Chapter Thirty Two

Montgomery, outfitted with his recording devices, carefully approached the only three remaining manor houses on Admiral’s Row in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He couldn’t help admiring their choice of location. The JASONS had chosen a building that was over one hundred and fifty years old. Even on the deadest, darkest night, it was breathtakingly majestic despite its crumbling and decaying walls.

I wonder if they realize the irony of that.

He stopped in front of a door that seemed more like a gaping maw. Like a child without a nightlight, he feared being swallowed by a monster he couldn’t see. A cloud lumbered slowly past the moon. Monty peered into a pair of inky eyes that once passed for windows and said a silent prayer for just enough light to see by, and the moon obliged by gradually illuminated the entire ground floor.

Will you look at that! No roof!

He stepped inside the doorway and stood stock still, listening for voices that might give away the enemy’s position and afford him a bit of time to plan his approach and spy out an escape route.

I don’t hear one blessed thing! I hope I’m in the right building.

There were only a few left standing, so Monty explored a little further before moving on. A marble staircase, bowed from the weight of the countless officers who’d trudged up and down its pink spine, silenced his footsteps. At last, he reached the second floor landing. He stopped and squinted down the hallway to get his bearings.

“Welcome, Mr. Montgomery.” A youngish man in a dark blue suit with a crooked nose and the thickest neck he’d ever seen stepped out from behind a corner and punched him in the face with the force of ten men.

Monty landed unceremoniously in a heap on the floor. Lying perfectly still, he played possum for a few minutes, searching for a window with half-closed eyes. A couple of teeth floated in the blood gushing from his mouth. The enforcer, curious to see if Monty was still alive, ambled over to the part of him that still resembled a head. When Monty finally opened his eyes, the enforcer looked down.

“You O.K.? It’s a shame - you bleedin’ all over your coat like that - but a job’s a job, know what I mean?” He smiled like a good natured beast, shrugged apologetically, and pulled Monty to his feet.

“Look, where can I find the Silver Man? We have a few things to talk over.”

In response, the no-necked enforcer shoved him into a room off the hallway. Inside were three people. One had silver hair, another, tall and slender, wore the mask Carter described to him, and the remaining man was obviously another strong-arm.

There’s a bay window in here, but it’s lead-paned stained glass and two stories up. That would not be my first choice in escape routes, but it may be my only option.

The two strong-arms positioned themselves at the door; the other two stood to greet him. “Good evening, Mr. Montgomery. So nice of you to come. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? I don’t expect you recognize either of us anymore, but we certainly remember you. How is you dear wife and Dr. Blake?”

“Dead, thank you. Look, let’s cut the crap and get down to it, O.K.?”

The Silver Man nodded. “As you wish.”

“I was sent here to get you to talk, but I really don’t give a rat’s ass whether you do or not. I’m here for one reason - to kill you. I’m rigged with an explosive belt, so no one comes near me and no one moves. Before we all go to hell together, I want to know why you murdered my wife instead of myself; she didn’t know a thing about your lousy group. And I want to know if Dr. Blake really committed suicide.”

He took a few steps toward them, and the pair backed away. That little seed of doubt gave Monty the upper hand. He had every intention of getting that confession, but he was serious when he said he was there to kill them. As far as he was concerned, the confession was for Agent Carter and his team. He owed them that, but nothing more.

“Dr. Blake’s research was turned down because we had an altogether different use for her synthetic drug, one that in our estimation and according to her own preliminary research could only be used for short term and erratic results. It was never a reliable drug and would have been discarded in the end, anyway, but we agreed that it could be useful to us in the first stage of another project.”

Monty hadn’t been privy to Seacrest’s explanation of what Carter heard the night before, so he wanted to hear it first hand from the Silver Man. “Would you mind explaining that to me, please? What’s the project? Really. I want to know. The curiosity is killing me.” Monty got a little closer to them.

The two strong-arms moved toward him from behind, but the Silver Man waved them away. “It’s all right, boys, stay where you are. I want the door covered at all times unless Mr. Montgomery becomes unmanageable.

“All in due time, Mr. Montgomery. You asked why we turned down Blake’s project, and I’ve told you. But since we’re putting our cards on the table, I’ll tell you something else. We asked her to come back to the board room after you’d gone home. We made her a very generous offer for the purchase of the rights to her formula. Had she accepted, she would have been a very wealthy woman today. Unfortunately, she told us that the only way we’d ever get it was over her cold, dead body. We were happy to comply. We took the one remaining lab sample and reverse engineered it.” The Silver Man watched Monty very closely, waiting for the arrow to hit home.

Monty turned pale as death, then red in the face. He put his hand inside his coat and took another step forward, forcing the pair back a little further toward the window. “You sick, demented, dirty, rotten slime bag! I ought to blow your head off right now!”

“Aren’t you curious to know why we let you live, Mr. Montgomery, or doesn’t that interest you?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s very simple, really. We thought it might be far more entertaining to punish you first, so we had Arleen eliminated in a most brutal fashion and made sure she was left there on the street to die alone. The only reason you’re here now is because someone warned you off. We’ll find that person, too. It’s only a matter of time.”

“So my coming here tonight was a golden opportunity to finish the job. Is that it?”

“In a way, yes. We’re going to kill two birds with one stone, Mr. Montgomery. We know Agents Carter and Seacrest are waiting and watching somewhere outside. His protégé is in the hospital, unable to move. That makes everything so tidy, don’t you see?”

“No, I don’t. Why don’t you explain it all from the beginning?”

“You really haven’t figured it out? I’m very disappointed; I took you for a much brighter fellow than Agent Carter. Please, Mr. Montgomery, have a seat in this chair by the window, and I’ll let you in on the biggest and last top secret plan you’ll ever hear.”

“I’m listening.”

The Silver Man gave Monty some details but was obviously holding back others. Monty had to get those details recorded or it would never stand up in court. “Before we start, I want you to know I never expected to leave here alive, so I’m holding a few aces.”

“For instance?”

Good! Keep him talking!

“For instance, the Burn List is on its way to the president as we speak.”

“Is it, now? That suits me just fine, Mr. Montgomery, because he’ll be convinced that you were the one who wrote it.”

“Why would he think that?”

“Because tonight, you’re going to be overdosed with Hyzopran. These electrodes will be used to provide you with instructions to eliminate all three agents tonight. By tomorrow, you’ll be the most hunted man on the planet, and by nightfall you’ll be dead. The official story will be that you became unhinged after your wife and colleague died and that you blamed the Meese Corporation for both deaths. Your motive was obviously revenge. Meese is completely in the dark, you know, so they will be cleared rather quickly. You stole the drug from their lab after they turned down your pet project, faked your own death and later turned up in New York under the alias of Arthur Moreland.

“Our friends at the F.B.I. will then be free to wrap up the few murder cases you’ve uncovered. The assassins we used will be found guilty based on the neuroscientific testimony of experts who will state that no drug can take away free will or prevent resistance to mental conditioning. Once they are imprisoned, they will be forgotten.

“Mr. Montgomery, you’re so naïve! We have eyes and ears even in the White House. Anyone who knows about the list will have to go, including the president, so all you’ve done by sending him the Burn List is drive the last nail into his coffin.”

“You’re forgetting there’s a huge body of evidence that still points to you.”

“Ah, but you forget the authorities are on our side. The F.B.I. will tell the entire world that you were the Silver Man who founded The Collective. You hatched up a crazy plan to take over the world by using Hyzopran on an unsuspecting public to assassinate anyone in your way. My two-faced technology whiz kid will take the fall for creating the programming and development of the Nano-chip, and the public will know that you planned to use it on newborns.

“You will be reviled as a Hitler, Mr. Montgomery, because had your plan succeeded, you would have effectively murdered every free mind in the world. When the dust has settled, we will find someone else to make our Nano-chip, and the Galatea Initiative will continue. Clever, isn’t it?”

“The what?”

“The Galatea Initiative, Mr. Montgomery. That is the name Agent Seacrest decided upon just this afternoon. I thought it was rather catchy and decided to use it. You know who Galatea is, I presume?”

“I don’t make a point of studying Ovid in my spare time, but yes, I know the story. The Silver Man…hmmm. You know, I can’t quite place your face, but I remember the voice very well. What was your real name back in the day? I want to know before I die.”

He only smiled enigmatically so Monty plodded on.

“Just so you know, you’re also being heard in real time by CNN. That’s another ace I’m holding, Silver Man. The president and your techie are already warned and protected. Jesus Holy Christ! Your ego is so all-encompassing that you can’t even conceive of making a mistake or underestimating the opposition. There are hundreds of tiny details you haven’t taken into account, and every one of them points straight back to you. I’m holding one last ace, and it’s a humdinger. The F.B.I. has turned on you. Even if you manage to make it out of here after I set off the bomb I’m wearing, they’re in position out there, ready to rip you and your Galatea to shreds.”

God, I love to play poker with men who can’t control themselves. CNN listening in real time - ha, haaaa! Carter and that whiz kid are the only ones listening to us right now. Now Carter can officially warn the president and our techie in time to save their lives and make sure the Burn List arrives safely to the White House. The bluff about the F.B.I. was truly inspired, even if it was wishful thinking. I hope he bought it.

Although he was seated near the window, Monty’s back faced the only exit from the room. His full attention was on their argument and not on the two enforcers who crept up on him from behind like two giant mice.

“Hold him for me, boys.” The Silver Man nodded his thanks to them.

***

Carter and Seacrest were glued to the car speaker. She was shocked that Fischetti and the back-up team he promised them were nowhere in sight. They had still expected them to show up to finish what they started. It was no use; they were on their own, outnumbered and outgunned. They’d taken care of warning the president and the I.T. prodigy already, thanks to Monty, but how would any of them escape the Silver Man’s long arm?

Agent Seacrest whipped her head up and spoke to Carter in a very grounded, even tone of voice. “We should go in, Carter. We can’t just sit here. Fischetti’s not going to help us; he made his choice. There won’t be any back-up to help us or hurt us. All he has to do now is sit back and wait to see who comes out on top. If it’s the Silver Man, he has no problem. If it’s us, he’ll make sure we never make it home tonight.”

“What is it you want to do, Jill?”

“I don’t know, Carter, but we have to do something. No one else will.”

Carter had prepared for this moment. Montgomery knew what to do if he got caught in a trap he couldn’t get out of. Carter was counting on him to make the ultimate sacrifice. Monty had already given Carter a legitimate reason to go in shooting, and he was more than fine with that. Let the authorities believe it was a massacre. Let them think that everyone was dead. He’d have to call in a few favors to get Deeprose to safety, but if they got away with this tonight, the four of them could lose themselves in some remote part of the world, beyond the reach of the F.B.I., the JASONS, and anyone else in the western world.

“We’re not doing anything, Jill. I am. You stay put. I need you to listen to what goes on inside the house and to watch for that back-up. They may still come, but if Fischetti’s order really was countermanded, the director knew we were coming here before I told Fischetti about it, this morning. He may be dead already.”

“Carter, you can’t go in alone! I’m coming with you; it’s my job!”

He already had his gun out. He inserted bullets and removed the trigger lock. Carter had one foot on the pavement when he turned to give Seacrest last minute instructions. He fished a piece of paper out of his pants pocket. “There’s no time to argue, Jill. Take this. If no one makes it out of the building, I want you to meet Agent Deeprose at Monty’s place. Call this number when you get there, and say your name is Seacrest. The man who answers will know what to do. After that, just sit tight and wait for help to come. Jill, your first priority as my partner is to the mission. Now, I have to go.”

Carter, who thought that studying Zen Buddhism and meditating had made him a master of balance, would never admit to himself that he was uncomfortable with emotion, especially during a crisis. But after last night, he couldn’t just leave without saying what was in his heart. “I love you, Jill. You’re my life.” He kissed her and was gone.

***

Montgomery’s voice brought her attention back to the car speakers. He was being beaten, savagely. She listened in morbid fascination, helpless. Soon, though, the room became quiet again. Monty must have passed out.

The Silver Man had Monty put back in his chair, and asked one of his men to dump a bucket of cold water over his head. Seacrest knew the torture had resumed when she heard a sharp crack followed by a blood curdling scream.

“Don’t break his other arm until I give you the order, boys.”

The only sounds she heard after that were Monty’s groans. He was completely untrained in combat, torture, and survival skills and far too old and out of shape to be in a situation like this.

We were crazy for sending him in there!

Now all she could do was wait. There was no one she could call for help.

If Carter doesn’t walk out of that building alive, I’m going in there to finish this mission for him.

She picked up her service revolver, checked to see that it was loaded, and unlocked the trigger as she got out of the car.

***

The man referred to as “Mr. X” figured Agent Carter must be close by, but he had no time to try to find him. He’d have to act alone and hope it would provide enough of a distraction to get into the building on Admiral’s Row.

As a young man, Quentin Borofsky had been no different from anyone else. His job was not clandestine in any way. His think tank was not linked to the JASONS, but he knew of them. Maybe he had a touch of the naiveté only youth and privilege could breed, but he really believed the power of intelligent, peace loving people was stronger than the power of the mob or any one corrupt individual.

He woke up every morning believing with his whole heart the words and ideology of John F. Kennedy. He would not ask what his country could do for him; he would ask and do what he could for his country. He knew Camelot, like perfection, was a place you to which you travelled but never arrived; the closer you came to it, the farther away it seemed, and yet, the journey still had to be made. It was the getting there that was far more important than the arrival.

He began hearing rumors of a leader in a new think tank who thought of himself as some kind of a messiah. Using the time-tested method of social contagion theory, he used fear and hatred to rise to a position of unlimited power. He called himself the Silver Man. No one ever knew his real name, but he was solely responsible for the birth of the group referred to as the JASONS.

Quentin could no longer look in the mirror each morning knowing the JASONS had their own agenda and that no one was willing to step on their toes. One day, he dropped off the radar, changed his name and joined the military to fight in Syria. There, he learned the technical, mechanical and psychological tactics of espionage and warfare. By the time he came home, he was ready to do what he could to stop them or at least slow them down a little.

Now he stood staring at the proud ruins of Admiral’s Row. Moss and wild flowers had draped themselves across her floors and walls. A large trees grew in the foyer. Nature was a woman without mercy, gradually and inexorably taking back for herself what man had the arrogance to think was his.

This is what the entire planet will look like when all of humanity is dead. I’m going to fight him and go on fighting until there’s nothing left of the JASONS. If I fail, there are others who will take up where I left off. The worst sort of evil is not in the insane, criminal dictator who holds an entire people hostage; it’s those who raise him to power knowing what he is and the ones who sit by and watch him gobble up the world, bite by bite. I shall neither rest easily nor sleep peacefully until I’ve done everything I can to expose the man and the entire organization.

Mr. X. inventoried his coat pockets and went around to the rear of the building. In the left front pocket he carried C-4, a handy explosive the military often used to break down doors. In the other, he packed a bigger wallop.

They won’t go gentle into this good night.

***

Carter trotted along quickly until he came to a bench just down the street from the building and stopped to get a better look at the layout. It was so cold that he could see his breath.

I wonder if the soul really does escape through the mouth.

He hadn’t been able to connect with Mr. X tonight, but was certain he’d be there. Every time one of them hit a dead end or was backed into a corner, someone had been there throwing them a lead or saving the day. He prayed Mr. X was preparing a diversion big enough to cover him.

Carter approached the open entrance of the old manor and hunkered down in its skirt of overgrown bushes to wait for the right moment to make his attack.

***

At headquarters, Deputy Director Fischetti barked orders to his S.W.A.T. team leader over the phone. “You will not fire unless I give the order. You will not shoot to kill without my order. Agents Carter and Seacrest are already there under cover, and I want them protected. Is that clear?”

His stomach was in knots. Agent Carter was making a mess out of his murder investigations.

You couldn’t have just accepted these as thrill kills, could you, Carter?

Fischetti had been ordered tonight, in no uncertain terms, to wrap up these investigations by confirming that the motive was drug-related and thrill-related. The director explained in detail just how high up and far reaching the conspiracy reached. The F.B.I. had to play ball or be considered an acceptable loss. Washington was completely in the dark.

The director was pleased that Fischetti held back some of the drug he was ordered to surrender to the D.O.D. It helped convince the F.B.I. of his own loyalty and kept them on the trail he wished them to follow. It was imperative that Fischetti appeared to be backing them up while still keeping them on a tight leash. The irony was that Fischetti had truly acted out of loyalty to his agents and his cases in the beginning, but he knew he couldn’t be allowed to continue on without losing his job or something worse.

What were the odds that Carter would accidentally meet a bunch of barhopping college students who’d been to one of those nutball meetings? If I hadn’t sent Red’s friends an email with the wrong address, he would have busted the thing wide open right then and there. Jesus, that was close!

And that rookie, Deeprose? Boy! Under any other circumstances, she’d be worth her weight in gold. Her first time out she breaks all the rules, catches three killers single handedly, finds Montgomery in an obituary, for God’s sake, and finds a way to tie him back to Meese!

If she wasn’t the straw that’s going to break my back, I’d pin a medal on her.

If it had all ended there, I might still have been able to save them and myself too. But once Carter found the damn Burn List, he connected it to the JASONS as soon as he saw the curator’s name on it.

“Liz! Where’s my bicarbonate of soda? Liz!!!”

If I hadn’t sent the S.W.A.T. team on an intentional goose chase the night of the raid, Carter would have been exposed to the JASONS and killed. If Jill hadn’t been able to fight off the effects of the hallucinogen, she would be dead now. If someone hadn’t shown up in time to save Deeprose from those three harpies, she’d be dead too. It would have made things so much easier if they’d died when they were supposed to.

I did my best to shield them, but my orders were clear, and now, tonight, there’s no turning back, no way out. How can I order their deaths and show up tomorrow like it was just another day at the office? Either I follow orders and let the JASONS go, arrange for Montgomery to take the fall, order the murder of Carter’s team and prosecute a bunch of kids who had no idea what they were doing, or…or what?

Fischetti buried his head in his hands and contemplated the biggest decision of his life.