Meadowbrook Budget Motel, 11:38pm
He limped out of the bathroom and sat down on the only chair
at a worn table. After lighting a cigarette, he picked up the pencil and closed
his eyes, going over today’s events.
An early briefing, followed by a long drive and a less then
pleasant initial contact with the person who was the main focus of the mission
had made for a long day. Some of the instructions in the briefing had been
fulfilled, some had been answered, but for the rest he was only just scratching
the surface.
Jason started to write.
“Agent GARRET had been seeing Sinclair on and off over the
last few years, trying to deal with (as Sinclair put it) PTSD. This happened
under his actual name. As is to be expected, Sinclair followed the standard
blah-blah, gave him some “emotional guidelines” or whatever they called it
nowadays and wrote GARRET's issues off as ‘made-up delusions’.”
Jason lit another cigarette. He couldn’t say Sinclair can be
blamed. It was a fact that agents can’t be helped by people like Sinclair,
because they will always tell you that what you saw was “only your imagination”.
Try telling that to Oscar, who got his brain and eyeballs sucked out by an
imaginary 7ft spider that burst out of the womb of his girlfriend Ophelia, and
was still wearing her face while it was dangling from the ceiling.
Fucking academics.
He picked up the pencil again.
“GARRET called Sinclair at 4am on Thursday, March 14th.”
Jason listened to the tape again. He stopped the tape, rewound it and played it
again. Interesting. Especially since GARRET killed himself the day before, as
Sinclair had seen on TV at 8am. Sinclair’s impression was that GARRET had been
interested, perhaps obsessed even, with the house, and had looked into it, off
the books.
To Jason, it seemed that the place had somehow gotten hold of him,
and as his mental stability slipped, that hold became stronger. To the point
that the guy seriously considered buying the place. Clearly, he had gone in
there and either topped himself, or had been given some supernatural assistance
in the matter. Were there others who had been influenced? The briefing
mentioned agents, plural.
He crushed the cigarette butt and rubbed his eyes, then
poured another vodka. He leaned back, tapping the edge of the table with his
fingertips.
Sinclair.
He seemed of serious interest to the Agency. Perhaps even
more than this case. Apart from the fact that the guy would probably be a great
interrogator or lie detector, he couldn’t see why he’d be a good asset.
“When Astral Boy gets blinded by the next Baba Yaga we run
into, and his flesh starts to blister and slosh off his bones because of some
spell she cast on him, we’ll send him to see a psychologist. See how he deals
with the PTSD bollocks then…”.
Jason let out a deep sigh. He hated dealing with
Friendlies. Especially when the aim was to recruit. More even when they were
civilians. And absolutely when they’re academics. This guy had acted like a
dickhead and wasted his time. He emptied his glass. But, truth be told, he had
been easier to deal with in person. Perhaps Jasper had something to do with
that. He seemed to have a soothing effect on people. Jason chuckled.
Sinclair just seemed to be filled with self-importance.
Jason flicked through the file on the guy. How many boards can you sit on? Of
how many blowhard societies can you be a Fellow before you slit your wrists out
of sheer boredom of having to listen to another 6 hour seminar of these big-noting wankers? This guy was
definitely a blue pill case if it was up to Jason… On the other hand, listening
to the tape one last time, Sinclair had enough genuine concern for his patient to
consider cancelling his appointments to meet up with Agent GARRET, after a 4am
phone call. Perhaps a healthy dose of fucked-upness is what the guy needed to become actually useful to them.
He looked over the list he had written down in the Green
Box. Which reminded him of Brian and Jamey. He made a mental note to make sure
to pass on to the other cell members that from here on in, all unknown Green
Boxes needed to be treated as an Unfriendly, possible Hostile location. Things
would have been a lot smoother if they had gone it at night, cutting the wire
and disabling the cameras. On the other hand, it seemed that Jasper had needed
to vent some frustration. Possibly an overdose of Sinclair? Anyway. What’s done
is done and even he himself felt better after making those guys piss their
pants. He looked at the list again.
It all seemed to relate solely to this Spooner house. No
odds and ends, no books or articles on other cases. Biohazard containers for
what…? Gravedigger toolkit. Quicklime… speeding decomposition up. Who did he
want to bury? Rebury the contents of the small coffin?
The gasoline was probably to burn the house down, but that
didn’t seem to work, according to what GARRET wrote in his notebook. Three new
keys. Probably of the Spooner house. The ID’s… GARRET gained access to the
place by pretending to be a gas inspector? He mucked around on the cemetery or
tried to get info from the morgue by pretending to be with the Coroner? What
were the photo’s he burnt? Some of the house, taken at night. What was in them
and why did he burn them?
Jason opened the notebook and went over the contents. Poor
guy. GARRET was clearly fucked up beyond breaking point. Sinclair’s approach
clearly wasn’t doing him any good, and from past experiences Jason knew how
much you can rely on the support of the Agency. GARRET had been going on with
this for a long time, over five months.
GARRET had seen someone in the house, only at night, “Turé”.
That was on October 10th, and on the 30th he went to do
some digging, bringing the coffin back. To confirm that Anton WAS dead? If so,
why not just open the coffin there and then? Why drag it back to the Green Box?
GARRET had considered taking cash, so he might have paid someone off at the
cemetery. He went and dug up the coffin of Anton Turé. He mentioned later
there’s someone else in the house.
Jason took a deep breath and gathered the papers on the desk
and put them away.
A lot to look into...
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