Dark Sky (The Misadventures of Max Bowman Book 1) (19 page)

“Yeah, but how come you had to be the…”

“The ugly one? The one that would send kids running screaming into the night? Because I was the one who was lucky enough to step on the roadside bomb.”

He leaned against the wall and put his hand up to his head as if he had the migraine to end all migraines. I looked at PMA to see how he was coping with all this. The answer? Not well.

“I’m a sick fuck, Bowman, a very sick fuck, and I have been for a long time. But Herman said we’d be sick fucks for America, and that seemed like a good use of my talents.

“But why The Rifleman?”

“The Rifleman could go out and massacre a half-dozen guys, then go home and teach his son good family values, all in thirty minutes, not counting commercial breaks. Meaning you could be a really fine, upstanding, moral sick fuck. That’s why Herman loves that show, Bowman, that’s why he decided to make his face look like The Rifleman’s, so he could feel like a hero, no matter what kind of fucking sick fuck shit he and I did. And we did a lot of it, let me tell you, a whole lot of sick fuck shit.”

Well, shit, maybe TV did cause violence, like the experts used to say back in the seventies.

I stared at Robert Davidson, who was again staring out the window, waiting for the inevitable to come crashing through his door. I had a feeling his mind looked a lot like his face – half-normal and half-scarred beyond belief. You couldn’t feel sorry for Herman, but Robert Davidson was a different story. This poor guy had come through the fog of the violence of his younger years and now could see clearly what he had allowed himself to become. I couldn’t help but pity him – because I couldn’t imagine how he was going to live with everything he had done with his life for much longer.

“Look, Robert,” I said softly, losing all the wiseass from my voice. “We should work together and get you back home. Your dad’s not in good shape and he wants to make things right.”

“What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s had a few strokes,” PMA said, finally able to join the conversation. “He’s very weak. Mom will do everything she can for you, I’m sure.”

Hope flickered in his eyes for a second, then it seemed to vanish without a trace.

“I belong here. I’m fucking dead inside. I belong here.”

Then he sat. And then he cried. And he cried and he cried.

The kid and I looked at each other. That’s when the men in blood-red jumpsuits burst in, led by the hunk who had played bartender in Branson. He glared at Robert with sheer hatred.

“If Herman doesn’t recover, I’ll kill you - and this time you’ll stay dead.”

Then his men took me and the kid away, leaving Robert sitting there, still sobbing uncontrollably.

“L-l-let’s try this again,” said Mr. Barry Filer.

The kid was locked away in a room nearby, presumably safe and sound, while we sat in a small conference room inside the main five-story black building, a room they called The Tank. The Tank. I knew that was the name they called the room in the Pentagon where the President would come and talk with the Generals about their most secret secrets, so it made sense that the powers-that-be would bring that same sensibility here to Dark Sky.

The Tank in The Barn. I thought it was all The Stupid. It all smacked of boys who had built their own forts in their backyards and defended them with BB guns, at least until they were old enough to get erections. Places like this were monuments to arrested development.

“Okay,” I replied. “And let’s start with us all agreeing that Robert Davidson isn’t dead. Because I just spoke with the guy.”

“W-well…” Mr. Barry Filer stopped there, because at that moment, the door opened. In walked a well-dressed older man with a cane, which he used to support his right leg.

The last missing piece of the puzzle.

“Hello, Andy,” I said, looking him up and down, realizing he wasn’t the king of the spooks at all. He was the king of the sick fucks.

He blinked at my familiarity.

“Mr. Bowman.”

He almost smiled and sat down.

“I have to give it to you,” he continued. “You were never supposed to get this far. We completely counted on your failure.”

“Usually that’s a safe bet, sorry.”

“When you hire some aging freelancer who quit the Agency over a dozen years ago, you assume he won’t want to make waves. You assume he won’t even
know
how to make waves. By the way, I wanted to ask…Daniel Bowman…?”

“My father.”

Andrew Wright nodded. “One of the Agency old-timers. He was there at the beginning. Didn’t seem to make much of it, did he? Not very ambitious?”

“More in the self-defeating business. Like me.”

“I see. Well, first of all, I’d like to apologize for everything you’ve been through.”

“Maybe you should also apologize to Colonel Allen and General Kraemer. Oh, wait, you can’t, one got blown to charred little bits and the other has twelve rifle bullets in his heart.”

“That shouldn’t have happened,” Wright said after an uncomfortable moment of silence. “Herman shouldn’t have done what he did in Kentucky and Missouri. He keeps acting like he’s still in Afghanistan.”

“Shouldn’t you put that guy in a cage?” I asked Wright. “Or will the mace to the head keep him down for good?”

Wright bristled. “Herman is going to recover, don’t you worry. And you should also know that Herman is a patriot, a very valuable asset to Dark Sky, and…”

“Wait a minute. You’re implying he killed Kraemer and Allen just for kicks. And you’re just going to let him back out there? 

I noticed out of the corner of my eye that Mr. Barry Filer was stifling a smile. Evidently, I was saying something he liked hearing.

“W-well,” stammered Wright defensively, suddenly sounding like Mr. Barry Filer, “To tell the truth, Afghanistan was hard on Herman. War does things to people. You saw what it did to Michael Winters.”

“With all due respect, Andy, I think Herman is the type who causes what happened to Michael Winters, not the type who suffers from it.”

Another uncomfortable silence.

“Herman is my son, Mr. Bowman,” said Wright.

Oh.

“I know he seems a little…extreme. But he only has his country’s best interests at heart as well as those of Dark Sky. Barry here may run the organization, but Herman is the soul of Dark Sky.”

Wow. Andrew Wright just might have been the most deluded dad since Adam bought Cain’s story about Abel stabbing himself in the chest repeatedly. 

“W-w-we’re not here to talk about Herman,” Mr. Barry Filer broke in to save his boss from further embarrassment.

“Then let’s talk about Robert Davidson. Why is he still alive?”

Wright took a deep breath.

“In 2005, Robert Davidson was killed in Afghanistan - although, of course, he wasn’t. However, the I.E.D. did a lot of damage. His facial injuries…the loss of his left arm…tragic. But instead of becoming a victim, Robert looked at what happened to him as an opportunity. He and Herman were already in discussions prior to the incident. He wanted to join Dark Sky and their efforts rather than continue to serve in a neutered military subject to shifting political winds. So we saw this as the perfect opportunity to “kill” Robert Davidson and reincarnate him as Richard Kurtz, a high-level Dark Sky operative.”

“Dick Hurts.”

“Well, yes, we didn’t see that at the time. Herman really pulled one over on us.”

“Such a scamp. Anyway, who’s in the ground at Arlington under Robert Davidson’s name?”

“Some other unfortunate soul who was shot in a firefight. We told his family he was MIA and we shipped his body home in place of Robert’s. I told General Davidson Robert’s remains were too gruesome for him to be put back together and he accepted that reluctantly. No open casket at that funeral.”

“Why pretend to kill him?”

“We were going to do some very dirty work in Afghanistan, Mr. Bowman. Counterinsurgency, you know. Robert was anxious to be a ‘COINdinista,’ as we like to call ourselves, but he was rightfully afraid of what his actions in that arena would do to his father and the entire family’s reputation. Plus, after the blast, he did not want his father to ever see him looking…well…”

“So how did he and Herman hook up in the first place?”

“Well, he and Robbie were in the Army Ranger program together – they became great friends. Great friends.”

He hit “friends” a little hard.

“More than a bromance?” I asked.

Wright smiled. “Yes I had a little more trouble accommodating myself to the notion…but it takes all kinds. The gay thing was another reason Robbie wanted to go underground. He didn’t think his father would accept…who he is.”

“He might’ve been right about that.”

“Anyhoo,” Wright continued, “I had already helped Herman make the transition from the Army to Dark Sky. He took to it like a duck takes to water. So…while Robbie recuperated, the boys talked about what they could do with the new mandate to make some aggressive moves in Afghanistan - after the success of the surge in Iraq. Their idea was to find a way to make a substantial psychological impact on the Taliban fighters. Become frightening legends that would strike terror in the hearts of the enemy.”

“I heard. The Demonic Duo. They should have their own comic book.”

“Yes, Robbie’s appearance would obviously have an impact. But that left Herman feeling like he was at something of a disadvantage, and he’s a very competitive boy. So he thought about how he could change his own face – and that gave him the idea of assuming the persona of his childhood hero, Lucas McCain. We flew in a top plastic surgeon for the facial reconstruction, we had a few of those special rifles fabricated for him, and the transformation was simply astonishing. He really did become, in his own mind, this mythical assassin. The two of them were remarkably successful in terrorizing the Afghan rebels. Psychological warfare is the most effective, Mr. Bowman.”

“Okay, Andy, you lost me. Do they show
The Rifleman
on Afghani television? Do they have their own TV Land channel over there? How would they even know who Herman was pretending to be?”

“It wouldn’t matter, Mr. Bowman. You’ve seen for yourself how terrifying Herman’s roleplaying can be.  In any event, the two of them together moved fast and worked quietly. And they did some damage, let me tell you.”

“C-c-cleaned out more than one village,” grinned Mr. Barry Filer, while he was looking at the folding chair to the side. Oh, wait, wrong again, he was looking at me.

“So why are they here in Montana – there’s still plenty of shit going on overseas, right?” 

“Our government lost the appetite to continue with the mission. The Afghan government objected. Everyone wanted to cut and run like cowards. So…we left. And wouldn’t you know, Iraq and Afghanistan are in chaos again. ISIS is the threat du jour. Now, we’re in Syria. Inevitably, the political winds will blow back in our direction – at which point, we will return and do what we do best.”

“And if those winds don’t shift?”

“We’ll find our way.”

Mr. Barry Filer spoke up again – and forcefully. “This country has to find the will.”

“The will?” I asked.

“W-w-we act like we don’t want to be a world power. Like we don’t want to c-c-conquer. We start things, we don’t finish them. We ran away in K-K-Korea. In Vietnam. In Iraq and now in Afghanistan.”

“Patton, you know, wanted to go right into Moscow with the tanks at the end of World War II,” added Wright helpfully. “Imagine if we had let him. Imagine if we hadn’t had a Cold War or an arms race to attend to. Our already incredible prosperity would have been magnified a thousandfold. We run away from empire-building, because it’s not politically correct. But who else is qualified to run the world? Who else has our values and our morals? All we lack is the will to admit to ourselves this is what we need to do and do it. We are capable of making the move, you know. We’re still the only country that’s used an atom bomb against another.”

“We should have used a lot f-f-fucking more,” Mr. Barry Filer chimed in. Wow, what a fun guy.

“Barry’s a true believer, Mr. Bowman,” chuckled Wright. “And so am I. For decades, I’ve had to attempt to control the world through secret plots and silly underground conspiracies. They wanted us to kill Castro with an exploding cigar, for God’s sake. We’re all after the same thing – we just can’t bear to be seen doing it in broad daylight. That’s why Dark Sky was built, Mr. Bowman. Our government will call on us again and we will be more than ready – and yes, we’ll do it in the dark if we must. You can’t have progress without conflict. If we all agree the American Way is a great thing, why not apply that template to the rest of the world and create a marvelous and productive earth?”

Andrew Wright made genocide seem positively positive. He was Hitler crossed with Dale Carnegie –
How to Conquer the World and Influence People
.

“That’s all wonderfully inspiring, Andy. But why are you trying to sell me?”

Wright leaned forward. Time to close the deal.

“General Davidson is a great, great friend of mine, has been for decades. We trust each other. I’m a loyal man, Mr. Bowman, and I have a hunch you are too. When that lunatic soldier wrote to General Davidson…”

“Michael Winters.” I didn’t like him to be casually dismissed.

“…yes, Michael Winters, when he wrote to General Davidson, the General was very upset. I tried to calm him down, because I knew that if he found out about Robbie, it would literally kill him. But he wouldn’t stop. He went after Kraemer and Collins, who did some digging of their own. I had to convince them to stop to protect the General.”

“And then you ended up killing them.”

“As I said, that was a mistake. Herman went a little too far…”

“A little too far? Andy, you got a blind spot that’s the size of Kim Kardashian’s ass….”

“Judge me as you will, Mr. Bowman, but let’s discuss your role in all this.”

“My role?”

“All we’re asking you to do is go back to the General and tell him you tried and you tried, but you could find no evidence that Robert is alive. He’ll believe it coming from you and that will put an end to all the unpleasantness. We’ll pin the deaths of Kraemer and Allen on some unhinged friend of Michael Winters. We’ll provide you with the back-up documentation. That will make your job easier, right?”

“Why does it have to be me?”

“The General hired you because he trusts you, Mr. Bowman.”

“And he doesn’t trust his friend of multiple decades?”

“Sadly, in this area, I believe he might not. In our last conversation, he kept bringing up the whole closed casket thing at the funeral. It’s getting to that difficult place. But, if you make a good show of it, I think he might finally accept things. Create a good story, so he feels it’s all credible. There’s no point in breaking the old warrior’s heart at this point in his life, is there?”

“Angela Davidson laid out the exact same plan for me. Any idea why?”

“I won’t get into private family matters.”

That shut me up. Being a giant idiot usually did. Of course she knew what was going on.

During that expanse of quiet, Mr. Barry Filer pulled a very thick envelope out of his jacket pocket, an envelope of approximately the same thickness as the original envelope given to me at our first meeting. He shoved it across the table in my direction.

“The other half of your fee, M-M-Mr. Bowman. If you’ll agree to finish the assignment as we’ve suggested.”

I pushed the hair back on my head. We had hit the crossing in the road. I stalled. Becoming an unofficial member of this murder machine wasn’t appealing.

“If I say no, you kill me? Is that it?”

“No, Mr. Bowman, we want you to show up and talk to the General in person. If we killed you, that wouldn’t happen, now would it?”