Origin - Season One
Page 25
“I should be getting back,” he said.
Amanda considered asking him who had ordered him to take them here, but didn’t. She had a sneaking suspicion this man wasn’t a collaborator at all, but someone who might very well be out of a job by the time the sun came up.
“Thank you for your help,” she said.
“Not at all. It’s my pleasure,” he said and walked back to the door. “Perhaps you put in a good word for me, yes?”
She gave him a smile and a little wave. “I will.”
“Bon voyage!”
George came out of the cockpit and pushed a button beside the door. A motor whirred and the door started closing. He looked over and saw Amanda’s predicament.
“Just a sec,” he said and disappeared back into the cockpit. He returned with two bungee cords and improvised a support for the IV bag above Jesse’s head.
“Thanks,” Jesse said. “Mandy tells me you’re one of the good guys.”
“Does she now? Well, that’s very sweet of her.” George said. “But you may want to save the ticker tape parade for the man who’s footing the bill.”
“Maurice?” Jesse asked.
“Yeah, Maurice. You guys must have been in a real jam.”
“So you’re a gun for hire.” Jesse said.
“Son, I’m a pilot for hire. If you can find a gun on this plane you can shoot me with it. As a god-fearing man, I’m all for charitable deeds, but this is a thirty-five million dollar airplane and I’ve already broken the law twice getting here.”
“Jesus,” Jesse said.
“Nope. General Dynamics. But I reckon if Noah had been told to build an executive jet instead of an ark, it would have looked a lot like this one. Best damn plane I’ve ever flown. Now if you kids don’t mind, I need to get us out of here before the Canuck air guard shows up.”
They were airborne in less than five minutes. Jesse was asleep before the landing gear had retracted. Amanda found a towel in the small bathroom at the back of the plane and cleaned his face, then sat holding his hand and looking out into the darkness through the window. By the time they crossed the border into the United States she was asleep herself.
She woke to find George standing over her with a can of Coke in his hand. She looked up the aisle then down at the door of the cockpit.
“Auto-pilot,” George said, “Don’t worry, we’re in good hands”
He handed her the can. “Thought you might be thirsty. I’ve also got food if you’re hungry.”
Amanda took the can. “Where are we going?”
“Merritt Island,” George said as if that might actually mean anything to her.
“Okay. Which is?”
“It’s about a stone’s throw from Disney World.”
“We’re going to Florida?”
“That was the deal.”
“Is Maurice there?”
“Little lady, I don’t ask too many questions. I find the less I know, the better. But someone will be there. I ain’t about to just drop you off and leave.”
“How long will it take to get there?” she asked.
“Another three hours, give or take.”
In the seat beside her, Jesse stirred and opened his eyes.
“Hey, mister sleepyhead,” she said. “You’ll never guess where we’re going.”
Chapter 46
Churchton, Maryland
Saturday 22 July 2006
0200 EDT
Norton Weaver put the phone down and adjusted the blanket over his legs. Beyond the trees at the back of the garden the Chesapeake Bay sparkled beneath a cloudless, moonlit sky. The porch door opened and Edith, his wife of thirty-six years, dressed only in her bathrobe, walked out with a tray in her hands. She put it down on the table beside him. “Norton, you should come inside, dear. You’ll catch a cold.”
She put a hand on his shoulder and he covered it with his own.
“I won’t be long,” he said. “Go ahead. I’ll be in in a minute.”
When she was gone he took a sip of tea and looked back down at the paper in his lap.
The message had arrived just after midnight. It was a copy of a wire from the State Department containing an initial and sketchy outline of the events in La Tuque. The missing pieces weren’t hard to fill in.
The Zimmerman brothers, two of the best operatives Norton had ever seen, were both dead. He didn’t need the camera footage from the airport to know Baruch had been the one who crashed the party and hijacked the plane. The reason didn’t require a great deal of deduction either. Although how things had gone so wrong so quickly beggared belief. The real bitch of it was, he needed them now more than ever. The loss of Princip had done little to moderate the appetite of the Whitehouse for an in-house laundry crew, willing and able to remove obstacles no one else could. And Norton had all but sold them on the idea of bringing his little side project in to meet the demand. Explaining what had happened was going to be hard enough without having to also renege on his promises.
When the phone began to ring, Norton sighed and slowly reached for the receiver.
“Weaver.”
“Sir, the plane is down.”
“Good. We need to recover the bodies before the NTSB arrives. What about the helicopter?”
“No sign of it so far. We’ll keep looking. There’s something else.”
“What?”
“The local police captain is claiming that Jesse Corbin and the Hinsdale girl weren’t on the plane.”
“What do you mean?”
“He says he received a call from the State Department asking him to take them to another airfield down the road in Three Rivers. Says he took them down there himself.”
“What fucking plane?”
“We don’t know. Air traffic control has no records of a flight to or from the area. Looks like it sneaked in under the ceiling.”
“Jesus Christ,” Weaver said. “Of all the fucking people on earth, why did it have to be the Canadians? Call whoever you need to. Just find that plane. And get someone out there to pick up the idiot who drove them down there.”
“I’m on it, boss. What do you want to do about Fielding?”
“Find him. I want to know what was taken out of that vault.”
“And Fairchild?”
“Don’t worry about him. I’ll deal with Fairchild.”
Weaver set the phone back down and saw his wife standing behind the screen door.
“Is everything okay, darling?” she asked.
“Everything’s fine. Go to bed. I’ll be up in a minute.”
Chapter 47
Orlando, Florida
Saturday 22 July 2006
0330 EDT
Reginald put the phone down and looked at Mike and Francis. “Bird’s in the air.”
Francis breathed a sigh of relief and patted Mike on the back. “Looks like my two heads theory is working out.”
“You mean three heads,” Mike said, looking at Reginald.
“No, I mean two,” Francis said. “It was your idea and Reginald here made it work.”
Reginald wrote something down and handed the paper to Francis along with a folded Florida state road map. “They’ll be landing at Merritt Island Airport. I’ve circled it. It’s about an hour east of here. You need to use the freight entrance and show them this at the gate.”
He handed Francis a white tag the size of a playing card. “Ask for directions to the maintenance hangar and park inside. If anyone asks what you’re doing, hand them that and say nothing. The pilot’s name is George. He’ll taxi to the hangar. The tail number is on the paper. When you’ve got the kids, hand him this.”
Reginald gave Francis a thick brown envelope.
“You know I’m good for this, right?” Francis said.
“I know. He won’t count it. Tell him Bob sends his regards then get the hell out of there.”
“Have I met George before?” Francis asked.
“No. He’s not Ivy League. Strictly homegrown.”
Mike took the disc and felt a shiver run up his spine. It was hard to imagine that something so seemingly innocuous could be at the center of everything that had happened. Stored on that disc was a secret that at least ten people had already died for.
They watched through the window until the car disappeared from view. Reginald walked over to the fireplace and picked up his pipe. “Your family is safe.”
“I want to believe that,” Mike said. “But Francis also seemed to think those kids were safe.”
“The kids were unprotected. Your wife and boy aren’t. I can vouch for the people taking care of them.”
“Where did you meet Francis?” Mike asked.
Reginald considered the question. He lit his pipe and gave Mike a long, thoughtful look. “In a bomb shelter in Lebanon.”
“You were his boss, weren’t you? He calls you ‘Colonel’.”
“I recruited him. He was a second lieutenant back then, nineteen years old. His three best friends died in the embassy bombing.”
“Recruited him into what?”
Reginald took a long drag on his pipe and sat down in the rocking chair. “A little side project over at the Pentagon.”
“You assassinated people,” Mike said.
Reginald looked at him in surprise. “He told you that?”
“He told me he killed a woman once,” Mike said. “A pregnant woman.”
Reginald raised his eyebrows and put the pipe down. “Did he mention he was told she was a left-wing radical plotting to kill a Supreme Court Justice?”
“No. He said she was innocent.”
“She was. But he didn’t know that until much later. It’s why he left. One of the reasons, anyway. God knows there turned out to be plenty.”
“I’m not surprised,” Mike said. “You turned him into fucking Jason Bourne.”
“If you’re suggesting he was brain washed, I can assure you he wasn’t. Well, not chemically anyway.”
“So how did he get out?” Mike said. “It doesn’t seem like the kind of job you just quit.”
“He killed himself,” Reginald said and shook his head in wonder.
Mike just looked at him, frowning.
“He staged his own death. Right here in Florida. Fooled us all.”
“You thought he was dead when we showed up here?”
“As a doornail.”
Mike laughed and turned his eyes up. “It makes me wonder if the Bureau really knows anything about what goes on in this country.”
Reginald didn’t answer. He stood up and held out his hand. “What do you say we take a look at that disc.”
Chapter 48
Aurora
Saturday 22 July 2006
1100 EEST
Mitch woke to the smell of frying bacon. He was lying on a king size bed in a lavishly decorated room that appeared to have been imported from the 1950s.
“Hello?” he said.
There was no answer.
He lifted the blanket and saw he was naked. On the chair beside the bed there was a pair of socks and underwear sitting on top of a neatly folded dark blue jumpsuit. He got out of bed and stood up, felt the world swim away, and sat back down. When the feeling passed he tried again.
To his surprise the jumpsuit was a perfect fit.
“Hello?” he said again.
The smell of bacon grew stronger as he neared the door. The hall outside ended on a large open-plan kitchen, every bit as Art Deco as the bedroom. A woman was standing at the stove with her back to him. Her long, blonde hair was tied into a ponytail that ran almost to her waist. She, too, was wearing a jumpsuit, but hers was white.
“Hello?”
“Good morning,” she said cheerfully, turning to face him. “I thought you might be hungry.”
“Where the hell am I?” Mitch asked.
She regarded him with a kind of eerie intensity, as if what she saw would have some bearing on the answer to his question. Then she smiled and said, “I’m not really supposed to answer that. I’m just here to make sure you’re ready.”
“Ready for what?”
“The chief wants to see you.”
“The chief of what?”
She turned back to the stove without answering the question and scooped several slices of bacon onto a plate.
“Do you have a name?” Mitch asked.
The question seemed to make her blush. She closed her eyes and stood thinking for a moment, as if trying to remember what it was. Then she walked up to him, put out her hand and said, “I’m Sarah, and I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”
To his amusement she then asked, “Was that proper?”
“It was fine. My name’s –”
“You’re Mitchell Stuart Rainey,” she said proudly. “From Phoenix in Arizona.”
Mitch was too bemused by this to know what to say.
When she offered him the plate, Mitch didn’t think he would be able to eat. But that turned out not to be the case. Sarah sat watching him as if it were the first time she had seen anyone eat. When he was done she leaned her elbows on the table, put her chin in her hands and said, “You have the most beautiful eyes. They’re so green.”
Mitch almost choked on his orange juice and began to blush. This seemed to amuse her further. She twisted her head slightly and said, “What’s it like? Arizona, I mean. Have you been to the Grand Canyon?”
“More times than I care to remember,” Mitch said, “Where are you from?”
The question seemed to confuse her.
“From here,” she said, as if this were obvious.
“Is this your place?” he asked.
“Of course not, silly. It’s yours.”
“Mine? I don’t think so. For one, I would remember. And even if I didn’t, I’m not that into the whole retro thing.”
“Come see,” she said.
She took his hand and led him to the front door. It opened onto a narrow white hallway. Directly across the hall there was an identical door with a brass plaque on it that said: 45 – Sarah. The sign on his own door said 46 – Mitch.
“This is yours,” she said matter-of-factly. “And that’s mine.”
Mitch couldn’t take his eyes off the plaque. His sanity seemed to be under assault from several different directions at once. Part of it was just disorientation, he knew. But it was also more than that. His conscious mind insisted it would pass, and it probably would have. But then the door at the end of the hall opened and in walked the chief.
The irrational conviction that stole over Mitch as the man approached them was that he, Mitch, had died and woken up on the set of Last Tango in Paris, so uncanny was the resemblance of the man to a middle-aged Marlon Brando.
The chief was roughly Mitch’s height, but twice his size. His coveralls were olive drab, pressed to perfection. The toecaps of his boots had been polished into orbs of black glass and his graying hair was cut in a flattop so flat it looked like a stage prop. When he spoke, the accent was pure Louisiana drawl, the kind where “lion,” “lying,” and “line” all came out sounding exactly the same.
The chief acknowledged Sarah with a slight nod of the head and turned his attention to Mitch. “Mr. Rainey, come with me please.”
Mitch looked at Sarah, who only offered him a sympathetic smile. Then he followed the chief, noting with some trepidation how the man walked with one thumb propped on the butt of the revolver at his waist.
“I’m Chief Lancaster,” the chief said without turning to look at Mitch. “I might as well tell you now that you were brought here against my better judgment.”
They walked up two flights of stairs and down another narrow hallway with several unmarked doors. When they reached the door at the end the chief took a blank plastic card from his pocket and held it to the plate just above the handle.
Mitch felt another one of those ripples
in the fabric of reality as he stepped from the nondescript hall into the chief’s office.
Like the apartment, the place had an unmistakable motif, although this room looked more like the Pentagon circa 1980 than 1950s Hollywood. The desk facing the door was at least eight feet wide and made of gray painted steel. With the exception of a black leather blotter and a Montblanc pen in a brass stand, it was empty. The walls on either side of the desk were a montage of picture frames in a variety of colors and sizes, but they all had one thing in common: each had a clear military undertone. Most were of people in uniform, either posing for the shot or shaking hands with the chief, who appeared to be in uniform in every single picture. Mitch thought he recognized one of these as the late Ho Chi Min.
The chief beckoned to one of the chairs in front of the desk. “Have a seat.”
“I’d like to know where I am.” Mitch said.
The chief pulled a flat silver tin from one of the drawers, snapped it open and took out a small cigar, then spent several seconds lighting it with an old brass Zippo. He sat back and regarded Mitch with eerie gray eyes. “Where you are is not important. Why you are here is. Do you know why you are here, Mr. Rainey?”
“I’m guessing it has something to do with Bruce Jessops?” Mitch said.
The chief was shaking his head. “Wrong. You were brought here because you broke the law. You were brought here because you violated your own code of conduct and went looking at things that didn’t concern you.”
“I’m pretty sure tapping the private phone line of a US Citizen is also against the law,” Mitch said.
The chief took an ashtray from his desk and flicked the end of his cigar into it. “Son, I’ve been dealing with smart-asses all my life, so you can quit while you’re ahead. One bad turn deserves another, Mr. Rainey. That was true long before Jesus felt the need to point it out. Whatever you think you’re entitled to know, the fact remains that you broke the law. And in doing so, you have put us in a very awkward position.”