by Chris Carter
The Werewolf ran a hand over his mouth, a gesture that seemed a little anxious; as if the ex-soldier was deliberating whether he should elaborate on what he’d just said, or simply let it go.
‘Fuck it,’ he finally said, throwing his hands up in an apathetic way. ‘Would you like to know the truth, Detective . . . the real truth?’
‘Yes.’
‘OK. I hope you’re sitting comfortably.’ He laughed at his own joke.
Eighty-Nine
Looking calm and completely unperturbed, the Werewolf leaned against the control desk and folded his arms over his chest.
‘Our unit was handpicked,’ he began. ‘But I don’t mean handpicked from existing soldiers, or Marine recruits, or Army cadets, or Navy Seals, or anyone else already involved with any of our military forces. I’m talking handpicked from the lost.’
Hunter frowned. ‘The lost?’
‘That’s what we all were,’ the ex-soldier replied. ‘Lost and very, very angry. We all had nothing to lose and a score to settle with the world.’
Hunter still looked unsure.
‘I was recruited at the age of fourteen,’ the Werewolf revealed. ‘From juvie.’ He laughed. ‘I bet you didn’t know that our military did that, did you?’
Hunter shook his head. ‘I wasn’t aware of that. No.’
‘My mother struggled with drug and alcohol addiction for as long as I can remember.’ Anger and sadness collided inside the Werewolf’s eyes. ‘So, to support her addiction, not her family – and by “her family” I mean me – she turned to prostitution. Most of her clients came to the shoebox of an apartment we lived in in Edison. That’s in Fresno, where I’m from. Anyway, I hated being home. I hated seeing all those men coming and going. I hated seeing their smiling faces. I hated hearing the noises that came out of my mother’s bedroom, I hated everything about that life . . . about that place, so I spent most of my time and did most of my growing up in the streets, in one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Fresno, and let me tell you, Detective, I was one angry kid.’ He paused and ran his hand over his mouth once again. ‘My first encounter with the police came at the age of twelve.’ He shrugged again. ‘Well, eleven and a half, but who really cares, right? I was picked up for shoplifting. From then on, I was in and out of juvenile halls as if they were candy stores.’
‘How about your father?’ Hunter ventured.
‘Never met him. Never knew who he was. I don’t think even my mother knew for certain.’ Those words were delivered bluntly, with zero emotion.
‘Brothers?’ Hunter asked. ‘Sisters?’
‘Nope.’ The Werewolf pointed at himself. ‘One humongous mistake was enough for my stupid mother.’
Hunter tried to readjust his position, but with his arms tied behind the chair’s backrest and his ankles to the chair’s legs, his range of motion was very limited.
‘At the age of fourteen,’ the Werewolf continued, ‘while serving a short stint in juvie again, I got a visit from someone who I’d never seen before.’ He chuckled. ‘He called himself Atlas. That was it. No last name. Big, muscly guy with an ugly moustache and crude black eyes that could see into your soul. First thing he told me was that he had met hundreds of kids like me – angry kids, pissed off at life, abandoned by those who should’ve loved them the most. Kids full of life but with no life to fill. Kids either with no family, or a family that didn’t want them. Kids who always ended up in juvenile halls. He told me that nine out of ten of those kids would inevitably grow up to be hardcore criminals and that by the age of twenty-five, they would either be in prison for life, or six feet underground.’
Hunter knew that to be very true.
‘He then asked me if I wanted to become another statistic, or if I wanted to do something about my shitty life – something that would help others and save lives . . ., something that would transform me from a nobody into a somebody . . . something that would give me a family, the family that I always wanted, but never had.’
Hunter picked up on a new tone in the Werewolf’s voice. Something like pride.
‘Well,’ the Werewolf carried on. ‘Atlas was a good speaker. A very convincing one. He knew how to press all the right buttons. He knew how to make a fourteen-year-old kid who was slowly digging his own grave feel like he wasn’t just another reject. That day, it was the first day in my life that I felt like I mattered . . . I felt like I wasn’t a mistake. So I fell for it. I bought Atlas’s bullshit speech and was sent to a special training camp the next day – the same day he got me out of juvie.’
Angry fire still burned in the Werewolf’s eyes, but it was a different sort of anger now – this time full of hurt.
‘The problem with me was,’ he clarified, ‘I threw myself into that crazy training because I liked what they were teaching me.’ He paused and lifted an apologetic hand. ‘No, that’s not right. I loved what they were teaching me – how to hurt people . . . how to kill people. I loved the way it made me feel. I loved the power that it gave me.’ He paused again, this time for effect. ‘We were also trained in counterespionage, computers, explosives, surveillance, interrogations . . . you name it. For almost five full years they worked us to the bone. Not a day’s rest. Seven days a week. Fifty-two weeks a year. Sixteen hours every day. They wouldn’t give anyone a break – ever – not even on Christmas. Five years later, I was a well-oiled and obedient killing machine. Then the missions started – Kuwait, Iran, Iraq, Somalia, Haiti . . . pretty much everywhere. We were even sent on kill missions to countries that we were not in conflict with. I bet you didn’t know that either, did you Detective?’
Hunter shook his head once again.
The Werewolf used his right hand to massage the back of his neck.
‘For years,’ he told Hunter, ‘none of us questioned any of our orders. We were trained not to. We were brainwashed from day one to believe that if we were sent into any country, any territory, it was to eliminate a very real threat to our national security. The funny thing was that right from the start, some of it just felt wrong. Why did we have to eliminate entire families? That just didn’t seem right, but we never asked why. “Why” wasn’t part of our vocabulary, until during one of our missions, I was practically ordered to rape a woman.’
For the first time since the Werewolf began telling Hunter his story, he broke eye contact with the detective.
‘That order, or, how can I put it? “Strong suggestion”, somehow broke through the shield I had created surrounding questioning orders. That was when I finally asked: “Why” . . .’
The Werewolf went quiet once again. It was obvious that the memory of that particular incident struck a nerve with the ex-soldier.
‘Did you get an answer?’ Hunter asked.
The Werewolf laughed. ‘Yeah. I was told that we needed to teach them a lesson. “They do it to us, we do it to them” kind of thing.’
Hunter’s brow furrowed almost unconsciously.
‘Yeah, I know,’ the Werewolf said, reading Hunter’s expression. ‘So my follow-up question was: “When did an Iranian soldier rape an American citizen?” For that I got no answer, except that I should not be questioning my commands.’
‘But you still refused to follow that command,’ Hunter said.
The Werewolf paused again and regarded the LAPD detective one more time. ‘You read the passage in the diary,’ he said with a bleak smile.
Hunter nodded once.
‘Yes,’ the Werewolf confirmed. ‘I refused.’ He paused for a second and his stare became distant. ‘Funny how childhood traumas work on your mind, isn’t it? I can murder people without even blinking. I can gut them, behead them, torture them in ways you probably never even heard of, I can hurt them to a hair away from death, but still keep them alive . . . but I will not rape anyone.’
Five silent seconds went by before the Werewolf managed to shake the memory away.
‘Anyway, some might say that that was when the problems began – with my refusal to comply – but other m
embers of our crew were already waking up to some of the things we were ordered to do during some of our missions. Things that just didn’t feel right. Things that just didn’t fit into the context of “something that would make a difference . . . something that would help others and save lives”.’ He lifted another excusing hand. ‘Don’t get me wrong, Detective. I know for a fact that we have saved our country and defended the safety of our citizens countless times, but I also know for a fact that some of our missions were a lie . . . and a big one. We weren’t acting in the interest of our country, or our national security. We were acting in the interest of individuals, or political parties, or enterprises, or whatever . . . It really didn’t make a difference, because at the top of that chain was the greatest of all American gods. The only god that matters to most – the god Money. But we had all been well trained –or should I say, well, lobotomized – because through so many of our missions, we simply failed to see the signs. And trust me, Detective, the signs were there. But hey, better late than never, right?’ He laughed.
Hunter stayed quiet, so the Werewolf carried on.
‘Pretty soon after we started having doubts about some of our individual orders, we began having doubts about entire missions, and that was the beginning of the end. Ten months later, our unit was terminated and dismembered. It didn’t matter that we had successfully executed over three hundred and fifty missions with only two casualties on our side. It didn’t matter that all of us were prepared to bleed for our country . . . to kill for our country . . . to give our lives for our country. None of that mattered because the well-oiled and obedient killing machines didn’t seem to be that well-oiled anymore, and our obedience was starting to show some cracks. The effect of our unit being terminated was devastating to all of us. Not because we loved what we did so much, but because we were a clandestine outfit. Mission Impossible, remember?’
Hunter could already guess what was coming next.
Ninety
The Werewolf looked away for a second, his eyes unfocused.
‘So,’ he said, bringing his attention back to Hunter. ‘With the end of our unit, we returned to American soil to find ourselves in the same position we were in when we were recruited at the age of fourteen – discarded, rejected, abandoned, betrayed – this time, by the family that we were all promised on that first day.’
Hunter heard real pain in the ex-soldier’s voice.
‘Once you’re off the frontline, strange things start happening to you . . . to your mind.’
The Werewolf used his right index finger to tap the right side of his cranium, but he did it so hard it looked like he was stabbing his own head.
‘Throughout our missions, we did and saw things that no one on this earth is really prepared for, and let me tell you, Detective . . . those images, those smells, those sounds, those textures, all of it . . . they all have a very special way of fucking with your head, a special way of scarring your mind, your soul.’
The Werewolf paused for breath before continuing.
‘Within months of us being back in the land of the free, those mental scars began showing, and they were much, much deeper than what anyone would’ve anticipated. All of us . . . we were all broken. We just didn’t know we were broken.’
Hunter could hardly imagine what years of being in the frontline with an assassination squad could do to the human mind.
‘Very soon,’ the Werewolf said, ‘all of our lives began fracturing, together with the state of our mental health. We all began showing symptoms of PTSD. Out of the blue, my memory began deteriorating, mainly my short to mid-term memory – the past five to seven years.’ He used his index finger to tap his head once again, not so hard this time. ‘I forget things . . . important things. I also forget people . . . and faces, but it’s not a coherent loss of memory. For example, I can remember certain things from . . . let’s say three years ago, but other things, from the exact same period, have been completely erased. But when compared to the rest of my squad, I had it easy.’
Hunter’s question was asked with a simple tilt of the head.
‘Josh developed psychotic depression and severe anxiety,’ the Werewolf explained. ‘Milo developed chronic depression and some sort of panic disorder. Stu also developed acute depression and paranoia. Darren – bipolar one. You know what that is, right.’
Hunter nodded.
‘The others I can’t remember.’ The ex-soldier shook his head in anger. ‘I mean, I can’t remember who they are. I can’t remember their faces. I can’t remember anything about them.’ He took a second to compose himself. ‘We didn’t ask for much, you know? All we wanted was for our government – our military – to take care of their own . . . like they should. After everything we did for this country . . . after putting our lives on the line time and time again, all we wanted was not to be abandoned, but we were a ghost outfit. Our unit never really existed, remember? We, as individuals, never really existed.’
The Werewolf exhaled angrily.
‘So we got back to the country that we were prepared to die for and we had nothing: no job . . . no money . . . no health insurance . . . no help . . . no assistance . . . nothing.’ He began pacing the space in front of Hunter’s chair. ‘Like I’ve said, Detective, we were all broken . . . our minds scarred and fractured from inflicting and seeing so much death, so much hurt, so much pain. We were all ticking bombs just waiting to go off. They knew it. Our government knew it, but they did not give a rat’s ass about any of us. It was cheaper and easier for them to just let us implode.’
Anger was now clear in the Werewolf’s movements as well – clenched fists, lip biting, face rubbing.
‘All we wanted was some help in dealing with the fucking demons in here.’ He once again stabbed his head with his index finger. ‘And there are hundreds of them. And they keep on coming at you every second of every day . . . non-stop.’
‘No one from the military you could’ve talked to?’ Hunter asked. ‘How about the Atlas guy?’
The Werewolf laughed. ‘None of us had seen him in years. We don’t even know if he’s still alive or not. We never got to know his real name either.’
‘Isn’t there anyone else?’
‘Nope. And believe me, Detective, we’ve tried. Mission Impossible, remember? Officially, we were never even part of the armed forces. There are no records of us.’ The Werewolf shrugged. ‘With no help from our government and no money to help ourselves, we began cracking.’
He paused and swallowed dry.
‘Josh and Milo blew their own heads off. Stu lost his marriage because of his mental-health deterioration. He couldn’t get a job. He couldn’t afford to feed his family. How degrading and humiliating is that, Detective? Not being able to feed your own family.’
Hunter didn’t voice a reply, but his expression gave away how he felt.
‘A week after his wife left him, Stu hanged himself.’
It was Hunter’s turn to breathe out heavily.
‘I also came this close to ending my life a few times.’ The ex-soldier used his thumb and forefinger to show Hunter a gap no larger than a strand of hair. ‘The day that I came the closest, I was interrupted by a knock on my door. It was Darren. I know that he saw the anguish . . . the hopelessness inside my eyes. That was when he suggested the Dark Web. At first, I thought that he was joking. Then he showed me a couple of sites on there where you could purchase photographs and videos of people dying. Some due to disease, some during war, some in their hospital beds, some filmed or photographed by chance like being run over by a car, or a train, or falling off a cliff, or whatever. You know what I mean, right?’
Hunter had never seen any of those sites, but in today’s world, he wasn’t surprised that they existed.
The Werewolf chuckled. ‘People out there are paying money to see other people die and they’re paying good money. How fucked up is that, Detective? I admit, I was shocked, and that was when Darren looked at me and said, “What if we tailor-made deaths?”’
Right then, Hunter felt as if an arctic blast had blown into the back of his neck and run down his spine. ‘WE’. ‘What if we tailor-made deaths?’ The Werewolf wasn’t acting alone. There was someone else with him – Darren.
‘And he was serious about it,’ the Werewolf continued. ‘Very serious.’ He lifted both hands in an ‘I give up’ gesture. ‘At first I thought that that was total madness. “I can’t go around killing American citizens for money,” I told Darren. I had sworn to protect them, not terminate them. I was trained to give my life for them, not take theirs away. But Darren’s answer to my argument was a very compelling one. He told me that so was he and everyone else in our squad. And that that was exactly what we did . . . for years. Like I told you, Detective – over three hundred and fifty successful missions. Darren kept on telling me a lot of stuff, which I can’t remember anymore, but he insisted that we had done our part. We had done what we were trained to do. We protected this country and we protected its citizens, and he was right, Detective. The number of lives we’ve saved is incalculable. There are thousands upon thousands of American citizens sleeping in their beds tonight, making love to their partners, kissing their kids, laughing with their friends and loved ones . . . basically living their lives without even knowing that the reason why they are able to do all of those things is because we did our job, and we did it well. And just look at what doing our jobs and doing it well has got us, Detective. Look at what saving all those lives has brought us – Josh and Milo and Stu . . . dead. Not killed by our enemies, but by their own hands because they couldn’t handle it anymore.’ The Werewolf yelled those last few words. ‘You didn’t know him, Detective, but Stu was the sort of person who wasn’t afraid of anyone, or anything. He would’ve gone head to head with a rhino and probably kicked its ass. We’re talking about the funniest guy I’ve ever known and he hanged himself because he couldn’t afford to buy a loaf of bread to feed his kids. Where’s the justice in that?’