The Guantanamo Bay prison was shut down. An international judicial battle started between Cuba and the USA, where the Caribbean nation wished to evict the foreign military base but Uncle Sam didn’t want to lose their strategic position. The troops dispatched to the island to secure the destroyed prison camp and military facilities fortified themselves and nothing short of a costly battle or a presidential order would make them leave.
A week later, the story seemed to be dying down when the nation learned of a fight in a roadside bar. A massacre was a more apt description, as all the truckers and bikers at the venue were brutally smashed and crushed. They weren’t shot, or stab, or cut. Instead, the assailant used only his fists and feet to do the deed. The only clue to what happened was a security camera footage full of static. The scene seemed to be straight out of the first Terminator movie.
A man too tall and too muscular entered stark naked in the bar and started an argument with the patrons. The argument devolved into a fight and the intruder singlehandedly killed everyone inside. A few patrons managed to run away, the perpetrator didn’t seem too fast but inexorably strong. Like the perfect combination of the unmoving object and the irresistible force. At one point it seems someone shot him but he didn’t even flinch. That was very concerning.
But not as much as when the perpetrator looked straight at the camera. That made Cat scream and jump out of the couch, sending a Mr. Mouser flailing in the air. The girl hid behind the couch, trembling and whimpering. Mr. Mouser ran around the couch to check on her.
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” she cooed and reached for the feline.
Jack entered the room, “What happened?”
She got close to having a panic attack. If what Catherine said was correct, her body, most probably her subconscious that was still Catherine remembered the sexual assault.
Jack helped her back on her feet. “What is going on? What happened?”
Panting, the girl pointed at the TV set, where the news segment about the assault was still going on, “My rapist is on TV. He’s the one responsible for the Florida massacre.” Ironically, the news anchor was saying how the police couldn’t get an ID on the perpetrator from the video footage.
“Are you sure?”
Hugging and soothing Mr. Mouser, she sat on the couch. “Yes. I am sure,” she hiccuped. Mr. Mouser licked her tears.
“Catherine, the police stated they couldn’t get an ID of the perpetrator. If he was your aggressor, his picture is on the system.”
“Arthur Conan Doyle said in one of his books, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’ Now, what’s more plausible? That the terrorists held in custody at one of the most secure facilities in the world suddenly got external help and rebelled, overpowering the guards, or that our demon friend went down there, gave the guy superpowers, and sent him to get me?”
Jack wanted to say something but he changed his mind. “Would you be open to talking with a friend of mine?”
“In the military? Anything for my country. We can’t let this monster out in the open. I’m afraid it will be a trail of destruction all the way from Florida to here. I want to call detective Martinez first.”
“Sure.”
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Cat got Martinez on board and also sent a heads up to both Shinji and Alice. Both returners said they would come back to New Jersey to plan their defense. Along with the detective, they drove to Fort Hamilton where they were supposed to meet with Jack’s friend. She thought about bringing Agatha but she might be forced to disclose the existence of the supernatural and that ruled the lawyer out. It wasn’t that Cat didn’t trust Agatha but more to preserve the young lawyer’s sanity. Martinez agreed that the fewer people knew about what was really going on, the better. Cat was still frightened by the prospect of facing a hell-empowered monster but found Martha’s presence reassuring.
At the base gate, they quickly cleared the security checkpoint scan and drove to the parking lot, where an officer waited for them.
Jack placed his beret before he left the car. The two officers saluted each other. “Captain!”
“Lieutenant! At ease,” The captain said back. With the formalities over, the two friends hugged each other. “How’re you doing, you old dog? I saw you on the bridge. Glad you survived.”
“We were prepared, Captain. Vests and helmets, plus an armored vehicle. We had a casualty, though.” Jack’s reply was modest.
“I know but still good job. You completed your mission. Would you introduce the ladies?”
“Right. This is detective Martinez from the NYPD, she knows our suspect. And here is miss Wallenstein.”
“Ma’am, Miss, welcome to Fort Hamilton. I’m Captain Dawson, and I heard about both of you. Miss Wallenstein, I’m sorry for what happened to you.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Cat nodded.
“This way. The colonel is waiting for us.”
They were led into the main building where they were identified and received their visitor tags. Then down a series of corridors until they were allowed in a meeting room with some officers and other military personnel.
“Ranger, welcome back home,” a middle-aged colonel greeted them after both Jack and Dawson saluted him. “I heard you have some intel for me?”
“Yes, sir!” Jack barked back. “We have due reason to believe we know the identity of the perpetrator of the recent Florida massacre, sir.”
The colonel nodded and they were led to their seats at the table. Cat let Jack explain what they figured out, leaving the supernatural portion of the story out. After the presentation, the senior officer gave the bad news.
“I’m not going to lie to you, Lieutenant. We ran a facial recognition software trying to match the face of the suspect you pointed out with the footage we have, and they only matched thirty percent. Not enough to get a clear ID.”
“We are positive it is him, sir,” Jack affirmed back with conviction.
“Permission to speak, sir?” Cat coyly asked.
“Miss Wallenstein,” The colonel smiled to ease her tension. “Permission granted.”
“I know it is him, sir. I recognized him in the video footage. I also am certain he’s not accounted among the dead in Guantanamo. I would dare to guess you have all the inmates accounted for and identified by now, except for him, as I doubt any of them escaped the Cuban island even if they survived the jailbreak. By now you should’ve captured any that ran away.”
One of the military personnel stood up once she mentioned Guantanamo, but the colonel waved him back to his seat.
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The officer kept an inquisitive gaze on the girl, “You seem to be pretty well-informed, miss Wallenstein.”
“That’s why I asked Jack to arrange this meeting, colonel. I wish to share the information so we can spare our citizens from harm. The attack on Florida was the first one. I have reasons to believe the attacker will keep moving north along the east coast until he comes here.”
“And why would you believe that?” The colonel kept his voice neutral, without betraying his feelings or intentions.
Summoning her courage, Cat met his gaze, “Because he’s after me. His sole purpose is to finish what he started at the George Washington Bridge.”
The colonel narrowed his eyes, “Why would he be after you? The sexual assault case is already over and he is serving multiple sentences. Once we recapture him, he won’t see the light of the day ever again. What value do you hold to his sponsor organization to do such a thing? And why would they deploy him in Florida, a whole country away from here?”
Cat was so nervous she missed the fact the colonel admitted her assumptions about what transpired in Guantanamo. Controlling her nerves, Cat didn’t answer straight away. She closed her eyes and replayed the colonel's last sentences, trying to understand where he was probing her. He made a lot of assumptions in his questions but William was a negotiator by trade. The former investment banker knew a loaded question when he heard one. Her conclusion was that the colonel was shooting in the dark.
“One, he does not have a sponsor organization,” she stared at the officer that stood up earlier. “I’m sure your intelligence services already cross-referenced every single mercenary or terrorist group on this Earth that could be involved and found no matches. No suspicious activities, no records of arrivals or sleeper agents being triggered.”
The one she assumed was an intelligence officer glared at her. When she met his gaze, he shifted that to the colonel, who watched the silent exchange with restrained mirth. “What else?”
“He wasn’t quote-unquote ‘deployed’,” she wiggled her fingers, “in Florida. He swam from Cuba and is moving on foot. That roadside bar was just the first major confrontation he was caught in, but I’m sure you’ll find a trail starting from the shore and leading all the way there if you backtrack his steps. Maybe even some minor cases of random violence along his path. He’s not in a condition to care about subtlety.”
The colonel shifted to one of his assistants, “Second lieutenant, does our intel corroborate miss Wallenstein’s assumptions?”
“Sir!” One of the junior officers nodded from behind his laptop. “Several Florida Sherrif reports match with what the witness reported.”
“And if you measure his assumed point of entry on the mainland considering the drift caused by oceanic currents between Cuba and Florida, you’ll see that he crossed our waters swimming,” Cat added. “I would even bet there was no reported boat activity anywhere near his landfall.”
Martinez squeezed her hand. “Good job,” she whispered.
“That was already confirmed with our intelligence division, miss Wallenstein. Now, how do you know that?” The colonel’s tone became menacing as if he was about to accuse her of accessory to treason if that was even a thing.
“It’s okay to answer, Catherine,” Jack said. “We can trust the colonel.”
She met the former ranger’s gaze, ignored Catherine’s remark about how hot he would look in a uniform, and stared at the colonel.
“Because I know how he escaped from Guantanamo. Also, I have a suspicion regarding who is sponsoring him, although I have no proof.”
The military personnel froze. The colonel smiled. “How did he escape from Guantanamo, miss Wallenstein?”
She was sure the demon visited him and somehow granted him supernatural powers. Maybe the military thought he was using some kind of high-tech body armor to explain how he survived several point-blank shots but she had to be very careful to avoid revealing the whole story. She feared any mistake could have them incarcerated or declared insane.
“He received a visitor. Someone capable of persuading people or erasing his presence from surveillance footage. But if you recovered any security footage or logs from the detention camp, I’m sure you’ll find discrepancies before the inmate rebellion. Maybe his door opened when it shouldn’t, or some guard went to his cell out of his patrol schedule. An external agent infiltrated the prison camp and contacted the escapee.”
“Who?” The colonel’s single-word question betrayed some of his impatience, maybe even anger.
“All in due time, colonel. I won’t accuse a citizen in good standing without proof.”
She exchanged a glance with Martinez, who nodded at her. A deep silence followed while the colonel’s staff typed furiously in their computers along with a lot of mouse clicks. Cat searched for surveillance cameras and found some. Somehow she imagined the irritating FBI agent watching in another room and smiled for the cameras.
“Can you give me a name? Off the record?”
“There’s no such thing as an off-the-record statement, colonel. I understand the gravity of the matter. A terrorist and serial killer is on the loose. Believe me, I want him and his sponsor gone more than anyone. But I can’t disclose my suspicions yet. All in due time.”
Cat knew she couldn’t surrender all the information at once. From the moment she entered the room, the colonel and she were engaged in a sales negotiation. She had to give them what they wanted little by little and hold the juiciest piece of information until they agreed to give her what she wanted. Their goals were exactly the same but she had a big hurdle to jump if she was to convince them of that. An alien entity was on the loose among them, causing grievous harm to innocent civilians.
The colonel glanced to the side where there should be nothing and she noticed he wore a concealed earpiece, probably to receive audio from outside. Her suspicions intensified. There was a second team watching the meeting and feeding him with information.
“Contact!” One of the aides shouted. “We have confirmed contact with the escapee on a roadblock along interstate ninety-five in Volusia County. Highway patrol and local police forces engaged the target.”
She worried the poor cops would be massacred. Martinez squeezed her hand. She whispered, “I know you want to speak up, but there’s nothing you can do. They are my fellow law enforcement officers, I already grieve for them.”
“Do we have a visual?” The colonel asked.
“No, sir. None of their body cameras is streaming live. We only have radio communications.”
“I want an air picket around his position. Do not let him out of our sight,” He ordered.
“Police forces reporting casualties, requesting backup, sir.”
A phone in the middle of the meeting table rang. The call connected them with Washington. The colonel saluted, followed by all the military personnel in the room, Jack included.
“Colonel, how’s the meeting with our civilian informers?” The general on the screen asked. He didn’t sound amused.
“Underway, sir. Miss Wallenstein was about to disclose--”
She wouldn’t let herself be entrapped like that, “Don’t lie, colonel,” she cut him off. Now that she had the general, the colonel became middle management. “General, sir. Catherine Wallenstein here.”
An aide shifted one of the cameras on the center of the table to face her. She appeared on the screen along with the colonel in a small side frame.
“Miss Wallenstein. On behalf of the American people, I thank you for your cooperation. Our brave highway troopers are holding the enemy, but we need the information to properly fight him. Tell us what you know,” the general paused, then added, “Please.”
Cat nodded. “Sir, I believe your target has suffered extensive body modifications that will make him impervious to small-arms fire, as well as very strong and violent. If you’re wondering about reproducibility, I have no idea, you’ll need to ask the one that did that to him in Guantanamo. Engaging him with conventional weaponry will only delay him at best.”
In the roadside bar fight footage, he was shot with 9mm and shotgun shots at close quarters several times and showed no signs of being wounded.
“And who was the one that breached Guantanamo?”
“Roger Marthan, sir. I believe you won’t find any records of him traveling to Cuba and even might find evidence he was in Manhattan when the breakout happened. Yet it was him.”
“The lawyer in your sexual assault case,” the General remarked.
“Indeed sir. He threw his client under the bus to avoid involvement in the George Washington Bridge and related terrorist attacks.”
“He has been investigated and came out clean, miss.”
“I never stated he was bad at what he does, sir. In fact, I believe none on this world is better than him at his job.”
“And what is it that he does?”
“Did you watch his interviews? His speech to judge Hendrickson? The ridiculous name of his recently founded religious cult? Did you check his cult followers for drastic behavior deviations? Even how… nevermind.” She was about to mention her mother, but then the military would think she was doing that for family reasons. “Follow the money, general. If you check how generous his followers were with their money days after joining his cult, you’ll see how skewed things are. The answer is pretty obvious, but unless you discard every other option, you won’t believe it.”
“I have no time for games, young lady,” The general patronized.
Cat slammed the table, “The prize for this game is my life, General. There’s a monster moving north and nothing you can do will stop him. He’s coming to murder me. Now, ask your psychology advisor how the threat of impending death does to make a person cooperate. I don’t need you, the colonel, or agent Ashford in a dark room patronizing me. I’m withholding information because I know you won’t believe me unless you reach the same conclusion independently. So tell your aides to do their fucking jobs and you’ll have my full cooperation.”
The general tried a different approach, “Lieutenant Murphy, do you know what Miss Wallenstein is refusing to disclose?”
“I do, sir. However, she’s my client and I’m under a bulletproof NDA, not to mention my work ethic. I agree with the lady. Reach your conclusions independently, and we’ll work together from there. There are alien forces at work in our homeland, general.”
“Very well, lieutenant Murphy. I believe your judgment. Colonel, have this evangelist arrested under the PATRIOT act and brought for interrogation. This is an order.”