The Eternity Project

58

DEFENSE INTELLIGENCE ANALYSIS CENTER, JOINT BASE ANACOSTIA-BOLLING, WASHINGTON, DC



Two days later

‘I don’t like this at all.’

Nicola Lopez paced up and down in the small briefing room, radiating tension. Ethan sat in a chair, with his hands in his lap, watching her walk up and down.

‘How can you just sit there like that?’ she demanded.

‘Standard procedure in the military,’ Ethan replied. ‘Hurry up and wait.’

Lopez scoffed and continued her pacing. ‘They’re conspiring,’ she decided. ‘They’ve asked us to come over here so they can figure out a way of getting us into some goddamned Supermax prison or something.’

‘It would have been easier to just arrest us on sight,’ Ethan pointed out, ‘and spirit us away than let us travel all the way up here.’

‘Jarvis is up to something,’ Lopez said, changing tack. ‘He betrayed you, you know that? He sold out on Joanna.’

Ethan did not reply. Fact was, he knew damned well that the only way Wilson could have found them was if Jarvis had revealed her location. Ethan felt surprisingly unperturbed by what Jarvis had done. The old man had been given an impossible choice, and had done his very best to protect as many people as he could. The fact that Joanna was alive seemed to have finally divested Ethan of the bitterness that had festered inside of him for so many years. It had always been the not knowing that had poisoned his life, had erased so many weeks and months and years in a paroxysm of hate and regret. Now, knowing had extinguished those emotions and others, too.


‘He betrayed us,’ Lopez repeated, bending at the waist and getting in Ethan’s face. ‘I said he would, and he has.’

Ethan looked up at her. ‘He betrayed Joanna, not us.’

‘There’s a difference?’ Lopez snapped.

‘Joanna is Joanna,’ Ethan replied, ‘and she’ll be fine now. We’re us, and we’ll be fine, too.’

‘Seriously?’ Lopez uttered. ‘You think they’re just going to let us walk, after all that’s happened.’

Ethan didn’t doubt it, although he didn’t bother elaborating to Lopez. She had made up her mind that they were doomed to incarceration and solitary confinement in some CIA black prison in Eastern Europe, or similar, and wouldn’t be persuaded otherwise by his hunches. But the fact was that MK-ULTRA now had nothing remaining to hide, except its chief assassin, Mr. Wilson. While Ethan seriously doubted that the CIA would willingly hand over their loyal killer after so many years of service, it seemed unlikely that he would be able to continue working.

A door opened nearby and Jarvis stepped out, closing it behind him and walking toward Ethan and Lopez. Ethan stood up as Lopez got straight into Jarvis’s face.

‘Spill it!’ she snapped.

Jarvis looked at her without concern, and smiled.

‘The Joint Chiefs of Staff have all concurred that your work here was of the highest order and that the witch-hunt orchestrated by the CIA was severely misguided. All operations against you have been officially terminated.’

Lopez took a pace closer to him. ‘What about that a*shole, Wilson?’

Jarvis glanced at Ethan. ‘That particular a*shole is now retired, after I accidentally put a photograph of him into the hands of police departments in Washington, DC, New York City, Ohio, Wisconsin and Atlanta.’ Jarvis rolled his eyes. ‘Butter fingers.’

‘What photo?’ Lopez pressed, not willing to back down yet.

‘Taken by Ethan’s sister six months ago, in DC,’ Jarvis explained, ‘when she was being followed by members of the CIA while working at the Government Accountability Office. I also added some shots taken by an associate of mine, down the barrel of a sniper rifle. Needless to say, I didn’t mention that to the police.’

Ethan began to feel the tension in his shoulders slip away. ‘Non-disclosure agreements all round?’

Jarvis nodded. ‘Witnesses to the events in the cathedral have all signed their respective documents, with one exception.’

‘Joanna,’ Ethan guessed. ‘She took off.’

‘As did you,’ Lopez pointed at Jarvis. ‘Mighty surprised you didn’t see her.’

‘She’s quick as a cat,’ Jarvis replied. ‘If I knew where she had gone, I would have tracked her down by now.’

‘She’s good at lying low,’ Ethan said. ‘But she hasn’t made contact with us either. What’s the JCOS’s decision on her?’

Jarvis shrugged. ‘If she’s willing to testify, behind closed senate doors, obviously, then those responsible for her imprisonment and treatment can be brought to trial.’

‘But then that would expose the CIA’s director to homicide and treason charges,’ Lopez uttered. ‘Like that’s going to happen.’

Jarvis nodded apologetically toward Ethan. ‘If they agree to put to trial former CIA figures, then it defeats the whole purpose of protecting the CIA’s presence and operations. It can’t end well.’

Ethan nodded, guessing the rest.

‘So, as long as she stays quiet, she’ll be likewise left alone. That’s the deal.’

‘That’s about it.’ Jarvis nodded.

‘And what about us?’ Lopez demanded.

Jarvis’s smile returned. ‘Fully re-instated to the Defense Intelligence Agency, as am I, with all security clearance restored. We’re back in business, which is just as well because a situation is developing in Nevada that I think you’ll be interested to . . .’

Ethan raised a hand to stop Jarvis. The old man stopped talking, looking at Ethan and Lopez in turn. Ethan spoke quietly.

‘We’re done, Doug,’ he said. ‘We’re heading back to Chicago.’

Jarvis stared at them for a long moment, before speaking to Lopez.

‘Look, if you think I was betraying you then that’s not the case, I was just . . .’

‘Trying to do the right thing,’ Lopez finished the sentence for him. ‘We know, but doing the right thing routinely either puts us in danger or screws somebody else, Doug, and we’re tired of it.’

‘Nobody said this life was easy,’ Jarvis replied, and looked at Ethan. ‘But it’s a damned sight better than the place I dragged you from, Ethan. Remember that, all those years ago? The tenement block, the drinking and brawling?’

Ethan nodded, briefly recalling the bitter years spent watching life pass by his crucible of pain and loneliness.

‘I do,’ he replied, ‘and I’ll be forever grateful. But I’ve paid my dues, Doug, several times over, and Nicola’s done enough. Everything we’ve seen has told us over and over again that if we keep playing this game then, sooner or later, one of us is going to die.’ Ethan walked to join Lopez’s side. ‘And neither of us wants that to happen.’

Lopez looked up at Ethan as a bright smile spread across her features, and she glanced over her shoulder at Jarvis as she spun to walk away down the corridor.

‘It’s been fun,’ she said, without an ounce of emotion. ‘Goodbye, Mr. Jarvis.’

Ethan watched her go and then turned back to his mentor.

‘What are you going to do instead?’ Jarvis asked Ethan with a wince. ‘Spend your days plucking losers out of the gutter for a couple hundred bucks a shot?’

Ethan shrugged. ‘I guess. We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, but it’s what we want, Doug. We’re damned lucky to still be alive after what the DIA’s put us through. Right now, a few simple bail-runners seems like a great deal. We’re going home.’

Jarvis stared at him for a long moment, before replying: ‘I can’t believe you’re walking away from this.’

Ethan stuck his hand out and Jarvis shook it reluctantly.

‘Good luck, Doug.’

Ethan turned away, but Jarvis’s hand on his arm restrained him. Jarvis reached into his pocket and retrieved a small roll of 8mm film. He pushed it into Ethan’s hand.

‘More use to Joanna than it is to me,’ he said. ‘It’s Major Greene’s footage of the CIA agents splicing Harrison Defoe’s water supply with LSD. Just in case.’

Ethan looked down at the film in his hand and managed a grin. Then he turned and walked away from Jarvis without looking back.