Sigma Division

Chapter 23

The sun was starting to go down and Spicer was driving. The long ride and the lack of sleep should have made him drowsy but the South Florida surroundings gave him his second wind. He’d lived here for over a decade when he wasn’t on missions and he found that he missed it dearly.

Esther was sipping a giant soda and the car was littered with empty burger wrappers. Humming softly to the music coming from the satellite radio, she cleaned up, wadding the trash in a brown McDonald’s bag.

She glanced at him sideways before turning back to staring at the road. She hesitated and looked at him again, this time longer. It wasn’t lost on Spicer.

“What is it?”

“You scared me last night,” she said.

“I know.”

“I… I’ve never met anybody who’s killed before.”

“Trust me, it’s not on my resume.”

“Are you really done with it?”

Spicer didn’t dither. “I will never ever kill again, Esther. That’s why I’m doing this. Nobody should ever have to do this. I promise you.”

She extended her hand over to him across the seat and he took hold of it. They smiled to each other and he hoped it wouldn’t be the last time.

With what was lying ahead, there was no guarantee.

The Salvador Sea Hotel was busy. It wasn’t the trendiest spot on South Beach — its heyday was behind it, way behind — but it boasted a lush poolside area and live music every night. This, combined with the inescapable Art Deco influence, made tourists flock from nearby hotels.

The band was on a cramped stage on the far side of the pool and they played bad reggae music. Even Spicer knew it was bad and he knew nothing about music. Still, steel drums and a mellow vibe were enough for the crowd in attendance. With warm humid air and exotic cocktails, everyone was dancing.

Esther and Spicer were at the bar, sitting sideways so they could keep an eye on everybody else. She was nursing a terrible soda fountain Coke which tasted like bleach while for his part he was holding a Blue Hawaii, complete with tiny umbrella. She glanced at her watch: it was 9:21pm.

“Do you think he changed his mind?” Esther asked.

“Parking is hell in South Beach at this hour.”

He was trying to inject hope in his voice though he wasn’t sure he was successful. Almost simultaneously, a Blue Margarita appeared next to Spicer’s drink.

“I wouldn’t know, I took a cab.”

Spicer jerked his head at the Southern voice. The man standing behind him was David Weller, the assistant research director of the Texas Tech project. He knew that guy had been shifty the moment he’d laid eyes on him.

“Still wanna know about Anchises?” he continued.

“More than ever.”

“It’s all about mind control.”

“Come again?”

“Let’s get up to my room so we can talk.”

“I know a safer place.”

Weller shook his head. “It’s my room or nothin’ at all.”

“I’m as scared of this being a setup as you are. My place’s safer.”

He kicked his red gym bag over so that it touched the young man’s foot.

“You can carry my bag if you want. There’s a gun inside, it’s loaded. You feel like I’m fucking with you, you blow my brains all the way to Cuba.”

He stood and so did Esther.

“Who’s she?” Weller asked, pointing at Esther with his chin.

“Kisses and sunshine. Let’s go.”

He started walking away and the other two followed.

Spicer owned a building in Little Havana and he’d had the foresight of buying it through an offshore corporation which was registered to a fake identity. It wasn’t where he lived — his official Florida address had been up in Aventura. There were six units which were rented out except for one which he’d always kept for himself in case of an emergency, something he saw as likely working in the intelligence business.

And tonight qualified as an emergency.

He led Esther and his new best friend through the door and turned on the light. The place was thoroughly unimpressive, dusty and sparsely furnished. Weller carried the gym bag as well as his suitcase while Esther brought in a grocery bag. At least the place was cool, the air-conditioning running constantly to avoid the humidity to set in. Spicer knew a guy who had traveled one summer and had forgotten to turn on the AC. Two months later, tiles were falling off because of the humidity.

“We should be all right here. Nobody knows we’re here.”

He quickly explained how he owned the building covertly and proceeded to remove bed sheets from the furniture. The scientist came to help him. At the same time, Esther put the grocery away. The brief moment of normalcy helped to make everyone at ease.

Once the small living room was habitable, they settled in on the couches with beer, chips, and notepads.

“How do you know this is about mind control?” Spicer asked.

Weller shrugged. “Most plausible explanation.

That made Esther roll her eyes. “Of course.”

Shaking her head, she gulped down some beer. Spicer ignored her cynicism even though he shared it.

“Let me simplify my question, how come your e-mail address was in Harland Fry’s notes?”

“When I started suspecting somethin’ was wrong—”

“And how did that happen?”

“How did it happen for you? Can I go on with my story now?”

Spicer put up his hand, allowing him to continue. He ate some chips.

“When I started suspecting somethin’ was wrong, I posted some anonymous messages on some forums. Harland posted back. We talked about comin’ out with our story for a while but he kept sayin’ he wasn’t ready. But I knew we had to do it while we were still ahead. So I wrote the article.”

“You’re Stellar Oceans Corporation?”

“You got that far, uh?” Weller said, impressed. “Yeah, that’s the name of my yacht, it’s docked in the Bahamas.”

He reached for his wallet and produced a photograph of a sleek white 70-foot yacht. In fancy blue script, the name of the boat was visible on the stern: Stellar Oceans. He passed the picture around proudly like a mother would with pictures of her kids.

“Anyway, I had the New York Express-Ledger run the article although Harland begged me not to. He flipped out, I’m sure you know the rest.”

Spicer nodded and the man spent a minute explaining where his money came from. His grandfather had made his money in oil futures in the 70s, he’d cut out his bickering kids from his will, and a few years back Weller had gotten a sizable trust fund — and later, inheritance.

He continued. “Anyway, we had exchanged enough information that I became sure of what Anchises was about. Mind control.”

Spicer waved that explanation away. “CIA’s been involved with that in the 60s and 70s, that’s no secret.”

“Yes, Project MKUltra. That was destined to find new ways of conductin’ interrogation and surveillance. That was small potatoes, hypnosis, LSD, things like that.”

“Your article was about thought-reading.”

Esther was skeptical again. “That’s impossible.”

“That’s very possible. The government has been part of that since the late 60s. Hell, in 1974, a professor from Stanford University patented the damn thing! I got the patent number here somewhere…”

He started going through his notebooks, and then his briefcase. Spicer still couldn’t believe it.

“That’s… that’s just unbelievable.”

David gave up searching and looked at the former hitman. “Is it? First, they censored movies, then TV, the internet and their precious SOPA campaign. New gun control laws, paranoid customs regulations. The goddamn Patriot Act. And that’s just the stuff that makes logical sense. That’s the stuff the people runnin’ the show were able to make the politicians swallow.”

Esther slammed her can of beer on the table. “You think the government wants to install a totalitarian dictatorship? That would never work!”

“Look at it this way. There’s not an inch of US land that isn’t covered by one camera or another these days. There are spy satellites lookin’ down on us as we speak. There are remote controlled drones flying above us. The government can find out what any of us are doing at any given time. They know everything. What’s the next logical step?”

“Control,” Spicer said evenly. “Mind control.”

“Bingo.”