Authors: Dominick Fencer,Baibin Nighthawk
45
Walton I. Reed arrived at the research laboratories by helicopter three days after the death of his son. His office, which had the largest meeting room of the research center, was next to his own room.
"Hello Jago, can you take a moment and give me the daily reports? I would like to go over them with you".
"Good morning, Colonel, I'll be there in five minutes," answered Green.
Jago C. Green knocked on the door of Reed’s office exactly five minutes later.
Reed was at his desk, his eyes were bloodshot, he seemed thinner, and had probably not slept a wink in the last three days.
"Take a seat Jago."
"I am very sorry about your son. I want you to know that you can always count on me.
"Thank you Jago, I know that, and if Biosketch Technologies is doing well, that is also thanks to you; you’ve successfully combined your hacker skills with those of a researcher. Could you give me some figures? I'll read the reports later."
"So far we have carried out 4842 transplants for "Brainexe", while we have performed 3798 transplants for "Transtem 1.1". About 0.5% have shown signs of infection, which was treated and regressed completely within two weeks by administering a cocktail of drugs called "Blueball" consisting of antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals.
“Every week the satellite hospitals send us all the data on the clinical study for each patient in accordance with the procedure, which we then collect, check and process in order to monitor the progress of the projects and to carry out further testing on the new patients that arrive at Biosketch Technologies Inc.; so far we have not encountered any significant abnormal situations and the second phase of the "Brainexe" project has been operational for a year and two months, and has "created" 2892 new generation soldiers so far. They are trained in the operations center in Houston, which sends us the behavioral and of performance data weekly.
“I remind you that all the transplants are geo-localized through an active microtag RF-ID about the size of a grain of rice that we have implanted subcutaneously in their necks.
“As for the "Transtem 1.1" project, we’re ready to work on an industrial scale directly through our labs, the patents have been registered in 25 countries...I would say that we’re ready."
"Excellent!” smiled Reed. “We have done an incredible job...I have good news for you...when our product is marketed for the various hospitals around the world, you will collect 0.5% on sales..."
"Thank you Colonel...I owe you a lot."
"There is another thing Jago...and this time it is a very sensitive and confidential matter concerning my son: I know who killed him, his name is Mark Savannah, an agent of the British secret intelligence service, one of the men I told you about...he was burned by his agency and I want to remove him from the face of the Earth, but outside of the CIA. It’s a personal matter, and no one must ever know."
"As always, you can count on me Colonel."
"You will not be alone, of course, you will cooperate with my trusted agent...you know her."
"Colonel, don’t tell me...Sky..!" Jago didn’t manage to finish the name.
"I'm sorry Jago, but SkylineP92 is the best agent that I have and I trust her blindly, she is a deep thinker, an expert in sabotage and counterespionage, and of course, I will give her an official mission that is not official, and she will never know anything. Besides, she is one of the few agents that don’t appear in any database, it's a matter of fact that she does not really exist."
"Colonel, I must..." Jago tried to interrupt.
"Jago, stop whining like a girl, you must learn to work together. You'll have to be her virtual shadow and provide all the necessary technological tools for the success of the mission. You should have forgotten what happened...after two years?"
"And when is the first briefing?"
"Right now, and it is definitely here." Walton I. Reed said getting up and going to the door.
The Colonel opened the door and exclaimed, "Good morning SkylineP92, did you have a good trip? Where have you come from?"
"Good morning Colonel Reed. The trip was great, thank you. I was at home in Switzerland, two weeks of vacation after the "Gate 22" affair. I haven’t even watched the news, just perfect, wonderful silence."
"Come in and make yourself comfortable,” Reed gestured for her to take a seat. “I called you for a special assignment, which includes only one support person."
Jago C. Green stood up nodding a greeting, when he saw Anaïs Degann, code named SkylineP92, entering the room.
"Hello Anaïs, how are you?" Green said, in a flat voice.
"Oh my goodness! Colonel, don’t tell me he’s the person I’ll have supporting me..."
"SkylineP92,” said Reed calmly, “no one is asking you to cook him dinner or to go out with him at night...you just have to work together to complete the task that I am going to assign to both of you."
Jago could not take his eyes off of Anaïs and he felt a knot tightening in his stomach, the same feeling he had had two years before.
46
Anaïs Degann, Swiss, thirty years old, and naturalized U.S. Citizen, was beautiful and sensual with long hair and black eyes. She had a perfect physique thanks to having been trained by the Marine Corps. She had a degree in quantum physics and had been recruited by U.S. Intelligence at university because of her high IQ and skills as a mountaineer and climber.
In fact, her passion for free climbing and base-jumping had allowed her to explore climbing trails in extremely difficult terrain conditions that would otherwise have been too dangerous for solo climbs. She also loved climbing frozen waterfalls during the winter.
Anaïs was an over-the-top and independent type of person, whose strong and eclectic character had caused two relationships to fail, and she had resolved not to get involved in another romance for a long time.
She and Jago C. Green had met on a survival course two years earlier during a training cycle and had immediately begun to quarrel. Jago had teased her that she would never be able to finish the final test because she was a woman and at the same time had started to court her; she couldn’t stand him, even if she recognized that he had an extraordinary brain.
One evening, Jago had drunk too much and had met Anaïs who was returning from the river. He put his hands on her breast and tore a button of her blouse; in response, she broke his nose with her fist and their classmates had to stop them from beating the living daylights out of each other.
Both ended up in jail for three days, but since Green had a broken nose, two broken ribs and a black eye, Anaïs decided not to press charges; she had given him a lesson, and knew very well that he had learnt it.
As for her: her lower lip needed three stitches and her sprained left wrist was immobilized.
47
"Hi Jago, you know very well that I'm glad to work with you, but I have to be sure that you will be my shadow; I don't have the slightest intention of finding myself with a card attached to my right big toe because my partner wants to fuck me and gets distracted by erotic fantasies while I’m in action," said SkylineP92 bluntly.
The Colonel looked at Green, he expected his total dedication and no recrimination, given all that he had done and was doing for him.
Jago looked down and said, "I have always admired the anti-sabotage snipers and you are one that has never risked getting tagged, the card always gets put on someone else’s foot. I’m with you SkylineP92; you can count on me. Even so, I suspect I may practice some auto-eroticism when you're in action...I’m excited already..."
"Have you two quite finished?" the Colonel barked. "This is a special mission."
He switched on the screen and started the presentation.
"What you see is Mark Savannah,” continued Reed in a level voice, “a former member of the British Secret Intelligence Service, now on the run. There’s an international arrest warrant out for him; Savannah is in fact a man who has been corrupted by Afghan drug traffickers who paid him to carry trucks of heroin into Pakistan. My son Richard discovered Savannah’s treason and he paid for it with his life.
“The British Secret Intelligence Service has given the order to terminate him quietly. They cannot do it directly without causing a fuss. Savannah is a well-recognized figure in their organization and they don’t want to get their hands dirty, and since we worked together on the "Uday, who runs fast" operation, we can do this homework for them. We have loose ends dating back five years.
“SkylineP92, you will hunt, drive into the open and kill Mark Savannah, no matter how long it takes. Officially you don’t exist, and officially Savannah will not die...he will just disappear together with his past."
"Where is he now?" asked SkylineP92.
"We think he may still be in the United States, our network of informants has confirmed the reports. He was seen in New York a couple of days ago, the last time he spoke to his agency he was in the area of Madison Square Garden. He doesn’t know where to go, he’s penniless and without a home, he’ll have to contact someone sooner or later."
"Does he have relatives or friends in New York?"
"His mother, but I would rule her out. He hates her and broke off contact with her a long time ago."
"Did he meet anyone during his trip?” asked SkylineP92. “Do we have a list of the passengers and of the flight crew?"
"Green will provide you with the names, telephone numbers and various accessories within the hour; just be ready to go. This is an internal top secret mission with high priority: both of you will communicate only with me and between yourselves. No one else can get involved without my permission.
“SkylineP92, if you need information, you will have to ask Green. There is to be absolutely no direct or personal contact with the target, it’s too risky. Savannah, even if he is now alone, has many good connections. He is also a brilliant psychiatrist, a first-class cynic and he has a history of violence...so he won’t hesitate to neutralize you!"
"See you in an hour in my office, Anaïs,” Green said standing up. “I'll give you the basic information." Green said Goodbye to the Colonel, and left the room.
"I only learned of the death of your son yesterday,” said SkylineP92. “I'm so sorry; you know, I will complete the assignment successfully."
"Anaïs, Green won’t give you any problems; he’s the only person, apart from you, who I can trust... You know, not a day passes without my thinking of your mother... I miss her, Anaïs. I miss her so much. It's been two years since the last time I went to Switzerland because I have too many memories...she was a beautiful woman, you look a lot like her."
"Colonel let me ask you one question." Anaïs came straight to the point. "If you hadn’t had a relationship with my mother, would you have recruited me?"
"Why do you ask me?" asked Reed.
"I don’t exist according to the CIA DB. You arranged things so that I could get U.S. citizenship and my missions are always of the utmost secrecy...you trained a spy for your own use and interests. Colonel, am I right? At the same time you protect me with your watchful eye...I never understood how my mother could stay quietly in the dark by your side but so far..."
"Anaïs, I have known you since you were fifteen years old, you’re an amazing girl! I've always followed you, even if I could not live with your mother because I have a family here...you cannot even imagine how much we were in love and frankly I don’t care what you thought about it!"
"Getting back to my original question!” Skylinep92 went on, “the answer is NO. How could have it happened: I was a Swiss citizen and I was living in Geneva at the time."
"Have you had enough of working as a spy? Do you want to go back to an ordinary life?"
"Colonel, what life? It’s as if I’ve never been able to choose how to live my life..."
"I wouldn’t say so: you got a degree in quantum physics because you liked it and I did nothing but report your extraordinary skills to the CIA...afterwards you accepted the CIA offer with great enthusiasm and, believe me, you were treated just like anyone else. You worked hard in your training and you also spent three days in jail for that prank with Green... Do you want to take a leave of absence?"
"What prank? He deserved worse than that, he was…is…an asshole. If they hadn’t stopped us, I would’ve twisted his balls around his neck into a necklace, Colonel.
“Anyway, no thanks,” she continued. “I'm not physically tired, but since my mother died I have had an emptiness inside. I miss the evenings at the theater, the dinners with friends, wearing high heels...unlike other agents, I don’t have a parallel life."
"You don’t need one,” replied Reed. “You're always on the go and when you're in Switzerland you shut yourself up in that chalet on the lake in the mountains...you’ve not seen your friends for three years, so they think you are confined to a physics research center somewhere in the desert in the United States...and besides, you never have to account to a partner for everything that you do."
"Yeah...but my relationships with men have always been contradictory; it's not a man that I am missing right now, but...from that point of view, I am completely disillusioned and, in any case, it's none of your business, Colonel. I'll bring you Savannah’s head but afterwards you will transfer me to Nicholas Mayer’s unit, the Astrophysics Laboratory. I want to go back to research and feel free again!"
"I didn’t think you felt suffocated by me; it was never my intention, of course. Okay, if that's what you want, I'll arrange for your transfer to a new position with Mayer...but you can always count on my help.
“I chose you because you are the only one who can fight on equal terms with Savannah...you are similar to him and you have comparable minds...as well as the same IQ. Is that enough as an answer?"
"Goodbye Colonel, talk again soon,” Anaïs answered firmly. “Green is waiting for me and I have to start combing the area for signs of Savanah," said Anaïs getting up and heading for the door.
"Be careful and always keep your back covered. Talk to you soon, SkylineP92!"