Chris Jordan - Measure of Darkness

“Concentrate, Mr. Bean. Can you do that? Can you focus?”

“Yes.”

“Good. True or false, you recently entered QuantaGate under false pretenses.”

“True.”

“True or false, you were spying for Naomi Nantz.”

“True.”

“This is good, Mr. Bean, we’re getting into the rhythm here. You’re adapting to a new reality, and understand that you are powerless to resist. True or false?”

“True.”

The stool vanishes again and he lands on his tailbone.

“Never anticipate, Mr. Bean. Never assume. Punishment can happen at any time, for any infraction, or for no infraction. Punishment can come because we feel like it, and because it is our task to grind you up and spit you out. You’re the dog shit sticking to my shoe and I’m going to wipe you off. You are a stool sample and need to be flushed. True or false?”

“True,” he says, expecting the worst.

The stool stays.

“True or false, the day you entered QuantaGate you gained access to secure files.”

“False!”

“No need to raise your voice, Mr. Bean.”

“I checked out the system. No way I could get into the secure files without setting off alarms. Even trying would have set off alarms, shut down the system.”

“This is good, very good. You have begun to elaborate. What else, Mr. Bean?”

Before he can answer, the stool vanishes again. Landing straight down on his tailbone again, registering like an electric shock from his butt to the base of his skull.

They pick him up, put him back on the stool.

“True or false, you tampered with the software at QuantaGate.”

“True.”

“You installed spy software at a top-secret research facility.”

“Yes, I did. True.”

“Therefore you are a spy, a traitor, and you have committed treason against your country.”

“No. False. We’re looking for the boy, that’s all. We don’t c-c-care about secrets.”

“You don’t ca-ca-care?”

Milton shakes his head so vehemently he makes himself dizzy.

“We care,” the man says, moving closer.

“We’re looking for the boy, that’s all,” says Milton, begging. “A little boy.”

“What little boy?” the man asks, as if genuinely surprised. “What are you talking about?”

“Professor Keener’s boy. His son, J-J-Joey.”

Behind the light, voices mumble and mutter, as if conferring. Milton waits, infinitely more miserable and afraid than he’s ever been in his life. Far worse than his worst nightmare. His willingness, his eagerness to cooperate hurts worst of all. He’s not a man and never was; he’s something to be scraped from a shoe.

The murmuring stops. A different voice, a new voice, says, “True or false, Naomi Nantz is acting on behalf of agents of the Chinese government.”

“F-f-false.”

Times passes as he shivers on the little stool. The voices return to the murmur level. He doesn’t even bother trying to listen to the words being spoken, because that might result in punishment.

Somewhere in the distance, a wheel begins to squeak, at first faintly and then louder, so loud he can’t ignore it. The mad wheel of a grocery cart, spinning as it tracks sideways down the aisle. Coming to get him. Louder, closer, screaming inside his mind like a rat trying to claw its way out of his skull.

A gurney appears in the circle of light. A narrow, thinly padded gurney equipped with sturdy Velcro straps, the better to hold a struggling body.

“No,” Milton whispers.

“Strap him down,” a voice commands. “We’re going chemical. I don’t believe anything the little turd blossom says, do you?”

Milton writhes as they lift him from the stool and dump him on the gurney. “No!” he screams. “Please, no!”

A gunshot echoes inside the warehouse, loud enough to hurt Milton’s ears. He hears the insane whine of a bullet ricocheting from the concrete floor and connecting with something metallic.

“Nobody move,” says a new voice, a familiar voice. “The weapon in my hand is a Glock Super Ten. There are fifteen rounds left in the magazine and I’m prepared to shoot all three of you dead and take the consequences. Now get him off the gurney before my finger slips.”

Jack Delancey.

Milton wets his pants in gratitude.

The first battle report comes in from a Kmart in Seabrook, New Hampshire. Jack has detoured off the highway ten miles south of Pease Tradeport because Milton Bean needs a change of clothing and insists that only Kmart will do.

“He’s obviously suffering from post-traumatic stress,” Jack says, keeping it breezy on the unsecured cell phone connection. “The poor guy got fired, I guess he can’t handle it.”

“Fired?”

“Yeah, from his job,” Jack says.

“What?”

“Don’t be stupid, Alice. The job, okay?”

He hangs up.

Weird. Jack has never called me stupid, and would not do so simply because I asked a question. So it has to be code for something. Milton got fired? Not by us, surely. Therefore by Gatling Security Group? The time is all wrong, though. It’s midafternoon and if GSG had refused him entry we’d have heard the bad news well before noon.

I locate boss lady on the ground floor of the residence, in the Zen sand garden. As always the place is cool and peaceful, exuding something of the fifteenth century, from which it dates. The natural lighting is indirect and soothing. Naomi is seated on a stone bench in the lotus position, palms open, eyes closed. The very thought makes my hips hurt, but she claims to find it relaxing. Opens her mind, allows that amazing brain to make random connections that have so often proved useful in our investigations.

Much as I hate to disturb her when she’s doing the Zen thing, or wrecking watercolors in the studio-which appears to be another, very different form of brain exercise-this is in my judgment a call she needs to know about. As it happens, she agrees, unfolding herself from the lotus without complaint and walking me out of the garden as I recount, pretty much word for word, the strange message from Jack Delancey.

“Jack at Kmart?” she says. “How odd. In a pinch he might deign to shop at Macy’s. But never Kmart. Something went wrong, obviously.”

“What do we do about it? Jack turned his phone off, it goes directly to voice mail.”

We’ve reached the command center. Naomi goes to her desk, takes a seat and leans back in her ergonomic chair. “We wait,” she says. “Pardon me, but I want to finish my train of thought.”

She closes her eyes and begins to breathe deeply and slowly.

I’ve been dismissed, obviously. Not being a Zen master, or any sort of genius, I’m left with nothing to do but pace and fret, worrying about our boys and what might have befallen them, out there in the big bad world.

An hour later they come in through the garage, both of them as giddy as children. Jack in filthy, torn clothing, his face scratched, and Milton wearing new duds from Kmart.

“We had to run through the woods,” Jack tells us unnecessarily. “We ran through the brambles where a rabbit couldn’t go.”

“Ran through the bushes,” Milton insists, piping up. “That’s where a rabbit couldn’t go. Not the brambles and not the briars. Bushes.”

“We’re arguing about a song,” Jack explains, clapping Milton on the back. “Johnny Horton, ‘The Battle of New Orleans.’ We ran so fast the hounds couldn’t catch us.”

“‘Down the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico,’” Milton sings.

“Down the highway to Seabrook is more like it. That’s where I made damn sure they didn’t have a tail on us.”