson arranged the murder of some CIA agents at Cherry Hill. Apparently no one in Cerberus management knew he did that.”
“How do you think we should proceed?” asked Martin. “The FBI needs some of this information.”
Anna and Erikk looked at Mark, waiting for his lead. “I agree—they need to know about New York. The other stuff—I don’t think we need do anything about that. Can we say we have been re-checking with all the children, and someone recalled the corporate name?”
“Yes, I think that would work,” said Anna. “Erikk, Martin, what do you think?”
“I agree the FBI needs only the New York information. Jamieson doesn’t have very much information about the Removal Plan, certainly nothing of use,” said Erikk.
Martin nodded, “I agree. Do we need to say which child?”
“It should be an older child,” suggested Mark. “We don’t want to place any of the younger children under pressure.”
A tiny voice piped up from the corner of the room. “Why not?” It was Gabrielle, the youngest of the children. No one had noticed her, sitting in the shadowed corner of the room. Mark suspected their failure may have been due to the young girl’s desire to remain unnoticed. He surmised the children had a wide range of abilities and he had not yet identified the complete set. Gabrielle looked at him very seriously and he felt a tiny itch in his mind.
“Yes, you’re correct,” the tiny child said. The others did not seem to hear the young girl.
“Well,” said Anna. “You are a surprise. Why do you think a younger child should tell MayAnn?”
“I don’t think she would ask as many questions,” replied Gabrielle. “I could do it, I can be very believable.”
“Will Schmidt and MayAnn realize we’re capable of manipulating them?” wondered Mark.
“I think Schmidt’s already suspicious,” said Anna. “He picked up on some of your interview techniques. You’re very persuasive when you want to be.”
“I thought that worked only with dogs,” said Mark, a plaintive tone in his voice.
The children laughed. Anna said, “I’m very glad for us that you were able to quieten those watchdogs. The security guards were convinced you’d be torn to pieces.”
“What’s the conclusion?” asked Martin. “Shall we permit our little one to take a risk?”
“Yes. We can protect her,” said Anna. “Gabrielle, come here, I’ll transfer the corporate name and the New York address to you and then you can write them on a sheet of paper. Give it to MayAnn and tell her you remembered reading the details from a note at the Genetics Center. Don’t try to make up anything else, just tell her it’s all you can recall. Do you all agree?”
Their decision was unanimous.
~~~
Dempsey watched, unobserved, as Mark walked across the square in front of the barracks buildings towards a group of his soldiers. There were eight in the group, all privates; two were female. They were a group of tough young soldiers, although not yet blooded in combat. Mark seemed unaware of their presence and was oblivious to their sudden interest in his approach.
One of the larger men stood in front of Mark. “What are you, some kind of brown nose?” the soldier asked.
The major realized three of the children had appeared seemingly from nowhere and were standing with him, their interest equal to his, except it was mixed with amusement.
Mark looked the soldier up and down. “What kind of challenge do you think that is?” he asked, dropping the file he was carrying. “This is how you challenge.”
Before the soldier could move or react, he was on the ground, face down, trying not to scream. Mark had dropped him with a modified te gatame hold. He had not been gentle and the soldier was trying to hide the agony of a severely dislocated elbow; he would need surgery. Two of his companions moved forward, one moving to Mark’s left and the other to his right, while a third soldier approached direct; they intended this to be a painful confrontation.
Anna said to Dempsey, “They’ve been planning a challenge for the last few days. They don’t know who Mark is, and they want to establish their superiority. Part of their motivation is jealousy about how we’re being treated.”
Mark carefully monitored the approach of his three assailants. He was outweighed and outnumbered. He held up his hand. The soldiers halted. One said, “What? Giving up, already?”
“No, I just want to ask who is volunteering to go down first?”
The three soldiers laughed and rushed their victim. Mark twisted to one side and grabbed the closest soldier, the one on his left, by his outstretched hand and pulled him forward, accelerating his advance. The soldier half ran, stumbled and tripped, aided by Mark’s foot, and landed heavily, face down on the black top, two or three yards behind Mark. His two remaining assailants cursed. The soldier on his right stopped, as though to re-appraise his plan of attack. The other soldier continued his advance, unconsciously signaling his intention to swing his fist at Mark’s head. Mark stepped forward, so they were standing body to body. The soldier stopped, this was not how his intended victim was supposed to fight. Mark spun him around and pushed him away, kicking at the side of the man’s knee. The soldier collapsed; his knee pushed much further than its design intended. Mark caught the third man just as he was swinging his fist, grabbed his hand and added momentum, breaking the soldier’s arm with a savage levered twist. The first of the three, the soldier Mark had pushed to the ground, was back on his feet and tried to attack Mark from behind. Mark ended his role in the attack with a broken wrist, the blow delivered without hesitation, without pity.
Mark looked at the remaining soldiers as they stood unmoving, each uncertain whether to add themselves to the assault started by their companions. “Understand, anyone else who tries to attack me, or tries to stop me helping the Cerberus children, will regret the day, I promise. I don’t care whether you’re male or female, interfere and you’re dog meat, understand?” He pushed mentally at the small group in front of him, reinforcing his warning. The four soldiers paled, now aware they and their comrades had crossed some kind of line. They knew not to cross it again. “I don’t have the time or patience to go through this again. If you don’t want to stay in Alpha Company, I suggest you talk to Major Dempsey. Pass the word to anyone else in the company who might be tempted.” He paused. “Your friends need medical attention, you probably should help them.” He picked up his file, tidied the contents, and continued on his way.
Dempsey looked at the three children standing next to him. “Well, I don’t think they misunderstood him.”
“Sir,” said Martin, “Mark can be ruthless. He doesn’t want to be, but if someone attacks him or tries to stop him, he automatically switches into the mode you just witnessed.”
“I suspected he had hidden depths.”
“Sir, you don’t know how deep. Ask General Schmidt sometime, you’ll find the details enlightening,” advised Anna. “We, the Cerberus children, understand Mark, and will support him, absolutely, without question.”
“It would be interesting to have a company of soldiers like him,” considered Dempsey.
The children laughed. Anna said, “It wouldn’t work. They’d all want to leave the Army.”
Later in the day Dempsey spoke to Schmidt and described the attempt of the soldiers to overwhelm Midway. “They went down like ninepins. Four soldiers, I’ve seen them in training, they’re not weaklings, and he had them down before I could decide whether to stop the attack. The result, four medical cases, and he walked off, not a care.”
“I suspect he restrained his reactions. Dempsey, that young man is deadly, when he needs to be. I hope Alpha Company understands the message.”
“I’ll make sure of that. I’ll speak to the sergeants, they’ll spread the word.”
“Sometime, over a beer, I’ll tell you a story. Remind me. In a year or so.”
~~~
Later that day Schmidt joined Maeve for a private conference. She had informed him that she had some information she could neither email nor communicate by phone. She had emphasized it was for his ears only. Intrigued and not a little concerned, he had left Camp Brewer where MayAnn was supervising interviews, and made his way to Quantico.
Maeve closed the door to the small interview room, one she had selected at random. It had no telephone, ensuring their meeting could not be overheard via a bugged phone. She used a small device to check for any unexpected electronic signals. Schmidt watched the performance, half amused, half intrigued.
“I’ve been monitoring some very interesting communications,” explained Maeve. “You remember the list of politicians you obtained from the Australian?”
“Yes.”
“They and Oliver have been in touch. They’ve all tried to hide their meetings and communications; fortunately for us, unsuccessfully.”
Schmidt sat back in the chair and stared at the ceiling. Maeve’s information was a tremendous shock. Oliver was an Assistant Director in the FBI, one of the most senior law enforcement positions in the country. His responsibility was National Security, an extremely sensitive area. Schmidt’s mind refused to examine the link between Oliver and MayAnn. He had requested that she not forward those details to her boss until he, Schmidt, had an opportunity to explore their implications further. It seemed she had ignored his request.
Mark Midway Box Set: Mark One, Mark Two, Mark Three, and Mark Four Page 41