Chapter 4

The problems started when I exited the George Washington Parkway in the unincorporated community of Langley in Fairfax County, Virginia. There is an exit off the Parkway that goes directly to the main gate of the George Bush Center for Intelligence, which is the name of the CIA’s headquarters complex. It is located on some 258 acres of land near McLean, Virginia. The several buildings there are surrounded by huge parking lots and parking structures. There are small internal buses that move the many employees of the agency to their work areas in the morning and return them to their vehicles at quitting time, as the parking lots are that large.

The problem, that immediately surfaced, was that even though I looked exactly like Holiday and had his identification documents and passport, what I lacked was an authorized vehicle. My rental car would NOT be allowed on the installation.

“What is your business here, sir?” the security guard at the main gate demanded when I had stopped the vehicle. I produced Holiday’s identification documents before explaining why I was there.

“I just returned from Bangkok, and have an appointment with the Assistant Director of Operations, Mr. Hill,” I informed him. He was using a scanner to verify Holiday’s ID, and seemed startled by what I had said, but he was still frowning, as he returned them to me.

“We’ll need to confirm that, sir. Move your vehicle over to the parking lot outside the gate, and then return here,” he told me. While I was doing that, he was on a phone checking on what I had told him, I noticed as I moved the vehicle.

“A vehicle will be here to pick you up in a few minutes,” I was told on returning to the checkpoint.

This turn of events did not fit in with what I had planned to do while here, but I would need to deal with it. It was imperative that I get Gweneth away from these people. Following that, I would see just how important this mission of theirs was, and if it really required my special talents to complete it. I would definitely not be coerced into doing something for them under the threat of harm to her. I would take out as many of them as necessary to obtain her release. Still, they had certainly gone to considerable trouble to disturb my peace and quiet at the Wat. Perhaps they had a good reason for that. It would be good to see Gweneth again, also.

A car soon arrived at the checkpoint, and the driver rolled down the window.

“Holiday,” he called, and I walked through the pedestrian gate and opening the front passenger door, got in.

“Put on your seat-belt,” I was told before he put the vehicle back in drive, and he returned the way he had come. He drove me to what is called ‘the Original Headquarters Building’, and to the original front entrance. I knew from the internet that this huge building with its somewhat odd ‘H’ configuration contained 1.4 million square feet of space, and had six stories above ground.

The driver parked in a reserved space near the building, and we exited the vehicle. This was my first chance to get a good look at him. He was about 6’-0’’ tall and probably weighed around 230 pounds, with broad shoulders and the look of a man with a lot of muscles. He had said very little, not even giving me his name or a good morning. He was apparently well known to all of the security people, as we weren’t stopped or spoken to at any of the security check points that we passed through.

No one had asked if I was armed, but having just arrived on an international flight, they were probably sure that I wasn’t, and in truth I wasn’t, at least not in the conventional sense. We eventually arrived at an office on the fifth floor of the original headquarters building. The sign on the glass door of the office read ‘Assistant Director of Operations’. My keeper or guard, as I hadn’t decided which he was, went to the good looking woman sitting behind the large real wood receptionist’s desk and said something to her. It was too low for me to hear it.

In the meantime, I was looking around at the reception room. It was large and had seating for a good dozen people without any crowding. There was a deep pile rug on the floor where it wasn’t terrazzo. There was light blue wall paper above what appeared to be a real wood paneled wainscot with moldings just below the ceiling that compliment those at the top of the wainscot. The ceiling was plastered with built-in lighting, plus there was sunlight coming in the windows in the outer wall.

“Sit,” my guide rumbled, as he returned to me and took a seat himself. “It will be a few minutes,” he added once I was seated. It was about ten minutes later when the secretary / receptionist looked up at us.

“The Assistant Director will see you now,” she told us, looking somewhat surprised by this quick admittance. She pressed a button on her desk, and there was a buzzing as the lock on the inner door released, and it opened a few inches.

“After you,” my guide told me, as I started toward the door.

The office that I entered was much larger than the reception room had been, and was even more expensively appointed. In addition to the things noticed in the outer office there was an even larger mahogany desk with a computer and phones, plus what appeared to be a conference table in the same wood that would accommodate twelve people. There was a credenza holding bottles and glasses on the far wall past the conference table and a large television screen. There was also a door to another room on that wall, and I could sense that it was a private rest room with a shower.

The man sitting behind the large desk, who I presumed was Mr. Hill, was large at 6’-2’’ tall and about 240 pounds. He was clean shaven, but was already going bald at forty-five years of age or so. He also didn’t appear very happy to see me.

“Where the hell is the person you were told to bring here?” he roared at me, avoiding the word prisoner.

“The person who our contact brought in was an old man in his mid-sixties. He had been a Buddhist monk for thirty-three years and was in poor health,” I told him.

“Are you sure that he was Saint Cirq?” Hill demanded in a roar. He didn’t seem capable of speaking in a normal voice.

“He was a European or American, and he admitted to being Thorne Saint Cirq,” I told him.

“Why didn’t you bring him here? That could have been a disguise,” he prompted in a somewhat quieter voice.

“He was an old monk in poor health and would not have been able to do anything for you,” I reminded him.

“You fool, that woman that we have hasn’t aged a month in the last thirty-three years. You were both duped, idiot,” he screamed at me.

“So you are really interested in talking to Thorne Saint Cirq,” I said, as I whirled around and knocked out the one sent to bring me here with one punch. At the same time, using my control of the electromagnetic spectrum, I disabled the computer and phones on his desk and locked the electric lock on the entrance door. When I turned around again, Hill was pointing a pistol at me. Since he didn’t have his suit coat on, and there was no signs of a holster, I had to presume that he had removed it from the desk. With an additional thought, it was yanked from his hand and floated just below the ceiling of the room.

“You are so interested in seeing Thorne Saint Cirq, well here I am,” I told him changing from Holiday’s appearance to the human one that I had been using for the last couple of centuries. Hill stared at me in shock and disbelief.

“How... ?” he finally managed to ask after many seconds.

“How did I do that? It’s fairly simple, a superior intellect,” I told him, but was sure he wouldn’t believe me.

“Now, where is my friend, Gweneth?” I demanded. A smile soon crossed his face.

“We have her in a safe location. You will never be able to find it or her. Now sit down and undo all of this. WE have a lot of work for you to do,” he told me with a new confidence.

“Quite the contrary, you sit down,” I told him, as I took control of his body and sat him back in his chair behind the desk and froze him in place.

The chair rolled easily out from behind the desk to the side of it on the fancy wooden floor behind the desk, and I soon had him where I wanted him to read his thoughts. Placing my hands on either side of his head, and my thumbs on his forehead, I entered his mind. His mind proved to be a cesspool of all of the nasty and disgusting things that the human race is capable of. He was one nasty guy, but he had never dealt with anyone like me, and I soon found where they were holding Gweneth.

“You had better pray that nothing has been done to her. I can make the things you have done look like nothing more than playground hi-jinks. I was a master of torture and intimidation centuries before you were born,” I told him. I had hesitated, wanting to say millennia before he was born instead.

“What have you done to me?” he asked in a shaking voice after I had removed my hands from his head.

“I read your mind, just as I did Roberts’s and Holiday’s in Bangkok before coming here,” I answered.

“What did you do to them?” he asked next in a shaking voice.

“They are no more, and you will never find any trace of them,” I assured him. Now, however, I was prepared to leave here. I would need to take these two men with me, so there was no one to raise the alarm or to notify those holding Gweneth. In addition to slowing down pursuit, this would allow us to escape, as I was sure they would be very upset with us for ruining their plans. I quickly returned my attention to the two CIA men.

“We will be leaving here in a few minutes,” I told Hill. “As soon as I revive my previous guide,” I added, before waking the man who had picked me up at the gate. He came awake with a start and immediately reached for the pistol he had been carrying, only to find that I had already removed it.

“Sit there quietly and listen,” I told him, as he looked over at Hill who was still confined to the chair.

“Do as he says,” Hill told him in a subdued voice.

“The three of us will be leaving here in a few minutes. Mr. Hill will inform his secretary that we are going out for a time, but that is all that he will say,” I started.

“I have other appointments today,” he objected.

“Tell her to reschedule them,” I told him in an aggravated voice before continuing.

“I will drive us to the Calvert house. You two will ride in the back seat,” I told them but stopped on seeing the shocked look on their faces.

“How ... how do you know that?” both men asked in shocked voices.

“I told you that I read your mind,” I reminded Hill.

“No one can do that ... it’s impossible,” he returned in a positive voice.

“You will find that there are a number of things that I can do that you will find impossible,” I told him, and after smiling at him for several seconds, I revealed several of the things that I had learned while searching his mind. Hill turned very pale on hearing them, as they were not things that reflected well on him, and were in fact disgusting in nature. Even my guide was staring at him pale faced on hearing them.

“As I was going to say, when we reach the house, we will go to the basement and release Gweneth. Depending on her condition, I will see what further punishment the two of you will receive,” I finished.

“Get up both of you,” I demanded next releasing control of them temporarily so they could get up and move to the door. The guide opened the door, and we moved through it to the outer office. I followed them and had control of both of them again.

“I need to go out for a while, Helen. I’m not sure how long I’ll be,” Hill told his secretary, who looked at him questioningly but said nothing.

We took the executive elevator to the ground floor and left by the main entrance. We’d had no trouble with the security guards there, as they all knew Mr. Hill and my guide. The vehicle that I had arrived in was still parked there, and I had both of them get in the back seat, after I relieved my guide of the keys, although I could have started the vehicle without them. It was better for now that they didn’t know that I could do that. It was only a quarter mile or so to the Calvert house, which is located on the CIA’s cantonment.

The Calvert House and the Calvert Estate were the home of Margaret Scattergood and Florence Thorne for 53 years. They had purchased the house and 20 acres of land in 1933. Two years later, they added another 12 acres. Both women worked for the American Federation of Labor (AFL) in Washington. They dubbed it the Calvert Estate, as Florence was a direct descendant of Sir George Calvert, the first Lord Baltimore.