36: A Novel (29 page)

“Very well.  Continue with those efforts, but we shall proceed with sending the asset back with a warning.  Do you have the brief I requested?”

“Yes, sir.  But again, I must protest sending him back so soon.  There is still twenty-four hours available to us.  We should use as much of it as possible before utilizing the asset.”

“Noted.  However, we will proceed as I stated,” Patterson said.

“Mr. Director, I must vigorously protest,” Carpenter began before being cut off by a sharp look from Patterson.

“Mr. Carpenter, my decision is final.  Get on board, or I will have you replaced.  This matter is not open to further discussion.”

“My apologies, sir,” Carpenter said, eyes downcast.

He slid a small flash drive across the table.  Patterson picked it up and slid it into a pocket.

“Mr. Whitman,” the Director turned to face me.  “I am going to record a personal message, to myself, and load it onto this flash drive.  Once that is done, we will send you back.  Your destination will be a Project Athena safe house, thirty-six hours distant.  Upon your arrival, you will deliver the flash drive to the agent on site and instruct him to transmit the data to me immediately.  Is that understood?”

“Why a safe house?  Why not here?”  I was suspicious, but that was probably Ray’s theories making me look for conspiracies where there were none.

“Because there is a potential risk that you will be here.  The you from thirty-six hours ago,” he said.

I gave him a blank look.

“Ah, forgive me.  In your particular circumstance, there was no need to brief you on this issue.  Two versions of the same object cannot occupy the same space and time, simultaneously.  If you were to encounter yourself, the results could be catastrophic.”

“Excuse me?”  I said.  “What the hell do you mean?”

“I’m talking about theoretical physics.  What I mean is, up until now, there was no chance of you going back and encountering your past self as you never leave this facility.  As far as the theory, which we’ve never been willing to test, if you were to encounter yourself in the past there is a high,
theoretical
probability that an extremely violent reaction would occur, potentially destroying this facility.  Dr. Anholts is convinced there would be an explosion of a magnitude on par with a thermonuclear warhead.”

“Let’s trust her and not find out,” I said, reminded how we were playing with things man was never meant to do.

“Quite,” he answered, standing to indicate the meeting was over.  “If you’ll accompany me, I’ll have the flash drive ready in only a few minutes.”

He breezed out of the room without saying anything to Carpenter or Johnson.  I rushed to keep up with him, a moment later hearing Agent Johnson’s heavy footsteps as he followed. 

We went straight to the Director’s office, waiting in the hall for him to record whatever message he wanted to send to his past self.  Johnson was quiet as we stood there, and I was nervous.  I didn’t understand why.  Maybe Ray’s crazy ideas, or maybe because as I continued to think about them, they didn’t sound so crazy.

“So, I’m going to a safe house?”  I asked after a few minutes of silence.

“Yes.”

“Who’s going to be there?”  I asked.

“An experienced agent named Kirkpatrick.  Just do what the Director said and hand him the drive.  Tell him to transmit it to the Director, then you’ve got a thirty-six-hour pass.  Sleep.  Get drunk.  Whatever, as long as you stay in the safe house.”

“Where’s the safe house?”  I asked.

“You don’t need to know that,” Johnson said, giving me a sideways look.

“Really?  You don’t trust me?  Where the hell am I going to go and what am I going to do?  I was just curious.”

I was also lying.  A thirty-six-hour break with nothing to do?  There was plenty I could do in that amount of time.  First and foremost, I hadn’t been laid in about eleven years.  There was some serious back-up going on.  If I couldn’t find a willing woman in thirty-six hours, I would have to seriously consider relinquishing my man-card.

“This is the price for your life, Mr. Whitman.  I understand it may feel like a prison sometimes.  At some point in the future the Director and I may decide to loosen the reins, but for now this is the way it is.”

I nodded and didn’t say anything else.  Stood there and waited for Patterson.  It wasn’t a long wait, the Director’s door opening a few minutes later.  He held the small drive out for me to take.  I put it in my pocket.

“Are you ready, Mr. Whitman?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good.  I’m going to ops.  Agent Johnson will escort you to transport.”

With that he pushed past and disappeared around a corner.  Johnson tilted his head and I led the way to the transport chamber.  We went through the same routine with the Marines, then were granted access.

“Remember,” Johnson said, stepping close and clapping a big paw on my shoulder.  “You’re not allowed to leave the safe house.  Agent Kirkpatrick knows this and will stop you if you try.  You don’t want to spend your free time in restraints.”

“Fuck you, Johnson,” I smiled what I hoped was a dangerous looking smile.

He was unfazed, squeezing my arm hard enough to hurt before moving back.  Turning, I stepped onto the waiting dais and watched him leave as the glass door rolled shut.  Johnson appeared on the other side of the windows, in the ops center, a few moments later.

“Ready, Mr. Whitman?”

One of the technicians spoke over the intercom.  I nodded and gave a thumbs up, noting a faint tingling on the surface of my skin.  There was a blink and I was suddenly standing in a starkly appointed living room.  Several feet away, a barrel chested man with shockingly red hair stared at me in surprise.

I looked around, then down, noticing I was standing on a large circle of heavy plastic that covered the carpet.  Landing pad?  It made sense.  They apparently had the spot precisely located, and the target I’d arrived on was most likely there so no one in the safe house would accidentally be standing at the same place I arrived.  I had no idea what the impact of that would be, and didn’t want to find out.

The man quickly got over his surprise, lifting an iPad and tapping a couple of buttons.  His eyes flicked from my face to the screen, then back.  He was verifying who I was.

“Hello, Mr. Whitman.  I’m Agent Kirkpatrick,” he said after satisfying himself that I matched the photo on the tablet.  “Why are you here?”

I reached into my pocket and retrieved the flash drive, holding it out and taking a step towards him.

“Director Patterson sent me back.  This is to be transmitted to him immediately,” I said.

“Very unusual,” Kirkpatrick said after looking at the object in my hand for several moments.  “What is it?”

“It’s a message for the Director,” I said, a little surprised that I was being questioned by a baby sitter for a safe house.

After another long pause, he came forward and took the drive from me.  Turning it in his hand, he examined it like he’d never seen one before.  Eventually he nodded, turning away and taking a seat at a small table with a laptop resting on it.  He plugged the drive into a USB port, inserted a pair of ear buds connected to the computer and clicked the mouse three times.

The screen was angled away from me and I couldn’t see what was displayed.  While he worked on the computer, I took the opportunity to walk around and get an idea of the layout of the house.  One of Ray’s lessons had rubbed off on me.

It was a small, single story home with low ceilings.  There was a cramped kitchen and small dining room adjacent to the living room I’d arrived in.  Opposite, a narrow hall led to three doors, each of them closed.  I suspected two bedrooms and a single bath. 

There was a heavy looking door in the front wall of the main living area, a large set of windows to its side.  The door was equipped with two deadbolts and a stout, iron rod ran at an angle from the floor to the midpoint of the unhinged edge.  It might be battered down, but it would take a concerted effort and enough time for the occupants to be ready to defend themselves.

The windows were covered with heavy curtains, no sunlight visible around the edges of the fabric.  This seemed odd, and I took a moment to do the math in my head.  No, it should be daytime.  Well, I paused, that depended on exactly where on the globe this house was located. 

I glanced over my shoulder to make sure Kirkpatrick was still absorbed with the laptop.  He wasn’t paying any attention to me, so I stepped to the drapes and pulled one to the side.  Steel shutters completely sealed the opening.  It could have been high noon outside and no light would have made it through.  With a sigh, I let the curtain fall back in place.  There was a soft step behind me and I turned to see Kirkpatrick aiming a pistol at my head.

At any point in my previous life, I would have frozen in place after coming face to face with the muzzle of a weapon.  But this was one of many scenarios that Ray had drilled me on, tirelessly.  He’d brought in the former Israeli Defense Force commando that taught unarmed combat, and together they’d beaten the crap out of me.  Over and over, as they taught me how to deal with an armed assailant.

During the training, I’d thought several times how unnecessary it was.  It had taken quite a while for the concept of me not having a weapon in my hand to fully sink in.  That happened once I began to gain a degree of competence in responding to exactly this kind of situation. 

Now, the instant I saw the weapon, I reacted.  Lunging forward and to the side, I thrust a hand up and locked onto his wrist.  The weapon fired, but I was already safely below it, continuing the movement.  Maintaining my grip, I swiveled and whipped my left leg around, sweeping Kirkpatrick’s feet out from under him.

He crashed to the floor and I rolled with him.  The pistol fired again and I applied leverage to bend his arm as I began punching him in the side of the face as hard and fast as I could.  He struggled, finally dropping the weapon when a bone in his wrist snapped. 

His other arm was pinned beneath me and I hit him two more times before twisting around and wrapping my right arm around his throat.  Squeezing for all I was worth, I held on as he tried to buck me off.  When that didn’t work he flailed at me, desperately trying to free himself from the pressure of my hold.  But I’d cut off his air and most of the blood supply to his brain and he was weakening fast.

I maintained the hold until he went still, carefully relaxing my grip in case he was faking.  He wasn’t.  He was out, or dead.  I didn’t much care which at the moment.  Releasing the man, I pressed two fingers against his neck and felt a pulse.  He was still alive.

Rolling him onto his front, I looked for and found the pair of handcuffs I’d expected to be holstered at the small of his back.  Pulling his arms behind him, I slapped them on his wrists and left him lying facedown.  Checking his pockets, I removed two sets of keys, his FBI ID case and his wallet.  Looking around, I spotted the pistol, an FBI issue Glock, and scooped it up.  Two spare magazines were on his belt and I grabbed those as well.

Standing over him, breathing hard, I stuck the pistol into my waistband and a spare magazine in each hip pocket.  I glanced at his badge and ID before shoving it in a pocket, then checked the wallet.  Drivers license, half a dozen credit cards and twenty-two dollars in cash.  Now, what the fuck was going on?

I moved to the table and looked at the laptop screen.  He’d been watching a video on the flash drive and it was still paused where he’d stopped it.  I didn’t understand why I was looking at Agent Johnson’s face instead of Patterson’s.

34

I unplugged the ear buds, placed my hand on the mouse, rewound the clip and let it play.  Agent Johnson stared into the camera, leaning close and speaking in a low, steady voice.  I didn’t recognize the location visible in the background, but I’d not been in well over half of the spaces in the oil rig.  It could have been anywhere.

“Agent Kirkpatrick.  If you are viewing this file, the asset, Mr. Whitman, has become a liability.  He will have arrived at your assigned location and told you to transmit the contents of this flash drive to Director Patterson.  If this were the drive he believes it to be, it would contain a virus designed to seize control of the Athena Project’s computers and cause irreparable damage.

“Mr. Whitman is to be immediately terminated.  He must not be allowed to communicate with anyone.  Once he is down, contact Mr. Carpenter on the secure circuit.  I shall be unavailable for the foreseeable future.  Do NOT speak with anyone other than him, personally.  Terminate Mr. Whitman immediately.”

The video automatically paused as it reached the end of the recording.  To say I was stunned would have been an understatement.  I sat there, frozen, staring at the screen.  After nearly a minute, I reached out with a trembling hand and started the short video over.  Watched it a second time.  Then a third.

“Son of a bitch,” I said aloud.  “Son of a fucking bitch!”

Ray was right.  There was a fucking conspiracy, and Agent Johnson was part of it!  But how had his recording gotten onto this drive?  I’d personally witnessed Carpenter hand it to Patterson, who had kept it in his possession until he handed it directly to me.  Johnson never touched it.

Was Carpenter in on this?  Was the Johnson recording already there?  No.  I shook my head.  That would have been too great of a risk.  What if Patterson had viewed the file and seen it?  So how had Johnson pulled it off?

The physical contact in the transport room!  Like any good pickpocket, Agent Johnson had distracted me with a hand on my shoulder and arm while he substituted the drive.  That had to be it.  Unless Patterson was involved as well and Johnson was just the face giving the orders.

I rolled that around in my head for a bit, but didn’t like it.  No.  If Patterson didn’t want a warning sent back, he had all the authority in the world to just stay silent.  He wouldn’t need to have me taken out.  But what the hell were the conspirators thinking?

Thirty-six hours from now, if they’d succeeded, my corpse would have appeared in the transport room.  That would set off alarm bells and start a frenzied investigation.  I was supposed to be in a project safe house.