Cam - 03 - The Moonpool

by P. T. Deutermann

  “What about my dogs?”

  “Your shepherds. Right. We have contacted your associates and asked them to come retrieve your dogs. One—” He fished out a notebook and read his notes. “One Anthony Martinelli is coming down tonight to retrieve them and return them to your home in Triboro.”

  All of that left the obvious question unspoken.

  “We told him that we had received a call from you asking for one of them to come retrieve the dogs. That you did not sound as if you were under duress but that you would be out of pocket for some time on your new assignment and, for reasons known only to you, could not take the dogs.”

  I wanted to ask him if he thought Tony really believed that bullshit, but thought better of it. The two guys in military fatigues were standing at parade rest, looking bored. The one guy had reduced the hood to a compact orange wad.

  “Do you understand what I was telling you about privileges, Mr. Richter?”

  “What I don’t understand is how you think you can abduct me, transport me to some American version of the Lubyanka, and hold me incommunicado ‘until further notice,’ without a hint of a criminal charge or even a Miranda. Since when has the Bureau been doing this kind of shit to American citizens?”

  “Since the passage of the Patriot Act, Mr. Richter.”

  “That’s for baby-burning Islamic terrorists.”

  He stood up. “I’ll get you a copy of the act, Mr. Richter. You might be surprised when you read the whole thing, and even more surprised if you read some of the action memoranda flowing from said act. Few people have actually read it, I’m told, including an embarrassing number of congresspersons.” He looked around my new home. “In the meantime, please behave. This is as good as it gets. The alternative accommodations are reportedly unpleasant.”

  “Reportedly? This isn’t your fun house?”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Richter. You’re now in the hands of the Department of Homeland Security. Your Bureau does not indulge in detention facilities. Gentlemen, would one of you please swipe your magic card?”

  There was a pamphlet on the bed, along with a green mag-stripe card. The pamphlet spelled out the rules in straightforward, military language. The bathroom was shared with the room next door. Swipe the card—if the bathroom was available, the door would unlock. Take the card with you, because if you didn’t, you’d be in there until the cleaning crews showed up. Detainees would be served three meals a day. Breakfast would be at 0730. Lunch would be brought in at 1130. Dinner at 1730. Exercise periods would be scheduled by the guard force.

  The second page had more rules. My official status was detainee. In case I was wondering. Each detainee was restricted to his or her room for twenty-two hours a day. There would be a two-hour exercise period within the grounds. There were rules for the time one spent outdoors: Detainees had to stay thirty feet away from any perimeter fence. There was a white chalk line on the grass indicating the thirty feet. Detainees could not speak to any other detainees while out on the grounds. Detainees would wear a hood the entire time they were outside of their rooms, including during exercise periods. The fence around the grounds was under continuous surveillance. There were guard dogs involved in that surveillance. Detainees would obey the instructions of any and all guards, but would not speak to guards unless the guard spoke first. Deadly force was authorized throughout the facility. Enjoy your stay with us.

  I tried the card on the bathroom door and got lucky. Then I came back to my new room and tried the bed. It was a bed. There were no clocks on the wall, and the television, mounted high on one wall, was silent. I got up and turned out the overhead lights. The windows revealed that the building was near a river, but I didn’t know which river. The trip from downtown Wilmington had taken at least an hour. There were lights on the building shining down onto the grounds. I could actually make out those chalk lines against the perimeter fence, but there was a jumper barrier ledge under my window, so I couldn’t see directly down into the exercise yard.

  Terrific, I thought. Then I was startled by two loud raps on the door. I waited to see what would happen. Two more raps.

  “Well, come right in,” I called, turning on the bedside lamp.

  “There’s a hood in the closet,” a voice said. “Put it on.”

  I looked and found it. Same haute couture orange, much lighter, and this one had eyeholes. I put it on, turned on a reading lamp, and told my caller to come in again, wondering how much I looked like a Klansman.

  The card lock beeped and a major of Marines stepped through the door, along with two new escorts. The major turned on the overhead lights. He was an extremely fit white male, dressed in pressed and stiffly creased cammies, highly polished boots, and a Marine-green utility cap. He had either gone completely bald or had shaved his head. He wore a large gold ring on his left hand, which I presumed was the source of the raps. His two escorts looked just like him, only much younger. They wore black leather gloves, which made them more menacing than the previous two escorts. I wondered if things were finally going to get physical.

  The major looked at me and then consulted a clipboard. “Mr. Doe,” he said. “I’m Major Carter. I’m the OIC of this facility.”

  “My name isn’t Doe,” I said. “It’s—”

  “It’s Doe. Actually, J. Doe Five-Seven. That’s what it says here on your entry paperwork, and that’s all we need to know. I’m here to explain a few things to you.”

  I perched on the edge of the bed, feeling more than a little ridiculous in my orange jumpsuit and KKK headgear. “Go right ahead, Major.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Doe. As you can see, we are United States Marines. Temporarily, this facility is a military reservation, so military law applies.”

  “I thought this place was a state loony bin.”

  “And you would be correct about that, Mr. Doe. It has been used for that purpose, but it was decommissioned sometime after 9/11. Now it is a federal loony bin. My federal loony bin, to be specific.”

  “I guess I’m a little surprised to see Marines.”

  “Marines go where they’re told to go and do what they’re told to do, Mr. Doe. Now, speaking for myself, and probably for my two escorts here, we’d all rather be back in the Happy Valley participating in Uncle George’s Assholes for Allah program. That’s like our Toys for Tots only lots more fun. But, sadly, we’re here instead. And so are you.”

  “Who put me here? Can you tell me that?”

  He sniffed and glanced at his clipboard. “The Octopus put you here, Mr. Doe. That’s what we call the Department of Homeland Security. Tentacles every fucking where. Black ink billowing out in noxious clouds if anyone gets too close or pokes sticks at it. Big, round, intelligent eyes. And an even bigger beak in the middle.” He looked back up at me. “This would be the beak, Mr. Doe.”

  I shook my head in wonder. This couldn’t be happening. He’d apparently seen that look before.

  “The good news, Mr. Doe: there’s neither a C nor a T after your number five-seven. That means you are neither a criminal nor a terrorist detainee. That would require different accommodations.”

  “Oh, like the basement?”

  He seemed surprised. “The basement? There’s nothing in the basement but rats, wires, boxes of records, and rusty pipes. My Marines use the basement to hone their hunting skills against the day they go back to real Marine work. No, sir, any C-code detainees at this facility are held on another floor, and the T-codes go see a little bit of Fidel’s Communist paradise. Let me get through my brief, please. It’s late and I need my beauty sleep.”

  One of the escorts twitched with what may have been a smile. I sat back on the bed and let Herr Kommandant read me some more rules. The basic premise was as Creeps had described it: Be good, don’t give the guard force any shit, and this would be like any other motel, only with one-way doorknobs and perpetual room service.

  “Isolation is the rule here, Mr. Doe. Hood’s on when outside the rooms. You don’t talk to guards, other detainees, the hou
sekeeping people, and especially anyone outside the fence. When you use that card to access the bathroom, the other person’s card won’t work until you’ve used yours to exit. If you tarry overlong in the bathroom, your card will stop working. You want to live in there instead of in here, be our guest.”

  “Do I get my one phone call?”

  He shook his head. “Isolation means just that, within and without. Octopus rules.”

  “And for how long does this go on?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “That’s up to the Octopus, Mr. Doe. Did you perchance ignore a warning from someone in authority to stay away from something or someone?”

  I nodded. “It’s possible.”

  “Well, that’s it, then. Whoever that authority is, they’ll make the decision, and then the Octopus will wave one of its many arms and you’ll return to main pop out there in civvie-land. Or not.”

  I stood up, and the escorts made subtle adjustments in their stance. They weren’t armed, but they both looked like men who didn’t need a gun to get things done.

  “The government can’t hold me forever, Major,” I said. “Even military prisoners have rights.”

  “The housekeeping people will deliver a menu each morning through this slot in the door, Mr. Doe,” he said, ignoring my declaration of human rights. “You can indicate the items you don’t want each day. Your tray will be delivered through that drawer. When you’re finished, put the tray and all utensils back in the drawer.”

  “Okay.”

  “Your mommy doesn’t work here, Mr. Doe. You will be responsible for keeping your room clean. Housekeeping will clean the bathroom daily, and sanitize the room once a week while you’re out in the exercise yard. Lights go out at 2200, and the door card readers lock down at the same time. See that red button?”

  He pointed at a red button next to the hallway door. I nodded.

  “That’s the panic button. If you have a genuine emergency, you push that button. If we feel it’s not a genuine emergency after we’ve responded, you’ll get yelled at. If you get yelled at twice, the panic button is disabled, and then when you do have a genuine emergency, you’ll just have to die. Clear?”

  “Crystal,” I said. “Don’t fuck with the panic button. How about television? Books?”

  “Let’s see how the first few days go, Mr. Doe,” the major said. He looked me up and down. “You look like a guy who works out. Maybe even a tough guy? There’s a weight set in the yard; not many of our detainees use it. Feel free. If you get the urge to rumble, we can set up a smoker with some of my Marines. Do a little boxing instruction, maybe some hand to gland. Fun stuff like that.”

  His Marines looked mildly interested. There’s a brand of soap products called Arm and Hammer. Their logo is a muscular arm raising a small maul. These guys looked like the maul. “What time is it now?” I asked.

  He almost looked at his watch, but checked himself. “It’s late, and it’s dark, Mr. John Doe Fifty-Seven. From now on, please just play by my rules, and pray that the Octopus doesn’t forget you’re here. They do that, you know.”

  I lay back on the bed when they were gone, wondering what the fuck I’d gotten myself into this time. I heard the card reader on my side of the bathroom door click and saw the little light go red. A noisy bathroom fan went on. Someone, my neighbor, I supposed, had come into the bathroom. Thirty minutes or so later, the fan went off and my bathroom door LED went green. I fell asleep, wondering how long before Tony and the guys came looking. Soon, I fervently hoped.

  Two days later, I was moved to another room on the same floor. No change in amenities, and I figured it was a housekeeping issue. Life in the detention center went pretty much as briefed. The food was mess-hall chow. Mass-produced, acceptable, if not exactly cholesterol conscious. I began drawing lines through some menu items on the second day, concerned about my girlish figure and the fact that I had nothing to do but sit or sleep. The two-hour exercise window was precisely measured, with one surprise: There were fenced lanes in the grounds, running from the building to the perimeter fence, beyond which I assumed was the river. The lanes were fifty feet wide and nearly five hundred feet long. I know. I paced mine.

  Other detainees were out in their own lanes, and no one seemed interested in making eye contact, which, admittedly, would have been difficult as we were all wearing hoods. With eyeholes, we could see straight ahead. If anyone was curious about his lane neighbor, he would have to turn his head, and my guess was that this movement would be visible to the guards or on whatever surveillance system was covering the grounds.

  If there was a weight set out there, I didn’t find it. I concentrated on doing stretching exercises, a brisk walk, a jog, and then a real run, up and back, for about forty minutes. It got hot under the damned hood. After that, I reversed the order to cool off. I saw only one other detainee doing something similar; the rest just walked, back and forth, inside their fences. It was surreal, this procession of baggy orange jumpsuits, humping dutifully back and forth between the perimeter and the hulking, concrete building. I’d expected guard towers and spotlights, but there was just a fence, and not a new one at that. Beyond the fence was a field of dormant grass, and then some dense woods. I’d caught a glimpse of the river from my fifth-floor window, but it wasn’t visible from the yard.

  At the end of two hours, a police whistle would sound, and the Orangemen all trudged back to the steel double doors. We were required to sound off and identify our numbers, and then we were admitted to the interior and walked in groups of five detainees with a Marine at each end of the line to the freight elevators. The elevator was as close as we got to another human being, but there was no contact. We were marched to our respective rooms and told to stand in front of our doors. The doors all clicked at once, up and down the hallway, and we went through. My neighbor apparently was let out for a different exercise period, and the yard was busy all day with orange jumpsuits walking the line.

  On the fifth day it rained, and a voice came by my closed door and asked if I wanted to stay inside or go out. I chose to go out; many others did not. The Marines issued me a full-length plastic slicker that had a rain hood. I spent the whole two hours outside, getting damp in the process but determined not to miss a chance for fresh air and exercise. During the time I was out there, a group of Marines humping full battle packs came jogging around the perimeter fence on the outside, soaking wet but keeping perfect time to the subdued chanting of their sergeant, who ran, similarly encumbered, right alongside. I noticed the major was also running, with two packs on, one rank in front of the rest of the group. Gotta hand it to Marine officers—they know how to lead from the front.

  When I got back to my room, I found a stack of books and my watch on the desk. It was all nonfiction and not very recent, but I was delighted to have books at last. The television remained dark, but I didn’t care very much. I’m not much of a vidiot under the best of circumstances. I worried about my mutts, and wondered for the umpteenth time if my guys were looking for me. I couldn’t see Tony believing anything the G-men told him, but, on the other hand, he’d had doubts from the git-go about what I was doing down there at Helios. If Quartermain happened to back up what the agents told him, he’d probably go into the watch-and-wait mode.

  My secret surprise came late that night, when I was awakened by a sound I couldn’t place. The rain was still coming down outside, so the room was dark except for the light coming in under the door from the hallway. Instinctively I reached for my trusty .45 and then remembered I was fresh out of heat.

  I heard it again: The hinges on the bathroom door made a faint squeaking noise. I tensed in the bed, not knowing what to expect, and then a human figure loomed out of the darkness and sat down on my bed.

  “Hi, there,” a female voice said. “I’m Mad Moira Maxwell, and I’m your neighbor. What’s your name?”

  Coming from a relatively sound sleep, it took me a few seconds to gather my wits, sparse as they were.

  “Cam Richter,”
I said. I could just make out her face, but the rest of her was wrapped up in a lumpy bathrobe. Her eyes were wide and, I realized, just a little crazy-looking. Had she said Mad Moira?

  “So what’d you do?” she asked, making herself more comfortable on the edge of my bed. She didn’t weigh much, and her hair was disheveled. Red hair, I realized. There might be something to that Mad business after all.

  “Failed to heed a nose-out warning from appropriate authority. Twice, I think. And you?”

  “Sedition with a computer or three,” she said brightly.

  “I haven’t heard that word since high school civics. Sedition?”

  “It’s come back into vogue these days,” she said. “The government is taking itself a lot more seriously than it used to, and here we are.”

  “How’d you fiddle the bathroom door locks?” I asked, mindful of the major’s warnings about being good and not talking to other detainees. I sat up in the bed to give her more room. That didn’t work. She slid closer. She smelled of soap and healthy young female.

  “When you can do sedition with a massively parallel computer system, door locks are a piece of cake,” she said. “I am—I was, I suppose—a professor of computer science at the U in Wilmington. How about you?”

  “I was a lieutenant in the Manceford County Sheriff’s Office, back in Triboro, for far too long. Now I’m a freelance investigator. Or maybe just lance, now that I think about it. Free I am not.”

  “Know that feeling,” she said.

  “How long have you been in here?” I asked.

  “One year, one month, ten days, and a wake-up, as the Marines like to say.”

  She laughed when she saw the surprise registering on my face. “Oh, yes, lieutenant, this can go on for a long, long time. Especially for sedition in time of war, even if it is an undeclared war.”