Grayson shrugged. “Considering Stiles murdered three friends of mine, and he may be looking for me, I know I can’t protect everyone I care about; I’ll tell you what I think you already know. I’m interested. However, let me list some conditions first.”
“Fine. I don’t have a scintilla of Compulsion ability, but the men and women here with me can attest to my success at convincing unlikely recruits to join the BII.”
Jason said, “I was a phony motivational speaker. I could have been a real one if I knew then what I know now.”
Orville said, “I was a barber.”
Brogan told him, “Hector was a Special Needs teacher, who had an amazing ability to connect with his mentally disabled students. Ally, the other driver today, worked at a Woman’s Crisis Center. Now they’re all armed and dangerous, and helping to protect our nation’s leaders from mind control.”
Grayson smiled, and told Brogan, “If you can keep my family safe from Stiles while I hunt him down and kill him, you’ll meet my first two conditions.”
Brogan suddenly looked crestfallen. “I can provide safety for your family, even extended family, by relocation and the same new identity service as the federal witness protection provides. But I’m afraid you misunderstand my mission now, as it relates to Stiles. Especially if he is as powerful as your first-hand experience suggests he is. None of our Compellers can project a convincing cover image as you said Stiles used for ordinary people. Apparently only you saw through that image. He may be as genetically rare as I’m convinced you are.”
“Sir, you’ve alluded to my greater rarity than yours, and now to his. What do you mean? What do you think the DNA sample you took from me will tell you?”
“Dan…, May I call you that?”
“Sure. Everyone does.”
“Dan, if you join us, I’ll let one of our geneticists explain it to you in detail, but I can give you a synopsis.”
“OK. Let me hear it.”
“I think you must be a double Immune. All the other Immunes we’ve found, myself included, are singles, with a single working copy of a genetic mutation on an X or Y chromosome. I meant a gene mutation that is functional and is expressed. Perhaps the term activated better describes the gene complex for you. These genes can be inherited from one or both parents, although they are not at all common in the general population. In most cases, any copy of the gene is recessive, inactive if you will, and has potential that never is expressed.
“Of those rare individuals that carry a recessive copy, very few will have that gene activated in some fashion. Although it seems to happen most often near puberty, therefore our genetic experts suspect that hormones or other biochemical changes play a role in activating the complex and that you and I developed unnoticed into an Immune. Because the gene appears on either the X or the Y chromosome, it is inherited from either your mother or father. However, that also means it could be inherited from both parents. On the Y from a father, and on the X from the mother for a male child. For a female fetus, it can come from the X of either parent.
“If both copies are recessive, the person will not be Immune. If either gene is active, they are like me, a single. If by some means they are both active, that individual would be a double Immune, and that is estimated to occur once out of roughly seventy-five million births. You may be a double and the first to be identified.”
“Damn.” Grayson considered what that might imply. “Would that explain my directional and ranging ability, plus my ease of discriminating between which of you was trying to control me?”
“I don’t know,” Brogan admitted. “Our present level of genetic understanding isn’t that precise. Our scientists can’t predict accurately what two expressed copies would do for someone, but we have educated guesses. None of them that I read predicted your directional abilities.”
“OK. That’s how Immunity happens. Why did nature need a gene like that?”
“Because it’s a variant of a single gene complex, a relatively minor variation of the same mutation if you prefer that term, of the compulsion gene complex. That makes both equally rare, and it sometimes results in what Hector and James have, a single active copy of the compulsion version. There are people with inactive or recessive copies of the two versions, and they can’t send their thoughts or have any immunity. An active copy of the compulsion version lets them send anyone their thoughts as if they originated in the mind of the receiver, and that person will act on them if they were told to do so.”
“So, someone can inherit two copies of that version, just as I may have with the Immune gene?”
“Yes. By the way, I was almost a double. I have a second copy of the Immune gene on my X chromosome, which is inactive. We are trying to learn how to activate recessive copies so that I might eventually match your ability if my other copy is activated. We constantly scan DNA of people for inactive copies of those genes, to identify future targets of new medical procedures to activate latent Immune abilities. That’s assuming they wish to participate, of course. We aren’t seeking to create more compellers, but I’m afraid that is inevitable, I suppose. We’d like everyone to become Immunes. Even a Compeller can be compelled, so they need immunity as well.”
He shifted direction slightly. “Just so that you know, these genes are inherited, and they occur in families. My sister has one inactive Immune copy, and my brother also has an inactive copy. My mother is dead, but she must have been a carrier, and my elderly father has a copy. I’d like to test members of your family, and if they carry any copies of the Immune version, they might be activated eventually to provide them protection. That’s advantageous even if they don’t employ the ability.” He added the last comment, in case Grayson wanted his family left out of BII business.
However, Grayson described his new concern. “What if Stiles is a double, with two copies of that gene variation active? Could that explain his greater range than Hector or James have, and his mental image projection, along with his strong control ability?”
Brogan shrugged. “Honestly, that possibility occurred to me only in the last hour, by your explanation of what happened in the mall. It’s what has me considering how to recruit Stiles to our cause.”
“What?” Grayson was stunned, and that feeling morphed quickly into anger.
“He’s a Goddamned ruthless killer. He murdered innocent people just to get Habersham out in the open so that he could kill him. Not to mention my friends.”
“I didn’t say he would be employed inside the United States if he agreed to work for me. We recently killed an agent from another country that managed to compel the President when he was away from Washington, and we believe she affected two or three Senators before we discovered her. I eventually had her shot by a sniper from a safe distance after she started using crowd control to block her capture by my me and other Immunes.
“Anyway, Stiles appears to be motivated by money. If paid enough by his country, he could severely disrupt our enemies in places where he might blend into the population. I’m afraid North Korea is out, as much as I’d like to pay them back for their agent. She nearly started a war with Iran.”
“Superintendent, I don’t know if I can work for an organization that would employ a monster like Stiles.”
“Please don’t be hasty, Dan. We desperately need more human psych resources, and nature has made them exceedingly rare. Besides, I need to find out a great deal more about Stiles before I even try to contact him. He may be too erratic. I have two agents in Jeffersonville, they’re both Compellers, investigating his past activities. Some of his former contacts are still over there, and we already know they will easily respond to a mental compulsion. James and Hector will join them, now that I’ve met with you.”
Grayson didn’t slam the door but refused to commit. “I’ll wait to see what that investigation uncovers. But you need to understand this. If I discover any sign that Stiles is after my family or me, I’ll use my Immune ability to get close enough to kill him, and suffer whatev
er the consequences will be for me.”
Grayson had a cynical side. If he was as rare an Immune as Brogan surmised, he might receive BII immunity from a murder prosecution anyway. Without Stiles alive to join the BII, he would have no reason not to work for them.
****
At JFK, after a four-and-a-half-hour flight, a private limo company driver met Stiles. Seeing his fictitious name, which the driver displayed on the sign he held over his chest, he approached him and said, “I’m Mr. Whitman. I believe you were hired to drive me to 500 Pearl Street, the address of the Moynihan Federal Courthouse.”
“Yes, Sir.” The driver introduced himself, shook hands with the short, blonde, stocky middle-aged man he thought he saw, who had what he mentally perceived as a Texas sounding accent. Stiles hurried the man with a mental sense of urgency and offered him a thousand-dollar tip for a speedy trip. The driver took his carry-on suitcase and hurried with him to where the limo waited at curbside, where another man from the limo company was holding off airport security officers that wanted the car moved.
Stiles wasn’t going to let any of the crime families know his real identity, so he had refused an offer of a driver and car from them. He was an independent contractor, and he intended to retain his independence and anonymity. That was why in New York he dealt with the Five Families through a Shield he established from there that spoke with a representative of The Commission; a council used to demark territory between the previously warring factions.
Today he’d agreed to his first contract with one of the Five New York families, working with the approval of the Commission. He’d made the success of his Chicago contract known to them two days ago, even before he caught his flight home from Chicago. The New York Shield he used for this contact was kept in the dark about his real identity because he wasn’t one of his long-time employees from his early days. He was aware of how extensive the New York families were, and that they would want to exert more control over him if they could. It wasn’t going to happen, even if he had to kill off the heads of the families to make his point. He didn’t want to run the families; he just wanted to provide a service they could receive in no other way, and which would pay him well for completion of each contract.
This contract was being paid by the Genovese crime family, to influence a federal racketeering trial of a mob Captain associated with that family. The protected witness, a lower ranking Lieutenant who had been turned against the family by prosecutor pressure, was the target for Stiles promise that he would change his damaging testimony while he was sitting on the witness stand. That would only happen if he arrived before he testified, and they had waited almost too late to hire him. The witness had previously fallen into disfavor with this mob Captain and feared for his life, so he was convinced that entering the federal witness protection system was his only escape. If his testimony secured the conviction of this crime family member, he would testify in future cases, about murders and extortion committed by himself and other lower ranking associates, and perhaps induce some of them to turn against the family. The mob wanted him stopped, and an example made.
Stiles first mental access to the witness would be after he arrived in the Moynihan Federal Courthouse today, most likely when the witness entered the courtroom via secure, protected rear corridors. What he knew about the man was in a short dossier faxed to his local Shield in Louisville, who sent it as an attachment in a file to an account Stiles could access anonymously with a tablet. He read it on the way to the airport, and on the flight.
Ralphie Mancuso was about to have a confusing day as a Tool under Stiles Control, and then experience a shortened day when he encountered whatever improvised event presented itself to his Controller.
For Stiles to maintain his anonymity, he had no intention of obtaining entry to the courtroom itself, which had a surveillance system which wouldn’t record his false image. He could get inside if he wanted to, of course, by mental manipulation of someone with authorized access, such as replacing someone in the news media, some legal scholars, or one of a few lucky courtroom observers selected from the pool of people interested in such spectacles. He intended to wait in the outer corridor, which would be within his effective range of the target.
Upon leaving the elevator and asking someone for directions to the courtroom, he promptly cleared a seat on one of the several benches outside the courtroom. He did that by sending four seated people to the bathroom at once and sliding into the end seat almost across from the open doorway of the outer vestibule of the court. He saw that he was in time because armed bailiffs were carefully checking press credentials, personal photo identification, and verifying they matched the clerk of court issued courtroom photo passes before they allowed anyone to go through the second set of doors into the courtroom. They also re-checked every entrant by passing a hand-held metal detector over them, after they emptied their pockets into small bins for examination. This procedure was after the original check when the people passed through the building’s front door security. Everyone knew weapons could be smuggled into the building, and there would be armed law enforcement members throughout the building on duty as witnesses in various cases.
Stiles smiled. He’d previously successfully sent a Tool through a courthouse magnetometer system in Jeffersonville, with a small gun in his pocket. He’d broadcasted a general audio sense suppression to everyone, to ignore when the loud beep sounded. It would have been noticed by those over a hundred feet away if they were listening, but they would assume the uniformed officers at the entrance would check what caused the alarm. It was just a test without risk, at least for Stiles. The Tool returned the cheap weapon when he left the building and was ordered to forget what happened.
He hadn’t needed to sneak in a gun here because his mind was his weapon. There were guns present on the two bailiffs protecting the sanctity of the court at its entrance, and there were possibly guns carried by detectives or federal agents out here in the corridor with him. Witnesses, including law officers, didn’t sit in the courtroom to hear prior testimony, and some sat in a separate room across the corridor, reserved for witnesses. Some people, bored, lingered in the hall until called by a bailiff to present their testimony concerning evidence they found or interrogations they conducted. Not all people out here was involved in the case Stiles was here to influence.
He noticed one man who was acting noticeably sociable, who from Stiles experience had the look of a cop to him. He wore a suit, as a detective might, but he didn’t dress as sharply as most federal agents Stiles had seen. He had been making the rounds of others in the hallway, those standing around, leaning against a wall, or sitting on benches. He’d chat briefly, then move on to someone else. It was casual, and he seemed to be asking friendly questions, smiling a phony smile, and then leaving. He’d already passed this bench before Stiles had created space to sit, and he was coming back this way when he saw new occupants. Stiles wanted to learn a little bit about that man, and some other men he thought could also be armed city cops or federal agents. He broadcast, if armed, touch your gun to make sure it’s still secured.
The nosey man touched his left armpit, two others made a similar gesture, and one reached to the small of his back. The two bailiffs patted their holster flaps on their pistol belts. There was certainly some firepower available in the hallway if he needed it later.
As the nosey man came closer, he sent a query just to him. Scratch your nose if you’re local police.
He rubbed his nose. The detective seemed about to talk to another person at the other end of the bench, but Stiles redirected him to himself, to save time and satisfy his curiosity.
Sliding more to the end, he made a bit of room and patted the space in an invitation. The man sat down. “Thanks,” he said. “It gets boring out here in the hall, waiting for hours to testify, and then just get sent home after some asshole lawyer decides he doesn’t need you today.”
He flashed his phony smile, and apologized, “Say, I hope you ain’t no lawye
r. I don’t mean any offense. Cops spend too much time waiting to testify and not enough time to arrest more criminals.”
“No offense taken.” To anyone near him, he still looked like a short, stocky man with blonde hair and a Texas drawl.
“Hey, I have a pretty good ear. You sure ain’t a New Yorker. You from out west, or perhaps from Kentucky?”
His ear wasn’t that good since few would confuse a Texas accent with anyone from Kentucky. His specifically naming that state aroused Stiles suspicions.
“Why no. I just represent someone that’s a witness in this trial,” he pointed across the hall. “I came to advise him if he’s called to testify today or tomorrow.” He mentally sent him something different. You and I are old acquaintances, someone you’d forgotten. Tell me your name.
“My name’s Anthony Molina. I think we’ve met.”
Stiles nodded. “We have indeed. I was here a couple of years ago representing a client, and you were one of the detectives in that case. We bumped into each other at a bar later, with some influential people we both knew from the trial.”
You became friendly with me. You will remember I was someone you might make use of because I had important mob connections. Say who you’re looking for, perhaps I can help.
“I remember you now,” his freshly implanted memory informed him. “I need to identify a guy who I think came in from Kentucky for this trial. It’s important to someone I know. I’m just a detective; I ain’t no big lawyer or nuthin. If I can do a favor for this important person, it’ll help me out.”
Stiles smiled and nodded. “My flight out of Dallas made a stop in Louisville this morning. Only a dozen people got on there. I remember what one of them looks like and they’re also here.” He was certain Molina would have no idea if a Dallas flight stopped in Louisville or not, before continuing to JFK.
He quickly added, in a friendly and conspiratorial low tone, “Anthony, I’m being paid by some important people from New York, names that I know you must know. They want me to keep their low-level employee out of the news, and not let the star witness today implicate him in any dealings with the main defendant, and put them all in a bad light.”
Controller: Controller Trilogy, Book 1 Page 13