Girl Undercover 6 & 7: Emma's Secret & The Truth (15 page)

“I introduced myself, apologizing for not knowing her name.”

“You told her your real name?”

“Yes. Well, the name I was going under while undercover—James Morton. I didn’t offer anything besides my name, though, hoping that she would reveal more about herself first.”

“And did she?”

“Yes, she told me her name was Jutta Rubin and that she was one of the lab technicians. Then she asked me if I was coming to the luncheon the next day. I said that I had a few luncheons to go to the next day, so I wasn’t sure which one she was referring to. She blushed a little and apologized, explaining that she meant the one with all the doctors and lab personnel at the Pavillion. I knew then that I had used the right approach in claiming that I had more than one luncheon to go to. She clearly thought I was someone more important than she’d first assumed and that embarrassed her.”

“Go on.”

“I told her that I wasn’t going to that one, and then said I had to get going as I had another luncheon to attend. To that she said, ‘yes, of course, I’m sorry to have bothered you, Mr. Morton. I know you politicians have a busy schedule. Thank you for coming to visit us today.’”

“Politicians? She thought you were a politician? Why would she think that?”

“At the time, I had no idea, but as I learned more about what I had stumbled upon, it soon became clear to me. Right then, it suited me to have her believe this. I needed to get out of this strange lab with all those sleeping people as quickly as possible. I didn’t think Mr. Baumann—that’s the name of the scientist I was supposed to have met up with that day—had intended for me to come here. So I said goodbye and left.”

I nodded. “And then what did you do?”

“The second I was back in my car, I checked the email Mr. Baumann had sent me about today’s meeting. I remembered that I’d thought it sounded off when I first read it, but I was running late, so I didn’t have time to worry about such details. Now that I read it again it made sense to me why I had thought it sounded so off.”

“Off how?”

Ian had a sip of his wine. “The style of the email was much more informal than the usual emails he sent me. In this one, he hadn’t bothered to greet me before launching into the message. He didn’t even begin with my name. All the message contained was a demand that we meet at the north lab and the directions how to get there and the time he wanted to meet. So I went. But he had obviously intended to send that to someone else.”

“To someone at The Adler Group?”

“Yes, that’s what I determined when I did some digging and found out that Baumann was employed by Adler. In addition to the digging I did as soon I was back at my hotel in Zurich, tapping the luncheon at the Pavillion the next day made it all come together for me.”

“Ah.” I smiled. “I see you’ve had practice using those recording chips.”

“Yes, they’ve proven invaluable to get to the bottom of what was going on in that lab. In labs all across the
world.
” He exhaled. “Anyway, the next day I went to the luncheon, which was in a separate room at the restaurant. It turned out to be more of a rally than a formal sit-down lunch. All the attendees there congratulated each other for being part of the new world. After listening in on that meeting, I knew that The Adler Group was behind this, and it was confirmed to me yet again that they’d spent decades to develop superior humans using animal genes. I learned that the goal is to create a world void of weak links.”

I frowned. “Weak links? What exactly does that mean?”

“That’s what the speaker at the luncheon kept calling them—weak links. According to him, the plan is to weed out any person that’s not perfect one by one until they’re all extinct. That’s what Senator Eastwood was discussing in her emails with someone at Adler. Remember how Emma said that in her letter? How they’re going to rate everyone from one to five?”

“Right, I do remember that.” I had a big gulp of wine. “My God, this is just
so
sick…”

“I know, but sadly, that doesn’t make it any less real.”

“So what did you do after that day? You contacted your supervisor at the FBI in the U.S? Or did you already know Americans were involved in this thing? Did they all speak English?”

“No, they all spoke German.”

“Really? Even that lab technician you bumped into?”

“Yep.”

“Do you speak German?”

Ian nodded. “Yes, I do. And French, Spanish and some Russian.”

I whistled. “Wow… I’m impressed.” I really was. Being merely bilingual myself, I felt dwarfed next to Ian now. “You speak those languages fluently?”

“Yes. My mother was French, so I grew up speaking two languages. When you know more than one, I’ve found that it becomes easier to pick up another.”

Yes, if you bother,
I thought but didn’t say, feeling lazy now. If we were able to stop these freaks from realizing their worldview, I’d have to learn at least one more language. Like Mandarin or Arab or something else super difficult just to show Ian that I could.

“Right,” I muttered. “So you must’ve hoped this was strictly a German thing then?”

“Yes. Though the fact that Baumann’s email to that Adler executive had been written in English should’ve tipped me off that it was a lot bigger than I wanted to admit to myself. That, and the sheer number of labs. While tapping the luncheon, I learned they have three additional labs like the one I accidentally stumbled upon in the Zurich metropolitan area alone. And from what I now know based on my investigations, they have similar labs in key cities across the world. But you’re right. At the time, I was hoping it was just a German extremist movement.”

“So you contacted the FBI back home then?”

“Yes, I spoke to my supervisor about it.”

“He must’ve thought you were bullshitting him.” I smiled at Ian.

“No, actually he accepted what I had to tell him quite quickly. Which also should’ve tipped me off that it was a lot, lot bigger than what I originally thought. I should’ve figured he might be in on it. He and others at the FBI. I think I was just so freaked out about all the insane stuff I had learned in those two days that I wasn’t paying attention, never mind thinking clearly.”

“That’s perfectly understandable. What did your handler back home say?”

“For me to stay put and continue my work at the company I worked for while he alerted the head of national security as well as the deputy director. From what I gathered of our conversation, they would then put together a task force to nip this in the bud.” Ian grimaced. “Those were Sinclair’s words, not mine.”

“Sinclair? Is that the name of your handler?”

“Yes. John Sinclair.” He chuckled to himself. “The calmness he used while discussing all this with me, barely asking for any details should have instantly told me he was in on it. But I just kept thanking him, relieved that something was going to be done about this secret organization that had been planning so much evil for so long.”

I nodded. “Then when did you realize Sinclair was in on it?”

“When the weeks just kept going by, turning into months, and I never got any updates from him. He told me he’d give me a heads-up when it was time for me to join the task force. Also, I was doing my own research into The Adler Group and slowly but surely realizing just how incredibly secure their network is. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get inside their computers. So I resorted to shadowing people to learn more about the organization. As you can imagine, that was very time-consuming and inefficient, but that was all I could do. And I did get a better picture of exactly what was going on. I began to suspect that people back home were involved as well. I refused to believe it for the longest time. It was only when I told Sinclair that I wanted to come home that I finally accepted how big it all really was. Like you, I didn’t want to believe it at first. It seemed impossible people that I’d always considered sane weren’t.”

“What happened when you asked to come home?”

“He told me the only way I’d be able to come back home was if I agreed to become part of the organization. That’s basically how he broke the news to me.”

“The organization?” I tilted my head. “As in The Adler Group?”

“Yes, I needed to become one of them if I wanted to return as Ian Armory, not James Morton. That’s when I understood Sinclair was one of them and had been from the moment I called him to tell him about it. I asked him how many were involved at the Bureau. He snapped at me to stop asking so many questions and just be happy that I was still alive. That he was giving me a chance to not only stay alive, but to be part of the ones that would rule over the weaker links until they were extinct. I refused, said I could never be a part of something so evil. I’d rather be dead first. He told me I had twenty-four hours to reconsider, then I was cut off.”

“Cut off?” I felt my eyes widening a touch. “What’s
that
supposed to mean?”

“I wasn’t sure myself and I never got a chance to ask him to clarify because he hung up on me. I remember sitting in my apartment in Berlin thinking that after those twenty-four hours had passed, I would be killed somehow. I would have an accident or a sniper would get me. It didn’t matter; I didn’t need any time to reconsider. There was no bloody chance I’d ever be part of what these maniacs were planning, no matter what would happen to me.”

I put my emptied wineglass on the coffee table. Ian instantly filled it with more wine. “But nothing happened to you, correct?”

“Correct,” he said. “Instead, a couple of days later during which I’d been sleeping with my gun in my hand, waiting for something to happen to me, Sinclair faxed me some of the articles that had been written about me in the national press. Like the one you like to mention. The one in the
Washington Post.
”

I sipped on my wine. “Hmm. I wonder why they didn’t just have you killed instead.”

“Like I’ve told you before, I wonder that as well. Still wonder. They must have their reasons for wanting to keep both you and me alive. At this point, there can’t be much doubt that they know you’re aware of what’s going on. I’m still convinced that your husband was killed by them, and that the reason they made it seem like Cardoza was behind it was only so that no one would suspect the real killers. They just needed to get your husband out of the picture before he learned more about The Adler Group and what they’re up to.”

I thought about Ian’s words. I had to agree that it must be the way he said.

“What did you think when you received those articles?” I asked him.

“At first I thought it was just something they’d fabricated and hoped I would believe had actually been in print. That way I wouldn’t even try to alert others in the government. On the bright side, having received and read those articles, I now figured fewer people in the U.S. were involved than I’d come to fear. Obviously they were worried I’d tell on them and wanted me discredited. Well, me to
think
I was discredited at least.”

“So how did you find out that everyone actually believed you’d been sentenced for a crime you didn’t commit and then served five months in prison, not to mention being a druggie?”

“After I flew back to the U.S. and requested back issues of the
Post
. After I saw that, I called the prison where I supposedly had served my sentence, pretending to be a reporter and asked about myself. The prison warden himself confirmed that I’d been serving time at his prison, which meant he was clearly in on it.” Ian snorted. “Apparently, I’d been a fairly obedient prisoner… Around that time, two men claiming to be from the FBI visited me in the hotel room I stayed in while in D.C. and demanded I give them my badge, ID and gun. I instantly realized something was off with them, so I claimed to have handed in all the items as soon as I landed on American soil. They told me they’d verify this and if I was lying, they’d be back. I never heard from the Bureau or them again. It’s been several months since their visit.”

“It’s odd they let you keep your identification and gun after going through all that trouble to make it seem like you’re now an ex-con with substance abuse problems.”

“No more odd than that they let me stay alive when I know so much about them if you think about it. At least Sinclair knows that I’m the kind of guy who’ll do anything to stop them. He and I go way back. They probably figured it didn’t really matter if I kept my badge and gun. Anyway, shortly after that I headed to New York to become a member at Nikkei Sports Club as my investigations had repeatedly confirmed they used this club as a form of headquarters. And then it didn’t take long until I spotted you.” Ian smiled. “The rest you know.”

Chapter 4

“Okay, I’m still waitin’ for you to tell me that all of this is a joke,
chica,
” Dante said in my ear. “You sure you’re not on crack or somethin’?”

“Unfortunately, my mind’s perfectly clear and I’m not kidding around. Wish I was. No, all of it is true.”

After I finally left Ian’s house, I went to buy a disposable cell phone to use when calling Dante. The disposable had been per Ian’s recommendation; wiretapping prevention software or not, we still couldn’t be one hundred percent sure the computer whizzes at Adler hadn’t been able to get through it. I wanted my best guy friend to know everything that I now knew and see if there was a way he could help us; he and Jose were after all very resourceful people. Also, I just needed to talk about it with someone other than Ian that I could trust. Someone who would take everything I told him seriously, though I was beginning to have my doubts about that now.

“Hello,” I said when he didn’t say anything else. “Dante, are you still there? I’m telling you, it’s
all
true. I would never joke around about something like that.”

“No, I know that
…
I’m just fuckin’ in shock is all. Can you blame me?”

“No, I can’t. That’s exactly how I felt when I finally accepted the truth. Ian’s been telling me about it since the day I got here, but I refused to buy it. It just seemed too… unbelievable. That’s why told you to make sure you sat down before I told you everything and that you had the time to listen. I figured you’d react this way.”