by I. T. Lucas
28
Kalugal
“Nice cars.” Lokan waved a hand at Kalugal’s lineup of luxury vehicles.
Was there a note of jealousy in his brother’s tone?
There shouldn’t be. Even though Lokan’s pay from the Brotherhood could never match what Kalugal was making, he was old enough to have accumulated a small fortune. Provided that he’d been prudent with his money, he could most likely afford to buy a luxury car or two.
“Thank you. I enjoy collecting the best. Whenever I can, I purchase the first one released.” Kalugal opened the door and motioned for the group to enter.
Bridget and Turner were already familiar with the layout and headed directly toward Roberts' cell. But it was Lokan’s first visit, and even though he was trying to act nonchalant, it was quite obvious that he was observing and committing to memory every detail.
Kalugal didn’t want to read too much into it. It was probably a reflex, something that his brother did in every new place and situation.
Hivak waited for them in front of Roberts' cell. “Good morning, doctor. There has been no change. Per your instructions, I’ve listened to his heartbeat and his breathing, and when I took a break, I had someone else replace me.”
“Thank you.” Bridget smiled. “With no monitoring equipment, an immortal’s hearing is the next best thing.”
Kalugal filed her remark for the future. In the new place that he was going to build for his mate and his men, he would have a clinic and purchase all the latest medical equipment for it. The only problem would be getting a doctor to run it. Perhaps he could use a compelled human until one of his men completed his medical education.
The question was who. None of them was particularly studious. But that was something to ponder later.
“Hivak, please take Lokan to the captured men and assist him in any way you can. We need to get their phones and the GPS numbers from the vans.”
“Yes, boss.”
After Lokan and Hivak walked away, Kalugal entered the code on the keypad and opened the cell.
“Anandur and Brundar should stay outside,” Bridget said. “The place is too small for all of us to get in.”
Kian looked at Kalugal. “Perhaps you should move Roberts to a different room. It’s not like he can escape, and you don’t need to keep him locked up for psychological reasons, either. You can make him talk regardless of his state of mind.”
“I don’t want to move him yet,” Bridget said. “Not unless you have a proper gurney.”
“We can lift the bed and carry him with it,” Anandur suggested.
That wasn’t a bad idea. The top bunk had already been removed to allow Bridget easier access to her patient, so lifting the bottom one and carrying it out wasn’t a problem.
In fact, since Kalugal wasn’t going to use his bedroom in the bunker, he could put Roberts in there. Except, there was one more thing to consider.
“Is there a chance that he would try to take his own life?” Kalugal asked. “That was the main reason for putting him in the cell.”
Kian raised a brow. “Can’t you compel him not to attempt it?”
“I can do that now that I can finally talk to him.” Kalugal stepped out of the cell and motioned for the brothers to go in. “Lift the bed and follow me.”
“Gently and carefully,” Bridget cautioned.
“Yes, ma’am.” Anandur saluted.
After Turner helped Bridget collect her medical supplies, the two followed the group.
“My quarters are one level down, but we can use the elevator.”
“You’re putting him in your room?” Kian asked.
“I have no use for it right now, and it’s the only one large enough for the bed and all of us to fit in.”
“How many rooms do you have in here?”
Kalugal smirked. “I thought that you knew. You said that you’ve seen the blueprints.”
“I did, but I didn’t count the rooms. I remember that it’s much bigger than what I’ve seen so far.”
Kalugal led them to the service elevator and pressed his thumb to the scanner. “Most of the space is taken up by my collections, the cars, and the artifacts. There are several offices, the big classroom you’ve seen, and a couple of smaller ones and a meeting room. Other than that, we have twenty-five bedrooms of varying sizes. I designed it so all of us can be down here if needed.”
Kalugal exited the elevator and led the group down the corridor to his bedroom. “The living quarters down here are quite basic.” He stopped next to his room and opened the door. “We don’t even have locks.”
Stepping back, he let Kian’s bodyguards go in with the bed first.
His quarters were larger than all the others, with separate sitting and sleeping areas, but the furniture was simple, and the bathroom had no tub or even a separate toilet compartment.
“You can put the bed against that wall.” He pointed to where the television screen was mounted.
After putting the medical supplies on the table, Bridget and Turner sat on the couch.
Kian turned both armchairs to face the bed, sat down on one, and motioned for Kalugal to take the other.
Anandur and Brundar leaned against the desk.
“Thank you.” Kalugal pulled the armchair closer to the bed. “If anyone wants refreshments, please help yourselves. The fridge is fully stocked.”
“Perhaps later,” Kian said. “Let’s get to it. Wake him up.”
29
Kian
“One moment.” Kalugal got up and walked over to the fridge. “Roberts might be thirsty.” He took a bottle of water out.
Kian wondered whether there was a catheter under the blanket covering Roberts. The guy had been kept out for the entire night and morning, and at his age, he probably couldn’t hold it.
Kalugal leaned closer to the sleeping man. “Wake up, Elijah, and look at me.”
As the old human’s eyes popped wide open, he winced with pain and murmured, “Who are you?” He darted his eyes to Kian, and the scent of fear intensified.
“I’m a friend.” Kalugal smiled. “Please remain calm. You are not feeling any pain, and you are in no immediate danger. You are in good hands.”
Kian stifled a chuckle.
Kalugal was the old man’s worst nightmare, but even though the compulsion was delivered in a friendly and relaxed tone, it worked.
Slumping against the pillows, Roberts let out a relieved breath. “I don’t remember what happened. Did I fall?”
“You fell and broke several ribs, but the doctor tells me that you are healing nicely.” Kalugal lifted the water bottle. “Are you thirsty, Elijah?”
“Yes.” Roberts reached for the bottle with a shaky hand.
Kalugal unscrewed the cap. “You will answer all of my questions truthfully, and you will hold nothing back.” He handed Roberts the bottle. “Tell me what you know about the Echelon project.”
Roberts lifted his head with effort and took a small sip. “It collects information from all over the world, and the bots scan it for trigger phrases. Other than that, it also accumulates data on financial transactions, even those conducted in bitcoin.” He smirked. “Nothing can be hidden from its watchful eyes. The problem is sifting through it all, but the bots are getting better at that every day.”
“Do you have access to it?”
“Not directly. I only get data that is relevant to my research.”
“And how does that work?”
“I provide the trigger words, and they send me everything that’s gotten flagged.”
“No questions asked? You can submit any phrases whatsoever, and no one questions your request?”
“Thanks to Simmons and his connections, both of us have a high-security clearance. I didn’t encounter any objections yet.”
Kalugal glanced at Kian. “That can be very useful. Tell me something, Elijah, are all your trainees currently at the base?”
“Yes.”
“Is Marisol with them?”
“Yes.”
“If you call Marisol right now and tell her to send the trainees home, will she obey your command?”
Roberts nodded. “She will do whatever I tell her to do, but security is not going to let them out. Anyone who wants to leave the base needs to get approval in writing from an authorized superior, and since Simmons and I are not there, she can’t get it.”
“Did you and Simmons need approval to leave the base?”
“We are not subject to the same rules. We can come and go as we please.”
“I see. Did you use a commercial flight to get here?”
“No. Simmons arranged for military transport.”
“What reason did he give for the request?”
“I don’t know. He must have made something up. It’s not like what we were planning to do was authorized.” Roberts frowned again. “Who did you say you were?”
It seemed that he was starting to remember some details. Phinas was a good thraller, but he might not have done a thorough job of erasing Roberts' memories. The other possibility was that Roberts remembered things despite it. The old man had a strong mind, and those were difficult to manipulate.
The good news was that he was susceptible to Kalugal’s compulsion, which was stronger and more effective than thralling, so that wouldn’t be a problem.
“I’m your best friend and confidant, Elijah. My people saved your life, and we are taking good care of you. You should be grateful and do everything that I ask of you.”
Roberts nodded. “Yes, I’m grateful. What do you need me to do?”
“For now, I just need you to answer my questions as best you can, and then you need to rest and get better.”
“I can do that.”
“Excellent. Tell me about the breeding program. Was it authorized, or was it your and Simmons’s brainchild?”
Roberts snorted. “No one would have authorized that. We figured that as long as the participants believed that they were choosing their lovers voluntarily, no one would make a big fuss about it. The trainees were all tested and given a clean bill of health, and we gave the women fake birth control shots. I expect pregnancies soon.”
“What were you going to do with the children?”
“Watch them grow and see if combining their parents' talents made them stronger paranormals.”
“Let’s assume that your experiment works and that the children prove to have stronger abilities than their parents. What’s the next step?”
Roberts' eyes brightened. “Than we keep doing that and improving on it until we make enough super-people to change the course of humanity.” He sighed. “Not in our lifetimes, regrettably. But we set things in motion. This is what Edgar and I dreamt of doing since we were young men.”
“Your own version of X-Men.”
“Well, not precisely. We have real expectations. The movies were fantasy.”
Kalugal pushed to his feet and took the empty water bottle from Roberts. “Sleep, Elijah.” He turned to Kian. “Let’s go to my office and discuss strategy. I have some ideas.”
“I’ll stay here,” Bridget said.
Kian looked at her. “Are you sure you need to stay? I would like you and Turner to join us. We could use your input, and Roberts is sleeping.”
She sighed. “Fine, I’ll come. But someone needs to watch over him.”
“No problem,” Kalugal said. “I’ll send one of my men over.”
30
Kalugal
Kalugal opened the door to his office. “Take a seat.” He motioned Bridget and Turner to the couch and then walked over to the bar. “I have a limited selection in here, but I can still whip up a nice cocktail for the lady. What would you like, Bridget?”
She waved a hand. “It’s too early for me. Do you have coffee here?”
“No, but I can have it brought in. Would anyone else like a cup of coffee?”
“I’d rather sample your selection.” Kian walked up to him. “You have a bar in every room you use, and yet you are not a heavy drinker.”
Kalugal shrugged. “I’m a connoisseur, and I like the convenience of having a drink whenever I want it.”
“Count me in.” Turner joined them at the bar.
“Coffee for Brundar and me,” Anandur said. “We are on duty.”
“Very well.” Kalugal pulled his phone out and called Atzil. “Can you send Shamash with a coffee pot to my office in the bunker? We also need three cups.”
“Yes, boss. Right away.”
“Thank you.” Kalugal put the phone back in his pocket. “Atzil sounds more flustered than I’ve ever heard him. I wonder what Amanda is doing to him.”
Kian grimaced. “I guess your cook is her first matchmaking victim.”
“The guy has my sympathies.” Anandur chuckled. “When Amanda is on a mission, she doesn’t let go.”
Kalugal nodded and smiled, but his mind was already on a different subject.
As he poured the drinks, he toyed with a new idea that had started brewing in his mind during Roberts’ interrogation.
Having the guy under his compulsion opened several interesting possibilities. First, it might solve all of their problems with the program without having to shut it down. Secondly, through Roberts, they would have access to the infamous Echelon system.
After he'd handed out the drinks, and Shamash delivered the coffee, Kalugal sat down and crossed his legs at the ankles. “I have a new idea that trumps all of our previous plans.”
Kian leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I have a feeling that I know what it is, but let’s hear it.”
“With Simmons gone, Roberts will most likely get to head the program, and we can use him to do whatever we want with it. I can compel him to go back and pretend that nothing happened, stop the breeding program, fire Marisol, and destroy any information picked up by the Echelon system that can be detrimental to us.”
“I like it,” Turner said. “As long as he heads the program and we control him, we have full access to all the information they gather.”
“What happens when he dies?” Bridget said. “He’s not young, and he has a coronary disease.”
Kalugal waved a hand. “Then we do the same with the next director. That’s the perfect solution. We can’t bring down the entire Echelon system, and we don’t want to. The information they gather on suspected terrorist attacks or nuclear threats from other countries can potentially save millions of lives. But we can make sure that the information about paranormal phenomena goes through us first, and we decide what gets filed away and what gets discarded as nonsense. Basically, we will run the program and use the access it has to Echelon to gather information on paranormals, and possibly even unaffiliated immortals.”
“I love it. We will use Roberts like a puppet on a string,” Kian said. “We have to make sure that he gets to run the program. And that means that we have to come up with an iron-clad cover story for Simmons’s death and Roberts’ injury and absence.” He looked at Turner. “That’s your expertise. What do you suggest?”
“We can keep one of the rented vans, drive Simmons’s body to some remote location, and stage an accident in which the van will catch fire, and his body will burn.” He looked at Bridget. “You’ll need to remove the bullets. If anyone conducts a thorough investigation, we don’t want them to find those.”
“I can do that. I will even stitch him up, just in case.”
Turner took a sip of his drink. “Roberts could say that he had a car accident and was hospitalized. We can plant fake records in a hospital of our choosing. In fact, he could call Marisol and tell her that he is recuperating and will be back as soon as the doctors discharge him.”
“What do we tell him about Simmons?” Bridget asked.
“We can thrall him to believe whatever we want.” Kalugal got up and walked over to the bar. “Here is a possible story.” He poured himself another drink. “They came to San Francisco to check out a possible new recruit, who turned out to be a fake, and
then Simmons went to visit a friend and didn’t come back. Roberts is worried about him because he doesn’t answer his phone. He’s afraid that his friend suffered a heart attack because Simmons was complaining about chest pains and refused to get checked.”
Bridget shook her head. “As you’ve noticed, the guy is not easy to thrall. You will have to compel him to tell that story, but you can’t make him believe it.”
Kalugal shrugged. “Whatever works. I don’t care what he believes as long as he manages to convince the higher-ups that this is what happened.” He took a sip of his drink. “Before we finalize the plan, though, I suggest that we run it by Jacki. She is familiar with how things work in the program, and she can point out weaknesses in our plan or the cover stories.”
31
Jin
As Arwel’s hushed voice filtered through Jin’s semi-awake state, she reached with her hand, expecting to find him in bed next to her, but he wasn’t there, and the spot was cold, which meant that he’d been awake and out of bed for a long time.
The good news was that she could hear him even though he was sitting on the couch and talking on the phone quietly. The bad news was that she still felt like crap, and not just because of her ears.
A distant hum was all that remained from yesterday’s trauma, and she wasn’t nauseous, but her throat ached, and she felt feverish.
Could it be that the strep throat had returned?
The bacteria was nasty, and it could lie dormant until something weakened the immune system and then attack again.
Was there a chance that Bridget had one of those wonderful shots in her doctor’s bag?
Except, Bridget wasn’t there because she'd stayed the night at Kalugal’s, watching over Roberts.
Damn. Director Simmons was dead.
Jin still had a hard time wrapping her head around that. Not that she felt pity for him. He deserved to die for what he’d planned to do to her family and friends.
