Origin - Season One (26 page)

When she was satisfied that he was asleep and not unconscious, she stripped off her own wet clothes, crawled in under the blanket and pushed her body against his. Her mind was racing. If there was anyone else out here besides the man Jesse had just killed, they were done for.

She resolved to stay awake and keep watch.

It didn’t work.

Times Square, New York

Friday 21 July 2006

1140 EDT

Mike got there twenty minutes early. The “something” had arrived by bicycle courier at his apartment just after nine. A plain white cardboard box with his name and address on the outside and a phone on the inside.

Mike walked over to a hot dog vendor outside the Foot Locker and ordered a Deli Dog with all the trimmings, only to find he had left his appetite on the subway. In the interest of keeping up appearances, he ate half of it and threw the other half in the nearest trashcan. He looked at his watch and saw it was only quarter to. Feeling too exposed on the sidewalk, he turned and walked into the Foot Locker.

He picked out a tracksuit, asked for directions to the changing rooms and was relieved to see they were actual rooms and not stalls. He chose the one furthest from the door and locked himself inside.

The phone was one of the cheap disposables you usually only saw on TV facilitating the tricky work of drug dealers. The man had said the number would be in the phone book – which was a joke, considering there wasn’t even a screen. He turned it over, thinking the number might be on the back. It wasn’t. He was about to check the bag it had come in when it began to ring.

“Hello?” Mike said.

“You made it. That’s good. Sorry about the phone. Slight change of plan.”

“I really hope you know what you’re doing,” Mike said. “If someone’s following me this is going to end badly.”

“There are two people following you, not one. And neither of them followed you into the Foot Locker.”

Mike suddenly felt very uncomfortable in the small room.

“Relax. They’re strictly nickel-and-dime.”

“That’s very comforting,” Mike said.

“Do what I tell you and you’ll be fine.”

“Where do I go?”

“Pay for the tracksuit and leave. Hang a left, walk to the end of the block and take another left onto West 44th Street. When you get to the Sondheim Theater, walk inside and wait for me to call.”

When Mike got to the theater he made a beeline for the display stand at the back of the lobby, took a flier and pretended to read it. A moment later the phone rang again.

“I’m here,” Mike said.

“So am I.”

There were several people standing in the lobby, but none of them were on the phone. Mike looked outside and saw two yellow cabs at the curb. “Where?”

“Second cab. Jump in.”

The driver was wearing a Yankees T-shirt, a baseball cap and a pair of black horn-rimmed glasses. Mike got in.

“Where to, sir?”

“What happened to the guys following me?” Mike said.

“One of them got careless and sprained his ankle walking off the curb, I think.”

“And the other one?”

“Sunstroke. You wouldn’t believe how common it actually is.”

They joined the traffic, cutting off a delivery truck as they went, then sped forward and almost rear-ended the car in front.

“Got to keep up appearances,” the driver said.

He made a right onto 6th Avenue and drove past Bryant Park then took a left onto East 40th Street and another right onto 3rd Avenue. Ten minutes later they were driving through the Queens Midtown Tunnel. By the time they emerged on the other end Mike was lost.

“Where are we going?” Mike asked.

“You’ll know soon enough.”

Francis pulled into the long-term parking lot at LaGuardia and took a ticket from the machine. He found an empty space between two vans and parked the cab.

“This is it. The end of the line.”

Francis got out and walked to the edge of the parking lot. Mike joined him and they crossed a service road running along the shore of the man-made peninsula. When they reached the water Francis sat down on a boulder and beckoned for Mike to take a seat on a hollow tree trunk several feet away. An awkward moment passed in which neither man seemed to know where to begin.

“Tell me,” Mike finally said. “What was in that safety deposit box that was so important you had to break into the Fed?”

“Ever heard of Operation Princip?” Francis asked.

When Mike only looked at him, Francis said, “No, of course not. Princip is the name of the Serbian who killed Archduke Ferdinand and inadvertently set off World War One. It’s also the name of an assassination program financed by the CIA.”

“And?” Mike said.

“And I was going to ask them to shut it down.”

Mike pondered this for a moment. “If that’s true, why would the CIA come after you, knowing what they know? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Indeed it doesn’t. But I’m afraid it’s gotten a little more complicated. Or perhaps a lot more. I’m not sure.”

“Meaning?” Mike said.

“Meaning the files I was looking for weren’t there because Millennium Holdings no longer owns the box. In fact, it turns out Millennium Holdings no longer exists at all.”

Mike’s characteristic frown was back. “The CIA has the recording you made. They still wouldn’t risk coming after you. Especially if they know you don’t have their files.”

Francis nodded. “True. But the CIA isn’t the problem. Or at least not all of it. I took something from the vault. A hard drive. The people it belongs to are turning out to be both very determined to get it back and a lot more resourceful than I would have believed possible.”

Mike looked incredulous. “Who?”

When Francis didn’t answer Mike said, “Wow. You really don’t have a clue who’s after you, do you?”

“Oh, I have a couple of clues,” Francis said. “I just don’t know where they lead yet.”

“To Vermont?” Mike suggested.

Francis shook his head. “The people sent to find Cynthia Ross had no idea what was going on.”

“What
did
happen in Vermont?” Mike asked.

“Gerald was my partner, but I’m guessing you already figured that out. As for what happened in Vermont, I happened. And in the nick of time.”

“They were looking for
him
?” Mike asked.

“They were looking for
her
. They had already found
him
.”

“Why?”

Francis walked to the edge of the water and stood looking out at the bay. Behind them a plane was spooling up its engines for takeoff. When the noise died down again Francis said, “She had the hard drive. Before I knew it had nothing to do with Princip I asked Gerald to get the files off it for me. When I realized what had happened Ross wasn’t at home. I got him to call his wife and get her to leave the house with it.”

Francis reached into his backpack and handed Mike the hard drive. Mike studied it for a moment. “It looks old.”

“It is.”

Mike handed it back. “The CIA obviously knows the box used to be theirs. They’ll have put two and two together by now. You
do
realize that.”

“Oh, I think they’ve done a lot more than put it together. But again, it’s never quite as simple as it should be. Princip is run by a guy named Norton Weaver. He’s what you might call the quintessential non-state-actor. Started off under Hoover with you boys, then moved to the CIA. He’s now what the spooks call a free agent. And he’s a nasty piece of work.”

“What’s your point?” Mike said.

“Norton knows what’s going on. The cover-up in Vermont has his name written all over it.”

“The terrorist plot?”

Francis chuckled. “Yeah. Gerald Ross wouldn’t know a terrorist from a bull terrier, or anything else for that matter. As for his wife, you’d only need to talk to her shrink to know she spent most of her waking hours in a drug-induced fog. Nobody will, of course. When our star-spangled press hears the “T” word they all drop their pants, turn around and bend over. No, Norton knows what’s going on and it suits him just fine because –”

“He knows that you know you’ve fucked up,” Mike finished.

Francis nodded. “And he’ll see this as an opportunity, believe me.”

“How do you know all this?” Mike asked.

“I spoke to Director Fairchild.”

Mike looked up in surprise. “You’ve spoken to Fairchild?”

“I had no choice. I had to warn him about Weaver. I also needed to find you.”

Both men were silent for a moment. When he turned back to Francis, Mike said, “You say you don’t know who the drive belongs to. Do you at least know what’s on it?”

“Pictures, mainly. And some technical drawings. Satellites, space probes, things like that. Nothing you can’t pull off the internet. Oh, and an old Victor-class Russian sub, complete with someone’s rather bizarre idea for turning it into a cargo ship.”

“That’s it?” Mike asked, looking incredulous.

“Not quite,” Francis said. “There are still some encrypted files on the drive that I haven’t been able to open. And one of the drawings has the name Skyline Defense on it. Ever heard of them?”

“Sure,” Mike said. “Their headquarters are right here in New York. Although I can’t say I know much about them.”

“I looked them up. They’re a research and engineering company, dealing mainly with space-related technology. NASA and things like that. It’s owned by some Swiss fund called the Ludvig Gustav Foundation. It’s a –”

“Wait,” Mike interrupted. “What did you say it was called?”

“I think it’s called the Ludvig Gustav Foundation.”

“You mean the
Karl
Gustav Foundation.”

“Yeah, that’s it. You’ve heard of it?”

“When they pulled the investigation out of the New York office, our director sent his White House liaison up from D.C., a man named Bruce Jessops. According to Jessops, he was there to supervise the handover. I admit it sounded like bullshit even at the time, but so did just about everything else that was going on. Jessops saw the file I had. I asked a friend in D.C. to pull his personnel record. Not because I suspected him of anything then, but because he annoyed the shit out of me and I’d never seen him before. I just wanted to know how the hell he’d ended up in D.C. I mean the guy looked about fifteen years old. Anyway, I didn’t want to use my own terminal because everything is logged and it would have looked suspicious, especially under the circumstances, so I asked my colleague to do it.”

Mike trailed off, as if trying to remember the rest.

“And?” Francis said.

“You have to know Mitch Rainey to understand – frankly I should have known better than to ask him – but he did a lot more than check his personnel record. It turns out Jessops is sitting on two million dollars, buried in some offshore account. And the money was coming from a company owned by the Karl Gustav Foundation. Jessops also made contact with the CIA station chief in Montpellier on Monday using a cell phone paid for by the bank that set up the account.”

“He gave them the names,” Francis said. It wasn’t a question.

“So find Jessops, and you’ve…”

Francis was already shaking his head. “He won’t know anything. These people are smart. He’s a paid informant, nothing more. They used the list to find Gerald. He was never involved with the security system directly, but he knew everyone who was. His name would have come up too many times to ignore. We always assumed Gerald might be questioned, only by an official of the U.S. government, if you see what I mean.”

Mike seemed to drift off again as Francis spoke. When his eyes returned to Francis, he said, “Has it occurred to you that what you did has gotten a lot of innocent people killed? Cynthia Ross, for one.”

“You can believe what you want,” Francis said. “But staying in the house would have gotten her killed for sure. By running, at least she had a chance.”

“Did she?” Mike said.

“I had to get the drive back,” Francis said. “I think the reason should be obvious enough.”

“And if she had run without the drive?” Mike said. “You think they would have killed her then?”

“I think you still don’t understand what’s going on. If you think they would have spared her, you’re in the wrong line of work, my friend.”

“All right,” Mike said, his temper rising. “I get it. They’re crazy and you’re innocent, because you didn’t know who
they
were. Is that about it?”

“I don’t claim to be innocent. But I sure as hell never intended any of this.”

“Their blood is on
your
hands,” Mike said defiantly.

Francis stood, leaned forward and poked a finger at Mike’s chest. “You listen to me, you self-righteous son of a bitch! I’ve done things that would make you sick just listening to them, and the people that signed my paychecks were the same assholes that sign yours. It’s taken me a long time to recover enough dignity to walk in the sun, and the last thing I need is a lesson in morality from a washed-up, half-ass bureaucrat. How many lives did you put on the line when you and your vanished friend started breaking the law and looking under stones best left unturned?”

Mike pushed the hand away and stood up. Both men faced each other, their noses almost touching. Mike’s hand moved to the revolver under his jacket.

“Go on,” Francis said. “I dare you. If you can kill me before I break your neck, I’ll deserve it.”

Mike looked at Francis and saw something in his face he didn’t like. It occurred to him that he wouldn’t be the first person to die looking into those eyes. He dropped his hand and sat back down. “All right, you win, pal.”

“I’m not trying to
win
anything,” Francis said. “We’re dealing with something here that runs deeper than either of us understands. I’ve been playing this game for a long time. I know it sounds ridiculous, but there are rules, and the people after this drive are breaking all of them. I’ve done some things I’m not proud of, believe me. I thought I knew where the bottom was. Now I’m not so sure.”

“What do you mean?” Mike asked.

Francis sat back down and looked out at the water. He sat there staring for a long time before turning back, shaking his head and letting out a long sigh. “I killed a pregnant woman once.”