If he was completely honest, Carl thought as he looked at the naked woman lying before him, a part of him—a huge part—wanted to do all those things to her just to hear her scream and beg for mercy like he’d been forced to do. Unlike McGrath’s doctor, who seemed to enjoy eliciting Carl’s pain, Carl didn’t want to torture the woman for enjoyment. He was going to do it to extract specific information, and he knew physical torture would not produce the information as quickly as he needed.
He had to get the information within a few hours. He had to instill fear in the FBI woman very quickly and break her will in mere minutes. Fortunately, he knew exactly what she was afraid of. She was, after all, a mother.
He watched Cummings scan her surroundings. She had no idea where she was. The extent of her world was the fifteen-foot-square space enclosed by the thick white canvas sheets hanging around her. Tightly stretched canvas also formed a ceiling over the space. It was cold, despite an electric heater trying in vain to heat the room from the far corner. The drone from a gas-powered generator drowned out all sound from outside the cubicle.
A high-definition camera was mounted on a tripod in the corner near the space heater, and floodlights in each corner of the room were angled upward at the walls and ceiling of the cubicle to provide indirect lighting off the sheets. Carl wore a wireless microphone on the collar of the white bunny suit he wore. The one-piece suit covered his entire body up to his chin. The suit zipped up in the front, and only his head and hands were uncovered by the material.
He wore latex gloves and a white face mask like the kind dentists wore. He had the mask pulled down under his chin. A massive amount of blood stained the front of his bunny suit, and he could tell by the look on her face that she was wondering whose blood it was.
“Turns out, our friend Agent Klipser was pretty goddamn tough. He wouldn’t break, but then I think it was pretty clear to him that I was going to kill him, whether he broke or not. He had my son killed, after all, so I think he just decided to tough it out. By the way, I hold you responsible also, so I’m going to kill you after you tell me what I want to know. I just want you to know upfront what’s going to happen, in case you want to be tough like your friend over there.”
Carl thumbed over his shoulder. “And by the way, feel free to scream as loud as you want, especially when we get to the good part, the really painful part. Trust me, you won’t wake up the neighbors.” Carl paused and chuckled, though there was no humor in his eyes. “And you can believe me when I say, this is going to be very painful. It’s going to hurt a lot.”
Carl stepped toward the foot of Cummings’ table and pulled a white sheet from a second gurney. Cummings still had her head cranked up so when he stepped aside, she gasped when she saw what was left of Klipser’s body. The skin of his midsection had been cut and pinned back and his intestines—still connected to the inside of his body—lay in a messy pile over his hips and thighs.
“I read in a book somewhere,” Carl said, “that in some third-world country—I forget which one—the women would capture enemy soldiers when they wandered too far away from their camp in the night. They’d stake the soldier to the ground spread-eagled, and slit his torso from collar bone to hip bone, and left to right across his belly button. Then they’d peel back the skin, tack the flaps down, pull out his intestines, and leave him that way.
“They say the procedure was fairly painless. They say a man can live for fifteen or sixteen hours in that condition before infection and dehydration kill him. The women would actually hold lotteries to see who could correctly guess how long the soldier could hold out.”
He paused and grabbed Klipser by his hair, then raised the man’s already severed head from the table. Cummings gasped again. The man’s eyes and mouth were wide open as if he’d been screaming in pain in his last moment of life, even though the man had remained silent to the end.
“Of course, Agent Klipser was far too dangerous to let live that long,” Carl bobbled the head around, then slammed it back down on the gurney so the dead face peered at the FBI agent.
“Now, I’m wondering how long an eleven-year-old girl can survive with her intestines laying in a pile outside her belly. Just for full disclosure, I think I already mentioned that I’m going to kill you for your part in the death of my son.” He paused and stepped back up to the head of Cummings’ gurney. “So, the only relevant decision you’ll need to make is whether you’re going to tell me what I want to know first, or will you watch me mutilate your daughter.”
Carl stepped over to another gurney and pulled a white sheet from it. Lisette Cummings was strapped to the table, naked just like her mother, except her hands were strapped at her sides. The girl had gray duct tape on her mouth. She had been silent and motionless, but with the sheet pulled back, she began to cry and whimper and struggle, no doubt frightened by the sight of a bloodied man leaning over her.
“So let’s begin, shall we?”
Chapter 40
1302 EST Tuesday
Arlington Heights, VA
Nancy Palmer was working at the management workstation when Joey’s terminal beeped. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw the young man had his right arm extended toward her, his index finger pointing loosely at her monitor. At the same time he drained the last drops from a Red Bull can and then tossed the can in the bin beside his desk.
Palmer turned back to her monitor as a dialog box opened on the right side of her screen. She skimmed the report and lightly tapped the “All hands on deck!” button on the wall to wake everyone up. A couple minutes later, McGrath and Jimmy came downstairs.
“Figueroa’s people report that a text message was sent to Cummings’s cell, which was left outside the burned-out SUV and collected by the evidence team.” Palmer said, “Joey, put it up on the left monitor.”
DEAD BODIES AT THE OLD TRAIN WAREHOUSES -JOHNSON
“The warehouses?” Joey said, stifling a yawn. He rubbed a massive hand over his bald head and finger-combed his long beard. “Isn’t that where they filmed those Transformers movies?”
“And the last Terminator movie,” Jimmy agreed. “And The Avengers too, I think.”
Palmer wasn’t in the mood for trivia. “What’s your point?”
“Those abandoned warehouses are great for big-budget movie scenes, but someone might also use them to hide hostages for...you know.”
Palmer nodded. For interrogation. No one would hear the screams.
Joey said, “The FBI is already en route.”
An hour later the analyst’s computer chimed.
“Aw, damn! They found a make-shift torture room in one of the south warehouses. Agent Klipser is dead, but Special Agent Cummings is alive. She’s been taken to the Presbyterian Hospital emergency room. The on-scene investigator is reporting a video camera in the room. The memory card is still in the device, so he took the video cam back to the field office and now he’s uploading a copy to me.” Joey paused. “Um, I’m seeing a report that the agent’s daughter was there too.”
Palmer said, “Johnson’s note said ‘dead bodies.’”
“Yeah,” McGrath sighed. “That means the daughter is dead.”
Joey’s computer beeped. “Got the video file.”
Palmer said, “Put it up on the center monitor.” The analyst did so. “And Jimmy, next time you’re in the kitchen, grab me one of those Red Bull things. I have a feeling it’s going to be a long day, folks.”
McGrath stifled a yawn. “I’ll have one too.”
Jimmy had just returned from the kitchen, so he simply turned around and went back. A moment later he returned with two more Red Bulls. He popped the tops and distributed them.
The high-definition video captured the entirety of Pete Klipser’s torture. The operator was taped naked to a hospital gurney. There was no interrogation involved. Carl Johnson didn’t even ask him any questions. The procedure reminded Palmer of the report she’d read of Carl Johnson’s first interrogation session, and she knew the similar
ity was intended. On the monitor, Johnson just went to work on the man, talking to him calmly all the while, explaining what he was doing and why.
“Jesus,” was all McGrath said, and Palmer was certain that single word escaped unintentionally.
“Look how he’s dressed,” Palmer said. “He planned his whole operation down to the smallest detail. Look at his tools. He knew he’d need every specific item he has with him right now. Nothing extra, nothing wasted.”
McGrath nodded. “Like leaving Cummings’s cell phone outside the SUV so that it wouldn’t get burned. He knew he’d need a way to contact us.” He paused. “He had the logistics of this interrogation planned and implemented before he even captured them.”
Johnson was dressed in a white coverall like the kind one might see in a microchip manufacturer’s clean room. His nose and mouth were covered with a cloth mask. With a scalpel, he made two perpendicular incisions, one from Klipser’s chest down to his pubic bone and the other side to side across his belly. He tacked the flaps of skin to the sides with long stainless steel medical pins, then carefully reached into the man’s intestinal cavity with his gloved hands, pulled out its contents, and laid the mess across the agent’s hips and thighs.
During the procedure, Johnson had to stop twice to pull his face mask out of the way and vomit. He even apologized to the camera, explaining this was his first time torturing someone, and he wasn’t as tough as the doctor who had worked on him. Then he promised to get stronger and tougher for his next torture. He added with a shrug, like a footnote to a story, that though he had already killed the doctor in his failed attempt to get Klipser to kill him, he was nonetheless upset he didn’t get to torture that man.
Then he continued talking to Klipser. “They say a man can live the better part of a day in your condition. Of course, I’d be a fool to let you live that long. Be just my luck they’d find you, stuff all this shit back inside you, and sew you up. Next day, you’d come looking for me.” Johnson paused and looked at the camera and said, “And I certainly don’t want that.”
Palmer got the feeling Johnson was taunting McGrath. Torturing a federal agent was exactly the activity that would amplify the government’s effort to find the man, but Johnson seemed not to care. He simply leaned down and pulled a thin tree branch saw from under the gurney. He laid the tool on Klipser’s chest.
To the agent, Carl said, “I just wanted you to spend your last moments of life feeling how I felt when I was strapped to your table—completely helpless and vulnerable, unable to do or say anything to make the torture stop. Of course, you’re a lot tougher than I am, and I know you’re not going to break. But then, that’s not what this is about. Is it, Agent Klipser?
“It’s really about control and power. It’s about using that power to bend others to your will, whether or not they’re actually guilty of a crime. It’s about doing whatever is necessary to accomplish the mission, because for men like you and your boss it’s always about the mission, right? It’s only about the fucking mission.”
Johnson nodded to himself. “This is about ordering the FBI to arrest someone and beat the shit out of him just because you can. It’s about torturing someone because you’re the US fucking Government, and you know no one can do a goddamn thing to stop you. It’s about being above the law. It’s about killing someone’s son and considering him an acceptable loss simply because you can operate with impunity and without accountability.”
Johnson picked up a helmet that looked like a cross between a bee-keeper’s hood and a welder’s head gear. It was white, like the bunny suit he wore, and it had a large acrylic window in the front. He put on the helmet and smoothed the flaps of fabric over his shoulders, then he picked up the two-foot-long saw.
Johnson looked into the camera with a sinister smirk on his face that McGrath could easily see through the acrylic splatter shield.
“But guess what?” Carl paused. “Today, you people start paying. You’re going to be held accountable for your crimes and for the lives you’ve stolen.”
Johnson stepped over to another gurney and pulled a white sheet from the unconscious and naked Special Agent Cummings. Palmer gasped even though she knew she was going to see the agent at some point. Next to her, McGrath cursed softly.
Johnson continued. “But this particular exercise was never about breaking a tough guy like Klipser. This is all about breaking her.” He stepped back over to Klipser’s gurney, hefted the saw from Klipser’s chest, and said, “Okay, Agent Klipser, this is the part where you can scream as loud as you want.” Then he went to work on the agent.
Palmer stood stunned, not only by the viciousness of the act she was witnessing, but also by the fact that it was happening to Pete Klipser. Carl Johnson was unworthy of such a conquest.
Blood erupted from the operator’s neck and splattered everywhere as Johnson pulled and pushed on the saw. He put all his strength into it, and she could hear him grunting and gasping with the effort. It took him a dozen strokes to accomplish the deed. Then he stepped back, removed the hood, and dropped the saw to the floor. His bunny suit was drenched in blood.
Johnson, still breathing hard from the exertion, exclaimed, “Damn, that’s a lot of blood!”
Still looking down, the man shifted his gaze to the camera. The effect of the indirect lighting off the wall sheets and the diffuse shadows cast across his face gave him an ugly, sinister look. Without looking directly at the dead agent’s head, he grabbed it and set it on the corpse’s chest facing the camera a short distance beyond the man’s feet.
“He isn’t such a bad-ass now, is he, Director McGrath? In fact, if you have some more bad-ass mu’fuckers you want to send after me, be my guest. What’s the score now?” Johnson paused thoughtfully and mimicked like he was counting on his fingers. “Sixteen to one? The one being my son, of course.”
Then he turned his attention to Cummings, who was stirring on the other gurney.
“Make it seventeen to one in a moment.”
Chapter 41
1322 EST Tuesday
Arlington Heights, VA
McGrath watched as Johnson stripped off his bloody latex gloves and pulled a clean pair from a box on a medical tray table next to Cummings’ bed. As he worked his hands into the new gloves, he again spoke to the camera.
“Mr. McGrath, I’ve had ample time to reflect on my stay with your people out there in Virginia, and I’ve often wondered how you felt as you watched the videos of my interrogation. Funny how perspective changes things, isn’t it? I suspect you’re experiencing a far different set of emotions now, as you watch your own people tortured and killed as opposed to, say, an innocent civilian and his son.”
Johnson seemed genuinely pensive for a moment. “I have to admit, though, I didn’t think I really could do what I just did, and I’m still feeling a bit queasy.” He shrugged. “It’s my first time murdering a man with my own hands. Sure, I killed your doctor, but that was more of an unplanned event. This,” Johnson said, waving a hand at Klipser’s dead body. “This premeditated murder was really hard, and we all know the first time is always the hardest. The second time,” Johnson said, glancing over at Cummings. “Yeah, it probably won’t be so hard.
“But I also have to confess to feeling a rush of exhilaration. It’s a kind of power that makes me acknowledge that maybe I can be like you people.”
Johnson stared at the monitor for a moment, and McGrath got the eerie feeling the man was staring right at him. “You know, Mr. McGrath, I figure the FBI or the cops are watching this also. You think maybe they’ll forgive me for what I’ve done, for the agents I’ve killed? You think maybe they’ll give me amnesty once they realize I’m just doing the same thing that you did to me and my son?
“You think maybe they’ll grow a fucking conscience, hunt you down, and prosecute you for what you’ve done? Or will they take the easy way out and simply agree you’re authorized to use harsh interrogation techniques on an innocent man and kill my son in the name of the US
fucking Government. Maybe they’ll just say you can do it, but I can’t, and so that makes me a criminal and a murderer, but it just makes you a hero, a loyal fucking government servant.
“You know, as I was gutting your agent I found myself wondering how it was for you twenty or thirty or forty years ago, on your first kill or your first torture. Were you like Klipser, hard as nails? Hell, maybe you still are, but I guess that remains to be seen.
“And then I wondered, when you killed my son and then realized that I was not, in fact, the kidnapper you thought I was, did you feel any remorse? Did you send flowers to my son’s funeral or maybe send an anonymous letter of apology to his grieving mother? Did you turn to your staff out there and admit that you just killed an innocent young man and fucked up another man’s life?
“Did any of your staffers out there ever even raise their hand at any time during this whole clusterfuck and say maybe they thought you had the wrong man? Or did everyone just go along for the ride because you’re all untouchable? Maybe I’ll ask them if they’re still in the building when I come for you.”
Johnson walked over to Cummings’s naked form. “And who is this fucking girl that my son had to die for? Maybe I’ll find her first and ask her if she’s worth my son’s life. Maybe Special Agent Cummings knows who she is.”
As Cummings awoke, Johnson began speaking to her the same way he had spoken to Pete Klipser. Then he said, “So let’s begin, shall we?”
Carl grabbed a scalpel from the medical tray and stepped over to Lisette’s gurney. Lenore Cummings—the mother, not the special agent—broke in mere seconds. The torture setup was really nothing more than a psychological ploy, a brief one-sided explanation that Johnson would not hesitate to mutilate her daughter because of what Cummings had helped McGrath do to his son.
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