Highest Law: A Gripping Psychological Thriller

by R. J. Pineiro

  That earns me a well-deserved scowl from the man. Then all three leave the room and I just sit there praying that Beatriz, Rossi, and Mia are alright, that emergency services got to them in time. Beatriz was already going into shock, and who knows what Rossi’s condition was with that gut shot. Plus, Mia even took two bullets to protect them. Harsh or not, that makes her a damn hero in my book.

  But who was it that tried to kill us? The same damn Russians? As much as I despise Jonesy and Kessler, they did come to our rescue.

  Then my thoughts drift to Franky. By now, word of the shooting and my kidnapping must have reached her. And this happening on the coattails of Dix’s death must be taxing her beyond her endurance. I have the sudden need to be with her. To hold her and console her. After all, I promised her—and Dix—that I would be there for her.

  Tugging on the handcuffs chained to a sturdy metal hook atop a table bolted to the floor—standard holding room stuff—I let out a frustrating growl. I need to know what has happened to my team, and I need to be with Franky, but these bastards have me chained like an animal.

  “C’mon, assholes!” I shout. “How long does it take to watch that goddamned video?”

  Although the clip is just over eight minutes, it takes them twenty. But only Granite returns to the room. This time he’s alone and holding a bottle of water.

  That could be good or bad. But since I don’t see him also holding a towel, I decide it’s probably the former.

  Without a word, he sets the bottle in front of me, twists off the cap, and also reaches across the table for my wrists. I’m about to lean back but notice he has a little key in his hands.

  He uncuffs me before sitting back in the chair that Jonesy had occupied.

  I frown while massaging my wrists. It’s been a few years since I was last cuffed, during a POW training exercise, and I have forgotten how much the damn things hurt, especially when they’re tight. I now have matching sets of purplish rings around each wrist.

  “Mind telling me what the hell’s going on, and where we are?” I ask, before reaching for the prosthesis and strapping it onto what remains of the leg those assholes blew up on that mountain before killing Chappy and putting Dix through a living hell and—

  “Shit,” Granite mumbles through his teeth while his jaw line pulsates. The man is pissed, but hey, so am I. “Lawson… what happened to Dix. It was—”

  “An abomination, and I want those bastards brought to justice, especially that Yuri asshole.” I’m trying really hard to control my emotions.

  Granite sighs. “Yes, it was, and yes, they’ll pay for torturing him… but they had nothing to do with his death. But I have them sequestered for now, okay?”

  “Sequestered? What the hell does that mean, sir? Drinking beers while under house arrest? So, no, not okay. Not even remotely close to okay. Those two mother—”

  “Overstepped their bounds with Dix, and they’ll own up to that. But not yet. I need them to finish the job.”

  “What job?”

  “Preventing a meltdown of this country,” he says

  “A meltdown?” I make a face. “What are you talking about? And who is this Yuri guy? I saw him in-country that day with Jonesy and team. Now he seems to be playing for another team. And how is he connected to Uncle D.? And, by the way, sir, I have another dozen questions like that.”

  Instead of answering, Granite reaches in a side pocket of his uniform and produces a large phone. He works it awkwardly for a moment with his thick thumbs, then says, “Lieutenant Commander Lawson Pacheco, by the power vested in me by Presidential Directive Eighty-Three, I now offer to you the DoD’s Top Secret Security Clearance so you may be privy to Operation Highest Law. Do you accept?”

  He then flips the phone around and slides it across the table. It has a single line going across the bottom with my name spelled below it. “Use your finger to sign,” he adds. “Then press both thumbs anywhere against the screen, but slowly. This damned technology’s still evolving.”

  “What the hell’s Highest Law? And what’s this?” I stab the screen with an index finger.

  “One of two things are going to happen, Lawson. You either sign this agreement between you and your government, and thus become privy to what I need to show you, or we’ll put you back in the same parking lot where we saved your pain-in-the-ass life an hour ago and leave you to your choices. But you should know that if you choose the latter and then decide to release the video, you’ll be doing your country an immense disservice.”

  “Sir, I–”

  “Son, just sign the damn thing so I can tell you where we are and also show you what I need to show you. Then you can understand what the hell’s going on. That’s what you’ve wanted since that day at KAF, right?”

  I inhale deeply, slowly nod, but still can’t bring myself to sign.

  Granite exhales heavily, looks up at the ceiling, and says, “Get him in here.”

  I look up too but see nothing. No cameras or microphones. But he did talk to someone because a moment later the door inches open and Sergeant Bruno Copeland steps in looking larger than life.

  “Law, sign the damn thing,” he says.

  I just sit there, stung. I knew he was alive from the video, but still, the fact that I’m actually seeing him talking to me just sends a renewed wave of pretty damned chilling reality down my already distressed system.

  Nothing is as it seems, indeed.

  Absolutely. Fucking. Nothing.

  “Hey,” Cope says. “Do what the man says.”

  “Screw you, man. You left us out there bleeding. No man left behind, remember, Brother? And then you made us think you were dead. Hell, man, all they recovered was your goddamned left foot!”

  Cope pulls on the left leg of his black tactical pants to reveal a prosthesis very similar to mine.

  “Couldn’t be helped,” he says, letting the pants’ leg fall back down.

  “We mourned you, man,” I add. “You and Chappy. Why would you do this to us? Why? We were supposed to be your damn brothers. We’re supposed to have each other’s backs.”

  But Cope just stands there. The man was always short of words, and he doesn’t look about to elaborate here.

  “He didn’t do this to you, Lawson,” Granite decides to intercede. “The U.S. Government did, and believe me, we’re more than justified to do everything we had to do, including whatever it is you think you have seen.”

  “Even killing Kerns and Dix?

  “That wasn’t us,” Granite says. “But we can’t continue this conversation until…” He slides the phone back towards my side of the table. “You either sign this or we drive you right back to that parking lot and leave you to your fate with your new Russian associates. We’re through trying to save you, and that also goes for all of your friends, including Adanna, Murph, and Franky. Trust me when I tell you, Marine, we have much better things to do.”

  Cope just stands there, his bearded face as rigid as when he aims his monster rifle, ready to make another kill.

  “What about my uncle?” I ask.

  “What about Danny?” he asks right back.

  “How is he involved in this? We lifted two of his fingerprints from—”

  “I know what you did. Danny works for me. He’s tracking the Russians.”

  “Works for you? What are you–”

  “Alright,” Granite says, standing and looking at Cope. “Bag him and dump him in that parking lot. I’ve had enough of—”

  “Fine,” I say. “Give me the damn thing.”

  So, quite reluctantly, I do as he says and sign the form and record my thumbprints. But after I’m done and he pockets the phone, I say, “There are at least a dozen people who’ve seen the video, including NCIS SAC Roy Ledet, who’s already escalating it to Quantico, the Pentagon, and Langley. This document only handles my–”

&nb
sp; “We’re dealing with that,” Granite says.

  “What about my team? I need to know that they’re okay and—”

  “They’re being looked after at Portsmouth,” he says. “Ambulances took them all shortly after we took you. Last report I got is that they all made it.”

  I consider that for a moment and have to wonder if he’s lying. But I did sign on the dotted line, so hopefully he’s on the level now and they’re alright.

  Cope then says, “See you around, Law,” and turns to leave.

  “Wait. I have questions for you and–”

  “Not now, Marine,” Granite interrupts. “He’s got work to do.”

  I just sit there feeling completely out of control. Events continue transpiring all around me, and I can’t seem to be able to grasp them, much less control them. All I’m doing is bumping into more trees, and I can’t wait to see how my damaged mind plays all of these new video clips—including the one of Dix killing himself—into my nightly filmic experiences.

  Granite then adds, “Now, are you ready to go for a little walk?”

  “A walk? No, sir. I don’t really feel like going for a fucking walk. But I do feel like getting some fucking answers.”

  For some strange reason, my tirade draws a leer from the man as he says, “On your feet, Marine. Now.”

  Reluctantly, I stand and say, “Fine. But you mind telling me where are we going?”

  The leer vanishes as his face turns into stone, a face that could challenge the devil himself as he says, “To hell, Lawson. We’re going to hell”

  Chapter 28

  I indeed feel as if I have descended to the lowest level of Dante’s Inferno.

  I have seen some pretty screwed up stuff during my days with the teams and before that as a jarhead; sights, sounds, and smells that sometimes I would very much like to forget. But the warrior in me realizes that those events, as harrowing as they were and just as important, how I handled them, define who I am, who I chose to be. No one put a gun to my head and forced me to become a United States Marine and then a frogman. I did that willingly and eagerly, wanting to serve my country just like Pops, Dad, and Uncle D. And in doing so, I feel I may have experienced something similar to what they faced, bringing me closer to them.

  And even after I was wounded, after a most unfortunate turn of events exacted quite a bit more than a pound of flesh, I decided to stay on, find another avenue to make a difference. So, I joined NCIS, figuring that my days seeing the horror that is the War on Terror, fought in the most desolate corner of the world, would be replaced by more civilized days, by a steady life, by relative peace. And maybe, just maybe, that stability, combined with medications and therapy, would allow me to move on, to beat the odds of ending up in Yanez’s morgue. And if I could do that, then perhaps I would have a chance to find someone to share my life with—even start a family of my own, like Pops and Dad.

  I thought my days dealing with terror were over.

  I thought I had escaped it, left it in the hands of a new generation of fighting men and women wishing to walk that harrowing crooked mile to do their part in making the world a safer place.

  But as it turned out, terror—and of the worst kind—found its way back to me.

  I’m walking this Hell on Earth in silence three stories below the bustling and hustling that is Naval Air Station Oceana in lovely and picturesque Virginia Beach, Virginia.

  But there’s nothing remotely close to picturesque down here. In this underground staging area, and apparently, others across the country, the damaged wait to be transported in the middle of the night to their final destination: Guantanamo Bay Naval Base.

  I walk these halls and gaze into their wild stares. I hear their screams. I sense their anger, their fear. I also feel their pain.

  The caretakers here do what they can to keep these lost souls from hurting themselves, in many ways adapting techniques from insane asylums, or whatever such places are called in these politically-correct days.

  Cells with padded walls hold men and women who have become a danger to themselves and to others through no fault of their own. By consuming a medication deemed safe by the same government they swore to protect, they have turned into monsters, into real-life zombies.

  A medication that I have taken.

  Their screeches echo hollowly inside this tunnel flanked by dozens of holding cells under the glow of LED lights. Each cell if secured by a heavy door, steel on the outside and padded materials on the inside plus a one-way mirror made of armored glass.

  I peek into them and see despair.

  I see anger.

  I see raw fear.

  I come face to face with pure terror.

  The woman on the other side of the viewing window reminds me of those crazy Talis—as well as zombies from various TV shows and movies. She’s naked, wild, her features contorted, the fingers of her hands bent like claws, teeth flashing as she growls, drool dripping from the corner of her mouth.

  She is in a crouch in the middle of the cell, like a coiled viper, poised to strike.

  “Dear God,” I mumble. “What is—”

  “Captain Sabrina Peterson,” Granite says. “Marine Corps. She’s EAS Stage Three.”

  “EAS?”

  “Sorry. That’s the Enlarged Amygdala Syndrome stage where it reaches almost three times the normal size. She’ll probably be dead within a month as the internal pressure in her brain ruptures blood vessels, triggering an aneurysm.”

  “And Zilopronol did this?”

  “She only took it for a couple of years,” says Granite. “But she’s second generation. Her father fought in Vietnam and took Zilopronol-A before she was conceived to help manage the symptoms from Agent Orange. And that means her genetic makeup is far more conducive to accelerating the mutation of her right amygdala, getting to this stage in just a couple of years.”

  And of course, that feels like a kick in the balls. I took it for six months, though the milder -B version. I now have to wonder if Dad took the damn thing. I remember Mom telling me that toward the end of his second to last year, he had been taking some medications to manage his mood swings, but that was after I was born.

  “Her rate of accelerated decay is typical of second-generation users,” he continues, “which makes up about twenty percent of our population here. But those are the worst kind because they’re young, meaning more agile, capable of doing more harm. First-generation users took longer to develop the symptoms. Their bodies have varying degrees of genetic immunity resulting in a wide-range of mutation times, anywhere from five to twenty years to reach Stage Three, though there are some that won’t show symptoms for three decades, or longer, meaning they will likely be dead before reaching a dangerous stage. But it also means that those first-generation users still alive today are starting to reach the dangerous EAS stages at about the same time as second generation users, which is driving this inflection point. Explains why we have people in their twenties and thirties acting up along with people in their fifties and sixties.”

  I really don’t know what to say to that, and the silence is filled with another blood-curdling shriek.

  “You actually get used to the screams,” Granite adds, motioning for me to keep walking with him. “What you can’t get used to are the desperate stares of those who still have some mind left, like the EAS Stage One and even early Stage Two. They’re just like you and me, for part of the time, before their social inhibitors break down. Before they become—”

  Another cry gets through the thick door to our right and resonates down the hallway.

  “There are so many of them,” I say, trying to take this in while trying damn hard not to think that I could become one of them.

  “And there are almost two thousand in Gitmo,” he says. “Waiting for a cure.”

  “Is someone working on that?”

  “Suppos
edly. I’ve been told that Hewitt-Pharma and the FDA are going at it double-time at the CDC in Atlanta and at Gitmo, running lots of clinical trials. God only knows we have plenty of candidates for them. But that’s not my department. I’ve got enough on my plate, which is two-fold. The first part is to contain the problem by locating as many of them as I can and bringing them here.”

  “How do you figure out who they are?”

  “Believe it or not, that’s actually the easy part. It shows up in blood work, Lawson. It’s an enzyme found in brain tissue that provides us with the level of degradation. Enzymes are essentially proteins that promote biochemical reactions inside cells. This particular enzyme, which our scientists call CPT, short for Creatine Phosphotinlyn, is what triggers the reactions that enlarge the right amygdala in the human brain.”

  Finally, something starts to make sense, even if I find it terrifying. I have many follow-up questions but decide to let him continue.

  “Zolopronil, the active ingredient in Zilopronol-A, and to a lesser degree in its -B derivative, signals the body to make more CPT than needed, causing this abnormality. We are plugged into the national databases and are on the lookout for bloodwork that shows the CPT enzyme reaching certain levels. In some cases, the individuals go into a watch list, where we basically keep an eye on them, because only a very small percentage degrade to what you’re seeing here. But in those unfortunate cases, a combination of those enzyme levels and changes in behavioral patterns prompts us to deploy the likes of Jonesy, Kessler, Cope—and even Dix some years ago—to bring them in. But we can’t get them all. In some instances, by the time we get there, the target has vanished, gone missing along with so many other veterans that fall below the radar every day in our country. In most cases, the symptoms trigger suicides, which among the veteran population average twenty-two each day. And in the worst instances, the target goes postal.”

  I tell him about Corporal Dawson and Petty Officer Franklin, the two individuals that Yanez dissected.

  “Like I said, Marine, we can’t get them all. And believe me, we try because we know the consequences when we miss, like Franklin shooting up that hospital. And once in a while we also get strange responses to the drug, like in the case of Corporal Dawson, whose extreme paranoia got the better of him, causing him to start suspecting something was seriously amiss, which led him to steal the files of the Marines who had committed suicide in an effort to prove it.”