Tim Stevens - Delivering Caliban

So he needed to get this right, if not for himself then for the future of the Company. No pressure, then.

New York City

Monday 20 May, 9.50 am

The train was more crowded than the one he’d taken in Amsterdam, and grimier; but it suited Pope’s purposes.

He liked trains, preferred to travel using them instead of planes or even cars wherever possible. They allowed you a degree of mobility in times of crisis and they could be stopped suddenly when needed. They allowed you to think, in a way that wasn’t possible when driving. By the time the Amtrak carriage pulled out of Penn Station Pope was deep in thought.

The Grosvenor hit had been harder than he’d expected, but had still gone more or less according to plan. Pope had studied the layout of the apartment block several weeks beforehand, noting potential access points and discarding them immediately: the roof, the front door (obviously), even the windows of the lower floors. Entry through the service elevator hadn’t been difficult. Nobody took notice of a man in overalls and a cap.

The hard part had been Grosvenor herself. She was in her fifties, mahogany-tanned and hard as leather, and she’d reacted quickly when Pope had kicked the door open into her, bolting across the room for both her phone and her gun — she kept the two close together, something Pope noted with professional approval despite himself. Pope used a vase as a projectile, not hitting Grosvenor hard but causing her to lose her momentum and providing enough of a distraction that Pope was able to reach her before she could get the safety off her pistol. From then it had been more straightforward: a headlock, fingers against the carotids to subdue without killing or bringing on unconsciousness, and then the march across to the window.

Before Pope tipped Grosvenor out he removed his cap and stared hard at her face. The second he saw the understanding — the recognition, even — he heaved, sending the woman headfirst and flailing into the cold evening sky. He didn’t look down, just closed the window once more and made his exit.

Three hours and he’d be at Union Station, Washington, D.C. The first leg of the journey would be over. Pope let his eyes rest open a crack, as was his habit, and ran another part of the document through his memory.

*

27 July

I once asked Z about the name, Caliban. Had he given the operation the title? Yes, he’d chosen it himself. In that case I was puzzled, I said. Caliban represented the base, primal aspects of the human character, those untamed by civilisation and culture. Wouldn’t the title be better suited to trials of an aggression-enhancing product of some kind?

Z’s reply was interesting. He said years of experience had taught him that truth-telling was one of the most basic, animal features of the human psyche. It was only with increasing civilisation and socialisation that we learned deceit, subterfuge. Caliban, the operation, was about releasing the honesty within its subjects.

It made me want go back and reread The Tempest, to see if Shakespeare had considered this.

The next round of trials took place today. The numbers were greater this time. Twelve subjects in all. According to Z, fully half of them were volunteers; though as always I wondered just how voluntary the participation of a convicted felon in a clinical trial could be.

I watched four of the experiments. Grosvenor conducted them all, and seemed utterly drained by the end. Interrogation can be hard work. With three of the subjects she achieved results, the men breaking down within an hour, sometimes sooner, and confessing to deeds that were verifiable.

Only one of the subjects died that day. Z proclaimed himself satisfied with progress.

There was, after all, no great rush.

19 August

I have been here three months now. Twice a week a ship arrives carrying supplies; otherwise the Caribbean around us is as hot and blue and empty as might be expected. It’s a comfortable if unspectacular existence. My evenings are spent talking to Z and to the doctors involved, or researching in the compound’s small but well-appointed library. Some of what I need is available on the Internet, but access is restricted for security reasons so I dare not use it too recklessly.

Taylor suspects me, I think. He has taken an unusual interest in my work, more than is warranted. Once I looked up from my desk in the library to find him in the doorway, watching me silently.

One day I’ll set this journal down on paper, either through dictation or by typing it myself. For the moment, it must remain in my head, filed away day by day in the only place prying eyes can’t possibly see it.

15 September

How many more deaths can I allow? Today there were six, on the worst day since the trial began. Six out of eight subjects. A seventy-five per cent mortality rate. Unacceptable by anybody’s standards, even those of the product’s designers and creators.

Z shows his stress in restrained ways: a clenching of the hands behind his back, the faintest tightening at his jaw. But the pressure inside him must be enormous. Grosvenor and Jablonsky took turns conducting the interrogations today, and became so irritated with one another between cases they almost came to blows.

There’s talk of a huge shipment of new subjects early next month, perhaps as many as fifty. The product will have to be studied closely after today’s events; there might have been a contaminated batch used, but if not, then modifications will need to be made to the product before Z will allow it to be tested again. He can’t afford wastage like today’s.

I can prevent the next death quite easily. A simple phone call will do it, will bring the US Navy and the Marines down upon the island like a hailstorm. But it’s too soon. Open though Z has been with me, he continues to withhold the name I need. Blowing the whistle at this point will more than likely mean that the person who has furthest to fall in all this will escape.

Six weeks, I’ll give it. Taylor is already suspicious; it’s only a matter of time until Jablonsky and Grosvenor and Z himself see through my cover. Six weeks — and God knows how many deaths — and I’ll do it.

*

Pope stopped the flow of words at that point and switched his thoughts to John Purkiss. He had no way of knowing where Purkiss was at that moment, could only assume that his ruse had worked and Purkiss was wasting time and energy in Hamburg. Once news got out of Grosvenor’s killing, of course, Purkiss would be back on the trail. But there was no way he’d work out the pattern, no chance of his heading south and ambushing Pope there. At worst, Purkiss would be tearing Manhattan apart looking for him when Pope carried out the next stage of his plan.

And after the final one, after Z, there’d be no more.

Pope himself would disappear forever. He probably wouldn’t survive; but even if he did, what he would do with the rest of his life he had no idea. It was something he’d never considered. It was an irrelevance. His entire adult life had been shaped around his pursuit of the target that was now within his sights.

Numerically speaking, he’d achieved three quarters of his goal. Three dead, one to go. But his final target outweighed the others. That was why he’d saved Z until last. He wanted the man to know he was coming.

He wanted him to squirm.

Charlottesville, Virginia

Monday 20 May, 6.40 pm

Nina ran.

Through the neon-emblazoned streets of downtown Charlottesville she wove, stumbling, the violin case bouncing at her back. The evening was crowded for a Monday, as though the population had spilled on to the streets in order to slow her down or maybe to jeer at her. Here a doorway yawned toothlessly at her; there an overturned trashcan spilled its debris across her path like an arm trying to trip her up.