by Nancy Madore
She couldn’t help feeling a little irritated with Gordon. Why did he have to go and make that remark about Ornias? He should have known how it would affect Will.
And yet, remembering Gordon’s face after he said it, Nadia knew that he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. But what was he thinking? Surely he wasn’t secretly considering Ornias’ offer of help in exchange for a body!
These thoughts were abruptly interrupted by blaring music as the clock radio suddenly went off. A raspy voice from the past was singing, ‘Devil with a blue dress, blue dress, blue dress. Devil with a blue dress on!’
Nadia groaned, too sluggish to reach over and shut the radio off. Thankfully the song appeared to be winding down. She decided to wait it out.
“Could it be a real live case of the devil made me do it?” a strong female voice asked when the song was finally over. “That’s what local officials are asking themselves this morning, after a Fort Greely woman confessed to killing a man, claiming she was possessed by the devil. More on that later, but first the weather…”
Will burst out of the bathroom with shaving cream covering half his face and a razor in his hand. Just then his phone went off. Nadia struggled to sit up in bed as Will jerked the towel from the lower half of his body and wiped the shaving cream from his face and hands. Then he picked up his phone.
“We’re on our way,” was all he said.
Chapter 43
En route to Delta Junction, Alaska
They were barreling down the highway at about eighty-five miles an hour, headed for Delta Junction.
“Watch out for moose,” said Nadia, feeling queasy. It was a cold, foggy morning. She yawned and then shivered. What she needed was coffee, but there hadn’t been time. Gordon was driving, with Will sitting next to him in the passenger seat. The two appeared to have put the previous evening behind them for the moment. Even so, the air around them was electric. Everything seemed to hinge on the incident in Fort Greely, where a woman claimed to have been possessed by the devil. Could that devil be Lilith?
It was irritating to be so far away from everything. It was a three hour drive—possibly less, at the speed Gordon was driving—to Delta Junction, where the woman who killed the Fort Greely man was being held. Both of them had worked at T.D.M.R. Nadia yawned again, settling in for the long drive ahead. Restless, she turned to Clive, who was sitting next to her in the back seat.
“How’d you sleep, Clive?” she asked, leaning in extra close so she could pretend to examine his face. “It is still Clive, isn’t it?” she asked.
“Man, get off me,” he said, pushing her away, but he was grinning.
“Shhh,” said Will, putting the phone to his ear. “I’m gonna try him again,”—and then, a minute later—“Dammit!”
“Still no answer?” Nadia asked unnecessarily.
“I keep getting voice mail!”
“Can’t you talk to someone else?” she suggested.
“I’ve already talked to half a dozen people, and they all referred me to the same guy,” he said. “Apparently he’s the only one who can get us in.”
“Maybe you should leave a message,” she persisted.
“I’ve left messages!” he snapped.
“What do you think we were doing while you were putting on mascara and curling your hair?” asked Clive.
“My hair is naturally curly,” she reminded him. “And thank you for the compliment but I’m not wearing any makeup.” She turned back toward Will and Gordon in the front. “So what did I miss?”
“Not much,” said Gordon. “We’re going to see the girl first, since we don’t have clearance with T.D.M.R. yet. They’re holding her at a medical clinic in Delta Junction because the closest hospital is two hours away, in Fort Wainwright.”
“Who is she?” Nadia asked.
“Her name is Amanda Fioretti,” said Will. “Everyone’s convinced she’s gone off the deep end. She’s insisting that some creature took over her body.”
“The employees over at T.D.M.R. say it’s a lover’s quarrel gone bad,” Clive told her. “Apparently there was some really erratic behavior right before she snapped. But we don’t know if T.D.M.R. really believes that or if they’re just trying to cover up the incident.”
“And the victim?” asked Nadia.
“His name is Thomas Gerard,” said Will. “And get this; he’s the head of the compound’s security system. They haven’t found his body yet, but he’s missing, and Fioretti says she killed him.”
“Wow!” was all Nadia could think of to say. It was strange how easy it was becoming to tie these strange, inexplicable incidents to the djinn. All four of them had thought the same thing at precisely the same time, even though that thought was unimaginable. A month ago Nadia would have laughed at the suggestion. “Quite obviously this is Lilith,” she remarked. When no one replied, she added—“But why would she leave Amanda Fioretti’s body alive?”
“Supposing Lilith went directly into another body, she would have been too weakened from the ordeal to kill Amanda,” said Gordon. “If she didn’t have another body handy, then she would have emerged as a djinn, in which case she wouldn’t have had the ability to kill anyone.”
“She accomplished whatever it was she set out to do,” concluded Clive.
“Which is?” prompted Nadia.
Clive looked at her as if he had the urge to slap her. Will’s phone rang before he could point out that that was precisely what they were going there to find out.
“Hello!” said Will. “Yes! Thank you for returning my call. This is William P. Tallon. My special unit security clearance badge number is zebra, six, seven, two, Thomas, Edward, Robert. That’s Division Six of the Department of Defense. We’re investigating a possible security breach on your site…yes, I am referring to the incident last night…no, we suspect that that’s just what the intruders want you to think…yes…no…look, we need to get in there and talk to your head of security ASAP.” There was a long pause, during which time Will appeared to grow more and more frustrated. “No! It has to be today! And all activity at that facility needs to immediately be put on hold…please stop saying ‘impossible.’ This is not only possible, it could be a matter of national security. What? Yes, okay. Wait a minute. Okay, ready.” At this point, Will wrote something down. “Got it. You’ll hear back within the hour.” He hung up.
“Are they…” Nadia began but Will stopped her with a raised finger and put the phone to his ear again.
“I need you to submit a top priority authorization request for a U.S. military facility in Fort Greely, Alaska, called Tactical Defense Mechanisms Research, aka T.D.M.R. Send it to the attention of Executive Officer, Colonel Gregory Ritter. Fax number is seven one zero, five five five, eight three six seven. Access code three three two, Frank Tom William. Repeat that back.” He paused. “Perfect. We need this, like, yesterday.” He hung up with a loud sigh.
“Think headquarters can get us in?” asked Clive.
“I hope so,” he replied. “The guy over at T.D.M.R. insists that none of their secured areas have been breached.”
“So why’d she kill the head of security?” asked Clive.
They all contemplated this in silence.
“You gotta be kidding me!” Will exclaimed all of a sudden. He was looking at his phone.
“What?” they all replied at once.
“The message…the encrypted message from the bogus website address Ethan Blevins sent Asmodeous!” he said. “Look!” He held up his phone and Gordon almost ran the car off the road in an effort to get a look at it.
“What is it?” he demanded, swerving the car back into his lane.
“Notice where the address goes off track and the encrypted message begins,” Will said. “See! It starts here, with the letters ‘t’ ‘g’ ‘e’ ‘r’ ‘a…’”
“T Gerard!” exclaimed Gordon.
“Let me see that,” said Clive. Will handed him the phone.
“What else?” asked Gordon.
> Clive began slowly reading the rest of the letters from Will’s phone. “‘h’ ‘e’ ‘a’ ‘s’ ‘e’ ‘c’ ‘s’ ‘y’ ‘s’ ‘o’…”
“Head…security…systems…officer?” guessed Gordon.
“If not, it’s one hell of a coincidence,” said Clive.
At that precise moment Clive’s phone rang and he fumbled to answer it. “Pete! What have you got for me?” he said in lieu of a greeting. Clive listened in silence for what seemed like a very long time to Nadia, during which time his face slowly turned gray. “Are you sure about this?” he asked quietly when his friend had finally finished speaking.
Nadia and Will watched Clive anxiously. Even Gordon was straining to see him through the rearview mirror.
“Yes, we’ll fill you in,” promised Clive, “but we have to figure out what’s going on first. Keep your phone handy.” Clive hung up. “Never mind the girl,” he said to Gordon. “Head straight for T.D.M.R. in Fort Greely.”
“But we don’t have clearance yet,” said Will.
“Head for T.D.M.R.,” insisted Clive.
“What did he say?” asked Will.
“The formula was written for the HAARP I.R.I. array towers,” said Clive. “It’s actually a series of entries that will activate the system.”
“So it does belong to HAARP!” said Nadia.
Clive shook his head. “Pete said HAARP hardly ever conducts experiments with their I.R.I. towers anymore. The local college uses them to conduct research, just like the bartender over at the lodge said. What the bartender didn’t tell us—probably because he didn’t know—is that there are a half dozen other military sites that have access to those towers. Any one of them can activate the system through control panels on their private network.”
“Is T.D.M.R. one of the sites with access?” asked Will.
“Pete said the identities of the outside control panels were classified,” said Clive, “but I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say we’ll find one at T.D.M.R.”
“If T.D.M.R does have one of the panels, wouldn’t it be located in their secured area?” asked Nadia. “The guy Will spoke to said that area hadn’t been breached.”
“Yeah,” said Clive thoughtfully. “That’s what I’m hoping too.”
“Did Pete say anything else about the formula?” asked Will.
“Yeah,” replied Clive. “He said his guy at the lab had never seen this kind of power being sent through those transmitters before. They want to know where we got that formula.”
“Wait,” said Gordon. “What does he mean by ‘this kind of power’?”
“I don’t know,” said Clive. “All he said was that this much energy in the ionosphere could create a cataclysmic disturbance back here on earth.”
“What does that mean?” asked Nadia.
“Sounds like he’s talking about an earthquake,” said Gordon.
“So it’s true, what the conspiracy theorists have been saying!” exclaimed Nadia.
“And that’s not all,” said Clive. “Another part of the formula tells the transmitters where to send the energy. The area in the ionosphere this formula targets would most likely create a disturbance back here, in Alaska—or right beneath the towers, to be more precise.”
“You’re kidding!” exclaimed Will.
They all turned to Gordon.
“Take us to Fort Greely!” said Will.
Chapter 44
Fort Greely, Alaska
They were greeted by four uniformed officers who were waiting for them at the gate, but the welcome they received was far from warm.
“We’ve opened up a meeting room in Building D,” one of the officers informed them. “Our Commanding Officer will meet you there. You can follow us.”
The men got into their car and Gordon followed them to an unmarked building. They parked close to the building, and the officers led them inside through a series of locked doors that clicked loudly as they were opened, not unlike the doors of a prison. Once inside, they continued down a long, empty corridor. Their footsteps echoed conspicuously as they went. Finally the officers stopped at one of the rooms and opened the door.
“You may wait here,” said the same man who had spoken to them before. His name tag read ‘Kenneth Hudgins.’ The officers then left, closing the door behind them. Nadia looked around. They were in a large, paneled room with an enormous conference table in the center of it. There was a white screen covering the inside wall and a small video camera with a blinking red light in one of the upper corners.
The silence hung rather heavily in the air, but none of them made an attempt to diffuse it. Nadia fought the urge to try the door. Ever since her kidnapping, she had a particular aversion to being locked in.
“Did anyone think to contact the pilot?” she asked. “You know…in case we have to get out of here in a hurry.”
“The jet is still in Gakona,” replied Gordon. “But don’t worry. It can be in Fort Greely within an hour. I’m sure they have a landing strip around here someplace.”
When the door finally opened two heavily decorated officials stepped into the room, along with a dowdy-looking woman with short, dark hair and glasses, and the four guards who had met them at the gate. Once again, it was Chief Warrant Officer Kenneth Hudgins who addressed them.
“This is our commanding officer, Lieutenant-General Philip Benderman,” Hudgins said, gesturing to an officer who appeared to be in his late fifties but who was not aging well. He was balding and potbellied with heavy jowls that hinted at an unpleasant disposition. His manner was composed, but he had the look of a man who could be easily provoked. He nodded summarily when Hudgins introduced him.
“And this is our executive officer, Colonel Greg Ritter,” Hudgins continued, indicating a tall, pleasant looking man who also gave them a curt nod.
“I spoke to one of you on the phone,” he said politely.
“And, finally, this is Patricia Molten from the control room,” Hudgins concluded, pointing to the dark haired woman with glasses. She was the only one not wearing a uniform, attired, instead, in a white lab coat over what appeared to be regular street clothes.
Officer Hudgins and the remaining three guards now withdrew into the background, where they stood at attention next to the outer wall, positioned on either side of the door.
The commanding officer of T.D.M.R., Lieutenant-General Philip Benderman, gazed at them a moment through despondent eyes that were discolored from years of excess. “All I have are a bunch of notes scribbled on a piece of paper,” he grumbled, waving his clipboard as evidence. “Why don’t you just tell me who you are and what you’re doing here?”
Will handled the introductions, repeating the same information he gave Ritter on the phone about himself and then presenting each one of them in turn, and concluding with Nadia, who he simply identified as their ‘associate.’ When he finished, Benderman motioned for everyone to sit down, which they all did, except for the four guards, who remained stationed at the front wall.
“Now, what’s this about a security breach?” asked Benderman.
“Lieutenant-General Benderman, sir, we believe your control panel to the HAARP towers may have been compromised last night,” said Will, taking a shot in the dark that they were one of the military sites with access to the towers. “And we think the compromise is connected to your missing officer, Thomas Gerard.”
Benderman turned to Ritter. “I thought the Gerard incident was a lover’s quarrel,” he said.
“That’s what I was told, sir,” replied Ritter uneasily.
“We have reason to believe it was more than that,” said Will.
Two red patches appeared on Benderman’s cheeks, but his voice remained calm. “There were no security issues last night,” he said firmly. “Tell me why you think there is a security issue.”
Will appeared to be choosing his words carefully. “We’ve been investigating a suspect in another matter, sir—which is classified—and that investigation has led us directly to
this incident.”
Benderman stared at Will in astonishment, but for the first time, Nadia saw a spark of interest enter his eyes.
“We won’t be able to confirm the identity of our suspect until we speak with the young woman who claims to have killed Thomas Gerard,” added Gordon. “In the meantime, it’s imperative that you shut down all operations at this facility.”
This was met with stunned silence. Benderman appeared to be considering their claims. “What, exactly, is this suspect of yours attempting to do?” he asked after a long moment.
“We believe the suspect is attempting to turn the HAARP towers into a weapon of mass destruction,” replied Will. He handed Benderman a slip of paper. “This is a formula that was found on our suspect’s computer. It’s one of yours—or, I should say, it works with your system to activate the HAARP towers.”
“There are other systems with access to the HAARP network besides ours,” Benderman told him.
“Yes, but this formula was sent to our suspect from someone in your facility,” replied Will. “And if activated, the power this formula could generate would be catastrophic.”
Benderman appeared to growing calmer instead of becoming more alarmed, as Nadia would have expected. His expression became almost tranquil, and he seemed intrigued. “I appreciate your concerns,” he said. “But I have it on authority that there was no security breach on this site last night.”