Ballard said, “He reached down to his left waist a moment, then folded his arms, and stood looking out over the field. He watched the stadium, as the fans became more agitated, some throwing water bottles towards the field. That happened even in the VIP seating, where you might expect better behavior, people were throwing anything they could lay hands on around them. Those in the seats farthest away from the field were hitting fans below them in the back of their heads with throws too short to reach even the sidelines.
The general level of anger increased, but it was not like a fire spreading through dry tinder. It blossomed everywhere at once in the images on the three monitors. As items began flying through the air, people turned around to hit those behind them or people standing next to them.
“Look,” Grayson noted. “He’s moving to stand closer to the wall for the next level above that walkway. He’s trying to avoid the thrown debris.” He tapped one monitor.
“Mitch. Freeze this camera, and play it in reverse. I think there’s a black fanny pack or a lump at the small of his back.”
The analyst complied and said, “You’re right. I can’t zoom this image, but after enhancement, we might have a better look. Not only is no one bothering him, but he’s the only person not attacking anyone else. He’s really in the eye of the storm. Good work. Let me show him to the other analysts, and they can trace where he was earlier. We’ll try to follow him moving around the stadium.”
Using his headset, Ballard alerted the other analysts of who to watch for, and he shared the camera numbers and the time when he was in view. He explained to Grayson. “They can follow him in reverse to see where he came from, and there may be sharper images from cameras at security checkpoints.”
Their target stayed close to the wall for a couple of minutes but finally peered around the corner, up at the steps to the next level where some of the Sky Boxes were. That was when the fans began charging up the stairs to attack those Boxes after he looked in that direction. That happened at about the five-minute point of the riot. With the direction of the attacks now reversed, items were being thrown up into the stands, and the man at the center of the chaos storm started slowly moving up the steps, pausing periodically to look around as if surveying the results. A smile was evident even at the current reduced scale.
Shortly after the twelve-minute mark, the back of a seat that somehow had been wrenched loose in the VIP section sailed up from behind the mystery man. They probably threw the object at a Sky Box, but human strength, even fueled by adrenaline, wasn’t enough. It struck the man on the left side of his back, and he went to his knees. It was only a glancing blow, and he quickly rose to his feet, but he started fumbling at his left waist again.
Simultaneously, the rioting around the stadium suddenly slowed, even stopping on the far side and at the goal ends. There were perhaps a hundred people around the man that continued to fight each other and move up over the seats towards the nearest Sky Boxes. But in seconds, as the man fumbled frantically at his fanny pack, even the fighting close around him ended.
From there, he started walking quickly towards an exit portal. He was still in the eye of a smaller radius of influence, one of inactivity now, formed by people that suddenly ceased moving, and either sat down or collapsed as he neared them. They resumed moving after he was well past them. Grason muttered something.
“What’s only sixty or seventy feet?” Ballard asked.
“Uh…, just an observation.”
But it was a vital clue for someone that knew the typical range of a Compeller. The man responsible for the riot had a roughly seventy foot radius of complete calm around him that shifted with him as he hurried out of the stadium.
Over the next few minutes, the perpetrator was observed by various cameras as he left the stadium and crossed the parking lot, past the wreckage of a few dozen cars that now had bewildered drivers looking at the damage they’d caused. He paused at one nondescript white car, which had a smashed-in grill, and had radiator fluid leaking. The figure appeared exasperated, but walked over to a man next to a car that looked battered, but was drivable. He got behind the wheel as the driver stood motionless, and Grayson watched as the Compeller drove away.
“Mitch, that’s the man we wanted to find. If you can identify that car, and the white one he walked to first, I think we’ll know how he got there, and how he departed.”
“Sure. Right.” Ballard looked at him oddly. “How did you know what to look for?”
“Oh. I was a former police detective before I joined the BII.” He pretended that was a valid explanation of what he’d just done.
“That’s great. I became an analyst for the CIA right out of College, and I’ve watched thousands of crowd images of many types since then. That was sixteen years ago. I still didn’t know I should seek an exact center of calm in a rioting mob.” A facetious remark, of course.
Grayson shrugged. “What can I say? I got lucky.”
As it happened, Hector and Dalia, after Grayson identified the target, also noticed the small radius of relative calm around the suspected North Korean Agent-X as he departed. Earlier images showed when he arrived in the parking lot well after the game had started, in the white car he’d tried to use for his escape. He passed through stadium security without any inspection on entry. They should have examined his fanny pack but didn’t.
The security camera at that gate showed his fanny pack was stretched unusually stiff and rectangular, sagging as if it was heavy, hanging from his wide belt. There was a small cable that ran from the pack up under his light jacket on the left side, and it exited from his collar at the back of his neck, vanishing into his frizzy hair. The hair, when a breeze stirred it, revealed shorter black rods hidden in what seemed to be a wig over a skull cap or thin helmet.
On his way out of the stadium, the black cable was seen dangling from under his jacket at his side, no longer connected to the fanny pack. The chair back had ripped it from its connector when it struck him. A thumb-sized bulge along the chord was likely a switch to activate what must be an amplifier and a transmitter, with small antenna’s hidden in a garish, spiky black wig.
The CIA analysts were hardly slow-witted. Knowing about psych ability or not, the inference to draw was obvious. When the man appeared to switch on some device, the riot started, and it only ended when the signal was interrupted by chance when the cable was ripped free. Their only incorrect assumption was that the fanny pack transmitter was still active, but operating at a shorter range because the antennas were disconnected.
It was the wrong assumption only because the CIA thought it was the fanny pack transmitter at work, rather than the mind of the man. Apparently, Brogan’s speculation was accurate, and someone had learned how to broadcast a Compellers thoughts with greater power and range.
The demonstration in Seoul might only have been a test run using a prototype. A far more powerful version of that technology was certain to follow. But where? Copied by whom?
****
Stiles had managed to accumulate a suitcase full of cash for emergencies, as an untraceable method of payment for incidentals. He also had four credit card accounts linked to false identities he’d had his illicit connections help him establish. He was making his way to Washington DC, seeking payback from whoever had screwed with his business arrangements, his Shields, and considerable bank funds.
He was not previously aware that people similar to himself existed, but he now knew of four that existed and were less powerful than he was. His ability to easily undo their compulsions implanted in his Shields and Tools, ordering them to forget about information they provided, was proof he had a greater ability that they did. They also had not broken through some of the stronger repetitive blocks Stiles had placed on what his Shields could have told those federal agents about his past, and more importantly about his future planned business dealings. But he was able to batter down the mental walls the agents, as they called themselves, had set in place in the minds of people that knew
Stiles by sight and knew where he kept some of his assets.
He hadn’t bothered to install new blocks in the minds of his former Shields after he bypassed the government’s blocks. The Shields were useless to him now they had been identified, so he retired them. He used a tried and true system that assured no one breached his mental blocks in their minds again.
Collins had been a disappointment because he had provided considerable income for Stiles in his early years and had resisted police interrogations and investigations on multiple occasions, and had always offered a good return on Stiles investment in patience. Not that he missed him, any more than he missed a sock with a hole in the toe after being discarded. But he’d expected to get more use out of his longest surviving Shield.
There had been two agents that visited Collins at his condo, but Stiles only had a verbal description of them. They knew enough to find the building superintendent and had the CCTV security recordings for that day erased. Stiles now knew what they obtained from his Shield, which only led them to his property in Louisville, and to a dozen or so Tools he’d not be using again anyway, and who didn’t know who Stiles was.
Collins had part of his share of years of illegal cash secretly hidden away, exactly where he’d been manipulated by Stiles to place it, as a cash stash for Stiles to claim should he ever want that money. It wasn’t as if Collins would ever have retired from a life of crime and talent recruitment to use that money, as he foolishly believed he would do someday. That was now nearly half of the money in Stiles “suitcase ATM.”
He’d managed to get his cash out of his house safe when he stood outside the wall near his property and directed a neighbor to enter a back door, open the safe after switching off the alarm, and putting the cash in several trash bags to toss over the wall. By phone, the same neighbor confirmed he’d seen a black SUV with two people inside visit the house twice in the past few days. They didn’t match the descriptions of the two that had questioned Collins, and one was a female. That meant there were four of those agents. His housekeeper claimed, in a visit he made to her home, that there had been no visitors until he broke their compulsion for her to forget. All four agents had abilities like his, but weaker.
He left his household help and the neighbor alive in Louisville, as too disconnected from his business practices to be of help to investigators. But his Shields in Jeffersonville had outlived their usefulness. He used his tested and proven “banana compulsion” to end his relationships with them. He didn’t even need to be near them when it happened. If they heard his voice ask over the phone, wouldn’t you like a green banana? They then put the end of a putative banana in their mouth and waited. If he said never mind, they put the banana away.
If he said to eat it, the banana put them away. The sound of a gunshot was confirmation for Stiles that the employee had accepted their retirement.
Wishing to know who had sent people to interfere in his life, and who had abilities like his own, he did some basic investigation. He learned much from a TSA supervisor, who was subsequently forgetful that a large military transport had departed Louisville International. It had loaded a mobile surveillance RV, with radio antennas and satellite dishes mounted on the roof, and several black SUVs, carrying at least six agents. The aircraft’s destination was Washington, landing at Joint Base Andrews.
Stiles had commandeered a private limo driver to take him to the nation’s capital because he anticipated facial recognition systems at airports might now be programmed to watch for him. The software would see through his false image projections. He didn’t want a reception committee, so he used a driver, which let him relax and get some sleep. If he had competitors that were able to steal his hard earned money, he wanted to know how many there were, and what they knew about him. Perhaps he could get his money back, or end their interference. He never once considered offering to join forces with them.
****
“Dan, the National Security Council, at least most members, only learned why the BII exists today, and that the previous administration created the Bureau in secret. The President and some high-ranking government officials already knew about us, and concurring with that decision helped get me through the day with my ass intact, and head attached.
“Once they learned what a Compeller could do, and how they can’t influence an Immune like me, the more secure my position became as the head of the BII. I’ll not need to go through a Senate confirmation process as do heads of the FBI and CIA. I’d hate to undergo that public scrutiny. As a former CIA field agent, I have some skeletons in my closet best left in the dark. Keeping the present risk secret from the public a little longer was another factor in that decision.”
“I see, Sir,” Grayson said, not seeing why he was told this at all.
As the newest and least experienced BII agent, he wondered why Brogan was confiding this level of sensitive information to him. He had an uncomfortable premonition. That feeling was soon justified.
“I spent a considerable amount of time explaining how one South Korean Immune probably saved the lives of the three high placed government officials at the game. I received a briefing on the progress of the ongoing CIA analysis during a break in our discussions. The revelation badly rattled them when they heard that mass crowd control was possible. A single person managed to turn tens of thousands of soccer fans, police, and members of a government security detail into rioters and killers.
“Our research into Immunity will now receive a much higher priority. Right behind that research priority, is learning how that amplifier and transmitter system works. We’ll work on that technology now, but having a working version would help speed the process. When I told the NSC about the limits of my Immune ability, I informed them I could send an agent with a superior form of that ability, which will let him identify where and who the perpetrator is.”
“Oh, shit! I’m going out of the country?”
“What did you think the word International meant in BII’s name? I’m sending you to Seoul.”
“But the guy got away.”
“I was just informed while returning to Andrews, that the South Korean National Intelligence Service traced the car used in the escape to a neighborhood about six miles South of Seoul, called Bongcheon-dong. It’s where they believe the man is hiding. His face, taken from an image by a stadium camera, is plastered all over TV in Seoul, so he probably won’t risk going out in public until things calm down.”
“How do you know all this? Our chopper just returned from Langley, and we didn’t know that when we left. Is the South Korean government working with us after all?”
“We may be allies, but we each have our own best interests to follow. No, they didn’t tell us, not officially anyway. There are helpful informants we can talk to there.
“We know they sent both of their Immunes to that district, to see if they can sense him Compelling someone, and narrow down where he is, based on their proximity. Unfortunately, they have a large area to cover, using only two Immunes that only have about a sixty-five-foot range, assuming Agent-X is using only his unamplified ability when they’re near.
“Our informant says the government is worried the North Korean may be able to repair the broken transmitter. If he happens to be in a tall building above the seventh story as he does that, he won’t be detectable at street level even if he uses mind control before he activates that transmitter. It’s a needle in a haystack search right now.”
“Richard, I only have a slightly greater detection range of a hundred feet. What if he’s on the eleventh floor of a building or higher. I won’t detect him either.”
“And what if he fixes that transmitter? He knows they’re looking for him, and he’ll have about a half-mile radius of control over anyone around him if he switches that on to escape the city. He can be at the center of a mile-wide area of chaos if he wants. If you’re there and get inside that circle, you can pinpoint him. We want that transmitter.”
“I don’t speak a word of Korean or know
crap about the country.”
“We have Korean speaking translators that work for the CIA, and field agents that work there. They’ll be your local handlers. You said you had a passport on your application paperwork. Did you bring that?”
“I’m not sure. I was in a hurry and Barb helped me pack.”
“Check your luggage. If not, we can have one made for you. It’ll be waiting at the US Embassy in Seoul, with your handlers.”
“Right, my handlers and protectors. Until the bad guy turns on that damned transmitter, then my handlers might become my executioners.”
“So, you won’t go?”
“Yes, I’ll go. I just wanted to bitch and complain, and make you tell me how easy it will be.” He offered a lopsided grin.
Brogan returned the grin. “You should know that South Korea also wants that transmitter. They have several Compellers and will want to counter the North Korean threat. They wouldn’t just let you walk away with the technology.”
“Oh great. You sure know how to sweeten the deal. You haven’t even paid me yet, and already I want a raise.”
“I’ll make it worth your while, Dan.”
“Relax. I’m just griping. I’ll go, but not because I want a bonus. That would make me a greedy, self-serving turd. I prefer you think I’m a selfless, patriotic turd. How about sending one of our Compellers with me? If I find Agent-X and get a working transmitter, perhaps our guy can put on the helmet and help get us out of the country.”
“Good point. I’ll ask for a volunteer.”
“You didn’t ask me to volunteer.”
“I only have one Immune that can do what you do.”
Controller: Controller Trilogy, Book 1 Page 19