“But how did they know?” Eisenhower asked. “When I ordered MAJESTIC-12 rolled up and shelved, part of that plan was to hold all those people. I saw the plans Truman and Hillenkoetter drew up. They were good ones. This shouldn’t have happened. Were they tipped off?”
Dulles’s mind flashed back to the one-word teletype that appeared on his desk the morning after Eisenhower’s order. He didn’t know who sent it, but he could assume why. “We can’t say for certain. It’s possible that sympathetic elements within the MAJESTIC-12 oversight committee may have done that, yes, but I don’t know for sure. Remember, some of their Enhancements may have contributed to their escape as well.”
Eisenhower grimaced as he picked up the folder and leafed through it again. “So what are we doing about it?”
“I have teams looking for them now,” Dulles said. “Overseas, all CIA stations are on alert. Here, I went with the U.S. Marshals and Secret Service to begin a search.”
“Good. Keep Hoover out of it,” Eisenhower said. “Last thing we need is for him to stick his nose into this.” Eisenhower flipped through the summary pages on each of the Variants missing — which was all of them. “We’re not gonna find ’em, are we.” It wasn’t a question.
“Not likely, sir. Between their Enhancements and their training… not likely at all.”
“And how likely is it they’ll be coming back for us? Revenge against the government, all that?”
Dulles could only shrug. “Hard to say. We have full contingency plans to recapture or eliminate each and every one of them should we ever come across them again. We know their strengths and weaknesses. But they know we know. We might get one or two, but we estimate that most of them will simply vanish, try to live out their lives. We’ll redirect the remaining MAJESTIC-12 resources toward finding them, but I think we’d have to get awful lucky.”
Eisenhower stood and buttoned his suit jacket; he had some Boy Scouts coming in for a photo in a minute or two. “That’s not good enough, Allen.”
“I know, sir.”
With a grimace, Eisenhower motioned the CIA director to the door. “Clean it up as best we can. If any of them ever shows their face anywhere in the world, I want to know about it ASAP.”
Dulles gathered his things and stood. “Understood, Mr. President. But…”
Eisenhower relented slightly. “I know. Truman should’ve never let them out. But it is what it is. Thank you.”
Dulles nodded and left the room, striding past a veritable platoon of Boy Scouts waiting to visit the President. He’d follow his orders to the letter, of course, and knew the United States would spend millions of dollars searching for their wayward Variants, and others.
But without Subject-1, it would be a wild goose chase. A big one. And maybe that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing at all.
26
Hoyt Vandenberg sat in an easy chair in his robe, pajamas, and slippers, with a pillow underneath him that wasn’t helping one whit, and tried to focus on the newspaper as he drank a cup of tepid tea. An intravenous unit hung from a stand next to him, slowly dripping chemicals into his bloodstream that might — just might — stem the tide of cancer inside him. It was a long shot, and if the latest round of therapy didn’t work, the folks here at Walter Reed would begin a round of “palliative care.”
What a pleasant-sounding death sentence that was.
They were already doing everything they could to make him comfortable, knowing that it was likely this would be the last room he ever slept in. There was a sitting area with his chair and a couch and coffee table, and the bed on the other wall was made up with quilts and blankets taken from home. His wife and family were already in and out, trying to give the place homey touches — yesterday, they had put up some photographs on the wall and on the nightstand next to his bed. But while he appreciated the effort, Vandenberg knew that this was the ultimate in window dressing. He had months, on the outside. Weeks if his body wasn’t in the mood to cooperate.
The phone rang, and while he desperately wished it would go away, he relented and picked it up on the fourth ring. “Vandenberg,” he said curtly.
“General, this is Calvin Hooks. You remember me?”
Vandenberg smiled, despite himself. “Of course, Mr. Hooks. I hope you’re well.”
“I am, thanks. Took a little bit, but I got me and Sally all settled in nicely.”
“I suppose asking where would be counterproductive,” Vandenberg said.
There was a gentle chuckle on the other end of the line. “Let’s just say it’s nice and quiet, and the folks here don’t care much about the color of my skin. I fit in just fine. And I’m not calling from there anyway. Just in case.”
Caribbean, maybe. Or up in Canada somewhere. Hooks wasn’t much for languages. “Well, that’s smart. And I’m glad to hear it. You deserve a break. What can I do for you?”
“Well, General, I wanted to see if you wanted some help.”
Vandenberg’s heart started to beat a little faster. “With what?”
“Heard you were laid up some. Heard the docs aren’t being optimistic. Might be something I can do.”
Vandenberg’s mind raced as he recalled Cal’s file. “I didn’t think you could do that.”
“There’s things I can’t cure, sure. But I can roll back your age a bit. Give you a little more time. Figure it’s the least I can do for the heads-up you gave us.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Mr. Hooks,” Vandenberg said, his smile growing a little wider even as his voice took on a tone of warning.
“Right. You didn’t do anything. Still want to thank you for it.”
Vandenberg tried desperately to quash the growing hope inside him. “How much time?”
He could envision Cal shrugging as he spoke. “Can’t rightly say. Months. Years. Depends on how healthy you want to look, how many questions you want them doctors to ask you.”
“But how would you get here?”
“Well, I thought about that, sir,” Cal said. “There’s places, nice and small, where I can come over without too much trouble. Then just take a bus into Washington. You’d have to set up a visitor pass for me, of course. Find me a name I could work with.”
“Sounds dangerous.”
“Oh, ain’t too bad. Lord knows I’ve been through worse. I can come through farm country first, take on a little juice from the livestock. Not too much trouble, really.”
Vandenberg couldn’t find any words for several long moments. It was, without a doubt, the kindest, most generous thing anybody had ever offered him, and any doubts he had about providing the MAJESTIC-12 people with the bug-out code were immediately erased. He worked with the program from the very beginning, since Roscoe Hillenkoetter came to him in 1945 with news of strange vortexes and superpowered people. But they were, in the end, good people, he’d found. Or at least Cal Hooks was, and that was more than enough.
“That’s a mighty kind offer, Mr. Hooks,” Vandenberg said, his voice cracking. “Mighty kind. But… much as I want to, I can’t let you do that.”
“But, sir—”
“No. Please,” Vandenberg pleaded. “You know they’re gonna be looking for you. I know you have some fine skills, Mr. Hooks. I figure you might even get in here and be able to do it. But getting out is another story. And they’ll notice my miraculous recovery. There’ll be questions, and there’ll only be so much I can do now that I’m retired.”