Authors: Scott V. Duff
“Your guards? I don’t understand. I don’t handle personnel. I deal with communications, the telephones, computer connections,” he said, “General Harmond, what’s going on here? I was told this was a routine random security clearance check.”
“Not anymore, Captain Anders,” Harmond said brusquely. “At the moment, we’re investigating sedition, of which, as my young friend just pointed out, you are rather guilty.”
“Don’t be too hard on him, General,” I said, choosing a mollifying tone. “He’s not even aware, yet, of everything he’s done.” Anders gaped at me, unspeaking for a moment.
“I want an attorney,” he said finally.
“Well, you can’t have one,” Barnett snapped, slapping his hand on the table hard, startling Anders.
“He doesn’t like saying that,” I told Anders with a grin. “This is his fourth time, ever. Grates on his ethics as an attorney and an officer. Sworn to defend the Constitution and all, even though he knows you’ve broken both and would be hiding behind them to defend yourself. You have to respect that.”
“But sedition? I haven’t done anything like that!” Anders argued, getting louder. “Or spying! I’m an American, for Christ’s sake! A patriot!”
“And yet you’ve managed to send over a thousand phone calls, text messages, and e-mails, in the past three weeks to individuals you don’t personally know through both the Pentagon systems and your personal phone and computers, as well,” I said. “Just admit it, Brad. Your locks won’t work anymore. I’ve broken them.”
“But that’s not possible,” he whispered fearfully.
“It’s done, Brad,” I said, chuckling as I went back to my chair. His own bindings would take care of his power and the locks were broken now, so I dropped the Faraday cage as useless. “Lt. Hanson, when you search his apartment, pay particular attention to his music collection and any corrupt files there. They contain decryption keys for several text files stored on-line at many different e-mail sites where lists are maintained by different operatives such as Cpt. Anders. If you move quickly and quietly, we may be able to remove more than one arm of our hydra.”
Hanson scribbled notes on his pad, but looked up at me quickly, then to Barnett excitedly.
“Go!” Harmond said hoarsely, flushing. It wasn’t quite as pleasing to Harmond and me as it was to Hanson. To him, this was an Ian Fleming novel coming to life, thrilling and exciting. To us, it was more people’s lives crashing and burning. Hanson ran out the door with Thorn following at a much slower pace. He came back with the two Marine sergeants. Just like the previous three times, they weren’t quite as friendly, but they had four friends with them in the hall carrying rifles in front of them.
Thorn advised Anders that he was under arrest while one of the sergeants handcuffed him and the others surrounded him. Anders was shocked into numbness as they led him away to jail. Who would have thought the Pentagon had a jail, anyway?
Kieran sighed heavily once we were alone again. “I think you’re both right,” he said. “It’s still worth it to pursue the foot soldiers, but we need to look for the head as well. I think the whole thing will collapse if we can remove the mission.”
“The bindings are weak enough,” Ethan agreed. “Even he’s forgotten most of what he’d done until Seth reminded him.”
“Does that excuse them?” Barnett asked, angry and harsh. Then taking a mocking tone, he said, “Oh, pardon me, I forgot that I killed those men. Please forgive me and thank you very much.” We understood his outrage, so we didn’t take it personally.
“Jesse,” Harmond murmured quietly, trying to calm him.
“That’s a very rare and extreme case, Colonel,” I said gently. “Most of them have only had thoughts. Admittedly violent thoughts, but… haven’t you? Think about sitting at home at night and listening to the evening news, hearing about a serial rapist as he terrorizes a city in the Southeast. You have a twenty-year-old daughter, right?” He looked up at me, suspicious, at her mention, but he understood where I was going. “You could entertain those thoughts, too. It’s in everyone, Colonel. There’s no shame in that. It’s knowing where to stop that makes it good or bad.”
“Yeah,” Barnett muttered, looking away.
“General Harmond, it appears that we both need time,” Kieran said. “We need time to consider another way to approach this issue, as Cpt. Thorn suggests, and you need time to muddle your way through Cpt. Anders records. How long would you like?”
“I have no idea,” Harmond admitted, shrugging. “Until we have some idea of what we’re dealing with…”
“Fair enough,” I agreed. “Have you chosen a liaison yet? I’m sure you can’t be at our beck and call any more than we can be at yours.”
He hesitated a second, then said, “We were just beginning to prepare Cpt. Thorn and Lt. Hanson for the possibility of taking on that role, Mr. McClure, when we were informed that you were here. I even have an M-1 level instructor scheduled for this afternoon.”
“In Jensen’s case, that might be redundant,” I said grinning. “That’s acceptable for now.”
“You sure, Seth?” Peter asked, a coy smile forming. “That’s a hell of a downgrade, from colonel to captain. It’s almost like they’re not taking you seriously.”
“Nyah,” I responded, ignoring the streaks of alarm running through the three military officers. “I’m not bothered much by rank, ya know. And Jensen doesn’t have our blood in his eyes or connections to black ops the way Echols did. We can give ‘em a try.”
“Who are you people?” Thorn asked, finally breaking down in frustration.
“You didn’t even get that far?” I asked Harmond, amused.
“We’ve been very busy,” Harmond answered, almost laughing.
“You heard me tell the children precisely who we are, Captain,” I said. “I wasn’t lying to them. Neither was Mitch. If you’ll provide us with contact information, I’ll have our assistant get in touch with you at sometime today and exchange more details with you. We are notoriously difficult to reach, traveling as we do.”
“You’re really a faery king, then? With a Southern accent?” Thorn asked, doubtfully. He couldn’t see anything about us, after all.
“’King’ is a fair approximation,” I answered. “I was talking to children. A card, perhaps?”
“Oh, yes, sir,” he answered, reaching for his back pocket and pulling free a worn, thick wallet. Extracting several business cards, he leaned across to hand me one, then gave one to everyone else not in uniform to cover his bases.
“Looks like he accepts the post, Sam,” Barnett said, watching as Thorn handed Jimmy and Peter his last two cards.
“That it does, Jess,” Harmond said with a laugh.
“Okay, I’m hungry. Anyone feel like pizza?” I asked. “Chicago’s open now…”
“Dillon! Eyes on the road! You’re gonna get us killed!” Peter warned him sharply.
“Sorry,” Dillon said casually. “But when you suggested a drive in the country, I thought we would take my car, not this leased land yacht.”
“And where would Seth and First sit?” Peter asked. “We couldn’t fit even
one
of them into the boot of that car, now give it a rest, Dillon. Besides, I didn’t say a drive in the country. I asked you if you would show us a few properties on the outskirts of London.”
“How long have you two been married?” Jimmy asked, trying to match the landscape to the map in his lap. “Ow!” Then he grinned and rubbed at the back of his head. I wasn’t watching to see what Peter had done, but it wasn’t too bad, obviously. I glanced up from the photos in time to see the small smile disappearing from Dillon’s face.
“When did you become everybody’s whipping boy?” I asked Jimmy, shaking my head sadly.
“I ain’t gonna beat your brothers up in front of you, Seth,” Jimmy said.
“As if!” Peter sputtered in challenge from the front seat.
“Besides, I get my licks in,” he said with a confident smile.
“What does
that
mean?” Dillon asked chuckling to hide his confusion of the idiom and his jealousy.
“Not that!” Peter said quickly, swatting his shoulder.
“Ow!” Dillon cried, cringing. “When did you become so violent, anyway?”
“Well, about fourteen months ago, I came home early from shopping, and found my then-boyfriend’s ass in the air—” Peter said pleasantly, but Dillon interrupted.
“All right, all right, I get the picture,” he said grumpily.
“This place looks as good as the last two on paper,” I said, sighing and closing the portfolio. “That’s depressing in comparison.”
Dillon slowed the car to turn. “We’re almost there. What’s turned your mood so sour?”
“Probably all the bickering,” commented Jimmy under his breath, covering it with folding the map. And he may have been right.
“I dunno, too much on my mind, I guess,” I said, letting my head fall back on the headrest. “Or that I’ve already got perfectly good space dedicated to this purpose
right there
.” It’s just that nobody but us could get there.
“Are we expected?” Dillon asked, slowing the car. “The gate is open.”
“Yes, a Mr. Edmington, the land agent, is supposed to meet us at the house along with the current owner. I don’t know his name,” Peter said. “I got the impression they were quite anxious to sell.”
“It does look a little wild on the upper eighty,” Jimmy said idly, looking out the window to the north.
Dillon slowed the car as the house came into view on the first hill, a well kept three-story 18
th
Century manor house presented over a nicely designed lawn. The overgrowth and flaws showed as we got closer. Mostly unused and weathered, the house itself needed some work and from the structure underneath the minor damage, I didn’t think the house could be more than sixty years old. The oldest trees looked younger. Still, this wasn’t a deal breaker.
As long driveways are wont to do, it ended in a circular turnabout in front of the house. Even this part of the yard hadn’t seen a caretaker in at least six months. Stopping the car behind two others with plenty of room to pull out, Dillon was the first to get out, trying desperately to show off and he felt like he was losing the battle. Jimmy’s feet hit the ground a few seconds after mine. He looked at me over the top of the car as he put his jacket on, eager as a puppy at the back door. I delayed sending out any feelers, like I did on the first two properties—well, pretty much everywhere we go. Now he wanted to try.
“You do well enough at home,” I said, smiling as I put my jacket on, too. “Just remember there are people around and the first thing you’re looking for are things looking for you. Stealth is called for.”
He grinned at me.
Like sneaking up on your older brothers?
He whispered across our link and winked. The house blossomed in my mind as Jimmy sent tendrils of probes out in very fine lines. By the time we walked up the front steps and to the front door, he had the house mapped with a hundred yards out. Details in the spacial mapping filled in the depths of the house a little more slowly as he moved more cautiously there.
“Good,” I complimented him.
“The patio is in good shape,” Peter said approaching from the right. Dillon walked up opposite him at almost the exact instant.
“This side looks very good,” Dillon said. “Though remodeling is in order. The statuary is probably a little… Hindu for your tastes.” The smirk on Dillon’s face made Peter turn sharply for the door to hide his own flushing grin. Happy to get any reaction out of him that wasn’t angry, Dillon sauntered up beside him and rang the bell.
“The layout doesn’t match the original plans very well,” Jimmy commented, looking over the modifications on the first and second floors, suspiciously.
“No,” I said, almost choking at the Seventies-style discotheque in what was supposed to be the ballroom, complete with strobe lights in the ceiling and multiple mirrored balls of various sizes. A sound booth on the far end controlled the complicated gear and pulley systems that moved complex lighting structures around in the tall ceiling that probably took more than one person to run. “There are areas of extensive renovations. Some of them are most peculiar.”
“Yeah, ‘peculiar’ is a good word,” Peter said, chuckling. Dillon cocked his head askance at him and reached to ring the bell again. “Just go on in, Dillon. They’re in the basement, trying to get the lights on.”
“If you knew that…” he huffed under his breath and flung the door open, entering in its wake. Peter slid silently in behind him, surprising him with an intimate embrace as we came in behind them.
“I didn’t know until just now,” he whispered over Dillon’s shoulder and into his left ear. “And this is the last one today, so let’s quit fighting and be nice.” Peter slipped loose and went to our left as Dillon stepped forward. I was pretty sure they’d both need a little alone time to let the blood flow return before they could return to polite company, so we checked out the library to the right.
“The owner has a penchant for period interior design,” Peter called from the middle of the dining room, his back still to us. “The house façade and foyer are 18
th
Century England Manor House while this is 17
th
Century French. One of the Louis’ I’d guess, without the furniture.”
“Yeah, the library appears to be 19
th
Century American,” I said, looking at the tall, empty shelves gathering dust in the streaming light of the tall windows.
“His office is old-looking, too,” Jimmy said, coming back out the door into the library. “But newer than this, sort of like Darrin’s office on
Bewitched.
”
“You have
got
to be kidding me,” Dillon yelled from further back in the house, alarming Peter.
“Dillon found the disco,” Jimmy said grinning. I smiled, too. It was the most outrageous, kitchy room in the house.
“Pete! Peter! You’ve got to see this!” Dillon yelled into the foyer, laughing uproariously. Peter trotted to the foyer, no longer worried about Dillon, and caught the door frame to swing around. Unfortunately, Dillon was running back up the dark hallway spastically and still laughing. Peter swung into the foyer and into Dillon, providing us a great view to their spectacular collision. Jimmy and I stood in awe as the physics played out before us to exquisite equilibrium.
Peter’s angular momentum due to the swing created a perfect match for Dillon’s forceful run up the hall at exactly opposite angles. They canceled each other out, each stopping the other dead. They stopped in their tracks, standing straight up simply because there was no reason for it to be otherwise. Dazed, they were holding each other up when Jimmy and I both lost it. Peter glared daggers at us while he held onto Dillon for a few more seconds.
“What? It was funny and you weren’t hurt,” Jimmy claimed innocently. “They’re coming up from the basement now, but I’m not really sure if they got the lights on or not.”
“Only in places,” I said. “It
is
a very confusing electrical setup. Perhaps I should go down there a fix things for them.”
“No, Seth,” Peter said sharply, then took Dillon down the hall, mumbling, “Just what he freakin’ needs, something else on his to-do list. Damned idiot, he is. Workaholic! And I adopted into his family. What kind of fool am I?”
“One who knows good and well that we can hear him,” I said following behind them at an even pace. “I won’t touch the fuse box, okay? Besides, the real reason for your whispered rant is
pretty
obvious.” Peter turned and grinned at me over the arm he still had on Dillon’s shoulder.
They were about to turn through the doors to the discotheque when the door to the basement opened further down the hall and on the stairwell side. A man in his late-thirties stepped out, wiping his hands on a used, dry towel. For some reason we were as captivated by the activity as he was, though we were far more amused that he hadn’t noticed us yet.
“Hello,” Peter said gently, startling the man and causing him to jump backward into the door. Peter and Dillon rushed forward to help steady him. “Sorry, don’t fall down the stairs. Are you okay?”
“Oh, yes, yes, you just scared me,” the man said, chuckling lightly. “Sorry we weren’t here to greet you when you got here. We were trying to get the lights on.” He turned back to the basement and called down the stair, “Geoffrey! They’re here!”
“What? Already?” a voice on the stairs answered, huffing. “Coming.”
“Geoffrey will be right up,” the first man said as we gathered around. “Oh, sorry, I’m Ken Thompson. I recently inherited this marvelous discontinuity of rooms from my Uncle Max. My wife and I have just gotten over here to settle the rest of his estate.”
Thompson’s accent placed him from somewhere along the West Coast of the United States, considering the “Lakers” jersey he wore, probably Los Angeles. Definite gym-built body, he was clean-shaven except for the razor-thin line on his jaw line, which did nothing but accentuate his balding, razor-cut hair. I had no doubts he did most of his business with right-hand, left-hand headsets and talked incessantly.
“Whew!” Geoffrey wheezed at the top of the steps, breathing hard. “Pardon me, please.”
Peter handled the introductions with Geoffrey Edmington, the land agent, leading us back into the better-lit foyer, and learning a bit more in the process. Thompson had inherited the house and land from his uncle, Max Sheffield, a Seventies record producer who managed limited success in the next decade but floundered horribly after that. At the height of his extremes, this had been his private Gomorrah, not quite up to Sodom’s decadence. Sheffield was smart enough, even through designer drug years, to protect his little private sanctum through several financial debacles and still keep it maintained until he passed away sixteen months ago, leaving his entire estate to his only living relative, a nephew in the States.
And of course, I gleaned a few more facts off the tops of their minds. Neither had been here before and only had a few hours to review the house before us. They were both more than a little upset at the state of disrepair and the extensive modifications to the electrical systems. Neither was looking forward to the upcoming inspections and expected a great deal of it to be condemned and they’d be forced to rebuild before they could sell. Major influxes of cash would be necessary before a profit could be seen. And the inheritance taxes would come due before then. And the land tax as well.
Thompson desperately wanted his Uncle’s music catalog, though, something about unheard recordings. He thought he could make a great deal of money in the US with the rights to those, if he could just get rid of this kludge…
They expected us to excuse ourselves and leave in disgust, but were quite amused when Dillon dragged Peter off again for the disco. Thompson managed a few of the lights, a short display of strobes and dancing running lights along the short stage. Dillon laughed uproariously again at the kitch and we were enjoying his delight. They were pleased to show the rest, despite the disrepair, after that.
Sheffield had done quite an unusual job on the house itself, subdividing several of the second floor bedrooms into smaller, acoustically correct practice rooms. Since much of his music was techno or electronic, I didn’t see the point, but whatever, it wired the house totally. That left six usable bedrooms total on the top floor, all with their own bathrooms.
“There are several outbuildings as well,” offered Edmington, hopefully, at the top of the stairs. “A small warehouse on the back road, several gardening sheds in several strategic places on the property, things like that.”
“A warehouse?” I asked. “What’s that for?”
“One of my uncle’s more successful business ventures,” Thompson said, bounding down the stairs. “In the late Eighties, he started an Internet music ship-to-home company here, specializing in a fairly hard-to-find catalog. He had extra lines for computers and everything. Kept it running for quite a few years.”