Centralia

by Mike Dellosso

  Peter swung his right foot around and caught the guy in the side of the head, shoving him sideways. He grunted and stumbled into a metal cart, dumping tools and instruments, then fell to the floor. There was one other technician in the room, heavyset, middle-aged. He made a move for the door, but Peter was off the table and across the room before he could reach it. Peter’s movements were clumsy, his limbs heavy. The anesthesia was still in his blood. Grabbing the guy by the lab coat, Peter yanked him back and pushed him hard into the adjacent wall, nearly falling on top of him. The guy reached for a pair of forceps, but Peter awkwardly slapped his hand away.

  Behind Peter, the other technician was on his feet. He exhaled loudly and made a charge at Peter, some sort of stainless-steel instrument in his right hand.

  Still gripping the taller technician’s coat with both hands, Peter swung him around and drove him into his colleague. The men’s heads collided, sending them both to the floor in a conglomeration of arms and legs.

  While they were dazed and struggling to reacclimate themselves, Peter found a roll of surgical tape and quickly bound both men by their wrists and ankles. He also shoved a roll of gauze in each man’s mouth and taped it in place.

  With both technicians bound and gagged, Peter collapsed to the floor, fatigue overwhelming him. He needed to rest, to replenish his energy. He felt he needed to sleep for days but knew he had mere minutes, maybe seconds, before his escape was discovered. He had to keep moving. Willing his limbs to function, he pushed himself to stand and leaned on a counter. His stomach roiled and churned with boiling bile, and he felt like he might vomit.

  A can of soda sat on the counter. Peter glanced at the two technicians bound on the floor and grabbed the can. Taking huge gulps, he downed more than half of it in two swigs. The sugar would do him good, give him a burst of energy. He drained the rest of the can.

  Glancing around the room, checking all four corners, he saw no cameras. Odd, given the seeming omniscience they’d shown in other situations. Maybe the agency didn’t want any recorded evidence of what happened in this lab—something so unethical, so egregious, the agency took precautions against whistle-blowers.

  At the door, Peter paused and turned toward the technicians. They blinked and glanced at each other. He hesitated, then reached for a pair of surgical scissors on the counter and walked toward the men. Their eyes widened. If there was even a slight chance that Karen and Lilly had been returned to the bunker for more experiments, Peter had to know, and these two were the only sources he had.

  Peter squatted in front of the men and held up the scissors. “Guys, there’s a couple ways we can do this and one of them will be awfully painful for you. I want to know where my wife and daughter are. Karen and Lilly Ryan.”

  The men glanced at each other again but made no show of wanting to talk.

  Peter shrugged. He had to work quickly. He grabbed the younger technician by the belt and yanked him forward. He then grabbed the man’s bound hands and pried open his fist. Extending the man’s little finger, Peter opened the scissors and placed them around the quivering digit. “I wonder how well these scissors cut through bone. I’m guessing not so well.”

  The man’s eyes widened and he moaned, tried to pull his hand away. The other technician hollered as well and squirmed, trying to get himself into position to resist Peter. Peter punched the man in the face with the side of his fist, then replaced the scissors around the shorter man’s finger.

  Finally the man opened both hands and his eyes pleaded for Peter to stop.

  Peter cut the tape holding the gauze and removed the roll from the tech’s mouth. “Tell me,” he said, “or I won’t hesitate to remove your fingers one by one.”

  The man swallowed, then said, “I need some water.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Peter said, grabbing the man’s hand again and lifting the scissors.

  “No, no, no. Wait. I’ll tell you.” Tears spilled from the young man’s eyes now. “They don’t pay me enough for this.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know, man.”

  Peter slapped the man in the mouth.

  “It’s not our job to know.”

  Peter hit him again. “Where are they?”

  As if he’d just been told that not only had his position with the agency been terminated but he’d been selected to be discontinued, the man tilted his head back and moaned. He glanced at his partner, who widened his eyes and shook his head. “I don’t care anymore, man. It’s not worth losing my fingers. I don’t know where they are—”

  Peter put some pressure on the scissors, starting to dig into the man’s little finger.

  “But I know the room where you can find what you’re looking for. It’s in B corridor.”

  “Where is that?”

  “Two corridors away. This is D.”

  “Which way?”

  The man said nothing. He licked at a trickle of blood that had seeped from a cut on his lip and tried to wipe at it.

  Peter hit him, even more fiercely. “Which way?”

  The other technician grunted and shook his head.

  “Please, man, stop. I’m just a tech. I’m nobody around here. Make a right out of here and go to the end of the corridor, then go left. Two more intersections, then the first room after you turn right. That’s what you’re looking for.”

  Peter replaced the gauze in the man’s mouth, stood, and crossed the room to the door. He paused before opening it and said a quick prayer.

  “Do you trust him?”

  Yes, I trust.

  Cracking the door, Peter listened for footsteps or the scuffing of boots on concrete, but the corridor was silent and still. His little revolt and escape had yet to be detected. He poked his head out of the doorway; the corridor was empty. Slowly he closed the door behind him, then proceeded to the right down the hall, sticking close to the wall. At the end of the hallway he rounded the corner and headed in the direction the technician had indicated.

  He didn’t know whether the man had told him the truth or directed him into a trap, but he had had nothing else to go on. His only protection now was diligence. At the junction of the next corridor, Peter paused and checked the hallway. It was lined with doors like the other tunnels and also was clear. Quickly he crossed the junction and headed to the next passageway.

  Again he paused, waited, listened, then peered around the corner. A woman in a white lab coat was headed the opposite direction, her back to him, her heels clicking on the concrete like a clock wound too tight. Peter waited until she rounded the far corner, then shuffled down the hallway to the first door on the right. His heart pounded in his chest, filling the space between his ribs and spine, and he could feel his pulse in his fingertips. He rested his hand on the door’s handle.

  Peter depressed the handle all the way and pushed open the door. Without hesitating, he stepped inside and shut the door. A light automatically flickered on, illuminating a room whose four walls were lined with gray file cabinets. In the center of the room sat a metal desk with a computer, printer, and scanner.

  “The room where you can find what you’re looking for.” Wasn’t that what the technician had said?

  Peter locked the door, then sat at the desk. The computer was equipped with a fingerprint scanner. He placed his thumb on the small pad and waited. A box popped up on the monitor with a bar that traced back and forth across the screen. The word VERIFYING blinked in time with the bar’s movement. After a few seconds the screen went black, then blinked on again. Against a light-blue background, black text read:

  Confirmed

  Jedidiah Patrick

  Welcome!

  Peter sat back in the chair and clasped his hands to steady the tremor that had overtaken them. The computer knew him as Jedidiah Patrick, not Peter Ryan.

  Moments later the screen blanked again, then sprang back to life, displaying some kind of home page with various icons. Peter clicked on the Files icon. From there he clicked on
a link labeled Personal.

  A list of pages appeared. Peter clicked on one labeled Family.

  When the page popped up, an involuntary gasp escaped Peter’s mouth. On the screen were two photos of Karen and Lilly, the wife and daughter Peter remembered. The first was posed, Karen seated with Lilly standing by her side, her delicate hand on Karen’s shoulder. Both wore pretty dresses with small floral prints. Their smiles were forced for the camera.

  The second photo was not posed; in fact, it appeared to have been taken without Karen or Lilly’s knowledge. They were by a pond, Karen squatting and holding something out to Lilly. Karen wore jeans rolled to her calves and a red-and-white gingham blouse. Lilly wore shorts and a white T-shirt with flip-flops.

  Instinctively Peter reached out and touched Karen’s face on the screen.

  He scanned the text on the page. It stated that Karen Aubrey Wells was born on March 6 and that Lillian Marie Patrick was born on July 12. Both correct. Except for the last name. There it was again: Patrick, not Ryan.

  Peter read on as a chill like the thready legs of a thousand spiders climbed down his neck and back and caused him to shiver. The document claimed both Karen and Lilly had died in a car accident.

  Peter let his hand slide off the mouse and fall onto his lap. That word—DECEASED—burned a hole in his eyes, his mind, his heart. It couldn’t be true. He refused to believe it, but there it was. The images were of Karen and Lilly, his Karen and Lilly—there was no mistaking it. They had the right people. Was Nichols right all along? Had he been telling Peter the truth? Or was this just another trick, another step in his mind-altering torture?

  “That’s what you’re looking for.” The technician had known Peter would find the truth here.

  With a numb, trembling hand, Peter forced himself to exit the file and clicked on one labeled Military.

  Another photo appeared, this one of himself, a bit younger and leaner and sporting a full beard. He wore an Army uniform and looked scared or angry or maybe both.

  Peter stared at the photo for what seemed a long time, studying the younger man on the screen, probing his eyes, trying to decipher what was peering back at him.

  Finally he scrolled down to the text below the photo. Scanning it, he felt his heart rate become even more pronounced. Words and phrases jumped out at him and seemed to sock him in the gut.

  . . . Sergeant Jedidiah Patrick, First Battalion, 75th Army Ranger Regiment . . .

  . . . Medal of Honor . . . Purple Heart . . . Distinguished Service Cross . . . Silver Star . . .

  Once again Peter’s hand slipped off the mouse and rested in his lap. He sat there, dumbfounded, confused, an odd mixture of fear and anger growing in his chest. He had absolutely no recollection of ever earning those medals.

  Back on the Files page, Peter moved the cursor to a file named Centralia and clicked. A page popped up that briefly described Sergeant Patrick’s accomplishments, the medals he’d earned, the battles he’d fought. Another paragraph described him as stable, reliable. It included testimony from a military psychologist, stating that Jedidiah was competent and in excellent psychological health despite the combat action he’d seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

  Scrolling down the page, Peter found the mission Patrick had volunteered for. It was called the Centralia Project. The page offered only a brief description, stating the project’s aim to develop the “perfect soldier, focused, disciplined, courageous, skilled, possessing the ability to make decisions quickly.”

  It stated that “Sergeant Patrick possesses all of these qualities and would make an ideal candidate.”

  At the bottom of the page was a scanned copy of a legal release form, signed by Patrick. Below the release form was an agreement to confidentiality forbidding Patrick to ever speak of the Centralia Project, the work, the members, or anything else he might know of it, with the consequence of imprisonment or death for treason if he did. Both forms were signed by Sergeant Jedidiah Patrick.

  At the bottom of the page was a link that simply read MK-ULTRA (ABERNATHY). Peter clicked on it, and the screen went black with a single sentence in white letters blinking in the center of it:

  Files no longer exist.

  Outside the room, in the corridor, he heard a commotion, voices speaking hurriedly, someone shouting. They were looking for him.

  Quickly Peter shut down the computer, crossed the room, and stood by the door, his ear to the metal. The corridor was quiet now; his pursuers had moved on to another section of the bunker.

  Slowly, quietly, Peter depressed the handle and opened the door. The hallway was empty. Part of him wanted to find the nearest occupant of this subterranean tomb and just surrender, but his survival instincts wouldn’t let that happen. If there was a sliver of a possibility that Karen and Lilly were still alive, then he had to get to the top and begin the search for them. Nichols said they were dead. The computer said they were deceased. But he’d heard enough lies from Nichols that he wasn’t ready to take that at face value. For all he knew, Nichols wanted him to find that computer and read those files.

  Sticking close to the wall, Peter made his way down the corridor. At the end he paused. He thought about going back to the room where the technicians were bound and conscripting one of them to lead him to the surface, but he decided against it. By the time he got there, they might be free, and he’d find himself surrounded without a weapon. No, the best decision was to keep moving through the bunker. Eventually he’d find an exit.

  This end of the bunker was apparently rarely used. Peter turned down the next passageway and stopped at the first door. Behind it something hummed steadily, and beyond the hum was a rhythmic thrum, like that of a huge clothes dryer.

  After looking both ways, Peter opened the door and peeked inside. The lights in this room were already on, and Peter saw rows of big machines but no sign of human presence. He ducked in and eased the door shut behind him, then turned and found himself looking down the barrel of a handgun. A sloppy move, and he couldn’t afford to get sloppy.

  A man stood on the other end of the pistol, middle-aged, short gray hair, handlebar mustache, wide eyes and lips parted. His hands trembled ever so slightly. The man took two steps back, out of Peter’s reach.

  Peter raised both hands and showed the man his palms. “Easy now. I don’t want any trouble.”

  “You’re him, aren’t you?” the man said.

  “Who?”

  “The guy who escaped. You’re him.” He stood with his feet wide and the gun shoulder-high. His respiration was quick and shallow. With the gun he motioned for Peter to move to the left. “Slowly now. I don’t want any trouble either.”

  As Peter sidestepped, he said, “Who are you?”

  “Bob. Maintenance.”

  Behind Peter was a chair. Bob motioned for Peter to sit in it.

  Sitting, Peter said, “I just need to get out of here, Bob.”

  Keeping the gun trained on Peter’s chest, Bob stepped backward several paces toward a small metal desk with a phone on it.

  “Bob, don’t pick up that phone, okay? Let’s talk about this.”

  But Bob reached for the phone.

  Peter stood and stepped forward, causing Bob to temporarily abandon his idea of calling for help. “You stay there, you hear me?” Bob waved the gun back and forth. His eyes were so wide Peter thought they might pop from their sockets. “Don’t you come any closer.”

  Peter took another step toward the maintenance man. “Bob, you don’t want to shoot me. If you wanted to, you would have already. Put the gun down. I don’t want any trouble. I just want to get out of here. This doesn’t have to be complicated.”

  “You’re makin’ it complicated. Now you just sit back down there.”

  “I’m not going to sit. And you’re not going to shoot. Right?”

  Another step forward. He was now no more than ten feet from Bob.

  The gun teetered in Bob’s hand. “No closer. Stop!”

  Ignoring Bob’s warnings, Pete
r inched nearer, keeping his hands where they could be seen to assure Bob he had no intention of harming him. When he was five feet away, Peter stopped.

  One of Bob’s hands now rested on the phone; the other held the gun pointed at Peter’s chest.

  “All I have to do is pick up the receiver,” Bob said. His voice quivered. “It automatically places a call to HQ. If I don’t respond, they’ll think something’s wrong and send someone to check on me.”

  “Then don’t pick it up.”

  Bob’s face twisted into a terrible grimace. “Get on your knees then.”

  “I can’t do that, Bob.”

  Peter kept his eyes locked on Bob’s, but in his peripheral vision he saw the man’s hand tighten around the receiver. He was going to do it.

  As quickly as a snake strikes from the cover of high grass, Peter lunged at Bob, taking hold of his wrist with one hand and the handgun with the other. Before Bob could even reflexively squeeze off a shot, Peter had the gun pointed at the man’s face. Startled, Bob made to step back but stopped. He still had his hand on the phone.

  “Take your hand off it, Bob.”

  Bob shook his head.

  Before Bob could lift the receiver, Peter slapped him across the face and shoved him back. Bob stumbled, lost his balance, and fell to the floor. But in doing so, he knocked the receiver from its cradle.

  Both men stared at the phone for a second. On the other end a steady beeping began.

  Peter stepped between Bob and the desk. “I’m sorry. I am. I didn’t want to hit you. But I need your help.”

  Bob looked at the phone. “It’ll keep beeping until I give my password. And if I don’t within twenty seconds, they’ll send someone.”

  Peter approached him and grabbed his shirt with one hand, lifted the man to his feet. He pointed the gun at Bob’s face. “Say it.”

  Bob hesitated, his lips trembling, right eye twitching uncontrollably.