The Ackerman Thrillers Boxset

by Ethan Cross

  Ackerman’s fate was still undecided and the subject of much debate. He had been deemed too dangerous and too much of an escape risk for a normal prison, and yet—given the help and insight he had provided in the capture of Thomas White and his apprentice and the lives he had saved—Ackerman had proved himself too useful to kill outright. Plus, Marcus had threatened to expose the entire organization if anyone harmed a hair on his brother’s head, a move that had not earned him any friends and had probably even put his own life at risk. Against strong opposition, Marcus had argued that Ackerman could actually be a powerful asset to the Shepherd Organization. It was perhaps a crazy idea that would never be approved, but it was worth a shot. After all, their group was all about breaking the rules anyway.

  The guards ushered Ackerman into the small gray chamber and shoved him down into the chair at the opposite end of the table. “Hi, Frank,” Marcus said.

  “You look good, little brother. You’ve actually been sleeping.”

  “Yeah, Emily Morgan came up with this crazy treatment idea that could help me to block out the world and get some rest. She has me spending time every day in a sensory-deprivation chamber. It’s basically a big soundproof and lightproof tank full of salt water that’s heated to body temp. You lie in there and feel like you’re floating in space. It’s pretty cool, and I was skeptical at first, but it helps. It’s like turning off the world.”

  “Sounds wonderful. Emily’s a very impressive and intriguing woman. You’re lucky to have people like that in your corner.”

  “You have people in your corner too. I’m in your corner. Nobody’s forgotten how you helped us.”

  “I’m sure that no one has forgotten anything else I’ve done, either.”

  “Our father scarred your brain. He’s the monster, not you.”

  “We’re both monsters. And I make no excuses. I can never make amends, only ask for grace and forgiveness.”

  “I’m working on something. Maybe a way for you to balance the scales a bit more.”

  Ackerman shrugged. “We’ll see what happens.”

  “Please, do yourself and me a favor and behave yourself in here. I can’t help you if you hurt anyone or try to escape.”

  Ackerman pursed his lips and bobbled his head back and forth as he seemed to consider the words. “Fine. But I’ll provide you with a list of security flaws that I’ve noticed. It’s best if I can avoid any temptation.”

  Marcus laughed and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sure the CIA would appreciate that, Frank.” Then his expression turned grave, and he said, “I tried to get our father into ADX Florence, but I had to settle for the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute.”

  “I’ve heard that it’s the most high-tech prison in the world.”

  Marcus pulled out a small piece of thin tissue paper and slid it across the table to his brother. Words were written across the paper’s surface in red crayon. “He sent me that,” Marcus said.

  The note read: I tried to show you a world without fear, but you rejected my gift. Perhaps because you don’t yet truly understand the meaning of fear and the depths of despair. But I’ll teach you.

  Marcus added, “If he ever gets out, he’ll come for me and Dylan and everyone I love.”

  “Yes, he will. Father is obsessive about finishing what he starts. But that’s if he can find a way out of the very impressive cage that we’ve put him in. Remember, he feeds on fear. Don’t let him exert that power over you. Are you still having nightmares?”

  “Only when I close my eyes.”

  “All that happened down in father’s little basement of horrors is on his soul, not yours. You have to realize that.”

  “I know, but I still feel... tainted. I have the same darkness in me that’s in the two of you. I’ve killed people. I would have killed my own father if you hadn’t stopped me.”

  Ackerman took a deep breath and drummed his fingers on the metal surface of the table. “Are you familiar with the story of John Newton?”

  “I don’t think so. The name sounds familiar.”

  “He’s the man who wrote the song Amazing Grace, arguably the most famous Christian hymn of all time. That song has brought comfort to millions in times of need and sorrow. But John Newton’s story is much more complicated than that. He was the captain of several voyages on slave-trading ships. Those boats packed people in like cattle. They usually contained at least four hundred slaves, but often as many as seven hundred. The death rate was very high. Reaching twenty-five percent in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. So it could be argued that John Newton was responsible for the deaths of as many as one hundred and seventy-five people every time he sailed. If a man like that can change and go on to do wonderful things, then why not the two of us?”

  Marcus smiled and gave a slow nod. “You know, Frank, you’ve been a horrible human being, but you’re actually not half bad as a brother.”

  Ackerman chuckled. “How have you and Dylan been getting along?”

  “Okay, I guess. It’s been difficult, with everything that’s happened. He misses his mom. It’s lucky that Maggie and him have hit it off because I really have no idea how to be a father.”

  “You’ll learn.”

  “You want to see how you do as an uncle?”

  With a sincere smile, Ackerman said, “I’d like that.”

  Marcus stood, and the guard buzzed the door open. He stepped into the bright fluorescent lights of the hallway and waved his hand toward a young boy with dark hair and bright intelligent eyes who was sitting in a metal folding chair along the corridor, his feet dangling and swaying back and forth.

  Dylan hopped up and joined his father. Marcus gestured toward the chair opposite Ackerman, and Dylan sat down reluctantly. His young eyes drank in his surroundings—the guards, the guns, the man in chains opposite him. He seemed nervous, but also curious.

  “This is your Uncle Frank,” Marcus said.

  Dylan looked across the table and, without any greeting, said, “They say you’re a bad guy.”

  Ackerman laughed and gave his nephew a wide grin. “My boy, as you grow older and wiser, you’ll find that very few things in this world are merely black or white. Good and evil, like so many other lofty concepts, are often simply a matter of perspective.”

  I AM WRATH

  Ethan Cross

  An Aries book

  www.headofzeus.com

  Contents

  Title Page

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  1

  FRANCIS ACKERMAN JR. ADMIRED HIS new face in the reflective side of the interrogation room window. The surgeons had done excellent work, better than he had expected. In fact, he hadn’t initially been receptive to the idea. It wasn’t that he had any qualms about getting a new face or worried that he would miss the original. It had nothing to do with vanity or sentimentality. His was a concern of practicality and offensive capability. He had been told by many women that his previous face was quite attractive and charming. What if he needed to seduce or charm someone of the fairer sex? His handsome face had always been a useful weapon in his arsenal—a helpful tool on his belt. What if his new face didn’t possess whatever feature he had inherited to make the last one so disarming and seductive?

  As he looked at his new face, he was happy that those concerns had proven to be a nonissue. His new face was at the very least as handsome as his last. Plus, this one had the added benefit of not appearing on wanted posters across the country.

  Or at least, his face had been featured on the walls of every law enforcement facility in the United States. Now, he supposed they had taken the posters down. Stuffed them into drawers or wastebaskets or wherever the paper pushers stuck the posters that were no longer needed. Not needed because the men and women gracing their covers had been captured or killed. He was one of the latter.

  According to the official story, Francis Ackerman Jr. had died in a shootout with the police nearly a year ago.
His new friends at the Department of Justice and the CIA had dotted the i’s and crossed all the t’s to make it seem that Francis Ackerman Jr. was a dead man.

  The whole thing made him a bit sad.

  Not because he was now officially dead and locked up in some CIA black site usually reserved for terrorists and national security threats. And not because of how easily a person could be erased or how quickly a person could be forgotten. And not because they had taken down his posters.

  Ackerman was sad at how mundane and simple they had made his death. He hated the way they had perverted his legacy, and he felt a burning to right that wrong.

  His death should have been shocking and theatrical. He had even made some suggestions to what that might look like, but they had ignored him and carried out their own quaint little plans. Small minds, small thoughts.

  They had faked a death scene with two cops pulling over a stolen car and being forced to take down the murderer behind the wheel. One of the most prolific and feared killers in the history of modern society, and they concoct a tale where two average state troopers gun him down over a routine traffic stop.

  It was insulting, and a stain upon his memory and reputation.

  But he supposed none of what he had done to build that reputation mattered now. All that mattered was being a good lab rat and staying alive long enough for his brother to get him out of this place, so that he could do what he had been born to do—hunt and kill.

  The room was cold and gray and old, and the fluorescent lighting buzzed overhead like a bug zapper. The whole black site smelled like old paper and ink, like dust and graphite. Maybe the place used to print newspapers or housed a defunct post office?

  The door buzzed open, and the CIA technician entered the room. The tech wore a dark polo shirt and was a diminutive sort of person; not to say that he was tiny or fragile. In reality, he appeared to be in above average physical condition. Ackerman found the man small in a way that was less quantifiable, as if Agent Polo Shirt added no substance to the space or sucked something from it, like a black hole. Polo entered and sat down across from him; yet Ackerman still felt like he was the only living being in the room.

  They hadn’t taken any chances with his restraints this time. Ackerman had been straightjacketed, restrained to a stand-up gurney from his head to his feet, and masked to keep from biting. He supposed that his last demonstration of escape artistry had made an impression.

  A week earlier, he had freed himself and had drawn a maniacal happy face on a different CIA technician. He had done it just to prove a point.

  Although, Ackerman couldn’t exactly recall what that point had been.

  Regardless of such trivial details, he felt a sense of warmth recalling the event. A fond memory. The previous tech had cried for his family and begged for his life. Ackerman couldn’t remember the man’s name. Something beginning with an A. Austin, maybe? But he did remember how quickly Austin had lost control of his bladder. That had been good fun.

  As Ackerman’s gaze fell over the new tech, he wondered if this man would instead beg to be put out of his own misery. Agent Polo Shirt was talking to him; perhaps even trying to establish some connection with him or dominance over him. Ackerman couldn’t tell which and didn’t care.

  “I won’t answer any questions from this man. Roland, send me a different one.” Ackerman shifted his eyes toward the two-way mirror, knowing that the tech’s supervisor, Roland Green, was watching. He also knew that his old friend, Emily Morgan, occupied the space beyond the glass. “Better yet, Roland, just send in Emily. I’ll do the test with her. The pod person here can still handle the machines, but I won’t participate if I have to answer questions from him.”

  The tech finished hooking up all the medical equipment and monitors to Ackerman’s body and then tried to continue with the test but, true to his word, Ackerman ignored Agent Polo Shirt.

  Instead, he went inside himself. He imagined a huge hydroelectric dam bursting and flooding an entire small town. He watched the townsfolk being swept away and pinballing down the streets and alleyways, slamming into concrete walls and being impaled on tree branches. He watched an old man clawing the water for one last gasp of air. He watched a young mother futilely try to shove her children free from the smacking lips of the waves.

  “Ackerman? Did you go to sleep on us, boy?”

  Ackerman opened his eyes. “Good morning, Roland. So good to hear the smooth Texas twang of your voice. I just like the way that voice makes me feel. It brings to mind old Western movies. Hearing you speak makes me want to be a cowboy.”

  He intentionally tried to insert the CIA man’s name as much as possible. It was a bit of a trick to keep Agent Green off balance. Ackerman had faintly heard someone in the corridor beyond the interrogation room call the agent in charge of the lab rat phase of his incarceration by his first name. Roland. The agent had introduced himself to Ackerman with his last name only without offering his first. This small nugget of information gave Ackerman a certain power over Agent Green. He could see the wheels turn in the other man’s eyes every time he referred to him by that first name. Green would try to assume that the killer had just overheard it, or he had somehow let it slip, but he wouldn’t know for sure. And, consciously or subconsciously, that question would gnaw at the back of Roland Green’s mind.

  Did Ackerman know where he lived? Where he slept? Where his kids went to school?

  It was delicious.

  Roland Green locked eyes with Ackerman and then gestured toward the technician. “What’s wrong with him?” Green said.

  Ackerman replied, “He depresses me, Roland. Just look at him. His eyes are like leaches. Stare at them too long, and they’ll suck out your soul.”

  Green faced the tech, looked at him a moment, and said, “Fair enough.” Then he added, “I don’t see the harm in letting her ask you the questions while the technician monitors the equipment, but if you cross me on this or try anything, if you so much as make her teary eyed, then the deal you have with the CIA is over. Do we understand each other?”

  “Am I irritating you, Roland?”

  “Of course not. Seeing you is the highlight of my day, Mr. Ackerman. Now, do we understand each other?”

  “Carl Jung said, ‘Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.’”

  Roland Green nodded his head slowly for a moment and then said, “I’m just going to pretend you said ‘yes’ and move on. Emily, come on in.”

  Green pointed at Ackerman as he left and added, “Don’t forget what I said.”

  “Of course not, Roland. To me your every word is like a drop of rain to a desert flower.”

  Roland raised his eyebrows and shook his head. “Whatever that means.” The door opened, and Roland and Emily passed each other in its threshold. “You sure he ain’t crazy, Doc?”

  Emily tilted her head and said, “Crazy is a broad term used by the general populace, not a diagnosis. So it becomes a matter of perspective and definition.”

  The gray-haired Texan just nodded and said, “Sure thing, Doc.”

  Emily moved toward a pair of metal chairs which had been bolted to the floor–Ackerman had taught them that lesson as well. Agent Polo Shirt shifted over a seat as Emily slid into the chair directly facing Ackerman.

  Emily’s movements reminded Ackerman of a Siamese cat he had once seen in the home of a victim. It was the way he imagined a feline princess would move–confident but not boastful. Powerful. Graceful. But gentle. All at once.

  Her features were pale with an odd mix of Asian and Irish heritage. Her skin was flawless and smooth like a child’s. Like the harmful rays of the sun had never touched her skin.

  If he recalled correctly, she had an Irish grandfather and a Japanese grandmother. Ackerman wondered when he had learned that piece of information.

  Had Emily let that slip during one of her recent counseling sessions with him? Or had her husband told him that before Ackerman had murdered him?<
br />
  He supposed that neither the source of that knowledge nor Emily’s heritage mattered. What did matter was that he found Emily fascinating.

  He had killed her husband, nearly killed her, and used her as human bait. Yet, she had always treated him with respect and had never shown him hatred. Actually, she had become a staunch ally in his brother’s crusade to keep him alive and for him to be used as a resource in the hunt for other killers.

  Perhaps by rehabilitating Ackerman she would give greater meaning to her husband’s death? Perhaps she just wanted to make sure nothing like that ever happened to another family? Or maybe she just wholeheartedly believed in teachings of forgiveness and the turning of the other cheek?

  Whatever it was, Ackerman found it remarkable. He found her remarkable. Unlike the way Polo Shirt sucked life from the space, she brightened it. She filled it with some kind of ethereal grace.

  “I think I’m annoying poor Roland.”

  “I know what you’re trying to do by using his first name.”

  “Whatever do you mean?”

  “You’re establishing dominance. Stealing power from him and bestowing it on yourself. With you, it’s always about power. That and pain. Establishing power, experiencing pain in one form or another.”

  “You say all that as if I’ve never done any self-exploration of my own feelings and motives. I’ve lived most of my life in a cage. I’ve had ample time to plum my own depths.”

  “I never claimed otherwise. I was simply making an observation. Here’s another. I know that your little trick with Special Agent Green’s first name is very mundane in origin.”