by J. D. Glass
All those things, confusing, conflicting, calming, confirming, all of them and more she’d felt over the last few hours, but she hadn’t expected the icicle crush in her stomach, nor the burning freeze that now gripped, clammy and close, about her neck and thickened her throat.
This was something different, something completely unexpected, her response to what she knew the results on the screen meant. No way, absolutely no way! part of her mind protested even as she absorbed the implications.
There was one and only one reason to pick that specific destination, and with that knowledge, she now knew more than anyone on the planet other than John Romello himself—and perhaps any of his trusted associates, assuming he had any—what his plans truly contained, and she felt something within her sink as she forced her mind to rid itself of the image of Charli’s swaying body, Charli in this man’s hands, a man accompanied and aided by an insane Cooper.
She had been right; it had never been about the money—it was about the acquisition. She studied the screen before her. The forecast called for snow and the coordinates said they were headed to an island off the northeast coast of Long Island: Plum Island.
Anna might have had no name for what she’d experienced earlier, but she knew what gripped her now. What she felt was fear.
*
History records that on August 11, 1775, one General David Wooster dispatched one hundred and twenty soldiers to an island, then known as Plumb Island. Upon arrival, they were immediately fired upon by the British. After managing to fire a single return volley, the soldiers retreated back to Long Island. No casualties were reported, and this brief skirmish is believed by many to have been the first engagement between the Continental Army and the Redcoats during the Revolutionary War, the site of the war’s first naval battle, and even perhaps the first amphibious assault by an American army.
The first lighthouse placed there was constructed by order of George Washington in 1789, to mark the location of turbulent tidal waters and shoals.
Partially purchased by the federal government during the Spanish-American War, the island was home to Fort Terry, a military installation. It was activated as an anti-submarine base during World War II, as well as a biological warfare research facility. Later, it became a Chemical Corps facility. The Department of Agriculture took over the island in 1954, establishing the Plum Island Animal Disease Center, dedicated to the study of—words and names flew through Charli’s aching head. She heard questions asked—that was Ben’s voice; the answers were returned in the deep stentorian tones of another man, one she didn’t know.
She kept her eyes closed and tried to orient herself while the conversation flowed on around her, a discussion about hemorrhagic fevers, dengue, Marburg, Ebola, Hanta, Lassa fever, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, and the name Erich Traub repeated as well as something called Operation Paper Clip. “And now, with this new work, we’ll use the CIA’s best weapon against them,” the same deep voice continued, “we’ll create a tabula rasa—the blank slate—to set it all to rights.”
Maybe she was dreaming, a strange dream where she’d opened her door to talk with Cooper about the server problems, a dream where a large man who seemed vaguely familiar had greeted her and then—had she fainted? Had she seen Coop draw a gun, heard a shot? Where was Anna? Hadn’t they just—the dizzying spasm that wrenched through her, a pained burning up her chest and limbs, drew her almost upright and she found a paper cup of water in her hand and a strong arm around her shoulders, guiding her to drink, and as she swallowed and opened her eyes, she felt sick again.
None of it, not the good, not the bad, had been a dream.
She blinked, then focused before her and her sight found Ben. He stared at her, a surprisingly doleful expression in his eyes before he dropped his gaze to stare down at his hands. He folded them nervously.
“Well, Charli, now that you’re with us, it’s time for proper introductions,” said the man who no longer sat next to her but instead now stood two feet away.
A coolness had descended over and through her, something she’d not felt for years, but very familiar all the same, and the chill that caressed her showed in Charli’s gaze as she continued to examine Cooper.
“I’m John,” the man continued.
Charli refused to look at him as she silently measured the distance between herself and Cooper, from him to the closed door, and let the information process through her. She was bound in no way, nor did she see any obvious display of weapons, implying that there was no concern about her successfully leaving, and she had her coat on, which meant someone had taken the time to retrieve it. She shifted her shoulders under the leather and shearling, glad for its heaviness and warmth. A deep quiet surrounded them, indicating that it was not only probably very late, but possibly also isolated as well and…even the most frozen of winters couldn’t change or hide that scent: low tide.
Cooper began to fidget under the relentless visual probe and Charli began to piece together the information that she had: one, this was not a voluntary trip; two, the lack of screaming demand in her body for either food or bathroom meant it had been three hours maximum—and quite probably less; three, the foul taste in her mouth and nose as well as the crawling sick that slid up her throat indicated an inhaled substance; and four, the man she’d considered an odd and quirky character in the way some coders were but who was also a highly skilled and reliable employee had…
The cold turned to ice, frozen little chunks that slammed through and under her skin, each chill collision a bruise replacing a heartbeat. She felt nothing—no anger nor sorrow, not even fear for herself. Instead her mind burned clear and Cooper’s dark eyes finally met hers.
“You shot Anna.” The words were flat, uninflected, a cold observation of fact, as cold as the freeze that possessed her, and even as she watched him open his mouth to either protest or explain, the man who’d introduced himself as John entered and filled her field of vision.
“Dear Charli,” he said as he took both her hands in his and she let him, unresisting. His voice, his expression, even his touch was warm, but the warmth ended at his eyes. Pale blue, she noted. Salt sprinkled through dark wavy hair. It curled just below his collar. Thick brows evenly spaced over a defined Roman nose.
“She would have hurt you—betrayed you.” His eyes snapped and glowed almost feverishly, and that was what she paid attention to. “Why, did you know,” he said conversationally as he dropped one of Charli’s hands to wave Ben over, “that Anna was not her real name? That’s right,” he nodded at both of them, “a spy and a mole and a would-be traitor—to you, to me, to all of us.”
Charli listened with the part of her mind not given over to analysis. John crouched to below her eye level—he wanted her trust. He took her hand—she let him, to see what it would tell her. The avuncular squeeze he gave her let her know he not only thought he had gained it—the trust he sought—but also that he thought he knew her, while the too-warm temperature of it betrayed excitement over something. It had to be something huge, she concluded, something he wasn’t quite ready yet to reveal—and she was certain that he was the one with the answers.
The touch told her something else as well: he wanted something from her—it wasn’t sexual, not really, she could tell that, but it carried the same sort of naked hunger, something desperate, and the expectation he held bled from his pores and over her skin, making it crawl. It charged the air that surrounded him.
“So you see, Charli,” he said, returning his full attention to her, “Ben did nothing to Anna, because Anna does not exist.” He smiled.
It was the smile, pleased and somehow smug, as if he shared a secret or an inside joke, that gave her another insight. This man, John, thought he knew everything, Charli thought. Quite likely, not everything, but enough to make it seem so. She listened to his tones. They bordered on patronizing, and his humor, well, it was intelligent, certainly, but it was weak, and considering how widely he smiled at his own jokes…it indicated how highly
he thought of his own cleverness. And then, there was what he wanted…
A small crack appeared in her inner ice, and a familiar fear, the one she’d thought buried so long ago but risen up again recently, the source of which had so very recently been the briefest topic of conversation between her and the person John had just told her did not exist, had now come again. She knew why this time, though—because the part of her that remembered was reliving the past: a young girl, a trusted adult, a nondescript hotel room God-only-knew where.
But things were a lot different this time, Charli reminded herself grimly. The first difference was that she was not that young girl anymore; the second was that she trusted no one, and the neutrality with which she’d always regarded Cooper had given way to contempt, not just for what Charli already knew were his real reasons for holding a grudge against Anna, something she’d ignored because neither Anna nor Coop had made an issue of it at work (though it had been part of her decision to have his office located in the server room), but also for the fawning child’s look on his face as he listened to John’s words. It was that, more than anything else, that lost him whatever respect she’d previously had for him.
As for John, Charli gave him her full concentration. He was generous so long as he thought he was winning, Charli concluded, and considering everything else, including her own current position, he more than probably took insurance to make certain he did.
She had never been able to explain, not to herself, never mind anyone else, how she could know such a thing with the sort of definite certainty she had, but regardless of the mechanisms behind the “how,” know she did, and that knowing led her to another conclusion: she now knew his weak spot. So long as he thought he was right, that he knew all the players and the parameters, he was in charge. But he’d already made one critical error, to her mind. Perhaps he had told the truth, perhaps an actual person named Anna did not exist, not as Charli had known and named her, but he was wrong, and Charli knew she held the proof of it. Anna, whether or not that was her name, did exist. Charli had held her, had looked into her eyes and her mind, had felt through her own body, her own skin, all the things Anna felt for her, as wordless as they might have been.
In the way Charli played the game with everything and everyone, there were tests: tests of trust, tests of reality, that had pass or fail options. Those responses opened or closed gates that allowed or forbade different levels of access. It was of almost desperate importance for her to know—always, in all ways—what cores lay beneath exteriors, whether it was the functionality of programs, rocks and reefs, rips and undertows beneath the waves, or the deceiving dichotomies of people.
So much of what she did, of who she was, of how she lived, depended on that information and because of that, there was no room in her life or her mind for false niceties or labels. Those solid-seeming surfaces had betrayed her once too often, and as a result she had learned quite early and well that they ultimately meant nothing.
What did have meaning for her, the truth she trusted and could work with, understood and made good use of, were the actions and reactions when stripped down to essence. That had been exactly what had happened between her and Anna—there had been that stripping away of layers until nothing but core was left. What she had seen and felt, what had been shared and exchanged…that she knew was real, more real than anything as trivial as a name.
Charli had already not only suspected, but also known with an inner certainty there was something different about Anna—her records were too clean and there was a way she had sometimes, of standing, of making a turn…Charli had thought military, being so familiar with that thanks to her brother. If Anna—or whoever she was—chose not to talk about it, fine. Everyone had their secrets and Charli wouldn’t push for those, not when she had so many herself. But this, John’s revelation, it changed nothing.
The thought caught Charli abruptly, made all the slamming chunks crash into a dead stop with a crushing weight that made her face and chest grow numb: John had used past tense to discuss her, which meant she was more than likely dead.
Charli would deal with that later, when there was time to finally let herself feel and react, but for now… She narrowed her eyes slightly at Cooper, who drank in every word John issued as if they were pronouncements from an incarnate god, then peered at John, who either didn’t notice or more than likely, she decided, expected it. It made her next choices easy, then. She’d listen, she’d play along, and then she’d figure a way out.
As far as Charli was concerned, John’s first crucial mistake had been in telling her that the woman she’d last seen wearing her own sweatshirt wasn’t real—nothing and no one had ever been more real to her, and that right there fed her what she considered to be critical information. However good John’s source of intelligence was, he didn’t really know her, how she thought, what she felt, or what had happened between her and…Anna. He knew some facts, perhaps many of them, but he didn’t know the realities behind them or the engines that drove them. Ergo, he didn’t know her. His attitude and tone led her to suspect that even if he did know those crucial pieces of intelligence, he still more than likely wouldn’t understand either what had happened and why, or Charli herself, for that matter.
As for the second piece of the puzzle, it logically followed the first: he’d been wrong about Anna, he’d been wrong about her—and it would only be a matter of time before John was mistaken again.
She’d have to watch for it, and she wouldn’t—couldn’t, she corrected—let him know. The conversation she had heard as she came to told her there was machinery in motion that was much larger than whatever the mysterious actions on the computer system had been—and the implications were horrific. She could authentically confirm that Anna—or whoever—had been injured if not worse, and the fact that she herself was here in this place, wherever this was, without her own permission…it all added up to a danger she could only begin to appreciate—and not just to her, but to others as well.
If I can learn more, maybe I can find out exactly what it is, Charli decided, maybe I can stop it from happening. She knew what she had to do: act, not react, and that was something she excelled at. She took a breath, and with it turned an internal switch completely off. Game on.
“Well, now that we’re all introduced, we’ve defined reality, and my stomach has stopped twisting, does anyone have coffee?” Charli asked.
“I’ll go get some,” Ben volunteered and stepped quickly out the door.
Charli played a hunch and took as much more control over the situation as she thought she could. It was time to start testing the boundaries. “After I use the bathroom, you can tell me what we’re really doing here,” Charli said to John, speaking to him directly for the first time as the door clicked shut. “I’m betting it has something to do with my system.” She forced herself to smile at him as if he was any other member of her team and this was a normal code review.
John smiled back at her broadly in return. “Just this way,” he told her, pointing to the door around the corner from the other bed.
She’d been right—he was expansive in his seeming triumph, and when Charli closed the door to the bathroom behind her, she quickly surveyed the windowless room. The sink sported neatly packaged and placed bars of soap, an ashtray, and a matchbook with the name of the hotel on the cover. Acting on impulse, she took the matches and put them in her pocket, along with the East Hampton brochure that had lain next to it. She didn’t know precisely what she would do with them just yet, but she did know this: John had just made his next mistake.
*
Charli was amazing, so much more than what Ben had told him about her, even more than what he’d hoped and deduced from his files and observations. Tough stuff, she was—no crying, no tears at all, no sentimentality. He should have predicted that—it was another mark of her breed.
All the preliminary testing as well as the theory he could find had said repeatedly that these subjects had something a little different, and
very interesting, about their brain waves. They all ran an almost constant Beta wave—their minds were never at rest, and it was in this group that the discovery of Gamma waves had occurred: a subset of Beta waves, Gammas represented masses of neurons firing together, and this is what excited him. It was a hyperengagement of cognitive activity, was linked to the synchronization of both conscious and subliminal stimulus. The outward manifestation of that? A constant, cool, logic that arrived at answers in seemingly nonlinear ways.
And that logic…what a mind she had.
He began by discussing a little bit about genetics—without telling her of the experiment she was more than likely a result of, and he began with his theory of the improvements to human stock inadvertently begun during World War II. It was an opportunity to sound her out for himself, if she really would “believe” as Ben had put it, or argue him down.
“Hitler,” he opened, “was a prisoner of his own inferiorities, and the mistakes of his culture. That’s the problem with little brains,” he said and smiled, “too small to crawl outside of their own holes. He wanted a Master Race—and he created one, out of the very people he tried to destroy.”
The curious and inquiring glance she rewarded him with allowed him to continue with an enthusiasm he hadn’t felt in a long time. A quick glance at Ben revealed his interest, and with his audience set, John continued.