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Sorrel's Long Journey to Love Ch. 12

As a result of Mildred's excessive exuberance Sorrel had been transported to Hadamar; a maximum security institution for the criminally insane; an institution, from its inception, known as the worst possible place any patient might ever be drawn into or in Sorrel's case, compelled to enter. Even the name, taken from a Nazi place of horror, conjured the most frightening images. This was the kind of place a person entered, but from which they never returned.

Originally intended as a staging area for people in need of unique interrogation techniques; a place where inmates could be processed in special ways, usually for departure to foreign countries where more macabre cross examination procedures could be employed. Since its first creation in the 1970's Hadamar had been refined, improved, and reshaped in fiendishly new ways.

With time its first role had been expanded to include more ambitious activities. Secret officials interested in securing additional funds had progressively extended and refined its purpose. Instead of a half way house restricted to the strange bedfellows covert operatives happened across it had grown into a mentally invasive investigative center. From simple investigation it evolved as a facility equipped to employ techniques that encouraged the most exotic extremes in behavior modification. Then from behavior modification came the penultimate attribute, the permanent alteration, erasure, of selected patient's physiologies through the implementation of the most controversial of surgical procedures.

It was this last category of activities for which Sorrel was intended. For Sorrel Hadamar was not a staging area, not a storage unit, nor some benign halfway house. For Sorrel Hadamar was no simple stopover; it was her terminus, her final destination.

At Hadamar Sorrel was to be permanently, biologically, mentally, psychologically changed. Using techniques developed in the 1920's and 1930's Sorrel was to be transformed from a vibrant vivacious active living breathing beautiful young woman to a near lifeless inert expressionless vegetable. In so doing anything she ever knew or ever could know was to be forever eradicated, expunged.



It took special kinds of people to work at Hadamar. Some served as medical personnel, others as security of clerical operatives.

Of course many people, men and women, have entered the medical professions as a way to improve the lives of their fellow human beings. Yet in truth, there have been some who have used their medical training to sublimate baser, more feral, inclinations. Everyone has read the disquieting stories of those doctors who worked for the Nazis during World War Two. No one who studied history could ever forget the 'Angel of Death', Dr. Mengele; his horrid pseudo-experiments at Auschwitz, or the cold blooded way he dispatched countless thousands of children to their deaths.

People can never know how many caring wonderful doctors, world famous surgeons, respected internists might have become sadistic monsters; savages using primitive home made tools to hack, slice and maim innocent lives. Cruder interests in carving meat, human meat, have certainly been redirected by societal prohibitions; the meanest most vicious inclinations sublimated by the medical profession into positive outlets.

Does anyone ever really know what demons might lay at the root of any person's true behavior? It has long been common knowledge grieving ancient Egyptian families withheld their daughters from the Houses of the Dead until rigor mortis had thoroughly set in. Can anyone say how many morticians are at heart necrophiles; interested more in touching, defiling, and debasing their dead clients than in preparing a loved one for their final rest?

Tradition has long held that law enforcement is one of the noblest professions. Yet do some policemen really only join the force for the chance to handcuff nubile young girl's hands behind their backs so unopposed they might fondle helpless supple breasts.

Do some doctors deliberately turn the air conditioning lower when a pretty girl comes for a visit only so they can watch in perverted glee the girl's self conscious discomfort as she tries to conceal nipples deliciously extruding in the cooler environment?

Has there ever been the caring nurse who deliberately waited until well after the comforting affects of the drugs they are trusted to inject had worn off before introducing a new round of soothing medication. Has anyone ever been in hospital knowing there was one nurse who took secret, furtive, delight in seeing the pain, before condescending to the relief the desperately sought medication would bring?



Of course, to even consider that someone in one of the caring professions might derive pleasure from the pain they've been trained to ameliorate would be vigorously, no vociferously, denied. But doctors, nurses, and all care givers, come from the same gene pool that produces society's worst criminals. Is it conceivable once in a while some sick deviant does find his or her way into the healing professions? The answer to that question is a redounding yes!

Then if that is the case, what if there was a place, an institution, where such people might be allowed to congregate. What if there was such a facility where the sickest, most perverted, most muddled minds might gather to feast on the helpless, the infirm, the trusting, and the vulnerable needy? Would, could such a facility ever exist?

Of course, the answer to that question would be obvious to anyone who has read the foregoing chapters of this story. For that was exactly the kind of facility Hadamar had become; yes, certainly a home for the criminally insane! But the real deviants weren't the patients; the real monsters were the care givers!

A visit to Hadamar, even by the most casual observer, would have revealed an institution so fundamentally different in the way it conducted its daily operations, so despicable in its standard patient care, so diseased in the way medical treatment was administered, that it would induce such profound revulsion as to be nauseatingly sickening to even the stoutest of hearts.

Tragically, on the fifth floor of this modern Tartarus, this Twenty-first Century Gahanna, a pretty protagonist lay in despondent half sleep feebly twisting and turning in deliberately over tightened straps and maliciously fitted undersized garments. Had she committed some terrible misdeed, performed some awful crime? No, poor Sorrel's only crimes had been her innocent determination to do her very best, to avoid senseless office complications, to seek the means by which she might reclaim her children, and to work assiduously, determinedly, toward the completion of a project that would have been beneficial to millions.

Sorrel's crimes weren't of her own choosing. Her crimes were rooted in her natural beauty, her selfless grace, her feminine purity, her womanly charm, and her fundamental goodness. The normally beneficent things that brought good people good will had become sources of jealousy and envy for some few of those around her. Her crimes had been her lack of sophistication, her failure to cultivate the influential and the powerful , and these things, in her trusting innocence, contributed to a vulnerability, a belief in the goodness of others, that enabled those same others to exploit, to torment, even perhaps destroy her.

Would this innocent young woman, so pure of spirit, kind of heart, of such gentle nature, be stripped of her identity, her life, her personhood? Was there anyone, anywhere, ready to stand against the malignant forces that had placed her in such jeopardy? If there was such a person, where was he?



Fletcher awakened early. He knew the private detectives would be several hours away, so he used the time to get a good view of the place Sorrel where was confined. The first time around he knew this was no place for someone like Sorrel. The sign 'Hospital for the Criminally Insane' was proof of that.

The front looked like a steel trap; a veritable Fort Knox. He couldn't imagine anyone placing a mental facility above a cemetery. It was as though he were glimpsing a mortuary sitting atop a gruesome field of cadavers.

Thankfully, the rearward areas weren't nearly so forbidding, even if everywhere he looked he saw evidence of high chain linked fencing and electronic surveillance equipment. The fencing didn't worry him; a good set of snips would manage that. He might be in his thirties, and he might not have kept up with his more youthful exercise regimen but he was still a pretty strong fellow, still reasonably agile. Breaking through the fencing could be handled.

What did bother him was the surveillance equipment, and the off hand chance that portions, if not all the fencing was in some way electrified. He realized this was a high security, government operated, interrogation operation; a fortress not easily breached, anything was possible. But his sweetheart, his 'Helen', was inside. It behooved him to batter down its walls.

Fletcher was proud of his country, but he understood what most Americans hadn't; that most of his country's technology had been devoted more for destructive than productive goals. Had this been a college or university corners would have been cut at every turn, but never at a place like this.

He circled the place three times trying to find the most likely place to break in. It looked tight as a drum, but still he imagined he saw at least two places where he, if he had some help, might be able to at least penetrate the outer perimeter.

Actually, where to get in the building once inside the fence was still a mystery; a conundrum he'd have to resolve later. He hoped perhaps Florence, or maybe Warren, would come up with some kind of floor plan; some way to get inside. Once inside he'd figure something out. He'd manage some way to locate her, his Sorrel.

He had to control his emotions. From time to time his imagination got away from him. He imagined what they might be doing to her, and it scared the hell out of him. Were they cutting up her brain? What if they were trying all kinds of sick experiments on her? What would she be like when they finished with her? What would her mind be like? If he didn't get to her in time what would he tell his children, all his children?? It scared him. He had to get in there. Still, even if he was too late, and even if she was some kind of lost soul, he'd care for her, he'd love her no matter what. It frightened him, but he had to put it out of his mind. If he didn't he'd end up so paralyzed with fear he'd be unable to get anything done.



A little after 10:00 that morning several detectives did finally show up. Their overall appearance wasn't very comforting. He thought they acted like this was the last place they wanted to be.

Fletcher asked the lead detective if any of them had ever heard of the place.

The leader, an older, somewhat overweight man, responded that none of them had ever heard of the institution, and none of them even knew anything like it even existed.

At Fletcher's request their boss called his home office to get as much information about the place as they could; it took several minutes before they got a return call. What they found out was most disheartening.



Earlier that very morning, perhaps an hour before Fletcher had risen three nurses entered Sorrel's room and had awakened her. This was the third room she'd occupied in as many days, or at least that was what she thought. For Sorrel the days and nights had somehow seemed to bleed together. Had she been there one, two, three nights? She just didn't know.

In this room they'd confined her to a small bed with soft but tight Velcro straps. Both wrists and both ankles were held snugly, most uncomfortably, and tightly to the sides of the bed. She hadn't slept well spread eagled as she was, or at least she didn't believe she'd slept well. She had no idea what sedatives she'd been given.

She was still wearing the same kind of simple hospital gown she thought was tied in the back. She knew it was uncomfortable in as much as it had managed to wrap itself around her torso in the most discomfiting ways during the night.

Three women entered her room. She assumed they were nurses; at least that was how they were dressed. No one spoke to her. The woman who must have been in charge instructed the other two to unstrap her and assist her to a bedpan they proffered her. Sorrel was glad for the chance to get a little relief.

She asked, "Might I have something to drink?"

No one responded to her question so she asked again.

"See here, I'm thirsty, might I have at least a glass of water?"

To her surprise the head nurse, if nurse she was, reached down, pressed her hand on her breast, and pinched her nipple, "No talking."

Sorrel jumped slightly and after an involuntary ouch replied, "You didn't have to do that."

She watched as the three women glanced back and forth at each other. Sorrel knew she'd better be quiet. These weren't real nurses. She didn't know what or who they were, but she knew they weren't nurses, not like the ones she'd known anyway.

They got her up and walked her to the rear of the room to a door she hadn't noticed before. While one opened the door the other two pushed and handed her into a shower room. One turned on the shower, while the other opened a tube of what she assumed was some kind of cleanser.

For next ten minutes or so the nurses scrubbed her from head to foot. They didn't miss a single spot. She thought they dwelt overlong on her private parts, but that wasn't the worst of it. The soap they used seemed more like toothpaste than cleanser; all very abrasive and uncomfortable. It felt like they were trying to scrub her surface skin away.

Once finished her shower they half walked half pushed her back in the room. She was thoroughly dried and placed in another of those hospital outfits. Once tied off in the back they helped her slip into some soft slippers, combed out her hair, and unceremoniously lifted and laid her on a gurney she hadn't seen brought in.

They strapped her down. As they tied her, the woman who was the head of the group spoke to her for the first time.

She looked smugly down at Sorrel and said, "Today's your big day."

Sorrel grabbed at the remark, "Why? What happens today?"

The other two nurses were smiling. The head nurse added, "Do you know who you are?"

Sorrel answered, "Yes, of course."

"You know your name?"

Sorrel replied, "Of course I do."

You know where you're from, who you work for, who your friends are?"

Sorrel was getting scared, "Why are you asking me this?" She asked, but in her heart she already knew.

The head nurse answered, "After today you'll be lucky if you'll be able to count to ten without getting it wrong."

Sorrel heard what she said. She'd been afraid of this. She struggled with the straps that held her hands and feet, "Let me go!"

To her surprise the head nurse slapped her, hard on the cheek. "Shut up!"

Sorrel wasn't deterred, "No! You've got to stop. This is a mistake. I'm not who you think. I'm not supposed to be here!"

The nurses slowly and deliberately wheeled her down the corridor. Every now and then an orderly or she believed they were orderlies, passed them in the hall.

Sorrel grew more frantic with every step. She kept calling out, "You've got to stop! I'm not supposed to be here! You're making a mistake! I'm not what you think!" Between her calls, her appeals, and her entreaties she cried.

The nurses who pushed her cart seemed to be enjoying every moment, every cry, every pathetic plea. At some point they reached another door. The head nurse opened it, and they wheeled her in.

As Sorrel crossed the threshold from hallway to room she read the sign; 'Experimental Lab A'. She started to scream!



Outside, somewhere on the edge of the wooded area and outside the fence Fletcher waited impatiently while the head detective first talked and then listened to someone on his cell phone.

The man flipped his phone closed, "Mr. Hanson."

"Yes, answered Fletcher.

"I've been instructed to leave."

"Leave?" asked Fletcher incredulously.

"Yes, it seems this institution really doesn't exist."

Fletcher looked at the man like he was crazy, "What do you doesn't exist? You can see it right in front of you."

The man looked at the fencing, then he looked at Fletcher, "No, I don't see anything."

Fletcher took the man by the shoulder and tried to walk him away from the other men, "Tell me what you were told."

The detective declined to move. He refused to look at Fletcher. He turned to his colleagues, "All of you get in the car."

Fletcher tried to hold him, "You can't do this."

The man backed away; as he started for his car he spoke, "You're in way over your head. I suggest that you forget you ever saw this place. Forget about anyone you ever knew who went in there. This place doesn't exist, and anyone you think you know who might have ever gone in there no longer exists."

Fletcher was disbelieving, "You can't mean that."

The detective, a leader in one of the nation's top private firms only shook his head, "Get out of here. Get out while you still can." He climbed in his car, backed it up, turned it around and drove off.



Sorrel screamed all the way into the lab room. She yelled. She hollered. She cursed. She cried. She made as much noise as she possibly could. She was determined they weren't going to cut her up, Not her! She'd fight. She'd fight them! She'd fight with every ounce of strength. She was fighting for her life!



In a nearby room one of the orderlies attached to her case asked, "What is that baleful noise?"

Another answered, "Oh you get used to it. Once they find out, they usually do a lot of yelling and screaming."

The first asked, "Yeah, but why do we have to put up with it?"

The second responded, "Look wouldn't you yell and scream if you found out they were going to cut away your personality, and leave you a lifeless hulk, a freak?"

The first answered, "Well, yeah, I guess so, but it's giving me a headache."

The second suggested, "Well come on, the doctor isn't due for a while yet. You want to go in and look her over? I hear she's not bad."

"OK," said the second.

The two orderlies walked in the room. Sorrel's gurney had been parked against the far wall. She lay there screaming and yelling. The two young men walked over.

"Wow," said the first, "She's beautiful!"

The second looked at his new friend, "You want her?"

"What do you mean?" asked the first.

"After they're done with her, we'll roll her back to a storage cell. They'll leave her there for a few days. We get to do anything we want."

The first asked, "Won't she be sort of like dead?"

The second replied, "She won't know who she was. She won't be able to say much, at least not much that makes sense, but her body will be working fine. In fact, I think they're better after the surgery than before. You know no inhibitions, hardly."

The first was starting to think about what it would be like to have this woman, "What about now?"

The second orderly answered, "No, she's the doctor's for now."

The first asked, "What, he does her first?"

The second replied, "Not this doctor. He's really fucked up. He does things, but not sexual stuff. He just does stuff. Stuff I wouldn't do."

The first asked, "Really? Like what?"

The second looked at his young friend, "Not now, not before lunch, I'll tell you later. In fact, if it's like the last time we'll get to watch, not really watch I mean, but we'll see it from a little further off. This doctor, he's one sick man."



The two orderlies looked down on the young woman as she lay there bound, screaming, and writhing.
The second orderly spoke to her in a soft soothing voice, "You're a pretty one your are."

Sorrel flinched back in terror, "You've got to help me. I don't belong here."

The orderly gave her a lecherous smile. He gently touched her cheek, "Of course you don't.

He leaned closer, so close she could smell his putrid breath, "You and I are going to become close friends, very close friends." He took the fingers of his right hand and slowly, salaciously rubbed them up and down the sides of her face. He stopped just short of her chin, "You're going to love what I'm going to do with you."

Sorrel tried to squirm back. She yelled, "You pig! Let me go!" She had never seen two more hideous looking excuses for men. The man who was defiling her with his fat little fingers looked to weigh a cool three hundred pounds; all of it fat, no worse, blubber! A whale! He reminded her of something she'd seen in a National Geographic; a giant beached whale.

The second, the quiet one looked even worse. She thought he must be giving all his food to the fat one. He looked like a scare crow; an ugly, emaciated skeleton. She looked at his sunken eyes, his hollow chest, and his rounded shoulders. His pallid dead flesh. These weren't men, they were grotesque monsters. She was being ogled and fondled by Mary Shelley's Igor!

The second orderly giggled. It was a mirthless little laugh, an animal's laugh, the chortle of a jackal, or a sickly hyena, "We'll be back sweet one. We're going to have fun, you and I."

Sorrel screamed again. Then she burst into uncontrollable sobbing. This couldn't be happening. What of her children, her real life. They couldn't really mean to do this!



Warren had taken the 'red eye' into Dulles International Airport just outside Washington D.C. He caught an airport taxi that took him straight home. If he was going to get anything done, get Fletcher off his back, save that stupid girl, he had to do it from a closed phone line, a direct line to the person he needed. He encouraged the driver to go as fast as he could. There was precious little time.

They finally pulled into the driveway. Warren jumped from the car; he threw a wad of money at the driver on the way, and ran inside. He found the butler slumped over a chair, crying and whining about Fletcher. Warren ignored the simpering bastard. He dashed into his back office, found the phone, and punched in the vital and oh so secret six digit number. It was a week day, a work day; he knew the man he needed would be there.

On the other end of the line a man answered, "Hello."

Warren didn't waste time, "Professor Kellerman?"

"This is he."

"This is Warren Hanson. A mistake had been made, a terrible mistake."

Warren could almost hear the yawn on the other end of the line, "Do tell."

Warren talked as fast as he could, "The other day a woman was taken to Hadamar. He corrected himself, to facility #9912. Her name is Sorrel Sullivan. She mustn't be touched."

The bored professor on the end asked, "Really? Why?"

Warren had to lie, and lie a good one, "She's knows too much to have her destroyed. She and she alone has knowledge of the secret code that enables and disables the malware virus we've unleashed on a certain country in the Middle East. If she is destroyed we'll never regain control of the virus. You've got to prevent her surgery!"

The professor had been listening. He knew and understood what Hanson was talking about. He checked his watch. It was 11:25, "It's awful late. I don't know that it's not already too late."

Warren interrupted, "This is a matter of highest national security. You must stop this surgery!"

The professor replied, "Well OK. I'll call over there, but I don't know. Once they start something it's hard to turn them back."

Warren answered, "I'll hang up. Call me back as soon as you know something."

Warren hung up the phone.



On the other end of the line the professor rechecked his watch. It was already close to 11:30. He wanted to break for lunch. He figured it was probably too late, but if only to cover his own ass he'd make the call. He picked up the receiver of his direct line to facility #9912. He punched in the numbers, "Hello. Hello."

Someone answered.

Kellerman said, "Get me Experimental Lab A."



Fletcher looked at the high metal fence. What did he have to lose? He drove off to the nearby small town. He'd buy the tools he needed. He'd cut through the first fence, scale the second and fight his through. He had to try. If he made it, if he got to the building and got inside, he'd have a fighting chance. He jumped in his car and sped off.





Back inside, in the lab room, 'Experimental Lab Room A', the doctor designated to perform the surgery had finally arrived. He was a smallish man, dour in appearance; taciturn by nature. Someone a person on the outside might see and pay no notice of, but inside the walls of Hadamar he was a God. He casually walked over to the gurney where his patient lay.

He looked her over. She was pretty, he'd like doing this one, "Better get her on the table, strap her down, arms, legs, chest, thighs, and," as he looked down at her beautiful face, "of course her head."

The two nurses scurried to do his bidding. Surgery was scheduled for 11:30, just before lunch. They'd ordered a large pizza from the cafeteria. It was to be fully loaded, extra cheese, sausage, peperoni, mushrooms, onions, the works; one of those types of pizzas best eaten really hot. If surgery ran over the doctor would undoubtedly want to scold and ridicule them for their inefficiency. That would only make lunch that mush less appetizing.

Sorrel squirmed and fought, but they got their patient turned and rolled into position. In seconds she was thoroughly affixed to the operating table.

The doctor came over again and looked at his patient, "The prep," he scowled, "Don't forget the pep!"

Sorrel shouted at him, "You can't do this!"

He paid her no mind.

Sorrel tried to lower her tone of voice. Maybe if she reasoned with him, "Listen this is all a mistake. I'm not supposed to be here."

The doctor was checking his medical supplies and still paid her no mind.

Sorrel kept trying, "You can't do this. Please! Oh God! I have children! I have a life!"

The primary nurse took out her surgical razor and a tiny set of scissors. She went to work. Her job was to first shave away Sorrel's eyebrows, and then scissor her eyelashes off. This was all done with speed and efficiency. She'd done may time before.

Sorrel felt them cut away her eyebrows and lashes. It was a terrible feeling to know they were already slicing away a piece of her personality, but she refused to let this get to her. She kept crying and pleading, "No please stop."

The doctor strode back over and pulled up a rolling chair, "I guess it's only appropriate I explain what we're here for."

Sorrel spoke, "Please, you got to listen to me. You've got to understand. This is all a big mistake. Yes, I was supposed to be taken here once, but they saw the mistake. I'm not supposed to be here. Not now. Someone made a mistake. If you'll just call..."

The doctor smiled, "They all have the same story."

Sorrel looked at him in absolute terror, "No. Not me."

He continued, "Everybody has a story. Everybody has a reason. It's no use. Don't try to explain. You're here. I'm here. That's all that matters."

Sorrel tried again, "No please, you've got to listen..."

The doctor turned to one of the nurses, "What do you say we gag her for now?"

The nurse walked over and produced a small cloth object. It was like a small sling shot. She gently pushed it over Sorrel's mouth. She covered the smooth mouth piece over her lips, took the two thin strips of cloth on each side of the coverlet, and tied them off behind her head. She fastened the strips extra tight. Sorrel's mouth was snugly gagged.

The whole time Sorrel tried to keep her from covering her mouth. She swung her head back and forth; she held her mouth open as far as it would go. It mattered little. The nurse was adept at this sort of thing. She'd done it many times before. The gag was on and fixed.

The doctor sat bedside Sorrel. He looked at the clock on the wall. The time read 11:25. These were his favorite times; so what if he ran a little late. He brushed back her hair. Leaning forward he said, "Let me explain what I'm going to do."

Sorrel looked at him in absolute utter horror. She knew what he was going to do!

He started his little spiel. He loved the telling of it; it was like his special little tale, "There are many different ways to perform a lobotomy. In the old days they'd drill small holes in the patient's forehead. Then through the holes they'd push in a thin wire like scalpel, something like a tiny button hook I guess. They push it in, and pull it out. As it came out, so out came some of the brain. The more times one inserted and extracted the tool, the more brain was removed."

Sorrel was borderline hysterical, but with her head held and the gagged tightly there wasn't anything she could do. The doctor kept smoothing her hair, rubbing his hands over her forehead and her cheeks; it was like he was caressing her. Then she realized that was exactly what he was doing. He was becoming sexually aroused!

He went on, "I don't ascribe to those old primitive techniques." He leaned forward and lightly kissed her forehead. "Why should we mark up such a beautiful face? I'm going to preform what we call a trans orbital lobotomy." He smiled.

"Here let me show you." He reached down and picked up a small object. It looked exactly like an ice pick. "First one of the nurses will take a small tool and pull your eyelid away. After all we don't want to scratch those beautiful eyes do we? Then I'll take this little tool, it's called an orbitoclast. I'll push it up against the thin bone that rests just above your eyelid. Then with this small mallet." He produced a tiny hammer. "I'll tap ever so gently, and the orbitoclast will penetrate your frontal lobe. I'll push it, swirl it around a few times, and then pull it out. I'll do this five or six times over each lovely eye. When I'm finished, why you'll be a brand new person. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

The doctor hadn't even begun surgery and already he was close to sexual orgasm. He looked at Sorrel again, "Ready dear?"

Sorrel, eyes wide, tried to scream through the gag. It was a futile effort.

The doctor looked at the nurse, "Would you please prep her left eye?"

The doctor slid back a few inches in his wheeled chair. The nurse stepped forward to raise Sorrel's eyelid and hold it in place with a small metal clamp.

Sorrel looked desperately at the nurse, then back at the doctor. She couldn't speak. She couldn't move. She wanted to tell them at least one more time they were wrong, so very wrong. She wanted to tell them about her little boy and her little girl. After so many years they were hers again. She wanted to scream out about Fletcher, the love she'd found, his three children, now hers too. She wanted to enunciate to these people her hopes, her dreams, her plans for the future. They couldn't do this! Please God! Please God make them stop!

The clamp over the left eyelid was in place. The doctor rolled his stool over close to the patient. He looked over his choices of orobitoclasts. He had three sizes to choose from. He hesitated only a moment. He'd start with the smallest, that way he'd do a better job, and it would take a little longer.

The two nurses looked at the clock. It was past 11:30. Their lunch was on its way.

Sorrel was screaming into her gag, a silent, helpless, pathetic scream, "What kind of terrible place is this?"

The two orderlies watched as closely as they could. For one this was his seventh such procedure. He liked to watch the doctor get off on the surgery. For the newer orderly this was all scary, but exciting too. He was about to watch a human being become a vegetable. He chuckled inwardly. She was about to become a what, an artichoke?

The doctor, breathing heavily, perspiring profusely, pants tight with an erection leaned forward for his first incision. He gave Sorrel a generous smile, "Here we go."





Fletcher had made it back to the wooded area where he thought he'd found the most likely place to break through. Leaving the car close to the side of the road he crept over to the fence. Using the wire cutters he opened a small hole and crawled through. Next step was the still higher fence that lay a few hundred feet ahead. He crouched down and made his way for the second obstacle.



Sitting at one of the control booths inside Hadamar a security agent had been watching as some foolish man tried to break into the facility. He watched as the man cut through the outer wire fence. The security agent smiled. Sometimes people are even stupider than they look. He picked up the receiver of the phone at his desk, "Hello Mark."

On the other end a man named Mark responded, "Yeah, this is he."

The security agent commented, "We've got a security breach along line eight. Looks like one man."

Mark answered, "OK, I'll drive over. Have an agent on the outside find where he penetrated the outer fencing. Between the two of us, we'll pick him up."

The security agent laughed to himself, "Soon we'll have another specimen for the good doctors to look over."





Florence was feeling terrible, but she knew she needed to contact Fletcher before he did anything too incredibly stupid. She picked up her cell phone and dialed, "Hello Fletcher is that you?"

Fletcher answered, "It's me."

She asked, "Where are you?"

He whispered, "I cut through the outer wire of this hellhole, and expect to be on the inside in a few minutes."

Florence yelled into the receiver, "Get out of there! Get out of there now!

He asked, "Why I'm almost in."

She answered, "Because we're getting Sorrel out as we speak, if you go any further we'll being trying to find a way to rescue you, and I don' think that can happen."

Fletcher answered, "You're getting Sorrel out?"

Florence clarified her first remark, "Not exactly out, but out of immediate danger. But if they catch you; they'll ruin the both of you. Please Fletcher. Get out of there."



Fletcher looked up and saw a 4wheeler headed his way. He jumped up and ran for the fence. He ran as fast as he could. 'Shit!' he thought, 'He didn't want to be the one in trouble now!' He made it to the fence. Dove through the hole he'd just cut, and raced for Sorrel's car. Already he heard another car speeding down the road. He inserted the key, turned on the ignition, the car leaped forward, and none too soon, for just around the corner another 4wheeler sped into view. Fletcher put the pedal to the metal, and sped off down the road, out of trouble, out of danger, and without a second to spare.





Back in 'Experimental Lab A' two nurses and two orderlies looked on with a combination of keen interest and undisguised boredom. Some had never seen this performance before; some had seen it too many times.

The doctor was leaning in with his first surgical tool. His face was covered in perspiration, "Nurse, I need a wipe."

One of the nurses immediately stepped forward and wiped his sweaty brow. She could see his arousal. She thought it was funny.

The doctor breathed deeply. They had sedated their patient, but she was still very much awake. The medication they used calmed her, and removed nearly all sensations of pain, but she'd feel the instrument as it penetrated her skull. It was a form of sedation of his own invention. He loved the thought that the patient would not only be awake, but would see, feel, and even hear as their brain, their personality, their life was slowly sliced away, sliver by tiny sliver. He placed his left arm over her head to help steady his hand. He held the tiny ice pick up against her eyelid. He grinned, "This won't hurt a bit."

In the distance a telephone rang. It momentarily broke his concentration. Turning to an orderly, "Go shut that thing off." He looked at the clock. It was 11:40.



The orderly left the room and picked up the phone. It was Professor Kellerman, "Have you performed surgery on that woman, Susan Sullivan, yet?"

The orderly answered, "Why no. He's just about to open her up."

Professor Kellerman yelled into the phone, "Tell him to stop at once!"

The orderly asked, "What stop the surgery?" As he asked the question the orderly could see the doctor's scalpel was already under the woman's eyelid.

Kellerman, "Yes, now immediately. Tell the doctor he's to come to the phone right away. But stop the surgery."

The orderly rushed back in the surgical lab; he approached the doctor, "Doctor."

The doctor, surgical tool under the eyelid, ready to spike it with the mallet, looked up, "What!"

"It's Professor Kellerman. He's says to stop the surgery. He wants to talk to you on the phone."

The doctor stared at the orderly in disbelief, "What?"

"I said Professor Kellerman said not to operate, but to come to the phone."

The doctor was breathing heavily, gasping for air. He dare not get up; his pants were too tight from the erection he was carrying, "Ask the son of a bitch, why I shouldn't operate on this subject."

The orderly scampered back in the anteroom, "Professor Kellerman. The doctor wants you to give him a reason why he shouldn't operate."

Kellerman answered, "Ask him if he wants to live. No wait, better. Ask him unless he wants the next lobotomy to be performed on him he better stop."

The orderly dropped the phone and ran back into the waiting doctor, "Professor Kellerman said if you operate on her the next lobotomy will be yours."

The doctor visibly paled. He leaned forward into Sorrel's ear. He was so close she could smell his foul mouthed garlic breath. In a slathering tone of voice he whispered, "It seems your surgery will have to wait till after lunch. He was close enough to kiss her. In fact he placed his wet slobbery lips on her cheek, "How about a bowl of spaghetti?"

Sorrel was near shock. She saw and heard everything. For the moment she was spared, but for how long?

The doctor stood up and walked into the anteroom. Picking up the receiver he asked, "What's this about?"

Kellerman answered, "The woman on the table is a priority person. She has information we need. Don't destroy her, at least not till we get what we need."

The doctor sat back. He knew what this meant. She still might be his. She still belonged to him, but he had to wait. Someone else handled interrogations. He was stuck till they were finished. But they'd finish. Then he'd get her back. After that! Well then, well then, yeah.

The doctor spoke to the nurses, "It seems there's been a minor change in plans. Our subject needs to be interrogated first."

One of the nurses asked, "What do you want us to do?"

The doctor was curt. He always enjoyed these medical sessions, and he was disappointed, "Take her back to a regular holding room. No restraints. Let her move about."

The nurses answered in unison, "Yes sir." They went to where Sorrel was strapped down, unfastened the Velcro, and helped her to a waiting wheelchair where they re-strapped her in. If they hurried their pizza would still be good and hot.

Pushing her out of the room, down the hall, and to her next holding area one said, "Well, sweetie you got a temporary reprieve for now, but don't count on too much. You apparently have something the doctors wants to find out. It won't be easy for you, and when it's all over you'll be back on the slab again."

Sorrel was half delirious, first from fright, then from the unexpected relief. She had no idea where she was headed or what they had planned. She only knew they hadn't destroyed her mind.

As they rolled her down the hall all Sorrel definitely knew was what she heard; someone was in the lab they'd just left throwing chairs. The doctor was furious! He was having a tantrum.
Kellerman returned Warren's call and the two of them had a lengthy conversation. It was made clear the doctor was to do nothing until further direction was forthcoming. The subject had important information, and she was to be left alone until further instructions came down. She wasn't to be questioned by anyone at Hadamar. She would more than likely be moved; moved out of the country.



The immediate crisis had passed. Sorrel was in no imminent danger. Still a rescue had to be planned.



Back on the outside, much later that evening Warren, Fletcher, and Florence gathered at Florence's apartment. Excepting for Mildred's and Warren's botched suicide plan; it seemed the least troublesome place.

Fletcher was a nervous wreck. He'd driven back from Hadamar in a fuzzy netherworld of imagined threats to Sorrel and fantasy plans for her rescue. He definitely knew when this was all over he would kill his brother.

Warren had little interest in Sorrel except in getting her out so his brother wouldn't retaliate. His most abiding fear, now that he'd been largely exposed as a thief and a lying charlatan, was in whether anyone would want to extract some kind of vengeance or worse, charge him and put him in prison.

Florence was the most stable of the three. She had already worked out what she thought was a feasible way to rescue Sorrel. But it was a plan that would require time, and she wasn't sure Fletcher or his children could wait. She was also worried Warren, or more likely Mildred, might have something else in mind.

Together the three sat down at Florence's kitchen table to examine what she had in mind. Florence began the discussion, "I'm of the opinion Sorrel is out of immediate peril, and that should work in our favor."

Fletcher didn't buy it, "We need to get her out, and get her out right away."

Warren, now the brotherly sycophant, agreed, "Yes you're right Fletcher. The sooner we get her out the better."

Florence disagreed, "No you're both wrong. If Warren's right about Kellerman's orders," She gave Warren a derisive stare, "and you better be. Then in a few days they'll largely forget about her. Hadamar is a large place. A lot goes on there. Sorrel could be easily overlooked. Our only concern might be her sanity. Will she be able to hold out?"

Fletcher pushed back from the table, "Oh Jesus! You think she might crack?"

Warren nodded, "Yes, we have to worry about Sorrel's sanity."

Florence patted Fletcher's clenched fist, "We'll get a message in to her. Someone will tell her she's not forgotten. She'll know she's not alone. She's tough. Look what we've already put her through. Let's give her some credit."

Fletcher involuntarily pulled his hand back, "How are going to get a message through that wall of secrecy?"

Florence reached across and pulled his hand back, "Trust me. I think I can do it."

Warren nodded like a fool, "Yes, let's let Florence take charge. She's good at this."

Fletcher ignored his brother. He looked at Florence. This time he didn't withdraw his hand, "I think this was a close call for Sorrel. I don't know how much she can take? Are you sure?"

Florence wasn't sure of anything. She'd been duped by Warren, manipulated by Fletcher, made a fool all her life by both Mildred and Warren. She didn't owe anybody at this table anything. But she felt she did owe something to Sorrel. She lied, "I'm sure. But I want you to make up a reasonable story; something that will make sense to tell the children. Something they'll believe. Something we can all concur on."

Florence went on, "Use Mary. I know she had a bad experience, but she's a trooper. Between you, her, and your friend Byron you can keep the kids mollified."

She looked at Warren, "You stay out of the way. Only do what I tell you. You have our immediate contact inside the institution. I'll be in need of you from time to time. Don't screw this up. If you do I'll fix you and your wife good." She smirked, "You get it?"

Warren nodded, "Yes, I'm on your side."

Fletcher wanted to punch his smarmy brother in the nose, but held it in.

Florence looked at the two men, "Now get out of here. I have things to do." At the last minute she grabbed Fletcher's arm, "You've got to trust me on this."

Fletcher gave her a long heartfelt look. He wanted to trust her. He needed to now. She was about to become his link with sanity.

Florence wouldn't let go of his arm, "Say it. Say you trust me."

Fletcher saw the strength in the woman. He saw her resolve, "I trust you Florence. All I've got. My life, my children, and the life of the woman I love. They're all in your hands."

Florence turned to Warren, "I'll be calling you in the morning."

Warren insipidly answered, "Yes Florence."

An epilogue as prologue:

The immediate danger may have passed, but Sorrel's future may be in even greater peril. The Hadamar personnel have decided she needs to be relocated to some foreign country; a country where any rules regarding interrogation simply do not exist.

And then there are the children, the poor children.


Your comments and suggestions are most welcome.
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