Luthecker

He sat up immediately, rubbed his face awake, and got to his feet. He didn’t have to check the contents of the message. He already knew what it contained, two words that caused him to spring into action: Ten minutes.

In ten minutes, there would be a car waiting for him on the street in front of his apartment building. He would be ready in less than five.

At forty-seven years of age, Lloyd was in excellent shape, the result of a strong workout regimen born during his time serving in the 82
^ndAirborne nearly twenty years ago. The 82
^ndprided itself on its ability to be anywhere in the world on a moment’s notice in 18 hours or less, and that experience was a natural transfer to rendition squads, where Lloyd was recognized as one of the best interrogators in his Unit. That single text indicated to him that in less than 18 hours he would be on a different Continent.

He quickly dressed in his at ready clothes, put on his jacket, grabbed his pre-packed duffle bag, and left the brownstone apartment rented for him by the corporate shell group known by insiders simply as “The Coalition”.

The black Chevrolet Suburban pulled up just as Lloyd stepped to the curb. He opened the rear passenger door, tossed his bag on the back seat, and followed it inside the vehicle. He shut the door behind him and settled in, checking his phone one more time before turning it off. He looked up, met the eyes of the driver through the rear view mirror. The men nodded in recognition, and the large SUV quickly pulled from the curb.

Lloyd closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and meditated a moment. Renditions that required his level of expertise were becoming more of a rarity these days, so whomever they held must be someone of considerable strategic importance. He would know soon enough. Per his protocol, an unmarked Boeing 737 and a case file would be waiting for him on a Government rented private airstrip.

Several minutes later he opened his eyes, mentally ready. He sat up, glanced outside the window of the vehicle. It was at least an hour before sunrise. He wondered who would be on the team. In the end it wouldn’t matter. He was the leader. He wondered how long the mission would be. He was in the last weeks of a three-month stand-by rotation, and after its completion, he would go home to his wife and two children. He had married young, more a combination of impulse and life’s momentum than love, and his son and daughter were teenagers now. Soon they would be off to college and out of the house, leaving just him and his wife. The couple had grown distant over the years, and without the bond and responsibility of children he knew there would be little left between them to fill the void, making the likelihood of divorce almost certain. Lloyd was well aware of the fact that this outcome was an all too common reality in the lives of men with careers such as his.

He reached over to his duffle bag and opened it, did an instinctive check for his meds. Most interrogations lasted at most a couple days, occasionally extending into a full week. On one occasion it had lasted over a month, with a particularly stubborn target. He hoped that would not be the case this time. But never being exactly sure how long he was going to be away, he always carried at least a month’s worth of Lisinopril, an ace inhibitor he used to counteract his hypertension, a genetic marker gifted to him by his mother, according to his physician. He also carried diazepam, a medication he took to combat anxiety that also helped him sleep at night. Diazepam, a benzodiazepine derivative more commonly known by the brand name Valium, was also quite effective in keeping his emotions steady during particularly rigorous interrogations. It was something he had become increasingly reliant upon with each new target, even though he was well aware of the addictive nature of the drug. He knew his system was building a tolerance for it, the doses necessary for its calming effect ever increasing, and he made a mental note to see his physician about possibly weaning himself off the medication when his rotation was complete.

Thirty-five minutes after Lloyd received the initial text, the Suburban pulled off the main road and took a sharp right onto what wasn’t much more than a rabbit trail. The uneven dirt tracks wound their way through the trees until they reached a small clearing, a security booth at its edge. An odd seeming outpost in the middle of the forest, difficult to find if one didn’t already know of its existence.

An armed guard stepped from the booth as the Suburban approached. A quick inspection of identification, and the vehicle was waved through. Lloyd leaned forward to look through the windshield as the SUV rose above a small ridge and leveled off onto the private airstrip.

Lloyd knew something was amiss the moment he saw the jet.

He recognized it as a Learjet 31A, fast and agile, with a cruising speed of 525mph. It was also capable of taking off on a short runway and climbing to forty-three thousand feet in less than twenty minutes. But with only a six-person capacity and a range of just over 1600 miles, it was not a choice for long overseas missions, and certainly not a full interrogation team. To Lloyd that only meant one thing. The destination was domestic, not one of the CIA’s numerous internationally located and unofficial “black” sites.

“Extraordinary Rendition” was a term that had become a bit of a boogeyman to the general public, two simple words that had come to signify all that had gone wrong with National Security. But in truth, if done properly, Lloyd felt it was the most effective method of intelligence gathering available to protect the American people. Time sensitive information gathering techniques in regards to terrorism were incompatible with the civilian criminal justice system. Ironic, as it was that system itself that was being protected at all costs. This necessary duplicity required that the activity in question not actually take place on American soil. There was an old saying, that in order for Democracy to survive, it required certain people in the population to behave very undemocratically. Lloyd was one of those people. But he believed strongly in proper protocol. Without it, chaos and degradation of behavior would inevitably ensue. Abu Ghraib had been a prime example of this.

A domestic site was a serious breach in protocol. This would only be done if someone were perceived as a considerable and immediate threat to National Security, the threat assessment determining that there was literally no time to take the target overseas. Lloyd was now very eager to know who his target was.

The high-pitched whine of waiting jet engines greeted the SUV as it stopped directly at the base of the boarding staircase.

Lloyd quickly exited the Suburban and hustled up the steps, knowing who would be waiting for him inside, the only person who could answer for this breach in protocol.

“Good morning David.” Colonel Richard Brown said as Lloyd boarded the airplane.

“Good morning, Colonel.” Lloyd replied. “Have we gone private?” He asked, in reference to the LearJet.

“It’s all the same now. Get yourself some coffee and buckle in, I’ll explain.”

Lloyd had known Colonel Richard Brown dating back to Desert Storm in the early nineties. A tall, barrel-chested man with a knife-like countenance, Brown commanded Lloyd in the primary insertion unit before the first invasion of Iraq. They had been responsible for gathering the final ground intelligence the last days before the mission began. It went off like clockwork, Desert Storm ending up being a near perfect display of United States Military prowess. Unlike the 43
^rdelected leader of the free world, the 41
^stknew how to get the job done, Lloyd thought.

After that brief and successful foreign intervention, both men took a desk for the Company in the Middle East, Iraq specifically, and when 43 re-wrote the playbook, they were put in charge of gathering human intel “by any means necessary”. History had shown that that directive had proven troublesome in the wrong hands. But Lloyd saw that end result as inevitable right from the beginning, considering 43’s lack of accountability and foresight, and had managed to escape scrutiny. With his experience in psychiatric wards and PTSD treatment, his abilities had proven efficient in combination with high-pressure physical techniques. To be abusive with no psychological strategy was pointless and barbaric to him. At the very least it resulted in faulty intel. In Lloyd’s mind 43 had complete incompetents running the show, less interested in actionable information and more hell bent on hurting whomever they could get their hands on.

Lloyd and Brown had played off one another well in the field. Brown was the organizer, in charge of logistics, and never in the room when the actual interrogations took place. More a politician, he had strong leadership skills, and a talent for survival. Proven capable, even brutal when necessary, he never lost sight of the mission, or for whom he was working. It wouldn’t surprise Lloyd at all if Brown went entirely to the private sector before long, if in fact he hadn’t done so already, as perhaps evidenced by the LearJet. The privatization of Government Ops had blurred the line to such an extent that Brown’s anecdotal comment was accurate-- there truly was little difference anymore.

Lloyd poured himself a cup of coffee from the cart locked in place against the planes fuselage, and took a seat in one of the plush leather consoles either side of a small meeting table. Brown sat across from him, pulled a file from a brief case, and put it in front of Lloyd.

“Give me the short version.” Lloyd said in response, as he sipped his coffee.

“Twenty-two year old male.” Brown replied.

“American?”

“Yes.”

Lloyd gave him a look. Brown clarified, “This isn’t rendition tactics, this is just questions.”

The roar of the engines suddenly grew louder, and the aircraft began to move.

“That’s not what I do. You know that. “

“It is this time, my friend.”

Lloyd said nothing, took his time finishing his coffee, studying Brown. He detected nervousness in his commander’s voice. Subtle and well hidden, but to Lloyd, something easily detected.

Brown was a decorated soldier and a serious character. “Just questions” didn’t fit the profile of how he did business. And he didn’t do nervous. He surmised that Brown had taken this considerable risk, to interrogate domestically, and likewise chose to phrase things carefully in order to cover his ass, in case something went wrong, an abnormal course for the hardened veteran. Brown was a powerful man, and never stepped out of the way for anyone. Something about this target truly disturbed him. Alarm bells began to go off in Lloyd’s head.

“Why not leave it to the Feds then.” He stated more than asked.

“Pentagon says no.”

A lie, Lloyd thought. Brown had autonomy, specific by design to provide legal deniability for those who answered to Congress. More C.Y.A. Lloyd read between the lines. Actually breathed a bit easier. This was beginning to sound personal. The kid more than likely had information that would either embarrass Brown, or the U.S. Government itself. He threatened careers, not national security. Professions such as his and Brown’s required personnel who lived on the edge of psychological extremes, which often created environments that lead to embarrassing collateral behavior, which in turn required discreet management. Lloyd understood this. And he owed Brown more than his share of favors in this regard. Brown more than likely wanted to know how this twenty-two-year-old got that particular kind of information, and scare him a bit to keep him quiet. Actually hurting the young man would risk more exposure, and if Lloyd did his job right, would be wholly unnecessary. So he played along.

“What exactly did he do?”

“He calmly entered a Police station and claimed he just met a man on a street corner that intended to blow up the Metrolink train in Los Angeles.” Brown explained.

At least now Lloyd knew where they were headed.

“How’d he know?” He asked.

“He claimed the man’s behavior tipped him off.”

“Was he right?”

“Yes.”

“Failure on our end?” Lloyd asked, and if true, perhaps the source of embarrassment.

“No.” Brown replied. “We never saw it coming. If anything, the events played out well for the organization.”