The guards led David to a point opposite the seated man. They pushed him down into the metal chair and handcuffed his left wrist to the padded arm. From somewhere down the hallway outside came the sound of a telephone ringing and the low murmur of people talking. In the distance, someone was yelling and banging on metal bars, perhaps a prisoner demanding attention. Once David was secured, the guards left and closed the door behind them.
“Hello, David,” the seated man said with a high Southern accent. “How are they treating you?”
David looked at him, still bleary and very confused. “What’s going on? What is this?”
“I needed to see you, David, because the prosecutor’s office has just provided me with a copy of their key evidence. It’s not gonna be pleasant, but I want you to watch it. We’re going to have to rethink our defense strategy, and there’s little time—your trial starts in two weeks. I can ask them for a plea bargain, but given this evidence, I don’t think they’ll take it.”
David’s brow furrowed. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“I’ll show you,” the man said. He leaned over to the metal cart and turned on the television, then pressed a button on the VCR. The word PLAY appeared on the screen in large blocky letters, and then a title card appeared. It bore the logo of the City of Savannah Office of the District Attorney. Beneath the logo it read: “The People vs. David Foster Nells.” Below that was a long case number, and the words: “People’s Exhibit A.” David stared at the screen, baffled.
The card vanished and the picture jumped, then settled into a new image. The footage was clearly shot with a home video camera. It was a static shot, probably from atop a tripod or other level surface, and showed a dignified elderly woman seated at a grand piano in what appeared to be a luxurious parlor. She was playing a piece by Debussy. She looked frequently at the camera to smile and nod.
A man entered the frame behind the woman. He appeared to be in his late forties, in good shape but not overly handsome, with silver hair and a faintly military bearing. He wore dark blue jogging pants and a grey sweatshirt. In one hand he held a crowbar.
The man swung the crowbar and it connected with the woman’s head. She let out a sharp cry and hit a wrong note on the piano, then tipped off the stool and fell to the floor. The man stepped over her and brought the crowbar down three times, crushing her skull in full view of the camera while making a strange wailing sound, like a wounded baboon. Blood spattered onto the floor, onto the man’s sweatshirt, and into the air. The camera lens was untouched—it was probably twenty to thirty feet away from the events it recorded. The man stood over the dead woman and panted for a moment, then turned and walked out of the frame. Static filled the screen.
David’s face was pale. The man in the video was himself. The woman in the video was his mother. The parlor was in his mother’s house in Savannah, Georgia. He even knew about the video camera—his mother gave piano recitals at Savannah society functions, and often practiced in front of a video camera so she could critique her posture, attention to the audience, and performance. It was all very familiar, except that David had no recollection of this event whatsoever, or how he had come to be in jail, or who this man was seated across the table from him.
The man leaned forward and turned off the equipment, then settled back in his chair. “As you can see, David, our defense strategy—that you were taking a drive when your mother was murdered—just ain’t gonna hold water.” He pronounced “water” as “wah-tuh.”
David looked at the man in shock. “I don’t understand any of this,” he said in a strained voice.
“Well you better start figuring it out. A little bird told me they’re gonna seek the death penalty. We might get life, but even that’s a long shot. They got you dead to rights.”
David shook his head slowly, “This . . . this doesn’t make any sense.”
The man’s tone grew heated. “It makes all the sense in the world! You beat your mother to death with a crowbar, and any jury what gets a look at that tape is gonna put paid to your ass! It’s over, sir. You’re done for.”
Tears welled up in David’s eyes. “But I didn’t do it! I don’t know what’s going on!”
“You killed your mother, you son of a bitch!” The man was yelling now, his face flush. “You fucking killed her! It’s over! It’s all over!”
David screamed.
The television shattered. A flash of blue sparks erupted as glass and plastic flew across the room. The man hit the floor, clutching at his bleeding head. David sat there rigid, screaming, with tears running down his face, and the VCR erupted in flames. The smell of burning plastic began to fill the room. There was a sudden sound like a balloon popping, and the man lying on the floor exploded, spraying blood and tissue and fragments of bone all over the room. David was drenched in it, struck by the human shrapnel, and still he screamed, tears streaming over the gore on his cheeks.
On the other side of the mirror, two lab-coated men watched with interest. They stood in a room packed with computers and monitoring equipment that tracked measurements from the environment of the conference room and from microtransmitters implanted in David’s body. A thick piece of reinforced plexiglass covered this side of the mirror, bolted into the wall to protect the men and equipment in case the mirror shattered. A door led out to a large, open soundstage, in which stood a freestanding environment consisting of the cell, the hallway, and the conference room. Speakers provided credible background sounds—phones, people talking, an inmate banging on the bars—all of it pre-recorded in a studio within the same facility.
One of the men spoke into a microcassette recorder he held in his left hand. “Stress simulation 10.0 provokes dramatic psychokinetic response, 1532 hours.”
The other man picked up a telephone handset and dialed a three-digit number. “It’s happened again, Dr. Yrjo. He even killed the lawyer this time . . . yes, our equipment survived. The power sink on the mirror worked perfectly. We’ve got the measurements of the energy he put into the glass, and they’re just incredible.”
In the conference room, David screamed and screamed and screamed. Inside his head, his mind screamed louder than his voice ever could.
Interlude: Thirty Six Fifty and a Wake-Up
Monday, June 16, 1997
The court-martial had been brief. Just a formality, really. Captain Forrest James of the United States Navy—captain of the U.S. swim team at the 1968 Summer Olympics, winner of an Olympic Bronze medal, graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy at Annapolis, veteran of three tours of duty in Vietnam, commanding officer of SEAL Team Seven—had pled guilty to charges of Assault and Conduct Unbecoming an Officer. The trial was brief, but loud. The news of this career officer’s arrest for the brutal beating of a young civilian woman in a San Francisco hotel room had gone national, the latest in a string of military snafus that had shamed the armed services and focused a spotlight on the behavior of the ranks. The Navy had no intention of letting Captain James off the hook for what its psychologists agreed had been a psychotic episode brought on by post-traumatic stress and alcohol abuse. It helped that he pled guilty, fully owning up to the loss of self-discipline and the addiction to alcohol that had brought about that terrible night, but all the same the brass saw no choice: a punitive discharge and ten years’ hard time in the United States Disciplinary Barracks at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was stripped of his rank, pay, and benefits, and that night he put on his uniform for the final time. The MPs at Alameda NAS drove him to Oakland Army Base, where he was led in shackles onto a transport making a routine flight to Fort Leavenworth. At dawn, he reached the walls of the USDB.
Fifty-six, James thought to himself. That’s how old I’ll be before I’m standing here outside again. He shook his head and, for the thousandth time, cursed himself for a damned fool.
The USDB was a huge, imposing compound covering more than twelve acres, encased in walls and under round-the-clock watch from twelve guard towers. Though it consisted of a number
of buildings, there was only one that really mattered: the Castle. The Castle was a monstrous old structure of red brick and barred windows at least six stories high. It was built like a wagon wheel, with a central hub surrounded by eight radiating wings of varying lengths.
At the entrance to the compound, the MPs turned James over to four Corrections Specialists in modern Army-standard camouflage BDUs and heavy boots. They had no weapons, but each wore a whistle around his neck to summon backup in case of trouble.
The guards took James and walked him through an arched doorway. They emerged into a long, open concrete yard broken up by several grassy fields. As they marched in unison, they passed a column of guards in riot gear running early-morning drill. Ahead, at the end of the yard, stood the Castle. James squinted in the sun and gazed at his new home, feeling a shadow fall across his spirit. This place, so quiet here in the dawn light, felt like a mausoleum in which he was to be buried alive.
Inside, James began his processing. He was stripped and thoroughly searched, then given a medical check. The guards took his uniform away and returned with the drab apparel of the USDB. These were identical to the Army’s old ODs, but they were dyed brown. The only marking on the uniform was his name, on an embroidered patch over one breast pocket: JAMES.
Once he was checked out, dressed, and re-shackled, an officer entered the room and addressed him by rote.
“Welcome to the United States Disciplinary Barracks,” he said in a stern, clipped voice. “It is our mission to incarcerate U.S. military prisoners sentenced to long terms of confinement, to conduct correctional and treatment programs to maintain good order and discipline, and to reduce recidivism upon release. Despite your punitive discharge you are still accountable to the Uniform Code of Military Justice. This,”—he whipped a small book out from behind his back and handed it to James—“is your new way of life. The Manual for the Guidance of Inmates. Read it, study it, know it, because if you violate it, you will be punished.”
The briefing went on for five more minutes.
Wings 3, 4, 6, and 7 of the Castle were used for confining prisoners. You started on the top floor, and if you were a good inmate you could work your way down to the ground, eventually sparing your aging bones the punishing stairwells. New cons started off in maximum custody, with no access to recreational facilities and movement allowed only in shackles under guard. Maximum custody gave you time to sit in your cell and think about what got you here and not much else. Over time and with good behavior you could achieve medium custody, where you would join the general prison population. You could move in groups for work detail and enjoy the weight room, television sets, exercise yard, and a scant few other amenities. There were further custody grades, each allowing more access and freedom, up to the final grade of trustee. Trustees lived in barracks outside the Castle that functioned much like halfway houses, with the freedom to even wear civilian clothes after hours. For James, the grade of trustee was a long, long way away.
With the briefing concluded, James was led to breakfast in an enormous common room. The USDB housed more than a thousand inmates, including twenty women and fifty ex-officers. Enlisted personnel were only taken here if they had sentences longer than five years; otherwise, they did their time at lower-security regional prisons. All officers went to the USDB even if they were only serving a day.
In the cafeteria, James was seated in a section reserved for maximum-custody inmates. They ate in silence, surrounded by the noisier general population, all of them watched closely by numerous guards and video cameras.
After breakfast, the maximum inmates were marched in shackles en masse by a group of guards back to their cells. James was in the fourth wing, where most of the ex-officers were kept. At present, however, James was the only ex-officer in maximum custody.
One by one, the cons were locked in their cells. Finally, it was James’ turn.
His cell measured just six feet wide by eight feet long by ten feet high, and was fronted by a heavy metal chain-link door. Through the door he saw a cot, a sink, a toilet, a chair, and a small folding desk hinged to the wall.
My new home, James thought, as the guards removed his shackles. A buzzer sounded, the door swung open, and he stepped inside. The door closed behind him and the guards marched away with the rest of the maximums.
James stood still and pale, his mouth dry, looking at the spartan little room. When he went to Vietnam, the soldiers referred to their year-long tour of duty as Three Sixty Five and a Wake-Up, meaning three hundred sixty-five days and then a departure. He’d done three tours there, three years spent hunting guerillas in the Mekong Delta and disrupting NVA infrastructure north of the DMZ and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Three years of blood, sweat, and tears. Three years that in retrospect looked like a goddamn cakewalk compared to the time he’d do here, starting right now, right this minute. Ten years’ hard time in the Castle.
James lay down on the cot and closed his eyes. He wondered if he could just sleep for the next ten years, a prince in a fairy tale who slept and slept until the miracle came.
Thirty Six Fifty and a Wake-Up, he thought. Thirty Six Fifty and a Wake-Up.
Chapter Two: The Awful Daring
Monday, February 15–Tuesday, February 16, 1999
Vic turned the key in the lock, then opened the door. Behind the door was an empty area roughly eight feet wide by ten feet deep. She sighed, then turned to Abe and Stephanie behind her.
“Okay, let’s have the stuff.”
Stephanie handed her a crumpled paper bag. It contained six small boxes of 9mm Parabellum ammunition, totaling three hundred rounds. Vic pulled the boxes out, one by one, and stacked them in a corner. Then she turned back to her compatriots. “Anything else?” she asked.
Stephanie reached into the backpack she had slung over one shoulder and produced six mag lights—heavy-duty flashlights, equally useful at providing illumination or beating someone up. Vic put them into the storage area, then locked the door.
“Oh, wait,” Abe said. “I forgot—I brought some pocket lint.”
Vic and Stephanie cracked smiles but couldn’t muster much enthusiasm for the joke.
Cell T was setting up a Green Box. This was Delta Green’s term for a private-storage area used for storing useful supplies. Ideally, each major city had a Green Box where departing agents could drop off valuable resources, which future teams would access as needed. It was sort of a junk stash, a place to leave leftover ammo, flashlights, batteries, or what have you. In practice, only a handful of cities had Green Boxes, and their contents were highly random. Some might have sniper rifles and thermal-neutral suits invisible to infrared cameras; others might have a stale sack of nachos and a corpse sealed in plastic. You never knew what you’d find—assuming that the city you were in even had one. In the case of Cell T, Memphis had no Green Box. So they set one up. Alphonse would keep the keys and rental agreement, making regular payments and overnighting the keys to future agents’ motels before they arrived so they could get equipped.
With the Memphis Green Box enabled—containing three hundred rounds of 9mm Parabellum ammunition and six magnum flashlights—Cell T dropped the keys, fake ID, and rental agreement in the overnight box to Alphonse. They’d set up the fake Memphis Private Investigations firm yesterday afternoon as planned, since they thought they might still need that cover, and booked flights for the next day. Once they arrived in Knoxville, they’d have the keys to the city’s Green Box and a fake set of Memphis private-detective permits courtesy of Alphonse coming the day after. Once they had everything they needed, Cell T would take a rental car out to Groversville, in the middle of nowhere, and follow what leads they could find.
Tonight, however, they were in Memphis, with a night to kill before their flight to Knoxville. For security purposes, Vic, Abe, and Stephanie were all in the same motel room; Delta Green agents tended to request a lot of folding cots, since agents who slept alone often suffered for it. They’d flipped coins to see who got the cot,
and Stephanie lost. But for now, the trio sat on the two main beds and traded shots of bourbon, having relied on Abe to purchase the liquor for the night.
Vic knocked back a solid shot of booze in one of the motel’s dust-covered plastic cups. “So Abe,” she said with a smirk, “why don’t you tell Stephanie about your first op?”
Abe sighed and swallowed a shot of bourbon. It was a Delta Green tradition to get drunk as hell on the first night of an op, when the risk was usually lowest, and swap stories. “I was in the ’Nam, 1969, and Charlie was everywhere,” he began. Vic busted out laughing, and Stephanie snorted liquor out through her nose then began coughing. Both women laughed hysterically—drunkenly, actually. Abe feigned a hurt look. Vic regained her composure and spoke more forcefully.
“Fuck you, Abe, you weren’t in fucking Vietnam. Take it from the top,” she said.
Abe nodded reverently. “Okay, okay. It was 1995. I was an innocent FBI agent in Milwaukee trying to take down a Chinese heroin posse. All straightforward, totally above board and legit. I’d been married maybe five, six months. Career man. This guy—Shasta—came through the system and recruited my team for an op. No big deal, right? Shit went to hell. Godawful. Bullets everywhere. Made that L.A. Heat bank robbery look like squaresville. There wasn’t any footage, thank God, or it would’ve been all over the TV. Full auto, left and right, my partners whipping out twelve-gauge slugs at a moving car—shit, you can’t imagine the hell that came down. I never thought I’d be that deaf shy of a Gwar concert. Dropped two motherfuckers personally, blew their brainpans all over the street.
“Trouble was, that was the the seventh and eighth times I shot them in the head.
Delta Green: Strange Authorities Page 10