The Midnight House jw-4

by Alex Berenson

  “A real crazy,” Wells said.

  “Outside the hospital, she was funny. Smarter than I was. I guess we were never really partners, and maybe I should have minded, but I didn’t. My whole life, people been telling me what to do, and it never bothered me.”

  “Rachel say what happened over in Poland?”

  “Around the edges. She told me she thought that Murphy and the colonel were skimming. And something bad happened at the end. But I didn’t know what. She never said.”

  “Then she sent you to Phoenix. Did you know what she planned to do?”

  “I wasn’t sure.” Callar ducked his head to his shoulder, wiping at the blood trickling down his face. “No, that’s not true. I knew. But I hoped I was wrong. Anyway, like I told you, she never listened to me.”

  “And when you got home, she was dead.”

  “That’s right.”

  “She leave a note?”

  “She said she was sorry. That I’d be better off without her. That she failed.”

  “She say how?”

  “No. ‘I failed.’ That was it. And these twelve numbers. All ten digits long.”

  “Did you know what they were?”

  “I thought they were those ‘prisoner identification numbers.’ She’d mentioned them.”

  “So, you hid the note from the cops,” Shafer said. “And a couple weeks later, you sent the letter accusing Murphy and Terreri of skimming. And for good measure, you accused the squad of torture.”

  “Pretty much. I wanted a real investigation. There were enough details in the letter. I figured someone would have to look into it.”

  “But you were wrong.”

  “I figured somebody would call the house. Ask to talk to her. They didn’t know she was dead at that point. And when they found out, I figured it might make them wonder even more about the letter. But after a couple of months, I realized nobody cared.”

  “You decided on your own action.”

  Callar grinned. Blood dripped off his chin and onto the dark blue blanket beneath him. Wells wondered if the owners of the Budget Motor Inn had chosen the color because it hid bloodstains.

  “Do you remember where you got the idea?”Shafer said.

  “Indeed I do. She had one picture of the squad. Taken close to the end. Except for her, they all looked happy, believe it or not. Smiling, arms around each other. Wearing these cowboy hats. She was off to one side. She was smiling, too, but I knew she was faking it. The way she was holding herself, with her arms folded. I looked at that picture. Looked at it and looked at it. And kept imagining Rachel not being in it. And then I found out that those two Rangers had died in Afghanistan. And I imagined them not being in it, either.” Callar looked at Wells. “Remember that movie Back to the Future, when we were kids?”

  “Sure.”

  “So in that movie, Michael J. Fox, he’s got this picture of his family. And when he goes back to 1950-whatever and messes up the way his mom and dad are supposed to meet, the people in the picture, they start to vanish. Because he’s screwed up his own birth, see? And one day I saw the same thing happening to Rachel and the Rangers in the 673 picture. I mean, I didn’t imagine it. I saw it. I knew what I had to do. I just saw that picture entirely blank. It only seemed right.”

  “You have the photo with you?”

  “In my backpack.”

  Wells rummaged through, found it. The members of 673 stood in front of an anonymous concrete barracks. Everyone but Callar wore cowboy hats. In the center, Murphy and Terreri held up a painted wooden sign that read, “Task Force 673, Stare Kiejkuty: The Midnight House.” Callar was in the group but not of it. Her smile was pained, her face tilted slightly away from the camera, as if she was looking at something the others had missed. A ghost on the edge of the frame.

  “Why not just go after Terreri? Or Terreri and Murphy?”

  “I blamed all of them. I didn’t know exactly who did what, but I knew everybody was dirty. It wasn’t my job to make distinctions.”

  “It was your job to kill them,” Shafer said. “With an assist from whoever killed those Rangers.”

  “That’s right.” Now that he wasn’t talking about Rachel, Callar’s voice was flat, remorseless.

  “What about that posting on the jihadi Web site after Wyly and Fisher were killed? The one that said it was revenge for the way we treat detainees?”

  “I knew at some point you guys would put the murders together. I was hoping to jump in front, misdirect you.”

  “You figured out how to post it in Arabic?”

  “I had time, the last few months. It wasn’t that tough. Lot of cutting and pasting.”

  “The banality of evil,” Shafer said. “We could discuss the morality of collective punishment with you, but there wouldn’t be much point.”

  “No, there wouldn’t.”

  “What about the fact that your wife killed herself?”Wells said. “I don’t like Brant Murphy, either. But he didn’t hurt your wife. And you said she had a breakdown in medical school. Maybe this would have happened no matter what.”

  A growl escaped from Callar’s ruined mouth. “Easy,” Shafer said. Callar tugged at his cuffs. Wells imagined the steel shearing, as if Callar’s anger could bestow superhuman powers. But nothing happened, and finally Callar gave up.

  “Nobody hurt her?”he said. He spat at Wells. Then laughed, a high screech that bounced around the room, wrapping around Wells like a spiderweb of madness. “They broke her. She went there as a doctor. She came back as a torturer. That’s how she saw it. They made her see what she was capable of. Don’t you see, that’s why she posed for that picture? That’s why she saved it. To remind herself that she was no better than anyone else. That she was worse. She was a doctor.”

  “They took her will to live,” Shafer said.

  “That’s right. She had that breakdown fifteen years ago, but she was copacetic for a long time. So, don’t put this on her. Not on her.”

  Wells wondered, Did she know how much you loved her? Though maybe it didn’t matter. Either way, she’d killed herself.

  “Ever done anything like this before, Steve?”Shafer said.

  “Anything like this? You mean, murder? No. This is a first.”

  “You’re a natural.”

  “It’s not that hard. If you can handle a gun. The tough part is not getting caught. Especially in this case, a bunch of different cities. But I was careful. I had money saved up, and Rachel left more. I quit work and figured out where everybody lived, and I cased them out. I drove everywhere, bought different cars in every city, stayed in motels like this. But now that you know it was me, you’ll find the traces.”

  “How come you didn’t start with Terreri and Murphy?”

  “By the time I figured out what I wanted to do, Terreri was over in Afghanistan. And Murphy, I figured if I hit a guy high up in the agency, somebody would put it together. The way I did it, I got a long way before anybody figured out what was happening.”

  “Tell us about the first murder.”

  “That was Karp. He was the easiest. Bad habits. Left him vulnerable.”

  “How’d you get to Jerry?”

  “Lucky for me, he was drinking pretty hard. I set up on the street with a twelve-pack around the corner from that bar he liked. Took a couple days, but sure enough he came by. I asked him if he wanted a beer. I’d met him in the bar, so his guard was down. He had about five. I offered to drive him home. I’d bought this old Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows. He got in the front and I went in back and blew off his head. Drove the body out to the swamp and dumped him.”

  Wells stood, looked around the room for something sharp, something heavy.

  “Please do,” Callar said. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

  “Sit down, John.” Shafer patted his arm. “Sit.”

  Wells sat.

  “But you didn’t think it through,” Shafer said. “You left the CO and the XO. And now they’re defended.”

  “I would
have gotten to Murphy if you hadn’t found me.” Callar lay on his back, spoke to the ceiling. “Any more questions, gents? Or is this where you call those FBI cyborgs and turn me in?”

  “You’re sure you don’t know what happened at the end over there? Or the specific intel they got?”

  “You’re going to have to ask Murphy and the colonel.” Callar sat up again. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to uncuff me, give me a minute with that Beretta of mine? One round would do. Spare us all the indignity of a trial.”

  “Maybe we need some indignity,” Wells said.

  Shafer stood. “Maybe. Step into my office, Mr. Wells.”

  UNDER THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTS of the bathroom, Shafer outlined his plan.

  “You’re insane,” Wells said.

  “Then let’s call the FBI, be done with it. Like we should have already. Whitby will drop Callar in some rathole and that’ll be the end of it. We’ll never know what happened in Poland. We’ll have no leverage at all. This is our best shot.”

  “Duto didn’t ask us to figure out what happened over there, Ellis. He asked us to figure out who was killing the squad. Which we have.”

  “Somebody needs to know who those detainees were, what happened to them. If only to tell their families. Somebody needs to find out what was going on at the Midnight House. What we did. Even if there aren’t going to be any trials.”

  “What if Murphy won’t bite? Would you really go through with it?”

  The look in Shafer’s eyes was answer enough.

  AN HOUR LATER, Wells parked his Subaru in the driveway of the vacant house in Kings Park West where he had spotted Callar’s Tercel. He unholstered his pistol, tucked it under the seat.

  He walked down the driveway and along the road toward Brant Murphy’s house. He was wearing only a T-shirt and jeans and holding his hands at his shoulders. As he reached the property line of the house, still fifty feet from the front door, a spotlight from the van caught him. He stopped walking, raised his arms over his head. The guards stepped out of the van, hands on their holsters.

  “John Wells?”

  “Yes.”

  “Down on the pavement.”

  Wells dropped to his knees. The guard stepped closer.

  “Lie down.”

  “I need to talk to Brant.”

  “Lie down, Mr. Wells. That’s an order.”

  Wells lay down, prone, arms above his head like he was a kid playing at Superman. He was tired of having strangers point guns at him. But then nobody had made him come over here.

  The guard stopped six feet away. He had shiny black eyes and a long narrow chin and a halo from the spotlight behind him. He reminded Wells of a Jesuit priest in a seventeenth-century Spanish painting.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I need to talk to Brant.”

  “I’m afraid that’s impossible.”

  “I’ve got no gun,” Wells said. “If I’d wanted to hurt him, believe me, this isn’t how I’d go about it. I’ve got a message for him, and it’s urgent. Frisk me and tell him I’m here to see him. Please.”

  The guard glanced up at the house. “Stand up and raise your shirt.” Wells did. “Over to the van. Slowly. When you get there, put your hands against the passenger door.”

  At the van, the guard frisked Wells, slowly and expertly, squeezing his legs, working down from thigh to ankle and then back up. Wells hoped the guard wouldn’t go too high. He was still throbbing from Callar’s knee.

  “Sit down.”

  “Tell him his life is at risk,” Wells said. “And that he shouldn’t call anyone until he talks to me.”

  The guard walked up the driveway.

  TWO MINUTES LATER, Murphy emerged, holding a flashlight. The guard stood beside him, his pistol trained on Wells’s chest.

  “I should have you brought in right now,” Murphy said.

  “Good news. Shafer and I, we know who’s after you.”

  “Prove it.”

  “Give me five minutes.”

  “Come on, then.” Murphy stepped back up the driveway.

  “It’s better if we do this outside.”

  They walked side by side down the empty street, the van trailing, in what was without doubt the strangest meeting ever held in Kings Park West.

  “What happened to your face?” Murphy said.

  “The guy, the killer, he’s in custody. Not far from here.”

  “You’re full of shit, John.”

  “I’m completely serious.”

  “How come I haven’t heard, then? When was he arrested?” Murphy stopped, put a hand on Wells’s arm. “Who has him in custody?”

  “At the moment, Ellis Shafer.”

  “You personally found the killer.”

  “Ellis and I, tonight, yes.”

  “And have him.”

  “Ellis does. The guy was casing your house. You were next on the list.”

  “You are going to be very sorry you woke me up at two thirty in the morning for this.”

  “Look at me.” Wells waited until he had Murphy’s attention. “It’s no joke. So, the good news, we have him. There’s bad news, too. The bad news is this is very personal for him, and he’s willing to die. And you, Poland was as close as you ever got to the front lines, so you don’t know what it’s like, that mind-set. But I’m telling you that a man who’s willing to die is unstoppable. Especially if he’s patient. I mean, if you’re the President and you have an unlimited budget and a thousand Secret Service officers and you never go anywhere that hasn’t been vetted first, maybe you have a chance. But you’re not the President, Brant. This is all the protection you’re going to get. In a year or two, you’ll have less. The agency’ll take it away bit by bit. It’s expensive. People forget. But this guy, he won’t forget. He’ll wait and wait. Then he’ll hit you. I wouldn’t bet against him.”

  “I’m calling Whitby right now. Have you brought in.”

  “Sure. Only one problem.” They were at the crux. “You do that, Shafer’s gonna let him go.”

  “You wouldn’t.” Murphy grabbed Wells’s arm, leaned in close. He looked around, side to side, his eyes darting, as if the killer might even now be lurking behind a tree or under a car.

  Behind them, the van stopped. The Jesuit guard opened his door. “There a problem, Mr. Murphy?”

  “No problem,” Murphy said. He hissed at Wells, “You’d let him go? Knowing that he’s killed Americans? Soldiers? Our operatives? You’ll be an accessory to murder, spend the rest of your life in jail. You’ll—”

  “Shafer can’t help it if this guy overpowers him.”

  “I’ll tell everyone what you said.”

  “And I’ll deny it.”

  Murphy stopped. The only sound was the low grumble of the Ford’s engine.

  “So let him go. We’ll find him. The FBI—”

  “Hasn’t had much luck so far.”

  “This is gutless,” Murphy said. “You’re gutless. Hiding behind this man. You want to threaten me, threaten me yourself. Not this.”

  The words stung. Wells had never been called gutless before. And he’d never had cause to think of himself that way. But tonight he did. Because Murphy was right. Wells should never have let Shafer use Callar this way.

  But Wells had come too far to back off now.

  “I guess I must not like you much,” Wells said.

  Murphy rubbed his face and squeezed his eyes shut. He opened them, as if he hoped to find himself back in his bed, this nightmare over. But Wells stood in front of him. “Just tell me what you want,” he said.

  “The truth. About the missing detainees. About what happened at the Midnight House. Ten days ago, Whitby showed us this incredible intel. The location of every nuclear weapon in Pakistan. That’s a coup. He said it came from you, from your squad. So, how come no one will give us a straight answer about what happened over there? How come the IG’s investigation got zapped? How come Jerry Williams’s wife says he wasn’t the same after he got
back?”

  “That’s all.”

  “That is all. No notes, no tapes. Just the truth. Then we hand this guy over for whatever justice the people of the United States of America see fit to dispense.”

  “Even if I tell you, it won’t do you any good.”

  “Maybe it’ll do you some good, Brant. Maybe it’ll set you free.”

  “You’re quoting me the lobby?” When the original CIA headquarters was completed in 1961, the chief at the time, Allen Dulles, had inscribed a proverb on a wall in the lobby, John 8:23. “Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”

  “Look, you must have killed them, those two detainees, otherwise you wouldn’t have paid D’Angelo to zap their records. That was a big mistake, and you knew it was risky, but you did it anyway. And the only explanation is that you had to have them gone because they were dead. So, why don’t you just come clean? I swear, Brant, I’m not wearing a wire. Your guys frisked me.”

  “You think that’s what happened? You think we killed our prisoners. Got what we needed from them and disposed of them. War crimes.”

  “Maybe it was an accident.”

  “You know what, John? I’m gonna tell you after all. Outside of Whitby and Terreri and me, you’ll be the only one who knows the truth. And then you can decide who to blame.”

  27

  STARE KIEJKUTY. SEPTEMBER 2008

  By the time Rachel Callar walked into Terreri’s office, the rest of the squad was there. The room stank of cigar smoke. Eight men, eight cigars. Even Jerry Williams, normally a health nut, was puffing away.

  “Major.”

  “Colonel. I see you have a fire drill planned.”

  “A pleasure as always,” Terreri said, waving his cigar at her. “Can I offer you one?” He nodded at the wooden box on his desk. “Cubans. From this store in Warsaw. I’m picking up a few dozen before we go home.”

  “Congratulations. Who’s watching Jawaruddin and Mohammed? ”

  “Fatty and crazy aren’t going anywhere,” Murphy said. “We figured they could use some time alone.”

  Callar knew Murphy wanted to rile her. Yet she could hardly resist the bait, putting a finger in his chest and telling him to shut up, that those were human beings downstairs and she didn’t care if Jawaruddin had given them the keys to Fort Knox and Osama bin Laden, too, and—