by Eric Bernt
The debacle was only a minor blip in Stenson’s long and distinguished career, and it was a stumble that he was in the process of correcting. The incoming call from a particular independent contractor confirmed it. The GPS transmitter in the man’s phone allowed the AHF director to see his current location, a block east of Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia. The building was one of many owned by the foundation in various major cities around the United States. In fact, the last time Stenson checked, the value of their real estate holdings exceeded $720 million. They used the buildings for a variety of purposes, including “pop-up” offices like the real estate branch they had formed to ensnare Dr. Skylar Drummond.
Stenson answered his phone. “Yes?”
Jared, whose real name was Tristan Barlow, replied, “Audience has been seated. Waiting for the show to begin.”
Stenson turned to one of the computer monitors on his desk, which featured a split screen. On one side, Eddie Parks’s room in Harmony House was visible. It was currently vacant. It had only been a few minutes since Stenson had ordered Nurse Gloria not to enter Eddie’s room. On the other side of the screen, he saw Dr. Skylar Drummond. She was slumped in the chair, bound and unconscious. “Yes, I see.”
“How long until we connect with the other party?”
Stenson glanced at his watch. “Not long.”
CHAPTER 7
EDDIE’S ROOM
HARMONY HOUSE
June 1, 12:48 p.m.
A man wearing an Albert Einstein mask appeared on the screen of the unfamiliar laptop. He sat down in front of the camera. There must have been a chair just below the frame. The rubber mask concealed his identity. “Hello, Edward.”
Eddie’s concerns about the device appeared to be confirmed. “You’re not the real Albert Einstein. I know because he is dead.”
“No, I’m not.” He sounded like he was in his fifties and from the Midwest. Eddie guessed northern Ohio but would need to hear him talk more before he could narrow it down further.
Eddie stared at the man in the mask who had appeared on the unfamiliar laptop. “How do you know my name?”
“I know a great deal about you. Including that you reverted your recording device to a nonworking state after using it to hear your mother’s voice.”
Eddie required a moment to process the information. “The echo box is not a recording device.”
“Call it whatever you want.”
“The echo box is a device for reconstructing sound waves.”
“Goody for you.”
Eddie started to feel uncomfortable. And when he felt uncomfortable, that was never good. His hands clenched tightly. “If you know a great deal about me, you should know that I don’t like to be called Edward.”
“I don’t care what you like to be called.” His voice was cold and emotionless.
The hair on Eddie’s arms stood up. His face became flushed. His body was responding to what his head could not yet process. “This computer is not supposed to be in my room. I don’t want it here.”
“That’s too bad.”
Eddie paused, struggling with what to say next. “Why did you put it here?”
“I didn’t.” Surprisingly, the man behind the mask was telling the truth. “One of my associates did.”
CLICK-CLICK. Eddie heard the door to his room being locked from the outside.
Eddie walked over to it, confirming that the door would indeed not open. He was locked inside, which to his knowledge had never occurred in all his years at Harmony House. He had not even known that the door could be locked, because from the inside, it could not.
He BANGED on the door in desperation. “Help! Somebody help! Let me out!”
The man on the computer screen showed no reaction to his pleas. “Yelling won’t do you any good, Edward. No one can hear you. Your acoustic tiles make sure of that.”
Eddie glanced around the room at the 335 custom-designed tiles he’d had installed on the walls and ceiling when he first moved in, to reduce the echoes produced in the space. This was the first time he could remember wishing he had never installed them. Eddie returned to the laptop. “How do you know about my acoustic tiles?”
The man in the mask answered coldly. “I already told you, I know a great deal about you.”
“Why did one of your associates put this computer in here?”
“So you and I could talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you. You are a stranger, and I do not talk to strangers.” He grabbed the laptop screen, about to close it and end the conversation.
The man in the mask responded quickly. “Before you do that, there’s something I want to show you.”
“What is it?” Eddie let go of the laptop.
“I will ask you just one time to return the echo box to its fully functional condition.”
“I’m still waiting for Skylar to give me her answer about whether I have to. It has not been forty-eight hours yet. I cannot give you an answer until I receive her response.”
“I think you will change your mind.”
On the laptop screen, the view panned away from the man in the mask to someone else sitting in the room. She was bound and gagged and utterly terrified.
Eddie screamed at the top of his lungs. “Skylar! Are you okay?! Why are you tied up like that? Where are you?”
It was clear that she could see and hear him, because she reacted to every word. Skylar looked directly into the camera, making it appear like she was staring at Eddie. She desperately tried to communicate something to him, but whatever she said was unintelligible.
On the laptop screen, the man in the mask stepped behind Skylar and grabbed her by the hair. His voice remained perfectly calm. “Edward, I am going to torture her unless you fix your echo box.”
“Stop it! You’re scaring her!”
The man’s voice didn’t waver. He sounded like an elementary school teacher standing in front of a class. “It’s up to you, Edward. Only you can stop it. You either get your machine to work properly or your doctor will suffer more pain than she has ever experienced, and you will have a front-row seat.”
“I don’t want a front-row seat!” Eddie pressed his fists to his head, which felt like it was going to explode.
The man in the Einstein mask revealed a knife—it looked to be nine inches long and serrated. The carbon steel glinted in the harsh light pointed at Skylar.
Eddie spoke with all the authority he could muster. “Put that knife down. Don’t you know that knives are dangerous?”
“Yes, I do.” The man in the mask dragged the blade across Skylar’s neck, drawing a small amount of blood. Her face contorted as she screamed in pain through her gag.
“Stop it! You’re hurting her!”
The man answered with a discomforting calm. “Yes, I am. And I will continue hurting her unless you fix your box, Edward.”
“Stop it! Stop it! Stop it!” Eddie cried as he started hitting himself repeatedly. His fist was closed, making the blows more like punches than slaps. There was a vengeance to the self-mutilation because of the intensity of what he was witnessing. A clinical psychologist would have said that he blamed himself for what was happening to Skylar. Unconsciously, he was intent on experiencing at least as much pain as she was.
And there was no one there to stop him.
Skylar screamed in muted desperation. Tears streamed down her face as her cheeks turned bright red. Her expression made it clear that watching Eddie suffer was worse for her than anything that could be done to her.
Her captor, on the other hand, appeared to have a different reaction. He did not look away or blink. He leaned in closer to the monitor he was watching to get a better look at Eddie’s self-inflicted brutality. This screen also contained a camera, so his moving closer gave anyone observing him a close-up view of his reaction. While his Einstein mask concealed most of his face, Tristan’s eyes and a portion of his mouth could be seen through the openings in the molded rubber. He was smiling ever so slightly
. He was enjoying the show and seemed to hope it wouldn’t end anytime soon.
The same could not be said, however, for some of the other parties watching the proceedings.
CHAPTER 8
LIEUTENANTS’ SHARED OFFICE
AMERICAN HERITAGE FOUNDATION
June 1, 12:51 p.m.
One hundred and thirty-nine miles away, just outside Alexandria, Virginia, in an office park unremarkable except for the incredible array of sophisticated antennae perched atop one of the buildings, three subordinates of Bob Stenson watched their own monitors inside the American Heritage Foundation offices. They were watching both sides of the conversation in split screen, just like their boss was. After all, it was the AHF who had hired the man to hold Skylar hostage.
Tristan Barlow was an independent contractor they used only for “special assignments” like this. “Special assignment” sounded so much better than kidnapping and torture, which were this man’s specialties. He had received his training from the Central Intelligence Agency and had performed this type of duty at various black sites around the world, more times than he could count—including carrying out a majority of the 183 waterboardings of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who eventually confessed to masterminding the September 11 attack on the United States.
Of the three AHF employees observing the proceedings, Daryl Trotter, the true genius among the trio, remained the most dispassionate. He could have been watching a chess match—that was his game of choice prior to joining the foundation—for all his face revealed. He was making hash marks with his pencil in the margin of a notepad each time Eddie hit himself. There were currently thirty-seven marks in the margin.
Jason Greers, the heir apparent to one day take Bob Stenson’s place and run the AHF, gritted his teeth. He was made uncomfortable by the proceedings but seemed to be trying hard not to show it.
Caitlin McCloskey—the legacy, whose father was one of the original founders—was visibly upset. As the only female among them, she often tried to conceal reactions that might be viewed as too emotional by her male counterparts. However, this time, it was obvious she felt that they had crossed the line and that an emotional response was warranted. “This is wrong.”
Greers retorted abruptly, “So this is wrong, but the contract killers you hired last week were right?”
“We’ve never done anything remotely like this to an innocent.”
“Edward Parks is not an innocent.”
“What the hell is wrong with you? Look at him.” She pointed angrily to Eddie on-screen. Trotter’s hash marks were now up to sixty-one. Eddie’s cheek was bleeding. His scars were going to have scars.
“His technology is the single most important advancement in intelligence in over fifty years, possibly ever. Whatever his personal limitations are, he is not an innocent.”
She stared at him defiantly. “You can’t possibly believe that.”
It was clear that he didn’t, but also that he wasn’t about to relent. “What would you have us do? We tried a more politically correct way. Look where it got us.”
“There are more than two choices.” She said it sharply, her anger now clearly coming through.
Trotter had grown tired of the conversation. “That’s true. There are. But it’s not me you need to convince.”
He was right. If she had been seeking consensus, or moral support of any kind, she didn’t get it. Clearly, Caitlin was on her own, and she considered what she was about to do. On any number of occasions she had questioned Bob Stenson, the foundation’s director, before a certain course of action was taken by an AHF team or one of its subcontractors—but this would be the first time she had ever asked about an action already undertaken. It would come off either as second-guessing or like she hadn’t thought the plan all the way through. Neither was good. And if she wasn’t very careful, it could sound insubordinate. Or even worse, like she was losing her stomach for this line of work.
All of which meant that she should just keep her damn mouth shut. She knew it. Almost spoke the words out loud. The problem was, she kept thinking of her father, Lawrence Walters, and his private instructions to her upon being hired. These included a famous quote from Winston Churchill, from a speech he gave long before he became prime minister of England.
In 1906, he held the title of undersecretary of state for the colonies, making him responsible for the treatment of the British South African colonies after the Boer War. The thirty-two-year-old Churchill declared, “Where there is great power, there is great responsibility.” Lawrence emphasized to his daughter that Churchill didn’t become Churchill by being elected prime minister; he became prime minister because he already was Churchill.
Caitlin took a deep breath, knowing what she had to do. Alone, she marched down the hall to the office of her superior, Bob Stenson. His door was open. As she knocked lightly, she could see the director was also watching Eddie Parks exhaustively self-mutilate. Of course he was. From his expression, Stenson looked like he could have been watching bowling. “Yes?”
“Do you have a moment?”
“I do.” He did not appear surprised by her visit. He almost seemed to be expecting it; he waved her in to join him watching the drama play out on the split screen. Stenson never took his eyes off the monitor, apparently not wanting to miss a single moment.
CHAPTER 9
HARMONY HOUSE
WOODBURY, NEW JERSEY
June 1, 12:57 p.m.
Still locked in his room, Eddie Parks finally stopped hitting himself. He was brutalized. There was blood on his face and hands. It was also smeared on his clothing. On his Batman bedsheet. On the floor. He looked helpless, like a wounded animal. Only it was hard to imagine a wounded animal self-mutilating to this extent.
On the laptop screen, Skylar Drummond’s eyes bulged as she watched him from her Philadelphia location. She breathed hard through the cloth stuffed into her mouth, apparently trying every way she could to communicate with Eddie. Small streaks of blood trickled down her neck onto her shirt collar from where she had been cut as a demonstration. Her bloodshot eyes were wet from crying, as were her cheeks.
Eddie spoke weakly, almost inaudibly. “Okay.”
On-screen, the man in the Einstein mask nodded ever so slightly. “Okay, what?” he asked pleasantly.
“Okay, I will fix the echo box.”
Skylar screamed as loud as she could into her gag, which didn’t produce much audible sound, but did turn her face a deeper shade of red.
Ignoring her, Tristan cupped his hands to his ears and addressed Eddie. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. What was that?”
Eddie took a long, defeated breath. “I am sorry they are hurting you, Skylar. It’s my fault. But now I am going to make them stop.”
Skylar vigorously shook her head no. It was hard to tell if she didn’t want Eddie to feel responsible for the predicament she was in, or if she didn’t want him to do what they were asking of him. Either way, it didn’t matter, because Eddie could no longer bear to even glance at her. He looked everywhere but at the laptop screen.
He spoke to the man in the mask, enunciating as clearly as he could. “I said, I will return the echo box to working condition.”
Tristan nodded, now speaking as if to an old friend. “Good. I’m glad to hear that. How much time do you think you will need?”
Eddie caught his breath. “Approximately two hours.”
Skylar again screamed as loudly as she could. It was now clear that she didn’t want him to fix the box. Tristan glanced over toward her with annoyance. SLAP! He smacked her hard across the face with the back of his hand. If she hadn’t been tied to her chair, she would have been knocked off it.
“Stop it!” Eddie pleaded.
Tristan paused, speaking coldly from behind his mask. “Fix your box, or I will do much, much worse.”
Inside Bob Stenson’s office, Caitlin couldn’t watch any more. She turned away from the screens, finding it increasingly difficult to hide her emotions.
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Stenson never looked away from the monitors as he turned down the volume. “You seem upset.”
She thought she was presenting a better poker face. “I’m more concerned than upset.”
Stenson studied her. “You are your father’s daughter, aren’t you?”
She couldn’t tell if he meant it as a compliment or not. “Sir, with all due respect, he would never have sanctioned this.”
“You’d be surprised at some of the operations he authorized.” Stenson smirked knowingly.
Caitlin now realized that her father may have been trying to help her learn from his mistakes. After all, if power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. “There are other ways we could have convinced Edward Parks to repair his device.”
“He prefers to be called Eddie.” He smiled briefly at his own joke. “Of course there are other ways. But none are as expedient. After last week’s debacle, I am not about to allow any further public exposure of the device or ourselves.”
She exhaled deeply, signaling her resignation. “Eddie Parks is an innocent.” Meaning “out of bounds.” Not part of the game. An element of unspoken American Heritage doctrine her father had taught her was that they treat innocents differently. There are players in the game, there are spectators watching from the sidelines, and there are those who are unaware that a game is even being played. Those are the innocents, and they deserve gentler treatment than those involved in the game. Caitlin could justify playing rough with participants, or even with those observing from a distance, but never with those who didn’t have a clue.
“What you don’t seem to recognize is that Eddie Parks is terminal.” He said it like an oncologist reviewing a biopsy. “Once we are in possession of the device, he is far too great a liability, innocent or otherwise.”
Although barely able to breathe, Caitlin nodded with understanding. Not about Stenson’s reasoning, but about what she needed to do. It was Stenson’s last phrase that did it. Innocent or otherwise. He had admitted that Eddie was an innocent but they were doing this to him anyway. And worse, they were going to kill him as soon as he had repaired his precious device and outlived his usefulness.