Sleeper's Run

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

"Close your eyes and relax," the hypnotherapist says as the session begins.

After spending the whole morning trying to make an appointment, I finally got one of them to squeeze me in. Mentioning the fact I was an Iraq veteran made things much easier. Going to a psychologist's office is not necessarily something on a fugitive's priority list, but I need to find out what they've done to my head.

The therapist is a well-dressed woman in her forties who specializes in traumatized victims. She claims to have some experience with war veterans, but she mainly deals with accident victims and child abuse cases.

"Good," says the therapist. "Now I want you to go back to the time right after your car accident. I want to hear what happened that week."

"Yes," I say.

"Can you take me there?" she says. "I want you to remember and tell me everything you see."

###

It's late; I walk out of the bar trying hard to appear sober. My face is bloody from the fight I started at the bar. The three guys I wiped the floor with might want to learn how to fight after getting out of the hospital, instead of acting like they could.

My Jeep is parked on the street and I'm the only one there. I drop the keys, so I kneel down to get them. That's when I hear someone behind me, but tequila has wrecked my reflexes. By the time I turn around, a jolt of electricity runs through my body and I fall to the ground. I watch in a fit of convulsions as two dark figures approach me. One of them places a handkerchief over my mouth and everything goes dark.

When I wake up, I'm in a dark cell. My hands and feet are shackled and I'm wearing an orange jumpsuit. My senses are numb and everything is hazy. Some Marines come to take me away. It's bright and hot, but we quickly go inside another building.

I'm strapped to a chair with an IV connected to my arm and electrodes all over my head and torso. My eyes are kept open like that guy in Clockwork Orange. There are people around, but I can't discern who they are through my drug-induced stupor. Someone places earphones over my head.

"The subject is ready, Doctor Libschitz," a female voice says.

"Let's begin," the doctor says with an indistinguishable accent. "Start process on mode one, level one."

A screen in front of me starts to show images of war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the kind that don't get airtime on the evening news. People are shot, blown up, and executed. The longer it plays, the more violent and graphic the images get. I start having flashbacks of my own.

"Subject is primed."

"Go to level two," the doctor says.

They start intermingling images of the Venezuelan president with the combat footage and clips of executions. The audio starts playing a message telling me how bad the president is, and that I should kill him. The words, the tone, the syntax, and the volume all seem carefully chosen. It's mesmerizing.

"Go to level three," the doctor says after a while.

The images on the wall start to come alive. I don't know if I'm in the video or the images have come out of the wall. It feels so real; I can smell the blood. Suddenly, they start giving me random electroshocks. I squirm in my seat as I try to scream through the gag they've put on me.

I don't know how long this goes on, but when it stops, an elderly doctor checks me and then I'm escorted back to my cell. Except for a variation of the audio, a recording constantly plays from a speaker; the place seems designed for sense deprivation. I'm never fed, so I guess they give me nutrients through one of the liquid bags hooked up to my IV when I'm in the chair. I rarely ever sleep too.

Time has lost all meaning in this place. Soon, I start talking to myself, hearing voices and having my own hallucinations. They are usually some distorted flashbacks from war. Snakes come out of the wounds of two men I killed with a grenade. A man I shot keeps coming at me no matter how many times I shoot. The kid I shot, after Matt Haze was killed during my last mission, sits in the corner of the cell watching me in disturbing silence.

After a few times, I realize they have two types of sessions that they randomly rotate: mode one is when I'm awake and hallucinating; mode two is when I'm in a state of reverie. The second starts when the woman says I'm in "alpha." There are no hallucinations in this mode; I like mode two better.

Time after time nothing changes, except the images on the wall and the frequency of the shocks. The video has shifted to trivial scenes, with shots of the Venezuelan president interspersed. Nothing makes sense in here. I just want it all to stop.

I often wake not remembering when it was I last slept, but I still feel tired and weak. I notice I'm in a different room, a badly lit concrete building with nothing in it. I carefully make my way through the hallways looking for a way out, until I reach a large chamber.

For an instant, I think I am having visions again. There are about a dozen men chained to the walls. The sound of their gagged moans echoes in the darkness. Their eyes widen in terror when they see me. In the center of the room, I spot a small table with a gun on it. I feel an urgent need to get out of here.

My head suddenly pains me-the likes of which I've never felt before-and it nearly makes me buckle. It ends as soon as it begins. I pick up the gun, chamber a bullet, and repeatedly fire at a man whose face is the only one I recognize in the crowd. The men around him wail; some pee in their pants and the smell is nauseating. Hanging dead from the wall is a man who could be the Venezuelan president's twin. What have I done?

I hear something by the door so I turn around as a couple of Marines rush me. My instinct is to fight, but I'm completely depleted. The guards zap me with stun batons and I'm down. While the Marines are restraining me, I see two silhouettes by the doorway.

"What do you think?" says Doctor Libschitz.

"He's ready," I hear Blake say before I black out.

###

Completely disoriented, I sit up gasping for air. My body isdrenched in cold sweat and I'm holding my gun. The hypnotherapist has shrunkenaway from me with a look of sheer fright. It takes me a few seconds to finallyremember where I am. I lunge for the digital recorder on the table in front ofme and jump to my feet to get the hell out of there.