by Justin Bell
CHAPTER TWO
Nine days ago. Day two of the Strickland experiment.
William Strickland was still getting acclimated to this new life, whatever this new life was. His current one felt like a recently awoken-from dream, the fog of restless sleep still clinging to the edges of his vision. He'd awoken in this strange, but familiar bed and discovered the hidden arsenal in his basement only about twenty-four hours ago and now he calmly traced back his most recent memories, trying to dig up any phantom of a thought regarding his wife and two daughters.
Did he even have a wife? Did he even have two daughters? He couldn't put the pieces together, but he'd seen those pictures on the wall, and he was there with them, and certainly looked like the father he'd always dreamed of being. It was a jigsaw puzzle scattered across the floor, but somehow none of the pieces seemed to fit together.
The portrait he'd seen hanging in the upstairs hallway had him front and center, surrounded by the three females of varying ages. His ransacking of the files in the basement office revealed some tidbits of information, but just the basics. Military history, car payments, mortgage, and other gruesome details that every red-blooded American has to deal with. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and meticulous file keeping, he knew who he was, but that didn't go a very long way towards explaining where his family was and what had happened to him beyond the past twenty-four hours. The chemical make-up of William Strickland was of a man who consistently maintained effortless control over his emotions and his feelings. This felt like a drastic shift in his very genetics.
Sliding his swivel chair back along the concrete basement floor of his office, Strickland stood and walked towards the back door leading out to his yard. He'd reached the limits of what he could learn inside and figured it was about time to explore some of the area outside. He reached the back door and slowly twisted the knob.
"Heads up, Day Watch?we've got movement!"
The compact binoculars dropped from the narrow dark eyes, a sweep of blond hair replacing it, barely escaping from underneath a tight-fitting black knit cap. Dark eye black was streaked just below each eye, mixing with smudged face camouflage. The man looked back, barely seeing the other two men in his team as they pulled quickly and quietly backwards into the thick woods surrounding the large colonial home. The blond-haired man dropped into a crouching jog as he moved to join his teammates, quickly finding shelter in the wooded terrain around the large house.
Strickland slid out the back door with the grace of a cat burglar, sliding left as his eyes scanned right, revealing a vacant yard. Thinly cut grass sloped down into a hill on his left side, where it ended in a pavement driveway that led down to a garage attached to his basement. He closed his eyes and listened keenly, not hearing any signs of civilization, just birds and rustling leaves. He was truly out in the middle of nowhere.
Crouching down low to the grass surface, he pressed his hand tight to the dirt underneath and just listened, enjoying the peaceful solace of his remote location. His eyes remained trained on the woods surrounding his property, and the young man was suddenly very aware that he was surrounded by foliage thick enough to harbor enemies. Were there enemies?
There always were.
Strickland slipped the Glock automatic pistol out of his holster and clutched it in his hand as he walked across the yard. He had barely noticed the transition from holstered pistol to his hands, and the weapon felt like an extension of himself. Holding it at a low angle, he gripped it tightly in his right hand, his left hand gently cradling it as if he had done it countless times before. It wasn't movement, it was habit. He saw no signs of infiltrators, heard no rustling of trees, and smelled no stench of gun oil or sweat. The perimeter had looked clear, yet somehow he still felt ill at ease. He walked towards the other side of the hill behind his house and froze. What was that? Just as he had crested the small hill, he caught a glint. A brief shine. Something in the woods.
His heart pounded inside his chest. Thin streams of sweat trickled down over his narrowing eyes, as his head swiveled slowly like a mechanical lighthouse bulb looking for potential shipwrecks.
However, it didn't find any. The longer he stood there staring, the more convinced he had been that it was only his imagination. For all he knew, he was sleeping off a hangover, but even before his mind formed the thought, he shook it free. He couldn't fool himself. Those weapons were there for a reason. He reached the back door and slid inside, immediately feeling a sense of comfort and safety once embraced within the wood frame house again.
"That was too damned close," breathed the bald-headed man as he walked low through the thick woods behind the large two-story house.
"We're clear, Burndock, okay? That's all that matters," the blond man replied harshly. They were a good 300 yards back into the woods and moving at a swift pace ever since Strickland had seemed to catch a glimpse of them. The three black-clad soldiers moved in a coordinated motion. Each one shifted off the other two, covering areas of the woods as they walked, speaking through small Bluetooth earpieces that clung to the side of their heads. The path they travelled made for a strange fluid river of black tactical gear through the thin forest slowly walking northwest towards the nearest dirt road. If anyone had driven down that road, they would have seen a rundown yellow van parked there, and likely thought nothing of it. On the side of the vehicle was painted the simple town logo for Norwood, Vermont and the official state license plates only further backed up that disguise.
The blond man held up his right hand in a fist indicating a quick stop in their forward progress as he neared the edge of the woods where the van was parked. With the goggles pressed up against his eyes, he scanned the nearby area, both visually and with infrared and determined the coast was clear. Seconds later, the van pulled a quick three-point turn and headed back down the road towards civilization.
Burndock was on the radio as soon as the dirt road roughly transitioned to pavement a few miles from the Strickland residence.
"Day Watch reporting in, home base."
"Talk to me," the man said as he removed his finger from the speakerphone button.
"We made visual contact. Acknowledge subject is awake and moving. Seemed disoriented, but still on top of his game."
"Explain."
"We observed him in his home rifling through his drawers and filing cabinets, looking like he was searching for something. When he finally made it outside, he was packing heat and wearing a tac-vest."
"Hmmm? good instincts." It was almost an internal comment as the well-dressed man looked up at the ceiling. "He didn't see you, I take it?"
There was hesitation on the other end.
"Burndock?" He leaned forward, closer to the phone, his eyes narrowing.
"No, sir. We were not made. He looked as if? he looked like he caught sight of something just as we were pulling out, but it was more of a casual glance. He definitely did not see us directly."
"You'd best be certain of that fact," said the man, with a not-so-slight hint of malice in his tone.
"Look, boss," said the bald man, snaking the receiver out of Burndock's hand, "we're cool. He didn't see shit."
"Continue surveillance, Day Watch. You're professionals. Act like it."
With an almost angry flick of his finger, he punched the speakerphone button and disconnected the call. He stood, straightening his tie, and turned towards the large window that sat behind his polished oak desk. The building was in the center of a small town. The population wasn't enough that it could be considered a city, but it had a series of large office buildings, mostly owned by the local Ivy League school. Standing in his third floor office, he overlooked the hustle and bustle, and could just glimpse the school campus down Main Street.
The building was completely nondescript, just how the National Security Agency liked it, though there was no record that they even owned this building. Technically, the agency the well-dressed man worked for wasn't even the NSA; it was a subgroup that didn't have a proper abbreviation
, but for all intents and purposes, he was an NSA employee. He smirked as he looked out onto his town. It was early still, but the Strickland experiment was already leaning towards success. Time would tell just how much success.