That was how he’d felt after saying goodbye to Stephanie. Adrift, abandoned, broken and bleeding on the rocks of his life. He’d washed ashore on the shoals of the Castle, crawling from the moat and staggering inside to a little room, a safe haven from the peril of bad choices. Here there were no choices, no choices except to get up every morning and decide you’d live to see sunset. He’d made a virtue of necessity, rebuilding his confidence, rebuilding himself. Life had made him older; prison had made him wiser.
A guard stepped up to the cell door. “James!” he barked. “Wake up! You’ve got a visitor.”
James opened his eyes. If that letter had been about the last thing he had ever expected to happen, this was the last. He sat up and swung his legs around.
“You sure about that?”
“I’m sure. Come on.”
James stood up. The door opened. It felt like departure.
Chapter Six: The Expected Guest
Monday, March 15–Tuesday, March 16, 1999
Cell T was awakened by a pounding at Stephanie’s door. For a moment they thought they were dreaming. They sat up and looked at each other, blinking and confused.
The pounding continued. Abe lurched over to where his jacket lay on the carpet. He retrieved his sidearm and stood up.
Vic and Stephanie got to their feet. Vic hurried over to the couch and began rummaging in her bag. Stephanie advanced cautiously towards the door. She noticed the clock in the kitchenette. It was four in the morning. Clotho looked up from the counter and blinked.
Abe and Vic caught up to Stephanie, guns out, and they reached the door. More pounding. Stephanie looked through the peephole and then looked back at her companions.
“It’s Adam,” she said, bleary.
They relaxed. Stephanie opened the door.
Agent Adam stood in the hallway, looking hollow. “Are you okay?” he demanded. His suit was rumpled, no tie, collar open, his trim brown hair disheveled.
“We’re fine,” Stephanie said. “What’s wrong?”
He hurried inside as she shut the door and turned on the lights. Vic and Abe looked at Adam, worried.
“It’s Alphonse,” Adam said. “He’s been shot.”
“What?” Vic said. “What happened?”
“Someone from his office came by tonight. His front door was open and he was lying in the foyer. She called 911. He’s in surgery now.”
“When?” Abe asked.
“A few hours ago. Ten, I think. I got the call around midnight.”
“Jesus,” Vic said. “Is he okay?”
“It’s not good. Three shots from a .22. Internal bleeding. He’s a mess.”
“Who did it?” Abe said. “Do we know?”
“Not yet. I guess the cops are investigating.”
“Why didn’t you call?” Stephanie asked, then she remembered unplugging the phone.
Adam shook his head. “I don’t trust the phones. If they got in his house, they may have compromised our security. We have to assume it’s all toast. Email, cell phones, our files, the works.”
“They?” Stephanie asked. “Oh Jesus, you think Lepus did this?”
“I don’t know. But we have to assume the worst until we know different.”
“Shit, this is it, isn’t it?” Vic said, her voice frantic. “Alphonse said we were on the brink! He said they could kill us all tonight if they wanted. It’s happening!”
“We don’t know that yet. I’m just trying to play it safe.”
“Safe?” Vic replied angrily. “Safe? I thought we were playing by the rules! I thought everything was fine!”
“I know! We all did! Alphonse met Lepus yesterday and it was cool.”
“He met Lepus?” Stephanie said, shocked. “When?”
“In the afternoon. Before Susan died.”
“Why didn’t he tell us?”
“Guess,” Vic said, giving Abe a look.
“Well what do we do now?” Stephanie asked.
“Get out of here. If they’re cleaning house, they’ll come looking for you.”
“Where do we go?”
“Cell N is holing up at the Watergate. Room 219.”
“Okay, we’ll get moving. How do we reach you?”
“I’ll be at the hospital here in Georgetown. I’ll give you the number.” Adam fumbled in his pockets and pulled out a notepad and a pen. He scribbled a number and handed the sheet to Vic. “Don’t call from the Watergate. Go out and use a payphone someplace.”
He turned to leave, then stopped. “One more thing. If they come for you, don’t let them get Nancy. No matter what.”
Matthew Carpenter—Adam—drove out of the parking lot as fast as he safely could. He wanted to get back to the hospital, keep watch over Joe in case the shooter came gunning for him again. He was hoping against hope that the old man would pull through.
Matthew was the first agent Joe had consulted after Fairfield’s death, when he decided it was time to restructure Delta Green. Matthew was already a deputy director with the FBI, in charge of organizing interagency task forces to fight organized crime. He’d been in DG since 1985, and embodied the new breed of driven professional that Joe saw as the bedrock on which to build the organization’s future. Joe wanted to bring DG’s history of cowboy ops to a close, and reform it into a focused tool that could get things done quietly. The two men had spent days making plans, combing through lists of agents to sift out the seventy-eight who should be brought into the new order; the rest would be retired, or consigned to the role of consultant friendlies. Matthew took charge of structuring their security protocols, assembling the secure computer databases and encryption systems that would become DG’s core communications infrastructure. Using his task-force experience at the FBI, he also laid out the procedures they’d use to cover their bureaucratic tracks. Together they built a new Delta Green, a consummate conspiracy honed to do what no one else could.
Five years into their grand plan, things were going well. Until tonight.
Matthew cursed as he drove through the darkened streets. He’d always known that Joe wouldn’t be there for the long haul. The old man didn’t have a lot of years left in him, and the experience of Fairfield’s death had taught them against relying too heavily on one individual. Matthew had done what he could to prepare. He’d spent his time building the organization’s files, tracking down obscure old reports from across the federal government, interviewing retired agents, trying to bring some coherent, tidy order to the mysteries they opposed in hermetic secrecy. He and Joe had passed countless evenings ransacking the old man’s memory, trying to extract every detail of every op he’d ever been involved with, filing it all away as best they could. The result of all of Matthew’s efforts was, perhaps, the greatest assembly of first-hand reports on the supernatural since the Bible.
Yet the combined files could fit onto a handful of high-density diskettes—with room to spare.
This is too soon, Matthew thought. I’m not ready. We’re not ready.
They had their contingency plan. It hinged on Agent Nancy. But there was no guarantee it would work, and for that matter, Nancy wasn’t the most stable or reliable of individuals. She was a good agent, to be sure, and perhaps Delta Green’s greatest resource. Still, she was struggling with the perils of her strange existence, and both Matthew and Joe feared she might eventually lose her fight against the alien mindset that had come with her transformation. If she went, their plan went with her, and then Matthew really would be on his own.
Damn it, Joe, he thought. You can’t die. Yet.
Cell T’s drive in to D.C. was nerve-wracking. They’d thrown their belongings together and bolted, Stephanie pausing only to leave several bowls of food and water for Clotho, who acted petulant at all the activity. It took them forty-five minutes to reach the Watergate.
Cell N was wide awake and jumpy as hell when they arrived. Nick and Nolan, imposing in their suits, didn’t look pleased to see them.
“What’s up?” Nolan asked g
uardedly, standing with Nick in the doorway, handguns tucked behind them.
“Adam sent us here to hole up,” Vic said.
The two men exchanged looks. “Okay, come on in,” Nolan said.
Cell T entered the suite. The lights were off. Nancy came out of a bedroom wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and hurried over.
“How’s Alphonse?” she asked, her face gaunt.
“Adam said he’s in the hospital,” Vic replied. “That’s all we know.”
“Has anything else happened?”
“Nope. We were sound asleep at Steph—at Terry’s, when Adam came. If they’re after us, they shouldn’t have had any trouble finding us over there. But nobody showed up until Adam.”
“You weren’t followed, were you?” Nolan asked.
Cell T exchanged glances. “I don’t think so,” Vic said.
“Did you check?” Nick demanded. “Or did you just haul ass over here?”
“We didn’t check.”
“Damnit!” Nolan blurted. “Amateurs! Nick, get to the lobby.”
Nick nodded and ran out of the room. Nolan stepped over to a window and looked carefully through a part in the curtain.
Stephanie turned on a lamp. Nolan spun around and glared at her. “Turn it off!” She complied.
“Damn it.” Nolan lowered his voice. “Look, if you guys are gonna hole up here, you’ve gotta do what we say. No lights, no phones, no noise, no room service. Just sit tight and shut up.”
Vic glowered. “We could just shoot ourselves if it would be easier on you.”
Nolan glared back. “Too noisy. But there’s a plastic bag in the trash can if you’d care to try suffocation.”
The tension was like another person in the room. Nancy stepped between them. “Enough,” she said quietly. “Cut the crap. We’re in a lot of trouble and six is better than three.”
“That’s debatable,” Nolan spat.
“Nolan, please! I didn’t see you putting your ass on the line at OUTLOOK.”
Nolan looked at her for a moment, a little wounded, and then backed off with his palms out. “Okay, all right. Point taken. It’s just that my first priority is your safety, not theirs. I’m sorry.” He walked back to the door and stood watch at the peephole.
“Jesus,” Abe whispered. “What’s with him?”
Nancy sighed. “Nolan’s okay. He’s just very protective and very jumpy. Look, do you guys want some coffee? We’ve got a little kitchen here.”
“That’d be great,” Vic said, smiling a little at Nancy. “How are you doing?”
“Lousy. Par for the course, I guess.”
“Come on. I’ll help you with the coffee.”
Abe watched them leave, then turned to Stephanie. “Nothing like a little drama to liven up the night.”
Nick eventually returned, giving Nolan a quick shake of his head. The two men paced around the living room, alternating between checking the peephole and the windows.
Cell T and Nancy gathered in a bedroom with the door closed and the curtains drawn. Abe found a complimentary deck of cards in a little basket on the dresser, and they played poker for an hour. The morning light through the curtains gave the well-appointed room an amber glow.
Eventually they grew tired of the game. Abe kept losing. “The women of the world are against me,” he said morosely. Vic snickered and rubbed his head. “Poor Abe.”
“You mean Thomas,” Stephanie said with a smile.
Nancy cackled. “Security breach.”
The room was quiet for a moment. Vic yawned. Stephanie stole glances at everyone.
“So I’ve been thinking,” she finally said. Everyone looked at her. “I think we should go to Puerto Rico.”
Vic nodded. “I’ve been wondering when we’d get around to this.”
“They hit us, we hit back. That’s the way it works, right? That’s the rules.”
“Yep,” Abe said, nodding.
“For all we know, they’re going to kill us anyway. Why should we sit around here waiting for it? Let’s do something.”
Nancy exhaled slowly. “I have to agree. I was willing to cut our losses yesterday. But after this? You might as well take a shot at getting Shasta back while you still can.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” Stephanie asked.
“I can’t. I have to stay here.”
“Why?” Vic said.
“Adam and I had a long talk. Succession protocols, he calls them. If Alphonse dies—” she stopped.
Abe looked aghast. “They want you to debrief him.”
Nancy nodded. “At the very least.”
Vic shook her head. “Damn.”
“Yeah. I’m not wild about the idea myself.”
Stephanie looked anxious. “Well look, maybe you can’t come with us. But you know the place, right? I mean, that . . . that guy does. Can you tell us anything? Any way inside?”
Nancy looked at the table. “Well, I’ve been thinking about that, actually. I’ve got an idea. The head doctor there, Dr. Yrjo. There’s a whorehouse in Luján that he goes to fairly often. He’s in charge, so he gets away with it. Two guards go with him. They’re bad news. But if you could get to him, maybe he could get Shasta out. It’s a longshot, but believe me—that place is a fortress. You guys could never get in on your own.”
“Okay,” Stephanie said. “That’s it, then. You guys with me?”
Vic grinned. “Fuck yeah. Let’s stick it to ’em.”
Abe nodded. “Anything to avoid going home.”
Stephanie looked at both of them, eyes bright. “Well, all right. Let’s go.”
They had their suitcases packed and were out the door in ten minutes. Nick and Nolan were glad to see them go. Nancy hugged them all before they left, and gave them several pages of notes she’d made as they packed. There were maps of the facility and parts of the whorehouse, names of people, and so forth.
Stephanie drove them to her bank, where she emptied her account. “I told you I wanted to travel,” she joked nervously. They bought a few items and swung by the D.C. Green Box, where they retrieved all their borrowed tac gear from the raid. They left their ammunition there, since they couldn’t take it on the plane. Then they drove across the Potomac to the airport. Stephanie was deep in thought.
As they waited in line to buy their tickets, she broke the news. “I’ll catch up to you guys in San Juan tomorrow. We’ll meet on the steps of city hall, wherever that is. Call it noon, local time.”
“Where are you going?” Vic asked.
“I need to go see someone. I’ll catch up. Just get down there and start making plans.”
“Are you sure about this?” Abe said.
“Positive. I’ll see you in sunshine.”
Abe and Vic hung around the airport for a couple hours, waiting for their flight. Stephanie’s plane had left almost immediately.
“I wonder where she’s going?” Abe said.
Vic arched her eyebrows. “I bet I can guess.”
Tommy Prendergast was the first to reach the Phenomen-X offices on Monday morning, as he was every morning. He wore a Buffy the Vampire Slayer t-shirt, a khaki photojournalist’s vest, blue jeans, and grimy Converse All-Stars sneakers. He still couldn’t believe that he had a key to this place. His job with the show seemed like the high-water mark of his young life, better even than the three years he’d worked at Hi De Ho Comics and Fantasy in Santa Monica. Today he was extra-excited because Monday meant taping day, the day when they’d shoot the show and send it out via satellite to their syndication customer stations across the country. The stations would automatically record the show and air it later in the week, depending on their local schedules.
Most mornings he’d spend an hour straightening up. He’d gather all the coffee cups and run them in the dishwasher, start a fresh pot of coffee, grind the beans for the espresso drinks he’d make to order throughout the day, refill the paper in all the printers and copiers, distribute the faxes that had come in overnight, and make sure
the bathrooms had plenty of supplies—even the ladies’ room, which he hurried through quickly because it made him blush. This was Tommy’s happiest time of the day, the time when he was alone in the office. Sometimes he had fantasies of a big story breaking while he was there in the early morning, but in reality Phenomen-X didn’t have very many big stories.
This morning was different.
Tommy was still collecting dirty coffee cups when he reached the office of Frank Carincola, the show’s news director. He started to open the door but it immediately banged against something inside, opening no more than an inch. Tommy was puzzled, and shoved harder.
Suddenly there was the tremendous roar of a gunshot, and splinters from the door stung Tommy’s face. He stumbled backwards and hit the ground on his ample ass. The basket he was carrying fell to the side and coffee cups tumbled onto the carpet. White-faced, he scuttled down the hall on his hands and knees and then rose to a crouch, hurrying around a corner. He huddled there and peeked back down the hall, panting.
There was a noise from inside the office, and then the door swung inwards. Frank Carincola jumped out into the hallway brandishing a silver revolver and checked both directions. He spotted Tommy looking around the corner.
“Jesus, Tommy! What the hell were you doing?” Frank bellowed. Wisps of hair on his balding head were sticking up at every angle, and his clothes looked even grimier than usual. He wasn’t wearing shoes.
“Uh . . . I was just gettin’ the coffee cups.”
Frank lowered the gun and ran his other hand over his head. “Damn! Sorry about that, kid. Good thing I was asleep or I might’ve been a better shot.” He peered through his bifocals at the wall opposite the door. There was a neat hole punched in the plaster where the slug had entered, a foot above Tommy’s head. He chuckled. “Good thing you weren’t any taller, either.”
Delta Green: Strange Authorities Page 26