I came to seconds or maybe minutes later as a pulsating thrum pummeled the air – the sound of every neighbor within a hundred miles starting up their rider lawnmowers. Except Markus didn't have any nearby neighbors. I opened my eyes. One of the security men lay facing me with blank eyes and a surprised expression. I pushed to one elbow and cranked myself around. The other dude was down and out as well, though his face wasn't turned toward me. I eased myself ever so slowly to my knees. A little lightheaded, but I seemed okay. But then that's what I thought about Ethan Ellenberg.
A post-adrenaline tremor shuddered through my body. Not only had I never killed a man with my bare hands before, I'd never even fought an unarmed no-holds-barred fight. Thousands of grappling and Muay Thai sessions, a few minor scuffles with fellow Marines and one loudmouthed asshole in a local bar – taking down an unruly insurgent or two – that was about it. If there was a standard martial arts move for tripping someone who was running beside you and driving his head into the ground, I wasn't aware of it. Pure gut instinct. And now two men – possibly undeserving – lay severely injured or dead.
But this wasn't a time to wax contemplative. I needed to get the hell out of here before the black-booted cavalry showed.
That thought had barely formed when a black and gold UH-60 helicopter boomed over Markus' home, low enough that I could make out the dark-visored soldiers sitting in the bay and the gold-trimmed Department of Homeland Security logo.
Too late.
Another copter flew in higher up. AH-64. They deployed an Apache in a civilian operation? Attack helicopters to raid the house of a former university professor? What the fuck?
The Blackhawk descended beyond the pool, disgorging seven or eight men wearing full raid regalia: dark visors, M4 assault rifles, Glock 19s. Two of them even wore flash grenades on their tool belts. I raised my arms very slowly. A second later I was thrown back to the cement. Knees smacked into my back hard enough to make my spine crack – a service my chiropractor charged $125 to perform. They torqued my arms behind my back and ratcheted handcuffs roughly in place. The sun-drenched cement started to cook my face as I was patted down.
I heard the rumble of approaching vehicles and wheezing brakes, and the front gate burst open, admitting a new phalanx of storm troopers. They spread over the pool area and into the house like black ants bum-rushing a picnic. "Clear! Clear! Clear!" they shouted. SWAT Scientologists on a rampage.
I was yanked to my feet and dragged out the front gate into a DHS van and cinched us to a rubber-covered bench with a heavy seatbelt that was locked with a key. A guard behind a slatted metal grate had his M4 at ready. The rear doors slammed shut and two deadbolts thunked into place. I lurched sideways as the van accelerated.
I sat waiting for this Kafkaesque nightmare to vanish, and I'd wake up with Lilith presenting a plate of mouthwatering finger sandwiches, clothed in a skimpy bikini. Instead, I was stuck with a brawny, sunglass-wearing guard.
I took stock of myself. I probably had a minor concussion, but aside from a few scrapes from the poolside cement and bruised wrists from the handcuffs, I was in one piece. Shaken but not stirred. I turned to face the lone guard.
"Can you tell us where you're taking me?"
The man regarded me impassively behind his dark sunglasses. "You'll find out soon enough."
"Can you tell us why I was arrested?"
"You'll find out soon enough."
"Can you tell me the meaning of life?"
The man gave me the faintest of smiles. "Not sure when you'll find that out."
I leaned back, breathing deeply to clear my head, struggling to find a semi-comfortable spot on the steel wall behind me. I didn't know what my captors knew, though the raid offered some strong hints. I doubted anything I'd done had violated any law – with the possible exception of "impersonating a soldier" – but this wasn't about violating laws. This was about seeing things you weren't supposed to see and reporting them – an act which could earn you a NDAA-certified "enemy journalist" award. One baby step removed from "enemy combatant."
I tried to relax. Not so easy given the hard steel wall at my back or my hands chained behind my back. Vibrations rumbling through my body and engine sounds suggested we were moving at a highway clip. Either we were on a highway or they were violating the hell out of the speed limit. Not that these people worried about such trivial things as laws.
SOLITARY CONFINEMENT is a total drag. I'd read about it, how it tore you down mentally – how it qualified as a form of torture – but until you experience a six by six by eight foot cell, you just don't get it. Three short strides took me from one end to the other, and I had to track a narrow path between the bed, toilet, and the wall. A single light glowed from behind a thick, convex glass recessed in the cement block ceiling. A thin space under the door admitted a shard of light from the hallway. A narrow slat in the door at waist level was covered on the outside by a steel plate. So was an eyelevel square opening blocked by steel bars.
Time passed, I supposed, though without any clock or outside light, that was hypothetical. I paced and rested on a bed so poorly cushioned that a Buddhist monk would've complained. A single blanket as coarse as 60 grit sandpaper rested on the bed. I knew because I'd used that precise grade stripping paint from my porch. The mattress had no springs, and its frame, as with the sink and toilet, was bolted to the cement. Not a lot of potential weapons or things to mess with in here. At least there was running water, so in case they forgot about me like that poor California student the DEA left without food and water for five days, I'd have something to drink.
I began to think they had forgot about me as the hours – I guessed they were hours – slunk by. But then the clinking of a lock sounded like a brass band in the former silence, and the waist level slat swung open. A food tray slid in on the narrow ledge below the slat.
"Hello?" I hastened to the door. "Any chance to speak to someone? Call my lawyer?"
The slat closed. The lock clicked back into place. On the serving tray was something that resembled meat loaf. Or a loaf of some kind. I broke off a piece. It had the texture of uncooked batter more than either bread or meat loaf. It smelled vaguely of shoe leather and raw meat. I recognized beans and carrots and miscellaneous vegetable matter. I bit off a piece with low expectations. It failed those expectations.
"Jeez..." I just barely resisted spitting it out. It had the consistency of raw batter and the taste of mulched cardboard. This shit had to be a violation of the Geneva Convention. Forget arguments that prolonged solitary confinement amounted to torture. There was no way this food could be Constitutional.
I left the food where it sat, thankful that I'd been cramming my gut with Lilith's infinitely superior cuisine most of the morning. I wouldn't need to eat for a day or two.
As I resumed pacing I had a sudden, acute empathy with jungle cats in a zoo, accompanied by images of their spasmodic, mechanical about-faces as they paced restlessly within their cages. Now I was feeling rather mechanical and spasmodic myself. One, two...two and a half...steps, then about-face and repeat. I had to toughen up, make my mind go elsewhere – a sunny beach or a blue bird-infested nature trail – or I could be in for some hard times.
It was obvious that my captors were trying to soften me up. Condition me to accepting their authority and their dominance. The message was submit and cooperate. This was just a taste of what happens when you don't. I'd been through SERE and rigorous training that in some ways were even worse, so I had more knowledge than your Average Joe about being physically abused. But there was a big difference between extreme discomfort where you knew you'd see the light of day and could stop it all with two words – "I quit" – and real, fucking torture, where there was no quitting and no reprieves in sight.
Well, not exactly true. You could "quit" in the sense that you could completely capitulate to your captors – bow and scrape and perform variations of "yassa master." You could commit suicide. But short of that, there were no guarantees. The
y could still put you through the torture wringer just for the hell of it.
It was hard to get a feel for exactly what I was up against, aside from the obvious truth that these people were seriously hardass (or thought they were). No real communication yet, and no interaction aside from being dragged around and the initial blood-drawing and DNA sampling session by a stern-faced nurse who refused to answer any of my questions. I wasn't sure if taking blood and DNA were standard procedure for detention camps or prisons. My guess was that they were more about establishing our identities than disease prevention or concerns for our health.
While was pondering my new digs I was still trying to make sense of the two security dudes and Lilith and Professor Killian's behavior. Lilith and Markus didn't seem to know for sure but they clearly suspected the possibility that those two men represented a lethal threat to moi. The implications weren't clear. Did they have personal knowledge or experience with these security people? One clear implication, something that had building for some time in my head, was that Markus worked with an organization intent on investigating certain government projects and was deadly serious about its security. The organization apparently had a formal, quasi-military structure ("We have our directives"). These weren't just a bunch of conspiracy buffs and disaffected scientists.
A sudden flash of dread rippled through the dull ache in my head. Hold on a second here. What organization would want to unearth the deepest secrets of the U.S. Government? How about a hostile government, for one? I could easily imagine the Russians or Chinese being intensely curious about all the apparent anomalies going on in the U.S. They'd love to know about secret technology or inside information about an upcoming catastrophe. Still, I couldn't believe that Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service would be interested in hiring someone like me. Also, Russia and China already knew about their soldiers training alongside ours now, and geoengineering, if real, would almost have to be an international undertaking. They and other first-tier governments probably had a pretty good idea if UFOs were real and that some of the mass shootings were theater. I doubted the existence of secret underground bases and detention centers would come as much news to Vladimir Putin.
So Markus Killian's "network" operated outside the innermost government-corporate circles of power. My best guess was that his organization consisted of a loose confederation of disillusioned and concerned professionals – scientists, technicians, government employees – joined by a pact which apparently had some teeth, and run by someone who apparently could bite. Maybe it was the stepchild of some rich dude and was being managed like some conspiracy-minded Cosa Nostra?
Why had the organization chosen to off me (assuming that was true)? They must believe I had some knowledge that could hurt their cause. But I didn't know anything about them. Something to do with the downed mystery craft then? They thought I'd seen something that should be kept out of out of government hands? If so, I had no idea what it was.
A lot more pacing and head-scratching followed. At some point it occurred to me that the room light might would not be turning off. Standard psychological warfare: blur the subject's sense of time, break up his routines, and interfere with sleep. If they really wanted to mess with me they'd channel in loud, constant music of the uneasy listening variety. They were likely leaving themselves some room to ratchet up the unpleasantness as needed. This was just foreplay.
I finally flopped on my "bed," which definitely deserved quote marks. The padding was roughly equivalent to an exercise mat. I wondered how Lilith and Markus were holding up on the run or hiding out somewhere. I envisioned the professor being his usual unflappable self, but Lilith – I wasn't sure. Was she the spoiled, self-entitled rich girl or the tigress who'd leaped onto that dude's back with a banshee scream?
I was leaning toward tigress.
A DAY or two passed. My only measurement was my "inner clock" – annoyingly imprecise – and the arrival of food three times a day. But I wasn't sure the food was arriving at regular intervals. I had the sense that the time between meals either contracted or expanded on a random basis. As if I needed more things messing with my head than the meatloaf from hell, never-ending light, and a bed that could cause permanent nerve damage.
I started to wonder, as was no doubt intended, how long I'd be in here. I couldn't help thinking of people who'd spent months, even years, in solitary confinement. I didn't even want to imagine what that would be like. But I didn't believe that was my fate here. They didn't drag me here to put me on ice. I was here because they wanted answers.
I tried to vary my routine by sprinting – well, more jumping – back and forth across the cell. I did pushups and situps and stood on my hands with my feet braced on the wall, simulating overhead presses. I shadow boxed without shadows. I multiplied and added numbers in my head. I amused myself with fantasies involving Sonja, Janine, and Lilith – sometimes all together! – but was afraid to consummate due to the cameras that were doubtless watching me.
But even in solitary confinement, time waits for no man, and at some point, three or four days in, my cell door opened and four blue-uniformed men armed with tasers bid me to accompany them.
They escorted me down a long hallway populated by cells identical to mine, except unoccupied, through a heavy steel door and finally into a large room where a man in green fatigues and a woman in civilian dress sat sipping coffee and leafing through reports. I was ushered in alone. The man motioned to a chair facing them across a steel table. I sat.
I didn't recognize the man sitting across from me, but the woman seemed familiar. I couldn't help staring at her until my memories clarified: the woman colonel talking to the two men in the cutout section of the downed craft.
"Is he the one?" the man asked.
"Yes. He's the one."
"You have no doubt?"
"None."
The man nodded. He spread out some of the papers before him.
"Hayden Hunter aka Scott Harrow." He lifted his gaze to meet mine, his expression coolly neutral. "You've been a busy man of late, Mr. Hunter."
I returned his gaze with what I hoped was the same cool neutrality.
The man shuffled through more of the papers.
"Former United States Marine Corporal. Served in Afghanistan and Iraq. Received Commendation Medal and Silver Star. Presently self-employed as 'software consultant'. Owner of The Truth Hunter website." He paused to offer me a slim smile, as though to say "look how far you've fallen." "Currently employed by former University of Colorado professor, Markus Killian."
I wasn't surprised that they'd connected most if not all the dots. His "you've been busy" implied that they knew something about my recent activities, but I wouldn't assume that.
"May I ask who you are?"
"I'm Colonel Jack Collins, commanding officer of this facility."
"What facility is that?"
"Colorado Resettlement Facility 3451-A." The Colonel's smile was bone dry. "Better known locally as the Denver Special Waste Processing Plant."
"I'm not sure I like the implication."
Colonel Collins shrugged. The woman colonel appeared unamused by the banter, her dark blue eyes measuring me in a way that suggested the dimensions of a coffin might be involved.
"Did you take photos of the object?" she asked.
"What object?"
Colonel Collins shuffled my dossier together while directing a small shake of his head to his female compatriot.
"Mr. Hunter," he said. "May I call you Hayden?"
"Hayden's fine."
"Hayden, with all due respect to your military background – you clearly served your country in admirable fashion, which I personally appreciate – I need to tell you that you are in deep shit."
That caused me to sit up straighter. The colonel placed his hands on my folder.
"We know about your travels and your assignments," he said. "Perhaps not all the details, but we know enough. I have reason to believe you're what you seem to be: an ordinary civilian tryi
ng to uncover truths. But we need to make sure that is in fact what you are."
"What else would I be?"
"An enemy agent."
"A foreign spy?" The colonel didn't move or blink as I leaned toward him. "Why would you even think that's a possibility?"
Colonel Collins raised the corners of his hands and let them drop. "Why wouldn't I consider it to be a possibility? Perhaps because you've been doing what foreign intelligence agents do. You penetrated the Denver Airport, Skunk Works in Palmdale, and a military base, obtaining classified information from there and from other sources. You questioned an executive who ended up dead shortly afterward. We know you attempted to investigate the church shooting in St. Paul." He paused, his eyes drilling into mine. "And we know you rented a helicopter in Aspen, Colorado which dropped you in the nearby mountains."
I felt my face burning, and had to remind myself to breathe – steady, calming breaths. I wasn't surprised – this was the "spy on everyone and everything 24/7" state, after all – but to hear it spelled out made my stomach knot up even more than that damned faux meatloaf they'd been feeding me.
"What I'm not sure about," the Colonel continued, "is who you and your employers are. I'd like your help with that. What you choose to do from this point on, Hayden, will decide whether you're going to be with us for a good long time – or whether you walk out of here a free man."
Since they already knew everything I didn't want them to know, I couldn't see much point in not cooperating. Certainly not to protect the people who'd probably just tried to kill me.
"What do you want to know?"
Colonel Collins nodded as though approving. "Did you take photos of the craft?"
Operation Indigo Sky Page 30