by Schow, Ryan
She was still crying, so much so that she couldn’t produce an answer fast enough.
“AM I CLEAR?!”
He let go of her hair and shoved her face so hard, she fell off her chair and smacked the side of her head on the concrete floor. Her eyes rolled once, then twice, and then she came to. Painfully, she curled into a fetal ball, still crying. Hovering over her, it took every last ounce of restraint to not kick her in the face.
“Yes,” she said, the whisper/sob in her voice clogged with fear. This pleased him. He fed on fear. Consumed it. And now that he had the compliance he needed, he felt satiated. Serene. Not so psychotic. Did she forget it was only because of him that she was not being trafficked as a sex slave? That she was to be a billionaire’s child, not some maltreated creature to be turned out by strangers and perverts?
He saved her the same way he saved Arabelle. If only Janice Millworth was half the woman Arabelle had been, she might survive and thrive.
“Good,” he said, quieter, stepping back. Of course, she could not know these things. But she would. In due time, he would spell out exactly what he’d done for her. “Now sit up and stop crying. You’re making this headache of mine so much worse.”
Still sniffling, she crawled like a beaten dog back onto the chair. Holland opened the inside of her robe, showed her how one of the robe’s buttons was not a button but a recording device.
“I recorded your time with Brayden and Netty so you can listen to the back story of your new life over and over again until it’s more real to you than that shitty life you used to live. What you hear, these things your new friends have told you, these truths will now be your life.”
“What about my parents?” Janice all but whispered, her face still glistening. “My real ones?”
Are you kidding me?! he thought.
Did she think lowering the volume on such an inexcusable question would somehow grant her lenience? Had she not heard the very last thing he said?
Holland slapped her so hard a rope of fresh snot sprung far enough out of her nose to drape itself around her cheek. Her hand came to her face and she started to cry again, but quietly to herself, almost as if she were embarrassed.
“Mention them again, and I will drive to that dump you grew up in, barricade the front door of your parents’ trailer and set them on fire. Your real parents will scream and beg me for mercy, they’ll pound on the doors and windows until their hands bleed. But I’ll show them no mercy. I will simply stand there, watching them suck in giant clouds of oily smoke while they’re barbequed to death, and I will think only of you and what a stupid girl you are. Is that what you want?”
She shook her head.
“No, I don’t suppose you do,” he said, his voice softer. “So who are you?”
“My name is Abigail Swann,” she said, “but everyone calls me Abby.”
“There now,” he smiled. “Look at how easy that was.”
2
The other Abby, the real one, was still floating in a canister in back and not being responsive. Normally he would reach out to Monarch for help, but in light of Abby’s and Arabelle’s assassination by an agent of theirs, Holland had no choice but to venture outside the known grid.
The way he felt like he wanted to kill every living thing at the Richmond branch of Monarch Enterprises and then set the place on fire, the old version of him was back. The spirit of Josef Mengele was ferocious and vindictive. He was reckless, yet brilliant. No one would ever call him the Angel of Death again, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t wage a bloody war with his new enemies. Something in him shifted. A new part of him emerging. He had to learn to control the mania this time around lest he lose control and end up in jail. Or worse. This was not 1942 anymore. There was no Furor to save him. No Adolf Hitler in the wings sanctioning his lecherous misdeeds.
What he needed was someone else to fix Abby. The real Abby. He couldn’t concentrate with so much going on, not when all he wanted to do was give himself over to the madness. And certainly not with the babies at home bawling up a storm and Alice…being Alice. Plus, this Janice Millworth slag—this Abigail Swann charlatan—her defiance this afternoon presented a very real problem. So much so that even then, in that minute, he was thinking it would be easier to put an end to her and deal with the consequences later.
That was a murder he could take his time with. A murder he could get away with. After all, three hundred thousand children per year go missing, and no one would miss this one, let alone look for her here. His heart began to race.
Oh, he could do it.
He could.
Before he surrendered to the impulse, he sat down in his office and poured himself a shot of Zyr, a winter wheat and rye Vodka he recently discovered. He took the drink in a slow swallow, then sighed. Forget the whiskey, he told himself. Forget bourbon. The thing he loved most about Zyr was its short, clean finish.
Already he was feeling better.
The earthy nuances, they stayed with him long after the smooth burn was gone. He poured another and another until the alcohol dulled away his irrational mind and he could breathe right again.
“Time to solve some problems,” he said aloud.
Holland made several calls to colleagues from his past, then ended up with a referral to a man at the Blacksburg, Virginia branch of Monarch Enterprises, which resided just two miles south of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.
Virginia Tech, for short.
Blacksburg’s Monarch Enterprises was one of the first Monarch locations, and the installation responsible for creating Seung-Hui Cho, the infamous Virginia Tech shooter who murdered thirty-two people and injured more than a dozen others in the Virginia-Tech Massacre in April of 2007.
When the phone line to the Blacksburg branch rang through, and a man answered, he said, “My name is Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard and I was referred to Dr. Frederick Delgado from a trusted colleague of mine in the New York office.”
“What is this regarding, Dr. Gerhard?” the man said in a flat, monotone voice. Another slave turned employee, Gerhard presumed.
“I have a patient who has, well, some unusual circumstances I have yet to understand. I’m told Dr. Delgado is the foremost expert in TBI.”
Traumatic brain injury.
“He is, but Dr. Delgado is no longer with us.”
“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?” Holland asked, irritated. He reached for the Zyr again, poured another drink. The man on the other end of the phone kept silent. Holland nursed the Vodka, then—in response to the silence—he said, “Why did he leave? Has he retired?”
“I’m sure you heard about the Virginia Tech massacre in oh seven.”
“Who hasn’t?”
“Yes, well Cho was Dr. Delgado’s responsibility. The intended target was never even shot. All those people died for nothing.”
“Who was the target?”
“A Senator’s daughter. Cho never even got close to her. He just went on a senseless killing spree. And then he got caught. Dr. Delgado was held personally responsible by the powers-that-be. Then, after the second killing on campus in December of 2011, Delgado was forced to retire.”
“The second killing?” he said.
“One of our assets, a student at Radford University, just south-east of here, he was on Virginia Tech’s campus and was pulled over for a routine stop by campus police when he open fired and killed the cop. He then drove to a nearby parking lot and killed himself. Our asset’s system was unstable, yet Dr. Delgado insisted otherwise.”
“Missions go sour all the time,” Holland said, thinking about the botched hit on Abby and her family, how the innocents at her old home were brutally murdered. Then he thought of Arabelle and how she was nothing more than collateral damage to the real target: Abby Swann/Savannah Van Duyn.
If ever there was a disgraceful kill, it was that one.
“Why are you being so forthcoming?” Holland asked the man.
“I know exactly who you ar
e,” he replied after a moment, his knowing voice reverent.
“Then you know even my science isn’t perfect.”
“I’m not sure about that,” he said. “Still, it’s not good business when your assets fail you, Dr. Gerhard. Our benefactors, they weren’t happy. Dr. Delgado is fortunate to still be alive.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dulce.”
Holland sucked in an involuntary breath. Oh, God, he thought. This is bad news. Really bad news. “You’re talking about Dulce AFB in New Mexico, right?”
“Is there another?”
For a second, his brain petered out. He couldn’t think straight. Dulce, really? He swallowed the lump in his throat, felt just how dry his esophagus had become.
“How was his mind when he left?” Holland asked, trying to remain calm despite the sweat now dampening his neck, upper back and underarms. “Has he cracked? Or was it just his assets?”
“Our benefactors had him running field ops. The man’s a genius in the field of mind science and matters of the brain, yet they had him in the field. It was stupid. But that was my predecessor’s decision and he’s…well, he’s no longer with us either.”
“Thrown from the freedom train?” Holland said.
Suicided.
The man gave a half laugh that sounded like a “hmmph” over the phone.
“Something like that.”
Maybe this man wasn’t one of them: a human robot, a slave. “Do you have a contact number for Dr. Delgado?”
“I’ll text it to you, but don’t be surprised if he doesn’t return your calls,” he said. “Dulce has a way of turning you inside out.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“When I last spoke with him, and this was a number of years ago, I asked if all the rumors about that place were true, especially Nightmare Hall, and he said they were worse than true. He said, ‘Try to imagine all the things you can’t imagine, then make them ten times worse, and that’s Dulce.’ He said it like he was telling a joke, but he wasn’t.”
“I’m not sure I follow,” Holland said.
Was the vodka finally dulling his intellect? He capped the bottle, slid it across his desk, out of reach. The minute he couldn’t reach it, he wanted another drink.
“I think that place, Dulce I mean, I think it’s kind of—”
“Spit it out,” Holland said.
“I think he’s taken the train to coo-coo town.”
That’s great, Holland thought. More shitty news. If only half the rumors about the underground base were true, and it sounded like they were, he knew as surely as he wanted to take his next breath that he should steer clear not only of Dulce, but of New Mexico entirely. One could never be too safe when it came to Dulce.
“So did you say you were going to text me his number?” Holland asked.
“Yeah, sure. Give me a minute.”
And then the line was dead. He looked at the phone, raised his eyebrows in disbelief, then hung up. A few minutes later, the text arrived. It contained Delgado’s name and a number.
For a long time he fought the urge to erase the number, but then he realized as disjointed as this situation was with the real Abby, he needed a fix and Delgado was the most qualified person to provide that.
He held his breath, stilled his nerves, then made the call.
3
The call went straight to voice mail. Holland left a message, then hung up and reached for the vodka. He wasn’t even done pouring when the phone rang back.
The caller ID showed Delgado’s number.
Holland felt his colon clench, then release. Willing himself to action, he grabbed the phone and prayed this wouldn’t put him on the radar with Dulce. He hoped this was Delgado’s private number.
“Hello?” Holland said.
“This is Dr. Frederick Delgado, returning your call.”
“Yes, thank you.”
“Is this really Dr. Wolfgang Gerhard?” he asked.
“Yes, why?”
“A.k.a. Josef Mengele?” There was barely contained excitement in his voice.
“Your line is secure, I take it?” Holland said.
“It is.”
“Then yes. Although, technically I’m in the process of changing my name again.”
“Amazing,” he said, breathy with excitement. “I love your work. I’ve studied it for decades. Not all that sadistic shit you did, mind you. The breakthroughs you made in behavior modification.”
He cleared his throat and said, “Thank you. So how is life at Dulce these days?”
“Same as ever.”
“How do you stand it? I mean, the rumors coming out of there—”
“Are true,” he said, finishing Holland’s sentence. “You envision yourself as a six foot bubble and that’s where you hold your focus. That’s how I cope.”
“You’ve been there, what, three years now?”
“More or less.”
“I have a problem with a patient,” Holland said, getting to the point. “I’ve upgraded her genetics several times, but recently she was shot in the head twice and once in the heart. She died, but I was able to resuscitate her. Her injuries have healed, but she seems to be…well, she’s currently in a coma. They tell me you’re the best when it comes to traumatic brain injury, and so I was wondering if you might be willing to have a look at her, and perhaps allow me to lean on your expertise for answers.”
“Why keep her alive? What is she to you?”
“A friend’s daughter.”
What a great question, Holland thought. For so long, Savannah Van Duyn/Abigail Swann was a pestilence, the worst annoyance ever. Then things inside him shifted. The way he saw her, how she was tenacious, how she could be ruthless (he had a memory of her handing him a bitten-off pinkie finger that belonged to his first generation war model), determined (how she discovered Kaitlyn Whitaker was still alive when he had gone to great lengths to stage her murder) and downright unpredictable, he found himself feeling impressed.
She could kill just like he could kill: without hesitation.
She was more than a friend’s daughter, she was a formidable foe. No, she was something more. His next war model. If she could survive this, if he could make her right in the head again, he knew he could mold her into something more than human.
Talk about exhilarating!
“A friend’s daughter, huh?” Delgado said. Holland heard the cold reluctance in his voice. It was unmistakable. Then: “Well, you know, Dr. Mengele, there is no such thing as a free lunch.”
He hated that name. Mengele.
“What did you have in mind?” Holland said, biting back the overwhelming desire to correct the man. He swallowed the poured vodka, filled his glass again. By now the liquor was putting fuzz on the edges of his brain. He felt good. Well, better anyway.
“Bring her here and we’ll discuss it.”
“To Dulce?”
“Naturally,” Delgado said. Behind him in the background, Holland heard a child start to scream. Delgado either pretended not to notice or didn’t care.
The thing about Dulce was, this was an Air Force Base built into a mesa with six underground levels and huge catacombs even further below that. Giant tunneling machines built by NASA and the Air Force were used to connect Dulce to other installations all over New Mexico and the US via a huge network of underground tunnels. It was said entire highways were created underground, highways big enough for an eighteen wheeler to comfortably travel at speeds in excess of seventy miles an hour. Of course, other rumors were far more sinister. Things not even his acutely demented mind could fathom. He tried to clear his thoughts of that place. He tried really, really hard.
“We can’t meet somewhere else, perhaps?” Holland said. “Say…in Taos?”
“I don’t get much free time. Besides, doctor, are you really in a position to ask for another favor when you have yet to understand the cost of this one?”
“When?” he relented, trying not to sound glum. He felt spine
less next to Delgado, but that was only because what really spooked him was the long, dark history surrounding Dulce.
He reminded himself that he was not a coward. Once upon a time he was Josef Mengele. Josef goddamn Mengele!
“Tomorrow,” Holland said. “Where do you want to meet?”
“There’s a gas station. I’ll pick you up at two o’clock. From there we can head into the mesa.”
“Which gas station?” he said.
Delgado laughed, while at the same time the child in the background bellowed out another blood curdling scream. The memory of his subjects screaming in pain both warmed and haunted him. It was an odd feeling emanating inside him, how he fought to think of himself more as Dr. Holland than either Mengele or Gerhard. The child wailing in the background, however, made him think Mengele thoughts. After all, how many times had he performed surgeries on the children of Auschwitz without anesthesia?
Hundreds of times, of course.
Thousands.
“There is only one gas station in town, Dr. Mengele. It’s off Commercial Street, which runs parallel to Highway 64, just before Foothill. It’s this hideous blue and yellow structure that will make you feel like you’ve gone back in time. Hell, the whole town’s like something out of the seventies. A goddamn dump, if you ask me.”
In the background, the child wouldn’t stop crying, and honestly, the way it sounded more like a baby, it was making Holland physically sick. Suddenly he felt like he’d had his fill of screaming kids for the next two lifetimes.
“Tomorrow,” he said, then hung up without saying thank you or waiting for a reply.
When he thought about the progression of some of his names—Josef Mengele, a.k.a. Dr. Green (in his CIA years), a.k.a. Wolfgang Gerhard, a.k.a. Dr. Holland, he thought, what kind of a name should precede Holland?
He had given the task of choosing a name to Arabelle, but what had she come up with? Right before she died, as she lay there with her lungs full of blood, and drowning, was it his old name or his new name on her mind?