by S L Shelton
I could feel my face open in a gaping anger. “You?! You changed data in my head to convince me to do something that would endanger my life…on purpose?!”
“It was just a small alteration in logic, one that suggested a negative result if you were to trust federal officials with the information you had,” he said as he stood and walked away from the edge.
“Why?!”
“It’s what you wanted,” Wolf replied with a sympathetic smile. He was using my own facial gestures to manipulate me. It made me want to slap the grin off his face.
“I can assure you, getting tortured and shot was never at the top of my ‘to-do list’,” I snapped. “In fact, I don’t think it was even in the top twenty.”
“The very last thing you consciously thought before your brain got fried at age ten was that you wanted to hang on to your father,” Wolf replied, calmly, quietly. “That desire shaped how your brain was rebuilt. Finding the answers to what happened to you, to him, and to your mother was all that was left when he died.”
“Then why did you wait until last year to do something about it?” I snapped. “Why not send me hunting for GGP as soon as my brain was healed?”
“I wasn’t conscious until real danger reentered your life,” Wolf replied. “My entire existence and purpose had been shifted to focus on repairing you and carrying out your desire to ‘hang on’… Why do you think you were so obsessed with climbing every rock face you ever saw?”
I shook my head, anger building in my chest.
“You were looking for your father…who you’d let fall to his death,” he continued.
“I was ten!” I screamed.
“I was two,” he said calmly. “And I was constructed entirely from your thoughts…and Ambux. But in my defense, I didn’t know that at the time.”
“So this is my fault?!”
“In a manner of speaking…yes.”
“Fuck you!” I yelled, standing abruptly, clenching my fists. “I almost died, and for what?”
“I had good cause,” he said with a grin that I felt was wholly inappropriate for the situation. “Besides, it’s worked out well. You are finally awake.”
“I’ve been tortured, shot, stabbed, and beaten to a pulp… Worked out well? You’ve got to be shitting me!”
I was suddenly in a position where I couldn’t even trust my own brain. What does someone do when their own mind betrays them? How could I even answer that question?
He held up his hands. “I didn’t betray you. I moved you in the best way I could have at the time.”
I was already stepping toward him, fists raised.
“Really?” he asked. “You’re smarter than that.”
“Go to hell,” I said.
He breathed out in a slow sigh that was entirely my own expression.
“Why?” I asked. “Why would you intentionally put me in danger?”
“Because you were born into a conflict without knowing it,” he said plainly. “And to be free of it, you will have to fight your way out.”
“That doesn’t answer my fu—”
“Until Barb was abducted, you never fought for anything in your life…except on the day your father died.”
I stared at him, blinking. My anger started to drain away as I realized he was right. In all my life, I’d never done anything that wasn’t easy for me…except for climbing.
I looked up at him with that realization.
He nodded. “Except for climbing,” he said. “But you now know why that single pursuit had such an emotional hold on you.”
I reluctantly acknowledged his statement with a nod.
“But that isn’t your fault either,” he said. He took a cautious step toward me. “We are both victims of circumstance… Situations forced upon us when we were too immature to understand. But we are awake now.”
I relaxed my combative stance, staring at him blankly before sitting on the warm rock. After a moment of staring across the Blue Ridge Valley, I turned back to him.
“No more lies,” I said finally, looking up at his silhouette against the sinking sun. “It’s hard enough dealing with all this without having my brain intentionally feeding me faulty information.”
“It was the first and the last time,” he said as he sat down across from me, drawing one knee up to his chest. “And it was only done to snap you fully awake. That’s all.”
My trip to Amsterdam to save Barb, the fact that I’d made myself a target, and my whole new career with the CIA had been based on a single fleeting piece of manufactured data, produced by my brain…for my benefit?
“You need to find out what happened to your father, your mother and you, and you need to bring it out into the light. You will never feel whole, you will never feel contentment, and you will never be able to have a normal relationship with another human being until that is resolved,” he said gently. “Neither of us has a choice in that matter. It is our sole purpose in life.”
I looked up at him. “Now?” I asked. “I’m a little wrapped up in other things at the moment.”
“What you’re currently embroiled in is connected in a way neither of us fully understand,” he said softly. “How many three-hundred-pound, seven-foot-tall giants do you think just happen to be wandering around the planet trying to stop you from doing your job?”
A sudden flash of memory came to me, an image of my father’s handwritten notes. “Gold Rush,” I muttered.
Wolf nodded. “And the enhanced asset you faced at Camp Peary… These things are not common. It isn’t a coincidence.”
I pondered that for a moment.
“You’ll have to face him,” Wolf said quietly after several long seconds of silence.
I breathed out, trying to ease the growing tension in my chest. The giant—how could I possibly defeat him?
“You can do it,” Wolf said. “You have to. For some reason, he’s fixated on you. You will never be safe until he—and his masters—are destroyed.”
“Then why don’t I just put a fifty caliber explosive round through his head from a thousand yards away?”
“If that opportunity presents itself, then by all means, take it,” Wolf said. “But you remember the desert. With nothing to gain from the attempt, Harbinger chased you through the night. Something about you has made this personal with him…you have to kill him.”
“Even if the attempt kills me?” I asked.
“It’s possible,” he said. “But if that threat is too much for you, I’m sure with what you’ve learned, you could disappear.”
I looked up at him, squinting against the sun in my eyes.
“Of course, it would mean leaving your entire old life behind,” he added. “Any opportunity to return to it has long since passed—and there is no guarantee they wouldn’t eventually find you. You’d be looking over your shoulder your entire life.”
I shook my head and let a long breath go slowly through my nose. “How long do I have to think about it?” I asked.
He smiled and let one of my own condescending expressions shape his face.
I grinned and shook my head. “I know,” I muttered. “I’ve already made up my mind.”
“Don’t feel bad,” he said as he stood and reached his hand down to help me up. “Most people wish they had someone to help them who knew their mind as well as I know yours.”
“Don’t flatter yourself,” I said, taking his hand.
In the woods behind me, I heard what sounded like metal on glass.
“Go on,” he said. “Enjoy your moment.”
As I turned my head, I snapped awake.
**
4:30 a.m.—Basel, Switzerland
When my eyes opened, I saw Kathrin had turned to face her side of the bed. I got up and then quietly pulled my jeans and T-shirt on before picking up my phone—4:30 in the morning.
In the other room, I heard metal on glass again. It was very quiet, and as I stepped out of the bedroom, Hülya looked up with a frown.
“Oh. I’m w
aking you?” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
I shook my head. “I was done dreaming anyway,” I said with irony.
A confused look crossed her face, but she shrugged it off. “Coffee?” she asked.
“Please,” I replied as I sat down at the bar separating the kitchen from the living room. I watched her for a moment before curiosity got the better of me. “How did you and Kathrin meet?”
She looked at me for a moment, measuring. “I’m sorry. I’m not so good at English as Maurice,” she said.
“That’s okay. I‘m not so bad at German as I let on.”
She smiled at the disclosure and pushed a mug of hot coffee toward me. “We met many years ago…at protest,” she said before quickly adding, “She was protesting. I was passing by.”
I nodded.
“Police used tear gas and—how do you say—the sticks,” she said.
“Ah. Many friendships are forged through tear gas and beatings,” I replied jokingly.
She didn’t get that I was joking until I smiled.
“Ah yes,” she said, acknowledging my sarcasm. “Like I said. I was wrong place, right time and was,” she searched for the right word, “Überwältigt?”
“Overwhelmed,” I translated for her.
“Yes…overwhelmed by gas,” she said before taking a sip of coffee. When she set her mug back down, she looked toward the spare bedroom. “Kathrin put a wet cloth on my face and pulled me from dem path of marching police. It was very heroic of her…a lot of people are hurt that day.”
A bond forged in rescue—a scenario I was familiar with. Feeling a life or limb debt toward someone can make all sorts of logic and reason fly out the window in a relationship.
“We have been friends ever since,” she said, smiling as if snapping out of a trance.
“That’s a great story,” I said.
“How did the two of you meet?”
I smiled and took a sip of coffee before answering. “Very similar circumstances,” I said.
Again, she wasn’t sure if I was serious or not, but she laughed anyway. “That’s Kathrin … always finding people in trouble.”
“It’s the truth,” I replied, before raising my coffee mug up to hers.
“To Kathrin,” she said sincerely.
“To Kathrin,” I replied.
Hülya finished her early morning routine and departed. I returned to bed with Kathrin. When I climbed in, she rolled over to face me and nuzzled into my chest, draping her arm over me. I was asleep in minutes.
We slept right through Maurice’s rise and departure. It was nearly sunrise when Kathrin finally stirred. Her movement awoke me as well. She lay there for a few moments, stroking the scar on my shoulder with her thumb. After a while, she lifted her head and kissed me on my lips before getting out of bed.
I was slightly disappointed she had left me, but memory of the files quickly knocked me out of my mini funk.
She showered while I lay in bed, checking for messages. All I had was a message from Nick: “Still in a holding pattern…hang tight.”
A few minutes later, Kathrin came back out, wrapped in a towel. “Did you change your mind?” she asked.
“About what?”
“I thought you wanted to get on the road early,” she said and sat on the edge of the bed next to me.
I put my hand on her bare thigh. “Do you think it would be okay if we stayed another day or so?” I asked. “I’m sort of enjoying the idea of some down time.”
She smiled and leaned over to kiss me. “Hülya asked last night if she could talk us into staying another night,” she whispered as she lowered herself down on top of me. “I didn’t want to promise since you seemed so anxious to get back to Brussels.”
“I got some flexibility I hadn’t expected,” I whispered into her ear before kissing her neck.
She pulled her towel away from her body and looped her arms under my shoulders. “I’ll be the judge of how flexible you are,” she said in a flirty whisper.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” I said as I rolled her on her back.
**
7:15 a.m.—Zurich, Switzerland
FRAU RACINE LOEFF headed to the office earlier than usual. She had one thing on her mind—making sure that security guard never worked in her building again. Skipping her normal morning routine, she arrived at the office building an hour early and went directly to the supervisor’s office—Captain Gärtner.
“I had a most unpleasant and expensive incident occur yesterday,” she said to the portly security captain. “It started with the incompetence of one of your officers. He relayed inaccurate information to me that cost me a tidy sum.”
Gärtner turned in his chair and brushed crumbs from his shirt as he stood. “I’m sorry you had an unpleasant incident,” he said with a passive tone…quite insincere. “Which officer?”
“I don’t know,” she replied incredulously. “I don’t make a habit of socializing with the guards.”
“They all have name tags, Frau Loeff,” he said as his eye drifted back to his pastry.
“He also had a coffee stain on his shirt and pants,” she sneered. “Very unprofessional…he’s out there right now.”
“Ah,” he replied bringing his attention back to her. “Klug.”
She scoffed at the name, which meant “clever”. “If you say so.”
“Come,” the captain said. “Let’s find out what this is about.”
He led her out of the office and to the front desk.
“Klug,” the captain said from the corner. “A moment, please.”
The guard turned to the other officer behind the desk and mumbled something before joining Loeff and the captain to the side. He stood nervously at attention.
“Klug, Frau Loeff says you relayed inaccurate information to her yesterday that cost her time and money,” the captain said. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
Loeff wasn’t pleased with the way the confrontation had begun. She looked away from him, unable to watch as the underling would most certainly lie to save his job.
“Yesterday, an American came to see Frau Loeff near the lunch hour,” Klug replied stiffly. “I commented inappropriately upon leaving the building last night that the Frau’s schedule seemed hectic yesterday.”
“I did not see any American, no American came to my office, and I was absent from the building as the lunch hour began. If you aren’t in error about his arrival, then you were in error in allowing him to go to my office.”
Klug tensed as his captain’s gaze rested on him, a deep, accusing furrow in his brow.
“I’m certain. I must have had the time wrong,” Klug stammered. “The Frau came into the lobby and insisted the man hurry…that is when he spilled his coffee on me.”
“There is an easy way to settle this,” the captain said as Loeff was just opening her mouth to refute the testimony. “Let’s look at the video.”
Loeff followed the captain back into his office, inserting herself ahead of Klug.
“What time?” the captain asked as he plopped down in front of his computer and pulled up the video feed playback interface.
“Approximately eleven forty-five,” Klug replied from over Loeff’s shoulder.
The captain spooled the footage at high-speed from more than a half an hour before the incident until the time Loeff appeared in the feed, arriving early from her lunch.
“You see?” Loeff snapped, her tone burning with righteous indignation. “Incompetent.”
“I don’t understand,” Klug said, obviously confused, before reaching between them and rewinding the video.
He slowed down the video to real-time, playing it back and forward twice. “There!” he said. “Look.”
The captain and Loeff focused on the clip. The video showed Klug sitting behind the desk, answering the phone, and then abruptly, the scene skipped to him standing, wiping coffee from his shirt and pants.
“There,” he said again. “The footage of the Ameri
can is missing, but you see the time jumped five minutes and there I am with the coffee on me…just as I said.”
Loeff blinked her confusion. “That’s just… It’s… It doesn’t prove anything.”
The captain pulled up another camera’s playback and spooled it to the same period—it showed the same malfunction.
“That is odd,” he said and pulled several other cameras following the timeline that would have proven Klug’s story. Camera after camera showed a similar recording “malfunction”, each at different time stamps and for varying lengths of time, but every camera that would have captured the image of someone going to Frau Loeff’s office had been altered. Loeff could feel the blood draining from her face.
The captain picked up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” Loeff asked.
“The police,” he replied. “This must be reported.”
“No!” she snapped before regaining some composure. “That won’t be necessary.”
“Frau Loeff, we can’t let an intrusion like this go unanswered,” the captain said.
“We won’t,” she replied, smiling despite the queasy feeling that had developed in the pit of her stomach. “I have certain protocols I must follow…in dealing with international banks. The local police aren’t equipped—”
“I’m afraid I have no choice,” he said firmly. “The company protocols are quite clear on the—”
“Wait,” Loeff interrupted, forced into a decision she had hoped she would never have to make. She too had protocols that had to be followed—protocols laid out in detail by Combine. She pulled out her phone and scrolled down to a contact she had never used before. The entry simply said, “Mitigation.”
The phone rang once before a recorded voice answered. “Resource name and contact information at the tone,” was all it said before a pleasant chime sounded.
“This is Frau Loeff of ARG Banti, Incorporated. The office may have been breached,” she said. “Additionally, building security is about to contact local law enforcement. They can be reached at…” She proceeded to give the main building phone number and then hung up.
“I’m afraid I can’t delay,” the captain said as he picked up his phone.
He’d dialed the first number when his intercom sounded. “A call for you on line five, captain,” came the voice.
