“Agent Olivetti, while no one can doubt your brilliant assessment of Ms. Fromme’s state of mind, is it really good practice for an agent of the Human Protection League to use a term that’s derogatory to all women?”
Olivetti looked up from the manuscript pages littering his desk. A predatory grin spread across his wide face; for a second Masterton regretted taking his bait, but she was increasingly tired of the man’s constant jibes against her gender. “What’sa matter, honey—you on the rag?”
Masterton felt her face flush and was instantly furious with herself. She wouldn’t let Olivetti see her lose her composure. It was what he wanted, what he needed, to confirm his obsolete, Hoover-era opinion that women were unfit to serve in the bureau.
She mustered her most withering glare and turned it full on him. “Agent Olivetti, may I remind you that it’s 1975, the Equal Rights Amendment is about to pass, women are now officially admitted to the FBI, and the time machine to take you back to your Neanderthal tribe is out of order this week.”
Whether it was her expression or her words that hit home, Masterton didn’t know; she was just pleased to see Olivetti’s smile vanish as his jaw flexed beneath a stubbled jowl. “We both know you don’t belong here,” Olivetti said, now in full attack mode. “Working for the HPL isn’t like sitting in some Podunk field office drinking coffee and listening in on tapped phone calls. It gets rough here, and when I’m out in the field wrestling with something from another goddamn dimension that’s trying to kill me, I want to know my backup is strong enough to take it out, capisce?”
“I passed the same tests at Quantico that you did,” Masterton reminded him.
Olivetti turned away, tired of the game. “Yeah, I know what tests you passed,” he said, with a whopping dose of sarcasm, before returning to the manuscript.
Masterton had to push down a wave of outrage and humiliation. The worst part was that Olivetti was right—she knew she had been drafted into the Human Protection League because of those tests. Not the ones that tested intelligence or knowledge or skill or strength; no, the ones that tested ESP and second sight. They said she’d scored higher on those tests than anyone they’d ever seen.
The irony was that she didn’t even believe in the existence of such things.
Yes, she’d always known that she could do things others couldn’t—sense things about people, like when they were lying. Guess what they were thinking. Know who was in a room before she entered it, or who was on the other end of the phone. But by the time she’d entered college and was studying psychology, she’d decided to just file her traits away as intuition, hunches, empathy.
And, yes, she knew those test scores were why she was one of the few female agents in the HPL. Not because she’d demonstrated other gifts in the field, or passed at the top of her graduating class at Quantico. No, she was here because she could tell right now that Olivetti was thinking she’d look pretty good in a black leather corset and stiletto heels.
She tried to focus on the work before her. She had a copy of the same manuscript that Olivetti had. It was Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme’s 600-page “history” of the West Coast group known as “The Family.” The cult’s leader, Charles Manson, was currently (thankfully) locked away, along with several key followers who’d participated in the 1968 Tate-Labianca murders. But “Squeaky” hadn’t been directly involved, and so hadn’t been indicted. In the seven years since, she’d led a nomadic existence, always living on the periphery of others’ crimes without taking part in the commission.
The League had always suspected that The Family was more than just a cult of personality, but it had taken Squeaky’s book to confirm that. They’d received a copy of the manuscript after Squeaky had sent it to various publishers—a contact at one New York house had read it and promptly passed it on to them. Most of it was gibberish, the pages filled with bad grammar and childish drawings. But it also described The Family as an offshoot (although an unofficial one) of the Armies of the Night, and made it clear that their murders had actually been sacrifices (although Squeaky believed that the Elder Gods would return to “save the flowers and trees”). The manuscript also suggested that Squeaky and the other Family members who had escaped incarceration were planning something big, some sacrifice that they apparently believed would open the Grande Portall and let the GREAT OLD 1 thru.
Something tingled at the back of Masterton’s consciousness. She wasn’t surprised when her intercom buzzed and she heard the voice of Deputy Director Herbert Jefferson. “Agent Masterton, may I see you in my office, please?”
She stabbed at the response button. “Right away, sir.” As she rose and walked from the room, she tried to ignore Olivetti’s smirk.
She liked the deputy director. It wasn’t just that he’d been the HPL’s first black agent; she also liked the brusque, no-nonsense manner that she knew others found abrasive. As she entered his office and took a chair, he barely looked up. “Agent Masterton. Are you finding anything of value in the Fromme manuscript?”
Masterton wasn’t sure how to answer, especially since she knew that wasn’t why she was here. She shrugged and said, “Nothing really useful, although she has made some vague threats against the president.”
That was Gerald Ford, who a year earlier had succeeded to the presidency following the resignation of Richard Nixon. The release of the Pentagram Papers and the exposing of Water Gate—albeit dressed-up by the League’s friends at the Post in a manner that the electorate would understand—had put paid to his predecessor’s plans with the Deep Ones. The current incumbent of the White House was known to be a Freemason, and at least he was human.
“Given her past history, I’d recommend increased surveillance of Miss Fromme.”
Jefferson nodded and leveled his gaze squarely on her. “I agree. But I really called you here to talk about Randolph Carter.”
Pushing back a small jolt of concern—mention of Carter made everyone in the HPL uncomfortable, even if they had never met him—Masterton asked, “Carter, sir?”
“Since his . . . disappearance . . . some years ago, our dreamers have been picking up increasingly worrying vibrations emanating from within the Dreamscape. They think it may have something to do with Carter and have concerns about our safety. And by ‘our,’ I mean the world’s, not the just the League’s.”
“I see.”
“Have you felt anything . . . strange lately?”
“Sir,” she said, answering slowly, “you know I don’t . . . night-travel.”
“I understand that, Agent Masterton, but that’s not what I’m asking.”
Masterton inhaled, thought, and after a few seconds answered, “Yes, but I can’t quite describe it. It’s like something that’s sitting behind us—we know it’s there, but we can’t turn to look at it.”
Jefferson mulled that over before asking, “Have you ever wondered why the Human Protection League’s offices aren’t with the rest of the FBI in the Department of Justice building?”
“I have, sir, but I just assumed it was . . . convenient.”
Jefferson smiled slightly. “Perhaps, but not for any obvious reason. Agent Masterton, do you foresee yourself staying with us? Are you satisfied here?”
The question took Masterton aback. Why was he asking? Was this really somehow about Olivetti and the other male agents who she knew she made uncomfortable? “Yes, sir. The answer is yes to both questions.”
“Good. I thought as much. I’m going to upgrade your security clearance, then, because I think you need to know some things. What I’m about to reveal is highly classified, Agent Masterton. Do not discuss this information with anyone but me or Director Brady. Not even your fellow agents.”
“Yes, sir.”
He took a breath, and then said, “Washington’s layout wasn’t an accident. It was designed to serve as a sort of nexus of occult powers. The HPL’s headquarters are beneath the Washington Monument because it’s at the center of that nexus. At the center of it . . . and abo
ve it.”
“Above it, sir?”
Jefferson considered, but after a few seconds said, “Let me take care of the bureaucratic details on your upgrade first. When that’s cleared, I’ll have Director Brady meet us and we’ll give you the ten-cent tour.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jefferson dismissed her. She left his office trying to ignore an inexplicable dread that had settled into her gut.
Masterton was jolted awake at just after 3:00 A.M. Her sleep had been uneasy, punctuated by vivid dreams of shadows with eyes descending on her, of inhuman screams in darkness, of cities spread before her consumed by black fires.
When she snapped awake, breathing hard, those senses that had tested so well at Quantico were all humming like electrified cattle prods. She knew there was always a night-crew at the League’s headquarters, so she grabbed her bedside phone and punched in the classified number for the office. Ever since the Esoteric Order’s recent incursions in New York City, the HPL’s defenses had been on high alert. But still . . .
“Agent Boyer speaking.”
Good—she knew Boyer and liked him. “Agent Boyer, this is Agent Masterton.”
“Oh, good morning, Agent Masterton. You’re up late. What can I do for you?”
Now that she heard Boyer’s calm, pleasant voice, her fears began to recede. “I just . . . wanted to—”
Boyer cut her off. “Hang on just a moment . . .” She heard Boyer speak, his voice now a short distance from the phone. “What was that?”
Another voice—she thought it was an agent named Shakman—said, “I don’t know—”
A huge BOOM exploded into her earpiece. Masterton’s heart doubled its pace as she heard Shakman scream. Boyer shouted instructions and a clunk told her the phone had been dropped. She heard gunfire, voices yelling, shrieking—and something that was not a human voice also shrieking.
“Boyer . . . Boyer!” She didn’t expect a response, and none came. She listened, stunned, for a few more seconds.
The line went dead.
Masterton sat on the bed in disbelief at what she’d just heard. She stared at the phone before hanging up.
Almost immediately she retrieved the handset and keyed in Jefferson’s home number from memory. After three rings, she heard his voice still slurred from sleep. “Hello?”
“Sir, it’s Diane Masterton. Agent Masterton. I believe that headquarters is under attack. I was just on the phone with Agent Boyer, but we were interrupted by the sound of rapid gunfire and . . . screaming.”
Jefferson’s voice was no longer slurred. “Agent Masterton, I need to have you contact Olivetti and Reyes, have you all meet me at the Washington Monument Lodge in exactly a half hour.”
“Yes, sir.” She was already pulling out the directory of HPL agents that she had hidden within the pages of a cheap paperback novel in her bedside table.
“And, Masterton—if you’ve got flashlights and extra arms stashed at home, bring them.”
Jefferson hung up.
Masterton made the calls to Olivetti and Reyes, and then went to her closet, where a few seconds of digging behind jackets and boxes revealed the shotgun her father had given her after she’d graduated Quantico. At the time it had seemed like a strange gift, but now she thought it was the finest graduation present in the world.
Precisely a half hour later, Masterton stood with the other agents outside the squat white brick building known as the Washington Monument Lodge. Behind it, the Washington Monument towered like a skeletal finger in the predawn glow. In just a few hours, tourists would be stopping by here to pick up their tickets to the obelisk’s interior. From here they’d walk the short distance to the Monument, file into the interior and, after a brief wait, enter the elevator that would carry them five hundred feet up to an observation deck.
Some of the visitors might wonder about the small elevator at the side of the ground floor that was fronted by an OUT OF ORDER sign. They might grouse about the wait while eyeing that elevator longingly. The most observant might be curious about the janitor mopping the floor in that area, even though the floor was already spotless. They might think he was too well-built to be a janitor.
Masterton remembered the first time she’d been taken that way. She’d been with two other new agents assigned to the HPL, Acker and Doughty, with Director Brady himself taking the lead. They’d met outside the Monument’s closed doors an hour before it opened to the public. Brady had knocked on the door—three rapid beats followed by two spaced apart—and the door had been opened by the Janitor. “Good morning, Director Brady,” he’d said, holding the door open as they all entered.
“’Morning, Janitor.” Brady had walked around the OUT OF ORDER sign to insert a key into the call-panel of the elevator, which instantly opened for him.
The Janitor had smiled at her as she’d walked toward the elevator. Now he was likely dead.
As the three rookies followed Brady in, one of them—a wiry young man named Acker, who’d left the job the day after his first field assignment—looked around in perplexity. “Where are the buttons?”
Brady smiled, amused and patient, and Masterton knew he’d answered this question many times before. “This elevator doesn’t need buttons because it only goes to one place.” At that, the elevator started to move—down, instead of up. Acker’s eyes widened at that, but he kept silent.
When the doors opened, they stepped into the large, open control room that served as the Human Protection League’s hub. The culmination of J. Edgar Hoover’s paranoid vision nearly four decades earlier. It had been functioning efficiently that day, with experienced agents seated at desks poring over reports or banging out their own on electric typewriters. Agents greeted Brady as he passed; some threw knowing smiles at the new arrivals. It’d been a place of quiet professionalism.
Masterton knew they wouldn’t find that today.
Because they believed that the League’s headquarters had been compromised, they wouldn’t be using the main elevator now. What the tourists didn’t know was that a small storage closet in the Lodge covered a secret doorway that led to an emergency staircase going down to the underground headquarters of the Human Protection League.
Masterton shivered in the early morning chill, using her free hand to pull her coat tighter around her throat. In the other hand she held a cloth bag with her shotgun; its weight was reassuring. Her semi-automatic MI911 handgun rested in its shoulder holster under her coat.
Just then, a black sedan pulled up and Jefferson got out with two more agents—Petrushka and Wyatt, both big, muscled men who openly carried MP5 submachine guns and backpacks that she guessed were full of extra ammo.
Jefferson stopped before them. “Okay, listen up, agents. Here’s what we know. At just after oh-three-hundred hours this morning, headquarters was apparently attacked by forces unknown. Agents Boyer, Shakman, and Doughty were on duty at the time—all have failed to respond to telephone calls or radio contact. Also, you should be aware that I’ve been unable to contact Director Brady, and it’s not impossible that he was in the offices during the attack. His daughter, Professor Miracle Brady, has been informed and is helping to coordinate the response from one of our satellite installations. Field offices around the world are on standby.
“Gentlemen—and lady—until we can positively identify the threat and the occult nature of what we may be facing, we’re on our own. Don’t expect the cavalry to come riding in to rescue us. If any of you want to back out, you better do it now.”
Reyes—a husky, 45-year-old Puerto Rican who Masterton had always thought a fine agent—stepped forward. “I’m with you, sir.” Reyes hefted the M16 rifle he’d become attached to since serving in Vietnam before transferring to the League. “Me and mi cachorro.”
Olivetti—who Masterton knew would much rather have been home in bed sleeping off his late-night helping of lasagna beside his wife—surprised her by adding, “We all are, sir.” Olivetti carried his preferred Remington 870 Mark 1 shotgun.
Masterton joined the rest in muttering assent. Jefferson nodded. “Right. But we do this as much by the book as possible, understood? There may still be survivors in there.”
They all agreed. And then it was time.
Jefferson used a key similar to the one she had seen Brady use to open the main door to the empty Lodge. They filed in, using flashlights to move past the dark racks of books and souvenirs. In the rear of the store they opened a door marked STAFF ONLY. Inside was a small storage room, lined with janitorial equipment on one side and metal shelving racks on the other.
Jefferson pulled on one rack and it swung smoothly out, revealing that it was on hinges and covered a steel door marked NO ENTRY. He slid a card through an electronic lock, the door buzzed, and he pushed it open an inch. He held up a hand, indicating silence. Petrushka and Wyatt stepped forward, taking flanking positions on either side of the doorway, the submachine guns held ready. Jefferson gestured, silent, tense. Masterton, Olivetti, and Reyes waited in the Lodge, ready.
Jefferson pushed the door inward and nodded to Petrushka and Wyatt, who quickly stepped through. Masterton heard footsteps on metal. As they waited, she pulled her shotgun from its case, cracked it open, and loaded two cartridges.
“Try not to let your fingers sweat on the trigger of that thing,” Olivetti muttered. Masterton bit back a response, focusing on the job before them.
After a few seconds, they heard the call—“Clear!”—and Jefferson moved forward, while the rest of them followed.
Past the hidden door was a narrow staircase lit by low-watt sodium bulbs. They descended seven flights before reaching the bottom, where another metal door stood open. Just beyond it she saw Petrushka and Wyatt, standing guard.
They were entering the League’s headquarters through a side hallway. Fortunately the lights were still on, and she saw a short corridor lined with rooms leading to the central hub and the main control room. Petrushka and Wyatt led the way, checking each office before moving on. As they passed Jefferson’s office, Masterton had to swallow back a chill—it had been just hours ago that she’d been in that office, conferring with her superior, a conversation that had held praise and promise. Now she saw only a dark space full of dread. She fought to hold down the panic as her senses hummed with warning signals.
The Lovecraft Squad: Dreaming Page 34