[untitled]

first draft:    excerpt: the Benjamin Files    all works are copyright protected and registered with the US Copyright Office, Washington,DC. with the author

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Mark awoke to an unfamiliar room, its environment sickening, disorienting, but the tubes and IV’s that ran through his body seemed to be common enough. He finally managed to squint against the morning sun that began to streak through the blinds. He bit his lip against a familiar pain in his arms and shoulders and tried to sit up, his body damp with sweat. He worked to steady himself and finally focused on a familiar figure in the room. The figure waited patiently, almost afraid to respond to him in any way, and Mark met his friend’s eyes with a fleeting moment of ice-cold hatred before he looked away.  Rolin felt the emotional pain rush through him like a shock wave, but he understood his friend was feeling a pain far greater than he had ever known, despite all he’d seen in the jungles of Vietnam.

Rolin took a hesitant step forward, but Mark’s angered voice stopped him. “I can’t believe you f*****g shot me.”

            “Mark, you left me no choice, you were about to kill him.”

            “And the problem there would have been?”

            Rolin sighed, “Suicide by cop is a hard thing to prove…murder or manslaughter, however, isn’t. You certainly had motive.  I couldn’t let you lose it all in a moment of blind hatred…”

 

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The stranger looked to Benjamin quizzically, his frustration carefully hidden behind smiling eyes. Benjamin scratched absently at his nose, then scuffed his shoes on the wet grass. He noted the concern on Amanda’s face, even at a distance, and he shook his head as though to rid himself of a raging chaos within. The stranger sensed the boy’s underlying fear.  It was a fear he took pleasure in, for it gave him power and influence.  A confused mind was something to be manipulated, but in the moment, he turned his attention to the woman that approached them, the curves of her thighs more subtle and seductive than the clenched jaw she wore.

Amanda carefully pushed Benjamin behind her as she faced the stranger on the park bench, and although the shadows obscured the detail of his face, Amanda sensed his eyes on her.

“Benjamin, it’s late. Get your soccer ball.”

“Yes ma’am.”

Amanda met the man’s eyes, determined that he would not intimidate her.

He offered a slight smile, “He has your eyes…deep…mysterious.”

Benjamin cast a glance to them both. “That’s not—“

“Benjamin, your soccerball…get it.”  Benjamin sighed as he continued to crawl underneath the park bench in the dim light, his balloon animal squeaking on the damp grass. The man on the park bench chuckled at him, then cast his gaze back to Amanda’s stony face. He slowly retrieved a Polaroid from the camera and passed it to her.

“This is for you. It may one day be a memory you will cherish.” 

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Mark listened to the negotiators as they presented the perps latest list of demands. Mark shook his head, “Even if I could, I wouldn’t. The answer is no. You explain to him that what I can do, is negotiate lesser charges against him if he frees these hostages now. Let the women and children out, the elderly and those with medical conditions, like the insulin dependent diabetic and the cerebal palsy patient…one seizure is enough for that child. The negotiators, concerned with Mark’s inflexibility, conveyed his message as delicately as they could.

            The perp, clearly agitated that they no longer even attempted a ruse to obtain his demands, screamed into the cell phone he’d taken from one of the hostages, blurting curse words and spewing hate and confusion over the line. 

            Mark listened to all the emotion spill over the command center communications, then pulled the headset from one of the negotiators to use it himself. Mark’s voice remained oddly calm.    

            “Why don’t you say that to my face?”

            The perp sputtered in disbelief, the unfamiliar voice clearly troubling him, setting him on edge, fearful of new territory.

            “Who the f**k is this?!”

            “Does that matter? All you need to know is that you negotiate with me now, no one else.”

Mark tossed the headset over as he spoke to the negotiators, “You make it clear now that I call the shots here, no one else in this room…do you all understand that?”  The negotiators reluctantly nodded their understanding and worked to convey their message to the screaming man on the line.  Mark stepped towards the command center doorway, pushing his way to the glass door and pulling his cell phone from his belt. He waited, his nerves only now beginning to send a hint of discomfort to his brain. He noted that until a few moments ago, he had only felt oddly apathetic.

            Mark squinted at the bank’s darkened glass doors, the evening fluorescent lights within beginning to reveal its interior. He worked the function buttons of his phone and stepped outside, waiting for his opportunity. After several moments he noted movement within the bank, a woman appeared near the glass bank doors, but was abruptly pulled away. Mark raised his cell phone and for the first time, held his breath in anticipation. In a moment he had what he’d hoped for as the perp appeared near the doorway, pushing and pulling his hostage along, always in hopes of keeping her in the line of fire. Mark kept his phone steady, and only when the two of them disappeared did he turn away. Agent Manners met him at the doors as Mark passed him is cell phone.

            “Feed this video into headquarters, enhance it and see who that b*****d is.”

            “They tried that from the bank video…”

            “Try it again!”

Mark turned to the communications console and selected a headset, “Where are we on this video feed inside the bank?”

            A staticy voice powered through, “Four video lines in, one to go…probably another ten minutes and you’ll be up an running.”

            “Right.”

Mark turned to the others, “when we get a live feed in this bank, I want Baltimore PD SWAT on stand by”

Mark turned back to the communication console, the heartbeat of the command center.

            “Anything yet?”

            They all shook their heads. Mark stepped back to the glass doors of the command center and noted the frenzy of the reporters and camermen that had been enticed into action, hoping for a feeding frenzy. Mark nodded to one of the agents in the corner, and pointed towards the crowd of suited men and women, the hot lights and the satellite dishes that rested on the tops of vans.

            “I want one of those. I need eyes with a zoom lens, got it?”

            The agent nodded his understanding, and within a moment had disappeared from the room.

            The communications console blinked with laptops and streaming video, and agents anxiously awaited the results of the video Mark had taken of the perp, but he expected to find nothing. It had been a slim hope, but things improved when he saw the agent pull a video crew into the room, looks of confusion as well as anticipation on their faces. Mark squinted as the voice powered through his headset.

            “Video feed in place, ready to roll.”

            “Go.”

Mark turned to Agent Manners, “Anything?”

Agent Manners shrugged his disappointment. Mark motioned the crew to the video screens and pulled only the camerman to it.        

“No live feed, battery and video tape only. You got that?”

            The camerman  nodded, but the reporter voiced her objection. Mark cast her an evil glare. “You  could be the first to truly see this man’s face, its what we all want, you can’t object to that.”

            The camerman settled in on the screens before him, capturing several with one shot and waited. Long moments of silence ensued as they all watched the live feed as the optic cable snaked its way to the rooms. Everyone in the room offered a collective gasp as one room  revealed the perp and his hostage, the young child however was never revealed.  The camerman waited, nearly breathless as the video team in the building worked to rotate the feed to reveal a full facial view of the perp.

            The camerman smiled, “Say cheese for the camera, a*****e.”

            Mark leaned closer, “You got this?”

            “Got it.”

            “Give it to me.”

Mark took the tape and tossed it to Agent Manners before he turned his attention back to the video crew. “You get a copy, you get the exclusive. Air it all you want, I want to know who that son of a b***h is. Deal?”

            The reporter couldn’t contain her pleasure.

            “Deal.”