John Krygelski - The Aegis Solution

They retraced their steps in the direction of Bonillas’ lab in silence. Elias made two additional attempts to engage him verbally, as the real Patrick Brightman would in this situation. His comments were ignored as they continued to walk. Rounding a corner, he saw Bonillas standing outside her lab, accompanied by another person Elias did not know. He noted that Bonillas was repetitively bunching and releasing the pocket on her lab coat with her right hand, turning that small part of the fabric into a crumpled mess. They walked directly to the two of them, and Kreitzmann, saying nothing, looked at the stranger, waiting.

The stranger took one quick look at Elias and turned to Kreitzmann. It was obvious this was a person who knew the real Brightman, as he curtly shook his head to indicate that Elias had failed the test.

Kreitzmann spoke, his voice stern and somber. “Thank you, Doctor Pannectuck. Thank you, Doctor Bonillas.”

They both nodded and retreated to the lab, leaving Elias alone in the hallway with Kreitzmann.

“Who are you?”

Giving it a final try, Elias sputtered, “I’m Patrick Brightman. You already know….”

“Sir, that gentleman who just left knows Patrick Brightman. He worked with him for two years. Now, I’ll ask one more time. Who are you?”

Without hesitating, Elias answered, “Elias Charon.”

Kreitzmann’s reaction was instantaneous. “Charon! They sent you?”

Elias said nothing, waiting. He watched the scientist’s face and saw that the anger was gone. But it was not replaced with fear; rather, confusion momentarily flickered across his countenance.

Elias took advantage of this by asking, “How did Bonillas figure it out?”

In a matter-of-fact voice, Kreitzmann answered, “You either didn’t know about or underestimated the psychic children.”

Not all that surprised, Elias said, “The girl behind the glass read my mind.”

He nodded. “And she is one of our speakers. After we left, she told one of Doctor Bonillas’ assistants what you were thinking and that you were pretending to be someone you were not. The assistant told Doctor Bonillas who took the initiative to contact our HR people. At first, she believed she was simply documenting another lab result from the children for the case file. But after HR told her we had someone on staff who had worked with Brightman, and that person, upon hearing your physical description, was fairly certain you were not the man you pretended to be, she summoned me.

“It was only a matter of time until you encountered someone who knew the real Brightman. You must have assumed that. Therefore, Mr. Charon, the only conclusion I can draw is that whatever you had planned to do, you were going to act quickly, and that your masquerade, after it served its initial purpose of gaining entry, was only to gain some insights into our work first.”

Elias said nothing.

“My question is the obvious one. What is it you were planning to do?”

Shrugging, Elias answered, “I came into Aegis for the same reason everyone else does. Well, almost everyone, apparently. I’d had enough out there.”

Kreitzmann was closely studying Elias’ face as he spoke. “I had heard that you lost your wife.”

Elias nodded.

“I don’t believe you, Mr. Charon. But, for the sake of conversation, if this is true, why the Patrick Brightman charade? Why infiltrate my labs?”

“When I was active… when I was engaged in, well, things… you and your activities were always near the top of my pile. I didn’t know you were in here until after I arrived. It seems there aren’t too many secrets in this facility. I heard that you had set up shop inside the very place I had chosen for my self-imposed exile, and the coincidence was too great to ignore. I was curious.”

“But the Patrick Brightman ruse? That must have been planned.”

“Not at all. Brightman had come to my attention as one of my last issues before I retired. I knew the details of his life and thought I could wing it long enough to get a look around. It was hasty and it was ad-libbed. As you said, I knew it was a short-time cover. But I only wanted a peek, anyway.”

One side of Kreitzmann’s mouth curled up in a half smile. “You are quite persuasive, Mr. Charon. Really! As I stand here and talk with you, I find myself wanting to believe what you say.”

“It’s true.”

“So you say. And perhaps it is. In the days prior to my work, I would have been forced to make a value judgment, a gut decision, as it were. Fortunately, that is no longer the case.”

He turned and opened the door to Bonillas’ lab and Elias saw the doctor, as well as the young girl from behind the glass. They had been standing just inside the door. Kreitzmann glanced questioningly at Bonillas, who bent down and put her ear close to the girl’s lips. Elias watched while the girl whispered something. As Bonillas heard the girl’s words, Elias saw her face knit into an expression of fear. He did not need to see anything else.

Before she could communicate the girl’s comment to Kreitzmann, Elias swung, clipping Kreitzmann on the jaw and sending him to the floor with one punch. Bonillas, seeing what had happened, immediately pulled the young girl back and slammed the door to the lab in the same motion.

Pivoting, Elias turned and ran in the direction of the reception area, hoping his weapons were still there and not stored away. There was no attempt by the workers he dashed past to restrain him, his actions only causing curious stares and the hasty withdrawal of a few of the technicians into the nearest doorway.

The final hallway, which would lead him to the receptionist, was coming up next. Elias made a snap decision to maintain his pace, rather than stop before the intersection to peer around the corner, counting on the fact that only a minute or two had passed since he had made his move. He hoped that the time it would take Bonillas to sound any sort of an alarm and the security staff to respond would be more than long enough to allow his escape.

Rounding the last corner, he noticed nothing but the forty yards of empty hallway between him and his goal. Putting on an extra burst of speed, Elias sprinted to the finish line, running into the room where he saw the same young woman still seated at the desk. Her eyes swung in his direction as he abruptly entered.

Skittering to a stop, nearly losing his balance as the rug under his feet slid, Elias looked at the side table where she had placed his Beretta and AK-47 earlier. It was bare.

“Where’s my…?”

Before he could finish, something slammed into him from behind, knocking him to the ground. Elias tried to push himself over, while twisting his head around to see who his assailant was, when he suddenly felt a flash of pain at the back of his head, followed by an instant blurring of his vision, which dissolved into blackness.

Despite the pain, the experience of years of working in the field caused Elias to keep his eyes closed as he returned to consciousness. A person’s first impulse if hurt and rendered unconscious would be to stir, groan, or make any number of other forms of attention-gaining gestures upon awakening. He remained still and silent, listening.

As he waited patiently, the throbbing in his head subsided a bit as he forced his racing metabolism, a normal bodily reaction after emerging from the darkness of being knocked out, to calm.

He began taking inventory of all that his senses observed. From his position, which was horizontal, and the feeling that he was lying on a mattress, he could not determine whether he was restrained in any way, without either looking or moving, neither of which was advisable at the moment. His nose detected a panoply of scents. There was a faint hint of ozone, accompanied by a stronger level of machine oil. His ears heard a steady thrumming/whooshing sound, mechanical in nature. They also perceived the faint rustling of movement that seemed to be approximately a dozen feet away. It sounded as if there was a single person walking about, handling or rearranging some items unseen by Elias. With the absence of input from his eyes, his mind automatically conjured an image that matched the sounds. It was an image from his past: a peaceful, pleasant moment when he had awakened from a nap on the couch to find Leah hard at work dusting her knick-knack shelf in the den.