Can’t Afford the Book? I Can Help 

Later, if after you get back on your feet, you can pay for it then, that’s great. Or, if you are still able to afford it now, know that each copy purchased at full price pays for others that can be sent to our destitute brothers.

Thank you for the feedback so far, all of it.

and…

and…

3:20 PM

Jason had crossed over the Missouri river some time ago. He knew, by this time, Adam was most likely worrying as Jason was supposed to be at the safehouse by now.  But Jason had to be sure he wasn’t being followed, so he couldn’t be too careful. He was about to arrive at the primary safehouse and deliver Adam’s car to him, and this was a most sensitive point in the mission, something he would not want any surveillance team to see. That is, if there was a surveillance team to be worried about. And, of course, if there was one out there watching him, they would have to have formed up relatively recently, Jason assumed in his paranoid reasoning which was bordering on ridiculous by this point. He figured if there was a team watching them from the very beginning, they wouldn’t have allowed things to get this far, so, therefore, if there was a team watching him, that they must have only recently gotten wise to what was going on.

They wouldn’t just sit back and watch things get this far…..Would they? Jason thought as he again looked in his rear view mirror.

No, if the bad guys are watching me, it must mean they got wind of the kidnapping after it happened. Maybe Sullivan’s wife called the courthouse and things blew up from there.

He looked in his rear view mirror again and noticed that the vehicle that had been in the distance behind him was no longer there.

Don’t take paranoia seriously, come on! 

Jason had made several turns since crossing the river and was now well to the northeast of the safehouse where Adam was. He decided that he was confident enough that he wasn’t being followed and that he should now head directly to the safehouse. Only problem was, he was now lost. He hadn’t been using the car’s GPS; they didn’t want an electronic trail showing that Adam’s car had been in Carrolton. But now, with precious time wasting, Jason figured he had no choice but to plug in the city of Carrolton. He’d tell Adam about it; he’d understand. They could just destroy the GPS unit later.

Unless the feds had a tracking device on Adam’s car, Jason thought.

No, no, no; there you go being paranoid again. Ed checked out Adam’s car with the scanner a few weeks ago; no bugs. Ed even used the scanner with the illegal mod job that could pick up 800mhz cell phone frequencies.  And that’s the part of the spectrum where the feds would hide that kind of thing…….a part of the radio spectrum civilians weren’t even allowed to listen to. What else would they use – shortwave, longwave, microwave? Come on, let’s be smart about this. There is absolutely nothing to worry about. Besides, if the plan goes to shit, me and Adam are ready to die. And so is Ed; well, so he says he is anyway. And if we die, Sullivan plus a few cops will die as well. We’ll make our point either way.

But I’m still scared; I don’t want to get caught. I don’t want to die.

 Shut up, Jason! Quit being such a bitch!

Jason continued his line of thought:

What happened to that cold-hearted killer that cut a guy’s throat on the battlefield, huh?  What happened to that bad-ass Marine that didn’t give a shit about his own safety as long as it meant he could go and get some? Hey, we may even get to use those guns Adam’s got in the trunk of this little car. I’m pretty sure he’s got the AR-10 in there; that’ll put a poser-ass SWAT soldier-wannabe in his place……..on the ground!

 Once the GPS processed the route and was pointing Jason toward Carrolton, Jason felt relaxed and decided to turn on the car’s CD player. I wonder what Adam’s listening to these days, he thought as he pressed “play.”  It was a home made CD, as most are these days, a compilation of various techno and industrial sounding remixes of the “Super Mario Brothers” theme song, mostly the dungeon levels.

“Oh…Kay” Jason said, breaking his silence, figuring the music would cover up his voice in the event there were any hidden microphones in the car. At first he thought Adam’s choice of music a little weird, but he started getting into it a little as he kept checking his rear view mirror and following the GPS’s route back to Carrolton. He turned up the volume a bit and gave the car just a little more gas to make up for the lost time.

****

Rachel Sullivan stopped pacing back and forth. She had been trying to think back, trying to figure out who Gene must be having an affair with. It wasn’t Erin, and, from piecing things together, she didn’t think it was anyone else from work either.

Maybe a family member of a victim or a defendant, she thought. No, Gene wouldn’t stoop so low, would he?

Would he?

Rachel got in her car and drove to the nearest convenience store. She did something she hadn’t done in over 10 years; she bought a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. It was a smaller sized “purse pack” of Virginia Slims and a white mini Bic lighter. As soon as she got back in the car she lit one up, not caring if the smell lingered in the vehicle.

Yes, he would, Rachel. Don’t be naive, not anymore. Let’s think this through clearly, now.

When she got home, she went out on the back porch and lit another one. She tried to think about the cases Gene had told her about. She hoped it was just some younger girl busted with a little dope and not someone more mature and respectable. She’d rather Gene was doing it only for sex. If it was only sex, maybe they could hold the marriage together, at least until the kids moved out.

But is Gene really low enough to do that, to fuck some poor female defendant in exchange for………well, yeah, I guess he could do that. But what if it’s a co-worker? What if it’s is someone more mature?

What if he actually loves someone else?!?

Part of her wanted to pick up the phone, call Erin back, and try to get to the bottom of this. And part of her wanted to crumple into a ball, to blame herself for not being a better wife, to blame herself for being so stupid as to not see it coming.

Rachel put out her cigarette on the brick steps of the back porch and went inside the house. She picked up the phone, thought about calling Erin, but decided against it. For the time being, she decided to just sit down at the kitchen table and do a little of the crumpling into a ball thing.

Just for a minute.

****

Adam finished writing the text of his note, after stopping several times to make revisions. It was sloppy, but he figured Jason could make it out.  He dried his sweaty hands on his shirt, took the pen he was using and scrawled some of its ink onto his left index finger. He pressed his inked fingertip onto the paper, just below the note’s main body of text and then signed his name, printed his name, and wrote the date under the fingerprint.

He collected the video camera, tapes and guided Sullivan upstairs  to wait with him by the front door.

“C’mon, Jason, you crazy bastard, get here so we can get this shit over with,” Adam muttered to himself.

3:45 PM

Finally, after a few more minutes, he saw the car approaching. Jason parked Adam’s car in front of the house, got out, and quickly walked to the front door. Adam opened it before Jason had a chance to reach the doorknob himself.

“Good to see you finally; any trouble?” Adam asked.

“Naw, man, not yet. Thought I was being followed, so I had to take a little detour. Can’t be too sure at this point. You know, a little paranoia here and there can be a good thing. I’ll bet all those folks sitting in jail right now wish they’d been a little more paranoid.” Jason replied.

“All right. Fair enough,” said Adam. Both Adam and Jason had the same look on their faces, wild eyed yet empty, an expression that seemed to say ‘it’s all been said, it’s all been done, except for one more thing.’ Had a normal person seen their faces, their war faces of the exhausted variety, they would have stepped back in avoidance. But Adam and Jason were both in their element; they were warriors focusing on the task at hand.

“Thanks for bringing me my car. Take this note. Get in your car now and get out of here. Read the note in the car, not here. And be careful; be very fucking careful. We’re almost there, but we’re not out of the woods yet. Don’t fuck this up.” Adam said to Jason.

“Roger that.” Jason said.

“Oh, and one more thing. You’ve done a good job, an outstanding job. So far as the blackmail mission goes, I’m promoting you to commander. Get with Ed and take charge. Consult with him, but take charge. You have copies of the texts of the laws and reforms we’re going to push and all that. I trust you can handle it, right?

“Yes, sir.” Jason said.

“I’m saying this because I’m done. I’m done with everything.” Adam said.

Jason simply said, “Alright ; let’s get this thing done then.”

“Go.” Adam said, and Jason ran to his rental car and quickly departed the area.

****

Ed was driving slowly along route 10, still monitoring the scanner radios and putting up with the occasional hiss of static as his squelch knob was set fairly open so as to pick up weaker transmissions. One of the radios he did have modified illegally to receive the 800 mhz cellular phone signals that American civilians were banned from hearing as government agencies and cell phone companies were the only ones lawfully permitted the privilege.  But, for his purposes now, he had that part blocked off from the search/scan programs. No sense in having the thing stop on every phone call going through the nearest tower. He’d only open that part up if he found the interagency and federal frequencies showing activity. And, right now, they weren’t.

****

4:00 PM

Adam still had some doubts in the back of his mind; maybe he’d balk, he thought. He had never killed, in battle or otherwise. He’d never even been hunting. He wanted to die, he needed to die, but he knew from his self-guided psychological studies that killing was not easy. He’d read “On Killing;” he knew of the phenomenon in which soldiers in war would fire over the heads of the enemy, their instincts preventing them from killing another human being. Adam knew that there was difficulty in overcoming the natural human aversion to killing one’s own species.

He knew that the closer the proximity to the victim, the harder it was to do it. It was easier to kill from miles away than it was to kill from hundreds of yards away. And it was easier to kill from hundreds of yards away than it was to kill from yards away. And it was easier to kill from yards away than it was to kill from point blank range. Adam knew all of this stuff, and he didn’t want to overestimate his abilities. “On Killing” described the closest range of killing as “sexual range,” referring to full contact hand-to-hand combat. Adam knew that what he had to do was to kill at even closer range than that.

What Adam had to do was to kill at what could be called “self-range.” But, if he could do it in the way he now knew The Plan called for, he could do the most he could with the crummy, disposable life that he had to give to the cause.

****

Once he was on a straight away portion of road, Jason picked up the note Adam had given him and unfolded it. He took a look and right away knew it was a suicide note:

“To my fellow S.O.L’ers,

You guys will have to continue the mission without me. We will not be able to meet again. Keep this note in a safe place, with the blackmail tapes, as it will be just about as useful. I am telling you that if, by the end of today, I am dead, then I will have succeeded. My death will only help the mission. Know that if I am dead, and I pray that I find the nerve to do it, that I am dead by my own hand.

I will do my best to make it look like prosecuting Attorney Eugene Sullivan shot me. I will make it look like he is the hero, that he shot me and escaped. If I do this right, I will die with an AK-47 pistol in my hand.

But between the two of you, know the truth: Sullivan is no killer, and he is no hero. The deal will be that Sullivan gets to play the hero so long as he cooperates with us. Or, rather, so long as he cooperates with you two and whomever else you decide to bring into the fold…….three is an ideal number for this kind of thing.

And if Sullivan doesn’t play ball, then, of course, release the videos. And also release this note.

Why am I doing this? Yes, I’m doing it for the cause, but I’m also doing it because I don’t deserve to live life anyway. I made some serious mistakes that cost two lives and ruined one more.

Sullivan made a mistake too, by not enforcing the law in the Garges case. Had we not intervened, of course, Sullivan would have been glad to keep looking the other way in cases of police abuse. 

I’m ending my life; Sullivan is getting blackmailed.

Both he and I are getting off easy.

Adam Warren

SSgt, U.S.A., FRN 1247

The “FRN 1247” was Adam’s field reporting number, his identification he’d put on his intel reports.  He couldn’t muster the nerve to actually articulate the names of the lives his mistake had cost or the details of his error of omission. He’d keep that to himself and trash that memory along with the report he’d deleted. If The Plan went to hell or the note was to be released and investigated, he was pretty sure he’d be dead by then anyway. That he was fairly sure of, but he couldn’t be too sure.

****

Adam escorted Sullivan on his sore feet into the trunk of his car, Adam made sure to bring the lunchbox containing the needles. He had about a half a dose of heroin left and about a full dose of LSD.

****

April 27^th, 2004 2:00 PM Eastern Time

Jennifer McGinnis and her youngest, Tyler, aged two and a half, were watching “Nick Jr.” on TV. The older children were in school, and Dad was, by now, a charred spinal column and a few pieces of pelvis and skull, recently cooled down from the fire and wet from the water that had been used to put it out.

When she heard the doorbell, she muted the TV and sat there listening carefully. She’d heard the doorbell ring once before since her husband had been activated and deployed. That other time it had been a FedEx package, and it had taken her over half an hour before she had been able to make it to the door and see that it had been only a birthday present for one of the kids. As she sat there this time with the TV muted, she had her ears pricked for voices or for the sound of a truck departing, any sound that could provide a clue as to what was on the other side of the door.

The silence was not good, she thought, as she counted in her head, waiting for a second ring of the bell and hoping not to hear it.

One, two, three, four, five,……fifteen.

Jennifer was up from the couch and had Tyler in her arms. Her eyes were on the front door when she heard the second ring of the bell.

She was now pretty sure there were Soldiers on the other side of the door. If they were in camouflage utility uniforms, that would mean they were there to announce

that her husband had been seriously injured. If they were in dress uniforms, that meant they were there to announce that her husband had been killed.

“Noo!! Nahaho!!” she screamed. Tyler began screaming as well. She held him tightly as she slowly walked toward the door. But she really didn’t want to know what was on the other side, so she stopped. As long as she didn’t see them, she could tell herself that the worst had not happened, that the Soldiers on the other side of the door were in utility uniforms and not dress uniforms.

“Go away!! Go away!!’ she yelled. She ran through the small house, trying to find the point in the house furthest from the front door, which was the bathroom. She was sobbing, by now realizing that had this been only an injury notification, then the soldiers at the door would have let her know such by now. No, they had to be there for one reason and one reason only.

Tyler was panicked; he’d never seen Mommy cry so hard. She was gasping for air, crying much harder than he was. She was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, still holding him tightly, pressing his head against her shoulder.

“No Mommy cry! No Mommy cry,” he said to her as she held him.

Jennifer tried to pull it together a little, if only for Tyler’s sake. She got up with him and tried again to walk toward the door. She got to the peephole and looked through to see two Army officers in dress uniforms.

“Naaho! Naaho!” she screamed again, gasping for air and backing up against the wall. She accidentally bumped Tyler’s head against the wall in the process, and he momentarily got quiet as he drew in a breath.  Jennifer slowly collapsed onto the floor, being as careful as she could with her young son in her arms.

Before Tyler could catch his breath and start crying again in pain, Jennifer managed to apologize to him, saying, “Mommy’s sorry. Mommy’s so sorry, sweetie.”

Mommy’s sorry for bumping your head. Mommy’s sorry for letting your dad join the National Guard. Mommy’s so sorry. Mommy can’t tell you how sorry she is.

 Between gasps for air, Jennifer managed, for now to get a couple more words out.

“Daddy…”

“Your Daddy…”

“Daddy’s not….”

****

4:10 PM

With Sullivan fetal in the trunk, squeezed against the nylon gun cases holding one of Adam’s high powered rifles, Adam sat in the driver seat and inserted the key into the ignition. He knew the mission was almost over, and the number of decision points remaining was low and dwindling.  As he thought about going ahead and turning the ignition, he stopped and decided to pick up the lunchbox from the passenger seat. He opened it; there was a full dose of LSD and a half dose of heroin remaining. He picked up the needle marked “L.”

This time, he didn’t bother with a tourniquet. He figured he was cheating enough by injecting the drugs and that he didn’t deserve to make it any easier on himself by making the vein easier to find. He took off his suit jacket and put it on the passenger seat, completely obscuring the AK pistol, which was also there, within easy reach now. Adam stabbed the needle around in the area where he knew his forearm’s vein was. As he did so, he remembered the ride back from the ambush site in Samarrah, he remembered when he first put two and two together and realized he’d made a fatal error in judgment that day. He remembered how, on the ride back to base, he’d so hoped that another IED blast would hit his vehicle and put him out of his misery.

****

Ed parked in his Cherokee in the parking lot of a small  grocery store on route 10 just to the west of a town called Hardin. This was along the route between safehouse 1 and safehouse 2, and The Plan called for Ed to wait there until he saw Adam’s car pass by before using one of his disposable cell phones to make a deceptive communication ploy before getting out of dodge.

****

Andy Sullivan and the rest of the junior varsity football team had just finished their usual warm up exercises and were gathering up to listen to their head coach speak.

Andy wasn’t really having too much fun, and being on the team was mainly his dad’s idea. He was disciplined though, and making his dad proud was one of his major motivations for applying himself and listening to what the coach had to say.

His other reason for applying himself on the field was on the other side of a fence but still very much within his sight. Her name was Paige, and she and Andy briefly made eye contact before she and the rest of the junior varsity cheer squad got into formation for a drill.

“Eyes over here, on me!” Andy’s coach said. He was speaking to the whole team, but his admonition was directed at Andy in particular, who was, by now, watching Paige get tossed into the air.

“I don’t care what’s going on over there or anywhere else. The most important thing going on right here, right now, are the words coming out of my mouth. Do you boys understand that?!” the coach asked loudly.

“Yes, sir,” replied the team in unison.

****

As Jason crossed the Missouri river after having read Adam’s note, he began to let what he had read sink in. He began to fully process the fact that his best friend and trusted confidant was going to kill himself, or, at the very least, let himself die on some situation or another. And, from the tone of the note, it appeared that he might be doing it in the very near future.

“Bastard could have left me some of his money or at least given me part of his gun collection first!” Jason said to himself.  Jason remembered that Adam kept some “emergency” guns in the trunk of his car.

The least he could have done was give ‘em to me back at the house…..unless maybe he was planning on using them in some kind of attack against the highway patrol or the local SWAT team.

But, then, if that was what he was going to do, why didn’t he invite me to the party. I ought to rate at least an invite, damnit!

Jason was not 100% numb to the fact that his best friend would soon be dead, but, for now, Jason was mainly trying to decide whether or not to try and link back up with Adam, perhaps just to get the rifles from Adam’s car, perhaps to join him in whatever he was about to do.

But it was just plain curiosity and the desire for excitement and intense experience that prompted Jason to start looking for a place to turn the rental Malibu around.

****

Adam wasn’t sure he’d found the vein, but after inflicting a few well-deserved needle stabs on his arm, he decided to go ahead and push the plunger down anyway, sending a full dose of LSD into the muscular tissue of his arm near the joint.

He then pulled the needle out and put it back in the lunchbox. He turned the ignition and began driving on his way to the decoy safehouse with Sullivan in the trunk.

He didn’t really notice the acid take effect. He was already in a state of mind in which he fully understood and appreciated who he was and his role in the world. There was only one question that remained in his mind: could he pull the trigger with the barrel pointed at his own head?

As he pondered this question, his driving became purely automatic. He kept his eyes focused on the road ahead of him; he knew what turns to take. He knew to keep it at the speed limit; he knew to keep his eyes peeled for cops. He realized that he must be in a mental zone similar to that of martial arts experts, executing moves automatically, without thinking about it, their minds clear of distraction and chatter. Adam’s sense of self merged almost completely with The Plan and all of it’s grisly details, some of which he was just now becoming aware of.

But his questioning of his abilities to kill at self-range still remained, he knew. As he neared the spot along route 10 where Ed was parked, Adam started doing a little mantra meditation so as to try to talk himself into pulling the trigger and sending a bullet into his own skull once the mission was over and not a minute later. He said to himself, in his head, “Kill, kill, kill..” and kept repeating the word. It helped to clear his mind some more, but the word did activate certain reference points in Adam’s mind as it reverberated like a pinball bouncing back and forth hitting all the points it could.

“Kill, kill, kill…” he started saying aloud softly and monotonously.

I’m not crazy. I’m just doing some mantra meditation with my eyes open.

****

Ed saw Adam’s car pass by, so he got out of his SUV and went into the store. He had to have some plausible reason for being there at this point. If it came to it, the investigators would not just accept that he was there in the parking lot hanging out. He waited in line at the register; he’d buy a pack of cigarettes. His reason for doing this out here and not closer to home – he was out scouting new territory to bow hunt. There was public land nearby.

But the investigation wouldn’t get that far, Ed figured. No way Sullivan would let the video see the light of day.

****

Adam then started saying  his mantra a little louder, with a little more force as he pushed his mind to focus completely on the mission, The Plan, and his role within it.

“Kill, kill, kill….” he ordered himself.

I’m probably sounding like Jason and his DI’s in boot camp or something like that, huh? Adam thought.

“Kill! Kill! Kill!” he ordered himself even louder.

Adam, we just might be getting to that place where we want to be now!

“Kill!….Kill!…..Killl!…..KILL!!…..KILL!!……..KILL!” Adam screamed at himself at the top of his lungs, contorting his face and turning it red.

Kill! Kill! Kill! He thought, not thinking of much else.

END CHAPTER

In the mean time, please digest the lessons imparted. Look around you. Think deeply.

That is all for now.

“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

From a Georgia Patriot:

I feel the same way as the gentleman in the story, although I don’t agree with the “protesters” message, as long as they obey the law, then the group should not be forced out of anywhere… Wish I would have heard of this man’s intentions beforehand, I would have joined him.

http://www.examiner.com/gun-rights-in-national/mayor-ends-occupy-atlanta-when-second-amendment-exercised-with-first

PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION

Pt. 12

Tuesday, October 30 – 12:55 PM

Ed and Jason arrived at the decoy safe house in Richmond. Ed backed his SUV into the carport; he didn’t want anyone seeing the Cherokee’s telltale bumper stickers or see him messing around in broad daylight at a foreclosed home. This was especially true because Ed expected the house to become a crime scene by the end of the day, a burned one if everything went right.

As soon as the vehicle stopped moving, Jason opened his front passenger door, which he’d already unlocked, and then hurried to the vehicle’s rear and opened the hatchback. Ed and Jason quickly donned gloves, grabbed the trash bags full of evidence and carried them inside, dumping the handcuffs, rags, blue tarp, and other items on the floor in the living room. They then took the camping stove and set it up with the stock pot on top of it, trying their best to set things up as they had been in the real safehouse. They even went to the effort of putting fresh canola oil in the pot, not knowing if a forensics team would be able to tell the difference but also not wanting to take chances where they didn’t need to. Ed switched the stove on just to check and make sure it still lit properly and then turned the flame back off.

1:30 PM

Adam put the blindfold back over Sullivan’s eyes. The peak moment of Sullivan’s LSD trip had come and gone. His ego had been thrown up in the air, and it was in the process of landing in a place and in a manner that was all part of The Plan. As Eugene had watched the videos, he had not only experienced guilt, shame, and fear, but also experienced powerlessness. He, the Prosecuting Attorney of Lafayette County, had been put in the position of begging someone not to ruin his life. With the video made, the power was all Adam’s, and Sullivan understood this completely. And with his ego in no position to guide his thinking, Adam was also in a position to fill the gap. As planned, Sullivan had looked to Adam for guidance and instruction in his most lost and desperate moment of need.

Meanwhile, Ed and Jason were now approaching their next destination, Adam’s apartment complex in Independance. As Ed saw on his GPS that Adam’s apartment complex was just ahead, he made a turn onto the street before the main gate. They made sure the SUV was as clear of evidence as it could be, putting the disposable gloves they’d used in a fresh ziplock bag and making sure Jason had on his person all copies of the blackmail videos, except of course, for the tape that Adam still had back at the decoy safe house. Ed stopped the Cherokee by the curb, let Jason out, and then continued on his screening mission in the Cherokee. And, so far, as far as the the radio scanners were concerned, no news was good news.

Jason went back into the woods behind the complex and found the low spot in the fence Adam had told him about. He scaled the fence and continued on into the complex, pulling down his ball cap just to make sure no one would remember his face if they were ever asked. Fortunately, it was a blue collar type of neighborhood of younger to middle age renters and not too many retirees, which meant that there weren’t too many people with time on their hands out looking around and gossiping.

Jason came out of the woods and near the back of Adam’s building. Keeping his head down, he walked around the side of the building and into the parking lot. He found Adam’s car, got in, and drove out the front gate of the complex. With his crossing out the gate, there was now a video record of Adam’s car leaving the complex. And, so long as no one had seen Jason’s face too closely, the video evidence would support the claim that Adam was at home until around 1 PM. That is, unless someone had seen Adam get into the rental Malibu in the wee hours of the morning, but that was pretty unlikely. Besides, their insurance policy video would probably prevent the investigation from getting that far anyway, and, even if the investigation did get that far, the insurance policy would still ultimately protect them. Rather than try to get together elaborate cover stories, Adam and the boys worked out a few basic lies they could easily remember and corroborate. They also agreed that after answering no more than 2 questions from police, if it came to that, that they would then simply lawyer up. Lawyering up too early would point the spotlight right on them; lawyering up too late could mean their stories might come apart.

Ed stopped at a full service car wash in Independence on his way back to Lexington and parked his car in line to be cleaned inside and out. He wanted to be as sure as he could that his vehicle was as clean as he could get it, because The Plan now called for him to be a lightning rod for any police attention that might be pointed in the team’s general direction. In all, the wait at the car wash was about 20 minutes from the time he dropped his keys off until the time he paid and got them back. He then continued on his screening mission, going slowly along the route back through Lexington. If the cops were on to them in any meaningful way, they would most likely be out in force along the route that was originally used to transport Sullivan. It didn’t so much matter at this point whether or not the cops had gotten wise to a kidnapping of the prosecutor; what mattered was that they didn’t have a clue as to where the safehouses were. But if the cops did get wind, the boys wanted to know this as soon as possible.

2:00 PM

Sullivan would now be coming down for several more hours, still feeling the effects of the drug and his mind now integrating the lessons he had learned. The relatively light tripping session would not, in itself, be anything too life-changing for him. He would still be the same old Eugene Sullivan at the end of the day, still be the same old go-along-to-get-along Mr. Nice Guy that he was. But his brief foray into egolessness at the not-so-tender mercy of a very determined ex-Army interrogator would leave its imprint on his mind no less. Perhaps some changes and lessons might remain. And, if they didn’t, there was always the dirty little carrot video that could be used to keep him in line.

As Sullivan’s body began the slow process of metabolizing the drug and his brain began the slow process of re-aligning itself, Adam continued to repeat the line, “Think about why you’re here,” at longer and longer intervals, going from 30 seconds to a minute, then to five minutes, then to ten.

“Think about why you’re here.”

As Adam kept repeating the line, it was having it’s desired effect on Sullivan, aiding along the rape-victim-self-blame and Stolkholm syndrome kind of reactions that Adam was hoping to cultivate in his subject. But as kept saying the mantra, Adam couldn’t help but think of what the line meant for him, why he was here doing what he was doing.

Think about why YOU’RE here, Adam thought.

He answered himself, I’m here because there was no other choice. Sullivan wasn’t just going to enforce the law on his own. If I wasn’t here doing what I’m doing, then more cops would just be able to beat the shit out of anyone who pissed them off in the least. I’m here because the rule of law is dead, so I may as well break the law anyway.

But why are you here? Why you, Adam Warren? Why take the risk? Why take the time? Why all the sacrifice?

Adam again answered his own question: Someone’s gotta do it, why not me? Otherwise it just wouldn’t get done.

Oh, so you’re just making a big sacrifice, aren’t you? You’re just a selfless Patriot doing what’s right, huh? You’re taking all that risk – death, real hard jail time, vilification in the press, torture by the police if you’re caught….. but why? Because you have so much to live for? And yet you’re answering the call of duty because you’re just such a noble and self-sacrificing crusader, right? 

Is that what Captain Bowen would say if he could just put the words together? Is that what Sergeant Ryan or PFC McGinnis would say if they were still alive? Is that what Ryan’s widow and children would say?!? Is that what McGinnis’ parents would say?!? That you’re just a selfless patriot doing the right thing, yet you let them die because you were tired, you were hungry, and you didn’t feel like doing your job that night?!?

Adam could feel the lump in his throat, and he could feel the moisture quickly accumulating in his eyes. He had to face the facts: He was only risking his life and freedom on the Sullivan mission because he didn’t see much value left in his life anyway. He had a body and a brain and he was going to use those things for a cause greater than himself. But he knew that even if the mission went down as a 100% success, it would never make up for the deadly mistake he had made back in 2004 in Samarrah. He knew that the guilt in having allowed two lives to be lost and one to be virtually ruined would be something that would haunt him the rest of his life. It would mean that there would always be a limit as to how happy he would allow himself to be, a limit on how much he would be able to enjoy life. And that limit would be extremely low.

He thought about how Captain Bowen’s family must have first reacted to hearing the news of his condition. Was it over the phone? Did the doctors wait to tell them in person?

Adam then imagined what it must have been like for Mrs. Ryan to hear the news that her husband was killed and then have to turn around and tell her children that their dad would not be coming home, ever. He pictured the casualty call chaplain and entourage arriving at a house or apartment, most likely a small row house, Adam figured. They probably came while the kids were at school, leaving Mrs. Ryan a few hours to prepare herself. That’s how they did it, didn’t they? Did the kids come home to have their mother soberly deliver the news to them? Or was she still broken down and hysterical when they arrived home from school? And was the little one even in school yet at the time?

Tears began rolling down Adam’s cheeks as he felt another episode of authentic, well-deserved survivor guilt coming on. He ran up the basement stairs, trying desperately to make it to the top before losing control completely. He didn’t want Sullivan to hear him, as he could tell that this episode would be a big one and a loud one. Closing the basement door behind him helped a little, but as Adam began screaming and sobbing on his way to the kitchen, Sullivan could hear him through the floor. Adam caught himself and was able to transition from outright crying to a hissing whisper. But it wasn’t enough to calm his conscience and subdue his spasms of guilt and self-hatred. So Adam banged his head against the kitchen counter. It felt good. So he did it again. And again. And again.

The pain felt good, and it helped. Adam took a second to think about what he had just done. If it feels good, do it! He decided to bang his head down on the counter one last time. Make it a good one, Make this one really count. He made it a good one, and it counted; he even felt a little dizzy. It was enough for the time being, as it did stop the tears from flowing and help him to calm down. The guilt, the anger at himself, and the dispair were still there, but these feelings were no longer gushing out of control. They were now just flowing at a fast but controllable rate.

Adam felt as if the memory, as well as the reality, of his sin of omission in Samarrah was simply running its course. His hitting his head against the kitchen counter and the relief it provided was just the latest unfolding of what he felt needed to happen, what had been wanting to come out for so long. He’d been able to push it aside for the remainder of his tour in Iraq and then for his year long stint as a contractor. And, once back stateside for good, he’d been able to keep the memories at bay by staying busy and by drinking heavily. Now that The Plan he’d worked so hard on was finally in the process of being realized, there wasn’t much else going on in his life to keep his mind occupied. There was nothing between Adam and the memory of his unforgivable mistake, so he was left to stare directly at its hideous face. This was something Adam had no desire to do. The human cost of his laziness, his weakness, and his stupidity were so steep that Adam saw no way out of the hole he was in. He’d thought about killing himself before, but those times had just been fleeting thoughts; now he truly felt like taking his own life would just be the right thing to do. But, for right now, he would have to continue on the current mission; that was, after all, why he was here doing what he was doing.

“Think about why you’re here” Adam shouted through the floor to Sullivan.

Adam breathed a sigh of relief. His most recent surge of survivor guilt had went better than he had expected; he was still able to continue with the mission. Plus, he was pretty confident that this would be his last episode, as he had decided, once and for all, that he could muster the nerve to end his own life. Perhaps I’ll save some of the heroin for later, just to make it easier to pull the trigger, just in case I lose my nerve. I’ve still got a little left in the lunchbox. That’s how Kurt Cobain did it, didn’t he? I think I could pull it off. Yeah, I’m pretty sure I can do it.

Adam was now pretty confident that there would be no more dealing with the guilt. No more memories, no more drinking, no more temptation to jump head first into hard drugs, and no more living of the joyless lifestyle that he knew he deserved. As good as it might feel to just give up and indulge in crack-cocaine or heroin, which did feel really, really good to do, Adam knew that to destroy himself using those drugs would still bring too much pleasure in the process. No, he thought, better to just take myself out quickly and be done with it.

And he would not only end his life; he’d end it on a high note. His last significant act on Earth would be a daring and ingenius attack against an evil system of double standards, back room deals, and outright falsehoods that caused untold amounts of injustice and misery. Although such an undertaking would not atone for his deadly mistake, it was the most he could hope to do, given what he had to work with, he thought.

For the first time in recent memory, Adam smiled a genuine smile despite his tears. He wasn’t into religion much and hadn’t been to church since he was a kid, but he was now pretty confident that his last deed on earth would be a good one and that his raggedy old eternal soul would be earning a spot in Purgatory, perhaps even with a chance at parole.

He then opened the basement door and walked a few steps down. He looked to see Eugene Sullivan still sitting obediently in his chair. Adam again shouted, “Think about why you’re here, Gene!” He added the ‘Gene’ at the end in an attempt to shut down the self-reflection the line had been causing him to engage in. No more time for self-reflection; he had to continue the mission, and the crying and head banging were not conducive to mission accomplishment. Adam, now fully functional again, remembered he’d left the AK pistol down in the basement.

Shit! The AK pistol’s still down there and Sullivan’s untied!

Adam raced down the stairs to find Sullivan had gotten up from his chair and was pacing around. The two made eye contact, and Sullivan stopped. Adam could see that Sullivan had been walking past where the AK pistol was laying. He’d obviously seen it. And it was also obvious, to both Adam and Sullivan, that he must have been thinking about picking it up while Adam was upstairs banging his head on the counter. And, as they stood there looking at each other, it was now pretty plain to see that Sullivan had just had his chance to escape but that he’d balked at doing so. Adam knew it. Sullivan knew it. And with Sullivan’s brain still amped on the acid, Sullivan also knew that Adam knew that he knew that they both knew everything they needed to know about Sullivan’s bravery and killing instincts. And, for that matter, they both also knew that Sullivan was not of the character to put up any resistance whatsoever to their blackmailing scheme or whatever else they wanted to throw at him. He was theirs, and it was now plain as day that he was theirs.

Sullivan felt a new but now-familiar rush of embarrassment. There was nothing he could say, and Adam didn’t need to say anything either. Adam simply walked a few steps, picked up the AK pistol, flipped the safety off and pulled back the charging handle a little to make sure there was still a round in the chamber. He didn’t even have to bother checking the magazine. He slung the gun back on his body and thought to himself, “OK, what do I do next?”

As he thought about the longer term stuff, he had to act in the immediate term, so he said to Sullivan, “Sit!” and pointed at he chair. Sullivan, his head still down in shame, did as he was told.

Adam continued to think to himself as to what to do next. He had already communicated most of The Plan’s desired end state and blackmail execution details to Ed and Jason, but, Adam knew that, as things presently stood, he would most likely be doing most of the communication with Sullivan once he was released to go back and do his politician duties. But he wasn’t going to kid himself into believing that he absolutely had to stay alive and live to a ripe old age just so he could keep blackmailing Sullivan the whole time. Ed and Jason were both perfectly capable of that. In conducting and rehearsing for The Plan they’d had just about as much on-the-job training in discreet communications as Adam had received in Army intel school.  Ed had the stash of one-time-use “disposable” cell phones anyway. And both of them were trained in the use of the Tor browser and other online anonymizing programs, and they had the passwords and addresses to access the email accounts that would be used. They needed the redundancy and cross-training anyway; they had planned around a worst case scenario under which two of the three were caught or captured.

Adam knew Jason would be arriving at he safehouse soon to swap vehicles and move into the final phase of the mission, which would be the transporting of Sullivan’s release. After his release, The Plan called for the three to go their separate ways in their own vehicles, squaring away their loose ends and shallow cover stories on an individual basis. It also called for them to lay low, very low, for at least a week before even meeting again.

For several reasons, Adam now figured he needed to write a suicide note and do it quickly. Jason and Ed needed to know that he’d be dead by his own hand. This was both for the sake of The Plan’s success, but, Adam thought, his handing of the suicide note to Jason would help him to cement his decision, making it harder to back out if he lost his nerve.

Adam found some paper and a pen without too much difficulty, but he still needed to find a surface he could write on that was hard enough so that an imprint of the writing would not be left on it. The last dying message from an underground insurgent leader to his compatriots would be something of the highest secrecy level. He couldn’t find an ideal surface in the basement, and he didn’t want to leave Sullivan alone again, so he settled for the concrete floor.

He left out names and specifics, addressing it, “To my fellow S.O.L.’ers.” The term S-O-L had been the working title for their small group, whose only real and permanent members were Adam Warren, Ed Hawkins, and Jason Parker. The acronym stood for ‘Sons Of Liberty,’ but, as they also knew, it stood for ‘Shit Out of Luck,’ as well. Obviously, the first meaning was a throwback to the original patriot-criminal organizations that had had a hand in various acts of vandalism and violence at the nation’s founding. The second meaning had been the “go-word” used as part of The Plan in the initial takedown of their target, but it also meant to them that what they were doing was only as a last resort, once the chips were down.  They understood that they were shit out of luck when it came to the state of the rule of law in their county, their state, and, to some extent, their country, and therefore, the last resort option of anti-state violence was the only option left unless they wanted to continue living under the arbitrary rule of man as opposed to the rule of law. And, as Americans, they saw the rule of law as their birthright, and, as Adam and Jason had pointed out, even if they weren’t entitled to the rule of law by birth, they had certainly earned the right to live under it by virtue of their wartime service. After all, what was it that they had fought in the name of? A piece of land and a three-colored flag? A nation that claims to be just and free but allows for all manner of crimes to be perpetrated so long as the perps are well-connected or wear uniforms and badges?

Adam continued on his note:

You guys will have to continue the mission without me. We will not be able to meet again….”

2:30 PM

Jason was taking the round about way from Independence to the primary safehouse in Carrolton, staying as far as he practically could from the route they’d taken that morning with Sullivan. He took the interstate east, past Concordia, and then turned north on a smaller highway going through the town of Marshall. He would soon be crossing the Missouri River on hwy 41, thereby avoiding just about all of the roads the crew had taken thus far. And, in a clean vehicle, his only worry would be getting pulled over and asked why he was driving Adam Warren’s car. But even if that happened it would just be a minor complication. It wasn’t as if the car had been reported stolen, and cops didn’t usually spend too much time nitpicking stories about borrowed cars unless one were acting “suspicious” or if there were other circumstances to make the story seem suspicious. Like most people, cops generally don’t like wasting time.

3:15 PM

Andrew Sullivan, like everyone else in 6th period classes at Lafayette County High School, was ready for the bell to ring. When it did, he was one of the first out the door. As he walked through the halls toward the back of the building, he pulled out his cell phone to take a quick look. He saw that his mom had called, so he called her back.

She answered, “Hello.”

“Hey, mom, it’s me.” Andy said.

“Yeah, hey, I wanted to see if maybe you had talked to your dad, if he was gonna pick you up from practice.”

“Uh, no. He didn’t call me.”

“OK. Well, I had wanted to see if he was going to pick you up from practice or if I needed to this time. I’ll try calling him one more time.”

They hung up, and Andy made his way back into the building, walking somewhat against the flow of foot traffic. He came to his locker, where he opened it and retrieved his football helmet and shoulder padding for practice. As a Junior Varsity football player, he didn’t yet rate a separate locker at the gym for his equipment. But he was doing pretty good on the team so far this season, and he looked forward to making Varsity next year and not having to carry his stuff from one building to another. He also looked forward to turning 16 and getting a car so that he would no longer have to suffer the indignity of getting picked up or dropped off by his parents. And, from his conversations about the topic he’d had with his dad, the car thing was also looking pretty likely next year.

Rachel Sullivan called Eugene’s cell number one more time only to again get no answer. Still no answer or call back after three calls; this isn’t like him, she thought. She then decided to go ahead and try his work number, as two missed calls was established justification to do so, let alone three. She dialed Sullivan’s work number and got Erin, his secretary.

“Prosecuting Attorney’s office.” Erin said.

“Yes, is this Erin?” Rachel asked.

“Yes.”

“Hey, Erin, this is Rachel, Eugene’s wife.”

“Oh, hello, Rachel; how is Eugene? He sounded pretty bad from that message he left.”

“What? Huh? I’ve been trying to call him on his cell. What are you talking about?” Rachel asked.

“He left a message saying he wasn’t going to be in, that he was sick. He sounded bad; he really did.” Erin said.

There was a long pause as they both simultaneously realized that Eugene Sullivan had told a lie that morning, and a pretty big one at that. Rachel was the first to speak, saying simply, “Well,……O.K.,……I see…….Thank you. Good bye.”

WESTBORO BAPTIST CHURCH IS AT IT AGAIN THIS SUNDAY.  THEY PLAN ON PROTESTING A FALLEN MARINE’S FUNERAL IN DOUGLAS COUNTY, WEST OF ATLANTA.  PLEASE PASS THE WORD.  THIS HITS CLOSE TO HOME FOR ME.

COPY AND PAST LINK BELOW IN YOUR SEARCH ENGINE.

http://times-georgian.com/bookmark/16106297-Fallen-Marine-s-body-returning-home

Copy and paste everywhere! – blog author

PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION

Pt. 11

Tuesday, October 30 – 12:15 PM

Sullivan was already what an interrogator would call “broken.” He was, from all outward appearances, cooperating, but Adam didn’t want to just assume that Sullivan’s internal state matched the external appearance. As long as he had time to do so, he would do all he could to make sure, 99.99% sure, that Sullivan would indeed continue to cooperate after he was released.

If Ed had reported that the cops were onto something by now, Adam and his crew would have begun the release plan already, which called for transporting Sullivan to the decoy safe house along with most of the used items as “evidence.” Then The Plan called for the canola oil to again be heated up over the camping stove. As the canola oil would be heated, the crew would depart, leaving Sullivan behind to wait for the oil to reach its smoke point. Then Sullivan would throw an object at the stove, knocking it and the oil over onto the carpet, if he was going to cooperate. If it went like it was supposed to, a grease fire would quickly spread, and Sullivan would be close enough to the door to make his “escape.” The authorities would find Sullivan in the front yard and the decoy safe house on fire. The investigators, they assumed, would find some burned remains of the misleading evidence, but not enough to connect any of the fibers or scuffs to any scenario other than the one Sullivan would recount.

And who would question the torture survivor, the courageous victim who escaped, the celebrity prosecutor, when he told them he was picked up outside his house, drugged, and taken to the house from which he escaped? Details, they might ask – what details? He was recovering from the effects of LSD and heroin, saw his chance to escape, and bolted out the house despite the wounds to his feet. What more would they want to know from the man? What the kidnappers looked like? Whatever they looked like, they looked nothing like Adam Warren, Jason Parker, or Ed Hawkins. That was for sure; Sullivan would say that he saw the faces of he men who took him. That way, if the boys or their pictures were ever shown to Sullivan, he’d say ‘that’s not them.’ How much exculpatory evidence would one ultimately need? Besides, Sullivan was a pro; after all, he probably knew a thing or two about how cases got prosecuted.

With their security situation still in the clear so far as he knew, Adam had some time to work with. And with that precious time, he would maximize the leverage that The Plan could provide and to make sure that Sullivan would indeed do as he was supposed to. Adam, Jason, and Ed had previously discussed the carrot-video-blackmail technique and had all agreed hat, had it been themselves in the video, they would do whatever it took to make sure it was not released. They were fairly confident in the blackmail technique’s effectiveness, but three guys plotting in a basement did not necessarily equal hard data.

Of course, there was no way they were ever going to get any hard data on the effectiveness of the technique, unless, Adam supposed, they could peek into the darkest, most secret files of the world’s intelligence agencies. Perhaps MK-ULTRA’s destroyed documents even contained some research into the topic, but hat would be nothing more than pure speculation. But it was psychological control the CIA was after with MK-ULTRA, and Adam could think of no better way to gain near-complete control of someone than through a combination of fear, torture, sexual abuse, and sexual blackmail, in that order, and in the fashion they had used on Sullivan. And, as Jason and Ed had pointed out, it was highly, highly unlikely that Adam Warren, Army veteran of the enlisted ranks and current forklift driver with no college degree, was the first person on planet Earth to conceive of such a technique.

Either the technique was bogus, or someone, somewhere, had thought of it before and tried it. And they didn’t think it was bogus.

With all of the money and brainpower available to governments, surely they, a couple of amateurs, weren’t the first ones in history to have done what they were in the process of doing. They could hope that their own government had never used the technique, and they could hope that “friendly” governments had not used it on too many innocent people. The crew hadn’t dwelled too much on thinking along these lines; no time for conspiratorial speculation. Better to think happy thoughts and keep their eyes on the prize, which would be an up-and-coming politician at their beck and call.

12:16 PM

Once Adam told Sullivan the stuff going into his vein was LSD, Sullivan’s train of thought jumped to the associations already in his mind as to what the drug was and what it did. He had never tried the drug himself. He remembered first learning what it was in a “D.A.R.E.” lecture in the fifth grade. He’d learned it was a “hallucinogen” which made people see things and act strange. He remembered hearing about it again in numerous anti-drug propaganda sessions in high school, before getting his driver’s license, and finally at his freshman orientation in college. They all seemed to focus on the negative aspect of the drug, the nightmares and flashbacks that it caused in some people.

12:17 PM

Sullivan remembered having absolutely no desire to try the drug himself as a teenager or young adult. His closest brush with it, he remembered, was when he saw someone do it once at a frat party. The kid who was on it was acting funny, for sure, but he didn’t seem to be having as bad of a time as the drug lectures would have led him to believe. He was just ambling around the kitchen, staring at the young girls and the frat boys gathered around the punchbowl. He was staring at them, especially at the girls, and especially at their legs. The girls and he frat boys seemed to know the guy was on acid, because they just laughed at him and continued talking with eachother. As Sullivan briefly recalled this specific memory, he tried not to think about the scare tactics of the drug lectures and videos he’d seen in his youth and remembered that it was the hippies that made LSD a street drug and a common term in the first place. He then remembered that LSD was also an influence in the culture and music of the 1960′s and 1970′s – Timothy Leary, The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, Jim Morrison and all of that.

12:18 PM

Right about the time that his mind pictured Val Kilmer as Jim Morrison in the movie, “The Doors,” his stream of consciousness then stopped in its tracks and had a look over its shoulder. Behind it, in its trail, were the thoughts he had had just moments ago. There were the Beatles, there was the frat party with the guy on acid, there was the punch bowl with the group of freshmen girls, there was the anti-drug lecture he had in college, and, behind that there were the numerous anti-drug lectures he’d received in high school and all of the negative associations his mind had connected to the letters, ‘L-S-D.’

Wait a second, did my thoughts usually stop in their tracks and look backwards like this? 

12:19 PM

His heart rate began to increase, as did his breathing, as he realized he was both under the influence of LSD and thinking intently about the topic of LSD and the sub-topics that branched off of it. As his stream of consciousness continued looking over its shoulder, he noticed that this topic was growing more inclusive of other things, like his mind was “zooming out.” As he noticed the frat party and the drug lectures in the foreground of his trail of thought, he then became aware of what was lurking in the background, in the shadows. What was lurking in the shadows was quickly coming into the light. It was the all-too-fresh memory of abusing himself on camera.

No, no, the cameras, the cameras! They were recording all of that!

12:20 PM

Then came the fresh memory of his torture, his pain, his absolute fear, as Jason poured the frying oil on his feet and almost poured it on his face.

No! No! No! The horror! Must block this! Must try to forget!

Then his mind went back to the carrot video. His face flushed red with embarrassment. He thought that if the video were ever released he would have to kill himself. He thought about how he would do it. My gun, a knife to the wrists, a rope? He then started to blame himself, to think about how stupid and weak he was to have allowed himself to be captured like this. Maybe I should just kill myself right here and now!

12:25 PM

His mind alternated between thoughts of the torture, the sort-of-self-inflicted sexual abuse, the video, and his initial kidnapping outside of his house. He was trapped in a vortex of fear, shame, and terror. Under the influence of the LSD, his ego was no longer a part of the picture as the thoughts continued to gravitate toward that which he did not want to think about. Through it all, he could only identify himself as someone who needed to be erased. At best, his sense of identity was “in limbo.” His heart continued to race, and his breathing remained deep and rapid as he felt the urge to do something, anything, to try and change his situation.

He started to try and stand up, he would try to get out of his chair and find a weapon, maybe kill Adam and then kill himself. But as he did so, he noticed the pain in his feet slowing him down a little. Then Adam grabbed Sullivan by the shoulders and eased him back down into his chair.

“Just relax and stay with me here. We’re gonna work through this.” Adam said, lying a little and trying to sound like the “therapist-type,” so as to make Sullivan stay in his chair. Adam had no desire to tend to Sullivan’s mental health or well being, except, of course, if The Plan required it. And right now what The Plan called for was for Sullivan to stay in his chair. Adam put a blindfold over Sullivan’s eyes and instructed him to put his head down. Sullivan supported the weight of his head with his hands on his temples, resting his elbows on his knees.

Adam said to Sullivan, “Now think about why you’re here. Just think about why we’re having to do this. Think about why you’re here.” As Sullivan sat blindfolded with his head in his hands, Adam continued to repeat the sentence, “Think about why you’re here,” at regular intervals, about once every thirty seconds for the next five minutes or so. Hopefully, Adam thought, this would direct Sullivan’s thinking to the Highway Patrol beating incident.

12:30 PM

“Think about why you’re here.”

Adam knew that Sullivan was not only a victim of torture, but also a victim of sexual abuse. In a sense, it could even be said that Sullivan was the victim of rape. And Adam knew that it was common for victims of rape to blame themselves, to not come forward because they assumed some responsibility for allowing the attack to take place and feared the embarrassment of cross-examination. Adam was now banking on that same dynamic taking place in Sullivan’s head. Hopefully, Adam thought, Sullivan would make the connection between his sin of omission in failing to prosecute Garges and the current unfortunate situation he now found himself in. With the blackmail videos, this “victim-guilt” wasn’t absolutely necessary, but it would help. Even with the blackmail threat hanging over him, it would still be better if Sullivan were the shameful, silent, and guilt-ridden victim and not the vengeful, it’s-not-my-fault, do-anything-to-get-justice, crusader. After all, there was still the possibility that Sullivan might try and catch them all at once and destroy the tapes, or the possibility that he might try to stalk them down individually and kill them in his off time. Surely a prosecutor could get away with that kind of thing if he really wanted to. And then there was also the remote possibility that Sullivan might just say ‘video-be-damned, I’m going after these guys with all I’ve got’ in a mutually-assured-destruction scenario, however far fetched that might be.

No, Adam had to be sure, as sure as he could be.

12:35 PM

“Think about why you’re here.” He said again to Sullivan. Adam listened closely. Yes, there it was, there was that stuttered breathing coming from Sullivan’s nostrils that indicated the onset of sobbing. This might be guilt or it might be something else. Then Sullivan’s abdomen jumped a little as he forced out a breath. Yes, yes, he’s crying, this is good, Adam thought. Just let him have a good cry and get it out; whatever it is, that sweet nugget of guilt is in there somewhere.

“Think about why you’re here.”

****

Rachel Sullivan took another look at her cell phone; still no call back from her husband, Gene. She knew Gene didn’t like her calling him at work, but he should be at lunch right now and not in the office, she thought. She tried calling his number again, and it went to his voicemail, “You have reached the personal voicemail of Lafayette County Prosecuting Attorney Eugene Sullivan; you can also email me at esullivan@lafayetteco.com, again that email is e-sullivan-at-lafayette-C-O-dot-com, or leave a message at the tone..BEEP”

Rachel left a message, “Gene, it’s me; just wanted to know if you’d be working late today. Andy’s practice at the school should be over around 6. Can you pick him up around then? Or do I need to? Just give me a call whenever you get a chance, and please let me know. Or give Andy a call; he’s on lunch time until 1 and probably has his phone on. That’s all. Bye.”

****

As Eugene hacked out a good little acid-enhanced cry session, his guilt and shame at the thought of the carrot video became intertwined with his guilt and shame at the thought of the Highway Patrol beating video and the knowledge that he did nothing to ensure justice in that case. The phrase Adam kept repeating helped to ensure this. Adam had no way of knowing for sure that this approach was working, no way of literally peeking into Sullivan’s brain, but this was as close as he could get. And whether or not Sullivan was presently thinking about the videos, it did just so happened that Adam had both videos handy, right there in digital tape format. He also had a video camera with a decent sized flip-screen to play them on.

Once Sullivan recovered a little and started breathing somewhat normally after his most recent crying session, Adam removed the blindfold from Sullivan’s eyes. Sullivan lifted his head up. Tears were in his eyes and all over his cheeks. He sniffled, sucking the runny mucus from the inside of his nose into his throat. He swallowed.

Adam got up out of his chair, got the video camera and put in the copy of the Highway Patrol beating incident videos that he had made at the outset of The Plan. He switched the camera into playback mode, held the camera’s flip screen up to Sullivan’s face and pressed the play button. The video started with Officer Michael Garges asking the driver to get out of the vehicle. The driver got out and Officer Garges began patting him down. Sullivan began shaking his head.

“No, I don’t want to watch this. I don’t want to watch this. I’ve seen it, I’ve seen it. I don’t need to see this again.” Sullivan said, turning his head away from the screen.

Adam moved the camera away and lifted his hand up, as if he were going to hit Eugene in the face. “You’re gonna watch this! This isn’t a god damn choice here! Watch it! Look at the screen, now!” he said, putting the screen back up to Eugene Sullivan’s face.

Sullivan continued watching the video. As Officer Garges maneuvered the driver out of view of the dashcam, the screen shot switched to the cell-phone video. Adam had edited the two videos together in as much of a real-time manner as possible. It wasn’t perfectly done, but Sullivan got the idea. Officer Garges, now out of view of the dashcam with the driver, called the driver a smartass. To which the driver replied, “better to be a smartass than a dumbass.” At that point, Officer Michael Garges could clearly bee seen lifting his hand up as if he were about to smack the guy, just as Adam had just done to Sullivan. When Garges’ hand went up, the driver reflexively ducked his head and raised his hand as if to block the blow. This was all Garges needed. Garges then delivered an elbow to the side of the driver’s head. The driver fell back, back into view of the dashcam video. The video Sullivan was watching then changed back to the dashcam video, and it showed the motorist stumbling backward from the blow and again raising his hands up to his face in defense. The video then switched to the cellphone footage which showed officer Garges drawing his Taser. Then the video switched back to the dashcam video, showing the driver still stumbling backwards and raising his hands to protect his face. At that point, the driver could clearly be seen tensing up his body and collapsing to the ground. Officer Garges then walked back into view of the dashcam video and told the driver to get up. When the driver did not comply, Garges told him to get up or else he would be Tased again. Officer Garges then delivered another Taser jolt, just to make sure the driver understood who was in charge. Garges grabbed the driver by the arm and dragged him back out of view of the dashcam. The video continued with the cell-phone footage, showing Garges punching the driver several more times in the face and stomach while he was on the ground.

Sullivan took it all in, knowing that something seriously wrong had taken place on the video. And he knew there was something seriously wrong with himself for not trying to prosecute Officer Garges. Adam told Sullivan what he already knew, saying to him, “This is why you’re here. This is why you’re here.” Adam paused to see Sullivan’s reaction and could detect a slight, ever so slight, head nod. Was that a slight nod of the head? Is he nodding his head?!? Yes, Yes, Sullivan is nodding his head a little. Learning has occurred, it seems. Adam nodded his head as well, continuing, “Yep, yep, that’s why you’re here. You see, me and my friends who took you from your house weren’t going to just sit back and let this kind of thing go on like this in our backyard. Your job as the Lafayette County Prosecuting Attorney is……to……prosecute! And you didn’t prosecute the guy in this video for what he did. And when you don’t prosecute guys like this it gives other guys like this a license to go out and keep doing stuff like this. And, so, me and my friends finally decided that something needed to be done. And, come on now, let’s be realistic, the emails and the phone calls weren’t going to really ever accomplish anything were they?” Sullivan did not respond.

“Well, were they?!?” Adam yelled.

Sullivan put his head down again, and Adam again yelled the question, “Were….They?!?!”

“No. No they weren’t,” Sullivan conceded, experiencing a new rush of shame as he spoke.

“Well, that’s good that you’re finally, finally seeing the error of your ways. And, now let’s face facts here, you would not, never in a million years, be seeing the error in your ways had it not been for me and my boys taking you here and doing all those terrible things to you! Am I wrong?”

Adam raised his voice, asking again “Am I wrong?!”

“Well, I guess not,” Sullivan said.

Adam then asked, “Now do you think I liked kidnapping you? Do you think I liked seeing you get hot oil poured on your feet? Do you think I liked seeing you stick that carrot up your ass? You think I like having these nasty videos? Do you think I’m just some sick, twisted freak?!? Do you think I like doing all that shit?!?”

“No” Sullivan replied.

Adam said, “Fuckin’-A right, I don’t! You’re damn right I don’t! I sure as hell don’t like doin’ all that shit. I don’t like having to be the bad guy, here. I really don’t.” Adam continued, “But somebody had to do it. It had to be done. You made your mistake and you had to pay the piper. And you’re going to keep paying the piper.” Adam took the Highway Patrol tape out of the video camera and inserted one of the Sullivan-carrot videos. Sullivan knew exactly what Adam was doing. He would have begged Adam not to make him watch that video, but he was now fully feeling the effects of the LSD and his eyes were glued open. He was entranced, he had to watch, even though he knew it would not be good for him to see what he was about to see. He just sat there with a blank expression on his face as Adam pressed “play.”

The video had already been fast forwarded to the later part, the part of the film following the mini-dose heroin injection. Sullivan watched himself on film. He saw what he was doing, and it looked absolutely ridiculous, humiliating, and….gay. Oh, my God! Oh, no! Oh, no, no, no! Oh, hell no! His face again turned bright red. I will slit my throat before this video ever goes public! There is no way this can see the light of day!  Sullivan then blurted out, “Who has seen this?!? Who has seen this?!?”

“Just me and a couple of my associates,” Adam said. “There are a few others who know of the blackmail tape’s existence, but they won’t know what’s on it. Our organization is cellular in nature; no one knows more than what they absolutely need to know. Don’t worry, we won’t be keeping the copies on shelves in our living rooms. We know the videos are our leverage; we don’t want them released either. All of the copies will be stored in vacuum sealed bags inside waterproof containers buried underground. Only a handful of us will know where they are buried. But we’ll have plenty of copies on a few different formats, disc, external hard drives, even analog tapes. And should you ever try to claim we just doctored up the videos, we have two copies that were filmed in analog, on good old VHS tape. Those originals will be buried underground as well. I suppose you could still try to claim those are fakes as well, that little old me and my friends are video geniuses, but there the denials start to seem pretty desperate.”

Sullivan looked down, away from the video, still playing in front of him.

“Now, Gene, think about the implications here,” Adam continued, “Think about your career. Think about your family. Think about your boys in school. No more school, no more football practice. Would your wife do the home schooling? Would you even be able to stay in Lexington? Would you really be able to keep going to work each day knowing that your co-workers, the judges, the bailiffs,…. the defense attorneys, the defendants…. had seen the video? And if you couldn’t bear it, if you couldn’t bear it, what then? Where would you go? What would you do? Sell your house and move? Can you really do that? I mean, seriously, Gene, what do you do if this tape gets out there? Are you really gonna let that happen?”

“No, no, no, no, no!” Sullivan said, shaking his head. “That can’t happen! That can’t happen! I’ll do whatever you guys want. I will devote the rest of my career, the rest of my life, to doing exactly what you tell me to do. Believe me, I would rather die than let that tape get out!”

PROSECUTORIAL DISCRETION

Pt. 10

Tuesday, October 30 – 11:05 AM

Sullivan was now untied, his diaper removed. The camping stove was turned off and the chairs moved out of the area where the cameras were focused and where Sullivan was. Adam and Jason went around to the cameras to make sure they were ready, and then Adam turned on all of the lights in the basement. Adam and Jason each donned ski masks as a precaution, even though they would be doing their best to stay out of view of the cameras, which were pointed low to the ground, where Sullivan was laying on his back. “Lights,” Adam said. Jason then turned on the light atop the larger S-VHS analog video camera. “Camera,” Adam said, nodding his head to Jason. Jason went around to each camera and hit ‘record.’ Sullivan didn’t bother to watch as the red lights on the cameras came on, one by one, but he could see them with his peripheral vision as he stared at a single spot on the ceiling. Jason re-checked each camera to make sure they were all recording and then gave Adam a “thumbs up.” Adam then clapped his hands loudly, getting Sullivan’s attention. Once Sullivan looked over at Adam, Adam pointed his finger at him and mouthed the word, “action!”

****

Ed Hawkins was re-entering the town of Lexington, looking for any sign that anyone had noticed Sullivan missing. He hadn’t seen any increased police presence or roadblocks, and he had not heard any scanner traffic out of the ordinary. But Ed couldn’t be 100% for sure.

In the age of cell phones, a busy and important man like Sullivan being completely unreachable on a Tuesday morning, even for only a few hours, would likely raise some eyebrows and prompt some questions. Ed knew that one phone call between Sullivan’s office and his wife would blow things up in a major way. If Mrs. Sullivan were anything like Mrs. Hawkins was back when Ed was still working, Ed thought, she’d be calling at least once by the afternoon at the latest. But maybe Sullivan had laid down the law with his wife; maybe a prosecutor could do that sort of thing. There was no way of knowing for sure. They could have asked Sullivan, but he hadn’t yet been fully blackmailed and wasn’t yet their puppet.

And that’s what Sullivan would be: their sexually abused and traumatized version of a real life “Manchurian Candidate,”  a poor-man’s Manchurian Candidate at that. Well, Ed thought, you gotta start somewhere; the Manchurian Presidential candidate was only a character in a story. And, then again, so was Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. What would happen, most likely, would be that Sullivan would be getting a real boost to his career, and he’d be a virtual shoe-in for State Senate when the elections came up.

You gotta start somewhere. And besides, a State Senate Candidate, with enough charisma and backing, could even possibly become President of the United States in a few short years.

****

11:08 AM

At about 2 minutes into the filming, Adam went around and cut off all of the camers, and then yelled “Cut, cut, cut!”

Sullivan had been performing as directed, but Adam didn’t like the facial expressions Sullivan was giving. They looked like Sullivan was in pain, which he was. And he looked like he wasn’t enjoying himself, which he wasn’t. Adam thought that, in the unlikely event he had to release the video, it would be a source of pity; people would feel sorry for Sullivan after seeing the footage that had been shot so far. And that wasn’t the type of movie Adam was going for. No, if he had to release the video, Adam wanted it to be a source of ridicule, not pity. Adam knew that ridicule was difficult to deal with and that it made for an effective tactic. Adam had read online snippets of Saul Alinksy’s “Rules for Radicals,” and Adam was most definitely a radical, not of the type Alinsky had in mind, but a radical no less. Adam needed Sullivan to smile, to look like he was enjoying himself, so that the video, if it ever had to be released, would be a source of pure ridicule and not a source of pity or sympathy. He had an idea.

Adam tore off a piece of duct tape and fashioned it into an improvised rope. He tied it around Sullivan’s left arm above the bicep. “Pump your fist,” Adam instructed Sullivan. “I’m going to give you something to make this easier,” he said to Sullivan. Adam then reached into the lunchbox and pulled out a needle marked “H2″ for “heroin 2nd dose.” He gave Sullivan about a third of a dose right into his now-enlarged vein in his left arm. It was enough, Adam figured, to give Sullivan a little euphoria, but not enough to give him a full-blown rush. The heroin did the trick as Sullivan continued performing and Adam and Jason turned the cameras back on. It made for a somewhat clumsier performance, but the facial expressions were priceless. Yes, if the video were ever released, it would most definitely be a source of ridicule for Sullivan, and, therefore, it was just about the most effective piece of blackmail material one could ever hope to produce. Seeing Sullivan smiling as if he genuinely enjoyed it, Adam knew that Sullivan would fear the ridicule that would surely come if the tape ever had to be released. Adam was banking on this fear; he was betting the mission on it.

11:30 AM

Ed was satisfied that the authorities were not yet suspecting that Sullivan was anywhere other than sick at home, and, apparently, Mrs. Sullivan had not called around too much either. After driving around the Lexington area, he now headed back West in his SUV, toward the safehouse in Carrolton where Adam, Jason, and Eugene were.

Adam now had all the footage he needed, and he and Jason turned the cameras off. Adam said “Cut, cut, cut. Good work Gene, good work.” Adam and Jason lifted Sullivan up, helped him walk on his burned feet up the stairs and into bathroom. They dropped him in the bathtub and turned on the shower, tossing him a bar of soap. They closed the shower curtain and set his clothes on the toilet. Adam said, “Now, clean up and get dressed, Gene. This is almost over. This is almost over.” Adam and Jason closed the bathroom door and went back downstairs to pack up some of the gear and evidence. They left two video cameras and one blue tarp out, though.  Adam would pack these up only when it was literally time for him to go out the door.

11: 45 AM

Ed arrived back at the safehouse and went in the front door. The bags with gear, minus a few things, were staged by the front door. Ed and Jason began loading them into the Cherokee, including the garbage bag containing Sullivan’s shoes and socks, the camping stove, the pot and pan, and a bottle of slightly used canola oil. Adam gave Jason the keys to his car. The Plan was now at the point where they would begin trying to split up as much as possible, as the likelihood of things hitting the fan increased with each passing hour. Jason and Ed both got into the Cherokee and started driving toward the decoy safehouse in Richmond, nervous as hell, but somewhat confident that the cops were not yet setting up roadblocks looking for any signs of a missing Prosecuting Attorney.

12:05

Once Jason and Ed had left, Adam opened the bathroom door and tossed in a towel, yelling to Sullivan, “Come on, get dressed and get out here!” Adam closed he door and, now in silence and alone in the house except for his victimized captive, Adam began to reflect on the day’s events. And he began to question his role, his coldness, and his new-found meanness. I’m a pretty insensitive bastard, huh? I just yelled at a victim of torture and sexual abuse, someone I just tortured. And I yelled for him to ‘hurry up.’    

Adam told himself that he was only where he wanted to be. He finally got to play the role of the gloves-off interrogator, able to gain complete control of his prisoner. No insurgent would be smiling at him from across a table this time, no sir, he thought, as he began to recall some of his work and experiences from Operation Iraqi Freedom. He’d successfully discharged a lot of the anger he’d felt at that insurgent who smiled at him, knowing that an American Army interrogator was not allowed to lay a hand on him and that he’d most likely be released soon.

And, besides, Sullivan was a bad man, deserving what he got. But Adam couldn’t help but feel guilty for putting Sullivan in danger – Jason could very well have poured that hot oil in Gene’s face. Sure, Jason had promised Adam that he was going along with Adam’s plan, that he would only try to scare Sullivan with the saucepan over his face. But, Adam concluded, he wouldn’t have put it past Jason to have done it anyway. He wouldn’t put it past Jason to sign up for this mission just so he could get the chance to burn the face of the Prosecuting Attorney. Jason was the kind of vindictive, sadistic type who might do something like that. In fact, Adam had had similar thoughts himself upon first seeing the infamous video of Officer Garges assaulting the motorist on I-70.

Anyway, that part’s over. I may feel a little guilty, but worse things have happened. Adam’s brain then, almost reflexively, made the decision to cope with this guilt by replacing it with another source of guilt, stirring up something Adam had, so far, been pretty good at suppressing.

Not as much guilt as I felt that night in 2004 when I deleted that Word document, Adam thought.

 Are you sure you want to move file ‘DIIR-0025′ to the Recycle Bin? Yes. Adam took a deep breath and then exhaled out his mouth. Draft Intelligence Information Report number Twenty-Five was something Adam had been trying very hard not to think about for the past five or so years.

Are you sure you want to permanently delete ‘DIIR-0025′? Yes. 

Adam couldn’t stop his eyes from tearing up a little. He opened his mouth wide and took another deep breath. As he exhaled, his face tensed up and he hissed the air out through his mouth as a tear began to roll down his cheek. He mouthed and whispered the words, “Two…..two…” He took another large breath and hissed it out, bending over and putting his hands on his knees. Don’t lose it Adam, not here, not now! Keep it together! Think happy thoughts. But Adam couldn’t think happy thoughts. He couldn’t stop the memories from rushing in, just as one couldn’t count to ten without thinking of an elephant, if that was what the game was. And this elephant in Adam’s mind wasn’t leaving anytime soon. ‘Two, fucking two!” Two lives, two human lives, Adam, you worthless piece of of shit! You lazy, goddamn pathetic piece of trash!

Adam struggled with himself, his mind and his body, as his muscles tensed up and he collapsed onto the floor in the hallway. Stop, Stop right now! Get yourself together, Soldier! Adam managed to grab hold of a doorknob and pull himself up. He took a few deep breaths. He would re-focus, suppressing the memories just a little longer. He knew he could keep them in check, but their intrusions had recently become more severe and more frequent in the past weeks as the current mission had progressed. The alcohol had helped to dull the guilt, and the occasional marijuana had given him the temporary illusion that he was successfully coping with something that would be a permanent, unwelcome guest in his mind. It was a bad thing, something that had a way of spawning all sorts of depressing and masochistic thoughts, something that would trap Adam in a mental cage every time he went near it. Right now, having a pretty severe attack of something that might be diagnosed as a form of “survivor guilt,” Adam would have reached for the bottle, but there was no bottle in reach here at the safehouse, not even a can of beer. But there was a lunchbox containing hypodermic needles filled with heroin.

Don’t even go there, Adam!  Just stay focused on the mission a little longer. You’re going to complete this mission. Then you’re going to throw away any leftover drugs. You don’t even deserve the pleasure of using them. Then you’re going to empty out most of your bank account and donate all that cash to charity. You’re gonna go back to your job at the warehouse driving a forklift for $11 a fucking hour. You’re gonna live your shitty little life alone, and that’ll be good enough for you. It’s what you deserve. No wife, no family, not even a girlfriend. You don’t deserve any of that stuff. Adam, you worthless piece of shit, you will live and die alone, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.

Adam knew that he was already a guilty man, deserving of a life devoid of pleasure; he knew he was a guilty man before even embarking on The Plan and kidnapping and torturing Sullivan. He had sentenced himself to a life of guilt, shame, and emptiness, and he knew that he had no right to any of the pleasures life had to offer. Adam was guilty of having committed the Cardinal Sin of military intelligence collection back in Samarrah in 2004. And now he was living an intelligence collector’s worst nightmare, a private and lonely Hell known only to a few unfortunate souls. It wasn’t so much that Adam was just suffering from irrational ‘survivor’s guilt,’ it was that Adam realized that he was, in fact, a guilty survivor.

****

April 26th, 2004 6:30 PM

Adam and a local-hire Iraqi interpreter were at a building near the front gate of Forward Operating Base (FOB) Red Sox just outside Samarrah, Iraq. They were meeting with a very low level informant named Ibrahim Khalil, a taxi driver who worked primarily inside the town of Samarrah. Khalil had met with Adam a few times before. Some of the info he had provided was accurate, and some of what he had provided was, Adam concluded, bogus. Adam was considering discontinuing the meetings with Khalil, but Khalil was here giving some specific info, naming some suspected Sunni insurgents in the area. At the conclusion of the interview, Adam asked Khalil, through the interpreter, “Do you know if these guys are planning any attacks in the near future?”

Khalil responded, “I’m sure they are, but I don’t know the details.”

Adam then followed up, “Well, what about roadside bombs? Have these guys put out any roadside bombs that haven’t gone off yet?”

“I believe they have. There is talk of some big bombs on the main roads in Samarrah?”

Adam then asked, “Where exactly are these big bombs? which main roads?” Samarrah had several “main roads” and that there were often roadsode bombs along them wasn’t exactly breaking news.

“I don’t know exactly, but these guys have some big ones out there; everyone in the town knows this. When you see the people go inside and clear out of an area, then you know one is about to go off.” Khalil said. This was also not breaking news, Adam thought. He was about to get a ride that night with the Army National Guard unit he was temporarily attached to and go back to his “home base,” Fort Samarrah, on the other side of the town. He didn’t have secure internet access at the FOB, so he typed the intelligence report for the meeting on his laptop at the FOB and planned on waiting until he got back to his home base of Fort Samarrah to email the report out to his superiors.

The convoy he’d be going on would go through the town. But, Adam figured, there wasn’t an actionable enough threat, was there? He wasn’t afraid of roadside bombs on this trip; Khalil’s information wasn’t really anything new, was it? Adam had enough balls to get on the truck without having a second thought. No big deal, I’ll just send the report when I get back home. Besides, Adam was tired. He’d missed a night of sleep the night before, and his thinking wasn’t at 100%. He had to fight the urge to nod off as he rode in the back of the 5 ton truck at the rear of the convoy.

April 26th, 2004 8:30 PM

The blast lit up the street like it was mid afternoon. Adam could see the flash of light from inside the back of the truck through the gaps in the canvas as it flapped from the pressure wave. It was the loudest sound Adam had ever heard. He felt the concussion in his chest and lungs. He squinted from the light. His whole body shook. He saw the looks on faces of the other men on the benches in the back of the truck. They looked how he felt.

Then all hell broke loose. The sound of machine gun fire filled the air. Sgt Johnson began yelling. A few bullets whizzed through the canvas covering the back of the truck. It was panic, but an orderly panic. At least these boys knew what to do, because Adam sure as hell didn’t.

April 26th, 2004 11:30 PM

As Adam’s convoy started to make it’s way back to Fort Samarrah after the attack, Adam began to calm down and finally put two and two together. Two men were now dead, and several others had been wounded, a couple of them seriously. He could publish the report when he got back, but then there would be the questions: Why didn’t you get on the radio and put out a SPOT report? Why didn’t you warn us?!? Two men might still be alive if only you’d done your damn job! No, Adam would delete the report and stop meeting with Khalil altogether. He wasn’t a reliable source, anyway, Adam told himself.

But Adam couldn’t lie to himself forever. In the back of his mind, Adam was sure that if he had only warned the convoy commander, he would have directed the convoy around the city. The convoy commander, Captain Bowen, and his Army National Guard troops were new to the area. Previous units had avoided the city toward the end of their tours, but, Adam suspected, Bowen had been eager to see some action and kick some ass, as Adam had been. However, Adam couldn’t deny the fact that if he had only warned Bowen, or if he’d only gotten on the radio and warned somebody, the attack could have been avoided. Bowen might have been green, but he wasn’t stupid; he would have re-routed the convoy if Adam Warren, the unit’s top intelligence operator on scene, had recommended doing so. Adam could not escape this fact.

Captain Bowen had been medevaced with a traumatic head injury following the blast. Adam had heard through the grapevine that Bowen had finally gone back to his family with the brain of a three year old, that he was relearning toilet training, numbers 1 through ten, and the alphabet. And the two that were killed – one was 30 years old with a wife and two young children. The other man killed was barely 19.

****

Tuesday, October 30 – 12:15 PM

Suddenly, Adam thought, the Prosecuting Attorney’s problems weren’t so bad after all. So what? So fucking what if that scumbag pissed in his goddamned diaper!? Who really gives a shit in the grand scheme of things?! So what if that asshole made a dirty movie with a carrot?!Who really gives a flying rat’s ass? So he had a bad day? So…fucking..what?!? Who gives a fuck!?!

“Who gives a fuck?!” Adam yelled to himself in the hallway. Even though the shower was running and the bathroom door was closed, Sullivan still managed to hear Adam say this.

By now, Sullivan was crawling on the bathroom floor, wrapping up in the towel and closing the shower curtain with the shower still running. Adam opened the door, came in, and turned the water off. “Come on, let’s go! Get dressed! Hurry up!” Adam yelled at Sullivan, throwing the ball of clothes onto him. Sullivan managed to get his legs through his pants legs, but then started complaining about the pain in his feet. Adam helped him up, and Sullivan yelled as he mistakenly put weight on he toes that were the most badly burned. Sullivan was in pain and he was still scared, especially after hearing Adam scream at himself in the hallway. Sullivan was shaking, and his voice trembled as he said, “P-please don’t hurt me anymore. Please don’t hurt me anymore.”

Adam said to Sullivan, “Don’t worry, I don’t think we’ll have to do anymore of that.”

Sullivan then said to Adam, “And, please, please don’t release that tape.” Sullivan was relieved to hear Adam say that he would not be hurting him anymore, and his primary concern now was the videotape. Sullivan also thought that his lowest moment was behind him, but Adam would have to be thorough in his blackmailing and control technique. Adam was disciplined and always thorough, almost to a fault even. Sullivan’s lowest moment was yet to come.

Adam helped Sullivan walk down the basement stairs, back to the pro-wrestling style folding chairs, back to the blue tarp, and back to the scene of the most painful, horrifying, and humiliating experience of his life. “No, no, please no!” Sullivan pleaded as Adam sat him back down in the folding chair. “Please, no more!” he begged.

“Just sit down and relax,” Adam said. Sullivan felt like some kind of inverted version of a medical patient with Adam as some twisted version of a doctor or nurse, one who was obviously not adhering to the Hippocratic Oath. Adam took the improvised duct tape “rope” and again tied it above Sullivan’s left bicep. Sullivan figured Adam was most likely going to give him another shot of the happy stuff, the morphine or heroin or whatever it was. Adam opened the lunchbox and found the needle marked “L” for “LSD.” Sullivan didn’t notice the “L” marking on the needle as Adam stuck it into his enlarged vein and pushed the plunger down halfway, but he noticed the look on Adam’s face and began to suspect that it was not the happy stuff that Adam was giving him this time.

Sullivan, his voice still trembling, asked Adam, “What is this stuff?”

Adam looked Sullivan dead in the eye and simply uttered three letters, “L-S-D.”