by S L Shelton
I saw anger flash across his face and his grasp on the pistol grip tighten. I had struck a nerve. He wasn’t fully at peace with his actions and was having a hard time reconciling them with his concept of self. Apparently my psych sessions are paying off, I thought.
“I did the same thing,” I said, adjusting my approach. “Don’t get me wrong. I haven’t seen nearly what you have, I know that. And my experience is that of rank amateur compared to your training and missions. But I was in a similar place a couple of months ago.”
“You know nothing,” he said through his teeth, but I could see the doubt on his face.
“I don’t claim to. Just…I know what it’s like to go on autopilot when someone you love gets hurt,” I said, slowing my speech and softening the tone.
I could see the pain cross his face. But it was quickly replaced by anger.
“Move,” he ordered, pointing down the alley.
We walked for a short distance and then turned down another side alley.
“We’re not here to hurt you,” I added, trying to keep the dialog flowing. “If we were, it wouldn’t be just me and John.”
“Shut up,” he replied.
We passed a couple of restaurant workers taking a smoke break behind one building, and I saw him put his gun into the folds of the jacket he carried. A brief desire to bolt came over me, but it quickly dissipated as the two nodded at us and then disappeared back through the door into the kitchen.
After a short distance further down the alley, we came to a stairway that descended half a story from street level.
“Down there,” he said, giving me a slight shove toward the stairs.
I descended the stairs and went through the door at the bottom. Once in, he took my arm before shoving me roughly down a narrow hallway and through a door at the end.
“Sit,” he commanded, pointing at an old metal office chair on wheels.
I did as ordered, and he began tying my hands and feet with a cotton cord. I wasn’t afraid. I may have been a little naïve about my situation, but I didn’t feel he would do me any harm—or at the least, he wouldn’t kill me. This guy, after all, was a Boy Scout like me.
“Nothing you’ve done so far would be held against you,” I said calmly as he tied me to the chair.
“Shut up,” he said.
“I don’t think a jury in Colorado would convict you for killing the murderers of your sister and her family,” I continued. “Especially since it appears you drove straight there without—” My sentence was cut off with a sharp backhand to my face. So much for not being hurt. I couldn’t let myself forget this guy was a trained killer who was suffering great grief and under tremendous stress.
I tasted blood in my mouth, turned my head away from him and spat dark red on the floor. I remained silent for a moment.
When he had finished binding me, he walked over to a box and set his handgun down before grabbing a bottle of water. After drinking deeply, he plopped down in a chair identical to mine.
“How did you find me?” he asked calmly. I’d heard the tone before—the calm, emotionless question followed by flame applied to my shoulder, arm, and chest in Amsterdam at the hands of Majmun the “Monkey.” I wouldn’t give him a reason to be any more of a bad guy. I wanted to be his friend.
“When you pulled the gun on me in the garage. I saw the map and studio brochure,” I replied, trying to sound as helpful as possible. I even smiled a little.
“The garage, huh? Do you think this is a game?” he asked.
“Not at all. I’m taking it very seriously. Seriously enough to hop on a plane on a Thursday night and start searching for someone who, I was told was a friend of John’s.” I let my tone slip into a sort of annoyed lecture as if I were pissed off that I had been somewhat misled by John.
“Pffft. John is no friend to anyone but John,” he scoffed, placing emphasis on the first name.
I guessed he found it somewhat distasteful that someone like me might be on a first name basis with someone he called Captain.
“He's been pretty friendly to me. Among other things, he saved my life and broke the rules to get me access to someone I cared about,” I explained. “Once I was back home, he followed up, and made sure I got the treatment I needed…annoyingly so,” I said, turning my head to spit more blood.
“Oh he’s good at breaking the rules when it suits his purposes. As for saving your life—I know the story. If you had been outside of his Op when shit went south, he wouldn’t have lifted a finger,” he said with a knowing grin. “You’d have been on your own with your dick flapping in the wind.”
I loved the colorful phrases I’d heard since being around the military set.
“I didn’t get that sense,” I replied unemotionally.
“Whatever. What do I know anyway?” he muttered.
A pout? This is a guy who doesn’t feel understood, I thought. I could use that.
“You didn’t feel finished after you killed Roy Mullen and his pals, did you?” I asked.
He turned and looked at me for a moment as if he were trying to see behind my skin.
I looked around the cluttered basement, soaking in the scenery. We were apparently downstairs from a closed restaurant, judging by the old canned food and the stacks of cheap plates and bowls.
“It takes longer for the fire to die when you act on anger,” I continued.
“Shut up.”
I didn’t. I could tell he was having a moral crisis over what he had done to his sister's murderers—I was going to use it to my advantage.
“Sometimes it just feeds the fire,” I added, as if in passing, as I continued to search my surroundings with my eyes. Kitchen knives. If left alone, I would be able to cut myself free. I didn’t let my eyes linger on them but rather continued to scan the room.
“It took me a long time to realize that after justice was served, the anger I felt was at myself,” I said, manufacturing a fictional parallel to his situation.
He looked at me, tilting his head. I had him interested.
“And for every asshole I put down, it only made me want to handle more.”
“Ha! You’re more fucked up than I am.”
I gave short matter-of-fact nod as I searched around, noting the metal storage cage behind us.
“For a long time I became the bully,” I continued. “Or the ‘bully hunter,’ rather.”
“If you think your high school vigilante story is going to impress me, you aren’t as smart as I thought,” he warned.
I shrugged.
“The personalities we form in school follow us the rest of our lives,” I said. “I have no doubt I wouldn’t have even considered getting on the plane for Amsterdam if it hadn’t been for how I was in school.”
He sat and listened, turning his head to the side as my words played. It seemed he was trying to overlay what I was saying onto his life. It’s possible he knew what he was doing was wrong and desperately wanted to find a way of extricating himself from it—or maybe he thought he was just learning more about me.
“I have to admit though. I felt it popping up in Mimon,” I said, turning my gaze to him, reminding him I had seen action as well. A brother in arms.
“Did you get the rush?” he asked.
“The rush?” I asked.
“The big endorphin flood when you kill someone in an adrenaline moment?” he explained.
“No endorphin rush,” I replied casually, as if I knew all the psychological ins and outs of killing someone.
“Ah. So you got the time warp,” he said knowingly.
He really seems to want to talk, I thought. “Yeah,” I said with mild surprise.
He sat back in his chair, showing less tension than he had earlier. “How many did you kill?”
“I shot four. Though I don’t remember the last one.” I spoke as if I had already worked through it, but there was a sudden pinch in my chest. It must have shown on my face because he commented on it.
“Still working on it, h
uh?” he asked, smiling, though not sympathetically.
I nodded. Something was wrong though—a shift in the tone, and it was starting to worry me.
“You said you shot four,” he continued, trying to draw more information out. This was turning in a direction I hadn’t anticipated.
“Yeah. There were also about a dozen who got pulled out the back of a cargo plane when Nick and I dropped the cargo container out of it,” I added.
“Nick?!” he exclaimed with raised eyebrows. “How is the old Spartan?”
“Don’t know. I haven't seen him since Europe. But he was fine then—the old Spartan?”
“Yeah. A real live relic of the warrior class. His family name is older than the Battle of Thermopylae. He didn’t regale you with stories of Horiatis fighting at the hot gates?”
I shook my head.
“Too bad,” he mused. “He’s a real hoot when he acts out the Phalanx.”
My database brain accessed information on ‘Phalanx,’ complete with imagery:
A battle configuration consisting of lines of soldiers with large shields, twelve men deep, in which the soldier behind you pushed you forward, in formation, to slowly roll over the opposing army’s line, stabbing with spears and short swords as you went. Once the enemy line had collapsed on one side, the Phalanx would split and then flank the remaining enemy, crushing them between an L-shaped wedge.
I nodded as the visualization played through my head.
“So you’re having dreams still?” he asked.
“Sometimes,” I replied solemnly, but I couldn’t help but feel I was being led into an ambush of some sort. “Less and less.”
He nodded and then a sly grin appeared on his face. “They don’t ever go away for good.”
That was disconcerting. His simple statement shook me, and it must have shown on my face.
“And after you kill and get a rush the first time, it comes back and visits all the time,” he continued. “Like an old friend, rating your actions. Comparing each kill to all the others.”
His tone had changed. His face grew dark and his smile more sinister. I had made a mistake.
“And before long, the rush is counseling you on what to do. Whipping you into a frenzy as you are about to add another notch on your trophy stick.” He was getting calmer, cooler. His mood had taken a dark turn—he was crazy and he was here to execute more revenge, and I was dumb enough to think I could work with that.
Don't let your fear make those sorts of judgments, came a whisper from my other voice.
He stood and walked toward me. For a brief, panic-stricken moment, I thought I was about to die. But he grabbed the back to the office chair, spun me around facing the other direction, and then rolled me into the storage cage. He tossed a five-gallon bucket in behind me, the bag of food I had purchased before he captured me, and two liter bottles of water.
“I have no doubt you’ll make short work of those ropes once I’m gone,” he said as he padlocked the cage closed. “But I’ll bring back a change of clothes for you just in case. See you tomorrow.” Then he shouldered his bag and walked out.
As soon as he was gone, I looked around for something to cut myself free. The knives, unfortunately, were on the other side of the cage door. On the floor was a lid from a can. Its ragged metal edge was perfect to slice the ropes.
I tipped the chair over sideways and landed with a crash before pushing myself around sideways with the toe of my shoe until I could reach the lid. As soon as I got my fingers on it, I began slicing the thick cotton cord with the edge.
What the hell is going on in your head, Mark? Are you or aren't you nuts?
As I sliced through the first few strands, I began feeling more optimistic again.
Well, you didn't kill me—that's a promising start.
**
4:02 a.m.
JOHN TEMPLE looked at his watch before looking around the room just to confirm he hadn’t missed Scott's return.
He pulled out his phone and dialed Scott’s number. A second later, he heard the phone ring on the other side of the room, plugged into the wall and sitting next to Scott’s laptop.
“Shit!” he exclaimed as he ended the call.
“God damn it, Scott,” he muttered under his breath as he left the room.
He was mentally kicking himself for not being more careful. Scott seemed to be so capable that John sometimes forgot he was not a trained operative.
This Op was blown because Scott had been captured. At least, he hoped he had only been captured. He didn’t want to think of the other possibility. He didn’t honestly believe Mark Gaines would kill Scott unless he felt threatened by him. But then again, two days earlier, he didn’t think Gaines was capable of castrating and burning three men alive, either.
As he walked out onto the street, distracted by the thought of losing Scott, he didn’t notice the man watching him exit the hotel.
**
THE MAN Harbinger had sent to find Gaines watched as John exited the hotel and turned right down the street.
As soon as John disappeared around the corner, the man pulled out his phone and dialed Heinrich Braun.
“We might have a complication,” he said. “I think I just saw the former CIA Deputy Station Chief for Berlin.”
“How sure are you that it’s him?” Braun asked.
“Pretty sure,” the man replied. “I saw him a few years ago in Riyadh at a summit. I was on a security detail for the Syrian delegation.”
There was a pause.
“Would he recognize you?” Braun finally asked.
“I can’t be sure,” he replied as he rounded the corner, catching sight of John again.
“I can’t emphasize this enough. Discreetly follow him,” Braun said. “If he finds Gaines before we do, I want to be able to act immediately.”
“Yes, sir,” the man replied. “Do you want the surveillance techs on him as well?”
“No sense in putting all our eggs in one basket,” Braun argued. “One set of eyes at a time should be enough. Hand off to the others in rotation.”
“Understood,” he replied. “I’m on him now.”
“Call me if anything changes,” Braun said, then hung up.
The man, a mercenary recruited by Harbinger and detailed to Braun, began following John at a discreet distance. Unlike many of his combat-hardened comrades, this man had also worked private security and was quite adept at disappearing in a crowd of people.
He watched from a good distance away, but at one point, his quarry inexplicably stopped and looked around as if he felt something was off.
The man was much more careful after that and began his handoff earlier than planned.
By the time the mercenary handed the tail off to his partner, he was convinced that John was blindly searching in circles.
He wondered if Temple was acting as a decoy of some sort but then dismissed the thought immediately. There was no APB out on Gaines, the former Station Chief had not made any indication he was communicating with anyone, and there was a certain desperation to his movements.
Temple was acting alone, the man concluded.
He said as much to his relief before the hand off. “I don’t think he’s got any idea where he’s going,” he said to his partner. “But don’t let him lull you into being sloppy. He’s been at this longer than we’ve been alive.”
“Got it,” his partner said. “Anything else?”
“If he finds something, don’t move in on your own,” he warned. “He’s a stone-cold killer.”
His partner rolled his eyes. “If you say so.”
“I say so,” he reiterated.
**
Time Unknown
I had managed to get myself cut free in a matter of minutes using the ragged edge of the tin can top. I took a few minutes to test the strength of the supply cage I was trapped in before sitting to figure out my next steps.
I absently reached into the food bag and grabbed whatever was closest. I ate one o
f the two subs I had purchased and drank one of the bottles of water. As I sat and chewed the soggy sandwich, I looked at every inch of the cage, letting my flowchart brain absorb all of the information.
My mind began randomly throwing ideas and calculations about weak points, material strength, and design flaws. I let it flow without trying to control the stream of information.
“Any ideas on how we can get out of here?” I muttered to my other voice.
No response; it was quite a one-sided relationship.
Once I had finished enough of the sandwich to give me a stomachache, I stood and went to the wall of the cage. I moved boxes and cans away from the metal mesh and examined the connection to the bottom rail.
It was welded.
I kicked at the base a few times, testing the strength of the weld, and I was able to break it in a couple of locations, but all it did was bow the mesh out a little… Not even enough to slip my fingers through.
After testing various locations of the cage for weakness for a very long time—though I couldn’t be sure since I had left my watch sitting next to my phone in the hotel room—the flow of ideas had shrunk to a trickle. I had bruised the ball of my foot kicking at the metal mesh and bars, my leg was tired and heavy, and my breath was labored from stress and exertion. I plopped down on a pile of flattened cardboard boxes and leaned against a stack of cartons
“Shit, shit, shit,” I muttered, knocking the back of my head against the cartons with each utterance.
It didn’t work…I still couldn’t think of anything.
As I sat in the dim light of the single light bulb on the ceiling of the cage, I let my eyes wander across the room outside my prison. In the corner of the room opposite the cage, I saw a box of the same size Gaines had picked up in Barstow. Next to it was a larger cardboard box and what looked like a metal case of some sort.
I couldn’t bring myself to get up and take a closer look as I knew it would only frustrate me more.
“Jooooohn!” I yelled at the ceiling.
I listened to see if there was any response. All I heard were the sounds of rodents chewing on something in the next room.