Multiverse a technothril.., p.14
Multiverse: A Technothriller, page 14
The memories of that logo, each and every time he’d seen it, they glowed vividly in his mind. Almost as if memories had been awakened in some way.
Percy sat in front of him, staring with his alert puppy eyes. He yipped.
“I don’t know, big boy. How can I remember being in the Pentagon when I know I’ve never been there? But I remember some things…”
Percy placed a paw on his shoulder and yipped again.
“I’m not sure. I swear, I think I remember an apartment in DC that I was living in. Or will be living in. That all sounds crazy.”
Michael’s mind raced with the memory that had just awoken… or was it a delusion of some kind…
“Percy, this guy Mason said that I might bring forth a curse on our society. And that student… I don’t remember her name, but she said something about her and I would ruin the world. And Maria…” Michael’s throat tightened as he sat in their bedroom, alone. “Maria said I can’t trust these people. Am I doing the right thing?”
Michael glanced at his watch and winced. “We have to get going.”
He retrieved his phone, ordered up the car service, and grabbed Percy’s chain after closing everything back up. He looked down at Percy and asked, “What do you think the chances are that the FBI is going to be hugely pissed when they figure out I broke their little security protocol?”
Percy barked twice.
Michael chuckled as the Uber pulled onto his street. “I think you’re right, Percy. Almost certainly one-hundred percent chance of me getting some serious crap for this stunt of mine.”
The driver hopped out of the car. “Mister Salomon?”
Michael nodded and he and Percy piled into the man’s sedan.
As the driver put the car into gear and headed back to the hotel, Michael muttered to himself, “I guess I’ll find out soon enough how much trouble I’m in.”
Percy yawned and laid his chin on Michael’s foot as the professor sat in front of the control console in the lab, staring at nothing in particular as he recalled yesterday’s events. He grinned as he thought about how he’d snuck back into the hotel. It was almost like being a kid coming home past curfew, and not wanting his parents to catch him.
The FBI agents weren’t much into letting anything slide, so they must not have caught on to his little episode of rebellion.
He picked up the phone and dialed up the head FBI agent’s number. The so-called Special Agent in Charge said he’d handle whatever he needed, so this was going to be interesting.
The phone rang twice and a gruff voice crackled on the line. “Yes?”
“Agent Bernstein?”
“Yes, what can I do for you, professor?”
“Is there any way I can get more clothes from my house?”
“I’d rather you not make yourself a target by going to the house. I’ll have an agent bring your entire wardrobe if that’s what is needed to make you comfortable.”
“Agent Bernstein, seeing my wife and kid safe would be the only thing that would make me comfortable. But having some other clothes at least helps.”
“I’ll have someone on it today. Is there anything else?”
“Not at the moment, thanks.”
Michael heard a click, set the receiver back on its cradle and grinned.
If he gets his clothes, then that meant they’d likely offloaded it to some other location for storage.
But Michael had a sneaking suspicion that the FBI weren’t the only people who’d been combing through his house.
Someone had left that coin in the safe.
But who?
“What’s got you smiling like that?” Josh asked as he walked over and pulled up one of the lab stools.
Michael shook his head. “Nothing. I was just recalling a weird dream I had. What’s up?”
Josh held a serious expression as he leaned forward, elbows on his knees and spoke in a quiet, conspiratorial tone. “Have you heard anything about DC yet?”
Michael frowned and shook his head. “Should I have? What’s up with DC?”
“I heard from a couple of my contacts over in DARPA that there’s talk about consolidating lab resources and bringing projects in closer to the mothership if possible, and our project was flagged as one of them.”
Images of the Pentagon and other places flashed into his mind’s eye as he shook his head. “It’ll be a cold day in hell before I move to DC. Certainly not while Maria and Felicia are out there somewhere. The project can move, I’m not.”
Percy lifted his head, looked up at Michael and let out another whining yawn.
Josh nodded. “Let’s hope it all works out one way or another. I’m sure the police and FBI have to be on the verge of finding your family.”
Michael shrugged and turned back to the computer. “Can you go find out where we’re at on the tachyon collection, and also about the larger dish we’d ordered. It was supposed to have come by now.”
“I’ll get on it.”
Michael shifted his gaze to the receding image of the grad student-turned-project manager and clenched his jaw.
He wasn’t sure when it happened, but somewhere along the way, Josh had gone from being his grad student to being an extension of one of the DC folks.
Maria’s warning rang loudly in his head about not being able to trust these people.
At this point, Percy was about the only thing in his life that he trusted.
He retrieved his cell phone, pulled up its photo album, which consisted of only about four pictures, and he stared at the most recent one.
It was that girl’s contact information.
Alicia Yoder.
Whoever she was, her crazy story was starting to seem less crazy.
He stared at the photo he’d taken with her number for a full ten seconds and got up from his chair.
“Come on, Percy. Let’s go for a walk.”
Brice tapped into the Utah Data Center computers, the same ones that the NSA used to monitor all phone traffic coming into and out of the country.
A little-known fact was that they actually monitored all calls in the country, but it was supposed to be only the foreign source or destination calls that could be flagged for keyword indexing. That indexing would flag words out of a registry such as “bomb” or “kill” and in days gone by, “Osama” was a popular term to flag.
Brice’s focus was now on high-priority cases having to do with a Professor Michael Salomon. The details were especially hush-hush as to why and how the Outfit had gotten involved in this. Normally Brice was aware of why he was working on something, but this time around, only Director Mason, who was one of the top men in the entire clandestine organization, seemed to have an idea of what’s up with some physics professor in New Jersey.
Brice had been tasked with monitoring the good professor’s communications and understanding who he was in contact with, and likely listening in on what those people were up to as well.
Brice put on his headphones and leaned back as he listened to a conversation between a high-ranking FBI agent named Glen Bernstein and another man.
“What do you mean there’s nothing in Professor Salomon’s bedroom closet? Our crew inventoried the entire house before closing it up, didn’t we?”
“Carl, I don’t know what to tell you. I’m standing in the middle of the man’s walk-in closet and there’s nothing here. I don’t have the original inventory list on me, but I’m pretty sure I’d remember a totally empty master bedroom closet coming up on the report. That stuff sort of stands out. And besides, this entire bedroom has been wiped clean. Someone definitely came in and emptied it.”
“What about the rest of the house?”
“The rest of the house looks fine. They’re repainting and fixing windows and stuff, but there’s knick-knacks where you’d expect them and other stuff. It’s only the master bedroom that’s been cleared.”
Bernstein’s voice sounded increasingly frustrated. “Okay, then we need to run the surveillance tapes and see who came in and removed that stuff. I doubt a bunch of insurance-hired workmen are going to steal a man’s clothing.”
“Um, yeah… about that. I sent you an e-mail about the surveillance a while ago. We’d only gotten a limited-time allowance on the surveillance, and you never responded, so nobody went to the judge to extend the order. I mean, the professor is under our protection elsewhere—”
“Are you freaking kidding me?” Bernstein sighed and Brice could almost imagine the man’s shoulders sagging from frustration.
“Jason, this absolutely blows. We need that house re-inventoried, and compare it against what had been there. If someone’s taken stuff, I want to know where it is, and why. We might have control over the professor, but his damned wife and kid are still a problem. Do you think he's a flight risk?”
“We don’t think so. So far, he seems to be rather compliant.”
Bernstein grumbled something unintelligible and then said, “I really hate that this is all remote. If it was in DC, at least here there’s a thousand reasons for us to get twenty-four-seven authorization on surveillance.”
“There are folks working on the DC angle already. So, what do you want me to do about the professor’s request for his clothes?”
“Aw hell, when you see him, just tell him that his clothes are stuck in evidence and you can’t get them. Get his clothing size and buy the bastard some of whatever the hell he wants to wear.”
“You got it.”
The connection ended and Brice frowned.
The FBI guys sure didn’t sound like they had their stuff together.
Brice grabbed his cell-phone from his desk and dialed Mason’s number.
It rang four times and went to voice mail.
“Doug, where in the world are you?” Brice muttered to nobody in particular.
It was very unusual for Doug Mason to be out of contact at any time, much less during the middle of the day. Hell, he’d been mostly out of contact for almost an entire week.
The last he’d talked with him, the man had dumped the task of gathering everything he could about this Professor Salomon and no further instructions.
Something serious was going on, and for maybe the first time in the fifteen years he’d been working for the Outfit, Brice was worried.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Sitting in Freedom Hall, the dining facility attached to Joint Base Andrews, Alicia studied her new ID and looked over at Mason, who’d just set down a tray of drinks and a large plate of french fries on their table. “Jennifer Smith? You couldn’t get more creative than that?”
“It’s probably not wise to use your real name in this case.” Mason took a sip of his iced tea. “And besides, it’s only temporary. Until we can figure out who exactly sent your attackers, and why.”
Alicia bit down on one of the fries and panned her gaze across the cafeteria. About half of the people wore fatigues or some other form of military uniform, while the rest were in civilian clothes. “I guess I should thank you for arranging all of this, even though I wasn’t exactly expecting to end up impersonating an officer in the Air Force.”
Mason chuckled. “I think if you look more closely at your CAC, you’re listed as an airman, not an officer.”
“Cack?”
“C-A-C, Common Access Card. Your ID, it’s usually referred to as a CAC.” Mason leaned forward and spoke in just above a whisper, despite the relatively noisy environment of a bustling cafeteria. “You haven’t been trained for any of this, so don’t get the wrong impression. The ID is just to not have too much grief while we’re on the base, waiting for your father.”
“Is my father part of the military?”
“No.” Mason laughed as he shook his head. “Like you, we sometimes pretend to be things that we’re not. I swear to you, I’ll explain a lot of things to you in due time, but let’s focus on the next couple hours. Have you tried to tell your father about the future?”
“I did.” Alicia nodded. “And he listened, but I doubt he believed a word of it. To be honest, I’m still in shock that you believe it.”
Mason took on a serious expression and shifted his chair a bit closer, so that they were more side-to-side than facing each other. With his arms crossed, he leaned slightly to his side and spoke in a whisper. “I am a member of an organization that acts in many ways as a conscience for our government. The organization was founded around the birth of our nation, and we have resources across all of the continents, including a member or two on Antarctica. We often observe trends and try to steer things when we see them go awry.
“One advantage my organization has is that its access to data is almost limitless. And that’s what led me into a bit of a problem. In the future, I learned of a project that on its face seemed to be a fantastic advance in science. It was headed by a professor out of Princeton, who you are very familiar with. And then I learned of a second phase of experiments, the combining of two research teams, one of which you were the head of. I looked into it and immediately saw the danger.”
Alicia tried to remember when she first truly met Michael in the future, and she couldn’t do it. Maybe those memories hadn’t successfully transferred?
“If I had to name my best skill, I’d argue that it’s probably being able to see the bad within the good, and vice-versa. Some might call me a cynic, others an optimist, but in the end I’m fairly pragmatic. I want what’s best for our government and its people. Yet, everything about the projects you and this professor were involved in set off my alarm bells. Given that, I tried talking to this professor. I tried to warn him about some of what might happen. It was soon after that when the entire project team was sequestered. There were people in the government who were very interested in the promise of what your two teams might accomplish. For them, it was initially a military advantage. It was labeled a national security research project. In the end, it was an excuse to create a police state.”
Alicia nodded as she remembered the feeling of paranoia on the streets. “I remember parts of it. I’m guessing my memory transfer wasn’t nearly as complete as I hoped it would be. Police could actually arrest you on the suspicion of what you haven’t even done yet …”
In her mind’s eye, Alicia recalled the first time she’d been brought into court as an expert witness. She was listening to a prosecutor interrogate an elderly woman on the stand.
“Mrs. Patterson, your life hasn’t been an easy one, has it?”
The frail, eighty-something year old woman sat on the witness chair and leaned into a microphone. “Oh, I suppose everyone has their challenges now and again.”
The attorney raised his voice slightly. “Let me ask it a little differently. Your life hasn’t been an easy one, living with your husband of fifty years. It has been a challenge living with that man, hasn’t it?”
The woman’s voice quavered a bit. “All marriages have their challenges, Mister Jenkins. All of them.”
“Of course that’s true, but for the last twenty years, your husband, who can’t be in the court right now, because he’s bedridden, he’s been especially hard to live with. After the car accident, he never recovered his faculties. And the money from the settlement was never really enough to cover all of the expenses. Is that right?”
“I suppose that is true. In that sense things have been difficult.”
Alicia’s heart broke for the woman who began dabbing at her tears, smearing whatever cheap makeup she’d applied that morning. How could this woman be guilty of conspiracy to murder?
“And you have a neighbor, a Mr. Robert Kenyon. Do you recall Mr. Kenyon?”
“I do, he’s been my next-door neighbor for almost a quarter century.”
The attorney faced the jury as he said, “Mrs. Patterson, we have deposed your neighbor, Mr. Kenyon, and he admitted that he’s made an offer to you that was quite indecent, despite his claims of being a God-fearing man. Do you recall that proposal?”
Alicia noticed that the bored demeanor of the jury had suddenly changed to one that leaned forward in their chairs and looked much more engaged.
Maybe it was human nature to react that way to anything scandalous.
“No, Mr. Jenkins. I don’t remember Robert ever telling me anything inappropriate or indecent.”
The prosecuting attorney grinned as he read from an index card, “I believe Mr. Kenyon told you that he would be willing to take care of you financially if such a time came that you ever needed it. Mrs. Patterson, you don’t expect the jury to believe that such an offer isn’t an indecent proposal, do you?”
“Objection, your honor!” The defense attorney shook his head at the opposing counsel. “Argumentative.”
“Sustained.” The judge ruled.
“Mrs. Patterson, Mr. Kenyon’s offer of financial support, did you consider it indecent?”
“That wasn’t indecent. He was being kind, and you might take some lessons in that, Mr. Jenkins.” The old woman said with an outraged tone. “Robert was just saying that if my Frank ever died, he would want to take care of me. It’s what a decent human being might say.”
“Exactly.” That attorney said with a note of triumph. “I would like to refer to document 3B that’s already filed in the record. It comes directly from a government’s authorized memory stenographer.” The prosecuting attorney faced the jury once again, holding up a printout of the report, and without looking at Alicia, pointed in her direction and said, “I have an expert in memory stenography who will testify to the accuracy of this. It states unequivocally that Mrs. Holly Andrea Patterson fantasized about accidentally leaving out some of her husband’s critically needed drugs from his daily dose of IV medicine. In fact, the memories go so far as to her calculating how long it would take for her husband to have a fatal seizure without those medicines. She further fantasized about sleeping late and the joy she’d have in finding her husband dead, giving her the freedom she’d long desired. And Mrs. Patterson has given a lot of thought to being in Mr. Kenyon’s embrace. An embrace she knew was only possible if Frank Lloyd Patterson, her husband, was dead. This is all in the undeniable record of her memories.”
