Origin - Season One

by James, Nathaniel Dean

  – – –

  On the street below, a red Buick had pulled up behind the Chevy Blazer. The man behind the wheel of the Buick gave his colleague a thumbs-up. A moment later, the Chevy pulled out onto the road and disappeared into the afternoon traffic.

  Chapter 32

  Pont-Rouge, Quebec

  Wednesday 19 July 2006

  1300 EDT

  Francis heard the door handle move and reached for the gun under his pillow. The maid saw him, muttered an unintelligible apology and quickly closed it again. He heard her murmur something as she pushed her trolley on to the next room. Francis checked his watch and saw he’d been asleep for several hours.

  He sat up and glanced at the computer sitting on the small table by the window; then headed to the bathroom, intending to take a shower. One look at himself in the mirror changed his mind. He found his wallet on the bedside table, saw he still had a hundred and fifty Canadian dollars left, and decided he needed a change of clothes first.

  He left the truck in the parking lot and made his way into town on foot. He found a UNICEF hospice shop at the end of the main drag and picked out a pair of jeans that looked about the right size, an old plain black T-shirt and a red sweater with the Canadian national ice hockey team logo embroidered on the breast.

  Francis gave the woman at the counter a twenty-dollar bill and told her to keep the change. On his way out the door he saw something in the window that made him stop. Laid out in a row on top of a dusty box containing a Nintendo game console were several compact disc cases with the letters CD-RW printed on the sleeves. Francis picked up all six and took them back to the counter. There was no price tag on any of them, so he handed the woman another twenty and left the shop.

  When he got back to the hotel he looked at the CD drive on the old PC and felt his heart jump when he saw the same four letters on the optical drive tray: CD-RW. He turned the computer on and waited with growing impatience for the lumbering old machine to load the operating system. When the churning inside the case settled down and the pointer began to respond to the movement of the mouse, he quickly opened the first file he came to and right-clicked.

  And there it was, an option to burn to disc using Nero Burning ROM. He took one of the discs out of its case and put it in the tray, then selected the option and followed the prompts until he heard the drive spin up and saw the red light begin to flash. When it was done and the drive tray spat out the disc, he took it and put it in his laptop.

  The file was there.

  It took him almost half an hour to figure out how to add multiple files to a single disc but in the end he managed to burn everything, a total of 285 megabytes. It took another half hour for the disc to burn. By the time it was finished, Francis was all but jumping out of his skin with anticipation.

  The first of the files the older computer had been unable to display turned out to be a scanned blueprint of a door-opening mechanism drawn by a German company called Arman Tenner. From what he could tell, the door was a proposed retrofit to a submarine of some kind. The fact that the drive also contained pictures of a Soviet Victor-class sub seemed to lend this credence. He sat staring at the bizarre image for a long time. Far from shedding any light on the problem, the more he looked, the more unclear things seemed to become. The next file he opened was a drawing by the same company of a space probe design labelled SC-1135 Siren Call. He opened the next drawing. It was another satellite, but this one looked like any other. It too had a name. In a box in the bottom right hand corner someone had typed: Darkstar CommSat 443, and below that, Skyline Defense.

  He closed the folder, opened the Internet browser and typed Skyline. The first few results were all related to the Nissan sports car of the same name, followed by the definition of the word itself on several dictionary websites. At the bottom of the page there was an entry for the homepage of Skyline Defense Inc., and below that, a Wikipedia entry for the same company. He ignored the homepage, opened Wikipedia and began to read:

  Skyline Defense is an unlisted American multinational defense and engineering contractor headquartered in New York, New York. It was established in 1986 by the Karl Gustav Foundation (KGF). The company does not actually produce weapons systems, but is primarily a research and engineering body and consultant to various organizations including NASA, the ESA and the Pentagon. Skyline Defense is unique in that it is one of only two private companies in the world protected under US Federal Secrecy Laws, making it a de facto subsidiary of the US Defense Department. Owing to its highly secretive nature, little is known about the company’s actual research activities and programs.

  Francis scrolled back to the top of the page and clicked on the words Karl Gustav Foundation:

  The Karl Gustav Foundation (KGF) is a private fund registered and headquartered in Zurich, Switzerland. It was established by the last will and testament of Swedish steel magnate Karl Ludvig Gustav after his death in December 1984 at the age of 92. The stated aims of the foundation are unusually vague, stipulating only that the board of trustees direct the fund’s wealth into the establishment and funding of companies, organizations and educational bodies devoted to the pursuit of scientific progress in the fields of space travel and exploration. It is widely rumored that one of the largest beneficiaries of the fund is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).

  Activities – The foundation owns several companies, including British-based Biolab Technologies (BTN) and the American defense contractor Skyline Defense. The fund also holds a vast investment portfolio and is a major shareholder in some of the world’s biggest energy and power infrastructure companies, as well as remaining a majority stakeholder in Gustav Steel (GS) now renamed Scandinavian Steel AB (SSAB) after the company was floated on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in 1985. Very little information is available on the foundation’s activities and it remains guarded about publishing details of its investments and grants. Some rumors even suggest that anonymity is a condition for such grants.

  Board – The foundation’s statutes are a matter of public record and stipulate that a board consisting of a chairman and four members govern the fund. The chairman may dismiss and appoint members as he sees fit, making him or her the de facto head and sole arbiter of the foundation’s activities. While unusual, there is nothing in Swiss law that makes such an arrangement illegal. It is perhaps easier to understand when you consider Gustav himself ran the company he inherited from his father without a board until the day he died. The first chairman of the foundation was named as Peter Bershadsky, a computer engineer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a fact largely responsible for the rumors surrounding the foundation’s patronage of the university. Professor Bershadsky died in April 1990 at the age of sixty-three in a boating accident. He was succeeded by his eldest daughter, Caroline de Villepin, who remains the chairman to this day. The identities of the remaining board members have never been publicized.

  Francis felt goose bumps rising on his forearms as he read on. He moved the cursor over the name Karl Ludvig Gustav and the page changed again:

  Karl Ludvig Gustav (June 5, 1892 – December 18, 1984) was the only son and heir of Swedish steel magnate Karl Leif Erik Gustav, founder and owner of Gustav Steel, the largest privately owned steel producer in Europe until 1984, when much of the company was sold and the remainder floated on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and renamed Scandinavian Steel AB (SSAB). Karl inherited Gustav Steel (GS) at the age of thirty-two following his father’s death from cancer in 1924. He married the exiled Russian princess Helena Barakirev in 1925. Helena was shot outside the Stockholm opera house in 1927 by a Bolshevik gunman. According to historic records and accounts, the young widower became a prominent and often controversial member of Swedish high society for a decade, fueling rumors of illegitimate children and a number of court cases, the most famous of which was brought by the daughter of an American diplomat in 1932. The rumors persisted until 1948 when it was revealed the billionaire was congenitally unable to sire
children. He became a virtual recluse from 1937 when rumors of his ties to the German Nazi party were widely circulated. The speculation was fueled further when Sweden maintained its neutrality at the outset of the Second World War (WW2), allowing Gustav Steel, among others, to ship iron ore to Germany for the duration of the war. By the time of his death in 1984, Karl was rumored to be worth almost one and a half billion dollars, giving rise to an increasingly speculative argument in the press about the destiny of his vast wealth. Shortly after his death it was announced that he had left his entire fortune to a foundation to be established in his name under the stewardship of a little-known American computer engineer from MIT by the name of Peter Bershadsky, described as a long-time friend and confidant (see Karl Gustav Foundation).

  Francis sat back and stared at the screen, his mind racing in several different directions at once. He kept coming back to the name Skyline Defense. Did they own the hard drive? It made sense.

  He opened the folder named DPFCS Images but when he tried to open one of the four files inside, a small window appeared demanding a password.

  He spent another fruitless hour looking over the files he could access on the disc and finally shut the laptop down, feeling even more confused than when he had started.

  – – –

  Twenty minutes later Francis had packed everything back into his truck, checked out of the hotel and was back on highway 40. He passed Three Rivers and found a payphone outside a gas station on the outskirts of Montreal.

  The number he dialed was at least six digits too long and contained no recognizable area code, other than the international dialing code for the United States at the front. It rang for several seconds before it was picked up. There was no greeting at the other end, only a curt request for a four-digit pass code. Francis read the numbers off the card in his hand and waited.

  “Director Fairchild’s office. How may I help you?” the woman said.

  “May I speak to the director, please?” Francis said. “This is Senator Cleveland.”

  “The director is on the phone at the moment, Senator. Can I ask him to call you back or would you like to hold?”

  “I’ll hold.”

  Five minutes passed before the director of Central Intelligence came on the line. “Senator, to what do I owe the –”

  “Who does the hard drive belong to?” Francis said.

  There was a long a pause. “Who is this?”

  “You know who it is. And you know why I’m asking.”

  This time the pause was shorter.

  “You should come in. I can guarantee you protection.”

  “Wow, and they actually put you in charge, did they? I don’t want your protection; I want to know what happened in Vermont. Was it Weaver?”

  “I don’t know what you’re –”

  “You can drop the act. I know he’s involved.”

  “Weaver hasn’t been authorized to do anything,” Fairchild said. “And we had nothing to do with Vermont.”

  “Then you don’t know Norton Weaver very well, Director. You might sign his checks, but Norton works for the Oval Office and always has. Now I want you to listen to me because I’m only going to ask once. I want the name of the lead investigator on the Fed breakin.”

  “I can’t give you that kind –”

  “Did you hear what I just said?” Francis interrupted. “I’m not going to ask twice. I have a CD here with a very interesting video on it. And I won’t send it to your lapdogs at CNN, I’ll send it to RT, Al Jazeera and every other hostile news network I can think of. So make up your mind.”

  Francis heard the long sigh on the other end.

  “All right. Give me a minute,” Fairchild said.

  Chapter 33

  Interstate 91, Vermont

  Wednesday 19 July 2006

  1800 EDT

  They reached the town of Orleans shortly after six in the afternoon and took a room at the Howard Johnson near the turnpike. Both men were dressed casually and attracted little attention from the locals, who saw only two more tourists on a road trip through New England – a sight as unspectacular at this time of year as a garden party.

  Born Baruch and Daniel Zimmerman on the outskirts of Tel Aviv, they had long since traded both their Jewish faith and their Israeli identities for a more rewarding and less restrictive life in the private sector. Once agents for the pedagogic and overly Zionist Mossad, they had both risen quickly in that organization, a testament to their many and varied talents.

  In the United States, the brothers had found the two essential components critical to a successful life of subterfuge in large supply: money and corruption. Their handler was a retired veteran of the CIA who would have been the envy of Hoover himself, had the man still been alive. In the eight years they had been operating as an independent cell, they had amassed a staggering sixty million dollars in fees. It was almost too easy.

  The job at hand would add another million to the tally, half of which had already been deposited in one of their many accounts nestled in the web of the offshore banking system.

  The local TV news was talking about almost nothing else. The entire town of Morisson had been designated a crime scene by the looks of it, and no one who wasn’t a permanent resident was being allowed in. One of the local stations had a crew camped out close to the roadblock into town and was interviewing anyone who left or tried to enter.

  Daniel, whose name was currently Lester Farley, would take point as the designated tracker. Baruch, now Eugene Sampras of Columbus, Ohio, would stay here and act as facilitator unless the track split.

  When they were set up, Eugene drove them back onto I-91 and past the Morisson turn-off.

  They were operating on two assumptions. The first was that the man they were looking for would head north toward the border rather than south. For a man who had just killed four people, getting out of the United States would be the only safe bet. The other was that he would never cross the border in the Impala he had taken from the girl’s house. He would know it was only a matter of time before the car was discovered and called in. Unless he had made some prior arrangement. But that was unlikely, considering he had apparently only been following the woman who had been shot. He would be looking to cross the border unnoticed, and the innocuous little truck stop was the first place they found that might offer such a chance.

  Eugene dropped Lester off beside the small gravel parking lot and returned to the motel. Lester ignored the diner and headed back down the interstate looking for signs of either the car or its occupants. When he had walked half a mile and found nothing, he moved into the woods.

  It took him another ten minutes to find what he was looking for. The tracks were fresh. Three sets, two male, one female. The girl had been tired by this point. Her constant need to match the pace of the men made her strides inconsistent. He followed the tracks back until he found the Impala. A quick look inside was all the confirmation he needed. There was a faint trace of smoke and body odor. The man had been busy killing, and killing was hard work.

  He had now returned to the diner and stood studying the dilapidated structure. There were no other cars in the parking lot and no guests inside.

  Lester went in and ordered a hamburger and a glass of Coke. When the vile creature who served him walked back into the kitchen, he studied the room and tried to imagine his quarry sitting right here in this very seat. That was the trick; you couldn’t guess what a target might do, you had to be the target. He would be looking for someone in the diner who might agree to give them a ride. Most likely a truck driver or a single male.

  When the cook returned and set the hamburger down in front of him, Lester conjured up a mental image of the cook lying face down on the counter with a meat cleaver protruding from his back. He brushed the idea aside and forced himself to smile. In a flawless Southern accent he said, “Say there, Chef. You wouldn’t know if there was any chance I might find myself a ride on up to the border around here, would you?”

  The m
an looked at Lester and smiled back. His teeth, the few that had survived, were bent and tobacco-stained. “We get the odd trucker heading up that way now and then.”

  Lester forced himself to take a bite of the burger. With considerable effort, he commanded his features to ignite in appreciation. “I’ll be damned! That’s what I call a burger. Haven’t had me one this nice since I left Texas, and that was more years ago than I care to remember.”

  He could almost smell the cook’s sudden change of heart. Whereas before he had been politely cautious, now he began to positively ooze good cheer.

  “Thank you very much,” the cook said. “Now that I think about it, there’s a man who does a run up to Quebec somewhere three days a week. Runs a little firm with his cousin delivering car parts or something. He came through here yesterday and gave a fella a ride up there. His cousin Ned does the Wednesday run. Usually stops in here around three in the morning for a bite. I reckon it’d be worth your while asking him if you can wait that long.”

  Lester gave the man an even wider grin and said, “Why that’s real kind of you, Chef. You think he’d do it?”

  “You won’t know if you don’t ask,” the cook said.

  Lester forced down the rest of the hamburger and had to exert his considerable willpower to stop himself throwing it back up. He picked up the plate and held it out to the cook, who now seemed to think they were best friends and was doing the talking to prove it.

  “Chef,” Lester said, cutting the man off mid-sentence, “If that hot plate back there is still sizzling, I’d give my throwing arm for another one of these.”