The Rasner Effect (3 page)

“Oh, this is Officer James, and you can bet he’s a big help when these kids are trying to step up.” Hefner gestured toward Rick. “James, this is Rick Rasner; Miss Miller hired him this week. He’s our new…you’re a psychologist, right?”

“Therapist. Psychotherapist, to be more specific.”

“Sorry…psychotherapist, so many different titles come through here.” She looked back at Officer James. “He’s from New York just like us, isn’t that right, Mr. Rasner?”

Before Rick could answer, Officer James interrupted, “Long commute. About an hour and a half’s drive.”

“I live in the area now,” Rick explained. “I moved here when I got hired.”

Without giving a response, Officer James nodded and walked past Rick, heading down the hallway to greet a man wearing a white jacket who needed a door opened.

Hefner motioned with her hand for Rick to once again follow her. “These doors ahead are our classrooms. We have four classes. The room to your right is for our oldest patients. They’re our high school level kids. Next to it, we have the classroom for the eighth and ninth graders. That’s the biggest age group we got.”

Rick glanced at each door, trying to remember which classes were in which rooms.

Hefner spoke quickly, making it hard for him to follow. “The classroom across from those two, that’s where the sixth and seventh graders get their schooling. We have only a few patients younger than that, but the ones we have are in the classroom next to that one.”

“These are full working classrooms?”

“Of course. They may be patients in our place, but they’re still children and they still need their education, right? Each student has a portfolio of his or her work. If and when a student gets released, the portfolio goes to the new school. If they don’t leave, they can still earn a real high school diploma within these walls, if they behave and can handle the work.”

“It must be tough getting teachers to work here.”

“Tell me about it!” Hefner threw a shoulder shrug that reflected her attitude. “We don’t exactly get teacher-of-the-year candidates, but our staff is fully accredited by the State of Pennsylvania Teachers’ Board. Sometimes they even stay, at least the ones who can deal with these kids.”

Hefner stopped near the door at the end of the hallway. Rick stopped as well. “What time do the students begin school?”

“Eight on the dot. The alarms go off an hour before and then they are escorted from their rooms on the top floor down to breakfast at 7:30. Then we bring them to their classrooms five minutes before the day starts. Each group gets half an hour for lunch in the cafeteria on the first floor, provided they’re not on lockdown, in which case they eat in their classrooms. Dinner’s at five”

“I noticed a farm on the property,” Rick said. “Is that part of the facility?”

“Yes. Classes end at five but those who earn the privilege get to leave early and work on the farm until dinner.”

“Working on the farm is a privilege?” Rick laughed.

“When you’re stuck in this 100 year old building day and night,” Hefner pointed out, “any reason to be outside is a privilege.”

She took the key hanging from a string around her neck and held it in her right hand. It was a large key just like the one Officer James had. She used it to open a door, which led into another office. This office had two desks, one on opposite sides of the room. A large plastic divider spread across the width of the room.

“This is the therapy suite where you will be working with Miss Murphy. She’s a social worker and does what you do, the related service. Right now, we have about 35 patients. I guess the two of you would split the caseload.”

The desk on the far left was bare while the one on the right was piled high with papers, picture frames, and various office supplies. There was also an open Bible on top of the papers. Rick strode to the empty desk and dropped the box with a thud. He flexed his arms, then his fingers, wiggling them like a typist preparing for a long day at the keyboard.

“So, have you met our Director, Katherine Miller yet?” Hefner asked.

“Not yet. Actually, there wasn’t much of an interview process. I spoke to her for about thirty seconds on the telephone before she said to just show up today. She hung up before I could agree to be here.”

Hefner gave a knowing chuckle. “That sounds like Miss Miller, all right. But I know Doctor Obenchain recommended you, and in this town, his word means a lot.”

“I’m sure I’ll meet her later on.” Rick began removing the contents of his box. From the corner of his eye, he noticed Hefner peeking over his shoulder. “Anything I need to know about Ms. Miller?”

Hefner laughed. “Oh, she’s a rough character, all right, but you’ll get used to her. She’s been part of this facility for over twenty-five years and her way works. She keeps good relations with the town of Brookhill so they don’t make a stink about a nuthouse sitting right in their backyard. I remember back a few years, you had to drive through groups of protestors to get to work.”

Rick removed his framed degree from Talbert University. He scrubbed it with his forearm to remove a smudge from the glass and placed it on the desk. Hefner picked it up and read, tilting the frame to get the glare off.

“What do you mean by ‘a little rough’?” Rick asked, trying to ignore her blatant curiosity over his things.

“She can be critical. Oh, and she likes to yell a lot. She’s blunt, but…well, after a while everybody realizes it’s best to just let her scream. You’ll get used to it in time.”

“Oh, great,” Rick muttered, wondering if he truly wanted to be in an environment where he’d have to get used to being yelled at.

“As long as you do your job and you’re not intimidated by these kids, or by her, you’ll be fine.” Hefner put his degree back on the desk and turned to leave. “No doubt you can handle it.” She tipped her head toward the frame, sitting prominently on the corner of his new desk. “The training and education that went with this degree was good, I’m sure. Am I right?”

“It was.”

“Of course, no piece of paper replaces real-world experience.”

Once again, Rick did not respond. He took his degree in his left hand and rubbed her fingerprints off with his right sleeve.

“Well, thank you for the tour, Officer…”

“‘Miss…I just go by Miss Hefner around here. Makes things easier. Good luck to you, and if you need anything, just holler.” She offered a phony smile and marched out of the room.

Rick watched the head of Security & Discipline leave the therapy suite. Once she left his sight and he couldn’t hear her footsteps any more, he examined his degree. He had earned it years after the tragedy, a tragedy he couldn’t remember, much like his entire life before that fateful day.

Chapter Two

Hands pushed into the pockets of khaki Army shorts, Jake Scarberry stood at the large glass window watching the waves crash against the shore. Their turbulence mirrored his thoughts about his new job. It wasn’t a dream job, by any stretch of the imagination, but right now, he had to take what was given to him. He let out a long breath, turned away from the window, poked the vacuum’s ON button, and pushed the nozzle across the blue carpet. So, this was what his life had become—mindless, routine. It was a comfortable Florida day, but Jake hadn’t felt comfortable since the moment he stepped off the plane and began a new life as a member of this beachfront college town.

That thought crossed his mind often, especially each time he strode through the frat house, which he had to clean on a daily basis. The Greek lettering on the walls preceded pictures of students who inhabited the house over the last several decades, posing in their fraternity outfits. Both the lettering and pictures reminded him of how this life had humbled him.

He clicked off the vacuum and surveyed the carpet, trying to muster satisfaction for a job well done. It was clean, but didn’t look much better. The place was obviously well used, and abused. Six mismatched, and scarred, chairs surrounded a wooden table. The four lamps against the wall were not a matching set. Two antiquated, brown upholstered couches, set catty-corner to one another, faced the only thing in the room not old or battered—a large big-screen television and stereo, complete with video game system hookup.

The front door opened and four of the young occupants, wearing bathing suits and towels, strode into the room. They beelined for the television and couches. They left behind a trail of sand across the carpet. The smallest of the four boys, a bleached blonde, stopped beside Jake and patted him on the back. “Sorry about that, Charlie. You probably just cleaned in here, didn’t you?”

“That’s fine, Glen, I’ll just vacuum again before I go,” Jake assured him, trying not to swing the vacuum hose at his head.

“All right, cool.” Glen ran to the couch and grabbed one of the controllers to the game system. “Charlie says he’ll vacuum again, so it’s all good,” he told the others.

Jake immersed himself in his own memories, drowning out the noise from the fraternity brothers playing their video game and screaming.

Charlie Wright. The name had taken Jake a long time to become comfortable with, almost seven years to be exact. He detailed in his mind the timeline of his life that resulted in his occupational change from high-priced mercenary to cleaning off-campus fraternity houses in sunny Tampa Beach, Florida.

It felt like a lifetime ago, when he was part of the Special Forces unit in the United States Army. Jake and a select, talented few were part of the Black Ops squad—the crew that took on “special missions.” These were the missions nobody recorded, acknowledged, or even discussed afterward. The missions were necessary; the soldiers chosen because they were skilled and crazy enough to succeed.

When the unit finally disbanded, some of the members remained in service while others chose to conform back into society. A few others chose to continue the thrill of working outside society doing jobs no one else wanted. Jake was one of those few; he became a gun-for-hire, working for various employers. In time, he became a high-priced merc, and a successful one at that—always business and never personal, whether it was a transport or a clean kill.

Jake prided himself on his style, which was opposite of Colonel Richard Duke, his former CEO. Duke became a mercenary as well, also working within the United States. A different type, Duke enjoyed the “game” as he called it. He got as much of a thrill out of the assassinations as when he led their unit. Where Jake preferred to work alone, Richard Duke loved to train, lead, and be followed. If only he was in a business that allowed for loyalty. With this in mind, who could the Colonel trust? He did have his young daughter, Jennifer. In fact, he had raised her to follow in his footsteps. He taught her to become comfortable with murder, even at a young age, and have an impassive outlook toward human life. The problem, however, was she was still just a child. Even if she were older, a good organization cannot consist of only two members.

One of Richard Duke’s greatest assets was his patience and his ability to think outside the box. Duke wanted an army he could train himself, and soon he formed one. He took in children as recruits for his organization. Duke enlisted these children from orphanages, psychiatric institutions, and sometimes off the streets.

Colonel Duke took in those young unwanteds and invested many years teaching these angry, yet impressionable, young children. He focused their concentration on the arts of hand-to-hand combat, firearms, and strategy. Duke took them forward into young adulthood. He made them ruthless, so ruthless, in fact, The Colonel was later assassinated by his most aggressive student who would take over as leader, along with Duke’s own daughter. Rumors suggested she had set up her own father for the hit.

The Duke Organization proved to be everything Colonel Duke had hoped it would become, and worse. What they lacked in intelligence and experience, they made up for in pure psychopathic tendencies. They left dozens of bodies in their wake as they showed very little discretion, caution or care toward innocent civilians in the way of their intended targets. It wasn’t long before their actions caught the government’s attention and need for indirect involvement. That involvement was to hire a mercenary who would be responsible for putting an end to the Duke Organization.

Should he have taken the job? It was a question Jake asked himself every single day throughout that long chase. Not that he really had a choice either way. They made him an offer he dared not refuse.

The chase began on the day the FBI picked up Jake for his illegal occupation and brought him before General Straker. Instead of arresting him, Straker offered a deal. Jake would get a fresh start and a clean record in return for accepting a job for the United States government. His task—to put an end to the reign of the organization created and formerly ran by his past Commanding Officer—and do it with stealth.

An entire year, that’s how long the chase lasted, always coming close but missing his intended targets. Jake suffered his own personal losses, which included the assassination of his younger brother, the FBI agent that set up his deal with the General. Suddenly, Jake no longer had an ally among his new employers. Even worse, he found himself in a war that had turned personal.

The day came when all the information he had gathered—including his own hunches based on a year of studying the group—finally paid off. Jake intercepted information on the Duke organization’s next target. It was just a matter of where and when they would strike. It turned out to be on a New York City bridge the intended target traveled over daily.

It was late afternoon when the members of the Duke organization set up their homemade bomb. Jake made his sneak attack on the co-leader—the man who took out the Colonel. The man, however, detonated the bomb earlier than planned. He then stayed behind to fight what turned into a hand-to-hand battle while everything burned around them. It was the ultimate sacrifice, giving the rest of the group enough time to flee.

Although Jake’s memories of the day’s conclusion remained foggy, he knew it was not his actions that brought an end to the battle. His opponent’s defeat came at the hands of the government soldiers who’d intervened, despite the promise he received from General Straker there would be no interference until the job was done, or Jake was dead.