The Housewife Assassin's Ghost Protocol (31 page)

“Thanks for your honesty,” I say dryly. “The brainwashing portion of your little experiment must have taken forever. And where did you get all the juicy little details that only the original or an intimate would know?”

“Every Quorum member goes through hypnosis. Their memories are documented in a dossier.” He leans in, conspiratorially. “Traditionally, it is used as a way in which to ensure our members’ loyalties. No one wants her naughty little secrets aired in public, am I right? But last year, when we first saw Eileen’s intel on Operation Hercules, we realized how it might be better used: as a means to
immortality.”
 

I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re quite mad.”

“Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you. Ten years from now—had you not interfered, that is—I’d be recognized as the genius who discovered the fountain of youth!” His eyes open wide with his passion. “What others would pay for a sip! And, as with everything humankind does, it all begins with the hunger for war. Blame your government, my dear Donna, not little old me. If it wasn’t trying so hard to create the perfect soldier, you wouldn’t be sitting here with me today.” He chuckles. “For that alone, the stealth of Operation Hercules was worth it.” A sudden thought darkens his eyes. “Poor Eileen! I’d hoped she’d live to see this day.” He shakes his head sadly. “Still, she has achieved a sense of immortality. Her work continued even beyond her passing. From what I gather, the Quorum has you to blame for finally putting her to rest yet again.”

“The iPad would not have stayed hidden forever.” I shrug. “So much for ‘immortality.’ From what I could tell, the planting of new memories in the twins had its limitations. I didn’t know Salem or Tatyana as well as I knew Carl, but I knew them well enough to suspect they weren’t who they said they were.”

“The initial research on Dr. Wollstonecraft’s memory modification was so promising that it made us hopeful. And when the technique was applied to the twins, our monitoring showed that the memories were in fact taking root in the fertile synapses provided by their young robust minds. But unfortunately, we could never emulate Dr. Wollstonecraft’s success.”
 

“It didn’t work, thanks to a little thing called free will.” I’m proof of this, although I’d never let him know that.

He shrugs his own acquiescence. “Perhaps. In any event, we made the decision to shelve the dream of immortality. Still, it made a convincing dog-and-pony show as we moved to our Plan B: sell our methodology to those who are willing to try anything to recruit new members: the myriad of terrorist cells that pock the earth.” He laughs. “Welles insisted he could enhance Dr. Wollstonecraft’s memory modification techniques so that when the moment came for a united front, a key memory planted deep within the recesses of each soldier would have turned them against their leaders, into a united Quorum army spanning the world.”

“It didn’t matter what ideology motivated any individual group,” I reason, “as long as anarchy was created.”

“Yes! You understand now!” He nods at me, his star pupil. “The cells’ leaders never realized that they’d be training their armies to march, lockstep, in
our
war.”

“Did you truly believe Welles was up to the task?” I ask.

“I guess we’ll never know. More than a third of our test subjects—the kidnapped covert field agents—resisted the process. They were exterminated. But there are enough who showed progress for us to at least pretend we’d created our own army of super soldiers, all of whom were once loyal to their own countries.” Eric shrugs. “The research being done by Dr. Brooks would have brought the body to its optimum physical level. Dr. Welles showed us how to resurrect the injured, sick, and dying. Linked with Dr. Wollstonecraft’s memory research—or so we thought—we should have created the perfect soldier: strong, regenerative, and unwavering in his or her commitment to the cause.” He shrugs. “Instead, when the planted memories were in conflict with their own thoughts and beliefs, it created anger and agitation that could not be controlled.” He smiles. “So you see, my dear, by exterminating these mutants, you did the Quorum a favor. We thank you to no end.”

“You act as if you’re still a part of it.”

Eric looks at me as if he’s seeing me for the very first time. “My pet, one never quits the Quorum.”
 

I rise with a smile. “You forget. I did.”

Eric’s laughter follows me out the door.

Eric is right about one thing: the wind. George and I have a stomach-churning helicopter takeoff from the butte.
 

I’m still thinking about the project’s failure when we land in Salt Lake City, where Acme’s plane waits on the tarmac.

“Go on, let me hear you say it,” George teases me. “‘Home, Jeeves.’”

I laugh. “You took the words out of my…no, wait! Would you mind if we took a detour?”

“If we get caught, will you face the wrath of Ryan?”

“He’ll appreciate why I did it, so yes. Besides, it will only take a couple of hours. See if you can get clearance into Oakland.”

He does, and we’re on our way: to find the missing link.

Shelley Wollstonecraft is surprised to see me, as she should be. As to be expected, she is even more surprised that Evan isn’t with me. Still, she ushers me into her office.
 

“He wrote me to apologize for being the cause of the malware.” She laughs. “It happens so often—even here at the university, with all of our tech security measures—that he really shouldn’t feel guilty. It wasn’t his fault. It’s just that this was a particularly virulent strain. I wanted him to be aware of it, for the safety of his own computer, or other emails he may have been sending out.”
 

“Evan truly didn’t have any idea what was sent with the file. Thank you again, for not holding it against him.” I hesitate before adding, “In fact, it was a Trojan virus, sent with the approval of POTUS and Director of Intelligence Barnham.”

She sits, stunned. “How do you know this?”

“My company is a consultant to several security agencies in the U.S. government, including DARPA. The president assigned it the task of plugging a leak on the research of Operation Hercules. Evan’s appointment was to have given us an opportunity to access your cell phone’s photo archive. It didn’t work out that way.”

“Because I didn’t have the phone with me,” she reasons.

“Yes, exactly. But then, when you encouraged him to send you his memory research, we saw our way back into your photo archive, which we assumed was synced with your computer and some cloud archive.”

She nods.

“Dr. Wollstonecraft, I’m not proud that we used an unsuspecting teenager’s budding relationship with you to do it. That being said, you know better than most what is at stake here. It’s why I’m being honest with you.”

“I realize that.” Shelley shrugs. “I also realize you could have found a myriad of other ways to access my phone.”

I look down at the ground. “I wish we had.”

She sighs. “I presume you’re here because I was cleared of any wrongdoing.”

“Yes. But another scientist was implicated: Norbert Welles.”

“Ah. So, he acquiesced to Graffias International?”

I look closely at her. “Graffias approached you too?”

“Yes. The contact, Heinried Müller, came with a very generous offer—much too generous for what he claimed he really wanted, which was a license for commercial use of the research—after we were released from our contract with the government, of course. When I didn’t accept it, he thought threats would work better. I quit hearing from him when he finally got what he wanted.” She smiles slyly. “Only, he didn’t, really.”

“What do you mean?”

“Müller’s full court press put me on edge. Then one night, after I’d gone home, I came back here to my office to pick up a student’s research paper I’d forgotten. As I opened the door, I sensed a presence. It wasn’t a person, but something that looked like a tiny insect. It was flying around my desk. My entrance startled it. First, it froze. A moment later it flew toward the ceiling and hovered there. Only then did I realize it was a drone.” She shakes her head in wonderment. “It was looking at the latest results of an Operation Hercules test subject! After that, I hid all the research. When it came time to write my white paper, I deliberately left out important techniques used in the gathering of the project’s true findings. I knew that when the time came for the military’s actual implementation with live subjects, I’d be assigned to lead it anyway. At that point, all of these techniques would be put back in play.”

“As of now, the operation has been aborted,” I reply. “You’ll probably get notice of this later this week.”

“Maybe it’s for the best. The idea of a super soldier is too tantalizing to the wrong people, for all the worst reasons.” She shrugs.
 

“So, mind modification actually works,” I murmur.
 

“Donna—may I call you that?—frankly, it depends on the individual. In some people, it is innate to their nature that they are bad. In others, no matter the temptations presented, they will always do the right thing. Evan’s paper was right about that.”

“I’d like to keep our conversation private. I hope you’ll feel the same way,” I implore.

She nods. “Yes, of course, certainly.”

“Shelley, I know I shouldn’t ask, but…does Evan have a chance to get into Berkeley?” I wince in preparation of the answer I’m afraid to hear.

“I can’t make any promises. Like every other applicant, his will have to run the gauntlet of the admissions team”—she smiles—“but he certainly has my vote. We like to give a leg-up to those who are less financially advantaged.”

Yikes. “Um…does that mean no?” For now, having his trust fund restored has worked against him again. He may have money, but academia sees it as tainted funds.

She looks at me strangely. “In Evan’s case? Hardly! Should the selection committee see his potential as I do, I’ll do what I can to line him up with a job here on campus, to help him offset his expenses.”
 

Well, what do you know?

I’ll let Evan choose the time to tell Shelley he doesn’t need the job, but is honored to join Cal’s student body.

My bet is it’ll happen sometime next March—on the very same day he gets his acceptance letter in the mail.

And knowing Evan, he’ll probably offer to fund a few scholarships too.

Chapter 18

Rest in Peace

The nicest prayer you can give a dearly departed is to say, “Rest in Peace.”

On the other hand, saying it to someone still living may be construed as a threat.
 

Should you want to follow through on it, consider this: whereas they’ll end up pushing up daisies, chances are you’ll end up in an orange jumpsuit doing life in the hoosegow.
 

Is it worth it? Of course not! Instead, wait until they die of natural causes.
 

Or, if you get antsy, figure out a reason to incite someone else to do the dirty deed instead.

I’ve been home from Berkeley less than a full day, and already I can tell that things have gone back to normal.