The Eternity Project Read online

  ‘You want to tell me what the hell’s really going on here?’ Karina demanded, eyeing Jarvis suspiciously.

  ‘Your team is getting the support it needs to solve this case,’ Lopez replied.

  ‘I mean that goddamned warehouse!’ Karina snapped. ‘We’ve got two impossible murders, you guys turning up and taking over our cases and people photographing a crime scene that nobody but us should know exists.’

  Jarvis stepped forward, taking over from Lopez.

  ‘This is how we work,’ he replied. ‘Sometimes agencies have problems solving cases and they pass jurisdiction to us.’

  Karina shook her head. ‘The FBI haven’t even visited this site yet, so how the hell would they know? How did you get jurisdiction of this scene and this investigation? Why are you here?’

  Ethan looked at Karina and sensed that she was not the type to simply back down. If they didn’t bring her in as an ally, sooner or later she would start digging and things would get even more difficult than they already were.

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Ethan said. ‘We’re here to help but right now we need your help, too. Can we talk, later? We’ll explain as much as we can.’

  Karina looked from Lopez to Ethan to Jarvis and back again.

  ‘Apartment 4B, Forton Place, Broadway,’ she said. ‘I get off at eight.’

  As Karina turned and stalked away, Jarvis looked at Ethan and gestured to the SUV. ‘We need to talk.’

  Ethan got into the vehicle with Lopez as Jarvis climbed in behind them and shut the door.

  ‘You’re damned right, we need to talk,’ Ethan snapped as the vehicle pulled away. ‘There’s a hell of a lot going on right now that doesn’t make any sense. I thought you said that the CIA was off our case?’

  ‘They are,’ Jarvis replied defensively. ‘I don’t know who that was on the roof.’

  ‘It could have been CIA,’ Ethan said reasonably. ‘You said it yourself: the CIA’s director was at the meeting with you.’

  ‘They’re not on the scene,’ Jarvis assured him. ‘The director promised to pull his people off your tail just as long as we didn’t make any further investigations into MK-ULTRA.’

  ‘And you believed him?’ Lopez asked. ‘I wouldn’t trust a spook as far as I could throw one.’

  ‘Nor would I,’ Jarvis admitted with a brief shrug, ‘which is why you’ll continue with your investigation.’

  Ethan raised an eyebrow in surprise, as the SUV smoothly changed lanes. ‘You’re double-crossing them?’

  Jarvis smiled thinly.

  ‘The CIA has made a fifty-year career out of double-crossing people, so Director Steel’s not likely to be shy of going behind my back. I’m not about to let this go until I have absolutely solid proof of CIA corruption or involvement, whether sanctioned or not, in the killing of American citizens. Right now, the evidence I have is circumstantial unless we can find somebody to testify to the Senate.’

  Lopez leaned forward in her seat, a cynical smile slapped across her features. ‘And once you have this evidence, then what? Somehow, I don’t think you’ll run screaming to the papers.’

  ‘The evidence will be presented to a military court,’ Jarvis said. ‘Either that or it will be locked safely away at the DIA to act as insurance against any further inter-agency interference, from the CIA or anybody else.’

  Ethan felt something uncomfortable slither inside him. ‘And what about this case here: the two losers they found in that warehouse?’

  ‘I want you to work with the police team and solve this case, while I find out what I can from Donovan about Aaron Lymes’ death. It will look good back at the DIA that you’re still actively on their side. Right now, half of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is entertaining the possibility that you two have been murdering CIA agents, remember?’

  Ethan’s guts felt as though they had turned to stone.

  ‘I’m not doing this to suck up to a bunch of brass.’

  ‘And what about Joanna?’ Lopez asked. ‘If we lose her trail, she’ll be almost impossible to pick up again; and if we find her and the CIA are watching us, then they’ll grab her and that’s the last we’ll see of her.’

  ‘Not necessarily,’ Jarvis pointed out. ‘It’s what she might know that scares them, and what she might do with that knowledge. If Joanna has done what they obviously think she has and gone underground on a mission to expose MK-ULTRA, then the CIA’s mission is to stop her at all costs. But if she can be prevented from doing so, and we at the DIA hold any hard evidence she possesses, then she is no longer a threat.’

  Lopez leaned back in her seat with a bitter chuckle. ‘The DIA has its own get-out-of-jail-free card and we’re all in the clear. You’ve got it all worked out, Doug, I’ll give you that.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Ethan said, finally. ‘The bodies in the warehouse could just be some sort of elaborate hoax to throw investigators off the trail.’

  Jarvis shook his head.

  ‘Unlikely. We’ll have to get you both down to the Medical Examiner’s Office as soon as possible to find out what the autopsy says. Even if it’s not a case that warrants the DIA’s involvement, it gives you a reason to stay in New York and any case you solve will increase your standing. Right now, you need all the support you can get.’

  Ethan glanced out of the vehicle’s window at the bleak winter sky and the cold gray cityscape of New York City. The huge metropolis was both the perfect place for a fugitive to hide and also the perfect hunting ground.

  ‘Whatever the situation might be, this city’s going to be a dangerous place until we resolve this situation once and for all. There’s a possible assassin, fugitive and serial killer on the loose here all at the same time.’

  ‘Then we’d best get to work,’ Jarvis said. ‘Stay close to Karina. Maybe she can help.’

  15

  BROADWAY, NEW YORK

  ‘We really appreciate this, Karina.’

  Ethan watched as Karina handed them both a drink before flopping down onto a tired-looking couch. Her apartment was cramped and sparsely decorated, her salary as a detective probably only just allowing her to cover the rent. New York City was densely populated and the price of property was totally off the scale. Unless you were a celebrity or the Bronx and Harlem was your thing, everybody rented. People only went for mortgages when they were too old to live in the city, and then they bought places out to the north or over New Jersey way. New York City was a playground for the young, the successful and those who wanted to be. For the rest, it was just damned hard work.

  ‘No big deal,’ Karina replied. ‘Not like I get many visitors, anyway.’

  ‘Glen doesn’t live here with you?’ Lopez asked.

  Ethan stared at her in surprise. ‘How do you know that Glen’s with Karina?’

  ‘It’s a woman thing.’ Lopez smiled at Karina, who grinned conspiratorially back at her as she noticed Ethan’s apparent discomfort.

  Karina shrugged. ‘Glen’s as busy as I am, and he doesn’t want us to move in together yet, anyway. Says it’s too much commitment too soon.’ Ethan noticed Lopez roll her eyes and glance in his direction, but he said nothing. ‘And, on my own, I can’t afford to do much but sleep and eat. Been here two years and all I’ve done is paint the walls.’

  ‘Same for me back home,’ Lopez said. ‘I feel like I’ve only been out of the force for a few months.’

  Karina nursed her drink as she eyed them both curiously.

  ‘Yeah, what was the deal with that anyway?’ she asked. ‘I heard you were up for promotion after busting open some kind of big thing in DC, like Donovan said. Your name was big news for a week or two.’

  ‘It’s a long story,’ Ethan replied for Lopez.

  ‘Good,’ Karina replied without hesitation and looked at Lopez. ‘I like epics. Begin.’

  ‘It’s complicated,’ Lopez replied. ‘My partner and I in DC got involved in an investigation that was much bigger than we thought. Ethan here came in close to the end, but, by then, my partner h
ad been killed.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Karina said. ‘I didn’t know.’

  ‘A lot of the details were kept fairly quiet outside of local media,’ Lopez said. ‘I was offered promotion but turned it down and left the force. Ethan and I teamed up and we’re private investigators, technically.’

  ‘Technically?’ Karina pressed.

  ‘We work for the government,’ Ethan said. ‘We’re subcontracted to a department within the Defense Intelligence Agency, which picks up criminal investigations that are passed over by other agencies as unworkable.’

  Karina raised an eyebrow. ‘Very Men in Black. So what brought you here? And don’t tell me it was the Hell Gate case. You must have been in town before then, if you’re from DC?’

  ‘We’re from Illinois,’ Ethan informed her. ‘Our work for the DIA takes us across the country.’

  ‘You follow the news a few months back?’ Lopez asked her. ‘A Democrat Congressman sanctioned a congressional investigation into corruption within the intelligence community.’

  Karina frowned. ‘Sure, got shut down after a couple of months. Some poor guy died or something.’

  ‘Quite a few people died,’ Ethan replied for Lopez. ‘We’re investigating what happened.’

  The decision to lie to Karina was one that Ethan and Lopez had debated on the way over. Ethan feared that exposing her to what was really happening could possibly make her a target. Lopez had admitted that was something she wished to avoid but at the same time was loathe to risk lying to a potential ally only for those lies to later be exposed. Ultimately, it came down to a practical requirement of their work with the DIA that they were already used to: tell as much of the truth as possible, in order to cover the lie.

  ‘You’re investigating your own people?’

  Lopez nodded. ‘But quietly. There’s not much more we can say right now as this may lead to nothing but, because we need to be able to work without raising suspicions, we’ve had to travel incognito. We’re subcontracted, so it’s a little easier for us to investigate than putting actual government employees on the case.’

  ‘So nobody knows that you’re here?’

  ‘Officially, we’re on vacation from the DIA,’ Lopez replied smoothly. ‘Nobody knows we’re in New York.’

  Karina appeared to be wavering between excitement and disappointment. ‘Jesus, I get to investigate drug-homicides and domestic assaults and you guys are going all Jack Bauer. There’s no justice.’

  ‘Believe me,’ Lopez replied, ‘it’s not all satellites and car chases. Most of the time it’s dead boring.’

  ‘Sounds like it,’ Karina said demurely. ‘So you’re here for how long?’

  ‘We’re not sure,’ Ethan said. ‘We did some work up in Idaho a few months ago that exposed an operation that was off the books. We’re down here doing follow-up research to see if anybody else knows about their experiments.’

  ‘Their experiments?’ Karina echoed.

  ‘It’s not as exotic as it sounds,’ Lopez lied. ‘The trail led us to New York and we’ve got to do some digging around here. It’s better that we don’t broadcast our presence too widely.’

  Karina looked at them both closely for a moment. ‘You think that people might come after you? The same people that killed Aaron Lymes?’

  ‘No, it’s not like that,’ Lopez reassured her. ‘After what happened in DC, they’re as keen to resolve this discreetly as anybody else, and Lymes is a separate case.’

  ‘And yet you’re hiding,’ Karina said suspiciously.

  ‘The CIA has burned evidence of previous covert operations before now in order to avoid public outcry and congressional investigations,’ Ethan pointed out. ‘Our job is to grab evidence before they have the chance to do that again. It’s not us they’ll target, but paper trails and safe-houses, stuff like that.’

  Karina rubbed her forehead as though trying to clear her thoughts. ‘So what’s my role in all of this?’

  ‘We need access to the police,’ Lopez replied. ‘Not personal access but an ear to the ground.’

  ‘Are you looking for people?’ Karina asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Ethan said. ‘Right now, we’re just trying to identify leads from older cases handled by our agency.’

  Karina inclined her head. ‘Okay, I get it. You can’t go to the FBI or anything because that might result in your investigation getting noticed.’

  ‘That’s pretty much it,’ Lopez said, nodding. ‘Everything needs to be covert so that we don’t spook anybody into closing up shop.’

  ‘Why not just go public with what you’ve got?’ Karina asked. ‘It worked for WikiLeaks.’

  ‘All sorts of reasons,’ Lopez said, ‘and look what happened to the founder of WikiLeaks when they went too far. Sure, we could go public with what’s happened, and that might make it difficult for those responsible to cover their tracks without attracting attention and drawing suspicion down on themselves. But how many people have you seen die in the papers who claimed they were the victim of intelligence conspiracies or political hits, whose stories then vanished without trace? It happens all the time, but nobody really believes it.’

  Karina’s features paled as she looked at Lopez. ‘You’re talking about assassinations?’

  ‘That’s right,’ Ethan confirmed. ‘There’s the former KGB spy in London, Alexander Litvinenko, who was murdered by an assassin using polonium-210, a lethal dose of which killed him via radiation poisoning. The Russians were undoubtedly behind it but nobody was convicted or faced charges and it’s largely been forgotten.’

  ‘Then there’s Viktor Yushchenko, the former Ukrainian president,’ Lopez added, ‘who was the victim of an assassination attempt using TCDD, a potent dioxin used in Agent Orange. He survived but was permanently disfigured as a result.’

  ‘Sure,’ Karina admitted, ‘but they’re both being hit by Russian agencies, not people here in the States. I thought you said you weren’t being targeted?’

  ‘We’re not,’ Lopez said with an easy smile, ‘and nor would anybody around us. But others might be, which is why we need to collate evidence and present it to the Pentagon before anything goes pear-shaped.’

  ‘Look,’ Ethan said, ‘right now, we’re trying to track down people whose families may have been of interest when the CIA’s operations were at their height. There’s hardly any names left on our list but one of them comes from New York City.’

  ‘Where’d you get this list from?’

  ‘My sister, Natalie,’ Ethan said. ‘She was working at the Government Accountability Office in DC during the congressional investigation. It was one of her colleagues there who was killed, shutting the whole thing down.’

  ‘You think that was an assassination?’ Karina gasped.

  ‘We don’t know,’ Lopez said. ‘Either way, it doesn’t affect us as we’re much removed from those events.’

  Karina shook her head slowly. ‘What’s the name you’ve got?’

  ‘Barraclough.’

  Karina chuckled. ‘That name, in a population of about nine million in the city alone and twenty million in the state? Good luck with that.’

  ‘There’s a narrower criteria,’ Lopez told her. ‘The individual almost certainly will have family members involved with the military, usually around the period 1950 to 1973. The CIA drew upon individuals who had unusual abilities when they were researching things like hypnosis, LSD, mind control and remote-viewing.’

  ‘I’ve heard about stuff like that,’ Karina murmured cautiously. ‘I thought it was all just a myth, you know, conspiracy theories.’

  ‘It’s not a myth,’ Ethan assured her. ‘The program was called MK-ULTRA and is well documented by historians. The CIA has even apologized and paid compensation to the families of servicemen suspected to have died as a result of experiments conducted upon them without their knowledge.’

  Karina thought about this for a moment and then looked at Ethan. ‘So, how are you going to track this person down?’

&nbs
p; Ethan shrugged.

  ‘I guess we’ll start at a hall of records and see if we can narrow the search down. Maybe, there’ll be something about this Barraclough family that will stand out, something that made the CIA take notice of them in the first place. If we can identify the family then we might be able to track down surviving members, maybe even the person who was involved with MK-ULTRA themselves.’

  Karina got to her feet and headed toward the kitchen, her empty glass in her hand.

  ‘My mother once tried to track down our family heritage, going all the way back to the first colonial settlers,’ she said as she walked past Ethan. ‘Took her fourteen years and she still never managed to . . .’

  Karina screamed and leaped backwards, as her glass crashed onto the kitchen floor and shattered into a thousand tiny crystals. Ethan leapt out of his seat in shock, his heart thundering against the wall of his chest as he whirled to see Karina staring into the kitchen, her eyes wide and her hand covering her mouth.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ Lopez yelled, leaping to her feet.

  Karina continued to stare into the kitchen, her face pale despite the warm glow of the lights. Ethan walked across to her side and looked into the kitchen, the room dimly lit by the glow from the lounge.

  Something tingled across the base of his neck, raising hairs as though he had felt something unnatural hovering close by. He shivered involuntarily.

  ‘I saw somebody,’ Karina said. ‘Clear as day, standing right there in front of the window.’

  ‘Outside?’ Ethan asked, confused. ‘We’re three stories up.’

  Karina shook her head. ‘Inside, right there.’

  She pointed to the corner of the room. Ethan looked down at her and somehow he knew that she wasn’t lying. But after what they had just been discussing, she could have gotten spooked and started seeing ominous shadows where there were none.

  ‘You okay?’ Lopez asked, joining Karina. ‘You’re shaking.’

  Karina stared vacantly into the middle distance for a long moment, and then she turned and grabbed her cellphone from her pocket. Ethan watched as she speed-dialed a number and listened for it to pick up for ten long seconds.