by J. M. Lanham
Alex had lost the ability to run his mouth, but that didn’t stop him from trying to get some kind of reaction out of the driver. He’d tried gruntling and jostling and kneeing the seats and elbowing the nearest window (that last one working a number on his funny bone), but the only reaction he elicited from the man up front was an intense glare into the rearview, and the occasional and forceful, “Quiet back there.”
The young hunter couldn’t take it anymore. He drove home his back-seat performance, kicking and screaming through taped lips, treating the passenger seat in front of him like his own personal punching bag. A swift kick from his shackled feet landed on the console and knocked the cover off, and Kovic had had enough.
“What in the hell did I just tell you? I swear to God if I have to pull over your ass is going in the trunk.”
Alex lifted cuffed hands to his mouth and gestured at the tape. His words were muffled, but Kovic knew where this was going. “No point,” he said. “We’ll be there in ten minutes, tops.”
More commotion arose from the back seat, and Kovic immediately regretted making the empty threat. Even if he wanted to stuff the young punk in the trunk, he couldn’t. Too much equipment. He turned and said, “If I take the tape off, will you shut up already?”
Alex nodded yes.
“Fine.” Kovic pulled onto the shoulder and turned to the back seat, pocket knife in hand. “Tape’s wrapped around at least a half dozen times,” he said as he opened it. “Bear with me.” He slid the knife under and swiped up, the tip of the blade barely nicking Alex’s cheek as the tape came off.
“GAWDDAMMIT, MAN! Would you be careful with that thing?”
“It’s a baby gash,” Kovic said as he pocketed the knife before putting the car in drive and pulling back onto the highway. “You’ll live.”
“That so?” Alex said. “’Cause at the moment, I ain’t so sure.” He tilted his head to dab his bloodied cheek on his shoulder. “So, you gonna tell me who you are and why the hell you’re kidnapping me?”
“I think you know who I am, Mr. Freeman. At least, who my employer is.”
“CIA?”
Kovic’s eyes filled the rearview. Unamused, “Do you really have to ask?”
He didn’t. His brother had already filled him in back at the cabin. Since then Alex had wanted to talk to someone in the know at the agency; someone with real answers from the government side of things; someone who could explain to him why he had been run over and left for dead off the side of the highway six months earlier. He wanted answers, but didn’t know exactly where to start.
“How—how’d you find me? How’d you know I’d be at that church tonight?”
“I’m not sure you understand how this works, Mr. Freeman. You don’t get to ask the questions. I do.”
“Then ask me. Ask me what I know about the government. About the CIA. About those gawddamn sleeping pills. But don’t just sit up there, quiet and all, following your damn orders without even questioning what your bosses have got you doing to decent people out here.”
Kovic glanced in the mirror and decided he was bored enough to take the bait from the guy in the back seat. “Okay. I do have a question for you. Why’d you show up to Perch’s revival tonight?”
Alex looked out the window. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
A pause, then, “The guy’s a con man. Hurt a lot of people. A lot of families, including mine. So when I found out he was back to doing the same shit he got in trouble for some years back, I wasn’t about to let him get away with doing it to someone else.”
“I get it,” Kovic said, drawing a furrowed brow from the prisoner in the back. “No, I really do get it, Alex. Your family history with Jonas Perch is what led me to attend the church service in the first place. It’s understandable you’d want some kind of revenge for what he did to your grandmother. What doesn’t make sense to me, however, is, well, why now? You’ve been missing for six months. Presumed dead. Fresh out of hiding and on the run. Why risk getting caught to take revenge on some has-been televangelist?”
“It’s hard to explain.”
“Well we’ve certainly got the time—”
“No, you don’t get it. I can’t really explain it. It’s like out of nowhere I just started to get these feelings. Feelings that stop me dead in my tracks. Feelings I haven’t had since …”
Alex trailed off, and Kovic was intrigued. “Since when, Alex? Feelings you haven’t had since when?”
“Since I was a kid. About ten or so. Not long after my mom died.”
“What kind of feelings we talking about here?”
“I had this thing. This germ thing. I heard on the news about some new super-virus that all the doctors and scientists and whatnot were worried about, so I started to get worried, too. Spent a lot of time washing my hands, worried I was gonna get sick, or worse. Didn’t take long before minutes standing at the sink turned into hours. I’d scrub my damn hands until the skin came off.”
“You know what you’re describing, right? It’s textbook OCD. I’ve got a friend who suffered from it. Spent a lot of time in therapy before she ever got it under control.”
“Therapy?” Alex chuckled. “Hell, my dad didn’t believe in that shit.”
“So how’d you get over it?”
Alex’s answer was reserved; the topic clearly made him uncomfortable. Blushing, “Aw, I don’t know man. Just got over it. I remember my dad told me I had nothing to worry about, the germs and all. That’s when he started taking me huntin’ a lot. Every weekend we were in the woods, stomping through the dirt and the mud and the leaves and all. And when we’d shoot something, I was always the one who had to clean it. Those were the rules. Hell, that little episode is what got me hooked on huntin’ in the first place.”
Kovic’s eyebrows raised, along with a knowing half grin. “You do realize your dad was essentially taking you to therapy, don’t you?”
Alex’s eyebrows shot together. “What do you mean?”
“The hunting. The woods. Getting your hands dirty field-dressing wild game. I bet you weren’t allowed to wash your hands afterward either, were you?”
“Well, I mean eventually …” Funny thing was that Kovic was right. The elder Freeman would make Alex sit still with blood-soaked hands until the bright red liquid began to fade and flake into thin sheets of rust. “See?” Old Frank would say, watching his son’s hands shake from the fear that the germs were going to crawl right up his skinny little arm and into his chest and turn into some viral demon that would burst out of his rib cage like a horrific alien from an old sci-fi movie. “Every weekend you’ve had blood and guts on your hands,” Frank would say, “and you’re still here.” Eventually, Alex’s hands would steady and his breathing would return to normal before Frank would give him a congratulatory pat on the back. “Now you know there’s nothing to worry about, son. Not a thing in the world. Now go wash up—but make it fast.”
The childhood flashback was short-lived as Kovic continued his line of questioning. “So you’re saying you felt an overwhelming urge to contact Perch then, right?”
Alex nodded. “Uh-huh.”
“And that’s why you risked getting caught by showing up to his little revival in the sticks?”
“Stupid, I know. But, like I said, I can’t really explain it. I just got out of the hospital where they kept me doped up on morphine for the last six months. I don’t know, man, maybe being in that coma screwed my head up. Got me thinking like I used to back when I was a kid. Or maybe being on Ocula for so long screwed me up for good. Who knows.”
Kovic shook his head. “Blaming a compulsion on Ocula doesn’t make sense, Alex. The dreams the clinical trial outliers experience on the pill cause electromagnetic waves to influence others, not the ones dreaming. So why would you ever feel compelled to do anything, unless someone else was dreaming about you, getting into your head all this time? It’s either that, or a simple return of your old symptoms under all this stress
. My opinion? I’d guess the latter.”
Someone else dreaming about me … With all the focus on Alex’s ability to manifest his own fantastical dreams, he’d never once considered someone else doing the same thing to him. He wanted to pick Kovic’s brain on this possibility more, maybe even discover whether or not other outliers had reported the same symptoms.
But they were close to their destination, and Kovic had turned all-business.
“So, let’s get to it. I know you contacted your brother Paul three days ago. I also know you were spotted with your brother, along with Donald Ford, Claire Connor, and Fenton Reed at Ruth’s diner early yesterday morning, which was the reason for my visit to the sticks here.”
Alex looked down, lips sealed.
“Ah,” Kovic said. “Now you don’t want to talk? So I guess I should just pull over and put the tape back on then?”
Agitated, “So we were together. You caught me. If you think that means I’m going to tell you where they’re at—”
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Alex. I already know you’re not going to tell me. At least, not directly.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I think I’ve let you ask enough questions for one night.”
Incensed, Alex said, “You know you’re working for some real sons of bitches, don’t you? I mean do you really think you’re on the right side of things here? Doing some drug company’s dirty work?”
“I told you who I work for, Mr. Freeman. And it’s never been ‘some drug company.’ The people I work serve a higher purpose—”
“Aw, cut the horseshit, man. You know this has nothing to do with a higher purpose, or what’s right or moral or just.”
Kovic smirked. “Well, I wouldn’t exactly expect someone like you to have any idea what it takes to secure the freedom of people like you. But go on, oh wise hillbilly. Teach me what’s right and moral and just.”
“What’s right isn’t kidnapping Americans. Torturing them. Treating the people you’re supposed to protect like pawns in a chess game … Bet all that makes you feel like a real patriot, don’t it?”
“You ever serve your country, smart-ass?”
“You mean have I ever taken orders like a good little lapdog without question? Naw, man. Never signed up for anything like that. Sue me.”
“See, that’s the problem with people like you,” Kovic said. “You think everything’s black and white in a world full of eternally gray and ambiguous shit.” He glanced to the back. “You know, I read your file, Alex. About all your hunting exploits and the short-lived fame that came with them. I spent the best years of my life serving the public in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine; ways that—whether they offend your delicate sensibilities or not—have secured the very freedoms people like you take for granted each and every day. And what about you: what’ve you done? Spent your life getting plastered and playing Davy Crockett on the weekends.”
The car came to a four-way, and Kovic turned right toward the soft glow of town lights on the horizon. He said, “Everything you think you know about nefarious government agencies comes from a handful of bad headlines, and even worse television. For every questionable decision or action taken on behalf of the intelligence community, there are hundreds—no, thousands—of successful operations that save American lives. Operations that you’ll never hear about. But you know something? I’ve come to realize that people like you don’t want to have a clue about what it takes to keep your American way of life going. The truth makes you uncomfortable, so what do you do to help you forget how ugly the world is? You wake up and crack open a tall one and stumble off into the woods without ever having to think about why your way of life is even a possibility in the first place.”
The passenger in the back had gotten under his captor’s skin, and he knew it. Alex had always assumed secret agents were soulless suits, obeying orders without apprehension or remorse. But as dark as the interior of the car was, Kovic couldn’t hide his red-faced anger, his heavy breathing, the beads of sweat dotted across his forehead.
Alex quipped, “Say what you want, man. But I ain’t never hurt nobody in my life.”
“Yes, you have, Mr. Freeman. Maybe not directly, but you’re an American. Our way of life must be preserved and protected from those who work 24-7 to topple our republic. You think that comes from doling out hugs and kisses across the globe? Peace on Earth, goodwill toward men? Hardly. Protecting our interests from enemies who never sleep takes nothing less than brute force. You just don’t want to admit it, because that would mean you’ve got just as much blood on your hands as I do.”
“Fighting our enemies with brute force is one thing. But what about the Americans you claim to protect? Jesus, man, laying that hypocrisy on mighty thick, ain’t ya?”
“Big picture, Freeman. Big picture.” He slowed the car to pull into Creekside Inn—a dated two-story roadside motel on the outskirts of Spring Hill.
Alex peered out the window and asked, “What are we doing here?”
The agent ignored the question as he reached for a small black device lying in the passenger seat. He held it up for Alex to see. “Do you know what this is?”
Alex didn’t. Kovic pressed a button on the side and immediately drew a bloodcurdling scream from Alex that would have gotten the attention of anyone within earshot had the windows been down.
Alex cried as his cuffed hands reached for his forehead. “PLEASE, TURN IT OFF!”
“Ha!” Kovic laughed to himself. Still works. He asked Alex over the moaning and screaming, “You taken Ocula recently?”
“OFF! PLEASE!”
“Is that a ‘no?’”
“Yes—I mean NO! No, I haven’t, I’ve been in the fucking hospital, remember? Just TURN IT OFF!”
Kovic switched the device off. “That’s right. Huh … imagine that.”
“Jesus.” Alex hunkered over, fighting the urge to vomit on the floorboards. “What the hell is that damn thing?”
“This little baby right here was designed for folks just like you. Not only does it pick up on the electromagnetic energy that’s unique to outliers, it can also reverse it. Pretty nasty tech, am I right?”
Alex groaned.
“And it’s also the only thing that can keep your ass quiet between the car and the hotel. And believe me when I tell you, Alex, that it can get a whole lot worse. So,” Kovic said as he shut the engine off, “do we have an understanding?”
Alex hung his head, pressed his lips, then mumbled, “Yeah. Sure.”
“I’m sorry. I couldn’t hear you.”
Louder, “YES. We have an understanding.”
“Good!” Kovic got out and scanned the parking lot. Not a soul in sight. He pulled Alex out of the back seat as the captive questioned,
“You never said what we were doing here.”
“If we’re going to locate the other outliers,” Kovic said, “we’ll need a relatively quiet place to do so.”
“I already told you, man. I’m not—”
“Yeah, yeah. You’re not talking. And I already told you,” he said as he led Alex inside, “you don’t have to.”
***
Inside the hotel room, the cramped space looked like it had been converted into a makeshift radio broadcast station. Laptops covered the desk to the right, with bundles of wires leading from the computers and router to some hardware Alex didn’t recognize attached to the back of an office chair. On the bed, what looked like a virtual reality headset lay on the comforter, the accompanying wires leading to the back of the chair alongside the others.
Then there was the chair itself: outfitted with nylon straps on the armrests, at the feet, and around the headrest. The rollers had been removed, and it looked like the bottom four posts had been haphazardly bolted into the floor. Kovic noticed Alex’s puzzled face and said, “Sorry for the clutter, but time was short. Under normal circumstances you’d be at our Skyline facility, but it’s simply too far from where we believe the last of the o
utliers are located.”
He walked to the nightstand furthest from the door and picked up a satellite phone. After pressing a few numbers, followed by a long pause, he began to speak in code, the alphas and charlies and foxtrots intertwined with a dozen or so numbers. For a moment, Alex thought about bolting; after all, the door wasn’t even padlocked behind him. One quick move, a fast turn and pull of the door handle, and he’d have a running chance—were it not for the device Kovic held so tightly.
It was black, bulky, and hurt like hell. Alex had never experienced that level of pain before. One press of the tiny red button on the side of what could have easily been mistaken for an old tape recorder, and his mind had been set on fire. Sharp pins pricked every nerve surrounding his skull. High-pitched soundwaves pierced into his ears like needles, and the painful vibrations rattled him to his core. An instant wave of debilitating pain and nausea had set in, and it had been everything he could do to keep from throwing up. Then, with a simple click of a button, it was over.
There was no way to tell what the range was on the device, but judging by Kovic’s lack of concern the closer Alex moved toward the door, it must be far enough. The agent talked into the phone while keeping tabs on Alex out of the corner of his eye. There was no point in thinking about it. It was clear his makeshift plan was off the table.
Alex took a step deeper into the room while Kovic spoke in hushed tones. Whoever he was on the phone with was obviously his superior, and Alex tried his best to listen in:
“We’re here … No, just the one … No, no witnesses.” If Kovic was referring to the back-alley abduction, Alex thought, then that was the first major lie he’d caught the agent in.
Garbled tones resonated from the other end of the line. Kovic turned away, covered the receiver, and said, “I received it … Yes, that’s affirmative … Program’s up and ready to go.”
Alex picked up on a few more distorted lines from the receiver, then Kovic signed off. He turned to his captive and motioned to the chair. “All right, Mr. Freeman. Take a seat.”
“You’ve got to be kidding.”