Dark Angel: The Eyes Only Dossier Page 3

  L: What?

  S: The senator held some private sessions after the hearings—in his office. There may be a record of those on his computer.

  FILE CONTINUES

  It wasn't any surprise to see Lydecker's name pop up in connection with Phoenix. He'd run Manticore for twenty years—trained every soldier who came out of there. “His kids,” as he liked to call them. It seemed clear that one of those kids had killed the pope.

  But a lot more than the pope's assassination was preying on my mind now. That had become part of a far bigger story—Phoenix. And probability that Manticore soldiers were being used to fulfill its ends.

  I'd been hearing about those soldiers, and working with them, for years. Seth and Max, Zack and Tinga, Alec and Cece and Gem—from series X1 right on up through series X8. I considered myself as close as there was to an expert on Manticore, and what had gone on there.

  But in the transcript Dazzler had gotten me, Lydecker talked about series X5R. In all the investigating I'd done, I'd never come across that reference before.

  I wondered if anyone else had.

  I was stuck for a couple weeks there. I let the Phoenix investigation slide. A lot of other things were going on … Max getting shot, and almost kidnapped by the CDC. Ames White. Ray White. Ray Saunders. Getting out of my wheelchair for good, thanks to a blood transfusion from Joshua.

  When I returned to Phoenix, I questioned as many of the transgenics I knew as possible, asking them about X5R. None of them knew a thing—not the X-series soldiers, not Mole, not any of the refugees holed up in Terminal City.

  Dead end.

  Then a breakthrough, from one of the computer files I had managed to salvage, with my notes on Dr. Adriana Vertes. She'd been part of Manticore from its earliest stages—finally left when it became too much for her, with what Lydecker was doing to his “kids.”

  But she'd been at Manticore after the ‘09 escape. From what she'd revealed afterward, the military brain trust had felt that maybe the X5s had been designed with too much independence. So the order had come down, and the X5s had been simplified. Their behavior altered.

  Revised.

  X5R.

  DECRYPTION: SECURE 8 DECRYPTION STAMP: 5/8/21 ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT: 4/7/21 V = Voice-mail stamp, C = Caller

  FILE CONTINUES

  V: Friday, December 11, 10:20 a.m.

  C: Hi Mr. Lydecker, this is Valerie from Consolidated Data Storage calling. I just wanted to remind you that your account is fifteen days past due, and to ask when we might expect to receive payment. Please call me back at 1-555-5434-0925. You can speak to any of the operators, and we're open until 8 p.m. tonight.

  V: Friday, December 18, 4:20 p.m.

  C: Hey, it's … me. Was hoping you could hook me up with another ex-Manticore doc. Last one left town in a hurry. Said your former employers were looking to kill him. Anyway, really like to hear from you.

  V: Thursday, January 14, 10:30 a.m.

  C: Deck, it's Jewel. Just wanted to give you a call, touch base. Believe it or not, I'm thinking about making the move finally—getting out of old AZ and heading for someplace cool. Moscow, maybe. Is that a crazy idea, or what? Give me a call, let me know what you think. I'll wait to hear from you.

  V: Thursday, January 21, 8:15 a.m.

  C: Hello, Mr. Lydecker this is Cathy from Consolidated Data Storage. We're trying to reach you regarding your account. If you could call me back at 1-555-5434-0925 anytime before 8 p.m. tonight to discuss this, that would be great. Thank you.

  V: Wednesday, February 4, 8:00 a.m.

  C: Hello, Mr. Lydecker this is Scott with Consolidated Data Storage. Your account is seriously past due, and we will be forced to cancel our services to you if we do not receive payment by the fifteenth of this month. The total now due is $110 exactly. If you need to speak with us regarding this account, or have any other questions, you can talk to any of our representatives at 1-555-5434-0925. Thank you. Good-bye.

  FILE CONTINUES

  DECRYPTION: SECURE 8 DECRYPTION STAMP: 5/8/21 ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT: 2/26/21 V = Voice mail, C = Caller

  DECRYPTION: SECURE 8 DECRYPTION STAMP: 5/8/21 ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT: 4/7/21 L = Cale, Logan, C = Consolidated Data Storage

  C: Consolidated Data Storage, can I help you?

  L: Yes, I hope so. I've been out of the country the past couple of months, and just picked up a few messages from you about my account?

  C: Can I get your name, sir?

  L: Ah—Donald Lydecker.

  C: Yes, Mr. Lydecker. I have your account information in front of me. I see you're several months delinquent here.

  L: Gosh, I'm sorry. Let me take care of that right now. Can I pay by EFT?

  C: Of course. Let me set that up for you.

  L: Great. Oh—one other thing. I accidentally erased some of the files you folks are keeping for me. Hard-drive problems. Can I ask you to send me the ones I need back?

  C: That might very well be possible, sir. I'll switch you over to our tech department after we take care of your bill.

  L: Great. Thank you so much.

  C: Not at all, sir. Customer satisfaction is our number one priority.

  L: Well. Consider me a satisfied consumer, then. I was afraid I'd never get to see some of those files again.

  FILE CONTINUES

  DECRYPTION: SECURE 8 DECRYPTION STAMP: 5/8/21 ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT: 4/7/21 L = Cale, Logan, C = Consolidated Data Storage

  Renfro put X5R 600—or “Lane,” if you prefer—on a C-141 to Guidonia AFB in Rome. He did his job there. He killed the pope.

  Mystery solved. Case closed. Except …

  The other three X5Rs. In her memo to Lydecker, Renfro said they'd been given their assignments. No way of knowing what those assignments were, or where they are today. Renfro is dead. Manticore is gone. Lydecker's missing, and Stendahl seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

  Which leaves only the X5Rs themselves. Devon, Keema, and Jewel. Jewel, who left a message on Lydecker's answering machine several months back.

  “I'm thinking about heading someplace cool—maybe Moscow … give me a call. Let me know what you think.”

  It sounds as if she's waiting for instructions. Waiting to find out if she should carry out some previously arranged assignment, or not.

  It's a safe bet what that assignment is.

  The new Russian president—Nikolai Kolankov—has been remarkably successful at rebuilding the Soviet military machine. Some say he's preparing to confront the coalition forces currently occupying Turkey. To those people, Kolankov represents the same kind of threat to Phoenix objectives Pope Leo did.

  The kind of threat Manticore—and series X5R—were created to deal with.

  Jewel's picture has already been sent out over the Informant Net, to sources in Russia. No word back yet on whether anyone's spotted her.

  Keep track of that. Keep your eyes—and ears open—for the other two, as well. And try to find Stendahl—it's likely he's the key to the entire Phoenix operation.

  Good luck.

  The flyers are up all over town. Somebody wants to make sure no one ever forgets what happened at Grand Coulee five years ago.

  But things aren't always what they seem.

  July 12, 2017. People marched that day because they were sick and tired of living like third-world citizens, watching their tax dollars disappear down a seemingly bottomless black hole for nothing. Sick of seeing politicians like Beltran and Steckler living in mansions lit up like Christmas trees, while they didn't have enough power to keep their refrigerators running in the summer, or keep the heat on during winter.

  They thought they knew who the bad guys were. Of course they were right—our last two mayors were both rotten to the core.

  But some stories have more than one villain.

  This is one of those.

  It begins, in a way, with the day that changed everything.

  June 9, 2009.

  The Pulse.

  Electricity for sale
: that item intrigued me. Maybe it was because that was the summer the blackouts really hit in full force; the Mercy Hospital emergency room lost power during a particularly brutal heat wave, and three kids who'd been shot up in a gang fight died when they might otherwise have been saved by surgery. Big headlines.

  Big story, I thought, and started investigating. How could life go on normally for some folks, and end in an instant for others? I had a couple of leads that looked promising for a while—but nothing panned out. No overt corruption rose to the surface, so I put that story on the back burner.

  But the power outages kept right on, like clockwork. Before I knew it, a couple of years had gone by, and it was Halloween—time for my Uncle Jonas's big costume party. An annual “can't miss” event among Seattle society's crème de la crème.

  I was a reluctant guest—so I made sure I didn't show up until just before eleven. I thought the action would be winding down.

  I couldn't have been more wrong.

  Darius was shot while resisting arrest, in a failed kidnapping attempt by his May 22 group.

  He died November 21, 2019. R.I.P. is not the phrase that comes to mind for most people when you mention his name.

  Burn in hell is more like it.

  I understand where they're coming from. Perhaps better than most. The last time we met, he tried to kill me. He did kill several innocent hostages—and left a little boy orphaned.

  But the man wasn't always like that.

  In a lot of ways, Darius was like so many other bored rich kids of his generation. Looking for meaning in a world where nothing seemed to matter but the size of your bank account. You can see it in his studies—jumping all over the map, trying to decide what to major in, what to be. It's a feeling I knew all too well myself.

  But like I said before …

  The Pulse changed everything. For me, it brought things into focus. Showed me the world in black-and-white, good-versus-evil terms. It gave me something to fight for.

  It did exactly the same thing for Jon Darius. I just hope that's where the similarity ends.

  MAY 22

  OUR CHARTER

  OUR PRINCIPLES

  OUR PURPOSE

  We are May 22.

  Our name has historical connotations that we do not deny; rather, we glorify our connection to the past. In the natural order of things, a man such as Ted Kaczyinski was bound to arise. Imperfect within himself, Kaczyinski was yet possessed of a perfect vision of the world as it is, and the world as it should be. A Moses for the modern era.

  He predicted the Pulse, and events like it. And we, like Kaczyinski, see that occurrence not as a tragedy, but a call to arms against modern society.

  We stand on his shoulders in proclaiming now our existence, and our principles.

  We stand in opposition to technological society, and the system of control and subjugation it has spawned across our planet.

  We stand with Nature, in all her wild, glorious freedom. Nature, that which is outside the system, and cannot be controlled by it. Nature, by which we mean all the creatures in this world interacting with one another and their environment in defiance of any artificial, imposed order, as intended by God and natural law.

  We are May 22.

  We wield the twin scythes of chaos and destruction—for from the gray ashes of technology's funeral pyre, Green will inevitably arise again.

  So proclaimed, this 22nd Day of May 2008—

  Darius was smart. Those first few years, May 22 killed machines, not people. Panama, the Everglades, Del Muerto … he learned his lesson from Kaczyinski, I think. Don't alienate the people you're trying to inspire. Maybe in another place, another time, he would have gotten his message through.

  Maybe.

  But not in post-Pulse America. Not after people began to realize that the good old days weren't coming back—ever. Nobody was interested in saving the whales, or the Rwandans. They wanted to eat. They wanted clothes for their kids. After a while, it made Darius angry.

  It made May 22—and him—more violent. It explained his actions at my uncle's party.

  But it didn't explain what Darius had wanted with Mayor Beltran.

  That's what I needed to find out.

  NORTHWEST SECURITY

  2156 IMPERIAL HIGHWAY

  SEATTLE WA

  November 12, 2016

  Mr. Jonas Cale 11 Eyrie Way Tacoma Washington

  Dear Mr. Cale:

  In accordance with your request of the fifth, we are providing you with a written transcript of the events that took place at your residence last month. As per our previous discussion, the physical recording of the event has been confiscated by federal authorities for use in their ongoing investigation.

  The authorities further inform us that the person referred to in the transcript as “Intruder #2 (male)” has been positively identified via voice-print analysis as Jon Darius, founder of the outlawed May 22 Movement. None of the other intruders has been named.

  Thank you for your continued use of Northwest Security: we greatly value your patronage and your confidence in our services.

  Sincerely,

  Walter Buchanan President

  NORTHWEST SECURITY

  2156 IMPERIAL HIGHWAY

  SEATTLE WA

  REF: CASE I.D. 44876

  Page 13 of 16

  This document is provided for the use of the Northwest Security client identified above. Any other usage is a violation of state and federal law.

  Audio transcript 10-31-16

  Listening Device: 12A (Front Entrance)

  Time: 23:15 P.S.T.

  Security 1: Roger that, perimeter check complete and secure. Next check is at 23:30 hours. Confirm? Roger. Out.

  Security 2: Here come [unintelligible]. Check this out.

  Security 1: Can I see your invitations please?

  Intruder #1 (male): Hey, nice costume.

  Security 1: Please halt right there, sir. Ma'am.

  Intruder #2 (male): What's the problem?

  Intruder #3 (female): Hey!

  Security #1: We need to see your invitations, please. And some identification.

  Intruder #3 (female): I get it. You're really security.

  Security #1: That's right. Ma'am, please step back.

  Intruder #2 (male): Hold on, hold on. It's in here somewhere.

  Security #2: Sir, could you step back please—

  Intruder #2 (male): Here it is.

  [Gunfire is heard]

  Intruder #1 (male): The son of a bitch shot me! Damn it. Damn it!

  Intruder #2 (male): It's not bad.

  Intruder #3 (female): Not as bad as that. Jesus Christ, look at all that blood.

  Intruder #2 (male): Don't look. We have a job to do. Find Beltran, and bring him to me. I'm going to wait out here.

  Intruder #3 (female): I'll be back.

  [Unintelligible]

  Intruder #1 (male): What the hell was that?

  Intruder #2 (male): The walkie-talkie. Something's happening.

  Intruder #1 (male): What is it?

  Intruder #2 (male): Shit.

  Intruder #1 (male): What are they saying?

  Intruder #2 (male): They took out Peter and Sophie at the van. They know we're here.

  Intruder #1 (male): Oh Christ. We need to pull back.

  Intruder #2 (male): Not before we get Beltran, damn it.

  [gunfire]

  Intruder #1 (male): John, what are you doing? John, for chrissakes let's get out of here!

  NO CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION

  Viewpoint

  by Thomas Cloud of the CCT

  You can bet there will be some kind of celebration next year when the Grand Coulee Dam marks its seventy-fifth year of operation. Largest dam in the country, third most powerful hydroelectric plant in the world, it is an awesome structure, but forgive me if I do not join in the festivities. After you consider the facts of the situation, I don't think you will feel like celebrating, either.

  Because for the Col
ville tribes, the dam was the last and greatest tragedy inflicted on us by the Federal Government. Its construction forced half of our population to relocate—without compensation. Our land was flooded, our hunting grounds destroyed, the graves of our ancestors desecrated. The great salmon and steelhead runs were obliterated, and these fish the heart of our economy, once so plentiful became an endangered species.

  Now not even the eldest among us can remember a time before the dam when what is now floodland was our breadbasket the place where our people gathered along the riverbanks to collect berries and hunt game, to build our winter villages and sing our tribal songs. Where each year we gathered for a celebration of our own, the annual First Salmon ceremony, to pay tribute to the fish that sustained our civilization.

  In short, the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam was a spiritually deadening and environmentally catastrophic project from which our tribe has never fully recovered.

  We would be better off if the dam had never existed, if the great mass of concrete that prevents the Columbia River from resuming its natural course were suddenly to collapse.

  We have been promised a fair share of the benefits from the dam by its new operators, Seattle City Light and Power, but like the Federal Government and the Bureau of Reclamation before them, they are long on words and short on deeds. What little power our reservation receives from the dam is often interrupted, and our farmers have yet to see their portion of water to irrigate their lands.

  The Seattle city superintendent, Maurice Beltran, has promised to address these issues with us on several occasions, but he has yet to make an appearance at any of our councils. Worse yet, Beltran persists in the same tired rhetoric of the technocrats who wish us to look at the benefits the dam has provided for

  (See Grand Coulee, Page 20)

  Maybe Dedrick was right—maybe the article in the Journal didn't sound like Tommy Cloud. I had no way of knowing what Tommy Cloud sounded like. But after just a few paragraphs, I knew whom it did sound like.