Mark of the Two-Edged Sword

by K A Bryant

  "I did not kill your parents."

  His hand doesn't move. Not a muscle, a twitch, a finger jerk. Nothing. I feel the approaching closure dissipate and become that unsettling itch again.

  "Caleb, I know you have questions. I want to help you get your answers, but you have some very vital information I need and time is of the essence..."

  Why is he staring at me?

  "...you are so much like...your dad. That mind is clicking away, isn't it? You won't tell me, will you? Not until you get what you want. The whole story."

  He can't help it. He's almost rambling. The eagerness in his eyes, he desperately wants to release his genius. He's almost seeking approval. I have none to give him. I see something strange in his eyes though. He's looking at me the way he used to look at dad.

  He said I was he so much like dad, the problem is I don't know how. I can't remember. So many years of pushing the memories away and avoiding truth, I submerged them so deeply I don't know if I can get them back.

  Ironic, the man I want to kill may be the only one to open the door to my memory since everyone else in my father’s platoon is dead. Except Dread. But he's a bad egg.

  "I've been to your house more times than I can count. I watched you skip rocks, no taller than my knee. You want answers, I'll give them to you, but you may want to sit."

  I sit. He begins.

  "That desert, unforgiving. But life, Caleb, ruthless. In my early stages of being a Captain, I had the benefit of working under a brilliant man. A man who understood a lot about human life and how to maintain it. At first, naive, I thought him extreme and well, to be honest, a touch crazy. But, after my first tour, I started to see. I saw what he meant. I saw what it meant for young lives to be taken for nothing. Absolutely nothing. Homes and families destroyed forever over things that may be nothing more than an order on a piece of paper. Then, I commanded some of those men. My men. I saw them killed, some right before my eyes, some died in my arms. Some, I finished to keep them from suffering. Oh, you can look at me like that if you want to but you don't understand. Most 'people' don't.

  “Help, hundreds of miles away, 120 degree heat, alone, watching from their satellites and you’re holding a boy twitching from pain, feeling every grueling ounce of agony and you take a chance leaving him in the enemy’s hands for them to do God knows what to him before they string him up like a trophy for his mother to see.

  “So you can look at me and judge me if you want to. His eyes begged me to do it. So I did. More times than any human being should have to.

  “Then, I found a better way. A better way to war. Strategic. That madman wasn't so mad after all. I got on board. I had only been to the lab once and then, I wasn't allowed to see everything, I was all-in. He showed me the big picture. No more Americans dying for nothing. Put in harm’s way.

  “Then, one tour in Afghanistan, ten men died in one mission, one useless mission to find a bomb maker responsible for making a bomb that blew up a mosque killing over fifty people.

  “They didn't just kill them. That would have been humane. They tortured those men and strung them up like hides of meat in that sweltering desert for days. Did we ever hear about it at home? No. Of course not. They died and were buried under a shroud of honor. But I knew the truth. I had to bear the truth. I knew it didn't have to be so. This weapon. Not a piece of metal that can make mistakes. No, so far beyond that. Created to save lives. American lives and preserve our way of life. Prototype of the BST-10 Project. Otherwise known as the Beaston." He leans forward. "A weapon that thinks."

  He's left the room. His mind, that is, it's no longer here. Wilkes is in that moment. I see the end of the man.

  "I'll never forget the day they called me and said it was ready. I was in my office in Washington. They were the sweetest words spoken.

  “Strong. Dedicated. Believing in my vision. The scientists’ brilliance surpassed my expectations. It was our creation. They led me to it like a mother to her new-born child. I can still see the smile on their faces even after having been shut away in the underground laboratory in the Brazilian forest.

  “Skins pale and faces drawn. But, they were as dedicated as I. It walked around on hind legs. Straight up like a man. It even knew how to cock its head, boasting its superiority. Feet like a bear but hoofed, legs muscular like a zebra but as lean as a lion. Its pelt shined and shimmered in the darkness, a black and silvery gray combination making it easy to become nothing more than a shadow. A camouflage man could never achieve.

  “Its head and face like that of a lioness-" he cups his hands as if he were caressing its face. "-with eyes of a keen eagle but rounded with a human likeness. It heard me through the foot thick glass. Ears perked like a cat and arms with hand-like structure but tipped with the claws of a bear. When it spread its arms, it had almost a retractable skin-like cape that comes out enabling it to swim, catch wind and leap off of buildings catching its weight.

  “It sensed us before it saw us, from behind its enclosure. It was created as such. A sense of smell supreme and intellectual capabilities exceeding most human beings. It deduced quickly and strategized after assessing its surroundings.

  “Perfect in every way." He takes a sip of coffee. "Yet, it gave me a chill that crept up my spine watching it hide in plain sight when I stepped forward, then, intentionally revealing itself, knowing the imposing figure it was. Fear mixed with a sense of power stepped into my soul. It was ours."

  This Beaston, everything he described, is exactly what I felt and saw in my recurring dream. Foreshadowing? I don't know. Maybe it was God’s gracious way of letting me see it before I 'see' it. Wilkes goes on.

  "It takes orders. Will strike its intended targets without prejudice. Adapts to terrain of any kind and has been trained in every environment. Remarkable, truly remarkable."

  He's on a roll. He's purging so maybe he will give it up. I'll try.

  "Afghanistan?" I ask.

  He pauses and looks at me almost as if he's trying to determine if he should keep going.

  "Yes," Wilkes answers. "Ron, more hot coffee please. Gentlemen, give me the room."

  Ron pours the coffee, pauses for the other guards to leave the room and he walks out behind them closing the door.

  "No one knows what I'm about to tell you. Not a living soul." Wilkes takes a deep breath. "It was the maiden trial. It was one week after the ten Americans were killed. The Beaston’s mission, to find the trigger maker responsible for the bomb and hold him for questioning. The Beaston found him. It solved one problem but created another. The solution had consequences I still live with."

  "Funny, you’re getting free what the C.I.A. begged for just yesterday," he says, turning away from me.

  There is a sharp letter opener on his desk. This is way too much temptation. I need to refocus and listen.

  "Caleb, I was unconscious. I don't know how long but when I woke, I was bleeding to death on a blood soaked cot. Your father, he was with me using strips of his shirt to try to stop my bleeding. My men were in a cell beside us. Fletcher, Willz, Doc, the package, Dread, I couldn't see them. We had no idea would happen. None.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Wilkes

  Twenty years ago. Dirt, dusty dirt at that. That stuff always reminds you how far from home you are. Officer Promise, my second in command hand-picked the team.

  In the mess hall, just before we left, I felt like a father watching his kids play. There they were as usual before a mission, prodding each other. It kept them sharp. I could hear them. I could always hear them. Dread was telling his doom and gloom stories to the new wide-eyed doc that just came aboard.

  "You wanna die. This is the place to do it, like a man, in the hot dirt. Just step outside those doors..." Dread said to the Doc.

  As usual, Fletcher was running interference. None of them were ever really crazy enough to challenge Fletcher. He was elite. Martial arts, marksman, and really damn smart. Dread was telling Doc a story about their last mission.

&nb
sp; "...so I pull the pin-" continues dread.

  "Here we go," says Willz.

  "-I looked him dead in the eyes and he starts spilling his guts, then Willz backs into me, I drop the thing and it rolls into the next room and BOOM! I almost crapped myself," says Dread. "Rollie told me it was dead. I wanted to kill him. My informant bolts, and we're in the dust like 'what the hell!"

  "I thought it was dead," says Rollie, laughing uncontrollably. "I'm sticking to working the computers. Next time you’re on your own. I bet someone switched it."

  "Let me guess, Rollie, it's a conspiracy," says Fletcher.

  "You tell me why are we getting blood drawn, huh, you tell me? Conspiracy," says Rollie.

  "Man, nobody wants your blood," says Picker, eating. "They probably want to make sure you didn't catch anything from that blond you met on leave."

  Picker was our sniper. This mission, he was unusually quiet. I can always tell when a man has too much on his mind. And before this mission, he had plenty on his mind. Just before we deployed, the doctor found his daughter had a brain tumor. They couldn't afford the surgery. It was growing fast. She was going blind.

  That morning, his wife called to thank me. She thought I did it, but it was Officer Promise, your dad. I heard him on the video phone with your mother.

  "Thanks, baby. I know how much you loved the house being paid off," your dad said.

  "It's the right thing to do. You just come home safe and figure out how we'll pay it back," your mom told him.

  Caleb, your father mortgaged his house to pay for Picker’s daughter’s surgery. He told him right before we left. I never saw a man so relieved. Your dad knew Picker couldn't pay it back. The truth is he never expected him to. That was your father. Men like that shouldn't die.

  We loaded up. Rollie was on communications, Fletcher, Willz, Doc, Picker sniper, and Dread the gunnery and your father with the package. Then, the package arrived.

  "What package?" asks Caleb.

  "A man."

  I need to sit. My hip has stiffened again.

  "A man?" repeats Caleb.

  He's engulfed in the story. I can see it in his eyes.

  "Yes. A man with a steel suitcase. He had precious cargo. Our mission, collect something and then deliver it and the man with suitcase. This was all to be done after nightfall. In that order. One without the other was useless." The hot coffee is good. Ron finally got it right. "Would you care for some?"

  "No. What happened?"

  "We were attacked. Ambushed. Wrong place, wrong time. We were held in a gunfight way past dark. They didn't want us. We were a trophy."

  "What was in the suitcase?"

  "The solution to a very big problem."

  I finish the coffee. Smooth sweet and dark. I needed it. This story takes something from me. I swivel my hip and can feel the grind of the steel pin in it rub my bone. I hope he didn't see my pain.

  It was the Beaston’s maiden voyage. We were to collect it and the trigger maker that night. The men knew nothing about the Beaston. Nothing at all. I went to the location alone. I wish I never saw what I saw.

  I will never forget the wailing. The woman, his wife. I never heard anyone cry like that. It was from her core. She was on her knees, clutching her chest. She looked at me and I could see hate and anger rush in.

  He was a slumped pile of unidentifiable flesh she couldn’t even bring herself to embrace. Her hand gently on his bare foot, clutching his bloody sandal. The town people were yelling at me that they thought it was 'Yuz', meaning leopard. She looked at me as if she knew better.

  From the mutilated face, I couldn't tell if it was Amir, the Beaston’s target. Then, I saw his bag on the ground in the dirt overlooked by everyone. I grabbed it and there it was. Triggers. Bomb triggers. It was him.

  Probably coming home from work. He looked like any other man except for a few scars on his hands. Then I saw it in his bag. A toy truck tiny thing, wrapped in paper and tied with string. No doubt for his son and a pair of earrings for his wife, Tirashi. Wailing uncontrollably at his feet.

  The Beaston lured him into the bushes just outside his house and that's where its flaw was shown. You see its flaw was its inability or lack of desire to control its animalistic tendency to kill. It's thirst to conquer its prey. If that couldn't be fixed, it was useless. It mutilated him and left him for his wife to find. It was supposed to extract him alive for questioning. I got the evidence, the triggers, but no Amir. No answers. I loaded the Beaston into the cargo truck and that's when things went south.

  Renegades surrounded us. After what felt like hours of a gunfight, with the truck with the Beaston in the back. It was top secret. I got shot. Worse, Picker was killed.

  I passed out. Your father, thinking on his feet, negotiated for our lives. He knew nothing about the Beaston either until then. I couldn't hide it from them.

  "There's something you’re not telling me," says Caleb.

  He was right.

  Me and my men, Fletcher, Rollie, Doc, the Package and Dread and your father were tossed into the worst rusty bloody cells I've ever seen. I won't ever forget the smell of hot death and rotting flesh that hung in the hot desert air. The men were never supposed to know about the beast. No one was, but me.

  I couldn't hide it anymore. The captors found the Beaston. For the safety of the project, I had to give the men an ultimatum. I thought they would understand, being soldiers. But they didn't. It was the hardest conversation I ever had.

  "Except Dread," says Caleb.

  I could only nod at him. I was back in that horrid place again. Suffocating from the heat.

  “Caleb, they couldn't leave the desert, son. They just couldn't. But, I needed your father.”

  It was Fletcher's fault. Christian, logical, the men respected him. I did what I could, promised them money, guarantee of jobs after their tours. Medical security, everything a soldier could want. But Fletcher's ideals spoke louder than all of that.

  All they had to do is keep their mouths shut. That's it! But damn Fletcher! His words, they were righteous. They cut to the bone and the marrow.

  There they were all standing around my cot in that rancid cell. Fletcher’s words still make me wonder sometimes if it was right. I can hear him...

  "It ain't right! God didn't make that. I won't have any part. If we let this thing exist, what else will they make? Next thing you know they'll be trying to clone us!" Fletcher said.

  That's when I saw it, that flicker in Fletcher's eye. He looked at the package, the man with the steel suitcase handcuffed to his wrist. He had been silent but seemingly terrified. He saw Fletcher’s glare on the suitcase and he gripped the handle until his knuckles turned white.

  One by one the men looked at the case as if it were calling their names. Then they looked at me. Rollie, the conspiracy theorist, was the first to speak up but even he didn't want to believe it. Not really.

  "No, no way, man. Can't be! Cap. Tell him it ain't. You wouldn't do that! Tell him!"

  I watched Rollie back away from that case like it contained the plague. He looked at me like a son disappointed in his father. They trusted me implicitly.

  "One way to find out. Open it," said Fletcher.

  "He can't, you know that. Not even he has the key," said Rollie.

  Then your father spoke the words that nailed my coffin.

  “Only the man who it is going to will have the key.”

  He looked at me. The disappointment in his eyes hurt worse than the gunshot to the hip. I tried to convince Fletcher.

  "You're not clear on this Fletcher," I said. But, it didn't work.

  "All due respect, Sir," he said, "I'm crystal clear. Now give me the key!"

  Dread tried to help me. He wanted the money.

  "We don't know he's got it," said Dread.

  Your father was smart. So smart.

  He said, "I know one thing. If he's got that key, none of us are supposed to leave this desert alive."

  Then, they all paused. In that f
ilthy cell, the loud sound of prayers spoken over a loudspeaker filled the awkward silence and I felt the shock and uncertainty pry us apart.

  Fletcher pulled off my boot. The key was in the sole of my boot. I'll never forget their faces when the case opened and they saw it.

  The vials of their blood, labeled with their dog-tag ID numbers. Each one containing characteristics to perfect the Beaston. Your father closed his eyes. I hated myself in that moment.

  It was clear. They weren't in. I was barely conscious from the pain. They were going to kill me and break the vials.

  I have to stop. I toss my small white pill in my mouth and drink some water. Caleb’s heart is beating so fast I can see his chest rise, or is that anger?

  "What happened? How did you walk out of there?"

  It was the Package, he pulled a gun he had hidden and cool as a cucumber he killed Fletcher. Right to the head. Then Rollie, and Dread finished Doc. I wouldn't let them touch your father. He saved my life and he was my friend.