Chapter 16: Secret Agent Man
October 27 – Late Afternoon, Area 51
The black suited man walked down the stairs of the private jet, file folder inside of a briefcase in hand. His concealed Glock 22 .40S&W in his holster under his suit coat pressing against his chest. While he walked he could feel his second pistol, a Walther PPQ M2 9mm, behind his back right above his belt rubbing against his spine. He also felt his KBAR combat knife sheath hidden in his boot as he continued towards two guards. ‘You can’t be too prepared,’ he thought to himself.
“Agent Finley?” one asked. “Please come with us,” they politely asked. They led him inside the office section of the base. The boots *clicked* and *clacked* against the freshly waxed floor as they walked down several corridors. They reached the office with the name plaque on the door saying ‘Colonel James Hernandez.’ The two guards stopped suddenly and the spy turned around to look at them before turning back around to knock on the door.
“Come in,” was the response from the other side. The spy walked in. “Agent Finley,” the colonel said as he turned around to meet the spy’s eyes. “Your boss called to say you were coming. Please, have a seat,” he said gesturing to the chair in front of his desk. The spy took a seat, “So you’re here to investigate the incident involving Subject Delta, correct?” he said as he took a seat himself.
“Yes colonel, the Joint Chiefs are not shocked that such a thing happened, but the Director isn’t convinced. He thinks that the Chinese, North Koreans, Iranians, or another foreign agency have an agent that sabotaged the formula used on poor-” he trailed as he looked at the patient file, “Private David Barnes.” He set the file back in the briefcase. “I do assume that you’ll be giving us your complete cooperation?”
“Of course, Agent Finley. If it’s in the interests of national security and the future of this project, you will have the complete cooperation of all personnel.”
“Good,” Finley replied including one of his rare smiles. Spies by nature are natural actors. “I will need to interview all personnel involved on the project, including those who caught word of it.”
“Yes, of course. I’ll start the recall of all persons off base immediately,” Hernandez said as he started to dial a number on his phone.
“Good. Start sending them to the conference room one at a time, I might as well start with those who are here,” the spy said as he stood up and exited the office.
***
Meanwhile at the Briggs residence…
Spitfire had been clinging to me for the last two hours crying, and honestly I don’t blame her. She’s trapped indefinitely on another world with me as her only source of comfort. Her tears had soaked the entire right side of my shirt I was wearing, until her tear ducts ran dry that is. She remained sobbing until she had fallen asleep clinging to me. She had been out for a good hour or two before I looked at the clock. It was about time for me to get ready for work, I told my boss that I’d be able to come in tonight. I gently set Spits down on the couch as I stood up and covered her with a blanket that I kept on the couch in case either of us got cold. I quickly showered before getting into my work attire. Wings are annoying to hide, I sort of feel guilty of giving Spits a hard time about it. Well I was always playful about it though.
I looked back into the living room and Spits was still sleeping as peaceful as she could, all things considering. I grabbed my leather jacket before heading out to the garage and getting on my motorcycle. The drive to work was uneventful. There was a high-speed chase that I got to see at an intersection. It was interesting, that’s for sure. Who am I kidding, it was a car and three squad cars chasing it. Nothing special about it at all. I got to work as soon as I got inside the bar.
“So where did you go off to?” my co-worker asked.
“I was in the hospital. Car crash,” I replied without looking at her while I started washing out a pint glass.
She laughed, “Well you look pretty good for a guy who was in a car accident big enough to put him in the hospital for a week.”
“Yeah, car crash,” I echoed. If only she knew. I cleaned another glass as a customer sat down in my section of the bar. I looked up and saw that said customer was wearing marine fatigues. “Welcome to the Shadow of Vegas, what can I get you, soldier?”
“A High Life,” he answered. I poured the beer from the tap before giving it to him. He handed me the cash. As I put it in the cash drawer I saw a piece of paper also mixed in with the bills.
On it said, ‘Come to the base immediately, bring Sam. –Colonel H.’ I quickly threw it away in the trash bin under the register. Great, sounds like I have to make a late night run to the base again. I went through the kitchen and left, well I left a note saying that family emergency that needed to be taken care of. I wonder how much longer my boss will put up with me before he just up and fires me.
I arrived home and I saw Spits on the couch with an entire quart of ice cream while watching, of all things, The Terminator, the blanket that was wrapped around her from before was draped around her like a jacket. “Oh hey, why are you back so early?” she asked with a slightly happier demeanor.
“We’ve been called back to base. Apparently it’s an emergency,” I said grabbing her shoes and coat.
“Well what could be that important?” she said while shrugging off the blanket and putting the ice cream back in the freezer.
“Well it was important enough for the good colonel to do a dead drop message on me,” I replied as I gave Spits her coat and shoes.
She started putting on her shoes, “A dead drop, you mean like-?”
“Yeah like spies,” I replied as she put on her coat. “I’m going to be honest, I don’t like this one bit.”
***
A few hours later in Area 51…
We had been sitting out here in this glorified waiting room for a good 3 hours. One of the team that worked on that gene splicing project went in, and then came out later looking either relieved or terrified. Whoever was doing these ‘interviews’ must be something else.
***
Meanwhile…
Agent Finley looked at the scientist across the table. Time slowed down to a standstill. Within the blink of an eye he knew everything about this guy based on his body language and how to approach him. He was a pushy scientist that got everything he wanted. “Hey buddy, why am I even in here?” the scientist asked with annoyance seeped into every word.
‘I definitely know how to approach him,’ Finley thought to himself. “Dr. Grimwald, do you know who I am?” he asked slamming down the file folder.
“No and why should I?” Gimwald said crossing his arms in an attempt to show how annoyed he was.
“I am the guy that Washington sends to clean up the messes people like you make out of either incompetence or ignorance. So which one was it? Incompetence or ignorance?” he asked rhetorically. “So what happened last week, with Pvt. Barnes?”
“I don’t know,” he said with a little shakiness in his voice. “All I know is that the specimen to be injected as inspected for purity before injection a few hours later. There were no anomalies detected.”
“Well the fact still remains that poor Barnes is on ice until further notice, so what could have happened?”
Grimwald thought for a second, “Well someone could have swapped out the vial used on the private with one with corrupted genomes.”
“Who would have had access to that?”
“Well me, the colonel, the source itself, and any technician working on the sequencing.”
“You said the source, you mean Subject Zero aka Samantha Briggs, wife of Lt. Briggs aka Subject Alpha?” Finley asked. “Now how would she be involved if her husband turned out just fine?”
“Well one of the technicians may have read the genome upside down or something from her base DNA that was given to us.”
Finley turned his head towards the one-way mirror, “You got that?” There was a single knock from the window, meaning ‘yes.’ “Dr. Grimwald, that’ll be all. For now.” A soldier came in and escorted the doctor out, “Please send in Mrs. Briggs if you please, bring her husband too,” he said to the guard. ‘Now to see how this one goes,’ he thought taking a drink of water.
***
Back in the “waiting room”…
Another scientist came out back from the interview room, he looked quite shaken up, not stirred at all. I had a smug little grin on my face, I never did like that scientist guy, he was always a dick to everyone. Always telling you what to do and forcing his opinions on you, mainly the political ones. Yeah it sort of gets irritating after a while, you know? The only time I’ve been able to get him to shut up is by threatening to shoot him in the kneecap, which I have been close to doing for a while now.
“Mr. and Mrs. Briggs?” a guard said walking into the room. “He’ll see you now.”
“Well, here goes nothing,” Spits said as I helped her up from the chair. He led us into an impromptu interrogation room. Impromptu because I knew that this was the conference room and not some cell deep underground. Inside already was the black suited man. As we were sitting down I could see something in his eye, he was examining us. Well two can play at that game.
***
Agent Finley looked at the duo. ‘She has an air of confidence and authority, but an undertone of recent mental trauma.’ He looked at the man across from him. ‘He definitely has some anger issues, and based on how he’s looking at her he’s overprotective of her.’
***
A/N: It is assumed that Andrew cannot hear what Agent Finley is thinking and neither can the other characters hear each other’s thoughts. I’m trying to save space so we don’t end up with a bunch of the previous paragraph: a section, a paragraph or line, section, etc. So this next section is a hybrid 1st/3rd person narrative. Andrew is still the guy telling the story (first person), everyone else is in the third person.
“Mr. and Mrs. Briggs my name is Chuck Finley, and to be honest I need your guys’ help,” he said sincerely. ‘She doesn’t need to be pushed around. Be friendly,’ he thought to himself while looking at Spitfire. “I’m one of the guys that the government calls in to take care of messes of a… classified nature.”
Wait a second. Shifty eyes, black suit, works for the government on classified things. He’s a spy, either CIA or DIA. “Do you know Private David Barnes?” he asked as he pulled out a photo of him and set it on the table.
“Sort of,” I replied. “We talked a few times in the cafeteria, but that’s about it.” I gave the picture back. “From what ‘airs’ he had I assumed he was a nice kid.”
“Well last week when you were out cold something happened to him, something not too pleasant.” He saw Spits look down in realization, “You know what I’m talking about, don’t you Mrs. Briggs?” he asked.
“I only heard the rumors about what happened,” she replied. ‘I really do not want to think about that,’ she thought to herself.
“I’m sorry, but I’m a little confused, WHAT happened while I was out?” I asked slightly irritated. I could definitely tell Spits was trying to hide something and that spy definitely knew what was going on.
He opened the file to a sheet of paper, from the looks of it an incident report. “At approximately 1300 hours local time on Wednesday the sixteenth Private David Barnes was injected with an experimental gene manipulation cocktail, however the results were not as they were supposed to be.”
“What do you mean by-?” I started to ask but was cut off.
“Let’s just say the results weren’t pretty to look at,” Finley replied. He pulled out another piece of paper, “Around the base there were power fluctuations which almost caused the fusion reactor under the base to critical. Experimental aircraft spontaneously combusted, gravity reversed itself multiple times a second in separate areas of the base, lightning struck multiple structures causing the metal to melt. After Barnes was sedated heavily he was put into cryogenic stasis.”
“And the air smelt like fudge,” Spitfire added. “But there wasn’t any fudge around.”
“All of that is pretty chaotic, but that last one is just weird,” I said while scratching my head. “So how does us talking to you help you in your investigation? You already know I was sedated for a week, what more can I tell you?”
“Simply by asking questions and seeing how the recipients react,” Finley replied. “Do you know what I used to be before the ‘company’ recruited me?” Spits and I both shook our heads, “I used to be a homicide detective with the NYPD and before that I was in the Marines.”
“And?”
“If there’s anyone who is going to figure it out, it’s going to be me.” He opened another folder, “So Lieutenant, officially you’re listed off the book as Samantha’s handler, yes?”
“Wait, what?” I asked in surprise.
“Yes, right here you’re listed not only as her handler, but her bodyguard.”
“What does that ‘handler’ part mean?” Spits asked with as much confusion as I had.
“In the spy world it would mean that you would report to him during an assignment for updates on the mission. In this instance however, I have no idea. Anyway,” he said trying to get the interview back on topic. “Samantha, may I call you Samantha? There was an odd red flag on your name that was hidden almost immediately, care to explain why?”
“Just how high is your clearance?” I asked cutting Spits off before she could speak, saying something that she shouldn't say.
“I know as much as the Director does on this little project you’re involved in.”
“Does that mean you know-?”
“Where she’s from? Yes. I would just rather hear it out of her mouth though,” he said with a smile. “Where were we, ah yes, the red flag being covered up. It seems as though you have some friends in high places in order to pull something like that off.” A phone started ringing. We looked all around us for the source, it was coming from the G-man himself. He picked it up, “Yes?” his expression shifted into one of shock. “When? Now? Where?” he responded to the other side of the line. “Yes sir, I’ll call you back.” He put the phone away, “Well it looks like we’re going to have to put this off until another time,” he said while walking out of the conference room.
“What was that all about?” Spits asked me as I helped her up.
“Whatever it was it seemed really important,” I replied as we walked out.
***
A/N: The bracketed dialogue is another language translated to English for the sake of some mystery and suspense of what nationality they are.
Unknown location at Area 51, a few minutes prior…
“[Yes sir, the formula that you have me was successful in causing an adverse reaction,]” the shadowy man said into his satellite phone.
“[And that adverse reaction?]” the deep baritone voice asked from the other end.
“[Genetic mutations far beyond what we could have ever dreamed. It should be in the report on the USB left at the dead drop.]”
“[Our local agent sent us word not too long ago that he had retrieved it, the data is being transferred as we speak.]”
“[I do have some troubling news though, they have a member of the CIA looking into the incident, and someone up top has a hunch that it was sabotaged.]”
“[It was sabotaged, in case you’ve forgotten,]” the man said condescendingly.
“[My orders, sir?]”
“[Keep your head down. If he finds you out kill him and find your way to the safe house for extraction, preferably with as much data and samples as you possibly can carry. In the meantime see if you can get a sample dead dropped once suspicions have dropped.]”
“[Of course sir, it will be done,]” he said before ending the call. He threw it into a metal barrel before also throwing a pack of thermite next to the phone. He lit a match and threw it into the barrel and watched it ignite. He quickly made his way back to the common area. He blended into a group of scientists heading to dinner. As he reached the common area he saw the spy hunting him going to the place he came from. For now he had made a clean escape.
***
Agent Finley looked at the smoldering mess in front of him. All of it was metal slag and plastic, plastic which he assumed was the satellite phone whose signal they detected leaving the facility.
“Sir,” a female soldier came up to him. “We’ve analyzed the chemical composition of the accelerant, it was thermite.”
“Is there any way to get anything out of that?” Finley asked with some hope.
The Tech Sargent sighed, “We’ll see what we can do, but I’m not going to promise anything. That thing's melted more than rock dipped in magma, it’ll be a miracle if anything survived that.” The woman walked back over to the slag.
“Are there any cameras looking over this area,” Finley asked another soldier.
“Sorry sir, but this area was scheduled for maintenance and the power was turned off as per OSHA safety standards. None of the cameras were on during the time of the signal’s discovery.”
‘Well this is a load of bullshit,’ he thought angrily to himself. ‘What is the director going to say when I tell him we missed the foreign agent?’ His phone started ringing. “Speak of the devil,” he muttered. “Director? I’ve got some bad news, we missed him.”