Chapter Eight
Ft. Nexus, Honey Ridge, WV
April 26th, 2001, 4:46 p.m.
"I can't believe...I'm doing this," Capt. Charles Scully stuttered as he got into Jarod's jeep after he pulled it inside the gates. "I was supposed to report to Bethesda an hour ago. You'd better have a good reason for dragging me down here, Lt. Colonel."
"Would you mind if we stuck with Jarod and Charles?" Jarod shifted gears and eased the jeep slowly down the base's main driveway.
"What the hell's the matter with you, Grant? Lose your protocol?"
"No, I just prefer to be called Jarod," the Pretender shrugged.
"Well, I'd rather not. This is the military, Grant. We're not buddies," Capt. Scully barked. "And where are we going, anyway?"
"Can't you see? We're taking a nice leisurely drive into the base." Grant grinned roguishly, and his companion rolled his eyes.
"I told my major that I had a family emergency, Grant. You said that you found my sister's son. Now where is he?"
"In there." Jarod signaled Capt. Scully's attention to the fort ahead of them and turned left at the intersection.
"You've got to be kidding me."
"Do I look like I'm joking?" Charles glanced at Jarod, whose eyes and features had hardened very suddenly. He didn't look like some kid out for a joyride in a toy car; this was a man who had seen some terrible things. And they weren't open for discussion.
"Can I ask what your interest in this is, Lt. Colonel?"
"I'm a man who thinks that families are very important, Captain. They shouldn't be torn apart from one another." Jarod drove the jeep under the shade of a tree and put it into park. "Don't you agree?"
"My father taught me how important we are to one another," Capt. Scully nodded. "He was a Naval Captain, and he always brought us together for the holidays at the Scully house, no matter what. But I don't understand why my sister's child is here, at a military fort in West Virginia."
"Is that really necessary for your assistance?"
"Well, let's just put it this way, Grant," he shifted around in his bucket seat and faced Jarod. "It'll make me trust you a helluva lot faster."
"I can't positively confirm all of my suspicions to you, Scully, but yesterday, I happened to find my way into the surveillance room and saw a baby being tested upon. It was the same room being guarded by all those children we saw."
"Tested? Why would they be testing William?"
"I also managed to overhear some conversation between Ms. Covarrubias and some other older gentleman. They were talking not too far from me. This facility is going to be used for the development of...a higher technology."
"And that surprises you because? Might I remind you that besides the space program, we're America's #1 priority?" Capt. Scully sneered.
"They weren't talking about just defending America from other countries and terrorists, Captain. They spoke of other beings' presence in our orbit."
"What kind of beings? Monkeys from another planet here to wipe us out?"
"I don't know, but now that I think of it, I wonder if that man we saw in Stonewall Jackson Lake, was really anthropocentric. Perhaps that was an illusion."
"You're talking bullshit to me, Grant. I'm a pilot, not a scientist, remember?"
"You understand physics, Captain. How do you explain a cloaking field? How do you explain the fact that that ship you saw the other night simply disappeared into thin air? Or that its technology practically melted your digital camera?"
"I don't care. I'm here to get my sister's kid back and hopefully, get home for dinner," Capt. Scully checked his wristwatch.
"You said you wanted an explanation."
"What the hell does that have to do with William?"
"Maybe...he can help bridge the gap...between us...and them. And maybe this woman wants to find out how."
"Maybe you got knocked out harder than you thought, Grant." Jarod got out of the jeep and opened the trunk. He unlatched a silver briefcase, removed an explosive device from it, and set the bomb down in the back seat.
"What in god's name do you think you're doing!" Capt. Scully yelled.
"I'll be needing your help now, Captain." He fiddled with the timer and set the LED number display to a countdown from twelve minutes. "And please keep your voice down, lest you want to attract attention to us early."
"What do you need from me?"
"An F-15 from Bethesda is visiting this base today in the west hangar. It's about a five or six minute walk from here," Jarod pointed Charles in the right direction. "By the time you get the engines up and running, this device will go off. Exactly ninety seconds from the detonation, you'll be taking off with the jet."
"And go where?"
Grant shrugged. "You're the pilot; you decide."
"I can't make a $20 million plane disappear!"
"David Copperfield did it," he beamed widely. Once he noticed Charles' scowl reappear, his smile died down. "I'm sure you can figure out something clever."
"Just how long do you need me to be in the air?"
"Two to three minutes at minimum."
"And just how do you plan to walk out this base...without being stopped twenty feet from the front door?"
"Let's put it this way...before I became a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, I was a coroner. Then before that I did some white water rafting instruction. And just slightly before then, I was a demolition expert."
"Am I supposed to think that's funny?"
"Nope, I'm just informing you that I've been trained in the art of bomb fabrication," Jarod said and pressed two buttons simultaneously. "You can do whatever you want, Captain—I can't force you to drink your water."
"What?" Capt. Scully gave him a puzzled look.
"You know, the saying. It has something to do with forcing someone to drink water. I can't remember exactly how it goes since I've only been out in the world for about five years now..."
"You mean 'you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink'."
"Right," Jarod agreed. "That's it. But if I were you, I'd get out of this jeep. I estimate the blast radius to be about thirty feet. And if you don't want to do this, I'll understand. I did come with a contingency plan."
"Wuh...I don't get you, man, but I'll do anything to help out my sister. She helped me get through high school, and if anyone tries to hurt her, I'll break his neck."
"Good. Now if you'll excuse me, I have another plant another charge. Good luck, Captain Scully. I hope we meet again. Perhaps under a different profession."
He and Charles parted ways from the jeep, and Jarod made his way over to an ammunition station. The Pretender placed his bomb under another tree near there then proceeded towards the side parking lot of Ft. Nexus. He walked up to a BMW, glanced around the area, and threw a baseball through the passenger window.
The car alarm immediately began to sound off, and he calmly journeyed away from it while several soldiers came to investigate the noise. Meanwhile, the side entrance was unguarded, and he let himself in with his card. A few sentries watched him as he walked down the hallway towards the room where William was being held. He whistled to himself mindlessly as he stole a glimpse at a nearby clock. "Five...four...three...two..." he counted down and suddenly, the first explosion went off near the ammunition station.
Soldiers from nowhere suddenly filled the corridors armed and rushed past Jarod to see what the commotion was. He turned and pretended to be interested in the chaos but then continued on his mission. More men and women ran toward the west ammunition station, but none of this phased the Pretender. Jarod checked his watch this time but only mouthed his countdown since he was nearing the room. This catastrophe occurred in the jeep; it caused a third and fourth call of troops to sprint into action.
Jarod picked his way into the surveillance room again and silenced the internal alarms that had been going off throughout the fort's P.A. System. He next slid a CD into a player and began to play it. The strains of "Turkey in the Straw" done on MIDI tracks and a sing-song voice-over of "Hey, kids, come on and get your free ice cream!" ran through the horns now. He hoped that the idea would work, after all, the Adams and Eves were somewhat normal children. "I'm over here!" the pre-recorded voice called to them.
The Pretender eyed the camera angles that surrounded Will's cell, and the children did actually respond to the audio. Their heads turned in the direction of the speakers. So Jarod turned the volume of the CD up a bit. "Hey kids, come on and get your free ice cream! Be quick now! I'm over here!"
As he had hoped, the boys and girls lost their focus. They spun around towards the loudspeakers, and Jarod quickly shut off the hallway's zones as he watched them walk down the hallway to follow the beckoning voice.
When the Adams and Eves were no longer in viewing range, he burst out of the room. If Captain Scully had done his job correctly, he would be in the air right now and buy him at least another minute. Jarod sneaked out and made his way into Will's room.
The baby was asleep when Jarod came in, but as soon as he undid the restraints around William's wrists, the boy awoke. "Shh...you don't know me, William, but my name is Jarod. I'm here to help you get back to your mom," he whispered and grabbed the child, along with his blanket. "Whoops. I almost forgot to leave a present," Jarod muttered.
With one hand grasping the child to his chest, Jarod removed a disc from his belt and slipped it onto the bed that William had been sleeping in. "Shh...William. Stay quiet. I'm going to take you to your mother where you'll be safe. No one will be able to harm you again," he soothed to keep the baby silent.
Thankfully, the child had fallen back into a peaceful slumber again despite all the raucous. Just as Jarod came out of the door, he nearly ran right into Marita Covarrubias and the Well-Manicured Man. "No, I don't know why those explosions went off. Lt. Colonel? What're you doing?" she demanded.
Jarod clutched the child with both hands closer to himself and kept running.
"Stop! Stop that man!" Covarrubias shouted.
Fortunately, as help came to her, Jarod had already gotten around the corner and out of sight. He dashed out the east entrance opposite of his entry and caught a moment of an F-15 doing a fly-by past a communications tower.
Half an hour later...
The Well-Manicured Man, Covarrubias, and two other men in uniform trudged into William's cell. "Who was that man?" the Well-Manicured Man inquired.
"That was a ranking officer in the Army I had hired to be part of the second reconnaissance team in Stonewall Jackson Lake. He seemed to be a good man," Marita replied and shook her head in disbelief.
"What exactly did he know about William?"
Covarrubias bit her knuckle and lifted both hands up in question. "I...I can't even begin to answer that. He did ask me yesterday what was being guarded in this room, but I dismissed him and said that the Adams and Eves were Junior ROTCs."
"Sir, this was left on the child's bed," one man told the Well-Manicured Man and surrendered a DVD to him.
"Perhaps this will give us all our answers," the older man said. He placed the DVD into a player in a nearby entertainment center, and Marita turned on the TV.
"Hello. For those of you who do not know me, my name is Jarod," the Pretender waived to his audience. "This recording was made for the sole purpose to explain why your juvenile pet project was suddenly wisked away from you under your very noses."
"I wonder how far back his treachery goes," Covarrubias muttered.
"I'm not really a Lieutenant Colonel in the Army, as you just now were wondering. You see, my connection to you goes back even farther than 2 days. I happened to meet an FBI pathologist at a convention in Indianapolis, and we discovered your little secrets there. But of course, you tried to cover everything up. First you murdered the experiments, next the willing and stupid participant known as your patsy, and then the only member of the local police that actually gave a damn about the case. I must admit, you're very clever people, and you planned out your chess game very well. But now you have a new opponent." Jarod pointed to himself and shifted around in his chair.
"And I've studied your previous strategies used by a man that caused great afflictions to Agents Mulder and Scully, a CGB Spender. Now it seems like you're trying to follow his exact same footsteps—bad idea. I know every single thing this man has ever done, and I promise you, that should you continue down this evil path, you will suffer a terrible fate. I don't know what led to his disappearance, but I know what can ruin a black syndicate. And that would be the truth."
"I thought we had all of Spender's files sealed," the Well-Manicured Man snapped at Covarrubias.
"We did," she replied.
"Then how did he get to them?"
"I'm no ordinary man. I have the ability to become anyone I want to be. I live my life in shadow...by no choice of my own, where you people seem to wallow in it. So since you saw it fit to kidnap a child from his mother and take him away from his security, I thought...that it would be poetic to do nearly the same thing to you. I sent them Spender's files; they should be arriving in about five minutes, just in time for the six o'clock news. It's time for you to answer to the people for what havoc you've caused upon their soil."
"What the hell is he talking about?"
Before Marita could say another word, her cell phone rang. "Yes, this is Marita. The press is here? How many vehicles are there?"
"Perhaps we can deflect them somewhere else," the Well-Manicured Man offered, and Marita held up her hand to silence him.
"They're demanding to see me? No, don't send them off. The last thing we need now is for the media to be sniffing us out and hunting us down like wild game. Just hold them off for now; I'll be out to speak to them in five minutes."
"You're going out there?" the older man inquired angrily. "Do you even realize what this will mean for our group? For our efforts?"
"They know who I am, sir. I can't refute that, nor can I deny my involvement in a military base." She closed up her cell phone and turned off the television.
"Do you think this man...this Jarod sent them information about Indianapolis?"
"I won't find out until I go out there. But I can assure you that the answers I give will be like the typical ones used by any modern politician. The key is to talk around the issue, give hopeful insight to the future, and apologize for what they already know to be true. It's worked for fifty years ever since the news began to broadcast on television. Why should it be any different now?" Covarrubias smirked and shrugged. "You forget my specialty, sir. I'm a diplomat; I've kept many nations out of war and embargoes for ten years. I'm not about to let all of our hard work go to the dogs because of one man's voice."
"I understand, then. By all means, please continue." He opened the cell's door for her and accompanied Marita down the corridor. "I must get back to the UK. There are some things brewing up there that must be dealt with appropriately."
"The IRA?"
"No, the Prime Minister's thinking about banning stem cell research, and I'm due for tea with him tomorrow afternoon to convince him otherwise."
"How are things in Indianapolis, by the way?"
"Isn't that your venture?" The Well-Manicured Man patted her on the shoulder and took off down another hallway to another exit. Marita closed her eyes and prepared herself for the worst as she made her way to the front of Ft. Nexus.
"Ms. Covarrubias, what are your connections?" one reporter fired away.
"Ms. Covarrubias, are you working on cloning?" another asked.
"Ms. Covarrubias, are there aliens on American soil?" the next demanded. "And if so, do they have friendly or hostile intentions towards us?"
"Ladies and gentlemen, good evening. My name is Marita Covarrubias, and I am the Special Representative to the Secretary General at the UN. I will endeavor to answer your questions as honestly as I possibly can."
"I have an anonymous tip about a crash in Stonewall Jackson Lake Park. What can you tell us about that?"
Covarrubias inwardly cringed; she didn't estimate that Jarod had gone that far. If I ever locate that man, he will regret life itself. Hmm...that doesn't sound like a bad idea. FBI's Most Wanted Top Ten? The notion is very tempting.
"Well, we sent out two teams, and they returned to us with quite a bit to report," she began.