Chapter Thirty Three
The S.W.A.T. team arrived at Admiral’s Row much later than Bill Fischetti would have liked. He did a little reconnaissance to see if he could locate Carter, Seacrest and Montgomery, but he couldn’t wander too far from the scene. If he was going to keep his team in the dark about their real purpose for being here tonight, the only way to pull this off was to keep on top of things as they unfolded. They’d been told that Montgomery was their only target and to shoot to kill.
If the chairman of the JASONS and his executive assistant weren’t able to escape undetected, the S.W.A.T. team would be ordered to stand down for them. They knew nothing of the JASONS, so Fischetti would simply explain them away as F.B.I. operatives who’d set a trap for Montgomery and his co-conspirators.
It was the third part of the plan he wasn’t sure he could pull off. The S.W.A.T. team would be told that Montgomery could be holding Carter hostage. If anyone came out of that building using Carter as a human shield, it was to be considered an acceptable loss. Catching Montgomery, dead or alive, was their first priority. He hoped Carter had the sense to stay out of his way.
He briefed his men and headed out. Hidden in the brush across from the ruins of an officers’ residence, Fischetti and the team had eyes on the openings where the front door, windows, and roof had once been. A few expert snipers were already in place at the four corners of the manor, ready to pick off Montgomery and Carter from close range no matter which way they came out. They arrived in silence and maintained a silence that coursed through every one of them with nerve-racking electricity, begging for the moment of release.
***
The Silver Man sat opposite Monty, smoking a pipe filled with vanilla scented tobacco while he waited for him to regain consciousness. “Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Montgomery. We haven’t finished our talk yet, and there’s so much I want to discuss with you before we begin our experiment.
“Galatea, my lovely assistant, took the liberty of searching you. You have no explosives on you, Mr. Montgomery. I admire your courage and ingenuity, sir, but what you really need now is the courage to face what’s coming. I believe the appropriate term for this moment is ‘Checkmate’.”
Monty, more alert now, seized another opportunity to draw him out into conversation. He’d been searched and the wire had been taken, but they missed the lapel camera. He wasn’t strapped into the chair because he was presumably too battered and broken to move. The enforcers were standing up, resting their backs against the door of the drawing room.
This is my last chance to get the rest of the story documented and get the hell out of here before that masked freak injects me with Hyzopran.
“Why are you really here, Mr. Montgomery? Any other law enforcement professional could have done a better job of infiltration and capture, and you still would have had your revenge in the end. Why were you chosen as the sacrificial lamb? Or did you volunteer for the job?”
“I have nothing to lose and nothing to live for; my wife is dead and you arranged it. If it’ll help bring you down, I’m the only one with the right to volunteer for a suicide mission.” The Silver Man’s mouth was agape, it encouraged Monty to continue.
“Don’t look so surprised! Yes, I remember you, now. Your name is Kenneth Anders Silverman. It’s so simple that it’s brilliant, except that Senator Pressman knew the name right off, and he’s not afraid to testify anymore if it’ll get rid of you forever. Now I know it too, thanks to your own inability to stay in the shadows with all the other insects that crawl in the night. I don’t have to worry about getting justice anymore, Silverman; you condemn yourself every time you open that loose cannon you call a mouth.”
“That’s enough, Montgomery!”
“You think so? Aw, but I’m just getting warmed up! Now, let’s see…you were a brilliant and emotionally high strung child who came from big money. Your father died shortly after your birth. Your mother alternated between coddling you and making you feel the burden a husband should’ve carried. You were sent away to school in Switzerland when it became clear that her own mental illness was progressing. It’s outrageously Freudian, but I’ll bet your hatred for people and your need for absolute control over them began in those early years.
“You had all the advantages money could buy- the right schools and upper crusty connections – except that you had not one single friend, isn’t that right, sir? You were hated and feared by all your schoolmates and even most of the teachers. However, being in the top one percent both protected you from retribution or punishment. That was when you discovered that money could buy a silent immunity from the law and learned that justice was a thing won by the highest bidder. But power was the real drug you couldn’t put down.
“Your work in bio-psychology and neuroscience won you a Nobel prize at the age of twenty. You had one of the brightest minds the world had ever seen, and you came along at just the right moment in U.S. history. The space race was on. You were awarded the chairman’s spot on a groundbreaking Washington think tank tasked with reverse engineering whatever the hell it is we found and stowed away in Area 51. By leapfrogging proper channels, you and your team were able to take us decades, if not centuries, into the future. I also remember you as an arrogant, unyielding bastard.”
The Silver Man yawned politely. “I’m well aware of my own history, Mr. Montgomery. Is there anything else you’d care to get off your chest while you still have one?”
“Here it is, Silverman. Maybe you really do have an organization that spans the planet, bottomless pockets and more power than the Pope. But maybe, you’re nothing but a paranoid psychopath with a gift for story-telling. Sure, I remember you being on the review board at Meese years back, but that’s all. The JASONS may exist nowhere except in your own mind. You are responsible for murder, assassination, kidnapping, overdosing people with an unknown hallucinogen, mind control, and plotting to overthrow at least one government, Silverman, and I’m going to lead the looney brigade right to your door. Personally.”
Oh boy, if that doesn’t pull his tail, nothing will.
Silverman stopped to gaze at his own reflection in a mirror above a cold, empty fireplace before continuing. “You’ve seen the Burn List, haven’t you, Mr. Montgomery? It was found on Meese’s server on a drive not available to employees below a top-secret clearance level by Mr. David Florio. He paid dearly for the blunder. One of our longtime and much esteemed colleagues was responsible for saving it there. He is now enjoying his golden years at the bottom of the East River. That ought to be enough to convince you we’re real.
“We’ve been operating at Meese for generations. It was a comfortable place to work before they decided to put us out to pasture. As if they could! Perhaps we should have taken them into our confidence after all, but that’s neither here nor there. The point is, Mr. Montgomery, that if you don’t take the fall, they’ll have to.”
“They haven’t broken any laws. What could possibly be pinned on them?”
“The planning and execution of the Galatea Initiative. They’re entirely innocent, of course, but it’s going to take years to figure out the truth, and by then it won’t matter anymore. People will think what they’re programmed to think.”
“I’ll let that one slide for the moment. Why did you try to frame Senator Pressman?”
“He was on the team and made a deal with the devil. Now he has to pay the bill. Pressman agreed to be the one dissenting vote against Blake’s research funding in exchange for his very long and successful career in the Senate. It was always our intention to incriminate or eliminate him.”
“Wait. If Pressman’s opinion of the drug was that it was unreliable and you all agreed, why did you bother steeling it from Meese’s lab to use on human test subjects? Why didn’t you all turn down Dr. Blake’s funding, drop the idea altogether and just move on to Phase Two?”
“The List! The List! How dense can you people possibly be? The implant wasn’t going to be ready for another ten years, at least! We wanted our own people installed in key positions around the world until it was ready to be used in newborns. It was perfect as a short-term solution because of its instability. We couldn’t have hoped for a better outcome when we made our first neuroscientific test on Agent Carter and simultaneously overdosed him.”
Time for a Hail Mary Pass, old boy. Just throw the ball toward the end zone and hope to God there’s a good receiver down there to catch it. Five more minutes. Just five more to get the rest of it…
“Just so I’m clear on everything you’ve told me so far, do you mind telling me more about Galatea and the Galatea Initiative?”
“Galatea was a code name we used for our project, but Agent Seacrest gave us the name just this afternoon. I rather like it, don’t you, Mr. Montgomery? My assistant wears the mask so that only our own contacts can identify her. It also keeps her real identity hidden from everyone but myself.”
“Yes, yes, I know all that, but is the Nano-chip the whole ballgame? I mean, programming the human brain goes way beyond the desire to line your pockets and govern the world. It makes us slaves and you our master. If all you want is wealth and power, the JASONS already have it. You already control every significant achievement of the 20th and 21st century, so what’s your real goal?”
“It’s not money and power, Mr. Montgomery, I assure you of that. The Galatea Initiative goes far beyond anything so banal. You’re correct; we rule from behind the scenes and we profit from the advancements we approve. We always have. There’s no need for outside funding, but the F.B.I. doesn’t know that, and it keeps them under our thumb. In ten years, the Nano-chip will negate the need to rely on any entity to keep our secret.
“What’s the point, if it’s not money or power? Agent Carter knows, but in the condition he was in at the time he heard it, he can’t have remembered a thing. Well, it can’t hurt to let you both in on it, now. The die was cast when the information on your wire was sent to Washington in real time. Anyone who knows about us now will take the secret to the grave.
“The human race will advance by several hundred years in a very short time span, Mr. Montgomery, without any threat of blowing ourselves up before we get there. The Nano-chip implant can be programmed to suppress activity of the neurotransmitters responsible for all undesirable urges and behaviors - including the fight or flight impulse. The thalamus doesn’t have to be tampered with in the least. It can continue to process and channel outside stimuli normally, but we will choose what gets past the neurons and into consciousness. Think of it! We can eradicate addiction, mental illness, war…the possibilities are endless! We can dispense with money altogether and work for the common good. As the Creator and founder of New Eden, I will make sure every man, woman, and child has all they need and more. No more greed, jealousy, or graft! It will a world completely and perfectly controlled and maintained by myself for its own good. When the time comes, I will pass the baton to one of the others. It will go on that way for eternity. I’ll be revered as a God.”
“Mr. Silverman, you are truly insane if you think this is not about the ultimate in power and control. Living in Eden requires fear, ignorance, punishment, and a complete reliance on God for everything. I know you prefer it that way, but every garden is full of snakes. One way or another, man will find a way to regain what he’s lost. We weren’t meant to live in fear and ignorance.
“Sure we have our differences, and we fight them out way too often, but we’re still here, and we’ve earned the right to design our own future. What gives you and your cronies the right to play God, even if you can? There are bound to be snags and glitches in programming that allows some thought through. How will you keep humanity from forming a resistance and overthrowing you like any other dictator?”
“You forget, Mr. Montgomery, might makes right. I have an army of dedicated followers. The meek will never inherit the earth, so I must.”
***
Agent Carter knew back-up finally arrived but had no way of knowing whose side they were on. Carter had a sixth sense for these things, though. His intuition told him that the total absence of natural noise in the surrounding woods meant he was surrounded.
He was near the front entrance when several spotlights glued him to the spot.
“Agent Carter! Halt and put your hands slowly over your head! Do not make any sudden moves or we will shoot to kill!”
Here we go.
Carter raised his hands but kept on walking until he was positioned directly in front of the opening to the house. He wanted to be there in case Monty had no choice but to come out that way. He faced the S.W.A.T. team head on and did not speak. He waited for what he already knew was coming.
Fischetti was stunned. “What the hell are you doing? He’s one of us! I told you to protect him unless it was the only way to shoot Montgomery! The ones we want are inside that house! Now stand down or I’ll bust every one of you morons down to a Level One!” The veins on his neck and forehead bulged with his sudden rise of blood pressure.
Suddenly the deputy director knew he’d been used. The director, his superior, obviously wanted Carter and his team out of his hair. He must have briefed Fischetti’s men privately because they were no longer taking their orders from him.
***
Mr. X arrived at Admiral’s Row just as Montgomery got the rest of the story on his lapel cam. He crept around to the back of the building, knowing Agent Carter would have gone in through the front. His silencer took out the two men at both corners quickly and quietly. The one remaining door may have been old, but it was bolted, deadlocked and carved entirely from one single slab of black oak. He couldn’t even guess how thick it was, but hoped he could blow it open with what he had on him.
He held the C-4 explosive in a very shaky right hand. With infinite care, as if he were handling a Fabergé egg, Mr. X removed an M67 grenade from a small, steel box he’d confiscated off a dead Syrian terrorist leader almost two decades earlier. He liked to think that was his personal contribution to a brighter, happier world. He looked up toward heaven and gave the stars a sharp, jaunty salute.
Stepping back behind a boulder as big as himself, he threw the C-4 at the massive, oak door. It exploded on contact, projecting slabs, javelins and splinters in all directions. What was left of the black iron door fittings swung from side to side as if they’d been hanged.
The explosion shook the house. A mass of dense, coal-colored smoke flooded through the first floor and floated, unimpeded, up to the second. Mr. X raced through the hole and into the foyer. One of the enforcers was already halfway downstairs when he tossed his grenade up them. The thug saw a small, hard and round object fly toward him and caught it easily with one giant paw.
“Hey, this looks just like a…”
Mr. X turned back to the hole he’d made with the C-4, but there was no time to escape the blast. The walls fell in on themselves like a ruined soufflé. When the smoke finally cleared, nothing at all was left of the strong-arm and most of the pink marble staircase was a now just pretty pile of rocks. Mr. X was gone.
***
It sounded to Monty like the house got up on its hind legs and roared. The one enforcer left ran out into the hallway, gun drawn, looking for his partner. Monty didn’t think twice; the distraction was a gift from heaven. He shot out of the chair like a cannon ball and knocked over the Silver Man’s chair with him still in it. Once he was out of the way, Monty ran back to the door of the drawing room, pulled his coat completely over his head and ran straight into the stained glass picture window.
Three survivors made their way through the wreckage to the stairs and carefully picked their way through the rubble, a step here and a jump there. They reached the foyer just as the rest of the marble came crashing down behind them. They moved forward as a group and stepped onto what would have been the front porch had it still been there.
***
The impact of the blast threw Carter to the ground. He waited until the earth was still again and then patted down his entire body to make sure he still had all his working parts. When he was satisfied with the results of the survey, he rose and stood his ground.
Fischetti shouted orders to one of his men. “Put the cuffs on him, Lieutenant Rafferty – that’s all. Then start searching the grounds for Montgomery. Agent Carter is here on my orders.”
Rafferty answered by spitting on the ground. He barked his own orders into the bullhorn. “Agent Carter, lace your hands behind your head and kneel. We will only say this one time! You have five seconds to comply or we will shoot to kill.”
Fischetti grabbed the bullhorn out of Rafferty’s hands, aimed it at his entire team and shouted, “I am Deputy Director William H. Fischetti of the N.Y. F.B.I. and your superior officer! I order you to stand down!
“Stand down now, Goddamn it!”
If Carter had been no more than five feet away from this spot before the blast, he’d have remained safely hidden in the brush until the smoke cleared and the brass headed back to headquarters, taking the two surviving JASONS and their paid enforcer with them. As it turned out, he found himself standing right in front of them. He never got a look at the Silver Man, but he knew the voice well enough. Galatea still wore her mask. Even now, anonymity was her only concern.
Carter wondered where the rest of the Silver Man’s organization was hiding out, but he didn’t have to care anymore, now that the voice and video recordings had been safely transmitted to the White House. All he was interested in was finding Monty.
He remained standing.
If they want to shoot me, I’m not kneeling down for it.
The lieutenant snatched back the bullhorn. “Cuff Fischetti, Agent Moreno, and keep him out of my way.”
Rafferty resumed command. “FIRE AT WILL!”
Bill Fischetti could do nothing but stand there and stare as he witnessed the cold-blooded execution of Agent Carter by his own men.
***
Aiming for the heart, a sniper fired three successive shots at Carter. All three bullets were direct hits. Seacrest knew the sound of F.B.I. sniper guns by their sound - Pew, Pew, Pew!
She started running and didn’t stop until she saw Carter standing in front of a house without walls or a roof. She sank onto the same bench where he’d rested earlier.
He’s O.K.! He’s O.K.!!
Carter remained standing, tall and proud, never taking his eyes off Fischetti. Then, like a rag doll, he crumpled up and collapsed.
Seacrest clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming and giving away her position. Time stopped. In a dream, she rose and ran to him, willing her legs to move faster and her heart not to burst.
***
Even handcuffed, Fischetti could move and use his hands to a certain degree. He grabbed the gun out of the sniper’s hand, took quick and careful aim and shot the enforcer in one knee cap. The behemoth screamed like a little girl and fell to the ground beside Carter, begging for his life.
Fischetti lowered his gun. When he looked up, the Silver Man and Galatea were gone.
Rafferty bellowed, “Don’t move, Fischetti! We have orders to shoot you if you interfere in any way.”
Fischetti marched toward Carter, refusing to acknowledge Rafferty’s last warning or recognize his authority.
Go ahead! Shoot me, you sorry piece of shit!
He’d made his decision before they left H.Q. He had no choice concerning Montgomery’s capture, but he would go on record as having taken responsibility for the protection of his agents, or die trying. Had Carter lived, the deputy director would have blown the whistle on the whole damn organization and gone willingly to prison to pay for his part in it. But all bets were off now, and Fischetti was ready to make his last stand right here and now.
***
From her vantage point, Seacrest had a clear shot at Rafferty’s head. “Cease fire! Federal Officer!”
If she pulled the trigger, Rafferty as well as every other man on the team knew that she’d hit the bullseye. She never missed. Bill Fischetti was risking his own life to guard Carter’s body, and she would not leave him there undefended. Carter told her to save Monty any way she could if he didn’t make it back to her, and that was exactly what she was going to do.
Rafferty heard her cock her gun and started to sweat. He wasn’t willing to die for a has-been deputy director, and didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d kill him before his team could take her out. He told his men to lower their weapons and waited to hear her terms.
Seacrest placed herself in front of the deputy director and the body of her husband, still aiming for the spot between Rafferty’s eyes. “Anyone who takes one step towards my husband gets his head blown off!
“Now, you listen to me! All of you! You’ve done enough. Enough! You have the ones you came here to protect, and I have the big ape on the ground for insurance purposes and Bill Fischetti. They belong to me now, and I’m taking them out of here. You can’t have them or anyone else on this property, so go home before I kill every last one of you, myself!”
The S.W.A.T. team had no real reason for staying, having the two JASONS they came for. Agent Carter was no longer a problem. Several men had already combed the area searching for Montgomery, but he was nowhere to be found. They’d have to get him another day. The team dispersed slowly, sheep-faced and sullen, without waiting for confirmation from Rafferty. Seacrest never backed down, and they knew it. Not one man among them wanted to fight her tonight.
***
Seacrest dropped to the ground and cradled Carter’s head in her lap.
Fischetti laid his hand softly on her head and said to the man lying perfectly still in her arms, “Thanks, Agent Carter, and good-bye. You were the conscience of the outfit. You never gave up, and you never gave in. Rest easy now, son. We’ll get them all. I promise.”
He knew Seacrest needed to be alone with her husband before help arrived, so he moved the sobbing giant to a nearby tree where they’d be sheltered from the bitter wind. Fischetti tore a long strip of cotton off the bottom of his own shirt to use as a tourniquet for the man’s knee. The next order of business was to call 911 for a couple of ambulances. He sat down next to his prisoner, and without saying another word, waited until help arrived. Fischetti road in the ambulance with the enforcer and stayed with him all night at the hospital, desperate to give him the comfort he couldn’t give to Carter.
***
Seacrest bent her head down to Carter’s face and stroked his hair. He was so handsome, even now. The catharsis came upon her in an overwhelming storm of tears. They cascaded over the sharp curves and smooth plains of her face and down onto his. There was so much to say, but the words just wouldn’t come yet.
In a voice strangled by grief she’d never been prepared for, Seacrest sang to him. It was Stardust, their song, the one they danced to at their wedding reception, every New Year’s Eve since then, and at the Jazz Standard just a few nights ago. She knew the lyrics, but had never given serious thought to them; it was the melody they loved so much. But now, she heard herself singing words that came from a place of deep sadness and regret for things left undone and the loss of a love so profound that the wound would never heal. She understood the lyrics for the song Stardust now, because they were written in her heart.
…And now the purple dusk of twilight time steals across the meadows of my heart
High up in the sky the little stars climb, always reminding me that we’re apart.
You wandered down the lane and far away, leaving me a song that will not die
Love is now the stardust of yesterday, the music of the years gone by.
Sometimes I wonder why I spend the lonely nights dreaming of a song.
The melody haunts my reverie, and I am once again with you,
When our love was new and each kiss an inspiration.
But that was long ago, and now my consolation is in the stardust of a song.
Beside a garden wall, when stars are bright, you are in my arms.
The nightingale tells his fairytale of paradise, where roses grew.
Though I dream in vain, in my heart it will remain
My stardust melody, the memory of love's refrain.
She threw herself across his body, crying for all the years they’d never have together and all the days and nights she’d be alone with nothing but her broken heart as a reminder of how much his love had transformed her life.
You were my heart, Carter. How can I live without my heart?
Seacrest had made a promise to Carter long ago. She remembered it now and kept her word. Looking up at the heavens, she said a prayer:
“Please God, take care of him. He was a good man, and he loved me so, so much! He died the way he lived, protecting other…p…people. Every soul he touched was a little kinder and gentler for having touched his own. Bestow upon him your divine grace now and forever. Amen.”
Searching the sky, she saw, or thought she saw, a group of stars in the shape of a tree with many branches. At the very top, one star glowed just a little brighter than the rest. Seacrest smiled, knowing that wherever he’d gone, Carter was content.