The Path Of The Nightmare

by J. J. Carlson

  Unknown to the researchers at Hillcrest, Emily Roberts had tampered with Jarrod’s mental circuitry. Using the mental conditioning apparatus, she hardwired a painful psychological response to the mere thought of harming her. She also conditioned his brain to experience hallucinations, seizures, and torturous pain if he smelled a synthetic fragrance, of which she was the sole proprietor. Roberts did not know the fragrance would also cause Jarrod’s mind to adapt as it sought an escape from the torture. When the debilitating effects of the airborne poison wore off, Jarrod found he could control his abilities with greater precision than ever before.

  He narrowly escaped death in the Atlantic Ocean, and his subconscious began assigning missions. First, he would punish the criminals that orchestrated the death of his family. Eugene and Daron had begged him to help them hunt Emily Roberts down. He ignored their pleas and followed his own path of violence, pulling threads of corruption and deceit wherever they led. It had already been a long and bloody road, but he had no intention of slowing down.

  Roberts would not go unpunished, but she could wait. For the moment, Jarrod had smaller obstacles to face, like the Ngoko River. He tilted the rear-view mirror down and appraised his appearance. He was trying for a sun-weathered, tan complexion, but the face looking back at him was bright pink. The vehicle rolled to a stop, and he focused inward. Slowly, the color of tan suede leather appeared in his dermis. Satisfied, he let off the brakes and eased forward.

  Pedestrians crowded the street, but few vehicles competed for space. The Range Rover’s tires crunched over gravel and sand, creeping onward. A man on a dirt bike rattled by, staring at Jarrod as he passed. A toothless woman stopped stacking vegetables on a produce stand and waved. No one appeared threatening, though it was clear they rarely saw foreigners in their village. The street sloped downward and Jarrod brought the vehicle to a stop near the riverfront. A massive wood and steel ferry bobbed nearby. Cables stretched across the olive water of the Ngoko, connecting Moloundou to the northwest border of the Republic of the Congo. The cable fed into small, wooden shacks on either side, where gas powered motors pulled the cable to move the ferry.

  As Jarrod stepped onto the concrete landing, a thin man in baggy pants stepped out of the shack. He was bony and shirtless, and his bare feet padded against the ground as he approached. He looked at the SUV with admiration in his eyes, and said something in a Bantu dialect that Jarrod couldn’t understand.

  “Your supervisor, please,” Jarrod said in crisp French.

  The man looked at Jarrod and squinted.

  “I’m not from around here,” Jarrod said loudly, “so if you can’t understand me, you need to take me to someone who can.”

  Moments later, a heavyset man in a green uniform stepped out of a nearby hut. As he passed through the threshold, he placed a glossy-billed skipper hat on his head. Walking briskly toward Jarrod and speaking in French, he said, “Good afternoon, sir. How may I help you?”

  “Finally,” Jarrod said, feigning irritation. “Someone civilized.”

  The man in the uniform swept his arms in a broad gesture. “I assure you, we are all civilized here. I hope you can forgive my friend for not knowing your language. He has never left our humble village.”

  Jarrod shot an appraising look at the shirtless man and shrugged. Turning back to the uniformed man, he said, “Can you ferry me across the river?”

  “I could. Do you have money?”

  Jarrod shook his head.

  “We are a friendly people, but ours is a humble business that cannot afford to grant favors to strangers.”

  “I will trade with you,” said Jarrod.

  “A trade?” The man asked, smiling. “Perhaps. What would you like to trade?”

  Jarrod nodded to a small, rusted Toyota truck on the opposite shore. “Is that reliable?”

  Looking suspicious, the man said, “Of course it is. It is my brother’s truck. He takes excellent care of it, and it has done the same for him. Why?”

  “I’ll give you this vehicle for that one, and three-hundred liters of additional fuel.”

  The man laughed so hard his skipper hat nearly fell from his head. “You must be joking.” He paused, then added, “Or is there something wrong with your truck?”

  “It’s stolen,” Jarrod said simply. “And I want to cross without any other questions asked.”

  The man’s eyes sparkled with greed. “I see…then perhaps we can do business.”

  The man folded his arms behind his back and strolled around the Range Rover. He kicked the tires and looked at the leather seats.

  “I think we have ourselves a deal, Mr…”

  “Mr. No-Questions-Asked,” Jarrod said.

  The man grinned. “Of course. Whatever you like. If you leave this vehicle here as a sign of good faith, I will give you my brother’s truck when you reach the other side.”

  “That’s fine. Can we go?”

  “Certainly.” The man in the uniform nodded to the shirtless man, who slipped inside the wooden shack.

  “Shall we?”

  A tinny roar issued from the shack. The ferry, which was perched a few yards out, jolted and glided to shore. Jarrod and the uniformed man stepped onto it. As they grabbed the railing, it reversed course and began the slow journey across the river.

  “Do many people use this ferry?” Jarrod asked.

  “As you must have noticed, our village is quite remote. Our ferry is not busy, but we shuttle two or three times each day.”

  Jarrod gripped the railing with both hands and stared out at the dense jungle on either side of the river. Looking pensive, he said, “What about at night?”

  The man eyed Jarrod with a sidelong glance. “Under special circumstances, we might ferry someone at night, but only away from our city.”

  “You never bring people over from the Republic of the Congo at night?”

  “No.”

  Jarrod nodded, then remarked. “Water moves pretty quick. Would be hard to swim across.”

  “Yes…very dangerous to swim across.”

  “Do your men bring people across at night without your permission?”

  “I should think not!” the uniformed man scoffed. “My workers respect me. They would never act without my permission.”

  “That’s good. It simplifies things.”

  The man cocked an eyebrow. “Simplifies…what?”

  “No questions, remember?”

  The man shook his head, and they completed the crossing in silence. When they stepped down on the other side, a man in a blue button-up shirt and khaki shorts stepped out to greet them.

  “This is my brother. It is his truck you will be departing with.”

  The man in the blue shirt frowned.

  “Do not worry,” the big man said. “This stranger has agreed to give you his beautiful truck in return. We simply need to forget he was ever here.”

  “Right…” The second man said in heavily accented French. He glanced at the Range Rover, then met eyes with his brother, who smiled.

  “I fetch the keys,” said the man in the blue shirt. He ducked into the shed, returned with the keys, and held them up. Jarrod grasped them and, meeting reluctance, gave them a little tug.

  “There,” the man in the skipper hat said, “the truck is yours. I hope it treats you well.”

  “The fuel,” Jarrod said.

  The man smiled a little too broadly. “Please forgive me. I am forgetful, at times. Yvers, could you please put three drums of fuel into the back of the truck?”

  The second man’s eyes widened.

  “Do it,” the man in the skipper hat snapped.

  Jarrod watched the man in the blue shirt set about loading the barrels and filling them with fuel from a large tank behind the shack. It took nearly an hour to fill the tanks with a hand-pump, but the truck was finally ready to go.

  “It has been a pleasure doing business with you,” said the man in the skipper hat, extending his hand.

  Jarrod did not
shake it. “I have a few more questions for you.”

  Looking miffed, the man withdrew his hand and said, “Oh?”

  “How many women and children do you ferry across each month?”

  “I have no idea,” the man said.

  “No? What about the women and children that come across in big trucks at night?”

  The man’s face suddenly hardened. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I think you do,” Jarrod said. “In fact, I’ve heard this is the best place to traffic slaves across the river. You and your men have a reputation for turning a blind eye.”

  “You should go,” the man grunted. “We have nothing more to say here.”

  Jarrod smiled, then removed his sunglasses and stuffed them into a pocket. Glaring at the man through ebony orbs, he said, “I disagree. I think you have a lot left to say…just not with words.”

  With a lightning-fast movement, Jarrod grabbed the man by the throat. The skipper hat fell to the ground.

  “I have a message for you,” Jarrod said to the man in the blue shirt. “Stop transporting slaves. Do you understand?”

  The blue-shirted man glared ferociously at Jarrod and gave no response.

  “Answer me!” Jarrod hissed. He tightened his grip. There was a sound of popping cartilage, and the man in the green uniform clawed at his throat helplessly.

  “Fine! Just let him go!”

  Jarrod pinched his fingers together, digging them into the soft flesh.

  “This,” Jarrod said. “Will happen to you and your entire family if you do not stop.”

  With a swift wrenching motion, Jarrod tore out the man’s trachea.

  7

  The sun was at its apex by the time Eugene reached the scattered remains of the concrete fortress. He dropped onto his belly and crawled through the brush as the smoldering complex came into view. Dozens of emergency vehicles were parked along the hillside. Wildland firefighters in bright-yellow shirts trudged through the brush, monitoring recently constructed firelines. Sheriff’s deputies, State Law Enforcement officials, and FBI agents congregated midway up the hill.

  “Pretty busy down there. You want me to introduce myself?” Eugene spoke into a tiny headset on the side of his face. In the hours between the explosion and his return to ground-zero, he had decided it was safe to break radio silence and contacted Daron.

  “Negative. It doesn’t matter how good your credentials are, if you go down there, you’ll be stuck in debriefings for hours, maybe days.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me. I don’t think there’s any evidence left to collect, anyway; the place looks like it was hit with a JDAM.”

  Eugene was referring to Joint Direct Attack Munition, a system that allowed massive “dumb bombs” to be dropped as precision ordnance. He didn’t know how much explosives it would have taken to bring down the facility, but it looked as if someone had used at least three times that amount.

  “They probably had the place rigged to blow, just in case Law Enforcement showed up. Snap some photos and exfil, I don’t want you getting caught in a dragnet.”

  Eugene grimaced. With his security clearance and special directive, a few phone calls could get him out of almost any misunderstanding with the police, but he didn’t want to waste valuable time. “Two weeks,” the woman had said. Two weeks before hell came to the east coast. If she wasn’t bluffing, and Eugene didn’t think she was, the remaining hours were woefully insufficient to stop the faceless terrorists. Miles of red tape would prevent Eugene and Daron from getting any meaningful investigative assistance. Due to the highly classified nature of their work, it could take days for additional personnel to obtain the necessary clearance. Only a handful of people knew about Hillcrest, Project Lateralis, and Emily Roberts’s betrayal, and the evidence he had acquired would look circumstantial at best. For the next thirteen and a half days, they would be operating with a skeleton crew, and every second would be critical.

  After gathering additional video surveillance of the scene, Eugene withdrew from his observation point. He slid, face against the ground, until he was out of sight, then jumped to his feet and broke into a run. Noise was no longer his primary adversary; time occupied that corner in the looming conflict. He dropped to the drainage at the base of the first hill, then followed it downward, hopping brush and ducking trees as he went. His legs, already battered and fatigued from the previous night’s exploits, screamed at him to stop. He dug deep and pressed onward, sweat dripping into his eyes. Pain lit up every inch of his body, but he ignored it. The mind is master of the body, not the other way around, he told himself.

  Hill after rolling hill, Eugene made his way to the extraction point. He stopped in a patch of trees next to a narrow dirt road and looked at his watch. 15:41; he was ahead of schedule. Gasping for breath and drenched in sweat, he flopped onto the ground, letting his rucksack prop him up for a change. Wincing, he slid his arms out of the straps and leaned over the bag. He tugged on the bite nozzle and hose from his water bladder, then sucked greedily until the water was gone.

  Several minutes passed as he caught his breath and steadied his pounding heart. His stomach rumbled, calling for attention. Wearily, he reached into his pack and pulled out some food.

  With a mouth full of sandwich, he keyed up his radio and said, “Deskrider, this is Jaeger. At the extraction point, over.”

  “Oh, ha ha,” Daron responded. “I should leave your ass there. Or maybe pick you up a few miles down the road.”

  Eugene smiled. “C’mon, you know you’d miss me too much. What’s your ETA?”

  “Ten minutes.”

  Eugene looked at his watch. “Alright. See you in ten.”

  Comfortable but well concealed, Eugene watched the road through half-closed eyes. Nine minutes and forty seconds later, an over-sized SUV skidded to a halt in front of him. His legs complained with fresh pain as he jumped to his feet and snatched up his ruck.

  Climbing into the passenger seat, he said, “What’s our next move?”

  Daron glanced into his rear-view mirror and hit the accelerator. The nose of the Chevy Suburban plunged into the forest, missing a tree by inches, then lurched to a halt. Daron hit a button to put the transmission into reverse and backed onto the road. With his Y-Turn complete, he slammed the gas pedal to the floor, launching rocks like shrapnel.

  “Our next move is to try to pull our heads out of the sand. If this criminal element is as widespread as the woman in your video lets on, then they’ve really got us bent over. I’ve put out RFI’s to the CIA, FBI, NSA, DIA, ATF. Hell, I even sent a letter to Santa Claus to see if he knew anything. Nobody’s coming back with jack.”

  Eugene nodded, the gesture greatly exaggerated on the bumpy road. RFI’s, or “Requests For Information,” took time, patience, and a lot of paperwork. Daron must have spent hours doing it, and Eugene doubted he’d slept yet.

  Sensing sleep would be a rare commodity in the days to come, Eugene said, “We should probably rack out for a few hours while we wait for information. Do we still have our room reserved at the Hilton?”

  A smile tugged at the corner of Daron’s mouth. He said, “I got a bit of sleep in between phone calls. You go ahead and knock off for a bit. I’ll wake you when we get to NMCC.”

  “The Pentagon…great,” Eugene said, letting his head fall against the headrest. “I was just thinking an army of pencil-pushers is exactly what we need.”

  8

  Santiago watched from the driver’s seat as his children dragged their suitcases into his sister-in-law, Susana’s, brick home. Anita sat beside him, twiddling her fingers. They sat in silence until Philip closed the door. The atmosphere in the home was warm with laughter as hugs were exchanged; in the car, there was a stifling tension.

  Anita was the first to break the quiet. “How long can we stay here?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” San replied softly. He hated the idea of staying with Anita’s sister. It would be the first place someo
ne tailing them would look. He finally gave in after hours of searching for hotels that didn’t require identification at check in. The only hotels that openly admitted to such a questionable practice were located in the worst parts of town, and offered hourly rates to patrons who were often accompanied by prostitutes. To San, those establishments carried too much risk to keep his children there.

  “We didn’t tell anyone we were coming. How would anyone know where to find us?” Anita pressed.

  “I don’t know,” San said with more spite than he’d intended. Anita folded her arms over her chest and pursed her lips.

  “I’m—I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be so short. I just feel so…helpless. I want to protect you and the kids, but I’m totally unprepared. I wish I knew how to run and never be found, or how to fight back without putting you in danger. There are people out there that want us dead, and I have no idea what they look like or how to stop them. I’d do anything…I’d offer myself up and let them kill me if I thought it would save you.”

  “Don’t say that,” Anita said, placing a hand on his shoulder. “There’s no point in thinking that way. If someone is willing to hunt down a loving, gentle person like you, they certainly won’t hesitate to kill the rest of us when you’re gone. For the kids’ sakes, we have to choose to be survivors. Don’t pretend like you have some macho responsibility to fight. We are a team, and we need to work together in this. So just take a deep breath and help me figure out the next step. I’m not doubting you, I’m just trying to think this through. How would someone track us down at my sister’s house?”

  San took a deep breath and felt a calming peace from his wife’s words. Anita was always so strong, so clear headed. She was right, it wasn’t his sole responsibility keep her and the kids safe. His image of a sacrificial knight in shining armor was delusional. Staying calm and making careful decisions would keep them alive a lot longer than anything San could do in a fight.

  “If we can figure out how a group of killers would look for us, it’ll be easier to hide,” Anita continued. “What would they use to find us here?”