MJ-12: Endgame

by Michael J. Martinez

  “I will. I’ll tell them.”

  Frank. I’m sorry. I tried to protect us.

  “You did good, Dan. You really did.” Frank wanted to cry, but somehow knew he had to keep Danny talking. “Stay with me, pal.”

  Tell the others. Be careful with their abilities. Tell them I tried. Tell—

  Danny’s voice was suddenly cut off. Frank screamed into the darkness, but could hear nothing.

  June 22, 1953

  Hoyt Vandenberg received the sealed teletype from his aide and waited for him to close the door before opening it, as usual. The teletype itself was anything but.

  The Air Force chief of staff read through it, smiling all the while, until he got to the end, which hit him like a truck and sent him staring off out his Pentagon window at the late night sky for a good ten minutes.

  Danny Wallace had been the key to MAJESTIC-12, something Roscoe Hillenkoetter had recognized way back in 1945. Vandenberg and Hillenkoetter had convinced the powers that be—first the late James Forrestal, and then Harry Truman himself—that the Variants were indeed real, and that their abilities might be harnessed. And Wallace himself was their ace in the hole, with his ability to sense and track other Variants at great distances. Wallace put America ahead in a unique and frightening arms race.

  And honestly, he was a good kid. He was a patriot, yes, but he genuinely cared about the Variants placed under his command. Compared to them, he was supposed to be the weak link—the tracker who really ought to just get out of the way once the quarry was found. He never did. He’d stuck by his people right until the very end.

  Finally, Vandenberg picked up the phone and dialed a special number. It picked up on the third ring.

  “Yes?”

  “Mr. President, reporting in on MAJESTIC, sir.”

  There was a short pause; Vandenberg imagined Eisenhower was shooing a bunch of people out of the White House residence. “All right, Hoyt. Go ahead.”

  “Our people have captured Lavrentiy Beria in Panmunjom and kept him from detonating an H-bomb nearby,” Vandenberg said simply.

  This time, the pause was a little longer. To be fair, it was a lot to take in. “Jesus Christ. Whose bomb?”

  “Our person on the inside said Beria diverted it from the Soviet Union’s weapons program while he was still running it. This was not, repeat, not an official Soviet mission. It was all Beria.”

  “And where’s that rogue bomb now?” the President demanded.

  “Took some doing, but it’s been defused and disarmed. The nuclear material has been destroyed,” Vandenberg said. “Also, sir, I have to inform you. We lost Subject-1.”

  There was a loud exhale on the other end of the line. “That puts a huge dent in the program, Hoyt.”

  “Yes, it does, sir. He was a good man.”

  “What about that thing in Idaho?”

  Vandenberg reached over and pulled out another teletype he’d received an hour before. “No clear signals have been recorded. We believe the jamming worked.”

  “You believe,” Eisenhower repeated, an edge in his voice. “You’re not sure?”

  “Mr. President, I’m not sure about any of it. But as far as we can tell, yes. Our people reported there was some kind of shift in their abilities, hard to define.”

  “Where are they now? And what about the other Russian Variants?”

  “Given the situation with the armistice talks, outright capture of any Russian Variants was deemed inadvisable. We had a couple defect. The rest have retreated back into North Korean territory. Our people say only a couple of them seem to want to head back to Russia. Apparently, Beria turned on them. The defectors and our people are back at U.N. Headquarters.”

  “All right. Seems like they did a fine job.”

  “Yes, sir, they did. Great work.”

  “That doesn’t change my decision,” Eisenhower said.

  Vandenberg felt his face go red, and it wasn’t just from the pain he felt from shifting in his seat. “Mr. President, once again, I urge you to reconsider. These people are Americans. Patriots. We’ve asked them for the impossible, and they’ve done it time and again. At great sacrifice.”

  “I know, Hoyt. Really, I do,” Eisenhower said gently. “And I know you’ve gotten to know some of them over the years. I’m sure they’re fine people. But I have an entire country of fine people to think about.”

  Vandenberg wanted to say more, but he’d tried to make his case earlier, and failed. “Understood, Mr. President. I’ll send out the orders first thing in the morning.”

  “Thank you, Hoyt. Have a good night.”

  The general hung up the phone and sat in silence, staring at the calendar on his wall. June 30th was circled—his retirement date. He supposed he was grateful to have made it that far—the docs were getting increasingly gloomy with his prognosis—but he still desperately wished to go out on his own terms. He’d fought the Nazis, helped create both the United States Air Force and the Central Intelligence Agency. His public legacy was assured.

  And yet.

  * * *

  When Frank opened his eyes again, he was in a tent. From the open flap, he could see it was night outside.

  “There he is.” Cal smiled down at him. He was looking younger and healthier now, which Frank took as a good sign.

  “What happened?” Frank asked. He felt as though his head was floating three feet from his body.

  Cal exhaled sharply. “Oh, boy. Where to start? Beria had an H-bomb and we stopped him, so that’s good.”

  “Danny’s gone.”

  “Yes, Frank, he is. We brought his body back. Gonna send him home proper, full honors.”

  Frank sat up a little and felt his head swim.

  “Beria. How’d we do that?”

  Cal brightened up a little at this. “Couple of our new friends. The one Danny and I were after, his name’s Miguel, he’s a sharpshooter. Can’t miss from any distance no matter what. He shot Beria in the wrist. Then our other new friend, Chinese fella named Hei Feng, used his Enhancement to get the detonator away.”

  Frank nodded. “Where’s Beria now?”

  “We got him,” Cal assured him. “Rosie made sure the American brass was all cleared out by the time we caught up with him, so only the Reds know we have him—and the Russian Variants who didn’t defect are making sure Beria’s involvement stays under wraps. We have him bound, gagged, drugged up to his gills, and sitting with three null generators.”

  With a thin-lipped smile, Frank swung his legs out onto the floor and sat up completely, then waited for the room to stop spinning. “We got defectors, then?”

  “Some, but we got another problem.”

  Cal’s tone got Frank focused fast. “What now?”

  Cal held out a teletype. “Came in while you were out.”

  It had just one word on it:

  NIGHTINGALE

  “Holy shit.”

  Cal nodded. “Yeah. At least somebody still loves us.”

  NIGHTINGALE was a code word Danny had developed back in ’49, after the Variants had been mistakenly implicated in the death of James Forrestal, Truman’s first defense secretary. Frank had hoped never to see it.

  “Who sent it?” Frank asked.

  “Hell if I know.”

  “Are we sure this is real?” Frank said. “Did we get any other orders?”

  Cal handed over two other teletypes, both with a lot more words on them. “Yeah. All Variants are to report to Mountain Home immediately. Drop what you’re doing and go back. Specifically, we’re to bring back Beria and any defectors, too. Other one is the report Rosie and I filed.”

  Frank scanned the teletypes several times. “Well, shit.”

  Cal got up and offered Frank a hand, pulling him up and steadying him. “Maggie’s gone already. She just up and left. She gonna take care of herself just fine. The others, I think they need to hear this from you.”

  Frank got his bearings well enough to start heading for the tent flaps. “Why me?” />
  “’Cause Danny’s not here, and you’re next up. Simple as that. We took over one of the officers’ quarters. Everybody’s in there.”

  The two left the tent and, with Cal leading the way, started walking. “They’ll listen to you, Cal. You know that.”

  Cal shook his head sadly. “Frank, I’m an old Negro man, and fact is nobody listens to an old Negro man as much as they will a white fella with authority like you. Ain’t right, but it’s how it is. Come on.”

  They walked the rest of the way in silence. Cal was right—it wasn’t fair. Frank hadn’t really given much thought at all to black people until he met Cal. After all this, though, he couldn’t imagine not listening to the man. Cal was committed, upstanding, and smarter than he ever gave himself credit for. Whether it was Prague, Syria, Guatemala, even here—Cal was their north star. If Cal had reservations about something, Frank listened. More people needed to, skin color be damned.

  They entered the officer’s quarters to find it packed with people—Mrs. Stevens, Ekaterina, Yamato, Sorensen for starters. Cal introduced Frank to Hei Feng—who seemed grateful somebody could actually talk to him in Mandarin—as well as Miguel Padilla, a Venezuelan enlisted man who was part of the multinational force. And there were four Russians there, too, Mikhail Tsakhia among them. Illyanov and Savrova weren’t, however, and Frank didn’t know the other three, but greeted them warmly nonetheless.

  “Okay, folks, settle down,” Cal said. Despite what he’d said to Frank earlier, everybody immediately stopped chatting and looked up expectantly. “I think Frank here should explain exactly what’s going on before we decide anything. Frank?”

  Frank thought he might start by talking about Danny, and what he’d heard in the darkness. But that seemed like a tall order right now, and they had more pressing things to consider. “Okay. Let’s talk about NIGHTINGALE. We need to be clear on exactly what this means. When Danny came up with this code word, he said it was our worst-case scenario. He’d given it to a couple of folks higher up in the MAJESTIC program, folks he thought he could trust. I didn’t agree with that then, but looks like he was right.

  “The long and short of it is this: the government is shutting down MAJESTIC-12.”

  There were murmurs around the room as the words were translated and opinions made. Worries lined the faces of everyone there.

  “Furthermore,” Frank continued, “we just got orders to drop everything and return to Mountain Home. All of us. We have four days to comply. Now, I can’t say for certain—none of us can—but if we follow these orders, there may be a chance that they’re going to keep us there. Permanently. Mrs. Stevens worked through any number of scenarios, and the chance of them just letting us walk away and return to normal life … well, it isn’t high. For our own safety and freedom, I think we have to assume that we’ll be locked up for good when we get back. We weren’t exactly at liberty in this program, after all—there’s always been elements in the government who’ve wanted us thrown in a hole and forgotten. And the government is now aware that a Variant tried to detonate an H-bomb and scuttle the armistice talks. That’s not gonna help our case.

  “So I want you—each one of you—to think carefully about what you do next. There’s a chance that this is overblown, that maybe they’re just gonna pull us out of the field and keep studying us or whatever, and that things won’t change too much. I personally don’t feel that’s realistic. Truman nearly locked us away in ’49—that’s why we developed NIGHTINGALE. I think we need to take it seriously.”

  There was more murmuring, which Frank let go until silence reigned again. Finally, Sorensen raised his hand. “So if we don’t follow orders, what do we do?”

  “Well, you’ll be AWOL. If you try to go back to the United States, you’ll run the risk of being arrested—and then you’ll definitely be thrown in a hole and forgotten. I mean, you’re all trained up pretty well. I have no doubt you could get back into the country without being noticed. But if you try to reach out to your families or in any way try to go back to your normal lives, I got ten bucks that says they’ll find you inside of a week. So if you do decide to disobey orders, your lives will be changed forever. Period,” Frank said.

  “So that’s it?” Yamato asked from the back of the room. “Just walk away from everything?”

  “Yeah, that’s it,” Frank answered. “Get an alias and the papers to back it up. Spend some time moving around, don’t get rooted right away. In a couple years, maybe you can pick a spot to try to settle down. Maybe Mexico or an island somewhere. Don’t try to send a letter or tell anyone from your old life where you are. When we thought of NIGHTINGALE, we came up with some ideas for staying in touch with each other that should work—we’ll use classified ads with code words in the newspapers. We can brief you up on it if you want. But yeah, otherwise, you drop everything and everyone and go find a new life, because the old one will be gone.”

  Ekaterina looked like she was on the verge of tears—Frank felt for her, having her second home in four years ripped away from her—but managed to speak up. “What about the other Variants who aren’t here?”

  “Whatever guardian angel sent us this likely sent it along to the others as well. I know Zippy Silverman was in on it, and one or two others. We can only hope that the word’s gotten out. I know we’ll keep an ear to the ground in case we hear about anybody getting into trouble.” Frank looked around for other questions, but most everyone was just sitting there, taking it all in. “Cal, anything to add?”

  Cal looked surprised, but stepped forward anyway. Frank didn’t like putting him on the spot, but he knew Cal would offer something good—and he wasn’t disappointed. “I guess I’ll just say that if you do decide to head off on your own, you really ought to keep your Enhancements to yourself. I’m sure it’d be mighty tempting to use ’em to set yourself up—and you got your training aside from that, too. But this ain’t a movie. It ain’t a comic book. International jewel thieves get caught. And there ain’t no such thing as superheroes. You stay true to yourselves, make sure you can look at yourselves in the mirror in the morning. Maybe we got sold up the river, I don’t know. But two wrongs don’t make a right. Be smart about it, is all.”

  Frank smiled a little at that. “Listen to the man. He’s right. Don’t be dumb. And if I see any caped crusaders in the news, I’ll personally come and kick your ass.” That got some chuckles in the room, as intended. “You have four days to decide. If you do end up going back, all I ask is that you give the rest of us the four full days to get clear before you check in with Washington.”

  After listening to one of his countrymen translate, Tsakhia stood up and addressed Frank in Russian. “What will you do?”

  Frank turned to the rest of the crowd and spoke in English. “Mikhail here wants to know what I’m doing, and that’s fair, since I’m the one doing all the goddamn talking. I’m out. I have a few things I need to do, but I’m not heading back.”

  “And what about Beria?” another Russian asked in English.

  Frank just smiled. “Worry about yourself. Comrade Beria will see justice. Anybody else?” There was nothing but silence. “Okay. Let me or Cal or Rose know what you end up deciding to do, and if you’re out, we’ll let you in on our message system. Good luck.”

  The group immediately started talking amongst themselves again, and Frank took the opportunity to head outside for some air. Cal and Mrs. Stevens followed. “Good job in there, Frank,” Mrs. Stevens said. “I think you handled that well.”

  Frank looked at them both and smiled. “I just realized I don’t know if you’re going to bail out or not. I just assumed.”

  Cal chuckled. “Frank, first thing I did when I got that teletype was commandeer a line back home. Sally and I set up our own little code a while back. She’s on the road to Calgary by now. Winston has an open plane ticket. We gonna be fine.”

  Frank clapped him on the shoulder. “You’re a helluva spy, Cal.”

  “Yes, sir, I am,” he replied
. “What about you, Rosie?”

  Mrs. Stevens gave a sad little smile. “I have twenty-three contingency plans in place for NIGHTINGALE. Eight of them are applicable now. I just … I had always hoped …”

  She started to cry a little, and Cal enveloped her in a hug. “I know. I know,” Cal said. “But we knew this was coming. That’s why we planned. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.”

  Mrs. Stevens returned the hug for a healthy while before disengaging herself, only to hug Frank as well. “I can tell you’re heading out soon,” she told him after the hug. “Good luck. Stay in touch. Be safe!”

  “I will. Maybe after a decade or so, we’ll get together again for a little reunion. Somewhere nice. Cuba, maybe.”

  Mrs. Stevens nodded and wiped away her tears with her hand. “I’d like that. I’ll keep an eye out. You two … you take care of yourselves, you hear me?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Cal said.

  After looking around and straightening her uniform, Mrs. Stevens gave them an awkward smile and headed back inside with the other Variants—undoubtedly to mother-hen them until each of them left. They were in good hands.

  Frank extended his hand to Cal. “Mr. Hooks, proud to have served with you. It’s been an honor.”

  Cal ignored Frank’s hand and gave him a hug instead. “You’re a good man, Frank. You stay that way, you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cal put his hands on Frank’s shoulders. “Good luck.”

  The two men then walked off into the Korean night, but in different directions.

  * * *

  Detlev Bronk stared at the stacks of teletypes on his desk, having read them several times over. First the one from Washington, closing down MAJESTIC-12 and telling him to keep the electronic jammers on indefinitely and to confine all Variants at Mountain Home to quarters, under armed guard. The second, also from Washington, was a copy of the orders sent to the Variants in the field, telling them to come home. Of course, they’d be immediately detained if they did.

  The third ensured they wouldn’t come home. It simply said NIGHTINGALE. Danny had confided in him years ago what that meant.