Our Little Secret Ch. 08

Chapter 8 – Impossible is What We Do

It was a hastily arranged conference room. A series of three by six foot tables were lined up end-to-end in a three-sided square 'U' configuration, with chairs lining the outer edge. Another straight line of tables spanned along one the long side of the large room. A large plate of muffins, donuts, coffee, and tea rested at one end of this long string of tables. There were at least twenty people seated along the sides of the U shaped table configuration, and Joel alone sat at the head of the U shaped setting.

Joel had no clue where he was, except for being within a forty-five minute drive from SEATAC airport. He was transported in the relative comfort in the back of a black van with no windows. He was not handcuffed. The van unloaded Joel into an underground parking lot, and from there the two US Marshal special agents escorted Joel to a check-in room. There Joel was handed off to US Air Force personnel, Sergeants Collins and Lahey who led him through what seemed like a mile of corridors.

Sergeant Collins asked Joel if he needed anything, and Joel said he had to use the washroom. This was an anticipated request, and the two sergeants escorted Joel to the bathroom. One stayed outside the door while the other came in and stood guard just inside the door. Once they returned him to the large room, Joel asked for a coffee and muffin, and Sergeant Lahey brought a muffin and coffee to him with double cream and double sugar.

The large meeting room had two doors, one at either end of the long wall, across from the coffee and muffins table. Two more US Air Force personnel guarded each door outside in the hall. Joel was not certain if these guards were to prevent him from escaping, or preventing unauthorized people from entering. Perhaps both. He had been treated professionally and courteously, although so far there was no evidence he was free to go anywhere. He had not been arrested, nor had Joel been Mirandized. His purpose and fate in this room remained a mystery to him.

"Okay," an older man in service uniform of a full colonel at the near corner of the U-shaped table called out, "let's get started." He was seated to the left of Joel. He was black, broad shouldered, and tall. He had a thin dark moustache that blended with his dark skin. He spoke with the confidence and conviction of someone who knows he is correct most of the time. A permanent growl in his throat made him sound angry.

The general hubbub of the room died instantly with military precision. "Mr. Winkman," the colonel explained, "I want to first thank you for joining us here, although it may appear to you that it was not by choice." There were no snickers or sidebar comments. The tone was serious and professional. "I want to point out that you are not under arrest, you have not been read your rights, and whatever you say in here will not be used against you in a court of law. Have I made myself clear?"

"Who are you?" Joel asked.

"We'll get to that in a moment," the colonel evaded his question, "but for now I want you to acknowledge that you understand you are not being held for the purposes of a criminal investigation. Nothing you say here will be used against you in a court of law."

"Okay," Joel nodded.

"For reasons of national security and jurisprudence, we are not at liberty to identify ourselves."

"I'm not comfortable with that," Joel said.

"Nor are we, I can assure you, Mr. Winkman," the colonel said gravely. "All I can tell you, this is the only way we can conduct this meeting without arresting you."

"Are there any CIA members in the room?" Joel asked.

"Why do you ask?"

"You know why I am asking. Are there any CIA members in the room?" Joel repeated.

"Yes, but in an observation capacity only," the colonel offered. "Does that satisfy your concern, Mr. Winkman?"

"None of my concerns are satisfied," Joel replied curtly.

"That is understandable, Mr. Winkman," the colonel spoke understandingly, but not sympathetically. "Let me get right to the point, then. The purpose of this meeting is to determine if you are one of us, or one of them."

A cold shiver ran up his spine. Joel didn't like the sound of that. "Can you be more specific?" he asked.

"Mr. Winkman," the colonel continued, "you are a member of a select group of people endowed with a certain psycho-manipulation capability. We are trying to determine whether you are using that capability for good use, or improper use."

Joel just realized there were no women in the room. "And why should I cooperate with your illegal hearing?" Joel asked.

"You raise an excellent point, Mr. Winkman," the colonel did not attempt to evade Joel's accusation. "And that is the crux of everything, as I am sure you already know. This hearing, and your detention, is not legal only because what you can do is not illegal. I am sure you know law enforcement agencies exist to investigate and apprehend people who break the law. There is no US government agency authorized to intervene in your affairs, Mr. Winkman, because there are no laws governing what you do."

"We are all breaking new ground here, Mr. Winkman, you included," the colonel continued. "This hearing is an imperfect solution to an impossible situation. Maybe nothing you do is illegal, yet you and your cohorts represent a serious threat to national security."

"Us or them," Joel understood.

"That's right, Mr. Winkman."

"You've left out just 'me'," Joel argued. "Mister private citizen with the freedom to go his own way protected by his constitutional rights."

"That's where I agree with you, Mr. Winkman." Again, the colonel did not evade Joel's point. "We all come unstuck there. I have to tell you that, if you were talking to only the FBI right now, you would be under arrest, and they would seek prosecution to incarcerate you for the rest of your life."

"They would fail," Joel projected a confidence he didn't own, "because as you have already pointed out, I have done nothing illegal."

"Maybe yes, maybe no," the colonel conceded, "but we're not here to argue semantics. We are all here to understand who you are."

"So I want to make sure I understand my position," Joel said. "I am being held against my will by a collusion of government agencies in an illegal, unconstitutional interrogation, and the outcome of this meeting will determine my fate and possibly my life."

"No," he answered. "Your life is not in jeopardy, but I would say your fate, as you say, does hinge somewhat on the outcome of this meeting."

"And what if I refuse to cooperate?" Joel asked.

"That, of course, is an option open to you," the colonel conceded. "We will not torture you, and we will not use drugs or other unsuitable methods to extract information from you. Your participation is voluntary, but I remind you, the outcome of this meeting will dictate your scope of freedom from this point on, whether you cooperate or not."

"Are you interrogating all the catnap passengers?" Joel asked.

"We decline to answer that," the colonel said neutrally.

"What do you want to know?" Joel finally asked.

"What are your intentions, Mr. Winkman?"

"I'm sorry?" Joel asked with surprise.

"Mr. Winkman," the colonel indicted, "you have a surveillance team that has developed elaborate and extensive profiles on every catnap passenger, as well as hundreds, perhaps thousands of other people. That surveillance capability includes sophisticated cyber monitoring and attack tools. You have conducted a clandestine operation in which you have fabricated evidence to cause an American citizen to be arrested, and almost certainly convicted for a crime he did not commit, and you did this in a way that can never be traced back to you in a court of law. You have infiltrated a secure government computer facility and tampered with confidential records. You have possibly endless financing. Your research team is right now, as we speak, amassing extensive files surrounding a murder/suicide in Dallas, Texas, and we assume you are planning another clandestine attack against another American citizen. Quite simply, Mr. Winkman, you operate an illegal, covert agency that cannot be traced to you, while your investment company lets you travel anywhere without suspicion. You have an alternate identify, which by the way, the FBI can nail you for. You can force any woman to do your bidding and never be held accountable for it. Mr. Winkman, believe me when I tell you, we need to know your intentions."

"To punish the assholes that abuse this power," Joel said.

"And?"

"And what?" Joel said.

"How many women have you bedded with this power?" the colonel accused through his question. "How much wealth have you amassed? Your intentions are not all noble, are they Mr. Winkman?"

"You seem to know, you tell me?"

"Okay, Mr. Winkman, I will," the colonel answered without annoyance. "I think you are a rogue hero – you are a man with good intentions, but you have vices, urges, shall we say, that lead you astray from your noble cause. I am worried that your vices will be the end of you. I am worried it will all come crashing down. Surely even you have realized this cannot go on forever. Someday this power will become public, if not by your doing, then by someone else's, and some people will realize they have been, shall we say, duped by you. Some women will use a different word. And they will want their own measure of justice."

"I'd say that's pretty accurate," Joel nodded.

"Okay, Mr. Winkman," the colonel nodded, "so you acknowledge your current situation is not sustainable."

"Yes, I already know that."

"Well then," the colonel said, "It's the blue pill or the red pill. One way or another, your story takes a turn today. That's where you are right now. Turn it all off – abandon your power. Or leave it on, but confine it to a more rigorous standard. And in case you are thinking a third option exists – to continue the way you are now – that is the option that I guarantee ends badly for you. "

"Okay," Joel shrugged, "message received. I can go now?"

"Not by a long shot," the colonel warned. "Tell me about the Mojo girls."

Joel knew he was referring to Christina, Kelsey, and Mary. "What about them?" Joel asked.

"Why did you hire a major law firm to defend them against minor misdemeanor charges?" the colonel asked.

"Because no one else would. Because they were forced against their will to do the things they did in that bar, and their life was ruined. Because someone had to," Joel answered plainly.

"Did you force them to express gratitude in the bedroom?" the colonel asked.

"Absolutely not," Joel resented the question. "These girls had been victimized in a most publicly humiliating and damaging way. To do that would only compound their situation."

"So you force some women to bed, but not others."

"I have a code," Joel explained.

"Please share," the colonel demanded.

"I don't make them do anything they would not normally do. If a girl is not sexually active, I do not touch her unless she asks to have sex voluntarily, without being commanded. If she does not practice a certain form of sex, I do not impose it on her. I don't do underage girls. I don't publicly humiliate them, and I don't jeopardize their families or jobs. And I don't knowingly target girls who were victims of someone else who broke that code."

"And how do you establish all this?"

"I ask them."

"You just walk up to a woman and ask her?" he asked incredulously.

"The power you speak of lets me compel women to answer my questions truthfully, and they have no memory of the conversation. So I can ask them with impunity." That caused a stir in around the table. The colonel put up his hand, and the room instantly went quiet.

"How do you get your money," the colonel demanded.

"I ask nicely," Joel smiled.

"In case you haven't notice, Mr. Winkman, no one thinks this is funny."

"Least of all me," Joel accused. He paused and took a sip of lukewarm of coffee. "I have a code about money, too. I only take money from people who have excess wealth. I am never greedy – I never take so much that it affects their very comfortable life style. And as you already mentioned, nothing I do is illegal. In the eyes of the law, I simply ask politely for a gift."

"Have you spoken with anyone else about this power?" the colonel asked.

"Yes," Joel nodded, "Paul Granger. He was the captain of the catnap flight. No one else."

"Does he have this power?" the colonel asked.

Joel was getting tired and frustrated. "He does, but I am not certain he has it to the same degree I do, or if he does, he is more reluctant to use it."

"When was the first time you used this power," the colonel asked.

"I don't know," Joel crossed his arms across his chest.

"Mr. Winkman, it doesn't help your own case by not cooperating," the colonel warned.

"I'm not being uncooperative," Joel protested wearily. "Looking back, it is possible I used my power for the first time at the press conference two days after the catnap flight. I asked a woman reporter if she really wanted to ask that question, or something like that, and she apologized. I was not aware of my powers then, but in retrospect, I may have used them then. Shortly after that, I divorced my wife – which had nothing to do with my new powers, by the way. But when I negotiated the arrangements with her, a normally argumentative person was completely agreeable to my suggested terms. I was not deliberately using my power in those discussions, but it is possible that I did." Joel took another sip of cooling coffee. "So my honest answer is, I don't know."

"Okay," the colonel nodded, "when did you first use the deliberately."

For some reason Joel lied. He had been honest until now, but he did not mention Jen, which is when he first figured it out. "I went to a shopping mall, and I started experimenting. I had a suspicion. So I spoke with both men and women, and very quickly discovered women were very receptive to anything I said, and I have no influence over men."

"How long did this experiment last?" Colonel asked.

"Three days. I rented a hotel there."

"And you took women to your hotel room?"

"Some of them, yes," Joel nodded.

"And you had sex with those ones?"

"Only some of them," Joel qualified. "My real purpose was to find out what the limits of my powers were."

"And what did you discover?" the colonel asked.

"I discovered I have no limits. I could make a woman do anything. I did not do this, you understand, but I concluded I could make a woman jump off a bridge to certain death. I even predicted the woman murder/suicide scenario that happened in Dallas in a conversation with Captain Granger. I believe I could make a woman pilot crash an aircraft without me being on the plane." Joel took another sip of coffee. "I completely agree with you that, unchecked, this power is a threat to national security. That's why I developed my code."

"Do you believe you are a threat to national security?" the colonel asked.

"No," Joel shook his head, "and that's not why I developed the code." He paused. "I developed the code because I refused to become the person who would destroy other people's lives. I refused to become the person that forced Christina and the two other girls to dance naked on a crowded restaurant bar. You should go talk to them. Their lives are ruined. They are young, sweet girls, and they have no future. Their parents are completely devastated. Their naked pictures and videos are everywhere. They literally cannot go to a coffee shop now. They will never get a proper job."

Joel finished his coffee. "When I saw how completely their lives were destroyed, I became bitter – really angry. I don't have a problem with someone with this power making a girl fuck him, as long as he follows a sensible code. But that was sport for cruelty. It was vengeance without a cause. It was playing God for no other reason than for your own giggles at the expense of three people's lives. It was disgusting." Joel realized he had riled himself into quite a froth of anger.

"Tell me about Jenny Riverton," the colonel said

Joel's heart skipped a beat. "What about her?" he protested defensively.

"Is she one of your, shall we say, controlled subjects?"

"No." Joel said curtly.

"Not at all?"

"No."

"Not ever?"

"Once, but not now," Joel admitted.

"Tell me about the one time."

"It was our first night."

"Does she know?"

"No."

"What is going to happen when this goes public? Will she figure it out?"

"Quite probably," Joel grated, "almost certainly."

"And when she does find out, what will happen." Joel didn't answer. "Mr. Winkman, what will happen when she finds out?"

"I'll lose the best thing that's ever happened to me," he said dejectedly.

"Won't you just control her, make her like you?" the colonel insisted.

"No," Joel said. "It's not like that."

"You're just kidding yourself, Joel. You know you'll do it."

"No," Joel was starting to fume.

"Come on Joel," he said, "isn't it just about the sex anyway? I mean, come on! Look at her!"

"NO!" Joel yelled. He jumped up to his feet so quickly his chair went flying backwards, clattering across the hard floor. One of the sergeants standing behind him walked toward Joel to put him back in his chair, but the interrogator caught his eye, and shook his head no. The sergeant stepped back. "If you think that's all she is to me then your research isn't worth shit," Joel yelled at his interrogator. "I will disappear forever before I make Jen do those things against her will."

"You mean do those things again," the colonel emphasized again. Joel stood with balled fists, staring the colonel down. "Let's take a break," the colonel suggested. "Clear the room," he announced to everyone else. "Give Mr. Winkman some space." He nodded to the lieutenants behind Joel, who picked up Joel's chair and left Joel alone.

They reconvened fifteen minutes later, but a much smaller group this time. The colonel and two others. A woman in civilian's clothing, and an armed Air Force sergeant.

The three sat across from Joel at the head of the 'U' table. "Joel," the colonel said, "you can see where this is heading. You're a smart man. Your life is not sustainable. When this breaks, and you know it is only a matter of time, now, Jenny is going to figure it out, and she'll walk out. You are going to become a pariah – you and the others. But you can change that before it's too late."

"It's already too late," Joel said quietly. "I already know I'm on borrowed time. Once this goes public, Jen will figure out our first night. And then there will be women everywhere who accuse me of ... whatever. All I'm trying to do is get Jen into a place where she is bomb proof when I explode."

"That's very noble, Joel," the colonel nodded, "but futile. Even you must know that."

"No, it's not futile. Look, my damage is already done. I'm a ticking time bomb. My plan is to slip out of Jen's life in the least damaging way to her."

"Joel," the woman spoke for the first time, "are you considering suicide?"

"No, I am just talking about disconnecting from Jen in a way that doesn't hurt her."

"There's no such thing, Joel," the woman pointed out the obvious. "If she loves you as much as you obviously love her, it's going to hurt no matter why you're suddenly gone."

"Well, doc, I'm out of ideas." He just assumed she was a psychologist.

"Did you arrange the Google interview?" the colonel asked.

"No," Joel shook his head. "That was all Jen. I got her in the door at the conference, that's all. I didn't even know Google was going to be there." Joel paused. "That's what I'm talking about. I'm toxic right now, and I know it, but the Google thing is clean, because I wasn't part of it. So that's one way of getting Jen into a good place before I'm gone."