“No, Bradley. I’m not a voyeur ...”
It was Volkov’s voice, being projected into his mind.
“... A man needs his wife to have his back, and this was the only way to get her to believe you.”
Then the feathered drone flew off.
Abby wheeled around, pen in one hand, paper in the other, face scrunched with confusion. Her eyes widened. “Volkov ... he just used the owl to control me, didn’t he?”
“Yee-yup.” Bradley rolled off the bed and limped toward her, grateful that she had just validated his sanity, but the warm glow of relief congealed into icy fear.
Until that moment, he had naïvely presumed that the worst-case scenario was Volkov turning him into an unwitting assassin. Would he do the same to Abby?
“The devil made me do it, literally,” she said. “Then he made me write this.”
Bradley gaped at the paper in her hand. “What the hell is that?”
Chapter 9
DAY 703
Sunday, January 22nd
29
District Three, Washington, D.C.
RYAN STRODE INTO THE Oval Office just before 0700 hours, fighting back a yawn. The weekend had been a whirlwind of galas and inaugural celebrations colliding head-on with a tornado of Consortium chaos: violent protests, Abby’s abduction, and an onslaught of fake news.
Media outlets were hailing Secret Service Agents Peters and Leezuh as heroes who had laid down their lives to save the first daughter from “right-wing extremists.” It didn’t matter that the agents were the kidnappers; that Abby had killed Peters in self-defense; or that Leezuh’s corpse had been found in the previously searched parking garage.
The fact that Bradley had rescued Abby and liberated teens from a human-trafficking network—operating under the guise of an orphanage—was roundly ignored; the only mention of his name had come in conjunction with accusations of Russia collusion.
Traitors are touted as heroes, Ryan thought, and heroes are denigrated as traitors.
Up is down.
Wrong is right ... William Casey wasn’t kidding.
The 1980s CIA director had said, “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
Kyle was seated behind the Resolute desk, an 1880 gift from Queen Victoria that had been built from the timbers of the HMS Resolute. General Quenten was seated to Kyle’s left, Admiral Rone to his right; and Ryan settled onto a chair between them.
“Bradley asked me to deliver this.” Rone handed Ryan an envelope printed with the White House logo. “He won’t be attending today’s inaugural festivities because I put him on the first train to District Five following his interview.”
“What?” Kyle demanded. “I said no interview!”
“I knew you weren’t going to like it, but it was strictly voluntary,” Rone assured him. “And Bradley believes that Volkov saved Abby; ergo he feels indebted to the Russian general. That, in combination with his testimony regarding mind control, necessitates precautions.”
“Are you implying that Bradley poses a threat to Kyle?” Ryan asked, haunted by the memory of his friend voicing the same sentiment days earlier.
“That ... is crazy!” Kyle’s green-eyed stare bored into Rone. “And that is my son-in-law you’re defaming.”
“Mr. President, we have no idea what was programmed into Bradley’s mind, and until that can be determined, we have to regard him as a ticking time bomb.”
“I know him,” Kyle insisted. “He’s as patriotic and loyal as they come.”
General Quenten nodded. “It’s not a character issue; it’s a science issue. In 1953, the CIA initiated a project code-named MKUltra, a medical study involving forty-four American colleges, three prisons, and several pharmaceutical companies. They subjected Americans—many unwittingly—to drugs for the purposes of mind control, information gathering, and psychological torture. The Russians have pursued similar experiments, making it highly probable that Volkov has programmed ‘secret missions’ into Bradley’s mind.”
“Then why didn’t he kill me?” Kyle argued. “He could’ve snapped my neck while I slept last night.”
Rone entwined his fingers and let his hands drop onto his lap. “I had two Marines stationed outside your door. And the simple explanation is, he hasn’t been triggered yet. The programmer usually specifies a keyword or phrase to activate their asset.”
Annoyed that his best friend was being demonized, Ryan said, “What about the February fourteenth weapon? That was the purpose of the so-called interview, right?”
“Valuable intel was recovered,” Rone replied. “We believe the new weapon is likely space-based. And we’re assessing potential research sites and launch platforms.”
Twenty-three days, Ryan thought. God help us.
While General Quenten rambled about the afternoon schedule, he plunged his thumb beneath the envelope flap and removed the note from Bradley.
Hey, Ry, I mean, Mr. Vice President,
Sorry, not used to that yet. Anyway, I’m calling in that Lake Halona favor. Can you pull some strings with Fitz and get CJ Love’s wife and kid extracted from District Nine? The Consortium is bound to retaliate against them for CJ’s role in saving Abby. Thanks in advance.
And by the way, my delusions are contagious. Abby had a mind-control experience in the Lincoln Bedroom and wrote out a string of characters. I have no idea what it means, maybe nothing. But I thought I’d leave a copy with you, just in case.
Bradley
P.S. – Don’t be pissed at Rone. The country’s survival depends on Kyle’s survival.
Ryan’s pulse quickened. His thumb glided over the paper, counting each character. “Hey, Rone—sorry to interrupt—but how many characters in the encryption key for that thumb drive?”
“I believe it was fifty. Why?”
“This might be it.”
Rone retrieved a quarantined laptop, which contained a copy of the file, typed the sequence into the prompt, and doubled-checked it. “Here goes nothing.” He depressed the enter key then, hubris melting into shock, his mouth dropped open. The Admiral placed the laptop on the Resolute desk, and all three men huddled around Kyle.
January 22nd = 23 days until ...
It was an obvious reference to February fourteenth, but the body of the message was still encoded.
Son of a bitch!
General Quenten muttered, “Reminds me of Kryptos.”
“Kryptos?” Kyle repeated.
“An encrypted sculpture on the grounds of CIA headquarters,” the general explained. “Rone’s brainiacs over at the NSA have decoded part of it, but the last ninety-seven characters remain elusive.”
Thoughts of the CIA sent a shiver through Ryan, an awareness that the intelligence agency was nothing more than the enforcement arm of The Consortium.
At the bottom of the screen, there were a few more legible characters.
There are But two powers in the world, the sword and the Mind. In the long run, the sWord is always beaten by the mind—Napoleon Bonaparte
“What’s with the weird capitalization?” Kyle asked.
“B ... M ... W,” Ryan mumbled. “Could be a car.”
Quenten suggested Blue Mounds, Wisconsin, then Rone exhaled a heavy sigh. “BMW could be anything ... or nothing.”
30
District Nine, California
GLEN ANTHONY HAD been dragged from his home and forced into conscription. He wasn’t sure if compliance would protect his family—as Night Sector had promised—but he was positive that resistance would doom Ellen and Gabby to inhumane barbarities.
Glen had received a week of firearms training before being thrust into “counterterrorism” operations. The definition of terrorism had swelled to include nonviolent offenses like supporting gun ownership; opposing censorship; using the terms liberty, freedom, or Constitution; displaying “hateful” symbols like the Gadsden or American flags; and endorsing Kyle Murphy or his polici
es. These crimes earned the moniker “terrorist” or “yellow snake” and resulted in horrific penalties, ranging from property seizure, to beatings, to termination of parental rights, and even death.
It’s shocking, Glen thought, how Night Sector coerces good men into committing atrocities ... in order to protect their own families from those very same atrocities.
His commander was a German mercenary, a psychopath with a hankering for steak and zero tolerance for compassion. His squad nicknamed him “Ase,” short for all-seeing eye. It was a fitting moniker since he had a pyramid tattoo enclosing his left eye.
Glen despised him, but when Ase barked the order, he obediently charged across the yard, kicked in the front door, and stomped inside. His squad spread through the house like a toxic stain.
Glen huffed, racing up the stairs, and burst into a bedroom at the end of the hall. Blankets on the twin beds were tousled, definitely slept in, and he peered beneath the metal frame. No one was hiding.
His peers were dragging a grandmotherly woman down the stairs, and she was screaming like a banshee, carrying on about her Fourth Amendment rights.
She has no idea how much that statement is going to cost her, Glen thought.
He yanked open the closet door and found two children, cowering beneath blankets. The girl was fourteen; the boy, twelve; and they both looked petrified. It was the same raw, soul-stirring fear he’d seen last night in the eyes of Missy Love—a priority-one target. Her son was blond and blue-eyed, a year or two younger than Gabby, and Glen just couldn’t relegate them to Night Sector’s brutal justice. Instead, he’d held his position, reported that the wooded sector was clear, and watched the fearsome microwave weapon reduce the house and its contents to a pile of whitish-gray ash.
Can I get away with lying again?
Glen raised an index finger to his mouth, ordering silence, then he opened the bedroom window, poked the screen from its track, and returned to the first floor.
The kitchen walls were peppered with ceramic sunflowers, and Grandma was bent over the Formica dining table, sating the perverse urges of Glen’s commander. Her face was battered and soaked with tears; and the desperation in her shrieks was undulating through his nervous system, pummeling his conscience.
How did we let this happen? How did we let our constitutional rights evaporate?
“There’s nobody else upstairs,” he told his commander, his voice hard and authoritative. Glen understood that lying was putting his family in mortal peril, but he had to take a stand. He couldn’t bear to see another teenager forced into sexual servitude.
Ase’s skeptical stare made Glen’s gut blaze hotter. “We’re supposed to rescue two kids from this unhealthy environment, a girl and a boy.”
He makes it sound like a humanitarian mission, Glen thought, disgusted. Is that how he rationalizes his predatory behavior?
“Window’s open, sir. Screen’s knocked out. The children must’ve climbed onto the roof of the garage and gotten away.”
The grandmother lifted her head from the Formica tabletop and whispered, “Thank God.”
“Your God is a lie.” Ase drew his handgun and jammed the barrel into the back of the woman’s head, then glared at his squad. “Don’t just stand there, you idiots! Find those brats!”
Glen scrambled toward the door and had nearly made it out of the house when Ase shouted, “Not you, Anthony. You stay here.”
A sheer black fright swept through him as he reentered the kitchen.
What if Ase goes upstairs? What do I say if he finds the children?
“I’ve noticed that you never indulge in the fringe benefits of conscription.” Ase gestured toward the sobbing grandmother and swapped out his handgun for a Chi-phone. “I’ve also noticed that soldiers who partake on camera aren’t likely to get on their high horses and wield accusations.”
Repulsed at the thought of raping that poor women, Glen said, “It’s not that, sir. I just don’t want to be unfaithful to my wife.”
Ase threw back his head and laughed, a deep, throaty evil sound that jangled Glen’s composure.
“I just issued an order, Private Anthony. And let me be clear, if you disobey, it’ll be your wife ... bent over your kitchen table. Understood?”
31
East of District Five, West Virginia
BRADLEY WEBBER RESTED his forehead against the train’s Plexiglas window as the wintery, barren West Virginia landscape sped past. He understood why Rone had banished him from the White House. How could the Admiral trust him when Bradley didn’t even trust himself?
Consider yourself activated.
Those words haunted him. What was Volkov planning?
Was Abby right? Was the Russian employing the Hegelian dialectic?
Create the problem: abduct Abby.
Provoke the reaction: intense fear.
Provide the solution: her coordinates, thereby coercing Bradley into a de facto partnership.
Did Volkov subject Abby to the owl to vindicate Bradley, as claimed?
Or was it a veiled threat? A warning that if he resisted, Abby would assume his role?
The possibility whirled and writhed inside him, like emotional sandpaper scouring nerves raw.
I have to protect her, he thought. If one of us is doomed to be executed for treason, it’s going to be me.
Bradley stood, widening his stance against the lateral movement of the train, and rummaged through his rucksack, which was stowed in the overhead luggage bin. He removed a pen and stationery, souvenirs from the White House, and sank back down onto the coach-class seat.
He drafted a gut-wrenching letter for Abby, and with each word, his jaw clenched tighter. His pulse became a battering ram, flogging his temples and making his heart feel like it was imploding.
Damn Volkov for ruining our lives!
He crammed the poignant letter into his pocket, intending to type it into an e-mail as soon as he returned to Scoville Air Force Base. Since the military had yet to reinstate personal e-mail accounts for security reasons, the message would have to be sent to the TEradS Team Nine account, making it accessible to all Abby’s teammates.
The guys will be there for her, Bradley rationalized, watching over her like older brothers.
The shriek of metal scraping metal seeped into the cabin. His nose wrinkled, detecting the odor of burning brake shoes, and it took more than a mile for the train to come to a stop.
We’re nowhere near a station, he thought. Is there some kind of mechanical problem?
Hearing the pulsating bass whump of helicopter rotors, Bradley surveyed the overcast afternoon sky.
Maybe it’s a medical emergency ... or ...
A double dose of adrenaline kicked into his bloodstream.
... Or did The Consortium find out about the stolen Little Bird we used to rescue Abby?
Miniature vortexes of leaves, ice crystals, and dirt began to swirl, and Bradley blinked at the sight of an MV-22 Osprey touching down in a snow-dusted field. The tilt-rotor military aircraft combined the vertical takeoff capability of a helicopter with the long-range, high-speed performance of a turboprop airplane.
The train’s public address system screaked to life with an ear-piercing spurt of feedback, then a static-smothered voice said, “Master Sergeant Bradley Webber, please detrain.”
“What the hell?” he muttered, rising from his seat and shouldering the strap of his rucksack.
He exited through an end door and scrutinized a pair of approaching Marines. Their uniforms were impeccable; their strides, purposeful and in step; their demeanors, confident.
If they’re Consortium posers, they’re first-rate, he thought.
“Master Sergeant, we have orders to transport you to an undisclosed location.”
“Why?” Bradley asked.
“Marines don’t ask why when given an order. This way, please.”
He boarded the Osprey through the rear loading ramp, settled onto a crashworthy troop seat, and buckled in. Like most mi
litary aircraft, the cabin roof was a maze of pipes and wires that lacked the aesthetic ceiling paneling and sound insulation installed in civilian planes.
The engines cycled up, and the Osprey lifted like an elevator until it rose above the treetops, then it accelerated into what felt like a smooth, frictionless takeoff.
Bradley’s overactive imagination produced four distinct possibilities: military arrest, CIA rendition, Consortium abduction, or a secret quarantine ordered by Rone. Given the absence of restraints, he dismissed the first three and closed his eyes, debating whether he would have access to the TEradS’ intranet.
If I cooperate, will the Admiral allow me to send my e-mail to Abby?
Within the hour, the Osprey landed in the last place Bradley expected: the lawn of Number One Observatory Circle, the official residence of the Vice President. After an extensive, TSA-style weapons search, he was escorted into the Queen Anne-style home, built on the grounds of the U.S. Naval Observatory in 1893.
Ryan was seated in the library, a monochromatic room in bland shades of ivory.
Rone was hunched over a laptop. “Welcome back, Master Sergeant. The sequence Abby jotted down was the encryption key for your train station thumb drive. However, we’re still unable to decipher the message.” He directed Bradley’s attention to a pair of monitors.
Kyle was participating by videoconference, from the safety of the White House, and the second monitor displayed a screenshot of the decrypted file.
“BMW was capped—your initials,” Ryan said. “So we’re hoping you can make sense of it.”
Bradley edged closer, squinting at the characters. “Looks like a mixture of Cyrillic and Phoenician alphabets.”
Mind Power- America Awakens Page 12
