by Andrew Mayne
"No....the man on the sat phone talked about it."
"What did you say?"
Think of the sat phone. "I don't know where it is."
"Did Peterson or Bennet give it to you?"
I just found the sat phone under the seat. "No..."
"Do you know what happened to it?"
"I broke it."
"The square?"
Damn it. I can't stop myself. "The sat phone."
His voice grows sharp. "David, we're talking about the square. Where is it?"
Resist. You are dead the moment he finds it. Visualize something else!
Anything!
"...Inside April Cassidy's pussy..."
Vaughn slaps me across the face. "You motherfucker."
My cheek stings from the slap and I feel a little more alert.
"Let me guess, did your little astronaut training help you resist that? You think you're really fucking clever, don't you? Let me show you how clever I can be."
He starts unbuckling the belts across my chest and rips the IVs out of my arms.
"Cardwell!" he shouts to the door. "Get Stilton and Hayes in here. We're taking this little asshole for a ride."
Light bursts into the room as the two armored men come in and grab me by my arms and drag me off the table. For the first time I realize I'm just wearing a hospital gown.
I try to resist by dragging my feet, but I barely have enough muscular control to support myself, let alone fight off two trained men who spend all day moving uncooperative prisoners.
They drag me down a set of steps and out of the room, which was just another box in the small city of portable trailers in the hangar.
It's fully lit with people going about their business, walking back and forth like it's a Costco.
I'm slid past an open window, my ass bare to all the world, as a woman leans over a desk and points to a computer screen as a man laughs and makes a note of what she said. Neither even bother to look my way. I'm a ghost to them. A non-person.
It's goddamn casual Friday around here and nobody seems to care that some half-naked man is being carried away against his will.
"...Vaughn is a traitor," I try to say as loud as I can.
He's a pace behind me, typing away on his phone. "Let it out, pal."
"...He's working for the Russians. Check his caller ID...."
"Keep talking. Nobody cares."
Cardwell holds open a door and bright sunlight blinds me as I'm yanked through the threshold.
The guards carry me across the tarmac and throw me on the ground.
"Maybe your astronaut training gave you some kind of resistance to that. I got other drugs, but time is really important. One more time, where is the square?"
"Dantooine," I reply.
"Dantooine?" He looks at Cardwell. "Where the fuck is that?"
"The Outer Rim."
"What?"
"It's a Star Wars thing."
"Jesus-Fucking-Christ! You goddamn Star Wars nerds." Vaughn starts kicking me in the stomach. "For fuck sake!"
Every blow feels like a distant thunderclap – but each one also helps me wake up.
Just lay limp, David. Don't let him know you're more alert than he thinks.
Vaughn kneels down and squeezes my chin, tilting my face towards his. "Anything?"
"...My stomach hurts."
"Guess what, asshole, that's going to be the least of your worries as I put you through my own astronaut training. Load him on the chopper!"
The rough asphalt scrapes my bare legs as they drag me across the landing pad to a Black Hawk powering up.
46
AIRDROP
AS WE ASCEND into the air one of Vaughn's men puts a black hood over my head. My hands and legs are still free and I get the sense that this isn't done to keep our destination a secret as much as a surprise.
His masked-goons grasp me by the shoulders with my back towards the open door. The wind is really, really cold as it blows through my open gown.
We fly for about twenty minutes then Vaughn calls to the pilot to hover.
"David! Where is the square?" he shouts over the sound of the rotors.
My head is clear and I don't need to visualize anything to help me lie. "I don't know!" Right now my motivation is pure self-preservation. "Let me talk to your boss!"
"You're in no position to be asking for anything. Last chance. Where is the square?"
"Do they know you're working for the Ru..." I'm caught off guard by a kick to my chest.
I fall backwards and out the door.
Holy sh–
OOOOOOMPH! My shoulders hit the ground and all the wind is knocked out of me.
That had to be about five feet.
I feel the downwash of the rotors and pull the hood off. It blows away in the wind.
I start to pick myself up to make a feeble run for it, but the helicopter lowers and the guards jump out and pull me back in.
"Where's the hood?" asks Vaughn.
"He threw it away. Want me to go get it?" replies one of the masked men.
"Nah. I want him to see this. David, that was barely off the ground. Let's try ten feet? How does that sound?"
"Fuck you."
"I can take this all the way up to 15,000 feet if you like."
"19,000," I reply.
"What?"
"The service ceiling is officially 19,000 but you can probably go another two thousand." I sound cocky, but I'm scared as hell.
"Good to know. Maybe we try that with you?"
I see the ground drop a few feet through the window on the other side.
"Well?" he asks.
"I don't know."
"Fine." He stands up and braces himself between the seats and lets out another kick to my chest.
BAM!
I hit the ground and see stars. Man, this is hard Texas dirt and doesn't give very much.
The helicopter begins to descend. I try to get up but I can barely feel my feet. As I try to pull myself away my right hand touches a sharp rock.
Thank god I didn't land on that...
I pull my fist into my body as the men retrieve me.
"Okay." Vaughn puts his face right in mine. "We're going to fifteen feet. There's a fifty-fifty chance you'll break something. My money is that you won't. At twenty, it's a guarantee. Thirty and you'll never walk again and you'll tell me anything I want to know as you beg me for another spoonful of apple sauce. What do you say I just save you the trouble?"
"I don't know! Maybe they left it on the station?"
Vaughn shakes his head. "You're a shitty liar."
He begins to lean back to kick again. I try to swing the rock in my hand at his face but the guard on my right grabs my wrist.
Vaughn pries it from my fingers and waves it under my nose. "What the hell is this, David? Did you think you were going to hit me and spill my brains?" He smashes it against my mouth. "Open!"
I don't move.
"I said open your goddamn mouth!"
He nods to his men.
They let go of my arms, grab my head and shove their gloved fingers into my lips to pry open my jaws.
Vaughn puts a foot into my balls, leaving his shoe in my crotch. He smacks my teeth with the rock. "Open your mouth or I'm going to break every goddamn tooth in your head!"
BANG!!!
I can see his eyes go wide behind his sunglasses as he tries to make sense of what happened.
The two armored guards start looking around for the source of the noise.
BANG!!! BANG!!!
Before they can figure out what just happened, I shoot them both in the stomach with Vaughn's ankle pistol.
The pilot is starting to set us on the ground.
I climb over a screaming Vaughn and put my gun to the back of the pilot's head. "Get them and get the fuck out."
"I can't leave this aircraft." He raises his hands off the controls in protest.
I put the pistol near his helmet and fire, shooting a hole through
the window inches away.
"Get the fuck out and take those assholes with you!"
He slides out of the cockpit and runs around to the side door. I keep my gun aimed at him in case he tries to pull a sidearm.
He drags Vaughn and the other two men to the ground then raises his hands above his head.
I realize I'm still wearing the hospital gown. "Give me your clothes and your helmet! Kick their weapons away then give me whatever cash they have!"
Out of misplaced pity, I throw bullet wound bandages to him – basically tampons – from the first aid kit as he drags the men to the front of the chopper.
I make him keep his hands in the air as I familiarize myself with the controls.
I've flown helicopters and simulations of the Black Hawk UH-60, but never the actual thing.
This is going to be one hell of a ride.
I finally grab the stick and gradually take to the air. The pilot sees my wobbly ascent and quickly ducks down out of the way to avoid decapitation.
Once I'm airborne, I get a compass reading and try to figure out what the hell I'm supposed to do next.
47
INSIDER
VAUGHN ISN'T EVEN his name. I realize this as I hand the girl at the rental car desk his driver's license and credit card. Both the ID and the black AmEx say Sean Flagler.
I almost don't feel like the worst person in the world for leaving him and his cronies bleeding out in the middle of the desert. Almost.
Yeah, it was a matter of survival, but hell, I still feel awful. I was minutes away from a broken neck no matter what I said, yet I can't just get rid of this guilt. Maybe that's why guys like him are good at his job and guys like me aren't.
Hell. I never thought I would have killed anybody a day ago. Now I may have killed three because I felt justified.
Is that what he thought? Did the assholes helping push me out of the helicopter think they were doing their duty and protecting America?
Were they? I wanted to believe he was on my side. Then he lied about the Moscow phone call – or at least I think he lied. And things escalated from there.
Fuck him. I didn't ask to get thrown out of the helicopter and tortured. Maybe he was just following orders for someone else and had no idea what was really going on, but it doesn't matter. They wanted me to think they were going to kill me. I'm pretty sure that in the state of Texas what I did was not only legal – it was encouraged.
"Would you like insurance on the vehicle?" asks the girl.
"Yeah, sure. Max it out."
She goes back to her keyboard and starts typing away. I figure I've got another hour or so before Vaughn/Flagler's card is no longer good and trying to use it will result in the Texas Rangers showing up.
I chose Eazy-Kar, because of their immaculate spelling and the fact that their cars are several years old and not likely to have any tracking transponders inside of them.
"Thank you, Mr. Flagler," the girl says sweetly as she hands me my keys.
I drive my nondescript Toyota Camry across the street to a Walmart to get groceries while Vaughn's card is still good.
In the hardware section I pick up some random tools with no idea if I'll need any of them. Better safe than sorry.
After I load up my car in the parking lot, I swap license plates with another Camry so I can get a little off the grid. I'll need to do this again when I'm further away to keep covering my tracks.
Although I landed the helicopter in an empty lot on the far side of a shopping mall, and none of the passing cars seemed to be all that interested, I can only count on that lasting for so long.
Vaughn's people have to know something is up and an abandoned Black Hawk helicopter sitting in the middle of El Paso isn't very discreet.
My only hope is that the lines of communication between his quasi-legal Black Site operation and the local authorities aren't exactly streamlined.
Before leaving here for good, I stop at an Arby's drive-thru, load up on sandwiches, then take the 10 east towards Austin.
While I bite into soothing mouthfuls of roast beef, I consider my predicament. I'm in a classic, nowhere-to-go-nobody-to-trust situation.
Considering the last US government employee I dealt with tried to break my spine presumably on the orders of his Russian masters, I'm a little distrustful of going to the cops.
Vaughn may be out of commission, but I don't know if he was acting alone. Capricorn said a highly-placed intelligence official was working with the Russians. Vaughn seemed more like the operations guy working with somebody sitting in an office in DC.
That means that there could be more people out there like him. I really can't trust anyone.
And I can't stay on the run forever. If Capricorn never reaches out to me again, I'm screwed. I need another option.
Who do I trust?
Lots of people.
Who can help me?
None of them.
My parents would just tell me to turn myself in and try to convince me that the government has my best interests in mind. I can imagine what it would be like trying to explain to my father what just happened with the helicopter drop-falls.
"Did you maybe fall out and misunderstand what happened? Could they have been trying to help you?"
I love my parents, but they're a no-go.
I just don't know any powerful, influential people. My boss, Vin Amin, the CEO of iCosmos is connected, but I can only guess what kind of clusterfuck he's trying to deal with right now. He probably wants me dead more than anybody else.
So Vin is a no-go.
That leaves nobody.
I'm screwed.
Stop that, David. Focus.
Who would want to help you? Who is connected to this?
Peterson and Bennet's families probably hate me. They think I murdered them.
If only I could tell them...
Wait, Bennet's son, Tyler, is a US Senator. He and his husband have a home in Austin. I remember Bennet talking about spending Christmas there with his grandkids.
I've met Tyler a couple times. Nice enough guy. He's got a bit of a libertarian streak and not the type I think would go for the black ops bullshit that Vaughn was pulling. At least I don't think he would. He once did a forty-eight hour filibuster against the overreach of government surveillance.
If I could reach out to him, maybe he could help me sort things out...yeah, if only I could explain to him what was really going on.
I have to give it a shot. The worst that could happen is that we have a very awkward and short conversation. Well, that and the spooks track my phone call and blow me up with an airborne drone before I hang up. But other than that...
I buy a burner phone at a gas station using cash I stole from the men on the helicopter. I avoid using Vaughn's credit card so it can't trace back to the number.
After a few more miles, I pull over to a truck stop and take the phone out of the package. Too nervous to sit still, I step outside the car and onto a sidewalk away from the road.
Thankfully, as a government representative, Tyler Bennet's office number is pretty easy to find.
An older woman answers, "Senator Bennet's office. How may I direct your call?"
I really didn't have a plan for this situation. "Uh, hello? I would like to speak with the Senator."
"I'm sorry, he's not taking any calls right now. Would you like to leave a message for one of his assistants?"
Think of a lie, David. "Yeah...Well, I'm calling from iCosmos. We found a note from his father addressed to Tyler."
There's a long pause. "Hold on one second."
A moment later Tyler answers the phone, "This better not be a joke."
"It's not, Senator. This is David Dixon."
His voice explodes in my ear. "Alright, asshole! You got a lot of fucking nerve calling me!"
"Tyler, it's me! Remember when..."
"Even if it was you, you're the last person I'd ever want to talk to!"
"Wait...I can explain!" I protes
t.
"Next time you call this number I'm having the call traced, you fucking murderer!"
Oh, Christ. "I didn't...wait...don't hang up!"
Click.
Shit! Shit! Shit!
My one goddamn lifeline in all this just threatened to call the cops on me.
I collapse on the curb, my head in my hands. For the first time I begin to feel suicidal.
There is no end to this nightmare.
I should have let Vaughn push me out.
I should have burned up in the atmosphere.
It should have been me that died and not Peterson and Bennet.
I'm so lost in my thoughts it takes me a while to realize the phone is ringing in my hand.
It could be Vaughn, all patched up, or one of his cronies...
I don't care. Come get me. I'll tell you anything.
"Yeah..." I say weakly.
"David, it's Tyler," his voice is calm and not the tornado of rage that he was a minute ago. "There's not much time to explain. You need to get another phone and call me at the number I'm about to give you. They're listening to everything."
"I didn't kill your father," I say, my voice distant.
"I know that, David." He takes a long breath. "I did."
48
DEAD DROP
TYLER TELLS me when and how to call him back then hangs up before I can ask him what the hell is going on. What does he mean that he killed his father?
So far he's the only person who seems to understand anything and he just cut me off.
I run inside the gas station, nearly causing a panic.
I'm about to cut in line as some hayseed takes his time buying his cigarettes and scratch-off lottery tickets. I want to blurt out that he doesn't have to die an early death and also be bad at math, but I bite my tongue.
Finally, the elderly clerk sells me a phone, trying to figure out what all the fuss is about. I take a deep breath, trying to stop attracting too much attention to myself.
My goddamn face is on the news rack five feet away.
Man, I suck at this kind of thing.
I get back in my rental car and drive another five miles. I think to myself that all Texas towns seem to look alike. Then I realize I'm back in Van Clark.
Crap.
There's no way around it unless I go off-roading.