The Eternity Project

23

EAST 120TH STREET, HARLEM



Jarvis pulled his car into the sidewalk and killed the lights and engine. A shabby chain-link fence ringed an abandoned lot to his right. As was his habit, he always pulled in with the sidewalk to his right. If anybody made for the driver’s door, they would have to step out into the street, providing him with a warning.

Ahead were the soaring tower blocks of the Wagner buildings, one of the projects in Harlem. Although much improved from previous decades, the area was still impoverished and blighted by drugs peddled by street crews and unemployment. Jarvis kept a sharp eye open for the hoodies who roamed the streets of Harlem like packs of wolves and for young males hovering inside the entrance foyers to the various housing projects, watching for police. A white man sitting alone in a car in East Harlem would be dead in sixty seconds if he was spotted.


A figure crossed the street some fifty yards behind where Jarvis sat. Tall, dressed in a long black coat buttoned up against the bitter night cold. Jarvis tracked the man as he walked down the sidewalk toward the car, the skin on his face glowing a pale gray in the streetlights. The figure slowed as he approached the vehicle and a gloved hand reached out for the door handle.

Jarvis made no sudden moves as the door opened and the man climbed in. The door slammed shut and the man looked at Jarvis with gray eyes that matched his short hair. There was no expression or emotion on his face, as though the life had been sucked out of the man and a computer program put in its place.

‘Mr. Jarvis.’

The man’s voice was flat, monotone.

‘Mr. Wilson.’

‘What news?’

Jarvis scanned his rear-view mirror. ‘You’ve been pulled from actively hunting down MK-ULTRA survivors, if you hadn’t already heard.’

Wilson smiled without warmth. ‘I’ve received contact regarding my new orders. I disagree with them, but it is not my place to oppose them.’

Jarvis nodded. ‘Why did you pick Harlem?’

‘Because it’s the safest place in the city, for me,’ Wilson replied. ‘Law enforcement only come up here if they really have to, and most of the cameras were long ago vandalized by the worthless little thugs who populate these streets. Harlem is an intelligence blind-spot, Doug. I’m surprised you weren’t aware of it.’

‘Been out of the loop,’ Jarvis muttered in reply, then looked at Wilson. ‘How’s the chest?’

It had been six months since Jarvis had last laid eyes on Mr. Wilson, lying as he had been on his back in a parking lot in Maryland, having been shot in the chest by Ethan Warner’s sister, Natalie. At the time, Wilson had been holding a gun to one innocent man’s head while simultaneously trying to shoot Jarvis. Only Natalie Warner’s courage in the face of fear had saved Jarvis’s life. A wisely donned Kevlar vest had saved Wilson’s, reducing the bullet’s impact to heavy bruising and lesions, and the agent had managed to flee the scene before law enforcement had arrived. Jarvis did not mention that the blood sample he possessed belonged to Wilson, a critical link with the CIA’s involvement in at least one attempted homicide of a US citizen.

‘It’s fine, thanks for asking,’ Wilson replied. ‘And the only reason you’ll be able to tell your grandkids about it is because of this new deal you’ve struck. If not for that, Doug, I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that right now your heart would have stopped beating and you’d be lying here with your pockets being turned over by the natives.’

Jarvis looked at Wilson and saw there in his granite-hewn features an absolute resolve, entirely devoid of emotion. He smiled. ‘I doubt that very much.’

Wilson’s pistol was in his hand with ferocious speed and in utter silence, the barrel pressed against Jarvis’s temple.

‘Local mugging gone wrong,’ the agent whispered, ‘bullet to the head. No witnesses.’

Jarvis nodded slowly, still smiling.

‘White man in a rough black neighbourhood,’ he said, ‘wouldn’t stand a chance. The CIA would have to work carefully to cover up your identity.’

Wilson’s eyes narrowed, and then his right eye flickered slightly as a tiny red light played across his face. Wilson’s gaze flicked to the right, out of the windshield and into the darkness beyond. Jarvis held the smile on his face as he spoke.

‘I know very well what you’re capable of, Mr. Wilson,’ he said. ‘So you won’t be surprised that I’ve taken every precaution and will continue to do so. I’m wired. Vest or no vest, just one little word will end this conversation badly, for you. You even look at me in a way that displeases me and you’ll find yourself with an air-conditioned brain.’

Wilson glared back at Jarvis for a long moment and then slowly withdrew the pistol. It vanished beneath his coat.

‘There,’ Jarvis murmured cheerfully, ‘that’s much better. Shall we play nicely now?’

‘You will deliver Joanna Defoe to me,’ Wilson snapped.

‘I will do no such thing,’ Jarvis replied, enjoying himself immensely as he watched the infra-red beam of the sniper rifle playing across Wilson’s chest. ‘If she can be found I will lead her to you, but apprehending her will be your own responsibility. Fail, and you’ll carry the can for it, not me.’

Wilson smiled bitterly.

‘The deal was relayed to me in complete detail. Ethan Warner, Nicola Lopez and their families would remain unharmed, in return for Joanna Defoe. That’s all there is to it.’

‘All there is to it?’ Jarvis echoed. ‘Your people held Joanna Defoe for three years. She then escaped, and, despite the best efforts of the entire CIA, you’ve been unable to even locate her, much less apprehend her. The DIA isn’t going to be able to just magic her into your hands. What the hell makes you think that she’s in the city, anyway?’

‘I have my resources.’

‘They haven’t done you much good then, have they?’

Wilson turned his head to look at Jarvis.

‘I’ve spent the last two months tracking former members of MK-ULTRA and ensuring that they will not be testifying at any level their knowledge of CIA-sponsored paramilitary programs. Most of them were low-level players, not really worth hitting at all.’

Jarvis frowned. ‘Then why take them down?’

‘To leave a trail.’ Wilson smiled coldly. ‘Not one that Joanna Defoe would follow, but one that she could get ahead of.’

Jarvis felt a creeping sense of dread run cold through his veins. ‘You killed them just to lure her in?’

‘Like you say,’ Wilson replied, ‘nothing else was working. I silenced former MK-ULTRA assets in Iowa, Wisconsin, Indiana and Pennsylvania before coming here. If Joanna really is trying to track these people down, she will have seen the killings and immediately understood that the only way to stop them is to get ahead of them.’

Jarvis shook his head in horror. The whole charade by William Steel back in DC was an act. He had known that he was in no danger, happy to let Wilson kill former CIA agents and let either Ethan Warner or Joanna Defoe carry the can.

‘You really are a product of something rotten in the CIA,’ he said in disgust. ‘You’re like a disease, a boil that should have been lanced decades ago.’

‘Sticks and stones, Mr. Jarvis,’ Wilson said. ‘Needs must, and whatever I have to do will remain out of the public record. Likewise, your knowledge of these events will also remain unknown as long as you want Warner and Lopez to remain alive.’

Jarvis gestured to the red light still hovering on Wilson’s chest.

‘Maybe I should have you finished off, just for the hell of it.’

‘You think that this makes a difference to anything?’ Wilson said, pointing at the light. ‘You’re going to either lose your two little puppy dogs or you’re going to lose Joanna Defoe. That’s the deal for your safety. You kill me, you’re all done.’ Wilson leaned closer to Jarvis. ‘You think it isn’t so, just tell your man to pull the trigger.’

Jarvis sat still for a moment before speaking.

‘If Joanna Defoe turns up, I’ll make contact. You’ll need to tell me how.’

Mr. Wilson reached into his jacket pocket, producing a slip of paper. Upon it, Jarvis glimpsed a series of numbers, and at the top a New York Mega Millions lottery logo.


Several of the numbers were ringed in felt pen.

‘Your lottery ticket,’ Wilson said. ‘The ringed numbers are a burner cell. I’ll only take a single call from you on it before it’s destroyed. Make sure it doesn’t waste my time. You fail to deliver Defoe, I’ll assume you’ve reneged on the deal and I’ll take you down, understood?’

Jarvis didn’t reply. Wilson tossed the ticket into the foot well and climbed out of the car. Jarvis waited until the door was slammed shut before he picked up the ticket. A disembodied voice spoke into a microphone tucked into his ear.

‘You want me to take him down?’

Jarvis glanced up at a nearby tower block, where his man had installed himself an hour before the meeting.

‘Yes, but, unfortunately, we can’t. Yet. Stand down.’

Jarvis folded the ticket into his pocket, started the engine and drove away.