MJ-12: Shadows

14

Maggie Dubinsky sat on the park bench in Lafayette Square, just across the street from the White House, appreciating the hell out of the location. Pennsylvania Avenue was the busiest street in Washington, generating enough noise and movement during the day to effectively shield anyone who was watching.

Yes, there were some Secret Service guys in the park — a couple of all-too-obviously plainclothes mooks who wouldn’t pass muster as department store security guards. But they weren’t watching for a couple of guys sitting on a park bench. They were looking for active threats to the President.

The threats Maggie was looking for were far more insidious.

It had taken days of combing through Forrestal’s confiscated address book and calendar to find times and places where he might’ve met with someone outside MAJESTIC-12 or the Pentagon, but then that’s what Mrs. Stevens was for — finding patterns. She quickly determined that a trip across the river to the White House or Capitol Hill often led to additional business in the city, which made sense. And so they began looking for holes in the schedule — an extra fifteen minutes to half an hour where Forrestal could’ve made a side trip somewhere in between, off the books.

There were a lot of stops in Georgetown, as it happened, which was on the way back to Virginia but also pretty close to Foggy Bottom, where both the CIA and State Department were. There were also some business cards from restaurants in the neighborhood in Forrestal’s address book. From there, they managed to find a hole in Forrestal’s schedule around dinner, and a restaurant reservation at the Occidental Grill for the same time.

Then they got to play gumshoe, heading to the restaurant with a veritable who’s who of Washington in black-and-white photographs, along with freshly minted Secret Service badges. A waiter identified Frank Wisner as Forrestal’s most recent dinner companion there, just two nights before his last meeting with Truman.

After that, they did surveillance on Wisner, who barely left his office — thankfully. When he did, it made it much easier to follow him. And he often came to this park to read a book and have a sandwich. Occasionally, Wisner would also get company — the first time it happened, Maggie wasn’t prepared.

This time was different.

A short man in a large fedora and greatcoat walked across the park, and Maggie made him immediately — the wisps of nerves coming off him gave the game away. That said, she admired the effort he took to hide his face, keeping his hat low and his eyes away from others as they approached. Though it wasn’t exactly surprising that J. Edgar Hoover would have known a trick or two.

Maggie opened her purse and pressed down on a large button, then grabbed her makeup compact as the portable reel-to-reel started up. The machine was attached to an odd-looking microphone cleverly incorporated into the design of the oversized handbag — a Mrs. Stevens “special” that had taken her all of a day to whip up.

She opened the compact and checked her face. “Eyes on Target One.”

A short burst of static flooded her ear before she heard the response. “All right, then. I mean, roger that. Target One,” Mrs. Stevens replied. Maggie resisted the urge to look up at the second-story window of Blair House, the presidential guest house, where her fellow Variant was perched with a radio and a few other toys, including a small film camera.

“Sorry. Talk normally. I’m just used to… Wait. Target Two confirmed, approaching.”

“I see him. I’ll patch your audio into the mike so you can hear what’s going on,” Mrs. Stevens said.

Maggie watched as Frank Wisner sat down next to Hoover, their backs to the White House. “How are you, Director?” Wisner said; Maggie could hear him in her earpiece clear as day.

“I’m pissed off, that’s what I am,” Hoover said. “We haven’t got anything out of anywhere since Jim was fired. How’d those freaks do in Syria?”

Wisner coughed once and cleared his throat. “Honestly, they’re pretty well-trained operatives. Nothing in the reports or follow-ups indicates use of strange abilities or events. One of ’em apparently talked Za’im out of shooting his predecessor in the head, but it wasn’t the girl. I guess he just made a damn convincing argument.”

Maggie’s eyes widened. She’d just listened in on the head of the State Department’s Office of Policy Coordination and the director of the goddamn FBI talking not only about her but her Enhancement as well.

Suddenly, a flock of pigeons in the immediate vicinity took wing, and two dogs began barking frantically. Maggie realized that she’d let her guard down, and immediately clamped back down on her surge of emotion, doing her best to focus… even if she so very badly wanted to make both men die of fright in that moment.

“If we’re going to expose these things for what they are, Frank, I need more than that. Where’s Forrestal now?”

“He went down to his place in Florida, but he’s apparently had some kind of breakdown. The family’s circling the wagons. Can’t get through to him. He’s not taking any calls, not even when I pretend to be the President. Heard he may have gone to a hospital, but we just don’t know.”

Maggie glared daggers at the two men but kept her emotions in check. She was a person, not a thing, despite what Hoover thought. In fact, she was far more of a person than he’d ever be. She was different, sure. But she was pretty damn sure she was better.

“Visitors?” Hoover asked. “I could head down there for vacation.”

“Doubt it,” Wisner said. “May be worth a try, but if you’re spotted…”

“Right. Fine. What about Joe?”

“They gave a short briefing on the Hill about the Syria situation, but it left out pretty much everything, including our office’s involvement. So, nothing there.”

Maggie pulled out a notepad and wrote: WHO IS JOE? CAPITOL HILL.

“Do you think your men in Syria could capture one of those agents? Lock him down somewhere? Might be our best chance to break this thing wide open,” Hoover said.

Even from a distance, Maggie noticed that Wisner looked uncomfortable. “My guys aren’t soldiers, Director. They’re spies and negotiators and blackmailers and thieves, and they’re good at what they do. Word out of Damascus is that the agents supplied by CIA are highly skilled real combat types, even the women. Incredibly talented and dangerous. And, frankly, it raises too many questions.”

There was a long silence before Hoover finally stood. “Tell Joe I want him to set up a meeting with some kindred spirits at the Pentagon. Seems like we may need some firepower here.”

Wisner stood as well. “Director, I have to point out that the behavior of the agents in question, well… it was exemplary. Throughout this Syria thing, they’ve been right on point. No problems with them at all. They’re good at what they do and every indication is that they are patriotic Americans, just like you and me.”

Hoover took a step toward Wisner and practically bumped chests with him. “And how do you know that’s not what they want you to think? Dammit, man, they are not human. They’re dangerous! The moment they truly realize just how dangerous they are, how do we stop them? What happens when they decide to join the Reds? Or decide to band together and take over both countries? Or all of humanity? Think about that the next time you get a report on how nice they are!”

Hoover tromped off, steaming, and Wisner slowly walked away in the other direction about a minute later, leaving Maggie stewing on her own bench.

“Well, that wasn’t very nice,” Mrs. Stevens said over the radio.

Maggie snapped open her compact but caught her reflection before she replied. She never recalled her face looking so cold and angry before, even though that seemed to be her MO ever since she’d become Empowered. “Let’s go.”

She jabbed her finger into her purse and stopped the tape, then slung it over her shoulder and made for the Capital Grille, a landmark restaurant a block away with large private booths and a discreet staff — perfect for politicking and semi-secret meetings. Much better than a public park.

Mrs. Stevens was waiting for her in a booth when she arrived.

“I ordered highballs. That all right, Maggie? I love highballs. Thought we might celebrate!”

Maggie plopped down in the booth and looked hard at the other woman. “Celebrate what, exactly? The fact that the director of the FBI not only knows about us but sees us as subhuman and wants to kill us because we’re a threat?”

Mrs. Stevens’s smile evaporated. “Well, when you put it that way. But he didn’t say anything about killing us. Just sort of… stopping us?”

The waiter came over with the two drinks, and Maggie took a long swig. “Mrs. Stevens… good Lord, I don’t even know your first name.”

Her smile returned immediately. “It’s Rose.”

“Rose. Look. We are different from all other people who’ve ever lived, OK? You’re literally the smartest person alive. I can control people’s emotions. Heck, how long do you think it would take just the two of us to assassinate the President if we really put our minds to it?”

Mrs. Stevens looked blank for a moment, then raised her eyebrows. “Maybe about ten minutes? Depends on a number of variables, such as where Truman is in the house, the number of guards, how many—”

Maggie held up her hand. “Rose. It was a rhetorical question. Nobody wants to assassinate the President. But you can see Hoover’s point, right? If we wanted to, we could be really dangerous. If the world found out about us, they’d hate us. They’d want to kill us.”

“Some would. Maybe some wouldn’t. Maybe that’s why we’re doing all this, to prove our worth and to let people know we’re on the right side of things, you know?”

Maggie couldn’t help but smile. “You’re smart, Rose, but let’s not be naive, OK?”

Mrs. Stevens pursed her lips and took a sip of her drink. “All right. Anyway, what do we do?”

“Take over the world before they kill us all?” Maggie said with a smile, but immediately regretted it; the look on Mrs. Stevens’s face was pure shock. “Kidding! Kidding. God, I’m kidding, Rose. Sorry. No, we’re going to report in to Danny on the secure teletype at Foggy Bottom, and we’re going to figure out who Joe on Capitol Hill is. We’re also going to warn Frank, Cal, and Zippy to watch their backs out there in Syria, in case Wisner changes his mind. And then we find a way to talk to Forrestal, which won’t be easy, with his family running interference. We scare him too much, he’ll run to Hoover and that’ll prove Hoover right. So, until he moves, we’re stuck.”

Mrs. Stevens’s smile popped right back on her face. “Well, while you were sneaking around the park, I got a bit of good news from our Secret Service man in Florida. Forrestal left his house.”

“Left? Where did he go?”

“Well, they had to do a little digging to find out, but seems like he checked himself in at Bethesda Naval Hospital. For exhaustion. And very limited visiting hours for family.”

Maggie thought about this for a second. “Limited visiting hours for us, too. But we’ve gotten into worse places. Shouldn’t be too hard.”

“What worse places?” Mrs. Stevens asked, leaning forward.

Maggie finally cracked a smile of her own. “You aren’t cleared for it. Which means I’m gonna need another couple highballs before I tell you.”