MJ-12: Inception

21

I think there’s someone tailing us,” Frank said as he walked along Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and Capitol building. “Here we go again.”

Next to him, dressed in a sharp navy skirt and jacket with a subdued, wide-brimmed hat, Maggie looked at her reflection in a store window — and used it to check behind her as well. “And here I thought we might get a day in town without a babysitter.”

The two were at liberty in Washington with very little to do other than wander. Both Cal and Ellis had been granted time with their families; Danny had arranged for relatives to come up to the nation’s capital for several days. He had offered to do the same for Frank, but Frank had just shrugged. He hadn’t been in touch with his family since just after the war, so a reunion would be… difficult, at best. And he knew his girl was long gone by now, probably married with kids. Things could change a lot in three years.

So, they went into town together — but not alone. Never alone. MAJESTIC-12 wanted to keep an eye on them, just in case they were put in danger. Or put others in danger.

“I see him,” Maggie said coolly. “Half a block back. Double-breasted suit, tie, kind of short and pudgy. Not really good at this, is he?”

Frank smirked. “Well, we’re the pros now, right?”

“Don’t know about you, but I did OK,” she teased. “What do you want to do?”

“Prank ’em again?” he asked with a smile.

A week ago, he had convinced Maggie to have some fun with their escorts. They’d grabbed a cab in Foggy Bottom with no warning, then switched to a bus a mile later that took them to Anacostia, and then turned right around and headed to Dupont Circle in another cab, where they waited at a café as no fewer than six agents finally showed up to stake out the perimeter, glowering at them. Frank thought it was a hoot. Maggie was less impressed but went along with it anyway.

“Nah, not today,” Maggie replied. “I want to go to a bar and get drunk, but it’s only 11 a.m. Little early for that. Let’s head over to the Capitol, have a seat on the steps, watch the world go by for a while… I’m getting a little tired of the games, frankly.”

Frank gave the man another surreptitious glance. “He doesn’t look like Secret Service. There’s something about him that’s different than the others. What if he’s a Russian?”

Maggie, placid as ever, simply shrugged. The threat of danger never seemed as real to her, Frank thought. “Then I guess it’ll get interesting,” was all she said.

With that, Maggie took Frank’s arm, and together, they strolled down the broad avenue without talking. That was one thing Frank liked about Maggie — she didn’t feel the need to fill the silence with gabbing. He wasn’t even sure if she enjoyed his company or not — and frankly, he could say the same of hers — but they could at least coexist in the same space well enough. There were worse things. That said, he wished she’d be a little more animated. She seemed to be getting more distant with each passing day.

By the time they reached the shadow of the Capitol dome, they’d picked up two more tails, both of which they immediately pegged for Secret Service — cheap suits, bags under the eyes, and, most evidently, shoulder-holstered revolvers bulging out from their jackets. It had gotten to the point where they were starting to see familiar faces among their chaperones. At this point, they didn’t think Danny ordered the tails himself, but they also knew by now that he was pretty low on the MAJESTIC totem pole. The four Variants had batted around the idea of who was doing what and who was on their side, but all they really knew was that maybe some higher-ups liked them, and probably some really didn’t.

“They’re scared,” Ellis had said one night over dinner in their new digs, a heavily guarded townhome in Foggy Bottom near the CIA’s headquarters. “We got these abilities, these extraordinary powers. They’re scared of that, even though they want to use us. Maybe they’re right to be scared, especially now that we know there’s more out there like us.”

At first, Frank had dismissed that notion with a laugh and a swig of whiskey, but the more he thought about it, the more it made sense; maybe the fact that his Enhancement wasn’t as in-your-face as the others’ were colored his perceptions of it. And so, he kept his head up and eyes open. The first time he saw the Secret Service tails, he chided himself for being so naive. And now, with someone new watching, Frank’s list of people to trust was getting pretty thin indeed.

Maybe it really was a Russian. That seemed a little paranoid at first, but after Istanbul, anything seemed possible.

Frank left Maggie on a bench by the east steps of the Capitol and got a bag of popcorn from a nearby cart. When he returned, she looked off to her right; the fancy-suit guy was sitting on the steps of the Capitol, munching on a sandwich. Frank took a seat next to Maggie and held out the popcorn. “What about the others?” Frank asked.

“One’s up top of the stairs for the wide view,” she replied. “Other’s in the park across the way. Keeping their distance but looking hard. Not like this guy. Maybe he’s better than I thought. Using his peripherals more.”

Frank casually glanced over to the man. “Caucasian, Eastern European descent. Mid forties. Spare tire around the waist, but shoulders and arms look built. Could be a tough customer.” The voice was that of the gangster in the Las Vegas hotel room, and it nearly caused Frank to jump out of his skin. So much for pushing the memories away — something stuck. At least it was kinda useful, but what else was floating around in his head that he didn’t know about?

“Frank?” Maggie asked. “What’s wrong? You got really worried there.”

He shook his head to clear it. “Jesus, Maggie. Stay out of my head.”

She just shrugged. “Doesn’t work that way. I can feel it coming off of you. I wasn’t prying. You all right?”

“Yeah, sorry. Got a bead on that guy, he’s — shit, where’d he go?”

Frank cast around as subtly as he could, but the guy in the nice suit was nowhere to be found. He hadn’t even left any litter on the steps.

“Maybe he wasn’t a tail,” Maggie said. “Could’ve read him wrong.”

“I doubt it. Maybe he saw the others and bailed.”

Then a cluster of tourists directly in front of them parted, and the man was walking right through toward them. He was so close that Frank barely had time to react, and his heart started racing a mile a minute. Definitely not Secret Service. Question was: Who?

“Say, excuse me,” the man said, a Chicago accent coming through. “Don’t suppose you know which way the train station is?”

Maggie gave her best smile; she only did that, Frank knew, when she was acting. “Sure, it’s right over there, mister. Just a block or two. Want some popcorn?” She held out the bag to him.

“Well, don’t mind if I do. Thank you, miss!” The man reached in, grabbed a few kernels, and tipped his hat before walking off toward the station with purpose.

They sat in silence for a few more moments before Frank spoke up. “That was real dangerous, Maggie. Care to tell me what’s going on?”

“I could feel his anxiousness as he got close. He was nervous, excited. Bet he knew exactly who we were. So, I gave him a chance to do something.”

“Right, the popcorn. And?”

Maggie stood up, popcorn in hand. “And I need to use the ladies’ so I can see what he left us.” She made her way toward the building. “Be right back.”

Frank half-smiled after her; she was so goddamn good at this spy stuff, it was scary. Frank began to wonder if there were any aging OSS officers he might sit with. Next to Maggie, he felt like a greenhorn. He watched as the agent at the top of the stairs casually followed Maggie inside, but he knew darn well that the man wouldn’t dare follow her into the bathroom. And that would give her enough time to figure things out. The other agent still sat in the park with his eyes glued to Frank. Hadn’t any of them noticed the man from Chicago?

For the next ten minutes, Frank sat and watched people mill about the Capitol grounds. There were young men with sharp haircuts and clean faces carrying stacks of files around — Washington’s young politicos, probably. Someday, they’d go back to where they came from and probably get a seat on the city council or something, beginning the climb that would hopefully land them back here, with a bunch of young politicos fetching their own paperwork. Then there were the tourists with their guidebooks and their souvenir fans, waving them around to stave off the heat of the typically warm day. They all looked completely innocent, unaware of what was unraveling under their very noses. The thought made Frank’s skin crawl. This spy shit was really getting to him. He was starting to feel like he couldn’t trust anybody.

“Well, that was interesting.”

Maggie sat back down next to him and offered him some popcorn, which he took. “Yeah?” he asked.

“Note. Flushed it. We need to get the team together. Danny, too.”

Frank tried his best to look casual. What the hell was going on? “Anyone else?”

Maggie smiled, and this time it seemed genuine and, if Frank were being honest with himself, a little scary. “No. Just Variants.”

Danny ran down the details of the operation that Hillenkoetter and Forrestal — who were sitting in the back of the room — had approved earlier that day. The only hitch was that Hillenkoetter had nixed the idea of letting Danny lead the effort himself — it’d been determined that Subject-1 was too important to lose should things go sour like they had in Istanbul.

But he felt the team was ready, and he knew Frank was a capable leader. They would be in Prague within two weeks, in time for the inauguration of the new government, unless Station Chief-Prague flagged them sooner that Yushchenko was in town.

“As for prep work, we’re tracking down suitable candidates in the hospitals over there so that Frank can get some language and local information. Any thoughts, Frank?”

“Actually, yeah. The professor in Istanbul was helpful and all, especially since we were in an old palace,” Frank said. “But this time, maybe get me someone who knows the whole city real well, like a cabbie or a cop. If we’re pulling INSIGHT out, that kind of information could be handy.”

Danny made a note on his clipboard. “Good idea. Anyone else?”

Ellis raised a hand. “Yeah. If you want me to work on that car, maybe have another one handy in case the side effects cause a larger issue or I need parts or something.”

“You got it,” Danny said, scribbling again. “Oh, and Cal, we’re going to find and secure a farm on the outskirts of the city proper in case you need to grab some life energy from some livestock. We’ll aim for somewhere between Prague and the West German border, just in case we have to grab him — could double as a safe house if needed. Anything else?”

Danny looked around. Frank, Cal, and Ellis seemed done, while Maggie… Danny had to do a double take. He knew that look.

A moment later, both Hillenkoetter and Forrestal stood. “Looks like you have things in hand, Wallace,” Hillenkoetter said with a forced smile, while Forrestal just glared at the CIA director. “If you’ll excuse us.”

The two men walked out of the conference room and, a few seconds later, could be heard arguing out in the hallway. “Maggie, what the hell did you just do?” Danny snapped. “I worked for weeks to get them to approve this!”

She smiled slyly, probably knowing full well the effect it had on Danny. “They’re not angry about the operation, Commander. Right now, they’re just irritated with each other. Honestly, it wasn’t that hard of a push. And by the way,” she continued, cutting him off before he could interrupt, “that Forrestal guy is pretty scared, just being in the room with us. Your CIA boss, there, though, he’s nice enough.”

Danny slumped down into his chair. “Jesus, Maggie. Why would you go and do that?”

“We made contact with someone today. Someone new. He slipped us a little note,” she replied, lowering her voice.

“While you were under surveillance?” Danny asked incredulously.

“And who was the one who did that?” Frank countered.

Danny sighed; it was going to be one of those conversations. “Not me. You can take your guesses. What did the note say?”

Maggie recited from memory: “‘You are not alone. We are Empowered, like you. You can be free. We will help you.’”

The words hung in the air for long moments. “Dammit,” Danny said finally. “They made us.”

“The Russians?” Cal asked, sitting up straight. “They know who we are? Thought we got off clean in Turkey. If they’ve made us, what happens? What about my family?”

“Who else?” Danny replied. “It was like they were waiting for us in Istanbul. That’s why we have to get our hands on INSIGHT. Hate saying it, but we’re at an intel disadvantage here.”

“How do we even know it’s the Russians?” Maggie asked. “Maybe it’s, I don’t know, some kind of independent group.”

“They did capitalize the E in Empowered,” Frank added. “Kind of like the way you capitalize the name of a baseball team, isn’t it?”

Danny looked at Frank and Maggie incredulously but thought better of an immediate retort. They’d obviously had time to hash this out before bringing it to the rest of the team. Cal and Ellis looked stricken — both of them had families, after all, and if the Russians found out who they were, those pressure points could be easily leveraged. Frank looked worried too. But Maggie almost seemed excited — but with the tiny cues she gave off, it was damned hard to tell. It made sense, though, that she’d perk up at the prospect of finding more Variants. That was one of the things that drove Danny, after all — finding others like him.

But an independent group?

“Look, we have to assume it’s the Russians. Far as we know, they’re the only game in town. Yes, there are ways Variants could track each other down,” Danny ventured. “My Enhancement allowed me to find all of you, after all. But there’s also good old-fashioned footwork. Newspaper reports of strange phenomena, for example — we have a team on that right now.”

“Or y’all got a leak in your ship,” Ellis said.

Cal nodded in agreement. “Mr. Longstreet here could be right. All them scientists out at Area 51. All them soldier boys. And you got people here in Washington who may know pieces of this. No such thing as a real secret nowadays.”

In for a penny, Danny thought. “Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, so we’re going to keep all this between us, all right? We still have the mobster in custody. He hasn’t given us anything, and we’ve been working very hard to be… persuasive. In fact, we’ve considered flying Maggie back out to have a crack at him.”

“Why haven’t you?” she asked.

“Well…” Danny started, and then took a breath. Screw it. “Because we think the guy we picked up in Istanbul is a Variant, and it’s been determined that we don’t want you all around him right now. Anderson is keeping them in the same facility to maximize our security and keep the need-to-know down.”

The silence around the table was expected. Danny was committing any number of court-martial offenses by revealing this information, but the obligation to his fellow Variants — the people he himself recruited — seemed more important. He’d become increasingly conflicted lately about the line he’d been straddling. Whose side was he on? There were times when he regretted being so forthright with his superiors about his Enhancement — usually after talking with Secretary Forrestal. His patriotic fervor didn’t seem like such a high priority in the face of unreasonable fear and a closed mind.

“You know? Screw this,” Ellis said. “I’m done. You can lock me up, whatever you want, but we got Russians tailing us, we got the Soviets with Variants now. You’re keeping way too much from us, and I don’t like it one bit. You’re putting us in real danger, and that ain’t what I signed up for.”

“And what the hell, locking up Variants like that?” Maggie added. “That Russian is one of us. We can show him what we’re doing. Get him to switch sides. He’s one of us, Danny!”

“The only us I care about is this team!” Danny shot back. “I have bent over backward to shield you from the worst of this. There are people, important people, who still think we should be locked up. All of us. Put down a hole and buried. You’re here because I’m trying to find a better way for us. And you know what? That Russian used his Enhancement against you. Now you want to be pals? If he’s not interested, what then? He goes AWOL and that only gives people another reason to lock us up!”

There was an uncomfortable silence in the room for several moments while Danny calmed himself and gathered his thoughts. “We thought the Russians were clueless. They’re not. They have Variants, and they probably have the other anomaly. It’s not like the nukes, where they can’t get theirs to work yet. They’re on par with us here — they may even know more about Variants and what caused this than we do. And if you want to find out more about what happened to us and why we have these abilities, then you’re going to want to go to Prague and get Yushchenko. We can find out what the Russians are up to, who your mysterious contact was today, what the hell is going on. And we’ll do it without some paranoid son of a bitch trying to lock us away for not playing ball. Understood?”

Danny stood up and left the four members of his team behind. Outside, in the hallway of the Foggy Bottom office building, it seemed Forrestal and Hillenkoetter had mended fences — or at least walked away from each other, because they were nowhere to be found.

It never even occurred to Danny to tell either of his superiors that they had been under the influence of a Variant.

“I’m telling you, Hilly, she had us under her goddamn spell or something,” Forrestal said, a mix of frustration and pleading in his voice. “I’ve never wanted to actually hit you until today.”

Hillenkoetter sat behind his desk and smiled at his colleague and adversary. “Well, Jim, I’ve wanted to hit you pretty much every goddamn day I’ve known you, but I will say that today’s the first day I came close to throwing the punch. And for no good reason.”

“Exactly!” the defense secretary said, his hands spread. “That girl is dangerous. She assaulted us, basically. She needs to be locked up. Throw away the key.”

“Jim, she’s the most effective agent we got. Her Enhancement works at range, for one, and she can pretty much kill a man with her mind. And then there’s the interrogation applications she brings to the table. You try to bring her in line, you either get her pissed enough to let loose, or you drug her up so she’s useless. I don’t want her useless.”

“She’s dangerous,” Forrestal insisted.

“They all are. That’s the risk we agreed to take.”

Forrestal leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “What do you think they’re doing in there?”

“Talking about us, probably. Or maybe about the other Variants out there in Soviet hands. It’s healthy for them to be able to have the freedom to speak amongst themselves. Not too many others have the same kind of experiences.”

“You’re a soft touch,” Forrestal said, throwing up his hands as he stood. “Maybe I should’ve hit you.”

Hillenkoetter just smiled as he stood, and extended his hand. “That’s how I got this pretty, getting punched in the face. Good to see you, Jim.”

“You’re coddling them. This isn’t over,” Forrestal said as he stormed off. Despite Forrestal’s threat, Hillenkoetter couldn’t help but feel good. He enjoyed having a one-up on someone, and on Forrestal in particular. He figured Truman would back him up, anyway — the President had a short temper when it came to Forrestal’s antics. Besides, whatever the Variants were talking about, the reel-to-reel recorder in the conference room would tell him soon enough.