MJ-12: Inception

13

Harry Truman stalked the Oval Office slowly with predatory movements, staring at his guests with eyes made cat-like by his eyeglasses.

“Now, you gentlemen tell me why the hell one of these Variants got out and ended up in Las Vegas, of all places, and tell me exactly how the hell this won’t happen again!” the President barked.

Hillenkoetter and Forrestal traded a look, a you-go-first-no-you-go glance that Forrestal ultimately lost. “The Air Force is responsible for security at Area 51,” the defense secretary said. “We’re working to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Of course, that means figuring out how it happened in the first place.”

Truman finally pounced. “Jim, goddamn it, the man can turn wood into sand! He can turn metal into water! You can’t make a cage that’s going to keep him in line. So, how’s that not going to happen again? Tell me!”

“We make it worth Mr. Longstreet’s while to stay,” Hillenkoetter said simply. “Because you’re right, Mr. President — a man like that can’t be kept in. Better yet, he can’t be kept out of anywhere, either.”

Truman threw a sheaf of reports he’d been clutching down on his desk. “Worth his while? This car salesman makes more money than I do already! And I’m the President, last I checked. Though I won’t be for long, with a thirty-six percent approval rating. And let me tell you, when word gets out that I approved a stable of supermen out in the desert with magic powers, your next President will probably end up having them shot. Or worse, put them in a position to take over the country. So you see, gentlemen, we need to get this thing well in hand now, before you go sending them anywhere, let alone — where’d you want to send ’em, Hilly?”

“Istanbul, Mr. President,” Hillenkoetter replied. “A sensitive mission that could lead to some of the best intelligence we’ve had since the end of the war.”

“A wild goose chase,” Truman said with a sigh as he plopped down behind his desk. “How sure are we that won’t happen?”

“We’re not sure of any of it, Mr. President,” Hillenkoetter replied, trying to keep his voice calm and level. “That’s all part of the game. Sometimes you get a busted straight. Sometimes you make it.”

Truman smiled slightly at that. “I know my cards, Hilly. What’s your boy Wallace think about these Variants? Which ones do you want to send?”

“First team. Lodge, Hooks, Dubinsky, and, yes, Longstreet.”

“Which leads me back to my first question: How are we going to keep Longstreet in line?”

Forrestal cleared his throat. “Longstreet is now under 24/7 surveillance, Mr. President. He’s being guarded night and day. We’ve put a television camera in his room, and someone is watching at all times. He leaves his cabin for any reason, he’ll have a man with a gun waiting for him.”

“That’s the stick. What’s your carrot? More money?” Truman asked.

“He gets to visit his family. We’ll set him up with a nice vacation someplace warm, maybe Los Angeles. They can go see Hollywood, hit the beach in Santa Monica, catch a show. And we’ll be watching the whole time,” Forrestal reiterated.

“Better not be FBI,” Truman warned. “Hoover needs to keep his nose out of this.”

“Of course not, sir. We’re using Secret Service. They won’t be told why they’re watching, just who and what phone numbers to call and when,” Forrestal said. “Mr. President, I share your concerns, and there may come a point where we have to take more definitive action. But for the moment, I concur with the CIA director here that the MAJESTIC-12 program can deal with the question of this sort of… unbridled independence… on the part of the assets. For now, at least.”

Mollified for the moment, Truman turned back to Hillenkoetter. “How sure are we on this intelligence about, oh, what’s his name — Yushchenko?”

Hillenkoetter shrugged. “About as sure as it gets. Again, it’s cards, sir. We’ll have a presence at the Istanbul conference anyway. Five or six more won’t hurt.”

“Not four?”

“I want Wallace there as team leader. He’s the only one the Variants really trust.”

“And these four,” Truman said, gesturing to the folder on his desk. “Not a mix of this group and any others. Just these four.”

“We’ve compartmentalized MAJESTIC-12 pretty tightly, sir. They don’t know of any others besides themselves.”

“Even Subject-1?” Truman asked.

At this, Forrestal sat up, while Hillenkoetter scowled. Truman closed his eyes a moment to compose himself before continuing. “Jim, would you mind giving Hilly and I a moment, please?”

Forrestal stiffened. “Mr. President, as secretary of defense, I—”

“ — serve at the pleasure of the President and follow orders according to National Command Protocols,” Truman finished. “Look, Jim, this is exactly why we have a civilian spy agency rather than a military one. We don’t need your people getting gung ho. Now, if you don’t mind?”

Rising to his feet, Forrestal gave Truman a nod and made for the door without looking back. Once it was closed, both men sighed deeply.

“Sorry, Hilly,” Truman said, leaning back in his chair. “Hard to keep track of who’s goddamn cleared for what around here.”

“Understandable, Mr. President. You’re the one cleared for all of it.”

“Subject-1.”

Hillenkoetter nodded. “None of the other Variants know about him, but we’ll need him there. We need to know if Yushchenko is a Variant or not, for starters. And if he’s important to the Reds, they may have assigned one of their own Variants to keep an eye on him. Subject-1 can spot him, too.”

Truman smiled. “You have to admit, in retrospect, that was a neat bit of misdirection on my part.”

Despite himself, Hillenkoetter smiled back. Pissing off Jim Forrestal made up for a lot of sins. “I just feel for Wallace, Mr. President. He’s gonna be fielding a lot of angry phone calls now.”

“I’ll order Jim to go through Montague instead,” Truman said. “That young man has enough on his plate as is.”

Truman rose, and Hillenkoetter followed suit. “Are we approved for Istanbul, Mr. President?”

The President shook his head. “Not yet. I want a plan with all the contingencies neatly mapped out, and I want you and Jim to swear up and down you have these people well in hand before I sign anything. If there’s another incident like Las Vegas, it’s your ass. All right?”

“Understood, Mr. President.”

“One more thing,” Truman said, eying his CIA director carefully. “That Russian mobster you caught going after Ellis in Vegas.”

Hillenkoetter nodded. “Timofeyev. Grigoriy Timofeyev. Brighton Beach guy, came over as a kid after Lenin took over. I have a cop friend in New York who says they have some mob stuff going on there — shakedowns, that sort of thing. Makes sense they’d try to maybe work with the Vegas bunch.”

“Or maybe he’s a spy,” Truman countered. “Makes me nervous we had a Russian so goddamn close to one of our Variants.”

“He’s not going anywhere,” Hillenkoetter said. “We’ll keep the pressure on him to talk.”

Truman frowned and closed his eyes a moment. “See that he does. Anything else?”

Hillenkoetter cleared his throat. “Just your final sign off on our request to piggyback on the SANDSTONE testing. They’re setting off the first one next month out in the Marshalls.”

Truman opened his eyes. “Right, that thing. Seems a bit Don Quixote, doesn’t it? All those damn experiments on the whatchamacallit — the ‘anomaly.’ And nothing to show for it. What’s the point?”

Hillenkoetter shrugged. “It’s stubborn. It does nothing for months, then emits a blast of energy. That’s it. Otherwise, it’s like it’s not even there. We consulted with Einstein on it — without bringing him in, just some theoretical stuff — and he wrote back that we were wrong and physics doesn’t work that way. But it’s there in the lab, so somehow Einstein’s wrong.”

“Well, that’s wonderful. When the geniuses are wrong, we’re all in trouble,” Truman said with a weary look on his face. “All right, you’re approved for SANDSTONE. Try not to get in their way, OK?”

“Yes, sir. Trust me, nobody wants to get in the way of SANDSTONE.”