PSYCHOlogical: A Novel, page 18
Anxiously, Val stood behind me with my pistol in her hand. I lifted the stainless-steel dermatome from my canvas bag and held it in front of the hostage. “Have you ever seen one of these?”
With his mouth taped shut, I didn’t expect him to respond. I did, however, want to make the entire process of torturing him as dramatic as possible. In my experience and training, I’d learned the more dramatic the process of torture, the more favorable the results.
“It’s a dermatome. It’s like an electronic potato peeler, but for human skin,” I explained. “Surgeons use them to surgically remove a bed of flesh when they do a skin graft. I’m going to shave a ten-inch strip off your stomach, and then we’ll have a question-answer session. Each time I ask a question and you don’t answer it, we’ll shave off another section.”
He thrashed back and forth in opposition.
I lifted the end of the cord. “Would you plug this in for me?”
Val took the cord end and plugged it into the wall outlet. “I don’t think I can watch this.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t expect you to.” I cringed in an overly theatrical manner. “It’s gruesome as hell. They use anesthesia when they do it in the hospital. I can’t fathom how bad something like this is going feel. Imagine having a two-inch wide swath of your entire bed of skin peeled off—all the way to the muscle—by some amateur with an electronic fucking potato peeler.”
Val paced the floor behind me as I sat on his thighs and lifted his tee shirt to his chest. I pressed it firmly against his flesh and turned it on. The rotating wheel forced his flesh against a two-inch wide surgical blade. A thick layer of skin began to peel away from the muscle.
His screams were muffled by the rag I’d stuffed into his mouth. He arched his back until the pain was too intense for him to continue. A few seconds later, his body went limp as he slipped into unconsciousness.
I continued stripping the flesh from his torso until I reached his chest. When the device came to a stop, a foot-long section of flesh was tangled in the rotating wheel. With a gloved hand, I removed the rectangular-shaped section of skin and draped it over his forehead.
I set the device aside, stood, and stretched my legs. I glanced at my bearded hostage. A bloody two-inch by twelve-inch rectangular section of muscle was exposed along his midsection.
“I’ll wake his ass up in a minute,” I said. “We’ll see what he has to say about things.”
“How are you going to wake him up?”
“I’ll give him an epinephrine shot.”
“What are you going to ask him when he wakes up?”
“First, who he works for. Second, where the flash drive is. Third, who gave him the order to kill us.” I glanced over my shoulder. “I think that’s about it.”
“He was saying all kinds of crazy stuff to me, earlier. Just so you know.”
“Like what?”
“He said I was a double agent. That I worked for FBI’s secret intelligence or some crazy crap. That I was working for them and the DNI at the same time. I have no idea what he was talking about. I can’t believe I’ve been friends with them for the last three years.”
“Proves that you never truly know who someone is,” I said without a second thought of what she’d said. “They were checking up on you since the day you started at New Dawn.”
She crossed her arms and glared at the hostage. “I think they’ve been planning to kill me since day one.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. As soon as you did something to make them feel their security was at risk.”
I got an epinephrine pen from the bag and stabbed it into Jack’s leg. The adrenaline surge caused him to jolt into a hyper state of consciousness.
I folded my arms across my chest and gave him a narrow-eyed glare. “I’m going to ask a question. You’ll give a brief answer. Understand the benefit of being brief. I don’t have the patience to listen to explanations. If you answer briefly and truthfully, we’ll move on to the next question. If not, I’ll shove the rag in your mouth and we’ll start over. Understood?”
He nodded.
I removed the rag. “Who do you work for?”
“The Director…of National…Intelligence.”
“Anyone else?”
He shook his head emphatically. “No.”
“Who sent you to my home?”
“I took…” He exhaled a long breath. “I took an assignment to find a someone…we believed there was…someone had been planted within the DNI by the FBI’s Intelligence Branch. They used information…the President was coerced…forced to support certain causes that he was strongly opposed to. They traced the information—”
“Are you aware of the definition of the word brief?” I asked in a sarcastic tone.
He nodded.
“I’ve known you for an hour and a half, and I’ve been pissed off for that entire fucking time. I have zero patience for your bullshit right now,” I explained. “Give me the name of who sent you to my home this evening, or the next strip of skin is coming off. This time, it’ll be your face.”
“Trevino,” he blurted.
I glanced over my shoulder. “Told you.”
Val nodded.
I looked at the soon-to-be-dead hostage. “Did Trevino send the New Dawn Operators?”
“I have no idea.”
“Where’s the flash drive?”
“Trevino has it,” he responded.
While I contemplated my next question, the telltale thwack of a silenced pistol being fired caused me to flinch.
The hostage’s head exploded. Fragments of skull, brain, and flesh splattered across the floor.
“Jesus!” I spun around.
Frozen in place, she stared blankly at his body, as if she couldn’t believe what she’d done.
I took the pistol from her shaking hand. “Was that an accident?”
“I don’t think so. I think I just snapped,” she stammered. “It just kind of went off when I was thinking about it. Maybe it was my subconscious at work.”
Filled with disbelief that it could have been an accident, I gave her a look. “You’re serious?”
“Sorry.” She exhaled a long breath. “You said you were going to ask him those three questions. You asked them. I was really done listening to him.”
I glanced at the dead hostage and shook my head. A sigh of frustration escaped me. “I wasn’t done interrogating him.”
“I said I was sorry,” she snapped back. “But that asshole lied to me for three years, beat the shit out of me in your kitchen, and then tossed me into the trunk of a fucking car with a bag over my head. He was going to kill us both. He got what he deserved, it was just bad timing.”
We had only one place left where we could possibly get answers. I glanced at the dead hostage and then at her. “You’re right, it was bad timing. Really bad timing.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Val
I looked at Vincent like he was out of his mind. “You’re kidding, right?”
In the midst of rolling Jack up inside my antique Persian rug, he looked up at me. “Not at all. I’m going to carry him to his house, dump him on the floor beside her, and leave him. I’ll bring the rug back, though.”
I glanced around the room. Blood was splattered everywhere. The walls? Covered. The floor? Soaked. My favorite entry hall table? Ruined. Little red spots were all over the ceiling. It looked like we’d filmed the final scene of a 1980’s slasher movie in my entry hall.
“There’s bits and pieces of him all over the place,” I argued. “If they spray this room with luminol and flip on a black light, it’ll have a blue glow that they’ll be able to see from the other side of the Potomac.”
He paused. “What do you know about luminol?”
“I watch cop shows.”
His gaze lingered for a moment before shifting his attention back to Jack. When he finished rolling him up in my rug, he wrapped duct tape around the make-shift burrito in two places.
He stood and stretched his arms. “Believe me, it isn’t going to matter.”
“They’re never going to believe he was killed over there.”
He sighed. “It’s not going to matter.”
I cocked my hip. “How is the fact that the entire top of his head is gone—and it’s nowhere to be found—not going to matter?”
“When the Office of the DNI finds out they’ve been murdered, they’ll intervene with the investigation—if the locals are investigating. When they intervene, the case will become federal. The feds will get rid of the bodies, sanitize the home, and nobody will ever find out what really happened.”
Vincent was right. When an operator was killed while on a mission, DNI’s procedure was to interfere with any local investigation, take charge, and cover up the entire field operation. The Office of the DNI couldn’t risk that a savvy detective might expose the intricate details of clandestine operations.
I scanned the room and then shook my head at the sight. “I’m sorry. You’re right.”
Jack’s earlier accusations had me on edge. I wanted to figure out a way to clean everything up, deny it ever happened, and go on about my life. Now, more than ever, I knew that would never happen. I had somehow managed to become one of the damaged souls I was accustomed to counseling.
“What are we going to do about cleaning my house?” I asked.
“We’re going to gather up all the skull fragments, brain matter, and flesh. Then, we’ll make a quick pass to clean the blood with soap and water. When we’re done, you’re going to have an electrical fire.”
I gasped. “You’re going to light my house on fire?”
He nodded as if it was no big deal. “After I kill Trevino.”
“There’s stuff in here that I want.”
“You’re going to need to decide what’s important to you and take it with you. If this house looks like it’s been stripped of anything of value, the fire investigators will declare it arson. You and I won’t have the luxury of the Office of the DNI covering up investigations for us. Not any longer.”
The severity of what was happening weighed down on me so heavily I nearly collapsed, right then and there.
The manner in which I’d been living my life was going to come to a screeching halt. I imagined Vincent intended to torture Trevino until he revealed everything he knew about New Dawn and the DNI.
He’d demand answers as to why we were being eliminated. He’d ask about McMurphy and insist that Trevino tell the truth. After a few hours of torture, Trevino would comply with Vincent’s wishes.
In the end, if I managed to live that long, I’d be forced to begin a new life. One without deceit, lies, and manipulation at every turn.
I wanted my old life back. The one where Vincent would enter my office with one corner of his mouth curled up in a grin that he wasn’t able to completely conceal. He’d reveal his worries, concerns, and feelings.
I’d offer a professional opinion of why he felt the way he did. He’d ask questions. I’d make suggestions on how he could find a way to accept his feelings as being nothing but his mind’s natural reaction to a situation. He’d eventually stand, smile, turn away, and take one last glance in my direction before leaving. I’d cling to that glance until the next time we met.
On the surface, my life had been simple.
I glanced at the bloody wall. It stood as proof that beneath the surface, my life was eventually going to kill me if changes weren’t made soon.
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Staff Sergeant Briggs
Light from the parking lot filtered through Val’s office window. The left side of her face was illuminated just enough to reveal her swollen eye.
“Do you think he’ll show?” she asked.
After studying the text messages, Jack’s choice of words, and his manner of speaking in the messages he’d sent, I’d used his burner phone to send Trevino a message. His response, OMW, was a millennial acronym for on my way.
I nodded. “I do.”
“And you think this is the best place to do this?”
Most wouldn’t choose a secure Marine Corps base that housed the FBI, ATF, DEA, and every other federal and military force in existence to commit murder.
In my mind, it was perfect.
“It’s as good of a place as any,” I replied. “Saves cleanup, anyway.”
Val peered out her office window. Jack’s car sat in the parking lot, by the building’s entrance. A search of his personal effects revealed he had access to Quantico—and to New Dawn’s office—so we used his car and our own ID’s to gain access to the base.
Trevino would see Jack’s car upon his arrival, and assume Jack truly was waiting for him.
“The sun’s going to come up any minute,” she said, still gazing blankly out the window.
I shook my head. “It’s been a long fucking night.”
She faced me. “I really hope this works.”
“All he’s got to do is show up. The rest is up to me.”
She gestured toward the Taser I held. “Have you ever used that thing?”
I lifted the device and looked it over in the light that filtered through the window. “This will be my first time.”
A flash of light on the wall behind her caused me to straighten my posture.
Val glanced out her window. “That’s him.”
I stood, leaned over her desk, and kissed her. “See you in a few.”
“I’d say good luck,” she said, “but I don’t think you operate on luck.”
“Say it, anyway.”
“Good luck, Vincent.”
I chuckled. “I’m Briggs until further notice.”
“Good luck, Briggs.”
Chapter Forty
Val
Access to New Dawn’s headquarters required entering through a glass door, walking through a vestibule, and then passing through another glass door. Both doors required the use of an ID to unlock the magnetic door locks. After the second door, a short hallway led to a “T”. Supplies, the server room, and the armory were on the left. Offices were on the right.
Vincent was on the left—which was illuminated—waiting for Trevino to walk into the intersection. I was in my darkened office, on the right.
The first magnetic lock deactivated with a loud clank!
Then, the second clank!
I drew a breath and held it.
“Winslow?” Trevino said. “You in here?”
“Server room,” Vincent said in a deep, disguised tone.
I grinned at the resemblance to Jack’s voice. Vincent was very talented at what he did and continued to prove that to me through his actions and ideas.
The humming from the fluorescent lights down the hallway was the only sound. My muscles tensed in anticipation of what was to come.
A bang—much louder than I expected—broke the eerie silence. A crackling sound followed. The unmistakable thud of a body hitting the floor was next. Then, more crackling.
“Briggs?” I said into the darkness.
“Alive and well,” he replied. “Would you be so kind as to bring me my tools of torture?”
With a pistol in my right hand and the bag in my left, I stepped into the hallway. Thirty feet away, on the floor to my left, an olive suit clad Trevino was sprawled out, face down. Vincent was on top of him with his knee pressed into the center of his back. Pink confetti-sized discs of paper covered the floor.
I pointed the pistol at Trevino and dropped the bag at Vincent’s side.
Vincent zip-tied Trevino’s hands and ankles, then dragged him past the entrance and toward the dimly lit side of the hallway. He unfolded a sheet of plastic and rolled Trevino onto it, facing upward.
Vincent peered down at him through narrow eyes. “Might take you a minute to process this,” he began. “But your little mission went to shit. We’ve got two dead undercover DNI operators—one male, one female—and three dead New Dawn operators. Needless to say, your targets are still at large.”
Trevino blinked a few times.
“And, we’re going to stay that way,” I added.
“If he so much as moves a muscle, shoot him,” Vincent said.
I steadied the pistol and gave a nod. “Okay.”
Vincent reached into the bag and removed a pair pruning shears.
He held them over Trevino and looked them over. “I’ll ask a question. You’ll provide a brief, concise response. If it’s a rambling, meaningless information dump of a response, I’ll lop off a finger. If it’s brief and truthful, I won’t. When we’re out of fingers, I’ll start with your toes. Understood?”
Trevino looked at me, and then at Vincent. He nodded.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Vincent said. “First question. Why were you after Doctor Rhoades?”
“The Director of the Office of DNI ordered her to be eliminated,” Trevino replied.
Vincent’s eyes thinned. “The Director? For what reason?”
“She removed sensitive materials from this office. In an effort to prevent—”
Vincent held up his hand. “That’s enough.”
“I want to hear what he has to say,” I said. “Can you let him finish?”
Vincent sighed. “Finish your thought, Joseph.”
Trevino drew a breath, tilted his head in my direction, and exhaled. “To prevent distribution of the classified documents, we were prepared to take whatever measures were necessary.”
“Including kidnapping and killing me?” I asked.
He nodded. “The Director’s orders.”
Vincent cleared his throat. “Three Marines were on my property. They didn’t come in peace. What prompted the mission, and what was their objective?”
Trevino clenched his jaw and glared.
Vincent coughed out a laugh. He raised the pruning shears by the handles. “Is this how you want to do it?”
Trevino closed his eyes. “Shoot me.”
Vincent snapped the pruning shears open and shut repeatedly. “Not until there’s twenty digits on the floor.”
