and you don’t leave them behind. Simple as that. Neuroscientist, combat surgeon, lecturer, soldier.
He clicked to open the doors of the van as they approached across the desiccated, grassless lawn.
The sun told her they were already heading into late morning. It surprised her that she’d been in that house for so long.
As they approached the van he said, “Doctor Raab has great admiration for you, for your work.”
A very odd thing to say, she thought. Like it was present tense, when in fact Lester Raab had been dead for years.
She replied, “Well, we had our disagreements for sure. When he died, I wasn’t sure if that was a loss or gain for civilization. I remember hearing about the boating accident and I didn’t really react. I didn’t know how to react.”
“He’s not dead,” her kidnapper said.
What the hell was this? “Doctor Raab, the neurosurgeon?”
“Yes. He’s very much alive.” Johnny Cash opened the driver’s side door. “All the men, the TBIs who disappeared, were taken into the program at the Facility run by Doctor Raab. That’s where we’re going after we bring our problem in.”
Rainee was so shocked, she didn’t know for a moment how to react. This was crazy. “You’re not talking about the advanced warfighter program?”
“I am. He and the program are very much alive.”
Rainee stood for a moment holding the door open, trying to get her mind around this and having a great deal of difficulty. This rabbit hole she’d been pulled down into was getting crazier by the minute.
She then climbed into the passenger seat as her kidnapper, her former patient, the miracle save, got behind the wheel and started the engine.
That Raab was alive and his program still operational, and this soldier was part of Raab’s world, a product of that world, was beyond stunning.
She had, under heavy questioning at the congressional hearings, admitted that there was enormous pressure from the military to push research into the future of war fighting beyond any oversight.
There were so many programs, some so dark that using former soldiers as guinea pigs was almost a given and the fundamental reason she’d turned against them.
Her testimony had been very honest and had been accepted as such. Her record, her military background, and her military parents kept her free of condemnation.
Nice, but apparently, it hadn’t eliminated the experimental activity by some of her colleagues and some of the secret programs under DARPA.
Doctor Raab, her sometime associate, was the one they were really after, but his reported death ended that investigation.
But that was then, and right now, she was in the passenger seat of the van she’d been kidnapped in with a man who was both the past and the future.
He didn’t leave yet. He was receiving some sort of input. He touched his wrist. He pulled out what looked like a smartphone from his pants, something no doubt much more sophisticated than anything available on the market. He stared at it and then put it in his shirt pocket.
She didn’t get where he was. But he looked tense.
“We’re likely going to have company real soon,” he said. “The assets’ pickup team is coming to check out what the problem is. They’ve been warned and now can’t get in contact with the assets, so they’ll assume the worst and come in hard.”
She didn’t bother asking him to explain how control knew. This was not the normal world.
Well, Rainee thought, if I have to be with somebody under extreme threat, this guy is probably the best I could ask for.
She was still so stunned by the idea that Lester Raab was alive and well and running some secret program that she had a hard time focusing on the looming crisis they might be dealing with.
At the same time, she couldn’t avoid being excited at finally getting answers about her former patients. Even if she wasn’t going to like those answers.
15
When he pulled out of the enclosed yard into an alley and
He clicked to open the doors of the van as they approached across the desiccated, grassless lawn.
The sun told her they were already heading into late morning. It surprised her that she’d been in that house for so long.
As they approached the van he said, “Doctor Raab has great admiration for you, for your work.”
A very odd thing to say, she thought. Like it was present tense, when in fact Lester Raab had been dead for years.
She replied, “Well, we had our disagreements for sure. When he died, I wasn’t sure if that was a loss or gain for civilization. I remember hearing about the boating accident and I didn’t really react. I didn’t know how to react.”
“He’s not dead,” her kidnapper said.
What the hell was this? “Doctor Raab, the neurosurgeon?”
“Yes. He’s very much alive.” Johnny Cash opened the driver’s side door. “All the men, the TBIs who disappeared, were taken into the program at the Facility run by Doctor Raab. That’s where we’re going after we bring our problem in.”
Rainee was so shocked, she didn’t know for a moment how to react. This was crazy. “You’re not talking about the advanced warfighter program?”
“I am. He and the program are very much alive.”
Rainee stood for a moment holding the door open, trying to get her mind around this and having a great deal of difficulty. This rabbit hole she’d been pulled down into was getting crazier by the minute.
She then climbed into the passenger seat as her kidnapper, her former patient, the miracle save, got behind the wheel and started the engine.
That Raab was alive and his program still operational, and this soldier was part of Raab’s world, a product of that world, was beyond stunning.
She had, under heavy questioning at the congressional hearings, admitted that there was enormous pressure from the military to push research into the future of war fighting beyond any oversight.
There were so many programs, some so dark that using former soldiers as guinea pigs was almost a given and the fundamental reason she’d turned against them.
Her testimony had been very honest and had been accepted as such. Her record, her military background, and her military parents kept her free of condemnation.
Nice, but apparently, it hadn’t eliminated the experimental activity by some of her colleagues and some of the secret programs under DARPA.
Doctor Raab, her sometime associate, was the one they were really after, but his reported death ended that investigation.
But that was then, and right now, she was in the passenger seat of the van she’d been kidnapped in with a man who was both the past and the future.
He didn’t leave yet. He was receiving some sort of input. He touched his wrist. He pulled out what looked like a smartphone from his pants, something no doubt much more sophisticated than anything available on the market. He stared at it and then put it in his shirt pocket.
She didn’t get where he was. But he looked tense.
“We’re likely going to have company real soon,” he said. “The assets’ pickup team is coming to check out what the problem is. They’ve been warned and now can’t get in contact with the assets, so they’ll assume the worst and come in hard.”
She didn’t bother asking him to explain how control knew. This was not the normal world.
Well, Rainee thought, if I have to be with somebody under extreme threat, this guy is probably the best I could ask for.
She was still so stunned by the idea that Lester Raab was alive and well and running some secret program that she had a hard time focusing on the looming crisis they might be dealing with.
At the same time, she couldn’t avoid being excited at finally getting answers about her former patients. Even if she wasn’t going to like those answers.
15
When he pulled out of the enclosed yard into an alley and
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