Episode 3: Secrets, Lies and Microchips
Outside the Legacy Infirmary
A huge brownstone structure loomed above Tony Wolfe. The unassuming building was not quite what he was expecting. Tony checked the address again just to make sure he had the right place. It was pocketed between two retail establishments. On a small placard was the word infirmary. That small rectangular piece of wood was the only indication that this place was a medical or clinical anything. Gazing up at the crumbling and deteriorating brick surface, he marveled at how very unlike a hospital it was. A hospital, yet not a hospital.
The street today was crowded. Tony moped his shiny, ebony face. He'd been playing basketball earlier and hadn't had time to shower. He hoped whomever he was meeting here was okay with a slight case of body odor. It wasn't that he smelled bad. It was just that he disliked not presenting a perfect image to people. His family had a reputation to maintain, a reputation they'd worked long and hard to achieve.
Tony stepped forward into the gates enclosing the small grassy area surrounding the structure. The building reminded him of the saying, 'don't judge a book by its cover.' The maxim definitely applied. As his eyes traveled up the tall, eerie looking building, Tony noticed that no one peered down from a window above. In fact, every window appeared exactly the same. The blinds, all of them, covered half the distance between sills. Suddenly, Tony had a strange picture in his head of a building's fake front held up by slats like a shell from a movie back lot.
Maybe that was it. That's what bothered him. It wasn't real enough. No two windows should have their shades pulled down too exactly the same spot. It wasn't natural. In fact, considering the odds, and on top of that the laziness of people these days, it wasn't possible. Rows and rows of windows exactly the same. Something about this building just wasn't right.
Even in his hesitation, Tony couldn't get the picture of worry out of his mind. He'd received a mysterious call not more than an hour ago asking him to come down to this address and take care of a friend. The caller had been very vague and only related that it was extremely important that Tony come as quickly as possible. Tony wondered what was so pressing that he was pulled from one of his team's most important basketball games.
In an apartment, on the bad side of St. Louis
The area was a darkened, hollowed out shell of a room, completely bare except for the necessities. This was where Evie Raines lived, and had lived since the death of her parents. Even though Darien Wolfe, a nice black man with an evil tormenting son named Tony, had adopted her, Evie still felt like she deserved to live in the ransacked old apartment. It suited her, better than the glamorous suite Tony and his family lived in.
From the shadows all that was visible was her stringy, dark, straight hair that seemed not only greasy but not cared for. The young girl, nearly sixteen, fumbled with a device that looked to be pieced together by spare parts from various technical devices. She picked up the worn phone and dialed a secure number that her foster father had made her memorize in case of emergencies. Fumbling with the device she had created, the phone rang through to a desk in a secret location far below the city of London.
She placed the device over the mouthpiece and used a low, monotone voice, hoping that no one on the other end would recognize her.
"Hello?" Jeffrey Sogard picked up his private extension and continued to pound away at the keyboard. He could see Philip Lancaster glaring down at him. Today was not exactly the best day for private phone calls. He could almost imagine steam coming out of Philip's ears. Jeffrey tried to make his fingers work faster. Sometimes the directors managed to forget that these reports took time. They didn't magically type themselves.
"Hello," he tried, again.
"Yes," Evie said, talking through the device. "I was wondering about the condition of the girl."
"The girl?" Jeffrey asked off handed, breaking the typing speed record.
"The American one."
"Yeah, what about her?" Jeffrey formatted the report making the needed sections bold or smaller in size.
"How is she? Where is she?" Evie's heart was racing, just like it did when she pick-pocketed someone. It was almost like a high, but without drugs.
Jeffrey glanced up at Philip's office window. He still stood in plain view, obviously waiting for his report.
"I'm sorry, I don't have time right now."
Jeffrey nearly hung up the phone but decided to bring it back to his ear when he heard the voice once again.
"Please," Evie begged in her now lower voice. The device was working well. Suddenly, it slipped off a fraction of an inch and her own true voice registered across the phone lines. "Tell me where she is."
"Legacy Infirmary. Sorry, I really have to go now." Jeffrey hung up and grabbed the sheets that were quickly sliding out of the laser printer. He had noticed a slight difference in vocal tone in the caller's last sentence, but shook it off quickly. Philip really needed that report. Then he remembered that the American agent wasn't in the infirmary any longer. She was in the morgue.
John Ellison watched Mackenzie Gray and Nigel Bennett from a remote location where they had a video feed capturing the images of the two operatives employed by the elusive Knights Foundation.
"Well, Teryl. Your plan worked. There he is." John's Irish lilt infected his voice. It was a tone that hadn't been obvious earlier. "There he is," he said again, as if he feared this day would never come. Or maybe it was as if he knew it would.
The edges of Teryl's mouth lifted in a slight grin, her eyes consumed with the vision of Mac Gray.
"It did, didn't it. It worked. I never doubted it for a minute. I took away the one thing in this miserable world he adored. How could he not respond and come after the those responsible? He is, after all, a man of honor. A man of justice."
"And now, sister dear, he is a man of vengeance. Let's not forget that."
"It went beautifully, John. Don't jinx a job well done." Teryl paced around the apartment they shared in the penthouse of one of the most expensive hotels in Athens. The same one, it turned out, Mac was staying in.
"But don't you think it was a wee bit premature to kill his girlfriend?" John Ellison stared at his sister as she pulled the short black wig off revealing her long red hair. The gesture completely changed not only her demeanor but her posture as well. For now her back was straight, shoulders squared, and attitude lethal.
John watched her. He couldn't believe how easily she changed from one personality to another - almost as if she truly believed she was each persona she pretended to be. The thought scared him. He didn't want her to turn out like their mother. She had gone insane while they were still children. John feared that his sister might follow their mother down the same path to destruction.
"The girlfriend was an obstacle I just didn't need. After all, how can I get Mac back with her hanging around?" Teryl sighed. "She really did have to go."
John's mouth set in a hard line. "So that's what this is all about? Mac Gray? After all these years you're still obsessed about the man? What has gotten into you, Teryl?" John shook her but Teryl didn't respond to his movement. Her eyes were blank, fixed on the images flitting before her on the monitor.
Mackenzie Gray's mouth set in a hard line and Teryl caressed the screen with her fingertip.
"I wouldn't say obsessed. More like... interested."
"Interested, my ass. We set up this whole scheme to pit the Black Council against the Knights Foundation, not to give you an opportunity to revel in your past."
"Oh, John." Teryl pouted. "Isn't a girl allowed to have a little fun?"
"Have fun later. Right now, we have work to do."
John hefted a case of root beer on the counter. Next to it he slammed down a bottle of aspirin.
"Give these to the kid. He still hasn't completely cracked the code, and until he does - we're stuck with the little brat."
Angel Martinez stared at the jumble of number on the screen and mumbled nonsense to himself.
"Break the code. Have to break the code. Break the code or sister dies. Have to break the code."
Teryl walked into the tiny storage room where Angel was being kept. Empty soda cans littered the floor along with empty economy size aspirin bottles. The only other thing in the room was a computer. Angel gazed intently at the screen and continued to talk to himself. Suddenly both hands flew to his head and he screamed like a child - which is exactly what he was - at least in his mind.
"Pain, much pain." His strangled cry related how true his simple statement was.
"Good Lord," Teryl held her own hands to her ears. "Keep this up and you'll either OD on aspirin or sugar - or both." His shrieks continued and she stepped backward into the hallway hoping it would lessen the sound. It didn't. "Or I'll kill you to quiet you down. Don't tempt me you little mongrel."
Hearing her voice, Angel rushed over and snatched the large bottle of aspirin from her hands. His big brown eyes stared up at her. Guardedly, he tore into the root beer packaging, and opened a soda. Eyeing her warily, he took a big swig on the soda can and followed it with an aspirin chaser.
Within a twenty minutes, Angel was back at it, staring at an endless array of numbers, searching for the hidden similarities among them. Teryl closed the door to the small room-like closet and Angel barely noticed her absence. The kid was a regular Einstein in tennis shoes.
Leaving Angel to his calculations, Teryl focused her attentions elsewhere. She sauntered over to Angel's sister who was securely shacked to the bed, her hair mussed and eyes red from crying.
"You're brother's quite the little Rainman, Raven." She intended it as a compliment but the girl took it as an insult.
"You leave my brother alone, you bitch!" The Hispanic girl lunged at her and drew the chains around her wrists and ankles taut. The backlash swiftly whipped her back into place, cracking her skull against the headboard.
Teryl laughed at the pathetic sight.
"You go ahead and laugh. We will get out of here, and you will pay for kidnaping us."
Raven calmly brushed a long brownish-red hair aside. She wasn't going to let this woman get the best of her. Then, when she could take the redhead's humorless stares no longer, she rattled off a string of words in Spanish.
Teryl only assumed they were vulgarities. She didn't know for sure since she didn't speak Spanish.
"My, my, such language from a child." Teryl grabbed a mass of the girl's hair, and narrowed her eyes. She was through playing games with this youngster.
"Test me again," she spit out. "And I'll make sure both you and your brother end up in a pool of your own blood. That, my dear little Spanish darling, is my personal guarantee."
"Jack, watch where you're going." Nikki Carpenter couldn't help but worry. She already hated flying and doing it in a fly-by-night piece of shit probably only held together by spit and duct tape, didn't make her feel any better.
"Worry not, my lady. Your Knight Jack is here to save you from the impending storm."
Lightening flashed across the sky slicing it like a white knife through black silk.
"Funny, your assurances don't work for me."
They continued their flight east bound. Most of the journey was uneventful, just the way Nikki liked it. She gripped the soft cushion of the seat handle and tried to relax. It was funny, really. She was a trained government agent working for a covert organization inside a covert organization. She faced death on a daily basis, and here she was afraid of flying. It was pathetic.
When you didn't take into account her nasty fear of hitting the ground at mach five, this had been a pretty typical day. Mackenzie had once again ditched her. This habit of his was becoming a regular thing with them. He had to be the macho, jerk, hot shot and save the day, while she, his partner, sat on the sidelines and watched the action. No more! She'd be damned if Gray was going to one up her again. She'd solve this case AND made a mockery out of the name of Mac Gray. Any pesky remnants of feelings she use to have for him would just have to be dealt with later.
Suddenly, a streak of lightening flashed across the sky followed by a bellowing crack of thunder. The airplane rocked as Jack hit the wheel hard left. Nikki's hand crushed into the velour cushion.
"Fly straight, Jack. Straight. No rocking. No turbulence. No nothing."
"Sorry, that's going to be a tad hard since we just hit a major storm crossing our path. I know you're a nervous flyer but, Nikki, I'm here to tell you that I'm a fantastic pilot and you have nothing to worry about."
"Yeah, sure. As I said before, your assurances do nothing for me."
"I'm not going to let you die, Nikki," Jack said, in a more serious tone than she'd ever heard him use.
Nikki tried not to laugh.
"If you even say, 'Because I love you, Nikki,' I'm going to deck you one."
Jack clinched his teeth and remained silent. She was so blind. Paul could see it. Mac could see it. Why couldn't Nikki see it? They had chemistry together. They were meant to be together. It was fate. And Jack wasn't going to let a thing like Nikki's feelings deter them from being together one day. He'd prove to her that he was her one and only dream man.
Nikki sighed. She hated being so hung up on hurting Jack. He was a nice guy. A weird guy but a nice one. There was just something about their relationship that made her want to keep him at arms length. She didn't know what it was. For awhile she thought it was her lingering feelings for Mac, but that wasn't it. Mac would never see her as anything other than his partner. His friend. As another streak of lightening lit up the sky, Nikki decided to put her past with romantic illusions of her and Mac being together behind her and focus on her job. That would be the only way she'd ever forget about him. Nikki jumped at a crack of thunder. Then a pitter pat of rain tattooed a design on the metal skin of the plane.
"No. Not rain." Nikki put her head into her hand. "Could this day get any worse?"
"Not to worry, Nikki my love. God is just trying to make things interesting for ole Jackie boy."
"Tell God he could have chosen a better time to get a sense of humor."
The sky lit up again as if in answer to her question.
"Don't you dare," she threatened, shaking her fist skyward. "I don't want to have to parachute out of this thing."
Jack's face paled. He audibly gulped then mumbled something to himself. Nikki whipped her face toward his.
"What did you say?"
"Nothing." Jack tried to act nonchalant, but it wasn't working. It was obvious to Nikki that something was wrong.
"Tell me." She stressed both words with equal venom.
"I knew there was something I forgot to pack."
Tony Wolfe made his way into the nearly deserted infirmary.
"Geez," he whispered to himself. "Gives doom and gloom a whole new meaning."
A woman's raised voice boomed down the hallway, and Tony followed it to a small window on the left side of the hallway. The clerk, probably forty-ish, was chomping down on a chocolate ice cream cone. The peanut topping flew in all directions as she flailed it about in gesture to whomever she was talking to on the phone. It was a fiery conversation. The person on the other end was obviously annoying the desk clerk. She thrashed her arms up to make a point, and a spray of peanuts launched at him. Tony ducked. The peanuts, thankfully, missed their mark. Her theatrics weren't interesting for more than a few seconds so he moved on down the hallway.
Tony didn't realize how secure the area was. He didn't know what type of hospital this was suppose to be. He also didn't realize there were stealth-like booby traps everywhere. He had unknowingly, moments earlier, stepped through an invisible sensor which sent a signal to the infirmary security team. A group of agents were seconds away and about to pounce on him.
Footsteps pounded down the corridor. The militia group of six men jogged down the hallway. They all carried assault rifles, their footfalls echoing in sync. Tony didn't know what was going on. The sound was getting louder and louder. For a moment he thought he should go back to the desk clerk and ask if she had been the one to leave him a message about his friend, whomever that friend might be. He wished he knew what was going on.
Before the group of agents rounded the corner and came upon Tony's position, a door opened behind him, a hand clamped over his mouth, and someone drew him forcefully into the stairwell.
The Legacy morgue was ringed by pitch-black windows that stared at Alicia Scott like black eyes. They reflected a sudden terror in her soul. A terror that revealed how very much she despised this area of the infirmary. She hated being in places where the deceased lingered. She liked to heal the sick not tend with the dead.
The room was eerie, bathed in a deathly amber light that set a somber mood for the procedure she had to perform. Usually, she didn't mind being alone in the basement, but there was something bothering her. It had been bothering her for months. She didn't like this Artificial Intelligence business. Why couldn't they let the dead die like normal people? Why couldn't they let them rest in peace?
Alicia was the first step in this new process. She implanted the advanced chip in the brain of a dead agent and it alone would revive and restore them to perfect health. She liked the perfect health part. What she didn't like was the part where they became chip-head Legacy slaves for the remainder of their days.
How many of these procedures had she performed? Countless -- too many to remember. She had decided not long ago to render the chips useless. That way, after the dead were healed, the chip would cease to work correctly. It had started with Ethan Fairchild, one of their best agents. He'd come into the morgue after a nasty run in with spear through his heart. That day she discovered he already had a chip in his brain -- nd it wasn't one of their chips! That being the case, she did the only thing she could do, she replaced it with one of the Legacy's chips. Even though the chip didn't function now, it would be easy to make it viable again. She couldn't completely destroy it, otherwise the healing factor of the chip wouldn't work.
Alicia had so many sleepless nights over this issue. Now there was another seasoned Legacy agent, a deep cover operative, before her on the long, flat table where she performed the operations. She hated that she must do this to Theresa Shea, but what was important was that Theresa would live. That's what mattered - life. A second chance.
She began to make her first incision, and set forth in saving lives the only way she knew how.
A nondescript man glanced around suspiciously, taking in the traffic jam that lined Delmar Boulevard. As people passed, no one paid particular attention to him. He was one of those men who could blend into the background. He could be anyone, anywhere, in any location and no one would notice him. It was something he learned in the military. It was something he had a talent for.
The man punched a few numbers into his cell phone and walked down toward the record store.
"Is it done?" John Ellison said, the Irish lilt completely registering in his voice again.
"Yeah, we did as you asked."
"Good. The money will be wired to your account."
"What was in that stuff anyway?" the man asked.
"It's probably better you don't know."
"Yeah, whatever. No skin off my nose. I've been kept in the dark before." The mysterious man paused as a couple walked by him. "I'm just not use to pretending to ice a target. This has to be a first for me."
"I'm happy that I could make your attempted assassination experience an interesting one."
"It sure was that. I don't rightly understand it all though."
"There is no need for you to understand," John stressed. "I merely needed to know that job was completed."
"Yup. Completely completed. Nice doing business with you."
John hung up the extension placing it back on its ornate cradle. At least that was one burden off his mind. He had gone to a lot of trouble to make this happen, but it was worth it. He didn't want an innocent person's death hanging over his head for the rest of his life - no matter what Victor Cross wanted.
Coming up on Legacy of Spies:
Tony and Evie make an unusual discovery.
Raven escapes and runs into more trouble.
And Nigel discovers that Mac knows the Huntress better than he's letting on.
Victor Cross reveals his own stake in cracking the Immortal computer's encryption code.
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