by Fiona Quinn
Peeking at my watch, I decided Strike Force must be at the warehouse already. I crossed my fingers and sent them some good juju.
Major Trudy’s hand drew over the paper for a minute. “I got the coordinates for your jail. Well, I got enough information that someone should have been able to find you. I saw on the news that they didn’t find you. The news said you went down in a plane crash over the ocean. I did a quick search and got sand, not water. Breathing, not dead. But whenever I visited you, it seemed you were about to expire. Which was crappy.” He sent me a scowl.
“I’m sorry,” I said, not sure what the appropriate response would have been.
“What I saw was the east coast of Honduras. Three huge cement buildings that formed a prison set in the woods. Airport in one direction. Small village in another. Near enough to the coast that they should be able to search right along past the mid-point, but not past the 75% mark going south. Should have been easy to pick you up on satellite imaging and get a cteam down to get you out. Here.”
He held up the drawing.
“Assembly,” I said, describing the pin he’d drawn.
“A fucking dangerous group. At the meeting you went to—you know, when you were floating around in the ether? You remember that?”
“None of it, no, sir.”
“They were talking about their remote viewer looking for you.”
I blinked. “The Assembly has a remote viewer? And they tasked their remote viewer to find me? Do you know why?”
Major Trudy flipped through the file to the picture with the Hydra and Spyder. “They wanted to know what you knew about a man named Spider. They thought if you were dead, their ability to get to this man,” he pointed to the spider, “would be closed. Their remote viewer couldn’t influence Spider, and they couldn’t get any information from him. They felt if he fed information to you, then you would be an easier target to reach. They wanted to find you and keep you alive, functioning, and back in the field—working for Iniquus so they could suck information from you about this guy.” He tapped his pencil against the drawing of the spider. He tilted his head. “You’re fucking young to be a field operator.”
“I’m not an operative – never have been. I’m just someone who sits in an office and thinks. Do you know the name of the remote viewer whom the Assembly was using?”
“Yeah. They called him P.M. It’s short for the Puppet Master. They love his skills, and they’re scared as shit of his skills.”
“Do you know his real name?”
“Nope.”
“But you think he’s someone from the Galaxy program?”
“Yup.”
I worked hard to stay patient; this guy was doing me a gigantic favor just by talking with me. I offered up a warm smile, hoping to convey my gratitude. “You said they wanted to influence Spyder. The Assembly has an influencer? I thought only two people were taught that protocol.”
“That’s right—Nelson Scott; he died in a car accident right after we all got tossed out on our asses—and . . .” Major Trudy ducked his head and creased his brows with thought. “Isn’t that funny. I can’t recall. . . The two who got tapped to work on the influencing protocol were Nelson Scott. . .” He shook his head, rubbing agitated fingers over his temples.
I quickly tried to move the conversation in a different — hopefully easier — direction, but I noted that Major Trudy was having the same difficulty remembering the second influencer’s name as General Coleridge had had. “Let’s talk about the monitor you worked with on these missions. What was his name?”
Major Trudy moved his lips to the side. His irises seemed to focus on the tip of his nose, making him look cross-eyed. He scratched his cheek. “Damned if I can remember.” He looked down at the report. His confusion and his memory lapses obviously rattled his nerves. He crossed his legs, clasping his knee, and jangled his foot as he shot glances through the crack in his drawn drapes. “He didn’t put a name on the report. Used a number. Sometimes folks did that, but it was always the same number, and I don’t recognize this one.”
“Did General Elliot contact you for this job, or did your monitor hire you?”
“General Elliot. I owed him one big-ass fuck of a favor, and he called it in.”
“And you decided not to do this on your own?”
“I don’t like to, and . . . what’s his name, the monitor lives here in town, so I just called him up.”
“Where does he live?”
“No clue. Just knew he didn’t displace far from Ft. Meade.”
“Called him how? Do you have a cell phone?”
“Fuck, no. Do you know how easy it is to follow your every move, your every word on those things? Nah, I called from my landline.” He pointed at the old-fashioned dial phone attached to the wall in the corner.
“Do you have his home phone number? Can I have it?”
He left the room and came back with a notebook, reading out the number, which I promptly wrote down. I glanced up from my page. “And his name is. . .” I tried to trick his subconscious mind by catching it by surprise.
Major Trudy opened his mouth to form the name and then looked off in the distance, rubbed the back of his neck, and shook his head. It was almost like watching a hypnotist’s comic act when they tell their dupe that they will always forget their wife’s name. Then they engage them in conversations about their wife, which goes well except for the hole that the name had fallen into and couldn’t be retrieved.
“I don’t know. And I should know. Fucking influencers. The influencers are fucking with my brain. They work on me all the time.” He seethed with belligerence, pulling his lower lip in then pushing it back out, like a toddler getting ready for a full-blown tantrum.
“How can you tell?” I asked gently.
“Well, we all come with a social bubble some of us like to keep folks at a good distance. My social bubble is like three feet out from my body. I’m a trained soldier. I want everyone at arm’s distance, so I have reaction time. While I don’t want anyone to come within my arm spread, other people have a smaller bubble. They don’t mind when someone walks right up to them and stands centimeters away. They’re the kind of people that think a busy metro ride is just fine. I have to take a cab. So, imagine your bubble—do you know that itchy anxious feeling you get when people stand too close? That’s what it feels like.”
“Like someone’s watching, but you can’t find the right set of eyes? Like vibrations over your skin?”
“Electric. It’s the sensation of electricity and claustrophobia. It makes you feel like a fucking paranoid.”
“Have you ever seen the person observing you?”
“You mean like in 3D?”
“Less 3D and more like a purply-blue translucent form.” I didn’t want to show my hand, but I did need verification. I had seen the outline of a blue man when I was in prison. I thought I was dreaming—but could it have been Major Trudy?
“Hmm. Indigo is the color of the third eye, if you’re looking at auric fields. Have I seen such a manifestation? I have not. Do I believe it’s possible? I have learned through my work as a remote viewer that damned near everything is possible. The last time I was truly surprised was back in the eighties. Now I’m prepared for most anything. If you told me you saw a Sasquatch having a tea party with a bunch of Martians, I’d just nod my head.”
Thirty
Later that evening, I answered a call from Deep. “Hey, you’re calling late. Is everything okay?” I trapped my cell phone between my shoulder and ear while I pulled muffins from the oven. Wednesday was my day to bake good old-fashioned American tried and true recipes in honor of my Nana Kate.
“We’re done moving the last box into Iniquus storage down in one of the McMansions.”
“Why there?”
“That’s why I’m calling. I need to give you a heads up.”
My breath caught. Now what?
“Colonel Grant thought it might be best for them to be held in storage for the moment
. Why, I’m not sure, except that a couple hours after we left the warehouse, Iniquus got a phone call from the FBI. Seems that the guard at the warehouse put a call into Lacey Stuart to let her know the pickup had gone off without a hitch.” Deep laughed. “Poor guy probably thought he was going to get a thank-you, maybe a bonus check. Instead he got his head shoved up his. . . well, it didn’t go the way he’d planned. Lacey called the FBI.”
I pulled the hot mitts from my hands and turned the oven off. “You’re still thinking she’s an innocent in all of this, but that would be my move if I were culpable and in her position. If she is innocent, I bet she’s acting on her own, and didn’t tell her uncle.”
“She didn’t tell her uncle. He’s on a golfing vacation. Lacey sent him an email that got an auto-reply saying he’s out of the office. I checked and her email wasn’t opened. But she did access his list of contacts and selected a very high-ranking special agent at the FBI amongst the list for her next phone call.”
“You planted spyware on her computer?”
“Of course—ongoing case. With a little digging this case is going to go away – no retrospective, no museum contract, no signature from Colonel Grant. . . what are they going to say when our art comes back? That we stole our own stuff? We didn’t break and enter – we simply picked it up. Lacey is definitely in the dark on this. She’s being used by her great uncle. Though, I’m wondering what’s going to happen when he’s arrested—will she be out of a job? Will they close the gallery? I’ve got a cousin in that business, and even a whiff of something underhanded and you’ll never get another job in the industry. Everyone knows everyone.”
“If she is innocent, then that really sucks.”
“You are building a case against the uncle, aren’t you?” Deep asked.
“I’m not the decision maker on that.”
“Well get this, when Lacey was talking to the FBI, she remembered her meeting with Joseph Del Toro and some girl she thinks was named Jan or Jane or Janet or something J-ish where she gave them information about the Tsukamoto collection, and then the Jan-girl had seemed faint. She left them alone with her file when she went to get some water.”
“Nice to be remembered so warmly.”
Deep chuckled. “Yeah, gets better. I handed her my card with my phone number.”
“Surely not your real phone number, right?”
“Nah, voice mail service. Untraceable. But they did trace it–the FBI traced it. Normally, folks wouldn’t have those capabilities. And normally, FBI wouldn’t have moved as fast on a case like this.”
“Does Iniquus have those capabilities?”
“On a good day–but we’d need a fist full of subpoenas, and the phone company can be ‘working on it’ for a long, long time. So, good reputation for being clean and some relationships of mutual respect –“
“You mean mutual aid.”
“Sometimes you have to grease the gears to get them to function smoothly. Anyway, the FBI traced Joseph Del Toro back to my mother.”
I gasped.
“Yup. So my mom calls me, saying the NYC FBI stopped in. The DC FBI would like to have a chat with me.”
“Holy cow, Deep. I’m so sorry. Was she very upset?”
“Wasn’t a pretty conversation.”
“We’re talking mere hours. Somebody had a fire lit under them. Why’d you tell Lacey your real name?”
“Thought she’d be my girlfriend by now. We had the vibe. But I’m not stepping on a bro’s toes to get to a skirt I don’t know enough to really care about. Hormones are hormones, right?”
“Well, you two did have some chemistry brewing. Don’t know what kind of reaction mixing you two together would produce. Could have been something good, might have been an explosion. So I’d say that’s a sound policy. With Striker out – is he out?”
“He was in; now he’s out.”
“Did you go to Mr. Spencer with this?”
“I talked to Jack and called the FBI on a line that said I was in Alexandria at a library. The special agent said they’re following up on a meeting with Lacey Stuart and would I please tell him my friend Jan’s full name and contact information? So I did—I had pulled your alias packet from the file. I’m supposed to meet them at headquarters tomorrow afternoon. They wanted to know if I could bring you along.”
“And?”
“I’m going to find out what they know – I’ll say I couldn’t get in touch with you. They didn’t mention art, Tsukamoto, or warehouses.”
“The FBI is —” My phone showed another caller on the line. “Deep, hang on.” I clicked over. “Hey, two secs.” Back to Deep. “Let’s finish this later. Striker is on the other line, and I don’t know what his window is.”
“Yup. I’ll catch up with you tomorrow. ‘Night.”
“Hey, Striker, sorry. I was talking to Deep. Where are you?”
“Chasing fucking shadows.”
“You’re cussing.”
“What?”
“You’ve been cussing lately—it’s not like you. You’re the stoic impenetrable boulder. Nothing fazes you. You’re the poster boy for control.”
“I’m frustrated beyond control. I have no idea why I’m out in the field. We’re accomplishing zilch. I keep trying to get back to Headquarters, but Vine has these leads that need follow up.”
“Hmmm.”
“I know what you’re thinking.”
“And do you agree?”
“Shit, yeah. But my hands are tied.”
“Cussing again. And your hands better not be tied. That would violate our PG-rating rule.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I do indeed. How long can this go on?”
“Hell if I know–years? Shit, she’s giving me the super-secret hand signal – this is like playing dress-up with Cammy.”
“Speaking of Cammy, how is she doing? How is your sister?”
“They’re camping out with some friends. Got to go. I love you. I can’t wait to see you. I’m picking up a case of potato chips. I want to make sure your damned craving is satisfied when I get back.”
“Tease.”
And he was gone.
I called Deep back. “Hey there, were you calling me from your office?”
“Roger. I’m heading home now. Did you need something?”
“Yes, it’s been such a long day for you. I don’t need this tonight, but if I gave you a phone number, could you try to get a physical address and a name?”
“That’s a two-second search. Read me the number.”
While I waited for him to do the search and ring me back, I glanced over at the still-warm stove and decided to do a little more baking. In my experience, a chocolate cake went a long way in getting on the good side of someone. I pulled out a bowl and my ingredients. By the time I was stirring things together, Deep rang me back.
“Your number was a burner phone, sorry.”
“Really? Pooh.”
“Roger that. Was there anything else you needed?”
“I made blueberry muffins. Why don’t you stop by and have some?”
“Better grab Gater on my way, or he’ll be ticked he missed out.”
***
“Major Trudy?” I knocked on the door again, this time with a little more emphasis. I’d brought a chocolate cake with its fluffy peaks of icing as my calling card. Movement at the window caught my eyes; someone peeped through the slit in the drapes. I lifted the cake stand in his direction and tried to send him friendly vibes through my smile.
The lock turned and the door squeaked open. “It isn’t my birthday,” Major Trudy said.
“You came to mind last night while I was whipping this together. I thought you might enjoy a little home-baked treat, and you would save me hours on the treadmill if you ate it instead of me.”
Major Trudy narrowed his eyes, staring me down. I smiled back, pulling up the fluffy bunny routine I used when I first started out. It seemed to do the trick because the door swung wide, and I wa
lked in.
I followed along behind Major Trudy through an empty house to his kitchen and put the stand on his counter. No chairs, no table—it was another empty room.
“Had to sell my stuff,” Major Trudy said as he pulled out plates and forks. “Work’s been hard to find since we were let go. I flip burgers down the street for minimum wage. That pays my mortgage. I eat and heat with money I pick up from side jobs.”
“Did Iniquus pay you for finding me?”
“Tried to. I turned it down. I don’t like to be beholden. Doing your search got me out from my debt to the general.”
I nodded. “I have to say, I’m dismayed to see the aftereffects of the Galaxy Program on the people who worked it.”
“Hell of a life. You give your all to something, and then you get betrayed. It’s like loving a woman, thinking she was your destiny, and come home one day to find she’d just been using you, now she was done, and you and all your shit are out the door, with everyone pointing and laughing to boot.”
“I’m sorry for all you’ve been through.” I started to reach out to touch Major Trudy’s arm, but remembered his three-foot safety bubble and dropped my hand to my side. “Shall I serve up some cake, and we can eat it in the living room?”
He handed me a pie server.
“I read the autobiographies that your colleagues wrote. You all are so brave. I can’t imagine being a pioneer in this science.” I picked up the plates and forks and moved to the only chairs I had seen. Major Trudy followed along. “I remember an interesting story. It had to do with protection.”
Major Trudy sat with his cake in his hands, looking like he’d been deprived of food for days, but still wanted to seem polite.
“I hope you enjoy.” I smiled and took a bite.
Major Trudy shoveled the cake into his mouth then looked skyward with a groan. “That is so good,” he said.
“More?” I pushed to my feet.
“I’ll get it. You can keep on with what you were saying about protection. I can still hear you—the house echoes.”
“The story went that you all learned to break through protection like balls of white light—”
