MJ-12: Inception

23

Frank drove the little Volkswagen at high speed down the narrow alley, tearing onto the main road too quickly. Thankfully, it was the middle of the night and the streets were empty. If it had been daytime, someone would’ve pulled him over already. The two Russians in the trunk wouldn’t have helped much either.

“You’re over-adjusting, Frank. These little suckers pack a punch,” Ellis remarked from the front passenger seat. “Doubt I could sell many, though. Barely any room in ’em.”

Frank eased off on the gas and fell in behind Cal’s car, which had Maggie and Yushchenko inside — and another two more bound and gagged Russians to boot. That left Frank with Ellis… and the usual advice in his head.

“Hang back another ten feet or so. Give yourself room to react if things turn south,” the Las Vegas gangster whispered in Frank’s head. “If you pass, do it fast and get in front quickly. Have someone else keep an eye on the prize. You watch the road.”

“Just tell me if they make any sudden moves ahead,” Frank told Ellis. “I need to watch the road.”

Frank glanced in the rearview and saw nothing, but now, there, driving through Prague toward an inevitable police checkpoint, he started to worry. Maggie’d told him a hundred times she didn’t think Cal would be able to pull the trigger, not even in self-defense. At the time, Frank had been dismissive; Maggie struck him as gung ho and itching for a fight, and clearly felt anyone who wasn’t was soft. But remembering Cal’s movements in the house a little while before, Frank could see the hesitation, the tentative moves of the overly cautious and uncertain. Cal had been a rock throughout everything else, but knocking out those goons… it was the first time Cal had been asked to deliberately harm someone, and Frank figured it didn’t sit well with him.

So, it made sense to put Cal with Maggie — she was as much a soldier at this point as any of them, and Cal could make sure she wouldn’t get too gung ho. Despite his best efforts to the contrary, Frank had grown attached to him and to Maggie — even to Ellis. They were his team. He wanted them all back in one piece, with Yushchenko in tow.

And maybe they’d get some answers out of the Russki — information that wasn’t exactly forthcoming from the folks at CIA or Area 51.

“…a whole program, just like ours…” Ellis remarked. “Gotta wonder what kinds of Enhancements their Variants got.”

“Could be anything,” Frank said quietly. “So many possibilities, it’s probably not worth speculating.”

“World’s getting a little crowded with superpowered people, Frank,” Ellis remarked. “Makes me think that there could be a whole lot of us out there. And wonder why we’re doing this MAJESTIC business when there are surely more… lucrative opportunities.”

Frank turned to see Ellis smiling slightly at him, his eyebrow cocked. Always the salesman. “Eyes on the other car,” Frank ordered. “Finish the job first. If we get out of here in one piece, then I promise to sit through the entire pitch.”

It was risky to use a telephone at 3 a.m., but Frank was running out of options. He needed to report in, get the team in Leningrad moving, and figure out what to do with four bodies before reaching a checkpoint. The fact that they hadn’t stumbled blindly across one yet was a stroke of good luck they couldn’t expect to last much longer.

Frank eased his car to the side of the street. There was an awning on a building there with a phone number on it. He figured if it had a phone number up front, it had a phone inside. Besides, there weren’t any pay phones in this goddamn city.

The squat, two-story, cinder-block building was next to a fenced-in yard — a repair shop or junkyard of some kind. The awning was ragged, the glass on the windows streaked with filth. Not much chance there was anyone at work at that time of night. It was perfect, really. Well, as good as they were going to get.

Frank got out of the car with Ellis and headed toward the building, stopping first at Cal’s car. “If anything happens, get Maggie and INSIGHT out of here.”

Cal nodded and wisely kept the engine running. Frank turned to Ellis, who was eying the building’s strong wooden door.

“Make it subtle,” Frank said.

The Southerner smiled and reached for the doorknob, screwing his eyes shut for a moment. When he released it, it was soft clay. Ellis put a shoulder to the door, and it opened readily. “After you, Frank.”

Frank walked in and looked around. The room was bare except for a single desk, a threadbare couch, and open boxes of what looked like used parts. No phone.

“There,” Ellis said, pointing to a door labeled in Czech. “Looks like a side office.”

Frank opened the door, and sure enough, it was a private office with a large, clunky telephone on the desk. A minute’s worth of rapid-fire Czech later and he had an English operator. “Amalgamated Exports, Roger-65143,” he said.

It took less than fifteen seconds for the line to connect. “Amalgamated Exports, to whom may I direct your call?” came a prim, female British voice.

“Mr. Hill, if you please,” Frank replied. I’m reporting in, all’s well, but there’s a complication.

“One moment, please.”

A few seconds later. “This is Mr. Hill. How can I help you?”

Frank smiled. Danny had deepened his voice to sound older. “Mr. Hill, this is Mr. Rush,” Frank said pleasantly. “We have your order in hand, but I was wondering if you were interested in a few extra items that are on special.” We have Yushchenko. And a few others as well.

“Interesting. Are they similar to the one I ordered? Good condition?” More useful assets?

“Sadly, they’re off-the-shelf items that may be in need of repair. But they’re quite ready to be shipped.” Goons. Unconscious. Under control.

“Well, that’s mighty kind of you, Mr. Rush. But I think I’m going to have to pass. I’m sure you can find a place for them.” No. They need to be taken care of.

Frank grimaced. “I thought it was worth a try. Also, I wanted to be sure of the other shipment we discussed.” Roger on the goons. Get the Leningrad team moving.

“That shipment is fine, Mr. Rush. It’s being taken care of.” Leningrad team will move.

“Thank you, Mr. Hill. Is your address still the same?” Is the plan still intact?

“You should have the alternate address we discussed. I’d prefer it if you used that.” Shit’s hit the fan. Go to plan B.

“I’ll do that, sir. Anything else?” Please tell me if we’re about to get burned.

“No, Mr. Rush. Looking forward to your shipment, thank you. Have a great day.” No, but you need to get moving. Now.

“You too, Mr. Hill.”

Frank hung up the phone and turned to Ellis, who was busy trying to wipe up an oil slick on the floor, likely from his Enhancement’s side effect. “Leave it. We’re going. Plan B is in effect.”

“Shit. They made us?” Ellis said, dropping the cloth on the floor.

“No, but they may be on to something. Let’s go. We need to dump the goons here. Let’s make damn sure they’re hidden well.”

Prague’s lights grew dimmer and dimmer as Cal drove the little Volkswagen down the darkened road away from the city. Homes were getting fewer and far between, and they’d stopped passing streetlamps about five minutes before. After stowing the four Czech agents — bound and gagged — in a variety of junked-out vehicles, they resumed their journey west, this time with Frank and Ellis’s car taking the lead, leaving Cal to look out for tails — and to think about what he’d done back there in Prague.

Those men who had tried to catch Yushchenko weren’t the good guys — of course, Cal knew that. They represented a Godless regime trying to keep a man with important knowledge away from America, where that man could live free for the first time in his life. But those four men were still men, and they probably had families too. Cal didn’t hurt them too badly — he only drained just enough life out of them to render them unconscious. But he figured he’d scraped a few days off their lives. And that was something that he’d have to live with. He could only pray that those days would matter somehow — either by keeping them from doing more evil, or by keeping Cal alive longer to try to do some good in the middle of this spy game.

As they drove, Maggie tried to use her powers on Yushchenko, trying to get him to open up. But there was too much going on and Cal figured she just couldn’t get her mind to focus. After about twenty minutes, she’d given up. Now, every time Cal looked in the rearview, he saw the colonel’s eyes looking right at him.

“You all right back there, Colonel, sir?” Cal asked, trying to sound friendly.

“I have never seen an African man like you up close before,” Yushchenko replied bluntly.

“Well, hope it don’t disappoint you to learn I’m just the same as you. Two arms, two legs, whatever brains God gives us.”

“They tell us in Moscow that the Africans in America, they are slaves to European people and treated poorly. Is this true?”

Cal cleared his throat and glanced at Maggie before answering. “Well, we ain’t been slaves for more than eighty years now, sir. Are we treated bad? Depends on where you are. Lots of Negroes up North, out West, they’re doing fine. Still got a lot of problems in the South. And yeah, many of us are poor. We’re working at it. We got faith the Lord will see us through, make things better for us and our children.”

Cal watched as Yushchenko took this in. “We also were slaves, not so long ago,” he said finally. “Slaves to the tsars, the tyrants who ruled Russia until Lenin freed us. But yes, it took time to overcome this. Too many of us still want to be ruled, and too many of us wish to rule as the tsars did.”

“Is that why you want out so badly?” Maggie asked, and Cal thought she was perhaps trying another tack to get the MGB man to open up.

“No, miss. They say there is no class, now, just the proletariat, but I am one of the people who rule in the Soviet Union, and it is not a bad thing to rule. I am leaving because of what I know, and what you are doing, and what must be done together. And that is all I will say.”

Cal and Maggie traded a look but didn’t press further, preferring to ride in silence for a while as the road ahead grew darker still, to the point where only the taillights of the other car were visible.

Then the handheld radio crackled to life. “Checkpoint ahead,” Ellis reported.

Maggie lifted the bulky radio from the floor in front of her. “We’ll pass you. I’ll take care of it.”

Frank’s voice came back a moment later. “Negative. You have INSIGHT. We’ll manage.”

Ahead, Cal could make out a couple of bright lights along the side of the road and, a moment later, a wooden barrier hanging across it. There was also an army truck and maybe three… no, four guards. Soldiers, armed with rifles.

“How close do you need to be, Miss Maggie?”

She smiled that smile of hers that, to Cal’s eyes, made her look like a hunter. “Get them up there, close as you can,” she said.

Cal nodded. They’d been given orders not to talk about their Enhancements with Yushchenko present, but they could still be subtle. So, Cal shifted gears and sped up until he was right up behind the other Volkswagen. Meanwhile, Maggie clambered into the backseat with Yushchenko — no mean feat, given the size of the car.

“What are you doing?” the Ukrainian asked.

“You get up front,” Maggie said. “There’s a hatch there by your feet that’ll get you into the trunk. Don’t worry — if they open it, it’ll look like there’s a bunch of boxes and stuff in there. You’ll hide in there until we pass the checkpoint.”

Yushchenko looked pretty put out, but he did as he was told. Yet a minute later, he was safe inside the hideout Ellis had created with his Enhancement, and Maggie was back in the front seat.

“You know, this ain’t gonna be easy,” Cal said quietly as he pulled up right behind the others at the checkpoint. The guards had already approached the first car. “Ain’t no Negroes out here, and they’ll be curious.”

Maggie gave him a sidelong look. “Don’t think it’ll be a problem, Cal. Even if — oh, shit!”

Startled by her sudden outburst — he never quite got used to a lady swearing like a man — Cal looked forward to see one of the guards dragging Ellis out of the back seat by the arm, and another aiming his rifle at Ellis’s head. The two other guards were standing directly in front of their VW, weapons pointed at the front windshield.

“Miss Maggie…”

“I got ’em,” she said, closing her eyes. “I… wait. Wait. What the hell?”

Cal gripped the steering wheel tightly. “What? What is it?”

Maggie opened her eyes and quickly pulled her gun out of her handbag. “It’s not working. My Enhancement isn’t working. At all.”

“How do you know?” Cal asked, wide-eyed.

“I can’t sense the people around me,” she replied, her voice quick and tense. “I can’t sense anything.”

Cal threw the car into gear and jerked the wheel to the right. “Suppose that’s why they trained us. Hang on.”

Maggie cocked the pistol as Cal sped forward. Thankfully, Ellis had noticed the engine revving and threw himself out of the way just as Cal’s VW surged ahead, sending the guards leaping away in the other direction — where a shot from Maggie caught one of them in the chest.

Cal wheeled around to the left, just as the other two guards were aiming their rifles at him. One went down immediately — probably a shot from Frank’s car, but it was too chaotic to tell.

The other guard fired, and a searing pain tore through Cal’s left shoulder before he even realized the windshield had shattered. With a cry of surprise and anger, he swerved into the guard at speed and watched as the man bounced off the hood and tumbled away before he finally hit the brakes.

Maggie was out of the car before it even finished coming to a halt, her gun out to cover the downed men from across the roof of the VW. “Cal’s hit!” she shouted.

From the driver’s seat, Cal could see Frank already out of the car, his gun trained on one of the guards moaning and groaning on the ground. Ellis, meanwhile, staggered to his feet; the Southerner seemed unharmed but spared Cal a withering look anyway. Cal couldn’t help but smile a bit, but that quickly turned into a wince as he felt his shoulder throb. The Lord’s little reminders, he thought.

Frank then dashed over to Cal. “How bad?”

“Hurts something fierce. I ain’t never been shot before,” Cal said, gritting his teeth. “Gonna need another goat or something.”

“No time,” Frank said, pulling Cal’s door open. “Ellis! Anybody…”

Frank’s voice slowly trailed off. Cal slowly got out of the car, trying — unsuccessfully — to minimize movement in his left arm. When he finally got to his feet, Frank was standing there, looking stunned. Paralyzed, even.

“What is it?” Ellis asked.

“I can’t tell. I can’t feel it, one way or the other,” Frank said, turning ashen.

“My Enhancement’s gone too,” Maggie said. “I couldn’t get ahold of those guys. Couldn’t even feel them.”

Cal looked at the four guards on the ground. Two were only now starting to get up — bruised but unharmed, and now covered by Frank and Maggie. The other two were bleeding out. Frank shook his head to clear it, then pointed to one. “Cal, you’re gonna need to heal up. See if you got something left.”

Cal shook his head. “I’ll grab a little from each of the healthy ones. Won’t condemn a man to death if we don’t know he’s already on the way there.”

Frank opened his mouth as if to complain, then seemed to think better of it. “All right. Let’s hurry it up.”

Cal walked over to where the two guards were kneeling, their hands now raised. He placed a hand on each man’s shoulder…

… and felt nothing. Nothing except the pain still throbbing through his arm and chest.

“I got a problem here,” Cal said.

Then shots rang out from the trees around the checkpoint, and Cal knew his problems had just gotten a whole lot worse.