Hammerhead

by Jason Andrew Bond

  She walked down the hallway and arrived at the cell area as soldiers wheeled in three bodies on gurneys. She followed them into the cell area. A sheet covered each, leaving the head and one arm exposed. Each gurney had an IV stand with a clear bag of green liquid hanging from it. The liquid fed into a long, curling tube that ended in a needle taped into each figure’s exposed arm. One of the figures, the largest, had a strong jawline, almost Viking. The others were smaller, one an irritatingly pretty woman with a dirty bandage on her face. She noted the weak, yet handsome features of the younger man’s face and his likeness to the older man. They all seemed to be having a pleasant dream. She touched the young man’s face gently. It felt warm and soft.

  She looked at Carter. “These are the three who have been causing us so much difficulty?”

  CHAPTER 25

  Darkness surrounded Jeffrey. Off to his left, he heard the ocean. He felt a mattress beneath him and a blanket draped over him. His breath drew in and out in the rhythm of sleep. He tried to lift his arm, but it would not move. The separation he felt from his body startled him. He felt the urgent desire to draw a deep breath, but his breathing continued in its steady rhythm. Being unable to take in additional air made him feel as though he were suffocating. He wanted to open his eyes, but they remained closed.

  Panic rose in him. He tried to wrench his hands up and felt one finger twitch. He wrenched again. Nothing but the breathing. He gave one more tremendous jerk on his body, and his eyes fluttered open. Pushing himself up, back burning with pain, he threw off the green blanket and shifted to a sitting position on the edge of the cot. His boots squeaked on the epoxied floor.

  Something spiked at his forearm. In the dim light, he squinted at his forearm and saw a needle planted there, held in place with clear tape. He followed the tubing away from the needle, up to a bag, which hung empty on a chrome hook. He looked back at the needle. Picking at the edge of the tape, he pulled it loose and drew the needle out of his arm. A black bead of blood sprang from the wound, and he sealed the tape over it.

  In front of him stood a cinderblock wall, its gray mortar neatly set. Airflow from a ventilation fan, mounted high up behind a steel grate, filled the area with a sound like that of distant ocean surf. He looked to his left and saw a shadowy, stainless-steel sink and toilet. Despite the pain it caused him, he twisted to look behind himself. He found another solid wall. He looked to his right and saw metal bars.

  I’m in a cell. Great.

  Beyond the bars, electric light came from down the hallway, dim as a winter evening.

  “Leif?” he called out.

  Even sitting upright, he felt sleep tugging at him. He leaned forward, pushed on his knees, and stood. Pulling the IV bag from its hook, he held it close to his eyes, examining it in the murky light. Asian characters covered the rubbery plastic. He tossed the bag onto the cot.

  He looked out into the hallway. “Stacy?”

  He heard the scrape of a chair being shoved back, and footfalls came down the hallway. A switch clicked and fluorescent lights stuttered on, blinding Jeffrey for a moment. As his eyes adjusted to the bright light, a soldier came into view dressed in standard, black BDU’s. He stood perhaps a foot shorter than Jeffrey, but had a powerful build. The name patch above his right pocket was blank. He stared at Jeffrey, his eyes narrow and malicious.

  “You’ll be quiet in your cell. If not, I’ll muzzle you.”

  Jeffrey said nothing.

  The soldier stared at Jeffrey for a moment longer and then walked farther down the hallway. Soon he returned, walking past Jeffrey’s cell with only a passing glance.

  He had gone down the hallway to check on someone else? Were Stacy and Leif down there?

  Jeffrey wanted to shout out again to them, wanted to know where they were, but he suppressed the urge. Right now, he needed the soldier to stay calm. He sat down on the cot and pain pierced his lower back. He lowered himself onto the mattress and stared at the ceiling. Even with the bright fluorescent light on, he felt his eyelids closing with chemical sleep.

  “Dammit,” he said, sitting up. The pain in his back burned deep into the base of his spine. The outside edge of his left foot still had no feeling. Shaking his head and drawing a breath, he tried to clear his mind. He needed to consider his options. Nothing came to him. He would have to be patient, just play each moment as it arrived. The trouble was the right moment could slip by, and he might know it only after it had passed.

  He closed his eyes and listened. Down the hallway, he heard pages flipping. Even sitting up, his mind began to drift off to sleep again. He opened his eyes and cursed.

  Down at the lighted end of the hallway a door opened, and someone entered. A chair scraped the floor.

  “You needed me?” a man asked.

  “Yes sir,” the first soldier said. “He’s awake.”

  “The other two?”

  “Still out.”

  Jeffrey stood and stepped up to the bars.

  Leif and Stacy are here.

  “I’ll get the Commander.” The door opened and shut again. The chair scraped on the floor, and then a page flipped.

  Jeffrey looked to his left and saw that the hallway dead-ended about twenty feet further down. The cells were all on his side. He looked at the floor of his cell and estimated it to be about seven feet wide. There should be three more cells to his left. He looked to his right, to the soft glow of light, but could not see an end to the hallway.

  Several more cells that way, possibly.

  The door opened again. Footfalls began to come down the hallway. Jeffrey stood by the bars, waiting. A man walked into view, stopped at the bars, and looked Jeffrey over, his expression calm. He had the strict, yet casual posture of a commanding officer. His black hair had brushes of gray along the sides. He wore a name badge on his BDU’s that read ‘C. Roberts’.

  “So you’re him then,” Roberts said.

  Jeffrey stared into Roberts’ eyes, measuring his reactions: a flicker in his gaze, a dilation of the pupils, anything.

  Jeffrey asked, “Who would that be?”

  Roberts smiled and said, “You’ve caused me a great deal of difficulty.”

  “I would like to have caused you considerably more.”

  Roberts looked down the hallway and then back at Jeffrey. “Of course.”

  Jeffrey shifted his weight and pain gripped his back. The quickness of it caught him off-guard and he winced.

  Roberts smiled. “Your back troubling you, old man?”

  Jeffrey offered no response to the question. Roberts shrugged.

  Just then, from down the hallway, came Leif’s groggy voice, “Dad? Where the hell are we?”

  Jeffrey did not take his eyes off Carter, as he said, “Looks like we’re in a holding area of some kind.”

  Roberts held up his hand. “That’s enough. Be silent.”

  That brought up Jeffrey’s ire. He gauged Roberts’ distance from the bars. Jeffrey stepped up to the bars. Roberts stepped back.

  Roberts said, “Easy there, brute. I’m not going to make the same mistakes you’ve seen in the past.”

  “I’ve got a long past, and I’ve seen a lot of mistakes. You sure you can cover them all?”

  Anger flickered in Roberts’s eyes, and then his stoic expression returned. “You do have an interesting past. Your report says you were a Hammerhead?”

  Jeffrey stared at Roberts and did not answer.

  “There’s no need to be timid,” Roberts said. “I’ve reviewed your file. Lots of detail. Six years as a Hammerhead. You were decorated as the longest serving member, the only survivor of the initial group.”

  Jeffrey stared at Roberts.

  “That means you were brainwashed longer than anyone I’ve ever met.” When Jeffrey gave him no reaction, Roberts said, “So tell me, what does it feel like having your head filled with six years of shit and then spewing it out your ears, nose, and mouth for the rest of your life?”

  Jeffrey felt Roberts getting in u
nder his skin.

  Roberts’ smiled broadened, and he said, “No bother though. You’ll understand the truth before we put you out of your misery.”

  Jeffrey gripped his tongue between his molars until he felt a stabbing pain.

  “You think you’re angry now?” Roberts said. “Just wait until we’re done clarifying your son.”

  Jeffrey stared at him.

  Roberts shrugged. “It doesn’t matter. You won’t stay silent for long.” He looked up the hallway. “Get them ready to be moved.”

  The chair scraped and the door opened.

  “He’s ready,” Jeffrey heard the first soldier say. Someone came through the doorway, and two sets of footfalls came down the hallway. The first soldier and another stopped on either side of Roberts.

  Maybe now is the time. The door will be unlocked and it will be three to one. Not good odds, especially with my back out of sorts.

  Jeffrey tried to stay calm as he felt adrenaline glow down his arms.

  Any moment now.

  But instead of opening the cell door, both soldiers unholstered tazers and fired them at Jeffrey. He stepped back just as the electrodes caught him in the chest and shoulder. His body locked up, and he fell backward, clipping his skull on the edge of the sink. He lay on the floor, his back arching, looking up at the water droplets condensed on the sink’s pipes.

  The electric fire began to let go as Jeffrey heard the cell door crash open. The soldiers grabbed his feet, pulled him to the center of the cell, and flipped him face down. They yanked his hands behind his back, and Jeffrey felt the bite of handcuffs on his wrists. The soldiers ratcheted cuffs onto his ankles.

  Leaving him face down on the floor, the soldiers walked out of the cell. Jeffrey rolled to his side and pushed through the pain in his back to sit up. He saw that a short chain connected the cuffs on his ankles. He heard Leif’s twitching growls as he was tazed, and then the ratchet of cuffs. The soldiers returned with Leif shuffling between them, arms behind his back. One stayed with Leif and the other, the first soldier, walked over to Jeffrey and hauled him up off the floor. The pain in Jeffrey’s back caused him to shout out.

  Roberts walked up to Jeffrey, a slight glitter in his eyes as he searched Jeffrey’s face. “Now we’re making some progress.”

  The soldier yanked on Jeffrey’s arm, pulling him along. Jeffrey had to drag his left foot. Lifting it hurt his lower back far too much. They walked out of the cell hallway into a small area that had one steel door with a wire-reinforced glass window. A metal desk sat in the corner.

  Roberts opened the door and leaned his head into the hallway. “Come in here and help us.”

  Two more soldiers entered the room.

  Roberts said to them, “Bring her up here.”

  The two walked past Jeffrey and down the hallway. A cell door slid open. Then Jeffrey heard a slap, and one of the soldiers said, “Wake up, girlie.”

  Jeffrey turned and shouted down the hallway, “You want to hit someone, hit me.”

  The larger of the two soldiers standing with Jeffrey and Leif grabbed his elbow, spun him around, and hit him squarely between the eyes with his baton. Jeffrey’s head snapped back and the room swam. A tunnel formed around his vision and he waited for that strange sensation of the floor flipping up and hitting him. But the room stabilized, the tunnel opened up, and he locked eyes with the soldier, trying to make it seem that the impact had meant nothing.

  From down the hall, he heard: “She’s way under still. Give me the adrenaline hypo.”

  After a moment, Jeffrey heard Stacy gasping. She groaned and then–her voice foggy–asked, “Who the hell are you?”

  She yelled out in pain as handcuffs clicked. Jeffrey turned again to look down the hallway. The soldier tried to turn him back, but Jeffrey crouched, pain burning through his lower back, and drove the top of his head into the soldier’s nose and mouth. If he could have grabbed the soldier by the back of the neck, he would have wrecked his face for him.

  The soldier stepped back, holding the bridge of his nose. Blood trickled out from under his hand.

  “Dammit,” Roberts said.

  The soldier lifted his club, and Jeffrey squared on him.

  “Stop,” Roberts said to the soldier, and pointed to the door. “Go to the infirmary and get your face sorted out.” He looked at the other solider. “You, keep him,” he aimed his thumb at Jeffrey, “under control.”

  The soldier with the bloody nose stared at Jeffrey for a moment and walked out of the room.

  The last soldier took his baton from his belt just as Stacy shuffled up the hallway in cuffs and chains, flanked by the other two soldiers. Her eyes met Jeffrey’s, and then she glared at the soldiers, taking stock of each one. Jeffrey saw anger in her eyes, and he was with her.

  He asked her, “How are you doing?”

  “Okay, now,” she said, staring at the two soldiers who had brought her up. “Sons of bitches.”

  “Easy,” Jeffrey said, “these guys aren’t quite all there.”

  “That’s enough out of you,” the soldier to his right said, as he swung his baton and hit Jeffrey on the side of his thigh, across the peroneal nerve. The strike overwhelmed Jeffrey’s leg with electromagnetic numbness, and it gave way. He tipped sideways and the soldiers reached out and caught him, wrenching his arms as they held him up. He willed his leg to push on the floor, and–in a moment–the flaring pain subsided enough for him to stand on his own.

  Jeffrey indicated the soldier who had just hit him with a tilt of his head and said to Stacy, “This one has a fragile ego and a fragile jaw by the look of him. We’ll take advantage of both soon enough.”

  The soldier pulled his baton back, but Roberts grabbed his arm.

  “That’s enough,” he said. “You’ll have your chance, Miller. She’s coming down, and you men need to show more control. No more of this amateur crap.”

  They waited in silence for a few minutes. Jeffrey watched Stacy as they waited. She spent those moments looking over the soldiers, her gaze calm and measuring. Her eyes tracked from knees, to groins, and up to throats.

  The door opened, and Maxine King walked in. Despite the situation, Jeffrey was immediately struck by her beauty. She had long, angular features, delicate and strong at the same time. Her golden hair flowed down, breaking in arcs over her shoulders. Jeffrey looked to Leif, who also stared at King, and then to Stacy who stared back at him with a look of disgust on her face.

  “Really?” she said.

  “You have all been so bothersome,” Maxine said. She walked up to Jeffrey and stroked his face. He smiled at her. Roberts walked around behind Maxine, took hold of her arm, and guided her backwards.

  “Please, Maxine,” Roberts said. “He’s dangerous, even restrained.”

  Jeffrey winked at Maxine.

  A lascivious luster came to her eyes, and she smiled at Jeffrey, saying, “I see.”

  She turned to Stacy and the smile vanished. Jeffrey noticed a slight flush cross Maxine’s face as she lifted her chin and drew her shoulders square. “So, what do I do with you?”

  Stacy shuffled toward Maxine, saying, “Probably kill me like you should have in the first place.”

  A soldier grabbed Stacy’s arm and yanked her back.

  Maxine stepped closer to Stacy. “Yes, that is true.” She ran a fingernail down the bandage on Stacy’s face. “I am glad to see, for all the damage you did to my good men, that you suffered to some degree.”

  “Your good men? Trash terrorists?” Stacy looked around to the soldiers. “Don’t you realize she’s insane?” She turned to Roberts. “Do you really believe there was no war? Do you think killing all those men and women is justified?”

  “It’s no use,” Maxine said, taking Stacy’s face in her hands. She pressed her thumb on the bandage until Stacy winced. Maxine smiled. “These men know the truth. It is you who is so confused.” She said to her soldiers, “Do you see how mindlessly she holds onto her beliefs?” Maxine looked back at Sta
cy and said with disdain, “She really believes in the lies society has fed her.”

  Stacy twisted her head, fighting to get away from Maxine’s hands.

  Maxine let Stacy’s head go. “You will see the truth of it and be corrected in your thinking. The brainwashing holds very well though. Pain is the only source of freedom for you and your companions. We will set you free, and then–as you could never be fully trusted to join us–you will be put to rest.”

  Jeffrey wished he were thirty years younger. From where he stood, he was sure he could–even with his legs chained–jump and kick Maxine King square in the chest. But his back was too hurt for acrobatics. He looked at Leif, but Leif was just not that aggressive. He saw on Leif’s face, not the consideration of fighting, but the consideration of pain. Jeffrey felt terrible that he had led them into this mess. He should not have involved Leif. He should have ditched the Kiowa and gone underground with Stacy. He pulled at the cuffs, and the metal dug into his wrists. He gave up fighting the chain, and–for the first time since his wife died–he saw nothing but a dead end.

  Maxine raised her index finger and tapped the end of Stacy’s nose. “Let’s begin by breaking you down some.” She turned and walked out, saying, “Bring them along.”

  The soldiers shoved Stacy out ahead of them, and a baton cracked against Jeffrey’s shoulder blade. He shuffled after Maxine and Stacy. Leif followed. They entered a wide, institutional hallway constructed of the same epoxied concrete and unfinished cinderblocks. The stark lights had enough separation to give the hallway a light-dark pattern all the way down.

  Maxine led them past several closed doors with the same mesh-reinforced glass windows. Soon, they approached a door, which had no window and no handle. It was only a smooth rectangle set in the block wall. She stopped and, with the back of her hand, knocked on the door. Someone inside pulled the door open, and Maxine motioned for Jeffrey to walk in.