Chapter 14

Pursuit

I

1989

What about us?

Twenty years. Pshaw! Beckman scoffed, hoisting a heavy luggage bag onto her hotel bed to load it for her trip back to Washington. That womanizing bastard wants to put a twenty-year pin in our relationship?

Furiously, she wrestled open drawers and yanked out clothes, tossing them carelessly over the bed. Then she sighed, plopped down on a chesterfield adjacent the dresser, and stared at the mess opposite her.

Among the heap of clothes, once hidden at the bottom of the dresser, was a small ring she had purchased while undercover east of the Wall.

How foolish. She remembered just then what Roan had said to her right before leaving for Berlin. "The sacrifice we make for our country will be painful, at times unbearable; but it serves not just our people, but the whole world." It felt, at the time, manipulative, like Roan had been tasked with keeping Diane in the Agency.

She did, after all, threaten to quit back then: She had returned only moments before from a disastrous mission – the only one of her team to survive – during which she had revealed a dark secret about her upbringing, and the CIA's part in it.

Ultimately, however, she had taken Roan's advice and joined him in this task. Maybe not so much for the sake of sacrifice as to get closer to him. Was it all a seduction? Who knows. But at least it was a success: the Peaceful Revolution was in full swing, the Berlin Wall had fallen, and the world had been pulled one step closer to peace and democracy.

And now, once again she was prepared to leave. Maybe she felt at first that she owed the CIA for rescuing her from drudgery, but not after her last mission. And now with Roan giving her the cold shoulder, she had no drive to impress anyone. Now, she could have her life back.

Beckman looked at the fake passport she had been issued to enter the country. Grünka Liebowitz. She scoffed: what an idiotic name.

No, she suddenly thought, I can't do this. The CIA Academy had taught her to "Lead with Obedience." That following orders would clear a path to the life she wanted. A life of honorable service to her County and the world. And it had proven results: They had won in Eastern Europe just now. She was about to return home with a promotion: a leadership position, transferring to the Department of Defense to work on some sort of ultra-top-secret technology which, if successful, promised to usher in a new age of Freedom and Democracy upon the world. All she had to do was follow her orders.

After a moment, Beckman shook her head. She had no idea where this flight of fancy had come from. But maybe it was worth listening to. Maybe rather than running from the government to wrest control of her life, she could take her life back from the inside.

Maybe twenty years wasn't quite unbearable after all.

II

"There," Stark directed, pointing Hernandez to a group of trees at the edge of the icy Potomac outside Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. Sure enough, a black SUV sat in the shadows by the road.

It was another frostbitten day, for which no one in the car was appropriately dressed. None of the fugitives looked forward to the brief moment between piling out of the heated ambulance and starting up the SUV. It was around one PM; the sun sat low to the south, partially shadowed, stubbornly refusing to heat the planet any further for the day.

But adrenaline kept them warm. "We need to hurry," Betelgeuse unnecessarily stated, just out of his paralytic stupor, while the ambulance stopped on the lonely dirt road beside the car.

The group had been driving about 90 minutes, all the while sharply alert for any tails or suspicious vehicles.

"Maybe someone should stay with the ambulance," Julia, who had been quiet for the whole trip so far, suddenly suggested. Robin looked at her quizzically. "They'll know we left in it; if they think we're still using it, they might not find out where we really are. I mean, I assume they have, like, live satellite stuff or something, right?"

"They'll probably just head straight for the cabin," Stark explained. "A messy road assault will draw too much attention. Besides, they don't want you dead."

"Shaw—Shaw's pretty un-un-predictable… we don't, we don't know what he—"

"We don't have time for this," Robin pushed. "Let's just make a choice and go."

Stark was as confused by Julia's sudden proposition as everyone else, but she had to admit, covering all bases wasn't a bad idea: a lazy or shortsighted spy is a dead spy, after all. And naturally, she was the best suited to handle herself alone in the event that the vehicle was targeted – even with the damaged eye.

"Fine," she acquiesced, "but I won't go blind."

"H-here," Betelgeuse reached into one of his jeans pockets and fished out a brass wristwatch. "She she she left me the stuff she took from me, too," he explained, referring to Beckman. "It's-it's got an an an electronic compass that always points to me," he elaborated, gesturing to a watch on his wrist that looked exactly the same, "and you can, you can p-press the disc on the side to talk.

Stark turned to Hernandez, passing him the keys to the SUV before hoisting herself into the ambulance's driver's seat. "You armed?" she asked.

Hernandez nodded, and without further delay, the crew split in two.

Julia was surprised it had worked. But now there would be an extra car at the cabin. All she'd have to do next is manage to slip past three trained CIA agents later. That's the easy part, right?

III

Shaw paced excitedly in his office that night, joined by the few allies he could muster given the circumstances: six Guardians, about whom he kept quiet in exchange for continued service, had left their homes that night-after-Christmas to join him in the Oval Office, there to watch him confidently elucidate his brash re-acquisition plan. They sat, three opposite three, on guest couches between the entrance and the Resolute Desk. Toward the latter, they watched the president as he explained what – to them – sounded ludicrous.

"The Director thinks…" he sighed. "She thinks she has me wrapped around her little finger." Dramatically, he flexed his right pinkie, barely illuminated in the dying twilight that struggled to seep in through the windows behind him. "About six hours ago, she dispatched those criminals who took our organization from us," he continued, ignoring a stifled groan from at least one guest, "and used my political situation to distract me from discovering her deceit. She thinks, just because they are six hours ahead of us by car, that means we can't win. She thinks I'm not brazen and daring enough to send you to the sky – commercially, that is." Menacingly – or at least, that's how he intended it – he leaned over the desk to his inferiors. A small lamp dimly illuminated him, revealing the visage of a man who hadn't slept in days. "But she does not understand in the slightest that as long as we have the girl, we are not bound by the shackles of time."

The agents knew better than to speak their objections. But no one saw in their President the confidence he strained to project. His proposal was lunacy: following his speech yesterday, the government had placed a close eye on all his activities – even their meeting now would be known. Should he even attempt any move on a civilian, he'd lose whatever remains of reasonable doubt he had in this whole conspiracy. Not to mention, the agents who did his bidding would be in a heap of trouble. So to order them to fly was suicide.

And what use would the girl be, anyway? The only remaining Intersect architects were in federal prison.

But alas, Shaw had hard dirt on the six in that room. And all they had in return was hearsay. The best they could hope for was, if the mission did fall through, there might be enough evidence surrounding the current plot for them to negotiate a plea in exchange for testimony against the President.

"Agents Vale, Spitzner, Clifton, and Crowe," the President continued, dropping a single briefing folder on the Desk and running his hands through his disheveled hair, "take the next flight to Minneapolis. Then make your way down to the address in this folder. Watch for the arrival of the fugitives. We need Ms. Howard alive. The rest, you can do whatever you want with.

"Don't let anyone tail you from the airport; then bring the girl to the facility listed on page two. Remember: you four were among the best of the Guardians. Succeed, and you'll soon find all of our problems disappear."

Pensively, one of the four agents Shaw named stood and retrieved the briefing folder. Then he walked, followed at a distance by the other three. But the moment the door shut behind them, President Shaw let out a chuckle in the direction of the two still seated. "The best? Come on. Capable, yes, but…

"Let's just say, I wouldn't dare order a mission like that without a Plan B.

"I always have a Plan B," he muttered to himself.

One of the agents, the buff man who wrestled the Director out of the office and managed to covertly stow her away just before this meeting, side-eyed the other – a middle-aged woman – as if to say, "what is this guy talking about?"

The woman did not return the glare, but instead, picked up a second folder the President had produced from a drawer.

"This mission is delicate. We need to keep eyes off you," he informed the two unlikely partners. "Go back to your homes. Get some rest. In the morning, you two are setting out on a long drive."

IV

Ice-covered roads and the decision to avoid tolls as much as possible kept the five on the road nearly twenty hours before reaching Betelgeuse's cabin in the extreme southeast of Minnesota. Stark followed from a distance, making sure no suspicious vehicles tailed her, or if any did, that they wouldn't notice the packed SUV – which was, in some rural areas, the only other car on the road.

Betelgeuse drove, with the armed Agent Hernandez at his side in case of trouble, and the two young women in the back.

It was a silent drive.

…For the most part. Late in the trip, around Rockford, Illinois, Robin awoke from a nap, saw some fast-food signs, and asked Julia if she was hungry.

"We-we're not stopping."

"For all we know," Hernandez added, "we could all be wanted. Stall tactics: that's what I'd pull."

Julia was silent. She wasn't hungry. Nor tired, stressed, or anything else. She was spending her time trying to figure out how she was going to get the other agents off her back at the cabin. Especially Stark.

Robin looked at the woman next to her and tried again. "You should try to get some rest. Who knows how busy we'll be once we get there."

Julia just rolled her eyes, crossed her arms, and looked toward her window.

Robin sighed deeply. Maybe it was the grogginess, the stress, or the fear of the unknown ahead of her, but she just couldn't take the stonewalling anymore. "You know, I understand that you've been thrown into this unbelievably horrific world out of nowhere. I get that you hate me for being involved. And yeah, I brought you to DC against your will, socially engineered your compliance, et cetera. I'm a horrible person. Sure, whatever.

"But could you maybe think to consider that perhaps I didn't want to be here either? I didn't intend for any of this! A sheep following orders, sure; but I don't have any orders to take anymore. I'm on the run. We all are!

"Not everything's a game. At least, not anymore."

Julia didn't respond. She didn't know how. The person sitting next to her seemed like a greater mystery than anything else she had experienced over the past week. One moment, she's playing her asset like a marionette for the Federal Government; the next, she's having a panic attack in an air duct trying to help her escape.

Julia wasn't ready to forgive Robin for what the latter had done to her life, but maybe she was starting to see her as a little more human.

She shrank tepidly into the window, unable to speak, unsure what to feel.

Robin, frustrated, did the same.

V

"We're here."

It didn't feel like any time had passed since the argument, but in reality, Julia had simply passed out. She wiped a dry tear before anyone could notice and stepped into the bitter cold.

The nearly snowed-in cabin was surrounded on three sides by hardy Elm trees, to the point where the run-down shack was virtually impossible to see. But if anyone had stopped to admire the scenery, they'd get frostbite. Betelgeuse quickly ushered them in, though the cabin itself wasn't much warmer.

"S-Stark," Betelgeuse chattered, more from cold than his speech impediment, "will p-probably p-p-perform a p-perimeter check. She—she she she should b-be able to f-figure out how to get to us."

"What do you mean?" Agent Hernandez, uneducated in the many tricks and feats up Betelgeuse's sleeve, asked.

"Well," he explained, pressing his watch to the floor, "y-you wouldn't think I-I-I'd just leave all my, my highly-sensitive equipment where any government agent could just find it, w-would you?" After a click from beneath, he produced a small handle from seemingly nowhere, pulled a square trapdoor up from the floor, and revealed an entrance to a long tunnel to his guests.

Robin's anxiety spiked for a moment after Betelgeuse pulled the door down behind the four; but thankfully, this tunnel was much more spacious than the air ducts – they could all walk through it without so much as having to duck their heads. It was also, relatively speaking, quite warm.

After what felt like a mile, the squad found themselves in front of a thick, intimidating steel door with a number pad where the handle should be. Betelgeuse punched in about twenty numbers, and the door swung inwards, greeting the four with a welcome blast of actually warm air. Leaving this door ajar for Stark, he gestured the others inside.

For all that security, Robin did not find the room they entered particularly imposing: A single wired laptop and printer on a small desk, an old camera facing a blue tarp over the far wall, and a medium-sized tub full of official-looking papers were all that adorned that brick cellar. How was this supposed to get us out of the country?

Betelgeuse, calm and thawed out with the rest of them, spoke with less anxiety and stutter: "We lost some time on the road, so we need to move fast. I-I need each of you, one by one, to to to stand in front of the camera for a passport photo. No smiles, n-no covering your eyes.

"The plan is just to forge some passports?" Robin asked while Julia lined up for her photo.

"Eighteen years ago, when we had to move everyone underground, I created shell identities f-for everyone I could think of who might be a subject of this genetic manhunt." Click. "In-including…" He turned to face Robin. "Including my infant gr-gr-granddaughter."

Robin froze up. This old coot was her grandfather now?

Betelgeuse realized this probably wasn't the best time to throw that out there and put his hand up toward Robin. "S-sorry, we… we can talk o-on the road." Then he nervously gestured her to stand where Julia was in front of the camera. Click. After taking her photo, he continued his monologue.

"A-anyway… I made extra identities, just in case. Eight, to be exact. But, l-like I said, there's more to it. We'll have to cross the border. Preferably illegally – th-there's an-an iced-in lake to the n-north that's only lightly patrolled. I'm t-tapped into border security, so we should have an e-easy time of it." Click, the camera took Hernandez's photo last.

Betelgeuse walked over to the table, pulled some passports out of the tub, and started printing photos and delicately pasting them in. "M-my identity's intact. 'Lester Pennington.' I run an international freight business head-headquartered outside Winnipeg. I've got my own aircraft hangar—"

"Wait, what?" Robin was bewildered.

Betelgeuse stopped and looked with self-pride toward her.

"You run a one-man multinational shipping business in Canada while moonlighting as some high-tech Intersect-building super-spy?"

Betelgeuse just chuckled. "You really, you really aren't familiar with my lifetime of work, a-are you?

"Automation. My, my technological prowess is… at least a generation ahead of the rest of the world. Not – not to brag." He turned back to the table, whipped out a stack of business cards from the tub, placed them on the desk, and gestured Robin to grab one. "Pennington Freight. Built from the ground up by one guy and his computer, twenty-two years ago. O-originally a money-making venture, this business is going to keep us all afloat while we lie low. B-but, more on that when we get to Canada.

"Now, the boys at Air Traffic Control th-think I'm the Provincial Governor's brother-in-law, s-so it it it should be pretty easy to get clearance to fly."

"Seriously?"

Betelgeuse smirked. "I suppose you've still got a lot to learn about espionage, Agent Miller."

"The bigger the lie, the easier it is to believe," Stark added from behind the crowd. She had been silently listening in on the monologue.

Without hesitation, Betelgeuse grabbed one of the completed passports and handed it to its rightful owner. "I-I made this long ago, in case you ever j-j-joined us. Just-just had to update some dates."

Stark walked over to take her passport, meanwhile covertly slipping one of the business cards into her back pocket. One guy and his computer? She was skeptical.

Then with one last survey, Betelgeuse concluded that his work was impeccable and handed the other documents to Robin, Julia, and Agent Hernandez. "W-we'll get set up with financials and and other docu, other documents at the airfield." After grabbing her passport, Julia turned to open the now-locked door from which the five had entered.

"Not that way," Betelgeuse called out. Swiveling around, Julia watched the elderly savant pull back the blue tarp, press down on a pair of bricks, and push a large section of wall inward to reveal yet another secret passageway – a small room with a steep staircase. "P-pretty cool, eh?"

The stairs led to yet another trap door, which opened up at the center of the modest cabin that stood as Betelgeuse's American secret base for the better part of the past twenty years. In front of these characters as they entered was a large chair (half-empty bottle of Cognac beside) facing the monitor through which CCTV footage continued to flow: barring a complete shutdown of the CIA's internet or the complete destruction of his vast network of external data stores, Betelgeuse's virus would continue exfiltrating data from the Agency.

But there was no time to watch, for the moment the last of the group hoisted herself out of the hole in the cabin, an alarm blared, flashing bold white text over a red background on the monitor.

INTRUSION ALERT.

WHOOP WHOOP.

INTRUSION ALERT.

WHOOP WHOOP.

The feed switched to a camera view: two people dressed in heavy combat gear huddled over the entrance to the small cellar – right below them. A bright, flashing yellow light suggested they were trying to cut their way in.

"I-I thought you cleared the perimeter!"

"They must have been watching me. Why didn't you have the tunnel entrance alarmed?"

Betelgeuse lunged to the keyboard under the monitor, typing furiously as he spoke. "I did! It-it must have been disabled by the the the extreme cold."

With a heavy keysmash, a panel to Betelgeuse's left swung open, revealing a large cache of weapons strapped tightly to the wall. He continued rapidly. "The-the tunnel blocks a-a-all outbound communication, but that computer s-still has metadata on all your n-new identities. F-files never de-delete immediately. I-i-if they, if they get it out of there, y-your passports be-become paper.

"I-I can bl-blow this place," he continued with further furious typing. "b-but—"

Stark finished his thought to speed the team along: "There may be others. Arm yourselves and stay close to me."

Robin and Agent Hernandez needed no further instruction; they both grabbed a pair of combat pistols and a bullet-resistant vest for defense. Julia, however, was stopped by Stark's firm hand. "No weapons for you," she warned, shoving a vest into her chest and pushing her (rolled eyes and all) to the door out which Agent Hernandez and Robin had just exited. Then she watched Betelgeuse finish his work – the red screen had returned, this time with flashing white countdown text – and escorted him out in front of her.

The five trudged furiously down a snow-packed clearing in the heavily-forested wood; underdressed, freezing, with icy snow seeping under their jeans and melting into their shoes. It was miserable, but adrenaline kept them all going.

"HERE!" Stark yelled, ushering the rest to a collapsed tree behind which they could take temporary cover. They did, after all, have to monitor the cabin to ensure no one es—

WHOOOOOOOSH!

CRACK!

The cabin was sent every which way at high speed, debris raining as close as six feet in front of the crowd. Agent Hernandez thought he saw a severed arm.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

A secondary cascade of explosions trailed behind the ruins of the cabin, detonating from within the underground tunnel.

After a deep breath and a moment for the ringing in their ears to lessen, Stark assessed the situation. "Okay, that definitely took care of the hostiles in Betelgeuse's complex. On my mark," she instructed, "we double-back through the woods, following the ruined tunnel back to my SUV. Hernandez will take my six, but we all should keep vigilant of a backup team."

"N-no. I keep… I keep another vehicle…" Betelgeuse's shivering made speech even more difficult than usual, "a-a-a-a few me-meters behind us. F-f-f-f-follow—"

"Hey," Robin interrupted, jolting up in a panic above their cover. "Where's Julia?"