Gwendy’s Final Task

21

IN JANUARY 2020—AFTER SERVING in a number of high-profile intelligence positions including Deputy Group Chief of Counterterrorism, as well as CIA Station Chief in London, Munich, and New York—sixty-three-year-old Charlotte Morgan became the eighth appointee (and only the second woman) to be named as Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

She was also one of Gwendy Peterson’s closest and most trusted friends. They’d first met at a budget meeting during the summer of 2003 when Gwendy was serving her second term in the House of Representatives. Charlotte Morgan was temporarily living in D.C., spearheading a six-month training program for overseas operatives. After running into each other at a number of social functions, including a handful of Orioles games, they became fast friends, bonding over their mutual affection for jogging, junk food, and violent crime novels, especially those penned by the dashing John Sandford.

Charlotte returned abroad when the training program ended, but the two women stayed in touch via telephone and email, and visited often during Charlotte’s thrice-yearly trips home. When Charlotte got married to her second husband on a private Delaware beach in 2005, Gwendy served as one of four bridesmaids. The following winter, when Charlotte gave birth to a healthy baby girl—on her forty-ninth birthday!—she and her husband chose Gwendy to be the child’s godmother. Years later, when Gwendy’s mom passed away on a cold October afternoon, Charlotte hopped on the next available flight from New York and was holding her friend’s hand later that same evening. In many ways, Charlotte Morgan became the older sister Gwendy had always wished for.

As Gwendy parked her car by the Lake Fairfax boat ramp in Reston, Virginia on the morning of December 9, 2023, and spotted her old friend sitting alone on a bench near the water’s edge, she prayed that their long history would be enough … or at least a start. Charlotte glanced up from the book she was reading, flipped Gwendy a wave, then lifted her hands to her shoulders in a What’s going on? gesture. Gwendy got out of the car and slowly made her way over to the bench, carrying the canvas bag in her right hand.

“No security?” Charlotte asked, only half-joking.

“I’m driving a rental Kia. That’s security enough.” Not to mention the button box, Gwendy thought.

“You’re killing me, dear one,” Charlotte said, closing the thick hardcover on her lap. “It’s got to be ten degrees out here. Spill it. Why all the secrecy?”

Gwendy took a seat next to her friend, placing the canvas bag by her feet. “Have you ever considered me anything other than completely sane, reasonable, and honest?”

Charlotte’s smile faded. She looked closely at her friend. “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

“You could say that,” Gwendy agreed. “Please answer the question.”

“Other than your bull-headed allegiance to the Red Sox, you’ve proven to be one of the most sane and trustworthy people I know. Top two or three, for sure. You know that.”

“Then I need you to listen to me very carefully. Can you do that?”

Charlotte didn’t answer right away—she was still too stunned by the turn the meeting had taken. She’d come expecting Gwendy to tell her that she was finally dating someone after the last four years of living like a nun, but this sounded much more serious. She didn’t care for the drawn look on Gwendy’s face.

“I can do that.”

“Be sure, because I’m going to tell you something that will be very difficult to believe. Then I’m going to show you what’s inside this bag and give you a demonstration of how it works.”

Charlotte leaned forward and gave the drawstring bag a closer look. She opened her mouth to respond, but Gwendy cut her off again. “If you start to interrupt, I’m going to walk back to my car and drive away and pretend this meeting never happened.”

“You’re scaring me, Gwen. Are you sure we shouldn’t call it quits on this conversation right now while we’re ahead?”

“Only if you don’t want the world to stick around long enough for Jenny to graduate from high school and go to an Ivy League college and have babies of her own one day.”

“You’re serious?”

“Unfortunately, yes.”

The Deputy Director, never once breaking eye contact, was silent then. It was her job to know when people were telling the truth. “Okay. Tell me.”

Gwendy told her.

When she was finished, almost forty minutes later, Gwendy picked up the canvas bag from the grass by her feet, pulled out the button box, and placed it on her lap. It was the first time she’d laid eyes on it in almost twenty-five years. She could hear Richard Farris’s voice whisper inside her head: Don’t touch the button box or even take it out of the canvas bag unless absolutely necessary.

Was a thing absolutely necessary when it was absolutely the only way? Of course it was.

“Do you remember the part of my story about Jonestown?”

She nodded. “You believe you caused it. Or rather that strange box did. May I …?” She reached for it.

Gwendy pulled it away, clutching it to her chest. Because it would be dangerous for Charlotte to touch it, yes, but that wasn’t the only reason. There was jealousy, as well. She thought of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings: “It’s mine, precious, my birthday present.” Gwendy didn’t want to feel that way about the box, but she did.

It was terrible, but there was no denying it.

“I guess I may not,” Charlotte said. She was giving Gwendy a measuring look, and Gwendy knew, old friend or not, she was only a few steps from deciding Senator Peterson was barking mad.

“It would be dangerous for you to even touch it,” Gwendy said. “I know how that sounds and what you’re thinking, because I’d be thinking it, too. Just give me a little more rope, okay?”

“Okay.”

“I thought the part of Guyana I was concentrating on when I conducted my experiment back then was deserted. I didn’t know about Jonestown. Hardly anyone did before it hit the news worldwide. It’s not like there was any Internet to check back then. And remember, I was just a kid. This time I did my research and I’m still not sure no one will be hurt. Or killed.” Gwendy swallowed. Her throat was bone dry. “The red button is the least dangerous by far, but it’s still a loaded gun. As I found out when all those people drank the Kool-Aid back in 1978.”

“Gwendy, you don’t really believe that you—”

“Hush. No interruptions. You promised.”

Charlotte sat back, but Gwendy could still see the worry in Charl’s eyes. And the disbelief. There might be a way to fix that.

“I think you should have a piece of chocolate. That might help to open your mind a little.”

Curling her pinky, Gwendy pulled one of the levers on the side of the box. Out came a tiny chocolate animal.

“Oh, my God!” Charlotte cried, picking it up. “Is it an aardvark?”

“Not sure, but I believe it’s an anteater. No two are ever the same, which is quite a trick in itself. Go ahead, try it. I think you’ll like it.”

“I’m allergic to chocolate, Gwen. It makes me break out in hives.”

“You won’t be allergic to this. I promise.”

Charlotte lifted it to her nose for a sniff, and that sealed the deal. She popped it into her mouth. Her eyes widened. “Oh my God! It’s so good!”

“Yes. And how do I look to you?”

“How …?” Charlotte really looked. “Clear. It’s like I can see every strand of hair on your head, every pore on your cheeks … you’ve never been so clear. And lovely. You always were, but now … wow.” Charlotte gave a small giggly laugh. Not the sort of sound you expected to hear from a CIA topsider, but Gwendy wasn’t surprised.

She took Charlotte’s hands in both of hers. “What am I thinking? Want to hazard a guess?”

“How could I …” Charlotte began, then: “A pyramid. The Great Pyramid. The one in Giza.”

Gwendy let go of her friend’s hands, satisfied.

“How could I know that?” Charlotte whispered.

“It was the chocolate. But not just the chocolate. You’ve trained your mind to read other people. You could say that telepathy is part of your job. The chocolates just give you a head start. My mother ate some, and they made her feel good, but she never had any mind-reading ability.” They just cured her cancer, Gwendy thought. “It will fade, but you’ll feel good for the rest of the day. Maybe tomorrow as well.”

“Look at the water,” Charlotte whispered. “The sun fills it with stars. I never saw that before.”

Gwendy reached out and turned Charlotte’s face back to hers. “Never mind that now. Do you know what’s going on in Egypt as of this week? Probably for the rest of the spring?”

Charlotte did. Of course she did, it would have been part of her daily briefings. “A bad outbreak of coronavirus. It’s killing a lot of people and the government ordered a lockdown that will last at least until the middle of May. And they are not fucking around. Show up on the street and you’re apt to get arrested.”

“Yes,” Gwendy said. “And that big old pyramid, the oldest of the world’s Seven Wonders, is deserted. No tourists snapping pictures. No workmen. It’s as close to perfect for demonstration purposes as I can get.”

Gwendy squeezed her eyes closed and thought about the Great Pyramid of Giza, aka the Great Pyramid of Khufu, aka the Pyramid of Cheops. She hated the idea of vandalizing it, but it would be a small price to pay for convincing Charlotte.

She told her old friend what was going to happen and then pressed the red button, really putting her arm into it. Five minutes later she was back in her car, speeding north on I-95, trying to make it in time to a lunch meeting in downtown D.C.

Before leaving, Charlotte asked for another chocolate. Gwendy refused, but invited Charl to pull the lever on the other side of the box. Gwendy wasn’t sure a Morgan silver dollar would slide out—they didn’t always—but this time one did. Charlotte gasped with delight.

“Take it,” Gwendy said. “A little thank-you for listening to me and not calling for the men in the white coats.”

Later that night, when her cell phone rang, Gwendy was sitting in bed, watching CNN. It was showing drone footage of a monstrous pile of rubble where the Great Pyramid had once stood. NO EARTHQUAKE, the chyron read. SCIENTISTS MYSTIFIED. After a brief search, she found her phone tangled up in a blanket. She picked up after the third ring, knowing who it was this time on the other end despite the UNKNOWN CALLER tag in the phone’s ID window.

Charlotte Morgan didn’t bother with a hello or any other pleasantries. All she said was “Holy jumping Jesus.”

“Yes,” Gwendy said. “That about covers it.”

“I’ll get you on a space trip, Gwen, if it’s what you want. That’s a promise. It may take awhile, so hang tough. We’ll talk.”

“But not about this.”

“No. Not about this.”

“Okay. Make it as soon as possible. Using it today gave me a very creepy feeling. And some very creepy ideas.” Some of them had been violent, and strangely sexual.

“I understand.” Charlotte paused. “The Great Pyramid. Holy fuck.” Then she was gone, saying goodbye no more than she’d said hello.

Gwendy tossed her phone aside and returned her gaze to the screen. Now the chyron read 6 KILLED IN COLLAPSE. They had been young adventurers from Sweden who had broken out of lockdown to explore the pyramid on their own and had been crushed under tons of limestone blocks. To Gwendy it was relearning an old lesson. No matter how careful you were, no matter how good your intentions, the button box always extracted its due.

In blood.