Mortal Crimes 1

by Various Authors

  Behind the bars was a thick barrier of plexiglass, and the bars were too close together to reach his arm through to touch it anyway, but it let in a view of his surroundings.

  He stared across a flat, barren landscape of brush and dirt and rocks. There was a mountain in the distance, covered in browning vegetation. It was not the rainy season, wherever this was.

  “It’s not Guantanamo,” he said. He told Kilroy what he could see. “Maybe I’m still in Africa.”

  “What happened in Africa?”

  “No, uh-uh. Not going there.” His arms were getting tired, but he strained to turn his head and get as much of a glimpse as he could see. “No, it doesn’t look like Africa. I think that’s sage brush. And there’s a bit of snow on top of that mountain.”

  He dropped to the ground.

  “Somewhere in the States, most likely,” Kilroy said. “Montana or New Mexico or something.”

  “Those are big, empty states,” Ian said. “A man could get lost there. Or hide.”

  “You’re thinking about escape.”

  “Of course.” The words tumbled out as he momentarily dropped his guard.

  “But why?”

  “Why?” Ian didn’t understand the question. “Why would I want to escape from this lovely facility, where they keep me drugged, where nobody tells me what I did wrong or why they treat me like a dangerous criminal?”

  “But maybe it’s temporary,” Kilroy said. “Maybe they’ll rehabilitate you, or give you a trial where you can explain why they’re wrong, why you don’t belong here. They’ll see their mistake, give their apologies and you’ll be a free man.”

  “Does that happen?”

  “Who knows? Hasn’t happened to me or my friends, but you never know. You could wait and find out. You don’t need to escape. Even if you could figure out a way, it might just be counterproductive.”

  “You don’t understand.”

  “Oh, I do,” Kilroy said. “I can hear it in your voice.”

  “Fine, since you’re so brilliant,” Ian said. He paced the cell, studying the patterns in the carpet. “You tell me why I want to escape.”

  “Justice. Righteous indignation.”

  Ian stopped, looked up at the spot on the wall that seemed to harbor Kilroy’s voice. He thought about Kendall Rose, dying in the desert. He thought about their training with the implant, he thought about the time they almost died in Afghanistan.

  And he thought about his first week at football camp, all that stupid stuff he’d said. He’d been in the bathroom, talking to one of the white linebackers, repeating a bit of racial nonsense so stupid Ian must have heard it from his dad when talking about rugby.

  “You see Rose get sacked?” the linebacker said with a chuckle. “He must’ve been twenty yards behind the line of scrimmage. Kept running backwards.”

  “White guy never would’ve done that,” Ian said.

  “Huh?”

  “You know, keep running backwards like that. Black guys always think they’re so fast, they can outrun anyone. He thought he could get around the end and turn it up field.”

  The stall opened just then, and out came one of the other black guys on the team, a big DB named Jameel Green. He fixed Ian with a hostile look, but said nothing as he brushed past and out of the bathroom.

  “Man, you’re an idiot,” the white linebacker said and followed the other guy out of the bathroom with a shake of the head.

  Ian half expected to be jumped by a couple of pissed off black guys after practice, but the only one waiting in the parking lot was Kendall Rose, standing by himself next to Ian’s beat-up Civic. He didn’t look happy.

  “Listen, brother,” Ian said. “I didn’t mean anything. I was talking, you know? It was dumb.”

  “It was a stupid play. Never turn backfield. That’s what coach always says. And you’re right, I kept thinking I could outrun that guy, get around him. But let’s get one thing straight, it wasn’t ‘cause I’m black.”

  “Right.”

  “Coach chewed me a new asshole. Told me if I did that again he’d make Jenkins the starter. But it won’t, ‘cause you know what? I’m smart enough to learn my lesson. Know what I mean?”

  “Right, brother.”

  “And here’s another thing, man. Drop the brother shit. I don’t know what that means in South Africa, but it doesn’t mean the same thing here, got it?”

  “Yeah, I got it.”

  A beating would have hurt less. Was embarrassment the only emotion that could return, full force, fifteen years later?

  Kendall Rose. Ian would’ve taken a bullet for that guy. He had to get out of this place, figure out what had happened. The hell with proving he was innocent.

  “What makes you think that’s my motive?” Ian asked Kilroy when he could no longer stand to think about Kendall.

  “Because I’m you. You really are insane. This is just the little voice inside your head.”

  “What?”

  Kilroy chuckled. “Just kidding. I couldn’t resist. No, it’s because I’ve given this a lot of thought. That thing I hear in your voice, that’s the same thing going through my head. I know why you need to get out of here, because I need the same thing.”

  “Fair enough,” Ian said.

  “So tell me, what now?”

  “What do you mean, what now?”

  “They think you’re drugged. That means they open your door and you’ve got a chance. Assuming you’ve got skills, of course. But if you didn’t, why would you be here, drugged?”

  The thought had already occurred to Ian, of course, but he didn’t want to voice it to his strange neighbor. Once he got out of here, figured out where he was, he might be able to do something for the other inmates of this asylum. Until then, he would keep his thoughts to himself.

  Ian settled down to wait for the door to open with his next dosage of medication.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Julia read Anton Markov’s email with growing anger. She fired off a response before she had a chance to cool down, which was always a bad thing.

  To: Anton Markov

  From: Julia Nolan

  Subject: re:re:re:Implant Data

  Anton,

  You want me to drop it?? Fine, you’d better fire me. Because I’m not going to just let this go. In case you forgot, Ian Westhelle and Kendall Rose were MY patients. One man is dead, the other violent and delusional. There is no way—NO WAY—that I’m going to do another surgery until I can figure out what went wrong.

  At the minimum, I need to see Westhelle one more time and see if I can figure out what triggered his breakdown, and when.

  If I can’t do that, you’d better just pull me from the project, because I won’t do any more surgeries, not on primates, not on humans. And good luck finding someone who can take my place. I’m good at what I do, and I know the project. The choice is yours.

  Julia

  The phone rang in her lab less than thirty seconds later. It was Markov. “Damn it, Nolan, you’ve backed me into a corner and that really pisses me off.”

  Julia’s heart was pounding. She’d already begun to regret her angry, hastily comprised email. Now it looked like she was going to lose her job. She could find something else—the bit about being good was not just bluster, and there were plenty of people who knew it. But jobs in D.C. were tight. Her chairman at George Washington was still angry about her leaving at a moment’s notice. It might mean moving, and her marriage couldn’t take any more stress.

  “Try to see it from my viewpoint,” she said. “What would you do if you were me?”

  “I’d leave it alone, of course. This does not fall under your responsibilities. You have plenty of leeway when it comes to medical issues, but you can’t stick your nose into the software, you can’t make operational decisions, and you are certainly not authorized or qualified to involve yourself in matters involving national security.”

  “I’m not trying to.”

  “Then what do you call this fre
elancing?”

  “I’m not freelancing. I’m obeying the Hippocratic Oath and my own conscience. That’s important too, don’t you think?” He hadn’t fired her yet, which was a good sign, and more than she’d expected. She should stop pushing, but instead she felt emboldened. “Look, all I want is to be sure that whatever happened won’t happen again.”

  “It doesn’t work that way. Not around here. Things go wrong; you’ve got to learn to deal with it. There are too many variables, too many people on the other side trying to trip you up.”

  “But that’s why it’s so important to know what went wrong. Even if someone else caused this there’s a chance I could identify measures to prevent it from happening again.”

  Markov sighed, and when he continued, he sounded more tired than anything else. No doubt his own butt had taken a whipping since the mission in Namibia failed. “I’m in Washington at the moment. Meeting with windbags from the House Intelligence Committee. I’ll finish at six. Can you meet me?”

  “Well yes, sure. I can do that.”

  “Good. I’ll send a car.”

  “Thanks, Anton.”

  “Don’t thank me, I’m not promising anything. I’d just rather have this conversation face to face, instead of via phone. And Julia?”

  “Yes?”

  “You are good at what you do. I don’t want to lose you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “But if I find you going behind my back or in any other way disobeying my orders on this matter, I will fire you and see you tried for any and every violation of security protocol. Is that understood?”

  “It is,” she said.

  “Good. See you at six.” He didn’t say goodbye, just hung up.

  Julia swiveled her chair to face the computer. An email had come with more medical information about her next implant subject. She knew even less than she had with Kendall and Ian, as Markov had reduced her interaction with the implant patients.

  Well, she knew the woman’s weight, height, head circumference, her blood pressure, blood type, and a host of other physical or medical details. The woman was an East Asian female, aged thirty-two, but her name in the file was Patient X.

  The email described the results of an MRI scan, but Julia skimmed over the text without digesting it. Instead, she was thinking about Markov. He wouldn’t call her to Washington with no other purpose than to tell her face to face what he’d already told her on the phone.

  So why did he want to meet?

  ________

  Julia thought the car would drop her off at a CIA office in the city, but instead it took her to the Mall, opposite the Washington Monument. It was a warm day in early summer and people took advantage of the weather to play Frisbee or throw a baseball. Couples picnicked on the lawn and tourists clustered around the Washington Monument, waiting for tours.

  “Care to take a walk?”

  Julia started. She turned to see Markov standing behind her shoulder. “Oh! I didn’t even see you coming.”

  “I put in my time as a field operative.”

  She smiled, but realized he wasn’t making a joke. And she didn’t like the hard edge around his mouth, the narrowed eyes.

  He took her arm. “Let’s take a walk. This way.” His eyes darted back and forth to the sparse guests around the mall.

  “I really…I don’t…”

  Markov ignored her sputters and they walked in silence toward the World War II monument, then continued to its left and into the quieter area around the FDR monument, with it stone walls and the white noise of running water.

  “What is it you want, Nolan?” he said at last.

  “I told you, I want to know what happened. I’m sick of people treating me like a little girl, too stupid or naïve to understand what ruined my work and killed or damaged my patients.”

  “You are naïve. Dangerously so. Even worse, you’re bright enough in a bookish way, but you lack common sense.”

  The way he said it sounded more like an observation than an insult, but she still found herself getting angry. “I’ve got a hell of a lot more common sense than some people. What about Hubert Chang? He wanted to meet with Namibian intelligence wearing his zombie apocalypse shirt.”

  “Chang has his uses,” Markov said. “And he may seem scatterbrained to an outside observer, but—”

  “I’m not talking about Chang,” she interrupted. “Chang is what he is. I’m talking about you. You’re the one who chose the guy to head up your software team. What kind of common sense does that show?”

  If Markov was bothered by the insult, he didn’t show it. Indeed, Julia thought she saw a flicker of respect in his eyes. “You don’t just phone MIT and order a brilliant software engineer off the shelf. Or neurosurgeon, for that matter. You want someone good, you’ve got to accept that she’s going to have some personality quirks.”

  “Once you scrape away several layers of insults, that almost sounds like a compliment,” Julia said.

  “Let’s say I give you what you want. Access to Ian Westhelle. Tell me exactly what you’re hoping to find.”

  She took a deep breath. “I need answers. First, did someone tamper with the implant? I’ll let Chang worry about the software, but I want to know if someone physically got into Westhelle’s skull. If possible, I want to finish downloading data from the implant. Do a real neuro and psych exam. He wasn’t even conscious when I examined him. I’m convinced that Sarah Redd stopped me before I could finish my work. Frankly, I don’t care what you guys are hiding—operationally, I mean—but I need to know what went wrong medically.”

  The sidewalk curved back to the main thoroughfare of the Mall, where hundreds of people walked alongside the Reflecting Pool toward the Lincoln Memorial. On the other side of the pool, she knew, was the black gash of the Vietnam Memorial, now hidden from view. Markov pulled her aside rather than leading her into the crush of tourists.

  “I’m going to give you your chance, Nolan. To be frank, I don’t think you’ll get anywhere. Sarah said there was no useful data to be had, and I believe her. But even if she was hiding something from me, even if every word was a bold-faced lie, it doesn’t matter. I don’t need to know everything, just what’s important to my job.”

  “That’s not what you said in Namibia when Sarah showed up and whisked Ian away. And the way she made you ride in that beat-up truck with the marines, while she rode in style—how can you not take that as an insult? You were mad, I could see it on your face.”

  “Momentarily surprised, that’s all. I’m sure she had good reasons.”

  “You really are a company man, aren’t you?”

  “This is not the job for freelancers. We didn’t win the cold war through James Bond-esque antics, but by cool-headed, methodical ground work. By people like me,” he added. “Just because I work in the system doesn’t mean I don’t think independently.”

  “Where is Ian? Is he in an asylum somewhere? He is, isn’t he?”

  Markov ignored her questions. “Some ground rules. First, you will keep your mouth shut. Don’t tell Chang, or Sarah, or even your husband. You will report to me and only me.”

  She nodded. This didn’t sound like rule following to her. This sounded like Markov authorizing a—how had he put it?—freelance operation.

  “Second, I want a complete report when you return. Now, you want to know where to find Westhelle? He’s in Utah.”

  “Utah?”

  “Yes, Utah. In some ways a more exotic country than Namibia.”

  She laughed, then stopped at the stern look on his face. “So can I call your secretary for arrangements?”

  “I’ll take care of the arrangements myself. Oh, and Julia?”

  “Yes?”

  “Don’t be an idiot. You’re putting me in an awkward position. You screw up out there, bring too much attention to yourself… Well, I’m not going to be in that noose with you.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Chang scooped a mouthful of egg foo yung onto his chopsticks from
the white cardboard container and chewed with his mouth open as he typed.

  Markov had a coat hanger up his ass. No other way to explain it. Dude was as stiff as the tits on a dead rat.

  Chang’s mouth turned into a sneer. Not his problem. It’s just government. He’d put up with it before and he could do it again. He had been surrounded by incompetents his whole life. And government attracted them like flies. Like the stupid Department of Motor Vehicles.

  To Chang, everything wrong with the world began and ended with the DMV. His first introduction had been at the age of sixteen when he went to get his driver’s license. He took the written test, handed it in to the slack-faced functionary at the desk and waited while it was corrected by hand. The clerk moved his eyes down the paper, pulled a red pencil out of the drawer and circled two answers.

  “Only missed two, nice job.”

  Chang rolled his eyes. “Check it again.”

  “Dude, you passed.”

  “I didn’t miss two. #17. Question was how many feet should you stop ahead of a train crossing if no cross bars are present. Answer is ‘C’.” He gave the clerk a smug look and shrugged.

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “I’m just saying I didn’t miss any of your ridiculous questions. And while we’re on the subject, there were four that didn’t even have a right answer. ALL of the options were wrong. I just picked the one I knew your pea brains would choose.”

  “Next!”

  “I’m not done with you. Can I talk to a supervisor?”

  Apparently he couldn’t. It got worse during the driving test, where he was failed because his driving was too jerky. The fat oaf who failed him was as chuckleheaded as the clerk when Chang protested that there actually wasn’t any law against heterogeneous speed, just driving too fast or too slow.

  Ever since then, he classified most people into either DMV employees or people too stupid even for the DMV.

  He couldn’t decide which camp Markov fit in.

  Whatever. If Markov wouldn’t give him the help he needed, he’d find another way. He only took this job because it was interesting. And now they were trying to take away the best parts of the project. He could be making eight times the money writing crappy little algorithms for investment bankers. No, 800 times the money.