The Eternity Project

43



Ethan stood on legs that felt as though the strength had been drained from them.

His heart fluttered in his chest as though unsure of whether or not to keep beating, and he reached out for something to steady himself as he released his grip on Joanna’s neck. The chain-link fence rattled as he leaned on it.

‘Hello, Ethan.’

Her voice reached him as though from another dimension, a voice that he had not heard for five years. Strange, how her face had been burned into his conscience over time but he had forgotten how she spoke, the slight southern lilt to her accent, the perfect pronunciation that had always eluded him.

He sought for something to say but he felt as though somebody had stuffed a sock into his mouth.

‘Joanna?’ was all he finally managed to utter.

Idiot. It wasn’t like she could be anybody else. Joanna did not mock him, however. She nodded.

‘You must have a lot of questions,’ she said.

Ethan was about to reply when a figure vaulted over the chain-link fence and landed cat-like in the shadows. Lopez stormed straight toward Joanna. ‘Okay, who’s the a*shole?’

Ethan raised a hand to hold Lopez back, but it was still as if somebody had anesthetized his jaw. He couldn’t speak. Lopez caught the atmosphere between them and slowed of her own accord, watching the blonde woman warily. ‘Ethan?’

Joanna took a pace forward. ‘I’m Joanna Defoe,’ she said.

Lopez’s dark eyes widened slightly and she glanced at Ethan before looking back at Joanna. ‘Oh.’

Ethan managed to re-inflate his lungs and gain control of his wildly swinging emotions.

‘Why are you here in New York?’ he gasped, unable to think of anything more profound to say.

Joanna, keeping one curious eye on Lopez, answered: ‘It’s a long story.’

Finally, some of the emotions swirling in a silent maelstrom in Ethan’s mind found their voice through anger as he broke through the shock and surprise.

‘No shit,’ he said. ‘You’re alive. You’ve been free for at least a year and you never made contact.’ Joanna opened her mouth to reply but Ethan kept going. ‘I spent years searching for you across half the goddamned planet and you show up here in New York with a camera and start shooting holiday pictures like nothing’s happened? Where the hell have you been? What happened in Gaza? How did you get out of there and back home? Why didn’t you call or make contact or . . .?’

‘Because I couldn’t!’ Joanna snapped. ‘I couldn’t make contact, or call anybody or be seen wandering around. You don’t know what’s been happening, so don’t judge me.’

‘Don’t judge you?’ Ethan uttered in disbelief. ‘I’m not judging anyone – I just want to know what the hell happened. You’ve been gone for five years, Jo, and you don’t know what’s been happening to me either.’

Joanna fixed him with a serious gaze. ‘I’ve had other things on my mind.’

‘So did we,’ Lopez cut in. ‘You can’t expect Ethan to not be surprised when you show up with a camera having spent the last couple of days spying on us.’

‘And who’s we?’ Joanna glared at her.

‘Nicola Lopez,’ she shot back, ‘of Warner and Lopez Incorporated.’

‘River Forest, Illinois,’ Joanna replied with surprising speed. ‘Former detective, Washington, DC, left the force after your partner was killed. Joined forces with Ethan afterward and set up as bail-bondsmen.’

Ethan’s eyes widened with every passing word. ‘How long have you been tailing us?’

‘I haven’t been tailing you,’ Joanna insisted. ‘You showed up here in the city just after I arrived.’

Lopez frowned. ‘What brought you here?’

‘Like I said, long story,’ Joanna replied, ‘and not for your ears, honey.’

‘How about I tear your ears off ? ’ Lopez growled.

Ethan stepped in between them. ‘Easy,’ he said, and turned to Joanna. ‘Anything you tell me, you can tell Nicola.’

Joanna looked at Lopez for a moment. ‘I see. Like that, is it?’

‘Like what?’ Lopez snapped and glanced at Ethan as she waved a thumb in Joanna’s direction. ‘You nearly had a breakdown over her?’

Joanna’s features seemed to soften slightly as she looked at him. ‘Seriously?’

‘That’s my long story,’ Ethan shot back. ‘Why are you here?’

Ethan and Lopez stood side by side, both of them wearing uncompromising expressions. Joanna stared at them both and then sighed.

‘There are still people looking for me,’ she replied. ‘I’ve been tracking down what scraps of evidence I can find of a CIA project, looking for survivors.’


‘MK-ULTRA,’ Lopez said.

‘How do you know about that?’ Joanna asked in surprise.

‘We know all about it,’ Ethan replied. ‘We know about your father’s involvement in the project, the time he spent in a Singapore jail because of it, and that it’s still going on. My sister nearly lost her life to the CIA because of it when they targeted members of a congressional investigation into “black projects” at the agency. Nicola and I have stayed off the grid for the last six months because of it, too.’

‘I know,’ Joanna replied. ‘I lost track of you when you traveled to Idaho. I had to stay in DC.’

‘You were there?’ Lopez uttered with contempt.

‘Of course I was there,’ she snapped. ‘A major congressional investigation into the same project that ruined my father’s life and almost took mine? Where the hell else would I have been?’

‘What?’ Ethan asked. ‘What do you mean almost took your life?’

Joanna glanced over her shoulder at the occasional car drifting past on the road, as though nervous of anybody and anything in the city.

‘We can’t talk here,’ she said. ‘There’s too much ground to cover.’

‘You think we’re letting you go now?’ Lopez almost laughed.

‘It’s not about letting me go,’ Joanna insisted. ‘I came here because there is at least one CIA assassin searching for me, and the only way I can expose the operation is to find people who were involved in it.’

‘That’s not surprising,’ Ethan replied, ‘considering how many former agents you’ve taken down in the last couple of weeks.’

Joanna scowled at Ethan. ‘I haven’t taken anyone down!’ she snapped. ‘Damned right, I cornered each and every one of them, forced them to talk and recorded their confessions on video. Sure, it might not be admissible as evidence in court and I sure as hell enjoyed scaring the life out of those bastards, but I didn’t kill any of them.’

‘You let them go?’ Ethan asked, and was rewarded with a nod.

‘I didn’t want them dead,’ Joanna replied. ‘What kind of punishment is that? I wanted them alive, so that they could be tried and sent to prison for what they did. Somebody else has other ideas and has killed every agent I’ve spoken to.’

‘But why would they do that?’ Lopez asked. ‘Killing off so many people associated with a single program would leave a pattern behind that law enforcement could easily track. It would bring them right back to the CIA, exposing them anyway.’

Joanna shook her head.

‘Their murders could never be linked that way because all of the evidence from the original project burned in 1973; there’s nothing physical left. Whoever is hitting the former agents is clearing up afterward, leaving no trace. There’s only been a single murder that made the news and that was covered up real fast.’

‘Wisconsin,’ Ethan agreed, and then raised an eyebrow. ‘So how could you be tracking survivors down?’

Joanna smiled faintly. ‘Because my father told me their names,’ she replied simply, ‘made me memorize them over and over again when I was a child. He used something called mnemonics, a memory trick that enabled me to memorize over a hundred names just like card sharks memorize an entire deck.’

‘He took evidence with him?’ Lopez asked. ‘Before the papers were burned?’

‘Memorized them in the same way,’ Joanna replied. ‘Kept them with him all that time he spent in jail in Singapore, and all the years afterward, until he passed them on to me before he died. He knew they’d come in useful if things went sour at the CIA. Just as damned well he did.’

Ethan struggled to keep up with the revelations.

‘Then how come you’re on their case now, hunting them down? What can you possibly do to help them?’

‘I decided to start by hunting down every CIA agent I recognized from Gaza,’ she said. ‘Last agent but one is a man named Aaron Lymes, now retired. He lives somewhere in . . .’

‘He’s dead,’ Ethan said. ‘Murdered two days ago here in the city.’

Joanna looked crestfallen. ‘They got to him first.’

‘Who’s the other agent on your list?’ Ethan asked.

‘I can’t explain everything here,’ Joanna insisted. ‘Meet me in the morning, downtown. I’ll tell you everything, okay?’

‘We’re going to need more than that!’ Lopez snapped. ‘Why were you following us?’

‘Like I said,’ Joanna replied, and then whirled and clambered up the chain-link fence before dropping down the other side. ‘I’m not following you. I’m following the case you’re on.’

‘Why?’ Ethan asked, deciding not to pursue her.

Joanna looked back over her shoulder as she walked away.

‘Because one of the names on my list is serving on your team.’

Ethan took a pace forward. ‘Tell us who!’

Joanna shook her head. ‘No, not until I know I can trust you both. I’ll meet you tomorrow morning at eleven at Bourne’s Diner on Fulton Street. Don’t be late.’