Hunting Nora Stone

by Colin Weldon

  “Eddie,” said Abigail swivelling in her chair and motioning for him to take a seat.

  He looked over at the soft chair he had sat in many times before. He turned back and shook his head, widening his stance and placing his hands behind his back to make it clear to her that he was no longer a patient. She smiled at him.

  “You’re looking well. Fit,” said Abigail getting up and moving over to the coffee maker, “get you a drink?”

  “No thanks Doc,” Eddie said trying to relax his shoulders.

  “So we obviously need a talk then,” Abigail said.

  “I take it we both objected to each other being sent on this wild goose chase?” Eddie said.

  Abigail pressed the button on the machine and leant against it. She gave him a look that confirmed his suspicions. There was no way Abigail would sign off on him going back into the field this early.

  “You think you’re ready?” she said.

  Eddie took a step towards her.

  “Doctor Carroll, you need to be clear on several issues before we get on that plane. What you did for me, in this room, is something that I will be eternally grateful for. You saved my life in here,” Eddie said pointing to his head, “but out there, you are under my command. You are about to enter my office, and in that office, you will do exactly what I say, when I say it. You’re on this mission to evaluate the psychological state of a highly trained killer that we unleashed into the world, not to keep tabs on my performance in the field. I am your commanding officer, and you were shoved down my throat by Wise not the other way around.”

  Abigail gave Eddie a piercing look. Their eyes were locked in a battle that Eddie had to win. There could be no doubt about who was in charge.

  “I see,” Abigail replied.

  “If you have a problem with that Doctor you need to tell me now,” Eddie replied almost hoping she would.

  “Not at all,” Abigail said.

  Eddie looked at her and wondered if he had come across too harshly. They had formed a bond in this room, and it had just felt like he had broken it. Part of him was glad. He had to move on.

  “For what it’s worth I think you’ve come a long way and for that, I am truly proud of you,” Abigail said.

  Eddie frowned at how patronising the sentence had sounded. He turned to leave.

  “I hope the nightmares have stopped,” Abigail said as Eddie’s hand turned the door handle.

  A rage welled in his stomach. She had no right to talk about such things outside a clinical environment. He turned and saw a knowing in her eyes. A knowledge of the weaknesses of every inch of his mind and he suddenly hated her for it.

  “If I were you I’d spend the next twenty-four hours at the firing range. I want a proficiency report from the master of arms before I issue you with a weapon,” Eddie said opening the door.

  “Yes Sir,” Abigail responded as he walked out and forcefully shut the door behind him.

  .

  CHAPTER TWO

  August 7th, 2015

  Garuda Int Flight GA863: Hong Kong -Soekarno-Hatta Jakarta

  20:13 WIB

  Eddie grabbed his cup as the vibration of the latest air pocket spilled a droplet of whiskey onto the fold-down table. He looked out at the nothingness beyond the window to make sure the wings were still attached. He liked to think of his fear of flying as healthy. He had been in six crashes in his career. The last one in a Boeing AH-64 Apache helicopter during a night recon mission while hovering a mile above the crumbled ruins of Aleppo. It was that last one that had broken the camel’s back. He took a large gulp from his glass, emptying its contents before pressing the call button to ask for another.

  “Take it easy on those things, Eddie,” said Abigail looking at him.

  He turned to her and frowned.

  “Let’s be clear Doc, on this mission your job is to help me tactically assess what this woman is thinking. Not to babysit my drinking habits. No offence, but therapy is over,” he replied.

  She nodded, taking his point.

  “How’s our tech head?” he said looking over her shoulder across the aisle at Hiran who was snoring under a large black eye mask.

  “Sleeping like a baby,” said Abigail.

  A flight attendant appeared in the aisle in front of them.

  “I’ll have another,” said Eddie clinking the ice in the cup.

  The flight attendant smiled at him, showing a perfect set of teeth behind rose coloured lipstick. Eddie had been used to female attention his whole life and knew when he was being baited with a single glance. He was far too preoccupied to be indulging in such things when his life was being suspended thirty thousand feet in the air by several tons of metal. He smiled courteously as she turned on her heels and moved away, flicking her hair in his direction as she did so.

  “Seems you have a fan,” said Abigail.

  Eddie cleared his throat and looked back to his laptop, which he had opened, showing the police photographs of the outside of the shack.

  “There’s something odd about this set up that’s been bothering me since the briefing,” he said as another bout of turbulence made him grip the sides of his seat. This time Abigail placed her hand on his.

  “Relax, you’re more likely to be killed by a coconut than in a plane,” she said.

  Eddie looked at her, a little surprised by the sudden physical contact. He pulled his hand away and fidgeted with his seat belt.

  “You made that up,” he said.

  “Nope, it’s a fact, look it up,” she replied.

  The turbulence subsided and Eddie took a long soothing breath.

  “What about the shack?” asked Abigail.

  “She didn’t take any of their weapons,” he said looking through the pictures

  “That’s what you think is strange?” Abigail said, “not the fact that she pulled their hearts out?”

  Eddie looked at her.

  “Well, tell me then, why did she do that and not take their weapons? She’s an assassin. All the ammo was accounted for, including the spent casings,” Eddie said.

  Abigail looked at his laptop at the current image of one of the bodies.

  “Well it’s clear that she doesn’t need them. Not right now anyway,” she said.

  “So you are saying it was a conscious decision, from someone who’s had a psychotic break. Why not just load up and start shooting everyone in the streets? There hasn’t been so much as a peep on the wire about other incidents remotely like this one. No other murders, no other mayhem. She went full metal jacket then chose to disappear,” Eddie said.

  “Psychosis does not always denote an incapacity for reasoning or calculated thought,” Abigail said.

  “You said in the briefing that you thought she was sending us a message; not humanity, but us, the agency?” Eddie said.

  “Yes, it would certainly explain the brutality of it. It’s not uncommon for a field operative to take issue with the government. Especially after an extended tour of duty in a high-risk combat zone. Some minds simply can’t get past some of the horrors of war,” she said looking sternly at Eddie.

  He caught her meaning. They had spoken about it at length during their sessions. Survivor’s remorse is often channelled into a rage at those who had placed them in harm’s way in the first place. Eddie’s anger had been different though. He harboured no grudges and he had satisfied his thirst for revenge already. He had killed them all. Perhaps it was the visualisation of what Nora Stone had done to these men that had brought it back up. It had not been that dissimilar to what he had done to his captors. He had not wanted to send a message however. He wanted revenge. He had decided early on to go medieval on those bastards. To see what it tasted like, to see if humanity really was capable of reducing itself to the level of the animal kingdom. He had been surprised at how easily it had come to him and that was why he needed out.


  “Wise would not give me access to her training file,” Eddie said, trying to get her to stop looking at him like that. Abigail did not answer.

  “You’ve seen it, haven’t you?” he said to her.

  Abigail leaned back on her headrest and looked at the small television screen embedded in the chair in front of her.

  “Just the basics,” Abigail said.

  Eddie frowned and continued to look at her as she gazed away. Abigail Carroll’s presence on this mission made no sense to him, but if she had something up her sleeve that could stop this lunatic, then she came at her own risk. He made himself perfectly clear to Wise that if the shit hit the fan he could not guarantee her safety. That did not seem bother Wise, which again he found odd. There was something very wrong with this picture.

  “Look, this is a new breed of agent. My job is to evaluate whether or not they can handle themselves in a high-pressure combat scenario and most of all what they’ll do when captured. These people accept the fact that if they get caught, they die. If they are unable to take their own lives, they have to be able to withstand the kinds of torture that you went through for far longer periods without breaking. The conditioning structures put in place to help them do that is not something the government wants getting out. You know that,” she said looking at him. “Needless to say, she’s tough, with an edge that neither you nor I could ever have. I’ll tell you one thing. I seriously hope we don’t run into her over there,” she said.

  “I don’t think there’s any chance of that,” Eddie said.

  “Oh?” Abigail said.

  Eddie closed his laptop and laid his head back against the seat.

  “The weapons aren’t missing because there is no way she could get them through an airport security check. She’ll be long gone by the time we get there,” Eddie said.

  “Gone, where?” Abigail said.

  “That’s what we’re gonna find out,” Eddie said closing his eyes briefly, “seeing as therapy is out, by the way, how about a debrief on you?”

  “I don’t follow,” said Abigail.

  Eddie opened his eyes again and looked at her. Her hair was shorter, just under shoulder length. Eddie had suggested cutting it before going into the field. It actually suited her. But he had spilled too much mental blood with her to be attracted to her. She was too calculated anyway for his liking. Still, he had to admit it was a good look for her.

  “You went to Princeton yeah? Why the CIA? You never told me before,” Eddie said.

  Abigail looked down at her hands, for a moment. Eddie was not sure she was going to answer. She always considered questions carefully and Eddie had gotten used to waiting several seconds before she responded to anything. So he waited.

  “It’s cutting edge Psych, no two ways about it,” she finally replied. “I wanted to make a difference in interrogation techniques, make all that water-boarding crap obsolete. My father was a soldier. He was killed in Iraq in ninety-eight. He spent two years in an internment camp just outside Bagdad. They tore him apart trying to break him. I was always told that he didn’t, of course,” she paused, “but I know he did, it’s just simple math when it comes to the length of time the human mind can hold out when it’s being tortured. I don’t blame him, but I wanted to find ways of helping soldiers, like you, like Nora Stone, in healing and preparing themselves for the real field work. War is all in the mind. That’s what I think anyway.”

  “I see,” Eddie said, shocked that she had actually opened up. “Sorry to hear that, about your dad. You’re wrong about one thing though.”

  “Oh?” she replied.

  “Yeah, it’s not math, it’s will. It’s rage and will that keep a soldier from breaking. Oh, I agree that everyone has their breaking point but I don’t think you can train anyone to respond to real life torture,” said Eddie.

  “Maybe,” Abigail said, “maybe humans are the problem. Maybe we should be sending drones into battle.”

  Eddie looked at her while he took his drink and took another sip.

  “Is that what Nora Stone is? A drone?” Eddie said.

  Abigail leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. She didn’t answer.

  CIA Headquarters –

  Jaguar division - R&D level red

  Codeword clearance only

  Langley - Virginia

  Director Benjamin Wise placed his hand on the access scanner and waited for the doors to react. There was a light hissing sound as a blinking light above the palm scanner turned from red to green. The door slid open and he stepped inside the airlock. The door sealed shut as a blast of air ruffled his hair and made his suit jacket blow around his waist.

  “Clear,” said a computerized voice as the next set of doors slid open.

  Wise entered a long corridor. The bare grey walls had a single yellow stripe leading all the way to the bottom, where an open elevator stood waiting. He walked casually down the corridor and reached the elevator. He turned and faced outwards and placed his hand on another scanner. The light blinked to green and the doors closed. He felt his stomach lurch as he descended the forty-two floors to the basement level, a sensation that he had gotten used to. It came to a slow controlled stop and the doors opened again. The sterile air had an odour in it. He tolerated it, of course, but it always left a funny taste in his mouth for the rest of the day. He passed two armed guards dressed in full marine combat uniform as he stepped into the lab. At fifty four thousand square feet it was just shy of a football field in size. While the lab on the thirty second floor was slightly larger, this one was uniquely dedicated to the Jaguar division. Large reinforced glass windows opened out into the passageways.

  Wise glanced into one as he passed a room labelled ‘Prosthesis Control’ in bold red lettering above the door. It was currently occupied by two members of Jaguar R&D wearing white lab coats. Both were standing at a table in the centre of the room looking at one of the arm and shoulder replacements. One of the technicians, a balding man with too much weight on him, was tapping some commands into a data pad. The fingers attached to a transparent robotic arm extended and retracted smoothly. Wise continued on down a corridor until he reached his destination.

  The lab’s windows were blacked out. He looked around him and placed his hand on a palm scanner. A light flickered to green and requested a sixteen-digit access code. He typed in the code and the door slid open with a hiss. Stepping inside, he nodded to the two men standing in the middle of the room. They instantly stood back from the subject at its centre. A series of cables and wires, which seemed to grow from the roof, extended downwards attaching themselves to what looked like a sleeping person. Wise knew, of course that it was anything but. Its head appeared human, but where there should have been a flesh and blood body, there was only a mechanism, a transparent body from the shoulders down, with nothing but tightly packed wires and joints constructed from moulded metal. Its perfectly clean-shaven face showed no signs of discomfort as its eyes remained peacefully closed. It had black hair, which was buzzed at the back and sides. One of the two men in lab coats handed Wise a data pad. His name was Dr. Tyler Shaw, head of cybernetics at Jaguar. It was actually Shaw who had devised much of the internal programming systems for most of the prosthetic replacements.

  This was, however his crowning achievement. The complete transplantation of over eighty per cent of a human being. Wise had called him Frankenstein at first, meant as a joke to begin with, but it had now proven to be eerily accurate. He had curly grey hair and seemed to keep himself in good physical condition for sixty-three.

  “Report?” said Wise to Shaw.

  “All systems working within normal parameters. We were just fine-tuning some of the synaptic feedback sheaths,” Shaw said.

  “Is he ready for active duty?” Wise asked.

  “As ready as he’ll ever be, yes sir,” Shaw nodded.

  “Wake him up,” said Wise.<
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  Shaw moved over to the metallic platform. He moved to the back of the cybernetic person and pressed an ‘activation’ switch. The head twitched slightly as the eyes quickly flicked open and looked around the room.

  “Good evening Tarsis,” said Wise.

  Tarsis had been named after the Director’s cat, which was something Wise had done on purpose to remind himself that he was not human. His real name had been David Trident, a twenty nine year old marine who had met with a rather unfortunate encounter with an IAD while on patrol in Bagdad. His body had been blown to smithereens. Luckily for him, Jaguar had a cryogenics unit ready on standby, hoping for a compatible candidate to fall into their laps.

  “Good evening Director,” said Tarsis looking calmly at him.

  While his vocal chords had been cut during the explosion, the voice emulator worked perfectly with only a hint of a mechanical tone to it.

  “Tarsis, I have a mission for you,” Wise said.

  “Yes, Director,” Tarsis replied.

  Shaw moved across the lab to a computer console, which showed a transparent 3D rendering of Tarsis’s brain. He watched as he responded to Wise. The Director reached inside in his breast pocket and pulled out a photograph. He approached Tarsis and held the photograph up to his face.

  “You are to kill Nora Stone,” Wise said, “do you understand?”

  Tarsis looked at the photograph.

  “Affirmative Director, you would like me to kill Nora Stone,” Tarsis said, reaching his right arm to take the photograph.