“What the fuck do you think you two are doing…”
Jeremy’s voice died in his throat. It wasn’t so much that he knew instinctively that these two were stone cold killers, or the vaguely malicious smile that had crept onto the smaller man’s lips. That was only part of it. It was mostly the face of that smaller man. How he had the same pointy ears, dot-sized eyes and very pink face of the man in Bill’s story. That was what caused his voice to die on him and a horrible fear to seize him.
Jeremy turned to run, but the fear that gripped him made his legs no better than rubber. The larger man, the one who looked like he should be an offensive lineman in the NFL, ran swiftly enough to keep Jeremy from shutting his bedroom door on them. Jeremy tried to muscle the door closed, but it was a losing battle. For a brief moment it was a standstill, and through the opening he could see the very pink-faced man taking his time as he carefully removed a hypodermic needle from his leather case. But the larger man had only been toying with him and as the door started to close it reversed direction and slammed him hard in the face, sending Jeremy stumbling backwards, his feet slipping out beneath him, and then he was crashing to the floor. He wanted to scream but before he could a knee crushed his chest and a large thick hand that smelled of onions covered his mouth. In his peripheral vision he saw the other man, Simon, approaching, a look of amusement spreading his face. Jeremy’s eyes locked in on the hypodermic needle that this man brandished, and his fear became something palpable then, something he could almost taste in the back of his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut as he waited. Minutes seemed to pass by. He could barely stand it. He heard Simon as he walked around his apartment opening and closing closet doors as if he were searching for something. Then Simon walked back into the bedroom. Even without hearing those footsteps Jeremy would have felt his presence close by. When he heard a tsk-tsk noise, he opened his eyes and saw Simon sitting at his computer reading the story Jeremy had been working on.
“It’s a shame,” Simon told Jeremy. “If only I knew you were writing this… but the problem is we didn’t expect you here, rather someone else… ah, well, what’s done is done.”
Shaking his head he left the computer to kneel by Jeremy. His hypodermic needle was held up briefly to the light as he studied the liquid inside of it. He didn’t bother rolling up Jeremy’s sleeve to disinfect an area along the arm or shoulder. Instead he found a spot behind Jeremy’s ear for the needle.
The larger man’s hand covered Jeremy’s mouth and muffled his screams.
Chapter 71
Even though Bill was mostly hidden by the Boston Tribune that he held, he knew he was taking a big chance as he sat camped out on a door stoop half a block from Emily’s apartment building. He still had no idea what he could possibly say to her to prove that he wasn’t responsible for all the murder and mayhem they were blaming him for—even worse, that he didn’t do what she thought she witnessed. How could he convince her that those were manufactured memories injected into her? If Jeremy didn’t believe his story—and this was a guy who believed the Apollo moon landing was faked and that Cheney and Bush orchestrated 9/11—how could he expect Emily to, especially with those memories that were injected into her? Even if he still had G’s emails backing him up, he doubted they would do much to convince her.
Bill had earlier been thinking about G’s emails and decided they must’ve been deleted the morning he went to the Tribune to hand in his story to Jack. He had left his laptop alone in his cubicle and, as G had later told him, they had someone inside the office. It must’ve happened then. Bill was keeping his bug detector in the car he had stolen, and when he had gotten back to it after leaving Jeremy, he ran the detector over his laptop and came up with nothing. Unless they were using something too sophisticated to pick up, which he didn’t believe, he had to think G was just bullshitting him with that.
Bill also had an idea about what was going on with that web-site. G had given him an address for a home to break into and search, and so far he hadn’t done it, and G couldn’t be too happy about it, nor would G be happy about Bill tossing away his gift iPhone, as well as him not using their safe house. They wanted to keep tabs on him, and they wanted him to do what they asked, and so far he was basically telling them to go fuck themselves. So G used his web-site to not-so-subtly send him the same message.
His cell phone rang, knocking him out of his thoughts. He had turned it on a few minutes earlier while he tried to work up the courage to call Emily; his plan being to ask her to meet him at some bogus location so he could catch up to her after she left her apartment. The Caller ID showed that it was Detective Chuck Boxer. Bill answered the phone, saying to Boxer, “If you’re trying to locate me using triangulation you’re wasting your time. I’m giving you only three minutes.”
Boxer sounded startled that Bill answered his call. “Don’t worry, I won’t be trying that again,” he said. “You got inside ViGen?”
“Yep.”
“That happened when they were rounding up, uh, volunteers, the place where you ran into Cyrus McFarland?”
“Cyrus who?”
“The foul-mouthed individual who rolled you. The same guy you beat up pretty good the next night.”
“That’s his name?” Bill asked, surprised that Boxer knew about him being mugged by the same homeless man he’d sent to the hospital. “And I’d describe it more as them looking for human lab rats for their illegal drug testing than calling the homeless they round up ‘volunteers’. But yeah, that’s when I got in there. You believe me that they’re doing that?”
“I don’t have any proof other than your say so, at least not yet, but yeah, things aren’t adding up the way they’re supposed to and I’m starting to think maybe you’re not completely crazy and full of shit.” Boxer hesitated, then added, “What happened in there?”
Bill let out a tired laugh. “You’re not going to believe any of this, but I’ll tell you anyway. They inject memories into you. That’s what they’re doing there. Think of it as instant brainwashing, and these fake memories are every bit as real and vivid as anything you could imagine.”
There was a hesitation where Bill expected Boxer to angrily tell him he was a delusional fuck who was out of his mind. Instead, when the homicide detective spoke again it was to ask why Bill went after Schlow in the first place.
“You believe me, then?” Bill asked, surprised.
In an almost embarrassed voice, Boxer said, “I don’t know what to believe right now. Why did you pick Schlow?”
“He was one of ViGen’s top scientists and I knew where to find him at MIT. It seemed like he should’ve been able to tell me what was going on. He didn’t, instead he tried feeding me a load of bullshit. But I didn’t hurt him. When I left him he was alive and well. Sorry Detective, but your three minutes are up.”
Bill turned off his cell phone and watched as Emily left her apartment building. She wavered briefly, as if she were uncertain about what she was going to do next, and then turned and walked in the opposite direction from where Bill was sitting. He only caught a fleeting glance of her face, but there was such a frailness to her that it tugged at his heart. He stumbled to his feet with the idea of catching up to her, but instead he stood frozen, a pounding all of a sudden inside his temples. In his mind’s eye, he saw flashes of his dream from the other night, the one of Emily running from him in fear.
He shook his head violently trying to dislodge those images. It didn’t help. Instead of running after her he stood helplessly and watched as Emily turned the corner and disappeared from sight. For a long moment the world got very quiet around him with the only sound being the blood rushing through his head. He couldn’t stand that sound. He couldn’t stand any of it. With a deadness settling in his eyes, he headed back to where he had left his stolen car.
Chapter 72
The house didn’t look like much—the split-level ranch that G had given him the address for, but it was in Winchester, it had a good deal of land and it bordered tow
n reservation property. So even though the house appeared modest, Bill knew it cost some serious money, as most houses did in this woodsy well-to-do community eight miles from Boston. He drove past the address twice, noticing no cars in the driveway and no joggers or dog owners walking their pets nearby. He left the stolen car near what looked like a hiking trail that ran on the bordering reservation land and moved fast after that. It was only a short distance back to the split-level, but Bill felt exposed as he sprinted to it, his heart thumping wildly in his chest.
A window on the side of the house looked into an attached two-car garage that was empty of any cars. The lock for the garage door provided little challenge given the burglar picks G had given him. Once inside the garage and the door closed shut behind him, Bill breathed easier, his nerves slowly calming down. It was eleven-twenty in the morning and with no cars around, this was looking like it would go smoothly, and that he was finally going to catch a small break in this whole damn mess.
Access into the house could be gained through the garage, and the deadbolt lock securing the door gave Bill only a little more of a challenge than the outer garage door lock had. In a way it amazed him how easy it still was for him to break into homes; it really was like riding a bike, something you never lost the hang of once you’ve done it. Less than a minute he was inside the house and standing in a small foyer. The lights were off and no stereo or TV playing, and no dogs barking and charging at him either. A display panel next to the door showed that the alarm wasn’t set, but that didn’t mean much. You live in this kind of neighborhood and over time you get used to feeling safe and get careless and forget to turn on the security alarm when you leave.
Bill held his breath and listened for any movement inside the house. Nothing. Off the foyer a staircase led to the second floor. To the right and across from where he stood were doors to two additional rooms on this same level. He tried one of the closed doors and found a water heater and gas furnace. He hoped the other room was being used as an office; it would make things so much easier if it was.
Bill opened the door and found the room was being used as a home office. It wasn’t empty, though. Standing next to a fax machine less than ten feet from him was the same man from ViGen who reminded him of Gordon Gekko. The man was dressed more casually than when Bill saw him at ViGen as he wore jeans and a black tee shirt, and his hair wasn’t slicked back with grease, but it was the same man. If G was leveling with the information he gave Bill, Gekko’s real name was Ian Carlson.
This man, Carlson, stared blankly at Bill, the corners of his mouth pulling down into a dumbfounded expression. Then recognition gleamed in his eyes, and while still clutching the fax he’d been reading he made a dash for his desk. He had a desk drawer open and his hand inside of it when Bill tackled him, knocking Carlson first into a leather office chair and then onto a tiled floor with Bill landing on top of him. The 9mm automatic that Carlson had been trying to pull out of the drawer flew from his hand and skidded across the floor before bouncing off the wall. It almost ricocheted back to him, coming to a rest a few feet from him. Carlson made a mistake then as he twisted onto his stomach and strained to dive for the gun instead of fighting Bill off. That mistake gave Bill the chance to grab a handful of Carlson’s hair, yank his head back and slam Carlson chin first into the floor. Carlson made a dull oomph sound and his body went mostly limp.
He wasn’t out but the blow dazed him. Bill pulled Carlson’s head up so he could slam his face again into the floor. This time it was more of a groan than an oomph. Bill reached past Carlson for the gun and pocketed it.
He was looking for a lamp cord that he could use to tie Carlson up with when he caught sight of what was inside the open desk drawer, and he couldn’t help from smiling at the small arsenal that was in there. Several additional guns, extra magazines, a stun gun, mace, knives and a pair of handcuffs. Carlson didn’t put up a fight as Bill jerked his hands behind his back and cuffed him. For good measure Bill also grabbed the stun gun and mace, pocketing both, as well as a couple of extra clips. He next dragged Carlson by his feet to the other side of the office and flipped him onto his back, then propped him up into a sitting position against the wall. Carlson’s eyes nearly rolled up into his skull as he glared enraged at Bill, his chin and mouth bleeding. Bill righted the leather office chair that had been knocked over and rolled it near to Carlson so he could sit looking down at him.
“I didn’t know anyone was home,” Bill explained somewhat apologetically. Carlson stayed mute as he continued with his hard glare, as if he were trying to telepathically tear a hole through Bill’s skull. After half a minute of this silence, Bill scratched lazily at his jaw, and said, “But you were home and so now I’m going to make the best of it. I’m going to ask you questions and you’re going to answer me. Anytime you don’t answer me I’m going to shoot you. If I think you’re lying to me I’m going to shoot you. What it comes down to is if you give me any excuse at all I’m going to shoot you.”
Carlson smirked at Bill. “You’re not a killer,” he forced out through clenched teeth.
Bill shrugged apathetically. “Well, thanks to you guys I think there’s a difference of opinion on that subject. But I’m not saying I’m going to kill you, at least not intentionally. But I am pretty much fed up with what you guys have put me through and I will shoot holes through you. Your shoulders, knees, any body part where the damage done will require long and painful reconstruction and you’ll never be quite the same afterwards. So first question, why me?”
Carlson hesitated before closing his mouth shut, his smirk seemingly locked onto his face.
Bill took the gun from his jacket pocket and felt the weight of it. It had been years since he had held a gun, not since his army days. For an instant he flashed back fifteen years and was overcome with that same sort of hyper-sense of reality that used to pulsate through him during his missions. The moment passed. Sliding the safety off with his thumb, he fired a shot.
Chapter 73
The bullet grazed Carlson’s left ear and left a thin groove that dripped blood. Bill had been trying to miss him by a few inches but the slight flesh wound would work better. He watched as Carlson winced from the pain and shock and then as the man’s eyes bugged out and his breathing became badly labored.
“That was your one warning,” Bill said with a forced casualness as he aimed the gun at Carlson’s knee. “Why me?”
Carlson fought to get his breathing back under control. “Because you made a connection between Gail Hawes and Trey Megeet,” Carlson finally forced out, his voice badly strained, his color not right. He grimaced, adding, “If you had let them inject when you were inside that van none of this would’ve had to happen.”
Bill showed a mirthless smile. “Damn inconsiderate of me fighting back and not letting them kill me that day.”
Carlson shook his head. “If they wanted to kill you, they wouldn’t have bothered getting you into that van.” He eyed Bill carefully before adding, “I’m sure you’ve already figured out what’s being developed at ViGen.”
“Instant brainwashing.”
“In effect, yes. What they wanted to inject into you would’ve made you think that your conversation with Megeet went differently than it did, which would’ve had you dropping that avenue of investigation. If that had happened you no longer would’ve been a threat to us.”
“If that’s true how come your goon I injected seems to have dropped out of the picture?”
A glint of respect showed in Carlson’s eye. “I didn’t realize you’d been watching us that carefully,” he said. “I have to give you credit for noticing that. Right now that man is in restraints in a hospital in Virginia, with little hope of ever recovering his sanity. I’m not a scientist, I can’t explain how this works, but sometimes when injections that are developed for a specific individual are given to someone else, the results can be unpredictable. But if you had gotten that injection you’d be fine now.”
“Who the fuck are you guy
s?”
Carlson lowered his eyes from Bill. “I can’t tell you,” he said. “If you have to shoot me, go ahead, but if I tell you that it puts my family at risk. And I’m not doing that.”
Bill sat silently considering this while Carlson braced himself. Finally Bill lowered the gun. Shooting Carlson wouldn’t get him his answer. “What do I have to do to end this? I’ll keep quiet if I have to. I just want this shit to end. I want my life back.”
Carlson raised his eyes to Bill and offered a glum smile. “There’s nothing you can do,” he said.
Chapter 74
Bill noticed the fax then—the one that Carlson had been reading when he entered the office. It was lying on the floor by the desk. He got up to retrieve it. The fax read: ‘37 Tremont sadly a bust. Conway already flown the coop when team arrived. Current location unknown. Assumption is he still has stolen records with him. To be terminated at all costs.’
Jeremy’s apartment building was located at 37 Tremont Street. So they broke into Jeremy’s apartment and found him there. They must’ve. Bill knew his friend well enough to know that Jeremy would’ve gone straight back to his place to work on his story for the Boston Globe. After Bill’s 911 call the police should’ve shown up at Jeremy’s apartment, but for some reason they didn’t. Bill tried to muster some anger over what they must’ve done to his friend but found himself too worn out by his ordeal to feel much of anything.
“They killed the guy who lives there, didn’t they? Jeremy Brent?” Bill asked.
Carlson shrugged weakly. “I don’t know.”
“And the plan now is to kill me at all costs?”
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