Chapter Fifty-Seven
Nearly the entire White House Intelligence Staff was present in the Main briefing room, from the Secretary of Defence to Homeland Security, the President and V.P., the Chief of Staff and most of the Intelligence Agencies. Anyone who had anything to do with National Security was inside the room with armed Secret Service agents parked outside the doors. The people conspicuously absent were Director Chase of the NSA, his in-staff assistant Dr. Cameron, the FBI Director and the Assistant DD of the NIA.
President Houston raised his eyebrows. “Where are Chase, Cameron, Rutgers and Hauser?” he demanded naming those missing.
The DoD answered him. “Out pursuing the subject of this meeting.” Mark Devereaux threw a thick manila folder on the table top, passing out similar folders to each member. The first item in the folder was a photo of a young teenage boy, around the age of 12. Good looking in a delicate way with electric blue eyes, honey-colored skin and deep mahogany red hair. The color called oxblood but without the usual freckles associated with redheads.
“The boy's name is Lakan Strongbow, son of Michael Hamilton Jr. and former FBI agent Rachel Strong. He is presently 15 years old and the most wanted person on the face of this planet. Two days ago, he walked into the NSA building, accessed the Director's office, his computer and gained entry to the entire database of NSA files. We know he copied everything onto a flash drive and then inputted a worm that erased everything pertaining to him and the people involved with helping him.”
“How did he get in? How did you get this info if he erased it all?” James Belcher of the NIA asked.
“From hand-written field notes copied off an agent's notebook, photos taken from the former Director Hamilton's phone records and newspaper articles and blogs. This kid has some rather unique and priceless talents. Page two -.” Everyone opened their folder and read the summary on the fifteen-year-old.
“No wonder Cameron was thrown out of several medical colleges. The first genetically designed human infant. What did he target for?” President Houston asked.
“Perfection. High IQ, faster reflexes, superb health, good looks, height, weight, superior in every way,” he returned.
“Red hair?” Houston asked having experienced the social stigma in the school of a redhead sister with freckles, one of the unfortunate ‘carrot tops'.
“Oxblood is the color it's called. The number one reason we need to acquire this child is something else entirely,” Devereaux continued. “Page 10.” All of them flipped to that section and read the headlines from both Alabama Star and the Washington Herald.
Back from the Dead?
Teenage Girl Saves Family from Christmas Tragedy.
Six Hurt in Garbage Truck Accident.
Witnesses claim that Sandra Jacobi and her mother, two brothers were fatally injured in a multi-car collision between their vehicle and a Waste Management Garbage Truck. 12-year-old Sandra nicknamed ‘Pickles’ was pulled from the wreck by an unidentified teenaged girl with what witnesses said looked like a broken neck. “She appeared dead,” claimed Roger Flynn, a former army medic...Also injured was Leon DeCarlos, owner of Cherokee Construction who appeared to have been impaled front to back judging by the holes in his clothing and seat back yet none of the victims showed signs of these wounds…Anthony Anderson, Herald.
Boy Saves US MARSHAL and Local Girl from Serial Killer/Sexual Predator.
Sami H ___, 7 years-old was last seen in the Walmart parking lot in her hometown of Titusville, TN on Friday afternoon. Within a half hour, a search party was underway spearheaded by a friend of the family, US Marshal Teagan Calderon Muir who also claimed to have been murdered by the alleged suspect Everett William Morris.
Though suffering from a gunshot wound to the chest, the boy managed to prevent Morris from finding and abducting Sami or hurting anyone else. The perpetrator was shot and killed at the scene by local hunters returning from a deer hunting trip. Their identity has been released as being members of the family of the teenage boy. He was airlifted to a Washington trauma Center to undergo emergency surgery. His condition is listed as critical.
Sarai Newly, Post
“Are you saying this boy can bring people back from the dead?” Houston shouted.
“That’s what they claim. We located a doctor named Albans who was killed in a hit and run but he worked with Senator Lourdes’ doctor. Rumor has it that Lourdes was pulling out of the primaries because he had stage IV liver cancer.”
“But he looks healthy! I saw him playing basketball at the Y with some inner city kids,” Belcher protested.
“And on page 32, there’s a photo of Sgt. Michael Faraday when he came home from Syria, with his diagnoses and injuries,” Devereaux returned. He watched as every man in the room blanched at the cold facts of Faraday’s genital mutilation.
“Thank God the poor bastard had brain damage and didn’t know what happened, to him,” he added. “Except, this photo was taken two days ago.” He held up the camera phone with the image of a tall, handsome young man in leather motorcycle gear holding a black and red helmet at his side. He wore a suspicious look on his face as he stared at the picture taker. Behind him, the Liberty Bell showed plainly but more importantly, you could just see the beautiful green Can-Am Spyder with it custom artwork. It was obvious that the cell phone owner had really wanted an image of the bike.
“It was posted on U-tube yesterday,” Devereaux offered. “The paint job is impressive, it’s Lake Compound Illusion. You know, the paint that changes its molecular structure so that it can be any of six different colors? Came out of Hamilton’s research labs.”
Houston asked, “all these have something to do with this kid, right? He can…bring back the dead, heal the amputated and brain-damaged and create techno-marvels? How the fuck did Chase keep him secret from me? I’m the god-damned President!”
“He kept the whole project under a black ops site with Director Hamilton’s help. Then, she spirited the boy away to her home. He escaped and this Dr. Albans found him, used him to make a fortune off rich men with problems. He kept him at a variety of mental hospitals and clinics under lock and key, taking the boy out to pre-arranged sites where he met the…customers. Once again, the boy escaped from the clinic heading for the Smoky Mountains. From all accounts, this Lakan Strongbow is a ghost in the woods. If he makes it back to the Rockies, we’ll lose him.”
“Is that where Chase and the others are?” Houston asked.
“He’s tracking Strongbow down now, using some kind of program that the doctor wrote on his laptop.”
“Do we have men after him?” the President demanded.
“Yes, Mr. President. Our top agents and law enforcement are after both, I have a BOLO out on the boy with an AMBER alert so he’ll be handled with care.”
“Whatever you do, don’t hurt him,” Houston shuddered. “We’d be crucified by the religious factions if that happened.”
There was a rapid knock on the doors at the same time as Devereaux’s cell vibrated in his pocket, along with several other cells. He read the text and nodded to the aide standing nearest the double doors. Opening them, another intelligence drone brought in pages of paper data handing the sheets to the Director of Defence.
“We’ve just received confirmation that Senator Lourdes has ordered his Lear jet to ready for a flight to Tampico Springs, FLA to pick up a party of 15 and fly them to Toronto. Director Chase has also sent a team there and to Foxboro, PA.”
“What’s in Foxboro, PA?” the NIA director asked curiously. An older man, he tended to fall asleep at meetings and it was well known that the Deputy Director really ran the agency. Houston made a mental note to replace the man at the next Congressional meeting.
“An airport and another plane owned by a client of the boy, a Michael Faraday Sr. His son and an unidentified pilot took off there a few hours ago, heading for Rhode Island where the son Michael Faraday Jr. lives. Tower reported the plane as far north as Scranton before it fell off the radar.”
“Fell off?”
“Either the pilot crashed or it dropped below 400 feet,” Devereaux returned grimly.
“Can you fly a jet below 400 feet?” one of them asked.
“Not in a Gulfstream. If the pilot did that, I’d like to shake his hand,” Houston said, being a former Air Force jock.
“If he headed west - he flew into one monster of a storm front. They’re closing airports and runways from East Coast Boston to Atlanta all the way to O’hare and St. Louis. High winds, downdrafts, torrential rains, tornadoes, ice, and baseball sized hail. Lightning. This storm is 800 miles wide. If they’re caught in it, well, their chances of survival are slim to none unless they get above 100,000 feet or go around it. Neither is likely or we’d have picked them up on radar.”
“Who’s flying the plane? Faraday?”
“The Foxboro Manager did the pre-flight check for Faraday and told the tower that the pilot looked like a 15, 16-year-old boy. Blonde hair and brown eyes and that he looked ill. He stated that he seemed to know what he was doing and said that he could fly the plane better than the man who’d designed it. The manager said the kid wasn’t boasting and he watched the takeoff. Flew like a pro.”
“Blonde with brown eyes? Isn’t he a redhead with blue eyes?”
Devereaux nodded. “He’s also been a girl at times, pretty enough to fool men.”
“Have you adjusted the BOLO to reflect that disguise?”
“Yes, Mr. President. We think he dropped below the radar to hide his destination.”
“Where is he going? Not Rhode Island or Canada?”
“He’s disappearing all the people who have helped him. I think he’d sending them to Canada but not himself. I think he’s going home.”
“Home?”
“Yes, Mr. President. I believe he’s heading home to the Reservation where he was born, to hide in the mountains away from Chase, Cameron and everyone that wants a piece of him. That’s where I’d send our men, to wait for him to land.”
“You think he’s survived the storm.”
“I don’t believe even a monster storm can stop this boy. I think he’s the closest thing to a god on this earth. I’ve heard Director Chase refer to himself and his team as the God Slayers. I believe we need to make sure that they don’t achieve their aims regarding this boy. I believe that Allan Chase wants to use him to make himself God,” Mark Devereaux said earnestly.
“I agree, Mark. You have whatever resources you need to do this. When you bring him in, I’d like to meet this Lakan Strongbow.”
“Yes, sir. So would I. One request, nothing pertaining to this case should be electronically transmitted. All records are to be handwritten or typed manually, not put into a computer, tablet, cell phone or emails. If you do, it will disappear. He hacked into the NSA files and downloaded a worm that eats everything related to his case. No orders, requests or permissions will go until we re-boot and re-load the system.”
The entire group groaned. No one even owned a typewriter anymore or had a personal assistant that took dictation.
“Just the NSA or everywhere?” Houston demanded.
Deveraux shrugged. “We don’t know yet. The IT techs are running diagnostics at the FBI, CIA and HS. The NIA said it wasn’t possible for a hacker to get into their system and make it sneeze let alone erase anything. They refuse to check.”
“Tell them I said to do it,” Houston snarled and left the room.
The Assistant Director of the NIA gave the DoD a hard sneer but nodded in agreement. The meeting broke up, each man departing for their respective offices already on their tablets and cell phones despite Deveraux’s warnings. It only took minutes to convince them that he was correct in that Strongbow’s worm had reached every level of US secret intelligence services.