Outside of the Wire

by Richard Farnsworth

  Morales had his pistol out now, confused at seeing the big soldier spray a kid with automatic fire.

  He heard Harden' voice over the radio saying, "My favorite part."

  Holes burned from the inside out as the little body emolliated there on the floor. The burning chemical smell caught in Morales throat more than the cordite.

  Satisfied, Harden turned his attention to Dougherty.

  The agent stood confused, looking to where the BEK had been.

  “He isn’t released so there have to be more,” Harden whispered into the mike.

  Sergeant Douglas disarmed Dougherty and left him unconscious. Morales wanted to say something but it happened so quickly. Douglas dropped the clip from the agent’s carbine, one handed, and tossed the gun toward the stairs. Never leave a loaded weapon unattended.

  The five continued through the little doorway and stayed close to the wall. Old furniture, mildewed boxes of tattered magazines and things not easily identified in the gloom didn¹t slow their steady progress.

  Douglas stopped in front of Morales, while the rest continued, bending to peer into a pile of trash. The soldier stood slack, his weapon pointing at nothing.

  Morales called over the freq, “Soldier, what's wrong.”

  No answer. Morales flinched as Harden fired a quick burst into the trash heap.

  The little monster in there screamed over the echo of the shots and then he saw the burnout between the boxes.

  Douglas shook his head and gave a thumbs-up and mumbled. “Mary had a little lamb…”

  “What?” Morales asked.

  Douglas said, “The mantra interferes with the mind control.”

  All the soldiers repeated it together now. Familiar repetitive words helping to clear the mind as they continued their sweep. Two rooms down.

  Morales went through a low doorway, and bumped into Douglas. All the soldiers stood quiet, weapons lowered.

  The agent started to say something and then he heard the voices.

  “Mary,” someone said on the radio.

  The calm, pleading voices. They just needed help.

  “…had…” someone mumbled.

  A good guy would help these kids. The clatter, as his pistol dropped to the concrete, didn’t even register.

  Three kids stood around him, one talking softly. Morales couldn’t understand what was being said.

  Looking into the bottomless wells of its eyes he saw his son, little Frank in them.

  His son was caught in a gangland crossfire, dead three months now. His son was a drive-by victim because he stood in the wrong place after a little league game, eating an ice cream. But now little Frank was here asking for help.

  “Will it be okay, Poppa?” That’s what little Frank seemed to say.

  “Sure, miho,” Morales said.

  He reached out to hold the little guy’s hand. The sharp nails with the blood, spreading down the fingers, it made him freeze.

  Someone made gurgling sounds. Like blowing bubbles through a straw into a milkshake.

  “It’s okay, Pop,” little Frank said.

  Morales’ hand was stuck in midair. Douglas dropped to his knees. Thick, oxygen-rich blood from his opened throat blurred the muted greens and grays of the pixilated camouflage into a dark brown bib.

  Harden, beyond Douglas, raised the MP-5 to his shoulder as if to fire, and lowered it.

  Up.

  Back down.

  Up, then back down.

  A kid stood beside the soldier, talking to him. Morales wondered how that man had looked into the BEK’s eyes, because you had to make eye contact for the mind control to work.

  His own arm wouldn’t move. Little Frank was there and then he wasn't, like his son was coming in and out of focus. One minute the little boy he loved more than life, then something ugly was there instead.

  It kept talking, faster now. Morales focused on the floor. A pool of blood spread into his field of view over the pock-marked concrete.

  He saw his hand lowering. He willed it to draw his pistol, but the weapon was on the floor. When had he dropped it?

  He concentrated hard on gaining control of his own body.

  “Poppa, you really need to help us.”

  Morales did. He really needed to. The part of his mind that he still controlled knew he didn't, but the voices were so persuasive.

  His son's voice.

  He missed the boy so much and now they were together again. He meant to wipe the tear from his eye, but the arm wouldn't work for that either.

  He needed to break this hold or he was dead.

  A BEK held Harden by the elbow as he walked stiff-legged and continued to raise the weapon up and down.

  Up and down.

  Then he raised the weapon to point at Morales.

  “Frank, we have to get these kids back to their Momma. They’re lost and need our help.”

  Morales nodded. His arm still wouldn’t move. Beads of sweat coated him. His breath was labored, like he’d been running all morning.

  The MP-5 came up level with Morales face and he looked sidelong. If he held his head just so the radiant image of his son stayed and the ugly thing was gone.

  Roger’s weapon lowered a few inches this time. He wasn’t getting a full drop now. The next time it just dipped, and came back immediately.

  Harden sweating, looking confused. The index finger came out of the trigger guard and flexed in a pulling motion.

  Morales could see that some part of Harden knew what was going on.

  Morales had been shot before and knew the impact of those big forty caliber bullets would suck. Would the bullets ripping into him be worse than the little explosions though? Teflon and silver nitrate tearing through your body. What would that be like?

  Little Frank, and at the same time not, beside him touched his elbow.

  “It’s almost over, Poppa. Just be still.”

  And it was. They were all dead, just like his son.

  It was just a matter of playing out the hand.

  Harden’s weapon pointed at Morales head.

  “It’s for the best, right?” Harden asked.

  Morales’ head nodded on its own. All he could see was the gun now, no more than a foot away. The muzzle was a black eye staring at his mortality.

  He looked back down to say goodbye to his son again.

  The two images were superimposed now. Little Frank smiled a mouthful of pointy little teeth. Frank focused on them. He was able to see the teeth that didn't belong to his son. The mouth and the two noses that didn't belong together came apart.

  He pulled the image of the BEK from that of his son with his mind and the two came apart like Velcro. Little Frank's face there beside the other but distinct, it smiled at his father and then was gone.

  As Harden’s willpower gave out, Morales pushed the MP-5 pointed at his head to the little monster that had tried to impersonate his son.

  A spray of bullets and the hot muzzle flash deafened and burned Morales as the rounds tore past his face and through the BEK beside him.

  Still holding the wildly firing machine pistol, Morales drew Harden' nine-millimeter Berretta from the shoulder holster. He flicked the safety off with his thumb and squeezed rounds into the BEK to Roger's left, the one controlling the soldier.

  A spray of thick blood and the little monster went down. Harden released the MP-5 trigger immediately and blinked at Morales.

  The other BEK broke for cover. Morales dropped into a two-handed weaver stance and put two bullets into one little beast as Harden took careful aim at another.

  Sergeant Jepson got up from his knees and found his weapon. He started up with the nursery rhyme again and put controlled three to five round bursts into everything that moved. The three of them hunted the remaining BEK through the refuse, through crowded little rooms to the back of the basement. An old coal grate, the wrought iron cover pulled to the side, showed where the last BEK had escaped into the morning.

  Now Morales could hear the
radio traffic over the beginnings of a migraine. Funny how it had been mute before.

  “Major Harden, over here Sir,” Jepson called.

  The two of them, tense, followed the voice to a pile of carpet fragments. There, covered with newspaper were three cantaloupe-sized pods. Sweaty and pulsing,

  Harden blew each one apart with well-placed rounds.

  “Intel was right, this was a nest,” he said to Morales.

  #

  “I said, tell me what’s going on, or I am gonna beat your ass," Morales said, his voice rising even though he was trying hard to keep it cool pointing his finger at this stone-faced soldier.

  Hard to do with the post-adrenalin shakes, the splitting headache and this new crop of Gestapo bastards he found on the main floor after they stomped the nest.

  The hard young soldier didn't rise to the bait. Right hand on the pistol grip of his MP-5, the other hand was held palm forward and even with Morales’ chest.

  “Major Harden will be with you shortly, now please just have a seat and be patient, Sir.”

  There were five or six of them, dressed like Roger’s team, keeping Morales and his agents sequestered in the front room of the row house.

  Others, dressed in tan, one-piece outfits, had gone down into the basement.

  “Frank, I said for you to cooperate.” It was Daniels’ voice.

  Morales hadn't seen him enter. But now that he saw the man, the pissed-off agent readied a barrage.

  “These Army types have the area secured and they’ll be done soon,” Daniels said. He nodded a smile to the soldier who didn't respond.

  “I come up from a shoot-out with those little monsters in the basement and these guys up here, say they have the scene.” Morales gestured over his shoulder to the other agents all cooling their heels.

  “It’s like we’re prisoners at our own bust.”

  Through the tattered drapes covering the front window, Morales could see shiny black Suburbans blocking off the road. A few residents were milling around outside of the cordoned-off area.

  “They say they just need the scene for a few more minutes and then they'll turn it back over,” Daniels said. He was standing just inside the threshold of the room now.

  Crowding past the soldier that held Morales in check, another one just behind Daniels.

  “To hell with that. Where'd they take the drugees?”

  Daniels tried that patting motion again and started another set of excuses, but was cut off by the squeaking of three gurneys being wheeled down the central hall past them. Thick, grey-green neoprene fabric covered the man-sized bundles. Harden was coming up behind the last gurney.

  Morales, red in the face, wanting to draw his pistol, but jabbing his finger instead said, “And you, you son of a bitch, where you draggin' my men to in those body bags-”

  Harden stopping, cut him off saying, “Human remains pouches.”

  “What?”

  “You stuff garbage in a bag; you place a fallen comrade in an HRP.”

  That stopped Morales. He blinked a second trying to work his indignation back up.

  “Listen-we have a protocol to follow when we take down a nest. We'll process the bodies for forensic evidence off-site and get them to the Morgue, no later than seventeen hundred. You have my word.

  Morales, looked from Daniels, who wasn't helping, back to Harden.

  “And the Haitians?”

  “They'll be interrogated off-site and delivered to you at the Federal building. Also, no later than seventeen hundred.”

  Morales let out a heavy sigh, not sure where to go with this. He had jurisdiction, but thought the only way he could enforce it with these guys was by drawing down.

  “That was a close one today. Thanks for saving my ass.” This with a sincerity that Morales did not expect. Harden reached out his hand.

  Morales took it grudgingly and said, “You gonna tell me what those things were?”

  Harden shook his head. “I wish I could.”

  “Classified?”

  “Not that. I really don't know. We've had the BEKs looked at by forensics guys and University eggheads. No one can tell me what they are exactly.”

  Morales shook his head in disbelief.

  “Seriously. I've heard lost Amazonian primate species, old Nazi genetic experiments and Alien hybrids. We stumbled on these little monsters in counter-narcotics operations in Columbia back in ninety-six. Been finding them a little further north every year since.”

  “So now what?”

  “Well, I find the next nest and stomp it. Then clean up the mess and move on.”

  Morales nodded again.

  “You know, all the people I've worked with, no one ever broke a hold like that.”

  Morales guessed the memory of his dead son had a stronger hold on him.

  Harden passed over a business card and said, “Might be able to find a place for you on the team, if you’re interested.”

  Without looking, he took it from Harden and tucked it in one of the straps holding the soldier’s body armor tight. With the cheap white card standing out against the pixilated grays and greens, Morales snapped, “I’m interested in you calling off your dogs and giving me back my crime scene.”

  Harden nodded with a tight expression. “Well, watch yourself. These little monsters can hold a grudge, and your performance today was certainly grudge-worthy.”

  Morales didn't respond and Harden gave the agent another apprising glance. He passed orders to his men and they stood together not talking.

  The soldiers took another ten minutes to clear the scene. On his way out, Harden pulled the card from where Morales tucked it and left it on a grimy little table beside the front door.

  “In case you change your mind,” Harden said.

  Morales didn't respond, just giving the man a get-out-of-here jerk with his head. When they were gone, the DEA agents went back to work, securing their scene with low comments and plenty of headshaking, none of these guys had been in basement.

  The Federal investigation teams, now allowed access, came in and started their own forensic investigation.

  Morales waved his boss's excuses away and went to the front door. Standing there, he slipped the card off the table and read the name and email address; all that was printed on it.

  Something caught at the periphery of his vision and he looked up from the card and out the open front door.

  There, in the milling crowd of rubber-neckers across the street, a kid dressed street. The look of hate in the coal black eyes was unmistakable, but the little monster was gone before Morales could get to it.

  Standing on the buckled concrete sidewalk with all the lookie-lou's, he looked down at the card again.

  “Yeah, Harden, maybe I will,” he said and then went back to work.

  The Sacrifices of Automated Tabulation

  I froze at the metallic snick, as the door’s steel lock bolt slid into place.

  Holding the punched card suspended above the tabulator’s input slit, I called out a tremulous, "Hello?"

  There was no response.

  I set the card down and stood abruptly from the little workstation. I straightened my skirt and crossed the small windowless room to the door and hesitated.

  I cleared my throat softly, as it simply would not do to lose my composure, and then called again, "Hello?"

  There was still no response.

  I slipped off my earring and pressed my ear against the door. I listened for any indication of life in the hallway beyond, but heard only the dull thrum of the building’s mechanicals.

  A tingling panic rose up in my breast.

  There was no slit of a keyhole in the door’s lock plate or handle of dull-worn brass. I gently touched the knob with my fingers, twisted and felt resistance. I grasped the knob more firmly and wrenched it side to side. The small metal ball rotated but the door was fixed in place. I slapped the door with the flat of my free hand as I continued to jerk and pull with the other. It was quite a solid
door.

  "Hello! I say, this isn't funny! Mr. Nussbaum!”

  This task did not require that I be left secured like this.

  “Mr. Colund, Sir! I would prefer not to be locked in!”

  I released the knob and oscillated between fear and indignation. I imagine at much the same periodicity as the knob had rotated with my manic twisting.

  “Let me out!”

  I started as the ticker tape device beside the tabulator sprang to life. I had attempted to engage the device earlier to no avail, so I had thought it was just a dead relic. But there it stood, spitting out a ribbon of white paper. The harsh mechanical whirring brought to my mind the image of tiny meat cleavers on bone.

  I approached the machine and pulled back the tape so that I could read it.

  The ribbon was pierced with little groups of dashes and dots that corresponded to four letters in Mr. Morse’s code.

  S*O*O*N

  I am not certain exactly why, but that single word had the same effect a spider would have had tracing a path up the back of my neck.

  I looked back at the door. This was not good.

  #

  Earlier that Tuesday afternoon I had sat in a small waiting room of the Chicago Tabulating Devices Corporation. I came with the tacit approval of my thesis advisor in the form of a letter of support. But in truth I was quite insecure in my thesis that a relay logic algorithm could be installed in the C.T.D.C.’s tabulator when the opportunity to put it into practice had come. But with Dr. Wireman’s letter of introduction, my box of punched cards and enough enthusiasm to convince a legion of accounting executives that my theories could revolutionize the industry, I steeled my resolve.

  The exterior room in which I had been retained was sparsely furnished. I could just detect the sounds of a busy autumn afternoon in the city. A clock ticked audibly. The clock’s mechanism was visible through a wedge of glass, like a pie piece cut from the porcelain face.

  I could make out my own distorted reflection in the glass overlaying the clockwork gears. I had worn a modest walking suit with a buttoned-shirt and coat. I had struggled all the morning before the mirror trying to find the right combination of professionally stylish yet femininely demure. I had even removed the decorative feathers from my hat in an effort to appear as one who should be taken seriously. I adjusted a hatpin that held the hat in question securely to my bun.