by Michael Todd
Anderson chuckled. “I hear you there. Have you ever been to one of those places?”
He nodded. “Never the Zoo, obviously, but there are places that you can’t get out of your head. I can’t say where exactly, but there were drugs and a lot of money involved.”
“Right.” His visitor nodded knowingly.
Jeremiah narrowed his eyes. “Are there bugs in the room?”
The man smiled and reached over to the bedside table where he’d put his hat. He lifted it to reveal a small piece of tech that he’d dug out, presumably from the lamp. “A friend of mine gave me some tools that will make sure nobody is able to listen to what we talk about. Or see, for that matter.”
“Still, better safe than sorry,” he responded with a smirk because he’d known about the bugs. He’d swept the room a couple of times when they’d moved him there from the ICU, and each time, he’d found at least one that he’d missed. Finally, he’d come to terms with the fact that his every move while in this hospital—and probably afterward—would be watched and recorded for posterity. He wasn’t sure why they were doing it, but at this point, it was very, very low on his list of things to care about.
“Right,” Anderson said with a chuckle. “Still, I think I trust my friend.”
“So, if this interview goes badly, I won’t suddenly come down with a nine-millimeter cerebral hemorrhage?” he asked cheerfully.
“Don’t worry, nothing happens to you if you say no.” His visitor laughed. “I had help locating you and then pulled all kinds of strings to get in here to talk to you. No one wants those at the top to know that I’m here. A dead body in your room would leave too many questions asked by all the wrong people.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I think.”
“How much do you remember of the fighting that got you here?” Anderson asked.
It suddenly felt harder to breathe, and a wave of vertigo swept through him at the sudden question. “It’s all buried right now,” he said and dropped onto his bed. He took a deep, steadying breath and continued, “I remember most of my team had died. I remember that I didn’t really feel the wounds that I ended with until afterward. Other than that, it’s all…fuzzy.”
Anderson studied him for a moment, and his light-blue eyes softened. Then, he nodded, pulled a phone from his pocket, and opened it to a video he’d already lined up for Jeremiah to watch. It was the recording from his HUD camera during the mission, although it was cut to something that he very vaguely remembered doing. He watched himself scramble up a ladder as a head appeared through a small hatch at the top. A knife was in his hands and he cut the man’s throat and dragged him down through the opening. A pistol—not his assault rifle—came up and eliminated a couple more.
He cleared the hatch and shot three more men in an equal number of strikes that made him feel a little pride. There was nothing like showing off the kind of training that had taken him to the top of the food chain to make him feel like he could go ahead and achieve it all over again.
A survivor had dropped to his knees, his hand raised in the air, and he muttered something as he dropped his weapon. Jeremiah felt the same sense of guilt he’d felt that fateful night and bit his lip as the video spooled his actions. “Sorry, can’t risk it, asshole,” he heard himself say in a hoarse voice, and with two shots, the surrendered man fell.
He knew his actions that night were brutal, but most of his men had already perished and he was damned if he would grovel in disgrace for acting on his aggression. The video came to an end and he bared his teeth in an over-jolly grin. “Damn, the dude has still got it. Ten points for dexterity right there. Did you see that stab? And the three shots? They had the drop on me, every one of them, and I still got them. Three yards, three seconds, three shots.”
“You killed an unarmed man who was surrendering,” Anderson said. An odd twist of his lips to the right made it difficult for Jeremiah to read the man’s thoughts behind the statement. Still, his temper rose.
“They had just dropped a grenade into a room that killed two of my boys,” he snapped. “We were in the middle of a hostile situation where we couldn’t leave someone behind to shoot us in the back. We couldn’t take prisoners. There was only one tactical choice to make there, Anderson, and you know it as well as me.”
“True,” his companion agreed with a nod. “But from hearing you describe it and hearing your words in the video, I’d say that you had fun there. Even with all the bullets flying and all the danger that you and your men were in, you enjoyed the challenge of being in a situation where all the rules went out the window and every choice made was the difference between life and death.”
Jeremiah looked down and toyed with the fabric of the white towel he wore around his hips. “What can I say? I’m not a man of cultivated tastes, Colonel.”
“I’m not a colonel anymore, Jeremiah,” Anderson said and leaned forward in his seat. “I’m not even in the military now. But I need to clean up a place that has some wicked and powerful people involved. I don’t need a man of cultivated tastes. I can find those all over the damned country and anywhere in the civilized world. In fact, I suspect that there are many cultivated assholes, both male and female, whom I plan to squash like so many roaches. What I need now is the man on that tape.” He pointed at the phone Jeremiah had put down. “What I need is a savage, do you understand?”
He looked at the device, picked it up off the bed, and stretched to place it on the bedside table alongside the man’s hat. Something inside him needed to click into place when he was in a situation like Anderson described. He’d been in this business long enough to know exactly what was needed for him to go into that dark, furious place in his heart.
“Are these bad guys, Colonel?” he asked.
Anderson opened his mouth to remind the man in front of him yet again that he was no longer a colonel. Then again, he remembered that for people like Jeremiah, you could leave the service, but the service never really left you. In the ex-sergeant’s mind—and the minds of those like him—Anderson would always be a colonel, whether he wore the wings or not.
“Loosely defined, yes.” He answered the question as honestly as he could. “It could be that they’re merely self-absorbed assholes looking out for their own interests irrespective of whether it hurts their fellow man, nation, or the world. I hate to use a phrase from pop-culture, but it fits here. It’s about deciding whether you want to take the red pill and learn about shit that will make you question your own beliefs, or the blue pill, where you turn the other way and forget about what’s right but get a new name, a new life, and a few hundred thousand to squash your own conscience.”
“Well, Colonel, I don’t have much in the way of beliefs,” Jeremiah said with a small smile. “And…the Matrix—shit. I only watched that twice. Well, three times. Twice in the theater and once on cable. But I suck at remembering which color was which…what did Neo choose again?”
“The red pill.”
He nodded. It had been a while since he’d watched that movie. While he hadn’t quite liked how preachy it was, he had first seen it when he was in his teenage years and back then, it had been the coolest thing he’d ever seen, bar none. As a result, it would always pull at the nostalgia strings in his heart.
“Well, I think I’ll take that damned red pill, Colonel,” he said with a grin and pushed off the bed. Anderson matched his movement to stand and extend his hand to grip Jeremiah’s.
“Welcome to the team then, Jeremiah Savage,” Anderson said with a smile. “The snacks aren’t great, but the money’s good enough that you can get some gourmet stuff of your own. Good to have you aboard.”
Jeremiah laughed. “Savage. I like that. Did you think that up yourself?”
“Nah, that was my friend’s idea. We’ll need you onboard before Monday. Finish your therapy as best you can and sign that paper. The day it happens, someone will be here to pick you up and take you where you need to go. Before Monday, you got it?”
He nodded.
“I’ll get it done.”
Chapter Four
“Jeremiah…Savage, is that correct?”
Jeremiah looked up and stopped toying with the ashtray. He knew for a fact that cigarettes weren’t allowed in the hospital wards. The crystal had been cleaned excessively, but there was still a light hint of ash on the outside, and the faintest smell of nicotine on the bottom told him that the ashtray had seen at least some recent use. He replaced it on the table in front of him. He’d never actually imagined that a psychiatrist’s office would have a real sofa, but hey, stereotypes had to come from somewhere, right?
“Savage, yeah,” he said with a smile. “It’s a new name. I’m getting used to it, and I like it. I think I’ll keep it.”
“Right,” the doctor said and tapped lightly on the tablet in his hands. “I’m here to sign off on your release from the hospital. Your physical therapist has said that your improvement after multiple surgeries is…well, impressive. You have made advancements in all your regimens, sometimes exceeding expectations.”
Jeremiah smiled. “What can I say? I don’t want to hang around hospitals for too long.”
“Of course. But the effects of what happened to you have left scars, not only on your body but on your mind.”
Rather than reply to the doctor immediately, he studied his right shoulder and the tear on the sleeve of his one good Polo shirt. It had been a long time since he’d actually inspected his own wardrobe and he was dismayed to find that most of his civilian clothing was nothing more than a collection of old rags. Annoyed at the doctor’s frank appraisal, he snapped, “I’m afraid that if you’re looking to do some shock therapy on me, Doc, I don’t think you can shock me any further.”
“You’d be wrong about that,” he replied. “But that treatment is used only to treat major depressive disorders, mania, or catatonia. Considering that you’ve shown none of those symptoms, I’m afraid you’ll have to rein in your enjoyment of being tied down. Another time, eh?”
Jeremiah chuckled. “I gotta admit, I like you, Doc.”
He smiled. “I appreciate the sentiment. Of course, we’re not here to talk about me, are we? Would you mind telling me why you feel you should be released from therapy?”
“Other than the fact that I can’t stand hospitals and would rather not spend any more time around here than I absolutely have to?” he asked.
“Yes,” the doctor replied. “Other than that.”
“Well, if I’m perfectly honest, I have a job waiting for me. My potential employers said they want me free to start on Monday. If I don’t make it, they’ll find someone else.”
“So, you have an outside influence driving you to leave therapy before you might actually be ready to leave?” he asked and tilted his head in what might be disapproval.
Jeremiah frowned and wondered if he had walked into some sort of psychological land mine. “Well,” he replied. “I’ve been ready to leave for a while now. I did a lot of physical therapy two or three times a week like everyone else recovering from surgery. The problem was, I didn’t actually have anywhere to go, so I simply stayed and attended therapy every day like a madman. Hence the fantastic recovery time.”
“And that’s a healthy approach, is it?”
“I’d say it is,” he said. “Getting better as quickly as possible is a good thing, isn’t it?”
“Well, there are a lot of psychological problems that come with that, but you’re not here to listen to a long list of psychological disorders men who died fifty years ago came up with,” the doctor said and tapped his tablet once more. “We’re here to see if you’re in a place to continue your therapy…out of this hospital.”
“I’m leaving one way or another,” Jeremiah said with a small grimace. “So, you can either sign off on me or not. I’m here as a favor to the people who run the hospital since they would rather not be held liable for releasing a potentially unstable former Special Forces operative into the world with a new name and a lot of money.”
“Right,” the doctor said with a frown. “Which means that I’ll be the one left liable if I release you.”
“Basically, yes,” he said with a grin. “So, are you willing to put your writing on the wall, Doc?”
The man leaned forward. He wasn’t sure what it was about Jeremiah that set him on edge. Maybe it was the man’s calm as he sat there. Psychiatrists were used to being the smartest person in the room, considering that the people who were sent their way usually came with a boatload of issues—both mental and emotional in nature. But the man who sat across from him, as cool as a cucumber and willing to engage in wordplay, seemed like he was the smarter of the two of them but didn’t know it. Plus, he didn’t seem to care.
If the truth be told, the doctor didn’t like Jeremiah Savage. He didn’t like him and didn’t know why, which was the most annoying part of it. So, why not let the powers-that-be release Savage into the world and then blame him if everything crashed and burned? This was a dark hospital, a place that would have no name even when it was inevitably shut down, so it wasn’t like they would be able to do much to ruin his career if something did happen, right?
He shook his head in annoyance, retrieved a pen off the desk behind him, and peered at the release papers. Most of the doctors who had treated Savage had already signed off on him leaving the premises. All they needed was a psych eval from him.
“I hope you don’t make me regret this, Savage.” He signed his name quickly and put the pen back on his desk.
“Savage…yeah, I still like the sound of that,” he said with a grin, pushed himself off the couch, and picked the piece of paper up off the table. “I appreciate your time, Doc.”
Savage made his way out of the room, the release paper clasped tightly in his hand as he stepped out into the hallway. He still had fifteen minutes of the hour he’d been assigned, but he disliked shrinks as much as he disliked hospitals. They made him uncomfortable. There was so much about himself that he wanted to keep hidden, and these guys were trained to look into every nook and cranny a man held deep inside to find precisely those things. The less time he spent under professional scrutiny, the better.
A man waited outside the door for him as he stepped out of the shrink’s office. He was in uniform, and from the insignia on his sleeve, he was a corporal—probably stationed around there to make sure that everyone followed the rules and that nobody tried anything dangerous. Savage assumed that there were a lot of folks who could get angry and violent after meeting with their shrink. That made all kinds of sense.
He smiled at the man and nodded. Neither felt the need to make any kind of uncomfortable small talk as they wandered down to the lobby. There weren’t that many people around. The hospital was full, but the patients they put in a black site like this made sure that there wouldn’t be much use for a revolving door. Well, damned if he would make use of it himself before too long.
A young, attractive nurse manned the front desk and he moved out into the lobby and handed her his papers. She smiled prettily, but there wasn’t much in the way of sentiment behind her expression as he placed the rest of the paperwork needed for his release on the counter. Once that was done, he was given a package. He knew what was inside without having to check. A passport, a driver’s license, and the paperwork that went into opening a bank account that had a little over two hundred thousand dollars in it. It would have been deposited in increments, matching the pay that he’d received over the past few years, which had gone to his ex-wife and his daughter’s college fund.
There was one hell of a bonus included. The Army liked to make sure that the men they allowed to walk free from black ops were well paid for their efforts. That, of course, came with the silent threat of what would happen if they decided to talk, as if the concept of massive political upheaval wasn’t enough to keep them in line.
Savage didn’t think that he would need the cash right away. Anderson had told him—or rather implied—that there would be a lot of money involved in his work
to keep bad people off his boss’s back. A white envelope was taped to the top of the military-issued box. He frowned at it and wondered what lurked inside those crisp white folds of paper.
There was a list of things that he needed to do before he could join Anderson and his battle against the evils in Pegasus. Most of his earthly possessions were lost, thanks to the fact that he was dead to the world, and there were more than a few things that he needed to acquire. He had a couple of sets of clothes in the pack that he’d brought with him to the base, but he might as well throw those in the nearest dumpster. Besides a few small keepsakes, he didn’t have a damn thing to his name. While he had a decent amount of money, his car had been sold, and he’d lost whatever claim he had on his house after the divorce.
He would make sure that the military ponied up on those losses too, eventually. For now, he merely needed to get himself settled into this brave new world. A military car would arrive soon to take him off base, so he sat on a low, cement bench and opened the letter taped to the lid of the box. The envelope felt over-stuffed, and Savage grinned at a large wad of cash tucked inside a sheet of stationery. He read the note scrawled on the paper from his new boss.
Savage, enclosed is enough cash to set you up with a new wardrobe. Normally, I wouldn’t presume, but there are a few items that you will need, and I doubt you’d think of them on your own. First, I want you to buy a good suit. A summer suit, please, with three white dress shirts, black socks, and a good pair of dress shoes. I recommend Stone Brothers on 33rd St. They will know what you need. In addition, please pick up some light khaki slacks, an assortment of short-sleeved Polo shirts, and perhaps a pair or two of sturdy shorts. We will head into the tropics and time is of the essence.