by David Archer
“I’d say you do whatever you can to cooperate,” Allison said. “The idea is to draw him into a position that will allow us to identify him. You can’t do that if you don’t keep his confidence. That being said, it may well be impossible to keep him happy without blowing your cover. Somehow I doubt he expects you to bend over for him, but try not to burn the bridge. As fragile as it is, it’s all we’ve got.”
“Understood,” Noah said. “On the other hand, if anybody taps my computer, they could conceivably see the messages I get from the car forums. Should I keep logging into them?”
“I thought of that,” Molly said quickly. “I’ve added a subroutine to all of those websites that will relay those messages to Neil through the game system. He can let you see them when you get a chance, or you can work out a code so he can relay them to you by text message.”
“That’ll be easy,” Neil said. “I’ve already got one in mind.”
“Also,” Allison went on, speaking to Noah, “you’ll be keeping your own cell phone number for this mission. That way, if the mole were to decide to call you, he’ll get through.” Allison glanced around at their faces, then nodded once. “I think that covers most everything,” she said. “Kate Madison has been thoroughly briefed on what’s going on. She will appear to be somewhat hostile to you at first, but that’s because she never talked about her brother. The hostility is to avoid it seeming odd that a brother turns up all of a sudden, but she’ll be referring to you as the black sheep of her family. Her position will be that she only offered you the chance to come to town because she once promised her mother she’d try to watch out for you. You won’t be socializing with her a lot at first, but she’s been instructed to become friendlier once Sarah arrives.”
Noah got to his feet, and the rest followed suit. “All right,” he said. “I think we should start with the acting coach. How soon can I go to see him?”
Allison grinned. “He’s expecting you in an hour.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The tight time schedule meant that Noah had to jump out of the Hummer when they got back to the house, give Sarah a quick kiss, and drive off in the Corvette. He remembered the way to the ID Development building and was glad there was a shortcut he could take. It was a winding country road, but it was well paved and the Corvette was built to handle the curves. He made it just in time, although the guard at the security gate in front of the building actually jumped when Noah skidded to a stop in front of him.
“Noah!” The man behind the desk seemed genuinely delighted to see Noah walk into his office. “I was honestly excited when they told me I was going to be working with you again. How have you been?”
“I’m fine,” Noah said as they shook hands. “I got married since I saw you last.”
Gary Mitchell chuckled. “Yes, I heard. Seems you’re the first team ever to involve a married couple, and the rumor mill went crazy throughout the entire organization. I understand a couple of other teams are exploring some possibilities along that line.”
“Well, I wish them the best. Where do we start?”
Gary paused for a second, then remembered that Noah didn’t think like most people and wasn’t as much into small talk. “I’ve been studying the history they’ve manufactured for you, and it’s quite extensive. Most of what we’re going to do is simply rehearse you in details of the background for your character. You’ll need to know all the answers and be able to come up with them quickly if questioned. There is enough information in public records to allow someone to check you out, and you need to know every detail.”
“Right, I understood that. How do we proceed on this?”
Gary grinned. “Have you ever been hypnotized?” he asked.
“Actually, yes,” Noah said. “It was during my psych evaluation when I was being court-martialed, before I was recruited. The psychiatrist said I was a perfect subject, because of my level of concentration.”
“That’s excellent. One of the techniques I’ve been using lately to help prepare our agents for deep cover missions like this is to put them under and then simply play a recording of the information they need to learn. Two or three sessions are usually enough to embed the information deeply, and while it won’t change who you are at all, it will enable you to recall that information instantly when you need to be in character. Would you mind?”
Noah shrugged. “Not at all,” he said. “I’m open to anything that helps me accomplish the mission.”
Gary rose from his chair and had Noah follow him into another room, this one much smaller. There was a recliner in the room, and he told Noah to take a seat, then stepped back out himself. A moment later, Noah heard Gary’s voice come over a speaker on each side of his head in the recliner.
“Now, the most efficient method of trance induction we found is to simply have you relax in the chair while I play a recording. This is an advanced hypnosis technique that uses rapid redirection of your concentration, so you’ll find yourself becoming slightly disoriented. At that point, we can induce the trance and begin the session.”
Noah didn’t reply, and a moment later he heard Gary’s voice begin to speak softly. Initially, it was simply instructions to relax, but then there were several phrases that seemed almost nonsensical. Relaxing in the chair with his eyes closed, Noah began to feel that he was being gently buffeted from side to side, and then he heard Gary tell him to sleep.
At that point, a new recording began to play. This one was more like a second-person narrative, however, as if the speaker were trying to remind Noah of facts from his past.
“You are Rex Madison. You were born twenty-six years ago in the town of Zanesville, Ohio. Your father was Charles Madison, who worked as a bricklayer for several different construction companies as you were growing up. Your mother was Carolyn Madison, a nurse. You have one sister, Katherine, who is two years older and whom you have always called Katie. You attended Grant Elementary school in Zanesville, followed by Webster Middle School and Zanesville High School. Your father was a construction worker who was often gone, and you and your sister were forced to fend for yourselves since your mother worked many long hours and was often drunk when she was at home. This led you to a troubled youth, and your first arrest came when you were thirteen years old. The charge was theft of a motorcycle, but it was dismissed and you were released to the custody of your mother. You were arrested again two months later for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute, your first foray into dealing drugs. You spent three months in a juvenile detention facility for that crime and were then released. You were arrested again only one month later for the same charge, and this time you spent a year in the same facility. Upon your release, you were offered the opportunity to join a local gang and began your true criminal career. You dropped out of high school at sixteen and continued with the gang, dealing drugs and gradually moving into other areas of crime. You were arrested several more times over the next few years, but the charges did not stick until five years ago, when a DEA agent that had infiltrated the gang was found dead of a single gunshot wound to his head. You, along with several other members of the gang, were arrested and prosecuted for conspiracy to operate a continuing criminal enterprise. Several of you accepted a plea bargain in return for a shorter sentence. You served five years in the federal prison at Beaumont, Texas.”
The voice droned on for more than an hour, with no visible sign from Noah that he was hearing anything. When it ended, however, and Gary gave him the command to waken, Noah was able to respond instantly to a series of questions that had been prepared.
“Where did you attend elementary school?” Gary asked him.
“It was Grant Elementary, back in Zanesville,” Noah said.
“When did you have your first run-in with the law?”
“Um, back when I was thirteen. I ripped off some guy’s motorbike and took it for a joyride. Charges got tossed out, though.”
Gary fired questions at him for a half an hour, then shook his head and grinned.
“You are probably the most natural actor I have ever met,” he said. “I fed you a bunch of dry facts, and you have already developed a personality to fit them.”
Noah nodded. “I’ve always been able to do that,” he said. “When I was a kid, I had a friend who figured out what was wrong with me and told me that I would have to be able to pretend to be normal unless I wanted to get locked up somewhere. I learned to watch people and try to act like them. Now, when I think of the character I need to portray in a mission, I usually base it off someone I knew or studied back then. Rex Madison reminds me of a guy I grew up with, so I’ve automatically adopted his personality for this.”
“Well, your perception is amazing. I’ve actually seen video of Rex Madison, some old police interviews, and you’re coming across so much like him right now that it’s blowing my mind.” He stood up and stretched. “I think that’s enough for our first day. Let’s start again tomorrow morning around nine, and we’ll go for a longer session. Tomorrow we’ll be talking about particular instances in your life, things that are on record in different places. They’ll be useful if the people you’re dealing with check you out and then want to compare what they learn with the things you say.”
“Nine o’clock,” Noah said. “I’ll be here.”
The two men shook hands, and Noah left the building, then headed over toward R&D. He wasn’t sure what kind of equipment he might need and wanted to sit down and discuss some possibilities with Wally. R&D was only half a mile from ID Development, so it took him only a couple of minutes to get there.
The security guard on the gate checked Noah’s ID and looked closely at his face, then waved him inside. He parked in front of the building and got out of his car, then walked inside and went through a second security check of his ID. Once the guard there was satisfied, he picked up the phone and notified Wally that Camelot had arrived and wished to see him.
Seconds later, running footsteps could be heard coming up the hallway, and Wally burst into the lobby. “Camelot!” he yelled, sliding to a stop just in front of Noah. He grabbed Noah’s hand and pumped it up and down, clapped him on the shoulder, and told him to come on down to his office.
It was the first time Noah had ever entered Wally’s office, and he was mildly surprised to find it looking more like a workshop. There were several tables inside, each of which was just about covered with scribbled notes or handmade cardboard or plastic models of things the intelligent man had thought up. There was one small desk and only two chairs, both of which looked like rejects from someone else’s office.
Noah sat in the one beside the desk while Wally sat down in the other. “Camelot, what can I do for you?”
“Are you aware of the mission I’m going out on?” Noah asked.
Wally nodded excitedly. “Yes, yes, Allison told me about it. This is gonna be exciting. I don’t suppose you’ve got any ideas yet, ideas on how you want to handle things?”
“Not really,” Noah said. “I only just learned about the mission this morning, and I’ve just had my first training session on the character I’ll be using. I really wanted to pick your brain a bit. The way I understand it, there may be as many as a few dozen people I’m going to have to eliminate. I’m hoping you might be able to come up with some kind of techno-wizardry to help me accomplish this.”
“Wow, so many? And from what I gathered, you’re gonna have to bide your time a while and then take them out pretty much all at once, right?”
“That’s how it sounds.”
Wally leaned back in his chair and looked up at the ceiling, steepling his fingers under his chin. “A big bunch of people, and they all have to die at around the same time, but you may not be able to get them all together in one place. Wow, this is going to be a tricky one. Let me think, let me think.”
Noah sat quietly for almost ten minutes while E & E’s resident evil genius let his brain consider the problem. Except for the slow and steady rise and fall of his chest, there was no other sign that Wally was even alive, let alone aware that he had a guest in the office.
Suddenly, Wally sat forward again and clapped his hands together. “I’ve got one,” he said. “Remember the 3-D printer I gave you once? The one that can make just about anything out of some super-high-powered explosives?”
“Yes, and I’d thought about that myself. Is it still available?”
“Oh, hell, yes,” Wally said. “You’re the only team who has actually used it, but you did so with such great success on that mission that I actually had a couple of extras built. We also found ways to make its products even more functional. For example, we added some designs into its database that are extremely useful, like cell phone cases, pens, sunglasses, belt buckles, lots of stuff that you could make and give to people. You give somebody a pen—it looks like something fancy you could buy in a store, but it’s really just a case made of our explosive with all the guts from a real pen inside. Or you give them a pair of sunglasses, then when the time comes it explodes and takes their entire head off. And the new detonator uses a microburst of radio waves to set it off—it’s basically just a microchip. Tiny.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “Of course, you can also make bigger things. The latest version fits into a footlocker-sized case, but the top comes off and all four sides fold down, so the actual device expands to the point that you can make something as big as the fender of a small car. I think it’s up to four and a half feet by two feet by three feet, something like that.”
Noah looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. “I definitely want that,” he said. “Allison suggested that anything you send me should be disguised as some of Neil’s computer equipment. Is that possible?”
Wally burst out laughing. “Neil is a computer geek,” he said. “You know who buys fancy 3-D printers? Computer geeks. I doubt anybody would really think much about him having one, even a big expensive one like this. Allison says you’re gonna be there for a while, right? All you gotta do is have him make lots of things you can give away to the people you want to eliminate. Oh, and those new microdetonators actually receive cell signals, now, so you can let them wander around for weeks and then set them all off at once by simply sending the proper detonation code. The code is an encrypted string of characters—the odds of them being set off accidentally would be like the odds of a black hole opening on the earth and only capturing one person. About as close to impossible as you can imagine.”
“Wait,” Noah said. “You mean, I could have Neil make stuff that I could give to these people, things they might keep with them all the time, and then set them off all at once? If it uses cell signals, what’s the range limitation? How close do I have to be to set them off?”
“Noah, you could be at the South Pole. The detonation transmitter is built into a special satellite phone. You dial one number, and every detonator that has been activated will receive the signal. If you have programmed them all to a single detonation code, they all go off at once, no matter where they are in the world. As long as there is a cell signal that can reach them, they’re gonna go boom!”
Noah stared at the geeky, balding man for a couple of seconds, then nodded. “That might just be the answer,” he said. “What other kind of ideas would you have?”
Wally grinned, and Noah had a sudden mental image of a shark. “Well, let’s think about it,” Wally said. “You’re going to be dealing with criminals, and most of them are probably going to be armed. What about guns? We’ve got one of the 3-D printers set up here, and it can make perfect replicas of any gun. They would actually work, actually fire, and yet the entire frame would be made of explosives. The detonator would be embedded in a thick part, so it would go off when you sent the signal. The one I send with Neil could make them, too.”
Noah nodded but almost seemed to frown. “That could be good, but I was actually thinking of something not related to the printer,” he said. “Would you have any other ideas how I might approach the problem?”
“Oh, oh, I see,” Wally said. “Well
, the first thing that comes to mind is religion.”
“Religion? I’m not sure I understand.”
“Well, not religion per se,” Wally said. “I’m thinking of something along the lines of a particular philosophy that you might introduce to this group of criminals. If we could come up with something that they would embrace, you could probably arrange to have the ones you want to target attend something like a meeting, maybe a training seminar. Get them into the habit, and then you would be able to gather them all together in one location.”
Noah narrowed his eyes and thought about what Wally had said. “I think I see your point,” he said. “I’m just not sure what kind of philosophy or idea might work. If you come up with any suggestions, please let me know.”
“Oh, I will, I will. Wow, Noah, this is almost like I get to be part of your team. I get to help brainstorm a little bit and maybe help you come up with your plan. I don’t think I’ve ever had the chance to do that sort of thing before.”
“Wally, I suspect that if anybody can, it’s you. I’ll be looking forward to any ideas you come up with. I understand I’ll be leaving a week from today, so I don’t have a whole lot of time, but if you call, I’ll come.”
The two men shook hands, and Noah left the building, climbed into his Corvette, and headed for home. He didn’t push the car as hard this time, but the shortcut still got him home in just over half an hour.
He pulled into his yard and noticed that Neil’s Hummer was parked over at his house, rather than at the trailer. Marco’s Mustang was sitting beside it, and he spotted Sarah, Renée, Marco, and Neil all sitting at the picnic table he kept in his front yard. He parked the car and got out and wasn’t surprised when Sarah ran over to throw her arms around him.
“I missed you,” she said. “Do you realize that, except for when I’ve been going to see Doc Parker, or when you had to go out last night, we haven’t been apart for more than a few seconds since you found me in China?”
