Day 50 (The DMT Series Book 2) (15 page)

“Good morning, Mr Carter.”

“Good morning, Judge,” Carter replied as he rose to greet the elderly man.

The elderly man was a Supreme Court justice, and had been instrumental in lobbying for and enforcing the new harsh sentencing on psychedelics-related crimes that the US had implemented over the last few years. He was one of the very few men Carter truly trusted.

“How have you been? You don’t look too good.”

Carter snubbed the comment. It was claimed that if three different people said you looked sick in a particular day, then you would soon feel sick. Well, almost every old friend or acquaintance Carter had seen in the last month had told him he looked sick. But he still didn’t feel sick. He felt as strong as an ox. “Thank you, asshole. You don’t look too good yourself.”

The judge laughed. He had known Carter since Harvard Law School days. He had in fact been Carter’s professor, and the person who had recruited him to the CIA and MKULTRA in the first place. “It’s a little bit like that isn’t it? I see you are reading the paper. I’ve stopped. Too many obituaries. Don’t want to be constantly reminded of my own mortality.”

“I have faith in God. I don’t fear death,” Carter replied.

“I envy your faith, Carter. It would be nice to believe there was something after this.”

Carter leant across the table. “Have you lost your faith, Judge?”

The judge shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know, my old friend. I don’t know. It has all become so complicated. You know the old saying:
Better to live in blissful ignorance
. Sometimes I agree. Sometimes I wish I hadn’t seen and learned all the things I have.”

Carter nodded. “That is God testing you. Testing your faith.”

“It is testing. I’ll admit that much. Sometimes I even consider whether we are doing the right thing. Maybe DMT is a natural progression of life? Maybe we shouldn’t supress it. Maybe we were meant to discover its powers? Maybe this is the next step in evolution, maybe this will bring us closer to God, if he exists that is.”

“Don’t start talking about evolution, Judge. DMT, if we let it loose, would ensure the destruction of humanity.”

“Maybe that’s not such a bad thing,” the judge countered.

Carter closed his eyes. He was tired. Coffee didn’t work the way it used to. He didn’t feel sick, but he felt constantly tired. Fatigued.

“We’re doing the right thing, Judge. Now please tell me why you wanted to meet with me. Are we having problems implementing any of the new laws?”

“No, nothing like that. By accident I happened to come across some information, information that may have slipped through your net. As you know we are reviewing the laws on immigration, offering citizenships to illegal immigrants that have either resided here for more than ten years or have something to offer to our workforce. Our Border Patrol caught some Mexicans crossing the border a few days ago. They all offered the same story. They had been in a truck with an American man and woman.”

“
Americans
attempting to get smuggled into the US?”

The Judge nodded. “Strange isn’t it? The details are a bit sketchy, and the immigrants were deported immediately, so we don’t have a lot of information. But in the documents I read they estimated the age of the woman to be eighteen to twenty, and the man to be in his early forties.”

“I’ll be damned,” Carter exclaimed.

“That was my initial thought as well. Why would they return?”

A shiver ran down James Carter’s spine. He knew exactly why they would return to the US. There could only be one reason. He hadn’t heard from Agent Fowler in over two weeks, and now Adam and Cameron were back in the US.

“Fuck,” he exclaimed, before pulling out his phone.

Cody heard the door open and pushed himself upright in the bed. “Is that you, Shawna?” he asked.

“Yes, it is me, Master Cody,” nurse Shawna answered, before hurriedly approaching the bed. “Are you able to walk?”

Cody nodded and pushed his legs out of the bed. The excruciating pain he felt when his foot soles first hit the cold floor was the most liberating feeling in the world. The blood was rushing through his veins with such ferocity that he almost felt he was inside the arteries.

“We don’t have much time. Mr Vasques left an hour ago, and most of the guards are eating dinner.”

“What’s the plan?”

“My cousin will be heading down to the town for supplies in ten minutes. He will take you in the back of his truck. I will stay back and make sure no one enters your room. Nobody will notice you are gone until tomorrow morning.”

“Come with me, Shawna,” Cody pleaded. “Alejandro will kill you when he finds out what you have done.”

“I’m not afraid of dying, Master Cody. I’ve seen the other world. I look forward to arriving there.”

Cody took a deep breath. “Promise me you will leave before Alejandro returns. Promise me.”

“If that is your wish, Master Cody, then I will gladly promise. I don’t know where my cousin will take you though. It is better that way in case I get interrogated. But he said you will be in safe territory in five hours. I’ll wait for six hours. Then I will leave.”

Cody forced a smile as he put his arm around Shawna’s neck, and attempted his first clumsy steps in a year.

Adam and Hugo entered the hospital reception. They walked straight up to the counter and asked for the visitors’ sign-in form. Cameron had been farsighted enough to memorize the names on the doors of some of the other patients on the floor of Dr Drecker’s room. She had also noticed that one of the patients seemed to have a birthday. Her room had been filled with flowers and cards.

“I believe Mrs Meyer is asleep at the moment,” the receptionist replied to Adam’s request for a visit.

“That’s OK. We will just drop off the flowers and wait in the hallway until she wakes up.”

“She’s already had too many visitors today. Are you family?” the receptionist asked.

Adam nodded. “Yes.”

When he didn’t elaborate, the receptionist just smiled and returned to whatever work she was doing on her computer. She seemed too tired to argue.

“Thanks for understanding,” Adam said, taking her silence as an invitation to see Mrs Meyer. Adam and Hugo then proceeded to the third floor where Cameron had discovered Dr Drecker in one of the rooms. First they successfully located Mrs Meyer’s room three doors down from room 317, where Dr Drecker was supposed to be. Hugo entered, and left the flowers on her nightstand. Mrs Meyer was sound asleep, just as the receptionist had already told them. Adam continued and didn’t stop until he was outside room 317. He put his ear close to the door. The entire hallway was dead quiet aside from the occasional cough from one of the female patients. Gently Adam put his hand on the doorhandle and pushed the door open. He recognised Dr Drecker immediately. Drecker looked skinnier and paler than he had in Marconi’s camp, but he also somehow looked better. He looked cleaner. Adam let Hugo inside and closed the door behind him.

He glanced at his watch. Thirteen minutes. Getting to Dr Drecker had been child’s play - a lot easier than expected. Now the difficult part of the operation began though. They needed to transport Dr Drecker down to the basement, without getting caught or jeopardising Dr Drecker’s life. Adam surveyed the equipment connected to Dr Drecker’s body. It appeared that Cameron’s assessment had been correct. He wasn’t on life support, he was breathing on his own account. But that didn’t mean that moving him would be without risks.

“Should I disconnect any of this equipment?” Hugo asked.

“No leave it on. As soon as we disconnect any equipment from his body, alarms will go off. Why don’t you go and get Mrs Meyer instead?”

“It’s me,” James Carter said. He was holding his phone next to his ear with a shaking hand. “Initiate evacuation of John Doe immediately.”

“OK. I will call in the extraction team.”

“No. There is no time. You have to move him yourself.”

“I’m not set up for that.”

“Do what you have to do. Evacuate him now. Take him to the safe house.”

“OK.” The man dressed in a janitor uniform placed the phone back in the cradle on his office desk. Maybe he should be pleased? At least something was happening. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting assignment in the world to work undercover as a janitor at an aged care facility where nothing ever happened. But he wished the Director had given him some more information. Why the urgency? Had the identity of John Doe been compromised or was it just a drill? And if it was a drill, was it a test to check whether he would stick to protocol? Protocol was to call in the extraction team, who would then move the patient. Asking him to transfer the patient to the safe house by himself was a massive breach of protocol. Then again, the order came directly from the Director, and what could the Agency do to him that they hadn’t already done? Send him to some even more God-forsaken place than this hellhole? Nah, he might as well follow orders. It was disobeying orders and using his own common sense that had landed him this shit job in the first place. If he hadn’t questioned his superiors six months ago he would still be a field agent for MKULTRA. He walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled out the stand next to it. He placed it in the middle of the floor and reached his arms up towards the ceiling. With ease he lifted one of the square plaster tiles, by pushing it upwards with his left hand, and while balancing on the stand, he grabbed onto a small bag with his other hand.

He placed the bag on the desk with a soft thump. He hadn’t been able to use his gun since that fatal mistake six months ago, but he had ensured it was in pristine condition. There wasn’t much else to do in this dump than polishing his gun anyway. He checked that it was loaded, before stuffing it down his beltline.

He would make sure he completed the assignment perfectly. Maybe this was his way out of this shitty assignment? Babysitting a comatose patient. It wasn’t what he had signed up for, that was for sure.

Cody moaned as his back hit the hard surface of the truck’s trailer for the hundredth time. “My apologies, Master Cody. The roads are very bumpy, but I can drive slower if you want me to.”

“No, continue. It is just pain. I’ll deal with it. Have you heard from your cousin yet?” he asked.

“No, Master Cody. Shawna said she would wait six hours before leaving. It has only been four. I am sure she will be fine.”

“I hope so,” Cody replied.

Adam opened the door and glanced out in the hallway. It was empty. He gave Hugo a quick nod to signal that he should start pushing Dr Drecker’s bed towards the door. Next to Dr Drecker’s bed lay an old lady on her own bed sleeping soundly. A double set of tubes stuck out from her arm and chest. The old lady was the birthday girl, Mrs Meyer, and her body was sending a steady stream of data to the monitors so that no one would realise that Dr Drecker was gone until dinner time.

Hugo pushed the bed as Adam walked in front, making sure that the coast was clear. Adam thought back on the time he had pretended to be a doctor to rescue Cameron. That had almost been a disaster. This was going much more smoothly.

They arrived at the elevator and Adam quickly pressed the down arrow three times to make sure it worked. It was one of those old elevators that took its time.

“Hey, what are you guys doing?”

Adam turned to check where the voice came from and looked straight at a doctor. Instead of panicking, though, Adam just nodded casually and continued to push the hospital bed into the elevator as the doors slid open.

“Hey, stop!” the doctor called out. Hugo quickly pressed the button for the basement, but the doors seemed to be moving even more slowly than the elevator had. Luckily the doors closed just as the doctor arrived outside the elevator.

“Fuck, that was close,” Hugo said.

“We are not in the clear yet. He’ll probably call the police, and I’m starting to wonder if taking the stairs would have been a quicker option than the elevator,” Adam said, looking at the digital display finally changing from a 3 to a 2 after what had felt like an eternity. “No reception,” he said, putting his phone away. “Let’s just hope Cameron made it into the garage.”

“Where is he?” Alejandro shouted as he exited Cody’s empty bedroom.

“He’s safe,” Shawna, the nurse replied.

“What does that mean?”

“He told me you were holding him captive.”

Alejandro’s face turned red with anger. “You, you let him escape?”

Shawna nodded. He is my Master. I did what he commanded.”

“Well, you will suffer for that foolishness. You and your entire family. Do you have any kids by the way?”

A sting of fear ran across Shawna’s face.

“I thought so. A good-looking woman like you. What is it? A boy or a girl?”

Shawna didn’t respond. She just stared at Alejandro with pure fear and hatred in her eyes.

“Doesn’t really matter. Your family is already dead. They died the instant you chose to cross me.” Alejandro walked closer to Shawna. He extended his hand, and lifted a strand of dark hair away from her face. “Such a shame, such beautiful features.” Then he punched her in the middle of her face with full force.

Shawna barely managed to open her left eye as she lay on the floor, blood dripping from her left temple.

“It is too late for you, Shawna. But you can still save your family. Tell me where he is.”

Shawna closed her eyes. “I don’t know,” she said, knowing that the monster in front of her would make good on his promise.

As the doors of the elevator slid open Adam thought he noticed a shadow slither across the floor of the garage. For a second he hesitated. One thing was for sure though: the Agency wouldn’t risk killing Dr Drecker. He was too valuable. Or was he? There was no time for pondering. Adam started pushing the hospital bed out of the elevator.

“What the hell are you guys waiting for? Speed up,” a voice yelled out from the ambulance parked thirty metres farther up from the elevator. It was Cameron’s voice.

“Let’s go,” Adam said as he pushed the hospital bed down the ramp and onto the concrete floor of the garage.