The Clinic

by Ray Carole

  Sully, his old Commanding Officer was looking straight at him.

  He instantly revisited the last two encounters with him. One was giving him the opening brief on the new Cell in Baghdad, the other looking up at him from behind his office desk when he left a broken man.

  Pausing everyone was shaken by Ilyushin’s jet engines rattling the metal hangar as it got airborne for the last time.

  Decker controlled his rage, taking a moment to ponder. Slowly working things out, he clocked a genuine fear in Gerry and a huge front being put on by Sully to hide his uncertainty.

  Sully raised his right arm in an attempt to pacify him. No chance.

  ‘Stay where the fuck you are, both of you.’ Ready to start his one-way negotiation. Sully remained still, holding his hand gesture.

  ‘Harry, take it easy for a moment. I expected this reaction.’

  ‘You start taking it easy by first dropping whatever tool you have on you. Nice and easy 3, 2…’ They both knew that the count of zero meant a bullet in Sully’s head. ‘Okay, okay.’ Sully reached beneath his coat and fished his Glock out, dropped it on the floor before kicking it to his feet without waiting for the request to do so.

  Looking around Decker spotted a room to his right. It was a small square office-type room with a window on the right-hand wall of the hangar.

  ‘Both of you in that room,’ nodding his head towards it.

  ‘Harry, put the weapon down, don’t have to drop it just lower it. We need to talk about this. You need to know what this is all about.’

  ‘I need to know? That’s the first thing that’s made sense to me in the last three years.’ He laughed manically, ‘I need to know… You’re fucking right I need to know, both your lives depend on it.’ Both men stared at him. Motionless. ‘Now get the fuck in that room, now.’

  A desk with a film of dust covering it held the centre ground. Four old metal chairs with wooden seats and backrests surrounded it. A small sink to the side with upturned mugs on the draining board, from a kettle that had three rusty tins next to it, it was obviously a brew room or office for technicians who worked in the hangar previously. Today it had the courtroom feel to it or even an executioner’s chamber WHITEOUT thought if he didn’t get the answers he came for.

  This’ll do, he mused, thinking it was both the perfect courtroom and execution room in one.

  ‘Now sit down and shut the fuck up,’ he ordered locking the door and pulling the blinds down.

  Both Sully and Gerry sat down next to each other, Gerry cradling his shoulder. Decker remained standing, walking left to right.

  ‘Look,’ Decker pointed the pistol at them, shaking his head. Placing his finger against his lips notifying Sully to be quiet, he walked behind them. Raising his arm, Decker brought his pistol down, whipping Sully across the side of his face, causing his eyebrow to explode, splattering blood onto the dust-clad table.

  ‘Court is officially in session.’ He grinned. He was back.

  ‘Stop it, stop it Harry,’ Sully shouted out as he placed his left palm over the first split in his head.

  Gerry startled shuffling his chair back to react. Decker kicked him straight in his injured shoulder. Gasping it knocked Gerry off his chair and he slid back to lean against the wall.

  Decker watched in satisfaction as Sully’s blood spilt onto the table. Sully tried to lift his head back up to get eye contact. Decker walked around the table enjoying toying with his captors for once.

  ‘You move I kill you both. Now let’s just talk about how you hijacked my life, in very, very slow time. If I notice something doesn’t quite add up, he dies,’ Decker pointed the pistol at Gerry.

  He was pleased to see that Sully looked awkward. It was obviously not going to his plan.

  ‘Okay, but we don’t have time Harry,’ Sully continued. ‘Look, Gerry only knows so much, this whole thing took a few wrong turns that I had to sort out… Sorry Gerry,’ Sully gave Gerry a sympathetic nod. ‘I had no choice ordering you to do what you did—’

  ‘Skip over the high drama about choices and start talking to me,’ Decker said impatiently.

  ‘Three years ago I was approached and asked to lead a new project that, if successful, would begin a whole new wave of modern warfare. As your Commanding Officer back then I was told to recommend 5 candidates who I thought were the SAS’s smartest, and most resilient to undergo a Mind Manipulation Programme called Project 8. Another 100 or so test cases were drawn from the Intelligence Services, other arms of Special Forces.

  ‘When I understood the bigger picture and what this meant for the future I gave them The Cell in Baghdad.’

  ‘I know, I remember your face filled with glee giving us the brief about getting one over the CIA,’ Decker said.

  ‘I only gave them you guys because the opportunities it would give the SAS in the future. The controlled setting was perfect and when I let them know we were about to use Larnaka and Mo, it was exactly what the boffins had been looking for. I handed it to them within an environment that was reaping hell as it was. People’s changing attitudes and behaviours could go unnoticed and attributed to the intensity of war, if the programme encountered problems.’

  Decker wasn’t surprised by Sully’s smug response and he retorted. ‘The Cell, what timing, you must have been licking your lips to know you could hide the real agenda behind this programme, within a new Cell that actually makes sense to prying eyes? A super Cell and we bloody were, putting our balls on the line each day, dodging death, working out our own psychological issues, whilst you lot started cracking on with us too.’

  ‘It was all supposed to be controlled Harry. They were using Ultra-Sound Psychological Burst Penetration though a number of mediums you find in everyday life.’

  ‘Controlled? Andy Rodgers hung himself, Johnny Malbec shot Larnaka and killed her. Mo, had a divine intervention and changed faith. How was that all controlled? I couldn’t give a toss about Ultra-Sound-’

  ‘I only had certain knowledge of what they were doing with the new equipment they issued you,’ Sully interjected ‘I was assured they were looking for systematic evidence that they could break individuals down, then influence new thinking patterns, to create key actions and behaviours across a wide spectrum of areas. These area’s would be key to a terrorist’s mindset.’

  ‘Didn’t you watch my video?’ Decker said sarcastically, before continuing. ‘I figured all that out by what the guys did, or what you influenced them to do, you say?’

  ‘This program isn’t a brainwashing process, it’s controlled and subtle, but problems happened.’

  ‘And what’s the silver lining?’

  ‘There is none. It’s ready, like you predicted, to be used against terrorist cells, people on the watch list and eventually lone wolves if the boffins can work out a few algorithms to locate them.’

  ‘So put me out of my misery. What was it that I was manipulated to think or do?’

  ‘You were just contained to carry on the fight, keep The Cell running effectively until the manipulation program ran it’s course.’

  Decker paused, looking hard at Sully who had relaxed slightly due to his explanations.

  ‘Larnaka? That was a sick move from the boffins hey?’

  ‘What was sick?

  ‘Influencing her to fall in love with me, then allow me to drop my guard and tell her things I shouldn’t have?’

  ‘Larnaka was never influenced. She was the neutral member of the team. Call her the placebo effect if you will. They wanted an Iraqi or indigenous member to simulate the suspicious character within a terrorist cell. If she had started getting twitchy about members’ then this would highlight problems. She never even noticed Mohammed’s dilemma.’

  This made Decker pause. As he thought of her he quickly snapped out of it. Knowing he couldn’t let Sully get the
upper hand with his passive aggressive tactics.

  ‘So what else about Project 8?’

  Sully remained silent.

  Decker crossed his arms, resting his chin on his left fist.

  ‘You watched all this unfold? Stripped me of my life and career I adored. All my mates telling me to get help, stop drinking or simply thinking I had become weak and unsalvageable, “not worth saving so let him run his course, you ruthless maniac”?’

  ‘No it wasn’t completely ruthless. Alex the programme’s mastermind had his own technology to sift out exactly who was being crippled by the manipulations. When it was clear the softer less resilient cases were heading south they reduced the programme’s intensity before leaving them be to—‘

  ‘You mean business as usual? Put it down to some mid-life crisis? PTSD for us guys then let them try and figure out what the hell happened to a slightly malfunctioning mind? Nice stuff.’ He shook his head in disgust.

  ‘We realised that testing wasn’t going as planned when a few of you headed through P3 without showing vital signs of emotional breakdown, so Alex kept turning the screw to see what people were really made of…’

  ‘And me on the cliffs? How did you know I wouldn’t do it?’

  ‘I didn’t. I didn’t even know you were still alive then.’

  ‘What?’ Decker barked out.

  ‘When you left my office a broken man I informed Alex you didn’t look like a man who had much more to give, but I knew you would get through it and make a life for yourself. That’s how Project 8 was running, so the last I saw was you was stinking of booze, three times over the limit heading out the gates of camp that day.’

  ‘That’s it? No “stop Harry”, no call to Alex telling them to back off. You watched me leave my career a disgrace?’

  ‘I didn’t call all the shots back then. In fact, my concern was how I exited the SAS without causing suspicion to take charge of The Clinic. I knew what the Project’s Mind Manipulation Programme was trying to achieve, but wasn’t given full clearance until you were long gone, and I was away from the SAS.’

  ‘So when did you find out I was alive?’

  ‘I randomly saw that The Independent newspaper article about the expedition. As I said, when you left my office you were a broken man, I didn’t know what you would do, but I knew it wasn’t the end of you.’

  ‘Nor did Alex did he, he kept pushing me didn’t he, what a devious psychopath.’

  Sully hung his head. ‘Yes, Alex, our very own mad scientist. He made all the big calls back then, it was a scientific experiment run by boffins remember. He thought you were different so wanted to keep you rolling longer. I didn’t know about this, until we intercepted a call to Steve Jones about the solar panel cable being broken. He had been monitoring you closely without my knowledge.’

  Decker started tapping his pistol against his forehead digesting the data dump he had just heard. Sniggering he nodded, he still wasn’t satisfied. Remembering the day he stepped away from the cliff and saw a man in the distance looking at him.

  As he thought deeper he knew he’d seen this guy before wearing black-rimmed glasses a schoolboy would wear. Once on the water kayaking and again in the café next to the beach. Fighting hard to recall, it all made sense. ‘This Alex? Wears glasses with an acne-clad face?’

  ‘Yes that’s him, our boffin.’

  ‘The article? What did you do then when you knew I was alive and not in a ditch?’ He retrained his weapon back on Sully.

  ‘When I saw you were in Antarctica attempting to create history, I knew you had come back to us, you had gone full circle. My mind was made up then, hence I rummaged around your flat and found all your conspiracy theory stuff on your whiteboard, and then I found this…’

  Sully reached slowly into his pocket.

  Decker brought his pistol up on aim at Sully’s chest.

  ‘Easy, you know what it is.’

  Decker sighed to himself, ‘Dictaphone I expect, but I wasn’t sure then that was still a hunch. I didn’t know The FEAR would actually be this fucked-up Project 8 at the time. I even discounted it after I sent the video diary. I had a few days of bliss thinking I could start living again without this paranoia killing me.’

  ‘Yes, that video diary you sent. That’s when it all changed. I had no choice then but to launch a rescue mission.

  ‘When the phone call was intercepted, Alex started to panic and brought it to my attention. We knew you were going to send a last diary call but didn’t know what. In fact, I had a hunch before you sent the diary that it might be damaging.’

  ‘So Alex didn’t know what was on that dictaphone?’

  ‘Correct he didn’t know that I had noticed you pop again on the grid when I read the article and saw you were still alive. He doesn’t even know what’s on this dictaphone. I was about to play it to Gerry and Alex at our initial meeting. Thinking I had uncovered your genius thinking or conspiracy back then as you weren’t fully convinced yourself were you?’

  ‘No but I knew Antarctica would be the perfect place to figure it all out, or discount it as I did. So if I hadn’t sent the diary then what Sully?’

  ‘I would have continued the brief to the new members of The Clinic about you. They would have heard your dictaphone recording,’ Sully shook the object on the table, ‘that tells us what you went through, and how you defeated the so-called undetectable. It made perfect sense to me. You had cracked it almost, so you are the one ideally suited to take control of it or certainly take it to the next level. I owed you that at least.’

  Gerry’s eyes were squinting. Trying to take it all in. Decker noticed his confused expression. He was no doubt asking the question Decker was about to ask.

  ‘Rescue mission?’

  ‘Yes, before you tried something stupid again and exposed this project, or at least got everyone paranoid within government circles that would go looking for dirt.’

  Decker looked at Gerry. ‘Gerry what exactly were your orders?’

  Gerry glanced at Sully.

  ‘Tell him the truth,’ Sully said.

  ‘Yes Gerry from the fucking start please.’

  Gerry nodded his head.

  ‘Myself and another were called to meet Sully and Alex over a week ago. We were briefed that a new Mind Manipulation Programme was ready to launch and we were called The Clinic. During the brief we were interrupted by Beast, the Intelligence Officer who had intercepted your call about losing the solar panel. Twenty minutes later they watched your video call, that changed everything.’

  Standing back up he was piecing it together, looking for irregularities so he could pull the trigger.

  ‘So you heard me talk about the FEAR, this fucked-up programme?’

  ‘No we didn’t see the video call.’ Gerry looked at Sully again.

  ‘It’s true,’ Sully cut in. ‘I didn’t let them know exactly what you were all about.’

  ‘What were you told about me Gerry?’

  ‘You were a part of this Project in some capacity and you had lost the plot, effectively you were a dangerous loose end. So much so, you could compromise the existence to the public and you needed…’ Gerry paused.

  ‘Executing? Killing? Taking out?’ Decker shouted. Looking squarely back at Sully with a look that said it all.

  ‘You didn’t even have the balls to tell them how you had broken me. That dictaphone tells a story about a man’s journey to hell and back, not a story about a loose end.’

  Sully remained silent.

  ‘So I get it. If you had played that dictaphone, Gerry here wouldn’t have signed up to it. Killing a loyal member of his own, sick right Gerry? Especially after hearing how Project 8 hijacked my life, sanity and almost my will to carry on fighting the good fight.’

  Silence continued.

&nbs
p; ‘So I ended up back on your radar again after you read the article in the Independent newspaper about this record attempt. The title “Man’s search for solitude, and quest to win the war within,” must have caught your attention hey? Shit I dropped the ball there didn’t I Sully? The war within actually created by you lot.’

  Sully shrugged his shoulders and motioned toward his watch.

  ‘Sorry we running out of time guys? So this Alex? Where is he?’

  ‘UK in our Operations Centre.’

  ‘In a classified location I bet,’ Decker waved his hands. ‘Get your phone out Sully and get his number up.’

  ‘That’s not—’

  Decker took up the first trigger pressure, ‘20 seconds or I kill you.’

  Sully pulled out an iPhone that had an Iridium satellite adapter fitted. Scrolling down he found Alex. Decker nodded. ‘Hit call, place it on loudspeaker and place it next to the dictaphone.’

  ‘But the Russians-’ Sully’s eyes looking up to the ceiling mimicking they could intercept it.

  ‘Fuck the Russians, press call, now,’ Decker waved his pistol. ‘No in fact let’s talk about the Russians as this is how it all went horribly wrong, and turned this place into a bloodbath that you know won’t stop on this continent.’

  Sully slammed his fist down with impatience. ‘You need to listen to what’s going on here, because I don’t think you realise what the hell this is yet, and how it was only your last video message that fucked it all up. If you had shut up, no one would be dead.’

  Decker walked over enraged, raising his pistol to prime another whip across Sully’s head. Sully quickly continued:

  ‘Harry you are a genius, how you worked it all out took us by storm completely. Your conspiracy? Wow, you did it, but letting everyone else know this wild conspiracy? We had no choice!’

  ‘What the fuck happened?’ Decker screamed out with rage.