‘And you got paid for that,’ DC said.
‘Hold up, Kevin Costner.’
DC blinked. ‘Kevin Costner?’
Jay paused, making sure he’d got the reference right. ‘Yeah, from that bodyguard movie. So tell me, what have you done?’
DC leaned in, inches from Jay. His pupils were large enough for Jay to jump into.
‘You don’t want to go there,’ he said.
‘You don’t want to go there,’ Jay said. ‘Guess that’s why you’re amped up on speed.’
The conversation in the mess suddenly died.
DC’s fists closed over. Jay readied himself, but the fists opened again.
DC sipped some water. ‘Out of all the operatives you could’ve picked, Sophia …’
‘I picked the only ones who could pull off that operation,’ Sophia said.
‘Can I have that in writing?’ Jay said.
DC laughed. ‘That’d be an interesting read. Accidentally electrocuted Nasira; crashed a helicopter into the United Nations; went on a killing spree with Denton in Manhattan; killed Damien’s girlfriend—’
‘Grace?’ Jay yelled. ‘She was trying to kill me! And Damien!’ He looked over at Damien for backup. ‘She was, like, the worst girlfriend ever!’
‘She was programmed!’ Damien yelled, spitting food at Jay. ‘What did you expect her to do — challenge you to thumb wars?’
‘I’m pretty dynamite at thumb wars,’ Jay said. ‘Don’t tell me you’re pissed at me because I topped your psycho assassin lover girl.’
Damien’s jaws were set hard. ‘If anyone had to do it, should’ve been me.’
‘It’s not pick and mix!’ Jay yelled. ‘I can’t choose who wants to kill me. It was either me or those shocktroopers who wanted to fillet me. What would you prefer?’
‘I’d prefer Grace alive and deprogrammed,’ Damien said.
Before Jay could think of a response, Damien got up and left, abandoning his plate.
‘Fine.’ Jay picked up Damien’s plate of half-eaten bacon and eggs and tipped it over his own.
‘This might be why Freeman assigned me,’ DC said.
Sophia glared at him. ‘You really are one self-righteous son of a bitch, aren’t you?’
‘I’ve had worse,’ DC said.
‘I guess we’ll just have to take your word for it, won’t we?’ she said.
DC’s gaze shifted from his plate to Jay. ‘OK, you want to know where we’re going? Fine. Mountain Province in Luzon. That’s where we’re going.’
‘Where the fuck is Luzon?’ Jay said.
‘Philippines. Look it up, genius.’
DC dumped his food on Jay’s plate and walked out.
Jay shoved DC’s bacon into his mouth. ‘They have beaches there, right?’ he asked, mouth full.
Chapter Eleven
Sophia found the recreation deck empty except for DC nursing a plastic cup at a table at the far end. She walked in and sat opposite him, expecting him to leave or ask her to leave. Instead, he held her gaze with a seriousness and clarity she hadn’t seen before. His pupils were pinpoints.
‘You’ve returned for more war stories?’ he said.
‘I’ve heard enough war stories.’
He nodded, staring into his cup with distaste. ‘I’m pretty sure this isn’t coffee.’ He drank it in slow, measured gulps, then reached for a hip flask and refilled. He offered the flask to her. ‘Polish vodka. Straight from the engine room.’
Sophia declined. ‘You didn’t tell me exactly how you know about Project Seraphim.’
DC sipped the vodka straight, winced. ‘I plan to keep it that way.’
Sophia took the hip flask and drank. It burned, stealing her breath. She put the flask back on the table and stifled a cough. ‘I’ll stick to the imitation coffee,’ she said.
DC smiled. That was worth the liver damage she’d just incurred.
He took another sip of the vodka and winced again. ‘They killed them all.’
‘Killed who?’
He shook his head slowly. ‘All of them. Scientists, engineers, the technicians. Project Seraphim was wiped clean. Except for the transfers. Denton, of course. Cecilia. Adamicz.’
‘Transferred to Project GATE?’ Sophia asked.
DC nodded.
‘And you?’
‘I was the one who gave the order,’ he said. ‘I gave the order to wipe the project clean.’
Sophia stared at the flask. ‘If it means anything, I know exactly how you feel.’
DC took another hit of vodka. ‘It was only at the end that I realized how fucked it all was.’
He spread a hand out. She watched it tremble.
‘And then everything changed,’ he said.
‘Did you?’
DC blinked glassy eyes. ‘Come again?’
She watched him carefully. ‘What are you?’ she asked.
His irises contracted slightly. ‘Nothing.’
‘Then what were you?’
He lowered his cup. ‘You.’
She chewed her lip. ‘Not quite what I was expecting.’
‘I’m the prototype of you. I’m your predecessor.’
Sophia almost lost her breath. DC was in Project Seraphim. He was the only surviving test subject.
‘Jesus,’ she said. She reached for the flask and, against her better judgment, took a heavy swig. She coughed, then said, ‘They switched on your pseudogenes as well?’
‘No. This was before Cecilia McLoughlin hit her breakthrough in gene therapy. None of that was possible then.’
Sophia drew her legs in and sat cross-legged at the table. She checked over her shoulder to make sure they were still alone. Occasionally she heard a crew member wander near the deck, but no one entered.
‘Then what was the project for?’ she asked.
‘It was Denton’s first project. He wanted to influence—’
‘The operatives, like you?’
‘Not just me. An entire population. I wasn’t brought in until—’
‘How old are you?’ she asked.
‘Thirty-seven.’
‘And Denton snatched you from the CIA?’
‘Yeah. You were still a teenager in Project GATE when Project Seraphim was in its final stages.’ DC sipped more vodka. ‘I was already programmed by the CIA, in a manner of speaking.’ He laughed.
‘And then what happened?’
He shook his head. ‘I was taken out, commissioned into the Blue Berets. I think they used me as a baseline for you. They wanted you to have the same training. Better, actually. And then Denton put Cecilia in, got the whole genetics thing rolling.’
‘And what about you?’ Sophia said.
‘I killed a lot of people I shouldn’t have.’
‘I know the feeling,’ she said. Every time she closed her eyes, a crowd of faces appeared. They watched her in silence, unblinking. She didn’t recognize them, but knew they were the women she’d killed. ’How do you … how do you deal with it?’
DC stared into his empty cup. ‘I don’t. I just don’t think about it.’
Sophia swallowed. ‘What happened to the Seraphim technology? Did it ever get built?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘When you were promoted to colonel you’d have coordinated security at some very interesting places, right?’
‘Compartmentalized, remember?’ DC said. ‘I never actually went to those places and never knew their true purpose.’
Sophia stood up.
‘Where are you going?’ DC said.
‘I have some more reading to do.’
* * *
Sophia fetched her papers and the German-English dictionary from her bunk locker, then went to the torpedo room. She picked the table in the corner and set out the photocopied diary entries and the dictionary. This was going to take a while, so she kicked off her submarine-issue sneakers and made herself comfortable.
December 15, 1968
The subjects have exhibited fast response t
imes to the frequency, although I fear this may be a result of past military training and willingness to accept commands, be they from their commanding officer or subliminal. Perhaps a civilian is not so willing to have their emotions — whether rage or admiration — directed toward a person or group.
The Seraphim transmitters are being installed at locations throughout the United States. Since these installations can bounce extremely low frequencies off the natural plasma in the ionosphere, the Fifth Column only require four transmitters to cover the North American continent. The installations in Miami and New York are complete, and installations in other locations are under construction. The transmitters are extraordinary in the sense we can adjust focus from blanket delivery to extremely precise delivery, right down to a room in a house. Since the extremely low-frequency waves penetrate almost everything, this may have disastrous effect when targeting a hotel room inside a building with many levels.
Denton tells me the United States is a trial run. He has already submitted a proposal outlining stage two: expansion of transmitters into Europe, parts of Asia, select countries in Middle East, the United Kingdom and Australia.
My focus is still on individual subjects. But Denton insists there will always be a place for the surgical precision of an operative in the field. He wants more capable operatives than what is currently at our disposal. What is at my disposal. This troubles me because our subjects are among the finest trained operatives in the world. I know this because Denton says so himself. He picked them personally. He is more concerned with individual programming than population programming. Denton seems compelled to outperform his father, a man who holds almost mythological status among the Fifth Column’s higher ranks. Nothing ever seems enough for him.
Sophia dropped her pen to give her hand a rest.
Denton had run Project GATE from 1990 to 2012, well into the second generation of operatives, known as the shocktrooper phase. In the early ’90s, he had handpicked Sophia via the Argus Foundation, a dummy organization he’d set up to seek out and evaluate potential test subjects for the project. In the mid ’90s, Denton had run some tests on four of the Project GATE subjects, including Sophia. He’d injected them and confined them to sealed glass cubicles for a period of twelve hours. The glass cubicles were next to each other and they could see each other from their own cubicle.
They were given a bed, a toilet, water and food at five-hour intervals. During the third hour, the two boys and the other girl had started to shiver and moan. Denton surveyed them from outside, separated from the cubicles by another partition. She could see him through a wide glass window that ran from his belt to his head.
The girl collapsed on the floor and vomited. Sophia yelled at Denton. She needed medical attention. But Denton stood there, unmoving, watching.
Sophia looked at the boy on her other side. He had been lying on his bed, but now he sat on the edge, fists clenched, skin slicked in sweat. As she watched, burning lumps appeared on his neck. They turned black and split open, oozing pus and blood. He leaned forward and met Sophia’s gaze. He asked her for help, then retched blood.
Sophia pounded her fists on the transparent door to her cubicle, begging Denton to let her out. And he did, eventually. She was crying by the time his assistants, wearing full chem suits, pried her out.
She was the only survivor of the experiment. The others lay still in their cubicles, soaked with sweat and blood. Whatever Denton had injected into Sophia had no effect.
Weeks later, she was reintegrated with the Project GATE test subjects. No one ever spoke of the missing subjects.
‘You’re the lucky one,’ Denton had told her, brushing her hair behind her ear. ‘But I already knew that.’
She’d recoiled at his touch. She hated him. No one could watch those children die and not feel anything. No one human.
Where was Denton now?
Chapter Twelve
It looked like a fog had descended on the recreational deck. When Damien approached the length of joined-together tables populated by crew, he realized it was cigarette smoke. He didn’t even know people could smoke on a submarine, but then again it was the Akhana and they played by their own rules.
Jay stood and thrust an arm toward him. ‘You’re in! New round!’ He turned to Nasira and said, ‘Bzzzt! Bzzzt!’ She glared at him. He seemed to think better of it and turned to the crew member on his other side. ‘Bzzzt! Bzzzt!’
Damien reluctantly circled the tables and found a seat next to Jay, who had a plastic cup of whiskey in one hand and a half-smoked cigar in the other. Sitting around them were about a dozen crew, sharing beer, whiskey and cigarettes. They all looked to be in their twenties, some younger; slightly more men than women. Opposite him sat DC, Chickenhead and Big Dog. DC seemed intently focused on dealing cards. Damien was relieved to find it wasn’t backgammon because he had no clue how to play that. Not that he was particularly good at cards either.
DC dealt a new hand, throwing cards sharply at each person.
‘Rules?’ Damien said.
‘Go to sea, drink coffee, watch porn, deploy the marines,’ Big Dog said.
‘Ooh-rah!’ everyone cheered, then laughed. Even DC.
‘Help yourself,’ Chickenhead said, gesturing to several half-destroyed six-packs of pale ale and a cluster of Jack Daniel’s No. 7. ‘And cheap as fuck cigars.’ He drew on his cigar and almost choked.
Damien peered at his cards. It wasn’t a particularly great hand. He caught Jay looking over his shoulder, grinning.
‘There are some good islands in the Philippines,’ Jay whispered. ‘Some good beaches.’
‘Is that the one reason you’re not asking to be thrown out the hatch?’ Damien said. ‘Thought you were itching to get back.’
Jay carefully tapped ash from his cigar. It was his turn. He put in two cards and received two. He grinned at Damien again. ‘Pick an island. Paradise island. Party island. And another one that starts with P.’
Nasira overheard him. ‘Penis island?’
Everyone laughed, which seemed to annoy Jay.
‘Seriously. You interested?’ Jay said. ‘Not the penis one, the others.’
‘Are there coconuts?’ Damien asked.
Jay looked confused. ‘I guess so.’
‘I’m in,’ Damien said. ‘I always wanted to drink from a coconut.’
‘OK. Then I’m in too,’ Jay said, laying out his cards. ‘Straight flush, ladies.’
He collected the Australian coins and gathered them in a pile before him. He turned to Damien and mouthed the word ‘Motherfuck’.
‘What?’ Damien said.
Jay slapped him. ‘I’m unstoppable.’
‘Not last I saw,’ Chickenhead said.
‘Did you just … slap me?’ Damien said.
‘Beginner’s luck, my friend.’ Jay smiled. He quickly turned to Damien and said, ‘Sorry.’
Chickenhead laughed. ‘You might be a super soldier and all, but, mate, take away the bells and whistles and it’s not that hard.’ He winked at Jay. ‘My friend.’
Damien groaned. That would be enough to get Jay started. He’d take that as a challenge.
‘Is that a challenge?’ Jay drained his plastic cup. ‘Or would you rather keep your perfect score of … one?’
Chickenhead shrugged and stood. ‘Let’s do this.’
Damien hadn’t noticed until now how tall he was.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ Big Dog said, pulling hard on Chickenhead’s arm.
The table fell silent.
‘Not until we take bets first,’ DC said. ‘Big Dog, you’re the bank.’
Damien watched as the crew thrust money at Big Dog, some shouting for Chickenhead, others for Jay. Big Dog got nothing from Nasira, and Damien politely declined. And then it came to DC.
‘Who’s your lucky toy boy?’ Big Dog said.
DC stared into his cup of whiskey. He shook his head and handed over a twenty. ‘Jay.’
The crew started whistling and
cheering. Jay was enjoying the applause.
‘I’m hurt.’ Chickenhead slapped DC’s shoulder. ‘I thought we had some chemistry.’
Damien’s sensitive hearing picked up on Nasira whispering into Jay’s ear. ‘There’s no way you’re ready. Save it for next time, you hear me?’
‘I can take him now,’ Jay said. ‘I know how to do it.’
‘You’re still too tense,’ she said. ‘I’ve been training Chickenhead for six months. In a fair fight he could trash any operative out there, trust me on this shit.’
Jay was grinning. ‘You think highly of yourself, don’t you?’
‘Are we doing this or not?’ Chickenhead said, interrupting their whispers.
‘Just don’t electrocute his ass, OK?’ Nasira whispered.
‘I won’t need to.’ Jay was off his chair and moving around the table. He wobbled with each step and seemed to have trouble walking straight.
Nasira leaned over to Damien. ‘Is he pretending to be drunk or is he actually that drunk?’
‘No,’ Damien said. ‘He’s actually that drunk.’
Jay squared off with Chickenhead, the pair of them in blue overalls and white sneakers. Chickenhead either hadn’t drunk as much as Jay or had a much higher tolerance for it. Upside to being Australian, Damien had learnt.
The crew began shouting encouragement at them. DC didn’t turn around to watch; he poured another drink instead. Damien almost felt like joining him.
Jay swayed slightly. ‘Come at me, bro.’
‘You better not electrocute me, mate,’ Chickenhead said.
‘I don’t need bells and whistles,’ Jay said. ‘Mate.’
Chickenhead danced around him, then cut in fast. Damien watched with increasing interest. He knew from his training with Grace that this system of combat favored extremely close quarters. Move in fast, overwhelm, disorient, confuse, deceive. And Chickenhead did just that. A couple of decoy strikes moved over Jay’s body. Jay rolled from their path. Damien was impressed, actually.
Then Chickenhead started to engage. Damien knew he was searching for where Jay’s body was out of balance. When he found it, he would exploit it. He pushed Jay’s hip to one side, hooked him behind the shoulder and stretched him out. Jay didn’t resist. He was too drunk to be rigid and managed to slip out. He countered with two fingers thrust below Chickenhead’s Adam’s apple.
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