by JT Sawyer
The Gathering Darkness
Volume 4 in the Carlie Simmons Post-Apocalyptic Series
Copyright
Copyright September 2015 by JT Sawyer
No part of this book may be transmitted in any form whether electronic, recording, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction and the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, incidents, or events is entirely coincidental and not intended by the author.
Cast of Characters
Carlie Simmons
Shane Colter
Eliza Huntington
Jared Sweinhart
Matias Guerra
Amy Hadden
Sergeant Major Ron Duncan
Pavel Dimitrikov
Sec-Def Conrad Lavine
Lt. Colonel Ryan Mitchell
Prologue
Two Weeks before the Global Pandemic
Wilkins Maximum Security Military Prison, Walla Walla, Washington
Where does evil come from? Does it originate from the trauma of a scarred childhood or does it stem from a genetic predisposition towards sociopathic tendencies from faulty hardwiring in the brain? These were the questions drifting through Doctor Dillon McCarthy’s mental landscape as he walked into the lobby of the three-story administrative building where the warden was located. Wilkins Military Prison housed five hundred and seventy prisoners who were incarcerated for acts of high treason or war crimes and McCarthy had just been assigned as the new psychotherapist who would conduct weekly interviews with the most nefarious criminals. His routine psychological evaluations at the penitentiary were deemed essential by the Armed Services Mental Health Committee. He had taken the job two months ago to pay off his considerable debts as a new grad and to spend time near his parents who had retired in nearby Yakima.
McCarthy tried to contain his enthusiasm as he poured over the case file in his hands while walking to the elevator beyond the security desk. The latest prisoner arrival had garnered much attention from both staff and inmates alike and McCarthy was excited to get the first crack at the mysterious Lieutenant Colonel Ryan Mitchell. “The Butcher of Kandahar” is what the media called him and his trial had reaped great attention. Mitchell claimed he was innocent, of course—that the notorious interrogation program that was exposed abroad was something he had no part in, despite damning evidence to the contrary. Mitchell later alleged the army had farmed him out to an unspecified covert agency for his expertise in enhanced interrogation methods and then tossed him to the wolves when an undercover journalist got wind of Mitchell plying his tradecraft at a remote base in Afghanistan. The various three-letter government agencies denied any knowledge and several commanding generals were in the spotlight until evidence appeared fully implicating Mitchell as a rogue officer bent on his own demented brand of warfare.
The elevator doors parted and McCarthy strode down the brightly lit hallway to the warden’s office, barely noticing the other staff walking by as he read through the detailed patient history while his lips formed a faint smile. A chance to get a crack at a real sociopath—an actual interrogator like one of those villains in the movies—this should provide me with plenty of research material for submitting a paper to the International Journal of Psychiatric Research. A fast track to scientific publication beyond what my fellow grads are doing now.
McCarthy did the customary handshake with Warden Jason Kolb and, instead of sitting in his office, the man motioned McCarthy to stand at the large window overlooking the main entrance gate. A pair of ravens flew by, cawing at the inmates exercising in the yard below.
“Things have changed slightly since we spoke a few days ago,” Kolb said, folding his arms over his paunchy midsection. “The arrival of Ryan Mitchell caused quite a stir amongst the prisoners and my men.” He chewed his lower lip for a second. “There was an altercation last night—he injured two of my guards and killed an inmate. He’s now got a permanent home in solitary so head there after you make your usual rounds.”
McCarthy flitted his fingers nervously on the shoulder strap of his briefcase. “Good grief, are your men alright?”
“Let’s just say one of them doesn’t have much of an ear left to enjoy music with and the other one is on crutches. As for the dead prisoner,” he paused, giving McCarthy a sideways glance, “I figure you were gonna ask about that next for your little documentation book,” Kolb said with a hint of sarcasm. “He died almost instantly of a collapsed airway after Mitchell speared the guy with his fingers on the right side of his trachea, at least that’s what the video footage and resulting coroner’s examination indicated.” The warden leaned forward, resting his pudgy hands on the windowsill. “That’s kinda bizarre for prison attacks—most involve scuffles with fists or the more serious ones where the guy gets shanked with an improvised weapon. I can’t recall ever hearing of a move like that being used. He’s a squirrely motherfucker, that one.”
McCarthy realized how tight his chest was and forced himself to exhale. The cases he dealt with here were so much more fascinating than the ones his university professors had ever alluded to. He glanced out the window at the guard towers in each of the nearby corners of the prison; the men atop them striding purposefully with their rifles made him feel more at ease.
The warden looked over at McCarthy as he fought to erase the tension lines on his face with a stilted grin. The budding clinician in him was more intrigued than ever, wanting to compare the convict in person with the monster on paper. It was also somewhat of a personal challenge to see if he could outwit someone evidently skilled in psychology but lacking any formal degree. Mitchell had to have a side of him that could be plumbed for information—something from his childhood beyond what was documented in his files. Something that could unravel him.
“Look, Doc, I know you’re no stranger to working with nutjobs here but this guy is from another world—like a netherworld. I mean, you’ve read his file and know what he’s done to people,” said Kolb, shaking his head. “He seems like a regular fella on the outside until you’re three minutes into the conversation with him and find he’s been yanking your chain without you knowing you’re getting it yanked. Even when he asks for a piece of paper for his artwork, you wonder if he’s straight up or playing some fucking chess game with your head.”
“Good thing he didn’t go into politics then,” McCarthy said, trying to lighten the mood. He cleared his throat and then looked at his watch. “I better start my evals before the day slips by.”
“Very well. I’ll have the usual guard escort you around.” The two men shook hands and McCarthy was soon on his way to the lower detention level. After conducting interviews with his normal roster of patients during the morning, he was taken to the solitary confinement wing on the sub-level, accessible only by elevator and then gaining entry through two security checkpoints with multiple sentries. The balding guard opened the wrought-iron gate on the containment area that led to twelve solitary confinement cells on the left, and then he motioned with his riot baton to walk to the last cell. Each unit was twelve feet wide by twenty feet deep and comprised of three-inch-thick floor-to-ceiling shatterproof glass with ventilation holes at the top and bottom. To the right of each cell was a narrow steel entrance door which had a sliding metal drawer to pass food and small items.
As McCarthy strode by each prisoner, he anxiously shifted his eyes into the chambers, averting them if one of the men met his inquisitive glance. Upon arriving at the last cell, he turned and stared into the well-lit room. Lt. Colonel Ryan Mitchell sat nonchal
antly upon his bunk facing the glass with one leg raised up and his left hand lazily extended off the knee. The white sleeves on his jumpsuit were rolled up past his meaty forearms. His inch-high black hair stood on end as if it were an electric outlet for the inner fury brewing beneath the surface. The room was sparse, with only a bed that was bolted to the floor, a sink, toilet, desk, and chair. A few articles of clothing and toiletries were arranged on the end of the metal desk along with a small stack of blank paper.
“Hello, I’m Doctor Dillon McCarthy, I’m the new psychologist.” He lowered his leather shoulder bag to the floor and grabbed the chair against the back wall opposite the glass constraint of the prison cell. “Mind if I sit?”
Mitchell flicked his fingers up in response. “’Dillon–now that’s a good Irish name.” The man slowly studied McCarthy from top to bottom like a used-car dealer assessing a new prospect on the lot. “The real issue though is whether you’re Protestant or Catholic. I gotta know who I’m talking to as your religious affiliations may affect how I respond to you—you see, I’m Irish too.”
“I was raised Cath…” McCarthy was cut off before he could finish as Mitchell raised his hand up, palm out. “Just funning you, son. I don’t have much of that in here as you might imagine. “The Almighty don’t give a shit how we supplicate him anyway, right—just as long as we pay our dues.”
On the wall were a dozen exquisitely sketched drawings of the Hong Kong skyline on crinkled 8x11 pieces of paper. “Impressive artwork. Is that a place you’ve been to?” said McCarthy, sitting down and removing his notebook.
“I was just there a few moments ago, reliving a conversation with a woman I once knew. We were enjoying a bottle of Chardonnay and laughing about how our own country has gone to hell.” Mitchell continued casting his gaze at McCarthy, as if searing through his skull into the rear wall. “Have you been to China?”
“No, I can’t say I have. I prefer to vacation in Europe.”
“Oh, me as well. Asia, southeast Asia in particular, is a place that I only used for conducting my business.”
“Yes, I imagine. From all the news reports about you, business must have been good. Interrogation, wasn’t it?”
“Such an ugly word, don’t you think? Something a House Senate Committee might use for instance when justifying their actions abroad while deferring their involvement with a third party. I prefer the term intentional debriefing. After all, people deep down will share their innermost secrets if you have something of value to offer them, such as freedom from pain, imagined or otherwise,” Mitchell said.
McCarthy was pressing his pen into the notebook so hard he caused the ballpoint tip to hang up on the paper. “So you openly admit to torturing people for information?”
“Ah, it’s the politics of morality and state-sponsored justice you want to talk about.” Mitchell hadn’t taken his eyes off of McCarthy once since they began talking. Mitchell leaned forward and formed his hand into a fist then released it, opening his fingers slowly. “You went to college for what—eight years, ten years? Sitting in coffee shops as pop music hummed in the periphery while you typed your thesis, occasionally stopping to comment on a buddy’s Facebook photo and slip a glance at the unobtainable waitress in her knee-high skirt.” Mitchell looked down at the lines in the palm of his hand before closing it into a fist again. “It probably never occurred to you during all those long afternoons enjoying your unsuspecting freedom, that there are guys like me overseas, peeling some terrorist so we wouldn’t have to suffer through another 9/11.”
“You’re sentenced to a lifetime in here because of your crimes and you want to turn this around and cast your guilt onto others. That’s called projection but you probably know that already.”
Mitchell let out a partial smile while continuing eye contact with McCarthy. “Either way, the work was rewarding and it’s a real growth industry I hear. Hell, my slot has probably already been filled and the personnel files obliterated so it can never go to trial this time. The American public doesn’t want to know that we excavate people’s psyches for intel to preserve our precious way of life here in the good old U.S. of A.,” Mitchell said, tilting his chin up, emitting a protracted yawn.
“Not been sleeping well?”
“Not since I was in the womb but frankly, it’s the company I keep that makes me weary,” Mitchell said, remaining still.
McCarthy didn’t take it personally. He knew the man had been testing the waters since he arrived. “So, how long had you been an interrogator? Your file indicated that you practically wrote the book on,” he paused to look down at his notes, “the subject of modern intelligence gathering using non-compliant human assets.”
“A better question is: when was the last time you saw the ocean? It must be difficult to be away so long and be immersed in such an exciting high-desert cowtown like Walla Walla,” Mitchell said, grinding out the last two words with disdain.
McCarthy stopped writing and looked up from his notebook. “Come again?”
“You have a slight hint of the west coast in your voice, lad—I’d say Santa Cruz. You must have done your share of surfing. Now that’s an invigorating pastime.”
McCarthy knew the ruse. He’s trying to divert attention away from himself by asking questions about my history and making a connection to convince me that we have common ground. Besides, his subtle inflection was from Malibu not the impoverished town of Santa Cruz. “My California inflection gave me away—bravo. You have a good ear, though I understand that one of the guards you attacked can’t say the same. What prompted you to assault those men?”
Mitchell gave him an amused look, creaking out a slight smile. “Ah, Doctor McCarthy, we were doing so fine, you and I. You had made first contact by a polite introduction and then queried me about my wellbeing and artwork. You even helped to establish trust by revealing something about your own history just now, but this rough transition into formal questioning that you’ve thrust between us has caused me to feel objectified—like you just want to check off the bullet-points in your notebook, plunk me into a pre-determined Jungian archetype, and be on your way back home to ponder another night alone, wondering where all the good women have gone.”
McCarthy rested his arms on his knees and shot a glance back at Mitchell while staring briefly at his own wavering reflection in the glass.
“Why do you think I was so savage in my attack—you must have talked to the warden—thrill me with your analysis, Doctor.”
McCarthy cleared his throat. “You were threatened by another inmate and sought to defend yourself but decided killing him was a better solution than simple maiming. Now you’ve landed in this permanent vacation spot which is probably what you wanted all along.”
“Very good, except you forgot about the part where I secretly removed the guard’s keys in the fight and now have access to all of the doors on this level.” Mitchell smiled and then his expression turned to stone. He sprung from the cot, racing to the entrance and grabbing the handle of his door, jerking it violently.
McCarthy leaped up, knocking his chair backwards. “Guard! Guard!” He clenched the pen in his hand as his face went white then looked back at Mitchell, who was still locked inside, laughing, his bellowing filling the chamber as the man held his hands around his waist.
McCarthy stood still, his cheeks turning from white to red while his chest pumped furiously. Mitchell backpedaled and resumed his former position on the cot. “Whew, I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. Your face looked like a bug-eyed toddler who just pissed himself at his first fireworks show.” Mitchell continued to laugh, wiping the tears from his eyes with a sleeve from his coveralls.
As three guards ran up, McCarthy raised his palm and nodded, trying to quell his mortified appearance. “It’s alright. False alarm—it was just a false alarm.”
The lead guard walked up and looked over McCarthy and then inspected the cell door. The burly man raised his baton up to the glass at Mitchell. “You keep it up, you old
fuck. I’ll bury your scrawny ass myself in the back forty.”
McCarthy uprighted his chair and retrieved his notebook but continued to stand. “Thank you, Officer, I can handle it from here.” He straightened his glasses and took several deep breaths. The three guards walked away, sneering at the prisoner while reluctantly reholstering their batons and muttering threats against Mitchell between themselves.
Mitchell’s face had hardened again and he resumed his dispassionate stare. “Do you have any further questions, Doctor?”
McCarthy clenched his white knuckles behind his back while grinding out his response. “No, you’ve provided me with everything I need for now.” The doctor grabbed his bag and scurried away, sticking to the far wall opposite the other cells.
“Likewise,” murmured Mitchell who sat erect on his cot and began tapping his fingers against his coveralls.
***
A few minutes later, Mitchell walked to the glass wall, studying it like a ruminating architect. This place would suffice for now and, most importantly, it was free of bars unlike the typical cell blocks he would have been confined to prior to his violent outbreak. He couldn’t bear the thought of looking out through wrought-iron shafts. Goose bumps formed on his arms as he recalled the decrepit wooden shed that his stepfather locked him in each night as a boy—the bugs and rodents crawling over him as he sat huddled in the corner, crying from his bruises and the torment of enduring another cold night alone. The moonlight glinting off the rebar that was welded over the tiny window above the door was his only portal to the world beyond his misery.
Mitchell took a deep breath and balled his fists while the residue of his nightmare faded back into the inky well of his soul. He thought of the panic in McCarthy’s eyes, imbibing the imagery while he felt his own tension bleed away. Mitchell got up and moved to the wall to his right. His eyes slowly floated over his drawings on the wall, making their way to one on the upper right, a serene setting depicting the magnificent skyscrapers of Dubai. Embedded in the scenes of the city were tiny circles resembling children’s balloons. Each one contained the initials of various prison guards along with the warden. Beside each initial were numbers that referenced a code Mitchell had made up years ago for cataloging human psychological triggers and personality quirks. He removed the flexible pencil from his shirt pocket and drew in another balloon just above a shaded high-rise. Inside he wrote the initials DM and under it, two numbers referring to McCarthy—dilettante with a rescuer complex. Then Mitchell thought about the pleasurable feeling of his hands around the man’s carotid, the heat emanating off the yielding tissue around the larynx, the smell of adrenaline-fueled fear forced out with each gurgled exhale, the pale man’s pulse gradually slipping away with each constriction of his two-handed grip, until the doctor’s eyes glazed over and his body became flaccid.