All the Company Men: Marcus Grimshaw #2 (The Secret State)

by C. J. Steinberg

  Evelyn was surprised buy the amount of knowledge Johann had. Then she remembered who he was and which country he represented. “No, Sir, not yet. He had a private conversation with the future president’s wife and the CIA Director. They appear to be very close. Once he takes the country, I haven’t a clue what his plans are.”

  “That’s okay, Evelyn, you’ll find the information you need.”

  “I already have something in place,” Evelyn rushed to tell Johann. With the amount of knowledge that man had, she was eager to surprise him with something new, to prove herself to him. “Well, they have put it in place,” she corrected herself.

  Johann turned his head toward her.

  “Marcus Grimshaw and the people who are helping him recover, the people who have helped him escape. I think they are planning something,” Evelyn said.

  “Potential allies?”

  “Unlikely. There is too much history between us.”

  “Perhaps it is something to investigate all the same.”

  Evelyn nodded. “I will assess the situation and act accordingly.”

  “Gut. And this journalist—Arthur? What about him?”

  “He is right, that much you and I know. As far as bringing him to our side, I honestly can’t see it happening. He is strong—headed, seeking his own bit of glory. I must stay focused on my duties and go after him.”

  “He knows too much. How can he know so much?”

  “Marcus Grimshaw is helping him.”

  Johann burst into laughter. “This Grimshaw is everywhere. The man is turning into a legend, the Winter Soldier in his own respect. Is he aware of our plans?”

  “I think they all are, Sir. It’s rather obvious if one dares to look. Though I don’t think he has a problem with us, but rather with the Company. He knows how the world works and that someone always has to be in charge. His problem is the way of governing that the Company is imposing upon the world.”

  “There is a Cold War brewing, Evelyn, and its been happening for years. It all started with China undermining the smartphone marketplace in the US, taking what is theirs, spying on them. It has since erupted. We understand that the Company has advised Trump to break the Trade Deal with China, while China became closer to Germany. The problem we face now is that America is like a child, one with a very big stick. Children like to hit with their stick, especially when you take something from them. Their influence across the globe is waning, their allies abandoning them, and it was as if the whole world had been waiting for this crisis. Mr. Erickson has stated that this virus was planned by your current employer. Is there any truth to that?”

  “As far as I can tell, yes. Though the information could have been loaded into the system, after the fact. I can’t say with certainty.”

  Johann nodded continuously. “Stay appraised, Evelyn. Keep your eye on this... Rebellion of men who are coming after the Company. Whatever their plan is, whether to put themselves in power or to empower America, we need to know it. Especially the way they intend to do it. Everyone is using this crisis to their own benefit. We don’t want it to end yet. We need it. But we need to know what does Dark Forrest have in store for us.

  “Find out what they’re doing, Evelyn, how they’re doing it, and who the major players are in this game. The European spy community is buzzing, flustered, feeling that something big is coming to pass while we aim to stop Daniel and his ambitions. This new Cold War is good, it’s healthy, yet we fear something more sinister.”

  Evelyn stared at Johann, her throat locked up as she feared becoming emotional. Then he put his hand on her shoulder and she pressed her cheek against it., unable to resist. She could feel the wind on her skin, her ears tickled by the rustling of the leaves and peacefulness of the night. “They took Detlev, Evelyn.,” Johann softly said. “He was a good man, and a good friend to me. Do this job well, and we will avenge the death of the great Detlev Karsten Rohwedder. Fur Fatherland.”

  “Fur Fatherland, fur Bundesrepublik Deutschland,” Evelyn said, finding her old vigor again. Johann gave her some parting words and disappeared into the shadows, leaving Evelyn alone, with her thoughts, shaken up like she hadn’t been in a long while.

  She heard that Netflix had released a documentary about her father’s death, unable to watch it herself, unable to face the crime again. Maybe this was always my destiny, she thought, wondering what ever brought her anywhere near spies. Maybe I was supposed to find a way to make them pay for his death. Johann was the man who showed her proof that The Company had killed her father. He was the one who convinced to find love for her true homeland. And he was the one who have her guidance as to how to approach the problem intelligently. Over a decade she had devoted to the Company. Over a decade she had fought for her position. And now it was her time. It was Germany’s time. And she will find out what the masterplan is. She will destroy it. She will stop the people who have ruined so many lives, destroyed so many countries, and devoured so many families. They didn’t deserve it.

  She didn’t deserve to lose a father.

  Evelyn stayed on the bench for hours, disregarding the cold that was searing through her coat and her sweatpants, thinking, planning, processing the world around her. Light wind rustled the dying leaves, making them dance all over. Above them, high in the sky, long ways away from her, the moon, full and bright, loomed over her; a stage light exposing her, bringing her into focus, while the world waited on her next move.

  ONE

  T he world was shrouded in a fog as he traveled forward in the tunnel of time, shaking, struggling for breath, headed toward an unknown destination. His journey had come to a sudden halt in what looked like a plastic tent. As he looked around, he realized that he was laying down. In the blur, he spotted a person in the white coat holding onto his teleportation device, a surgical mask covering his face. Was he being probed by an alien? Was he alive? Was he in purgatory? He squinted and realized that the teleportation device was a stretcher. To his right he could see a tall black man, yelling at the lab coat, looking down to Marcus and saying something, his voice muffled, his face a blur. Then Marcus lifted into the air and plumped onto the stretcher to his right. Pain surged through his body and he was out again.

  The lab coat was accompanied by three others, their hands blue, shiny objects in their grasp. The lab coat with the scalpel in its hand was telling other lab coats what to do, his orders a distant notion of a language forgotten. What are they doing to him? He raised his hand, but his motion quickly met its end as he had no strength. The respirator over his mouth was itching, his upper lip sweating.

  “No, no,” he wanted to shout at the lab coats. No, don’t do anything. This is right. This is okay. This is the way it is supposed to be. They didn’t hear him. A smaller lab coat stood by the side of the one in charge, holding Marcus’ arm down, yelling something.

  All the while that ominous beeping pierced his brain, like it was haunting him. Where was it coming from? Are these people really probing him? Are the sounds their speech and the beeping their ship?

  The aliens disappeared in a flash. The plastic surrounding him was imposing on his existence, as if he were a vegetable or a disease-carrying bat, isolated for future testing. Did Jack bring him to a hospital? What was he thinking?

  He averted his eyes towards the beeping, annoyed by it, unable to stop it or to counter it. What was that—an alien machine analyzing his being? No, that was merely a heart-rate monitor.

  A sting of pain through his abdomen made him open his eyes and grunt as he did. The plastic was still shielding him in there. The aliens were grouping behind it. The beeping was growing louder. Marcus jerked the tubes from his hand and made to get up. He was going to make a run for it. Then his knees betrayed him and he fell down, face first. The loud and humiliating plop made the doctors run inside, Marcus seeing only their shoes. Then he was gone again.

  Finding his old strength, Marcus stood up in the utter darkness and looked intensely, as if darkness would decimate in the trajector
y of his gaze. He sparked the Zippo lighter in his hand, revealing an infinite gust of darkness behind the circle of light.

  “Come to me,” an angelic voice tickled his ears.

  “Who’s there? Hello?” Marcus called out, his own voice answering in form of an echo.

  He treaded forward in the direction of the voice, his feet plopping on the wet ground, taunting him.

  “Come to me,” the voice echoed again, this time closer. Seeing no alternative, Marcus walked, sure that there must be some way out of what he assumed was a cave. The light was growing ever weaker and the lighter ever warmer. He had to speed up, move as fast as he was able to outrun the darkness. The lighter extinguished, but Marcus kept running forward to the drumbeat of his feet plopping in the water.

  Suddenly, he found himself on the streets of Rome, drenched in rain. In the light across the street stood a man in a rain coat and a hat, one leg crossed over the other, leaning against the lamppost. Marcus felt determined, somehow on edge, as he walked toward the man.

  “The man you’re looking for is over there,” the stranger said, his arm outstretched and his finger pointing straight at the Palazza del Quirinale.

  “Is he on our side,” Marcus said.

  “Everyone is on our side, Marcus. We run the world.”

  The man inside the building greeted Marcus with a smile, thanking him for his help with the transition from Lira to Euro. Marcus thought for a moment that the poor man was acting as if he had had a choice in the matter, but thanked him all the same.

  The man led Marcus to the balcony and gave him a machine gun designed by Hiram Maxim and used in The Great War. “All those people down there are hard-working Italians. Most of them will lose their jobs and their homes and go hungry,” the minister said. His eyes were full of sadness. “This is mercy,” the minister added. Marcus nodded, knowing what the mission was. He aimed his gun and started shooting people, killing them by the thousands. “This is all a necessary sacrifice for the sake of progress,” Marcus told the minister. He fired another round at the gathered masses. As soon as a group fell, the people in the queue moved forward to take their spots, to take their mercy.

  Someone tapped him on the shoulder and the face of an African native stared at him as he turned around. Marcus thought he was going to die, before the man’s eyes bugged out and a death rattle escaped his throat; blood was leaking from all his bodily orifices as he plummeted into his death. Around him, hundreds of mothers and fathers and children were wrapped in bags and rolled into a mass grave, the men giving all the orders with rifles in their arms protected by masks. Marcus knew it was necessary. Survival of the fittest.

  He looked at his hand, at the vaccine mark, asking himself why these people weren’t given the cure as well.

  “This is the price of success and power,” Joseph said, suddenly appearing on his side.

  “Are you kidding me,” Marcus said.

  “These people were going to die anyway, Marcus. It would’ve happened in their own little war for the benefits of their leaders. This way, at least, order is restored.”

  “But why cleanse them like this? Why Ebola? Why not kill them yourself?”

  “This way it’s an act of God, and there is no one to be blamed for it. This way, they point to the sky and say ‘Oh, forgive me, Father, for I have sinned’ and everything works out fine.”

  “This is evil,” Marcus cried.

  Joseph nodded. “Certainly. But this is the price for Play Stations, cars, PCs, trains, restaurants, planes, jobs, and social order. Everyone wants to exercise their right to freedom, but when everyone does whatever they want to do, Marcus, then you get anarchy. Horrible things happen. If we give the people security, then they forget about their freedom because when people say ‘right to free speech’ and ‘right to choose’ they mean the right to buy, to consume, and to call presidents dumb. In order to have that, the oppressed must be oppressed further, near-extinction.”

  “None of that makes any sense,” Marcus turned the table over.

  “It makes perfect sense, Marcus... my boy... because I am your father.”

  “What?”

  “Join me. Come with me. Let me make up for all the wrong that I have done to you, all the pain that I have inflicted on you, my son, my blood. You are just like me, strong and weak, smart and dumb.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I, too, was conflicted. If a day comes and something happens to me, take this drive and fix the world.”

  Joseph was growing ever small, heading into the light in the distance. Marcus leapt after him after a brief shock and grabbed Joesph’s outstretched hand. “I forgive you, Dad,” he said as the light swallowed them both. His body jerked and his eyes popped open for a second, long enough to register the charge coming to fruition and a voice yell “Clear” before he fell into darkness again.

  When he opened his eyes, he could see clearly for the first time since he was shot. He saw a chair in the corner, a closet with glass doors stacked with medication, tubes coming out of his arms, and the monitor showing a steady heart-beat. He truly was surrounded by plastic sheets, laying on a stretcher, in what appeared to be a make-shift hospital. He tried to sit up, but his wounds were still fresh. The sharp pain made him collapse back into bed. As he sighed and looked at his bandages, he realized that the dirty blood was cleansed out of his body and that he was going to live. Whereas most people would be overjoyed with the news, Marcus was indifferent. Again, as if his brain had skipped a beat, Marcus looked around the make-shift hospital, noticing the same things again. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes, trying to gather his senses in spite of the ravaging headache.

  Using his elbow for leverage, Marcus put his feet to the cold concrete ground. The wounds were causing him a lot of pain, yet he persisted, silently taking in his pain. His joints creaked as he got, a strange sensation running through them. How long have I been out, he wondered. As blood trickled to his feet and legs, Marcus processed his dreams and experiences from the night before. Was it only a night, he wondered. Drugs had such an effect on people, and the dreams they produce were the most honest accounting of the person’s identity. Though he didn’t use citizens of Rome for target practice, he surely killed a lot of them with the poverty he put them through. In the name of the Company, he thought.

  Did he see Joseph, his father? Joseph was heading into the light and dragged Marcus down with him. Was he blaming Joseph for his own sins? Maybe I am, he thought. Maybe I am blaming him for all the evil that I have done. But it wasn’t his fault. It’s your fault, Marcus. And only yours. Why did the doctor’s reanimate him? Why didn’t they let him go into the light? It’s what he wants. Frankly, it’s what I deserve.

  He groaned and stood on his feet, leaning on the stretcher with his left arm. The cables connecting his vitals with the machine tightened. He looked at them for a brief second before he pulled them out. He wrapped his hand around the IV pole, examining it as if it were the world’s eighth wonder, deciding it was best to leave it where it was; he didn’t want to live, but he surely isn’t going to kill himself after surviving his ordeal. That would be just wrong in every way imaginable.

  Dragging his IV pole as he staggered along the concrete floor, Marcus went toward the door, toward voices behind them. He only wanted to know what was happening, following the innate human curiosity to see what was going on. The truth is, he didn’t have any conscience thoughts, no analyses of any kind, just instinct.

  As he opened the door into a well-lit living room with boarded up windows, Marcus spotted J.J. and two other men he didn’t recognize. They were silent and still, all caught mid-act as if someone above them had hit pause. If they hadn’t been blinking, Marcus would’ve thought he was in another dream.

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” the black, tall man he didn’t know said.

  “You’re awake,” Jack said, his big lips forming a wide and bright smile on his face. “God damn it.”

  “Where am I,” Marcus aske
d. “Who are these guys? What’s going on?”

  Jack straightened up above the table with a heap of documents on top of it. “The brother over there is Didier.” The man made an effort to shake Marcus’ hand, receiving only a nod in response. “And this is Chang. They’re here to help, Markie.”

  “Help with what?”

  “With the mission,” Jack said plainly. “A lot has happened since you were out, Markie. A lot of schemes have become apparent and we don’t have much time to stop them.”

  “Daniel Clarkson is making his move in a week,” Didier said in his heavy French accent. “And we were making plans to stop him.”

  “Is that what all the yelling was about,” Marcus said. He suddenly felt dizzy, in a desperate need to sit. Didier grabbed his arm and guided him toward a chair, gently seating him down. Marcus looked over the papers and the blueprints on the desk, unable to register any of them. He could feel that the three men were judging him, seeing him as a weakling. And they weren’t wrong.

  “Now that he’s here,” Chang said, “maybe we can make things happen more easily.” A silence followed as the patterns on the carpet danced in front of Marcus.

  “You’re right,” J.J. ultimately said. “You’re god damn right!” He was exhilarated.

  Didier joined the discussion, the men laying out the plans, bouncing back and forth with ideas, and suggestions, naming Marcus in the process. “Guys, guys,” Marcus said. “I’m in no condition to do anything. Plus, I imagine that I am a very wanted man.”

  “Marcus, you don’t get it. The elections are coming up, and they are crucial to Daniel’s plans. We don’t exactly know how or why, but we have and inkling. There is a gala in all the calendars of our major players coming up in a week.”

  Marcus looked up, but his head was too heavy a burden for his neck. “What are you talking about,” Marcus said. “What elections? It’s Summer.”