CHAPTER II

 

 

In the heart of the summer, Lake George pulsed with recreational energy.  In January, and specifically the middle of the week, empty motels flanked Route Nine and faded billboards boasted about the upcoming Winter Carnival.  In lifeless suspension, boats hovered on elevated moorings above the ice-checkered lake, their faded underbellies waiting for the spring thaw.  Even the Minne Ha-Ha was gone from Steel Pier to have its huge red paddlewheel repainted.

Sunlight clipped through the clouds as Emily squinted into the rearview mirror.  No, it couldn’t be.  Her mouth fell open when a black Blazer zoomed up behind her, looking to pass.  It was the same vehicle that had pummeled into her rear bumper and ultimately sent the Blazer careening into the trees.  Instinctively, she pressed down on the gas pedal, but when she looked back again, the street was clear.

There had been no Blazer.

No.  She couldn’t think about the stranger.   Discipline of some brutal level kept her mind focused on the drive up from Connecticut.  She couldn’t falter now.  Not when she was so close.

To her right was the sign for the Sagamore.  Though it was obscured from view by a stockade of pine, she could easily picture the posh hotel that stood as an immaculate reminder of the grand resorts of the last century.

With thoughts of the lodge came images of her parents.  The Brennans were a loving couple, affluent to the point that Colin and she never wanted for anything.  If they were still alive, if they never went up in that plane—what would they think of what she had done?  Would they admire her loyalty to her brother or condemn both of them for not trusting the authorities.

A battered station wagon with a ski rack on top fell in behind her.  After three miles of gnawing barely existent fingernails, Emily turned off the main road, relieved to see that the vehicle did not pursue.  Weaving down a lane that became no more than two jagged ruts in the dirt, Emily neared the water and located the first Adirondack cabin.

Winter had been unkind to this crude trail.  Her Sentra rocked in protest, and her hands gripped for control of the wheel. She maneuvered past the unoccupied cottages.  These cabins afforded respectable privacy, each separated by a forest that was dense even in the naked state of winter.  As she reached the fourth cabin, flanked by the lake on one side and a steep pine-speckled hill on the other, civilization seemed an afterthought.

If a tree falls in the woods, do you really hear it?

If I call out for help, will you really hear me?

There was no sign of Colin’s vintage white Volkswagen, a vehicle that could double for Herbie the Lovebug.  Eyeing the cabin’s angular timber and glass façade for any sign of her brother, Emily slowed the Sentra down to an idle.  Convinced she had beaten him here, she lifted her foot from the brake and the car balked across a combination of rutted ice and snow.  Jostled about, she passed the wraparound deck tarnished by melting snow, and slipped into a shroud of fir trees.

With the engine off, the frigid cold assaulted the vehicle swiftly.  Emily’s breath clouded the windshield, but she didn’t move.  Outside, sun reflected off the ice-laden branches, casting her in a Grimm fairy tale setting where she expected not the Seven Dwarves to emerge, but the big bad wolf himself.

In the summer, even with these very same trees in full foliage she could still see the brilliant reflection of the lake between them, displaying like an old movie reel as the branches swayed and brought the light in and out of view.  In the winter though, the shoreline was as gray and austere as the land.  Nature’s camouflage.

Emily studied the cabin, peering from the corner of her eye as if she didn’t want to be caught watching it.  It could have easily been nestled on a Swiss mountain, with snow clinging from its eaves, and its fanciful chimney that looked like it was made to accommodate Santa.  She knew from memory that the tempered wall cast slivers of sunshine across a plush burgundy throw rug on the living room floor.  And the lofted bedroom benefited from sunny days, but was often deprived of heat from the charred fireplace downstairs.

A cardinal swooped down and landed on the handrail of the deck, a sharp slice of color which captivated her as she leaned forward for a better view.

The loud thump on the trunk nearly vaulted Emily through the windshield.  Wild eyes shot to the rearview mirror, and the curse that sprang from her mouth was audible enough to send the Cardinal soaring.

Even though she was prepared for it, the click on the driver’s side door made her jump.  Emily scowled through the window, but her huff of annoyance clouded the surface and obscured her brother’s face.  Steeling a breath, she unlocked the door and slipped through the narrow opening.  Her height was daunting, but it was the flash in her eyes that made Colin Brennan take a step back and hold his hands up.

“Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the smartest idea, but I wanted to scare you.  You weren’t paying attention.  Anyone could have snuck up behind you.”

“Grrrr.”

Colin watched as she charged past him.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” He called after her, but she had already jogged up the back steps and yanked on the sliding glass door.

“You think I left that unlocked?”

Emily spun around, hands on hips, lips pressed firm as she watched her brother approach.

A week. A week since she had last seen him.  He seemed thinner, but Colin was a wiry six foot three, and the only sign of weight in that gangly body was the jumbo-sized brain in his head.

Early in life, Colin showed signs of brilliance.  A broad range of tests quickly confirmed the assessment.  George Brennan had the means to cultivate his son’s gift—to enroll him in the finest schools—to herald his pride.

But it was never to be.

In this case, with genius there came consequence.  Eccentricity, a social affliction that went invalidated as whether it was a physical malady of Colin’s. The social problem was enough to keep him at the local branch of the University of Connecticut.  Close enough that he was within driving distance.  Despite the obvious obstacles that made him an outcast at school, Colin received his degree and Masters in Marine Engineering in less than three years.  It was an event the Brennans were never to herald.

The pain of their loss was still fresh enough to debilitate Emily.  Her gloved hand splayed against the door for support. In the flash of a lightning bolt from an unexpected storm, her youth had vanished.  She was left to care for a seventeen year old with the intelligence of Einstein, yet hampered by peculiarities that few comprehended…and since they didn’t comprehend, they scorned.

Emily became a mother, a Father—a protector.

Then along came NMD.  National Marine Dynamics.  The firm that employed Emily was looking for a Marine Engineer.  One to add to the thirty-some others they staffed.   Initially, Emily thought it ideal to keep her brother close by, but was a desk job in a cubicle three stories below Groton’s Thames River a venerable occupation for a man of his intelligence?  It didn’t seem to faze him.  He was doing what he loved—designing submarine hulls, computer simulations, testing the limits of machinery at such unfathomable depths anything else would crush under the pressure.   Despite his remarkable productivity, Colin’s brilliance was overlooked, and Emily knew why.

“Colin,” Her voice shook on the tail end of a shiver.  “Door.  Now.”

Colin shrugged and climbed up the steps, gently brushing aside her upheld fist.

 

“Whoah, look who’s back…looking like shit, might I add.  Get the license plate on the truck that hit you?”

Brian scowled at Philip Pulkowski.  For one moment the man with cropped red hair and wire-framed glasses was not Brian’s associate and closest friend, but rather a demon troll.  Ignoring the gnome’s amused grin, Brian limped towards his desk and reviewed the motif of organized chaos in his corner cubicle.  No one had an office in NMD, not even someone of his ranking.  It was an open work environment designed to aid the surveillance cameras and to convey that there were no secrets in NMD, an irony when NMD was nothing but an operation cloaked in secrecy.

Brushing aside a stack of paperwork, Brian’s fingers wrapped around a half-filled coffee cup, but one whiff made him re-think it.  No matter the level of desperation, coffee that was five days old would be pushing it.  But, trapped in this subterranean office, trips to the cafeteria on the ground level were rare and inconvenient.

Brian was edgy.  Inside his four foot tall stockade, his back was against the wall so that he could watch this den of activity.  Short cubicles formed the outer barrier, but at the core of the space was a battalion of desks with monitors glowing green from the corporate screensaver.  Flat screen panels dotted the walls to display surveillance camera feeds, their night views grainy.

This visual scope complete, Brian returned to the curious smile of the troll.

“Actually it was a Sedan.”

“No shit?” Philip gaped.  “For real?  You were in an accident?”

Brian nodded.

“Man, you’re in some deep crap here.  You didn’t call.  Aside from the fact that I’m personally hurt by your negligence—” Phil lifted a hand matted with red fur up to his heart.  “The boss was ready to decommission some key projects.”

As well they should if Brian Morrison ever up and disappeared.  NMD had recruited Brian three years ago from Naval Intelligence.  It was a mutual benefit.  NMD received the best operative the Navy had—a man who now maintained the confidentiality the research company desperately aimed to achieve.  For Brian it meant leaving behind his chaotic life of travel for a staid desk job.  He had been so close to burning out.  This was a change for the better.

“Sorry, the whole hospital scene was crazy.  I thought I’d get out of there quick enough that you wouldn’t even notice I was gone.”

In his position as Chief of Security, Brian was privy to some of the most classified development plans which were cloaked in a neurotic state of secrecy by Homeland Security.  To suddenly go missing had to raise suspicion and prompt contingency plans, but it wasn’t as if he had disappeared on purpose.  It still nagged at him.  The memory loss.  The reason he was even in Greenwich.

Brian knew why he had lingered there, though, and it wasn’t due to injuries.

Phil crossed his arms over a robust chest and sagged back against the corner of the desk as he regarded his friend.

“Yeah well, you’ve got a nasty shiner there.  And your bandage appears to be oozing some sort of pink goo.  And you’re standing like you took a heavyweight hook to the abs.  But your hands, ears and mouth look fine.  They look well enough to manage a call.”

“Point taken.”

Phil didn’t yield to Brian’s deep inflection.  “Maybe I wouldn’t have been so damned concerned if you hadn’t of taken off like a bat out of hell when you left here.  No wonder you got in an accident.  How far did you make it?”

Brian’s head snapped up.     “What do you mean?”

“Well damn, your paperwork is still in a tailspin—his arm swept to indicate the maelstrom atop the desk.  “You left so fast.”

“Where was I going?”

He hated the desperation in his voice.  The loss of memory was something beyond his control, and any failure at control left him with a feeling akin to nausea.

An image from the recent past flashed elusively in his mind.  He saw Phil’s face cast under the glow of a monitor as they stood side by side reviewing the bank of surveillance feeds fourteen levels below Groton’s Thames River.  In these subterranean bowels, colossal storage chambers housed the most enhanced submarines and underwater research vessels—vessels being designed for post-apocalyptic exploration.  Buried in these cavernous chambers were the vehicles of escape offered to the privileged few.

“You really don’t remember?” Phil shoved off the desk and gave Brian’s bandage a worried glance.

“No,” Brian lost the fleeting memory before it could form, “and it’s really pissing me off.   Can you recap that afternoon?”

“One of Barracuda’s little marine engineers went AWOL, remember?”

George C. Barcuda was NMD’s controller.  He had an office.  Some suspected he was nothing more than a lackey for the government.  Others, Brian included, surmised that that was exactly what Barracuda wanted everyone to surmise.

“Yeah.” The more his mind wrapped around that statement, the more Brian started to remember. “Yeah, I remember that now.”

“Right.” Phil hooked a finger to prompt him to follow.

Placing his palm flat on the scanner mounted to a metal plate on the wall rewarded him with access into the next chamber.  The next compartment was empty with a solitary door on its far end.  Again, the palm device was used for access, only this time, Phil stepped aside as Brian raised his hand and felt the warmth of the laser travel from the tips of his fingers to the base of his hand.

There were no windows to cast a sunny view down here.  Light was artificial, air was piped in, and a constant hum reminded them of the behemoth generators that purred behind these bleak ramparts.

“Barracuda thought the kid was a security risk.  He was supposedly some kind of genius—designed a submersible to send to the moon or something,” Phil’s disregard for the vehicles designed by NMD was intentional to avoid being intimidated by what he was protecting.  “And then he just flaked out.”

“Flaked out?”  Brian remembered the briefing, but that day was still cloaked in a thick fog that only now was beginning to recede.

“The kid refused to build it.  He said that too many people would die—and that the concept belonged to him, not NMD.” Phil grinned and snapped his fingers.  “Yeah, yeah, and then Barracuda said this kid started talking to someone in the room—only there was no one there.  Weird huh?”

The pounding in Brian’s head had resumed, and it was getting difficult to follow Phil’s enthusiastic hand gestures.  “Weird, right.  So, okay, I remember the meeting with Barracuda, he wanted us to track down the kid, bring him back in, talk sense to him, right?”

Furred hands slapped together.  “Right!”

Brian frowned.  He didn’t want his rejuvenated memory to be a game to the cursed troll. “Now I’m lost.  Is that why I ran out of here—to find that kid?”

“No, man.”  Phil typed on an illuminated console as light flooded the room displaying a bank of flat screen monitors.

Brian remembered this.  He remembered seeing Phil staring up at the panel of monitors.  Twenty forty-six inch screens, controlled by computer feeds—the guts of NMD on display for a privy few.

A camera panned down the corridor of the uppermost floor, where a secretary sat idly filing her nails.  Down two more levels, a lens poured over the large exhibition hall, where models of some of the latest creations sat under strategic lighting to make them appear as if they floated under water.  A few floors lower the collection of Marine Engineers and Naval architects worked in the Pit.  It was a giant room dissected by cubicles—a maze full of rats trying to find their way out of this hell.

A chill of apprehension spiked through Brian.  He approached the closest screen and flipped the panel switch to skip through camera angles.  Every chamber was just as he recalled.  The leviathan projects no longer impressed him.  They were just a means to the end of the day.  Disgusted, he reminded himself that it was his choice to leave the field and come here.

“Okay, Pulkowski, enough with the drama.  Obviously I don’t remember what I did that night, so clue me in, please.”

“Here,” Bending over with his hands flat on the console, Phil’s girth draped over the ledge.   He leaned further, exposing the fact that the back of his head lacked the shocking density of hair that fringed his forehead.  Pressing a sequence of buttons, the screen slurred in a reverse pattern.

“Okay, maybe this’ll jog your memory.”  Phil’s finger hovered over the enter button, but he hesitated.  Thick red eyebrows dipped into a frown.  “I called, Brian.  I called everywhere looking for you.  Dammit, I was concerned.”

Theirs was a friendship that had nurtured over the past three years.  Brian was considered hands-off when he arrived by means of his status, rank, and dark eyes that had a way of flashing don’t mess with me to anyone that stepped within their scope.  But not Philip Pulkowski.  He had lived in the catacombs of NMD for the past ten years, and prior to Brian, had executed the role of internal security alone.  Rather than feel threatened by the enigma from Naval Intelligence, Phil saw him as someone to share this hell with.  He didn’t seem to care how brooding Brian acted—he was hell bent on making him a friend.

Brian’s quick hike of the lip showed that he had succeeded.

“That admission almost brought a tear to my eye.” He smirked.

“Cut the crap, Morrison.  Why didn’t you call?”

“Because I didn’t know I was missing.  Christ, I thought this all happened over a weekend.”  Defensive, only because he believed Phil was right.  “Look, just show me the damn tape so I can figure out what the hell I was doing on an icy back road, going seventy miles an hour at midnight.”

“Well, all-righty then.”  He pressed Enter.  “Lettter rip.”

Brian crossed his arms and felt a twinge of pain from the motion.  Focused on the screen, he tried to identify the room.  It was in the production wing—an office occupied by two of the senior engineers, Barton Short and Will Giordano.  Vincent Price and Bela Lugosi. They weren’t in the office now, but Brian could picture them, their gray complexions which had little to do with the black and white screen.  Their shoulders permanently hunched from standing over sprawled blueprints—or more likely the pulsating neck of a victim.

10:00pm 01/11

That was the date and time stamp at the bottom of the screen.  The office on the monitor was empty.  Two and a half hours later Brian swerved out of control into a tree.

“Okay, here she comes.” Phil stepped back and lodged his hip against the counter.

“She?”

“Just watch.”

There were heavy shadows in the office, but a green glow pervaded from the NMD screensavers.  A pie of light dissected the plane as the door gradually swung open and a lithe figure emerged in the far right corner of the screen.

Brian leaned forward.

It was definitely a woman.  Sleek legs in dark slacks sprinted to the closest terminal and stooped over, blocking out the light of the screen saver.  With male appreciation, Brian studied the rear view displayed for the camera.

“Nice, huh?”

He ignored Phil’s comment and watched fascinated as the woman typed anxiously on the keyboard.  A series of architectural drawings flashed across the monitor, and for a moment the female shifted so that she eclipsed those images.  By the slight cock of her head, Brian couldn’t tell if she had paused to read them, or was appreciating the intricate CAD designs.

In a sinuous move, the woman crouched down and used a key to open the desk drawer, rifling through the compartment with jerky movements.  Secured in her hand was a small rectangular object.  He didn’t need to zoom, it was a pen drive.  The CPU was housed out of sight inside the desk panel, and it was from this computer that she extracted the external drive before slapping the door shut with her elbow as she rose to bend over the keyboard again.

“Now if that isn’t the nicest view I’ve seen in awhile on these boring monitors.”  Phil growled.

Brian tensed as the woman’s arms grew taut.  Long graceful limbs suddenly suspended above the keys.  She was motionless—an animal sensing its predator.  He inadvertently leaned forward.

In slow motion the woman’s head turned for a stealthy glimpse over her shoulder.

Brian groaned.

Mistaking his friend’s response, Phil goaded.  “Yeah, she’s a looker alright.”

“Who is she?” Brian asked automatically.

Phil sensed that his friend was not amused, so he cleared his throat and recited, “Emily Brennan.  Some token mechanical engineer.  She works with robotics or something like that.”

“You were there.  It’s all I remember.”

“I couldn’t just leave you.”

“Yes, you could have.”

As she rose from the computer with a hasty assessing glance, Brian felt the jolt of recognition right down to his groin.  That sleek frame only forty-eight hours ago had leaned against his hospital bed, her fingers toying with the notion of touching him.  He could remember the scent of that cinnamon hair, which even in black and white remained glossy.  Coconut or something tropical.

Oh God.  It was coming back now.  Agonized, Brian sorted through the melee of that evening.  He had not been fleeing—he had been chasing her.

He looked back at the screen in disbelief.  His angel was a thief.  A thief he had pursued that fateful night, and nearly gotten himself killed over.  A thief that was beautiful and kind enough to make him feel he was redeemed before death.

“So—are you remembering it now?”

“Yeah,” He replied dryly.  “But how come I don’t recognize her—I mean from before this tape?  Let’s be honest, I think both you and I would have noticed a woman like this working at NMD.”

“Hell yeah.  But that’s the thing about those engineers down in the Pit.  They all wear white coats, and if you have long hair it has to be pinned up so it doesn’t get into any of the chips or whatever.”  Phil leaned backwards and flipped the switch for the overhead light.  He grimaced when he saw Brian’s eyes squint, blink, and finally close.  Brian’s hand rose to massage his forehead.

“Sorry, man.”

“Aspirin.  Just give me aspirin.”

A red paw with a gold wedding ring tapped flannel shirt pockets.  “I’ve got some in my drawer.”  He moved to pass Brian, but a firm grip on his arm locked him in place.

“Help me out here.  It’s just coming back.”  Brian released his friend, though his hand still sought balance and latched onto the monitor for support.  “Do we know what she’s taking there?”

“Not a clue, but you weren’t going to stand around and wait to find out while she got away.”

But she did get away.  He remembered that now.  After catching her actions on the surveillance camera he had charged over to the elevator, cursing its slow ascent.  The doors slid open, but the entryway of NMD was empty.  Only the nighttime guard was there, sipping a cup of coffee inside his hutch.

“Did you just see a woman leave here?”  Brian asked over his shoulder as he peered into the parking lot, noticing the blacktop had glazed over with ice.

“Miss Brennan checked out for the evening, but other than that it’s been a quiet night, Mr. Morrison.”

Brian felt the sting of sleet pelt his face as he charged out the door and stood rooted in the empty parking lot.  Basked in the glow of the overhead light, he spun at the sound of a tire crunching against gravel.  She had already pulled onto the main road, and only now did her car lights flick on.

He didn’t know who the scheming little wench was—or what she had gotten her trembling hands on—but she was not going to get away with it.  Brian lunged towards his Blazer.

“Did anyone hear any more on her?”  A painful throb behind his eye brought Brian back to the bleak surveillance room.  Perhaps the ache came from the drone of the generators—unseen, but felt in a subtle vibration inside his bones.    Sometimes he thought that constant hum would make him go mad.

“No one is talking.  They were real disappointed you got in an accident and lost her.” Phil’s plump lips pursed.  “Feel the love, huh?”

“Yeah, I’m warm all over.  Well, I lost her, but caught up with her on 95.  I got cut off for awhile, but I don’t think she knew she was being followed.”

It looked as if you were trying to pass me, only you hit a patch of ice—

Brian twisted his head to toss aside the siren’s voice.  “She was heading west, that’s all I know.”

“Damn, you nearly got killed just doing your job.”

Danger was limited in the cocoon of NMD Headquarters.  Phil’s post had never extended beyond these thick concrete walls, and in a very remote corner of his mind, Brian was jealous of that naiveté.

“Wouldn’t be the first time.” Brian muttered.  “But now you’re telling me I have two employees to find.  This kid who went AWOL, and our little thief.”

“The kid can wait.  I’d focus on that.”  Green eyes coveted the frozen profile of the woman.

“Oh, I’m going to focus on her alright.”

Already Brian’s mind was sharpening, honing in on the hunt.  He had her cell phone number.  Some smooth talking with Dr. McCarter provided that, but at the time the acquisition was with the intent to see her again.  Never did he consider he would need the number to track her down as a criminal.

He didn’t like it one bit.