Total Mayhem

by John Gilstrap

  “You start,” he said. That was the beginning of the pass code.

  “Green cheese is moldy,” the leader said.

  “It’ll make you healthy if you eat it,” Jonathan replied. “But it needs a nice chianti.”

  And that was it. All four of the defenders let their rifles fall against their slings. “Mount up and follow us,” the leader said.

  The rest of the drive took less than three minutes. “You kept a good poker face thorough that ridiculous pass phrase exchange,” Gail said.

  “And to think I haven’t been practicing my lines,” Jonathan said. For pass phrases to work, they had to be random enough to be unguessable, yet sensible enough to be memorable. Often, those two requirements led to ridiculous exchanges.

  The road ended at a substantial chain-link fence and attended gate. After a brief chat between the commander of the four-wheeler and the attending guard, the gate pulled open, left to right, with the assistance of an electric motor. As the four-wheeler pulled through, the attending guard wandered up to Boxers’ door and made a spinning motion with his forefinger, indicating that he wanted the driver to open his window.

  “Afternoon, folks,” the guard said. “Leave your vehicle out here. Park it anywhere. It’s not like we get a lot of visitors.”

  Boxers backed the Suburban up a few yards, executed a T-turn so it was facing out, and pulled it a few feet off the driveway.

  “Okay, sports fans,” Jonathan said. “Let’s see what we see.”

  “What will success look like?” Gail asked as she opened her door. “What’s a home run?”

  “Damned interesting question,” Jonathan replied. “Ask me when we’re done.”

  Jonathan led the way through the gate to join the guard staff, who seemed anxious now to talk. The leader stepped forward and offered his hand. “I’m Ray,” he said. “No need for last names.”

  “Because they’re not real, anyway, right?” Jonathan said with a smile.

  “You got it,” Ray said. “I was wondering when you boys—and girls, sorry—were going to come and pick this guy up.”

  “So, we’re the first?”

  “Since I’ve been here, yes. That’s about a week and a half.”

  “Have you been talking to him?”

  “We have orders not to.”

  “Orders from whom?” Jonathan pressed.

  “From on high. My bosses. They don’t have real names, either.”

  From off to the side, one of the other guards said, “But their cash is very real.”

  “Tell me what I should expect,” Jonathan said.

  Ray pulled at the stubble on his chin. “I don’t know what to tell you. Our orders are to watch him in the monitors, keep him fed, and call a doc if he goes south. None of us has ever said a word to him.”

  Jonathan heard Gail inhale sharply, but he ignored it. “Does he talk to you?”

  “Occasionally, he shouts at the camera,” Ray said. “He used to ask us questions when we delivered his food, but he stopped that after a while. I guess he realized the futility of it.”

  “Tell him about the shit,” one of the other guards said.

  That elicited a chuckle. “Yeah, late one night he went a little berserk and he smeared his own shit all over the lens that covers the camera.”

  “Jesus,” Gail said. It sounded like a moan.

  “Yeah, this is a real special job I’ve got,” Ray said. “Let me know when you’re ready to go down.”

  “A couple of ground rules,” Jonathan said. “I want cameras and microphones turned off. There can be no record of the meeting.”

  “Not a problem. Apparently, no one wants a record of this. There’s not even a capability for it. Now, I’ve got a ground rule, too.”

  Jonathan waited for it.

  “If this turns out to be a hit—I mean if you’re here to kill the guy—we’re not going to let you pin it on us.”

  Jonathan recoiled. “I assure you that is not our mission. Nor are we here to take him away. We’re only here to chat with him. Point us in the right direction, and we’ll take it on our own.”

  From the outside, the secret prison in South Dakota looked a lot like dozens of surrounding farmhouses. It stood a story and a half, white clapboard with a wraparound covered porch. The remnants of a garden drooped in the surrounding flowerbeds. Ray led the way up the two steps from the ground to the porch and pushed open the front door.

  “Not a lot of security,” Boxers observed.

  “As much as we need,” Ray said. “I’m guessing the owners of this little slice of hell want passing aircraft to have no idea who we are or what we do.” He entered the foyer and waited for the others to file in behind him.

  The layout reminded Jonathan of a thousand ramblers he’d been in that looked just like it. The living area lay to the right of the door. A redbrick fireplace dominated the far right-hand wall, and in between sat five metal government-issued green desks that had been arranged in no apparent order. Laptops sat on each, as did an assortment of paperwork and food trash.

  “This is our main area,” Ray explained. “The dungeon is downstairs in the basement.”

  “The dungeon,” Gail said, tasting the word and clearly not liking the flavor.

  “That’s what we call it. You’ll know why when you see it.” Ray pivoted to indicate a hallway that branched off to the left. “Restrooms and our personal equipment lockers are down there.”

  “How well are you guys armed?” Jonathan asked.

  “We’re fine,” Ray said. “Hard stop. I don’t care who you are, you’re not cleared to know that.”

  That was fair, Jonathan thought. Out here in the boonies, these guys would be on their own for a long time if they had to repel some kind of a breakout attempt. It made perfect sense that they wouldn’t want anyone to know just how much bad-assery they could bring to the party.

  “Anything else we need to know before we head downstairs?” Jonathan asked.

  “Nothing I can think of,” Ray said. “Other than to take a good lungful of air up here so you’ll remember what it smells like.”

  Chapter Six

  The route to the dungeon took them through the kitchen and out onto a covered back porch that Jonathan suspected had been built for the specific purpose of camouflaging the double doors that angled up from the floor. No doubt inspired by Tornado Alley storm cellars, these doors were constructed of heavy steel and were each six feet long by three feet wide.

  As they approached, Ray explained, “There’s no way to open these doors from the inside. When you’re done with what you need to do, there’s an intercom at the bottom of the stairs. Push the button, identify yourself, and we’ll open the doors from up here. All good?”

  Boxers made a growling sound so low that Jonathan wondered if he knew he was making it. Big Guy was a borderline claustrophobe. “You want to wait up here?” Jonathan offered.

  The glare he got in return made him smile.

  “Okay, here we go,” Ray said. Using his body to shield what he was doing, he opened what might have been a police call box on the wall and punched in a code. A pneumatic solenoid valve hissed, and the massive doors lifted to reveal a stairway that descended into a dimly lit space that looked a lot like a bunker. The pitch of the stairs was nowhere near as steep as Jonathan had expected, leading him to suspect that the footprint of the underground prison was substantially larger than that of the farmhouse.

  “Last cell on the right,” Ray said. “Shouldn’t have any trouble finding him.” He smiled at his deployment of the obvious.

  “Remember,” Jonathan said as he stepped toward the doors. “Cameras and microphones off.”

  Ray held up three fingers of his right hand. “Scout’s honor.”

  Boxers took a menacing step closer to the mercenary so that he towered over the much smaller man. “You do not want to jam us up,” he said.

  Ray tried to look unintimidated, but like so many others so much stronger than him, he couldn’t
pull it off. “I got no reason to,” he said. Then he swallowed hard.

  Jonathan held the man with a glare of his own and then led the way down into the dungeon.

  Everything about this underground space was the opposite of what Jonathan expected from the exterior of the farmhouse. Ordinarily, a descent into a root cellar or a storm cellar would show rough stone or concrete shoring materials, but the walls here were smooth, clearly made of poured concrete. Where he expected dim yellow light from exposed bulbs or maybe fluorescent tubes, the illumination was, in fact, a bright white, almost as if to simulate the light of the sun. But the temperature was the biggest surprise. The thermometer was supposed to plunge as you went deeper, but as he approached the bottom of the stairs, he found the air uncomfortably warm, hovering north of eighty degrees, he guessed. He waited for the others to join him at the bottom and then watched as the heavy doors closed again, sealing them in. When the lock seated, the loudest sound in the dungeon was the hum of the air handler.

  At a glance, it became obvious to Jonathan how ambitious the secret prison program had been at its heyday. A long, straight hallway stretched thirty feet ahead of him. The walls on either side were constructed of steel bars set in concrete. He counted five doors on a side, for a total of ten cells, each separated from their next-door neighbor by a foot-thick slab of concrete that ran from the floor to the ceiling.

  “Which one of you assholes is it this time?” a voice called from the far end of the hall.

  Jonathan put a finger over his lips to tell Boxers and Gail to remain silent.

  “What, you don’t like me anymore?” the voice said. “Did I hurt your feelings last time?”

  Jonathan beckoned his team to bend closer. He whispered, “You two stay out of his sight and listen. See what I can get done one-on-one. When we’ve exhausted that, I’ll bring you in to ask whatever I missed.”

  Boxers bristled. He didn’t like to let Jonathan engage without him closely in tow.

  “There’s a wall of steel,” Jonathan said with a smile. “I think I’ll be okay.”

  They approached as a group, then Gail and Boxers stopped at the middle of the fourth cell, one short of their target.

  “Wearing different shoes today,” the voice said before he was visible. “A little early for dinner, isn’t it?”

  Jonathan remained silent as he crossed into view, then forced a straight face as he took in the horror.

  Logan Masterson sat naked on a thin green plastic mattress that provided precious little padding against the concrete shelf that served as his cot. He’d angled his back into the corner, and he sat with his legs splayed, one knee cocked up. His beard looked splotchy and fresh, giving Jonathan the impression that it had not been grown intentionally. His hands and his feet were black with filth, and his hair dangled heavy with grease. The stench of body filth hung like an invisible fog. But that wasn’t the most disturbing smell.

  The dressings on Logan Masterson’s bullet wound hadn’t been changed in far too long. The trauma pads had soaked all the way through the bandages that held them in place, and even from his side of the bars, Jonathan could see the telltale yellow traces of a growing infection.

  “Am I a pretty sight or what?” Masterson asked.

  “When was the last time you saw a doctor?” Jonathan asked.

  “Who the hell are you?”

  Jonathan pointed to his badge. “FBI,” he said. “Names don’t matter. I asked you a question.”

  Masterson’s gaze narrowed as he studied his new visitor. “Why don’t you already know that?” he asked. “Aren’t you the assholes who put me here?”

  “Outrage from the guy who shot up a high school football game.”

  Masterson stared back. Finally, he said, “Get with the program, Agent Nobody. I’m here to die. That doesn’t jibe with seeing doctors.”

  As Jonathan listened, he watched the prisoner’s eyes. There was a lot of physical pain there, and he was doing a yeoman’s job masking it. People in that line of work didn’t fear death. They insulated themselves from the emotional and spiritual pain that plagued normal people. What they feared was indignity. Masterson’s background in Special Forces meant, nearly by definition, that he’d foreseen a noble death for himself at one point—certainly at the beginning. Youngsters saw themselves as immortal, anyway. When they considered the possibility of their demise, how could it not be amid flags and explosions?

  “You’re not dying on my watch, Logan,” Jonathan said. “I’ll be back.” He turned and walked past Gail and Boxers, beelining toward the doors.

  “Where are you going?” Gail asked.

  “I’m going to have a chat with our friend Ray.”

  Boxers jumped to life. “Coming with you,” he said.

  “I’m staying,” Gail said.

  That brought the guys to a halt. Jonathan turned, cocked his head.

  “There’s a wall of steel,” Gail parroted. “I think I’ll be okay.”

  Jonathan hid his displeasure. His efforts to protect her from harm while respecting her as an equal part of the team had always been a difficult balance for him. “Okay,” he said. “See you in a while.”

  Boxers followed as he walked to the base of the stairs and looked into the lens of the security camera. Jonathan made a rolling motion with his fingers to indicate they needed to open up. He made no indication that he was angry.

  “Are we going to go violent on their asses?” Boxers asked through an innocent smile.

  “If we have to.”

  “Promise me I can bear your child,” Big Guy said.

  Jonathan laughed in spite of his anger. The solenoid hissed again, and the doors rose. “If they even think about going to guns,” he said, “take ’em out.”

  “Roger that.”

  * * *

  No one was waiting at the top of the stairs. As Jonathan cleared the hole, he looked at the camera on the porch and indicated the doors. “Leave them open,” he said. He’d learned a long time ago that when you project authority, authority is often granted. The fact that the doors didn’t close proved his point.

  Boxers followed as Jonathan retraced his steps back into the house and on into the living room, where Ray and a minion were busy on their laptops.

  “That was fast,” Ray said without looking up.

  Jonathan walked to the man’s desk and swept his computer and half of the shit on his desk onto the floor with a giant move of his arm. “What the hell are you doing here?” Jonathan said. He didn’t raise his voice, but he was confident that Ray heard the fury in his words.

  Ray jumped back at the move, clearly startled. “Me? What the hell? Jesus.”

  The minion at the other desk started to rise.

  “Sit,” Boxers said.

  The guy sat.

  “And stay,” Boxers said. He sold it with a smile.

  “Hey, asshole,” Ray said, regaining his composure. “FBI or not, you can’t come in here and—”

  “When was the last time Logan Masterson saw a doctor?”

  “I don’t know. Before my time.”

  “Why so long?”

  “What do you mean, why?”

  “He’s a human being, dickhead. You can’t treat him like an insect.”

  Ray stood up.

  “You sit, too,” Boxers instructed.

  “Screw you,” Ray said, and he stayed on his feet. He glared at Jonathan. “First of all, he’s not a human being. He’s a goddamn child killer, and he deserves to die.”

  Jonathan felt himself puff up bigger. “That’s not—” “Shut up and let me finish,” Ray snapped. “He’s all those things, but it is not my call to determine when he sees a doctor. That’s on you guys.”

  Jonathan recoiled. Not at all what he’d been expecting. “Who’s us guys?”

  “Fibbies, you sanctimonious prick. You were guarding him when I got here, and the orders were to let him bandage himself and die. My job was to keep him fed and watered. That was it. And it’s been a pretty
goddamn soul-stealing experience.”

  “Who told you that? What was his name?”

  “Names don’t matter, remember?” Ray seemed genuinely pissed, and as a result, his stock rose on Jonathan’s exchange. “He said he was FBI, and he showed me a badge. He gave me a quick tour of the place, and then he and his crew di di mau’d the hell out of here.”

  Jonathan recognized the verbal remnant from the Vietnam years that were way before his time. Di di mau more or less translated to run like a bunny rabbit. “How long had Masterson been here when you took over?”

  “Hard to give definitive timelines to things that happened before I was in the loop.”

  Good point.

  “How did you guys get hired?” Boxers asked. He’d dialed back on the bad-assery. “I mean do you all work for the same contractor, or are you a group of freelancers?”

  Ray cocked his head and planted his fists on his hips. “My bullshit bell is shaking the rafters,” he said. “This is stuff you should already know.”

  Jonathan considered his reply for a few seconds before saying, “Ray, I think it’s plainly obvious to everyone on this property that nothing about what’s going on here is anywhere close to normal.” He looked to Boxers. “I think it’s best that we all stop asking questions before we dig holes we can’t get out of.”

  That seemed to make Ray happy, make him feel relieved.

  “Now, about the doctor,” Jonathan said. “Do you have one to call, or do I need to summon one of mine?”

  * * *

  Gail Bonneville pulled a folding metal chair from the corner and set it up in front of the wall of bars that separated her from Logan Masterson. She’d seen more than her share of naked men over the years, and more than a few of them in more startling conditions than this prisoner. He watched in silence as she positioned herself, and for five minutes or more, they just stared at each other.

  His tough veneer began to fray. She saw it first in his eyes, and then around his mouth. They twitched, and it clearly bothered him that she could see it.

  It takes a lot of energy to project toughness that you know you don’t possess, and sooner or later, a person can’t do it anymore. She’d seen versions of the same process work dozens of times in police interview rooms as tough-as-shit-just-ask-me thugs whittled themselves down to little boys who wanted their mommies. She didn’t think it was a function of fear as much as it was a realization of helplessness. Of hopelessness.