The Controller

by Matt Brolly

  McBride held his hands up. ‘Okay, Rose. Just sending it out there. Why do you think they’ve taken him?’

  ‘Who knows why they do what they do?’

  ‘It’s getting late. Let’s head back. We can find somewhere for the night and return tomorrow.’

  Rose nodded, too agitated to speak.

  McBride was about to set off, when in the distance a plume of smoke rose in the air followed by the sound of an explosion.

  62

  Within seconds, the area was flooded with guards. Dressed in the khaki uniform of the guard he’d attacked, no one took any notice of Lynch despite the MP5 machine gun strapped across his chest. They were too busy trying to put out the spreading fire, the chaos exacerbated by the smoke clouding everyone’s vision.

  Lynch stepped out of the computer area and headed back to the prison cells. Lynch used his spatial awareness abilities to track his course. Despite the best efforts of Mallard and Ethan, he’d created a mind-map of the immediate area. He found his way back to point zero – his cell – with no trouble. From there, he knew where he had to go. To the peculiar aquarium where he’d last seen the Controller. Where there was a window into Daniel’s cell.

  Lynch was under no illusions as he retraced his steps that either the Controller or Daniel would be there but he had to start somewhere. The pandemonium was spreading. People spilled out of the cells. They were surprised and avoided eye contact with each other. Lynch saw them for what they were: captors not prisoners. He eased his finger onto the trigger of one of the rifles, and mustered all his strength not to use it.

  He found the aquarium within minutes. Ethan had led him on a number of detours but the room was only meters from his cell. He didn’t hesitate, bursting through the door with one of the guns held in front of him.

  ‘Do I know you?’

  The man in the room may not have recognized him but Lynch recognized the man. It was Sucker Punch from the train. Lynch saw the realization dawn, as the man’s hand reached for his gun.

  Lynch had spared Ethan’s life, as well as the guard whose uniform he now wore, but Sucker Punch wouldn’t be so lucky. He had no option. The guard wouldn’t hesitate to put him down and the man’s moment of hesitation was enough for Lynch to pull the trigger on the MP5.

  The sound of the gun reverberated around the empty shell of the room, as bullet after bullet tore through Sucker Punch as if he was made of water. No remorse came over Lynch as he checked the man was dead and he recalled the Controller’s claim that they were alike. But he was incorrect. Lynch felt no remorse, but he felt no pleasure either. The man would have killed him as soon as look at him. Lynch’s only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to question him about the Controller’s location.

  He tore the man’s ID away, assuming he had greater access than the other guards, and moved to the concealed window. He punched in the four-digit code he’d seen Mallard enter, and held his breath as the wall partition opened.

  He let out a breath, unsure if it was relief he felt as he viewed the empty space. ‘Where are you?’ he mouthed to himself, as the door behind him opened.

  It was a risk but one worth taking. His usual response would have been to turn and shoot, but he needed someone alive.

  Lynch fell to the floor, rolling over so he faced the door. The khaki uniform gave the guard away, Sucker Punch’s accomplice. Lynch let off a line of bullets aimed at the man’s legs.

  The guard dropped, a dead weight crashing to the ground, and Lynch was on him within a second, dropping his knee onto the man’s chest and securing his firearm. ‘Remember me?’ said Lynch, applying pressure to the man’s right knee. Below the joint, the rest of his leg hung on by severed tendons and sinew the bone all but obliterated.

  The guard struggled to breathe but was alert enough to cry out as Lynch increased the pressure on the wound. ‘This will end two ways for you. I have to be honest, neither is great, but you reap what you sow. You tell me what I want to know and I give you the decision.’

  Red-tinged spit dribbled from the man’s mouth and Lynch was worried he would lose him before he got the answers. ‘What decision?’ said Sucker Punch’s accomplice.

  ‘Die immediately or later.’

  ‘Some choice.’

  ‘Where’s my son?’

  ‘Your son? I thought you’d want the Controller?’

  ‘I’ll get to him. Tell me where my son is?’

  The accomplice smiled. ‘We have a special place for him.’

  The guard was trying to provoke him. Lynch could see he wanted to die. He smiled back, and placed his gun into the mess where the bottom of the man’s leg used to be. The man tried to scream - his mouth gaped open as the veins on his neck and forehead protruded from his skin - but no sound left his throat. ‘Tell me now, or your last moments on this earth will be full of agony even you can’t imagine.’ He held the gun in position for five more seconds. As he withdrew, the man’s pain finally found voice.

  When he’d stopped screaming, Lynch slapped his face. ‘Where’s my son?’

  It took a minute for the guard’s breathing to ease enough to allow him to speak. ‘You promise you’ll do it?’ he said, his body shaking with each utterance.

  Lynch nodded. ‘But I won’t ask you again?’

  ‘He’s in the cell next to you.’

  Lynch closed his eyes. It made perfect sense yet the possibility had never crossed his mind. Of course they would have put him next to his son. Had they informed Daniel that he was in the next cell? Had they let him hear the suffering they’d heaped upon Lynch?

  ‘You’re a fucking monster,’ said Lynch, getting to his feet.

  ‘Do it,’ shouted the man.

  ‘Do what?’

  ‘Kill me.’

  Lynch held out his gun, aimed it square between the man’s eyes. ‘Now why would I do that?’ he said, pulling the gun up and letting off a shot that missed the man’s head by inches.

  63

  Rose and McBride watched the smoke rising in the darkening sky. ‘It must be the church,’ said Rose.

  McBride laughed when she’d been expecting a sigh. ‘That’s quite an assumption, even for you.’

  Rose had made many pivotal decisions in her career. The most recent at the Gunn house when she’d negotiated Razinski’s release. Had that worked out for the best? She had no doubt that if Haig and his team had been allowed their way, Razinski wouldn’t have escaped that place with his life and everything that followed could have been avoided. But that hadn’t really been her decision. She’d followed protocol, would never let a prisoner come to harm because of the bloodlust of fellow officers, however heinous the crime.

  This was different. If she breached the compound fence not only was she effectively trespassing, she was going against orders. However vague Miller’s warnings, he’d been specific that she stay away from the site.

  But some things were more important than protocol and orders. ‘I’m going in. You coming with me?’

  McBride was nonplussed. ‘Better start making access then,’ he said, retrieving wire cutters from the back of the vehicle.

  Rose tried to remain calm as McBride snipped away at the metal but feared they were being watched. At that very moment armed patrols could be on their way.

  ‘That should do it,’ said McBride, cutting the last of a segment away from the fence. ‘You sure you want to do this?’

  ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

  McBride sighed this time. ‘I won’t answer that.’

  Rose drove, wanting to take responsibility for what was to come. She kept the lights off, using the fading plume of smoke as a guide. They hit a number of potholes, careered over hidden descents, neither commenting as their vehicle lurched from side to side and threatened to roll. Rose kept her eyes straight, focused on the undulating line, willing the church to come into view.

  ‘I’ll be damned,’ said McBride, five minutes later.

  In the distance, poking out of the land l
ike a crop of young trees was the top of a building sunken into the ground. And five hundred yards in the distance, an anomaly in the vast nothingness of the land, stood the church.

  Rose wasted no time. The smoke was still rising from the building, and she had the absurd thought that someone was being cremated within. She pushed the accelerator into the floor, the vehicle sliding in the dust before springing forward.

  ‘Rose, stop.’ McBride slammed his hand onto the dashboard as Rose noticed the two figures emerging from the church, each carrying guns. She hit the brakes, and they both sank down in their seats before opening their doors as a line of bullets sprayed over their vehicle.

  Rose rolled from the vehicle onto the rough ground, the skin on the back of her hand ripping away as she snagged it on a rock. The bullets stirred the dust and she scrambled through the haze to the back of the car where she was pleased to see McBride.

  She snapped open the trunk, and they withdrew additional firearms before dropping to the ground.

  ‘There,’ said McBride, pointing beneath the car.

  Rose ducked down and saw the faint outline of two sets of legs less than fifty yards away. ‘I’ll take the right, you left. On three.’

  She counted down. It was a tough shot. She loosened her arms, controlled her breathing and pulled the trigger six times, her shots ringing out in stereo with McBride’s. The guards fell but they couldn’t be sure what contact they’d made. ‘Go,’ she screamed, as they spun to either side of the car and ran at the two guards, sending a second round of bullets into the sky as a warning.

  ‘FBI, stay down,’ said McBride, as they reached the pair.

  One of the men was unconscious, the other wasn’t listening. He lay on the ground, his shin bone missing, yet he still had the strength to raise his gun and point it at McBride.

  Rose didn’t hesitate. She fired three times into the man’s chest as she moved towards him and held the gun to the head atop his lifeless body. Her attention turned immediately to the other guard who was on his side, a puddle of blood soaking into the yellow earth.

  She took the weapon from the man as McBride shouted questions at him.

  ‘Fuck you,’ said the guard, closing his eyes. He’d lost a lot of blood and Rose felt a weakening pulse in his neck.

  They hunkered down, scanning the area, waiting for more guards to join their fallen comrades; but none emerged from the shadows of the church. Rose was about to move towards the safety of the building when she noticed something, a mark, a flash of blue, on the arm of the fallen guard next to McBride.

  ‘Pull up his sleeve. Left arm,’ she said.

  McBride did as instructed, revealing the jagged line of a Railroad tattoo. ‘Jesus Christ,’ said McBride, as if only just coming to the realization that their foe was real and not imaginary.

  ‘We have to call it in,’ she whispered.

  McBride nodded. ‘All of a sudden I’ve got a signal,’ he said, displaying the four bars on his phone. ‘Miller?’

  ‘You call Miller. I’m calling someone else.’

  McBride understood. He called Miller and tried his best to explain the situation. From the way he held the phone away from his ear, she understood the call was not going well.

  Rose took the opportunity to call Daisy Montero, an officer she’d befriended in the local Sherriff’s department. She explained the situation as succinctly as possible.

  ‘We can’t go out there,’ said Montero.

  ‘There are two federal agents in lethal danger, Daisy. You have permission. Tell the Sheriff if you have to, but send some squad cars here now.’

  ‘What about your team?’

  ‘I don’t know who I can trust, Daisy. The more people who know about what’s going on here the better.’

  ‘I understand,’ said Daisy.

  ‘I think that’s my career,’ said McBride, hanging up the same time as Rose.

  ‘Miller should never have stopped us going here in the first place. I don’t know what this place is but it shouldn’t be benefiting from any legal protection. Tell me he’s sending some back up in.’

  ‘Reluctantly, yes. And you?’

  ‘Local Sherriff’s department. Just in case.’

  ‘I like your thinking. I take it we’re not going to sit here and wait?’

  Rose tore an identification card from one of the guards. ‘No.’

  They moved towards the church, a second set of explosions ringing out into the night air.

  64

  Lynch had seen more people in the last five minutes than he’d seen in the last few weeks. They congregated near the explosion area, milling around one another, confused and worried. Lynch assessed them, trying to unravel what was bothering him about the way they moved across the space. Then it dawned on him: they were avoiding making eye contact. They moved in silence, eyes glued to the ground like shy teenagers at their first disco. Only they weren’t being shy. They were being discreet, either ashamed or respecting each other’s secrets.

  They didn’t look up as he moved through them, his ill-fitting uniform ripped and coated in blood. He wanted to know why they were there, what heinous crimes they’d committed, and what they’d had to sacrifice to be there; but there would be time for answers later.

  He made his way back to his cell like an escaped zoo animal returning to the safety of captivity. The ease of his journey didn’t surprise him, nor did the sight of the four prison guards waiting for him.

  They’d barely opened their months by the time he’d let off his first round of fire. Eight rounds of bullets, two to each guard’s chest. Even if they had Kevlar protection, at such close proximity the hits would, at a minimum, incapacitate them. Not that they were given the opportunity to retaliate. Lynch didn’t stop moving. He fired four more times into the fallen bodies, before firing one bullet into the forehead of each guard.

  They’d known he would return which meant he’d been watched all this time. He couldn’t think of that now. There was a cell on either side of his old prison. He opened the peephole to the first and saw nothing but empty space. He moved to the next cell with limbs so heavy he thought they would hold him to the spot. He was reminded of childhood nightmares, dreams of being held in place by an invisible force when he’d been desperate to reach his parents’ bedroom. But he was in control. He understood the fear making him hesitate and was strong enough to fight it.

  He stumbled forward, his chest tight, and pulled the shutter open. With a deep breath, he gazed inside.

  ‘Daniel,’ he said, his voice lost in his throat.

  Daniel sat on a single wooden chair gazing at the side wall that connected his cell to Lynch’s.

  ‘Daniel,’ he repeated, fearing it wasn’t only his sight that Daniel had lost.

  The boy stirred and turned to face him. Lynch gasped at the sight of his son, so close to him, no barrier of glass in his way. ‘Daniel, it’s your Daddy,’ he said, streams of tears coating his face. ‘I’m coming to get you now.’

  The bolt was a simple padlock, yet Lynch’s hands shook and slipped as he tried the keys he’d found on one of the dead guards. He could have shot his way in but he didn’t want to unsettle Daniel. Eventually he found the correct key, and the lock slipped apart. He had to stop as he began pulling the door open, his heart beating so fast he risked going into cardiac arrest. He took some deep breaths and eased the door open.

  ‘Daniel,’ he whispered. ‘It’s your Daddy.’

  Daniel heard his voice and began to cower.

  ‘Oh, Jesus,’ said Lynch, putting his shaking hand towards his face. He edged forward. ‘I’m here to help you, Daniel. I’m going to take you away. You can see Mummy again. Would you like that?’

  Daniel was a teenage boy now but Lynch didn’t feel strange speaking to him that way. He noticed a slight twitch in Daniel’s face as he mentioned his Mummy. ‘Mummy, yes? She is so desperate to see you again.’

  Lynch leaned forward and placed his hand on the boy’s shoulder. Daniel flinched but l
et him keep his hand there. It was too much for Lynch; he fell on his haunches and began to weep. What had they done to his son? As he grieved, he was overcome with such bitter anger that he thought he’d been changed for good. He wanted to go back to where the others were congregated and to execute each and every one where they stood. Readily, he would torture each one first, and would then find Mallard and spend the rest of his days putting the man through extremes of pain.

  Then Daniel did something miraculous.

  He placed his hand on Lynch’s head and said, ‘Daddy.’

  Lynch stopped crying and stood up. Gently, he placed his hands to his son’s face, something he never thought he’d do again. ‘Daniel, we need to go. Do you understand?’

  Daniel nodded and Lynch lifted him off his chair. Despite the years, the boy weighed the same as when he was seven. ‘Can you walk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Lynch guided him to the edge of the cell. ‘Wait here,’ he said, securing the area outside the cell, the four slain guards heaped together in a river of blood.

  He grabbed Daniel’s hand and led him along the corridor, catching hold of him as an explosion sent them both crashing into the walls.

  65

  Candles lit the interior of the church. Tendrils of smoke drifted from the burning wax into the hollow shell of the building. Rose and McBride walked the perimeter of the church floor. There was no sign of the explosion they’d heard moments ago.

  ‘Through here,’ said Rose, pointing to a door at the rear of the raised level that had presumably once been the church’s altar.

  McBride kicked the door open, and Rose secured the area. The corridor was a modern addition to the derelict church. They followed the smooth white walls around two meandering corners until they reached another set of doors. ‘An elevator?’ said McBride.