Natalie turned off the lamp. She hurried out of the office and back to her desk.
Rikard was out of his chair and loping his way toward her even before she’d managed to pick up her phone.
‘Got something for me, Natalie?’ he asked.
‘Not yet.’
‘You’re taking your time,’ he muttered, and glanced at the paperwork on her desk. ‘And you’re not working on the files I left for you.’
‘It’s called multi-tasking,’ Natalie shot back with an icy smile. ‘You should try it someday.’
Rikard ignored her and picked up one of the files from her desk, then leafed through it.
‘MK-ULTRA,’ he uttered. ‘Are you kidding me?’
Natalie set her phone down again. Rikard was an asshole, and right now she felt certain that he was taking a far greater interest in her work than he otherwise might. Usually he spent most of his time ogling her breasts instead. But, she figured, telling as much of the truth as possible was usually the best way to lie.
‘Joanna Defoe may have a connection to it,’ she replied. ‘It’s a thin lead but it’s got enough potential to chase it down.’
‘Again,’ Rikard reminded her. ‘You’ve done this before, Natalie, and nothing came of it.’
‘I didn’t have the information then that I do now,’ she replied.
Rikard dropped the file on her desk.
‘You don’t have shit,’ he snapped, his podgy face turning an ugly shade of red as he squinted at her. ‘I’ve given you more leeway than most people here but it stops right now. You’re chasing fantasies when other people here are spending their days doing real work, work that matters, work that gets results. You either clear this whole thing up, refile it, and get back to work right now, or I’ll fire you and have somebody else hired who can do the job!’
‘What’s your problem, Guy?’ Natalie shot back, standing up from her seat as the entire rest of the office looked on. ‘Why the opposition to this work when it might expose the biggest misuse of taxpayer’s money and the most disgusting abuse of human rights by a government agency since the Nazis?’
The office fell dead silent around her but Guy shook his head, his features beaming with malicious delight.
‘That’ll sound great at your dismissal hearing,’ he replied, and shook his head. ‘I was hired to do a job but I got fired chasing down a huge conspiracy. You really think that anybody believes a word that you’re saying?’
‘Ben believes it, and he’s out there right now doing his job too!’
‘He’s wasting his time,’ Rikard snapped, ‘and you’re wasting my time.’
‘How the hell can Ben be wasting his time out there? This is relevant to CIA activity, we know that!’
‘It’s relevant to you personally!’ Rikard yelled. ‘This office serves Congress not your paranoid little fantasies, now shut up and get back to work! And I want Ben Consiglio back here right now, no arguments!’
Natalie was about to answer back when Larry Levinson walked nervously up to Rikard.
‘Boss?’
‘What?!’ Rikard yelled, turning to loom over the smaller man.
‘There’s been an accident,’ Larry said, and looked at Natalie. ‘Ben’s been in a car wreck over in Virginia.’
Natalie felt a cold veil of horror sink over her, her limbs feeling heavy as she balanced herself on her desk.
‘Is he okay?’ she asked.
Larry shrugged apologetically. ‘I don’t know, Nat. I just know that his car was identified as one of our vehicles and the police on scene called it in.’
Natalie’s hand flew to her mouth as she realized what that probably meant. She wasn’t a family member, so any details of death would be withheld from their office until Ben’s family had been informed. ‘Oh, Jesus.’
Rikard rubbed his temple with one hand.
‘That’s all I need, one man down at a time like this.’
Natalie stared at Rikard for a moment as her mind emptied of conscious thought, and then she stepped forward and swung her fist at him.
Her knuckles smacked into Guy’s sweaty temple with a sharp crack. The blow was so unexpected that Guy span aside and sprawled across a desk, scattering a phone and pens onto the office floor. His blotchy face collapsed into rage and he leapt up off the desk toward Natalie, who stepped back out of range as to her surprise Larry put himself between them. The diminutive analyst raised a hand toward Rikard.
‘Easy, Guy,’ he said in a trembling voice. ‘You earned that one.’
‘She assaulted me,’ Guy growled, his beady eyes cold as they glared at Natalie.
‘And there are plenty of people who will attest to that,’ Larry replied. ‘You hit her back and I’ll attest to that too whether you like it or not.’
Guy glared down at Larry, but Natalie sensed that he realized retaliation would only serve to scupper his own career as well as Natalie’s. His arm quivered as though alive with unspent energy as he pointed at Natalie’s desk.
‘Clear your desk and get the hell out of here,’ he hissed.
Natalie, still numb with shock, merely turned and picked up her bag and the handwritten names of the MK-ULTRA victims. She turned and strode away from the desk as she called back over her shoulder.
‘Clear it yourself, asshole.’
Natalie strode out of the office and down the corridor outside, her mind swimming. She had walked fifteen paces before she realized she was heading in the wrong direction. She turned and saw Larry hurrying after her.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Never better,’ she replied vacantly.
Larry fell in step alongside her.
‘That’s crap. Ben’s hurt or worse and you just lost your job after assaulting your boss.’
‘It’s only Ben I’m worried about.’
‘Me too,’ Larry replied. ‘And about you. As for Guy, I think that every single person in that office has dreamed of doing that for many, many years. It’ll go down in Congressional history.’
Natalie reached the elevators and stopped. Larry was watching her with an earnest expression, and she managed a faint smile. Larry gave her a nod as the elevator doors opened. ‘Now go and find out what happened to Ben. They said he was out on Route 646, got hit head-on in a hit-andrun. I’ll see what I can do here to talk Guy out of filing assault charges.’
Natalie turned and hurried into the elevator, both flooded with gratitude for Larry’s help and filled with dread for Ben’s safety.
‘Thanks, Larry,’ was all that she could think of to say.
‘Thank me later when this has all settled,’ he replied, ‘and call me when you find out what’s happened to Ben.’
45
The light was fading fast.
Ethan’s bergen felt heavier than ever as he clambered up the steep hillside, the dense forest around them cloaked in swirling mist and clogged with cold moisture that beaded on his face and eyelashes.
Duran Wilkes was just ahead and moving at a furious pace, as he had been for almost two hours now. How the wiry old man was able to cover ground so fast at his age was a wonder to Ethan, who was struggling with fatigue. Behind him labored Lopez, equally exhausted, followed by Dana and Proctor.
To their flanks, Kurt Agry’s soldiers kept pace with Duran, moving through dense patches of foliage with practiced efficiency and near complete silence. Down to five men, they were now taking their predicament very seriously.
‘It’s getting dark,’ Lopez said behind him.
‘We’ll have to make camp soon if we don’t catch up with this thing,’ Ethan replied. ‘Duran’s not going to like that but we’ll not be able to track it at night.’
That was despite the obvious trail left through the forest. Ethan had never been an expert tracker despite his training in the corps. Some people had an eye for that sort of thing, and while he knew enough to follow simple game and the foot patrols of enemy soldiers he had always left point duties to those more gifted. But even he could see this trail. Snapped branches, trodden foliage and deep, obvious footprints wound their way ever higher into the mountains.