A Time of Fear: Book Three of The Time Magnet Series

by Russell Moran

  “But we’ve got to get somebody inside – fast. I recommend that you think about who’s best for the job. I’ll be thinking about it too. We can’t put too many bets on a horse named Joseph Monahan.”

  Chapter 11

  Have you ever felt fear, a real deep gut-wrenching fear, but you’re not sure what you’re afraid of? Director Carlini wants me to meet with my charming husband and pump him for information. I know Bennie will do a great job prepping me for the meeting, but that knowledge is doing nothing for my anxiety.

  I’m not in fear of harm, the bodily injury kind. I’ll meet Monahan at Leavenworth prison in a controlled environment surrounded by armed guards. He’ll be in leg irons no doubt. No, it’s worse than that, this fear that’s gripping me. Finding out that your husband is traitor and a potential mass murderer is worse than finding out that he’s dead. He’s the man I once loved and lived with for over 10 years. Then one day he was gone. What I’ve learned about him since then has removed any trace of affection, respect, or any other positive emotion. Here’s a guy who was ready to slaughter thousands of innocent people all in the name of a strange philosophy that he believed was a religion. He really believed, if what I’ve heard is true, that God was commanding him to kill people. It’s not like waking up one day and realizing your husband was a philandering drunk. No, people like that surrender to their weaknesses. Joe Monahan, on the other hand, was ready to commit an unimaginable crime, and willing to do it out of some strange devotion to duty. I don’t think I’m being dramatic when I think of him as a living monster.

  I think my fear is something that doesn’t involve Joe Monahan. I think it involves me, and what I may encounter. The thought of looking at him and speaking to him nauseates me and makes me want to bolt for a bathroom right now.

  I think of myself as a pretty rational person. I’m an engineer, a good one, and not the kind of nut who “loses it.” But these crazy thoughts keep running through my mind. I won’t be armed, of course, but I can be a tough customer if I need to be. I have these fantasies about reaching out and pummeling the bastard, demanding to know how he feels about all of the widows, widowers, and orphans he was about to make.

  Bennie, a guy who knows a thing or two about interrogation, has already told me that the setting will likely be me sitting across the table from Monahan. He’ll be in shackles I’m sure, but what about me? The cops and everybody else will protect me from him, but who’s going to protect him from me.

  Okay, I’m venting and I know it. I’ve discovered in the last few weeks that I really care about other people, that I have a patriotism that I wasn’t aware of, and that I have responsibilities way beyond making HVAC systems work. Carlini’s right. We have little to go on except for my relationship with a vicious prick named Joseph Monahan. I wish somebody else could do this job, but I’m convinced that I’m the logical choice.

  I can handle this. I promised.

  Chapter 12

  Bennie Weinberg here.

  I’m stretching my legs and taking a walk around CIA headquarters waiting for our next meeting with Director Carlini. He’s a sharp and dedicated guy, and I think he hit this one right on the head, his idea of Janice meeting with her husband.

  I have to admit that I’m feeling uncomfortable about this whole thing, especially since I’m right in the middle of it. My job is to coach Janice, along with a lot of input from CIA brass. This isn’t going to be easy, given that Janice is revolted by the thought of Joseph Monahan. Another reason it won’t be easy is Monahan himself. As you probably know, I’m a maven on vetting witnesses, including psychopaths, for whom lying is as natural as a dog peeing on a fire hydrant. I have no doubt at all that this guy is a psychopath. If he was willing to kill thousands of sailors for some twisted religious belief, I don’t doubt that he’s ready to lie like a rug to throw us off track. We’re all assuming, of course, that he has some actual knowledge of what is supposed to happen.

  I like Janice, not that I’ve known her for a long time. She has guts and brains, and God knows she’s beautiful. I wonder if she’d be interested in a short balding guy...but I digress. Janice, because of what she told us about Joseph Monahan, gave us some great leads that helped us stop the Thanksgiving Attacks on the ships. No doubt about it, Janice is one solid human being, and she’s about to face a meeting that will be emotionally devastating

  My job is to make the meeting less devastating, but also to coach Janice on getting information from a psychopathic scumbag who she used to sleep with. My job is easier than hers.

  I hope she’s had some acting lessons because she’s going to put on the stage debut of her life. Your humble bullshit detector is coming up against a man who lives on lies. But I’ll be doing my work on the other side of a one-way mirror.

  Janice will meet this bastard face to face.

  Chapter 13

  Our meeting in Carlini’s office resumed at 1:30 PM. I’m not feeling too comfortable about meeting with my psychopathic husband, but I may as well get over it. I’ll never feel comfortable with the idea, but I’m sure I’ll find out more about the plans now.

  Director Carlini brought the meeting to order.

  “Okay, folks,” said Carlini, “we have to move and move fast. Ben and Janice, do you two think that Janice can be ready for her meeting with Monahan in three days?”

  Bennie nodded to me, politely indicating that I should speak first..

  “Before we took our break,” I said, “I think I made it clear to all of you how I feel about this plan. But at the same time, I have to agree with you. With so little to go on, it’s probably best to use my background with Monahan as a way to find information. For the life of me, I don’t know how I’ll do this, but I guess that’s what our friend Dr. Bennie is all about. So, Ben, what’s the plan?”

  Bennie looked at Director Carlini.

  “Can you arrange for an air force jet to take Janice and me to Leavenworth, Kansas tomorrow morning?” Bennie said. “I want to coach Janice in the actual room where she’ll meet Monahan, to remove as much surprise and discomfort as possible.”

  “Consider it done, Ben,” said Carlini as he gestured toward his deputy with a face that said, ‘make this happen.’

  Chapter 14

  The United States Disciplinary Barracks at Leavenworth, Kansas or U.S.D.B at Fort Leavenworth is commonly known as just “Leavenworth.” It’s actually one of three prisons on the Fort Leavenworth property, but the only one designated “maximum security.”

  It isn’t particularly ugly as far as prisons go, but it gives me the creeps. They tore down the old prison that had been operating since 1874, and put up a modern “state of the art” structure in 2002. On our way here I Googled it on my iPad. Gotta love the home page: “Welcome to the U.S. Disciplinary Barracks.” Welcome? Why not “Welcome to Hell, You Fiend?”

  Besides my charming husband and some 440 other nasties, U.S.D.B. Leavenworth holds murderous luminaries such as Nidal Hasan, the patriotic American army officer who killed 12 and wounded 30 at Fort Hood in 2009. Joe Monahan belongs here.

  On the off-hand chance that Monahan may see me, I wore a full burqa, covering my entire body, enabling me to see the world through narrow eye slits.

  “You look lovely Janice, I must say,” said Ben.

  “Stuff it Bennie, I’m nervous enough.”

  We were greeted by Warden Max Williams, who received a personal call from CIA Director Carlini to announce our visit. Even though we were accompanied by the top guy, we had to go through a symphony of sliding, clashing, banging, beeping, honking, and various other noisy security crap before we arrived at the room where I would meet Joe Monahan in two days.

  I didn’t know much about interrogation rooms other than from cop shows on TV. Bennie expertly showed me the room’s “features,” including steel table legs that were bolted to the floor, enabling the efficient shackling of prisoners. A small anteroom would house an armed guard, giving a prisoner/interrogee the false impression that there was pr
ivacy. Of course, the guard could hear every word. Along a wall was the famous one-way mirror, enabling a person or group of people to eavesdrop on the conversation. During the actual meeting with my darling husband, Bennie would observe from the other side of the mirror.

  Bennie, in his tough NYPD way, then started to show his brilliance as he prepared me for my meeting with Joe Monahan. Doctor Bennie knows so much about the human mind and its devious ways it’s almost creepy. I’m glad he’s on my side.

  “Look, Kiddo,” (can’t you picture Bennie on Law and Order?) “Commander Dickhead is going to work over your mind. Whatever positive thoughts about this guy you ever had, keep them bundled up on the side. He’s a deceitful psychopath who knows how to manipulate people, and that includes you. He deceived countless others for 20 years while he plotted to kill them. He had you, his wife, convinced that he was just a career naval officer, a regular guy working his way up the ranks. When Jack Thurber and I first met you at your house, you were clueless that your missing husband may have been a terrorist. Most victims of psychopaths are like that, clueless. They’re clueless because the psycho is a master of deception. How many times have you read an account of a serial killer after he’d been nabbed? Reporters would always canvass the neighborhood to ask people what they thought of the suspect. Inevitably you read stuff like, “I can’t believe it’s him,” “But he was such a nice, friendly man,” or, “They must have the wrong guy; it couldn’t be him.”

  “Remember John Wayne Gacy?” Bennie continued. “A charming civic-minded guy who invented a character for himself named ‘Pogo the Clown.’ He’d volunteer for charitable fundraisers, children’s parties, and parades. What a guy. Problem was that he sexually assaulted and killed at least 33 kids and buried them in the crawl space under his house. ‘But he was such a nice, friendly man.’”

  “I’m not saying Joe Monahan is a John Wayne Gacy, at least not in his manner or style. But if the Thanksgiving Attacks happened, his body count would have made Gacy look like an ideal neighbor.”

  “Bennie,” I said, “we may be time travelers but we’re not soothsayers. I understand that. But please give me some things to look for, some conversational stuff to identify. Like you’ve been saying, I really don’t know this man. I thought I did, but everything that’s happened tells me I that was leading a fantasy life with that slime. What do I look for, Bennie?”

  “Janice, like you said, we’re not soothsayers and we can’t predict human actions with scientific accuracy. But, and my darling mother and biggest fan would agree, you’re looking at the smartest guy in the world when it comes to this shit. Nobody knows more about people like Joe Monahan than me.”

  “Bennie,” I said, “you don’t have to convince me that you’re smart, and I’m not saying that to jerk your chain. I’ve seen you in action. You can observe the human mind in a way that’s almost spooky. If you weren’t here, I would refuse to be here. But let’s get specific, okay?”

  “Okay, Janice, let’s look at what you can expect from Joe Monahan.”

  ***

  Bennie then laid out the psychopathic profile of the man I married. Ben is a genius; there’s no other way to describe it. He jokingly refers to himself as “Bennie the Bullshit Detector,” but that’s only because he has a self-deprecating sense of humor. Let’s face a disturbing fact: most of what goes on in our heads, including mine, is bullshit. It’s the way we communicate, with ourselves and others. It’s the grand game that we all play. It’s the way the world goes round. But this tough cop, Dr. Benjamin Weinberg, MD, Harvard Medical School, has found a way to detect the difference between honest thoughts and actions, and bullshit.

  In the ten years I was married to Joe Monahan, the two of us lived a life of bullshit. Now, my good friend Bennie is going to show me how to detect it.

  Chapter 15

  “I’m not going to dictate my thoughts to you, Kiddo,” said Bennie, “we’re going to interact. I’m going to pick your brain and let you come to conclusions and insights. This process works especially well with bright people, and you’re one of the brightest people I know.”

  Bennie can be gruff, but he can also be quite pleasant, especially with a compliment like that. And when something like that comes from Bennie Weinberg, it isn’t, well, it’s honest.

  “Janice, what is the overriding thought in Monahan’s mind since we thwarted the attacks and he was arrested?”

  “Shame, with a side of guilt.” I said.

  “Now I’m sure you’ve had feelings of guilt and maybe even shame in your life,” Bennie said. “How do you handle that?”

  I thought for a few minutes. “Well,” I said, “I’m embarrassed to admit this, but I always try to rationalize it, to find somebody else or something else to blame it on, anybody but myself. Yes, I may have done such and such, but if it weren’t for him, or her, or it, I never would have done the thing.”

  “Janice, you’ve just described the human condition, something that’s hard-wired into our survival instinct. It can’t be me who did that. No, I’m the good guy. If I did such a thing I’d be a bad person, and my self-esteem suffers, and then I’m feeling worthless. No, it wasn’t me, it was somebody else, or some set of circumstances. I remember the late great comedian, Flip Wilson.

  He coined the phrase, ‘the devil made me do it.’ Yup, shift the blame. And a person who gets really good at shifting the blame becomes a psychopath.”

  “So, Bennie, who or what do you think Joe is going to blame this on?”

  “The literature, including my own contributions, points to people who are close to the psychopath. But let’s back off psychopathy for a moment and get back to our simple human condition. A wife asks, ‘Why didn’t you empty the dishwasher?’ The husband says, ‘If you didn’t give me so many other things to do I would have.’ It wasn’t me who failed to empty the dishwasher, it was you who prevented me from doing it.”

  We took a short break while I laughed hysterically. Bennie has a way of describing the human condition so perfectly he should go into stand-up comedy. So a guy blames his wife for his not emptying the dishwasher. It’s funny, but also it’s starting to make me uncomfortable. I think I see what’s coming next.

  “So, Janice, Who do you think your guilt-ridden husband will blame for what he was about to do?”

  “Well, there are two obvious candidates. Number one is Admiral Frank, aka Ayham Abboud, the intelligence mole who lied to him for 20 years. The other is me, if for no other reason that I lived with him and, well, your dishwasher analogy is perfect.”

  “I’ll tell you who’s number one, Janice. It’s you.”

  “Why me?” Oh shit, notice how I’m trying to shift the blame somewhere else?

  “A few reasons, Janice. Number one, Frank’s cover, as far as we know, hasn’t been blown. All Monahan knows is that ‘Sheik Abboud’ has been missing. So if the memory of this big brother figure persists, Monahan’s not going to blame him. And he’s definitely not going to blame his religion, or the perversion of the religion he bought into. No, if it weren’t for his sexy heathen wife he would never have been distracted, he would have pulled off his plan. But forget the logic of it. You’re the one who will be in front of him, you’re the one who will get the blame, or at least a big part of it.”

  “Bennie, I think you nailed it. He’s gonna blame me. So he’s a fucking nut case – Is that an apt description?”

  “Let’s call it a working diagnosis.”

  “So it’s all my fault, fine, it got it. But here’s my problem with this whole inquiry. Ben, you’re a good shrink, an amazing shrink. But I’m an engineer, a pretty good one if I don’t say. I’m trained not just to diagnose problems, but to find solutions. I need to solve problems. So we diagnose his mind as being disposed to blame everything on yours truly. Great, but where does that get us? I believe the problem we’re looking to solve is to get Joe Monahan to lead us to where the bombs are. Without that we’ll be wasting our time just to give him an emotional cathar
sis. Bennie, we’ve got to find the fucking bombs.”

  “That’s where we’re going next, Janice. By the way, and I know this sounds strange coming from a foul mouth like me, but I notice your language is getting saltier and saltier.”

  “Thanks for pointing that out, Ben. I really have to reign in my tongue. I always cuss a lot when I’m frightened. It’s immature and stupid. I promise to watch my vulgarity.”

  “Well, that’s a solid piece of self-knowledge. When you’re frightened you use vulgar language. Knowing that about yourself is a great thing for your mental health.”

  “Bennie, if you don’t mind me asking, where do you get your delightful potty-mouth speech patterns? Sometimes listening to you is like sitting in a sports bar on payday. Is it a cop thing?”

  “Well, Janice, since we’re sharing honest details about our subconscious thoughts, I’ll be happy to answer your question. I curse to look and sound tough. That’s right. I’m a short, chubby, balding intellectual who deals with cops every day. I deal with cops, overworked prosecutors, and a lot of criminals. I don’t want them to know that I graduated from Harvard; I want them to know that I’m tough. It’s both practical and also a self-deluding defense mechanism. So that’s my potty mouth story.”

  I wouldn’t expect anything less than complete honesty from Bennie, my favorite shrink. I’m glad he helped me realize my foul language is an attempt to make the fear go away. But fear is a part of life. It doesn’t mean I have to be an obscene loud mouth just because I’m afraid of something. I really have to work on this. Using four-letter words all the time is dumb, immature, vulgar, and disrespectful of other people.

  Fuck it, I’m scared.