State of Terror

by John Brown

  “I will go wherever there is tyranny, injustice, and despair, anywhere in the world, with courage and resolve to end all conflict, instill order, and help those who can’t help themselves.”

  With that, marching bands began parading on the field, forming elaborate, intersecting patterns.

  “Cadets,” General Pippin said, “congratulations. You have been given the opportunity to defend the Homeland in its time of need. We will now recite the oath of enlistment. Raise your right hand and repeat after me:

  “I — state your name…

  “Do solemnly swear or affirm…

  “That I will support and defend…

  “The Constitution of the United States…

  “Against all enemies, foreign and domestic…

  “That I will bear true faith and allegiance…

  “To the same…”

  Pippin completed the oath, the cadets threw their hats in the air, and the bleachers broke out with cheers and an extended standing ovation.

  “You are truly the tip of the spear,” said General Pippin, beaming. “In the proudest traditions of the United States Armed Forces you will defend with honor the freedoms and liberties that made America great. And I just wanna say, congratulations.”

  A few soldiers began chanting “hooah!” and all the others joined in.

  Daniel found his mother on the field. He looked striking; most impressive in his full dress uniform. Jane’s heart swelled with emotion as her eyes took in her handsome young man. He stood straight and tall, muscular and fit. The training and discipline had obviously been good for him. His upright military bearing and arresting appearance reminded her strongly of Benson some 20 years before.

  She wiped her eyes.

  “Daniel, we are so proud of you.”

  Daniel gave his mother a long hug, reluctant to let go.

  “Hey,” he said, looking around, puzzled. “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s, uh, well, he couldn’t make it today, but I know he’d be very pleased.”

  “Couldn’t make it? What?”

  Before he could inquire further, Sergeant Schultz came over. Daniel saluted him smartly. Schultz returned the salute, slowly and deliberately, looking Daniel straight in the eye. Daniel had never been shown this kind of respect by his nemesis. He was extremely moved.

  “You made it, college boy.” Schultz shook his hand and slapped him on the back with undisguised pride. “Welcome to the service.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  Dad would be so proud of me.

  24

  Unsuitable for Release

  AGENT GAGE GLANCED AT SOME REPORTS, waiting impatiently for Special Agent DeSoto to begin the session. Benson took Gage for a fresh recruit, learning the ropes, as it were, still in orientation. DeSoto was older than his colleague and his hair was cut very close, indistinguishable from Benson’s regulation prison cut.

  Benson had ample experience in this hellhole to observe that after a long stretch here, but for their uniforms, it could be difficult to distinguish captor from captive. The harsh prison environment, with its daily savagery and bullying, its physical and psychological torture, would brutalize the guards and agents almost as much as their prisoners. The routine, State-sanctioned exercise of absolute power and control would desensitize them to the torment of others. The cruelty and suffering they inflicted on the prisoners would corrupt them, too. In time, they would inevitably become damaged human beings.

  Nor were Gage and DeSoto much freer than the prisoners they interrogated. They couldn’t simply walk out of a top-secret facility as if they were ordinary citizens. Their movements and actions would be tracked and recorded especially closely for any hint of breeching sensitive State secrets. One slip of the pen or tongue and they might easily find themselves on the wrong side of the cell doors. Whatever they might have thought they were signing up for, the reality was surely different. They were inmates of a sort themselves.

  Benson wondered how such people, reasonably intelligent and even patriotic — in their own way — could be turned so easily. Perhaps they were so captivated with the idea of changing the world, their egos so stoked by the prospect of personally making a difference, that they jumped at the opportunity to sign up. These young people wouldn’t have had the life experience to know any better, making them easy prey for any grandiose cause that cynically promised to remake the world. The more ambitious and idealistic the cause, the more attractive it would prove to impressionable young minds.

  A doctor in a white lab coat held a hypodermic needle in the air, flicking it with her finger. The finger-tapping distracted Special Agent DeSoto’s attention. He had seemed to be in a kind of trance, deep in thought.

  DeSoto tore his gaze away and turned to Benson.

  “Mr. Benson, let’s just get down to business. You’re gonna be classified as ‘Unsuitable for Release.’ I’m like, well, I’m real disappointed. I promised my boss early on, you know…”

  DeSoto sighed, apparently referring to an unpleasant recollection.

  “I mean, unless something comes out of this last-chance interview, this is it, the end of the road. After this, you won’t remember anything. You won’t even remember your own existence.”

  Special Agent DeSoto stared quietly at the floor and then at Gage. Judging from the silence and gloom, Benson surmised that Team HVT had lost precious “reputation capital,” its standing taken down a notch by its wretched failure on his case. The only sound was that of the guard in the corner shifting his weight onto the other foot, causing the ring of keys on his belt to jingle.

  “This is all a joke, isn’t it?” Benson said with all the derision he could muster. “I’ve had enough of this. Your boss was absolutely right, DeSoto; no doubt he’s ashamed of you and your incompetence. You’re a total failure, a real turkey. You wouldn’t know a real terrorist if he bit you on the ass. What a loser, what a write-off you turned out to be, what a washout and a dud. What an embarrassment.”

  Benson smirked and shook his head.

  “You’ll be fired and disgraced within days. You’ll never work again. Your career is over.”

  “You!” DeSoto stirred with sudden vehemence, shaking his finger at Benson. “You caused us a whole lotta trouble. We tried everything with you, we did it the easy way and the hard way. Good agents were ruined ‘cause a’ you and all we got was diddly-squat.”

  Benson laughed at him, meanly.

  “So you think this is all a big, fat joke, do you?” DeSoto lost his composure, spitting as he yelled. “This is no gag, Mr. Benson — we’re at war!”

  Benson smacked DeSoto’s face with the back of his hand, catching him hard near the eye with his knuckles. The man staggered back, piling clumsily into the doctor, still holding her syringe in the air. Falling backward to the floor, she stabbed herself with the needle, shrieking as the syringe flopped up and down, stuck fast in her neck. Horrified and gurgling, she was unable to bring herself to pull it out.

  Benson instantly grabbed his folding chair and dashed to the guard at the door, holding the chair like a bat, and smashed him in the face with it. Bending to retrieve the guard’s gun from the floor, he felt a hard object on the back of his head.

  “Freeze! Get up real slow. Now turn around.”

  DeSoto pressed his gun against Benson’s forehead. The agent’s right eye was swollen a dark purple and nearly shut. He gingerly rubbed it with his free hand.

  “We been at this for months and we hardly got anywhere!”

  “Correction,” Benson said. “You got nowhere. You have nothing. You’re a disaster.”

  DeSoto tensed with rage.

  “Oh yeah? Well, if cold and sleep deprivation don’t work, maybe this will.”

  DeSoto leered, holding the gun with his right arm stiff and straight.

  “Whaddya say now, tough guy? How ’bout some more a’ those wisecracks? You ready for this, bitch? I could blow you away!”

  “Roy, what’re you doing — stop it!” Agent
Gage said, frantic. “Knock it off!”

  As a young combat soldier, Benson had been ambushed by a lone grunt appearing from nowhere. The enemy wore dirty, torn clothes; a bandana with some kind of insignia being the only thing distinguishing him from anyone else. He had motioned Benson to drop his rifle, moving behind and pressing his gun to the back of Benson’s head, execution-style. Spinning around and stepping into his attacker, Benson trapped the gun and the man’s arm against his body, striking repeatedly with his free elbow into the man’s neck and nose and eyes. Reaching around with his free hand, he yanked the gun away, pistol whipped the man in the face and fired two quick rounds to the head. It was gruesome, but he did what he had to do.

  Special Agent DeSoto’s breathing was rapid and shallow, his forehead beaded with perspiration. His closed eye was smarting, causing him to screw up his face into a grimace. Suddenly scared and overwhelmed, DeSoto hesitated now that he’d taken it this far.

  In a flash, Benson moved his head to the left, bringing his right hand under the barrel and his left hand behind DeSoto’s wrist, violently twisting the gun backward into the agent’s gut. Snapping DeSoto’s trigger finger, the gun broke free and clattered onto the floor.

  Being caged for months, the constant interrogations, the wanton cruelty and deprivation, had reduced Benson to the level of a desperate, wild animal. In a blind rage, his instincts took over. He felt nothing and thought of nothing except attack, flying at DeSoto with an uppercut to the stomach, knocking the wind out of the agent. Holding the back of DeSoto’s neck with one hand, he repeatedly struck the agent’s face with his elbow. Staggering, DeSoto took a sluggish swing before falling to the floor, fighting for breath through a crushed nose and broken teeth.

  Benson immediately turned to Agent Gage, who had observed the brawl with fright, not moving from his spot except to stand. Throwing his whole body into it, Gage threw a big right hook. Benson blocked it and moved in, stunning Gage with a right cross, then gripping Gage’s shoulders tightly and punching his knee into the agent’s stomach. Gage doubled over, but Benson was too weakened to finish him off. Both men fought to recover.

  Gage pulled out a club from somewhere, swishing it in the air, leering and threatening. He moved closer until he’d backed Benson into a corner, raising the club behind him to strike a deadly blow. Summoning all of his strength, Benson kicked his head, sending him flying back. Gage’s skull smacked the concrete and he slithered down the wall to sit on the floor.

  Benson grabbed the guard’s gun from the floor and pulled him farther away from the entrance. The guard stirred with the movement. Benson struck him sharply in the forehead to keep him still. He concealed himself behind the door.

  After several minutes, two guards entered the room, astonished by the sight before them. One of their comrades lay sideways on the floor. A syringe jammed in her throat, the doctor lay on the floor face up, semiconscious and babbling incoherently, her eyes glazed over. One of the agents lay sprawled on the floor, coughing and spitting blood. The other agent was in the corner, open-eyed, a bloody trail down the wall against which he slumped.

  Benson slammed the door behind the guards. He sidekicked the one closest to him in the knee, cracking it. The guard collapsed to the floor, crying in extreme pain. The second guard drew his gun, but Benson was on him first, pummeling his face and kidneys. Rendered senseless, he dropped to the floor, curled up on his side.

  Benson bent over, panting, holding his legs for support. Already in a weakened state, he had nearly exhausted what little stamina he still possessed.

  The guard with the shattered knee lay on the floor, crying. When Benson came to stand over him he ceased his moaning, looking up silently in a growing panic. His gun holstered beneath him, the guard snaked his hand under his arched back to get at it. Benson, breathing hard, watched him attempt to unfasten the snap, but the guard’s own weight and the paralyzing pain were too much to overcome. Benson stomped his heel on the guard’s hand, crushing the delicate bones.

  Getting down on his knees, he pressed his forearm into the man’s throat. He felt no sympathy for this bastard. The guard panicked in wild, extreme distress, fighting for air, thrashing back and forth, kicking his legs up and down. The veins in his neck and forehead swelled; his eyes bulged. Even in combat, Benson had never killed with his bare hands. He felt sickened. The guard blacked out and Benson instantly released his choke.

  Peeling off his orange jumpsuit, Benson suited up in the guard’s uniform and hat. Reaching into DeSoto’s outfit, he pulled out his identity card and yanked off the clip-on badge attached to the collar. He dragged the bodies to the front of the room underneath the door’s high observation window to a spot where they wouldn’t easily be seen from the hall. Rummaging through their clothes, he pulled out identification wallets and money. He tucked a gun into his waistband.

  Wiping the sweat off his forehead, he shut the door quietly behind him, walking in what he hoped was a casual manner down the corridor, searching for the way out. His heart thumped madly.

  The building seemed to be arranged like a maze, and although he had spent interminable months captive inside it, he knew almost nothing of its layout. He passed rooms that all appeared the same except for small black plates on the wall marking their locations. Moving from B-82 to B-81 and on down, he guessed that continuing to B-1 could end in a central foyer or main corridor from which he might spot the exit.

  Agents and guards down the hall walked quickly toward him. His heart racing, he walked purposefully, as if he knew his destination by rote. He passed several men and women, some of whom were dressed identically to himself and some who wore suits; others sported the olive-drab jumpsuits of the interrogators. Benson pulled his hat down low. The few who paid him any fleeting attention did not have their gazes returned. He walked on, looking straight ahead, adopting a slightly bored expression to better fit in.

  The corridor emptied into a central hall. Signs mounted on the painted cement block walls indicated the exit, and he continued on. He passed a portrait of the president on the wall. It was one of his campaign posters, the one in which he was staring off into the horizon, a confident, slightly crooked smile on his face, looking every bit the intrepid leader. Near the exit was a large glass window with a sliding partition set into it. Behind it sat a receptionist and other office staff in small cubicles, but they paid him no attention.

  Benson swiped DeSoto’s identity card in the reader next to the exit door. A red light flashed on the reader. Covering the blinking light with his hand, he tried again, flipping the card around. To his considerable relief, the lock released with a soft click. He casually walked out as if he were going for a smoke. He found himself in the same bleak and imposing courtyard from which he had first encountered this depraved, criminal institution from the backseat of a squad car months before.

  Walking to the outer gate, he spotted a metal door with a card reader mounted near the handle and made for it.

  “Hey buddy!”

  The rough voice shook him deeply. He swiped his card in the reader, but nothing happened.

  “Hey you! Yeah, you! Wha’ do you think ya doin’?”

  He froze. A guard in a glass booth at the gate’s entrance was speaking to him through a microphone mounted in the window. Benson again swiped his card and pulled the handle down, the same way he had done it inside the building. It wouldn’t budge. Alarmed, he tried yet again, with the same result.

  “You must be new aroun’ here,” the guard said. “Turn the card aroun’ an’ pull up on the handle,” indicating the correct motion with his hand.

  “Hey buddy, your shift already over?”

  Benson nodded but didn’t look at the man.

  “You’re probably tired, aren’t ya? Well, I’m sure as hell tired a’ sittin’ aroun’ all day, I’ll tell ya that. I can hardly wait till break. What a time I’m havin’ here.”

  Benson said nothing, not wanting to engage. He did as the guard had instructed, and the gate ope
ned.

  “You all set? You goin’ home?” the guard inquired. He would not be ignored.

  “Home, sweet home,” Benson said.

  He hustled away from the guard’s booth until he was out of sight. The street was deserted. He threw his hat, tie, and jacket behind some bushes, disrobing as he went. He ripped off the epaulets and badges on his prison guard’s shirt, taking care not to tear the thin fabric, then rolled up the sleeves and untucked his shirt for a more casual look. He came to a major intersection where he quickly blended in with the pedestrians and bustling traffic.

  His senses were assaulted by the cool autumn breeze, by the trees shedding their brilliant red and gold leaves, by the sounds of people and cars and buses. The sun shone weakly, gently warming his face. He felt exhilarated and free.

  He passed a metal utility pole studded with loudspeakers and Biometric Optical Surveillance System cameras pointed in different directions. One of the cameras had been shot up, the wreckage still mounted to the pole. Moving independently, the four remaining cameras were distinct in size and appearance, two of them equipped with high-intensity lamps for night vision. Benson kept his head down. The other pedestrians appeared to go about their business as if the things weren’t there.

  “You there in the gray shirt!”

  The loudspeakers on the pole started blaring, startling people on the sidewalk, freezing them in their tracks. Benson’s heart skipped a beat.

  His shirt was a light gray.

  He picked up his pace, looking for an alley or some other means of quick escape.

  “Yes, you over there!”

  Benson ran for it, even if meant attracting attention. He would not be taken prisoner again. He was armed and would fight to the death if cornered. He had run only a few steps when the loudspeakers blared again.

  “Pick up your trash and deposit it in the receptacle on your left. Thank you for your compliance.”

  A woman had tossed a cigarette butt on the road. She looked around and located the source of the broadcast, staring with disbelief at the pole while doing as she was told. Benson slowed his gait to a relaxed stride.