FOURTEEN

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Tiffany Stockton sat at the desk in her cubicle, her palms wet, her leg bouncing, her pulse ticking away in her neck. To her knowledge things had gone as planned this morning, better than planned, actually. She’d gotten out of her father’s data center without question and arrived at her workstation on time to begin her day. Only she couldn’t focus. Her mind flipped through thoughts like it was channel surfing. She kept glancing at Jack’s door. She needed to speak with him. He was the only man in this entire building she totally trusted.

Tiffany reached for the manila folder she’d stuffed the documents in. It was nearly an inch thick. She rested her trembling hand on it. One would think she was about to commit suicide.

And she was . . . in a manner of speaking.

She trusted Jack, but she had no idea how he’d react to the information she had. What if her father was involved with Centralia somehow and Jack was too? No. It was impossible. Her dad had too much integrity to stoop that low. And from what she knew of Jack Calloway, what her father had told her, he was a religious man, took his faith very seriously. Her father never agreed with everything Jack said or believed, but he spoke very highly of the man and said he’d trusted Jack with his life on more than one occasion.

Jack needed to see what she’d found. He’d know what to do with it, where to take it from here. This wasn’t information to show to just anyone, hoping justice would be done. In the hands of the wrong person it could be devastating. She could become a target. At best, it would just be ignored. There were many in Washington who were most comfortable with their heads in the sand, determining not to see what happened behind closed doors or in subterranean bunkers. And it seemed the higher you went in government, the less patriotism you found.

But she also needed to be careful because information like this, and the way she obtained it, could not only get her fired but could get her a free stay in any number of penitentiaries across the country. Jack might be as trustworthy as her own father and he might believe he answered to a higher power, but he had a duty to his country to uphold as well.

She had to do something, though. She couldn’t just sit on this information and be yet another government ostrich. Her dad used to tell her all the time that evil flourished when good men —and women, he would add —did nothing. And he was a good man; he did something.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Ed Worley peeked around the wall of her cubicle.

Tiffany smiled politely. “Hey, Ed.”

“A dollar?”

“What?”

“For your thoughts.”

“They’re not for sale.”

Ed pulled away a little. “Sorry; I guess that was kind of creepy, huh?”

Tiffany realized she’d made him uncomfortable. He was only trying to be friendly. “From anyone else it might be, but not from you.”

Ed smiled. “You okay?”

“I am.”

He glanced at the folder she still had her hand resting on. “Something going on?”

“Nope.” She removed her hand from the folder. “Just a report I need to get to Jack. I’m late with it and kinda nervous about his reaction.”

Ed narrowed his eyes just the slightest bit. He’d seen right through her lie. “Okay. Well, Jack’s pretty cool about that kind of stuff. I’m sure he won’t be too hard on you.” He backed away and out of view, returning to his own desk and whatever project he was working on.

Taking the folder in both hands again, Tiffany rose from her chair and headed for Jack’s office. Hopefully he’d be lenient.

When she arrived at the door, she knocked and waited for his voice.

“Come in.”

Jack’s office was not large, but it was nicely furnished with all dark wood pieces. A desk, bookshelf, file cabinet. Even a small table with a couple chairs. Jack sat at his desk, looking very comfortable. Behind him was a wall of windows that looked out over the parking lot. Beyond that was the sprawling Claude Moore Colonial Farm.

Jack Calloway was in his early fifties, tall, graying above the ears. He wore his hair short, military-style, and managed to stay in good physical condition despite his relatively sedentary job. He’d served in the first Gulf War with Tiffany’s father, then put in a decade as a field agent with the CIA before moving to the Department of Corporate Finance and Business. The walls of his office were covered with photos and certificates and medals commemorating his years of service. Many of those photos included Tiffany’s dad.

When Tiffany entered his office, Jack rose and greeted her. “Good morning, Tiffany. How are things?”

Tiffany shrugged. She normally wasn’t nervous around Jack. She’d known him most of her life. But this morning she trembled uncontrollably and hoped he didn’t notice. One look at him was enough to know he had.

“Please, have a seat,” Jack said. He pulled one of the chairs from the table over to the desk, then glanced at the folder in her hands. “What’s on your mind?”

“I, uh, found something I think you should know about.”

Jack lifted his eyebrows and nodded at the folder. “Is that the something?”

Tiffany hesitated, then placed the folder on Jack’s desk. She didn’t say a word while he opened the folder and flipped through the pages, briefly skimming over each.

The deeper he went, the more his brow furrowed and mouth tightened. After a few minutes Jack looked up and stared at her. There was no anger in his eyes, but his face was taut with tension. He glanced at the office door. “Lock the door, please.”

Tiffany rose and crossed the office. She pushed the button on the knob. When she turned back around, Jack had closed the blinds on the windows behind him. He waited until Tiffany sat again, then replaced the papers and closed the folder. She half expected him to open a drawer in his desk, retrieve a semiautomatic pistol equipped with a silencer, and put two holes in her chest. But that wasn’t the Jack she knew.

“I would ask how you got this information, but I really don’t want to know, do I?”

“Probably not.”

Jack sighed. “Tiffany, your dad and I went back a long way. We went through some very difficult situations together. Friendships forged in those kinds of fires don’t die. Ever. I miss him.”

Tiffany looked at her hands. Her throat constricted. “I do too.”

“I know you do. He was very proud of you. I don’t know if he ever told you, but it was his idea that we offer you the job here. He saw your potential and hoped I would see it too. I did and I don’t regret hiring you.”

Tiffany waited for the hammer to descend upon her, for the I-don’t-regret-hiring-you-but-you’re-fired speech. She tensed and held her breath.

Jack tapped the folder with his index finger. “This could get you prison time; you know that, don’t you?”

She nodded and swallowed past the lump in her throat.

“I can only imagine the trouble you went through and the laws you broke to get this.”

She said nothing.

Jack stood and turned to the window. He parted the blinds with his fingers and stared past the slats for a long time. Finally, still facing the window and hands now on his hips, he said, “Why did you come to me with this?”

Tiffany imagined Jack letting out a sinister laugh and then revealing that he was part of the Centralia Project, that he was in fact the official responsible for creating it and that her dad was his right-hand man. Then he would pull out his pistol and put two bullets in her. That’s how it always played out in the movies. But this wasn’t a movie.

Tiffany needed to tell him what she believed. “You’re a good man.”

“And evil flourishes when good men —”

“Do nothing.”

Jack was quiet for a few seconds. “Your dad used to say that a lot.”

“I know.”

He turned back to the desk, no pistol in hand, picked up the folder, and ran his thumb over the edges of the pages. “Do you know what this is?”

“I read through some of it. Enough to get a pretty good idea.”

Jack placed the folder back on his desk and walked to a wall covered with framed photos. “After the Second World War the United States brought a group of German scientists to America. They began a project known as MK-ULTRA. They wanted to find ways to manipulate the human brain, to control people, to create personalities and govern behaviors. They used all sorts of barbaric methods, tested on willing and unwilling subjects. Some were volunteers; some were civilians who had no idea what was being done to them. All of it was done with the goal of creating an army of perfect soldiers. In the early seventies the project was exposed and there was a lot of backlash, both from the public and from inside the Beltway. Politicians on both sides of the aisle were furious and demanded every document available. There were investigations, hearings, the works. But then the documents mysteriously disappeared; the hearings were dropped, the project forgotten.”

Jack walked back to his desk and tapped the folder with his index finger. “But the project survived. They simply renamed it. Do you realize what kind of bomb this is? What kind of firestorm it would start if this was exposed today?”

“I can only imagine.”

“No, you can’t imagine. This is the kind of scandal people die over.”

Tiffany had read enough of the documents to see the shadow cast by the darkness of Centralia. “People have already died. Lots of them.”

Jack sat in his chair and rested his elbows on the desk. “So what do you want me to do about this?”

“Stop it.”

He huffed. “You know that’s easier said than done. This is Washington, remember? Trust no one.”

“And yet I trust you.”

He smirked. “Maybe you shouldn’t.”

“My dad did.”

Jack studied the folder for a long time. “Did you get these from your father?”

“He had a thumb drive hidden in his computer case. All this was on it.”

Jack didn’t get to where he was by being unintelligent. He would easily deduce that the contents on the drive would have been encrypted and that Tiffany would have had to gain access to the computer in her father’s office to read it. He stared at Tiffany without expression. “I’m assuming you made sure to cover your tracks.”

“Absolutely. I’d be asking for trouble if I didn’t.”

Jack sighed again. “You may have already stirred up trouble. No one’s tracks can be completely covered.”

She knew what he meant. Even though she deleted any record of her log-in on her dad’s computer, there were still ways to track her activity.

“Can I keep this?” Jack said, taking the folder into his hands again.

“What will you do with it?”

“Get it to the right person.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know yet. Someone I can trust.”

“That could be a fruitless search.”

“There are good men out there, Tiffany. Your dad was one. Sometimes you have to look hard to find them, but they’re around.”

She had to ask a question that had been burning a hole in her brain. “What do you think my dad was going to do with it?”

“No doubt the same thing,” Jack said. “Did you check when he last saved the information?”

She had noticed but at the time was under too much distress to let it register as odd. She nodded. “A day before the accident.” After swallowing, she said, “Like he knew he was going to . . .”

“You don’t know that,” Jack said. “Let’s not jump to any conclusions.”

He was right, of course. She didn’t know anything for certain. But wasn’t it obvious enough to assume? She motioned toward the folder. “I’d like a copy of that.”

Jack shook his head. “Tiffany, I don’t think —”

“If this is a scandal people will die over and have already died for, don’t you think whoever is behind this will stop at nothing to get rid of any evidence?”

“Which is exactly why I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to have a copy.”

“And what if they get to you? What then?”

“You still have the drive, right?”

“Yes. But it’s encrypted.”

“It can be decoded.”

“I need a hard copy.”

Jack removed the folder from his desk and held it in his lap. “No. I’m sorry, Tiffany, but I can’t put you in that kind of danger.”

She knew Jack was only looking out for her safety. Her father would have done the same. But she’d anticipated this and it was now time to pull her trump card. “I already made a copy.”

The silence in the room was thick and ear-piercing. Finally Jack said, “You know I could have you arrested.”

She’d anticipated that, too, and she called his bluff. “But you won’t.”

Jack sighed. “Where is it?”

“Someplace safe.”

Jack opened a drawer in his desk and placed the folder in it. “Tiffany, be careful, okay? You have no idea what kind of power you’re dealing with. This government is as close to omniscient as anything on earth.”

Suddenly Tiffany felt like she’d willingly placed a bright-orange target on her back, stood in the middle of a forest full of huntsmen, and waved her arms and hollered like a maniac. “I guess the word for the day is cautious, huh?”

Jack tightened his mouth. Concern etched lines in his brow. “No, it’s invisible. Something you should make every effort to be.”