Wisdom Spring (34 page)

Now, what he could remember the most about Wisdom Spring was the loneliness. When he was young—seven or eight or nine—it seemed that every time he made a friend, he or she would be gone within a couple of months. He never understood that. He asked Corbin about it once and Mays explained that some of the children only needed partial training, then went to live with some of their people on the outside. They enrolled them in public schools and integrated them into society, all the while training them at home on the future roles they’d play. Hillstrom asked him why he wasn’t one of those kids. Mays just responded by saying that he had a gift, a gift better taught right in Wisdom Spring. They had plans for him, special plans. Yeah, to get assassinated?

Hillstrom had believed him to a point, because he had, in fact, seen the files on a couple of former Wisdom Spring kids who had gone to the outside. But there was something Mays wasn’t telling him. There was something more, he just didn’t know what it was.

He asked if all of the kids who had transferred to the outside were used by the organization. “Less than ten percent,” was the answer, none of whom even knew they were being used. Hillstrom asked what happened to the ninety percent who weren’t needed, and Mays told him that they just lived their lives none the wiser. After all, the in-home training didn’t reveal any secrets. The goal was to be successful without any of the subjects even knowing what they had been trained for.

He wasn’t so lucky. He cursed the fact that he was one of the “special” ones. He remembered Paul Gilmore from his days there. A real asshole. He was quite a bit younger than Hillstrom, but he was also one of the “special ones,” so they spent a lot of time together, despite the age difference. Now he was his running-mate. He couldn’t stand him as a kid and couldn’t stand him now. And if Jess was right, a year from now, Gilmore would be president and he would be dead.

The memories poured in, none of them good. He never knew his real parents. At Wisdom Spring, he lived with the Fremonts—hence his name change—a middle-aged couple with an accent. He never did find out where they were from. His relationship with his “parents” was distant. There was no love coming from them. He knew now that they were there to do a job. His mother taught history in the school. His father came and went—he had no idea where—but when he was there, he taught Ben the art of lying. He brought back stories of the outside world, a dog-eat-dog world where no one was to be trusted. The only way to survive was to take care of yourself. Relationships were simply ways to get what you needed. That made perfect sense to Ben, seeing the life he had in Wisdom Spring.

This man—he had trouble thinking of him as his father—also taught him how to kill. They started with animals they used for food. Ben became adept with a knife and could slit a pig’s throat in a second. Moving on to humans was easy. He watched his first man being killed when he was eleven. It was part of his training. He killed his first man when he was thirteen. There were traitors, or so he was told, who couldn’t be allowed to leave and tell the outside world about Wisdom Spring. Men were tried and found guilty. Part of reaching manhood was to kill a convicted traitor in front of your teachers and town officials. By then he was so desensitized that he only hesitated for a moment before slitting the man’s throat. That hesitation though cost him three days in jail, in the cramped cell with one tasteless meal a day. The next time he had to kill, the hesitation was gone. In all, he killed three men and two women in that fashion during his Wisdom Spring days. He spent another three days in jail for his first woman. Again he hesitated. But not the next time.

His early years at school in Wisdom Spring were spent learning the basics: math, English, history, and foreign languages. He became fluent in Russian, Spanish, and German, and had some knowledge of Chinese and Japanese—all skills he kept from the American people. They would want to know how he learned the languages. But he was also taught loyalty. Someday he would go out into the world and make a name for himself, but loyalty to those who had trained him was to be utmost in his life. He had seen what happened to traitors.

It was a hard life, with school being the focus. Classes would begin early in the morning and go until five or six at night. As he thought about the other children, he had trouble remembering anyone smiling. What was there to smile about? Sometimes they played games in school—word games, board games, sporting events—but it became apparent to all that the games weren’t for fun, there was always a lesson behind them. So instead of looking forward to game time, it was dreaded as much as math.

What was also dreaded was the winter. The summer was bad enough, having to put heavy curtains on his bedroom window to keep the room dark from the constant summer light. And no matter how hard he tried, the light always peeked through. No, it was the winter. That was the worst. The cold and the snow were awful, but it was the dark that almost did him in every year. To not see the sun for months at a time left him in a constant state of depression. Who knows? Maybe they wanted him that way.

In his early years there, he tried to make up for everything else by forming friendships, clinging to every friend he could gather close. But then they would disappear. Eventually he no longer cared. By the time he reached his teens, all of his interactions with the other kids were superficial at best, conniving at worst. This was when he learned about his gift of influence. He would use it on others simply as an experiment. Sometimes his actions caused the other person to disappear. That was not a concern to him. His relationships allowed him to refine his skills, his calling.

As he thought back he realized—maybe for the first time—that there was an inordinate amount of attention in school placed on history. World history was studied for the wars and the conquests. What made a country strong, what made it weak. The conquests of Napoleon, of Alexander the Great, and of Hitler. While Hitler was derided for his tactics and his mental instability, he was to be admired for his ability to sway people to his cause.

As for U.S. history, much attention was placed on the wealthy men who helped shape the country, especially during the 1800s and early 1900s—the bankers, steel moguls, and railroad tycoons. He learned to admire them. In fact, he remembered once being told that Wisdom Spring was descended from these men. He wasn’t sure then what it meant. He wasn’t exactly sure now either, for that matter.

He did know that there was a plan, and he was a big part of it. He was never told exactly what the plan was, only that it was the job of the Wisdom Spring graduates to change how this country worked. In turn, it would change the world. There were others—people high up—who were controlling the plan. Ben was one of the chosen ones. He would help make it come to fruition. But what exactly was he making come to fruition? He thought of all the politicians who were controlled by this organization. Exactly what was the plan, the long-term goal? Whatever it was, his role in the creation of it was soon coming to an end, if Jess was right.

He had given his whole life to this. He wasn’t a traitor. He wasn’t a screw-up. He was loyal. Was this how they were going to reward his loyalty? All of a sudden, he was angry. It wasn’t going to end this way.

Chapter 43

Jess hung up the phone.

“Whoa,” I said.

“I do okay?”

“You’re kidding, right? Hillstrom is going to have to change his underwear because of you.”

Scott and Joe arrived with Mill Colson an hour after Jess’s phone call. Although still well-groomed, Mill had lost a lot weight from the events surrounding the plane crash. He held out his hand to me.

“Jon, good to see you again, and in one piece.” He looked over at Jess, then gave her a hug.

“Good to finally meet you. You’re much more attractive than your picture.”

“Thank you. It’s good to finally meet you, too.”

“We’ve brought him up to speed,” said Joe. “Did you talk with Hillstrom?”

“I did.”

“Wish you could have heard her,” I added. “She blew him away.” I told them the whole conversation.

“You hung up on Gary Hillstrom and made him call you back?” asked Mill incredulously. “That’s not something you see every day.”

“I suggest we have dinner, relax a bit, then go at this tomorrow,” I said.

“That sounds good to me,” said Scott. “I don’t have anything defrosted. We’ll have to order out.”

We couldn’t ignore the subject, and spent much of dinner and after talking about Wisdom Spring, with Mill insisting on hearing all about our adventures getting there.

Finally, we all headed to bed. Joe graciously gave his up for Mill and slept on the couch.

The next day was busy for all of us. Jess sat with Mill, going over every file in the six boxes. Sometimes I would pass them and see Mill just shaking his head in disbelief. I asked him about the legality of him meeting with Jess. After all, she was still a fugitive.

“The rules have changed,” was his answer. “I look at all of the politicians and lawyers involved in this and it makes me sick. You think I’m going to get sanctioned for this when a U.S. Supreme Court justice is involved? I think not.”

Scott, Joe, and I had a different job. We needed to find a good spot to have the meeting with Hillstrom, or whoever they decided to send in his place. I knew that Hillstrom wanted to come, simply because he now had doubts about his future. But would they let him?

“They’re going to send an army with him or without him,” I said. “How do we get around that?”

“I think I know,” answered Scott. “In fact, I also know the perfect place.” He turned to me. “You have enough of that money left to spare about $25,000?”

“Sure. What do you need it for?”

“I want to hire some friends.”

“Your survivalist friends?

“Right up their alley. They get to go up against the government and corporate America, and play with guns. They’ll jump at the chance.”

“So where is this place?” asked Joe.

“Right here in Homer. On my property, to be specific.”

“Isn’t that a bit close to home?” I asked.

“It’s actually not the property I live on. I own twenty-five acres on the other side of town. Pretty remote, and in the middle of it is a quarry. At least, it used to be a quarry. I use it to shoot in. Nobody else goes in there. I could station my guys around the rim of the quarry and they’ll put a quick stop to any army that shows up.”

“You realize,” began Joe, “that they are not going to all come at once. My guess is that Hillstrom will have a second plane up there somewhere. Maybe a third. As soon as you tell him where to meet, he’ll have the other plane headed here. They’ll either get here early and try to ambush you, or if you don’t give them the final location when they’re in Anchorage, they’ll follow them up here and try to ambush you after you’ve already started your meeting with Hillstrom, assuming he comes.”

“So let’s set them up,” I answered. “Let’s tell them the location and give them time to send their men here. We’ll have your survivalist friends waiting for them and they can, um, disarm them. Then when Hillstrom arrives, we’ll have the advantage.”

“Sounds reasonable,” said Joe. “It might just work. Let’s see the spot.”

Scott drove us over. Getting off the main road, we took a dirt road up a long hill, then got off onto a smaller dirt road.

“This is all my property around here. If you and Jess ever want to build a house away from the rest of the world, you’re welcome to.”

“Thank you. It’s becoming more tempting every day.”

We reached a small grassy area and Scott stopped the truck. We got out and made our way down a wide trail, Max leading the procession. It was obvious that he had been there many times before. About a quarter of a mile down the path, we reached a large open area surrounded on three sides by sheer rock cliffs about fifty feet high. Running along the base of the wall at the far end was a pile of sand about four feet high. Targets had been set up in front of the sand.

“Pretty much of a box canyon,” said Scott.

“Perfect,” added Joe. “Ollie and his group could position themselves on top of the canyon walls, or hide in the woods and flank Hillstrom’s men, cornering them in here.”

“I’d let Ollie figure that one out,” said Scott. “So are we agreed? This the spot?”

“I’m good,” answered Joe.

“I only have one concern,” I said. “This land is under your name. If it doesn’t work, someone could trace it to you.”

“Aw, always looking out for me,” said Scott, slapping me on the back. “Bro, it’s twenty-five acres of remote Alaskan wilderness. I don’t know who comes here. Just because I own it doesn’t mean I spend any time on it. And that would be my answer. Don’t worry about it.”

We got home to find Mill pacing the floor, all keyed up.

“This is unbelievable,” he said as we came in. “When we get the word out, this is going to be one of the most significant events in U.S. history. I figure about fifty members of the House and another twenty in the Senate are going to have to resign, if they’re not indicted. That’s to say nothing of Pecorelli and his Supreme Court seat. Emergency elections are going to be held all over the country. And all of these assassins running around. They’ve taken out targets all over the world.” He asked me, “So when is all this going down?”

“Tomorrow sometime.”

“The minute it does, I’m calling a press conference. I’ll entice them by emailing them the photos of the dead in the mine. Did you know there are over thirty members of the press on Hillstrom’s payroll that we know about? I’m actually friends with some of them.”

He continued to talk while Scott called Ollie. Ollie accepted the offer and promised to have six or seven guys leave at sun up. Scott would meet them at the airport in his truck and transport them over to the quarry.

We spent the rest of the day planning our strategy. Mill finally calmed down close to dinnertime when Scott presented us with a banquet of venison, bear, salmon, crab, and halibut. Later that night, we watched the news and heard that Hillstrom had come down with laryngitis and was cancelling his events for the following two days.