Black Sunrise

by Brett Godfrey

  As they neared the top, he jerked her head closer to him and spoke into her ear. “Resist me in any way, any way at all, and your friend downstairs dies in agony.”

  When they reached the kitchen, he released her. She stumbled, trembling, but did not struggle or fight.

  “Sit down,” he hissed, pointing to a chair at the table.

  She obeyed, her eyes on the knife in his hand. As he returned it to its leather scabbard, she relaxed slightly, taking a small sip of air.

  When the man spoke, his voice remained silky with menace. “It’s much too nice a day to be sitting around inside. Why don’t we get some fresh air?”

  Jackie’s head was swimming. What sick things did this crazy old fucker have in mind for her? Was he going to parade her about naked for his neighbors to see? If so, maybe they would call the police.

  The man held open the screen door and motioned for her to step out onto a wooden patio deck. She complied. He followed her out and pointed at a plastic chair on the patio. “Hey, would you be a sweetheart,” he said as though he were addressing a close friend, “and carry that chair for me?”

  Numbed by fear, Jackie picked up the plastic chair and followed the man around the side of the cabin to the backyard. She moved awkwardly, blinking in the bright light, not sure how many days it had been since she’d seen the sky. Three? Four? It seemed like months.

  Following his silent gestures, she carried the chair around the corner, noting that there was nothing in any direction but a dense forest of pines.

  Where were they?

  Pointing to the ground beside a window well, the man said, “Put the chair down right there.”

  Jackie lowered the chair, its legs crunching in the brittle dead pine needles that poked her soles painfully. The mountain breeze and sun were warm on her bare skin, but she shivered, cold with dread.

  The man turned the chair to face the wall of the cabin, just in front of the window well.

  “Have a seat. Make yourself comfortable.”

  She obeyed, noticing a large spider creeping along the mortar between the wooden logs of the cabin wall.

  “Who are you?”

  “I am God, Kitten,” he replied. “You do understand that, don’t you?”

  She hesitated but then answered, “Yes, sir.”

  “Then say it.”

  “You are God.” She began to cry softly. Why had he faced the chair so that she was looking at the wall?

  “Again.”

  “You—you are …” She couldn’t finish.

  “You doubt me, don’t you?”

  “No! No, I don’t doubt … don’t doubt …”

  He put his hand on the handle of his knife. “Then say it, and believe it, or die. I will know if you’re lying to me. If you are being insincere, saying what I want to hear, I’ll know. I’ll be able to tell whether you believe what you are saying.”

  She considered this, and she knew he was ready to end her life. That made him God, at least from her point of view, didn’t it? Yes. She knew that it was true. For her, right now, he really was God. After a moment, she said it. “You are God.”

  This earned her two things: a smile, and his hand came away from his knife.

  God lowered himself to his hands and knees; he reached down into the window well near her feet. He lifted some items out, laying them on the ground; then he crouched next to her. She looked down at the items. There was a roll of heavy tape, some rope, a paper bag and a metal watering can with a spout like a showerhead. A pair of pliers and a few long nails.

  He picked up the can. She could tell by the way he lifted it that it was full of water.

  “What do you want most in this world?”

  She wasn’t sure what he wanted to hear her say. That what she wanted most was to obey him, serve him? Or that she was thirsty? Should she ask for water? For her freedom? She didn’t know what might get her in trouble. He was impossible to predict or even understand, considering how he had cruelly slashed poor Christie. He was clearly willing to cut them. Having abducted her and Christie, he likely thought he’d eventually have to kill them both—they’d seen his face and that of his companion.

  He picked up the roll of thick silver tape, obviously planned to secure her to the chair. She thought of running but decided she dare not. He might kill Christie, as he had threatened. Besides, Jackie was too frightened to move and too weak to make it far into the deep forest.

  “I’m waiting for an answer,” the man said as he worked the roll around and around her arms and ankles, binding her tightly to the chair. She tried to think, but her mind was like thick mud.

  When he was finished with the tape, she was completely immobilized.

  His work finished, God stood, tilting his head to one side with a quizzical expression. “Well?”

  “I want to go home,” she whimpered.

  “Home? You want to go home?” He shook his head in disappointment. “Oh, that makes me so sad. So very, very sad.”

  He bent and picked up the watering can. She wondered if he would give her some to drink. He didn’t. Instead, he held the can over her head and poured it on her, dousing her under a shower that poured forth from the perforated spout.

  “The right answer was obvious, but your heart is not pure.”

  The water was cold on her bare skin, the breeze making it more so. It soaked her hair, trickling down her back, cascading over her shoulders and dripping from her stiff brown nipples onto her thighs. It burned her eyes, and she blinked to clear her vision.

  What was that smell?

  It was familiar, but it took a few seconds for her to recognize it. When she did, she thought her chest would split.

  Gasoline!

  She watched him toss the empty can aside and dig into the paper bag. He withdrew a butane lighter with a long metal neck—the kind used to start barbecues.

  Jackie was panting like an Olympic sprinter, hyperventilating as her adrenal glands responded to the terror blossoming in her mind.

  He’s going to burn me alive!

  “No! Oh please, God!”

  Then all she could do was scream.

  She did not realize that her terrified shrieking projected down the window well to drill a hole in the mind of her imprisoned friend—that she was playing her part perfectly in God’s macabre play.

  Beeman had never actually intended to burn the girl but only to traumatize her, secure her absolute obedience, so that the next phase of the process could unfold smoothly upon Antonio’s arrival. He’d only intended put her into a state of total, unthinking obedience so that her conditioning could continue.

  But now, as she sat before him, squealing in terror, dripping with Amoco Ultimate Premium Unleaded, he was compelled to squeeze the trigger on the lighter, imagining what it would be like. Push the plastic safety lever forward, snap the trigger, touch off a blaze and jump back to watch the blistering, bubbling skin, hair ablaze, eyelids peeled back by the scorching flames. He visualized her thrashing, then twitching, then going still as the fire cooked her, screams fading slowly to silence.

  His chest heaved. He pushed the safety lever forward with his thumb. His finger tightened on the trigger switch. He brought the lighter up and touched the end to her gasoline-soaked hair.

  Her screaming grew even louder, until her voice grew hoarse. Then she began to make a croaking noise, coughing and sputtering incoherently.

  Do it!

  No. That would ruin the plan.

  But wasn’t it ruined already? Hadn’t Kim changed everything? Was this the closest he would come to looking the dragon in the eye? Balancing on the razor edge that separated life from death, the urge to immolate this child was so powerful it was intoxicating, irresistible.

  He felt his finger pulling the trigger back, hearing the audible click.

  The lighter did not ignite. These damn things never did on the first try.

  The little bitch’s head tipped forward as she fainted.

  With a deep sigh, Beeman to
ssed the lighter aside.

  Then he chuckled.

  He should have videotaped this.

  Chapter 21

  First Dave Thomas and then Albert Brecht climbed into the plane, raising eyebrows among the three junior members of the team who were already aboard. Jennifer Takaki was a former DOD—Department of Defense—electronics intelligence cryptanalyst and hacker with skill in financial tracking, photoreconnaissance analysis and logistics. Marcus Ortega was a forensic technician who had been a crime scene investigator with the FBI for several years. And Paul Boyer was an expert in criminal profiling who had also been with the FBI.

  When the last two men climbed into the cabin, Takaki raised an eyebrow: both the director of operations and the Old Man himself? A lot of clout. Then Roady Kenehan climbed aboard, adding even more to the intrigue. Kenehan was a nearly mythical figure within the closed, secretive world of covert ops, where rumors were forbidden but had a nasty way of creeping about. This was clearly a hot assignment. Receiving it had to be a good sign, career-wise.

  While the pilots worked through the preflight checklist and taxied for takeoff, Thomas gestured for the team to don the headsets clipped to the bulkhead beside each of the seats. He then gave them a concise summary of their objective: the safe recovery of two young adult females believed abducted from a shopping mall in Denver, Colorado. The present whereabouts of the abductees was unknown. There had been no ransom demand. State and federal investigations were supposedly underway but appeared to have stalled for unclear reasons. The missing subjects included a college student and a former waitress.

  Curious. Location and recovery of missing persons on US soil was not a typical assignment for the Brecht Group. Usually state or federal law enforcement handled kidnappings, primarily because few private citizens could afford to pay the Brecht Group’s fees. Exceptions included kidnapping victims related to affluent VIPs, high-level government officials or those with some strategic value and cases where the US government needed to remain officially uninvolved.

  A college student and a former waitress? Very curious indeed. Who were these girls, and whom were they related to? They sounded like Everyday Janes. What was it about them that could bring Brecht himself to the operation? The Old Man hadn’t been actively involved in operations for how long?

  Takaki wasn’t sure, but it had been years.

  During the three-hour flight, most of the passengers aboard Jensen’s Phenom 300 caught a bit of sleep and then hunkered down at the run-down Ramada on the airfield at Centennial Airport.

  They convened at seven the next morning in a private executive conference room at the Denver Jet Center, where they downed a catered breakfast with plenty of coffee.

  Now, all the team members sat around a large conference table. Their clients soon joined them: Mark and Janet Jensen and Robert Sand. No one had ever heard of them.

  When Mark, Janet and Robert entered the room, Brecht greeted them warmly, introducing Thomas, Takaki, Ortega and Boyer to them in turn, giving brief summaries of their roles and skills. Everyone wore casual attire except Brecht, who sported his customary bespoke suit with a striped tie.

  Brecht nodded to Thomas to signal that he was ready to begin.

  Jensen was a little surprised by Brecht’s quaint appearance but impressed with his demeanor. He has the manner of a commanding general, he mused.

  Brecht began to speak, slowly and with deliberation, his deep baritone voice conveying purpose and authority that Jensen found comforting in light of the man’s age. “We are here,” Brecht said, “to find and retrieve two young ladies who have vanished without explanation. We believe they were abducted. Missing now for four days. You’ll receive dossiers and photographs in a moment.

  “With us this morning are Mark and Janet Jensen, the parents of Christine Anne Jensen, age twenty-six, the older of the two missing women.” Brecht gestured across the table. “This gentleman is Robert Sand, the last known person to have seen the girls before they went missing. They departed from his home in his car for a shopping excursion. Mr. Sand lives with the other missing woman, Jaqueline Rosalie Dawson, age twenty-two.” Brecht cleared his throat. “They are romantically involved. The women did not return as expected on the evening of their disappearance. Mr. Sand filed a report with the Denver police, who have done very little on this case.

  “Mr. Jensen has spoken with detectives and an FBI liaison. He is a former criminal prosecutor. He feels that details of the investigation are inconsistent with his extensive experience in similar matters. He suspects something may be going on behind the scenes to divert resources away from finding the missing women, or at the very least that the Denver police have formed a biased view of the situation due to circumstances we will get into more deeply in a moment.

  “Police found Mr. Sand’s car in a multilevel parking garage at the mall the girls had said they were going to. The driver’s-side door was partially open, and the key was still in the outside lock.”

  Brecht focused his attention on Mark and Janet. “Some of you will inspect that location later this morning; others will inspect Mr. Sand’s car. The rest of you will see to logistics and coordination to prepare for the arrival of the main Mobile Response Team, which consists of several more specialists coming in two of our MAO motor coaches.” He turned to Mark Jensen and continued. “These special retrofitted buses serve as mobile analysis and operations bases to house team members and equipment during ongoing field operations. They should be here by midday tomorrow.”

  Brecht returned his attention to the rest of the team, gazing at each of them in rotation while he spoke. “There are no known videotapes of the women in the mall or the parking lot. No known witnesses saw the women after they left Mr. Sand’s house.

  “In a moment, the Jensens and Mr. Sand will tell us what they have learned, including what little they’ve been able to pick up during police interviews. There isn’t much. More importantly, they’ll educate us about the missing women—their personalities, backgrounds, habits and contacts.” Brecht paused. The team members were obviously pondering the as-yet unmentioned elephants in the room. Jensen noticed that all eyes had fallen on Sand, who calmly locked eyes with Brecht and nodded slightly, signaling Brecht to proceed into difficult but unavoidable subject matter.

  “This much you already know,” Brecht said, his palms turned outward toward the group. “Before we go any further, let me address your most obvious questions. First, is Mr. Sand a suspect, given he saw them last, and second, who is he? Also, why are David and I here personally to oversee what would usually be a relatively low-level assignment?”

  After another pause, Brecht continued. “Let me tackle the last question first.” He cleared his throat and played with the knot of his tie. “For more than forty years,” he said, his deep voice dropping yet another octave, “I have served as the chairman and president of this organization. In that time, we’ve worked for presidents and kings, noblemen and aristocrats, despots and playboys. We have grown since our formation during the Cold War. We’ve taken risks; occasionally we’ve lost good people, and I’ve made no apologies for the fact that we sometimes do dirty work in a dirty business. I don’t apologize because our work is necessary, and we have always done it well. We’ve known success, and, on occasion, we’ve suffered bitter failure.”

  Brecht pulled a pen from his breast pocket, holding it like a wand in his gnarled hand, using it to gesture as he spoke. “Our accomplishments have placed us in the ranks of the elite. This has been no accident. We are the elite of the elite. Employment in our organization is coveted. We steal the best from SOCOM, the FBI, Blackwater, Triple Canopy, SIS and SAS. We limit our ranks to the finest analysts, logisticians and paramilitary professionals, who are almost all former Tier One operators. Our standards are exacting, and our methods, techniques and resources are equal or superior to those of most governmental agencies.

  “Acting extrajudicially, we have improved the world in measurable degrees, but we’ve never betray
ed the public trust attendant to our function. Yet we have preserved, for the most part, our anonymity, which is our lifeblood.

  “So now, it is with a mixture of regret and pride that I will very soon announce my retirement, in the hope that I will end my professional life with dignity and pride.”

  Brecht paused for several seconds before continuing. “Whether that comes to pass, as I hope, remains to be seen.” He leaned forward, his elbows on the table, and systematically renewed his eye contact with each member of the team—his vivid blue eyes boring into each person like a pair of cold lasers.

  “This is not, as some of you may assume, a run-of-the-mill, find-the-kids assignment. This is not a matter of negligible importance. In your time with our Group, and perhaps before that, most of you participated in operations of national or even global import. I see on your faces that you question whether this kind of case warrants what I have chosen to put into it.

  “Don’t make the mistake of questioning such a thing. On the contrary, this is your final test before I hand over the reins. This operation will define the measure of what we have built, painstakingly, for more than half a century. Do not fail me.”

  A few heads nodded, almost imperceptibly. Janet’s eyes were brimming with tears, and she gave a sad smile. “Thank you,” she said, her voice cracking. “I needed to hear that.”

  Brecht nodded to her. Then his aging eyes wandered from person to person. “With that question covered, we move to the next one hovering in your minds: Robert Sand.” During Brecht’s monologue, Jensen had seen Roady Kenehan gazing at Robert Sand. He could practically see sparks passing between the two men.

  For several moments, Brecht said nothing, and it became clear that he wanted Sand to introduce himself.

  Sand chuckled. “Now we’re going to talk about little-old me. No sense trying to talk around this. I’m fifty-six years old, black and shacked up with a much younger white woman. I’m head over heels in love with her. I know how it looks, but that isn’t how it is. Jackie is twenty-two years old. She’s an adult; she makes her own decisions.”