by James, Mark
Their relationships remained strained, Jenny unable to explain to her in-laws why she’d done it. Looking over, she saw Diane Huff continuing to look out the limousine’s window, having not said anything since the airport. How could Jenny explain it if she didn’t understand it herself? She was back with her children and, for now, that’s all she needed to know. Perhaps, time would heal those wounds.
“Will we be going straight to the hotel? After that, how will we reach you?” she’d asked Mr. Osborne before they’d left.
“No,” he said, “I want you to go directly there. It’s not far away.”
The building was both stealth and ominous, imposing and indifferent: colored black slate on all sides, its long, horizontal windows blackened out, the size, she estimated, to be three football fields or more. It rested low and slung into the ground, as if an enormous alien craft had crashed here.
An entrance door sized for a small plane opened and the limousine drove down a landing and into the building. Inside, there were no other vehicles, only concrete columns for as far one could see, disappearing into darkness. Two men in suits opened the doors and helped her mother-in-law from the limousine as they all looked around.
“This way, ma’am,” one of the men said, motioning for them to walk behind him. There were no windows and the space echoed cold with their steps.
The other man walked behind and then crossed in front as they approached a bank of elevators. He touched a pad on the wall that bore no words or symbols and the doors slid open. Inside, it was the same: gunmetal grey walls and floors, a sleek control panel showing a single button, everything in different shades of each other.
Exiting the elevator, they were escorted down a hall, the lights dim, the corridor empty, the walls smooth like tumbled stone. She could feel a deep hum of energy in the building, could feel it in the walls as she touched them, as if rising from far below.
The two men stopped and they stood in front of a door, a frosted window bearing only the numbers, 5-2-5-6-8-8. One of the men turned the pewter-colored knob and the door swung in, releasing as the silent motor took over.
The room was white and well lit, a perception seemingly at odds and disconcerting after the expanses of grey. Against the back wall, two uniformed men stood without moving. In the corner stood an American flag. Behind the desk was a man whose face she knew.
He stood, “Hello Ms. Huff, I’m Mac Osborne. Everyone, thank you for coming.”
They still hadn’t spoken a word to each other and Duane and Diane Huff stared around the room, off balance and somewhat bewildered.
“Please,” Mac said, pointing to the chairs opposite him.
Jenny looked down at the table. On the surface were six short stacks of pages. Someone had ensured that they were perfectly perpendicular to each other, like panes of glass. She looked at one of the pages and several of the words jumped out: Charybdis…Alaska…termination actions...
At the bottom of each page were signature lines. Along the margins of the numbered paragraphs were more lines. She saw that their names had been typed in boldface at the bottom.
Osborne began to speak and she looked back up.
“It’s as I said on the phone, Ms. Huff, we’re trying to make things right, as right as they can be. Jack O’Neill – you said you’ve talked to him – he suggested this. It’s the right thing to do. The president agrees.”
“President Walker knows we’re here?” Duane Huff asked, taken aback and looking over at his wife.
“He does, and you’ll be meeting with him at the White House later today. The First Lady too. She asked to meet you all.”
They looked at each other, and then Jenny Huff asked the question, the one that had gone unspoken between them since they’d left their homes in the dark that morning.
“Why are we here, Mr. Osborne?”
Mac stared at the tabletop for a moment and then up to Jenny Huff, meeting and holding her eyes. How could he possibly answer, when there was no answer?
He touched a hidden pad on the tableside and the door silently opened.
“Before we go,” he said, “please read the first page. Then you can decide.”
†
The horizon was black and undulating, like a snake lying over rocks, the shadow of a woman.
The dunes merged into the night at the horizon as walls of sand flew up from the shadows below, the roar of the rotor blades deafening as the BlackEagle CX-4 helicopter hovered fifty feet above the desert.
After leaving the aircraft carrier stationed off the African coast, the helicopter had stayed close to the sea, then closer to the land as it skirted over sand and villages and stretches of dark nothingness.
While en route, they were apprised by SAC Command-Europe of a haboob arising out of the desert, converging towards the acquisition point: a storm of raging sand and biting winds a hundred miles across, sixty stories high.
One of the soldiers standing ready at the launch opening yelled back to Jack, “Sir, we’re ready!”
Jack turned and yelled above the roar, “This is it! You can do it!”
He looked into her questioning eyes like a proud father, his smile saying, goodbye…good luck.
“But why? How is this possible?” Aisha yelled. “You still haven’t told me!”
“I made a promise,” Jack yelled back. “It’s that simple!”
Help us save the world and I’ll try to save yours, to save you…
He smiled even wider, “You saved Lani and I saved you! The president asked and I asked him back! Bottom line, it’s the right thing to do! No one needs to know more than that!”
She leaned up and kissed his cheek softly, whispering, “Thank you, Jack O’Neill…my savior…my friend.”
“We need to go now, sir!” the soldier yelled back from the launch opening. “They’re here!”
Jack helped guide her to the opening and he and the soldier eased her into the rescue cage. The soldier reached up and activated the winch.
Jack moved into the opening and looked down, seeing forms below moving on the desert sand, shielding their eyes as they tried to look up, helping to steady the cable as the steel basket descended.
Five feet from the ground, Aisha jumped from the basket, running to her mother and holding her so tight that the roar from the blades and the approaching sand storm fell away. She said what she’d dreamed of saying, over and over – I’m sorry, I love you – each of them thanking God with their tears.
The Special Ops soldiers on the ground motioned up to the pilot, signaling mission completion, then turned and motioned in hand signals to the transport waiting on the far dune.
The horizon of stars disappeared as the sand storm came upon them.
The pilot suddenly pulled the helicopter higher and yelled back, “Party’s over, boys! Time to move!”
Jack could see the two figures walking arm in arm towards the transport below, other shadows running down the dune and waving their arms in celebration.
As the helicopter banked, Jack looked back, but the desert had already swallowed them, the ground featureless in a hurricane of sand.
47
“Kelly Russell, Kelly Russell, proceed to the Terminal 4 information kiosk, white courtesy phone, Am-American Airlines…”
Jack looked up to the monotonous voice coming down through the D.C. airport speakers. “Didn’t you know a Kelly Russell, back on the islands?”
“A long time ago,” Lani said, looking up from her laptop as they waited to board their flight to Kauai. “She moved out to the east coast, became a jewelry artist. I saw her face once on an artist’s magazine, so I assumed she made it, to wherever she wanted to go.”
“Name just sounded familiar,” Jack said, returning to his online search and reaching down into a bag for some nuts and kettle chips, trying to burn time.
“Here it is,” he smiled, “Just came through on the Post.”
He read the news alert article under its own running headline, Theater Bombing Upd
ates:
One of the unknown bombers has been
identified as Aisha Hada, a former college
student from Minnesota, bringing the total
bombers known to fifteen. Hada’s DNA was
recovered from the bombing sight in
Macomb, Iowa and authorities remain
unsure why there were two bombers at
that location, speculating that the larger
site required the additional explosives.
FEMA Director Canalli said this morning,
‘In light of this evidence, we are
reexamining all of the sites…”
They looked at each other, smiling. “They did it!” Lani smiled. “I can’t believe they actually made her disappear…”
Jack looked over, “Well, there’s a lot they make disappear.”
“You know, Jack, I have to say it,” she laughed. “I guess I just don’t care anymore. They can do whatever they want – play their silly spy games – I only want to go home. We’re safe, my dad’s safe, your parents are safe, Aisha’s safe and, right now, that’s all I need to know.”
“Me too,” he said, leaning over and kissing her cheek.
“Well,” he said, returning to the news, “it looks like Palmer’s trial is set for this next May. They’re still bogged down in the discovery phase. Treason is a major charge – it could be delayed beyond that.”
“Has Mac given you a firm date on when you’ll have to testify at the Senate Hearings?” she asked. “I saw a clip last night on the news, you’d gone to sleep – that Senator Tessions, he can be a real jerk. Trying to make it sound like President Walker had something to do with Alaska and the earthquakes.”
“No hearing date yet. Mac says those senators will want to suck up as much media spotlight as they can before they actually get down to work. Six weeks he said, no earlier. They already have my transcript from the NSA debriefing – yours too – so nothing should be a surprise. My guess is that it’ll all be one big dog-and-pony show.”
“Jack, look at this!” Lani beamed.
The news article described a clandestine U.S. military mission that had occurred the night before. Three U.S. Navy frigates had intercepted a Croatian-flagged freighter in the Atlantic on suspicion of weapons shipments through Sierra Leone to the Middle East. In the freighter’s hold, and in addition to the seven crates of Russian military rifles found, were discovered a hundred and nine men and boys, refugees from Croatia bound for the slave trade in Sierra Leone. The article went on to say that the refugees were in the process of being returned to Croatia under U.S. military protection, where they would be reunited with their families. Those that wished it, and who cleared security protocols, would be offered political asylum. The captain of the freighter, never identified, was being extradited to Russia, where he was wanted for questioning on several undisclosed matters.
It was the favor that Lani had asked of the president, one of the two that Jack had written down in the Oval Office.
On the Croatian beach, Jack had looked down at the freighter, memorizing the ship’s name.
Lani felt a wash run through her, something fresh and new.
She smiled, “We’ll have to remember to thank the president.”
†
Inspector Biaggi was surprised when she first mentioned it. It was the way she’d said it, like she loved the song.
Yesterday morning, he’d returned to the coroner’s office to retrieve his phone, which had somehow and again fallen from his pocket. Dr. Alberghetti was on the far side of the lab with her back to him as he entered. She must’ve heard him, as he could see her head momentarily turn. He considered calling over, simply on principal, then decided against it, deciding that he wasn’t in the mood for her mental fencing today. It was Friday and all he could think of was that beautiful bottle of Barolo, the sweet jazz trio scheduled at the club for later that night and the blonde American who said she was in Florence for a long stay and had asked if he would also be out. No use starting out on bad footing for the weekend with another backhand from the dear doctor.
Smiling, he headed for the door and was stopped by a melody. From across the lab and echoing into the space came a soft, familiar song, Lover Man. It was a classic Billie Holiday torch song from 1944, on the Decca label, before the rages of opium and heroin had killed her voice, before she killed herself.
Billie Holiday was born in 1915 to a mother who was thirteen and a father who was fifteen. Who, as a child, ran errands in a brothel in exchange for the privilege of listening to albums by Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith. A sad, soulful bird that died at the age of forty-four, the blues in her, sung out of her, the drugs finally catching her from behind.
‘Lover man, oh where can you be…’
Holiday had a beautiful, melancholy voice and he listened to it often, mostly late at night. Across the lab, it drifted across the years.
He stopped and turned. “You listen to Billie Holiday?”
She turned and for a moment her eyes became brighter. “Sure,” she said and waited, long enough for her eyes to turn back grey. She turned back to the dead body and started to sing lower. He stood for a moment and left.
But the song stayed with him and he’d thought of her several times, of her knowing it. Walking home from the jazz club that night he’d started whistling the tune, not realizing it.
It was now Saturday evening and he found himself looking around at an unfamiliar neighborhood, walking up these steps.
Paola Alberghetti opened the door. She wore a small print dress that could have easily been taken from a 1940’s jazz club photo – Kansas City or Chicago. She had a trailing scent of jasmine. “Aren’t they beautiful,” she said, taking the flowers. “Please, come in. Don’t worry about the shoes.”
When he’d called her earlier that afternoon and asked her about what music she liked, she’d paused and asked why he was calling. He’d said, just about the music, and her voice had changed. They’d talked for an hour – about Holiday, about the new jazz artists, about her mother still alive in her hometown in Lucca, about his father in Corniglia.
She walked into the kitchen looking for a vase and still talking back, “I must tell you, I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’m quite excited about seeing her sing tonight, at that club you said. I can’t believe I’ve never been over there. Is that friend of yours going? Did you ever get a hold of him? Here, I found that Barolo you mentioned…I know, I didn’t need to, but I saw it so I picked it up.”
Biaggi closed the door and looked around as she talked from the kitchen, the pasta sauce wafting through the house, reminding him of what his mother used to make.
The home had the scent of pine and sandalwood, mixing with the pasta and the flowers and her jasmine perfume. She began humming another jazz standard, Ain’t Misbehavin by Dinah Washington, telling him to come on into the kitchen and open the wine and help stir the sauce.
He liked all of it.
†
Jennifer O’Connor was driving with her husband across country, across America, now finding themselves in mid-Arkansas, the hills of the Ozarks starting to rise and the land growing greener. They were driving back to their home in San Francisco and had allowed themselves to drift southward, allowing themselves the time they needed to meander, to do nothing.
They passed a barn almost falling down with a painted sign on the roof, still visible through the decades: MYSTIC CAVERNS, 126 MILES!
After her debriefing by the NSA, Bob had asked her, “What do you want to do, hon? Just tell me.”
She’d decided not to tell him about the photos. They would only scar him and they weren’t a part of her anymore.
“I want to get lost, only you and me,” she smiled. “A long, long drive…”
Mr. Osborne had tried to talk her into staying, offering her a permanent position in the White House Congressional Liaison Office with her own office down the hall, what she’d always wanted. But something had changed. She no
longer belonged in that broken city of smiles and false smiles, of crisis to calm and back again. Mr. Osborne then arranged for an entry-level position on Janice Landreau’s California Senate campaign, her first run at an office. It sounded perfect.
As she and Bob had been talking about for weeks, talking all around it, all they really wanted was to go home and start over.
They knew that their home wasn’t the same – ravaged by fires and earthquakes – but it was still their home. She’d been thinking about a baby; Bob of writing a new book.
She leaned over and put her head on his shoulder as he drove, taking a turn onto another unknown road.
†
Jenny Huff read down the page. It described, in remote language, how this person, this monster, had taken Dan from her. It said they didn’t know why, only that Dan and Présage has attended elementary school together for two years. Dan had never mentioned this man, ever. What could this Présage have possibly had against her husband? She could feel her in-laws tense beside her as they read – about Project Odin and the earthquakes, about the thwarted assassinations and the way that Dan and the others had died.
She looked up. “I don’t understand, Mr. Osborne. Why are you telling us this?”
“As we talked about, Ms. Huff, to offer you some sense of closure. He was a madman. It wasn’t anyone’s fault. We were told that you were very upset…your in-laws told us.”
Of course she was upset; her husband had been killed. What the NSA Director was referring to, though, was her drive to the Capitol, of her leaving her children.
“You now know that it was no one’s fault. And your in-laws know that you were right – he was murdered. You weren’t going insane. We thought it was important for you all to know, together.”
Diane Huff reached under the table and took Jenny’s hand. “I’m sorry, Jenny,” she said, a tear starting, “You scared us, that’s all.” She began to cry, “We thought we’d lost you both.”
