"Dusty and I didn't get much sleep that night," John said.
"The imposters among us knew about Slacks, but the rest of the team didn't. It's a hard thing, but our friend's near-death had become leverage. Slacks was barely clinging to life—the rope had put a lot of strain on his neck—but before we could get him aid, we needed to know what he knew. Damn little, as it turned out. They clocked him over the back of the head when he got in, and he woke up with Dusty pounding on his chest."
He cleared his throat. "Dusty knew a CO on base that didn't have any real connections to us, and with that fellow's help, we managed to slip Slacks out in the back of a Camry and off to a local hospital." John paused, his hand rubbing the back of his neck, as if feeling the weight of the memory.
"Dusty and I planned. It's not the glamorous part of the job, but the difference between life and death is often in how well you understand your situation. We knew we had a small window where the news the imposters were waiting for would be a tell, but our missing colleague wouldn't yet be alarming for the rest of the team.”
“To our mind, we needed a lead, a threat. Dusty wanted to chase down the phone number, trace the message or whatever tech shit he was on about. It was a good idea, but I got the sense he was waiting on me to bring something better."
"He was fishing," Jacoby whispered.
John nodded. "He saved the sacrifice and concealed the message, he wasn't part of the murder attempt, and he was hunting. There was almost no chance Dusty was an imposter. He couldn't quite know the same about me. Sure, I was participating, but that wasn't enough."
Jacoby whistled through his teeth. The chair was getting a bit uncomfortable, so he stood to stretch his legs and move a bit. "Tough situation. You want to be genuine but need him on your side. You know you're one of the good guys, but you're aware of his perception of you as well, and the knowledge of it creates a sort of meta-cognitive paranoia matrix. You end up asking yourself how you can most convey genuineness, and discover that the most controllable answer is to be a specific sort of artificial, but then you're always gonna wonder if you can keep up the act well enough to avoid suspicion yourself. Maybe that's a reflection of life. Maybe we're all—"
John cleared his throat, and the Sergeant looked back at him with a start.
"...I've been taking philosophy night classes," he said sheepishly.
John nodded again. "Well, they're paying off. You're right though, it was a tough spot. I needed Dusty on my side. As he and I spoke, I worked the problem, and when the moment was right, I brought up the letters. A-M-N-R and now L. Alarm? Ramble? Dusty seemed to trust me some as I worked things out, but it wasn't until I made a breakthrough that I think he really trusted me."
Jacoby leaned forward. "What'd you find, John?"
"It took a while for me to realize, and by the time I figured it out, the team had regrouped for the day. Everyone had the same texts as us, and no one gave away any immediate tells.”
“ The most I got from it was that Sprout was the first to notice Slacks missing, but that wasn't much help. When I broke the news of his death to them, they were distraught, but they handled it like soldiers. I saw nothing out of the ordinary. We took only a minute to grieve him before getting back to business, but I could see the fire in their eyes. How could one of these men be a traitor?”
“It’s when Bottom made some comment about wanting to 'Zero' all of these animals that it hit me. The L was also a three. Patient Zero back at the refinery wasn't just a way to mark a beginning. The zero was an O. As soon as that thought solidified, everything clicked for me. The anagram was the word NORMAL. Normal, as in Usual. The Usual Suspects."
John might've cracked the shadow of a smile. "Have you seen it?"
A silent headshake was his only answer.
"The movie's about the main character getting revenge on people who've betrayed him, and eliminating his competition. I pulled Dusty aside and told him everything I'd figured out so far—the movies, the game, Sprout—all of it—and he actually listened. I won't bore you with the details, but we spent a lot of time on this part. It paid off. Our next discovery was perhaps the most important piece. As I said before, Dusty wanted to find out about the text message, and given the new info, he picked up on something more. Every other letter so far had dual meaning. 'A' was the first letter in the alphabet, so maybe it was the first victim we needed to find. He'd requested the number be ID’d and the phone be traced a couple of hours back…”
“Do you have kids, Detective?" The question came out of the blue.
"Two. Both grown."
"Yeah, well, Flash has a daughter. These messages came from her phone, and the trace showed it was halfway across the US from their home."" Jacoby couldn't help a flash of anger at hearing that."
"Pensacola to the San Pedro seaport in half a day. We were there in four hours, geared up, focused. Flash got his name for his temper, and I've never seen a scarier man in my life. We knew about the three-man team, but their motives were still largely unclear, my suspicions notwithstanding. Something I should mention, I'm painting by the numbers over here—things weren't so smooth in the moment. We were a team, more than a team, two days before, but now... The mistrust was taking its toll, and half the team seemed ready to put a bullet in the other half. San Pedro didn't help. I can only tell you my part, but when we got boots on the ground, things moved fast. Local SWAT—a team I knew, actually—gave us a wagon escort to the southside docks where the phone was pinging."
John got a distant look in his eyes. "We started taking fire before the van was parked. OPFOR consisted of an unknown number, but they were well-equipped. We were eleven guys packed in three vans, but we snapped out into a wide formation in a heartbeat, returning fire across the open plaza between the metal dockhouses. I found myself taking cover behind a group of stacked lengths of pipe, automatic fire whirring by overhead. Dusty was mounted near the tire of the first van, pinned a bit.”
“Hammer—crazy ass that he is—had somehow already pushed up. Bedrock took a round to the plate, and I found myself providing covering fire. I took down my first of the day in a spray of 5.56. The barrel was getting warm, and I could taste the acrid burnt powder. God, I love that smell. I've never had a concussion before, but out of nowhere I caught sight of an RPG trailing through the air a blink before it hit the back van. That van was behind me a bit—far enough away that the blast didn't kill me but close enough that it rang my bell.”
“Flash was dragging me behind him when I got my senses. There was blood on his arm. My blood. I could see him firing his M4 one-handed, the collar of my shirt in his other hand. Crazy thing is, we weren't going to cover, he was dragging me deeper. Even in my daze I was impressed—he moved like a man possessed. He neutralized four, maybe five hostiles like that, dropping his hold on me to whip a belt knife out at the last one. Beautiful move.”
“Just as he turned back to check on me, I caught vision of one of them popping out from behind a corner. RPG guy. No hesitation—my training kicked in. I rolled over, drawing my sidearm out in front of me, and put three rounds in his chest before he could get on target... Things went quiet. They always do, when the action's over."
He seemed tired from regaling this, as if part of him had been reliving it. Jacobs could see the soldier in him now more than ever before. He walked back over towards his chair and put his hands down on the backrest.
"What'd you guys find?"
Johns looked up, looked him straight in the eyes.
“The Usual Suspects.” He said.
“There was a deal set up, and apparently we'd interrupted the sellers as they waited on the buyers. One of the first dead was ID'd later on as Cutter Raze—gun runner, espionage broker, and 51st on the FBI's card deck. We were used to eliminate some competition.”
“I could tell you of the hours we spent combing that place, the useless weapons we recovered, all that bull—but what's important is that when my phone rang, we got good news and bad news. The good news was the person calling me was Slacks—he got stitched up and was back in the action. The bad news was the phone location was spoofed—tech that isn't even public yet—and Flash’s daughter's phone was actually sitting on the table in our common room back in Florida. It's what he was calling me from."
"How'd the team take that?" Jacobs asked.
"The cat was out of the bag. Dusty and I got our moment to watch for reactions.” John cleared his throat..
“Everyone knew that we had traitors in our midst, and worse, that those people were so two-faced they could maintain the lie with ease. They had our families, and they were pretending to serve with us, and they didn't care. I saw weapons flash out. Combat stances.”
“Some people started yelling, even blaming me, to tell you the truth. I brought the team together—maybe I was in on it. Flash, though, he didn’t have any mercy left. He could point to each of us and find a problem, a way we were involved. This isn’t a business where you can get the yips, but he was seeing ghosts everywhere. He picked a fight with four, five of the guys.”
“Where was Bottom last night? Why didn’t Strummer shoot more people in the fight? Dusty had good tech skills—why’d he withhold that this could’ve been an option before pushing the team out here? Soon we were all in it, half argument and half fist-fight. Somehow, that threw the imposter off more than anything.”
“Chameleon—we called him that because he never once got spotted in sniper school, even if we walked right over him—seemed to freeze when he found out Slacks was alive. And then, when Flash turned on him, he twitched for his gun. For a guy like that, always cool, always stable, that was enough. I tried to get the others to catch him for interrogation, but he really did go for his gun at that point, and we had no choice but to put him down. That’s when shit really went off the rails."
Jacobs was looking at him in disbelief. "Things weren't already off the rails?"
Johns shook his head. "I don't know how to even say this. Chameleon's body—the bullet wound... There was something shiny underneath.”
“When the first-man-up got in close to examine it, he shot straight up and clawed into his own face. He tore his effin face off, Detective."
Johns looked sick. He took a couple of breaths before continuing. ""Underneath that face was some kinda monster. Metal, with red eyes. It laughed at us, a hunting metallic laugh.”
“This thing, this imposter wearing the skin of my friend, started tearing into the men. It knocked one aside, it tore the head off a SWAT member, and it shrugged off the bullet-fire raining down on it like it was wind.”
“I don't know what possessed me, but I ran back towards that last man I'd shot. There, on the ground beside him was the RPG, and tucked in his pack was a fresh reload. When I looked back, that horror was coming straight for me. There was only time for one shot, but my aim was true that day, and the beast went up in smoke and flame. You don't gotta believe me, but I swear it all happened exactly as I'm telling." There was an earnestness, sincerity to have anyone who'd listen to him, in his words. Jacobs couldn't believe what he was hearing, but at the same time, he felt it had to be true.
"I don't know what to make of that at all. That would change my whole world."
"It did." Johns sat back in his chair as if all the energy were drained from him. He was a man who'd seen the roughest things the world could throw at him, but this was clearly too much.
"Johns... You've been through a lot. Let's take a break and pick this back up in a bit, yeah?" The forlorn soldier, handcuffed to a table, face and body still covered in dirt, seemed not to really hear as Jacobs stepped out of the room.
ed2funy - Terminator - Arnold Schwarzenegger - Terminator - Mafia 1x Strongman has been lynched.
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