The Desert Lion's True Colours (24 page)

‘Whoa, Whoa… !’ Jay exclaimed. ‘. . . She knows your pops too?’

Leon raised the folder he was holding into Jay’s line of sight. It only took Jay a couple of seconds to figure it out. Surprised he said, ‘Dude? That’s her in the picture?’

Leon nodded.

Jay was going to ask another question, but Na’talia beat him to it.

‘Ok, Ok.’ She said. ‘You’re right. I have been holding out on you two. But it was just so that I could ascertain how much you already know.’

‘Lady… ! Jay proclaimed, ‘. . . Right now it doesn’t look like we know anything. We thought Leon’s old man was dead
-
he’s not. We were on an undercover case for three years, but that turned out to be a lie and to top it all off the Agency
-
our own government, wants us dead. So if you’re able to fill in the blanks, I suggest you hurry up and get to talking.’

Jay was visibly upset. He usually had the ability to turn serious things into a joke but this was different. He was acting on the say so of people he had never met before.

Leon waived the folders around in his hand and said ‘Well?’

‘OK.’ Na’talia replied finally.

Returning back to her seat, she sat down, swivelled her chair around and stopped directly in between Leon and Jay’s position, with Leon on her right and Jay a little further back to her left. Taking a deep breath she said, ‘You two ready for this?’

Jay replied, ‘We’ve been up in the air for half an hour. What do you think?’

She took another deep breath, held it for a moment and then exhaled through her teeth. Then after discreetly fixing the collar of her shirt she said, ‘Well firstly, I do
-
or should I say I used to work for the CIA. And as for your father, well I guess you could say he’s known
ME
his whole life.’

Curiously, Leon asked ‘What does that mean?’

Na’talia looked at them both for a few seconds each before saying, ‘I think its best I start from the beginning.’

‘Yeah, you do that.’ Jay grunted.

Exasperated, Na’talia looked at Jay and cut her eye at him before saying, ‘Back in the late 1930’s, Theodore Roosevelt executed a secret agreement with Churchill which deed the U.S to English Sovereignty by agreeing to give their Special Operations executive control over US policies. To implement this agreement, Roosevelt sent General Donovan to London for indoctrination before setting up the OSS, or as we like to call it today
-
The C.I.A! Aside from all the other
stuff
they say we do, their single goal is to help Camistock break down the psychological strength of an individual and render him helpless to opposition.’

Oh, not this again… ‘Jay said exasperated. ‘. . . The Chief tried to feed us this stuff earlier.’

Frowning, Na’talia replied ‘Well, this stuff is information you need to know.’

Oh, yeah… ‘Jay replied. ‘Well, if its stuff we need. Do you mind speaking English so we can at least understand?’

‘Ok…’ Na’talia replied. ‘. . . To desensitise the American public!’ she explained.

Rubbing his head, Jay sat down in his seat and said ‘I’m sorry, I still don’t get it?’

Frustrated, Na’talia let out another sigh.

‘Ok, put it this way.’ She said. ‘Imagine you,
–
being the American public, are feeling ill; you’re not sure what the ailment is so you go to the doctor, right?

Both Leon and Jay nodded in agreement.

‘Well, the Doctor is Camistock; the doctor is the White House, the C.I.A., the pentagon but instead of helping you get better your doctor is making you worse by inducing a permanent mental illness.’

‘Whoa…’ Jay called out. ‘. . . You expect me to believe that! Even if what you’re saying is for real, how could anything like that stay a secret for so long?’

With a pitiful smile on her face, Na’talia started to shake her head. Not appreciating her facial expression Jay said ‘Ok then. Answer me this. How have they carried out this brainwashing and more importantly, why?’

‘That’s easy,’ Na’talia replied. ‘The
‘Why,’
is because they want to own the earth’s resources. When they have that, they can monopolise and manipulate the world’s money trade…’

She paused, picked up her glass and took another sip of her drink. She felt as if she had said a lot and her mouth was getting dry. Leon and Jay waited in silence as she gently tilted the glass onto her bottom lip and took another several sips of the cherry coke before placing the glass back onto the top of the mini-fridge. After clearing her throat, she continued ‘. . . In order for them to get all that power they had to achieve Political Correctness. They needed the American public to be predictable.’

‘And
HOW
exactly do they do this?’ Jay enquired.

‘Well, that’s not so easy.’ She said.

‘They have many different ways. However their most effective was implemented back in the 1950s. At the time English researchers were trying to use microwave weapons on their own public without them knowing. After a few years of trial and error they realised if you used active radio waves with a steady tone, high end output of about 15,000HZ. Then send a message over that at a lower output at around 300HZ to 4000HZ, you could affect the listener on a subliminal level. The process was perfected on war vets on their return from service. To help them forget all the in humanities they had seen. They would encourage them to listen to music with hypnotists voices mixed in.’

‘Are you being serious?’ asked Leon curiously.

‘Very.’ Na’talia replied. ‘Voice-FM was born. The same concept was used in the visual form via television. The whole process was named Future Shock Therapy. Force feed corrupting information through images and sound to desensitise us on a human level…’ She paused to let out a sigh, and then said, ‘WMCC’s.’

‘What you say?’ Jay interjected.

‘Weapons of mass crowd control!’ She replied.

Jay chuckled.

‘That’s an amazing story Miss Geddess.’ Leon said coldly.

But may-be you forgot what the initial question was,’ Leon paused, cleared his throat and then said, ‘What does all of that have to do with us?’

Na’talia lowered her head. She had hoped Leon was reading through the lines and had joined the dots on his own. Slightly frustrated with the fact that she would have to explain every detail to him, she took another deep breath and said, ‘Over the years, Camistock have been promoting a mixture of messages to the American public; however they all have one thing in common. Fear! Fear of political breakdown, financial and economic crises, fear of religion, and fear of war. The list is endless. Then to top it all off they inculcate the idea that they are the saviour of mankind’s problems.’

‘You mean Camistock?’ Leon verified.

‘Exactly… !’ Na’talia replied. ‘. . . The only problem is, not everyone is going to buy into it. And a lot of the time it is people, or should I say governments who either do not like the US or have a religious grounding that outweighs their own governmental responsibilities.’ She paused but Leon prompted her to continue. ‘Go on.’ He said.

With a slight nod, Na’talia said, ‘Camistock realised they needed to set up an Agency that would manually take care of any opposition.’ She paused again,
-
and using a phrase Leon had heard the Chief utilise earlier that morning,
-
she said, ‘The Agency became the hardware to Camistock’s Software. Anybody that needed to be removed
-
or in rare cases persuaded, was handed over to the ‘D.L Corps’ under the guise of National Security. Chief Edwards, your father, Pyro and two other highly trained Ex-Marines made up the Desert Lions Security Corporation.’

Leon respectfully raised his hand and said ‘So I’m guessing your father was one of those ex-marines? That’s the connection you have with my father.’

Na’talia’s face went blank for a moment then said, ‘Yes. In a way…’ Then after a long heavy sigh she said ‘I never knew my parents. A month after my mother told him she was pregnant with me, my father killed himself and the day I was born my mother handed me over for adoption.’

‘Dang!’ Jay exclaimed.

Leon gave him a look that clearly said shut up but Jay rebuffed it by saying ‘I’m sorry to hear that Nat. That’s fucked up.’

Na’talia let out a smirk and then nodded in reply.

‘Foreal. I’m sorry to hear that too,’ Leon said warmly. ‘However, how exactly did you get in contact with my father?’

‘My father’s name was Emanuel Geddess. He and one other member of the team were sent out on a Covert-Operation in Russia.’

‘For what?’ Asked Jay inquisitively

‘To silence certain members of their government.’ exhaled Na’talia.

No one said anything in reply to that. So after a slight nod of the head
-
to signify she was going to continue, she said ‘The long and short of it is
-
they both got captured. My father’s partner was executed however your dad rescued him before they could do any real damage. Due to his injuries he wasn’t any use to the Corp or Camistock, so they gave him leave
-
well so he thought.’ She paused again and started to breath heavily, almost as if she was running out of air.

‘You going to be ok?’ asked Leon.

Raising a hand she replied ‘Yeah I’m fine…’ She paused again and then after a few moments of silence said ‘Basically, they messed my father up and caused my mother to lose all hope… however your father somehow got me placed with a family he had connections to. I’ve known the truth since I was 14. It was your father who pushed me to exceed in school. Ended up graduating from Yale with a master’s in ‘Social Research and Behaviour’, then I went on to Study ‘Social Science, at the MIT Research Facility for 3 years.’ She paused and with a gleeful smile continued, ‘. . . Because of
whom
my dad was, your father knew they couldn’t resist recruiting me into the Agency.’ She paused again and the smile on her face got even wider before she said ‘little do they know instead of being a pawn for them, I have been helping your father stay one step ahead.’

Jay burst into a sarcastic chuckle and then instantly changed his expression into a serious frown. ‘Are you being serious… ?’ He said doubtfully. ‘. . . So you’re like some double agent?’ After a slight pause, Jay’s expression changed again and the fake chuckle was replaced with an ironic laugh; however when he swung his chair around to look over at Leon, his expression immediately flipped back to one of more seriousness.

‘What’s wrong now?’ he asked. Instantly regretting he did.

Leon refused to reply,
-
which on one hand was a good thing,
-
however Jay did not like to be ignored, so he spoke up again. ‘Yo dawg! What’s good?’

Leon tore himself away from his thoughts and replied, ‘Nothing. Everything’s cool.’ Then turning his attention to Na’talia he said, ‘So now we know your story, what’s the deal with Carter?’

Na’talia cleared her throat. She was hoping the question would not be asked.

‘He’s my partner,’ she said after a long pause. ‘We’ve been working together for years.’

Leon immediately came back with a combo of questions, ‘Does he know who you really are? Is he on this whole thing with my father too?’

Na’talia held her silence a little longer than Leon would have liked however she finally nodded slightly and replied, ‘Yes and yes.’

‘Is that it?’ Jay asked firmly. ‘Is that all you’re gonna say?’

Na’talia hesitated for a moment longer and then said, ‘I found out the District Superior wanted someone on the case to follow you guys. So when the request was issued I pulled a few strings to get Carter on the gig.’

‘So I take it the Chief knows?’ Leon asked.

‘Yes.’ She replied.

“You
said
that
a
little
too
quickly!”
thought Leon. Then turning to Jay he said, ‘Well I guess that explains why the Chief trusts the guy.’

‘That makes sense
-
I guess.’ Jay replied.

He was about to say something else but Na’talia cut in with ‘By the way. If it was me who tried to save your ass, only for you to assault me afterwards…’ She paused, for just a second and then said ‘. . . Well, let’s just say you wouldn’t be on this plane right now.’

Knowing Na’talia was talking about his bust up with Carter the night before, Jay let out a fake chuckle and said ‘Whatever… ! Your boy Carter made a bad situation worse.’

With her face screwed up she said, ‘He potentially saved your life. You ungrateful son of a bitch…’

Jay was in total shock. He was not expecting that kind of a reaction. Leon however just stood there in silence, with one eyebrow raised. A few seconds passed and no one said a thing, but they were all thinking everything.

After painstakingly holding his tongue from telling Na’talia where she could go and what she could do while she was there, Jay said ‘Call me a bitch again.’

Before Na’talia could reply, the familiar clicking sound of the G5’s intercom came through the speakers, followed by Agent Boyland’s voice. ‘Good Morning…’ He said. ‘. . . Just wanted to update you all, that we have been flying for the better part of forty-five minutes and so we should be landing in JFK in just over an hour from now.’

The jet planes integrated speakers made the same clicking sound as before and just like that, Agent Boyland’s voice along with the airy background noise was gone.

Despite the minor interruption, Jay was still fuming over what Na’talia had just said to him. He was not the kind of guy, to let anyone speak to him like that however this situation was very different. He realised right away, Na’talia was not going to back down, so he understood that if he pushed the argument it would undoubtedly bring their working relationship to an abrupt end.

Several, silent seconds passed. Then with a heavy sigh, Leon said ‘So what exactly is my father’s plan?’

Na’talia took in a deep breath but before she could even exhale,
-
let alone answer the question, Jay did what he does best and cut in. ‘Wait!’ He ordered. ‘Before you kill us with information over load…’ He paused, turned his attention to Leon and said ‘I’m going to finish getting ready. You can fill me in on the details when I get back.’