by Peter Darley
There was a momentary silence before he heard Brandon Drake’s voice say, “Don’t say my name.”
David’s blood ran cold. “What do you want?”
“It’s extremely important that I see you. I have nowhere else to turn.”
“Forget it. I’d have to turn you in if I even had an inkling of where you were.”
“Some things are more important than duty, David.”
“Did you kill Treadwell?”
“No, but I was there when it happened. I can explain everything if you would just agree to meet with me. When are you on leave?”
“I’m on it now.”
“If I was to come to you, say, Cherry Mountain Plain, in . . . three days from now. Friday?”
David was stricken with an attack of conscience. The image of Brandon sprinting across the sand toward him, wrestling him to the ground out of the way of the grenade, and the shrapnel catching Drake in the forehead, flashed before his eyes. But I know why you did it, you asshole.
Regardless of his reasons, Drake had been seriously injured while saving his life. His motivation for saving him may have had questionable. But to David there were things in life that went beyond duty—and that was exactly what Drake had just suggested. In his heart, he knew he had to accept his former colleague’s plea. “What time?”
“Ten hundred hours. You know the spot.”
Spicer deduced the place Drake alluded to was the site of their first training exercise together—a barren stretch of wilderness situated near a canyon, a hundred-fifty miles from Fort Bragg. “Done.”
In the cabin, Brandon sat back on the couch next to Belinda with a sense of relief. Although David’s reaction to him came as a shock, he considered perhaps it was exactly what he should’ve expected. His memories of his friendship with David were now unlikely to be reliable. However, it was a weight off his mind that he’d been able to persuade David. He only hoped he’d correctly calculated the time required to purchase another inconspicuous vehicle and drive it fifteen hundred miles across America.
He looked at Belinda and smiled. “He went for it. We’d better get packing.”
***
In a run-down motel, two miles from Hooters, Gary Payne listened through an earpiece, and wrote down every word Spicer had said: Yeah, hello—What do you want?—Forget it. I’d have to turn you in if I even had an inkling of where you were—Did you kill Treadwell?—I’m on it now—What time?— Done.
From that, he was certain Spicer had been speaking to Drake. He silently rejoiced that contact had been made only a couple of hours after he’d pinned the transmitter to Spicer’s jacket. The question remained, at what time of which day were they due to meet? And where?
Whenever it was going to be, it sounded imminent. As such, he knew he had to put David Spicer under twenty-four hour surveillance.
Thirty-Seven
Familiar Strangers
Under disguise again, Brandon purchased a gleaming, black, four-year-old Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV for $18,000 from a dealer in Aspen. His fake ‘Kyle Summers’ driver’s license had convinced the salesman without question. It was his third such purchase in less than a month. With fuel and living expenses, he’d already spent almost fifty thousand of his $1.2 million. He knew this had to be the last time. He planned to meet with David Spicer, learn the truth about himself, and then return to the cabin with Belinda to live out his life in peace with her.
Switzerland, he now realized, was a hazard-ridden proposition. The cabin offered them an opportunity afforded to so few— a life of anonymity and freedom from oppression. He would never again consider letting it go.
His inability to invest his money, and the difficulty in either himself or Belinda finding a job while under constant disguise were pressing concerns. He knew he’d have to solve the problem of how they were going to survive, but now wasn’t the time. His identity had to come first.
Belinda insisted she accompany him and he agreed. He was eager for her to meet David. At least he was someone from his past who was real, and this time, they weren’t going out to stir up any trouble. His only concern was the possibility of David turning him in given that he had no reason to trust his memories of their friendship.
As a precaution against any potential dramas, he decided to equip himself with one of the attaché cases.
It was almost midnight when they arrived in Missouri. Needing sleep, they stopped at a motel, incurring another eighty dollar charge.
The following day they traveled across Missouri, through the southern regions of Kentucky and Virginia, and then finally into North Carolina.
It was almost midnight again when Brandon checked them into a motel thirty miles from Cherry Mountain Plain. On both nights, he’d awoken coated with perspiration, his fears, doubts, and tortured dreams, unrelenting.
***
9.56 a.m.
David Spicer stood beside his Buick Estate Wagon in front of a run-down shack in the middle of a deserted plot of land. He took in the barren, rocky location with nothing other than cliffs and hills all around. The winter wind cut through his shirt and jacket forcing him to wrap his arms around himself.
He watched the SUV come into view blowing dust across the terrain. As it came closer, he could make out Drake’s face at the wheel, alongside his stunningly beautiful blonde companion.
The SUV finally came to a halt. Brandon looked into Spicer’s eyes through the windshield. Slowly, he opened the door and cautiously stepped out. “David,” he said warmly.
Spicer screwed up his lips. “Don’t give me that shit, you son of a bitch. You really think I’m gonna buy this nice guy act? When did you ever call me David?”
As Belinda exited the SUV, Brandon gently reached out to Spicer with both hands in a beckoning manner. “You’re my friend. I saved your life, remember?”
“The only reason you saved my life is because I owed you money, Drake.”
Brandon’s mouth fell open. “What are you talking about? What money?”
“The five hundred dollars I owed you from poker. I’m getting a little tired of this charade.” Infuriated, David made a move to climb back in his Buick.
Brandon hurried after him. “Stop, please.”
David outstretched his hand warily. “Stay back, Drake. I know what you’re capable of. Now, just take it easy.”
“This is crazy, David. All I wanna do is talk. I think I can explain everything.” After a painfully difficult pause, Brandon said, “What do you know about me? I know that might sound strange, but please, humor me.”
To David, the face of his former colleague seemed so wholesome and gentle. It wasn’t the Brandon Drake who’d pulled him away from the incendiary. Surely, a con artist wouldn’t have been able to perform an act that could actually soften the facial features—unless he truly believed what he was saying. “Who are you?” he muttered.
“It’s me, Dave. It’s Brandon.”
“You never called me Dave.”
“I do now. That’s what a friend would call you.”
Belinda came up behind Brandon, placed her fingers on his shoulders, and looked into David’s eyes. “You see? He’s not the same anymore. Now, I don’t know what he was. But I know who he is.”
David raised his chin, looking downward with suspicion.
“Please,” Brandon said. “I mean, come on, man. Treadwell can’t have messed with my head that much. You know me.”
“That’s the problem. I do know you Drake, and you’re a serious hazard to everyone around you.”
“Tell me, please.”
David studied Drake’s look and began to feel it was far too obsessive and genuine to be the work of an actor. “OK, gimme your version.”
“I don’t think you’re going to believe me, but I need you to tell me what I . . . used to be like.”
“Why do you need me to tell you what you already know, Drake? You trying to get some kind of approval out of me? If so, forget it.”
Brandon took a deep breath.
“The point is I don’t know anything. Before Treadwell died, he told me that my memories had been changed. He said they messed with my personality after the explosion.”
Spicer continued to stare at him with doubt. He didn’t trust him, and he clung to his distrust as a matter of self-preservation. “You killed him, didn’t you?”
“No. He killed himself, right in front of us.”
“It’s true. I was there,” Belinda said.
David looked from one to the other. Once he was satisfied he was dealing with something beyond his comprehension, he made a decision to open up a little. “What do you want to know?”
“What was I like? What kind of a person was I?”
“You were a total son of a bitch. You were The Scorpion.”
Perspiration formed on Brandon’s brow. “Treadwell referred to me with that term. W-would you please explain what it means?”
“You were cold, Drake. You were cruel, without compassion, and totally self-centered. You were a maniac. As a matter of fact, just before we were shipped out to Helmand, you were sent to the brig for beating the crap out of Colonel Woodroffe.”
“So how the hell did I get shipped out with you then? Answer me that.”
It was clear to David that Drake was consumed with the need to find even a shred of doubt. “It was war, and I suppose we needed you on the team because of your technical expertise and skills on the field. You were due to go back to the brig when we returned, and then . . .” He decided he didn’t need to rehash the chain of events surrounding the explosion. “You were sent up to Arlington later that year to work at Mach Industries, and that was the last we heard.”
Brandon’s lip quivered as he tried to maintain his composure. “D-do you know where I came from? Who were my parents?”
Spicer cringed. “You sure you wanna know?”
“Yes.”
Belinda held Brandon even tighter and David noticed. What he was about to tell him was going to be traumatic information. “Your birth father was an alcoholic. Apparently, he got drunk and stabbed your mother to death before hanging himself. You were four years old at the time.”
Brandon swallowed hard and Belinda looked away in horror.
“You were fostered by some family. I can’t remember . . . Cassidy, I think you said they were called. When you got drunk one night, you told me you were beaten throughout your childhood by your foster father. You took karate when you were fourteen. You had a criminal record at sixteen for causing serious bodily harm and fencing stolen property. This continued until you were nineteen when you were given a choice.”
“What choice?”
“The state pen, or the army. You’d only open up about anything when you were hammered. It was the only time any of us saw even a glimmer of humanity in you.”
Tears streamed down Brandon’s cheeks as he gazed into the ether. Everything David was telling him about his former self sounded familiar. He realized Treadwell had entombed his entire natural personality into another character—his phantom ‘grandfather.’ It explained why he sensed his grandfather when he saw the vision of his other self torturing the Afghan operative with the blow torch. It had been the essence of his true persona all along.
He’d needed to know the truth, but it was unbearable. Everything he was hearing confirmed his worst fears. At the same time, he empathized with David’s position. How could he possibly convince him?
David moved slowly toward him, appearing almost sympathetic. “Look Drake, for whatever reason, I can see you’re not the same guy anymore, so this is really difficult for me.”
Brandon sobbed with relief. “I remember . . . being close to you, like a brother. I saved your life because I loved you.”
David cringed. “Loved me? Loved me? You didn’t have the capacity to love anyone, not even yourself.” He reached into his pocket and took out his iPhone. “Come here if you want to see who you were, Drake. Come here and face your sins.” He gestured to Belinda. “But this isn’t something a lady should see.”
David moved around to the back of the shack and Brandon followed. He watched as David searched through the files. After coming to the recording, he handed the palm-sized screen to him.
“I was with you in Helmand when Stockton filmed this, Drake. We were all afraid of you. We’d seen you wipe out gangs of thugs in bars, single-handedly.”
Brandon brow crumpled. “Filmed what?”
“When I got your call, I thought I had to arm myself with something—a reminder of the truth after I’d seen this new you on the news. After all, when you see a monster acting like an angel on national TV, you’ve got to be careful.”
Brandon looked at the screen on the iPhone. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the horror being displayed on it. It was him. But it wasn’t him. He saw himself torturing the captured Afghan with a blow torch. There was no compassion in the Brandon Drake on screen. His face seemed distorted as he acted in a savage, animalistic frenzy. There was brutal heartlessness in the image, and he heard his own voice roaring through the tinny sound of the iPhone speakers:
We can keep this up all night, you son of a bitch. Now where are they?
It was the vision that had flashed before his eyes during the fight with the gang in Los Angeles.
“That is what you were, Drake,” David said firmly, “and I’ve got to say, I’m still not sure this good-guy-with-an-erased-memory gig isn’t just another one of your dirty tricks.”
Brandon sank to his knees barely hearing him, his soul filled with horror and shame.
The distress in Drake was undeniable. It was a look of pure anguish and David could see it. Despite flitting between belief and disbelief, he knew the old Drake wouldn’t have been able to act out a performance of this caliber.
“W-what happened to this man?” Brandon whispered.
“He told us where the rest of his cell was holed up, and then you killed him. The next day we went in to take them out, and that’s when you caught the shrapnel from the grenade.” Spicer gestured to the phone in Brandon’s hand. “I could never get over that animal look on your face.”
Brandon’s reaction seemed to indicate a concurrence. The terrible sight had reduced him to a sobbing wreck.
David’s emotions had been batted around from anger and intolerance, fear of a psychopath who had once saved his life, confusion, pity, and sadness, all in the space of five minutes. It had finally taken its toll on him. Command was where he felt the most comfortable. “Come on, get up, Drake. I don’t have time for this crap.”
But Brandon didn’t seem to hear him. “T-this can’t be t-true.”
The sound of a car pulling up on the other side of the shack interrupted the conversation. David became concerned the authorities had tracked Brandon. If it looked as though he was consorting with him, his liberty and position in the army could be at stake. “Drake, I’m duty-bound to turn you in. I could be court-marshaled for harboring you, you son of a bitch. Now get the hell up!”
But Brandon simply knelt, weeping.
“Drake, I can’t deny you’re like somebody else now. You look familiar, but you’re a stranger to me, all right?”
And then Belinda screamed.
Brandon instantly revived from his despondency, stood, and ran around to the front of the shack.
David’s concern shifted its focus also. For the briefest of moments, he felt as though they were soldiers on the battlefield again.
As they came around the corner they saw Payne with Belinda in his grip, her hands cuffed behind her, and his pistol trained against her temple.
Payne grinned victoriously at Brandon. “It took me a while, but I’ve finally got you, asshole.”
David recognized Payne as the man he’d attacked in Hooters. The beard was gone but there was no doubt it was the same guy. He cautiously stepped forward and reached out, urgent to pacify the man. “Just let her go. We can work this out.”
“Stay out of this, soldier,” Payne said. “This doesn’t concern yo
u. Drake’s the one I want.”
Thirty-Eight
White Knuckle Ride
Brandon looked into Belinda’s terrified eyes, gripped by the most profound sense of protectiveness he’d ever known.
“You k-killed my colleagues,” she said.
Payne turned the pistol on Brandon. “Where’s the money?”
“What money?”
“My one million, two-hundred-thousand dollars in cash for services rendered that Treadwell left with you. Sound familiar?”
Brandon realized he was referring to the money in the cabin, which he’d believed had been placed there by his ‘grandfather’. Most likely, it had been Payne’s reward for the hoax terrorist attacks.
So many thoughts raced through his mind. It was yet another revelation amidst a combination of traumas. He’d just learned he’d been a brutal savage, a monster who’d only thought of himself—everything to which his current persona was opposed. And yet, that current persona had been given to him by a man who killed indiscriminately. Treadwell had no moral compass, and manipulated others, including the man who held his only loved one at gunpoint.
The irony struck him like a thunderbolt. His ultimate enemy had given him his soul, and that man’s legacy now threatened to take the woman he loved.
He couldn’t reveal the location of the money for fear of destroying their only safe haven. He could only start a war with Payne. “What are you talking about?”
Payne laughed and gestured at Belinda. “If you want the bitch, you’ll stop playing games, asshole.”
“I don’t know what money you’re talking about.”
“Don’t tell him anything, Brandon,” Belinda shouted in a moment of titanic courage.
But Brandon’s heart sank as she’d inadvertently revealed they both knew where the money was.
