Chapter One
Abu Ghraib Prison, west of Baghdad, Iraq
The black semi backed into Hell’s loading dock with loud metronomic beeps. A brief impact then arms of dust reached up and dropped when ten dragons’ snorts engaged hydraulic brake drums. Finally, the diesel engine was killed. Two men emerged from either side of the black cab and collided with the earth.
One was in his late 50’s although even his closest intimates, if he could be said to have any, didn’t know his true age. Although he had ridden shotgun, he was obviously the one in charge. Despite his relatively advanced age, he was stocky in a power lifter type of way, with not much if any of his muscle mass turning to flab.
His platinum white hair almost gleamed under the merciless Iraqi sun like thousands of needles standing at attention. Time seemed to slow around him, he commanded so much notice. Moving with the grace and confidence of a big cat, he gave the armored SUVs and the occupants within them a glacial look and spat in their general direction, creating a moving ring of road silt. He seemed to actually resent the mercenary security detail.
The driver appeared to be roughly half his age and his handsome but dour face suggested military or paramilitary experience spanning his entire life. He immediately went to work rolling up the rear of the trailer and exposing the ton and a half of high tech equipment within. Or rather, they weren’t exposed at all but covered with canvas tarps.
The American Army colonel watching them from the loading dock looked impressed with their military dispatch and seeming contempt for the soldiers of fortune.
Presently, the rest of the team showed up in a pair of equally black Humvees. Three men were in one, a man and a woman in the other. They, too, seemed businesslike to the point of brusqueness and, unlike their leader, completely ignored their mercenary bodyguards. The insurgents and death squads must’ve taken the day off because the trip from the airport was completely free of incident.
While the personnel in the newly-arrived Humvees set to work unstrapping the gear, the men in the semi’s cab hoisted themselves onto the loading dock and shook hands with the colonel.
“Oh, if only these walls could scream,” the old secret policeman thought.
Just walking into the infamous Abu Ghraib prison, and as a civilian, at that, was no mean feat. But getting access to restricted and classified locales was rarely if ever a problem for Hans Dietrich.
The ramrod-straight American Army liaison colonel who walked down the deserted walkway beside him spoke little but informatively, which he appreciated. While the always reserved German didn’t actually like him (a distinction given to one, perhaps two people), Dietrich began developing respect for this man. Hair buzz-cut to razor-sharp perfection, with a no nonsense demeanor, this military man’s claim was very much at odds with his stubborn pragmatism and skepticism. He had what Dietrich guessed was an Appalachian accent, perhaps Texan.
“As I’m sure you know, Mr. Dietrich, we handed over control of this facility back to the Iraqi government in July of ’06.”
Dietrich smiled to himself and silently asked, “If that’s the case, then why did we have to get permission from the Pentagon for this investigation?”
“But almost from the start we began getting reports from the Iraqi guards and even the detainees. The videotape you’re about to see is the only documented evidence that would seem to support those claims.”
The prison, which the American colonel never referred to as a prison but “this facility”, was cleared of both inmates and guards well in advance of Dietrich’s visit. Arabs in general, Iraqis being no exception, are exceptionally skittish about the paranormal and the story went that they abandoned the prison, vowing not to come back until it was rid of a certain entity.
Their footfalls made hollow echoes as they walked down the aisles. Of course, Dietrich had seen the pictures of prisoners getting tortured and made to form human pyramids at the behest of American idiots who were otherwise themselves powerless in their lives. He tried to imagine the screams and moans of agony, pain and despair and smiled. It would have brought him back to the good old days in East Berlin and Lichtenberg when he was with the East German Stasi. In fact, every time Dietrich and his crew were invited into a prison, he tried to imagine what it was like in its heyday.
Dietrich looked at his technical manager Günter to his left. Since he was in charge of setting up the equipment, it only made sense that he would attend the pre-investigation tour, or what everyone on the team would call recon. The three men arrived at a door that the colonel, whose name plate on his camouflage shirt read “Waterston”, had to unlock with a key.
“Rather than turn on the gas jets, I’ll just play the tape and let you judge for yourselves.” He turned on a light. “I’m what you’d call a die hard skeptic. I need hard, concrete evidence before believing in stuff like this and even after that, I want to see more before I’ll wrap my arms and lips around it. But this takes the fucking cake, pardon my French.”
Dietrich, despite his growing respect for this man, was also developing impatience. He’d uttered more words in the last 60 seconds than he had since meeting Günter and him at the gates a half hour ago. But considering the alleged content on this surveillance tape, perhaps he could be excused for his relative prolixity.
Col. Waterston turned on a TV then a VCR. The security video was on an antiquated VHS tape that promptly disappeared before the officer’s hand.
“It’s been fast-forwarded to just before this guard’s experience. I’m sorry there’s no sound but at least it’s in color and the picture quality’s OK.” Dietrich nodded with hardly concealed impatience and irritation as he and Günter closely regarded the tape.
An Iraqi guard was making his rounds in a hallway at the prison, looking inside each cell as he went by. Almost immediately, a figure in an orange jumpsuit slowly approached him from the left and the guard, understandably, was quite alarmed. When the figure in orange reached out to him, seemingly grabbing him by the throat, the guard took a step back with some difficulty and aimed his rifle at him, briefly pointing the barrel down. He was obviously mistaking him for an escaped prisoner and was telling him to get on the ground. When the orange-clad man, who also appeared to be of Arab descent, didn’t obey, the guard fired a shot at him to no discernible effect.
Instead, the figure turned around and walked into a cell. The most remarkable thing about that was the door was closed. The guard rubbed his throat and followed the figure, having to unlock the door. He entered it only to reemerge moments later, looking both scared out of his wits and perplexed. It was everything the American and Iraqi military said it was. He then ran out of camera range, obviously to tell his colleagues and to ask what the fuck was going on.
“Now, obviously, this hasn’t been tampered with. We have a complete chain of custody documenting who’s even so much as touched this tape. Now, you were briefed in our first encrypted email. The Iraqis ain’t setting foot in this facility again until they get proof that this guy’s gone. And it is extremely important to both us and the Iraqi government that this place is up and running again.”
“So, who’s the figure in orange?” It was the only thing Günter would ever say during the tour, which was typical of him.
“Well,” Col. Waterston said before exhaling and rubbing the back of his neck as he sat on the edge of the desk. “That’s the perplexing thing. We’ve blown up still pictures that we took of the video and we’re pretty sure it’s Mursi al Islamiyah. Very bad man, al Qaeda operative.” He fractionally leaned toward Dietrich and Günter and said almost under his breath even though the prison was supposed to be deserted. “Mursi al Islamiyah died in our custody in late ’03 but you didn’t hear that from me. That tape was shot just last year in ’08. To be honest with you, Islamiyah was probably the only Class of 2001 al Qaeda terrorist we ever had here. But you didn’t hear that from me, either.”
“And the inmates had seen him, too?”
“Yes, sir. At least half a dozen inmates and three, maybe four guards in, I believe, five other separate times.” He slid off the edge of the desk. “Your reputation precedes you, gentlemen. If you sweep this area and get rid of this so-called ghost, then the Iraqi government will believe you and we can get this facility hummin’ again.”
Dietrich had a well-deserved reputation as a paranormal investigator, an actual ghost hunter in every sense of the word. Not some guy with a few high tech instruments who does an 8 hour investigation then does a reveal for the client a couple of days later and going back to his life. Dietrich was someone who actively stalked and captured ghosts. The client never really knew how he did it and certainly not why. But all anyone knew was that if they had a noxious entity living in their house that then suddenly vanished after a Dietrich investigation, all they’d feel was gratitude. No one ever asked what was done with the spirits nor seemed to care.
Sure, there were reveals after an evidence review. EVPs (if any), still photos taken with full spectrum cameras, video footage, any evidence of supernatural activity was dutifully shown to the client along with the usual assurances of having their home, job or whatever rid of its paranormal pestilence. Of course, Hans Dietrich was just a paranormal investigator like Mata Hari was just a dancer.
“You might wanna focus a camera in that holding cell that figure walked into," the colonel concluded. "That’s the very same cell where Islamiyah died in December of ’03.” Dietrich nodded as if to say that he was way ahead of him. Which, of course, he was. It was obvious to all but the colonel that they were waiting for him to leave so they could clear out the truck.
“Just out of curiosity”, Waterston asked, “when you get rid of a ghost, what do you do with it? I mean, it’s like what do morticians do with the blood they drain out of people but no one bothers to ask them. So, what do you do with them critters that you… suck out?”
“I could tell you, Colonel,” Dietrich replied, “but then I’d have to kill you.” The colonel laughed until he realized that Dietrich was returning neither his laugh nor his smile.
“Is that everything?” Dietrich asked Günter on the prison’s loading dock. His equipment manager nodded curtly. Their gear was so voluminous it had to be transported on a semi with virtually every inch at a premium. The semi, in turn, had been transported to Iraq on an Air Force C5A along with a couple of hundred scared shitless troops about to enter their first tour of duty. Obviously, this also required approval from the Pentagon. The Blackwater mercs? Courtesy of the US State Dept., their best employer.
Iraqi sovereignty my Aryan ass.
Dietrich picked up the final laptop case and again regarded the retinue of Blackwater mercs that had escorted the 18 wheeler and were now patrolling the immediate perimeter of the prison. Not only did Dietrich despise mercenaries and their ability to show up and even unseat small governments, these bad-ass American has-beens and wannabes were redundant once they crossed the main gate. Besides if, as Dietrich had hoped, all Hell broke loose during the “investigation”, they’d be twice as worthless. They weren’t exactly trained for shit like this. He turned his head and squinted at the sunset and walked back into the prison.
If there was one comedian on the whole team, it would have to be Breck, the only American. He was professional enough to play it straight during the hunts but he would never fail to come up with at least one irreverent observation either before or after lights out.
“Hey, Dietrich,” he said with a manic gleam in his eyes, “wouldn’t it be cool if we bagged not only this sand nigger but his 72 virgins, too?” Dietrich gave him a withering look but Breck, true to form, didn’t take the hint and chuckled at his own joke as he unspooled coaxial cable.
The largest, most sensitive and expensive equipment would be unloaded only by Dietrich himself and Günter. The most prominent of these was what was colloquially known as “the movable hole.” It was so massive and heavy that a refurbished Humvee was built around it. It was essentially a 6 x 6 black box and to simply look at it no one could possibly divine its true purpose let alone how it worked. It was always the last piece of equipment used during a successful investigation.
It was the last stop for a lot of the ghosts that were captured by Dietrich’s crew. The theory was that paranormal entities such as ghosts or spirits had unique energy signatures just as living people’s fingerprints, retina and DNA distinguishes them. When an entity manifested, the team was able to get a quick fix on not just its location but also its electromagnetic signature.
The sardonically-named “Ghostbusters”, or the handheld devices powered by drain-resistant battery back packs that were actually a reference to dustbuster vacuum cleaners rather than the comical movies starring Bill Murray, would essentially arrest a spirit if they were within the unit’s limited range. Once put into an electromagnetic tractor beam, for want of a better phrase, Günter would then hustle to wherever the capture was made and put the entity on ice.
As well as the usual ghost hunting equipment such as DV and IR cams, high 8’s, audio recorders, K2 meters, EMF detectors and thermal cams, Dietrich’s team went considerably beyond that technological curve. For instance, frustrated with EVPs, disembodied voices not heard by the naked ear until a digital audio playback, Dietrich used a headset connected to a 360° mic that automatically looped back to him what had just been captured on the recording device. The only drawback was that there was a delay of two seconds and in the world of paranormal investigation, that’s all the time in the world for a spirit to disappear.
Understandably, not a lot of the ghosts they’d pursued over the years wanted to be captured. Spirits, as the theory goes, tend to stick close to a certain environment to which they’re emotionally attached. To rip them out of a favored environment is quite a coup in itself and a lot of them had fought like Great Whites.
The reason for this was because Hans Dietrich didn’t go after the nice ones, which was why he’d specialized in prisons and insane asylums. Abu Ghraib was both, the worst of both worlds.
When he was satisfied that all unauthorized personnel were out of the prison and his team and equipment were in position, he bent the walkie talkie’s stalk mic toward his mouth and said over a scrambled frequency, “Kill the lights.”
The capacitor in the night vision goggles whined briefly and Abu Ghraib turned from pitch black to pea soup green. Dietrich panned left and right, alternately switching the experimental all-vision unit from normal night vision to UV, IR and finally to full spectrum mode.
Gert Hesse, the woman beside him and the team’s only psychic, didn’t rely so much on scientific gear although she used it to validate her perceptions. To Dietrich, she looked eerily defined in a full light spectrum in a surreally-bleak type of way reminiscent of the cinematography of 300 or Sin City.
His earpiece relayed a metallic sound. Since playback was in stereo, he as with the whole crew was able to home in on its source. When he got to the end of a corridor, he turned left and saw Breck.
“Sorry, Hans. I hit an open gate with my wand. My bad.” Dietrich looked at the “ghostbuster” wand in his hand then up at him.
Good thing he was wearing night vision goggles, otherwise Dietrich would’ve killed him with the look he gave him. Gert cocked her head at him in annoyance before they moved on.
“Shithead,” she said in German. Dietrich permitted himself a rare smile as he continued his EMF and audio sweep.
One hour passed. Then two, then three. Not a single electromagnetic spike, an unnatural cold spot or a disembodied syllable. Dietrich decided that now would be a good time to step on some invisible toes.
“Time for Plan P,” he said into the two way’s stalk mic, “and I think the comedian should take point on this.”
“You got it, boss,” Breck responded.
Plan P was actually the team’s Plan B, the “P” standing for provocation.
Roughly 75-80% of their investigations would turn up nothing. They weren’t vaudeville performers appearing at regular times. Sometimes, ghosts would take the night off. The help enhance the odds of making contact, some paranormal investigators wouldn’t be above provocation. Deliberately taunting or insulting an entity would at times be efficacious enough to elicit a response.
Since Breck was the self-appointed smartass of the team, it usually fell to him to do the taunting. He was also uniquely suited to doing this tonight because he was the only one who spoke Arabic. And it only made sense to speak the indigenous language when hunting spirits. After all, why should they understand you just because you’re speaking in English or is there a Charles Berlitz course that one must pass before continuing to the afterlife? So it wasn’t unusual to get EVP’s, or electronic voice phenomena, spoken in the language of an investigation’s host country.
Breck cleared his throat, annoying Dietrich and probably the other two team members. He then began speaking in Arabic while the team continued their sweeps, even though no one but Breck knew what he was saying.
“Hey,” he said in Arabic, “I saw a picture of your guy Mohammed on the way over here. He had a fucking bomb for a turban. I’d say that’s about right. Bombing shit is all you assholes know how to do.” Even alluding to a picture of Mohammed, much less actually drawing one, was an offense in the fundamentalist Muslim world that was often punishable by death. Representations of the Prophet were strictly forbidden and Breck obviously knew this.
He continued sweeping the area. Nobody on the team heard anything yet so Breck continued the taunting.
“Gotta hand it to you pricks, though. Pretty clever talking other people into blowing themselves up so you don’t have to. And promising them 72 virgins if they do your bidding? Sheer genius, Islamiyah.”
Then by way of the two second delay, Hans and the team members heard something on the playback. It was a hissing and after listening for a second, he was able to triangulate on its location. It was headed straight for Breck. Instead of warning his man over the two-way, he silently motioned to Gert to get to Breck’s position and for Günter to head for the Humvee just in case.
Hans headed to the same destination albeit from a different approach. The idea was to come up behind Breck while Gert would approach him from the other end of the corridor. The wands had a powerful pull and ghosts trying to escape had a very difficult time doing so if they were surrounded. The various instrumentation they all carried with them, including temp gauges, EMF detectors and so forth, warned them of a severe drop in temperature and a massive buildup of energy. Breck had the same resources and if he was caught unawares, it was his bad.
He continued the taunting while Dietrich got sight of him about 50 yards down the hallway. Breck’s voice was an echo on account of the playback coming two seconds after his live voice, giving the session an unreal quality. That plus the natural echo of the empty hallways multiplied his voice several times over.
“What’s the matter, chicken shit? Cat got your…” Through the night vision goggles, Dietrich could see the American straighten up and his sneering voice was immediately reduced to a gurgle. His wand clattered to the ground as he levitated and it would be up to Hans and the rest of his team to use the EM tractor beam on their own to capture the entity. Hans began running to the scene and called out on his two-way, “We’re in corridor C! Hurry before he gets away!”
Dietrich was anxious to see what his man had trapped so he approached him from an oblique angle. There in the all spectrum mode of the goggles he could see a bright white figure literally holding up Breck above ground with one hand. It was al Islamiyah. The ghost quickly turned to Dietrich and gave him a hateful glare. “Dogs,” was all the ex policeman heard two seconds after seeing his bearded mouth move and he ripped out Breck’s larynx while he was still in midair.
“Get him!” Dietrich yelled as Gert came running down the opposite side of the hall. Both wands went to work at once. “Bring in the hole!” he yelled to his other man in the Humvee and Dietrich could hear the monstrosity rumble to life and speed its way to their location.
It’s a known fact that ghosts, despite having no nervous system, can feel pain much the same way that amputees can still feel pain and other sensations in missing limbs and extremities. Dietrich never ceased to be fascinated by the common reaction that entities had when they were hit by the tractor beams of their wands. He also never ceased to derive enjoyment from observing the looks on their faces and their contortions. He didn’t know why the beam hurt them. It was just enough for him to know they did.
“Günter! Open the portal!” he yelled. A static charge and irritating hum filled the air while the terrorist’s diaphanous form writhed about five feet in midair. The beams, while invisible to the naked eye, emitted a bright green light when viewed in all spectrum mode and Dietrich was always struck by its luminescent muscularity. Eventually he moved beside Gert, looking very much like a man who’d just snagged a blue marlin off the coast of Florida. Some of the more powerful ghosts were actually able to rip free of one tractor beam while caught in the limits of its range. From point blank, there was no way even this monster could escape two.
“Purge setting!” he said and with the flip of a switch on the units they simultaneously catapulted Mursi al Islamiyah into the movable hole. Günter, as always, closed the portal immediately, a feat that always required split second timing.
“That is one pissed off ghost,” Gert said in German. She dispassionately looked down at Breck’s body. By this time, he’d completely bled out and blackish blood spread throughout the hallway.
“Yes,” Dietrich said to the corpse. “Good job, Breck. Sorry you won’t get your bonus for this one,” he said in English.
Chapter Two.
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