Our Little Secret Ch. 08

"Come in handcuffs," Joel finished for him. "At least let me call my girlfriend and tell her I'm not coming home."

"Colonel Greene wants you to understand your calls are being monitored," the US Marshal explained. "Don't tell her the reason or destination of the trip."

"I don't know the fucking reason!" Joel snapped, but he understood what Marshal Tyson was getting at. "Give me some illusion of privacy, please," Joel said, and the two marshals backed away ten steps.

"Hi Jen," he said into the phone when she answered. "Listen, I have some bad news ... No nothing like that. I have to go to Phoenix. I'm on my way there now ... No, it's some urgent thing – a company is under attack from a hostile takeover, and they want me to intervene ... A couple of days ... Seattle was good. I met two companies there. I think we can do something ... These Phoenix guys better pay me a fucking fortune to miss time with you," he responded to something she said. "I love you too. I'll call you." He hung up.

"You realize I can't fly anywhere without flight attendants recognizing me," Joel pointed out to the lead marshal.

"We'll blindfold them," Tyson said without cracking a smile. It turns out he was able to fly without being recognized. Homeland Security happened to have a Gulfstream G280 idle in Boston, and Joel, along with his hilarious US Marshal friends flew directly to Albuquerque. It was nearly a five hour flight, and Joel slept most of it in the comfort of a large, luxurious seat.

Joel was met by Sergeant Esterbrooks of the USAF OSI – the Office of Special Investigations at Albuquerque airport at ten o'clock at night, local time. Joel, the Sergeant Esterbrooks, and the two US Marshals took a large, black SUV driven by a woman Air Force sergeant. Obviously they were building some trust in Joel, or the word had not passed to Albuquerque. This SUV had windows, but Joel didn't know Albuquerque, so he still didn't know where he was going in the dark. They drove to what seemed to be just off downtown, to a low rise industrial area. Joel was escorted into the building by the male Sergeant Esterbrooks and the US Marshals. At the front security, Joel signed in and surrendered his cell phone, and the sergeant badged in, but the US Marshals did not come any further – clearly their job to deliver Joel to the facility was done.

Sergeant Esterbrooks led Joel to a conference room, where Joel recognized Colonel Brian Greene, who looked much more tired than Joel felt. They shook hands. The sergeant left the room.

There were two other people in the room apart from Joel and Colonel Greene. Colonel Greene offered Joel coffee, and Joel poured himself one from the urn in the corner of the room, and grabbed a muffin. When they were all seated, Colonel Greene introduced the two others: Detective Sheila Halton, Albuquerque Police Department, and Agent Jeff Spagnola, FBI.

Colonel Green started. "Joel, everything discussed in this room is classified. Nothing gets out." Joel nodded. "Joel, we've had another catnap murder suicide, but this one will spin out of control. It's going to get out. Soon. Things are moving faster than you and I discussed in Seattle, and you and I need to sort out what that means. That's part one. Part two is, we need your help on this one."

"Okay," Joel said shaking his head. This had to be huge to have a meeting at eleven o'clock at night. "I'm in the dark, here. Bring me up to speed."

Detective Sheila Halton of the APD described several accounts of women claiming to participate in an orgy where there was a murder suicide. One woman and one man were reported stabbed. It is believed they arrived together at the party. APD have been to the home they described, and they found traces of blood in the dining room where the witnesses say it happened. No bodies were recovered, but the DNA is going out for analysis.

"Okay," Joel said with a shrug. "You have a report of a murder suicide at an orgy with no bodies. What does that have to do with me?"

Detective Halton went on. She described there was a man dressed in black who issued commands, but no women remember what he said. They only knew that, after he made his announcement, they found themselves participating in public sexual acts they would never have otherwise have willingly performed. They engaged in high risk sexual activities they normally avoid at all costs. None of the women can seem to remember anything else about him. They all described themselves as having performed the sex acts willingly, but now they are shocked and embarrassed by their depraved behavior.

"Fuck!" Joel shook his head. "It's catnap."

"We want you to talk to the women," Colonel Greene said. "You may be able to reach them in ways we cannot."

"What is everyone's role here?" Joel looked around the room.

"We caught the case," Detective Halton explained. "FBI took it away from us when they figured it might be some mass hypnotic terrorism angle, and then OSI took it from them for reasons of national security."

"So you're running this?" Joel asked Colonel Greene.

"My office is," he nodded, "due to the ... peculiar nature of the case."

"Every one of these women will be traumatized beyond anyone's understanding. I need you," he said to Colonel Greene, "to appoint someone who can help them – someone who understands the peculiarities, as you say, of this case. A qualified psychologist on the inside."

"You've already met her," Colonel Brian Greene explained, "but she's up to her eyeballs in other things, plus she's not a clinical psychologist. Besides, I don't have a budget for that." Both the FBI and APD shook their heads when Colonel Greene looked at them.

"I do," Joel said. "You tee it up. I don't mean a one-time, gloss over government job. I mean intense, supportive, long term, professional standard, best practice therapy by someone qualified in their circumstances. Have them bill my office directly if you need to."

"Joel there are eleven women. That could cost millions over the years," Colonel Greene argued.

"That's my problem." They all looked at him with disbelief. "Guys," Joel held his palms out, "I'm not asking. You want my help, this is the way it is. You guys are in law enforcement. I'm not. You go home after you make the arrest and you put a notch in your belt, but you do shit for the victims. I see the shattered lives you leave behind while you move on to your next case. Make this happen the right way, and you know what I mean by that, colonel," Joel warned.

"Who the fuck are you?" Detective Sheila Halton challenged aggressively. "What did he mean by catnap?" she asked Colonel Greene.

"I am the expert Colonel Greene brought into this case," he answered her directly, "and I work for him alone. I am the only hope any of you have of cracking this case."

Colonel Greene drew in long breath. "Unfortunately he's as right as he is arrogant," he reflected to Detective Halton. Colonel Greene looked to Joel. "Okay, I promise the women will get the support they need, and you will get a whopping big shrink bill."

"I need someone to walk me through the crime scene," Joel said.

"We want to do that now," Colonel Greene nodded, "and we want you to interview the women tomorrow."

They walked to the front entrance where Joel retrieved his cell phone. At one thirty they climbed into an SUV piloted by an Air Force lieutenant. They arrived at the dinner party residence at two in the morning. It was guarded by armed plain clothes Air Forcepersonnel. Inside there were high intensity LED lights mounted on stands throughout the house, letting the investigation proceed without requiring the resident lighting.

As soon as Joel saw the round ring table, he understood what happened here. "He did boy, girl, boy, girl, all around the table," Joel explained. "Maybe some girls in the middle for erotic entertainment, or maybe a sex show. The girls were sitting helpless at the table – they couldn't fight back or flee. They just sat there and let the men do what they wanted."

"What are you talking about?" Agent Jeff Spagnola spoke for the first time.

Joel looked at Colonel Greene. "A demo?" The colonel thought for a long time, and then nodded.

"Agent Spagnola, take your phone out, please." He did. "I want you to video record Detective Halton. Don't stop recording until I say. Understood?" Agent Spagnola looked at Colonel Greene, who nodded. "Tell me when you're recording." Agent Spagnola nodded.

"Sheila," Joel commanded to Detective Halton, "bark like a dog and pat yourself on the ass." She began barking loudly, and slapping her own ass. "You recording this still?" he asked Spagnola. He smiled while Sheila was still barking and slapping her own ass on his screen. "Sheila, stop, and act normally now," he commanded. "Agent Spagnola, stop recording."

"What the fuck?" Sheila Halton looked around. "Detective Halton, I promise this will all make sense in a moment. Just answer two questions honestly, please. It's part of the demonstration. Why did you bark and pat yourself on the ass? Please answer honestly."

"Because I felt like it," she shrugged with deep embarrassment.

"Did I or anyone else tell you to or make you?"

"No," she scoffed. "You didn't say a thing."

"Agent Spagnola, please play back the video to Detective Halton."

Detective Halton looked at the video with wide-eyed surprise. She staggered back several steps when it finished. "If it weren't for that video," she said, "I would swear in a court of law under threat of perjury I did that because I wanted to, and you never told me to do it. I have no memory of what you said."

"That is one of the aspects of the power. People who are being controlled don't know it or remember it."

"Okay, you can do parlour tricks. Big deal," Detective Halton shrugged.

"Sheila," Joel commanded, "take out your sidearm, put it on the ground, and walk away from it."

When he heard Joel's words, Agent Spagnola immediately put his hand on his own sidearm, but did not draw it. Detective Halton drew her gun, put it gently on the ground, and walked away. Colonel Green calmly waked over and picked up the gun. Agent Spagnola relaxed.

"I just commanded you to put your gun down and walk away from it," Joel explained to Detective Halton. "I'm guessing you just violated a hundred regulations and laws by abandoning your weapon. You think you did it because you wanted to, but both Colonel Greene and Agent Spagnola will attest I commanded you to do it. I could have just as easily told you to put the gun in your mouth and pull the trigger, and you would have done it." He waited. "Or I could have told you to strip naked and fuck all three of us, and not only would you have done it, you would have done it thinking it was your great idea. These are not parlor tricks, Detective Halton."

Joel turned to Agent Spagnola. "The girls just sat there and let men do anything they wanted, because they were commanded to, just the way I commanded Detective Halton just now."

"Who the fuck are you?" Detective Halton asked, breathing shakily.

"Before I answer that, Agent Spagnola, would you please erase that video, and let Detective Halton watch you erase it so she knows it has been deleted." Agent Spagnola deleted the video while Detective Halton watched.

"So you just made him erase that?" Detective Halton asked.

"No," Joel shook his head. "I asked him to do that as professional courtesy to you." Joel paused. "I have a certain power. The same power that the person had in this room two nights ago. I can command people to do things, and they do them, not understanding or remembering they are being manipulated. They do them thinking it was their idea in the first place. The person who did this two nights ago commanded all the women to sit still, or to act out how he wanted them to. Either way, they were forced into sexual servitude, but something went wrong."

"You're a fucking monster!" she nearly screamed at Joel.

"Some of us are," Joel nodded. "My job is to hunt those ones down."

"You hunt them ... Colonel what the fuck is this?" she demanded.

"Exactly what it looks like," Colonel Greene said calmly. "Can I trust you with this?" he held her gun out. She looked at Joel, and then back to the gun. She realized possessing the gun was both a blessing and a curse with Joel in the room. She took the gun and holstered it.

"You've hunted killers before?" she asked Joel.

"He can't answer that," Colonel Greene interjected. "We cannot discuss any other cases with you."

"So wait," Detective Halton asked Joel. "Could you force me to shoot someone else?"

"I could command you to empty your clip into a crowded school yard, reload, and do it again."

"Jesus fucking Christ!" she nearly cried. "That's what a catnap is?" Joel nodded. She put her hand over her mouth and held back her anguish. Never in her career had Detective Halton ever considered she could become the unwitting instrument of mass terror.

"Colonel, there's probably no law against what Joel is talking about," FBI Agent Spagnola observed.

"That's why we're involved," Colonel Greene nodded. "Law enforcement alone is not an applicable response in this case."

Sheila had to sit down in one of the chairs while she processed what she just experienced and heard. The chairs had all been dusted for prints by now. There was no scene contamination. Finally she looked up at Colonel Greene with a horrible comprehension. "We're at war, then."

"An undeclared one," Brian Greene nodded.

"And he's the mercenary," she nodded to Joel.

"Something like that," Brian nodded again.

"No," Joel disagreed. "I don't take money for this. I'm not for hire. I can't be bought," even though he and Colonel Greene knew better. "I hunt bad guys because they're bad."

"And you pay for the victims' therapy," she nodded, "out of guilt, I suppose."

"Guilt by association, yes," Joel conceded.

"And where does your funding ... never mind," Detective Halton answered her own question mid-sentence.

"Colonel, what is our mandate here," Agent Spagnola asked, "I mean the FBI?"

"To help apprehend the perpetrator, and turn him over to us."

"Perpetrator of what? As far as we know, the catnap guy you're talking about probably committed no crime."

"Okay," Colonel Greene shrugged. "Bring him in for questioning. We'll take it from there."

"I'm not comfortable with that," the FBI agent warned.

"I don't care what offends your delicate sensibilities, Agent Spagnola," Greene barked menacingly. "You'll do it, or you will be removed from this task force." Everyone in the room knew who Colonel Brian Greene reported to. Removal from the task force for failure to cooperate was career suicide – as bad as a pilot refusing to fly because he was afraid of heights.

"I'm not comfortable with him," Detective Sheila Halton pointed at Joel.

"If he ever manipulates you without my authorization," Colonel Greene assured her, "I will remove him from the task force." That doesn't help me after I put my own bullet through the back of my head. Detective Halton just nodded. "And I apologize for putting you through that uncomfortable demonstration," Colonel Greene offered genuinely to her, "but I trust no amount of explanation would have convinced you otherwise."

"Well, if he's right about this power thing," Detective Halton said in reference to Joel, "he's probably right about something else. We'll never catch who did this without his help. I just don't trust him."

"Joel and I have an ... understanding," Colonel Greene searched for the word. "He'll be okay."

"Where was the blood?" Joel asked, getting the attention off him. Detective Halton walked to where Jessica and Ryan had collapsed dead two nights earlier. "We found it between the floor boards, here." She pointed. "They cleaned up, but not all of it."

Joel walked over to the blood stains. "Can you tell how many people were stabbed?"

"There were at least two blood types, one male, one female," Detective Halton answered. "It's out for DNA now."

"Was the weapon recovered?"

"No, but there is cooked blood on that table behind," Detective Halton pointed. "We're guessing someone was serving meat there. Possibly a carving knife? The M.E. on scene said she found traces of chyme mixed with the blood on the floor – that's processed food inside the intestine. So we're figuring deep abdominal stab wounds. She also found blood spatter way on the other side of the room. That suggests either a second attack over there, or a high pressure arterial spray from here – someone cut a major artery up high – maybe a shoulder or a neck."

"Fingerprints?" Joel asked.

"The table is wiped clean, and so are the chairs," Detective Halton reported. "We found trace DNA everywhere, but that won't help track down anyone – unless they're in the system. Somehow I don't think we'll get many hits from this crowd."

"Other rooms?" Joel asked.

"There are thousands of fingerprints everywhere. We've concentrated on the front entrance and washrooms."

"So they were sloppy," Joel concluded. "Probably in a hurry. You found blood and guts in here." Then Joel thought. "There are two dead people. They could be local. Missing persons?"

"We have a strong lead. A young woman, 22, went missing, last seen earlier that day, but no one we talked to knew where she was going. To a fundraising dinner, she told friends. We checked. There were no registered fundraisers that night. She has a boyfriend, who also cannot be located. We have a BOLO on his car."

"Did you get a picture of her?" Detective Halton nodded. "Is she attractive?"

"Gorgeous," she nodded. "Supermodel kind of beautiful."

"He was probably in on it," Joel explained. "He was taking her to a party where he knew she, along with every other woman, would be commanded to sexually service any and every man who wanted her. He probably paid a steep entrance fee. So it was a fundraiser of sorts, but not for any good cause you heard of." Joel looked around the round ring table. "You could easily fit twenty-four people around here. At first, I'm guessing the women were commanded to sit still, possibly naked, and they were commanded to allow all the men do whatever they wanted as they ate their feast." Detective Halton shivered repulsively at the image. "After dinner, the women would have been moving around under command. That's when it happened – while people were wandering around."

"But if the woman were under command," Agent Spagnola insisted.

"Something went wrong," Joel completed the thought.

"What about a fight over girls," Detective Halton speculated. "Two guys going bronco over the same girl."

"Agent Spagnola," Joel asked him, "if you had a room full of supermodel gorgeous girls, all of which were dying to please and service you in every way imaginable, would you fight over which one?"

"Okay," Detective Halton shook her head, "you made your point". Colonel Greene smiled. He didn't like Joel so much, but he certainly was useful.

"Something happened the puppet master didn't notice, or account for." Joel thought it through. The sequencing of the multiple commands had to be well organized, orchestrated, and practiced. "I am certain this was not the puppet master's first dinner party. It's too big, too intricate, too complicated to be a first attempt. He has been doing this for a while."

"We can't track down every dinner party," Detective Halton complained, interrupting Joel's thoughts.

"I'm on it," Joel said. Agent Spagnola and Detective Halton looked at Joel with surprised curiosity. Colonel Greene shook his head no at Joel – you've already said too much. Detective Halton and Agent Spagnola saw the exchange, and then looked at each other with raised eyebrows. There was much more going on than they were being told.