Callsign: King

ENDGAME
24.

Unknown Location

See that ball of fire down there? That’s your boyfriend.

Fulbright’s gleeful pronouncement still echoed in Sara’s ears. She had kept a brave face, denying the rogue CIA agent the pleasure of watching her cry. In truth, she hadn’t wanted to believe him.

That was, she knew, the first stage of grief: denial.

As an intellectual matter, she did believe him but her heart wasn’t ready to deal with it just yet. There would be time for tears later, if she survived.

A Gulfstream V jet had been waiting for them at the private airfield used by the contracted commandos. Still unconscious from the sedative injection, Felice had been buckled into one of the rear seats, while Sara had been allowed to sit where she pleased, but always under Fulbright’s watchful eye. How long they flew, she could not say, but when they arrived at their destination, it was mid-morning, and the physical environment did not seem that much different than the place they had just left.

A fit but pale-looking middle-aged man got out of a dark green Range Rover and greeted them as they descended from the jet. His hair was gray, but Sara couldn’t tell if he was in his late forties or his early seventies. When he approached and introduced himself, Sara got the impression that it was as much for Fulbright’s benefit as for Sara’s.

“I’m Graham,” he said, affably. “I kind of keep things running around here.”

“Just take us to Brainstorm,” Fulbright answered impatiently.

“As you like.” Graham chuckled then turned to Sara and extended a hand. “A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Miss…?”

Sara narrowed her eyes, appraisingly. Despite his attempt at charm, Graham-was that his first or last name?-had given her no reason to think he was anything but another villain in Brainstorm’s employ. “It’s ‘doctor,’ actually. Dr. Sara Fogg.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve heard wonderful things about you, Dr. Fogg. I think you’ll be pleased with the research facility here.”

“I’ll be pleased when I’m not being held prisoner.”

Graham inclined his head. “Touche. I do hope that, in time, you will see that benefit of the work you will do here far outstrips the sacrifices you have made.”

“I’m not the only one who was sacrificed.”

If Graham heard her muttered comment, he chose not to acknowledge it.

# # #

The main house-what Fulbright had called the ‘Brainstorm facility’-was a palatial two-story villa that might have been transplanted from the south of France or the Catalina hills of California. Sara was escorted to a luxurious private room where Graham invited her to “freshen up” and join him for a meal if she was so inclined. A closet full of clothes, ranging in style from dress casual to blue jeans and T-shirts-all of them clothes that she might have purchased for herself, every garment the correct size-was provided, and the bathroom was stocked with her favorite brands of toiletries. Someone had been doing their homework.

No demands were made of her, but there was little question that she was a prisoner. Nevertheless, she took advantage of the chance to shower away the residue of her plunge into the Indian Ocean and the general grime of days spent in the field.

As the hot water cascaded down on her shoulders, she pondered her next move. Things were so much clearer in Jack’s world. If you were captured, you would fight back, resist, try to escape or confound your enemy’s goals in any way possible. But it was different for her. Yes, she wanted to escape, but she could not afford to so easily dismiss what her captor was attempting. Even if she was being lied to, even if they were secretly trying to turn the discovery into a weapon, the opportunity to do research on the contagion and to find a way to counteract it, was not something she could easily pass up.

It was the best way she had to fight back, resist, and confound her enemy’s goals.

The door was locked from the outside, but as soon as she knocked, it popped open revealing an empty hallway. As she stepped into the hall, Graham appeared on the staircase landing, midway down the hall. “This way, Dr. Fogg. Lunch is already set.”

The kitchen furnishings, like everything else in the house, were modern, giving the whole place the feel of being on a space station designed by a 1950’s science fiction writer. She found Fulbright seated at the oval-shaped glass dining table, pensively eating a sandwich.

“I can only provide light fare right now,” Graham apologized. “But I promise dinner will be superb. I don’t get the chance to entertain here very often, so I will be pulling out all the stops.”

“I’d hate for you to go to any trouble,” Sara replied, with undisguised sarcasm.

Fulbright looked up at her, but said nothing.

“No trouble at all.” Graham elected to ignore the venom. “There’s no reason your stay here has to be unpleasant.”

“That sounds like something he might say.” Sara jerked a thumb at the rogue CIA officer. “As a threat,” she added.

“Please understand, Dr. Fogg. You have important work to do here. Work that will benefit us all; the entire human race.”

Sara settled into a chair and started assembling a sandwich from a plate of assorted cold-cuts and cheeses. “Fine,” she said at length. “I’ll play along, but I can’t have you telling me how to do my research. You need to give me whatever I ask for.”

“Within reason, of course.”

“First, I want you to stop sedating Felice Carter.”

Fulbright looked up sharply. “Weren’t you paying attention back there? She can infect people, maybe without even thinking about it. If she feels the least bit threatened…” He snapped his fingers. “Poof, we’re mindless drones.”

“That’s exactly why I need her awake and alert. Just because she’s unconscious doesn’t mean that her fear response is turned off. She needs to know that she isn’t in any danger. I can explain that to her. More importantly, I need to be able to talk to her in order to figure this thing out. The answers are all in her head.”

Graham was about to say something, but was interrupted by a buzzing noise from his pocket. He took out a smart phone and looked at the display for a moment, then tapped a few keys and put it away. “I’m sorry. Unrelated business. With respect to your request, Dr. Fogg, I certainly think we can accommodate you if you feel it’s that important. I trust you will take all the necessary precautions.”

Sara looked at the older man sidelong. She couldn’t quite figure out just what his role was in all of this.

“You need to run this past Brainstorm,” Fulbright declared, clearly unhappy about what Sara was demanding.

“And that’s the other thing I need,” Sara broke in, quickly. “I’m tired of dealing with lackeys…I’m tired of dealing with him.” She pointed an accusing finger at Fulbright. “If you want me to do this, I need direct access to Mr. Big himself. I need to be able to talk to Brainstorm.”

Graham gave an odd smile. “Done.”

# # #

After the meal, she was taken to the laboratory facilities, which were she surmised, in a basement level beneath the villa. The lab was accessible only by elevator, and she was pretty sure that it had gone down, not up, but the spacious windowless area could have been almost anywhere.

Graham showed her a computer workstation and logged her in. “This terminal is linked to a pair of Cray supercomputers which you can use for gene sequencing, and any other applications that will help you design a vaccine. And this icon here-” He clicked on a tab on the desktop display-“This allows you to send instant text messages to Brainstorm.”

“I don’t want to text Brainstorm,” Sara countered. “I want to talk to him. Face to face.”

“Good luck with that,” Fulbright remarked.

“All communications from Brainstorm are via text messages,” Graham explained, “but I’ll activate the text-to-voice translator. I’m afraid that’s about as close as you can get to actually having a conversation with Brainstorm.”

Sara stared back at him. “So it’s true. Brainstorm is just a big computer-artificial intelligence.”

Graham spread his hands equivocally, and then stepped out from behind the workstation. “Dr. Carter is in the isolation room. It’s equipped with Level A hazmat protection, if you feel the need for such measures. On the other hand, if you feel that she poses no threat, I’ll arrange guest quarters for her later.”

“Do that. I’ve got it from here. I’ll let you know if I need anything more.”

The two men lingered in the lab a while after she dismissed them, but as far as Sara was concerned, they were already gone. She gave Felice an anti-narcotic injection then sat down and waited for her to stir.

Despite her confident demeanor, she was very worried about Felice’s transition from drug induced sleep to wakefulness. Indeed, as the sedative in her bloodstream was bound and rendered inert by the anti-narcotic, Felice came awake as if emerging from a night terror.

“Felice, it’s okay.” Sara risked physical contact, gently holding Felice’s forearm. “You’re safe.”

Felice’s eyes darted back and forth as she tried to take in the unfamiliar surroundings. “Where am I?”

“I wish I knew. But we’re safe for now. You need to relax and stay calm. I’ll explain everything.”

The roving gaze finally settled on Sara’s face. “I know you. You’re the CDC doctor.”

“That’s right. I’m Sara. I feel like I know you well, but I guess we only got to meet for a few minutes. A lot has happened since then, and I’ll tell you when you’re ready to hear it.”

“Where’s Jack?”

The question caught Sara off guard, and emotion welled up in her throat. After a false start, she managed to croak: “That’s part of what I have to tell you.”

“Tell me now.”

Sara started with Fulbright’s act of treachery. She only gave the barest of details about what had happened to Sigler, and it was evident from Felice’s reaction that she understood why it was so painful; she had, after all, witnessed their affectionate reunion.

Once Felice understood that they were both being held hostage, Sara turned her attention to the contagion-if a contagion it indeed was. Sara wasn’t convinced of that. “We need to understand exactly how this…effect…is being spread. I’m thinking that maybe it’s linked to a pheromone.”

Felice shook her head. “Sara, I need to tell you a story; a story about elephants.”