Chapter 22: The Game is Afoot

The interrogations were getting steadily worse.

The large prisoner still refused to talk, and Colonel Kevin Price was losing patience quickly. Not only because he had never met a man who could withstand so much pain, but also because they could not understand how he could heal so quickly from the numerous rounds of interrogation.

“Yes, sir, I still have no timetable for information from our guest,” Col. Price said to one of his many higher ups wishing bi-weekly progress reports. These men he could stand. It was the assholes wanting weekly progress reports he had trouble stomaching. “Yes, sir, we have already raised the amount of injury, but we still have nearly no response from the subject. The only time we see any response is from interaction with the man in charge of keeping him in the labs’ prison cell.”

Col. Price was openly rolling his eyes at his subordinate Sgt. John Thomas, who was sitting at the smaller desk in the office they shared. Sgt. Thomas was the right-hand man of Col. Price, and together they ran the government’s top interrogation unit within the different intelligence agencies. Sgt. Thomas was fighting to keep from laughing at Col. Price’s antics while on the phone with their superior officer.

Secretly, both men were still furious they were getting nowhere with the interrogation of the prisoner. They were fascinated not only by his unbelievably high tolerance for pain, but also by his ability to withstand it for so long. Sgt. Thomas secretly respected their guest but would never tell his commanding officer of his true feelings regarding the man.

“Yes, sir, we will continue our efforts, and we will get you some information.” A brief pause then the Colonel concluded, “Thank you, sir.”

“Well, Sarge, another vote for increasing our efforts, because ‘this is the most important intelligence question in the world today,’” the colonel grunted and took a drink from his coffee cup. “Fuckin’ assholes have no idea what we are doing.”

“Did the General have any other suggestions, sir?”

“Yeah.” The colonel took another drink. “He said we should double down on our work, and try harder and then, eventually, he will crack.” Sgt. Thomas almost did a spit take with the glass of water he was drinking from hearing that. “Asshole admitted he did not watch the interrogation highlight package we sent, as he requested, because, and I quote, ‘It’s all the same old thing with you not being able to make the man talk.’ I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him, myself.”

“Well, sir, if the higher ups all say work harder, then I say we work smarter.”

“Make your point, Sarge, I’ve got a big fuckin’ headache from that ass,” the colonel spat back at his subordinate.

“The Tylenol’s in the upper right-hand drawer, sir.”

“Thanks.” The colonel retrieved the bottle and, after taking two pills, looked back at his right-hand man – the same man who had been with him every step of the way through his career through the Special Forces. “Sorry about snappin’. Continue what you were saying about working smarter.”

“Well, sir, if everyone above us says go at him harder, why don’t we go at him smarter? Something you said earlier on the phone. The only time we get any kind of response from that fat fuck is when Johnson is transporting him or giving him tacos. Fat slob only talks to him, but we have not been able to get the cameras or microphones in the middle segment of the tunnel system to work. So we don’t know if they are talking to each other while they are coming or going.”

“I see what you’re saying Sarge, but what do you think we should do? Should we bug the cart, or place our own cameras in the tunnel, or what?”

“Actually, both, sir.” Sgt. Thomas took another drink and continued his plan. “We should definitely put a microphone of some kind on the cart to hear what those two might be saying to each other, and we should also try, at the very least, to double down on our efforts to fix the camera feed problems in the middle part of the ride, from the lab to here.

“Something might be going on there, or might not. My gut says there might be some lighthearted talking between the two, but from everything we know about George Johnson, he is a straight shooter, but he has never done anything to make anyone think he is willing to help someone in this guy’s predicament.”

“That’s true, Sarge. But remember the look on Johnson’s face on the first day of advanced interrogation techniques? He was horrified, and to be in that job, he knows how to hurt people, so it wasn’t the blood. It was probably our quick escalation of violence. I’ll bet it was the seemingly unnecessary need of it that got to him.” The colonel took another sip from his coffee cup. “That could be enough to turn any man, especially one who believes he is going to be doing the right thing.”

Sgt. Thomas noticed Col. Price was looking out into nowhere after his last statement. From their shared past, he knew the colonel was trying to decide on a new set of actions. The sergeant pulled out a pad of paper and a pen from his uniform’s shirt pocket, ready to take notes on the new orders from his commanding officer.

“Sarge, activate a surveillance team, and have them start following George Johnson. We need to know if he is doing anything new in his daily movements. Also, do another background check on him. Make sure there are no new changes in his banking or internet usage. After a couple of weeks, have the team give me a report about any changes from the past.

“Also check on whether or not he has any friends at the lab. He might be trying to turn some of them toward his way of thinking.” The colonel took another sip. “Something about that guy just strikes me as too clean.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll get on it, right now,” the sergeant said and left.

A back corner table had unofficially been commandeered by the two doctors. At least three times a week the three men, who first met Tim Murphy when he mysteriously appeared in the heart of one of the USA’s highly secretive laboratories, would meet. They’d been working on a method of possible time travel and were several months away from perfecting their work when the rotund Murphy appeared one evening, right in the middle of the embarkation room.

The two scientists, Dr. Mike Thompson and Dr. Mike Jensen, were both working in said embarkation room, with all electronics disconnected from the room, when they all activated, indicating an inbound traveler. They hit the alarm, bringing George Johnson, the head of security for the night watch, running – armed and ready for a fight.

“Mike and Mike. How the hell are you guys? Have you ordered?” The gray-haired gentleman asked upon seeing his friends at their favorite table. They nodded yes, so George turned toward the counter, “My usual please, Yolanda.”

The woman at the counter smiled at the exuberance of the man she used to fondly saddle with the moniker of ‘sad guy who loved the Number 6 plate.’ “Sure thing, George. Do you want a margarita or a soda?”

“Soda, por favor. I gotta work, tomorrow.”

Yolanda gave her signature smile and turned to the kitchen to put in the order. The three men had come into the restaurant at the quiet time of the evening, before it made the change to nightclub from restaurant.

George Johnson sat down at the table with the two scientists and started up their important discussions. “Okay, gentlemen, how is everything going so far?”

“Work is good. Ever since they let us start working on what we came here to do again six months ago, I mean. It is slow, but at least we aren’t just twiddling our thumbs and cleaning the same instruments for the umpteenth time, like we were doing before,” Dr. Jensen offered to the table.

“Oh, absolutely. It’s great to feel like you belong again,” Dr. Thompson, the older of the two scientists added.

Yolanda approached the table with plates of food in her arms and passed them around to the three men. George watched as she made her way around the three men, placing their food in front of them from the large metal tray she used to carry all the plates. Once she made one trip around the three, she subtly shook her head ‘no.’ The three men continued their discussion about the mundane aspects of their lives, working at the hospital down the road.

Yolanda took the tray back to the kitchen and came back with the three drinks. She put one in front of George, one in front of Dr. Jensen and, when she went to place the third by Dr. Thompson, she ‘accidentally’ spilled it all over the man’s white doctor’s coat as it hung on his chair.

“Oh, my gosh, Dr. Mike. I’m so sorry!” She made no move to try and clean up the spill, rather she was waving a small, cell phone sized device around Dr. Thompson’s now-soaked jacket. She turned to George again, nodded ‘yes,’ then took the jacket away.

The three men had been busy for the last six months, ever since they’d decided to help their guest get out from underneath the thumb of the US Government. From their point of view, the government just seemed to want to torture a man for information he did not have and, for some reason, they didn’t want to kill him. Once George told the other two doctors of how the prisoner healed at an amazingly fast rate (and gave examples: a toe tail regrowing overnight and large bruises and puncture marks healing overnight, as well), the two scientists understood why the man was kept alive and the interrogations continued.

Yolanda Gonzalez, her sister Margarita, and their whole family were, as it turned out, formerly employed by the intelligence services of several different Central and South American countries. The family, as a whole, had fled the ever-worsening political climates of their home countries. They had decided the greener pastures of a quiet life in the United States were more to their liking. They knew of the existence of the laboratory but nothing of what was going on inside. They’d flatly told the three men they did not want to know what went on inside the lab. It was safer for everyone, that way.

However, they’d been coerced back into a part of their past lives. George Johnson had approached them, saying he could tell from the way they all carried themselves that there had to have been governmental intelligence in their past.

They were blown away by the man’s knowledge, gained just by surreptitiously watching them for the past few months. In fact, he had suspicions about the family ever since they’d taken over the restaurant. It seemed the amount of money they were making could only be because they also laundered money for friends still in the intelligence game. He assured them he would not turn them over to the authorities if they agreed to help him and his friends get another friend out of a jam.

Yolanda was a counter-surveillance expert, and used the serving of the three customers’ food to scan for trackers and/or microphones on any of the three persons. They never found anything until two months earlier, when Yolanda’s uncle phoned in saying there were two men in a small car who followed George to the restaurant soon after he left the armory. Then they always found at least one tracker. They would either remove it and replace it later or just flat-out destroy it. This time, Yolanda poured soda all over Dr. Thompson’s jacket and, when they pulled it off his seat, they removed the device and put it in another glass of soda. The sugary liquid would not deactivate the device but it would give false readings at inopportune times.

“Okay, you’re clear. Edmond says you have about twenty minutes before the second team comes out here. Decide if you need more time or just end your meeting here. Also, this is a list of the different sites we have set up for you to go to, if you need safe houses or equipment. You guys know the passwords to get in already, and the equipment should be easy enough to find ... even for gringos like you.” Yolanda gave a single, left-eyed blink and her signature smile, then returned to the kitchen to let the men talk.

Dr. Jensen had a very confused look on his face, but George cut him off. “Don’t worry. We won’t be needing those until we deem it’s time to get him out. How goes the rest of the work?”

“The money is set like you suggested. I’ve been spending the weekends, after eating here, going out and buying cash cards and opening PO Boxes, and filling them with the lists and the cards, as well as cash like you asked. I’ve got one more run this weekend, and we should be good on that end,” Dr. Thompson said.

“Yeah, I talked to my uncle, and he said if you are ‘runnin’ from the revenuers’ ... his words, not mine ... then you are more than welcome on his property. He has a smallish ranch of about fifty acres, outside San Marcos, that he has been telling the family to come to in case the world comes to an end. He said he has enough materials to ride out the government hunters for years,” Jensen looked a little uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong, Mike?” George asked.

“Well, I always thought my uncle was a little nuts. He’s been a ‘prepper’ since the mid-2000s, and ... well ... he’s always been the black sheep of the family. Now, I’m starting to think he’s had it right all along.” Both George and the older Dr. Thompson gave him a reassuring slap on the back.

“I’ve got the camera system totally flummoxed inside the tunnel, now. I have noticed they placed a microphone on the cart I use to drive him back and forth, but they forgot the thing can’t transmit in the tunnel since it is not only cemented but steel lined to insure no waves of any kind can penetrate it. They obviously are not reading the security reports I took the time to write for them about the security of both our lab and any tunnels connected to it.” All three politely laughed at the joke.

“Okay, anything else?” George asked?

“Do you have a timeline, yet, as to when you want to go?” Dr. Thompson asked.

“I think it might be a good idea to let our friend give us a timeline. As long as it’s not ‘let’s go right now,’ we can probably handle it. Anything else?” The two doctors nodded ‘no,’ and George got Yolanda’s attention again. She came right over.

“Okay, We are done. Do you have burner phones at these sites you have set up for us?” She nodded ‘yes.’ “Thanks. You can turn off the anti-works and we’ll just continue, we’ll be back next week.”

She smiled again and went back to the counter, looking over at the three men at the back table. “So when I looked up at her, I yelled out ‘Liquor, I don’t even know her!’” She flipped a switch in the middle of the fake punchline. Everyone laughed, then continued to talk about their work as if nothing had happened.

“No, Sergeant, the three of them seem to have struck up a friendship after being forced into these extenuating circumstances. They meet up at that Mexican restaurant two or three times a week, either before or after work, whichever it is since now they sometimes have switched schedules. One or two are working the night shift, and the other working the day shift, or vice versa. We have recordings of their conversations when they are together. To me anyways, sir, it just sounds like three guys who have become friends because they know something no one else does, and they can’t share it with anyone else,” the corporal continued. “Should we keep up the surveillance on these guys? We haven’t found anything, yet.”

The sergeant read over the reports while the corporal gave his verbal report. “What is this about the trackers occasionally going on and off line when they meet up at this restaurant,” Sgt. Thomas asked. It was the sergeant’s job to go over any reports from the squad before bringing it to the Colonel’s attention. This kept the small stuff out of the Colonel’s hair so he could concentrate on the big picture.

“Nothing unusual, sir. We figured it was the building itself. When the tracker goes inside, it seems to putter in and out while, at the same time, no microphone seems to work once inside but, from outside and pretty far away, we have a perfect sight-line on the three from the windows.

“There was one time when the waitress actually spilled soda all over one of them. That destroyed the tracker we had in his coat, but we replaced it that night in his apartment while he slept. He has two coats, and we put it on the other. He sent the spilled one to the dry cleaners. When he brought it home the next night. we went in again and put another tracker on it! Got him with both coats!” The corporal smiled at being sneaky enough to put the trackers on both coats. The sergeant returned an approving smile.

“But you didn’t lose them anytime during the time the coat was soaked?” Sgt. Thomas asked.

“No, Sergeant. We followed Johnson. Team Beta followed Thompson and his screwed-up coat, while Team Charlie followed Jensen. Just like Johnson, they all went straight home.”

Sgt, Thomas flipped through the reports. “Wait a second. What about the weekends?”

“Sir, you ordered us to follow them after they left work. We followed them after work until we confirmed they were asleep for the night. There was no reason for us to watch over the weekend. If you would like, we can go ahead and set up teams to follow them on the weekends, but the trackers on their cars are monitored, and no one has noticed anything unusual. In fact,” the corporal shifted through some of his notes, “in fact, the most unusual thing was Dr. Jensen going to visit his grandfather a few weeks back. The grandfather lives a few miles outside of San Marcos, just north of San Antonio. He apparently has a small ranch up there, and they spent a few hours together. Then Jensen came home, stopping for some takeout dinner on the way. Nothing else too unusual, there. These three are really freakin’ boring, Sergeant.”

“Yep. Sure does sound like it.” Sgt. Thomas stopped speaking for a moment as he continued reading the report. “Okay, Corporal, good job, so far. Keep up this level of surveillance. There’s no need to follow up on the weekends, yet. Just keep GPS locks on them. If they all seem to get going all of a sudden, let me know. Once again, good job, Corporal.” The reports and notes were filed away in case they needed to be rechecked at a future date.

“How are you doing, Murphy?”

“Same as yesterday around this time, George. Same as yesterday. How are things with you?”

“Keep your spirits up. There is a kettle of gold at the end of the rainbow.”

Even though Murphy was hooded and could not see, he looked in the driver’s general direction.

“If I trained you, like you say I did, then you know what that means.”

The rest of the ride was quiet, but the smile under the hood could have charged the electric cart for a month. Tim remembered George made a huge deal about nursery rhymes and, if they were used as code, he was to take them at just under face value. ‘Gold at the end of the rainbow,’ meant there was a plan to get him out, and he needed to get ready for the opportunity for him to escape. George was setting it up. Knowing how big of a risk George was taking, he would not risk screwing up George’s plan or getting George in trouble by trying to get more information out of him.

Just knowing he was not alone, and not having to fight his way out all alone, was reassuring. There was a plan, but what was the plan? He needed to know. No, he needed to be patient. He would learn the plan soon enough ... but what was the plan? No. Just wait.

The patient part of Tim’s psyche won out, forcing him to wait until George could give him more information. Besides, the only times they really had to talk were the few moments, every day, going to the torture chamber or leaving the torture chamber for his windowless cell in the lab.

Yes, patience would be a virtue, but fuck it all! He didn’t like being virtuous this time. Maybe the plan would call for the killing of a few of the interrogators. That brought a smile to Tim’s face that he quickly hid with his hands while laying down on his cot to let the nanites in his body make their necessary repairs.

“That is certainly good news, Tim Murphy. We believe that six more months of this daily torture would cause us to lose functionality.” That got Tim’s attention.

“Explain, please,” he muffled into the pillow while lying on his back.

“The amount of repairs we have to constantly make to your body, after the daily torture, would possibly leave us with one last option at that time. That would be to completely sever the pain receptors in your body so you did not feel any pain ever again, but that would also not allow you to feel anything at all.

“Your body would not be able to regenerate like it has been. You would continue living through the torture until they eventually decided to just terminate you. Not exactly a happy ending, but an ending, nevertheless.

“This chance for an escape is much more suitable. “Especially if, afterwards, we can have you not moving for at least forty-eight straight hours. Then we can repair your entire body and also make you look two hundred pounds lighter. That would also aide in helping you hide, would it not?”

“Yes, my friends! Yes, it would.”

“Do you really consider us your friends, Tim Murphy?”

“Absolutely. I have always considered you guys my friends, ever since you introduced yourselves to me after I graduated from training. That was one of the greatest nights of my life. I finally finished something important to me, and then when you introduced yourselves the next morning. Hell, I still laugh to myself when I think about looking around the room to see who was playing a joke on me.” Tim allowed a smile to form on his face, aware it was still covered by the pillow, remembering the morning he met his new best friends. “I am looking forward to being able to find out what happened to our jump back in time and why it did not work the way we intended it to.”

“A question we wish the answers for as well, sir.”

“I’m gonna go to sleep now and dream of getting your ass out of this.”

“Good night, friend.” A brief pause. “End of message.”

“Yes. Good night to you as well, my friends.”

“In theory, everything is set. The main problem I can see is whether or not that fat fuck can get himself out from under the restraints. Dear Lord, I am hedging all of this on whether or not I have trained this guy to do MY job in some past I can’t remember.” George took a swig of his beer while sitting in his garage with his two new doctor friends, Thompson and Jensen. George had gone the route of a conspiracy freak, and had wallpapered the inside of his garage with aluminum foil and had installed other tech-blocking aids.

“We’ve gone over this, George. If he indeed did go back in time like he said he did, he didn’t just have a look around and go ‘Oh, nice. Just like I left it,’ and then come back. He probably left something behind or went to see someone. Since George doesn’t know anything about this guy, then he probably went to look for a younger version of himself or someone he trusts to deliver a message. Maybe something as stupid as ‘Don’t be in New York on Sept 11, 2001’ or ‘Don’t trust that asshole who runs for President.’ Or maybe he just gives someone lottery numbers so that, when he comes back, he can be rich.” Dr. Thompson ran down from his explanation. “At least that is what I would do.”

George knew the main reason these guys were helping him with the plan to break the guest out of the prison was to try and answer some questions. In all likelihood, their plans for time travel worked. The guy appeared right where he should have if the machine had worked, but he was not answering any questions, and the government was getting insanely frustrated.

“Remember how confused he was when he got out of the box? He looked like he was expecting someone else to be there and not us. Then, when GI George busted through the door, he looked like he’d seen a ghost,” Dr. Jensen joked as he finished another beer.

“Okay. So we have everything set and we have three different hiding places for him to go – not including the ranch. I’m guessing he might have others, but they are probably all blown to hell now that everything was back asswards to him, anyway,” George sat back looking at his friends. He realized that in the four months or so since they decided to break Tim out of the unnamed jail, they had indeed become his friends. They set everything ready to go but would not have any interaction with him until the heat had died down a bit, so to speak. “I’ll let him know we left breadcrumbs for him to follow to escape, but there will be no one there to actually help him until I meet with him at whichever safe house he chooses. Then we’ll find out what the fuck he is doing here.”

“Yes, the three safe houses are set. The hardest part of the plan is for him to get himself out of there by himself,” Dr. Jensen pointed out for the umpteenth time since the three men began planning.

“Okay, he gets out and makes it to a safe house. What then?” Dr. Thompson asked to keep the plan clear in his mind.

“Well, it’s up to him. He stays put or moves out on his own. I left a pre-paid cell there for him, with a number to another pre-paid cell that I have. I’m hoping he can get in contact, and we can figure out what to do from there. We have access to more safe houses as well as access to getting him out of the country, if that becomes necessary, thanks to our friends,” George explained.

“I’m hoping he trusts us enough to let us help him figure out what the fuck happened and either get him to where he needs to be or get him home.”

The large man made his way down the steps onto the floor of the tunnel and slowly over to the cart for his daily transfer for interrogation. After a few minutes of moving down the tunnel, a tiny beep broke through the silence and George started in on the hooded man sitting in the passenger seat of the cart.

“We don’t have a lot of time before the cameras and microphones will be working again. We have a plan to get you away from the complex, but not a way to get you out of the complex. That is something you must do on your own,” George was straight and to the point. “Do you understand?”

George heard a muffled yes accompanied by one knock on the dashboard of the cart. “One for yes, two for no. Perfect.” Another knock.

“Are you prepared to make a go of it today?”

Two quick knocks.

“No problem. The building where I take you for interrogation, is the old Ft. Sam library, the old building just off the parade grounds and right near the base housing of the higher-ranked military on base. It’s also back behind the base chapel. Do you know where I’m talking about?”

A quick knock.

“The group holding you there are between eleven and thirteen men, as I have been able to make out. All Special Forces, so you have your work cut out for you. Is that what you have?”

One knock.

“Can you work your way out of there? Are physically able to do the job?”

One knock.

“There is a red sedan parked in the Post Chapel’s parking lot. There is not a lot of cover but you should be able to make it without too much trouble. Key is in a small magnetic box, in rear driver’s-side wheel well. Get off base. You know your way around. Get on Highway 35 or go into the barrios further down the road -- your choice. But find someplace to stop for a minute.

“In the glove compartment there’s a list of safe houses. All of these houses are safe, and the mode of entry to each is explained. Once you’re in, call me on the throwaway phone which you’ll find easily enough, and then we can figure out what the fuck is next.” Another beep from George’s watch. “Okay, ten seconds and they can see us again. All clear to you?”

One knock and a muffled “Thanks.”

Tim was thrilled that his former teacher had decided to help him get out. He had even set up a way for him to get off base and into a safe house. Then, once Tim was out, he’d provided a way to contact him and figure out their next moves. Tim knew getting past these interrogators was not going to be easy, and he needed to look for the right time. However, the one thing he was sure of, today was not the day. He needed to rest and set himself, psychologically, to the possibility he would need to take lives in order to escape. Philosophically, he had no regrets about killing any of the soldiers currently “interrogating” him, but you never knew if there were any extra personnel like clerks or secretaries who run day-to-day office crap for these guys. Maybe they didn’t know what went on in the sub-sub-basement. Killing would not be a problem. He had trained for that, though he had never actually had to do it. To save his own life -- yes, he could kill anyone in his way. He wouldn’t like doing it. He wouldn’t take pride in doing it, but to get free and to get answers -- yes, he could kill.

Just knowing there was a plan in place was a huge lift of his spirit. Tim had to force himself back into his monotonous routine of interrogation, but there was indeed ‘gold at the end of the rainbow.’ He just might have to break a few necks to get to it!

“Well, Tim, how are you doing after today’s events?” On the ride back to the lab’s prison and in the unusually static-filled area underground, beneath the old Ft. Sam Houston library and the brand new Brooke Army Medical Center, George tried to keep the conversation light and upbeat. After all, acting on just the hint of a feeling that he might know this man, George convinced two ‘top of their field’ scientists to break oaths, and commit treason by helping him plan the escape of the country’s number one prisoner -- a prisoner so secretive, no one outside of a rarefied circle in the country’s intelligence community even knew of his existence.