* * *
December Continued
As soon as the room was clear of Agency personnel Geofferies rushed to Alyx who made sure to do the perfect combination of scared, confused and relieved to see him all at the same time. "Kirk, what is going on?"
He ran his hands over her to make sure she was unharmed and then cupped her face. "Ah hell, Maddy. I'm sorry about this. It has to do with my work." Taking her hands he led her over to the padded bed and encouraged her to sit. After glaring at those he knew were on the other side of the mirror he sat down beside her.
"They said I was involved in some sort of explosion, some conspiracy. That my ... my father was involved." She shook her head. "I left LA because of him, have tried to stay out of his business, and this ... Why are they doing this?"
"Maddy, it has nothing to do with you and I'm sorry you got dragged into it." He watched as she nodded and then dropped her head, shaking slightly. "Come here."
Alyx let him wrap his arms about her and pull her close. He was damn near ready to break all on his own, wanting to keep her out of it, to keep her uninvolved in the darker, and sometimes more dangerous aspects of his work. "And here I thought you were just some sweet geek with connections, getting into the Palace and all, and instead you're the mastermind of some great conspiracy that has the government breaking into your home to drag you out of a carefully planned intimate moment." She laughed ruefully. "I'm hoping this tour of a padded room wasn't part of the plan? Hey, at least they didn't provide straightjackets for the complete effect." There was more than a touch of hysteria in her voice at this point.
"Easy there. It'll be all right." Kirkland ran his hands along her spine, trying to comfort her and knowing that until the situation was straightened out there was little chance of that. Looking over her shoulder he tried to stare through his reflection to see those beyond it, without success. "Maddy," He gently pushed her upright so he could meet her eyes. "You need to trust me on this, okay?"
She nodded, keeping up the pretense of confusion and fear, but damn if it wasn't difficult. Using him like this, playing him, with his emotions... she hated it, but was well aware she was also damn good at it. "All right, but what do I do? They keep threatening me, saying I did things..."
He set a finger to her lips. "You didn't, right?" Alyx nodded in agreement. "Then don't worry about it."
In the viewing room Darien was drumming the fingers of one hand impatiently on the ledge before the window. "Come on, Alyx, ask him to spill."
Hobbes grunted. "I hope not. Screw everything up if she does." He stopped his pacing and moved over next to Darien and looked at the couple still talking quietly. He'd give them another five and then yank Alyx out of the room.
"Huh? Thought that's why she's in there?" Darien turned away from the sight of Alyx once again curled up against Geofferies, though this time it seemed it was him who wanted the comfort. His eyes closed and head leaning against hers, his face a mask of pain. It wasn't difficult for Darien to figure out the guy really liked her, liked Maddy anyway, and for the first time realized exactly how hard this must be on her. She'd told him several times, but until now it hadn't really sunk in.
"Look," Hobbes began, interrupting Darien's sudden attack of deep thoughts. "If she starts asking for him to give us what we want, he'll get suspicious, but if she keeps playing it the way she is, scared and confused, he'll cave all on his own. To protect her." He turned away to lean back against the counter and watch Eberts who was still working at compiling data for use. "And when I pull her out of the room by force, that should put him over the edge."
Darien shook his head. "She hates this. You do know that, right?"
"Yeah, I know, but she's also damn good at it. This role-playing thing..." Hobbes almost sounded in awe of her. "I'm good. The kid's a natural." He noticed the way Geofferies was whispering into her ear now and decided it was time to break up the little party. "Baker, time to get her out of there. A little manhandling, but don't overdo it. Don't want Geofferies trying to defend her honor."
"Agent Hobbes, I'd be more worried about her defending Geofferies. She's convinced he's innocent." Baker told them.
"I ain't saying he's not." Hobbes conceded. "But we still need the info and he's got it."
"He's gonna want to deal for her." Darien commented softly.
"Probably." Hobbes waved at Baker who left the viewing room to appear seconds later in the padded room with his partner Hill.
"You leave her out of this." Geofferies shouted as she was all but torn from his arms. "Damn it, you bastards, she had nothing to do with this."
"Kirk, don't." Alyx said in a scared voice. "I... I'll be okay. You do what you need to."
Hobbes grinned. "Oh kid, that was perfect."
As soon as the door was shut Geofferies was up and pacing floor, his frustration evident as he raked his hands through his hair making it stand up wildly and reminding Hobbes of the painstaking coif his partner usually sported. Hair that now hung low on Darien's forehead, the warranty for the gel or whatever he stuck in it having obviously expired about three hours ago.
The door to the viewing room opened then and Alyx strode in wearing a frown. She smiled slightly at the men packed into the room. "Hey Ebes, Darien." she greeted them in a tired voice. Going to the window she placed her hands on the cool glass and closed her eyes.
"Well, kid? How long do you think it'll..."
Geofferies rushed to the window and slammed a fist against it right next to where Alyx was standing, her eyes still closed, but now looking like she was in pain. "Let Maddy go!" he shouted, making them thankful the volume for the mic in the room had been turned down.
"...take for him to break." Hobbes finished.
"Oh, not very I'm guessing." Darien commented in a dry tone.
"He still needs a small push." Alyx said in a soft voice.
"And I have just the thing." Hobbes flipped the switch on the side of the microphone and leaned his hands on the counter. "'Fraid I can't do that. We're waiting for the results of some tests on the explosive used to blow the lab." Hobbes paused to draw out the moment, to get Geofferies to sweat a bit more. "Its looking like it might match a partial shipment we found in one of Kenneth Dorchester's storage facilities. His little girl is apparently more involved in the family business than anyone thought."
Geofferies threw up his hands, completely at a loss at how to get through to these people. He backed away from the glass to end up leaning against the padded wall across from it, Alyx reached out and turned up the volume to the room sound and Geofferies quietly muttered words became plain as day. "I told them this was a stupid idea."
"That what was a stupid idea, Dr. Geofferies?" Hobbes jumped on it, not giving the man a chance to deny or back away from the tiny revelation he'd let escape.
Alyx sighed. The wall that she'd felt in Geofferies mind, crumbled, his carefully hoarded and protected thoughts now open, allowing himself to remember everything. She didn't go perusing through them; just waited for Bobby to start asking the questions that would allow them to get to the truth.
Hobbes covered the mic and looked at her. "Kid?"
"He's ready, just don't push the Maddy angle too hard or he'll clam back up." she explained in a distracted voice, still focused on the man in the other room.
Hobbes grunted in reply and nodded. "Well, Dr. Geofferies? That blowing up the lab was stupid? Selling the intel was stupid? Killing two men was stupid?"
"God damn it, no one is dead." Geofferies snapped and then spun about to punch the wall in anger. "Let Maddy go. She knows nothing about any of this."
"True." Alyx muttered barely loud enough for Hobbes to catch. She blinked back to herself and flicked off the mic real quick. "Bobby, Geofferies really believes no one died in that accident."
Hobbes shoved her hand away and flipped the mic back on. "Try explaining that to the families of the two men who buried them." He watched Alyx instead of Geofferies, who had closed her eyes and was leaning against the glass again.
"And I'm telling you it was all a set up. Some fool leaked the info to the press and it got all blown out of proportion. Those lab techs never existed." Geofferies stormed back over to the mirror, his eyes blazing with anger.
"Oh!" Eberts suddenly said behind them.
"What, Eberts?" Darien asked, feeling like a fifth wheel at the moment.
"I... I need to check something." And with that Eberts closed the laptop and rushed from the room.
"Well that was a lot of help." Hobbes griped and turned back to the problem at hand. "And how does this not involve Miss Dorchester?"
"Look, you want info, I want her released. Think we can deal?" Geofferies said after taking a moment to convince himself to cool down.
"Easy Bobby, now is the time to deal." Alyx warned him in a quiet voice.
Hobbes nodded. "I'll need a bit more before I'll be able to convince my superiors she's not involved."
Geofferies groaned and turned about to lean his back on the glass. "How about that the project is ongoing?"
"We know that. You're supposedly reconstructing the lost data." Hobbes countered, hoping that would get them even more details.
The laughter that came across the speakers was harsh. "Is that the tale they spun? Fools." He made sure with his tone to give the impression he was not one to suffer fools lightly. "The project is ongoing and was never interrupted."
Hobbes flipped off the mic and turned to Alyx.
"True." she said as one hand came up to rub her forehead. She was working on one of her nastier headaches at this point.
"Damn." Darien muttered in disbelief. "Then what the hell have we been investigating?"
"I've no fricking..." Hobbes was interrupted by Eberts barreling back into the room with printouts in his hands. "Eberts?"
"Dr. Geofferies is telling the truth." He handed the papers to Hobbes who looked them over. There were grainy printouts of the two dead lab technicians and what had to be their identical twin brothers who were Marines stationed at Miramar. "They reported for duty as recently as yesterday, so I would surmise they are, indeed, very much alive."
"Well...crap." Darien stated for everyone, causing Alyx to chuckle softly.
Hobbes looked over the papers again then walked to the mic. "If we let her go you'll answer our questions?"
"Anything, everything. Get me a computer and the disks and I'll show you." He slumped down slightly, knowing he was going to probably get fired and possibly thrown into the brig for this or whatever it was the military did to civilians who broke their annoying rules. "Just let her go."
"Done." Hobbes told Geofferies then opened the door to the viewing room. "Baker, you and Hill move the doc back upstairs. Eberts you're with them, take a computer and the disks. I'll join you in fifteen."
It was dawn before they had the complete story, and what a story it was. Geofferies and his team had been working on a fuel that shared some similarities with napalm, but was in fact very, very different. It was a jellied, slow burning, lightweight, high combustion temperature, gasoline-type substitute, which had the added benefit of a low risk of exploding when abused.
They'd been testing it in a remote controlled gasoline car with a retrofitted engine, on the track out behind the main building when a group of military folk from Miramar, out on a tour of the facilities, happened upon them. When asked, after a quick description of the fuel and its efficiency compared to standard gasoline — a 500% increase - if it would work in airplanes and was told yes, with some engine modifications, the discussion became animated.
Next thing Geofferies and his group knew the Marines from Miramar were all over the project and they were now top secret. Hobbes was forced to ask Geofferies three times why the project had been taken over by Miramar before he believed it.
The Osprey.
Or rather, to be specific, the MV-22. To quote the Marines themselves straight from their public website: "The MV-22 is a medium-lift, multi-mission tilt-rotor aircraft that is being acquired by the U.S. Marine Corps to replace its aging CH-46E helicopters."
Models were also being built for the Navy (HV-22) and the Air Force (CV-22), but the Marine version was the one being most heavily produced. It was also having some problems, which this new fuel Geofferies and his team had created could solve with only minor redesign to the original machine. The whole blow-up the lab scheme was to keep the new fuel a secret from the Navy and Air Force, the Marines wanting to be a step ahead with the design and use of the Osprey, while the others waffled in problems.
The lab that had been blown up was a fake, a duplicate of the original lab, now known as 536B, to keep the Navy, who had heard rumors of the fuel and had begun sniffing around after it, off the track about its existence. The two dead lab techs were a Sergeant Major and Captain assigned to baby-sit the project and act as liaisons to the hierarchy at Miramar. Their deaths had been faked to explain their absences from Novadyne and to add credence to the implication that all the data had been lost in the accident.
Geofferies had backed up all the information to his home system as a precaution and had kept copies of all the messages involving the planned accident as well as VCD copies of the security videos. The edited versions showing the dead techs, but not them getting up and walking away after the proper amount of gore had been recorded that was on the unedited copies Geofferies had. Geofferies had everything he needed to not only clear Maddy, but also himself from any involvement with the accident as well as having documented his dislike of the plan.
Alyx sat in the next office over, having spent the last three hours listening over a cheesy speaker and feeding Bobby info all during the questioning. She'd had a headache when this had begun and by this point she could barely think. She'd even allowed Darien to try to help her by gently massaging her shoulders and giving her something comfortable to lean against instead of the hard-backed chair. Namely him.
When Bobby finally decided they were done for the night Alyx groaned and dropped the links she'd been maintaining. Darien had dozed off with his arms wrapped about her over an hour ago, his legs were stretched out across two chairs, and his head tipped slightly to rest atop hers. She wished she could sleep so easily. Shifting to sit up, he loosened his hold and muttered something about not wanting to go home yet, which made her smile.
"Come on lazy. Bobby's done and we can actually go home and sleep."
"Mmmm, your place ... bigger bed." he grumbled as he sat up a bit more. Stretching, he opened his eyes and looked at her, noting how dull her eyes were. She'd removed the green contacts at some point. "Bad one?"
"Yeah, but we're done." She glanced at the sole window to see it was quite light out. "Here comes Bobby now."
The door swung open as if on cue. "Dr. Geofferies is going to be escorted back to his apartment to catch a few hours sleep then returned here to have a little discussion with the Official." Hobbes stifled a yawn and rubbed his face in his hands. "You two get outta here. Eberts and I will make sure the reports are on his desk and then I'm gonna go crash for a few hours myself."
Alyx pushed herself slowly to her feet. Movement was enough to send shooting pains through her head. "I'll be in later ... maybe."
"Kid, you did a g...."
"Don't you dare tell me I did a good job, Bobby Hobbes." Alyx snapped in irritation. There was very little left to her temper at the moment.
"All right, you lost me on this one." Hobbes was honestly confused. She had done good work and he wanted her to know that.
Alyx glanced at Darien who looked just as bemused at his partner. "You guys don't get it do you?"
"How about explaining it to us slower ones." Darien muttered as he got to his feet. Sleeping sitting up on three of the Agency's harder chairs was just not the fun experience he'd imagined it would be. Hopefully a hot shower would take care of the worst of the aches and pains.
She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I did all that..." She waved a hand vaguely about to encompass the last several days. "...for nothing."
"Nothing? Kid, you sure you were working the same job as us?" Hobbes asked, no more enlightened than he had been moments earlier.
"Yeah, Hobbes," she sneered. "I'm damn sure." She shook her head. "Look, no one's dead, the project is still intact, and we dragged Kirkland through this hell for nothing." she hissed, her anger and outrage getting the better of her. "I've spent the last several days insinuating myself into his life, doing things that I am going to hate myself over for a long time to come and why? Because the right hand didn't want the left to know what it was doing."
"I know it seems that way, but..."
She rolled right over the top of him again. "Seems that way? Bobby, we were on a bloody snipe hunt. The Fish is probably gonna use the info to blackmail someone into a temp budget boost." When she sensed she was getting through to neither man, she sighed. "I'm going home."
"Alyx, you sure you're okay to drive?" Darien asked softly, betting she was feeling beyond crappy at this point.
"I'll be fine, thanks." she replied in a tight voice and pushed past Bobby.
"She's right, you know. All we did was learn it was a cover up within the military. One upsmanship on a grand scale."
"Damn. Yeah, it is in some ways, but it was still the job. Which we completed successfully, I might add. The kid, should be happy with that." Hobbes complained as the pair left the room. Hobbes to fill out reports with Eberts and Darien to his car to head home.
"Hobbes, what happens now ... with Maddy that is?" Darien asked, pausing to lean against the wall and yawn.
"She vanishes, of course, she — Maddy — ain't real, Fawkes." Hobbes answered, not quite sure of the point.
"And how do you think Geofferies is gonna handle that? Think he's just gonna not call or go looking for her?" Darien didn't give Hobbes a chance to reply and began walking away. "As usual the fat man saw only the goal, not the price to be paid to get to it."
Hobbes watched his partner go through the double doors at the end of the hall and sighed. "Crap."