Dead Man's Switch

by Sigmund Brouwer

  King sat on the edge of the bed on the wall that was at a right angle to Blake. He waited for Blake to compose himself.

  It took a few minutes. King was okay with that. Evans had promised he wasn’t going to open the door until King knocked.

  Blake finally lifted his head and made eye contact with King. His face was pale, and he looked shrunken. His eyes were red. Tears streamed down along his nose and joined long strings of mucus.

  “Dude, I was so worried for you,” Blake said. “Murdoch told me if I didn’t get him the computer passwords, he’d take you and MJ down.”

  “That’s a lot of snot,” King said. “Sink and faucet in here work, right?”

  Blake laughed.

  King took that as a good sign.

  King waited while Blake washed his face. Blake looked marginally better as the water dried.

  “You ready for a question?” King asked. “Before the door opens for us?”

  “Just one?”

  “A guy named Evans is outside. He’s CIA. He’ll have plenty of questions for you. But I only need to know one thing. And I want the truth. You owe it to me.”

  “King, I didn’t know who else to send those emails to. I mean, you’re the only one I figured who had the brains and guts to do what it took.”

  “One question,” King said. To King, it was the only question that mattered. “Did you put the money in my dad’s bank account?”

  CHAPTER 52

  “It’s the money that did this,” Blake said. He wiped at his nose with the sleeve of his con uniform. “First, it’s how I began to track things. It was such an easy hack, getting into the prison servers. I used the iPhone to access my own PayPal account and pay a no-contract carrier for the cell phone data. Then I ordered myself a computer. Once I had the computer, I used the iPhone to get Internet access. When I started hacking around, I found that Murdoch had millions in offshore accounts.”

  “I know all of that,” King said. “I want to know why my dad has a quarter million in his savings account.”

  “I found the money first,” Blake said. “Murdoch’s money. I began to wonder how he got it, and that led to everything else. I was safe until I moved some of the money to different accounts. I just wanted to mess with him. That’s how he caught me. When he noticed the money missing, he hired a hacker to trace me. I had covered nearly all my tracks but not enough. I was only worried about government computer geeks. They’re idiots. I didn’t expect Murdoch to go on the forums and find the best of the best.”

  Blake trembled, something that shook his entire body. “He promised he was going to let me go as soon as I returned the money. I didn’t believe him. Here’s the funny thing. I set up the dead man’s switch to use as a safeguard, but at first, I didn’t even have to use that on Murdoch to stay alive. Instead, I found out he couldn’t kill me until he got his money back.”

  Blake lifted his sleeve, and King saw small circular blisters on Blake’s arm.

  “I held out as long as I could,” Blake said. “And finally, when he said he was going to hurt my parents and then my friends, I told him about the money. As soon as he recovered it, he began to tie me up to take me outside. He told me that was all he needed before leaving the island, that he’d been getting ready to live a new life somewhere in South America. To stay alive longer, I told him about the dead man’s switch. I told him if he didn’t keep me alive, a two-week switch would be triggered. I didn’t tell him it had already been triggered.”

  “When did you tell him about the dead man’s switch?” King asked.

  “A couple nights ago. I think. It’s hard to keep track of time in here.”

  That made sense to King. After that, Murdoch had begun watching King and MJ more closely. They were Blake’s friends, the ones Blake would probably use for help. And when King entered the abandoned prison at night, it was confirmed for Murdoch. King shuddered at the memory of sitting in the back of the Jeep with Mack up front. Mack knew something bad would happen if he allowed Murdoch to take King. And King had nearly chosen Murdoch over his own father.

  “All I want to know about is the money in my dad’s account,” King said.

  “I had to lie to you,” Blake said. “I knew that all along as I was setting up the dead man’s switch. That if I didn’t lie to you and give you a good enough reason to keep looking for answers, I wouldn’t have a chance. And I knew you and your dad were tight. I knew that about the only way I could motivate you was by threatening your dad. Dude, to me it was a game. Until it became real. If I had known that someday I’d actually need the dead man’s switch, I wouldn’t have involved you.”

  “I understand,” King said. “Really.”

  King had lied to MJ to get him to help. It was no different from what Blake had done. And King wasn’t sure he would have endured cigarette burns as long as Blake had endured them, keeping King’s involvement secret as long as possible.

  Blake’s face didn’t show belief that King was cool with it.

  “Blake,” King said, “you have blister circles up and down your arms because you were trying to protect me and MJ and your family. I don’t know if I would have had that courage.”

  Blake gave a small smile.

  “What I really care about,” King said, “is the money in my dad’s bank account. Was it you?”

  “I faked the surveillance footage. Made your dad look guilty.”

  King took a deep, satisfied breath. It felt like the first time, really, he’d been able to breathe since the night in the old prison, seeing that surveillance footage. And the bank account.

  “The money.”

  “You know the answer,” Blake said. “I just put it there so you’d think you had to protect your dad by searching for me until you got here.”

  CHAPTER 53

  Ella’s iPhone buzzed in King’s pocket.

  He was in the hospital room with Mack, waiting for a report from Ella’s physician. King glanced at the screen and saw that it was a FaceTime request from Johnson.

  “Be right back,” King said to Mack.

  Mack nodded. He was at the bed, holding Ella’s hand.

  King connected the call and stepped into the hallway.

  “Kinger,” MJ said, his grin filling the screen.

  “MJ. You okay?”

  “Let me think. CIA lets us do a three-way split on the funds Watt had moved from Murdoch into your dad’s account as long as we promise to use the money for university. Hmmm. Yeah, I’m okay.”

  Since busting Blake from the cell, Evans had arranged for a military jet to bring Blake’s parents back to Joint Base Lewis-McChord. Joyful reunion was an understatement.

  The base was also where Evans had taken King, Mack, MJ, and MJ’s parents for an intense debriefing that had lasted long into the evening. Evans had done the carrot and stick routine. He’d outlined the dangers of going public about the CIA military exercises on the island, and he made the deal about the funds that Mack had no idea were in the bank account hidden in his Vacations folders in his emails.

  “How about you?” MJ asked. “Your mom. Any news?”

  “Waiting right now,” King said.

  The background of the FaceTime call showed that MJ was likely in one of the drab rooms where enlisted men bunked.

  “So why’d you text me to call?” MJ asked. “I thought this chat would be about your mom.”

  Confession time.

  “Last night,” King said, “Evans was so intense, I never found the time to tell you something I needed to tell you.”

  MJ grinned. “Like you lied to me about how if I didn’t help you, my dad would be exposed for some horrible crime? Come on, think I couldn’t figure that out last night as we put the pieces together for Evans?”

  “You don’t look mad,” King said. “I feel horrible about this. We’re best friends. I lied to you.”

  “We’re cool,” MJ said. He did stop smiling though. “I mean, to protect my dad, I would have done the same if I were you. And if you w
ant the truth, I was kind of hoping I’d be able to prove my dad was doing something wrong, and I feel guilty about it.”

  King’s turn. “Huh?”

  “We’ve been fighting like crazy. He’s always yelling at me, trying to tell me what to do. Everything. Manners at the dinner table. When to do my homework. How to do my homework. Then a few minutes ago, I realized something about him that made me feel worse than you might feel for lying to me.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Dad really majors in the minors,” MJ said. “Nitpicks all the time. But I didn’t realize that when it came to something big, he minors in the majors.”

  MJ grinned again. “When the CIA showed up and started to explain that somehow I was involved in this, I thought my dad would go crazy on me. I mean, if chewing with your mouth open at the table gets criticism, how about doing something that brings in the CIA?”

  MJ’s grin widened. “Just the opposite. Dad put his arm around my shoulder and said that no matter what, he had my back. That the CIA was going to get some serious hurt if they tried messing with me. Cool, huh? I love that guy.”

  “I know the feeling,” King said.

  MJ pulled the phone farther back so that King could see that MJ was holding out his knuckle again for a fist bump.

  “Air bump, dude,” MJ said.

  “MJ, no. That’s so grade school.” MJ loved to bump knuckles, complete with the starburst.

  “Kinger, last one, I promise.”

  MJ always said that.

  King pushed the iPhone away so that he and MJ could bump knuckles by video, and sure enough, out came the wriggly finger star dust as MJ pulled his hand away after contact.

  So the two of them were good, and King had his confession out of the way.

  All that remained now was figuring out if Ella would ever come out of the coma.

  Mack and King stood when Dr. Jennifer Brennan entered the room. She was frowning. King didn’t like that.

  Dr. Brennan had short hair, brown with frosted blonde streaks. She wore the hospital standards and had a stethoscope hanging around her neck. She had a clipboard and frowned again as she looked at it and then looked up at Mack and King.

  She didn’t waste time on any pleasantries.

  “What we’ve found,” she said, “is that yes, there are traces of illegal pharmaceuticals in your mother’s blood, matching the traces found in the IV bag.”

  She glanced up from the clipboard. “I promise you we will investigate this thoroughly, and I suspect that means the end of the career of one of my colleagues. I’ve been instructed to inform you that the hospital had nothing to do with this, and any legal action should be directed against your mother’s attending physician.”

  King felt his heart bump. In a good way. Brennan’s frown was a selfish frown. Brennan’s first concern had been politics. Could it be that King’s guess about Jerome had been correct?

  “Look,” Mack said. “Right now would be a good time for you to talk to us about Ella, not about whatever you’re trying to do to cover your collective hind ends.”

  That got through.

  Brennan looked directly at Mack, bowed her head, and then lifted it again.

  She shook her head and gave them a wry grin, and then she blew out a breath. “You know, sometimes I need a sharp reminder like that. I apologize. And I have good news.”

  King felt his heart bump again. If Jerome had been working for Murdoch, and if Murdoch had been using Ella’s coma as leverage against Mack until Murdoch could make an escape to South America...

  “Mr. King,” Brennan said. “The blood tests show that yes, your wife has been artificially maintained in a coma. What I’d like to know is how you came to this conclusion.”

  No way were Mack and King permitted to divulge this. Not by the confidentiality agreement signed for the CIA.

  “Desperation,” Mack said. “How long?”

  “Till the drugs in her system wear off?” Brennan said. She smiled again, and it took years off her face. “I’d suggest both of you sit by the bed and wait. It could be any minute now. Do me a favor and send a nurse for me when it happens. We’ll need to run some tests, but once she wakes up, your wife can be released from the hospital.”

  That’s when King heard two words that brought tears to his eyes.

  “Mack?” Ella said. “King?”

  They were family again.

  END NOTES

  Yes. There is a game called Dead Man’s Switch. Yes, it does involve prisoners hunting government operatives as a real-life training exercise. Go to www.deadmans-switch.com to learn more.

  Yes. McNeil Island is real. So is the location, in Puget Sound, just west of Seattle-Tacoma. So is the prison on the island. The original prison was opened in 1875 and closed in 2011, and the abandoned prison remains. The houses on the island exist as described. As does the reservoir in the center of the island.

  The only families there are families of prison employees. The island has no ferry service, no police force, no stores. Three-quarters of the island is wildlife refuge. It is the only prison island still in existence in the United States.

  Although some fictional changes have been made in this novel, as of the writing of Dead Man’s Switch, some prisoners deemed unfit to be returned to society are still living on the island.

  Yes. Joint Base Lewis-McChord sits just south of Tacoma, a location that gives it easy access to deep water ports, and it has its own airfield. JBLM is also the location for the 201st Battlefield Surveillance Brigade. According to Wikipedia, this BfSB…

  rapidly provides deployable all-source predictive intelligence, electronic warfare intelligence, reconnaissance and surveillance, target acquisition, battle damage assessment, command and control warfare, and broad bandwidth communications support to I Corps. It trains for and prepares to operate in both Joint and Combined environments in support of worldwide contingencies. The brigade concentrates on providing a shared battlefield situational awareness, and ensures the direct downlink of national and theater level intelligence through full spectrum operations assets as part of a multi-disciplined intelligence collection, surveillance and reconnaissance unit to an Army Corps or a designated Joint Task Force.1

  Yes. The drug metyrapone exists. It does function to erase short-term traumatic memories. It is still in the experimental stage.

  Yes. There are many websites devoted to the dead man’s switch concept, including www.deadmansswitch.net.

  And yes, of course, the Central Intelligence Agency exists. As does the Special Operations Group.

  The CIA is openly acknowledged as one of the United States’ intelligence-gathering organizations.

  Within the CIA exists the National Clandestine Service (NCS), which is one of the four main components of the CIA and “serves as the clandestine arm of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the national authority for the coordination, de-confliction, and evaluation of clandestine operations across the Intelligence Community of the United States.”2

  NCS is responsible for the Special Activities Division (SAD), which is responsible for covert operations, and within SAD is the more secretive special operations force of the United States, the Special Operations Group.

  The SOG selects operatives from the elite of the elite—from Delta Force, DEVGRU (SEAL Team Six), the 24th Special Tactics Squadron, and other special operations forces from within the US military.

  SOG Paramilitary Operations Officers account for a healthy majority of Distinguished Intelligence Cross and Intelligence Star recipients during any given conflict or incident which elicits CIA involvement…SAD/SOG operatives also account for the majority of the names displayed on the Memorial Wall at CIA headquarters indicating that the agent died while on active duty, most likely during the execution of a covert operation or other high-risk assignment in accordance with the founding principles of Special Activities Division.3

  A 1976 presidential edict makes it illegal for the CIA to engage in political assassinations, but fol
lowing the directives after 9/11, there is debate on the legality of using special forces to hunt terrorists.

  As for the reality of a base where SOG operatives’ skills are honed for real-world operations by the exercise of hunting and being hunted by dangerous humans, some would declare this to be nothing but speculative fiction.

  * * *

  1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/201st_Battlefield_Surveillance_Brigade

  2 https://www.cia.gov/offices-of-cia/clandestine-service/

  3 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Division

  ABOUT THE PUBLISHER

  * * *

  To learn more about Harvest House books and to read sample chapters, visit our website:

  www.harvesthousepublishers.com

  HARVEST HOUSE PUBLISHERS

  EUGENE, OREGON

  * * *