The Killing Collective

by Gary Starta

  Seacrest leaned forward, every nerve alive and humming. “Who do you think the protectors are, Monty?”

  “I’ve been wondering about that for two weeks now. After hearing what happened last night to you both, and now after seeing this list, I have a pretty good idea who it is. As I said, there was only one group of people who knew they ever existed, and they couldn’t afford to be blackmailed and exposed. That’s why the F.B.I. made a deal with them. You’re fighting your own organization.”

  ***

  Carter saw Seacrest’s face change color, again. Knowing what was coming, he waited for her to blow. When she did, it was worse than Vesuvius.

  Seacrest leaped off her chair, regardless of the pain it caused her, and slammed a fist on a table. She was no longer red. She was purple. “F.B.I.? The F.B.I.?! Are you telling me that every high official in the Goddamn F.B.I. knows about this and has always known about it? You think that the D.O.D. was ordered by our own office to confiscate the chemical evidence? I’m supposed to believe that we’ve been lied to and sabotaged right from Jump Street by our own people?!”

  “That’s about it. Yes.”

  “Those fuckers! Those slimy, sneaking, black-suited, sunglass-wearing traitors! This is so subversive that I’m not sure we should expose it to the public. It may not be able to be stopped if it’s been going on since the Roswell crash. This could trigger riots, maybe even a civil war!

  “There’s just got to be international collusion. The F.B.I. and the JASONS have contacts all over the world! Jesus! If you’re right, then everything that’s been happening over the last year is an attempt to destabilize the country and the world – defying the constitution, encouraging hate groups like the Collective to bring their activities right out onto main street, the illegal detention and deportation of Muslims and Mexicans, arresting reporters, tampering with the presidential election, denying climate change, intolerance and outright bigotry, misogyny, and racism. It’s all been part of a larger agenda! And you think the president doesn’t know anything about it?

  “I admit the man has the intelligence and temper of a two-year old, but how could he not know? These were all his ideas!”

  Carter had a thought on that point. “Yes, but that’s what makes him the perfect patsy, Jill. All he knows is that he’s been helped into the White House by countries that hate us, but the reason is pretty clear to me now; they went so far over the line to get him elected because his agenda happened to fit the Silver Man’s to a “T”. The timing, his love of attention from rich, fawning internationals, and his admiration of tyrants like Putin combined with his utter stupidity was just the combination they’d been waiting for all these years. The entire cabinet is gobbling up all the candy in the store, but what they don’t know is that the candy is poisoned.”

  Seacrest dropped down onto the bed beside Carter, exhausted. “Fischetti had to have known that all along! I always wondered why he was so set on hiring us -a couple of nobodies from Boston. We were perfect for the job because we were above suspicion and beyond reproach. It was well known that Carter had taken down dirty cops in his own office. That made it impossible for him to stay there, but perfect as a pawn who’d be relieved to come here. We were given big promotions, training, carte blanche in the lab and a more than generous budget. We even made the Goddamn papers! We were so busy trying to make good that we were easily led down the garden path.

  “We weren’t from inside the organization, so there was no way to know about the JASONS or make the connection between them and our cases. We were used just as much as the president, Carter, and I’ll be good and Goddamned if I go out without getting every one of them first.”

  Monty looked more scared of her than the JASONS. Carter said benignly, “It’s not that bad, Jill.” He smiled, rested his head on the pillows propping him up and watched her fume. This was the way he and Jill worked together.

  Seacrest began rubbing her palms on her pants, ready for round two. “Fischetti could manipulate us without breaking a sweat! And Deeprose! Ha! A rookie on her first case thrown into an investigation of national importance, and we never thought twice about it! Carter! We walked right into the middle of the biggest, dirtiest double-dealing conspiracy in U.S. history with our eyes closed. We started asking questions, got too curious, had a few lucky breaks and broke some rules. That’s why we have to be killed in the line of duty.”

  She stopped short and blinked a few times. “You’re right, Monty, we’ve got to get the hell out of here.”

  “That probably would’ve been the wise thing to do the first time I said it.”

  “Oh my God! Agent Deeprose is a sitting duck in the hospital. We have to get her out of there. Carter, did you get all that?”

  He answered her calmly. “I got it.”

  Seacrest directed her comment to the ceiling. “There’s got to be someone who’ll believe this story and help us blow the lid off this cover-up. Fischetti knows the identities of the JASONS, Carter. He’s got to. And he knows every person in the F.B.I. who’s in on this.”

  “Who in the world is going to help us, Jill, without proof of any kind? How do you tell a wild story like that without sounding like a lunatic, which is just what you thought of Monty a few minutes ago? All we have is the Burn List. And that means nothing without proof of who made it, proof of the experiments done on the test subjects from the Collective meetings, and proof of what the JASONS planned to do with the list after the experiments were done. Going after the F.B.I. is sheer suicide without hard evidence. We’ll have to think of another way out of this. Monty, does the Burn List give us any leverage at all?”

  Monty looked crestfallen. “It’s our only bargaining chip. To use it as supporting evidence we’d have to get a full confession out of the JASONS, get them to implicate your office. Otherwise it’s all circumstantial, and we don’t stand a chance. Even if we did have hard evidence, who’d stick his neck out for us when it’s a losing battle? No one can fight the F.B.I. and win.”

  Carter’s brain was finally starting to percolate. “There’s one thing I still don’t understand; you think the assassinations have to continue until the Silver Man controls all those positions, but if he’d succeeded this time, wouldn’t it become obvious that important people all over the world were being exterminated? Why would they make such a stupid plan?”

  “Because they can. And because no one will ever suspect the F.B.I. is shielding a mythological group of mad scientists. After the experiments were concluded and the people on the Burn List were successfully taken out and replaced, who knows? I think there’s another step in the plan, but for the life of me, I can’t figure out what it is.”

  Carter had been told what it was the night before, but he had no recollection of it.

  Seacrest started making plans of their own. “I know we have to leave, but it’s going to take some time to get Carter up and into clothes. We’re going to need your help, Monty. We haven’t eaten since yesterday morning, either, and I’m starving.”

  She limped into the kitchen, opened the fridge and made them all sandwiches. Monty helped Carter into a kitchen chair as she handed them ice cold beer in frosty glasses that she kept in the freezer for just such a moment.

  Monty looked down at his sandwich but didn’t move. Seacrest saw tears come to his eyes. “Thank you. This is very kind of you. You don’t know how much I’ve missed the little things…how much I miss my wife every moment of every day.”

  Seacrest felt her heart melt.

  This is no crazy man sitting at my kitchen table eating a sandwich. He knew we stumbled into a trap and really wants to help us.

  Seacrest sat opposite Montgomery in the kitchen, but addressed herself to both men. “Monty, Carter might recognize a face or two if he could arrange another meeting, but you might recognize them all.”

  She looked at Carter and decided to say what they were both thinking. “Fischetti would have to be brain dead not to know what’s going on around him, but we have to trust someo
ne, Carter. We need someone on the inside working with us. He might not be guilty, honey. His hands might be tied. We could talk to him – give him a chance to cooperate.”

  “I thought of that too, Jill, but even assuming he’s innocent, the heat is turned up so high that if he doesn’t play along, he can kiss his own ass good-bye. He’s obviously been told to make Mr. Montgomery the fall guy. We can’t go to him. It would put him in an impossible situation.”

  Monty realized neither of them fully comprehended the significance of the old curator’s name on the list. “Not necessarily! Agents, allow me to shed a little light on Dalton Wells’ assassination. The old curator was executed for helping to arrange the return of a portion of the museum’s priceless medieval art to its rightful owners – the European countries from which they came. The return of that art meant an economic loss beyond reckoning. He was involved in extremely high-level negotiations between the president and several ambassadors just before he died. The point is, his name is on the Burn List. Even circumstantially, it’s pretty strong evidence – enough to capture the president’s attention and launch a deeper investigation. He’s the last man on earth who’d let the JASONS have what he wants for himself, but his position is precarious and might not last beyond next year. The evidence has to reach him before he’s kicked out of office or the JASONS will just go back into hibernation until another stooge comes along.”

  Monty finished his sandwich and took one last swig of his beer. “Gee, that was good. I feel like I haven’t eaten in a year.”

  Carter leaned over his plate and grunted in pain. “Monty, there is a way you can help us, but it’s dangerous, maybe more than dangerous.”

  “That’s why I’m here, Agent Carter. What’s your idea?”

  “They might implicate themselves if you’re willing to be the bait. I can’t do it officially without a warrant, but you can.”

  Seacrest perked up. “You want to send him in there wearing a wire?”

  Carter nodded. “And a lapel video cam.”

  She looked over at Monty, so ready to be a hero. He really had no idea what he was getting into, so she spelled it out. “If you want justice, Monty, this is the only way to get it. I won’t lie to you; they’ll beat you, probably drug you and most likely kill you in the end. You don’t have to do this. You can walk away now knowing why Arleen and Katherine died, even if we can’t do anything about it. But Monty, if you could get footage and their voices recorded before you….well, we could carry on the fight. What do you want to do?”

  “What Arleen would want, Agent. She’d want me to cut off their balls with a dull knife. Pardon the vernacular.”

  Carter rarely laughed, but he couldn’t help himself. It came out as a wheeze followed by a wince.

  Seacrest stole a quick look at her watch and drew in a sharp breath between clenched teeth. “Can you help Carter get cleaned up and dressed while I get some supplies together?”

  Fifteen minutes later, all three met back in the kitchen. Monty wanted them to know he tried to help them once before. “I tried to point Agent Deeprose in the right direction by leaving a painting from my own collection at the Cloisters that clearly did not belong in their collection. It was a Degas of ballerinas at their rehearsal, his specialty. By then, I’d met with Senator Pressman. He was worried about one name on the list that he felt was critically important to world relations - worried enough to tell me her name, her occupation and where she rehearsed. Her name was Clara, and she’d just been named the new prima ballerina with an internationally renowned company that travelled all over the world. She’d been asked by the United Nations to play a sort of Ambassador for us in the Communist and Third World countries to smooth their feathers a little.”

  Carter and Seacrest exchanged a significant glance. She answered for the both of them. “They’ll be happy to know they can replace her right now, Monty. She found out who her killer was going to be and got to her first. She’s in custody.”

  “Poor girl.” He got up to get his coat. “So how do we make this meeting happen, Agent Carter?”

  “Not so fast, Monty. If you can’t get all the evidence we need in one shot, Meese will gladly throw you under the bus to save their own hide. Everything we have still leads straight back to you. The list we have was found on their own computers, but you were the project manager who dealt with the JASONS. You knew all about Kate’s research on Hyzopran and blamed them for deep sixing her project and her death. Arleen was murdered, but you can’t prove who was behind it. You could have written the anonymous letter of warning you received, yourself. You assumed it was from the JASONS who, by the way, we still can’t prove are the men you worked with or even ever existed except in a legend. Senator Pressman could blow the whistle, but he’s already told you he won’t. You also assumed you were being threatened because you knew about Hyzopran.

  “To a jury, Monty, you sound like a paranoid schizophrenic with delusions of grandeur. It wouldn’t take a jury very long to find you guilty of stealing the drug and trying to frame Meese for everything that’s happened since.”

  Monty looked ashen. He closed his eyes, said a prayer, and then said what he had to say. “I need to know exactly how we’re going to get this information and exactly what I need to worm out of them for video and wire.”

  Seacrest rose and taking out her laptop, she quickly typed up a list of her own. “Read this and memorize it. The only other things you need to know is how to get them to say what we have to hear and figure out a way to get the voice recording and video out of the meeting place and into the U.S. mail before they can kill you. We have to have a fool-proof plan before you go in.”

  The JASONS must do ALL of the following:

  • Admit they’re the original JASONS. Names are preferable, because we have to assume their faces have been changed through surgery and by age and that their prints have been burned off.

  • Say why they were originally created and by whom - and I mean ALL the people involved. That’s the only way we can protect ourselves from the F.B.I. for the rest of our lives.

  • Say where their current funding and sanctioning comes from, how much they receive and the extent of their power and authority.

  • Say why and when their mission changed, what they’re planning as their new mission, what they hope to gain by it, how they plan to carry it out and what exactly they did carry out so far.

  • Admit they were placed at Meese without Meese’s knowledge.

  • Admit to torture, brainwashing, and murder, attempted murder, kidnapping, and ordering the assassinations.

  • Explain that they used Meese, Senator Pressman and the members of the Collective as test subjects, smoke screens and fall guys without their knowledge and against their will.

  • Admit the Burn List found on Meese computers was written by them with the intent to assassinate everyone named there. They have to say at least some of the names on the list to corroborate our own list. They need to explain why they were selected and that they planned to replace them with people willing to look after their interests.

  • Tell you what the next phase of their plan is, how it will happen and what their motive is.

  • Admit to stealing the drug from Meese before they were disbanded.

  • Admit to ordering the murder of your wife as a warning to you, of murdering your colleague and of drugging and brainwashing Carter into trying to kill me and himself.

  When he looked up from the list, Seacrest tossed Monty a bone. “If you can get all of that, we can get reduced or even suspended sentences for the people paying for murders they have no memory of committing – with a few exceptions.”

  “Anything else you want to add to this list? I don’t see the kitchen sink anywhere on it.”

  Seacrest and Carter looked at each other and then at him. His chances of making it out of that meeting were slim to none, and he looked like he knew it. Seacrest walked across the room and hugged him.

  “What was that for?”
<
br />   “For being on the team, Monty.”

  He cleared his throat and looked down at his hands. “We have something more on our side than the Burn List. I’ve been working with a techno whiz who was a favorite of theirs for a long time. He’ll work for the highest bidder, but even that creep knows when to quit. He’s been keeping them under surveillance for me for the past few weeks so that I have a bargaining chip if push comes to shove. I’ll make arrangements for him to get me his own version of a lapel cam and wire. The feed will be encrypted as it’s being sent directly to him by V.P.N. in real time. We won’t have to worry about getting the feed into the U.S. mail at all. He’ll do it for us.”

  Carter beamed. “You were holding an ace all the time. That footage is our insurance, even if it only has pieces and parts of the story on it. If he sends it directly to the White House to the president’s private email account, then he can drop it in the regular mail without worrying about it being intercepted. Can he do that, Monty?”

  “This guy could infiltrate the Kremlin if he wanted to. Piece of cake.”

  Seacrest had some real hope for the first time since they began the investigations. “This’ll make one hell of a movie. I can see it all, now…” She laughed and made an exaggerated curtsey, as if she was accepting an Oscar.

  The two men clapped and cheered. “Bravo! Bravo!”

  Chapter Thirty One

  Carter told them he was going to stop at the office on the way to their safe house. “I’ve got to see Fischetti.”

  Seacrest grabbed her husband by the arm. “Carter, don’t say anything about Montgomery to him. I know I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but not now, not anymore. I don’t think we should put our faith in anyone working for the Bureau. He asked me to take that drug when he said the D.O.D. was going to confiscate it, and he knew it should have killed me. He’s been pushing us all along to build a case for thrill kill convictions. If we give him Monty too, he’ll throw him to the wolves. We can’t afford to trust him, Carter. You can’t go back there.”