Chris Carter - An Evil Mind

With no more nutrients, the body runs out of energy, becoming overexhausted. But nothing on earth is as complex and as intelligent as the human body and the human brain. Even under such intense duress, its defense mechanism will work to the best of its ability. To try to save the little energy it has left, and to avoid the person dying in agonizing pain, the exhausted body will force itself to fall asleep. Once that happens, the body will slowly and quietly shut itself down completely and mercifully. The person’s eyes will never open again.

Madeleine knew she was dying. She knew that if she fell back asleep, she would probably never wake up again. But she also didn’t know what else to do. She felt so tired that even moving a finger felt like running a marathon.

‘I don’t want to die,’ she whispered to herself in a weak and out-of-breath voice. ‘I don’t want to die like this. I don’t want to die in this place. Somebody, please help me.’

Then a crazy idea came to her. She’d heard stories of people who drank their own urine. As disgusting as that might sound to her, she also knew that to some people that was a sexual turn-on. But her fatigued brain was fighting to keep her alive. Anything else, disgusting or not, would come a very distant second.

Without giving it another thought, Madeleine reached for one of the empty water bottles again. With tremendous effort she got back on her feet, unbuttoned and unzipped her dirty and now ripped trousers, and pulled them down to her ankles. Her panties followed. Holding the bottle in the right position, she closed her eyes and concentrated as best as she could, squeezing her leg and stomach muscles tight.

She got nothing.

Her body was so dehydrated she had nothing to give. But she wasn’t about to give up. She tried it again, and again, and again. For how long, she had no idea. But finally, after what seemed like an eternity, a few tiny drops splashed against the bottom of the bottle. Madeleine became so happy she started laughing hysterically. That was until she looked in the bottle.

The few drops of urine she had managed to squeeze out of her were of a dark amber color, and she knew that that was a very bad sign.

The darker the color of human urine, the more dehydrated the body is.

If a person drinks a lot of liquids, like water, a healthy liver and kidneys will filter it very fast, taking in what the body needs and discarding the rest. The discarded liquids will fill the bladder. When the bladder is full, the person feels the need to go to the bathroom. Urinating is the body’s main way of getting rid of what the body doesn’t need, including toxins, but not always. If a person hydrates him/herself constantly, then the bladder will still get full due to all the excess liquid, but in that case, what the body is getting rid of is mainly the extra water or liquids the person has consumed. The toxin content of the urine will be minimum. The less toxins, the lighter the color of one’s urine. The opposite is also true.

Judging by the color, Madeleine knew that the few drops she had in that bottle were probably 99 percent toxin. If she drank it, it would be like drinking poison. It wouldn’t help her stay alive. It would speed up her death.

She stared at it for a long moment, the bottle shaking in her hand. She wanted to cry. In fact she did, but in her advanced stage of dehydration, her lacrimal glands could produce no tears.

Finally, strength left her and she collapsed to the ground. The bottle rolled away across to the other side of her cell.

‘I don’t want to die.’ The words barely escaped her trembling lips, but she couldn’t battle anymore. Her whole vision blurred as her eyes began closing. She had no more strength to keep herself awake.

She had no more hope.

She had no more faith.

She allowed her eyes to close, and began accepting what to her was now inevitable.

Since Lucien’s hands would not come up past his chest due to his restraints, he bent forward so he could scratch his nose.

Taylor had swerved her chair around to face him, while Hunter still kept his facing forward.

‘OK,’ Taylor said. ‘So we’ve entered New Hampshire’s airspace. Where do we go from here?’

Lucien took his time. ‘Damn, these are uncomfortable. You wouldn’t be so kind as to scratch my nose for me, would you, Agent Taylor?’

She scowled at him in silence.

‘Yeah, I didn’t think so.’ Lucien finally sat back up. ‘Tell the pilot to fly due north. Let me know when he is over White Mountain National Forest.’

The White Mountain National Forest is a federally managed forest that totals an area of 750,852 acres. About 94 percent of it is located in the state of New Hampshire. It’s so vast, no private aircraft flying over it could miss it.

Taylor passed the instructions to the pilot and returned to her seat.

They Hew for another twenty-seven minutes before the pilot’s voice came through the speakers again.

‘We’re just about to reach the south border of the White Mountain National Forest. Shall I keep on flying north or is there a new piece of this puzzle?’

Taylor faced Lucien one more time and waited.

Lucien was staring at the back of his hands.

‘Now it gets good,’ he said, without lifting his eyes. ‘Tell the pilot we’re going to Berlin.’

Taylor stared at him in disbelief. ‘Say that again.’

‘Tell the pilot we’re going to Berlin,’ Lucien repeated, casually. His gaze lingered on his hands for a while longer before moving to her.

Taylor didn’t move, but her expression went from surprised to angry in record time.

‘Relax, Agent Taylor,’ Lucien said, ‘I’m not referring to Berlin, Germany. That would’ve been too far-fetched even for me. But if you check the map of New Hampshire, you’ll find that just north of the White Mountain National Forest, there’s a small town called Berlin. Its municipal airport, interestingly enough, is located eight miles north, by another small town called Milan.’ He laughed. ‘How European, isn’t it?’

Taylor’s expression relaxed a little.

‘Tell the pilot we need to land at Berlin’s municipal airport.’

Taylor used the plane’s intercom to pass on the new instructions to the pilot.

Hunter had been thinking about this for a little while, and he could hardly believe how well prepared Lucien was. How long has he been planning this for? he asked himself.

The state of New Hampshire was one of the few that did not have a specific FBI field office. Its jurisdiction fell under the Boston field office in Massachusetts — way too far for Director Kennedy to have a backup team dispatched. Even though Lucien had given them detailed instructions that no one was to follow them, by land or air, Hunter knew Adrian Kennedy wouldn’t simply comply with the requests of a serial murderer. Kennedy would no doubt be extremely careful because he knew the life of a kidnapped victim was at stake, but he would also want to have a plan B in place. With no FBI field office in New Hampshire, that meant if Adrian Kennedy wanted a second, local team tagging Hunter and Taylor, he would have to contact the county sheriff’s department, or the local police department. Neither would be trained in high-profile surveillance, and that was a risk too far. Lucien had factored all this into his sick equation.

‘I’ve just contacted the municipal airport in Berlin.’ The pilot’s voice came through the cabin speakers one more time. ‘We’re clear for landing, and we’ll be starting our descent in five minutes.’

No one could see how much Lucien was smiling inside.

After being airborne for just under two hours, the Lear Jet touched down at the small landing strip in Berlin’s municipal airport in New Hampshire. It quickly taxied to a spot at the end of the runway, away from the other small planes, and waited. The pilot had already alerted the airport’s traffic control center that the plane was an official FBI aircraft on federal business, and not to be approached.