The Emissary

by Patricia Cori

  Liz tried to calm her down, but Jamie was inconsolable, screaming for help, leaving Liz no choice but to take the syringe from her purse and inject it into the drip. Jamie tried to pull the needle out from the back of her hand, but she was already immediately immobilized from whatever was in the pharmaceutical cocktail Liz had slipped her. “By the time you realize what you’ve done, it will be too late … too late … too …” And she was out cold again.

  Liz sat there, frozen. She wasn’t sure what was going to happen next, and she had no message from Wells. More than an hour had passed—what was he up to? Nervously, she awaited his directive.

  Accompanied by a nurse, Dr. Varja walked into the room carrying an envelope containing the test results and Jamie’s chart. He was stern. “I don’t know who you are, but I will tell you this. Everything is documented, with witnesses. If this woman doesn’t make it, you and the doctor will have to answer for your actions. I am reporting that she is being taken out of intensive care against medical advice and without my consent. I will report it to the police as well.”

  The nurse checked the saline drip, which would be wheeled out with Jamie, and tucked two extra blankets around her.

  “In my country, we believe in karma. If you understood how karma works, you would not be doing this.” Without waiting for Liz to say a word, Varja stormed out, leaving space for the orderlies to come and transfer Jamie out the ER exit. They waited inside the door for the ambulance to arrive. Liz looked outside, searching for Wells, who had still not arrived. What she didn’t notice, off at the end of the parking lot, was an unmarked taxi parked within sight of the entrance.

  In it were Jimbo and Sam.

  They watched a limo drive up next to the ambulance, and Emery Wells step out. Jimbo didn’t recognize him, but he knew, from one look at him, that he was from the Agency. The government worked that way—one rarely knew who was pulling the strings more than one level higher. A minute later, Liz appeared from the doorway, with Jamie, out cold in the hospital gurney. The orderlies lifted her into the ambulance and locked the doors behind her, ready to take her away.

  “Wow! There’s Liz,” Sam said, reaching for the door. He still didn’t realize what was happening.

  Jimbo grabbed his sleeve. “Wait. Stay back.”

  Emery walked right up to Liz. They exchanged a few words, got into the backseat of the limo, and then drove off before the ambulance, which followed close behind.

  “Shit,” said Jimbo. “They’ve got Jamie.” He opened the partition to speak to the driver. “Stay on the ambulance—out of sight.”

  “Are you going to tell me now, or later?” asked Sam.

  Jimbo lowered the brim of his hat as he looked out the window, trying to get a glimpse of the man in the limo as it drove past them. “Tell me all you know about your girlfriend.”

  “Liz? I’d hardly call her a girlfriend.”

  “What do you know about her, Sam?”

  Sam was evasive. “Not much, to be honest. I met her when you did. What gives?”

  “Are you sure you never saw her before that—back in Houston, perhaps?”

  “No way. I would have remembered. She flew in from London, far as I know, straight here.” As they followed stealthily, a safe distance from the ambulance, Jimbo continued to drill him.

  “Anything else you know about her, that I don’t?”

  “Look, what do you want me to say, Jimbo? She’s a cute chick, nice ass … fun to be around. What else was I supposed to know?”

  “Did she ever talk about how she got chosen for this gig?”

  “The London office … that’s all I know. They recruited her from applicants at Cambridge. The girl is a genius—I mean, she knows more about sonar technology than I do. Beauty and brains, man. Come on, Jimbo, what’s this all about anyway?”

  “Where’s your phone?”

  Sam reached in his pocket and pulled out his mobile. Jimbo took it from his hands, pulled off the casing, and took the battery out. He slipped it back into Sam’s coat pocket.

  Jimbo looked Sam straight in the eyes. “She’s an agent.”

  Sam laughed, nervously. “An agent? For what?”

  “You’ve been screwin’ around with the wrong babe, Sammy boy.” Jimbo watched as the limo and then the ambulance pulled into a driveway, where a sign read “Vancouver General Hospital—Psychiatric Facility.” He opened the partition again, and told the driver not to follow them in, but just to keep driving. “Drop us at the Crow’s Nest, back at the harbor. Make it as fast as you can, without attracting any attention.”

  The driver hit the gas. Sam was trying to make sense of what was going on, but it was so crazy, he couldn’t figure anything out. As they walked towards the bar, Jimbo finally broke cover, knowing he had no choice but to confide in Sam. He needed him.

  “Listen up. We’ve got a few minutes, no more. I need you, Sam. You have to get your head around this, real quick.” He looked around, making sure no one was within ear’s distance. “The Deepwater operation isn’t what it seems. We’re not really worried about oil. It’s a cover for a secret NSA directive to make contact with an underwater alien base. That’s what we’re really doing out there—we’re trying to locate it and open communication.”

  There was a chill in the air. Jimbo raised his collar against the wind. Sam just stared at him, thoughts … images swirling around in his head.

  “We have the best people—trained remote viewers, equipment comin’ out our asses, but we could never get a freeze on it. That’s why they called in Jamie.”

  They stopped in the middle of the walkway. “Jesus, Jimbo, what kind of crazy are you giving me here?”

  “Nobody expected you would pick up these ships on the radar. That was their craft you were seeing. You weren’t supposed to ever know any of this—you were part of the cover. You understand? It’s all a cover. But I never understood about Liz—who was she? Mat never told me much about her, so I never asked. She never really fit, though. I couldn’t have suspected that a young babe like her would be ranked over me. These people know what they’re doing. I just never understood it until now.”

  “Damn, Jimbo—understood what?”

  “Liz, man. She answers to another authority. Higher up.”

  Jimbo pulled open the door into the Crow’s Nest, which was half-full of drunken sailors, belting back the booze. Sam and Jimbo walked in and grabbed a corner table, which still had not been cleared of empty beer bottles and a half-full basket of stale popcorn.

  Sam spoke in a whisper. “Who are you, Jimbo? How do you know all of this?”

  “I’m Government, boy. Covert operations. I served under Mat Anderson in ’Nam and I’ve been reporting to him ever since. Do you get this? We’ve been trying to establish contact with an underwater alien colony that we know is out there—beneath the sanctuary. We had similar locations out off the California coast, but we could never pinpoint them. That’s what we’re doing out there—do you want to try and grasp that for me?”

  Jimbo walked over to the bartender and threw a ten-dollar bill on the bar, leaving Sam with his jaw still slammed down on the table. “Hey, dog, set me up a couple of brewskies and throw me some metal for the phone.” He grabbed the beers, scooped up the coins and put them in his pocket, and went back over to Sam. “You gettin’ this, kid?”

  Sam took an enormous gulp of beer. “I know a little bit about remote-viewing programs. But you’re going to have to give me more than a minute to get my head around the rest.”

  “Okay, now follow this through. Jamie Hastings had almost immediate contact with the whales—these are highly conscious beings, man. The woman is totally plugged in. We know a hell of a lot more about them than you can even imagine, but that’s a story for another time. When the shit started coming down, and those big whales came in around the boat, she was on to something. They were there for her, you understand?” Jimbo drank thirstily from his bottle. “She was lying there, about to lose consciousness, but she whispered to me
, ‘They’re going to destroy them all.’ That’s what she said, all right. I wasn’t sure what she meant. Liz was there—she was straining to hear, but Jamie whispered into my ear. It was me she was talking to. Who was going to destroy the whales? Those beings down there? That didn’t make sense, but of course I couldn’t ask her. I had to wait and see what would come next … I had to play the part. I had to report back to Mat.”

  Sam just shook his head. “Let me get this. You’re an agent, Liz is too—but you didn’t know it, and Jamie’s talking to whales about aliens. Did I leave anything out?”

  “You did. You left out the respect, Sam. You think I’m playing games here? Jamie, she’s the key. She told me she was their Emissary. The Agency wouldn’t want her to ever be able to tell that story—you get me? She made me realize there’s something else goin’ on … some shadow shit higher up, and the plan wasn’t about making contact, like I believed. Before she went out, she told me I’d been lied to—she said, ‘it’s all a lie’—they’ve been using me. The plan is to destroy that colony—destroy those lives. I’ve been fooled all along, believing we were working to bring in a new era for humanity—part of the Disclosure Project. But that’s not it. They want destruction. This shadow shit goes higher up, even higher than presidents.”

  “Are you telling me Mat Anderson’s part of this? He plays golf with my father!”

  “Yeah … Mat. I served under him in ’Nam. Let’s leave it there for now.”

  Sam ran his hand nervously through his hair and took another gulp of beer. “So what are we doing, Jimbo? Why are you divulging all this to me now?”

  “I need you, Sam. I’m thinking Jamie’s in big trouble and we’re all she’s got. It’s still not too late to save her. You have no idea what they have in store for her in that hellhole of a psychiatric prison.”

  “I can call my father. He can get her out.”

  Jimbo slapped his hand down on the table and laughed out loud. “Yeah, sure—right on. In the world where I live, Sambo, your daddy is a joke—he’s just part of the smokescreen that keeps people from seeing what’s really goin’ on, behind the scenes. You say three words to him on the phone, Jamie’s dead meat. Everything’s monitored—they got everybody covered. You work on The Deepwater? Every single call you make is under surveillance—even when your phone is turned off, somebody’s listening to you breathe, man. That’s why I took the battery out. Make sure it stays out. They’re already looking for us, and we’re not even lost yet. Wake up, boy, we’re talking heavy players here.”

  “What happens now?”

  “We have to move fast. I have to be able to trust you, and you haven’t got much of a choice but to trust me, too. If Jamie’s talking about what she seen out there—god knows how doped up she is—then they’re gonna take her out, once they get what they want from her. Are you with me?”

  “You know it, Captain.”

  “Welcome to Jimbo world, son. You just said ‘hello’ to a whole lot of trouble.”

  Back in Houston, Mat was having a great old time in bed with Louise when his “emergency-only” mobile, which he never turned off, rang. He leaped out of bed, threw on his boxers, and took the call in the next room. It was his superior, Emery Wells.

  “How much do you know about what’s going on out here?” Wells asked, sharply.

  Mat tried to get his mind around to why Wells would be calling. “Apparently not enough, if y’all are calling me.”

  “So you have no idea what’s happened with your psychic?”

  Mat felt the adrenaline pushing through his body. “What’s happened?”

  “I would think your captain should have been the one to report to you, not me. Have we had a breach in security?”

  Mat paced the room. “Never. He follows orders and asks no questions. Never has. I’d put my hand in a fire on that one.”

  “Like he’d do for you, I imagine, but then … he’d get burned, now, wouldn’t he?”

  “Can you please tell me what’s happened?” Mat said, worried.

  “Where is your captain now?”

  “They’re still out there, laying low, at the sanctuary.”

  “You’re sure about that?”

  Mat was nervous. No, he wasn’t “sure.” He’d been distracted, playing with his secretary. For once in a rare moment, he had disconnected.

  “Where else would he be, sir?”

  “We’ve got The Deepwater showing in port, Anderson.”

  “What?”

  “Find your captain.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Mat couldn’t believe Jimbo would bring the ship in without informing him. Not Jimbo. He quickly slipped the battery back into the other mobile phone and there it was—Jimbo’s message. Accident on board. Jamie head injury—medivac to hospital. Waiting news. Heading back in. Will get back when I know more, J. He could have kicked himself for literally getting caught with his pants down. “My mistake. I didn’t get his message.”

  “Not a great time to fall asleep on the job, is it?”

  “No, sir,” Mat replied. “No, it is not.”

  “L called me—she flew in with your guest. Your office hasn’t been able to locate you for hours. Seems almost everybody but you knows what’s happened. I want you to make sure your captain stays away from the hospital.”

  “What’s the situation there?”

  “Messy. You know how much I dislike messy situations.”

  “How is Jamie?”

  “She’s resting. She’s been talking up a storm, though. I think we managed to convince the attending physician that she’s prone to bouts of delirium. We had to get her to a quiet place before she said too much else.”

  Mat knew what that could mean for Jamie. “Don’t let anything happen to her. We need her.”

  “I see her more as a liability than a necessity.”

  “We need her, sir.”

  “You seem to have forgotten who makes the decisions around here.”

  “No, sir, I have not. I just know what she can do, that’s all.”

  “Wait for instructions. Oh,… and get that broad out of bed.” He hung up on Mat abruptly.

  While Mat stood there staring at the phone, trying to decide his next move, Louise called out to him.

  “You comin’ back to bed, or what, baby?”

  He went back to the bedroom and threw his pants on in a hurry. “You need to go—I have shit coming down all over.”

  “You’re kicking me out of bed? Well, I never …”

  “Sorry, sugar, business calls.” He threw back the covers. “Get dressed,” he said, “… fast.”

  “And you call yourself a ‘gentleman’?” Furious, she got up, naked, and stormed into the bathroom. Mat called down to his driver, instructing him to be waiting for Louise at the entrance. She came back out, slipped into her clothes, and marched out of the bedroom to leave. Just as she was about to slam the door behind her, she turned back to Mat. “You are one son of a bitch, Mat Anderson,” she said, and stormed out.

  14

  The Race Against Time

  Mat called the ship radio. No one answered—by now it was almost midnight on the West Coast. The ship was in port, so there was no necessity for anyone to be at the bridge. He speed dialed Jimbo, but his cell was off, which infuriated Mat.

  He called Jimbo’s senior officer, Bobby, who was fast asleep in his quarters after a day of extreme tension, trauma, and fatigue. The weather was turning, too. Getting the ship back into port had been a tough ride. He was wiped out, exhausted.

  Bobby scrambled for his cell phone, trying to focus after being jolted out of a deep sleep.

  “Bobby?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Where’s Jimbo? Get him on.”

  “Sorry, sir, far as I know he’s not on board,” he said. Bobby sat up at the edge of the bed, knowing he wasn’t going to have the luxury of falling back to sleep.

  “Where the hell is he?”

  Bobby looked at the time on his pho
ne—11:45. He really didn’t know where Jimbo would be at that hour. He’d been sleeping. He tried to be as evasive as possible. “He and Sam were heading out to the hospital last I heard, but I crashed early.”

  “Goddamn it, track him down.”

  “I’ll check his quarters—do you want to hold?”

  “Yeah, of course I’ll hold. Find his ass.”

  Bobby slipped into his jeans and walked just a few steps down the hall, where Jimbo’s cabin was. He knocked, but there was no answer, as he suspected. He returned to his cabin. “Sorry, sir, he’s not there.”

  “Damn.”

  “Did you try calling him?”

  “Of course I called him—he’s got his freaking telephone turned off. I want you to find his ass.”

  “Sir? How am I going to do that without a phone?”

  “That’s not my problem, Bobby. He should have left instructions. Call the hospital—check the bars. Tell him to call me no matter what time of night it is.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “Report back to me when you’ve tracked him down.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And tell him to turn his freakin’ phone on and leave it on.”

  By now, Bobby was wide awake. He knew better than to look for Jimbo at the hospital at that hour, and so he called the most likely place—the Crow’s Nest. Jimbo was a regular there, and Bobby knew all the bartenders. Sure enough, the bartender confirmed that Jimbo was there, knocking back a few beers.

  “Hold on, I’ll get him for you,” he said. “Jimmy, I got Bobby on the line here.”

  Jimbo leaped out of his seat and grabbed the phone. “Hey Bobby, what’s up?”

  “Just got a furious call from the boss. He told me to find you and have you call him back, pronto. And I quote: ‘Tell him to turn on his freaking cell phone.’ ”

  Jimbo was cagey. He didn’t want Bobby to know any more than he had to, to protect him, and he wasn’t about to say too much on the phone. “What did you tell him?”