Made in the U.S.A.: The 10th Anniversary Edition

by Jack X. McCallum

  WH: Yeah. A few months after Stern died I started hearing things you were saying about him. Rumors. How he didn’t really love me. How his act was fantastic and I had fallen for it. It made me very bitter. It made me want to kill everyone, and then you guys came along and offered me targets and a way to vent my frustrations. That worked for a while, but I know better now. I once had a picture of Stern with me as little kid. I was a just a toddler. You guys took that picture from me and I nearly forgot about it. From then on all I saw were photos you guys showed me, pictures of me being watched by Stern and him looking at me like I was some kind of bug. I was angry at Stern for dying and leaving me alone and even though I could clearly recall a lot of great times with that old man I was still suckered by the slant you guys put on things. Later, when you guys really started putting the pressure on for me to do more and more jobs, I got curious about myself. I began wondering if anyone really had ever given a shit about me. I decided that if I found no evidence that anyone ever wanted me around as anything other than an experiment, I’d kill myself. I broke into a records archive at the Compound and found the photo of Stern and me as a baby. I looked at that picture for a very long time. That’s when I knew you were all full of shit. The expression on Stern’s face was no lie. He loved me. Look at the picture. You’ll see. You’ll see the look on his face. When I saw it the memories of that tender old man who was the only father I had ever known came back to me.

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: And this affected you how?

  WH: I realized I still had to do some jobs to stay alive, but I started to cut back. I was scared then, stupid. I thought the Compound was capable of far more than it is. So I continued killing people only after researching them on my own. If they were scumbags they died. If they were decent people who for some perverse reason were some kind of threat to you, I said fuck it.

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: And eventually you stopped killing altogether.

  WH: Yeah. I was older, maybe just a little wiser. I’d learned enough. You guys weren’t a threat. It was time to say goodbye to the Compound, but you guys didn’t want to let me go.

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: So in the end it all comes back to the photo of you and Stern.

  WH: Yeah. That was the only thing in the world that was real to me.

  That was a lie. Will had one other thing that was real, yet also seemed a fragile fragment of a dream; the length of hair ribbon with its fading pattern of cornflowers he’d been carrying since he was six years old.

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: Would that be this photograph, found among your possessions? (Dr. M holds up a photo. SEE SUBJECT FILE FOR COPY OF PHOTO STERN-HILL 5/6/62 Aaty100109910.)

  WH: That’s mine. What are you doing with it?

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: Technically it is ours. It was shot with a Compound camera and developed in a Compound photo lab. This item also belongs to the Compound. (Dr. M displays a Zippo lighter with the Compound logo on it.)

  WH: What the fuck are you—

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy I believe you need a graphic demonstration of how fragile your beliefs are. This photo means nothing. If it is all you believe in then you will soon believe in nothing. Except, of course, us. You can believe in us. In the Compound. Trust me, William. We are your only friends. Rely on us, not on some faded old photograph. (Dr. M sets the old photo alight.)

  WH: You prick. I’ll have your head on a stick for that!

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: I’m sure you will. (Dr. M drops the burning photo into a trashcan.)

  WH: You think these cuffs will hold me? If so, how come I’ve already got one hand free, huh? (WH slaps Dr. M across the face and grabs the lighter.) I’m going to stick this thing up your ass and ignite the gas in your bloated guts!

  Dr. P. McGillicuddy: Security!

  Will turned a page and found a copy of that photo taken so many years ago. He smiled and wiped his eyes, seeing Stern’s face again.

  “I loved you, old man. I really did.”

  He closed the file and stood, arching his stiff back and looking out the window.

  I’ve had enough, he thought. Enough of the Compound, enough of winter. Enough.

  It was time to leave it all behind for good.

  13

  The Seven Year Itch

  Will and Carlos and the Deputy Sheriff had been hustled off to separate rooms.

  Carlos didn’t resist because he was scared and awed by what he was seeing. The inside of Big Blue Rock was like a small city, and it was hard to take.

  After being frisked, having their wrists cuffed with plastic binders and having their legs strapped together just above the knees with more plastic binders, they had been loaded into one of the balloon-wheeled black vans which had passed through a huge door that looked like a sheet of rock. Inside the mountain they had stepped out of the van and into a space as open and airy as an aircraft hangar. Stairwells were cut into solid rock, leading down and out of sight. Offices and observation posts hung overhead from thick cables. At one end of the vast space was the massive glass shell of a garden greenhouse. At the other end was an array of parked cars and beyond them the distant sound of power tools. In the center were two helipads, twinned black helicopters resting on them like huge insects. The place was like a high-tech pup tent, a thin shell held together by struts and cables.

  They were forced down a set of stairs, into an elevator and down a corridor that looked like a hallway in any federal building in America; institutional gray paint on the walls, bored clerks passing by, the faint odor of food being served up in the commissary. The thick plastic strips binding their legs together forced them to walk like women in skin-tight skirts taking tiny, mincing steps. Carlos had felt like a dick, thinking his own tax dollars paid for all this.

  He’d been cut free of the bindings and locked in a small room where he sat on the edge of a bed to catch his breath. It was a prison cell. Everything looked new and modern, and there was room to stretch out, but it was still a cell. Men in jumpsuits had barged into the cell moments after he had sat down. They began bellowing questions and made him empty his pockets. After a quick examination of his few possessions and a collective laugh over his good luck charm, a carved stone fetish, they returned his stuff. It quickly became obvious to them that he was just a short-order cook, not a super-spy or a criminal who was on the Feds’ most-wanted list.

  Before they left him, he had asked how long he was going to be here. One of them had laughed and said, “Just long enough for us to decide how we’re going to deal with you.” That had not sounded good to Carlos. He’d already seen and heard a lot of weird shit. He didn’t think these guys would just let him walk now, knowing what he knew, which wasn’t much.

  He sat on his bunk wondering what had happened to Jeannie and tried to figure out how somebody so nice could cause so much trouble. He held the tiny fetish in one hand. It was a howling coyote carved from obsidian, its belly and back covered in minute pictographs. It had golden amber eyes. His mother had made it for him when he was a little kid, and had told him it would protect him and give him strength in the face of adversity. He wished he could squeeze every last drop of strength out of it now. He could not remember ever being this frightened.

  * * *

  Will didn’t resist because he knew Compound West was on alert. No matter how many skulls he cracked there would be more guards rushing at him like disposable henchmen in a Bruce Lee flick. He had thought that sooner or later they would lock him in a room and he’d get a cup of coffee and maybe a pack of smokes, and he’d been right. He was in the small room, but he was still waiting for the coffee and smokes, and the room was a surprise. There was a real bed bolted to the floor and a separate room for a toilet and shower that looked like something out of a Motel 6. He felt like a guest of honor. He also felt sorry for Johnson.

  The Sheriff’s Deputy had protested when he had seen what was inside Big Blue Rock. If they were going to book him, Al wanted to know the charge. He wanted someone to read him his rights. He wanted an attorney and a
phone call. Some clown in a black jumpsuit and a shiny black helmet like an extra in a cheesy sci-fi TV show had tapped Al on the back of the head with a nightstick. Al had looked over his shoulder and then spun about and slammed his cuffed fists into the guy’s jaw. There was a crunch like the guy had bitten into an apple filled with shards of glass and then Mr. Jumpsuit had collapsed, his mouth all out of whack. They had to goose Al three times with hand-held stun guns before he went down and they dragged him down the halls and stairs while Carlos and Will were marched straight ahead. The black-clad drones escorting them shoved Carlos into one room and dumped Al’s unmoving bulk into another. Then the guards marched on, leading Will down stairs and around corners to an infirmary.

  Will was stripped, poked and prodded by a platoon of medical men. His plastic bindings were cut. His wounds were treated and dressed. His eyes were examined. A flock of gloved, Vaseline-smeared fingers probed every orifice. Two of these digits were up his ass and down his throat at the same time and he thought that if his sphincter were strong enough he could clamp his anus shut, bite down hard, and turn into a Chinese finger puzzle.

  After the exam his hands were cuffed behind his back by more boys in black while he was still naked. He was frog-marched bare-assed to his own cell, his bouncing prick completely unnerving two women he passed by. He had been deposited in his cell and his clothes were tossed in after him. The pockets of his jeans were empty. He dressed and tried to relax, hoping Carlos and the cop were okay.

  * * *

  Al was not okay. The bandage on his head had fallen off somewhere and his ear and scalp were bleeding again. All he had for the wounds was a thick wad of paper towels that he held against his head. He had a headache that made him feel like Zeus the moment before Athena was born. He had small burns on his chest and back where the stun guns had contacted his skin. And he was angry, probably angrier than he’d ever been. He sat on the useless bed that was four inches too short for him to stretch out, and held his head in his hands.

  He remembered his protests to the men in black as he and Carlos and Will were herded into the van that had pulled up near his patrol car. He said he was a San Bernardino County Deputy Sheriff, and an American citizen, and this kind of treatment was simply unacceptable. Then one of the men, Al couldn’t tell which one, had drawled, “Ah’ll shet that niggah up,” and Al received a blow to the stomach with the blunt end of a nightstick.

  The slam to the gut was a momentary discomfort. Under the beer belly that filled out his shirt more than he liked, Al had a lot of muscle. What stung him more was being called a nigger. It was something you never got used to. He remembered his mother’s advice though, given to him when he was seven years old. “If someone calls you a name let them see it slide off you like water off a duck’s back,” she’d said. “Don’t let them see it stick like a burr in a dog’s throat. Sooner or later they’ll get tired of fishing around and trying to bait and hook you.” If his momma had known any metaphors that didn’t involve animals, Al hadn’t heard them.

  The van’s long spider legs had contracted as the vehicle entered a door in the side of Big Blue Rock. They had raced down a two-lane avenue to an open space where he had been separated from Hill and Guerrera.

  He thought it now had to be about six o’clock. They’d taken his service belt and everything on it along with the contents of his pockets and his watch, but his stomach was rumbling like a sumbitch, and whenever he was a little late making dinner his stomach didn’t hesitate in letting him know what time it was. Mikey! He was damn glad that Mrs. Harris lived next door. She was retired, a widow who kept house for Al. She and Mikey had keys to each other’s homes. If Al was late Mikey would automatically go next door and stay with Mrs. Harris. He was a good kid that way. Al tried to relax, tried to stay focused now. He’d miss out on the biggest New Year celebration of Mikey’s life, but there wasn’t a whole hell of a lot he could do about that now.

  Feeling queasy and trying to ease his aching head, he didn’t bother to look up when the door to his cell opened and four men entered. One was in a rumpled suit, the other three in the black jumpsuits that seemed to be everywhere. Two jumpsuits were holding stun guns, one was holding a Taser. They also had sidearms, pepper spray, nightsticks and zip cuffs on their web-belts. The jumpsuits stood behind a man who introduced himself as Galderson, the head of security at Compound West.

  Galderson took Al’s wallet and shield case from a coat pocket and Al glared at him. He flipped open the slim leather case containing Al’s shield and Sheriff’s Deputy Identification. He made a face and stuffed the case back into his pocket and looked through Al’s wallet. He counted the cash, not much. He looked at the different cards in their little pockets and took out a membership card for a local veterans association and a picture of Mikey showing off a gap-toothed smile. Galderson held up the laminated membership card. “VVA Chapter 536, Bakersfield. What is V-V-A? Vietnam Veterans of America?”

  Al made a mental note to wipe Galderson’s greasy fingerprints off of the card if he ever got it back. He had been the only guy in his platoon who had enlisted. He had been the only man at home. He believed it was his duty to support his family. He had no idea what kind of clusterfuck had been waiting for him in the jungle.

  “Were you in Nam?”

  Al idly scratched his left kneecap.

  “Who’s the kid?”

  Al stared at Galderson.

  “What’s a black cop doing with a picture of a white kid?”

  Al said nothing.

  “What the hell kind of name is Alabaster for an African American? I thought Alabaster was a kind of white stone?”

  “Are you going to get around to reading me my rights and telling me what the charge is?” Al’s voice was calm and reasonable, and it took a lot of effort to keep it that way. He wasn’t about to explain the origin of his name to this graying, burned-out Fed.

  Galderson smiled. His rumpled suit, deeply lined face, and metallic gray hair made his smile corpse-like. His teeth looked loose in their sockets, as if a hearty clap on the shoulder would send them clattering across the floor like dice.

  “Rights? What rights? You forfeited your rights the moment you stepped onto Compound property. This is a highly sensitive installation. And along come you and your buddies, stumbling down a hidden road, and then firing fucking bullets at us. Jesus! The chances that you aren’t going to disappear forever are very slim my friend Alabaster, so you better start talking. What were you doing with William Hill?”

  “William Hill and Carlos Guerrera were in my custody until your boys started messing up my investigation, and—”

  There was a muffled knock on the solid door. A jumpsuit opened it and then let two men step through. Medics clad in white waited in the hallway. The men were wearing soiled, torn, bloodstained suits, blue and gray, and their wounds had been cleaned and dressed in a half-assed way. The men looked weary, and one of them could hardly stand up. Al recognized them. These clowns, or one of them anyway, had shot him in the head.

  “These boys shot at me,” Al said.

  “Yeah,” the redhead said. “He’s the guy. He opened up on us. Crazy asshole.”

  “He thcrewed up our operathun,” the one with white-blond hair and a swollen, bloody mouth said. “Interfered with our interrogathun of a thuth-pect. We had no choithe but to pull on him. We thot at him, but it wath in thelf-defenthe.”

  The men stepped out of the room and let the medics lead them away.

  Galderson looked grave. “Well Mr. Alabaster Johnson, of the un-fucking-believable name, you are in deep shit, so deep it looks like you just drowned and sank out of sight in it. There’s no way in hell we can let you back out on the street.” He turned to the jumpsuits. “Looks like we’ll have to arrange an accident in one of the gorges around here, make an anonymous 911 call about seeing a patrol car crash and burn in pursuit of another vehicle which will unfortunately get away and never be identified—“

  The jumpsuits must have seen somethin
g on Al’s face, something in his eyes, because even as his muscles were bunching to launch him at Galderson’s throat the two stun guns zapped him while the third jumpsuit blocked Galderson from any harm. Al fell back into darkness, hoping Mikey would be okay.

  * * *

  Brian and Ravi were locked in a cage, alternately scared, angry, and bored. If it weren’t for the scale of the complex around them they would have thought it was all some bizarre practical joke. For reporters, they were remarkably clueless about what was going on and what would most likely happen to them. They were both film buffs, and as they discussed their predicament they agreed that they appeared to have stumbled into an old Bond movie, one of the good ones with Sean Connery, in Brian’s opinion. They began to argue about who was the better Bond, Ravi being partial to Pierce Brosnan, and as their voices started to escalate a man wearing black and holding a truncheon told them to shut the fuck up. Brian sat on a cot chained to one wall of the cage, half expecting Donald Pleasance to appear in full Ernst Stavro Blofeld gear, white Persian in hand.

  They had been trying to elude the black van behind them by following the girl on the bike who was following the white convertible in the direction the Sheriff had gone. They had been driving along a cleverly disguised road when they were surrounded by men in black, tough guys like the hard case outside their cell, waving rifles and guiding them toward a big door in the side of the small mountain known as Big Blue Rock in their Rand McNally road atlas. They had seen the cop they’d passed on the highway, a little guy who was dressed like a chef and another guy being led down some stairs by more men in black. The last guy had looked sort of familiar to Brian.