Rise Of The Dreamer (5 page)

As soon as Joshua finished saying those words, Dennis started looking for a place to hide, but it was too late. He heard his door being broken down and he could tell by the sound of the footsteps that at least ten different people had stormed his apartment and within moments they had reached his bedroom where he was talking to Joshua on his cell phone.

“FBI!
FBI! FBI!” shouted the intruders as they invaded the apartment. The men nearer to him were fully clothed in FBI SWAT gear while the other FBI agents in the background were in plain clothes with bullet proof vests and FBI jackets. “Put down the phone, put down the phone!!” They shouted at Dennis.

Dennis was terrified. Instinctively, he removed the cell phone from his right ear and dropped it to the floor. With his hands raised up he knelt down as two SWAT agents brought him to the ground brutishly and cuffed him. The pressure from the two agents on top of him was so much that he felt all breath going out of him, he felt like he should reach for his inhaler but his hands were already cuffed behind his back.

“I can’t breathe,” he pleaded in a struggling whisper, but in all the commotion, no one could pick out what he was saying. His head felt light and he passed out briefly. He was out for about twenty seconds, but for that brief moment he saw himself being led out of his apartment with an oxygen mask over his nose. It was like an out of body experience, only that he wasn’t lying down lifeless. Just outside the entrance of the building there were about a dozen FBI and law enforcement vehicles parked outside his apartment building. He watched from afar as he was being led to an FBI vehicle.

 Joshua appeared by him without uttering a word, tapped his shoulder and pointed to about three different men at different vantage points in the cordoned off crowd in front of his apartment building. Dennis saw the men bring out sub-machine guns aimed at Dennis and they started firing. He shouted “
Noooo
”, no one could hear him and he saw himself get riddled with bullets along with the two FBI agents closest to him. All three of them crashed to the ground in a hail of bullets. It was mayhem. Instantly Dennis woke up from his slumber and realised it was just a very brief dream that would most likely happen. He noticed that the paramedics had given him an oxygen mask, probably because he was asthmatic. The two FBI agents brought him to his feet and began leading him out of his apartment.

Dennis’s heart was racing and he didn’t know what to do. He could hear the pounding of his heart from his chest, he was just simply terrified. “Please, don’t take me out there, it’s dangerous,” he said to the agents on his right and left.

They simply ignored him.

“Listen to me! Somebody is trying to have me killed,” he said while beginning to struggle with the men.

His raised voice caught their attention momentarily, but it wasn’t enough. The two agents used greater force to lead Dennis, as they noticed a bit of resistance on his part.

 As they arrived just outside the entrance of the apartment building, Dennis decided to give it everything he had.
Today is not the day I die,
he thought to himself. He placed his right foot back in between the legs of the agent on his right and shoved him as much as he could with every fibre in his being wrestling the agent to the ground. As he and the agent were falling to the ground, he felt the hands of the second agent on his collar trying to pull him back to no avail, and at that same moment he heard the rapid sound of sub-machine guns spitting bullets at his direction and at other law enforcement agents. Within seconds a vicious gun battle had started between FBI agents and the police on one side and the three gun assailants who had superior fire power on the other side.

The battle was fierce and it lasted for several minutes. Though the gun men had sub-machine guns, they were still outnumbered especially by the FBI, especially the SWAT FBI who held their ground. One of the gunmen had been hit and was seriously wounded while the two others fled. Within the brief period of gun fire exchange, five law enforcement officers had been killed, the FBI agent on Dennis’s left hand side was seriously wounded while Dennis himself was unhurt. He lay sprawling on the ground next to the other agent on his right side who had gunshot wounds to the abdomen and lay unconscious.

Within moments several more ambulances and police officers arrived at the scene to attend to the wounded and carry away the dead. That morning officers took down statements from witnesses while Crime Scene Investigators gathered evidence from the crime scene for processing. Dennis was eventually taken away to the FBI field office.

            Dennis was left in a holding room for several hours without anyone attending to him save the agents that brought him food and refreshments. None of them answered his questions, none of them asked him anything and nobody explained to him why he was being remanded in FBI custody. He could only stare at the door waiting for the door to open at any time.

            He was confused and very worried. He couldn’t understand what the FBI wanted from him, but he was inwardly grateful they came when they did, or those gunmen would have found it very easy to come into his apartment and finish him off. The long wait was beginning to drive him crazy, it was obvious that they were using this as a tactic to break down any resistance he may have. Dennis had already paced around the holding room several times and he had become so uncomfortable that he felt like screaming. He felt like he was being observed, but he didn’t notice any visible cameras, he assumed it was probably hidden or it was probably his imagination driving him crazy. It annoyed him to the high heavens that someone could be watching him and he couldn’t see who it was. He believed they were observing him and studying his body movements, but that didn’t bother him, because he felt he had nothing to hide. If this was torture, it was working. His wristwatch had been taken from him and he had nothing to indicate what time of the day it was. He mentally guessed that the time was between 4 and 6
  pm
but he wasn’t sure. He was more concerned with what was happening and he had no idea why he was being held. He was sitting at his table looking very tense with his hands on the table nervously linked together when someone finally came in to see him. He recognised the
agent,
he was one of the agents that raided his apartment earlier that day. He was wearing a dark brown suit with well-polished shoes and in his hands was a flat file.

            Immediately, Dennis stood up angrily “I demand to know why I’m being held here against my will.”

            “Sit down” ordered the agent.

            Dennis made an attempt to protest again. “I said I demand to
kno
-.”

            The agent cut him short. “I heard you, now sit down!”

            Dennis shuddered, sat down and kept quiet. He was naturally not a violent person.

            The agent sat down at the table across Dennis, arrogantly leaned back into the chair and opened the dossier and started scanning through it. He lifted it up high enough for Dennis to notice that the name ‘Dr Dennis Riley’ was labelled onto the dossier in large fonts.

            Dennis was taken aback.
The FBI has a dossier on me?
He opened his mouth to ask why, but he was so shocked that no vocal sound came out from his mouth.

Without taking his eyes off the dossier, the agent introduced himself. “I’m Supervisory Special Agent Marcus Gates, FBI Counter Terrorism Division.

Dennis raised his brow and asked “Counter Terrorism?”

Then SSA Gates started a narrative without taking his eyes off the contents of the flat file. “Dr Dennis Riley, research scientist at Driscoll University. PhD holder in Astrophysics came out top of your class in Harvard, scientific child prodigy winning several scholarships to the world’s best universities. As at the age of 24, you’ve published over fifty scientific papers a lot of which have gained recognition and respect for you in the scientific community, in fact, you’re one of the best. The research grant awarded to you is worth over a million dollars. Both parents are deceased and you don’t seem to be in much contact with relatives on both your father’s and mother’s side of the family. You’re not married, no known girlfriend, no pets, you’re only married to your work. You’re as lonely as it gets, but you’re still young and you have your whole life ahead of you among other things.” Then he dropped the dossier across the table.

Dennis was staring at SSA Gates, dumbfounded. He was visibly appalled at how much information the FBI had gathered on him. In a very subdued and quiet voice he asked, “Can you please tell me what’s this all about?”

“For God’s sake, can
you
please tell me why a man like you with your whole future ahead of you would team up with foreign terrorists to wreak havoc, kill hundreds of innocent lives and betray this great country that has given so much to you?”         

            Dennis was visibly horrified and flabbergasted.
“Me, with terrorists?
What are you talking about? I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m not involved with terrorists. You’ve made a mistake, I’m sure there is a mix up somewhere.”

            Gates raised his voice. “Cut the pretence! Three hundred people are dead because of you! Three hundred families are in morning because you and your terrorist friends decided to play God with people’s lives. Don’t sit there pretending to me that you don’t know what I’m talking about. ”

            “I beg your pardon!” Dennis exclaimed. “You have no right to talk to me that way.”

            “That is unacceptable! I will talk to you whichever way I please until you tell me how you and your accomplices were able to do what you did.”

            “I told you for the last time I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Dennis was breathing heavily and he was beginning to feel short of breath. He fumbled his pockets for his inhaler and felt reassured when could feel it was in his pocket.

            The agent placed a picture of Dennis’s car on the table before him. “Is this your car?”

            Dennis noticed that his car was pictured in a place he wasn’t too familiar with, but he knew he had seen the background of where his car was pictured, but he couldn’t place his finger where, and besides, the picture was taken at night. “Yes”, Dennis answered with dwindling boldness as he picked up the picture to take a closer look.

            SSA Gates placed another picture in front of him. It was a picture of Dennis making a call inside a telephone booth. “Is this you Dr Riley?”

            Dennis leaned forward to pick the picture. He remembered the place instantly. He could see the time stamp of the picture. He never makes calls in phone booths, but on that occasion, it was an exception. His heart began to race and he looked visibly frightened. He began to make a mental connection between the phone call he made that night to the FAA and the air disaster over Primford. His heart sank. How was he going to explain how he knew there would be an air disaster days before it happened.
So much for driving across town
, he thought. He could see how this was beginning to look.

            Gates spoke pointing to the picture. “Answer the question Dr
Riley,
is this you making a phone call from a telephone booth in this picture?”

            Dennis answered the question looking defeated. “Yes.”

“Do you remember what you were doing here?”

“Yes.”

“Dr Riley, do you remember what you were saying here on the phone?”

Dennis looked at him with a lump in his throat.

Gates said, “If you don’t remember, I can refresh your memory with a recording of the conversation you had with the FAA call centre operator.”

Dennis placed his head in his palms and sighed heavily.
Do I tell this guy about my dreams? He would never believe
me,
I don’t even believe it myself.
He looked up at the now standing SSA Gates. “It’s not what you think.”

“Then tell me, what
should
I think?” replied Gates. Then he brought out a miniature recorder from the inner pocket of his suit and played back the conversation that Dennis had with the FAA telephone operator.

Dennis was silent.