“Your help.”
“My help. With what?”
“Bringing down the Centralia Project.”
Centralia. The word alone flooded Jed’s mind with disturbing memories. Brainwashing. Torture. Manipulation. Lies. So many lies. Nichols, the man behind it all. Jed thought he’d lost Karen and Lilly for good because of the Centralia Project. Every part of it was immoral and criminal in so many ways. Evil. And the men and women at the helm were nothing short of devils.
“What do you have to do with Centralia?”
“We’re the CIA; it’s our job to know about such ghost agencies and dismantle them. No government can survive with rogues operating off camera, accountable to no one, developing and executing their own agendas. Can you imagine the damage that would be done, both domestically and internationally, if the work of Centralia leaked into the public arena?”
It would be scandalous; that much he knew. He was counting on it. But the ripple effects—those could prove devastating.
“We’ve known about the project for some time,” Murphy said, “but getting hard evidence to do any real damage has been . . . difficult. We need your thumb drive. The information on it is invaluable.”
“Why should I trust you?”
“You have no one else to trust, do you?”
He didn’t.
“And you’re not safe on that mountain,” Murphy said. “If we found you, what’s to say anyone else couldn’t if they looked hard enough and knew the right resources to tap?”
Jed thought of what Karen had told him about her own fears and Lilly’s nightmares. They weren’t safe; he knew that more than ever now. As long as the Centralia Project was still operational, his family would always live in fear, would always feel the need to watch over their shoulder.
“We have our own reasons for wanting to dismantle the project, and you have yours. Look how easily we snatched your daughter from your home.”
He was right. Jed knew he was. He hated to admit it, but Murphy spoke the truth. It had taken nothing for them to abduct Lilly. And they could have just as easily killed all three of them.
Lilly stood beside Murphy, arms at her sides, and watched with wide eyes. Jed thought he saw a shadow of fear pass over her face. She knew it too. They were vulnerable.
Murphy motioned for the other three men to lower their weapons. “We mean you no harm, Patrick. We mean your family no harm. We simply need your help.”
Jed said nothing. He needed time to process this information. He’d been lied to so many times and his mind had been tinkered with in so many sickening ways he no longer trusted his own judgment. He wanted to think he could finally play a role in destroying the Centralia Project once and for all and eliminate that threat to his family, but was he willing to take the risk of trusting Murphy? Trusting anyone?
Murphy tilted his head to the side. “I can see you’re struggling with this. Let me make it a little clearer for you. We could have torn your cabin apart looking for the thumb drive. We could have harmed your wife or daughter here. We could have taken Lilly and left. Just left. You would never see her again. We could have held her for ransom. We could have taken both of them and tortured the location of the thumb drive out of them. You know we could have. So why didn’t we?”
He stared at Jed, but Jed gave no answer.
“Because that’s not how we operate. That’s how Centralia operates, and you know that to be true. You’ve seen it and lived it. We need your help and we’re asking nicely.”
“But you did take my daughter.”
“To get your attention.” He placed his hand on Lilly’s head. Lilly did not pull away but instead remained stock-still, eyeing Jed as if waiting for her dad to make a move and rescue her. “As you can see, she’s fine. Some things have to be shown to be believed. How would you have received us if we had knocked politely on your cabin door and told you that you and your family were in danger in that location? What would you have said had we merely requested you hand over the thumb drive?”
“I wouldn’t have said anything.”
“Exactly. We might have even come off that mountain in body bags.”
“Possibly.”
Murphy patted Lilly’s back. “Honey, you can go to your dad now.”
Lilly crossed the distance between them, but the tears didn’t puddle in her eyes until she was near enough for Jed to reach out and touch. He pulled her close and hugged her. She clung to him with both arms wrapped around his waist. Jed placed a protective arm across her shoulders.
“But if you need more reason to believe us . . . Do you want to know how we found your location?”
“I’m listening.”
“Roger Abernathy.”
The name paralyzed Jed. He’d assumed all this time that Abernathy was dead, that he and Lawrence Habit had given their lives to buy time for Jed and Karen and Lilly to escape an attack from the hit men of Centralia. “Abernathy is alive?”
“He is. And he agreed with our mission enough to reveal your location. Even he realized you weren’t as secure as he’d hoped you would be. Surely you must see it now.”
He did see it . . . if it was true. He still wasn’t convinced this Andrew Murphy was telling him the truth. He couldn’t be sure of anything. “I need to talk to him.”
“Abernathy?”
“Abernathy. I want to see him.”
Murphy paused, bit his lip, eyed Jed like a cowboy in the Old West staring down an opposing gunman. Finally he glanced at Lilly, then said, “Okay. That can be arranged.”
Jed needed someone he could trust and he truly felt he could trust Abernathy. “Where? When?”
Murphy studied his watch for a handful of seconds. “Tomorrow morning. 0800. The Daniels and Fisher Tower in Denver.”
“Denver.”
Murphy shrugged. “It’s where Abernathy is now residing. He found himself a nice little apartment near Washington Park.”
Jed thought about that. Denver was a good fifteen hours away. They’d have to travel through the night. “Deal.”
Murphy smiled, but it wasn’t a pleasant smile. “Great. And bring that thumb drive.”
Jed turned to leave with Lilly but was stopped by Murphy’s voice.
“Oh, and, Patrick? Be careful.” He rested his eyes on Lilly for a brief moment. “You’re not as invincible as you think you are.”
FOUR
• • •
When Jed and Lilly exited the store, Karen was there to meet them. Ignoring the rain, she ran to Lilly and wrapped her in a tight hug, rocked her back and forth. The rain obscured her face, but Jed could tell tears were flowing freely from her eyes as she kissed Lilly on the hair, forehead, cheeks.
Then, without fully releasing the girl, she looked at Jed, confusion wrinkling her brow, rain matting her hair to her scalp. “What happened?”
“Get in the truck. We’ll talk on the way back to the cabin.”
Karen stood to her full height, leaving her hand on Lilly’s head. She looked from the store to Jed. “Are you okay?”
There was no time to stand there in the rain and fill her in on everything. “The truck, Karen. We have to move.”
Karen opened the back door of the truck for Lilly, then slid into the front seat as Jed cranked the engine. The truck’s tires spun on the wet blacktop before finding their grip and pushing the truck forward.
Once on the road, Karen said, “Okay. What’s going on? What happened?”
“Andrew Murphy, CIA, happened.”
“I don’t understand.”
“He was behind this. At least he claims he’s with the CIA. He said they took Lilly to show us how vulnerable we are at the cabin, that we’re not safe. We would have been found eventually.”
Karen sat in silence for a moment, then turned to Lilly in the backseat. “Are you okay, baby? Did they hurt you at all?”
“I’m fine, Mom,” Lilly said. “They didn’t hurt me.”
She looked back to Jed. “I still don’t understand.
”
“The CIA wants to bring down the Centralia Project and they need the thumb drive to do it. At least that’s the story they’re trying to sell me.”
“But you don’t believe it?”
Jed turned off 95 and onto the mountain road. “I don’t know what to believe anymore. I believed we were safe at the cabin. No one knew of our location; we had aliases; we were completely off the grid. We were cautious.”
“And yet here we are.”
“Here we are.”
“How did they find out about Centralia?”
It was a good question and one Jed hadn’t thought to ask. “I don’t know.”
“Why haven’t they done anything about it sooner?”
“I don’t know, Karen.”
“How did they find us?”
Jed shifted his eyes to her, then to Lilly in the rearview mirror. His daughter appeared shaken by what had happened, but the shadow of fear that Jed had seen earlier was no longer there. “Abernathy.”
“Roger?”
“That’s what Murphy said.”
“Roger is alive?”
“He said Abernathy told them where to find us.”
“Why? Why would he betray us like that?”
“Murphy said Abernathy realized we weren’t safe in the cabin and wouldn’t be as long as Centralia was still functioning. It needs to be brought down, and the thumb drive contains the only information that can do that. So Abernathy told him where we were.”
“But how did he survive that mess in Pennsylvania?”
Jed paused before answering. “I don’t know. But we’ll get a chance to ask him for ourselves.”
“He’s coming here?”
“No, we’re to meet Murphy and him in Denver tomorrow morning. We’re supposed to deliver the thumb drive at that time.”
“Denver? Why Denver?”
Again, “I don’t know.”
The rain finally slowed to a sprinkle. The road was still slick with moisture, but the Silverado handled the turns nicely. Jed pushed the truck’s speed to the limits of control.
“Karen,” he said, “if this is real, it will all be over soon.”
“But how do we know if it’s real or not?”
“We go to Denver and find out.”
“Do you think that’s a good idea?”
“It’s our only move. We can’t stay at the cabin, and where else are we going to go? We have only this option. What we’re doing now isn’t working; you said so yourself. Lilly is having nightmares; you live every day in fear. And after this, we have to face that we’re too vulnerable. If there’s one thing Murphy was right about, it’s that we will never be safe until Centralia is wiped out, until it ceases to exist.” And even then he would never be sure about their safety.
“And if it’s not real?”
“If what’s not real?”
“Murphy, the CIA’s plan to eliminate Centralia, this meeting in Denver.”
Jed was quiet for a few long beats. In the short time since his meeting with Murphy he’d been formulating a plan, testing it, mulling it over, devising backup plans. “We’ll deal with that if the time comes.”
“That’s not too reassuring. Jed, this isn’t one of your missions. It isn’t an assignment. You have the safety of your family to think about.”
He gave her a hard look. “You don’t think I know that? That’s why we have to follow this and see where it leads. We are not safe on this mountain. Period. We were found, Karen, and Lilly was taken right out from under us. It could have been a lot worse.”
In the backseat, Lilly sucked in a deep sigh. Jed glanced in the rearview mirror. His daughter rubbed at her eyes with fisted hands. Karen turned and placed a hand on Lilly’s leg. She lowered her voice. “We were found because Roger exposed our location.”
“Nevertheless, we were found. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way.”
They drove on in silence again for a few minutes. The rain had slowed even more now and only a sprinkling of drops made it past the thick forest canopy to reach the windshield of the Silverado. Jed maneuvered the truck onto the service road, and the tires momentarily skidded in the rain-loosened gravel before the vehicle lunged ahead.
A mile farther up the road Jed said to Karen, “I’m sorry I left you and Lilly alone. I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”
She placed her hand on his thigh. “You don’t need to apologize.” She glanced back at Lilly. “We’re all safe now and that’s what matters. You got Lilly back like you said you would.”
When they arrived at the cabin, Jed pulled the truck close to the cabin, shut off the engine, and turned to Karen. “You two stay here. I’m going to check the place out. I don’t want any more surprises.” He paused to smile at Lilly and reached back to take her hand. “You sure you’re okay, sweetheart? You’ve been awful quiet.”
She nodded. “Yes. I’m fine, Dad.”
“Were you scared?”
“Yes. But only because I thought I might not see you or Mom again.”
Unbidden, tears suddenly pushed against the backs of Jed’s eyes. He didn’t understand where the onslaught of emotion had come from. As much as he could remember, he was not an emotional person before. He’d been trained to focus on the objective, stay detached from the human component, and complete the mission by whatever means necessary. There was no crying in his world. But that was the world Centralia had constructed for him, wasn’t it? It was nothing like his real world, the world where Karen and Lilly lived, where they loved him, where they meant everything to him.
Jed gave Lilly’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’ll always find you, baby girl. My life depends on it.”
Jed then exited the truck and retrieved his handgun from the waistline of his pants.
The clearing was still and quiet. The rain had stopped and the silence that follows a storm shrouded the area in uncertainty. Jed slid from the truck to the cabin’s porch, holding the handgun chest-high and ready to jump into action. From the porch he scanned the clearing, ran his eyes along the tree line. Sticking close to the outside walls, he circled the cabin, surveying the area, looking for anything out of place, anything showing signs of disturbance. He moved quickly and deliberately, his mind whirring, his heart thumping, his eyes taking in every detail of his surroundings.
When he had fully circled the cabin and checked the area, he turned his attention to the interior. At the front door he drew in a deep breath, spun, and entered, weapon high, sweeping the room. There was nothing. No intruders. No armed men in black. No Centralia hit men or CIA operatives. He crossed the room and checked the bedrooms, his and Karen’s first, then Lilly’s. He then cleared the bathroom and kitchen. The place was empty.
Jed returned to the truck and opened the door. “All clear. Let’s get some things together and get back on the road. We have a long trip and will want to grab some sleep along the way.”
In the house, while Lilly was in her room stuffing some clothes in a duffel bag, Karen pulled Jed into their bedroom. “Are we doing the right thing?”
Jed had asked himself the same question. A feeling of concern and dread niggled at his mind. Were they walking into a trap? Was Murphy a spider drawing them into his web? What if Abernathy wasn’t alive? What if Murphy was just another in a long line of liars trying to manipulate and use Jed? But if Abernathy played no part in this, then Murphy had found Jed and Karen and Lilly with no help, which made their situation even more dire. They could go on the run, try to disappear, assume new identities, blend in with the rest of the American public. But how long would that last until they were found again and that rough road rose up to meet them and toss them around once more?
Jed pulled Karen close and hugged her tight. “We have no better options.” He kissed her on the forehead, then on the lips. “I promise you this, though. I will do everything in my power to keep you and Lilly safe.”
FIVE
• • •
Tiffany Stockton stared at her computer monito
r. The figures didn’t make sense. Didn’t add up. She ran the report again and studied the numbers, this time leaning in closer to the screen as if that would make a difference. Once more, she tallied the amounts, checked the calculations. Same outcome. The numbers were off somewhere.
Clicking the keys on her keyboard, she ran the reports from a different angle, filtering out a variety of line items. No change.
Weird.
The numbers were off by a significant amount too. Not the hundreds or even thousands they were used to. It was common for government agencies not to report every expenditure. They were supposed to, sure, but it didn’t happen. Everyone had secret expenses they didn’t want the public knowing about, some warranted, some not so warranted. And the government was notorious for hiding clandestine purchases. The proverbial $20,000 hammer. That’s why they had people like Tiffany. She was a watchdog, a government employee keeping an eye on other government employees. Making sure no one played the system too badly.
But these numbers were ridiculous. They were in the billions. Not in one lump sum—that would be too obvious. No, they were scattered expenses, a couple hundred thousand here, tens of thousands there, a million here, a million there.
It had to be a mistake. No, it couldn’t be. Accounting errors happened, of course, but not like this. This was both random and organized. It appeared very intentional. Not since Tiffany began working as a finance analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency’s Office of Corporate Businesses had she seen such activity.
The expenses were all listed generally under the CIA, but each entry was assigned to an ambiguous line item several levels down. And each fell under a separate department within the CIA’s broad umbrella. Classified as experimental testing or investigative trials or research and development, some were attached to intelligence, some to clandestine services, others to science and technology. But there was only flimsy backup paperwork, nothing correctly entered. There were just billions of dollars being spent, and no one could account for where or how.
Tiffany decided to do a little more digging. It was not her responsibility—her job was to find these inconsistencies and report them higher up the chain—but her curiosity was itching and needed to be scratched. She pushed herself back in her chair, poked her head out of her cubicle, and looked around. Everyone else was hard at work, had their noses to their monitors, checking facts, running reports, scanning documents. Next to her, Ed Worley sipped at his coffee and tapped his pen on his desk. It was his annoying habit. He claimed he was a drummer in high school and that the beat never left his blood. She told him it was just his pulse and he should ignore the urge to give in to it.
Kill Devil Page 3