Father of Fear (18 page)

Craig shook with anger as he stared into the cracked mirror of the old gas station. The business had shut down early on in the recession, and the company for which he worked had snatched up the facility for pennies on the dollar. He imagined that the reason the station had closed was because of how far off the beaten path it sat. That was also the reason they had picked it. No one nearby to hear the screams.

Craig washed his hands in the oil-stained sink, and blood flowed off his fingers and down the drain. Some of the blood had originated from tiny cuts on his knuckles, but most had spilled from his subject.

He looked deep into his own eyes through the grime of the gas-station mirror. He searched for any remnant of the kid from Nebraska who had played college football and briefly dated a goth chick just to drive his bible-thumping mother crazy. All that seemed like so long ago. Even the memories were alien to him. It seemed as if he had been implanted with the recollections of some other poor dead soul. The man staring back at him now was a warrior.

But even warriors had friends. Perhaps even friendships that ran deeper than those of most men because such friendships were forged in blood and mud and fear and pain and loneliness and putting your very existence in the hands of the man next to you.

Craig had lost someone like that today. A brother with a bond forged through fire that could only be broken by death. In that small cabin on a normally routine operation where they shouldn’t have encountered any resistance, one of his brothers had been stolen from him. Maybe he could have accepted the death if it had occurred in combat in Iraq or Afghanistan or South America. But only a few miles from home, gunned down by a federal agent trying to liberate a serial killer? Craig couldn’t wrap his mind around that. It didn’t sit well with him. Someone needed to pay for it. In fact, more than one someone would pay for it. The man in the chair, whom he had been torturing for information, would be the first to suffer and die, but he wouldn’t be the last.

Craig dried his hands and threw the towel at the reflection in the mirror. His phone sat on the edge of the sink, and its display lit up with a text message from his girlfriend, Julie. The message read,
Are you going to call later? I’ve had a hard day and wanted to hear your voice. Love you.
He felt a pang of guilt for always lying to her. Julie was a second-grade teacher at a Catholic school in Maryland, and she wouldn’t exactly understand the true nature of his work. He considered, not for the first time, how he could take an instructor position closer to home and propose to Julie. But he just kept telling himself that he would look into it after completing one more mission. One more operation and then out. One more big payday. But one more never seemed to be enough.

Without responding to Julie’s message, Craig walked back to where his subject, Andrew Garrison, was seated. White nylon rope secured Garrison’s hands and feet to a metal chair. His face was a bloody mess. The pinky on his left hand had been broken and was still twisted at an odd angle. Bandages covered Garrison’s legs where the mercenaries had patched up a few gunshot wounds—all clean pass-throughs or grazes—since Craig didn’t want Garrison dying before the agent told him where to find Ackerman and Agent Carlisle. The whole room smelled of old oil and fresh feces. Garrison had defecated on himself during the interrogation. It was often involuntary, and Craig didn’t fault the man for it. Garrison had actually maintained his defiance at a level that Craig hadn’t expected. Still, he would break. They always did. And Craig hadn’t even delved into his bag of tricks.

“Wake him up,” Craig said to one of his men, a big black North Carolinian named Landry. The others were out pursuing other leads on Ackerman and Carlisle.

Landry looked down at Garrison and then back at Craig. “Are you sure about this, sir?”

Craig gritted his teeth but said, “Speak your mind.”

Landry stood beside Garrison’s unconscious form and pointed down at him. “This guy’s a federal agent. I’ll back your play, whatever that is, sir, but have you considered how much heat is going to come down on us for this?”

“He may be a federal agent. But an agent for an organization that’s not even supposed to exist. And don’t forget about Bobby.”

“I know, but—”

Craig closed the gap between them within the space of a blink and wrapped his fingers around Landry’s throat. The other mercenary didn’t resist. “What did I tell you when I recruited you to this company? What were the two rules?”

In a choked voice, Landry replied, “We always get paid, and we protect our own.”

“That’s right. We have a code. You mess with one of us, you mess with all of us. Now wake him up.” Craig shoved Landry roughly back toward the unconscious and bound Garrison.

“Yes, sir, but…” Landry hesitated. “What are we going to do with him after he talks?”

“Same thing they did to Bobby. We’re going to kill him.”

Deep beneath the floorboards of the Thirteenth Fret, Thomas White sat over an aluminum workbench, a large magnifying lens and light in front of his face and a soldering iron in his hand. With surgical precision, he applied the final touches to his newest toy, a device which could increase electrical voltage output based on the readings coming from an attached heart-rate monitor. He finished connecting the final wire and then leaned away from the lens. He placed the soldering iron on the aluminum surface of the workbench and rubbed his eyes.

The newly installed equipment looked out of place in the small room that he had converted into his workshop. The walls were old stone, and the space smelled musty and damp. It was March, but the snow had melted only a week ago, and the temperatures were still barely above freezing in Leavenworth. A space heater hummed in the corner to fight back the chill.

The basement of the Thirteenth Fret housed one of the largest examples of what had become known as the Leavenworth Underground—a series of tunnels and old storefronts and rooms that formed an underground city beneath the Kansas town. Thomas had heard much speculation on the true origins of the underground city. Some said that it dated back to the 1800s and had been used as part of the Underground Railroad. Others cited remnants of old business signs that still hung in front of many of the doorways and claimed that it had been simply a second level of commerce beneath the street or that the street level might have actually been raised at some point due to flooding and this original level had merely been forgotten. Some claimed that the underground city had housed speakeasies and dens of ill repute, which had been in use prior to and during Prohibition. Strangely, the academic community and researchers had largely ignored the presence of the underground city, and many feared that the secrets of the Underground had simply been lost to history.

Thomas White didn’t really care about the original purpose of the tunnels and old stone rooms. He only cared about how well they suited his purposes in the modern day. He had converted the dilapidated old storefronts of the rotting structure into several soundproof chambers where his subjects could be monitored and housed during the course of his experiments.

He stifled a yawn and was about to head to his bedroom when he heard the creak of hinges and the sound of small feet padding against stone. Only one resident of his makeshift dungeon wasn’t locked in his room, and so Thomas had no doubt about who was moving around. He noiselessly followed the sound of the footsteps and watched as his grandson Dylan entered one of the side rooms.

Thomas followed the boy, watching him from the shadows. He had always had the uncanny ability to sneak about and observe people without their knowledge. He enjoyed the feeling of power it gave him to watch someone who didn’t know they were being watched. It could often be like seeing inside a person, beyond the masks they showed to the world, down deep to the real person beneath. It was an intimate experience whose impact could only be eclipsed by staring into the same person’s eyes as the life drained from their body.

Thomas admired the familial traits evident in the boy’s dark hair, naturally athletic frame, curious nature, and the intensely intelligent gleam in his eyes. The boy entered another room used mainly for storage and picked up a jar resting on a shelf. The thing that had caught his attention was a butterfly flitting back and forth inside the small glass prison.

Silently stepping up directly behind the boy, Thomas said, “What did you find?”

The boy gasped and dropped the jar. Anticipating the reaction, Thomas snatched the falling object from the air before it could shatter against the stone floor. He placed it back on the shelf.

Dylan said, “I’m sorry, Grandfather.”

“Never apologize, my boy. Accept the consequences of your actions, but never be sorry for them. I’m glad you found this. I captured it for you.”

A ghost of a smile crept across the boy’s features. “For me?”

“Well, not as a pet, but as an illustration. How does it make you feel?” He handed the jar back to the boy. The monarch butterfly inside tapped against the glass as it tried to escape, its silky orange and brown wings striking an invisible barrier that its tiny insect brain couldn’t comprehend.

“It’s pretty,” Dylan said.

“So it brings you joy?”

“I guess.”

Thomas grabbed another jar from a higher shelf. “What about this?” he said, shoving the jar in front of Dylan’s face.

The boy recoiled as the large wolf spider in the bottom of the jar scurried toward his face and leaped against the glass. “No! I don’t like spiders.”

“But why? Why are you afraid of something so small? It can bite, yes, but it can’t truly hurt you. It’s just a small animal following its instincts, same as the butterfly.”

“I don’t know. It’s just ugly and scary-looking.”

“Okay. Now, what if I asked you to kill one of them?”

“Why? I don’t want to kill either one.”

“But I need the jar back, and if we let either one outside right now, it will just freeze to death.” A small lie, but Dylan wouldn’t know any better.

Dylan seemed to consider this, his small brow furrowing. “I guess I’d kill the spider, then.”

Thomas grabbed a cotton ball and tipped a bottle of ethyl acetate against it. He used a pair of tweezers to pick up the soaked ball and extended the tweezers, handle first, to the boy. “Go ahead. Drop this into the jar, and it will kill the spider.”

Dylan hesitated but then took the tweezers, unscrewed the lid of the jar, and dropped the cotton ball inside. Thomas placed his hand over the air holes in the jar’s lid and encouraged the boy to watch the show. The spider sensed the danger and flailed about the bottom of the jar, searching for an escape. It spasmed and fought but eventually succumbed to the toxic fumes and curled in on itself.

“Is it dead?” Dylan asked.

“Yes, you killed it. Does that make you sad?”

“No, it’s just a bug.”

“That’s right, my boy. Its life was insignificant and so is its death. Go on to bed now. I’ll come read you a story in a moment.”

“Not another scary one?”

“I’ve told you. You have to master your fear. Like you did with the spider. But we’ll see. Go on, now.”

Thomas smiled as he watched the boy head down the hall toward the room he had fashioned for him. He looked back at the dead spider. The boy had easily put a value on one life over another. Thomas had been doing many small exercises such as this with Dylan over the past few months. All part of his education, or re-education. Once the concept of placing a value on life was established, it wasn’t a huge jump to establish that no life had value. Dylan was well on his way, but there were still many lessons to come.

Thomas then turned his attention to the butterfly. He unscrewed the lid to its jar, reached inside, grabbed hold of the Monarch, and pulled off one of its wings. He stood there for a moment and watched it flap in a one-winged frenzy on the bottom of the jar. He cocked his head to the side and analyzed its death throes. Then he analyzed himself and why he had felt the urge to tear off the wing in the first place. He determined that it was more out of curiosity than pure malevolence. He had just wanted to watch it suffer and die. Simple as that.

The Director sat at a table against the back wall in a restaurant named Zatinya on 9th Street NW in Washington DC. It served a unique blend of Turkish, Lebanese, and Greek cuisine. He was about to enjoy a late dinner of
garides saganaki
—sautéed shrimp with tomatoes, green onions, and
kefaloaviera
cheese—when he saw Trevor Fagan, dressed in an expensive pinstriped three-piece suit, enter and walk over to his table.

Fagan pulled out a chair, sat down across from him, and said, “Hello, Phillip. As you know, the Ackerman situation was about to resolve itself this afternoon.”

“That’s an interesting way of putting it.”

Fagan ignored the comment and pushed on. “Unfortunately, I never received confirmation or any word from the team afterward. Naturally, any deviation regarding Ackerman is of immediate concern. So I sent out another team to the cabin. They found what appeared to be the aftermath of a shoot-out. Lots of expended rounds and blood.”

This made the Director sit forward. “Did they—”

Fagan cut him off. “Then I sent a team to locate you and the members of your team who were involved with Ackerman, namely agents Carlisle and Garrison. Both of whom are missing, whereabouts unknown. Since you were the only other person aware of the operation, I assume that you tipped them off. I’ve already issued arrest warrants for Carlisle and Garrison. Can you give me any reason why I shouldn’t have you put in chains as well?”

The Director tossed his napkin onto his plate and replied, “Not really.”

“Why? Why would you interfere?”

“Ackerman still has information that could lead us to his father.”

“And to your missing agent, who most likely died months ago.”

“Marcus isn’t dead. He’s out there in a hole somewhere, undergoing the kind of torture that only the Devil could dream up. And he’s waiting for us to save him. That hope might be the only thing keeping him alive. I won’t give up on him.”

“I admire your loyalty. I do, really. But I can’t condone or allow this loose-cannon behavior. We have to have rules, Phillip. There are lines that shouldn’t be crossed. Your actions have placed one of our country’s most notorious fugitives back on the street.”

“This was Maggie’s play, and I trust her judgment.”

“Her judgment is clouded. I need you to help make this right. Help me find her and Ackerman.”

The Director frowned and asked, “Why do you say her and Ackerman? What about Andrew? There something you’re not telling me?”

Fagan steepled his fingers and said, “I’ve received reports from someone inside Mr. Craig’s company that he has Agent Garrison in custody and plans to extract information from him about where Maggie and Ackerman are headed.”

Through gritted teeth, the Director said, “Extract? You mean torture. And you’re going to ‘condone’ some mercenary revoking the civil rights of a federal agent?”

“Let’s not get too dramatic, Phillip. We both step all over people’s civil rights every day. The Shepherd Organization itself is a violation of those rights. But to answer your question, no, I’m not going to condone it. Unlike you, I insist on people beneath me following orders, and I don’t allow them to go off half-cocked on their own personal crusades. That’s why I’m here.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I want you to come with me to collect your agent before Mr. Craig does something that we’ll both regret. Then I want you to order him to tell us where to find Agent Carlisle and Mr. Ackerman.”

“I get the sense that Craig won’t give Andrew up easily, especially if one of his men was hurt during that gunfight you described. He seems the type to hold a grudge.”

Fagan cocked his head to the side and said in his typical smug tone, “You have a gun, don’t you?”