Barry Lando: Deep Strike

Then suddenly they lifted him up and removed the cloth from his face. He fought for air and vomited. Water spewed from his throat and sinuses. He couldn’t stop retching and gasping.

“Horrible, isn’t it?” said the woman. “You know you can’t fight it. So why keep trying? Why not talk?”

“About what?” Brian wheezed. He was shivering uncontrollably. Still filled with panic.

“Don’t play stupid. You’ve nothing to gain. What are you up to – you and your friends in the agency?”

“What friends?” Brian rasped.

“The ones who worked with you on the hacking investigation?”

“We’re doing nothing! Nothing!” He was still trembling, on the point of tears. “You have to stop. I’ve got nothing to tell you.”

“But you will,” she said. “Everyone does.”

Again, the filthy rag was placed over his face, his mouth forced open, the water cascaded into his throat and nostrils; again the frantic gasping for breath, the panic, and terror.

He lost track of how many times they repeated the hellish procedure. He was hallucinating now, delirious, in and out of consciousness. Between each session, he could feel her hand on his throat, checking the pulse, ensuring he had enough oxygen in his blood to remain conscious.

“The prick’s not going to talk,” he heard her say when they removed the rags again.

“End it,” she ordered. If he could talk, he would have blessed her.

The board was lowered into the water until he was completely covered. This time there was no rag on his face. This time the water flooded into his lungs. For the last time, the terrifying reflex of drowning kicked in. He alone heard his scream.

They pulled him up again after five minutes. The woman leaned forward and again put her thumb on his neck. No pulse. She took off her mask. She was wearing khaki dungarees and black boots. The left side of her face was very attractive: sensuous mouth, up-tipped nose, lustrous green eyes.

It was the right side that was straight out of a horror film: from her eyes to her chin the skin was fiery red latticed with white scars and scales almost like the skin of a snake, her scabrous right ear looked as if it had been torn off and partly replaced.

Her name was Captain Jean Swanson. She’d served three tours of duty in Special Forces in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, as an intelligence officer. She’d been severely injured and burned in an attack on a firebase near Kabul. The medics at first thought she’d never recover. After two years and eighteen different surgical procedures, she returned to active duty.

Brian Hunt’s funeral was held four days later on a damp, gray morning at the First Presbyterian Church in Arlington, Virginia. It was a red brick, neoclassical building, with a graceful white steeple, at the top of a grassy hill.

Most of the three hundred or so people filling the high-pitched nave didn’t know Brian had worked at the CIA. They thought he’d been a statistician with the Department of Transportation. In fact, among his colleagues at the agency, he was considered one of the sharpest analysts of cyber intelligence. They knew he’d spent most of the past year in a special unit investigating possible Russian hacking of the American elections. The subject was incredibly sensitive, the work highly classified.

Brian’s body was found a day after he disappeared while biking in the Fountainhead Regional Park. He had died in what appeared to be a freak accident. The coroner ruled the cause of death was drowning. Now the body lay in a closed, polished oak casket beside the pulpit. There was a slight sandalwood fragrance emanating from the four tall candles flanking the casket; a single red rose lay on top. Joanne, his wife, had asked that there be no flowers; she also requested the choir sing one of Brian’s favorite songs, “Candle in the Wind,” before the minister began the service. Joanne sat in the first pew, her arms around each of her twin six-year-old sons.

Steve Penn sat two rows behind Joanne, wearing a dark, single-breasted suit. He was fifty-three years old with broad shoulders, graying sideburns, and a deep furrow between his hazel eyes. He was the man who ran the Russian hacking investigation for the CIA. He had an aura about him of almost permanent worry. Some women judged him handsome; many didn’t. His nose was too prominent; chin too pointed. His right eye often drooped when he was tired or bored.

Today he was neither. His mind was seething. Steve and Brian had been very close – almost like family. They’d first met when Brian and Joanne moved to Virginia from Boise, Idaho six years ago and Brian went to work for the agency. Impressed by his analytical abilities, Steve picked Brian to be a key member of the CIA team investigating Russian hacking.

On Steve’s left sat a stunning woman, Sarah Levin, with high cheekbones, olive skin, almond eyes, and full lips. A combination only dreamed up by God, Steve thought; the daughter of a Vietnamese refugee who married a Jewish dermatologist. Who would have pegged Sarah as a former child musical prodigy turned CIA expert in artificial intelligence? This morning in the church, her eyes were brimming.

“It’s horrible, just horrible,” she whispered to Steve.

The funeral service lasted forty-five minutes and was moving without being maudlin. The pastor spoke about the many friends Brian and Joanne had made since they moved to the community, Brian’s dedicated service to the church and the community. There were a few other speakers, friends of the family, the captain of the Lincoln High baseball team that Brian coached when he was not travelling. Of course, no one spoke from the CIA since, officially, Brian worked at the Department of Transportation. It was the president of the local mountain biking club, who spoke last about Brian’s passion for the sport and his love of the wilderness.

“How tragic,” he said, “that such passion could lead to his death.”

As he left the church, Steve’s attention wandered to an attractive brunette in the back row. At least, she seemed alluring when their eyes met briefly – hers were a luminous emerald green, but when she turned to exit he noticed the terrible red scar disfiguring the other side of her face. Probably ex-military, he thought. He’d seen so many burn victims like that in Iraq and Afghanistan.

After the service, he walked with Sarah on the way to the cemetery, “Very nice words about Brian and his biking,” she said.

“Yeah,” said Steve, “But I can’t help wondering if his death is more than just tragic.” Steve was an inveterate biker himself. Fifteen years older than Brian, he frequently joined the younger officer on his regular weekend outings.

“What do you mean—more than tragic?” asked Sarah.

“I spoke to a buddy with the park police. He said it looks like Brian skidded on some rough washboard just after the crest and went over the side. Forty feet to the bottom. The railing there’s old and rotted. Like most of the so-called guardrails on that trail.” Steve raised both hands. “We’ve been complaining about it for years to the park board.”

“So, why the suspicion?” said Sarah, “Couldn’t he have just skidded off like they said?”

“Not an experienced rider,” said Steve. “Everyone who does the run knows about that bad turn. Like the back of our hand.”

“Then how do you explain it?” insisted Sarah.

“I don’t,” said Steve. “That’s just the point.”

“Didn’t the coroner rule that Brian drowned?” said Sarah.

“Right,” Steve scowled. “Brian supposedly tumbled down the hill, landed on the rocks, head lying in the river. Yet it took them more than a day to find him – even with their hound dogs.”