Like Mind (19 page)

“Um…what?”

I'm Stephenson

“Corey, I know you just had an incident. You do remember that you can’t change your appearance, right?” Anka stroked my hand.

“Yes, I know. I’ll mimic his voice and wear a HazMat suit. That’ll work with the evacuation issue and get me inside without too much trouble. I hope.”

“I guess that plan might work, but you’ll have to talk to Stephenson to get his voice. How do you plan to do that?”

“I’ll give him a call. You’ve still got his number, right?”

“Yeah, but remember what happened the last time we used it? He tried to blow us up and he took out Antonio’s plane.”

“Damn him straight to hell,” interjected Gutierrez.

“Yes, I know, but we’ll have
El Tigre
up there taking over drones and all that. He can send his drones after us, but they won’t get to us in time. I’ll have a little conversation and then head in with the HazMat suit on. Oh, we’ll need to get a HazMat suit.”

“We can get one from a hospital,” Grosskopf said, “They have them right off the ER. I can go get us one without too much trouble.”

“Are you kidding me?” Anka looked at the doctor and then back to me. “I guess you’re not. Okay then. Antonio, would you take us to the hospital please?”

“Yes, it will be good. I will blow up Stephenson.”

“Yes, yes. You’ll get your revenge and stuff.”

“Yes. Yes, I will.”

We drove to a hospital, courtesy of the GPS on my phone. While the doctor went inside to liberate a HazMat suit for us, I decided to make a call to Stephenson. My hope was that even he wouldn’t blow up a hospital. I felt vaguely guilty about the use of a human shield, but then I did it anyway.

From the bench outside the hospital I had Anka dial Stephenson’s direct line. It rang once before he picked up with a gruff voice.

“Go for Stephenson.”

“This is agent Fedora,” Anka said as I listened on the speakerphone.

“Yes, agent. How is your progress? I noticed that the… Chinese… attacked Gutierrez’s plane. I’m pleased that you made it out alive.”

“Thank you Director. What’s your next order?”

“Do you have the package with you?”

“Yes sir. He’s secure.”

“Good. I want you to stay put. I have you at…Virginia Mason Hospital. Oh, it looks like you’ve made it very close. Well done agent. Stay there and I’ll send out a team to secure you and bring you both in to headquarters.”

“Thank you sir. Where would you like us to wait sir?”

“Uh…what?”

“Sir, where in the hospital should we wait?”

“In the waiting room, I guess.”

“Very good sir. Thank you sir. One more thing sir.”

“Yes, what?”

“Well sir, if the Chinese and the Cubans are trying to kill us, how will I know whom to trust?”

“Good question agent. You should wait for an agent you know to come to you. Do you remember Agent Mitchel?”

“Vaguely sir. Sir?”

“Yes?”

“I’d really feel more comfortable if you came down here. Otherwise how could I know if the agent has been compromised?”

“Your caution is commendable, Agent Fedora, but it’s unnecessary in this instance.”

“Sir, I don’t think it is. There are multiple foreign governments who want this asset either captured or dead. We had to evade fake FBI agents who were, apparently, working for the Chinese. It has to be you or I’ll take off. I won’t fail my mission, sir.”

“Right. You’re right, of course. I’ll be there as soon as possible. Give me…thirty minutes. Traffic on I-5 is terrible.”

“As usual sir.”

“Ha! Right you are. Well done agent. I’ll make sure you receive a commendation for your work on this.”

“Thank you sir.”

“Stephenson out.”

The line went dead. Anka picked up the phone slipped it into the bushes behind the bench we were sitting on.

“Did you get what you need?” she asked me.

“I hope so. I think I have enough to wing it, but I won’t be able to have any long, drawn-out conversations.”

“Well, I hope it’s enough. Let’s go.”

We piled back in to Gutierrez’s Cadillac. Grosskopf was already there with the suit.

“You have what you need?”
El Tigre
asked.

“Yes, now head to Third Avenue North and Galer Street. We’ve only got a few minutes to do something right.”

“Okay, I’m going.”

Gutierrez took us through the streets of Seattle to the old KING television studios on Queen Anne Hill. After the ten-minute ride we pulled up in front of the giant transmission tower high above Seattle. We could see the whole city laid out for us, but there wasn’t much time to enjoy the view. Anka nearly shoved Antonio out of the driver’s seat as she told him to be ready.

“We’ll be in position in about ten minutes. Give us five more for Corey to get inside and then do your thing. Don’t wait around though, because in twenty minutes the real Stephenson is going to figure out that we’re not at the hospital and call in to headquarters. We need to have things locked down before then.”

“Yes. Then I get to kill him.”

“If it’ll make you happy, you can try. He’ll be at the Virginia Mason Hospital.”

“Where we just were?”

“Yes, we sent him back there. If you can catch him, he’s yours.”

“Great,” he nearly purred with anticipation.

Anka closed the door, adjusted the mirrors and took off. I didn’t know where we were going, but she raced down the steep streets with abandon. I felt like the back of the Escalade was going to flip over the front at times, but she just kept going. Eventually we crossed a bridge and headed east. I was starting to get sick to my stomach when she shouted out to me.

“Get the suit on, we’re almost there.”

I struggled in to the suit in the back of the SUV. I imagine they aren’t easy to get on in normal circumstance, but this made it nearly impossible. By the time I had everything situated and the headpiece in place, she pulled up to a park. I recognized it. It was Gas Works Park. It was an old gasification plant that the city had turned into a park. It still has various arcane pipes and towers from its industrial past.

“Go to the three towers across from the bathrooms. They’re the ones not behind the fence. Go to the tallest one and find the three circles on the back side. On the bottom circle you’ll find a notch at about the two hundred and fifty degree angle. Reach inside the notch and tap out the Morse Code for S-O-S.”

“Um…then what happens?”

“Then the communicator will come on and it’s up to you to figure out how to use Stephenson’s words to get you inside.”

“Okay. Where are the stairs once I get inside?”

“Here I drew you a map while we were getting here from the hospital.”

She handed me the McDonald’s napkin, which I studied closely.

“You’ve got five minutes before Gutierrez sets off the evacuation. You have to get inside and into the stairwell before then or they’ll catch us. Then, they’ll probably kill us after they torture us.”

“So, no pressure?”

She smiled and those dimples gave me hope. Anka leaned forward and kissed the window of the HazMat suit. I wished that I wasn’t dying so I could run away with her.

Infiltration Deux

I walked over to the tower Anka specified. It was a rusty red color with odd concrete wickets beside it. Next to it were two shorter towers. They looked like giant, rusted out spray cans that were left there from a bygone age.

I waddled a bit in my HazMat suit and people gave me strange looks as I wandered through the park. Moms rushed away with children and dogs on leashes just barked at me.

I found the circle she’d mentioned and I ran my gloved fingers around the circumference. On the lower left-hand side I felt the notch and pressed it in rhythm. Short, short, short. Long, long, long. Short, short, short. I repeated the only bit of Morse code I knew again and again. I got to thinking about how something so antiquated could still have a use in a world of drones, smart phones and brain-zapping scientists.

The sound from the speaker startled me. I think I was expecting the funky eye from Jabba’s palace or something.

“Who is this? Why are you in a HazMat suit?”

I called up Stephenson’s voice and words in my head and made my voice reflect his.

“Go for Stephenson.”

“Sir?”

“Yes agent.”

“Um, sir, what are you doing back? You said you were going to take a long lunch.”

Uh… “Well done agent.”

“Thank you sir?”

“Good.”

“Why are you outside sir? Why didn’t you come in the entrance? Why are you in a HazMat suit? Sir, what’s going on?”

Crap, now what. “Um…the…Chinese…attacked headquarters.”

“Sir, our board is green. There are no attacks.”

“I’ll send out a team to secure…the package.”

“I don’t know what that means. What’s the package?”

“I’ll be there as soon as possible.”

“Be where? You’re already here. Why don’t you just come inside?”

“Your caution is commendable…but unnecessary in this instance.”

I was running out of material and I still needed to get him to open the door. I decided to try and improvise. I did my best Stephenson imitation and hoped the suit would filter out the differences.

“I need you to open the door right now,” then I went back to the phrases I had heard, “I’ll make sure you receive a commendation for your work on this.”

“Um…”

I heard him conference with someone else because he forgot to switch off the microphone. The other person asked if he’d run a voice analysis. He had and it came back as Stephenson. So he should let me in if he didn’t want to be transferred to the Forks listening post.

“Okay, Director, I’m opening the door. Stand back.”

“Stephenson out.”

I stepped back and waited for the door to open. I figured I had about a minute left before Gutierrez started playing with drones. I looked expectantly at the tower in front of me and waited for it to open. It wasn’t until someone tapped on my shoulder that I noticed the middle tower open and an agent waiting by the door. He gestured for me to go inside, but then squinted at me. He looked through the fogged-up window of my suit and paused. I stepped toward the opening with the feeling of dread between my shoulders as I walked down the spiral stairs into the NSA headquarters. The door hissed shut behind the agent and we descended into red-tinted corridors below Gas Works Park.

“You can take off the HazMat suit sir.” The agent had an insistent sound to his voice.

I made my voice as gruff as possible to mimic Stephenson’s.

“I don’t want to contaminate the facility.”

“How would you contaminate the facility from what’s inside the suit?”

“I…uh…”

I couldn’t think of a good answer so I roundhouse kicked him in the head. He dropped to the ground with a thud. I pulled out Anka’s map and found where I was and where the stairwell was. It would take all of the minute I had remaining to get there so I started running, as fast as I could. I ran by agents who looked at me with confused expressions, but when the evacuation alarm sounded they ignored me and moved toward the main exit. I got to the door of the stairs and yanked it open before running inside.

I immediately took off the headpiece of the HazMat suit so I could breathe. I don’t care what anyone tells you, it’s not fun to run around in one of those things. It just isn’t.

Anka’s map showed me where to meet her and Grosskopf after the evacuation lockdown was complete. I ran up the stairs to the service level and waited by the door. When the door opened a moment later I thought it would be her, but it wasn’t, instead I faced a hulking agent with a bald head and handlebar mustache. He saw me and immediately his face turned from surly to murderous.

I tried my trusty roundhouse, but the stairwell and HazMat suit conspired to foil me. I kicked the wall and stumbled into Agent Mustache. He shoved me against the wall and then reached around my neck to put me in a choke hold. I’d prepared for this with my MMA videos, I went limp and slid down in his grip. At the same time I stepped back on his foot, swung my elbow into his ribs and twisted in his grip to face him.

Now he was holding me behind the neck, inches from his face. I head butted him like I’d done with the Cuban in Portland. Apparently Agent Mustache has a much harder head than the Burly Twin. He flinched and then growled at me. I thought that only happened in movies. He reached back to punch me with the hand not holding me captive. I head butted him again and kneed him in the crotch. That was enough to get him to release his grip.

I stepped back and kicked him in the chest. He lost his balance and I thought he’d fall down the stairs, but he grabbed the railing at the last second and pulled himself back onto the landing. I moved in to hit him again, but he launched at me with a spear tackle worthy of the dirtiest football player in the NFL. The breath left my body when we slammed into the wall at the top of the stairwell. I lost the ability to think or move for several seconds.