by Tom Abrahams
“I’m not liking this,” said Womack, pacing back and forth. “Something’s not right. Either the job ain’t the job, or they’ve got bigger problems. When’s the last time we sat around playing cards?”
Ferg got up from the table and walked into the kitchen. He pulled a pitcher of water from the small refrigerator. “This been treated?” he asked, holding up the pitcher.
“Supposedly,” said Wolf. “It’s your deal, Shine.”
Ferg poured himself a glass of water and walked over toward Womack. “Here’s the thing, boss,” he said. “You don’t like sitting around. You don’t like lack of intel. Most of all, you hate the desert. I think that’s your problem.”
“I agree,” said Wolf.
“Make that three,” said Wilco. “You’d rather be covered in cheese and dunked into a rat den than be in the desert.”
Shine shuffled the cards and nodded. “True.”
Womack smirked. “All right,” he acknowledged. “I’ll give you that. When I die and go to Hell, there’ll be sand instead of fire. It’s more than that.”
Ferg motioned to Womack with his glass. “Go on.”
“I think this op is FUBAR,” he said. “I think they know it. They just haven’t admitted it yet. My gut’s telling me we’re gonna spend a week here and then make the round trip without action.”
“We still get paid, though,” said Wolf. “So who cares?”
Silence.
Wolf’s voice cracked. “We still get paid, right?”
Womack sighed. “Yes,” he said. “We get paid.”
Wolf exhaled with relief. “Good. I was gonna say…”
Womack rolled his eyes and marched to the front door of the house. He unlatched the crude mechanism holding the door shut and pushed himself outside into the bright light of the afternoon. As much as he hated the sand, he couldn’t stand another minute of sitting inside without something to do. Plus, he’d already lost all of his cash to Wolf.
His boots squeaked against the soft white sand as he marched toward the goat pen. There were eight of them working a small patch of weeds. The pen was on a partially irrigated piece of land. There was dirt, some grass, and a couple of struggling olive trees. A large galvanized bucket was positioned underneath a rusty spigot.
Womack watched the goats for a few minutes. A couple of them had their faces buried in the tub, drinking what was left of the scummy water. Another goat was trying, unsuccessfully, to find shade underneath the spindly olive branches. One goat stood in a corner of the pen, bleating into the desert. It was a pained cry, almost like a child’s scream. Womack winced at the sound. Images flashed in his mind. They were images he tried to bury, but couldn’t. The goat bleated again and Womack squeezed his eyes closed. He inhaled and took a deep breath. The wailing animal reminded him of prisoners he’d seen in Vietnam and elsewhere. They were the weak ones. They’d crack instantly and confine themselves to a corner of their cell. They’d curl into a fetal position or sit flat on their heels, rocking back and forth as they mumbled incoherently. They’d eat and drink things not meant to be eaten or drunk. They knew their lives weren’t their own anymore. He’d seen them do terrible things to themselves to regain a sense of emotional control.
People, he’d come to realize, were animals at their core. No matter how civilized society became at its surface, underneath the veneer Womack believed there to be primordial ooze. Stripped of their finery and haircuts and manicures, people were elemental flesh bags prone to doing bad things to one another. Under stress, when pushed against a wall, in desperation they would revert to the basest instincts of self-preservation. He’d seen it in war. He’d seen it at home. Humans were no different from goats in that respect. Womack’s thoughts drifted back to the present as one of the smaller goats clopped over to him, its devilish eyes blinking.
The goat shook its head and tried speaking to Womack. “Meh-eh-eh. Meh-eh-eh.”
Womack reciprocated with his own nasally interpretation. “Meh-eh-eh-eh-eh.”
The other goats seemed uninterested in the visitor, but the one animal, the tiniest of all of them, was intrigued. Womack smiled at the animal, leaned down, and ripped a handful of weeds from the dirt. He balled his hand into a fist and reached out to the goat. It nuzzled his hand, sniffing, exploring. Then it opened up and bit down hard on the operator’s hand.
“Ow!” Womack cried out and reflexively drew back his hand. “You little son of a rich mother sucker.” Womack, for all of his bad habits, wasn’t one to curse. He found it lazy. It was more fun coming up with other ways to express his displeasure.
The goat planted its feet in the sand at the edge of the pen and held its ground. It stared at Womack, its ears pivoting back and forth. It was plucky. Womack liked that.
“What do you think, goat? We stuck here for nothing? Or does the big general in the sky have something better for us?”
The goat stared blankly. Its nostrils flared in and out. “Meh-eh-eh.”
Womack opened his fist and held the weeds flat in his palm. The goat looked at the bounty, sniffed it, nudged it with his nose, and then used his lips and teeth to pick it from Womack’s hand. The animal stepped back, chewing through the food. Another goat, much larger than Womack’s new friend, wandered over to the fence line. It bleated at the smaller goat and then at Womack.
The operator leaned against the post nearest him. “Too late, brother.” He chuckled. “Little dude here beat you to it.”
Womack ripped open the Velcro on his thigh pocket and pulled out a silver flask. It was coated in sand. Womack held the flask with one hand while he wiped it clean with the other. He unscrewed the top, took a sniff of the well-aged contents, and toasted the goat.
“Here’s to biting the hand that feeds you,” he said and took a long pull from the flask. He swallowed the nectar, relishing the burn as it trailed down his throat. “Ahhh,” he said. “That’s the stuff.”
Womack took another swig, swishing the whisky around in his mouth, letting it swim around and between his teeth. He instantly felt better about their situation. Wolf was right. They were getting paid. What did it matter if they were holed up at a black site for another week?
As long as they got home alive, every man in one piece—Womack reminded himself that was the most important thing.
— 16 —
Frederick, Maryland
April 20, 1980
Dr. Justin Starling stared at the sedated man strapped to the gurney. “Where did you find him?”
“Fort Leavenworth.”
Starling kept his eyes on the patient but spoke to the only other person in the room, Major Rick Gibson. “I don’t understand.”
“He’s a deserter,” said Gibson. “Your breakthrough with the hormones opened some doors that were previously closed.”
“It wasn’t a breakthrough. It was a—”
“Semantics, Dr. Starling. Did you take any English courses when you were at Stanford?”
Starling didn’t answer. He dipped his hands into his lab coat pockets and stepped to the side of the gurney. The man’s chest was rising up and down. His breathing was slow and even. A long thin tube was taped to the back of his hand, where an intravenous needle was delivering the liquid sedative. Soon, they’d switch out the supply bag, and a consistent drip of VX-99 Berserkr would mix with the man’s blood. He was their live subject.
Starling looked up from the guinea pig. “So you finally convinced them? After years of denying you a live subject, they just handed one over?”
Gibson swallowed hard, looked at the floor, and nodded.
“With all due respect, Major, I don’t believe you.”
Gibson pulled his arms behind his back and puffed his chest. He cleared his throat and stepped to the young scientist. He was a good three inches taller than Starling and took advantage of his domineering presence as he looked down at his personal conscript.
“You really are naïve, Doctor,” he said. “Our world is what we make it. We have that abili
ty, you know, to forge a world in which we’d like to live. In the course of that endeavor we must break down barriers, or walk around them if they are otherwise seemingly impenetrable.”
“So you walked around it.”
“I know people who know people.” Gibson oozed condescension. “That happens when you work as hard as I do, when you forge relationships with like-minded people.”
Starling’s eyes narrowed. “What’s Project Judas? The classified requisition form was stamped Project Judas.”
Gibson ran his tongue across the front of his teeth. “It’s what you think it is.”
Starling motioned toward the guinea pig with his pocketed hands. “Is it what he thinks it is? Does he have any idea about what’s going to happen to him? Did he volunteer for one thing only to be injected with another, like those Marines in Operation Burn Bright?”
Gibson flinched before the grimace on his face eased into a smile. He stepped back from the scientist and chuckled at Starling’s sudden gumption. “He’s fully aware of the deal we presented him. He agreed to undergo an experimental procedure that might kill him. It might not. If he lives, and after the testing is complete, his record is cleaned. He gets an honorary discharge.”
Starling nodded. “So he doesn’t know that even if he survives, he’ll never be the same person. He won’t…”
“Won’t what?”
“Won’t be a person.”
Gibson shrugged. “The survival of the many requires a sacrifice of the few.”
“How can you be so cavalier about this, Major? I thought you’d learned from the disaster twelve years ago,” Starling said, looking at the unconscious lab rat on the gurney. “We’re talking about a man’s life here.”
Gibson’s shoulders relaxed. He brought his hands from behind his back and laced his fingers together at his chest. His tone softened. “I find this newly discovered moral high ground refreshing,” he said. “But don’t forget that you knew exactly what we were doing when you signed up. When I paid off your student loans, when I gave you a stipend five times that of other postdoctoral programs to which you’d applied, when I provided for you the most exceptional, cutting-edge laboratory this side of Geneva, you had no complaints.”
Gibson inched closer to the scientist and put a hand on the young man’s shoulder. “Unlike the traitor on this table, I told you everything about what your job involved. I warned you there would be lines we’d cross. I also explained that in my line of work, the end will always justify the means. Always. Our job is to keep our country safe; it’s to minimize casualties; it’s to forge the best version of ourselves.”
Starling swallowed hard. He stared at Gibson before lowering his eyes. “By engaging the worst version of ourselves.”
The words stung. Maybe because of the way Starling said them. Maybe because they were true. Rick Gibson knew, when he had trouble falling asleep at night, that his work had become an obsession.
He questioned his own methods. He wondered, especially when he sat in the dark, holding the picture of his young family, if he’d lost himself. It was difficult to see the forest for the trees. Gibson was so determined to right the wrongs he’d created in Vietnam that he was slipping deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
It didn’t matter. It wasn’t enough for Major Gibson to stop now. He couldn’t stop. Then there could be no light at the end of the long dark tunnel he’d dug.
He rolled the metaphors around in his head. Forest, hole, tunnel. All of them were dark and difficult to escape from. That was where he was. He glanced over at the patient, the man who’d refused to serve his country for fear of death but was now willing to risk his life at the end of a needle. For a moment, a split second, an instant nearly too short to measure, the major softened.
Was it remorse? A bolt of morality? A voice in his head telling him he was misguided?
Whatever it was, it evaporated as soon as it formed. The sensation was gone.
Gibson squared his jaw and nodded toward the door. “Are you ready to do this or not? If not, you can leave right now. I’ll find someone else.”
Starling’s eye twitched. He bit his lower lip. His chest expanded with a deep breath. “Fine,” he said, “let’s do this.”
Gibson nodded and stepped to the door. He pressed a button on the wall, triggering the intercom. “We’re ready,” he said, leaning into the two-way speaker.
Thirty seconds later, the secured door hissed open and two MPs entered the room. After saluting Major Gibson, one moved to the head of the gurney and the other wrapped his gloved hand around the wheeled pole to which the IV bag was attached.
The men rolled the traitor from the room and into the maze of corridors. Gibson and Starling followed. As they approached the BSL wing, the major put his hand on the scientist’s shoulder and stopped him.
“We are doing good work, Justin,” he said. “If this works, you can take the credit for saving countless American lives. Countless.”
Starling frowned. His eyes were glossy, reflecting the bright fluorescent light that illuminated the long corridors of the facility. “What if it doesn’t?” he said. “Then what have I done?”
Gibson pursed his lips. He scratched the top of his head. “Then,” he said, “you followed orders.”
The major pushed past Starling and used his key card to enter the outer lab. He didn’t speak to the scientist again until they’d completed the long BSL process and were in a secondary BSL-4 that was adjacent to the one where the samples were held and testing was conducted.
This space, unlike the room next door, was not set up like a laboratory. Instead, it resembled an operating room. It was bathed in bright light. The concrete floor and walls were painted a glossy white. The stainless steel bed, or table, in the center of the square room was bolted to the floor, as were two thin pedestals on either side. Atop the pedestals were thick leather cuffs that matched four larger such straps at the foot of the table.
There was a series of machines at the table’s head, and mounted on the ceiling and walls were five CCTV cameras. Each camera had a long omnidirectional microphone extending beyond the lens.
Gibson, wearing his heat-sealed positive-pressure DPE, entered the room, connected his suit to the oxygen supply, and directed the MPs to move the patient from the rolling gurney. The men did as instructed and lifted the unconscious volunteer onto the stainless steel altar. The suited MPs moved with the grace of astronauts collecting moon samples. One MP strapped cuffs to the thighs and ankles. The other extended limp arms onto the pedestals and applied the cuffs. From the overhead camera, the man looked like the Vitruvian Man as drawn by da Vinci. Starling moved to a glass-fronted refrigerator at one end of the lab and removed a pair of clear bags from the top shelf. They both contained a milky-colored liquid.
Gibson nodded at Starling, disconnected from the oxygen hose, and used his pass card to exit the room. He worked his way through a series of doors before securing himself in a small anterior room. One wall was a large glass panel that looked into the BSL-4 operating room. Gibson connected to the air supply, unkinked the tubing attached to his suit, and checked the videocassette machine to confirm it was recording. He pressed a small switch on the wall and held it down with his gloved finger.
“Proceed,” he said to Starling, speaking into an intercom system through his mask. “We’re recording.”
Starling removed the anesthetic bag from the mobile pole and replaced it with the two bags he’d removed from the refrigerator. With all of the lines pinched, he slowly connected a Y valve to the bags and to the intravenous tube that flowed into the back of the patient’s hand.
When he confirmed the lines were secure, he looked over to Gibson. His eyes were wide. He was sweating inside his hood.
Gibson rekeyed the intercom. “Proceed.”
Starling licked the sweat beading on his upper lip, awkwardly nodded toward Gibson, and unclipped the lines. He checked both feeds to be certain the drip was functioning. It was, as were the biome
tric diodes attached to the man’s chest, stomach and groin.
Starling backed away from the patient and turned toward a clock on the wall. He moved to the clock and pressed a button that initiated a timer.
“All right,” said Gibson into the intercom. “Starling, join me in here.”
Starling walked to the door, unhooked his air, and a minute later was next to Gibson in the observation booth. “What about the MPs?”
“They’re staying put,” said Gibson. “We need them in there, just in case.”
The MPs stood equidistant from the gurney, one on each side. They were armed. Both of them had their eyes fixed on the unconscious patient on the table between them. Both of them jumped when the man’s eyes popped open and a loud, guttural moan croaked from his wide-open, foaming mouth.
The man’s eyes were dilated, the pupils filling all but an infinitesimal ring of white at the edges. His nostrils were flexing unnaturally, his chest heaving up and down, his tongue wagging from the side of his mouth. His head jerked back and forth, and he began struggling against the leather binds. He let out another pain-soaked moan. Soapy foam bubbled from his mouth and trailed down the side of his face.
Gibson was transfixed. His attention moved from the glass window to each of the five monitors that displayed the various cameras. He could see the man’s body fighting what he and Starling had introduced into his system, fingers flexing in and out, toes curling unnaturally. From the overhead view, the subject’s body seemed to flash from one cramped position to another, jerking and convulsing.
Starling stepped to the glass and placed his glove on it. “Is this supposed to happen?”
Gibson shook his head slowly. “I don’t know.”
The man’s body shuddered. His fingers extended and trembled. His back arched and he slammed the back of his head onto the stainless steel. The MPs stepped back at the metallic bang. One of them drew his weapon.
Gibson keyed the mic. “Lower the pistol,” he said. “Do not fire unless I issue the command.”
