by Rawlin Cash
Hunter let out a sad laugh. “No it didn’t.”
“You’re still following orders.”
“They were all following orders a month ago.”
“Not like you.”
“You think I’m so different from them, but I can tell you right now, Hale, I understand what they’re doing and I understand why they’re doing it.”
“You’d never go on a rampage like this.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Yes I do.”
“You don’t have to butter me up. I’ll do what needs to be done.”
“I’m not buttering you up.”
“Come on. As soon as I kill them, you’ll have me killed too.”
“No I won’t.”
“Fuck you.”
“I wouldn’t have to. If I ordered you to kill yourself, you would.”
Hunter said nothing. He was thinking about that. Fawn thought, from the look on his face, that he was genuinely trying to decide if he’d obey an order to kill himself.
“There was a time,” he said at last.
Hale nodded. He wasn’t surprised. “Well,” he said, “you know I’ve got other units who could do this. It’s not right to order a man to kill his own unit.”
“No fucking kidding,” Hunter said.
No one said anything for a long time. Fawn knew she was looking at the key moment in the two men’s relationship. She wondered who’d sent her this. And why?
“I’ll do it,” Hunter said at last.
“Are you sure?”
“They deserve that much at least. They deserve that it be done right.”
Hale nodded.
“Your other guys would fuck it up.”
Hale nodded at that too. He moved his head to the side, conceding the fact. “Probably, some of them.”
“If I do it, it will be cleaner.”
“But it leaves me with a big problem,” Hale said.
“Yes it does.”
“I’ll have to kill you too.”
“Yes you will.”
“You don’t seem upset.”
“Why would I be upset?” Hunter said. “If it’s a choice between you ordering me to kill myself, and you sending someone after me, I’ll take the second option any day of the week.”
“You might come after me,” Hale said.
“That’s a risk you’ll have to take.”
Hale said nothing. It was a strange moment. The two men admitting they might try to kill each other.
If Mantis had failed, which it looked like it had, then there was a school of thought that would argue that all of them should have died, Hale and Hunter included.
Fawn wondered again why someone had sent her this. What were they hoping she’d do? Show it to Hunter? Confront Hale? Blackmail Hale?
More files had come in while she watched the video. There was the order from Hale to Hunter to kill the other operatives. There were the reports of the atrocities they’d committed, of the dark path Mantis took as it slowly went off the rails.
All those experiments, all those drugs and chemicals and inserted devices. All that mind fucking. It took a toll. The program had shown incredible promise. Hale had been able to ask for the death of almost any person on the planet and the target would be dead within days, often within hours. The agents needed no backup, no briefings, no intelligence. They found everyone. And that was just the beginning of their capabilities. He’d asked for compromising footage of the Russian president and a week later had footage of him fucking a fifteen year old. A week after that, he had the full picture of the Russian oligarchy’s connections to Western oil companies. He could have burned the Kremlin to the ground with that information. In the event, he used it to force the Russians out of Syria and the Crimea.
Mantis had been incredibly powerful. Pulling the plug was painful.
But four months earlier, an army unit in northern Kabul found twelve bodies in a sealed building close to where some of the Mantis agents had been stationed. The bodies belonged to six women and six children. The women bore signs of rape. The children had been chained together and gallons of gasoline had been poured into the room. It was then set alight.
When Hale saw the report, he realized he might have a problem with Mantis. Hunter was the only agent who couldn’t have been involved in the atrocity. He’d been in Syria at the time.
Hale had him investigate. That was a difficult order. Hunter was loyal to the other agents. They considered each other members of the same unit. That meant they covered for each other.
Hale had known there’d be side effects to the things they’d done. He knew some of the men would get fucked up. In the event, all but Hunter were fucked up, and what they were doing was worse than Hale’s worst nightmares.
Four days after he initiated the investigation, Hunter came back with a report. He’d followed two Mantis operatives out of the city to a village where they’d killed the men and boys and rounded up the women. They raped as many of the women as they wanted and then cut off their hands and feet and left them there.
Hale started looking back over reports of atrocities all over Afghanistan over the past months and he realized they’d all been committed by the Mantis agents. The program’s experimenting had fucked them up. Hale could see it. And Hunter could see it.
And that was why Hunter had agreed to take them out.
All of them.
And from what Fawn could see, the other agents seemed to welcome it. It was as if they knew they had to die, as if they sensed it, and were ready for it. They put up no resistance.
What surprised Fawn was the degree to which Hale had gone to save Hunter afterwards.
He’d had a thorough investigation of Hunter’s movements conducted, cross referencing everything Hunter did with the reports of every atrocity the CIA was aware of in the region. Hunter was clean. He was the only one in the program who couldn’t have been present at any of the atrocities.
But even then, even after gathering evidence that proved Hunter was innocent, instead of sending it up to the director who would have wanted Hunter killed anyway, he had the report suppressed and instead told the director he’d personally killed Hunter to remove any chance of loose ends.
He’d risked everything to save Hunter.
There was another video. It was like the first but from the time stamp she could see it had taken place a few weeks later. It was after the other operatives were killed. It seemed to be in the same room. Again, it was Hunter and Hale speaking across a desk. There was no coffee this time.
“You said you’d have me killed too,” Hunter said.
“And I can.”
“You can?”
“If that’s what you want.”
Hunter sighed. “I want what’s right.”
“And you think the right thing is that you join your friends?”
“I’m a soldier. I don’t know what’s right. That’s your job.”
“All right,” Hale said. “I’ll tell you what’s right.”
“Please do.”
“You stay on the job. You didn’t go haywire. You’re still obeying orders. I can keep making use of you.”
“They’ll never let you keep me online. Not after what the others did. We’re all the fruit of the same poisoned tree.”
“What if I don’t tell them?”
“So I’d be your little secret?”
“If you want to put it like that.”
“Fuck that, Hale. I’d rather eat a bullet like the rest of them.”
“But it’s a waste.”
“Fuck that.”
“We still need you.”
“Fuck you and what you need.”
They both sat there looking at each other. Hunter was telling Hale he’d promised to have him killed and he was there to collect. He wanted Hale to kill him.
“There’s another option.”
“You fucking weasel. Why don’t you just do what you said you’d do?”
“Because, like you said, it’s my j
ob to know what’s right.”
“And you think you do?” Hunter said, barely hiding his contempt.
“I could have your memories erased.”
“We both know how that goes.”
“That wasn’t the reason they went haywire.”
“You don’t know that.”
“We’ve done it to you before and you didn’t go off the rails.”
“I might yet.”
“It’s worth a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll kill you. I promise.”
Hunter smiled. “You and your promises.”
“Why not give it a shot?”
“How do I know I can trust you?”
“Trust me to do what? The alternative is to kill you.”
“How do I know you won’t just reset me and put me back in the field?”
“What do you care what I do? I erase the memories. If you’re happy to continue serving, where’s the problem?”
Hunter was shaking his head. “No,” he said. “We don’t continue like that. I need your word on it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, you can wipe this last mission. Put something else in there. Jumble it up a little. But then you let me disappear.”
“You won’t remember these conversations,” Hale said.
“I know that.”
“The memory wipes aren’t perfect.”
“I know that too.”
“If you disappear, and then you start remembering what I just had you do, you might come back for me.”
“I know that too,” Hunter said.
Fifty-Five
Hunter’s memories came in flashes. He’d be in the shower, his eyes closed, and the image of a face would come to him. Or he’d be dreaming. Or in the moments right before he fell asleep. He knew now. He knew the difference between a memory and something else. He could figure out the path. If an image came to him, he could piece together the events that led to it. If he saw a face, he could figure out if it was of a person he knew.
Hunter had always thought of memory in simplistic terms. He’d pictured a filing cabinet in his head where each event, or each moment, was given its own little piece of space. He thought his brain was like a computer, with different parts for computing and storage. He thought the drugs the CIA gave him had hit the part of the brain that dealt with memory, and that everything affected was lost for good.
It didn’t work like that.
He’d been research it. It turned out there was no specific place in the brain where memories were stored. If someone remembered the cat they had as a child, there was no location in the brain a scientist could target to get rid of that memory. If a trauma caused a patient to forget the cat, if a physical injury to the brain did cause the loss of a long term memory, there were ways the memory could be recovered, even if the part of the brain that had been injured was beyond repair.
A memory was an illusive thing. It was like a drop of blood in the ocean. Once it was in there, it could never fully be taken out.
Hunter knew that the neurons in his brain communicated through synaptic connections. Any human experience involved billions of neurons sending billions of signals through billions of synapses. A memory occurred because all of those synapses were never completely reset. Whatever happened left a trail, like footprints in snow.
Synaptic connections worked because certain chemicals were present. If those chemicals are absent or altered, the way they worked could be altered.
The chemicals the CIA administered to Hunter and the other Mantis agents remained classified, but from records, Hunter had been able to find out that they contained benzodiazepines such as Alprazolam, more commonly known as Xanax, and Atorvastatin, a cholesterol lowering drug sold in the US as Lipitor. He’d also seen purchase orders under the Mantis budget for anti-seizure drugs like Acetazolamide, sold as Diamox, and tricyclic antidepressants like amitriptyline, sold as Elavil. Pain killers like Fentanyl, Norco, and Vicodin had also been used. There were times when he wondered if the Mantis team hadn’t just started experimenting with every new drug on the market that had a fancy name.
The full list of substances in the devices that had been inserted in his body would take an entire medical school to figure out.
When he disappeared, the first thing he did was remove any device inserted into his body by the CIA. He had them analyzed at a private lab and he still had the report they’d sent back.
He looked at it now.
It was a print out from an eighties style printer, the ones that went left to right, printing one pixel at a time in light green ink. The full list, which covered drugs to inhibit memory formation, as well as control behavior in a number of other ways, included the following:
Xanax, Librium, Klonopin, Valium, Dalmane, Ativan, Versed, Doral, Restoril, Halcion, Lipitor, Lescol, Mevacor, Pravachol, Crestor, Zocor, Diamox, Tegretol, Potiga, Neurontin, Lamictal, Keppra, Trileptal, Lyrica, Banzel, Topamax, Depakote, Zonegran, Elavil, Anafranil, Norpramin, Sinequan, Tofranil, Pamelor, Vivactil, Surmontil, Duragesic, Norco, Vicodin, Dilaudid, Exalgo, Astramorph, Avinza, OxyContin, Percocet, Apokyn, Mirapex, Requip, Tenormin, Coreg, Lopressor, Toprol, Inderal, Betapace, Timoptic, Lunesta, Sonata, Ambien, Enablex, Ditropan XL, Gelnique, Oxytrol, Vesicare, Detrol, Sanctura, Dimetane, Clistin, Chlor-Trimeton, Tavist, Benadryl, Vistaril, Claritin, and Zyrtec.
These drugs could do almost anything, from making him need to urinate, to increasing his pupil dilation, to inhibiting memory formation.
But as he was learning, full memory inhibition was both practically impossible and theoretically illogical. The very act of performing an action, of just moving muscles and going through the motions, even if you were unconscious, created synaptic events that left a trace on the neurons that processed them. You could roll back the odometer on a car but you couldn’t erase a trip. The tires bore marks. The engine bore marks. Fuel burned. The car physically remembered the trip.
And so, through years of experiments, trying every therapy and technique for memory recovery there was, Hunter was beginning to realize there were a few things he knew for certain.
The first was that the other Mantis agents had gone haywire. They’d skewered babies. They’d covered men in honey and thrown them in rat pits. They’d forced a man to drink gasoline and then tried to light his piss on fire. They’d gone off the deep end.
And the second was that he knew he’d been ordered to kill them. He’d been ordered, and he’d obeyed. He didn’t know why he’d obeyed. Maybe it was compliance drugs. Maybe it was because he knew it had to be done. Maybe it was to save his own life.
All he knew was that he’d done it.
He could remember doing it.
He could remember their bodies hitting the floor.
On their knees, their hands bound, they fell forward and looked like Muslims praying.
He’d been ordered to kill his own men, and regardless of the reason, that was wrong.
For that, someone had to pay. Two people would pay. He would pay, and Hale would pay. And Hale first.
It was a harsh justice, but it had to be done. If the Mantis agents, who’d been fucked by the government, had to pay with their lives, then why not Hale, and why not him?
He would kill Hale, and then he would kill himself.
But not before he killed the Crown Prince.
Fifty-Six
Hunter called Fawn from the ground. He was at the King Fahad Air Base outside the city of Taif, Saudi Arabia. Mecca was about twenty miles to the west. The base was located in the desert outside the city and as the plane circled the two-and-a-half-mile long runway, he counted seventy-two brand new Eurofighter Typhoons lined up on the ground. They were built by the Europeans, Airbus and BAE mainly, and were the primary air superiority fighter for European NATO forces. They were nice planes. They entered service in 2003 but their first hot combat missions didn’t come until eight years later.
Hunter had been on the ground in Libya at the time. It was 2011. The fighters were us
ed by the British and Italians and were excellent ground-strike aircraft.
The only country ever to have lost one in combat was Saudi Arabia. It was during a 2017 mission over Yemen’s Abhyan province. The reason for the crash given by the Saudis was that there was a technical difficulty. Hunter would have liked to shake the hand of the Yemeni fighter who took it down.
The plane had two European built turbofan engines providing thirteen-and-a-half-thousand foot pounds of dry thrust apiece. They could get to over twenty thousand foot pounds with afterburners. They could reach mach two at altitude, and could maintain a supercruise of mach 1.5.
They probably cost the Saudis about two hundred million apiece. With seventy of them lined up in front of him, he was looking at about one eighth of the total number ever built.
“Landed?” Fawn said.
“Yeah. King Fahad.”
“You’re renting a car?”
“You don’t have one for me?”
“It wouldn’t be safe.”
“Guess I’m renting then.”
“You have the MasterCard.”
“Yeah. They gave it to me at Andrews.”
“And the passport?”
“I got everything.”
Fawn let out a sigh. “All right then,” she said. “We’ve checked their system and they have no knowledge you’re there.”
“You’re not worried about me, are you Fawn?”
“Of course not.”
“Because you sound …,”
“What?”
“You know?”
“Fuck off, Hunter.”
She hung up on him and he joined the air crew who’d flown him in. He’d been their only passenger.
“You fellas know this place?” he said.
“Been here a few times.”
“Off duty?”
“Sure,” the pilot said. “It’s boring as hell. No bars. No women. Nothing.”
“How’s the drive to Mecca?”
“Short.”
“Are there checkpoints?”
“Nope, nothing like that. You ever been to Mexico?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s like that.”
Hunter nodded.
“You ever drive to Jeddah from here?”
