MJ-12: Shadows

24

How well do you know Zipporah Silverman?” Hillenkoetter asked Maggie and Mrs. Stevens as they sat in his cramped, surprisingly plain office in Foggy Bottom.

The two women looked at each other and shrugged almost simultaneously. “Not really well, but I did some ops with her,” Maggie replied. “Nice enough. Good for intel work, not so much the rough stuff. Kind of a natural actress, and her Empowerment is really useful. Why do you ask?”

“You’re not cleared for it,” Hillenkoetter replied. “All I can tell you right now is you might be heading back to Syria soon.”

Maggie nodded, then pointed to the newspaper on Hillenkoetter’s desk. “Looks like something went down in Beirut,” she noted. “Zippy’s involved?”

Hillenkoetter smirked. “See, why can’t you break open the Forrestal ring as quick as that?” he asked. “Speaking of which, how’s that coming along?”

Maggie looked over at Mrs. Stevens, who referred to the legal pad on her lap. “They’re being careful. No documents are changing hands. We’ve got some interesting conversations on tape, but actual evidence that Forrestal was leaking confidential information about MAJESTIC-12 is thin and mostly circumstantial. They’ll just claim them to be unsubstantiated rumors or something silly like that. And you know, of course, that we can’t be the ones to catch them in the act, with us being Variants and all.”

Hillenkoetter nodded. “Who’s in on it that we know of?”

“Hoover and Wisner for sure. Trying to get more dirt on McCarthy, but nothing solid yet,’” Maggie replied.

“Might be able to help you there,” Hillenkoetter said. “Just got a call from General Vandenberg today. One more for your list — Louis Johnson.”

“The new Defense Secretary?” Mrs. Stevens asked. “Isn’t he already cleared for MAJESTIC-12?”

“Nope. The President specifically kept him out of it,” Hillenkoetter said. “Louis was nominated as a budget-cutter, not a war-fighter. Everything’s very political with him, and more politics is the last thing we need to throw into this equation.”

Maggie smiled. “You don’t trust him with this.”

“No, I don’t, and thankfully, neither does the President. But apparently, Johnson’s caught wind of it anyway. Sent a memo to Vandenberg this morning requesting more information. Vandenberg told him to take it up with the President, which was the exact right response.”

Mrs. Stevens looked down at her legal pad a moment, then shut her eyes. Maggie knew that this was a sign that her wheels were turning. She looked up and smiled. “You’re thinking McCarthy tipped off Johnson.”

“Not bad, Mrs. Stevens,” Hillenkoetter replied. “Louis has met with Joe several times up on the Hill, part of the dance he has to do to get a budget passed. Joe also knows Hoover pretty well.”

“And you sound like you have a plan, sir,” Maggie noted.

Hillenkoetter leaned back in his chair and smiled. “I just might. Care to help me pull it off?”

Maggie and Mrs. Stevens traded a look. “Will it get us closer to being exonerated in Forrestal’s death?” Maggie asked.

“Can’t hurt your chances.”

Before Hillenkoetter could continue, there was a rap on the door; a young, bespectacled woman poked her head into the office. “Sir, I have Commander Wallace on the line. You’re really gonna want to take it.”

Hillenkoetter nodded and picked up the phone. “Go ahead, Commander.” Maggie could hear a tinny, rapid-fire voice on the other end of the line but little else.

“What do you mean, he’s gone?” Hillenkoetter barked. He then looked up at the two women. “Out. Now.”

Danny hung up the phone and wiped the sweat from his brow with his good hand. It wasn’t from the desert heat. “Well, that was horrible,” he said, looking over at Hamilton. “Tell me you have something, because a former Nazi scientist under house arrest doesn’t just up and disappear from the most secure military facility in the world.”

Hamilton stood in front of Wallace’s desk in formal at-ease position. “I have an unconfirmed report of… something unusual. Sir.”

“Shit, just tell me,” Danny groused. “It’s not like the unusual is… well, all that unusual around here.” Danny held up his injured hand for emphasis. He’d taken to wearing a glove on it just to keep the staring to a minimum.

Hamilton cleared his throat. “One of the MPs on duty last night said he saw some kind of… shadow… moving oddly around Schreiber’s door.”

That prompted Danny to jump to his feet. “What kind of shadow?”

“Very dark. And… kind of man-shaped.”

“Did he think to check on Schreiber after that?” Danny demanded.

“No, sir. He thought it was just a trick of the light. The other MP didn’t see it. I almost wasn’t going to mention it to you at all, sir. It just sounded so… ridiculous.”

Danny came around the desk and headed for the door, clapping Hamilton on the shoulder and pulling him along. “All right. That’s something, at least. Are all the Variants accounted for?”

“Yes, sir,” Hamilton replied. “I’ve got every team locked down; null-fields are on.”

“Good. If I had to bet, I’d say we had an outside Variant visitor last night,” Danny said as he hustled down the hallway toward the door. “How many more null-generators do we have?”

“Only a handful. We’re spread pretty thin.”

Danny stopped at one of the labs, where Bronk was testing blood samples — Danny’s blood. “Det! I need you to stop what you’re doing. Gather every set of hands you can find. We need more null-generators, stat. I need the entire base covered.”

“What’s happening?” Bronk asked, brow furrowed.

“Don’t know yet, but we need this place secured,” Danny replied before rushing down the hall again, Hamilton keeping pace behind him. “Deploy whatever we have left around the vortex. I don’t want anybody sneaking in there. We need a car with a radio. Not a jeep.”

“Where are you going?”

Danny burst out of the administrative building and headed for the motor pool. “We are going to Vegas.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s the only place within a full day’s drive that has a bus station and an airport. Let’s just hope our scientist doesn’t have too much of a head start.”

Every single thing that is wrong with America is in this very room, Kurt Schreiber thought as he looked behind him at the throngs of people, drinks in hand, surrounding slot machines and gaming tables, taking their hard-earned money and throwing it away on the slim chance they’d be rewarded with instant riches.

Some, certainly, didn’t need instant riches but rather entertained themselves with the notion that they had enough money to throw away on gambling, expensive meals, Cuban cigars, and alcohol — so much alcohol. These men and women, in fine suits and whorish dresses, grew fat and drunk and cared for nothing except their own debaucheries.

And then there were the desperate ones. The men whose suits were threadbare and stained, plugging pennies into mechanisms that ate them greedily, only spitting out just enough winnings to keep the poor souls in their chairs, to prolong the agony of losing their pittance salaries or, worse, their last dollars. And the women were doing the same when they weren’t trying to make “friends” and earn a few dollars.

How in the name of God did these… people… manage to defeat the greatest army ever assembled? How did these mongrel bands of malcontent wastrels reduce Berlin to rubble? How did they even manage to conceive of the atom bomb, much less build one without destroying themselves in the process?

Schreiber sipped at his ginger ale, unwilling to join them in their descent. He had better things to do. And yet his contact was late, and he was getting worried.

“Why so glum, chum?”

Schreiber turned to his right to see two men in tuxedos sitting down at the bar next to him. One was tall, handsome, and ruddy, with a smile that no doubt made the ladies there swoon. The other — the one who’d spoken in a rather squeaky, grating voice — was shorter and more awkward, with a prominent nose and teeth that looked like they wanted to escape his face somehow. Schreiber had half a mind to oblige them.

Schreiber sighed. “I’m waiting for someone,” he said, trying to bury his accent.

“I bet it’s a girl,” the other man said in a soothing baritone. “Hope she ain’t stood you up, pal. Hey, barkeep! Coupla gin and tonics.”

“Yes, me too,” Schreiber said neutrally. “It’s been a very long day.”

“Aww, it’ll be OK, pal,” the short one said. “If she comes, then she’s worth the wait. And if she don’t, she ain’t worth nothin’, right, Dino?”

“That’s right,” the tall one said. “And when she does get here, you play a little hard-to-get with her, all right? Let her know it ain’t good to keep you waiting. You gotta keep these dames on their toes; otherwise, they’ll walk all over you.”

The short one laughed. “Hey, you should know. What’s that on your back?”

Dino contorted himself trying to look over his shoulder. “What? What’s on my back?”

“Footprints. High heels, size six!” The short one burst out laughing, making perhaps the most grating noise Schreiber had ever heard in his life.

To his surprise, Dino laughed as well. “Hey, that’s not bad! You gotta write that down.”

But the other man had already produced a small notebook and pen from his jacket pocket and was scribbling away. “Definitely. Lemme work on it some. Timing’s not there yet.”

Schreiber downed his drink like a shot. “If you’ll excuse me, gentlemen.”

“Aww, wait a second, pal!” the tall one said, reaching into his jacket and pulling out a couple slips of paper. “We owe you for the joke. Here! On the house!”

If for no other reason than to be rid of these men, Schreiber took the slips and stuffed them in his coat pocket. “Yes, thank you.” He then quickly walked off before the two buffoons could engage in any more mindless banter.

It didn’t seem like his contact would show up after all, which left only plan B. That meant going from the Fabulous Flamingo, where he’d spent his entire day sipping sodas, and heading to the bus station. His ultimate destination would be New York, a city perfect for anonymity, where he would have his pick of international consulates to choose from.

But he never made it to the front door. Instead, someone tapped him on the shoulder amidst the slot machines. “Mr. Schreiber?”

Steeling himself, he turned to find a short, round fellow in an ill-fitting suit. “Can I help you?” Schreiber asked.

“I apologize for being late,” the man said, sporting a light Slavic accent. “I think it’s best if we conduct our discussions elsewhere. If you’ll come with me?”

Schreiber looked around suspiciously for a moment but couldn’t see anyone who looked odd or out of place. And this man looked the part well — a slightly rumpled, off-label suit, scuffed shoes, monochrome tie. It was a look designed to be inconspicuous. Just another lost soul in America’s cultural wasteland, with only the accent to give him away. And yet… would there not be a little more conversation before this? Would this man not wish to determine Schreiber’s bona fides? It made Schreiber feel uneasy. “Why don’t we have dinner?” he asked. “I admit, I’m starving.”

“Not here,” the man replied. “I have a car. Let’s go.”

Schreiber frowned, standing very still for several long moments and looking the man in the eye. The bus to New York was looking better now; he wished he had gotten more information from his contact. On the other hand, he knew that Wallace — that ignorant pup — would already have begun searching for him. Finally, Schreiber nodded and followed the man through the casino. He couldn’t help but wonder if he was trading one prison for another. But on the bright side, he imagined the Soviets were much further along in their Variant program than Wallace, Bronk, and the bumbling idiots they called a team.

Just before the front door, Schreiber felt another tap on the shoulder — but the man was still in front of him. “I thought there was just going to be one of you,” he said, then turned…

… to find Danny Wallace behind him, smiling.

“Don’t even think about it, Doc,” Danny said, grinning.

Four other men suddenly appeared among the masses of gamblers, weapons drawn and aimed at Schreiber and his contact.

He turned to the Russian. “This is why you should’ve been on time!” he shouted, all pretense of civility gone.

“Oh, please,” Danny said, pointing at Schreiber’s contact with his one good hand. “This guy? He’s from Brooklyn. It’s only his family that’s from Leningrad.”

“St. Petersburg,” the would-be contact said in a suddenly very American accent. “The Reds just changed the name.”

“Right,” Danny said as the other man began frisking Schreiber. “Anyway, lucky me — he’s an MP on base. Figured you’d sell us out, and the Reds are really the only game in town. Vegas P.D. had eyes on you four hours ago. Sloppy, Doc. Very sloppy.” Schreiber was thoroughly patted down, and his wallet and other belongings were handed off to Danny, who dumped them on an unused blackjack table to rifle through them. And then the damned Navy man laughed. “What’s this? Taking in a show?”

Danny held up the papers the two men at the bar had given him — tickets.

“And what if I was, Commander?” Schreiber said. “There is only so much house arrest one can take.”

Danny just shrugged and put the tickets in his pocket. “Whatever, Doc. OK, let’s get him out of here.”

Schreiber was marched toward the front entrance of the casino by two burly men, each gripping an arm. He could feel the eyes of bystanders and pedestrian gamblers all around him, which infuriated him — he was just one more spectacle in their evening, nothing more.

“Hey, what’d he do?”

Schreiber looked up to see the two men from the bar approaching, but Danny stepped in front of them. “Sorry, gentlemen. Please step back. He’s a dangerous guy.”

The two men craned their necks to look over at Schreiber. “Him? Why, Jerry here is more dangerous than that pencil-neck. Aren’t you, Jerry?”

The short man, apparently named Jerry, put up his fists in a mock fighting stance and gave a ludicrously buck-toothed grin. “I’m the most dangerous man here!” he squeaked. “Put up your dukes!”

Danny smiled. “I think I’ve seen you guys on the television,” he said, pulling Schreiber’s show tickets out of his pocket. “I don’t think he’ll need these anymore, fellas.”

“You keep ’em,” Dino said. “You can make the late show.”

Danny extended his hand farther. “Sorry. Wish I could. But your friend’s given me a whole lot of work to do.”