The Chimera Secret

57

Jarvis was led by the two detectives to an unmarked police car, probably a pool vehicle like his own. He saw that it had no grilles on the windows, no means of preventing escape should he decide to make a run for it, although his wrists were cuffed in front of him.

The sun had long gone down, the car park lit by the harsh fluorescent glow of street lights as the detectives drove him out of the lot and onto the main highway south for the district.

‘I have an alibi for the time of the murder,’ Jarvis said to the two detectives in the front of the car.

‘Is that so?’ one of them replied. ‘That’s convenient, especially as we haven’t yet told you the time of death.’

‘I’ve already been to the Capitol,’ Jarvis explained, ‘and visited Ben Consiglio’s colleagues. That’s where I heard that he’d been killed.’

The older of the two detectives turned in his seat to look at Jarvis.

‘And why would you be doing that?’

‘Ben was working for a Congressional committee looking into the CIA’s activities,’ Jarvis explained. ‘So was his partner, Natalie Warner, who is the sister of a man who works for me. Natalie visited me earlier today but because I couldn’t tell her what she wanted to know due to national security, she thinks I’m part of some conspiracy to derail the committee. Now that Ben’s been killed she’s implicated me.’

The detective nodded.

‘And rightly so. Consiglio was killed in an automobile wreck and the vehicle that hit him was untraceable.’

‘As expected,’ Jarvis replied, ‘it was CIA.’

The two detectives looked at each other and chuckled.

‘Sure it is, Mr. Jarvis,’ the younger man replied. ‘But don’t worry, I’m sure Jack Bauer’s on the case for you right now.’

Jarvis was about to shout his reply when a set of headlights flared like nuclear detonations through the side of the car. Jarvis threw his cuffed hands over his head and bent forward in his seat as the vehicle slammed into the side of the car with a deafening crash of metal and shattered glass. The detectives in the front seats were hurled violently sideways by the impact as the car screeched along the asphalt and shuddered to a halt in the darkness.

Jarvis, his body doubled over forward to protect him from whiplash and to hide himself from view, reached forward between the front seats and grasped under the older detective’s jacket. His hand fell upon the pistol in its shoulder holster, the unconscious man unaware as Jarvis pulled the weapon out. He fumbled for the keys to his cuffs on the detective’s belt, then lay down silently on the back seat. He worked the key into the cuffs and felt the restraints loosen as they slid from his wrists.

The lights from the car that impacted them illuminated the steam pouring from the detectives’ vehicle, the vapour glowing in white clouds as Jarvis waited silently, listening to the tinkling of the engine as it cooled.

Moments later he saw a shadow appear, cast by the same lights as the driver of the other car approached them. Jarvis saw the pistol in the man’s hands first, the weapon held out in front of him as he reached the car. An amateur. He’d announced his arrival by not masking his approach, letting his shadow be seen by Jarvis. Maybe some kind of punk hired by Mr. Wilson to trash the car and kill the occupants, like maybe a jacking gone wrong.

The man, still holding his pistol aimed at the detectives’ heads, reached out and opened the passenger door. Jarvis watched silently as the man reached in and rested a finger on the unconscious man’s neck. Jarvis masked his surprise and waited for the man to reach in further and check the driver.

Jarvis watched the man’s hand move further into the car.

He leapt outward, grabbed the hand and yanked it into the car as he slammed the detective’s pistol up against the man’s head.

‘Move and I’ll blow your brains out across the windshield.’

The man squinted sideways at Jarvis, his dark eyes smeared with blood from the crash impact. It took a moment for Jarvis to realize that the man had already bandaged his wounds.

‘Douglas Jarvis?’ the man croaked.

‘Who the hell are you?’

The man raised a hand slowly, palm up at Jarvis, and with the other he set the pistol down on the dashboard of the car.

‘My name’s Ben Consiglio. We have to leave, now, before these two wake up.’

‘They’ll be onto us real fast,’ Jarvis said. ‘You just T-boned a police vehicle and I’ve stolen a detective’s pistol.’

Jarvis scrambled from the back seat as Ben led him to his vehicle.

Ben Consiglio drove, joining the freeway headed south. His face was a mess, caked in dried blood and hastily applied bandages, the skin around his left eye turning purple and yellow with bruises.

‘I know,’ Ben said. ‘What I didn’t know was that you were under arrest.’

‘Natalie put them onto me. She thinks I’m out to sink the investigation.’

‘Are you?’ Consiglio asked.

‘I’m a victim here too,’ Jarvis said. ‘This is a CIA-sponsored operation. How the hell did you survive the assassination attempt, by the way?’

Ben shook his head.

‘Pure luck. This guy hit my car then gave me a beating. He strapped me into the seat and pistol-whipped my head. Then he used some kind of accelerant and poured it into the filler cap. I watched him do it in the wing mirror.’

‘You were still conscious after being pistol-whipped?’ Jarvis asked in amazement.

‘I feigned unconsciousness,’ Ben replied, and tapped his skull. ‘Four titanium plates, fitted to hold my head together after I got hit by shrapnel in Iraq. They’re not due out for another couple of years once the bones have healed.’

Jarvis shook his head.

‘Okay, lucky strike. You want to tell me why the hell you haven’t checked into a hospital, or a police station?’

‘I’m a target,’ Ben said. ‘Long as they think I’m dead, I’ll be alive. This was a professional hit and I’m not taking any chances until I’ve figured out what the hell’s going on here.’

‘I might be able to help with that,’ Jarvis said.

‘First things first,’ Consiglio insisted. ‘Where’s Natalie?’

‘I don’t know,’ Jarvis said. ‘She visited me and then swore she’d get to the bottom of it all. I didn’t know at the time what she meant. You got any leads on her?’

‘Last I heard she planned to go see one of the survivors of MK-ULTRA, some old guy living out near the Edwards Base. But I don’t know the name or exact location. We need to find out.’

Jarvis thought for a moment. ‘You think she’s a target?’

‘I don’t know,’ Consiglio replied. ‘What I do know is that somebody in our office must have been an informer to whoever’s doing this. Nobody but the people in our team had any idea of where I was going or what I was doing.’

‘Your team have gone home,’ Jarvis said. ‘Only people left are Guy Rikard and someone called Larry. They know the risks.’

‘Yeah,’ Consiglio chuckled bitterly, ‘I bet they do. Most likely person working for the CIA is Rikard. He’s got a photographic memory, something that the intelligence agencies would find very useful, and he’s had it in for Natalie ever since the investigation started. If he already knew she was being treated as a person of interest to the CIA that might explain why.’

Jarvis frowned.

‘Doesn’t fit,’ he said. ‘Rikard’s an ass but he was first to act when he realized what was really going on. He agreed to sending the team home for their own protection and he’s already put himself on the line for Natalie.’

‘How come?’

‘I sent him to tell the committee everything that had happened. Left him collating the evidence with the other guy who stayed back, Larry.’

Consiglio looked at the traffic streaming past them on the freeway as he thought furiously.

‘He’ll never let that happen. Larry could be in real danger. We need to find them both, now.’

Jarvis nodded and pulled out his cell. ‘I’ll call ahead. Then I’d better call my boss and explain what’s happened.’

‘Good luck with that,’ Consiglio said as he accelerated.

Jarvis dialed in a number and held his cell to his ear. Almost immediately the dial tone changed to a strange humming noise. Jarvis stared at his cell for a moment and then shut it off. He opened the car window and tossed the phone out into the night.

‘The hell you doing?’ Consiglio asked.

‘Cell’s being jammed,’ Jarvis replied and closed the window again. ‘They’re trying to close us down. You got a cell?’

‘No,’ the younger man replied. ‘It burned with the car. I didn’t try to buy a new one either. I’ve got no cash on me and using an ATM would be suicide right now.’

Jarvis clenched his fists in frustration and then made a decision.

‘We turn up at the GAO, the entire Metropolitan Police Department will be on us within minutes. Only chance we’ve got now is to find Natalie and use whatever she may have discovered as evidence. The fact that you’re not dead proves me innocent of any crime.’

‘We need to find Larry,’ Consiglio insisted. ‘He’s in real danger and Rikard might destroy all of the evidence Natalie had collated.’

‘There’s nothing that we can do for Larry,’ Jarvis snapped. ‘We can’t go back there. You said that you watched the man who tried to kill you pour accelerant into your fuel tank.’

‘Sure.’

‘You get a good look at him? Good enough to pick him out?’

Consiglio looked across at Jarvis.

‘I’ll never forget his face as long as I live. You find him, I’ll pick that bastard out from a line-up of a thousand people.’

Jarvis nodded. ‘Find a store. We’re going to need a disposable cellphone first, and then we need to find Natalie. Fast.’