by Jason Brant
“I just figured it would be good to know the name of the man I’m going to strangle to death later.” I shifted in the chair, felt blood squish under my butt. Nasty. “Is it Doug? Jim? Steve?”
“You never stop, do you?”
“Todd? I bet it’s Todd. You seem like a Todd.”
“Do you really think that killing me would fix anything? What would happen to you if I were gone? Do you truly think they wouldn’t eliminate you as well? We’re threats to the power structure of this country. Threats to the system are eradicated. You’re useful to them as long as I’m still operating.”
“To be honest, Todd, I haven’t thought that far ahead. My plan only involved two steps. The first one was killing you. The second was to drink myself stupid in celebration. I’ve never been much of a long-term planner.”
Something cold and metallic touched my left pinky toe. I shifted my foot away as far as I could, but with bound ankles that only meant a few inches. A strong hand grabbed hold of my foot and straightened it out.
I wanted to beg.
But to hell with that.
“I understand why you blame me for everything. To a worker, the CEO always appears malevolent.” Smith’s voice came from directly in front of me, but much closer to the floor. “But you can’t blame me for the loss of your friends. Your soldiers. For Samantha.”
Sharp blades touched each side of my little toe.
I barely felt the pressure they applied.
Fury gripped me again.
“I’m going to kill you,” I hissed.
“Will that bring back the soldiers you lost in Iraq? Will that absolve you of your failure to protect them?”
“Don’t mention them, you son of a bitch.” I bucked in the chair again, even though I knew I couldn’t force my way out of the bindings. “You don’t get to—”
“I didn’t kill them, Mr. Benson. You did.”
The throbbing in my head multiplied exponentially. I could barely think straight as anger consumed me. If I could have freed just one hand, I would have throttled him to death.
“Samantha didn’t die in my hands. She died in yours. If you hadn’t involved yourself in her life, she would still be here.” Smith’s voice had quieted to barely more than a whisper. “Everyone you love dies.”
He’s right, Sammy said. You’re the problem. You.
I focused all of my willpower on the restraint around my right wrist. If I could destroy an entire park bench I’d been tied to in Arthur’s Creek, I damn sure could work on a single strap. All I would need was an inch of leeway to pull my hand free and get the party started on Smith’s face.
Nothing happened.
Not even a vibration ran through the chair under me.
The machine on the cart to my left beeped.
Smith grunted, and the pressure on my toe vanished. “Thank you, Mr. Benson.”
“What?” I took deep breaths, working to up my mental intensity even more.
But nothing moved around me. All remained silent and still.
“The electrocution didn’t work as well as we’d hoped. Fortunately, a little mental work over is giving us some stellar readings. We still need more though.”
“You...” I gulped. “You were just screwing with me?”
“Oh, no. I was speaking the truth, just in a way that would get you riled up. You are a failure. Of that, there is no doubt. You have all the power in the world, and yet you destroy everything you hold dear. It’s quite sad.”
“Fuck you, Todd.”
The snips or shears or whatever he had wedged around my toe clanged on the cart. The machine whirred away on the second shelf.
Smith moved to the door, his footfalls barely audible inside my helmet. “If electricity didn’t bring your telekinesis to the surface, perhaps heat will. They say that fire is the great purifier. Let’s find out.”
37 – Just a Touch of Treason
Drew stooped over Nami’s desk, squinting at the blueprints on her monitor. He zoomed in and out with the mouse, shaking his head and mumbling to himself.
“What is this for?” he asked.
“How would I know? I’m the queen, not the architect.”
The rest of the team slowly filed into the forensic center behind them.
Nami spun in her chair. “Come on in, guys. Don’t bother knocking or anything. It’s not like this is a secure room.”
“Now isn’t the time, Ms. Williams.” Nelson stepped beside her. “None of this matters. We’ve been shut down.”
“What?” Nami’s head snapped around as she looked up at him. One of her pigtails slapped across her cheek. “What about Ashley?”
Nelson merely shook his head.
“I don’t understand. Why are we shut down when we just lost a guy? This isn’t—”
Drew cut her off. “This is some kind of underground structure.” He jabbed a finger against the monitor. “It looks like they tied into a really big power line. Some kind of industrial grid maybe.”
“Detective Lloyd.” Nelson grimaced. “There is nothing we can do right now. We have to wait for the agents to arrive and escort us from the premises.”
Bree and Tate stood by the opposite wall, a healthy space between them.
“What am I missing here?” Nami asked. “Who is shutting us down and why?”
“Is this all there is? Just these blueprints?” Drew fumbled with the mouse.
“Don’t touch.” Nami snatched the peripheral from him and moved the cursor to the bottom of the file. “See these tabs here? That means more. Gods, I thought Ashley was the only technologically illiterate one around here.”
“What is going to happen to us?” Bree asked.
Nami swiveled in her chair. “Seriously. What the hell happened while I was in here kicking that computer’s ass?”
“I don’t know what they’re going to do.” Nelson turned back to them. “Hopefully, they’ll debrief you and send you on your way. I can’t promise that, however. President Thomas was furious.”
“What is Woodsland?” Drew asked, still ignoring the rest of their conversation.
“The adults are trying to talk here, Mr. Clean.” Nami swatted him on the hip. “Stop interrupting us when we’re speaking.”
“This says Woodsland.”
“It was an old amusement park I went to as a kid,” Bree said.
“An amusement park? Never heard of it.” Drew straightened out, still inspecting the screen. “You know anything about it? Is it still open?”
“It closed down ten years ago or so, I think. It’s in central Pennsylvania. They called it Woodsland because you had to drive deep into the forest to get there.” Bree shrugged. “We loved going there with my cousins. It was really remote for an amusement park. Probably why it closed.”
“Whoa. Whoa!” Drew spun around, looking at everyone wild-eyed. “I think we have something big here.”
“I don’t get it,” Briggs said.
He stood by the door with Huxx and Shea.
“Short Round here just recovered a file from Christie Tolbert’s laptop. We believe that file came from the thumb drive given to her by the man on the subway this morning. By the looks of it, that guy was running from Smith’s men. It’s safe to assume he actually was one of Smith’s guys who had decided to switch teams. That’s why they hunted him down and killed him.”
Drew pointed at the monitor behind him. “That file has blueprints for an underground structure with enormous electrical requirements. It also mentions an old, abandoned theme park in the middle of Bumfuck, Pennsylvania.”
Bree’s eyes widened. “Woodsland would have more than enough electrical capacity.”
“Bingo.” Drew looked down at Nami. “Find out if anyone purchased the theme park in the past few years.”
“On it.” Nami spun around and faced her computer. She brought up the Internet browser, but received an error. “The hell?”
“What?” Drew asked.
“I lost my Internet connection
.”
Nelson said, “They’re likely removing our access in preparation of shutting us down.”
“Screw it.” Drew turned his focus on Nelson. “I’d bet anything that Woodsland is where Smith is. The man this morning was bringing us all the information we needed to find Smith, but they got to him first. They killed him, recovered the thumb drive, and tried to destroy Tolbert’s computer. They probably think they dodged a bullet.”
“Those pussies didn’t know you had a cyber queen on your side.” Nami beamed. “Hashtag—winning.”
No one responded for several seconds. Nami looked over her shoulder, found all of them staring at her.
“What?” she asked. “None of you has ever heard of Charlie Sheen?”
“That was like a decade ago,” Bree said.
Nami paused, her face scrunching. “Oh, crap. I’m turning into Ashley with the old-timey references.”
“It all fits,” Drew said to Nelson. “The location meets their requirements. It explains how they were able to operate in D.C., Baltimore, and Arthur’s Creek. Central Pennsylvania is within driving distance of them all.”
“Maybe.” Nelson set his jaw. “But even if we did find him, there’s nothing we can do about it. We’re shut down.”
“To hell with that. They have Ash.”
“Detective—”
“I don’t know any of you all that well, and I’m not sure I ever want to.” Tate stepped forward. “But we can’t leave a man behind. Benson screwed up by splitting off from us, but he held his own today. If we know where he is, we gotta go get him.” He looked to the three men standing by the door. “Right?”
Briggs shrugged his big shoulders. “I didn’t sign up for this gig to run back to Texas with my tail between my legs. I’m game for another ass whoopin’.”
Shea and Huxx both mumbled in agreement.
Tate didn’t ask Manning what she thought. That made Nami want to get up and punch him in the wiener. What a butt plug. But he was advocating for saving Gigantor at the moment, and she didn’t want to break that party up.
“I understand the sentiment.” Nelson held his hands out. “That doesn’t change the fact that we’ve been ordered to stand down. It’s over.”
“What would happen if we told the men coming to relieve us about Smith’s location?” Nami asked. “They’ll go and save Ashley, right?”
“Yes, but probably not in a manner you’ll find acceptable.” Nelson clenched his jaw. “Judging from the conversation I just had with President Thomas, they’ll likely blanket the area with drone strikes. Assuming the area is as remote as it sounds.”
“But what if Ashley is there?”
“I think they view the lieutenant as more of a liability now than an asset.”
Nami’s mouth dropped open. “They’ll kill Ashley?”
“We have a chopper,” Drew said. “We have men, we have guns, and we have the element of surprise. Let us go in there and pull Ash out.”
Nelson said, “We can’t just—”
“You’re right,” Drew interrupted. “They’ll kill him. If they can get Ash and Smith at the same time, they’ll do it and wipe their hands of this entire mess. If we leave now, we might be able to get him out of there before they start dropping bombs.”
Everyone watched Nelson as he mulled it over.
After several seconds, he looked around at all of them. “This is treason. You all realize that, right?”
Everyone nodded except Manning.
She fidgeted beside Tate. “What does that mean for us?”
“Could be death.” Nelson glanced at Drew. “Or they could disappear us. You willing to risk that?”
“You said it yourself,” Drew said. “They might do that to us anyway. If the clock is ticking, then I want to make one more play before the game is over. We have to try.”
“So that’s it?” Manning inspected her boots. “We either sit here and wait to be taken down or we go up there and kick some ass, then get taken down. Pretty easy decision.”
“Damn it,” Nelson mumbled. “Prep the chopper. Ms. Williams and I will get as much information on this Woodsland Park as we can. Tate, get the team ready. You have to take off before the officers from D.C. get here.”
Nami gulped. Her cute little behind couldn’t possibly survive in prison. She’d be someone’s bitch within five minutes of arriving. And beyond that, the idea of being incarcerated for the rest of her life was horrifying.
There were so many anime shows she hadn’t seen yet.
And yet, she knew she had to go along with their plan. Ashley was out there and he needed her help. They’d gone through too much together for her to abandon him now. He would owe her big time for this.
Maybe they could send each other cards from federal broom-handle-in-your-ass prison.
“We’ll hold them off as long as we can,” Nami said. “I won’t tell them shit when they get here.”
“Grab the lieutenant and then get out of there.” Nelson jabbed his finger at the floor as he spoke for emphasis. “Don’t worry about Smith, just get Benson. The bombs will likely fall once the officers figure out where you are. It won’t take them long.”
38 – Rationalization
“Hold up a second, Todd.” I bobbed my head in a come-hither movement.
It had to look ridiculous with such a weird contraption on my head. I wanted to talk to him a little more for several reasons, the most important of which was my desire to not be burned. That would suck. I also wanted a few answers, though that was merely secondary to not wanting to resemble Freddy Krueger.
Smith seemed to truly believe his actions were justified, so I would pull on that thread. A bit of the sweater might unravel if I were lucky.
“Before you break out the blow torches, I need to know something.”
“What is it, Mr. Benson?”
“Since we’re on a first-name basis now, Todd, I’d prefer it if you called me Ash. It just sounds cooler that way. My parents didn’t leave me with much, but they did give me a righteous first name.”
Smith let out a loud, exaggerated yawn.
“Okay, moving on.” I shifted my shoulders and felt the dried blood on my skin crack. “What’s your end game here? You’ve got the entire federal government searching for your ass and you’re sitting here in...” I swung my head around as if I were inspecting the room. “Where are we anyway?”
“You bore me.” Smith stepped closer. “I’m not going to give you any vital information, so don’t bother with the games. As for my end game, isn’t it obvious? I’m willing to protect this country at all costs.”
“So you said. You killed thousands to save millions and all that happy horseshit. But what now? You’ve protected us from the weapon only you possess, which takes some serious mental gymnastics for you to rationalize, but I’m still following along. So now what? Why do you have my sexy ass strapped to this chair with a helmet drilled to my head?”
“We can’t defend ourselves against that which we don’t understand. I don’t understand how your mind works, so I’m going to dissect it and learn. Your very existence means there could be others like you out there. If and when another telekinetic shows up, we must be prepared to nullify him. I would have thought that obvious.”
It was obvious; I just wanted to push back the dissection start time a bit. As it turns out, I’d grown quite fond of my mind being just where it was.
That and, if I was truly being honest with myself, some of the things he said rang true. The government that I loathed, and now worked for, had given me very little information or support. They held us back while telling us how important our mission was.
We weren’t given access to the resources we required.
There were times when Drew flat out asked me if I thought they wanted us to succeed. I couldn’t answer that question at the time. I still didn’t know if I could. Some things were run so poorly at the top levels of government that it was nearly impossible to tell if the stupidity was de
liberate or just inherent of the system.
“I get that you want to understand how my weird mental stuff works, but what I can’t figure out is why you’re here personally taking care of this. Don’t you have flunkies who can look at readouts? If you’re really trying to protect the people, then why are you babysitting me? You know I’m no threat to anyone except you.”
“You really are narcissistic, aren’t you?” Smith asked. “You’re the least of my concerns right now. We’re tracking a potential chemical threat at the moment. Your data is a purely secondary objective for me.”
“Chemical attack? Come on now, Todd. Let’s drop the act. You’re doing this because you’re pissed off that the government burned you, and now you want revenge. This whole saving the country nonsense has to stop.”
Smith sighed. “I would have left the country long ago if I was only concerned with revenge. Staying inside our borders makes me particularly vulnerable, doesn’t it?”
He had a point there, though it didn’t really prove anything.
“I already told you that we found the weapon we used in Arthur’s Creek and had to protect the nation from it. We’re doing the same with other threats as we speak. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” Smith said, “we have to get back to work. Good luck, Mr. Benson. You’re going to need it.”
39 – Woodsland
The helicopter sped over the forest, the bottom of the bird less than fifty feet above the treetops. Shea kept them low to minimize the odds of them being spotted from miles out. He had them moving at a fast clip, knowing time wasn’t on their side.
Everyone else sat in the back, facing each other.
The early evening sun glinted off the windshield.
Within an hour, night would arrive.
The entire flight only took thirty minutes as the theme park was less than fifty miles away by air. Driving there would have taken significantly longer and made the mission nearly impossible to pull off before the men from Washington arrived and took over.
They found a small field in the middle of the forest that they’d determined would be a good place to land before they’d left the Psych Ward. Shea put them down in a hurry and killed the engine. The team hopped out and moved twenty yards away. They congregated in a small circle as they all performed a final check of their weapons.