by David Archer
"What did she have to say?" Noah demanded, seeing Smith's face going stiff. The hairs on the back of his neck suddenly stood up.
"She helped these people pick up three soldiers and also described a fourth man who she was supposed to help with, but never got the chance. Renée is convinced the man she described is Captain Swaggart."
Noah reached the door at the same time as Smith. They both paused at the door; it was the only reason they heard the sound of an engine starting.
Phone still to ear, Smith stood back, lifted one huge leg and slammed it against the door, shoving the barrier open without even breaking a sweat. Still holding onto his phone, Noah grabbed his gun once more before moving inside.
The afternoon daylight outside shone into the room, illuminating it well. Illuminating it and the unmarked van pulling away.
Cursing, Noah ran to the open overhead door, but before he could get a shot off, the van disappeared around a corner, leaving a room empty of scientists, Swaggart or Marco.
"Dammit!" Smith shouted, bringing up a hand to push his hair out of the way. "They're gone, Litchfield! They got him. Dammit!"
Trying to remain calm, trying not to think about whose hands Marco might be in right now, Noah backed away, eyes sweeping the room, taking in the dropped rifle, a Glock that had to be Marco's and spent shells, shaking his head. The room was clear of everything else.
He brought his phone to his ear. "We didn't figure it out quick enough, Sarah," he told the woman waiting impatiently on the other end. "Swaggart's gone, and they took Marco with him."
Sarah suddenly sounded like she was about to cry, and in the background he could hear Renée actually beginning to sob. "Get both of you back to E & E headquarters as soon as someone else comes to protect Lisa. We'll get him back, Sarah."
He hung up, turning to Smith, who was just putting his phone away, cutting off a babbling Litchfield. He looked the taller man in the eye, knowing he had heard his promise.
"We'll get them both back."
* * *
Litchfield paced along the graveled roadway. He held his cell phone open in his hand, staring at it, not liking the phone call he was about to make. Randall was probably going to go ballistic at this news, but he had to be told.
Sighing, he decided he better get it over and done with. Closing his eyes, he dialed the phone. Randall took several moments to answer, but for once Litchfield didn't mind.
“Yes?”
Litchfield jumped, not expecting the greeting while he was deep in thought, rehearsing what he was going to say.
"Sir," he said. "It's—it's Carl Litchfield."
"Litchfield!" Randall sounded far too enthusiastic. "Have you called to tell me some good news? That you've made some progress?"
Litchfield winced, turning in his path and rubbing a hand through his hair. "Ah, not really. In fact we've, well, we've kind of taken a step in the wrong direction."
There was a moment of silence. "Would you like to explain that, Mr. Litchfield?" Randall's voice was calm, but it was obvious that he was annoyed.
"Sir—Swaggart's been kidnapped."
Again, a moment of silence. "Mr. Litchfield, did you say he has been kidnapped?"
"Yes, sir," Litchfield said. “Sir, he was working with the E & E people, and he had to go along on a raid against—well, against the project, in order to maintain his cover. While he was there, for some reason, he was grabbed. The agents here had found out that whoever was running things was planning to do it, but they were too late to stop it.”
There was a pause. A long pause. "Well, we'll just have to get him back, won't we?"
Litchfield sighed and then took a deep breath. "Sir," he said, “I think somebody is trying to take over the project and use it for something entirely different than what the Coalition had planned.”
This time he could actually feel the tension in the pause. “I believe you may be quite correct about that, Mr. Litchfield.”
Litchfield went still. "I'm sorry. What?"
“Mr. Litchfield, I think that you are absolutely correct. That being the case, I believe it may be time to simply abandon this particular aspect of the project. I suggest you extricate yourself as soon as you can, and do everything possible to maintain your original cover. Suggest the same to your compatriots.”
“But, sir,” Litchfield said, “we have to figure out what to do to fix this. All of us, we’ve been working loyally on this project for so long now…”
“Mr. Litchfield, I’m fully aware of what you’ve done. What you need to understand is that you are no longer of any value to us. If Captain Swaggart is lost, then your entire section becomes worthless, unless you can extricate yourselves successfully. Do not contact me again, because this number will no longer work after this call. If you are able to maintain your covers, we will find you. Goodbye, Mr. Litchfield.”
The line went dead suddenly, and Litchfield stared at the phone. If the project was being abandoned, and if they were all being tossed out into the cold, what in the world was he supposed to do?
* * *
The front office was crowded when Noah got back, with Smith following right behind him. The assassin slowed, though he didn't stop, just taking in the pacing Litchfield, a very worried Graves, and Neil, Sarah and Renée, who was sitting on a bench with Allison beside her.
Suddenly, Noah had had enough. In a rare display of frustration, he rounded on Warrant Officer Smith.
"What the hell is going on here?" he demanded, his eyes blazing as the man walked past him to lean against the wall next to Graves. Litchfield jumped, as if he hadn't heard them come in, before looking at him, obviously steeling himself. Noah didn't give him a chance.
"If you people don't tell me what the hell is going on, I…" He couldn't come up with a threat that sounded promising enough. "My agent, my friend was just kidnapped! I demand to know what you've gotten him into."
"Well, then," Litchfield snapped, eyes wide, but face tight with anger. "I guess it's a good thing I've decided to make a confession."
Noah stood up straighter, tense, not exactly sure he understood what Litchfield meant. "What do you mean by that?"
"I mean, I’m about to reveal to you the biggest secret you will ever be privy to."
Noah moved over to his desk. "So all it took was the kidnapping of one of my agents?"
Litchfield's face hardened. "Swaggart was taken too," he snapped. "And unlike you, we know exactly what they'll do to both of them if we don't find them as quickly as possible."
Noah nodded slowly, backing off. "Okay. Explain, then."
Litchfield shook his head. "I’m not sure where to begin,” he said. “To be honest, I never thought I would be in this position.” He looked Noah in the eye. “The first thing you need to do is take Warrant Officer Smith and Sergeant Graves into custody. The three of us have been actively working against the interests of the United States, and every other country, for the last four years.”
Smith, who had been staring at him with eyes wide, suddenly bolted for the door. He almost made it, except for the arm that Noah stuck out to clothesline the man and drop him like a sack of potatoes. Sergeant Graves had risen to her feet, but didn’t bother to run. Instead, she slowly and carefully reached into a back pocket and withdrew a small leather case.
“If I may?” she asked, looking at Noah. He nodded, and she took a small device out of the case and passed it over to Neil. “If you would authenticate that, please?”
Neil took it and looked at it for a second, then plugged it into the side of his computer. A moment later, a box appeared on the screen that required him to input his own government ID number. He glanced over his shoulder at Graves, then typed in the number and watched the screen.
A file opened up, and Neil scanned over it quickly. When he had done so, he turned to Noah.
“Boss? It looks like Sergeant Graves is actually an agent of the National Security Agency, and has been working undercover for the last couple of years on something
called the Coalition Project.”
Litchfield stared at Graves for a moment, then seemed to deflate. “I suspected somebody had infiltrated us,” he said. “I never thought it was you, Paula.”
“Not just me,” she said. “Jack Swaggart and I have been working together on this thing for quite some time, Carl.”
She turned to Noah. “Perhaps I should take over. Noah, the Coalition Project is a joint venture by some of the world’s most powerful groups. The CFR, the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg Group and several more who are dedicated to the prospect of a single, one world government, have been trying to orchestrate some sort of cataclysmic event that would cause all of the sovereign nations to agree to submission to a single governing body for the whole planet.”
“I’ve heard of that,” Noah said. “I thought it was just conspiracy theory.”
“Boss, most conspiracy theories have some basis in fact,” Neil said. “It’s no secret that a lot of those organizations have tried to orchestrate things like this in the past.”
Graves looked at him and nodded, then turned back to Noah. “He’s quite correct. The last several wars have been part of that plan, but it hasn’t worked out quite the way they wanted, so they decided to step things up a bit. You know about Doctor Branigan and his cocktail. Well, the Coalition had gone to great lengths to learn just what kind of secrets might be found at Area 51, and when they learned about Branigan’s Cocktail, they figured they had finally hit the jackpot. Steps were taken to force Branigan to work with them, including the abduction of his daughter. Once he had done their bidding and stolen the cocktail, then they started using both of them against each other. That’s why Lisa Branigan was being forced into doing some of the dirty work.”
“You sure seem to know an awful lot about this,” Noah said. “And you say Swaggart was working with you?”
“Yes, he is,” she said. “The two of us infiltrated this branch of the organization some time ago, and we’ve been trying to get all the way up to the head of it. Unfortunately, only Litchfield actually had contact with the top people, even though Jack had him convinced that he was superior.”
Noah shook his head. “I was pretty sure somebody wasn’t telling me something,” he said. “You don’t know how close you came to me just shooting you all and then trying to figure out who you were and what you were doing.”
“Well, I’m certainly glad you didn’t,” she said. “Anyway, that was how Jack managed to get us assigned to the investigation into the compound. We didn’t count on your people being good enough to sniff us out, but maybe we should have. Hell, we didn’t even know you were here until you picked Jack up. After that, we had to play along with you until we could figure out what was going on. At the same time, Jack and I had to pretend that we were all in favor of this whole operation, just to keep Smith and Litchfield in line.”
“I’m getting a headache,” Sarah said. “So, now you’re going to tell us that we should trust you, but not them? How do we know you’re telling the truth, and that you’re not actually one of the people running this horrible situation?”
“She’s for real,” Neil said. “The dongle she gave me contains an encrypted code that can only be authorized by the White House.”
“Okay, but how does any of this help us get Marco back?” Renée asked. “My husband is out there, and God only knows what they’re doing him right now, while we are sitting here listening to you. Tell us what we can do to get him back, can you do that?”
“I wish I could,” she said. “Jack and I had both begun to suspect that someone running this project was ignoring their superiors, and that seems to be what’s going on. Jack Swaggart has an awful lot of classified information in his head, things that we really don’t need those people having access to. If Branigan has managed to modify his cocktail the way they want him to, there will be one version of it that simply makes a man do exactly what he’s told to do. We really don’t need people like that having control of a man like Jack Swaggart.”
Noah nodded. "Okay. So what now?"
"What do you mean, what now?" Graves demanded. "Now we find Swaggart and Marco, kill all the bad guys and then we can all go home."
"And how do we find them?" Noah asked, crossing his arms. "I'm guessing you don’t have any special tricks up your sleeve to help us do that, do you?”
She lowered her eyes and shook her head. “No, I’m afraid not,” she said. “From what Jack told me, your people are better equipped in some ways than ours ever have been.”
"In that case, our best bet is the guy who sent Swaggart to be kidnapped in the first place," Noah said. “Morris is the one who fed us the information that led us to that building, where they were waiting. We need to break him, and we need to do it quickly.”
Jenny got to her feet. “He’s mine, Noah,” she said. “No arguments. He may have been after Swaggart, but nobody messes with one of our team.”
Graves nodded. "Yes. If he knew enough to know who Swaggart was when you interviewed him, no doubt he knows enough to know where they would have taken him."
"Renée and I should talk to Lisa again," Sarah said, glancing over at Renée, who nodded her agreement. "Maybe she knows more."
Noah nodded thoughtfully, then turned back to Jenny. “Have Morris brought up here from the stockade,” he said. “You can use the morgue.”
“Yes!” Jenny said, punching the air. She and Allison stepped into the office so that Allison could make the call.
Noah turned to Sarah. “Sarah, go ahead and take Renée back to the hospital. Talk to Lisa and see if she knows anything else. Neil, you and Litchfield go back to the warehouse, check out the crime scene."
Litchfield suddenly looked up at him, his face registering surprise. “You’re not arresting me?” he asked. “But I—I just confessed…”
“And we will deal with that later,” Noah said. “Right now, I need all hands on deck. You go with Neil, and if you even think about trying to run, you need to understand that I will hunt you down personally. When I do, I will lock you in a room with Jenny and leave you there for a week. Believe me, she knows how to keep someone alive that long, even without most of the skin left on their bodies.”
Litchfield stared at him for a moment, but he knew that Swaggart's best chance lay with the E & E agent. He nodded once. “Yes, sir,” he said.
Smith was still laying on the floor where Noah had dropped him. "What about me?" Smith asked, his eyes flashing menacingly. “What happens to me, now?”
Noah looked at him for a moment, then reached down and picked him up. Keeping one arm twisted behind his back, Noah marched him down the hall toward the morgue. A moment later, everyone heard a single gunshot. Noah came back up front as they were all preparing to leave to do what he had told them to do, and Graves stared at him.
“Smith?” she asked.
“No longer a problem,” Noah said.
SEVENTEEN
Marco was sure he didn't want to open his eyes. His whole body ached, all the way from his toes to his teeth. His head pounded, his mouth was dry and whatever he was lying on was incredibly hard. Like it or not, however, up he was waking, no matter how slowly, and as consciousness returned, so did the aches in his entire body, and he couldn't help but groan.
Someone nearby shuffled over, but it took Marco a moment to realize that there was even someone else in the room with him. He only fully comprehended the fact when someone grabbed his shoulders and spoke softly.
"Marco, you finally awake?"
He recognized the voice, and guessed he should open his eyes. It wasn't easy, but he finally managed to blink them open, blurriness and darkness giving way slowly to the shadowy outline of Swaggart's face. He looked at him for a moment, trying to think of what was different about the man, and then it hit him. Swaggart was wearing what looked like hospital scrubs, and when he checked, he found he was wearing the same thing.
Swaggart’s face broke out in a sigh of relief. "Thank God. I was getting worrie
d. You okay?"
Marco sat up, bringing a hand to his head and wincing. "Compared to what?" he demanded when he opened his eyes after the pain subsided slightly. "I just got tasered. Not much fun."
Swaggart shrugged and sat back against the nearby wall. "At least there's no after taste," he muttered, thinking of some of the other ways they might have been subdued, as the E & E agent looked around. Marco didn't hear him.
"Where are we?"
Swaggart looked around as well, taking in the small, cold cell, the close, tiled walls that managed to glow slightly even in the dark, the high ceiling above, and the floor that was maybe fifteen feet square. He looked back at Marco, who was shuffling backwards to find his own section of wall to lean against.
"No idea," he told the agent, shrugging. "I was unconscious when they brought us in."
Marco rubbed the back of his neck, trying to work the tension out of it. "Any idea who they are, then?"
Swaggart chuckled darkly. "The guys who were experimenting on Belcher and the others, would be my guess," he answered dryly. "They've left us alone since dumping us in here, so far as I'm aware, so I don't know for sure."
He suddenly got to his feet, turning to face the wall, feeling along it, looking for the door. Marco watched him, sure, for some reason, that the intelligence officer had done this before, undoubtedly with little success.
This time, however, Swaggart paused in his exploration, looking back at where Marco was resting on the floor. "Sorry," he apologized before turning back to his search.
Marco frowned. "What? Why? This isn't your fault." He squinted. “Is it?”
Swaggart sighed and gave up the search, moving back to his original spot opposite Marco. "The raid was a trap," he told the agent, slumping down to the cold, hard ground. "Morris sent us there so they could grab us. Or me, probably, because they probably have no clue who you are."
