BARE HUNTER

When I got home, I tried to think of how the Thorazine had gotten into my system. Was Greg spiking my coffee at work? When my place was broken into the other night, did they change pills? No. I would have noticed a differently shaped pill. I couldn’t figure it out—until I opened the fridge and pulled out the new carton of OJ. It had been opened while I was in the hospital. I always screwed the tops on bottles and jars harder than they had to be. The top was just barely tightened. Someone had been spiking my OJ with Thorazine. Why? If they were after me and in my apartment, why not just poison me and get it over with?

It made no sense to mess with my drugs. I already took way too many pills. Maybe they were trying to kill me, but my system had built up a tolerance, due to all the other drugs I’d been taking. Greg. It had to be him. No one else knew about Afghanistan, except for him and Cap Howard. What did Greg have to gain by offing me? Or, by making me seem crazy.

Was this something to do with his investigation of the IT department? Or something far more sinister? I rummaged through the nightstand drawers for Cap Howard’s burner phone and pulled up his number. Maybe it was time to call in his goons. I couldn’t deal with Greg by myself if he were this dangerous. Especially now.

“You’ve reached Bill Howard, you know what to do.”

“Hey, Cap, er, General, it’s Ted Bronsky again. We’ve got trouble.”

In about a minute, he returned my call, “Bronsky, what’s going on? I tried getting in touch with you, and you were AWOL. Where the hell were you, and why aren’t you answering your phone?”

“General Howard, I had a heart attack and was in the hospital for the past two days.”

“No shit. Son, I’m so sorry. How are you out so soon after a heart attack?”

“Modern medicine. They put two stents in and said I’ll feel better than ever. Not right now, though, I feel like shit.”

“I’ve been trying to tell you that Greg Atkinson contacted me and threatened to expose you to the feds for Wardu. Amnesty International is making a push to investigate civilian casualties with a UN team,” he warned.

“Wait. What? He said you told him about Wardu,” I argued.

“Oh, no. That’s top-secret information and I would never tell that scum bag anything,” the General insisted. “That is our secret. Not even the clean-up crew knew who pulled the trigger. That is strictly between you and me.”

“I don’t understand. How did Greg find out?”

“Who knows how the CIA gets their information?” Cap stated before ending the call.

Now, more than anything, I wanted to speak to Greg and find out what secret he was going to tell me. Did he have second thoughts about turning me in? Did he want to blackmail me with Wardu? What was his angle? Too late to go to the office, I planned on visiting him tomorrow and clearing the air. If he was going to turn me in, at least he should know the truth.

I pulled a heat-and-eat lasagna dinner out of the freezer and slid it into the microwave, hoping a meal would calm my nerves. At least with a full stomach, I could resume my meds. Maybe a few less of them, as I thought of the garble my mind had been in for months. Sitting in front of the TV, mindlessly watching the evening news, while I inhaled the entire casserole, the news reporter began a local story that made my hair stand on end.

“In local news, a crime trend has begun in our little neck of the woods. Just outside the city limits of Big Wood, another female body was found by fishermen near the same location as the first, at the outlet of the Purdue Little River, where it empties into Shimmer Lake. We are still looking for information on the identity of the first victim, who was approximately 5’3” tall, weighing close to 170 pounds, with dyed blonde hair. Anyone with information on a missing person fitting that description is asked to contact the State Police in Cortland," he shuffled papers and continued. "More details to follow, after an autopsy and forensics are performed on the body. Hopefully, identification will be made and next of kin will be notified soon. Here is a message from State Trooper’s Barrack C in Cortland, “We are currently investigating the deaths of two women in the Big Woods area. Concerned residents can be instrumental in the fight against crime. We are asking residents to become actively involved in keeping our state safe by remaining alert and reporting any suspicious activities.”

As this story develops, we will update our viewers on all the details. Now, on to the weather—"

Sweat beaded on my forehead, as I thought of how closely these murders were connected to the location of my favorite running spot, where I threw my bloodied clothing. Remembering the warning my fake psychologist gave me about rage response, I began feeling guilty. Guilty of what? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been for a run. My life had gotten complicated and busy. My feelings were a natural response, I thought, to the guilt I’d been hauling around on my back since Afghanistan. If there were an earthquake in California, I’d probably blame myself for it. Still, the feeling hung over me like a guillotine. I decided to skip visiting Sharon tonight. She didn’t need my glum face staring at her.

After cleaning up from my rushed dinner, I opened the fridge, planning to toss the tainted OJ. Then, thought better of it and decided to confront Greg with it in the morning when I went to talk with him. I’d tell him he wasn’t fooling me, or Captain Howard. Maybe turn the tables on him by putting him on the defensive.

Carefully following the directions on my medications, I took the proper doses and stripped down to my skivvies before crawling into bed. At 3 AM, I woke up to a kitten crying outside my window. I hated cats just on general principle, but this one sounded small and hurt. Holding a hand to the window, blocking out the glare from the streetlights, I could see nothing. The mewing turned into a weak whimper. I slipped my running shoes onto bare feet and shrugged into a sweatshirt before walking out and circling the house, searching for a wounded animal under shrubs and overgrown bushes, and even checking out trees in the backyard.

Seeing no sign of an animal, wounded or healthy, I returned to the house, realizing I’d left a light on in the kitchen. Sitting at my kitchen table, calmly and arrogantly, was General Howard. His hands were folded on top of a brown envelope, labeled, MAIDAN WARDU Unredacted files, Theodore John Bronsky Marine Corps Lance Corporal E-4. TOP SECRET

“Cap, what the fuck?”

“General to you, Ted. We have to talk in private. You’re going to need my help. While you were in the hospital, did Greg Atkinson try to visit you?”

“Yes, as a matter of fact, he did.”

“Can you tell me what you talked about?”

“We didn’t have time to talk. Someone came into my room that afternoon and tried to put something in my IV bag. A nurse came in to talk about it and Greg left.”

“Ah. Well, he left because he sent someone to poison you while you were incapacitated.”

Feeling sick, I flopped into a kitchen chair next to the Cap. “Why would he do that if he planned on turning me in for Wardu? That makes no sense.”

“It makes plenty of sense, Ted. Our military is under scrutiny by the UN for our time in Iraq and Afghanistan. They’re looking to discredit everything we did, and your problem is just one more log on their fire.”

“Why? Other than the obvious fact that the world seems to hate us right now.”

“It’s financial. It is always about the money. The more pressure they put on our government, the more money and resources we will kick in for their useless policing projects. It’s cold, hard cash, my boy.”

“What does Greg have to gain by making our country look bad to the world?”

“What did I just tell you? He’s getting paid by Amnesty International to rat us out.”

“So, Greg is working both sides of the aisle? I thought he was CIA?”

“He is. Many CIA people go bad when they compare their paychecks with the money they can make with the information they’ve gathered. He’s not unusual.” General Howard continued, “This file is the only paperwork recording the incident in Maidan Wardu. The pictures, the after-action report, our unit's preliminary investigation, and the statements from the clean-up crew. I’m leaving it to you to decide what you want to do with it. If you want to revisit old ghosts, go ahead. But I would suggest you then burn it and get rid of every piece of evidence before Greg gets his hands on it.”

He pushed the folder toward me and I recoiled, as if he was holding a snake out for me to touch.

“Ted. Believe me. I know I gave you bad information, and am devastated about what happened. You were a good Marine and you would have risen in rank quickly. Your loss hurt me tremendously and I don’t want to lose you to this investigation when you were only following orders. My orders.”

As frightening as the information was, I was finally getting answers about the mess my life had become.