The Experiment of Dreams (20 page)

M
ichael saw the sign for Fells Point.

They were close.

Michael closed his eyes.
What’s brought us to this?
Iain and I, we used to be the perfect team. I know that I’ve changed, but … why hasn’t he?

For years, Iain and Michael operated like a well-oiled machine. It was hard to pinpoint exactly when Michael began to ponder the consequences of his actions, but thinking back on it now, he guessed that it all began around the time Kabul fell to the U.S. and NATO forces along with the Northern Alliance.

Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet had recently been transferred to U.S. Task Force 373, stationed in Kunduz, Northern Afghanistan. The task force’s main objectives were to find and neutralize, or occasionally capture, high-profile opposition forces. They were assassins for the United States Military.

For years, the task force stayed out of the limelight, operating in secrecy and proving to be an effective and proficient unit. When an order came in and the target was given the green-light on the JPEL list—Joint Prioritized Effects List, the list of individuals chosen to be assassinated or captured—the team moved out, typically in the dead of night, transported by plane, Humvee, helicopter, or on foot.

Task Force 373 included soldiers from every spectrum of the armed forces, and the men were typically aged about ten years younger than Michael and Iain. Boys, really—just kids. By 2007, Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet were safely the two oldest soldiers in all of Task Force 373.

Talks of discharge were already in the works, when one fateful night in June, an order came through to eradicate a commanding officer of the Taliban spotted just outside of Jalalabad.

The events that followed remain in Michael’s thoughts as clear as day:

The team had made their way to the perimeter of the objective, in a desert valley outside of Jalalabad. All at once, the team stopped cold in their tracks. Someone had spotted them. A bright spotlight swept their position, and Michael could hear people shouting in Arabic. The team ducked for cover.

Michael didn’t know which side made the first shot, but within moments, both sides were engaged in a firefight. Michael crouched behind a crude rock wall, which surrounded the ancient ruins of a farmhouse in that isolated valley. Without hesitation, he aimed his rifle and fired in the direction of the enemy soldiers. Bullet rounds kicked up dirt and shattered the rock wall around him to dust.

Air support was called in, and an AC-130 Spectra gunship strafed the enemy position, raining fire from the sky, obliterating the ground in huge plumes of sand, smoke, and rock that rose ten feet in the air before plummeting back down to the earth. When the air cleared, the team moved in. Most of the enemy soldiers were strewn about, dead in the valley or still dying. A few escaped with their lives, and some badly injured were unable to rise. The injured rolled in the dusty soil, yelling, crying, holding their wounds, and shouting in their native tongue. Blood was everywhere, sucked down into that unforgiving, greedy desert sand. The blood of whole armies would never be enough.

Michael quickly discovered that the men they fought were part of the Afghan police force. They were the good guys, and a terrible mistake had been made.

Iain and Michael were given leave of Task Force 373 as diplomats and generals tried in vain to suppress any information leaking to the public.

Iain and Michael were then employed by Blackwater—paid to do mercenary work in Iraq as the main U.S. forces secured the cities and towns. They guarded oil tanks and supply lines from insurgents. In the end, they were stationed at a small makeshift airport. Jet planes and personal aircraft carrying men wearing suits with large briefcases and satchel bags came and went at random intervals, day and night.

It was then that they first met Mr. Timothy Kalispell.

Mr. Kalispell arrived on a jet. He walked out on the tarmac wearing a full suit and tie, carrying only a briefcase and a small bag of luggage. The dusty air covered his dark suit the moment he stepped out on that sandy soil. Iain and Michael were ordered to escort Mr. Kalispell to Baghdad, along with a third Blackwater operative named Frederick Marshal, and a driver whose name Michael could not remember.

They met and shook hands. Mr. Kalispell asked Iain, “Are you in charge?”

“I’ll be heading the team, sir.”

Mr. Kalispell nodded, and they left.

Thirty miles outside Baghdad, Iain yelled, “Stop!”

The armored SUV skidded to a halt, kicking up a plume of sand and dust that wafted into the interior. Iain looked out the passenger window with a set of binoculars. After a moment, he said in a casual tone, “Hostiles, two o’clock.”

The driver put the car in reverse and pressed down hard on the gas, billowing smoke and sand in the opposite direction. Seconds later, gunfire erupted from behind a small mound far out in the desert. The hostiles were nothing more than tiny specks of reflected light floating in a sea of rolling sand.

“Jesus Christ!” Mr. Kalispell shouted, clutching his briefcase to his chest.

“Stop the car! Stop! Stop!” Michael yelled, squatting in the trunk of the SUV, facing the rear. “Two hostiles, seven o’clock.”

The driver hit the brakes and grabbed the microphone on the radio, speaking quickly to Command. Iain opened the car door and dropped to the ground, his chest against the sand. He leveled his rifle, squinting through the scope. Michael flipped open the rear window, propping his gun on the ledge of the door. Frederick Marshal grabbed Mr. Kalispell's shoulder in his calloused grip and pushed him down to the floor of the car, where he curled up in a ball.

Bullet fire from the enemy was now intense. Rounds hit the side of the armored SUV, making noises like,
‘Plunk, Plunk,’
and leaving behind silver flower-pattern dents in the dark metal.

Iain and Michael kept their breathing steady and deep—in and out, in and out—and began squeezing off rounds. They breathed, focused, and pulled the trigger, firing one shot for every five shots that the enemy fired. They saw their targets drop or retreat behind desert mounds.

The gunfire ceased. The air was so silent that time itself seemed to stop. Iain remained on the ground, a cloud of dust engulfing his body, turning his hair a reddish-grey. Then he stood and got back in the SUV.

“We’re ordered back by Command,” the driver exclaimed, holding the squawking microphone. Iain nodded, and the driver put the car in gear.

“Wait, wait!” Mr. Kalispell gathered himself from the floor of the car. He patted down his disheveled hair and straightened his wrinkled suit jacket. “We’re fifty miles out. Are there more soldiers out there? More terrorists? Are they gone?”

Iain looked at Michael who shrugged. “I don’t know, sir. I dropped two, and a third ran off. There could be more. We have orders to return to base.” He wanted to mention that the men who fired on them were most likely not terrorists, or even remainders of the Republican Guard. From their sporadic firing, they were most likely local civilians, untrained, and poorly armed.

“I’m not …” Mr. Kalispell was breathing hard, gathering his words. “I have to go to Baghdad. Now. Not later. I have to attend a meeting that won’t wait for me.” The man looked Iain in the eyes. “Take me to Baghdad. Continue forward. We’re more than halfway there; turning back won’t be a safer option.”

There was silence in the truck. Frederick shook his head. “Iain, I don’t—”

“Continue to Baghdad.” Iain turned to face forward.

“Sir?” the driver asked. “We have orders from—”

“You heard me. Move out. That’s an order from me.”

“Yes, sir.”

They met with no additional violence that day. They arrived in Baghdad as planned and returned to the airport without any further problems.

Iain Marcus was in serious trouble for disobeying a direct order from Command. As soon as they returned to the airport, Iain was ordered to the debriefing room by his commanding officers.

As Iain was thoroughly debriefed in a small room that resembled a jail cell, Mr. Kalispell made some phone calls and was faxed over detailed reports on Iain Marcus, Michael Bennet, Frederick Marshal, and the driver. He studied the reports outside the debriefing room until the door opened and Iain came out.

“Sir.” Iain nodded.

“Are you in trouble?”

Iain held back a nervous laugh. “I’m sure I am.”

“I have to thank you for saving my life back there.”

“No, sir, you don’t.”

“Yes, I do. And I need to thank you for doing what you did back there, for listening to me. You broke your superior officer’s orders and took a risk, only because I asked you to do it.”

Iain looked down. Mr. Kalispell could see the words written on Iain’s face, clear as day. He was battered and tired, sick of orders, sick of the desert. He was done with warfare.

“I’ve read your file and I have to say, you’ve had a very interesting career with the United States Military. You started out in the 10th Mountain Division, is that correct? You and Michael Bennet have worked together since boot camp.”

“I believe my file is confidential, sir.”

“It is. And it’s very impressive.” He thought he saw a smile on Iain’s face. “How would you like to get out of here? Out of Iraq, out of this godforsaken desert. I’m in need of some people back at home, sort of like … bodyguards, you could say. People in your line of work, with your expertise.”

“I’m under contract, I—”

“Let’s talk in private.” Mr. Kalispell looked over his shoulders, making sure no one was around. “If you can spare a few minutes.”

Iain nodded, and the men walked to an empty office.

Two hours later Mr. Kalispell made a number of calls, and Iain Marcus and Michael Bennet were boarding a Hawker 850XP, bound for New York.

Years had passed since then, and Iain and Michael were still working for Mr. Kalispell.

Michael opened his eyes.

Iain was parking the car, a block from Benjamin Walker’s front door.

I
ain walked up the flight of stairs to Ben’s apartment. It was eerily similar to Ethan’s apartment back in Drapery Falls, only the interior and hallway in Ben’s building was much brighter and newly renovated. It was not the dark, upstate New York piece-of-shit apartment where Ethan lived. Iain recalled the splintering hardwood floors and the single exposed light bulb in Ethan’s hallway. The hallway leading to Ben’s apartment was well-lit twenty-four hours, and streetlights illuminated the sidewalk outside. Yet, both Ethan’s and Ben’s apartments were in four-unit complexes, with two apartment downstairs and two apartments upstairs.

This time things would be different. Iain could not afford a single mistake. He was in the middle of Baltimore, not some small town like Drapery Falls, where no one in the world would hear about a small house fire and a few deaths. In Baltimore, the news would spread all throughout the city, possibly even to New York and New Jersey if the fire was large enough. A criminal probe would be extensive.

As head of the team, Iain would enter the apartment alone. He ordered Michael Bennet to take up position across the street, where he stood in a dark corner next to a doorway pretending to be doing something on his smartphone.

From where Michael stood, he could see the darkness emanate from the windows of Ben’s living room and bedroom, and he sighed deeply, knowing that inside that apartment, an innocent man lay sleeping in bed without a clue as to what was about to happen. It was Drapery Falls all over again.

Iain adjusted the radio-transmitter in his ear, blowing into the microphone to test it. Michael blew into his, and Iain adjusted the volume accordingly.

Iain stepped through the doorway of Ben’s complex and into the shared lobby, moving like a ghost to the staircase, and slipped up the stairs through the shadows. When he was one step from the top, he peeled off two small strips of electrical tape he’d pre-cut and stuck to his gloved hand, placing one over the peephole to Ben’s door, and the other over his neighbor's door across the landing.

He placed the duffel bag on the ground and unzipped it, removing a shower cap for his head and two smaller ones for his shoes, stretching the elastic band over his ankles. He went to work picking the lock, and in just a matter of seconds, the handle turned freely. Iain removed his silenced Beretta M9 from the duffel bag and gently pulled back the slide to make sure a round was chambered. The fact that Ben was delusional—perhaps insane—made him dangerous, and Iain hoped he wouldn’t have to use the pistol. If he had to, he wanted to make sure the bullet was lethal enough to do the job in one shot, maybe two. So he’d packed the M9 instead of the Sig Sauer. Using a gun would present a whole new set of problems. Disposing a body and erasing a crime scene in the middle of the city would not be an easy task.

Iain clutched the duffel bag and slid into the room, closing the door behind him and relocking it.

Outside, Michael watched for movement in the apartment windows and listened for footsteps nearby, but the area was calm, and nothing stirred behind the dark windows. He hoped that he would not see a flash coming from Ben’s window, because that could only mean one thing—a gunshot. It was bad enough they had to exterminate the man, but if forced, he wanted it to be quick and painless. Iain was to slip in, find him sleeping, and inject him with the same narcotics they used with Ethan. No mistakes, no unnecessary fear, and hopefully, no struggle.

Michael sighed.

He did not want to be up there. Being directly involved with the murder was not something he wanted. He was glad Iain ordered him to stay outside. The seconds ticking away on his watch felt like hours, and his legs became restless. He was a soldier, a professional. He’d killed dozens of men in numerous wars and operations. He’d killed men who never saw him coming, with his own bare hands. But this was different. This was not war in any conventional sense; this was corporate war. Consumerism and money were the end-results, not freedom, or necessity. This was murder, plain and simple. There was no way around it. He wanted no part of it.

If he could, if there was any way he could stop this, he would. But he wasn’t in charge. He was getting old, grey, and unfit; he shouldn’t be involved with such messes any more. Mr. Kalispell had hired Michael to do recon under Iain—his superior officer in Iraq and Afghanistan. His job was to watch business rivals, people of interest, and gather information on them. Take pictures, break a law or two, but nothing as serious as murder. This whole Lucy business was going on for far too long now, and the toll it was taking was beyond appalling. This would be it, the end of the line. He would present his resignation once Lucy went public and disappear to someplace far away.

He had to be careful though, because Mr. Kalispell was not a man to be taken lightly. Michael couldn’t be sure how much the man knew about his and Dr. Wulfric’s past. That would present an entirely new set of problems.

But he couldn’t think about those things now. He had to finish this operation, this
last
operation.

Fifteen minutes passed.

It was hard being the lookout. Not knowing what was going on was maddening. He should have heard something by now.

Two clicks came over the radio, which meant Iain was coming out. A sense of dread washed over Michael. Ben was dead. It was over.

He liked Ben. He was a sad man, a man battling demons, which was something Michael could relate to—something many Special Forces guys could relate to. Ben’s demons were different from his own, but all the same, demons come from one place and one place alone—hell.

In the hallway, Iain removed his plastic foot slippers and shower cap, removed the electrical tape from the peepholes, and walked down the stairs and out the front door. He saw Michael across the street and walked around the block to their car. Michael followed. They got in the car, and Iain drove away.

Michael sighed, “Is it over?”

“No, Michael, it’s not fucking over. Ben wasn’t there. The apartment’s empty.”

“What?” Michael straightened in his seat. “Where did he go?”

“How the hell should I know? He left his goddamn keys on the counter.” Michael saw the veins in Iain’s neck grow large, like they had during combat. “I put a camera in his smoke alarm. If he comes back, we’ll know. Call the team; get their asses back here. Those fucking morons missed something, and we need to know what.”

Michael took out his phone and dialed the comms team.

“Have them watch the front fucking door this time.” Iain whacked the steering wheel with his fist. “Fuck!”