Harbinger

by S L Shelton

  I was tempted to tell him I was the person he chased across the desert in Syria just to see what his reaction would be, but thought better of it immediately. Instead, I shook my head.

  He regarded me for a moment longer and finally nodded to the man in front of me. I braced myself.

  The man with the case raised one of the long, thin, knife-like instruments and then plunged it into my thigh. The cold, biting steel slashed through my skin, creating jarring echoes of pain all the way up my spine. My breaths came in rapid, ragged gulps until he reached the other side and the metal pierced through the bottom of my thigh. I screamed out in a short burst, but then stifled it.

  I began to try to focus on the mechanics of the assault on my flesh, attempting to break away from the agony. The blade is thin. It’s slicing with the grain of my muscle fibers and not against it. No serious damage is being done. Pain is not death. I feel pain—that means I’m still alive. It’s just pain. You aren’t dying, Scott.

  Just as the pain began to recede, the man plunged a second probe into me, sending it through the same location but on my other leg. As if it had never happened before, a fresh arc of pain raced to my brain.

  This time, I screamed without restraining it, but I also looked Harbinger in the eye. My agony, not anger, poured out while I stared at him. A mild twitch at the corner of his eye showed me a glimpse of hope.

  Regret! There! I saw regret on your face.

  I let my head drop, chin to my chest as the pain, like the last time, began to ebb. While the soldier attached clamps to the tops of the instruments impaled through my legs, Harbinger rose from his chair.

  “We will begin with simple questions,” he said. “The more important the question, the more intensely the electricity will flow.” He turned to me.

  “What is your name?” he asked with a smile on his face.

  “Scott Wolfe,” I replied through the agony.

  Harbinger turned to the other man and nodded his head. Electricity flowed through the spike, up my thigh, through my groin, and then became an intense burning sensation in my other thigh. I screamed.

  While the electricity pulsed through me, tensing my muscles, I looked up at Harbinger, confused by the response to a truthful answer. When the electricity finally stopped, all the muscles of my lower body relaxed, including my bladder. I involuntary urinated in my seat.

  “You don’t quite have a grasp of the rules yet,” he said calmly. “What is your name?”

  I hesitated, still confused. Then it dawned on me. “Scott Lawson Wolfe,” I said through a ragged breath.

  A look of surprise crossed his face and then receded. “Very good, Mr. Wolfe,” he said with a broad smile. “It usually takes several tries for most people to get that answer correct.”

  He was conditioning me to volunteer specifics. I would not make it easy. This was going to be a very rough morning.

  “Who do you work for?” He asked.

  “The Central Intelligence Agency,” I said, quickly adding, “… of the United States of America.” It was a desperate-sounding attempt to satisfy his rules, while simultaneously mocking him. How would he take it?

  He smiled, chuckled, and relaxed. No electricity.

  “Okay,” he said. “Let’s try something a little harder.” He paused for a second, measuring me. “Why did you join the CIA?”

  That question caught me off guard. Clearly the intent. My mind raced. Why HAD I joined the CIA? The excitement? To be a patriot? Because I was pissed at Barb?

  “Because I’m good at what I do and they needed me,” I replied quickly.

  Wait! I screamed at myself. That’s not what I meant to say!

  Harbinger nodded at the guard and electricity surged through my body again. The pain was much worse this time. My voice spoke without my consent. “Because I hate people who abuse their power,” I heard myself scream. It sounded almost childlike in its release. Desperate—honest.

  It had been a gift from Wolf.

  This shook Harbinger visibly. He extended his hand toward the guard, indicating he should stop. When the electricity ceased, I slumped forward as far as the zip tie around my neck would allow.

  He returned his attention to me. My head was down, but I could feel his eyes boring into the top of my head. Anger was boiling in me, but I didn’t want to face him until I had it under control. I had to show him helplessness—not defiance. My chest was heaving. My eyes pressed shut.

  “Enough toying with him,” came the German voice on the computer. “Ask him the questions.”

  “There is a process,” Harbinger said, without looking back.

  “To hell with your process,” the German said. “I want to know why the Department of Justice isn’t moving on the information that he and Gaines found. Why isn’t there any information in the Agency system?”

  They do have access to the Agency servers!

  Harbinger turned to the computer and slammed the lid shut before turning back to me. I felt one of his big hands on top of my head, pushing back gently so I was looking at him.

  “He doesn’t understand that he reveals his hand when he says such things,” Harbinger said softly. “He is used to more…vulgar methods of information extraction.”

  More vulgar than this?! Damn! I’m glad I’m sitting at the kiddie table.

  I mentally reached down to my core for an identity from before my CIA life began. I’m a software designer.

  “I’ll tell you,” I said desperately. “Whatever you want to know. I’m a tech…a programmer. Nothing more. I’m not some super-secret agent.”

  Harbinger shook his head. “We both know that you are more than a programmer. At the very least, you killed two last night.”

  I dropped my head and laughed as tears began to run down my face. “I was trying to escape,” I said. “I was so rattled I couldn’t even kill the other guy, my hand was shaking so bad.”

  He turned toward torture guy.

  “Ask me…whatever you want,” I blurted, pleading. “I’ll tell you whatever you want.”

  I already had a good solid awareness of what information they already knew about me. I might be able to regurgitate parts of what they have and get through this without volunteering any additional information.

  “Who do you work for?” he asked. “At the CIA…who is your handler?”

  “John Temple,” I said quickly, knowing they already had that information. “He’s the one who brought me into the Agency because I was a good hacker.”

  “Why isn’t the DOJ moving on the data that Gaines collected?” Harbinger asked.

  “They don’t know about it,” I replied. “I think Gaines offered pieces of it in exchange for immunity, but then he disappeared.”

  Ha! Let’s see if you regret hitting that convoy now and letting Gaines escape.

  “Has Gaines contacted you since he escaped?” Harbinger asked.

  I shook my head. Harbinger nodded at the guard.

  “Wait—!”

  Electricity surged through the spikes in my legs, arcing through my hips, back, and groin before exiting back down through the other lead. I screamed in agony. When it stopped, he leaned forward.

  “Has Gaines contacted you since he escaped?” Harbinger asked again.

  “No…not me,” I lied as the pain I was suffering allowed me to be even more sincere in my pleading. “But I’m pretty sure he had contacted Temple. I think… I don’t know.”

  Another surge of electricity coursed through me at an even higher voltage.

  “I swear!” I cried. “I’m not sure, but I think Temple sent him away right before you attacked his house.”

  “Me?” he asked suspiciously.

  “You, the Marines, the Girl Scouts…I don’t know,” I said pathetically. “Someone burned his house down.”

  “How are you keeping the information isolated at Langley?” Harbinger asked. “Why are there no internal communications?”

  “Temple has a tight grip on this. I’m not even allowed to
talk about it with his section people.”

  Harbinger rose up as if startled by that tidbit.

  Harbinger nodded. “Why did he send you to Europe?” he asked.

  “There was an attack at Camp Peary,” I said, looking him right in the eye. “The CIA seemed to think someone was after me, though they wouldn’t tell me why. He convinced them I needed to be here to keep me safe.”

  Harbinger nodded toward the guard and a spike of electricity tore through my lower body. The current forced my thigh muscles to contract around the blades. My subtle evasion wasn’t convincing enough.

  “Why Europe?” Harbinger asked again, calmly, after it ceased.

  I gasped against the constriction in my chest and the throbbing in my legs.

  “Because that’s where the funds were coming from,” I gasped. “Temple thought a couple months at the Farm would train me enough to find the fund source on my own.”

  “The fund source?” Harbinger asked. “Don’t they know where the funds are coming from?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know,” I replied softly. “They might. I got the feeling they know more than they’re telling me. I keep giving information to Temple and Gaines and they keep asking for account passwords.”

  Harbinger sat up abruptly and laughed. “They are trying to rob us?” he asked. “Temple and Gaines are working together to steal money from the accounts?”

  “I don’t know,” I replied sincerely, sniffing and sniveling. “But the harder they push me, the more I think that’s what’s going on.”

  Harbinger reached behind him and lifted the lid on the computer. “Does this answer your question?” Harbinger asked.

  “What about the director?” the German asked.

  Harbinger looked at me. “Is the Director of NCS involved in the operation?”

  “I don’t know,” I lied, sniffling to cover any traces of deception that might slip through my face. “I’ve only met him once… I’m not important enough to know what goes on at Langley.”

  Harbinger looked back at the video screen.

  “Yes,” the German replied. “I’m satisfied. Confirm it all and then dispose of him.”

  The video connection ended abruptly and Harbinger turned to the man who was controlling the electricity. “Do you have a grasp of what you are confirming?”

  Mister Torture nodded in response.

  “I told you everything I know,” I said, pleading.

  Harbinger nodded. “I believe you,” he replied. “We are just going to confirm it.”

  “Please don’t,” I begged, showing more weakness than was there.

  He pulled the Desert Eagle from his hip and leveled it at my head. “So you want this to be over now?” he asked.

  I began to sob. “No, please…I’m just a tech,” I whimpered, cowering, my head down, gasping in manufactured fear. I knew I still had hours of torture ahead of me, and a gun in the face didn’t provide the shock factor it used to. If he was going to pull the trigger, my worries would be over—if not, then I still had time to get free. There was no fear of a gun, no matter how big it was…but manufacturing the appearance of fear was easy.

  He shook his head and re-holstered his weapon. “I have to admit, I’m very disappointed in you. I had imagined you to be so much more,” he said and then turned to the torture tech. “Confirm everything.”

  My torturer nodded before Harbinger left the room and turned down the hall.

  As Harbinger’s man began re-asking each of the questions I had already answered, sending increasingly higher voltage jolts through my body with each response, I fixed my mind on the statement that would get me out of this chair before they killed me. I just had to choose my timing correctly.

  In the meantime, I had to keep my wits about me enough to answer all the questions the same way I had before, no matter how blurry minded I became from the pain. Truth is so much easier to remember than a lie—I had to remember each lie and repeat it correctly each time the question was asked, or it would bring Harbinger back into the room too soon.

  When’s my opening? I wondered before another bolt of fire raged through my lower body.

  **

  HARBINGER left the interrogation room and walked to the radio room.

  “Have you been able to synchronize the missiles’ onboard controllers?” Harbinger asked the tech.

  The tech shook his head. “I get responses from two of the batteries, but not from the northern or western ones.”

  Harbinger looked around him at the stone walls. “Could it be the structure?” he asked. “They are well within range.”

  The tech nodded. “I was about to take the re-transmitter and see if it worked better by the cable car shed,” he replied. “That part of the structure is newer, and it’s better angled for broadcast anyway.”

  Harbinger nodded. “If it works, string the tracking feeds back here with network cable,” he said. “I want to be able to see the camera and data streams on each missile.”

  He paused on his way out and looked back. “Do we have enough network cable?”

  The tech smiled. “We’ve got miles of the stuff,” he replied.

  Harbinger turned and left. “Let me know when it’s set up. The call could come as early as first light.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  As he made his way to his room, Harbinger couldn’t shake the uncomfortable feeling that he was doing something wrong with Wolfe. He chuckled at the thought of the boy smashing Bellos’s nose.

  A little playmate for Jonath—Bellos who is worthy of his efforts, Harbinger thought. In fact, Harbinger saw similarities between Jonathan and Wolfe as well: respectful, stronger than they let on, honest to a fault, and unafraid to show frailty. It was funny to Harbinger, that even though Wolfe had been terrified of him, he’d puffed up with false bravado while remaining completely respectful—

  “—of everyone but Bellos,” he muttered as he closed his door. Maybe he senses weakness in Bellos as well. Maybe I have too long let my memory of Jonathan taint my handling of Bellos.

  He shook his head as he lowered himself to his bunk. “What are you, Mr. Wolfe?” Harbinger mused aloud. “Should I save you as well? Should I let you kill Bellos and take his place?”

  He laughed at the ridiculousness of that suggestion.

  Still, he thought after a moment of reflection. There is something about him that remains familiar, comforting. With the money we stole from Combine before Loeff met her untimely demise… “Maybe, just maybe, there’s something about the boy worth saving.”

  He grunted his wonder at the simple question as he closed his eyes. I couldn’t even bring myself to be present for the rest of his questioning…why?

  “Because weakness breeds weakness,” he heard Father say in his head.

  Project Gold Rush: 1980s

  Harbinger stood in front of Father’s office door, dripping mud and blood on the floor. He stared at the door for several long moments before turning the knob.

  “Who’s there?” Father asked from the dark. Harbinger could tell from the echo that his back was to the door: weakness.

  “Harman,” Harbinger replied quietly.

  “Harman,” Father mocked. Mockery: weakness.

  Harbinger took a step closer as Father turned in his chair. “I take it you found Jonathan,” he said. “I can’t imagine it was too painful for him. The dogs would have finished him quickly.”

  “He didn’t deserve it,” Harbinger said in nearly a whisper.

  “Deserve? Do any of us ‘deserve’ what we’ve gotten?” Father asked, slurring his words. Drinking: weakness.

  “What happened to Mother?” Harbinger asked.

  “She didn’t make it.”

  “Your work as well,” Harbinger said.

  Father turned all the way around in his chair and rose unsteadily to his feet. “This is on your head,” Father said. “Both of them.”

  Harbinger took two quick steps forward. Father reacted by flinching backward ever so slightl
y for the first time ever: weakness.

  “Harban, Harban,” Father said, in his mocking tone again. “He couldn’t even talk like a man.”

  “Harban,” Harbinger repeated. “Like another word Mother taught us…Harbinger.”

  Father looked at him, his face open as the question on his unmoving lips.

  “As in the Harbinger of Death,” he added, taking another step toward Father.

  “Delusions of grandeur,” Father hissed dismissively, but there the fear dug deeper into his shadowed features. “I could have each and every one of you snuffed out.” He snapped his fingers. “—like that.”

  “Like Mother?” Harbinger asked. “Like Jonathan?”

  “You killed them,” Father said with a quiver in his tone.

  “No. I didn’t,” Harbinger replied. “But I did this.”

  He pushed Father’s desk, sliding it against the man before he could reach into the drawer for the weapon Harbinger knew was there. He continued to drive the desk backward until it crashed into the block wall behind him, certainly breaking the man’s pelvis in the process but also pinning him tight.

  Father called out, “Guard! Help!”

  Harbinger smiled as he stretched his big fingers across Father’s throat. “They’re dead,” he said.

  Father’s eyes opened wide.

  “All of them,” Harbinger added.

  “I did what I was ordered to do,” Father said. “It’s just a fucking job, and I had a role to play just like Mother did. She screwed up.”

  “No,” Harbinger said. “I did…but it won’t happen again.”

  He yanked Father down across the desk before smashing his elbow into the older man’s neck, cracking his spine.

  Father twitched once before crying out again. “It was my job!” he whimpered pathetically as Harbinger flipped him over on the desk and then dragged him forward so that his head hung over the edge.

  “And this, Father, is my job. Thank you for teaching it to me so well.”

  Harbinger raised his foot high over father’s head and then stomped down so hard that the man’s head separated from his neck, dropping to the floor. Harbinger stood there, leaning over the headless form of the only father figure he had ever known. When the blood popping in his eyes finally ceased, he picked up the severed head and looked into its bloody face.