Sleeper Agent: Cold War

By M. Anthony Harris

Stephen Matthews is the perfect spy and now he knows it.

Recovering from the injuries inflicted in their previous adventure, Stephen and his team are desperately searching for any sign of the mysterious 'X' behind the attack that nearly killed Stephen and almost crippled America's information infrastructure.

With the reemergence of a mysterious illness that caused the townspeople of the tiny village of Kalachi, Kazakhstan to fall into a coma-like sleep, the team heads to the former Soviet Bloc nation to search for the mysterious Sleeper Agent 'X' who's planning a new, more dangerous attack. One that would wreak havoc in Kazakhstan and start a war with America that could last for decades.

Now it's up to Stephen and his team to stop this new threat from 'X' and keep a potential war at bay.

• Language: English
• Publisher: M. Anthony Harris
• Release date: Jun 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463470497

M. Anthony Harris

M. Anthony Harris has been telling stories since he was a child when he would regal his siblings with thrilling tales of adventure. He currently resides in Qinghai province in the northwest of China. When he's not writing, you can find him practicing Kung Fu, drawing, painting, or honing his Mandarin skills by chatting in Chinese with whoever dares to talk to the strange laowai.

Book preview

Prologue

Electricity ran through my veins. My muscles contracted, rigid in shock.

I screamed. I screamed and my wearied mind barely realize that it was my own voice making the horrifying wail that tore through the air like nails on a chalkboard.

I was filled with terror.

They were interrogating me. I hadn’t slept in what felt like days. I was more tired than I’d ever been in my life but I still couldn’t sleep. My body felt like it had been frozen in Carbonite, I was aware but unable to do anything about the world rushing around me.

They were screaming something at me. Screams I couldn’t make out.

Harsh sounds that rang in my ears.

They were shouting about me spying on them, but I didn’t know what they were talking about.

Spying?

I wasn’t a spy. How could I be? I was just a poor college student trying to repay the kindness of my grandparents who’d loaned me thousands.

I was a nobody.

I knew nothing.

Why were they torturing me? What had I done to them?

Thousands of volts coursed through me again. I screamed in agony.

I’d done nothing.

Literally nothing.

All I’d done was nap.

I worked as a test subject at a sleep research center. How in the world could I be mistaken for a spy? What had I done that would lead these monsters to believe that I was a threat to them?

A fist to the gut interrupted that thought.

Bile rose in my stomach. The breath had been stolen from my lungs. I was going to vomit. The acid started boiling. It burned as it rose in my stomach, coming up through my esophagus…

I bolted upright and the sour taste of vomit receded.

It had been a dream. That’s all it had been.

It was only a dream.

But it wasn’t.

Not really.

Yeah, I’d been sleeping, but it wasn’t so much a dream as it was a recollection. A memory of the brutality I’d faced at the hands of General Clayton’s terror organization, guided by the monstrous hand of X, a discarded experiment whose manipulation of sleeping minds had caused me untold pain.

Engulfed in darkness, sweat clung to my skin, and still I had to restrain myself from searching the room for my captors.

I was at my home.

I was safe.

I was safe. Everything was fine. I was safe.

I put a hand to my forehead. It was soaking. My whole body dripped with sweat.

Why was I recalling this now? I thought I’d been healed. I thought that I’d seen the last of these terrorizing nightmares that have haunted me since I’d been abducted and subjected to tortures no man should ever have to face.

I thought that I was getting better.

I guess I wasn’t.

I might never be fully healed.

This had to be the new normal for me.

I reached for my phone. I checked the time. Three forty-five.

My heart was racing still. I was terrified. I tried to calm myself down. I tried and failed.

I pressed the contacts button and went to my favorites. I hesitated as my thumb hovered a name.

Sasha.

Should I call her?

She’d told me that she’d be there for me. She’d told me to call her any time.

She’d already been with me through many weary nights when the visions of torture ate at my sleep deprived mind. I’d seen the dark rings under her eyes when we’d met at work. She’d paid the price for her words but she had been true to them.

She wasn’t a liar. She’d truly been there for me whenever I’d needed her.

I reached to press the button, but my hand still hesitated.

It was partly her fault that I was experiencing these nightmares. If she’d just told me from the beginning that she and the other researchers at the Fredrickson Sleep Research Center hadn’t cared a thing for the lucid dreaming they told me they were studying, but rather had been grooming me into the perfect spy; a literal sleeper agent —someone who would watch and report without ever knowing what he was doing— I wouldn’t have been there.

But we’d made up.

I’d forgiven her.

Sasha had paid more than enough for withholding the truth from me. She’d lost friends at X’s hands too. She’d nearly lost me.

I pressed the button.

She answered on the fifth ring.

Hello, she said, her voice husky with sleep. Stephen?

My response was no more than a tired mumble, so I coughed to clear my throat.

Another nightmare? Sasha asked, no longer sounding even a little tired.

How she was able to make herself immediately aware was beyond me. Even though my job was essentially just sleeping and giving reports on my dreams, I still had a hard time shaking off the weariness that sleep brought me. I often woke more tired than when I’d gone to sleep.

Sasha was amazing.

Do you need me to do anything? she asked. My throat caught at the concern in her voice. I knew that she still blamed herself for the pain that I’d experienced at the hands of Clayton and X’s men.

No. I’m good. I just needed to hear your voice. I just needed a reminder that it wasn’t real. That it’s all just memories.

Mhm, she responded. I’m here. I’ll always be here.

Her words were warming like a cozy blanket.

We chatted for a while and I listened to her voice until it ushered me into the world of dreams.

One

Y ou look terrible, Arthur, the dark skinned old researcher, greeted me. We’d arrived at the Institute at the same time and he held the door open for me after handing me a coffee.

He always carried an extra cup in the morning for whomever he might run into first. I was glad that I was the lucky one today. The Institute had its own coffee maker, but it couldn’t compare to the older man’s home-brewed roast.

Good morning to you, too, I responded as I stepped through the doorway and walked side by side with Arthur past the receptionist, the blond Bostonian, who greeted the two of us in her thick accent.

I’d run into other Bostonians before and most of them spoke clearly and refined, but it seemed as if Shirley’s purpose was to exist to prove the mocking stereotypes true.

We strode up to the door of the Institute and this time I held it open for Arthur who nodded his thanks to me as he entered.

‘Nother bad night? Safid, the handsome Pakastani-American former refugee, asked upon seeing my haggard face.

Did I really look that bad? I’m glad that the mirror in the bathroom had been too foggy for me to catch more than a blurry outline of my face. At least I’d be getting more sleep really soon.

Yeah, the dreams started again. I thought I’d seen the last of them. It’d been about a month since the last one, but I got ‘em again. I swear I could feel the electricity pumping through my body again.

I’m sorry, Safid said, his eyes reflecting the same guilt and regret that rang clear in his voice.

A part of me—a small part—was still bitter with him for keeping the truth from me when I’d first joined the Institute.

If I’d known what they were doing I would never have experienced these nightmares, and I never would’ve been abducted.

But I’d told Safid that I’d forgiven him and I wasn’t about to make a liar out of myself.

You’ve already apologized, so we’re good, I told him. Or we will be if you make sure to give me one of those jelly-filled donuts. I missed breakfast and I’m starving.

Deal, he said with a laugh, then retrieved the sweet from the refreshment table in the lobby of the unassuming offices that carried on a legacy of spying rooted in the MKULTRA experiments that dated back to the World War Two.

I’m glad that they’d dropped the LSD since then and the strongest drugs I got were ones to help me fall asleep.

I never really enjoyed the idea of getting high. Why would someone want to lose control of themselves? The idea of such complete inebriation kinda terrified me, if I was being honest.

I’d had control taken from me before. I would never willingly put myself there again.

A pair of hands slipped over my eyes and covered them from behind.

Guess who, a beautiful feminine voice that I knew well, said.

Helena, you’re getting way too bold. We have to keep our love quiet, Sasha might get jealous, I joked.

Jerk, Sasha said as she jabbed a finger into my exposed side, causing me to yelp in pain.

That actually hurt! I cried out.

And you deserved it, you giant turd, she said as she flicked a stray strand of her raven hair out of her eyes.

It was unfair how beautiful she was.

She’s right. You did deserve that one. And you’re far too ugly for me to ever even consider, Helena, the blond bobbed cut, ever business-like head of our tiny Institute, said as she entered the room.

How much of our conversation had she heard?

I laughed nervously.

It’s okay, I still think you’re cute, Sasha said. You remind me of this pug that my parents used to own. That thing was so hideous it was adorable.

At least I don’t snort like it did, I tried to defend myself.

I had to listen to you fall back asleep last night. I can assure you, your snores are worse than any of that old pug’s grunts. I had to hang up or else I would’ve gone deaf, Sasha poked fun at me.

I wondered if I really snored so loudly.

Yes, you really were snoring, she said, reading my mind, then dropped her voice to a whisper. But I was glad. I heard the terror in your voice. I’m glad you were able to fall back asleep. I don’t know if I could’ve done the same if I experienced what you’d gone through.

I grabbed her hand and gave it a squeeze. I’d lucked out with Sasha. I was still perplexed by what she’d seen in me. I was a bum who had weird dreams and she was a brilliant scientist who also happened to be able to kick the butt of pretty much any normal person. I’d definitely snatched someone who was way out of my league.

I’m a lucky guy, you know, I said.

Why? she asked.

Because I somehow tricked the most beautiful girl in the world to fall for me, and she hasn’t realized just how much she punched down when she said yes to dating me.

Sasha blushed. Man, how was it possible that she got even cuter when she did that?

Oh, I realized that long ago. But what the idiot I’m dating doesn’t realize is just how impressive he is.

I smiled. I wished I could believe that. I wasn’t brilliant. I wasn’t even that smart. I didn’t get my position at the Institute because of any brains I had. Yeah, I