by JL Terra
Mei paced away from them.
Ben leaned forward to stretch out the back of his neck. The image of those two men on the ground refused to scatter. Maybe they would be in his mind for the rest of his life. Fitting penance for what he had done.
Daire finally said, “Are you okay?”
“I’m not sure.”
Daire knelt and shone a flashlight in both of his eyes. Checked his pulse. Looked for any obvious signs of injury, but there were none. “If you sit out here much longer you’re going to get hypothermia. But other than a case of shock, I don’t think there’s anything physically wrong with you.” He paused. “This tattoo thing bothers me though. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“It’s not a tattoo.” Hadn’t he said that? “It’s growing from this spot on its own.” He touched the mark on his chest. “I have no idea why.”
Mei moved his fingers aside and pressed her own over the spot. “It’s not raised like a scar. More like a birthmark.”
Ben nodded. “I have no idea how I got it.” Aside from those fingers...reaching toward him.
The team didn’t know about his missing time. Or the fact he thought something might have been put inside him. They would think he was crazy, if they didn’t already.
Ben said, “Why don’t you call Remy and tell her I’m fine?”
Mei made a face, got up, and pulled out her cell phone. “Don’t think I don’t know you’re making me busy so you can talk to Daire.”
Ben said nothing. When she had walked a couple of steps away and was relaying the information to Remy, Daire crouched again. Ben said, “Help me up?” He wasn’t certain his legs could hold his weight. With Daire’s help he managed to stand. His friend studied him from those three inches of extra height. “Never known you to get shaken.”
Ben looked out across the river. Let the water soothe him. It was short lived.
“Good to know you’re mortal like the rest of us.” Daire grinned.
Ben couldn’t find the humor to return the smile. There was too much blood in his mind. He couldn’t let it paralyze him. He still had a job to do, regardless of who was coming after him.
Once he had more information on those men, he could make a plan to track down whoever was trying to capture him. There was a reason they wanted him. What piece of information in his head held value to them? It was important enough they’d tracked him down. Tried to capture a man who could not be taken. The drugging had failed. The kidnap attempt had left two men dead.
Did this go back further?
Mei wandered back over. “Remy said she’ll call in an anonymous tip to the police and follow the local investigation until they determine the men’s identities.”
Ben wanted to walk away and ignore the whole thing. Despite what he’d done, he had to believe there was still good in him. If he went to a doctor they would likely call it PTSD. Each person’s experience was so different it hardly seemed fair to label it all the same thing.
Daire opened his palms. “What now?”
He probably figured Ben needed to take charge in order to feel better. “We go after the other file?”
Mei shook her head. “Who is it? Who does the CIA want us to find?”
Ben didn’t want to tell her the woman she considered her mother had disappeared on the way home from her last mission. Or that she very well might be in danger.
Her brow crinkled, and he saw the moment realization dawned.
She opened her mouth, but her phone rang. Mei answered it. Handed the phone over to him. “Remy wants to talk to you.”
Ben took the phone and put it to his ear. “Yeah?”
“Grant called while I was on the phone with Mei.”
“Okay, what—”
“It’s your mom. She’s been taken to the hospital.”
Chapter 12
Cascade, Idaho. Tuesday, 07:52hrs MDT
“Taya?”
The second she remembered it was her name she spun around, hands soapy from her breakfast dishes. As though she was capable of being surprised. A deep cover operative, she had no ID—drivers’ license or passport. No bank account or tax records. The government had wiped it all clean years ago. Why had she decided to go with her real name now? She’d been called by so many names over the years. Often if the mission went on, she might even struggle to recall what her real name was.
And yet, if she thought long enough, she could recall the smell of Jasmine in the house. The dust on her mother’s statues. The blank spaces where her father had removed all the pictures of her brother.
“Taya.”
She let one of her sculpted eyebrows rise. “Yes?” Her voice held a layer of Chinese accent. As though she had learned English as a second language. It was a ruse she’d utilized before, and cemented the idea that perhaps if understanding was limited then intellect must be dull.
As if.
Malcolm smiled, “Good morning.” The son of prominent German-American businessman Roger Stilson, Malcolm moved through the sterile kitchen of the far-too-expensive mansion they called, “the cabin.” His stride was long, like a jungle cat in search of prey. He stopped two feet away, freshly manicured hands in his pockets. His suit had been perfectly tailored. He looked exactly the same when he’d just finished a day of work. There was nothing difficult about his life. The whole business was medical research, along with some pharmaceutical development and sales that funded said research. After hearing him on the phone all the time, she’d labeled his job, “Head of Schmoozing.”
Taya wished she hadn’t put away the fork she’d used to eat her egg and potatoes. You can’t kill him. It wouldn’t be worth the fall-out. Still, he needed to get to his question before the CIA found her here and the funk hit the fan. Going AWOL wasn’t exactly the same in espionage, but there would be consequences.
“How is my father doing today?”
That was his question? How about, “same as every day so far.” The old man was in the end stages of an aggressive bone cancer. Past eighty, he held a fortune in business assets and real estate holdings in the northwest. Malcolm was a full ten years younger than she, as Roger had gotten married late in life. The whole thing made Taya feel old, even though everyone said forty was the new thirty.
Malcolm would take possession of the whole empire after his father’s passing. That was, if he couldn’t find a way to gain it before that unfortunate day.
Taya gave him a rundown of Roger’s current stable condition, at least as stable as she could make it. He was in pain, but she’d given him a massage. He’d also managed to hold down a thin soup the mother she’d invented for Taya’s personality profile had made every time she’d had an upset stomach as a child.
“Good, good.” He used the distraction of his words to take another step closer to her.
Taya pretended to be fooled by him. Despite the fact she knew everything about the previous nurse, Julie Taft, and the reasons she’d been “let go,” and the role this man had played in all of it. He wasn’t going to get his sleasy hands on her.
“It can’t be easy taking care of someone’s every need.”
“It’s my job.” She let the abrupt words hang in the air. “Which I take very seriously. I will provide your father with the care I’ve been trained to give. Nothing is going to distract me from that.”
The flinch was buried deep. Just a twitch of eye muscle on the left side. “That’s good to hear.”
She couldn’t do her job with him sniffing around every second. A dog begging for affection. If he needed to feel loved so badly he should go home to his wife.
Malcolm touched her arm, just above her elbow. “If you change your mind, I’ll be around.”
Of course he would be. Taya lifted her chin. “I’m here for one reason, and one reason only.” The words slipped from her mouth as though they were the truest thing she’d ever said. “And that is your father.” Everything about this place concerned the old man. His horny son was nothing but an annoyance.
She
moved to her dry dishes and set the plate in the cupboard where it belonged. The glass was placed in the cabinet above the toaster. Malcolm poured himself a cup of coffee as though he hadn’t just made an inappropriate proposition.
“The cabin is beautiful.” She said it with a measure of disinterest, just so he knew she didn’t care all that much. “How long has your father lived here?”
He took a sip and leaned his hips against the counter over by the Keurig. “Seven years, maybe? Thereabouts anyway. I visit when I can.”
Malcolm had visited precisely three times in the past eight and a half years his father had been living in “the cabin.” He frequently flew from Seattle—where his own mansion-sized home was located—to Boise, for work. He also conducted business in Portland and Salt Lake City. Frequent flights that took him out of town. His wife’s schedule was mostly filled with driving their sons to and from school and soccer practice. Both had evidently left Malcolm with little time left over for his old man. She wondered if he even spoke the German he’d learned growing up, or if he’d forgotten that as well.
Chinese had been imprinted on her DNA, ingrained in her from birth. Practically carved into her skin until she wanted to vomit just to try and purge it from inside her. It had taken years to realize it wasn’t the country, the culture, or the language she wanted to get rid of. Just her father.
Now she was rid of him.
She couldn’t say how she’d become an active CIA agent. There certainly wasn’t an application process in the traditional sense. She loved it, though. And being a Christian kept her sane when the past threatened to tear her mind apart. There was no room left to think about him.
Ben had been everything to her for years. He’d consumed her life. Now she just wanted closure so she could move past him. No more dreaming. She was too old to wonder when her life would finally start.
Answers. That was all she wanted.
Then she would move on.
Taya tucked a few strands of straight black hair behind her ear and faced Malcolm again. “And your mother?”
At least he had the decency to wince. “Not a stable woman. She passed away twelve years ago. Drank a lot, took any medication she could get her hands on. We tried to get her help. Never seemed to do any good. She’d be admitted for a few weeks, make some progress. But when she came home again, she was back to her old habits within a few days.”
Home, where her family was. Had that been the catalyst? Malcolm wasn’t clever enough to psychologically manipulate someone. Given what she’d dug up about the father, she would bet money it had been him. Buried beneath name change after name change she’d stumbled on the truth of Roger Stilson. A truth that would shatter his carefully crafted “businessman of integrity” personality. She’d have leaked it if he hadn’t been ninety-three and dying anyway. She had bigger problems.
Taya nodded, a suitably compassionate look on her face. “That can’t have been easy for you growing up.”
“Does it matter? He’ll be gone soon.” A dark look flashed across his face. “Then it’s all going to fall to me.”
“You’ll be able to wipe the slate clean. Get a fresh start.”
He sipped the last of his coffee and set it on the counter beside the sink. “That I will.”
Malcolm trailed out of the kitchen without a word. She let go of the tension she’d been holding. Finally alone. Taya stood in the quiet for a full minute before she pulled the lock-pick kit from her pocket and crossed the room.
With a quick twist and a bump, she got the door open. After checking she was still alone, she peeked inside.
The room was dim, and with that massive tree on the side of the house, not much light spilled through the windows. Boxes were stacked around the room. The old man’s belongings had been piled up and forgotten about behind the locked door. It would take forever to check each one.
Most were labeled with the usual, DINING ROOM, or LINEN CLOSET. Leftovers of a move, never unpacked. Probably put here when old Roger downsized from house to cabin, and discovered half his things didn’t fit. Three boxes were in a stack that said MEMENTOS. Assuming he hadn’t faked out whoever unpacked by labeling things wrongly, this might be it.
The box that held Roger’s research notes.
Taya tugged the first one over and lifted the flaps. Photo albums. She pulled those out. The man in the pictures stood straight, dressed smartly in his gray uniform and hat. Officer’s rank, which was surprising given his young age. The name on the back confirmed it: Roger Stilson had been born Karl Friedman.
His father had been a high ranking officer. A Kommandant. The son had been inducted into his footsteps. No choice but to take up the call to arms. Beside Karl was a mousy girl in a plain dress of a nondescript color, considering the image was gray. She had no idea the life she was getting into. Or maybe she did, and that was why she’d spent years as a self-medicated drunk.
Toward the back of the album the young man became a boy again, no more than eight if she had to guess. The last photo showed him in play clothes. Dirty knees on his pants. The photo had been torn in half. Whoever he’d played with was gone now, ripped out of the image so that only Roger remained.
She flipped the photo over. On the back sprawled writing said Karl and Hans, October 1937. If the boy in the picture was Karl, who was Hans, and why had he been removed from Karl’s life?
Below the photo albums she found a red velvet jewelry box. Inside was a collection of half a dozen copper coins. Each one had an olive-green or coppery color to them. Underneath those was a silver Star of David pendant which she lifted out. The chain dangled from her hand, broken, and she ran her thumb over the medallion set inside the pendant. Across it had been inscribed a Hebrew word.
One Google image search later, she discovered the meaning of the word: “Emeth.”
The word for truth. Faithfulness.
A German man, a former soldier, in possession of a collection of Jewish coins? Not much of a mystery. Nestled at the bottom was another picture. Cracked and washed out, a striking woman sitting on a stool stared back at her. A boy stood beside her, dressed smartly. On her lap was a toddler in a white gown.
She flipped over the photo. Rebekah, Hans, and Charlota. April 1935.
The value of these things in terms of modern money was probably the most insignificant point. The discovery of these things confirmed a link she had been missing, a gap she hadn’t been able to fill in the history of Roger Stilson. Namely, where he’d been before 1951. Now she knew.
So much had been stolen, looted. Plundered. The Jewish people had been stripped of everything—literally and figuratively. The fact he had been part of it made her sick to her stomach. Roger had gone on to live a successful life in America. He’d built a family, and an impressive business. What had that success cost the world? Sure, he’d been young. Insurgence hadn’t been tolerated, especially not when Roger Stilson—or Karl Friedman, as his name had been before 1951—was the perfect example of everything the young German man should be. A son to follow in his father’s footsteps and bring about a new world order.
Perfection was unobtainable. The rigors of it were too difficult to accomplish in practice, though wonderful in ideology. Her own father’s demands had weighed on her like a scuba tank until she had buckled. Stilson had likely succumbed to Nazi schooling, designed to produce the perfect son and daughter of Germany. The obligation of being born into a high-ranking military family. Still, the fact that the pressure was understandable in theory didn’t make him innocent. Far from it.
Everyone would be held to account for their own actions.
Taya closed up the box, her stomach still in a revolt. Later she could look more. There was time enough before the old man passed to look through the rest of the boxes. After he died she would make sure these Jewish artifacts were given to a museum. Somewhere people could appreciate what they meant to the world, to history.
After all, great horror often accompanied something beautiful in appearance.
Chapter 13
Richmond, VA. Tuesday, 10:34 EDT
Ben threw a wad of bills at the cabdriver and jumped out. He sprinted up the steps of whatever memorial hospital this was. He didn’t care what it was called.
The sun beat down overhead, but the cloudless sky did nothing to warm him. He was still as cold as he had been since climbing out of the Potomac River.
The automatic doors slid open.
Grant stood up from one of the café chairs in the lobby as Ben entered. He left half a breakfast sandwich and a paper cup and strode to meet Ben with a hug. Grant was taller. He swallowed Ben with his broad shoulders and long arms. Ben wasn’t a small man, but he still felt like the little brother he was.
“How is she?”
Grant looked like he’d been awake all night worrying. “Pretty disoriented. They have her on something to make her sleep, so she might not be awake to talk to you.”
“What happened?”
“That’s a good question.” Grant shrugged. “They said she had some kind of episode. Just started freaking out and wound up hitting her head.”
“John and Nate?”
“They’re both on planes. Won’t be here until later. Remy has the schedule for visits so we don’t overlap. She’s disseminating information individually.”
Which was why Ben hadn’t heard of his brothers’ travel plans until now. He’d have rather seen both of them, but it was too risky for all four to be in the same place at the same time. This way the individual security needs of their families would remain intact.
John had served for a few years as the sheriff of a secret witness protection town. He’d moved with his family to a new location and now had pretty much the same role, just with different security strictures set by the new director of the US Marshals. The difference being that Ben had no idea where it was. As it was with those who were in witness protection, any meetings they had were done on neutral ground. Both to protect Ben and John, and all the people under John’s care.
