The Wreck Emerged

by Joseph Webers

  “Maggie, that is what forgiveness is all about. They don’t deserve it and would probably throw it back in your face if you told them. But forgiving them will break the hold they have over you. Not forgiving them will eat at you your whole life. Anyway, forgiveness is an action, not a feeling.”

  She looked up, surprised. “Oh. … I don’t know if I could do the action. What is it?”

  “You have to say the words. By an effort of your own will, you have to say the words. Either address them personally, or to God. Either ‘Charles, I forgive you for…’ or ‘Jesus, I forgive Ted for…’ then fill in the blank with what you forgive them for. I’ve had to forgive people, and I usually finish by asking God not to hold it against them, either. That’s what forgiveness is all about, not holding that thing against them any longer. Just let it go and don’t worry about fairness. I say that to God so that I know I mean it, but really, if you can say the words out loud, then you mean it. Just like the vow itself.”

  She looked out over the ocean, overwhelmed by its enormity and the frailty of their lifeboat. “They were young and stupid. They didn’t know what they were doing. Their oats were just starting to kick in.”

  She would have added more, but Matt interrupted her. “Maggie, stop! That’s not helping. You’re just making excuses for them. They hurt you. They molested you. If you just make excuses, you’ll never forgive them and will just hold onto the hurt, maybe forever. Forgiveness is harder, a lot harder. But it’s only when you do forgive, that the hurt is able to be healed.”

  “Oh … yes, I can see that.”

  Maggie gave Jenny’s remains a long look, then said the words. Ted first, then Billy. She saved Charles for last; there was a lot more to forgive him for. Matt didn’t interrupt to tell her it was just for his part in her vow, because he knew she would be forgiving Charles for the other things she mentioned before too long, anyway. As soon as she asked God not to hold any of those things against Charles, she leaned over the side and vomited into the ocean. A long, slimy, green-and-yellow mass came out of her mouth, and quickly sank into the depths of the sea. A swig of water cleaned out her mouth.

  “Wow!” she said. “At first it was really hard, especially saying their names, but then it got really easy. And I did mean it. I don’t know what I threw up, because my stomach is really empty, but now that it’s gone I realize it’s been in there for a long, long time.” She looked over the side where she had vomited. “God forgave me, too, when I came to him.” Her eyes glistened and her mouth began to quiver. “Thank you.”

  “Yes, he did. Now you must forgive yourself.” Matt handed her the half-empty water bottle. “We still have plenty left after this. It looks like you’re running out of tears, and I suspect you’ll have some more before you finish this step.”

  He was right. And even though he knew all the details now, all its nuances and all her failings, she felt that this was something she wanted to do in private.

  “But where would I go?” He looked around. Their entire world consisted of three coffins bound together on a pallet with a fourth piled on top.

  “Here, maybe this will make it a little easier.” He moved closer to her, put the lifeless body of her daughter in her lap, sat beside her, and put his arm around her shoulder. “I’m for you,” he said quietly, “not against you. And God is about to do something wonderful!”

  Whether what he said helped or not, she needed no more prompting. “Father, I forgive myself,” she started, then continued slowly, as precisely as she could, outlining every aspect and result of the vows she had made. Slowly was necessary, for the tears were a necessary cathartic, and there were a lot of them. But she got through it, and gave Matt a big hug.

  Matt was ready to move on. “One step left.”

  “But I can’t step left or I’ll end up in the ocean!” The levity felt good; they both needed a break after the heaviness of the last hour and a half.

  “The last step is to renounce the vow,” Matt said. “But before we talk about that, I have a question. You said people asked you what happened, and you told them you couldn’t remember anything. Just now you said you really could remember everything, but I saw the agony you went through as those memories were coming back. Please explain this to me.”

  “I would look at the scars, and I would blame those boys for what they did to me. I hated them for doing it, and soon my part in cutting myself faded. I saw the scars, they did it, and they must pay. But what they did to me didn’t leave any lasting marks. Only the cutting did. When we began to get Jenny ready, I started to get nervous, because I was next. I began to realize that perhaps I had played a part, but couldn’t remember what it was.

  “As soon as you told me it was my turn, I came face to face with what I had done to myself. When you asked about a vow, the memories started flooding back. As I recounted the trauma the boys did to me, in my mind I couldn’t get past the vow I’d made. I could see that I was the one responsible. I was horrified at myself. I’m glad it’s over.”

  “God is showing you things a little at a time,” Matt said. “There may be more. Are you ready for that?”

  “Oh, yes! This cleaning out felt really good at the end. If there’s more, I want to get it over with.”

  “Okay, let’s renounce the vow. In order to do that, we have to realize that vows which need to be broken are based on a lie. Not a lie that you told, but a lie that you believed. Maybe more than one. Jesus said that the truth will make you free. We, or you, need to examine the circumstances to figure out what that lie was. Then we, or you, need to replace the lie with truth, and then the vow will become of no effect.

  “In my case, the lie I believed was that my parents didn’t love me and looked for excuses to abandon me. I believed their discipline had nothing to do with making me a better young lad. And finally, I believed that I had a right to be in control of my own life, especially at that age.”

  Maggie thought for a few minutes. Matt took that time to look around. The sun was slowly getting lower; it would be dark in another two hours, he guessed. He stood up, steadying himself on the top coffin, looking over the quiet sea toward the place he thought the plane went down. There was still nothing. The dolphins had never come back.

  He looked on the other side of the top coffin from where they had been sitting, and to his amazement he saw, stuck among the remains of cargo netting, sitting low in the water, a stainless-steel cabinet like the ones food service contractors use to load the meals on planes. The door was facing up, and he hoped the door seals would have kept water out. It looked like the cabinet was stuck well enough that it wouldn’t go anywhere. He sat back down as Maggie finished her recollections.

  “Okay,” she said finally, “You know my story pretty well and can let me know if I’m on the right track, or if I missed anything. I believed, like you, that I had a right to be in control of my life. I believed I had the right to deny anybody and everybody, including myself, and especially Jenny, pleasure from my breasts because someone took advantage of me, or for any other reason. I believed that mutilating myself was justifiable and an acceptable expression of my hurt. Finally, I believed that by mutilating myself, people, especially my parents, would pay attention to me and love me.”

  “Yes, I think you nailed it. Let’s replace the lies with truths. Who has the right to be in control of your life?”

  Maggie was starting to get excited. “God!”

  “Yes, that’s what you acknowledged when you made him your Lord. The next one is kind of tricky. Obviously, not everybody has the right to receive pleasure from your breasts. How would you replace that lie with the truth?”

  “Um, I’m not sure. I could make a list?”

  “Who would be on the list? More importantly, what do they all have in common? And, of course, there are different ways to enjoy your breasts.”

  “Maybe we could make it a more general truth?”

  “Let’s go back to the list. Would a husband be on the list?”

 
“Yes, of course.”

  “How about you? Would you be on the list?”

  “Yes.”

  “How about Jenny, and perhaps other children?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “How about me?”

  She didn’t answer right away, but she was thinking about it. “Well…” she said slowly.

  Matt interrupted. “No, I would not be on the list. But I will say this: I intend to take great pleasure in watching Jenny chow down the first two times.”

  She was missing something. “Two times?”

  “Of course. Both breasts will need to have a reset, and Jenny will do them both. Anyone else?”

  “Maybe. But it would have to be for the right reasons, and at the right time.”

  “Yes, good. So go back to the lie you believed, take out the lie and insert a truth. What would the new statement be?”

  “Okay. But first I’m going to rephrase the lie. God, please help me. You know I just want your truth.” She stopped for a moment and listened. She drew in her breath. “I believed I could use my body for revenge. Now I believe I have no right to use my body in any way displeasing to God.”

  She went on and moved ahead. “I believe mutilating myself is an act of destroying something God made beautiful. I believe forgiveness is an acceptable response to being hurt, and I believe that I can’t make people love me, but that shouldn’t stop me from loving them.”

  “Bravo! Beautiful! Now you’ve eliminated all the lies enabling the vow, so go on and renounce the vow or vows, however you want to put it into your own words.”

  “By God’s power and love, I renounce any intention I ever had of revenge on Charles, Ted, or Billy. By God’s power and love, I renounce trying to manipulate my parents or any other person. And by God’s power and love, I renounce my words, that no one will ever enjoy these breasts again!”

  And it was done.

  46

  The VTC started promptly at 3 p.m., since all the participants were already logged on. Penny Hasid had brought photos annotated with the agencies of all the different participants. JC Smalley arranged them in the holders just out of sight of the camera he was facing. Phil Henry started the meeting, and immediately turned it over to Bob McGee, who had two other CIA reps with him.

  “Jeff Peterson and Harvey Hostetler work for me. Jeff will start off talking about a chemical threat and Harvey will follow with a discussion of the Brazil connection.”

  “Hi, I’m Jeff Peterson. We checked the credentials of those in the monitors, but we have no way of knowing who else might be listening in. If you have less than a Secret clearance, please excuse yourselves. I’m looking for you all to tell me when that is done.”

  After all locations had verified the security clearances, Jeff started his briefing. “This briefing is classified Secret. Please don’t ask about our methods or sources. We found out not too long ago that a Russian engineer had disappeared from his work location. He was one of the more senior chemists working in their chemical warfare program. His name is Luka Stanković.

  “Originally from Serbia, he attended college in Moscow and attracted the attention of Russian military recruiters for their research programs. He was known to be working on a new generation of nerve agents, similar in effect to the nerve agents used by both the US and Russia, but much simpler and safer to manufacture. It is not known why he disappeared, where he might have ended up, or if he took any samples, formulas, or production methods with him.

  “It is rumored that he might have found his way to the States, on the West Coast somewhere. We have no customs record of entry anywhere using that name, Luka Stanković. We are currently looking for a photo or other identifying information.

  “The reason I am telling you all this, is that the only things we know about Stanković is that our information about him meets the timeframe of the airplane event, and he is the sort of person for whom shooting down a fully-loaded passenger aircraft is no big deal. When we sorted through the different scenarios worldwide, we eliminated all of them but this one. We don’t see an immediate connection, but since things sometimes move very fast in this business, we thought it necessary for you to be made aware.”

  Kirby Drinkard, DHS, had a question. “Could this be a binary nerve agent, where two or more harmless chemicals are combined to form the agent?”

  “Yes, that’s very probable. The US developed a binary nerve agent for artillery shells years ago. The technology exists, so it is logical to assume that ‘simpler and safer’ would indicate a binary. … If there are no more questions I’ll be followed by Harvey.”

  There weren’t.

  “Hostetler here.” Bob’s monitor displayed a map of the north part of Brazil. “Here is Macapá.” His cursor appeared on the map circling a small section of the Atlantic coast and Amazon River. “We have been tracking the IP address Mr. Smalley found, 191.6.118.145, for a while. That router is being used by a known hacker. There are actually three there, rotating on and off: a white male, a Latino, and a white female.

  “We found their physical location easily enough. We have had them under surveillance for the last ten days. We have seen that at least one of them has hacking skills that are rather advanced. They usually use various spoofed IP addresses in the Great Lakes area, so it surprises us when they occasionally use their actual IP address.

  “Our surveillance revealed that they were in radio contact with an entity with whom they were communicating via encrypted messages. They were using word substitutions, which meant we couldn’t decipher them without the word list. Three days ago, we obtained a copy of the word list.

  “We were also able to use directional antennas to get the approximate location of the entity’s base, which is located over one hundred miles southwest on a tributary of the Amazon, the Rio Jari. Our intel does not indicate any civilized activities in the area, and the satellite imagery is also inconclusive. Not too far away, to the west, is the town of Munguba.

  “What we got from the encrypted messages seems to indicate some kind of a clandestine aircraft retrofit facility. Barges move the cloaked and partially disassembled aircraft to and from that location. The messages mostly are schedules for the barge movements and requests for supplies, food and water, and insect repellent.

  “Mr. Santos, it is good you are here. We are in contact ourselves with the US Ambassador to Brazil, as well as the Brazilian Ambassador, to apprise them of the situation in Macapá. Does anyone have any questions?”

  Pedro Santos suspected that they knew more than they were saying, as he had worked with them before, on drug and counterfeiting investigations. “Yes, we are aware of your contact,” he said, “and we will pass along this latest information to the Ambassador.”

  “JC Smalley here, at the Chicago FBI Field Office. Dusty Mae Watt, our Field Office Chief, is also on. I may be able to shed some light on the hacker’s use of his real IP address. He or she hacked into the Air World flight database using that because the security system for the database required a real IP address.”

  He explained what he had learned from Jack Smith, and continued, “MiGs can fly only about thirteen hundred miles on their internal fuel tank. That’s about six-hundred and fifty miles each way, plus they were on-station for a good half hour between the time they were first spotted until we lost contact with the plane. I’m not sure where they were flying from, but I can tell you they do not have in-flight refuel capability. The aircraft retrofit facility may be connected with this event.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Smalley,” Harvey said. “The MiGs can carry external fuel tanks. Do you know the capacity of those, or how much added range they give? If you don’t know off the top of your head, we can get the information internally.”

  JC had thought of that, but didn’t have time before the meeting to look it up and do the calculations. “No, I don’t.”

  “Barry Mantile, Treasury. Were you aware of the bank transfers in Bakersfield traced to that IP address?”

  “No, sir, not u
ntil we heard it from Mr. McGee a couple hours ago. Perhaps the bank had the same security system as Air World.”

  Phil came back on. “Does anyone else have anything to report? I suspect we were all trying to put out fires since the last meeting. If there’s no new or old business, I’m going to let everyone get back to their other jobs. Please stay near your phones. I won’t call you this weekend unless it’s urgent. There won’t be much to do in reference to the flight until the National Transportation Safety Board, or whoever, can get a salvage ship to that area. Do we know how deep it is there?”

  JC knew. “Somewhat over three miles.”

  “Thanks, JC. Please give me a call in a half hour. For the rest of the group, we need to meet again as soon as we hear something about the Brazilian meeting. Bob or Pedro, do you know when that might be?”

  Neither knew. “I’ll call Phil no later than 1400 hours on Monday,” Bob said, “and the group can call his office after that.”

  One by one, the monitors went dark.

  47

  Matt was weeping softly. “I am so proud of you!”

  He held his hand up between the sun and the horizon. Then the other hand on top. “It will be dark soon, maybe a little more than an hour. About eight fingers of daylight left.

  “Now it really is your turn. Just like we got Jenny ready, we need to get you ready.”

  Matt wondered if this would be awkward. Maggie answered that for him. She took off her vest, which had dried by then. Then she pulled off her still-damp shirt. As he suspected, there was just skin underneath.

  “I haven’t worn a bra since my twelfth birthday,” she said. “I was covered with bandages, and by the time they came off, there was nothing to support.”

  She lifted her arms over her head to give him the full display. “There it is. It doesn’t hurt. And see, I have full range of motion.”

  The scar was ugly. It was grotesque. It was hard to look at, and at the same time, it was hard to avoid looking at. At twelve, it was a straight line. At twenty-eight, her body’s growth had caused the line to zig and zag, curved in places, and the skin was slightly puckered where her breasts would have been. There were stitch marks the entire length. Where the skin had been cut through, the discolorations made it seem like her insides were showing. He wondered if the surgeon were trying to teach her a lesson. He stared, the horror of it all showing on his face.