Peter held up his hand in a placating gesture and said, “Calm down, let’s think about this for a moment. Has there been any major damage to the building or surrounding structures?”
“What? No!” Jake said.
“Have the police or media been alerted to the situation?”
“No.”
“Has the lab and any of the equipment been damaged?”
“I haven’t had time to do any diagnostics on the equipment and I’m not going to do them now. We’re wasting time!”
Peter nodded. “All right—we’ll all go to the hospital, but we need to be back here in ninety minutes.”
Jake looked at Teri and Maddy and said, “Fine, we can do that.”
“Good,” Peter said. “I’ll drive.”
Teri looked at Jake and said, “I’m not riding with him. I don’t trust him.”
“You don’t have a choice, Miss Newton,” Peter said. “Either we all stay here, or we all go to the hospital. I cannot allow you to be separated from the group.”
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Teri said. “If I don’t want to go, I won’t.”
Peter became very quiet.
“I’ve offered you three what I considered an amicable solution to our problems. You want to take care of your client. I’m required to keep you under wraps. You three can either choose to do it my way or you can be forced to do it my way.” Peter put on his best smile. “Choose now.”
“It doesn’t sound like much of a choice,” Teri said.
“Stay or go,” Peter said. “I will not offer it again.”
Jake looked at Teri, “It’ll be fine, Teri. He can’t hurt us at the hospital.”
Teri hesitated and then nodded.
“Let’s go,” Jake said.
Peter stepped to the side and gestured for them to lead the way.
St. Vincent’s Medical Center was a sprawling 528 bed hospital complete with two Intensive Care Units, one Cardiac Care Unit, and five Intermediate Intensive Care Units along with Emergency Room, Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, and a large Open Heart Surgery wing.
It took them twenty minutes to find a parking place and the entrance. Another ten minutes were spent locating Frank and then making the trek to the Cardiac Care Unit on the third floor.
Since the Unit only permitted two visitors at a time, Jake and Maddy were the only ones allowed in to see Frank. Teri sat fuming in the waiting area with Peter after she lost the argument to go in. Peter heard her call him the Dickhead during the heated conversation.
“Teri,” Peter said when they were alone, “I enjoyed our sessions together back when I was a test subject. Very stimulating having your hands on me while you stuck the leads to my skin.”
She gave him a disgusted look and said, “What are you?”
“I’m just a man.”
“That’s funny, I could’ve sworn you were a pig.”
He chuckled. “So hostile. And you like obscene gestures, too. Not very ladylike.”
Peter enjoyed watching her squirm as she realized he was talking about the hidden camera she had found in the lab.
“No really, what are you? Are you like General Breckenridge’s pet? His little patsy? Too afraid to do anything on your own?”
His hand shot out and grabbed her wrist, twisting it until he saw the pain and fear in her eyes.
“I’m not afraid of anything, especially a conniving little bitch like you. And you don’t want to know what I am.”
He let her go, but continued glaring at her. He watched her rub her wrist and the fear stayed in her eyes. That ought to shut her up, he thought.
They sat in silence for a few more minutes and then Jake and Maddy walked out of the CCU and headed their way. Jake looked like he’d seen a ghost and Maddy kept glancing over at him like she was worried he would bolt and run. This ought to be good, Peter thought.
“How is he?” Teri asked.
Jake still looked dazed but said, “Not good. He’s on a ventilator and his blood pressure keeps bottoming out.”
“Did something happen while you were in there?” Teri asked.
Jake nodded and then looked at Maddy.
Maddy said, “The nurse told us he had been unresponsive and his pupils were fixed and dilated, which she said meant his brain was not functioning. When we first walked in, his eyes were wide open but staring at nothing. One eye even looked in a different direction than the other.”
“He looked empty,” Jake said. “Like a shell with nothing inside.”
He paused and looked around uncomfortably. Peter could tell there was something else he wanted to say.
“And?” Teri asked.
“And then he looked straight at me,” Jake said. “His eyes focused and turned to me—and they looked angry. They seemed to bore right through me. His lips moved, but because he was on the ventilator, I couldn’t tell what he was saying. It didn’t look nice. I turned to the nurse who was making some adjustment to his I.V. and said, ‘He seems awake now,’ but when I turned back to Frank, his eyes were vacant again and his mouth slack. The shell had returned. I thought I had imagined it, but Maddy said she saw it too.”
“The nurse thought we were grasping,” Maddy said, “and said he didn’t look any different than when he came in.”
Peter laughed and said, “You people are amazing. Is Freddie Kruger going to pop out of one of these rooms and attack us with his finger knives? Or maybe aliens from another planet? Come on. We need to get back to the lab before the General gets there.”
They rode in silence and Peter was thankful. They had run into Frank’s wife as they were leaving and Jake spent a few minutes talking with her. Peter didn’t hear what was said, but he could see it was a very tense conversation. She was crying when they left. Peter really didn’t want to hear anything about it, so the silence in the car was golden.
Arriving back at the lab, Jake, Teri, and Maddy busied themselves with some menial tasks as they awaited the arrival of the General. Peter sat and watched. He couldn’t believe he had wasted his time in this place, playing ‘Peter Vargas,’ Desert Storm veteran and Near Death Experience survivor. What a crock. He was having a hard time believing these clowns were going to provide the General and The Organization with anything remotely useable.
The General arrived alone, and Maddy buzzed him in through the front entrance. Peter strode over and briefed him on all that had transpired since the incident.
“So—no police or media?” the General asked.
“No. Just the ambulance and no one seemed to be paying attention or caring.”
“All right. Good. I need to speak with Dr. Townsend for a few minutes. Keep everyone here until I say so, got it?”
“Yes sir.”
The General took Jake into his office and Peter resumed his position reclining in a chair.
After fifteen minutes, the General and Jake came out of his office and went straight to the computer console where Jake booted up the system and loaded a file.
The General watched for a few minutes and said, “Everything? Every scrap of memory however small or trivial?”
“Yes, sir,” Jake said. “At least up to the time of their Near Death Experience.”
The General thought for a moment and said, “How long will it take the computer to prepare a database of the information?”
“It averaged an hour for every fifteen years, but that’s a preliminary estimate. We haven’t had a chance to have Andee crunch the numbers on more than a few files. It could be more or less, depending upon the individual.”
Peter watched as the General smiled, something Peter had never seen him do.
The system continued to play back the video and something caught Peter’s eye. He stood slowly, mesmerized, and walked toward the console. He interrupted the conversation.
“Play that back,” Peter said.
“What?” Jake asked.
“Rewind it. Play that part back.”
“Smith, we’re busy here,” the General
said.
Peter ignored him. “Play it back. Now!”
Jake shrugged. “All right.” He pressed a few buttons and the sequence Peter first saw started over again. He watched, enthralled.
“I remember this,” Jake said. “During Mr. Lucas’s testing, this part of the review slowed all on its own. It was strange. It must be something very important in his life.”
Peter watched, and when the dead man’s eyes were shown as Frank stabbed him in the throat, he sat down, hard.
“Sonofabitch,” he whispered.
“What is it?” Jake asked.
Peter sat, stunned. He would never have believed it. Ever.
“Smith!” The General yelled. “What’s gotten into you? We don’t have time for this!”
Peter snapped back to the present and stood.
“Yes, sir! Sorry, sir. I thought I saw something, but I was mistaken.”
“Keep working Dr. Townsend,” The General said, “I’ll be in touch.”
The General marched toward the exit.
“Whose Near Death Experience is this?” Peter asked Jake when the General was out of earshot.
“It’s our latest subject. Frank Lucas. Why?”
“Just curious.”
“Smith!” The General yelled. “Move out. You’re with me,” and he strode out through the main entrance.
“What the hell,” Peter whispered to himself as he hurried after the General, leaving Jake and the lab behind.
41
January 18, 2010 – 3:00 p.m.
Orange Park, Florida
Jake sat at the console and put his face in his hands.
The pace of the last eight days was taking its toll on him and he badly needed rest. Maddy walked over and placed a hand on his shoulder. He looked up and smiled.
“Are you ok?” she asked.
He nodded. “Just tired. How are you holding up?”
She slid onto his lap, wrapped her arms around his shoulders and rested her head against his. “Better, now.”
She felt good to him despite the fact his body ached all over.
“I could really use a nap,” he said.
“Mmm—sounds good,” she said, running her fingers along the back of his neck and in his hair.
He laughed. “You know, even as tired as I am, you can get me going. I’ll make a deal with you,” he said.
“What?”
“Let me finish running these diagnostics and we’ll close up early and head to my place.”
“You sure you don’t want me right now?” she said, straddling him in the chair and wiggling against him. “Teri’s gone.”
He kissed her softly and said, “If you don’t mind performing for the hidden cameras, let’s go.”
She stopped, then giggled leaning against him, “Shoot! I forgot about those. Ok—finish up. Can I help?”
“Sure—stay right here on my lap and that will help me a lot.”
She turned and sat across his lap again and he pressed a few keys initiating a diagnostic program on Andee. The computer worked for thirty seconds or so and the results showed everything working properly.
“I need to check the video file of Frank that we got today, and then we can go.”
She rested her head on his shoulder and hummed an acknowledgement.
Jake started the video and it played for a bit without any surprises. He was relieved. His concern that the events of the morning may have damaged some of the components of the computer system was unfounded. He let it run a little longer and was about to hit stop when the video changed.
As Frank’s NDE was ending, static appeared and the sound became distorted. The whole file seemed to stutter, like someone was trying to tune in a channel on an old TV or shortwave. Suddenly it cleared up and a view of the lab appeared with Frank in the chair, the body mold over him. Jake sat forward and Maddy lifted her head off of his shoulder.
“What happened?” Maddy asked.
“This is different,” Jake said.
As they watched, the events of the morning unfolded again in front of them with the hole opening over Frank. Paper whirled around the lab and a chair was sucked into the cavity. Suddenly, Frank sat up, looked toward the camera view, got to his feet and walked closer to whatever was filming the video. As he approached, he looked very angry. He glared straight into the camera but pointed at the hole over the chair.
“Stop! Jake!” Frank said, “The balance must be restored!”
Jake flinched as if he’d been struck.
As they both watched, fear spread across Frank’s face and his features started to smear. It was like his visage was made up of sand and the separate grains were being blown or sucked toward the chair. The upper half of his body leaned toward the gaping hole and tendrils of sand led away from him into the opening over the chair. The features of his face became unrecognizable as the vortex pulled particles of Frank toward it.
In the video, Jake was reaching for the abort button and both he and Maddy, watching this, shouted “No!” but of course the Jake in the video couldn’t be stopped. As the button was pushed, the opening over the chair snapped shut, the paper and office chair spewing out from it, but the part of Frank that had been sucked in was not ejected like the smashed chair.
The remaining part of Frank that was still on the lab side of the opening stuttered and then fell to the floor like so many grains of sand. Nothing was left to hold him together. A very faint wailing could be heard that faded away to nothingness. The playback stopped.
42
January 18, 2010 4:40 p.m.
Orlando, Florida
Peter stood on the other side of General Breckenridge’s desk.
The General spoke, but Peter was trying to absorb what he had just finished telling him.
“…we’ll fly him in tomorrow. I’ll want you there to escort him to Orange Park,” The General said. “Soldier! Are you listening!?”
Peter’s attention snapped back to the General and he said, “Yes sir! Sorry, sir! I’ll escort the prisoner to Orange Park tomorrow.”
“Very good. I’ll have Colonel Davis give you the itinerary.”
Peter paused and then said, “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
The General eyed him and Peter thought he would deny the request, but The General said, “Permission granted.”
“Sir, I’m not at all comfortable with all this—uh—supernatural stuff and it surprises me that you would buy into it. The prisoner is quite valuable and I don’t see how any of this will benefit us.”
“If you had been paying attention, you would know how. Our usual tactics are not working. This prisoner holds considerable information and we now have a means of obtaining it.”
“But sir, if I understood correctly, these files that Jake Townsend showed you, I don’t have any hard evidence they are genuine. He could have manufactured the video to keep you off of his back.”
“Well, if you had better intel like I wanted, we wouldn’t be having this conversation would we? We’ll find out tomorrow if Townsend is telling the truth or not. Personally, I think he is. Dismissed.”
Peter came to attention, saluted and exited the office.
As he made his way to his room, he couldn’t help but wonder if all he had gone through, ten months earlier in Afghanistan, would be wasted in one swift day. The memory of the mission was still fresh in his mind.
After being inserted into Kandahar from the air, he had met with a local who would assist him with the mission. Forook Bandahar had been somewhat less than Peter was used to, but it had all turned out. Peter still wondered if the man had survived afterward.
After surprising him in the dark as Forook waited across from the Taliban safe house, Forook scolded him for being late. “You are late,” he said. “I was about to leave.”
Peter said nothing.
“Our mutual friend is a half a kilometer north of here,” Forook said. “We must hurry if we are to prevent him from soiling the girl.”
The ‘
mutual friend’ was Qayum Omar, a particularly gruesome Al Qaida operative utilizing the local Taliban insurgents as his personal body guards. He normally stayed at the safe house across the street, but because of his fondness for young girls, was currently at another location close by. The girl Forook spoke of was his cousin’s fifteen year old daughter.
Peter nodded and pointed north indicating Forook was to lead.
They headed out through the streets and shortly arrived at a secluded house set back off the main path. A single window was illuminated by a weak light from a candle or lantern. A man stood guard at the front entrance to the house. They crouched behind a low wall across the path and waited.
Peter watched as the single guard smoked a cigarette and stared into the night, bored. As Peter assessed the situation, Forook sniffled loudly next to him and shuffled his feet. Peter’s noisy guide smelled, and he would be glad to be rid of him.
“Is there anyone else in the house besides our friend and the girl,” Peter whispered.
“No,” Forook said, “they are alone. Please hurry. He will do horrible things to her and I fear he has already been in with her too long.”
Peter nodded. “Remain here. Stay quiet and out of sight.”
“Yes. I will wait.”
Peter worked his way along the low wall to the south and crossed the path out of sight of the guard and the door. He crept around the back of the house and came up behind the guard quietly. Peter needed to dispatch this man silently, if he alerted Omar inside, things would get messy.
His favorite stealth method involved using his knife to sever the spinal column just below the base of the skull. But with the robes and headdress the Taliban soldier wore, his anatomy was not immediately visible and Peter couldn’t risk misjudging the entry point of the knife possibly missing the spinal nerve altogether. He quickly and silently moved to within arm’s length of the man and grabbed his robe at the neck, yanking him backwards causing him to lose his balance.
As the human body begins to fall backwards, the head has a tendency to move forward in anticipation of a strike to the back of the skull upon landing. Peter used this reflex and forced the man’s head further forward in a quick jabbing motion and then twisted it violently to the right. Performed correctly and with enough strength, the vertebrae will snap at the base of the skull and cause instant death.
Near Death (A Jake Townsend Science Fiction, Action and Adventure, Thriller Series Book 1) Page 16
