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Collins Rhōg – Cambire, The Story Part 19

Collins RhōgSedona AZ (April 29, 2015) – The following has been taken from Collins Rhōg’s private journal, and reproduced exactly as it was written, by his own hand. The date has been omitted, at his request, but Collins view is always captivatingly honest, full of depth and color, heart and perseverance in times of struggle. Collins spills his soul and captures his feelings with vivid imagery and heart felt emotion that oozes from the pages of this historic text.

The following is but a portholes view, from across the room of “The Life and Times of Collins Rhōg“:

If you are new to the story, it all begins at this link (click here). In previous weeks, our readers were introduced to Rhōg’s story as written in his journal. Join us as we return to the Life and Times of Collins Rhōg, now 38, while he surveys the gates of Hell:

Cambire, The Story Part 19

Interrogation rooms are designed to bring on feelings of helplessness by providing both physical and emotional discomfort. Taking in my surroundings, this one was no exception. And with the thrashing I’d recently endured, the hard metal chair dished out physical discomfort in spades. I hurt everywhere.

A quick mental map imprint noted the room was roughly ten by fifteen feet with a grey metal table bolted to the floor in the middle. I was handcuffed to the table and another steel grey chair sat empty opposite me. The floor was sheathed with one foot square white tiles now greyed after years of institutional waxing. The ominously large observation mirror hovered on a wall, an unframed canvass waiting to absorb the sacrificial blood splayed from the occupant of my chair. The humming fixture on the ceiling cradled a pair of fluorescent tubes swarming with pulses of light. Dust furrows and a faint whoosh of a noise radiated from the exhaust ports of the square vent directly above my head.

collins rhog liberatorThe brown ridges of dirt took me out of the interrogation room. My mind wondered to the desert and my SAS training with Russ, Greg, and three other blokes. We had pulled a HALO, high altitude low opening, above a target that we were to take and secure, an old B24 Liberator shot to shit in North Africa. We took the plane from six of our SAS alum, and held the wreck.

Digging under the plane revealed that its gear was down and undamaged, it hadn’t crash landed that was certain. The next day while on recon, I fell into quicksand. My first experience caught me completely off guard. Water pools at the base of dunes and the signs are insignificant. The ground trembles slightly, like jello, and the next step can find you up to your waist or worse. After I discovered quicksand, we ended up letting our alum hostages go, once they agreed to be tied back up at the first sign of an extraction team. We all practiced escaping the quicksand, it was great fun. The trick is once you go in to instantly roll out of it, or you’re stuck. The twelve of us were laughing our asses off and made a game of it, pretty fucking funny until one fellow nearly bought it. We couldn’t get the bloke out and, for a few tense moments, we didn’t think we ever would. Talk about fear in his eyes.

That next morning I stumbled across two spent anti-aircraft shells and the clip that bound them. One shell still held the clip, the other lay about a hundred and fifty feet away. Using the two relics, I followed a line of sight towards our bomber and found dozens more, equally spaced where they had fallen after being ejected from the firing plane, likely a Messerschmidt. The Liberator had been strafed on the ground and abandoned, rather than crashing. The shells had seemingly been covered by sand for over six decades, however it just happened that the wind recently changed direction to expose them. In another few days, they’d have been covered up again.

My mind snapped to as the reinforced metal door opened and the federal agent came in. In his late forties, he wore a grey suit with black shoes, a blue shirt and a grey and blue tie. His face was large and round, much like an adult version of the Campbell’s soup kid. The man held a newspaper and a manila file about an inch thick in one hand, and a Styrofoam cup of coffee in the other. Approaching, he set the coffee on the table, “Keep your mouth shut! I’m Special Agent Monko,” he barked, preempting my greeting. “Collins, Nicholas, Rhōg…” he went on, catching me off-guard. “Date of birth February 4, 1971, raised in London, enlisted in the British Army at the age of 18…”

“Shut the fuck up yourself, asshole!” I retorted, my mind back in the game.

“Made SAS at the age of 22…” Monko continued.

Two days ago, as best as I can calculate…” I yelled, widening my eyes at the agent who had raised his voice to compete with mine, and who was still talking, ignoring me while saying, “…credited with saving nine of your men’s lives in desert storm, in four separate engagements with the….”

I was infected with a bio weapon!” I howled.

He paused and said, “…enemy.” His voice faded off.

“I – want – to – lawyer – up!” I exclaimed, adding, “Oh and yeah, Special Agent Monko, I wouldn’t be around myself if I were in your shoes!”

The G-man said nothing, however he promptly turned and left the room. A moment later the air vent’s whooshing fell silent.

It didn’t take long for my mind to wander once again, this time thoughts turning to Reegan. How we met on the dance floor. Carl Jung once said, “The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances; if there is any reaction, both are transformed.” He was right. Reegan transformed me into a better person.

I wondered how she was, where she was, if she was alright. I missed her tremendously and remembered the first time we went hiking together, a beautiful spring day. The hike ended up not really happening because as soon as we entered the woods, her hand gripped my forearm and her slender frame pushed me against a thick fir tree. Lustful pheromones oozed from her soul to roll onto and over me before we fell to the forest’s dark soil floor.

Just then a voice blared from the intercom, “Do you know why you’re here, Collins?”

I was back in the interrogation room.

Directing my comment to the white plastic speaker mounted on the wall, I replied, “Monko? So you’re the fucking Wizard of Oz? Your secret’s out, mate!” Then smirking toward the mirror added, “A flying crow will always spot opportunity!”

“Do you know who we are?” the voice demanded.

Ebola Virus at 108,000 Magnification

Ebola Virus at 108,000 Magnification

“Jesus! Really? Alright, I’ll play. I’m thinking of a number between 1 and 99…?”

A minute of silence.

The smart ass in me continued, “Who are we? We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.”

“ Is quoting Aristotle funny to you, Collins? Do you think this is a game?” the intercom fluttered in distortion.

“Do you!? Didn’t Dark Winter teach you guys anything?” I sneered at the mirror.

“Dark Winter?”

“Seriously!? I guess not!” They were wankers. Maybe it was the Wizard of Oz after all.

“Dark Winter, Collins?”

“It was YOUR fucking operation, two and a half months before 911. The simulated scenario that evaluated emergency response when facing a biological attack on American soil.” I calmed down and continued in a normal tone of voice, nodding at the mirror, “It’s only when the tide goes out that you discover who’s been swimming naked….”

“That simulated smallpox attack was nearly fourteen years ago,” Monko replied as the intercom popped and crackled.

“Where’s my fucking attorney!? And can you please not talk so close to the microphone O Powerful Oz?”

“When were you infected?”

“BACK OFF! Where’s my attorney?”

“We can wait, Collins.”

I let the silence sit for a full minute, counted the seconds, then quietly looked at the mirror and said, “That would be tragic for your country, but all right. You’re not accountable for anything. Now go get your kids some cookies and milk before it’s too late and they’re spewing up blood and guts in kindergarten. Hey, Wizard, here’s a thought…no more funeral expenses! Just mass cremations in town squares like during the Middle Ages. Now shut the fuck up and stop bothering me. I want peace and quiet in my last hours.”

Silence. Request granted.

After about a quarter of an hour, my thoughts wandered again.

The hum of the fluorescent lights pulled me back to my cabin, the previous summer. Having just come inside to grab a pint, I heard what sounded like a giant dragonfly. A snapping buzzing sound lasting a couple of seconds, but it had completely captured my attention. The French doors were open. I was disappointed to have missed whatever weird creature had made the noise before flying back outside. But I heard it again, for a moment, followed by more quiet. Looking about, I saw a frail hummingbird thwarted by the window, like a trapped moth. I managed to catch the little flier in my flatcap and set him free. And then, just as suddenly, I was transported to my old tin shed. A bat would always hang in the peak above its doorway. After a couple of times of falling on me in his sleep when I’d open the door to walk inside, I learned to wait for him to drop on the pile of burlap sacks stacked to cushion his fall. Once I asked Reegan to grab a spade from the shed, knowing full well what would happen. Her shriek nearly caused me to piss myself with laughter.

The intercom popped again, but no one spoke. It had been almost an hour’s wait.

“Hello there, Special Agent Monko. Are you going to tell me more about myself?”

“Yes, it’s Monko.” The interrogation room went dark as a light energized behind the observation mirror. “We understand you’ve switched sides.” Oz was seated at his own table, leaning forward on his elbows and looking directly at me through the glass. Monko was a “brick agent” working from an office rather than the street.

“Tell us more about the weaponized ebola,” he asked with a raised eyebrow. “Two days,” he continued. “You shouldn’t be contagious until day three and symptom free for another two weeks. Are you feeling anything…hot flashes, fatigue?”

“I could go for a pedicure, it’s been ages for me.”

“Brass balls, I’ll give you that. You’re as dead of a man as I’ve ever seen. Infected with at terminal bio weapon, a two million Euro mark on your head, friends and family getting caught up in your wake… need I say more?” He paused, sitting still and continuing the stare.

I said nothing. We both knew I was in checkmate. Monko with clear intent to manipulate added, “We can help you.”

I broke the stare, blinked slowly, and said, “So it’s up to a couple of million now?”

The game wasn’t over.

“We have a cure,” Monko continued. “It’s called ‘D.R.A.C.O.’ It stands for ‘Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizer.’ It’s a broad-spectrum virus killer that annihilates Marburg and Ebola Zaire for breakfast. We’ve funded its development for the last twenty years and utilized it for the first time last year when someone, we believe Russia, infected two boatloads of refugees with the same shit that’s pulsing through your veins right now.”

“Ezadeen and Blue Sky M?” I questioned.

Monko seemed to be contemplating his fingertips. Finally looking back at me, he answered.

“Well, actually it was Blue Sky M with 970 mostly Syrian refugees, followed by the Ezadeen with another 359. Now how did you know those ships?”

Collins Rhōg

Cambire, The Story continues in the SedonaEye.com. Some SedonaEye.com scenes have been edited due to content, however, be advised that some language may be considered offensive or inappropriate. Look for the unedited Cambire, The Story, available at booksellers and retailers in the fall of 2015 to be published as Change of Allegiance.

Read www.SedonaEye.com for daily news and views!

Read www.SedonaEye.com for daily news and interactive views!

7 Comments

  1. D.R.A.C.O. should be available to the public. I had no idea the U.S. Gov. funded it’s development, that explains why we don’t have access to it yet. Last I heard it was in animal trials and human trials were ten years out. I believe the military could be currently utilizing D.R.A.C.O., especially facing pandemic situations. God Bless America!

  2. MAS says:

    Great story!! Very twisty!! Well-written column. This guy has a lot of talent!!

  3. Very well done. I am glad to learn more about who Collins is and his past as to how he became the person he is now. It is always nice to fill in the blanks. I am enjoying the exciting descriptive writing.

  4. Parker AZ says:

    Read it Like it

  5. Been enjoying this, keep it coming. I like that it’s edgy, compared to all other content. Good on Sedona Eye for coloring outside the lines!

  6. Brian Argo says:

    try to follow, give it a like

  7. Drew Simpson says:

    Like others I think it’s a good read And want to read each part of story when get aChance and thanks.

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