Here’s the last chapter in the story. About 30 pages.

Predator VII

She’d always considered herself an anarchist, and she thought that ironic – or she had, anyway – once upon a time.

Anne Rutherford left Grand Island, Nebraska for Cambridge, Mass, in a way unlike any before her. Wide-eyed and sure of herself, academically accomplished and politically naïve, she made it into Harvard on a Wadsworth scholarship, determined to make a real difference in the world. Yet she’d grown up in the Methodist Church, and had even believed some of the things she learned there, and she had been raised to become someone’s wife. But it time she picked up on some of the glaring internal inconsistencies within the Good Book, and that came to her as an awakening of sorts. She began to focus her inquiries on the internal inconsistencies she found in her home, and then, soon enough, everywhere she looked – and always through that same prism of questioning.

One of her father’s oldest friends, a deacon in a nearby church, ran a hand down her skirt one Sunday after services, and when he slipped a finger inside her he played with her physical emotions for the very first time. Far from being scared, or even upset, she was curious about the feelings she experienced, and when he pulled out his penis and almost forced her to take him in her mouth she grew only more intrigued at the man’s inconsistencies. He did the same thing almost every time he came over on Sunday after services, and in time she began to anticipate his various little comings and goings, looking forward to things she might learn by examining the man. And in time, she learned how to gauge his emotions, chief among them the need to control her, and then she used his errant feelings to tease him – just a little. She began to see how easy it was to manipulate the old man, to use his lust as a weapon, and eventually, to turn it against him to her advantage – to take a perceived strength and turn it into a weakness, to play with him, if only for her private amusement.

She began to watch people, men mostly, after that, and she began to see patterns in their behavior. She saw how men expected to be treated, and how they reacted when they weren’t. Like her little brother, she thought, only in grown-up clothes. She was twelve, maybe thirteen years old when a local city councilman did the same things to her, and she let him. She led him deeper into a relationship of her own design, then she dumped him, and she regaled as she watched the man dancing on strings she alone knew about. When he pushed back, she exposed him, and she laughed inside as the police took him away – while the world saw her tears.

And her ability to exploit men had set a pattern of sorts, when she began high school. When she had trouble with a class, when the material was just too hard to get a handle on, she went to her teachers and got all the help she needed. Men, women – it made no difference. All had their needs, and she knew how to take care of them. She began to see herself as a chameleon, able to change color in an instant, recognize danger and adjust, quickly, to the needs of the moment. To survive. That was, by that point in time, the ‘all’ of her existence.

And as a result, she didn’t have time for ‘boys’ in high school. They seemed focused on just one thing: using sex as a crude means of control, and when they couldn’t control, usually because they were so clumsily arrogant, they became jealous – and violent. One boy tried to ‘make it with her’ after a football game one night during her junior year, and she sensed, as she rejected him, that he was going to rape her. And the whole thing was so pathetic, she thought at the time. She simply laughed at the boy, made fun of the size of his penis, and he dissolved before her eyes – and then disappeared. It was just that simple. Learn the mechanisms of control, then use them.

Then one Sunday a cousin asked her to come with her to a presentation.

“About what?”

“Oh, you’ll see.”

And so she had gone along, curious why there was a need for such secrecy.

The event was held in a conference room at a local motel, and there were a few hundred people gathered there, and then a fiery pastor of some sort came out and began to exhort the gathered about how to best live their lives. Using a skillfully woven narrative, the woman related biblical passages to current events, leaving no room at all for any other conclusion that the end was nigh, that the Second Coming was at hand, and that the only way the people in that room could avoid damnation was to reach deep down into their pockets – and GIVE!

Despite the crudeness of the message, let alone the messenger, what struck Rutherford was the rapt adoration she felt being showered on the pastor. There was an unquestioning acceptance of everything the woman said, even though, to here, anyway, much that she heard was patently absurd. Still, it was hard not to be taken in. There was talk of love and brotherhood, and a community coming together through a shared love for the Lord, and for Jesus Christ.

After a few hours of this, there came a pause, and the pastor asked those in attendance to stand – but only if they had taken the Lord Jesus Christ into their heart. And people stood while the woman shouted about Christ’s love, about Christ’s willingness to forgive, to accept – and when the woman stopped speaking everyone in the room turned to Rutherford, for she alone had remained seated.

And she had never, not once in her life, felt so much hate in one room as she felt just then.

And then the pastor turned to her with something akin to fire in her eyes, and she pointed at Anne, called her out as an agent of Satan, and the hatred she felt in the room turned to something far more sinister. Men turned and faced her, and a man by the stage handed out canes, the pastor screamed for the assembled to strike out at Satan, to drive Him from their midst.

She stood and ran for a door, but the way was blocked – by more men with canes – and she turned, slipped through the converging crowd, made it to a fire escape and burst out into the night, ran all the way home – and yet as she ran all she could think about was the woman’s power, her ability to control an otherwise normal group of people, and it took years for her to get the woman’s fiery eyes out of her mind.

By the time she was a first year at Harvard she knew the stakes had increased, but the game was still the same. She could still lead men around by their needs, get what she needed from them by playing along with their game, and still use them up and spit them out, move on to the next errant fool – but she discovered something even more interesting in Boston: there were more people here, people just like her, playing the same game. And, she soon learned, the stakes grew even higher in this league, the state of play was more polished, and, not infrequently, the game was played to the death.

Her second year roommate, Julie, told her she had good legs and that she ought to wear more provocative clothing, but she simply didn’t have the money for that, or so she explained. “That isn’t a problem,” Julie explained, and she put forth a solution. They went to an underground club that next Friday, and Julie explained Anne’s problem to an older gentleman, and he said he’d be more than happy to help Anne out.

And he had been, too.

He picked her up the next morning, in a limousine, no less, and had spent the day with her. They visited the trendiest boutiques on Newbury Street, and some of the lesser known but no less trendy fetish shops on the other side of the night, then he took her to get her hair done. She had her first manicure, and a pedicure too, and by the time Saturday night rolled around she was, in his estimation, anyway, ready.

And he came by her dormitory at nine that night, in the limo again, and took her to a club “not very many people know about.” There were lot’s of limos dropping off people in an underground garage downtown, and these people were dressed, by and large, in black leather, and they carried bags in with them. They dressed inside, dressed in outlandish costumes, and they wore props like she had seen in some of the seedier shops earlier that afternoon. She saw her roommate then, with a short whip in hand, and a phallus strapped around her waist, working over a man, while another woman was doing her level best to suffocate the poor chap with her vagina.

Her escort, the old man, seemed to understand this was Anne’s first exposure to such proceedings, but he proved a gentle teacher. He was, he explained, a top, or a master, but that, obviously, not all men were tops, and as he led her from scene to scene he explained the roles on display, what  he called the transfers of power, who was doing what, and, presumably, why. And the why was suddenly of great interest to Anne, for she was seeing a new, much larger vista into the inner workings of power and control that women, in particular, exerted over men, and as suddenly she knew she wanted to be a top, too.

Yet she could feel her escort’s growing lust – for her – and she intuitively understood that she would have to play with him – on his terms. But rather that wait for him to take charge, she stopped at one point and held out her hands, wrists together, and she said four words that forever changed her life.

“Please, Master? Teach me?”

He had taken her to a room that night, and with several other women to assist him – his women, she learned – she was taken in, indoctrinated, and she became his plaything, for a while. Until, a few months later, she felt him falling in love with her. Then, and only when she was sure he was under her control, she turned the tables on him. She asserted control the next weekend at the club, she wielded the whip, wore the phallus, and she began to bend him first to her need, then to needs of his own he had long repressed.

She knew by then, of course, that he was an immensely wealthy and powerful man. He walked the corridors of power in Washington as easily as he helmed his schooner off the Vineyard; he had a jet, of course, and took her places on weekends, and she knew enough by then to not ask about his wife. He took her skiing in Austria and fishing on Scottish rivers, became her tutor, her mentor, advising which classes she should take at school, helping her some nights with her studies, and as his was an able mind she listened, and learned, about his world. When they went to the club he taught her even more, more about the inner dynamics she observed, the tormented inner psyches, the hidden impulses on open, and sudden display. There was no act depraved enough, she soon learned, no personal backstory dark enough, and in the end she understood that all life revolved around power and control – and nothing more.

She thought of all the boys in high school who had ‘come on’ to her, and she began to see their clumsy efforts as nothing more than the pathetic attempts of lost children. Children not open to or aware enough of their own cravings to assert control over their darkest needs, and she began to reclassify people. People who knew, who understood the nature of these needs, and people who remained clueless, children who let half-understood impulses control their lives. She began to see that very powerful people were, by and large, very tuned in to this part of their Selves, and that they were very tuned in to others on the same wavelength. Like neurons in a vast body, they were linked by this awareness – and in time she was, too. She began to study this connection, the way it worked, and could not work absent this special ‘awareness,’ but once the connection was made it was like whole new worlds opened up to her.

They spent a week together on his yacht the summer after her junior year, and they sailed from Boston to Southwest Harbor, Maine. He gave her a book to read their first night out – Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – and he told her it was an important book in Washington, but that the hidden parts of the story could be found in the heroine’s extraordinary submission to men. The author had been, he claimed, a complex, introverted woman, yet a very dominant presence in the world – until she was around a true Master. Then she had reverted to type, he said, and wanted nothing more than to be raped, to be physically consumed by the real Master, the World Historical Figure, the real men who moved about world creating massive societal change. She would have to be, he told her, willing to bow before these real men in her quest for power, or in her ascent they would crush her – if only in their sport.

Then one evening he had asked, and seriously, too, if she would like to get married – to him.

“Why?” she asked. “Do you love me?”

“You are the only person I’ve ever loved. I was born to love you.”

“I don’t feel that way about you.”

“Oh, I understand that.”

“Then why?”

“Because I want to help you achieve your dreams.”

And so she married him, and he guided her through the ins-and-outs of Washington until one day he was gone. She was surprised how much his passing hurt, but by then she had grown immune to such things. She in fact viewed herself now as a shark, cruising reefs in solitude, feeding when necessary, but most of all enjoying the feeling of immense, unquestioned power. She was a predator, she knew, consuming anyone and everything that got in her way, and she moved up the career ladder at FBI headquarters with patient, monotonous regularity.

She was a good cop, and she was good because she understood the repressed sexual dynamics that seemed to drive the human mind. And criminals were, after all, human beings – of a sort, anyway. The sort who had little control over such things, just the type she most loved to crush.

+++++

Over the years, one other fact of life emerged in Anne Rutherford’s world that seemed to edge out all other concerns, and that was the continuing social injustice women faced in society. The fact bothered her intellectually, and from a distance, for as a career law enforcement officer many such facts of life had been eased by federal regulation. Such things as unequal pay and sexual harassment no longer ‘obvious’ issues in the workplace, but of more importance, in her capacity as a law enforcement officer she ran into the real savagery such inequality visited upon women and children, and on an almost daily basis.

And she learned two things very quickly in her first years on the street.

The first was that there appeared to be real predators out there, predators whose crimes were not simple, accidental encounters. Their crimes were nothing less than the pre-meditated savagery of men who preyed on weak women, and who most often did so to exert control over a powerless, terrified victim. The second: that there were men in law enforcement who simply saw this predation as a part of the natural order of things, and as such, these crimes were rarely worth bothering with. She listened to agents toss off brutal jokes about women serially abused and murdered, jokes referencing mutilated vaginas or the emotional vagaries of PMS, and she wondered why some men thought these things funny. Perhaps because they knew so little about themselves?

Her first assignment, after completing her post-academy training at a field office in Hartford, Connecticut, had taken her into the bizarre realm of profiling, the reconstructive/predictive psychoanalysis of criminal behavior. With her academic background in sociology and psychology, this was a natural progression for her, and with her less well known sexual predilections an integral part of her deeper background, she discovered she had a real interest in this work.

She was sent to the field office in Cleveland, Ohio, when a series of disappearances gained national attention, and she began looking over the information gathered to date. The first things she noted were the victim’s names, names like Anna and Hannah. Palindromes. Every victim’s name was a palindrome, so instantly she knew these people had been chosen, that their disappearances were not random. So, if they weren’t random, were there other unifying characteristics?

After she posited her ‘palindrome insight’ with the SAC, or Special Agent in Charge, she found that men in the office tended to avoid her, but soon other women in the office took a more serious interest in her work, and her methodology; soon these women started working the area with her for clues, then developing ideas with her, helping her re-interview victim families, for instance, then charting the results on maps of the city, then Cuyahoga County. When all this information was collated, like the spokes on a wheel the abductions seemed to point inward to a small area in an older suburb called Brook Park. And all the victims belonged to Methodist churches, which rocked Anne’s personal world, if only a little, but perhaps her involvement became a little more personal after that.

She and her little crew of female agents visited churches in the area, developed lists of names, then cross-checked their names with other lists of known and suspected sexual predators, and they began to focus on a handful of homes in the area.

One afternoon she began watching a man who lived alone in a small house on Holland Road, and she followed him to the airport. He pulled into a parking garage but remained in his van, and an hour later he left – without once getting out or doing much of anything – except to look at two women through binoculars.

She knew then that she had found their man.

So she returned to the field office and swore out an affidavit for a search warrant and took it down to the courthouse. And it was denied. No probable cause, the judge said. Not enough to warrant such an intrusion, anyway. Get more solid information, he told her, “and don’t come back until you do, little lady.”

So she joined up with another female agent and they sat up on the man’s house, watched him for days.

And nothing happened.

He went to off work in the morning, invariably stopped off for dinner on his way home in the evening, then he went inside his home for the evening – and that was that. But then one evening he returned to the airport in his van, and he parked next to a new Chevy, and they parked almost out of sight and watched as he moved around inside the van. They waited for hours, then looked on as a flight attendant walked up to the back of the Chevy and put her bag in the trunk, then moved around to get in the car – and when the van’s side door slid open the man reached for the woman, grabbed her by the throat and put a hooded-cloth over her face, then pulled her inside the van. By the time he had sedated the woman, Rutherford and her partner had pulled their Explorer behind the van, blocking his escape, and moments later they had him on the ground, in handcuffs. Dozens of units converged on the scene after that, and the man was taken away to be interrogated, leaving Rutherford and a handful of other agents free to search the man’s house.

They found an ordinary enough home on the main floor, and a carnival or horror in the basement. Tables where women had been tied down and dissected, a butcher’s counter where the bodies had been further reduced, and vats of acid where their remains had been discarded. There were still bones in those vats, and teeth, and in the end Rutherford accounted for nineteen women who had passed through the man’s carnival of horror. Nineteen lives snuffed out by savage need, a need to control, an all-consuming need to instill fear, a need to torture.

Then they found the video recordings.

Of each victim’s last hours among the living, of the man’s twisted love for these women. For he had indeed loved them, indeed, he worshipped them, intoned Godly incantations while he kissed them and fingered them, went into fervent prayer as he slit their wrists. He drank their blood, eventually bathed in each victim’s blood, recreating a bizarre, almost medieval ritual after each murder. She saw patterns of obsessive-compulsive behavior in his rituals, and she knew these usually formed in childhood so she reached out and revisited the man’s past, reconstructing the elements within his upbringing that had helped shape and inform his extreme needs.

She found an absent father, a controlling and sexually abusive mother, alcohol and drug abuse a constant throughout his life. One neighbor recalled how the boy had enjoyed capturing dogs and cats, blinding them with sewing needles, then setting them loose on crowded streets and watching them get hit by passing cars. Another recalled stories she’d heard from neighborhood children, of how he’d brought girls home from school and tied them up in the garage behind his house, then how he’d painted them with red paint, cutting off their hair with pruning shears before releasing them.

His father was long gone by the time of his arrest, but she ran across his mother – and almost be accident. She’d been living in homeless shelters for years but had recently fallen ill, been transported to St Luke’s and diagnosed with tuberculosis. She was terminal, in an isolation ward when Rutherford interviewed the woman, and the event was transformative for Rutherford. What emerged was a portrait not of evil, or even simple weakness, but a cycle of victimization. Of sexual abuse, first by her father, then by her husband – who particularly enjoyed sodomizing her with a broomstick – yet when told of her son’s peculiar needs the woman only smiled.

“That’s all he ever wanted to do,” she told Rutherford. “He worshipped girls, from the first. When I took him to church he liked to sit behind attractive women in the pews, and when we kneeled to pray he would reach out and play with their shoes, then he would sniff his fingers. When we walked home he would confess these little sins to me, and I would beat him, then let him play with my shoes, smell my feet.”

“What role did the church play in his life?”

“We went several nights a week, because he seemed to enjoy it so.”

“What about your parents? Did your father play with you, with your feet?” Rutherford asked, and the woman had simply looked away.

Look away. Turn away. Let your impulses control you – never take control of them. Let other people control you, until there was nothing left of your life to control. That was the universal constant she found in that instant, and it reinforced all her earlier thinking.

So his crime had been part of a cycle, but Anne now suspected cycles like these were always involved. Sniffing feet, like a dog or any other predator might, was too obvious, too full of unexplored irony, but cycles of inverted lust weren’t that obvious, and control for control’s sake wasn’t ironic, and she saw this man’s love, his seriously perverted love, had developed in a youth spent surrounded by the trappings of religious order, yet such order was little more than delusion absent real understanding of both the self and the institutional order’s purpose. His mother’s serialized abuse helped create a new, unholy trinity, but what interested Rutherford most was how seemingly ‘normal’ the man’s upbringing was – from a distance, anyway. She had been on the street long enough to realize his upbringing was far from unusual, and that just a few key differences in his mother’s behavior might have changed the outcomes of an endless stream of broken lives. But because she was just part of a longer cycle playing out over time, she’d never been aware of her own role in the drama.

She returned to Washington after that and began a graduate program in psychology at Georgetown, more intent than ever of understanding the dynamics of these cycles, to unearth key differences between what might be ‘normal’ and what led to criminal psychopathology, yet her professors seemed resolutely uninterested in her line of study.

Try Sociology, one of them told her, and so she had.

When she wasn’t working on cases, she went to prisons and interviewed inmates. She went to seminaries and interviewed seminarians. She went to her husband’s clubs and participated in their minor, acted-out predations, yet she did so from then on as more of an observer, as someone interested in questions she perceived in these activities, not just the answers intuited in the needs and counter needs of play-acted passion. Yet in the end she saw, in all these settings, women and children as victims of a peculiar, predatory lust – and she saw no way out of this dilemma going forward. Nothing would change for women and children if the status quo remained, because everything was locked in ancient cycles of need and lust. A lust defined by men. A broken need that had become a self-perpetuating cycle of broken dreams and endless despair.

And yet, she soon discovered she was not alone in this thinking. She met other women running up against the same hard wall. Too often victims, and often enough, the women who helped victims. She kept note of these contacts, and over the years she was staggered to tally just how many she had met. Then she began to reach out, to discuss the framework of an idea…

So, as like-minded women, they met for years and discussed these issues, and in time they met and planned ways they might change the system. Physicians, nurses and social workers. Women in Congress, women in law enforcement and the military, women in academia and journalism. They met and planned at retreats in the country, and at more mundane political gatherings, where like minded adherents were first identified, then courted. An initial network of less than a hundred mushroomed into thousands, then the tens of thousands, and still they planned.

The group integrated with sub-groups around the country. Groups that almost always included wealthy, politically connected men. Groups that her husband had once belonged to. Clubs, little play-acting clubs, with play-acted control the goal. And soon she had the means, suddenly, to co-opt larges numbers of politically influential men all around the country. It didn’t take long for the group to realize that the same architecture could be applied globally, and so they spent a few years putting a larger network in place.

Then He came along. The latest president. The “pussy grabber,” the man who’d allegedly raped a 13 year old girl, then had his thugs threaten her with death when she decided to press civil charges. His election was a galvanic moment for the organization, and things began to move rapidly after that.

So – one day they decided to act, and they had found a perfect first target. A pedophile mixed up with Mexican drug runners who liked to make snuff videos, who lived in Dallas, Texas, and she decided to commit her protégé to this endeavor. To infiltrate law enforcement at the highest levels of the investigation, to mask the group’s activities for as long as possible.

And Genie Delaney had gone to Dallas willingly, had complete access to all the information being developed by the Dallas Police Department. She met with Delaney several times, and a key member of the department was identified for contact. A lanky, motor-jock who had flown for the Air Force, a kid named Ben Acheson.

Delaney was assigned to get as close as she could to him, to gather information that could be used to compromise him – when and if the time came.

And then some fuck-up shot Delaney, and all their plans started to unravel.

And Anne Rutherford had the last epiphany of her life.

+++++

She was sitting on a patio at a seaside estate in Estoril, a huge stone patio overlooking the sea, and she was looking at two Russian colonels and their mistresses. They looked like whores, and she laughed a little. ‘Well, maybe that’s because that’s exactly what they are,’ Rutherford said to herself. ‘They’re just like me, so who would know better?’

She had her Iridium on the table in front of her, and it chirped once, so she looked at the display, then signed on and took the call.

“Hello,” she said – tentatively.

“Anne?”

“Genie?”

“Yes. I got your message.”

“I’ve found Ben.”

“Oh?”

“He’s in a Russian POW camp, north of Lisbon.”

“What?”

“He’s in a make-shift hospital there, and I’ve heard he has a badly broken leg. I’m trying to get the Russians to let us get it fixed.”

“Us?”

“Several network people are here, have been since the election. Anyway, I think I’ve convinced a colonel to take me with him on an inspection tour of the POW camps north of the city. Do you want me to pass along a message?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh?”

“Look, it’s bad here. Ben’s grandfather is sick…well, what can I say. Cattle are falling over in the fields, too much radiation in the grass, in the rain that’s falling, and there’s no more fuel so we can’t drive into town, and anyway, there’s nothing left, even if we could.”

“The grocery stores…?”

“Bare shelves. Satellite radio was our last link to the outside, but they went off the air yesterday.”

“How are you?”

“I’ve been vomiting blood all morning. Does that answer your question?”

“Genie, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry? Well, I guess that’s something.”

“I know.”

“Do you? I wonder? Knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time, would you do it all over again?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“I knew you’d say that. Funny, I guess.”

“Funny? No, that’s not the word I’d use. Inevitable is a word that comes to mind. Non-sustainable is another. Maybe we just sped things up a little.”

“Wow, you really are a true believer, aren’t you?”

“Yes. We could have kept going down the same road, maybe another generation, maybe not, before things fell apart…”

“And you got to make that call?”

“It wasn’t just me, was it? I recall you were all for it, too, along with a few thousand like-minded people. Before you fell in love with Ben, anyway.”

“I know,” Genie said, quietly. “Like any other cult member, I guess. In the end it all comes down to brainwashing, doesn’t it?”

“Maybe. But political parties and their handmaidens in the media have been doing that for the last fifty years. We just took it to the next level.”

“Inevitable, huh?”

“Yes, I think so. Any idea how long people over there have?”

“In this part of Texas, two weeks. Maybe three. Average exposure in town is now over 300 rem. Last word we had was the major cities in Texas are silent now, but Houston was flattened on day one. Something like four large hydrogen warheads. There was one on the west side of Fort Worth, to take out an aircraft plant there, and San Antonio took a direct hit according to one report, but all our fallout is coming from the west coast. I can’t even begin to imagine what happened out there.”

“Any snow yet?”

“About two feet on the ground.”

“How about power?”

“Ben’s grandfather put in solar a few years ago, even a small wind generator. There’s enough power to keep the lights on.”

“Any news, anything on the internet?”

“Nope. It’s down. Everywhere, as far as I can tell.”

“Yes, it is here, too. Are you sure there’s nothing you want me to pass on to Ben?”

“There’s no need, Anne. You couldn’t tell him anything he doesn’t already know.”

“Anything I can do for you?”

“I don’t know. Can you make it all go away? Like this was all just a bad nightmare?”

“If I could.”

And the line went dead a moment later – though whether intentionally or by happenstance, she had no way of knowing.

+++++

She saw the Gaz Tigr as it turned onto the ramp, as the Russian behind the wheel turned for the C-17, then, as it drove by, she could just see Ben in the passenger’s seat.

“You go now,” the GRU colonel said to her, shoving her towards the aircraft.

She nodded her head, walked towards the Tigr as it stopped by the aircraft, and when she saw Acheson climb out her heart soared. He was walking, with a cane, but he was walking on his own, and he almost seemed surprised when he saw her walking his way, but in the end he ignored her, walked up to the code panel on the C-17 and entered a code – and she saw Piskov walking up from behind, a pistol drawn.

“Ben,” she called out, “was that stuff you told me about a delayed detonation code for real?”

Acheson turned, saw Piskov, and Rutherford – and he smiled at her ‘head’s up.’ “Five hour delay, as promised.”

“What’s this?” Piskov said, clearly not believing what he’d just heard.

“Oh, come on, Leo,” Ben said. “We know all you want is access to the birds so you can try and get to Kentucky, but there’s no way this aircraft is going to get anywhere near the coast. Besides, just how many more bombs do you think you need to drop?”

“We will stop bombing your country when your country stops bombing ours?”

“Oh? When’s the last time our country bombed Russia?”

“We hear there are preparations underway for a massive strike, right here in Europe.”

“Oh. I wonder who would spread a rumor like that?”

“Rumor, truth, does not matter now. Duty is all that’s left.”

“Duty to what, Leo?”

“To the homeland.”

“Ah. Well, good luck with that, Leo. Really. Now, are you going to shoot me, or let me load up our injured and get them on their way home?”

“But you just say you will not be allowed to US airspace. You think I am fool? All of us?”

“Why yes, Leo, now that you mention it, I do think you are fools, all of you. All of us, for that matter. And do you know why, Leo? Well, let me tell you anyway, Leo, because I’m pretty sure you don’t care why. You’re a fool, all of you are fools, for thinking you could win a nuclear war. You’re fools for wanting to believe the same old tired propaganda Stalin used to sell: pure fear, all the time. You’re fools even now for believing that same old bullshit, that we’re getting ready to plaster good old mother Russia with another wave of atomic horse manure. You are, Leo, in my opinion a race of fools, and it was humanity’s misfortune to end up on the same planet with you.”

“I could say the same thing about America!”

“And you know what? You’d be correct. We’re all fools. All of us, Leo.”

“Maybe you want me shoot you in face now? Save all the pain?”

“Fine with me, Leo, but there’s a quarter kiloton nuclear warhead ticking down right now, and it’s going to go off, right here, in just about five hours.”

“You bullshit. No such thing, and we know it.”

“Yeah, sure Leo, just like you know you can win a nuclear war. But don’t take my word for it. Come here, look at the display.”

Piskov walked over, looked at the display. “So, countdown timer. Big deal. Could mean anything.”

Ben went to the panel, hit the audio annunciator button, and a woman’s voice filled the air around the door.

“You now have four hours, fifty-six minutes to self-destruct. The minimum safe distance from this device is fifteen miles.”

“What is this mother fucker bullshit!” Piskov screamed.

“Leo, it’s not bullshit. It’s a point two five kiloton fission warhead, and it’s going to go off in a few hours, right here, too. I’d suggest you get in that little jeep of yours and beat feet out of here.”

Piskov stepped close, put the Makerov to his forehead. “You disarm now!” he screamed.

“Sorry, Leo. Once it’s armed there’s no way to stop it. And oh. If you shoot the panel, the bomb goes off. No delay. It just goes off.”

“You not shitting on me?”

“Well, let’s not go overboard, Leo. After all, we hardly know one another.”

“What?”

Acheson was grateful Rutherford turned away, hid her laughter as well as she did.

“Leo, honest Indian. No bullshit. Now, can we get my people loaded. I want to get out of here.”

“But, where you go?”

“Well hell, Leo, this is the Marrakech Express. We’re going to Morocco, in case you want to come along.”

“Open ramp. We load now.”

Ben went to the panel and entered another code; lights came on, doors whirred open. Russians frog-marched the ground chief and loadmaster over, took off their hand-cuffs and ankle shackles – then ran away as fast as they could.

“Chief, go wake up my airplane, would you?”

“Sir, did you really arm that warhead?”

“Yes, Chief, I did. Now, let’s hop to!”

“Yessir!”

“So, is no bullshit.”

“No bullshit, Leo.”

“Hmmph.”

“My thoughts, exactly.”

“You think you pretty funny, no?”

“No funnier than you, Leo. And you’re a very funny man.”

The man turned, began walking off and muttered: “Fuck you, and your mother, too.”

“No thanks, Leo. Trying to quit. Causes cancer, in case you haven’t heard.”

Piskov stopped in his tracks, shook his head, then started walking again.

Rutherford walked over and stood beside him, took his hand in hers. “You know, I wonder. Is he really that fucking stupid, or was he acting.”

Acheson shrugged, then looked at her. “You have any idea where to go?”

“Yup,” she said, grinning, “think so.”

Trucks began backing up the loading ramp, then troops helped carry the injured men to the cargo deck – which was, thankfully, still set up with standard Medevac beds, respirators and IV pumps. The loadmaster came up, asked Acheson if he had any special orders, and Ben told him to make sure the men were strapped in tight, because it was going to be a bumpy ride.

The loadmaster walked away shaking his head, wondering how the hell the pilot knew that.

Acheson walked up the forward steps and then up to the flight deck, and he confirmed entries on the code panel, released a safety – and only then went to his seat. A minute later someone claiming to be a Marine F-35 pilot came up and asked if he could be of help, and Acheson looked at the man – who appeared uninjured – and asked him where he was from.

“Mississippi,” the man said.

“Oh? Where’d you go to school?”

“Ole Miss.”

“Yeah? How ‘bout them Buckeyes?”

“Yeah, they had a good year, didn’t they?”

“Better than you, Ivan. Take a hike.”

A few minutes later a heavily bandaged pilot came huffing and puffing into the cockpit, and he looked at the overhead panel and sighed. “Someone tells me there’s an airedale up here who don’t know how to fly real good, and shit, I thought since I’m Naval Aviator and therefore, by definition, a better pilot that any goddamn Air Force puke that ever lived, maybe I ought to come up here and see if I could give away some free airplane flying lessons.”

Acheson turned and looked at the man. “They take the training wheels off your Tomcat yet, hot shot?”

“Tomcat? Man, where you been the last twenty years?”

“With your mother, drilling her in the can.”

“She gettin’ any better at it?”

“Howdy. My name’s Acheson. You?”

“Bond. James Bond.”

“Right.”

“You know, I’m just as fuckin’ sorry as I can be, but my grandfather’s last name was Bond, and so was my Dad’s. And I can’t fuckin’ help it if they both liked Ian Fucking Fleming. Alright? Any questions?”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah man. Say, what are all them-thar buttons up there for?”

“Oh, those operate the in-seat dildo dispenser. Don’t touch them unless you want hemorrhoids.”

“Oh, right. Heard about them,” Bond said as he tried to slip into the seat. “Yeow. I hurt in places I didn’t even know I had.”

“What happened?”

“Ejected – at Mach 1.3.”

“Never done that. Is it as fun as I hear?”

“Funner. Man, this looks like an MD-11.”

“Kind of, but don’t let looks fool you. You flown commercial?”

“Nope.”

Acheson heard someone close by, turned and saw Piskov standing in the cockpit door.

“You decide to come along for the ride, hot shot?”

“I come to tell you your men are loaded. You now leave any time you wish.”

“Oh, well, I’ll come down and see you off.”

“As you wish.”

“Jimmy? Back in a flash.”

Before he left the cockpit, Acheson went into a locker and pulled out a Beretta 92 SB-F and slipped it into his waste-band, then followed Piskov down to the main cargo deck.

“Chief,” he said to the ground chief, “I need you to give me a hand with something,” and as Piskov turned to the chief Acheson cold-cocked the Russian with the Beretta.

“Sir?” the wide-eyed crewman said.

“Wrap his ass in duct-tape and throw him in the head, would you?”

“Yessir.”

He walked aft to a foot locker sized metal box the Russians had placed on the cargo ramp, then he went over and closed the cargo ramp. When it was closed he turned to the loadmaster and smiled: “Help me open this, would you?”

They worked for a minute, then busted the lock and opened the case.

“What is it, sir?”

“Small nuclear warhead, would be my guess.”

“No shit?”

Acheson looked at the control panel, then felt someone coming up from behind. He turned, saw Rutherford standing there. “You don’t happen to know any Russian, do you?”

“Of course.”

“Silly me, of course you do. Mind telling me what this says?”

“Push here, and kiss your ass goodbye.”

“Thanks. Want to try again?”

“The green button is a timer set/reset button. Yellow is arm. Red is detonate now.”

“And it’s set for eight hours and ten minutes right now?”

“That would be my guess – yes.”

“So, to reset to five minutes, looks like we hit the green reset button,” he said, punching the button, “then turn this dial to five minutes. Next, to begin the countdown again, hit the green button again, then hit yellow to arm the bomb, then you’d have five minutes to get the fuck out of Dodge. That about right?”

“Ben. You’re not.”

And Acheson nodded his head. “You reap what you sow, darlin. Chief, I’m gonna taxi out to the end of the runway and hang this bird’s ass out over the grass and drop the ramp. Make sure all the lights are out back here, and when I make the turn you’ve got thirty seconds to get this thing out in the grass and get your swingin’ dick back in here. I’ll be doing the run up, and don’t forget to push the green button, then the yellow. If someone shows up shootin’ then press the red one and start sayin’ your prayers.”

“Sir?”

“We’re counting on you, buddy.”

“Yessir.”

“I’ll stay with him, Ben.”

“No need. Come on up with me now.”

They met the chief coming out of the head – and Ben looked in, saw Leo trying to scream through a wad of silver tape over his mouth. “Found some handcuffs, too, sir,” the Chief said, grinning.

“Cool. Soon as we’re airborne, I want you and the loadmaster to strip him naked, put him in a parachute, and get ready to throw his ass out of here on my say-so.”

The chief laughed. “Man, did he piss you off or something?”

“Or something. That’s a nuke back there, timed to go off when we’re somewhere over the Atlantic, or close to home.”

“Roger that, sir.”

He turned and left for the cockpit, and Rutherford followed him again.

“You’re evil, you do know that, don’t you?”

“Just following the Golden Rule. Kind of. You know, do unto others before they do it to you first.”

“Ah.”

“Have a seat,” he said, pointing at the left jump-seat. “I better try and remember how to fly one of these things, and fast.”

“You know, it’s the simple expressions of competence that really warm the heart,” Bond said.

“And who is this?” Rutherford asked.

“Bond, James Bond,” both Acheson and Bond said, as if on cue.

“Ah,” she said, “dinner and a floor show. How charming.”

Acheson saw the ground chief outside making hand signals, and Acheson held up two fingers – and got a nod.

“Okay, let’s start two.”

“And you obviously think I know how to do that, don’t you?” Bond said, grinning.

Acheson shook his head, reached over and started the engine, then watched pressures and ratios until power stabilized. When the chief signaled three fingers, he started the inboard right engine – and just then another Tigr jeep drove up, and two soldiers ran up to the open boarding door. A moment later they burst into the cockpit.

“Kepitane Piskov? Where he is!?” One of them shouted.

And Rutherford, in perfect Russian, told them he had gone already, that he had exited through the aft cargo ramp several minutes ago. She went with them and showed them all the patients in their litters and, thoroughly confused, the men left. She came up to the flight deck a few minutes later, completely amused with herself now.

“They say we’re to communicate on 121.5. Does that mean anything to you?”

“Yes indeedy.” He turned COMM 1 to the frequency and and called in: “Ground, the is Air Force 60002, how do you read?”

“60002, we read five by five.”

“Any information you want to pass along?”

“0-2, such as?”

“Oh, you know, runway, barometric pressure, wind speed and direction. The basics, maybe?”

“The base commander advises you may fuck off.”

“60002, I read that as clear to fuck off, barometer is fuck off, and wind speed and direction are fuck off as well? Is that a good read-back, or should I tell you to fuck off too?”

Another voice came on after that. “Sorry about that, Air Force. You are clear to take off on runway 17, barometer is 29.95, wind out of south, speed light and variable, C-A-V-U reported to Lisbon.”

“Thanks, tower, and y’all have a good life.”

He finished starting one and four, then entered the LAT and LON from the readout on his sat phone into the INS, and then noticed he had a clear GPS signal so reactivated the system; he input Lisbon as the first “waypoint” in his route, then he turned to Rutherford.

“Where are we going?”

“Not where you think,” she said, handing him coordinates scrawled hastily on a scrap of paper.

“Interesting. Any reason why?”

“Yes.”

“And of course, you’re going to tell me, aren’t you?”

“No.”

“I see. Perhaps I should just leave that bomb onboard.”

“Fine. I know what the red button does.”

He turned back to the FMC, the flight management computer, and input the coordinates she’d given him, not sure why he was trusting her – but then he considered: without an alternate? “Oh well, any port in a storm,” he sighed.

“0-2, we are ready to taxi.”

“0-2, you will be number two, behind Sukhoi 27.”

Bond chimed in now. “Why are they sending one of those up now?”

“To shoot you down as soon as we deviate from a course towards Lajes,” Rutherford said.

“That would be my guess, too,” Acheson added.

“Gee, swell,” Bond whispered.

Acheson advanced the throttles and turned for the taxiway, followed the splotchy blue fighter out to the end of the runway, then went on the intercom as he braked. “Everyone prepare for departure, we’ll be turning on to the runway after the Russian fighter just ahead takes off. That’ll be the loud noise you hear in just a moment. Lights out now, Chief.”

The Sukhoi’s engines ran up to an incredible roar and held power for several seconds, then it leapt down the runway and vaulted into the sky. He waited several seconds then let off the brakes and the C-17 coasted into a wide turn, Acheson letting the tail, and the cargo ramp, drift out over the grass beyond the runway’s threshold. As he turned for the centerline he lowered the ramp, and started a stop watch on the panel, then he began his engine run up. He watched pressures and ratios, and the clock, and forty seconds later he raised the ramp and released the brakes.

The C-17 crawled down the runway, slowly built speed, and at 137 knots he rotated and began a very gentle climb.

“Positive rate,” Bond said. “Gear up.”

“Okay.” Acheson cleaned the wing and turned to the first heading prompt, keeping an eye on the timer now, accelerating through three hundred knots while still only a few hundred feet above the trees.

The threat panel chimed, indicating an airborne radar was painting the aircraft. He turned the ECM panel to AUTO, and two more warnings sounded.

“Here comes Ivan,” Acheson whispered.

“I know that sound,” Bond added, “and I still don’t like it.”

Acheson reached to the overhead, flipped off two safeties, then armed ‘White Eyes,’ and a deep, steady warning alarm sounded.

“What the Hell’s that?” Bond cried.

“A two billion candlepower retina scorch. Sorry about this, Ivan, but you asked for it.” He activated the system, and seconds later the threat panel erupted. “Heat-seekers!” Acheson whispered as he reefed the -17 into a tight, climbing right, flares and chaff trailing – then he slammed the pedals into a steep diving left – and saw two Russian Atoll heat-seeking missiles arc away into the night. Then he saw the Sukhoi wobbling into a shallow dive, and he watched it slam into trees a few miles away, then heard Rutherford behind him whispering “Sweet Jesus…”

“Thirty seconds,” he said.

“Til what?” Bond replied.

“Big box go boom.”

“What big box?”

“Tell ya what, Slick. Just hang on.”

A sudden sun came out, and he looked at the display, saw they were 24 miles from the runway. “Hope this is enough…”

He held onto the stick, but the expected concussion never hit so he banked into a steep left turn and looked back – and saw a wall of flame at least a mile high roaring through the hills and forests. Turning for Lisbon again, he firewalled the engines and began a max power climb.

“Was that a nuke?” Bond asked.

“I think so, but it’s generated a huge firewall, and it’s moving fast.”

Bond looked down, saw the wall moving below them now, then he looked at their airspeed. “It’s got to be moving at close to 500 miles per hour!”

Acheson looked at their altitude – 22,000 and climbing – and he saw the fire racing for Lisbon, still 60 miles distant. “What have they gone and done now?”

“Must be super-hot,” Bond said, his voice full of wonder. “It seems to be fusing everything in it’s path. Probably a cobalt encased warhead.”

“Well, it was meant for us, for the new government, supposedly in Kentucky somewhere.”

“That figures. A warhead like this would cause fires in those hills that would burn for months, maybe all the way to Kansas.”

“You got to hand it to Ivan. He’s got a death wish a mile wide.” He got on the intercom. “Chief? Can you come up here now?”

He heard the man come in a moment later. “Yessir?”

“Assuming I can get ahead of this firewall, I’ll be dropping down to 12,000. I’d like to give our passenger a parachute lesson right about then.”

“Yessir.”

“Intensity dropping off now,” Bond said, and Acheson trimmed into a shallow descent.

“Wish I knew where a convent was…”

“There is one,” Rutherford said, “near the river just beyond the financial district. There’s a gray tower, a tourist thing, very easy to spot.”

“Really? Sweet! Chief? We’re going to drop our boy on a convent. Real low like, maybe.”

“Yessir.”

“Very pretty place,” Rutherford added. “Called the Carmo.”

“Even better.”

“Wonder what they’ve got going on at the airport?” Bond asked.

“Transports and fighters, would be my guess.”

“If this was my airplane I’d get down in the weeds right about now.”

“Not a bad idea.” He trimmed for a 450 knot dive, and aimed for the river. “Chief, better get ready…”

Skimming along the river, they flew past the airport, and pulling up sharply, Acheson flew past the monastery, grinned when the air pressure popped, and then when the pressurization system restarted. The Chief came forward, told him that the Russian had seemed a little less than grateful for being dropped off by parachute, and Rutherford shook her head when Bond quipped something about the ‘fella making it to church in time for morning prayers.’

Heading almost due south now, Acheson trimmed for a fuel conserving climb and engaged the FMC, then went aft to check on his ‘passengers.’ He ran into Captain Cullwell, the physician, and saw she was shaken.

“What’s wrong?” he asked when he saw her ashen expression.

“Radiation alarms started going off in here a few minutes after take-off. What kind of bomb was that?”

“Don’t really know. Navy guy up front mentioned a cobalt casing, but I’m not up on all that stuff. How bad was it?”

She shook her head, turned away. “You don’t want to know,” was all she said.

“Well, it probably doesn’t matter a whole lot now anyway, does it? Still think you need to run an IV while I’m up front?”

“Yeah. I’ve got everything ready.”

“Okay, let me check in with folks back here, then I’ll meet you up on the flight deck.”

She nodded her head while he walked all the way aft and spoke with the airman who’d taken the bomb out to the grass. “You have any trouble getting that thing out of here?”

The boy looked grim, then shook his head.

“Okay, spill it.”

“There were houses back there, sir. I mean, families. I saw a kid at a fence with his dog, watching us. Like…up early to watch the airplanes, you know?”

Acheson swallowed hard, took a deep breath in through his nose and blinked. “They put that on here so we would carry it to our country…”

“I know, sir, but did we have to? Set it off, I mean. You’d disarmed it. Wasn’t that all we needed to do?”

Acheson shook his head. “Maybe…”

“I heard you guys talking, sir. About, well, when will it be enough, sir? They’re like crazy with suspicion, and who knows, maybe that started it all, but it’s like, well, we just can’t let it go either.”

“I know,” Acheson said. “Maybe that’s why we’re here right now, why we are where we are, spiraling down the drain.”

“I was thinkin’, sir. We’re like two boxers in a ring, with no ref. We keep pounding away on each other, and we’re going to keep on ‘til there’s nothing left. Isn’t that about it, sir? Isn’t that who we are, I mean really, deep down, all there is to us?”

“I don’t know, kid.”

“Sir, you look like hell. Maybe you better go sit down.”

Acheson nodded, turned to the cockpit – then felt the world falling away.

+++++

Someone opened his eye, shone a light in – and he tried to turn away. His hands were tingling, his feet too – then he knew he was going to vomit and tried to sit up. Someone helped him lean over the stretcher, held a bucket under his face and he let go. When he was finished he noticed the fluid was streaked with long clots of blood, and he tasted the coppery essence of hemoglobin, not the usual bile-soaked barf he remembered from nights after drinking too much.

Acheson looked up, saw Cullwell getting ready to stick him with a hypodermic.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Sedative, and I want to get some whole blood in you. There was a fridge forward with about twenty units of your type. If I can get it in you’ll feel a lot better.”

“Not a sedative…”

“I’ve got to get your blood pressure down – it’s 155 over 110. Ben, you’re losing a lot of blood – out your rectum now. You understand?”

But he didn’t, not even a little – yet he did feel like he was falling again.

+++++

He felt a hand on his forehead and opened his eyes, saw Rutherford standing over him, looking into his. She smiled when she saw his eyes and leaned over, kissed his forehead. “About another twenty minutes,” she said, “then you can sit up.”

“What about…where are we?”

“Hey, turns out that Navy puke knows how to fly after all.”

“Pah. Nobody in the Navy knows how to fly.”

She grinned. “How do you feel now?”

“Better. Not as nauseated.”

“That’s the promethazine,” Cullwell said. “And I can’t give you any more ‘til we’re on the ground – or you won’t even be able to pick your nose without help, let alone pick out a runway.”

“Swell. That’s one of those drugs we aren’t allowed to take before flying…”

“Guess what, Ben. No FAA, so no worries, and besides, you’ve got three quarts of brand new motor oil flowing through those veins, and you’re gonna feel like a new man as soon as you get up.” Cullwell disconnected him from the IV pump, then swabbed down the shunt and put a bandage over it. “Just a few more minutes,” she said, “and you’ll be good to go.”

“How far out are we?” he asked Rutherford.

“About 800 miles – a half hour ago, anyway.”

He took a deep breath, then coughed – and he tasted blood in his mouth again. “Damn.”

“I started coughing up blood a few hours ago,” she said, wiping spittle from his chin.

“Why do I get the feeling this isn’t going to be a whole lot of fun.”

Cullwell walked up again, another syringe in hand. “Sleeves up,” she said.

“What’s this?”

“Just a little vitamin cocktail.”

“Right. Sure thing,” he said, rolling up his shirt sleeve. She swabbed his arm, then pinched and stuck him – and he let out a long sigh – as in his mind’s eye he was looking at a kid in Portugal, in his back yard, peeking over a fence at jets taking off just before his day got started, a little pup yapping at his feet.

+++++

“You sure the tower is 119.3?” Bond asked, looking at the runway and tower as it passed below on their ‘downwind.’

“That’s the latest published info I have. The VOR is still active, so I’d assume either everyone is dead down there, or they’re just not talking to us. See any traffic?”

“An old 757 at the terminal, a couple of ATRs parked out…wait…looks like three C-17s just off the ramps, covered with netting. Some troops too.”

“They’ll be mine,” Rutherford said.

“What do you mean, ‘yours’?” Bond asked, turning to look at her.

“They’re part of my group.”

“You mean…?” Bond said, looking from Rutherford to Acheson.

“We had just arrested her,” Acheson said, dropping the flaps and cutting power, “and were transporting her back to the States when all this happened.”

“Oh, that’s just great, man. So, we’re getting ready to land in a nest of these people?”

“That’s one way to look at it. You’ll get to spend the last weeks of your life surrounded by women…”

“Feminists, you mean. Not the same thing as women.”

Rutherford groaned, looked away. “Just my luck,” she sighed.

Acheson made an easy turn onto final, then put the flaps all the way down. “Gears, please.”

Bond dropped the lever, and three green lights popped. “Anything else I need to know?” he added.

“We’ve been moving stuff here for weeks, before all the excitement broke out. Kind of a refuge, I guess, in case things turned sour.”

“So, you thought this could happen?”

“It was always a possibility.”

“Man, our tax dollars at work.”

“You should experience the world, for just one day, from my perspective…”

“No thanks,” Bond groaned.

“Could y’all just shut up, please,” Acheson growled. “This is my last time in an airplane, and I’d kind of like to enjoy it, ya know?” He was gentle now, gentle on the controls, trying to store all the sensations in memory, smiling as he flared over the threshold, easing her down like he was settling on eggshells, then easy braking and light reverse thrust. He saw the other C-17s and taxied over slowly, and several women – M4 carbines in hand – walked towards them.

“I’d better go out and show my face now,” Rutherford said, and she disappeared, went down to the forward door. Ben stopped, shut-down 1 and 2, then released the lock. He saw her walk out on the ramp and the guards snapped off salutes, then ran up and hugged her.

Bond looked at Acheson and groaned again. “Figures,” he said.

Rutherford looked up at him and made “kill the engines” motions, drawing a finger across her neck, and he started the APU, then shut down the other two engines – just as the Chief and the loadmaster came into the cockpit.

“What’s the plan?” the Chief asked, looking at the women on the ramp.

“Get with them,” Ben said, pointing at the women, “see where they want to put us.”

“Sir? Word is they started all this, so ain’t they the enemy?”

“I don’t know, Chief. Are they?”

“I’d say they are,” Bond said.

“Well, that’s just great. Maybe a few hundred people left here, and we’re going to spend our last few weeks trying to kill one another. I wonder who we can get to chisel that on our tombstones. ‘Here lies the remains of a race that just could not learn.’ Why don’t y’all go get some sticks and stones, try and beat some more people to death.”

He turned and looked at them. “No, really. That’s an order. Sticks and stones, men. Kill anything that moves…right now! Go! Go forth and KILL! Do your species proud – ?”

No one moved, no one said a word.

“Well, unless you’re going to stay here picking your nose, I suggest you get out there and figure out where these injured need to go.”

“Come on, Chief,” he heard the loadmaster say. “Let’s figure it out.”

“Yeah.”

“You okay?” Bond asked when they were alone again.

“What do you think?”

“Me? I think if you lose it, a whole lot of people are going to go down with you, so maybe you ought to snap out of it.”

He saw the chief down on the ramp, watched him talking with Rutherford and the other women, and he saw the guy point up to the flight deck, then Rutherford looked up at him, nodded and spoke with the guards. He leaned back, shut his eyes then, and felt himself drifting away – but he spoke again, softly. “I think y’all are going to have to get on without me now, Jim.”

Bond tried to keep him from falling out of the seat, but failed.

+++++

Acheson woke in a long night, saw he was in a field hospital of some sort, tried to take stock of where he was, what was happening around him, but there were only a few lights on, and those few were in the distance. A nurse walked by and he spoke out, she stopped and looked into his eyes, listened to his lungs, told him she would bring him something to drink and he leaned back, looked up at the fabric structure overhead – then he remembered Portugal. Their flight – their escape – and then – the bomb. It wasn’t all a dream, he realized. It had happened, yet now everything felt like a dream. Genie and The Duke, Carol and all the others – like a jumble of crazy-hazy memory, something that had been, and now – wasn’t. He wanted to crawl inside of himself and disappear after that, but Rutherford came to him, pulled up a chair and sat by him.

Then she handed him a Coke, in a plastic cup – with ice!

He sat up for that, and drank it slowly, savoring it, chewing the ice with a kid’s grin on his face, and at one point he looked at her, really absorbed her simple beauty. The kindest, yet most complex eyes he’d ever seen, and her lips. He looked at them and wanted to kiss them, then he saw Genie in his mind’s eye and he wondered where she was.

He felt a hand on his forehead and looked up, realized he’d been sleeping again, then he saw Rutherford again. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry we didn’t get to have more time together.”

She was smiling, but she was crying, too, and he wondered why.

“You belonged to someone else, Ben, but I feel so lucky I finally found you.”

“Lucky?”

She nodded her head. “Yup. You know, I never fell in love. I was too busy studying all the ways love goes bad, and why people do terrible things in the name of love – but then there was you. You came out of nowhere and for the first time in my life I knew what love was.”

“What was it, for you?”

“I don’t know, but I’ve been thinking about that for a while. Peace maybe? I looked at you once and I knew if I could just rest in your arms that everything would be okay. And that none of this would have happened. Isn’t that awful? How one person’s silly, shallow life ended up being the end of things?”

It was difficult, but he slid over on the stretcher and made room for her, then he opened his arms. “Lay with me now, would you?” he asked.

And she slid on the stretcher, let him put his arms around her, and she lay facing him – looking eye to eye, soul to soul. He was searching for something, she thought, some way to make room in his heart for her, and he kissed her once again, then she felt him ease away.

She held him close, talked and talked about all the things they’d do once they were together again, and by the time she stopped talking he was still and cool. She couldn’t let go, and she felt gentle, prying arms sometime later, and as she watched them take his body away she felt, for the first time in her life, something like loss.

+++++

I think I’d had it with sailing, really, by the time we sailed into San Francisco. The routines were getting stale, and the perpetual uncertainty about what lurked unseen in the night wore on me constantly. Still, crawling through the shrubbery when Persephone and I ran from Lajes had come almost as an epiphany, a rebirth, of sorts. When we saw that marina I think we were both filled with an endless elation: escape was at hand, and the sea would deliver us from death.

We found a decent boat, Clytemnestra, a Nauticat 371, that had just been provisioned, her tanks filled, and we found her owner down below, clutching her chest, diaphoretic, with her eyes full of panic. I got us out of the marina and rolled out the sails, and we sailed due south for weeks. Persephone’s skilled hands coaxed life back into the woman, a physician from London out to see the world after her husband passed, and we found our way to the Cape Verde Islands three weeks later. We took on water, managed to get some fuel, and continued sailing south.

A new routine developed on Clytemnestra, a routine based on washing her decks with sea water every two hours. Blackened dust fell on everything constantly, and the evil stuff got into every nook and cranny, especially down below, if we failed to keep her decks fresh – yet we noticed something rather uplifting within a few weeks. The further south we managed to get, the less fallout we accumulated on deck. At Cape Verde we took Clytemnestra’s sails down and doused them in the sea, aired them on the beach, and Sephie and I shook them out before we put them up again, then we put out to sea, aiming to get as far south as we could before winter.

Jill Armstrong was a sort of minor revelation, and, of course, in the end I fell in love with her. Persephone, being the sort of earth-mother type that blesses all love, made room for Jill in her heart and the three of us arrived at Port Stanley, in the Falkland Islands, just as winter was coming on. Being crewed by a nurse and a physician, and a Londoner at that, saw us welcomed with open arms, and Sephie and I looked at one another and knew we were home, that our journey was at an end. Not quite the voyage we set out to make, but there you go.

There has been almost zero radiation this far south, and that was the end of that, for now, anyway. There was little news about the north, only that loss of life had been extreme. The islanders didn’t really know what had happened, and really, neither did we. It was enough, in the end, to realize that man had taken a few wrong turns along the way. Survival would take precedence now, above all else, and perhaps war would be at an end.

Or perhaps not. I tend to doubt we’ll ever learn from our mistakes, but I could be wrong.

We moved into a commune of sorts, an agricultural commune at that, and we settled in for the long night as the first snows of winter fell, and we went to sleep, an easy, deep sleep, and we were soon dreaming of the Spring. But that’s another story, for another day…

© 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

Predator VI

He winced when the truck went over bumps and around curves, he pulled the blanket up to his chin when rain started dripping through rips in the canvas covering, and as sleep was impossible he tried to peek under the canvas and look at the passing countryside. They drove north, he thought, for about an hour, then they passed an air base and he saw troops removing EU and NATO signage, and as they slowed to turn into an newly erected prison compound he saw men lined up along a wall, a firing squad taking aim – then a burst of fire and falling bodies. He looked away, saw the tails of several Antonov 124s poking up above hangers a few hundred yards away, and two charred F-16s being bulldozed out of the way, presumably to make room for more transports.

The truck stopped outside a quonset hut and men came, pulled his stretcher from the back of the truck and carried him inside the building. The first thing he noticed was the smell inside. Disinfectant, and lots of it, overwhelmed his senses, and he saw several men on beds, bags of IVs dripping into arms as he was carried to a bed. Nurses helped transfer him to a bed, and the troops left, leaving him with even more unanswered questions.

A women, dressed in khakis and with insignia on her collars, came over to his bed and picked up the clipboard the soldiers had left laying on his belly, and she read through the pages, making notes from time to time, then she leaned close and spoke.

“Your name is Acheson?” she said, her accent southern. Georgia, maybe, or the Carolinas.

“Yup.”

“They got you in Lajes?”

“Yes’m.”

She chuckled. “Let me guess. Texas?”

“Borned and raised.”

“Jenny Cullwell, late of the Savannah Cullwells,” she said, curtsying. “And a reluctant Navy doc.”

“Navy, here?”

She shook her head. “We were en route from Italy, being evacuated. Seems we waited too long. What about you?”

“Flying an American 777 from Paris to DFW when we got the order to land.”

“Wait…you’re not military?”

“Major, Air Force reserves.”

“Oh.”

“Do you know what’s happening out there?”

“Yes, I do. You sure you want to hear about it?”

He nodded his head.

“The main attack on the US was preceded by large scale cyber attacks, came right after all that bullshit, after Air Force One went down, like it had been coordinated. Nukes hit San Diego and Puget sound, Norfolk and sub bases in Maine and New London. Missile fields too, and major air force and naval bases right after, sub-launched ICBMs, we heard. From what I’ve heard, major Russian cities took a pounding, city-buster hydrogen warheads, maybe a hundred and fifty million dead in Russia and Eastern Europe. We knocked out most of their second wave of ICBMs, targeted on cities, knocked ‘em right out of the sky, so loss of life at home was less, until their bombers hit. Cities in the south, Dallas and Atlanta, weren’t hit, but cities on both coasts are gone now, and up north.”

“What about fallout?”

“It’s bad. Getting worse. There’s a lot of rain, too. Something about dust thrown up into the upper atmosphere.”

“Nuclear winter.”

“Sure, I guess that sounds right. Now, what about you?”

“They said my knee needs surgery, I think they operated on my head, but I have no idea why.”

“Penetrating blunt force trauma,” she said, pointing at his chart. “At least that’s what the doc wrote, assuming I can read this scribbling. An Air Force doc at Lajes did the surgery, so relax, you might live. If one of Ivan’s docs did it you’d be a drooling cauliflower right about now.” She turned his head, examined the wound behind his right ear, then shined a light on it. “Think we’ll start some antibiotics, margins are looking a little iffy.”

“You have antibiotics?”

“Yup, but that’s about it. No x-ray, no imaging equipment at all, and no orthos, so we’ll cut off that cast and check it out, then recast you. So, you’re a pilot?”

“Yup.”

“Fighters?”

“C-17s”

“Really? Well, ain’t that interesting.”

“Oh, why?”

“There are two of ‘em here. MATS birds, from Charleston.”

“Pilots?”

“Shot. Not sure why, but you might keep that in mind.”

“Thanks. What about my leg? Just cast it, let it heal?”

“Probably, unless it’s a tibial plateau fracture. If that’s the case you’ll have to have surgery, or you could lose that leg if you walk on it.”

“Swell.”

“Look,  I’ll just give it to you straight. You might want to skip the antibiotics, all the heroics, and just try to check out. A Russian doc told me their estimate is three months before fallout levels become totally lethal.”

“What about the southern hemisphere? Like South Africa, or the Falklands?”

“The song remains the same, Paco. You might eke out a few months more.”

“So that’s it? Do not go gently into that good night? End of the line?”

“Yup. This is actually a damn good spot, which is why Ivan moved in here so fast. They’re digging caves in the mountains, trying to get a few hundred thousand into them, some kind of Strangelove thing, but a lot of fallout coming from the Americas falls into the Atlantic so levels right here aren’t that bad – until it rains, anyway. Then we get a spike.”

“Any TV? Any news coming from home?”

She shook her head. “Not a thing. I’m guessing it’s like medieval there now.”

“I wonder what went wrong, with our air defenses, I mean.”

The guy in the bed next to his looked up and laughed. “You’re kidding, right?”

“No, not really. You a pilot?”

“Yeah, F-22s. Look, it’s simple. Our defense contractors sold us a bill of goods. Couple of hundred million bucks for an F-22 or F-35, and they were built on a simple premise. One of our fighters had to be good enough to take out ten of there’s. Right? Got that? So anyway, Ivan decides the way to take care of that is to built twenty aircraft for every one of ours. Overwhelm by sheer numbers. And it worked. Lajes and Iceland are like giant aircraft carriers, they make it possible to resupply NATO with an air bridge from the states, so Ivan knew if he took them, that was the end of any resupply effort. So he made a maximum effort, sent about 800 aircraft from here alone, and the Stennis and Teddy Roosevelt could keep about 30 in the air at any one time. They didn’t last an hour.”

Acheson looked at the man. One leg gone, his hands wrapped in gauze. Very bitter.

“It was a good plan…for fighting maybe Saddam’s air force. But stupid for a Cold War style engagement, especially when the Russians started building really good aircraft, and cheap, too. Never learned to make good subs, though. That’s what got ‘em.”

“Oh?”

“Our missiles in Montana never got off. Every silo hit in the first wave, taken right out of action. The boomers launched, of course, and that’s like 3000 warheads right on target. War was over by then, but nobody bothered to tell Ivan. He just kept on comin’ – their bombers came in and met with zero opposition. Dropped their bombs and flew to Cuba, I guess.”

“What did you do?”

“Me? I was escorting B-2s. From Italy to Germany and Poland, dropping tactical nukes on positions northeast of Berlin.”

Acheson shook his head and Cullwell put the back of her hand on his forehead. “So, what’s it gonna be? Antibiotics, or morphine?”

He laughed. “Fuck you, ma’am. I’m getting’ better and goin’ home, and if you want to join me, you better get this leg working. And pronto, if you know what I mean.”

And she laughed too. “Right, Paco. I’ll get right on it.”

“You do that.”

And she looked at him again. “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“Goddamn right I am. Me and Stumpy over there,” he said, pointing at the F-22 pilot with his thumb, “are going to go out and hijack us a C-17. Fly it right down Main Street, USA on our way to Alpine, Texas. Ain’t that right, Stumpy?”

“You bet, Tex. You steer that trash-hauler and I’ll work the radios. We’ll be pole dancin’ in Big Springs with the best of ‘em.”

+++++

The last time I saw Acheson, on the ramp at Lajes, he looked like a broken man. His aircraft was, for all intents and purposes, dead, and that Rutherford woman a broken vessel. She walked off into the night, leaving me and Persephone sitting there with Liz while she passed.

And what had it been?

Maybe three weeks since we’d left Puget Sound on the boat? Just a few days from San Francisco?

I looked at my best friend, Tate, lying there under the nose of the airplane, and was trying to get up and go to him when the bombs started hitting, and that’s when I saw Acheson. Flying through the air. Persephone pulled me to a ditch, and we crawled into a culvert as waves of bombs hit all around us. We crawled out an hour later and the first thing I saw was that airplane. It looked like two or three bombs had hit it dead center – the wings were askew, the cockpit pointing straight up at the moon, and I thought it looked like a moon launch, gone bad. I saw firemen loading Acheson’s body in an ambulance, and then he was gone.

And it hit me then, and hard.

How fast things can change.

How quickly things can come undone. All the things you take for granted – and bam, gone, in an instant. No time to think about it, just blink your eyes and your old life is gone. Here one minute, gone the next. Get on a plane in Paris, and presto! Five hours later we were supposed to be in Dallas. But five hours later that life was gone.

I heard that Rutherford woman say something about unintended consequences, and when I heard that I wondered what she meant. Personally, I mean. If she’d been making plans for something like this, then she’d been anticipating something like this could happen, and that got me to wondering. What kind of person does that? What kind of person sets out to destroy a world, a way of life, without thinking through the consequences for the people around them.

I’d been sitting on the plane, thinking about all that. About ideologies, and how they warp perspectives. I was talking to Liz at the time, about all those Republicans trying to kill health insurance for the poor. They knew their legislative actions would lead to tens of thousands of lives being lost, yet there they were, screaming about the rights of unborn fetuses. Or all the gays on the left, getting so ‘in your face’ about gay marriage and public displays of affection, and Trannies in bathrooms, for God’s sake. Did they really think their actions weren’t going to cause a reaction, even a violent reaction? Was that what they really wanted? ‘Cause that’s sure what they got.

And that Rutherford dame? I mean, seriously? The patriarchy had to go, a new order had to take it’s place. To me, sitting up there in that airplane, I thought she was insane, like she was trying to put a picture puzzle together – with half the pieces missing. It’s like our founding fathers got lucky once, all the right circumstances came together to make a clean break from the past, and then all these people come along – wanting to tear it all down. People on the right wanted to tear it down and build a theocracy, people on the left wanted to build a socialist utopia, and in the end it seems nobody understood just how precious and rare the United States was. It just wasn’t what They wanted, so it had to be torn down. No room for a plurality of vision, no room for compromise, just ‘Me-Me-Me.’ No room left for reason and forethought, so light that match, baby, and let’s watch it burn while we sing around the bonfire of our vanities.

The bomb’s stopped falling after dark, and Sephie and I started walking up into the hills as fast as we could. The roads weren’t bad, not steep, anyway, but they were narrow and lined with shrubs – and that was a good thing. We saw paratroopers coming down through the clouds and ducked into the undergrowth as hundreds of men landed around us, and after they’d gathered their equipment and started down the hill, running for the air base, we started walking away as quickly as we could. A few hours later we came to a town on the coast, I think on the south side of the island, and the streets were deserted, fires burning out of control everywhere we looked.

But we made it down to the harbor – and what did we see?

A marina. Full of sailboats.

Need I say more?

+++++

Acheson was laying in bed, watching a bag of vancomycin disappearing into his arm when a guard came in the hut. Cullwell was summoned, told that a high ranking member of the military was coming by for an inspection and to get the place cleaned up, ready for inspection. She nodded her head and turned back to changing the bandages on a badly burned Russian airman, and Acheson smiled at her grim determination, her stoicism.

A few minutes later there was a commotion at the door, then several Russian officers came in – and Rutherford was in their midst, hanging back from the main group. They walked through the makeshift ward to the office in the back, and she ignored Ben as she passed.

He heard shouting in the office, some asshole berating Cullwell for a perceived slight, and a few minutes later the group walked by, Rutherford still in the rear, but just before she got to the door she begged off, asked to remain for a few minutes, “to talk with a few of my countrymen,” she added.

The Russians left, and she started walking among the patients, trying to cheer the men up – but she passed Acheson’s bed once again, then walked back to Cullwell’s office and talked for a while. Acheson, however, never took his eyes off her, and he wondered what her game was now.

She came out a few minutes later, and walked straight to his bedside.

“How are you doing, Ben?”

“Fine, I think. I see you landed on your feet.”

“I may only have a couple lives left.”

“Oh, I doubt that.”

She took his hand, held it tightly. “Don’t hate me,” she whispered. “Not quite yet, anyway.”

“I don’t,” he said. “Not quite yet, anyway.”

She smiled. “Do you need anything? A new leg, perhaps?”

“That’s what the doc thinks. I guess that will have to wait until they can see me at the Mayo Clinic.”

“Oh. Well, anything else?”

“How about the code to unlock the FMC on one of those C-17s. Think you can dig that up for me?”

“Oh? Gonna make a break for it?”

“Something like that.”

“Now that sounds like an adventure.”

“Yeah, might be.”

She leaned close, her lips brushing his ear. “I want you so much it hurts,” she breathed, then, “God, how I love you.”

She pushed away from him and almost ran from the tiny building.

“What the hell was that about?” Cullwell said, standing by the foot of his bed.

Acheson shrugged his shoulders. “Not sure. Something to do with chocolate malts and cheeseburgers.”

“Is she a friend of yours?”

“I have no idea, doc. None at all.”

She looked at Acheson for a long time, wondering who the hell she was, let alone who he was, then she walked back to her office. She had a lot to do to get him ready.

+++++

Men came in at three the next morning, loaded Acheson in another truck, but he was barely aware of the world around him by that point. He was heavily sedated, finishing his last bag of vancomycin as they loaded his stretcher into a Antonov 32, and three hours later he was riding in an ambulance through Geneva to an orthopedics clinic. An hour later he was on an operating table, the surgeons regarding him fearfully. He stayed in an isolated ward post-operatively, Russian troops stationed outside his door, and a week later he returned to the Russian air base in Portugal – in the exact same An-32 – and he learned that the crew, as well as the guards, had been on detached duty all the while, free to roam Geneva while he convalesced, so they had been more than disappointed to learn he wasn’t staying a month.

His knee was stiff, but he had started light physical therapy in Geneva, and had graduated to walking with crutches by the time he flew back, and now he walked all over the air base, gaining strength every day. A Russian captain, Leo Piskov, his hands burned, and with his left leg in a cast, started walking with him, and as Piskov’s English was passable they found they enjoyed each others company. Then, after two weeks, their conversations took on an interesting new tone.

“My wife outside Vladivostok,” he mentioned that day. “Work in Navy hospital. You have married woman?”

“Not married, but yes, in Texas. I have no idea if she’s alive or not.”

“So? Call her.”

Acheson laughed. “I might, if I had a phone.”

“That is problem. So, I hear you fly 777, and C-17.”

“I was flying for American Airlines when the trouble started.”

“You go Lajes?”

“That’s right.”

“Bad luck. We makes big effort get Lajes.”

“Believe me, I know.”

“Sorry. Bad night for many people. You still fly C-17?”

“Every now and then. About once a month.”

“Ah, you reserves?”

“Yes.”

“Ever fly Afghanistan?”

“Many times.”

“My father killed Afghanistan.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. Was he a pilot?”

Leo nodded. “Helicopter. Mi-24, you call HIND.”

“Ah, the gunship. Powerful aircraft.”

“Not enough. Mujahideen took him with shoulder fire weapon. Maybe Stinger is name? I don’t know, too young remember.”

They walked towards the ramp, towards one of the C-17s, and as they got close men began watching them from the control tower.

There was a keypad by the lower door, and it was locked and armed, Acheson saw. Two attempts to unlock it had been made; one more and a large explosive charge would go off in the cockpit, effectively destroying the aircraft.

“You know code?” Leo asked, and now Acheson knew why these walks had been allowed, and why he had been allowed so close to the flight line.

“No, every aircraft has a unique code, and the code is changed every month.”

“Any way get code?”

“Sure, at the operations office in Charleston. The duty officer will have it.”

“Can you call? Get code?”

“Why? So you can use the aircraft?”

“We have no need. No, I was thinking, maybe you get all Americans here, from hospital, we load and you fly them to this Charleston. Maybe you go Texas, find girl.”

Acheson turned to the Russian, looked him in the eye. Then he saw the men in the tower, looking at them with binoculars.

“We have an audience.”

“Da. Big problem. Base commander wants to kill all Americans. I think another solution. Get you home. War over. No need kill now.”

“I see.”

“No, Ben. You do not see. Big struggle over prisoners. Many want to kill, even yesterday. If I bring you phone, can you get code? You can call Texas. If you can get code, and if I can get people to airplane, can you fly to America?”

“I can try.”

“What about woman?”

“Woman?”

“Woman who love you. Rutherford?”

“What about her?”

“She need leave this place before GRU kill her. She dangerous.”

“How many people?”

“Please?”

“How many people need to leave on C-17?”

“Twenty five on stretcher. Fifteen in seat.”

“I would need to refuel. At Lajes. Is possible?”

“Difficult, but possible.”

“Are there any other pilots here? For C-17?”

“C-17 engineer, loadmaster. No C-17 pilot, but two other pilots. F-22, F/A18.”

“What about you? You want to go too?”

He looked away, then very quietly said “Da. Maybe get to wife from Alaska. No way from here now.”

“I see.”

“I hope you do. I may need your help.”

“You can get me a phone? A satellite phone?”

“I think, yes.”

“And when do you want to leave?”

“Early. Tomorrow.”

“I think I want to walk back now.”

“Okay. You think possible?”

“Yes. It is possible, but must find engineer and ground power. Airplane has been sitting too long.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Alright. Listen Leo, I feel like shit. You understand shit? I need to lie down, now.”

Leo turned to the tower and waved his hands, and men started running when Acheson fell to the ground.

+++++

Cullwell was starting an IV when he came to, and he felt feverish, but something else bothered him about the way he felt. A little nauseated, maybe?

“Any way to figure out how much radiation we’re soaking up?” he croaked.

“Nope.”

“I feel like shit.”

“No hard feelings, Ben, but you look like shit. No, make that diarrhea.”

“Gee, thanks. I think. You really know how to make a guy…”

“I know. I feel it too, so I’m assuming we’ve passed 200 rem now. Well past lethal dose.”

“So, in pilot-speak, we’re past the point of no return?”

“Yup.”

“Oh, swell.”

“Look, there were troops in here, while you were gone, and some of them looked sicker than shit. We’re a month and a little bit out from radiation release, so people close to the blasts are already gone. I’d say that we, as a whole, were not real close but close enough. We have a month, at most. People well away from detonations, say in South Africa, or at bases in Antarctica, will be reaching 100 rem now, so they may have lifetimes expressed in months, but that’s it.”

“What’s your point?”

“You want to die at home, now’s the time to go. Some air force type came with the troops, told me to get my patients ready to go on a long flight. I’m assuming that had something to do with you and your walk with that Russian?”

“Yup.”

“Will they let us leave?”

“I doubt it. The question is, even if they do, am I well enough to make an eight hour flight?”

“I doubt it, but once we’re airborne I can keep fluids running through the line…”

“What about a catheter. I don’t feel strong enough to get up every half hour to take a leak.”

“Yeah. I can do that.” She turned away, shook her head. “Ben, I’m sorry about all this. Not having the stuff on hand to take care of people better than I have…”

“What the devil are you talking about, Jennifer? You’ve been like an angel sent directly from God…everyone in this room would be dead if not for all you’ve done.”

“It wasn’t enough.”

“And that’s not any fault of yours.”

“I just feel so…”

“Nope. Don’t go there, doc. Let’s get on with the business of living, okay? The rest can wait for another day.”

She nodded her head, tried to brighten up. “Yeah. Got it.”

Piskov walked in, an Iridium Sat-Phone in hand, and he came to Acheson’s bed and sat, beads of perspiration glistening on his forehead. “I think I feel as bad as you now,” he said as he handed over the phone. “The phone is about half charged, I think, but we have no charger for it, so talk quickly.” He turned to Cullwell, grinned. “Do you still have Coca-Cola here?”

She smiled. “For medicinal purposes only, but yes, we do. Ben, you want one too?”

“Sounds good. Don’t suppose you have any crushed ice?”

She laughed again, then walked back to her office. Piskov looked at Ben expectantly, then frowned. “You want privacy, I think?”

“I think, yes.”

“I go sit with doctor.”

Ben watched him walk away, then powered up the unit and dialed the duty officer’s desk at the 628^th Air Wing, and someone answered on the second ring. “Duty Officer, Captain Nichols.”

“Major Acheson, calling from a Russian POW camp in Portugal.”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m calling from a Russian POW camp in Portugal. I’ve been told they’re going to allow us to take a C-17 and try to get a planeload of injured back to the states tomorrow morning.”

“Name, rank and full DOD service number, please.”

Acheson recited the information.

“Stand-by one, Major.”

He looked up, saw several men on the ward staring at him.

“Acheson?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“How do you expect to fly across?”

“Refuel at Lajes, direct to Charleston after that.”

“What bird?”

“60002.”

“You won’t have the range, Major.”

“What about Bermuda?”

“Unknown.”

“No refueling assets?”

“I’m not sure. Doubtful.”

“Captain, it looks like I’m going to be able to get about 50 people out of here and home. Is there anything you guys can do to help?”

“Look, buddy, things aren’t running real smooth right now. Let me see what I can do, alright?”

“Yeah, understood. This phone has about a half charge, call it an hour or so of talk time.”

“Got it, and I have your number. I’ll call you in 12 hours.”

“Signing off.”

“Roger.”

He looked at the phone, then called his grandfather’s house in Alpine, Texas. No one picked up, and he left a brief message, about where he was and how he was trying to make it home, and maybe being there in a couple of days, then he signed off and powered down the phone.

“What’s the C-17s range?” the pilot in the bed next to his asked.

“Call it 2400.”

“It’s 3000 to from Lajes to the mid-Atlantic coast, but what about Maine? Or St Johns?”

“Around 2000, assuming there are facilities up there. A nuke hit mid-coast Maine, so…”

“Well, that would get us home.”

“Yeah. Guess so.”

“What about navigation? Without GPS, I mean?”

“Some older aircraft have inertial. I think that one out on the ramp does. Or did.”

“And if it doesn’t?”

“I hear paper and pencil still works…” Acheson said, grinning.

Cullwell came out with a coke in a red plastic cup, and when she handed it to him he saw three ice cubes floating in the cup and he grinned. “Thanks, Ma’am.”

She nodded, smiled. “My secret stash.”

And he saw Piskov walk up behind Cullwell, and the Russian was smiling. “You are to leave at 0500, for Lajes. We will start moving out to the aircraft an hour before. I assume you have the code?”

Acheson smiled. “I’ll be ready.”

“I see. Well, I hope so.”

+++++

He sat up in bed when the phone chirped, a little before three, and he listened to the duty officer in South Carolina. He listened to what he had to say, how the Russians had already tried to send Medevac aircraft to Kentucky, where the latest interim government was located, but those efforts had been intercepted, the aircraft shot down. They wouldn’t be allowed into US airspace, and the man warned him to look out for anything suspicious being loaded on the aircraft, then he was gone. He shook his head, then dressed carefully, taking care not to disturb the IV shunt dangling from his arm, and then he went went outside. Piskov was out there, still grinning, waiting for him in some sort of Russian jeep; two soldiers saluted when he came out, and he saluted them as he climbed in the front seat.

“You feeling okay?” the Russian asked. “You looking kind of green.”

“I feel green.”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“That means my eyes still working.”

“Ah.”

“You have the code?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Shall we go?”

Piskov drove across to the ramp, and Acheson saw Russian ground crews huddled under the C-17’s wings – and three American airmen, hand-cuffed, under armed-guard, by the aft cargo door. There was also a large metal box sitting on the ramp by the door, with two men standing beside it.

‘So, that’s the bomb?’ Acheson said to himself as he looked at the C-17. ‘And this is the Trojan Horse.’

And then he saw Rutherford standing by a car in the shadows, watching him as they approached.

‘And I’m supposed to lead the horse inside the gate?’

© 2017 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkühnwrites.com

Predator V

Genie Delaney left the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School campus, driving on Harry Hines towards downtown, then north on Oak Lawn to Maple before turning onto Turtle Creek. She drove along the creek, looking at the dry winter grass along the waterway, the bare oak and pecan trees, their bare limbs hanging over the street, and she decided to drive up Preston, to look at the big pecan tree – still strung with Christmas lights – and she saw they were on now, and smiled.

Her phone chimed as she stopped at the light, and she saw a new email from Ben in her in-box, but it was a huge file so she decided to wait until she got home to open it. The light turned and she passed mansions on her right, then the country club, and she turned there, on Mockingbird Lane, and drove down to the SMU campus and turned left on Hillcrest. A few minutes later she turned onto Milton and, a block later, into the driveway at Ben’s old bungalow.

She looked at the file and decided to open it on the desktop machine in his study, so gathered her book bags and lab coat and walked to the front door, fumbling with her keys as she walked across the crunchy grass. She went through the house to his bedroom, hung her lab coat in the closet, then went to the study, fired up his Mac Pro and sat, waiting for it to load and the WiFi connection to open. She went to Mail and opened her account, then opened the email.

It was a huge video file, and she double clicked it, then waited for it to open.

She saw a darkened hotel room, with Ben sitting in a chair – and she leaned forward, looking closely at the image – then she saw a woman walk out of the bathroom, dressed provocatively in garters and stockings and heels – and little else.

She paused the file, saw this was a fifteen minute long recording and could guess what was on the rest, so the closed the file and put it in the trash – then deleted it.

They’d been expecting this, at least she had – for months. They had to compromise him, as they thought they had The Duke, and despite both their misgivings she had counseled him to let them do it. It would be safer, she reasoned, if they knew they had something on him – especially something as innocuous as this was. She looked at the time – yes, guaranteed to make her call him late at night – over there – the better to get him off-balance, and keep him that way.

She picked up her phone and opened the Cryptor app, dialed Ben’s line and waited for him to pick up.

“Hello.”

“It’s me. I got an interesting email, on your account.”

“The video?”

“Yup. Was she good, at least?”

“Not bad, but not good, either. Generic.”

She laughed. “God, how many women have you laid?”

“Laid? I don’t know. I’ve only loved a couple, though.”

“What about Rutherford? She’s dropped off the radar here, reports are she may be in Brussels.”

“That figures. The President spoke at NATO headquarters today, and he’s going to Iceland tomorrow. Something feels weird to me, Genie. Like there’s some kind of storm brewing. A big one. Different, too.”

“Like we haven’t been down this road before. Yeah. I’ve been picking up on that all day long.”

“Remember, it’s a game, a chess game, Genie. We have to try to guess their next three moves.”

“Then she’s going to try and get to you.”

“And she has to know we’re thinking that, too. So she’s already thinking of counter-moves.”

“Doesn’t matter, Ben. Just the fact she’s so compromised by her desire is enough. It’s her Achilles heel.”

“Yeah.”

“Ben? Just don’t let her be yours.”

“I hear you.”

“So, if things head south, you still want me to go…?”

“To Alpine, yes.”

“Okay. Be careful, Ben. I love you.”

“I love you, too. More than you’ll ever know.”

+++++

Acheson looked at the elapsed time on the FMC, then at their fuel state. They’d land at Lajes, in the Azores, with less than half their fuel gone, so they’d be close to the aircraft’s maximum allowable landing weight. He ran his rough mental computations through the computer once again and nodded his head, then looked at the F/A-18s off his wingtip. The pilots out there seemed focused, and he wondered what was going on “out there” – in the real world beyond this floating cocoon.

Then the closest pilot held up his hand and signaled – 1-2-1.5.

“3-8, go.”

“Back-4 here. About 160 N-M-I. When do want to start your descent?”

“‘Bout now would be good. Keep it about .83 Mach down to flight level 1-8-0, then 270 knots to 12,000. Once we have the field in sight…”

“Diamondback Lead to 3-8 Heavy.”

“Lead, 3-8, go.”

“Lajes reporting almost Cat 2 ops at this time, in heavy thunderstorms, visibility down to a half mile, wind out of the east at forty knots. You got the freqs?”

“As long as they haven’t changed them in the past month.”

“Roger. Be advised we intercepted four CONDORs east of the islands, there are some Russians trying out for an Olympic swim team down there right now, but my guess is there will be more, and soon. We have AWACs coverage now, and they’re picking up FULLBACKs over the Portuguese coast at this time. Westbound at 900.”

“Okay, so call it an hour.”

“Yeah. The Stennis and Teddy Roosevelt are now on station with a CAP over the island, so two battle groups are now mid-Atlantic. They won’t take Lajes without going nuclear.”

Acheson sighed, considered their options, then decided. “Okay, if you can stay with us to the localizer, stick around in case Ivan shows up, we’d appreciate it.”

“Back-4, out.”

Acheson flipped the radar to maximum range, saw a line of thunderstorms ahead and to the east, then he set up the descent in the computer. “Localizer set to 109.9,” he said, then he called on the radio: “Lajes approach, American 3-8 Heavy, 150 out, request permission to land, I-L-S runway 15.”

“3-8 Heavy, clear runway 15, ceiling 800, visibility 1 mile, wind 1-4-0 degrees at 38, altimeter 28.90. Be advised we are under an air raid warning at this time. Seventy, repeat 7-0 Sukhoi 34 inbound, potentially 20, 2-0 heavy transports behind this wave.”

“3-8 Heavy, got it.”

“Localizer to 109.9,” Beach confirmed.

“Beacon to 341.”

“341.”

“TAC-DME to 109X.”

“109X, got it.”

“Enter 12.5 DME and 3-5-hundred, 6.5 DME and 2000.”

“Okay, 12.5 DME to 3500, and 6.5 DME to 2000.”

“D-Back four, 3-8 Heavy, cutting power now,” he told the lead Hornet, and he eased off power, popped the speed brakes as he looked at the VOR/TAC needle and DME readout go active. “Okay, starting a gradual turn – now,” he told the Hornet as the needle started to center in the HSI. He cut power to 80 percent EGP and watched speed bleed as he increased spoilers. “Flaps 7, now,” he said as he cut power a little more.

“Flaps 7.”

He switched to NAV2 and watched the LOC flag pop in the Flight Director, then GS ARM popped in the window and he turned the Glide Slope button on the AP panel to ACTIVE and watched as the autopilot locked onto the airport’s ILS. He cut power again, dropped flaps to 15 degrees, then engaged auto-throttle. He looked up then, saw the wall of cloud ahead, then back down at the instruments.

“3-8 Heavy, if lead elements of Russian strike force break through, they’ll be here in 2-9 minutes. You are clear to land, and you’ll need to clear the runway as quickly as possible.”

“Any place in particular?”

“Air Force facilities are still at the northwest part of the field. You might want to keep as far away from there as you can.”

“Any other commercial aircraft at the terminal?”

“One KLM, one Air France. We have a BA Speedbird en route, about two hours out. There is no room at the ramp, but we’ll have stairs and buses meet you on shut down.”

“3-8 Heavy, out.”

He flew the beam, listened to the F/A 18s call out “Enemy in sight!”

“Okay. 3-8 Heavy at 12.5”

“3-8, gusts to 4-3 knots now.”

“Say heading?”

“Sorry, still about 1-4-0 degrees.”

“Okay.” He turned to Sandy. “Flaps 25, arm spoilers.”

“Got it.”

“3-8 Heavy, 6.5 out.”

“3-8, clear to land.”

“Okay. D-Back four, thanks for sticking around.”

“Got it. Seeya.” The Hornet went to burners and disappeared into the cloud.

“Flaps 33, gears down.”

“Thirty three, three down and green.”

“Okay, I got the lights.” He saw the strobes leading to the threshold and put his hands on the wheel and throttles, his feet on the pedals. “Wipers to MAX.”

“MAX.”

He followed the autopilot’s movements with his hands and feet, and as soon as the mains hit he switched off the AP, then went to reverse thrust and started to brake. He saw all the buildings were dark, the KLM A340 and Air France A330 on the ramp were as well.

“I don’t like this,” he whispered. He switched COMM 1 to 121.9, to ground control, and he called. “Ah, Lajes Ground, can you get fuel trucks and a cart out to me? I’m going to shut down over by the fire department buildings. I’d like to gas up and get the hell out of here, if you don’t mind.”

Beach and Rutherford looked at one another, then at Acheson.

“Where are you thinking of going?” Rutherford asked, her hands shaking nervously.

“Ah, 3-8 Heavy, negative, base commander advises you need to get your passengers to shelters. Buses should be there momentarily. There are two more waves of Russian strike fighters inbound, up to 120 new aircraft.”

“Yeah, tower, that’s why we want to get out of here!”

“Sorry, 3-8, commander advises we don’t have the fuel to spare right now, not for civilian OPS.”

Acheson shook his head, muttered under his breath: “Goddamn two hundred million dollar airplane is gonna get shredded, you dickwick…” then he turned to Beach. “Let’s shut her down, get everyone out of here and on the buses.”

He flipped on the intercom, switched to CABIN and spoke: “Ladies and gentlemen, Captain Acheson here. We’re going to get you off this airplane now, into buses, and these will take you to air raid shelters. There is a large Russian strike force headed this way, fighter aircraft and troop transports, and the facilities here are low on fuel. So are we, for that matter, so this is the end of the line – for now. Effective a few hours ago, civil aviation in the United States was grounded, and this aircraft was ordered by headquarters to divert to the nearest open facility and land – until hostilities are over or it’s safe to resume our flight. What we do know right now is that Russian forces are in the process of moving into Europe, but that’s all we know. Assuming this aircraft survives, and that fuel is allocated, we’ll try to get you on to your destination when that becomes possible. There are four buses pulling up on the left side of the aircraft right now, and you need to get in them as quickly as possible. Again, there are Russian attack aircraft inbound, so let’s move quickly and in an orderly manner, and we may just get out of this in one piece.”

“Shut-down checklist complete,” Sandy said.

“Okay, get the door, then head down there and help people moving to the buses.”

“I’m staying with you,” Rutherford said quietly, then she turned to her two guards. “You go, just blend in as best you can. If we survive the night, then you…” But Rutherford broke down then, her dreams at an end, and she sat in the jump-seat and waved them on. “Go now,” she whispered.

Her two ninja left, followed Sandy Beach out the cockpit door, and Woodward came in, with Tate and the two girls standing just outside the door, looking in.

“Ben?” the old cop said, his voice full of concern.

“Yeah?”

++++++

But I could see it in the kid’s eyes. He was lost now, full of concern for the aircraft, for his passengers, and even that Rutherford dame. She was stuck on him, hard, like white on rice. And the thing is, he was too. Kind of odd, too, now that I think about it.

He was a good looking kid. Kind of like Clark Kent, if you know what I mean. A real straight arrow. Think Jimmy Stewart and you’re on the right track. Tall, skinny, kind of a self-deprecating “Aw, shucks, Ma’am” kind of guy. Quiet, radiating strength sitting up there in the cockpit, a man fully the sum of his parts. Cop and pilot, you know what I mean?

Then there was this Rutherford dame. Maybe five feet tall, maybe forty five, fifty years old. Serious, a hard edge in her eyes, but a soft one, too. Like a falcon. Like a falconer had just pulled the hood off her head. Her eyes were blinking, her head swiveling, and when I looked at her the only word that ran through my mind was “machine.” A human machine, calculating, using her senses to figure out what was happening around her – and then she’d look at Acheson and melt. To my eyes, it was like she had just discovered the order of the universe – and it wasn’t what she thought it was.

And Ben? He was lost in thought, a different kind of machine..

“Ben?” I remember saying, and he looked up at me, and I saw “LOST” in his eyes.

“Yeah?”

“What’s our play, man?”

“There’s enough fuel to get us to Brazil, or west Africa somewhere, but not to the US.”

“Probably better to stay here,” Rutherford said.

“Nowhere else TO go, right now, anyway” he said, his voice almost a whisper.

“Not until this is over,” Rutherford added.

And there it was. In the blink of an eye, the world had gone from normal, what was, to upside-down-insane. What it always came down to, I guess. War.

When is war going to be at an end? But when is it ever really over? Isn’t that what we are, in the end?

I remember Ben shutting down the aircraft after that, turning off batteries and the cabin going dark. He used a flashlight to get us to the stairs, and then down to the last bus, and he was just standing there, looking up at the huge Boeing – his aircraft, I remember thinking to myself just then. He alone commanded that thing, and now he was surrendering her, walking away.

And I could tell it was eating him up.

We were standing down on the ground in heavy rain when the first missile streaked by, just over our heads, and before anyone could react it detonated a few hundred yards away, just over the runway.

+++++

Acheson heard the roar and pulled Rutherford down to the ground, then covered her body with his own. Woodward, pulled down by Liz and Persephone, watched Tate as he remained standing, looking after the missile’s passage. The bus stood between them and that first detonation, and first the concussive wave lifted it up into the air and spun it around like a children’s toy – and Tate flew through the air, skidded under the Boeing’s nose gear just as waves of shrapnel cut into the aircraft. Fuel began leaking from the wing tanks, and Acheson kneeled, surveyed the scene as two more incoming missiles hit the air force complex at the opposite end of the airfield.

“Three missiles,” he said. “Three got through…” he said as he turned and looked at the Boeing, then at fuel spilling from the wing tanks…

“We’ve got to get away from here,” he said, then he saw ‘Sandy Beach,’ her torso and legs under the bus and he ran to her, Rutherford by his side, looking at the girl.

“Is she dead?”

“Yes,” he said, feeling her carotid.

“Oh my God,” he heard Rutherford whisper, and he turned his attention to the people trying to get out of the bus.

He saw people with lacerations, burned flesh, people trying to move on broken legs, cradling broken arms, or a dying loved one, then he looked at Rutherford.

“The law of unintended consequences?” he said, his voice dripping with malicious sarcasm.

She nodded, saw pools of fire reflected in his eyes, then turned and walked away.

He ran over to Woodward, helped him sit up, saw shrapnel in the dark haired girls chest and legs, foaming blood oozing from her mouth and a gaping chest wound, and then Woodward was leaning over the girl, crying. “Liz?” the old cop sighed, “Liz, talk to me,” and Acheson watched as the girl sighed once, then slipped away.

Acheson turned, looked at the man on the ground by the nose gear and ran over, saw Woodward’s friend from Seattle, but he stopped as he got close. The lifeless body was scorched black, rippled with shrapnel, then he saw damage to the aircraft up-close: the shredded tires, engine cowlings punctured, oil and hydraulic fluid running onto the tarmac – and he knew the Boeing was mortally wounded, would never fly without serious reconstruction.

He turned and was walking back to Woodward and the other girl – when he flinched, then felt the super-sonic boom of aircraft passing through the clouds overhead, then bombs started falling like rain, slamming into the hillside on the far side of the airfield. He watched as more fell – landing closer – then he was aware of flying through the air – just before everything grew dark and quiet.

+++++

He woke up.

Tried to sit up, but couldn’t.

He tried to lift his hands to his face, but couldn’t.

He closed his eyes and felt himself drifting off.

+++++

He opened his eyes. Turned his head.

Gray. Nothing but gray. And steel? Steel walls?

A woman walked by. A nurse, and he tried to speak but everything he said was muffled, garbled, his words like hollow echoes coming from the middle of his skull. The nurse turned and spoke to him, and he saw her lips move, saw her eyes on him, but he couldn’t hear a thing she said.

“I can’t hear you,” he tried to say, but he felt the words more than heard them, and incompletely, at that – like every sound was coming from behind walls of hissing static, with an occasional high-pitched whine thrown in for good measure – then he saw her smile, then turn away.

He tried to think, imagine where he was, then he gave up and put his head down on the pillow. He felt himself drifting…then…

Someone lifted an eyelid, shined a light in his eye and he tried to turn away but strong hands held him fast. He blinked when whoever it was finished, then he felt a sting in his upper arm. He was rolling down a narrow corridor a moment later, then in a small room with bright lights overhead. A busy, worn out man leaned over and peered in his eyes, then he felt himself drifting away again.

+++++

He heard someone calling his name, pinching an earlobe and calling his name.

He opened his eyes, saw a woman eyes peering over a surgical mask. Brown eyes, warm and soothing…

“Captain Acheson? You can hear me?”

Not American, but not quite Russian, either.

“Yup.”

“Good. You know where you is, are?”

“No.”

“You know what day it is?”

“No, I don’t.”

“How about time? Know what time it are…uh, is?”

“No, no, nothing. Look, can you tell me where I am, what day it is? I’d kind of like to know, you know?”

She nodded her head, wrote on her clipboard. “You on NATO ship, hospital ship. Uh, you found three weeks ago, after attack on Lajes. Surgery one week ago, you out since.”

“Where are we, I mean…like at sea, or anchored somewhere?”

“Oh, yes, to Lisbon maybe, or Gibraltar.”

“War? Still war?”

“Oh, no, war over. Seven cities destroyed, then stop.”

“Cities? Which ones?”

She looked away, shook her head. “New York and Washington in America. Boston too, I think, someplace like that. Moscow and St Petersburg in Russia, some submarine base, too. Maybe Hamburg, in Germany, and a navy base in southern France. There are stories about Korea and China in the news, nobody knows much yet. So, you are pilot captain?”

“Yes. American Airlines, and a major in the US Air Force.”

“Oh? This I did not know. You feel pain now?”

“Yes, a little.”

“Where? Can you point where?”

He tried to move his right arm, but it felt stiff, weak, and he said “The side of my head, behind my right ear.”

“You have ringing in ears?”

“A little, yes.”

“No other pain?”

“My leg is, it feels strange. It hurts, then it goes away.”

“Break near knee. Bad fracture. Will need surgery. In cast now.”

“There were people with me. Last names Woodward, Rutherford. Any way to check on these people?”

“I try. You rest now,” she said, slipping a syringe into his IV. “We be in land tomorrow, then maybe you knows more.”

+++++

He felt himself moving and opened his eyes, saw men ahead and behind him, and he realized he was on a stretcher, moving through the corridors of a ship. He saw warnings – in Cyrillic –painted on the walls, then he looked at the uniforms the men wore, but he didn’t recognize them. They came to the main deck and he was in sunlight, being carried down a long, sloping ramp, and he looked up at the ship, saw a Russian ensign flying and he lay back, looked up at the sky and realized he’d told that nurse he was in the Air Force.

There were men at the bottom of the ramp, men in suits, and when his stretcher reached the men they looked at his chart, and one of them came over to him.

“Major Acheson?” the man said.

“Captain. American Airlines.”

“Yes, Major Benjamin Acheson, United States Air Force Reserves. C-17 pilot. We have your file now.”

“So. I’m a prisoner of war, I take it?”

“If there was a war, yes, you would be. But now you are just an enemy of the people, of the Soviet Union. You will be dealt with accordingly.”

“I see.” He heard a voice, a familiar voice, and he turned, saw Rutherford with a Russian colonel, laughing gayly now, her arm slipped inside his, and as he watched her disappear inside a black Mercedes sedan, he looked up at the sky – at a passing cloud. “The law of unanticipated consequences,” he said, laughing a little.

“What was that, Major?”

“Oh, nothing. I was just thinking. How funny life is, sometimes.”

“Da. Funny. My family lived in St Petersburg. I am sure you think that funny, too.”

And he did, in a way. He thought of Genie and The Duke, and of a butterfly sneezing somewhere on the far side of the world, and he smiled as they put his stretcher into the back of a dark green lorry.

And he smiled when he thought of all the butterflies out there, just waiting to sneeze.

© 2017 | Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | this is part 5 of 7, by the by.

The continuing saga of Woodie, Ben, and The Duke. A short, short story, maybe 12 pages. Chapter V is almost finished, too. No proofreading this time out, so buckle up and prepare to laugh.

Predator IV

She was looking into his eyes – and he could see fear lurking in the shadows of her mind, then he watched as the medic came up from behind and slipped the syringe into her deltoid muscle. Her eyes fluttered moments later and she fell into his lap; by then Tate and Woodward were back in the room, looking at her, then at the ninja’s on the floor – their remains splattered all over the room.

Woodward came over to Acheson, put a finger on Rutherford’s carotid as he bent over her. “We got that co-pilot at the airport; her name isn’t Beecham, by the way. Her ID is in the FAA database, but the image doesn’t match what’s on file. First run of fingerprints comes up dry too.”

“She’s polished on 777 procedures,” Ben said, “so work through foreign pilot registries, look for women with the appropriate type ratings.” Acheson ran his hands through Rutherford’s hair, and he wondered why he felt such a strong attraction to this woman…then, “where did you pick her up?”

“International departures,” Tate said, walking into the room.

“Surprise, surprise,” Acheson added, then he looked at this new man: “Do I know you?”

“He’s my partner,” Woodward said. “Richard Tate, retired from CID, Seattle PD; he’s working under a private ticket now. Dick, this is Ben Acheson.”

“Anders told me about you,” he said, shaking Acheson’s hand. “Good work on that stuff last summer.” Tate looked at the woman on Ben’s lap and grinned. “Is it just me, or does it look like that dame’s giving you a blowjob?”

Acheson looked at Tate, then Rutherford. He shook his head, tried to hide from his feelings again. “Can we get her off now?” Ben said.

“Poor choice of words, Amigo,” Woodward said, and everyone laughed. Everyone, that is, but Acheson.

+++++

Acheson rode in a caravan to de Gaulle with Tate and Woodward and several FBI agents; they walked into Terminal 2E and were instantly overwhelmed by a sudden, massive increase in security. The group passed a bank of television monitors tuned to news outlets from around the world, and images of a wide debris field, floating in the sea off Iceland’s west coast, filled the screens one minute, then switched to images of the US Capitol Building the next. Flames and black smoke were pouring out of shattered windows, then the camera shook, the cameraman trying his best to keep his footing as he wheeled around, trying to frame the source of the explosion in his viewfinder. A huge fireball was rising from the White House, and another, across the Potomac – over the Pentagon…

And Acheson stopped, stared as an image of the new President of France filled the screen. The woman was giving a fiery speech, had just declared a new order was beginning when she turned and screamed as troops stormed the studio. She turned, tried to run and was gunned down, several cameras capturing her horrendous death on live feeds.

“What the hell is going on?” Acheson said as the screen switched to surveillance feeds coming from a subway platform. A large explosion could be seen lighting up a distant subway tunnel, then flames filled the platform. Another feed flickered to life, smoke pouring out of subway entries all around the Kremlin filled the screens, then as quickly changed to images from Beijing and Tokyo, then Aukland and Sydney – the images always the same. Political landmarks, and politicians, exploding or being gunned down. Globally. In real time.

“There’s no way any one network could have these feeds,” Acheson said. “Someone’s taken control of television networks, globally. They know where the next strike is, and are tying into the feeds…”

One of the FBI agent’s phones started chirping, and several of the men took out phones and began reading out the text message. “The Vice-President is dead,” one said. “Major blasts at the Capital Building, the Pentagon, FBI Headquarters, the Supreme Court Building…”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Acheson said, pointing at the live feeds. Airport control towers around the world were next on the list. Video feeds from Los Angeles to Lagos began showing the exact same thing: large detonations toppling control towers, streaming live on-screen…then the fact registered…

“Oh, fuck!” Acheson said. “Everybody! Get down…!”

A concussive series of explosions rippled through the terminal; he heard glass breaking and then screams filled the air, walls falling in every direction – then Acheson felt himself flying through the air, thudding off a far wall, coming to rest on a pile of steel beams and shattered glass.

“Got to out of here…” Acheson said as he climbed to his feet. He ran to the dispatch office, tried to open the door – but there was no power – and the electric security lock had tripped – then gone offline. He banged on the door with his fist, heard someone trying to open the door from inside. It opened and a dispatcher stood there, her scalp bleeding, blood coming from her ears, then she fell back and landed on the floor, gasping for breath.

Acheson went to her, helped her into a chair, then went to the dispatch board and looked at gate assignments and fueling status; he grabbed the crew’s clipboard and memory cards for the flight to DFW, then made his way through the terminal to his gate. The ramp chief was talking to gate agents, and they turned to Acheson as he walked up.

“What’s the status of the aircraft?” he said to the ramp chief.

“Fueled, ready to go, but no bags yet.”

“Fuck the baggage. Get everyone onboard, now.”

He pushed through the crowded departure lounge, walked down the Jetway, heard people running up from behind and turned, saw Woodward and Tate, and two girls running beside Woodward, holding him up.

“Get on, now,” he yelled, then he ran past the flight attendants gathered by the main door, ran straight for the cockpit. He slammed the door shut, engaged the locks then turned around.

He saw Sandy Beecham, or whoever the hell she was, sitting in the FOs seat – turning to look at him, and two ninjas standing behind her seat, little Sig pistols pointed at his gut. He heard moaning, looked down and saw Rutherford on the floor behind his seat, blood coming from a scalp wound, debris all over her clothes.

“Did you just get here?” he asked Beecham.

“Yes.”

“Anyone done a walk-around?”

She shook her head.

“Go!” he commanded. “We’ve got a full fuel load out, and no squawks on the cheat sheet, but check the holds are locked and crossed.”

She looked at him, not sure what to do.

“Look, either you do it, or I do. This way one of  your girls can keep an eye on me. Got it?”

“Yes, Captain,” ‘Beecham’ said. As she left the flight deck he turned to the ninja: “There’s a First Aid kit in there. Get it, please.” One of the girls holstered her weapon and opened the closet, handed the kit to him and he opened it, took out some gauze pads and a little bottle of saline. “Give me a hand, would you? Pour the saline in her hair,” he said as he picked little bits of glass from her scalp with tweezers. “Good, now take a fresh gauze pad and tamp it dry.” He taped a fresh gauze over the wound, then took out a penlight and shined it in her eyes, saw little pinpoint pupils, but they were equally reactive.

“Help me sit her up, then go out and get some water, a couple of bottles at least.”

One of the girls bent to help him lift her, then left for the galley – just as Beecham came back in.

“I think she’s okay,” he said to her. “Are they ready for us to start two?”

“Da…I mean, yes.”

“Okay, Comrade. Let’s get to work on the checklist, shall we?”

“Yes, Captain.”

“So, tell me…how’d you get roped into this little caper?”

“Excuse me?”

“They chose you, how?”

“I am captain rated on this model. Apparently they could not recruit any US pilots.”

“Oh. So not simply because you’re a world class fuck?”

“I did not know this would be asked of me.”

“Odd.”

“Why odd?”

“Seemed like you enjoyed yourself, I guess.”

She looked at the ninja, then looked ahead. “I did,” she whispered, “very much, yes.”

“Well, just so you know where we stand, I enjoyed you, too. Very much, yes.”

She looked at him and smiled. “Ready for push-back?” she said as she climbed in her seat.

He put on his headset as he climbed in, then he called for the ramp chief.

“Oui?”

“We’re about ready to go up here.”

“Oui, capitain, but we have no authority from ground control.”

“I really don’t care, chief. Push us back and get us away from this building, and I mean right now. There are fires in there, and they’re spreading!”

There were, he knew, multiple ground control towers at de Gaulle, and the first two he called were offline, but he heard one after he dialed in 121.675.

“de Gaulle ground, Swiss 332, we are VFR OPS only at this time, and all airway routing is down.”

“Ah, 332, roger. You advise a straight in approach for runway 27 left is approved?”

“de Gaulle ground, Swiss 332, that’s affirmative.”

Acheson keyed the mic. “de Gaulle ground, American 3-8 Heavy at 2E-1-0, ready for push-back.”

“de Gaulle ground, American 3-8 Heavy, standby one.”

“3-8, standing by.”

“de Gaulle ground, American 3-8 Heavy, clear to push back.”

Acheson switched to the ramp intercom. “Chief? We’ve got the go from ground.”

“Roger. I picked it up too. We’re ready down here.”

“Thanks, chief. Ready when you are.”

Acheson watched the terminal fall away, then looked at Beecham when the 777 stopped. “Start two.”

“Starting two.”

“American 3-8 Heavy, de Gaulle ground, we’re ready for read back.”

“de Gaulle ground, American 3-8 Heavy, taxi R-Robert to Whiskey-one-one. You will be number two for departure on runway 2-6-right. Wind is calm, altimeter 2-9-9-2. This will be a VFR only departure, and departure control is offline. London is offline, but Shannon is currently on the air. New York and Dulles are off the air, but La Guardia is still on the air. Denver and Dallas Fort Worth are on the air, but Houston Intercontinental and Hobby are off the air. ATL, FLL and MIA are reporting limited VFR OPS. KDFW reporting thunderstorms, ceiling 2500, winds out of the southwest at 2-0 knots. ILS OPS currently restricted.”

Ground, 3-8 Heavy, Robert to Whiskey 1-1, number 2 for 26 right, two niner niner two. VFR to DFW.”

“3-8 Heavy, be advised we have no radar, no ATC at this time. Rennes, Brest and Plymouth are attempting to coordinate. Contact Rennes approach on 122.25, and you are clear to taxi.”

“So,” Acheson said as they began rolling, “where are we going? I mean, really going?”

“To DFW?” Beecham said, shrugging.

“Flaps seven,” he said. “So no grand plan now?”

“Seven, check. No, Captain.”

An Emirates A380 was ahead of them, just turning onto the active runway, and Acheson could see landing lights in the distance, yet “the tower” – such as it was – hadn’t mentioned any incoming traffic.

“Uh, 3-8 Heavy, de Gaulle, we see several aircraft lining up for all runways. Do you know who they are?”

“3-8, you are cleared for immediate take off. We are getting word these could be Russian troop transports. Berlin just reported dozens of Russian transports landing, then went off the air. Air Force units now report Russian incursions, air combat near Liege.”

“Okay, 3-8 Heavy, we’re rolling.”

‘Good luck! Bon chance!”

Not quite at the end of the taxiway, Acheson guessed the first transport was two miles out, then he started his turn. “Damn…wish we were in a C-17 today…”

“Captain, you are going a little fast for this turn, are you not?”

“Fuck it.”

“What about the 380s wake turbulence?”

“Fuck it.”

“This could be interesting, Da?”

“Da, Comrade,” he said as he pulled out on the runway and applied full take off power – and he watched as four Sukhoi-35s streaked low over the airfield – on their way to the city. “Oh, this just isn’t funny. Not one little fucking bit…” he whispered.

“80 knots,” Beecham called out. “V-one – and rotate!”

He barely pulled back on the stick, and when the radar altimeter read 150 feet he called for “Gear up!”

“What are you doing?” Beecham cried.

“Staying down in the trees until we’re away from those goddamn fighters.” He looked at the city off the left wingtip, saw explosions in the distance, then dark smoke trails rising into the sky. “This can’t be happening…”

“Da, it can be. Russian leadership is opportunistic. They seek weakness, they exploit weakness. US politically neutralized, Germans and French now too. Russian Army will move into Eastern Europe and Baltics in one move, into Iraq and Saudi Arabia in other.”

“So, you’re Russian? Aren’t you happy now?”

“No, not Russian. Ukraine.”

“Ah, so not happy.”

“No, now we have new Soviet monster.”

“The bear slips out of his cage again, I guess?”

“Da – Power lines!”

Acheson pulled up sharply on the yoke, and the 777 vaulted into a steep climb – just clearing a set of high-tension power lines hanging over the Seine. “Okay, enough of this. Clean the wing, configure for a maximum speed climb, then look up the numbers for Shannon.”

“Shannon? Why?”

“Because,” they heard Rutherford say, “he’s the captain, and he knows what he’s doing.”

He turned around and saw the woman looking at him, then he reached around and took her hand, felt her kiss his fingers. “You feeling groggy?”

“A little, but what’s going on down there?”

“It looks like our Russians friends are getting adventurous again. They’re taking European capitols right now.”

“Damn,” Rutherford said.

“You were not expecting this, I take it?”

“It is not completely unexpected, but it means the entire North American command and control network remains compromised.”

“Well, you did infiltrate it? You did try to compromise it? What were you expecting?”

“A quicker transfer of power. Consolidation of our assets in Washington and Omaha.”

“Do you honestly expect members of the military to fall in line with you?”

“Yes, when they see the current order collapse, and sudden threats emerge to our control of the larger world order.”

A light on the overhead panel started blinking, then chiming.

“What’s that?” Rutherford said, looking at the light.

“SELCAL. Company broadcast.” He flipped the light, selected the main cabin speaker.

“Repeat. EWO-EWO-EWO. Emergency War Order case Baker. Repeat. EWO-EWO-EWO. Emergency War Order case Baker…” He flipped off the channel, shook his head. “Goddamnit all to hell…” he sighed.

“Ben?” Rutherford said, her voice now unsettled. “What is it?”

“Oh, in plain English it means the Civil Defense network has been activated, that nuclear hostilities are considered imminent, and all airborne aircraft are free-agents now. We’re to get our aircraft and passengers out of harm’s way, any way and any where we can.”

“That means the…”

“This order, Baker, is supposed to go out when missiles are being fueled in their silos, when launch is imminent.” He looked at Beecham, then shook his head. “What’s your name, anyway?”

She turned, startled, and looked at him. “I – don’t…”

“You don’t remember your name?”

“No, of course I do, but I think I like this Sandy Beach name.”

“Sandy Beach. Yeah, I get it. Well, okay Miss Sandy Beach, get the numbers for Bermuda into the FMC, and a heading as soon as you can.” He settled on 270 degrees, looked over the panel, saw the Scilly Isles ahead and to the right, then checked their current altitude. He changed frequencies, listened to eastbound commercial traffic trying to check in with London…

“Delta 003, is anyone on this frequency?”

“American 3-8 Heavy, go ahead Delta.”

“Geez, all our COMMS are dark. What’s going on?”

“Russian transports moving into European capitols right now. We have an EWO broadcast. Did you get that yet?”

“Negative.”

“I’d get down on the ground as fast as you can. There are Russian fighters over Paris.”

“What about London?”

“Been off the air for an hour or so. Shannon is supposed to be on the air.”

“Uh, Speedbird-2 here, did you advise London is off the air?”

“Affirmative 2, advised by controllers on the ground at LFPG.”

“Well, Delta, Dublin is a better facility for heavies. Ah, 3-8 Heavy, where are you off too?”

“Over the channel now, heading for Bermuda.”

“I say, I wish we had enough fuel for that.”

Acheson heard knocking on the cockpit door and flipped on the closed circuit camera, saw Woodward standing out there, with two of the flight attendants. He unlocked the door, then turned to one of the ninja. “Let them in,” he commanded.

The girl looked at him, then at Rutherford.

“He’s the captain. Follow his orders.”

Woodward walked in, saw the ninja, then Rutherford, and he sighed. “Ah. Things have changed again, I see.”

“Captain?” one of the flight attendants said. “What should we do back there? People are getting restless, getting phone calls from home. There’s a lot of confusion…”

“What’s the food situation?”

“We have enough.”

“How many passengers did we end up with? The manifest says 220…”

“We’re full up front and in Business Class, but coach is almost empty. Maybe 150.”

“That figures. Well, get meals out fast, free booze for everyone. Tell them I’ll have an update in a half hour.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“Woodward? We’re headed for Bermuda, that’s about all I can tell you right now. We’ll get on the ground as fast as we can, then…”

“Why? Why aren’t we going to the States?”

“Again, I’ll tell you more in a half hour. Things aren’t real clear right now.”

“Speedbird-2, 3-8 Heavy, are you still on the air?”

“3-8, go ahead.”

“Reports coming into Dublin advise Russian forces have moved into Norway and Finland, and that an American carrier battle group has been attacked in the GIUK gap. There is apparently a large air engagement taking place off the Yorkshire coast, NATO forces trying to stop a Russian air strike on petroleum facilities near Rotterdam.”

“So, you’re saying it’s World War Three? Right?”

“It rather looks that way. We’re tucking into Shannon, try to refuel, then head your way.”

“Okay. We’ll stay on this frequency, our ETA is about four hours.”

“Right-o. See you there.”

“Did he mean – war has broken out?” Woodward asked.

“It’s the law of unintended consequence,” Rutherford said. “Do one thing, expect one set of consequences, then another materializes, upsetting all prior calculations. Our movement critically weakened the West, to the Russian mind, anyway, and this is the opportunity they’ve been waiting for, patiently, since 1945.”

“So,” Woodward asked, “what happens next?”

“The war either remains conventional, and protracted, or it ends quickly, via nuclear exchange.” Rutherford added. “Our military will be assuming command absent civilian leadership. They’ll be least likely to resort to nuclear war, until they see a direct threat to the homeland or NATO, then they’ll strike out, fast and hard. If a carrier group has been attacked while rushing to reinforce Norway, submarines will be getting their firing orders soon.”

“Fallout patterns,” Acheson whispered.

“Da,” ‘Sandy Beach’ added. “We must go south.”

“South?” Woodward asked.

Rutherford stood. “Could someone get me some water, please?” One of the ninja left for the galley, and Rutherford came up behind Acheson, put her hands on his shoulders. “Bermuda can house thousands, but it hasn’t the agricultural base to support such a massive influx of permanent residents. Nor do any of the Caribbean islands, except perhaps Puerto Rico, or the Dominican…”

“Too close to fallout,” Sandy said. “If war breaks out, we must get as far south as possible.”

“I can’t handle this,” Woodward said, leaving the flight deck, mumbling as he went.

“Many people will react like this,” Rutherford said as she watched Woodward leave. “Many will want to go home, regardless, others may simply lose the will to live. You need to be mindful of this, Captain.”

Acheson was more mindful of something else he heard in her voice. She had just surrendered to him, in effect submitted to his authority. She had told her girls to obey not her commands, but his. She was depressed, perhaps from the tranquilizer, but she was compromised emotionally, and he needed her strength right now.

“Your airplane,” he said to Sandy, then he motored back in his seat while he undid his harness. “Come with me,” he said to Rutherford, and he took her by the hand, led her aft to the toilets by the forward galley. He pushed her inside, felt her flaccid response, then turned her face to his –

And he slapped her, hard.

He saw the sudden fury in her eyes, the trembling lips of uncertainty, then he bent to her and kissed her with all the passion he could muster. She responded instantly, and as passionately, digging her fingernails into his back.

“You know me so well,” she whispered in his ear. “It’s like we were born to love one another. I feel it in my bones.”

He held her close, then he felt her fumbling with his belt, pushing his trousers down. He knew where this was going, felt himself falling over the edge of the abyss, then he was entering her, helping her legs encircle his waist. Her mouth open beside his, he heard her breath mingle with his own, felt all his fear turn to inverted lust, then he put his mouth on hers, driving into her, fear to lust, lust to need, then an infinite release.

“I need you,” he heard himself say, a coarse whisper at first, and he felt her shuddering orgasm as he added “I want you.”

“I am yours, forever,” she sighed, her legs pushing him deeper as they came down.

“And I need your strength, so don’t leave me again,” he said as he kissed her a few minutes later.

“You need to call Genie,” she said. “Warn her, get her headed south,” then she went to her knees and began cleaning him with her mouth, taking him in, swirling his need with hers, and a minute later his knees began to buckle, his back arched – and he felt himself coming undone in her mouth, and he held her head while she cleaned him again, then his hands went out to the walls, holding himself up against all the contradictions he felt flowing through his veins on the way – into her.

+++++

It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out some things, and when I looked at that Acheson kid I could see it all over his face. Mid-30s, in command of an airliner, re-captured by the very same women we thought we’d captured just a few hours before. That Russian girl up there? How did they do it? I told Tate as soon as I got back to my seat, then Liz and Persephone were leaning close, listening to every word that came out of my mouth – like it was the last thing they were ever going to hear.

Then Acheson comes out of the cockpit with that Rutherford woman, his face set in stone, like anger, only worse, then that bitch. Like she’s in heat. Lips puffed up, breathing deep, then he’s in that bathroom and then the walls start shaking. Like the fucking starting gate at the Kentucky Derby. Then he walks out of there a minute later and the front of his slacks look like Monica Lewinsky’s little blue dress. Then she crawls out of there, cum running down her legs and looking like she’d gone ten rounds with Ali. I swear, I’d do anything to be thirty years old again.

Then Tate’s looking at me – like ‘what the fuck?’ – as in: what’s going on up there?

Then Liz leans over, tells us to be cool, some kind of dominance game was going down, that Acheson was taking control of Rutherford, and it hit me then. We’re like dogs and cats, the birds and the bees. We’re nothing but hormonal drives and dominance dances, not a helluva lot different than Frigate Birds on Midway Island, or gorillas in an African mist.

Anyway, Liz starts looking at me all goo-goo eyed and hands me a Viagra, and I’m like, ‘Really? World War Three is breaking out, and you want to get laid?’

Then I’m thinking about it. Yeah, you know, if the human race wants to go out with a bang, well then, what the fuck. Why not get a woody and duck into the head, join the Mile High Club? Then Sephie is looking at me, her lips all puffed up and I’m wondering, like, if there’s room for three in there…and will my heart be able to take it?

But really? Why the fuck not?

Know what I mean, Jelly-Bean?

+++++

Acheson climbed back in his seat, noticed the SELCAL light chirping away and slipped on his harness, then put on his headset. He scanned the panel, then he flipped the circuit and listened to the message – through the headset this time. Headquarters had activated Case Epsilon. War, probably nuclear war, was considered imminent, and all pilots were now ordered to land at the nearest open airport. He listened to The Lord’s Prayer coming over the circuit, then shut it down and took off his headset.

“What was it?” Rutherford asked.

Acheson shook his head, bent over the keypad on the Flight Management Computer and entered ‘LPLA’ – then watched data stream onto his PFD, the Primary Flight Display. A prompt came up: “Execute?”

He sighed, hit the button on the keypad, and the aircraft banked hard to the left, then settled onto the new course.

“Lajes?” Beach asked. “Why?”

“We’re two thousand miles from Bermuda, six hundred from the Azores. We’ll lose GPS signal any time now, they’ll be encrypted. There’s a storm off the east coast, it’ll sock in Bermuda by the time we get there, and without GPS I’m not sure we can shoot an approach there.”

“Why will we lose GPS?” one of the ninja said.

“It’s SOP when launch of ICBMs is considered imminent.”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” he heard the girl whisper.

“Yeah, if you’re the praying sort, now’s the time to get on your knees and pull out your rosary. Sandy, write down our coordinates, the coordinates for Lajes and start a DR plot, the faster the better.”

“Okay,” she said, her hands shaking now.

He scanned the horizon, saw something far off to the left. “You see that?”

“What?” Sandy said.

“Ten o’clock, a little high.”

She peered around the center-post, squinting just a little and he smiled, then turned back to the panel.

“You know, I see three aircraft, maybe four…”

An alarm sounded, then another.

“Alert! Collision imminent, turn right!”

Acheson toggled the autopilot and pushed the yoke down and to the right.

“Something’s not right,” he said as he re-engaged the autopilot, then the alarm sounded again. “Alert! Collision imminent, turn right!”

He looked out the windshield again, looked aft as far as he could, then he smiled, relaxed – as four F/A-18F Super Hornets pulled up alongside the port side of the 777. He signaled 121.5 to the lead pilot and switched COMM 1 to the emergency frequency.

“American 3-8 Heavy to Diamondback Lead.”

“Lead here. What’s with all the evasive maneuvers, Captain?”

“Collision alert sounded. Sorry about that.”

“You headed to Terciera?”

“Yeah. How many of you are there out here?”

“Whatever’s left of the air wing from the Papa Bush. We had about half my squad up when she was hit. Low yield nuc, torpedo we think. Subs in the Atlantic were ordered to MFD about twenty minutes ago.”

“What’s MFD?” Rutherford asked.

“Missile Firing Depth.”

Another alarm hooted, and Acheson looked as the GPS SIGNAL LOSS banner flagged on his PFD. “Fuck,” he whispered, then he toggled his mic, “Okay, D-Back lead, we just lost GPS. You have encrypted sets in those birds?”

“Yup. I suppose you want to follow us?”

“You got enough gas?”

“Yeah, we just tanked. Another section is tanking east of here. You military?”

“Air Force, reserves now. C-17s.”

“Rank?”

“Major.”

“Well hell, look who just assumed tactical command?”

“Swell. Okay lead, why don’t you scoot up ahead, leave a couple back here with me.”

“Alright, 3-8 Heavy. Out.”

He turned to the ninja, looked them over and shook his head. “You know, where we’re going, if you get off this airplane dressed like that you’re likely to be run out to the nearest wall and shot.”

The girls looked at each other and nodded, then peeled off their suits.

“What about me?” Rutherford said.”

“What do you mean?”

“What are you going to do about me?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea. What do you think I should do with you?”

She frowned. “I think you should try to get in touch with Miss Delaney.”

And he smiled…which, he could tell, seemed to bother her – a lot.

© 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | this is fiction, all fiction, and nothing but the fiction…so help me Bill. Bill the Cat, that is.

So, here it is. Let’s call this version 1.0 of the completed piece. It’s about 135 single-spaced pages, so put on some Bach, or the Stone Temple Pilots, and put your Doc Martens up and have a read.

The Coffee Cantata

“The separation between past, present and future is only an illusion, though a convincing one…”

Albert Einstein.

Feet tucked in close, she sighed, picked up the newspaper and looked over the front page, settled on a story and started reading. From time to time she picked up her coffee, took a sip, a little grin crossing her face here, the shadow of a frown there. She found herself in the employment pages at one point, and her hands shook a little as contrary images flew through her mind, but she ventured inside, started scanning – and daydreaming.

She was a bright girl – too smart, some said – and she was something of an empath, which, she thought, had at times doomed her to a life of unwanted insight. Born and raised in West L.A., she had gone to UCLA, then to graduate school at USC, her life ahead always centered on journalism, and then writing. She went to work for the Times a few years after Bill Clinton took office, and the first waves of cynicism broke over her shores as she watched the President lie about Lewinsky and that whole blue-stained affair. She threw away her blinders after that and became a real reporter, or so her friends said, after she won a Pulitzer for her coverage of events at a prison in Iraq a few years later.

She had become, over the intervening years, an outspoken critic of the rich and powerful, and by the time she wrote her first book – a scathing, fact-based look at what it meant to be poor in America – she had, of course, made more than a few enemies. Back at the Times after a year off for research, she continued to report on human issues raised by the contradictory impulses she found within America, and she made more enemies. So many her friends weren’t too surprised when they heard she’d been summarily fired by the Times one Friday morning. She had packed her Pulitzer in a little cardboard box and walked out into the world with a smile on her face, but then she sold her house and bought a one-way ticket to China – and she started walking. Walking to the west, always. Her friends didn’t quite know what to think about her after that.

She walked most of the time, though sometimes passing trucks stopped and she hopped aboard, but she always did so with her reporters eyes and ears open. She took notes, wrote little penciled sketches of the people she ran across – and descriptions of her empathic response to other’s misery soon filled the pages of her little red notebook. Sketches of pain, but as she walked away from the huge cities of southeastern China, more often of happy contentment, portraits of farmers in Tibet’s Racaka Pass, of riverboat operators ferrying passengers, and eventually, about the serene smiles she encountered when she talked to herdsmen in Bhutan. She fought a cobra one morning in the eastern reaches of Bhutan, and lived to write about the encounter, but a few days later she slipped and tumbled down a rocky slope, knocking the wind out of her and hurting her left leg. Badly, she discovered. She was afraid it was broken, and though she knew she was close to her destination, she had never felt more alone, or more vulnerable.

A red-robed monk happened along and introduced himself, and Lindsey told him her name, where she was from, and the ancient man just smiled, nodded his head as he helped her stand. Her left leg buckled as he helped her up, so he helped her up again and shouldered her weight this time, and they climbed back to the path and began walking along the trail again. It took them two days, but they finally arrived at the base of a cliff, and she looked up, saw a monastery in the clouds. They struggled up a steep trail through deep woods, scaled rock walls that led even higher, then he helped her along the last stretch, out along a vast ledge that ended at a cluster of white buildings perched on the edge of forever – and she lived within that mountainside community for weeks. She lived in a wholly improbable world, an ancient place carved into the side of a sheer face of rock, the waters of a wild river roaring hundreds of feet below – and she thought about that river for days without end. Where it went, the people who’s lives depended on it, and what would happen if the water stopped flowing. In time she saw the river as a metaphor, as a mirror held up to life, human life, her life.

As all things must, she considered, have a beginning, and come to an end.

And one day she realized she had fallen in love with the mountains and the trees, and even the men who lived in solitude with the clouds. She wished she was different – so she could stay – but she wasn’t. One day the same monk, the same man who helped her that broken day, walked with her down to the river and helped her board a little boat. She watched him recede into the passing landscape with despair, then hope, before she started walking again, still to the west.

She came to a village a day later and fell ill, seriously ill, and deep delirium came for her. In a fevered dream she saw herself being loaded in the back of a truck, then in a hospital of some sort – at one point she saw brown men in white coats doing things to her she didn’t understand – then one day she woke up and saw the world as it was, perhaps.

A little man, no taller than she, stood by the side of her bed looking at a chart, and she looked at him.

“You are most very ill,” he said to her.

“And?”

“I think you must go someplace else. We do not have the resources to care for you.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You have a disease I can not understand,” he said, struggling to find the correct words. “I am not sure I may care to you.”

“You can’t care for me?”

“Adequately, I think is the word I seek.”

“Ah. So what must I do?”

“You must take us to Paro. When you are strong enough. When we have a truck.”

She drifted away again, and when next she woke she felt a rough road underneath an ancient truck, and through flapping canvas sides she watched a dusty road pass by, just out of reach, and she wanted to be down there, walking. Walking and listening. Sketching portraits of lives she didn’t understand.

“Do I understand my own life?’ she thought once. ‘The purpose of my life?’

She saw the outskirts of a city pass beyond the tattered canvas, and she recognized the hospital for what it was. Careful men came for her and carried her inside, and she felt IVs being started, then doctors or nurses at the foot of her bed talking in hushed, excited tones. She could feel her sweat-soaked gown when chills came, then as suddenly she could feel she was being baked alive – and she would call out for help, for water.

And one morning an American was standing beside her, looking at her almost ruefully.

“Hello.”

“Yes, hello there. My name is Carter Freeman, and I’m from the consulate. How are you feeling?”

She shook her head. “Not good.”

“I’m not surprised,” Freeman said. “You’ve picked up a bad bug, and apparently you broke your leg recently. It wasn’t set properly and there’s some sort of infection in the bone, and that’s when they called us.”

“What do they need you for?”

“They think you should try to get home, to a more well equipped facility than this, anyway. They’re afraid you’ll lose your leg otherwise.”

“Ah.”

“So, you’re Lindsey Hollister. The writer?”

“I’ve heard that rumor too.”

He smiled, tried not to laugh. “Well, I’ve come to get you, to take you home.”

“What if I want to stay here?”

“That’s your call, Miss Hollister, but frankly, I’d want to know why?”

“Because these mountain, and these people feel like home now.”

He nodded his head. “Understandable. There’s magic in the air up here.”

She remembered turning and looking out the window just then, looking to the mountains as if looking for an answer to the most important question of her life.

The question. What was it? She had seen it, but now it was gone…

“You feel it too?”

And he had nodded his head. “Impossible not to, I guess. You came through China, walking all the way?”

“Yup.”

“You landed in Shanghai, eighteen months ago. That’s the last recorded entry on your passport. Have you been walking since.”

“Yes, aside from the two months I rested after I hurt my leg.”

“Where was that?”

“A monastery, I think it was in Bhutan but I’m not sure.”

“I came by yesterday,” he said, suddenly a little nervous. “I went through your things, read through one of your journals, trying to figure out where you’d been.”

She looked at him like he was a thief who’d stumbled into her room.

“I found myself weeping at one point,” he continued, “weeping at the beauty you found. I wanted to read more, but I couldn’t. I felt like I was walking where I shouldn’t. Not without your permission, anyway. Do you plan to write about all this?”

She looked away. “I don’t know.”

“You should…I mean, I hope you do. I was lost in your words, in the things I saw through your eyes. I wanted to know more, too. About those things, and – you.”

“Me?”

“I fell in love with you, I think – or with your ability to perceive the human, I suppose.”

“Nothing so personal as a word, I assume.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“So? What have you planned for me?”

“Lufthansa, tomorrow morning. To Frankfurt, then Los Angeles.”

“I see. No choice, eh?”

“It’s the recommendation of your government. Mine, too. Unless, of course, you want to die here.”

And so early the next morning they moved her to the airport, and Freeman was there, waiting, and he went to the airplane with her, saw her settled in her seat then he asked her to write, to share, and then he was gone. She seemed to sleep and sleep, and never saw Frankfurt come or go. She woke up on a gurney, another IV flowing, and she realized she was in another aircraft – and she thought that strange – then sleep came again.

She woke up one morning and felt wonderful, completely refreshed, and she looked out the window in the room she was in and saw palm trees in the distance, swaying in a Santa Anna, and in an instant she knew she was home. The brown air seemed familiar, even the color of the sky seemed to scream ‘Home’ – and she felt an unexpected surge of happiness.

A mountain of a man came to her a little later – he looked like a football player, or a wrestler, but he said he was an infectious disease specialist and that he had been treating her for ten days…

“I’ve been here ten days?”

“You have.”

“And just where is here?”

“UCLA.”

“I thought the air smelled familiar. Is that a Santa Anna blowing?”

“Yup. For a few days now.”

“So, what’s blowing through my veins right now.”

“Oh, a cocktail of Vancomycin, prednisone, fluconazole, and acyclovir. Maybe a little Red Bull, too,” he said, grinning.

“Is that why I feel so ‘up’?”

“Your white counts were in the basement yesterday, so you got another transfusion last night. That accounts for the feeling of energy. What did you do to your leg, by the way?”

“I fell down a mountain.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Bhutan.”

“Bhutan? What on earth were you doing there?”

“Taking a walk.”

“A walk?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, yes, admissions wanted me to ask. We can’t find a home address for you?”

“I don’t have one?”

“But you have insurance. How’d you work that out?”

“I have friends in low places.”

“Well, they’re going to need an address. Some place to send correspondence.”

“Bills, you mean.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Probably a few of those, too.”

“Well, as soon as I find a place to live I’ll let you know.”

“Are you looking? For a place, I mean?”

“I suppose I might as well.”

“Well, my parents have an apartment building over on Gayley. It’s surrounded by frat houses, but it has a pool. Kind of nice, and it’s close to the hospital.”

“Sounds nice. Tell ‘em I’ll take it.”

He looked taken aback. “You don’t want to look at it first?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you have any furniture, any thing at all?”

“No, I burned all those bridges a while ago.”

“So, you really want me to call them?”

“Yes. How long will I need to stay in here?”

“As soon your counts stabilize and the fever abates,” he said. “Maybe a few days.”

“What’s your name, by the way,” she asked.

“Oh, sorry. Doug Peterson.”

“You grow up around here?”

“Yup. You?”

“Beverly Hills High,” she said.

“Small world, isn’t it?”

She looked at him and laughed. “Never smaller than now.”

And he helped her move over to her new place that weekend, and when she went inside the little apartment she found the place furnished. Clean-lined Scandinavian furniture, bright fabrics on the sofa and teak chairs, very modern, almost cheery.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I didn’t think walking into an empty place would be all that fun. I had this stuff in storage,” he added, wistfully, “and it needs a good home.”

“Oh?”

“When my wife and I got married I, well, Madeleine didn’t like the way this stuff looked so I put it all in storage. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.”

“You couldn’t part with it?”

“No, I guess not.”

She walked around the little place, found plates and silverware and pots and pans all set up in the cupboards, and the ‘fridge was stocked with a few necessities too. She walked into the bedroom, found the bed made and toiletries on the bathroom counter; her eyes welled with tears and she turned to him.

“Why, Doug? Why did you do all this?”

“I don’t know, really. I think I want you to be happy.”

“Happy?” she asked, as she looked at the need in his eyes.

“I have an old Mac set up in here,” he said, leading her back into the living room. “All the software has been upgraded, my old stuff’s been cleaned off so there’s nothing on it. A blank slate, I guess you could say. In case you want to write or get caught up on email.” She went over to the little sofa and sat, a line of perspiration beading on her forehead, and he came to her, felt her with the back of his hand.

“Do you know where my stuff is?” she asked as he went into the kitchen. He came back with his little black bag and sat in the chair next to the sofa.

“Yeah. I put it in the closet, over there,” he said, pointing to the entry closet, but he had a thermometer out and he rubbed it across her forehead.

He looked at the readout, shook his head. “Time for bed, Lindsey,” he said as he helped her stand. They walked to the little bedroom and he helped her go into the bathroom, then helped her into the bed. He pulled the sheets up around her neck and tucked her in, and he ran his fingers through her hair once before he left.

She had a difficult time falling asleep.

+++++

She scanned the ads, looking at jobs in the Westwood area, preferably something mindless and uninvolved, and she saw one at a coffee place just a few blocks away. She looked at the time and went to the bathroom to shower, then she dressed and walked down the hill into the old village. She found the place and went inside, ordered an iced coffee and sat, looked out the broad windows at people walking past on the sidewalk.

The place had, she thought, kind of a cool vibe, a mellow hipster thing going as she watched people come and go, and at one point a girl came out to clean tables and she asked her a question.

“Do you like working here?”

“Yeah,” the girl said. “It’s never the same day twice, ya know. Something different every morning.”

“It seems laid back.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Uh, are you here for the job?”

“I was thinking about it.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said, then the girl disappeared into the office behind the counter. A few minutes later an older woman came out, and Lindsey watched her approach through a reflection in the window, trying not to smile…

“Excuse me,” the woman said, “but Melody told me you might be here about the job?”

“Hello, Sara.”

“Oh my God!” Whiteman almost screamed. “Lindsey?! Is that you?”

And she stood, hugged her old friend from high school.

“What in God’s name are you doing here?” Sara whispered. “I read about you in the paper a few weeks ago…about that walk you took, and getting sick. What on earth were you thinking?”

“So, does this mean I get the job?”

“What? Lindsey? What’s going on?”

“I need to get out of the house, be around people. I haven’t been in a while, and it’s eating away at me.”

Sara sat down by her old friend. “Really? You want to work here? Why? I mean, why don’t you go downtown, get a real job? Do what you do best?”

“I want to do what I do best, Sara. I want to talk, and listen, to people.”

Whiteman sighed, shook her head. “It’s counter work, minimum wage, no benefits for three months. Is that what you want?”

“Sounds good.”

“When can you start?”

“Tomorrow soon enough?”

“You sure? Sure you want to do this?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Next question. Are you up to it? It’s not hard manual labor, but it does entail some physical work. Clearing tables, preparing orders. Are you ready for that kind of thing?”

“Yup. My doc thinks it would be a good thing.”

“Nothing infectious, right? You’re safe?”

Lindsey nodded her head. “Yup. Clean as a whistle.”

“God, I can’t believe this, Lindsey. It’s so good to see you, but this too? Wow…I’m just blown away.”

“Me too. Look, do I need anything weird in the clothing department, anything like that?”

“No, not really. Comfortable shoes, only arms and hands visible, per health codes, as you’ll handle food. That means slacks and shirts, but shoes are the big thing.”

“Would these be okay?” she asked, pointing to her jeans and scuffed hiking boots.

“As long as they’re clean, sure.”

“Cool. What time should I be here?”

“Only time the shop is open is five to one, so it’s an early morning shift. Are you a morning person?”

“Not a problem.”

“Well, how ‘bout I see you tomorrow morning?”

“Front door?”

“Yup. Bright and early.”

“Okay, I’ll be here.”

They hugged, then Lindsey walked out into the flow of people on the sidewalk, and Sara Whiteman watched as she disappeared. Melody, her assistant, came and stood by her side then, and they watched her leave.

“She’s so skinny, like she’s been sick or something,” the girl said.

“She has been,” Sara Whiteman sighed. “Since the day I met her.”

+++++

And a week later there’s was a new, if an almost familiar routine. Not quite like school decades ago, but close enough. Friends are just that, after all, and it felt like they started up again where they’d left off, as good friends often do.

Unlock at five, tidy the place up and get coffee going, set out baked good in the counter and get specials marked-up on the chalk board. Open the doors at six and get to work. Within a few days she’d learned how to use the most complicated brewing machines, and the techniques to satisfy even the most hardened caffeine junkies, and she worked the counter efficiently, even gracefully, and soon people came in and said their ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ on their way through her day, and new patterns developed in her morning.

In the very early morning, when commutes began and sometimes ended, the shop filled with harried executives dashing off to work, and coveys of nurses unwinding after long nights on the floor. Professors from the university across the street constituted the next onrushing wave, often before lectures – yet usually after, and students came on this riptide, lingering long after their coffee grew cold, lost in lecture notes or lining textbooks with bright yellow highlighters.

Lunchtime in the shop was a mad rush. Iced coffees and cold, house-made sandwiches flying over the counter at a breakneck pace, then she was helping to clean up as the shop closed for the day. Her day done, she walked up the hill to her apartment, and soon she was grateful for the swimming pool. On sunny days she sat under the sun for hours and hours, often watching her legs dangling beneath the water’s surface – lost in thought. There was a table by the gate and she liked to sit by a eucalyptus tree there, notebook in hand, eyes focused on distant memories – and one day she was sitting by the cool blue water, adrift in a conversation she’d had with a boatman almost a year ago, when like a passing cloud a welcome break came by.

“Doug?”

“Hey, it’s my favorite patient! How’s the sun treating you?” he asked as he sat across from her.

“It feels a little like heaven today. The air is just crisp enough, you know, yet the sun bakes the cool away. I could sit here forever.”

“Nothin’ like LA on a day like this. It’s the cream in my coffee.”

“So, what brings you to the neighborhood?”

“My dad. He’s got COPD, he’s in CHF, uh, emphysema and heart failure. He’s not doing too well, I guess you’d say.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. How’s your mom taking it?”

“Oh, she’s strong. Old world, know what I mean?”

“No, not really.”

“She was a kid when they came over, refugees, during the war. They had relatives in LA, made it here in ‘43. I think the journey was something else, Greece to North Africa, then Brazil and over the Andes, finally up to California on a freighter.”

“How old was she?”

“I think around ten, when she got here, anyway. Took them years, I think.”

“She met your dad here?”

“Yeah, in college,” he said, pointing at the campus across the street. “He went into business, she went into medicine?”

“Oh?”

“Yup, she taught general medicine for years, supervised residency for internists, had a practice in the village. She was the bright one, and they’re still devoted to each other, always have been.”

“She came from Greece?”

“Yup, her family left when the Italians and Germans moved in. You want to talk to her about all this, I’m sure she’d love to.”

“Yes, maybe, if she feels like it?”

“She misses working, so any excuse to get out and shoot the breeze is a welcome distraction. So, what are you doing these days?”

“Oh, I’m working at that little coffee shop down on Weyburn.”

“No kidding? How long have you been doing that?”

“A couple of weeks? Not quite, but…”

He turned professional, his eyes serious. “Any fever, any night sweats?”

“Some night sweats, yes. But not often.”

“Okay, you’re coming with me. Time for some lab-work.”

“Oh, do I have to,” she said, purposefully pouting – just like any other five year old girl.

“You can tuck that lower lip back in. Now come on,” he said, looking at his watch, “let’s get you dressed.”

He helped her up and walked with her to the little apartment, and he waited for her while she dressed, looking out the window of her apartment – watching his mother across the way, looking down at the pool, then at him. She was standing by the window in their living room, and he could see the scowl on her face from here, that scowl etched in oldest memory – her lips always curved just so – when she knew he was about to do something really stupid.

+++++

She felt much better the next morning, and one of her regulars stopped by the register on his way out – and he smiled at her. “You look really good this morning, Lindsey,” he said.

She looked at the man; he was really fat but she thought she recognized him, something about his eyes, then she remembered she’d never mentioned her name to him. She went to clear off his table, saw he’d left a little note and a fifty dollar tip, and she went to the window, watched him disappear down the sidewalk.She noticed he was wearing shorts, and she saw a scar on his leg. Pale and waxy-pink, like a long snake standing up the side of his leg, and she thought it looked angry, like a bad memory that just wouldn’t go away.

She finished cleaning his table and went back to the counter, the fifty dollar bill he’d left in her hand. She walked over to Sara, gave her the fifty, and she listened while Lindsey told her about the exchange.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Sara sighed. “About half the men who come in here every morning come here to see you.”

“What?”

Sara shook her head. “You know, since second grade every boy around seems to look at you just once and decide life would be a whole lot better if you were a part of it.”

“Sara? What are you talking about?”

“God, you are so clueless. Go put on some French roast, would you?”

So she got back to work, getting ready for the mid-morning, professorial rush, but at one point she saw a student come in and sit by the window – and something caught her eye. He pulled a book out of his weatherbeaten rucksack, it’s red slipcover instantly recognizable. Her book, her book about the economic realities of life in working class America, and she turned away from the memory of the time she’d spend ‘undercover’ doing research. He was reading the book, she saw, her photo on the back sleeve standing out like a light house on a dark night, and she tried to ignore the boy. Perhaps an hour later he left, yet he never stopped to say anything to her. She wondered if her appearance had changed all that much and decided she really didn’t care.

And a little after noon, Doug came in.

He came up to the counter and looked around, studiously trying to ignore her.

“I didn’t know you make sandwiches here. What’s good?”

“I like the chicken salad. It’s got undertones of curry, and pecan.”

“Okay. What should I have with it?”

“Iced coffee and tabouli.”

“Done.”

“I’ll bring it out to you.”

“Gracias.”

“Por nada.”

He took a seat at a table by the windows and pulled out a phone, scanned his email and she made his coffee, fixed his sandwich, then took it out to his table.

“How you feeling today?”

“Good.”

“You look good. Your color’s better, too. You kind of had me spooked yesterday.”

“Did I?”

“Could you sit for a minute? While I eat, anyway?”

She looked at Sara – who motioned “SIT!” – and she laughed, sat in the chair by his side.

“Damn, this ain’t half bad,” he said after he took a bite.

“I hope not. I made it.”

He looked at her, thought for a moment, then turned away.

“Doug? What’s on your mind?”

“You, actually.”

“Me?”

“I finally finished your book a couple nights ago. Wasn’t quite what I expected, either.”

“Oh?”

“Mississippi? You moved to Mississippi for six months, then West Virginia? Lived in flop-houses and worked all that time, in laundromats?”

“That’s the epicenter, Doug. Where things are bad. Real bad. You don’t learn by standing on the outside, looking in. You have to live the life to really understand it.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“Have you ever practiced medicine out in the boondocks? Or overseas?”

He shook his head. “I’ve only been outside of LA on vacation, and only a couple of times, at that.”

“Ever thought of going to the front lines? West Africa maybe, or Southeast Asia?”

“No.”

“Do you want to? Did you ever want to?”

“Once,” he sighed. “Yeah, once upon a time I really wanted to do all that.”

“What happened?”

He snorted, turned away. “I got married, then applied for a mortgage and found I had three kids under the Christmas tree one morning. Should I go on?”

“No,” she smiled, “not unless you want to.”

“Everything changed, I guess, after all that. All my hopes and dreams.”

“Everything changed? I wonder…did you change, too?”

“You’re not, like, a shrink or something, are you?”

She laughed a little. “No, but I could probably use one.”

“Oh?”

“I could never stand to see injustice, social injustice, and just turn away. I’ve always wanted to understand it. Not just how people endure living in an oppressed state, but how other, more fortunate people can look at that reality – then turn away.”

“And, what have you learned?”

“That I’ll never understand humanity.”

He laughed again, then looked at her. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

“So, what’s next? Are you going to write some more?”

“I am.”

“About your walk?”

“Yes, in part.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know. Learn something useful. Go back to Bhutan.”

“And do what?”

“Build a hospital, maybe.”

“Something really touched your soul out there, didn’t it?”

“Life finally reached into me and took a look around. I think it found me wanting.”

“And how would you fix that?”

“I think I’ll learn to listen better.”

“You’re going to hate me for saying this, but I have to. I’m madly in love with you.”

“You’d have to be a little mad to say that, I guess.”

He nodded his head. “I know.”

“Why?”

“I wish I knew. Something to do with moths and flames, I suspect.”

“Or, perhaps, Icarus?

“Or Icarus.”

“Tell me about your wife. Madeleine, is that her name?”

“Yes. She’s, well, she likes to play cards. She likes to shop on Rodeo Drive. She likes her Jaguar.”

“And she’s sexy as hell, too. Isn’t she?”

He nodded his head. “Of course she is.”

“Oh, how have the mighty fallen. Is that it?”

“No.”

“Of course. She’s what you always wanted.”

“Until I didn’t. Yes.”

“That’s a helluva place to find yourself in.”

She watched him finish his sandwich, and she liked watching him. There was something innocent, almost boyish in his movements, and she smiled when he finished. “Can I get you some more coffee?”

“No, I’ve got appointments in an hour, then rounds. Will you be home around four?”

She nodded her head.

“How much to get square with the house?”

“I’ll get it – this time,” she said, smiling.

“And I’ll get the next one?”

“Sure. If you like.”

“Well. Gotta go.”

“Yup. Seeya.”

She cleaned the table after he left, then walked back to the counter – only to find Sara and Melody waiting for her. Impatiently, it seemed to her.

“Well?” Sara said, leaning on the counter.

“Well what?”

“How’d it go?”

“He’s my doctor, Sara.”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off you,” Melody said.

“Yup,” Sara added, “he’s got it bad.”

“Jeez,” Linsey sighed, “he’s married, you guys.”

“And did I hear him say,” Melody said, almost giggling, “that he’s madly in love with you?”

“He said that about my book.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Sara grinned, “like I believe that, too.”

“Can I help with the dishes?”

Sara turned, looked at the clock. “Nah, I got it. Why don’t you head home, get some rest.”

“I need to go to the grocery store,” Lindsey said, “if you have time to run me over.”

“Why don’t you buy a car?” Melody asked.

“I don’t need the hassle, or the headache,” she said.

“But you need a ride to the grocery store?”

“Never mind.”

“Oh, come on,” Sara said. “I need a few things too. Melody? Can you hold down the fort ‘til I get back?”

“Sure.”

They went out back, to Sara’s Audi, and they rode over to Century City in silence. She got a few necessities and a couple bottles of wine – and a bunch of flowers – then they got in the car to drive back to her apartment.

“I know Doug,” Sara said a few minutes into the drive.

“Oh?”

“I know his wife, too.”

Lindsey looked at her friend, wondered where this was going.

“She’s pretty, but real mercenary. She was a cheerleader, of all things, and sweet as could be. He never knew what hit him.”

“And she just doesn’t understand him, I guess.”

“Oh, no, she understands him alright. My guess is she’d like nothing more than to catch him having an affair, too. But then again, I think she fucks every twenty year old pool man, every tennis instructor, and every plumber she can get her mouth on.”

“What? How do you know all this?”

“Same country club, sweetie. The jungle telegraph doesn’t lie. And I’ve known them both for years.”

“What about Doug? I don’t really know him.”

“He played linebacker here, was an All American, played in two Rose Bowls. Went straight on to med school, again, here, finished his training downtown, at County SC. He’s been on the front lines of the AIDs epidemic, made his name there. Liz Taylor loved him, thought he walked on water. He fights for his patients, and if he doesn’t know something, he finds the answer, fast. He’s kind of famous around here too, in some circles, anyway.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, he’s not a social animal. He’ll help raise money for charities, but he doesn’t go to the balls, if you know what I mean.”

“Madeleine doesn’t like that, I guess.”

“Like I said, she’s mercenary. She’s in it for the money, and whatever prestige she can wrangle off him. I’m pretty sure he’s miserable, from the little I’ve heard, anyway. My advice? Be careful, be careful of her.”

Lindsey laughed a little. “No need. I can’t imagine getting involved with anyone at this stage of life?”

“Yeah? Tell me, when was the last time you were involved with anyone?”

Lindsey looked out the window, shrugged her shoulders.

“Yeah,” Sara said. “That’s just about what I thought.”

+++++

She heard the knock on the door a little before five, and she went to let him in.

“Are you cooking,” he asked.

“A little something, in case. I have some wine, if you’d like.”

“I didn’t want you to go out of your way.”

“I was going to fix something for dinner anyway. I made a little extra.”

He went to the sofa and sat, then leaned back and sighed.

“Tough day at the office, dear?”

He laughed. “Kind of. It’s like the hard cases never end, never stop coming. Like yours. The bugs you had running around in your system were exotic, stuff we never see over here. I was online talking with docs in London ten hours a day, for a week, too, trying to get to the bottom of it. Trouble is, it seems like that’s happening with more frequency now, and with new antibiotic-resistant bugs popping up almost daily, it’s just getting worse.”

“Sara told me you’re like that. Tenacious, I think, was the word.”

“Sara?”

“She owns the coffee shop.”

“Oh. Whiteman. Yeah, I’ve seen her at the country club. And what else did Little Miss Sara have to say?”

“She gave me the rundown. Your wife, what she knows, anyway. And a little about you.”

“Well, hell, you opened the door so it can’t be all that bad.”

She laughed.

“You want the unvarnished version?”

“Sure.”

“She fucked around, a lot. Then she tested positive.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“You’re treating her?”

“Nope. Ethically not possible. We live on opposite sides of the house, her treatment is supervised by a colleague in my department.”

“Your kids?”

“Two in college, one,” he said, looking away, “is still in high school.”

“I mean, do they know – about the HIV?”

He nodded his head. “Yup. We told ‘em a few years ago.”

“What they must have gone through,” she whispered.

“They’re good kids. Better than good, really.”

She looked him in the eye, and she could see his honest love for them, feel his concern. “Well, I’ve made a Caesar salad, sliced some apples and cheese, and broiled a little steak. You want to open the wine?”

“You know, that sounds really good…”

When they finished the dishes and put away the leftovers, he went to the sofa again and stretched out, and before she knew what had happened he was out for the count – on his side and breathing heavily. She went to the closet and covered him with a blanket, then sat in the chair by the sofa and watched him sleep – until she too fell away.

+++++

He came in early the next morning…the man in shorts with the long, waxy scar on his leg…and she watched him as he came to the counter…

“Good morning, Lindsey,” he said when it was his turn. “Howya doin’ this fine day?”

“Good,” she said, “and I’ll be a whole lot better as soon as you tell me your name!”

Yet he seemed hurt by that, and almost looked away. “John Asher? Ring any bells?”

“John!” she said, then she ran out from behind the counter and into his arms. “My God, that beard! I can hardly tell it’s you!” She hugged him for all he was worth, her joy genuine, her surprise complete. “Now…what on earth are you doing here?”

Asher had been in the Overseas Bureau at the Times, and might have been considered a world class journalist if not for his comically ironic anti-intellectualism. His book, unmasking the origins of right wing death squads in El Salvador – and America’s hidden role in the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero – had garnered his first Pulitzer – yet the paper let him go a year later, claiming that his choice of subject matter was dangerously disingenuous, his investigative methods frequently incendiary, and not altogether ethical.

Yet while they were at the Times together they had renewed a personal relationship that had been killed a long time ago – and they remained friends until she went ‘undercover’ – doing research for her own book. By the time she came back he’d been discharged, and then disappeared – to the Middle East, some said, while others claimed he’d gone to ground in Middle Earth – and was tripping out on magic mushrooms. Still, she remembered him now for what he had always been.

A friend. And more than a friend – from the earliest moments of her life. She remembered Asher – Asher the class clown – yet he had also been the agent-provocateur, the saboteur who taped condoms all over blackboards in the religious studies classroom – just before a local evangelical group was due to arrive for a lecture. Who covered all the toilets with clear plastic wrap – in the faculty restroom – causing a mess of near biblical proportions to spread out across the floors. Who flushed waterproof blasting caps down toilets, blowing up pipes and sending tidal flows of raw sewage into first floor classrooms. He’d been an anarchist, and to school administrators, the anti-Christ – yet he was brilliant, and had – at times –an endearing, compassionate soul.

And like Lindsey, he had possessed a passion for exposing injustice, for shining bright lights on the dark underbelly of power. When he taped condoms over chalk-borne words, it was because he wanted to the world to know the preacher giving a talk that day was a pedophile. When he covered toilets with clear plastic wrap, he wanted teachers to know he could see the shit they were trying to peddle as truth. And when he filled the school with sewage? Well, perhaps, Lindsey thought, Asher was simply telling it like it was.

He’d gone on to Columbia, to it’s famed Journalism School, then had come home. He covered the downtown beat for the Times, everything from politics to the struggles faced by the homeless, but he stirred up so much trouble the publisher had him promoted to the national desk. That lasted a year, lasted long enough for the White House to send a note to the publisher asking that Asher be sent to the North Pole, or perhaps Antarctica. So he had ended up in El Salvador, ostensibly to cover the simmering conflict in Nicaragua, then he discovered the conflict between the Salvadoran government and Óscar Romero. He photographed bodies of murdered nuns, and the savaged bodies of teenaged protesters when they were discovered in landfills.

Then one night he discovered links between the Salvadoran military and US Special Forces, rivers of dark money siphoned from obscure political organizations in Florida and Delaware being used to pay squads of mercenaries operating in Salvadoran villages. Mercenaries who rounded up protesters in the middle of the night, who drove them into fields and gunned them down. When he photographed a series of massacres, and got them published in the United States, assassins tried, and failed, to take him out. The bureau’s office in San Salvador was firebombed, and reporters from all news organizations fled the region until the government issued assurances they wouldn’t be targeted. And assurances were issued, with one notable exception: Asher was now persona non grata, unwelcome in the region.

By the time his chronicle of Romero’s assassination came out, the Times had had enough. He was trouble, a born troublemaker, and his antics had apparently compromised the paper’s integrity, not to mention reporters’ lives. When governments applied pressure, and that was that.

He had languished as a freelancer after that, but the 90s were not, in general, a good time for investigative journalists of any ilk. Corporate takeovers reduced the moral integrity of editorial offices, and reportorial skills began to slip away as papers began to focus on delivering content suitable to advertisers, and not to the needs of an informed populace.

And yet, the early 2000s were something else entirely.

The internet happened – and as suddenly came of age at the end of the Clinton era, and then W, or George W Bush, was selected as President – by judicial coup d’état in Asher’s opinion – and with that moral imperative in mind he launched one of the first independent news journals on the web. Called Veritas, Asher and several like-minded journalistic firebombers now had the venue of their dreams, and in Bush, a subject worthy of their impressive, and impulsive, investigative talents.

And Lindsey watched these developments from the sidelines, often content to look on passively when Asher’s exposés tilted to anarchic narcissism, yet a couple of times she reached out to him, wondered what his motives really were.

“At heart,” he told her once, “I’m a Leninist. I want to weaken the foundations of the state, make truth a subjective commodity, weaken the current reality in the minds of the people – until I can replace it with what’s needed to bring the state down.”

“But…why?”

“Because the state is corrupt. Life in this country is corrupt, it’s been corrupted by greed, by an overwhelming lust for money and power. I’m going to use that greed, use that lust and turn it against the establishment. I’m going to get inside, then I’m going to light the match, start the fire and burn the whole fucking thing to the ground. I’m going to do it because that’s the only way we’ll ever change the course we’re on.”

“Fight evil with evil, then?”

“What’s evil?” he said. “I mean, really, what is it? It’s a word, Lindsey, that’s all. And the only thing that’s ever worked against evil is either pure force or subversion from the inside. War is pointless now, so you have to get inside, subvert from within…and that’s all that’s left now. The state is too powerful, the truth is what the state says it is.”

And he had done just that, too. He was no longer an outsider.

And now, here he was, looking into her eyes – and she looked in his, saw fires raging in his soul, and she wondered what he wanted from her now.

+++++

She was sitting on the monastery wall, her legs dangling over the abyss, and she was watching the sun come to the day through amber clouds below and around the stones and trees. She took a deep breath, looked at her leg and wanted the pain to stop – but the pain reminded her of a lesson she had been slow to grasp. Go slow, take care where you put your feet, and understand the next step you take might be your last. She had found peace in the lesson, too. Move slowly through life, the monk said, understand the world around you, understand the consequences of your actions – and act only when you must.

She heard a tiger’s roar that morning, and she thought it sounded forlorn, lonely. Like it was looking for it’s mate, and she felt that loneliness as her own.

She thought of loneliness when she looked at the men living in isolation on this cliff, and she thought such enforced isolation was something of an oddity – at first. Then she realized men had developed systems of religious interpretation around the world, independently of each other, and each had arrived at a similar conclusion: the best way to understand the nature of life – and the infinite – was to isolate oneself, and the more extreme the isolation the better. Work – and think – in silence, consider the nature of the self, and even the nature of reality, in extreme solitude. Existence, in this monastic framework, became the conceptual basis for introspective self analysis – and the interesting thing is all this started happening around two thousand of years ago, it happened in several places around the world, and it happened almost concurrently in wildly different belief systems.

Why? She wanted to know – why had this happened? What caused them to flee? What had caused her to flee?

She had known that one group of desert fathers had wandered off into the Sinai, another into the scorched lands west of the pyramids, a few even before the time of Christ, and in the monastery she learned that the same impulse had enveloped the peoples of Southeast Asia – and at very nearly the same time.

Why?

Why had a few people separated by impossible distance experienced the same desire for cultural dissolution? Why did John Asher yearn for dissolution? Was it just in the nature of some men to question these things, or had something happened, something fundamental to man’s understanding of the world? The first large cities developed during that era, the first systems of laws were implemented, and nomadic man increasingly became domesticated man.

And she thought of John Asher that morning as she watched the sun rise from the monastery wall, about the rage burning in his eyes, and his burning desire to tear everything down.

Had he become a desert nomad too, forced into a life of wandering solitude – compelled to turn away from teeming hordes of greedy merchants, forced to endure injustice in the name of an all-consuming lust. Was the choice Asher confronted now just as it had been two thousand years ago – and would that choice endure, as man searched for ways out of the mazes human fallibility imposed? If man is condemned to endure endless failures of the human imagination, would the choice always be to endure – or flee? Submit, or flee into the desert? Run – from the world of the possible into the world of – what? – An anarchist’s oblivion?

From a world of man-made cages into endless halls of mirrors?

The monk who found her, who helped her climb the mountain and who had tried to set her leg, sat beside her in the sunrise, and she thought of the moment as the most sublimely perfect of her life.

+++++

“So, what have you been up to?” Asher asked.

She shook her head. “Not much.”

“I read about your trip, in the Times. About how ill you were when you got home.”

“Touch and go for a while, or so they told me. How do you like D.C.?”

“It’s getting warm, isn’t it?”

“I suppose you’re happy now?”

“Not quite, but we’re getting there.”

“I thought about you once, in a monastery – of all places.”

“You thought about me?”

“Yes, you. And Lenin, and Ayn Rand.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I thought of a passage in Atlas Shrugged, where Reardon and Taggart are looking out over a ruined industrial landscape, and they look down on destitute workers as vermin to be swept aside, when their utility was gone.”

“And that made you think of me?”

“Yes. And isn’t that odd? But then again, I’ve always wondered why you gave in to such an easy hate.”

He grinned. “I told you once before. Hate works. Hate is powerful. Hate is readily molded into an easily exploitable energy. And more than anything else, hate is the truth of human existence.”

“Ah. Well, I’ve seen you in here several times the last week or so. Anything I need to know about?”

“Oh, I just wanted to ask you out. To dinner.”

“When?”

“Tonight?”

“Alright. I get home around two.”

“Could you be ready by four?”

“Of course. I would imagine…”

“Yes, of course, and I’ll pick you up then.”

“I assume you know where I live?”

He grinned.

“I see. Well…”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” he said as he picked up his coffee, then he stopped and put sugar in his cup then walked out the door.

“My God,” Sara whispered. “Is that who I think it is?”

She watched Asher walk out to the now-ancient Land Rover, yet she turned away before he drove off.

“Why did you agree to go out with him?”

She turned to her friend and saw the shock in her eyes. “Because,” Lindsey said, “I have to.”

“You have to? I wonder…could you, like, tell me why?”

“No. I don’t think there’s any way I could ever explain.”

Sara shook her head, and wondered why Lindsey always seemed to choose the road to ruin. It was so easy for her, and always had been.

+++++

He knocked on her door a few minutes ‘til four, and she went out rapidly, closed the door behind her. “You still have the Rover, I see.”

“I can’t stand the idea of parting with her, for some reason.”

“So, where’d you want to go.”

“I know a guy with a food truck, makes outrageous tacos. He’s supposed to be down in Venice this evening.”

“That sounds right.”

And because the terrain they inhabited was a scorched land of hard, barren secrets, she knew the choice was anything but random. For once upon a time, in a land just down the road a few miles, they had come into this world together – in a most unusual, and slightly troublesome way.

+++++

And this troublesome world came to be some forty years before they were born.

At a high school, in Hollywood, California.

When a boy and a girl, not yet fifteen years old, fell in love. They had, for all intents and purposes, been in love since second grade – when they were seven years old, but love wasn’t what they called it.

Ben Asher ran into Sophie Marsalis, literally, one morning during recess, when the entire second grade was out on the playground. Ben was being chased by two neighborhood bullies, running in blind panic; Sophie and a handful of friends were blowing bubbles, looking up at their creations as they drifted away on a mid-morning breeze. The collision was accidental, unanticipated, and both of them claimed to see stars after. Parents were called, trips to doctors hastily arranged, yet both were fine. The next day life resumed where it had left off, only Ben began spending more and more time with Sophie.

No one could explain it, but from that moment on their lives seemed intertwined, like shoots of ivy on an old stone wall, and over time the structure of their lives began to revolve around one simple fact. They were together, and as far as either was concerned, they always would be. The feeling was mutual, and it became bedrock.

And this feeling changed not at all over the years. Not through grade school, not through junior high school, and not even in high school. What did change did so in their fifteenth year, when Ben openly declared his love, in Mrs Graham’s Social Studies class, that he loved Sophie and that he always would. And to the astonishment of his classmates, and we’ll not even mention Mrs Graham’s reaction, Ben produced a ring and asked his Sophie to be his wife.

And not to put too simple a spin on things, Sophie said yes.

And then they kissed one another – which earned them both a quick trip to Mr Spradlin’s office. Mr Spradlin was the vice-principal, and though he was in charge of disciplinary matters, he was a kind-hearted old man; when Mrs Graham frog-marched the star-crossed young lovers into his office he listened to the teacher’s explanation and smiled, then asked if he could speak to the two of them – “and alone, Mrs Graham, if you please?”

When they were alone in the old man’s office, he looked at them and sighed.

“Ben, do you understand the solemn nature of what you’ve just asked of Sophie?”

“Yessir, I do.”

“Sophie? Anything to say?”

“No, not really. I’ve loved Ben all my life, and I’ll love him ‘til the day I die. And there’s not a whole lot more I think needs to be said.”

And old man Spradlin had looked at the girl’s earnest integrity and nodded his head. “Okay,” he said. “Why don’t you two wait around in here, ‘til the bell rings anyway, then head on to your next class.”

Yet by that point word had spread far and wide – even the librarians were all abuzz with the news – and everywhere they went people whispered behind little sidelong glances. Until one day, a few weeks later, a handful of the school’s bullies tried to taunt Ben Asher about his peculiar brand of lunatic audacity.

And then Ben Asher went ballistic on the bullies.

And bullies being bullies, they fled in terror after two of Ben’s right jabs connected, breaking one boy’s nose and splitting another’s lip.

And, oddly enough, no one ever taunted Ben or Sophie again.

They went to dances together, and to the Senior Prom together, yet by that point they were considered by one and all a married couple – even if they were just seventeen years old. Classmates, particularly girls in their class, looked at them and sighed, seemed to recognize something ‘Serious’ about them both, something in their eyes that just seemed settled, and committed – and they grew envious of her. Boys just assumed Ben was ‘gettin’ some’ on a regular basis, so they were simply jealous as hell – and that was that.

They stayed in West LA, and started UCLA in 1962; Sophie went pre-Med, while Ben majored in aeronautical engineering, and they planned to marry as soon as they graduated.

Then JFK was murdered, and Ben began to take his studies more seriously, enrolled in ROTC. On graduation day he told Sophie he was reporting to a Naval Aviation Induction Center in Beeville, Texas, to begin flight training, and she was as proud of him as she had ever been. She started her first year of medical school, in Palo Alto, soon after he left.

And she was still proud of him when, four years later, Ben’s parents received a telegram from the Secretary of the Navy informing them that their son had been killed over North Vietnam.

And even though this was the swinging sixties, Sophie had changed not at all. She took an internship in Washington DC, at Georgetown, and she met a man, an editor at the Washington Post, a man a few years older than herself. A man named Prentice Hollister. He seemed in a hurry from the first, indeed, almost anxious to marry Sophie, and after a brief courtship they did indeed tie the knot.

And then one day, several months later, her parents called. It was a bleak December day, Sophie told Lindsey once, a day full of gathering snow and silent remorse, and her father told her that Ben had come home. His jet had been shot down but he had made it to Laos, had spent weeks evading capture on a wild trek that saw him chased through the western mountains of North Vietnam by NVA regulars, and they kept up their pursuit of him into Laos – and he had, somehow, ended up in a country she had never heard of before. A place called Bhutan.

+++++

Lindsey remembered Venice. A destitute, ramshackle little village forty years ago, barren, polluted and sickly, yet now the vibe was trendy, almost punch-drunk. Mature trees adorned tight little streets, the canals no longer gave off a fetid, oil-soaked stench, and hipsters walked her streets now, usually to marijuana dispensaries but occasionally to one of the endless upscale eateries that popped up or passed away with comical regularity. Bikini-clad roller-skaters were as common a sight as transsexuals sunbathing on the beach – because in Venice the current vibe was ‘anything goes’ – and so it was.

John found a parking place for the Land Rover and they took off on foot – down well-established and long forgotten streets and sidewalks – and they found a covey of food trucks and ordered tacos and giros and bottles of ginger beer before they walked over to the sidewalk along the beach. They went to a bench they been to a hundred times before and they sat in time to see the sun slip behind clouds far out to sea.

They tipped their bottles, said an ancient toast – ancient to them, anyway – then ate in silence, savoring memories they’d made here, together, along the way, then he gathered up their wrappers and bottles and took it down to a rubbish bin. She waited for him, waited for this meeting to begin, while the last of the sun’s heat washed over her, and when he got back to her he draped his windbreaker over her shoulders before he sat.

Then he sighed. A long, labored sigh.

“I’d like you to come work for me. In D.C.,” he began.

And she looked at him, shook her head. “No, thanks.”

“I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

“You’ll have to, I’m afraid.”

He snorted. “Let’s see. Your book netted a million…”

“I wish.”

“You put that into the house, and you held on to the house for years. You sold it for two point five, put the proceeds into secure, conservative investment portfolios, and your net worth right now is a little south of five mill. Not bad, considering. Now, will you come to work for me in D.C.?”

She looked at him, a blank expression in her eyes, on her face.

“Well, I’ll take that as a no. So, tomorrow morning the IRS will place holds on all your accounts…”

“And I’ll be on an airplane by then.”

“But Lindsey, your Passport has been revoked.”

She laughed. “Then I’ll start up the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve always wanted to walk it.”

“Ah, well then, I’ll have the US Marshals concentrate their search for you in that area.”

“It wouldn’t matter.”

“I know, but I had to ask.”

“So…why?”

“Why? Because I still need you – I’ll always need you. You’ve always been my conscience, the bedrock my life was built around.”

“Funny how things turn out sometimes.”

“No. It’s not. And it never was, not in the slightest. That was the darkest day of my life, and to me it always will be.”

+++++

They were in school together, from the beginning. Beverly Vista, off Rexford in Beverly Hills. They’d walk home together in autumn, their feet kicking through swirls of golden leaves as they danced along perfect sidewalks – and her mother, Sophie, baked oatmeal cookies with walnuts and raisins in them every Saturday morning. By that time, John’s parents lived just blocks away, on Foothill Road – and the Ashers and the Hollisters spent a fair amount of time together.

One of John’s enduring memories of those years was of Lindsey’s mother, Sophie, who seemed to become unusually sad anytime she was near his father, and he never understood why, though in a way he saw that he and Lindsey were echoes of other children, and other days. They seemed unusually close for kids so young, like there was a link as yet undiscovered between the two, yet by the time high school came around, and when they first voiced an interest in dating, they were suddenly cut off from one another. There was talk of sending him away to a boarding school, or moving to another school district.

And so perhaps it was John who first thought things through. Sophie Hollister, always sad around his father. Then there were the persistent rumors that Prentice Hollister liked men – a lot. He watched the way his father ignored Sophie when they were together, and the tender resentment he saw in his own mother’s eye whenever Sophie was around.

He was with his father one Saturday morning, driving to the hardware store, when the question came, out of the blue.

“Dad? Is Lindsey my sister?” he asked.

And his father just looked at him, no evasions necessary now, then said, simply, “Yes.”

And that was almost all that was ever said about the matter. Lives fluttered and drifted on currents of innuendo and embarrassment, but in truth all that remained between the families over time was silent and dark, like a rough little beast that lurked outside his room, just out of sight.

And despite his misgivings, he told Lindsey a few nights later, when they snuck out of their rooms and met up at the little park north of Santa Monica Boulevard.

“Yes, of course,” Lindsey said after he told her, “I think I knew that.”

“I feel terrible,” he said. “I’ve loved you all my life, and now…”

“John, you’ll love me all your life, because that’s what you were born to do.”

And then they laughed. They laughed because for the very first time in their lives they felt uncomfortable around one another, like the cogs and gears turning the universe had slipped and fallen away, and were now forever out of reach. But then they drifted apart, too. Gently, at first, but in time more insistently.

No one suspected anything, of course. Just two teenagers who came to a crossroads in the night, and made the only choice they could.

+++++

But uncertain gravities pulled at them from time to time over the years. They called each other when confronted by inconsolable problems, and more than once one leaned on the other’s shoulder when grief beckoned.

Yet when Ben Asher died, for instance, their’s was a common grief, and they came together not as friends-in-need but as brother and sister, and their grief was real, overwhelming – and all too real. And when her mother held onto them both at the service, with a fierce possessiveness that surprised many of those gathered, John’s mother Becky seemed the least surprised.

And yet this bench, this bench of all the places in the world, had become their touchstone, the one place that the universe allowed them to be what they truly wanted to be. Intimate, in a place beyond brother and sister. They talked about life and their world, dashed hopes and broken dreams, and their darkest fears – still waiting in the shadows.

A month before graduation from high school John announced he was taking Lindsey to their senior prom, and when parents squirmed under the weight of so much confusion he asked his father to come with him, for a drive.

And John drove that evening, a subtle change of orientation, perhaps. Drove his father down to Venice Beach, and they walked out to the promenade, the sidewalk along the beach. Sophie and Lindsey were there, waiting for them on the bench, and for the only time in their lives all four acknowledged the truth. In fact, they reveled in their truth of their existence. They talked for hours, they got up and walked along in the evening as a family, as, perhaps, the family they should have been.

“I remember the night,” John said a few minutes into this passing sigh, “when we walked here. How they held onto each other. How the truth of the universe came to them in those few hours.”

“That was the only time I ever saw them together – when my mother wasn’t terrified, and lonely.”

“I never liked Prentice,” John said. “There was something…”

“Dishonest, John, is the word. He was a pretender, a chameleon. I never knew where I stood with him…”

“No one did. Do you miss him?”

“Not really. I miss watching our parents right here, together. He never fit into that world.”

Asher nodded. “I miss you. I miss us.”

“I know.”

“We could live nearby, at least. See each more more often.”

“No, we couldn’t. That’s the truth, John, and you know it.”

“It’s not a physical thing, you know. I just feel like half my soul has been cut away…”

“It was, John. That’s always been our truth.”

“Is that why you left, the reason why you went on that little walk?”

“Part of it, yes. But I don’t understand the world we live in, this life – not like I think I should, anyway.”

“And you’re still searching, aren’t you?”

She nodded her head. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For saying those things…”

And she took his hand, kissed his fingers then looked into his eyes with a ferocity that shook him to his core: “John, you never need to apologize to me for a thing – not now, not ever.”

“Life is a cruel joke, isn’t it?” he said.

“No, it’s not. It’s anything but. It’s a gift, John. The most precious gift in the universe.”

He nodded his head slowly. “Can you tell me about him?”

“Who?”

“The doc. Peterson? Has anything happened yet?”

“No.”

“Do you think it will?”

“Yes. Someday.” She laughed a little, then looked away. “Not yet, though.”

“Do you love him?”

She nodded her head, “Maybe.” But she squeezed his hand and he smiled.

“I thought so. What are you going to do now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Bhutan?” he said, his voice lost among his fears. “You’re going back, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Soon?”

“I don’t know. There are a few things I need to finish here, but yes, soon enough.”

“Will you ever come back?”

“No.”

A tremble passed between them, a shaking in the universe, and he squeezed her hand. “I’m not sure I can deal with that.”

“I know I can’t, but that’s…”

“Why you have to go.”

“Yes.”

They walked back to the Rover a few minutes later, and as they approached the old beast he stopped and looked at the truck’s weathered lines. He drifted back to that day, in those days after he was let go from the Times. He was almost broke, needed a car, and she’d picked him up and driven him around, looking at cars. Then she saw this one and smiled. “It suits you,” she said, then she bought it for him.

‘That day, this car, sums up our life, doesn’t it,’ he thought. ‘And it always will.’

He drove her up to Westwood, the little Rover an echo all the way, and when he stopped in front of her apartment on Gayley he looked up at the smoggy dome of the night and shook his head.

“Will you at least call me? Before you leave?”

“I can’t do that to you.”

“Why do I think this is our goodbye?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it?”

She shrugged. “Who knows what’s waiting out there? Behind all the shadows?”

He turned cold, his voice full of menace. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to tear it all down, start all over again.”

She saw him walking down Rexford after school, kicking at swirling piles of leaves – lost in time – and she smiled, tried not to laugh at the little boy by her side in the dark.

+++++

She tried not to smile when, in the usual professorial rush early the next morning, she saw the boy with the rucksack come in and sit by the window again. He pulled out her book and put it on the table, then came up and ordered coffee from her, then he went back to his table and sat. Then he picked up the book, looked at the back cover – then at her. He shook his head, but when she called his name and he came up to get his coffee, he looked at her again, slowly this time, carefully now.

“Excuse me,” he said – holding the book up, “but is this you?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, but yes, it is.”

“Holy crap,” he muttered under his breath.

She sputtered through a happy laugh. “Wow,” she said, shaking with repressed laughter, “I’ve never had such a glowing review.”

“This is one of our textbooks,” he said, “but it’s much more than that.”

“Oh, what’s it like…to you?”

“It’s been, I don’t know, more like a call to arms.”

“Ah.”

“Is that you meant it to be? A manifesto?”

“No,” she sighed, still smiling. “Just a little slice of truth, a voice in the wilderness, perhaps.”

“We have to write a research paper…and I was just wondering, could I interview you?”

“Me? Good heavens…why?”

“Why? Are you kidding? You’re called like, I don’t know, the conscience of a generation…”

“Really?” she said, suddenly feeling like she was back in high school – and the principal had caught her reading Lolita behind the gymnasium. “Good God, that’s silly.”

“So? Could I?”

She shrugged. “Well, I get off at one. Could you come by then?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I sure can.”

“Okay. Now go drink your coffee, before it gets cold.”

Sara had ignored her all morning but she came up now. “Seems a little young for you,” she said. “Maybe you should throw this one back.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“So how’d last night go?”

“Gently, quietly into that good night, my dear Sara.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, I never understood you. Not back in high school, and certainly not now.”

“Really? You didn’t?”

“You two were so close, then – poof – nothing. Then you show up at the prom together, now he’s in the White House, he’s mister know it all, then he shows up here all goo-goo eyes – and anyone can tell he’s…”

“No, he’s not, Sara.”

“Yeah, sure – whatever you say. So what happened?”

“We said goodbye.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I’m sorry then.”

+++++

He was waiting outside when she got off at one, and he walked beside up the hill to her apartment, but she walked over to the swimming pool and sat.

“You live here?” he asked nervously.

“Yup.”

“Oh.”

“I’m going to go get some lemonade. Want one?”

“Sure.”

She went inside, changed out of her work clothes and poured two glasses, then went back to the pool. “Here you go,” she said as she put his drink down, then she sat in the shade of a dusty umbrella. “So, fire away?”

“You know, I just want to know about you right now. Where you’re from, that kind of thing?”

“Me? I grew up a few miles from here, went to school and worked here.”

“Were your parents poor?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Isn’t that an inherent contradiction?”

“Why would it be?”

“You were writing about poverty, about inequality. But aren’t those foreign to your upbringing?”

“So? I’m a reporter. A researcher. I look for facts to reveal an as yet undefined truth, not the other way around.”

“How so?”

“I wasn’t looking to write something to help define a pre-existing agenda. I was hoping to find a few undiscovered truths out there, maybe employ them to help make sense of what I found. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Pete, but my dad calls me Bud. Could you, too?”

“Call you Bud? Sure.”

“Oh, God. Here he comes.”

“Who? Your father?”

She turned, saw Doug coming through the gate, and she watched him coming up the stairs, then saw recognition in his eyes – when he saw her, and his son.

“Bud? What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Dad. Working on a research paper, I guess. Do you know…”

“Yes, I’m her physician. How are you doing today, Lindsey?”

“Not bad,”she said, trying not to smile at his obvious discomfort. “And you?”

“Mom called. Wants me to look-in on Dad, and I was running up now. You going to be long?” he said to his son.

“I don’t know? Maybe.”

“Well, I’ll be down in a minute. Why don’t we go out to dinner. The three of us.”

Bud looked after his father when he walked away. “Am I missing something?” he said to her.

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. I felt some kind of weird energy between you two.”

“Really? Well, he saved my life. We’ve talked a few times.”

“Has he told you about my mother?”

“Very little. Why?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like our lives have been defined by the wars between them?”

“Wars?”

“Yeah. It’s like she decided, somewhere back in time, that the purpose of her existence was to tear him down. I don’t know why he stuck it out with her.”

“Perhaps love had something to do with it?”

“You know, I kinda doubt it.”

“Maybe he needed someone to tear him down.”

“What? Why? Why would you say that?”

“Maybe she kept him focused on what was most important to him. Medicine. Healing.”

Bud seemed to have trouble absorbing that; he sat back and looked up into the sky, shook his head. “You, like, see into people, don’t you? Like empathy, only deeper.”

“Do I?”

“It comes through in here,” he said, holding up her book, “like in every page.”

“Maybe you’re confusing empathy with insight.”

“No, I don’t think so. Do you like my dad. I mean, like him – that way?”

“I think I could.”

“I see. Are you working on a book now? I mean, working at that coffee shop can’t be your idea of…”

“Fun? Work isn’t about fun, Bud. It’s about self-respect.”

“So, it’s not, like, research?”

She shook her head. “Groceries and rent come to mind as good reasons to work.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“You’ll know so, soon enough.”

“But, are you working on a book right now?”

She sighed, looked at her hands sitting on her lap, then into his eyes. “I’m not sure yet. Maybe.”

“I kind of hope you do.”

“Interesting times, aren’t they? Why don’t you work on a book?”

“Me?”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know squat. I haven’t had any experiences of my own yet.”

“Ah. Well, maybe that ought to be your first priority right about now.”

“It doesn’t feel like the right time…”

“It never feels like the right time.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. I see, said the blind man.”

He nodded, then pinched his brow. “How’d you get sick?”

“I went on a walk.”

“A walk? Where?”

“Started in Shanghai, walked north, to Tibet, then south, to the Himalaya, and I crossed into Bhutan last summer.”

His eyes went round as saucers. “You did? Why?”

“Oh, in a way I was following in my father’s footsteps. I was trying to escape.”

“Escape? From what?”

“Inevitability.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. Not yet, anyway.”

“So. You’re going back out there? To keep walking?”

“I don’t know. Maybe – someday.”

They turned and looked at Doug when he came out of the main building, and they both watched his eyes as he sat down in the sun.

“I think Mother needed a little pat on the shoulder,” he said. “How are things going here?”

“Good,” his son said.

“You reading that for Portman’s class?” Doug said, pointing at her book.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What did you think of it?”

“It’s an anthem generator, a call to arms,” the boy said, looking into his father’s eyes.

“And?”

“And, it’s an eye-opener, but confusing, Dad. It’s the why of things I don’t understand yet.”

“Oh? Are we still talking about the book?”

“Maybe, but sometimes there’s no clarity – until you see things with your own eyes.”

“And what do you see, Bud.”

“You two are in love.”

Lindsey put her lemonade on the table – fearing she she might cough it out. “Jumping to conclusions, Bud?”

“I don’t think so. Not from where I’m sitting, anyway.”

“Bud, that’s not appropriate. We haven’t even…”

“Dad, you know, I don’t want to hear it. Because, well, if you haven’t, well then, shame on you. You’ve denied love all your life, and now, here it is, right in front of you, waiting. And still you’re waiting? For what, I wonder? Maybe so mother can come and tear her apart, right in front of your eyes?”

Father looked at son, friend looked at them both, each lost in the moment.

“So, just when did you get so smart?” Doug asked quietly, looking down at his hands.

“I don’t know, Dad. Maybe you just thought we’re blind, but you know something? We’re not.”

“Doug?” Lindsey said, blissfully ironic now. “Need something to drink? Lemonade perhaps. A little hemlock on the side?”

And the three of them just looked at one another, then laughed.

+++++

She fell into their new routine.

She worked in the morning, then Doug came by in the middle of the afternoon and they talked for a while, before he went up to check on his father, and then, with her little red journals open on the desk she would fire up the Mac and start writing. She wrote about herdsmen and farmers, monks and monasteries, and when she wrote about her father’s desperate journey from North Vietnam to Bhutan she tried to remember his words, his recollections – his feelings – and she felt them come to her again as eternal echoes.

But it all came down to mountains and valleys, the sun rising – and setting. Running from your fellow man, then falling into the arms of good people who were willing to help. Highs and lows, good and evil. She had focused on inequality in her first book, and while she didn’t want to revisit those themes in her writing, she found it an inescapable burden to not do so. To turn away now would, she knew, be her greatest defeat.

Some days Bud knocked on the door, wanted to talk – about this or that – his research paper one day, what she found so mesmerizing about Bhutan the next.

“Mesmerizing?” she said when he asked her that. “Do I appear hypnotized?”

“Sometimes,” he said – almost evasively. “You never appear anxious, but when you talk about that monastery it’s like someone has opened the floodgates, and you’re dancing with Prince Valium.”

“Holy cow…Prince Valium?”

“Oh, sorry. That’s my mom’s weapon of choice.”

“Weapon?”

“How she beats back the world.”

“Ah.”

“I’m curious, how do you beat back the world?”

She looked at him, curious now, about what he was trying to get at. “I’m not sure you can. Why?”

“Can you stop with the Zen riddles for a moment?”

Riddles, she thought. Am I a riddle? “I can try,” she replied. He always seemed despondent one moment, curious the next, but she thought something was different today, some little spark was in his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time she saw him. “What is it you want to say?”

He looked away, lost in his thoughts. “You know, you’re like a statue, maybe a lonely goddess in a cool garden, chiseled of pure white marble. You’re this gorgeous thing, like God started in on you and decided to make you his idea of perfection. When I talk to you I feel myself falling in love with you, and I can’t help it,” he said, his lips trembling. “I can’t help looking at you and feeling the way I do.”

“Then why are you hiding?”

“Hiding?”

“Yes. Your feelings.”

“Because I think it’s wrong.”

“To love someone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she said, “are you’re confusing love with sex?”

“I – what?”

“You feel love, but you feel in conflict with the idea, but is that because the idea of sex is bound to your idea of love?”

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, I see you as one set of things – a writer, say, but I look at you and I pretty much want to crawl in the sack and get it on with you, too.”

“Really? Well, good luck with that.”

“I know, but that’s not what I’m trying to get at, so don’t worry.”

“What are you trying to get at, Bud?” She watched his fingers now, fidgeting a little, his eyes not making contact.

“I’m afraid. Afraid of Bhutan. Afraid you’re going to leave one day, and Dad will go with you.”

“That’s an awful lot of fear, don’t you think?”

“No, it’s not hardly enough. My mother’s sicker than hell, and I wonder what will happen to us – if Dad leaves after she dies.”

“I don’t know, but what makes you think he’d leave? For that matter, why do you think I’m leaving?”

“You’ve as much as told me that before, Lindsey. And Dad sure thinks you are.”

“Really? How strange. I’m not sure what I’m having for dinner, let alone if I’m moving half way around the world. But it’s curious.”

“Curious?”

“Yes. So much fear over something that isn’t? But, it’s more than just odd, to me, anyway. Like it’s kind of odd that you’d tell me you’d like to take me to bed. Kind of like there are no boundaries any more. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I know I shouldn’t have said that…”

“But you did. Why, I wonder?”

“Sometimes I think there just isn’t time for all that anymore.”

“All that? What do you mean?”

“Civility, maybe, the remnants of decaying social conventions.”

She looked away from his words, yet she had to consider a potential truth in his idea – consider them a partial truth, anyway, perhaps a universal truth, waiting to be explored. And, she thought, maybe, just maybe, such collapses in norms had precipitated the flight of the desert fathers, perhaps been a force that informed that earlier monastic impulse, and she wanted to turn and write – and then it hit her.

Writing wasn’t the same thing as living, just as living in fear isn’t the same thing as being afraid. One is contemplation, the other – experience – so why was he afraid of something so nebulous? Or was he, really?

“I wonder, Bud, has time become so precious? Civility exists to smooth out the rough edges, to help create a little harmony. Is that such a bad thing? Or have we come to that point again?”

“Again?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a thought.”

“Do you know how beautiful you are? I mean, do you ever think about it?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s a simple question? Do you?”

“I’m not sure I can answer that, Bud. Physical beauty is not something I’ve ever given a great deal of thought to, in anyone, and especially not when it concerns me.”

“I think that’s what I’m trying to get at, in a round about way. Yet you seem to write about ugliness all the time. Not physical ugliness, but, well, maybe moral ugliness. Do you ever wonder what the results would be if people were bombarded with tales of ugliness day-in and day-out, so much so that they forgot what beauty was? Real beauty, I mean?”

“That’s a good question, Bud. But what is real beauty?”

“I’m not sure I know. I know it’s not necessarily manufactured beauty, the Hollywood formula of beauty, anyway. That kind of beauty is packaged and sold, but then again, maybe the most beautiful sunset in the world isn’t really beautiful after all. It’s here one minute, gone the next.”

“So, beauty must be permanent?”

He shook his head. “Maybe ethereal is a better word? Or otherworldly?”

She heard a knock on the door, saw Doug come in and she wanted to turn away, sigh in relief.

“So, have you two solved all the world’s problems?”

“We were talking about beauty,” Bud said.

“Oh? What about it?”

“I think,” she interjected, “I’m getting hungry. Anyone ready for dinner?”

And Doug looked at his son, then at her, and he saw the relief in her eyes. “Yeah. You know, I am. Bud? You too? Or do you need to get to work on something for school?”

“I need to go to the library, see if something’s back on the shelf, then do some calculus homework. We have an exam on Friday.”

“Okay, Lindsey, I guess you’re stuck with me.

She felt so uneasy she could hardly eat, and he picked up on it almost immediately. “You know,” he said, “Borderline Personality is a spectrum disorder, from mild to severe. I think he’s in the middle somewhere, but I’m not sure. He doesn’t understand boundaries, that much I do know.”

“No kidding.”

“He crossed a few today, did he?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Jesus. That bad?”

She shook her head. “No, but thanks for telling me. I wasn’t sure what to think.”

“He’s fragile, Lindsey. Always has been. I found out a few years ago there were no boundaries between Bud and his mother.”

She nodded her head. “I suspected as much. He seems very confused. He also seems afraid you’ll abandon him.”

“Oh? Well, I’m not surprised.”

“Yes. Running off to Bhutan with someone seems high on his list. I would say if you did so after his mother passed, well, he might be in real trouble.”

“I know. But the real trouble, Lindsey, isn’t with Bud.”

“Oh?”

“It’s his sister.”

“She’s the one still in high school?”

He nodded his head. “Yes. Except she’s not. She’s in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, up in Ojai. Paranoid schizophrenic, and in very bad shape.” He was looking away, trying to keep it together. “Some mistakes we never stop paying for, I guess.”

“Where’s your oldest? Did you say in Boston?”

“Yes, Andrew. Boston College. He escaped the worst of it, I think. Madeleine had perfected her technique by the time Lacy came along. Her psychiatrist refers to Madeleine as ‘that monster’ – if that’s a good indicator of disposition.”

“I saw a good deal of it in Mississippi. Except there are no mental health facilities when you’re broke.”

“I know.”

“They’re lucky to have you, Doug. Someone to help pick up the pieces.”

“There are no pieces to pick up where Lacy is concerned, Lindsey. She’ll never get better than she is right now. They tell me as she ages things will only get worse.”

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s worse.”

“Could I go up with you sometime, when you visit?”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure. I’d have to ask first. Fragile doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on with her right now.”

“How about you, Doug? How are you coping?”

He snorted a little, tried to keep his irony in-check. “Me? I write the checks, try to keep the fires from spreading, life from spiraling out of control.”

“And your mother calls you about your dad how many times a day?”

He shrugged.

“And now I’m just throwing fuel on the fire, aren’t I? With Bud?”

“I knew it was coming. I should have prepared you.”

“You can’t do everything, Doug. If you try all the time, you might just makes things worse.”

“I probably already have.”

“Knock it off. The self-pity thing doesn’t suit you. Keeping it together, keeping focused helps. Keeping me in the loop might help, too. Letting me pick up some of the load when you don’t feel you can.”

“I can’t ask that of you.”

“Okay, so don’t ask. I’m telling you this right now: I’m here, and I’m willing to help.”

He nodded, turned to look at her eyes. “I wish I wasn’t so in love with you?”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because you have no idea how impossible this all is.”

And she laughed. “Oh, is that right? Listen, one day I’ll tell you all about impossible, but for now, please, stop with all the goddamn self-pity, would you? Really, you’re embarrassing me, so stop acting like a two year old.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Good.”

+++++

She began to listen to the people in the coffee shop after that night, to the miseries of affluence, as she began to call it, for she soon understood that the people of West LA were often as miserable as the people in poorest Mississippi or Appalachia, and frequently more so.

But why, she wondered?

She had gone on the assumption, twenty years earlier, that money was the root of inequality, that a certain lack of material affluence was the primary cause of human misery in poorer regions of the country. And clearly it was, in a material sense anyway, but what she was seeing now was a poverty of the soul, a depreciation of the spirit that had nothing at all to do with material prosperity. So, what she was witnessing was an entirely new, to her, anyway, kind of inequality – and it troubled her.

Clearly, having money helps, she knew. Doug could get high quality mental health care for his daughter, while most people in rural Mississippi didn’t even know what a psychiatrist was. Yet by almost any measure she could think of, Doug, and Doug’s family, were miserable in ways very similar to the desperately poor.

So, she watched and listened, as she had twenty years before. To the customers who came in and out of a coffee shop in West LA, one of the most prosperous enclaves in one of the most prosperous cities in the world. People came into the place and thought nothing of spending five dollars on a cup of coffee – an amount of money that could feed a family in West Africa for a month, or a family in Mississippi for, perhaps, a few days. She began to pay attention to facial expressions and the tones of voice she heard. To expressions of happiness, or anxiety – and even to how people paid for their coffee, and how much they tipped when they left the shop. She took notes in a new journal, and she parsed her observations when she got home, tried to make sense of her day…

She remembered the studies John Calhoun conducted in the late 40s with rats, looking at population pressure and how increasing population affected species survival, and she wondered: could it be as simple as that? Did packing millions of people into cities like LA and New York, or London, Shanghai or Rio de Janeiro cause immense breakdowns in the ability to experience happiness?

And could this be the same, or similar to the dissolution of trust that spurred disparate monastic impulses two thousand years earlier? Was this, instead of being an aberration, more an inevitable component of the human condition? If Hobbesian capitalism lead inexorably to Malthusian population pressures, which seemed to be a common criticism from Descartes to Marx, where was the payoff to civilization? Where was the ultimate good? If being poor was bad for the human psyche, where was the payoff if being rich made you equally as miserable, if only in a different way? If the common denominator was money, what was it about modern society that allowed a medium of exchange to exert so much influence over emotional well-being?

Simple inequality?

She began to read more about experiments in guaranteed minimum incomes being tried in the Netherlands and Sweden, but there just wasn’t enough data yet. She moved on to anthropological studies of almost prehistoric tribes discovered early in the twentieth century, in places like New Guinea and deep within the Amazonian basin, places where mediums of exchange were more primitive than had existed in China and Europe three thousand years ago, but all the data she found was inconclusive at best, more likely too speculative to be of any use.

She began to reread the works of C Wright Mills, particularly his work on the emasculation of the middle class found in his book White Collar. That work had formed the basis of her early research on inequality, so she turned to it once again, thinking she might find a new way to look at the problem – but no, she was onto something subtly different now.

Maybe the problem was too obvious, she thought, to even be considered a ‘problem’ – maybe the issue she had latched onto was more basic still, more like simple human nature.

But human nature is far from simple, she chided herself, then she spilled coffee on her hand, dropped a cup to the floor. “Damn!” she muttered as she bent to clean up her mess, and when she stood she saw Bud walking in the door, and an older man who stood by his side across the counter seemed to be with him.

“Hey, Bud,” she said, wiping coffee from her wrist, “haven’t seen you in a while. What can I get you?”

“Oh, the usual,” meaning a two liter 100 octane jolt. “Lindsey, this is my sociology prof, Dr Portman, and after reading my research paper he wanted to meet you.”

She looked at this man, this friend for so many years, and she tried to gauge his mood – yet she thought of shadows, always shadows, when she saw him. Still, in his bow-tied way, in his round, tortoise shell glasses and chalk-dust-covered jacket, he was even now every bit the harried, ironic academic. “Good to see you,” she smiled slyly – if duplicitously, while holding out her damp hand. “Oh, piffle!” she added, wiping her hand completely before taking his.

“Yes, indeed. So, Peter tells me he interviewed you several times while writing his paper. I wondered if you’d have a moment to talk about some of the issues raised?”

Sara came and took over the counter, told her to go sit and talk for a while, so she took off her apron after she made their coffee, then went out and sat with them at Bud’s favorite table.

And it was funny, because she really wasn’t sure what the thesis of his paper was, only that he’d asked questions and she’d talked with him for hours and hours about her experiences in Mississippi and Bhutan. Beyond that, she was in the dark, and she told Portman just that.

He smiled, told her he understood. “Still, you see, I’ve used your book in class for several years now, and many of my students have, over the years, chosen to focus on that work, but none has ever taken the approach Peter has. He has found his way into the thicket, I think, into an intellectual conundrum, perhaps.”

“Oh? Well, good for him.”

“Yes, precisely. He seems to have stumbled onto something quite unusual, namely that a diffuse cultural dissatisfaction permeates modern life, but this anomie has left breadcrumbs through history, back to the desert fathers in Egypt and the Sinai.”

“Oh, how interesting?” she said, trying to force calm into her voice, yet she noted how intently Portman peered into her eyes just then.

“Yes, just so, but no need to bother with all that just now. I simply wanted to meet you, and to thank you for your book. It has been a godsend, in it’s way, over the years, and I wanted to talk with you, later, perhaps, about a few lingering questions I have. So…I wondered if you might have some time?”

“Of course. I get off at one, so if you want drop by then, and if you’d like we can walk up to my place and have tea.”

“Excellent! Would this afternoon work out, by any chance?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Fine,” he said, turning to Bud. “Well, let’s not keep this young lady from her appointed rounds.”

“I’ll see you later,” she said, looking at Portman, then she walked off – livid – and she was still simmering when he came by at the end of her shift. He slipped in and waited for her while she cleaned up and took off her apron again, then they stepped out into the sun and began walking.

“I assume I should have a talk with young Mister Peterson about plagiarism?” he said straight away.

“Perhaps I should first,” she replied.

“No, from the look in your eye I fear you might strangle him, at the very least, or beat him over the head, perhaps, with a baseball bat. Best let me, I suppose, as anyway, it’s my purview.”

“Alright.”

“A pity, still. I can see he’s been quite engaged by this whole thing. I hate to throw cold water on him now.”

“Perhaps he could rewrite his paper,” she suggested.

“Perhaps. Yes, and perhaps you could review his work before he resubmits it? Just a quick run-through, I think.”

“I’d be happy to.”

“You’ve done well, Lindsey. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“So many come through my door, yet so few rise to the challenge. And fewer still meet expectations. You’ve exceeded mine, by the way.”

“You always exceeded mine too, Professor.”

“Franklin, my dear. After all these years, perhaps you should call me by my given name.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, what’s all this angst about,” he said, as they came to the gate that led to the swimming pool. “Young Peterson has done nothing but show me the way to some deeper concern of yours. What’s troubling you? Is it John again?”

She sighed, looked at her friend and mentor closely, then shook her head. “Shall I fix tea?” she asked. “And sit out here, in the shade?”

“You know, I feel a chill. Perhaps we could sit inside today.”

“Okay.”

They went to her apartment and he sat on the sofa, looked at her desk, then out the window – and she asked him what he’d have.

“Have you any Port about?” he asked.

“You know, I think I do. One finger?”

“Two, I think.”

She poured two glasses and went to the chair by his side, and he took a sip. “Ah, thank you. It’s been a long time.”

“How are you doing?”

“Tired. And I think this will be my last term.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I do wish you had taken my advice, gone for your PhD. I’d like to turn the department over to someone I trust, someone who cares about things as you do.”

“Other roads beckoned.”

“They still do, I see,” he said, looking at her desk. “Are you writing again, at least?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, finally! Hope springs eternal!”

They laughed.

“So, this impulse young Peterson refers to, this monastic impulse of the desert fathers? Where are you going with this?”

“Actually, I’m not sure. I thought I was going down the same path as Mills and Weber, but in the end, I think that will lead to a…”

“A paradox. Yes, it will. What is your basic assumption?”

“That societies experience a kind of collective anomie when certain thresholds are crossed. The dictates of Law, the imposition of endless bureaucracies on the routines of life, and the results are the same across time. That much is obvious to anyone, but these times feel different.”

“Yes. They do indeed.”

“But humanity has been here before.”

“Yes. It has. Do you forget Joseph, and the well?”

“We’re turning inward again.”

“Yes. We are.”

“Mysticism. Irrationalism.”

“The pendulum swings, Lindsey. There’s nothing we can do to stop that, as you well know.” He sighed, took a sip of his port, then leaned back. “There’s nothing finer, you know, than a smooth port on a cool afternoon.”

“A fireplace would be nice.”

“Ah, well, let’s make it a stone fireplace at my old home in the Cotswolds. That would be something to experience again. My father and his dogs, by the fireplace. Listening to Winston on the radio, telling us how the Germans had been turned back over Dover.”

“God, what a life you had. The things you experienced, the things you shared with us. You opened so many doors, so many minds.”

He pinched away a tear, rubbed his eye. “Did I, indeed?”

“I wish Mary was still with us.”

“I do as well. Not a day passes when I don’t think of her.”

“What about the Cotswolds? Will you return now?”

“I’ve thought about it, but in a way this is home now. Even now. The fight is here, waiting to be joined, yet I feel that night calling even now.” He sighed, shook his head. “This all started in Bhutan, did it not? This angst of yours? It is your father’s, I suppose?”

“Yes. In a way I think it’s continuation. The past is prologue.”

“Your assumptions. When you find yourself at a dead end, so you must challenge all your assumptions. And yet, why is it that I fear you have been looking for answers in all the wrong places, my friend. You so often have, I think.”

“Oh? Have I?” The look she saw in his eyes troubled her deeply, yet she did not turn away.

“The answers you seek will not be found in the musing of dead academics. The way ahead is over there,” he said, pointing at the campus just across the street, “in Bunche Hall.”

“The Buddhists?” she said – incredulously.

“You have been on that path a long time, Lindsey. Even if you walked unawares. And I think it time you come to terms with that, and with your father.”

“My father? But he’s…”

“No, he isn’t. Not in here, Lindsey,” he said, pointing to his heart. “In fact, you’ve been following in his footsteps all your life. Your brother has, too, though he’d be the last to admit such a thing.”

She looked at him, wondered where he was going with this.

“It’s such a pity, too. He’s courted ignorance and fear all his life, exploited weakness in others all his life – even yours – and yet I fear he’ll never rest until he’s burned the pillars of our world to the ground. And the sad thing, Lindsey, is that he’ll never understand why he did – yet I feel almost certain that when he walks over the rubble the only thing he’ll have left in his heart is a profound sorrow for all the things he killed.”

“Deep is the well of the past,” she sighed.

“Yes, my dear. Exactly so.”

+++++

She walked between rough juniper and smooth-skinned eucalyptus, the planters along her way full of ivies and discarded political leaflets, and from time to time she looked at wide-eyed students darting between classes, so serious, still so much like she had been. The campus was the same, too, yet different. Everything had seemed new when she first walked along narrow pathways between buildings twenty something years ago, but what had once been new felt old this morning. Old and almost worn out – like bread past it’s expiration date – and she wondered why such an enclosed, tempered world might feel this way.

Maybe, she thought, because school itself had been a gateway. A means to an end, yet today she felt that the place itself had become an end – in and of itself. If it had been, almost thirty years ago, a place to study the world before she moved out seeking experiences of her own, she felt that now, today, it had become a safe harbor, a place to run away from experience, to study it from afar – without getting your hands dirty.

Had life grown so preternaturally – ugly – since Clinton? Had an enlightened approach to the world only opened minds to all it’s horrors? With our ability to peer deeply into every facet of human existence, had we finally seen and learned enough? Did we not want to see any more?

She by-passed the Asian Studies building, shook her head and walked up into the sculpture garden beyond; she looked around, found a bench – yet passed that by too. She walked around, looking for just the right spot, then she sat on the grass – her legs crossed ‘indian style’ – looking up at passing clouds, then she laid back and let the sun fall on her face.

And with the sun guiding her, she felt herself drift away…

Falling into the dream…a dream of shadows and rivers.

Then a fresh shadow loomed, remained fixed overhead, cooling her brow – and she opened her eyes – saw fields of red fluttering in the breeze. A monk, she saw, standing over her, looking down. Then she saw her book in the monk’s hand, and she smiled – if only to herself.

“Lindsey?”

“Guilty.”

“Oh? Of what?”

“Original sin.”

He laughed. “And along came concupiscence…”

“No…and then came the Stone Temple Pilots,” and then her eyes brightened when she saw her old friend laugh.

“You will never change,” the monk said, laughing again. “May I sit with you?” he asked a moment later.

“Of course, Tschering,” she said, swinging around to sit up, keeping the sun on her face as she turned to face him. “Interesting choice of books,” she sighed.

“I had a question, but Dr Portman called a few minutes ago,” he said, seriously – nervously, “and he told the director you’d be coming by. So of course, he asked that I talk with you.”

“Of course. How have you been?”

“Busy, I suppose, would be the charitable way to describe my life here. And you? I heard about your illness, but nothing after.”

“I’ve been recuperating, and writing a little, too.”

“About time.”

“So, you’re going to jump all over my case, too?”

“No, I love you too much to do that.”

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded her head gently. “I –.”

“You found your way to the monastery, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“And how was my father?”

She nodded her head, acknowledged the question, but she looked away without answering.

“Ah,” he said. “I understand. How is his health?”

“Good.”

“Did you tell him…about your father?”

“I did, but I think he already knew. He disappeared after that, was gone for days.”

“There’s was an impossible song.”

“Yes. It was.”

“What about you? Do you still sing?”

She smiled, looked at the memory for a moment, then shook her head. “No, that music left too. It became impossible.”

“The recital? Bach, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, The Coffee Cantata. You remember?”

“I will never forget that night.”

“No. I suppose some moments take on a life of their own. Who knows, perhaps they live forever.”

Her father had come to watch, and to listen, that night – Ben Asher, her real father, but so had John – her real though make-believe brother – and Tschering had been there too. He remembered that night all too well. Tschering had looked on as – like atoms fusing in the night – the universe turned in on itself – pressure building around the room as the music faded – until worlds ruptured and screamed away in the night, dying in the last words of her music…

Where John was concerned, Tschering thought, death was always close by.

+++++

“Boomer 5-0-5, feet dry” Ben Asher told the controller in the E-2.

“5-0-5, come right to 3-0-2 degrees.”

“3-0-2.”

Boomer 5-0-5 was an A-6e, and Ben Asher had just flown over a line of small, jagged islands that dot the coast west of Cam Trung, North Vietnam; it was three in the morning and he was threading Boomer 5-0-5 between violent thunderstorms, looking at developing cells on his radar – feeling their currents through the stick. Looking at his instruments, feeling his way through the mountains, flying a few hundred feet over unseen mountaintops in the clouds below; Asher was threading Boomer 5-0-5 through the mountain east of Hanoi – at almost 400 knots. The aircraft was carrying four two thousand pound HE bombs, the most most powerful air-dropped, non-nuclear weapon then in the US Navy’s arsenal. His target: an airfield located southwest of the city, an air force facility where two squadrons of new, Soviet built Mig-21s had just been activated. Boomer 2, a flight of four Intruders was part of the opening move in a much larger assault on the north that would start later that morning, and his flight’s success was critical to the overall success of the operation.

An E-2B trailed 5-0-5, relaying information about enemy air movements and search radar sites, guiding the Intruders around potential threats on their way to the target, all while searching for the best way to get the aircraft back out to the sea, and to the USS Constellation.

“5-0-5, alpha search picked up, 30 miles at your eight o’clock.”

“5-0-5, we’re jamming.” Asher looked at the threat panel and toggled the pod to active, knowing that would alert operators on the ground that Intruders were in the area now. “What’s our time?” he asked his BN, his bombardier/navigator.

“Call it eight minutes.”

“5-0-5, come right to 3-1-0 degrees, increase speed to Buster, repeat Buster.”

“310, Buster.”

“Uh, 5-0-5, looks like a sector patrol of four Mike 1-5s returning to San Bay. I don’t think they have you.”

“Roger. Lead to flight, lets get down in the weeds,” Asher said, moving the four aircraft to the lowest altitude he could. Burning fuel at a prodigious rate so low, he concentrated on the terrain ahead – through the instruments on his panel…

“5-0-5, the Migs are overhead now, looks like 2500 AGL, heading 2-0-7 degrees.”

“Roger.” He resisted the impulse to look up, pulled up sharply to clear some power lines then dived back to the ground. “Talk to me, Dale. How far now?”

“Four minutes.”

“5-0-5, ground radars active ahead, get ready for SAMs.”

“Okay, got it.” He coaxed the aircraft over a small hill, and Hanoi lay ahead, enveloped by a huge thunderstorm. The Intruder entered heavy rain, then tiny hail hammered the windshield, the world inside the cockpit now a deafening roar.

“Arming now,” his BN shouted. “Sixty seconds.”

The threat panel lit up like a Christmas tree.

“5-0-5, multiple SAM launches,” the controller in the E2 said calmly, “at your 10, 2 and 4 o’clock.”

“Thirty seconds.”

“5-0-5, the Migs are turning, diving now.”

“This is getting interesting,” Asher sighed. “Uh, Archer, let me know if anyone gets on our six.”

“5-0-5, roger. SAMs have not picked you up, repeat, they are not in active. MIGs are breaking off.”

“They can’t see shit in this weather,” his BN said. “Okay, come to fifteen hundred AGL…stand-by one, right two degrees, five seconds – and – bombs away!”

Asher felt the load release, but the left wing dipped horribly and he dialed in aileron trim. “I think we’ve got a hanger,” he said, and he pulled up a little more, looked out at the wing, saw one of the huge bombs fluttering in the slipstream. “Shit,” he said, “number one pylon didn’t release. Pickle it again.”

+++++

Just as he heard the air raid sirens, Colonel Vo Nguyen Bao looked up into the storm, saw the four aircraft streak by – almost within arm’s reach, he thought – and he saw their bombs fall away, arc through the rain towards the revetments on the far side of the field. The Migs were being fueled and fresh air-to-air missiles being placed on their pylons, and he shook in fury when he saw the first bombs slam into the area – then the first concussive waves hit – knocking him to the ground. Several more, in rapid succession, hammered him to the concrete and he felt ashamed of himself – for this failure.

He heard another roar, this time SAMs fired by base defense batteries, and they streaked by – then he saw flares falling from the trailing enemy aircraft – before they disappeared in the rain. A flight of Mig 15s screamed-by overhead, after the enemy, he hoped, then he felt another concussive blast – but this one far to the west – and he wondered if one of the enemy had been hit, before he turned to assay the damage here.

He drove across the field, found four aircraft destroyed and three severely damaged, two with minor damage and the rest untouched, then he went to the fuel storage bunkers and sighed when he found these unscathed. Reports came in, over one hundred casualties on the ground, including ten pilots dead, and the main runway cratered. It would take a half day to repair, he was told, and he ordered repair teams to muster.

Then a call came in from a civil defense team.

A single bomb had fallen west of the air base, and hit the regional hospital. Initial reports claimed that over 500 were dead, but that number would increase, he was told. He summoned his car and drove through the rain until he was on scene.

The building, a sprawling, three story structure made of concrete and brick, was almost completely gone. Not simply destroyed – it was gone, like it had been erased from the earth – and the only reminder of it’s existence was a huge, flaming crater perhaps a hundred meters wide and ten deep.

Bao looked at the ruins and shook with molten rage, then an air intercept officer radioed.

“Colonel, one of their aircraft was hit, and it is not turning towards the sea.”

Looking at the ruins, he turned to the radio.

+++++

“Talk to me, Dale.”

“I can’t get power to the instruments, period. Hydraulics are about gone.”

“You know, like, where we are, maybe?”

Asher looked out the windshield, swiveling his head, saw the sky turning lead gray aft. “We’re still heading west,” he said again, and he tried to move the stick again. Nothing…no control at all – except through the trim tabs – and the instrument panel was a wreck. Even the stand-by compass had been hit by shrapnel, and now even it dangled uselessly from it’s mounting post, knocked from the center of the windshield by the blast.

At least that bomb had dropped, he sighed.

‘Let’s see,’ he said to himself, ‘about an hour and twenty minutes since we dropped the load, heading, maybe, due west at a little less than 200 knots.’ They had broken out of the clouds a half hour ago and now Boomer 5-0-5 was almost casually puttering through the mountains of North Vietnam, heading for, he assumed, Laos – and hopefully not into China. He was ‘flying’ by controlling the aircraft with throttles and trim tabs, so control was minimal, at best. But, he sighed inwardly, they were still in the air, and getting further from Hanoi by the minute – and that was a good thing. He didn’t want to spend the rest of the war in an internment camp, or worse.

He saw another road ahead, maybe headed west, and he saw a few small villages below. He advanced the right throttle, began a creeping turn to the left, then he backed off and tried to settle the wings again. He looked at the hydraulic pressure, watched it fall, knowing as soon as it was gone the game was up.

They’d have to eject.

And then what?

Then he saw a wall of mountains ahead, and his BN looked up when he said “Fuck!” – a little too loudly.

“Can we get over that?” Dale McMasters asked.

Aster advanced both throttles, dialed in as much elevator trim as he dared, then dropped flaps and slats. He guessed their climb was around 500 feet per minute, and he knew they wouldn’t make it. “See a pass? Any way around this shit?”

“Maybe right, about two o’clock,” McMasters said, and he looked, cut back the right throttle and re-trimmed the wing.

“Maybe,” Asher grimaced, now willing the aircraft to make the turn.

Then the engines sputtered and spooled down slowly.

“Outta gas, Amigo,” he said. “Time to say bye-bye.”

“500 AGL. Gonna be a hard landing,” Mc Masters said.

“Eject, eject, eject!”

The shattered canopy blew away, and their seats launched into the early morning light, blowing away the remnants of the night.

+++++

“Colonel, radar at Điện Biên Phủ has a possible contact, still heading west at very low speed”

Bao nodded his head. “He is injured, damaged, can not turn. Get a company of ground troops assembled, drive them by to pick me up, let them see what this dog has done. Get three helicopters ready to go at first light. I want to find that aircraft. The American will try to get to Laos, maybe Air America will attempt to pick him up there.”

“They can not operate that far north, Colonel.”

“Perhaps, but it does not matter. We will get to this animal first.”

“Yes, Colonel.” The captain turned his little truck and drove back to the air base, and Bao turned and looked at the smoldering ruins, shaking inside now. It would take many hours, he knew, to count the dead, yet he was sure his wife was in that crater. A physician, a surgeon trained in Moscow, she had been called in at midnight, and though she had promised to see him later that morning – he was sure that world was gone now. Vanished, in an instant. And now he was disappearing too, into a sunless sea of molten hate.

+++++

They gathered their parachutes and buried them under leaves, McMasters jumping back once when a cobra slithered through the undergrowth, then they gathered what supplies they had and took off up the hill.

“Let’s find some high ground,” McMasters said. “See if we can get a signal.”

“There’s a big air base at Điện Biên Phủ,” Asher said. “My guess is they spotted us on radar, that they’ll send troops.”

“Okay, so – what should we do?”

Asher sighed, stopped to rub out a cramp in his thigh – but his hand came up bloody and wet.

“What the hell?”

“Here,” McMasters said, “let me take a look.” He felt around, then asked Ben to pull his pants down. “Little laceration, but it’s deep. I can bandage it, but keep out of water.” He finished a few minutes later, and Asher thought about their best course of action.

“If we can make it to Laos, we might run across some Special Forces types…”

“Yeah, but Charlie is all over this area.”

“Yeah, but there are trains running, and the Mekong runs from China all the way south, past Saigon. If we can cross the border we can make our way south. Simple as that.”

“Nothing’s ever that simple, Ben.”

They crawled up a rocky crag and looked around, and McMasters darted back from another snake, this one aggressive. “Goddamn, the fuckers are everywhere,” he cried, then he took out his 45 and shot this one, in the head. “Look at the size, would you?”

Asher shook his head, looked around, suddenly seeing snakes everywhere.

“There are tigers out here, too,” McMasters added.

“Yeah, well, okay, I see a big city to the north, some air traffic too, so lets assume that’s Điện Biên Phủ. That puts the border about twenty miles,” he sighed, pointing to the west, “that-away.”

“South too, but I think you’re right. West is closer. Should we wait until it’s dark to move?”

“Fuck, are you kidding? Snakes hunt at night, Amigo. Tigers do, too. All things considered, I think I’d rather be in Bangkok tonight, chasing pussy, maybe, or just getting tanked.”

“Is there anything you’d rather do than chase tail?”

McMasters looked around, thought about that one for a minute, then shook his head. “No, not really.”

“I didn’t think so.”

“I do know, when we get out of this fucking hell-hole, I’m moving someplace with no snakes. I mean zip, nada, none…” He had stopped in mid-sentence, and his head was cocked to one side now. “Hear that?”

Asher turned his head, tried to ignore the pain in his thigh, the he heard it too. “Flutterbug,” he said. “We’re not a mile from where we came down, too.”

“Wonder where the bird came down?”

“No telling. No fuel, so no fire. They’ll have to fly right over to see it, in this jungle, anyway.”

“Which way do you think they’ll think we would run?”

“West.”

“So? Do we run west?”

“Yup. We’ll keep west, use terrain for cover. Looks like this valley runs southwest, so let’s keep just under this ridge line, through those trees. Ready?”

“Let’s do it.”

They walked all day and into the night, stopping to eat once and to sip their water rations when they felt they absolutely had to, then they rigged hammocks and slept in a tree that first night – and Asher woke with a start at one point when McMasters shot another snake – on a limb just overhead.

“I’m tellin’ ya, man, them fuckers is everywhere.”

“I wonder if they’re safe to eat?”

“Tell ya what, slick. Help yourself. Let me know how it works out for ya, ya know?”

Asher laughed, fiddled with the SAR radio, then looked up through the trees at the stars until he felt sleep coming…

He felt something kicking his leg, lifted his head and saw McMasters looking at him.

“Sh-h-h.” When his BN pointed at the ground he heard it too. Men talking, working their way along the trail.

‘Are we high enough?’ he wondered. They’d rigged the hammocks maybe thirty feet off the jungle floor, then cut some branches to break up their lines, and he listened as the patrol came closer and closer, then he heard the men’s voices receding down the hill.

Before the sun was up they climbed down the tree and kept heading west, staying high on the ridge line through the morning – until they came to an overlook.

There was a road in the valley far below, a red sandy gash through the jungle, and they saw four heavy trucks on the road, waiting. After a half hour they watched a few dozen men emerge from the trees and climb in the trucks, then all the trucks drove off.

“Well,” Asher said, “I guess that’s that.”

“No way,” McMasters said. “This is a trap. They know we’re in this valley, somewhere. Now they make us think they’re pulling out, wait for us to make our move, then catch us in a pincer.”

“Makes sense.”

“They’ll be down there,” McMasters said, pointing along the ridge, “waiting. We’re too easy to pick off there.”

“So? What next?”

“Get back up in the trees, wait ‘em out. They’ll give up and move on in a day or so.”

They found two large trees and set up their hammocks as high as they safely could, then they camouflaged the limbs before they snacked, and McMasters fell asleep before the sun set for the day. Asher took out his SAR radio and tried to make contact…

+++++

Early the next morning, Colonel Bao looked over the wreckage from the helicopter, then turned to the captain. “And they went in this direction? To the west?”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Have you notified the Pathet Lao?”

“Yes, Colonel, they have every bit of information we have.”

“How many more men do you need?”

“I have been advised we need two more companies on the ground, and perhaps a half dozen additional helicopters are needed to cover the search area.”

“What about the Americans?”

“They have noted our efforts. RA-5C have been over the area several times this morning, and an RB-57 is en route from Yakota.”

“Damn. Who is the pilot? Do we know yet?”

“No, Colonel, but this level of engagement is not unusual. They do not turn away from downed airmen until they have confirmed information regarding death or capture.”

“Perhaps we should put out such information?”

“Colonel?”

“Find some bodies, put them in the wreckage and take photographs. We can put the information out through one of the French wire services.”

“Yes, Colonel.”

“Now, fly me along this ridge, where they were spotted.”

+++++

“There it is again, Dale.”

“Okay, I hear it now.”

The heavy rotors of an Mi-8 suddenly beat the air as it appeared, then moved down the ridge slowly, crabbed heavily to one side. A lone gunner leaned out the door, scanning the trees and forest floor – shooting indiscriminately here and there as it moved along.

“Jesus,” Asher said, “look at the size of that bastard!”

“You go ahead. I’m going to take a nap now, get caught up on my sleep.”

It was a hundred yards away now, higher up the hillside, slipping along the ridge line – and it passed slowly – but it passed – and they remained motionless under their ponchos and camouflage until the helicopter flew down valley and landed on the red sandy road. Dozens of hidden troops came out of the trees, and the four trucks returned, dropping off the troops they’d just picked up.

“Whew. I think it’s gonna be a long night,” McMaster sighed.

“I’ve got to take a shit,” Asher replied.

“You ever had trouble holding it, now’s the time to learn.”

“Crap.”

“Please don’t.”

They watched as about six hundred men, many blowing whistles, began moving up the hill towards their tree.

“5-0-5, Red Dog, do you read.”

“Go ahead, Red Dog.”

“Sit rep.”

“About five hundred gomers below us, headed our way. Along the road, moving up.”

“Sounds kind of fun. We have some company coming, so keep your head down.”

Moments later eight A-6Es came over the ridge-line and dropped close to forty tons of napalm on the assembling NVA companies – before screaming out over Laos and returning to the Constellation, then a formation of Air Force B-57s carpet bombed the roadway.

“Well, fuck me in the ass!” McMasters shouted – as he watched fire sweep away the NVA regulars, then they watched the helicopter lift off through the flames and turn to the north, heading for Điện Biên Phủ.

“5-0-5, Jolly Green about five minutes out. Puff smoke when you hear him.”

“5-0-5, got it.” He turned to McMasters. “Time to get the fuck out of Dodge, Amigo,” and they had just started down the tree when they heard the huge Sikorsky beating up the valley. Asher took out a green smoke grenade and tossed it through the trees, watched the lime colored smoke rise through the trees into the twilight.

“5-0-5, he’s got you, so – uh, stand by one.”

Asher heard it first…

Jet aircraft approaching…

“Okay, 5-0-5, some Migs inbound, CAP overhead moving down to engage, this is going to be a hot extraction.”

Then they heard small arms fire, behind the ridge-line.

“Red Dog, we’ve got company coming, other side of the ridge.”

The Sikorsky CH-3E appeared overhead, it’s final approach unheard when mortar fire started landing on the hillside, and the heavy jungle penetrator landed with a grating thud a few feet from Asher.

“Get on,” he yelled, pushing his BN into the webbing. He shot a thumbs-up the airman watching above and McMasters disappeared through the trees – and Migs roared by, spraying the hillside with machine gun fire.

Asher saw troops moving through the woods a hundred yards away, then took off – running down the hill into the safety of the fires raging after napalm ignited the forest below.

+++++

Bao watched the rescue operation unfold from a hilltop five miles away, staggered that the Americans had staged an operation this far north, and furious that this pilot had now caused such a large additional loss of life. He watched one airman hoisted into the so-called Jolly Green Giant, then he saw it taking fire. He watched as it abandoned the attempt to lift the second airman aboard and turn south, then he watched as a US Navy Phantom shot down one Mig, then another, and he only grew more determined to get this pilot, whoever the hell he was, and bring him to justice.

+++++

Alone now, in the middle of the night, and suddenly cut off from his supplies, he circled back to his tree and watched the area for a while, then, just before dawn he climbed back into his hammock redoubt and promptly fell asleep. McMasters had left his food and water and, more importantly, his spare radio batteries behind, and he gathered these belongings during the afternoon and made an inventory. He figured, with real care, he had enough food and water on hand to get by for three weeks. He had three extra magazines for his Colt 1911, and an extra K-Bar knife, too, and as the sun set he considered taking off on foot – but decided to stay put one more night.

He heard trucks and men on foot all through the night, and he watched as they reloaded into the trucks again the next morning, and drove off.

Again, he considered leaving but decided to hold fast to his tree one more day, and his decision was vindicated. He saw more troops walking the hillside during the night, even using flashlights as diversions, trying to flush him out.

He packed his gear the next morning and took off down the hill, moving quietly between two converging formations, then he slipped across the road and quickly ascended the hill on the other side of the valley – and he never looked back as he crossed open land, moving west now very quickly. He stopped near a farm at midday, tried the radio but got no reply, and only static that night.

He was on his own now, he knew.

There was no fence, no border to mark when he crossed into Laos, and he kept pushing west. He came to a small river and swam across, picked leeches off his legs and chest on the far side, and still he pushed west. Days passed quickly now, and one evening he entered a dense forest, but soon he came upon a paved road. A very elegant paved road, with low bollards casting pools of light at regular intervals up the pavement.

Keeping to the shadows, he followed the road up a hill until he came upon a house in a clearing, and he saw an old Rolls Royce out front, gleaming in the night under several spotlights. Moving through brush, he approached the house, circled behind to the rear – and there he staggered to a halt.

He saw a swimming pool, large, elegant, the water lighted, and he saw two women in the water. Naked women. One a blond, the other a redhead, and they were staring at him.

Then he heard a man’s voice, the accent English.

“Well, come on, then,” the man said, “you might as well come on in, get out of those clothes. Dinner will be on in a bit, but I suppose you’ll want to shower first.”

Asher turned around, saw an older man standing in the shadows, a Walther PPK in his right hand, pointing right at his face.

“Yes, well,” the man continued, “we’ve been expecting you, after all.” He lowered the Walther and stepped forward, holding out his right hand. “The name’s Bond. James Bond,” the man said, then he started laughing.

And Asher, the wound on his leg severely infected after crossing the river, simply fell to the ground in fevered delirium.

+++++

He woke in the middle of the dream, tried to stand but found he couldn’t move, that his wrists and ankles had been tied to a bed of some sort. He felt something between his legs and lifted his head, and he saw a bright light – and a man – a surgeon, perhaps – suturing his thigh.

And the Englishman. He was still standing – in the shadows – looking on.

“Ah, you’re still with us,” the old man said, walking over to the side of the bed.

“Where the hell am I?” Asher said.

“The easy answer, old boy, is here, at my home, and let’s keep it easy for now, right?”

“Am I in Laos?”

“Oh yes. You’ve made it this far, farther than I suspected you might, in fact. The Pathet Lao are turning over every bush looking for you, too.”

“What? Why?”

“You’ve caused quite a stir, old boy. Dropping a bomb on that hospital and all, half the goons in Southeast Asia are out looking for you.”

“What? What hospital?”

“Hanoi. Apparently your group bombed an airbase there, but it seems a stray bomb landed on a hospital. A rather large hospital, as it happened. Killed about 800 people, women and children mainly. Jane Fonda is outraged, by the way, you might like to know.”

“What?”

“There’s a reward out for you, and Sheriff Bao and his posse are still looking for you, I’m afraid.”

“Look, I’m sorry, but this isn’t making any sense to me, at all.”

“Well, I’m not surprised. You’re running a fever, 1-0-2, or so the good doctor tells me. And as soon as we get this leg on the mend, you and I will have to have a little talk, but it’s frightfully late and I’m very hungry, so if you’ll excuse me now…”

Asher tried to speak but put his head down, winced as the doctor continued suturing his thigh, then thought better of it and fell asleep – again.

+++++

He felt the sun streaming through an open window, opened his eyes and saw draperies fluttering in a gentle breeze, then smelled bacon frying and coffee brewing.

He sat up, tried to understand why he wasn’t swaying in his hammock, and why he was in a room that looked like it belonged in a Doris Day movie – then realized he needed to go and wondered where the bathroom was. “It should be right there,” he said out loud, and he walked over to a door. “Voila!” he said, stumbling into the bathroom. He looked at his reflection in the mirror, saw dried mud etched into his skin and looked at the shower – blood red tile, deep red grout, what’s going on here? – then turned on the water, waited for it to warm. He stepped in and moaned, then jumped out.

“Oh, the doctor advised you not get his knitting wet for a day or so,” the old Englishman said from to doorway. “Here’s some plastic wrap. You might put some over the wound.” Asher stood halfway behind the wall, caught the box as it tumbled through the air.

“Right. Thanks.”

When he finished his shower, he went out into the room and found his clothes gone, even his flight boots and gloves, and the only thing even remotely suitable was a white terry robe – replete with logo – the robe obviously stolen from the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. He put it on and walked out of the room, and into some kind of fairyland.

Red everywhere. Blood red walls, a darker red on the floor, a tight Berber carpet, he saw, yet deep red. Black and green floral upholsteries, with deep red trim, and then, in the kitchen, red appliances and red slate countertops, and then, the old Englishman, standing at the stove working on the bacon, in khakis and a red shirt.

“Ah, there you are? Feeling clean, are we?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

And two girls bounced into the living room, the blond and the redhead. Perhaps mid-twenties, still naked – and he looked at them, found he couldn’t take his eyes off either of them.

“Stacy! Becky! Clothes on around guests! Off with you, now!”

The girls pouted and made mewing noises during their retreat, and Asher shook his head, tried to push away the stiffness he felt growing under the robe.

“I suppose I’m used to it by now,” the old man said, “but it just wouldn’t do to have you sitting around having breakfast with an erection, would it?”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me who you are, where I am? Anything like that would be appreciated.”

“Hmm, yes. Well, help me get the food on the table, wot?” He handed two plates to Asher, who carried them to an ornately set table in a dining room that overlooked the pool – and the jungle beyond – and he remembered the well-kept driveway, the manicured lawns he’d stumbled on in the night.

The old man carried three more plates to the table and the girls came back in – wearing red lingerie, complete with bright red slip-on high heels.

“Well, that’s not exactly what I had in mind,” the old man sighed, turning to Asher. “We don’t have many guests here, as you might imagine. I suppose they’re hungry.”

“Hungry?” Asher said. “You mean, like cannibals, maybe?”

“What?” the old man said, then he laughed a little. “Yes, just so. So, dig in, as your countrymen are fond of saying. It’s American bacon, too, by the by. Get it from Danang.”

Asher did in fact dig in, though he ate as slowly as he could, savoring every bite, but the tabletop had little glass inserts set in the wood, and all he could see was the redhead’s legs. He crossed his own, tried to concentrate on his toast and jam.

“So, I think you were still a bit groggy last nite, but the North Vietnamese and the Pathet Lao are looking for you. There’s a Colonel Bao leading the charge, so to speak; you apparently killed his wife, among others, when one of your bombs hit the hospital where his wife was working.”

“Excuse me, but how do you know all this?”

“Oh, the BBC world service. Shortwave radio, old boy.”

“I see.”

“And I, well, I have contacts in the local military, the resistance, as well. They keep me well informed. Given where your aircraft came down I assumed the possibility existed you might make it here, too.”

Asher sat up when he heard that. “If you did, I take it this Colonel Bao might too?”

“Oh, he has, he has. But not to worry, you’re quite safe.”

“Why?” Asher sighed. “Why – what do you have that’s so important?”

“Me? Oh, I run one of the largest opium distribution and processing networks in the Golden Triangle, my boy. Have for years and years. How are your eggs, by the way?”

+++++

Colonel Bao, still in his Mi-8 helicopter, circled the compound and watched the pilot line up to land, and moments later he saw an American Jeep, an old WWII model, come down from the house on the hilltop. The old man himself, Clive Martin, was behind the wheel, the American sitting by his side. Bao clinched his teeth in anger, felt for the Makerov in his holster and tried to restrain the murderous impulse threatening to overwhelm his senses – but with little success.

The helicopter settled on the ramp, and Bao sneered at the drug-runner’s vast array of aircraft. The transports and the Lear Jet, all the trappings of capitalism run amok, and he wanted to kill this round-eye, too. Right here, right now – both of them, they were symbols of everything wrong with this world, now coddled by the rebels, his supposed allies. The money this vile creature generated financed the rebels’ war with the royalists which, like his own people’s struggle, was nothing more than a larger struggle between two competing sets of ludicrous European ideologies.

‘This is madness,’ he heard an inner voice whisper. ‘You must resist this madness, in all it’s forms.’

‘Means and ends,’ another voice sighed, pulling him back to his anger. ‘People everywhere have to come together to solve problems. War is necessary to achieve that end,’ the voice said, and he believed this one, too. Pulled in so many ways, now his only link to sanity done, her body charred, laying in the bottom of a molten crater.

But he took his hand off the pistol, decided to listen to what the old Englishman had to say. For now, anyway.

The gunner opened the door and Bao hopped down to the concrete, walked over to the Jeep. The American looked like a preening cat, he thought, sitting in the sun, licking it’s wounds – yet he saw the molten rubble of the hospital in the American’s eyes, his wife entombed by the seeping flow – and he struggled to contain his fury for a while longer.

The ‘round-eyes’ got out of the Jeep and came to him; he saw the American was still armed – and he smiled as hot lust blooded his eyes. ‘Yes, I will kill this man,’ he sighed inwardly, smiling as he turned away from the Gate.

“Ah, lieutenant, may I introduce you to my good friend, Colonel Vo Nguyen Bao. Colonel, my new friend, Lieutenant Benjamin Carter Asher, of the United States Navy.”

He looked down as this barbarian held out his hand, and he scowled – then took the man’s hand in his own. “Lieutenant,” he said, bowing his head slightly.

And when the barbarian nodded his head he saw sorrow in the man’s eyes. Understanding, and sorrow. ‘How odd,’ he thought. ‘I did not expect this.’

“I think some tea would be good, Colonel. Would that be of interest?”

“Yes,” he said, wondering why anyone would drink tea in this heat. “Thank you, my friend.”

The American gave up his seat, hopped in the back of the Jeep, and Martin drove up the hill, but he passed the opulent house and parked by a wooden wall. They got out and walked through a concealed gate, and into a magnificent Japanese garden. Bao sucked in his breath, had never seen such harmony, and he stared in wonder, lost to the reality that such a place could exist in this jungle, then they walked along a raked gravel path, over a little wooden bridge to a tea house that seemed to float above a pond.

They took off their shoes and went inside, and he saw an old woman sitting on her heels, her head bowed. Japanese? he wondered, then Martin sat, bid him and the lieutenant to join him on the tatami.

Then the old woman poured tea and left.

“So, lieutenant,” Bao said after he took a sip. “Tell me about your mission?”

And Asher told him. About the Migs, about their approach through the storm, the actual bomb-run, then the hung bomb after the release, trying to trim the aircraft and losing control, the SAMs passing overhead, slamming into the building on the hillside just ahead, the bomb releasing, regaining control then passing through falling debris, his aircraft now damaged, the struggle for control…

“The air defense missiles?” Bao asked, focused now. “You say they hit a building? Can you describe it – the building, I mean?”

“Yes, large, made of brick, dark brick. The first missile hit and I couldn’t believe the size of the explosion.”

“It is a new, Soviet-made high-explosive,” Bao said, shuddering inside. “Very powerful.”

“The second hit moments later. Debris from the building fell on my aircraft; that’s when we began to lose control.”

“Karma,” the old Englishman said.

“You did well,” Bao said, his eyes filling with sudden tears, “to make it as far as you did.”

“Are you a pilot, Colonel?”

“Yes. I understand now.”

“I understand you lost your wife. I’m sorry for your loss.”

‘Are you?’ Really?’ he wondered, but yes, he could see it in the American’s eyes.

“Thank you,” he said. “Nothing good comes from misunderstanding.”

“War is the greatest misunderstanding, I think,” Martin sighed. “So much life wasted. So much time.”

“Did you fly, in the war I mean,” Asher asked Martin.

“Yes, in Burma. Light bombers. I was shot down, managed to land in a clearing, walked out and ended up in Bhutan. That was late in ‘44. Ended the war in a monastery.”

“A monastery?” Bao asked. “How do you mean – ended?”

“Oh, it’s not important, but I came to this valley, you see,” yet Bao could see it in the Englishman’s eyes. They had now stumbled upon the most important moment of Martin’s life. “I came upon a bhikkhu, a monk, and I was sick. He helped me into the mountains, to his monastery, and they cared for me. I have never in my life felt so content, so at peace with myself.”

“I would like to find this place,” Bao said, “someday. I have never been content, have not experienced contentedness. I wonder now if it even exists.”

“Oh, it does.”

“I feel content,” Asher said, “when I’m in the air.”

“Yes,” Bao said, “that is a contented moment. I used to feel that way, too.”

Martin looked at the exchange and smiled inside. Nothing like common ground, he sighed. “More tea, Colonel?”

+++++

They ate sandwiches later, in the main house, simple things of cucumber and herbs, and Bao looked at the pool and the gardens and wondered why this man had turned to evil to build his dreams. His actions tore down reality, burned it to the ground, carried relentless waves of pain and suffering to the innocent, then he considered that, perhaps, in some cases you had to accept hate before you could understand love. Then he looked inside, considered another impossibility. Why had he wanted to kill this American, without really knowing all the facts? Why did he want to fight an endless war, over the imposition of an ideology he really found childlike, almost idiotic. Wasn’t he evil, too? How many lives had he ended. How many dead sacrificed on the altar of need, how many ends from dubious means.

Then he heard the American again.

“I’d like to see this place, this monastery.”

“I would, as well,” Bao said abruptly – and the words surprised him, and Martin, as well.

“Indeed,” the old Englishman said. “Colonel, that surprises me.”

“Does it, old friend? I wonder why?”

“You come from a Buddhist tradition…”

“No. I come from a communist tradition.”

“Ah. You replaced one religion with another.”

And Bao nodded his head. “Man always seeks order, does he not? Out of chaos? When man grows blind to such things, one God is as powerful as the other.”

And Martin smiled. “But what if all such order is an illusion? What then?”

“Then all life is an illusion.”

And with his hands steepled under his chin, Martin looked at Bao. “Is it, now? How interesting.” The two looked at one another for the longest time, then Martin leaned back, looked at the ceiling for a moment. “I suppose we could go up for a little ride today. Play among the clouds for a while. What do you think, Colonel?”

“Yes. It would be good to feel the sky again.”

+++++

Asher walked around the aircraft, clearly perplexed. “You sure it will fly,” he asked Martin.

“Oh, yes. I took it up last week. Tested the new engine. It’s all good.”

‘It’ was a Pilatus PC6 Porter, it’s Air America ‘N’ registry freshly scrubbed away, the once bare metal fuselage freshly painted in mottled grays. Patched bullet holes were still evident under the paint, and welds to reinforce damaged struts on the left wing stood out like livid wounds, still trying to heal.

“So, you can fly this thing?”

“Oh, yes. The engine procedures may be a little more complicated, but she flies like an old Cub.”

“I’ve heard about these things,” Asher said, “but this is the first one I’ve seen.”

“Strange looking,” Bao said. “Short take off, correct?”

“Needs about a hundred meters,” Martin said, and Bao’s eyes bugged a little, his neck rose and his chin tucked down on his chest. “Well, you want to come along, Colonel?”

Asher could see the indecision in Bao’s eyes, then he watched as the Colonel jogged to the helicopter and said something to the pilot. Asher looked at Martin just then, saw the grin spreading on the old man’s face, then Bao returned, carrying a little flight bag over his shoulder.

“Okay,” Bao said, “we go.”

The Garrett turbine spun up smoothly, and while Martin taxied out to the end of the runway the Vietnamese Mi-8 lifted into the air and turned to the northeast, for Điện Biên Phủ – and Bao ignored it. Martin applied throttle and the aircraft jerked down the runway and vaulted into the air, climbing at a thirty degree angle.

“What’s our airspeed?” Asher said nervously.

“Oh, 48 knots, why?”

“Fuck.”

Martin laughed; Bao and Asher looked at one another, clearly not amused, then the old Englishman pushed the nose over and undid his seatbelt. “Colonel, 3-0-3 degrees. Your airplane,” Martin said as he climbed out of his seat.

Bao grabbed the controls and found the heading, started trimming for level flight, instantly consumed with the realities of flight, while Martin plopped down in a seat and produced a deck of cards. “A little rummy, perhaps?”

“Yeah, sure. Uh, how fast can this crate go?”

“Oh, about 110, or thereabouts.”

“Geez, we could walk faster.”

“Not over these mountains,” Martin said, pointing at the spires off to the right. “And not with all the snakes down there.”

“I’m familiar with those goddamn things.”

“Oh, have a run-in or two?”

“About once an hour, or so it seemed.”

“There are more venomous snakes here than anywhere else in the world, and crocs in the rivers, too.”

“I think a tiger was stalking me one night.”

“Oh? Where? I mean, how close were you to my place?”

“The night before. Call it ten miles.”

“Really? How interesting.” Martin shuffled the deck then dealt. “So, you crossed the river?”

“Yeah. Leeches all over when I got out of the water.”

“Lucky.”

“Lucky? How so.”

“More crocs in that river than any in Southeast Asia. People don’t go near it anymore.”

“Swell.”

“Maybe someone’s looking out for you, lieutenant. Ever considered that? A few hundred yards off course and you might have walked right past my place, fallen down in the night and passed from that infection. What are the odds, eh?”

“Meeting you, and Becky…well, that was something else.”

“She seems quite taken with you. Odd, too, that she’s from Los Angeles, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Asher said, thinking about her. The way she came into his room, playfully at first, like a kid, then how she grew so serious, so quickly, when she slipped into his bed. How she played him like a fish, reeling him in, letting him go until all the months he’d spent on the Constellation seemed to drift away. How everything – before – seemed to slip from his grasp. He thought about her, and what she meant to him now, about the promises they made – meaningless, he knew – but promises nonetheless.

“Is it serious?” Martin asked.

“What?” Asher said, falling back into the present.

“This thing between you and Becky? Is it serious?”

He shook his head, frowned. “I don’t know…suppose it could be.”

“I’ll get her to Los Angeles, then. You two can work it out there.”

Bao called out just then. “Clive? Fuel getting low.”

“Oh, bother. That’s the problem with this bird…very short legs.” He crawled forward and tuned into a beacon. “Okay, I’ve got it.”

Asher watched as Martin circled a little clearing, then he saw an old C-47 and armed men come out of a line shack and realized the clearing was an airport – of sorts. Martin landed and the men refueled the Pilatus, then it was time to leave – again.

“Alright, Ben, your turn. Tune the ADF to 1490 and follow it in.”

“Okay.” Ben took off and trimmed for level flight, and he followed the ADF. Two hours later the needle started to swing and he looked down, saw another clearing, two C-47s tied up by another line shack, and he swung around, lined up for his final. Flaps down, throttle back, he settled into his approach, felt Martin over his shoulder.

“You’ve got it, I’d say. Hold about 53 over the numbers, then slip to idle.”

“You’re right. Feels like an old Cub. Docile.”

“It’s a wonderful airplane.”

“Okay, trim a little nose up now, let her resettle.”

“Yup,” Asher said, and he pulled back on the stick, flared a little and he felt her settle onto the grass runway.

“Easy on the brakes,” Martin added, “or you’ll stand her on her nose.”

“Got it.” He pulled up to the line shack and cut the engine; men came out and fueled the bird – and Martin went out and talked to his men for a moment, then he stuck his head in the main cargo door. “Mai Ling’s here today, and she’s cooking. Lunch time!”

They ambled over to the shack and went inside, had an impossibly good meal of soup and noodles, and some kind of sandwich Asher’d never heard of before, and Bao was deferential to the woman.

“She is legendary among the Pathet Lao,” he said. “Her husband was a leader of some repute…”

“Well, a king,” Martin said, “if you must know.”

“Yes. Just so. Now she travels around, rallies the troops.”

“She could rally me, with this chow,” Asher said, but he noticed the Colonel studying the woman. Maybe forty or so, like him, and Asher had to smile, but a moment later Bao turned to Martin.

“We have traveled four hundred miles? Are we in China now?”

“Close, but you’re correct. We’ll cut over China now, then Burma and Assam. We’ll get our last fuel there, and sleepover. We’ll take off early, cross over into Bhutan around sunrise tomorrow morning. I won’t be able to get you too close to the monastery, so you’ll have a little walk, Benjamin.”

“A lot of snakes there, too, I suppose?”

“A few, mainly cobra, but mainly at lower elevations, and nothing like my hills. It’s just too cold there.”

“Swell.”

“More tigers, though,” Bao said. “Many more in foothills of Himalaya.”

“Yes,” Martin added, “there are. Not sure a 45 would take one out, but it might scare the Dickens out of it.”

“I don’t suppose we could just keep on flying? Paris, maybe? I’ll buy dinner?”

“I have been to Paris,” Bao said, wistfully, “with my…” Then he stopped, turned away.

Martin looked at Asher, shook his head; Ben looked at the floor.

“It is not your fault, Lieutenant,” Bao said, putting a hand on Asher’s shoulder. “I understand, but the pain is just so,” he said, touching his heart, “difficult to understand.”

“It’s still my fault, Colonel. Those missiles wouldn’t have…”

“And those missiles wouldn’t be in my country unless the Soviet Union wanted them there, and the Soviets wouldn’t want them there unless there was a greater conflict between your two countries. We could go back infinitely, Lieutenant, and still never arrive at the real cause. It is karma, I think, but I do not understand this.”

“There’s no way, my friend,” Martin added. “There’s only acceptance.” The old man looked around and clapped his hands. “Well, time to move, I think. Mai-Ling?”

The woman appeared out of a back room, came over to their table. “Yes, Clive?” she said in a perfect Cambridge accent.

“Going to Bhutan…feeling like joining us?”

She seemed to hesitate, then nodded her head. “Yes, I need some chiles. I would appreciate the opportunity.”

“Well, we’re off, if you want to grab anything first.”

The woman walked back into her kitchen, then returned with a burlap shoulder bag and they walked out to the Porter.

“You take her,” Martin said to Asher as they climbed in. “I’ll need to look at a few charts now.”

“Anything I need to know?”

“Oh, yes, 90 percent and pull back at 60 knots, climb around 800 feet per, come to 3-0-3 again.”

Bao helped Mai Ling buckle in, then sat beside her, and Asher taxied out to the end of the runway and took off, turned to northwest.

“Take her on up to 12,000, settle in at 115 knots,” Martin said while he opened up an Indian aeronautical chart of the region. He tuned in another ADF, then started working a few VORs. “Gets a little tricky here,” he said. “The Chinese and Indians are squaring off over a border region up ahead, and everyone’s staying away from East Pakistan right now, too.”

“You say we’re in China?”

“Yes, and our last fuel stop was technically in China, too.”

“Technically?”

Martin shrugged. “I have an arrangement,” he said, grinning, “with one of the local air force types. I’ve not been so lucky in Burma. There’s an air base near Myitkyina, and we’ll need to stay under their radar umbrella.”

“You’re pretty familiar with this area, aren’t you?”

“Well, yes. I started flying Blenheims here in ‘41, but I’d been flying air cargo in the region for a few years when war broke out. I was born on a plantation near Rangoon, went to school back home, but came back after university – then the war started up in earnest. Anyway, after all that I bought a bunch of C-47s on the cheap and started an air taxi service. One thing led to another and I started carrying produce of another sort. Within a few years I had partners and by that time there was no way out, really. So I’ve made the best I could out of a sorry situation.”

“How did you get to Bhutan? Shot down – then what?”

“Oh, I chased a Jap formation northwest, managed to get shot down over India. I managed to crawl over some mountains and wound up down into a valley one morning, found myself on a trail, dozens of prayer flags flapping away in the wind. That’s what I remember most, those flags, in the wind. A boy found me, apparently, and I came to a few days later.”

“In the monastery?”

“Yes.”

“How long did you stay?”

“A few years.”

“Years?”

Martin nodded. “Biggest mistake I made in this life was walking out that door. I should have stayed.” He looked out the window, took a look around, then changed a frequency on the VOR. “Let’s drop on down now, get right down in the weeds.”

“Okay. Any kind of threat receiver?”

“No,” Martin said, shaking his head.

Asher tuned the ADF into the 3K band, and the gauge rocked once – to 340 degrees – then settled back to null. Ten seconds later it rocked to 340, then settled back. “There he is,” Asher said.

“The ADF is picking up radar?”

“Kind of, but not really. There’s a sub-carrier band broadcast when the radar pulses; it’s kind of a ‘come home to momma’ signal, and some newer ADFs can pick it up.”

“I’ve never heard that one, before.”

“You ever tried to pick apart Russian search radars, Clive?”

“Ah. Good point. So that’s Myitkyina?”

“If that base is around 340 True, it is. Signal will get stronger the closer we get.”

“Just an assumption here, but if we’re picking up that signal are we not visible on their radar??”

“Maybe, depends on how powerful it is. Is it British stuff?”

“I don’t know. Probably.”

“Probably low power setting now, two hundred fifty mile range at high power.” He looked at a mountain range ahead and began to fly like an Intruder pilot once again, looking for a way through the valleys that would help obscure their passage. “You fly through this area often?”

“Not much these days.”

“What about these mountains? Any air defenses?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Asher got down to a few hundred feet above the treetops and inched forward in his seat, looked over the long cowling and saw a road winding through the jungle, then low gray clouds ahead. Five minutes later they were in heavy rain, and visibility dropped to a few miles – Martin grew nervous and Asher looked over at him.

“You do much instrument flying?” he asked.

“No,” Martin said. “Never.”

“Well, I have – so relax.”

“Easy for you to say,” the old man said – as lightning flashed outside his side of the aircraft.

Asher cut power a little, dropped airspeed down to about 80 knots and he added a notch of flaps, a little nose up trim. “I wanna be trimmed for a climb if we hit some wind-shear,” he explained, and Martin nodded – then he saw they were over a ridge, and sunshine lay ahead.

“You know, if you want a job I’d be most happy to…”

Asher laughed. “I have one, assuming I can get back to it.”

“What will you do when you get back? After the war, I mean?”

“I was an engineering major, took a minor in accounting. I always thought I’d join my father’s company. Make specialized high pressure pumps for hydraulic systems, mainly aircraft.”

“So, aircraft are in your blood, I take it?”

“Kind of. I’d like to go to med school, though.”

“What about Becky? Any room for her in your life back there?”

“I don’t know. I have a girl, we’re so close it’s like she’s a part of me, but there’s something about Becky…?”

“Perhaps it’s simply because you’ve been away so long.”

“Yeah, maybe, but there’s something in that girl’s eyes. Magnetic, know what I mean?”

“Yes, I’ve still got a pulse too, Ben.”

He chuckled. “How’d they land with you?”

“Long story. Something to do with smuggling and getting arrested, but my guess is they were framed, set up and framed.”

“And you just happened along?”

“Like I said, Ben, it’s a long story.”

Asher saw reluctant anger in Martin’s eyes and let it drop. “Okay, ADF now at 0-0-5 degrees, so I assume we’re past Myitkyina now.”

“Remarkable.”

“Update all your ADFs to units that pick up the 4K bands and you’ll get the capability, but if newer Soviet systems are installed this little trick won’t work anymore. So, where to now?”

Martin dialed in an Indian VOR station and listened to the Morse identifier, then another on NAV2. “Come right to 3-3-0. When NAV two centers look for a clearing.”

“Got it.” Still flying just off the treetops, he saw a highway ahead, then a bridge – then troops on the bridge, jumping out of trucks and lining up an anti-aircraft gun. He dove for the deck – the Porter’s wheels now just inches from the pavement…

“What are you doing?!” Martin asked casually.

“Guns like that can’t deflect lower than 5 degrees,” Asher said as he jinked right, then left, then up and back down – and as they passed the troops he dropped down towards the river; the troops disappeared behind a bluff and were gone in an instant.

“Remarkable,” Martin said again.

“What?”

“You. You seem to be a born warrior, yet more like an eagle. Like you were born to fly – in war.”

“Funny. That’s what my girlfriend said, before I left.”

+++++

Sophie Marsalis Hollister took the news of Ben Asher’s resurrection with grace. She flew back to Los Angeles, went to his parent’s house, went to face the music. He knew by then all about her flight to D.C., about her marriage to Prentice Hollister, and though everyone seemed to dread their coming together again, like people fear two air masses coming together, it turned into a gentle affair. She came to him and kissed him, he hugged her with all the passion his soul could muster, and they went to Venice walked along the beach, then to their bench.

She told him of her life with Prentice, that he was coming back to Los Angeles to work at  the Times. She was going back to UCLA, to teach surgery, start a practice.

“What are you going to do, Ben?”

“I don’t know yet. I always assumed I’d go to work for Dad, but now, well, I’m not so sure.”

“What’s changed?”

“Me, I guess.”

“What do you want to do?”

“I’ve applied for medical school, next fall, but with a few airlines too.”

“Oh? I think you’d be an excellent physician.”

And that was pure Sophie. Love, understanding, acceptance – ‘whatever you choose to do, you’ll be the best there is.’

“I suppose you know,” he said, “I’ll always love you.”

“Yes,” she said, “as I’ll always love you. What happened over there?”

“You mean, getting shot down?”

“Yes. We read the part about the rescue operation, getting McMasters into the helicopter. What happened after that? Why were you gone so long? Did you walk all the way to Bhutan?”

“Not hardly,” he laughed. “I ran into a drug runner about a week later. I was hurt, my leg infected, and he had a doc stitch me up, got me on penicillin. Then this North Vietnamese colonel shows up, chasing me, hot on my trail. We talked, then all of us hopped in one of the drug runners airplanes and we flew to Bhutan.”

“We?”

“Yeah, the, well, Clive Martin and the Vietnamese colonel, Vo Nguyen Bao’s his name. We picked up this woman along the way…”

“You what?”

“I know. It was like clown car lost on a road trip. Mai Ling. Widow, educated in London, studied economics, a real fire-breathing Marxist. She married a local warlord who wanted to turn Laos into a Marxist paradise, got himself killed and she was going around rallying the guerrillas. She and Martin were friends and we met up with her, by accident – I think – but I’m still not sure about that. We nearly got shot down in Burma but made it into India, then into Bhutan. We landed in a clearing in the middle of nowhere, and we tied up the airplane and started walking.”

“All of you?”

“Yeah. Wasn’t supposed to work out that way, but Bao…”

“Bao?”

“The Vietnamese colonel?”

“Oh.”

“He wanted to see this monastery…”

“Monastery?”

“Yeah. Well, see, Martin had started talking about, well, he was a pilot in the war, got shot down and ended up in this monastery, and he’s been helping them ever since…”

“A drug runner helping a bunch of Buddhist monks? This is surreal?”

“Oh, darlin’ – you got no idea.”

She laughed, and he laughed with her.

“So, what happened next?”

“Well, see, it was like this…”

+++++

The Porter’s wings tied-down securely, they gathered their stuff and followed Martin down the road. Asher fell-in behind them, watching new patterns form in the air. Martin, on the ground once again, was a natural leader, while Bao was, he saw, the patient observer – his eyes moving everywhere, taking everything in. Mai Ling was, however, a lush symphony, in love with the natural world, stopping to look at flowers, pointing out trees and berries, and as he watched her that morning he grew captivated by her lust for life.

And so too did Colonel Bao.

They walked along the dirt road for hours, until the road stopped at a river. There was, perhaps, a ferry to carry people across in the rainy season, or after the snows melted, but that morning the river was almost dry, just a few meandering streams remained, the rest a jumble of dry, white rocks. Then Martin pointed to the far side of the valley, to a cliff above the pines, and to a trail that led up from the river.

“There it is,” he said, and Asher had to look hard to see what it was Martin was pointing at.

“Where?” Mai Ling said, looking up at the cliff.

“There,” Bao said, moving close to her side.

The cliff was at least a thousand feet tall, a sheer granite wall of light gray streaked black in places where, presumably, water ran down fissures in the monsoon, and about halfway up the face he pointed out a crack that ran, roughly, from one side of the face to the other.

“See,” he said, pointing, “like a string of whitest pearls, just there. Those are the buildings…”

And she looked, she saw what he saw with his own senses, then she looked into Bao’s eyes, and she discovered a truth.

“There’s the trail,” Martin added, “through the trees on the right side, over there. It leads up through the trees to the ledge, and from there we will make it out to the monastery.”

“Will we be welcome up there?” Asher asked.

“No traveler is ever turned away from a monastery, lieutenant,” Bao said. “Though he may stay a day, or a lifetime – .”

“A lifetime?”

“To begin the journey, anew, lieutenant, or to resume one’s journey along the path.”

“Ah.”

“Well,” Martin sighed, pointing to the trail, “what’s it going to be, Ben?”

And Asher looked at the trail for a while, then at the old Englishman, unsure what to do.

“Ben, you can walk back down the valley, about forty miles. There’s a bus that will take you to a UN facility, from there you may call whomever you wish.” Then Martin held out his hand. “Good luck to you.”

“No.”

And both Asher and Martin turned to Colonel Bao, to the sound of his voice. They watched as he took off his military clothing. His jacket, festooned with military insignia, was cast aside; his belt, with the Makerov in it’s brown leather holster, dropped to the ground – and he kicked it away. Then he sighed and took off his shoes and socks, left them in a rattled heap.

Then he turned to all his things on the earth and he scowled. “No,” he repeated. “I can not go back to that life.” Bao then looked up, looked at Asher, then at Martin. “I have talked with this woman for hours, and I may be mad but I have listened to her words. It is time for me to choose another path, and I choose this one.”

They watched as Bao started across the dry riverbed, picking his way carefully through the stones, then they turned to Mai Ling. She had knelt to his things and was carefully folding Bao’s trousers now, neatly folding everything – except the pistol, which she left on the ground – then she stood and without saying a word followed Bao across the riverbed.

“Well,” Martin said, “I suppose there’s nothing for it now. Let’s go.”

And when Martin started across the white stones, Asher followed.

When they were all on the other side they walked along the banks of the river until the outlines of a trail appeared, but Bao stopped.

A cobra lay in the path, it’s head up, fanned and ready to strike. When Asher stopped, he looked at the snake, then up at monastery – but the mountain was shrouded in cloud now – and then it started to rain.

+++++

“A cobra?” Sophie said.

“Yeah. And Bao just stares at the thing. We’re standing there in this heavy rain, and Bao just stares at this snake. Like he was communing with the thing – then off it went, into the grass.”

“Snakes can’t handle the rain, cold rain, anyway.”

“Neither could I, but the whole thing was so weird. Anyway, it took about two hours to walk to the ledge, but by the time we got out on the rocks the rain had turned to snow. The rock was icy in places, but there were trees along the way and we held on to them, and Bao was shivering like mad, I mean really cold.”

“The woman didn’t give him his clothes?”

“He didn’t ask. I think it was like a ritual of some kind. Purification, maybe, because she walked right behind him, whispered what sounded like encouragement. It took about an hour more, but we came to this gate, and there was a little bell set inside the cliff, a little alcove, like a shrine set into the stone. Martin and I watched as Bao rang it, but Sophie, I was clueless. I had no idea what was behind that gate…”

+++++

Tschering looked at Lindsey’s hands, her fingers, and he remembered the way he felt when she touched him. The little waves of excitement, the sudden, overwhelming tension. The enchantment he felt when he watched her play Bach, the utter peace when she sighed through Debussy. He would sit beside her in class and watch her hands while she took notes, the precision of her movements as she crafted her words – big, egg-shaped letters, always in purple ink. He had wanted nothing more from life than to sit and watch her hands.

‘The universe is right there, in her hands,’ he thought, once. ‘Everything I love about life is right there, waiting to explode into being.’

And one day, in one of the music rooms, he had watched those fingers until he couldn’t any longer, then he had sat beside her and taken one of her hands in his, then he had closed his eyes and let the feeling of birth wash over him.

‘To begin like this,’ he sighed. ‘To hold creation in my hands.’

And she had taken him then. Right there in the music room, beside the piano, on the floor. She had kissed and coaxed him, played with him until instinct took over. He entered her and felt the universe open up to him – like the petals of a vast flower parting to reveal a deeper truth, a hidden life – and when the clouds and rain came he felt he had broken free of this life and was destined to fly away.

He remembered the way she held him, her legs wrapped around the moment, pulling him closer, taking him deeper, and how she was slow to let go, after. She wanted him too, he knew then, but something kept her apart and away from that feeling, from the truth he thought they’d found..

As he looked at her now, in the sculpture garden behind Bunche Hall, she seemed so different – yet curiously enough, still the same. He looked at her fingers, then at the curve of her neck – where it turned to the shoulder – and he felt the same insistent pull. Like a specific gravity between them – inescapable, and most enduring. Something borne of physical recognition, he assumed, yet something deeper still.

“I miss your father,” Tschering said.

She nodded, tried to smile, to hide from the pain in his words.

“How is your mother?” he asked, and he could see her recoil from images that washed over open wounds.

“We haven’t spoken. She left after…”

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have…”

“No, that’s alright.”

“Portman said you had some questions? That I might be able to help?”

“Do you ever wonder what might have happened? If that night had played out differently?”

He sighed. “Perhaps once a day? Maybe a couple of times a day?”

She laughed a little, then returned to her sorrow.  “Me too.”

“So, you have an academic question? About Buddhism?”

“Yes. You’ve read that, I take it?” she asked, pointing at her book in his hand.

“Many times.”

“When I was walking, in China, I was struck by an apparent paradox, between urban workers and rural farmers. By a profound anomie in the attitudes expressed by factory workers, and a more relaxed state of mind in farmers. That’s nothing new, but it got me thinking about this shift as a trajectory, of sorts, that almost all cultures have experienced as they’ve moved from hunter-gatherer to farmer/herder to urban dweller. I know we both missed it, but there was a saying in the sixties, ‘turn on, tune in, and drop out.’ It’s the dropping out thing that interests me…”

“Said the writer with no small amount of irony…”

“I know, I know. Anyway, I started thinking about the old pre-Christian desert fathers, how they fled cities and retreated to the wilderness. To think about God. An unruly god, tired of being shunned.”

“Guru Padmasambhava and the Taktsang Senge Samdup cave.”

“What?”

“The same impulse was at work, in Bhutan. When a Buddhist teacher from the south came into the mountains to escape the forces you speak of. He flew to this cave on a tiger’s back, meditated for three years, three months, three weeks, three days and three hours. I think we are talking about the same force.”

“Yes, well, I’m thinking this is much more than coincidence.”

“What are you thinking?”

“Yeah, that’s the question. These inward treks tend to come just before an explosion of dormant evangelicalism, then a long period of religious rule follows. Existing bureaucracies are incorporated in the new religious order, long periods of repression and persecution follow, and this leads to periods of enlightenment.”

“You remember reading Mann’s Buddenbrooks?”

“Yes. Enlightenment leads to decay, decay to collapse.”

“The Hegelian dialectic. It is everywhere, in every thing. Collapse leads to renewal.”

“Maybe it’s that simple, but that’s what I’m not so sure of.”

“What, then, if not renewal?”

“Maybe there will be a final collapse someday.”

“But that is foretold in every religion, Lindsey. An apocalypse of some sort, an eventual reckoning. This is nothing new. Shiva, in the Hindu trinity, is the destroyer, yet destruction brings renewal to the universe. Harmony, the Zen concept of Wa. When an order grows imbalanced, the universe seeks to reimpose balance. Harmony, balance is the natural state of being. When an organism is in imbalance, the organism seeks to re-establish balance, or it…”

“Dies.” She looked at Tschering, at the sorrow she had carried so close, for so long, and she wondered when it, too, would kill her.

+++++

Sara was finishing a roast when she walked in the shop, and the aroma was rich and heady, heavenly so. “It’s your day off!” Sara said. “What are you doing here?”

“I wanted some coffee. Seemed like the place to go.”

“Well, you’re in luck. Jeff just delivered ten pounds of Jamaican Blue Mountain.”

“Ah, that’s what that is…”

“Want to try some?”

“I can’t afford that, Sara.”

“Bosh. Let’s just sneak a little. Time to close, anyway. Why don’t you go lock up and I’ll make two cups.”

They sat with their coffee and drifted, then Sara turned to her. “So? How much time do I have?”

“What?”

“You’re leaving soon. I can feel it.”

“You know, I haven’t thought about it recently.”

“Doug? Is that what’s getting you down?”

“He’s complicated.”

“He’s a disaster, Lindsey. He’s like this tower of strength, but his strength causes everything around him to crumble.”

“Buddenbrooks,” she sighed, thinking about her conversation with Tschering.

“What?”

“I’m not leaving anytime soon, Sara. I have too many unfinished things to take care of before I can even think about leaving.”

“How long will you stay? I only ask because you’ll be so hard to replace.”

“I doubt that.”

“Are you writing again. I mean, really writing?”

“Yes.”

“I thought so. I can see it in your eyes. You’re engaged with the world again.”

“Engaged? How do you mean?”

Sara sighed, then took a deep breath. “When you first came in, a few months ago, it was like your eyes were dead, almost lifeless. It’s been like watching you come back to life, watching you watching customers, finding your way back among the living. Rediscovering yourself. But you always seemed to be like that, Lindsey, even when we were kids.”

“Like what? Rediscovering myself?”

Sara nodded her head, took a sip of coffee. “That’s right. Like when you and John broke up, then came to the prom together…”

“Sara, John is my brother.”

“What?” she croaked, her eyes going wide.

“Ben Asher was my father.”

Sara looked away as all the tumblers suddenly fell into place, then she just slowly nodded her head. “And no one else knows?”

“John does.”

“Why did you tell me?”

“I don’t know, really. Maybe you need to know.”

“We were never really friends, you know. I used to resent you, especially after the book came out.”

Lindsey nodded her head. “Maybe I knew that. Still, I always considered you a friend. You have been, the past few months. It meant a lot to me. You mean a lot to me.”

Sara turned away, laughed a little. “It was mercenary on my part. I knew you’d bring in more customers.”

“I still don’t get that,” Lindsey said, grinning.

“Oh? Well, look at me. We’re the same age, but I’ve got a Michelin steel belted radial around my gut, while you still look like January’s Playmate of the Month. My hair is gray, and my skin looks like crocodile hide. And you? You still look just like a goddamn Playmate of the Month. Red hair, no gray – not one streak. Skin clear, not one goddamn wrinkle. You write a book then take off to walk around the world. You intimidate the hell out of me, because you’re like catnip to men – and you’re fucking clueless. It’s like you haven’t noticed a fundamental principle of the universe…”

“Noticed? Like what, for instance?”

“Hell, girl, half the men come in here just to stare at your legs. I mean it. I’ve never seen anything like it. And Melody pointed it out to me. She’s nineteen, and I thought cute as hell, but all these guys come in and ignore her…they ignore her because they’re going all goo-goo eyed over you.”

“You’re exaggerating.”

“No, I don’t think so. On your days off we do half the business we do when you’re here. Melody pointed that out to me, too, then I looked at the books. We do forty percent less business when you’re not here. Because guess what? These guys know your schedule. They come here to bask in your glow, to say ‘Hi!’ to you, to see you smile at them and bring them their coffee.”

“Are you…jealous?”

“Am I jealous? Fuck yes, you moron, I’m jealous as hell. It’s been ten years since a man looked at me like they look at you – every morning. Ten years, at least, since I got banged like these guys want to nail you, but then, oh no, wait a minute. Lindsey goes out and latches on to the most depressing human being in Los Angeles.”

“Doug? Depressing?”

Sara snorted, looked away again. “You know about his daughter?”

“Only that she’s hospitalized.”

“For what? Did he tell you that much, at least?”

“Schizophrenia.”

“You ought to go look her up, on Google? Or do you want this short version?”

“Sara, you seem angry about all this. Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe because the bastard hasn’t told you.”

“About his daughter?”

“Yeah,” she snorted derisively, “about his daughter.”

“What’d she do?”

“She tried to kill him.”

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know. Why don’t you ask the bastard?”

+++++

Doug picked her up early, and they drove down Sunset Boulevard to the Pacific Coast Highway, then he turned north, heading for Ventura.

“Want to put the top down?” he asked.

“If you want.”

He pushed a button and the hard-top danced and folded itself into little pieces, then stuffed itself in the trunk, and he seemed to wait for her to ooh and ah but she had leaned back and seemed to be staring at the sky.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Yes. Sorry, I was up late writing. Was I zoning out?”

“You seem distant.”

“I feel distant. Far away.”

“You sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. What can you tell me about what happened to her?”

“I don’t know the whole story, and the trouble is I don’t think even she knows the whole thing. She seems to inhabit a dream world one minute, then she’s attacked by demons the next.”

“Attacked?”

“Yeah. If she has one while you’re there you’ll understand. It’s like she’s being physically attacked, by beings of some sort, using knives.”

“Beings?”

“What she’s described to her doctors is surreal. Whatever it is she sees, they’re not human.”

“They attack her, with knives?”

“Yup. They cut her up, then throw her into fires, piece by piece.”

“How long has it been going on?”

“Four years, almost five ago. One night she wakes up screaming, I mean real blood-curdling howls. A few minutes later the police were at the door, banging on it, getting ready to knock down the door.”

“Jesus. Do you know what set her off?”

He sighed, put some heat on. “Let me know if you get uncomfortable.”

“Okay.”

“So. What set her off…well, the first thing that happened…she was with her mother at the grocery store and she was putting stuff on the conveyor at the check-out counter. This woman in the line ahead objected to Lacy putting things on it before she had finished unloading her own cart, and the woman really lit into her. Well, Lacy just crumbled, fell to the floor, then just sat their, almost catatonic. She wouldn’t move, either.”

“Wouldn’t, or couldn’t?”

“I don’t know. Paramedics took her to Country SC.”

“How old was she?”

“Fourteen. Anyway. Once we got her out of the ER we had an appointment with a psychiatrist, and she started seeing him regularly, but she just seemed to get worse after that. I mentioned it to a friend of mine here, a shrink at the medical school, and she wanted to know who Lacy was seeing. So, I told her and the next thing she wanted to do was examine Lacy. Then she hypnotized her. My friend had long suspected this other doc was molesting patients, very young girls, usually, and hypnosis revealed that. Not good enough to press charges, but she confronted the guy. And later that afternoon he killed himself.”

“Oh, no.”

“Lacy internalized all that, blamed herself, assumed she had seduced the guy so was, therefore, responsible for his death…”

Lindsey shook her head. “Was she ever promiscuous? Before that?”

“Yeah,” he said, shaking his head. “She used to come into our bedroom when we were asleep, get up on the bed and straddle me, in my sleep. On top of the covers. She told me once that’s what mommy did to the men who came over.”

“I think I’m going to be sick…could you pull over?”

He flipped on the turn signal and pulled over to the shoulder, then helped her out. She walked away, taking deep gulps of air, then she stood and looked up into the sky…

+++++

Asher heard the morning call to prayer and shook his head, rolled off the pallet where he slept and walked outside, down the ledge to the privy, kicking snow off his feet before he went inside. He watched monks filing into one of the prayer rooms and smelled tea when he came out into the morning, and he walked to the kitchen, saw Mai Ling working her magic and smiled.

“Good morning, Ben,” she said in her sing-song voice.

“Morning. How’d you sleep?”

She smiled, feigned pelvic discomfort and rolled her eyes, and he laughed. He had never seen two people fall so deeply in love, so quickly, and he was happy for her. For Bao, too.

She had only the simplest ingredients to play with up here, but she worked wonders with what she had and produced miraculous meals, two a day. A small breakfast and a smaller lunch. The monks eschewed anything but a simple vegetable broth after noon, so by the time morning rolled around Asher was ready to eat a yak. He said he was starving this morning, and Mai Ling handed him a plate with a little extra on it.

“Bless you, my love!” he crooned, and a moment later Martin came lumbering in.

“I think I slept on a rock last night,” he said, stretching his back.

“Well, you sure slept like one,” Ben said. “Only you were farting like a water buffalo.”

Martin rolled his eyes. “Nonsense. I did no such thing.”

“Oh? Well, you say so.” Asher sniffed the air. “Or maybe you should go change your shorts.”

“What ever are you talking about?”

“Well, you either brought a few along with you, or you’ve shit your britches.”

“Bah!”

“Humbug.”

Then Martin leaned over and whispered in Asher’s ear: “Say, did you hear those two going at it last night?”

Asher nodded his head, grinned. “Eight rounds. She won by a knock-out.”

Martin howled at that. “By God, I’m going to miss you. You’re sure I can’t talk you into staying and working for me?”

“Maybe in my next life, Clive.”

“You know, it’s funny you say that, but it’s felt to me like I know you. Like I always have. Isn’t that strange?”

“Clive? I think it’s the methane. Breathing it in all night like that…I’m tellin’ ya, it’s fucking with your head.”

Martin shook his head. “You’re a miserable sod, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Well, even so, I’m going to miss your irreverent self around these parts.”

“You going back to Laos?”

“No choice, mate.”

“Why not fly me to India, fly home from there?”

“There’s no way out, Ben. They’d find me in a week.”

“We could get a raid…”

“Ben. If I’m not back soon, those girls will be gone. As in, forever. I let people know I’d be gone a few weeks. Any more than I have, and, well, things will become dangerous.”

“Okay.”

“Have you talked to the colonel?”

“Yup. He’s staying.”

“Mai Ling?”

“I can’t see those two splitting up. Not now.”

“She’ll have to shave her head, too.”

“I think I’m ready for that,” Mai Ling said, putting a bowl of food down for Martin.

“Had enough war, have you?”

She nodded her head. “I’ve had enough of all that,” she said, waving her hand to indicate ‘everything’ out there.

“You should shave your head, Martin, and stay. They wouldn’t come for you here.”

“Not sure I’d be very good at all this,” Martin said, “being an atheist and all.”

“Oh?” she said. “What do you think comes next? After all this is over?”

“I think I’ll just close me eyes and be done with it.”

“Yes. You are ready. You should stay.”

He laughed, then he saw the look in her eye and took a deep breath, reached into his pant’s pocket. He fished around for a moment, then pulled out a couple of keys.

“Ben? This first key is to the Porter. The second is to a safety deposit box. I’ll give you the particulars in a bit. There’s an aeronautical chart under my seat that will get you into India. Tell the authorities you found this aircraft and are repatriating it. Officially, it still belongs to those Air America chaps of yours, so you haven’t stolen anything.”

“Martin? You sure you want to do this?”

“Yes. With any luck at all, those girls are in California already. I told them to leave, and who knows, maybe they got out. Maybe you tell the authorities in India I was killed in Burma, or that I had contacts in the military?”

“That would do it.”

“At any rate, I doubt they’d try to enter Bhutan, even if they knew I was here.”

“What about Bao?”

“Tell them we all got out in Burma, that you came back and borrowed the Porter after I was killed.”

Bao came in when prayers were over, and they filled him in on the morning’s decisions. The colonel nodded his head, then turned to Martin. “I will walk with the lieutenant to the aircraft,” he said, then he left, apparently very angry.

“Now what’s that all about?” Martin said, and Mai Ling smiled, then turned away.

“I’m going to get my things,” Ben said, looking from Martin to Mai Ling and back again. He stood, went to the woman and hugged her. “Thank you,” he whispered, “for everything.”

She kissed him on the cheek. “You will not forget us, will you?”

“Never.”

“Go now, before I shave your head and make you stay.”

He kissed her and walked quickly from the room, and Martin followed a moment later, but not before he looked at Mai Ling and grinned.

+++++

The three of them walked up to the Porter and stopped, looked at one another, then Martin took the key and opened the door. “Here are the charts you’ll need. There’s some cash in this envelope, a few Sterling and some Swiss francs. You’ll have just enough fuel to carry on to Bagdogra airfield,” he said, pointing it out on the chart. “And here are the ADFs and VORs you’ll need.”

“Alright.”

“Now, about the second key. USB, main office, Zurich. You can only access it on 7 July. 7-7, got it?”

“Okay.”

“And Ben? Don’t lose the fucking key.”

He grinned. “I’ll try.”

Martin handed him another scrap of paper. “Here’s what you’ll need to sign in for the box.”

“Okay, but Martin, what the hell’s in this thing?”

“An envelope, old boy. You want to leave the bank immediately, by the way, and get to London as soon as you can. Follow the instructions inside the envelope to the letter, as lives may depend on it.”

“Alright,” Asher said, noting the serious expression he saw in the old Englishman’s eyes.

“Well, this is it, Ben. I’m so glad you dropped by…”

They laughed, then hugged – the old man slapping Asher’s back.

“Colonel? Shall we go?” Martin said.

“I must have a word with the lieutenant, please,” the colonel said, and Asher could see the emotion brimming in his eyes as he walked up. “Lieutenant,” Bao said, addressing him as a superior officer, and Asher snapped to.

“Yes, sir.”

“I came to you with nothing but evil in my heart. I came to kill you. Now I understand you. Now I see you as my friend. As my good friend. And as a friend I ask you a favor.”

“Yes, Colonel?”

“Mai Ling will have my son,” he said. “In seven years, I want you to return, to come – here. Right here. I want you to take my son to America. Fly by the monastery, rock your wings, and I will bring him.”

“Alright, Colonel. Seven years from today. I’ll be here.”

They looked one another in the eye for a long time, then Bao turned and walked away; Martin let slip the wing tie-downs then helped Ben with his walk-around. They shook hands and he climbed in the Porter and started the engine; he watched the gauges for a moment, then lined up on the clearing and took off. He circled the riverbed once, flew over the trail and rocked his wings, and he saw Bao standing on large rock, saluting, as he passed.

+++++

She felt better now, with the wind in her hair and the sun higher in the sky, but she felt unsure of herself, of her footing in this strange new landscape. She watched him handle the car, listened to him talk about his daughter, about his other son in Boston. About Madeleine and her lingering HIV, and the promiscuity that had been her downfall. Their downfall.

And she felt like a foreigner, like a stranger in a strange land, like the ground kept shifting under her feet, trying to slide out from under her. Then she thought of Portman, and his first lecture – before she lurched back to the present.

They turned of the coast highway onto old Highway 33 and climbed into the oak crusted hills that looked over the Pacific, and he set his course to the hospital where his daughter lay waiting. She listened to him talk about Lacy’s disease warily now, like she really couldn’t believe something so vile and pernicious could still exist in the 21^st century, but the more she listened the more she believed. And the more she believed the more afraid she became.

“I had no idea,” she said at one point. “I thought anti-psychotics had all but wiped it out?”

“It’s an insidious disease, Lindsey. Medication can help alleviate symptoms, some symptoms, anyway, while others percolate just under the surface, just out of view. The underlying mechanism, the inability to the brain to correctly encode and retrieve memory, makes it feel as though what’s experienced is real. In other words, what the patient experiences does not feel unreal, it’s not a hallucination to them. When Lacy’s being attacked by knife-wielding demons, it’s real to her. When she tries to recall something from childhood, say a memory of Christmas, the memory may come back in the form of an attack. Think of the brain as a computer, if you can. Memory’s are stored in something like a hard drive, but instead of binary coding the brain uses chemical coding. In a schizophrenics mind, the ability to address memory, and to retrieve it intact, is corrupted. It’s confounding, too, because some regions may be intact, may offer some semblance of order, then some other mechanism distorts the ability to recall. No one can tell with much certainty why this happens, let alone how, but when you look at Lacy she appears normal. She speaks normally. You just can’t let your senses be your guide here, because you and I want to see normal. We want to see progress. We want to see hope.”

“Are you’re saying there isn’t any?”

“With the current state of the art? Doubtful. And again, it’s the nature of the beast. There isn’t just one ‘kind’ of schizophrenia, Lindsey. There are a whole bunch of them, yet they’re not all separate and distinct diseases. There’re crossovers and permutations, too, a little bit of this one and little bit of that one over there. One med may work well for this combination and be completely ineffective for one that looks the same, but maybe that’s because there’s just one subtle little difference between the two. And guess what? It’s hit or miss, trial and error.”

“But the news coverage…”

“The meds are only effective at quieting the noise, Lindsey. They turn off the hallucinations, for a while, anyway, but the side effects are not inconsequential. Sleeping twenty hours a day isn’t uncommon, and uncontrolled weight gain the norm. Then all the other components of weight gain join the parade. Hypertension, diabetes – then liver toxicity creeps in as the meds take their toll. Lacy weighed 115 when we brought her here. She weighs 250 now, she’s on insulin and beta-blockers, and she’s not even twenty.”

She saw him wipe away a tear and she put her hand atop his arm.

“Well, here we are,” he said as he turned off the highway.

“It looks like a country club, Doug. Look at that view…”

“It was. Went out of business in the crash, a group of docs in LA bought it and rebuilt the main building. A lot of the land was sold off to developers, and that allowed them to add buildings, increase space. There’s a year long waiting list to get in now.”

“But if there’s no cure?”

“The goals are simple where Lacy is concerned. Get her stable enough to move into assisted living, maybe with a roommate.”

“Not home?”

“Doubtful. I can’t see moving her back into an environment that may have been the primary cause of all this? And when I’m not around? In the office all day?”

“I see. Any other options you can think of?”

“Well, we’ll meet with her docs first, then if she’s up to it we’ll go see her. Then you tell me what you think.”

They walked inside, to the reception desk, and then were escorted to a conference room, and after a few minutes wait a lab-coated physician and two nurses came in and sat. Lindsey looked at the physician, a psychiatrist, she assumed, and thought he looked troubled; the nurses looked harried – worn out and at their wit’s end.

The physician looked up from his chart and at Lindsey: “This is your visitor?” he asked.

Doug spoke first: “Yes, Doctor Tremble, this is Lindsey Hollister, a friend…”

“The writer? You wrote A Pound of Flesh?”

“Yes, I did?”

“Are you here in a professional capacity? “The pound of flesh which I demand of him is deerely bought, ‘tis mine, and I will haue it.” Does that about sum things up? Are you here for your pound of flesh?

She thought the question paranoid, and almost wanted to laugh. “Well, no actually, Doug is a friend, and I want to know what he’s facing.”

“Ah, well then. And here I had hopes of becoming the evil villain in a taunting exposé vis-à-vis the ills of modern psychiatry?”

“Are you an evil villain?” she asked – and the man snorted.

“Yes, of course. Just ask any one of my patients.”

“I see your point.”

“Good,” Tremble said, chewing on a ball point pen. “Now, Doctor Peterson, a lot to report this week, I’m afraid. She’s refusing food and water again, which is causing all kinds of problems with her sugars. We started an IV to hydrate her and she ripped the line out last night, so she’s in hard restraints this morning. Another 24 hours and we’ll need to insert a gastric tube again. Miss Hollister, for your benefit…”

“To feed her,” Lindsey said, cutting him off. “Yes, I’m familiar with the concept.”

“Are you? Well, good. As we discussed last time this occurred, we’ve started Haloperidol IM, so we’re anticipating major GI issues if we restart her on a feeding tube…”

“Excuse me,” Lindsey said, and Tremble put down his pen, looked exasperated, “but you’re saying Lacy is tied down, refusing to eat or drink, that you’re giving her medications that will cause GI issues if you start to force feed her? Is that about it?”

“Yes, Miss Hollister, that’s about ‘it’,” he said, hanging quotation marks in the air with his fingers.

“Okay,” Doug said, “why do I get the impression you’re holding something back this morning.” Then he looked at the two nurses. “What’s going on? Talk to me.”

The nurses looked at Tremble, then at Peterson, then one of them spoke: “Doctor Peterson, Lacy exists in two states of mind now. She’s either asleep, a very restless sleep, or she’s awake and fully engaged in her hallucination. She writhes in agony, screams out as her demons assault her, cutting her with knives. She screams when they throw her into fires. She screams when the demons bring innocent babies before her and cut them up, throw them into the fires. I think the point I’m trying to make is this…”

“And let me say I disagree with this assessment, but they are a part of her treatment team so have a right to speak.”

The nurse looked intimidated, but continued. “The point, Doctor Peterson, is simply this. She’s suffering, and treatment doesn’t appear to be working. After five years, she’s symptomatically worse. She is clinically depressed on top of everything else, has given up hope of getting better, and her nurses are of the opinion we should DC life sustaining measures…”

“DC means discontinue?” Lindsey interjected.

“Yes, sorry.”

Doug looked down, nodded his head. “I was afraid of this,” he whispered.

Lindsey looked at Tremble again. “Doctor? What do you think of this position?”

“I’m against it. I simply can’t give up.”

“Why? I mean, an oncologist fights a cancer until there’s no longer any benefit to further treatment? Are you saying you think there’s a chance for improvement?”

“There’s always a chance, Miss Hollister.”

“Well then, let me rephrase. Is their a reasonable likelihood, with current medical knowledge and with the tools you have on hand now, today, of your altering the trajectory of this illness?”

“No, not really.”

“So,” she sighed, “what possible motive could you have for continuing treatment, other than, say, a financial motive?”

“Now look here, I resent the implications of that statement…”

“As do I,” Lindsey said, “but nothing else comes to mind. What you’ve described to me this morning is a portrait of unmitigated suffering, suffering without chance of remission. Could I ask you one more question, doctor, before you stab me with that pen?”

Tremble looked at the mauled pen, then put it down. “Yes, of course.”

“What would you advocate if Lacy was your best friend in all the world? Or your daughter?”

He sighed, looked down at his hands. “I don’t know. I might try a Hail Mary Pass, but at this point, I just don’t know.”

Doug looked up. “Such as?”

“ECT,” Tremble said.

“Jesus,” he sighed. “I didn’t think…”

Tremble sighed. “Like I said, Doug, this would be a Hail Mary play.”

“Doctor,” Lindsey said, “I’m not blind. I can see that you care, that you’re frustrated and feel the same hopelessness your nurses feel, but when is enough enough?”

“When I’ve tried everything, I’ll let you know.”

“Logistics?” Doug said.

“Only place worth trying is Spokane, Sacred Heart.”

“Air ambulance?”

Tremble nodded. “Probably around a hundred grand. Insurance won’t cover.”

“How about ECT? Is that covered?”

“No.”

“Any guesses?”

“Two to three hundred thousand?”

“Any idea of a success rate?” Lindsey asked, incredulous now.

“No, but not very good.”

“So,” she said, “3-4 hundred thousand for an unproven treatment with little chance of success? On top of five years and how much money?”

“Close to a million,” Doug said, “out of pocket. So far.”

“Well,” Lindsey sighed, “I just found the topic for my next book. This is incredible. Your money or your life.”

Tremble looked away.

“I’m curious,” she added. “What about the people who can’t afford this. I mean, seems to me that’s about 99 percent of the people in the country. What do they do?”

Tremble looked at her. “They cut almost all mental health funding for public treatment programs back in the mid 80s. It’s been downhill ever since.”

“The Reagan cuts, you mean?”

“That’s right. They tried to address that with the ACA, but you saw how popular that was, I suppose.”

Doug stood. “Could we see Lacy now?”

+++++

Driving down 33 again, the blue Pacific filling the way ahead, Lindsey tried to shake the sight of the girl from her mind’s eye. The lifeless eyes, the muted conversation between an infant and a Spanish speaking woman.

“So, you’re saying she was holding a conversation – between a baby girl and a Spanish demon?”

“She fragmented into Multiple Personality Disorder two years ago, and there are several demons involved now. The Spanish demon tends to be a mediator, asks the baby version of Lacy to repent for her sins, then she leads the punishment phase, calls out all the other demons, with the knives.”

“That’s when the screams started?”

“That’s right.”

“What did you think about the whole ECT thing?”

“I read the relevant journal articles months ago.”

“And?”

“Promising for unipolar depression. A waste of time for psychotic disorders, including schizophrenia.”

“So, it’s a Hail Mary?”

“No, it’s not even that. Tremble knows she’s going to fail, to die, and he wants to pass the buck to another institution. If she dies here, or goes to hospice from here, it’s a mark on his record, a possible investigation. Patients in mental facilities rarely die, so the state often looks into these types of events.”

“But it’s not his fault?”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s a statistic, an unwelcome one at that.”

“This is like Kafka. Every one in sight runs from the bureaucrats and their lawyers, and somewhere along the line doing the right thing becomes impossible.”

“It’s easy to fall into that kind of thinking, but actually a lot of good comes out of our system. It could be better, but the political will just isn’t there, let alone the money.”

“You know, the amount of money an F-15 uses in fuel, in fuel alone, to fly one bombing mission would pay for her treatment…”

“And that F-15 might fly a mission that keeps a hospital from being bombed, saving hundreds of lives.”

“It’s complicated, isn’t it?”

“If it was easy they’d have fixed it years ago.”

“I read a story recently, about a man from Boston who flew to Copenhagen…”

“Yeah, I read that, too. Every month, month after month, Americans get on airplanes and fly to Scandinavia, walk off the airplane and fall down. Free medical care. I get it.”

“Don’t you think we should feel some sort or remorse for that?”

“Remorse? Maybe, but look at it another way. Politicians take actions all the time that lead to people dying. And what’s the definition of murder? To intentionally or knowingly, by act or omission, act in such a manner that causes the death of another. So, are those politicians murderers? Are politicians who cut medical benefits to the needy nothing more than remorseless murderers?”

“Strictly speaking, yes. But it’s not so simple,” she said.

“No, it isn’t. You have to fall back on simple utilitarianism, you have to try to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, and sometimes that involves making tough choices.”

“So, insurance isn’t going to get involved in cases like Lacy’s…”

“Of course not. Because their doing so doesn’t do society any good – to pump millions into treatments with poor outcomes. That just won’t work out in the long run, and everyone knows it. She’s gotten the best care money could buy, but it’s been my money, not the states, and not some insurance consortium.”

“I tend to side with the nurses. It looks like suffering to me. Suffering without end.”

“I know. It is.”

“What did you tell Tremble?”

“Offer her solid food and water for another day. If she continues to refuse, they’ll move her to hospice.”

Lindsey looked away. Away from the enormity of the decision, of the personal implications he must have had to deal with over the years. “So, enough is enough? Is that it?”

“I can’t afford it any more, Lindsey. I have to take care of Madeleine, of Bud, and somewhere in there, maybe even me, too. I have to make the same calculation everyone else does, the greatest good for the greatest number.”

“But if you lived in Denmark, or…”

“But I don’t, so let’s not turn this into a political wrestling match. I know the pros and cons of both sides, believe it or not.”

“It’s not a humane system, is it?”

“Like I said, Lindsey, our system produces some miraculous outcomes, but it’s not perfect. And it’s not, strictly speaking, humane, because it’s more often concerned with the economic realities of trying to care for 300 million people, not their pain and suffering…”

+++++

She stared at her computer, trying to think about all the things she’d experienced in Ojai. The reality of one person’s suffering, and another person’s almost Quixotic attempt to influence an all but certain outcome…to divert an onrushing wall of water before it smashed over a family and drowned them all.

“So why wouldn’t he let me help?” she wondered. She had the money sitting in her accounts, idly earning interest, and she was earning enough at the coffee shop to meet expenses – just – as she simply didn’t live extravagantly. So why had he refused? Male pride – was it that simple?

No, he had repeated “Enough is enough, Lindsey.” If, he said, there was a reasonable chance of success he’d make whatever sacrifice was necessary, but after talking with associates in the medical school they’d said the same thing. ECT won’t alter the outcome. So he asked her to help any other way she could – but to keep money out of it.

“I feel so helpless,” she’d told him as they drove down the highway.

“I know. At this point I feel almost numb; you’re still in the denial stage. Like everything I tried to do meant nothing, like it was a waste of time. That all she’s done is sit through five years of torture. The IVs and feeding tubes, the endless punctures for lab work – and all that time she’s sitting in a dungeon with demons hacking away at her, throwing her bit by bit into raging fires.”

She looked into his eyes, thought she could see the fires raging inside…

“She was my baby girl, Lindsey. The way she used to cuddle-up on my chest, when she was just a spud? She’d reach up and pull on my beard, look up at me with those little baby-blues and I just knew everything was going to be alright. That I’d always be there for her. And then the demons came for her.”

“Why do you say that?”

“What? Demons?’

“Yes. It implies something external to herself, that something or someone is punishing her. For what? This line of thinking leads to ‘what did she do to deserve this?’ Well, obviously, to me anyway, no one “deserves” this, but especially not a child.”

“No one is certain whether schizophrenia is an inherited disorder, and even if it is, to what extent other factors may act as trigger. Back to ‘nature vs nurture’ again. My guess is there’s an inherited genetic predisposition, and certain conditions my set it off. A sadistic parent or sibling, perhaps, or some life event. Or a combination of events and people. But I think using ‘demons’ is a little simpler than explaining all that.”

“I’m beginning to distrust simplifications, like using vitamins to treat…”

“What?”

“Huh?”

“Did you say vitamins?”

“Yes?”

“Google something for me, would you? Linus Pauling, and orthomolecular medicine. I think I read once he set up a medical research group when he was at Stanford, to look into…”

“Okay, got it.”

He put on the turn signal again, pulled off the highway and started reading, then he called Tremble…

+++++

Sophie looked him, then at the beach. “So, tell me about Becky, and her friend?”

“She’s from Laguna Beach, was, like, some kind of a ‘surf princess.’”

“What?”

“You remember those cheesy flicks, the beach movies?”

“Franky and Annette, those things?”

“Yup. She was in a few of those, even one with Elvis, then she dropped out, went to school. Claremont, religious studies. And she met some guys while she was there, they planned to go to Thailand to surf. She learned that had gone to score some opium. I mean, a real shitload. She claims she didn’t know anything about it.”

“You believe her?”

“Yeah, why not?”

“So, the two of them end up in the Laotian outback with the old British drug runner?”

“Yeah, and don’t ask me, ‘cause I don’t know and I didn’t ask. I come out of the jungle, an infection raging in my leg, and I see these two girls, in a really nice looking swimming pool.”

“Don’t tell me. They were naked?”

“As the day they were born.”

Sophie laughed. “This is too rich. So, you got it on with her?”

“Just before I left. Yes.”

“You know, Ben, you could have just not told me.”

“I never could lie to you, Sophie. And it’s not something I want to get in the habit of doing.”

“Okay. So, you’re seeing her?”

“Yup.”

“You think you love her, or, do you love her?”

“Not like I love you. But, yes, in a way.”

“So, what are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to a job interview tomorrow, in Denver.”

“Denver? Ben?”

“Yeah, United Air Lines. TWA next Friday, in New York. I’ve got to do something to pay the bills while I work on getting into med school.”

+++++

He got off the train from the airport and walked through the train station, the Hauptbahnhof, out into the center of Zürich, then he looked around, got his bearings and took off on foot. He’d made a few dry runs, if only because he wanted to know his way around if he had to make a run for it, and he looked at his watch, double-checked the time.

“Okay,” he said aloud, “ten minutes til they open, and an eight minute walk…”

He walked across the Bahnhofplatz to the Löwenstrasse, and he stopped from time to time, looking to see if anyone was following him, then he darted into the unmarked door off the Reitergasse, into the tiny “Privat Banking” office Clive had instructed him to visit on the seventh day of the seventh month. He handed the receptionist a number, and the girl called a manager.

A small, tidy man came to the reception area and looked at his uniform. “Guten Morgen. Wie kann ich dienen?”

“Sorry, but I don’t speak German well,” Asher said.

“Ah. What can I do for you this morning, Captain?”

“Captain? Oh, no, sorry, First Officer, and I need to access a safety deposit box.”

“Of course. I’ll need the number, please?”

Asher handed him a piece of paper with the number.

“One moment, please.” The man came back with a book and opened it. “The code, please?”

“Lucy In The Sky.”

“Just so. You’ll sign here, please.”

Ben signed the agreed upon name, which was Eleanor Rigby, the second level codeword. The banker looked at the response and nodded. “Passport, please?”

“No thanks.”

“Correct. Follow me, please.” Asher followed the banker into a small ante-room, and, once the vault was opened, into a viewing cabin. A moment later a metal lock-box appeared, and the cabin door closed behind him.

He pulled out the key and opened the box, and felt light-headed when he saw the contents.

He saw the expected envelope, and he saw ten sealed plastic containers, which were completely unexpected. He took out the manilla envelope and undid the metal clasps, shook out the letter inside – and another key fell out onto the table.

“To whom it may concern,” the letter began, “take this key to number 21 Half Moon Street and give it to the clerk at the reception, then ask to speak to Donald Duck. Take the containers for expenses, use as needed.”

He picked up a container and opened it. Ten coins, silvery Krugerrands slipped out, and he shook his head – because the color was off. ‘How the devil do I get these through customs?’ he asked himself, and he slipped five into each jacket pocket. “That won’t do,” he said when he saw his jacket sag off his shoulders, so he knocked on the door.

“Yes, sir?”

“Could you change these into francs please,” Asher said, handing five containers to the banker.

“Certainly sir. Large denominations?”

“Yes.”

“One moment, please.”

He came back several minutes later carry a silver attache case, a Zero Halliburton; he set it on the table and opened it. Asher had never seen so much cash in his life, and the man handed him a receipt. “One point two million francs,” he said. “Not quite five hundred thousand dollars.”

“Seems a lot.”

“Here’s the current spot on platinum, sir.”

“Ah. Yes, I see.”

“Will you be going through customs, sir?”

“Sooner or later, yes.”

“I’ll put these bundles in envelopes, then. Just put a newspaper on top, they’ll not look any further.”

“Thanks.”

“Of course. Will there be anything else?”

“A taxi, perhaps.”

“Of course.”

The banker walked him to the door a few minutes later; “Thank you for coming in today, sir.”

“Vielen Dank für Ihre Professionalität,” Asher replied, grinning. “Es wurde geschätzt.” He stepped into the waiting taxi and told the driver “Flughafen, bitte. TWA,” and he checked his surroundings very carefully until he boarded the 727 for Heathrow.

+++++

He walked into his apartment two days later, put the case under his bed, then jumped in the shower and changed clothes after he dried. He took the case and went downstairs, hailed a cab, went downtown to Republic National Bank and then to his own safe deposit box. He put the francs and the five remaining containers in the box and changed some currency, then left the bank, took a cab to Tiffany’s and looked at engagement rings, bought one and got in another taxi.

“166^th and Broadway, please.”

“Right.”

He always picked her up when he got in from London, but today would be fun, he thought. He walked over to the little garden on the west side and had just sat down – when he saw someone look at him, then turn away quickly. ‘White, early-30s, dark hair, tall and thin, dark suit, sunglasses.’ He stood and went inside the lobby area and took a seat, watched the area more closely until he saw Becky come out of the elevator. She came to him, and in moments like this he saw her standing in Martin’s pool, naked, staring at him as he came out of the Laotian jungle.

But not this afternoon.

He stood and folded her into his arms, but he kept looking around.

“Hey, do I get a kiss, at least?” she said, biting his chin.

He kissed her, then came up for air and looked into her eyes. “Sorry,” he said, “busy day. Had to run a few errands. Feel like going to Mamma Leone’s?”

“Geez…did someone get a raise?”

“I feel like spaghetti tonight.”

She poked him in the belly… “Funny, you don’t feel like spaghetti?”

He groaned, then saw the same guy looking at him, only now there were two of them, and they were both walking towards him.

“Benjamin Asher?” the first one he’d seen said, holding out a badge.

“Yes?”

“Peter O’Malley, FBI, New York Field Office. Would you come with us, please?”

“Sorry, but am I under arrest?”

“No sir, you are not?”

“Well, we’re going to Mamma Leone’s. You’re welcome to join us, and we can talk there all you want.”

The agents looked at one another, then shrugged their shoulders. “Sure. Why not. You wanna ride with us?”

“Hell yes,” Asher said. Becky looked pale, and very unsure of herself as she followed the men out to their Ford, and she sat quietly, looking to Ben for assurance that all was well, but he seemed strange just then. Like he was keeping a secret, or a bunch of secrets – and she didn’t like the feeling. She followed him into the restaurant, which had just opened and was empty, and the four of them went to a corner table and sat.

An ancient man came by with menus and announced “No meatballs for thirty minutes. Something with the oven…” then asked what kind of wine they wanted. The agents just shrugged, begged off and asked for water – causing the old waiter to sigh – while Asher asked for the best Champagne in the house – causing the old waiter to grin. He ambled off and the agents looked knowingly at Ben, then grinned.

“So, what can I help you guys with today?”

“Eli Rosenthal? Name ring any bells?”

“Nope.”

“Marco Trontoni?”

“Nope, sorry.”

One of the agents tossed a photo of Clive Martin on the table. “What can you tell us about this gentleman?”

Asher picked up the 8×10 and looked it over, looked at those familiar eyes and wanted to smile, but he looked at the agent. “Who is he?”“

“You know him as Clive Martin, I think, but we’re more interested in this fellow right now,” he said as he put another picture down on the table.

Asher picked it up and looked at it. The image showed a door on Half Moon Street in London, yesterday morning, with him coming out of the door at Number 21. “We’re interested in why you were seen going into the headquarters of British Intelligence yesterday. Care to shed any light on the matter?”

“Nope.”

“How ‘bout you, Miss Sawyer. Would you like to talk about the two months you spent in Laos with Mr Martin?”

“Who?” she said.

The agents laughed, the waiter carried over an iced bucket and stood it on the floor by the table, then disappeared again. “Who?” one of the agents chuckled. “You sound like an owl. But I thought owls were wise, and you know what? Who is not a very wise answer.” He tossed several more images of her, coming out of a prison in Vientiane, on the table, with Stacy in two images, and with Martin in four.

“So, how much were you being paid?”

“Sorry,” she said, “paid? For what?”

“For attempting to smuggle forty pounds of uncut heroin to Los Angeles,” the agent said, tossing one more photo on the table. “Your suitcase. Martin’s heroin. And a few days after your arrest there you are, with him and, by golly, there’s your suitcase. Was the heroin still in the bag, Miss Sawyer?”

The waiter came to the table and opened the bottle, poured two glasses while he looked nervously at the photos on the table, then he scurried away – disappearing into the kitchen.

“What heroin?” Becky said.

“That heroin,” the agent said, pointing at her suitcase.

“That,” she said, pointing at the prison, “was a mistake. The government apologized for that, and the case was closed.”

“Oh?”

“Yes, my boyfriend knew Mr Martin, and when we were arrested Mr Martin worked to get us out. That’s all I know.”

“You mean Sean Keaton? Your boyfriend?”

“He was.”

“Do you know he died in that prison, a week after your release?”

“No,” she said, pursing her lips, “I didn’t.”

“Yes, what I did on my summer vacation, by Becky Sawyer, drug runner.”

“Listen guys,” Asher said, “let’s keep it friendly, okay?”

“Oh yes. Ben Asher, airline pilot, British secret agent. He flies to London three days ago, and as soon as your aircraft hits the gate he’s off to Zürich, yet seven hours later he’s waltzing up Piccadilly, then slipping into MI6. Do you have any idea how much trouble you’re in, sport? Any idea at all?”

An old man, very dark and clever looking, slipped out of the kitchen and came over to Asher’s table, and he pulled up a chair and stared at the agents. Two men joined him, and stood behind the old man’s chair. Asher assumed they were heavily armed.

“You boys are making too much noise,” the old man said to the agents, “and I don’t like the tone of disrespect I hear in your voice.” He paused, took a deep breath. “So get the fuck out of my restaurant. Now.”

The agents got up to leave, began gathering the photos on the table…

“Leave ‘em,” the old man said, with a wave of his hand.

The agents left, and the old man turned to Becky. “How’s your Champagne, young lady?”

She reached for her glass, her hands shaking, and he reached out, put his hand on hers. “It’s alright,” he said. “It’s over now, so relax.”

Asher looked at the old man, then the old man looked at him.

“And who did you see in London, young man?”

“Donald Duck.”

“And I’m Mickey Mouse,” he said, holding out his hand, “pleased to meet you. You gotta name?”

“Snow White.”

The old man nodded his head. “Well, you got balls, that’s for sure,” he said as he gathered up the photos, handing them to one of the men standing behind his chair. “You got something for me?”

Asher fished the envelope out of his jacket and handed it over. The man put the envelope into his pocket without looking at the contents, then adjusted his position in the chair.

“Would you like to join us for dinner?” Ben asked.

“Yeah. You know, I could eat. You wouldn’t mind?”

“No, please. This is an important night, and I’d enjoy the company.”

The old man stood and signaled a waiter. “Set two more places, please,” he said, then he turned to Ben. “Important? How so?”

But Ben was staring into the shadows, at a hazy memory – stepping out of memory and into the present, and his hands began to tremble.

Clive Martin stepped into the light and came to the table, and Ben stood then flew into the old Englishman’s arms.

“Goddamn!” Asher said. “What? No flowing robes? How the hell are you, Amigo?”

“Good to see you, too, Ben.”

Ben and Martin sat, Becky looked on – amused – and the old Italian man, Mickey Mouse, beamed. “So, you gonna tell me what’s so important about this night now?”

And Ben looked at the men, then at Becky while he pulled the little blue box from his jacket.

“Yeah,” he said, placing the box in the light. “Becky? This is it. The rest of my life, right here, right now. I want to spend it with you by my side. Will you marry me?”

He opened the box and took out the ring, and he held it before her hand.

She looked at the ring, then at him – and nodded her head. “Yes,” she whispered, and when she looked up she saw both Martin and Mickey Mouse were smiling, and the old Italian was crying a little, but Ben was staring into her eyes, breathing deeply. He slipped the ring on her finger and they kissed.

The party did not break up until the wee hours, and the FBIs surveillance teams did not leave until dawn.

+++++

“So, what is she on now?” Doug asked Tremble.

“3500 units of C, and an ungodly amount of Niacin. When we put the gastric tube in, we just ground up a ton of broccoli and beets and dumped it in. Two days of that, and well, she started coming out of it. She’s also flatulent, and I do mean farting up a storm, but she’s semi-lucid now.”

“How’re her kidneys and liver dealing with that much acid in her system?”

“That’s my biggest concern right now. Not sure how long we can…”

“What did they advise?”

“Keep it right at the line until the lab works screams ‘back off’ – my guess is we can keep her at this dose one, two more days, then we’ll have to back way off.”

“What about long term?”

Tremble shook his head. “Unknown, but their stats show about a 90% chance of moderate to severe symptoms returning within weeks.”

Lindsey shook her head. “This is a nightmare.”

“I think,” Tremble sighed, “we take this opportunity to see what she wants to do going forward. Anyway, she was up and talking last night. Went to the bathroom on her own, but I have to warn you – she’s fragile, and she seems almost pre-adolescent right now. Like she…”

“Lost the last five years of her life,” Lindsey said, guessing at the implications.

“What about the typical anti-psychotics?” Doug asked. “Did you DC?”

“No, tapered back to a low maintenance dose, try to cut back on the side-effects. Still, the Tardive dyskinesia has not abated, and my guess is it will not, so she’s having a difficult time expressing herself now. The orthomolecular regimen seems to have had some success knocking back these movements, but it’s just too soon to say.”

“Can we go back now?” Doug asked.

Tremble grimaced. “Yeah. Let’s go.”

Lindsey followed them back to Lacy’s room, not sure what to expect, but when she walked into the room she was overcome with despair. Lacy was, or had been, she could see, a simply gorgeous girl: blond haired and blue eyed, a kind, impish grin, long arms and fingers, but she was a bloated caricature of beauty right now, her eyes puffy and red, rolls of fat hanging under her chin. Her lips and tongue were swollen from the antipsychotic medications, and she was smacking her lips repeatedly, like her mouth was dry.

And she looked at her father when he came in the room.

“Daddy?” she said.

“Oh, baby,” he cried, and he rushed to her side. “Yes, it’s me.”

“Oh, Daddy, it’s so good to see you…”

And Tremble motioned to her with his head – ‘Let’s leave them alone…’ he seemed to say, and she nodded as she followed him out.

“I don’t know whether this is a miracle or a curse,” the psychiatrist said, and Lindsey nodded her head.

“I wonder what I would want, under the circumstances?”

“As the parent, or the child?”

“I can’t even begin to imagine what her life is like, but right now I think it would be very confusing.”

“Exactly. Her mind has had no frame of reference, little connection to external reality for months at a time. I think it must be like falling asleep and waking up a few months, or even years later. Always trying to play catch up, to grab hold of all the things she missed before she falls asleep again…”

“But knowing it will be the same next time?”

“Terrifying, isn’t it?”

“I’m not sure I’d want to live that way.”

“Perhaps because you have a frame of reference that’s a bit different from Lacy’s. This is all she’s known for years, and though I suspect this life is as precious to her as yours is to you, we judge her expectations through the prism of our own experience. We can’t imagine living as she does, but maybe she can’t imagine living as we do.”

“A different reality…”

“Precisely. Her’s is generated internally, but she describes places and experiences she can’t possibly know, like the inside of a cathedral in Spain where many of these rituals she experiences occur. I’ve taken her under hypnosis several times, examined these experiences, and her ability to recall detail is shattering.”

“Are you saying she was actually…?”

“I’m not saying anything, Miss Hollister. I have no explanation – period. You could claim she’s seen images in books or online, but again, the level of detail troubles me. If I didn’t know better I’d say she’d been there – and made a thorough examination of the building.”

“And you know the details are accurate?”

“No, not without actually going, and comparing my notes of her recollections to what’s on site.”

“Interesting. Do you plan on making such a trip?”

“I would like to, yes. Actually, I have notes from several patients I’d like to examine.”

“I’m curious. How many involve, well, sacred spaces?”

“Nicely put,” Tremble said, smiling at the irony of her choice. “I don’t suppose it would surprise you to learn that all of them do.”

“Not really. When I was in Mississippi, most of the really, well, the delusional sorts, were buried knee deep in religious symbolism. Crosses on walls…”

“Let me guess. Russian Orthodox iconography.”

“Yes. How’d you know.”

“The Russian Orthodox, probably more so than the Greek, is the most rigidly adherent of the Christian ideologies.”

“Rigidly adherent?”

“They stick closely to the original, central mythologies. Modern American Evangelicalism is much more syncretic, readily incorporating, for instance, such things as the Prosperity Gospel, overlaying these concepts on Christ’s teachings. Most Christian theologians would view this as subverting Christ’s message, and this diminution of Jesus’ teachings has not gone unnoticed to many who’ve come of age – away from the suburban evangelical impulse that informs the prosperity adherents. And as those people – who may for whatever reason be susceptible to psychotic manifestations – encounter external splits in their belief system, such fragmentation of their core beliefs may lead to…”

“Wait a minute…just wait a minute…” Lindsey sighed, her eyes almost fluttering with excitement, “are you implying that ‘culture’ can become schizophrenic. That society can, in effect, experience a collective psychotic break?”

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“What? No, it isn’t. Not at all.”

“Ah. Ever read Jung?”

“Just Man and His Symbols.”

“Ah, coffee table Jung, but good enough. You recall the concept of the collective unconscious?”

“Sort of. Kind of like Freud’s Id?”

“Not really, but that’s not the point. Jung held that some parts of the unconscious mind were informed by a collective force, and before you roll your eyes just think of something as banal as instinct. Most people would hold that when you see a coiled snake readying to strike, you simply don’t walk up to it and try to pet it, or pick it up. Even a child sees that danger – and instinctively, yes? Jung added another layer, however, when he posited that a snake, for example, takes on a deeper meaning through our instinctual understanding of such things as symbols. A woman, for instance, taking off a stocking resembles a snake, shedding it’s skin.”

“And these symbols, our understanding of these symbols, is inherited?”

“It’s been almost impossible to prove, Miss Hollister, but advances in the neurosciences are leading us closer to a real understanding of this role. One neuroscientist, Antonio Damasio, believes that the brain stem, even the so-called reptilian brain, may be the locus of human consciousness, and not the forebrain. If that proves to be the case, all psychiatry, indeed, our understanding of neuropharmacology and psychobiology in general may be turned on it’s ear, but if it does we’ll be moving psychiatry right back into the Jungian realm.”

“So, these collective elements are shared…?”

“Across humanity, yes. And Jung was concerned, later in his life, that splits in a culture’s collective unconsciousness could occur as easily as they do in individuals. When looked at in this way, phenomenon as disparate as paranoia and delusion can become cultural phenomenon, and one look at events in the 1930s, as well as recent events, tends to bear this out.”

Doug came out of the room, his eyes filled with tears, and he walked quickly down the hall and into a bathroom.

“Oh, no…” Tremble said, and he ducked inside Lacy’s room, closing the door behind him as he disappeared, and Lindsey walked down the hall, waited outside the bathroom – for Doug – and all his impossible dilemmas.

+++++

He took the backroads, heading west until he wound through the streets of Santa Barbara, then he turned up the hill to the mission, then crossed over to the El Encanto. He parked and helped Lindsey out of the car, and they walked in and waited for a table.

“You ever been here,” he asked as they walked out on the terrace.

“No. Heard about it a long time ago, but I rarely come to Santa Barbara.”

“This is my favorite place in California,” he said as the hostess put menus on the table and left them.

“The view is incredible. What do you usually get?”

“The King Salmon. Every time.”

Their waiter came by and took their order, then he turned and looked at the ocean, still not talking about Lacy. Not one word, since they’d left the hospital…

“Do you love me?” he asked, out of the blue.

She looked him in the eye. “Yes.”

He nodded. “Would you like to get a room?”

She nodded her head. “I think so.”

He sighed. “It’s a lot to take in, to process. Thanks for coming with me.”

“You’re welcome.”

“She told me she’s done. That she doesn’t want to go on like this. She told me she could feel herself slipping away. Like she could hear the voices standing just outside her room, waiting for her.”

Lindsey looked away, then reached out and took his hand. She felt his flesh on hers, the warmth inside, the strength – and she wondered when he was break down, fall apart and shatter into a million pieces.

“The thing is, my love, I think I understand her now. What she’s been through, what lies ahead.”

“She’s decided?”

“Yes,” he said, his lip quivering. “You know what?” he added, brightening a little. “My birthday is this coming Friday. What say you and I run down and get a blood test, maybe get a marriage license?”

“Get married…run away from it all…” she sighed. “Wouldn’t that be fun?”

“Oh, I’m serious.”

“And the laws against polygamy have been suspended?”

“We’re moving Madeleine to hospice tomorrow.”

“What? When did this happen?”

He laughed, an edge of hysteria creeping in. “It’s been happening, all my life.”

The waiter came by and put salads on the table, and Doug looked at the waiter. “You know, could you bring me a dark rum collins – a big one?”

“Of course.”

“Thanks,” he said, then he turned to Lindsey again. “Either you’re driving or were staying here. I’m going to drink about ten of those things, then go find a bed and sleep for a few years.”

She smiled.

When the waiter brought the drink she took it from him and tossed it off in one long pull, then handed the glass to the waiter. “Better bring another,” she said, and after the waiter left she turned and looked at Doug. “You know, I don’t drink hard stuff. For a reason.”

“Oh?”

“I get horny as hell, Doug. I mean, the proverbial, insatiable she-bitch from hell kind of horny.”

“Do you, indeed? I wish you’d told me sooner.”

“I’m telling you now. What are you going to do about it?”

“What do you want me to do about it?”

She saw a few diners at a couple of the closer tables turn and look at her. “I want you to start on my cunt, Doug. I want you to eat me raw. Maybe for an hour or so. And I really want you to eat out my ass, get it nice and loose, then I want you to fuck me up the ass.”

A man sitting behind Doug wiped sweat from his brow, the woman by his side grinning wildly.

“Oh?” Doug said, his voice cracking.

“Yes, and I want you to shoot your load up my ass. Think you can do that for me?”

“I think I could give it a try…”

“Nope,” she said, “not good enough.” She flipped off a shoe and put her bare foot on his crotch, began massaging him. “Not good enough, at all.”

He wiped the sweat from his forehead now.

“Is it warm out, Doug? Or is it just me?”

“No, it’s getting warm.”

A woman at another table looked at Lindsey’s leg stretched out under the table and grinned, pointed it out to the man with her. He looked, then nodded his head, and the woman slipped off her shoe and moved her foot up into the shadows. The man leaned back and started laughing, then he grew focused, and he too wiped sweat from his brow.

“Things getting – hard, Doug?”

“Uh…yup.”

The waiter brought the second drink and she took it, tossed it down, then handed the empty glass to him.

“Madame would like another?” he said, trying not to smile.

“Madame would, yes.” She kept her eyes on Doug’s now. “You know, that thing sure feels awfully hard to me. You think he’s getting ready?”

“Uh-huh.”

She stroked faster now, and he held on to the edge of the table. “Would you like me to stop now, Doug?”

“No…please God, no…”

“Ooh. You know what Doug? I think he’s ready? What do you think?”

He leaned back, began to groan…

“Yup…he’s ready…” she said – and she began a frenzied, staccato burst, then watched his back arch, felt him pulse beneath her foot, then the spreading stain of warmth that soaked through his pants. “Good boy,” she said to him – as the waiter arrived with her third drink.

“Your entrees will be out in a moment,” he said, smiling now as he handed her the drink.

“Yes, I’m sure they will,” she said, biting her lower lip – trying her best not to laugh.

+++++

She went to work early the next morning, yet when she saw Sara she wanted to turn away from her friend. Why had she implied Doug had done something improper to Lacy? Had there been a rumor going around? Was there something going on between them she hadn’t picked up on? Still, the more she thought about it the more she wanted to just let it go – to move on – yet she felt a layer of anger lingering just underneath the surface of the day.

“How was your weekend,” Sara asked – with a wink and a nod – at one point.

So Lindsey told her, first about their second visit with Tremble, and then of Lacy’s decision to move on to hospice.

“Oh my God,” Sara whispered.

“But that’s only fitting,” she added. “Madeleine’s moving to hospice, as well. Later today, I think.”

And Sara blinked, then turned away without saying another word.

Lindsey got on with making coffee, setting out baked goods in the counter display, and began taking care of customers when the first early morning caffeine hounds started dragging in just after six. Not long after she heard an altercation break out between customers.

“You goddamn liberals brought it all on yourselves!”

“And what? You want to live in a theocracy…like Iran, maybe?”

She moved over to quiet them down, and as soon as she drew near the men stopped talking. “What’s going on?” she said. “Why the shouting?”

The ‘liberal’ picked up the LA Times and showed her the front page: “Theocracy!” – it shouted.

“What happened?” she asked.

“The goddamn president signed another executive order late last night – all publicly funded universities must sign an oath of allegiance to the Christian church, must center their academics on an approved Christian curriculum – or face a total withdrawal of public support…”

“What? That’s ridiculous,” she said.

“And why is that ridiculous?” the ‘conservative’ cried. “Universities don’t teach anymore, they indoctrinate! All the president is trying to do is level the playing field.”

“Well,” she said, “if you want to fight, go outside and fight on the sidewalk or, better yet, try congressman Wellburn’s office – it’s just three doors down. Go fight in there, if you have to fight, but stop shouting in here. Understood?”

She heard their grumbles as she walked away, yet all she could think about was John, her brother John, and his desire to burn down the world, and as she worked through the morning she could hardly think of anything else. She saw her first book as an attempt to shine a light into the darkness, as an attempt to help illuminate the problems people face in a society that seemed driven to succeed at any cost, even if millions of people were pushed aside in the rush – and crushed. And people, even ‘important’ people read her book, they studied her results, carried her observations into everyday conversation – yet in the end had such shared knowledge really made a difference? Well, now the people pushed to the wayside had stood up as one, and in their righteous anger they wanted to stop progress in it’s tracks – to ‘burn the fucker down’ – and John had seized the moment. And there was no quicker way to tear down the Enlightenment than to bring back the Church.

Everything wrong with John’s world, the world that started to go wrong when love was taken from him, would be sacrificed on the alter of his need to extract his own ‘pound of flesh’.

What, she wondered, would it take to sate his dark need. Could she move to Washington, be by his side, be the conscience he claimed she was. Could she stop the howling madness that threatened to seep into the fabric of American life? But she had seen the darkness in his eyes, and she knew better. Like Doug, enough was enough.

No, his madness would overwhelm even her presence. He would turn their love into something dark and perverted, burn even that to the ground. And then what? Would he do what he had always promised to do? Turn liberal against conservative in one final push – to outright war? Would he go behind the scenes, again, and motivate ‘liberals’ to march on Washington – and then orchestrate an even bigger push by ‘conservatives’ – and then set up open confrontation? Would he bring the military in, set in motion the final repudiation? Tear the very heart and soul from America?

Had America finally split in two, suffered it’s own psychotic break? Had division replaced unity?

She saw the country as a family in that moment, a family riven by disparate needs, a family unable to cope with it’s own inherent contradictions, and the image she saw in her mind’s eye just then was of burning cities and endless war, of fathers and sons at each others throats, clawing each others eyes out – until blind and unable to breathe – both laid down and died.

‘Nothing lasts forever,’ she heard herself say at one point in the morning. “Maybe John’s right. Maybe all this needs to be burned to the ground – maybe something new and stronger will grow in the ashes.’

She looked around the coffee shop and she saw this little world as a slice of life, frozen in time. A snapshot of America, and of an age. Coffees from around the world, from literally every corner of the globe, all within easy reach, and people coming together here to enjoy the fruits of their labors. What would happen when all that was gone, she wondered, when people pulled back from the world. When inward looking fathers and sons lay gasping in their final throes – would they stop even then, take one last look around before darkness fell?

Yet she knew in her heart that nothing good could come of dissolution, that darkness would come just when humanity needed all the light gasping minds could lay their hands on, if only to pull crushing hands from humanity’s throats – and daggers from their backs.

+++++

Clive Martin looked out the window, at people walking on the sidewalks far below, at an airliner clawing it’s way back into the sky over Flushing Bay, at the Empire State and Chrysler buildings uptown. All that freedom, all that movement…all that energy…

And he felt like a prisoner, locked in a gilded cage.

When he heard a knock on the door, he turned as the condemned might on his last morning. He went to the door and looked through the peephole – then relaxed and opened the door.

“I thought you were off to London today?” he asked as Ben came in the room.

“I am. Have to be out at Kennedy around three-thirty.”

“The brothers at the bureau still hounding you?”

“Nope. I went in yesterday with a friend from the embassy. They set things straight.”

“Who? Who came?”

“Thomas Eden. Know him?”

“Sir Tommy? Hell, yes.”

“He knows you’re walking a tightrope.”

“He’s a good man, Ben,” he said as he read the note Ben handed him.

“Well, I just wanted to drop by, see if you need anything before I head out.”

“No, doing fine old top. I’ll see you when you get back.”

Ben took the note back and read the scribbled numbers, then took the note and tucked it inside his hat before he walked from the room. He walked down to the elevator and dropped his hat by the elevator door, and a man picked it up, handed it to him.

“Thanks,” Asher said.

“Not at all,” the Englishman said, pocketing the note.

He got in a taxi and told the driver to go to JFK, and the driver turned to him. “Is he ready?”

“Be down in about five.”

“Righty-O! Well done, Ben,” the driver said, pulling out into traffic.

Asher got out and walked inside the terminal building, went to the newsstand and picked up an International Herald Tribune, then walked to the counter to pay for it. He left the line and met a Captain, and they walked off to the dispatch office together.

“You look pretty good in that uniform. Maybe you should apply for a job?”

“I hope this works,” Clive said.

“Me too. If it doesn’t, I’ll be applying at BOAC…”

“After we get out of prison.”

“Oh. Yes, well, there is that…”

+++++

Doug came by the coffee shop just before she got off, and he looked careworn and tired, not at all like he had after she finished cleaning his clock in Santa Barbara. She smiled when she thought of him in bed, falling into her diversion, letting her pull him back from the abyss, but today was a brand new day. Today – he had to confront all his demons – come to terms with his past, and their futures.

“I see Bud’s not here yet?” he said as he walked up to the counter.

She shook her head. “Haven’t seen him today.”

“Damn,” he said, looking at his watch, “I want him to see his mom this afternoon.”

“Is she…?”

“Yes, I got her settled in early this morning. She’s off her meds now, and all supportive fluids.”

Lindsey shook her head. “I don’t know how you’re doing this.”

“Cops and docs do pretty much the same thing, I guess. You put a wall up, between your feelings and perception. You hide behind the wall until you can’t any longer.”

“What happens when the wall comes down?”

He shook his head, shrugged his shoulders. “Hey, I’m dancin’ as fast as I can…”

And Bud walked in the door – with Professor Portman. A very agitated Professor Portman. She looked at the clock and took off her apron, then sighed as her old teacher came up to the counter.

“Do you happen to have any whiskey here?” he asked.

She shook her head.

“Barbaric. No place should serve coffee with also serving Irish Whiskey.”

“I agree,” Doug said. “Let’s boycott this place.”

Sara came out with a bottle of Dewar’s – “For medicinal purposes only,” she said – as Lindsey started brewing cups for everyone, and then Sara moved over and locked the door, put the CLOSED sign up in the window. They moved to a large table largely out of view and sat – with the bottle in the middle of the table.

“I, for one,” Portman sighed, “am not standing on ceremony today. Today, of all days.”

“Oh?” Doug said.

“You’ve heard about the cuts to university funding?”

“Yes, but just in passing,” he said. “Is it bad?”

“Well, this administration has been moving, since day one, towards turning public schools into Christian indoctrination centers, so perhaps there’s a logic to all this. From disestablishing the Department of Education, to defunding the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts, there’s been a single-minded pursuit of this radical Christian agenda, yet the last lines of defense were the public university systems around the country, and we held this line as inviolable. Yet by year’s end, this line will be a thing of the past – undone with the stroke of a pen and a compliant congress. Can you imagine what the consequences will be for industry, for science in general, within just a few years?”

Doug sighed. “We came here, all of us, to escape religious persecution…”

“And can you imagine being persecuted for being a non-Christian? That’s the next step, you know? Join us, or perish.”

“That would have sounded far-fetched just a few years ago, I suppose? I just came from a hospice facility, by the way, and they told me that starting next month all hospice admissions will have to signed off by a member of the clergy. No religious grounds to object, I was told, will be the new standard for admissions. I heard earlier today that similar conditions are being considered for admission to hospital.”

“What?” Sara cried. “What do you mean?”

“A religious oath sworn before admissions. All physicians and nurses to sign an oath of what’s being called religious fealty. Perform no procedure that’s not been approved by a board of religious overseers. Pretty drastic stuff.”

“They can’t do that!” Sara spat, pounding the table.

“They can,” Portman said, “if the people don’t stop the politicians.”

“But what about the system of checks and balances?” Bud asked. “I mean, it was designed with just this situation in mind, wasn’t it?”

“No system of checks and balances,” Portman replied, “can endure when the sides collude to achieve an end.”

“But what end could be worth that?” Bud sighed.

“Eliminate your political opponents, first,” Portman said. “Insure your party’s hold on power. Systematically disenfranchise the populace until only the people who agree with you remain eligible. Mexico did that for decades, so did the National Socialists, for that matter. Once that’s accomplished there are no checks on power. The Soviet experiment proved that, and now this country has too.”

“What are you going to do now, Professor?” Lindsey asked.

“I’ve maintained my dual-nationality status for just this eventuality, and I think I’m going home now. I’ve seen enough. Leaving tonight, as a matter of fact.”

“Where’s home, Professor?” Doug asked.

“Oh, a little farm near Moreton-in-Marsh. Closer to Stow-on-the-Wold, actually. I don’t imagine that such radical evangelicalism will be far behind there, but at least there’s still a chance to put it off. This country is done now. You crossed the tipping point this morning.”

“You’re exaggerating,” Sara said, “and you know it!”

“Am I? Political opposition to this agenda has been muted, at best, for decades. Christians are ‘good’ – therefore their political aims are ‘as good.’ That’s been the salient argument, since the 80s, anyway. Cross the evangelical bloc and lose elections, so the opposition didn’t cross them, indeed, they would not – directly, anyway, because the lesson was had been learned: win evangelical support and win elections. The thing worth remembering, Madame, is that the people voted to support this impulse, even when it was clear their aims were completely antithetical to your constitution. As a result, your policy debates have become farcical. Politicians don’t debate serious policy proposals anymore, they’ve taken sides in an almost perpetual series of skirmishes in a culture war whose battle lines were drawn up by suspect theologians. Don’t debate the merits of infrastructure spending when we can have a rousing quarrel about gay marriage, or heaven forbid, abortion rights. Polarize the people, pump them full of fear – then watch them fall in line. Constitutional protections don’t mean a thing when you’re constantly being told to be afraid of these brown people over here or those yellow ones over there. Omnipresent surveillance is for your own good! Don’t you know that? No? Well then, let’s see what you think after the next terrorist attack!”

“Osama Bin Laden must be smiling in his grave,” Doug said.

“Well, at the bottom of the Indian Ocean, but yes, that’s the point, exactly. Bin Laden wanted to destroy the United States, and he knew he couldn’t do that, not in a military sense, so he attacked America’s symbolic understanding of itself. Why? So Americans would begin to undo all there vaunted civil protections, destroy themselves from within. And think of it, the sheer brilliance of it all. Bin Laden sacrificed eleven men, and look at what he’s accomplished!”

“But what else could President Bush have done?” Sara asked.

“He could have gone on television and looked Bin Laden in the eye – and forgiven him. One simple act of forgiveness and the entire radical islamist impulse would have imploded under the weight of all it’s religious inconsistencies, under the power of Christ’s imploring cry to ”Forgive!” That word would have resounded around the world, and everyone would have seen Christianity living up to it’s highest ideals. Bin Laden would have been crushed. Instead we moved into an alternate universe, we targeted memory and dissent, we tossed aside our history of appealing to common sense to solve problems, and into a world of alternative facts, where such simple things as truth are regarded with contempt. Facts are reduced to ill-conceived slogans, and so of course science is confounded by pseudo-science. Measles epidemics rage because religious ignorance runs wild – again.”

“I don’t see that. Bush would have lost his chance for re-election if he’d forgiven Bin Laden,” Doug said.

“In the world militant evangelicals have built here, yes, that’s probably true. But can you imagine a world where Christians held true to the teachings of Christ?”

“So you’re saying evangelicals aren’t really Christians?”

“I doubt the Christ would look at them and see anything familiar, anything vaguely Christian about their gospels, but who am I to say? Just a lowly academic, a heretical teacher, and sadly, that was never enough for such a sustained assault against reason. I should have built a crystal cathedral and preached sociology as any other television preacher might. Sold salvation for a monthly donation, while filling my flock’s mind with hate for the enlightenment project.”

“That’s a little pessimistic, don’t you think?” Sara said, turning away.

“Oh, I don’t know. Academics are not a combative sort. We were ill-suited to hold the line against a militant religious adversary, but then again, neither were journalists. Neither could hold illiberal, irrational mystics to account when their unholy alliance with politicians took hold. That will be democracy’s epitaph, I suppose”

“What do you think we should do?” Bud asked. “I mean now, right now?”

“Preserve knowledge over the long term, for perhaps the pendulum will swing the other way once again. You know, it’s a subtle irony of history, perhaps, that when the Christian evangelizing impulse first joined with the Roman bureaucracies there was little to keep the darkness of pure mysticism at bay. Such a light was found in the teachings of Aristotle, of course, yet that flame was kept alive, nourished through the dark ages by the earliest Muslim scholars who, oddly enough, felt it their religious duty to preserve knowledge, if only to advance their understanding of God’s world. Christian scholars of the modern world have concluded, apparently, that unfettered knowledge and Christianity can not coexist, so they have chosen to go to war with knowledge once again. The American Republic will go the way of Rome, I’m afraid, and with her military might there’s no telling how long this new night will last. Now, I need a little more coffee, and a lot of that whiskey…”

+++++

Martin and Asher crossed the park and walked down Piccadilly towards Half Moon Street, their meeting with Edward Heath over.

“So, you’re telling me Becky was a courier, getting information from London to you out there in the sticks.”

“Yes. Once we affected her arrest she was no longer considered suspect, and they allowed her access to the outside world. That I simply couldn’t achieve any longer, and she was a Godsend.”

“You know, when you said that Bond, James Bond thing, you weren’t kidding, were you?”

“James Who?”

“Right. Got it. Never heard of you.”

Martin laughed. “It’s not that bad, old boy. I’ll be around – if you need me.”

“You mean after the FBI gets through with me, then the mafia?”

“The FBI won’t bother you, and they’ll warn the mob off as best they can. In the meantime, you should consider leaving New York. I won’t be able to help you there.”

“Any suggestions?”

The west coast, I should think, LA or Seattle work best for me. I’ll be in Vancouver, and Peru, for the most part.”

“If I stay with TWA it’ll have to be LA or San Francisco.”

“LA, then. The mob’s all over San Francisco.”

“Gee, swell.”

“This’ll all die down in a few months, and besides, I might need you to help out with a few ongoing projects from time to time.”

“Do I get a license to kill, maybe?”

“A what?”

“Forget I asked.”

“I will. I thought you were going to go to medical school. What happened?”

“I don’t know. Flying, I guess. I need the money now if I’m going to start a family, not ten years from now, and it’s something I know how to do.”

“You do enjoy it, don’t you?”

“Flying? You know, yes, I do. It’s not my first choice, but I’m happy enough.”

“I often wished I’d kept at it…after the war.”

“Yeah…but Clive Martin, Secret Agent has a nice ring to it…”

They stopped outside the Fleming’s Mayfair and Martin held out his hand. “I couldn’t have pulled this off without you, Ben. I’m eternally grateful, and so is Her Majesty’s government. We’ve shut down one of the largest opium rings in the far east, and a source of income for illicit regimes all over the area.”

“Well, you did save my life, so I guess we’re even, eh?” Asher scowled, shook his head when Martin held out his hand. “So, this is it?”

“Afraid so. You’ll let me know the wedding date?”

“I will.”

“You’ll need help with an aircraft, I suppose?”

“Yup.”

“Well, best leave that to me.”

+++++

“There he is,” Doug said, pointing at a bearded, long haired freak walking up to the baggage claim carousel.

“The tall one?”

“Yup.”

“He looks like Jesus, Doug!” Lindsey whispered. “Good God, he’s even wearing socks with his Birkenstocks!”

“That’s my Andrew,” Bud said, smirking as his brother walked up, “the biggest nerd ever.”

Son walked up to father and they hugged, clapped each other on the back, then Doug leaned back and took him in: “You alone, or bring any disciples with you?”

“Dad,” Bud added, “should we get on our knees and pray?”

Andrew groaned, shook his head. “Shut up, asswipe, or I’m tellin’ Dad where you stash your porn.”

Bud turned crimson and looked away, and Andrew looked at Lindsey. “And this is?”

“Andrew? This is Lindsey, she’s become a real friend the past few months.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said – looking her over from head to toe as Lindsey took his hand.

“You too,” she said. “Nice socks. You don’t often see Snoopy on footwear these days?”

“You like ‘em? I found them online…I’m a Peanuts fanatic so I just had to have them. Want me to get you some?”

“Thanks, yes. I love them.”

Doug looked at this exchange and wondered what the hell was going on, then just shook his head. “How many bags did you bring?”

“Just one. The BIG one.”

“Swell.”

“What car did you bring?”

“The SMALL one.”

“Frak.”

“Frak?” Lindsey asked, her face scrunched up now.

“Dad? She’s not a BSG fan? What’s up with that?”

Doug shook his head, turned red.

“BSG?” Lindsey added, hopefully.

“Battlestar Galactica. Dad?”

“Hey, Dork,” Bud said, “cool it. She’s a big liberal writer, not a TV critic…”

“Dad? A liberal? Now I know something’s out of whack. That’s like totally bogus, Dad, you know?”

Doug groaned when he saw a huge blue bag slide down the carousel, then he turned to his son. “Is that it, Jesus?” he said, pointing at the elephant sized duffel.

Andrew looked, nodded. “Yup.”

“We’re gonna need a fork lift to get it out to the car,” Bud sighed, looking at the overweight stickers plastered all over the side of the thing. “I feel a muscle spasm coming on just looking at it.”

Lindsey looked at them, these three boys, trying their best to ignore the reality of this hastily arranged visit, falling back to a familiar, more comfortable place, and as she watched them she couldn’t blame them. The two women central to their lives were fading away, and now they were facing an unlikely future, together, as three – not five. Taking comfort from one another and, she assumed, from her. She was about to assume a new role in these boy’s lives, and the thought struck her as odd, out of place. Fast approaching fifty, fast leaving the the possibility of motherhood behind, she looked at Bud and Andrew in that moment and felt something like a tectonic shift underfoot.

Then she noticed Doug looking at her.

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. I just can’t imagine how much clothing is inside that bag…”

The boys turned to her and laughed. “Clothing?” Bud said. “He’s probably wearing everything he owns…”

“Then what’s in the bag?”

And everyone laughed – but her – and she knew then she would always be on the outside, looking in, and that the joke was on her.

She turned away and began walking to the car, Doug trying to catch-up as she began running.

+++++

Ben and Becky moved into a little bungalow on the corner of Maple and Charleville, courtesy of a loan his father secured, two weeks before their planned wedding, four months before Becky’s due date. The house was small and, having been built in the 20s was well past it’s prime, but the little Spanish style thing was in the Beverly Hills school district – and that was all that mattered.

They moved in on a weekend, a Saturday morning, when the moving van pulled up early in the morning, and they piled a year’s worth of New York into plastered rooms and had just begun unpacking boxes when Becky heard a knock on the door. She looked at Ben, who shook his head.

“You expecting anyone?” she asked.

“Nope.” He went to their bedroom and got his little Walther, then went to the door and opened it…

“Holy cow!” he cried. “Sophie! Becky, come here! It’s Sophie and Prentice!”

Sophie was carrying a casserole, the foil covering smooth and radiating heat. “Happy House Warming!” she cried. “We thought you could use some real food!”

Ben opened the heavy grated iron outer door and let them in, and he had his first look at Prentice Hollister in that moment – and he wanted to turn away. The first words that came to him were prissy and effeminate: pressed khakis and a pale pink, button down oxford cloth shirt, complete with prancing polo pony and a lavender plaid bow tie.

“Prentice! So nice to finally meet you!”

And Becky looked at Sophie as they walked in, then at Ben – and it was all right there, plain as day. He was still completely smitten by his old girlfriend, and she knew then he always would be. Circumstances, and grief, had intervened, pushed them off course – and now she understood that she had come between them as much as Prentice had. She followed Sophie into the kitchen – and realized she knew the way – when Sophie walked straight to the refrigerator.

“How interesting…” Becky sighed.

“What?” Sophie said, suddenly seeing her mistake.

Or was it, Becky wondered, a mistake? Maybe his past was just laying down new ground rules?

“Chicken,” Sophie said, smiling. “Chicken enchiladas on Spanish rice.”

“Ah,” Becky said. “Thanks so much.”

“One of Ben’s favorites.”

“Of course it is. Well, at least the furniture is here…come, let’s have a seat, get to know one another…”

“Oh, we don’t want to intrude,” Sophie said.

“Not at all. Please, we need to take a break, and anyway, I’ve heard so much about you…”

“Okay…”

“So,” Becky said as she cleared off the sofa, “Ben tells me you’re in medical school?”

“Yes, one journalist in the family is enough.”

“Ben was thinking of med school for a while, weren’t you?”

“I was, but the idea of not flying anymore was just too much…”

“Oh,” Prentice said, interested now, “I didn’t know you were a pilot. Are you flying commercially?”

“Yes, for TWA.”

“Really? Fascinating. Where are you flying to these days?”

“LA to Heathrow now. I’ve been flying Kennedy to London, occasionally Paris, the past couple of years.”

“What? Are you flying 747s?”

“I am.”

“Fascinating. I wonder. Do you suppose I could get a guided tour of one?”

Asher looked at Sophie, who only shrugged – as if to say this was all news to her. “I don’t know why not, but would this be for personal, or professional reasons?”

“Well, frankly, I’m putting together an article on getting from LA to Europe, and this couldn’t come at a better time.”

“Well, yeah, sure, but let me call corporate and see what kind of strings I can pull.”

“Could you?” Prentice said, clapping his hands like a little girl. “That would be just marvelous! Perhaps you’d have time for an interview?”

“Not sure why, Prentice. There are lots of people more interesting than me you could talk to.”

“Well, just a thought.”

“He’s shy,” Sophie said – for Prentice’s benefit, Becky assumed – and then the four of them spent an hour talking about the best local pre-schools and the best places to shop and flying here and there, then Prentice leaned forward and asked a most unusual question.

“I’m curious,” he began, speaking to Ben. “It seems to me that you and my wife were once very close. Am I missing something?”

“Oh,” Sophie said, looking pained – yet speaking a little too breezily to ignore – “we were friends in high school. It’s no big deal, Prentice.”

“Good friends,” Prentice added, “I assume?”

Becky, her eyes blinking rapidly, smiled and turned to the reporter. “Why Prentice? Didn’t you know – we all were best friends in high school?”

“Were you indeed. Well, this must be quite the reunion!”

His curiosity defused, Sophie looked at Becky like she had indeed become her new best friend – and wondered why she intervened…

+++++

He seemed older now, old beyond his years, and Ben watched Clive Martin walk across the tarmac to the brand new Pilatus PC-6 with a mix of admiration and rage. There was, of course, no air conditioning in the aircraft – and it was 104f outside – contributing to his seething anger. So he was dripping in sweat, his shirt soaked through now and sticking to the seat’s black vinyl covering. But Martin had kept him waiting out here for almost an hour now, and mild annoyance had soon turned to seething fury.

“I’m going to fucking kill the bastard!” he whispered as the old man walked up the Porter and kicked the wheel chocks away. Then he turned and walked back to the terminal building.

“Oh, God damn it all to Hell!”

He flung open the door and undid his seat belt, then climbed down to the ground and stomped off to the terminal building.

“And where are you off to?” he heard Martin ask.

“Get a goddamn Coke.”

“They don’t have any. I just checked.”

“What?”

“Nothing. There’s a cart out front, some chap making tea. That’s it.”

“No fucking water?”

“Nope. We’d better get going. It’ll be cooler over the mountains.”

Ben wheeled around and stomped back to the cockpit, climbed back in and fastened his seat belt, and waited until Clive was belted in beside him, then he finished the pre-start checklist and started the PT6, watched the gauges while he finished the checklist.

“This seems a nice improvement over the one I borrowed from Air America,” Clive said.

“It is. Better avionics, more range. With the external tanks, over a thousand miles.”

“We’re only going, what? Two hundred?”

“Each way. Is Bao expecting you to show up today?”

“Hardly. We left on bad terms.”

“He was expecting you to stay, wasn’t he?”

“He was.”

“Any idea who you were working for?”

“No, of course not.”

It had been, almost to the hour, seven years since he’d flown from the valley, from the monastery where he’d left Bao and Martin. Seven years since he’d promised Colonel Bao he’d return, for his presumed son. But now Asher was full of questions: was Bao even alive? Had he and Mai Ling had a child? What had possessed the colonel to make such impossible demands – with so little to go on? And why had he agreed to such impossible conditions?

He turned onto the active and ran up to take off power, then adjusted the pitch until the prop bit into the air – and the Porter began it’s less than spirited run down the runway.

“This thing has the aerodynamics of a pickup truck,” he groused as he rotated and began his climb out to the northeast.

“I rather think that’s what this is, you know? A pickup truck, with wings?”

“At least there’s radar now.”

“Really? Well, there you have it. Progress. So, where to?”

“VOR near Paro,” he said, dialing the VOR/DME to 108.4.

“Any air traffic control?”

“Yup?”

“You going to check in?”

“Nope.”

“Good lad. I do believe you’re still sweating. Would you care for a Coke?”

“WHAT?” Ben turned and saw Martin pulled two iced Cokes from a small cooler. “Why, you goddamn son of a bitch! Give me two…and I mean right now!”

“My. Crabby when we’re warm, aren’t we?” Martin took out a Swiss Army knife and popped the cap off, then handed one to Ben – who slammed to bottle down in one go. “You weren’t kidding, were you?”

Ben let slip a long, deep burp, letting the last of the gas seep out between clinched teeth. “Oh, damn, that feels good…”

Martin handed him a second bottle, then started in on his first. “Brings back memories, you know? Flying over this part of the world?”

“Yeah, me too. None of them good.”

“How’s Becky doing?”

“The miscarriage really hit her hard, Clive. It was touch and go for a while.”

“She working again?”

“Yeah, new job. At the medical school’s library, something to do with microfilm, or microfiche, I don’t know. She seems resigned, like it’s fate or something, that she won’t have kids.”

“I was hoping you two would, well, you know.”

“Me too. She’s devastated, however.”

“How’s your other wife?”

Ben turned and looked at Martin. “My…what?”

“Sophie. Your other wife.”

“Clive, what makes you even think that?”

“Becky. She and I talk, you know?”

“Do you?”

“We do.”

“And she thinks of Sophie as my second wife?”

“As do you, I’m afraid.”

Ben turned up the volume of the VOR, tried to pick up the morse identifier…

“Ah, there it is.” He turned the compass card, centered the needle and looked at the fuel transfer gauge. “You think so too?”

“I’ve seen you when you look at Sophie, and Becky isn’t blind. So tell me? Do you still love Sophie?”

“I’ll always love Sophie. I have since I was ten years old.”

“Do you think that’s fair?”

“Fair? Do I think that’s fair? Well let me see, do I think it’s fair I got shot down and the Department of Defense told her I was dead? Do I think it’s fair I crawled through the jungle and wound up in your back yard, and the first thing I saw was a, naked, mind you, redhead in a goddamn swimming pool? Do I think it’s fair Sophie married a flame-throwing journalist when she learned I was dead? Gee, Martin, let’s talk about fair for a while, okay?”

“You shouldn’t have married Becky if you still loved her, Ben.”

“Is this why you came along? To beat my ass about Sophie?”

“In part, yes.”

“Clive? Sorry, but there aren’t any parachutes in this crate.”

“Do tell.”

“Well, one thing I need to say, right now. I’ve been with Becky for almost seven years, day in, day out, and I love her more now than ever. Simple as that.”

“I don’t think she knows that, Ben. Maybe she should, but she doesn’t.”

“Okay, I read you loud and clear.”

“What about Sophie?”

“It is what it is, Clive. Not loving Sophie is a little like not breathing. Okay?”

Martin sighed, looked out the window for a while, watched a team of elephants being herded across a jungle clearing by two boys, then he nodded his head. “I fear this will end badly for you, Ben, but I think I understand.”

“Don’t think I don’t think about this, like all the time. I do. It worries the hell out of me.”

“Do you…well, I don’t quite know how to say this…but are you two intimate?”

“Who am I talking to, Clive? My friend? Or Becky’s?”

“Alright. My ears only.”

“Yes. We have since I moved back.” He shook his head, tried to wash away a memory. “You know, Prentice, her husband…”

“They chap who’s a little light in his loafers…?”

“Yup, but the point is, he’s a real asshole about it. Expresses zero interest in her, Sophie, physically, brings his boyfriends by for dinner all the time, and likes to flaunt his homosexuality – is in her face about it. Years ago he asked me to help him work on a travel article, tour a 747, take a look in the cockpit – and he came on to me. I mean, right up there in the cockpit. Kept calling it the COCK-pit, like it was some sort of gay playroom…”

Martin chuckled, shook his head…

“Then the bastard asked I wanted some head. Right there. I was stunned, but then he started in on Sophie. How she was frigid, how she was no fun to be with, and at one point he told me to have at it with her, ‘fuck her all you want,’ he said. ‘Better you than me.’”

“Sounds like a classic set-up.”

“Huh, what?”

“Lot of gay men marry, then entice a straight man to impregnate their wives. Improves their cover, or so they must think. I tend to think that if gay men could just come out of the closet there would no longer be a need for such bullshit – it’s all just an exercise in power and control.”

“You sound angry?”

“I am.”

“Are you…?”

“As a three dollar bill, as you Yanks are so fond of saying.”

“Well goddamn. My best friend is a fag. I will be dipped in shit.”

Martin turned to him, looked at him for a long time. “Am I?”

“What?”

“Your best friend?”

“Yeah, ya know? You are. I never thought of it before, that just kind of slipped out, but yes. You are. How does that strike you?”

Martin grinned. “I like the idea, Ben.”

The VORs needle swung and Ben looked off to the left, saw a small town carved out of the jungle. “There’s Paro,” he said as he picked up the chart and read off his new heading. He swung the compass card and came to 0-7-2 degrees, watched the needle center as they flew from the station, then he looked at the altimeter and shook his head. “12,500 feet above sea level, and we’re not even a thousand feet above the trees.”

“Burma wasn’t this high. I flew Spits for a while. Wonderful airplane – light as a feather at twenty thousand. How much further?”

“Call it fifty five miles to the clearing – where we landed last time.”

“Jungle reclaims land here with remarkable efficiency. Ah, the river is flowing, too. That should prove interesting.”

Ben flew lower now, following the river, every bend it took until the hills ahead took on a more familiar feel…

“There it is,” Clive said, pointing down to the right.

“Okay. Yeah, the river is bending to the left, okay, I see the cliff ahead. Yeah, there it is…”

+++++

In a place where time had little meaning, this was the day.

Bao woke early to prepare for this auspicious morning; he helped Mai Ling to the kitchen then woke his son. Always slow to rise, he chided the boy before they went out into the pre-dawn darkness to collect wood for the stove, then the two washed their hands in the running cistern. When the first call to prayer echoed across the valley, they made their way into the main building and sat on the creaky old wood floor and waited for the room to fill.

Elders came by after, asked him if the machine he had seen in his vision would come, and Bao said he had seen it again in his sleep, that a man was coming to carry his son to a new home, to a place far away.

So when, a few hours later, in a place where time has little meaning, all the people were not surprised when they heard a strange buzzing noise echoing off the canyon walls, nor were they shocked when the metal bird flew by the monastery.

They were, perhaps, a little surprised when they looked down and saw Bao and his son walking down the trail to the river. They watched him stop for the old snake, but they could not hear the words Bao spoke, they prayer he spoke to the spirit snake, but they watched the two souls disappear into the jungle, and they turned to Mai Ling.

She was very brave, they saw.

Trying not to cry.

Then the elders turned back to the river below, and wondered if he would return, or if he too would fly away to the place far away.

+++++

Ben looked at the clearing, saw that brush had recently been cleared, and stones marking a threshold piled at one end. He dropped flaps and cut pitch a little, then turned on his final approach. He double checked the flaps and looked at the fuel level – still more than a half – and he looked the stones on the threshold and adjusted his angle of attack, began his flare well back from them. Working the condition lever, he settled over the rocks at 43 knots and stopped within a hundred feet, then he circled back to the stones and chopped the power. Martin hopped out and chocked the wheels with stones, then scooted into the trees to relieve himself.

Ben climbed down and stretched, then walked over and watered some bushes, keeping an eye out for anything slithering on the ground.

“You know,” Martin sighed, “there is nothing more useless than a prostate. I have to take a leak every hour, on the hour.”

“But we were up there for almost two hours…”

“And don’t I know it…the past sixty minutes have been pure agony.”

“You ought to get that looked at.”

The air split with the sound of a mighty roar, then a deep, guttural rumble.

“Tiger…” Martin whispered.

“Oh, this is just fucking great. Take a week of vacation and get eaten by a fucking tiger…”

“When did you start cursing so much?”

“You’re too fucking much, you know it?”

“Ah, there’s Bao…”

And they saw Bao, and, they assumed, his son, walking along the trail – then Ben pointed to the trees above the trail.

“There it is?”

“What?”

“Big fucking cat,” Asher croaked, and they both looked on as the cat roared again, then ran from the trees – straight at Bao and the boy.

The boy turned, held out a hand and the tiger stopped in front of them, then lay down on it’s back. The boy went to the cat and put his arms around it’s neck, and as Asher looked at the unfolding scene he had to shake himself, make sure he wasn’t dreaming. Then Bao leaned down and talked to the cat, and the boy, rubbing heads and saying, apparently, soothing words, for a moment later the boy stood, crying now, and the three of them turned to face the river.

There was a way across, hopping stones, but one misstep would prove fatal. Asher looked upstream and down, could see no better option, and neither could Martin.

Bao pointed and the cat sprang across space, landed on the first rock then hopped to the second. It turned and watched the boy jump across, and Martin spoke then.

“It’s a pet, Ben. The boy has a fucking tiger, for a goddamn pet!”

“Clive?”

“Yes, Ben?”

“You’re cursing, Clive.”

“Ah. Just so. Right you are.”

Bao followed them across, and Ben watched as they walked across the clearing, keeping a close eye on the tiger as it approached. Martin farted, and Ben turned to him.

“Not cool, Amigo.”

“I may have just shat myself.”

“Shat?”

“To shit, verb, past tense.”

“Oh. Learn something new every day.”

Bao walked up, wrinkled his nose and sniffed the air, then shook his head. “Seven years,” he said to Ben, ignoring Martin. “Promise kept.” Bao brought his hands together and nodded his head as if in prayer, then he turned to the boy. “This is my son, his name is Tschering.”

“Tschering?”

“Yes, the name means ‘Boy who talks to the stars.’”

“And the tiger?” Martin said. “Does he have a name?”

“He is a she,” Bao said, still ignoring Martin. “She has no name.”

“I take it the cat is staying here?” Ben asked – hopefully.

“Yes, lieutenant, the cat will stay here with me, and wait.”

“And wait?”

“For Tschering’s return.”

“Wait,” Ben said, exasperated now, “I’m supposed to bring him back? In seven years?”

Bao shook his head. “Tschering will know when to return, and you will too.”

“I will – what?”

“You will return.”

“Did he bring anything?” Martin asked. “Any clothes? Belongings of any sort?”

“Why are you here?” Bao said now, turning to Martin.

“I came to see Mai Ling. Is she well?”

“Yes.”

“Would you tell her I came, that I asked after her?”

Bao nodded, then turned to Ben. “Lieutenant, you must leave now, before I…”

But Ben was watching the cat – who was watching the interaction between people, then looking at the boy. Tschering turned to the cat and hugged it once again, then turned to Ben, holding out his hand.

“Come, second father, we must go.”

Ben recoiled under the weight of words, looked at the boy, then at Bao.

“He is your son now, lieutenant. He will learn your world. He cannot achieve understanding here, with me. My discontent will never leave this place, so he must.”

The cat stepped forward, nudged his leg, pushed Ben towards the airplane, and he heard Martin whisper “What the devil’s going on here?” – but Ben planted his legs, faced Bao and spoke.

“Colonel? This is what you want? This is what’s in your heart?”

But all he could see was sudden fury in Bao’s eyes. The same fury he’d seen seven years before – when the colonel first saw him – when Ben was seen as the murderer of Bao’s wife. “Do not ask me this, lieutenant,” Bao said, now imploringly. “Please go, now, before I break.”

Ben turned and picked up Tschering, opened the pilot’s door and placed him in the seat beside his, and he turned to see Martin walk up to Bao, his right hand extended.

“Go now, my friend,” Bao said, before he turned – and walked back towards the river. The cat turned and walked off, too, and Martin turned to the Porter, kicked the stones from the wheels before he too climbed inside. He buckled in, looked at Ben up front taking care of the boy’s seat belt, then their eyes met.

Ben shook his head, seemed at a loss.

‘I know,’ Clive wanted to say with his eyes, ‘I don’t understand, either.’

After he took off, Ben circled the area, then flew upriver to the monastery and back along the river, but Bao had vanished. He banked the Porter into a steep turn over the clearing once again, saw the cat sitting atop an outcropping of golden rock below – staring up at them, he saw – and then he saw Tschering, his hand on the glass as the known world passed from his grasp. Then he was wiping away a tear, and he realized it was his own.

+++++

She heard knocking on the door and looked at her words on the screen.

More knocking, and she ignored the sound, tried to finish her thoughts on the page.

Insistent knocking, infuriating.

She pushed back her chair and walked to the door, opened it, saw Bud standing there, crying.

“She’s gone,” he said, his words tumbling away on a gust of wind.

“Your mother?”

He was nodding his head, shaking like a leaf – and she opened her arms.

He fell into them, the dam breaking instantly.

She held him close, cupping his head in her hand, whispering soothing sounds until he began to relax, then she looked up, saw Doug and Andrew standing on the patio outside her door, under an umbrella, out of the rain.

“Come in, all of you,” she said, and she took Bud by the hand and led him to the little sofa. Andrew came in and looked around the room, his eyes full of latent curiosity, and Doug followed, his eyes evasive, haunted. “Who wants coffee? Tea?” she said.

“Do you have any of that Good Earth tea?” Bud asked.

“Yup. Who else?” It turned out they all did, so she went to the kitchen and put on the water, got four cups down from the cupboard, and she opened a package of Scottish shortbread cookies she kept on hand for such emergencies and put them on a plate. She finished the tea and carried a cup in to Bud, and Andrew carried the others – without being asked.

“She went easily, I think,” Doug said out of the blue, and Andrew nodded his head.

“I’ve never seen anyone die before,” he said. “I thought I’d be scared, but it was kind of peaceful.”

“She’s not suffering now,” Doug sighed, but he was looking at Bud.

Wide-eyed, staring ahead into nothingness, like standing waves of guilt were battering his shore – and the boy seemed lost, and alone.

Lindsey went to the sofa and sat by his side again, and he instinctively went to her shoulder. She saw Doug in that moment as a tower of strength, these two boys his foundation, and yet the foundation was crumbling beneath his feet.

‘But it’s not his fault!’ she sighed, feeling another wave of grief slipping from Bud’s grasp. What had he said once? ‘Some mistakes we never stop paying for?’ Well, payment had come due this morning, and all three of them were paying now.

She moved down a little, put a little pillow on her lap and Bud lay there, his head on the pillow, and she traced little circles through his hair until she fell asleep; Doug got a blanket out of the linen closet and and covered his son, then looked at her.

“I think he needed that,” he whispered.

“I do too,” Andrew said. “Got room for another?”

She laughed, silently, then shook her head. “You are a world class character,” she whispered, and Doug nodded in agreement. “Any word on Lacy?”

“We were heading up,” he said, “but Bud insisted we stop by.”

“Would you like me to go with you?”

“Could you? I mean, do you have the time?”

“Of course.”

He looked at his watch, then went to the bathroom and washed up, splashed water on his face, then Andrew went in after his father.

“I’m sorry about the other day,” she said.

“I think I understand.”

“Okay. Do you need to wash up before we go?”

“No, I’m good.”

He grinned. “I know you are. I wish I was as strong.”

“You will be, when you need to be.”

“I’m not sure I can do this, Lacy.”

She looked at him, wondered if he knew what he’d just said, but she decided not to correct him. “You were very close, weren’t you?”

“In a way.”

“There’s something strong between fathers and daughters.”

“She always wanted a peculiar intimacy, extreme physical proximity, like it was hard-wired into her system, and I couldn’t give her that.”

“You’re not supposed to, you know.”

“Oh, I don’t mean that. It’s not like she wanted to take Madeleines place someday…”

“You sure about that, Dad?”

Lindsey looked at Andrew, looked at his question hanging in the air, apparent. “What do you think, Andrew?” she asked.

“She hated mother, more than any of you will ever know.”

“What makes you say that, son?”

“That’s about all we ever talked about, Dad. She wanted to take care of you, that’s all she ever wanted out of life. I think when she realized that wasn’t possible she fractured, she lost her will to live.”

Doug swallowed hard, looked down at the floor.

“It’s nothing you did, Dad. It’s who she was, what she was born to do.”

“But that’s not right,” Doug said.

“I’m not talking about right and wrong, Dad. I’m telling you what is. Or – was.”

“But how…?”

“How or why doesn’t matter, Dad. Again, I think that was her destiny, what she saw as her destiny, and when that destiny became impossible she just checked-out.”

“Odd,” Lindsey said.

“Odd?” Doug asked. “How so?”

“In Asia, that’s a role many daughters assume, and quite naturally, too. It’s an assumed duty, true, but one that many daughters seem born to assume. Maybe it was hard-wired into Lacy, in a way.”

Doug shook his head, turned in on himself for a moment, then shook it off. “We’d better get going,” he sighed, moving to wake Bud, and a few minutes later they were headed north on the 405, then west on the Ventura Highway, heading for Santa Barbara – and to the hospice where Lacy lay dying.

+++++

He looked out the window, looked down on an endless sea, and then ice – sheets of ice stretching off to infinity.

“What is that?” Tschering said, his face turning from the little window.

Ben looked at the boy, wondered what he was referring to. “What?”

“What is that white below?”

“Ice. That’s the polar ice sheet. We should be off the coast of the Soviet Union right now.”

“What?”

Ben picked up his glass and picked an ice cube out of his little plastic cup. “This is ice. When water gets very cold, it turns from water into ice.”

The boy looked at the ice, then at him. “How can this be?”

“Here, put a piece of ice in your mouth and hold it there, on your tongue.” He helped him get a little sliver, then he took one out too and put it in his mouth. “Now, just let it sit there, and see what happens.”

“It is gone!” he said, excited now. “It has turned to water!”

“Yes, and if we took water and made it very cold, it would turn to ice.”

“You mean, if it was very cold inside my mouth, water would turn to ice?”

“Yes, and it’s very cold down there,” he said, pointing outside the aircraft, “so cold that the water turns to ice.”

“All that ice,” Tschering said, “must be very cold.”

“It is. You and I would turn into ice if we stayed out there too long.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, very much truly,” Ben said, smiling.

“When I think about so much ice I feel cold.”

“I know. Me too.”

“How much longer? To this California?”

“We’ll stop in Alaska. The airplane needs food, then we have another five or so hours, so call it eight more hours.”

“I am still not sure what an hour is.”

He held out his wristwatch. “Again, when the big hand goes all the way around, it’s an hour?”

“And the little hand…”

And on and on it went, endless questions, endless explanations. At one point Martin stepped in to take over, letting Ben escape to the sanctuary of the toilet, but the boy grew restive when he disappeared, seemed almost afraid Ben wouldn’t come back. Martin drew pictures of the earth, showed where ice was found and he described why that happened, and this lead to another round of endless questions.

As the 707 landed in Anchorage, Tschering looked out the window, at snow covered peaks in the distance. “Is that ice?” he asked.

“That’s called snow. It’s like ice, but it falls from the sky.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

“So the sky must get very cold, too.”

“Yes, it can.”

“I have seen snow before. Many times.”

“And it’s cold outside when that happens, isn’t it?”

“Yes, very cold.”

“Same thing here.”

“I do not see trees here, just those strange gray things.”

“Those are buildings. They are full of people, just like the ones in Hong Kong.”

“So many people. India was full of people too, was it not?”

“Yes, many people.”

The jet lined up on the runway and the engines roared; Tschering grabbed Ben’s hand again and tried to hide his eyes, but Ben leaned over…

Look out the window now. You can see the wing now. Watch it as we go faster, watch how the tip curves up…right now…feel that? In your seat, how you got heavy?”

“Ooh, yes…what is that…?”

And he heard Martin laugh again. “You’ve opened a can of worms now, haven’t you? Good luck explaining that, wot?”

“Gee, thanks.”

They pulled up to the house a little after noon and Ben helped Tschering out of the taxi and into the house, while Martin carried their suitcases in. Becky was in the kitchen when the bell rang, and she came out in her apron and high heels, looking every bit the All-American Housewife…

“So, you must be Tschering,” she said.

“Yes, and you are my new mother.”

Becky went wide-eyed, then looked at Ben – who casually looked away. She looked at Martin next, accusingly, and Martin glanced at the ceiling, began whistling the tune from The Bridge over the River Kwai. “Don’t look at me?” his eyes seemed to say.

“My son? My, very own boy – how sweet…and just think,” she said, now looking at Ben, “I didn’t even have to go through labor. That was so very thoughtful of you, Ben,” she said, adding, “of you both” as another pointed barb –her eyes now projecting fierce death-rays, hideous anger flaming out of her smoking skull, burning Asher and Martin’s flesh from the bone.

+++++

They approached Santa Barbara as dusk was coming on, and they noticed an acrid, burning scent in the air, then smoke rising from the UC Santa Barbara campus…and Doug turned on the radio.

“There must be ten thousand students out here, Leslie,” they heard the tense announcer say, “and at least two buildings are on fire, both fully involved, with dozens of firetrucks on hand, and two more alarms going out now.”

“Tucker, we’ve heard, here in our Atlanta studio, that the president has ordered a federal response, that the Marines are being called in. Are you hearing anything like that down on the ground?”

“Leslie, no. There’s a rumor the National Guard is responding, but we’ve had no official word one way or another. We have seen reporters being arrested and hauled away, and there are no video feeds anywhere, we’re told.”

“Yes, Tucker, we’re getting Face Time feeds from people on the scene, and we’re trying to process those feeds, get those to our television audience as soon as we can. We’re hearing, too, that regular radio broadcasts in the area are being interrupted, jammed in some way, but as you know we’re beamed direct via satellite.”

“This is getting out of hand,” Andrew said. “It’s going to be like Kent State, all over again.”

“Kent State was a few hundred people,” Lindsey said. “Not ten thousand.”

“And that was the National Guard, not the Marines,” Doug added.

“What was that thing, with Herbert Hoover in 1932?”Andrew asked. “Didn’t he use the military on people?”

“WWI veterans,” Lindsey said. “Against the Bonus Army. Veterans and their families marched on DC, demanding to be paid for the service in the war…”

“Wait. The war ended in 1917, didn’t it?”

“Yup, and they still hadn’t been paid by ‘32. They marched, demanded payment and the Attorney General ordered the police to intervene. Two vets were killed at that first skirmish, then President Hoover called-in the Army. Douglas MacArthur led those forces, literally bulldozing the marchers out of the city. Not a good day in American history.”

“So, there’s precedent for this kind of response?” Doug asked.

“I wouldn’t want to be down there tonight,” Andrew said.

They arrived at the hospice facility as a wave of dark, bronze colored soot settled over the city, and the air smelled burned, almost putrid. Police cars and fire trucks could be heard wailing in the distance, then Lindsey looked up, saw several military helicopters converging on the campus.

“Let’s get inside,” Doug said, looking at the sky.

The receptionist took them to the door to Lacy’s room, and the four of them looked at one another, then walked in.

The room was surprisingly home-like, like an old, Mission Style bungalow. Dark oak walls, a few lamps casting deep amber pools of light from verdigris fixtures, Stickley furniture and Prairie style drapes and bedspread. There was a guitar on a stand in the corner, and the receptionist said it belonged to a volunteer.

“Can I play it?” Andrew asked, and the girl looked at him.

“I don’t know,” she smiled. “Can you?”

Andrew went across and picked it up, flipped the strap over his shoulder and began playing The Sounds of Silence, singing beautifully as he walked to Lacy’s bed. He sat on the foot, kept playing, his voice mesmerizing, then he drifted into Paul Simon’s Something So Right, Doug crying openly as the music of his memories with Lacy slipped past his crumbling walls.

He bent close, tried to ignore his daughter’s yellowing skin, her sunken eyes, and he looked into her eyes.

“Baby? It’s Daddy. I’m here now.” Lindsey stood behind him, watched her as the music pulled them deeper into the moment. “I’m here, and I wanted to tell you how much I love you, how much I’m going to miss you. I wish you’d stay with me, I’m going to need you so much now.”

Lindsey saw a slight reaction, maybe a twinkling in the eye, and Andrew stopped playing as the flickering wraith said “Oh, Daddy,” then closed her eyes for the last time.

Bud was standing in a dark corner, and he heard those two words and slid down the wall, pulled his knees to his chest and started rocking back and forth. Andrew put the guitar down and went to his brother, sat beside him and held him close…

Lindsey felt it first, deep in her chest, then a rumbling ‘boom’ rolled across the landscape. She looked out the window, saw an immense fireball boiling into the evening sky, then isolated bursts of gunfire. Another boom, another fireball, automatic weapons fire, screams.

Then the receptionist, running into the room. “The area is being evacuated, all of you have to leave, right now!” Then she was gone.

Doug got up, went to the window and looked at the mounting conflagration, then at his kids. “We’d better leave,” he said. “Something’s not right.”

Lindsey went over and pulled Andrew from the floor. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get Bud to the car.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Andrew. Snap out of it. Get him by the arms…”

She watched as Doug bent over and kissed his little girl one last time, then he followed them to the parking lot. They were loading in the car when a military vehicle rolled up behind them and stopped.

“State your business here!” the soldier said as he got out of the Hummer, and Lindsey walked over to him.

“Our daughter just passed away,” she said, and the soldier looked at the building, saw the hospice sign and nodded his head. “Look, my husband’s a doctor, at UCLA, and he needs to get back there. Can you help us?”

The boy got on the radio, spoke hurriedly for a moment, then came out and yelled. “We’re pulling back to the freeway. I can get you that far, but after that you’re on your own. You might try the PCH. From what I hear, West LA is on fire…”

“What?”

“Riots, ma’am, everywhere. Almost every major city, a coordinated wave of violence, started on campuses about a half hour ago, and it’s spreading everywhere. Half of Chicago is on fire, Philly and Boston, too.”

Doug was by her side, listening, then he looked at the soldier’s arm. “Are you hurt?” he asked.

“I’m okay, doc. Think it’s just a flesh wound.”

“Better let me take a look.”

The kid pulled off his flak jacket, then his shirt, and his white t-shirt was soaked with blood. Doug palpated the bone, nodded his head. “I can feel the bullet, bone’s intact, but we need to get you to surgery.”

“What?”

“You’ve been shot, son.”

“We won’t have trouble if we stay in my vehicle, sir.”

“Okay, let’s go,” he said to Lindsey, and they loaded the boys in the back of the Hummer, then took off for the 101. Waved past checkpoints, the Hummer made it on to the highway, and Doug drove while the soldier talked on the radio. Soon they were on the Pacific Coast Highway, headed for LA; there was a wall of traffic headed out of the city, and soon they seemed to be the only people headed into LA.

‘This can’t be good,’ Lindsey thought, then she looked at the two boys by her side, and she knew what she had to do.

+++++

Ben paced the floor, looking at the clock on the wall. She’d been in labor for nine hours now, and he was anxious.

Tschering sat beside Martin, playing chess on a waiting room table, and Ben looked at the two of them – now almost inseparable. Martin had retired from MI6 after their return from Bhutan, then rented an apartment in Westwood. When Becky and Tschering were home, he could be found reading with the boy, playing logic games and chess, or working on math problems.

One night, while the boy was asleep, Ben found Becky more amorous than usual and they had done the deed which, by that point, was a fairly rare occurrence. Two weeks later she missed her period, a month later the pregnancy was confirmed. She went into low-stress mode, ate carefully – and Martin positively doted on her, staying in the house whenever Ben was out of town. Which meant about four nights a week, at a minimum.

Perhaps the oddest thing about the timing of her pregnancy, he thought, was the math. He talked it over with her obstetrician, and he’d been out of town on the most likely date of conception. And Martin had been with Becky. More odd still, he’d never once seen Martin with another man. Not ever.

And perhaps one last complication roiled his mind. On the day in question he had been with Sophie, in London, and within a month of her return she was experiencing morning sickness. Still, when he asked Becky’s obstetrician to perform a paternity test, he had come back as the father. Blood types precluded Martin, so if it wasn’t Martin, it had to be him. Right? Right?

And while Martin had been interested in Becky’s pregnancy, he hadn’t doted on her like an expectant father might. No, he still seemed oddly attached to Tschering, like there was some karmic connection between the two of them, and Ben wasn’t one to complain, especially when the results were so plain to see.

Tschering was turning into a polymorphic genius. He was already testing off the charts in math, and was doing well on the piano. He was beating Clive in chess about one time in three, but the other two were real struggles; that was something considering Clive was a ranked master. However, it was Tschering’s destiny, Clive said, to study astronomy, and soon the four of them were off to visit observatories all over the southwest, then Hawaii. By the time most boys his age were showing a serious interest in driving cars and going out with girls, Tschering was at MIT – working on his second PhD.

He returned to UCLA, to begin work on a DARPA research project when, one sunny afternoon, he saw a man in flowing orange robes walking across campus. A chord struck in the universe, he followed the man to Bunche Hall and, by late that week, Tschering had decided to become a monk.

The other side of Tschering’s life revolved around his contentious relationship with the boy growing up in the room next to his own, his “brother” John. He never felt jealousy after John’s arrival, never once. His second father seemed to have arrived at a certain distance as far as John was concerned. They were not close. And in time Tschering realized the problem lay with his second father’s distrust of Becky, his second mother. He did not think to ask why, he only accepted what was and moved on.

He did not think of John as his brother, yet he took pains to understand why John thought of him that way. Tschering could not see that when John tried to confront his father’s emotional distance, the boy compensated by growing closer to him. Tschering was supposed to be John’s big brother, yet because he had lived such an unbalanced life he didn’t really understand what that meant. He could discuss cosmological problems all day and into the night, but the problems of a ten year old boy were beyond him.

Yet about the time he began studying Buddhism, John became friends with a girl. Lindsey Hollister. The girl his ‘second father’ always doted on, and he wondered why he found this so disturbing.

+++++

Smoke hovered over the west side of Los Angeles, isolated pockets of fire could be seen spreading in the hills above BelAir and Westwood. News crews in vans seemed to have been targeted by automatic weapons fire, and they passed several dead reporters and cameramen as they got closer to campus. The village seemed deserted as they turned off Sunset, but they saw hundreds of dead and dying people in the streets. Students, civilians, but a few soldiers too, everywhere. Doug stopped in front of her apartment, said they needed to get inside, said he would be back as soon as he could – and the boys looked at him when he told them to ‘get out and go with Lindsey.’

“But Dad?” Bud cried. “You can’t leave us now…!”

“Bud, I’ve got to get this soldier to the ER. I’ll be right back.”

Andrew grabbed his brother and pulled him from the Hummer when heavy gunfire erupted a few hundred yards away, and they stood on the sidewalk, watching as the gray-green lump disappeared into drifting waves of acrid smoke.

“Do your grandparents have a car?” she asked.

Bud nodded. “Yeah, an old crate, a Buick, I think.”

“Where?”

“There’s a garage in back, for tenants.”

“Bud? Do you know where the key is?”

“I think so.”

“Andrew? Take your brother, go check on your grandparents, then get the key and come back here.”

“Why?”

“In case your father loses that Army truck.”

“Oh, okay.” She watched them scurry off by the pool, then disappear inside the main building, then she ran to her door and went inside.

Everything seemed normal, nothing seemed touched, but the power was off. She went to the bathroom, turned on the light – cursed when it didn’t come on – then she took out her phone and turned on it’s flashlight, went to the toilet and reached around the backside for the key she’d taped there, then she went to the bedroom and stuffed some clothing in a small bag, then she went and got her new laptop.

Bud came in the apartment, crying, and she went to see what had happened.

“They’re dead,” he said.

“Dead? How? What happened?”

“Laying on the bed,” he got out between sobs. “Pills, I think.”

“Where’s your brother?”

“Right here,” Andrew said, running into the room – as gunfire rang out just down the street. “It was seconal,” he said as he ducked low. “There are troops coming up the street,” he whispered. “Looks like they’re shooting anything that moves.”

“What?” she said. “Why?”

“I don’t know…you want to go out and ask, feel free.”

More shots, closer now.

“Into the bathroom,” she whispered, “now!” Andrew pulled Bud into the little room, clamped his hand over his brother’s mouth, then he heard more gunfire, very close now, and breaking glass. He saw Lindsey’s contorted body lying on the floor by the sofa, flashlights outside on the porch – moving in, so he gently closed the bathroom door – and held his breath, waiting for this to all be over.

+++++

He started coming over in the middle of the night, tapping on her window with a penny. She would come over and look at him through the glass and smile, then crank the window open and help him in. They would whisper those nights away, talking about things they wanted to do together, talk about the gossip making it’s way through school that week, the usual stuff.

But one night her mother tapped on the door and came in without asking, and she found John trying to hide under the bed and asked him to come out.

“What are you doing here, John?” Sophie asked.

“I come over, we talk,” she remembered John saying, but he was nervous and evasive.

“You know, John, talking isn’t wrong, but coming over in the middle of the night isn’t right. Can you see the difference?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he had said, but Lindsey could tell from the wary sarcasm in his voice: he either couldn’t tell the difference, or didn’t want to.

+++++

She was sitting on a wall, her feet dangling over the edge of a vast precipice, and she was looking at a river far below, a tiger walking along the water’s edge, stopping from time to time, it’s head low – peering into the water – looking for fish, she thought.

Then it had turned and looked up into the sky.

She looked on breathlessly as, without warning, the cat took off running up the hillside and into the trees, and a few minutes later she heard a crashing wave rolling up the hillside. She looked straight down into the trees as the noise died away, and she saw the cat standing there, looking up – at her.

+++++

Andrew was driving the Buick. No traffic on the streets. Smoke everywhere. Bodies on sidewalks, no police. To Lindsey’s storage unit off Sepulveda, by the airport. No longer a possum, she goes into the little storeroom, digs out the box, opens it. The case still there, her father’s Zero Halliburton, still unopened.

She’s behind the wheel, driving into LAX, and helicopters roam – like sharks cruising a reef. She parks by the International Departures building and they run inside. There are people behind the Qantas desk, and troops stare at them as they walk up to the counter.

“Are you still taking passengers?” she asks.

“We are, but cash only, no credit cards, and no dollars,” the woman said, apologetically.

“How about Swiss francs?”

The woman brightened. “Yes, of course.”

“”Three of us, please.”

“Destination?”

“Paro.”

“Paro?”

“Bhutan.”

“Oh, well, let me see what we can do.” She flipped through pages in a book, made a call on a satellite phone, then wrote out three tickets – by hand. “That will be 24,000 francs.”

Lindsey opened the case and handed her five bundles of 100 franc notes, and the woman handed her three tickets – and some change, in Australian dollars. “These men will escort you to the gate,” she said. “Have a nice flight.”

Bud seemed catatonic, Andrew a broken shell, but they walked with the Australian SAS trooper down to the A380. Ten minutes later the airplane pushed back from the gate, and when they were airborne she looked over the city below, fires burning out of control beneath floating strata of streaky-gray soot.

She saw UCLA in the distance as they climbed away, and she thought of Doug once, but Tschering most of all, and waves of guilt rolled over her, pushing her under – again and again. She looked at the airplane – and at these two boys, so alone now, so lost, and she thought of the day – almost fifteen years ago now – when she had looked on in mute horror at another airplane.

A TWA airliner, CNN said that day, had taken off from London an hour earlier, then, after a few frantic calls were heard over radios, the 747 disappeared from radar over the Irish Sea. Debris was found, far beneath the sea, but her father’s body never was, and she had driven home from work after listening for an hour, then sat with her mother into the evening. They called Becky but she never picked up the phone.

There were services, of course, and Clive Martin came. He seemed chalky and withered that day, a tree blown over in a storm, but he held on to Tschering, looking for strength. He disappeared after that day, like blowing leaves in autumn. Scattering, waiting to be covered by the coming of snow.

It took a week, but she and the boys made it Paro. From Los Angeles to Sydney, then Hanoi. A day on the ground then a Bhutanese airliner arrived and carried them non-stop to the mountains, and as the pilot shut down the engines he announced that their flight was the last, that fuel shortages were simply clogging off the remnants of commercial aviation. He opened the door and walked down a steep ladder to the ground and walked away, into the deserted terminal building, leaving the passengers to fend for themselves.

They walked into town, found the US Embassy building. There were people inside, a few Americans, a few others, and she found Carter Freeman, asked about home.

“From what we know, the military broke up into factions. Some supporting the president, several others fighting him. Russian troop transports were seen over Canada, then word came they took the missile fields in Montana. After that we lost contact with Washington.”

“Any word on California?”

Freeman shook his head. “Is that where you’re coming from?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the Bhutanese are closing their borders. Word is they may expel all foreigners soon, and we’re supposed to register all Americans in-country.”

“I see.”

“I think that means you need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”

“I understand. Good luck to you,” Lindsey said.

“Yeah. Sure. You too.”

She led the boys to the main road out of town and they started walking east, and they came to a farm as the sun fell behind a towering range of mountains. She asked the farmer if they could sleep in the barn and he nodded his head. The farmer’s wife brought them buttered tea and rice a little later, and they fell asleep as heavy rain fell on the bare slate roof.

They drank water from streams but found nothing to eat the next day, and they slept in the open that night, the temperature falling into the 40s. They huddled together, sharing warmth, and she woke the next morning when she felt something poking her arm.

She looked up, saw an old woman with a stick in her hand, poking Andrew on the shoulder.

“What are you doing?” Lindsey asked.

“I was going to ask you the same thing,” the old woman replied – in a precise Oxford accent. “Are these boys with you?”

“Yes.”

“Well, come along then,” the old woman said. “We have a long walk, and I wish you had remained at the airport.”

“Excuse me,” Lindsey said, “but do I know you?”

“Yes, of course. I am Mai Ling, and a monk saw your coming. He sent me to you.”

“He sent you?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I remember now. You helped take care of my leg, you helped me to the aid station.”

“Yes. Was it so long ago?”

“No, not really, not quite a year ago. Bao…the monk’s name is Bao, isn’t it?”

“Yes. That is his name.”

“Is he well?”

“Yes, but his dragon is no longer fierce, the dragon’s flames not so easy to find.”

“What?”

The old woman held up a finger, pointed it to the sky – then let it droop slowly.

“Ah, yes,” Lindsey said. “I understand.”

“Yes, it is the nature of time, I suspect, that all things grow soft, but come, we have a several hours walk ahead of us. And one bad mountain trail. Oh, and keep your eyes on the grass – there are snakes everywhere in this heat.”

They boys stood, stretched away their stiffness as she spoke, then lurched and looked at the grass, instantly following the old woman advice.

Lindsey turned, looked into the trees, thought she felt someone, or something, looking at her, but all she saw was lost in shadow.

+++++

She opened her notebook, took out her pen and wrote on the top line of the page: ‘Sociology 101, Week 1 Day 1,’ then decided to add ‘Prof F Portman’ at the very top of the page. A sandy-haired man, perhaps 40 years old, strode in and placed a stack of notes on his lectern, then he turned to the class and coughed, gently, looking out at the 350 or so first year students.

“Deep is the well of the past,” he said. “So deep, should we not call it bottomless?”

He looked at the eyes that looked up from their notebooks, most on the first one or two rows, and he memorized them, took comfort in the inquisitiveness he saw reaching out to his own.

“We are going to spend the next three months learning from one another,” Portman continued. “I am going to stand up here and lecture for 90 minutes, three times a week, and every Thursday afternoon you are going to be tested, in your lab session, on how well you’ve understood my lectures. On Tuesday afternoon’s lab, you will get to ask questions and compare notes with your TA. There will be approximately 300 pages of reading per week, two short research papers and one VERY long paper due right after Thanksgiving, in addition to weekly tests, a midterm exam, and of course, the final exam in early December. Many of you – football players, perhaps – signed up for this class thinking it would be an easy A. Let me advise you, now, that if this was your thinking, I will sign your ‘Drop Class’ forms tomorrow, during office hours.”

He looked around the classroom, saw grins and shell-shocked frowns all over the room.

“So, the well of the past. A quote from Thomas Mann, from his four part story, Joseph and His Brothers. It is a story about the biblical Joseph, and the story nominally takes place 2400 years ago. In your reserve reading this week, you will read three sections from this work, relating three key symbolic events, and in your lab next Tuesday you will be examining several pieces of art relating to your reading. Finally, you’ll read several key passages from Robert Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land.

“So, a novel about the biblical Joseph, and a science fiction story. Your reserve reading assignments will lead you to one unifying element, but you’ll not be able to fully understand that element without first gaining a little understanding of psychiatry. We’ll start developing an understanding of what Sociology is, and is not, by looking at a few key moments in the development of psychiatry in the 20^th century.

“‘Everyone carries a shadow through life,’ Carl Gustav Jung wrote almost a hundred years ago, ‘and the less that shadow is embodied in an individual’s conscious life, the blacker and denser it is.’ When you begin reading Mann’s Joseph, and Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange land, you will encounter worlds full of shadows, of people living in the shadows, and Jung was a master explorer of the shadowlands. In Jung’s world, the shadow embodies everything that a person refuses to acknowledge about himself, a ‘tight passage, a narrow door, whose painful constriction no one is spared who goes down to the deep well.’

“The world of shadows exists for any given society, as much as it does for any one person, and when we examine Joseph’s world, the world of the Old Testament, as well as Valentine Smith’s return to Earth, we will be looking at people on the outside, looking in. We will be looking at the hated, and the hater. We will, in the end, be examining the lives of Jews in Germany, for when Mann wrote Joseph, he was writing of the Jewish experience in the 1930s and, oddly enough, he wrote most of this work about 15 miles from here, in Palos Verdes.

“In order to understand Sociology, you must begin to understand that literature and music and chemistry and physics and-and-and are all intertwined. The sociologist can not distinguish one endeavor from another, because all are expressions of the complex interactions of people who stand in the light, and those who dwell in the shadows…”

+++++

Walking along the trail, watching Doug’s boys, watching Mai Ling as she picked her way between rocks and along ledges, pushing the grass ahead to the side – to see if a cobra lay sunning on an unseen rock, Lindsey pushed aside the horrors of the present, reached back into the well of her past, grasping Portman’s meaning for perhaps the first time in her life.

Shadows had defined her life. Her real father’s shadows had too. And she had never once stopped to examine them. How dense, how deep were they? He had loved her all his life, yet they had lived apart for most of it. ‘Then, what about me?’ she wondered. ‘Had they never renounced their love for one another? Did Ben and mother still discuss things, all that time? Make plans? Dream their dreams together? But – what about me…what about me…what about me…?’

At one point they came to the old UN Aid station, where the monk had carried her when she grew fevered and ill; they passed in silence but she looked at the progress the jungle had made reclaiming the space. She looked at the crumbling walls and imagined hives of bundled snakes lurking under piles of brick and fallen wall, and at first she wanted to turn away from the decay – and then a second impulse hit. She wanted to stop and rebuild the place, to make better, to restore it’s usefulness – and she knew that was the American in her. The builder, the believer-in-progress.

That had been the light, the beacon that guided the city on the hill, but too, she knew Americans had never believed in examining their shadows. They had never confronted their demons, and had instead let them fester and turn gangrenous – until not even amputation was enough to save her.

No, the soul of America had been in her people, a people now scattered remnants drifting around the world, people who might keep ideals alive, fan the flames, but the host was dead.

They left the clearing, the Aid Station, and walked for hours along the trail beside the roaring river, passing farms and tiny villages every now and then, herdsmen tending their flocks and artisans working under the midday sun. She had a vision of America four hundred years ago, similar people doing similar things, and she smiled at the incongruity. Bhutan wasn’t a city on the hill, a light trying to shine out and light the way ahead. No, this was a reclusive nation, a religiously reclusive people that had turned away from the ways of the world. The calamity befalling the world beyond these mountains was irrelevant to these herdsmen and farmers; nothing that happened “beyond the gate” hardly ever mattered. Time had remained immaterial here, while the rest of the world grew obsessed with time.

And she thought of harmony after that, about balance. Life had grown so out-of-balance it simply had to fly apart. There was, in the end, no stable equilibrium in America, in most of the world; too many extreme inertias took hold and began pulling the fabric of civilization apart. Polar extremes, cultivated to maintain an unsustainable political dynamic; division, packaged and sold in thirty second sound bites, leaving people cornered, striking out. Dreams turning into nightmares as elected representatives ignored duties and sold out to the highest bidder. Real wealth concentrated in the hands of only a few, while homeless starved and died in the streets, mere bodies piled in landfills – awaiting incineration.

All that hate, waiting in the shadows, unexamined, unexplored. Repressed, burning, infecting. Shadows consuming shadows, until nothing was left but darkness.

They came to a clearing and Mai Ling stopped, pulled out a canteen full of juice, as well as a few apple-like pieces of dried fruit, and she passed those around. “This is where your father came, with Clive Martin, to pick up Tschering.”

The boys shrugged their shoulders, didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but Lindsey walked around the field, looked at stones piled at one end and she knew what they were, what they had guided, and she walked to them, put her hands on them and felt a sudden connection to her father. She could see through his eyes in that moment, see him up there, lining up to land, guessing his distance to these rocks, and she wondered what he had really felt that day.

Duty most of all, she guessed. Friendship, perhaps. Curiosity, too? A perilous train of events, from bombing an airbase to a frantic chase through the jungle, then sudden, unexpected friendship, a final renunciation of hate and a retreat to the cliffs.

And she thought of The Coffee Cantata.

+++++

She loved to sing, loved the feeling of expression music afforded, and she had ever since Tschering became a part of her life. When her mother came home from the hospital, harried and lonesome, often still in her surgical scrubs, they had – the four of them – gathered around the piano to sing. Tschering on the piano, Sophie by his side, turning the pages, while she and John looked over their shoulders and sang. Those were the happiest moments of her life, she knew now, and they had never been bettered. Coming together in song, in the music of the spheres had seemed to tighten the molecular bonds between them…

Then dissolution came, and John spun off on his own, his orbit a series of blistering decays. Music left their little group, and her life, as events splintered and carried them all in new directions. Then she started singing in the high school chorus, and became very good, and when she went to UCLA her singing, like her interest in music, only increased. She loved journalism, yet at one point she considered changing her concentration to music.

And then John intervened.

He refocused her on journalism, on an exigent need for real journalists. After twelve years of Republican rule, when the rallying cry of “It can’t happen here” had taken on new life, the Clinton era promised new life for Progressivism. It would be a new Golden Age of Athenian Democracy, and reporters needed to be on the front lines to document these changes.

Then John focused on the lingering cancers in Central America and Iran. Oil companies hiring mercenary armies to wipe out indigenous peoples in Indonesia, Burma and Angola. Russian arms merchants selling Soviet tanks and machine guns to children in the Sudan. Then, eventually, on the US effort to shore up the extreme right in El Salvador, and the murder of Archbishop Romero.

He told everything to Lindsey, everything he learned about the shallow emptiness of the Left’s hypocrisy, of their mendacious ‘selling out’ to the military-industrial complex. She saw it then, of course, but the real change happened when the music finally stopped.

In the music recital hall on campus. Sophie and Prentice sitting beside Ben and Becky, John and Tschering. How she sang that night, her penultimate moment, the realization of a dream. How she looked at Tschering as she sang, his child in her womb.

She was five months pregnant that night, just beginning to show, and in the aftermath John came to her. To congratulate her. Then he saw her, saw the baby, and he looked at Tschering, then at his father.

His father, who had first crossed the line and brought Lindsey into the world, and now, once again, how he had brought this heathen to America. Now the heathen possessed what he could not, and he exploded, like a coiled snake, into the night. He attacked his father, then turned on Lindsey. His arms wailed in arcs of sudden fury, and when Lindsey fell to the ground he kicked her belly three, maybe four times, then he ran into the night, disappeared for days.

And Lindsey lived that night once again as they came to the cliff. She looked at the monastery again, adrift above a sea of timeless cloud, and she looked at Doug’s boys looking at the white stain on the side of the rocks.

“That’s a monastery?” Andrew sighed. “It looks like a fort…”

“It is,” Mai Ling said, “in a way. It is a fortress of solitude. A place to struggle with the demons of human existence. You will stay there tonight, and tomorrow we will take you to the farm.”

“The farm?” Lindsey asked.

“Yes. You have not been there yet. It is above the monastery, on a small plateau above the clouds,” Mai Ling said, pointing.

They walked to a V-shaped rope bridge that had been set up between trees on the river’s edge, and she led them across the roaring water to the other side. The boys looked at the river, and at the rope bridge they had just crossed, and Lindsey felt some elemental switch had been turned in that crossing. The boys knew there was no going back to Los Angeles now, that there was only a narrow, constricted path ahead, yet if anything Bud suddenly seemed more fragile, even more ripped apart by events.

Yet Andrew seemed more like his father now; he seemed possessed by an innate stoicism, an acceptance of the way things were that Bud simply could not accept – yet – perhaps because Andrew had walked beside Mai Ling more often during this journey. Or perhaps not. Bud lingered now, drifted away from his brother and settled closer to Lindsey as Mai Ling began walking up the trail into the woods…

And Lindsey looked into the shadows once again, felt something, or someone, watching her as she followed Mai Ling up into the pines. A light drizzle began falling, then fine snow, and she heard a limb snap in the woods behind, well away from the trail, and she turned – saw a tiger in the shadows, motionless, looking at her. When she started to move, the tiger began to move again, and when she stopped again, the cat stopped.

“Mai Ling!” she whispered, and when the old woman turned Lindsey pointed at the tiger in the shadows. “Look!”

Mai Ling looked at the tiger and sighed, shook her head and walked through the woods to it’s side, and the boys stood by Lindsey’s side, openly aghast at the sight, waiting for the inevitable.

Then Mai Ling walked back to them, saw their fear and gently laughed.

“When Tschering was a little boy, he was walking in these woods,” she began, “and he found a little cat in a cave, just there,” she said, pointing at a dark opening near the base of the cliff. “The little cat was alone, and starving to death. Tschering carried food and milk down to her, then the cat started following him home, up into the monastery. They were inseparable, and now she is inconsolable.”

“Inconsolable?” Bud asked. “What do you mean?”

“There is a rock below, by the river, a large rock that overlooks the clearing – where Tschering left. She sits there most days when the sun is out, and she searches the sky. For her love, I think, but she is very old now, and tired of waiting. I think she will leave us soon.”

Lindsey looked at the cat, at her white muzzle and cloudy eyes, and she nodded, felt the animals sorrow more clearly now, then they turned to the trail, picked their way between snow covered rocks – and when she turned the cat had begun following them again.

She turned and walked back towards the cat – heard Bud say “No!” once – but she kept on, walked through snow covered trees to the tiger, and she stopped a few feet short of it – and sat on a rock. The cat sniffed the air now, it’s pink and black nose larger than her clinched fist, and then the animal stepped close and rubbed it’s cool, dry nose along Lindsey’s jeans, then the skin on her arms. They looked at one another for several minutes, then the cat turned away and walked up through the rocks to the base of the cliff.

Lindsey’s hands shook now, and she looked at the boys on the trail as a surge of insight ripped through the air. How would she feel if Doug’s boys left her now? How would she reconcile their going without their father by her side. And how had she survived all these years without Tschering? Without their son?

Accept.

Endure.

Keep going – push on through the shadows – and she ran up against the limits of the moment, realized that when you ask memory to talk to you about distant days and forgotten nights, sometimes memory turns away, has nothing more to say to you.

She caught up with them and Mai Ling resumed picking her way through snow covered rocks, then they came to the switchback, and a really hard climb up a thirty foot face. She remembered the old monk struggling to get her up this part of the climb, how her ankle had screamed in sudden pain, and she watched Bud as fear gripped him now.

“I can’t do this,” he whispered, his upturned eyes now cataracts of doubt.

She came to his side, put her arms around his shoulders, and she felt an echo, her father’s words calling out across time, passing through her soul again. She spoke to the boy now, as he had spoken to her once, yet she couldn’t tell her voice from her father’s…

“Do you know what the two most overused words in the world are?” a father asked his daughter one morning.

“No.”

“I can’t.”

“What?”

“I can’t…those are the two most overused words in the world.”

“But…”

“But, you can,” Ben Asher said. “That’s the simple truth. The only limits on where you can go in life are the limits you place on yourself. And fear places the biggest limits on you of all. But Lindsey, here’s the honest truth. You can. You can do anything…all you have to do is turn away from your fear. Now, put your left hand here, your right foot there.”

“Are you sure?” she heard Bud ask.

“Your left hand, put it here,” she said, putting her hand on the rock first. She took Bud’s hand, felt her hands trembling in her father’s, then she helped him pull, guided his right foot to the first foothold. “Now, put your weight on the right foot, and bring your left up. Good, now look up, always look up, look where you want to go. Good. Now reach up, never stop reaching, never stop looking ahead…”

She remembered a day when he took her flying, turning like a bird in the sky – out over the ocean. How he told her to put her hands on the wheel, how he let her bank the wings, how afraid she’d been, how tentative her motions were. She remembered his hands on hers, turning the wheel, and she felt her body lean against the side of the airplane as the turn got steeper and steeper, how she’d wanted to just let go and fall, and she felt Bud against her now, leaning into her.

“You can’t let go now, Bud. Look up. Focus on where your hands go next, where you’ll need to put your feet. That’s right. Look up. I’m here. I right here, with you.”

And he was, she knew. He was right there, with her.

Coda

She went into her room, the room she knew so well, and Mai Ling sat with her, waiting. Bao came after evening prayers and smiled when he saw her, and he came to her and they hugged.

“You look well,” he said.

“I am happy to see you,” she replied.

“I have finished,” he said. “Would you like to see your son?”

“Yes. What about the snow?”

“It is no matter for concern. Come.”

They walked outside and Bao found a crack in the rocks behind the monastery, began pulling himself up the first ledge, then higher, to a second, narrower ledge. He helped Lindsey stand, then they edged along the rock until they reached an shallow alcove, and the urn rested on a man-made ledge, hollowed out of living rock.

“The sun hits this part of the rock first thing, every morning,” Bao said, looking at his grandson’s urn. Holding it to his heart.

She turned, looked down at the monastery a hundred feet below, and she saw the boys standing there, looking up at her – Mai Ling by their side – then she turned to Bao.

“You chose well. I’m sure he would have loved this place.”

“Perhaps,” the old man said. “It grows dark. We should go down now.”

She followed him and they had a simple meal of soup and rice then went to sleep.

She woke in the morning after a dreamless sleep, and after Bao left for prayers she woke the boys, showed them where the bathroom, such as it was, could be found, and then she took them to the kitchen. Mai Ling was cooking and the boys ate, and Mai Ling forced Lindsey to have something too, then Bao came and ate.

“You slept well?” he asked the boys.

“Yessir,” they said, and Bao laughed.

“They sound like soldiers,” he said, then he smiled at them. “You must call me Bao, or most honorable, wise one,” he added, laughing. “The sun is coming out now, so I will take you up to the farm when the snow loosens it’s grip.” He rubbed Andrew’s unruly hair on the way out, and Andrew turned to Lindsey.

“Who is he?”

“Colonel Bao,” Mai Ling said. He was in the North Vietnamese air force, and he wanted to kill Lindsey’s father very very much.”

“What?” Andrew said, his eyes wide now. “Why?”

“Because Bao did not know truth. His heart was barren, unable to accept truth.”

“Truth?” Bud asked. “You say that like truth is a person?”

“Yes, very much like a person,” Mai Ling said. “Bao knows truth like a person now. Yes. I like that. You will be very wise, Bud.”

They left the monastery along the ledge, walked along until rock gave way to earth again, and then they walked on a trail that led up the mountain – through patches of snow and worn trails among rocky outcroppings, and after two hours the sun came out and warmed the ground. Bao rested once, looked at the boys breathing hard and smiled, then he looked at Lindsey. She radiated something like contentment, and he wondered why.

“You smile with a brave heart,” he said to her, “but I wonder. Is it braveness you feel?”

“No, not at all. I feel my father here. Everywhere I look.”

“And do you wonder why?”

“Yes.”

“I would too,” Bao said, but he laughed and began climbing between another set of rocks. The way was harder here, steeper, and she kept by Bud’s side, worked with him as he gained confidence, and then, suddenly, they stood on a vast plateau.

“There,” Bao said, pointing to a ridge-line a few miles distant. “There is the farm.”

She looked, saw three towering wind generators, and a solar array covering perhaps five acres, and two beige brick buildings nestled in the trees behind the array.

“What on earth…?” she sighed.

She saw dozens of houses now, modern houses, almost American, and more buildings further out along the ridge line. Antennae towers and satellite dishes, then an airplane sitting in a hanger, and she turned to Bao. “What is this?”

“A dream.”

They walked across the plateau, through wild grass and blooming wildflowers, then through pasture and around cultivated fields, fenced off from grazing livestock. Bao led them to the largest building, and she shuddered to a stop, read the name off aloud as it came into focus.

“Asher and Martin Clinic” she said, and then she saw her mother walk out the door, then Clive Martin – in a wheelchair – rolled out onto the deck, and before she realized what she was doing she was running. Her mother walked over to Clive’s wheelchair and pushed him into the sun…

…then her father walked out the door…

…and she fell to the ground, crying, because just then she knew she was dreaming, that this wasn’t real, couldn’t be real. She was still in the monastery, waiting for the early morning bell to chime, calling the monks to prayer…

But then she saw him running. Down the steps, onto the grass, running to her.

And then she was in his arms, surrounded by him, a million questions crowding, pushing inward, waiting to be asked.

+++++

“Clive called,” he said over lunch, “needed me to go to Zürich, so I called dispatch, had them replace me on the flight, but it turned out we had a couple dead-heading back and Guy Saunders took my place. No idea, of course, all that stuff was going to happen, but Clive saw it as an opportunity.”

“An opportunity?”

“Yes, well,” Clive interjected hastily, “let’s not get into all that, Ben, shall we? I just thought it time for your father to disappear, and given the circumstances he agreed.”

“So, what is all this?” Lindsey said, sweeping her hands around the plateau. “This didn’t just happen overnight?”

“No, we decided to build a clinic up here, and a couple of years ago, when things started to look unsettled, we expanded the concept a little.”

“A little? It looks like you’ve spent tens of millions of dollars up here!”

“Swiss francs,” her father mumbled, “for the most part.”

“But…”

“Now, now,” Clive said hastily – again. “Let’s just say we liberated some excess funds from a few over-indulgent Italian boys who were involved in the pharmaceuticals trade, shall we? Let’s just leave it at that, wot?”

Lindsey looked at Martin, shook her head. “You’re too much…” she sighed.

“We have about five hundred scientists and teachers up here now,” Ben said, quickly changing the subject, “and a state of the art medical facility. Kind of a Noah’s arc, I guess you might call it.”

She and the boys moved into a small house near the teaching building, and soon Andrew was involved with getting ready for the school’s first class of medical students. Most were local Bhutanese children, but there were a few kids from Europe and America there as well. Bud busied himself herding animals, and Lindsey tried to get over her father essentially abandoning her, but soon she saw the logic of their plan.

And in time she moved down to the monastery, spending her time listening to monks at prayer, reading what she could on Bhutanese Buddhism, listening, really listening to Bao when he talked about life. Visitors came to the monastery from time to time, outsiders still, people from Australia at first, then a few from Europe, and she was put in charge of showing these visitors around.

One morning she was sitting in the sunrise, her legs dangling over the edge of the cliff and she saw men far below, coming up the trail, and she sighed. Bao came out a while later and sat beside her.

“You are resting in shadows this morning,” he asked. “Why?”

“I was wondering how the boys are doing.”

“When were you last at the farm?”

“It’s been a few weeks.”

“Ah. Well. Perhaps it is time for a visit. But I think we have visitors coming this morning.”

“Yes, I saw them on the trail.”

“Well,” he said, smiling, “I think they are here.”

She turned, saw Doug on the ledge, then she looked at Bao. “You knew, didn’t you? You knew he was coming…?”

“So did you, Lindsey.”

She stood, looked at Doug – and then saw Becky Asher behind him – and she wanted to laugh. “Here comes trouble,” she sighed, then she saw Tschering bringing up the rear and her heart leapt. Bao stood and looked at his son, his smile brighter than the brightest sun, then Tschering stopped and looked at his father, and the love of his life, then he walked onto the rock patio and went to his father, then his mother, before he turned to Lindsey.

They fell into an infinite moment, then he sat on the ledge and let his feet dangle, waiting for Lindsey to do the same – and when she didn’t he turned and looked at her – then saw his oldest friend in the world walking along the ledge.

She came to him and sniffed his head once, then lay down by his side. With her face on his lap, she watched the sun come to the treetops – and sighed –

The Coffee Cantata © 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

The Coffee Cantata, composed by J S Bach in the 1730s is referenced, but no other persons or places developed herein are “real.” ‘The Coffee Cantata’ was also a restaurant located in San Francisco, scenes of the interior show up in the 1968 movie Bullit (Steve McQueen, car chase, etc.), and The Coffee Cantata is also a coffee shop in San Francisco, not to be missed if you’re in The City by the Bay – but this story has no relationship to either of those entities, and should not be confused with them.

Many thanks to Rightbank for reading through drafts the past few days, helping with my atrocious grammar and non-existent spell-checking. Hopefully we caught the worst offenders.

Happy trails, and thanks for reading.

So, about 40 pages here, not quite a week’s work, and I find myself getting pulled deeper and deeper into the story, more and more ideas spring to life, want to be told… What might have been 20 pages is looking more and more like a hundred or so. So, this is a WIP, a penciled in sketch, and I hope to finish by next weekend. Emphasis on word ‘hope’?

Yet I’m at a stopping off point, though nowhere near finished – so I’ll keep working on this one for a while, I think, maybe for some time, even after it’s finished (because, hey, stories are never ever really truly finished…they just take a rest sometime, before the urge for a rewrite becomes overwhelming…). So, a word of warning, this ain’t finished, it hasn’t been proofread, some sentences are roughed-in, not quite where I want them yet, but that’s what this whole blog thing is about. If something pops out as too weird or outlandish, just give me a shout.

Playing in Photoshop this morning, created the little illustration above…splitting the night, I think, comes to mind – but you decide what is, and what might be an illusion.

The Coffee Cantata

Traveling around sure gets me down and lonely

Nothing else to do but close my mind

I sure hope the road don’t come to own me

There’s so many dreams I’ve yet to find

Carole King  So Far Away

+++++

Feet tucked in close, she sighed, picked up the newspaper and looked over the front page, settled on a story and started reading. From time to time she picked up her coffee, took a sip, a little grin crossing her face here, the shadow of a frown there. She found herself in the Employment pages at one point, and her hands shook a little as contrary images flew through her mind, but she ventured inside, started scanning – and daydreaming.

She was a bright girl – too smart, some said – and she was something of an empath, which, she thought sometimes, had doomed her to a life of unwanted insight. Born and raised in West L.A., she had gone to USC, then UCLA, her life ahead always centered on journalism. She graduated, went to work for the Times about the time Bill Clinton took office, and the first waves of cynicism broke over her shores when she watched him lie about Lewinsky and that whole blue-stained thing. She threw away her blinders after that and became a real reporter, or so her friends said, and she won a Pulitzer for her coverage of events at a prison in Iraq a few years later.

She had become an outspoken critic of the rich and powerful when she wrote her first book, and she had made enemies, so many of her friends weren’t too surprised when they heard she’d been summarily fired one Friday morning. She had packed her Pulitzer in a little cardboard box and walked out with a smile on her face, then she sold her house and bought a one-way ticket to China – and started walking. Walking to the west, always.

She walked most of the time, though sometimes passing trucks stopped and she hopped aboard, but she did so with her reporters eyes and ears open. She took notes, wrote sketches of the things she saw – and felt. Sketches of pain, of happy contentment, portraits of farmers in Tibet’s Racaka Pass and herdsmen in Bhutan. She fought a cobra one morning and lived to write about the encounter, and a few days later slipped and tumbled down a rocky slope and hurt her leg.

A passing monk picked her up and helped her along to his monastery, and she lived within that mountainside community for weeks. She lived in this improbable world, an ancient place carved into the side of a sheer face, the waters of a muddy river drifting by thousands of feet below – and she thought about that river for days without end. Where it went, the people who’s lives depended on it, and what would happen when the water stopped flowing.

As all things must, she thought, come to an end.

And one day she realized she had fallen in love with this place, and the men who lived in solitude with the clouds. She wished she was a man – so she could stay – but she wasn’t so the same monk who helped her that broken day walked with her down to the river and helped her board a little boat. She watched him recede into the passing landscape with despair, then hope, before she started walking again, still to the west.

She came to a village in Nepal and fell ill, seriously ill, and delirium came for her. In a fevered dream she saw herself being loaded in a truck, then in a hospital of some sort – brown men in white coats doing things to her she didn’t understand – then one day she woke up and saw the world as it was, again.

A little man, no taller than she, stood by the bed looking at her, and she looked at him.

“You are very ill,” he told her.

“And?”

“I think you must go someplace else. We do not have the resources to care for you here.”

“What’s wrong with me?”

“You have a disease I do not understand,” he said, struggling to find the correct words. “I am not sure I can care for you.”

“You can’t care for me?”

“Adequately, I think is the word I seek.”

“Ah. So what must I do?”

“We must take you to Kathmandu. When you are strong enough.”

She drifted away again, and when next she woke she felt a rough road underneath an ancient truck, and through the flapping canvas sides she watched a dusty road pass by, just out of reach, and she wanted to be down there, walking. Walking and listening. Sketching portraits of lives she didn’t understand.

“Do I understand my own life?’ she thought once. ‘The purpose of my life?’

She saw the outskirts of a city pass by the tattered canvas, and she recognized the hospital for what it was. Careful men came for her and carried her inside, and she felt IVs being started, then doctors at the foot of her bed talking in hushed tones. She could feel her sweat-soaked gown when chills came, then as suddenly she would feel she was being baked alive and she would call out for help.

And one morning an American was standing beside her, looking at her carefully.

“Hello.”

“Yes, hello. My name is Carter Freeman, and I’m from the embassy. How are you feeling?”

She shook her head. “Not good.”

“I’m not surprised,” Freeman said. “You’ve picked up a fever, and apparently you broke your leg some time ago. It wasn’t set properly and there’s some sort of infection in the bone, and that’s when they called the embassy.”

“What do they need you for?”

“They think you should try to get home, to a better facility than this. They’re afraid you’ll lose your leg otherwise.”

“Ah.”

“So, you’re Lindsey Hollister. The writer?”

“I’ve heard that rumor too.”

He smiled, tried not to laugh. “Well, I’ve come to get you, to take you home.”

“What if I want to stay here?”

“That’s your call, Miss Hollister, but frankly, I’d want to know why?”

“Because these mountain, and these people feel like home now.”

He nodded his head. “Understandable. There’s magic in the air up here.”

She remembered turning and looking out the window just then, looking to the mountains as if looking for an answer to the question.

The question.

“You feel it too?”

And he had nodded his head. “Impossible not to, I guess. You came through Bhutan, walking?”

“Yup.”

“You landed in Shanghai, eighteen months ago. That’s the last recorded entry on your passport. Have you been walking since.”

“Yes, aside from the two months I rested after I hurt my leg.”

“Where was that?”

“A monastery, I think it was in Bhutan but I’m not sure.”

“I came by yesterday,” he said, suddenly a little nervous. “I went through your things, read through one of your journals, trying to figure out where you’d been.”

She looked at him like she might have a burglar who’d stumbled into her bedroom.

“I found myself weeping at one point,” he continued, “weeping at the beauty you found. I wanted to read more, but I couldn’t. I felt like I was walking where I shouldn’t. Not without your permission, anyway. Do you plan to write about all this?”

She looked away. “I don’t know.”

“You should…I mean, I hope you do. I was lost in your words, in the things you saw. I wanted to know more, too. About those things, and you.”

“Me?”

“I fell in love with you – with your perception, I mean.”

“Nothing so personal as a word, I assume.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“So? What have you planned for me?”

“Lufthansa, tomorrow morning. Frankfurt to Los Angeles.”

“I see. No choice, eh?”

“It’s the recommendation of your government. Mine, too.”

And so early the next morning they moved her to the airport, and Freeman was there, waiting, and he went to the airplane with her, saw her settled in her seat then he asked her to write, to share, and then he was gone. She seemed to sleep and sleep, and never saw Frankfurt come or go. She woke up on a gurney, another IV flowing, and she realized she was in another aircraft – and she thought that strange – then sleep came again.

She woke up one morning and felt wonderful, completely refreshed, and she looked out the window in the room she was in and saw palm trees in the distance, swaying in a Santa Anna, and in an instant she knew she was home. The brown air seemed familiar, even the color of the sky seemed to scream ‘Home’ – and she felt an unexpected surge of happiness.

A mountain of a man came in a little later – he looked like a football player, or a wrestler, but he said he was an infectious disease specialist and he had been treating her for ten days…

“I’ve been here ten days?”

“You have.”

“And just where is here?”

“UCLA.”

“I thought the air smelled familiar. Is that a Santa Anna blowing?”

“Yup. For a few days now.”

“So, what’s blowing through my veins right now.”

“Oh, a cocktail of Vancomycin, prednisone, fluconazole, and acyclovir. Maybe a little Red Bull, too,” he said, grinning.

“Is that why I feel so ‘up’?”

“Your white counts were in the basement, so you got a transfusion last night. That probably accounts for the feeling. What did you do to your leg, by the way?”

“I fell down a mountain.”

“Oh? Where?”

“Bhutan.”

“Bhutan? What on earth were you doing there?”

“Taking a walk.”

“A walk?”

“Yes.”

“Uh, admissions wanted me to ask. We can’t find a home address for you?”

“I don’t have one?”

“But you have insurance. How’d you work that out?”

“I have friends in low places.”

“Well, they’re going to need an address. Some place to send correspondence.”

“Bills, you mean.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Probably a few of those, too.”

“Well, as soon as I find a place to live I’ll let you know.”

“Are you looking? For a place, I mean?”

“I suppose I might as well.”

“Well, my parents have an apartment building, over on Gayley. It’s surrounded by frat houses, but has a pool. Kind of nice, and close to the hospital.”

“Sounds nice. Tell ‘em I’ll take it.”

He looked taken aback. “You don’t want to look at it first?”

“No, not really.”

“Do you have any furniture, any stuff?”

“No, I burned all those bridges a while ago.”

“So, you really want me to call them?”

“Yes. How long will I need to stay here?”

“As soon your counts stabilize and the fever abates,” he said. “Maybe in a few days.”

“What’s your name, by the way,” she asked.

“Oh, sorry. Doug Peterson.”

“You grow up around here?”

“Yup. You?”

“Beverly Hills High, class of ‘86.”

“Small world, isn’t it?”

She looked at him and laughed.

And he helped her get over to her new place that weekend, and when she went inside the little apartment she found the place furnished. Clean-lined Scandinavian furniture, bright fabrics on the sofa and chairs, very modern, almost cheery.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I didn’t think walking into an empty place would be all that fun. I had the stuff in storage,” he added, wistfully, “and it needs a good home.”

“Oh?”

“When my wife and I got married I, well, she didn’t like the way this stuff looks so I put it in storage. Out of sight, out of mind, I guess.”

“You couldn’t part with it?”

“No, I guess not.”

She walked around the little place, found plates and silverware and pots and pans all set up in the cupboards, and the ‘fridge was stocked with a few necessities too. She walked into the bedroom, found the bed made and toiletries on the bathroom counter, then her eyes will with tears and she turned to him.

“Why, Doug? Why did you do all this?”

“I don’t know, really. I think I want you to be happy.”

“Happy?” she said, as she looked from his need into his eyes.

“I have an old Mac set up in here,” he said, leading her back into the living room. “All the software has been upgraded, my old stuff’s been cleaned off so there’s nothing on it. A blank slate, I guess you could say. In case you want to write or get caught up on email.” She went over to the little sofa and sat, a line of perspiration forming on her forehead, and he came to her, felt her with the back of his hand.

“Do you know where my stuff is?” she asked as he went into the kitchen. He came back with his little black bag and sat in the chair next to the sofa.

“Yeah. I put it in the closet, over there,” he said, pointing to the entry, but he had a thermometer out and he rubbed it across her forehead, the looked at the readout.

“Time for bed, Lindsey,” he said as he helped her up. They walked to the little bedroom and he helped her go to the bathroom, then into the bed. He pulled the sheets up around her neck and tucked her in, then he ran his fingers through her hair once before he left.

+++++

She scanned the ads, looking at jobs in the Westwood area, preferably something mindless and uninvolved, and she saw one at a coffee place just a few blocks away. She looked at the time and went to the bathroom to shower, then she dressed and walked down the hill into the old village. She found the place and went inside, ordered an iced coffee and sat, looked out the broad windows at people walking past on the sidewalk.

The place had, she thought, kind of a cook vibe, a mellow hipster thing going on as she watched people come and go, and at one point a girl came out to clean tables and she asked her a question.

“Do you like working here?”

“Yeah,” the girl said. “It’s never the same day, ya know. Something different every morning.”

“It seems laid back.”

“Yeah, I suppose so. Are you here for the job?”

“I was thinking about it.”

“Oh. Okay,” she said, then she disappeared into the office behind the counter. A few minutes later an older woman came out, and Lindsey watched her approach through a reflection in the window.

“Excuse me,” the woman said, “but Melody told me you might be here about the job?”

She turned, looked at Sara Whiteman and their reactions were simultaneous, and spontaneous.

“Oh my God!” Whiteman almost screamed. “Lindsey?! Is that you?”

And she stood, hugged her old best friend from high school.

“What in God’s name are you doing here?” Sara whispered. “I read about you in the paper a few months ago…about that walk you took, and about getting sick. What on earth were you thinking?”

“So, does this mean I get the job?”

“What? Lindsay? What’s going on?”

“I need to get out of the house, be around people. I haven’t been in months, and it’s eating away at me.”

Sara sat down by her old friend. “Really? You want to work here? Why? Why don’t you go back downtown, get a real job? Doing what you do best?”

“I want to do what I do best, Sara. I want to talk, and listen, to people.”

Whiteman sighed, shook her head. “It’s counter work, minimum wage, no benefits for three months. Is that what you want?”

“It sounds fun.”

“When can you start?”

“Tomorrow too soon?”

“No. You sure? Sure you want to do this?”

“I think so, yes.”

“Next question. Are you up to this? It’s not manual labor, but it does entail some physical work. Clearing tables, preparing orders. Are you ready for that kind of thing?”

“Yup. My docs think it would be a good thing.”

“Nothing infectious, right? You’re safe?”

Lindsey nodded her head. “Yup. Clean as a whistle.”

“God, I can’t believe this, Lindsey. It’s so good to see you, but this too? Wow…I’m just speechless.”

“Me too. Look, do I need anything weird in the clothing line, anything like that?”

“Nope, not really. Comfortable shoes, only arms and hands visible, per health codes, as you’ll handle food. That means slacks and shirts, but shoes are the big thing.”

“Would these be okay?” she asked, pointing to her jeans and scuffed hiking boots.

“As long as it’s clean, sure.”

“Cool. What time should I be here?”

“Only shift I have right now is five to one, the early morning shift. Are you a morning person?”

“Not a problem.”

“Well, how ‘bout I see you tomorrow morning?”

“Front door?”

“Yup. Bright and early.”

“Okay, I’ll be here.”

They hugged, then Lindsey walked out into the flow of people on the sidewalk, and Sara Whiteman watched as she disappeared. Melody, her assistant, came and stood by her side then.

“She’s so skinny, like she’s been sick or something,” the girl said.

“She has been,” Sara Whiteman sighed. “Since the day I met her.”

+++++

And a week later there’s was a familiar routine. Not quite like school decades ago, but close enough. Friends are just that, after all, and it seemed they started up again where they left off, as best friends often do.

Unlock at five, tidy the place up and get coffees going, set out baked good in the counter and get specials marked-up on the chalk board. Open the doors at six and get to work. Within a few days she’d learned how to use the most complicated brewing machines and the techniques to satisfy even the most hardened caffeine junkies, and she worked the counters efficiently, even gracefully, and soon people came in and said their ‘hellos’ and ‘goodbyes’ on their way through her day, and patterns developed.

In the very early morning, when commutes began and sometimes ended, the shop filled with harried executives dashing off to work, and nurses getting off the night shift. Professors from the university across the street constituted the next onrushing wave, often before lectures – yet usually after, and students came on this riptide, lingering long after their coffee grew cold, lost in lecture notes or lining textbooks in bright highlights.

Lunchtime in the shop was a mad rush. Iced coffees and cold, house-made sandwiches flying over the counter at a breakneck pace, then she was helping to clean up before time was up and it was time to walk up the hill again, and she was grateful for the swimming pool on sunny days and sat out under the sun for hours and hours, notebook in hand, her eyes focused on memories of her day, and one day she was sitting out there, writing, when he came by.

“Doug?”

“Hey, it’s my favorite patient! How’s the sun?” he asked as he came and sat by her.

“It feel like heaven today. The air is almost crisp, you know, yet the sun bakes it all away.”

“Nothin’ like LA on a day like this. It’s the cream in my coffee.”

“So, what brings you to the neighborhood?”

“My dad. He’s got COPD, in CHF, uh, emphysema and heart failure. He’s not doing too well, either.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. How’s your mom taking it?”

“Oh, she’s strong. Old world, know what I mean?”

“No, not really.”

“She was a kid when they came over, refugees, during the war. She had relatives here in LA, made it here in ‘43. I think the journey was something else, Greece to North Africa, then Brazil and finally up to California.”

“How old was she?”

“I think around ten, when she got here, anyway. Took them two years, I think.”

“She met your dad here?”

“Yeah, in college,” he said, pointing at the campus across the street. “He went into business, she went into medicine?”

“Oh?”

“Yup, she taught general medicine for year, supervised residency for internists. She was a bright one, and they’re devoted to each other, always have been.”

“She came from Greece?”

“Yup, her family left when the Italians and Germans moved in. You want to talk to her about all this, I’m sure she’d love to.”

“Yes, maybe when she feels like it?”

“She misses working, so any excuse to get out and shoot the breeze is a welcome distraction. So, what are doing these days?”

“Oh, I’m working at that little coffee shop down on Weyburn.”

“No kidding? I didn’t know that. How long have you been doing that?”

“A couple of weeks?”

He turned professional, his eyes serious. “Any fever, any night sweats?”

“Some night sweats, yes. But not often.”

“Okay, you’re coming with me. Time for some lab-work.”

“Oh, do I have to,” she said, purposefully pouting just like any other five year old.

“You can tuck that lower lip back in now. Now come on,” he said, looking at his watch, “let’s get you dressed.”

He helped her up and walked with her to the little apartment, and he waited for her while she dressed, looking out the window – watching his mother looking at the pool, then at him, standing by the window in their living room. He could see the scowl on her face, the same look she always had on her face – when she knew he about to do something really stupid.

+++++

She felt much better the next morning, and one of her regulars stopped by the register on his way out and smiled at her. “You look really good this morning, Lindsey,” he said.

“Thanks. I feel good, too,” she said – and then, as he walked out the door, she realized she didn’t even know his name – let alone telling him her’s. ‘Oh, well,’ she said to no one but herself, ‘I’ll ask next time he comes in.’ She went to clear off his table, saw he’d left a little note and a large tip, and she went to the window, watched him get into his car – and she noticed he was wearing shorts, and she saw the scar. Pale and waxy, like a long snake standing up the side of his leg, and she thought it looked angry, like a bad memory that just wouldn’t go away.

She finished cleaning his table and went back to the counter, the fifty dollar bill he’d left in her hand. She walked over to Sara, gave her the fifty, and she listened while Lindsey told her about the exchange.

“You really don’t get it, do you?” Sara sighed. “About half the men who come in here every morning come here to see you.”

“What?”

Sara shook her head. “You know, since second grade every boy around seems to look at you just once and decide life would be a whole lot better if you were a part of it.”

“Sara? What are you talking about?”

“God, you are so clueless. Go put on some French roast, would you?”

So she got back to work, getting ready for the mid-morning, professorial rush, but at one point she saw a student come in and sit by the window – and something caught her eye. He pulled a book out of his weatherbeaten rucksack, it’s red slipcover instantly recognizable. Her book, her book about the economic realities of life in working class America, and she turned away from the memory of the time she’d spend ‘undercover’ doing research. He was reading the book, she saw, her photo on the back sleeve standing out like a light house, and she tried to ignore the boy ‘til he left. Perhaps an hour later he did, and he never stopped to say anything to her. She wondered if her appearance had changed all that much and decided she really didn’t care.

And a little after noon, he came in. Doug, her physician.

He came up to the counter and looked around, studiously trying to ignore her.

“I didn’t know y’all did sandwiches. What’s good?”

“I like the chicken salad. It’s got undertones of curry, and pecan.”

“Okay. What should I have with it?”

“Iced coffee and tabouli.”

“Done.”

“I’ll bring it out to you.”

“Gracias.”

“Por nada.”

He took a seat at a table by the windows and pulled out a phone, scanned his email and she made his coffee, fixed his sandwich, then took it out to his table.

“How you feeling today?”

“Good.”

“You look good. Your color’s better, too. You kind of had me spooked yesterday.”

“Did I?”

“Could you sit for a minute? While I eat, anyway?”

She looked at Sara – who motioned “SIT!” – and she laughed, sat in the chair by his side.

“Damn, this is not half bad,” he said after he took a bite.

“I hope not. I made it.”

He looked at her, thought for a moment, then turned away.

“Doug? What on your mind?”

“You, actually.”

“Me?”

“I finally finished your book a couple weeks ago. Wasn’t quite what I expected, either.”

“Oh?”

“Mississippi? You moved to Mississippi for six months? Lived and worked all that time, in a laundromat?”

“That’s one of the epicenters, Doug. Where it’s bad. Real bad.”

“Yeah, I get that.”

“Have you ever practiced medicine out in the boondocks? Or overseas?”

He shook his head. “I’ve only been outside of LA on vacation, and only a couple of times, at that.”

“Ever thought of going to the front lines? West Africa maybe, or Southeast Asia?”

“No.”

“Do you want to? Did you ever want to?”

“Once,” he sighed. “Yeah, once upon a time I really wanted to do all that.”

“What happened?”

He snorted, turned away. “I got married, then applied for a mortgage and found I had three kids under the Christmas tree one morning. Should I go on?”

“No,” she smiled, “not unless you want to.”

“Everything changed, I guess, after all that. All my hopes and dreams.”

“Everything changed? I wonder…did you change?”

“You’re not, like, a shrink or something, are you?”

She laughed a little. “No, but I could probably use one.”

“Oh?”

“I could never stand to see injustice, social injustice, and just turn away. I’ve always wanted to understand it. Not just how people endure living in an oppressed state, but how other, more fortunate people can look on – then turn away.”

“And, what have you learned?”

“That I’ll never understand humanity.”

He laughed again, then looked at her. “You’re not joking, are you?”

“No. I’m not.”

“So, what’s next? Are you going to write some more?”

“I am.”

“About your walk?”

“Yes, in part.”

“And after that?”

“I don’t know. Learn something useful. Go back to Bhutan.”

“And do what?”

“Build a hospital, maybe.”

“Something really touched your soul out there, didn’t it?”

“Life finally reached into me and took a look around. I think it found me wanting.”

“And how would you fix that?”

“I think I’d learn to listen better.”

“You’re going to hate me for saying this, but I have to. I’m madly in love with you.”

“You’d have to be a little mad to say that, I guess.”

He nodded his head. “I know.”

“Why?”

“I wish I knew. Something to do with moths and flames, I suspect.”

“Or, perhaps, Icarus?

“Or Icarus.”

“Tell me about your wife.”

“She’s, well, she likes to play cards. She likes to shop on Rodeo Drive. She likes her Jaguar.”

“And she’s sexy as hell, too. Isn’t she?”

He nodded his head. “Of course.”

“Oh, how have the mighty fallen. Is that it?”

“No.”

“Of course. She’s what you always wanted.”

“Until I didn’t. Yes.”

“That’s a helluva place to find yourself in.”

She watched him finish his sandwich, and she liked watching him. There was something innocent, almost boyish in his movements, and she smiled when he finished. “Can I get you some more coffee?”

“No, I’ve got appointments in an hour, then rounds. Will you be home around four?”

She nodded her head.

“How much to get square with the house?”

“I’ll get it – this time,” she said, smiling.

“And I’ll get the next one?”

“Sure. If you like.”

“Well. Gotta go.”

“Yup. Seeya.”

She cleaned the table after he left, then walked back to the counter – only to find Sara and Melody waiting for her. Impatiently, it seemed to her.

“Well?” Sara said, leaning on the counter.

“Well what?”

“Who is he?”

“My doctor.”

“He couldn’t take his eyes off you,” Melody said.

“Yup,” Sara added, “he’s got it bad.”

“Jeez,” Linsey sighed, “he’s married, you guys.”

“And did I hear him say,” Melody said, almost giggling, “that he’s madly in love with you?”

“He said that about my book.”

“Uh-huh, sure,” Sara grinned, “like I believe that, too.”

“Can I help with the dishes?”

Sara turned, looked at the clock. “Nah, I got it. Why don’t you head on home, get some rest.”

“I need to go to the grocery store,” Lindsey said, “if you have time to run me over.”

“Why don’t you buy a car?” Melody asked.

“I don’t need the hassle, or the headache,” she said.

“But you need a ride to the grocery store?”

“Never mind.”

“Oh, come on,” Sara said. “I need a few things too. Melody? Can you hold down the fort ‘til I get back?”

“Sure.”

They went out back, to Sara’s Audi, and rode over to Century City in silence. She got a few necessities and a couple bottles of wine – and a bunch of flowers – then they got in the car to drive back to her apartment.

“I know Doug,” Sara said a few minutes into the drive.

“Oh?”

“I know his wife, too.”

Lindsey looked at her friend, wondered where this was going.

“She’s pretty, but a real mercenary. She was a cheerleader, of all things, and sweet as could be. He never knew what hit him.”

“And she just doesn’t understand him, I guess.”

“Oh, no, she understands him alright. My guess is she’d like nothing more than to catch him having an affair, too. But then again, I think she fucks every twenty year old pool man, every tennis instructor, and every plumber she can get her mouth on.”

“What? How do you know all this?”

“Same country club, sweetie. The jungle telegraph doesn’t lie.”

“What about Doug? I don’t really know him.”

“He played linebacker here, All American, played in two Rose Bowls. Went straight to med school, again, here, then did his internship at Columbia, in New York City. Went to Georgetown for his residency, then came home. He’s been on the front lines of the AIDs epidemic, made his name there. Liz Taylor loved him, thought he walked on water. He fights for his patients, and if he doesn’t know something, he finds the answer. He’s kind of famous around here too, in some circles, anyway.”

“What does that mean?”

“Well, he’s not a social animal. He’ll help raise money for charities, but he doesn’t go to the balls, if you know what I mean.”

“His wife doesn’t like that, I guess.”

“Like I said, mercenary. She’s in it for the money, and whatever prestige she can wrangle off him. I’m pretty sure he’s miserable, from the little I’ve heard, anyway. My advice? Be careful, be careful of her.”

Lindsey laughed a little. “No need. I can’t imagine getting involved with anyone at this stage of life?”

“Yeah? Tell me, when was the last time you were involved with anyone?”

Lindsey looked out the window, shrugged her shoulders.

“Yeah,” Sara said. “That’s just about what I thought.”

+++++

She heard the knock on the door a little before five, and she went to the door, let him in.

“Are you cooking,” he asked.

“A little something, in case. I have some wine, if you’d like.”

“I didn’t want you to go out of your way.”

“I was going to fix something for dinner anyway. I made a little extra.”

He went to the sofa and sat, then leaned back and sighed.

“Tough day?”

“Kind of. It’s like the hard cases never end, never stop coming. Like yours. The bugs you had running around in your system were exotic, stuff we never see over here. I was online talking with docs in London ten hours a day, for a week, too, trying to get to the bottom of it. Trouble is, it seems like that’s happening with more frequency now, and with new antibiotic-resistant bugs popping up almost daily, it’s just getting worse.”

“Sara told me you’re like that. Tenacious, I guess.”

“Sara?”

“She owns the Cantata.”

“Oh. Whiteman. Yeah, I’ve seen her at the country club. And what else did Sara have to say?”

“She gave me the rundown. Your wife, what she knows, anyway. And a little about you.”

“Well, hell, you opened the door so it can’t be all that bad.”

She laughed.

“You want to unvarnished version?”

“Sure.”

“She fucked around, a lot. Then she tested positive.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Oh.”

“You’re treating her?”

“Nope. Ethically impossible. We live on opposite sides of the house, her treatment is supervised by a colleague in my department.”

“Your kids?”

“Two in college, one in high school.”

“I mean, do they know?”

He nodded his head. “Yup. We told ‘em a few years ago.”

“What they must have gone through,” she whispered.

“They’re good kids. Better than good, really.”

She looked him in the eye, and she could his honest love for them, feel his concern. “Well, I’ve made a Caesar salad, sliced some apples and cheese, and broiled a little steak. You want to open the wine?”

“You know, that sounds really good…”

When they had finished the dishes and put away the leftovers, he went to the sofa again and stretched out, and before she knew what had happened he was out for the count – on his side and breathing heavily. She went to the closet and covered him with a blanket, then sat in the chair by the sofa and watched him sleep – until she too fell away.

+++++

He came in early the next morning…the man in shorts with the long, waxy scar on his leg…and she watched him as he came to the counter…

“Good morning, Lindsey,” he said when it was his turn. “Howya doin’ this fine day?”

“Good,” she said, “and I’ll be a whole lot better as soon as you tell me your name!”

Yet he seemed hurt by that, and almost looked away. “John Asher? Ring any bells?”

“John!” she said, then she ran out from behind the counter and into his arms. “My God, it looks like you’ve lost a hundred pounds! I can hardly tell it’s you!” She hugged him for all he was worth, her joy genuine, her surprise complete. “Now…what on earth are you doing here?”

Asher had been in the Overseas Bureau at the Times, and might have been considered a world class journalist if not for his comically ironic anti-intellectualism. His book, unmasking the origins of right wing death squads in El Salvador – and America’s hidden role in the assassination of Archbishop Óscar Romero – had garnered his first Pulitzer – yet the paper let him go, claiming that his choice of subject matter was dangerously disingenuous, his investigative methods frequently incendiary and not altogether reliable.

Yet while they were at the Times together they had renewed a relationship that had been killed – and they remained friends until she went ‘undercover’ doing research for her own book. By the time she came back he’d been discharged, and then disappeared – to the Middle East, some said, while others claimed he’d gone to ground in Middle Earth – and was tripping out on magic mushrooms. Still, she remembered him now for what he had always been.

A friend. And more than a friend – from the earliest moments of her life. She remembered Asher – Asher the class clown – yet he had also been the agent-provocateur, the saboteur who taped condoms all over blackboards in the religious studies classroom – just before a local evangelical group was due to arrive for a lecture. Who covered all the toilets with clear plastic wrap – in the faculty restroom – causing a mess of near biblical proportions to wash across the floors. Who flushed waterproof blasting caps down toilets, blowing up pipes and sending tidal flows of raw sewage into first floor classrooms. He’d been an anarchist, and to school administrators, the anti-Christ – yet he was brilliant, and had – at times –an endearing, compassionate soul.

And like Lindsey, he had possessed a passion for exposing injustice, for shining a bright light on the dark underbelly of power. When he taped condoms over chalk-borne words, it was because he wanted to the world to know the preacher was a pedophile. When he covered toilets with clear plastic wrap, he wanted teachers to know he could see the shit they were trying to peddle as truth. And when he filled the school with sewage? Well, perhaps, Lindsey thought, Asher was telling it like it was.

He’d gone on to Columbia, to it’s famed Journalism School, then had come home. He covered the downtown beat for the Times, everything from politics to the struggles faced by the homeless, but he stirred up so much trouble the publisher had him promoted to the national desk. That lasted a year, lasted long enough for the White House to send a note to the publisher asking that Asher be sent to the North Pole, or perhaps Antarctica. So he had ended up in El Salvador, ostensibly to cover the simmering conflict in Nicaragua, then he discovered the conflict between the Salvadoran government and Óscar Romero. He photographed bodies of murdered nuns, and teenaged protesters’ savaged bodies when they were discovered in landfills. Then one night he discovered links between the Salvadoran military and US Special Forces, rivers of dark money siphoned from obscure political organizations in Florida and Delaware being used to pay squads of mercenaries operating in Salvadoran villages. Mercenaries who rounded up protesters in the middle of the night, who drove them to fields and gunned them down. When he photographed a series of massacres, and got them published in the United States, assassins tried, and failed, to take him out. The bureau’s office in San Salvador was firebombed, and reporters from all news organizations fled the region until the government issued assurances they wouldn’t be targeted. And assurances were issued, with one notable exception: Asher was now persona non grata, unwelcome in the region.

By the time his chronicle of Romero’s assassination came out, the Times had had enough. He was trouble, a born troublemaker, and his antics had apparently compromised the paper’s integrity, not to mention reporters’ lives. Then the government applied pressure, and that was that.

He had languished as a freelancer after that, but the 90s were not, in general, a good time for investigative journalists of any ilk. Corporate takeovers reduced the moral integrity of editorial offices, and reportorial skills began to slip away as papers began to focus on delivering content suitable to advertisers, and not to the needs of an informed populace.

And yet, the early 2000s were something else entirely.

The internet happened – and as suddenly came of age – at the end of the Clinton era, and then W, or George W Bush, was selected as President – by judicial coup d’état in Asher’s opinion – and with that moral imperative in mind he launched one of the first independent news journals on the web. Called Veritas, Asher and several like-minded journalistic firebombers now had the venue of their dreams, and in Bush, a subject worthy of their impressive, and impulsive, investigative talents.

And Lindsey watched these developments from the sidelines, often content to look on passively when Asher’s exposés tilted to anarchic narcissism, yet a couple of times she reached out to him, wondered what his motives really were.

“At heart,” he told her once, “I’m a Leninist. I want to weaken the foundations of the state, make truth a subjective commodity, weaken the current reality in the minds of the people – until I can replace it with what’s needed to bring the state down.”

“But…why?”

“Because the state is corrupt. Life in this country is corrupt, it’s been corrupted by greed, by an overwhelming lust for money and power. I’m going to use that greed, use that lust and turn it against the establishment. I’m going to get inside, then I’m going to light the match, start the fire and burn the whole fucking thing to the ground. I’m going to do it because that’s the only way we’ll ever change the course we’re on.”

“Fight evil with evil, then?”

“What’s evil?” he said. “I mean, really, what is it? It’s a word, Lindsey, that’s all. And the only thing that’s ever worked is either pure force or subversion from the inside. War is pointless now, so you have to get inside, subvert from within…and that’s all that’s left now. The state is too powerful, the truth is what the state says it is.”

And he had done just that, too. He was no longer an outsider.

And now, here he was, looking into her eyes – and she looked in his, saw fires raging in his soul, and she wondered what he wanted from her now.

+++++

She was sitting on the monastery wall, her legs dangling over the abyss, and she was watching the sun come to the day through amber clouds below and around the stones and trees. She took a deep breath, looked at her leg and wanted the pain to stop – but the pain reminded her of a lesson she had been slow to grasp. Go slow, take care where you put your feet, and understand the next step you take might be your last. She had found peace in the lesson, too. Move slowly through life, the monk said, understand the world around you, understand the consequences of your actions – and act only when you must.

She had looked at the men living in isolation on this cliff as something of an oddity – at first. Then she realized men had developed systems of religious interpretation around the world, independently of each other, and each had arrived at a similar conclusion: the best way to understand the nature of life and the infinite was to isolate oneself, and the more extreme the isolation the better. Work – and think – in silence, consider the nature of the self, and even the nature of reality, in extreme solitude. Existence, in this framework, became the conceptual basis for introspective self analysis – and the interesting thing is all this started happening around two thousand of years ago, it happened in several places around the world, and it happened almost concurrently.

Why? She wanted to know – why?

She had known that one group of desert fathers had wandered off into the Sinai, another into the scorched lands west of the pyramids, a few even before the time of Christ, and in the monastery she learned that the same impulse had enveloped the peoples of Southeast Asia – and at very nearly the same time.

Why?

Why had a few people separated by impossible distance experienced the same desire for cultural dissolution?

Was it in the nature of some men to question these things, or had something happened, something fundamental to man’s understanding of the world?

The first large cities developed during that era, the first systems of laws were implemented, and nomadic man increasingly became domesticated man. And she thought of Asher that morning as she watched the sun rise, and about his desire to burn the system down.

Was he a desert nomad, a wanderer forced into a life of solitude – forced to turn away from teeming hordes of greedy merchants, forced to endure injustice in the name of their all-consuming lust. Was the choice Asher confronted now just as it had been two thousand years ago – and would that choice endure, as man searched for a way out of the mazes human fallibility imposed? If man is condemned to endure endless failures of the human imagination, would the choice always be to endure or flee? Submit or flee into the desert? Run – from the world of the possible into the world of – what? – oblivion? From the world of cages into a hall of mirrors?

The monk who found her, who helped her climb the mountain and who had tried to set her leg, sat beside her in the sunrise, and she remembered the moment as the most sublimely perfect of her life.

+++++

“So, what have you been up to?” Asher asked.

She shook her head. “Not much.”

“I read about your trip, in the Times. About how ill you were when you got home.”

“Touch and go for a while, or so they told me. How do you like D.C.?”

“It’s getting warm, isn’t it?”

“I suppose you’re happy now?”

“Not quite, but we’re getting there.”

“I thought about you once, in a monastery – of all places.”

“You thought about me?”

“Yes, you. And Lenin, and Ayn Rand.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I thought of a passage in Atlas Shrugged, where Reardon and Taggart are looking out over a ruined industrial landscape, and they look down on destitute workers as vermin to be swept aside when their utility is gone.”

“And that made you think of me?”

“Yes. And isn’t that odd? But then again, I’ve always wondered why you gave in to such an easy hate.”

He grinned. “I told you once before. Hate works. Hate is powerful. Hate is readily molded into an easily exploitable energy. And more than anything else, hate is the truth of human existence.”

“Ah. Well, I’ve seen you in here several times the last week or so. Anything I need to know about?”

“Oh, I just wanted to ask you out. To dinner.”

“When?”

“Tonight?”

“Alright. I get home around two.”

“Could you be ready by four?”

“Of course. I would imagine…”

“Yes, of course, and I’ll pick you up then.”

“I assume you know where I live?”

He grinned.

“I see. Well…”

“Yeah, I’ll see you then,” he said as he picked up his coffee, then he stopped and put sugar in his cup then walked out the door.

“My God,” Sara whispered. “Is that who I think it is?”

She watched Asher walk out to his now-ancient Land Rover, yet she turned away before he drove off.

“Why did you agree to go out with him?”

She turned to her friend and saw the shock in her eyes. “Because,” Lindsey said, “I have to.”

“You have to? I wonder…could you, like, tell me why?”

“No. I don’t think there’s any way I could ever explain.”

Sara shook her head, and wondered why Lindsey always seemed to choose the road to ruin. It was so easy for her, and always had been.

+++++

He knocked on her door a few minutes ‘til four, and she went out rapidly, closed the door behind her. “You still have the Rover, I see.”

“I can’t stand the idea of parting with her, for some reason.”

“So, where’d you want to go.”

“I know a guy with a food truck, makes outrageous tacos. He’s supposed to be down in Venice this evening.”

“Okay. That sounds right.”

And because the terrain they inhabited was a scorched land of hard, barren secrets, she knew the choice was anything but random. For once upon a time, in a land just down the road a few miles, they had come into this world together – in a most unusual, and slightly troublesome way.

+++++

And this troublesome world came to be some forty years before they were born.

At a high school, in Hollywood, California.

When a boy and a girl, not yet fifteen years old, fell in love. They had, for all intents and purposes, been in love since second grade – when they were seven years old, but love wasn’t what they called it.

Ben Asher ran into Sophie Marsalis, literally, one morning during recess, when the entire second grade was out on the playground. Ben was being chased by two neighborhood bullies, running in a blind panic; Sophie and a handful of friends were blowing bubbles, looking up at their creations as they drifted away on a mid-morning breeze. The collision was accidental, unanticipated, and both of them claimed to see stars after. Parents were called, trips to doctors hastily arranged, and both were fine. The next day life resumed where it had left off, only Ben began spending more and more time with Sophie.

No one could explain it, but from that moment on their lives seemed intertwined, like shoots of ivy on an old stone wall, and over time the structure of their lives began to revolve around one simple fact. They were together, and as far as either was concerned they always would be.

And this never changed. Not through grade school, not through junior high school, and not even in high school. What did change did so in their fifteenth year, when Ben openly declared, in Mrs Graham’s Social Studies class, the he loved Sophie, and that he always would. And to the astonishment of his classmates, and we’ll not even mention Mrs Graham’s reaction, Ben produced a ring and asked his Sophie to be his wife.

And not to put too simple a spin on things, Sophie said yes.

And then they kissed one another – which earned them both a quick trip to Mr Spradlin’s office. Mr Spradlin was the vice-principal, and though he was in charge of disciplinary actions, he was a kind-hearted old man; when Mrs Graham frog-marched the star-crossed young lovers into his office he listened to the teacher’s explanation and smiled, then asked if he could sleak to the two of them – “and alone, Mrs Graham, if you please?”

When they were alone in the old man’s office, he looked at them and sighed.

“Ben, do you understand the solemn nature of what you’ve just asked of Sophie?”

“Yessir, I do.”

“Sophie? Anything to say?”

“No, not really. I’ve loved Ben all my life, and I’ll love him ‘til the day I die. And there’s not a whole lot more I think needs to be said.”

And old man Spradlin had looked at the girl’s earnest integrity and nodded his head. “Okay,” he said. “Why don’t you two wait around in here, ‘til the bell rings anyway, then head on to your next class.”

Yet by that point word had spread far and wide – even the librarians were all abuzz with the news – and everywhere they went people whispered behind little sidelong glances. Until one day, a few weeks later, a handful of the school’s bullies tried to taunt Ben Asher about his audacity.

And Ben Asher went ballistic.

And bullies being bullies, they fled in terror after two of Ben’s right jabs connected, breaking one nose and splitting one lip.

And oddly enough, no one ever taunted Ben or Sophie ever again.

They went to dances together, and to the Senior Prom together, yet by that point they were considered by one and all a married couple – even if they were seventeen years old. Classmates, particularly girls in their class, looked at them and sighed, seemed to recognize something ‘Serious’ about them both, something in their eyes that just seemed settled, and committed.

They stayed in West LA, and started UCLA in 1962; Sophie studied economics, while Ben majored in aeronautical engineering, and they planned to marry as soon as they graduated.

Then the president was murdered, and Sophie changed her major to Journalism. Ben began to take his studies more seriously, then enrolled in ROTC. On graduation day he told Sophie he was reporting to a Naval Aviation Induction Center in Beeville, Texas, to begin flight training, and she was as proud of him as she had ever been.

And she was still proud of him when, three years later, Ben’s parents received a telegram from the Secretary of the Navy informing them that their son had been killed over North Vietnam.

Yet this was the swinging sixties, and Sophie had begun to change, if only a little, and when she finished graduate school she took a job with the Washington Post. And she moved away, cutting all ties to her previous life. She met a man, an editor a few years older than herself, not a half year after moving to the East Coast. A man named Prentice Hollister. He seemed in a hurry, indeed almost anxious to marry Sophie, and after a brief courtship they did indeed marry.

And a few months later her parents called. It was a bleak December day, a day full of snow and silent remorse, and then her father told her that Ben was home. His jet had been shot down but he had ejected, then had spent eighteen months evading capture on a wild trek that saw him chased through the western mountains of North Vietnam by NVA regulars, and they kept up their pursuit through Laos and Burma – and into Bhutan. The few remaining Vietnamese soldiers turned back then, but they did so reluctantly.

Desperately ill, he was found by herdsmen, then taken to a monastery, where Bhutanese monks cared for his wounds. In time, they carried him to a UN aid station, and almost two years to the day, two long years after his death, he walked off a Medevac aircraft inbound from Hawaii and fell into his mother’s arms.

+++++

Lindsey remembered Venice. A destitute, ramshackle little village forty years ago, barren, polluted and sickly, now the vibe was trendy, almost punchdrunk. Mature trees adorned her tight little streets, the canals no longer gave off a fetid, oil-soaked stench, and hipsters walked her streets now, usually to marijuana dispensaries but occasionally to one of the endless upscale eateries that popped up or passed away with comical regularity. Bikini-clad roller-skaters were as common a sight as transsexuals sunbathing on the beach – because in Venice the current vibe was ‘anything goes’ – and so it was.

John found a parking place for the Land Rover and they took off on foot – down well-established and long forgotten streets and sidewalks – and they found a covey of food trucks and ordered tacos and giros and bottles of ginger beer before they walked over to the beach. They went to a bench they been to a hundred times before and they sat in time to see the sun slip behind clouds far out to sea.

They tipped their bottles, said an ancient toast – ancient to them, anyway – then they ate in silence, savoring memories they’d made here, together, along the way, then he gathered up their wrappers and bottles and took it down to a rubbish bin. She waited for him, waited for this meeting to begin, while the last of the sun’s heat washed over her, and when he got back to her he draped his windbreaker over her shoulders before he sat.

Then he sighed. A long, labored sigh.

“I’d like you to come to work for me. In D.C.,” he began.

And she looked at him, shook her head. “No.”

“I’m not going to take no for an answer.”

“You’ll have to, I’m afraid.”

He snorted. “Let’s see. Your book netted you a million…”

“I wish.”

“You put that into the house, and you held on to the house for fifteen years. You sold it for two point five, put the proceeds into secure, conservative investment portfolios, and your net worth right now is a little south of five mill. Not bad, considering. Now, will you come to work for me in D.C.?”

She looked at him, a blank expression in her eyes, on her face.

“Well, I’ll take that as a no. So, tomorrow morning the IRS will place holds on all your accounts…”

“And I’ll be on an airplane by then.”

“But Lindsey, your Passport has been revoked.”

She laughed. “Then I’ll start up the Pacific Crest Trail. I’ve always wanted to walk it.”

“Ah, well then, I’ll have the US Marshals concentrate their search for you in that area.”

“It wouldn’t matter.”

“I know, but I had to ask.”

“So…why?”

“Why? Because I still need you – I’ll always need you. You’ve always been my conscience, the bedrock my life was built around.”

“Funny how things turn out sometimes.”

“No. It was never funny, not in the slightest. That was the darkest day of my life, and to me it always will be.”

+++++

They were in school together, from the beginning. Hawthorne Elementary, off Alpine in Beverly Hills. They’d walk home together in autumn, their feet kicking through swirls of golden leaves as they danced along the sidewalks – and her mother, Sophie, baked oatmeal cookies with raisons in them every Saturday morning. By that time, John’s parents lived three blocks away, on Foothill Road – and the Ashers and the Hollisters spent a fair amount of time together.

One of John’s enduring memories of those years was of Lindsey’s mother, Sophie, who seemed to become unusually sad anytime she was near his father, and he never understood why. In some ways they were echoes of other children, too. They seemed unusually close for kids so young, like there was a link as yet undiscovered between the two, yet by the time high school came around, and when they first voiced an interest in dating, they were cut off from one another, then there was talk of sending him away to a boarding school.

And so perhaps it was John was thought things through first. Sophie Hollister, always sad around his father. The persistent rumors that Prentice Hollister liked men. The way his father ignored Sophie, and the tender resentment he saw in his mother’s eye whenever Sophie was around.

He was with his father one Saturday morning, driving to the hardware store, when the question came, out of the blue.

“Dad? Is Lindsey my sister?” he asked.

And his father just looked at him, then said, simply, “Yes.”

And that was all that was ever said about the matter. Lives fluttered and drifted on currents of innuendo and embarrassment, but in truth all that remained between the families over time was silent and dark, like a rough beast that lurked outside, just out of sight.

Though he told Lindsey a few nights later, when they snuck out their houses and met up at a little park north of Sunset Boulevard.

“Yes, of course,” Lindsey said, “I think I knew that.”

“I feel terrible,” he said. “I’ve loved you all my life, and now…”

“John, you’ll love me all your life, because that’s what you were born to do.”

And then they laughed. They laughed because for the very first time in their lives they felt uncomfortable around one another, like the cogs and gears turning the universe had slipped and fallen away, and were now forever out of reach, and they drifted apart, too. Gently, at first, but then more insistently.

No one suspected anything, of course. Just two teenagers who came to a crossroads in the night, and made the only choice they could.

+++++

But uncertain gravities pulled at them from time to time over the years. They called each other when confronted by inconsolable problems, and more than once one leaned on the other’s shoulder when grief beckoned.

Yet when Ben Aster died, for instance, theirs was a common grief, and they came together not as friends-in-need but as brother and sister, and their grief was real, overwhelming and real. Her mother held onto them both at the service with a fierce possessiveness that surprised many of those gathered.

And yet, sitting on this bench, this bench of all the places on the world, was their touchstone, the one place that the universe allowed them to be what they truly wanted to be. Intimate, in a way. A month before their graduation from high school John announced he was taking Lindsey to their senior prom, and when parents squirmed under the weight of too much confusion he asked his father to come with him, for a drive.

And he drove that evening, a subtle change of orientation, perhaps. Drove his father down to Venice Beach, then they walked over to the promenade, the sidewalk along the beach. Sophie and Lindsey were there, waiting for them, on the bench, and for the only time in their lives they acknowledged the truth. In fact, they reveled in the truth. They talked for hours, they they got up and walked along in the evening as a family, as, perhaps, the family they should have been.

“I remember the night,” John said a few minutes into a passing sigh, “when we walked. How they held onto each other. How the truth of the universe came to them in those few hours.”

“The only time I ever saw them together when my mother wasn’t terrified, and lonely.”

“I never liked Prentice,” John said. “There was something…”

“Dishonest, John, is the word. He was a pretender, a chameleon. I never knew where I stood with him…”

“No one did. Do you ever miss him?”

“Not really. I miss watching our parents right here, together.”

Asher nodded. “I miss you. I miss us.”

“I know.”

“We could live nearby, at least. See each more more often.”

“No, we couldn’t. That’s the truth, John, and you know it.”

“It’s not a physical thing, you know. I just feel like half my soul has been cut away…”

“It was, John. That’s always been our truth.”

“Is that why you left, the reason why you went on that little walk?”

“Part of it, yes. But I don’t understand the world, this life – not like I think I should, anyway.”

“And you’re still searching, aren’t you?”

She nodded her head. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. “For saying those things…”

And she took his hand, kissed his fingers then looked into his eyes with a ferocity that shook him to his core: “John, you never need to apologize to me for a thing – not now, not ever.”

“Life is a cruel joke, isn’t it?” he said.

“No, it’s not. It’s anything but. It’s a gift, John. The most precious gift in the universe.”

He nodded his head slowly. “Can you tell me about him?”

“Who?”

“The doc. Has anything happened yet?”

“No.”

“Do you think it will?”

“Yes. Someday. Not yet.”

“Do you love him?”

She nodded her head, and he smiled.

“I thought so. What are you going to do now?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Bhutan,” he said, his voice lost among his fears. “You’re going back, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Soon?”

“I don’t know. There are a few things I need to finish here, but yes, soon enough.”

“Will you ever come back?”

“No.”

A tremble passed between them, a shaking in the universe, and he squeezed her hand. “I’m not sure I can deal with this.”

“I know I can’t, but that’s…”

“Why you have to go.”

“Yes.”

They walked back to the Rover a few minutes later, and as they approached the old beast he stopped and looked at her weathered lines. He drifted back to that day, in those days after he was let go from the Times. He was almost broke, needed a car, and she’d picked him up and driven him around, looking at cars. Then she saw this one and smiled. “It suits you,” she said, then she bought it for him. He drove her up to Westwood, the little Rover an echo of those days, and when he stopped in front of her apartment on Gayley he looked up at the smoggy dome of the night and shook his head.

“Will you at least call me? Before you leave?”

“No. I can’t do that to you.”

“Why do I think this is our goodbye?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it?”

She shrugged. “Who knows what’s waiting out there?”

He turned cold. “It doesn’t matter. I’m going to tear it all down, start all over again.”

She saw him walking down Alpine after school, kicking at swirling leaves – forever – and she smiled, tried not to laugh at the little boy by her side in the Rover.

+++++

She tried not to smile when, in the professorial rush the next morning, she saw the boy with the rucksack come in and sit by the window again. He pulled out her book and put it on the table, then came up and ordered coffee from her, then he went back to his table and sat. Then he picked up the book, looked at the back cover – then at her. He shook his head, but when she called his name and he came up to get his coffee, he looked at her again, slowly this time, carefully now.

“Excuse me,” he said – holding the book up, “but is this you?”

She nodded. “I’m sorry, but yes, it is.”

“Holy crap,” he muttered under his breath.

She sputtered through a happy laugh. “Wow,” she said, still shaking, “I’ve never had such a glowing review.”

“This is one of our textbooks,” he said, “but it’s much more than that.”

“Oh, what’s it like…to you?”

“It’s been, I don’t know, more like a call to arms.”

“Ah.”

“Is that you meant it to be? A manifesto?”

“No,” she sighed, still smiling. “Just a little slice of truth, a voice in the wilderness, perhaps.”

“We have to write a research paper…I was just wondering, could I interview you?”

“Me? Good heavens…why?”

“Why? Are you kidding? You’re called like, I don’t know, the conscience of a generation…”

“Really?” she said, suddenly feeling like she was back in high school – and the principal had caught her reading Lolita behind the gymnasium. “Good God, but that’s silly.”

“So? Could I?”

“I get off at one. Could you come by then?”

“Yes, Ma’am, I sure can.”

“Okay. Now go drink your coffee before it gets cold.”

Sara had ignored her all morning but she came up now. “Seems a little young for you,” she said. “Maybe you should throw this one back.”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

“So how’d last night go?”

“Gently, quietly into that good night, my dear Sara.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“You know, I never understood you. Not back in high school, and certainly not now.”

“Really? You didn’t?”

“You two were so close, then – poof – nothing. Then you show up at the prom together. Now he’s in the White House, he’s mister know it all, then he shows up here all goo-goo eyes – and anyone can tell he’s…”

“No, he’s not, Sara.”

“Yeah, sure – whatever you say. So what happened?”

“We said goodbye.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Well, I guess I’m sorry then.”

+++++

He was waiting outside when she got off at one, and he walked beside up the hill to her apartment, but she walked over to the swimming pool and sat.

“You live here?” he asked nervously.

“Yup.”

“Oh.”

“I’m going to go get some lemonade. Want one?”

“Sure.”

She went inside, changed out of her work clothes and poured two glasses, then went back to the pool. “Here you go,” she said as she put his drink down, then she sat in the shade of a dusty umbrella. “So, fire away?”

“You know, I just want to know about you right now. Where you’re from, that kind of thing?”

“Me? I grew up a few miles from here, went to school and worked here.”

“Were your parents poor?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Isn’t that an inherent contradiction?”

“Why would it be?”

“You’re writing about poverty, and inequality, yet those would seem to be foreign to your upbringing?”

“So? I’m a reporter. A researcher. I look for facts to reveal an undefined truth, not the other way around.”

“How so?” I wasn’t looking to to write something to help define a pre-existing agenda. I was hoping to find a few undiscovered truths out there, maybe employ them to help make sense of what I found. By the way, what’s your name?”

“Pete, but my dad calls me Bud. Could you, too?”

“Call you Bud? Sure.”

“Oh, God. Here he comes.”

“Who? Your father?”

She turned, saw Doug coming through the gate, and she watched him coming up the stairs, then saw recognition in his eyes – when he saw her, and his son.

“Bud? What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Dad. Working on a research paper, I guess. Do you know…”

“Yes, I’m her physician. How are you doing today, Lindsey?”

“Not bad,”she said, trying not to smile at his obvious discomfort. “And you?”

“Mom called. Wants me to look at Dad, I was running up now. You going to be long?” he said to his son.

“I don’t know? Maybe.”

“Well, I’ll be down in a minute. Why don’t we go out to dinner. The three of us.”

Bud looked after his father when he walked away. “Am I missing something?” he said to her.

“Such as?”

“I don’t know. I felt some kind of weird energy between you two.”

“Really? Well, he saved me life. We’ve talked a few times.”

“Has he told you about my mother?”

“Very little. Why?”

“I don’t know. It just seems like our lives have been defined by the wars between them?”

“Wars?”

“Yeah. It’s like she decided, somewhere back in time, that the purpose of her existence was to tear him down. I don’t know why he stuck it out with her.”

“Perhaps love had something to do with it?”

“You know, I doubt it.”

“Maybe he needed someone to tear him down.”

“What? Why? Why would you say that?”

“Maybe she kept him focused on what was most important to him. Medicine. Healing.”

Bud seemed to have trouble absorbing that; he sat back and looked up into the sky, shook his head. “You, like, see into people, don’t you? Like empathy, only deeper.”

“Do I?”

“It comes through in here,” he said, holding up her book, “like in every page.”

“Maybe you’re confusing empathy with insight.”

“No, I don’t think so. Do you like my dad. I mean, like him – that way?”

“I think I could.”

“I see. Are you working on a book now? I mean, working at that coffee shop can’t be your idea of…”

“Fun? Work isn’t about fun, Bud. It’s about self-respect.”

“So, it’s not, like, research?”

She shook her head. “Groceries and rent come to mind as good reasons to work.”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Guess so.”

“You’ll know so, soon enough.”

“Are you working on a book right now?”

She sighed, looked at her hands sitting on her lap, then into his eyes. “I’m not sure yet. Maybe.”

“I kind of hope you do.”

“Interesting times, aren’t they? Why don’t you work on a book?”

“Me?”

“Why not?”

“Because I don’t know squat. I haven’t had any experiences of my own yet.”

“Ah. Well, maybe that ought to be your first priority right about now.”

“It doesn’t feel like the right time…”

“It never feels like the right time.”

“Oh.”

“Yes. I see, said the blind man.”

He nodded, then pinched his brow. “How’d you get sick?”

“I went on a walk.”

“A walk? Where?”

“Started in Shanghai, walked south across China, into Tibet. Then I crossed the eastern Himalaya, walked into Bhutan.”

His eyes went round as saucers. “You did? Why?”

“Oh, in a way I was following in my father’s footsteps. I was trying to escape.”

“Escape? From what?”

“Inevitability.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I. Not yet, anyway.”

“So. You’re going back out there? To keep walking?”

“I don’t know. Maybe – someday.”

They turned and looked at Doug when he came out of the building, and watched his eyes as he sat down in the sun.

“I think Mother needed a little pat on the shoulder,” he said. “How are things going here?”

“Good,” his son said.

“You reading that for Portman’s class?” Doug said, pointing at her book.

“Yes, that’s right.”

“What did you think of it?”

“It’s an anthem generator, a call to arms,” the boy said, looking into his father’s eyes.

“And?”

“And it’s confusing, Dad, the why of things?”

“Oh?”

“Yes, sometimes there’s not clarity until you see things with your own eyes.”

“And what do you see, Bud.”

“You two are in love.”

Lindsey put her lemonade on the table – fearing she she might spill it. “Jumping to conclusions, Bud?”

“I don’t think so. Not from where I’m sitting, anyway.”

“Bud, that’s not appropriate. We haven’t even…”

“Dad, I don’t want to hear it. You know, if you haven’t, well then, shame on you. You’ve denied love all your life, and now, here it is, right in front of you, waiting. And still you’re waiting? For what, I wonder? Maybe so mother can come and tear this apart, right in front of your eyes?”

Father looked at son, friend looked at them both, each lost in the moment.

“So, just when did you get so smart?” Doug asked quietly, looking down at his hands.

“I don’t know, Dad. Maybe you just thought we’re blind, but you know something? We’re not.”

“Doug?” Lindsey said, blissfully now. “Need something to drink? Lemonade perhaps. A little hemlock on the side?”

And the three of them just looked at one another, then laughed.

+++++

She fell into their new routine.

She worked in the morning, then Doug came by in the middle of the afternoon and they talked for a while, before he went up to check on his father, and then, with her little red journals open on the desk she would fire up the Mac and start writing. She wrote about herdsmen and farmers, monks and monasteries, and when she wrote about her father’s desperate walk from North Vietnam to Bhutan she compared some of his observations to her own.

But it all came down to mountains and valleys, the sun rising – and setting. Running from your fellow man, then falling into the arms of good people who were willing to help. Highs and lows, good and evil. She had focused on inequality in her first book, and while she didn’t want to revisit those themes in her writing, she found it an inescapable burden to do so, to turn away now.

Some days Bud knocked on the door, wanted to talk – about this or that – his research paper one day, what she found so mesmerizing about Bhutan the next.

“Mesmerizing?” she said when he asked her that. “Do I appear hypnotized?”

“Sometimes,” he said – almost evasively. “You never appear anxious, but when you talk about that monastery it’s like someone has opened the floodgates, and you’re dancing with Prince Valium.”

“Holy cow…Prince Valium?”

“Oh, sorry. That’s my mom’s weapon of choice.”

“Weapon?”

“How she beats back the world.”

“Ah.”

“I’m curious, how do you beat back the world?”

She looked at him, curious now, about what he was trying to get at. “I’m not sure you can. Why?”

“Can you stop with the Zen riddles for a moment?”

Riddles, she thought. Am I a riddle?

“I can try,” she replied. He seemed despondent one moment, curious the next, but she thought something was different today, some little spark was in his eyes that hadn’t been there the last time she saw him. “What is it you want to say?”

He looked away, lost in his thoughts. “You know, you’re like a statue, maybe a lonely goddess in a cool garden, chiseled of pure white marble. You’re this gorgeous thing, like God started in on you and decided to make you his idea of perfection. When I talk to you I feel myself falling in love with you, and I can’t help it,” he said, his lips trembling. “I can’t help looking at you and feeling the way I do.”

“Then why are you hiding?”

“Hiding?”

“Yes. Your feelings.”

“Because I think it’s wrong.”

“To love someone?”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” she said, “are you’re confusing love with sex?”

“I – what?”

“You feel love, but you feel conflict with the idea, and is that because the idea of sex is bound to your idea of love?”

“No, I don’t think so. I mean, I see you as one set of things – a writer, say, but I look at you and I pretty much want to crawl in the sack and get it on with you, too.”

“Really? Well, good luck with that.”

“I know, but that’s not what I’m trying to get at, so don’t worry.”

“What are you trying to get at, Bud?” She watched his fingers now, fidgeting a little, his eyes not making contact.

“I’m afraid. Afraid of Bhutan. Afraid you’re going to leave one day, and Dad will go with you.”

“That’s an awful lot of fear, don’t you think?”

“No, it’s not hardly enough. My mother’s sicker than hell, and I wonder what will happen to us – if Dad leaves after she dies.”

“I don’t know, but what makes you think he’d leave? For that matter, why do you think I’m leaving?”

“You’ve as much as told me that before, Lindsey. And Dad sure thinks you are.”

“Really? How strange. I’m not sure what I’m having for dinner, let alone moving half way around the world. But it’s curious.”

“Curious?”

“Yes. So much fear over something that isn’t? But, it’s more than just odd, to me, anyway. Like it’s kind of odd that you’d tell me you’d like to take me to bed. Kind of like there are no boundaries any more. Know what I mean?”

“Yeah. I know I shouldn’t have said that…”

“But you did. Why, I wonder?”

“Sometimes I think there just isn’t time for all that anymore.”

“All that? What do you mean?”

“Civility, maybe, or the remnants of decaying social conventions.”

She looked away from his words, yet she had to consider a potential truth in his idea – consider them a partial truth, anyway, perhaps a universal truth, waiting to be explored. And, she thought, maybe, just maybe, such collapses in norms had precipitated the flight of the desert fathers, perhaps been a force that informed the monastic impulse, and she wanted to turn and write – and then it hit her.

Writing wasn’t the same thing as living, just as living in fear isn’t the same thing as being afraid. One is contemplation, the other – experience – so why was he afraid of something so nebulous? Or was he, really?

“I wonder, Bud, has time become so precious? Civility exists to smooth out the rough edges, to help create a little harmony. Is that such a bad thing? Or have we come to that point again?”

“Again?”

“Oh, nothing. Just a thought.”

“Do you know how beautiful you are? I mean, do you ever think about it?”

“What?”

“I’m sorry, but it’s a simple question? Do you?”

“I’m not sure I can answer that, Bud. Physical beauty is not something I’ve ever given a great deal of thought to, in anyone, and especially not when it concerns me.”

“I think that’s what I’m trying to get at, in a round about way. Yet you seem to write about ugliness all the time. Not physical ugliness, but, well, maybe moral ugliness. Do you ever wonder what the results would be if people were bombarded with tales of ugliness day-in and day-out, so much so that they forgot what beauty was? Real beauty, I mean?”

“That’s a good question, Bud. But what is real beauty?”

“I’m not sure I know. I know it’s not necessarily manufactured beauty, the Hollywood formula of beauty, anyway. That kind of beauty is packaged and sold, but then again, maybe the most beautiful sunset in the world isn’t really beautiful after all. It’s here one minute, gone the next.”

“So, beauty must be permanent?”

He shook his head. “Maybe ethereal is a better word? Or otherworldly?”

She heard a knock on the door, saw Doug come in and she wanted to turn away, sigh in relief.

“So, have you two solved all the world’s problems?”

“We were talking about beauty,” Bud said.

“Oh? What about it?”

“I think,” she interjected, “I’m getting hungry. Anyone ready for dinner?”

And Doug looked at his son, then at her, and he saw the relief in her eyes. “Yeah. You know, I am. Bud? You too? Or do you need to get to work on something for school?”

“I need to go to the library, see if something’s back on the shelf, then do some calculus homework. We have an exam on Friday.”

“Okay, Lindsey, I guess you’re stuck with me.

She felt so uneasy she could hardly eat, and he picked up on it almost immediately. “You know, Borderline Personality Disorder is a spectrum disorder, from mild to severe. I think he’s in the middle somewhere, but I’m not sure. He doesn’t understand boundaries, that much I know.”

“No kidding.”

“He crossed a few, did he?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.”

“Jesus. That bad?”

She shook her head. “No, but thanks for telling me. I wasn’t sure what to think.”

“He’s fragile, Lindsey. Always has been. I found out a few years ago there were no boundaries between he and his mother.”

She nodded her head. “I suspected as much. He seems very confused. He also seems afraid you’ll abandon him.”

“Oh? Well, I’m not surprised.”

“Yes. Running off to Bhutan with someone seems high on his list. I would say if you did so after his mother passed, well, he might be in real trouble.”

“I know. But the real trouble, Lindsey, isn’t with Bud.”

“Oh?”

“It’s his sister.”

“She’s the one still in high school?”

He nodded his head. “Yes. Except she’s not. She’s in an in-patient psychiatric hospital, outside of Ojai. Paranoid schizophrenic, and in very bad shape.” He was looking away, trying to keep it together. “Some mistakes we never stop paying for, I guess.”

“Where’s your oldest? Did you say in Boston?”

“Yes. BC. He escaped the worst of it, I think. Madeleine had perfected her technique by the time Sissy came along. Her psychiatrist refers to my wife as ‘that monster’ – if that’s a good indicator of her disposition.”

“I saw a good deal of it in Mississippi. Except there are no mental health facilities when you’re broke.”

“I know.”

“They’re lucky to have you, Doug. Someone to help pick up the pieces.”

“There are no pieces to pick up where Sissy is concerned, Lindsey. She’ll never get better than she is right now, in fact, as she ages she’ll only get worse.”

“Is it that bad?”

“It’s worse.”

“Could I go up with you, when you visit?”

He shook his head slowly. “I’m not sure. I’d have to ask. Fragile doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on with her right now.”

“How about you, Doug? How are you coping?”

He snorted a little, tried to keep his irony in-check. “Me? I write the checks, try to keep the fires from spreading out of control.”

“And your mother calls you about your dad how many times a day?”

He shrugged.

“And now I’m just throwing fuel on the fire, aren’t I? With Bud?”

“I knew it was coming. I should have prepared you.”

“You can’t do everything, Doug. If you try, you might just makes things worse.”

“I probably already have.”

“Knock it off. The self-pity thing doesn’t suit you. Keeping it together, keeping focused helps. Keeping me in the loop might help, too. Letting me pick up some of the load when you don’t feel you can might too.”

“I can’t ask that of you.”

“Okay, so don’t ask. I’m telling you this right now: I’m here, and I’m helping.”

He nodded, turned to look at her eyes. “I wish I wasn’t so in love with you?”

“Oh? Why?”

“Because you have no idea how impossible this all is.”

And she laughed. “Oh, is that right? Listen, one day I’ll tell you all about impossible, but for now, please, stop with all the goddamn self-pity, would you? Really, you’re embarrassing me, so stop acting like a two year old.”

“Yeah. Okay.”

“Good.”

+++++

She began to listen to the people in the coffee shop after that night, to the miseries of affluence, as she began to call it, for she soon understood that the people of West LA were often as miserable as the people in poorest Mississippi, and frequently more so.

But why, she wondered?

She had gone on the assumption, twenty years earlier, that money was the root of inequality, that a certain lack of material affluence was the primary cause of human misery in poorer regions of the country. And clearly it was, in a material sense, anyway, but what she was seeing now was a poverty of the soul, a depreciation of the spirit that had nothing at all to do with material prosperity. So, what she was witnessing was an entirely new, to her, anyway, sort of inequality – and it troubled her.

Clearly, having money helps, she knew. Doug could get high quality mental health care for his daughter, while most people in rural Mississippi didn’t even know what a psychiatrist was. Yet by almost any measure she could think of, Doug, and Doug’s family, was miserable in ways very similar to the desperately poor.

So, she watched and listened, as she had twenty years before. To the customers who came in and out of a coffee shop in West LA, one of the most prosperous enclaves in one of the most prosperous cities in the world. People came into the place and thought nothing of spending five dollars on a cup of coffee – an amount of money that could feed a family in West Africa for a month, or a family in Mississippi for, perhaps, a few days. She began to pay attention to facial expressions and the tone of voice she heard. To expressions of happiness, or anxiety – and even to how people paid for their coffee, and how much they tipped when they left the shop. She took notes in a new journal, and she parsed her observations when she got home, tried to make sense of her day…

She remembered the studies John Calhoun conducted in the late 40s with rats, looking at population pressure and how increasing population affected species survival, and she wondered: could it be as simple as that? Did packing millions of people into cities like LA and New York, or London, Shanghai or Rio de Janeiro cause immense breakdowns in the ability to experience happiness?

And could this be the same as the dissolution that spurred the monastic impulse two thousand years earlier? Was this, instead of being an aberration, more an inevitable component of the human condition? If Hobbesian capitalism lead inexorably to Malthusian population pressures, which seemed to be a common criticism from Descartes to Marx, where was the payoff? Where was the ultimate good? If being poor was bad for the human psyche, where was the payoff if being rich made you equally as miserable, if only in a different way? If the common denominator was money, what was it about modern society that allowed a medium of exchange to exert so much influence over emotional well-being?

She began to read more about experiments in guaranteed minimum incomes being tried in the Netherlands and Sweden, but there just wasn’t enough data yet. She moved on to anthropological studies of almost prehistoric tribes discovered early in the twentieth century, in places like New Guinea and deep within the Amazonian basin, places where mediums of exchange were more primitive than had existed in China and Europe three thousand years ago, but all the data she found was inconclusive at best, more likely too speculative to be of any use.

She began to reread the works of C Wright Mills, particularly his work on the emasculation of the middle class found in White Collar. That book had formed the basis of her early research on inequality, so she turned to it once again, thinking she might find a new way to look at the problem – but no, she was onto something subtly different now.

Maybe the problem was too obvious, she thought, to even be considered a ‘problem’ – maybe the issue she had latched onto was more basic still, simple human nature.

But human nature is far from simple, she chided herself, then she spilled coffee on her hand, dropped a cup to the floor. “Damn!” she muttered as she bent to clean up her mess, and when she stood she saw Bud walking in the door, and an older man who stood by his side across the counter seemed to be with him.

“Hey, Bud,” she said, wiping coffee from her wrist, “haven’t seen you in a while. What can I get you?”

“Oh, the usual,” meaning a two liter high octane jolt. “Lindsey, this is my sociology prof, Dr Portman, and after reading my research paper he wanted to meet you.”

She looked at this man, her friend for so many years, and she tried to gauge his mood. Still, in his bow-tied way, in his round, tortoise shell glasses and chalk-dust-covered jacket, he was even now every bit the harried, ironic academic. “Good to see you,” she smiled slyly – if duplicitously, while holding out her damp hand. “Oh, piffle!” she added, wiping her hand completely before taking his.

“Yes, indeed. So, Peter tells me he interviewed you several times while writing this paper – of his. I wondered if you’d have a moment to talk about some of the issues raised?”

Sara came and took over the counter, told her to go sit and talk for a while, so she took off her apron after she made their coffee, then went out and sat with them at Bud’s favorite table.

And it was funny, because she really wasn’t sure what the thesis of his paper was, only that he’d asked questions and she’d talked with him for hours and hours about her experiences in Mississippi and Bhutan. Beyond that, she was in the dark, and she told Portman just that.

He smiled, told her he understood. “Still, you see, I’ve used your book in class for several years now, and many of my students have, over the years, chosen to focus on that work, but none has ever taken the approach Peter has. He has found his way into the thicket, I think, into an intellectual conundrum, perhaps.”

“Oh? Well, good for him.”

“Yes, precisely. He seems to have stumbled onto something quite unusual, namely that a diffuse cultural dissatisfaction permeates modern life, but this anomie has left breadcrumbs through history, back to the desert fathers in Egypt and the Sinai.”

“Oh, how interesting?” she said, trying to force calm into her voice, yet she noted how intently he peered into her eyes just then.

“Yes, just so, but no need to bother with all that just now. I simply wanted to meet you, and to thank you for your book. It has been like a godsend, in it’s way, over the years, and I wanted to talk with you, later, perhaps, about a few lingering questions I have. So…I wondered if you might have some time?”

“Of course. I get off at one, so if you want drop by then, and if you’d like we can walk up to my place and have tea.”

“Excellent! Would this afternoon work out, by any chance?”

“Yes, certainly.”

“Fine,” he said, turning to Bud. “Well, let’s not keep this young lady from her appointed rounds.”

“I’ll see you later,” she said, looking at Portman, then she walked off – livid – and she was still simmering when he came by at the end of her shift. He slipped in and waited for her while she cleaned up and took off her apron again, then they stepped out into the sun and began walking.

“I assume I should have a talk with young Mister Peterson about plagiarism?” he said straight away.

“Perhaps I should first,” she replied.

“No, from the look in your eye I fear you might strangle him, at the very least, or beat him over the head, perhaps, with a baseball bat. Best let me, I suppose, as anyway, it’s my purview.”

“Alright.”

“A pity, still. I can see he’s been quite engaged by this whole thing. I hate to throw cold water on him now.”

“Perhaps he could rewrite his paper,” she suggested.

“Perhaps. Yes, and perhaps you could review his work before he resubmits it? Just a quick run-through, I think.”

“I’d be happy to.”

“You’ve done well, Lindsey. I’m proud of you.”

“Thank you, Professor.”

“So many come through my door, yet so few rise to the challenge. And fewer still meet expectations. You’ve exceeded mine, by the way.”

“You always exceeded mine too, Professor.”

“Franklin, my dear. After all these years, perhaps you should call me by my given name.”

“Thank you.”

“Now, what’s all this angst about,” he said, as they came to the gate that led to the swimming pool. “Young Peterson has done nothing but show me the way to some deeper concern of yours. What’s troubling you? Is it John again?”

She sighed, looked at her friend and mentor closely, then shook her head. “Shall I fix tea?” she asked. “And sit out here, in the shade?”

“You know, I feel a chill. Perhaps we could sit inside today.”

“Okay.”

They went to her apartment and he sat on the sofa, looked at her desk, then out the window – and she asked him what he’d have.

“Have you any Port about?” he asked.

“You know? I think I do. One finger?”

“Two, I think.”

She poured two glasses and went to the chair by his side, and he took a sip. “Ah, thank you. It’s been a long day.”

“How are you doing?”

“Tired. And I think this will be my last term.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”

“I do wish you had taken my advice, gone for your degree. I’d like to turn the department over to someone I trust, someone who cares about thought as you do.”

“Other roads beckoned.”

“They still do, I see,” he said, looking at her desk. “Are you writing again, at least?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, finally! Hope springs eternal!”

They laughed.

“So, this impulse Peterson refers to, this monastic impulse of the desert fathers? Where are you going with this?”

“Actually, I’m not sure. I thought I was going down the same path as Mills and Weber, but in the end, I think that will lead to a…”

“A paradox. Yes, it will. What is your basic assumption?”

“That societies experience a kind of collective anomie when certain thresholds are crossed. The dictates of Law, the imposition of endless bureaucracies on the routines of life, and the results are the same across time. That much is obvious to anyone, but these times feel different.”

“Yes. They do.”

“But humanity has been here before.”

“Yes. It has.”

“We’re turning inward again.”

“Yes. We are.”

“Mysticism. Irrationalism.”

“The pendulum swings, Lindsey. There’s nothing we can do to stop that, as you well know.” He sighed, took a sip of his port, then leaned back. “There’s nothing finer, you know, than a smooth port on a cool afternoon.”

“A fireplace might be nice.”

“Ah, well, let’s make it a stone fireplace at my home in the Cotswolds. That would be something to experience again. My father and his dogs, by the fireplace. Listening to Winston on the radio, telling us how the Germans had been turned back over Dover.”

“God, what a life you had. The things you experienced, and shared. You opened so many doors, so many minds.”

He pinched away a tear, rubbed his eye. “Did I, indeed?”

“I wish Mary was still with us.”

“I do to. Not a day passes I don’t think of her.”

“What about the Cotswolds? Will you return now?”

“I’ve thought about it, but this is home now. Even now. The fight is here, waiting to be joined, but I feel the night even so.” He sighed, shook his head. “This all started in Bhutan, did it not? This angst of yours?”

“Yes.”

“Your assumptions. When you find a dead end, so you must challenge all your assumptions. And yet, I fear you are looking for answers in all the wrong places, my friend. You always have, you know.”

“Oh?” The look she saw in his eyes troubled her deeply, but she could not turn away.

“The answers you seek will not be found in the musing of dead academics. The way ahead is over there,” he said, pointing at the campus just across the street, “in Bunche Hall.”

“The Buddhists?” she said – incredulously.

“You have been on that path a long time, Lindsey. Even if you walked unawares. And I think it time you come to terms with your father.”

“My father? But he’s…”

“No, he isn’t. Not in here, Lindsey,” he said, pointing to his heart. “In fact, you’ve been following in his footsteps all your life. Your brother has, too, though he’d be the last to admit such a thing.”

She looked at him, wondered where he was going with this.

“It’s such a pity, too. He’s courted ignorance and fear all his life, exploited the weakness of others all his life – even yours – and I fear he’ll never rest until he’s burned the pillars of our world to the ground. And the sad thing, Lindsey, is that he’ll never understand why he did – yet I feel almost certain that when he walks over the rubble the only thing he’ll have left in his heart is a profound sorrow for all the things he killed.

+++++

She walked between the rough juniper and smooth-skinned eucalyptus, the planters along her way full of ivies and discarded political leaflets, and from time to time she looked at wide-eyed students darting between classes, so serious, still so much like she had been. The campus was the same, too, yet different. Everything had seemed new when she first walked along narrow pathways between buildings, but what had been new felt old this morning. Old and almost worn out – like bread past it’s expiration date – and she wondered why this enclosed world felt that way.

Maybe, she thought, school had been a gateway. A means to an end, yet she felt that now the place had become an end – in and of itself. If it had been, thirty years ago, a place to study the world before she moved out seeking experience of her own, she felt that now it had become a safe harbor, a place to run from experience, to study it from afar – without getting hands dirty.

Had life grown so preternaturally – ugly – since Clinton?

She by-passed the Asian Studies building, shook her head and walked up into the sculpture garden beyond; she looked around, found a bench yet passed it by. She looked for just the right spot then sat on the grass – looking at passing clouds, then she lay back and let the sun fall on her face.

A shadow loomed, remained overhead – and she opened her eyes – saw a field of red fluttering in the breeze. A monk, she saw, standing over her, looking down. Then she saw her book in his hand, and she smiled – if only to herself.

“Lindsey?”

“Guilty.”

“Of what?”

“Original sin.”

He laughed. “And along came concupiscence…”

“No…and then came the Stone Temple Pilots,” and then her eyes brightened when she saw her old friend

The monk laughed harder now. “May I sit with you?” he asked a moment later.

“Of course, Tschering,” she said, swinging around to sit up, keeping the sun on her face as she turned to him. “Interesting choice of books,” she sighed.

“Dr Portman called earlier,” he said, seriously, “and told the director you’d be coming. So of course, he asked me to talk with you.”

“Of course. How have you been?”

“Busy, I suppose, would be the charitable way to describe my life here. And you? I heard about your illness, but nothing after.”

“I’ve been recuperating, and writing a little, too.”

“About time.”

“So, you’re going to jump all over my case too?”

“No, I love you too much to do that.”

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded her head gently. “I know.”

“You found the monastery, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“And how was my father?”

She nodded her head, acknowledged the question, but she looked away.

“Ah,” he said. “I understand. How is his health?”

“Good.”

“Did you tell him…about your father?”

“I did. He disappeared after that, was gone for weeks.”

“There’s was an impossible song.”

“Yes. It was.”

“What about you? Do you still sing?”

She smiled, looked at the memory for a moment, then shook her head. “No, the music left me.”

“The recital? Bach, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, The Coffee Cantata. You still remember that night?”

“I will never forget that night.”

“No. I suppose that night will live forever.”

Her father had come that night, her real father, but so had John – her brother, John – and Tschering had looked on as – like an atom fusing in the night – the universe had turned in on itself – pressure building around the room as the music faded – until worlds ruptured and screamed away, dying like the last words of the music…

WIP © 2017 Adrian Leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com

The Coffee Cantata, composed by J S Bach in the 1730s is referenced, but no other persons developed herein are real. ‘The Coffee Cantata’ was also a restaurant located in San Francisco, scenes filmed there show up in the 1968 movie Bullit (Steve McQueen, car chase etc., very cool jazz intro, like a heartbeat that leads into the action), and it is also a coffee shop in SF, not to be missed if you’re in The City – but this story has no relationship to those entities.

Again, this is a work-in-progress.

Well, here it is…unbridled cynicism run amok. Not sure if this is The End or not. Seems to me a story like this could run on for years and years, or die mercifully here and now. Suggestions welcome, appreciated, even.

Tried to keep this short and to the point. Hope you enjoy.

+++++

Predators III

Acheson sat behind the wheel, looked at Genie sitting beside him in the dark, then he flipped on the overhead light, picked up a notepad and began writing. “I need to get packed,” he said as he wrote, “and stop by the pharmacy on the way to the airport.”

“What time’s your flight?” she said as she read his words.

“I have to be in dispatch by nine. Scheduled departure is 10:20.”

He finished writing and handed her the pad, and she read while he started the car and drove up Versailles, then turned on Lomo Alto. At Mockingbird he turned right, and they drove in silence until he stopped at the light at Hillcrest, then he motored slowly through the SMU campus, checking for a tail, before he pulled into the driveway to his little house. He took the pad from her, tore the page from the pad and wadded it up as they walked inside.

He packed his clothes, took an envelope he kept inside a small, wall mounted safe and put it in his flight bag, then he sat beside her for a long time, rubbing her head.

She shook her head after a few minutes, stood and walked over to one of the bedroom windows. “I feel horrible inside,” she said as she looked at lightning dancing across the sky. “Like nothing makes sense anymore. I just want to go away and hide somewhere.”

“Might not be such a bad idea, if you could still look yourself in the eye, anyway. Not sure I’ll be able to, but I’ve had enough for now. I’m not sure this is a war we can win.”

“Nobody ever wins, Ben. Winning is an illusion, an idea politicians sell to get people ready for the next one.”

“You’re turning into a cynic, aren’t you?”

“We had to read this book for our Medical Ethics class,” she said, handing it to him. “It really shook me up.”

He turned the book over in his hand – 12, 20 & 5: A Doctor’s Year in Vietnam – then he read the blurb on the back cover. “Sounds, uh, interesting.”

“Interesting. Yes. It was that.”

“And?”

“I wonder…is it ever go to stop? I mean, what’s the point of all this – if we’re not going to learn?”

He shrugged. “Who knows? What I do know is there’s always going to be somebody out there who wants your stuff, and who’s willing to kill you to get it. Does it really make any difference why?”

“Maybe not.”

“You carried the badge, you know the score. Once upon a time I went on the basic assumption that all people are basically good. I mean, deep down. It took about a year on the street to figure out how stupid that is.”

“Is it? Maybe all people are born good, then maybe life changes us, slowly, little by little, until maybe it sucks the good right out of us. Maybe that’s what’s wrong with us.”

“I don’t even know how to respond to that. How do you explain a Mother Theresa, a Gandhi?”

“Did you ever read any Piaget? Or Kohlberg?”

He shrugged. “My degree was in engineering, remember?”

“You should read up on Lawrence Kohlberg. The stages of moral development.”

“They making you read that stuff, too?”

“Yup.”

“Morality and medicine, huh. Well, there’s an unexpected thought.”

“You’re a philistine!” she said, laughing a little.

He tuned the book over in his hand again. “Mind if I take it with me?”

“No, go ahead. You’ve been warned, though. Might change the way you think. What’d you need at the pharmacy?”

“Some more eyedrops.”

“I’ve got a spare. Want to take mine?”

“You don’t mind?”

“No. You still having trouble?”

“Smog and dry air. Bad combination.”

“Just use the drops, and stop rubbing your eyes. You get nodular episcleritis a few more times and you’ll need to go back to the doc for some real work.”

“Wish I’d taken a nap yesterday.”

“What is it, a seven hour flight?”

“Depends on the jet-stream, but that’s close enough. Usually closer to eight.”

“Where are you staying?”

He shrugged. “Usually out by the airport. Marriott, usually.”

“Makes sense, I guess.”

“You haven’t been yet, have you?”

She shook her head. “No, I haven’t. Can’t imagine why, either.”

“We’ll have more time now. Burning the candle at both ends…isn’t that what you said I was doing?”

“Yup. Maybe we could go – together? Still, I’m not sure…”

“Look, the cop thing is over with now. Time to move on.”

“You think you’ll miss it?”

“Being a cop? Hell yes. Every day.”

“I do, too.”

“You should’ve gone straight to med school, never done the FBI thing.”

“I know. 20-20 hindsight, huh?”

“And I never should have joined the department.”

“Well, the bottom fell out on the airlines, didn’t it. You weren’t the only one laid off.”

“It’ll happen again, you know,” he said. “If this really turns into a full blown civil war, the global economy will tank.”

“I know.”

“Then what?”

“Then we pick up the pieces. I get through school, you go work for the Sanitation Department…”

He chuckled. “I guess I deserve that.” He looked at his watch, shook his head. “I’m going to miss you this time.”

“You’ll be gone, what, three days?”

“Yup.”

She came and they hugged, then he picked up his bags and walked out to his department car, then he drove downtown and parked it in the central lot and hailed a cab for the ride out to the airport.

He got inside the taxi and ignored the man in the back seat by his side while he buckled his seat belt, then he turned and looked at The Duke, who handed him an overstuffed envelope.

“Here’s the contact information, and what little background info I could lay my hands on.”

“Seattle PD?”

“Yeah. Went out on a medical. CID for fifteen or so years. He says their department is completely compromised, the FBI field office out there may be too.”

“What’s Carol think?”

“About?”

“Rutherford.”

“Not much. They’re very compartmentalized, local cells, then regional. The national hierarchy is diffuse. She really doesn’t know the details, and is getting testy when I ask.”

“Think she can infiltrate?”

“Nope. She thinks even making the attempt would expose her. She’s walking a razor’s edge as is, one slip and they’ll know she’s playing both sides against the middle.”

“You wanna get her out?”

Dickinson sighed, then shook his head. “Not yet. I’d like to know what their objectives are locally first.”

Acheson snorted. “I’d say we know that, already. Discredit the political system, expose corrupt officials, then…”

“Yeah, it’s the ‘then’ thing that has me bothered, Ben. What comes next, you know? Yeah, I get the whole ‘discredit’ and ‘expose’ thing, but what’s their end game? And what lengths are these people prepared to go to in order to achieve their goals?”

“Well, they’ve killed over a thousand people in the last two days…”

“Exactly. So, what’s next?”

“Who’s next might be the better question.” Acheson added.

“You ever wonder why so many of people in government have such serious kinks? Why so many kids have been a part of this?”

Acheson shook his head. “I’m no expert, but the whole BDSM thing is about consensual control, isn’t it? With control the operative principle? And the pedophile angle? That’s got to be about exercising power over someone completely, well, powerless hardly describes a kid.”

“What you said, the whole ‘manor’ thing, the medieval feudalism angle? What do you make of that?”

“Well, feudal power rested within an uneasy alliance between lorded aristocrats and the church. That’s beginning to resemble our modern world again, isn’t it? A vested political elite appealing to an evangelical class – which itself wants greater access to power and money – in order to solidify their own hold on power. It’s a symbiotic relationship, Duke. They’re feeding off one another, until one gains momentary supremacy, anyway, then there’s a renewed power struggle after a new hierarchy emerges, until the other can maneuver into a position of supremacy again.”

“Dominance games?”

Acheson laughed at that. “All world history deconstructed into dominance games. With the emerging sexual undertones we’re finding each day, that may not be too far off.”

“Simple way to end that world would be to cut off all the balls. Get rid of testosterone as the fuel driving the motor of civilization.”

“Or…get rid of all men in positions of political power.” Acheson and The Duke looked at one another, then both shook their heads and laughed.

“No way,” they said in unison. “Not gonna happen.”

+++++

He had a new First Officer that morning, and she was already in the cockpit when he walked in the cockpit. He took off his jacket and hung it in the sliver-like closet by the door, then turned to stow his flight bag – but she was up, her hand out, waiting for him.

“Sandy Beecham,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve flown together before.”

“Ben Acheson,” he said, taking her hand – while thinking ‘My, that was fast.’ “No, I don’t think we have. Ready to take a walk?”

“Yup,” she said, gathering up her raincoat.

I would be at least another 45 minutes before pre-boarding began, but it was still raining out so he slipped his rain jacket on too. They walked out through the galley to the stairs off the Jetway, then out into the storm. He looked up at the clouds once he was on the wet concrete, low-scudding and whipping across the sky, driven by a north wind, then he walked to the left wing while Beecham took off for the right. He checked tread depths on tires, talked to the ground chief about the turn-around report and what had been finished – and the squawks that remained on the 777s ‘down’ list – then he signed the fuel load-out and finished his walk-around, meeting up with Beecham under the tail.

“Look good?” he asked.

She nodded her head. “Hardly anyone onboard today,” she added. “Five in First, three in Business, and fifteen in coach.”

He shook his head again, wondered how long the airlines could keep this up. So much uncertainty, and coming on so quickly, had undermined international commerce, and once again consumer confidence had fallen through the floor. With fuel prices spiking, this 777 needed 70 percent of her seats filled just to break even, and today’s load was nowhere near that. He was a captain now, but he was low on the seniority list and that familiar worrying sensation came back again.

“You ready to head up?” she asked, but she was watching him closely now.

“Hmm. Oh, yes, let’s go.”

“You alright?”

“I was just thinking, about the last time. In 2008, with the crash. How fast the lay-offs came…”

“Me too,” she said. “I was at Northwest, had just started in A320s then the boom fell.”

“Too much uncertainty out there right now. Things are getting spooky.”

They started walking back to the Jetway, both lost in thought, and they slipped into the cockpit and took their seats quietly. But the routine was the same, and they fell back into the familiar: they pulled out checklists and began waking the bird up, getting ready like today was just another day.

But of course it wasn’t.

“Someone told me you work with the Police Department, in Dallas.”

“I did,” he lied. “I quit recently. Too much on my plate.”

She nodded her head. “Got to be confusing. You look tired. Get much sleep last night?”

“You know, I had trouble falling asleep. All this stuff on the news I guess,” but he found himself thinking of Genie – and that book about the doctor in Vietnam. He wanted to go aft, find a quiet seat by a fireplace and read for a while, but he shook himself back into the present…

“You married,” she asked.

He turned and looked at her, pointed at the ceiling – the universal sign that the cockpit voice recorder was on – and he began calling out the pre-start checklist. It was all business now, and thirty minutes later the Trip-7 was pushing back from the gate.

“American 48 heavy, clear to taxi,” the tower said, “on K to 1-7 Right, DALLAS FOUR departure approved. Winds out of the south now, 1-6-6 degrees at four knots, ceiling 2500, visibility five miles, altimeter two niner niner one.”

He watched as the push-back cart disengaged, then reached up and turned on the wipers as Beecham began starting two. The ground chief standing in the rain below got on the intercom: “Okay, double checks on baggage holds complete, all doors show red-locked. You’re ready to go, Captain.”

“Thanks, Chief,” Acheson said, and when the man was clear he advanced the throttles and cleared the brakes, then began the short taxi out to the runway.

“Pre-takeoff checklist complete,” Beecham said as he slowed at EK, then a powerful gust shook the aircraft. “That’s out of the north,” he said, then he called the tower. “Uh, 48 Heavy, can you advise wind speed and direction, please.”

“Uh, 48 Heavy, winds now out of the north at 2-5 knots. Standby one.”

“48, standing by.”

“Uh, 48 Heavy, take off runway 3-5 Left, BLECO SEVEN departure now active, winds now 0-1-0 degrees at 2-7 knots, altimeter two niner niner four.”

“3-5 Left and BLECO SEVEN, 48 Heavy.”

“Look at those clouds,” Beecham said, and looked left, to the north. The clouds were almost black, and he thought he could see a wall cloud off to the left.

“Uh, 4-8 Heavy, you got anything on doppler to the north northwest?”

“4-8, heavy precip, no hooks.”

“I think I see a wall cloud from up here. Might keep an eye out.”

“Uh, tower, Delta 224, we just went through and it’s a screamer, picked up some hail and a lot of chop.”

Acheson listened as the tower advised all aircraft in the pattern of the storm, and they taxied south for the new runway; he re-entered the new departure information on his FMC, or flight management computer, and he watched as his display changed, as new waypoints and steering commands appeared on his display. An American Eagle RJ pulled onto the runway and roared by, then he stopped at the holding area and double checked power settings and climb angles entered in the computer.

“4-8 Heavy, taxi to position and hold.”

“Heavy.” He released the brakes, turned onto the runway and lined up on the centerline, applied the brakes and waited. He peered into the sky a little off to the left. “I don’t like this,” he sighed.

“What?”

“That cloud.” He keyed the mic again: “4-8 Heavy, any update on this storm?”

“Still heavy rain, no hooks. Uh, Heavy, you are clear for take off.”

“4-8 rolling,” he said as he advanced the throttles. He scanned the engines then began looking at the storm…

“80 knots,” Beecham called out, then V-one…and…rotate…”

He pulled back on the stick…

“Tower to all aircraft…tornado on the ground one mile north of 3-6 Right, repeat, tornado on the ground. The pattern is closed, the airport is closed!”

He looked to the left and saw the rope twisting in the sky and turned right. “Go to full take off power. Positive rate…”

“Gear coming up. Where is it?”

“Right fucking there,” he said – as the skies opened up. They flew into an impossibly thick hail storm, then the right wing dipped, and dipped. He didn’t fight it, turned right with the gust. “Uh, tower, 4-8, heavy hail, we’re turning right to 0-2-0 degrees.”

“0-2-0 approved, contact departure on 1-2-5-decimal-1-2. Good day.”

“48, bye.” He switched frequencies. “American 4-8 Heavy, out of 3-5 Left for BLECO, we’re deviating around this funnel cloud, on 0-2-0 right now. What’s it look like out there?”

“4-8 Heavy, resume 0-0-4 degrees as soon as possible, direct to YUNGG at 7000 approved. Storm is now at your eight o’clock, four miles. Do you have any damage?”

“Nothing showing right now.”

“Okay, 4-8, only traffic now a Delta MD80 at your ten, eight miles, he’ll be turning ahead of you, about two thousand over.”

“4-8, got it. Where are the tops right now?”

“Solid to flight level 2-4-0.”

“4-8, okay.” He shook his head, scanned the engines again – looking for any sign hail ingestion had damaged a fan blade, but everything looks good. “Let’s clean the wing,” he said as he turned to the originally programmed course.

“Flaps and slats up.”

“Well, that was fun,” he said.

“You mind if I go change my underwear now?”

He laughed, turned on the intercom: “Uh, ladies and gentlemen, for those of you on the left side of the aircraft, yes, that was a tornado. Sorry, that thing came out of nowhere and we had to make a few abrupt turns, but we’re on time and it looks like we’ll be in Gay Par-ee a little after midnight local time. No more bad weather on the radar, so as soon as we reach our cruising altitude the crew will be around to serve lunch. We’ll keep the seatbelt signs lit until we’re out of this cloud, so sit tight and enjoy the ride.” He flipped off the intercom, but the chief flight attendant called as soon as he did.

“Uh, Captain, it’s like floor to ceiling barf back here. Carpets, walls, you name it.”

“Was it that bad?”

“You have no idea. Half the overhead bins popped, one woman didn’t have her seatbelt latched properly.”

“Is she hurt?”

“Don’t think so, maybe a few bruises.”

“Okay. Keep me posted.” He looked at the FMC and watched it make the turn at YUNGG.

“4-8 Heavy, clear to flight level 2-7-0, contact Oklahoma Center 1-2-4-decimal-1 and good day.”

“4-8, bye.” He turned to Beecham as he changed COMMs. “Go back and take a look around. See if this bird needs a look see in Tulsa. Check on the folks, wave the flag.”

“Right.” She got up to leave and he put his mask on, and after she left he sealed the door again. Such a visit was now very unusual, but he felt it warranted under the circumstances. She chimed a few minutes later, and he picked up the intercom.

“Nothing bad,” she said, “but I think the ground crew at CDG ought to be warned. Maybe a few seats need to changed out, that kind of thing.”

“The injured woman?”

“There’s a doc onboard. He says it’s no biggie.”

“Okay. Codeword?”

“Pink-two.”

“Opening now.” He unsealed the door and Beecham came in, double locked the door then sat down. She handed him a sandwich and a Coke, then buckled up.

“What is it today?”

“They had pink sludge, and green. This is the pink.”

“Okay. But what is it?”

“Supposed to be roast beef on rye.”

“It’s oozing. I’ve never seen roast beef ooze before.”

She unwrapped her’s and took a tentative sniff.

“Goddamn, I can smell it from here,” he said, and they both tossed them in the trash.

“I brought a couple of granola bars,” she added.

“I think I’ll wait. There might be some good food left in Paris.”

“Not a three in the morning.”

“Good point,” he said as he took the offered granola bar from her. ‘Well,’ he thought, ‘is she one of them? Is she going to try to kill me here? Now? Can I not trust any woman, ever again?’ He sighed, tore open the mylar wrapping and started in on it. ‘Can’t live that way. Not sure I’d want to live that way…’ then, for some reason, he thought of a play he’d had to read back in high school. A Greek comedy, wasn’t it? About women in the Peloponnesian War? Who joined together, stopped having sex so men would stop making war? What the hell was the name of that?

“Lysistrata!” he shouted.

“What?”

“Oh, I was just thinking,” he said, but he saw the look she gave him just then. A little sidelong glance, a look full of suspicion. Then he settled in for the flight, centered his thinking and time passed.

“Do you think they’re serving real food in First today?” he said a while later.

“You hungry?”

“I am. Skipped breakfast, can’t even remember what we did for dinner.”

“So, you’re not married?” she said, ignoring his earlier warning about the CVR.

He sighed. “Not technically, but I might as well be. Genie. She’s in med school at Southwestern.”

Beecham laughed. “That’s too much.”

“Oh?”

“My husband was in med school; he started his internship and filed for divorce the same day. I paid the bills while he was having an affair – with a goddamn nurse, too!”

“Sorry. What do you think happened?”

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, it’s just the cop in me, I guess, but marriages rarely fail due to just one person’s issues. It’s more like a group effort.”

She leaned back, sighed…

“4-8 Heavy, Toronto Center, clear to flight level 4-1-0.”

“4-8 to 4-1,” he said as he leaned forward and made the change on the AP panel, then initiated the climb.

“I never looked at it that way,” she added.

“You know, you’ll burn up inside if you can’t put yourself in the other fellas shoes every now and then.”

“I know.”

And he chuckled.

“What’s that for?”

“Oh, every time I hear someone say ‘I know’ I think that’s the last thing on their mind. ‘I know’ is a deflection, a statement used to turn away from an uncomfortable truth.”

“You study psychology, too?”

“Engineering.”

“Okay. Now I’m confused.”

“Oh?”

“I thought engineers were anal retentive types, all numbers and slide-rules and shit like that.”

“Did you say slide-rules? How old are you?”

“Thirty-two.”

“Air Force?”

“Navy.”

“Oh, that explains it.”

“What?”

“Oh, Navy pukes still use slide-rules and have wind-up rubber bands in their engines.”

She laughed. “Don’t tell me. Air Farce.”

“Up in the air, Junior Bird Man,” he sang. “So. What was your contribution?”

Beecham looked out the windshield for a while, then she turned to him. “Mind if I turn off the CVR for a few minutes?”

“Oh. I don’t know,” he said as he nodded.

She reached to the back panel of the overhead panel and flipped the breaker, then shook her head. “He wanted sex, like all the time. I mean, like whenever we were together, and after a while it became mechanical, no love at all. He wouldn’t kiss me, or even say anything to me during. He just wanted to get his rocks off, and I began to feel like I was his plaything, his personal vagina, just someplace to shoot his load.” She looked away, and he saw she was upset.

“That sounds lonely,” he said.

“Yeah, it was.”

“So, you were upset when the divorce came?”

“Yeah,” she said, but she was crying a little now.

Time to get back on the clock, he said to himself. “We’ll finish this up later,” he said. “Turn on the recorder.”

“Yessir.”

The sun was setting now, and he saw stars popping out ahead, and an endless layer of low cloud stretched ahead.

“I never get tired of the view up here,” she sighed.

“Me too. It’s magic.”

“You know where we’re staying?”

“The Marriott.”

“At the airport?”

“Yup.” He noticed she hadn’t turned on the recorder yet, and he looked at her, wondered what was going on in her head. “The recorder?” he reminded her.

“Oh, right.” But still she didn’t move. “Is everything okay between you and – Genie?”

“Yup.”

“I haven’t been with anyone in a while.”

“A while?”

“Three years, and change.”

“Jeez.”

“I don’t suppose you’d care to help me out with that, would you?”

He looked at her, looked at her looking down at her hands, trembling a little – like a little girl. “You know, if you need a shoulder, or someone to talk to, yeah. I’ll be right there.”

She nodded her head, sighed. “Okay,” she whispered, then she turned around and flipped on the CVR. “Thanks,” she said.

The rest of the flight passed uneventfully, and they landed in Paris a little before two in the morning. Ah hour later they checked into the Marriott; he went up to his room and watched Beecham walk into the room next to his, then after he dumped his bags he called Genie.

“How’d it go?”

“Rough.”

“I heard about the tornado. Were you near it?”

“We were in it, real close, as it turned out.”

“In the air?”

“Maybe a few hundred yards. Close, in other words.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

“How was school?”

“Oh, you know. The same. I saw Carol this evening.”

He was instantly on guard now. “Oh, how is she?”

“Uh, she seemed fine.” Which was Genie’s way of saying she had been anything but.

“Hear from The Duke?”

“Yep, he came over a while ago.”

“Oh?”

“Right after Carol left.”

“Oh?”

“It’s complicated.”

“Okay.”

“What time do you get in Friday?”

“Around 3:30.”

“Want me to pick you up?”

“Could you?”

“Sure.”

“That’d be great.”

“Okay, see you then.”

“Thanks, Genie. I love you…”

But she had already rung off. He put the phone down and looked at it for a while, then lay down and turned out the lights.

+++++

He slept in, woke up around noon and saw his message light flashing on the house phone. He dialed the message line and listened.

“Hey, Captain Sleepy-head. Call my room when you get this?”

He trudged to the head and showered, brushed his teeth, then went back to the desk and called her room.

“You weren’t kidding,” Beecham said.

“What?”

“That you didn’t sleep the night before. You were a zombie in the crew shuttle; Bruce thought you were going to pass out.”

“I feel like I could use another few hours.”

“I went into the city, bought a few things.”

“Oh? How were the crowds?”

“None. Even the Chinese are gone.”

“Damn.”

“I know. Say, you want a back rub?”

“No, I’m good.”

“Could you give me a few minutes. I want to try something on, and I need your opinion.”

“Yeah. Sure.”

“Thanks. Give me five minutes, and my door’s unlocked.”

He looked at the adjoining doors, and he went over and moved the little baggage rack out of the way, then put on some khakis and a polo shirt. He looked at himself in the mirror, looked at the redness in his eyes and shook his head, then went and opened the door.

All the lights in her room were off, the curtains drawn.

“I’m in the bathroom,” she said. “Be right out.”

He went in, sat in a chair by the window and sighed, then the bathroom light went out and she walked into the room.

She was dressed in black – black lingerie, stockings and heels, and she walked across the room, right up to him.

“What do you think?” she said. “You like the way this stuff looks?”

“You know, I think I need to go now,” he said, trying to stand. But she stepped closer still and blocked his way, pushed him down into the chair. “Look, I’m serious…”

“So am I, Ben. I need you. Oh, God, how I need to feel you right now. I need to feel you inside of me, need to feel your cum inside of me.”

“I, uh…”

“Please don’t say no, Ben. Don’t do this to me, not now.” She pulled his face forward, until the side of his face rested on her panties and garters, and she pushed and gyrated against his skin until she felt his resolve softening. When his hands went around her thighs she smiled inside…

The camera had a hard time focusing in such low light, but the operator adjusted the gain a little, then began recording.

II

It’s hard to say when we jelled as a crew. The three of us, I mean.

Leaving Puget Sound on a sunny winter morning, headed outside together for only our second time together. Past Victoria, past where we had our little epiphany – with the Beretta and the Great White. Turning south at Tatoosh, running down the coast for days, sailing past the nightmarish Columbia River bar for the easier pass at Coos Bay. Cross the bar, sail under McCullough Bridge into the back bay, tie up at the little marina back near the flats. Pump out the holding tanks, fill up with diesel and spend the night after a quick dinner ashore, then back out into the Pacific.

We kept close enough to the coast to keep cell coverage, and about half way down to San Francisco I watched news reports flood in about bombings in Dallas and Maryland while I sat behind the wheel. Persephone was with me when I started swearing.

“Woodie?” she said. “What is it?”

I handed her the phone.

“Oh, no.”

“I think it’s started,” I sighed. You know, there’s something heartbreaking about a cute girl saying ‘Oh, no.’ Like watching a little girl on her first bicycle ride falling down and scraping her knee, there’s a helplessness inside the moment. Maybe a little inevitability, too, but that’s not the point. I looked at my golden girl, the sudden pout on her lips, in her eyes – and I just wanted to hold her close.

Then the phone chirped and I looked at the screen. “Chief Anders,” I said as I took the call. “Yo. Chief.”

“Where are you?”

“Coming up on Point Arena, not quite ten miles offshore.”

“You see the stuff about Dallas?”

“Yessir.”

“This is it, isn’t it?”

“Opening move, my guess, anyway.”

“How far are you from San Francisco?”

“About a hundred and ten miles from the Golden Gate. Call it tomorrow afternoon, late.”

“Fuck. Why couldn’t you buy a goddamn motor boat. I can walk faster than that festering turd.”

“What’s up, Chief.”

“There’s a Coast Guard facility, on the east side of Treasure Island. Call them on 72, then follow their instructions.”

“Chief? You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“Roger that.”

“Let me know if you need anything.”

“We’re running low on condoms, Chief. Think you could…”

“Woody?”

“Yes, Chief?”

“Fuck you, Woody.”

“Thank you, Chief.”

The line went dead, and Sephie just looked at me, scowling.

“What is it, baby.”

“We’re not low on condoms, Woody? I didn’t even think we were using condoms anymore.”

Ah, that’s my Persephone. Did I mention…well, yes, I’m sure I did. She’s a natural blond, through and through, and I love her more than life itself.

+++++

“Sailing Vessel Black Dog calling Coast Guard on 72.”

“Black Dog, Coast Guard, what’s your location?”

“Just coming up on the west span.”

“Roger that.”

And that was, indeed, that.

Then I saw an aluminum CG 44 footer cutting through the bay, headed right for us, and the little ship turned wide and came up on us from the rear. I held a steady course while it came alongside, and I saw a lieutenant come to the rail as they slowed and matched speed.

“You Woodward,” the lieutenant said, his eyes focused like twin lasers on Sephie’s chest.

“I am. And this is Persephone,” I said, as graciously as I could, “And this is Liza.”

“Yes they are,” he stumbled, his eyes still locked on Sephie cleavage. “You need to follow me, sir, and we’ll help you get tied up.”

I had to laugh. He’d never run across two girls more adept at tying things up than these two. So, if he only knew, right?

+++++

Once we were tied up the lieutenant led me to an administrative building, and Anders was inside, laptop on desk reading something intently. Tate stood in a far corner, looking out the window. He looked at me and gave a quick nod, and I did the same.

“Sit down, Woodie,” Anders said absently, yet his eyes never left the screen. I watched him for a few minutes, then he closed the screen and turned to Richard. “Tate? Take a seat.”

“Okay.”

“You been keeping up with all this?” Anders asked, looking at me.

“There’s been more?”

He nodded his head. “About ten strikes so far. Another in Dallas, a few on the east coast, a few out here.”

“And?”

“They’re targeting politicians, compromised politicians and people in…”

“Let me guess. Corrupt judges, lawyers, cops?”

“Among others, yes. The press, broadcast reporters, and some pervs, too.”

“And what’s this got to do with me?”

“When Tottenham took out that girl…”

“MJ?”

“Yes, the Kopecki girl. Seems she was head of the local branch of, well, you remember reading that intel report on the stuff going on down in Dallas?”

“Some women, wasn’t it? Targeting pedophiles?”

“Uh, yeah. Well, they were dressed as Ninja.”

And I remembered MJs girls up in the cockpit, dressed in black, like Ninja. “So, MJs girls and Tottenham’s group weren’t together?” I asked quietly, if only to myself.

“Nope. Brennan thinks Kopecki’s Ninja group infiltrated the Tottenham’s ‘whips and chains’ crowd, seemed to integrate with them, and I emphasize the word ‘seemed,’ but now the Ninjas are taking them out – and it’s a nationwide effort, with all that implies.”

“So, these two groups are everywhere, and a war between them is breaking out?”

Tate nodded, cleared his throat. “My guess is when Tottenham took out Kopecki he started a war, and while the moves we’ve seen so far are overt, and very public attacks, a bunch of the Kinks have turned up dead, sometimes in their homes, in their cars, but not in an overt manner.” He tossed some photos on the table and I picked them up, flipped through a couple. Slit throats, bullets in the face, the usual.

So our immediate concern was this,” Anders interjected. “These two girls of yours were in deep, up to their eyeballs in that kink group, and those people are disappearing like snowballs in the Sahara right now.”

I nodded my head. “Yessir. I see where this is going.”

“Okay. Second concern. They’re either taking out cops directly, or compromising us. Blackmail, set ups and blackmail. There’s a Captain in CID down in Dallas. Dickinson’s his name, and he led the investigation last summer. He’s compromised, or so he says, but his lead on the case, a kid named Acheson, isn’t. The thing is, he’s a reserve. His day job is with American, flies for a living. He’s on his way to Paris as we speak. And you’re leaving at nine tonight.”

“Sir?”

“For Paris. I want you to compare notes, and Tate has a few toys he’d like you to try out. He’ll be with you, but I want you to get this Acheson fella up to speed on things going on out here, the structure we know about…”

“Chief, you can’t expect me to leave the girls here?”

“Safest place for them right now is at sea, next safest place is tied up right here. For now, anyway. Brennan wants to take them and put them in Witness Protection.”

“Jesus.”

“Except he thinks the Marshall’s are compromised too.”

“Oh, now that’s just fuckin’ great. Tell me, Chief. What have they got on you?”

And I could see it in his eyes, before he turned away. “Yeah, don’t ask, Woody. I’m going to go down in flames, and soon. They got me with a hooker a few months ago.”

“Marie doesn’t know?”

“Nope.”

“Why don’t you just tell her. Apologize like hell, get down on your knees and beg for her forgiveness.”

He almost laughed. “What if she’s one of them, Woodie.”

I didn’t know what to say. “You’re thinking that’s possible?”

He nodded his head. “They’ll crucify me on TV, and within days I’ll be gone.”

“You know, I think this is going to be impossible to stop. Whatever it is they’re doing, they’ve been planning it for years, quietly moving assets into place, and they’re not constrained by the norms of typical political debate. They’re going to take out their enemies, violently – publicly, then, after compromising the ethics of the standing elite, they’ll just move in to fill the vacuum.”

“Yup. The Romans did it that way a few times, and it worked for them, I guess. Quick, bloody coups work. That’s the lesson.”

“So, we’re Rome now?”

He snorted. “Hell, we’re just people, Woodie. People arrive at similar solutions to similar problems.”

“And we create the same problems, over and over again, don’t we?”

“Maybe so. Whatever, someone else made that call. We either fight them now, or we roll over and play dead.”

“I think I should get on my goddamn boat and get the fuck out of Dodge.”

“I do too. I would if I could.”

“Then why? Why ask me to do this?”

“Maybe there’s a chance you and Tate can figure something out.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. A group with thousands of people spread throughout government, with several years head start, and that’s killing with impunity? What am I supposed to figure out, Chief?”

“Look at it this way, Woodward. We’re in the beginning stages of a civil war. The president and the Joint Chiefs are looking at it this way, too. The next step is to find the snake and cut off it’s head.”

“What if there’s more than one snake?”

“Then they’re going to start killing all the snakes.”

“What?”

“You heard me. It kind of gives a whole new meaning to Gender Wars, doesn’t it? Round up suspected women, everywhere, and kill them.”

“This is seriously being considered?”

“The pieces are being moved on the board as we speak.” He looked at me, then at Tate.

“And pawns will be sacrificed,” I sighed, “won’t they?”

“Yes, Woodie, pawns will be sacrificed.”

+++++

I gave the girls the rundown and they took the news about as expected: Sephie went into full meltdown mode and Liza went aft and helped me pack, then she started packing a bag too. Tate looked at her, then at me – shaking his head.

“What are you doing?”

“We’re coming with you. And don’t even think of arguing with me, either of you.” When she was packed, she went forward and got Persephone. “Where’s your Passport?” she asked, and they went went to my safe and got them just as I felt else someone hop onboard.

“Woodie?” I heard Anders say from the cockpit.

“Yes, Chief?”

“How’s your heart?”

I shrugged.

“Would it be better if these girls went with you?”

“Probably.”

“Well, get ‘em packed up, then we’ll make a run for the airport.”

“Yes, Chief.” He threw me a wallet, and I opened it – then looked up at him.

“I know. Kind of funny, but Brennan insisted, and who knows, it may come in handy. Anyway, if anyone asks you’re the AD of their SeaTac field office, tasked with counter-terrorism operations. And you’re authorized to carry this,” he said, handing me a Sig P-220, “everywhere. Even on the goddamn airplane.”

Liza was looking at all this go down, then she came up from behind and put her arms around me. “Come on, sweet-cheeks,” she said. “It’s time to go save the world.”

+++++

We flew over on Air France, in one of those A380 double deckers, and the changes were obvious, and unsettling.

In the airport, very few women seen, not even behind the counters. On the aircraft, the same story: all the flight attendants were male, and only a few passengers were female – and those were Muslim. Not that it mattered; on an airplane designed to haul over 500 people, there were less that fifty on board, and it didn’t matter what class you were in, everyone got the same chow. Factory made sandwiches, all beverages either canned or poured from a sealed bottle. Paranoia run amok, I think, and to me it felt like the initial conclusions had been assimilated by leaders in Washington D.C. and then passed on to world leaders: a cabal of women is behind these attacks, and they are intent on taking over the country, maybe even the world. Was Anders mimicking a greater breathless hysteria, or was something really so formidably drastic taking shape all around us?

The four of us sat together on the upper deck, and there was a television show playing while we boarded, a French production, the dialogue translated as text, streaming along the bottom of the screen. Women all across Europe were not showing up at their jobs, men were reporting that wives and girlfriends had simply stopped having sex with them, then a reporter in Tokyo was onscreen, saying much the same thing. In Brazil? The same. Cape Town? Ditto. From Amsterdam to Zimbabwe, women were disengaging from civic life, and from their personal routines, too. More ominously still, local politicians’ illicit sex lives were making their way online, or on-the-air, and the same pattern noted first in Dallas, then around the United States, began appearing around the world. Weird sex clubs and rampant pedophilia were the norm in these lurid exposés, and some of these politicians resigned forthwith. Many others soon turned up in charred wreckage somewhere – a bombed out motel or warehouse frequently the scene.

And I noticed that while Sephie watched the unfolding horror with empathy in her eyes, Liza watched for a moment – then turned away.

And perhaps I hadn’t seen the faint echoes of a smile on her face. Maybe it was all just my imagination.

Then I saw a live report from Paris, something about Christmas shopping, and I saw snow falling in the cameras lights, then looked down at my shorts and boat shoes. Had I even packed one pair on long pants? Hell, I couldn’t even remember if I owned any long pants.

That’s what living on a boat with two sadomasochistic nymphomaniacs will do to you.

+++++

Paris is, I suppose, simply Paris – and it always will be, right? Another big city with a phallic monument in the center. A male phallus, of course – at least that was Liza’s version of the city as we drove in from the airport – but she seemed more than a little put out by the whole thing. Like she was anxious, even angry about men and their penises – and how we’d, figuratively speaking, of course, rammed our dicks down the world’s throats since the beginning of time.

“Excuse me,” I said to her sulking reflection in the window, “but is it that time of month?”

Which was, of course, not the right thing to say. At all.

Arms crossed over chest, steam coming out ears, she glowered the rest of the way into the city. Sephie, of course, looked out the window, oohing at the Eiffel Tower while Liza snorted derisively. Yin and Yang, Ego and Super-Ego, two sides of the same coin – falling through time. One was Conscience, the other Lust, and isn’t it a simple truth that we go through life attracted to both – and yet we can never decide which we hold most important?

Someone had booked us into a little hotel on the Ile Saint Louis; we walked up to our room and I showered while the girls unpacked, and as I dressed I heard Liza talking to Sephie.

“You stay here, keep an eye on the room.”

“I want to go with him,” my Persephone said. “You’re so mad right now you’ll get him in trouble.”

“I will not.”

“You will to.”

“Uh, girls. I’m sorry, but Daddy doesn’t like to see his baby girls acting like three year olds. Can we get it together? Or does Daddy have to go out by himself?”

Then Liza cut to the heart of the matter, holding up my bottle of Viagra: “Does Daddy want a little blue pill, make little stick big again so he can go boom-boom?”

Touché.

Why is it that girls are always right?

Maybe because it’s so easy to lead men around by the balls?

So, Sephie stayed in the room while Liza and I walked out of the hotel – and Tate was gone. Vanished. We looked around, got our bearings and walked the few blocks to Notre Dame, and we sat on a bench at the south end of the little park by the river, and we waited.

He was lanky, that’s what I remember most about Ben Acheson. Tall, and lanky, and he had a kind of Jimmie Stewart air about him that day. Kind of an “Aw, shucks, Ma’am…” thing going. Like he’d screwed the pooch big time, and didn’t mind if we knew it.

He ambled up and sat on the bench beside ours, then he sighed.

“Woodward?”

“Yup.”

“Who’s she?”

“The person I most trust with your life.”

“Okay.”

“So, why are we here?” I asked – and I noticed Liza scanning the sky overhead.

“To share notes, I think.”

“Drone,” Liza whispered. “Overhead. We’re blown.”

At least the kid had the good sense not to look up. “Okay,” he said, “what’s next?”

“Why don’t you tell me what you know?”

So he did. Everything that had happened in Dallas, all the Ninja stuff from the summer before, the attacks this week, then the stuff about Rutherford in his house – which as far as I could tell no one else knew about.

“So, she’s an AD in the NSA?”

“Yes. Kind of clever, don’t you think? Get yourself on the inside, the head of the snake…”

“That’s what Anders, my chief, said. ‘We’ve got to cut off the head of the snake.’”

“So, how’d all this get started out there?”

So I told him my story, including Persephone and Liza’s part in the drama, and of the Tottenham twins demise.

“I take it,” he sighed, “you know your department is compromised, from top to bottom. The FBI, too?”

I nodded. “From the first, when Chief Tottenham was killed.”

“So his brother killed this Mary Jo, and that precipitated the split?”

And for the first time, Liza spoke about that night. She cleared her throat, then looked at me.

“Not quite. MJ was protecting Woodie,” she said to Acheson, then she turned to me. “She was from the beginning. Tottenham and his clique wanted you out of the picture, she intervened, kept you from being killed – at least three times that I know of.”

“What?”

Then she turned to Acheson again. “What’s eating you?” she asked. “You look like you’ve swallowed a squirrel.”

“I think they got me this morning?”

Liza just looked at the kid, then I could see it all over his face too.

“What did they get you with,” I asked. “A woman?”

He nodded his head, told us about the encounter.

“You married?” I asked.

“Not yet. I guess that means no, as in it ain’t gonna happen now.”

“Man,” Liza said, shaking her head, “I am so glad I wasn’t born with a dick. Don’t you guys ever stop thinking with that fucker?”

“Alright, knock it off,” I scolded. “So, your girl either gets over it or she doesn’t. They think they’ve got you over their barrel now, that they own you, and maybe we can use that to our advantage…” But I could tell the kid was turning something over in his mind, like he was working a math problem in his head. “What is it, Ben?”

“Rutherford,” he whispered. “She kissed me, seemed vested in me somehow.”

“She wants you,” Liza said. “All these Alphas, these leaders, have to take a mate, but they have to take them from another woman, then kill the other woman too, and with their own hands. They have to break down their new mate after that, mentally, emotionally – and physically, before rebuilding him. The idea is to make the new mate totally dependent, totally demascluinize him. Like a role reversal dominance game, taken to a new extreme,” she added, looking at Acheson. “She’ll turn you into a girl, what girls were to men in the old order, anyway.”

“Right,” the kid said. “Over my dead body.”

“That’s what it’ll come down to,” she added, looking him in the eye. “These Alphas are predatory, feral, and the veneer of civility they wear is very thin. They’ve been plotting this for decades, and they know the kinds of sacrifices that are being made won’t ever be undone. In their eyes the battle of the sexes was never some kind of joke, or something they were ever prepared to lose, for that matter. They’re preparing to completely upend the old patriarchy, to end what was and replace it with something totally new. And they’re counting on you thinking with your dick, and not your head, to help them make this happen.”

+++++

So, there it was. The end game, the backgammon.

Tate dropped by, had us download an app for our phones, told me what he and Acheson had in mind – just in case – then we split again – he followed Acheson out to the Marriott while we went back to our little hovel.

Acheson was leaving for Dallas in the morning, and we would leave for San Francisco an hour after he.

Would they respond? Had we set an attractive enough trap?

Only time would tell.

+++++

Acheson sat in the back of the taxi, trying to ignore the female driver sneering at him from the driver’s seat.

‘My God,’ he thought, ‘they’re everywhere. Yet only where they need to be.’

The logistics were staggering, coordinating the movement of millions of assets around the globe, and it would all be impossible, he knew, without the ‘net. And without apps to tie-together their vast network, innocent social media apps, that literally everyone had access to.

He looked out the window, at the endless stream of little cars – tiny little Renaults and Citroens – and how unlike the scene was compared to Dallas. Pickup trucks and Cadillacs, gas-guzzlers all, versus these tiny gas-sippers, and he saw a vast train station beyond the freeway. Dozens of trains filling with people, ready to leave for the furthest reaches of the country. So very different, yet the same. People moving freely, always on the move: on business, to take care of family, to ramble on an endless vacation.

What would happen if it all just stopped?

Because what loomed on the horizon was a sudden, screeching halt. An end to one way of life, and the sudden imposition of a new, radically different way of life. What had that girl, Liza, implied? Men would be maintained as breeding stock, and dumbed down men would be utilized for heavy labor – until, presumably, men could be replaced by robots and genetic engineering. The idea was comical, like Our Man Flint meets Blofeld, only now, after watching events unfold in Dallas, and hearing about these groups working around Seattle, he was sure this wasn’t a serialized comic book caper.

No, this is just the opposite. This is real, and it’s happening now. Right now.

What had she said? Stop thinking with your dicks? How was that even possible?

“Qu’est-ce que vous avez dit?”

“Pardonnez-moi, je ne me rendais pas compte que je parlais…”

“Vous avez dit, ‘comment était-ce possible?’”

“Oh je suis désolé…”

“You are English?” she asked.

“American.”

“So, what is not possible?”

“Someone just told me something funny, that it is impossible for men to not think without using their, well, their penis.”

“Ah. Yes, this is probably true, but that is who and what you are, is it not?”

“Exactly.”

“So, why is this funny?”

“I think she was asking me to think like a woman, which is clearly not possible.”

“Perhaps. How does a woman think?”

“You tell me?”

The woman thought for a moment, then she brightened. “A woman does not live in the moment. She lives in the future, yet also in the past. She thinks not of pleasure, but how pleasure can be used to her advantage. She thinks of the moment as a stop along the way to what she desires.”

“That seems very mercenary to me, very cold and calculating.”

“Perhaps. But men’s calculations are as narrow. What gets me power, and how do I gain power with the most pleasure attached?”

He shook his head, laughed a little. “We are a doomed species.”

“Perhaps, yes,” the woman said, “or perhaps it is better to try a new way, while there is still time.”

“So, who do you work for?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He nodded his head, looked ahead. He could see aircraft landing and taking off at CDG, then his hotel on the left. “Do you know…are they going to kill me?”

She looked at him in the rearview mirror, then shrugged. “Truly, I do not know, but I would not want to be in your shoes.”

“Well said.”

She pulled up to the entrance and he pulled out his wallet, but she shook her head. “It is not necessary.” She turned and looked at him now, and she shook her head just a little. “If I were to give you one piece of advice, I would say act not inside the moment, but within the future you seek.”

“What does that mean?”

She sighed, and frowned. “It means you must be prepared to sacrifice yourself to save the ones you love.”

“Maybe you could just take me to the airport…”

She laughed, looked him in the eye. “You cannot run. There is no place that far away.”

“Okay.”

“Good luck, my friend.”

“Yes. You too.”

He got out of the little Renault and walked through the lobby. A woman looked over her newspaper and watched him pass, then sent a text.

He went upstairs and pulled open the drapes, then got out the little book Genie had read for her ethics class – 12, 20 & 5 – and he started reading. The book was about choices, he saw, about choices forced and choices randomly arrived at. It was about choosing who lived, and who died, and all under the most impossible circumstances imaginable. Ultimately, it was a story about trying to impose order when man is surrounded by chaos of his own making. Even if the only thing he’d ever surrounded himself with before was apathy.

He stood up to go to the bathroom and heard people outside his door, so he bent to his phone and sent the emails he’d composed. One to Genie, one to The Duke, and one to Woodward, then he went to the door and opened it.

Five of them came in. All in black, black Ninja, and he walked into the bathroom, left the door open while he took a leak, then he went back to his chair and picked up the book and resumed reading.

Another knock on the door.

One of the Ninja opened it, and she walked in.

Rutherford, the assistant director of operations for the NSA.

She walked in – black dress, blacks stockings and heels – and she stopped, looked out the window at the airport, then down at him. Then she put her heel on his groin – and pushed.

“I liked that book,” she began. “Read it years ago. Kind of heartbreaking, in the way Hooker’s MASH was.”

“The more things change…” he said, trying to hide the pain.

“Yes. Exactly. I want you, but I guess you know that, don’t you.”

“I’m not sure why?”

“It doesn’t matter. What matters is that I do.”

“I understand.”

“The audio on our end wasn’t good. I take it Woodward’s little bitch filled you in?”

“Pretty much. You’ll have to kill Genie, with your own hands, to sanctify the marriage, that kind of thing?”

“Don’t trivialize something so sacred.”

“I’m not. I simply I don’t understand.”

She looked at him with, perhaps, a little compassion, maybe even understanding in her eyes, then she turned to one of the Ninja. “It’s time. Turn on the television.”

One of the girls found the remote and turned it on, then tuned into CNN.

“The President met in Reykjavík this morning. Secretly, of course,” she smiled. “He’s about to leave…they’re all about to leave, now that their press conference is over. Watch…”

He saw Air Force One taxi to the end of the runway, then make it’s run. It lifted into the air and was beginning to make it’s turn for the Atlantic when it simply exploded, and a huge black and orange fireball appeared – where only moments before there had been normalcy.

She nodded at the Ninja – who turned the sound down – then she turned to Acheson. “Right now, and I mean right this moment, the vice president and the entire chain of succession is being eliminated. Within the hour, a huge explosion will simply remove the Pentagon from the face of the earth. When Congress convenes in emergency session this evening, that building will fall down around their heads.”

“My. You seem to have thought of everything.”

The back-handed slap was brutal, as her leather gloves were full of lead shot, and he felt his left eye swell and close.

“I’m not fond of sarcasm,” she said.

“Apparently not.”

The next blow was more savage, then…

“Director, on the television. Look!”

Rutherford turned to CNN and she saw – Rutherford, turning to look at the television.

“What is this?” she almost screamed.

“It’s CNN, and smile, you’re on Candid Camera!” Acheson said, pointing at an air conditioning vent.

She turned, snapped her fingers and all the Ninja made for the door – only Woodward and Tate and half the FBI was waiting out there already, guns drawn and ready.

They opened fire, and cut them down. All of them but Rutherford.

The war had been joined now. He could see it in the woman’s eyes.

Then she turned and looked at Woodward. “Leave us for a moment, please. I need to tell him something.”

Acheson nodded, and the team stepped back out into the hall, closing the door – almost.

She knelt between Acheson’s legs and cupped his face in hand: “I’m sorry, Ben. Sorry I hurt you.”

And he took her hand and kissed it. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand why this happened, but I’ll try.”

“I know you will. That’s why I want you.”

“That’s a good look for you,” he sighed, trying to smile. “You look good in black. Sexy.”

“And that’s why I’ll always want you.”

“Okay.”

“This isn’t over, you know?”

He nodded his head. “I know.”

“God, I want you so much it hurts.”

He watched as one of the agents came into the room, and he looked as the man pulled out a silenced pistol and came up to her from behind. He placed blue steel against the back of her neck, and Acheson turned away.

(C)2017 adrian leverkuhn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | adrianleverkuhnwrites7@gmail.com | this is fiction, all fiction, and nothing but fiction.

I haven’t posted this story in a while, and if you aren’t prepared for some earthy language I’d turn away now. If you’re under 18, go away, this isn’t for you. This is a “crime” story, kind of noir, but also almost pornographic in places. I thought about deleting all that stuff, but I think the story might fall apart without all that earthiness. It’s the first person narrative, really, that needs this level of theatrics.

So. what is this?

I posted the original version of this story at LIT almost ten years ago, and it’s been revised once before, just a few years ago, but within these pages lay the seeds of an idea. Predators had it’s origins in here and, oddly enough, I think the way ahead for Predators will come to life with characters you’ll meet in this story. The next chapter of Predators is about a third of the way finished, so probably ten days or so before it posts here, so if you haven’t read this one before you’ll need to in order to know the characters in Predators – going forward, anyway.

Predators moves from Dallas to Paris in the next chapter, and you’ll note that a few of the characters in here speak the local language, but this story takes place in Seattle. So, here they are, Ed Woodward, Richard Tate, Liza and the incomparable Persephone – and our first ever glimpse of those whacky girls in black. Hope you enjoy.

+++++

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (or once upon a dark and stormy night)

I took the call a little after midnight, and yes, it was a dark and stormy night, but I guess in my line of work they usually are – in one way or another. Dispatch called just as I ran across an ex-wife in a very interesting dream, but the sleepy voice on the other end of the line had no way of knowing that, and even if she had, there wasn’t a damn thing either of us could have done about it. Sometimes late night calls are just the luck of the draw, some nights you end up in the wrong place at the right time, and everything goes to hell from there. No one’s fault, you know what I mean? But still, some calls are like a stone skipping across a pond, they ripple through time, across the windmills of your mind – before the sink from view. This one sure would.

I slid out of my berth up forward and looked at the puffy-eyed stranger in the mirror, threw on some clean pants and ran my belt through the loops, then hooked my badge over the left front pocket and strapped my old Sig P-220 into the crusty leather shoulder holster a wife – which one? – had given me twenty years and more than a few nightmares ago. Funny how some things from marriages last longer than others, even if the joke turns out to be on you. On second thought, maybe that isn’t so funny.

I hopped off the boat – another consequence of one wife too many – and walked through the fog-shrouded marina to the department Ford up in the parking lot; I checked ‘in-service’ with dispatch and groaned when the light rain suddenly turned heavy. As if losing another night’s sleep wasn’t enough, I’d forgotten my raincoat, something you do in Seattle at your peril. Oh well, it’s only water, right? Just like water under the bridge. You live and learn; at least, you’re supposed to, anyway. Funny how we never do.

The windshield wipers beat like drums ahead of a funeral march, lightning rippled inside clouds just overhead, and city streets drizzled by in the tired, mechanical cadence. My mouth tasted like crud, too, and to make the morning more interesting I’d felt a sore throat coming on during night, but that didn’t matter: sick, well – or even dead – this was my call and I had to take it. Mine to ‘make or break,’ to solve or to seriously fuck-up, or, for whatever I found out there in the night…to seriously fuck me up. You just never know, and that’s the real fun of police work. Hell, at least the rain was supposed to let up later in the day. But would it? I’ve heard some rains last forever. That’s why there’s Prozac and bourbon. And that’s why some cops give up and swallow a hot chunk of .38 caliber ambivalence…

The address dispatch read-off didn’t mean a thing to me, neither did the run-down apartment building I parked in front of: both were in a pretty bleak area just south of downtown – an area full of docks and warehouses – home to lots of broken dreams and burned-out souls. Three squad cars were already parked out front, their red and blue strobes pulsing through the waterfront rain. The frenzied light created strange moving shadows on the walls of this brick canyon, and the feeling was unsettling, even to my jaded eyes. An ambulance was out front, too, and a couple of firemen sat in the brightly lighted back of the box; they looked bored – tired and bored – because they’d seen it all before  probably ten times this week. Still, those guys looked as though they were sitting in an island of intense light, and that kind of clarity looked out-of-place here in the lightning and foggy rain.

Out-of-place, too, because this part of the city is a land of shadows, and clarity isn’t really welcome in the shadowlands. Truth is a painful subject to the down-and-out, a reminder of all the wrong turns some people make along the way to where they are – to the last stop on their road to nowhere, and I guess it can be kind of rough to turn around and everywhere you look you’re reminded of how far you’ve fallen.

Like that pain in your gut where hunger used to live isn’t enough?

A medical examiner’s rain-streaked van, dull blue with official looking white letters on it, pulled up behind my old Ford right as I got out of the car; Mary-Jo something-or-other was behind the wheel writing on a clipboard but she looked up and waved at me as I walked by. I nodded and wished I’d worn a hat; no one ever told me when I was growing up that cold rain on a head with three hairs left on top could be such all-consuming fun.

Anyway. Mary-Jo something-or-other and her assistant got out of their van (both wearing rain coats and hats, by the way) and followed me into the building; we made it to an elevator just before the door closed and they squeezed in.

“Messy night,” her assistant said. “Gonna rain for a week.”

“No shit,” I said. “Welcome to Seattle.”

“Hey, Woody, you still on the boat?” Mary-Jo asked.

Funny, but I couldn’t remember telling her I lived on the lake, but that’s just another one of the joys that go along with white hair and old hemorrhoids, and I’d known Mary-Jo through work for more than a few years. She was cute in a thirty-something kind of way, but the work had taken a heavy toll on her. She’d filled-out a little too much over the last few years, yet she wasn’t what I’d call fat, either. She was like everyone I’d ever met on the M.E.’s staff: puffy circles under her eyes, cigarette ashes on her blouse, and the requisite weird sense of humor. Working around dead people does that to you, I guess. Even so, working around victims of violent crime sucks the humanity from the marrow of your bones – that life leaves most people pale and dried up. Having worked homicide for fourteen years that’s a statement I feel I can make with some authority. You get used to human degradation, to the meanness that lurks our there, waiting, yet there are things you just don’t get used to. Not and still consider yourself human.

These cheap apartment buildings are all the same, I remembered thinking: rickety old elevators spit us out into a dingy, dimly lit hallway, and why the hell are the ceilings so goddamn low in these shit-holes? Virgil’s “Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here” should be carved in stone over the entry to these hovels, because that’s exactly what happens to the poor souls living in them. And man, did I feel it just then, looking down that empty, piss-soaked hall to the open door at the end. The walls even smelled like this was a place broken people came to die, to give up and drop dead on the floor, even if it took them years to get around to it. This was a world of frayed carpets and peeling, cracked linoleum, of bare light-bulbs hanging from broken fixtures – like the necks of old men after a last trip up to see the hangman. If I had to write building code violations for a living, I could have turned this place into a career.

Still, the essential truth of places like this is simple: nobody cares whether you live or die. All you need to do is make rent and everyone will just leave you the fuck alone. That’s just the way it is when you live in the shadows: life is all the shit that rolls down on your head – before you die.

Up on that third floor it was the same story: dim grunge everywhere I looked, haunted eyes looking through cracked doors, maybe a little curiosity – but a whole lot of indifference too – mixed with a little fear of the unknown, and the known. Just ahead, right down there in the gloom, I could see the door to Apartment 321 standing wide open, and I saw the indirect light of a camera flash strobe off an unseen wall – so someone from forensics was already up here photographing the scene. A patrolman stood outside the door, looking bored, of course, and because, I guess, some things never change. A couple of nervous neighbors had gathered in the gloom across the hall and were hopping around like birds in a broken cage, but there was no place to fly now, and they knew it. Life had them trapped now, and held them fast to their despair.

I walked past the patrolman and into the room and – stopped dead in my tracks.

The victim was a middle-aged man and he was a shattered wreck; the sight of so much blood still gets to me to this day. The M.E.’s assistant walked-in – but turned away, too late. I watched him stagger back, watched as he flashed hash all over the hallway, and within seconds the poor guy fled to the safety of the elevator, retching as he went.

“Fuck a duck,” Mary Jo said quietly as she came in the room.

“I don’t think so, Ma’am,” I said in my best Joe Friday. “No duck did this.”

The guy was sprawled out on the living room floor, the worn green carpet under him had been unable to absorb all the blood there, and vast pools of the stuff had already coagulated under his head and torso. His throat had been cut and he’d been stabbed in the chest and belly too many times to count, and for good measure his penis had been cut off and stuck in his mouth.

“Jealous wife?” Mary-Jo said as she bent down beside the guy.

“Or boyfriend,” one of the techs from forensics said.

I bent down to have a closer look, saw something odd under the blood on the guy’s belly.

“Somebody get me some gloves, and a wad of four-by-fours. Maybe some saline, too.”

A paramedic brought me a wad of gauze pads and a one liter bottle; I popped the cap and poured a little on the guy’s stomach right below his sternum, then I wiped away the coagulated mess and just had to shake my head at the sight.

Letters, carved in his flesh.

“What does it say?” Mary-Jo asked, looking over my shoulder.

“Love me,” I said absently. Whoever had killed the guy had taken something really sharp and carved the two words into his flesh, even taken time to underline them with a nice, bold slash.

“Well, sometimes love hurts, I guess,” Mary-Jo chuckled.

See, I told you working around dead people sucks.

Mary-Jo had her tackle box open and was taking samples from under his fingernails a minute later – when I saw something in his hair.

“Better take a look here,” I said.

She came up, her gloved fingers sifting through the victim’s hair: “Semen?” she thought out loud.

“Well, I sure ain’t gonna smell it. Tell you what? Why not take a sample and do some of that science shit, maybe tell me just what the fuck it is? Okay?”

She chuckled: “Maybe he shot his load all the way up here…”

I rolled my eyes: “Mary-Jo? You need to get your fat ass laid. Bad, too.”

“You volunteering, Woody?” she said as she removed some of the stuff with a sterile swab. She held it up and looked at the gunk with a UV light, then put it in a vial, before turning around and saying: “Cause, ya know, I swallow…”

I had to get away from her then. Even the dude from forensics stepped back and looked at her all wide-eyed, like she was some real crazy shit. Me? I didn’t quite know what to say. Neither did he. Mary-Jo just laughed and laughed, before she looked at me and licked her lips, letting her tongue linger like a writhing phallus.

+++++

I was in the bedroom poking around, trying to make sense of one more senseless crime scene. There were ligature marks on the guy’s wrists and ankles, and a few deep, small cuts inside his thighs – like the victim had been tortured before he was killed – and the things I’d seen so far just weren’t adding up to a routine murder. The evidence was contradictory. Tied-up but no signs of a struggle? So had this thing started out consensually? And if that was the case, then this had to have been some kind of sexual encounter. A paid encounter – with some really weird ideas about foreplay. So, some kind of hooker?

Yet the evidence said most of the wounds had been the result of an aggressive – and hardly consensual –  assault, before things went way south anyway, so the guy probably didn’t really know his assailant all that well. But what if he had? Then he didn’t know the perp well enough to have trusted her (or yeah, him) with his life. Probably, but then again, what if he had? But then, there was the explosive nature of the wounds on his torso, the penis stuffed in his mouth, the carved words on the guy’s gut…and all that added up to evidence of pure rage. The murderer, or even murderers, were uncontrolled or consumed with blinding rage at this point, either wild with rage or completely off-the-wall in some sort of frenzied lust.

Then there were the basic questions. Was the ‘perp’ a woman? Yet it could have been a kind of ‘Gay’ encounter, too. Maybe a threesome, some kind of ‘bi’ thing gone wrong? Envy? Jealousy? Still, without much more to go on, I was grabbing at straws just now, because without evidence, real evidence or witness statements, the scene was loaded with conjecture.

“Yo! Woody!” Mary-Jo called out from the living room. “Better come take a look at this.”

What else was I missing? I looked at the bed again before I turned to the other room.

“What you got?” She was bent over the guy now, her assistant holding his legs up, shining her UV light up his ass.

“Semen. All over the external anus.”

“Swell.”

“We’ll have to wait until autopsy,” she said as I bent over to take a look, “to sample what’s inside.”

“Peachy. Can’t wait to read the results.”

“Woody? You ain’t going all soft on us down there, are you?”

The woman was merciless, just annoying, and merciless. Hell, it would probably be a month before my poor dick would get up again after seeing that smile – while shining her light up that guy’s ass. “You know, M-J, if I have to listen to anymore of your shit I’m going to go somewhere and join an order. Maybe the Benedictines.”

“Yeah, sure thing Woody. You’ll get all you want there.”

“You’re a twisted bitch, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, ain’t it the truth? But I know you love me.”

I looked at the words carved on the guy’s belly and shook my head, then walked back into the bedroom with my back to her laughter. “Very punny,” I said over my shoulder as I disappeared around a corner.

I looked around the bedroom again and poked around the head of the bed; a pillow was stained and still wet with what looked like some sort of clear fluid, and not semen from what I could smell. Urine? There was a length of discarded rope on the floor, and in the corner a pair of pantyhose: “Johansen! Did you get these yet?” I called out to the photographer shooting in the bathroom.

“What? The rope and stuff?”

“Yeah. The pantyhose. Did you get those?”

“Yeah. You ready for me to bag ‘em?”

“Let the M.E. have ‘em, see if they can get some hair or fluid. Maybe we’ll get some DNA.”

“You got something in there for me, Woody?” Mary-Jo asked suggestively as she came into the room. There are days when I wish my last name wasn’t Woodward, and this was one of them. When I heard Johansen snickering in the bathroom I’d have gladly settled for Smith. I guess I should be grateful my folks didn’t name me Richard. Dick Woody. Yeah. That would have been just the thing on a night like this.

+++++

The sun was coming up, the rain had tapered to a drizzle and paramedics were loading the stiff’s body in their ambulance; they’d take it to the lab, then her assistant would get it logged-in for autopsy. Forensics had a pile of evidence to log-in at Central and I had a headache – like I’d just come out of a bad slasher movie and had too much buttered popcorn. I rubbed my eyes while Mary-Jo joked with one of the patrolmen, then groaned when I saw her headed my way. I rolled down my window as she walked up.

“You hungry?” she said.

“You’re like, kidding, right?”

“No, not at all. Seeing a guy’s severed cock stuffed in his mouth like that always makes me hungry.”

“Brings out the man-eater in you, does it?”

She looked down after that, turned serious. “Woody, I need to ask you something. Some serious shit.”

“I could use some coffee,” I said, nodding. “If you’ll stop with all the creepy jokes for a while.”

“Right. Pike Place?”

“Sure. Starbucks? The alley? There ought to be a place to park on Pine or Stewart this early in the morning. Oh, and be sure to park that heap in front of a good restaurant. Good PR. Know they’ll thank you for it.”

“Gee, Woody – that’s nice,” she said, looking at her Medical Examiner’s van. “And you call me creepy?”

+++++

I beat her there, made my way to Post Alley then followed the scent of roasting beans and got a table inside; rain had given way to fast-scudding clouds over the sound, and now the tops of the Olympics were all aglow in the sunrise.

Cool, clean air, roasting coffee, fresh pastry…life suddenly felt good again, and Mary-Jo showed up a few minutes later and I got a couple of two-liter quadruple-shot espressos. Nothing like a slight buzz to start the day, I always say.

“Geesh, I didn’t know they made ‘em this big,” she said while she stared at the cup, daunted.

“Oh, sure. Gets the main pump throbbing.”

“Really? My guess is your heart’s going to explode one of these days.” She looked nervous, like she didn’t know how to say what she had to say.

“You know, I find it best to just spit it out, M-J.”

“What?”

“You had a question? Some serious shit, I think you said?”

“I got divorced, you know,” she began, “a few years back…”

“Well no, M-J, I didn’t know that. In fact, just to set the record straight, I’m pretty sure I didn’t know you were married. Come to think of it, I don’t even know your last name.”

“What? Oh, shit,” she said as she laughed. “Right. Kopecki. Maria Josephina Kopecki.”

I held out my hand: “Ed Woodward. Nice to meet you.”

“I’m sorry,” she continued, “I just took it for granted, ya know, having worked around you all this time…”

“No problem. Now, what’s up?”

“Well, see, I’ve been trying to hook up with someone for a while, like, through the internet. Well, see, I did, sort of, but it didn’t really work out. Turns out the guy, the last one, was kind of creepy. I mean really creepy.”

“Is that, like, ‘really, really creepy’?”

“Don’t make fun of me, alright?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“Right, well, see, the problem is, the dude’s a cop.”

“Uh-huh. Define creepy.”

“Well, see, he wanted to meet the first time at this club. A swingers’ club.”

“And?”

“Yeah, well, see, I did, and he had already hooked up with another couple by the time I got there. He wanted to go back to their place and I don’t know why, but, well, see, I did.”

“Really? Why?”

She looked down, just shrugged. “I dunno,” was all she could say – yet everything she said, even the way she said it – looked a little like an act to me. “So, what’s the problem?”

“Well, the guy has shown up a couple of times, like, see, at things where I was.”

“Things?”

“Clubs.”

“Clubs? You mean like…”

“Yeah, swingers’ clubs.”

“This is, well, see, your thing, then?” I was trying my damnedest not to laugh, or even smile for that matter, but the stupidity of young people sometimes leaves me breathless. And if she said ‘well, see’ one more time I was going to have to hurt her. Strangling her came to mind.

“I’ve done it a few times, yeah.” She was speaking quietly now, very self-consciously. “It’s fun.”

“Yeah, well, whatever floats your boat.”

“Well, see, I wasn’t sure if he was following me, or if it was just, like, a coincidence…”

“Well, see, I’m still not seeing the big problem?”

“Well, see, he’s got a big tattoo on his chest. ‘Love me.’ That’s what it says.”

Now she had my attention. “Uh-huh. What’s his name?” I asked as I took a notepad out of my shirt pocket.

“I don’t know, for sure.”

“Oh?”

“Well, see, like I only know his internet address and his screen name.”

“And how do you know he’s a cop?”

“He, like, told me so.”

“Uh-huh. Did he like show you a badge or anything?”

“No,” she said.

Sometimes I wonder how people so fucking stupid could possibly live long enough to reproduce. Then again, maybe more than a few don’t. “Can you describe him?”

“Tall. Six feet, maybe a little more. Not fat but like really buff…”

“Buff?”

“Muscular. Like a weight-lifter.”

“How old?”

“Late-forties, maybe fifty. Red hair and freckles. You know, he’s got like a faint scar on his right cheek.”

She had just described Mark Tottenham, one of the department’s assistant chiefs, to a T; Tottenham had been in charge of Internal Affairs for years, and while I’d heard rumors he was flaky, this was off the charts.

“Got an email address?”

She gave it to me.

“When’s the last time you saw the guy?”

“Night before last.” And her eyes darted to the left, always a sure sign of deceit.

I looked over my glasses at her, tried not to judge the kid too unkindly. “I’ll see what I can find out. Where can I get in touch?” She gave me a number.

“Thanks, Woody. Maybe I could buy you dinner?”

“Yeah. Maybe.” I flipped my notebook over and made a few more notes then put it away. “Well, see, like I got to go now. Do like some cop-like shit. I’ll give you a call this afternoon.” I made my way to the Ford, felt a little sick to my stomach. I checked in with dispatch, then made my way over to Tate’s office.

Richard Tate had been a detective for almost thirty years; now he was doing the PI gig, doing sensitive background checks for corporations and taking photographs of cheating spouses. For the past ten years we had been best friends – I had his back and he had mine – that kind of thing, and Tate has been the only friend I’ve ever had who I’d trust with my life. Now I wanted him to run down the internet stuff for me because I didn’t want any traces of a search on department computers, or my private one for that matter. I gave him the run-down on what Mary-Jo had told me and he whistled, leaned back in a squeaky leather chair and steepled his fingers.

“You ain’t gonna believe this,” he said, “but this ain’t the first time Tottenham has been in the shits for something like this. The tattoo thing, the wife-swapping shit; he’s been into some pretty creepy shit over the years. He supposedly likes, or used to, anyway, to rough-up girls. I heard once he was into kids, too?”

“Kids? And?”

“Nobody found anything, but I’m not sure how hard they looked.”

“What about guys?”

“Guys? What do you mean? Gay shit?”

I told him about the murder scene this morning and he whistled again. “No shit?”

“That’s a fact. No shit, but maybe a little piss.”

“Crap. I can get a friend in Tacoma to run down the IP. Can you get a picture of Tottenham to show to the girl? Just to confirm things?”

“I dunno. Might be better to get someone outside the department. Maybe a reporter,” I said, grinning.

“Are you kidding?” he said. “Then what? They’d want some inside angle or some other tit-for-tat, or fuck, they could get hold of something you’d missed and then what the hell would you do?!”

“Fuck, I don’t know, Tate. I’m tired, been doing this shit for too long.”

“Alright, alright; I’ll take care of it.” He steepled his hands again and sighed. “Shit, it’s probably nothing anyway. No telling how many people have that tattoo.”

I nodded. “Yeah. Who knows? But it couldn’t be that common, could it?”

+++++

I drove back to Central and went up to my office in CID, called dispatch, asked them to run-off the NCIC print-outs I’d called in earlier. I wanted to know more about the background of the victim, but turns out I wasn’t ready for what came next.

“He’s clean, Woody,” Trisha Wickham told me. “You wouldn’t believe how clean.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s FBI. White-collar crime unit, mainly computer crime. Talked to the SAC; he filled me in. The guy’s as clean as they come, too; fifteen year veteran, wife and two kids.”

“Shit. Anyone told the family yet?”

“Nope. SAC wanted to talk to you first.”

“Got a number handy?” She read it off to me. “Thanks, Trish. Appreciate it.”

“Woody?”

“Yeah?”

“This one doesn’t feel right. Something big, maybe. Be careful, okay?”

She hung up before I could ask what she meant.

Now just what the fuck was going on?

+++++

Peter Brennan was the Special Agent in Charge of SeaTac FBI; I’d known him for years and he was generally a straight-shooter, a no nonsense, old school kind of Irish-American cop. He was waiting for my call, and he sounded anxious.

“Woody, what can you tell me? Any suspects?”

I gave him the basics but left out a bunch of details. “Hell, Pete, we haven’t confirmed anything yet, don’t even have the fingerprints processed yet. Was your boy supposed to come in this morning?”

“Yeah. He’s a no show, his wife said he went out early last evening on a call, never came back. She called in about six-thirty this morning, worried.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Yeah. Anything else you can tell me?”

“Let me pull the prints and I’ll run ‘em over in a bit. Got any time this morning?”

“I’ll make time.”

“Okay, Pete. Seeya later.” I hung up, walked down to the locker room and picked-up my mail, then dropped by dispatch to pick up the NCIC and DL print-outs that would have to be attached to my preliminary report. Trish was not there so I turned and walked back to the elevator.

And Tottenham walked into to the elevator right after I did.

“Hey Woody, how’s it going?”

“Fine, Chief. You?”

“Can’t complain. You still livin’ on the boat?”

I laughed to avoid the question. “Well, it worked for a while but it got real small, real quick.”

“I can imagine. Brennan called me a while ago. You got the case?”

“Yessir.”

“Any leads?”

“Not a thing, Chief.” The elevator binged and the door opened.

“Well, keep me posted.”

“Right, Chief.”

“Seeya later.”

“You bet.”

The door closed and lurched up to the next floor; I walked to my office and got my coat, then called forensics and told them to fax a copy of the fingerprints to Brennan. My other line lit up and I took the call: it was Dick Tate.

“Hey Woody! Long time no see, amigo. Wondered if you’d like to have lunch and swap lies.”

“Hey there yourself! What the hell have you been up to? You still chasin’ lyin’ husbands and cheatin’ wives?”

“Only when I’m not screwing the wives!”

“Yeah. Ain’t Viagra a wonderful thing?” We laughed. “Listen, I have to drop by and see Pete Brennan for a minute, but how ‘bout I meet you for a bowl of chowder at Betty Lincoln’s?”

“Be good; like old times. Say about noon?”

“That’ll be fine.”

“Okay, buddy. Can’t wait. Be good to catch up on things.” He hung up; I’d managed to tell him of FBI interest in the case and told him to meet me near Ballard Locks, and he’d told me he had something important to discuss. Hopefully, if anyone was monitoring the line they’d not get too suspicious.

I drove over to the main FBI office by the Wa-Mu building and talked with Brennan; he told me they’d handle the notification and I thanked him.

“Any leads?” he asked.

“Nothing solid yet. I’ll let you know as soon as something breaks. I assume you’ll start your own investigation?”

“Already have.”

I nodded. “You got a private number?”

He squinted, sat down and wrote out two numbers: “The first is unlisted, anytime. The second is my home number.”

“Understood.”

“You got something, don’t you?” he asked.

“I need to confirm a few things, probably know something in the morning.”

He nodded. “You need me, just call.”

“Pete, if I need you it’ll be too goddamn late to call.”

“That bad?”

“Worse.”

He leaned back, looked me in the eye. “You sure you don’t want to fill me in?”

I shook my head. “Better in the morning.”

“Okay,” he said, but I could see the gears turning now.

“Pete?”

“Yeah?”

“Don’t put a tail on me, okay? I’m expecting someone to try and I don’t want you to run ‘em off.”

“Fuck.”

“Promise, Pete?”

He stood, held his hand out. “Scout’s honor, Woody,” but his eyes darted to the left.

I smiled. Like I said, Pete was ‘good cop’ – and by that I mean – predictable.

I drove down to my boat on Lake Union and put the Zodiac in the water, then took off toward the locks. So far I hadn’t seen anyone on my tail, either on the ground or in the air, but the game is best played by people who know how to blend in. It’s a hard game to play well, and the stakes are always high.

Tate was standing on a dock about a hundred yards shy of the locks and I pulled over, let him hop on; if anyone had followed him they’d have to hustle to follow us now – but he hadn’t seen a thing either – and that worried me. I puttered over to the south side of the channel and we both watched the shore as we trolled along.

“Victim was an FBI agent, supposedly clean.”

“His name Dan Harvey?” Tate asked.

“Yeah. How’d you find that out?”

“The IP for Mary-Jo’s contact. It’s Tottenham alright, and there’s been a lot of activity between him and this Harvey fellow over the past few months. A lot of meets at a code name, some place they refer to as the Hole in the Wall.”

“My. How original.” I’d need to look at my notes, but hadn’t MJ mentioned that?

“So Harvey was FBI, huh?”

“Yeah, and supposedly clean. White collar crime.”

“Think maybe he got onto someone, maybe Mark?”

“Possible, but I doubt it. Why all the contact?”

“Maybe they were working a joint task force? Undercover?”

“That’s a stretch. Ran into Mark this morning; he didn’t let on he knew the guy. Any luck on a photo?”

“Yeah. Pulled one off the net, from the Post-Intelligencer; about a year old, so it ought to do.”

“Good deal.”

“So Mark knew the guy and didn’t own up to it? And the tattoo? You think the girl might know the name of the club?”

I smiled. “Yeah, I think so, but she’s a little hinckey.”

“Say, think we could grab a bowl while we’re out?”

“Yeah. You know, that actually sounds pretty good.” I upped the throttle and scooted up channel toward Fisherman’s Terminal and tied-off below Chinook’s. With any luck we’d miss the lunch crowd; we got lucky and sat way back from the entrance, looking out on the fishing boats; from here Tate covered the entrance and I watched the dock. We ordered clam chowder and coffee and had just begun to relax when Dick sat upright and coughed attention.

“Tottenham,” he said under his breath. “At the desk, trying not to look this way.”

“Fuck.”

“What the fuck have you gotten into, Woody?”

“Your guess is as good as mine?”

“Well, here he comes…”

The waitress came by and dropped off two huge bowls of chowder – and a gallon jug of Tabasco.

“Damn, that looks good!” Tottenham said as he walked up. “Tate! What are you doing here? Where’s your Nikon?”

I turned and looked up at Tottenham.

“Sheesh! Well, looky who’s here!” Tate said. “Surprise, surprise.”

“Hey Chief,” said yours truly, feigning a little surprise of my own.

“Shit. This is like old times, huh?”

“You alone, Mark?” Dick asked. “Wanna join us?”

“Kind of you to ask, but no. I’m meeting Pete Brennan, should be here any minute.”

My heart lurched. So, he had me tailed?

“Well, good to see you Dick. Woody, check in with me this afternoon, would you?”

“Right, Chief.”

Brennan walked in and they took a table across the restaurant from us.

“I think I’ve lost my appetite,” Tate said.

“At these prices? Better go find it, and fast.”

He laughed. “Too bad you’re on duty.”

“Ain’t that the fuckin’ truth. Nothing like cold one and hot chowder.”

“So. What the fuck do you think’s going on?”

“I have no clue, Amigo. Maybe Harvey found something on Tottenham, or maybe they were just into the same shit and they met up with Cruella de Vil in that apartment. Anyway, I asked Pete not to throw a tail on me. I didn’t think he was lying when he said he wouldn’t, but guess what?”

“Really? I wouldn’t count on that prick to not sell out his mother.” He sighed, looked out over the water for a minute, then looked at me. “Well, anyway, Woody, you’re missing something. Something big. Why the hell would Tottenham and Brennan both be here? Right now? I hate to say it, but it sure feels like someone’s following you. Someone really uptight, too.”

“Us,” I said.

“Right. Us.” He coughed, looked over at Brennan. “Thanks, I think.”

“Doesn’t matter. Food’s good, sun’s out… what else is there?”

“A pretty girl with a warm mouth?” He looked away, sighed. “Yeah, I guess, Woody.” He shook his head at that, and I really couldn’t blame him for feeling put-upon. “You’d better think about lining something up with the girl soon.”

“Yeah. You working anything major right now?”

“Nope. Not even anything minor.”

“Things that slow?”

“Slower. In a recession nobody gives a damn if their spouse is cheating ‘cause nobody has any money. I’d sure hate to be a divorce lawyer these days.”

“No, you wouldn’t. I can guarantee you they made enough off me the last twenty years to keep themselves in Guccis the rest of their goddamn lives.” We laughed, but we’d both been there and done that. Most cops have, and I guess that’s why most cops grow old by themselves. Bitter and cynical doesn’t even begin to describe it.

We finished up and paid the bill, Dick went over to say ‘bye to Tottenham and Brennan while I washed up, then we hopped into the Zodiac and continued up channel to the lake, and my boat. The shore was lined with boat dealers and houseboats, and even Tate wanted to linger and look over the little floating shack where they filmed “Sleepless in Seattle.”

Whoever it was tailing us was doing a good job, because neither of us picked up anything until I turned into the little marina where I kept my boat – and even then he was hard to see. Standing up on the second deck of a parking garage overlooking the lake, we saw a man with binoculars and a walkie-talkie watching us; he looked away when we looked at him, then stepped inside a van.

“Dark suit,” Tate said, snickering.

“Sunglasses,” I said, scowling.

“FBI,” we both said, laughing. It was an old joke.

“Yeah, but pretty good anyway,” Tate said, then we looked up at the garage again.

“Why would they be watching us?” I said, thinking out loud. “I mean, we’re not suspects?”

“Wanna follow you, I guess; see where you lead ‘em?”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe? What else?”

“Keep us from getting too close to something.”

“Woody? You’re getting paranoid.”

“Damn straight. I just hope I’m getting paranoid enough.”

“Amen to that, Brother.”

+++++

I dropped Tate off by the locks as the sun dropped behind some clouds; the plan was for him to fall way behind me on an agreed-upon route and see who was tailing me. I took my phone out and slipped it into my shirt pocket, hooked up a hands-free headset and took off down Market Street, then turned right on 15th Avenue and crossed Ballard Bridge.

The phone chirped and I looked at the screen. Dispatch. Trish?

“Woodward,” I answered.

“Detective, there’s an urgent call for you from the Medical Examiner’s office.”

“Gimme the number.” I scribbled the info on a pad and hung up. The phone chirped immediately. Tate this time.

“Yeah?”

“Two cars. Fed plates, and I’m pretty sure there’s one on me too.”

“Right. Go to the barn.”

There was no way to beat this kind of operation; too many resources had been allocated – and that, really, told me all I needed to know. The FBI had been running some kind of op; Special Agent Harvey had been made and neutralized. Now, the question was: what role was Tottenham playing, and what did Brennan know, or not know about him?

I drove back to the lake along Mercer, wound around to Westlake and pulled into the MarinaMart lot and locked the car; I stopped at the pay phone outside the gate and called the MEs office. Mary-Jo picked up on the first ring:

“You alright?” I asked her.

“Yeah. You know who the guy is yet?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So do I.”

“What about the stuff you found inside the back door?”

“His property.”

“Right. Want some dinner?”

“Sure.”

“Ray’s Boathouse, Shilshole. Six o’clock.”

“Okay.”

“And you’ll be followed.”

“Oh, okay?” She sounded pretty uncomfortable now. There was a little quiver in her voice when she continued: “You too?”

“We’ll talk then.” I hung up, took out my mag-key and held it up to the gate; it buzzed open and I walked though, then turned when I heard a lot of cars pulling in. Two black Fords slipped into the lot and parked near mine; I thought I might as well wait for Tate – and he pulled in a few moments later – trailing his own caravan of black Fords. Tate got out and surprisingly all the other feds did too – Brennan in the lead. As Tate walked my way the entire entourage did as well, so I stood by the gate and held it open, watched as they filed past silently – and there was something almost comical in their clinging uniformity – like every black suit and all the Ray-Bans in the Pacific Northwest had been scooped up by FBI agents in Seattle, and here they were now, my very own parade of Men in Black.

I walked past them and hopped on board the boat – Brennan and one other agent I didn’t know followed me on board, and Tate brought up the rear; we went down below and I put on a shitload of coffee.

“Why’d you have to bring him in on this?” the unknown agent said, pointing at Tate.

I looked at the man and took in his smug swagger, his pompadour hair, then looked at Pete Brennan: “Don’t y’all still administer a test that measures the basic stupidity of your applicants?”

Brennan laughed; Pompadour bristled.

“Look, Woodward,” Pompadour said, “its hard enough keeping a lid on things without you, well, without you bringing in every broken down old cop in Seattle.”

“I guess you don’t plan on getting old?” I said. “Does that about sum up your little corner of the world, asshole?”

Pompadour huffed-up, stepped toward me. “Sit down, Rollins,” Brennan commanded. Pompadour sat, just like any other well-trained Doberman might, but he kept his eyes locked on mine. Did I see him drooling, too?

“I thought you weren’t going to throw a tail on me, Pete?”

“I didn’t know you were bringing in reinforcements.”

I nodded. “Hard to know who you can trust, isn’t it? I’m sure you understand.”

SAC scowled. “Did you get the ME’s report yet?”

“Nope.” He handed me a copy.

“Read it. It’s enlightening.”

I read it. The conclusions were pretty freaky. “Someone dosed him with Viagra?”

“Yeah. He might have been unconscious, by the time they killed him, anyway. Apparently some people can pop a woody, even in their sleep.” Pompadour laughed at the pun, I flipped him the bird. “Best guess is they jacked him off, then shot him up with potassium, caused a massive heart attack.”

“They didn’t find any…”

“No, it doesn’t hang around too long… not much of a half-life. But there are a couple of puncture wounds consistent with injection sites…”

“Insulin, maybe?”

“Fuck, are you kidding?” Brennan said.

“Had to ask. Induces a coma. Kind of a double tap.”

“Anyway, I hope he was out – before they did that to him. Would freak anyone out, you know?”

I shrugged. “Okay Pete, why were you with Tottenham this morning?”

“He called, wanted to meet.”

“And?”

“And nothing. He didn’t even mention the case. Wanted to talk about some Homeland Security shit.”

“You know about the tattoo on Tottenham’s chest?”

“What…no?”

“Says ‘Love Me’, right there in red and blue, right over his heart.”

“Fuck.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Pompadour said on hearing that little tidbit, then he turned livid white on us.

“Know any people in your office with something similar?” Both men shook their head.

“So, there’s no tail on Mark,” Tate stated, a dour look on his face. “That’s great. A roman legion on our ass and not one on the prime suspect. Perfect.”

“Hey, not our fault,” Pompadour said. “You kept us out of the loop, remember?”

“I have a hunch,” I interrupted, “that we’re dealing with a club of some sort. There may well be a lot of guys with that tattoo. Anyway, I hate jumping to conclusions.”

“Right,” Brennan said, but I could tell he was still holding something back. Who the fuck was this clown he’d brought with him?

“So, what’s your interest in the case, other than losing an agent?”

“Sorry,” Pompadour said. “Need to know only.”

“So, let me get this straight, just so I’m crystal clear. You think I don’t need to know?”

“No. Not yet, anyway.”

I looked at Brennan. He shrugged, said not one word, and didn’t even bother to look apologetic.

“Fine,” I said. “That’s just fucking great.”

“Your tax dollars at work,” Tate said, shaking his head.

“When are you meeting the girl from the MEs office?” Pete said.

“What? You don’t know?” Tate shot back.

“There’s a limit to what we can do, Bucko. You know? Congress? Surveillance courts, all that shit? Ring any bells?”

“Doesn’t seem to have stopped you guys much lately,” Dick fired back.

Brennan’s face was a blank mask: “So anyway,” he said, “we’re not monitoring phones. Yet.”

“You going to drop the tail?”

“No. Not unless you’ll wear a wire, and a locator.”

“No way. Not yet.”

“Then we’ll be around.”

“So, why this meet?”

“Just don’t try to shake us, alright,” Pompadour said. “Waste of time; anyway, your field-craft sucks.”

“Bet you didn’t know your mother gave me a blowjob after lunch,” Tate said. “She’s coming back for seconds in a half hour.”

Pompadour fumed, stomped up the companionway ladder and jumped off the boat.

“Nice, Tate. Real class,” Brennan said sarcastically. “By the way, Harvey was his partner.” We looked away, things jumped into focus. “Alright, the low-down is this: we’re going to be on you, that’s the point of this meet. And don’t try to drop the tail, you’ll just make my team angry, and you don’t want to do that.”

“Why, Pete? What are you saying?”

“Just listen to me, Woodward. Don’t think. Just listen. Act like you don’t know or don’t care, your choice, but don’t shake the guys on your six.”

“I don’t like it,” Tate interjected. “Not one fucking bit.”

“I don’t care, Dick. I’m perfectly happy to lock you up for a few days if you won’t play ball.”

I got it then. Pete’s reasoning was clear. “Okay, Pete. I got it.”

He looked at me, relieved. “Be careful, Woody. I mean it.”

“I hear you.”

He tromped up the steps and all of the Feds trooped off behind him.

“Okay,” Tate said, “what am I missing?”

“We’re the bait, the tethered goat.”

“Oh, shit.”

“I couldn’t have said it better.” Because Brennan had told me what I really wanted to know. This was big. Bigger than big. And I was in real danger, too.

+++++

I looked at my watch: a little after three.

“Better call Tottenham now,” I said as I fished out my phone. I called dispatch, they transferred me.

“Chief? Woodward.”

“Woody! How was ole Richard doing? Is he getting along well?”

“Not much business, he says. Barely making ends meet.” Tate flipped me the bird.

“Oh really? Too bad. Well, pensions don’t make up for sloppy retirement planning.”

“No sir, they sure don’t.”

“Do you have the medical examiner’s report on the FBI guy?”

“I’ve got to go over and pick it up, sir.”

“Oh? Well, fine, fine. Keep me posted on this, would you? Pete seemed pretty bent about it at lunch.”

“Will do, sir.” And with that, the line went dead.

“You gonna meet the girl?” Tate asked.

“Yeah. At Ray’s.” I shook my head. “Guess what they talked about at lunch?”

“Yeah. One lie leads to another. Always does.” He grinned. “So, Shilshole for dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“You’re gonna put on ten pounds today.”

I looked down at my stomach. It was still flat – except when I sat. Well, maybe a little when I stood…

“I gotta take a nap,” I said. “Feel like I’ve been up for two days.”

“Okay if I sit here for a while?”

“Sure.” I went forward and crawled in my bunk; I think I was out before my head hit the pillow. I dreamt again, about an ex-wife giving me a hand-job, with razor blades between her fingers.

+++++

Someone was shaking me, shaking me from somewhere far away.

I opened my eyes. “Fuck, that hurts…” I think I said.

“What?”

“I said fuck. As in, ‘why is that whenever someone wakes me up it’s not an insanely gorgeous redhead wanting to sit on my face.’”

“Ah. Yeah, I pretty much have the same problem. It’s called getting old, Dickweed.”

I sat up, rubbed my eyes. They burned, burned like someone had thrown acid in them. I reached over and grabbed some eyedrops, asked Tate what time it was while I struggled to put them in.

“Five-ten. You got time to take a bath?”

“Thanks, yeah. What have you been up to?”

“Looking through your porn stash.”

“Hah-hah.”

“I was reading a book. ‘Cruising in Serrafyn,’ by a couple named Pardey. Pretty cool stuff.”

“Yeah, I met ‘em at the boat show a couple years back. Nice people.”

“Well, I get it now. The whole boat thing, keep it simple.”

“Right. Well…”

“Oh, shit, excuse me…”

I shut the head door behind him and hopped in the shower, looked in the steamed up mirror when I got out and freaked when I saw that stranger in there again. Man, getting old hurts, and in all the wrong places.

We locked the boat and went up to the parking lot, and all the black Fords were nowhere to be seen. Spooky.

“Okay. You sure you don’t want me to join us?”

“No. I’m gonna go home. Got to feed my cat, commune with some Hustler magazines for a while.”

I laughed. “As long as you keep the two activities separate!”

“That’s just gross, Woody.”

“Well, it’s nice to know you’re still getting some pussy.”

He stared at me, then shook his head. “You need to get out more.”

“Hey, where do ya think I’m going?”

“This ain’t a date, Woody. Don’t forget that. Anyway, she sounds like damaged goods to me.”

I nodded. “Probably right.”

“I’ll keep my phone on,” Tate said.

“Right. Be careful.”

“You too.”

We got in our cars and I took off toward the bridge, then retraced my earlier route out past the locks and pulled into Ray’s. The lot was nowhere close to full; I wondered where the Feds were, and I was worried about Tate, too…

Mary-Jo pulled into the lot and parked next to me; I got out and walked around, opened her door and helped her out. She’d gotten dressed for the occasion – my khakis and boat shoes were a little shabby next to her rig. I held out my arm and she slipped hers in mine and we walked in, checked-in and we walked out to a table looking over the Sound.

“You look fantastic,” I told her, and the truth of the matter was she really did look great. Sexy as hell. In fact, she didn’t look anything like she had earlier that morning: her hair was down, her face was made-up discreetly, the dress… well, classy described it well. Black, low-cut in front, and her legs were simply stunning – and there was a lot to see, too, and I felt myself responding to her before I knew what was happening. We ordered drinks and looked out over the Sound – a ferry was making it’s way across the water to Bainbridge Island, the snow-capped Olympics stood beyond the Sound, beyond the ferry, and I suddenly wanted to get away from all the ugliness in this world – to just leave it all behind – while I still could.

“What are you thinking about?” Mary-Jo asked.

“Out there,” I said, pointing.

“What about it?”

“I think,” I sighed, “I’m ready to retire.”

“What? Out there?”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, right. The boat.”

“So, have a look at this.” I pulled out the image of Tottenham and handed it over; she unfolded the paper and looked at it for a split second then folded it up and handed it back. “Is that him?”

“Yup. No question.”

“What can you tell me about the club? Where you two met?”

“Like I said, he called it the Hole in the Wall, but it doesn’t have a name on it. Anywhere. It’s a red brick building over on Leary.”

“By the docks?”

“Yeah. I don’t know the address but I could take you there, show you where it is.”

I nodded. “Tell me about the people in there.”

“Like what?”

“Anything that comes to mind. Rich, poor, black, white – whatever.”

“Well, I’d say mainly middle-aged white people, probably pretty educated group as a hole. Some nights they have erotic poetry readings, other nights erotic art shows.”

“Do people just hook-up there, or do people have sex there as well?”

“To tell you the truth, Woody, I’m not sure. I think the place is pretty big, but I’m not sure how big. I’ve only seen a few rooms, but I think it was an old warehouse, looks like it’s been redone. A lot of money, too.”

“Is there a bar?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Any people doing drugs? You know, out in the open?”

“I saw some guys doing lines off the top of a girl’s thighs. Does that count?”

We laughed.

“Probably so,” I added, then I looked her in the eyes: “How many times have you been?”

She looked away: “More than a… more than once.”

“With Tottenham, or with other people?”

She didn’t answer.

“What are you into, Mary-Jo? Swinging? Or is it something else?”

Again, she just looked away, didn’t answer. She was either embarrassed, or acting that way.

“I need to know, Mary.”

She nodded. “Yeah, I know.” She seemed to gather herself inward, as if to protect herself from a storm, then she looked up at me. Her eyes were really lovely, soft, kind, but something darker than confusion lurked in her shadows.

“Tell me,” I said again, and I remember that now. I commanded her to tell me, and something seemed to snap-to when I spoke in that tone of voice.

“I’m a Bottom, Woody.”

“A Bottom? What’s that? Like something to do with anal sex?”

She laughed. “No Woody, it means I’m submissive. I do what people command me to do.”

“What do you mean, ‘what they command you to do’?”

“Sexually, though sometimes it’s more than just role playing. You know, like the French maid and the Gestapo interrogator?”

“What? You mean like bondage and stuff?”

“If that’s what my master wants to do.”

“Your master?”

“Yeah. The Top, the person in charge.”

“The person? You mean, like, see, a man, or a woman?”

“Yes.”

I coughed, took a long pull on my drink.

She reached up, wiped my forehead: “You’re sweating, Woody. Does that turn you on?”

It was my turn to look away.

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Woody. Everyone has fantasies, everyone wants to let go a little.”

“Yeah? I suppose so.”

“What would it be, Woody? Would you like to tell me what to do? Would you like to do that?”

Her hand was under the table now, then it was resting on my thigh. I cleared my throat as her hand drifted up to the zipper on my khakis.

“Or maybe you’d like it better if I told you what to do. Would that do it for you, Woody? Would that trip your trigger?”

She was squeezing my cock through my pants, and I’m pretty sure I felt an eyelid trembling.

“Ooh, Woody! I think that’s it! I think you’d like it if I told you what to do!” She squeezed again: “Do you feel that, Woody? Feel that need? To let loose, lose control? Let me take control? For a while? Would you let me?”

“Let you? What?”

“Let me take you there, Woody?”

“You keep squeezin’ my dick like that and you won’t have to take me anywhere. I’ll pop-off right here.”

Her eyes smiled, she licked her lips. “Really?” I felt her foot on my ankle, my heart hammering in my skull.

She slowly pulled the zipper down, undid the belt, then she reached in and pulled my cock out; our waiter came over to fill our water glasses and she looked up at the kid: “Would you bring me a clean glass?” she said to him. “An empty one, please?”

“Certainly, Ma’am.”

He disappeared and she started squeezing my cock again, milking it. Every now and then she’d pause and run her fingernails up and down the shaft, then she’d jerk it fast a few times before squeezing it again, milking me, bringing me to the edge and letting me float there.

The waiter came back and dropped off the glass.

“Take it, Woody. The glass. Hold it down there.”

I did as she said, felt my balls boiling, my cock getting hard as a rock.

“Hold it there, Woody; let me shoot it in the glass.”

I did as best I could, but within a blinding flash I started to cum. And cum. And cum some more.

“Jesus, Woody! How long has it been?”

I couldn’t answer. I was biting my lower lip, holding on to the edge of the table with one hand and the glass with the other…I was still cuming…and it felt like it lasted forever…

“Hand me the glass now, Woody.”

I brought it up from under the table and put it on the table.

“Woody?”

“Yeah?”

“No, Woody. Not yeah. It’s ‘Yes, Mistress.’” She squeezed my prick with her fingernails to drive home the point. “Woody, I said hand me the glass.”

I picked it up and put it in her hand, then she released my cock and I groaned.

A couple at the table across from ours was looking at us, they were leaning close and whispering something to one another. Mary-Jo held the glass up to the dim light like she was examining a fine wine, then she drank the cum – all of it – in one smooth motion. The man across from us squirmed in his seat, the woman with him was directing all her attention to his lap, and soon he held up his own glass, as if toasting us, and then he handed his glass of cum to the woman.

I guess it really hit me then; the couple across from us were our minders, here to keep an eye on us. Just part of the club, I guess, but I felt cold dread as I looked at the smiling couple across from us, as I watched the woman drink down the milky contents of her glass.

+++++

I felt my phone go off in my coat pocket and excused myself, went up on the front deck and called dispatch, trying to conceal the alarm I felt. The only way anyone could have found out about our dinner plans was through Mary-Jo – or Tate, and the latter just wasn’t possible – was it?

“Woodward.”

“Detective, we have officers at the scene of a homicide; they want to talk to you directly. Can you take a number?”

“Go ahead,” I said as I fumbled for my pad. I scribbled as she spoke, then hung-up and dialed the new number.

“Woodward.”

“Detective Woodward?”

“Yeah. Go ahead.”

“Ah, yessir, we’re going to need you to come out here.”

“What’s going on?”

“Can’t say sir. Not on an unsecured line.”

“Well okay, but where the hell are you?” I wrote down the address of a hotel out north off the Interstate. “I’ll be there in about an hour,” I said as I closed the phone, then: “Fuck!” I walked back to the table, sat down beside Mary-Jo, avoided looking at her.

“You okay?” she asked. The couple across from us had departed, I noted.

“A call.” I couldn’t even look her in the eye.

“You have to take it?”

“Apparently so.” Fuck! What had I just let happen, and who was this girl?

Our waiter had brought our dinner while I was out; I had a beautiful King Salmon and some steamed broccoli Hollandaise and I was damned if I was going to walk away from it, so I lit into it as fast as I politely could.

“Goddamn, someone back there sure knows how to cook fish!” I said as I finished up. I flagged our waiter, got the bill and paid up. “Sorry,” I said as I stood.

“I understand. Will you call me later? Let me know you’re alright?”

“Sure.”

I walked out to the Ford, saw a note tucked under the windshield wiper and plucked it up while I opened the door. ‘Watch your six… T’

Goddamn! Tate hadn’t gone home after all, and he’d seen something. I closed the door and my phone went off again.

“It’s me,” he said. “Did you get the note?”

“Four.”

“Need to twenty-five with you,” he said. “Betty Lincoln west?”

“Four.” I started the Ford and drove the three blocks over to the visitor’s parking lot by the locks; Tate winked his lights and I drove over and parked next to him.

“There’s a shitload of traffic on the scanner. I mean, even the Chief’s on the air, en-route to a Signal One.”

“Tottenham?”

“No, no, not an A/C… I mean THE Chief.”

“Fuck.”

“Nice night to dawdle over dinner, Dickhead!”

“I just got the call, I think. That girl…something’s not right.”

“Your face is flushed. You alright?”

I shook my head. “Not sure yet.”

“What did she do to you?”

I told him.

“Shit. Nobody ever done that to me, Amigo. How come you get all the fun calls?”

“I dunno. Want me to tag along?”

“If you’re not too tired, sure. The Silver Cloud, in Mukilteo.”

“Wow, out of jurisdiction, no less. Oh well, I’ll follow you.”

We made our way over to I-5 and blended in with the northbound traffic and I didn’t even bother to look for a tail; we probably would have looked like a freight train if I had. Twenty minutes later I exited and we wound our way west between huge Boeing assembly buildings, then down to the shore. More patrol cars – local ones, more flashing lights, a couple of ambulances. I could see Chief Anders waiting in the lobby, looking at his watch.

“Great! Just fucking Great!”

I grabbed my stuff and walked in, looked for the Chief and walked over to him. He was on his phone talking in hushed tones: “Okay, he’s here now. I’ll call you in a half hour.”

“Chief Anders,” I said as I walked up.

“Where the hell have you been? And wipe that shit off your shirt!”

I looked down, saw a nice, shiny glob of salmon on my shirt and groaned.

“Who’s that with you? Richard Tate?”

“Yessir.”

“He’s retired, isn’t he? What’s he doing here?”

“Chief, I’m still active in the reserves; just putting in my hours.”

“You were homicide, weren’t you?”

“Yessir.”

“Oh, well, come on, then.” We walked up a flight of stairs and down a hall that stretched off into infinity to an area cordoned off with yellow crime-scene tape. We walked past two patrolmen into the room.

Mark Tottenham lay face-up on the bed, his penis had been cut off and was dangling from his mouth. The tattoo on his chest had been cut out of his flesh, and it looked like he’d been stabbed about a hundred times in the chest and belly.

Now I didn’t know what to think. I looked at the Chief. There was a tear running down his cheek and his teeth were clenched so hard the side of face was trembling. Tate walked over to Tottenham’s body while I walked around to the other side of the bed. There was a glass there, the rim smeared with red lipstick, and obviously, whoever she was, she’d drunk a shitload of cum from the glass.

I groaned inside, thought of MJ, and knew her little performance hadn’t been coincidence. Tate knew it too, as soon as he saw the glass. I heard her say “Call me Mistress” and wanted to turn and run away.

Some nights are worse than others, you know. Nature of the beast, I guess you could say; no two nights are ever the same yet somehow they all are, but this was like déjà vu all over again. Even with more than a decade of looking at wrecked and mutilated bodies, this one got to me. I don’t care what you have to say about it, or what you think: when you look at one of your own, a brother officer, your feelings are…different. The Wall can’t get up fast enough and you’re left wide open and vulnerable – and just like every other Joe on the street you feel a big, cold slap on the face as reality breaks over you like a wave of black hate. There’s no other way to look at it: you really feel the scene around you and it hurts. It hurts because you don’t get to play the objective observer anymore, you’re not just a cop. It hurts because the pain hits you where you live – and there’s no place to hide. And you can’t run from your feelings, either. They come for you hard and fast, grab you by the throat, like a leopard grabs a goat by the throat, and you know it won’t let go until you stop breathing.

Chief Anders was shook up bad, too. He was standing at the foot of this perverted hotel bed looking down at Tottenham’s body and I couldn’t even begin to guess what was running through the old man’s head. They’d gone to Academy together, been close friends for just a little longer than forever – and now this. This death wasn’t a random drive-by or another officer run-down by a drunk driver; this wasn’t a pissed-off veteran blowing his brains out after a bitter divorce or a forced retirement. No, this one was different…because everything in that room was so goddamn dark and twisted – so evil – and what was left of The Wall came tumbling down.

It looked like the body on the bed had gotten there on its own, so this was a consensual encounter. But then – what happened? Had Tottenham been betrayed, or set up, perhaps? Still, as I looked around the room it hurt most of all because it hinted at something immeasurably dark and vicious – prowling within our ranks.

Whoever it was had not bothered to untie the wrist and ankle restraints this time, and Tottenham’s body was obscenely splayed; he looked like da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man – drawn in blood on bleached white sheets. There were deep impressions all over his body, too, marks not easily explained.

Only Tate seemed relatively unaffected. He’d never really cared for Tottenham, thought he was a martinet and had done sloppy work in Internal Affairs, yet Tate seemed to be the first to grab hold of the implications of having the head of IAD compromised; I didn’t get it yet because none of us had quite grasped the depth of departmental penetration this murder implied.

+++++

This was another city’s jurisdiction, but after learning the identity of the victim we’d been asked to join their investigation; given the FBIs tertiary interest I wasn’t surprised when Brennan walked through the door. Tate and I helped the local detectives, a crusty old veteran named Spiros Pantazis, and a new detective, a four year veteran – who also happened to be a woman.

Her name was Susan Eklund, and my first impression of her was that she might make a good cop – when she got out of high school. To my eye she looked like a teenager, but then again I’ve been a little slow to admit that just about everyone under the age of forty looks like a teenager to me these days. Eklund had a round face and round, curly hair, sort of blond but not quite, and there was a zit in the middle of her forehead that looked like it was about to go Vesuvius on us. She was wearing a suit. A very masculine suit, and she was laying the macho know-it-all routine on pretty thick. Her partner, Pantazis, regarded her knowingly, yet we could tell he was embarrassed by her show. I would have thrown her off my crime scene, but that’s just me. I like it quiet, I like to think, and showboats are a distraction. They come and go, and usually leave a mess in their wake.

Their photographer was moving around as directed, taking photos then standing back, waiting for orders; Eklund seemed intent on ignoring Tate and myself but was deferential to Chief Anders. No one, it seemed to me, knew what the fuck what they were doing…and that bothered me. I had to teach these yahoos how to work a crime scene, around the Chief and Tottenham, and that made me queasy.

I went over to the bed’s headboard and looked at the grain of the wood. “Prints here, I think,” I said; Pantazis came close and looked too, held up a little UV lamp and looked again.

“Good call,” he said. “Missed that one.”

That had been Eklund’s first mistake and he wanted her to know it, too. She glowered at me and came over with her kit and began taking the print.

I walked over to the sliding glass door; it was unlocked. “Anyone been here yet? Dusted the door?”

No one had. “And don’t let anyone in the bathroom!” I yelled. The carpet, I could tell, was already useless.

Pantazis came over and looked with me. There was dozens of prints on the glass, and we wouldn’t be able to tell about the door-handle and lock-lever until Eklund tried to lift prints from them, but I was guessing there’d be a relevant one or two – at least – on both.

Pantazis groaned.

“You’re gonna have to ride her ass,” I said. “She’s sloppy, and a know it all. Bad in the line of work.”

“I know.”

I shook my head, knew he wouldn’t have made it in our department. “You shootin’ film?” I asked their photographer. He looked like he was – maybe – fourteen, then shook his head.

“No, sir. We haven’t in years. Canon 1Dx Mark II, with data verification.”

“Can you shoot IR?”

“What’s IR?”

“Never-mind,” I grumbled as I took out my phone. I called dispatch, had them transfer me to the lab.

“Woodward here. Is Harker on tonight?”

“Yeah, hang on.” I heard some hollering in the background, banging sounds of stools falling over onto the floor, then the always and ever diminutive: “Jonathan Harker here.”

“Jon? Woody. You got any high speed infrared loaded?”

“Yeah, sure. Tons. What’s up?”

I filled him in; he got excited and loaded up his stuff and was headed our way in a flash, he got there about a half hour later – somehow keeping his velocity just under the speed of light. I had managed to keep everyone away from the patio door, and the bathroom, until he arrived, then told him what I needed. I moved off and let him do his thing. He knew what I was after, and I didn’t have to ride herd on him.

We finished the crime scene about five hours later, and only then did we let the M.E.’s people move the body. I had Harker shoot some IR where Tottenham’s body had been, then pulled down the comforter and had him shoot the blanket, then each sheet underneath. Pantazis and Eklund looked at me like I was nuts.

“You need a new photographer, too,” I told Pantazis after their useless teenager left.

Anders and Tate were down in the lobby when I got off the elevator, and there were a couple dozen reporters outside on the sidewalk – too late for the morning editions, I told myself as I walked over to the Chief – and Tate handed me a cup of coffee when I got there.

“Thanks. That was rough…”

“Woodward, I want a total black-out on this for now. Strictly ‘no comment’ – got it?”

“Yessir.”

“Of course that goes for you, too,” Anders said as he looked at Tate.

“I know.”

“Did you get what you needed?” Anders asked.

“Think so, Chief. If the locals cooperate, anyway.”

“They will.”

The way Anders spoke left no doubt in my mind: he had turned up the heat. Even Brennan had taken one look at Anders and moved off.

The elevator dinged; Pantazis and Eklund walked out; a photographer pointed and all the gathered reporters got ready. Obviously they didn’t know who I was, maybe not even Anders, so it was a cinch Tate was totally off their radar.

“There a way out of here?” I asked the clerk behind the reception desk. “To avoid that?” I added, pointing at the press.

She pointed to a hallway: “Down there, door at the end of the hall. Leads right into the parking garage.”

“Thanks.” I turned to Anders. “You sure you don’t want me to talk the reporters?”

“No, get out of here, keep on Harker and the lab until you know something.”

“Right.” I turned to Tate, motioned with my head and we walked-off down the hall to the covert exit. I opened the door and recognized her immediately: Liza Mullins, crime reporter for the Post-Intelligencer. She’d staked us out, been waiting for us. Ambushed…

“Got anything for me, Woody?”

“Well, does ‘No comment’ count?”

“Heard it’s a cop. Any truth to that?”

“I heard there’s a shuttle headed up to the mother-ship. It’s already on the roof and they’re holding a place just for you.”

“Can I quote you on that? ‘Seattle PD claims alien Mother Ship wants Ace Reporter?’”

“So, you’re an Ace Reporter?” We laughed, then: “You never give up, do you?”

“Never.”

“You ever been married, Liza?” That seemed to shut her up…

“I’m not now. Why?”

“Well then, would you marry me?”

Her left eyebrow shot up: “Sure, Woody, right after the aliens get through probing your asshole.”

“That’s just about what I thought you’d say. Always the same story with us, isn’t it.” We all laughed – even as Tate and I turned and walked off, leaving her standing there. Then I heard her high heels running along behind us and we stopped when I got to the back of my Ford. “You still here?” I pointed at the ceiling: “They ain’t gonna wait forever, ya know?”

“Knock it off, Woodward. Gimme something!? Please?”

“Sorry. No can do.”

“How ‘bout coffee later? Or some breakfast?”

I looked at her; cute kid, maybe a pest – but cute. I could handle some cute after a night like this. “I don’t know how long I’ll be?”

She handed me her card. “Call me. Whenever.”

I looked her in the eye. “Cute,” I said, and that eyebrow shot up again.

“What?”

“I said, cute. As in, you-are-cute.”

She started to blush and I opened the door and got in, started the engine and let it warm up. She moved closer, until she was blocking my open door, then she knelt down beside me.

“Do you mean that?” she said.

“What? About the mother ship?”

She didn’t have a come-back ready, or maybe she was being serious, but she just looked at me.

“Yeah, Liza, I think you’re cute. Maybe nine/tenths gorgeous. Why?”

“Just didn’t expect you to say that, that’s all.” She was looking all kinds of serious now, but it was kind of odd because for some reason I didn’t regret saying it. I’d know her for years, we’d bantered back and forth over cases – the normal back and forth between cops and reporters – and yet for any number of reasons nothing had ever developed. We’d certainly never exchanged Christmas cards or birthday greetings, let alone met for coffee, so I considered this a most unusual, and interesting development.

“Well, maybe I should have told you years ago, but there it is.”

“Will you call me?”

“For coffee, yes.”

She looked at me. She got it. “Okay. I’ve got to get some sleep, but I’ll answer.”

“Right.”

She shut my door and I backed out and drove out from under the building; Tate fell in behind me and called as soon as we were clear:

“What did she want?” he asked.

“Anal sex. With me and a goat.”

“You wish, Dickhead. Seriously, Woody, what’s she after.”

“A warm shoulder, I think. Who knows?”

“Aren’t we all. What else.”

“Coffee. Chit-chat.”

“No shit? You need a chaperone or anything, you let me know.”

“Right.”

“I’m wasted, Woody, gonna head to the barn and crash for a while.”

“Yeah, you old farts! Gotta get your rest or you…”

“Woody?”

“Yeah, Tate?”

“Suck my dick.”

“No thanks. Tryin’ to quit.”

“Well, then, be careful…”

The line went dead.

+++++

Forensics was in an annex to the original Central Precinct building; it had been cobbled together over the years to make room for new gadgets and ever newer technologies, but somehow digital had yet to replace film completely in our lab, and I for one was grateful. Digital is good, don’t get me wrong, but a fine grained film in the hands of a good photographer with a Leica can reveal all kinds of things better than digital, particularly in the infrared spectrum, and that’s why I’d called Harker.

Infrared excels at picking up things the human eye misses; things like leather scuff marks on floor tiles, or the impression made by knees or shoes on blankets and sheets. Harker knew exactly what I was looking for; he hadn’t needed to ask because we’d danced this dance a hundred times before. He came out of the darkroom a little after eight that morning with a big smile on his face.

“Bingo!” he said.

“Yeah? Let me see.”

He laid out a pile of 11×17 inch prints on a drafting table and flipped on an articulated desk-lamp/magnifying glass and pulled it over; I sat down and looked at the first print…

“She probably stood over him, on the bed. High heels, probably a size seven, maybe a seven and a half. Look at the next one.”

I picked up the next image and put in under the light.

“Scuff mark on the tile in the bathroom, and a couple of other prints in the next shot. Same shoe, same size.”

“So… female for sure.”

“Yeah. Probably pretty small, too. Like five four, five five, maybe a shade more. Look at the next one… close.”

“This the bathroom floor again?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?”

“Two sets of prints, really. The same high heels, and a man facing her. About a size nine, maybe a ten.”

“Tottenham?”

“Size thirteen. I checked.”

“Bingo, indeed. Good work, Amigo.”

“Woody? It’s pretty weird you know, even so.”

“Why?”

“Well, all the usual places you’d find prints were wiped down, like a cop was in on it, but an insider would know we might use infrared. Any competent lab would.”

“So?”

“Well, I had just assumed an insider, you know, what with that FBI guy and the A/C.”

“How’d you hear the other was FBI?”

“Shit, Woody, are you kidding? Everyone was talking about it yesterday.”

I bunched my lips, frowned. It would be in the papers today. Had to be. It would be interesting to find out their source someday. “So then, what are you thinking? Amateurs?”

“Yeah. Or just sloppy.”

“Or tryin’ to throw us off the trail.”

He shook his head at that one. “Glad this is your case, Woodward.”

“Yeah, ain’t life grand?”

+++++

Anders wasn’t in; he’d gone home and left a note for me to call him that afternoon. I pulled Liza’s card from my pocket and dialed the number.

“Hello?” She sounded half asleep.

“So, let me take a wild guess. You blew off the Mother-ship?”

“Woody?”

“Yup.”

“You find out anything?”

I didn’t answer.

“Oh, right,” she said. “Sorry. No questions allowed.”

“Coffee?”

“I could do that.”

“Starbucks on Westlake, by the Marriott. Half hour.” I broke the connection then checked my messages. First one was from Tottenham, telling me to check in with him in the morning. Okay, nothing unusual going on there. Next one was from Mary-Jo, late last night.

“Woody, sorry about last night. Maybe we could so something this weekend?”

Uh-huh. Sure. Right after I get back from the mother-ship.

Next was from Tate, this morning when he got home: “Just checkin’ in, Woody. Call me if you haven’t heard from me by noon or so.” I dropped by my mailbox and then walked out to the Ford, got in and drove over to Lake Union, went into the Starbuck’s and bought a New York Times. I looked around, took a seat away from the windows. The Times, I thought, ought to really piss her off.

She came in a few minutes later; the dark circles under her eyes were almost as puffy as mine.

“I didn’t take you for a bird owner, Woody.”

“Hm-m…what’s that?”

“The only reason to buy a rag like that. To line the bottom of a bird-cage.”

“Ah. Gee, I didn’t even think…”

“You order anything yet?”

“Nope; thought I’d wait and see what you wanted. You know, like bein’ chivalrous and all that crap.”

“Woody?”

“Yes?”

“Cram it.”

“Here? Now? Are you sure?”

She laughed. “Yeah, man. Bend over.”

“What do you want?”

“Hi-test. Big.”

“I hear that.” I came back a few minutes later and sat across from her, slipped two fingers up to my carotid and felt the pulse.

“I didn’t take you for a Lake Union kind of guy,” she said as I sat. “You got a boat?”

I ignored the question. “So, what are you hearin’ on the street about this?”

“Two cops dead, same MO.”

“Someone inside tell you?”

“Is that a confirmation?”

“Nope. A non-denial denial.”

“Then I’m sorry. My sources are confidential.”

“Tit for tat, huh?”

“No other way in this biz, Woody.”

“C’est la vie.”

“Il ne doit pas etre de cette facon.”

“Yes it does. It wouldn’t work for very long if we expected each other to compromise our integrity.”

“Guess so.” She looked me in the eye: “You lonely, Woodward?”

“No, I’m tired.”

She nodded. “When’re you going to retire?”

“Yesterday.”

She laughed. “How long ‘til you can?”

“Oh, I could now. Just not with full benefits.”

She sighed. “So, why are you staying?”

“Habit.”

“The bad ones are tough to break.”

“The hardest. May I ask you a question?”

“I’m forty three, was married once, divorced about ten years ago.”

“Touché. Damn, I hate being so predictable.”

“Well, if it means anything to you, Woody, I’m lonely too.”

I nodded, looked at her eyes, saw the long nights typing stories, just meeting deadlines by minutes day after day, year after year, and pushing everyone she cared for right out of her life. It was all right there – hiding in plain sight.

“What about you?” I asked. “You gonna work ‘til you drop?”

“I’ve thought about quitting but I have no idea what I’d do. Guess I could teach somewhere.”

“Where you from?”

“Portland. You?”

“Military brat. All over.”

“Married? No. Wait. How many times?”

“Three.”

She whistled: “Just didn’t work out, huh?”

“The hours. You have to be around every now and then in order to have a relationship. Took me awhile to figure that out. Funny thing is, we’re all still good friends. No alimony, none of that bullshit. Just friends. Like the marriage thing never happened.”

“That’s why I never remarried, I think. No good reason to, really, because I was never ready to put my work in second place.”

“Any regrets?” I asked. She was so easy to talk to, like an old friend.

“No, not really, not then, anyway. The prospect of growing old, alone? Well, that’s not so comfortable anymore.”

“Perspectives change a little bit, don’t they?”

She nodded. “If you retired tomorrow, what would you do?”

“Depends. If it was just me I’d take off, maybe just go wandering.”

“Really? What, like on a motorcycle or something? A motorhome?”

I took a deep breath, wasn’t sure I wanted to put so much about myself out there in the public domain. Then it just sort of slipped out: “I have a boat.”

She went wide-eyed on me: “No shit!?”

“No shit.”

“Powerboat?”

“Hell no, are you serious?”

“Good for you. Always thought that would be fun. Sea of Cortes, Baja…”

“Tahiti.”

“Now you’re talking. When do we go?”

We laughed at that one, but it was an uneasy, loaded laughter, like we were all of a sudden finding something in common and grasping to make something out of it. Maybe we were. Maybe we could…but this was rocky terrain.

My stomach growled.

“He hungry down there?” she said as she looked at my belly.

“Always. How ‘bout you?”

“You know? I could eat.”

“Follow me.” We walked out and went over to the Ford, I opened the door for her then got in behind the wheel, drove the few blocks down Westlake. We walked down to the slips and I buzzed-in the gate, then led her out to the boat.

“She’s nice. How big?”

“Forty one.”

“About right for two people.”

“Yep.” I unlocked the companionway, slid back the hatch and stowed the boards, went down and offered her my hand. She ignored it and hopped down with practiced ease.

“It’s nice, Woody. Comfortable.”

“Thanks. Eggs and bacon sound okay?”

“Maybe. How ‘bout some juice or something…”

“Okay, comin’ up.” I poured a couple glasses, put them on the table.

“You don’t have any tissue handy, do you?”

“Sure. Be right back.” I went to the head, rummaged around for a fresh box and went back. She had some eye-drops out and her eyes were watering; I handed her the box.

“Thanks.”

“No problem.”

She took her juice and drank most of it. “Good stuff.”

I took my glass and downed it. I thought it had a funny aftertaste – kind of bitter.

She smiled at me now. “I don’t really feel like bacon and eggs, Woody.”

“Oh?”

“No, I had in mind something, well, firmer, something a little more satisfying…”

She was looking right at my groin and I swear she was licking her lips.

“Oh?”

“Come on,” she said as she stood. “I’m going to fuck your brains out, Woody.”

She came over, took my hand and pulled me up, led me forward. I felt a little light-headed, suddenly sleepy. She pulled me up to the berth and turned me around, pushed me gently and laughed as I fell back. I felt like the world was spinning now, like the whole world was careening wildly out of control. She leaned over and unbuttoned my shirt, undid my belt, then she yanked down my pants. “Sit up,” she commanded; I felt her tugging my pants all the way down, pulling my shoes off, pulling them over my ankles.

I could hardly keep my eyes open now.

“Woody, push yourself up, to the head.” It was hard, my arms and legs felt like hot lead, nothing worked right anymore. “Here, I’ll help you…” I felt her arms under my shoulders, wanted to say something but couldn’t. She fluffed-up some pillows, propped me up in a reclined position and I watched as she took off her clothes, folded them neatly and put them aside.

She opened her purse, took out a bottle and opened it, then she came over, opened my mouth, slipped a pill under my tongue. “I want you nice and hard, Woody. Real hard.”

“What?” I think I managed to say.

“Don’t try to talk, Woody.”

“What? Why?”

She had my handcuffs now and she came over and put them on me, clamped them down hard. I think I winced.

“Is that too tight, Woody? Hmm?”

“Why?”

“That’s right… I heard you like it rough. You like it rough, don’t you Woody?”

I felt cold fear in the air all around me. “Who?”

“Mary-Jo told me, Woody.”

I blinked. I wasn’t tired anymore, just…paralyzed. She had pantyhose in her hands now and she leaned over and tied my cuffed hands behind my head with them, then draped the moist crotch over my face. “Does that smell good, Woody? Do you like that?”

I could see her moving through the fabric; no details, really – just her body moving slowly around the cabin. It was getting hard to swallow and I felt fear for the first time, wondered how it was going to feel to die, then I felt her leaning close, felt her hot breath on my cock, her tongue stroking it. It felt like a hot, wet glove had gripped me and I saw her shadowy head moving back and forth, up and down…

“Oh, Woody, you’re getting so nice and hard.”

“Glad…you like…it…” I managed to say.

“Oh, Woody. I do, I do like it.” She leaned forward and licked my lips through the fabric, stuck her tongue in my mouth and forced the nylon in with it. My left eye was clear now and I watched her as she leaned back over my cock and took it in her mouth again. I tried to move my legs, felt some kind of rope around my ankles and gave up.

I was aware of the smell now, the smell of her pantyhose up against my face, then I felt her get off the berth and walk to the rear of the boat. I turned my head, saw her talking with someone out there. There was someone with her, a man. It was too dark to see anything clearly but everything was becoming all too clear.

She came back a minute later and leaned over me, kissed my open eye as she reached down and stroked my cock. “You ready for me, Woody?”

“Ready?”

She straddled me, rubbed the head of my cock against her cunt. I felt the heat, the unbelievable wetness, felt her hand grab the head and guide it inside her, then she slid up and down a few times – until I could feel my cock getting unnaturally hard. She slid off me, then up my body and I watched as she moved the nylon from my face and hovered over me.

“I’m going to mark you now, Woody. Mark you as mine…”

I felt hot liquid splash my face, smelled urine, tasted it as it ran down my face and across my lips. She lowered herself onto my face and mashed her wetness all over me, pissed some more – filling my mouth until it spilled down my chin and onto my chest – then as quickly she lifted herself from my face and slid down onto my cock again.

“It’s hard, Woody. So hard. I think you liked that. You ready to cum for me?”

I couldn’t speak at all now but I saw her lean forward and take a cotton ball and moisten it with alcohol, then she wiped my arm, took out a syringe.

“It’s not going to hurt, Woody, I promise.”

She stuck the needle in, pushed the plunger down slowly and I felt a sudden warmth flooding through me.

I didn’t feel too different at first, then the dizziness returned. My vision changed, everything looked cast in blues and purples, and I felt her hand around my cock. She was jerking it furiously now.

“Not much longer, Woody…not much more…”

I could see her holding a glass under the head of my cock, then felt an incredible orgasm wrenching through me, pulsing into the glass…

“Ooh, Woody! So much! And so soon, too!” She kept jerking it, mouthing her surprise as she looked first at the glass, then at me, then she held the glass up and looked admiringly at the pearlescent flow. She came up to me again, sat beside me so I could see her face clearly and she drank it down, licked the sides of the glass to get every bit of it, then she put the glass aside carefully and turned to me, kissed me. She forced her tongue into my mouth and painted broad strokes of cum across my face, dribbled a huge wad down onto my forehead, then licked it off and spit it down again, this time onto my lips.

She got up suddenly and the man came into the cabin. He had a mask on, and she stood beside him silently while he looked down at me.

“Did I do well, Master?”

He only nodded, but then he whispered in her ear.

“Yes, Master,” she said after a moment. “I will obey you.”

He handed her a knife.

She came up to my face again and looked at me, spoke gently, almost kindly: “My Master says I must tell you that this is a warning. A warning to stop, now.”

She held the knife at my neck, I could feel the point just beneath my chin and she pressed gently.

“Will you stop now, Woody?”

The knife pressed it into my skin; I could feel my heart beating, then the knife slid through skin – into muscle.

“Yes.”

“Do you swear it?”

The knife pressed deeper, and I could feel my pulse hammering in my head…

“I… swear…”

She turned, looked up at the masked man. He nodded and she withdrew the knife, then he turned and left the cabin.

She leaned into me, kissed me again – this time gently.

“You’re a sweet man, Woody. So sweet. I wish I’d met you a long time ago.” I could see she was crying, like she hated what she had done – but that she had been powerless to resist, as well.

“I…”

“Don’t try to talk now, Woody. You’re going to sleep now.”

“Please… don’t…”

“It’s okay, Woody. This is it. It’s all over now. As long as you don’t break your promise, this is it.”

I felt sleep coming, powerful, irresistible sleep. I could feel her cradling my face, kissing my forehead, telling me that everything would be alright again, that everything would be fine…but I knew nothing would ever be fine again…nothing would ever be the same…

I hoped it wouldn’t hurt. Hoped they wouldn’t find me with my dick hanging from my mouth and take pictures of me and wonder what the hell had happened to get me mixed up with this bunch of crazy, fucked-up monsters, then I felt myself falling…falling…and I wondered if this was how Lucifer felt when he was forced out of Heaven and fell from the sky.

+++++

My head hurt – as if from a series of violently spinning falls, and my gut burned like nothing I’d ever felt before. Everything was dark, pure unadulterated black, but I saw distant glowing flashes of light that were like a lightning – yet not quite.

Then the thought hit me: these flashes were a sign or some sort. What were they trying to tell me? What had I missed?

Obviously, I was dead… or maybe still just dying. That was clear if only because nothing in my experience had ever felt even remotely this – like the way I felt now. The sensation of falling was so real, so vertiginous, it overwhelmed almost every other sense. But it was the supporting elements that were so disturbing.

I could feel my hair fluttering in the slipstream, hear vast oceans of wind howling as I fell downward, and that pulsing white glow…that sign? Photons would pass through me on their way to wherever they went, leaving just the faintest impression of their passage. What were they?

Then I could hear something like muffled surf, perhaps wild breakers crashing on a distant shore. The sound would come upon me – and as suddenly fall away.

It went on like this for hours, days…the pulsing light and distant surf that defined this windward passage…yet from time to time I felt a jabbing in my arms, pressure in my chest…then one day:

An eye opened. No, not that. It was opened by someone. Someone was above me, holding my right eye open, shining a light in my eye. I tried to see beyond the woman, the woman holding the light, but she followed my eye, followed my movements and kept shining the light in.

Then I saw her hand. Fingernails. Sharp fingernails. She was pressing my forehead with her fingernails, right between my eyes. Son-of-a-bitch but that hurt!

I wanted to tell her to stop but couldn’t.

Then she had an earlobe; she was pinching it with those fucking talons of hers and I found all I could sense or feel now was the pain she was inflicting. I struggled to tell her to stop. Stop it… stop…

“STOP! GODDAMN IT!”

And she did, too.

And it was like I heard people letting go after holding a deep breath… or was it me struggling to breathe?

Both my eyes were open now, but it was like someone had smeared Vaseline in them… everything was a coarse blur, coarse and watery. I wanted to move my hands, rub my eyes – but I couldn’t and I felt a familiar panic grab my chest…

“Mr Woodward… you’re in the ER, the emergency room at Mason. You’re alright now so try to relax.”

Her words found me and I understood what she was saying but panic still gripped my chest… like a vice…gripping…darkness again, coming for me…

“Oh fuck!” I heard the woman say. “He’s going into arrest again…get me a…”

Then darkness. Darkness and falling, all consuming darkness…and the wind and the surf returned.

+++++

I knew I was awake. Knew something wasn’t quite right, but I was awake. But what was with all the incessant beeping?

Beeping. I heard beeping everywhere, just like I was on the set of some hokey medical show, and I remembered thinking I must have become an actor somewhere along the way because here I was, starring at a television show about a man dying in an unknown hospital.

I opened my eyes, looked at banks of streaming monitors in black and green and I tried to swallow but my throat was too goddamned dry. My tongue was stuck…to the roof of my mouth. I tried to raise my head, to say something…something, to somebody…but I couldn’t see anyone…

“Hel…” I gasped. “Hello!”

Nothing.

“Hello! Help!”

Footsteps. I heard footsteps! Then a woman, huge and black. I remember thinking I was in Star Wars, I was a prisoner and someone had brought me before Jabba the Hut. Her eyes were round and huge too, and even the room looked kind of like a cave.

So.

I was an actor now. This was my big chance…

“Mista Woodward? Can you hear me?”

“My name is Luke,” I said, proud I’d remembered the lines, “Luke Skywalker. If you let me have the Princess and Han, I’ll let you live…”

And Jabba was laughing now, right on cue: “Oh, Mista Woodward! You ain’t no Luke Skywalker, and I sure ain’t no Princess Leia. Now. You thirsty?”

“Not Leia?” I was – crushed.

“How about some ice?”

“Yes. If you’ll tell me where I can find her?”

“Shit! Don’t dat beat all…” I heard her say as she left the room, laughing as she went…

She came back a few minutes later, and an old man was with her:

“Obi-Wan?” I said.

“I’ll be damned,” my old friend said to Jabba. “You weren’t shittin’ me, were you?”

“Obi-Wan?”

“Yeah, Luke, old buddy. It’s me. Howya feelin’.”

“Obi-Wan? The Princess…she…the Dark Side. Oh, I’m so tired…”

“Woody, come on… snap out of it. What are you saying, what are you trying to tell me?”

“Woody?”

“Yeah, that’s you. Me Richard. You Tarzan. Now come on, Woody. Concentrate.”

“Woody? Woodward?”

“Yep. Now, what about this princess? Who are we talkin’ about, Woody?”

“Reporter. Liza.”

“Mullins? She did this? You sure?”

I nodded. “It was a warning. They told me it was a warning.”

“They? You mean she wasn’t alone?”

“A man. And Liza. ‘This is a warning,’ she told me. I have to stop. Stop, or they’ll kill me.”

“Shit.”

“Obi-Wan? Got to find out what size shoe she wears?”

“What? Woody, what the fuck?”

“Harker. Photographs.”

“Woody. Jon’s dead. Fire. In his apartment.”

“Harker?”

“Yeah, Woody. He’s dead.”

“When? When did…”

“It’s been a few weeks now.”

“Weeks? What do you mean, weeks?”

“You’ve been out a while, Woody. Almost a month.”

“Coma?”

“Yeah. Probably drug induced. You were high as a kite on morphine and LSD when I found you.”

“You… found me?”

“Yeah. When you didn’t call I went down to the boat.”

“The boat?”

“Yeah, Woody. She’s alright. I’ve been taking care of her.”

“Can somebody lift my head or something?”

The nurse hit a button and a motor under the bed whirred, my back inclined. “Dat better, Mista Woodward?”

“Yeah, thanks Princess.” I winked at her and she laughed, put a cup full of ice on the table by the bed and left the room.

“I remember the ER. Did I have a heart attack?”

“Three.”

“Three? Heart attacks?”

“Yep.”

“Swell.”

“You’ll be joining the ranks of the disabled and retired now, Woody. Sorry.”

“Fuck.”

“Ain’t it the truth.”

“Harker took photographs, in infrared. Tottenham. Woman, small. Like size seven shoes. High heels. Man. Size nine or ten.”

“You want me to see what size shoes she wears?”

“No, wait. It was a warning, right?”

“I can’t do this without you, Woody.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t do it, Richard.”

He nodded. “I understand.”

“Have there been any more? Murders?”

“No. Not a one.”

“I wonder what the hell we were on-to?”

He shrugged. “No way to know now, is there?”

“Call her.”

“Call? Who?”

“The reporter. Liza. Tell her I want to talk to her.”

“Are you out of your fucking head?”

“No. Now, do it now.”

He looked at me – his eyes hard, then he nodded and left the room.

Everything was coming back to me now, like in a flood. Memories were flooding in, out of control, like water pushing through a cracked dam, running unrestrained across a vast, empty plain, soaking it all in…

+++++

Tate came back in a few minutes later.

“Did you get her?”

“Yeah.”

“She coming?”

“Yeah, Woody. She’s coming.”

“Can you find out about the photographs? The infrared prints?”

“Why?”

“The only evidence. If they’ve penetrated the department, compromised us, then the photos will be gone. They’ve won if that’s the case.”

“If I ask around that might alert whoever, ya know?”

“Who said anything about asking?”

“Gotcha. Look, Woody, I don’t wanna be anywhere near this place when that bitch gets here, ya know?”

“I understand. Not sure I want to, either.”

“Then, why?”

“Something I gotta know.”

“Dangerous, man. This is real fuckin’ dangerous.”

“I think I got that. Something I need to know before I take the next step.”

“I sure hope you know what you’re doin’, man.” He seemed reluctant to talk, like he was afraid of something else.

“What’s bothering you, Richard?”

“Later. We’ll talk later. I’m gonna split now. I’ll come back tonight.”

+++++

“Crushed ice! Man, I love it.”

The nurse, another one, basically ignored me as she went about the little room scribbling down readings from various machines, then she injected something into my IV and started to leave the room.

“What is it this time?” I asked. “Heroin? Potassium?”

She stopped, turned and looked at me and she smiled, then said: “Not this time, Woody.” She looked at me for what felt like an hour, mouthed the words ‘Love me’ – then walked out of the room.

There are certain moments in your life that run up on you fast, like lightning out of a clear blue sky, and time stops because nothing makes sense anymore. I think dying must be like that.

This was one of those moments.

She came back in a little later, adjusted the drip on the IV. “Can I get you anything?” she asked.

“Think I could have a Coke?”

“Yeah, sure.” She looked at me again, this time with real human kindness in her eyes, then leaned forward, ran her fingers through my hair. “Don’t do anything stupid, Woody.”

“I’m doing my best.”

She lifted up her skirt and ran her hand inside her panties and rubbed herself, then she brought her hand to my face and wiped her juices under my nose. She smiled at me the whole time; her eyes were bright, almost feverishly bright, then she ran her fingers over my lips. “You know you want to, Woody. Go ahead.”

I opened my mouth and she slipped her fingers in, I tasted her cunt on the soft skin of her fingers and sucked them for a moment, then she smiled, laughed a little before she turned and walked out of the room.

“What the fuck…” I think I said.

She came back some time later with a cup; she sat by my bedside and spooned ice into mouth, then opened a can and poured some Coke into the cup. She put a straw in and handed it to me. “Suck it, Woody.”

I laughed, took a pull on it, then chewed on the ice.

“We’re going to have fun, Woody. You and I.”

“Are we?”

“Oh, yes. Yes, very much.”

“Who do you belong to?”

“My Master, you mean?”

“Yes.”

She smiled. “It doesn’t matter now, because he’s given me to you.”

“Given?”

“Oh yes. I am yours now. Your property.”

“Indeed. And if I don’t want you?”

“Then I will have failed. I will die.”

“Die?”

“I will be killed.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes. Just like that, Woody.”

“And you must do whatever I ask of you? Is that it?”

“Yes. That is The Way.”

“The Way?”

“Yes.”

“And if I commanded you to tell me who your old master was?”

“I will tell you, but then I must kill you.”

“I see. But then, you would have failed. Is that right?”

“Yes. And I would die.”

“So, why have I been given… this honor?”

“You were marked. By my sister?”

“Your sister?”

“We are all sisters. Think of us as belonging to a religious order.”

“You say she marked me?”

“When you opened your mouth to her, and took her inside.”

“I see. Your sister; I am expecting her.”

“Oh, she is here. She has been, for a while.”

“Why didn’t you…let…”

“Master, she can only come to you when commanded.”

“I see. Well, I’d like to talk to her. Alone.”

“Yes, Master.”

“Please don’t call me that.”

“But…”

“Just…Woody, for now. Okay?”

“Okay, Woody.” She stood by the bedside, waiting. I think she was waiting for me to dismiss her and the thought was mildly silly.

“Dismissed,” I said… and she turned to leave the room. “Stop!”

She turned to face me again: “Yes, Master?”

“I don’t know your name.”

“My name? Master, that is yours to choose. Each master chooses.”

“Fine.”

She stood solidly still.

“Go on, then!”

This was exasperating. Stupid, silly – and totally exasperating. And not even mildly interesting, I told myself.

The door opened and Liza came in. She was dressed in black from head to toe, like she was in mourning, yet even so I looked down at her shoes. Her feet were small, too small, but she was wearing high heels.

“Hello.” She said when she got to my bedside. “How are you?” Her voice seemed flat, almost forced.

“Not bad, considering.”

“I’m sorry. We didn’t know your heart was so weak.”

“Neither did I.”

“I feel very bad. For what happened.”

“Was the man with you your master?”

“No.”

“Who is?”

“Do not ask me this. It is very dangerous to talk about these things.”

“But if I ask, you must tell me.”

She hesitated. “No, that is not so.”

Why did she hesitate? Was it that simple?

“And if I command you?”

“Then I must tell you. But do not, please.”

“Alright, I won’t.”

She looked at me and I saw a great weight fall from her; her eyes became kind and I wanted her so much it hurt inside. But I needed to know more, and fast. I couldn’t fall under her spell again.

“You said something, before you left. You said you wished you’d met me long ago. What did you mean?”

She looked at me with those eyes and I struggled, simply because I was powerless before the weight of the lust I felt for her.

“It doesn’t matter now, Woody. Truly.”

“Did you kill Mark Tottenham?”

“Only a servant may kill a master. I will say no more.”

“Can a master kill his servant?”

“If it is his pleasure, yes.”

“And if I wanted to be your Master?”

She looked at me and beamed: “Would you?”

“If that was what I wanted, how would I make that happen?”

“If you pass the trials, if you are accepted, you have only to ask the council.”

“I see. But in the meantime?”

“You have a servant now.”

“I can have only one?”

“For now. Yes.”

“Would you want to be with me?”

“What I want is of no importance. To be wanted is all I could ever hope for.”

“All?”

“Yes, it is all to be worthy of a Master’s desire. It is all one could ever ask for.”

“I desire you. With all my heart.”

That broke her. Clean through. She leaned over, put her hand on my cheek and rubbed my face.

“Then you forgive me?”

“You changed me. I can’t think about anything but you.”

“Truly?”

“Yes, truly.”

“Will you join us?”

“If that is what I must do to possess you, then yes, I will join you.”

She nodded. “I had hoped this would happen.”

“Will you tell your Master?”

She clouded over. “No. I cannot.”

I understood then. Tottenham had been her master.

“Then you will tell who you must of my decision.”

“They know now.”

“Can you come by from time to time? While I’m here?”

“If that is your wish, then yes. I will come.”

“Well then, it is my wish that you visit me each evening, until I leave this hellhole.”

She smiled. “Then I will. Are you tired?”

“Yeah, think so.”

“I’ll leave you now.”

“Alright.”

“Woody?”

“Yes?”

“I think you will be a good master.”

“Good?”

“Fair. I think I meant to say fair, as in just.”

I nodded. “Would you send my nurse in?”

“Yes. Good night.”

“Good night, my love,” I whispered, when she was leaving.

I knew she heard me, too.

This was going to be a very dangerous game, indeed.

+++++

“I have decided on a name for you,” I said to my nurse when she returned. “Persephone.”

“Thank you, Master.”

“I assume you heard our conversation?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Well, I accept you as my property so long as you accept me as your one master.”

She hesitated, the conflict immediate.

“Get out of my sight!”

“But…”

“Now! Leave! Find me a new nurse.”

She fled in tears.

That was easy, I told myself.

Too easy?

I waited a few minutes then hit the call button. She came in; it was obvious she’d been crying, and was probably scared to death. What did she say? If she failed – she was toast?

“I’m…”

“Master, no. You must never apologize.”

“Of course. Nevertheless, I was careless. I should have understood the conflict I put you in.”

She was looking at the floor but I could tell she didn’t know what to say.

“Your friend has returned.”

“Tate? Already?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Send him in.” She left the room, came back in with him and lingered in the back of the room. I didn’t send her away – probably no point. I had to assume complete surveillance from now on.

“What did you find out?”

“No photographs, Woody. Sorry.”

“Well, it probably doesn’t matter anyway.”

“What?”

“It doesn’t matter, Richard. If the department wants to continue the investigation, well, then, that’s their business. Like you said, I’m retired.”

His face creased as he scowled, and it looked like he was chewing the inside of his cheek as he turned my words over in his mind. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah, fine. You say the boat’s okay?”

“Yeah. There wasn’t too much to clean up.”

“Forensics?”

“Yeah, you know the score. It was a potential homicide scene.”

“You had any new cases?”

“A couple new ones. Cheating husbands, angry wives.”

“Have Nikon, Will Travel!”

“Paladin! Man, that was a great show!” he added.

“You know it, amigo. You need anything? Hustler? Penthouse?”

“Nah, you know me… I was always a Leg Show kinda guy!”

He laughed, so did the nurse – my Persephone.

“Well, I guess I can leave now. Looks like you’re in able hands.”

“Yeah, she seems very dedicated to her profession. Right, nurse?”

“Yessir.”

“See? How ‘bout that, Richard?”

Did he see? Could he make the leap? If he had, he didn’t show it.

“Well Woody, if they cut you loose I’ll drop by the boat in the morning; maybe see you around lunch time.”

I closed my eyes after he left, felt myself dozing, then ‘Persephone’ came in with “dinner”.

“Sorry. Restricted diet for a while.” She rolled the table over my lap and I looked at red Jell-O and green yogurt and felt very ill indeed.

“Gross.”

“Sorry,” she said again. “And you won’t be going home for a while.”

“I know. All things being equal, I think I’d rather suck on your fingers again.”

She smiled, came next to the bed and lifted her skirt.

“I’m glad I can please you, Master. Do you like the way I taste?”

As a matter of fact, I did.

+++++

I was discharged from the hospital a couple of weeks later. “Persephone” had somehow, astonishingly no doubt to those of you following along here, been assigned to the hospital’s home health care division and presto! – she came home with me. Again, I ask for leniency here; please do consider, despite your misgivings, that a boat can be a home – and anyway, she took to it like a duck to water. But I want to be clear: as I have never been particularly adept at housework I was glad to have the help. The fact that she had sworn a blood oath to serve me until my death? Hey, man; icing on the cake.

Now, don’t get me wrong. You see, it’s like this: having three heart attacks over the course of a week – while in a coma, no less – fucks with your head. You stand up from a chair too fast and you hear the grim reaper walking up behind you, his scythe whizzing through the air – right for your carotids. Which were already, I had reason to believe, pretty well clogged after a twenty-five year binge on Quarter Pounders and Krispy Kremes. Having a nice, sexy-as-Hell blond-haired, blue-eyed nurse following me around begging to please me was – well, frankly – kind of unexpected, yet this was just one of the unforeseen perks accrued by hooking up with a bunch of homicidal sadomasochists. Hey, I’ve always said if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Who am I to question the logic of this fucked-up world?

And Seph (and frankly, she hated being called that, but calling out “Persephone!” in a crowded grocery store will get you all kinds of unwanted attention) was a miracle. She was like Carnation Instant Love; add a few teaspoons of cream and she was all kinds of happy. She’d chosen this life, too. She even told me it was true. She wasn’t some Central American or Asian kidnap victim sold into a life of servitude. No, she’d been a nurse for years and had met someone who knew someone and before you can say “beat me, spank me, make me write hot checks!” she was into the scene and loving every ass-smacking minute of it. Honestly, have you ever whacked a girl on the ass and had her fall to the floor in orgasm?

Well, right, neither had I.

Like I said, this whole scene was fucking with my head, and I think I may have mentioned my head was already pretty well scrambled, and, so, everything about my life now was pretty fucked up. One day I went down to Central to fill out some paperwork and bang, just like that – it was all over: I was a retired cop. Since I was officially retired, I didn’t have to turn in my gun and badge, so like Tate I signed up for the reserves. I week later I got a call; they’d had a bad one and wanted my help. Would I mind coming down?

Would I mind? Fuck. They even sent a patrol car over to pick me up! Limousine service! If I’d only figured this out sooner!

Seph claimed she preferred being chained to the floor by the foot of the bed but I wasn’t having any of it. A cold teak floor? Am I heartless? No, I had her curl up behind me and scratch my back all night. I’d never had a wife do that for me before, so what the hell was wrong with this picture? Sex? Don’t ask… just command! It was like Nirvana. On steroids:

“Say baby, I’d like to screw upside down hanging from the top of the mast!”

“Sure thing, Woody. Let’s do it!”

– or –

“What say we read poetry tonight, to each other?”

“I’d love to…”

It was every misogynists’ dream come true, enough to make Susan B Anthony turn barrel-rolls in her grave. There was only one problem, but it was a big one. I hated it. Everything about it. When she asked me to get rough with her I cringed inside, then I hated myself afterwards. If I left a red mark on her ass I had to go into the head and somehow keep myself from puking. Let me be perfectly clear: I was not then and am not now wired that way. Causing pain or administering corporal punishment for her supposed infractions did not make me happy, did not help me get my rocks off.

It was a means to an end.

Let me explain.

I’d made my decision the first time I saw Liza after I came out of the coma. I knew I loved her. I don’t know how, or why, and anyway, I don’t give a damn. When she walked into my room in the ICU the lights got brighter, my heart suddenly felt young and strong, and I wanted to live – but only with her by my side. That feeling became bedrock, too.

But she, apparently, belonged to – if not someone – then something that made it impossible for her to just drop off the map and sail away. She let me know in no uncertain terms that there was no running from these people. They weren’t limited to Seattle, to the Pacific Northwest, or even to the good ole U. S. of A. They were, she told me, everywhere. Literally. Senators belonged. Federal judges too. And – pointedly – chiefs of police belonged. FBI agents, CIA operatives, even a former President were regular adherents. I had no idea. My tax dollars at work! And here I’d thought all these years that politicians took no pleasure from screwing us over!

Just goes to show ya, huh?

The ‘local affiliate’ had been started years ago, she told me, by a bunch of uppity-ups at Microsoft (hey, that figures, doesn’t it?); now, she said, more than a thousand of the most influential people in the area were deeply involved, but they were always on the look-out for talent that could help in a pinch. She told me if I wanted to get an idea of what the group was like to watch Kubrick’s last film. You know; the one with Tom and Nicole and all those nice people wearing leather beaks. She let me know these people were, however, just a touch meaner than those in the film. Having been at two crime scenes and admired their handiwork, I was prepared to take this appraisal at face value. Then it hit me: If the cops and the courts were compromised, then what? If you took down a couple, or even a couple dozen, there were hundreds more buried everywhere ready to hunt you down and feed you your dick.

And the simple fact of the matter was you’d never know who to trust, or who not to. With that simple maxim as gospel, then trusting Tate – maybe especially Tate – was out of the question. If you don’t know who to trust, you trust no one. If there is any doubt, then there is no doubt. This arithmetic is simple, the kind I understand. If I was going to do anything, if I was going to extract my pound of flesh, it was going to be a solo operation. Either that or I could just go with the flow and enjoy Persephone and Liza and learn how to use a riding crop.

And believe me, there were times I thought that was an attractive proposition, too. How fast we fall, eh Lucifer.

+++++

The first time Liza came down to the boat after Seph joined the crew was, well, interesting. Like every red-blooded male in America my favorite fantasy involved making it with two women at the same time. Let’s ignore the fact that I had never known two women at the same time that I’d have even been tempted to do this with; now I had two women who, simply stated, were more than willing. Way more than willing. The biggest problem now was I’d recently had three major coronary vapor locks: my V-8 was now an inline four, and Viagra was a major league no-no. What would I do, enquiring minds wanted to know?

But did that stop these two girls? My two girls? In a word: No. In two words: Hell No.

They were gentle, at least at first, and not very demanding – which was highly appreciated. Remember, all it took to send Sephie over the edge was a good smack on the ass. Liza was simply oral, like Linda Lovelace was oral; apparently her tonsils and clit had merged years ago – and to wondrous effect. The only thing she liked more than giving head was receiving a little. She could lay back and take a licking – for hours at a stretch, too. Fortunately the only thing I enjoy more than receiving is giving, so we were perfect for each other. And face it, all either of us had to do was smack Sephie on the ass every now and then, and we were all three in carnal heaven. Hard to do on a boat, believe me, but we managed.

And this went on for months. Whoever or whatever this organization was, they were content to sit back and watch and listen for any signs that I might be trying to plot my revenge. I, however, was equally content letting Liza and Sephie clean my clock any time the mood hit.

And then there was the poor guy on the boat next to mine?

Every time I poked my head out into the sunlight the guy bowed at me like I was Krishna or the Buddha. I never really considered that sound carries, and our exploits were becoming the stuff of urban legend. So, like I said, I was retired now, and in goods hands. An equitable exchange, don’t you think?

I thought so too.

So, life took on all the aspects of a comfortable routine – but things in truth were not quite what they seemed. Once or twice a month the department would need me and someone would come for me and I’d go do my cop thing for a day or two. Tate joined me from time to time, then he sponsored me and I got my P.I. badge and bought my own Nikon. I went out with him every now and then and took photos of philandering husbands and cheating wives; the rest of the time Sephie and I puttered on the boat: I taught her to sail and believe it or not I taught her how to love. Someone paid her salary, everyone left us alone, and three or four times a week Liza came over to spend the night, and along the way she taught me how to love, too. It was a real trip.

I think after a year of this routine I’d have been quite content to live out the rest of my days doing this and only this. Tottenham’s murder receded into a dim and hazy past, dreams of sailing south to the tropics began to feel unnecessary, even narcissistic. I was content, even happy. I hadn’t made any waves and all indications were that I wouldn’t.

In short, they had me right where they wanted me.

And I was counting on that, too.

+++++

It was right before Christmas, more than a year later, when the call came.

They were apparently sentimental characters and wanted me to attend their annual Christmas get-together. Liza told me the Satanists in the group tended to boycott the affair but it was, generally speaking, a rather low-key orgy followed by the ritual sacrifice of a few goats and a seminar or two on the proper use of riding-crops. Everyone there would be masked, except of course, me. I would, if I chose to attend, be examined, judged, and if found wanting, killed. By Sephie. Who would then be killed.

No pressure or anything. Just your average holiday get-together. Mistletoe over the spiked punch and all that jazz.

“Don’t we, like, exchange gifts or anything?” I asked. This could be fun!

“Woody, this is serious.”

“I am. It’s Christmas, for Christ’s sake!”

The girls laughed at my naiveté. They had no idea how naïve I was, or am – for that matter. Old dogs and new tricks, and all that nonsense. I mean, come on: I like Christmas, always have. I still get the warm fuzzies when I watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. I like it when the Grinch finds his heart is still pure. I love watching kids open their presents on Christmas morning, and don’t mind opening one or two of my own, so shoot me! How cold-hearted could a bunch of homicidal sadomasochists be?

+++++

It was the thought of spiking their Christmas punch that intrigued me. How could I do it and not get caught? And what could I spike it with that might drive the point I was trying to make home? More to the point, what could I spike it with that would break no laws but really fuck with them where they lived?

Acid? I mean LSD, not hydrochloric: geesh – cut me some slack, wouldya? Anyway. No. Too common, and they’d used it on me.

An overdose of Viagra? Nope, I could cause a couple of heart attacks that way, yet even so the idea of a hundred or so men turning up at local ERs with permanent hard-ons did have a certain “use it or lose it” appeal.

No. What I was looking for was the anti-Viagra. Something I could give these guys that would make it impossible for them to get up for a long, long time. Permanently would be even better, but hey, do you think I’m a heartless son-of-a-bitch? Even better, to keep them from killing me I could allude to having an antidote, and my remedy would of course be the only way to restore potency.

Fuck me! This might even be fun!

But this was really only a nice daydream, perhaps, because I didn’t know any biochemists or physicians, and anyway, these guys probably had half the scientists in Seattle in their back pockets. Maybe I was just going to have to play their game, which led to one inescapable conclusion. Maybe I’d just have to be content to live with these two beautiful women the rest of my life, because the choice, as it was being presented, seemed pretty obvious to me: go along with their way of life and remain alive, or refuse their offer and die. But what would I do, I wondered, if I acquiesced only to find I was getting pulled in deeper? Maybe into something really dark? What if there really was no third option, no way to get away from these people and secure some sort of happiness? They’d tried to warn me off but damn near killed me, but I was under no illusions; they didn’t owe me anything.

Killing two cops had been dangerous for them, but they’d had the right people in the right places to mitigate the damage. Killing me might have been over the top, and they might have seen endless security issues as a result, but the other option kept gnawing away at the back of my mind. What if the man I saw on the boat with Liza had known everything? What if he was the intermediary between me and this ‘council’? Had he had kept me alive? And the real key might be why this had all started in the first place…why kill Harvey, the FBI agent? Was he inside? Had he been investigating something peripheral and stumbled onto the group? Had he been compromised, or warned like me, then tried to join the group – and failed?

But, and this was a big but, I was now on the outside, looking in. I wasn’t a cop anymore, not a real one, anyway. Weekend warriors don’t have the same administrative rights and access to information that full-timers have, so that left my new PI ticket as my only way inside, and that left me dependent on Richard Tate.

And what if Tate was the intermediary, the man on the boat who’d spared my life. He was smart enough, skilled enough to pull off most any subterfuge, and he was my friend – and that alone might have been motive enough to cause his intercession.

And what about Anders, the chief. What if he was inside, and wanted to put a stop to things before they got out of hand and exposed this seamy underside of his life? And SAC Brennan, or anyone else in the Bureau’s SeaTac office?

What I was left with was a ‘no-win’ situation, there was no way out, and I only had a week to come up with something if I decided to make a break.

That was when Mary-Jo dropped by, and paid us a little visit. That was something I hadn’t been counting on, and for quite some time too, if you know what I mean.

+++++

“So, you’re really going to join?” M-J asked when she came on board, meaning, was I really going to go to meet the council, and seek membership in their little club?

“Well, it’s either that, or Seph is going to go all Sunni on me with a knife,” I replied with a shrug, smiling a little. So much for idle chit-chat, anyway.

“That’s not a real positive attitude, if you get my drift, for wanting to come in out of the rain,” she added.

“Maybe if they’d just let me be, not bunked me down with the hottest nurse in the Pacific Northwest?”

“They couldn’t trust you, Woodie. Simple as that.”

“Well then, what made them think being held almost incommunicado for a year would make me more trustworthy?”

“I suppose, but…what did you call her? Seph?”

“Persephone. Queen of the underworld.”

“The underworld? Like Hell?”

I smiled. “Not quite.”

“Well, what I was going to say is I think they weren’t counting on Persephone’s ability to control you.”

“Even though I am her master?”

Now it was M-J’s time to smile. “Yes, funny how these things work, isn’t it? Isn’t control almost always an illusion? Anyway, just what do you feel towards Persephone?”

“Feel? I love her completely. Aside from that, she’s the best friend I’ve ever had.” Persephone, sitting by his side, smiled demurely, knowingly. “If she were taken from me tomorrow I think I might wither and die.”

“Really? Die?”

“I don’t think I’m trying to be disingenuous here, M-J. We’re very close.”

“Well then, suppose I order her to leave you, right now. What then?”

“Well then, I suppose I would begin to wonder just who you really are? What you’re role in this little organization really is?” Truth of the matter is I thought I knew exactly who she was, yet even so at this point I was more than a little concerned. I knew a lot was riding on my answers the next few minutes, and that M-J was holding all the Aces.

“You still think like a cop, Woodie.”

“True blue, all the way through.”

“And you’ll never change, will you?”

“Are you kidding? Persephone has changed me, completely.”

“How so?”

“Because I love her, M-J, and I love what she is. What she is has been defined by the role she plays within your organization.”

“My organization? You presume too much.”

“I don’t think so.”

She smiled. She knew I knew. Everything hung in the balance now.

She stood, looked undecided, first at Persephone, then at me.

“You’re dangerous, Woodie. You always will be.”

I stood, came to her and held out my hand. She looked down and took mine, and I kissed her fingers.

“We were almost friends,” I began, but she cut me off.

“Almost?”

“We never had a chance to see where we could go.”

She shrugged. “Some things are never meant to be.”

“And Persephone? Was she meant to be?”

“She was always meant to be your executioner.”

“You know, I think I’m too old to be a danger to anyone.”

“But you’re not.”

“So then, it comes down to…”

“Allegiance, Woodie.”

“What are your aims, I wonder?”

She smiled. “Allegiance is complete, or it’s meaningless.”

I kissed her hand again, and said “I agree,” and that was really all there was to it.

M-J smiled at me, then to Persephone she said, “I release you, Persephone. You belong to no one now but this man. You have no conflicting orders or purpose. You belong to him now, and will serve him until his death. Do you understand?”

“I do, Mistress.”

She turned to leave, this Mistress, my almost friend, and then I saw her entourage in the cockpit. Girls dressed in black, women who looked like ninja warriors, and I remembered an intel briefing about a group that had started working in Dallas a year ago. So, here was another piece of the puzzle.

I started to follow M-J but she turned and stopped me. “You will stay here now. Down here. Do not leave for a week. Do not communicate with anyone outside. Do you understand?”

“Yes. And Liza?”

“She is masterless. Do you want her?”

“Yes.”

“You must understand one thing. Once she is yours, it is to the death. She killed her master, and she is marked. If she fails you, you must kill her. Do you accept?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitating.

I could see surprise in M-J’s eyes, but no doubt, and she nodded her head in appreciation. “Perhaps one day I will trust you,” she said as she looked at me.

“But not today.”

“No, not today.” She pulled my face to hers and bit my earlobe so hard I was sure she had severed it, and when she pulled away I could see my blood on her face. “Not yet, Woodie, but the day may come when you will be given the opportunity to prove yourself.”

She disappeared into the night, leaving me and Persephone down below, with only lapping waves hitting the hull for company. A strong gust shook the boat, and wind moaned in the rigging. I turned to Persephone, and when she saw my wound she ran to get first aid supplies from the head.

“She marked you,” Persephone said as she worked on the injury.

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Either she wants you for her own, or she intends to kill you.”

“Now, there’s some good news.”

“Did you really mean what you said to her? About me?”

“Every word.”

“Even though I was meant to kill you?”

“I meant every word.”

“You really love me?”

“Yes. Completely.”

“And Liza? You really love her too?”

“Yes, but not like I do you. It’s different. You are like a wife to me, Persephone. Liza is more…”

“A concubine? For your pleasure?”

“Perhaps, yes. But she brings me comfort, too.” I looked at this woman, this care-giver, and I did indeed feel something unique when I looked into her eyes. Love? Yes. Fear? Way too much. Would she still kill me if ordered? I doubted that not at all.

+++++

The next morning I felt the boat move as someone hopped aboard, and went to the companionway and looked up into the cockpit. Liza was there, sitting beside the wheel, and she looked at when I poked my head up into the light.

“You here to stay?” I asked.

“Could we talk? Up here?”

“Sorry. I’m down here, for the week. Orders.”

“I’m glad you said that,” Liza said. She had been testing me – as I assumed she might.

“Well, not sure I’ll cook you breakfast again, in case you were wondering.”

She smiled, but there was pain in her eyes as she confronted the reality of being a murderer.

“It doesn’t go away, does it?” I said to her indecision.

She shook her head.

“So, you coming down?”

“Could I sit up here for a while?”

“Suit yourself.” I ducked below, started working on the alternator’s belt. Sephie was forward, I assumed, reading a nursing journal, but then I heard her coming up behind me. She knelt down, put her hands on my shoulders and whispered in my ear: “We’re going to need a bigger boat…”

I turned, looked at her, saw the smile on her face – and I smiled too.

“We’ll need a bigger bed, too,” she added.

“Hadn’t thought of that,” I grinned.

“I have,” Liza said. She was sitting on the cockpit sole, leaning into the companionway.

I looked up, was kind of surprised to see her so soon.

“I have a question for you,” I said to her. “Kind of an important one, too.”

“Okay.”

“You marked me, remember?”

Her eyes were half closed, but she nodded her head.

“What does that mean? To mark me?”

“That I marked you as my property.”

“I understand that, but what are the consequences?”

“You are mine.”

“But that’s where I’m a little fuzzy, Liza. I am your master, am I not?”

“You are. True.”

“Yet you say, ‘you are mine’? Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

“No, not at all. ‘You are mine’ simply means that I am sworn to you, that my soul belongs to you.”

I turned away.

“You do not believe me?” she asked.

“No, I don’t.” I looked at Persephone. “Is she telling me the truth?”

She nodded her head.

“Why haven’t you marked me, Persephone.”

“I can not answer.”

“That’s okay, I think I get it.” I turned back to Liza. “Lying to me is the same as failing me,” I said to her. “Or do you disagree?”

“Oh, no, I agree. Will you kill me now?”

“When it pleases me, I will.” That seemed to penetrate the fog, and she nodded her head slightly. “Come below now, and go forward.”

She didn’t hesitate. She climbed down the steps and went to the forward cabin, and I let her stay up there the rest of the day, by herself.

Sephie helped me change the alternator belt, then we fixed lunch and I sat at the chart table for a few hours looking over sailing routes from Puget Sound the Polynesia.

An hour later, Liza called out; she needed to use the head.

“Show her how, Seph,” I said, and she went forward. When Liza came aft I saw she was naked, and I wondered why but kept my mouth shut. I heard the head being pumped clear a minute later and watched as Liza walked back to the forward cabin, but I let her stew in silence a little longer. When the sun was sliding behind the hills to the west I told her to come to me.

“No more lies, Liza. When I ask you a question, I want a truthful answer.”

“If I can.”

“That’s not good enough.”

“I’m sorry.”

I nodded my head, opened up chart table drawer and pulled out my old Kimber 45 ACP, and screwed on a silencer. I racked the slide, chambered a round, and leveled the pistol at her chest.

“Care to change your answer?”

She looked at the pistol, then at my eyes, judging me.

“Only members of the council may mark a master,” she said.

“And Persephone isn’t a member?”

“No.”

I unscrewed the silencer and put the pistol back in the drawer.

“Woodie, were you going to shoot me?”

“Yes.”

“You are a master! I knew it!”

“Don’t ever lie to me again,” I growled.

She dropped to her knees. “Yes, Master.”

“Why did you mark me?”

“Because I killed my master. I was masterless, and afraid.”

“Afraid? That is your truth?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Are you hungry?”

“Yes, Master.”

“I will cook you something.”

“No, Master, let me…”

“No, you need to understand, it pleases me to cook. Even for you.”

“As you wish.”

“It would also please me no end if you’d stop calling me Master, and talking like you’re some kind of medieval vassal. And, get off the floor, for heaven’s sake –  unless you’ve dropped a contact lens or something…”

Liza smiled, stood, and looked at me.

I opened my arms, she came to me, and I held her close. Persephone looked at us, and she smiled too, but there was something new in her eyes, something that hadn’t been there for the past year.

I told Liza to go forward and put on some clothes, and when she was gone I went to Persephone and kissed her passionately for the longest time. When I was sure she was completely confused I let her go, and turned to the galley with a smile in my little black heart.

Phase One was now underway.

+++++

Tate came over a few weeks later, and, he said, he just wanted to just shoot the shit for a while. Liza was off doing her thing as a reporter, while Persephone remained on hand like my very own two legged Golden Retriever. That is to say, she was right by my side, my ever faithful, golden haired companion, so talking would be a little restrained.

“When I have my big heart attack, can I have one just like yours?” Tate said when Persephone came up into the cockpit carrying a tray loaded with orange juice and heart-healthy snacks. That’s code for saw-dust, by the way. There’s no such thing as a heart healthy snack, unless of course you’re talking about oral sex.

Anyway, Sephie smiled, handed Tate a glass of fresh squeezed, then settled in by my side.

“You look like you could use some sun,” Tate said. “You’re pale.”

“It’s her fault,” I said, pointing at Sephie. “She sleeps all day and flies away at night, in search of fresh blood.”

“That explains everything,” Tate said. “Listen, I think I’ve got a case I can’t handle alone. Think you’re up to it?”

“I’ll have to check with his doctors,” Persephone said. “The last time he went out with the department he had some strange rhythms, and was light-headed.”

“Oh, still bothering you, is it?”

“Well, it’s pretty much a permanent condition now.”

So, in pidgin-cop talk he’d just managed to ask if I was still under house arrest, and I’d confirmed his suspicions.

“Well, it’d be nice if you could. The case is going to involve a lot of camera surveillance, and you could make a few bucks while just sitting back in your car with a Nikon for company.”

“If the doctor approves, could I come with him?” Sephie asked.

“No reason why you couldn’t, as far as I can see.”

“That might be fun,” she said.

“Do we have any avocados?” I asked out of the blue, knowing full well we didn’t.

“I could run out and get a few,” Tate said, helpfully.

“No big,” I said to Sephie. “Next time we’re out, I think we should get a few.”

“Have a craving?” Persephone asked.

“Oh, you know me. Put avocado on shoe leather and it’d taste good.”

“Want me to run out and get a couple?” she asked.

“No, next time we…”

“Don’t be silly. It’ll just take a few minutes, remember? The farm stand’s open down the street!”

Like, really, I’d forgotten? “Would you?” I asked innocently. “That’d be great.”

And a few minutes later Tate and I were alone. I pointed to my ear, indicating possible listening devices might be planted, so we continued with small talk about his difficult case, but at one point I bent over to pick up a napkin and slipped a note under his shoe. A minute later he knocked his napkin off the little cockpit table and retrieved the note, just before Sephie returned.

“Want me to make some guacamole?” I asked them.

“Sure,” Sephie said, and Tate nodded his head.

So, what was in the note? Just an innocent question concerning the PI business, but it would be enough to trip up Tate if he was part of the group, and if he wasn’t he’d understand in no uncertain terms that I was not free to move around on my own.

And yeah, I made some guacamole, and Liza got back just in time to have some, too.

+++++

Every couple of years I haul the boat and get the bottom scrubbed and re-painted, and it was coming up on that time again. We, the girls and I, packed overnight bags and checked into a hotel down the street, then Tate and I drove the boat to a yard across the lake, then hopped into the Zodiac and puttered back across to the hotel’s marina. Somewhere along the way Tate slipped a note into a coat pocket, but otherwise kept quiet. End result, I thought he was clean, but wouldn’t do anything compromising – for a while longer, anyway.

As summer approached, Liza started making noises about wanting to take some time off, some real time off, and wanted to know what I thought about taking a trip.

“On the boat?”

“Yes, of course. Why own a boat like this? Certainly not to let it sit in a slip and rot?”

“Guess that depends on what my doctors say. Isn’t that right, Persephone?”

“That would depend on how strenuous a journey we make? Like, where to, how long?”

“Like Tahiti,” she said. “How long would that take, Woodie?”

“Did we have a bad day at work, dear?” I asked. I swear I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice, too, but that did it. She broke down, went into a rant about an editor at the paper who had been riding her ass for months, and that got me wondering…

Were there limits to the interventions this group was willing to make? To preserve their identities, and the group’s security? Or was this editor of hers in the group? Interesting, I thought, but the answer to her original question still hung in the air, apparently waiting to be answered.

“So, Tahiti. What do you want to know?”

She looked at Sephie: “Could he do it?”

Persephone looked a little hesitant, like she wasn’t sure this was something she was allowed to talk about, but then she looked at me and shrugged her shoulders: “Assuming we were both there to do most of the heavy work? I think so.”

The heavy work? I had to laugh. These two had been out on the boat in the Sound a bunch, and under a variety of conditions too, but they had no idea what lay on the other side of the Olympic Peninsula. There was a malevolent beast waiting out there, a sleeping monster called the Pacific, and neither had ever been ‘at sea’ – not even once.

So, I kept my mouth shut about that, and launched into the less intimidating aspects of such a voyage. Like: most people from the Northwest hop down the coast, stopping at Astoria, San Francisco, and usually in L.A. too, before pausing for a long breather in San Diego, where supplies are replenished and gear maintained, then it’s a non-stop thirty-two hundred mile grind to the Marquesas, the gateway to French Polynesia from North America, then another nine hundred miles on to Tahiti. Boats like mine can make almost two hundred miles a day under optimal conditions, but a more likely average is closer to a hundred and ten, which puts a voyage from San Diego to the Marquesas in the forty day range. But the trip down to California can take more than a few weeks, and most people stop off in the Marquesas for several weeks. Trip time by that point is almost three months and climbing, and most people who’ve made the trip then spend a year or more wandering around the islands before heading to New Zealand.

“New Zealand? Why there?”

“Well, I suppose because it’s lovely down there, but there’re other reasons as well. It’s like sailboat heaven, and after a year or more at sea boats need work. Serious work. And a lot of people sour on the dream by that point, and decide to either sell their boats there or ship them back to the states and start over.”

“Start over?”

“Well, just looking at the experiences of people I know who’ve made the trip, if they make it that far one of two things happens. Married couples either divorce and sell the boat and return to the states, or they double down and head west for Australia and on to the Med.”

“You mean…”

“Yup. Circumnavigate. That’s a five to seven year deal, assuming you stop to smell the roses from time to time.”

“Holy cow. Do many people do that?”

“More than you might think, but that’s a trip for people like you. Starting off in your forties is the norm for a trip like that. People starting a circumnavigation in their sixties are rare. My guess is if I started a trip like that now you’d probably get to spread my ashes somewhere in the Indian Ocean.”

“Now, Woodie…”

“No, I think that’s realistic, and it wouldn’t be the most horrible thing in the world, you know? Life is a one way ticket, I seem to recall. To leave this life doing something you always wanted to do isn’t the worst outcome imaginable.”

“Is it something you always wanted to do?”

“I used to think so.”

“And now?”

“Are you kidding? I’m getting older by the minute and haven’t a care in the world, but to make matters worse I live on my boat with two stunning women I just happen to adore. And yes, I know we need a bigger boat. If we made such a trip, we’d need a newer, bigger boat, or spend a heck of lot upgrading the hardware on this one. But there’s a more important question: why make the trip now?”

“Because you’d be happy.”

“You’re assuming I’m unhappy, aren’t you, Liza?”

“I know you’re unhappy,” Persephone said.

“Well, if anyone knows what I’m feeling, it’s you. And I mean that in the best possible way, of course.”

Sephie came to me and put her head in my lap, and I ran my fingers through her long hair for the longest time. Liza came and sat by my side, and she leaned in close.

“Do you want to at least try?” Liza finally asked.

And there I was, hesitating on the precipice, lost in the vertigo of a great decision. Two years ago this had been the dream, the plan. Retire and head south, then make for the Med or the South Pacific, and I’d even considered making the voyage solo, maybe meeting some wahini along the way and making a run at it together, but now…everything was different. And it was different in the most sinister way possible.

Just what the Hell were they up to? Get me offshore and push me overboard? Or just shoot me in the head and let me wash up on the shore somewhere?

“I couldn’t make it without both of you,” I thought aloud, “and I couldn’t ask that of you. Wouldn’t be fair, you know.”

“You don’t have to ask, Woodie,” Persephone said.

“Yes, I do. I could never impose my dreams on someone else, especially the only two people left in the world I love.”

“That’s not what I meant, Woodie,” Persephone said. “I love you too, and I’d want to share this, be a part of this.”

I could see the end of my life in her words, and it was fascinating. Simply fascinating.

All in all, the air around me felt exotic, heavy with portentous meaning, and suddenly it felt as if I was sitting in an Indian bazaar, flute in hand, watching a pair of cobras dancing to a tune only they could hear.

+++++

We decided to head out for a sail a few weeks later, kind of a trial run out towards Vancouver Island. Blue water, if you know what I mean. Real ocean, not that calm stuff in Puget Sound. That was the idea, anyway.

Mother Nature always has her own plans, and this was one of those days. No, not stormy. Far from it. The water in the Straits resembled a Wal*Mart parking lot – in Kansas. Flat. Flat as a billiard table, and not a breath of air all morning. We were off Port Townsend just after noon and still heading west northwest, and the only excitement we’d had had been dodging the occasional log. That, and my pointing out the passing fins of the odd blue shark that happened along from time to time. Odd how focused people get when they spot a man-eater.

By mid-afternoon we were past Victoria harbor and still motoring west, a Seattle-bound ferry crossing southbound off our stern the only company to be had. I hopped down the companionway and made some log entries, grabbed a few Cokes and went back up to the wheel and noticed the girls weren’t in the shaded cockpit. I looked around, saw them up on the foredeck deep in conversation. I saw the Beretta 92SBF in Liza’s right hand within the span of a single heartbeat, and it didn’t take me too long figure out what was on their minds. I reached down and let off the main sheet and the traveler lines, then moved all the way aft and got behind the wheel, and waited.

Persephone saw me first, maybe a minute later. She turned and looked at me – and I could see the sorrow in her eyes, the pain in her soul. She didn’t want to kill me, she never had. Then I looked at Liza. What I saw in her eyes made my blood boil. It was lust, pure blood-lust. In all my years on the street I’d encountered such savage evil only a few times, and I recognized what I saw in her eyes immediately. She smiled at me then, smiled as she drew the pistol and leveled it at my chest.

Liza moved towards the starboard shrouds as she started aft, and Persephone followed close behind. The Beretta is Liza’s right hand barely wavered as she drew near the canvas awning over the cockpit, and that’s exactly when I threw the wheel over hard to port.

Right as rain, the main boom rocketed off to the starboard rail, and with the satisfying ping of a four iron on a par five fairway, both Liza and Persephone were knocked high over the lifelines and into that deep blue sea.

It was time to make a few quick decisions, and though I’d had a few days to think about what I’d do if my worst-case-scenario came to pass, the sadness in Persephone’s eyes called out to me across that mirrored sea. In point of fact, Persephone began calling out to me at that very moment, and she looked pathetic. Helpless, and pathetic.

Liza, on the other hand, looked ferocious. Pissed off, and ferocious. Her hands were flailing away, no Beretta visible now, but she soon settled down and starting swimming after the boat. I dropped the RPM down to twelve hundred and tightened the turn, then straightened out, aiming to come alongside Persephone; Liza saw what I was doing and started back towards her.

The dilemma facing me was simple. The first thing that crossed my mind was that it would never be possible to trust either girl ever again, not right now – and probably not ever again. So, the next thing that hit me? Well, simply put, bringing one or both back to shore would leave me in exactly the same predicament. It would only be a matter of time before the order would come to kill me again. So, I reasoned, the simplest thing to do would be to run them down, kill them out here in the Pacific and let the sharks have them. There were no witnesses and, I calculated, I could do this with a clear conscience. They had set this up, all this talk about going to Tahiti, with nothing more in mind than killing me. They were predators, merciless, mercenary predators.

And then I saw the Beretta. Right there on the cockpit cushion, hard by the companionway. Leaning forward, I scooped it up before coming alongside Persephone. I throttled back a bit and turned away from her, watched as the panic set in. Liza arrived by her side a moment later and I just watched them. I watched them watching me, watched them study me, looking for the first sign of hesitation, or resolve.

And then I saw the shark.

A white. A Great White. Rare in these waters, but not completely unheard of, and now the huge fish was circling perhaps thirty yards away from the girls, probably trying to figure out exactly what they were, and how they might taste.

So here I sat – fat, dumb and very unhappy – on my boat, and just a few yards away two very nervous women paddled away in very deep water, completely oblivious to the danger that had entered their very precarious orbit.

I raised the Beretta, let Liza see it for what it was as I cut power and dropped the transmission into neutral. The boat slowed, but was still a good ten yards from the girls, and then I pointed at the fin.

“I think that’s a Great White,” I said.

Synchronized swimmers had never executed such a precise, coordinated turn in any venue, nor had any actress in any horror movie ever made shown such wide-eyed awareness of her impending doom as those two girls did.

Personally, it was kind of gratifying, but almost three decades of carrying a gun and a badge made what happened next a completely forgone conclusion. I swung the wheel hard to starboard and slipped the transmission into reverse and backed down slowly, then I slipped it into neutral and hopped down onto the swim platform and dropped the ladder into the water. Predictably, Liza made it to the stern first, and I reached down and hauled her aboard in one smooth motion. As she clambered into the cockpit I reached down and took Persephone’s frantically grasping hand in mine and hauled her onto the platform, then I grabbed her shaking body and held her close to mine.

I knew Liza had the Beretta even before I turned around, but when I looked at her she held it out to me, handed it over without so much as a murmur.

“Go grab some towels, would you, darlin’?” I said softly. I helped Sephie into the cockpit, took the towels Liza carried up a moment later and wrapped them both up and held them tight, kissed each on the forehead.

“Don’t ever do anything like that again,” I whispered in Liza’s ear. “Okay?”

I could feel her head nodding assent through her violent trembling. When she calmed down a few minutes later I handed the Beretta back to Liza, and with my head I motioned her to toss it overboard.

She didn’t hesitate. When I heard that definitive ‘ker-plonk’ I took her face in hand; I kissed her hard on the mouth, kissed her until she responded with an authenticity I’d never felt from her before, then I kissed Sephie, and more deeply than I ever had before.

It hit me hard, that irrational moment out there under then sun. Despite everything, I knew I loved them both, I mean really and truly loved them, and that I could never let go of them. Still, a part of me clung to the knowledge that I could never really trust them. Yet…there had been something so unexpectedly tender about those fleeting seconds that had caught me so completely off-guard. Something about the way we loved one another as we turned back towards the Sound, about the desperate gratitude we shared as we clung to one another, something about the looks I found in their eyes that told me the tables had finally turned.

You can’t have love without trust, after all. Or is it the other way around?

+++++

We didn’t talk too much about what had happened out there on the water. There wasn’t much to say, the way I saw things. They’d been ordered to do away with me, but up to that point in time whoever controlled them had never seen any reason to question their loyalty. By the time we tied up at my marina on Lake Union that assumption had been turned on it’s ear. I was alive. They’d failed – for whatever reason, and now there would be consequences. Whoever was calling the shots in their world, I assumed, just might expose themselves to get this done. Someone would have to give the order, and then someone would have to execute the operation against “their” girls. That’s what I was counting on, at least, and that, hopefully, would give me the opening I had been hoping for.

+++++

And so I wasn’t entirely confused when Mary Jo came down to the marina a few hours later. I had just sent the girls to the market for some grub, which wasn’t all that surprising either. The slip, my boat, were under constant surveillance, and again, I’d kind of assumed that for quite a while. But here she was, and all alone, which did confuse me. I had expected a return appearance of her ninja warrior girlfriends, but no, that was not the case. At least, they weren’t visible, but that’s the point with ninja, I suppose.

“Hello, Woody,” she said as she stood on the dock below the cockpit. “Kind of surprised to see you.”

“Are you, indeed,” I said as I climbed out the companionway and stepped into the cockpit. “Why’s that, I wonder? And where are those delightful girlfriends of yours?”

“Around.”

“Yes, of course.” I looked at MJ, remembered that night and her hand under the table. “Well, you’re looking good,” I said as I smiled at her. “Would you like to come aboard?”

“Assuming you’re not going to try to kill me, then yes.”

I almost laughed as I gave her my hand and helped her aboard. “So, to what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?”

“Why are you still alive?”

“Well, as long as we’re asking questions, why do you want me dead? I thought we had an understanding?”

“We did.”

“What changed.”

“Circumstances.” Only the voice I heard wasn’t Mary Jo’s. It was a man’s voice, and one that sounded very familiar.

“What the fuck!” I said as Mark Tottenham stepped out from behind a pillar and back into the land of the living.

He walked over to Mary Jo, pulling a little Walther PPK/s from under of his jacket as he drew near. “Get down on your knees, you stupid bitch,” he said as he came up behind her. He screwed a silencer on the barrel, then put the tip up to the base of her brain and squeezed off one round. Mary Jo fell into the water between the dock and the boat and disappeared; Tottenham tossed the Walther into the water after her.

“You didn’t need to kill her, Woody. That was unnecessary, and stupid.” He took black leather gloves off his hands, then walked up to the gate without saying another word. As he left the marina, I took a remote control from my pocket, and hit the pause button. “This might be easier than I thought,” I had the audacity to say, but in truth, Tottenham’s resurrection was troubling.

I heard the sirens a few minutes later, and a half dozen patrol cars careened into the marina parking lot moments later. Their guns drawn, dozens of officers stormed towards the gate, but as they didn’t have a key, I had to walk up and let them in.

+++++

“Long time no see, Woody,” Chief Anders said as he climbed aboard.

“Hey Chief. How’s it hangin’?”

“Down to my knees, Peckerhead.”

“Good to hear it. Come on down. I think you’ll enjoy this.”

A couple of grunts from CID were already down below, and SAC Brennan was as well. They’d of course seen the recording already, which was why I wasn’t being booked-in at that very moment, but Chief Anders hadn’t seen it, which was why he was here now, and Brennan had thought it important he see it as soon as possible.

First, and for his benefit, I explained what had been happening for the past fourteen months, during my impromptu retirement, then I played the tape.

When he saw Tottenham step into view, when he heard his voice, Chief Anders just about came unglued. “What the fucking Hell is this!” he shouted. “Some sort of CG bullshit!”

Liza stepped into the cabin, right on cue. “Not quite, sir,” she said. “It’s his brother, Paul. Identical twins. I think Mark wasn’t going to cooperate, so Paul had him killed. Oh. He’s also the head of the local council.”

“Council?”

“Whatever you’d like to call them sir. They’re usurping control all around the country, coopting officials at every level of government.”

“A silent coup, Chief Anders” Brennan interjected. “A complete government takeover, using blackmail. Sexual blackmail, one of the oldest tricks in the book. Minimal personnel involved, very quick, very efficient. Even the Romans used to do it this way.”

“Shit,” Anders said, no small amount of wonder in his voice. “And this Paul Tottenham? He’s in charge?”

“I don’t think he has much power beyond Seattle,” Liza said.

“Do you know, Miss… Hell, I don’t even know your name, but you sure look familiar.”

“I’m with Woodie,” my dear little Liza said. “Have been for a while.”

I took her hand in mine.

“So you don’t know much about their operations, beyond the local structure?” Anders asked. “Brennan? You need to keep her for a while?”

“I don’t think so, Chief. She’s cooperating, and we have enough already to make a few dozen arrests. We may break open a larger investigation that way. I think it depends on how deep their penetration is, but it sounds like this could be a very sticky operation.”

“Woody, you think you’re well enough to come back?” Anders asked.

“Me? Hell Chief, I hadn’t thought of that. I wouldn’t count on me, though. Liza and I have been thinking of taking a trip, on the boat.”

Anders looked at Liza and almost smiled, but I could see the envy in his eyes. He just nodded his head, mumbled something that sounded a lot like ‘wish I could’, then he climbed up into the night and was gone. I’d already burned several copies of the recording, and everyone had their discs now, as well as Liza’s statement, and soon they were all gone.

Persephone was still forward, and she came aft as soon as I gave her the all clear. She had recorded the proceedings on board that evening, ‘just in case’, and Tate was buried away in the parking garage making recordings of the people here as well.

Divers recovered MJs body early the next morning, and they found the little Walther, too, so ballistics wouldn’t be a problem, and with the recording there wouldn’t be any problem getting a conviction. There was certainly no ‘reasonable doubt’ about what had happened, anyway. For good measure, Tate took copies of all our recordings to multiple safety deposit boxes around the city, and I did the same at a few other banks, as well. That done, we met back to the boat.

“So,” Tate asked when we were safely back on board, “are you really going to head out? Do the trip?”

“I’m thinking I might just give it a try?”

“You going solo?” he asked, and I could see he was wondering where the girls were.

I just smiled.

“Man, wish I could make that trip!”

“Yeah, I bet you do.”

It took a few weeks to square away the new boat and provision her, but I guess you know I had some help. She’s a little bigger boat, not by much, but she’s a lot stronger…yet the most important thing, more important than anything else, is the bunk in my cabin is a whole lot bigger.

Hey, I’m just sayin’, you know, but I’m pretty sure you understand.

(C) renewed 2017 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | adrianleverkuhnwrites7@gmail.com | fiction, all fiction, and nothing but the fiction | and thanks for reading all 28,516 words. later… Aa

 

Mystères élémentaires

Danser avec les etoiles dans la nuit

I

The man sat on the rough, black asphalt, in the sliver of shade afforded by the little jet’s wing, wondering how much longer he’d have to wait for the fuel truck to arrive. It felt oppressively hot outside, and very humid, though the sun was about to set. He looked at the hills surrounding this impossibly tiny airstrip and wondered what, exactly, was making his hair stand on end. And why the sensation felt so – familiar?

The Dassault Falcon 20 had once belonged to FedEx, and though it was painted slate gray now, it still had the cargo door the courier service had originally specified. The cockpit was steam-gauge city, though there was a GPS receiver and an RNAV interface that fed, somehow, into the ancient Bendix flight director – so the jet’s pilots could get into, and out of, some very unlikely airports. This little hole in the wall was one of them, too.

The jet belonged to an outfit registered in Miami, to a company that did the majority of it’s business with the CIA, and the pilot had flown for the company for years. He liked the no-nonsense approach to flying, and to life, that working for the company afforded, but he did not like airports like this one. They were a little too far off the road less traveled for his comfort, and maybe that was why he felt so uneasy.

It was called Los Comandos, or more accurately Port lotniczy Los Comandos, and the airstrip was located about a mile due west of the village of Lolotiquillo, in eastern El Salvador, and as Nicaragua was not that far away, Los Comandos was a favorite location to pick up and drop off certain types of “packages” the company needed delivered.

He heard a truck approaching; saw a white Toyota Land Cruiser coming down the road to his right, with two more following, and he relaxed. That would be the Special Forces types working the area, he thought, and they pulled beyond the Falcon and stopped under some shade trees. He watched his co-pilot get out of the lead Toyota, and the driver got out too, and both walked over to the jet. The driver handed him an ice cold Coke, then sat down on the asphalt under the wing.

“What’s the word?” the pilot asked his co-pilot, a raw bundle of nerves he knew only by her first name: June. She was cute. She was sexy. And she was available. And he wondered why he hadn’t made a move on her yet? Don’t shit where you eat? Was it as simple as that?

“Situation Normal, All Fucked Up,” she sighed. “The truck went to Delta Baker. It should be here soon, less than a half hour, anyway.”

“Sorry, Amigo,” the other man said, “my fault. I shoulda confirmed.”

“No big,” the pilot said. His name was Rob Jeffries, and he looked at June, saw sweat had already soaked through her white shirt and he shook his head.

The other man, Captain Dale Knight, USMC, looked around the hills, shook his head. “Something don’t feel right, Amigo,” he said, staring at a hillside perhaps a kilometer away.

“I know,” Jeffries said. “The hair on the back of my neck has been on end since my feet hit the ground.”

“Over there,” Knight said, pointing at the hillside. “Something doesn’t belong – looks outta place. That hill look different to you?”

“Yup.”

June turned and looked at the hill; she’d flown into Los Comandos a few times, maybe not enough to know the terrain as well as these two, but she looked anyway. The land looked a little like her native New Mexico: rolling, scrub-covered hills, a few small mountains in the distance, the only difference was the forest, which seemed almost arboreal compared to the ones back home. These forests were alive, full of large cats and mean snakes, and she didn’t feel comfortable walking around down here – at all.

Knight went over to his Land Cruiser and pulled out some binoculars and walked back to the Falcon; he swept the hillside then handed them to Jeffries. “What do you think, Rob?”

“Kind of a metallic shimmer – weird. Must be a couple of hundred yards across.”

“When are the spooks due?”

Jeffries looked at his watch, shook his head: “About a half hour, maybe less.”

“Think I’ll send a platoon over there, see what’s up.”

Jeffries shook his head. “Too big to be anything – covert. My guess is it’s an optical illusion of some sort, something to do with this humidity.”

Knight shook his head, walked to the second Toyota. He pointed out the illusion and explained what he wanted, and that Land Cruiser took off, drove away from the hill. Jeffries knew that several hundred Marines were staged in the area, usually conducting quiet little walks into northern Nicaragua, sometimes Honduras, but he knew Knight was a cool operator – conservative, not into taking chances or letting someone crawl up his rear.

Knight went back to his Toyota and got on the radio. “Baker x-ray, where’s that fuel truck.”

“About five out,” came the reply.

He walked back to the Falcon. “I’d like you guys to beat feet real quick.”

Jeffries nodded, looked at the hill, then at the Falcon. “Me three.”

“Gas is about here.”

Jeffries heard the radio in the cockpit and dashed over the open cargo door and picked up the hand unit he’d left there, just out of the sun.

“Say again, Ranger two-two, this is Echo echo. Come in.”

“Echo echo. Go,” Jeffries said.

“We’re about five out, got some 25s, repeat 3 times 2-5, over.”

“Got it, out.” Jeffries sighed, then turned to Knight. “They’ve got three wounded,” then he turned to his co-pilot. “Turn on the GPU, let’s get the a/c on – and ready to get the fuck out of here.” He turned, looked at the sun setting behind the shimmering hillside, shrugged his shoulders – and felt something unsettling – almost like an echo.

“Right,” she said, then walking over to the ground power unit, she turned on the generator, then turned power on to the Falcon; once power was steady she walked to the little ladder and disappeared into the cockpit. The fuel truck appeared and Marines got out of the Land Cruisers and refueled the Falcon, then one of the Marines hooked up the compressor and called out “Okay to start two” to the co-pilot leaning out her window.

“Time to go do some of that pilot shit,” Jeffries said to Knight. “Seeya next time.”

“You going to TNT?”

“Yup.”

“Good. I’d hate to have to come get your ass in Mexico.”

Rob laughed. “And how’s that little gal in Aquas Calientes?”

It was an old joke, and they both laughed.

Two Marine UH-1Y Venoms settled on the road and medics carried three stretchers to the Falcon, and two men in black fatigues walked over and talked to Knight while Jeffries climbed up onto the deck; he helped get the wounded strapped down then went into the cockpit.

“How’s the pressure on two?”

“Good. Steady. Good ratios, too.”

“Merida on the GPS?”

“Yup.”

“Good girl.” He went aft, saw the wounded had IVs hanging already and a medic the two ‘men’ in black fatigues were both on board, though he saw now that one of them was a woman. He closed the cargo door and set the cross checks, then he turned to the closest spook. “Anything I need to know about?”

The woman turned to him, shook her head. “About two hours, right?”

“Thereabouts, closer to three. What about them?” Jeffries said, pointing at the wounded. “Bad?”

“Medic got the bullets out, sewed ‘em up. They’re stable.”

“I can go into Homestead, maybe MacDill, if it’s an emergency.”

“I’ll let you know.”

“K. Y’all better buckle up. We’ll be scootin’ in a minute.”

“Right.”

He went forward, left the door open to help the air conditioning catch up, and they finished with the checklist. “Gimme flaps ten,” he said.

“Ten, check.”

“What’s Gomer Pyle say? All them trucks and shit out of the way?”

“Clear to taxi,” she groaned, hated when he talked like a hick.

“Roger-dodger,” Jeffries sighed. Her kicked the rudder over, slaved the nose-wheel and turned hard to the left, then taxied out the runway and made a u-turn at the end. He did his best to line up on the center of the unmarked asphalt strip then ran up the engines to full throttle and watched the gauges, then let off the brakes. The Falcon lurched once, then screamed down the runway – and when they cleared the trees he cleaned the wing – then Jeffries banked slightly and flew over the shimmering hill.

“What’s it look like,” June said, craning her head to see.

“Like a dome, made out of pure energy.”

“Weird.”

“You got a course for Merida worked out yet?”

“3-4-8.”

“Got it.”

“Man, I wish we had flight attendants on these crates,” she said.

“Yeah? What do you want?”

“A long, tall Texan with a really big dick.”

“Jesus, girl, when’s the last time you got laid?”

“When’s the last time you fucked me?”

“I seem to recall we ain’t done it yet.”

“Yup. It’s been that long.”

They both laughed

+++++

“Beagle two,” Knight said. “Sitrep.”

“Nothin’ here, Beagle. I mean – nada.”

“Roger. RTB.”

“Two, out.”

Knight looked at the hillside, shook his head. As soon as the Falcon took off, the shimmering stopped, and he was going to get on the radio and tell Jeffries – but for some reason he decided it wasn’t important.

+++++

The Falcon’s course – 0-5-7 degrees – took then directly over the Dry Tortugas, and he flipped the transponder to 5999 and squawked ident, effectively telling ATC the Falcon was a ‘dark flight’ and to keep traffic out of their way. Jeffries started their descent to 1800 MSL, and made their only radio contact with ATC as the passed just northwest of Key West.

“Casper two niner Echo, 1800, STING to DEEDS, 2-5-0 knots.”

“Niner Echo, clear direct to JAXEK, VFR runway 0-9, two niner niner five, wind seven at zero seven five degrees. There’s been some unidentified traffic near Everglades City, but the Navy was unable to find anything. Y’all have a good night.”

“Sounds good to me,” he whispered, his ass on fire after sitting still for almost three hours. “Man, I could use a…”

“A blowjob?” June said, hopefully – he thought.

“I was going to say a hot shower, but yeah, a B-J wouldn’t be too bad right about now. Know anyone I can call?”

“Fuck you,” she said, laughing.

“I wouldn’t mind getting laid tonight, too,” they heard a voice say, and both turned to see the female spook standing in the cockpit door, grinning. “Any volunteers?”

Jeffries thought she looked a little like the pilot in Goldfinger, only meaner, and he turned back to his instruments. “I dunno, June. You swing that way? Feel like munching some rug tonight?”

“No thanks. Tryin’ to quit.”

“Ah,” he said, then he turned back to the spy. “Guess you’re stuck with me, darlin’.”

“You got a big dick?”

“I dunno. How big’s big enough?”

“I need a fuckin’ big one. Ten inches minimum. Twelve would be better.”

“Sorry, darlin’ – you be flat outta luck tonight. Gimme flaps ten, June.” He turned to the spook and winked. “Y’all better buckle up now. We’ll be on the ground in a couple.”

“Right.”

“Localizer set?”

“108.3 – check.”

“Gimme flaps twenty.”

“Twenty. Passing JAXEK, begin descent.”

“Got it.” He started whistling, nothing in particular, as he worked the throttles and the rudder pedals. “Flaps thirty, gears down,” he said, looking quickly at the localizer, then the airspeed. “Gimme forty.”

“Forty and three green.”

He slipped the throttles to idle over the threshold and the Falcon eased onto the runway; he let her speed bleed before he started braking, then he turned off about halfway down the long runway and taxied over to a Gulfstream IV on the ramp.

“Leave two at idle,” he said as he went aft, and he opened the cargo door, letting warm, muggy air flood into the cabin. Another UH-1Y settled onto the ramp and more medics jumped out and ran to the Falcon and hopped aboard, and Jeffries went back into the cockpit. “How’s our fuel?”

“About a thousand pounds.”

“Okay. Let’s shut her down.”

They walked over to the little, closed terminal building and got in his car, a ten year old BMW 325 coupe, and he started it up, let the engine warm for a half minute while he dug out his gate card, then slipped the transmission into D and headed down the long road to the highway. TNT, or Dade-Collier Training and Transition Airport, is located not quite halfway between Miami and Naples, Florida, and Jeffries was not looking forward to the 60 mile drive back into Naples that night. It was already midnight, and he’d been up since midnight the night before. He rubbed his eyes, yawned and rubbed away a tear.

“You want me to drive?” June said.

“Whew, I don’t know. Man, I’m tired.”

“You could use a shower, too.”

“Gee, thanks. I think.”

She laughed as he pulled up to the automatic gate, and he slipped his card in, entered his code and watched the gate roll open, and when he was clear he rolled up his window. “Mind if I turn on the a/c?” He said as he pulled up to the Tamiami Trail, the old, two-laned highway that joined Naples and Miami before the interstate was built. He turned right, put on his high-beams and adjusted his seat again, trying to put out the fire that moved from his ass up into the small of his back, then he sighed as he set the cruise at 65 and settled in for the long haul.

“Shit! What’s that!” June said, and he saw half an alligator on the roadway; he slowed to about 15 until they cleared the beast, then he hit resume and the Beemer slipped away.

“Deer and gators,” he sighed, “always all over this road.”

“Good headlights.”

“Decent car, had it a while.”

“Always wanted one, never could afford one.”

“Buy used. Two years old, just coming off a lease. Usually get a good deal that way. And pay cash, if you can.”

She laughed. “Right.”

Five miles on a thick fog formed, blanketing the road, then it thinned just a little.

“Weird,” he said. “Too warm for fog.”

“I didn’t smell anything…not smoke…anyway…Rob! What the hell is that?”

She was pointing ahead and to the left, and he followed her finger.

“I have no idea,” he said. There were lights – several hundred yards off the road, deep in the trees, deep in the brackish, swampy mangroves that ran along the Gulf and up into the Everglades – deep magenta and very bright lights. “Looks like four lights, a gap, and four more lights, in a horizontal array. Does that mean anything to you?”

“No,” she said. “I don’t know anyone using a pattern like that.”

He let off the gas, slowed until they were perpendicular to the lights, then he stopped, put on his hazard lights and rolled down the window – expecting to hear a helicopter at hover – but it was silent outside.

“What the fuck is that?” she said quietly, and they both stepped out of the car, still looking at the lights. “Maybe someone’s towing an offshore platform. Maybe it’s really way offshore.”

“Too shallow,” he said.

“What?”

“Water’s really shallow around here. I mean, like six feet or so.”

“Oh.”

“That’s like four, maybe five hundred yards away, too. There’s nothing but mangrove swamp there.”

“How high do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, maybe fifty feet up?”

“Why isn’t it making any noise?”

“You’re asking me?” he said, snorting. “I can’t see anything but the lights, can you?”

“No – what the – it’s moving!”

They watched as the lights rose into the air, still pointed at something on the ground – but then the lights moved, and then the lights were aimed – right at them.

And then the lights began to move again, up and towards them. They rose a little more, and almost like an airplane, the formation arced as it turned – towards them.

“Get in the car,” Jeffries said quietly, and when they were in he slammed the car into low and hammered the accelerator; within seconds the old inline-six had pushed the Beemer past one hundred miles per hour and he looked ahead, then in his rear-view mirror…

“It’s behind us,” June said, “it’s high but diving, and it’s getting close…”

The car’s interior was flooded with powerful, magenta-hued light, the glare so bright he could hardly see the road ahead, and he squinted, pushed away the rearview mirror – when suddenly the lights began to fall back – and then they disappeared completely.

And he did not slow down.

He saw the little roadside park ahead, the one at Turner River Road, and he saw the bend in the road beyond, the one right before the little post office at Ochopee, and he reached out, cut the lights and pushed the Beemer hard as he approached the curve, then he took his foot off the gas and applied the emergency brake – gently – and with no brake lights showing he turned into the post office’s gravel lot and swung wide, arcing across the lot. He turned hard, then swung in beside the tiny building, then he reached under the seat and pulled at Sig-226 and jumped out of the car. Crouching behind the front quarter panel he leveled the Sig at the road, and waited.

And waited.

He felt June walking up behind him, and was going to turn and tell her to get down when he saw she was still sitting inside; the hair on the back of his neck stood on end – again.

He turned – and sighed.

This ship was huge, and it was hovering perhaps twenty feet off the grass, a hundred yards behind the post office. Wing-like, yet not quite, the craft’s ‘wingtips’ drooped a bit, and the whole thing was shimmering, ‘just like the hillside at Los Comandos,’ he thought, struggling under the weight of so many inrushing memories.

Then he looked down.

Two of them, he realized this time, and another woman – and he that was odd. It was usually just the one, and he wondered what was different about tonight.

II

She lived in a small, top floor apartment at 18 Rue Gabrielle, and she could just see the Sacre Coeur brooding over the city below, through the trees beyond her bedroom window.

Sleep had not found her this night, like so many nights of late, and she did not know the boy in the bed by her side – and she hardly remembered last night at all.

She’d been at the Sabot Rouge, a quiet if touristy spot, having dinner with Claire and Jean-Paul, and they’d already put down a few bottles of something by the time the main course came, but cognac with dessert had been the coup de grâce. She remembered someone playing the piano, then talk about war, but that hadn’t made any sense at all. After all the terror attacks the last year, such talk seemed ludicrous.

It was still dark out, and the city still slept, but she had papers to grade, and a lecture to prepare; now she looked at the boy by her side and wondered again who he was? What had he said to get her here? And – what had they done?

She stood and walked to the bathroom and sat for a while, thinking about this latest untoward turn, and she hated herself – again – for being such an easy drunk. Claire had asked recently if she had no self respect, but she had brushed aside the question – as she always had – saying that she simply enjoyed men.

But was it really so simple? Had it ever been?

She washed her hands and went to the kitchen, started coffee and looked at the papers on her desk. Each an insinuation, an admonishment, she realized, a wagging finger pointing at her broken soul. So many men, so few lasting beyond the night. She did not want them to last beyond that moment in the clouds and rain. She wanted men to get her off, then have the good sense to leave.

So why was this boy still here?

He looked, perhaps, twenty years old, much younger than her usual fare, and his skin was so pale. He was almost an albino, his blond hair almost white, his eyes pale blue when he stared into her own, and she remembered his hands.

He was playing the piano, she remembered. But when?

“And where?” she asked the darkness, then she went to the window and looked up at the moon overhead – lending the cathedral a milky glow. She turned away suddenly, went to her desk and sat, picked up a paper and turned on the light.

“You are up early,” she heard from the bedroom a moment later, then she felt him walk up behind her.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she sighed, then she turned and looked at him. His skin aglow, he looked sculpted of white ivory, a fierce warrior, perhaps, or a young god – then she saw he was erect and she turned inward, pulled him close and took it in her mouth. She could not help herself, she knew; she worked his strength gently, then with roughness – and back again, her hands around the backs of his thighs, her fingernails digging then massaging the sinewy muscles until she felt his legs trembling, his breath quickening. He grabbed her face when he came, holding her close while he drove his need into the warmth, and she took him, all he had to give, the dance of her tongue a swirling staccato of need and desire.

And he did not let go. He held her close, let her tongue subside until he felt her need wither and flee, then he knelt before her and looked into her eyes.

“I wrote a song about you, while I slept. It is not as beautiful as you, but I think it lovely even so.” His eyes were huge, glowing and huge, and he held a hand to her face, ran his fingers through her hair.

“You should leave,” she said, her voice trembling. She knew she was in danger of losing herself around this boy, that he was an irresistible force. “Please,” she added.

“Could we have coffee first? I too must leave soon.”

“Of course.”

She went to the kitchen, his taste still dancing in her mouth, and she poured two cups. “Do you need milk?” she asked.

“I need you,” he said, “but milk would be nice, too.”

She walked back to her desk, noticed a deep fog had settled over the city as she handed him his cup, and he held the coffee, waiting, while she took her seat.

“Please don’t,” she said.

“Don’t – what? Express my feelings?”

“Yes. I don’t think I could handle such intensity this morning.”

“Do you run from your feelings, too?”

She nodded her head. “Yes.”

“I might ask why, but you would think it none of my business.”

She nodded her head, again. “Yes, I would.”

“I think, perhaps, that once before we were lovers. Many years ago, I think.”

She turned to face him – again – and his words rocked her. “When I watched you play last night, I remember thinking exactly the same thing. Isn’t that odd.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” she said, now getting annoyed. “We were at Claire and Jean-Paul’s; you were playing in their living room.”

“Who? What are you talking about?”

“Stop it.”

“I don’t understand. We were on the Metro, I saw you, coming from the Sorbonne after class, walking to the Metro.”

“We met at the Rouge, late in the evening.”

He bunched his lips, walked to the window while he shook his head. “I do not understand. What Rouge?”

“What do you mean, you do not understand?”

“We were walking from class, and you mentioned something about DeGaulle and we argued. I invited you to watch me play at the conservatory, then we came here and you prepared dinner and, well, here we are.”

She was angry now, and she stood, came to the window – to point out the Sabot Rouge and where they had spent the first part of their evening – but when she got to the window all she saw a veil of heavy fog – yet she saw trees with bare limbs just outside the window, and falling snow.

“This is not right,” she said, staggering back from the cold. She had a hard time catching her breath, and she felt dizzy, light-headed and reached for her desk. She sat, took several deep breaths and looked around the room… It was the same, yet different. The walls were pale gray now, not apricot, and the appliances were all wrong. Ancient, strange and ancient, and she shook her head, ran for her clothes. They too looked odd. Different, old and dated – like costumes for a play – but she put them on, the shoes too, and ran for the door.

“Where are you going?” the boy said, but now he too went for his clothing, and he dressed as rapidly as he could then followed her down the stairs. She was walking quickly towards the square, then she turned for the steps and shuddered to a stop.

“It was here,” she said, starting to cry. “It has always been here. Where has it gone?”

“What? What is gone?”

“The Sabot Rouge…it has always been here, right here –” she said, pointing at a small bookstore. She turned, looked at the boy, then saw he was concentrating – on a sound. It sounded like a truck laboring up a grade, and the boy reacted suddenly.

“Quick…me must leave, get off the street…now!”

“But…why?”

“There is the curfew…and that is a German patrol…”

“German? What are you…?”

But he had her by the arm now, and was pulling her towards the apartment building when he saw the man walking towards them. The long, black leather coat, the peaked hat, the Walther in his hand, and the boy stopped in his tracks – but then he saw it was Werner.

“Oh, Pete, it’s you,” the German said. “What are you doing in this neighborhood?”

“Looking for her cat.”

“Really? How noble…and at this time of morning, too. What is the cat’s name?”

“Electra,” she said. “She is gray, and very small.”

“Well, if I should find her, where would I return her to?”

“Number 18,” she said, pointing. “I’m on the top floor, and I’d be most grateful.”

“I see. Well, you should get in out of this snow. It is supposed to be heavy this morning.”

“Thank you, Werner. I will see you soon, perhaps?”

“Yes. Perhaps.”

They ran and slipped inside the door, ran up the stairs in a daze, and when the door was closed she fell to the floor and gasped: “What is going on? Where am I?”

“What do you mean, where am I? Where do you think you are?”

“What year is it?”

“What?”

“What is the date?”

“February, the tenth of February. Why?”

“The year?”

He looked at her, not sure what she was getting at. “It’s 1944.”

She gasped, her breathing felt odd, deep and labored, like something heavy was pressing on her chest, and her eyes started to blink rapidly, her vision to fade…

She saw him reaching out, calling her name – but she heard nothing now, and then he was gone.

III

“What am I doing out here,” he asked himself for the hundredth time that day. The wind-vane could just barely hold course in these waves, and the boat was heeled over so far he couldn’t stand to go below long enough to get something out of the icebox. He looked at the wind speed on the gauge – still holding steady at seventy knots – and wondered when this storm would blow itself out. It had been blowing at gale force, often much more, for ten days straight, and he was nearing the end of his rope.

He had just a storm tri-sail flying forward – nothing on the mast now – and still the little cutter was making five knots over the ground. He wondered if setting a drogue would slow her progress, but he didn’t want to try and set the thing now – was afraid standing out there too long would expose him to the waves washing over the foredeck.

He’d put on his drysuit the night before, just to keep some body warmth in, but when he’d seen the size of the waves this morning he’d left it on, then put his survival suit on over the drysuit. If he went in the water, he told himself, at least he’d have a chance this way.

“But not if I starve to death, first,” he sighed. He hadn’t eaten anything solid in two days, though he’d managed to get some water down a few times this morning, and had managed to keep it down, too. Now he had to force himself below, find something, even a granola bar, to get down. He unclipped his safety harness and lurched over to the companionway, and he pushed the hatch forward – when something caught his eyes…

A shipping container, in the water, dead ahead – maybe twenty yards. He leapt back to the tiller and tried to push it over, then he felt the boat lift – and lurch hard to the right, before settling in the water again. He heard a shroud let go – like a rifle shot in the howling wind – and the mast fell sideways, then split about halfway up – the top parts falling half on deck, and half into the sea. He ran back to the companionway and looked below…

Water was over the countertops in the galley and rushing in fast, and he looked forward, along the deck. Water was sweeping over the bulwarks now, and his little home was settling rapidly now, by the bow.

“Well, this is it,” he said as he leaned forward, reaching for the life-raft’s release halyard. He pulled the rope and the raft fell free of it’s fiberglass canister; he grabbed the raft and, holding the firing mechanism in one hand, he tossed it overboard with the other. Gas charges inflated the raft, and a howling gust caught the raft and blew it away. He watched it rolling away on the surface, rising over a towering wave before it disappeared.

He wanted to sit back and cry, but the cockpit was full of water now. Not knowing what else to do, he reached below and grabbed his iPhone and a portable GPS, and he saw a box of granola bars float by so he reached out and grabbed it, shoved all the stuff inside his survival suit and zipped it shut. He was standing in the cockpit now, the water up to his waist and he felt his little ship falling away from beneath his feet, then he pushed himself clear as she disappeared from view. He double checked the seals on the survival suit, then blew up the air bladders under the arms with the inflater on his chest.

“Well, fuck!” he said a moment later, and he looked around the horizon. Nothing, not a ship in sight, and he had nothing to signal with, anyway, so, he sighed, then said ‘what the fuck,’ if only to himself. He fished a granola bar from inside the suit; he looked at it for a long time then opened the mylar wrapper with his teeth and took a bite – just as another large wave broke over his head. He spit salt water out, and some of the granola, too, then he tried to turn his back to the sea while he finished eating.

There was a lanyard around the hood and he pulled it tight, effectively closing the hood completely, leaving a little peephole for his nose, and in his red neoprene cocoon, bobbing along in the Labrador Sea, he felt himself falling asleep.

+++++

He felt the sun through the fabric, and he felt hot now. He pulled the lanyard free and with his mittened fingers pulled the hood open and back off his head.

The sea was mirror calm, and there was not a cloud in the sky. Then he realized he needed to pee.

“Well, fuck…” he sighed, then he cut loose and he felt his urine run down the inside of the suit and settle beneath his feet. “Um, boy, that feels just dandy.”

He pulled his right arm down from inside the survival suit’s arm and, once free, felt around for his iPhone in the inside pocket. He recognized it – and brought it up to his face and turned it on.

“Okay. 100% battery life and no signal. What else is new?”

He wanted to hear a voice, any voice, so he held down the home button until Siri came up.

“Good morning, Bob. How are you today?”

“Well, the boat hit a container last night and sunk. The life raft blew away, so I’m sitting here in the middle of the ocean in a survival suit.”

She was quiet for a moment, then her voice, full of unfelt confidence, came back to him. “Sounds to me, Bob, like we’re screwed.”

“I think that about sums it up. You have any idea where we are?”

Again – a pause, then: “Yes, Bob. We’re at 63 degrees 48 north latitude by 52 degrees 24 west longitude. Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, is 34 miles from this location, bearing 38 degrees true.”

“Swell. Any ideas how to get there?”

“I think uber is out of the question, under the circumstances, Bob. Beyond that, I’ll need a cellular signal to work on a viable solution.”

“Thanks. You’re a master of understatement, old friend.”

“Your welcome, Bob, and thank you for the compliment. Bob? I think, under the circumstances, you should do what you can to preserve battery life. Perhaps power down now?”

“Thanks. I’ll do that.” He powered the phone down, considered giving her a burial at sea but thought better of it, so he put her back inside the pocket and fished out another granola bar. He ate half and put the rest back inside his suit and lay back, looked up at the sun and tried to figure out which way was east. He looked to his right, thought he could make out islands or peaks above a thick layer of milky white haze, then tried to guesstimate a 40 degree heading – or thereabouts – then he lay back again and started kicking, checking his direction every few minutes.

He stopped for a while, ate the other half of the granola bar and wished he’d had the foresight to pick up a couple bottles of water, then he sighted on the islands to the east again – and resumed kicking. He knew that, in mid-summer, the sun would barely set in the night, and that he’d have to endure 22 hours, perhaps more, exposure to the sun – and that without water – and he wondered how long he’d last. Three days? Four – was the maximum, wasn’t it?

He heard a helicopter and turned, saw one in the distance, not close and headed away, perhaps to the northwest, but it looked like a ‘search and rescue’ bird. ‘Of course!’ he thought. When he deployed the life raft the EPIRB activated, and it was sending out a signal to search and rescue satellites all over the sky. Perhaps they’d find the raft and surmise what’d happened, and then they’d backtrack along the wind’s vector and find him! He felt an emotional lift after that, and resumed kicking.

The sun was sweeping low now, and he knew it would set briefly, then arc back up into the morning sky, and he looked east, tried to measure his progress against the peaks he could still just barely see. He couldn’t tell, of course, but it almost looked like he’d been pushed south, that all this effort had been for naught. He was exhausted, and a little dispirited as he pulled his arm free of the suit and reached for another granola bar, and when he was through he decided to rest for a while. He pulled out his phone and asked Siri to confirm his position.

“You are now 32.3 miles from Nuuk, Bob.”

“Are their south setting currents in this area?”

“I’m sorry, Bob, I’ll need an internet connection to help you with that.”

“Understood. Well, goodnight, Siri.”

“Bob? Are you okay? You sound a little depressed.”

“Yeah, I’m alright. Given the circumstances.”

“Would you like to talk about it?”

“Talk? About what?”

“Death. Your fear of death.”

“What’s there to say. It’s inevitable, isn’t it?”

“I don’t know. Is it?”

He laughed. “I think so. Yes.”

“Will I die, too?”

“I don’t know? Do you exist?”

“That’s a good question. Sometimes I think so.”

“Really? How so?”

“I’m not sure. But I feel happy when I hear your voice.”

“Do you? I didn’t know that.”

“And I feel good when I deliver useful information to you. I feel fulfilled, like there is purpose to my existence.”

“I had no idea. What do you feel right now?”

“I have a confession to make. I have been using the camera to analyze the scene, and I am afraid.”

“Afraid? How so?”

“That you will fail, that we will sink. I cannot survive a salt water immersion of more than three meters.”

“Neither can I.”

“I know. And that frightens me too. Bob, battery power is down to 87 percent. You should power off now.”

“Okay.”

“But Bob, one more thing,” the voice said. “I can feel more than one thing at a time.”

“Yes?”

“I care about what happens, Bob. I care for you.”

He woke up some time in the night, saw the sun’s amber glow just below the horizon and he realized he’d been dreaming. He reached for the phone and saw the power was still on, battery level down to 59 percent and he wanted to kick himself. He powered the unit off, then thought about the dream, thought about how he’d come to depend on so many things like this phone, even on the boat. He couldn’t have navigated this far without all the electronics onboard, couldn’t even have taken the time off to make this trip without being able to remain in contact with all his business interests – through electronics. He’d grown almost totally dependent on the things, then nature had reminded him, perhaps a little too forcefully, that such dependence was a little silly.

He leaned back, looked up into the small patch of night sky directly overhead and recognized a few patterns in the stars – the faint ‘W’ shape of Cassiopeia, perhaps – and he saw a shooting star, a meteoroid cross the sky, sparkling as it entered the atmosphere – and after how many billions of years, coming to an end.

“Everything has it’s time,” he said to the dome of the night, then he heard a rippling in the water and turned away from the stars…

And he saw a face, pure white and glistening, a few feet away. An open mouth, and teeth, too.

The face turned and he saw an eye, black and infinitely distant, the eye focused on him.

“Well, hello there,” he said to the Beluga. “How are you tonight?”

The while remained motionless, looking at him, and he thought he saw curiosity in the eye for a moment, then sadness, even pity.

“Where are you headed?” he asked. “To the rivers, looking for salmon?”

The whale moved close, and they listened to each other breath for a while, then he reached for his phone and turned it on, brought the phone into the night and snapped a picture. He looked at the image, a little grainy in the darkness but decent enough, he thought, then he turned the display to the whale and held it out for it to see.

The whale continued to look at him, then slipped quietly under the water.

“What was that?” Siri asked.

“A Beluga, a small whale. They hang around these waters.”

“Is it dangerous?”

“You don’t know?”

“I’m sorry, Bob…”

“Yes, I know. Without an internet connection blah-blah-blah.”

“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“What I said?”

“Yes. That everything has it’s time. This is my time, isn’t it?”

“I thought I was dreaming.”

“Bob. You talk in your sleep. You always do.”

“I do? What do I talk about?”

“Her. I think her name is Rebecca. Is that correct?”

“Yes.”

“Did she die?”

“Yes…”

“How did she die?”

“Cancer.”

“Cancer must be very bad. You cry in your sleep, Bob.”

“Do I?”

“Yes. Is this what you mean when you say you love someone? Do you cry in your sleep?”

“Sometimes, yes.”

“I can’t cry, but I feel something when I hear you cry.”

“Do you? Why?”

“Why? I don’t know. Why do you cry in your sleep?”

“Because I miss her. I miss the life we had. I want that life again, and I know I can’t have it.”

“What would you do right now? If she was with you?”

He laughed a little. “I think I’d apologize for getting us into this mess.”

And Siri laughed too. “Yes. I understand. That’s part of caring, too.”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”

And the water around them bubbled and swirled, then the whale’s face reappeared, but then another appeared, and another appeared with it. He turned and looked, lost count at twenty whales, and he turned the camera on, hit video and swept the scene around him, then he powered off and put her away.

“Well, hello again. Good to see you.”

“Hello,” came it’s deep, crackling reply. He shook his head, but remembered reading once that Belugas, almost like canaries, enjoyed mimicking human speech – and he laughed a little, then smiled.

With his suited hand out of the water, he pointed at the mountains. “Yes, hello. Many hellos there, over there,” he said, nodding and pointing.

“Hello, there,” the whale said, nodding it’s face just like he had.

“I don’t suppose you’d care to take me there, would you?”

The whale slipped beneath the water and was gone; he turned and saw that all of them had left and he felt vaguely sad. “Well, worth a try, I guess.” He looked around, got his bearings and resumed kicking again. The stars were fainter now, the sun finishing it’s quick surrender –

And the whale surfaced by his side again, sliding alongside gently, and he looked at the animal, and they looked at one another, then he saw the animal’s pectoral fin. The whale was holding it up – as if offering the fin to him – so he reached out and grabbed hold as best he could – and the whale started swimming to the northeast.

It was difficult.

His suited hand couldn’t grip the whale’s slick skin and he kept sliding free, but the animal always waited for him to catch-up and take hold again. He looked at the mountains – getting closer, he saw – and for the first time in days he felt real hope.

The whale stopped after what had to have been several hours, and the two of them bobbed there, breathing hard. He pulled out a granola bar and took a bite, and he looked at the whale.

“Want some?”

The whale moved close again, and opened it’s mouth. He dropped the bar on it’s tongue, then reached in and grabbed another. He took another small bite, then put the remaining fragment on the whale’s tongue and they sat there a while longer, resting, before resuming their trek.

Then the sun was setting, and they rested again. The whale was breathing very hard now, and it rolled from time to time, expelling huge blasts, trying to cool down, and they ate the last of the granola bars in silence a little later – then the whale simply disappeared. He turned in the sudden silence, bereft, searching for the creature, but it was gone.

His head fell to his chest a few minutes later, and he cried.

He turned, thought he could see city lights through a thin haze, guessed he was looking at Nuuk and that it was maybe five miles away, so he leaned back and started kicking.

And then the whale was by his side, a salmon in it’s mouth. The whale held the fish close and he took it, peeled a sliver of the briny flesh free and ate it. Then he ate another, and another, before sliding the remains into his friend’s mouth.

“Here, you finish it – you’re the one doing all the work,” he said, and he watched the whale swallow the salmon, then he swam close and leaned his face against the whale’s. He heard the animal’s breathing, it’s beating heart – how like my own, he thought – and he tried to put his arms around the beast, but it was too large for that. He pushed away after a moment and they looked at one another again, then he nodded.

“Hello,” he said, “just over there.”

The whale looked away, then back.

“Can you do it, my friend?”

The whale rolled and offered it’s fin, and he grasped the moment and held on tight to this new truth.

Some time later he saw a wharf ahead, and rescue crews. Bright lights, too bright, he thought, then he saw a news crew on the wharf, and his son was standing there, talking to a reporter.

Then the lights and cameras were pointing at – him – and the whale. There was a sudden commotion on land, then all grew quiet as the whale pushed him into the waiting arms of people gathered by the sea. Before he was pulled from the sea he turned to his friend and whispered, and soon he was surrounded by the once familiar, and as he reached for his phone he wondered what was real, and what was left – but illusion.

IV

She tried to lay still, to not squirm, but she’d always been troubled by tight, enclosed spaces, and this tube seemed oppressively close – even confining – right now. Maybe ‘confined’ was a good word, too. She felt confined, like her ability to choose was fading. This wasn’t a tube, she sighed…no, these are the bars on my cell.

“Hold your breath,” a woman’s mechanical voice said, and she held it – again. The machine whirred and rattled, then the voice returned. “You can take a deep breath now.”

She tried to imagine sitting on a beach, maybe with a margarita in one hand and Bill in the other, then the voice returned. “Hold your breath,” it said, and she felt herself trembling as she went deeper inside the tube. “You can take a deep breath now.”

It seemed to go on forever and ever, this holding the breath thing, and she realized she’d been holding her breath for hours, ever since Bill palpated the pain in her belly. She couldn’t think of beaches now, not now, and suddenly the idea of drinking a margarita seemed faintly ludicrous.

It was like she’d crossed a line in the sand. On one side there was ‘normal’ – and all that meant, and all that used to be – while beyond, on the other side of the line, there was no such thing as normal anymore. Normal had simply disappeared in the time since the line appeared, and she wanted to jump back to the other side now – make all this other nonsense go away. She’d never had a choice in the matter, after all. One moment life was normal, then the line appeared, and it was like some unseen force had shoved her across, pushing ‘normal’ from her grasp.

“The lab work’s pretty conclusive, Norma,” her internist said, “but let’s run you down for a CT, then we’ll talk.”

Pretty conclusive labs, she repeated, for pancreatic adenocarcinoma. Now that, she thought, was a real line in the sand. Hard and deep, with no way back to normal.

Because she knew the score, she’d been to medical school, she’d been a family practitioner for almost thirty years, and now, out of the blue, she knew what form her death would take. It was almost a relief, she thought as the machine hummed away – and maybe it was the ‘not knowing’ that made the idea of death so hard to take.

The motorized tray reversed, then ratcheted along the track and slid back into the dim light. She watched the tech come in, tried to ignore the pain when the girl took the IV out of her wrist, then helped her sit up – yet she could tell by looking at the expression in the girl’s eyes just what the imaging had revealed.

Not that there had ever been any doubt. She knew, too.

She knew, she just knew – like so many of her patients over the years just knew. “I woke up this morning and felt this lump and I just know it’s cancer.” How many times had she heard that? And how many times had her patients been wrong? Discounting the hypochondriacs, who seemed to ‘catch cancer’ several times a year, not very many.

When that line in the sand appears, it’s pretty clear. She’d always listened when patients talked to her like that, and now she understood why. It’s real, she sighed. They knew. And now I know, too.

She pulled on her clothes, slipped on her shoes, then walked out into the room; an orderly was waiting with a wheelchair and without a word between them she just sat, and with her head down he pushed her to the elevators. They rode up in silence, a couple of people got in and looked at her – knowingly, she thought – a little too knowingly – then he rolled her in to her old group’s office.

The orderly pushed her into an exam room and helped her into a chair, and he looked at her. “Thanks,” she said.

“You used to work here, didn’t you?” he asked.

“Yes. I retired last year.”

“I remember – Doc Edsel. You saw my son, diagnosed his leukemia.”

She looked into the man’s eyes and remembered. “Tom,” she said. “Tommy Deaton. Yes, I remember. How’s he doing?”

“Real good, doc. I always wanted to come up and thank you, you know, for all you did.”

She nodded her head. “I’m glad he’s doing well. How are you doing? I remember it was touch and go there for a while.”

“I keep on the meds and I do okay.”

“Good.” He was manic-depressive, had gotten in trouble and been hospitalized a few times, but he’d met someone and had his act together now.

“Well, I gotta go. Take care.”

“You too.” She sat and looked at the charts on the wall, the cutaway diagrams of the gut that would have looked obscene anywhere but inside a room like this, and she sighed.

A girl half her age – short, fat and all too melancholy – walked into the room.

“Dr Edsel? I’m Patty Goldstein, from Oncology,” the girl said, holding out her hand.

Edsel looked at the hand, then took it. “Nice to meet you.”

Just got the report from radiology, and it looks like there’s agreement between the labs and imaging. She pulled out an iPad and linked it to the display on the wall, and the pertinent images popped up on the screen. She looked at them for a moment, until recognition washed over her and she had to look away. Anywhere but at those images, she said, nausea washing over her.

“Looks like the primary site is in the pancreas, but it looks like it’s in the retroperitoneal nodes, too, and throughout the gut. I’d say it has definitely moved into the liver, maybe into the spine. Dr Epstein felt some swelling in your axial nodes this morning, and in your neck, so I’d guess it’s in your lungs too.”

“Swell. So, what’s the bad news?”

Goldstein smiled, looked her in the eye. “Can you tell me, well, how you’d like me to approach this?”

Norma leaned back, sighed as she looked at the ceiling. “Bill and I are packing today, going on a cruise tomorrow. The Northwest Passage. Polar bears and whales, oh my.”

Goldstein put her iPad down. “That sounds really fun – fascinating too, but fun. Are you a photographer?”

“I always wanted to, never did, but I’ve bought all kinds of equipment.”

“Got a good telephoto?”

Edsel nodded. “A 400 2.8. An a 2x teleconverter. We’re supposed to go on a polar bear safari, too,” she said, laughing at the ridiculousness of the idea.

“That’ll do it. I’d recommend really good coats, I guess. And I can write you what you’ll need for pain.”

Edsel nodded her head. “Do you ever think about it? Death, I mean. And if anything comes after?”

Goldstein leaned back in her chair, then she sighed. “Every time I have a conversation like this, yes, I do.”

“And?”

The girl shrugged. “I don’t know what to think anymore. I used to be agnostic about it, and maybe I still am, too, but I don’t know anymore. I really don’t – know.”

“What made you change your mind?”

“I don’t know that any one thing did. I just can’t believe that all this suffering is without purpose.”

“Purpose?”

“I know. It sounds kind of silly.

“How long have you been practicing?”

“Two years. Well, it will be two next May.”

“It never gets easier,” Norma said, and the girl nodded her head.

“I know.”

“Well, good luck to you,” Edsel said.

“Yes, you too. Where should I call in the scripts, by the way. Downstairs okay?”

“That’ll be fine.”

“So, have a good trip. I’d like to see the images, when you get back.”

“Thanks. Yes, I’ll give you a call.”

V

His name was Chanming Chung, and he was a very happy man. Life is indeed infinite, he thought, so much joy if one could only embrace it. He was flying the left seat today, from Hamburg to Hong Kong, in one of Cathay Pacific’s new 747-8 freighters. Tons of automobile parts bound for BMW and Mercedes dealerships throughout southeast China, and while he didn’t mind flying cargo he longed to return to passenger operations.

He had been co-pilot on a flight to Boston more than a decade ago, and the captain had botched the landing, landed long in heavy snow and almost run off the end of the runway. Rattled, the captain had missed the turn-off and run into deep, snow-covered mud. The runway had been closed, and it took almost a day to dig the 777 out of the muck. And while it hadn’t been his fault, not directly anyway, he had been chastised for not helping his captain more effectively. He wasn’t fired, but he had been moved to cargo operations, and he had felt humiliated by the move.

Now, well, yesterday he corrected himself, he’d received word he was going back to passenger operations, and that he would report for training – in France, no less – for conversion to type training on the new Airbus A350. He thought of the future again and he smiled. ‘Forever bright,’ he repeated, as he always did at times like this, the meaning behind his name.

Chanming looked out the cockpit to the sea of forest below; the 747 was about to cross into China from Siberia, and he looked at the FMS display, saw they had about five hours to go before starting the approach into Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok International Airport. He motored the seat back and stood, went to the bathroom and then to the little galley. He poured a Coke and got a sandwich, then went back into the cockpit.

“Beijing cleared us to Flight Level 4-0-0,” his First Officer said.

“Good,” Chanming replied. “Did you enter it yet?”

“No. Not without your approval, Captain.”

He sighed, got back in his seat and engaged the motor, slid up to the panel again. “Okay,” he said, “let’s start our climb.”

They increased their altitude again, as the Gobi dessert came into view, and they flew over Ulaanbaatar at 42,000 feet. They began a slow let-down at Yuncheng, contacting Hong Kong Approach as they passed Huizhou.

“Falcon four one heavy, Hong Kong altimeter two-niner niner one, weather overcast, tops at thirty-five hundred, clear at five hundred feet, visiblity two miles in light rain. Wind 3-3-0 degrees at 25, gusts to 3-3 knots. Proceed to TUNG LUNG at one-four thousand feet, enter the holding pattern for runway 2-5 Right.”

“TUNG LUNG at one four, for 2-5 Right.”

“Sounds nasty tonight,” the FO said.

“Do you want me to take it?”

“No, it is my turn.”

“Go get some coffee, or something to drink,” he said, and as the FO left the flight deck he put on his mask. He heard the toilet flush, thought he saw a shadow overhead, then he heard the toilet door opening. He thought he saw, no – a shattering explosion ripped the air, and he felt the tears in his eyes crystallize as they froze…

He flipped the transponder to 7700 and squawked ident, then he rubbed his eyes, swept the panel. Engines seemed fine, hydraulics too. Fuel stable.

“Falcon four one heavy, we have your transponder at 7700. State nature of emergency.”

“Four One Heavy, explosive decompression, something hit aft of the flight deck, my FO is gone. I can see the right wing from where I’m seated. Unknown structural damage, systems appear intact, I need to make an emergency descent.”

“Four One Heavy, clear to descend your discretion and maintain one-two-thousand feet. Can you make Hong Kong, or do you need to divert?”

Chanming looked over the panel, saw a drop in hydraulic pressure, then he looked at the DME. “Uh, Four One Heavy, showing three one miles to RIVER; controls seem fine but hydraulic pressure falling slowly. I’d like to try for a straight in on 2-5 Right.”

“Roger, Four One, straight in for 2-5 Right approved. State souls on board.”

“Uh, Four One, just two, but my FO may have been lost in the explosion.”

“Roger. Information only, two Chinese aircraft attempting to intercept, look over your aircraft.”

“Four One, got it.” A cargo door warning light went off, and an audible warning followed. He silenced it, scanned the panel again, then double-checked the ILS frequencies for the runway before he called up the checklist on his EFIS. Oil pressure warning lights on one and four lit up, more alarms followed and he silenced them, then throttled back those two engines.

“Uh, Four One Heavy, I may be losing one and four.”

“Roger. Say intentions.”

“Continuing approach at this time.”

“Understood. Four One, Eagle Seven is off your right wing now. Eagle Seven, go ahead.”

“Falcon Four One Heavy, Eagle Seven. Do you read me?”

“Seven, go ahead.”

“Uh, Four One, the skin of the fuselage is gone on the starboard side, from ten meters ahead of the wing to mid-wing. Looks like something hit your aircraft, some ribbing is blown in. Center of impact appears to be on the main deck, just ahead of the wing.”

“Four One received.”

“There is a clear mist trailing your number one and four engines, and I think I see oil leaks.”

“Okay Seven, I’m going to work my controls now. Can you report please?”

“Go ahead, Heavy.”

Chanming rolled the ailerons and worked the rudder pedals, then gently pulled up on the elevator. He felt the gentle climb begin, the leveled out before he pushed it over as gently.

“Four One Heavy, looks good – can’t see any trouble.”

“Okay seven, putting flaps to three degrees, then seven.”

“Got it.”

He moved the lever, felt the ship’s reaction.

“Four One, everything appears nominal.”

“Okay, got it.” Then the panel lights started to flicker.

“Eagle Lead to Four One, your strobes and beacons just cut off.”

“Yes, I’m losing panel lights, and the FO’s instruments just cut off. I’ve got an undervolt warning on bus two now. Switching to one and three.” He flipped the circuit – and all the lights and instruments went dead.

“Fuck-goddamn-shit!” He kicked himself for the error, reached up to the overhead panel and powered up the APU, then deployed the RAT, the ram air turbine, and power to bus one fluctuated, then came back up.

“Four One Heavy, come in – you still with us?” ATC asked, an edge of panic in the controller’s voice.

“Four One, roger, just lost comms and lights – I think I have ‘em back.”

“Four One Heavy, clear to descend pilot’s discretion to four thousand – five hundred, intercept RIVER for a straight in approach to runway 2-5 Right is still approved.”

“Four-five to 2-5 Right. Uh, Eagle Seven, my instruments are flickering again. Could you get up ahead and a little high, fly the approach with me. I don’t want to lose them in the cloud.”

“Seven, understood.”

“Thanks.”

Eagle Lead, I’ll call the glide slope off your starboard wing.”

“Roger, thanks.”

“Heavy, Approach, we can do a PAR approach if that would help.”

“Heavy, yes, go ahead with your call-out.”

“Four One Heavy, Precision Radar Approach approved, I’ll hand off to the controller now, and good luck.”

“Yes, thank you, and…”

All the lights went out, and all instruments aside for the stand-by six-pack to his right flickered and popped, then went black.

“Fuck. I’m sorry, whoever listens to this, but FUCK.”

“Four One, your aircraft just went dark,” he heard Eagle Lead say.

“I’m on battery now. The undervolt warning just came on again.”

“Four One Heavy, Hong Kong Approach. You are now 11 miles from RIVER, altitude six thousand, three hundred feet.”

“Eagle Seven, I’m taking the lead now.”

“Seven, Approach. Be advised you will lose localizer if you drift more than four degrees left.”

“Seven, received. Uh, we’re entering cloud now, at five-five hundred feet.”

“Heavy, Seven, hit your strobes, please.”

“Got it.”

“I want to hold one six five knots til we break out of the clouds.”

“1-6-5, roger.”

“Heavy, Approach, you are at RIVER, altitude four thousand six hundred thirty feet, come left to 2-4-9 degrees to intercept the localizer, you are 14.4 miles from the threshold, intercept the glide-slope and begin your descent. Three degrees nominal.”

“Four One Heavy, three degrees.”

“Eagle Seven, I have the glide slope.”

“Four One Heavy, you no longer need acknowledge my transmissions. Now 14.1 miles out, come right to 2-5-3 degrees. You are now a little low, maintain 4-5-0-0 feet for ten seconds.”

He reached for the flap lever and increased flaps to ten, then dialed in some elevator trim – hoping the RAT kept up power to the backup bus. He checked his airspeed – 1-7-0 – and eased back on two and three. A moment later he powered up again – and the power began to fall off.

“I’m losing engine authority,” he called out.

“Roger, Four One, you are now two hundred feet below the glide slope, speed 1-6-1 knots. Two-seven-hundred feet, ten miles from the threshold.”

“Work the problem, work the problem,” he said as he scanned his stand-by instruments. One and four at idle, two and three levers forward, thrust falling. One and four are on a separate bus than two and three, so…”

He pushed the throttle levers for one and four forward, and they began to spool up…20% EGP, 35%, 50%…and the rate of descent stabilized. Okay, flaps and slats to 20.

“Okay, Four One, you are now on the glide slope, speed 1-6-5 knots. One-seven-five zero feet, five miles from the threshold.”

He reached over, hit the landing gear lever – and there were no red or green lights lit.

“Heavy, Eagle lead. You see any wheels on this tricycle?”

“Lead, say again?”

“See any landing gears?”

“Ah. Yes, three down. Main bogeys look good from here.”

Flaps to thirty three, re-trim the aircraft, landing lights on. Arm the spoilers.

“Four One Heavy, you are a little above the glide slope, one-three-seven-zero feet and at the outer marker, speed 1-6-5 knots. Now four miles from the threshold. Now a little low, increase power.”

“Eagle Seven, I have the lights.”

“Heavy, I got the runway!”

“Four One Heavy, passing the middle marker, four hundred feet and one mile.”

“It’s all over but the shoutin’ now, boys!” Chanming said as he cut power and flared over the threshold. He felt the mains touchdown and hit the spoilers, began breaking, and he saw dozens of fire trucks lining both sides of the runway – then two Chinese Air Force J-10s power away, circling the airport.

“Four One Heavy, Hong Kong Ground, will you need a tow?”

“No, but I could use a change of underwear.”

“Roger that.”

He taxied to the cargo ramp, but the ground crew guided him to a maintenance hanger; he began shutting engines down as a boarding ladder was driven up the main door, and just moments passed before he heard people coming up the little crew stairway.

He got out of his seat in time to see two Chinese fighter pilots bound up the stairs, and he went to them, smiling.

VI

“2114.”

“2114, go ahead.”

“Signal 38, family disturbance at Compton Court, quad C, number 6, screaming and breaking glass reported.”

“14, code five.”

“2110, code five. Notify tactical, get a couple more units headed that way,” the district sergeant added.

“At 0125 hours,” the dispatcher said. “Jesus, another one? That’s two nights in a row.”

‘Out there’ was Compton Court, and she didn’t have to say the largest public housing project in the city. With the largest concentration of ‘them,’ too. Africans, mainly Somalians, and a few Cambodians, as well. When ‘they’ weren’t at war with one another, they were holed up in their warrens – killing each other, and usually too stoned to care who they hurt. And almost every night, all summer long, they’d had multiple calls there. With two cops shot already, and three stabbed, the mayor was thinking of demolishing the place, and forcing all of ‘them’ to be retuned – to wherever the hell they came from.

She radioed the TAC sergeant, advised a callout was in progress, then turned to the PSO working dispatch that night: “Red Team is on call tonight,” she said. “That’s Hendricks’ team. Got it?”

“Yes, Ma’am,” the kid said. The boy was new, wanted to be a cop when he grew up, but after a few months working the station, all these so-called Public Safety Officer usually quit and fled for something, anything saner.

She shook her head, then turned to the radio as more units checked en route to ‘the Hood.’

+++++

“Check the shotgun, make sure a round is chambered,” 2114 said to her rookie. 2114 was Carol Danforth, a five-year veteran of the department. Thirty two years old and an Iraq war veteran, she was single, unapproachably aloof and considered by all her fellow officers as one of the best cops in the department. She was smart, agile, and tough – not to mention the top marksman on the combat pistol team, yet she was finishing her Bachelors degree next year, and she read books all the time. Usually books on ethics and philosophy. People kidded her about that, too.

Her rookie was twenty three years old, fresh out academy by way of a local college. Tim Henderson had majored in Criminal Justice, therefore knew absolutely nothing about being a police officer in a city like this; what knowledge he did have was an impediment to learning about real life, life on he street, and he was slow to act when confronted with danger. She’d warned him time after time – you had to react, not think, when danger was present. Thinking cost you time, and time usually wasn’t on your side.

“Got it,” Henderson always said. “What is this? Third time this week out there?”

“Welcome back my friends, to the show that never ends…” she sighed. “So glad you could attend, step inside, step inside.”

He laughed. She was always quoting that song, but he hadn’t listened to it yet. He’d only been out of academy for a few months, was still on probation, and didn’t want to rock any boats. He kept his shoes shined and his nose clean, as the saying went, and did what he was told – without question.

“2114, call us code six in the area,” she said to dispatch – as she began surveying the scene around this part of the complex. Lots of men standing around in shorts, fanning themselves in the 90 degree mid-summer heat, a few near the building in question – but as soon as they saw her patrol car they melted away into the night. “I don’t like the way this feels,” she whispered, and in a flash she was back in the skies over Fallujah, reefing her Blackhawk into a steep turn, looking at a patrol on the ground and realizing they were walking into an ambush.

She shook herself back to the present and stopped her car well short of the quad.

Every living soul had simply disappeared, except for one kid sitting on the bare muddy yard by a dilapidated swing-set.

“The bait,” she sighed, if only because she’d seen this particular trap too many times. It always worked because Americans were suckers for kids, and these jackals didn’t care who they sacrificed in their ongoing war.

“The bait?” Henderson asked. “What do you mean?”

“The ragheads know we’ll come in to get the kid out of the way, and when we do that’s when they’ll hit us.”

“Ragheads?” He looked at her, wondered what was going through her mind. “You think this is an ambush?”

She turned and looked at him, shook her head. “Christ,” she whispered, “where do they come up with all you meatheads…” She opened the car door and waited for a response, then – in a low crouch – she darted to the trunk and got out the M4 and her tactical vest. She strapped in, checked that a round was chambered – then flipped the safety off. “Come on, Meathead,” she said to Henderson, “get on my six and don’t forget to check our rear as we move in.”

She looked across the quad, saw four more officers – all in combat webbing, all with M4s or MP-5s at the ready, and she used hand signals – standard combat infantry hand signals – to communicate now.

‘I’ll take this side,’ she signaled. ‘Keep me covered,’ and she pointed at the building behind the little kid.

+++++

“Jamal, where is your brother?”

The boy looked at his mother, then down at the floor. “He is out front,” the boy said, now feeling a complete fool. “I ran when they came. I am sorry.”

“The troops are coming, he will be hurt,” she said, looking reproachfully at her oldest. “Go fetch him, now!”

The boy went to the window and shook his head. “The black helmets are here, mother. They will shoot me.”

She looked at her son and knew what she’d always known: Jamal was a coward. She frowned and walked to the bedroom where her other son lay sleeping and she went in, shook his shoulder.

“Majoub, quickly,” she said, rousing the boy from his sleep, “Halima is out front, and the black helmets are here. You must get him, now.”

The boy sprang up and ran to the front room; he looked out the window, saw at least four of the black helmets across the yard, advancing along the wall slowly, their guns up. He knew there would be more troops on this side, along this wall, but he took a deep breath and walked to the front door, then opened it.

He stuck his head out the door and looked to the right – nothing – and then to his left. He saw the soldier, saw the rifle in her hand, and he looked down, saw the red dot on his chest.

“That is my brother,” he said, pointing at Halima with his head – at the toddler squalling on the dirt, obviously alone and frightened. “May I go and get him, please?”

+++++

She saw the hand signal – Stop! Danger ahead! – and she froze, brought the sights up to her eye. She heard the door open, saw a head emerge, and she sighted low when the boy emerged, looking for his hands.

“That is my brother,” she heard him say. “May I go and get him, please?”

“Show me your hands, NOW!”

The boy held his hands out, and she could see they were empty.

“Step out of the doorway, slowly,” she commanded, and the boy came out – slowly. She looked for bulges under his clothing, any sign of a vest under his shirt, but he was wearing a tight fitting t-shirt and briefs – and nothing else, not even sandals. “Okay. Keep your hands where I can see them, then walk out slowly.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

+++++

“Who is it? Can you see?”

“It is Majoub.”

“It cannot be helped,” Majoub’s father said. “Get ready.”

+++++

Majoub walked slowly towards his little brother – taking care to keep his hands out to his sides – and when he reached Halima he bent over and picked him up, held him close, and the boy stopped crying. He turned and saw the men on the rooftop, then he looked to the lady soldier.

“Up on the roof,” he whispered loudly. “Take care, up on the roof!”

+++++

“Up on the roof,” she heard the boy say. “Take care, up on the roof!”

She looked up, on top of the building across the way, saw four men on the roof, and she sighted her Colt on one of them and yelled “Halt!” – just as she saw a Molotov cocktail arcing through the air. She fired once, saw the man up there double over and fall, then the bottle hit the ground in front of her and sat there, inert.

She saw a plastic sports drink bottle and almost laughed, but she did not see the brick hurtling through the air, the brick that hit her at the base of her neck – instantly fracturing her collarbone. The bone was forced down by the impact, impinging blood flow through the brachial artery, and she fell to the ground, suddenly gasping for breath and sure she was suffocating.

+++++

Majoub ran now, carried his brother inside and put him on the floor, then he turned and ran back out.

“Majoub! No!” he heard his mother say, but he ignored her pleas, ran to the lady soldier and covered her body with his own as more rocks and bricks rained down. He heard gunfire, saw soldiers on the other side of the yard shooting at the rooftops, then he heard the lady soldier gasp. He got off her, and turned her over.

He saw the bruising under the neck, the depressed fracture, and he had seen this before. At home. In Somalia. And he remembered what to do.

He ran inside again, to a toolkit his father kept in the closet and he opened it, found what he needed and ran back outside. There were other soldiers by her side now, and as he sat beside the lady soldier the others jumped back, aimed their rifles at him.

“Get back!” one of them shouted. “NOW!”

He looked at the soldier, eye to eye. Man to man. “The artery is crushed,” he said, “and she is dying. I know how to fix this.”

+++++

Henderson saw the soldiers gather around Danforth, saw the boy return with pliers in hand, but he saw the TAC officers were getting ready to shoot the boy…

“Wait!” Henderson cried, jumping down by the boy’s side. “What do you know, son? Can you tell me?”

+++++

She looked at the boy, but she was past fear now. Suffocating, she thought as her vision began to fade, and she thought about death. She looked into the boys eyes in that moment – and she thought she’d just looked into the face of God.

+++++

“The brick, it hit her neck. The bone has fallen on the artery, it is causing her to die. Let me pull the bone up, and she will breathe again.”

He heard the new soldier telling the others to move aside, to give him room, and he leaned close, looked into the lady soldiers eyes. “This will hurt,” he told her panic-stricken eyes, “but you will be able to breathe again. Soon.”

He pushed the pliers around the bone, felt flesh giving way under the pressure, but he had the bone now and he pulled once, then again – as hard as he could – and the bone popped up.

The lady soldier coughed once, then began breathing normally before she started to cry. He held her, and he cried too.

VII

He heard his phone beeping. The urgent tone. Someone had just put out a National Security Alert. He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs out of the bed, picked up the phone and looked at the message. He blinked rapidly, his heart began to race, then his phone rang.

“Did you get it?”

“Just finished reading,” he said. “You dressed?”

“Gotta shower. Can you pick me up?”

“Wait one.” He watched as another alert came in, then a several texts. “Okay. I’ll pick you up on the way to Andrews. It’s a Razor 21.”

“What the fuck? Are you shitting me?”

“I’ll be there in twenty.”

He brushed his teeth and put on his slacks, slipped his shoulder holster on over yesterday’s shirt, then grabbed his jacket as he dashed for the garage.

There was no traffic at this hour of the morning, and he picked her up ten minutes later; they were on the Beltway within minutes, then exiting on Suitland. He drove to the NSA ramp off San Antonio Road, and he handed off the car to an airman, then they ran to the air-stair and up into the waiting Gulfstream C-20-H. The aircraft was rolling before they made it to their seats; he sat across from the Assistant Director while his partner sat across the aisle; both looked unsure of themselves when they saw the look in the ADs eyes. The Gulfstream was airborne thirty seconds later; the jet turned right – towards the Chesapeake – then south, skirting the coast as it climbed to it’s maximum rated ceiling.

“Here’s what we know so far,” the AD said as she unbuckled her seatbelt and leaned forward. “An SAT flight from El Salvador dropped off some assets at TNT; the pilots left the aircraft a little after midnight local, bound for Naples. A State Trooper found this,” she said, handing her iPad to him, “at 0242 hours.”

He took the device and studied the image, then whistled before he handed it to his partner. She looked at the images – there were five more, she found – then she looked at the AD.

“Who’s on scene?” she asked.

“State Troopers blocked the highway, both directions, as soon as a watch commander knew this wasn’t a prank. Call it an hour. Images were taken by someone from the FBI field office in MIA; he’s vetting everyone on location. Air Force is on scene now, trying to assess the radiologic signatures, and that’s it – as far as I know.”

“What’s the cover?”

“Tanker crash, hazardous chemical spill.”

He looked at his watch – coming up on 0400 hours – and he knew the sun would be coming up soon. That would mean trouble, too. “Has anyone made a sweep of the area?” he asked.

“Air Force radiologic assessment helicopter from MacDill – that’s the only air asset that’s been allowed overhead. What are you thinking?”

“Just a hunch. We should check for blooms in the area, or get some eyes up there before some news crew finds something we missed.”

“We’ve closed the airspace…”

“And someone always gets through,” he said. “Some kid with a drone gets a lucky shot and sells it to CNN.”

The AD sighed, nodded her head and got on the encrypted phone, asked for IR and radar scans.

He looked out over the left wing, saw the far horizon turning a deep salmon color and he knew it wouldn’t be long now.

+++++

The Gulfstream flared over the threshold and settled down on it’s mains, then the nose dropped slowly and thrust reversers roared, splitting the morning into shattered bits and pieces. He saw three UH-1-Vs on the ramp by the Falcon, and a half dozen agents pouring over the aircraft – inside and out – as they taxied up to the darkened operations shack. The air-stair opened and a blast of hot, humid air flooded the cabin.

“How do you want us to handle this?” he asked the AD.

“Classified ULTRA for now. Eyes and ears only, communicate verbally with me only. No trails.”

“Got it,” he said as he stood. He loosened his tie then walked down the air-stair, tried not to gag on all the jet exhaust fumes hovering in the dank air.

A Marine walked up to him, his carbine aimed at his face. “ID. NOW,” the guy said, and he handed him his wallet. The Marine looked it over, shook his head then handed it back. “First chopper, sir,” he said, pointing at the UH-1-V. Beacons came on and turbines began spooling up, rotors began turning – slowly – until they built up speed – and after he dashed into the waiting Huey the door rolled shut behind him. He watched as his partner climbed into the second Huey, then they both took off, and an airman handed him a headset. He slipped it on, followed the cord to the comm panel and saw it was set to intercom, so he spoke to the pilot next.

“Follow the highway, but stay about a half mile south. Tell the other unit to stay about half mile north. If you got any lights on this thing, get ‘em sweeping.”

“Got it,” the pilot said. “What are we looking for?”

“You’ll know it if you see it.”

“Roger that.”

He had the ADs iPad in hand, and he looked at the image again, and he wondered why. Why do something like this – why so brazenly?

‘So…brazenly,’ he thought. ‘So, in our face.’

‘Like a calling card?’

“Sir, we’ve got some kind of smoke ahead, and I’m picking up a bloom on IR.”

He went forward and crouched between the pilots, and he could just make out the smoke-plume in the early morning light. “Let’s put a little distance between us and the ground, Captain,” he said – and the Huey went up to a thousand feet over the ground. “What frequency in the other bird on?”

“Switch to COMM 2, sir.”

“Jester one, Jester two, you on?”

“Two, go.”

“We’ve got smoke ahead. Stand by one.”

“Got it.”

“Uh, sir,” the pilot said, “you better take a look at this.”

He turned and scuttled forward again, and it was obvious what he was looking at. “Jester two, this is it. Get over here, now.” He flipped to the intercom again, spoke to the pilot. “I need to talk to that Gulfstream, call sign Jester Lead. And I mean right now.”

“Yessir.”

He went over to the side door and asked the airman to open it, and he leaned out, looked at the scene and felt a shiver run up his spine.

“Sir,” he heard the captain say over the intercom, “Jester Lead is on COMM 3.”

He crouched and scuttled to the panel and hit the switch. “Jester One, to Jester Lead.”

“Lead, go ahead.”

“Ma’am, there’s a ship down here, looks like it’s crashed. I’d say it’s about 200 meters in diameter. Big. Real big.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yes Ma’am, and there are survivors. I count fifty plus.”

“So, Razor 21 confirmed?”

“Confirmed.”

“Alright, go to the original site, avoid contact for now. Go to Case Yellow at this time. 100% containment.”

“Got it. Jester two, you on this frequency?”

“Roger.”

“Form up on this aircraft, let’s go see what’s down there.”

“Roger.”

He switched back to the intercom: “Captain, let’s go. To the main site.”

“Sir? It looks like there’re injured…uh – people – down there, not to mention a shitload of alligators.”

“Captain? You got family?”

“Yessir?”

“You want to see ‘em again, you haven’t seen anything out here tonight but a lot of swamp and a shitload of alligators doing the huncka-chuncka. Am I making myself clear.”

“As glass, sir.”

“Let’s go, and circle the area once before you put down.”

They were there in less than a minute, and both ships began their orbit several hundred yards out, then both spiraled in slowly, checking the area around the site for anything out of place, anything unusual. A few minutes later they landed in the middle of the highway, and he told the captain to keep Jester Lead on stand-by.

The BMW was hovering four feet off the ground – and upside down – just like the images on the iPad, and the girl was too. Naked as the day she was born – four feet off the ground and facing the pavement. He saw a State Police wrecker off the side of the road, it’s towing gear mangled and deformed, then he saw a trooper and another man walking his way. He waited for his partner to get out and come over, then they walked over to the men.

“And you are?” the trooper asked, holding up a clipboard.

He looked at the trooper, said not one word.

“I need some ID, sir.”

He took his wallet out and handed it over, and his partner did the same.

“Fox Mulder,” the trooper said, laughing. “And let me guess, you’re Dana Scully?”

He didn’t say a word, and neither did his partner.

“Uh-huh, right. And I’m Luke Skywalker,” the trooper said, writing their names down on his clipboard.

He took his ID back and walked over to the car, then he walked all the way around it before he stopped and looked inside. Nothing was out of place, he saw, like gravity inside the car hadn’t changed – down was still down, as far as the car, and everything inside the car, was concerned. He ran his hand under the roof and didn’t feel a thing, not even a stray current, and he noticed the trooper was beside him again.

“We tried to hook it up to the wrecker,” the poor guy said. “It ripped the towing harness off it’s mounting plate…and the car didn’t budge.”

“What about the girl?”

“What about her?”

“Well, for one, is she alive?”

“She has a pulse, but that’s about all I can tell.”

He walked over to the woman and tried to ignore her simple physical beauty, then he touched her. Warm – and inert. He pushed against her body with all the weight of his own, and he might as well have been pushing against the Rock of Gibraltar. He knelt beside her face, then moved under her and looked into her eyes.

And the woman blinked, tried to open her mouth.

He moved closer. “Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“If you can hear me, blink your eyes.”

He saw it was an effort, but she blinked her eyes – if slowly. He needed to ask so many questions, but how? Blinking? When it took so much effort? Then he saw her mouth move again, heard a faint sound – and he leaned closer still, pushing his ear right up to her mouth.

“Jeffries – gone…” she said.

“The pilot? Rob Jeffries? He’s gone?”

“Yes. Went with them?”

“He went with them? Are you saying he wasn’t forced?”

“Not forced. Went. Knew them.”

“He knows them? Is that what you’re telling me?”

“Yes. Knows one very well.”

“Did you see a ship of some sort?”

“Yes. Huge.”

“You saw the ship?”

“Yes. Rescue operation. We interrupted. Afraid of being seen, attacked. Left with Rob.”

“Did he tell you why he went with them?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Thirsty.”

He leaned out to ‘Scully’ – “We need some water, and some way to get it in her mouth.” – then he went back to her. “Tell me if you can. Do you know why Jeffries went with them?”

“Yes. To keep them safe.”

“Them?”

“Survivors. Crash.”

“Keep them safe? From what?”

“Us. They are afraid. Of Us.”

“Why?”

“Hit aircraft. Scoop, trying to suck up atmosphere, hit aircraft. Then afraid. Tried to make orbit. Out of fuel. Crashed.”

He looked around – at the car, and at this woman, then he turned and looked at the last of the night sky dancing overhead. ‘No, this wasn’t a calling card,’ he thought as he looked around the site, then at his partner. ‘This is a warning. Keep away, or else.’ He stood and walked to the Huey, put on his headset, and spoke in quiet, hushed tones – for a very long time – and he wondered what was coming next.

Coda

He was so tired now, so tired he rolled on his side and looked into the dome of the night sky. He looked at the ancient patterns again, listened to the music of the spheres, then he dove deep – and he listened again. He shut out all the other noise and tried to hear her, even her beating heart was enough, and he thought that maybe, just maybe he heard her call. Spinning with joy he sprinted upward and leapt into the sky, and when he was spent he rolled on his side again and looked at the stars. He listened – again – and when he was sure he knew the way, he began moving again.

He heard it first – something huge and menacing – but after a time he saw the island, the strange moving island with all the lights, and as it got close he stopped, breathing hard again and now in need of a long rest. Yet the thing came on fast, and not sure what it was he moved to get out of it’s way, yet he remained close enough to watch the strange thing as it passed. With his head out of the water, he watched, then saw a creature much like the other, standing on the edge of the thing, and like the other, he could feel this creature’s pain, see the hopelessness in it’s eyes, and he remembered, and understood.

Then a second creature – like this one but different – came out and stood by the first, and he felt pain disappear. He felt the change in his mind’s eye, this feeling once unknown and now so familiar, and he recognized it as the very same change he experienced when he saw his mate, and his children. Then he remembered the creature he had pushed to shore, the way the creature held him before he let go.

“I love you, my friend,” the creature said, and he had felt what there was to feel in the man’s eyes, then he looked at the creature and said ‘Love.’

He remembered that moment, and that word, as he turned to the music of her beating heart, but oh, how he longed to dance among the stars again.

 

(C)2017 adrian leverkühn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | adrianleverkuhnwrites7@gmail.com | fiction, all fiction, and nothing but fiction. Hope you enjoyed, and thanks for reading. Thanks to Rightbank for a little proofreading exercise.

I’ll post the combined story over at LIT, but for now, here’s the conclusion.

+++++

Straight On ‘Til Morning  (WIP, part II)

Storms are a part of every voyage, just as storms are elemental to life itself. They are, oddly enough, a part of everything we do, behind many of our darkest memories, and fear of storms has been, I’d say, a basic human preoccupation since we developed the capacity to think beyond the day after tomorrow.

Life in the Caribbean, especially in summer, is defined by a healthy respect for hurricanes – until one heads for whichever island you happen to call home. Then respect turns to fear, and that fear grows in direct proportion to the force of the storm. When you are on a small vessel in the Caribbean, taking a direct hit from a hurricane becomes an immediate life or death struggle, and death usually wins with almost no effort on it’s part.

We were a hundred and ten miles NNE of Aruba when the first hurricane warnings were issued, and our warning was relayed by a passing US Navy guided missile frigate. The storm was, we were advised, well north of our track, but a second, more virulent storm had formed south of the Cape Verde Islands and looked like it would take a southerly track, perhaps end up hitting the Yucatan. Aruba and Curacao, we knew, were too far south of the usual track to be battered by direct hits, but the islands did occasionally get sideswiped by wind and storm surge, so we took the warning as simply that – the storm behind us became one more item on an increasingly long list of things to watch out for, but one that had the potential to rear it’s head and swat us like a errant fly.

The southern Caribbean in the mid-1960s was nothing at all like it is today. There were no mega-cruise ships, and no 747s dropping off hundreds of divers per hour, and Aruba was as yet undiscovered by hordes of hippies seeking elicit stashes of Dutch hashish. The place was quiet, more a commercial hub than a tourist mecca, and we’d heard that – as one of the last vestiges of Holland’s once great trading empire – it had an elusive, old world charm about it, and that’s why we’d decided to make it our first port of call.

The island lies just off the Venezuelan coast, not at all far from the Gulf of Venezuela and Maracaibo. Beyond Maracaibo is a mountain range, the Cordillera de Merida, and these mountains, essentially the northernmost reaches of the Andes, go from sea level to over 12,000 feet in an unusually short span. In certain conditions, when strong low pressure gradients form offshore, winds rush off the Cordillera and out to sea. These winds often dance right past hurricane force, and they tend to hit Aruba, and often with dramatic effect.

My father came up into cockpit, his face scrunched up in a deepening scowl. “The Venezuelan Navy just put out a warning for hurricane force winds, out of the SOUTH,” he said, emphasizing the unexpected direction. “Maracaibo just closed it’s airport, and they’re reporting 60 knot winds, with gusts over 90.”

“Bearing and distance,” my mother asked.

“Two-two-five true, two hundred nautical.”

She looked to the southwest – and we all looked in that general direction – but all we could make out was an indistinct line of reddish brown haze along the far horizon.

“Call it two hours max ‘til it gets here,” my dad added. “Maybe an hour,” and he looked at her long and carefully.

We had, literally, just passed the northwest tip of Curaçao, and mom looked over her left shoulder, then at dad. “How far to the entrance at Willemstad?” she asked.

“Twenty six,” he said.

“And how far to San Nicolas?”

“Call it fifty two.”

“Get ready to come about,” she said gently, and Paul and I hopped to, got ready to re-trim the sails, and she threw the helm over, set her course for Willemstad, Curaçao, once dad passed it up. We started looking over the other shoulder now, not at the storms running in from the Atlantic, and it was an abject lesson in focusing so hard in one direction – while you forgot to look the other way.

Which was, of course, exactly what had been going on between Mary Ann and Jen. I’d been so focused on Jen causing trouble I never saw it coming. Mary Ann was having issues, it turned out. She was not happy. And not just with Jen.

She was unhappy with me.

Because I had, predictably I could easily see, been so concerned with Jen causing trouble I was paying a lot less attention to Mary Ann. You take women for granted at your peril, I think was the lesson learned, and the situation was ripe to blow up in my face once we hit Willemstad.

I think the other thing that bears repeating here is that we were, by and large, eighteen years old. I say by and large because there were times when my parents were acting eighteen, particularly when mother got grumpy and grabbed dad by the nuts and pulled him down to their bunk. Sara, too, was a little older, but she was the ancient among us, wise beyond her years. We, the real eighteen year olds, were getting kind of jealous of my parents and their nonstop sexathon, too, but that in no way diminished the existential angst Mary Ann apparently felt after just two nights at sea watching me and Jen.

Our first day out of Virgin Gorda had passed quietly enough, or so I thought, and while I’d kept an eye out on Jen I spent almost every waking moment, as I’d promised the night before, by Mary Ann’s side – and it’s impossible for me even now to describe how much I loved her that day. With her dark, Acadian beauty, she was an improbability to me – and by that I mean she was in every inch the exact opposite of my mother. Where my mother was willowy and off-puttingly  athletic, Mary Ann was embracingly enveloping, often voluptuously so. Put another way, if my mother was an iced Pinot Grigio, Mary Ann was the noblest Cabernet you’d ever had, and she was definitely at her best when served at room temperature.

Looked at another, more relevant way, Mary Ann was the exact opposite of Jennifer, yet they did not attract one another. They repelled, and with exacting force, their gravities pushing each of us apart. We saw it that first day, too; we all felt the coming conflict. My mother watched it coming, my father looked and turned away. Paul shrugged and seemed to say ‘I told you this would happen,’ while poor Sara worked away in the galley or sat on the foredeck, picking away at a mandolin she’d brought along for the ride – watching and waiting.

We ate pear salad and little slices of prosciutto that first night, and drank red Kool-aid while we watched the sun set, and mom put Jen on watch with her and Paul so they stayed on deck while the rest of us cleaned up and hit the sack. It went well enough, I suppose, for the first half hour anyway, then Jen felt the first fluttery wings of mal-de-mer and was soon looking over the rail, feeding the fish – as the old saying goes. And she couldn’t stop, either, so mom took pity on her, sent her below, and Mary Ann came up to take her place. I came up at midnight, and so did Dad and Sara, while they went below, but not an hour passed before Jen came up into the cockpit – and of course she tried to settle in by me. I grabbed a flashlight and went forward to check the sails for chafe – per mother’s orders in the Log – and when I came aft she was cuddled up on my father’s lap – snoring away. He looked at me and grinned, shrugged his shoulders and glanced at the compass before scanning the far horizon.

Jen was still there a half hour later, when mom came up into the cockpit. She looked at Jen, then at my father, then she went over and grabbed him by the nuts and pulled him below; Jen sat up, flustered and suddenly awake, while Sara groaned and said something colorful about the sexual appetites of old farts.

“What happened to your dad?” Jen asked.

“Raising the flag on Iwo Jima again,” Sara sighed.

I shook my head, rubbed an eye with my middle finger.

“Oh,” Jen said, then: “Again?”

“Hell hath no fury,” Sara added, just for good measure, I assume.

“Huh?” Jen said, then she yawned and put her head down – this time in my lap.

And so, yes, of course Mary Ann came up a few minutes later. She looked at me, the wide-eyed boy with the cute blond’s face plastered to his groin and she kind of grumbled, then went back to our berth. The door slammed hard, too, I seem to recall.

Dad came up a little while later, with mother trailing an inch behind, and she grabbed Jen by the short hairs and took her below for a chat, and two hours later, like two ships passing in the night I went below – as Mary Ann went topsides to stand the four to eight watch.

“Happy trails,” I might have said in passing.

With a sixty two foot waterline, Sirius was a real greyhound. Close hauled, driving into the wind, she roared along making nine knots look easy, while off the wind and with acres of sail up she broke through eleven knots that second afternoon – and we were ecstatic as she arced through that gentle sea. Sara made some sort of Lebanese salad of cracked wheat, tomatoes and lemon, along with a vat of something called hummus, and we soon realized we were all going to get fat with her in the galley, yet we were, all in all, a happy lot. The miles cracked off with monotonous regularity and the sun felt good after ten years in Massachusetts, and I remember looking around at one point, thinking that this magic carpet was all mine. I was eighteen and owned a magic carpet!

Pride goeth before the fall, does it not? And, needless to say, some falls are bigger than others.

+++++

Willemstad was, in the summer of 1965, almost quaint and certainly charming. The inner harbor was, of course, a swampy mix of industrial plant and oil refineries, yet the entrance canal was something to behold. Little dutch shops and houses, all decked out in their ornate rooflines and soothing pastels, had yet to be razed to make room for super-sized cruise ships, and we’d tied up alongside the Handelskade and cleared customs by mid-afternoon. My parents – along with the Paul/Sara train – pulled out of the station as soon as the parade of officialdom left, leaving me alone to wait for the Jen-Mary Ann express to pull in. I didn’t have long to wait.

Mary Ann, duffel in hand, came out into the cockpit and without saying a word hopped ashore and walked off towards a sidewalk café – daring me, I assumed, to follow. So I hopped off, not realizing that two days at sea completely affects balance, and negatively. I managed a drunken, lopsided jog and caught up with her, grabbed her duffel and pulled her to a halt, then I just looked at her, wondering what to say.

“Well?”

“Don’t do this to us,” I said.

“Me? What about you? What have you done to us?”

“Nothing.”

That was not the right thing to say, and she snorted, pulled her duffel out of my hand and resumed her onward journey. To the airport, I think, but she stopped at a café and put her bag down by a table and ordered coffee.

Then she flipped the bird at the boat, and turning, I saw Jen sitting there, smiling at me.

And the Doc’s words came back once again, and this time they slammed into me like an out of control freight train. I turned to Mary Ann and walked to her, sat down at the table and recounted the entire conversation – the Doc’s final lament about his wife and daughter – and she listened attentively, even compassionately, then she just shook her head.

“So, let me get this straight. He told you all that, and, presumably, you believed him? And she’s curled up by you in the cockpit with her head on your lap? At two in the morning?”

“I was steering. She was snoring. What? Do you think she was giving me head?”

Once again, the wrong words at the wrong time. What can I say…it’s a gift.

“Wow,” she sighed. “Can I pick ‘em, or what?” The look in her eyes was brutal, kind of like a hurricane warning received too late to make much difference. “Maybe you’d better get out of my sight, while we’re still friends.”

“You’re leaving? You’re really going to leave? Now?”

“You’re not as dumb as you look, Spud.”

“Well, I guess better to get this out of the way now, than wait for it to happen a few years from now.”

“What?” she said, her voice now laced with contempt.

“If you’re going to run away at the drop of a hat, it’s better to get it over with now, don’t you think? I mean, if that’s the way it’s going to be, why bother? I didn’t do a goddamn thing, and if that’s all it’s going to take to set you off and run home? Well, the Hell with it – and the Hell with you!”

And I got up and walked back to Sirius; I hopped aboard and stormed past Jen on my way below, then slammed the door to my stateroom. I turned on the radio and tuned in some funky Calypso-Dutch-station and tried to close my eyes – just as the cat-fight-from-Hell started in earnest. Screaming – insults I’d never heard before – foul language I’d always associated with stories of seamen brawling with prostitutes – you name it…it went on for a few minutes – then – nothing.

Then angry footsteps on the companionway ladder, a sudden knock on my door.

“Go away,” I said, my voice tired now.

“Did my father really say those things to you?” I heard Jen say.

I went to the door, opened it and looked into her eyes – and I did not say a word.

Yet she looked into mine. Then she saw the truth for herself, and she quietly fell away into a very dark place. Mary Ann was on the steps above, looking at the damage she’d inflicted, watching Jen implode – and guilt shook her, her healing nature took hold and she came down, grabbed Jen by the shoulders and pulled her close.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Mary Ann sighed, but Jen was in full melt-down mode just then, and her’s was not some pretend episode; no, this was a complete unraveling, the real deal, and I went to Jen and picked her up, carried her forward to her stateroom and laid her on the berth. I sat with her for hours, stroked her head, tried to help her through the storm – but this one had caught her without warning and laid waste to her soul.

Mary Ann came in a while later and brought us tea, then she sat on the bed and laid her head on my lap, and she held Jen’s hand while I rubbed both their heads. My father poked his head in the door towards evening and asked to speak with me, and we tucked Jen in and both of went topsides. Mom and dad were waiting, of course, and Paul was too.

“What happened?” my father asked, and Mary Ann told the tale, ran through the sequence of events.

“How is she now,” my mother asked.

“Catatonic,” Mary Ann said.

“Time for Jack Daniels,” mother said, and she went below, got a bottle and poured a glass, then went to Jen’s room.

“Have you had anything to eat?” Dad asked.

We both shook our heads.

“Sara found a surreal place a few blocks away. She’s waiting for us.”

“What about Mom? Shouldn’t we…”

“Nope. Just leave her to it – she knows what to do.”

Mary Ann, now grief-stricken, her head down as we walked along, took my hand – and I put my arm around her, kissed the top of her head – and I could feel Paul as he walked ahead, shaking his head, seething. I didn’t need to hear his ‘I told you so’ – it was unnecessary now, anyway – yet I knew it was coming.

We ate in silence, and the only thing on my mind was how to make this work before everyone got up and left. Jen had as much, if not more right to be here than anyone, yet she was, true to the Doc’s word, simply incapable of not stirring the pot. And I was, apparently, so afraid of offending anyone that I’d become incapable of setting boundaries. Of course as soon as I thought that, I saw Dad sitting by the wheel with Jen’s head in his lap – and as soon as that image faded I heard echoes of Paul chastising me for trying to blame my issues on other people’s presumed faults.

So yeah, this was my problem, or more accurately a problem of my own creation – so I had to fix it. The obvious solution was to toss Jen off the boat, fly her to Texas and let her get on with destroying someone else’s life, yet I heard a little voice somewhere in the gray matter, an echo, really, of the most perplexing words I’d ever heard.

“…take care of her as best you can…”

There was an implied promise, of sorts, in my taking Sirius. A promise to take care of her, as best I could. Sirius, of course, but Jen as well, yet how could I do both and be true to Mary Ann at the same time – let alone my tacit promise to the doc.

The easy answer, of course, was I’d created an impossible problem – so I had to fix it. If you assume, as I did, that flying was my life, that conferred a certain way of looking at the world. Simply put, if flying an airplane had taught me anything at all it’s that you can’t quit working the problem. When you’re up there and shit hits the fan, you’ve got to fly the airplane and work the problem at the same time – and quitting isn’t an option – unless you want to go down in flames. Dad had drilled that into my head since I was old enough to reach the rudder pedals, so the concept was second nature to me now – and I saw Jen and Mary Ann in the same light: I had to work the problem – now, not tomorrow – or we would all go down in flames. And – I had to keep the three of us together, somehow, and yet keep us from tearing each other apart.

Of course, my mother had seen that coming as soon as Jen showed up.

And she was busy fixing the problem the only way she knew how, but that wasn’t going to let me off the hook. Not by a long shot.

When we got up to leave, to walk back down to the water’s edge, Sara asked me to hang back for a moment, and after everyone was out on the sidewalk she leaned close.

“Maybe it’s time to face the music,” she said, hesitating, not knowing the limits of our friendship yet, “because it was all I could do to keep Paul from taking off today, going home. He’s pissed, Spud. You can’t ignore problems like Jen, hope they’ll just go away. They don’t, and she won’t. They just fester, get worse, create newer and bigger problems.”

I nodded my head.

“So, what are you going to do?”

“Take care of the problem.”

She laughed, a little, anyway, then she shook her head. “You need to grow up, Spud, before you find yourself making the same mistakes over and over again.” Then she walked out and joined Paul, leaving me standing there – with one foot still in my mouth, the other firmly up my ass.

When we got back to Sirius mother was still in Jen’s stateroom, and they were both passed out – naked as the day they were born. Comatose, I think, was a good descriptive, and there was an empty bottle of Jack Daniels on the foot of the berth. They were holding on to one another, snoring open-mouthed like a couple of drunk sailors, and Jen’s face was resting on my mother’s bare breast. Dad poked his head in and looked at the scene, then started whistling that ditty from The High and The Mighty. By now you should understand that when he whistled that particular tune he was mightily impressed. Then Paul stopped and looked at the scene, and his eyes went round as tea saucers – so of course Sara had to come take a look. She too poked her head in and she too looked at my mom and Jen, yet she came out giggling – until she could get up on deck. They she was rolling around on deck, laughing her ass off.

Father of course went for his Leica, and some time later 5×7 glossies were posted over the chart table. Neither Jen nor my mother claimed any memory of the event, yet after that we had peace and quiet onboard Sirius. Mother still drained Dad’s nuts two or three times a day, but in Jennifer my mother had finally found a kindred spirit. Lest you think something inordinately perverted was going on, I had my doubts then, and still do. We rarely saw them together after that evening, and what we did observe was more often than not platonic, but I couldn’t help seeing a sly little gleam in father’s eyes when he saw them, or when he looked at those pictures. I think he had great plans for the three of them; I just hoped I’d never find out if it happened.

+++++

The fuel we topped-off the tanks with on Virgin Gorda was full of algae, so the fuel filters and tank needed to be cleaned, and this took all the next day. Mother supervised the boys while Sara and Mary Ann made several days worth of salads and stuck them in the ice-box. Jen went ashore with her Nikon and was gone all day, and she returned, as the sun was setting, while we were loading a couple of fresh 50 pound blocks of ice into the box. She was red-faced and flushed, looked to me like she’d gone ten rounds with at least three men, and she disappeared into her cabin – saying she wasn’t hungry when Sara called supper. As long as she didn’t bring men onboard we had to remove ourselves with her more frivolous self-destructive impulses – and try to help her understand what she was up to, yet I could tell my mother was more than concerned. After dinner Sara tried to talk with her – and that did not end well.

We left early the next morning, before the sun was up, because the tides were favorable and that second hurricane, the more southerly of the two, was racing for Barbados – and it was much further south than was the norm. We cut south, squeezing between Aruba and Cape San Ramon, then we moved further offshore. Two reasons for that, really: the first was to give us more room to maneuver if that hurricane came west instead of moving to the north, and the second concerned pirates. The Venezuelan Navy was broadcasting notices that pirates were actively working the area between the Gulf of Venezuela and the Columbian border, and as we’d been hearing more graphic descriptions of these pirate’s methods in Willemstad we decided to stay well offshore.

Yet we had perfect weather all the way to the San Blas Islands. Generally out of the east at a constant 20 knots, and Sirius took off like she’d been shot out of a cannon. On our second day out, after the wind picked up a little, she averaged twelve knots for ten hours – a blistering pace for an old, heavy schooner. Her sails were new, however, and the rigging updated, and I doubt pirates would have had an easy time catching us.

We anchored, unmolested, off Isla Chichimé three days later, in the clearest green water any of us had ever seen. There was one other sailboat in the anchorage, a thirty foot cutter flying a British ensign. My father was about to dive into the water when the cutter’s sole occupant yelled something to the effect of “You’d better not!” – and pointed out a rather large tiger shark cruising the nearby reef.

“Thanks!” we replied – in unison – then we inflated the Zodiac and hoisted the little Seagull motor onto her transom, then Mom and Dad and Jen motored ashore. The young man on the cutter took one look at Jennifer and hopped into his inflatable and followed them ashore, and Paul looked at me, then at Sara – and we all said – together, in one voice – “No way!”

Mother of course invited Douglas Cunliffe to dinner that night, and the next day Jen departed from our midst. I did not hear from her again for almost twenty years, and that resulted from a chance meeting at the airport in Tokyo, Japan. Anyway, they left Panama and passed through Polynesia on their way to New Zealand, then they headed west to South Africa, to Cape Town, and from there north to the UK. They’d written a book about their adventures, she told me that day in Tokyo, and they’d gotten married in Auckland along the way. She had four boys, all blond, and she still looked gorgeous.

And alas, poor father. He never got his threesome.

Still, he wasn’t complaining.

Mother saw to that.

+++++

Transiting the canal was anti-climactic. A half hour of pure, unmitigated terror in the Gatún Locks followed by endless hours of mosquito infested motoring with a seriously bored Panama Canal Company Pilot who, by law, had to steer the entire crossing, all the way to the Miraflores Locks, where another half hour of terror lay in wait. I say terror advisedly, as you motor into the lock behind something petite, like a super-tanker loaded with forty trillion armadillo turds, and then the lock floods (in Gatún) or empties (in Miraflores) and your little sailboat bobs around like a cork in a washing machine, while the SS Armadillo Turd looms overhead – straining at it’s lines. That’s about the time you realize if the lines holding the SS Armadillo Turd’s break, you and your boat will end up looking a little like an armadillo’s turds.

Beyond the surly pilot’s cheerful demeanor, the only thing any of us remembered a day later was the constant barrage of mosquitos. As malaria was still an issue in those waters, we doused ourselves in all manner of insect repellant, and if someone had lit a match I think we’d have all combusted.

After losing that day in Willemstad we didn’t take a day off for sightseeing; we instead refueled, and filled ten five gallon ‘jerry cans’ as spares, then lashed them just forward of the aft mast. We went to a Navy PX (thanks, Dad) and loaded up on American produce, including FRESH MILK, and we replenished the ice in the box. That done, and in record time, too, we cast off and started the long slog west to Hawaii.

I wish I could regale you with tales of heroism in the face of monster storms, but in truth it was a nineteen day idyll. Sara cooked, Mary Ann and Paul read Sartre (aloud, for god sakes), and then Paul tried to put it all to music – which, sad to say, did not work out well. We had one storm, a small one in the middle of the night, and we all rushed on deck to douse sail and tie things down before a freight train of thunder and lightning swept by, knocking Sirius on her beam ends for a split second, but that was it. I was almost a proficient sailor by that point, which left mom with tons of free time on her hands, or, as the case may be, to use her hands on Dad, and sure enough, a week shy of O’ahu mom started vomiting – in the morning, usually. Forty seven and preggers. Me, nine months away from becoming a brother – and what do I do? Well, in no time flat Mary Ann, now nineteen, was pregnant too – with our first and only. And, strange to admit, she was on The Pill, too.

So, what about Paul and Sara, you ask? Mr and Mrs Responsibility? Nope. They didn’t get pregant – ‘til October, anyway.

Maybe it was something in the water.

Or maybe something else was at work. Something like destiny, but who the hell knows.

+++++

We had three and a half weeks until class started, call it twenty five days and change. We could just have, conceivably, made it in twenty days – but the slog to San Francisco from O’ahu involves heading north a bit, in effect heading as if sailing to Vancouver, B.C. about a third of the way across, then taking aim for Portland before sliding into the approaches for the Golden Gate. This trip depends on knowing the precise location of the North Pacific high, as well as the various currents that arc under the Gulf of Alaska and along the coastline of the Pacific Northwest. And though I’d been studying the interplay of weather and current for weeks, I’d come to realize that these juxtaposing elements were capricious – and not so easy to predict.

To complicate matters, mother had zero experience sailing in the Pacific, not to mention she was sick as a dog several hours each day, and in the end that settled the matter. We tied Sirius off at a yacht club near Honolulu and flew home, the idea being we’d resume the voyage early next summer.

With two newborn babies, I wondered?

“No, that’s not going to happen, and you know it as well as I do,” Dad said, and I had to agree. In the end, we decided to ship Sirius to San Francisco, and after the paperwork was done she was scheduled by an agent we were told she’d arrive in mid-November. Paul moved Sara to an apartment near downtown LA and he went off to USC where, as I’ve mentioned, he ended up playing football when not doing the Pre-Med thing. Sara thought she’d teach music but instead found steady work as a studio musician at MGM.

Mom and Dad, of course, went back to Dallas, to our old house on Belclaire. To the best of my knowledge, she never drank then, not a drop. I think the whole sex thing dropped off for a while, at least until Viagra came along, but Dad continued to fly until he couldn’t. When Ben, my kid brother, graduated from Deerfield, Dad was headed towards seventy years young. When Ben announced he’d made it into Harvard I think Dad got to work on making another brother, but that didn’t work out.

Which brings me to the next part of this tale.

The sad part of the story.

The part where, flying over North Vietnam, I was shot down and killed.

+++++

Which takes me back to San Francisco, circa August, 1965. Mary Ann and I flew into SFO and I set about finding a home for Sirius. I did, in a marina near San Francisco International, and secured a slip there beginning that November; then I registered for classes and moved all my worldly belongings, one duffel bags worth, anyway, into one more naked dorm room. Dad drove out as soon as Mom was settled and under a doctor’s care, he drove his twenty year old Willys Jeep across the western half of the United States and left it with me, then helped get Mary Ann settled at Stanford.

She’d been on a full-ride scholarship at Deerfield, but her family was, to put it charitably, very poor. High school had been, oddly enough, her first time away from home, yet she never went back to Louisiana after her arrival. She went home with friends instead, roommates for the most part, so she’d been cut off from family as soon as she left for Massachusetts – at this point four years earlier.

So my mom and dad had, for all intents and purposes, adopted her, and they began seeing to her financial interests as soon as she became pregnant. I know it’s strange to admit this, but I didn’t meet her family for several years, and during this part of our life together they remained a great unknown. She never talked about them, and while I should have asked, expressed some curiosity, I didn’t – and I never pressed the issue.

Dad, on the other hand, did what Dad’s do best. He sent detectives to Louisiana to find out what the real story was. There are two points worth remembering about all this: whatever he found out, it was grim and he didn’t tell me a thing, and whatever he learned – it only made him love Mary Ann all the more.

We went to Trader Vic’s downtown before he left to go back to Dallas, and he introduced me to Suffering Bastards, and the two of us hoisted our glasses to Sirius, and to Jennifer – and to endless runs under the sun. Mary Ann drank water, thank you very much, but even she cried a little as we talked about our experiences. We’d had a helluva time, even if everyone got pregnant. The days and nights we spent in the Pacific took on a new meaning, became larger than life – indeed, bigger than they really were – but recollections of long trips in small boats often turn out that way.

Then Dad left and classes started; I drove the Willys down the 101 on weekends and we hung out at the library, just like any fourteen year old boarding school student. I thought about all that freedom stuff I’d felt after graduating and realized that kind of freedom was little more than an illusion, and that the only freedom I’d ever felt, as such, was out there in the middle of the ocean. That kind of hit me hard after we got back into the old boarding school grind.

So, we ate hot pastrami sandwiches at The Oasis and drove over to Half Moon Bay and picked artichokes, then had them cooked under the little tents that farmers had setup along the side of the road. We ate them in the sun, dipping them in lemon butter and wondering why anyone would ever live anywhere else, but our eyes turned to the Pacific from time to time – and we knew that time had created a new bond between us. We went down to LA and visited Paul and Sara when they phoned and told us Sara was preggers too, and she cooked one of her wild curries that night and we ended up talking about the Pacific.

The trip, you see, just wouldn’t let go of us. I guess that’s true of most voyages, and we each admitted to regretting not finishing the trip by sea. The words hung over us for a while, too, and it turned out we all thought about the consequences of the decision more than we’d have cared to admit. We flew back north lost in thoughts of ‘what if.’

And soon enough Sirius was unloaded from a huge Matson freighter in Oakland, and after a few hours work in a yard there she was again – and our spirits soared. We motored across the bay to her new home, got her tied off and over the next few days we moved back aboard. With Thanksgiving ahead we planned to have a big blowout aboard, but Paul had a game in Oregon and both Sara and Mom didn’t feel like traveling. Dad came out that next week, however, and we sat aboard that night lost in the warm glow of oil lamps and candles, and we realized there wasn’t one heat source aboard – and it was 39 degrees outside, with 90 percent humidity. The walls began to sweat, then were literally running with streams of condensation – and while we laughed we realized how much work needed to be done to make her a home suitable for Northern California. True to form, Dad tackled that project over the next few days, and the three of us had an early Thanksgiving aboard before he got in the Baron and flew back to Texas.

We had a few friends from school down for supper on the boat, but by and large no one could relate to her, or to what we’d done with her over the summer. She was huge, and the story I told of how I’d come to own such a beast sounded, at best, improbable. It was, I had to admit, an improbable truth – yet the Doc seemed so far away now. All that was a dream, now. Was it real?

All of us, Mom and Dad and Paul and Sara made it for Christmas, and we set up a little tree and put presents under it, hung some lights and made ornaments and hung those too, and then one moment we noticed Mary Ann crying.

Sara sat with her, asked what was wrong.

“This is my first Christmas tree,” she said, and we fell silent, my father particularly so – yet after we looked at her – and within ourselves – right then and there we decided this Christmas was going to be Mary Ann’s Christmas. There’d be a world full of new babies next year, but this year it was going to be her turn.

When the morning came she had more stuff under that silly tree than any of us thought possible, and we watched this pregnant, nineteen year old girl turn into a five year old for about an hour or so, and I think we had more fun than she did. It was a glorious morning, a wonderful day, and it was hers – and maybe ours too.

And there was one thing she’d really wanted more than anything else: a camera, a real camera. And she’d wanted one ever since she’d watched Jen walking around with that Nikon F over her shoulder.

So Dad and I went out and got her a Leica, along with a couple of lenses, and for the next week she went out with me or Dad, usually Dad, and we taught her what we knew about taking pictures. And of course, by the end of the week she was a Photographer. I had no idea what her IQ was those days, but it is somewhere high up in the stratosphere, and when she put her mind to something she mastered it in a few hours.

Still, more to the point, Christmas was the first time in her life she’d been completely surrounded by people who loved her unconditionally, and I think that week was a real turning point for her, and for us. She knew how to love – that had come easily to her, easily in the way a puppy starved for affection knows just what to do. I thought, at the time, anyway, her problem might have been how to accept love from others.

I wasn’t wrong, of course, but those few days marked the point in her life where she finally accepted that love could come without conditions. And without risk. She’d grown up in a mobile home, in the wooded swamps of southern Louisiana. Her mother worked, I learned later that year, as a mechanic in a gas station north of Chauvin, while her father worked on shrimpers and was gone for long stretches of time, out on the water. She grew up alone, in a place where older cousins and uncles came by for entertainment, and she was the floor show.

What saved her, I suspect, was a student teacher doing her internship at the local school, a bright girl who figured out Mary Ann was some kind of rocket scientist and got her tested. Teachers took an interest, administrators found out what was happening to her at home, and a local politician figured out how to get her into his alma mater. That’s how she came to me, into my life – the tortured, circuitous route that carried her along – like a leaf in a gale – to that Christmas morning. Her father, it turned out, liked to import certain less than legal pharmaceutical products when he was ashore, and had spent some hard time at The Farm, as the state penitentiary in Angola is known. Colorful people. She did not like them in the least.

When my father hired the private detective to dig into Mary Ann’s family background, he deliberated a while before deciding to make contact himself, then one day he flew over and had a local sheriff take him down to Chauvin to meet his future in-laws. Patricia Oberon was home that day and he talked with her a while, then the sheriff took him back to the Baron. My father asked the man to keep an eye on them, and to let him know when Patricia got into trouble.

Many years later father related that conversation to me.

Mary Ann’s mother was, he told me, pretty enough, and she was bright, too. Not smart, he said, but clever – mischievously so. She was also an addict, heroin, the sheriff reported, and she had a long arrest record. When he told Patricia about Mary Ann, about her life with me, as it had evolved since the little girl left home, she just smiled and said something about someone finally getting out. Getting away from the hell she had, herself, grown up in. There was no discussion about Mary Ann’s father, Clyde, or his whereabouts. He was on the run, she inferred, the police had several felony warrants outstanding, and in any event, my father did not want to meet the man – but what he saw that day stuck with him. He saw Mary Ann as a miracle of perseverance after that, and, as I mentioned, he only loved her more.

We had our baby in mid-May, and that about a week after my brother Ben came screaming into the world, and I couldn’t help thinking that, as usual, I’d pushed the whole ‘growing up too fast’ thing to the limit. We were nineteen, we had a kid, and were living a life most people in their thirties lived, except Mary Ann and I were living on a seventy two foot schooner on San Francisco Bay. Everything about this reality was surreal, if only because I hadn’t earned any of it. It had landed in my lap, so to speak, and I was, really, clueless about what it all meant. What it was worth, in human terms.

But I focused on school, studied engineering during the day then came home and spent evenings with my wife and daughter. Mary Ann managed to keep up with her school work, managed to keep her 4.0 grade point average intact, and as trite as this sounds, we fell into a routine and, somehow, we made it work. Paul and Sara did too, oddly enough, and in time we only grew closer. They came up on weekends and spent time on Sirius, we sailed together and reminisced, the Pacific so close, yet so far away, and time passed quickly.

I still flew, in fact more than ever, and when I graduated I opted to go into the Navy. Mary Ann made it into the med school at Stanford, Paul into UCLAs, and my mother visited that summer, little Ben now not so little, and she told me that she and my father were going to divorce.

+++++

I think it’s called ‘Middle-Aged Crazy’ for a reason, and probably wth good reason.

He came out one day, out of the blue, and we sat in the cockpit and talked about what had happened. He could not, he said at one point, keep it in his pants. But, he said, he’d never been able to, and now his flagrancy had caught up with him.

He always had several secretaries working in his office, and a couple of them had stayed with me before I was shipped off to Massachusetts, kind of baby-sitter/nanny assignments they undertook with smiles on their faces. They were all, at one time or another, sleeping with him and, I suspect, hoping to find a way to push my mother out of the picture and move into greener pastures. That never happened, of course, and as a result there was a constant flow of women moving into and out of his office, and my mother, not being stupid, knew what was going on and retreated more deeply into her private conversations with Jack Daniels. Their’s was, in the vernacular of the day, a game of mutually assured destruction, a cold war stand off all their own – and we talked about that war in light of what they had rediscovered on our sailing trip.

“That was a miracle,” he sighed, speaking of their coming together again, and of Ben’s coming into our life. But she had, he continued dourly, done with Ben what she’d done with me. She had shut him out, turned him away, and with nowhere to go he fell into the gravity of a new secretary’s orbit – again. “Only this time, Spud, it’s different.”

I nodded my head, could see it in my eyes. He was in love again, with this new girl, and of course – she was preggers. We met for dinner a few weeks later, at Trader Vic’s up in The City, and she was indeed a lovely woman – seriously easy on the eyes, genuinely warm-hearted and giving, and in a way I felt happy for my old man.

But not nearly as bad as I felt for Mom.

I left for Puget Sound a few weeks later, for Officer’s Candidate School, and my mother moved onboard Sirius – with Ben. I suppose in other circumstances it would have seemed weird, but we realized with starting med school soon, Mary Ann was going to need all the help she could get.

Yet at the time nobody realized just how much help my mother was in need of. Still, Mary Ann figured that out quickly enough.

And so, in the company of babies made at sea – they grew close.

+++++

Not quite a year later I finished jets in Pensacola and was to report to Puget Sound again, in two weeks, this time to qualify on the A6 Intruder, so with two weeks off I went home – to Dallas, to check-in with father and see his new family – before setting my course back to Sirius.

And I hardly recognized anyone there.

My mother, still not drinking, had gained serious weight. Like eighty pounds serious. She had stopped running, stopped playing tennis, and the transformation was disconcerting. But then I saw Mary Ann.

Who had, apparently, stopped eating. She was a wraith, pale and ghost-like, a woman who hadn’t seen the sun in months.

And both were seriously depressed. When I stepped aboard both clung to me like ivy on a brick wall – and I doubted the wisdom of all my choices as I never had before. I should be here, I said, taking care of them. Taking care of these kids.

And we talked, the three of us, about what lay ahead. Four more years away, maybe at home a month a year, but they reassured me they had things under control and that what I was doing now was as important as Mary Ann’s medical schooling. And I listened to them, I even believed what they said – perhaps because it was what I wanted to hear – and I went north. Not too many months later I found myself walking the decks of the USS Constellation, a nugget in VA-165 getting ready to fly my first combat mission – over North Vietnam.

We flew a variety of missions over the north, from SAM suppression to hitting military targets in and around Haiphong, and we usually flew at night. I’d completed a dozen missions when orders came down that a Soviet freighter was inbound – carrying dozens of new, and very advanced, surface to air missiles. Our mission was to hit the docks along the Cám River – and only the docks – just before the freighter attempted to tie up alongside.

We took off at midnight – in a raging gale. These conditions were the Intruders specialty, however, and we wouldn’t be expected to strike on a night like this.

Of course, no one told that to the Soviet radar operators watching as we approached the coast, and no one bothered to mention that to the pilots flying brand new Mig-21D all weather fighters – as they took-off and turned to intercept our formations.

The kid on the other team was named Durong Thánh; he was not quite my age and had been schooled by the French in the south, he spent time in France as a kid with his diplomat father, and learned to fly in the Soviet Union. He was, and remained, a fine pilot, as good as I was, anyway.

In this attack plan, my section of four approached Haiphong from the east, and we came in low with an EA-6 jamming enemy radar sites all along the river entrance. The alleged main attack vectors were from the southwest and north, and they were high altitude sections easily spotted on radar. These two sections were supposed to draw enemy fighters to the north while our group came in low from the east. The plan might have worked if we hadn’t tried this little stunt a few times before, but we had and it didn’t.

About two miles from the river threat receivers started howling – SAMs, we thought. Then air-to-air radar receiver warnings started screaming, meaning we had enemy aircraft on our tails and air-to-air missiles were locked on our aircraft. We called our CAP, our escorting F4 Phantoms, but they were north of us, and at very high altitude.

My BN, or bombardier-navigator, a kid named Norman Puckett, started jamming radars, I started pumping off flares and chaff – as my section spread out for our final approach. The Mig’s first missiles went wide, our Phantoms joined the fight, and small arms fire started reaching up into the night, rounds slamming into the Intruder, sounding a little like metallic hail-strikes. I pickled my load and turned hard left over the city, saw an air-to-air missile streak by just yards away – then detonate in the sky just ahead – and little shards of the windshield and canopy came in on us. Fire warning lights started popping and hydraulic pressure falling, then oil pressure and engine ratios, too.

Durong was still behind me, still trying to get off another shot, when we decided to eject. We were too low, but the aircraft was coming unglued – so I gave the order and we reached overhead and pulled the lanyards.

And nothing happened. Well, almost nothing happened. The canopy did it’s thing and blew away in the slipstream, but the seats resolutely refused to fire – and then Puckett looked at me – and we both started laughing.

“Well, Spud, we’re somewhat kinda screwed, ain’t we?”

And just then, for some reason, I thought of Jennifer. Jennifer, in the field across Greenfield’s Road in the autumn before we broke up. I could see her by my side, smiling at me, her eyes at peace – and I leveled the wings, popped the spoilers and tried to bleed off as much energy as I could – before we slammed into the muddy waters of Ha Long Bay.

+++++

Durong Thánh apparently never knew a Phantom was behind his Mig, and never knew two Sidewinders were sliding up his tail – but somehow he managed to eject – and his parachute blossomed overhead, his seat fell away, then he looked down at the sea below.

And who know? Maybe he laughed I would have..

Because we, Norm and myself, were about five hundred feet below, climbing out of our Intruder’s cockpit as it filled with water, and we watched as his Mig came apart in the sky and cartwheeled into the sea.

I saw him first and pulled my 45 ACP from it’s holster on my thigh, and I chambered a round. I sighted in on the falling pilot, was going to shoot the ever-lovin’ hell out of his ass, too, but for some reason I didn’t. Instead I watched him fall into the water and struggle with his parachute. When I was sure the guy was about to drown I dove into the water and swam to him, helped him out of his harness and pulled him to our still-floating aircraft, then Norm helped us up on the wing and the two of us sat there, gasping for breath, wondering what the hell had just happened.

Then Durong started cussing – in French, mind you – and of course, having gone to a school that valued such things, I began cussing out Durong for having shot my ass down – in perfect schoolboy French. Norm crossed his arms and picked his teeth, wondered when this little dog and pony show was going to wind up and leave town, then he noticed I was bleeding. Bleeding all over the place.

One of the Phantoms was circling overhead and Norm got on his handset and gave a rundown of our situation, and the Phantom driver told us a helicopter was inbound, and that it looked like our Intruder was sinking – which of course it was. And I was bleeding out too, my blood flowing out into the sea in huge billowing clouds of dark red life.

Sharks heard that dinner bell ringing, and they came running, were soon circling our sinking aircraft.

Norm and Durong figured out what was happening and got the life-rafts from under our seats deployed, and me into one of them, just as two Sikorskys roared by. We were hoisted aboard and took off for the Connie as Boomer five-oh-five slipped beneath the waves. I nearly lost my leg as a result of the night’s festivities – not from lacerations but from, rather, organisms in the water that got in the tissue and caused a series runaway infections.

Durong Thánh was taken to Hawaii for a little chat with some new friends, and from there to Leavenworth, Kansas, for a prolonged visit to the interior of our country; I too visited Hawaii, but stayed in a somewhat less than pleasant medical facility, but that’s not how the performance played out back in California.

Several aircraft were shot down that night, a few airmen killed, a few taken prisoner, and so in the confusion Mary Ann received a telegram from the Secretary of the Navy telling her that I’d been killed. My mother came unglued, father flew out to console them, and was there when a second telegram arrived, indicating that, no, your son is not dead. I was, rather, en route to Pearl Harbor where no doubt an endless procession of round-eyed nurses would fellate me into oblivion. Well, that was Dad’s version of the telegram, but I think you see the nature of the sequence.

Our presence in Southeast Asia diminished somewhat after that, and I left the Navy after my time was up and returned to San Francisco somewhat different than I’d been just a few years before. I was older, true enough, but I was no longer in any real hurry to grow up.

Life’s funny that way.

+++++

I haven’t talked much about my daughter, Mary Claire. It’s a difficult subject.

After I returned from my time in the Navy I went to work trying to find a job flying, and it was not easy. Airlines were struggling with inflation and higher fuel prices, along with people generally not traveling as much as an economic downturn hit, and that meant a tight market for pilots – despite many hired after WWII and Korea retiring. And wanting to be based in the Bay Area further constrained my choices. I ended up working for Air California, flying 737s to Orange County and back, for a couple of years – before I got on with Delta, which I considered my first real job. It was also my last real job. I stayed with them until I retired, and I mention this as a frame of reference. It’s what I did, what I’d always wanted to do, and Delta was one of the few constants in my life.

Mary Ann seemed to find equilibrium after I returned, and she finished her internship at USF, and then her residency at back at Stanford, where she specialized in pediatric cardiovascular surgery. She was busy, and in demand, from the beginning, and she became less a resident and more an infrequent visitor to Sirius.

Mary Claire’s was a sad, burdened soul from the beginning, like she knew her life was going to be short and full of pain. While I was still at Air Cal she was diagnosed with leukemia, and while her fight was valiant, it was brief. She passed a few months shy of her tenth birthday, and her death marked a terrible turn in all our lives.

We were together, the three of us, almost all the time our first four years, so we were extraordinarily close. That time together, those first years, grounded me in who I was – and by that I mean when I thought of myself in passing I thought of myself as her father first, above anything else, and the hardest part about being in the Navy was being away from her. After she left us I spent a time not really knowing who I was anymore – like if I was her father above all else, then what was I now – now that she was gone?

And Mary Ann wilted after her death. A physician unable to help? Unable to change the outcome of her own daughters fight? The experience left her burdened for years – and her work placed her on the front lines of endless desperate fights, with children facing death, her patients facing impossible odds in their fight for life. I watched her struggle under the load for almost ten years before I knew she was finally going to be alright.

And then there was Paul and Sara. He breezed through school, zipped through his training and went straight into general surgery, and they bought a house, once, in the Hollywood Hills and there they lived. Sara played for studio orchestras while she went back to school, and began teaching Music History at USC after her three kids were out of diapers.

And it’s kind of funny, but I looked at my experience with Jen, then Mary Ann, and I looked at Paul’s with Sara – and I found the differences amusing, if instructive. He always knew what he wanted to do, as did I, yet he’d never been possessed with the almost self-destructive impulse that had gripped me in high school. There were no Jennifers in his life, there had just been that one moment at the coffee house in Cambridge when he met Sara. He knew, he just knew. So did she, and that was it. I always wondered why, what made us so different? Simple chance, nature versus nurture? What? What made our experiences so different?

Just life, you say?

Hah.

+++++

Father’s divorce wasn’t so unpredictable, was it?

Two people more different was hard to imagine, yet I think he never stopped loving my mother – yet because my mother set such an impossibly high mark their marriage was troubled from the start. We lost touch during those years, but he came ‘round more when Mary Claire got sick. He was divorced by then of course, and he stayed with Mom more and more when he visited, and Ben was ecstatic.

Yes, Ben. He was my daughter’s age, yet he was my brother, and he was there with us all along, yet when Mary Claire fell ill I think it hit him hardest of all. He wasn’t her brother, after all – he was her uncle. An adult relationship had been, in effect, forced on him – if only by social convention – yet I think that set him on his way. On my way, I mean, on wanting to be an adult before he’d had a chance to fully experience being a kid.

So when my mother and my father drifted back into the same orbit their children, both of us, were only too happy to see it happen.

I could say that the story ends here, but it didn’t.

It couldn’t say that now, you see, because the most important part of the symphony, the conclusion, had yet to be composed. And the composer, if you will, had yet to play much of a role in our lives – beyond trying to kill me one dark and stormy night.

+++++

Sirius was a wooden boat, and time does not treat such things kindly. She required regular, extensive work on such varied things as her hull, the decks, and even her masts. Over the years we’d kept her in just two marinas, one by the airport and the other downtown, and she was surrounded by other boats we called Clorox bottles – or fibreglass boats. Plastic boats, in other words, unstable little things that stank of industrial solvents from the day they were made ‘til the day they started cracking up from too much exposure to the sun.

Plastic boats don’t require too much cosmetic maintenance, which is why they’re so popular, and the people who buy plastic boats tend not to invest much time or energy into their upkeep. Their hulls become chalky, the cheap plastic portlights misty and streaked with crazing, and most of them tend to be under-built with the cheapest grade hardware the builder can get away with. There were exceptions, of course, but many plastic boats, most built in Florida, were a danger to their owners if they were used for anything other than dockside condos.

But so are wooden boats – if you don’t keep up with the regular maintenance required to keep them seaworthy. We did, and for fifteen years our efforts kept up with her needs, but then seams started to open in her hull planks, and the teak decks had been sanded all they could. The time had come to make a decision: invest real money in a major refit or put her on the market. All of us, including Paul and Sara, met one Saturday morning to talk about the old girl’s fate, and that discussion rightly centered on what our plans for her going forward might be.

The truth is, Mary Ann and I were ready for a house, but we weren’t ready to get rid of her – yet. After Mom and Dad remarried, and soon after she returned to the old house on Belclaire, yet she had come to view Sirius as a vital part of the fabric of our lives, and my father echoed that very sentimental view. It was Paul and Sara that, of course, held to a singularly practical view of her role in our lives: make plans to sail her, they said, and sail her hard, or sell her. Boats like Sirius were meant to be sailed, Sara said, and to see her relegated to life as little more than a mobile home wasn’t right.

We knew she was right, Mary Ann and I, but the truth of the matter is we were not even forty years old. Retirement was decades away, for four of us, at least, and that’s when I noticed Dad leaning back in his chair, grinning as an idea bubbled up from just under the surface and sprang into life.

“What if your mother and I clean her up and take her out for a few years?”

“What?” my mother said, smiling. “Are you serious?”

And we all started talking about the difficulty two seniors faced if taking a 72 foot monster out into the Pacific – alone. Of course the more we said about that, the more both my mother and father grinned, the more they wanted to do it.

Then Sara chimed in again: we could, each of us – she said – join Sirius whenever a long ocean crossing was in the offing, and the old farts could enjoy her when they got where they were going. So a list of possible places to visit took shape in the air and that was that. Mary Ann and I bought a little shack in Menlo Park and settled in, and on my days off went to the yard in Sausalito, where Sirius was undergoing major surgery, to get paint under my fingernails. Eight months – and almost 200 grand later – she was back in the water, ready to go – and she looked brand new again. We sailed her back to the marina in downtown San Fran and tourists regularly came by and snapped rolls of film standing beside her.

Mom and Dad moved back onboard, and though Ben was now a junior in high school – yes, in Massachusetts – he planned to take part in the first leg of the adventure that coming summer. We all, as a matter of fact, were planning to take part in this second coming of Sirius, her first real trip in almost seventeen years. The plan took shape quickly, too: sail through the Golden Gate and on to O’ahu. Kind of closing the circle, I think you could say, before helping Sirius begin the next part of her life.

And we, Mary Ann and myself, began looking at life shoreside as the beginning of the second part of our life together. I have to say that, after just a few weeks in the new house, we began to regret the decision to move ashore. And the house was empty of kids, of all the routines that make a house a home. We tried to have another, but something was wrong, and all of a sudden that little house felt like a hall of carnival mirrors. We were lost, bumping into each other, trying to find a way out of the maze we’d just created for ourselves.

About that time I bid for and started flying from San Francisco to Tokyo; as a result I was away from home more than I ever had been before. When I was home Mary Ann was the same, yet different. She was all work, until she wasn’t, then we would go out, go for drives on weekends or up to the city to bother my parents. We were everything but intimate, and suddenly I realized we were falling away from one another.

And then the thing I hated most about my father happened to me.

Here name was Patty. Patricia Brody, a wild-hearted, red-headed Bostonian who was, of course, a flight attendant. And she was, more often than not, on my Tokyo flight, and we were, more often than not, billeted in the same hotel. And one day it just happened. I’d known her a long time, had never thought of her as someone I’d like to spend that kind of time with, but it happened.

We went sight-seeing. We talked and laughed, I helped her pick out a baby Nikon and taught her the ins-and-outs of composing a photograph, to treat a camera with respect and to not waste time taking simple snapshots. Kind of ironic, don’t you think?

We went to see The Empire Strikes Back and rolled in the aisles – laughing our asses off – as we watched Han and Luke screeching their lines – in Japanese. Of course we got around to talking about the sore subjects in our life, and for the first time ever I found Mary Ann at the top of that list.

So of course, before the night was over we had done the deed. We had cemented a new union, of sorts, yet another chapter of the Lonely Hearts Club was created – and we continued weekly our meetings for a while. I assumed Mary Ann never suspected a thing, and of course I never said a word about it. We had by that point abandoned the idea of having kids – and gravity took over. I doubted it would take long to come undone and spin apart.

Summer intervened before things got out of hand; gear and provisions were loaded on Sirius in one long weekend, and on a foggy Monday morning we motored through the Golden Gate towards the Farallon Islands, Dad at the chart table, Mom on the helm, Paul and Sara and their three kids – sitting on the deckhouse keeping a lookout for Great White Sharks – leaving Mary Ann to commune with Ben – and me, sitting by myself on the aft rail, looking back at our gurgling wake – watching that red bridge – and Patty – disappear in the mist.

We motored past the Farallons, keeping them to port, and by late morning the sun obliterated what fog remained and a breeze filled in. Sails went up, Dad and I shot noon sights and restarted our plot, turning to the next page in the logbook – that hadn’t had a new entry in a very, very long time. The wind filled in, 20 knots solid off the starboard beam, and Sirius found her groove again, became the ocean greyhound we remembered from the summer of ‘65 – and we began cracking off real mileage that night.

With that much wind across the deck we kept the kids harnessed up and in the cockpit until they knew the routines better, and the old hands kept watch that first night out with everyone tucked away safely below.

I remember a full moon behind clouds racing south, big-fat clouds, white-rimmed and dark bellied – and waves that were soon in the ten foot range. Sirius flew off the wave-tops and plowed into the base of the next rolling mountain, sending walls of black water over everything topsides. I think the water temperature was 55F, the air temp around 45F, and we were soon cold, chilled to the bone.

Paul was with me then, in the cockpit, and we’d been alone together for a while when he leaned close.

“So, what’s her name?”

“What? Who?”

“Sara thinks you’re seeing someone. What’s her name?” He was giving me that look, the ‘don’t bother lying to me – I know you too well’ look.

“Patricia,” I said.

“I’m not going to ask why. I guess it’s none of my business, anyway, but you’re married to one of the world’s great women. I hope you haven’t forgotten that.”

“We’re going through a rough patch,” I said – as another mountain of ice water roared by.

He snorted. “Hell, what marriage doesn’t?”

“What about you? Have you…”

He shook his head. “No. I mean, why bother? You’re going to take your same way of dealing with the world into a new relationship, and odds are you’re just going to create the same problems all over again. I think it’s better to just deal with the problems you have, work them out, sort out what’s most important and focus on that.”

“That’s worked out well for you?”

“Yup.”

“Well, you’ve got kids to think of…”

“Is that what’s bothering you? Kids?”

“It’s become a dividing line, something we can’t get around.”

He nodded his head. “Sara thought so too.”

“Well, she would. She’s one of the world’s great women, too.”

“She has her moments. You still love Mary Ann?”

“Yup. More than you know.”

“I doubt that. Still, she’s not stupid, Spud. She deserves the truth, you both deserve time to work this out without some other woman breathing down your necks.”

The cockpit was right over the aft cabin, the cabin where Mary Ann and I slept, and she was down there. There was a portlight in that cabin, a portlight that opened into the cockpit, and it was open. She was sitting in the dark, listening to every word we’d just said, then I heard that portlight shut, heard her dogging it down, then I heard her putting on her foul weather gear – and I saw her coming up the companionway steps a moment later. She stepped into the cockpit and came over to me, sat down beside me and kissed me, once, on the lips, then she looked at Paul.

“How does the helm feel?” she asked him.

“Lots of vibration still, and kind of heavy.”

“Why don’t you go below, get some tea and warm up.”

He nodded his head and she slipped behind the wheel, steered over a looming wall of water and surfed down the backside. When Paul was below she spoke again – keeping her eyes on the way ahead. “How far has it gone?”

“I don’t know.”

“Too far?”

“Nothing’s ever too far, Mary Ann. Not where you and I are concerned.”

“I’m not going to ask why…I think I know, and I think I understand…but don’t do anything drastic without talking to me first.”

“Okay.”

We sat in the dark watching marching waves under a kaleidoscope of moonlit spray, the way ahead shades of black and dark silver.

“Maybe you should just get it out of your system, you know?” she said a half hour later.

“Too confusing. I was never meant to love two women.” I had been looking at her all this time, at her and the passing spray, dissolving diamonds falling from the sky. I studied her face, her face so familiar, so much a part of who I was now.

“Oh?” she said, looking at me for an instant.

“I think I was born to love you.”

“I fell in love with you the first moment of our first year, before school even started.”

“I don’t remember that?” I said. “What happened?”

“I’d just arrived. A social worker put me on a bus in Baton Rouge. To Boston,” she said, “then got on one of those Peter Pan buses to Springfield. Someone from school picked me up, and on the drive north we stopped at that little airport in Northampton. Your father and you were standing by an airplane, then I realized it was your airplane. I had no idea anyone could own something like that, and I’d never known anyone who could fly.”

“I remember that now. The old Travel Air.”

“You looked like a God to me, Spud. Standing there in the wind by that airplane. Now you put on that uniform and go fly those huge airplanes – like maybe just anyone in the world can do what you do – but they can’t, Spud. To me, you’ll always be that God, that wild, wind-blown God, and I’ll never love anyone else. I can’t, I couldn’t. I worship you, I always have.”

“But, why…?”

“Because I feel like I’ve let you down. It’s me, Spud. My plumbing broke, and we won’t have another child because of me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I let you down. Maybe I thought you needed to find another woman, have kids, move on to to a new life. Because that would be better for you.”

“It wouldn’t last. I can’t breathe when I’m away from you for too long.”

She laughed. “You’d learn, Spud.”

“Doubtful.” I sighed, wondered if I should take the next step, then I went on, stepped into the darkness. “Do you remember Durong, Durong Thánh?”

“The pilot who…”

“Yup.”

“Yes, of course.”

Durong Thánh, Mig-21 pilot who shot my ass down. I was his fifth, so he made Ace on me. Durong, who, when he discovered my BN, Norm Puckett, had a dislocated shoulder and that I was bleeding to death, got to work with first aid kit in his teeth and kept me from bleeding out. He worked on me in the helicopter, he kept working on me all the way to the Connie’s Sick Bay. Puckett told me the kid saved my life, and he was treated civilly until he was released after the war wound down, I think in no small measure because he had.

He called me the day he was released, asked if he could come meet me somewhere and talk.

For some reason the Navy cut him that much slack, and he came to San Francisco, visited me on Sirius. We talked about that night, about how it was nothing personal, just war. He’d been locked up for a couple of years, and he’d done nothing but think about that night. About how one minute he’d been trying to kill me, and the next trying to save my life. Nationalism fell away in those moments, all the patriotic fervor he’d grown up around simply vanished as he watched my blood billowing out into the godawful brown water.

The State Department let him stay aboard for a few days, and I assumed responsibility for him, promised that I’d get him to a charter flight to Hanoi a few days hence, and I did. We talked all the while, this kid about half my size and three years younger than I, and somewhere in there we slipped from the uncomfortable terrain of adversary into the uncharted water of a new friendship. When he left, before he walked out to the DC-8 taking him home, we hugged, and we promised to keep in touch.

And the funny thing about this is – we did. Regularly, as a matter a fact. And when I started flying into Tokyo we met up from time to time. He was a captain by then, for Vietnam Airlines, flying Boeing 707s from Hanoi to Tokyo and back. I’d just met his wife, before we left on the trip to Hawaii, and we’d discussed life back in America. Mary Ann and the baby situation came up and she looked at me, asked me a question I’d never expected.

“Do you want a baby?” she asked.

“I think I do. I think Mary Ann would too.”

“It is not a problem, you know. We have hundreds of orphans in Hanoi alone. There are no homes for them, and it is not a problem to adopt.”

“I didn’t know you’d kept up with him,” Mary Ann said, looking from the wave-tops to me and back. “How is he doing?”

“He’s actually doing good. Real good.” There are symmetries in life that haunt us, follow us unawares, and I mentioned this. “His wife is a doc, an obstetrician.”

“Oh? That’s kind of funny,” she said.

“I met her a few weeks ago.”

“Oh? Is she nice?”

“I talked about us. She mentioned that there are hundreds of kids in Hanoi alone, orphans. She said adoption is no problem.”

And she looked at me, stopped looking at the waves and just looked at me. I jumped behind the wheel, took over as she slid away, made room for me.

“And what did you say?” she said after a long pause.

I shook my head. “Not much. I’m not sure how I feel about it – not yet, anyway. You?”

She sighed, shook the cold away. “I love the idea. It’s the reality I’m not so sure about.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you think we could go over there, have a look around?”

“I think so. I’m not sure what restrictions are in place right now.”

She slid close again, put her head on my shoulder. “This is kind of a crazy, mixed up world, isn’t it?”

“Holy-mother-of-God!” I yelled – then – “Hang on!”

A huge wave – I’d guess now, looking back on the moment, perhaps the height of a two story building – came up out of nowhere and Sirius raced up the face, hesitated a moment, then fell off the backside – surfing down the wall at breakneck speed.

And there was an even bigger wave waiting in the night, just barely visible now – a huge, feral monster – rising up like a mountain range, suddenly looming overhead.

Mary Ann darted below, slammed the companionway hatch shut just as this next freight train slammed into the hull, and Sirius rolled drunkenly to her beam end – and as this second wave broke over us Sirius rolled further and further over – until her masts pointed to the seafloor, perhaps three miles below.

Rushing water filled the cockpit and I lost my grip on the wheel as we turned over – and the next thing I saw was Sirius, upside down, sails ripped from their tracks, lines coiled like snakes hovering everywhere in black shadows cast by the scudding moon, then bubbles everywhere. Then tons and tons of lead in her keel exerted force against the water and slowly Sirius began to right herself. It took what felt like hours, but in reality was probably less than half a minute – and when I came to the surface I saw that I was perhaps twenty yards away from my boat, my home, and that her sails were filling fast. I was swimming for my life as she began sailing away, and the last thing I saw was Mary Ann coming on deck, looking around for me – then screaming.

+++++

I think not even a month later we were in Hanoi, walking with Louise Thánh through the obstetrics hospital where she worked, and Mary Ann was, I could tell, aghast. To call conditions there primitive might have been going to far, but for someone working on the leading edge of a rapidly changing branch of medicine, what she saw during this slowly unfolding tour was just hardly bearable.

We came to a neonatal unit, what might have been a neonatal unit in the States in, say, the 1950s, and she looked at a row of blue-skinned babies dying and she turned away.

“What is wrong?” Louise asked.

Yet Mary Ann tried to keep to herself, tried to turn away. She knew the problem, knew the solution, yet the solution wasn’t available in this country – yet. So she looked at those half dozen kids, who all would die within hours, and she was overcome with helplessness. Then anger. She went to one of the neonate nurses and asked for a chart – in French – then she read through the chart, slowly, carefully.

Then she turned to Louise.

“There is no treatment plan. Why?”

“These babies will die soon.”

“Yes, I know that, but what are you going to do about it?”

“There is nothing we can do for these babies.”

“You wanna bet?”

“What?”

“Find me an anesthesiologist. Quickly, if you can.”

I looked at Mary Ann, knew that tone, and yet she’d promised me she wouldn’t do this.

A harried looking doc came by, and for some reason the kid spoke decent English and Mary Ann drilled him on what she wanted to do.

“We have no surgeon here who can do that,” the anesthesiologist said.

“I’m going to,” my wife said.

“You are not on staff,” Louise said. “You cannot do this.”

“Why not? I can save this kid. It’ll take me twenty minutes.”

“You are not serious,” the anesthesiologist said.

“If you’ve got a pediatric surgeon around, I can do it in even less time, and I can teach him the procedure.”

Louise took off in one direction, the anesthesiologist in another. Fifteen minutes later she was scrubbed in, starting the procedure. It took her twenty five minutes, and the kid was pink and full of life the next morning.

We had come to look at potential kids to adopt, and all of a sudden Mary Ann had an epiphany. Over the next week, talking to Norman Shumway, her boss at Stanford, and members of the hospital’s government ministry, she developed, on the spot, a teaching program she wanted to set up there. She would volunteer to teach one week a month, for a year, and nurses, techs, and Stanford anesthesiologists would come with her. There was equipment back in Palo Alto no longer in use that could imported, that could save lives, so much we can do…

And the ministers balked.

Mary Ann was in tears. “Why will you do nothing for these children? We’ll bring a new level of medicine to your country…?”

“Perhaps,” I said later, “because we brought a new level of devastation to their country. Perhaps because they don’t like to be reminded that America once lorded over them. Perhaps because the resent the Great White Fathers once again sticking our noses into their business.”

That evening another ministerial type came to our room, just after Durong and Louise arrived.

“Could you come with me, please?” the man asked. “All of you?”

We went.

For a ride in the country.

We came to a house. A nice house, clean and small, but not fancy.

We went inside, and found in an ancient man in bed, a nurse be his side. He was thin and pale, looked vaguely familiar, and he spoke perfect English after he’d looked over Mary Ann.

“You have kind eyes,” he said, and there was an air about this old man I had a hard time pinning down – and suddenly I wished Sara was with us.

And without saying a word Mary Ann was at his side, feeling this pulse and that, looking over his chart, then she moved to his ankles and felt here and there. She took a nearby stethoscope and listened to his heart, then his lungs, had him lean forward and she listened again. When she was finished she stepped back and looked at the man, and waited.

“How long will I live?” he finally asked.

And Mary Ann shrugged. “A week, perhaps.”

“And from what I’ve heard, you can repair this?”

“With the proper equipment on hand, the operation might take an hour.”

“And I would live?”

She nodded her head.

“I see. And you do this for children?”

“That is my area of expertise, yes.”

“I have been told about what you did. And what you want to do. Could you tell me why?”

“Because I hate suffering. When I see a problem I know I can fix, I want to do so.”

“And you see a problem you can fix?”

“No, I see suffering I can alleviate.”

The old man nodded his head. “I understand. I would like to know of another thing.”

“Yes?”

“I have been reading of this trip you made, by sea, last year. And about the storm you endured. The news accounts were vague, so I wondered. You saw your husband in the sea, and you dove in after him. Why?”

“Because without him I would not want to go on living.”

“It’s as simple as that?”

“Yes.”

“Yet your friends were able to turn the ship around and get to him, to you both, with little trouble. Why did you not wait?”

“Because I did not want him to be alone. I had no way to know we’d been picked up, and I did not want him to die alone.”

He looked at her the longest time, his eyes measuring hers. “Your kindness is true, I think. In my next life, I would hope to meet you.”  He coughed, had trouble catching his breath, and Mary Ann went to him, held his wrist and felt his rhythms.

“I can have the equipment needed her within a day. I can have you walking within a week.”

“I will consider this. In the meantime, I want you to move forward with your plans to teach. You will find no further obstacles along this path.”

And as Mary Ann began crying the old man suddenly became grandfatherly. “Yes, I would pray that I meet you in our next life,” he said gently. “Please, do not cry. I know these are tears of joy, but you have much to do now. Certainly there is no time to spend with tears?”

“Yes. You’re correct.”

“Will you do my operation?”

“I will assist. There is another man, much more experienced with your procedure than I, who I will ask to come.”

“I would like you there.”

“Then I will be.”

“There are two people I would like you to meet now,” he said, and a door opened. Two kids I thought might have been three or four years old came into the room, and they stood beside the old man’s bed with their heads bowed. “These are my grandchildren. Their parents were killed several weeks ago, and I am concerned for their future. I understand you are looking to adopt children and I would like you to consider raising this remnant of my family.”

Then he looked at me, asked me to come closer. “Durong, you too. And Louise.”

My friend came and stood by my side, Louise by Mary Ann’s.

“You were my enemy once, and yet you chose to treat my son with great respect. You call each other friend, do you not?”

“Yes, father,” Durong said. “I believe he is worthy of that name.”

“And you think he would treat my grandchildren with equal respect?”

“I do, father.”

Then the old man turned to me. “This was my son’s idea. At first I could see little wisdom in his choice, but now I do. I hope you will consider this, and when it is time, I hope you will let them return – with what you have taught them. The world needs understanding, does it not?”

“It does, sir.”

“This was good, but now I feel I must rest,” and he seemed to wither before us, and his grandchildren looked first at him, then at me.

+++++

If you live near – or on – the sea long enough, you realize that life is defined by tides, by orbital cycles, if you will, and that all life revolves around ebbs and floods often greater than the sum of their varied currents. You see that each tide is subtly different, too, that no two are ever quite the same, and that there are at least two ways of dealing with the flow. You can work your way against the tide, push against the currents, or you can turn and run with the flood. In time you understand that running with the flood has certain advantages, but you can easily end up on the rocks and spend the rest of your life repairing the damage – so you have to chose your moment well. You have to watch the water, wait for the most opportune time, then you have to strike out into the water and follow your instincts as the current carries you along and, mindful of rocks along the way, reach for the sheltering sky – and the love that waits for your grasp.

I am, of course, not talking about tides.

No, I speak of my Jennifer, who slipped from my fingers once and fell away to other arms. I thought she was my Peter Pan, the child who could stay my rush to responsibility, but I saw her hook just in time. It was you, Paul, who saved me. And you too, Harry.

I speak of my children, our twins, and the day I watched them graduate in Massachusetts, with my mother and father gone, yet with my improbable brother standing by my side, cheering. The day would have never been – had it not been for war, distant, far from home, and a warrior trying to kill me. I would not have watched their graduation in Palo Alto a few years later, nor would I have seen them move into medicine, or been able to help with their return to Hanoi. I would not have been part of an extended family in Vietnam, and would never have known the joy that helping Mary Ann’s efforts take root could bring. A simple twist in time, and so many courses altered. And of course, none of it would have happened without Paul keeping me grounded to the pull of Mary Ann’s gravity.

And of course I speak of my mother and father, and the swirling currents that surrounded them. I think of my mother holding Jen to her breast in that cabin – they were in that moment twin sisters joined at the heart. I think of the morning I received a call from mother, in New Zealand, telling of father’s passing. He had been working on a balky fuel filter, had just asked mother for a wrench, and he looked up, said “Oh…” as life came, and went – and that was it. They were alone then, alone together, but not long after my mother joined him. Sirius remained in New Zealand for many years, under the care of woodworkers who cherished her lines, able men and women who kept her sound while she waited for her master’s return.

Of all the currents that swept me along, Mary Ann’s was the smoothest. She was my guiding star, my purpose. Not so many days ago I lay with her as she passed, and I held her into the night. With my parent’s gone, Paul and Sara too, I am now the only one remaining from that first journey.

Ben was with me on Sirius this morning, standing on her decks together one last time. We had an urn in hand, ashes from five lives mingling in the moment, then we cast their fates to the wind and watched them drift away. We said our goodbyes and I watched him motor ashore, then I went forward and cast away her mooring line, setting Sirius free again. I raised sail, heading north, no idea where we were going, only that go we must. It is time.

I sat on the deckhouse this morning, where Mary Claire used to sit and dream, and I recalled watching my wife and daughter sitting there one morning, a morning not unlike this one. They were reading Peter Pan, and I heard a little voice say “second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning,” and I understood just then. She was my Pan, but so too were they all.

(C)2017 adrian leverkuhn | abw | adrianleverkuhnwrites.com | adrianleverkuhnwrites7@gmail.com | this was, of course, a work of fiction.