“No, no, no, no, no.” Ben shook his head back and forth. “It can’t be! No, it can’t!”
Emily whispered in his ear, “Sophia Lorenz does not exist. She’s just a girl you met in an airport.”
“This can’t be possible. How, why?” Ben saw himself sitting on that very couch several weeks prior, contemplating whether to call her; and in a dreamlike state, he did. But he heard it now, the other end of the line. The flat tone of the phone receiver ringing in his ear as he talked to no one, and after a while the stale voice of the recorded operator, “If you would like to make a call, please hang up and try again.”
But it was so real, he thought. I heard her voice, felt her skin. Christ … we had sex. I felt her, I … thought I … felt her. Jesus Christ, what is going on in my head!
Ben started weeping in his palms. His forehead was throbbing. Emily pulled him in, embracing his body.
“Shhh; it’s okay, baby. I’m here now. I’m going to help you. Everything is going to be okay.”
“Emma …”
“Now, stop crying.”
“What’s happening to me? This is … I mean, how are you here? How do you exist? How do I know that Sophia doesn’t exist, if you don’t either?”
“I exist because you need me to exist. Look, there’s a lot going on in that head of yours, and I know you’re confused, but you have to trust me. I am real—at least to you I am, and that’s what’s important. I’m sitting here right now talking to you.”
“But … I’m talking to no one right now. I’m on the couch, talking to thin air. Oh my god—I’ve gone crazy. I am crazy! I have to call someone … I have to go to a hospital … I have to call Dr. Wul—”
“You can’t call him. You can’t trust him, or Iain Marcus, or any of them.”
“I can trust Dr. Wulfric. He’s a good man … he’s my friend.”
“No, Ben. He’s not.”
Ben looked at his hand. It was shaking, trembling, and his vision seemed to be getting bright.
“Emma, I don’t know what to do. You’re not real—”
Her face sharpened and she slapped him. His head twisted to the side and his cheek stung.
“Was that real enough?”
He rubbed his cheek, felt it throb in his palm, and thought he could taste a faint coppery tang of blood.
“I don’t want you telling me that I don’t exist! Is that what you want, Ben? Do you want me not to exist? Do you want me to leave? Would you rather have Sophia? Your imaginary girlfriend?”
“Emma, I …”
For just a second, just a fraction of a second, Ben wasn’t talking to Emily. He was talking to no one, alone on the couch, staring at the cushion. “Emily!”
He blinked and she was back. “If you can see me, hear me, feel me and touch me, what else do you need? Your mind created me for a purpose, Ben. You’re sick, and I can help you get better.”
The pain in his cheek was real enough. He looked into her eyes, saw the lines of anger fade to sympathy. “I’m sorry, Emma. I didn’t mean to upset you. Please don’t go; don’t leave me again. I can’t lose you. Please, God, don’t go ….”
“Now, now, Bennie.” She put his head on her lap, stroking the hair around his ear, as he curled up in a ball.
“I don’t get it, I just don’t understand. Why … why did I imagine Sophia? What’s wrong with me? Why … am I crazy? Have I lost my mind?”
“You made her up because you’ve been poisoned. You’ve been poisoned for a long time, and have been hallucinating all the while. Dr. Wulfric poisoned you. That serum—the Nano—it will kill you, and nobody will care. Sophia—she will kill you. She is the poison working inside your mind. You’re lucky you haven’t been locked away in a psychiatric hospital already. You’ve been going out on dates with an imaginary girlfriend, sitting down to dinner talking to an empty chair, ordering full plates of food for no one.”
“Oh God.”
“It’s okay now, Ben. It’s okay. I’m here to help you. I will help you, but you have to trust me. You have to do what I tell you. Your mind brought me here. It brought me here to save you, to get the poison out of your system. I know how much you missed me, Bennie. I know how much pain you’re in. I know it wasn’t fair that I died, that I was taken from your life when we were young and needed each other the most. I know you need me. I’m back now, Ben, if you want me to be. If you trust me, I’ll stay by your side. I’ll never leave you again, we can be together for all eternity; we can stay in each other’s arms forever. Do you trust me, Bennie?”
Ben looked into her eyes. His mind was tingling and numb. Bizarre rushes of pleasure swept through his body, similar to what he felt during his freakish dream of the cabin, when his fingers were slipping into the paint. Like his mind was a blank slate, incapable of basic thought or reasoning, just floating along on a sea of pleasure.
He stared into her eyes and the rest of the world disappeared. They were alone in a galaxy floating somewhere far, far away. A few seconds went by, or maybe it was hours. Time was irrelevant—just a thing that passed like water in a stream, always moving, yet impossible to see in individual parts. It just drifted by.
Whatever part of Ben’s mind that allowed him to see Emily, hear her voice, touch her skin, feel the heat coming off of her body—and see these things as real—was warping the rest of his mind to entertain the fact that she was real, that she was sitting on the couch beside him.
He was locked eye to eye with the love of his life, and they were together forever, mixing souls like swirls of paint on a canvas, blending to form different colors and shades.
“Yes …” The words passed through his lips in a breeze. “I trust you. I’ll do whatever you say.”
Tears still rolled down his cheeks, slower now. She wiped them away with her hand and stroked the hair around his ear.
“I’m … so … tired … I think I need to sleep. Just for a minute. I have a headache.”
“Rest now, Ben; rest. We have a long journey ahead of us.”
Chapter 20
Michael saw the sign for Fells Point.
They were close.
Michael closed his eyes. What’s brought us to this? Iain and I, we used to be the perfect team. I know that I’ve changed, but … why hasn’t he?
For years, Iain and Michael operated like a well-oiled machine. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when Michael began to ponder the consequences of his actions, but thinking back on it now, he guessed that it all began around the time Kabul fell to the U.S. and NATO forces along with the Northern Alliance.
Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet had recently been transferred to U.S. Task Force 373, stationed in Kunduz, Northern Afghanistan. The task force’s main objectives were to find and neutralize, or occasionally capture, high-profile opposition forces. They were assassins for the United States Military.
For years, the task force stayed out of the limelight, operating in secrecy and proving to be an effective and proficient unit. When an order came in and the target was given the green-light on the JPEL list—Joint Prioritized Effects List, the list of individuals chosen to be assassinated or captured—the team moved out, typically in the dead of night, transported by plane, Humvee, helicopter, or on foot.
Task Force 373 included soldiers from every spectrum of the armed forces, and the men were typically aged about ten years younger than Michael and Iain. Boys, really—just kids. By 2007, Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet were safely the two oldest soldiers in all of Task Force 373.
Talks of discharge were already in the works, when one fateful night in June, an order came through to eradicate a commanding officer of the Taliban spotted just outside of Jalalabad.
The events that followed remain in Michael’s thoughts as clear as day:
The team had made their way to the perimeter of the objective, in a desert valley outside of Jalalabad. All at once, the team stopped cold in their tracks. Someone had spotted them. A bright spotlight swept their position, and Michael could hear peop
le shouting in Arabic. The team ducked for cover.
Michael didn’t know which side made the first shot, but within moments, both sides were engaged in a firefight. Michael crouched behind a crude rock wall, which surrounded the ancient ruins of a farmhouse in that isolated valley. Without hesitation, he aimed his rifle and fired in the direction of the enemy soldiers. Bullet rounds kicked up dirt and shattered the rock wall around him to dust.
Air support was called in, and an AC-130 Spectra gunship strafed the enemy position, raining fire from the sky, obliterating the ground in huge plumes of sand, smoke, and rock that rose ten feet in the air before plummeting back down to the earth. When the air cleared, the team moved in. Most of the enemy soldiers were strewn about, dead in the valley or still dying. A few escaped with their lives, and some badly injured were unable to rise. The injured rolled in the dusty soil, yelling, crying, holding their wounds, and shouting in their native tongue. Blood was everywhere, sucked down into that unforgiving, greedy desert sand. The blood of whole armies would never be enough.
Michael quickly discovered that the men they fought were part of the Afghan police force. They were the good guys, and a terrible mistake had been made.
Iain and Michael were given leave of Task Force 373 as diplomats and generals tried in vain to suppress any information leaking to the public.
Iain and Michael were then employed by Blackwater—paid to do mercenary work in Iraq as the main U.S. forces secured the cities and towns. They guarded oil tanks and supply lines from insurgents. In the end, they were stationed at a small makeshift airport. Jet planes and personal aircraft carrying men wearing suits with large briefcases and satchel bags came and went at random intervals, day and night.
It was then that they first met Mr. Timothy Kalispell.
Mr. Kalispell arrived on a jet. He walked out on the tarmac wearing a full suit and tie, carrying only a briefcase and a small bag of luggage. The dusty air covered his dark suit the moment he stepped out on that sandy soil. Iain and Michael were ordered to escort Mr. Kalispell to Baghdad, along with a third Blackwater operative named Frederick Marshal, and a driver whose name Michael could not remember.
They met and shook hands. Mr. Kalispell asked Iain, “Are you in charge?”
“I’ll be heading the team, sir.”
Mr. Kalispell nodded, and they left.
Thirty miles outside Baghdad, Iain yelled, “Stop!”
The armored SUV skidded to a halt, kicking up a plume of sand and dust that wafted into the interior. Iain looked out the passenger window with a set of binoculars. After a moment, he said in a casual tone, “Hostiles, two o’clock.”
The driver put the car in reverse and pressed down hard on the gas, billowing smoke and sand in the opposite direction. Seconds later, gunfire erupted from behind a small mound far out in the desert. The hostiles were nothing more than tiny specks of reflected light floating in a sea of rolling sand.
“Jesus Christ!” Mr. Kalispell shouted, clutching his briefcase to his chest.
“Stop the car! Stop! Stop!” Michael yelled, squatting in the trunk of the SUV, facing the rear. “Two hostiles, seven o’clock.”
The driver hit the brakes and grabbed the microphone on the radio, speaking quickly to Command. Iain opened the car door and dropped to the ground, his chest against the sand. He leveled his rifle, squinting through the scope. Michael flipped open the rear window, propping his gun on the ledge of the door. Frederick Marshal grabbed Mr. Kalispell's shoulder in his calloused grip and pushed him down to the floor of the car, where he curled up in a ball.
Bullet fire from the enemy was now intense. Rounds hit the side of the armored SUV, making noises like, ‘Plunk, Plunk,’ and leaving behind silver flower-pattern dents in the dark metal.
Iain and Michael kept their breathing steady and deep—in and out, in and out—and began squeezing off rounds. They breathed, focused, and pulled the trigger, firing one shot for every five shots that the enemy fired. They saw their targets drop or retreat behind desert mounds.
The gunfire ceased. The air was so silent that time itself seemed to stop. Iain remained on the ground, a cloud of dust engulfing his body, turning his hair a reddish-grey. Then he stood and got back in the SUV.
“We’re ordered back by Command,” the driver exclaimed, holding the squawking microphone. Iain nodded, and the driver put the car in gear.
“Wait, wait!” Mr. Kalispell gathered himself from the floor of the car. He patted down his disheveled hair and straightened his wrinkled suit jacket. “We’re fifty miles out. Are there more soldiers out there? More terrorists? Are they gone?”
Iain looked at Michael who shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I dropped two, and a third ran off. There could be more. We have orders to return to base.” He wanted to mention that the men who fired on them were most likely not terrorists, or even remainders of the Republican Guard. From their sporadic firing, they were most likely local civilians, untrained, and poorly armed.
“I’m not …” Mr. Kalispell was breathing hard, gathering his words. “I have to go to Baghdad. Now. Not later. I have to attend a meeting that won’t wait for me.” The man looked Iain in the eyes. “Take me to Baghdad. Continue forward. We’re more than halfway there; turning back won’t be a safer option.”
There was silence in the truck. Frederick shook his head. “Iain, I don’t—”
“Continue to Baghdad.” Iain turned to face forward.
“Sir?” the driver asked. “We have orders from—”
“You heard me. Move out. That’s an order from me.”
“Yes, sir.”
They met with no additional violence that day. They arrived in Baghdad as planned and returned to the airport without any further problems.
Iain Marcus was in serious trouble for disobeying a direct order from Command. As soon as they returned to the airport, Iain was ordered to the debriefing room by his commanding officers.
As Iain was thoroughly debriefed in a small room that resembled a jail cell, Mr. Kalispell made some phone calls and was faxed over detailed reports on Iain Marcus, Michael Bennet, Frederick Marshal, and the driver. He studied the reports outside the debriefing room until the door opened and Iain came out.
“Sir.” Iain nodded.
“Are you in trouble?”
Iain held back a nervous laugh. “I’m sure I am.”
“I have to thank you for saving my life back there.”
“No, sir, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. And I need to thank you for doing what you did back there, for listening to me. You broke your superior officer’s orders and took a risk, only because I asked you to do it.”
Iain looked down. Mr. Kalispell could see the words written on Iain’s face, clear as day. He was battered and tired, sick of orders, sick of the desert. He was done with warfare.
“I’ve read your file and I have to say, you’ve had a very interesting career with the United States Military. You started out in the 10th Mountain Division, is that correct? You and Michael Bennet have worked together since boot camp.”
“I believe my file is confidential, sir.”
“It is. And it’s very impressive.” He thought he saw a smile on Iain’s face. “How would you like to get out of here? Out of Iraq, out of this godforsaken desert. I’m in need of some people back at home, sort of like … bodyguards, you could say. People in your line of work, with your expertise.”
“I’m under contract, I—”
“Let’s talk in private.” Mr. Kalispell looked over his shoulders, making sure no one was around. “If you can spare a few minutes.”
Iain nodded, and the men walked to an empty office.
Two hours later Mr. Kalispell made a number of calls, and Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet were boarding a Hawker 850XP, bound for New York.
Years had passed since then, and Iain and Michael were still working for Mr. Kalispell.
Michael opened his eyes.
Iain was parking the car, a bloc
k from Benjamin Walker’s front door.
Chapter 21
Iain walked up the flight of stairs to Ben’s apartment. It was eerily similar to Ethan’s apartment back in Drapery Falls, only the interior and hallway in Ben’s building was much brighter and newly renovated. It was not the dark, upstate New York piece-of-shit apartment where Ethan lived. Iain recalled the splintering hardwood floors and the single exposed light bulb in Ethan’s hallway. The hallway leading to Ben’s apartment was well-lit twenty-four hours, and streetlights illuminated the sidewalk outside. Yet, both Ethan’s and Ben’s apartments were in four-unit complexes, with two apartment downstairs and two apartments upstairs.
This time things would be different. Iain could not afford a single mistake. He was in the middle of Baltimore, not some small town like Drapery Falls, where no one in the world would hear about a small house fire and a few deaths. In Baltimore, the news would spread all throughout the city, possibly even to New York and New Jersey if the fire was large enough. A criminal probe would be extensive.
As head of the team, Iain would enter the apartment alone. He ordered Michael Bennet to take up position across the street, where he stood in a dark corner next to a doorway pretending to be doing something on his smartphone.
From where Michael stood, he could see the darkness emanate from the windows of Ben’s living room and bedroom, and he sighed deeply, knowing that inside that apartment, an innocent man lay sleeping in bed without a clue as to what was about to happen. It was Drapery Falls all over again.
Iain adjusted the radio-transmitter in his ear, blowing into the microphone to test it. Michael blew into his, and Iain adjusted the volume accordingly.
Iain stepped through the doorway of Ben’s complex and into the shared lobby, moving like a ghost to the staircase, and slipped up the stairs through the shadows. When he was one step from the top, he peeled off two small strips of electrical tape he’d pre-cut and stuck to his gloved hand, placing one over the peephole to Ben’s door, and the other over his neighbor's door across the landing.
The Experiment of Dreams Page 20