MJ-12: Endgame

4

“Calvin Hooks, what do you mean, you aren’t coming to church?”

Cal slipped on a white dress shirt from the closet and began buttoning it, praying that he could find a reasonable excuse for not going with his wife, Sally, to services. It was, of course, bad enough that they had to drive fifty miles into Boise to find a decent Baptist church with a preacher who could truly make the Word sing. And in winter, of course, when the roads were bad, they’d have to make do with the chaplain’s services right there at Mountain Home Air Force Base — and that chaplain, a bespectacled white boy who looked outright scared whenever proper black people were in the congregation, did not so much sing the Word as stutter through it.

But not going at all was worse. And that was what Cal had to do.

“I’m sorry, Sally. Truly I am. But this is how it goes. I don’t know when I get called up. Just do,” Cal said as he slipped on a pair of gray pants. “You just gonna have to pray extra hard for me today.”

Finally, Sally came around into the bedroom, her hat and veil already on and looking perfect. She was in her late fifties and, truth be told, ever so slightly starting to look her age — a little gray in her hair, a few more wrinkles around the eyes. Cal knew many Negro women were blessed with the ability to defy age for the longest time — they had to have some blessings for all the Lord put ’em through — but nobody could truly outrun time.

Except for Cal, of course. But Cal and Sally didn’t talk about that. They had, once, about three years ago, when Cal had offered to bring back some of Sally’s youth if she liked. He’d ended up spending the healing energy on the welt on his head instead. Sally was deft with a fry pan. The topic hadn’t been broached since, and Cal worked to slough off as much of the youth he gathered during assignments before he got home, preferring to stay at a healthy, robust midfifties when he was around Sally or their boy, Winston, who was now off in his first year of law school.

“There just ain’t nothing sacred anymore,” Sally said. “You can’t tell them no? After all this time? You’ve been working for them now for seven, eight years. They put you through the wringer every time. You can’t tell them you’ll be along after church?”

Cal shook his head sadly. “You know how it is, Sally. This job, this thing I do, this is what pays for Winston’s schooling. Pays for our house here on base, all the things we’ve been able to do since I left the Firestone factory. Ain’t no more third shift, getting all dirty and sweaty. You ain’t gotta work a job and take in laundry to make ends meet.”

Sally walked over and started helping Cal button his shirt. “I know all that, and I’m proud of you, really I am. You’ve done right by us, and you’re doing right by your country, too. But even when you come back looking like that rough-and-tumble teenager I met back in the day, I see what’s going on, Cal. Your eyes. How long you think you can last doing what you do for them?” She held up her hand to forestall the forthcoming protest. “I know. I don’t know what they have you do. But I know enough. And I know that making sure you’re right with Jesus is more important than ever because of that. You know it well as I do.”

Cal sighed and smiled and let Sally tie his necktie for him. “How many years is law school again?”

“Three. Two to go after this year.”

“All right. Two more. And I got two more after that on my ten years here. After that, maybe it’s time to see about moving on. Maybe I get a pension or something. Or we can just find a nice quiet place to work and live, without any of that stuff that’s happening down South right now.”

Sally’s face brightened. “You mean it?”

Cal gave her a quick kiss as she finished tying his tie. “You bet I do. Winston will be out of school, probably being some hot-shot lawyer somewhere. We’ve been able to save up quite a bit, too. But right now, baby, I have to go work.”

Sally stepped back and nodded. “You gonna be back when I get home from church?”

Cal shrugged on his dark suit jacket. “I don’t know. Depends if this just a meeting or if we’re heading out. I’ll try to be here either way, but if not, I’ll be sure to leave word.”

“I know the drill,” Sally said with a sigh. “I best get going if I’m going to make it to Saint Paul’s on time. I’ll tell everyone you’re on duty again, and try to keep those church ladies from being too nosy.”

Cal chuckled and kissed her again, feeling her body stiffen slightly. She was upset, of course. He wasn’t pleased either — what was with all the decisions and meetings coming down on Sundays anyway? Didn’t anybody in Washington ever take a weekend? Maybe go play some golf like good white people do?

Sally offered to drive Cal into the base proper — they lived in a little cluster of homes for officers and high-ranking enlisted men just inside the outer perimeter — but he waved her on to Boise and started walking, pulling his coat around him as he went. It was warm for that time of year — a relative term when the temperature was maybe forty degrees and the wind off the mountains cut like a knife. But it had been more than three years since they moved, and he was getting used to the mercurial Idaho weather. Honestly, he was getting to like the cold. The South he knew as a child was always hot and sticky and unpleasant. And full of crackers all too eager to send calls of “nigger” and “boy” his way. Maybe some of the folk in Idaho stared a bit too long, maybe they were a little too short with their words, but it was a damn sight better than Memphis. Cal had heard some good things about Seattle and San Francisco from some of the young black men at the air base. Maybe they’d move there.

Cal’s attention was pierced by a car horn, and he turned to see Frank Lodge rolling up in his latest car — a 1952 Buick with enough chrome to blind a man. Frank did like his cars. “Jesus, Cal, it’s freezing. Get in!” Frank called.

With a smile, Cal jumped into the passenger seat and rubbed his hands vigorously. “Thanks, Frank. How was Moscow?”

“Colder than this,” Frank said, pulling away toward the base proper. “I imagine we’re about to find out what’s next with all that. We missed you there.”

“Well, a black man gonna stand out pretty good in the middle of Red Square,” Cal said with a chuckle. “Only so many times I can play an ambassador to some African country nobody ever heard of. Did much better down in Guatemala, Caribbean, Egypt. Places like that.”

“It’s getting tougher for all of us,” Frank said. “Spent five hours in the airport before they allowed us to board. Lots of questioning. Thought they’d snag us then and there.”

“Why you think they didn’t?”

Frank could only shrug, but Cal knew the worry lines on his face all too well after what they’d been through together. “We were traveling with some other folks from State and Defense, heading home for leave. They probably knew they’d create a ruckus. And I don’t think Beria wants to do that quite yet. His to-do list has a lot more on it before it gets to us.”

Cal nodded. “He wants the whole country, doesn’t he?”

“Yep, near as we can tell. Figure Danny’s gonna tell us all about it. How’s Sally?”

“Oh, she’s fine. Upset I’m missing church again. It’s a good life here, but it’s hard for her when I’m off on assignment. Wondering just how much more I’ll have to do before I can hang it up.”

This earned Cal a raised eyebrow from Frank. “I’ll be real interested to see what they say to that, too. We haven’t been around long enough for anyone to retire from the program. I sure as hell hope they let you.”

“Me too,” Cal said, grimacing as Frank pulled into one of the base’s nondescript office buildings that served as MAJESTIC-12’s headquarters. “It’s gonna be prickly, I imagine, when it comes time. I ain’t told Sally that, but I gotta wonder if they’re really gonna let any of us just leave.”

Frank parked and turned to put a hand on Cal’s shoulder. “You know we’re behind you, Cal. All of us.”

Cal smiled sadly and nodded. “Hope it don’t come to that.”

The two men got out and hustled toward the entrance, where a pair of M.P.s stood sentry. Both Variants flashed their identification, and while one of the airmen gave Cal a quizzical look — the boy seemed new to Mountain Home — they entered without difficulty. The new ones always wondered why a black man would be allowed into sensitive areas of the base, something Cal was used to, even if he never quite accepted it. At least this time nobody had to give anybody a dressing down just to get in the damn door.

Inside, down two flights of stairs into a subbasement, past another pair of sentries and down a harshly lit corridor, the rest of the Variants had begun to gather in a small lecture room. Danny was up front, going through notes, but paused to give Cal a hearty hello and handshake. Maggie rose from her seat up front to give him a hug; he returned it gratefully, but noticed she was looking worse for wear, pale and sleepless. He imagined something had gone down in Moscow, and made a mental note to have her over for dinner if and when he could. Cal always worried after Maggie, what with her ability and its side effects and all. In the years he’d known her, she’d become more and more distant. Detached. Alone. His heart ached for the poor girl, but Maggie remained stubborn as a mule about it, only going to see the assigned MJ-12 shrink because they made her.

Mrs. Stevens was there too, and Cal got a hug from her as well. Lovely lady, Rose Stevens. Still sort of on the back foot after her divorce three years ago, but seemed to be recovering. Still kind, sort of like the program’s mother hen, always looking after the others. She was also a certified, one hundred percent genius — that was her Enhancement. She’d been a housewife prior to 1946. Now, she could make Einstein dizzy. She’d become the group’s quartermaster and chief researcher, creating spy gadgets and gear for missions, but also leading the research on the strange vortex of white light created after Hiroshima that had somehow given them all their Enhancements.

Another Variant, Tim Sorensen, the invisible man, greeted Cal with a wave as he made his way to a seat. None of Tim’s clothes made the transition with him when he went invisible, so Mrs. Stevens had made him clothes that would. He’d started with something that looked to Cal like a pair of tight-fitting long johns, but Mrs. Stevens had been able to improve her designs so that he could wear normal-looking clothes and shoes that would disappear along with the rest of him.

Next to Sorensen was Rick Yamato, a Japanese American who’d spent his teenage years in the internment camps out West. Yamato could create electricity out of thin air, and could shoot bolts of lightning out of his hands or short-circuit a city block with a touch. The boy was with Cal down in Guatemala in ’51. Steady man, if a little too quick to fry first and ask questions later. Cal remembered the impetuousness of his own youth, of course, and could relate sometimes, Lord help him.

Ekaterina Illyanova sat up front without really acknowledging Cal, which was okay, as it seemed they’d never really get along. They first met in Czechoslovakia in ’48, when she was about ten. A year later she’d defected to the U.S. and MAJESTIC-12 when Lavrentiy Beria left her for dead during a mission in Kazakhstan. Now fifteen and called Katie by her new compatriots, she had become a sullen teenager — understandable, given the circumstances. She could also punch through walls and lift a jeep over her head, so most folks knew to tread carefully around her. Cal knew her enmity toward him ran pretty deep; Cal had aged the hell out of her brother, a Soviet Variant who could run fast as hell, when they’d met back in that Czech forest. Cal hadn’t meant to, but there was nothing for it now, and even a good Christian man could only ask forgiveness so many times.

Frank settled down next to Cal. “Where’s Zippy?” he asked.

“Think she told me she was leading a team out in Iran,” Cal replied. “Apparently CIA got something going on there with their Shah, trying to get him back on the throne.”

Frank shook his head. “God, we don’t learn, do we?”

Cal knew what he was thinking about: the horrible events out in Syria in ’49, where the CIA had overthrown a democratically elected leader only to install a strongman who ended up deranged as hell. “We’re human,” Cal said simply.

Cal thought back to the young boy whose Enhancement, they had ultimately discovered, had driven Husni al-Za’im mad. The boy could possess a person, just like the fire-and-brimstone preachers of Cal’s youth warned Satan himself could do. The third Syrian government to seize power in that horrible year had handed the boy off to the Americans, and warned the Variants not to return to the country — ever. That boy disappeared soon afterward, and Cal sometimes wondered just what had happened to him. He probably wasn’t cleared for finding out, and Lord help him, he figured he wouldn’t want to know.

“All right, let’s get started,” Danny announced, and the talking in the room quickly died down. “Yes, this is everybody. Most of your fellow Variants are off on assignment in places you aren’t cleared for, and the rest are still training. For the record, there’s twenty-seven of us now in the program. I’m real pleased about that.”

There were a few nods in the room, but otherwise silence reigned. Like Cal, most everyone — even Danny — had mixed feelings about MAJESTIC-12. It was nice to get trained up on Enhancements, and good to be valued by your country. It would’ve been nicer to get an actual choice in the matter, though. After all this time in the program, folks were starting to wonder whether getting out was even an option anymore.

“The President has just approved a new op for us, code-name TALISMAN,” Danny continued. “Most everyone here is going to play a role at some point or other. It’s pretty big. In fact, it’s going to make everything else we’ve done seem like the minor leagues.

“We’re going to undermine and ultimately depose Lavrentiy Beria from power within the Soviet Union.”

There were a few gasps in the room, and wide eyes throughout. Cal bowed his head and said a short prayer, because he knew this one was going to be bad.

“Now, unlike what we’ve tried to do elsewhere, we’re not going to actually support anybody else in the fight to replace Stalin,” Danny said. “That’s way too dangerous and, if you think about Syria and our first effort in Guatemala, we’re just not good at it. Plus, if anybody catches a whiff of us supporting, say, Molotov or Malenkov, those guys are dead and that strengthens Beria’s hand. So we’re neutral toward anybody else in the fight, and frankly, collateral damage against other interests in the Soviet Union is perfectly acceptable so long as Beria suffers the most damage.

“Our goal is to neutralize Beria’s power base within the MGB and state security apparatus. We’re also authorized to capture or eliminate any Soviet Variants working for him as part of his Bekhterev program. Now, I know some of you are uncomfortable with this — striking out against your fellow Variants — but I need to make this crystal clear. Beria is nothing short of a monster. He was ready to drop an A-bomb on some of the people in this very room, just to see if he could create another vortex or Enhance more Variants. We believe that if he seizes power in the Soviet Union, he will seek to create a Variant-led nation and reveal Variants to the world as his ‘Champions of the Proletariat.’ If you think it through, this is a spectacularly bad idea. Normal people aren’t going to be understanding and accepting of us. They’re going to be scared. And if the first group of public Variants are Communists aligned against America, well… we’re all gonna find ourselves in a lot of trouble.”

There were nods around the room, Cal included. Maggie, however, wasn’t one of them. Instead, Cal caught a glimpse of her turning around to look, gauging the room, and grimacing. Definitely need to have her over for a talk.

“TALISMAN is an all-hands-on-deck operation inside the Soviet Union. Every one of you will have a part to play. I’m serving as overall ops commander, and Frank is number two and commander on the ground when I’m not around. Mrs. Stevens will be with us in Moscow to serve as our strategist and analyst. Katie, Maggie, and Tim will round out the first-wave team. We’ve had contingency insertion plans in place for a while now, so we’re ready to get you in there.

“Tim, since nobody really saw you, you and Mrs. Stevens are going in under official cover with State and will be our liaison with the embassy. Frank, you’re going in through Crimea and up, covered as a minor Party functionary attached to one of the industrial committees. We’ll also give you a couple of other covers you can switch out of. Maggie and Katie, you’re a widowed academic and her daughter, moving to Moscow from Murmansk. We’ll insert you up north and you can make your way down. Since Beria knows my face as well, I’m taking the long way — I’ll be in from Vladivostok and make my way across as a migrant from Siberia, which means I’ll have the worst ride.” There were some chuckles around the room at this. “Rick and Cal, you’re heading with me for a bit, then out to Helsinki to be our on-deck hitters.”

Cal frowned. This was easily a six-month assignment. Sally wouldn’t be pleased, though at least Helsinki would be a fine enough place to hang his hat for a while. He wouldn’t be in the thick of it. It would have to do, all things considered, but it was still too far and too long to be away from his wife. Maybe she could come out for a vacation, though. He wondered just what Finland was like. Cold, probably.

“We ship out tomorrow,” Danny concluded. “Aside from Cal and Rick, we should all be together in Moscow in three weeks’ time. By then, Tim will have worked with the CIA station chief in Moscow to get us a safe house, and Mrs. Stevens should have some preliminary plans on how to proceed. Come on up and get your briefing papers. Study them tonight and commit them to memory — we’ll be burning them in the morning. Good luck, everyone. See you in Moscow.”

Cal let everyone get up to get their files first, figuring they had the harder task ahead. But when he got to the lectern, Danny and Rick were waiting for him. “Got a little something else for you to do before you head to Helsinki, Cal,” Danny said with an apologetic smile. “Sorry to do this to you, but we’re making a pit stop on the way.”

Of course, Cal should’ve known nothing would be so easy. He took the folder Danny offered him. “Do I wanna know where?” he asked.

“Korea,” Danny replied. “We have a new Variant we need to find and collect.”

Grimacing, Cal looked down at his shoes for a moment, mustering some patience and peace before replying. “I hope you mean to say somewhere way in the south part, right? Away from the lines?”

Danny didn’t reply.