by Rob Horner
He stood and dusted his hands for the benefit of the camera, then walked back inside Watchtower.
“Oh good,” Lisa said from the top of the stairs. “I was just coming to get you. The girl and her mom went inside the house, and I think Travis just got where he’s going.”
3
Like most mornings, Angela rose with the sun, ready to be on about the business of living. She was happy, happier than she’d felt in a long time. She was also excited and a little scared.
It was all about Travis. The thought of seeing him, of spending the day with him, gave her an undeniable surge of energy. Damn everything, she thought as she made a cup of coffee, but I love him. I really do. And if the agencies she represented didn’t approve, well, they could go screw themselves!
Though only twenty-five, Angela had almost given up on the idea of finding one man she could love. There were always eager men—boys, really—who saw her as easy prey, or an easy lay. Part of that was how she looked, but she cultivated her appearance in order to do her job. Travis was different. He looked beyond the exterior. He hadn’t tried to get her into bed until their fourth date, and by that time she was aching for him, needing him.
And that first time…
Her face flushed with erotic memories, mind soaring with happiness at her earlier decision, Angela set about making sure this would be a visit he’d never forget.
First came a mad dash through the small, single bedroom apartment, straightening every cushion, vacuuming every piece of carpet. At seven-thirty she’d gotten into the shower, emerging fifteen minutes later to begin other preparations. She’d thought of getting dressed, luring him out for a late breakfast, then spending a day on the beach. Oh, there were so many things they could do, so many places they could go. But then she changed her mind.
This was going to be their day, and no one else could share it or interfere with it. She was going to tell him how much she loved him and how long she’d loved him.
With a plan like that, it didn’t make sense to draw him away from the apartment. Instead, she resolved to make him want to stay there with her.
To that end, she applied only a minimal covering of make-up, just enough to hide the freckles she felt were her worst liability, though Travis often told her the opposite. Covered only by a gauzy robe belted at the waist, she made a nest of sorts out of blankets, cushions, and pillows on the living room floor. At eight-thirty she put on a fresh pot of coffee, figuring Travis would appreciate it. Then she sat on her couch and waited, trying to still the rapid-fire beating of her heart, the excited gasp she uttered every time a car door slammed, or the deep rumble of a powerful engine passed by on the street.
At three minutes to nine she heard his knock.
Jumping up from the couch, she ran to answer the door.
4
“Lisa, when I spoke to Captain Ortega earlier, another person was brought into the conversation.”
She looked puzzled. “You mean, like a three-way Skype?”
“I’m not sure if he was patched in or joined like a conference call. Regardless, can you get me in touch with him?”
She looked from her GPS monitors to her keyboard, her fingers tapping the edge of the desk. “I should be able to isolate a third-party signal from the original communication and trace it to a source. If it’s a phone, that would allow me to initiate a call.”
“What else could it be?” he asked.
“Well, there’s always the possibility it was satellite communication, which would be untraceable, or a radio transceiver with the ability to operate as a phone. That would also have no standard callback number.”
“Give it a try, please. And make sure we’re recording at mom’s house and Agent Bassett’s apartment.”
“We’re recording, sir. Give me a second on the trace request.”
The audio feed at Victoria Galer’s house was registering some murmuring, someone talking but far enough away that the microphone couldn’t get any usable audio. The microphone at Agent Bassett’s house was silent.
Five minutes to nine.
Lieutenant Barnes needed a way to keep Travis and Sherry safe without implicating himself.
Unfortunately, the best way he could figure out to manage that, and still be able to leave at the appropriate time, was to tie himself intimately to the investigation.
From the previous day’s interview, he remembered Agent Bassett’s obvious desire to stay with Travis. He assumed Travis must have similar feelings for her. If he could drive a wedge between Travis and Agent Bassett, force the young man to leave her apartment, he could delay the young man’s recapture.
“Dialing the number now, sir. Do you need me to leave again?”
The more witnesses to my diligence to duty, the better, he thought. “That won’t be necessary, Lisa,” he said. “Just don’t say anything.”
“Yes, sir,” she smiled.
“Travers,” the deep voice announced as the phone connection was made.
“Agent Travers, this is Lieutenant Robert Barnes.”
“Yeah, you were on the phone earlier with Captain Ortega. What do you need?”
“It seems like we might be needed to corral our wayward sailors. I’d like to be in on it.”
“No offense, Lieutenant, but I’ve been led to believe you’re strictly non-com. Besides, we’re almost in position, only two miles to go.”
“I know my sailors, Agent. We’re both in a holding pattern until Captain Ortega tells us otherwise. What if we could talk them in?”
There was silence on the line. Barnes knew he was acting out of turn, but he also knew personnel management. Anything he could do to safeguard an asset would be accepted by his superiors. He might know much about the program, but he felt safe in assuming the two were valuable, if only because a lot of money had already been spent. You didn’t put this much surveillance on something worthless. Nothing he’d heard in the brief communication with Captain Ortega indicated a dangerous target. Nothing implied Agent Travers should need to use force.
“Where are the subjects now?” Travers asked.
“Right where we expected them to be,” Lieutenant Barnes answered quickly. “Sherry Anders just arrived at her mother’s house, and Travis Wilkins appears to be at his girlfriend’s apartment.”
“Agent Bassett, right? She’s a piece of work. All right, Lieutenant, we’ll swing by and pick you up outside the commissary. Black Dodge Durango.”
“I’ll be waiting and thank you.”
“Don’t thank me, Lieutenant. If it was any other agent, I’d ignore you and move in regardless of what Captain Ortega said. But Agent Bassett is a real professional. If she’s on the job, we got time.”
The line went dead.
Lisa turned to look at the lieutenant; her eyes said she couldn’t believe what he was doing.
“Lisa, do you have a spare phone I could use? My iPhone took its last drop this morning.”
“Those things are way too fragile. You should stick with a Droid. Much more durable.”
“I’ll take that under advisement.”
“Well sir, I don’t have any spares, but you could use mine. Just so long as, you know, you stay off my Facebook.” She reached under her desk and pulled out a garish red-blue-gold Vera Bradley purse the size of Mary Poppins’ carpet bag. Reaching in, she retrieved a smartphone that was substantially larger than his iPhone. “Actually,” she muttered, “I’m going to go ahead and log out of Facebook. And I’ll remove my security lock, so you can use it whenever.” She pushed places on the screen, slid her finger across various sliders, then handed the phone to him. Thankfully, it was a black-bodied phone in a black case, nothing pink or frilly.
“Thank you, Lisa. As soon as I’m in the car, I’ll call you with the radio frequency so you can keep us patched in.”
Lieutenant Barnes hurried out of Watchtower and down to his car. He felt giddy with a combination of excitement and terror at what he planned to do, but it should work. He repeated that
mantra as he started his car and headed to the commissary, located just outside the main security gate. It should work.
It would work.
5
Travis noticed Angela’s elevated mood immediately, even though his thoughts were turned inward. He responded to her beautiful smile, wrapping his arms around her as she pulled him into the apartment. Lifting her, he relished her soft squeal of delight. He started to say something but was cut off by her mouth covering his. Still holding her a few inches off the ground, Travis returned her kiss, feeling himself grow excited at her urgency, though still unable to match her passion. He felt the thin material of her robe and recognized it as the one he’d given her for her birthday.
He couldn’t put aside the urgency of his visit, however, or the million and one things he wanted to tell her. Her couldn’t put aside the fact that another woman would be calling for him in a little over an hour. He needed to get that out in the open, needed to find a way to explain everything so that she wouldn’t be hurt. With gentle pressure, he managed to disengage his mouth from hers, setting her feet back on the floor.
“I missed you,” she said softly, her brown eyes locked on his. Travis noticed the pile of blankets and pillows on the living room floor, and his first thought was one of suspicion.
She wanted to keep him there!
He discarded that almost immediately, feeling guilty for even thinking it.
Angela couldn’t be a part of it. There was no way.
That moment of doubt was enough to give him the strength to resist temptation, though on any other occasion he would have been carrying her to those cushions, laying her on the floor, already covering her body with kisses.
Would he ever be able to live without wondering who was watching, who was listening?
“Are you all right, baby?” she asked a moment later, when he hadn’t responded to her first comment.
Her question broke Travis free of his contemplations. “I…need to talk to you,” he said.
The tone of his voice told Angela all she needed to know about his mood. He had something serious on his mind, and any further attempt at seduction would probably turn him off. Travis’s gaze wandered to the kitchen, set just to the right of the front door. He spotted the full pot of coffee.
Sensing she’d made the pot in anticipation of his arrival, he offered her a soft smile. “I missed you, too. Don’t think I didn’t.” He ran a trembling hand through his hair, and for the first time Angela noticed the discolored skin beneath his eyes.
“I know you did, baby,” she said, taking his right hand in both of hers, leading him into the kitchen. “Come on, let’s have a cup of coffee and you can tell me what’s on your mind.”
“Thanks,” Travis whispered, following Angela to a stool in the kitchenette. He watched as she poured two cups, noticing the play of her body beneath the almost-sheer robe.
As if feeling his gaze, she turned and smiled at him. Travis manufactured a return smile, though he was sure it looked as fake as it felt. Still, his words were truthful when he said, “You look beautiful today.”
Sitting on a stool next to him, Angela replied, “You say that every time you see me.”
“That’s because you always look beautiful,” he said, relaxing slightly as the familiar game of banter eased his mind.
Watching him over the rim of her coffee cup, Angela said, “So tell me, what’s so important that it makes you want to put off getting with this?”
Travis smiled as he sipped his coffee, then closed his eyes. “You’re probably going to think I’m crazy—” he began.
“Try me.”
“Well, it started yesterday…I think…when I went to work.”
6
Parked outside the commissary, which had only opened a few minutes prior, Lieutenant Barnes waited for a black Dodge Durango to pull up. He considered that he’d never felt conspicuous in his uniform when on or near a military facility, but today he did. He wished for a change of clothes. What did that say about him? Was it practicality that drove his desire, an inherent understanding he was about to engage in an activity where being seen in uniform would be detrimental? Was it guilt at his actions?
Justify them however he wanted, he was disobeying orders. Hell, he was planning to do even more, and all to advance his own career.
In his back-left pocket, the cell phone he’d appropriated from Lisa began to vibrate. The screen showed an incoming call from Watchtower. The bottom showed a green circle on the left and a red circle on the right. Touching his thumb to the green circle, he slid it to the right. Placing the phone to his head, he said, “Hello?”
“Lieutenant, this is Lisa—God it feels weird to be calling my own phone to talk to someone else—but I had to call you.”
“That’s fine, Lisa. The agents haven’t arrived yet.”
“Okay, but you should know, our mikes are picking up a lot of chatter at both locations.”
A chill touched the back of his neck, like a premonition of bad news.
“Anything in particular?” he asked.
“I’ll say! Sherry is telling her mom everything she knows, or thinks she knows, and Travis just finished spilling his story to his girlfriend. Now it sounds like she knew all along, and she’s talking about her past. It’s like a really twisted soap opera, and I wish I had video, cause pretty soon some evil twin is gonna bust in and—”
Barnes stopped listening. He could work with this. He’d already managed to delay the agents by making them come get him. If Agent Bassett was really going full repentance, he could push her to make Travis leave by telling her to keep him there.
“—find out he wasn’t really dead all along,” Lisa finished.
“Sounds great,” he replied. “Lisa, when I call you from Travers’ vehicle, I need you to act like it’s the first time you’ve reported this to me.” His mind spun, working through the timeline he needed to create. “Can you playback recorded audio while still recording what’s happening?”
“Buffer it? Sure.”
“Yes, exactly. Buffer it.”
“But sir, someone can compare time stamps later.”
“That won’t matter. I’ll order you to start from the beginning and override your statement that it’s been going on for a few minutes. You just weren’t able to reach me when it started.”
“I…that should work. Thanks, sir. I’ll wait for your call.”
The phone beeped to indicate the call had ended.
Thinking quickly, seeing a large, dark SUV pulling off the road and into the commissary parking lot, Lieutenant Barnes located the phone’s dial pad. He keyed in the phone number he’d memorized earlier and spoke briefly. He disconnected the call and gripped the phone tightly in his hand as the government SUV pulled up beside him.
“Lieutenant Barnes?” asked the large black man in the driver’s seat, his left arm resting on the driver’s window, bicep stretching the thin material of his black T-shirt. His voice was just as deep in person, but with more resonance, a Michael Clarke Duncan-esque basso profundo.
“Agent Travers,” Lieutenant Barnes said.
“You’re up front with me. Get in.”
Chapter 11
Sherry
1
“I didn’t believe it when they told me you’d been killed in a car accident,” Victoria Galer said. “Not my Sherry, I kept thinking.”
Sherry listened in silence, letting her mother talk now that they’d recovered from the shock of finding each other alive. They sat at a small, round, blond-wood table in Victoria’s kitchen. Though it was a modest-sized house, it didn’t have a formal dining room. There’d been a larger table here when Sherry was younger. But as birds left the nest, less eating space was required. Sherry wasn’t sure when this table made its way into the house, but it seemed a fitting metaphor for how the space around you seemed larger when there were fewer people to share it with.
Sherry felt a sudden and desperate need to talk to Travis. This one simple act, confro
nting a portion of her false memories, proving them false, seemed to have blasted the rest of them right out of her head. She could account for every moment of her actions up until the end of Boot Camp. She could remember everything from her first day of Avionics School in Pensacola. What didn’t make sense was the time period in between.
New Boot Camp graduates were granted a two week leave period, not so long as to make them forget their newly learned discipline, but long enough to visit with family and friends before heading off to wherever their schools were located. The time didn’t add up. Sherry knew she’d entered Boot Camp during the first week of June 2012. She graduated near the end of July, the same year. Those memories were contiguous, without any fuzzy replacement images. But she hadn’t reached Pensacola until April of 2016.
Where had those four years gone?
Maybe she had gotten injured somehow.
Could she have been in a coma?
And if she was, why tell her mother she was dead?
Sherry didn’t know enough about the human mind—not much at all, really—and she didn’t know anything about controlling it. She had no idea what was possible, and she didn’t care. What mattered was that it had been done to her. Someone had screwed with her mind! She couldn’t let that go.
She’d never been physically assaulted and had never been forced to engage in a sex act. She felt for those women, but she’d never understood how powerless being a victim felt. Was it like this?
No, she decided a moment later. This was horrible, but it didn’t compare to being raped. Whatever had been done to her, she’d managed to break free. A rape victim could never undo the assault.
