American Terrorist Trilogy Read online

  He knew that once they saw what he’d done on their camera, they’d come running. So he got the edge of the packet between his teeth, ripped it open, and hurriedly squeezed the cold, squishy contents into his mouth. It was spaghetti and meat sauce.

  He had just swallowed the last bit when he heard boots in the hallway. Klipser stepped forward quickly. Carl didn’t even have time to assume any kind of defensive position—not that it would have made a difference. The agent moved to Carl’s side and struck hard and fast, jabbing him hard in the gut with a knife-edge hand strike.

  Carl folded instantly and vomited his food all over the floor. Then he went to his knees, gasping for breath with his cuffed wrists hanging up over his head. For a brief moment he entertained another positive thought, a small victory over the evil government agent. He threw up most of the food in his stomach, but not all of it.

  Then he saw the doctor step through the door with a syringe, and he knew he’d fallen right into their trap, just like they wanted. The doctor jabbed him in the thigh and squeezed the plunger. Then he and Klipser left.

  Motherfuckers!

  The effects of the drug—nausea and diarrhea—were nearly instantaneous. Within minutes he threw up everything remaining in his stomach and voided his intestines until there was absolutely nothing left inside him. There was no way to fight the chemicals.

  Even after his body was completely empty, he continued to retch with dry heaves, and his bowels continued to work until he was so completely drained of energy he couldn’t even sit upright. He fell over sideways in his own filth, and had no choice but to lie there and wallow in it.

  And that, he finally realized, was the true essence of the torture. He’d been given a tiny measure of hope only to have it violently snatched away.

  He felt the emotions of depression and self-pity wash over him, but he couldn’t stop them. He began to sob again and his body quivered.

  He felt anger too. If he had the tools and the skills, he’d find a way to escape and hunt down Klipser, all his minions, and the doctor. Then he’d find their boss, the unseen man named Director McGrath, and that woman cop, too.

  But he had no tools and no skills and no way to escape. All he could do was lay there in his own mess and acknowledge how truly helpless he was at the hands of these agents.

  Suddenly, he froze. He stopped sobbing and sat upright. It was then he realized he had one way to escape, and they wouldn’t be able to stop him. He still had hope.

  Chapter 12

  Time: Unknown; Day: Unknown

  Location: Unknown

  Peculiar questions occupied most of Carl Johnson’s waking moments. What kind of human would torture another human? What kind of man would design instruments of torture, from the primitive tools of the Middle Ages—designed to rip away pieces of the body or stretch it until limbs tore off—to the high-tech computer-controlled torture he had repeatedly endured? What kind of human would use such tools to inflict pain on another?

  Where did the US government find such men? Do they volunteer for it or is it required training for CIA agents, or Homeland agents, or whoever these people were? How do they learn the processes and techniques of torture? How do they learn the human body’s threshold of pain? On whom do they practice?

  Who designed and developed the computerized torture equipment? What kind of doctor consulted on such an evil device? Where did the government find computer programmers to design and test the software, knowing what the device would be used for?

  What kind of person actually studies and refines the torture methodologies so they can be made to inflict pain even more efficiently and more severely? Who teaches the torturers the psychology of the effects of such barbarism on their victims?

  The short-term effects of torture psychology seemed, at least to Carl, to be well understood. The goal was a fast and efficient path to the truth if, in fact, torture actually resulted in the truth, but what about the long-term psychological effects of torture? Does the government also have a rehabilitation program for its agents who fall victim to enemy torture? How much pain can a normal man without intensive military training take before he breaks or goes insane?

  Carl now understood the psychology of torture, both of the victim and of the torturer, but not because he’d been schooled in the science. He understood because he had witnessed first-hand the mental and emotional processes that he and Agent Klipser had morphed through.

  He guessed he’d been captive three weeks, maybe four. For sure, he’d been tortured long enough for the government agents to know that he didn’t possess the information they sought and that he wasn’t the man they thought he was.

  They should have known he wasn’t the one, but they didn’t. Agent Klipser was firmly convinced that Carl was the one. Despite having no logical reason to believe that conclusion, the man knew Carl was still holding out. The agent was determined to break him and get him to reveal the desired information. Because of his firm conviction, Klipser seemed incapable of realizing his victim was already broken. Carl knew the possibility that he was not Reyes was not even being considered, and so Klipser had become even more brutal in his efforts to break him.

  Part of the torture of being shackled to the wall with his wrists behind his back was that he was forced to try to sleep on his knees, which was extremely painful. As a result, he was severely sleep deprived, no doubt a result planned by Klipser.

  Twenty years ago he could have knelt on his knees on concrete all day long. Now at age fifty-three, his knees were on fire. He kept falling over sideways, yanking his shoulders back. Neither could he squat on his haunches or sit his butt on the concrete.

  After a few days, he’d found a perfectly balanced standing position, and he found that he could actually sleep on his feet. With his heels about two feet away from the wall and three feet apart, toes pointed outward at about forty-five degrees, he found he could lean forward against the chain just far enough so he was a tad off vertical. That way he could lock his knees so he wouldn’t collapse when he nodded off, and there was minimal strain on his shoulders from the cable that bound his hands behind him.

  As soon as Klipser and his crew realized Carl was sleeping on his feet, they positioned a huge concert speaker right inside his open door and turned it up to what had to be full volume. Heavy metal and rap. Screeching guitar solos from a 1980s rock concert followed the booming bass and shouting gangster lyrics from 1990s urban music.

  Carl was old-school Air Force, though. When he enlisted back in the mid-1970s, all the young techs always got pulled onto the emergency exercise teams to practice war-time deployments. They never got deployed, but they spent many days sitting around on the flight line, waiting for the troop transport aircraft to fly them somewhere.

  Carl, along with all the other bored deployment radio techs, became very adept at sleeping while sitting against the hangar walls, with the screaming engines of the C-5 Galaxy and C-141 Starlifter cargo jets taxiing by, not even a hundred feet from where they slept.

  So Carl tuned out the loud music and continued to sleep lightly on his feet. He was able to rest just enough to allow his tortured body to recover somewhat between sessions. He got enough sleep to stay sane.

  Sometimes the bright halogen light in his cell was on for extended periods of time and sometimes it was off. They fed him real meals from MRE packets at unpredictable times each day, though each time he assumed they’d come in later to inject him and force him to regurgitate the food. Sometimes they did, and sometimes they didn’t. It was all part of their torture.

  The questions were always the same. It was always about a girl. Today when they asked him, he had been connected to the electro-shock computer.

  “Who are you talking about? Tell me, please. Maybe I’ve seen her. Maybe I know her.”

  Wrong answer. The doctor set fire to the nerves of his lower spine.

  “Wait! Okay, okay. She’s dead.”

  Wrong answer. More pain. Upper spine this time.

  �
�No, please! I took her to Albuquerque.” That’s easy, right? That’s where they arrested him. “She’s on an abandoned farm in the South Valley.”

  Then the agent asked him the address. He made one up, but a quick map search on Klipser’s laptop indicated there was no such place.

  More pain. Left hip.

  “South America.”

  More pain.

  “Mexico.”

  What part?

  “El Paso.”

  “El Paso is in Texas, Mr. Reyes,” the agent said.

  More pain.

  Over time, Carl knew for sure the doctor had actually killed him—several times by drowning, and at least once by focusing the current from the electro-shock computer to make his heart and lungs cease functioning. He remembered that experience with particular clarity. His brain registered that his heart and lungs had actually stopped, and he was aware of the scary approach of the darkness of suffocation. Each time his eyesight faded to a dim tunnel of light, then the light faded almost to nothing. The doctor resuscitated him, pulling him back from the brink.

  Over the days of torture, Carl found himself silently begging for the pain so he would know he was still alive, and that the doctor wasn’t really going to let him die. He finally accepted the reality that the agents would never release him, never stop torturing him, until they found the girl. That resolution was completely outside of Carl’s control.

  He’d read somewhere that the FBI said if a kidnapped child wasn’t found within seventy-two hours, the child mostly likely would never be found alive. Still, they kept at him as if there was some chance she was alive. They must have figured his people—Reyes’s people—had kept her alive for some other reason.

  He had known all along that there was only one path of escape, but he didn’t have the courage to attempt it. Now he was ready.

  Clarity of purpose is an amazing equalizer.

  Carl realized he wasn’t as helpless as he’d previously thought. He also discovered the torture was an intense, full-body workout. For two or three hours at a time, sometimes several times each day, every muscle in his body was straining hard against the straps on the table.

  Now that he had a purpose and a means to escape, he realized that while his mind had grown weak and pathetic as he fought depression, but his body had grown hard and lean. He’d dropped at least ten pounds of body fat. He was amazed at how much stronger he felt. Still, he knew he had strength for only one escape attempt.

  Chapter 13

  Time: Unknown; Day: Unknown

  Location: Unknown

  The ever-present music went silent, and he listened to the guards approach his doorway. Since awakening he’d been concentrating on stretching his muscles without moving, to loosen up a bit. Now that the guards were coming for him, he worked his neck, rolling his chin to his chest, then rotating his ears to his shoulders, back and forth. One time when he looked down at his body, he could see muscle definition in his abs, hip flexors, and thighs.

  As usual, one of the guards hosed him down with a hard blast of cold water. This time, though, Carl jerked his body sideways and used his thigh to protect his groin. Every time the sadistic bastard tried to hit him where it hurt, he’d twist his body a bit and foil the man’s aim.

  He kept his head dipped down so the man couldn’t force water in his eyes, or up his nose, or down his throat. The guard kept at him, but finally the man admitted defeat and shut off the hose. Carl closed his eyes as the second guard sprayed him down with the antiseptic solution.

  He didn’t struggle as the guards unshackled him from the wall. With his wrists still cuffed behind his back, they led him out of the cell, one man holding firmly to each of his arms. He tried to walk normally as they man-handled him down the hallway.

  As he walked, he studied the details about the hallway. It was concrete, but it definitely looked residential rather than a subterranean chamber of an industrial building or medical complex.

  The ceiling was low, and if his hands hadn’t been cuffed he could have reached up and touched it. He’d had a brief glimpse of the base of a stairway immediately outside his cell to the left, but he saw nothing beyond that. As a real estate agent, he’d seen lots of basements and most looked a lot like this one—windowless, low, and cramped.

  The hallway was maybe ten feet long, and then he turned to the left and passed through a standard-sized, unfinished doorway into the torture room. The room measured about fifteen feet square and had the same bare concrete walls as his cell and the hallway. The walls were laced with standard metal conduit a foot off the floor, with metal power receptacles spaced every few feet. The receptacles were outdoor types with spring-loaded weather-proof covers, no doubt for when the torture room got hosed down. There were no windows.

  The only furnishings in the room were the military-grade metal table and the torture table. The metal table held the doctor’s electro-shock computer gadget. An open cabinet mounted to the wall above the table displayed a variety of medical supplies and clear bags of the chemicals used in Carl’s catheter. As he entered the room he saw a deep, white plastic utility sink mounted on the wall to his right, where the doctor could get water for the drowning sessions.

  Carl knew he wasn’t the first man to be a resident of the facility and occupy the torture table, and he wouldn’t be the last. The torture table was a heavy-duty metal device on a gleaming square post frame. A thick, sturdy, circular cradle was attached to the head of the bed, and another at the foot that allowed the bed to be rotated upside-down length-wise so that water or other bodily fluids could drain into the depression under the table. Carl stepped over to the bed and noticed the thick plastic mattress pad was somewhat molded to the shape of his body.

  The air in the room felt warm and extra dry. It was at least ten degrees warmer than his cell, a condition that his naked body appreciated. His cell was warm enough to survive without succumbing to illness, but not warm enough to be comfortable. Now he was able to relax a bit and release some of his tension, which seemed odd considering he knew he was going to be tortured again.

  Along with the scent of antiseptic cleaner he thought he could detect the faint smell of evergreen trees. The idea popped into his mind that the house was in the woods, or the mountains, where no one could hear him scream.

  The guards hesitated behind him, and it occurred to Carl that they always had to drag him in and lift him onto the table. He helped them out of a predicament they were clearly unprepared for—getting a fully conscious man situated on the torture table. He turned and sat on the mattress, then pivoted on his butt, and swung his legs up. He let the guards strap his legs down. He waited as they uncuffed his wrists and lay back as they strapped the rest of his body to the table. He didn’t resist, and the guards traded glances of uncertainty at his cooperation.

  “I hope you’re proud of yourselves,” he said.

  He looked at each of the young men as they strapped his head into the cradle, and he was satisfied to see neither would meet his gaze. He could tell they were hardened soldiers. They were no doubt well trained in the art of depersonalizing their torture victims—real or perceived terrorists—who were resistant or hateful until the end. Now he could see the uncertainty on their faces, the crack in their armor, but he knew neither man would ever act on that uncertainty.

  As he waited for the doctor and Klipser to arrive, he studied the ceiling. To the left of the mirror was an air vent to deliver fresh air to the room. To the right of the mirror was the return vent for not-fresh air. He could hear the rush of air entering through the left vent, and he could feel the warmth flowing over his body.

  As he waited he wondered how his torturers were feeling. Surely, they must be suffering some degree of frustration, unable to extract the needed information they thought he held. Maybe they were as depressed as he had been. That thought made him chuckle out loud, and his two guards paused in the doorway and looked back at him.

  Carl now realized the human body could survive extreme pain. H
e could survive extreme pain. On the other hand, he recognized it was not the pain itself, but the fear of pain, that left people malleable and susceptible to control and intimidation. He’d had so much of it for so long he knew he would continue to survive it, no matter what they did to him.

  The government agents still controlled his body, his environment, and his situation, but they no longer controlled his mind or his will. He had hope; they could no longer take that away. It felt amazingly powerful to have control of one tiny aspect of his situation. All he had to do was survive this last session.

  Agent Klipser and the doctor walked in and, though Carl’s head was restrained, in his peripheral vision he saw both men pause as they looked at him. He saw their gazes dart toward each other, and as they moved into his field of view he glared at them. He was certain for the first time they both saw contempt in his eyes instead of fear.

  Klipser regarded him with equal contempt as he moved around the foot of the bed, but the doctor walked around the head of the table and Carl eyeballed him the entire way. The doctor wouldn’t meet his gaze and Carl felt an immense satisfaction at the man’s discomfort.

  “Fuckers.”

  Klipser opened a laptop, and when the screen lit up after a couple seconds, he tapped some keys. Then he tilted the display in Carl’s direction. On the screen were three faces that were now very familiar to Carl.

  “Tell me everything you know about these men. I want their names, aliases, home addresses, bank accounts, family members, and other known associates.”