by T L Yeager
After she was done, Maddie cradled her on her chest, Izzy’s head again resting in the notch between her neck and shoulder. After she was limp, Maddie lowered her back down into the carrier and secured the clips.
Charlotte drifted in and out of sleep, opening her eyes a crack to look up at her mother. She would have been lost to the nap right away if it weren’t for the crinkle of chip bags coming from behind.
Semper fi, Mommy-o. The words played on her mind. Her two extremes. The yin and the yang of her life. Overseas she wore a helmet and combat gear adorned with the tools of war. Now she was wearing her baby. Being a parent was sort of like war—a series of battles and skirmishes strung together into a fight for a common objective—remaining sane. Both activities required a great deal of maneuvering to accomplish the mission. Lots of gear. Lots of planning. Lots of stamina. But the parental battles required a higher degree of psychological acumen. Success wasn’t linked to the number of rounds you’d sent down the target range. It was on-the-job training.
Maddie’s military occupational specialty had been 0317, United States Marine Corps Scout Sniper. In the civilian world she’d lost the numeric designator and was a director of product management for a cyber security firm. In the life that mattered, her identifier was 02—mother. Second in command to 01, her husband. Maddie was getting back to being a mom, but Ross was still the natural caregiver of the family.
Maddie hadn’t really gone looking for any of the jobs. Drifting from one phase of life to the next was more her style. Looking back, she never considered herself the motherly type. After she returned from her first overseas tour, Ross brought it up. At first she’d said no. How could a Marine get pregnant? But then, over the next couple weeks, some type of internal clock clicked and what started in her mind as a maybe had become a full court press. Men in the Marines had babies, probably more than they needed. If they could do it, so could she.
Like most aspects of her life, Maddie hadn’t needed to weigh the pros and cons.
“I thought about it, and you’re right. We should have a baby.”
Ross had smiled. “When does practice start?”
Eleven months later, Isabelle Margaret Günther was born. It didn’t take long for Maddie to realize that the fundamentals she learned in the Marine Corps were also the keys to being a good mother. Brilliance in the basics, master of routine, dedication to the craft, preparation, independence—that’s what it took to prevail.
Now she was a mom with a tattoo that told a story of her past. It was designed to minimize the reservations she might feel in later life when she turned her shoulder to the mirror. Smaller than the ones the guys got, the stylized double sig rune was hidden inside the globe. It was missed by the frequent faint glance, which was the point, but if you looked closely, the ‘SS’ that resembled the insignia of Nazi Germany, was hidden with purpose.
Scout Sniper—‘SS’. A symbol with a bad reputation, it denoted their close fraternity. Homage to the Reich it was not – merely a differentiator, a symbol like so many others that set them apart from the rest.
Becoming a scout sniper and donning the ‘SS’ was almost as accidental as becoming a mother. She’d never set her sights on being the first female sniper. Hell, she figured they’d probably keep her out of combat. But times were changing fast in the military for women.
There were plenty of men in her unit that graded out as rifle experts, but Maddie cleaned up table one with less effort than most. A charismatic shooter, her father had taught sound fundamentals. The lessons had stuck with Maddie.
The unit paid tribute to the top tier shooters. Scores were posted and the best highlighted to garner competition. It no doubt made the boys try harder, but each time she placed in the top three, taking the ribbon on several occasions. Being a shooter is what earned her the respect.
She volunteered to work the coach’s course for her battalion. Being around the range lifted Maddie from above average to unbeatable. Her battalion held an annual screener event to weed out the best of the top scorers. Fifty-three started. Twelve remained after 24 hours. Nine made it to the end and six were offered bids. Maddie received top billing.
“Look at the smoke.” Maddie was woken by one of the two young sisters sitting inside of her and Charlotte. The parents and a brother were sitting in the row directly behind them. Maddie leaned and half stood, cradling Charlotte in the carrier on her chest. She knew the approach to the airport well, usually sitting by the window excited for a first glance of turquoise.
Outside she could see the island spreading out beyond the left wing of the plane. In the distance, the arid center was brown and uninhabited. As her eyes walked toward the bottom of the window, the density of the buildings grew. In the foreground, she picked up the Taj Palace, an Indian-inspired resort with curved turrets and a profile that matched the Taj Mahal. It was three resorts up the beach from the Surfside.
A sliver of Caribbean blue framed the bottom of the window. The girls were still pointing as the plume of black smoke came into view. It took a handful of seconds for Maddie’s mind to realize she was looking at the Surfside. She had been fixated on the black column that appeared as an opaque brushstroke. For an instant, the pools in the center sparkled when the angle of the sun and its reflection lined up with the plane.
The buildings surrounding the oasis looked like elongated shoeboxes from this altitude. Rectangles at right angles made the resort look like a block letter “U.” The plane was over the water and the fire producing the tarry plume was obscured by the building at the bottom on the U. The smoke was curling up and over the edge of the building in front. The vertical column quickly flattened into a fading horizontal line where the wind caught and dispersed it, playing it out toward the beach. It looked like a car fire had broken out.
Maddie leaned farther forward, trying to eyeball the origin of the fire as the angle changed. The plane continued down the beach and the smoke rising above the resort retreated back and out of view.
The island locals would probably have it cleaned up by the time they landed and drove up island to the resort. As long as it didn’t burn the building down, it ought to be alright.
In those final few minutes, her mind was locked on Ross and Izzy—and the cold beer that’d be waiting for her. It had been a long strange trip, but she’d made it unscathed.
“Ladies and gentlemen, listen up, please.” The captain keyed the mic after the airliner had completed its landing roll and was taxing back toward the terminal building. “We’ve received more information on why we were placed in the holding pattern. Airport officials are telling us that there is some type of emergency on the island. Deplaning passengers will be asked to remain in the terminal. We’ll know more when we hit the gate.”
23
Surfside Resort, Aruba: Building Three Rooftop
Smoke wafted above Ilan’s head as he made his way from the roof access door. Two fractured craters in the asphalt marked the RPG rounds that had missed. The one in front had thrown the patrol car into a skidding stop. Behind it, another hole was evidence of a rushed aim and a wasted round. Center mass in the windshield, spiderwebbed fragments of glass surrounded a baseball-sized hole. The kill shot looked to have clipped the dashboard before detonating. Fire ensued. The glass was melting and the vehicle would soon be a blackened skeleton. Brackets that held the rotating light fixture were vague evidence that it had been operated by the island police.
To his right, down the main island road, Ilan could see evidence of a barricade. Whirling red and blue lights blocked the road. “Command post. Do you copy?”
“5 by 5. Go with your status and recommendation.” Fazul was in the information technology suite with Anas, leading their response to the police’s first attempt to investigate and secure the scene.
Ilan leaned into the wind with the binoculars. He let go with one hand and double-clicked his earpiece to open the comm. “Two more patrol cars are stopped on L.G. Smith. Maybe four or five hundred meters.” The hi
ghway was named after the first oil company president that brought commerce to the island. “I see three men. Maybe a fourth in one of the cars.” Ilan panned to the right, sweeping the Palm Beach Plaza Mall. “Rooftops in the mall look clear.”
“What’s your assessment of an airburst shot?” asked Fazul.
Ilan panned back to the patrol cars. “It might work.”
The High Explosive RPG rounds they had been supplied had a slow burning fuse that was lit on launch. Operating on a time delay, the slow burning material required four to five seconds. When it reached the end, it would ignite the charge and catapult a hail of steel fragments forward with devastating effect.
“We’ll give it a try.” Ilan clicked off his mic this time.
Ilan stood to the left of the soldier and extended his arm along the length of the weapon. They took aim several inches above the vehicles. A pat on the man’s shoulder was Ilan’s way of authorizing the firing. He squatted down and covered his ears.
Enveloped by a flash of light, Ilan and the weapons operator closed their eyes as the compressed gas in the booster sent the round jetting from the launcher. A fraction of a second later, the piezoelectric fuse ignited the rocket motor and a trail of whitish blue-gray smoke marked the warheads path toward the target.
Ilan counted in his mind. One elephant, two elephant. Stunned by the force of the weapons launch, he started the count late. A charge of light met their eyes. It was folding into an expanding orb of smoke as the concussion reached their ears. A second later, a sound that reminded Ilan of microwave popcorn rolled past them. The explosion had erupted some distance in front of the cars but the fragments had clearly impacted the metal of the vehicle frames.
Ilan stood and lifted the binoculars to assess the results. A haze drifting in the sightline obscured the view but a smear of oxblood red stood out on the hood of the left vehicle. On the ground, a form crawled away, inching toward the back for cover.
“The round detonated short but the fragments landed,” Ilan reported. “There’s movement, but the message has been clearly sent.”
24
Queen Beatrix International Airport, Aruba
“Everyone is to remain here in the gate area.” The woman’s voice sounded digitized by the megaphone in her hand. She repeated the statement in a humdrum voice with undertones of a Caribbean accent.
Maddie looked around the heads of the passengers in front of her, trying to get a read on the situation. The rounded top of the police cap with its blue sash and turned up brim was indication that the woman was law enforcement. She wore a baby blue button up, standard attire for the island police. The pips on her collar were barely visible. She was probably pulled from meter maid duty or working one of the busy intersections in Orjanestad. When the megaphone dropped from her face, Maddie read a seriousness that sent warning flags racing up the pole.
Standing beside her was a signpost of a man wearing a khaki suit. His smile was so contrived it looked like it hurt. Perspiration glistened on his brown cheeks and he swiped at his forehead with the back of his hand.
Maddie wanted it to be procedural. It was a natural tendency to harp on the myriad obstacles while traveling—especially when you had been in transit for over eight hours. The elusive fucking Balashi shimmered in her mind, the sweat dripping down the bottle, the amber liquid egging her toward the figment of a finish line. But something was up.
The plume of black smoke and a quote one of the trainers had used during sniper training, continued to push her from frustration to uneasiness. Coincidence is the word we use when we can’t see the levers and pulleys. Her inner voice suppressed the panic fighting toward the surface. Ross and Izzy were out there. Were they stuck at the hotel? Were they waiting in the car wondering where the hell she was?
“Once everyone has deplaned, we’ll brief you on our situation,” announced the policewoman.
Charlotte squirmed in the carrier. Maddie moved to the window, bouncing her in the chest sling. In the distance, across the tarmac and runway, the water of the sea was a mix of electric capri blue and a comforting azure where the clouds threw shadows down on the surface. Over and over her mind triangulated lines from the smoke to the airplane window to the airport where she now stood.
The Aruba triangle, she thought.
Turning back, she scanned the mezzanine above. This was where departing passengers checked their bags, navigated the security checkpoints and then descended stairs to the lower level and the gates. Two uniformed officials stood sentinel at the top of the steps looking down on the new arrivals. To her left, a fourth stood at parade rest by the entrance to the hallway leading out to immigration and baggage claim. They didn’t want anyone leaving.
Only three of the gates were visible from where Maddie was standing. They were all crowded with frowning faces. Televisions in the gate area were switched off. The whole scene put her senses on high alert.
She reached into her pocket and pulled out her phone. There were still no messages from Ross. The last Maddie had received was the one he had sent before bed. She dialed Ross’s number and held the phone to her ear. Seconds of silence were broken by an “all circuits busy” message.
Military mode began to take over, two years of rust shaking to the ground like imaginary glitter.
Familiar faces from the back rows of the plane crowded in around Maddie. Her attention was on khaki suit, who had turned his back to the group and lifted a phone to his ear. Maddie watched him pace behind the policewoman.
She cut the crowd, her eyes locked on the officer.
“Excuse me, ma’am.” Maddie turned sideways allowing Charlotte to eye the woman. “We’ve been traveling for eight hours. My husband is waiting out front. Is there any way we can be let go to meet him?”
The woman eyed the baby, smiling for the first time since Maddie entered the terminal.
“You have kids?” Maddie asked, turning further to give her a better view.
The woman flashed a wedding band.
“No, ma’am. Just married three months ago.” She reached out and touched the lip of the carrier pulling it down for a better look at Charlotte. “One day. Soon,” she said.
“Would it be okay? For us to go on through?”
The woman looked up at Maddie, who put on her best motherly smile.
Suddenly, the policewoman looked past Maddie toward the gangway, the grin melting away as business returned to her face.
“No, ma’am. Please step back.” She motioned with her hand.
Khaki suit stepped up from behind and tapped her on the shoulder. He leaned down and whispered in her ear. She nodded twice then lifted the megaphone. Khaki suit moved back, watching from the side, ready to analyze the words from his appointed mouthpiece.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we regret to inform you that we have… We have an emergency situation.” She enunciated each syllable carefully. “Violence has been reported in the Palm Beach high-rise district. Until further notice no one is being allowed north of Oranjestad.” She paused, lowered the megaphone and licked her lips. “I repeat, no one is being allowed north of Oranjestad at this time. The low-rise and high-rise areas will not be accessible until further notice.” She stopped and looked back at khaki suit. He nodded.
The low and high-rise districts constituted almost all of the tourist real estate on the island. There were a few hotels in Oranjestad and some rentals across the island, but the districts deemed off-limits where the epicenter of tourism.
“If either of these districts was your destination, please move over here.” She pointed to her left. A man waved from the corner at the end of the terminal. “If your destination is elsewhere, then stay in this area, please.” Maddie remained still, reading the frightened eyes of the cop and khaki suit. The herd behind her parted and murmured.
Maddie turned to watch the majority migrate toward the corner. The loud tourist outfits were being corralled out of the way. Pushed to the side, they’d be dealt with later. Maddie felt the lie coming on
. Suddenly she sensed the folded immigration form in her pocket. It listed the Surfside as their final destination. She needed to be a local. But how?
As far as she knew, there weren’t any hotels or resorts along the southeast coast of the island. She had no workable excuses for not following the herd.
Maddie turned her back to the policewoman. The crowd had thinned to a dozen curious faces. Mostly shades of tan, the few white faces topped European outfits – the cultural hodgepodge that remained either lived on the island or had family they were visiting.
Neighborhoods close to tourist town housed the resort managers and the few wealthy locals who benefited from them. The rest commuted in from the city and shantytowns to the south and east.
Maddie moved to the back of the pack, her intuition landing on Kavita. It was worth a try. She typed ‘Kavita’s Café’ into the browser on her phone. They didn’t have a webpage, but the Trip Advisor entry would do. It was listed #1 out of 6 restaurants in San Nicolas.
“Kavita’s Café. How may I help you?”
“Is this Kavita?” Maddie asked.
“Yes, ma’am. How may I help you?”
“Kavita, this is Madeline Günther.”
There was a moment of silence. “Yes, Maddie. Ross and Isabelle were here yesterday. Have you arrived? We’ve just now started hearing about the violence.”
“Charlotte and I just landed and they’re telling us no one is allowed up into the tourist area. They’re not giving us any information. I need your help. What’s going on?”
“Geert has been watching the news here in the restaurant. No one seems to know exactly. Only images of smoke by your resort.” The worry in her voice sharpened the edges of her words.
“Kavita?” Maddie hadn’t formulated the complete question.
“Yes?”
“Kavita, would you or Geert be willing to come and pick me up from the airport? I’ll tell immigration I’m staying with you and your family.”
