by Bobby Nash
“You think he had a partner?” Benson said, putting the pieces together.
“Yes, we do,” Patterson said. “The Controller was good, but getting to a CIA agent good he is not. He doesn’t have the reach. Calvin Hutchinson oversaw the Electronic Espionage Division at Langley. This guy wasn’t as well protected as McHenry, but his identity and job were a closely guarded secret. There was a cover job in place for him to share with people in the real world. Only those on the inside knew he worked for the CIA. Same with Marnie Jameson. Even retired, the world at large believed she was a retired school teacher, not a CIA analyst.”
“And this Gulley guy didn’t have access to them?”
“Not without help,” Jacks added.
“There is no evidence that Gulley had contact with anyone from the CIA in years,” Agent Patterson said. “Jobs change, people get promoted. How did he know where they would be? How did he intersect their lives today? Think about it, he had to introduce multiple compounds. That meant more than one interaction. I just can’t buy it.”
“Nor can I,” Jacks said. “McHenry had direct access to the President. That’s not a position one gets to without being plenty careful.”
“So, Gulley has a partner,” Daniel said.
“That’s our theory,” Jacks said.
“Who?” Daniel asked.
Patterson grimaced. “That’s kind of where our theory hits a roadblock.”
“Ah! I see,” Daniel said. “I see the problem.”
“That’s why we’re going back to talk to The Controller again.”
“Do you really think he’s going to help you now?”
“Why not?” Jacks said. “He thinks I’m a worthy opponent, remember?”
###
It was quiet when they arrived.
“You’re still keeping him here?” Jacks asked.
Patterson nodded.
“Is that a good idea?”
“No,” Samantha said matter-of-fact. “But it’s the only option we have at the moment.”
“Fair enough.”
They started up the steps and Jacks noticed that Daniel Benson was a little wobbly on his feet. He leaned against the railing.
“You okay?”
“Just a little car sick,” he admitted.
“You sure?”
“Yeah. I’m good.”
Moving inside, they checked in with the Secret Service Agent on duty. They each showed their identification and Jacks and Patterson showed their badges as well and relinquished their firearms before heading into the interrogation and detention section.
The building wasn’t an official detention center. There were no cells or automated locks. It was a converted warehouse the Service used from time to time for assorted functions. Until they were one hundred percent certain that Greg Gulley could not enthrall anyone else with his Blood Shot formula, the decision had been made to keep him in this secret, offsite location until the safety of others could be guaranteed.
Agent Patterson pushed open the door to the small office that had been converted into a makeshift cell for the man they knew as The Controller.
All of the office’s furnishings had been removed save for a few chairs and a small plastic table like people used on their back porches or at picnics. A small cot had been placed against the far wall and that was where they found their prisoner when they arrived.
Gulley sat up on the edge of the cot when his visitors arrived.
“Ah, Agent Patterson. So good to see you again,” he said, beaming.
The Controller’s eyes lit up even brighter when Jacks walked in behind her.
“Detective Jackson! I say, now this is a great surprise. I had heard you were… let’s just call it under the weather, shall we?”
“Cut the crap,” Jacks said. “We’ve got you dead to rights. You’re going away for a very long time.”
“We’ll see,” Gulley said, smiling as though he had already secured his release.
“We also know you weren’t working alone, Greg. Can I call you Greg?” Agent Patterson added.
The Controller’s smile drooped, but he recovered quickly.
“I beg your pardon?” he said before adding, “and no, you may not.”
“You heard the lady. We both know you’ve got a partner out there helping you.”
“Why on Earth would I need a partner?”
“Access,” Patterson said as she pulled a chair from underneath the table and sat down, her motions casual as opposed to antagonistic, which was her normal tact for an interrogation.”
Gulley stared at her, anxious to see what she knew, or thought she knew.
“We know your connection to the original project,” Jacks said.
“And we know you’ve managed to continue working on it all these years later,” Patterson added. “But there are some things that don’t line up.”
The Controller said nothing.
“Aren’t you just a little bit curious?” Jacks asked.
He touched his hands to his chest.
“My dear detective, I am breathless with anticipation. Dazzle me.”
Jacks chuckled.
“Okay, funny guy. We know you didn’t have the access to get to Calvin Hutchinson or Deputy Director McHenry. You needed help from someone with access.”
Gulley smiled playfully, enjoying the game a little longer.
“We want you to tell us who?” Patterson said.
The Controller leaned back on his cot, back against the wall, a shoe balanced on the side rail. From his demeanor, he thought he was in control of the room. Almost all of his interactions with the detective and her Secret Service friend had been part of the game.
“Give me one good reason to rat out my partner, if indeed I actually have one.”
“Why not?” Jacks asked with a shrug. “You don’t see your partner in here trying to rescue you, do you?”
Gulley snorted a laugh.
Agent Patterson leaned forward in her chair.
“Or maybe he has?” she said. “Mr. Gulley, has your partner contacted you in lock up?”
The Controller laughed and clapped his hands.
“Bravo,” he said. “You know, I have played this game before, with other opponents, but never have I ever matched wits with someone like you, Detective. You have made this game more interesting with your involvement. Of course, your contributions have not gone unnoticed either, Agent Patterson.”
“Thank you?” Patterson said.
“I mean it from the heart. Truly. I have said from the beginning that I wanted to win our little game fair and square. I wanted to beat you honestly, not through trickery or guile, though those are two of the strongest weapons in my arsenal. No, I wanted you to know who you were playing against. I wanted you to know who it was who was going to beat you. That’s why I sent you that letter. The game is so much more fun when everyone knows they’re playing, don’t you think?”
“I think you’re the only one who thinks this is a game,” Jacks said.
“Now, Detective, if I thought you really felt that way, why there’s no way I could have kept the game going so long. Oh, no. You can try to delude yourself, but you and I both know that you were playing right there along with me. This game of ours is too intoxicating to walk away from. We both know it.”
“And since two against one isn’t fair, tell us who your partner is, Greg.”
“You know, you are absolutely right, Agent Patterson.”
The Controller slid off the cot and stood.
Agent Patterson slid forward in her seat, ready to move if he tried anything.
“I usually am,” Patterson said. “Despite what my ex-husband or deputy director think.”
“Well, you know, it’s funny you should mention that. While it’s true, and you have both guessed correctly, that I do indeed have a partner whose reach far exceeds my own, my influence still stretches far and wide. I have never met your Deputy Director McHenry myself, though I did prepare the cocktail that was a
dministered to him.”
“Who are you working with?” Patterson asked.
Gulley held up a hand to hold her off a moment.
“I did, however, have opportunity to meet your ex-husband, just a few days back in this very building, surprisingly enough.”
“Why would he be here? He has less reach than you do.”
“True enough, Samantha,” Gulley said. “Your formerly betrothed was a guest of my partner.”
“What have you done with him?”
“Oh, I assure you he’s fine,” The Controller said. “At least for the time being. We don’t want to hurt poor Ted. No. He’s leverage in case you get uppity.”
Agent Patterson took a step forward.
“You sonuva..”
The door opened before she could take a step.
Both ladies turned to face the now open door.
Ted Brown walked in. He looked none the worse for wear.
Behind him stepped Daniel Benson.
They both had their arms held aloft, hands open next to their heads.
The third man in was Richard Pearce, former CIA analyst, owner of an analysis firm with heavy government contracts, and Ted’s employer. He was holding a gun.
“And look,” The Controller continued with a big, cocky grin. “Detective Jackson was kind enough to bring her own leverage as well. How thoughtful.”
forty
Washington DC
Tuesday
Catherine Jackson hadn’t seen this reveal coming.
“Take a seat,” Richard Pearce ordered, waving the gun toward the nearest chair.
Jacks did as ordered and eased into the chair slowly, remaining on the front edge in case she needed to move quickly.
“Are either of you armed?” Gulley asked, getting up from his seat.
Jacks and Daniel shook their heads.
“No,” Patterson said, holding open her jacket so he could see she was unarmed. “We checked them at the door.”
“Sit,” the Controller said, pointing toward the chair he had just evacuated.
Patterson took the offered seat.
“You two can stand over there next to them,” Pearce said, motioning Ted and Daniel with the gun.
“How did you get past the Secret Service with a gun?” Patterson asked.
Pearce smiled.
“It’s amazing what you can get away with when you know how to control men’s minds, Agent Patterson.”
Off her quizzical look, he added, “What? Did you think Dr. Gulley was the only one who knew how to harness the Blood Shot formula?”
“Well… yeah,” Patterson said, adding a playful flourish to her words. “Until today, we had no idea there was anyone else involved. We believed The Controller was working alone.”
“The Controller?” Pearce spat out a laugh. He had hated that silly name from the moment he had first heard Gulley use it. It sounded like some supervillain out of a movie.
“If anyone is in control around here, I assure you it’s me,” Pearce said.
He didn’t say anything, but the agent felt Gulley clench next to her. Her cohort’s words had struck a nerve. Maybe their partnership wasn’t as solid as they let on. If there was a fracture there, maybe she could use it to her advantage.
“Sure, why not?” Patterson continued, looking for an opening. “He’s the only one that connects to the original program. We looked. Your name isn’t anywhere near the original Blood Shot project. His is. And he’s the one who continued the work on his own after funding was pulled. He found additional revue and kept working without anyone the wiser. Ondh, yeah, a he’s the one who finally cracked the code.”
She paused, let a small smile tug at the corner of her lips.
“What, exactly, did you contribute?”
“A very detailed analysis, Agent Patterson.”
She shrugged.
Pearce started to pace back and forth.
“You’re right. I wasn’t officially part of the project. At the time, I was a low rung CIA analyst, just another in a long line of nameless patriots who did a difficult job for little money and even less recognition. I came on with Senator Fitzgerald to do a full accounting of the project. Ol’ Fitz, that’s what they used to call Fitzgerald back in the old days, by the way, was a miser. I swear, that old bastard should have squeaked when he walked, he pinched a penny so tight. He wanted to know where every cent ended up and he wanted to make damn sure it was all used for the project and not diverted to some secret black book project. Black ops were all the rage in those days. Every general wanted his own elite squadron comprised of the best of the best and so on. Taxpayer money was being funneled all over the map. It was chaos.”
Gulley rolled his eyes. He had obviously heard this rant before.
“I guess he didn’t consider a secret project to brainwash American citizens a black book project, huh?” The Controller added. “The old guy was a royal pain in the ass.”
“Sounds like a prince of a guy,” Jacks added. “Did you kill him too?”
“Actually, no,” Pearce said. “At least not yet. Trust me, his time on this Earth is finite.”
“Isn’t everybody’s?” Ted Brown asked.
Pearce laughed and pointed to his employee in a you got me there gesture.
“The good and honorable Simon Fitzgerald is still serving the people of his home state of North Carolina in the Senate, although I hear he’s not very well-liked these days, his views not having grown with the times and all that. I hear he may lose the next election. Provided we don’t take him out beforehand.”
“There’s actually been some debate about that,” Gulley added, taking center stage like a late night talk show pundit playing to his base. “Maybe you can help up out? If we wait until he loses the election to kill him, then the impact is softened. People barely care about politicians while they are in office. Once they’re gone, no one gives a shit about them. If he dies in office, he becomes a martyr and his party rallies around his ongoing agenda in salute.”
He shrugged out his arms.
“What do you think?”
“I think I should have killed you when I had the chance,” Patterson told The Controller coldly.
“That was actually the biggest surprise,” Richard Pearce said. “From everything I’ve heard about you, Samantha, especially from dear old Ted here, you aren’t exactly known for rational thought or action and certainly not restraint. Quite the opposite, in fact. You’re more the leap before you look type. Shoot first, ask questions later. I believe that’s what got you tossed from protection detail a few years back, wasn’t it?”
“Maybe I’ve grown as an agent?”
“I doubt it,” Pearce said. “You really should read your official Secret Service jacket. It’s quite the how to on ways to sabotage one’s career. How you didn’t get tossed out on that pretty little ass of yours after belting a superior officer is beyond me. I’m curious what you had to do, and how many times you had to do it, to get Corwin to put you back in the field and then to get McHenry to sign off on it too. It’s quite clear that man hates you based on his evaluation of you and scuttlebutt around the office. He wanted to bury you in a hole so deep you’d never see daylight again.”
Pearce shrugged.
“Obviously, that didn’t happen.”
“I’m an acquired taste,” Patterson said around a cocky smirk.
“Clearly.”
“Look, there’s no real mystery here. I broke the jaw of a man in a powerful position and that man did exactly what men in positions of power like his do. He torpedoed my career. He planted a torpedo right in the side and watched it sink like a stone.”
“Oh, the big man destroyed your career, did he?”
Patterson chuckled.
“Did I deserve it? Probably. You think you’re surprised they let me back in, hell, I’m stunned.”
Ted Brown looked like he was about to throw up. His friend’s words hit harder than he would have thought. He had spent the past sev
eral years hating his ex-wife and her secretive job that she could never share. Well, he was seeing it all first-hand now and up close, her job was not pretty. Now, he was beginning to see her in an entirely new light.
He started to speak, but she gave a small shake of her head and he fell silent. Even after all these years apart, she was still calling the shots.
Agent Patterson leaned in closer as if imparting some secret words of wisdom to the man with the gun.
“But you know what? I bet you had to suck a lot more dicks to get inside than I did. I was willing to break one asshole’s jaw, knowing it would end my career. After that, everyone on campus was afraid of me. Who was I going to go after next? They all wondered. I was exiled to the lowest levels of the Treasury because they couldn’t control me.”
She nodded in Ted Brown’s direction.
“He couldn’t control me either. Did he tell you that?”
Pearce trained the gun on the agent.
“You don’t have the balls,” Patterson said and sat back in her chair.
“So, what’s the plan here, huh?” Jacks asked, interrupting the stare-down before he actually tried to shoot her. “You going to kill all of us and just walk out of here with him? Is that it?”
“Not a bad idea, don’t you think?” Pearce said. “We could probably do that and lay the blame for the killing at your feet, Detective Jackson. After all, it has already been well-documented that you fell under The Controller’s spell, right? I doubt anyone would question that you remained under his control, killed your friends there, then killed poor Ted when he and I walked in on it, wounding me on your way out with Gulley in tow. Then, you and he disappear.”
“Me back to work and you into a shallow grave eventually,” Gulley said with perverse pleasure.
“Or you simply eat a bullet like the others,” Pearce added.
“And you’re left to write the narrative, is that it?” Patterson said to Pearce. “Not bad.”
“Not bad? My dear, it’s bloody genius, but like I said, that’s not exactly the plan.”
“What is the plan then… exactly?” Jacks interrupted.
“So glad you asked, Detective,” Gulley said. “You’re right. This ends with all of you dead, but not necessarily today. There’s still a good bit of the plan we haven’t finished yet. There are still a few names left on the ol’ hit list.”
