MJ-12

by Michael J. Martinez

  “You’re rushing things. You think you need to get in and get out, so you’re making messes wherever you go. The bank today. The hotel safe in Davos last week. The museum storehouse in Graz two weeks ago. You’re just reaching in, grabbing for stuff, throwing it aside if it doesn’t interest you. You think you’re going to be interrupted at any moment. But you’re not thinking about what you could do if you were caught.”

  The woman cracked a small smile. “I’m thinking about it right now,” she replied quietly. “But thanks for the tip.”

  She’s going to run, Danny thought. He reached into his pocket and gave his own cigarette case radio three quick taps, the signal for everyone else to get in position. “You have a pretty unique ability, I’ll give you that. But I also think you’re wasting it on bank jobs and knickknacks.”

  The woman’s smile grew wider. “Ah, so you know a little about me, then. And this is where you try to sell me on joining you for … what, exactly? Are you a gangster?”

  Danny had to stifle a laugh at her pronunciation—she’d obviously picked up the word at the movie house. “Sorry, nothing so glamorous. But maybe something far more exciting. And useful.”

  “Ah, a goody-goody,” she replied, another line lifted straight from the silver screen. “Let me guess. You want me to fight for you, whoever you are. Why should I? I like my knickknacks.”

  “Because if you don’t, we’ll tell your husband exactly why you left him—and where he can find that car and all his mother’s jewelry you took on the way out. You want that, Julia Meyer?”

  The smile finally faded. “My husband is a pig,” she spat. “And his mother is a witch from hell.”

  “Good,” Danny quipped. “Come with me, and we’ll cover all your tracks. You’ll have to give everything back you haven’t spent yet, but you won’t be on the hook for it. And we won’t tell your family where you are. New life, clean slate.”

  “I already have a clean slate,” Julia remarked. “Nobody can connect me to any of those crimes. And you don’t have enough to arrest me—if you did, you would. And you know that handcuffs wouldn’t hold me anyway.”

  “I know, Julia. You’re a Variant. Over the past couple years, you’ve developed a kind of Enhancement that allows you to do extraordinary things. Did you ever in your life imagine that one day you’d be able walk right through walls, to reach through doors without opening them? You’re like a ghost. It’s a pretty incredible ability.”

  She continued to stare straight ahead, but her eyebrow cocked up a bit. “A Variant? Is that what you call—do you mean there are others like me? People who can walk through walls?”

  “There are others like you, but you’re the only one I’ve met who can do what you do, Julia. But we Variants, we can do extraordinary things.”

  Julia stood up and made to leave, but Danny glanced over and saw that Frank had taken a seat at the end of the pew and was looking hard at the woman. On the other side, Cal had just taken his place, effectively blocking her in.

  “We’re not here to arrest you, Julia, but we’re not going to let you go, either. Your best option is to come with us and we’ll get everything ironed out for you,” Danny said as he stood. “Let’s not make a scene.”

  She turned to face him directly for the first time. “There won’t be any scene.”

  And with that, she fell straight through the floor.

  Danny quickly punched his radio key four times, then bent over to quickly pick up all her clothes. “I hate it when they run,” he muttered.

  * * *

  Knowing a naked woman might drop from the ceiling at any moment was one thing. Actually seeing it was quite another. So, it took Maggie Dubinsky a few moments before she realized she was truly on deck.

  “Wow, your clothes really don’t go with you,” Maggie said with a broad smile as the woman, now crouched on the floor of the cathedral’s crypts, looked up at her wide-eyed.

  The woman—Julia Meyer, according to the dossier Maggie had read a few hours before in a nondescript hotel room—immediately took off in a sprint.

  “Please stop!” Maggie shouted, her voice echoing off the low stone ceilings and columns of the church’s lower level as she took off in pursuit. “We need to talk!”

  But Julia wasn’t having it, and she wasn’t bothering to stop or run around things like columns and tombs, either. Maggie had little chance of keeping up with her, so she had a couple of options—she could activate a device, initially developed by the Soviets, that would temporarily block any Variant from using their Enhancement, or she could simply use her own ability.

  The way Julia was running through stuff, though, option one was out. For all Maggie knew, the gizmo could somehow trap her suddenly solid body in the middle of a column or something—and that seemed potentially messy.

  Instead, Maggie paused a moment and reached out with her mind, grasping at the flailing red threads that, in her head, visually represented Julia’s frayed emotions. Maggie gathered a few of them in a twist … and pulled.

  She was rewarded with a cry of panic and horror up ahead. Maggie saw that Julia had stopped running and was slowly turning toward her, the look of fear on her face amplified up to a level that few people could contemplate.

  “Oh, shit,” Maggie muttered, then tried to adjust quickly, reaching for cooler threads of calm and happiness. But it was too late.

  Julia ran straight toward Maggie, screaming and wild-eyed, then continued on through her and into the very wall of the catacomb.

  “Shit shit shit shit,” Maggie shouted, keying her radio as she ran toward the stairs leading upward. “Subject on the move! Panicked and buck naked!”

  Most of the time, a dose of fear administered from Maggie made her targets simply fold like a bad hand, collapsing in a heap and blubbering like babies. But for a scant few—maybe one in twenty or so—that abject fear that Maggie could project triggered a fight-or-flight reflex, and Julia had chosen flight.

  Just her luck.

  * * *

  Danny, Frank, and Cal dashed out of the church, startling several well-dressed families heading into the arched doorway. Despite the bitter cold, the plaza around them was full of pedestrians, but Frank was grateful for both the crowds and the winter weather—it would make Julia Meyer a lot easier to find.

  “Commander?” Frank asked, turning to Danny.

  The young man’s eyes were screwed shut in concentration. “She’s … here. Under us. But moving really slow.”

  Higher volumes may lead to reduced movement rates, came the voice of U.S. Army Gen. Mark Davis, who had died three years earlier but somehow also now resided inside Frank’s mind, standing at attention for whenever he was needed. Her Enhancement may have limits. She’ll have to surface soon. Keep on her.

  “No shit,” Frank muttered. There were times when all the voices and accumulated expertise in his head—a rather morbid gift from those Frank had watched die—was incredibly useful. Other times, they stated the obvious with all the gravity of a Congressional decree.

  Danny was already walking into the plaza, Cal at his side. Frank hurried to catch up, passing bakeries and coffeehouses with the most incredible scents coming from inside. Running around Vienna in the depth of winter on Christmas Eve was not how he expected to be living life these days, but then again, his life hadn’t been normal in years.

  “Wait,” Danny said, holding up his hand. “She’s right here. She’s stopped moving.”

  Frank started taking off his overcoat just as Maggie and Zippy came running over—Maggie had been in the basement, Zippy at the very back of the cathedral. “Looks like she’s reached the end of her rope,” Frank said. “Let’s hope she—”

  Suddenly, the woman from the cathedral practically leapt straight out of the cobblestoned street between them, collapsing back down onto the cold stone, gasping for breath.

  Frank immediately threw his overcoat over her. “Maggie, now!”

  Maggie produced a small metal disk from her pocket,
flipped a toggle switch on it, and slipped it into the pocket of Frank’s coat. A moment later, Maggie grimaced. “It’s working,” she said, distaste written across her face.

  Julia Meyer looked up at the five people standing above her. “Who are you?” she gasped.

  Danny knelt down next to her and smiled, handing over her clothes. “I’m Commander Dan Wallace, United States Navy. We work on a special project back in America called MAJESTIC-12. And like it or not, you just joined the team.”

  January 20, 1949

  It’s amazing what a few curtains and some bunting can do, James Forrestal thought as he surveyed the National Guard Armory in Washington, D.C., where the capital’s movers and shakers were gathered to celebrate the inauguration of Harry S. Truman, he of the already legendary DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN headline. And only the armory was big enough to house all the folks Truman invited. The President wanted a celebration—not for himself but for the country. At least, so he claimed.

  Forrestal, however, didn’t feel like celebrating.

  As he hung back by the bar, Scotch in hand, Forrestal couldn’t help but feel a bit guilty. Truman was his boss; the President had named him Secretary of Defense, the first man to hold that newly minted title now that “Secretary of War” sounded a little too aggressive in the horrible aftermath of World War II. Forrestal wanted to be loyal, he really did. But Truman could make it so very, very hard sometimes.

  Hell, the whole title change was a symptom of the problem, in Forrestal’s view. There were still wars to fight.

  “Even you look good in a tux, Jim,” came a voice from behind him, breaking him out of his reverie. Forrestal turned to see a big, slightly balding man beaming at him.

  “Senator McCarthy,” Forrestal said, smiling and shaking the man’s hand. “Didn’t expect to find you here tonight.”

  Joseph McCarthy, the junior U.S. Senator from Wisconsin, shrugged. “Only the senators from Utah pass up free drinks. Besides, I’m celebrating the institution, not the man.”

  The two men clinked glasses at this. “I hope we can still count on you for our military modernization plans, Joe,” Forrestal said with a wink. Neither man was particularly keen on reducing the size and makeup of the U.S. armed forces, but that was the Truman administration’s stance and Forrestal knew he had to keep his mouth shut publicly, no matter how much he might disagree with the President.

  McCarthy’s smile evaporated. “You know as well as I do that the Commies are still building up their forces. Why should we roll over? I don’t care that Truman and his crew—Acheson and Hillenkoetter and the rest of those idiots—think we can do more with covert action and intelligence-gathering. The Soviets are a threat. Especially if they have Variants!”

  Forrestal stiffened at the word and looked around, worry on his face; with his luck, Secretary of State Dean Acheson or CIA Director Roscoe Hillenkoetter would be standing right behind him. “Dammit, Joe, I told you about that in confidence. The very existence of Variants is classified to hell and back, let alone the fact that the Russkies have them too! They could arrest us both for treason for just talking about it!”

  McCarthy stepped in a bit closer and put his hand on Forrestal’s shoulder. “I know, Jim, but it’s not treason. Members of Congress have a right to know about a game-changer like this. You’re a true-blue American. And I am keeping it under my hat, for the most part.”

  “For the most part?” Forrestal hissed. The Defense Secretary had been deeply worried about the Variants and the implication their very existence had for the nation—and humanity at large—while Truman and Hillenkoetter were busy turning them into super-spies and giving these people, these weapons, incredible leeway in their daily activities. Forrestal had confided in McCarthy because he didn’t know who else to turn to, and the Wisconsin senator had always been a political ally. Now it seemed McCarthy had been blabbing about the nation’s best-kept secret program, and Forrestal felt a knot of worry growing in his gut. “Who else have you brought in?”

  “Let’s get some air, shall we?”

  Forrestal followed the senator as he weaved his way through the dancing crowd. There was a Negro woman on stage, singing her heart out. It was the first time Negroes had even been allowed into an inaugural ball other than to serve drinks. Once upon a time, Forrestal might have found the notion somewhat distasteful. These days, though, he had no choice but to admit that skin color was the least of humanity’s worries.

  To Forrestal’s surprise, McCarthy didn’t lead him to the door. Instead, they turned right just before the coat check and headed toward a small, quiet area away from the crowds, where the Secret Service had set up a small command post.

  And standing there, chatting with one of the agents, was a short, stocky man with a receding hairline and a face that could be generously described as pugnacious—J. Edgar Hoover, director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “You really oughta think about applying,” he was saying to the agent. “What you’re doing here, it’s fine. It’s good and honorable and important. But out there, with the FBI, you’re gonna be where the action is, my friend. I promise you that.”

  “I appreciate that, Director,” the young agent said. Forrestal had seen him around the White House before. Young, smart, obviously impressionable.

  Hoover turned and nodded curtly at McCarthy and Forrestal. “Son, you mind giving us the room for a minute? Need to have a chat with these fine gentleman. National security. You understand.”

  The agent scurried away as if he’d seen his shadow, reminding Forrestal just how much pull Hoover had in this town.

  “Good to see you, Jim,” Hoover said as they shook hands. “Been ages. I’m glad Joe here brought us together.”

  Forrestal smiled, but inside he wasn’t quite sure if he shared that sentiment. Truman had been absolutely insistent that Hoover be kept out of the MAJESTIC-12 project at all costs, a move with which Forrestal actually agreed. Nobody in the White House was sure whether Hoover would want his own Variants as agents, or if he’d simply round them up and throw them in a hole as a danger to humanity. He was capable of either option, and Forrestal felt Hoover was too much of a loose cannon and political empire-builder to be trusted. But here he was, and the knot in Forrestal’s stomach tightened up a few notches.

  “I assume, then, that Joe has told you a few things,” Forrestal ventured.

  Hoover raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Just enough. Honestly, Jim, it scares the crap out of me. This shit’s right out of the funny pages, right? Superpowered people—American citizens—being rounded up and turned into secret agents for Hillenkoetter and the CIA? It’s crazy, is what it is.”

  “Director, please understand, there are less than a dozen people in government who know about these Variants,” Forrestal said. “If word were ever to get back to the President—”

  Hoover cut him off with a wave of his hand. “I’m not doing anything with this right now, Jim. I promise you that. It’s just important that people know about it. Do you seriously think that Harry is prepared for when—and it’s when, not if—these Variants get the idea in their heads to do something stupid? To make a move that threatens America? To try to take over?”

  “There are contingencies in place, Director. I’ve reviewed them myself. If the Variants do any of those things, they get put down. Simple as that,” Forrestal said with all the fervor of a politician protecting his turf—which he was.

  “And I’m glad to hear it. Really glad. But all the same, the FBI is going to be looking out for these people now too. Wouldn’t hurt to have a few of them on our side. Checks and balances—isn’t that what we’re celebrating tonight?” Hoover said, barking out a laugh for emphasis.

  McCarthy eyed the director with suspicion; it was obvious to Forrestal that this was news to the senator. “How exactly are you going to do that?” he said.

  “Well, I was going to ask Jim here about that,” Hoover replied. “I mean, how many of these people do you have now?”

&n
bsp; Forrestal shrugged. “We have eight fully up and running. More in the training program. Just brought one in a couple weeks ago.”

  “And how do you find them?”

  Forrestal knew then and there he had to decide just how much to trust Hoover, and whether he might eventually end up as ally, rival, or enemy. He hadn’t told McCarthy about Subject-1 and their ability to locate other Variants. He didn’t even know who Subject-1 was—only the President and Hillenkoetter knew that. And the very existence of this Variant homing pigeon was perhaps America’s greatest advantage against the Soviets and their own Variant program.

  So, he lied.

  “Analysis, mostly,” Forrestal said. “We keep an eye out for unusual reports in the papers. Strange activity, mysterious crimes, that sort of thing. Field scouts will then go and check them out. It’s police work, really. Your boys ought to be pretty good at it.”

  Hoover nodded. “They are indeed, Jim. I already started looking. And I’m gonna keep you updated as we go. I hope you’ll extend me the same courtesy.”

  “Of course, Director,” Forrestal said. “I’m glad you’re taking the initiative here. Appreciate it.”

  The two shook hands as McCarthy beamed at them both, obviously pleased with himself. Forrestal would later give the ambitious politician as stern a talking-to as he could manage, knowing that the bastard had a vote on his budgets.

  After some further pleasantries and the promise of fishing at some nebulous point in the future, Forrestal was left to his own devices and returned to the glittering hall. He watched the President and First Lady take a turn on the dance floor, Truman smiling that big, toothy grin of his. Forrestal grabbed a flute of champagne from a passing waiter and downed it in one shot, trying to ease his nerves.

  Truman wasn’t a bad man, not in the least. But he was a goddamn haberdasher from the middle of nowhere who got swept up in a two-bit political machine in Missouri. He got sent to Congress to do other men’s bidding, and Roosevelt had chosen him to be his vice-president for more of the same. Truman talked a good game, with that whole “buck stops here” nonsense. But deep down, Forrestal knew that he just wasn’t up to the task. Not with humanity’s position at the top of the food chain under threat.