In the Grey

by Christian, Claudia Hall

  Safe and sound in her own warm bed, she closed her eyes.

  The sound rose again: “Awaken. Awaken. Awaken. Awaken. Awaken.” The chorus had grown to thousands. The word “Awaken” folded upon itself as the same voice repeated it over and over again.

  She felt the infrasound vibrate the bed she was laying on. Her teeth rattled with its intensity. And then, the words changed.

  The voice repeated: “Your assignment awaits.” The phrase formed a backbeat to “Wait to be assigned.”

  The phone rang.

  Her eyes popped open. Her heart pounded in her chest.

  John’s hand went to the phone.

  “No!”

  Alex jumped from bed. Maggie scooted into her crate. Alex ran to the phone.

  “Do not answer it,” Alex yelled. “Don’t touch it. Whatever you do, please, don’t answer it.”

  She yanked the phone cord from the wall. John’s worried cobalt-blue eyes looked almost black in their dark bedroom. She held the phone cord against her chest.

  “Please,” she begged. “Whatever you do. Don’t answer the phone.”

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  Unable to come up with the words, she shook her head.

  She went to the rooming house dividing wall. She raised her fists against the wall.

  Bam! Bam! Bam!

  A few seconds later, she heard the reply.

  Bam!

  Max, her identical twin brother, had heard it too.

  “What is it?” he whispered.

  “Awaken,” she said.

  “Oh my God.”

  Even in the dark, she could read the horror on his face. Her cell phone rang only a fraction of a second before his rang.

  “Don’t answer it,” she said.

  “How is this possible?” The tone of his voice spoke his horror.

  “How is anything possible?” she said.

  “You’re sure?”

  She nodded.

  “What does this mean?” he asked.

  “They’ve been awakened.”

  “I know that,” he said. “What does it mean for us?”

  Beep, beep, beep!

  She ran to her phone and read the text message there.

  “It’s Nancy,” she said. “They’re on their way. Can you?”

  He hopped out of bed and began pulling on his clothing.

  “I . . .” she started.

  “Go,” he said. “I’ll call the wives. Go. Get to Wyatt before . . .”

  She ran to the door of the balcony that ran across the back of the house.

  “Love?” he asked.

  She turned to look at him.

  “You’re naked.”

  John’s arms encircled her. His surgeon trained hands stroked her behind. She gave him a crooked smile.

  “I wish,” he kissed her lips. “Go!”

  She gave him a soft smile and ran to the closet. She pulled on a pair of fleece pants, her heavy snow boots, and a thick fleece sweater. When she came out of the closet, he was gone.

  She ran to the door. For the briefest moment, she stopped to look at the safe, silent comfort that was her life. She closed her eyes to soak up the love and life that lingered in the air of this room. With a nod of her head, Alex ran across the cedar balcony to Max’s bedroom. She raised her hand to knock; he opened it before her fist fell. His nearly identical face was etched with the same fear. They pressed their foreheads against each other and hugged.

  “What did Wyatt get?”

  “Your assignment awaits,” Max said.

  “Did you feel the . . . ?”

  “Infrasound, yes.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I locked him in the bathroom.”

  Max stepped back and let her into his bedroom.

  FFFFF

  Friday, early morning

  November 5 – 5:40 a.m. MDT

  Buckley Air Force Base

  Aurora, Colorado

  “Attention!” Sergeant Dusty called.

  Alex moved to the front of the room. She looked out at the worried faces of her Fey Team. Her father’s team filtered into the chairs in the back of the room. The rest of her father’s team was listening in via computer video feed.

  “At ease. There is much to get through and no time to do it,” Alex said. “Thank you for getting here so quickly. I know that it’s snowing, and the traffic is a bear. At least it was for me.”

  A general grumble of agreement went through the room.

  “First for my team,” Alex looked up to see two more of her father’s team move into the back of the room. “Report?”

  “Sir?” US Marine Sergeant Margaret Peaches raised her hand.

  “Yes, Sergeant?”

  “Where is Major Walters?” Margaret asked. “He has tracked this project from the beginning and . . . shouldn’t we wait for him?”

  “Major Walters cannot be with us this morning,” Alex said.

  “What?” US Army Captain Troy Olivas asked from the middle of the room.

  “Should I go get him?” US Air Force Captain Zack “the Jakker” Jakkman stood up. “Where is he?”

  “Major Walters is safe,” Alex said. “I will tell you what I know. First, I need to know the results of your efforts.”

  “Sir?” US Navy Captain Vince Hutchins stood up from his seat. “At Major Walter’s request, I’ve taken command of the project and collected the results of this morning’s efforts.”

  “And?” Alex asked.

  “The team was able to reach about sixty percent of the subjects in question through the phone tree,” Vince said. “The others either didn’t answer their phones or weren’t where we expected them to be.”

  “And those we suspect of being the greatest threat?”

  “We were only able to reach about twenty percent or so,” Vince said.

  “How many?” Alex asked.

  “About a hundred,” Vince said. “Give or take a few.”

  Alex rubbed her forehead and looked away. She could almost hear everyone’s anxiety rise a notch. She glanced at the apparition of her best friend Sergeant Jesse Abreu. He gestured for her to get on with it, and she nodded.

  “It’s less than I thought,” Alex turned back to look at the room. “More than I’d hoped.”

  Alex tried to give a reassuring smile.

  “Are there other results?” Alex asked.

  “About a third were given calls to activation,” Vince said. “I have a list of their assignments. If I may, sir, what concerned me was how many were triggered but told to wait. It’s almost as if . . .”

  Vince flushed and looked down.

  “You may speak freely,” Alex said.

  “It sounds crazy, but it’s almost as if he wanted an army of talented operatives waiting in the wings,” Vince said.

  “Like the Star Wars drone armies,” US Marine Sergeant Michael “MJ” Scully, Jr. said.

  “Or Saruman creating Uruk-hai in Lord of the Rings,” Captain Christopher “White Boy” Blanco said. “You know, those big black goblin man-dudes with the white hands on their faces?”

  White Boy put his hand on his head to demonstrate.

  “Orcs,” Troy said. “They’re half-Orcs.”

  Alex shook her head at Troy and White Boy to stop their tangent. They looked at each other and shrugged.

  “I agree,” Vince gave a sly smile. “Except this army is human, and very real, not half-Orcs at all.”

  The team chuckled.

  “An army of seasoned professionals on the side; so noted,” Alex said. “Thank you, Captain Hutchins. Anything else?”

  “I think it’s worth noting that our efforts at contacting the subjects last summer were effective,” Vince said. “Almost everyone we’ve spoken to so far was aware that they might receive a phone call, voice imprint, email, or other contact. They are following the protocol we set out including the face-to-face contact via the video feed.”

  “So we’re certain we actually contacted who w
e think we contacted,” Alex said.

  “Yes, sir,” Vince said.

  “I’ve received fourteen emails with video feed and voice imprint data since the start of this meeting,” said Alex’s assistant, US Army Sergeant Alexander Roger Ulysses “Dusty” Cummings III.

  “An army of seasoned professionals,” Alex repeated. “This is good.”

  “I think we can expect to hear from most of the people on our list,” Vince said.

  Alex nodded. She knew his words should reassure her, but the gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach didn’t ease.

  “Do we have a sense of assignments?” Alex asked.

  “Assassinations of key players in a variety of projects, including this one,” Vince said. “Royce noticed that each assignment is a perfect fit for both the operative and the target.”

  “How so?” Alex asked.

  “Royce?” Vince asked.

  “What I meant was . . . ,” US Navy Chief Petty Officer Royce Tubman stood up. He glanced around the room and cleared his throat. Alex gave him a reassuring nod. “It seemed like this individual did a lot of research or knew a lot about each of the operatives. Like one of my jarheads. His assignment was to engage a guy during his morning run. You know, run by him. Pop. Pop. But he got his carbon running blade three weeks ago. His first. He’s been out every day since he got the blade, but how’d he know my guy was running? How’d he know the target ran to work on the Custis Trail? The target had just started training for a Triathlon. He picked up running to work less than two weeks ago. We’re talking thousands of targets, thousands of operatives. The level of detail is . . .”

  “Unnerving,” Troy said.

  Alex glanced around the room. Her team’s heads nodded in agreement. She glanced at her father’s team and saw blank faces and staring eyes.

  “Eniac has planned this for a long time,” Vince said.

  “Or it came together fast,” US Army Captain Matthew Mac Clenaghan, Alex’s second-in-command, said. She gestured to him and he joined her at the front.

  “Or both,” Alex said. “He seems to have access to a depth of information that . . .”

  “And the girls?” the deadly assassin who went by the name “Mammy” asked from her kitchen on Harkers Island. “Did you hear from all of the girls?”

  Her father’s team members shifted uncomfortably.

  “Leena? Margaret?” Alex asked. “For the sake of the other team, can you give them a full report?”

  “Yes, sir,” US Petty Officer Leena Carmichael and US Marine Sergeant Margaret Peaches said in near unison. They came to the front and stood next to Alex and Matthew.

  “Ma’am,” Leena nodded to Mammy on the video screen. “With the help of Martha, one of our base telephone staff, and the video chat room, we have seen all ninety-four women this morning. They have, to a person, been activated but not assigned.”

  “There were a whole lot more kids than that,” one of the men on her father’s team said from the back of the room.

  “As you may know, sir, the children were given a suicide protocol should any memory of their involvement in the project return.” Leena’s words were hard and bitter. Matthew put a hand on her forearm to steady her. She glanced at him and nodded.

  “Sir, we found that only a small percentage of the children survived childhood,” Matthew said. “Those who survived were often prey to addiction, homelessness, violent relationships, murder, and suicide.”

  “Ninety-four women survived,” Margaret said.

  “But . . . ,” the man started.

  “None of the boys made it,” Leena said.

  “We’ve tracked every name, birth date, and social security number,” Matthew said. “Our team has personally visited every gravesite, documented the deaths in detail, and spoken to the remaining members of their families. We’ve worked with a prominent therapist who specializes in the treatment of mind control survivors to make certain we did not miss anything or anyone.”

  “Because they’re younger than most of the subjects, we believe the women to be the greatest threat,” Alex said. “And, without clear project records, they are our greatest wild card. Petty Officer Carmichael and Sergeant Peaches have forged bonds with the women, as well as connected them with each other.”

  “Most of the women had already contacted at least one other woman in their group before we spoke to them this morning,” Leena said. “Their therapist has also been informed.”

  “Maybe it’s time to start at the beginning,” a man’s voice said from the doorway. “I’d sure as hell like to hear it.”

  Alex looked up to see Major Joseph Walters. MJ got up from his seat and hugged Joseph. One at a time, her team acknowledged Joseph with a handshake or a hug as he came into the room. Alex hugged him when he reached her.

  “Who would like to start?” Alex gestured to her father’s team. “My team has had a lot of questions about the mind control programs and, as you know, the original records are nonexistent.”

  The blank faces of grey-haired bureaucrats, politicians, a few school teachers, and several old-school spies stared back at her. Veterans of the Cold War, among others, these men were committed to taking their secrets to the grave.

  “I’ll do it,” Benjamin Doucet, Alex’s friend, mentor, and biological father, said as he entered the room.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Alex’s partner, Homeland Security Agent Arthur “Raz” Rasmussen, came in behind him. Ben patted Joseph’s back and hugged Alex.

  “Your father is right behind me,” Ben said. “Colin’s with him.”

  Prior to retiring, Benjamin had been the most accomplished intelligence operative in the world. He looked out over the team he’d helped Alex create, and then glanced at Alex. She gave him a “go ahead” nod.

  “I think it’s hard for people now to imagine what it was like after World War II,” Ben said. “There were two world wars in a little more than thirty years, seventy million dead, and the brutality . . . I’m not making excuses for them. I’m saying the roots of this program are grounded in those wars.”

  “And our very real understanding of what men can do to other men,” an elderly man said in a clipped British accent. “I was at the liberation of Bergen-Belsen. There’s nothing anyone could have ever said that would have prepared me. I was seventeen, and more than sixty years later I still smell it in my nightmares.”

  “Captain Leatherby is correct,” Ben said. “There is no way for us to understand the depth of despair that led to this . . . horrible . . .”

  Ben glanced at Alex. She used Jesse’s gesture to encourage Ben to get on with it.

  “Yes, get on with it,” Ben said. “In the early 1950s, the US government began psychological and medical testing on individuals. What happened to an individual’s psyche under torture? What did mind altering drugs do to the will of a person? Was it possible to program an average citizen to do your bidding?”

  “The biggest threat to democracy is a population that is unable to think freely,” a man from her father’s team said.

  “Yes,” Ben said. “That was the ‘why.’ We know of one hundred and fifty distinct projects. We estimate there were thousands. Mind control projects were officially sanctioned by the US government in 1953, and theoretically eliminated in 1973. For twenty years, adults, sometimes without their permission, and more than a few children, were tested with the singular goal of researching the limits of mind control. There was a less well-known project which involved programming individuals, including children, to carry out agency priority tasks.

  “To give you an idea of the results . . .”

  A man at the back of the room cleared his throat, and Ben stopped talking. Ben and the man glared at each other.

  “You may as well say it,” said the man who had so many names they elected to call him “the Mister” from the conference call line. “There’s no documentation, so we’ll never know for certain.”

  “Don’t let that old buzzard unnerve you, honey,” Mam
my said. “He’s been on my list for a long, long time.”

  The man raised an eyebrow and looked away from Ben. There was nothing good about being on any list Mammy kept.

  “The Mister is correct,” Ben said. “There is no documentation, so what I’m about to tell you comes from personal interviews which are prone to . . . inaccuracies.”

  A heavy silence fell over the room.

  “Ken Kesey, the author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, participated in the program at Stanford,” Ben said. “Sirhan Sirhan claimed to have been a participant of an agency program. Consistent with the results of the program, he has no memory of the day in question and no memory of killing Robert Kennedy. Moreover, he currently has no memory of confessing nor the contents of his confession.”

  “Kaczynski participated from 1959 to 1962 when he was a student at Harvard,” said another member of her father’s team. “Lee Harvey Oswald was in the Marines at the time the program was in full swing.”

  “Crime boss, James Whitey Bulger,” Trece said.

  “There’s evidence that Jonestown was a CIA mind control test site,” MJ said.

  “Mark Chapman, who killed John Lennon, has said he was a part of the program,” White Boy said.

  “Manson,” Royce said.

  “Jeffrey R. MacDonald was in the 6th SF at Fort Bragg,” Troy said.

  “James Earl Ray was at Leavenworth when they were doing testing there,” a member of her father’s team said.

  “Before we get too far afield,” Ben said. “It’s possible to line up every known problem personality, serial murderer, psychopath, or assassin, and point to this program. To my mind, that only indicates the breadth and scope of the program. It seems like everyone was connected to this program at one point or another. The actual records from 1953 to 1973 were destroyed on the orders of my mentor, Richard Helm.”

  “The team has wondered why he destroyed the records,” Alex said.

  “He said that he was concerned for the privacy of the participants,” Ben said. “The records were destroyed right after the Watergate break-in became public knowledge. I personally believe the records were destroyed at the request of the president. At the time, the director ran the operations of the agency, but the president was the top executive of the CIA. I will tell you that Mr. Helm never, in all my years of knowing him, changed his reason for destroying the records. Did he ever contradict himself to anyone else?”