Chapter Two
The Opposition
Sigrid's team waited in the castle. The fact that there was another chance to snatch Jake Granger pleased him. Sigrid checked his watch. He could not believe his target was still alive, and Central didn't waste time trying to explain. Time kept passing. His team waited on high alert for hours. Nothing happened. Everyone felt the nervous tension. An alert could come, or Jake could just appear at any moment. The hours piled one on another. Their control finally called, canceling the operation. As usual, no explanation was offered or requested.
The group groaned. Another wasted day. They packed up, policed their presence as requested, and left. Destroying mountains wasted resources. Control believed this newly discovered location might be useful to know for one or more future missions. No one realized Jake hid only thirty minutes away sitting in a secure room down in the small village below.
Opposition groups first appeared in 2007. None were more than a curiosity for the Center to evaluate and infiltrate. Then the corporate espionage statistics increased by a factor of ten. Other national groups had pooled their resources and were taking whatever they wanted and sharing it with each other, in some cases.
Research and development was the most popular and most frequent targeted victim. By 2010 more developed groups were taking over, suppressing or eliminating other less savvy groups. That marked the official start of the secret war. Goals and objectives clarified fast. National groups were identified, targeted, and attacked by other national organizations.
The whole thing smacked of a sports playoff with the lesser regarded teams going down into elimination. The biggest opposition players were not known then. Goals and groups became identified later by actions and each group gathered additional intel through early penetrations and a surprising number of takeovers. The war for supremacy grew bolder and finally expanded to the international level. Center ignored the conflicts until their own teams came under attack and the Center's own missions were disrupted. Center became the target. Several groups dreamed of taking down Center. Two opposing groups closed in on Center.
The Home Team aka Center
William Allison shook his head in disbelief. He'd never heard of the possibility existing for what Jake did. Oscar remained frozen in a quarter cocked, bent over position, gazing blankly at Jake.“Control talked to you, through you, and only to you. There is more going on with you than I knew. What happened is you're a conduit.”
“A conduit? What the hell is a conduit?” Jake took his hand off of Oscar.
William's eyebrows rose again. “Oh Boy.” He paused gathering his thoughts. “Control tells me a very few people exist in our world that have the ability to channel the energy of a weapon through electronic contact. You are one. Control passed that freeze ray through you to Oscar.”
“Is that a good thing?”
William lifted up his hand from under the table showing his .40 caliber Glock. “It meant I didn't have to shoot Oscar. Sounds like a good thing to me. Whether it is a good thing for you depends on how you use it.”
“What about...” Jake touched Oscar.
“I'm guessing they'll pick Oscar up for interrogation pretty soon.”
Jake gestured with his thumb towards the immobile man “How long will he stay like he is?”
“Probably twelve hours. That's pretty typical. So I'm told. Hey. I don't know. This is new to me too.”
William got up, searched Oscar, and took three possible weapons off of him. A knife, an orange vial, and a small energy weapon were piled on the table. He stepped back, called control again, this time for a complete scan. William listened closely to control while the scan took place. He removed two wallets and Oscar's shoes, adding them to the pile. He opened up a wall safe behind Jake and Oscar. William placed everything he took from Oscar into the hideaway, closing the safe and sealing the lock with his thumb print. William Allison sat down across from Jake.
“First, take off your right shoe please, Jake, and shake it out over the table.”
“Why?”
“Do it, please. Your action will explain itself.”
Jake did and nothing happened. “Sorry, buddy, I thought the bug would fall out.” William took the right shoe and studied the brown shoe. He slid the bug out from under the tongue of the shoe and showed it to Jake. He got up and and went to the safe and pressed a spot on the wall. A cabinet became visible and opened. After a moment or two of searching he pulled out a black silky bag. He bagged the bug and sealed it up like any good zip bag. He opened the safe and tossed the bag inside. He sealed the safe with his thumb again.
“Let's turn on a few more lights. We are secure. I hope we are anyway. Want some coffee?”
“You bet. What a weird couple of days. Can you tell me what's going on now?”
William Allison went to a side wall and moved his hands around like a magician. The lights came on and the mostly empty room expanded as two walls retreated into the ceiling revealing a kitchen and hallway, well lit. William open cabinet doors until he found the coffee and started the coffee machine. He talked to Jake as he did.
“Well, I hope we can finally finish our interrupted tale of what's going on.”
“You really think we'll have the time?”
“Control thinks we do. You remember me saying the bad guys want to control the world?”
Jake nodded. “I remember.”
“Good.”
With a buzz, a door, somewhere nearby, opened. Moments later four armed men entered. All dressed in pristine black armor. Helmets covered their faces. Jake stood up, backing away, holding his hands away from his body.
“Our guys. No problem.” Jake sat back down. He was pale and obviously still shook. The four soldiers split up and headed toward the four corners of the room, Their security check uncovered no danger to challenge them. The four moved back to the hallway. Two men gave their guns to one of their other armed team members. With their hands free, those two hefted an immobile, frozen Oscar between them.
A third soldier broke the silence and asked about the search. He also tossed William Allison his tool bag from the last safe house. William took it. He set his travel kit on the table and opened the safe. All the contents, weapons, wallets, bug, and Oscar's shoes went into another bag held by that third soldier. There were no introductions, no additional comments. The four retreated down the hallway. Jake and William heard the door close and lock.
William opened his tool bag and lifted out his hand held computer. He located the video he pulled from the database last night and showed Jake the destruction of his house. They watched it together.
“That's what happened after we left, Jake. We were certain more than one attack would happen. I'm pleased we could prevent the attempt to kidnap you. Sorry about your house, though. We worried about a full force strike. We've lost missions when those second strikes happen. The second attack is the reason why we left so fast. I've got to tell you we didn't see this destruction coming at all.”
“This sucks. I liked that house. It was home.” Jake's brow furrowed, his face reddened. “Now I'm mad. Your opposition doesn't fool around does it.”
“Our opposition. And no, they are very dangerous, and getting stronger. Now you've seen some of the reasons we are fighting them.”
“Why are they after me?”
“Because they are trying to recruit you … or kill you.”
“Recruit me for what? This war?”
“That's right.”
“I gotta ask again. Why me?”
“I'm not really sure. The way they attacked may mean they just wanted to prevent us from getting you. Let me explain at least part of the story. It should help.” William Allison told the story as he knew it. His version was incomplete and Allison told Jake where he thought the gaps existed. He also told Jake few members of Center had what he was about to show Jake. “I'm not allowed to read this, but you may be able to use the doc to ask questions about my story.
” He pulled the folder up on his computer and said “Place your thumbprint here and read the doc.”
Brief Center History
TOP LEVEL RESTRICTION
for verified individual, Jake Granger, ONLY
The Center has gone by other names and chased some strange research goals over the decades. Eventually the Center was distanced as far as possible from the research and became an operational arm for the protection of their founder and his goals. Part of its mission has remained information gathering, analysis, and storage. Storage was the original purpose.
It started with The Eyes on the World project. The original research team began its focused research with ARPA in 1959. The Advanced Research Projects Agency was trying to explore every avenue or idea that could prevent surprises coming to the United States of America. Sputnik, in 1957, was the the unexpected event that sparked the project.
Unfortunately, like many of the longer term ARPA projects, Eyes was closed down during a time of fiscal austerity and lack of progress. Many other projects were closed up at the same time and the tons of documents moved to various warehouses. Within weeks of those closings, millionaire, Tomas Winston snatched up, and promptly relocated the original four man Eyes research team. They were put back to work with increased funding, in state of the art facilities. Better management and encouragement led to progress. Winston owned or controlled many of the favored warehouses used by the military and other governmental organizations. He ruthlessly mined them for stored reports and data. He found ideas, projects, and his basis for innovative strategies and technology. All of it was funneled to Eyes first then other projects as needed.
Winston made his millions and later billions, by gambling on the next big developments around the world. He used insider information before it became illegal. In his mind he protected the USA. Words like illegal or immoral did not apply. He used the rules when he could by preference. He eventually built a secret empire that took advantage of every legal loophole he could identify. Over the next decades,through political intermediaries, he helped craft hundreds more legal loopholes that always benefited the USA, sometimes the world, and his empire.
Laws shifted constantly, so he pushed them in favorable directions and created the first truly diverse multinational enterprise group and the first world wide flood of shell corporations. In time, his incorporated entities researched and activated hidden possibilities in every nation in the world. J
Paul Getty died in 1976 and is historically considered the richest man in the known world. His worth was estimated at $2 billion. In truth, a totally unknown Tomas Winston held 3.7 billion in his hands that same year.
Over the succeeding years Winston spread his transnational shell game throughout the world using such diverse tricks as shelf corporations, shell corporations, and wholly owned designer subsidiary banks and other corporate entities. He experimented with new ideas to create and build his own universe. He aimed for a benevolent dictatorship. He did recognize it would never stay that way. He reluctantly played on all sides, discovering early on, that using an open, honest approach alone would not serve in a world full of deceit, treachery, travesty, greed, and murder. He told insiders he “hated it, but yielded to the ends justifying the means rationale.” At first, the true end was the safety of his country. Goals expanded as additional projects and human needs presented.
Friends of friends became a soft mantra among the focused elite of the invisible oversight group, called WG among themselves. Problems to be solved were identified, targeted, and solved as technology and human effort could solve them. Others were turned over to longer term research.
The original ARPA Eyes project got lost among the expansion of so many projects and corporations but remained a primary focus to the family of Winston Group. Often necessity moved or hid projects. One old, well-known project could be spun off or thrown into the valley of the thousands of groups, countries, and international locations suddenly having a new name, new set of officers, and a new location.
Using tiered subsidiaries, often under shell holding companies or pulling new ones off the shelf and adding very old companies as the main owner or parent company, did serve for many years to increase the diversification of corporate interests and product possibility. The provision of unknown yet necessary economic and political homes for Winston Group throughout the world accounted for several spin offs. WG slowly faded further and further into the background as it's original uses were shifted around. Center began operating independently.
Very few economic or political organizations existed where this incredible corporate grouping found itself unable to penetrate. WG covertly influenced, or indirectly controlled operations under one approach or another. Center held the data and advised the founder.
After Jake finished reading the doc he followed the instructions. The file dissolved into a generic screensaver. His screen flashed two different colored blank screens multiple times and the computer shutdown.
“That is one hell of a story William. Whoever sent this to me is crazy paranoid. I still don't get why me. Maybe I'll figure it out one of these days. Maybe they'll tell me since you can't?”
“Maybe.” William laughed
“All right I've read it and I guess it has poofed. What has changed? I'm talking about all these attacks.”
“Center and its short chain of subsidiaries, properties, and our parent company has obviously been exposed. We've been attacked at every other location we've gone. Not this one, so far.”
“Who is our parent company?”
“World Allied Research and Development. WARD. Several managers are missing. All the officers are dead. The first killing attack took out the officers at a board meeting. It was a straight assassination. Each of the subsidiaries was breached with cyber espionage, bribery, or force first. Those attacks resulted in theft of both information and discoveries. They captured several pre-production prototypes.”
“Aren't the people in the company still in danger?”
“No. New people with no knowledge of Center are running the show. None of the officers or employees of the subsidiaries raided know anything about Center, so we think they are safe. The holding company has the stock in a trust and the trail to Center stops there.”
“Okay. What's next for us?”
“Unfortunately, after we leave here, I don't know. We will find out together. And we do have to leave. We will have to abandon the built in tech here and in our other identified properties or destroy it. I can't see them relocating it. How would they get it out without it being obvious to our enemies without providing a trail to follow the equipment?
“Couldn't they port the tech like they did us from the house?”
“Not really. It is built into the structures. Porting it would have to take most of several rooms, or whole buildings, in certain cases, leaving huge holes in the ground. I'm afraid that would create too many questions to cover up. Thank heavens, someone else is making those decisions, not me. Fortunately the location of Center was never known to anyone at World Research. Most of the rest of us don't know either. Hell, I don't even know where it is and I work directly for them.”
They discussed the history and problems of the Center for hours before turning to Jake's unstated role in this war, as a possible helper.
Jake mused over his fresh coffee, as he conjectured. “Do you remember that age old question? The one that goes who watches the watchers? Of course you do. You read as much as I do. Soon the question has to become who watches those who are watching the watchers. My God. How many steps up this crazy ladder do you suppose there can there be?”
“I've got no idea, and I doubt that anyone exists who can or will say for sure. I'm betting that ladder goes in more directions than we can see.”
“ Yeah. You're right. I'm guessing here, but apparently I am one. Just one. Who do I talk to?What in heaven's name should I do? There is no place on Earth really safe. I'm discovering that too. It scares the hell out of me”
“You're right about there being no safety. Jake? I don't understand something you just said. You said 'just one', tell me what you mean by 'just one'.”
“Oh. I'm sorry William. I'm betting I'm a watcher. It's gotta be. Well, I guess that's what it is. With so many different groups that seem to be out there, they may each have different names for what I've become. I know I was able to watch nearly anyone in the world from my computer. Well I could and I did.”
“That all is true. However, most of what you saw was training. You were monitored. You're far more than a watcher though. If that was all they wanted, we would have been more direct. Watchers are made not born. We've got a slew of them. Watchers can't do what you can do. I'm not sure anybody we have at Center can. I don't even know most of what you are capable of doing. They tell me this is just the start of your abilities. What we have on file is enough for me to tell you that.”
“Training? Monitored? File? Are you saying this was a set up and not real?”
“Oh it was real. Everything you looked at was actual. I know you surprised the trainers by finding real time access so quickly. I reviewed the log and collected the overview. I also grabbed a complete copy from your computer. Let me pull up the training center you were given access to, so we can discuss it.”
He pulled up the training room filled with ten computers and four large screen TVs. He set the ten inch screen flat on the table and turned it to Jake. “Here, this is what you logged into.”
“William that... that isn't the Center I was using.”
“ You're kidding, right?”
“No. If I had my computer,” Jake glared, “I would prove it and show you.”
“We need to see it. My God, I'm ready to panic this time.” With shaking hands William took back his field computer and called Control. He explained the situation. Arrangements were swiftly made, The specific actions were paused. Jake and William sat in silence, waiting until Center reviewed the video recording of their conversation. The discussion at Center that ensued took about thirty minutes. With no more warning than Control's curt “portation in one minute” the new relocation took place. William snared his bag. Jake shrugged with a crooked grin and within seconds they were gone. Both were ported to a new underground location. Control talked to both of them through their earphones when they arrived.
“We can all hear and talk now. I'll only be known as control and you will hear different voices as control. Our conversations and the audio visual of your coming explorations will be monitored live by our home personnel. If you have questions or concerns during our discussions, just ask. The video and audio are recorded for the Analytics section and will be studied in depth.”
They were told that their new underground location was off the grid of known Center properties and should be safe. “However, If you are cut off, attacked, or if you two become separated for any reason, you can talk to each other and us through that small ear implant.” William and Jake looked at each other with more than a little surprise.
“Control, what's with that 'however' and 'if' you just tossed us?”
“We try to keep all the likely possibilities open, Jake. Probabilities are assigned and constantly updated. We are used to preparing for the unexpected. Sometimes we can prepare for the impossible, if we see one impossibility rise to a two percent level probability. We plan for everything we can. Look around and settle in. We are going to be here a while. We'll talk in another thirty minutes. Control silent.”
“Let's look around and see what we've got, Jake. At least it looks comfortable.”
“Yeah, it does look good. Might as well, since we are going to be here for a while.”
The living room held more than it appeared to hold. There was plenty of tech arranged throughout the room. They discovered most of it as they studied the room. Two desktops with large monitors, a full wall screen. A firm, yet comfortable, dark blue cloth covered couch faced the screen, with redwood end tables and functional lamps. They looked over the high tech. The family style accommodation was comfortable but not hotel luxurious.
Jake thought one of the computers looked familiar. He studied it, and asked William.
“Hey. That one looks like mine. Is it?”
“I don't know. Looks like it. It could be the original or a replication. We'll have to ask.”
Then they walked from the front living room back through the hall. Each of the two bedrooms were stocked with clothes and bed linens. Each had a bathroom and shower. Jake had the room on the right. William, the one on the left. The kitchen was large, modern and had a huge refrigerator/freezer. Jake was content to see it was filled with food. William only commented, “looks like Center does expect us to be here a while.” The back door was locked. If it was a door.
The front door was locked too. They found that out once they returned to the living room. They saw there was a third door tucked in neatly next to the built in electric fireplace. That door opened. Inside was a fully stocked laundry room. There was a control box for the house tucked into that room. Jake was glad to see an instruction book came with it. Returning to the living room, Jake found the TV control and turned on the full wall TV. He plopped himself down on the couch. “This is cool. I've always wanted one of these.”
“Well, you're a TV addict.” William summed up their quick exploration, “Looks like we have a high tech two bedroom mid-western looking farmhouse with a view of farmland through holographic window panes.” William walked over to the computers and booted up the other one. The computer he figured was for him.
“Yup. I'd say so. Could be worse.” Smiles followed the exchange.
Jake turned off the TV, asking “William...”
Control announced “We're ready to proceed here. Are you two ready?”
“Sure, why not.”
William said “Ready, Control.”
“Jake please boot up your computer. It is your original computer ported from your house. The hard disk is the new one William set up that night. We need to see if you can still access the Center room you used and saw, so we can compare it to our own.”
“No problem, Control.” Jake booted up his desktop and went through his routine series of logins. A huge data center flashed on his monitor and then was added to the TV screen on the wall. It was different from the one that Control had set up and provided for his training use. That original version appeared on the bottom half of the screen.
“Thank you Jake. We are more than surprised.” Control paused, trying to find the right words. “It is... not possible. This impossibility does not even have a one percent probability. Look at the date at the bottom of the screen.”