Alex Berenson: The Midnight House

“Sure.”

“So in that movie, Michael J. Fox, he’s got this picture of his family. And when he goes back to 1950-whatever and messes up the way his mom and dad are supposed to meet, the people in the picture, they start to vanish. Because he’s screwed up his own birth, see? And one day I saw the same thing happening to Rachel and the Rangers in the 673 picture. I mean, I didn’t imagine it. I saw it. I knew what I had to do. I just saw that picture entirely blank. It only seemed right.”

“You have the photo with you?”

“In my backpack.”

Wells rummaged through, found it. The members of 673 stood in front of an anonymous concrete barracks. Everyone but Callar wore cowboy hats. In the center, Murphy and Terreri held up a painted wooden sign that read, “Task Force 673, Stare Kiejkuty: The Midnight House.” Callar was in the group but not of it. Her smile was pained, her face tilted slightly away from the camera, as if she was looking at something the others had missed. A ghost on the edge of the frame.

“Why not just go after Terreri? Or Terreri and Murphy?”

“I blamed all of them. I didn’t know exactly who did what, but I knew everybody was dirty. It wasn’t my job to make distinctions.”

“It was your job to kill them,” Shafer said. “With an assist from whoever killed those Rangers.”

“That’s right.” Now that he wasn’t talking about Rachel, Callar’s voice was flat, remorseless.

“What about that posting on the jihadi Web site after Wyly and Fisher were killed? The one that said it was revenge for the way we treat detainees?”

“I knew at some point you guys would put the murders together. I was hoping to jump in front, misdirect you.”

“You figured out how to post it in Arabic?”

“I had time, the last few months. It wasn’t that tough. Lot of cutting and pasting.”

“The banality of evil,” Shafer said. “We could discuss the morality of collective punishment with you, but there wouldn’t be much point.”

“No, there wouldn’t.”

“What about the fact that your wife killed herself?”Wells said. “I don’t like Brant Murphy, either. But he didn’t hurt your wife. And you said she had a breakdown in medical school. Maybe this would have happened no matter what.”

A growl escaped from Callar’s ruined mouth. “Easy,” Shafer said. Callar tugged at his cuffs. Wells imagined the steel shearing, as if Callar’s anger could bestow superhuman powers. But nothing happened, and finally Callar gave up.

“Nobody hurt her?”he said. He spat at Wells. Then laughed, a high screech that bounced around the room, wrapping around Wells like a spiderweb of madness. “They broke her. She went there as a doctor. She came back as a torturer. That’s how she saw it. They made her see what she was capable of. Don’t you see, that’s why she posed for that picture? That’s why she saved it. To remind herself that she was no better than anyone else. That she was worse. She was a doctor. ”

“They took her will to live,” Shafer said.

“That’s right. She had that breakdown fifteen years ago, but she was copacetic for a long time. So, don’t put this on her. Not on her.”

Wells wondered, Did she know how much you loved her? Though maybe it didn’t matter. Either way, she’d killed herself.

“Ever done anything like this before, Steve?”Shafer said.

“Anything like this? You mean, murder? No. This is a first.”

“You’re a natural.”

“It’s not that hard. If you can handle a gun. The tough part is not getting caught. Especially in this case, a bunch of different cities. But I was careful. I had money saved up, and Rachel left more. I quit work and figured out where everybody lived, and I cased them out. I drove everywhere, bought different cars in every city, stayed in motels like this. But now that you know it was me, you’ll find the traces.”

“How come you didn’t start with Terreri and Murphy?”

“By the time I figured out what I wanted to do, Terreri was over in Afghanistan. And Murphy, I figured if I hit a guy high up in the agency, somebody would put it together. The way I did it, I got a long way before anybody figured out what was happening.”

“Tell us about the first murder.”

“That was Karp. He was the easiest. Bad habits. Left him vulnerable.”

“How’d you get to Jerry?”

“Lucky for me, he was drinking pretty hard. I set up on the street with a twelve-pack around the corner from that bar he liked. Took a couple days, but sure enough he came by. I asked him if he wanted a beer. I’d met him in the bar, so his guard was down. He had about five. I offered to drive him home. I’d bought this old Jeep Cherokee with tinted windows. He got in the front and I went in back and blew off his head. Drove the body out to the swamp and dumped him.”

Wells stood, looked around the room for something sharp, something heavy.

“Please do,” Callar said. “You’d be doing me a favor.”

“Sit down, John.” Shafer patted his arm. “Sit.”

Wells sat.

“But you didn’t think it through,” Shafer said. “You left the CO and the XO. And now they’re defended.”

“I would have gotten to Murphy if you hadn’t found me.” Callar lay on his back, spoke to the ceiling. “Any more questions, gents? Or is this where you call those FBI cyborgs and turn me in?”

“You’re sure you don’t know what happened at the end over there? Or the specific intel they got?”

“You’re going to have to ask Murphy and the colonel.” Callar sat up again. “I don’t suppose you’d be willing to uncuff me, give me a minute with that Beretta of mine? One round would do. Spare us all the indignity of a trial.”

“Maybe we need some indignity,” Wells said.

Shafer stood. “Maybe. Step into my office, Mr. Wells.”

UNDER THE FLUORESCENT LIGHTS of the bathroom, Shafer outlined his plan.

“You’re insane,” Wells said.

“Then let’s call the FBI, be done with it. Like we should have already. Whitby will drop Callar in some rathole and that’ll be the end of it. We’ll never know what happened in Poland. We’ll have no leverage at all. This is our best shot.”

“Duto didn’t ask us to figure out what happened over there, Ellis. He asked us to figure out who was killing the squad. Which we have.”

“Somebody needs to know who those detainees were, what happened to them. If only to tell their families. Somebody needs to find out what was going on at the Midnight House. What we did. Even if there aren’t going to be any trials.”

“What if Murphy won’t bite? Would you really go through with it?”

The look in Shafer’s eyes was answer enough.

AN HOUR LATER, Wells parked his Subaru in the driveway of the vacant house in Kings Park West where he had spotted Callar’s Tercel. He unholstered his pistol, tucked it under the seat.

He walked down the driveway and along the road toward Brant Murphy’s house. He was wearing only a T-shirt and jeans and holding his hands at his shoulders. As he reached the property line of the house, still fifty feet from the front door, a spotlight from the van caught him. He stopped walking, raised his arms over his head. The guards stepped out of the van, hands on their holsters.

“John Wells?”

“Yes.”

“Down on the pavement.”

Wells dropped to his knees. The guard stepped closer.

“Lie down.”

“I need to talk to Brant.”

“Lie down, Mr. Wells. That’s an order.”

Wells lay down, prone, arms above his head like he was a kid playing at Superman. He was tired of having strangers point guns at him. But then nobody had made him come over here.