Thriller: Code Name: Camelot - An Action Thriller Novel (A Noah Wolf Novel, Thriller, Action, Mystery Book 1) (7 page)

SEVEN

D
oc Parker was
a small man who appeared to be in his late 70s, maybe even early 80s. He had an office that sat in a little building all by itself, and he had been waiting for Noah when he arrived.

“Come in, come in,” he said. “You’re late, young man. You were supposed to be here three minutes ago. One thing you need to learn here, if you learn nothing else, is to be prompt. If you can’t keep to a schedule, how can those working with you be sure that you can do your part, when the time comes?”

Noah’s eyebrows shot up. “My apologies, Sir,” he said. “I’m new here, just arrived this morning.”

“What’s that got to do with anything? There will be a lot of times, if you live long enough, when you will arrive in the morning at some new destination and have to kill five people before you can even have breakfast. Now, imagine if there are other people depending on you to do your part, so that they can then do theirs—should they have to wait for you to acclimate yourself? Should they have to hope that you show up on time? Bear in mind, if you don’t show up on time and do your part, there’s a pretty good chance that some of them are going to die. Promptness, my boy, promptness is important, and don’t you forget it.”

Noah dipped his head once. “Understood, Sir. It won’t happen again.”

“You’re damned right it won’t, because if it does, it will be the last time.” The old man pointed at a chair. “Put your ass right there,” he said, “and pucker your lips as tightly shut as your asshole is.”

Noah took the seat, and sat there in silence as the old man sat down behind the desk in front of him. He waited for a couple of minutes, as Parker seemed to be looking for something in the papers scattered across the top of the desk.

Suddenly, the old fellow looked him in the eye. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you knew how to follow orders.” He paused and looked at Noah for several seconds, then broke into a huge grin. “That’s two tests you passed in as many minutes. Most newbies get tired of waiting for me to stop digging through my papers, and speak up to get my attention, which means they fail. Those who don’t fall for that one usually grin and start talking after I act surprised that they didn’t, which means they fail. About one in fifty are smart enough sit there and say nothing, like you just did. You wanna tell me who tipped you off?”

Noah grinned, but didn’t open his mouth, and the old man burst out laughing. “Oh, my goodness, you’re going to be the best one I’ve had in years, I can feel it already. Listen up, youngster, from here on out, if I ask a question it means you can answer it. You already proved you could keep your mouth shut when you need to, and that’s pretty important. Got that?”

“Got it, Sir,” Noah said, and then closed his mouth again.

The old man nodded his head, his smile wide and genuine. “Okay, then,” he said. “My job today is to try to give you an idea of why our organization exists, and why it must exist. Do you have any opinion on that subject, before I get started?”

Noah looked at the old fellow for a moment, then nodded. “I know from personal experience, Sir, that there are people in this world who make it a much more dangerous place for everyone else. Sometimes, they might be enemy combatants of one sort or another, sometimes they may be proponents of organized crime, sometimes they may just be people whose views or purposes create a risk for our country, but whatever the reason, the only solution is to remove them from whatever equation they may be part of. In some cases, it’s simply not possible to remove them through the use of normal legal means, so other methods will have to be employed. That means it’s necessary for those other methods to exist, and that’s where we come in.”

Doc Parker nodded. “Very good,” he said. “And do you approve of those other methods?”

“I do,” Noah said, “because no matter how much we want to believe that our world is just and fair, it isn’t. At least in some cases, the only way to have justice is to leave fairness at the door on the way in.”

The old man picked up a file on the desk in front of him and flipped it open. “I see that you have been known to take steps that might be considered leaving fairness at the door, yourself. I’ve read through your entire file, so I know your story. There’s enough glaring truth in it to make me personally think that we should send one of you guys after the officers who sat on your court-martial. They weren’t looking for truth or justice; they were trying to find a big enough rug to sweep you under. Of course, that had a lot to do with a certain politician. Had my way, we’d send one of you boys after him, too. Sadly, they don’t let me have my way.”

Noah didn’t say anything, but the old man saw the look in his eyes. “Speak up, youngster, if you got something to say.”

“The only thing I want to say, Sir, is that the congressman was only acting to protect the memory and name of his son. While I may not approve of how he went about it, he did act within what I consider normal human behavior. I can’t really be angry at him for that, so I cannot agree that we should send someone to do him harm.”

“That’s because you think too logically,” Parker said. “You don’t have access to that part of your brain that allows you to feel and experience and utilize emotions, so your thinking is too clear for most people to even understand. That will be an asset for you around here, but you can’t let your understanding of human behavior convince you not to eliminate someone whose normal human behavior creates a danger. Understand?”

“Understood, Sir.”

Parker tossed the file back on his desk. “Noah—you don’t mind if I call you Noah, do you?”

“Not at all, Sir.”

“Good. Noah, you did a good job of answering my question about why our organization should exist, but you didn’t quite come up with the right answer. You see, E & E is the first organization of its kind in the United States. While there have been organizations in the past that have indulged in assassination at times, they have all been under the direct oversight of one of the intelligence agencies, or the president of the United States. What that means is that there was no one to keep hold of their leash, so when our current president conceived the idea for E & E, he was smart enough—and don’t ask me how, when he’s been so stupid on everything else—to make sure that the only person who could give the order to use that most efficient tool of diplomacy would be completely unknown to any of those agencies, and not subject to the orders of any of them, including the commander-in-chief. He created this agency, chose an incredibly insightful intelligence analyst to run it, transferred an enormous amount of money that would allow it to remain autonomous for many years, and then created a secure channel through which any agency that wanted to use this tool would have to submit a request. That request is reviewed by our administrator, and then she sends back her determination, whether to approve or deny the request. If it’s approved, she simply hands the mission over to one of her people. If it’s denied, then the same request cannot be made by the same agency again.”

The old man paused, and Noah nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said. “This has all been explained to me.”

“Who cares? I’m just doing my job, and my job says I have to explain it to you all over again, so sit there and be quiet. Now, where was I? Oh, yeah, well, anyway, not even the president can order our administrator to approve a request. From what I understand, that was the one rule that she asked for, and he agreed to it without argument. What that means is that no one can ever force her to order anyone’s death. And, since nobody outside this organization except the president knows who the administrator is, nobody can put pressure on her to do so.” Parker leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk, his hands folded neatly in front of him. “That’s the big difference between this agency and any other one that’s ever existed, in this country or anywhere else. It’s also the reason why this agency has been so successful at making a difference in this world. Now, can you tell me what makes you think you belong in this organization?”

Noah felt a moment’s surprise at the question. “I can’t say that I think I do belong here,” he said. “I simply defer to the administrator, who apparently does think so.”

“That was an excellent answer,” Parker said. “Then why do you think she chose you?”

“It’s been established that I have no normal emotions, and an apparently limited or nonexistent conscience. From what I understand, that gives me a bit of an edge, because I don’t have to second-guess myself before I take a shot.”

“Another great answer. You keep this up, and I may have to put your picture up on my wall, something to point at to show other idiots who come through here what they could have been. You were chosen, Noah, because you’ve proven that you will take action when action must be taken. You don’t agonize over it, you simply decide whether action needs to be taken, and then you act on that decision. That’s something we spend incredible amounts of time and money trying to teach to our students, and here you come along with it already hardwired into your Cybernet. If I could figure out what makes you tick, I’d be doing all I could to program the rest of our boys and girls to think just like you. Unfortunately, the root cause of your incredible, unique existence is probably found in the tragedy you suffered as a child, and without a time machine, I can’t go back and put any of my other students through similar experiences.”

“Apparently you’re not the only one, Sir,” Noah said. “Over the past few years, I’ve read about a number of experiments that have been conducted, psychological experiments that were designed to turn off emotions in certain people. I’ve never been able to get access to any of their actual results, but some of the psychology behind the experiments sounded at least somewhat valid.”

Parker nodded, but waved off the suggestions. “I know about some of those experiments, and frankly, I disapprove. They’re nothing like what happened to you, in any event. Your emotional shutdown came at a moment when you were probably being assaulted by some of the most painful emotions possible. Your psyche, in order to protect itself, simply flipped a switch and turned those emotions off. This is a defense mechanism, a way in which the subconscious acts to protect the individual. Tell me, have you ever been to see a psychotherapist about this?”

“Yes, a couple of times. My grandparents sent me to one, and during the time I was in the foster care system, I was ordered by a court into psychoanalysis. In both cases, I simply kept up my act and managed to convince both psychiatrists that I was a fairly normal kid who had been through a rough time. If you’re asking whether I ever cooperated, then the answer would be no. I don’t feel emotion, so I have no concerns over whether there’s anything wrong with me. Because of that, I just couldn’t see any reason to cooperate with someone who wanted to take away the very thing that, to me, makes me feel comfortable with myself.”

Parker laughed. “We sent some people to actually interview some of the folks who knew you when you were younger,” he said, “on the pretense that the interview was related to a possible pardon, or commutation of your sentence. There was one woman who said that she compared you to Mr. Spock, from
Star Trek
. According to her, you are probably as close to a true Vulcan as the world has ever seen. Do you think she’s right?”

Noah grinned. “You’re talking about Molly,” he said. “I remember when she started calling me that; it was a long time ago, when we were kids. On the other hand, she got me started watching that show in reruns, and the more I saw Mr. Spock, the more I felt a kinship with him. Over the years, every time there was a new
Star Trek
show, I looked at the Vulcans to see if I could feel that same kinship, and I usually did. I found it with Mr. Data, too. He was another one who was always trying to figure out how to be human, just like me.”

Parker was nodding his head. “And of course, he thought in terms of logic. He had to, since he was essentially a robot, and I’m certain that’s exactly how you’ve felt for most of your life.”

“Like a robot?” Noah asked. “Of course I do. I’ve literally spent an incredible amount of time sort of meditating, thinking: if this happens, then I must do that. I took a course in computer programming, and a lot of what I’ve done over the years to try to make myself appear normal could be compared to writing software. I just kept repeating it over and over to myself, until it became automatic.”

The conversation went on for a couple of hours, until Parker finally glanced at the clock. “Well, youngster, I would have to say that this has been one of the most rewarding sessions I’ve had yet. You’re an incredible fellow, and I do wish we could find a way to distill you down into a liquid and pump you into the veins of all the rest of them. However, since we can’t do that, I’m going to pass along my recommendation that we do everything we possibly can to get you through the course and into the field as soon as possible.” The old man picked up a pen and scribbled something on to a slip of paper, which he then folded and handed to Noah. “Someone will ask you for this, sometime today. Guard it with your life, because at my age, I could drop dead, and if you don’t have that when you’re asked for it, then there would be no way to prove that I endorsed you. Without my endorsement, you go before the firing squad, so you really don’t want to let that get out of your sight.” Parker sat there and looked at him for another moment, then flicked his fingers as if telling Noah to go. “It’s lunchtime,” he said, “and I suspect your escort is waiting impatiently outside for you. Don’t keep the poor fellow waiting, he’s probably starving. Go get some lunch. We’re done.”

Noah grinned, then got up out of the chair. “Thank you, Sir,” he said, and then turned and walked out the door. Marco was waiting in the car, with the door open and one leg propped up on it as he read his book. He pulled his leg in and dog-eared the book as Noah climbed into the passenger seat.

“He give you a pass?” Marco asked.

Noah patted his pocket. “Said he did. Am I supposed to give it to you?”