Wilson nodded.
‘What would you have me do?’ he asked again.
‘Derail the investigation in any way that you can,’ Steel replied. ‘Hinder, obstruct and otherwise block all avenues of investigation in Washington DC that lead to either MK-ULTRA or Idaho either via the Defense Intelligence Agency or Congress.’
‘That could prove difficult,’ Wilson pointed out. ‘I won’t have deniable access to either the DIA building or Congress. If I’m seen, I’m useless to you.’
‘I’ll put pressure on the DIA director and the Congressional committee myself,’ Steel said. ‘You will apply your own pressure more discreetly.’
Steel let the word hang between them.
‘I want assured immunity,’ Wilson said, ‘in writing from both yourself and the President.’
Steel raised an eyebrow.
‘I can give you assured immunity from prosecution if this all goes belly up, but the President will—’
‘Will want his own ass covered,’ Wilson cut the director off. ‘So get the Defense Secretary, or the Joint Chiefs or the goddamned Director of National Intelligence to sign the paperwork. Either way, you want me to take down American citizens on your watch, you sign the paperwork and you get it to me. Otherwise, I don’t budge.’
General Steel had of course expected Wilson to demand some kind of immunity from prosecution. But it wasn’t the first time that the CIA had been forced to consider the killing of American citizens. A previous intelligence chief had once testified before the House Intelligence Committee in 2010 that the US intelligence community was prepared to kill US citizens if they threatened other Americans or the United States. Assassinations, both on American soil and abroad, occurred regularly. That was the nature of counterterrorism: sometimes, people had to die so that the majority might live. The CIA’s charter was a pure white canvas of idealistic patriotism, but that canvas was regularly stained by the harsh reality of blood spilled in the name of national security.
But targeting members of Congress or their colleagues was another matter entirely.
‘I’ll get it done,’ Steel said finally.
There was no other option. The danger of seeing the CIA shut down was simply too great. Steel knew that threats to disband the agency dated back to the Kennedy administration. As recently as 2004, senators had repeated a need to end the agency and see it broken up into smaller departments overseen more closely by Congress and other intelligence agencies. With public concern about the lack of information regarding CIA policies and activities, a $44 billion per year budget and the potential for the abuse of unchecked executive power, a scandal now could bring the agency down around General Steel, an outcome he intended to prevent with all of that unchecked power.
Wilson stood and looked down at the director.
‘Focus on the outsourced investigators at the DIA,’ he advised. ‘That’s the weak link in their investigation and the easiest way to trip them up. We need controllable government agents up there in Idaho, not freelancers.’
Steel nodded. Both the CIA and the DIA employed contractors that accounted for almost 50 per cent of the total workforce. The travesty of the situation meant that civilians were exposed to classified information which could then be leaked to the media, and the only retaliation the agency could mount would be expensive and complex court battles instead of more discreet internal investigations and punishments.
‘I’ll arrange a meeting with the Director DIA, Director NSA and the Joint Chiefs of Staff,’ Steel confirmed. ‘With luck I might be able to get this back under our control.’
‘It’s already too late for that,’ Wilson replied coolly. ‘This is damage limitation. The Idaho site needs to be removed from play entirely and anybody up there eradicated along with it.’
Steel sighed heavily but he knew that Wilson was right. Cutting the head off the Hydra was no longer an option: only total destruction would suffice.
‘What about that thing they have up there?’ he asked.
‘That’s your problem,’ Wilson replied. ‘I’ll take care of this end. I know for a fact that we’ve had at least one Congressional official under surveillance for some time. They’ll come in handy right now.’
Steel stared at Wilson in amazement.
‘Who?’
7
The zoology department was a gothic-looking building located on East 57th Street. Ethan looked out of the window as the sedan pulled in alongside an ornate archway called Hull Gate. Jarvis climbed out and led Ethan and Lopez into the complex. Tree-lined residential halls were filled with students hurrying from one lecture to another or catching the last warmth of the fall on the neat gardens.
‘What are we doing back at school?’ Lopez asked.
‘There’s been an incident, way up in Idaho. You need some background training before you head up there.’
They turned left along a path that led to the entrance of the compound’s zoology building. Ethan followed Jarvis inside, the old man apparently knowing exactly where he was going, and reached an office within. Ethan glimpsed a nameplate on the door as he walked in: Professor Giles Middleton.
The office was in part a laboratory, but one that looked as though it had been built sometime during the previous century. To Ethan it looked like a cross between Hogwarts and Frankenstein’s dining room. Tall glass cabinets lined an entire wall, filled with glass jars containing the remains of bizarre creatures the likes of which Ethan had never seen.
‘Jesus,’ Lopez muttered. ‘It’s like Pan’s Labyrinth in here.’
Ethan leaned close to one of the glass jars, peering in at what looked like a cross between a baby hippo and an alligator, suspended in some kind of embalming fluid. Small, black eyes squinted vacantly back at him from within the jar, which had a yellowing label affixed to one side.
Ivory Coast, 1874
Lopez peered in at the strange foetus. ‘Whatever the hell that is, I’m glad it didn’t get the chance to grow up.’
Ethan glanced around the laboratory, dust motes glinting in the sunlight beaming through the windows. The beams hit a painting on one wall that depicted what looked like a Spanish galleon being crushed in the grip of an immense octopus, terrified sailors hurling themselves from the ship’s rigging into a tumultuous sea.
To his left were row upon row of specimen jars that held a thousand different species, all of them looking as though they had come from another planet. The darkest recesses at the back of the laboratory harboured shadowy forms like demons sheltering from the light, deformed skeletons and grotesque skulls peering as though from the gates of Hades.
Then Ethan looked up.
‘Holy crap,’ he uttered out loud.
Suspended from the ceiling beams was a skeleton of bleached bones that Ethan reckoned must be at least fifty feet long, its remains looping back and forth across the ceiling in order to fit it all in. There was no mistaking what it looked like. Yet the only problem for him was that what it looked like was a creature from the fantasies of science-fiction authors, the long and undulating body of a fish tipped with the head of some kind of shark.
‘It looks like a sea serpent,’ Lopez said as she gazed up at the remains.
The reply came from the doorway behind them. ‘That’s because it is a sea serpent.’