Kill Devil

by Mike Dellosso

  Jed grabbed the phone from his pocket and checked the history of calls. Murphy had called him back in Denver and then outside Floriston. He called the number from which those calls had come.

  A woman answered. Not the same woman who had given him the instructions about the bridge. “Patrick?”

  “Get me Murphy.”

  “He’s sleeping.”

  Anger pushed its way into Jed’s chest. “I don’t care. Wake him up.”

  “Just a moment.”

  Minutes passed and nothing happened. Questions bombarded Jed’s mind. There were no answers, of course; there never were. The anger built within him, a pot of boiling water now bubbling over. Finally, just as he was about to think Murphy would not disturb his sleep to speak with him, a gravelly voice came on the phone.

  “Patrick. Where are you?”

  “At the bridge. You sent me here.”

  “Yeah. What time . . . ? Yes, I did. Did you get the package?”

  “Your man is gone.”

  There was a brief pause on the other end. “Gone. What do you mean gone?”

  The sleep cobwebs had clouded his thinking.

  “Gone. He jumped off the bridge.”

  “What?” Murphy’s voice had suddenly cleared. “How? What did you do?”

  “I went after him; we exchanged shots; we fought; he jumped. Who was he?”

  “You were to pick up the package. That’s it.” Anger laced Murphy’s voice.

  “I want answers.”

  “He didn’t have them.”

  “Why didn’t he kill me?”

  “Because he was following his orders. His job was to deliver the package. Your job was to retrieve it.”

  “I need more than a package.”

  Murphy said, “Open it and follow the instructions.”

  “Murphy, don’t you hang up on me. I need answers. Why did he jump? Why didn’t he kill me? Where’s my daughter?”

  “Open the package and do as it says. That’s it; that’s all you’re getting.”

  “Murphy—”

  “Patrick—” his voice was calm again, quiet—“we’ve had enough damage done already over this. We don’t need any more. This is bigger than you and your questions. It’s bigger than your daughter and your wife. But for the sake of everyone, open the package. Do as it says.”

  He ended the call.

  Jed shoved the phone back in his pocket, tucked the package under his arm, and crossed the bridge along the shoulder, back to the parking lot and the Fusion.

  In the car he slumped in the seat and drew in a long, shuddering breath. The adrenaline was wearing off, bringing back the ache in his head, a persistent throbbing that felt like a kick drum keeping a steady rhythm on the inside of his skull. He closed his eyes and focused his thoughts on the present situation. There was much he had no control over, but there were a few things he could still manage. One was whatever was in the package.

  Carefully, so as not to disturb the contents, he ripped through the paper.

  Inside was a long-sleeved collared polo shirt, a folded ball cap, an ID badge, and a map. Written on the back of the map were instructions to be at Pier 33 in San Francisco at twelve. He was to get on the noon ferry.

  Jed checked out the ID badge. It had his photo on it, an older one, but it still looked like him, and across the top it read: Official Tour Guide, US National Park Service, Alcatraz Island.

  The map contained a diagram of the prison. A door was circled in red and a five-digit number scribbled beside it.

  Jed placed the objects on the seat next to him and checked his watch. 12:40. He had eleven and a half hours to get to San Francisco.

  His destination was Alcatraz.

  ELEVEN

  • • •

  Tiffany stood outside her father’s office in the CIA’s Directorate of Science and Technology, holding a cardboard box and a duffel bag. She’d called ahead and made arrangements to clean out the rest of his belongings. It was the only way she could gain entrance without arousing suspicion. Normal shifts wouldn’t begin for another hour, so the surrounding offices were mostly empty, the hallway eerily quiet.

  Taking a deep breath, she turned the knob, entered, and closed the door behind her. The space hadn’t been touched since she’d picked up his personal belongings a few days after the funeral. He’d worked for the CIA for over twenty years, and they told her there was no hurry to collect the rest of his things. But she knew they’d want to get the space ready for the next occupant.

  Tiffany placed the box and bag on the floor, stood still, and closed her eyes. The office still smelled like his cologne. She imagined him sitting behind his desk, typing away on the keyboard or talking on the phone. He was such a professional, always on his game, always involved in some life-changing project. He believed what he did made a difference, that he personally had a role in preserving the freedoms Americans enjoyed every day. And she believed it as well. Regardless of the relationship or lack of relationship they’d had over the years, her dad had always been her hero. But never more so than in the past three years. While they didn’t work in the same department, she and her dad shared something important. They worked for the same cause, had the same mission, dealt with many of the same issues. They had something in common and it drew them closer than they’d ever been before.

  Quickly Tiffany crossed the office and took a seat behind the desk. She turned on the computer and waited for it to boot. She’d have only one chance to get into the system. After this visit they’d clean out the office and remove the hardware. When the home screen appeared, she withdrew her father’s ID card from her pocket and inserted it into the card slot. She held her breath, hoping IT hadn’t yet revoked the privileges or removed her dad from the system. A pop-up appeared asking for a PIN. Tiffany had memorized her father’s list of PINs she’d found on his laptop. There were five, but she’d only get three chances before the system locked her out.

  She entered one, hit Return, and waited. Her hand trembled as it hovered over the mouse. The screen went blank. Then the PIN box appeared again. She entered another with the same result. She rose, almost ran across the office, and quietly locked the door.

  Sitting before the computer again, Tiffany cupped her hands over her mouth and closed her eyes. She needed to settle her nerves, calm her breathing. She had one more chance and three PINs to choose from. She’d already used her dad’s birthday and her mother’s birthday. Of the three left, one was her birthday and the other two were just random numbers that meant nothing to her. She pictured the numbers in her mind and stared at them. They swam as if riding a current of brain waves.

  He wouldn’t use a birthday; it was too obvious and too easy for a hacker to predict. She now scolded herself for using birthdates on her first two attempts. She’d been nervous and hadn’t thought through the process like she should have. That left her with two numbers. One ended in 85, the other in 94. 1994 was the year he started working for the CIA. But that date would be rather easy to acquire as well; he wouldn’t use it here. So it had to be the other. Without further hesitation, she punched in the digits, hit the Return key, and waited.

  Seconds later, the screen went blank. She held her breath. The screen flicked back on, showing a list of icons and folders.

  Typing furiously, she followed the path she’d taken yesterday that led her to the Centralia folder. She double-clicked on the folder and an instant later received the same message as yesterday:

  Centralia: not accessible

  Access denied

  The folder must be set up with specific permissions. Only a domain administrator would possibly be able to access it.

  Tiffany had one more option. She removed the thumb drive from her pocket and inserted it into the USB port on the computer’s tower. Her dad’s laptop didn’t have the encryption key for the documents, but Tiffany suspected they would be readable on this machine, as long as this was the computer he’d used when he saved the information. A few clicks of the mou
se later and she was in, viewing document after document in plain English.

  But the more Tiffany read, the more a nausea built in her stomach. The files and documents contained information about something called the Centralia Project. Within the project were various initiatives. They ranged from using military personnel for brainwashing experiments to performing a litany of tests on children with “special” abilities. Some of it was incredible; most was sickening. The methods used were barbaric and inhumane. Torture, deprivation, starvation, drugs, hallucinogens, electric shocks . . . techniques she thought had been abandoned by civilized societies and now only lingered in the basest of countries, perpetrated by the cruelest of dictators. But these atrocities were taking place right here in America, well out of the public’s eye, and funded by taxpayer dollars. Billions of them.

  Anger built in her chest until she thought she’d either scream or vomit. She drew in a deep breath and let it out. There was more to see, too. More documents, more covert operations, more crimes against humanity committed by the government. Page after page, file after file . . . There was no time to read through all of it; she had to get out of the office. If she stayed too long, people might start asking questions. With a few keyboard shortcuts she sent the documents to the printer located on a table across the office.

  While she waited, she perused the pages. There were two names that kept surfacing, one Army sergeant, a Ranger, who seemed to be the focus of much of the reports. Jedidiah Patrick. His name was unfamiliar to her, just another soldier, another faceless warrior who no doubt served his country well before getting caught up in the Centralia Project. The other name was familiar to her, though. He worked for the CIA, held a high position, in fact. He was the director of Science and Technology, the man her dad answered to. She’d met him once a couple years ago at a party her dad had invited her to join him at. But what role would he play in a covert project like Centralia?

  When the printing had concluded, Tiffany grabbed the stack of pages and stuffed them into the duffel bag. She then went back to the computer, clicked through to the system logs, and deleted the record of her log-in and session. No one would know she was ever there. The thumb drive went back in her pocket, and she gathered her things and exited the office.

  As she walked down the hall, passing analysts and supervisors who were just arriving for their shifts, Tiffany tried her best to appear casual, but a rock had settled in her gut and her movements felt forced and clumsy. The duffel bag felt like it weighed a hundred pounds dangling from her shoulder. What if she got stopped? What if security wanted to check what she had taken from her dad’s office? Her mind swam and spun and flailed around like a woman drowning in shark-infested waters. Questions menacingly circled her, closing in, closer and closer. How did my dad get that drive? Why did he have it? Who was he hiding it from? Was he part of the Centralia Project, or did he stumble on the information the same way I did? She couldn’t imagine her father being a part of such a heinous operation. He was a patriot to the core of his soul. He used to say that red, white, and blue blood ran through his veins. And what was she to do with this information? Who could she go to? Someone needed to know about this, but whom could she trust? There was only one man she could think of.

  • • •

  Lilly dreamed she was back on the mountain, running in the high grass of the clearing. The sky was clear and blue, the grass a vibrant deep green; a gentle breeze moved through the area, tossing her hair around her shoulders. She ran as fast as she could, her arms wide, back arched, as if she was about to jump into the arms of someone who loved her very much and whom she hadn’t seen in ages.

  But no one was there to receive her. She stopped and looked around. The cabin was gone and where it had sat only a moment ago the grass was faded brown and brittle as week-old cookies. She walked to the area and inspected it; confusion muddled her thoughts. She couldn’t understand where the cabin had gone. Her mom and dad had been in it and now they were gone as well. She looked around the clearing. She was alone. By herself.

  Slowly, like the shifting of shadows on a bright day, the sky changed from blue to flat gray. Clouds gathered from all four directions and formed deep, jagged ruts in the sky.

  Lilly spun around, suddenly anxious. Her loneliness had taken on a darker attitude, casting deep shadows in the form of abandonment. And as the sky darkened and clouds churned, her mood changed with it. Despair crept in, hopelessness, fear.

  She wanted to weep or at least cry out but couldn’t. Across the clearing she spotted a man. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt. Had a beard and thick but short hair. It wasn’t her dad but he was familiar, someone she knew and loved. Someone who made her feel comfortable, safe. He opened his arms in invitation as if to welcome her to himself. She wanted to run to him. She knew she’d be safe there, that where he was, she wanted to be, needed to be.

  But she couldn’t move. Her feet were stuck to the dry ground. The grass, once so brittle and dead, sprang to life and began to grow over her shoes, entangle her legs. She looked at the man and opened her mouth to yell to him, but nothing came out. Still, he stood there with his arms open wide, beckoning her into his embrace, his protection.

  Lilly began to cry . . .

  She opened her eyes in a series of flutters. The room she awoke in was not uncomfortably bright. She lay in a bed, on a soft mattress, a sheet pulled up to her chest. At first she thought maybe it was all a nightmare. She was home, in the cabin, in her bed. All was as it should be. But then . . .

  “Good morning, child.”

  A man’s voice. Unfamiliar. Foreign. It had an accent. Lilly turned her head and found a man sitting in a chair across the room. He had his legs crossed, hands resting in his lap. He smiled at her, but it wasn’t a friendly smile.

  “Good morning,” he said again. “You have slept a long time.”

  Lilly looked around the room. There were no windows, no pictures on the walls, and no furniture other than the bed and chair. “Where am I?”

  “Someplace very special.”

  “Are my parents here?”

  His smile grew. “Oh no. No, no. They are not here. Not yet, anyway.”

  “Are they coming?”

  He began to laugh. “Yes. Yes, they are. You are a smart girl; do you know that?”

  Lilly didn’t answer him. She didn’t like the way the man looked at her, the way he smiled, the way he laughed. There was something strange about him and it wasn’t just his odd accent. He was creepy and it made her uneasy.

  The man uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. “Now, do you feel awake? Are you thinking clear?”

  She was. Despite how soundly she had slept, she now felt alert. Her thoughts were sharp, coherent. She nodded.

  “Good. Very good.” The man clapped his hands. “Oh, very good.” He stood and crossed the room to the bed.

  Lilly quickly sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She wore a plain blue hospital-style gown, no socks.

  The man stood before her, hands behind his back. He wore brown pants, a white shirt, and a white lab coat like a doctor would wear. He looked down on her and smiled again. “I am Dr. Dragov. I am your friend. We will be such good friends, okay?”

  A chill slipped down Lilly’s spine, and though it wasn’t cool in the room, she shivered.

  Dr. Dragov put a finger under Lilly’s chin and lifted her head to face him. “Okay? We can be friends?”

  She nodded.

  “Good. Yes, very good. Now, I have a question for you and I am hoping you have an answer for me, for your new friend.”

  Lilly waited for the question, but it didn’t come.

  Dr. Dragov crossed his arms over his chest. “You don’t want to hear the question, do you?”

  Lilly met his eyes and in them found something dark and frightening. This man was not her friend. In fact, she doubted he had any friends. But she knew better than to make an enemy. “Yes, I do,” she said.

  He smiled again and this time it appear
ed almost sincere. “Good. So good. My question is this, do you know what a thumb drive is?”

  Of course she did. She might only be eight but she knew about computers. “Yes.”

  “Good. Did you ever see Daddy use one?”

  For some reason, she didn’t like this man using the affectionate term for her father. He was her daddy and only she could call him that. “No.” She told the truth.

  The doctor frowned. “Hmm, that is too bad.” He turned as if to walk away, then spun back to her. “Are you sure you have never seen him use one? Think hard.”

  She didn’t have to think hard. “I haven’t.”

  Dr. Dragov returned to the chair and paused as if he was going to sit again but remained standing. “I will give you time to think about this.” He shook a finger at her, not scoldingly, but as if to make a point of importance. “This is a very significant question. You must think carefully. Search your memory.”

  “You said my parents weren’t here yet. Will I see them when they come?”

  He tilted his head to the side. “Maybe that depends on your memory, yes?” And with that he walked slowly to the door, opened it, and exited the room, leaving Lilly alone.

  TWELVE

  • • •

  Karen Patrick awoke in the truck with a start. She’d left the Starlight and driven nearly six hours before pulling into a rest stop a few miles east of Davenport, Iowa, with every intention of just dozing for an hour or so. But sleep had come quickly and she’d slept so soundly she hadn’t even dreamed. Morning light now filtered past the old towels she’d hung in the windows. She was glad Jed kept a stash of them under the rear seat. It was nearly eight o’clock. After bringing the seat to an upright position, she flexed her neck to the right, then to the left. A stiffness had set in that made her wince. She cracked the windows and pulled the towels away, squinting against the full force of the sunlight. She had to use the bathroom, then get on the road. She still had a very long trip ahead of her and had hoped to be much farther along.