by Daniel James
“Don’t hold on to the past too tightly, Mr. Jensen,” Velez encouraged, but resignation tinted the sentiment. “Allow your progress to push you forward.” She left them to lock up her office. As usual, the session had been conducted outside of her normal hours to accommodate Jensen’s dislike of attracting morbidly curious stares. The cubic Foundation Counselling building was eerily quiet in the dark evening, with their voices ricocheting off the polished floor and the pristine glass creating mirror worlds of Jensen’s awkwardness.
“Mister Jensen.” Steinway seemed to tut-tut. “It still doesn’t sound right to me. Have you given any more thought to getting in the saddle again, Al? Quite frankly, it’s a damn disgrace to allow your talents go to waste. You could be helping people again, saving lives.”
Jensen saw his Halloween features reflected in Steinway’s spectacle lenses. “How can you ask me that?” he snapped, instantly regretting the harsh tone. “I can’t, Terry. There’s no going back for me.”
Steinway slipped on his duffel coat, knowing the professional impasse signalled the end of the discussion. Whilst Jensen had come on strong in his therapy, he had remained hopelessly rooted to the spot in terms of piecing his life back together.
“Thank you, again, for helping with all this. It means a lot.” Jensen wrapped his thick navy scarf around the lower half of his face and tugged on his peaked cap, keeping it low over his eyes.
“It always does, but I hate seeing you stuck in this cycle. Call me if you need to talk, Al.”
They pushed through the glass lobby doors of the small private facility into the empty parking lot. Jensen could feel his friend’s solicitous stare as Steinway waited for a reply, trying his best not to zoom in on the ugly details of Jensen’s passivity.
“I will,” Jensen offered, voice muffled and distant behind the concealing fabric. Steinway gave him a doubtful look. “I promise.”
Steinway hung there for a moment longer, then nodded and headed off for one of the three parked cars. Jensen watched him walk ahead, becoming a shadow against a backdrop of lamp posts and the cold, humbling beauty of the distant, attractively lit tower blocks. He remained a castaway on an unchartered island.
A hornet buzzed from Jensen’s coat pocket. Colquitt had good news.
False Flag
Kershaw’s steady hand sewed the black thread through the raw, but luckily, rather shallow bullet graze in Garland’s shoulder. The large man barely winced as the needle slipped back and forth through the red valley of the sliced deltoid, the harsh white glare of the lamp beaming down on the area as bright as the Afghan sun.
At least the bullet hadn’t done any real damage. Kershaw had explained how nobody wanted a shattered humerus, acromion or clavicle. Garland had seen some heinous battle damage but to him it was just red meat and gristle, so he took the medic’s word at face value. As it was, he would be ready to carry Shauna again unimpeded in no time.
After clearing some distance between himself and the masked hostiles, he had left them to contend with the trio from the raided house and retreated to the Range Rover. It had been a narrow escape. No sooner had he fired up the ignition than he’d heard the wail of approaching police cars converging on another of Chicago’s Wild West displays.
Now, hunched in HQ like a large white gorilla, he observed another of his company wander into the makeshift medic bay.
The fresh arrival, Velazquez, appeared to be confused as to what he was meant to be doing, standing there uncertainly with speedball eyes and scratching at his arm. “Garland … um, sir,” he mumbled, scratching a little harder, a dozy grin playing about his lips. “Major Thurman wants a word with you.”
Garland had a few choice words of his own for the major and his growing squad of piss-poor soldiers. He stared at the tweaking traitor to their credo and wondered if these men’s mush-minds still remembered they were commandos preparing for the fall, not two-bit cracker-ass crystal dealers. After five seconds of stony silence, which could have seemed like a full minute to Velazquez, Garland dismissed him with a firm, silent nod. Private Spaceman seemed to comprehend the response and floated back out to relay the message, assuming he remembered it. Kershaw cut off the thread and applied a gauze pad, dropping the wrappers and scissors down by the bottle of surgical spirit and reddish-pink cotton swabs.
Garland confided in the drawn-faced ex-army medic, looking for signs of disloyalty in his darkly humorous eyes, but the man appeared clean: his pupils were no more dilated or edgier than normal. “How many of our unit are using that poison?”
Kershaw looked stern, disapproving even, taking his time to answer. “The number’s risen. Up to fifteen now.” He unsnapped his latex gloves and tossed them into a plastic bag. “The major still holds much of the influence over our faction, and when the commander is a user, and an outspoken advocate, some of the men seem content to dabble in the product, too.”
“Fifteen.” Garland rubbed his eyes. “Our whole division is only nineteen strong.” He jumped off the metal table, rattling the whole frame, his boots bombing the rough wooden floor.
Kershaw watched him pull his vest back on, looking at the angry red acne pocked across his mountainous back like landmines, visible evidence of steroid abuse. Garland caught the look, reading the criticism but not taking it personally. Actually, he had been reflecting on the myriad forms of addiction, and knew that if he was to continue his vehement rhetoric about leading a pure-blooded army then he too would have to do better. Any dependency was a crutch that couldn’t be carried over to the next phase of survival. Walking wordlessly over to the racks of antibiotics and medical supplies, he grabbed the few glass vials of anadrol and smashed them in the stainless steel basin.
“Don’t let it be said that I stand for hypocrisy.”
“I’m glad you brought that up and not me, but maybe you should have weened yourself off instead.” Kershaw threw his hands up. He stroked his handlebar ‘tache. “Doesn’t matter. I have some anti-depressants lying around if you experience any withdrawal symptoms.”
“No, no more drugs. If I can’t man-up and deal with it then I don’t deserve to be here. Our people need to be hard as stone and as cohesive as water.” His thoughts were a tempest. “Our people. Fifteen. I warned the major about this. Time and again. He won’t listen.”
“He’s a troubled man,” Kershaw said. Yet it was clear his enthusiasm for defending the major had waned over time.
“Yes he is. And a decorated war hero, and he deserves better than what this country gave him. He should have died over in ’Nam if this was to be his legacy. He went over a living warrior, came back a living ghost.” Garland’s uncompromising tone softened with sympathy. “Who he is now, what he’s become … he’s detrimental to his own cause. Our cause.” He stabbed his finger downwards like a falling sword. “The Midnight Frontiers. As for the others, they’re showing their weakness. It’s one thing to fall in line and obey unquestioningly for the mission. It’s another entirely to get hooked on some chickenshit narcotic because their superior officer is a bad influence.”
Kershaw crossed his arms in thought, his olive green t-shirt and brown trousers pressed to a fine razor thinness. “What are you getting at?”
“I’m going to go talk to him. After that, I think it’s time we clean house. He’s probably so out of it I can sell Wyndorf’s death without too much of a confrontation. And by the time he’s a bit more sober, that little prick should hopefully be dead for real.”
“And if Thurman pushes for an exfil for that little turd?”
“An extraction?” Garland quietly thought that problem over, not happy with where his contingency plan was taking him. He glanced about slowly, checking for ears in the walls. “Then I might be forced to relieve him of his command.”
A breathless cadence welcomed Garland into the major’s private quarters—his office at the back of Down Range—the awkward breathing another symptom of his addiction. Physically, Thurman had seen better days, even after shrapnel took
his right eye in the muggy, death-littered jungles of Saigon. Age had turned his bristling buzz cut the color of inhospitable winters, but it was synthetic ice which had reduced his remaining eye socket to an exhausted and hollowed-out pit housing a restless, paranoid eyeball. His indiscretion had only been eating away at him for little over ten months, proof of Wyndorf’s insidious toxicity to the otherwise regimented pack. He had incurred some pretty horrendous dental attrition, the effects of meth mouth leaving his few remaining teeth like frag-blasted yellow jags of enamel in bloody gums.
The hard-bitten ex-marine rattled about his room of fading maps, his worsening psychosis leading him into a fantasy of grandeur, past glories of leadership, proud conquests. His Purple Heart was pinned to his urban commando attire, a heart-swelling souvenir for his injuries during the hellish fallout of the Tet Offensive.
Garland hated seeing him this way. They were supposed to fight side by side when the world tilted on its axis and civilisation crumbled; brothers-in-arms across this once great nation, finding purpose and getting back to the roots of how man was supposed to abide. Thurman had rescued him, fresh from his discharge. The military court had spared Garland prison, but stuck its hands deep into his shallow pockets. Struggling for work, unable to vote or even register for a gun, Thurman had found himself another disenfranchised bird with a broken wing. He had listened to his troubles, and he supported Garland’s views on his own personal episode of manipulated conflict, this one in Afghanistan, agreeing that dying in the desert so some asshole can put gas in his car was a prime example of how fucked civilisation was.
“Wyndorf. You lost him?” Fist hammered table, his respiration sharp and shallow. “We need to pull his ass out of the fire.”
Garland expected this response exactly. “Sir, I think we need to take this moment to reassess our mission. Losing Wyndorf is a great”—he couldn’t believe his own lie—“setback. But I believe his business venture has distracted us somewhat. Captain Hooper at our Des Moines faction is pushing his men to the limit. He’s making some hard-assed bastards and I fear some of our men are getting a little too soft. Their discipline and training has slipped.”
Thurman couldn’t stop moving, wearing out the boards under his feet, going back and forth. He brazenly poured out some powder onto the barrel of his service pistol and inhaled deeply. At least he wasn’t smoking it now; he couldn’t afford to ruin that smile of his. Hacking and coughing, he clearly hadn’t heard a word his subordinate had said. “Who was it? Who took him? You think those dirty fucks have killed him?” He was arguing with himself, his voice rising in agitation. “We need more of his glass, Garland.” His hand shook in the air as he tried to pull a word out of the ether. “It’s a powerful tool. Keeps you sharp. The Nazis used meth, you know. Hitler swore by it—not that I approve of that maniac’s vision, but goddammit if they didn’t come this close to conquering a damn planet. It was a Berlin pharmaceutical company, government sponsored, Temmler. Dr. Hauschild, their chief pharmacist, was trying to emulate an amphetamine called Benzedrine which our own guys used in the 1936 Olympics. Instead he created Pervitin, the blueprint for crystal meth. Factories produced the stuff by the ton, and the Wehrmacht waged a sleepless, tireless war against the Allies whilst up to their eyeballs in the stuff. Think what we could be capable of if we got in deeper with C.B.’s business.” The 9mm rattled in his restless hand until he slipped it in his waistband. He leaned across his desk, his eye burning like a chemical spill into Garland’s. “I know Hooper and Lisiewicz, all our faction leaders think I’m up the creek, but they just need to be brought around to my way of thinking. We could bring them all in, all the camps, become a relentless united front against the candy-ass pen jockeys who are shitting all over our country. Better killing through chemistry. I haven’t slept in days—it’s allowed me to accomplish so much.”
Garland thought about asking his unhinged despot if he recalled the part where Hitler and his master race lost the war. He scanned the room: indecipherable codes and keys scrawled in red marker on the maps, books on extinction-level events and natural disasters, a prepper handbook explaining how to build a DIY Faraday cage should an EMP be launched at them by the Man in the White House. Garland was no longer certain what the major was cognisant of during his episodes and felt it prudent to put the man back on a firm track before continuing with their supposed discussion.
“You asked me if I think Wyndorf’s K.I.A.?” It was a genuinely tough question. “I’m not sure. But I do know that those guys were good. Trained, from the looks of it. I don’t like Wyndorf’s chances against them.”
“We’re not leaving a man behind. That’s not our way, soldier. You should be fucking ashamed of yourself.” The major’s mood swung to aggression on a dime, another charming symptom. “He has a tracker in him,” he barked, “so go find him.”
Garland set his jaw, biting back the retort. This was pointless. Thurman was beyond help, and he was running the whole unit into the damn sewer. A solution was slowly forming in his head. “Major, how about one last mission? I would be honored to take these guys down with you beside me on the field.”
Garland suspected the wolf and his spoilt bacon brigade were ex-military due to the way they moved, their formations, skill, weapons handling. If they were not official military then they were at least highly trained by someone who knew what they were doing. A good, strong test for the army of the new world. Great experience for his true, clean warriors. And a great threat to the fouled war hero and his undisciplined acolytes. If the gangrenous limb of this faction should be removed during this healing campaign then, well, friendly fire was a risk of warfare. Garland watched the promise of combat stoke the dead embers of vitality and purpose in the major’s watery, unfocused sight.
“Son.” His single eye briefly flashed with a keen intelligence before passing behind a glaze of narcotic hunger as the major clamped a steely hand on Garland’s shoulder. “The honor would be all mine. Let’s go get our piggy bank back.”
Garland found Schecter in one of the watch towers, flicking a match head and watching the beautiful power burning away. Warmth and safety. Death and destruction. Scars and nightmares. He tossed the match off the top of the guard tower with the others. One by one they had sailed down to the bare earth like miniature wooden Hindenburgs. He pulled another from the book and glanced at the horizon.
“Keeping busy?”
Schecter craned his neck toward the deep voice but continued to slouch in the deck chair, his boots propped on the wooden guard rail. Ignite and toss. “I heard some whackos in masks crashed Wyndorf’s little reunion party. You okay?”
“Just a scratch,” Garland answered.
“Please tell me that prick wasn’t so lucky?”
“Too early to tell. That’s why I’m here.”
Schecter sat up, throwing a disparaging look at his superior.
“I’m organising a rescue mission.”
Schecter gave a bitter chuckle and lit another matchstick, holding the glow to the ruined half of his face. “This a joke? You think I’m signing up to save his ass?” He extinguished the flame with his thumb and index finger.
“The job isn’t to save him. It’s to save this camp. The other cells’ respect for us is almost tapped out. They view us as a bunch of fuckwits only interested in getting high. We need to detox this whole platoon. I just spoke to Thurman again, stared him dead in the eye … he’s too far gone. Hooper told me Thurman returned from the jungle with a smack habit, and he beat it, eventually. A proud moment. Started piecing his life back together. Opened this gun store, found some like-minded people. But some demons never truly leave a person. I think Thurman was like every other junkie, only ever one moment of weakness shy of letting the demons whisper in his ear.”
Schecter might have nodded at this but the dim perimeter lights around the gates below made it difficult to ascertain, and the cloud cover dimmed the starlight. “Wyndorf is a demon, all right.” Another matchstick blazed. “It takes
a demon to laugh whilst a man burns half to death. You know a part of me was actually amazed I could hear anything over my own screams and the crackle of my skin igniting. But I heard him. Laughing as he took off to save his own skin. You saved my ass back in that raid. When the S.W.A.T. boots were stomping down doors and their bullets were tearing the lab apart. You kept me from being charcoal on a slab.” He blew out the dancing flame. “You know I’ll have your back.”
A proud smirk spread widely across Garland’s huge jaw. “I know you will. Okay, so the good news is Kershaw has provided me with a list of all the junkies dragging us down. The bad news is, it’s everyone ’cept you, me, Kershaw and Higgins.” Schecter shook his head sadly. “I propose a false flag operation. We drop in under the pretence of rescuing Wyndorf, and the four of us hold back as his tweaking sympathisers are weeded out by a better, more coherent enemy.”
“And Wyndorf?”
“His captors are good. This will be dangerous. But I believe that once the shit hits, they’ll be distracted enough for the four of us to sneak through and neutralise Wyndorf.”
“And if by some miracle these clowns come out on top?” Schecter stared down at the camp below, wondering how many of them were this instant smoking and snorting by torchlight?
“Then we mop up what’s left.”
“The major?”
“Him too. His old self would have been the first to lay down his life for his men. It’s what he would have wanted before he became this disappointment.”
Schecter stared unresponsively out across the dark interstate. His expression was that of a man about to make a very big leap. Even with his evident troubles, the major had been the figurehead of this outfit since the beginning, starting their whole movement with a handful of fellow ’Nam survivors left insulted and disgusted by the deceitful leaders of their beloved country. “Wyndorf can’t go quick. I want him to suffer for what he’s done. We need to carve him up like the tumor he is.”