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Covenants and other Provisions

Chapter 59

Servants

The first warning wasn’t sight but sound—a dull, repeating concussion that split that early August morning straight down the grain. Distant, at first.

Thump-thump-thump.

It began as a distant ache in the air, no louder than a neighbor’s hammer, but the rhythm gathered heft until the cabin itself seemed to tighten around the beat. Rafters answered with a dry shiver; flour-fine dust sifted from the tongue-and-groove ceiling in narrow, vertical veils. Mugs jittered on their hooks, their porcelain chatter trying to spell out a threat.

Ford stopped mid-pour. Coffee sloshed over the lip of the pot, hissing on the hotplate. He tilted his head to follow the vibration’s path through the beams, map it against every nail he ever drove into the house. Beside him, wind flung the pines forward in a single shuddering bow; slack branches slapped the glass with a warning that felt personal.

Across the room, Fiddleford, sitting at the table, lowered the morning paper by fractions, each headline sinking behind his eyes an inch at a time. Ford stepped to the window. Beyond the treeline an unmarked helicopter bullied its way into the clearing, rotor-wash gouging trenches in the pine duff. It set down crooked—one skid digging into soft loam, the other screeching against a tree stump—spitting debris in mean, whirling spirals. A schematic corner, torn from last night’s draft, cartwheeled past the pane like a white flag

Military rotors, civilian paint—practical anonymity. No insignia. Only a tail number partially obscured by dust and a blasé sense of jurisdiction.

Government, then.

The turbines wound down in a grudging whine. The side door irised open.

A man unfolded first—tall, severe, his silhouette cut with an exactness. Two shadows flanked him, all sunglasses and comms coils, the musculature of authority. The tall man held an object in both hands: A mangled, half-scorched machine.

Without so much as a sweep of the eyes for permission, he took the porch steps in three exact strides, boots grinding grit into the planks, and crossed the threshold as if the place were federal property. No greeting, no hat to doff—only the smell of aviation fuel ribboning in behind him.

Light knifed through the doorway when he opened it, silvering the dust that still hung where he’d displaced it.

His eyes were pale. Ledger cold. Already taking stock of the room and all its secrets. The two escorts posted up, one on each jamb, statues carved in silence. Outside, the helicopter idled like a black beetle with its elytra humming—patient, prepared to fly at the first whiff of trouble

The stranger marched to the kitchen table and deposited the drone with a thunk that made the salt shaker jump. A tiny avalanche of charred circuitry tumbled onto Ford’s blueprints.

Ford didn’t need the extra beat of silence to identify it—but he took it anyway, letting the recognition settle like iron in his gut.

The officer finally spoke:

“Special Agent Graham Thatcher, CIA.” he said, as if the title should land with the weight of a subpoena. He unbuttoned his jacket and flicked a laminated ID from his breast pocket. “Scientific Assets Taskforce.”

Ford folded his arms, feet planted, gaze level. Polite blankness—his favorite armor. At the nape of his mind Bill hummed, pleased. “Look alive, Fordsy—he remembered to polish his shoes for you and everything.”

Thatcher ignored the silent commentary, nudged the wrecked drone a centimeter with two fingers; “You boys lost something.”

Ford regarded the twisted chassis, letting the seconds stretch until the question felt foolish. “How do you know that came from us?” he asked mildly.

“There you go, Specs,” Bill crooned. “They’ve got nothing but a hunch—”

Thatcher’s brows ticked up in a small expression of pitying surprise.

He pinched at a dented side panel, pried it up with a nail that looked too clean for fieldwork, and flipped the metal back to reveal a logo—tiny, soldered in:

A solder-plate stamped with a fake company name he and Fiddleford had invented at eighteen. A joke—apparently stamped on every clandestine prototype since. THIRD-COUSIN INDUSTRIES

Ford’s eyes slid to Fiddleford. Fidds offered the smallest shrug, cheeks folding into a wince he tried, and failed, to iron flat.

“Wring his neck for me when you get the chance,” Bill said.

“It was found in Canadian airspace,” Thatcher continued, conversational as the weather. “About two klicks from a NORAD listening post. A diplomatic nightmare,” he added, voice sharpening as it went.

“But don’t worry. I’ve been kissing Ottawa’s ring on your behalf. Glad you two get to run your little science fair out here while we mop up the fallout.”

Ford kept his face flat. The drone sat between them like a mutilated pet, and for a moment he could feel, absurdly, a flicker of mourning for the thing—reduced to leverage in another man’s hands.

Fiddleford cleared his throat—an awkward, chirped note. “Can I—uh—get you boys some coffee?”

Thatcher’s glance flicked his way, appraising. “No,” he said. “I’d like to keep our hands steady.”

The silence that followed was thick enough to chew. One of the escorts coughed once and then stilled, eyes locked forward—Bill snorted in Ford’s mind.

Thatcher settled his palm on the drone’s crushed fuselage and tipped back just enough to survey the room. The motion was minimal, but it let the overhead light catch his lapel, creeping down the creases of his suit. His tie—a narrow strip of punitive black—shifted slightly, the knot rigid as if heat-sealed to his throat.

His gaze traveled—blueprints tacked with push-pins, half-assembled boards bleeding solder, the scorched tin of circuits on the counter.

“Here’s what I see,” He said. “Big minds, a blank check… and no leash.”

Ford held the look, but a crease etched itself between his brows—hairline stress fracture.

“Easy, Fordsy,” Bill crooned, the words spreading like warm mercury behind Ford’s eyes. “Let him outline his little ransom.”

Ford exhaled once, steadying the temper that wanted to flash. “What do you want?”

Thatcher sat, settling into the chair like he paid for it—pulling closer to the table. Fiddleford stayed where he was, hands braced on the table’s surface, shoulders drawn inward. Ford remained standing.

The briefcase arrived with a soft, padded thud. Latches snapped in pairs—click-click—a metronome of authority. Thatcher lifted the lid, excavated a folder, then another, stacking them into a modest ziggurat. They were government-issue manila, marked: side tabs, colored stickers, even a stack of neon post-its perched at the top.

He selected the topmost file. A blue post-it clung to the cover: PINES, STANFORD // DOE-731-G—inside a small, perfect circle drawn in a different color ink—proof it had passed through several hands.

Inside: their last submission. Annotated. Initial schematics—Ford’s hand, Fiddleford’s revisions. Photos of the prototype memory nodes, each image stamped CLASSIFIED. A field log, half-redacted.

Thatcher leafed onward, unhurried, the way a gourmand noses through a menu. “Impressive,” he murmured, fingertip pausing on a margin note about the hippocampus. “Manipulating cognition at the hardware level. But, there are questions about the prototype—”

Across the table, Fiddleford’s breath snagged—sharp, involuntary. The question behind it never cleared his throat.

Bill’s voice swirled, velvet and acid, in Ford’s head. “Look at him—rifling through our miracles.”

Ford’s patience snapped. “Cut to the chase,” he said. “Why are you here?”

The temperature of the room shifted—Fiddleford let the breath leak out through his teeth, grateful, for once, of Ford’s intolerance.

Thatcher let the first folder sit a second longer—then shut it with a careful, deliberate press of his palm. He drew the second: thinner, sleeker, and nudged it across the table with two fingers.

Ford didn’t touch it at first. When no hand came to meet it, the agent leaned forward and opened it himself.

“You’ve shown remarkable progress in your research on the brain and memory, but…” he began.

Inside: a series of diagrams. Figures rendered in outline—head, shoulders, torso—posed like mannequins, dotted-line overlays tracing the slope of fabric, the seam of a lapel, the contact points where metal would meet flesh. Typewritten specs followed in heavy Courier, columns of component lists and voltages. Further down, a page flagged in red read:

PSYCHOLOGICAL TARGET CRITERIA – PHASE TWO.

“We’re shifting to subliminals,” Thatcher said, dry as old chalk. “Something discreet. Wearable. Cognitive manipulation embedded in pattern and placement.”

Ford still didn’t move, but Fiddleford leaned in, curiosity dragging him forward by the collar.

Thatcher turned another leaf. A rendering of a necktie—slim, tasteful, utterly ordinary. It sat on the page like an advertisement. Except the hair-thin wiring webbed across silk, the negative space hiding arrays of micro-resonators.

He tapped the drawing with one knuckle. “Fashion meet function.”

Ford’s gaze lifted. His voice was flat enough to skim across water. “A mind-control tie?”

“A behavioral-guidance accessory,” Thatcher corrected, reclining a fraction. “The president—” He paused, an ellipse thick with implication. “—has been… slipping. The whispers of Alzheimer’s aren’t helpful.”

He glanced toward the window.

“Times like these, what the American people need is confidence in our strength. In their leadership.”

Ford’s jaw worked once. He reached forward, slow, clinical, and pinched the top page. Turned it just far enough to reveal the next schematic: finer wiring, nodes embedded behind the Windsor knot, antennae sewn into the seams—a more detailed render of the circuitry.

“Imagine,” Thatcher murmured, “every fundraiser handshake, every press scrum, every televised debate—nudged in the right direction. No more surprises.”

Ford’s scoff finally escaped. “You want me to sabotage the motor control and cognition of the President of these United States?”

Then, to Thatcher’s evident confusion, Ford laughed.

It started sharp—just a breath through the nose, a single derisive exhale. But it built quickly, blooming into an honest bark of disbelief. He half-turned toward Fiddleford, then back at the agent, gesturing helplessly toward the folder as he all but doubled over, clutching his ribs.

Fiddleford sat frozen in a kind of horrified awe—watching Ford unravel in real time, helpless to stop it.

Thatcher didn’t flinch. He merely waited, letting the laughter burn itself out without so much as blinking.

Eventually, Ford straightened—still wheezing faintly—and wiped the corner of one eye with the heel of his palm.

The laughter died as abruptly as it had burst and all the humor had gone from his face. Every trace of it.

“Are you deranged?” he asked, his tone having returned to the same callous register from the moment Thatcher crossed the threshold. “I’m not getting involved in something like that—you’ll get me killed.”

Thatcher shrugged, as if that were beside the point. “Think of it as a tuning fork for the national psyche. Morale matters. Sometimes we… encourage the right kind of belief at the right moment in time.”

“The right kind,” Ford echoed, dead flat.

Thatcher offered a faint smile. “Surely you prefer a commander-in-chief who projects strength. Don’t you want our president to succeed?”

Ford stepped in sharply, palm smacking the folder shut with a sound that cracked the quiet.

“I voted for Carter,” he said evenly, sliding the file back across the table. “And I don’t work for you, Agent.”

Ford let the rebuffed folder sit between them. He angled his weight onto one heel, folded his arms again, and tilted his head ever so slightly to the side.

“The shakedown was charming,” he said, voice light. “But if that’s your big play—one charred toy and a sales pitch—you’re going to have a very dull performance review.” A pause. “Sorry, but you’ll have to wait until next year for that big promotion.”

Behind his eyes, Bill purred his delight—“Oof. You prick. Do it again— bite him.”

Across the table, Thatcher blinked once—slowly. Then he gave a small nod. Not an admission. Not quite. Just a faint, satisfied twitch of acknowledgment.

“Fair,” he conceded.

Then he reached into the briefcase again.

What emerged this time was a slab of paper three inches thick, bound with cross-laced twine. He set it on the table with a muffled thud. Colored tabs bristled along its edge like warning flags. A bold stencil on the cover read PINES, S. — EYES ONLY.

The tension in the room recoiled. Ford’s brows knit, just slightly.

“What’s in that one?” he asked, skepticism sharpening each syllable, now more cautious than sarcastic.

Thatcher smiled, small and deliberate.

“The other shoe,” he said.

Fiddleford straightened. Ford’s eyes narrowed.

Thatcher waited until their curiosity simmered. He watched the way Ford’s gaze dragged back to the folder, tracked every twitch of expression, every fractional shift in breath.

Then Ford blinked—and Thatcher smiled.

“Oh—I looked into you, Professor.” he said, almost lightly. A tilt of his chin toward the twine-bound brick. “Go on—look inside.”

Ford’s jaw flexed. A heartbeat passed—his fingers hovered a moment before he slipped the twine free. The cover rasped open.

The first page met him like a blow.

A black-and-white mugshot, face forward: Filbrick. Grease-slick hair and a prizefighter’s nose, paper-clipped to a thick court packet. RACKETEERING—STATE OF NEW JERSEY VS P. 1962.

“Recognize him?”

Ford’s breath stopped halfway in—stalling in his chest.

Thatcher leaned in and, with two fingers, flipped that page aside—tossing in the next hand.

Another police report. One line in the summary was underlined twice in red ink:

Minor present at time of arrest— refused statement

“More importantly,” Thatcher murmured, “what do you know about his… little ‘ assistant’ between ’63 and ’68?”

He let the word hang, sharp as a fishhook meant to be swallowed. Then, conversationally: “Interesting,” he said, flipping another page—revealing the next: an orientation form dated August 1968. “Isn’t that the same year you fled New Jersey for Northwestern Tech? Back when they were hemorrhaging money—trying to buy credibility with scholarships. And there you were. Boy genius. Perfect candidate. Perfect cover.”

Across the table, Fiddleford shifted. Just slightly—but it was enough. Surprise flickered over his face, followed by a slower, more private ache. He’d known the basics: Filbrick was a criminal, and trouble. That things were bad. But Ford had kept the past sheathed in sarcasm and quick pivots—

But now, here it was. Sliced open and laid bare on the kitchen table like an autopsy.

Inside Ford, something locked down. His face stayed still—impossibly still—but the pulse at his throat jumped. A half-memory tried to surface: the living room at night, his father’s hand on his shoulder, the metallic taste of fear.

Bill slammed a door somewhere deep in Ford’s mind, cutting the image off mid-reel. “Not now, my love—”

Ford’s chest hitched. His fingers twitched once—barely. A ghost current shivered through his leg—but Bill was already there, smothering the panic, blotting out the flickers before they caught. Pressing him down, holding him still.

Thatcher watched, measuring every micro-flinch. Bill held, keeping every shake at bay.

“Focus, Ford.” Bill whispered.

Ford swallowed once, slow, and looked up at Thatcher with eyes that no longer bothered to hide the chill. He leaned in, shoulders squaring, tone sharpening to a scalpel’s edge.

“Don’t know… haven’t seen him in years.”

Thatcher hummed faintly, nodding as though the conversation had taken a pleasant turn. He slipped a finger beneath a red-labeled subsection—tabbed EUROPE—and flipped.

“You spent time in Montpelier studying physics, yes?”

He didn’t wait for an answer. The evidence answered for him.

Airline stubs. Dormitory receipts. A photocopied student ID labeled Visiteur Chercheur – Pines, Stanford F. All laid out in careful sequence.

Then: a class photo—grainy, institutional, its corners curled with age. Twenty-three graduate fellows posed on worn limestone steps in matching wool coats. Ford, second row, hair longer then—wind-ruffled—was circled in red.

Just beside him, shoulder nearly brushing, stood a blond man. Taller by a head. Circled too.

Thatcher tapped the photo with a single finger, landing just above the blond man’s shoulder.

“How about him?” he asked, voice light with feigned curiosity. “Look familiar?”

Ford’s stomach dropped. Not figuratively—literally. Something clenched low and fast in his gut, a sickening hook behind the ribs. Inside him, Bill flared like struck phosphorus.

More pages followed—relentless. Lab requisitions on French letterhead. Collaborative abstracts. Letters, typewritten and personal. The same two names again and again. Pines. Kratzer.

Midway through, a sloppier entry: a memo handwritten in looping cursive: Close coordination. Dual loyalties? Underlined. Twice.

Ford spoke with precision. “An old colleague.”

“You did some traveling together,” Thatcher parried, just as smooth.

Another flip. Receipts in neat clusters: cafés in the Quartier Latin, bars near the Gare de l’Est, second-hand bookshops in Frankfurt. Two Deutsche Bahn tickets—Paris-Est to München, same-day visa stamps.

“So what?” Ford shrugged. “I shared trains with a fellow student.”

Thatcher’s smile thinned. “But you didn’t stop in Germany, did you… Mr. Kozlov?”

He placed a new passport on the table—Czech issue. The name was unfamiliar. The face wasn’t. A black-and-white photograph, taken in profile and mid-blink, but still undeniably Ford.

Beneath that, two more rail tickets—Nürnberg to Praha—and a yellow-flagged hotel ledger: Pensione U Zlaté Podkovy, Brno. Room: single. Guests: 2. Mar ’74.

He let the paper settle with a crinkle, then leaned back. “Quite the collegial bond,” he said. “But, big stars attract… satellites , I suppose.”

A beat. A smirk.

“You should see how thick his file is.”

Ford didn’t blink. Couldn’t. The muscle near his right eye twitched once—nothing more, but it was enough.

Thatcher’s voice smoothed into something bureaucratically gleeful.

“A history and a counterfeit passport. Unlogged crossings into the Eastern Bloc. Odd, don’t you think? Especially for a man with provisional NATO clearance.”

He plucked a stack of documents from the pile—

“Section IV, Title III of the loyalty oath—” he tapped Ford’s chest with the edge of the stack “—which you signed, Professor—requires disclosure of all Warsaw-Pact travel. Past, present or planned.”

Ford’s demeanor cracked at the seams; the glare that followed could have stripped paint. Bill stirred, a sub-vocal growl thrumming behind Ford’s teeth.

“I don’t like this man, Ford,” Bill hissed. “Get him out of our house.”

Thatcher wasn’t done. He gestured lazily at the mess of paper, passports, hotel registries, and red ink.

“Would be such a shame if all this made it to The Gipper’s desk,” he said, almost wistful. “He’s not fond of loose ends.”

Then, slowly, he crossed one ankle over the other, letting the chair creak under the motion.

“But hey,” he added brightly, “he’s a businessman. Always happy to trim fat if it balances the budget.”

He grinned, sharp and white. “Gotta pay for those tax cuts somehow.”

Silence cinched the room so tight the mantle clock sounded like a piledriver. Fiddleford stared from one man to the other—Something in him shifted then, quietly, a tiny internal lurch. A dawning, sick realization that the man to his left could be just as much a stranger as the one across the table.

Thatcher broke the stillness first, exhaling as if the tension had grown tedious. He laced his fingers together and reclined by a calculated inch, letting his gaze wander toward the still-steaming pot on the counter.

“You know,” he said, voice suddenly cordial enough to offend, “coffee would hit the spot after all.” His eyes slid back to Ford—pale, unblinking. “Since you’re already on your feet, Professor, be a host.”

Nothing moved. Ford’s jugular ticked once, then twice, then a third time—while the room waited. Bill’s presence pressed in, tense and wordless, a low-voltage hum behind Ford’s eyes.

Then—Ford stirred. It was gradual, an unfurling, nothing more than necessity turned choreography. He crossed to the counter, where the percolator still murmured, half-full. Steam twisted from its spout in ribbons that smelled of burnt chicory, rusted ambition.

“Damn it, Ford.” Bill hissed. “We’re in a tight spot.”

“You understand why I wanted to keep all that shit under wraps now?” Ford thought back.

Bill only issued a low, frustrated growl.

Ford selected a white stoneware mug and set it beneath the pot. His movements were measured, as though every gesture had to pass inspection before continuing.

Behind him, Thatcher casually gathered the incriminating dossiers, stacking them with the neat efficiency of a man clearing away dessert plates. Fiddleford shifted in his chair, eyes still ping-ponging between Ford and the agent.

Coffee splashed into the cup, dark and steady. Ford let it rise nearly to the brim before lifting the pot away. For a moment he just held the mug, letting the heat seep through porcelain and into his skin,

Behind him, Thatcher spoke again—smooth as ever. Something about project scope, deliverables, timelines. The escort by the door accepted the briefcase with a nod, minimalist choreography: a flick of wrist, a shoulder-tilt, professionalism etched in silhouette. Paper and threat disappeared into matte-black casing.

“Come on, Six,” Bill whispered—close enough to graze the inside curve of Ford’s ear; his mouth was nowhere, everywhere. “He thinks he’s got you cornered?”

Ford’s throat constricted. He felt it, right against the tender hinge where thought became impulse. Thatcher’s voice carried on, something about procurement and onboarding, but the syllables dulled, lost contour, dissolved into a low smear of static.

All that remained was Bill.

“Lift it,” he whispered. “Just a little higher.”

Ford obeyed without thinking. His hand rose by an inch.

“Good.”

Ford’s lips parted, slow. Heat flushed up beneath his eyes. The steam felt unclean now, like something he wasn’t supposed to want. Bill’s approval hummed inside him.

“He wants you obedient,” Bill murmured, voice riding down Ford’s spine. “So remind him whose fucking house he’s in.”

Ford’s gaze flicked sideways. The escorts were distracted—one still scanning the horizon, the other fiddling with the briefcase latches. Thatcher, half-turned, was issuing orders.

Ford’s breath caught. There was hunger in it—not just spite, but a deviant thrill that arced through his nerves.

“Do it,” Bill coaxed, “Mark your territory.”

The command unfurled inside him, lush and inexorable. He bent, just slightly—nothing more than a breath of motion. A single bead of saliva gathered at the rim of his lip, swelled, stretched—

—and fell.

A single line of spit vanished in an instant swirl, swallowed by the heat.

Bill exhaled in pleasure. “Good boy.” he purred, sending a rush through Ford’s nerves.

Composure restored, Ford gave the mug a polite swirl—as though tempering acidity—then crossed the room and set it before Thatcher. He took the seat opposite, rubbed a thumb across his mouth, and waited.

Thatcher looked up.

Ford met his eyes, level and unblinking.

The agent gave a small smile, lifted the cup, tilted it slightly in a vague gesture of gratitude—and drank. One swallow. Two.

“There,” Bill crooned, his satisfaction blooming hot behind Ford’s sternum. “Now you own him.”

Thatcher went on, oblivious, pivoting into details of his proposed project.

Across the table Fiddleford barely made a peep—an his eyes flicking now from Ford to the agent, to the cup, then back again—something troubled and flickering behind the lenses of his glasses.

Ford didn’t spare him a glance. He watched Thatcher sip once more, the faintest curl of a smile ghosting his own mouth behind his hand—thin, proprietary, dangerous.

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