NaNoWriMo 2012 Winner! – Raw excerpt from “A Dangerous Element” Unedited

For anyone who’s ever wondered about NaNoWriMo, it is a free flow of words resulting in a very rough draft consisting of a 50K word novel length piece of fiction.  In past years many authors famous and unknown alike, have published a novel from edited versions of what they wrote during the November event.

The following is an excerpt from my win during this year’s 2012 NaNoWriMo event.  I’m posting it here as raw and un-edited so that curious readers can see the typo’s, errors, and bad grammer that end up being edited and cleaned up several times over before being published for mass consumption.

I had fun writing during NaNoWriMo this year and hope that the adventure I experienced in the process comes out as a good piece of entertainment for readers.  Here is that excerpt:

4 December 2010 Bethesda Naval Hospital

He was groggy when he awoke.  The room had a sterile feel and smell to it and for several days, he wasn’t sure where he was.  Bethesda Naval Hospital’s Psych Ward was a jail. It was one of those places where you could check in but never leave, at least not without first receiving treatment.

Mark Reynolds, Colonel, United States Air Force was a patient.  The chronology of events leading up to his incarceration weren’t clear to him.  He remembered having been awake for days watching ordinary objects gyrate and change color.  He’d never admit it, but he heard news stories directed at him over the radio and TV.

Each morning, the Psych specialists working on the ward hosted a consultation with the patients one at a time.  Mark was still groggy from his ordeal and still uncertain of his situation and the events that lead up to being admitted to the ward.  His head was sore, but not in a place he normally associated with a migraine or a hang over.  He reached up to feel there was a bump behind his ear and a set of stitches.  He was lucky he didn’t tell the psych specialists and personal care team about his symptoms because during one of the mandatory group sessions that followed the morning routine.

After lining up for medications, the small rag tag group of men and women met in a common room taking turns explaining their reason for being hospitalized.  It was during one of these sessions when he discovered something that propelled him on an unexpected adventure.  It was Marine Corporal Ronny Clark’s turn to talk first.

“I’ve been here for two weeks.  I’m here because I heard things on the radio and saw news on TV telling me to watch out because people wanted to kill me,” he said.

“These people you heard, did they address you by your name?” asked the therapist.

“I just said that, yes!  In fact I said that yesterday and the day before when we did this same silly drill,”  Ronny replied sounding frustrated.

“Do you know who they are, these people who were talking to you?”

“The voices sounded familiar, but no I don’t know them.  Anyway, when am I’m getting out of here?”

The therapist didn’t answer.  She just turned to the next patient.

Mark didn’t believe in coincidence, so he decided not to tell anyone what he knew.  He repeated what he’d said the day earlier, then returned the empty workbook to the floor between his feet.  It was the next patient’s turn to speak giving him a chance to think about what Ronny Clark had said earlier.

He’d heard about the Top Secret psych warfare project MID-VIEW ULTRA or MV ULTRA.  He remembered it because of a war gaming exercise he was summoned to participate in several years ago.

When Mark was a young Major, he was assigned to Langley Air Force Base as a Headquarters Staff Officer.  Like many pilots in his peer group, the job was nothing special, just a holding pattern for bigger things later on, but before returning to fly his A-10 “Warthog,” hopefully in line to command a squadron.

Reflecting back, his memories of those times were happy.  He was still married and father to two daughters, both with their mother’s eyes.  He didn’t know it then, but at that first meeting in Arlington Virginia where he played a table-top exercise with what seemed like a random group of military officers he was introduced to some notional concepts of modern warfare that would change everything.

Aside from the odd location for hosting the exercise, the participants were instructed to show up wearing business casual civilian attire.  It was Mark’s first introduction to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency or DARPA.  He’d heard of them and always thought of them as a group of mad scientists that operated behind a “green door.”

The biggest surprise of all was running into the only person there whom he knew.

Randy “Snake” Wormwood clapped Mark on the shoulder as soon as he arrived at the exercise facility.  “Long time ‘Daddy Oh’  how’s General Glazer treating you these days?”  he asked Mark while ushering him to one of the work stations set up in a semi circle facing the large screen at the center of the room.

Still in shock, Mark couldn’t come up with a snappy response.  He eyed is old squadron mate Snake and said, “Fine, just fine.”  Then he took his seat.

Before the games started, the participants were “read in” to a “nonexistent” program classified  TOP SECRET Specialized Compartmented Information  or TS-SCI.  TS-SCI compartments all had names.  Even these names given to each program were classified.  It was nothing new to Mark.  For him it just meant another “letter” on the growing list of TS-SCI compartments he had access to.  For example the compartment MID-VIEW ULTRA was the name given to the compartment he’d just been read into.  “M”s were clearances only a few were read into.  The irony was it meant he had more things to remember that he couldn’t say.

The exercise was more of a workshop than an actual war game.  The participants were given scenarios and a list of notional capabilities to evaluate and score for effectiveness in each of the segments.  The scores were collected from each player at the end of every segment then given a rating.  What Mark remembered most was that the available capabilities for each of the segments were all different, with one exception.  A mind altering capability that was designed to disorient the target for several days, popped up in every scenario, even the ones that didn’t seem to have an operational connection.

Laying in his hospital room on the 8th floor at Bethesda, he was able to put some of the pieces together.  Instead of asking the question,”why me?”  Mark realized he’d have to formulate an escape strategy.  He wasn’t exactly sure how he’d been drugged, but was familiar with the operational context for its use and the various methods of delivery.  He also remembered that it was generally used with a “control.”  Possibly explaining Ronny Clark’s symptoms.  Mark was sure he was a target and he couldn’t be sure who was after him.  What he did know is they wanted him alive for some reason.

The next day Mark decided that Ronny Clark was going to become his best buddy on the ward.  It took a couple of days before Ronny would open up and trust Mark.

“Game of Chess?”  Mark asked the young Marine.

“Sir, not today.  Not if your just going to let me win again.”

“You think that is what has been happening here?  No way I’d ‘let’ you win.  You’re talented.   “What are you twenty years old or something?”

“Nineteen Sir,” said Ronny.

Before they had the pieces set on the board, a female orderly came into the ward room and stood at the entryway with one hand on the door jamb.

“Anyone need a smoke break?”  she asked in soft voice unable to get everyone’s attention.

An older Navy Petty Officer, overweight with greying sideburns rose to his feet taking his time as he sauntered over toward the orderly.

“You did say ‘smoke break,’ am I correct?” he asked as he maneuvered toward the orderly.  She didn’t need to answer because the Petty Officer asked loud enough for everyone to hear.

“Sir, can we do this in a little while?  I think I’m going to join this group,” said Ronny almost as if he were embarrassed.

“How about I come along?”  Mark spotted the telltale shape of a cigarette pack in Ronny’s shirt pocket.   Even though he wasn’t a smoker himself, he took advantage of the opportunity to build more trust with the young man who he’d decided was going to help him get away.  “Mind if I bum one from you?  I’ll make it up, I promise.”

“Sure sir, no problem.  I never met a Colonel who smoked?  Didn’t think it was politically correct,” said Ronny.

Before being escorted to the building’s exterior, the small group of four plus the orderly were taken to the “sharps” room where they retrieved items such as boot laces and rank insignia.  These were things that the staff of the psych ward deemed dangerous to those in their charge.  Just leaving the building for long enough to smoke a cigarette was a big production.

At the smoking area outside the parking garage, Mark took a quick survey of the area.  Aside from the cameras hanging at strategic corners of the parking garage, there didn’t appear to be any security or surveillance.

Ronny pulled the pack from his shirt pocket and shook a couple cigs out of the corner.  He took one for himself then passed the pack over to Mark.

“Thanks,” said Mark taking the offering.

Ronny light up with the Bic Lighter he got from his possessions box in the sharps room then handed it to Mark to use.

“I’m leaving tomorrow morning after group and the care team session,” said Ronny.

“I figured.  Couldn’t see any reason for them to keep you.  There isn’t anything wrong with you,” Mark said.

“I still can’t explain the weird delusions though.  They seemed so real at the time.  It was pretty scary.  Anyway I just want to get back to my unit.  I’m probably gonna be transferred though.  Marines don’t like having damaged goods in their mix.  I’d woulda been OK if I got shot up or something, but Marines can’t deal with psych stuff.  It freaks em out.”

Before they finished their smokes, Mark turned to the young Marine. “This afternoon we’ll be offered a chance to pick up a few things at the convenience store.  I’ll replace the cigarettes.”

“That’d be nice sir, but you don’t have to.”

“I want to.  Besides, we’ll be taking another break after dinner,” declared Mark.

“Sir you won’t be allowed to come to the shop if you don’t start filling out your workbook during group.  Those are the rules.  It took me ten days before I figured that one out.  They don’t tell you either.”

Mark clapped Ronny on the shoulder, “Thanks.  That’s good to know.”

Just as the young female orderly was rounding up the smokers to usher them back into the building, Mark noticed a vehicle departing from the lower deck of the adjacent parking garage.

He saw the two close cropped occupants in the front seats.  Both in identical suits and Oakley sunglasses.

“Never trust anyone who drives a black Escalade wearing sunglasses on a gloomy day,” said Mark.

Ronny heard him and turned as the Escalade accelerated out of the parking garage and on to the main road leading away from the Bethesda campus.

“What was that all about?” asked Ronny.

“Nothing.  Just the wheels of Washington D.C. Always around to remind us we’re not really in charge of anything,” replied Mark watching the SUV disappear.

During the afternoon group session Mark filled out the questionnaire in the workbook that was provided by the care team when he arrived.  During the session, the group therapist showed signs of approval when Mark attempted to sound genuine regarding the events leading up to his stay on the ward.

Usually after the group sessions, the care team doctors and analysts adjourn to a conference room across from the pharmacy window, where each of the patients are individually asked to interview with the panel.

When it was his turn to speak to the care team, he said, “Meds must be working.    I’m feeling more like my usual self.”  Mark wasn’t actually taking the medications that were being administered.  He made it a habit to tuck them up under his cheek and visit the men’s room right away.  Surprisingly this procedure didn’t seem to draw any undo attention.

“Do you feel safe here?” asked a young African American psychologist with captain’s bars on the collar of her Army uniform.

“Sure.”

Another doctor asked the question about what Mark thought caused him to hallucinate.

“I don’t know.  Maybe something triggered a short circuit in my brain.  To be honest, I don’t remember anything of the last few days before coming in here.  I was working pretty hard though.  Not much sleep.  I guess sleep deprivation can have effects on the way our brains work,” said Mark playing right into the kinds of things he thought the doctors wanted to hear.

“Colonel, you can be excused.  Please shut the door on your way out,” said an older Navy Commander who was apparently the lead for the care team.

After Mark left the Commander turned to his staff sitting around the large table, “Thoughts comments?” he queried.

“I don’t think he remembers anything,” said the Army Captain.

“I don’t either,”  said an older Marine Major.  “His body language didn’t indicate he was hiding anything.”

“Let’s review the tape,” suggested the Commander.

After three and a half minutes, they all concluded that the secret they were required to monitor was still intact.  None of them were read into MV ULTRA.  They were fed a different story intended to keep tight surveillance on Colonel Mark Reynolds without drawing attention to him or what he might know.

In the evening the residents of Ward 8 sat in the common room with Fox News blaring from the television as they ate bland food from their dinner trays.  Things couldn’t have been more boring until Mark saw the news flash that seemed to confirm a few of the things he’d been able to piece together about why he was being detained.

The clip was brief.  It showed a picture of a stealth unmanned combat air vehicle or UCAV taking off from its base in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  Then the scene turned to images and video clips of Iranian officials claiming that they’d shot the UCAV from the skies over their country claiming it was a violation of their sovereignty and an act of war.

Since the audio was mostly in Farsi, there was no way for Mark to confirm the veracity of the story told by reporters.

“Sir, you believe those claims by the Iranians that they have one of our UAVs,” asked Ronny Clark.

“I don’t think there are enough facts for one to be sure in situations like this.  It smacks of politics if you ask me,” Mark replied.

The two men had made quick work of their hospital dinners.  The national news was nearing the last segment, which is when Mark was suddenly stunned by what he was seeing.

“Obliques,” he said under his breath to nobody in particular.  Mark recognized the textures of images that could only have been grabbed by a U-2 at a standoff distance.

“Sir, did you say something,” Ronny asked.

“Shhh. No just watch.”

The images depicted what looked like a factory complex that had been destroyed.  The story that accompanied the images said sources collected satellite imagery that confirmed that the centrifuges at a nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran had mysteriously imploded.

“Sir I don’t understand, is there something I should know?” Ronny asked.

“Nope, just another news story to appeal to techie types,” said Mark ready to change the subject.  “You’re leaving tomorrow right?”

“Yes sir, right after the care team meeting.  I haven’t been told if I’ll be going back as a Marine or a civilian though.  This whole thing is so messed up,”  he said wagging his head back and forth staring at the empty food tray.

“Ronny, I like you.  I think we can maybe work together to get you heading in the right direction.  See these eagles on my shoulder?” Mark pointed to them not expecting Ronny to answer.  “I may be a crazy mother fucker stuck on a psych ward, but I still know people, people with influence.  Problem is I can’t get to them from here.  If I call out of here all the lines are monitored.  The docs will get on to us and, well your fate as a civilian would be a given.”

“What are you suggesting sir?”

“When you are released tomorrow, we work together.  I’m going to take a little hiatus from this place to make a few calls for you.  During a smoke break of course.  That way nobody will miss me.  Are you game?”

Ronny nodded his head North and South.  “Just tell me what you want me to do sir, and I’ve got your back.”