Madman's Monster

by Michael Louis Weinberger

  "Quite a collection of photographs you have here," I commented admiringly.

  "Hmm? Oh, thank you." the Major seemed lost in thought again.

  "Are you the photographer?" I was looking at what appeared to be a relatively recent photo of a group of soldiers looking as though they had just returned from a mission. They were all wearing strange black clothing and were dirty, bloody, apparently exhausted and smiling broadly as they posed for the photograph.

  Larson looked as though he was about to say one thing, when he caught himself and instead pointed to a man who was kneeling on the right side of the photograph.

  "That's me."

  I looked at the photo and, as covered with mud and camo paint as every soldier was, there was only a vague resemblance between the man kneeling in the picture and the one standing next to me.

  "When was this?" I asked.

  Larson shook his head, "Can't say." When I looked confused Larson added, "it was a classified mission. It's since been delisted so I can have the picture hanging like this, but civilians still need authorization for any details."

  I nodded as I studied the photograph. The scenery looked as though the group was in a swamp, but the flora appeared familiar to me. As I haven't been to too many jungles or swamps in other countries I was guessing that they were in either Louisiana or Florida as opposed to off in some remote part of the world.

  "Training? Maybe preparing for an operation?" I said and watched as Larson smiled.

  "I am not at liberty to discuss that," but after a heartbeat he added, "but apparently you’re a good detective."

  It was my turn to smile, "Thanks, but why would the fact that you were training somewhere be classified?"

  Larson shrugged his shoulders, "Hypothetically, only two reasons come to mind." I stayed silent hoping he wouldn't cut off the thought there. "First, it isn't the training per se, but the mission we are training for that is classified. As a result all auxiliary information regarding the mission, including the fact that American soldiers were training for it in the first place would be considered top secret."

  Again I nodded, "Makes sense. And two?"

  "Second, would be to preserve the anonymity of the men in the photograph who may have gone on to other missions where their identities might become compromised, if they could be traced back to this moment."

  "Which is obviously why civilians need authorization to access the information."

  "Exactly." "So why were you so forthcoming about revealing your presence in the photograph?"

  Larson sighed, "Ah, I'm getting old. I've pretty much been reassigned out of field duty and into more of an instructor capacity. He pointed at his left eye, "Caught a piece of shrapnel on my last outing that damaged my eye, messed up my vision and which pretty much sealed the deal on keeping me off the strike teams."

  Lei moved to my side and said, "You sound like someone who has come to terms, but are not happy with the arrangement."

  "The Navy has been good to me and they continue to be. They could have cut me loose with a medical discharge, but kept me on instead so I could work out another five and get my pension. That was kind of a rare thing, tight as the politicians have been with the budget these days, so I was grateful."

  "But?" Lei asked.

  Larson turned to her and shrugged, "I've been a Navy SEAL for fifteen years and on active duty with SEAL Team 6 for ten of those years. I still feel good, strong and capable, but I know how damage to an eye can screw up a person's depth perception. My teammates have been supportive, at least to my face, but I constantly worry about what they would say behind my back if I were to try to pursue active duty again."

  Larson sighed, "I wouldn't blame them. If I were in their place I would want me off the team as well. I guess it's hard for an old warrior like me to hear he's riding off into the sunset. Hell, I'm only forty years old. Doesn't feel like I should be retiring just yet."

  Forty years old, I thought, that was so long ago for me. Strange that now I look back on that time and think what a child I had been, as compared to now. Major Larson, on the other hand, was at the crossroads of middle age, and at the twilight of the life he had always known. I thought about all of the trials and difficulties my people have to overcome being the way we are, but by the time we reach the same point as Larson in our lives we have lived twice as many years and usually have had the luxury of time to secure the remainder of our life on earth. For the first time I thought that maybe, just maybe, the trials that "normalcy" included, could be every bit as difficult to deal with as were our own problems.

  "Anyway," Larson gestured at a trio of chairs near his desk, "you wanted to know about the man in the photograph."

  "Yes and any help you could give us would be a huge benefit." Lei said as we all walked over to the chairs and sat down.

  "I'll tell you whatever I can, and I'm sure I will be able to fill in some of the blanks, but I don't know how much that will be of help to you."

  Lei opened a notebook and readied her pen as Larson began, "The man's name is Zach Stonebreaker, and yes that is his real last name. He was a civilian consultant with a team that was created after the attack on the World Trade Center in 1991 and that team was supposed to be a Special Response Team, or S.R.T., in the case of another attack on American soil. Our main parameter was hostage rescue, but we were also trained to take part in any incursions that arose."

  When Larson stopped speaking I asked, "How is it a civilian was able to be a part of a military team? And such an apparently elite one at that. "

  "The team was training and Zach was brought in as a consultant for a specialized form of combat tactics. Zach was a very talented martial artist and had developed a system that was extremely effective when stealth was necessary. It was a silent killing system that he had been training agents in the CIA to use with incredible efficiency. When word of our needs arose he was sent to show us the methods he had designed. It was during that time that our medic was injured in training and we were about to be deployed, so we didn't have time to find a replacement. Well, it turned out that Zach was also a nurse...or something like that, and because he had been working alongside us, he knew the basics about the mission."

  I looked at Lei, skeptical and Larson must have seen the look.

  "Yeah I know, but we were really in a bind and, although the entire team protested, Zach was given the go ahead to join us on a one time only basis."

  'So what happened?" I asked.

  Larson shook his head as the memories flooded back into his mind.

  "I had never seen anything like it. See, the mission went completely FUBAR," he looked at Lei and seemed a little embarrassed by his use of the term. "Sorry ma'am," Lei tried to cover her face as she snorted a laugh and did a fair enough job that the Major look relieved, "well the mission was a complete "no go" and we were in trouble. I was cursing a great deal as I was the one assigned to protect Zach, but he had disappeared while I was laying down cover fire. Then the men shooting at us started screaming, we thought they were charging us, would have gotten us too, if they had been, but they weren't. They were dying. Painfully.

  Larson was looking straight ahead but he was only seeing whatever images were playing in his mind.

  "When the smoke cleared it turned out that Zach had somehow managed to circle around to the enemy's position and took them all out by hand. I'm man enough to tell you that even after all the things I have seen on the battleground, what we saw when we found Zach disturbed me. Funny, but the brass wasn't disturbed at all, they were impressed."

  Larson stopped talking for a moment and seemed to be considering something before he shrugged, "I suppose we all were impressed to some degree. Anyway, when we made it back stateside Zach was a part of the team. We put him through the normal training, including SEAL boot camp, thinking we could weed him out that way, you know? Get him to quit on his own, but the guy thrived on the training, he just ate it up and every time we tried to haze or torture him he managed to turn the table
s on us."

  Larson looked from whatever he had been staring at to my face, "Have you ever heard of someone who was a natural when it comes to sports? Like a guy who just walks into a gym off the street having never played the game before and then the next day he is an All-star at the professional level? Well that was Zach. He told me he had never shot a rifle before, so I showed him how my sniper rifle worked and let him squeeze off a couple of rounds. The guy was able to make tighter groups with his shots on the first try than I could after practicing for years and I'm one of the best sharpshooters in the country. It was like that with everything. You show him how to do something and he was suddenly an expert, I can't explain it any other way."

  "So did you go on several missions together?" Lei asked.

  "More training missions than actual operations. Most ops usually were called off at the last minute, but yeah we did go on a few together. Guy even saved my life more than once," Larson chuckled, "which is funny cause I was always the loudest one in the room to say he shouldn't be part of the team. But after he pulled me out of a particularly bad scene, I kept my mouth shut and opened my eyes to see what a valuable asset the guy was. I started learning from him, instead of the other way around, and by the end..."

  Lei and I waited as Larson's eyes started to glisten just a bit.

  "...by the end, we were brothers. Truly the best friend I ever had," Larson's hand began to shake slightly, " and I curse myself every day for not being with him when he died."

  "Died?!?" Lei nearly jumped out of her chair.

  Larson nodded, "Yes, he was sent of some kind of long term recon mission that he never came back from. It was a couple years ago if I remember right. See, I had just been put on the disability shelf and was feeling pretty sorry for myself, so when he had asked me to go with him I thought he was just being generous, you know? Trying to give the semi- cripple something to do, so I turned him down. I said to him that he didn't need me or, if he did, I'd be a liability to him. He insisted otherwise of course, but I was still stewing in my boots about my being officially taken off active field duty and either didn't believe him or just didn't want to hear what he was saying."

  Lei looked at me, I held up a finger in response wordlessly asking her to give me a moment to think. Damn, did Dimitri get it wrong? Were we looking for the wrong man?

  "Major," I asked, "you say he never came back from his last mission?"

  "That's right."

  "Was his death confirmed?"

  "Confirmed?" Larson's face began to screw up into a defensive frown.

  "Well," I tried to be gentle, "was it a case of him having gone missing and presumed dead or..."

  Larson sighed, "No, he had been missing for about a month, but when an operative goes on a deep cover reconnaissance mission it isn't all that unusual for long stretches of silence so none of his superiors were overly concerned. His body was found by one of the locals, his identity was confirmed during autopsy and he was sent home...where I identified him as well."

  Lei responded first, "I'm very sorry," Larson looked at her and nodded a silent thanks. I asked, "Locals found him? Where was he?"

  This time Larson shook his head, "I'm sorry but that information is still classified."

  "How did he die?"

  "I wasn’t privy to all the details, but the injuries on his body looked a lot like he was in some kind of explosion."

  "How so?"

  "The amount of tissue damage that could only have been caused by the compressive forces and shrapnel combined with the large percentage of various burns on one side of his body. He was kind of a mess, and the third world preservation techniques for the deceased were...substandard at best."

  I frowned, "and you could still make a positive identification?"

  "Not by looking at his face, that's for sure. I looked for scars that he had acquired on missions we had served as well as some simple characteristics of his body that I had known about just by being around him for as long as I was. Things like birthmarks, if they were still intact, or the way his knuckles had discolored and flattened having been used to strike heavy bags, boards or people for the majority of his life. Things like that."

  Lei and I were quiet for a brief period and Larson said, "I'm sorry if this impairs whatever you are investigating," then he paused to study our faces, "there's something else, isn't there? You aren't disappointed or frustrated, you think he's alive and that I'm either lying to you or trying to deceive you."

  "No, I don't think you're lying," I said.

  "Then what is it?" I could tell Larson was starting to get irritated. We were treading on thin ice given how emotional the subject matter was to him.

  "It's just, that picture I showed you," I removed the photo from the file once again and slid it across Larson's desk until it came to rest in front of him, "we think it's proof that he's still alive."

  Larson picked up the photo again and looked at it, "No, I'm sorry, but he's gone. I saw it with my own eyes."

  "When?" Lei interjected.

  Larson looked up from the photo, "I'm sorry ma'am, what?"

  "When did you see the proof with your own eyes?"

  Larson had to think for a second, "It was, I can't give you an exact date right now, but it was right around three months ago."

  Lei smiled and looked at me, "Bingo."

  I smiled back and nodded. Larson looked at each of us and his frown deepened, "Bingo?"

  "Forgive us Major, but that photo was taken less than a week ago."

  Larson looked as though he might jump over the desk and strangle me, then his eyes widened and he looked back down to then picture.

  "No...it...it's not possible. I...I saw..."

  "You saw what they wanted you to see," I volunteered, "what they wanted everyone to believe."

  "They?"

  "The people behind this are extremely well funded and have hired the expertise of a particularly brilliant doctor, who we have a certain degree of experience with, concerning what he is capable of doing. In our opinion," I pointed at the photograph, "we believe that your friend is still alive and a prisoner of these people."

  Larson had been staring at the photograph, but when he raised his head the look on his face had changed. There was an edge to his features that appeared to have sharpened and his frown had morphed from anger into intent, but the greatest change was in his eyes. Damaged or not, they shined clear and focused as he picked up the phone and pressed a button.

  "Darlene? Do me a favor and get General Hawthorne on the phone please?" Lei and I waited a moment, unsure of what was happening when someone connected on the other end. "Hello General. Yes sir. Thank you sir. Yes sir I am aware of the time. Thank you for taking my call. Yes sir. I am afraid that I need to take that personal time you always said I could take."

  I was about to protest when Larson's hand appeared up from under his desk holding a Browning 9mm automatic handgun and pointed it in my general direction. I froze but Lei stood from her chair and Larson swung the barrel of the automatic at her. I was about to respond when Larson held up one finger from the phone and pressed it to his lips in a quiet request for us to be silent.

  "Yes sir, I am aware that it is short notice and I apologize for that, but something's come up that requires my personal attention." Lei and I could both hear the silence on the other end of the line that seemed to drag out for nearly a minute, and then the muffled voice of General Hawthorne came once again over the earpiece.

  "Yes sir. It is exactly that kind of situation. I appreciate that, sir. No, I do not require anything else, thank you again, sir."

  Larson hung up the phone and set the gun down on the tabletop. Lei was about to pounce when I held up a hand asking her to stop. She noticed and complied as I said, "you didn't need the gun."

  "Sorry, but I needed to get you quiet quickly. Couldn't let the general know there was anyone else in the room."

  "Fair enough, but fair warning," I leaned over the desk until my eyes were six inches from Larso
n's, "If you ever pull something like that again I will make you regret it." I put enough heat in my voice to make a tiger back down, but the major didn't even flinch.

  "Noted." He wrote something down on a piece of paper and handed it to me, "Meet me at this address tomorrow morning at 0800 and bring your passports."

  "Passports?" "Yes, you'll need them to get into Thailand."

  Chapter 13

  "Thailand?" Lei asked with surprise and, perhaps, just a little bit of excitement.

  "Yes," Larson said as a matter of fact, "and Bangkok to be precise. Zach was stationed in Bangkok and kept a studio apartment there. He also had a house in Hawaii, somewhere on Maui but I don't know the exact address. Shouldn't be too hard to find as his civilian life wasn't a state secret. The address of the studio in Bangkok may take a bit of searching but that's part of the reason I'm letting you two come along."

  My eyebrows went up on reflex, "You're ‘letting’ us come along?" I couldn't hide the sarcasm in my voice, not that I wanted to. "I thought, if anything, it would be the other way around. And who says I am willing to let you come along?"

  Larson met my gaze and smiled, "If you want to play it that way it's fine with me. Truth is I have all kinds of military contacts who either owe me favors or would do anything I asked out of the sheer loyalty that I developed over the years. I can get us out of the country and into Thailand with weapons and technology that their custom officials would never allow through and, as I am guessing the lovely lady you brought along with you," Larson inclined his head to Lei, "appears to be of Chinese ancestry, she probably doesn't speak Thai, and I even have access to a translator, which we are probably going to need."

  Larson waited a moment and met my gaze, "It would probably speed the process for me to have a couple of professional detectives along, but I figure that I can put the pieces together on my own long before you set foot in country."