The Smiling Man Conspiracy (Evils of this World Book 2)

by C. J. Sears

  Wiping away the spittle, Finch retorted, “If that’s the case, then how is it we captured you without a hitch? If you’re so important, why did no one stop us?”

  “I…don’t know.”

  She looked deflated. They were getting somewhere. Finch could feel it.

  “Why did you need the Lone Oak parasite?”

  Conroy’s mind spun like a top, mulling over what Finch had said, but she responded to Kasey’s question.

  “It’s a necessary component of the formula. Without it, what we’re doing would be impossible.”

  “What is this formula? Why do you need so many human test subjects?”

  Conroy’s reaction was robotic, as if she’d rehearsed it as a pitch. “The Founder’s Formula represents the next generation of ground warfare. Imagine a normal soldier. He gets into a skirmish, panics, and abandons his comrades. They die. With this formula, we can create a new breed of soldier: one that obeys and executes all commands, free of mercy or cowardice. He is concerned only with the task he has been given. Every country will line up to buy this one-of-a-kind product.”

  “What, like some kind of mind-controlled super-soldier?”

  “Yes. But we’re having trouble with what we call the master-slave relationship. The Lone Oak parasite is an organism designed to bond with its host on a symbiotic level. It requires a hierarchy of multiple infected. This is too impractical. So we isolated the control gene and have integrated it with other, more controversial measures. We underestimated the sheer importance of the hive mind and its leader.”

  A hypothesis had been forming in Finch’s mind since Sinclair’s execution. With this news of a Founder’s Formula, now was the time to voice it.

  “Is the Esoteric Order of Ein Geist involved in this?”

  Conroy awoke from her dispassionate, automated speech. It was if she saw her captors clearly for the first time.

  “You must be Finch,” she said.

  “I want the truth.”

  “You are definitely Llewyn Finch,” she said, laughing. “You want to know the score? The cult is very much dead. But not all of its contributors have forgotten their ultimate goal. One remains.”

  “The Smiling Man.”

  “Precisely. He has deep pockets. His fingers are in every honey pot you can think of. I got as close as anyone has and I don’t know his true name.”

  “Where is he keeping the abductees?” Kasey asked, making numerous notes on her phone.

  “In Fairvale. There’s an abandoned manor near an old limestone cave. The tests are being run tonight. But I warn you now, agents, that what you face won’t be easy to kill. Many of the byproducts of our earlier experimentation roam the facility and they are deadly.”

  Rossiter tapped on the glass. He must’ve found something in Conroy’s files.

  “One more question,” said Finch as Kasey waited by the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Why did you need federal employees? Why use Sinclair?”

  “I would’ve thought it was obvious. Who better to indoctrinate into a super-soldier program than ex-military?”

  Satisfied, Finch left with Kasey to speak with the director. A guard took his place in the room.

  Rossiter and Lamarck clustered by the mirror, deep in discussion about the future of BOPAC. For old pals, the conversation didn’t sound too friendly.

  Finch interrupted their quiet tiff. “We find anything in the data?”

  “We’re piecing it together,” the director said, casting a look at Lamarck as if it was his fault the process was taking so long. “Nothing concrete yet.”

  Kasey shook her head. “Shame. How much longer?”

  “We don’t know. And it gets worse,” Rossiter said. “John Wesley Herman is dead.”

  “What?” Finch asked. “How?”

  Lamarck answered. “Poison. Someone laced the haloperidol he was taking with cyanide.”

  “But he was surrounded by guards.”

  “Yes,” said Lamarck. “Could’ve been one of them. Sloppy work all around, Sam.”

  Rossiter restrained his anger at his friend’s remark. “I’ll be more careful who I trust in the future, Phil.”

  “Make sure that you are. The consequences if you aren’t…well, I don’t have to tell you about them.”

  A woman screamed next door. Finch glanced through the two-way mirror. He couldn’t see Conroy, but he knew it must’ve been her.

  The guard shoved something into her mouth.

  “Son of a bitch,” Finch yelled as he ran, beating Kasey, Rossiter, and Lamarck out the door and into the interrogation room.

  He yanked the guard off of her and handed him to Rossiter.

  “He forced her to bite down,” Kasey said, kneeling next to Conroy’s convulsing body.

  “Who’s the Smiling Man?” Finch demanded, knowing it was already too late to save her life.

  Lifeless eyes were her final words of warning. She was right. He was everywhere.

  “I’ve never seen this man before,” Rossiter told them. “I didn’t hire him. Who let you in?”

  “He did,” said the guard, pointing at Finch.

  The director shoved the guard hard against the wall. “No. That’s not what I mean. Who let you into the building?”

  The guard said nothing this time.

  “Pretend to be mute all you want,” Rossiter said, handcuffing the traitor, “but we’ll find out.”

  The director turned to his two agents. “That’s the last time they beat us. You two are on the next flight back to Fairvale.”

  *

  Finch wouldn’t leave D. C. a second time without saying goodbye to Willow and letting her know he was okay. It wasn’t in his character to be so elusive to the people he cared about.

  Kasey drove him to his apartment building, a low-income joint near a pier off Canal Road. He didn’t like to live beyond his means. Plus, the rent was cheap, and the landlord was the hands-off variety.

  She parked the sedan across from his front door. It had only been a week, but it felt like years since he’d seen the chipped teal paint and cozy Christmas wreath.

  The vigor that throbbed in his every step could only be described as a rush of serotonin in his bloodstream. Every ache and bruise he’d suffered, physically and mentally, washed away in the rain. He was home.

  Three cars down, a man in a black suit and a trucker hat stepped out of a limousine.

  Kasey exited the sedan and crossed the street, shouting something he couldn’t hear over traffic and the downpour.

  His hand cradled the doorknob. He had the abrupt sensation of a thick needle tearing through his flesh at an immeasurable speed. Broiling pinpricks rocketed throughout his shoulder.

  Finch collapsed to his knees, scraping at the pain, trying to make it dissolve.

  His blood-soaked hand quivered as he brought it to his face. His vision clouded.

  The deluge cascaded down on his head. Kasey returned fire at the man with the smoking gun.

  A torrent of darkness flooded his world.

  NOTHING LEFT

  Willow Donahue caressed the three-inch scar between her shoulder blades. Touching it sent a shiver down her spine.

  Luck or the grace of God had given her a second chance, allowing the doctors to remove the parasite before it consumed her. She couldn’t pretend that her dreams weren’t riddled with black shapes skittering in the darkness. But what troubled her most was the newspaper article she held in her hand.

  IN-AND-OUT:

  SCIENTIST SNATCHED FROM WORKPLACE

  At approximately 1:00 P. M. on the day of December 16th, Demi Conroy, 36, was abducted from the Fairvale Research Center for Biological Anomalies in Missouri. Conroy, the director of the aforementioned facility, is a leading researcher in the fields of microbial pathogens and disease prevention. Minutes before she was taken from her office, a fire alarm was triggered by two newly hired individuals. In the confusion, these persons, identified by staff as Richard Monahan, 28, and his
fiancée Charlotte Reynolds, 30, forcefully removed Conroy from the premises.

  According to one employee we interviewed, they mistook the alarm as an unscheduled fire drill.

  “I thought it was one of their exercises,” says Brenda, one of the lobby receptionists. “You know: a social experiment to see if we could follow procedure without being informed ahead of time. But it makes it difficult for our employees to focus on their work.”

  Others blame the director herself for the way events unfolded.

  “She’s always cooped up in Phase 4. She went on this long rant when the alarm sounded. After her assistants died a couple of weeks ago, I think she went mad. It’s no surprise she was dumb enough to hire these new people. I think she deserved what she got,” says our source, choosing to remain anonymous.

  State police, along with the FBI, are working diligently to solve this case and locate the missing Dr. Conroy. Governor George Struthers, a personal friend speaking on behalf of the victim’s family, says that law enforcement is following up on multiple promising leads.

  “Demi and I go back a long way. If there’s anyone that wants to find her safe and sound, it’s me. From what I understand, state and federal forces are cooperating on every level. We will get our girl back.”

  The high-profile abduction of Dr. Conroy is unfortunately timed considering the recent epidemics faced by this nation. When questioned about the possibility of a cover-up, the governor declined to comment.

  Perhaps Struther’s words will put minds at ease, but it’s difficult to trust in the wake of recent events. The Tragedy of Lone Oak is still fresh in our minds [continued on page 2].

  Putting the paper down, Donahue wondered if this was the night Llewyn would return. He’d left the previous Sunday, said he had to clear his head before he returned to work. He neglected to mention where he went all this time, but she trusted his judgment—most days.

  Llewyn promised her the trip would be short, only a few days, but that was a week ago. Every morning she woke up and thought she heard his keys turn in the lock. Then his footsteps would get increasingly louder until she’d open the bedroom door and see him standing there. He’d be bruised, wet from the rain, but by God he’d be alive.

  Every morning disappointed her. She wanted to be there with him, living on the edge, but the doctors had warned her that extraneous activity could aggravate her injury. That she would get an infection. What a load of crap.

  Stuck, Donahue had cleaned the modest living space in her exhaustive free time. Pointless. She’d never been the den mother type, didn’t care how it looked to prying eyes. But there was nothing else to do except read the plethora of subscription newspapers Llewyn had purchased.

  Articles from around the country landed on their doorstep like a sea of printed words washing over her doubt. The first article on Lone Oak, two weeks after the initial outcry, was filled with so much falsehood and lies it broke through the pretense of trust she’d placed in the U. S. government.

  The papers had little in common and came from all over the country. This article from the Fairvale Chronicle was another footnote in a long-running list of grievances aired toward the U. S. government. The mention of Lone Oak caught her eye, but it was the same tired and inaccurate summary of the events that took place.

  It bothered Llewyn, she knew, to remember his part in what had happened. He had given the go-ahead to his superiors, albeit indirectly. Because of him and that bastard Patrick Rhinehold, napalm charges burned the small town to ash. The guilt ate at him something fierce; Donahue had woken up to his melancholy ravings in the middle of the night more times than she dared count.

  Llewyn’s sudden departure hadn’t surprised her, but his reasons for leaving town weren’t what she had expected. During a strange phone call in the middle of the night, Llewyn said one of his bosses had sent him to Lone Oak not to investigate occult activity, but to gather information on the parasite. He claimed the assistant director of his enigmatic agency—which she’d taken to simply calling the Organization—had known about it from the start. She never was great with wordplay.

  Skeptical, Donahue had questioned his reasoning. He said they had hired him for his odd, almost-supernatural skills, that he was an information hound whose nose might prove useful in ferreting out an organism with weapons capabilities. Nuts.

  He must’ve been half-hysterical, floating along on dreamy air from a lack of sleep. Conspiracies like that were the ramblings of the delusional or insane, fit for television dramas but not real life.

  Then he told her the rest of the story, about his boss’s murder and his temporary arrest, about the possible involvement of another secretive government group. She believed him but didn’t think he had all his facts straight.

  After he denied her request to join up with him, she thought about leaving the apartment to chase him down.

  Donahue knew how to take care of herself, wanted to tempt fate anyway. She was sick of being stuck in this run-down apartment, but Llewyn thought they were being watched, so she stayed behind. She argued, but he knew D. C. better than she ever would.

  Headline after headline she read until she could no longer push Llewyn’s fears aside.

  The gangland shooting that occurred a few blocks from the apartment had shaken her. Two dead bodies, one of them identified as a federal employee. She feared the worst. Local police held a press conference that afternoon. It took an eternity for her to gather her courage as she watched it unfold. Then the announcement came, and she was relieved that it wasn’t Llewyn. That was the first night she dreamt of his return.

  The next morning, a man called her from a phone number she didn’t recognize. He assured Donahue that Llewyn was okay but couldn’t say more than that. Then the nameless, faceless man told her to keep reading the news. Donahue wasn’t sure what he meant, but today’s newspaper about the fuss in Fairvale struck a chord. Was this what he was getting at? Had Llewyn, for reasons unknown, somehow been involved in a kidnapping?

  But she knew that was a dream too. Llewyn had no way of knowing when or if she would receive a newspaper. The idea that he was sending her clues to his whereabouts through them was laughable. Smoke-filled vapors, wisps of hope—she clung to them like they were her lifeline.

  Bored and wanting to take her mind off of Llewyn, Donahue turned on the television. She flipped through the channels, ignoring the usual marketing garbage and soap operas. Polar bears were being used to sell soda. SysLife’s latest drug was a hot commodity and worth trying—if you neglected to read the laundry list of harmful side effects. No one revealed who pushed Joey down the elevator shaft on Our Restless Lives. News at eleven.

  She sighed. Did anyone even bother producing quality television anymore? Watching reruns of The Andy Griffith Show couldn’t sustain her interest these days. Not when she knew the truth about small town communities, about the lies that dwelt beneath their peaceful veneers.

  A soft mewling noise startled Donahue. Well, at least she wasn’t alone.

  The calico cat leapt into her lap and kneaded her legs. Clarissa, he called her. He’d named her after the kids television show from the 1990s. Weird, but that was Llewyn.

  Clarissa was the sweetest little thing, a beacon of sunshine amidst the cloudy confusion of her recent life. Her soothing purrs and massaging paws proved enough to get Donahue’s mind off of Llewyn’s disappearance.

  “You want some food?”

  As if to confirm her suspicions, Clarissa nudged her head against Donahue’s stomach. Smiling, Donahue stood and walked over to the pantry, the calico following close behind.

  They were running low on Fancy Feast. She’d have to make a trip to the grocery store. It wasn’t far, but she hated big city traffic. Small town living had its perks. It was the only part of Lone Oak she missed.

  The cat gorged herself on the wet tuna-flavored treat. Must’ve been nice to have your own personal chef. Donahue had worked her whole life to get what little respect she’d gained as Lone Oak’s she
riff. All gone now. Nothing left but charred corpses and collapsed buildings.

  Rain assaulted the window again. Donahue could count the sunny days she’d experienced in D. C. on one hand. Not to mention that snowstorm the day Llewyn left. What a miserable town. Corruption, gloom, poverty; it was Lone Oak with fancier digs and annoying accents.

  BANG! The sudden noise sent Clarissa galloping back to the bedroom where she hid under the covers. Donahue retrieved her sidearm from under the kitchen counter. It was a Smith & Wesson Model 500. After Lone Oak, she’d wanted something with more oomph.

  Whatever the noise was, it didn’t sound like any gun she recognized. But that didn’t mean there wasn’t danger. She knew D. C. was a dangerous place, even before the shooting. Whether this was someone Llewyn warned her about, a gangbanger, or a drunk—she was ready.

  She heard voices, low and frantic, on the other side of the apartment door. Donahue edged closer.

  Something that sounded like a body crashed into the door. She fell, scrambled back behind the counter. She peaked around the corner, poised to fire the magnum. This wasn’t some friendly neighbor come to offer her a slice of cherry pie.

  The door handle jiggled. Someone was trying to get in. Well, they were about to meet the barrel of a loaded gun. She’d put the castle doctrine to work.

  A second later and there was a burst of splintered wood. The door swung open. A blonde head poked into the room. The gun bucked in her hand as Donahue fired. The shot was off the mark, shattering a lamp on the far side of the room. Damn it all. The shock had screwed up her aim.

  She wouldn’t miss a second time.

  “Hold your fire!”

  It was the blonde, a woman, dressed in a blue pantsuit and looking every bit the government type. No one she knew.

  “Like hell I will. You just barged into this apartment. Put your hands up or drop dead.”

  “I’m unarmed. Listen, I’ve got—”

  Donahue wasn’t having any of it. “I’m not going to tell you again. Put your hands where I can see them or go the way of the dodo.”

  A weak, barely audible voice broke through. “Willow.”