by Nick Thacker
“I don’t see anything out of the ordinary,” Jen said. She wasn’t sure what they’d find, or if they’d find anything at all.
“What kind of project were you working on?” Mark asked. Since they’d been separated for over a year, he hadn’t kept tabs on her career. “There has to be something important; something they’d do anything to find out,” he said.
“No. Nothing. I mean, we were just doing standard research. Underwater geologic mapping of thermal activities, that kind of stuff. We were working long hours, though, since it’s getting to be the end of the semester, and his course load was getting hectic.”
She reached toward a stack of papers on Dr. Storm’s desk. Storm was characteristically organized—unlike Jen—and the shuffled stack of loose documents was obviously left by a careless police officer from earlier that night. The top few pages were student assignments, ungraded, followed by a few internal office memos. She almost laughed at the sight of them. Storm was old-fashioned in every way. He would print out almost every email and memorandum and file it away in the long row of filing cabinets on the left side of the room.
Mark was rummaging through the top-left file cabinet now, being sure to use a pen he’d grabbed to slide through each document. “Mark, don’t. There’s nothing there. It’s all old stuff. Graded assignments, letters, stuff like that. I can’t imagine there’d be anything of value—”
She stopped short as her eyes stared down at the pile of papers she was shifting through.
“What’s up?” Mark looked up from his cabinet to see what Jen had found.
“It—it’s a letter. At least an envelope. It’s empty, but it’s addressed to Dr. Storm.”
“So? Who’s it from?” Mark asked.
“It’s also from Dr. Storm,” Jen said.
“You mean, like he sent a letter to himself?”
“I think so.” Jen opened the empty envelope further to take a peek inside. It was empty, but she ran a few fingers through the inside, just to be sure. “The return address, though, is from some town in Pennsylvania. It says ‘Dr. Storm, Aberdeen, Pennsylvania.’ That’s not where Dr. Storm lives—lived—though. He’s got a house just off the coast here.”
“Hmm, interesting. Well keep it, now that you’ve got your prints all over it. Let’s keep looking.”
Mark went back to rifling through the file cabinets, but stopped a few seconds later. “You hear that?”
“What?” Jen wiped her balmy hands on her jeans—she didn’t even remember changing into jeans—and looked up. “I didn’t hear anyth—”
“Shh! Listen!” Mark crouched, and Jen copied the movement.
The sound of footsteps, light but quick, echoed down the hall and into the room. One set of footsteps or two? Jen found herself thinking.
The pair turned to face the door, and Mark reached out to shut off the office light.
“Don’t,” she whispered. “If someone’s coming, they’ll know we’re in here. Get behind the desk. It’s solid wood, and you can’t see underneath it,” she added.
Mark followed the order, and Jen tiptoed around to the backside of the shelving unit. It was a floor-to-ceiling model, no doubt from Ikea or another large big-box store. Storm wasn’t the vain kind of man who cared much for fancy furniture or expensive adornments. The shelving unit stood about a foot away from the back wall, and there was just enough room to wriggle her small frame into the space between the wall and the side of the shelf.
It’s not going to hide me for long, especially if they come into the room. Jen held her breath as the footsteps got louder.
The footfalls stopped just outside the office door, and she thought she could hear whispers. She couldn’t make out the words, nor place exactly where they came from.
She looked down at Mark. His head was poking out from under the massive desk. He’d pushed the rolling office chair back a bit and crouched into the space beneath the desk top. He wasn’t a large man—thin and just at six feet tall—but she was surprised at the amount of space left over under the desk. She wondered if it may have been a better idea to share his hiding spot.
Too late now.
The voice outside the door whispered again, and Jen heard someone stretching the police tape away from the door.
Again, the whispers.
“—night vision,” was the only word she could make out.
The lights in the office, as well as throughout the hallway, immediately flicked off.
Jen panicked. As the initial shock of darkness wore off, Jen noticed a light glow spilling into the office window from some outside source. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to maneuver through the room.
They’d cut the power to the building, and they were coming in! She dove forward, trying to get behind the sturdy desk. There wouldn’t be time to crawl underneath, but at least she’d be offered more protection.
Shouts, now. “Stop! Come on out. I know you’re in there!” she heard a man’s voice say. British? She couldn’t tell.
Mark grabbed her hand. Squeezing, he shook his head. “Don’t,” he whispered.
Jen ripped her hand out of his. What the hell am I supposed to do? she thought as her eyes caught his.
“Again—Ms. Adams, I need you to step out from behind the desk. I’m not here to harm you, but I need your full cooperation.”
A panicked expression came over Jen’s face as she mouthed silently to Mark. “The police?” He shrugged, and his eyes widened as Jen stretched an arm above her head.
“Jen, stop! Get down!” Mark whispered aloud.
She ignored him and raised another arm over her head and above the top of the desk. Slowly, she stood, her back to the door.
“That’s it, Ms. Adams. Turn around slowly and walk over here. We need to have a little chat,” the man behind her said. Definitely British, she thought again. Too refined to be Australian.
Jen turned around. Standing in front of her was no policeman. The man, dark-skinned, was dressed head-to-toe in black body armor, complete with an assault rifle pointed directly at her. His face was emotionless, though his eyes were covered by wraparound black goggles. Without speaking, he jerked his head and gun simultaneously, motioning for her to walk toward him.
She did. A second body appeared in the narrow doorway, this one leaner, like a woman’s. Sure enough, as Jen approached them, she could see that the second military officer was female. Her face was fair-skinned and smooth, with full lips, but that was all Jen could see of her. Like the first man, this woman’s face was mostly covered by a large set of night-vision goggles.
“Come outside with us. We need to discuss something. You came alone?”
Jen thought for a second. They didn’t know Mark was here. Or did they? She didn’t have time to ponder the question.
“Y—yes. I’m alone.” She hoped Mark could hear her. She didn’t want him overreacting and getting them hurt. Whatever this was about, they obviously wanted to speak to her, not kill her. If Mark was his usual self, he’d stay under the desk until everyone had left, and then he’d sneak out and try to phone for help.
The woman spoke this time. “Good. Let’s go.” Her voice was as cold and hardened as a war criminal’s, and her grip around Jen’s arm matched. She yanked Jen through the door and began walking down the hall. The large black man followed behind them.
“Who are you? How did you find me here?” Jen asked.
The woman didn’t respond. She didn’t even glance in Jen’s direction.
“We didn’t want to get the police involved, Ms. Adams,” the man said. “Unfortunately, we believe there’s more to your son’s kidnapping than what you’re currently aware of.”
So they knew, she thought.
“You’re going to come with us. We have a secure facility just outside of town where we can debrief.”
As he finished his sentence, Jen heard a scuffle and a muffled shout from behind them. She whirled around to see a third soldier, this one a young man, blond, running toward Dr. Storm�
��s open office door from the other side of the hallway. Mark was also running—directly toward Jen.
“Jen! Let’s go!” he shouted, almost caught up to them. They were about twenty feet away from the intersection with the other hallway, and therefore about 100 feet from the exit.
There was no way they could outrun them.
Mark was going to get them killed. She struggled to free herself from the death-grip of her captor, the iron lady. It was no use; the woman was unbelievably strong.
Mark was getting closer.
What is he going to do? She thought to herself as the large man turned and prepared for a fight. He’ll kill him. The man outweighed Mark by at least fifty pounds, and he was certainly better prepared for a skirmish.
It didn’t matter.
Before Mark could get any closer, a loud gunshot reverberated through the hall of the dark school. Mark’s body was flung forward with a jerking motion, dropping to his hands and knees onto the marble floor. Behind him, Jen could see the third soldier still aiming down the sight of his smoking assault rifle.
Mark looked up at Jen quickly, teeth clenched in defiance, then collapsed all the way onto the cold tile.
7
Detective Larson’s evening was not going very well.
He’d promptly called up his second-in-command, Ken Dawson, after talking with Durand on the phone and reading through the email thread. Larson briefed him on the phone call he’d gotten earlier as well as on the email that had come through about fifteen minutes ago.
Ken agreed that it sounded like the English were out to make a power play somehow. The problem was, that was about all the information they had so far. Neither could figure out exactly what the connection was between the kidnapping, the murder, and why the British intelligence agency was interested.
Ken hung up, agreeing to head over to Larson’s apartment. While Larson waited for him, he poured himself another drink: Jack Daniel and Coke, his third that night. He flipped on the TV to catch the end of the evening news as he waited and sipped his beverage.
Kidnapping, the murder of an old professor, British intelligence. What the hell did they all have in common?
He swirled the ice around in his glass and thought about the problem until Dawson arrived. The knock on his apartment door fifteen minutes later alerted him that he’d been drifting off. As he rose to let the younger man in, the front door opened, and Dawson walked straight into the entryway.
“Well shit, Ken, why don’t you go and give an old man a heart attack?”
Dawson was about ten years younger than Larson, but he’d been Larson’s right-hand man for about as long as either of them could remember. They’d been on cases together, trained people together, and their families even vacationed together once a few years back. Their relationship now was interesting––stronger than ever, but as Dawson was gearing up for the pinnacle of his career, Larson was winding down for retirement.
“Haha, right. I’ll be damned if you die before the rest of us, Craig. Eating right, no smoking, and—” he glanced down at the highball glass in Larson’s hand “—up until tonight, no drinking either.”
“Ah well, you know. I guess I just decided that life isn’t long enough. Speaking of, need a drink?”
“Vodka, if you got any. Any news?”
“Nope, not unless you brought some with you,” Larson responded. He motioned for Ken to sit down at the kitchen table and went to make his drink.
“Well, I found that folder I was talking about, but it’s old. I’d used it as reference material not too long ago for a case, so I had it sitting around. But everything inside is dated at least twenty years ago. I’m not sure it’ll be much help.”
“At this point, I think anything would be helpful. Greg’s tone was a little hesitant, almost reserved. We can assume something’s heating up. Anything in that folder about Dr. Mitchell Storm?”
“Storm, right. He was an environmentalist from way back in the day, but no one’s really heard from him in, like, thirty years. He worked on some projects that led to very important research in geothermal technology, geology, and even nuclear power. I only remember the name because one of his projects led to an immediate interest from governments and research corporations around the world.” His voice trailed off as Craig handed him his drink. He sipped it, winced, then smiled. “Perfect. Thanks. Anyway, these guys all wanted a piece of what he was studying.”
“Which was?” Larson asked.
“No idea. You can flip through the folder yourself. It just has a few clippings from trade journals about the Storm brothers and their research. It’s a bird’s-eye view though; nothing incriminating, and nothing of interest.”
“To you.”
“Ha. Right. Nothing that I’d bat an eye at.”
Larson flipped through the folder, verifying that nothing inside was of much use to the case.
“It seems odd that the attacks involved the same person: Jen Adams. She was working very closely with Dr. Elias Storm from that university. On what, we don’t know. He was considered rather tame compared to his older brother. Could be that Elias was continuing the research on something Mitchell started back in the seventies or eighties, before he fell off the radar.”
“Hmm. I get it, but I’m just not seeing the connection. If this Dr. Elias Storm was in fact working on something that his brother had started years ago, it makes sense why they would kill him. Maybe he wouldn’t give them information or something like that. Then they turned to the only other person who would know what he was doing––Jen Adams—and went after her by way of kidnapping her son.”
“Right, go on.”
“But that does not explain why the British cared about it. I just don’t see how it fits in,” Larson said.
Dawson frowned, then spoke. “Well, you said Durand called in a favor, since one of his acquaintances apparently heard about the attack from local police. Maybe they’re not interested yet. Just covering all their bases.”
“No, you and I both know these agencies don’t chase weak leads very long. For it to blow up this quick, they have to be thinking something. They’re all related somehow, and I need to figure out what it is. Greg’s a friend, but he’s not going to screw himself over just to give me the full scoop.” Craig left the kitchen and came back holding his MacBook Pro. He sat down in the chair across from Ken and slid the computer over so both men could see the screen.
Larson typed a search query into the bar at the top of the browser and pressed enter. England America Mitchell Storm. He quickly scanned the first three pages of results, finding nothing of importance. He changed the query, adding the word research.
Still nothing on the first three pages. On the fourth page, however, he paused and clicked on the fourth result. A webpage opened. It was a poorly designed blog from what seemed to be a conspiracy theory nutcase.
Abandoned American Research Station Sold to British was the title of the post. The post was written around two letters the author had allegedly come across at his office during his working days, but he was trying to build a case on a severe lack of logic and no hard facts.
“…Mitchell Storm worked with the Agartha crew among British and American private companies for three years before resigning from the program, eventually moving to the backcountry to Canada.”
“Agartha,” Dawson said. “Interesting name for a research station.”
The article didn’t link to any other sources, nor did it cite any in the content. Further, the author seemed to have forgotten what the title of his own post, never mentioning more about the “research station” or “Agartha.”
“Well, that’s a bummer,” Dawson said when he had finished reading the post.
“You’re telling me. This nut job is the only thing even close to real information, and there’s no way we’re getting anywhere by tracking him down.”
“Even if it was a good lead, I’m not sure I’d want to track him down.”
Dawson and Larson perused a few mor
e of the posts—collections of “research” on Area 51, scraps of newspaper headings that the author claimed were forgeries, and other bits of old-fashioned American propaganda.
Larson stood and searched the apartment for his cellphone. He dialed a number and waited for a response.
“Greg? Hey, did I wake you?”
Dawson looked toward Larson as the man continued his conversation.
“I don’t care. Listen. We need more. What—” he paused a moment. “Of course the line’s secure; you think I haven’t been doing this job for thirty years?” Again, he paused as Gregory Durand spoke on the other end of the phone. “What? What are you talking about?”
“What is it?” Dawson asked, now standing at the doorway to the living room.
“Durand. What do you mean ‘you sent in a team?’”
He frowned, then hung up the phone. He slammed it down onto an end table and stormed back into the kitchen, a wide-eyed Dawson waiting patiently for an explanation.
“We need to move. Durand’s group apparently sent a team to the states right after we talked last. They don’t want this getting out, and he said it’s a matter of ‘national security.’ Apparently I’m not enough of an asset to them. They had to take matters into their own hands.”
“But what do they want to do? What do they want you to do?” Dawson asked.
“Ken, I don’t think they’re wanting me to do anything other than pick up the pieces. Durand got me in this thing before the rest of his organization got wind of it. I’m pretty sure we’re lucky to know about it at this point. We’re not getting anything else from them. We want this, it’s on us.”
“Okay, we can work around that. When’s this ‘team’ supposed to get here?”
