Midnight by Anna Dove (books for new readers .TXT) 📕

“Stop,” interrupted Jack excitedly. “I already knew. I know it was domestic.”

The others fell silent, and their gazes rested on his face, in sudden apprehension.

“No, no—I am not responsible...” Jack said. “I was paid to oversee the construction of a massive nuclear warhead on Baker Island in the Pacific. The only one of its kind. They told me it was for an EMP test above the Pacific, just like Operation Fishbowl in the 1960’s, which I had the schematic for—a whole separate story, how I got that. The Chief of Staff, Snyder Reed, the same one, came by a few times, which I thought was strange but I didn’t question it. He would always ask so many questions. When will this be done. What is the range of the blackout, etc..I was discharged after a few months, and they sent me back home, but then one of Reed’s employees, and an old friend of mine, continued to pay me. Fifteen thousand dollars every month. Now I realize it was blackmail—they wanted me to be drunk, be silent, be incapacitated, they were feeding my addictions to incapacitate me. But, when the attack happened I knew immediately. It all made sense.”

The fire crackled, and a chill in the air caused goosebumps to rise on the back of Haley’s neck. It felt as if someone was standing behind her, watching her—she looked into the fire. The sounds of spring peepers and rustling leaves faded as her senses turned inwards, processing the information she had just heard. She remembered that morning in the Senator’s office before the attack, as they discovered the fifteen thousand dollar payments to The Bluechrest Foundation.

“They really must want you dead right now,” said Carlos quietly after a full minute had passed.

“Yes, I suppose so,” responded Jack slowly, his voice a little strained.

“Does that not worry you?”

“Somewhat—but probably not as much as it should,” said Jack. “I’ve served tours abroad and had bullets whizzing past me at such a rate that I doubted I would live to the next second. Not that I cared. But I did. So now, I’m comfortable and out of the way. I have no idea what will happen in the next months. If I go back to Washington I won’t be as safe.”

“How do you know about nuclear stuff?”

“Got my degrees in it after enlisting. And my first few years I was stationed at a silo, before I was deployed to Iran. So I learned a bit there. That was before everyone and their mother got pulled to go to Iran. But I learned about EMP’s from a woman named Katrin Von Gorben.” He stopped, and dug his toe into the dirt in front of him.

“Who was that?” asked Elizabeth.

“A woman I used to know.”

A few seconds of silence.

“Have you ever heard of Operation Fishbowl?” said Jack.

“No,” said Haley.

“Testing--nuclear testing--in the 1960s, above the Pacific. Von Gorben’s grandparents had been killed by Russians in the Second World War. They were elderly and defenseless. Her parents bitterly hated Russians and in the 1960s her father worked with Americans to develop the plans for Operation Fishbowl. He had been a brilliant physicist at Humboldt in Berlin, a true Einstein. During the Cold War he worked with us, during Operation Fishbowl (and mind you, this operation they tested atmospheric reaction to nuclear explosion and learned what an EMP would be) and afterwards. But, the KGB found out, and Professor Von Gorben went missing in September of 1983. His daughter was seventeen.”

“How awful.”

“Very much so. He never reappeared, and there were no doubts as to his fate. Katrin Von Gorben was just exactly like her father. She knew nuclear science like the back of her hand. When her father disappeared, she and her mother fled to Paris. They lived there, just the two of them, for twenty years. Then her mother died of natural causes. Katrin continued on in Paris, under another identity. She knew too much about too much. She had helped her father develop some of the operations, learning as a teenager the details of many clandestine operations. We Marines were sent to extradite her years ago, as one of my first missions, because we discovered that her whereabouts had been discovered by the FSB and that they were intent on capturing her.”

“And she told you about these operations?”

“Oh yeah,” Jack continued. “Every one of them. Every last one of them. I was young and strong--twenty six--I thought I was invincible. I thought it would put me at an advantage to have classified knowledge. I know names, I know places, I know what has been tested and what hasn’t, what works and what doesn’t.”

“Why did she tell you?” Elizabeth asked.

Jack tilted his head to the side, as if pondering a heavy thought, mulling it in his mind. For a few seconds, he said nothing at all.

“Love does terrible things to people—and she fell in love with me,” he said at last, a little slowly. A hint of color came to his cheeks and his brow furrowed pensively. “She was nineteen years my senior, but she loved me. Mind sharp as a diamond, a very small woman, quick in her movements, expressions, flaming temper…” His words trailed off. “Yes--you see. And she told me everything,” he continued sharply. “So that’s what being in love does to you, blinds your good judgment and wrecks your future. Yes, she told me everything. And the worst part of it is, I can’t forget. You know, I’ve pushed from my mind many, many, many experiences,” he said, emphasizing with each repetition, “but I can’t forget her, I can’t forget a single word she ever said. They’re burned on my brain like I’d been branded.”

Haley frowned.

“So that’s why they wanted you to oversee the construction.”

“Yes. I’m an asset. I knew