The Lupin Project

by Allan Leverone

  “I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can. Try to get some rest.” He pulled the door open, and in the darkness outside Alicia could see the still-heavily-falling snow being whipped by gusty winds behind him.

  “Please give your parents my condolences,” she said.

  “I will.”

  “And Rob?”

  “Yes?”

  “Be careful.”

  “My Jeep gets around fine in the snow. Hell, you already discovered that. And the vehicle I’ll be borrowing from my friend is four-wheel-drive truck, so I’ll be okay.”

  “I wasn’t talking about the weather. Those guys are still out there. Who knows what they’re going to do next?”

  He nodded. “I’ll keep my guard up.”

  Then he stepped through the door and into the storm. He pulled it firmly closed and she was alone.

  21

  Jason didn’t recognize either of the two men who drove up to the disabled Humvee approximately twenty minutes after Toler’s angry call for help. The men missed their fifteen-minute deadline, but not by much, and Toler seemed satisfied with the timing. Relatively speaking.

  Their rescuers may have been Army or other military, but if so they went to great lengths not to advertise it. Both men were dressed in plain, nearly identical civilian clothing—faded jeans, work boots and dark blue parkas, all of which could have been purchased at any one of a hundred different clothing outlets. There was nothing to indicate branch of service or rank.

  Nothing noteworthy at all, for that matter.

  The men eased to the side of the road, one driving a plain white wrecker—also bearing no identifying markings—and the other following in a Humvee that looked identical to the one Toler had crashed into the tree. The olive-green paint job on the Hummer was the only indication of a possible military connection.

  The twenty-minute wait for rescue had been long and awkward, with Toler mostly muttering under his breath, but every so often launching into an angry rant, blaming Jason for their predicament and predicting lifetime incarceration or a firing squad, “if we don’t get this goat-fuck under control.”

  Jason chose to remain silent in the face of the abuse. It was unpleasant and frankly terrifying, especially when punctuated by a 9mm exclamation point thrust into his face, but Toler’s current accusations weren’t any worse than the ones he’d been flinging at Jason almost nonstop since last night. They certainly weren’t any worse than the ones he’d been torturing himself with.

  The fact that Colonel Toler was losing his grip didn’t make his assessment of Jason’s culpability any less true.

  So he kept his mouth shut and suffered in miserable silence, and when the vehicles appeared, looming out of the falling snow like monsters in a movie, Jason felt a sense of relief unlike anything he had ever experienced. What would happen next he did not know, but at least he would no longer be alone in the dark with a madman.

  Before the vehicles had even rolled to a stop, Toler shoved open his door and climbed out of the damaged Humvee. A second later the man driving the replacement Hummer exited his vehicle and Toler escorted him a short distance away. It was obvious the colonel wanted their discussion to take place out of Jason’s earshot.

  He shook his head. The level of these people’s paranoia was off the charts. Considering the gusty winds, they could have shouted to each other at the tops of their lungs while standing five feet away from him and Jason didn’t think he would have been able to make out what they were saying.

  But good riddance. The last thing he wanted was to know more about whatever was happening here. He was exhausted and frightened and guilt-ridden, and while Jason knew he should be trying to get to the bottom of this situation, the plain fact was he just wanted it to be over.

  From the relative warmth of the damaged Humvee, Jason watched Colonel Toler’s animated discussion, snow blowing around them, neither man seeming to take note of the brutal weather conditions, and out of nowhere came a thought: CIA.

  These guys were CIA, just like the bland-faced, anonymous-looking men who visited Tamerlane virtually every Project Evaluation Day. Or maybe they were NSA, or some other even more clandestine organization dedicated to doing whatever those clandestine organizations did.

  Jason had assumed his neural conditioning research was what had drawn the attention of the CIA/NSA, but perhaps the clandestine connection between the alphabet agency and the Tamerlane Research Facility went deeper than that. Perhaps Colonel Toler was an active member of one of those organizations. Perhaps Jason had been working for the CIA or the NSA all along, rather than for the U.S. Army, as had been his assumption.

  Up until recently, he would have said that whether the army or a clandestine intelligence service was funding his research was a distinction without a difference, to the extent he considered the issue at all.

  Now the possibility of a CIA connection terrified him.

  While Toler and the other man continued their conversation, the driver of the unmarked wrecker angled across Route 9 and then backed his truck up to the rear of the disabled Hummer, leaving maybe five feet of clearance between the two vehicles. Then he climbed down from his cab and crawled under the Humvee with a thick chain held in one gloved hand.

  A moment later he crawled back out from under the truck and moved to the side of the wrecker, where he began manipulating a series of levers on a control panel. A hydraulic winch engaged, and then a motor began pulling the chain toward the wrecker.

  When the winch had taken up all the slack, the man lifted the lever and the chain stopped. He walked impatiently to the passenger side of the Hummer. “Ya gotta get out!” he shouted through the closed window.

  Jason sighed deeply and opened his door, a sense of dread building in his belly. For some utterly illogical reason, he’d felt a tiny morsel of safety being closed up inside the Humvee and away from Colonel Toler. Now that his imaginary cocoon was about to disappear, he felt the looming threat of Toler even more strongly than before.

  He considered asking the wrecker operator if he could ride along and leave Toler behind with the replacement Humvee, but knew instinctively the man would never agree. Whatever their plans for the damaged vehicle, if Jason’s theory about Toler being involved with CIA or NSA was correct, the men wouldn’t allow a civilian to see where they went next.

  For that matter, neither would Toler.

  The colonel was hell bent on forcing Jason to participate as he “tied up the loose ends,” and out of nowhere, as he climbed back into the wind and the snow and darkness, it occurred to Jason why. He had witnessed the fate of that poor teenager last night. As commanding officer and administrator of the Tamerlane Research Facility, Toler would be held ultimately responsible if Jason spilled his guts to the authorities.

  So Toler was making Jason an accomplice. By including him in the attempted murder of the Jeep driver, Toler was involving Jason in the crime with the intention of shutting him up. It would be Jason’s word against Toler’s as to whether his participation had been voluntary or forced, and he knew who would win that showdown every time.

  It wouldn’t be Jason.

  A concrete block of fear sat in Dr. Jason Greeley’s belly as he stood miserably in the storm, waiting for Toler to finish his conversation down the road. He wanted to climb into the warm, dry replacement Humvee but didn’t dare. He didn’t have the stomach to face the harangue—or worse—he would likely receive if he got in before Toler and without permission.

  Jason began to shiver as snowflakes landed on his shoulders and the top of his head. His hair had begun thinning years ago and the warmth of his body melted the flakes, causing rivulets of ice-cold water to run down his neck and under the collar of his shirt.

  He didn’t think he had ever been unhappier.

  But the longer he stood in the storm, the more his resolve began to harden. He had been played for a fool by Colonel Frank Toler, not just last night and today, but for much longer. Realistically, he had been played for a fool since t
he day he was hired. And he was goddamn tired of it.

  Finally the impromptu meeting of the minds between the two men on the side of Route 9 ended. The man who had delivered the replacement Humvee marched past Jason without a word—without even a glance in his direction; it was as though Jason didn’t exist—while Toler growled, “Get in the new truck,” as he stalked past.

  Jason didn’t answer, and it wouldn’t have mattered if he had. Toler wasn’t waiting around to hear whatever Jason had to say as he strode purposefully toward the vehicle.

  It was just one more indignity.

  Looking back now, with newly opened eyes and the benefit of years of hindsight, he had known something was not quite right at Tamerlane almost from the very beginning. He’d ignored his misgivings, though, had allowed himself to be seduced by the heady research and the fat budget.

  But it was one thing to conduct research knowing the results could theoretically be used to harm human beings. It was another thing entirely to be a party to the cold-blooded murder of innocents. There was nothing theoretical about what had happened last night and today.

  This had to end.

  Toler was not going to stop, that much was obvious. His actions last night could perhaps be excused on the basis of shock and poor snap judgments made under incredible pressure. But today’s near-tragic misadventure had been planned out in advance.

  Toler was too far gone to listen to reason.

  Jason had no idea what he was going to do, but if Toler had forced him along on this disastrous afternoon as a means of keeping Jason’s mouth shut, he had greatly misjudged Jason Greeley. Jason had been confused and afraid before, and now he was still confused and afraid.

  Hell, he was more confused and afraid.

  But he was also determined. He would do everything in his power to stop Frank Toler from spilling one more drop of innocent blood.

  It was time to make a stand.

  If only he knew how.

  22

  Rob Senna had never felt as hopeless as he did driving the three miles from the Sleepy Logger Motel to his childhood home on the east side of New Quebec.

  He’d always been close to his little brother. The four-year difference in their ages had been enough to minimize most of the sibling rivalry brothers typically experienced growing up. Eddie had idolized him, and in some ways, Rob had felt almost like a second father to Eddie.

  So the news of his death struck Rob hard. It was like the old cartoon trope, the unsuspecting man walking down the street, whistling a happy tune, when out of nowhere a piano falls on his head. The suddenness, the unexpected nature of a normal, healthy eighteen-year-old falling victim to such savage violence, was like nothing Rob had ever experienced.

  And if it was hitting him like a ton of bricks, he couldn’t begin to imagine how his parents were going to be affected. Eddie had been the baby of the family, and as much as his mother had doted on Rob, she’d always had a special devotion to her youngest child.

  Now Eddie was gone forever.

  And Rob was going to have to be the one to break the devastating news to his parents.

  He turned into his driveway, the Jeep slashing through at least four inches of heavy, wet snow. As he had anticipated, aunts, uncles and cousins had converged on the house, and there was barely enough room to pull the vehicle completely off the road.

  He shut down the engine and ran a hand over his face, feeling ragged and sick. It had been a long day and it was only seven p.m. For a moment he sat in the Jeep and wished he were anywhere else in the world. Then he climbed down into the snow and trudged along the side of the driveway, then up the walkway to the front door.

  He had told his parents when he left the house around midafternoon that he was going to check in with several of Eddie’s friends, see if they might have any idea where Eddie had gone. His folks had obviously shared that information with each family member as they arrived, because the entire gathering eyed him expectantly the moment he walked through the door.

  The low murmur of muted conversation exploded into a jumble of questions, everyone anxious for information.

  He tried to force a smile while scanning the faces for his mother or father, but the attempt failed miserably. He could feel the tautness in his facial muscles and guessed his attempt more closely resembled a grimace.

  The smell of coffee and chocolate chip cookies told him that his mother had been trying to keep calm the best way she knew how—by caring for others. She walked out of the kitchen with a steaming cup of coffee, and when she spotted Rob she quickly handed the coffee off to his Aunt Kelly and locked eyes with him. Her gaze was hopeful and expectant and afraid, all at the same time, and Rob’s heart broke just a little more.

  He gestured to his mother, calling her over and then struggling through the crowd to meet her halfway. His family was tight-knit, but right now all he cared about was speaking with his parents.

  His mother’s eyes were red-rimmed but retained a glimmer of optimism as he put an arm around her shoulder. “Can I talk to you and Dad in private? Maybe in your bedroom?”

  That was when she knew.

  ***

  How do you explain to grieving parents that their child is dead? That their eighteen-year-old son, soon to graduate high school and looking forward to college, and then a career and a family and a long and happy life, has been killed violently and abruptly and in one of the most unlikely scenarios imaginable?

  How do you answer their inevitable questions, particularly when you’ve been asking yourself the same questions over and over to no avail?

  How do you break through the denial, when the dead teen’s mother and father want desperately to cling to the conviction that you’re mistaken, that the story you’re telling can’t possibly be true, that you’ve been victimized by some unspeakably cruel fiction perpetrated by some unknown person for some unimaginable purpose, that you are confused or misinterpreting what you were told or that you’re just plain wrong?

  ***

  It occurred to Rob once he had broken through their denial and convinced them of the truth of his words, once he had shared their tears and their horror and their sorrow, that the hardest part was still to come.

  His father wanted to take immediate action, and Rob couldn’t blame him. “I’m calling the police,” he vowed. “Right now. If any part of what you just told me is true, any last little morsel of it, I’m going to make sure they get to the bottom of what happened to Eddie if it’s the last thing I do.”

  After the emotional wringer Rob had been forced to put his parents through—and had been forced to endure himself—he still had to convince them not to take the next obvious step, the one any sane person would take under the circumstances.

  “Dad, no,” he said. “Just hold on, please.”

  He hadn’t told them Alicia’s name yet because they’d been so broken up about Eddie that it hadn’t occurred to them to ask. But now he ran through an abbreviated version of last night’s events as she’d related them to him, focusing in particular on his near certainty that the New Quebec Police Department was somehow involved in whatever ugly conspiracy was taking place at the Tamerlane Research Facility.

  His mother had dropped in heartbroken shock onto the bench seat in front of her makeup table as Rob related his story, and now she sat, head in her hands, saying nothing. She hadn’t spoken for several minutes, and Rob wondered how much attention she was paying to the current conversation.

  Probably not much.

  Maybe not any.

  His father said, “I’m trying to believe you, but what possible motive would the New Quebec Police have in covering up a murder? Especially the murder of a local kid?”

  “I don’t know, Dad. I can’t answer that question. But just think about the runaround you got this morning when you called them to report Eddie missing. That alone seems suspicious, don’t you think?”

  He shrugged. “Their response was not the one I wanted, but I couldn’t argue with their line of rea
soning. At eighteen, Eddie’s officially an adult, and he hadn’t been gone long enough to qualify as a missing person.”

  “But your phone call came after Alicia told the police last night that Eddie had been killed. Even if they gave her the brush-off then, even if they thought she was some stupid kid out to get attention with a wild story—although, why she would want that kind of attention I can’t imagine—but even if that’s what they believed last night, don’t you think a normal response would have been to sit up and take notice this morning when they heard from you? Don’t you think any law enforcement agency even remotely interested in doing their jobs would have at least asked you some follow-up questions? Told you they’d keep an eye out for Eddie’s car? Tried to get back in touch with Alicia? Done something to at least make you believe they gave a damn?”

  Rob’s father had been pacing as they talked, but now he stopped and stared at Rob, who was still standing just inside the closed door. For a long time he remained silent, then he said, “That does seem suspicious, I’ll give you that.”

  Rob breathed heavily and ran a hand through his hair. “Dad, there’s something else.”

  “More than what you’ve already told us?”

  He nodded. He hadn’t intended to tell his parents about the frightening encounter with the army Humvee out on Route 9, had figured they didn’t need the added burden of worrying about their older son’s safety while grieving their younger son’s death.

  But he decided now that they deserved to know. And while they weren’t aware of his plan to leave the house tonight—yet—he wanted to reinforce the point that calling the police could turn out to be an extremely dangerous proposition. His father wasn’t the most patient of men, and as the hours passed later tonight and into tomorrow morning, it wouldn’t have surprised Rob to learn that his dad had changed his mind and called the police anyway, just to feel he was accomplishing something.

  So he outlined the bizarre confrontation, drawing the line at telling them the driver of the Humvee had approached with a gun just prior to their escape. That was all he left out, though. Everything else he related, from meeting Alicia at Dunkin’ Donuts to driving out to the scene of Eddie’s death to nearly being forced off the road in the snow and the wind.